ON ST. JULIAN,
BISHOP OF BÉARN OR OF LESCAR IN GAUL.
FIFTH CENTURY.
Cultus, deeds, time of life, topographical notice.
Julianus, bishop of Béarn in Gaul (St.)
BY J. P.
On today's day mention is made by us among the Prætermissi of Julian, a bishop in Gascony, from Du Saussay; [Among the few things which we have concerning this Saint, his public cultus is treated,] and we indicated there, from the same Martyrologist, that this prelate is judged by some to be the same as the bishop of Lescar or Lascurris. Hence occasion was given us for inquiring whether other notices concerning the bishop of Lescar could be found. Such indeed were found, but exceedingly slight, sufficient nevertheless for that St. Julian to be reckoned among the other heavenly citizens of this day, since a church consecrated under this saint's title bears testimony to his public veneration. Pierre de Marca in the History of Béarn, book 1, chapter 15, pages 69 and 70, treats of our holy Prelate, and after him the Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column [ ], of the latest edition; and it has seemed good to us to transcribe hither what has there been extracted from the aforesaid historian of Béarn. Thus, then, they have it concerning St. Julian, the first prelate of the see of Lescar:
[2] In an old breviary of the church of Béarn it is read with some of his deeds and the time of his life: that St. Julian, a deacon of the church of Trier, ordained bishop by Leontius, prelate of Trier, was sent to the people of Béarn, that he might call them back to the Christian faith, idolatry being trampled down; which he is said to have accomplished. There stands in the suburb a church consecrated under the title of St. Julian. To make this narration persuasive, Pierre de Marca observes, first, that Leontius was an Aquitanian, as is had in this breviary: whence it is no wonder if, pitying the blindness of his own countrymen, who, having left the Christian faith, were given over to idolatry, he sent to them a herald of the word of God. He observes, secondly, that the city of Trier in the time of Leontius, that is, about the year 400, was the seat of the prætorian prefect of the Gauls, and as it were the metropolis of all Gaul, as it is called by St. Athanasius in the Apology; whence by right of exarchate in the whole diocese of the Gauls it pertained to him to ordain bishops in vacant churches. About the year 407 the Vandals, having entered the Gauls, destroyed the city of Trier, and, poured out over all Gaul, came as far as Novempopulania, whose cities were then afflicted with grievous slaughter. Nor did the fury of the barbarians spare Béarn: at which time we believe St. Julian was still in his see. We therefore have followed that abridgment above in fixing the time, and, since we do not otherwise know how long the Saint afterwards survived, we have attached him to the fifth century.
[3] to which is added a description of the church over which the Saint presided, It remains that I detain the reader a little while, by setting forth the church of Lescar, formerly of Béarn, as it is called in the aforesaid Gallia Christiana, whose notice it places before the series of the bishops of that see: Beneharnum, it says, which today is the name of a province, was once the name of a state and of an episcopal city. The illustrious Pierre de Marca, in the History of Béarn, book 1, chapter XI, contends that Pliny, in his enumeration of the peoples of Aquitaine, after the Bigerri, Tarbelli, and Cocosates, mentions the Bearni or Venarni — for so he thinks it must be read, not Venani. But on the contrary Hadrien de Valois judges that neither Strabo, nor Mela, nor Pliny, nor Ptolemy spoke of the Benearni, so that the first who mentions Benearnum is Æthicus in the Itinerary from Cæsaraugusta to Benearnum, thus: "To Forum Gallorum 30 M.P. To Summus Pyrenæus 46. To Forum Ligneum 5. To Aspalluca 7. To Iluro 12. To Benearnum 12 M.P." Then, a few things being interposed, he assigns various documents in which the city Benarna, Benarnum, the state Benarnum have been designated; whence it is gathered that a formation of the same name somewhat differing from the above was also once employed. For St. Gregory of Tours the bishop mentions Benarna in book 9 of the History of the Franks, chapter 7, and in chapter 20, in the copy of the treaty of Guntram and Childebert it is written: Concerning the cities, … Bordeaux, Limoges, Cahors, Benarnum, etc. In Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ], among those who subscribe to the synod of Agde celebrated in the year of Christ 506, there is Galactorius, bishop of Benarnum; in that of Mâcon, which is noted as held in the year 585, in the same collector of councils, volume 5, column 988, Savinus, bishop of the church of the Benarnenses. From these we learn that the name of this place was from the most ancient times wont to be expressed somewhat differently: but of an altogether different change of the same something also must be said.
[4] a topographical notice. But for a long time now the name of Benearnum has passed to the district alone, commonly le Béarn; while the city, the capital of the district, after it had been destroyed by the Normans, the former name being dropped, was called Lascuris and Lascurra, on account of the various windings of the little stream and springs in the place where it is situated, which the country people call las Escourres, says Pierre de Marca in the place already praised above. That Lascurra is the Benearnum of the ancients Hadrien de Valois also teaches in the Notitia Galliarum, where he refutes Joseph Scaliger, who in his notes on Ausonius attempted to prove that Orthez succeeded to the place of Benearnum, only the name being changed. But this is convicted of falsehood, both because this town is of the diocese of Dax, and because the body of St. Galactorius, bishop of Béarn at the beginning of the sixth century, was always preserved at Lescar until the year 1559, in which the Calvinists burned this sacred pledge: which intimates that the episcopal see continued in that place until then. These things, and more, are said in the Gallia Christiana which I was mentioning. It has these boundaries: the county of Bigorre on the east, the prefectures of Bayonne and Dax on the west, on the north the districts of la Chalosse and Tursan, on the south the Pyrenees and the viscounty of Soule, as is written in the same place. You have, reader, what forgetful antiquity has left us to gather concerning the cultus, deeds, and age of St. Julian, in which he flourished.