Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

30 December 274 A.D. Felix 1 Dies—Rome’s 26th Bishop


30 December 274 A.D.  Felix 1 Dies—Rome’s 26th Bishop

Kirsch, Johann Peter. "Pope St. Felix I." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06029b.htm.  Accessed 14 Jun 2014.

Pope St. Felix I


Date of birth unknown; d. 274. Early in 269 he succeeded Saint Dionysius as head of the Roman Church. About this time there arrived at Rome, directed to Pope Dionysius, the report of the Synod of Antioch which in that very year had deposed the local bishop, Paul of Samosata, for his heretical teachings concerning the doctrine of the Trinity (see Antioch). A letter, probably sent by Felix to the East in response to the synodal report, containing an exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, was at a later date interpolated in the interest of his sect by a follower of Apollinaris (see Apollinarianism). This spurious document was submitted to the Council of Ephesus in 431 (Mansi, "Coll. conc.", IV, 1188; cf. Harnack, "Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur", I, 659 sqq.; Bardenhewer, "Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur", II, 582 sq.). The fragment preserved in the Actsof the council lays special emphasis on the unity and identity of the Son of God and the Son of Man in Christ. The same fragment gives Pope Felix as a martyr; but this detail, which occurs again in the biography of the pope in the "Liber Pontificalis" (Ed. Duchesne, I, 58), is unsupported by any authentic earlier evidence and is manifestly due to a confusion of names. According to the notice in the "Liber Pontificalis", Felix erected a basilica on the Via Aurelia; the same source also adds that he was buried there ("Hic fecit basilicam in Via Aurelia, ubi et sepultus est"). The latter detail is evidently an error, for the fourth century Roman calendar of feasts says that Pope Felix was interred in the Catacomb of St. Callistus on the Via Appia ("III Kal. Januarii,Felicis in Callisti", it reads in the "Depositio episcoporum"). The statement of the "Liber Pontificalis" concerning the pope's martyrdom results obviously from a confusion with a Roman martyr of the same name buried on the Via Aurelia, and over whose grave a church was built. In the Roman "Feriale" or calendar of feasts, referred to above, the name of Felix occurs in the list of Roman bishops (Depositio episcoporum), and not in that of the martyrs. The notice in the "Liber Pontificalis" ascribes to this pope a decree that Masses should be celebrated on the tombs of martyrs ("Hic constituit supra memorias martyrum missas celebrare"). The author of this entry was evidently alluding to the custom of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice privately, at the altars near or over thetombs of the martyrs in the crypts of the catacombs (missa ad corpus), while the solemn celebration of the Sacred Mysteries always took place in the basilicas built over the catacombs. This practice, still in force at the end of the fourth century (Prudentius, "Peristephanon", XI, vv. 171 sqq.), dates apparently from the period when the great cemeterial basilicas were built in Rome, and owes its origin to the solemn commemoration services of martyrs, held at their tombs on the anniversary of their burial, as early as the third century. Felix probably issued no such decree, but the compiler of the "Liber Pontificalis" attributed it to him because he made no departure from the custom in force in his time. According to the above-mentioned detail of the "Depositio episcoporum", Felix was interred in the catacomb of St. Callistus, 30 December. In the present Roman Martyrology his name occurs 30 May, the date given in the "Liber Pontificalis" as that of his death (III Kal. Jun.); it is probably an error which could easily occur through a transcriber writing Jun. for Jan.

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