ON SS. MANDRIANUS AND FLAVIAN, MARTYRS,
AT TOULON IN PROVENCE IN GAUL,
Perhaps in the SIXTH CENTURY.
A CRITICAL COLLECTION.
The public cult of these Saints, a notice of the former from an old chronicle, and a certain tradition about their deeds.
Mandrianus, M., at Toulon in Provence in Gaul (St.)
Flavian, M., at Toulon in Provence in Gaul (St.)
BY G. C.
That both these Saints are honored together today is plain from the order of reciting the Office in the cities of Provence, These two Saints which we have printed at Marseilles and Aix in the year 1676, in which in both places the annual memory of these Martyrs is assigned to the XIX day of August in these words: At Toulon, the office of the holy martyrs Mendria and Flavian, martyrs, double. Honoré Bouche, in his Chorography and Chronological History of Provence, volume 1, page 337, also joins them both, and affirms that their bodies are to this day preserved in the cathedral church of Toulon. Claude Castellanus, in his corollary to the month of August, page 718 of his Universal Martyrology, also announces these two Saints, unknown to the other martyrologists and to Saussay himself, in this manner: At Toulon, of the holy martyrs Mendria and Flavian. But on page 817 of the same Universal Martyrology, calling the former in Latin St. Mandrarius, he reports him among the ahemeri, and asserts that he is honored near Toulon, namely in that place which we shall presently indicate from an old document.
[2] The Chronicle of Emo, abbot of Werum in Frisia, the former of whom is known from an old chronicle, which the most worthy Dom Charles-Louis Hugo, abbot of the Premonstratensian Order, among
the Monuments of Sacred Antiquity had reprinted at Étival in the year 1725, in volume 1 of this work, page 449, describing the journey undertaken by the Frisians in the year of Christ 1217, has to our purpose the following: We hastened to Marseilles; but being driven back from the land by the harsh blasts of the North wind, the harbor of St. Mandrianus the martyr gathered us into its bosom, one day's journey distant from Marseilles, which, folded among most lofty mountains, has the city of Toulon on the right. But the chapel of the holy Martyr, built on the left side in a mean fashion, but famous for great sanctity, is shown. From this testimony you see that the sanctity of Mandrianus, or Mendria, the martyr, from whom that harbor doubtless took its name, was so celebrated at the beginning of the thirteenth century that it reached the ears of Frisian pilgrims.
[3] But although that harbor (perhaps the same is true of the chapel mentioned) took its name from St. Mandrianus alone, are honored together at Toulon, and no mention is here made of St. Flavian, it nevertheless does not follow from this that that Saint was at that time unknown there or lay without cult: for often monasteries, chapels, or churches take their name from one Saint for brevity's sake, although several Saints of the same time and dignity are honored there — just as Castellanus, being asked about this matter long ago, rightly answered in about this way: Even though in the aforesaid chapel SS. Mandrianus and Flavian are honored together, nevertheless it was rightly expressed in that Itinerary of the Frisians that only the name of Mandrianus is used, just as other churches dedicated to two or more Saints — say to SS. Cosmas and Damian, Gervasius and Protasius, Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius — are everywhere in France called in the singular number S. Côme, S. Gervais, S. Denys. Many examples of this thing could be adduced; but from these it is abundantly clear that monasteries and churches in which several Saints are honored are often named from one only, and more frequently from the first. Wherefore in the title I have added St. Flavian to St. Mandrianus, since no one can probably suspect that the church of Toulon rashly joined these two Saints in its ecclesiastical Office. Now we shall say briefly what tradition is current about their deeds and age.
[4] and their deeds are narrated by Honoré Bouche, Honoré Bouche, in his Chorography and History of Provence, volume 1, page 645, reports from tradition that these two Saints first served as soldiers under Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and consequently were infected with the Arian heresy; but that by a sermon of St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, they were converted to the Catholic faith, and, leaving the army, led a solitary and austere life not far from Toulon on the seashore, in the place which even today is called by the inhabitants in the vernacular saint Mandriz. Then in the same place he adds that these two hermits, after long austerity of life, came to Toulon on the feast of the Mother of God taken up into heaven, about the year 566, to receive the eucharist from the hand of St. Cyprian, and that there together with St. Cyprian they were slain by infidels bursting into the church, who carried off many other citizens captive into Italy. This is the common tradition of the people of Toulon, which labors under no small difficulties, so that Honoré Bouche himself holds that irruption of infidels to be suspect of fiction.
[5] and in our Guesnay are related Our Jean-Baptiste Guesnay, in the Annals of Marseilles, page 198, reports the same tradition more distinctly from a certain instrument which is said, but not proved, to be ancient, and in which at least the following is read to our purpose: Alaric being dead, Caesarius, having returned to Arles, found there Cyprian, who on account of his learning worked miracles and converted many to the true Church. Now there were two soldiers of the fleet of King Alaric, Mendrianus and Flavian, who were sprung from the region of Saxony; but when they had heard the teaching in which Cyprian was learned, preaching the word of God, and, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, doing all things well, they came to Cyprian and asked baptism of him, and gave up themselves from their false religion and their arms into the hands of Bl. Cyprian. But when Bl. Caesarius had come to Arles, after receiving a blessing from him, Cyprian returned with them to Toulon, and they followed him as sheep their shepherd, and led the order of anchorites and a solitary life beyond the harbor of Toulon…
[6] After the death of St. Caesarius, Cyprian remained in peace in his bishopric, from the tradition of the people of Toulon, who faithfully wrote the Life of that same Caesarius. But a little afterwards Alboin, king of the Lombards, came with a great army from the region of Gaul, invaded with arms and fire nearly all the cities of Narbonese Gaul, and his soldiers slew a great part of the people and many bishops, rejoicing in the shedding of Christian blood; and one band of them came near Toulon, rushing into the city like lions upon prey, and the said soldiers walked into the temple of God, and found Bl. Cyprian with his companions Mandrianus and Flavian, cast them out of the temple, and slew them in the field like sheep of Christ, in the year of the Lord 556, on the fifth Ides of the month of August. Why they are here said to have undergone martyrdom on the ninth day of August we do not know, since in the ecclesiastical Offices of Provence St. Cyprian is celebrated on the third day of October, and our two present martyrs on the nineteenth day of August. Further, concerning that tradition certain scruples occur to us, which we shall now set before learned men.
[7] First, in this tradition it does not please us that SS. Mandrianus and Flavian are said to have been slain by infidels in the year 556 or 566 together with St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, against which we set the age of St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon since no ancient writer worthy of credit has made mention of the martyrdom of this bishop, and the latest editors of the Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 741, after diligent examination write thus of his age: St. Cyprian, the second patron of the church of Toulon, disciple and biographer of St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, under so great a master learned the art of arts, the government of souls, and was raised to the see of Toulon. He was present at the fourth Council of Arles, in the year 524; he subscribed to that of Carpentras in the year 527 and to the synodal letter to Agraecius, bishop of Antibes. He came to the third synod of Vaison in the year 529; he was present at that of Orange in the same year… After the conquest of the Arian Goths, under whose yoke the churches of Gaul beyond the Loire had long groaned, Cyprian, an old man, went to the fourth synod of Orléans in the year 541. He had died by the year 549, in which it is established that Palladius was bishop of Toulon. Here you hear that St. Cyprian died before the year 549, and that no mention is made of his martyrdom. With what appearance of probability, then, is he said about the year of Christ 556 or 566 to have been slain by infidels or Lombards with SS. Mandrianus and Flavian?
[8] Moreover, with no appearance of truth is Alboin, king of the Lombards, said to have burst into Provence at that time, and we oppose other difficulties. concerning whom the most eminent Cardinal Baronius in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 568, number 1, has the following: The five hundred and sixty-eighth year of the Lord is at hand, of the first Indiction, which is also noted in some monuments (as will be said) by the second consulate of the emperor Justin; in which Alboin, king of the Lombards, from Pannonia, which he had occupied and in which he had remained for the space of forty-two years, with his people who had already before come forth from the island of Scandinavia, enters Italy powerful with great forces. Then that most eminent writer proves from Paul the Deacon and Gregory the Great that Alboin occupied Italy in that year of Christ 568. If Alboin first came in that year from Pannonia into Italy, how can it be said that in 556 or 566, as the tradition of the people of Toulon has it, he burst into Provence in Gaul?
[9] Perhaps Saussay saw this anachronism, and therefore changed the Lombards into Saracens, when in the Supplement to his Gallican Martyrology, volume 2, page 1176, he announces three Saints of the same name at the third day of October in the same city of Toulon in these words: Although Saussay distinguishes three holy Cyprians, At Toulon of Mars on the coast of Provence, of St. Cyprian the abbot; who, a native of Marseilles, displayed among the people of Toulon a mastery of the religious life, being made a teacher of all Evangelical perfection both in word and in deed. That office being fulfilled to the utmost, the father of many most religious ascetics, he departed from this arena and went to the reward laid up for him by the Lord in heaven, leaving a memory in the mother church of Toulon, thenceforth celebrated in the sacred calendars; in which there flourishes also, to be reverenced with perpetual cult, the remembrance of blessed Cyprian the martyr, slain there at the altar by the Saracens invading Gaul: and likewise of St. Cyprian, bishop of that same church of Toulon, who wrote the Life of St. Caesarius of Arles, and shone forth in several councils, great and renowned for learning and holy manners. Thus Saussay, alleging no witness for his announcement, and assigning no age to this threefold holy Cyprian.
[10] to whom Guesnay assigns different centuries, The aforesaid Guesnay of ours, in his Annals of Marseilles, likewise distinguishes three holy Cyprians, and assigns to each a different time of life. The first he records on page 179 as having been earlier abbot at Marseilles in the monastery of St. Victor, who was thence sent to Toulon and there founded a noble monastery about the year 470. In the order of time he reports the second, St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, on page 198, and fixes his episcopal ordination about the year of Christ 511. Lastly, on page 238 he mentions a third St. Cyprian, whom he calls abbot of Toulon, a native of Marseilles, and whom he asserts to have been put to a most bitter death by the Saracens about the year 730. Hence someone might suspect that the tradition of Toulon confounded St. Cyprian the bishop of the sixth century with St. Cyprian the martyr of the eighth century, and that our Saints obtained the laurel of martyrdom in that irruption of the Saracens with this last St. Cyprian.
[11] [nevertheless, on account of the silence of the ancients and of certain recent writers] But various things stand in the way of this suspicion, which we shall now briefly indicate and defer for more accurate examination to the third day of October. First, Guesnay cites no witness for the first and last St. Cyprian, except Saussay, who in his Gallican Martyrology more than once wrongly confounds or multiplies Saints. Secondly, all antiquity is silent about those two holy Cyprians, unless we are mistaken. Thirdly, the Directories and proper Offices of Provence assign on the third day of October the feast of St. Cyprian, bishop and confessor, and prescribe no commemoration of the other two who are reported on the same day in Saussay's Gallican Martyrology. Fourthly, Castellanus, a diligent and cautious investigator of the Saints, in his Universal Martyrology announces at Toulon only St. Cyprian, bishop of that city. To these might be added other things, which we leave to be discussed at the third day of October.
[12] we doubt about that distinction, On account of these and other arguments we doubt whether Saussay did not make three out of a single St. Cyprian, and thus lead our Guesnay into error. Since therefore hitherto we have known at Toulon none but St. Cyprian, bishop of that city,
and since in the instrument mentioned above, which was found at least in the year 1374, SS. Mandrianus and Flavian are said to have been slain for the faith in the time of this bishop, we have timidly attached their martyrdom to the sixth century, in which St. Cyprian governed the church of Toulon. But if anyone wishes that our Martyrs were slain by the Saracens in the eighth century, in which Guesnay places the martyrdom of the abbot of Toulon of the same name, let him remember to show from ancient documents an evident distinction of the latter from the bishop of the same name. Meanwhile let the people of Toulon correct their tradition, or untie the intricate knots with which we have bound it above.
[13] It now remains to say something briefly about a certain conjecture, or rather doubt, which the often-praised Honoré Bouche, in volume 1 of his History of Provence, on the page 645 cited above, proposes in French in about this manner: and we reject another conjecture of Honoré Bouche. As regards the name Mandrianus, it is not certainly known whether it is proper to one of these Saints, or whether it merely designates the profession of the solitary life, since the Greek word μανδρός means a hermit. Perhaps these two names belong to a single person only, so that Mandrianus Flavianus is the same as "Flavian the hermit." But first of all a hermit is not called in Greek μανδρός; rather the Greek noun μάνδρα properly means a fold, and is taken metaphorically for a monastery. Hence the superior or prefect of a monastery is named among the Greeks ἀρχιμανδρίτης, from the word μάνδρα. But one leading the solitary life is commonly called by the Greeks ἀναχωρητής or ἐρημίτης. Moreover those two names of Saints are, by the particle AND, quite clearly attributed to different persons in the directories of Provence and in the instruments cited above, whose authority we judge should be preferred to this new and improbable conjecture. This is all we have been able to find about those Saints; and on this occasion we admonish the people of Toulon not to think it a burden to inform us before the third day of October, on which three holy Cyprians are announced in Saussay's Gallican Martyrology, if in this critical collection we have anywhere unwittingly strayed from historical truth or from chronological order.