ON ST. AREGIUS OR ARIDIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT DECIZE IN THE TERRITORY OF NEVERS.
After the middle of the sixth century.
A COMMENTARY
On his cult, his affairs and deeds, and the time in which he flourished.
Aregius, bishop and confessor, at Decize in the territory of Nevers (St.)
BY J. P.
Noviodunum of the Aedui in ancient times, but in later times called Nevers, is described by the Sainte-Marthes in volume 3 of Gallia Christiana, before the bishops of that same city, at page
791. An account of the place This subject Hadrian Valesius handles more fully in his Notitia of the Gauls from page 383; which Baudrand reports more compendiously than either, and it will suffice to have transcribed it hither for our purpose. Nevers, a city of Gaul (which … the inhabitants commonly call Nevers …), ample and elegant, formerly called Noviomagus and the head of the Vadicasses, now the chief city of the province of Nivernais so called from it, episcopal under the archbishop of Sens, and noble with the title of a Duchy, with a long stone bridge upon the river Loire, and a castle, is situated almost midway between Paris to the north and Lyons to the south, at a distance of 50 leagues, 20 leagues from Auxerre, 12 to the south toward Moulins, and 20 from Autun.
[2] The episcopal see of this city St. Aregius or Aridius (commonly Saint Are or Saint Arey) ruled and adorned by the virtues which he practiced in it while he lived; these things being premised but after his death he made illustrious a place of the territory of Nevers by the name of Decize, which is also written otherwise, when he willed his sacred bodily remains to be laid there, after he had passed to a better life at Nevers, as Le Cointe writes in his Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 1, at the year of Christ 551, number 18, page 783, recording these things of St. Aregius: He died at Nevers; but after his death he was placed in a little boat and carried to Decize, because he had desired to be buried in the chapel which the hermits Euphrasius and Auxilius had built there. Decize is situated on an island of the Loire above the city of Nevers, from which it is distant seven leagues. More concerning this place the aforesaid Hadrian Valesius has at pages 169 and 170. To the place of his deposition let us join the proof of public cult.
[3] his cult is exhibited from the calendars In our manuscript Florarium, at the XI day of July, there occurs the memory of St. Argius, bishop of Nevers and confessor: from which day, among us in volume III of July, page 177, he was remitted to the present. Saussay, in the Supplement to his Gallican Martyrology, page 1158, announces him thus on this day: At Decize upon the Loire in the territory of Nevers, the birthday of St. Arigius the bishop, brother of St. Austregisilus, prelate of Bourges, who, surpassing the splendor of his birth by the nobility of the freeborn service of Christ, and by the piety of religion, and the practice of justice, after he had with much labor drawn the people of Nevers, still worshipping idols, to the faith of Christ, and had everywhere fulfilled the pastoral charge entrusted to him, flew away to the heavenly glory: to whom St. Gregory the Pope more than once directs letters; and as he instructs him with Apostolic admonitions, so he commends him with praises. There are in this eulogy certain things to be corrected, as we shall afterwards see. Castellan also announces him on this sixteenth day in his Universal Martyrology. Lastly, the annual memory of our holy Prelate is had in the new Parisian Martyrology in these words: At Decize in the district of Nevers, of St. Aridius the bishop, who subscribed to the fifth council of Orleans and to the second of Paris. If anyone perchance should require other documents for establishing the legitimate cult of St. Aregius, I have at hand what I may add to those already produced.
[4] In the year 1616 there was published at Paris in the French tongue a book with this title, and from elsewhere. Historical Catalogue of the Bishops of Nevers, by Michael Cotignon, canon and archpriest of the church of Nevers, where among other things which he relates of our Prelate he says, at page 22, that his body was honorably buried at Decize, and that there a little afterwards a great parish church was built, as is seen, he says, at present, in which very many miracles were wrought; and that down to this present day the aforesaid body rests there, and that veneration is there shown to him with great honor, and that he is held by the inhabitants of Decize as their patron and holy protector, and is particularly invoked for the healing of fevers and other infirmities. These things, on the testimony of Cotignon, who is near enough to Decize and therefore well acquainted with his public veneration among the people of Decize, taken together with the announcements above, abundantly suffice to make us secure concerning the possession of legitimate cult which St. Aregius enjoys from time immemorial before the decree of Pope Urban VIII; so that he deservedly has his place here among the other heavenly citizens of this day.
[5] But it is to be lamented that the authentic Acts of this Prelate are so hidden from us His deeds, the original Acts being wanting, that we do not know that anything of them survives which has been transmitted to posterity, whether they were not written of old, or whether what was once committed to writing afterwards perished. That penury, then, of the original Acts we shall endeavor somehow to supply from elsewhere out of Cotignon, who, after citing the Breviary of Nevers, in whose lesson concerning the Saint he says that his Life and the miracles which he wrought are amply related, affirms that among other things it is there said that he was sprung of a most noble family, and endowed with so great a genius and good character, heaped with virtues of every kind, and excelling in the knowledge of all the sciences, that he surpassed all of his own age and time in the prerogative of those gifts. The same author adds also that at that time, when St. Gregory had summoned to Rome the greater part of the prelates of the kingdom of the Gauls and of great men eminent in virtue and erudition, that he might admonish them concerning the rooting out of certain remnants of paganism and of superstitious idolatry, the burden was laid upon our Saint that for that cause he should betake himself to the territory of Nevers, the episcopal see being there vacant for some time: which charge, committed to him by the said St. Gregory and by the whole assembly of the prelates above mentioned, he so fulfilled in every point that all the clergy and people chose him for their pastor, and took care that he should be confirmed by the same St. Gregory, who most willingly complied with their wishes.
[6] from the Breviary of Nevers And in the episcopal dignity he so bore himself that he was commended not only by the voice of his flock, but by God Himself, who granted him the grace of miracles. For when he was returning to Nevers from the province of Aquitaine, and had sent forward one of his men to announce the Prelate's coming, by the name of Ursus (for in Cotignon's French text he is called Our), and when this man found the river Nièvre overflowing and the bridges broken at a place which was a league's distance from the city of Nevers, and by which he wished to cross, at St. Aregius' command he set aside the peril of his life. For when, carried on horseback, he attempted the crossing, he was drowned in the waters. When this was learned, St. Aregius came to the place fatal to him, and prayed God that He would bring the body of the same Ursus to the bank of the river: and having obtained his wish, he besought the divine majesty besides that it would restore his life to him: which he immediately obtained, a great number of men being present there: from which time the said Ursus led a holy life for many years, and the bridge, rebuilt at the place where that miracle had happened, was named from him the bridge of St. Ursus, which retains the same name to this day. To this prodigy wrought on behalf of another person there is joined in the aforesaid Cotignon another wrought by the Saint on his own behalf.
[7] are reported: It was St. Aregius' custom to set out for Rome once every year: whence, after he had returned and had entered a certain place of his diocese which is now called Decize, he entered a certain chapel founded and administered by the holy hermits Euphrasius and Auxilius, and drew great pleasure from it, when he had found the place most suited and most agreeable to piety: which also he chose for the laying away of his body and for his burial. When he had determined this, being seized with sickness at Nevers, and feeling himself called by God, having summoned a great part of his clergy and people, he commanded that after his death his body should be placed in a little boat upon the Loire without any companion, God being about to have care of the place of his burial. Fortified therefore with the sacred viaticum of the precious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, with eyes lifted to heaven he rendered his soul to his Creator: and his body being placed in a skiff, as was said above, upon the aforesaid river Loire, which at that time was in flood, the same skiff, without any steersman, when there was nothing in it save a cross and lighted torches, in the sight of all the clergy and people of Nevers went up against the stream for seven leagues as far as Decize, whither the greatest part of the said clergy and people followed after, and rejoiced at this miracle, praising God and invoking their holy Pastor: whose body was there honorably buried. These things are related on the credit of the said Cotignon, and rendered by us into Latin from his French text. But what are narrated by him to have happened after the Saint's burial we have set forth before at number 4. On the credit, let us say again, of Cotignon we give these things: who, although he alleges the Breviary of Nevers before the foregoing narrative, as we have seen, yet since it is not established for us of what age, credit, and authority that Breviary is, the people of Nevers and of Decize will pardon us, as is fair, if in circumstances so marvelous as are inserted in the foregoing history — whatever be the case as to their substance — we confine ourselves within the bounds of simple narration alone, especially since some things occur in it which need the sponge.
[8] in whose narrative there are errors, For a gross parachronism is there committed, when St. Aregius is said to have been promoted to the bishopric of Nevers in the time of St. Gregory (namely the first Pope of that name, surnamed the Great), and to have been confirmed therein by the same Gregory. This most patent chronological error Cotignon so failed to observe in the narrative related that he even confirms it before, at page 17, thus: Our holy Prelate lived in the time of the said St. Gregory (he had just been treating of St. Gregory the Great), of the emperor Maurice, and of the aforesaid Clothar II, king of the Gauls, about the year 595. And a little before he had said that Fulcilius, as he will have it, his predecessor, died in the year 594. But among the bishops who on the XXVIII of October, in the 13th Indiction, in the 38th year of King Childebert, that is, in the year of Christ 549, subscribed to the fifth council of Orleans, there is marked Aregius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Nevers (not Clementinus, as it is put in Coquille, presently to be cited: for he subscribes in the said council as bishop of the church of Apt), as may be seen in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, column 398. And in the same place, column 812, to the second council of Paris, which was convoked about the year 553, there subscribes Aridius, bishop of the church of Nevers. Is the beginning of his episcopate, then, rightly attached by Cotignon to the time of St. Gregory the Great?
[9] Guy Coquille, in his History of Nevers, printed at Paris in the year 1622, which are corrected. at page 30 would have St. Aregius to have lived in the time of St. Gregory I, Pope, inasmuch as more than one letter was addressed by him to him. The same is the opinion of Cotignon, page 17. But both are deceived, in that they have not separated this Aridius or Aregius from another of the same name, bishop of Gap. Let Le Cointe be heard, at the place assigned above: From the subscriptions of the synods, both that of Orleans … and that of Paris …, at which Aregius, prelate of Nevers, was present, you understand well enough that those are in error who will have that same Aregius to have been contemporary with Gregory the Great, and to have sat in the episcopal see
after the holy Aeoladius and Agricola, of whom the former subscribed to the council of Lyons in the year of Christ 567; the latter in the year of Christ 585 confirmed with his subscription the synod of Mâcon. To Aredius, prelate of Gap, Gregory the Great often wrote: thence arose the occasion of the error. For the writers of the affairs of Nevers made one out of two Aregii, that in the pontiff Aregius they might publish abroad the more illustrious glory of the church of Nevers. But Aregius, bishop of the people of Nevers, has no need of the praises of others; for he shone with many virtues, and deserved to be honored by posterity on the XVII of the Kalends of September. From these things Saussay also is to be corrected, whom we intimated above at number 3 that we should take to task. Three Aridii, then, may here be considered, to avoid the confusion of one with another, who all lived together in the same sixth century: namely the one of Nevers of today (to whom St. Gregory the Pope could never have written, since he died long before that Pontiff's time, as will be made plain below), the one of Gap, and the one of Lyons. Of the last we treated at the X day of August, in volume 11 of that month; where in the preliminary Commentary, §2, page 547, you will find that the letters were sent by the aforesaid St. Gregory not to him, but to the bishop of Gap, according to what was long ago said in volume 1 of May, on the 1st day, where his Acts are illustrated, page 108.
[10] Nor is it sufficiently agreed among authors in what place of number our St. Aregius stood among the prelates of Nevers. From the time in which the Saint sat, For in the Sainte-Marthes' Gallia Christiana, volume 3, page 791, after Tauricianus, who is placed in the first position, and who in the year 517 subscribed to the council of Epaon, in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ]; and after Rusticus, who set down his name at the third synod of Orleans in the year 538, as may be seen in the cited Councils, volume 5, column 304; after these bishops, I say, ours is placed in the third position; to whom the next successor assigned is Aeoladius, who in the year 567 was present at the second council of Lyons, as may be read in the same collection of Councils, in the volume cited, column 849. Coquille at page 30 rightly indeed judges, against the Legendaries, as he calls them, of the prelates of Nevers, that Aregius was not the first of them; but those whom he enumerates at page 38 are altogether different from those already mentioned, except Aregius, of whom, as of the first famous bishop, he says the Legendaries speak; and at page 39 he puts Eoladius in the fifth place. But Cotignon so multiplies the predecessors of St. Aregius that he brings him to the twelfth place after them and to the times of St. Gregory. But it seems that we should rather adhere to the Sainte-Marthes, since they indicate that they not only saw those two writers whom I named, but also composed that catalogue of theirs from other records and public acts not published before.
[11] it is concluded that St. Wandregisilus was not his brother. Since therefore from that catalogue Rusticus sat in the year of Christ 538; St. Aregius in the year 549 and about the year 553; and Aeoladius his successor in the year 567; various chronological points flow hence: of which one is that our Prelate did not survive beyond the year 567; another, that he did not begin the government of his see before the year 538; a third, that it cannot be exactly determined how long he presided, when he began to preside, and when he ceased. In the new Breviary of Paris the year 566 is appended to his announcement, at about which year he had before been marked by Castellan in his Universal Martyrology. A fourth, finally, that he was not the brother of St. Austregisilus, archbishop of Bourges, as Saussay, alleged above at number 3, and Cotignon at page 17, make him. For in the Commentary prefixed to his Life among us, in volume V of May, on the XX day, page 228 \, it long ago seemed to Henschen that his birth should be attached to the year of Christ 551; but his episcopate is fixed at 612, his death at 624: which marks of time conflict with that pretended brotherhood, as is clear from the foregoing. These things being considered, we have above fixed our Saint's death after the middle of the sixth century. Ferrarius therefore is also to be corrected, when in his General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology*, marking the announcement of St. Arrigius (so he expresses the name), bishop of Nevers, at the XXIII day of August, he affirms in his notes at the same day that he was the brother of St. Austregisilus, bishop of Bourges.