Firminus

ON ST. FIRMINUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,

AT METZ IN GAUL.

CDXCVI.

Firminus, bishop and confessor, at Metz in Gaul (St.)

J. B. S.

Already above, at the XXVII day of July, when I was treating of St. Phronimus, Of Phronimus we treated above; likewise a bishop of Metz, I not obscurely followed the opinion of those who judge that the St. Firminus of this day is most probably to be distinguished from that more ancient Phronimus, or Phromimus, or Fronimius. That St. Phronimus was the eleventh in order among the bishops of that city, but this Firminus, by the reckoning of the most illustrious Meurisse, the twentieth in order — however much he may have been confused by the Sammarthani, so that he is not reckoned among the Bishops in their series. For those monuments of antiquity are wanting from which anything certain could be drawn concerning the age, deeds, and order of either; and these being lost through the injustice of the times, this one thing remains: that we determine their age from those things which the praised Meurisse found, and the distinction and cult of both from the Martyrologies.

[2] But not even in these can their memory be called much celebrated; but here of Firminus for they are not found marked in Ado or Usuard, but only in a few additions, such as I adduced concerning Phronimus in his own place; while here Molanus almost alone recurs, reading thus on this day in both his editions: At the city of Metz, the deposition of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor. More briefly Galesinius: At Metz, of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor — calling in his Notes upon the Diptychs of the church of Metz, from which without doubt Molanus also took his own. And that he followed him, Baronius attests in his Annotations, by whom he was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in these very words: At Metz in Gaul, of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor.

[3] with the former Moreover, notable is the observation of the same Baronius, in which more than one confusion occurs. It runs thus, after these words, Molanus treats of the same: "Firminus the bishop is read among the other Bishops who were present at the Council of Agde, celebrated in Gaul in the year of the Lord five hundred and six. He was the eleventh Bishop of that see, as the tables of the church of Metz declare, which Demochares described in his book On the Sacrifice of the Mass." That our St. Firminus the bishop is here confused with a certain Firminus who was only a priest, supplying among the Fathers of that council the mere place of his Bishop Pappolus, appears most evidently from the express subscriptions of the said Council of Agde, which it is certainly wonderful that Baronius, and those who followed him, did not consult.

[4] Another confusion, no less, is that of the St. Firminus of this day with St. Phronimus, the eleventh bishop of Metz, not to be confounded, following Demochares. older by two centuries than the Council of Agde; of which we have already begun to speak, and which Baronius confesses that he took from Demochares in his book On the Sacrifice of the Mass: whence also without doubt it passed to the Sammarthani. Much more rightly, as at least it seems to me, Saussay with Meurisse distinguished the two, and adorned each with his own day and his own eulogy. The first we have given in its place. Here now is the announcement of this day: At Metz, the deposition of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor, who, under Symmachus the Supreme Pontiff, flourishing in the praise of episcopal virtues, when he had come together with the chief Fathers of the Gallican church to the Synod of Agde, and had undergone many labors for the care and advancement of his church, at length, illustrious in the glory of sanctity, having put off the mass of the flesh, sent his blessed spirit to the heavenly fatherland.

[5] His country and age. It remains that we subjoin a few things from Meurisse concerning his country and age. And first he confesses indeed that he was an Italian — there are those who would have him a Greek — a man renowned for learning and sanctity, who left Rome with others, fleeing the tyranny of Odoacer, and who was of their own accord admitted by the people of Metz as Bishop at the same time in which they acknowledged Clovis as king and lord, about the year 488; and that he further held the see about eight years, being called to the rewards of his labors in the year 496, in which there succeeded him a Bishop also holy, the twenty-first in order, by name Gramatius, as may be seen at greater length in the more than once praised Meurisse. Another St. Firminus Ghini reports on this very day, but a bishop of Verdun, whom we have remitted among the Omitted of this day to a more probable natal day.