ON ST. EUPHRONIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT TOURS IN GAUL,
In the Year 573.
A COLLECTION ON HIS CULT, DATE, AND DEEDS.
Euphronius, Bishop of Tours, Confessor (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
PART I.
His cult and eulogies.
Henschen rightly observed long ago, when at the VIII of April he treated of St. Perpetuus, bishop of Tours, Entered rather late into the Calendars, that the more certain things which we have concerning the first bishops of that city we have received from St. Gregory, himself also bishop of Tours; which must altogether be affirmed also of today's St. Euphronius, inasmuch as there exists no Life of him written in antiquity, but that historian adorned him in more than one place with deserved encomiums, and moreover so celebrated his deeds, virtues, and sanctity that it is altogether a wonder that the memory of so illustrious a Man was neglected in absolutely all the classic Martyrologies, and that before the mature sixteenth century so distinguished a name became known in no sacred tables: certainly Baronius in his annotations adduces no one whom he can show to have gone before him. Among our manifold Usuardine additions, Molanus supplied this one only: On the same day, the deposition of St. Euphronius, the eighteenth bishop of Tours and confessor, concerning whom his next successor Gregory of Tours writes some things in the History of the Franks, and in the book On the Glory of the Confessors. More briefly Galesinius about him: At Tours, of St. Euphronius, bishop, who, flourishing with the praise of illustrious holiness, was present at the first council of Paris. He would better have said the third.
[2] The perennial cult in the church of Tours is proved by the lesson customarily recited on his festival on this day, the IV of August, he had an outstanding eulogist which is taken from Gregory's History, book 10, chapter 31, number 18, in these words: Eighteenth, Euphronius the priest is ordained bishop, of that family which above we called senatorial, a man of outstanding sanctity, a cleric from his early years. In his time the city of Tours with all its churches was burned in a great fire: of which he himself afterward repaired two, leaving the third, a very ancient one, deserted. But afterward the basilica of St. Martin itself too was scorched by fire through Wiliachar, when he had made refuge there on account of the former circumvention of Chramnus: which afterward the same pontiff roofed with tin, king Chlothar helping. In his time the basilica of St. Vincent was built. In the villages of Tauriacus, Ceratum, and Orbigniacum churches were built. And he sat seventeen years, and died at the age of seventy, and was buried in the basilica of St. Martin; and the episcopate was vacant XIX days. Concerning the three aforesaid village churches, Ruinart's annotation is to be seen. This is the Saint's proper prayer: Be favorable, we beseech you, Lord, to us your servants through the glorious merits of this your holy Confessor and pontiff Euphronius, who rests in the present church; that by his pious intercession we may always be protected from all adversities. Through our Lord.
[3] St. Euphronius's prophetic spirit is proved sufficiently manifestly by what the praised Gregory narrates in On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 19, St. Gregory of Tours. in this manner: The Pontiff himself too, when he was rather frequently urged by many that he ought to go to meet king Charibert, and, weaving delays, kept putting off the journey, at length, moved by his people, said: Go, prepare the journey, that we may go to meet the king, whom we shall not see. And so, loading the necessaries on the wagons, and the horses being made ready for the journey, and matters now standing so that he should set out on the way, he said: Let the wagons return, let the horses be unyoked, we do not go on this journey now. And when his people asked what this levity was, that what he had so urgently ordered to be prepared he should so easily set aside, he said more secretly: The prince, to whom you compel us to go, has died; nor shall we find him living, if we go. Astonished, they hear and note the day, and silently keep the Saint's words. But when men came from the city of Paris, they announce that the king had passed away at that hour at which the Priest had ordered the wagons to be recalled from the journey. To this sign you will find others not unlike in Gregory, especially among the Miracles of St. Martin, as in book 1, chapter 23, and elsewhere.
[4] Saussay wished to embrace almost the whole Life of the Saint, from whom, in Saussay when in his Gallican Martyrology he adorned him with the following eulogy: On the same day at Tours, of St. Euphronius, bishop and confessor, predecessor of blessed Gregory. Who, brought forth of a Senatorial family, and excelling in great endowments, when from adolescence he had borne the yoke of the Lord, chosen upon the death of Gunthar, so ascended the throne of this see that he left it in doubt whether he was more advanced by dignity than lowered by voluntary humility, of which he cultivated a greater care in the episcopate than before. A man plainly adorned with apostolic gifts,
simple as a dove, prudent as a serpent, meek as a lamb. Whom, admirable for the sweetness of his manners, the pleasantness of his speech, the purity of his heart, the honesty of his actions, and the holiness of his whole life, Fortunatus extols with worthy encomiums, praising this especially among his graces: that by the fire of charity with which he glowed he softened every hard heart; that by the humility in which he excelled, being little on earth, he dwelt lofty in heaven; that with a feeling of piety he wondrously embraced his sheep, since he so loved them all as if he had begotten each one from his own side; so spending himself upon individuals that he poured out upon all the fullness of love.
[5] a notable eulogy, Under whom, he says, no plundering was heard of in the flock, because the shepherd himself, just and peaceable, went before the sheepfold in the spirit of peace and justice. The wolf inflicted no loss in the Lord's folds, because the ever-watchful guardian eluded all the snares of the enemy. Yet in his time the city of Tours blazed with a monstrous fire, and nearly all the churches were consumed by the flames. Of which the pious Prelate himself restored two from the foundations. But the church of St. Martin, which had been scorched through count Wilichar, he repaired, king Clothar helping, and, fastening the roof with tin, he honored it with a more comely appearance. Under him also was built the basilica of St. Vincent; and in two villages, Ceratum and Orbiniacum, churches were erected. Under him likewise was held the second synod of Tours. But he himself was present at the second of Paris, with the other foremost fathers of the Gallican church, in the year 559. Then the holy Man, after his see had been prolonged to the year of Christ 573, at the age of seventy rested in the Lord with a peaceful end, and, buried with worthy honor in the basilica of St. Martin, of whose see and virtue he had been a sharer, he perpetuated the glory of his sanctity in the whole Church by open indications of his merits.
[6] also from Venantius Fortunatus. Thus far Saussay, after his manner, elegantly as well as ornately and truly; drawing his matter not only from St. Gregory, but also embracing in a few words those things which Venantius Fortunatus, in two letters, somewhat expurgated in Brower, and in an elegant poem, excellently set forth concerning St. Euphronius, whom he greatly revered while living; and which would altogether have had to be adduced here, had not the Most Eminent Annalist Baronius, at the years 559 and 574, reviewed everything entirely and most fully, so that I think it altogether superfluous to do here what has been done. Let these things, then, concerning St. Euphronius's cult, singular virtues, sanctity, signs, and miracles be said as sufficient: now the rest, which pertains to his date and deeds, remains to be reduced in some measure to order.
PART TWO.
His date and deeds.
The duration of his episcopate, As we have already said that Cardinal Baronius deserved well of St. Euphronius with respect to his cult and sanctity, so we must confess that the Saint's date was not rightly determined by him, when he attached its beginning to the year 559, and its end to the year 574, ascribing to him only fourteen years, so that his times must be computed altogether otherwise. Nor yet do we here undertake to set in order the Chronology of the prelates of Tours; it will be enough for us to follow those reckonings which our Predecessors long ago derived from Gregory himself, and which the present-day consensus of the learned admits as more probable. To be rejected before the rest, unless I am much mistaken, is the historian of Tours, Maan, when he alone unskillfully limits the duration of St. Euphronius's episcopate from the year 548 to 564, assigning him a place in the order of the bishops not the eighteenth with Gregory, but the nineteenth, another bishop being introduced whom it would be quite a wonder that Gregory did not know. Nor indeed would you more fittingly call him the twentieth in order with others. Let this therefore be, if not a certain, at least a more probable reckoning: that, having begun his administration in the year 556, he held the see of Tours until 573, namely for seventeen years, as we have already said from Gregory.
[8] The praised Gregory describes his election, confirmation, and ordination, History, book 4, his election to it, chapter 15, as it stands in Ruinart's edition, whatever some may seem in Le Cointe to have doubted about that account: But the people of Tours, hearing that the king had returned from the slaughter of the Saxons, having reached agreement upon Euphronius the priest, go to him; and when the proposal had been made, the king answered: For I had ordered that Cato the priest should be ordained there; and why has our command been scorned? They answered him: For we sought him, but he would not come. While they were saying this, suddenly Cato the priest arrived, beseeching the king that, Cautinus being ejected, he would order him to be installed at Clermont. And when the king refused this, he asked again that he might be ordained at Tours, which before he had despised. To whom the king said: I first commanded that they should consecrate you to the episcopate at Tours, but so far as I hear, you held that church in contempt, and therefore you shall be kept far from its rule; and thus, confounded, he departed. But asking about holy Euphronius, they said that he was the nephew of blessed Gregory, whom we have mentioned above. The king answered: This is a first and great lineage: let the will of God and of blessed Martin be done; let the election be completed. And the command being given, holy Euphronius is ordained the eighteenth bishop after blessed Martin.
[9] To St. Euphronius's deeds in the series of times belongs the third Council of Paris, held in the year 557, calamities, otherwise sufficiently known and celebrated, to which he subscribed in the sixth place: I, Euphronius, a sinner, bishop, have consented and subscribed. This is that Euphronius, says Le Cointe, who began to sit at Tours in the preceding year. Presently there followed the calamities of Tours, which exercised not a little St. Euphronius's endurance, charity toward his own, and fatherly mercy. Gregory narrates the matter in book 4, chapter 20, where the destruction of Chramnus, mentioned by Saussay, is treated. Here are a few things from which you will easily understand the rest. But Wiliachar his father-in-law fled to the basilica of St. Martin. Then the holy basilica was set on fire by the sins of the people and by the mockeries which were being done in it through Wiliachar and his wife, which we recount not without a heavy sigh. But the city of Tours also had already been consumed by fire a year before, and all the churches built in it were left deserted; so that you cannot doubt that the beginnings of the excellent Prelate were most afflicted, and that in overcoming them he had to contend with both virtue and sanctity, as is only too manifest. It was a consolation that forthwith the basilica of blessed Martin, by the ordering of king Chlothar, was covered with tin, and restored to that elegance which it had had before.
[10] Clothar dying not long after, another occasion presented itself in which St. Euphronius rendered outstanding service to the people. The benevolence of Charibert. The same Gregory speaks, book 9, chapter 30: But after the death of king Chlothar, this people gave its oath to king Charibert. Likewise he too promised with an oath that he would not inflict new laws and customs upon the people, but would thenceforth keep them here in that same condition in which they had formerly lived under his father's rule; nor did he pledge that he would inflict upon them any new ordinance which pertained to plunder. But Gaiso, a count of that same time, having received the capitulary which we have recorded that earlier writers made, began to exact tributes: but being forbidden by bishop Euphronius, he directed his exacted depravity to the king's presence, showing the capitulary in which the tributes were contained. But the king, groaning, and fearing the power of St. Martin, gave it to the fire; the gold pieces exacted he remitted to the basilica of St. Martin, adjuring that no one of the people of Tours should render any tribute to the treasury. After whose death king Sigibert held this city, and imposed the burden of no tribute. So both now, etc. — the Historian continues to trace the same exemptions down to his own times, as you have there in the whole remaining chapter.
[11] He presides at the council of Tours, The synod of Saintes, in which bishop Emerius was deposed at the instance of Leontius of Bordeaux in the year 562, pertains to St. Euphronius only so far as this, that the Man of God, being asked to subscribe to that council, manifestly refused. The story is longer, interwoven with various circumstances, which, since they do not pertain here, may be seen in book 4, chapter 25, or in Le Cointe, who at the same year 562 explains the whole matter more fully. There follows the second Council of Tours, celebrated under the auspices of the same holy Euphronius in the year 566, which you have in Sirmond, volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, from page 329, to which the Saint himself subscribed in this manner: I, Euphronius, bishop of the city of Tours, have reread and subscribed these our constitutions. I noted it on the day XV of the Kalends of December, in the sixth year of the reign of the lord Charibert, most glorious king. The canons are XXVII in number, composed with plainly singular maturity and prudence, from which it is most clearly perceived with how great care and solicitude both our Saint and the remaining bishops of Charibert's dominion applied themselves to reforming the most corrupt morals of that time, not even dissembling the crimes of the kings themselves.
[12] whose letter is extant. Sirmond subjoins a letter of the bishops of the province of Tours sent to the people after the aforewritten synod, on the occasion of a pestilence then raging close at hand. They exhort them to dare to avert the impending disaster, and therefore to defer nuptial vows, to pay the tithes of all things, to return into favor with their enemies, to offer even the tithes of their slaves; and those who lack slaves, to give one tremissis for each of their sons. Finally, to dissolve incestuous unions. Three bishops subscribe with St. Euphronius, whose formula, and the others', is this: In the name of Christ I, Euphronius, bishop, greet you greatly. You have there also the letter of St. Radegund to the bishops, which she wrote at the beginning of the congregation she had established, for its protection and stability, and which, being absent, she offered to the council of Tours to be confirmed. The same Gregory reports in the History, book 9, chapter 42. But Sirmond adds the very decree of the bishops which they drew up upon receiving the letter of blessed Radegund. The subscriptions of the bishops are lacking, but even from the title itself it is sufficiently plain that the chief author and promoter of the whole matter was our own St. Euphronius, as will have to be said at greater length at the day XIII of this month, when St. Radegund herself is treated ex professo.
[13] He deserves well of St. Radegund Here belongs also this, that when the same blessed Radegund had obtained from the East a portion of the sacred wood of the Lord's Cross, and Maroveus, bishop of Poitiers, refused to translate those most precious pledges with due veneration and solemnity; Then the queen sent again to king Sigibert, beseeching that by his injunction some one of the bishops might place these pledges in her monastery with that honor which was fitting and which her vow demanded. For this work blessed Euphronius, bishop of the city of Tours, is enjoined. He, coming to Poitiers with his clerics, with great psalmody and an apparatus of glittering tapers and incense, carried the holy pledges into the monastery, the bishop of the place being absent. These things exist in Gregory, book 9, chapter 40: but concerning this very venerable portion of the holy Cross, see the same author in book 1 of the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 5, whose title is this: On the Cross and its marvels at Poitiers. Nor should the memorable finding and elevation of the sacred bodies of Sts. Maura and Britta be passed over here, made by a singular revelation to St. Euphronius
carried out, had not the whole history of it long ago existed in our Acts, reported from holy Gregory himself at the XV day of the month of January, volume 1, page 1018.
[14] Two other things remain to be recorded concerning St. Euphronius: the one, namely, from holy Gregory, so often already praised by us, that in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 15, treating of the holy abbot Senoch, he reports that this Blessed man found, within the bounds of the territory of Tours, and concerning two other saints. an oratory in which it was commonly reported that our Martin had prayed. Which, having set it in order with diligent care and erected an altar, and prepared a little chest in it for receiving the relics of the Saints, he invites the bishop to bless. There was present then blessed Euphronius the bishop, who, the altar being consecrated, bestowed on him the honor of the diaconate. The other is what Fortunatus proclaimed concerning St. Euphronius, treating of the dedication of the church of Nantes, most solemnly instituted by St. Felix, bishop of that same city, where, mentioning our Saint among many other prelates as metropolitan, he sang thus of him:
In the midst of whom, the priest of Martin's see, Euphronius shines, the sacred metropolitan, Rejoicing amid the holy gathering crown of brethren, And seeing his own members, the summit stands the stronger. Thence the head is more joyful, because its own vitals are with it, And, the body being joined, the honor of the Church increases.