ON ST. PATRICIUS, ABBOT,
IN THE TERRITORY OF NEVERS IN GAUL,
About the middle of the sixth century.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
Concerning the ancient cult of this Saint, his Acts, and his age.
Patricius, abbot, in the territory of Nevers in Gaul (St.)
BY G. C.
In the Hieronymian additions in Florentinius, this holy Abbot is today announced, together with another priest, under the corrupted name of Pectricus, thus: The ancient Martyrologies record this Saint; In Gaul, in the city of Nevers, the birthday of the holy Pectricus the abbot, and the deposition of St. Gildardus, priest and confessor. Whence Florentinius there in his notes admonishes the reader concerning the dislocated name of that Saint, that this Abbot is in other Martyrologies called not Pectricius or Pectricus, but Patricius. Certainly on this day in the Martyrology of Usuard the memory of Patricius the abbot at Nevers is briefly recalled. In the present Roman Martyrology this Saint is reported in almost the same words. In the Hagiology of Franco-Gaul, which our Labbe excerpted from the ancient Martyrology of the abbey of St. Laurence of Bourges, and published at Paris in the year 1643, the same name is thus expressed: In the territory of the same (namely of the city of Nevers, of which he had treated above), St. Patricius the abbot. Whatever be the case with the true name of this Saint, whom Castellain and the new Martyrology of the church of Paris call in the vernacular Parrize, perhaps on account of the likeness of the name this holy Abbot is by some wrongly confounded with St. Patrick, the apostle of the Irish. Since from these ancient Martyrologies the immemorial cult of our holy Abbot is sufficiently established, it seems to us superfluous to heap up here the more recent Menologies. Some, however, we shall cite below for the investigation of the holy man's age.
[2] The ancient Acts of this holy Abbot we have sought in vain, but his ancient Acts are wanting, and therefore we are forced to be content with an uncertain compendium of his Life, which André du Saussay put together in his Gallican Martyrology at the XXIV day of August in these words: On the same day, at Nevers, St. Patricius, hermit and confessor, who, born in Auvergne of illustrious stock, was far more illustrious in sanctity, humility, and integrity of manners than in his birth; and, trampling upon the honors and delights of the age, he dedicated himself wholly to the worship of God from a tender age; and that he might by no occasion be called away from that service, he entered the monastery of Abbot Portianus, then famous for holiness, near the village of Arcona, where, practicing the first exercises of the monastic life, he gave to his fellow monks a wonderful expectation of his future sanctity; to whom he was so submissive and obedient that for the name of Christ and the service of the Brethren he shrank from no burden, however difficult.
[3] But when he aspired to higher things, being inflamed with the desire of the solitary life, and its synopsis in Saussay's Martyrology with the leave of his abbot he betook himself, together with Germanus and his nephew Germanio, most holy men, into the district of Nevers, which has the name Gentilicum, to a place altogether overgrown with thorns. There he set up an arena of religious exercise, and, applying himself with his companions to constant prayers, fastings, and vigils, by his wonderful humility of spirit, abstinence of body, and observance of piety, he drew each man to take upon him the yoke of Christ: among whom he inflamed with the ardor of heavenly things Pomponia, a very rich matron, who also built a little monastery for the Servant of God and his companions. Soon there arose from every side a concourse of the faithful to the blessed Man, who desired under his guidance to enter upon the way of eternity; by whom also, though unwilling, he was chosen abbot, and by the splendor of most holy examples he showed the immaculate way of the divine good pleasure which was to be followed. He shone also with very many miracles: for by the sign of the cross and the anointing of holy oil he imparted light to a blind woman, vigor to the sick, and entire health to all the infirm. Then, his sheaves being gathered to the fullness of righteousness, he departed to his reward; and being buried in the church, he wrought wonders after his death, which at length procured for that church his guardianship and patronage. Would that Saussay had indicated the first and genuine source from which he drew that elogium of the Saint! But since he has not done so, we are wholly ignorant what credit that compendium of the Acts deserves.
[4] I suspect indeed that Saussay took these things from the Lives of the Fathers of the West, or in the Breviary of Nevers alone we find it. printed in the year of Christ 1625 at Lyons, where Benoît Gonon at page 241 reports a similar synopsis of the Acts from the Breviary of the church of Nevers, and there in his notes, to confirm the public veneration of our holy Abbot, observes the following: There is extant a church, or parish, dedicated to the name of St. Patricius at Nevers, where his feast is solemnly celebrated and he is held in much honor. He is commonly called S. Pere. Such an epitome of the Acts is recited also by the Reverend Master Jacques Branche, who afterward published in French the Lives of the Saints of Auvergne, where also at page 619 he cites the Breviary of Nevers and the aforesaid work of Benoît Gonon. But that authority does not yet move us to give at once undoubted credit to all these things: for the Breviaries of particular churches often contain the popular and confused tradition of their own region, as we learn by daily experience, and as could be proved by various examples. Wherefore we shall patiently await a more ancient and more distinct account of these Acts, to be supplied by the inhabitants or the neighbors of Nevers. Meanwhile, however, let us try whether from that synopsis of the Life, or from the proper Lessons of the Breviary of Nevers, we cannot at least approximately draw out the age of this holy Abbot.
[5] Since some are ignorant of the century, Wion, in part 2 of the Lignum Vitæ, page 283, in his notes on the present announcement of St. Patricius, frankly confesses that he does not know in what century he lived. Bucelin, announcing on this day in his Benedictine Menology the memory of St. Patricius the abbot at Nevers, likewise assigns no time for his life or death, and there indicates his ignorance of his deeds in these words: Nor has it been possible hitherto to investigate anything further concerning his Life. Besides our own writers, he is mentioned by the Roman Martyrology, Baronius, Usuard, Maurolico, Felici, Ménard, and the rest. Besides, Antonio de Heredia, in the Spanish Lives of the Benedictine Saints which he published at Madrid in the year 1685, at the XXIV day of August, or volume three of that Work, page 311, asserts that, apart from the Benedictine profession of St. Patricius which Bucelin ascribes to him, all else concerning him is unknown. Finally Louis Bulteau, in his Compendious History of the Benedictine Order, which he published in French at Paris in the year 1684, book 2, chapter 24, number 2, treats of our St. Patricius on occasion of St. Portianus the abbot; but he adds there that his age is unknown, and that he speaks of him in that place only by conjecture. There is scarcely any hope that we shall find what all these men sought in vain.
[6] in which this Saint flourished, If we knew at what time Germanus and Germanio, or the matron Pomponia, lived, we could easily propose some conjecture about the age of our Saint. But in the ancient monuments of Gaul we find no memory of any of these. But at least, someone will say, the age of St. Patricius can somehow be gathered from the age of St. Portianus the abbot. We confess that this manner of investigating the time is the best, if it were established from ancient documents that St. Patricius made his novitiate in the monastery of St. Portianus while he was yet living. But it may be doubted whether St. Patricius did not enter the monastery of St. Portianus when he had long been dead, though it was still illustrious for the sanctity and miracles of that abbot. To this doubt Castellain adds strength, when in his Universal Martyrology, at the present announcement of St. Patricius, marking the age of this Saint after his manner, he notes in one part of the margin that this holy Abbot died about the year 700.
[7] and others put off his death too far, But the aforesaid compiler of the Universal Martyrology observes in the other part of the margin, in the same place, that this St. Patricius was a disciple of St. Portianus. These two assertions do not hang together: for Le Cointe, in his Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 508, number 28, and at the year 525, number 15, mentions St. Portianus, and shows from St. Gregory of Tours that in the year 525 he restrained the anger of King Theodoric by a notable miracle. Nay, Castellain himself reports St. Portianus in his Universal Martyrology on the XXIV day of November, and places his death in the margin about the year of Christ 540. How could St. Patricius have lived until about the year 700, if he was a disciple of this St. Portianus the abbot, who departed this life about the year of Christ 540? It seems, then, that either an error has crept into the numbers, or that Castellain is at war with himself.
[8] Nor can these things be reconciled by seeking another Portianus the abbot, we from the Acts of St. Portianus to whom St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, wrote in book 8 the thirty-fourth letter, upon which our Sirmond in his notes on the Works of Ennodius, page 41, observes the following: Although the times do not disagree, yet I should not dare to affirm that this is our St. Portianus, who was abbot of the monastery of Candidobrum among the Arverni, and who left his name to it and to a town of no mean note: for we call it SAINT-POURÇAIN. Mabillon in his Benedictine Annals, book 4, number 34, modestly refutes a certain opinion of Sirmond's, and yet in the following number wholly approves this distinction of two abbots of the same name, in these words: There is a greater difficulty concerning Porcianus the abbot, to whom Ennodius writes that letter on occasion of which Sirmond appended this note: namely, whether he is the same Porcianus, abbot of Auvergne — which indeed I should grant with difficulty: for this man was plainly rude and unlearned; nor would it, I think, have come into his mind to write to a most learned bishop, separated by long tracts of country from Auvergne. And in this letter Ennodius gives thanks to Porcianus the abbot for having anticipated him with a letter… Certainly these things do not seem to me to fit the Porcianus of Auvergne. After this distinction of the two abbots named Portianus, the whole difficulty of the time remains for Castellain to solve, since those two Portianus abbots were contemporaries, and St. Ennodius of Pavia departed this life in the year of Christ 521.
[9] assign his age with some probability. Wherefore the announcement of the latest Paris Martyrology pleases me more, which on this day celebrates the memory at Nevers of St. Patricius the abbot, formerly a disciple of blessed Portianus among the Arverni, and assigns to his death in the margin about the year 555: for on the XXIV day of November in the same Martyrology of the church of Paris the death of St. Portianus the abbot is reported in the margin at about the year 541. This chronology agrees well enough with itself, and in this way the time of St. Patricius the disciple is easily reconciled with the time or the death of St. Portianus his master. Hence the opinion of Benoît Gonon is to be rejected, who in the Appendix to the Lives of the Fathers of the West, after the Acts of St. Portianus, page 415, notes that this abbot flourished in the year 610: for that chronology, which Jacques Branche in the Lives of the Saints of Auvergne and Gabriel Bucelin at the XXIV day of November in the Benedictine Menology wrongly followed, falls to the ground of itself from the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, or rather from St. Gregory of Tours, who in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 5, asserts that the anger of King Theodoric was wonderfully appeased by Portianus the abbot. And this happened in the year of Christ 525, as Le Cointe in the same Annals, and Ruinart in his edition of Gregory of Tours, show in the places cited above. Whence with more probability we have noted in the margin at the beginning of this syllogue the death of St. Patricius about the middle of the sixth century, until another St. Portianus the abbot of a different time be assigned, or a more certain age for St. Patricius be found.