Avitus, Sextus Alcimus Ecditius

, son to the senator Isychius, and brother to Apollinaris, bishop of Valentia, was promoted in the beginning of the sixth century to the archbishopric of Vienna, which his father had also held for some years. His principal object was the refutation and conversion of the Arians, and during his conferences, for this purpose with the Arian bishops before Goudeband king of Burgundy, who was an Arian, he converted his son Sigismorid. Cave thinks he converted the king himself, and when he found him concealing his principles, urged him to a public profession of them. He wrote also in defence of pope Symmachus, and died in the year 523. His principal works were Letters, Sermons, and Poems his Letters, 87 in number, contain many curious particulars of the civil and ecclesiastical history of the times. Of his Homilies, one only is extant on Rogation day, in | which he gives the origin of the days so called. In all his works, his style is harsh, obscure, and intricate. His poems were printed at Francfort in 1507, and at Paris and Lyons in 1508, 1509, and 1536 but his whole works were published at Paris by father Sirmond, in 1643, fol. and since that Luc d'Achery published in his Spicilegium, the conference with the Arian bishops. ¹