Saint Felix IV

« The election of Felix was able to be accomplished without disturbance... »

« In two ordinations held in Rome, in the month of February and the month of March, he consecrated fifty-five priests, four deacons, and thirty-nine bishops destined for various churches ».

Let us complete these excerpts from the Liber pontificalis:

Felix succeeded P ope Saint Théodoric King of the Ostrogoths and ruler of the West during the time of Gelasius. John I, whom the King of Italy, Theodoric, having become cruel at the end of his days, had had imprisoned and left to die in his prison. The impression of horror produced in Rome and thro ughout I Symmaque Prefect of Rome and defender of paganism. taly by the execution of Boethius and Symmachus, and the popular demonstrations caused by the death of Saint John I in Ravenna, acted upon the mind of Theodoric. The hand that had just signed the confiscation of all Catholic churches felt powerless to carry out such a measure. The Roman senators must have been very surprised to receive a royal letter ordering them to proceed, without fear, to the election of a new Pontiff, and recommending for their votes a name equally dear to the clergy and the people of the city, that of the holy priest Felix. Certainly, the freedom and dignity of the Church would have required that Theodoric not intervene at all; but the Gothic king harbored such hostile sentiments toward Catholicism that one had to be grateful not to have

greater misfortunes to endure. However, divine justice, which never leaves attacks against the Holy See unpunished in this world, was about to strike this prince whose hands were laden with innocent blood. Three months had passed since his last crime, the captivity and death of Pope John. Italy had become tranquil again, but its king was no longer so. On August 26, 526, while Theodoric was at the table, he was served an enormous fish. At this sight, he shuddered in a strange manner; he believed he saw rising before him the bloodied head of one of his victims, that of Symmachus, whom he had had massacred before his eyes. The victim never left its executioner. Within a few hours, the sick man's shivering became an internal inflammation that devoured his entrails and brought about the most fatal complications. Three days later he was dead. His reign had been glorious in the eyes of men; but two years of crimes at the end of his life marked him for divine vengeance. Saint Gregory the Great recounts that a hermit on the island of Lipari saw the soul of Theodoric in chains, walking barefoot, like a captive and a criminal, between Pope John and the patrician Symmachus. They led him to the crater of a volcano and there cast him into the burning abyss. — May it please God that this abyss be that of purgatory and that God has shown mercy to this enemy of His Christs!

The pontificate o f Saint Felix saint Félix IV Pope from 526 to 530, successor to John I. IV saw the birth of two immortal works: the Justinian Code and the work of Dionysius Exi Denys le Petit Monk and scholar, author of the calculation of the Christian era. guus on the vulgar or Christian era. Through the Justinian Code, Christianity triumphed definitively in the laws; for this creation was not the fortuitous discovery of some mind superior to its century; it was a Christian work prepared for two hundred years by the incessant labor of Christianity and blossomed at a time when Christianity was everything.

By introducing the custom of counting years from the birth of Jesus Christ, the monk Dionysius Exiguus made the divine origin of our hopes shine through the centuries and has, forever, secured for Catholicism the supremacy of science.

While Christianity was penetrating the customs and legislation of the empire, the sun of the Gospel was rising among the barbarian peoples. The Heruli established on the banks of the Danube, the Tzades, a semi-savage tribe of the Taurus Mountains, and the king of the Huns, Gorda, were successively converting to the faith.

In Italy, Theodoric's successor, Athalaric, mindful of the dignity of the Apostolic See, although an Arian, confirmed the privileges of the clergy by decree. Under the terms of this decree, anyone wishing to bring an action against a cleric of the Church of Rome had to first address the Pope, who would judge the matter himself or delegate judges. Anyone who approached civil courts without first presenting themselves to the Holy See was to forfeit their bail and pay a fine of 40 pounds of gold, to be distributed to the poor by the hands of the Pope. In this way, the clergy were not entangled in the disputes of the bar nor profaned by contact with secular affairs. Many councils were held under this pontificate, which drew up the wisest regulations. The Council of Vai son, i Vaison Site of an important council in 529. n Provence (November 7, 529), created presbyteral schools in every village, modeled on the episcopal schools already enjoyed by the cities.

Let us conclude with a trait of humility from the holy Pontiff: The error of the semi-Pelagians having taken root in Gaul, Saint C saint Césaire Archbishop of Arles and mentor to Cyprian. aesarius, Bishop of Arles, sought counsel and enlightenment from Felix. The latter found nothing more appropriate, to preserve the faithful from seduction, than to extract from the Works of Saint Augustine the most luminous passages on grace and free will, and to transmit them to Caesarius, as containing with precision and without ambiguity the traditional doctrine of the Church.

Charitable toward the poor, a generous consoler of all miseries, he exchanged this miserable life for a happier one and was buried in the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter, on October 12, 530. He had increased the power of the Holy See.