Felix IV

Pope Felix IV, numbered Felix III in some older lists that omit the third-century antipope Felix II, was Bishop of Rome from 526 to 530. He was a native of Samnium in southern Italy and the son of a man named Castorius; neither the year nor a precise town of birth is recorded in surviving sources. Almost nothing is known of his earlier clerical career. His predecessor, Pope John I, had been sent by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great on an embassy to Constantinople and, after returning, was imprisoned by Theodoric and died in captivity in 526. Theodoric then designated Felix as the next bishop of Rome. The Roman clergy and people accepted the nomination, and Felix was consecrated in July 526. Theodoric died later that same year, and the Gothic kingdom passed to the child-king Athalaric under the regency of Amalasuntha, whose policy toward the Catholic Church was more conciliatory than her father's had been.

Felix's brief pontificate is remembered especially for a major act of architectural patronage in the Roman Forum. He obtained from the Gothic court a hall of the ancient Templum Pacis, commonly identified with the so-called Temple of Romulus on the Via Sacra, and converted it into the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, dedicated to the twin physician-martyrs Cosmas and Damian. He adorned the apse with a large mosaic of Christ with the two saints and other figures, a work that survives as one of the principal monuments of early sixth-century Roman mosaic art. He also issued a constitution intended to prevent the alienation of ecclesiastical property and to regulate the use of church revenues, reflecting the growing administrative concerns of the Roman see.

In doctrine Felix intervened in the Semi-Pelagian controversies still dividing parts of Gaul. At the request of Caesarius of Arles he sent a set of capitula, or brief propositions, on original sin, grace, and predestination. These were laid before the Second Council of Orange in 529, which adopted them and thereby rejected Semi-Pelagian teaching while also avoiding the more extreme readings of Augustine. The decisions of Orange, later confirmed by Pope Boniface II, became a landmark in the Western Church's teaching on grace.

Toward the end of his life Felix tried to control the succession. Fearing a contested election, he issued a praeceptum naming his archdeacon Boniface as the next pope and had the document deposited at the tomb of Saint Peter. A large part of the Roman clergy regarded this designation as an infringement of their traditional electoral rights. When Felix died on 22 September 530, a majority elected the deacon Dioscorus while a minority supported Boniface. Dioscorus died on 14 October, only twenty-two days after his election, and Boniface II was then generally recognized. Felix was buried in the atrium of Old St. Peter's Basilica, where an epitaph commemorated him. He has been venerated as a saint from an early date; the Roman Martyrology keeps his feast on 30 January.