ON ST. MEMMIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT CHÂLONS IN GAUL.
Third century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Memmius, Confessor, Bishop of Châlons in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 5909, 5911
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. His most ancient cult; his date uncertain.
Châlons, a city of ancient Belgic Gaul, The first bishop of Châlons situated upon the Marne (whence it is called in French Châlons-sur-Marne, to distinguish it from another city of the same name, which is called Cabillonum, Chalon-sur-Saône), in the present-day province of Champagne, an episcopal see under the archbishop of Reims, ample and fortified, reckons and venerates as its first bishop and apostle St. Memmius, celebrated throughout all Gaul, and most widely known in our classic Martyrologies; even in the Hieronymian codices themselves, whose lists are not sufficiently accurate. The present-day text in Florentinius reads: In the city of Châlons, the birthday of St. Miminus, bishop. The Epternach codex writes: In the city of Cataleonia, of Mimminus, bishop. Somewhat more polished is the Corbie codex: In the city of Châlons, the birthday of St. Memmius, bishop and confessor. The Blumian reads Mimus. In the abridged copies there is a like variation; the codices of Rheinau and Reichenau form the name best, Memmius. But whosever this announcement may have been — of whatever Gallic antiquary — it is sufficiently plain from the agreement of all the codices that it must be called most ancient, and that the cult of St. Memmius was itself accordingly most ancient; equally so among Raban and Notker, who were accustomed to follow the Hieronymian Martyrology, adding of their own such things as they drew from the Acts, of whatever sort these were.
[2] Here is Raban's text: In the city of Châlons, the deposition of Memmeus, bishop and confessor, in the most ancient Martyrologies of whom it is read that, having been ordained bishop by blessed Peter the Apostle in the city of Rome, he was sent into Gaul together with St. Dionysius and St. Sextus, and with Eucharius, to preach the word of God; who also wrought many mighty works, and at last, nobly finishing the present life, passed over to eternal rest. These same things Notker copied out, with the phrasing here and there somewhat smoothed. Concerning Ado a question was raised in the Observations upon Usuard on this day, but it has itself been resolved at the XXI of December, on which day he is most expressly noted by him in these words: At Châlons, of St. Memmius, the first bishop, sent to that city from the city of Rome, who among other miracles raised a dead man, whose tomb is now made illustrious by the most frequent miracles. Rightly did this Martyrologist of Vienne judge that doubts should be cut away; but why he should have entered St. Memmius on that day, there is no ground from which you may perceive clearly enough, unless perhaps he alludes to the Saint's arrival, or to the first finding of the sacred body, of which we shall treat below, which, since they fell in the month of December, he may perhaps have judged that that very day should be adopted in preference to his birthday.
[3] known and praised, Concerning Usuard there is no doubt that he announced the Saint on this very day, as also did his whole progeny. His text is brief and true: At Châlons, of St. Memmius, bishop: what may have been added from elsewhere by the supplements is obvious from our edition. The Plantin Bede and Maurolycus also announce him rightly, the eulogies being wholly cut away — which, while others append them, they copy out a great part of the Acts, as does the Florarium, Galesinius, and others, whom there is no leisure here to transcribe: in place of all will be the Gallic Martyrologist, who in more than one place has pursued St. Memmius with deserved praises. He rendered the Acts themselves, such as they are, in a more elegant phrasing: At Châlons, under the metropolitan see of Second Belgica, the birthday of St. Memmius, first bishop of that city; who, sprung at Rome of most ancient nobility, imbued with the teachings of the faith by St. Peter, Christ's first vicar on earth, and washed in the sacred font, when he had been filled with divine graces, and burned with zeal for converting to the saving rites the peoples who dwelt in the worship of idols and in ignorance of the true religion; having been ordained bishop by the very chief of the Apostles, was directed into Gaul, to promulgate in this city the heavenly law of Christ, together with Donatian the deacon and Domitian the subdeacon.
[4] he is further adorned by Saussay, But when they were entering upon the task they had undertaken, of enlightening that country, scarcely had they moved a foot from the Roman territory when they had to halt their march. For a grave sickness seized Domitian at their first lodging, by which he was in a short time extinguished. Consternated by this unexpected event, Memmius sought Rome again, and, the matter having been reported to Peter the Apostle, being strengthened by him and having received a small piece of the hem of his garment, by the applying of which he might reanimate the corpse of his companion, he returned to the place where he lay, and, pouring out a prayer to Christ, by the application of the Apostle's own hem recalled the dead man to life and to entire health. And then, pursuing the path he had begun with his two companions, he wrought so many marvelous works on the way that everywhere he left both seeds of divine grace and signal testimonies of glory. At length he reached the walls of the city he had sought, there to raise as quickly as might be the standard of the cross for the salvation of the citizens: but by the devil's envy it came about that the hardness of the people would neither admit the herald of truth nor endure to hear the word of life. The divine man was therefore straightway shut out by the inhabitants, fervid worshippers of images, with reproach; who, not desirous of avenging the injury, in order that he might at length at some time obtain from the Lord by his prayers the conversion of the contumacious people, and might await the occasion, in the very territory of Châlons, not so far from the city, having found a solitude, there in a cave he took his station, intent upon divine things, until, a noble boy having fallen into the river and been drowned in the waters, and by God's will having been carried to him, he restored him to life by invoking the name of Christ.
[5] Shaken by this admirable deed, the citizens, running in haste to the blessed Man, as one who relates his whole life. earnestly besought him that he would deign to return, to instruct with saving preaching the city now devoted to him. At his entrance, relying upon the grace of divine power, he cleansed three lepers who met him, gave light to as many blind men, and drove out a demon from a certain possessed man. By so many flashings of Christ's glory Memmius easily enlightened the minds of all, and brought it about by his holy exhortations that, the worship of earthen deities being abjured, the citizens should in earnest profess the faith and the law of Christ. There was there a notable shrine of false gods, which the most sacred Priest, purging it of diabolical rites, dedicated to the services of the true God, with all the people assenting, under the patronage of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, by whom he had first been sent. And then, going on to confirm religion by the splendor of miracles, when he had excellently established it in the city, he began to spread it abroad through the neighboring places; and the town of Perthes having been happily subjugated to God the Savior, he there built and consecrated a church in memory of the most holy Virgin. Meanwhile Poma, a most pious virgin, who was the sister of this renowned Pontiff, having heard of the happy progress of his preaching, set out from Rome to him and came to Châlons, and there under his direction rendered pure services to Christ even to her last breath, very many nobly born girls having been led by her imitation to the sacred cultivation of virginity. For the rest, the blessed Prelate himself, so many wondrous acts having been accomplished, after a very long prelacy, which he most happily prolonged to nearly eighty years, at last obtained his pious desires and received the rewards of his immense labors laid up for him by the Lord; and, buried in peace, shone forth with the glorious marks of his greatest merits.
[6] This is nearly the whole series of the Acts; wherein you see that Saussay, with the others reported above, alludes throughout to the famous epoch concerning the first apostles or preachers of the Gospel to the Gauls, sent by St. Peter himself into the various provinces, The epoch of the mission even into our Belgica, and indeed into the British isles; and to enter upon that controversy — what else is it than to roll over again quarrels almost dead, which have been agitated more than once in this work, especially in Volume V of June, where, on the occasion of St. Martial of Limoges, you will find the matters that bear upon it abundantly set forth. Not displeasing is the more recent dissertation of our Longueval, prefixed to his latest history of the Gallican church, in which, however much he may maintain that the Christian faith was preached in the Gauls by the very disciples of the Apostles, whether immediate or somewhat more remote, he nevertheless confesses that in the first two centuries they made exceedingly little progress: and he rightly pronounces that the things which are circulated concerning the various foundings of churches in Gaul in the first century are at the least most uncertain; so that, if the people of Châlons will hear me, they will fix the beginnings of their church in St. Memmius not in the first century, but when the third century was already nearly full grown, finding in that way years sufficient to define the times of St. Memmius and his successors, those centenarian bishops being excluded, and besides a vacancy of a hundred and twenty years.
[7] from which are arranged Tolerable, certainly, will this our disposition of the matter appear, when, that first and only fixed chronological point in the series of the bishops having been weighed, which the Sammarthani suggest to us, where St. Alpinus is treated of, he living at that time when Attila was cut down to utter destruction in the Catalaunian, or, as others prefer, the Sacalaunian plains, namely in the year 451, the dates of the first seven bishops of Châlons may thus be arranged: that St. Memmius, the first apostle of them, having landed there after the middle of the third century, held that see down to the year 280; then to each of his disciples, Donatian and Domitian, whom, although they would have them very old men, they wish to have succeeded their holy Master, let about a decade be given; thus it will come about that the fourth century is begun in Amabilis, who may have sat down to the year 320; and his successor Desiderius to the year 350; Sanctissimus to 380, Provinctus to 420, and thus one will arrive at that first certain epoch, namely at the year 451, when the already praised St. Alpinus truly presided over the church of Châlons, whose successor Amandus or Amandinus could easily have subscribed to the First Council of Tours in the year 461.
[8] the first seven bishops of Châlons. This, unless we are vehemently deceived, is the most probable succession of the first bishops of Châlons, which being for the time admitted, both the too long vacancy and the incredible ages are conveniently smoothed away, so that at least about the times of St. Memmius nothing paradoxical need be admitted. Let him himself have come with several other bishops into Gaul about after the middle of the third century, and the vineyard committed to him,
let him have cultivated, not indeed beyond the year 306, as the Paris Martyrology of the year 1727 notes, but for about thirty years; and with the two disciples already named filling out the remainder of the third century, there will surely be no lack of time in which all his deeds may most easily be arranged, since almost only the miracles remain — and whether all of these were wrought by him while alive, there will perhaps be those who judge not sufficiently ascertained. Certainly the Legends of him which survive, even though very brief, do not show forth that antiquity, nor are they supported by such authority that, especially in those matters which regard the disputed mission of the bishops by St. Peter or St. Clement into the Gauls, they should deserve even slender credit.
[9] His fatherland and birth uncertain. Of the same kind is another question which might also be raised here, concerning St. Memmius' fatherland and birth; whose solution, as also that of very many others, is by no means to be sought from the Reverend Father Charles Rapine, a Minorite, the author of the French Life which is thumbed by everyone's hands; for he strives obstinately with hands and feet to prove that the Saint was a distinguished Roman, sprung from the most ancient Memmii, and indeed a blood-relation of that Memmius Rufus under whom Nereus and Achilleus suffered at Terracina. But when about to prove so magnificent a thesis, he found nothing to bring forward except the authorities of Vincent of Beauvais, St. Antoninus, and Peter de Natalibus — of how much account these are to be held in disquisitions of this kind is better known than that it should need to be demonstrated here by me. Let it suffice us that the cult of St. Memmius, concerning which alone one may safely discourse, has been abundantly established above. It now remains here that, among the various Legends, amplified and embellished according to the genius of the writers, we should select that one which shall seem infected with fewer blemishes.
§ II. His Life, often interpolated and enlarged, equally uncertain.
The Acts in Bosquet The most ancient Life of St. Memmius that is extant was first published in print, so far as I know, in the year 1636 by that most distinguished man Francis Bosquet, afterward bishop of Montpellier, in Volume 1 of his Histories of the Gallican church, together with several other Legends of the same kind, which vie with one another in referring the first heralds of the Christian faith in Gaul to the times of Saints Peter and Clement; and upon what credit these rest he examines most learnedly in the same place, finding the ancient narratives, veiled over by love of antiquity, beset with so many errors that he does not recognize which way one must proceed. Many disciples of Peter do the several churches of the Gauls venerate, he says; but I, although I reverence the tradition, whatever it may be, nevertheless do not persuade myself of all these things, so alien as they are from historical truth. Then, enumerating the errors out of very many, he adds, bearing upon our matter, in part 2 page 90: The Lives of Memmius, of Clement, and of the Treverans, although they do not swarm with so many errors, are nevertheless by no means free of them; among whom he names the dead raised in like manner by Peter's legates, now by a staff (as George, Maternus, Austriclinianus), now by a garment (as Domitian). From the brief compendium of the Memmian Life, abridged by him, you will more easily understand what bears upon this. Thus he has it on page 24, number 12.
[11] Memmius, sprung from the most distinguished Roman family of the Memmii, these appear to be the most ancient. came into the Gauls, sent by Peter, together with Dionysius of Paris, Sixtus of Reims, Eucharius of Trier, Sabinian of Sens, bishops, and six other men of the same Order, and Donatian the deacon and Domitian the subdeacon. But when they had already advanced eighteen miles, Domitian died. Memmius runs back to Peter, and lays upon the dead man the garment he received from him, and raises him. He goes on to Châlons, a city of the Belgae, but, repudiated by the pagans, he withdrew into a cave near the city, which is called Buxeria; from which, by the fame of his miracles, he is led into the city by the people running to him. His sister Poma, coming to him in the seventh year of his episcopate, became known to the whole region by her miracles. He himself, worn out with age and renowned for prodigies, in the ninetieth year of his episcopate, on the Nones of August, rendered his happy soul to God. From which it must follow that Memmius reached the one hundred and thirty-fifth year of Christ.
[12] You have here at the very beginning those first apostles of the Gauls, both named and anonymous, Others are shown to be more recent: whom from elsewhere Papebroch enumerates more distinctly in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Martial, number 2; concerning all of whom the praised and most illustrious Bosquet judges entirely the same, reverencing the tradition indeed, but by no means acknowledging truth in the narration — which neither can we confess ourselves able to admit, even in those few things which we have just given as excerpted from the Acts, of whatever sort, and which in the Life itself have been enlarged by many others no more probable. In what century these were first embellished Bosquet did not dare to define; but I am much mistaken if they cannot be referred to the Dagobertian, that is, the seventh century: which I judge is somehow established by this reasoning. The Bosquetian Acts, with which the manuscripts of the first class, or the shorter ones, among us agree, make no mention of that great drought, on occasion of which the sacred body was discovered and raised in the time of Dagobert II — namely of him who after a long oppression returned to his own kingdoms about the year 672, as after Henschen's dissertation on the three Dagoberts is today everywhere admitted.
[13] among which the Life Hence it seems to follow that that Legend in which mention is made of that Dagobert is later than the other Life such as Bosquet gave, and was accordingly written toward the end of that century, since the writer, whoever he was, testifies in the appendix subjoined to the older Acts in these words: The things which we have seen, these we have written and relate. And the Acts which are of that kind we have judged should be reckoned in the second class, such as are had transcribed by Papebroch from the Cistercian Manuscripts, codex 6, number 25, and by our Father Chifflet from the codex of Val-des-Lucent. Further, into the third class of Acts we reject those which have been copied among us out of various codices, whether collected by Abbot Stephen or by others, which differ from the former only in this, that in a longer discourse they set forth more words indeed, with a mostly affected eloquence, out of which nevertheless you could not hammer out one whit more of true and solid substance. Among these we reckon first, and doubtless the more sincere in that he is the briefer, that famous Almannus, monk of Hautvillers, to whom there is extant a letter given by Theudoinus, provost of Châlons, and the latter's reply, in volume 2 of Mabillon's Analecta, from page 86, whence it will be enough to have plucked a very few things bearing upon our matter. This is Theudoinus' request:
[14] published by Almannus You are to know that not without the hidden providence of the divine dispensation it came about that, the mausoleum having been removed and the mound of earth set aside, we surveyed the tomb of blessed Memmius in the four-cornered and cemented trench of his precious body: and this was done by command of King Charles in the year from the Lord's incarnation 868, in the first Indiction, on the VIII of the Kalends of April, which was the fourth day of the week before mid-Lent: and his holy tomb was found in no part whatever to cling to the earth, but by the power of Almighty God, before whom the merits of so great a patron shine, to hang in the trench itself as though balanced in the air, four fingers from the ground. Stunned by which miracle, the hearts of mortals utter forth, saying: O with how great zeal of piety did he render himself conformable to the heavenly life while he lived on earth, whose glory is now so great in heaven that the earth confesses itself unworthy even to touch his tomb, much less his body. We seek from your devotion the renewing of that most holy Man's life: which by long age and by negligence is held almost consumed, as it were in scraps. Come then, favor our petition according to your powers, so that concerning so great an intercessor you may be able to rejoice in heaven unto everlasting salvation.
[15] somewhat more elegantly To this Almannus writes back in this manner: To the venerable Provost Theudoinus, Almannus a sinner. You enjoin upon me, by the charity poured from heaven into the hearts of the elect through the Holy Spirit who has been given us, that I should strive to renew the Life of St. Memmius, first pontiff of Châlons, neglected by age and corrupted by unskillfulness — no otherwise than as though dug out of the ashes — that I should correct it with skill, and, stamped with zeal for truth, should endeavor to supply whatever seems lacking. Then, various excuses and by-matters being interposed, he thus concludes: And these things likewise I leave to your judgment: for God is able to take away our reproach, which he will also do, as we truly trust in his mercy, blessed Memmius interceding, who looks upon us from heaven with kindly eyes — you exhorting through the devotion of your mind, I writing according to the fidelity I owe and the capacity of my heart. I wish, therefore, that no small reward for this deed may remain to you; to whom, since I owe all things, I could not deny so arduous a matter. From the whole reply it is plain that he had nothing before his eyes but the bare first Life — so much so that he does not even seem to have known the other Life to which is subjoined the appendix in which Dagobert II is mentioned, to be described by us more opportunely in the following §, when we must inquire concerning the translations of the sacred body.
[16] Further, in this does Almannus' composition differ from the first Life, not written more truly. that whereas that earlier one attributes St. Memmius' mission in the most express words to St. Peter the Apostle, this one and several others more enlarged begin their narration thus: Therefore when blessed Clement was sending forth divers men to divers provinces, according to the inward showing of the Holy Spirit, etc. Besides, two others much more ample, one from the Manuscript of the monastery of Bonnefontaine, the other from St. Gall, have a prologue prefixed, extended more briefly or more broadly according to the genius of the writers, under this beginning: Our Lord Jesus Christ, made man to repair the dignity of the human race, etc. But to linger longer over all those Manuscript Legends variously embellished, and to enumerate each of their variations, since they contribute nothing at all toward defending the truth of the Acts, seems to me plainly the same as to lose oil and labor — just as it would be if I undertook to review the things which Vincent of Beauvais, St. Antoninus, and Peter de Natalibus each according to his own judgment enlarged or abridged, all of which finally must be measured against the most ancient Life, which accordingly it will be quite sufficient to have exhibited here alone and by itself.
[17] But its writer, whoever at last he was, would have deserved far better of St. Memmius, The encomium of St. Gregory of Tours. if he had gathered only select miracles resting upon a more certain tradition, prefixing to them alone those things which St. Gregory of Tours handed down concerning the most holy bishop, whose notable testimony in the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 66, is undoubtedly to be preferred to all the rest. Let us at last hear him too here: But of the city of Châlons the proper patron is Memmius the prelate, who, while he still remained in the mortal body, is said to have raised a dead man. At whose tomb we have now often seen the chains and fetters of wretched men broken: but we too have properly experienced his power. For at a certain time, while we were staying in that city, one boy of ours is seized by a fever, is wearied with vomiting, and shudders at food and drink alike: while we
indeed are greatly wasted away, because this boy's infirmity was weaving delays into our journey. Without delay I go to the Saint's basilica, I prostrate myself at the tomb on the boy's behalf, and with tears poured out I beg that he who to laboring prisoners, their fetters burst, has very often shown consolation out of regard for piety, would minister the refreshments of healing to this fever-stricken one. Wonderful to say: in that very night the sick boy, visited by the Saint's power, when morning came rose from his little bed unharmed.
§ III. The finding of the sacred body, its elevations, the highest veneration, miracles and relics.
Concerning the first burial of the sacred body the primitive Acts speak thus, The sacred body in the seventh century so that, if anything can be admitted beyond doubt, we think this must most certainly be held: that it was deposited there where at last in the seventh century, about the year 674, it was found, on the testimony of the author of the appendix already cited by us above, which it has seemed good to report here entire, inasmuch as upon it depend the other elevations or visitations and translations to be recited below out of Rapine. And here I think Rapine, the already named compiler both of the French Life and of the ecclesiastical Annals of the diocese of Châlons, is in any case to be praised, in that, whereas in embellishing the Life he mingled false and doubtful things indiscriminately with true, in reporting those matters of which we must here treat he was able to follow safer monuments, and did indeed follow them diligently and accurately; whence also in descriptions of this sort we have believed his authority to be trusted, those things being meanwhile plainly left aside which, concerning St. Memmius' deeds and the series of the first bishops of Châlons, he mingled in rather inconsiderately out of the mere tradition of the common people, though he testifies that he consulted fifteen authors, with no criticism applied. Here, then, is the amplifier of the older Life, in the appendix already often mentioned, discoursing after his own manner, barbarously enough, concerning the first finding of the sacred body:
[19] wonderfully found, After God shone forth through his servants with such great powers and miracles, and became renowned in the latest time: in the second year under the reign of King Dagobert (he it is who after a long oppression returned to his own kingdoms), in the fifth month, on the fifth day of the month, at the second watch of the night, while the brethren celebrating the nocturns stood by him, thus a new thing, never before seen, appeared at the head of the holy tomb, so that it might declare him at that time father and apostolic, opening heaven by his prayers — heaven which for three months had not rained upon the earth, while a violent drought raged, so that all the wells were reduced to dust; thus God soon watered and rained upon the earth; and the water which had risen from the depth through forty feet he made to ascend to the heights, and made it flow as a fountain from above until the fourth watch, so that all who were keeping vigil saw it; and all the brethren trembled, singing together with one desire. The vigil was indeed completed that night and the festival celebrated; but from that very day until the eighth day the singing of psalms in no way ceased, of those who beat at heaven's gate in one faith in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
[20] a long drought is dispelled, Where the fountain had flowed from above into the deep, in that same place, found by a like power, a little leaden vessel was discovered; and thus its cover split itself in the middle, as though it had been struck by a small saw with hands: and the water in that same little vessel shone clear in the likeness of crystal; those chanting psalms in the faith of Christ trembled as they searched; and a beautiful body was found, all whose limbs, joints, teeth, and sinews were knit to one another, holding thus beautiful members and teeth, as though they had eaten food that very day. Each vessel was removed and the work was found; and it was so examined with so great a miracle, that thus hanging in the midst in equal measure, as much as it stood out above, so much did it project below from the earth: nor was any opening found through which water might have entered: and the first beauty was found in that same place, which flows perpetually with vigor, built up and adorned with most elegant workmanship; whence daily the sick receive medicine, the fountain being firm and at every season to be wondered at. The vessel that was found received a place in its own proper honor outside the church toward the eastern side, ten feet away. On the third day a girl, long constricted in her foot, could go forward by no step; with firm faith devoted to that holy body, prostrate in prayer for three nights, her infirmity left behind and health received, she goes forth without pain of foot.
[21] and other miracles are wrought. But after six months, that same power following, a boy with a like infirmity lay through the night at the tomb of the holy man Memmius, in his place beside the flowing fountain, and at the rising of dawn received health. A woman shut off from the light, stricken with blindness for many seasons, lay there two nights, but on the third night at the fourth watch the light so shone for her as though she had had no sight darkened by shadows: which being received, she returned to her own home. From that day the demons, under whatever image they were, being repressed by God's power could in no way lie hidden in this place; there they were exposed, and there put to flight. And many other like things, and mighty works, which it has not seemed good to relate and to enumerate, and it would be long to weave them out in order. But the things which we have seen, these we have written and relate: how great is the glory, how great the brightness, how great the rewards forever, which God prepares for the Saints unto eternity; when at his tomb there is so great power, and to those seeking help in the present veneration, the Lord Jesus Christ reigning. Amen.
[22] It is to be lamented that prodigies so illustrious are here so barbarously and contortedly expressed, A second finding in the ninth century in which nevertheless I have judged nothing should be altered. Nor certainly did Rapine, cited above, render them much more explicit in his Annals from page 100; noting this expressly, that the sacred body was found outside the church toward the Eastern side, but was not afterwards deposited there, but more probably in an underground vault, which stands to this day in a little chapel, covered with marble upon which had been carved the now worn-away image of a bishop. This is most certainly established from Theudoinus' account above in §2, number 14: that, the mausoleum having been removed and the mound of earth set aside, St. Memmius' tomb was found in the year 878 in the four-cornered and cemented trench of his precious body, in which without doubt it had lain from the year 674, in which most probably the first finding already described happened, in the month of May: but that solemn translation into the new tomb that was to be prepared was put off for a full seven months, since indeed in the monastery of St. Memmius it is commemorated with festive solemnity not in the month of May, but on the XVI of December. What the writer means by "each vessel being removed" is not sufficiently understood; Theudoinus said one vessel was discovered, and that of lead, and, if we believe Rapine, extended to ten feet; and how prodigiously this was sustained in the air is plain from the narrative given, and from the praised letter of Theudoinus.
[23] Further, this account, as I was just saying, briefly and neatly recalls that revelation or visitation of the sacred body which took place two hundred years and more after the first, in the reign of Charles surnamed the Bald, on the VIII of the Kalends of April in the year, as we noted above, 878, when namely the sacred bones were transferred from that older monument into another more seemly one; and this is called the first translation, which would that Theudoinus had described a little more distinctly and more accurately. More illustrious surely is the other, most celebrated many centuries afterward, of which an annual commemoration is observed in the very Martyrology of the church of St. Memmius, expressed in Rapine, page 355, in these words: At Châlons, the second translation of St. Memmius, first bishop of that same place, which was made in the year of the Lord 1326. There was translated likewise together with him the body of blessed Poma the virgin, his sister. Of this Saint there will be a proper place below; here it remains to be indicated that Rapine elegantly describes the most precious and likewise most artful reliquary of silver gilt, surrounded and adorned with statues of many Saints likewise of silver, as it were the most splendid — I had almost said immortal — monument of the men of Châlons' veneration toward their most holy Patron.
[24] And that is the very shrine surviving to this day, which in 1624 the most illustrious Henry Clausse, bishop and count of Châlons, solemnly opened and visited, A more solemn reposition in the seventeenth century with Rapine among others assisting, and describing the whole matter more fully at the end of the Life of St. Memmius from page 322. To this belongs chiefly that there were then found the bones of both sacred bodies, and these were so arranged in new silken wrappings that they might be more seemly placed, the sacred ashes being distributed into various little vessels, just as at this time also they are preserved, and by the accustomed piety of the people of Châlons and their neighbors are most constantly honored to this very day, not without frequent miracles, some of which it will be permitted to subjoin — miracles wrought at the time of the last visitation already mentioned, which the praised Rapine entered into the records. Here I shall also observe in a few words that some relics were at that time taken out of the reliquary, which were transferred elsewhere and kindly shared with the pious clients of the Saint. Whither, or with whom, I have not ascertained; from one specimen a conjecture may be made about the others. Here is the instrument which the often-to-be-praised collaborator of ours, the distinguished Master Le Beuf, canon and succentor of the church of Auxerre, sent me not so long ago:
[25] as an instrument teaches. Henry Clausse, by the grace of God and of the holy Apostolic See bishop and Count of Châlons, to our beloved son in Christ Master Louis Noël du Amis, ecclesiastical priest of this our diocese, canon of Auxerre, etc., greeting and paternal benediction. To you, that we may proceed to increase more fully what sacred pledge of our love toward you we have begun to offer as some recompense for your virtues, we gladly give these venerable relics of the Guardians of this our city and province, namely a rib and a sudary of St. Memmius our predecessor and first prelate, likewise a tooth of St. Domitian the pontiff, and a sudary of St. Poma virgin and martyr, which about two years ago we drew forth from their caskets at the monastery of St. Memmius; and we admonish you likewise to see that they be attended with due honor, and we desire that the patronage of those whose sweet and timely help we have known, and our forefathers and contemporaries worthy of credit have known, perceived, and testified, through many men set in various straits, may in no way be wanting to you and to their pious clients, the servants of Christ, unto the greater glory of Almighty God, so that at last you may deserve to be made a partaker of their happiness. Given at Châlons on the VIII of the Kalends of May in the year of the Lord 1626. Subscribed: Henry, bishop of Châlons, etc., under a great seal in wax, etc.
[26] Relics at Merry. The receiver of these precious gifts, the Reverend Master Noël, did not fail to hold them in the highest esteem and to expose them at Auxerre for the veneration of the faithful. The sacred pledges of St. Memmius he had inserted into an image of the most blessed Virgin Mary — piously indeed, but in a place not sufficiently safe, so that the praised Reverend Master Le Beuf accordingly judged they should be taken out from there, to be placed more safely and better in the church of Merry (Merry-Sec), three leagues distant from Auxerre, where St. Memmius has now for many centuries been both held and honored as patron. Certainly in our Bargidean Manuscript collection of Auxerre, where St. Desiderius
is treated of, the twentieth bishop of that same city, among the donations made by St. Desiderius himself to the basilica of St. Stephen this is expressly reckoned: Then they add Merry, in the same territory (namely of Auxerre), where he himself built houses and an oratory in honor of St. Mimmius. So that thence it may manifestly appear that already from the beginning of the seventh century the cult of St. Memmius had been spread into other dioceses. And let these things concerning the findings and translations of the sacred relics, and their altogether singular veneration, and also concerning the miracles, be enough said: it remains that I should here also subjoin in few words what I promised concerning other miracles.
§ IV. Some miracles wrought about the time of the last visitation; the most solemn annual procession.
Miracles almost daily, At the end of the Life cited above, Rapine, so often praised, when about to narrate the miracles which had occurred in his own time, does not hesitate to set before them those examples which St. John Chrysostom brilliantly recalls to have been in the Church, concerning the great St. Ignatius, to whom he joins the prophet Elisha, and then St. Augustine concerning St. Stephen; with whom he judges St. Memmius altogether to be compared, inasmuch as both his sacred bones and the healing well described above have shone and continue to shine with miracles so innumerable that he roundly and expressly declares them to be almost daily. Here is a brief beginning drawn from the fever-stricken, whose number, made whole by the merits of his own St. Memmius, he boldly compares with the days of the year itself — nay, he contends that more were restored to fullest health within the compass of one year than there are days counted in its whole course. Further, among so many healed by the Saint's aid, he thought by no means to be passed over the Reverend Master Paul Roger, priest, theologian, and canon of the church of Châlons itself, who sang thus of more than one grace of healing received in himself, in a thanksgiving poem hung up in the Saint's own chapel:
[28] In adverse things you furnish solaces, Memmius, And, kindly, render to suppliants favorable powers: one of which is described. For — I shall confess it, indeed, before you and before Christ the judge — Thrice did fever seize me with trembling struggle, Returning at different turns; thrice a suppliant I came to these thresholds, and laid an offering at the sacred altar; Thrice I happily drew waters from the deep fountain. Why do I delay? Thrice the sick fever left me unharmed. By this hung-up tablet I return thanks from my heart. A slight gift, I confess, for a threefold favor; But nothing owed to you is to be held slight. Oh, if I might see you mighty in signs and words, Such as our forefathers once saw you, I should rejoice, safe and sound, to lick the physician's footsteps: It is not granted: but it is granted to fix kisses on the holy ground, Where once the venerable bones lay softly. Here, stretched on the ground, I shall pray to the Father thus with my voice: O you who draw off fevers from a sickened [e] body, Drawing off the sins committed in our heart, Grant merits of eternal life, grant at last its rewards.
[29] These things belong to the very year of the last showing of the sacred body, 1624, Fevers are cured, in which that thanksgiving tablet was hung up, another benefit following afterwards upon the same priest, whose authentic testimony Rapine relates in the same place that he gave. He adds further another miracle in John Domballe, a citizen of Châlons, who, worn down for fifteen days and more by a most sharp continuous fever, so that for a full seven days he had not been able to utter a word, all hope having been taken away by the physicians that he would ever be restored to health by human means, and he indeed, already fortified with the last sacraments, was awaiting nothing but death; at last he turned to him who shows himself wonderful in his Saints, and, invoking St. Memmius' patronage, a vow being conceived of visiting his church, upon his poured-out prayers there soon followed a sudden and entire healing, in the month of July of that same year 1624. An altogether similar miracle, and in a similar disease, followed on the XXX of October of the same year, in the person of Nicholas Havetel, likewise a citizen of Châlons, a nine days' supplication having been instituted by his mother at St. Memmius' glorious tomb, during which he obtained perfect health.
[30] likewise dysentery, Of the following plainly notable miracle two religious women of the Châlons congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary were witnesses, where Perretta Pacifica, a novice in the same place, laboring gravely with dysentery, tormented by a sharp fever and by various other pains, had taken from the physicians every hope of ever recovering health. In such great straits the superior of the monastery is reminded by a certain religious of the said Congregation that St. Memmius is patron of the fever-stricken and an altogether singular heavenly physician, when garments have touched his sacred relics. Without delay: she herself sends a garment to be applied to the sacred head, which being soon brought back, the sick woman is clothed in it, with such wonderful success that, relaxed into sweet sleep, she slept most peacefully for a full seven hours, and then, waking, felt herself sound and strong; and she who during the time of her illness had loathed all food, having eagerly taken supper, from that day was most fully restored to herself.
[31] again fevers Louise Jubrien, widow of Peter Corneille, while he lived an apothecary of Châlons, 53 years of age, most gravely afflicted for three days by a continuous fever, ordered herself to be carried to the church of St. Memmius, and there that the prayer of the Saint be recited over her; which being scarcely pronounced, she felt so great a change in herself, and seemed to suffer such force as if the living skin were being violently torn from her whole face and from her head; at which very instant all her illness vanished, and she returned home sound and vigorous, chanting the praises of the heavenly physician both with heart and with mouth. The same Louise further testified that her son James Cornelius, a professed religious at St. Memmius', who had himself also been almost worn away by a continuous fever for a full eight days, being covered with a similar garment as above, after the sacred sacrifice of the Mass had been celebrated in the Saint's chapel, was immediately freed from all fever, in the same year 1624.
[32] in several persons; Then also in two spouses, John Charpentier and Catherine Honnet of Châlons, three altogether notable miracles followed one another. For when both were afflicted with fevers — he with a continuous, she with a tertian — recourse being had to St. Memmius' patronage, clothing themselves with garments applied to the Saint's head, and Mass having been ordered celebrated in the Saint's chapel, they were on that very day most entirely healed. But a third benefit also was added in Catherine, who, being eight months pregnant and afflicted in her whole body with the utmost pains, threw herself into a corner of the house, and, the Saint's help being invoked, felt it most prompt: for on the next day she brought forth offspring without any pain, as sound and vigorous as if she had given birth at her proper time. There would be no end, Rapine testifies, if anyone should think to pursue all the miracles of this kind: let it suffice here to give the judgment of a most experienced physician, most solemnly testifying that more fever-stricken persons had been healed at St. Memmius' fountain by the health-giving water than all the physicians of the whole region could cure by their remedies, however efficacious.
[33] In another class of miracles Rapine places the maimed, the crippled in limb, and the paralytic, among whom he numbers first a twelve-year-old girl, so affected in both legs paralytics and those crippled in limb. that she could not lean upon them at all, the remedies of physicians and surgeons having been applied in vain in the hospital to which she had been brought. A sister, a nun in the same place, noticing this, vowed her to St. Memmius, and took care that she be carried to the Saint's church for nine consecutive days, with such most happy success that, her legs being little by little made firm, on the ninth day she returned to the hospital safe and unharmed on her own feet. A woman of 45 years, after she had for two years been so swollen from hip to foot that she could not move her leg at all, and, all the physicians' industry being baffled, the evil grew daily worse, having conceived a vow had recourse to the heavenly physician, a novena being soon begun, which, supported on crutches, she herself wished to commence — so happily that on the fourth day, the crutches being cast aside, she returned home sound and whole. Likewise another woman, having suffered paralysis for a full five years, fleeing to the Saint in plainly similar manner, experienced his helping hand. Equal is the Saint's patronage in curing eyes, of which the same Rapine reports plainly wonderful examples in a virgin of forty years, long struggling with blindness and at last cured, and also in a noble girl of twelve, whose left eye, wholly blind, was after six months opened by the Saint's intercession. Concerning contagious disease, hernia, and other matters, see the praised Rapine.
[34] This one thing remains here, that we should also pluck a very few things from the same writer concerning the highest and most constant veneration of the people of Châlons toward their holy Apostle and Patron, The solemn annual procession in the Saint's honor. where in his Annals from page 13 he describes more fully the most solemn annual procession customarily instituted at the feasts of Pentecost, in which chiefly is repeated the memory of the first most celebrated miracle, which he not unfittingly calls the beginning of their conversion, in the raising of the noble boy drowned in the waters. But that annual procession is most devoutly celebrated with such a concourse of the whole city — let us say, of the whole clergy, both secular and regular, of all the nobility, of all the magistrates, and of absolutely the entire people — with the sacred reliquaries not only of St. Memmius but also of very many other Saints carried about, that he judges none equal to it was ever appointed in all the rest of Gaul. Let it be enough to have said that with equal zeal the most illustrious bishop strives, and the governors of the city and province with their retinue, and also strangers flowing in from everywhere, so that it seems to be reckoned the proper and common festival not of one city, but of the whole region, as great as it is; in which, to be most religiously repeated every year, the zeal, fervor, and piety of all is recorded not to have cooled one whit thus far — nay, not even in the least to have grown lukewarm.
§ V. Things wrongly ascribed to Memmius.
Various Saints are wrongly joined with St. Memmius As we have already weighed above many doubtful, uncertain, and entangled matters concerning St. Memmius, so now there are here to be subjoined those things most openly false which are attributed to him, some of which were long ago refuted by our Predecessors in this Work. We have already said that the whole of chapter 14 of the Life of St. Memmius is spent by Rapine in describing the deeds of St. Leodegarius the priest as though he were his disciple — namely of him who is said to be solemnly honored among the people of Perthes in Champagne on the XXIII of June, on which day Papebroch so accurately illustrated his Acts that he sufficiently showed that Rapine had trifled when he so boldly made that holy Leodegarius the contemporary and disciple of St. Memmius; inasmuch as he was some centuries later, as at the said day was sufficiently fully demonstrated; so that accordingly the conversion of that city and district of Perthes to the Christian faith, the building and consecration there of the first church under the title of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, over which St. Leodegarius was set, are wrongly — not to say absurdly — ascribed to our first Apostle of the people of Châlons, no less than the consecration of another church at Dinant in the country of Liège, which is said to have been performed by the same St. Memmius in the year 120 of our Christian era and dedicated to St. Stephen the protomartyr.
[36] they are wrongly joined. Of the same rhetoric of Rapine and the same unskillfulness in distinguishing times smacks another shameful parachronism, inserted into the ecclesiastical annals of the city of Châlons
by him from page 23 under the title of St. Manna, disciple of St. Memmius, where he weaves the story of a holy marriage from which seven children, all Saints, proceeded, of whom the youngest, St. Manna, baptized by St. Memmius and most holily instructed, afterwards entrusted to nuns, became renowned for wondrous virtues, so that she was sought in marriage by many princes, whom she most constantly resisted, though even her parents pressed her in vain, and, taking the veil, professed herself a nun. All these things indeed, to be illustrated at the III of October, on which day she is venerated, prove the illustrious virtues of St. Manna, concerning which we certainly have no doubt: this we wonder at, that Rapine was so little solicitous about reconciling the times that he judged Saints removed from St. Memmius by many centuries should be joined to him, as though he reckoned he had not sufficiently consulted his glory unless he ascribed to him the instruction of the chief Saints of Champagne. And this indeed, I suppose, was that he might earn the favor of his people of Châlons, which no one would begrudge him.
[37] Still more shamefully do the Spaniards Not by that same spirit of piety were the Spanish fable-mongers driven, nor equally the Portuguese, whom we here also undertake to refute. I mean here those writers whom that fruitful patcher-together of innumerable absurdities, Tamayo, munificently cites and amplifies in his great Spanish Martyrology, when he confounds two most disparate Saints no less ridiculously than he shamefully attempts in vain to snatch from the people of Châlons the sacred deposit of their most holy Patron. Let his most inept announcement at the XV day of the month of May be heard: At Évora in Portugal in Spain, of St. Mimius Mantius, bishop of that city, who, having been a Roman citizen cleaving to Christ, deserved to be called his disciple, and coming into the Gauls, and teaching the faith to the region of Châlons, traveled through the Spains, where, sowing among the citizens of the city of Évora the truth of Evangelical doctrine, he at last under the emperor Trajan obtained the glorious crown of a martyr. Here, if anywhere, the proverb legitimately has place: "With great effort, great trifles"; to which may deservedly be added the things which in his annotations he pronounces with equal unskillfulness to entirely the same effect. Here are his words:
[38] and Portuguese trifle. St. Memmius Mantius, bishop and martyr. Among the French and the Spaniards the memory of this most holy prelate and martyr is observed with a mixed diversity. A most subtle distinction deserves to be observed. For among them he is known by the simple name of Memmius; among ours he is venerated under the name of Mantius. They believe him only a Bishop; ours only a Martyr. In their church his feast is kept on the V day of August; in that of ours on this day, namely on the XV, in place of the XXI of May. The Acts performed by him in Spain France utterly did not know. By a singular prodigy indeed, since St. Memmius never saw Spain with his own eyes. The things done by him in Gaul once lay hidden from Spain: but since, God permitting (he would better say, the portentous chronicles having been brought to light), the lucubrations of both nations have now begun to come forth into public, and we French make public what was hidden among ours, and we what was concealed among the French (would that it were buried in perpetual darkness), we shall easily stitch together into one the collected Acts of the holy Martyr and Pontiff.
[39] Tamayo candidly professes his art while he stitches and patches, ridiculously trying to claim being altogether a cobbler of the first class and a mender of old shoes, whose most badly joined patches Papebroch long ago pulled apart, when at the said XXI of May, in volume V of that month from page 31, he so illustrates with a historical Commentary from the Saint's genuine Acts St. Mantius the martyr, slain by the Jews in Portugal in the fifth or sixth century for the Christian faith, that he utterly eliminates from the nature of things both the Portuguese and the Spanish dreams; especially in chapter 3, in which are most solidly rejected the fables fastened upon St. Mantius in later centuries, which merely to have named is to have refuted, so that I judge it by no means necessary today to do what has been done. Whoever shall wish to know more curiously the architects of those insipid fables, let him go to the already cited chapter of Papebroch's Commentary, and besides to Tamayo at the said day, the XV of May, page 181, where he will find praised in the first place Flavius Dexter with his commentator Bivar, and then Julian Peter and monsters of this sort of chronicles — or shall I say dramas? — torn to pieces six hundred times and more in this our work; so that I deservedly sympathize with the French while they judge things so shameful worthy of being more laboriously confuted.
[40] We have in hand a fairly long Manuscript dissertation formerly transmitted to our Predecessors at Paris by Claude du Molinet, Canon regular of the Gallican congregation, the Saint for themselves. to which he gave the title Saint Memmius Vindicated from the Spaniards, addressed to the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Felix Vialart, bishop and count of Châlons, Peer of France. Whether it was perhaps published anywhere, I confess I do not know; more rightly indeed would he have spared both labor and expense: St. Mantius, as I said, has already been both depicted in his native colors and assigned to the Portuguese; and here I have exhibited St. Memmius distinguished by such marks that I trust it will never hereafter come into the mind of any Spaniard or Portuguese to confound into one and the same Saints distinct in nation, age, dignity, deeds, and end. And with these things we set the finishing touch to our Commentary, being about to subjoin the Legend of our St. Memmius — of however modest credit — sufficiently weighed and examined above, namely that one alone which we have called both the simplest and the most ancient, long ago published by the most illustrious Bosquet, and here now so explained, in whatever manner we could, that we have judged further annotations should be dispensed with. Let there follow, then,
THE LIFE
From Bosquet, volume I of the Histories of the Gallican church.
Memmius, Confessor, Bishop of Châlons in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 5907
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
Sent into Gaul Therefore the most blessed Mimius the bishop was noble by race, sprung from the city of Rome. But when he had been blessed as bishop by St. Peter the apostle, he was sent to the parts of the Gauls to preach the word of God, together with his brethren St. Dionysius, the future bishop of Paris, and St. Xestius bishop of Reims, and St. Eucharius bishop of Trier, and St. Savinian bishop of Sens, and St. Senecio bishop of Soissons, and six other bishops, and Donatian the deacon, and Domitian the subdeacon, who are known to be brothers in Christ as though from one womb. These, at the Lord's command, were directed to the aforesaid parts; and when the Pontiffs, having received ordination, had hastened swiftly, and had turned aside to a lodging eighteen miles from Rome, it happened that one of St. Mimius' officers, namely Domitian the subdeacon, who had been appointed with him by blessed Peter the apostle to the office of preaching, had died.
[2] he raises the subdeacon, dead on the road, But when the most blessed Mimius had recognized that the comfort of that subdeacon was lacking to him for his office, having buried him, he returned at once to St. Peter, and tearfully thus suggested, saying: Most holy lord and master, let your holiness know that Domitian the subdeacon, whom you had directed with me to preach the word of the Lord to the nations, has just now died upon the journey. When most blessed Peter had heard this — he to whom the power of binding and loosing is acknowledged to have been given by the Lord — moved by divine inspiration, he confidently answered the blessed bishop Mimius, saying: Do not, brother, be saddened at the passing of our son, but take my garment, and return to the place of his burial, and lay it upon his little body, saying thus: The Lord Jesus Christ commands you, and our master St. Peter, that, as he charged you, you delay not to walk with me to preach the word of the Lord to the nations, that the Lord's light may through us lie open to all.
[3] and by St. Peter's garment recalls him to life. Having therefore received blessed Peter the apostle's prayer, when he had come to that very place where he had died, and had laid the blessed Pontiff's garment upon his little body, with the Lord's help he who lay dead in the dust at once rose up unharmed. Then St. Mimius said to him: Rise, brother Domitian, let us go to the place to which we have been appointed by our holy Master, and let us hasten by a straight journey to the city of Châlons. Many mighty works indeed did the Lord at that time deign to show through his servants upon the way. For the weak received their step, the blind their sight, the deaf their hearing, and those set in any infirmity whatever came at once, by blessed Mimius' prayers, to their former health. And when they had now approached the said city of Châlons, whither they had been directed, and the citizens had refused to receive them because of the error of heathenism by which it was oppressed, moved by divine inspiration he determined to go in silence to a cave in the wilderness, which was called Buxeria, distant about one mile from the city, where day and night he kept vigil and gave himself to prayers: and he filled out there the circuit of a year.
[4] A noble boy of Châlons being raised, But afterwards it happened that a certain noble boy fulfilled the debt of fate in the little river which is at the gate of that city, called Nauta; and when this had been announced to his parents, and they were raising a most violent lamentation over the little body of the dead boy, hearing that blessed Mimius was working constant mighty deeds in the cave, they came devoutly into his presence, tearfully asking that he would by his prayers give back to them their son unharmed. But blessed Mimius, having compassion on their groans, with knees bowed to the earth besought the Lord with poured-out prayers, that he would give back the boy to them alive, and that the people set in the error of heathenism might come to the knowledge of the faith. And so the most blessed man, his petition having been obtained from the Lord, rose from the dust and raised the boy from death, alive and unharmed, before his parents standing by.
[5] Who immediately, by the Blessed one's grace, sought the washing of the sacred font; he who had before been repulsed is received with joy; and when the parents of that boy had seen so great a power wrought through the servant of God, they asked of the priest that with worthy honors he would come to the city of Châlons, where they had before refused to receive him because of the error of heathenism, to the pontifical chair. And while the assembled multitude of the people was leading him with the utmost diligence to that city, at the gate of the city he met three lepers, and likewise blind men. Upon whom in the name of the holy Trinity he laid the standard of the Cross, and at once brought them back to their former health. And having entered the city, there met him a certain man having a demon, whom likewise he immediately recalled to his former health.
[6] But afterwards, through all the time of his life persevering in almsgiving, fastings, renowned also for other miracles, and vigils, he assiduously governed all the people of the city of Châlons with divine teachings, as a good shepherd. Therefore when on a certain day he had come for prayer to the cave where he had formerly dwelt, he found a certain lame man lying on a pallet, whom by his prayers he rendered sound and running. And when the fame of blessed Mimius was being spread abroad before all into every land, the Lord being its author, the seventh year of his episcopate being completed, his sister, named St. Poma, sought him out. Whom he received with worthy honor, and afterwards, during the time of his life, governed as was fitting. And she raised the dead and cured the sick.
[7] the city converted to the faith, he dies holily. And thus blessed Mimius the pontiff ruled his episcopate for eighty years, so that the divine goodness doubled for him in the body the apostolate of him whom it had proved a faithful servant in faith. He died on the Nones of August, and was buried in the town of the city where he had formerly dwelt, where also a worthy basilica, as befitted him, is known to have been built to a lofty summit. But afterwards in his place St. Donatian and Domitian the subdeacon, whom he had raised from the dead by St. Peter's ordinance, and who had also been directed with him to preach, received the episcopate in their city of Châlons in peace. At which blessed Mimius' tomb the divine goodness has deigned assiduously to show many mighty works, where the blind receive sight, the weak their step, the deaf hearing, and demons are put to flight, and those oppressed by any infirmity whatever, asking there with entire faith, at once receive their former health. Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom be honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.