books, which he was everywhere committing to the flames. A synod summoned at Antioch by the patriarch John despatched letters to the bishops of Osrhoene desiring them, if the reports were true, to suspend communion with Rabbûlas (Baluz. xliv. col. 749). Meanwhile Rabbûlas was corresponding with Cyril on the terms of reconciliation between himself and the East; and the two prelates were agreed that nothing short of complete submission on the part of the Orientals and the withdrawal of the condemnation of Cyril's anathemas would satisfy them. A letter of Cyril to Rabbûlas (ib. cviii. col. 812) in 432 expresses the impossibility of his repudiating all he had written on the subject. The reconciliation was effected in the spring of 433. Andrew of Samosata, becoming convinced of Rabbûlas's orthodoxy by perusing his manifesto, at once left his diocese for Edessa to make reparation to his antagonist. Alexander's anger having been aroused, Andrew wrote to the oeconomi of Hierapolis to justify himself. He had not yet seen Rabbûlas, but he accepted communion with him and Cyril, and embraced the peace of the church (ib. ci. cvi. coll. 807–810).
Rabbûlas, also, with Acacius of Melitene, wrote to warn the Armenian bishops of the Nestorian heresy in the writings of Diodore and Theodore. In their perplexity they summoned a synod, and dispatched two presbyters to Proclus (who in Apr. 434 had succeeded Maximian as patriarch of Constantinople), entreating him to indicate which was the orthodox teaching. Proclus replied in his celebrated "Tome" on the Incarnation, wherein he condemned Theodore's opinions without naming him, a precaution counteracted by the officiousness of the bearers of the document (Liberat. Breviar. c. 10, ap. Labbe, v. 752; Garnerii Praef. in Mar. Merc. p. lii. ed. Par. 1673). The fiery Rabbûlas did not long survive this letter. His death is placed Aug. 7, 435, after an episcopate of 23 years.
Nearly all his few surviving works were printed by Overbeck in the original Syriac text, in his ed. of Ephrem Syrus (Oxf. 1865), pp. 210–248, 362–378. They include the scanty remains of the 640 letters which, according to his biographer, he wrote to the emperor, bishops, prefects, and monks. See also Bickell's Ausgewählte Schriften, pp. 153–271.
[E.V.]
Radegundis, St., born in 519, queen of Clotaire I. and founder of the nunnery of Sainte-Croix, at Poictiers. Her father was a Thuringian prince named Bertharius. Her austerities were so incessant that it was commonly said the king had wedded a nun (Venant. Fort. Acta S. Rad. c. i.). Abhorring the married state from the first, she seems to have finally decided to escape from it upon her husband's treacherous murder of her brother. Withdrawing to Noyon on the pretext of some religious observance, her urgency overcame the hesitation of bp. Medardus to make her a deaconess. She then escaped from her husband's territory to the sanctuary of St. Martin of Tours, and thence to St. Hilary's at Poictiers. Here she founded her monastery within a mile or two of the city; finally, with the consent of Clotaire, clerks were sent to the East for wood of the true cross to sanctify it, and the rule of SS. Caesarius and Caesaria of Arles was adopted. Here the rest of her life was spent, first as abbess, then as simple nun under the rule of another. We have full information about the beginnings of this institution from the two Lives of Radegund, one by Venantius Fortunatus, her intimate friend (Patr. Lat. lxxii. 651), the other by one of her nuns called Baudonivia (ib. 663); and also from the fact that in Gregory's time, after Radegund's death, the attention of all France was drawn to the spot by the scandalous outbreak of a body of the nuns, headed by Chrodieldis, a natural daughter of king Charibert I. After a residence of about 37 years she died Aug. 13, 587, and was buried by Gregory of Tours (de Glor. Conf. c. cvi.).
[S.A.B.]
Reccared (the uniform spelling in coins and inscriptions), younger son of LEOVIGILD by his first marriage. For his parentage and life till the death of his father see LEOVIGILD and HERMENIGILD. Between Apr. 12 and May 8, 586 (Hübner, Insc. Hisp. n. 155; Tejada y Ramiro, ii. 217), he succeeded his father without opposition, having been already associated with him in the kingdom. He first allied himself to his stepmother Goisvintha, the mother of Brunichild and grandmother of Childebert II. By her advice he sent ambassadors to Childebert and to his uncle GUNTRAMNUS (2), the Frankish king of Burgundy, proposing peace and a defensive alliance. The former alone were received.
Then followed the great event of Reccared's reign, his conversion from Arianism to Catholicism. We can only conjecture whether, as Dahn supposes, his motives were mainly political, or whether he yielded to the influence of the Catholic leaders such as Leander or Masona. In Jan. 587 he declared himself a Catholic, and, convening a synod of the Arian bishops, induced them and the mass of the Gothic and Suevic nations to follow his example. Some Arians did not submit quietly, and 587–589 saw several dangerous risings, headed by coalitions of Arian bishops and ambitious nobles. Perhaps, from the geographical situation, the most formidable was that of Septimania, headed by bp. Athaloc, who, from his ability, was considered a second Arius. Amongst the secular leaders of the insurrection the counts Granista and Wildigern are named. They appealed for aid to Guntram, whose desire for Septimania was stronger than his detestation of Arianism, and the dux Desiderius was sent with a Frankish army. Reccared's army defeated the insurgents and their allies with great slaughter, Desiderius himself being slain (Paul. Em. 19; J. Bicl.; Greg. T. ix. 15). The next conspiracy broke out in the West, headed by Sunna, the Arian bp. of Merida, and count Seggo. Claudius, the dux Lusitaniae, put down the rising, Sunna being banished to Mauritania and Seggo to Galicia. In the latter part of 588 a third conspiracy was headed by the Arian bp. Uldila and the queen dowager Goisvintha, but they were detected, and the former banished.
Reccared, after his conversion, had again sent to Guntram and Childebert in 587. The implacable Guntram refused his embassy, asking how could he believe those by whose machinations his niece Ingunthis had been
