Marcellinus, Flavius
Marcellinus, Flavius
Date of birth unknown; died 12 September, 413. He was a high official (tribunus et notarius) at the court of Emperor Honorius, and possessed the confidence of his imperial master owing to his good sense, and unblemished conduct. In 411 Honorius sent him to Africa as plenipotentiary judge, to preside and pass sentence at the great conference between the representatives of the Catholics and the Donatists, which began on 1 June of the same year and lasted several days. Marcellinus, who had conducted the negotiations with great patience and entire impartiality, decided in favor of the Catholics, whereupon new imperial decrees were published against the Donatists. The great interest which the imperial envoy showed in theological and religious questions, brought about close and friendly relations between him and St. Augustine, who wrote him several letters, and dedicated various books to him (“De peccatorum meritis et remissione”, “De baptismo parvulorum”, the first three books of “De Civitate Dei”). St. Jerome also wrote him a letter. In 413 Marcellinus and his brother Apringius were imprisoned by Marinus, who had crushed the rising of Heraclianus, as being alleged supporters and partisans of the latter. Jerome says the Donatists falsely accused him out of hatred (Adv. Pelagium, III, 6). Although St. Augustine interceded for him, and several other African bishops came forward in his favor, he was beheaded 12 September, 413, by order of Marinus; the latter was soon after called away from Africa, and in the edict of 30 August, 414, which regulated the carrying out of the decrees against the Donatists, Marcellinus was referred to with honor. His name is in the Roman Martyrology, and his feast is celebrated on 6 April as that of a martyr.
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Acta SS., April, I, 539-42; Dict. Christ. Biog., III, 806-7; LECLERCQ, L’Afrique chrétienne, II (Paris, 1904), 107-8, 139-40.
J.P. KIRSCH Transcribed by Robert B. Olson Offered to Almighty God for David and Patricia Guin & family
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Marcellinus, Flavius
Marcellinus (7), Flavius, a tribune and afterwards a notary (Bcking, Not. Dig. Occ. p. 408), brother to Apringius, afterwards proconsul of Africa, where Marcellinus appears to have usually resided. He was a Christian of high character, taking much interest in theological matters. In 410 he was appointed by Honorius to preside over a commission of inquiry into the disputes between the Catholics and Donatists, an office for which he was singularly well qualified, and which on the whole he discharged (in 411) with great moderation, good temper, and impartiality, though not without giving offence to the Donatists, who accused him of bribery (Aug. Ep. 141; Cod. Theod. xvi. 11, 5). With Augustine an intimate friendship subsisted which the behaviour of Marcellinus at the conference no doubt tended to strengthen; several letters were exchanged between them, and Augustine addressed to him his three books de Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, his book de Spiritu et Littera, and the first two books of his great work de Civitate Dei, which he says that he undertook at his suggestion (Aug. Retract. ii. 37; de Civ. Dei. i. praef. ii. 1). Excepting letters about the conference (Epp. 128, 129), the correspondence appears to have been carried on chiefly during 412. It arose mainly out of the anxiety of Marcellinus for his friend Volusianus, who, notwithstanding the efforts of his mother to induce him to become a Christian, was swayed in a contrary direction by the worldly society in which he lived. In 413 occurred the revolt of Heraclian, suppressed by Marinus, count of Africa, who, bribed by the Donatists, as Orosius insinuates, arrested and imprisoned Marcellinus and Apringius. Several African bishops joined in a letter of intercession on behalf of the prisoners, whose prayer Caecilianus affected to support, and he even paid an express visit to Augustine, giving him the strongest hope that they would be released, with solemn asseverations of absence of hostility on his own part. But on the following day, Sept. 15 or 16, they were both put to death. Augustine mentions their edifying behaviour in prison. See Dr. Sparrow Simpson’s S. Aug. and Afr. Ch. Divisions (1910), pp. 102-126.
[H.W.P.]