1389 In a letter of Jerome (the eighth) to Demetrias, we have a very graphic narrative of the manner in which Demetrias formed and carried into effect the vow for which she is here commended.
1394 In the end of this letter, Augustine distinctly ascribes to Pelagius the authorship of the letter to Demetrias, as also in his work on The Grace of Christ, ch. xxii.
1395 Epistle to Demetrias, ch. xi.
1422 Count Boniface, to whom St. Augustine also addressed Letters CLXXXV. and CCXX., was governor of the province of Africa under Placidia, who for twenty-five years ruled the empire in the name of her son Valentinian. By his perfidious rival Aetius, Boniface was persuaded to disobey the order of Placidia, when, under the instigation of Aetius himself, she recalled him from the government of Africa. The necessity of powerful allies in order to maintain his position led him to invite the Vandals to pass from Spain into Africa. They came, under Genseric, and the fertile provinces of Northern Africa fell an easy prey to their invading armies. When the treachery of Aetius was discovered, Placidia received Boniface again into favour, and he devoted all his military talents to the task of expelling the barbarians whom his own invitation had made masters of North Africa. But it was now too late to wrest this Roman province from the Vandals; defeated in a great battle, Boniface was compelled in 430 to retire into Hippo Regius, where he succeeded in resisting the besieging army for fourteen months. It was during this siege, and after it had continued three months, that Augustine died. Reinforced by troops from Constantinople, Boniface fought one more desperate but unsuccessful battle, after which he left Hippo in the hands of Genseric, and returned by order of Placidia to Italy. For fuller particulars of his history, see Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxxiii.
1436 The allusion is evidently to the ancient formulary in public worship, first mentioned by Cyprian in his treatise on the Lord's Prayer. To the presbyter's exhortation, "Sursum corda!" the people responded "Habemus ad Dominum." For an account of this formulary and a most beautiful exposition of it, quoted from Cyril of Jerusalem, see Riddle's Christian Antiquities, book IV. ch. i. sec. 2.
1440 Sixtus, afterwards Sixtus III., Bishop of Rome, the immediate successor of Caelestine, to whom the next letter is addressed. His name is the forty-third in the list of Popes, and he was in office from 432 to 440 A.D. The 194th letter of Augustine was addressed to the same Sixtus, and is a very elaborate dissertation on Pelagianism. It is omitted from this selection as being rather a theological treatise than a letter.
1441 Sixtus had been not without reason reckoned as a sympathiser with Pelagius, until their views were finally condemned in this year 418 by Zosimus.
1443 Caelestine, who was at the date of this letter a deacon in Rome, was raised in 423 to succeed Boniface as Bishop of Rome: he stands forty-second in the list of Popes. Letter CCIX. is addressed to him.