was appointed bishop of Antioch in 361, recognized the admirable qualities of Flavian, and raised him to the priesthood. We hear nothing more of him until the year 381, when, on the death of St. Meletius at Constantinople, he was chosen to succeed him by the majority of the bishops there assembled. St. Gregory Nazianzen, however, and the Western church, opposed his election; to explain which, we must relate the leading facts of the celebrated schism of Antioch. St. Eustathius was unjustly deposed from the patriarchate in 330, and several Arian or semi-Arian bishops successively occupied the see until the ordination of St. Meletius in 361. St. Eustathius was then dead, but his followers at Antioch would not recognize St. Meletius as the lawful bishop, on the plea that he had been elected by Arians. Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, happening to pass through Antioch in 362, ordained one of this Eustathian party, named Paulinus, as bishop of Antioch. To end this schism, it is said—though the facts are not altogether clear—that the leading clergy on both sides, Flavian among the number, bound themselves by oath, upon the death of either Meletius or Paulinus, to recognize the survivor. It is also said that Flavian did not regard his oath as binding, because some of the principal Eustathians refused to take it. In 385 Flavian ordained St. John Chrysostom priest, and during twelve years enjoyed, in his pastoral cares, the inestimable aid of that zealous and eloquent fellow-labourer. In 387 occurred the sedition of Antioch, in which the populace dragged the statues of Theodosius and the empress in the mud. The aged bishop immediately repaired to Constantinople, and by a long discourse, said to have been written by St. Chrysostom, succeeded in appeasing the wrath of the emperor. Flavian died at a great age in 404.—T. A.
FLAVIAN II., Patriarch of Antioch, succeeded Palladius in 495. The contest between those who accepted or rejected the council of Chalcedon was at this time raging throughout the Eastern church. Flavian followed the example of Elias, patriarch of Jerusalem, in not communicating with the patriarch of Alexandria, who rejected that council. On this account he incurred the displeasure of the Emperor Anastasius, who was fanatically bent upon disparaging the decrees of Chalcedon, and enforcing adherence to the Henoticon of his predecessor Zeno. In 506 Xenaias, an impious unbaptized Persian, whom Peter the Fuller, the false patriarch of Antioch, had intruded into the see of Hierapolis, insidiously called upon Flavian to anathematize not only Nestorius, but a number of bishops who had been suspected, rightly or wrongly, of Nestorianism. Flavian was willing to do the first, but objected to the last; and his refusal, being misrepresented to the emperor by some Syrian bishops who from various motives bore ill-will to him, further incensed Anastasius against the patriarch. To bring the matter to a point, the emperor in 508 required Flavian to subscribe the Henoticon. Flavian assembled a council of bishops, at which a formula was adopted, accepting the councils of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, but making no mention of that of Chalcedon. The patriarch wrote at the same time to Anastasius, expressing his desire to act conformably with his wishes. Some time after, Flavian did in fact distinctly accept the Henoticon. There seems to have been something like time-serving in his conduct; but the result was that he pleased neither party. The emperor would be satisfied with nothing short of a renunciation of the decrees of Chalcedon; and Macedonius, the stout old patriarch of Constantinople, supported by the authority of Rome, anathematized Flavian for not embracing those decrees. In 512 a number of monks from the Syrian deserts, hostile to Chalcedon and to Flavian, came to Antioch, and endeavoured to stir up the people against the patriarch. Other monks, however, who were favourable to Chalcedon, came to his assistance, and the serious riots which ensued furnished Anastasius with the pretext which he had long been seeking for deposing Flavian from the patriarchate, and appointing one Severus in his room. Flavian was banished to Petra, where he died in the year 518. In the reaction in favour of Chalcedon which soon after spread over Syria, the memory of the exiled patriarch was enthusiastically justified, and his relics were treasured as those of a saint.—T. A.
FLAVIAN, Patriarch of Constantinople, succeeded Proclus in that see in 447. He took a step in the following year which, though it seemed unimportant at the time, formed the commencement of the memorable and changeful history of the Eutychian heresy. At the request of Eusebius of Dorylæum, he convoked a council at Constantinople, in which Eusebius charged his former friend Eutyches, the aged abbot of a monastery near Constantinople, with reviving the heresy of Apollinaris, and confounding the two natures in the Son of God. Flavian at first acted with mildness. He summoned Eutyches before the council, and questioned him on his belief. Eutyches avowed that he had hitherto been accustomed to admit only one nature in Christ, but that if Flavian and the council ruled it otherwise, he was ready to submit his judgment to theirs, implying at the same time that he would consider such ruling as a novelty. This seems to have offended the council, which forthwith passed sentence of condemnation, deposition, and excommunication against Eutyches. But the abbot had a powerful friend in Chrysaphius the eunuch, through whose influence Theodosius II. was induced to summon a general council to meet at Ephesus. St. Leo, to whom Eutyches had privately appealed, sent his legates to the council, and intrusted to them letters for the emperor and several of the oriental bishops. The most important of these was his celebrated letter to Flavian—that grand and memorable production which appears so prominently in the acts of the council of Chalcedon. The council—called afterwards the latrocinale of Ephesus, from the violence and confusion which disgraced its sittings—met in July, 449. Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, presided; Flavian occupied the fifth place. The council first of all reversed the former decision against Eutyches, restoring him to communion and to his dignity. Some of his monks were then admitted, who drew a dismal picture of the miseries which their fidelity to their abbot had brought upon them; Flavian having, as they said, laid their monastery under an interdict. This was sufficient pretext for the majority of the council, led on by Dioscorus, and overawed by an armed force whose assistance he had invoked, to pass sentence of deposition upon Flavian. The patriarch was then beaten and trampled on by Dioscorus and several monks, and died shortly after from the effects of this ill-usage at Hypæpa in Lydia. His memory was vindicated at the council of Chalcedon.—T. A.
FLAVIGNY, Valérien, a celebrated French Hebraist, was born near Laon about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and died in 1674. He was a doctor of the Sorbonne, held a canonry at Reims, and in 1630 succeeded P. Vignal as professor of Hebrew in the college of France. Flavigny was a profound Hebraist, and possessed also an extensive acquaintance with other oriental languages; he devoted himself, however, almost exclusively to philological elucidations and discussions relative to the original text of the Old Testament scriptures. These labours engaged him in a controversy with the famous Abraham Ecchellensis, which soon outgrew its original proportions, and ranged many of the learned men of the time on its opposite sides. Most of Flavigny's writings have either a direct or more remote connection with it. He also edited the works of Guillaume de Saint Amour, a doctor of the thirteenth century.—R. M., A.
FLAVIO BIONDO. See Blondus.
FLAVIUS, Cneius, an illustrious Roman, was born in humble circumstances, but became secretary to App. Claudius Cæcus, and was by him raised to senatorial dignity. The most remarkable fact in the history of Flavius is his divulging, in a book entitled "Jus Flavianum," many of the legal forms, and also the rules of the Roman calendar, which had previously been kept carefully concealed by the professional jurists. It is asserted by Pliny that these were discovered by Flavius in this way—He proposed various cases of difficulty to the lawyers, and then carefully noted and reduced to system the answers which he received. This account agrees with that given by Cicero, who, speaking of Flavius, says, "Ab ipsis cautis jurisconsultis eorum sapientiam compilavit." While the publication of his book excited against Flavius the displeasure of the lawyers, and while his elevation to senatorial honours was keenly resented by the old nobility, he was a favourite with the people, and was appointed to various important offices.—J. B. J.
FLAVY, Guillaume de, a famous French captain, born about 1398, and died in 1449. He became a soldier, and followed the standard of Charles VII., who recompensed his services by making him governor of Compiegne. He was in command of that town when Joan of Arc made her last sortie from the gates, and returning defeated, found them shut. Her capture was charged, but not it would appear on good grounds, upon the governor. He was after this engaged in a long and bloody quarrel with the constable Richemont. Flavy, who was a rough,
