ON SAINT URBICUS, BISHOP OF CLERMONT IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR 312.
CommentaryUrbicus, Bishop of Clermont, in Gaul (Saint)
BY G. H.
Of the various Apostolic men who brought the faith of Christ to the different territories of Gaul in the third century of Christ, we treated on March 22 at the Life of Saint Paul, Bishop of Narbonne: among whose fellow-workers is reckoned Saint Austremonius, By Saint Austremonius, who went to Auvergne in the third century, or Stremonius, Bishop of the Arverni; mentioned by Saint Gregory, Bishop of Tours, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 28, where, after relating the martyrdom of Saints Dionysius, Bishop of Paris, and Saturninus of Toulouse, he adds: "But Gatianus, Trophimus, Stremonius, Paul, and Martial, living in the highest sanctity, after acquiring peoples for the Church and spreading the faith of Christ through all things, passed away with a happy confession." To Stremonius or Austremonius is assigned his birthday on the very Kalends of November, on which day his Acts are to be given, found in various MS codices, and recently published in volume 2 of the New Library of Manuscript Books by Philippe Labbe, where, on page 487, concerning Saint Urbicus his successor (whose Acts are to be referred to this day), these words are found: "For thirty-six years the man of the Lord Austremonius governed the Pontificate of the same city with great contest; Saint Urbicus instructed with others in the faith, and so he provided from among his disciples the most skilled and industrious men, who should both surpass the rest in the administration of affairs, and by wonderful talent were skilled in the shrewdness of prudence; who also, filled with the zeal of divine love, loved equity, and had no guile in their tongue, nor worked evil against their neighbors. These men therefore, as bases of pillars, he set over the rest, admonishing them to teach the unlearned and rude, and to call all to better things, and not to deviate at all from the faith which they had learned from him. For calling one of them, he wished to commit to him Ecclesiastical Orders, and said to him: 'Receive, dearest brother, the care of the pastoral office; and so handle and act in it, as one who shall render account to God himself, the immortal King, and before all the Saints in the dreadful examination'… he is appointed Bishop, Now for the Church of the Arverni, over which he himself presided, he appointed Blessed Urbicus, although unwilling, himself however compelling him, the Clergy also electing him, and the people consenting, as strenuous Bishop. And this ordination the Clergy and people thought should be borne with the less annoyance, because they knew, by his own declaration, that he would remain within his native land. This Pontiff, skilled with a marvelous and God-praising genius, with orderly vow and prudent counsel governed the Church committed to him. He indeed sought help, that he might be able to bear unanimously the burden imposed upon him; not that he might withdraw the consolation of sacred assistance from him who bore it with him, but that both, bearing it together, might negotiate a greater reward."
[2] Thus far those Acts, in which it is handed down that Saint Austremonius was killed by the faithless Jews. Meanwhile his disciples hasten to inform Bishop Urbicus as quickly as possible, how the matter had been done. He, when he had learned that his Master had been killed by the impious Jews, moved by indescribable sorrow, at once gathering a multitude of Clergy and people, with him, having undertaken a swift journey, came to the monastery of Issoire. The disciples, for their part, had brought the body of the most holy Martyr into the church he celebrates the funeral rites of Saint Austremonius. which had been dedicated by him in honor of Saint Peter, with due services… Meanwhile the Bishop with the Clergy performs the triumphant funeral rites of the blessed Martyr with solemn office… Finally, when the functions of the funeral rites were ended, Bishop Urbicus, calling to himself the Senators of the city and the Leading men of the region, commanded them that the detestable Synagogue of the Jews with its Prince should be arrested without delay, and whoever of them preferred to observe the faith of the Christian religion, should be catechized by diligent examination, washed in the saving flood of baptism, and for the love of Christ be permitted to live. But those who should refuse with obstinate unbelief, should be punished with the penalty of death. These things are then explained in the same Acts, brought down to the times of King Pepin, when some translation of the body of Saint Austremonius was made. But those Acts will be more accurately examined in their own time.
[3] Concerning Saint Urbicus these words are found in Gregory of Tours, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 39. "Among the Arverni, after Stremonius the Bishop and preacher, the first Bishop was Urbicus, a convert from among the Senators, having a wife; continence preserved for a time. who, according to ecclesiastical custom, removed from the companionship of the Priest, lived religiously. For both were free for prayer, alms, and good works. And while they were doing these things, the envy of the enemy, who is always the rival of sanctity, was stirred up against the woman, whom, inflaming to lust for her husband, he makes a new Eve. For the woman, inflamed with lust, covered with the shadows of sin, went to the house of the church through the darkness of night. And when she had found everything barred, she began to beat upon the doors of the church-house, and to utter voices of this sort: 'How long, Priest, do you sleep? How long do you not unbar the closed doors? Why do you spurn your wife? provoked by his wife, he falls: Why with hardened ears do you not hear the precepts of Paul? For he wrote: "Return one to another, lest Satan tempt you." Behold, I return to you, not to a stranger, but run back to my own vessel.' To her declaiming these and like things for a long time, at last the Priest's religion grew lukewarm: he orders her to be admitted into the chamber, and having used her embrace, commands her to depart. Thereafter, more slowly coming to himself, and grieving over the crime committed, to do penance, he seeks out a monastery of his diocese; he does penance. and there, with groaning and tears, washing away what he had committed, he returned to his own city: who, having completed the course of his life, departed from the world. From this conception also was born a daughter, who remained in religion. The Priest himself also, with his wife and daughter, was buried in the Cantobennian crypt near the Publian causeway." Thus there: which, because they are missing in some ancient codices, some think were later inserted into the history of Gregory.
[4] John Savaron of Clermont, Governor of Auvergne, in his Origins of the City of Clermont, asserts that Saint Urbicus, under the consulship of M. Aurelius Maximus and Pomponius Januarius, in the year of Christ 288, was ordained Bishop by Saint Austremonius, he ruled from the year 288 to 312. and, having put off this mortal life about the year 312, was buried in the underground cemetery of the Christians at Chantoin, near the great road; where a church was afterwards erected, which was then called the basilica of Saint Gall, because he was buried in it. The same Savaron subjoined two books, on the holy churches and monasteries of Clermont, composed about the year of Christ 850, buried in the church of Saint Gall, in whose book 1, chapter 8, these words are read: "In the church of Saint Gall, the altar of Saint Mary, where rest Saint Gall, and Saint Urbicus, and Saint Antolianus, and Saint Gerivaldus." To which place Savaron notes that from this church of Saint Gall, either threatening to fall or overthrown, translated to that of Saint Illidius. Saint Urbicus was transferred to that of Saint Illidius: so the Illidian tablet has it. Of Saint Antolianus the Martyr here indicated, we treated on February 6.
[5] These things concerning Saint Urbicus existed hitherto without any notice of his natal day: which Andreas Saussay supplies in the Gallican Martyrology, who begins this day with his elogium thus: "On the third day before the Nones of April. At Clermont in Auvergne, of Saint Urbicus, Bishop of that municipality and Confessor, who, a man of great virtue and glory, inscribed in the Gallican Martyrology. after a long interval, succeeded Saint Austremonius, hearer of the Apostles and first Bishop of the Arverni."
And then he narrates his fall and penitence from Gregory of Tours: "And thus," he says, "purged from the stain, having fulfilled his Bishopric piously, he passed pure to the Lord. Buried with his wife and daughter in the Cantobennian crypt near the public causeway, from there he was translated to the Illidian basilica." John Chenu, the Sainte-Marthe brothers, and Claude Robert call the same man a Saint in their Catalogues of the Bishops of Clermont; but the last adds the interpontificate after the death of Saint Austremonius, as if he had been a disciple of the Apostles, whom others better judge to have flourished in the third century of Christ, long after the times of the first disciples of the Lord.