vened, ostensibly for the more precise declaration of the faith on the points at issue, but really to depose Flavian and Elias of Jerusalem; but it was broken up by the emperor's mandate, to the extreme vexation of Soterichus and Xenaias, without pronouncing any sentence (Labbe, Concil. iv. 1414, vii. 88; Theophan. u.s.; Coteler.Monum. Eccl. Graec. iii. 298). Flavian's perplexities were increased by the inroad of a tumultuous body of monks from Syria Prima, clamouring for the anathematization of Nestorius and all supposed favourers of his doctrines. The citizens rose against them, slew many, and threw their bodies into the Orontes. A rival body of monks poured down from the mountain ranges of Coelesyria, eager to do battle in defence of their metropolitan and former associate. Flavian was completely unnerved, and, yielding to the stronger party, pronounced a public anathema in his cathedral on the decrees of Chalcedon and the four so-called heretical doctors. His enemies, determined to obtain his patriarchate for one of their own party, accused him to the emperor of condemning with his lips what he still held in his heart. The recent disturbances at Antioch were attributed to him, and afforded the civil authorities a pretext for desiring him to leave Antioch for a time. His quitting Antioch was seized on by the emperor as an acknowledgment of guilt. Anastasus declared the see vacant, sent Severus to occupy it, and. banished Flavian to Petra in Arabia, where he died in 518. Eutych. Alex. Annal. Eccl. p. 140; Marcell. Chron.; Theophan. p. 134; Evagr. H. E. iii. 32.
[E.V.]
Florentius (50), a chief minister of state at Constantinople under Theodosius II. and Marcian, a man of the highest reputation for soundness of faith, purity of life, and statesmanlike wisdom (Labbe, Concil. iv. 220). He was consul in a.d. 429, patrician in 448, prefect of the praetorian guards, and the high dignity of prefect of the East was bestowed on him a seventh time by Marcian in 450.
In 448, when Flavian had resolved to put Eutyches on his trial for heretical doctrine, Theodosius demanded that Florentius should have a seat at the synod as his representative. Hitherto the ostensible reason for the presence of imperial officers at ecclesiastical synods was the preservation of order. The ground expressly assigned by the emperor for requiring the admission of Florentius, viz. that the matters under discussion concerned the faith, was a startling innovation which Flavian withstood as long as he dared (Acac. Hist. Brevicul. p. 112; Liberat. Breviar. c. xi.; Labbe, Concil. iv. 247). On the opening of the trial Florentius took his seat among the metropolitans, next to Seleucus, bp. of Amasea (Labbe, 238; Liberat. p. 60), and disclaimed all desire to dogmatize, or to forget his position as a layman; but he took a very leading and authoritative part in the discussion, and manifested a strong leaning towards the acquittal of Eutyches. But his efforts to induce Eutyches to acknowledge the two natures in Christ or to adopt language which might satisfy the council were fruitless, and the interests of orthodoxy compelled him to assent to his condemnation (Labbe, 507, 517). As Eutyches left the hall he lodged with Florentius an appeal against his condemnation to the churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. The bishop availed himself of the plea that the trial was closed to exclude the registration of the appeal (ib. 244). When the council of Chalcedon met, Florentius was present with other high civil dignitaries; but there is no record of the part he took. We have letters to Florentius from Theodoret (Ep. 89), Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. lib. i. 486), and Firmus of Caesarea (Ep. 29).
[E.V.]
Florinus (1), for some time in the latter half of the 2nd cent. a presbyter at Rome, deprived for falling into heresy. He is known from two notices (v. 15, 20) in Eusebius, taken from writings of Irenaeus against Florinus. One is an interesting fragment of a letter to Florinus, in which Irenaeus records his youthful recollections of Polycarp, representing how that bishop, whose good opinion Florinus had once been anxious to gain, would have been shocked at his present opinions. The fragment contains unmistakable internal evidence of genuineness. The title of the letter to Florinus was On Monarchy, or that God is not the Author of Evil, and Eusebius remarks that Florinus seems to have maintained the opposite opinion. Later writers have naturally followed the report of Eusebius. Philaster (79) refers to an unnamed heretic, who taught that things which God made were in their own nature evil. Augustine (66) calls the anonymous heretic Florinus and, with little probability, makes him
the founder of a sect of Floriniani. He probably arrived at this result by combining the notice in Eusebius with Philaster's mention in another place of Floriani. The work of Irenaeus which we possess does not mention Florinus, and has no trace of the letter, nor does Tertullian, in dealing with the same subject, employ the letter to Florinus. If Florinus ever in a heretical sense made God the author of evil,
his errors afterwards took the opposite direction, and he became a Valentinian. In reply to him Irenaeus composed his work On the Ogdoad. If the controversy of Irenaeus with Florinus was earlier than the publication of the treatise on heresies, we should expect some trace of it therein; and the fact that, after the publication of a treatise dealing so fully with Valentinianism, a separate treatise on the Ogdoad was necessary, may point to the controversy having arisen later. In favour of the later date is also the fact that there is extant a Syriac fragment (Harvey, ii. 457), purporting to be an extract from a letter of Irenaeus to Victor of Rome concerning Florinus, a presbyter, who was a partisan of the error of Valentinus, and had published an abominable book. Florinus is not named by Epiphanius, Philaster, or Pseudo-Tertullian who has so many notices of Roman heretics; and it is likely, therefore, that he was not named in the earlier work of Hippolytus, nor in the lectures of Irenaeus, on which that work was founded; he is not named in the later work of Hippolytus, nor by Tertullian. This silence is not easily explained if either Florinus or any school of Floriniani were any source of danger after his exposure by Irenaeus. (cf. Zahn, Forschungen, iv. 233-308).
[G.S.]
