ON ST. BADULPHUS, CONFESSOR,
ABBOT OF AINAY IN GAUL.
The place, the cult, the abbatial office, etc.
Badulphus, confessor, abbot of Ainay in Gaul (St.)
J. P.
The first thing which must be inquired into in Saints of obscure name, such as this one is, A notice of the monastery of Ainay. consists in this, that their public veneration be established. And this holds good in the case of St. Badulphus, and is lawfully proved from the testimonies which we shall produce. But first we shall treat of the place over which he is written to have presided. In the Gallia Christiana of the latest edition, volume 4, from column 223, the following is recorded concerning Athanacum (commonly Ainay): The monastery of Athanacum, or Athanatum, or Athenaeum, at the confluence of the Saône and the Rhone, and for that reason also called Interamne, formerly beside the walls of Lyons, now enclosed within them, was already flourishing when the kingdom of Burgundy in the year 534 came into the power of the Franks. In that place suffered martyrdom those Martyrs of Lyons, thereafter called in Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 49, the Athanacenses: whose bodies being burned, the tyrant ordered their sacred ashes to be scattered into the flowing Rhone: but being gathered by the faithful, and a basilica of wondrous size having been built in their honor, they were placed beneath the altar. To the basilica there was afterwards joined a noble monastery of the Order of St. Benedict under the patronage of St. Martin, which, having been ill treated by the barbarians, Salonius the bishop, son of Eucherius of Lyons, and after him queen Brunehild, are reported to have restored. Thus far there, and some other matters. But what we have given suffices for our purpose, and is confirmed in the Benedictine Annals, volume 1, book 1, number 27.
[2] The notice of the place being premised, it is asked whether St. Badulphus presided over it as abbot. Whether St. Badulphus presided over it. Our Théophile Raynaud affirms it in his Little Index of the Saints of Lyons, in these words: St. Badulphus, abbot of Athanacum, flourished at Lyons in sanctity and religious exercise, in which he trained many servants of God. The same title is given him in the new Paris Martyrology on the XIX day of August; yet somewhat more is said about that dignity in the Gallia Christiana which I was citing: for these words stand there: St. Badulphus is commonly reckoned the first abbot of Athanacum, although it is not established at what time he lived. But Castellanus, in the Supplement to his Universal Martyrology at the day just mentioned, abstaining from the title of abbot, calls him merely a monk of Athanacum. We, however, following the example of the others whom we have named, have judged that the holy Man should be left in possession of the abbatial office, although it is not ready to our hand to confirm it from ancient documents, as neither to determine the time in which he lived.
[3] For that this is not established, we have just seen from the Gallia Christiana. If, however, what there follows about the second abbot of Athanacum is true — The age in which he lived is uncertain: that Sabinus presided in the fifth century, as is gathered from the Life of St. Romanus, abbot of the Jura, the words of which Life are there given — it follows that St. Badulphus, who is commonly reckoned the first abbot of Athanacum, although it is not established at what time he lived, did not nevertheless live in his office after the fifth century. Much farther off does Castellanus defer him, namely toward the year 900. The Paris Martyrology assigns him to the sixth or seventh century. Since therefore the time in which he lived does not seem capable of being defined at all with sufficient historical truth, therefore, omitting the time of his life, we have above assigned to him the XIX day of August, on which public cult is offered to him, as Castellanus and the new Paris Martyrology indicate, since they report him then. His memory is celebrated in the calendars of the church of Lyons on the XIX of August, as it stands in the Gallia Christiana cited. Raynaud, however, does not define this precise day; from whom I cull the following concerning the public veneration of St. Badulphus.
[4] his cult is more certain: He is commonly called St. Badoul (in Castellanus St. Badour), in whose honor a priory (Castellanus in his Supplement calls it a church) was established at the town of St. Symphorien not far from Vienne, attached to the abbey of Athanacum. That his sacred body was laid beneath that very altar under which had been laid the sacred ashes of Bl. Pothinus, St. Blandina, and the forty-eight Martyrs who suffered under Antoninus, before by the Calvinist fury in the year 1562 they were removed from the sanctuary of their burial, is stated by the Index of the relics of that abbey, which is read at the end of the Missal… But St. Badulphus of Athanacum is religiously honored within the Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, and an Office of nine lessons with an Octave is assigned to him in the Breviary of Athanacum. In the Supplement to the Universal Martyrology in the aforesaid Castellanus, and in the new Paris Martyrology, he is announced at Lyons with the title of saint.
[5] [It is not sufficiently established that the monastery of Athanacum was founded by him: he is not to be confounded with another.] Besides what we have set forth about his abbatial dignity, it may also be asked whether he founded the monastery of Athanacum and another. But there answers
Raynaud in these words: There is one who out of his own mere conjecture attributes to St. Badulphus the foundation of the institute of Athanacum, and likewise the erection of the monastery of Auxilla, not far from Lyons, on the model of the same St. Badulphus's institute, and its fruitfulness too, afterwards accomplished in the year 546 by the intervention of St. Anselm, likewise abbot of Athanacum, at the hill of Lémenc among the Allobroges. For the conjecturer supposes that this Anselm adhered to the institutions of St. Badulphus, author of the institute of Athanacum: of all which I desire a firmer proof. That is more certain which the same writer observes, that St. Badulphus of Athanacum is plainly a different person from St. Badulphus, monk of Robie; whose memory is recorded in the Benedictine Martyrology of Arnold Wion on the 2nd of January.