Euphronius

ON ST. EUPHRONIUS,

BISHOP OF AUTUN,

In Gaul.

About the YEAR 476.

Euphronius, Bishop, at Autun (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

The birthday of this Prelate the Church celebrates in the Roman Martyrology on the third of the Nones of August in these words: At Autun, the deposition of St. Euphronius, bishop and confessor: on which same day he is found assigned in almost as many words in Notker; [The Saint's deposition today; the translation of the Office among the people of Autun:] likewise in the ancient supplements of the Hieronymian Martyrology in Florentinius, in Holstenius in the Animadversions on the Roman Martyrology, in Martène, and in ours published: with which agree also the Usuardine supplements everywhere, and that which we published under the name of Bede and Florus; also the Hagiology of Labbe; and, that I may not mention more, the Gallican Martyrology of Saussay; so that there seems to be no reason for doubting that this day, on which the Fasti of so many churches agree, was in truth his birthday; however much his Office among the people of Autun, on account of other things of a more solemn rite then occurring, was accustomed to be deferred to a day, not the fourth, as Baillet thought, nor the eighth, as Saussay; but the seventh of August, as the Lives of the holy Patrons, Martyrs, and bishops of Autun have it, which, composed in the Gallic idiom, Forester published at Dijon in the year 1713; and the Breviary of Autun, which we have, printed in the year 1534; where at the VII of the Ides of August it has an Office of nine lessons, but all from the common of a confessor pontiff. And there is another feast there too, and not a little more solemn, prescribed in the month of October, on the Sunday after the feast of St. Denis, on which the venerable memory of this prelate too recurs, with the common celebration of the other holy Prelates of the same church.

[2] But he is worshipped with singular devotion in the duchy of Burgundy, chiefly in two places; one near Semur; where, his sepulchre at St. Symphorian: by the testimony of Forester, a church is seen dedicated in his honor: the other within the very city of Autun, where he lies in the shrine of St. Symphorian, which he had built; as the Gallia Christiana of the most recent edition, volume 4, column 340, asserts. And indeed of no other can those things be understood which St. Gregory of Tours hands down, History of the Franks, book 2, chapter 15: At that time also the basilica of blessed Symphorian, martyr of Autun, was built by Euphronius the presbyter. And Euphronius himself afterward obtained the episcopate of this city; and indeed under that name alone. Mention of this basilica will be made on the XXII of this month, when St. Symphorian must be treated: with great praises Forester follows it up in the cited little work from page 172; and its prelates from St. Germanus the Gallia Christiana enumerates, volume 4, from column 437.

[3] his deeds before the episcopate; whose beginning is hidden, and its end; The Acts of St. Euphronius either were not written of set purpose, or certainly have perished. And so of the time which preceded his episcopate we know only this which St. Gregory just now asserted: whence it is clear that he was a rich man, liberal, and no less industrious than lavish in promoting the glory of the Saints; nor indeed did he show himself such at Autun only, but in other places also: For he, Gregory subjoins there, sent with great devotion the marble which is over the holy sepulchre of blessed Martin (at Tours). In what year he obtained the episcopate of Autun, in what year, taken up to heaven, he left it, is in obscurity. He certainly already held it in the year of Christ 452; since at that year, in the complete Chronicle, Idatius commemorates a letter of Euphronius, bishop of Autun, to Agrippinus the count, concerning certain heavenly portents which had then appeared in the Gauls during the days of Easter.

[4] except that it long preceded the year 453. Nay, he ought to be seen as promoted to the mitre long before; as one who about the year 453 had already by the most holy administration of the church of Autun alone procured for himself so great a name and authority among others, that he was not reckoned inferior even to that greatest prelate of the Trecassenses, St. Lupus: for then Talasius, bishop of Angers, consulted both, as it were a common oracle, for the instruction of his church, concerning solemnities, and concerning bigamous clerics, and those who are taken up when married; and from both he obtained a common reply with this inscription: To the holy lord, and, in Christ, with worship and honor to be venerated, the most blessed brother Talasius the bishop, Lupus and Euphronius the bishops, set down together. Read the rest in Labbe, Councils, volume 4, column [—]. Concerning the place and time of this letter we spoke at the day the XXIX of July, page 66, number 75. For the rest, we do not deny that Euphronius was somewhat younger than Lupus: for the inscription already given sufficiently suggests this, since it places the name of Euphronius after the other. Then it is established from the Acts of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, that St. Simplicius sat at Autun in the year of Christ 418; and that to him (we know not at what time afterward), having died, succeeded Euantius; to Euantius Leontius, and to him at last Euphronius, the Gallia Christiana shows. But why should not those three predecessors of his be believed to have passed, from the year already assigned, the year in which St. Lupus was consecrated, that of Christ 426?

[5] The bishop excelled in the study of sacred Scripture, He adorned the episcopal dignity with these four endowments especially: an insatiable meditation of the sacred Letters, an absolute conformation of his manners and precepts to them and holiness, a severity of ecclesiastical discipline no less skilled than constant, and finally the utmost and most valiant prudence in doing and persuading things, which would neither suffer itself to be bent by favor, nor deterred by hatred. And how he was affected toward the studies of the divine books, it is allowable to conjecture both from this, that he vehemently wished, through a letter and legates, St. Apollinaris Sidonius to be entreated, that he should undertake to explain in writing some part of them; and especially from this reply of his, book 9, epistle 2: for, marveling that a burden was imposed on him to which he by no means professes himself equal to bear, I am confounded by the injunction, he says… But if I well measure the greatness of the piety I have experienced in you, you labored more that the affection of your heart, than the effect of my work, should be published. For when Jerome the translator, Augustine the dialectician, Origen the allegorist bring forth for you, by the harvest of wholesome doctrine, ears heavy with spiritual meanings, shall not, forsooth, for my part, the dry stubble of a fasting tongue crackle for you?

[5] To the commendation of his manners and virtues nothing more illustrious can be brought forward by holiness of life, by rigor of discipline, than this beginning of the same Sidonius's letter to him: Albiso the prelate, and Proculus the levite, therefore to be pronounced masters of morals to us, because they deserve to be your disciples, brought the letter by which you presented me with your most sacred address. His skill in ecclesiastical discipline Talasius sufficiently praised above, when, by consulting him about it, he acknowledged him a master to be equalled with Lupus. But if you regard the use and execution of that knowledge, Lupus himself, in the letter to Talasius assigned to him, not obscurely indicates that Euphronius is to be preferred to himself: for he confesses that, although the rule of the churches of Autun and of Troyes was then one, yet something more of severity and rigor flourished in that one under Euphronius than he himself could imitate in his own: he therefore manifestly commends him above himself there in these words: But if anything of strictness can be added for the honor of the Lord, although we cannot imitate it, for the honor of the Lord we shall praise it.

[6] Finally, concerning his prudence and counsels it would be worthwhile to hear Sidonius again discoursing, book 7, by prudence and equity epistle 8, given to Euphronius about the year of Christ 472, which it will not be irksome to transcribe here in full. It is thus: Sidonius to lord Pope Euphronius, greeting. Since the bonds of the clerical office bind me, I would pronounce the state of my mediocrity most happy, if we had our walls as near as our territories. Concerning the smallest matters, forsooth, and the greatest, I would consult your crown: and the course of my actions, like that of some river, would become most placid and unhindered, if it flowed from your discourse, as from a most wholesome fount. Beyond doubt it would then be neither foamy through boasting, nor turbid through pride, nor muddy through conscience, nor headlong through youth. Nay rather, if anything squalid and rotten there defiled it, the admixed vein of your counsel would wash it all away. But because long spaces are interposed as a hindrance to wishes of this kind, I earnestly pray that you free me, consulting you, from the scruple of an ambiguity I have run into: and because the people of Bourges demand that Simplicius, a man of rank, be ordained bishop for them, decree what I ought to do in so great a business.

[7] For such is your condescension toward me, or your authority toward the rest, that, if you wish anything to be done (and you will wish whatever is most just), you ought not so much to persuade in counsels, as to command. Yet concerning this Simplicius, know that very many good things are related, and those indeed by very many good men. Which testimonies at the first front of conversation were judged by me not grateful enough, because gracious enough: but after I saw that his rivals did nothing more than keep silence, and those especially who cherish the faith of the Arians, nor that anything unlawful was objected against the man named, though not yet of our profession, I took notice that he could be reckoned a most exact man, of whom a bad citizen could not speak, nor a good one keep silence. But why did I, inept, add these things, as though I were giving counsel, I who asked it? Nay rather, all things will be arranged by your nod, judgment, and letters; they will be made known to the priests and the people. For we are not so utterly foolish as to decree that you should first be summoned, if it is possible to come; then, if anything otherwise, that you should certainly be consulted, unless we were about to obey in all things. Deign to be mindful of us, lord Pope.

[8] with the utmost authority and constancy But indeed to whose counsels a foreign province attributed so much, what shall we judge that his own deferred to him? The same St. Sidonius demonstrates the matter by an example, book 4, epistle 25, from which also it appears remarkably that Euphronius was as mature and just in deciding as he was prompt and undaunted in executing. About the year, therefore, four hundred and seventy or so, St. Patiens, archbishop of Lyon, had met with St. Euphronius and the other bishops of the same province at Chalon, about to give from office a prelate to the church there widowed; when there interrupted the pontifical council the various wills of the townsmen, and also those private zeals which always overturn the public good; which a certain triumvirate of competitors had kindled: of whom this one belched forth the ancient prerogative of his birth, being destitute of the rest of the endowment of morals: this one, through parasitic din, procured by the suffrage of kitchens, was thrust forward with Apician (Apicius was the greatest of gluttons) applause: this one, if he should obtain the votive mitre, had promised, by a silent pact, that the ecclesiastical estates would be a prey to his applauders.

[9] in executing the same. When holy Patiens and holy Euphronius saw this, who held the rigor and firmness of the sounder judgment, apart from hatred and favor, the counsel having first been secretly communicated with the fellow-bishops rather than openly divulged, and the uproar of the raging crowd despised, hands suddenly cast on him, holy John—a man distinguished by honesty, humanity, gentleness, … now a priest of the second order, seized, and desiring and suspecting nothing less than what was being done, amid the dissonant voices of the parties, who did not ambitiously praise a man they were reluctant to praise, yet dared not blame him as praiseworthy—the factious being stupefied, the wicked blushing, the good acclaiming, none opposing, they consecrated as a colleague to themselves. Now therefore … (he addresses Domnulus) it is fitting that you rejoice at the concord of our common fathers or patrons, whether so judging in agreement, or so agreeing in judgment. Exult also in the name of him whom Euphronius created by testimony, Patiens by hand, both by judgment. In which Euphronius did what befitted not only his own old age, but also the long-standing of his dignity.

[10] In the year 475 he is inscribed in the testament of St. Perpetuus, It ought not, therefore, to seem strange, if St. Perpetuus, bishop of Tours, esteemed so highly a man such as this, that he made mention of him even in drawing up his testament, which we exhibited at the day the VIII of April, page 750 and following, in these words: To you, my most beloved brother and fellow-priest Euphronius, I give and bequeath a case of silver from the relics of the Saints. I mean that which I was accustomed to carry: for the other gilded one, which is in my chest, with two golden chalices, and a cross likewise golden, which Mabuinus made, I give and bequeath to my church: together with all my books, except the book of the Gospels which Hilary, formerly priest of Poitiers, wrote, which to you, Euphronius, my most beloved brother and fellow-priest, with the aforesaid case, I give, bequeath, will, and appoint. Be mindful of me. Amen. For that the Euphronius here mentioned is without doubt this our prelate of Autun, well deserving of St. Martin and Perpetuus by the marble sent, as we said before, Tillemont affirms after others in the life of St. Lupus, volume 16, page 135: who accordingly is also forced to confess that he survived at least up to the year of Christ 475, in which Perpetuus was writing this testament; although this one, beyond expectation, lived fifteen years after it, and so long, as it is fitting to believe, after Euphronius. After Euphronius, I say; whom, as one already from the year 470 remarkable for the length of his old age, no one will easily believe to have survived twenty years and more afterward: especially since no memory of him, either of his works or of his life, occurs anywhere after the year 475.

[11] Yet since St. Euphronius of Autun reached at least the year of Christ 475; and he assists at the council of Arles. and no other Euphronius could hitherto be assigned at that age among the Gallican bishops; who would doubt that this was the very one who about the same year, with twenty-nine other bishops (who are all commemorated in the little book of Lucidus the presbyter, amending his error), assisted at the council of Arles, and there condemned by subscription those heads of the Predestinarian heresy, concerning which there Lucidus, addressing those same bishops, says: Accordingly, according to the recent statutes of the council to be proclaimed, I condemn with you that opinion which says that the labor of human obedience is not to be joined to divine grace, etc.? But since in those heads is contained all that doctrine which in his letter St. Faustus, bishop of Riez, had prescribed to Lucidus to be anathematized, it is not to be doubted that these same Fathers with Euphronius also approved this letter; and that thus true are both the subscriptions of St. Euphronius and of the others, which in the same council are subjoined to the letter of Faustus; although some of them seem to have perished, for instance those of Leontius, Fonteius, and others, whom Lucidus enumerates. We know that this does not please Tillemont and his fellows, who, following their Calvinist leaders, do not fear to call that letter Semipelagian, and therefore altogether unworthy of the assent of so many greatest and most holy lights of the Gallican church. But let one whom men of this kind delay, approach before all that work so fatal to them of our Stephen Deschamps, On the Jansenist Heresy, book 1, disputation 7, chapter 7, and book 2, disputation 7, chapter 1: there he will learn both whence are drawn, and how weak and broken, the arms with which they assail this whole argument.