ENNOIDIUS, MAGNUS FELIX (e.473-521). A Bishop of Tieinum (Pavia). His writings sug gest that he may have been trained for the pro fession of rhetoric. He took deacon's orders at about the age of twenty. In 514 Pope Hormis das appointed him Bishop of Ticinum. He was twice sent as Ambassador to Constantinople (515 and 517), but his efforts to heal the schism then existing between the Eastern and the Western Church were fruitless. In his doctrinal views, Ennodius inclined toward semi-Pelagianism. Be is best known as a champion of the papacy, especially in its claim to exemption from all human jurisdiction. This claim he was the first to advance, in his apology for the Synodus Palmaris (A.n. 50] ), held for the purpose of deciding between two rivals for the office of Roman bishop. The synod refused to pronounce a decision on the question, and Ennodius defended its action on the ground that the Pope was not answerable to a council, or in fact to any earthly tribunal, for God had reserved the popes for judgment by Himself alone.
Among Ennodius's writings are a life of Epi• phanins, his predecessor at Ticinum; an auto biography of his early life, entitled Eueharisti cum ninny letters; a few hymns, which were never widely used; and sonic secular poems, which are in part thoroughly pagan. The old editions of his works (1589 and 1611. the latter reprinted by Migne. in Patrol. Let., vol. lxiii.) have been superseded by those of Hartel, in Corpus Beriptoruin Eccles. Lat., vi. ( Vienna, 1882), and Vogel, in Nonam. Germ. A aclorum. Antiquiss., vii. (Berlin, 1885). Consult Ebert, Geschiclite tire Liticratur des if ittelalters, i. (Leipzig, 1889).