after subscribing the Arian formula, he was permitted to end his days in Spain. This involves the further question—whether before his death he recanted, and was readmitted into the Catholic church, or retained his Arian opinions to the last. The story told by the Luciferians and the charges brought against his memory by his old enemies the Donatists serve at least to shew that, according to ecclesiastical tradition, he died in Spain. The question is fully examined by Baronius (sub ann. 357, cc. xxx.–xxxvii.), who does not believe the story told by the Luciferians. The story of the apostate Marcellinus is not confirmed by any contemporary writer. Had it been true, it must have been known to Athanasius, who says distinctly that Hosius yielded to the outrages of the Arians "for a time, as being old and infirm in body" (Apol. pro Fug. § 5), and that "at the approach of death, as it were by his last testament, he bore witness to the force which had been used towards him, and abjured the Arian heresy and gave strict charge that no one should receive it" (Hist. Arian. 45). These words prove that his lapse was but a temporary one, that he died in communion with the church, and in the midst of his friends. Hilary's words as to his anxiety to leave Sirmium andbe buried in his own country imply that he obtained his wish to return to Spain. The date of his death is a little uncertain, but from Marcellinus we learn that it was soon after his return to Spain and before the concession he had made to the Arians had become widely known. As the treatise of Athanasius (Hist. Arian.) was written between 358 and 360, it must have been before that period. Some writers favour the end of 357; others think he lived till 359.
His profound acquaintance with Christian doctrine was combined with a singularly blameless and holy life. He seems to have had great tact and judgment and a conciliatory disposition. The shadow cast upon his name by the concession extorted from him by the Arians must not be allowed to obscure the rightful honour due to him for his labours and sufferings on behalf of the Catholic faith. "Even Christianity," says Dean Milman (Hist. of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 427, ed. 1875), "has no power over that mental imbecility which accompanies the decay of physical strength, and this act of feebleness ought not for an instant to be set against the unblemished virtue of a whole life."
A very full account of his life, and a discussion of various points in his history, will be found in Gams (Die Kirchengesch. von Spanien, Band ii. pp. i–309, Regensburg, 1864). See also Hefele, Conciliengesch. vols. i. and ii., of which there is an Eng. trans.; Tillemont, Mém. t. vii. p. 300, 4to ed.; Dom Ceillier, s.v. t. iii. 392, new ed.; Zahn, Const. der Gr. u. die Kirche, 1876; Florez, España Sagrada, La Provincia de Bética, vol. ix. and x. (Madrid, 1754).
[T.D.C.M.]
Hunneric (Ugnericus, Hunerix, Honorichus), eldest son and successor (Jan. 24, 477) of Genseric, king of the Vandals. Sent to Rome in his youth as a hostage for the observance of the treaty his father had made with Valentinian III., he married (462), after the sack of Rome, the captive Eudocia, eldest of the daughters of that emperor. Soon after he ascended the throne he ordered diligent search to be made for Manicheans, of whom he burnt many and exiled more across the sea, being commended for this by Victor. His subjects were oppressed with taxes and exactions, but he relaxed the strictness of his father's laws against the orthodox, and, at the intercession of his sister-in-law Placidia, the widow of the emperor Olybrius, and the emperor Zeno, allowed (a.d. 481) a bp. of Carthage (Eugenius) to be elected, the see having been vacant since the death of Deogratias in 457. He made this concession upon condition that a similar liberty should be allowed the Arian bishops and laity in Zeno's dominions, or else the newly elected bishops and all other orthodox bishops with their clergy would be banished to the Moors.
To secure the succession to his son, Hunneric sent his brother Theodoric into exile and put to death his wife and children. The Arian patriarch of Carthage, who was supposed to favour Theodoric, was burnt alive, and many of his clergy shared his fate or were thrown to wild beasts; nor did Hunneric spare the friends his father had commended to him on his death-bed if suspected of being inclined to support his brother. Hunneric now took measures against the orthodox. The influence of Eugenius on the Vandals was especially dreaded by the Arian clergy, at whose suggestion the king forbade him to preach in public or to allow persons in Vandal dress to enter Catholic churches. The bishop replied that the house of God was open to all. A great number of Catholics, being the king's servants, wore the Vandal dress. Men were therefore posted at the church doors with long rakes, with which any person entering in Vandal dress was seized by the hair as so to tear off hair and scalp together. Many died in consequence. Hunneric next deprived Catholics who held posts at the court or belonged to the army of their offices and pay; many of the former were forced to work in the fields near Utica and the latter were deprived of their property and exiled to Sicily or Sardinia. A law confiscating the property of deceased bishops and imposing a fine of 500 solidi on each new bishop was contemplated, but abandoned for fear of retaliatory measures against the Arians in the Eastern empire. Virgins were hung up naked with heavy weights attached to their feet, and their breasts and backs burnt with red-hot irons to extort, if possible, a confession of immorality, which might be used against the bishops and clergy. Many expired under the torture and the survivors were maimed for life. A body of Catholic bishops, priests, deacons, and laity, numbering 4,976, was sent into banishment among the savage Moors of the desert. Victor gives a touching description of their sufferings during their marches by day and in crowded dens at night.
These cruelties were only the prelude of a more extensive and systematic persecution. Hunneric, on Ascension Day, 483, published an edict to Eugenius, and the other Catholic or, as he termed them, Homoousian bishops, ordering them to assemble at Carthage on Feb. 1, to meet the Arian bishops in conference and decide the points in controversy between
