one of the monks who accompanied Augustine on his first journey, and therefore probably a monk of the monastery of St. Andrew at Rome. He is first mentioned by Bede (H. E. i. 25) as joined with Laurentius in the mission which Augustine after his consecration sent to Rome to announce that the Gospel had been accepted by the English, and that he had been made bishop, and to put before the pope the questions which drew forth the famous "Responsiones Sancti Gregorii." He must have returned some time before the death of Augustine and been appointed or designated by him and Ethelbert as the future head of the monastery, which at his request Ethelbert was building outside the walls of Canterbury. The building was not finished when Augustine died, but Laurentius, his successor, consecrated the new church and Peter became the first abbat. If the Canterbury computation be accepted, and on such a point it may not be baseless, Peter must have perished in the winter of 606 or of 607 at the latest. There is a notice of him in Mabillon's Acta SS. O.S.B. saec. i. pt. i. p. 1; and the Bollandist Acts, Jan. t. i. pp. 335, 336.
See Gotselinus, de Translatione Sti. Augustini, ap. Mab. Acta SS. O.S.B. t. ix. p. 760; Elmham, ed. Hardwick, pp. 92–126; Thorn, cc. 1761, 1766; Hardy, Catalogue of Materials; etc. i. 206, 207; Monasticon Angl. i. 120.
[S.]
Philaster (Philastrius), bp. of Brixia (Brescia), in the latter part of the 4th cent. His successor in the see, Gaudentius, used every year to preach a panegyrical sermon on the anniversary of his death (July 18). One of these (preached on the 14th anniversary) is extant, and from its vague laudatory statements we have to extract our scanty information concerning his life and work. We learn from it that he was not a native of Brescia. From what country he came we are not told; Spain or Africa has been conjectured. He is commended for zeal in the conversion of Jews and heathen, and in the confutation of heresies, especially of Arianism; and is said to have incurred stripes for the vehemence of his opposition to that then dominant sect. He travelled much; at Milan he withstood bp. Auxentius, the Arian predecessor of St. Ambrose; at Rome he was highly successful in his defence of orthodoxy. Finally he settled down at Brescia, where he is said to have been a model of all pastoral virtues.
The only details we have for dating his episcopate or the duration of his life are that he took part as bp. of Brescia in a council at Aquileia in 381 (see its proceedings in the works of Ambrose, ii. 802, or p. 935, Migne); and that he must have died before 397, the year of Ambrose's death, since that bishop interested himself in the appointment of his successor. St. Augustine mentions having seen Philaster at Milan in company with St. Ambrose; this was probably some time during 384–387. Possibly Philaster had been commended to the church of Brescia by Ambrose, who would know of his opposition to Auxentius. The notices of Philaster in ecclesiastical writers are collected in the Bollandist Life (AA. SS. July 18, vol. iv. p. 299). He is now chiefly interesting as the author of a work on heresies, portions of which, having been copied by St. Augustine, became stock materials for haeresiologists. Augustine having been asked by Quodvultdeus to write a treatise on heresies, refers him in reply (Ep. 222) to the works of Epiphanius and Philastrius, the former of whom had enumerated 20 heresies before our Lord's coming and 60 since the ascension, the latter 28 before and 128 after. Augustine refuses to believe that Epiphanius, whom he accounts far the more learned of the two, could have been ignorant of any heresies known to Philaster, and explains the difference of enumeration as arising from the word heresy not being one of sharply defined application, thus leading one to count opinions as heresies which were not so reckoned by the other. As a matter of fact, Philaster, in his excessive eagerness to swell his list of heresies, has included many items which must be struck out unless we count every erroneous opinion as a heresy; and when he has completed his list of heretical sects called after their founders, he adds a long list of anonymous heresies, apparently setting down all the theological opinions with which he disagreed, and branding those who held them as heretics. Thus those are set down as heretics who imagined, as many excellent Fathers did, that the giants of Gen. vi. 2 were the offspring of angels (c. 108); thought that any uncertainty attached to the calculation of the number of the years since the creation of the world (c. 112); denied the plurality of heavens (c. 94) or asserted an infinity of worlds (c. 115), or imagined that there are fixed stars, being ignorant that the stars are brought every evening out of God's secret treasure-houses, and as soon as they have fulfilled their daily task are conducted back thither again by the angel who directs their course (c. 133). It is to be feared he regards those as heretics (c. 113) who call the days of the week by their heathen names, instead of the scriptural names first day, second day, etc.; and some of his transcribers have rebelled on being asked to write down those as heretics who believe (c. 154) that the ravens brought flesh as well as bread to Elijah, who surely would never have used animal food. But it is not true that all heresies enumerated by Philaster, but unnoticed by Epiphanius, are such as can be thus accounted for. When Augustine, at length yielding to his correspondent's request, wrote a short treatise on heresies, he first gives an abstract of the 60 post-Christian heresies discussed by Epiphanius, and then adds a list of 23 more from Philastrius, remarking that this author gives others also, but that he himself does not regard them as heresies.
The relation between Philaster and Epiphanius is important because of the theory of Lipsius, now generally accepted [see HIPPOLYTUS], that both writers drew from a common source, namely, the earlier treatise of Hippolytus against heresies. To establish this theory it is necessary to exclude the supposition of a direct use of Epiphanius by Philaster, which might seem the more obvious way of accounting for coincidences between the two.
It is chronologically possible for Philaster to have read the treatise of Epiphanius which appeared in 376 or 377. At what period of
