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The names of Chromatius and Jovinus are mentioned twice by Augustine in the list of the fourteen bishops who acquitted Pelagius at the synod of Diospolis in 415 C.E. At the end of an in-depth prosopographical investigation, the hypothesis is proposed that Jovinus was the bishop of Ascalon, who had previously been bishop of Padua, and that Chromatius was the famous bishop of Aquileia. Consequently, if this is true, contrary to the current opinion, Chromatius did not die in 407 C.E., but was still alive in 415 C.E., and his credibility as a Catholic bishop might have been seriously compromised in the eyes of both Augustine and Jerome precisely because of his participation in the synod of Diospolis in defence of Pelagius. This might also explain the ship-wreck of his works. Many things are still wrapped in darkness, but, with all due caution, this essay will hopefully shed fresh light and foster new research on this intricate matter.
In memory of Robert Markus
THE MEANING OF THE SYNOD OF DIOSPOLIS FOR THE HISTORY OF THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY
At the end of July 415 c.e., Pelagius, who had arrived in Palestine from Carthage four years earlier, was summoned before a local synod held in Jerusalem under the local bishop John. On that occasion Pelagius brilliantly succeeded in shaking offthe accusations made against him by the Spanish priest Orosius who, expressing the unease of the African bishops about the preaching of Pelagius, had tried in vain to have the same sentence applied to Pelagius as had been inflicted on his disciple Caelestius at the council of Carthage in 411.1 However, the attacks were resumed some months later by two exiled Gallic bishops, Heros of Arles and Lazarus of Aix. They presented to Bishop Eulogius of Caesarea a pamphlet with a series of charges against the teachings of Pelagius; these charges often strikingly agree with the dialogue against the Pelagians that Jerome had just composed in Bethlehem in the summer-fall of that same year.2 At that point, to settle the question once and for all, or at least so it was hoped, a regional synod was held at Diospolis on 20 December of the same year, with fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine as judges, led...