Phoebadius of Agen

Saint Phoebadius of Agen (Phaebadius, Foegadius, in French Phébade) was bishop of Agen in Gaul (Aquitania) in the fourth century and died around 392. He was a defender of Nicene orthodoxy at the council of Ariminum (Rimini, 359) and other councils, and wrote several works, among them a treatise against the Arians, which survives.

He was a Gaul by birth, probably from Aquitania, perhaps even from Agen. It is not known when he became bishop; he was certainly a bishop by 357, the year in which he and other bishops rejected the second Sirmian formula, a pro-⁠Arian creed endorsed by Constantius II. In 357 he published the treatise Against the Arians. At Rimini he stood for the Nicene teaching, with Servatius of Tongeren; when he later discovered an ambiguity in the creed, he disavowed the council. He was a friend of Saint Hilary of Poitiers, with whom he worked against Arianism in Gaul, and attended the councils of Paris (360), Valence (374) and Saragossa (380). In 392 Saint Jerome mentioned him in On Illustrious Men as still living, in advanced old age. He is a saint of the undivided Church, commemorated on 25 April (new style; 8 May in the old style).