ON ST. VERUS,
bishop of Vienne in Gaul.
2nd century.
CommentaryVerus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Aptly here would be described that whole historical collection which about St. Martin, likewise bishop of Vienne and the predecessor of this St. Verus, we gave on the 1st day of July, volume 1, from page 14, where not drowsily we weighed how little founded is the series of the first bishops of Vienne, The way by which the Saint is placed among the bishops of Vienne. and accordingly how ambiguous the whole history of that time, no ancient monument surviving on which one may safely rely; the more recent writers being so entangled that what can be dug out of them you do not easily understand. Whoever shall have had the leisure to weigh attentively the said collection, will find a way somehow paved, by which a place can be assigned to this holy Verus, and his times not so incongruously defined. Let it be allowed to draw hither a few things from number 11 there, where we supposed that St. Martin sat some years while Hadrian reigned, and reached to the times of St. Alexander Pope I, and yielded his place to this our holy Verus, who, flourishing in the times of Hadrian, not of Trajan, much less of Nerva, in doctrine and confession of faith, as is in Ado in the Chronicle, can most rightly be said to have survived to the pontificate of St. Pius Pope I, etc.
[2] These things being premised in passing for the explanation of the matter, a place be given, that which is ours must be chiefly cared for, namely that we show the Verus of today is to be ascribed to the Saints, although—which in these is plainly singular—St. Ado, who in his Chronicle expressly mentions him, yet in his whole Martyrology, in which he so carefully inscribed the holy Bishops his predecessors, yet makes not a word about Verus, not even under the name of Severus, under which he is marked in the supplements of Usuard; so that if the matter were decided from the opinion of Ado himself or of the other classic Martyrologists, this Verus would be wholly excluded from the number of the Saints: which perhaps was the reason why Ferrari in his universal Catalogue of the Saints confounded him (but not rightly) with the synonymous Verus, or that Verus who ruled the Vienne see 27th in order, and who alone, on that day on which the praised Ferrari relates him, namely the 13th of January, is known in Ado in these words: At Vienne, of St. Verus the bishop who presided over the church after St. Euantius.
[3] Nor indeed did Baronius find any Martyrologist whom he might cite in the annotations to the Roman, who in the codices of Usuard is called Severus. except the single supposititious or Plantinian Bede—let us say the interpolated Ado—that one alone namely which I have seen edited, and which speaks about him under the name of Verus. Galesinius cites I know not what Vienne tables (at least not
Breviary) cited, and Demochares. Otherwise therefore those few supplements which we referred to Usuard announce, yet so that under the name of Severus they mark this Saint undoubtedly. Thus the Brussels codex: In Aquitaine, in the city of Vienne, of St. Severus the bishop, who was one of the disciples of the Apostles. To the same sense the Lübeck-Cologne edition: At Vienne, of St. Severus bishop and confessor, who was one of the disciples of the Apostles. A little more contracted, Greven: At Vienne, of St. Severus bishop and confessor, disciple of the Apostles. I know not whether the manuscript Florarium of the Saints went before these, in which thus is read: At Vienne, of St. Severus, bishop and confessor. Let Galesinius also be heard: At Vienne, of St. Verus the bishop. He, a disciple and hearer of the Apostles, succeeding blessed Marinus in the episcopate, by the great brightness of his virtues excited ardent loves of piety. Most briefly the Roman: At Vienne, of St. Verus the bishop.
[4] In the defect of Acts, of which none survive, the elogia of the Saint would here have to be added, The Vienne announcement. if any survived worthy of reading: for it is not pleasing to adduce hither the history of Livraeus, elsewhere depicted by us in its native colors, since the author seems to have studied rather to involve than to illustrate the matters. A few things will suffice which exist in the Vienne Martyrology, cited not once, on the 13th of January, deduced plainly in this manner from the same Livraeus: At Vienne in Gaul, of St. Verus the bishop, disciple of the Apostles, who, fifth to govern the Vienne church, sent and consecrated by B. Alexander the Pope, heaped up the glory of the office undertaken even to the see of blessed Xystus the First. But when the emperor Trajan raged against the Christians, terrified he fled away to Rome, where, having tarried a little and been strengthened, he is dismissed to execute his office. Again confirmed by the epistle of B. Pius Pope I, at Vienne, in the persecution of the faithful, in the sixth year of B. Telesphorus the Pope, he is crowned with martyrdom, having sat at Vienne 22 years, in the year of Christ 136.
[5] The series of the bishops: Here again all things are disturbed, just as also in the list of Bosca, restored by us, as indeed was allowed, long ago, in nearly that reckoning which before us also the French history of the holy city of Vienne, edited in the year 1708, had entered upon, but which it was not allowed us to see except two years since; to which the prefixed chronological table of the bishops defines the times of St. Verus not improbably from the year 122 to 142, the doubts of Tillemont being spurned or wholly neglected, and that Verus being excluded whom it pleased them to insert at the year 314, so that it admits not three synonymous ones, but two only, namely this third in order after Zacharias and Martin, and another who, as Ado testifies, succeeded Euantius, as we have already said, and that about the year 586. What besides the critics object are not of such moment that they here deserve to be more laboriously refuted anew. But what has long ago been disputed against the epistles of St. Pius I directed to St. Verus or St. Justus, and edited by Baronius at the year 166, see in Coustant volume 1 of the new edition of the Pontifical Epistles, in the appendix, column 20. Let the oration of Saussay, such as it is, conclude the whole matter:
[6] The elogium of Saussay. On the same day, at Vienne of the Allobroges, the burial of St. Verus bishop and martyr, who, by the disposition of the holy Pontiff Pius, and a distinguished witness of Christ, sent into Gaul, ruled this church fifth in the series: by whom also, on account of his immense merits, honored with apostolic rescripts, and admonished of the state of the Roman Church (then agitated by the harshest storms, but nonetheless most flourishing in its pressures), and of bravely undertaking the patronage of his own Vienne; when, by strenuously executing the apostolic office, he cared for the flock entrusted to him, and daily increased it by the force of heavenly doctrine and the splendor of a most holy life; on this account assailed by the impious, because he overturned the impious rites, and amplified the cult, hateful to them, of Christ, having bravely uttered the last proclamation of the salvific faith, adorned with the purple of blood, he passed over to the triumphs of eternal glory; and buried by the pious with that cult which the condition of the times bore, he gave a great sign of the immortality received in the heavens.