ON ST. ELEUTHERIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT AUXERRE IN GAUL.
IN THE YEAR 561.
CommentaryEleutherius, bishop and confessor, at Auxerre (St.)
BY J. B. S.
We had no need to be anxious about the ancient rank of St. Eleutherius, sixteenth bishop of Auxerre, since he is most well known in Usuard and all his progeny, as also in the Roman Martyrology itself. His feast on this day, not the 26th. It may be asked whether his memory should be placed with the Usuardines on the XXVI day, or rather with others on this day, on which he departed this life, and on which most certainly his festival is kept at Auxerre; upon which matter we have treated cursorily in our observations upon Usuard, where we probably conjectured that he was taken by Usuard from some enlarged Hieronymian Martyrology, as must be said again among the Praetermissi of that day. Another question is of the duration of his episcopate, which in the History of the Bishops of Auxerre, in Labbe, volume 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 419, I find rightly determined at 28 years, 8 months, and 9 days, as Severinus Binius also marked it in volume 4 of the Councils of the Labbean edition, column [ ].
[2] But Le Cointe has distinguished these things more accurately than the rest in the first volume of his Annals, The duration of his episcopate is proved. when at the year 532, number 5, he shows that he succeeded Droctoaldus; but in the following year 533, number 35, that he subscribed to the second council of Orleans; thence in the year 538, number 66, to the third council of the same city; again to the fourth council in the year 541, number 46; add also in the year 549, number 51, the fifth council in the same place. At last, setting down the Saint's death, the aforesaid Le Cointe writes thus at the year 561, number 2: To this year Eleutherius of Auxerre came, for he sat twenty-eight years, eight months, nine days; he died on the XVII of the Kalends of August read September, on which day his solemn memory is celebrated in the ecclesiastical records. These things are so deduced and drawn out that the asserted course of his episcopate evidently appears; so that Viola, or whoever else it was, deservedly seems ridiculous, who in an Auxerre manuscript dared to write that St. Eleutherius sat not 28 but only 19 years.
[3] Eulogy. Of the other particular deeds of this most holy Prelate we find nothing handed down. Nor could Saussay be more fortunate, who, following Usuard as to the day, adorned him with this rather brief eulogy: At Auxerre, of St. Eleutherius, bishop and confessor, who, substituted for St. Droctoaldus on account of the brightness of his merits, was the heir of his sanctity as of his see; and after he had sat with great splendor of virtue and wisdom among the Fathers, the vindicators of religion and Christian discipline, of the second, third, fourth, and fifth synods of Orleans, illustrious with the praise of a life divinely led, he obtained the reward of the good shepherd. Nor must the last words from the History of the Bishops be omitted, namely that he was joined in burial to his holy predecessors in the basilica of St. Germanus the bishop. I know that the place is today unknown; but not on that account is his yearly festival celebrated with less solemnity.