of the council of Chalcedon were a mere state-made church, upheld by the court against the convictions of the faithful. To this day the poor remnant of orthodoxy in Egypt bears a name which is a stigma, Melchites or "adherents of the king." (Cf. Renaudot, Hist. Patr. Alex. p. 119; Neale, Hist. Patr. Alex. ii. 7. They both add that the orthodox accepted the term.) Even after Dioscorus died in exile Proterius was ignored and disclaimed, and knew that he was the object of a hatred that was biding its time, and "during the greater part of his pontificate," as Liberatus tells us, depended for safety on a military guard. At last, in Jan. 457, Marcian died, and the Monophysites thought they saw their opportunity. Some malcontent Egyptian bishops renewed their outcry against the council (Eulogius, in Phot. Bibl. 130, p. 283, ed. Bekk.); and Timotheus, returning to Alexandria, began those intrigues which won him his title of "the Cat." [TIMOTHEUS AELURUS.] The "dux" Dionysius being absent in Upper Egypt, Timotheus found it the easier to gather a disorderly following and obtain irregular consecration. Dionysius, returning, expelled Timotheus; and the latter's partisans in revenge rushed to the house of Proterius, and after besetting him for some time in the adjacent church of Quirinus, ran him through with a sword in its baptistery, and he died under many wounds with six of his clerics. His corpse was dragged by a cord across the central place called Tetrapylon, and then through nearly the whole city, with hideous cries, "Look at Proterius!" Beaten as if it could still suffer, torn limb from limb, and finally burnt, its ashes were "scattered to the winds." The day was Easter Day, Mar. 31, 457. See also Evagr. ii. 8; Le Quien, ii. 412; Neale, Hist. Alex. ii. 12.
[W.B.]
Prudentius, Marcus (?) Aurelius Clemens, the chief Christian poet of early times, born a.d. 348 (Praef. 24, cf. Apotheosis, 449), somewhere in the N. of Spain, near the Pyrenees (Peristeph. vi. 146). His name, education, and career imply that he was of good family; he was educated in rhetoric and law, and his poems shew an exact knowledge of the Latin classical poets, especially Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Juvenal; he seems to have known little Greek and no Hebrew. He speaks of his early life as stained with much sinfulness, but must have been held in high respect, for after practising as an advocate, he twice held an important civil office, and was at last raised to some high position at the emperor's court (cf. Kayser, p. 254 n.; Brockhaus, p. 16 n.; Faguet, p. 17). Late in life he received some deep religious impression, in consequence of which he gave up public life. Some expressions of his seem to imply that he joined a religious society (Cath. ii. 45; iii. 56; cf. Psych. 551–573). He has no longer any money to relieve the poor; the only offering he can make to God is his poetry (Epil. 10). To this and to prayer he devoted his life, seeking to spread among the educated classes a correct knowledge of Christianity, or, like a "Christian Pindar," to sing the triumphs of the martyrs on their festal days and so win them greater honour. At some period of great anxiety to himself he visited Rome; as he passed Imola he poured out his soul in prayer before the picture of St. Cassian in the church (Perist. x. 103, 104). At Rome his anxiety was increased by illness; and he implored the intercession of St. Hippolytus (xi. 127). His prayer was answered. At Rome he was deeply impressed with the memorials of the martyrs in the catacombs and churches (xi.) and composed his poem on the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul (xii.). There he probably became acquainted with the poems of pope Damasus, which influenced some of his own. Returning to Spain, he wrote his poems on St. Cassian (ix.) and St. Hippolytus, requesting his bishop to introduce the observance of the latter saint's festival into Spain (xi.) In 403 or 404 he wrote the second book contra Symmachum; and in 405 published an edition of his poems, with a preface shewing that all his extant works, except the Dittochaeon and perhaps the Psychomachia, were then written. Of his later life and death nothing is known.
His character, judging from his writings, was very lovable. He was a loyal Roman, proud of the empire, seeing in its past conquests and capacity for government a preparation for the kingdom of Christ, and looking for greater conquests under the banner of the cross (Perist. ii. 1–35, 413–484, x. passim; c. Symm. i. 415–505, ii. 577–771). He has a great fondness for art, wishing to keep even pagan statues if regarded only as ornaments (c. Symm. i. 505). He had an intellectual horror of heresy, though with a personal tenderness for heretics (ib. ii. Prel.). He was loyal to all church customs and ordinances, and had a strong appreciation of spiritual truth; see his lofty conception of the Nature of God (Cath. iv. 7–15; Apoth. 84–90; Ham. 27 seq.; c. Symm. i. 325; Perist. x. 310), of the True Temple (Cath. iv. 16–21; c. Symm. ii. 249; Apoth. 516), the True Worship (Perist. x. 341), the True Nobility of Birth (ib. 123), the True Riches (ib. ii. 203), the True Fast (Cath. vi. 201–220), the True Reward (c. Symm. ii. 750). He shews a pious tenderness of spirit (cf. Apoth. 393), kissing the sacred books (ib. 598) and the altar (Perist. ix. 100), and a deep personal humility which does not venture to contend with Symmachus (i. 609); which offers his verses to Christ, though they are but the "earthen vessel" (Epil. 29) of a "rustic poet" (Perist. ii. 574, x. 1); which has no merit in itself, but pleads for the intercession of the saints that he may be transferred from Christ's left hand to His right on the judgment day (ib. ii. 574, vi. 162, x. 1136), content if he be saved from the fires of hell and gently purified for the lowest place among the saved (Ham. 931). (Authorities—his own works, especially the Preface, and Gennadius, de Vir. Ill. c. 13).
Works.—His extant works are (a) lyrical, (b) apologetic or didactic, (c) allegorical; their most remarkable characteristic being their variety. All the poems have a considerable literary value; they are written on the whole in good classical Latin, with many new words needed for church purposes and with a touch of archaic forms and words characteristic of this period. The prosody is fairly correct. The lyrical poems spew great originality in the metres used, and are influenced both in form and phrase by Horace, Ambrose, and Dam-
