The Libellus precum of Faustinus and Marcellinus, a petition to the emperor Theodosius from two presbyters belonging to the schismatic group known as Luciferians, attributes a punishing miracle (datable to 362/3) to the power of the deceased *Maximus (bishop of Naples, ob. 355/362, S02171) and the living *Lucifer (bishop of Cagliari, ob. 370, S02316). Written in Latin, probably in Constantinople, 383/385.
E06239
Literary - Letters
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Libellus precum Faustini et Marcellini 62-65
(62) Sanctus uir Maximus episcopus, cuius supra meminimus, fidem uindicans rectam consortiumque reprobans haereticorum ductus est in exilium. In loco eius praeuaricatores ordinant nomine Zosimum, qui et ipse prius quidem catholica uindicabat. Res ista in Neapoli ciuitate Campaniae acta est. Cognoscit hoc sanctus Maximus et de exilio scribens dat in eum sententiam non solum episcopali auctoritate sed etiam aemulatione ac uirtute martyrii feruens in gloriam diuinam.
(63) Sed post aliquot annos beatus Lucifer de quarto exilio Romam pergens ingressus est Neapolim Campaniae, ut diximus, ciuitatem, ad quem Zosimus uenire temptauit illa forte fiducia, qua scilicet iam de impietate correxisse uidebatur. Sed hunc confessor Lucifer suscipere noluit non ignorans, quae gesserat, immo et sancti spiritus feruore episcopi et martyris Maximi sententiam robustius exequitur dicens, quod episcopatum ipsum, quem sibi ut adulter uindicat spiritalis, animaduertentis dei iudicio non habebit <et> hic quoque sentiet poenam suae impietatis. (64) Sed non post multum temporis idem Zosimus cum in coetu plebis uult exsequi sacerdotis officia, inter ipsa uerba sacerdotalia eius lingua protenditur nec ualet eam reuocare intra oris capacitatem, eo quod contra modum naturae extra os penderet ut boui anhelo. Sed ut uidit se linguae officium perdidisse, egreditur basilica et (res mira!) foris iterum in officium lingua reuocata est. Et primum quidem non intellegitur compleri in eum sententiam martyris et confessoris, sed cum hoc totiens patitur, quotiens et basilicam diuersis diebus temptauit intrare, ipse postremo recognouit ob hoc sibi linguam inter pontificii sollemnia uerba denegari, ut sanctorum episcoporum in eum rite prolata sententia probaretur. Denique cessit episcopatum, ut ei lingua, quae cesserat, redderetur.
(65) Non res antiquas referimus, quae solent quadam ratione in dubium uenire: uiuunt adhuc praesentia ista documenta, nam et Zosimus hodieque in corpore est usum iam linguae non amittens, posteaquam maluit cum amissione episcopatus uiuere dolens suis impietatibus. Nonne etiam de similibus praeiudicatum est nihil illis prodesse, quod quasi sub correctione episcopi esse perseuerant? Non enim correctio est ista sed inlusio, prout sunt imperatorum tempora, fidem uertere.
'(62) The holy man Bishop Maximus, whom we mentioned above, defending correct faith and reproving fellowship with heretics, was taken into exile. In his place traitors ordained a certain Zosimus, who himself had previously defended the catholic faith. This thing was done in the city of Naples in Campania. The holy Maximus was aware of this, and writing from exile gave sentence against him not only by episcopal authority but also with the zeal and virtue of martyrdom, burning for the glory of God.
(63) But after a few years the blessed Lucifer, travelling to Rome from his fourth exile, arrived, as we have said, at the city of Naples in Campania. Zosimus tried to approach him, confident, perhaps, in that he seemed already to have corrected his impiety. But the confessor Lucifer was unwilling to receive him, not ignorant of what he had done. Rather, with the fervour of the Holy Spirit, he carried out more firmly the sentence of the bishop and martyr Maximus, saying that by the judgement of vigilant God Zosimus would not have the bishopric, which he had seized for himself as a spiritual adulterer, and he too would feel the punishment of his impiety. (64) But after only a little time, the same Zosimus, when in a gathering of the people he wanted to perform the duties of bishop, in the midst of the sacerdotal words his tongue stretched out and he was unable to bring it back into the interior of his mouth, so that it hung from his mouth beyond the measure of nature, like a panting cow. Since he saw that he had lost the use of his tongue, he went out of the basilica and (a marvellous thing!) when he was outside his tongue was restored to service again. And at first indeed he did not understand that the sentence against him of the martyr and the confessor was being fulfilled, but when he suffered this thing whenever he attempted to enter the basilica on different days, he eventually recognised that his tongue was denied to him during the solemn words of a bishop for this reason: so that the sentence of the holy bishops should be proved to have been correctly carried out against him. Eventually he gave up the episcopate, and his tongue, which had given up, was restored to him.
(65) We are not talking about events from the distant past, which are accustomed, with some reason, to come into doubt: these present examples are still living, for even Zosimus is in the body to this day, no longer suffering the loss of his tongue, after he preferred to live with the loss of his episcopate, grieving for his impieties. Indeed, was it not previously judged about similar cases that it does them no good that they persevere as bishops as if they were reformed? For this is not reform, but mockery, to change one's faith according to the reigns of emperors.'
Text: Günther 1895, 23-4.
Translation: David Lambert.
Miracle during lifetime
Miracle after death
Punishing miracle
Miraculous intervention in issues of doctrine
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
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
The bishop of Naples, Maximus (PCBE 2, 'Maximus 4'), was one of several bishops opposed to the religious policies of the emperor Constantius II who were exiled from their sees in the 350s (see E05905). After his removal in 355/6, a new bishop named Zosimus (PCBE 2, 'Zosimus 2') was installed, who was prepared to follow Constantius' doctrinal line. State support for Homoianism ended in the West with Constantius' death in 361, and the succession first of the pagan Julian and then of a series of pro-Nicene emperors. The specific context for the miracle related here is that Zosimus hoped to secure his possession of the see in the changed circumstances after 361 (Maximus had died in exile) by switching to support for the pro-Nicene position. The story of his miraculous punishment seeks to show that such doctrinal laxity was unacceptable. This was a fundamental point of principle for the 'Luciferian' faction to which Faustinus and Marcellinus, the authors of the Libellus precum, belonged: the refusal to accept the legitimacy of bishops who had compromised in any way with Constantius was precisely the issue that caused the Luciferians to separate from the mainstream church. Thus Zosimus is depicted as complacently expecting that Lucifer of Cagliari will be willing to associate with him because he has now embraced Nicene doctrine, while the miracle that follows demonstrates that his position as bishop is fundamentally illegitimate, regardless of his current doctrinal position (a point made explicitly in the concluding sentences of § 65).The encounter between Zosimus and Lucifer can be dated to 362 or 363. Lucifer was exiled to various locations in Syria, Palestine and Egypt between 355 and 362, when Constantius' sentences of exile against bishops were rescinded by Julian. However, he did not return to his see immediately but travelled to Antioch, where he became involved in disputes in the local church (PCBE 2, vol. 1, 1326). His return to Italy may therefore only have been in 363. There is a gap of around twenty years between the event depicted here and the composition of the Libellus precum, so the authors' claim that Zosimus was still alive is perfectly credible.
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:
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;" vol. 2, 1324-28, "Lucifer 1;" vol. 2, 1466-67, "Maximus 4;" vol. 2, 2380-81, "Zosimus 2."
David Lambert
03/02/2026
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02171 | Maximus, bishop of Naples, ob. 355/362 | Maximus | Certain | S02316 | Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari and confessor, ob. 370 | Lucifer | Certain |
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