medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Quodvultdeus (d. ca. 450?). A disciple of St. Augustine of Hippo, Quodvultdeus became bishop of Carthage at some point in the 430s. When, after the Vandal seizure of that city in 439, he had declined to renounce the Catholic faith in favor of Arian Christianity, he and many of his clergy were ejected and were sent abroad in what Victor of Vita says were unseaworthy vessels. Having arrived safely at Naples, Quodvultdeus settled in as an exile in Campania, writing sermons and other works and warning all of the barbarian peril. If he is the author, as people now tend to think, of the _Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei_, he was living in Naples during the papacy of St. Leo I (440-461) and assisted its bishop St. Nostrianus in countering activity in the vicinity by the Pelagian theologian Florus.
The year of Quodvulteus' of death is unknown. Since the discovery in 1971 in Naples' Catacombe di San Gennaro of a set of arcosolia of some of that city's late antique bishops, one of which contains a seemingly fifth-century mosaic portrait of a dark-skinned bishop now widely identified as Quodvultdeus (inscriptional evidence for the name of the arcosolium's occupant is lacking), it has been thought that he was laid to rest there among fellow clergy of episcopal dignity. His feast on 19. February is first attested by the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples.
Some views of the portrait in Naples' Catacombe di San Gennaro thought to be that of St. Quodvultdeus:
http://www.blunapoli.it/citta/catacombe/mosa02.html
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7231/7382973098_f8f5de3779_b.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/lntqndf
Until relatively recently most of Quodvultdeus' surviving writings were ascribed either to St. Augustine or to St. Prosper of Aquitaine. Here, ascribed to Prosper, is the beginning of his _Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei_ in an eighth-century manuscript in the Stiftsbibliothek in Sankt Gallen (Cod. Sang. 185):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/doubleview/csg/0185/4
and here, ascribed to Augustine, is the beginning of his _De quattuor virtutibus caritatis_ in an eleventh-century manuscript in the collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia (ms. Lewis E 20):
http://tinyurl.com/33ap99
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from older posts revised)
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