ON ST. BALSEMIUS, MARTYR,
AT RAMERUPT IN THE DIOCESE OF TROYES IN GAUL,
In the fifth century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The distinction of the Saint from another of the same name, his cult and martyrdom.
Balsemius, martyr at Ramerupt in the diocese of Troyes (St.)
J. B. S.
Two holy Balsemii of the same name (in French Baussenge), confounded by Colvener in his notes on Flodoard's History of Reims, This holy Martyr are rightly distinguished by others. Castellan in his Universal Martyrology seems to acknowledge only the one of today, whom I know not why he marked on the previous day in these words: In Champagne, of St. Balsemius, whose body was translated to Ramerupt, but his head to Paris. The other Balsemius, a recluse on the summit of the Mount of Reims and nephew of St. Basolus, who is also reckoned among the Saints by Menard and Mabillon and others, we have thought better to defer to the day on which St. Basolus his uncle, with whom he is plainly connected, is honored, namely to the XXVI of November; intending here to treat only of the Martyr, sufficiently famous in the diocese of Troyes, whom, when we have first established those things which pertain to his cult, we shall show to be different from the other of the same name.
[2] Passed over by all the older Martyrologists, he first has a place among the Usuardine supplements in the Lubeck-Cologne edition on this day: known in the more recent calendars: At the castle of Remerude, the birthday of blessed Balsimius the glorious martyr and of his companions, which Greven transcribed in the same number of words, better forming Balsemii; from him Molanus, Maurolycus, Ferrarius, and in German Canisius, who I know not whence have summoned companions for him. Menard on the previous day did not mean to indicate this our Saint, since he more expressly marks the recluse of whom we have already spoken, the nephew of St. Basolus. Castellan's announcement is not sufficiently distinct. Saussay reported his translation on the XIV of this month after this manner: At the town of Arcis in the territory of Troyes, the translation of St. Balsemius the martyr, whose birthday is conspicuous on the XVI day of this month. When his sacred body had long lain in the tomb in which he had first been buried, the countess Hersendis, moved by pious devotion, caused it to be raised with much honor, and bringing it to her castle of Ramerupt, placed it in the church of the holy Mother of God, which she had built with her son Count Hilduin. Where the Martyr, resting, mindful of hospitality, has bestowed many benefits of healings upon the inhabitants.
[3] On this day he adorns him with another eulogy, but wrongly confounds him with the nephew of St. Basolus. He is adorned with a eulogy by Saussay. It runs thus: At Arcis in the territory of Troyes, the birthday of St. Balsemius the martyr, who, a Limousin by origin, nephew of St. Basolus, having set out into Champagne under the Vandal persecution, when, kindled with the zeal of God, he exhorted with saving words those barbarians who were wasting this tract with dire slaughter, that they should forsake the destructive path of unbelief, and, shaking off the snares of the devil in which they were entangled, should betake themselves to the way of salvation (embracing, that is, the worship of the true and only maker of things) and to the paths of piety and justice — being set upon by them, who rose against him after the manner of wild beasts, and assailed with insults and blows, dragged about and smitten with the sword upon the brow of a hill near the aforesaid town, his head being cut off, he breathed forth his blessed spirit into heaven, to be given the eternal laurel. And presently an angelic melody was heard celebrating the triumph of the Martyr, who, gathering his severed head in his own hands, carried it back, walking stoutly before the hostile troops. But the emissaries of Satan, not enduring so magnificent a spectacle of the victor, insolently pursuing the glorious champion of Christ as he thus exulted, seize him again, strike him, and at last cast him headlong into a well that lay in the way, heap masses of stones upon him, and thus, while they busy themselves to obscure his palm, they make him illustrious, buried under a heap of stones, as by a trophy of that victory of his set up, an everlasting monument both of their own savagery and of so great a Martyr's glory. The well into which the renowned soldier of Christ was cast is still to be seen, removed only a quarter of a league from that place in which he had been struck with the axe, covered and closed with five flints, by which the Martyr was buried: behind which is seen a little chapel, sacred to the same conqueror, whose birthday is today celebrated throughout the whole diocese.
[4] Flodoard makes no mention of him, And that all these things pertain to the holy Martyr of today, and prove his received cult among the people of Troyes, is sufficiently plain; so that I altogether do not see what moved Colvener to confound into one two men of the same name indeed, but unlike in age and in kind of life and death. The text of Flodoard, book 2, chapter 3, treating of St. Basolus, is conceived in exactly these words: At length, after many marks of piety wrought by him in his life, foreknowing by the spirit that the time of his calling was at hand, he sent to his nephew, by name Balsemius, that he might bring him to himself from the region of Limoges, signifying to him that after his own death he ought to lead his life in his aforesaid dwelling of conversation, according to what had been revealed to him by the Lord. Whose saving precepts obeying, as a good son, and desiring to attain the heavenly inheritance, he remained in that same dwelling until the day of his departure. What here is even the slightest trace either of Vandals or of martyrdom?
[5] whence he was wrongly confounded by Colvener with the other: Yet Colvener observes thus upon these words: A fragment of the Life of this Balsemius the martyr exists in the Storehouse of the sacred antiquities of the diocese of Troyes, and Molanus added him to Usuard on the XVI of August, on which day his feast is celebrated in the diocese of Troyes. The fragment here cited we shall give below. The whole error of that most learned man is that he acknowledged only one St. Balsemius, whereas most certainly there were two different men, separated from one another by nearly two centuries. That Balsemius, the nephew of St. Basolus, may have lived down to the middle of the seventh century, since Castellan fixes the age of St. Basolus at the year 620; but the other, the Martyr of whom we here treat, obtained his crown about the middle of the fifth century, in that terrible Vandal invasion. The rest Menard explains in his observation at this day, page 666, whose words I subjoin here:
[6] Nicholas Camuzat brings forward a Life of St. Balsemius, in which it is stated as Menard rightly noted. that he dwelt in the district of Arcis in the diocese of Troyes, and was there struck with the axe by the Vandals. Of none of these things does Flodoard make mention, who says that he died in the place of his reclusion, which was on the summit of the Mount of Reims, and that he was the nephew of St. Basolus, and came to Reims summoned by him. And that Basolus indeed lived long after the Vandals' irruption into Gaul, at least the first. That most learned man Colvener, in his notes upon this passage of Flodoard, thought that there was one and the same Balsemius, and attributed the Life of Balsemius the martyr brought forward by Camuzat to the Balsemius of whom Flodoard treats. Who indeed agree only in name and only in birthplace, namely the Limousin; and in this, that leaving it they came into Champagne. But they differ in this, that the one had his cell on the Mount of Reims, the other in the district of Arcis, in which he was slain by the Vandals: whence it comes that they differ also in time as well as in the manner of death.
[7] It remains that we now report the fragment of Camuzat, more than once cited, Camuzat has related his martyrdom. or the Life such as it is, with these his notes to it prefixed, from page 336 verso: The entire and complete history of St. Balsemius (by the common name St. Baussange), although diligently investigated, I have by no help been able to obtain, but only this fragment, which was dug out piecemeal from an old manuscript codex in the priory of the town of Ramerupt, seven leagues from the city of Troyes and only one from the village of Arcis: in which priory indeed, dependent on the greater monastery near the city of Tours, the relics of that same St. Balsemius are preserved, who was beheaded in the borders of the said little town of Arcis by the Vandals, under the leadership, as I conjecture, of Attila, whose army, of a multitude almost innumerable, was afterwards destroyed and routed by Aëtius, the legate of Caesar Valentinian, a most illustrious and most vigorous man, and that in the Catalaunian fields, distant about twenty leagues from the aforesaid little town of Arcis.
A FRAGMENT
The history of St. Balsemius the martyr,
From the Storehouse of Nicholas Camuzat, page 334 verso.
Balsemius, martyr at Ramerupt in the diocese of Troyes (St.)
BHL Number: 0904
aFrom Nicholas Camuzat.
By the Vandals in Champagne b But at length, reaching the places of Champagne, he came to a certain city by the name of Arcis, for it is said to have been a city at that time, but now we all know it to be a village. And it happened at that time that the Vandals c, a most impious people, having been driven from their own borders, had invaded certain places of France, and especially those very borders which are on every side adjacent to Champagne. The renowned champion of the Lord, Balsemius, of whom the course of this discourse treats, reached that place by the accompanying of divine grace, in which Christ, whom he served unceasingly, chose to bestow the palm of martyrdom upon him.
[2] For coming to meet those Vandals, he began to exhort them with admonitions and saving words, that they should leave the way of error and come to their senses out of the snares of the devil in which they were held captive. Thereupon, as d is read in Solomon, Rebuke not a scorner, lest he hate thee; he is beheaded fierce and savage, gnashing at him after the manner of wild beasts, injuring and exasperating him too bitterly, at the last they led him upon a certain brow of a hill, and, his head being cut off and himself slain, they procured for themselves the way of the pit and of death; like those who crucified the Lord they cried out: Let His blood be upon us and upon the children of our posterity.
[3] carrying it in his hands Then there happened a wonderful and remarkable miracle, and much to be glorified in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is exceedingly glorious in His saints. For the blessed Soldier of Christ, as soon as he was beheaded, took his own head in his hands, and walking on before his slayers, carried it about a mile. O wonderful miracle, unheard of from the ages, that a beheaded man should carry himself by himself as he walked! Who would not marvel at Thy works, Lord Jesus, who would not be amazed at such things and the like of these, which are done at Thy nod?
[4] and walking wondrously among the barbarians, But as Thou hast said with the voice of the Gospel: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall remain for ever; we have what Thou didst speak to Thine own disciples, and what Thou didst fulfill in the doing, and what Thou dost daily fulfill in Thy brethren: He that believeth in Me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do. We doubt not to believe that an angelic choir came together to receive the soul of so great a soldier and martyr of the Lord, who, keeping watch at the vigils of his obsequies, sang for him such a melody as this: Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen and taken to Thyself, O Lord; he shall dwell in the courts of the eternal vision.
Here a little is wanting.
[5] by them he is thrust into a well. Those most impious and wicked men, after they had put this Saint to death, seeing that the Most Blessed one walked before them carrying his head,
after the manner of a triumph, suddenly raging against him again, and pursuing him together, seized him and cast him into a certain well (for there was a well before them in that way which the Man of the Lord was seeking), and blocked up that same well with stones and clods of earth. There the most precious pearl of the Lord lay hidden for a long and great space of time; but since the Truth itself has declared of itself that a city set upon a hill cannot be hidden, it pleased the divine power, for the common profit and advancement of all, that it should make this Saint known to all and publish him abroad, and that Him whom it had already glorified in heaven it should magnify and make wonderful among men in the world.
[6] A blind woman, warned by a vision, There was in the city of Limoges, whence this Saint had come, a blind daughter of the king of that country, who, long beset by this calamity, her father and kinsfolk continuing in sorrow, sought out night and day, exceedingly anxious, what remedy might come to her. But the eternal Lord, who succors all who are constrained by dangers and necessities, seeing her straitened by the anguish of such a suffering, on a certain night forewarned her as she slept with the words of such a vision:
[7] has recourse to the holy Martyr Go, He said, into France, to the city by the name of Arcis, and there thou shalt find a well blocked up with stones and earth, which, causing it to be cleansed of all filth, thou shalt find in it a very great treasure. But that treasure (of which I speak) is a most precious Martyr of the Lord, slain of old by most impious men, and, at the instigation of their malice, after the cutting off of his head cast therein by them, and called Balsemius. When thou hast raised him up, and anointing him with spices shalt wrap him in linens, thou shalt wash thine eyes with the water which thou shalt find, and straightway the keenness of the sight thou desirest shall be opened to thee.
[8] When the aforesaid lady saw such a dream, she began, more than can be believed, to marvel within herself; and at last, having summoned her father and kinsfolk upon this business, and all things fit for the journey being excellently prepared, with a great troop of soldiers, and set in a carriage, she undertakes the way of the aforesaid spice. by his help she recovered her sight: Reaching the aforesaid city of Arcis, she fulfilled all things in order, one by one, as had been commanded her, and drew forth from the well Balsemius, a pearl brighter than the sun; and washing her eyes with the water, she received the light which she had long desired. Thereafter, exceedingly thankful for the mercy imparted to her through the servant of God, wrapping the Soldier of Christ in bright linens, she laid him in the church of St. Peter, which was near at hand there, behind the altar of that basilica, burying him fittingly and reverently with gladness; and rejoicing and exulting in the light granted her, she returned to her own country.
[9] After these things the countess Hersendis, mother of the lord count Hilduin, whence his body is translated to Ramerupt. hearing all that had been done concerning this Saint, came in person, and with the greatest honor raised him from the same tomb in which he lay on the XIX of the Kalends of September, and that most fortunate woman eagerly took away the whole body, and bearing it to her castle by the name of Ramerupt, laid it in the church of St. Mary the Mother of God, which is known to have been built both from her son's money and from her own. And from that time this Most Blessed one of the Lord, reposing there with due honor, imparts the grace of healings to many weak persons, supplicating for them with the Blessed Mary to our Lord Jesus Christ: who lives and reigns through all ages of ages. Amen.