FAUSTINO. - A Roman priest, follower of the schism of Ursino against Damaso, on account of which he had to leave Rome, and of the sect of the Luciferians.
There are extant by him: a Libellus precum a De confessione verae fidei et ostentatione sacrae Communionis et persecutione adversantium veritati (PL 13, 83-107), addressed, together with his friend the priest Marcellino, from Eleuteropoli in Palestine to the emperors Valentiniano II, Teodosio, and Arcadio (c. 380 or 383), in which he earnestly implores imperial favour for the Luciferians, who were undeservedly persecuted; violently accuses Pope Damaso and the Catholic bishops as transgressors, sacrilegious persons, and hypocrites; and instead praises the Luciferian bishops. By this means he must indeed have won over the court, since Teodosio, in his rescript to the praetorian prefect Cinego (384), granted those “holy and praiseworthy bishops” full liberty (PL 13, 107 ff.). At the request of the empress Flacilla he had already written (c. 380) the De Trinitate, sive de fide adversus arianos deducta, in which he refutes the arguments of the Arians and defends the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Spirit (PL 13, 37-79); this is followed by a profession of faith: Fides Theodosio oblata: both of these latter writings are orthodox in doctrine.