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Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

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Proculus (7), bp. of Marseilles, at the council of Aquileia, a.d. 381, where he joined in condemning the errors of Palladius and Secundinianus (Ambros. Ep. viii. pp. 916 (786), 935 (802), 939 (805), ed. Migne). At the council of Turin, a.d. 399, or more probably 401, though Fleury places it as late as 404, Proculus claimed the primacy as metropolitan over the churches not only of his own province, but also of Nabonensis Secunda. The council, while ruling that the bishop of the civil metropolis of a province should be regarded as the metropolitan, sanctioned the claim of Proculus for his own life, in consideration of his age and high reputation (Bruns, Conc. ii. 114; Baron. vol. v. 397, 43; Fleury, H. E. xxi. 52). His high character is acknowledged by St. Jerome in his letter to Rusticus, a.d. 411 ( Ep. 125, 20); but pope Zosimus seems to have had a strong feeling against him, and in 417 decreed that Patroclus, bp. of Arles from 412, was entitled to rank as metropolitan. Whether our Proculus was the Gallic bp. of that name to whom St. Augustine wrote in 427 is not quite clear. Tillem. vol. x. pp. 698, 699; Ceillier, vii. pp. 528–537.

[H.W.P.]