Life and Ministry
Felix was born early in the third century at Nola, in the Campania region of Italy. His father, Hermias, was a Syrian centurion who had settled in Nola upon retiring from military service. After Hermias's death, Felix disposed of most of his property, distributed the proceeds among the poor, and entered the service of the Church.
He was ordained by and worked alongside Saint Maximus of Nola, the city's bishop. When the emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) began his persecution of Christians, Maximus withdrew to the mountains, leaving Felix to face arrest in the bishop's stead. Felix was seized and beaten for confessing the Christian faith.
Confession and Escape
According to tradition, an angel freed Felix from prison so that he might come to the aid of the ailing Bishop Maximus. Felix found Maximus alone, ill, and helpless, and concealed him in a vacant building. By one account a spider spun a web across the entrance, leading the pursuing soldiers to judge the building abandoned and pass by without searching it.
Tradition relates a second such deliverance, in which a spider quickly wove a web over a hiding place where Felix himself had taken shelter, enabling another escape. The two men remained hidden until the death of Decius in 251.
After the death of Maximus, the Christian community wished to make Felix their bishop, but he declined in favor of Quintus, a priest of slightly greater seniority. Felix remained a priest, farmed the land that remained to him, and gave most of its yield to those poorer than himself. He died around the year 260, though some accounts place his repose during the reign of the emperor Valerian (253–260).
Veneration and Legacy
Because Felix survived his sufferings rather than dying under torture, he is listed in the General Roman Calendar as a Confessor of the Faith. His feast is kept on January 14, and much of what is known of his life derives from the letters and poems of Saint Paulinus of Nola.
Felix is regarded as a patron of lost animals and of spiders, an association drawn from the traditional accounts of his escapes. He is venerated in both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
Relics & Shrines
Felix was buried at Cimitile, in the necropolis just outside Nola. Five churches were eventually raised at his original burial site. His relics are kept in Nola Cathedral, with portions distributed to Rome, Benevento, and other places.
Saint Paulinus of Nola, who credited his conversion to Felix, built a road for pilgrims and a hospice for the poor near the shrine while serving as governor of Campania, and later rebuilt the complex at Cimitile, restoring the ancient basilica erected in his honor and constructing a new basilica dedicated to Felix around 402–403. In 398 Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana, made a pilgrimage to Nola to visit the grave of Felix and there gained the friendship of Paulinus.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: Felix's imprisonment and beating during the Decian persecution, his refusal of the episcopate in favor of the priest Quintus, and his life of voluntary poverty are the biographical elements transmitted through the writings of Paulinus of Nola.
Traditional Accounts: Tradition holds that an angel released Felix from prison, and that on two occasions a spider's web spun across a doorway or hiding place caused pursuers to overlook him, delivering him from capture. These accounts underlie his later patronage of spiders and lost animals.
