The Libellus precum of Faustinus and Marcellinus, a petition to the emperor Theodosius from two presbyters belonging to the schismatic group known as Luciferians, refers to *Gregory (bishop of Elvira, ob. c. 392, S02264) as a confessor and attributes to him the miraculous punishment of Osius of Córdoba. Written in Latin, probably in Constantinople, 383/385.
E06135
Literary - Letters
Libellus precum Faustini et Marcellini 35-41
Faustinus and Marcellinus have described (§ 32) how Bishop Osius of Cordoba was an opponent of Constantius, but reneged on his opposition after being summoned to a meeting with the emperor, fearing that he would be sent into exile. He returned to Spain with an order that any bishop who refused to be in communion with him was to be exiled. Gregory, bishop of Elvira, nonetheless refused, and was summoned to a hearing before Osius and Clementinus, the Vicarius (a high secular official) (§§ 33-4).
(35) Sed ecce uentum est ad uicarium et multi ex administratoribus intersunt et Osius sedet iudex, immo et supra iudicem, fretus regali imperio, et sanctus Gregorius exemplo domini sui ut reus adsistit non de praua conscientia sed pro conditione praesentis iudicii, ceterum fide liber, et est magna expectatio singulorum, ad quam partem uictoria declinet. Et Osius quidem auctoritate nititur suae aetatis, Gregorius uero auctoritate nititur ueritatis; ille quidem fiducia regis terreni, iste autem fiducia regis sempiterni. Et Osius scripto imperatoris utitur, sed Gregorius scripto diuinae uocis obtinet. (36) Et cum per omnia Osius confutatur, ita ut suis uocibus, quas pro fide et ueritate prius scripserat, uindicaretur, commotus ad Clementinum uicarium ‘non' inquit 'cognitio tibi mandata est sed exsecutio. Uides, ut resistit praeceptis regalibus: exsequere ergo, quod mandatum est, mittens eum in exilium.' Sed Clementinus, licet non esset Christianus, tamen exhibens reuerentiam nomini episcopatus in eo maxime homine, quem uidebat rationabiliter et fideliter obtinere, respondit Osio 'Non audeo’ inquiens 'episcopum in exilium mittere, quamdiu adhuc in episcopali nomine perseuerat. Sed da tu prior sententiam eum de episcopatus honore deiciens et tunc demum exequar in eum quasi in priuatum, quod ex praecepto imperatoris fieri desideras'.
(37) Ut autem uidit sanctus Gregorius, quod Osius uellet dare sententiam, ut quasi deiectus uideretur, appellat ad uerum et potentem iudicem Christum totis fidei suae uiribus exclamans ‘Christe deus, qui uenturus es iudicare uiuos et mortuos, ne patiaris hodie humanam proferri sententiam aduersus me minimum seruum tuum, qui pro fide tui nominis ut reus adsistens spectaculum praebeo, sed tu ipse, quaeso, in causa tua hodie iudica, ipse sententiam proferre dignaberis per ultionem. Non hoc ego quasi metuens exilium fieri cupio, cum mihi pro tuo nomine nullum supplicium non suaue sit, sed ut multi praeuaricationis errore liberentur, cum praesentem et momentaneam uiderint ultionem’. (38) Et cum multo inuidiosius et sanctius deum uerbis fidelibus interpellat, ecce repente Osius, cum sententiam conatus exprimere os uertit, distorquens pariter et ceruicem de sessu in terram eliditur atque illic expirat uel, ut quidam uolunt, obmutuit, inde tamen effertur ut mortuus. Tunc admirantibus cunctis etiam Clementinus ille gentilis expauit et, licet esset iudex, tamen timens, ne de se quoque simili supplicio iudicaretur, prostrauit se ad pedes tanti uiri obsecrans eum, ut sibi parceret, qui in eum diuinae legis ignoratione peccasset et non tam proprio arbitrio quam mandantis imperio.
(39) Erat tunc stupor in omnibus ac diuinae uirtutis admiratio, quod in illo spectaculum totum nouum uisum est: nam qui proferre uoluit humanam sententiam, mox diuinam perpessus est grauiorem, et iudex, qui iudicare uenerat, iam pallens ut reus timebat iudicari, et qui quasi reus in exilium mittendus adstiterat, a iudice prostrato rogabatur, ut parceret quasi iudex. (40) Inde est, quod solus Gregorius ex numero uindicantium integram fidem nec in fugam uersus nec passus exilium, cum unusquisque timuit de illo ulterius iudicare. (41) Videtisne damnatae a deo praeauaricationis mira documenta? Scit melius omnis Hispania, quod ista non fingimus.
'(35) But behold, he came before the Vicarius, and many former administrators were present, and Osius sat as judge, or rather above the judge, supported by the imperial power. The holy Gregory, by the example of his Lord, stood as a defendant not from a bad conscience, but because of the condition of the present judgement; free in faith, however. There was great suspense among those present as to which party victory might bend towards. And indeed, Osius relied on the authority of his age, but Gregory on the authority of the truth; one trusted in an earthly king, the other in the eternal King. And Osius used the writings of the emperor, but Gregory held fast to the writings of the Word of God. (36) And since Osius was confounded in everything and overcome by his own words, which he had written before on behalf of faith and truth, he was shaken, and said to Clementinus the Vicarius, "It is not investigation that is entrusted to you, but execution. You see that he resists the emperor’s commands: therefore carry out what is ordered, sending him into exile." But Clementinus, even though he was not a Christian, showing reverence however for the name of the episcopate, especially in this man whom he saw standing fast through reason and faith, responded to Osius, saying "I dare not send a bishop into exile, as long as he still retains the episcopal name. But you: give prior sentence, casting him down from the office of the episcopate, and then in turn I will carry out the sentence against him as a private citizen, which you wish to take place by the command of the emperor."
(37) As the holy Gregory saw that Osius wanted to give sentence, so that he would appear as one cast down, he appealed to the true and powerful judge, Christ, exclaiming with all the strength of his faith, "Christ, God, who will come to judge the living and the dead, do not permit a human sentence to be put forward today against me, the least of your servants, who for the faith of your name offer myself as a spectacle, standing as a defendant. You, I beg, judge your own case today, deign to give sentence in retribution. I do not wish this to be done as one who fears exile, since any punishment for the sake of your name would be sweet for me, but so that many may be freed from the error of backsliding when they see a present and instantaneous retribution." (38) And when, much more vehemently and piously, he hailed God with faithful words, behold! suddenly Osius, when he tried to give sentence, turned his head, also twisting his neck; he was struck down from his seat to the ground and there expired, or, as some would have it, was struck dumb; in any case he was carried out from there as a dead man. Then, with all marvelling, even the pagan Clementinus was afraid, and, though he was the judge, feared that he would be judged with a similar punishment. He threw himself at the feet of such a great man, beseeching him to spare him, who had sinned against him in ignorance of the divine law, and not so much by his own judgement as by the command of his superior.
(39) Then there was astonishment among all, and amazement at the divine miracle, because in it a whole new spectacle was seen: for he who wanted to give a human sentence soon suffered a graver divine one, and the judge who had come to give judgement now as a pallid defendant feared to be judged, and he who had stood as a defendant to be sent into exile was asked by the prostrate judge to be spared, as if he was the judge himself. (40) So it is that only Gregory out the number of those defending proper faith neither turned in flight nor suffered exile, since all of them feared to give another judgement against him. (41) Don't you see the extraordinary proof that backsliding is condemned by God? All Spain knows very well that we are not making these things up.'
Text: Günther 1895, 15-17.
Translation: David Lambert.
Miracle during lifetime
Punishing miracle
Miraculous intervention in issues of doctrine
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Heretics
Officials
Source
The Libellus precum – 'pamphlet of requests', or 'petition of requests' – is a petition submitted to the emperor Theodosius by two presbyters named Faustinus and Marcellinus, sometime between the autumn of 383 and the spring of 385. The date range is established by the fact that it was written after the death of the emperor Gratian in August 383, but before that of Damasus bishop of Rome in December 384 (or before news of his death had reached the authors, which may not have been until early 385).Various passages in the Libellus show that Faustinus and Marcellinus were resident in Constantinople when they wrote it but were Italian by origin (see PCBE 2, 'Faustinus 2' and 'Marcellinus 3'). They belonged to the group known as 'Luciferians', after Lucifer of Cagliari (ob. 370; PCBE 2, 'Lucifer 1'). These were particularly intransigent opponents of the attempts by the emperor Constantius II (r. 337-361) to impose Homoian (or as his opponents put it, Arian) doctrines on the church. The Luciferians continued the controversy after Constantius' death by demanding that all those in the church who had compromised with him, or were willing to be in communion with those who had, should be removed from their positions. Since this included the majority of bishops in both East and West, their demands met general opposition and they quickly came to be regarded as schismatics themselves, though they were never formally condemned (for an overview, see Whiting 2019, 1-23).
The petition by Faustinus and Marcellinus complains that they are being treated as heretics, and asks the emperor to vouch for their orthodoxy. It is very long (39 pages in the CSEL edition of the Collectio Avellana), amounting to a short treatise. In effect it is a polemical church history of Constantius' reign and its aftermath from the point of view of his bitterest opponents (for more detailed discussions, see Canellis 2006, 40-65; Whiting 2019, 24-39). There is no reason to doubt that it is an actual petition submitted to the emperor: in several manuscripts it is followed by a rescript recognising Faustinus and Marcellinus as orthodox and instructing the Praetorian Prefect to ensure they were protected. However, the length and literary ambition of the text suggest that it was also intended for wider circulation as a pamphlet justifying the Luciferian position. A substantial proportion of the Libellus is devoted to stories of persecution, but there is an important difference between those from the period before the death of Constantius in 361 and the more recent incidents described later in the Libellus. For the earlier period the victims – figures like Paulinus of Trier, Maximus of Naples, or Gregory of Elvira – were regarded by all Nicene Christians as victims of persecution by a heretical regime. In the subsequent period, the victims are dissidents who rejected the position of the mainstream church (such as the Luciferian presbyter Macarius in E06240), and the persecutors are members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy such as Damasus of Rome. One of the purposes of the Libellus is to deny any distinction between the victims in the earlier and later periods.
In its surviving manuscripts, the Libellus precum is always transmitted as part of large collections of ecclesiastical documents such as the Collectio Avellana or the Collectio Corbeiensis (Canellis 2006, 66-83), but it is likely that in antiquity it circulated as an independent work. Faustinus has an entry in Gennadius of Marseille's De viris illustribus in which it is mentioned (Vir. ill. 16). Gennadius notes that one can tell that Faustinus and Marcellinus were Luciferians since they condemn figures in good standing with the church, such as Hilary of Poitiers and Damasus, as compromisers with the Arians.
Discussion
One of the longest sections of the Libellus precum (§§ 32-45) narrates incidents that the authors claim took place in Hispania during the later years of the reign of Constantius II, involving three bishops who caved in to him (Potamius of Lisbon, Osius of Cordoba, and Florentius of Mérida), and one who heroically resisted (Gregory of Elvira). The bishops who compromised are all depicted as being struck dead in punishment. Relatively little detail is given for Potamius and Florentius (§§ 43, 45), but the account of Osius' fatal confrontation with Gregory forms the centrepiece of the entire passage.Osius (Ossius, Hosius) of Cordoba had been one of the main episcopal advisors of Constantine I, and had presided over the Council of Nicaea in 325. He had been a forceful opponent of Constantius' church policies in the 340s and 350s. In 356/7, however, the then very elderly Osius (aged a hundred, according to Athanasius, History of the Arians 45.4) was summoned to Constantius' court at Sirmium in Pannonia, where he eventually agreed to sign a doctrinal document (the so-called 'Blasphemy of Sirmium') that its opponents regarded as Arian (see e.g. Hanson 1988, 334-8, 343-7). Osius' concession is widely attested by contemporary writers (e.g. Athanasius, History of the Arians 42-5; Hilary of Poitiers, Against Constantius 23, and On the Councils 11), though many details about it remain obscure.
What relation the melodramatic narrative in the Libellus may have to any real events in 357 is impossible to say. There is independent evidence of some kind of conflict between Osius and Gregory of Elvria in a passage of Hilary of Poitiers' Against Valens and Ursacius (CSEL 65, p 46; trans. Wickham 1997, 95), but Hilary gives no details. Aside from this, nothing in Faustinus and Marcellinus' narrative is attested in any other source. It is not even certain that Osius returned to Spain: in a work written only a few months after the events at Sirmium, Athanasius implies that Osius had since died (History of the Arians 45.5), which leaves a very limited time for him to return to his see, let alone to have his opponents hauled through the courts.
Within the context of the Libellus, the confrontation between Osius and Gregory serves a clear purpose as an illustration of the dividing lines that the authors wished to draw within the church. The depiction of Osius maintains the Luciferian position of treating any compromise with Constantius' regime, no matter what the circumstances, as equivalent to apostasy: Osius' concession turns him into an irredeemable villain, whose role at Gregory's hearing clearly parallels that of persecuting judges in martyrdom narratives. Gregory of Elvira on the other hand, as the defendant maintaining orthodoxy without compromise, functions as the equivalent of a martyr. However, his resistance leads not to martyrdom but to triumphant vindication through Osius' miraculous death and the abasement of the pagan official, Clementinus.
Gregory is a relatively well documented figure, as bishop of Elvira (present-day Granada) from the 350s to c. 392 (on which see Shuve 2014), and as the author of a significant corpus of surviving exegetical and doctrinal works. In the Libellus precum he is portrayed more heroically than any other figure, even Lucifer of Cagliari (who is strongly praised, but is never at the centre of a major incident in the way that Gregory is here). In another passage (see E08616) he is credited with performing miracles. Although his own works, and references to him in other sources, show that Gregory was an uncompromising opponent of Constantius, and Arianism in general, it is not at all clear that he would have regarded himself as one of the Luciferians, who are never mentioned in his surviving writings (see Shuve 2014, 253-5, 260-61). It is possible that Faustinus and Marcellinus wanted to obtain reflected glory by associating themselves with a recognised hero of orthodoxy. Shuve 2014, 253-4, notes that they offer this incident as an explanation for the fact that Gregory was never disciplined or sent into exile for his opposition to Constantius' policies (§ 40), a fact that might otherwise seem to compromise his heroic status.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:Günther, O., Collectio Avellana, vol. 1 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 35.1; Vienna, 1895), 5-44.
Simonetti, M., Faustini opera (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 69; Turnhout: Brepols, 1967), 361-391.
Canellis, A., Supplique aux empereurs (Libellus precum et lex Augusta); Précédé de Faustin, confession de foi (Sources chrétiennes 504; Paris, 2006), with annotated French translation.
Whiting, C.M., Documents from the Luciferians: In Defense of the Nicene Creed (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 43; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019), 62-169. Canellis' text with annotated English translation.
Further reading:
Hanson, R.P.C., The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318–381 (London: T&T Clark, 1988).
Pietri, C., and Pietri, L., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-empire, 2 Prosopographie de l'Italie chretienne (313-604) (Rome 2000: École française de Rome), vol. 1, 747-749, "Faustinus 2;" vol. 2, 1368-70, "Marcellinus 3."
Shuve, K., "The Episcopal Career of Gregory of Elvira," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 65:2 (2014), 247-262.
Wickham, L.R., Hilary of Poitiers: Conflicts of Conscience and Law in the Fourth-century Church (Translated Texts for Historians 25; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997).
David Lambert
16/02/2026
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02264 | Gregory, bishop of Elvira, ob. c. 392 | Gregorius | Certain |
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