A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

a Christian poet, who is termed a presbyter by Isidorus of Seville (de Script. Eccles. 100.7), and by Honorius of Autun (de S.E. 3.7). By the writer known as Anonymus Mellicensis (100.35, in the Bibl. Eccles. of Fabricius) he is called an Antistes, a title confirmed by two acrostic panegyrics to be found in the edition of Cellarius, while by Sigebertus of Gembloux (de S.E. 6), and by Trithemius (de S. E. 142) he is designated as a bishop--to which antistes is frequently equivalent--but no one has pretended to discover the see over which he presided. We cannot determine with absolute precision the date either of his birth or of his death, but the period when he flourished may be defined within narrow limits. He refers (Epist. ad Maced.) to the commentaries of Jerome, who died A. D. 420, and is himself praised by Cassiodorus (de Instit. div. let. 27 ; comp. Venant. Fortunat. Carm. 8.1; Vit. S. Martin. 1.15), who was born A. D. 468, and by Pope Gelasius, who presided over the Roman Church from A.D. 492 to A. D. 496. Moreover, his works were collected after his death and published by Asterius, as we learn front a short introductory epigram, to which is added, in some MSS., the note " Hoc opus Sedulius inter chartulas dispersum reliquit : quod recollectum adornatumque ad omnem elegantiam divulgatum est a Turcio Ruiio Asterio V. C. consule ordinario atque patricio." Upon turning to the Fasti we discover that an Asterius was consul along with Protogenes in A. D. 449, and that Turcius Rufus Apronianus Asterius was consul along with Praesidius in A. D. 496. Combining these facts little doubt can be entertained that the latter is the person indicated above, and that we may fix the epoch of Sedulius about A. D. 450. Of his personal history we know nothing whatsoever. By Trithemius (l.c.) indeed he is said to have been a Scot, the disciple of archbishop Hildebert; but this and similar statements arose. it would appear, from confounding three different persons, all ecclesiastics, who bore the same name :--1. Sedulius, the poet, who belongs, as we have proved, to the fifth century.

2. Sedulius, who, in attaching his signature to the Acts of the Council of Rome, held in A. D. 721, describes himself as " Episcopus Britanniae de genere Scotorum."3. Sedulius, an Irish Scot, who lived some hundred years later, and compiled from the works of Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and other celebrated fathers, a commentary upon St. Paul still extant under the title " Sedulii Scoti Iliberniensis in ones epistolas Pauli Collectaneum."

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