ON ST. GENESIUS THE NOTARY, MARTYR AT ARLES IN GAUL,
About the year CCCIII or CCCVIII.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Genesius, notary and M. at Arles in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 3306, 3307
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The distinction of this Saint from other martyrs
of the same name, his ancient worship among the French and Spaniards; on which occasion two Genesii, who have been wrongly inscribed in the Spanish Martyrology, are examined in passing.
Pietro de' Natali, bishop
of Equilio, in the Catalogue of the Saints,
book 7, chapter 110, welded into one
two distinct Martyrs of today
of the same name, Certain writers this Martyr of Arles and wrongly attributed the Acts of the one
to the other, as appears from the following beginning
of the Passion, which in him, in the place just cited,
thus runs: Genesius the martyr suffered at the city
of Arles under the emperor Diocletian:
who, being sprung from that same city, practising the art of the mimostella *,
obstinately mocked the Christians.
Then he narrates the Acts of St. Genesius of Rome,
which we have given above from Ruinart, and sets to them
an equally inept ending in this manner: He was beheaded,
and buried in the city of Arles on the VIII Kalends
of September. Pietro of Equilio in his error was followed
by Mombritius, who in our possession, tom. 1, fol.
333, thus begins the same Passion with these words:
In the reign of Diocletian, when for four years the churches
had ceased as regards all bishops and
priests, there was in the city of Arles a mime
of the temelean art, by name Genesius.* But at least
afterwards Mombritius in our possession, in the same tome,
folio 341 verso, abridged the genuine Acts of St. Genesius of Arles,
of which Pietro of Equilio makes no
mention.
[2] It is not so wonderful that these simpler men
erred so basely in those times wrongly confound with the Roman martyr of the same name, in which
the critical art was neglected. But we wonder more
that the most learned Jean Savaron in the past century
fell into the same gross error, when
he writes notes on two anonymous booklets of the tenth century
on the Saints, churches, and monasteries of Clermont,
where on page 37, among the other holy Genesii
recounted by him, there is set first that Arlesian one
who, from a stage-player made a Christian and martyr, is renowned among all. From this mode of speaking it is plain
that by the incautious Savaron St. Genesius of Arles,
the notary and martyr, was confounded with St. Genesius the stage-player,
or mime and martyr of Rome.
This error of Savaron our Heribert
Rosweyde also indicated in the notes to the Works of St.
Paulinus of Nola, which in the year of Christ 1622 he caused to be published at Antwerp
from the Plantin press, where on page
834 he assigns various Saints of this name, and
briefly distinguishes them thus from today's St. Genesius, martyr of Arles:
Another is Genesius the mime, master of the thymelic art, whom the Martyrologies
likewise record on the same day; whom Savaron, book 1 on the churches of Clermont, chapter
XVII, not rightly confounds with the former: for the thymelic one was at Rome;
that shorthand-writer at Arles. Another likewise is Genesius
the martyr, who is known to the Roman Martyrology
on the XI of October, with Anastasius the presbyter and
Placidus and other companions.
[3] and therefore he is here accurately distinguished There are also two other Genesii outside the Roman lists,
yet renowned in their own churches in Auvergne.
The former is Genesius the martyr near the castle
of Thiers, who, being set in white robes, migrated to heaven
through martyrdom, about whom Gregory of Tours,
book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter LXVII;
whose feast, by the witness of Savaron above, is celebrated on the V Kalends
of November. The latter was the XXV bishop
of Clermont, and his memory is renowned
on the III of June, at which day, in tom. 1 of June, page 322
and following, his Acts were illustrated by Henschen.
To these I add moreover holy Genesius,
martyr of Beorritum or of Bigorre, who
is unknown to various Martyrologists, and about whom St.
Gregory of Tours in the book On the Glory of the Martyrs,
chapter 74, narrates the following: There is another Martyr
within the border of the city of Beorritum (the Fleury codex,
six hundred years old, expresses in the very
context the proper name of this Saint, which
other codices commonly have in the title, as Ruinart
among the addenda and corrigenda to his edition of Gregory
of Tours, Col. [ ], testifies)
endowed with the honor of the presbyterate, the history of whose passion
is read among the inhabitants of the place.
[4] He, while he was in the body, obtained by his prayers
that a chestnut tree long dry should return to greenness: from other Saints of the same name,
in whose basilica, although marvels are for the most part shown upon
the sick, that above the rest is wonderful,
that a lily long since gathered and dried grows green again
at his solemnity, so that on that day the peoples behold
new flowers which they had before seen withered. For at his
tomb a lying oath commonly uttered
by the faithless is confuted by the Martyr's power,
so that he who had come puffed up with rashness
departs amended. Would that Gregory of Tours had indicated the age
and the yearly festival of this St. Genesius of Bigorre!
Lastly there is still recorded in
Gaul broadly so called St. Genesius, monk and martyr,
whom Saussay in the Appendix to his Gallican Martyrology,
tom. 2, page 1223, announces
in these words: Holy Genesius the monk,
impiously slain by the Danes, when the monastery of Bèze,
four leagues distant from Dijon, was overthrown by them
in the year of salvation DCCCLXXXVIII. These things about
various Genesii I have wished to relate, lest anyone perhaps confound those
Martyrs of Gaul of the same name among themselves or with others.
Therefore from all that has hitherto
been related let it remain certain that today's St. Genesius
of Arles must be distinguished from the Roman actor and from the other
Martyrs of the same name already recounted.
[5] I scarcely understand what our Jean Roberti means,
when among the Eulogies of fifty holy
Jurists, page 35, to the eulogy of today's
holy Notary or Shorthand-writer, which he excerpted from his genuine
Acts, he prefixes this title:
Holy Genesius, martyr of Arles,
a Roman. For what cause is that Martyr here
surnamed a Roman? Hence certainly a doubt
arose among the Roman Jurists, which our Friedrich
Ampring, staying at Rome in the year 1680,
thus proposed to our predecessors: May your Reverence
pardon a brief inconvenience, which in the present matter
no one knows better how to dispatch. The Roman notaries
would gladly wish to know how it is proved
that St. Genesius the martyr of Arles was a Roman,
as Fr. Jean Roberti names him in the Eulogies of fifty
holy jurists. About holy Genesius the mime
it is certain that he was a Roman; but about the other no foundation
can be had in the Acts related in Surius on the day XXV of August,
that he was a Roman. Papebroch
answered our Ampring that that expression
is likely to be attributed to an erring
memory, unless perhaps the author of the aforementioned Little Work
wished improperly to call that Martyr a Roman,
because the city of Arles was once a Roman
colony, and is called by Ausonius a Gallic, or rather
Valesius, Notitia Galliarum, page 38.
We too know no other escape
by which this improper expression may be excused. Wherefore
we go on to demonstrate the ancient and renowned worship of this holy
Martyr of Arles.
[6] In the most ancient copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology
St. Genesius of Arles is announced on this day, Martyrologies and other ancient testimonies of writers indicate
as may be seen in Florentinius. There is added
the old Roman Martyrology of our Rosweyde,
which on the same day briefly indicates the memory of holy Genesius
of Arles. But these brief announcements Ado, who without doubt
saw his genuine Acts, has today enlarged in this manner:
On that same day, the birthday of holy Genesius
of Arles, who before the tribunal of the judge, discharging the office
of shorthand-writer, when he was unwilling to take down the impious edicts
by which the Christians were ordered to be punished,
his tablets being cast down in public, testified that he was a Christian
and withdrew; and after a short interval,
being caught by the apparitors, and beheaded on the bank of the river
Rhône, received the glory of martyrdom, baptized in his own
blood. This eulogy Usuard abridged
from Ado, as the almost identical words indicate, which in his Martyrology are thus
read:
On the same day, of blessed Genesius of Arles,
who, discharging the office of shorthand-writer, when he was unwilling to take down the impious edicts
by which the Christians were ordered to be punished,
being apprehended and beheaded, received the glory of martyrdom,
baptized in his own blood.
That I may omit other more recent Martyrologists, Wandelbert
adorns that same Martyr of ours
with this little verse:
The eighth day hence Arles celebrates thee, holy Genesius.
Namely, every year on the VIII Kalends of September,
or the day XXV of August, is celebrated the renowned martyrdom
of this Saint, and on other days is kept the yearly
memory of certain matters which pertain to the honor
of that same Saint, as we shall presently see.
[7] the immemorial worship of that same Martyr, The Christians of Arles from immemorial
time built, to the glory of their holy Fellow-townsman,
an altar and a temple, whose yearly
dedication is related on the day XVI of December in Florentinius,
page 1032, from the old Martyrologies,
where one copy has thus: At Arles, the dedication
of the basilica and altar of holy Genesius. But another,
the Corbie one, expresses the same commemoration in the same place
more correctly in these few words: At Arles,
the dedication of the basilica and altar of holy Genesius
the martyr. Whence Saussay also on the day XVI of December
inserted this yearly festival of the dedication into his Gallican
Martyrology. We judge
that this church of St. Genesius at Arles was already renowned
at the close of the fourth century, when Prudentius,
the Spanish poet, in the Work On the Crowns of the Martyrs,
hymn 4, after other things thus sang:
And thee shall pre-eminent Arles possess, holy Genesius.
Certainly in the following century Venantius Fortunatus, in the fourth
Poem of the eighth book, seems to have imitated Prudentius
and to have indicated the public worship of St. Genesius of Arles
by this hexameter verse:
Comely Arles herself offers pious gifts to Genesius.
But that veneration of St. Genesius the martyr, which
among the people of Arles had its beginning from immemorial time,
will be not a little confirmed from the Acts themselves and from other monuments
to be published below.
[8] which is confirmed from the ancient pilgrimages Meanwhile the ancient renown of this church of Arles
is also gathered from the Acts of holy Quinidius,
prelate of Vaison, who died after the middle of the sixth
century, and whose deeds our Bolland illustrated at
the day XV of February. In these Acts, num.
2, about the mother of that bishop of Vaison there are read
to our purpose the following: After the manner of the Christian religion
the festival of blessed Genesius, martyr of Christ,
who suffered at Arles for his confession, was being kept. And*
behold, among the throng which was gathering from every side to the thresholds
of the blessed Martyr, the mother of Quinidius, soon
to be so, heavy in the womb, laden with a happy childbearing,
came, led by the ardor of piety: for she too more familiarly
embraced the place. The doors of the church being barred,
when for love of the Martyr she had stayed outside, about to keep vigil,
with pious affection suffused with tears,
as she is caught up into the love of God, she continues her prayer,
and straightway hears, because of the memorial of the holy
Martyr, a most sweet and astonishing harmony of angels. After these things
there is narrated in the same place how the doors of the church of Arles
lay open to this woman, and how the happy birth of St. Quinidius
was foretold to her by an angel. From this great concourse of people
we manifestly conclude that anciently the yearly
festival of St. Genesius was solemnly celebrated in the church of Arles.
[9] In the same century flourished holy Apollinaris,
bishop of Valence in Gaul, appointed to the church of Arles, whose Life Edmond
Martène, the Benedictine, in his most ample Collection
of ancient monuments, tom. 6, col.
779 and following, published not long since from a Ms. codex of the queen of Sweden.
In these Acts, which were
written by a contemporary author and eyewitness,
in the same place, col. 781, mention is made of a journey which that
holy prelate of Valence undertook to the city of Arles,
that he might present himself both at the thresholds of holy
Genesius the martyr, and to the sight of the pontiffs,
and to the affection of his kinsfolk. Then
that contemporary biographer narrates that he came to the city of Arles
with holy Apollinaris,
when St. Caesarius was bishop there. From this
testimony of a contemporary author it is confirmed that before
the middle of the sixth century, in which St. Caesarius of Arles
died, pious pilgrimages to the church of St. Genesius at Arles
were already frequently undertaken.
This chronology will be able to be indicated more distinctly
at the day V of October, on which St. Apollinaris, bishop
of Valence, is placed in the Roman Martyrology.
Meanwhile we cannot sufficiently wonder that
the most learned editor of this Life, Martène, there at
the name of St. Genesius the martyr set the following annotation:
He, when at Arles he was representing the sacred things of the Christians
in the theatre by way of mockery, being enlightened by a divine
light, and from a mime made a Christian,
sealed the faith of the Saviour with his own blood.
In this annotation we see a manifest confusion of two
Martyrs, which has been abundantly refuted above,
and thence we learn that sometimes even the most circumspect men
hallucinate basely, which is human,
and therefore we do not think it foreign
from ourselves.
10] Now we return to the immemorial [worship of St.Genesius of Arles, and thence it was propagated to the church of Lodève, which was little by little extended to
other churches of Gaul, as we gather
from the Life of holy Fulcran, prelate of Lodève,
about whom Bernard Gui in our possession, at the day XIII of February,
num. 15, thus writes: But when the work
of the basilica of holy Genesius was finished, in which he raised,
enlarged, and strengthened it, at length he took pains honorably
to dedicate it, having called together to the dedication
the most reverend lord Aimeric, archbishop
of Narbonne, Ryquinus of Maguelonne and
Deusdedit of Rodez, most reverend bishops;
which was done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation CMLXXV.
The most illustrious Jean Plantavit de la
Pause, in the past century bishop of Lodève, in
the Chronology of the prelates of Lodève, page 60, asserts
that this church long before had the title of St.
Genesius, and was only restored by holy Fulcran,
as from the proper Office of the church of Lodève
he there relates in these words: The cathedral church, built of mean material
some centuries before in honor of holy Genesius, martyr of Arles,
he so restored and enlarged from the foundations
that he is said to have built it anew. Whence
the people of Lodève acknowledge St. Genesius of Arles
as the chief patron of their church, and solemnly celebrate the yearly
festival of the dedication on the first Sunday
of October under a double rite with an
Octave, as is prescribed in the directory.
[11] This piety of the people of Lodève toward their Patron
likely grew still further after receiving his
relics, where his feast is celebrated with a solemn Office, concerning which Pierre Saxi, canon of the church of Arles,
in his Pontificium Arelatense, in Johann
Burkhard Mencke among the Writers on German Affairs, tom. 1,
col. 288, thus makes mention: At length, the right of tithes
being settled with the citizens of Arles, Jean
de Baussan, prelate of Arles (for the discourse there is about him),
granted to the church of Lodève relics of blessed Genesius of Arles
the martyr, namely an arm
and blood enclosed in a pyx, and he dies
in the year MCCLVII. The most illustrious Jean Plantavit
in the Work praised above refers this translation of relics
to between the year of Christ 1245 and
1246, and accuses Saxi's narration of a parachronism in these words: About the same time relics
of holy Genesius the martyr, first patron of the people of Lodève,
namely an arm and blood enclosed in a pyx,
Jean de Baussan, the eighty-fourth archbishop of Arles
in the nomenclature of that same Saxi, granted to our William (this
was William de Casellis, who from the year of Christ
1241 to the year 1259 sat in the see of Lodève),
as he was returning from that same council and passing through Arles
(and not in the year MCCLVII, as
Saxi noted in the Pontificium Arelatense);
which he laid up with solemn rite in the basilica of that Saint.
But, saving the peace of the most illustrious Plantavit,
Saxi by this mode of speaking perhaps meant only to signify
that that translation of relics was made
in the time of Jean de Baussan, prelate of Arles,
who departed this life in the year of Christ 1257.
[12] and likely to other churches of Gaul. Whatever be the truth of this chronology of Saxi,
the people of Lodève even today celebrate the yearly
commemoration of this translation under a double
rite, as is prescribed in the proper Offices of the church of Lodève,
and as Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology
at the eleventh day of April
testifies in these words: At Lodève on the fifteenth day
after Easter there is kept in the greater church the feast of the translation
of holy Genesius the martyr, patron of that same church.
Further, the church of Lodève at the day XXV
of August yearly commemorates the martyrdom of St. Genesius
with a proper Office of the first class with an Octave, and
then for eight days solemnly sings the deeds and
miracles of its holy Patron from ancient authors.
We do not doubt that many other churches of the Gauls
venerate this holy Martyr on account of
his sacred relics or for other causes, although
a distinct knowledge of them has not come to us.
[13] Nay, his veneration was extended to the Spaniards, Nor did that solemn veneration keep itself
within the bounds of Gaul; but it surmounted the Pyrenean mountains,
and some centuries ago passed into Spain,
as is clear from the old Mozarabic Breviary,
part of which I copied out while staying at Toledo
in the year 1722. That in that Office of venerable
antiquity St. Genesius of Arles is celebrated
the proper hymn proves clearer than light,
whose barbarous style I shall in some measure correct by conjecture
or explain in the margin. But that ancient
hymn, among other things not pertaining to our purpose,
has these words about the holy Martyr of Arles:
Genesius therefore, that young man,
a distinguished citizen of the town of Arles,
passing through the little flowers of his earliest age,
obeys the order enjoined upon him.
While therefore he was shining as a shorthand-writer,*
and was writing the public orders upon his tablets,
being suddenly breathed upon by a heavenly gift,
whereby he heaps up pious vows,
forthwith he refuses the impious office,
and declines to set his hand to the wax,
desiring to be made a dweller of heaven*
in life, in vows, and in manners.
Afterwards, as the Gospel word sounds forth, *
seeking divers hiding-places through the region,
he secretly betakes himself into hidden places
in horror of that ministry.
Whom a crowd of attendants seeking with all their might,
and not finding him anywhere as it wished,
the judge, bellowing with vast open jaws,*
cries out: Take up the steel:
Go swiftly with hasty steps,
and when the runaway is found, smite him, strike him,
who has dared to despise our admonitions,
nor honors the sacred gods.*
Which report, carrying to the Martyr's ears,
and since he knew that he had not been washed in the water, *
with fervent spirit he seeks the Rhône,
wherein he may be able to wash away his stains.*
Returning thence brighter than gold,
being found, his throat is laid low by their onset, *
and he is straightway joined to the hosts of heaven,
his head adorned with laurel.
From these things it evidently appears that the Spaniards anciently
solemnly honored St. Genesius of Arles in their own
country. Nay, we readily believe that both today's
Martyrs of the same name obtained an immemorial worship in Spain,
since indeed in the old Breviary of Burgos, which was printed
in the year 1502, on this day the following prayer,
common to both, is read: O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly
solemnity of thy blessed martyrs Genesius and Genesius,
grant, we beseech thee, that we may be stirred by the examples
of those in whose merits we rejoice.
Through &c. But the proper lessons which are there
recited pertain only to St. Genesius of Arles.
Yet the common lesson of several martyrs seems
to be referred to Genesius of Arles and
to the Roman Mime.
[14] But afterwards certain pseudo-writers
added to these other martyrs of the same name, some fabulists however
and will have them to have suffered in Spain, as we shall now briefly
show. Juan Tamayo de Salazar,
after the example of the Pseudo-Dexter and the Pseudo-Julian, feigned
two other Spanish Genesius-martyrs, of
whom on this day XXV of August he thus announces one in his Spanish
Martyrology: At Córdoba in
Baetic Spain, of holy Genesius, soldier and martyr,
who, that he might serve the Lord, having cast away
the soldier's belt and put on the Catholic breastplate,
being apprehended in the first persecution of Nero in Spain,
and not desisting from the faith, that remarkable champion,
armored for Christ, ascended to glory. But the other,
who suffered with martyr companions in an uncertain place,
he fraudulently filched from the Roman Martyrology
and placed at Mantua of the Carpetani, or Madrid,
as in his Spanish Martyrology at the day XI of October he boldly indicates by this
announcement: At Mantua among the Carpetani of Spain,
of the holy martyrs Anastasius the presbyter, Placidus, and Genesius,
who, when the storm of persecution of the emperor Julian,
that most monstrous apostate, was raging against the ascetics of Christ,
being apprehended for the name of the Crucified,
when they could be moved neither by threats from the Godhead
nor by blandishments from the name, being crowned with martyrdom,
earned eternal glory.
[15] Among the posthumous manuscripts of the most learned Nicolás
Antonio, two other martyrs of the same name of which mention has already been made
often enough elsewhere, we have a prolix dissertation,
both Latin and Spanish, in which that sincere
Spanish writer adjudges both those Genesii away from his countrymen,
and proves by solid arguments
that the churches and other tokens of public veneration
which still remain in Spain
pertain to St. Genesius of Arles alone.
But it neither pleases us nor have we leisure to transcribe that long
disputation, especially since on nearly every
day like little fables occur in the Martyrology of Tamayo,
which we have already too often laboriously
refuted. Wherefore on this matter we shall briefly excerpt the prudent judgment
of Nicolás Antonio from
the Old Spanish Library, in which, book 6, chapter
20, num. 451, or tom. 1, page 399, he refutes a certain
incautious defender of fables in these
words: Yet whatever he may say about four Genesii —
first the Arlesian, second the Roman, third
the one born at Barcelona and slain at Mantua of the Carpetani,
whose Acts he brings forward, fourth at last the Cordovan,
of whom we now treat — it must be held most certain
that to none other than the first, the Arlesian,
the shorthand-writer or public notary, was worship offered by the Spaniards
in the dedication of churches.
[16] rashly and deceitfully ascribed to their own country. Then in the same place, in the following number, Nicolás
Antonio confirms his opinion from the proper Mozarabic
Office which is celebrated at Toledo of St. Genesius
of Arles, and, after exhibiting a fragment of the hymn
related above, thus questions his adversary:
Dost thou think that the solemn Office of worship was once directed to the one,
but that to the other Genesius sacred temples were dedicated,
not only at Madrid and Toledo
or Córdoba, but also at Seville and Salamanca
and perhaps elsewhere? Let Bivar, Ramírez,
Tamayo (who brings forward a certain poem of his supposititious
Cyprian of Córdoba),
and Argáiz believe it, superstitiously rising up before these false divinities of history;
not the rest, to whom it has already been
intimated often enough to avoid these rocks, upon which
we have already dashed almost the whole ship
of the authority of our antiquities. Certainly the Pseudo-Dexter
and other impostors have brought so many fables into the History of Spain
that scarcely can the true be separated from the false,
as we shall find in the following paragraph.
Annotations* that is, mimic
* that is, thymelic
* that is, at Arles
* that is, was growing famous
* that is, a dweller
* that is, as the Gospel admonishes
* that is, the judge
* that is, honors.
* for the water of baptism
for abluere*
* that is, his head is cut off
§ II. It is inquired who or of what sort was holy
Genesius, who in the Carthaginian province of Spain among the Minorite Fathers of Xara is honored today.
In the Carthaginian province of Spain The most illustrious Francisco Gonzaga, in the Work On the origin
and progress of the Seraphic Religion, describes the place
in which this Saint is honored to this day, and
from which he is called by the Spaniards in the vernacular san Gines de la Xara,
that is, holy Genesius of Xara,
as the XVI Convent of the Carthaginian province, in our possession, fol. 972 verso, in these words: That
this Convent, situated in a deserted place and of vast solitude,
ten thousand paces from New Carthage,
and three thousand from the Ocean sea,
turned out to be dedicated to St. Genesius, the cause is the devotion
of the surrounding peoples toward that Saint on account
of benefits received from him: for by the mandate of the supreme
Pontiff Innocent VIII, who once gave to the renowned hero
Juan Chacón the faculty of building it
in the year from the Virgin's childbearing MCDXCI,
it was to be consecrated to the Annunciation of the most holy virgin Mary.
To these was added a little chapel already existing in the same
place, in honor of that same holy Genesius
raised, which was most highly commended to the aforesaid peoples.
[18] This monastery therefore stood built,
inhabited for the most part by twenty Brethren, immediately
from the year of the Lord MCDXCI, by the aforesaid hero
Juan Chacón, a certain St. Genesius is honored, and that by the Apostolic authority of Innocent
VIII; yet with this law laid down, that
it should serve the Franciscan Amadeans, and should be immediately
subject to the general Minister of the whole Minorite Order.
To the same law Alexander VI, Supreme Pontiff, subscribed
in the year of the Lord MCDXCIII. The diplomas of both supreme
Pontiffs are had
in the archives of this very place. Yet this law, because of
the very many inconveniences which followed, lacked execution;
nay, the Convent itself from its first
erection obeyed the Fathers of this province. This place
is most renowned among the Carthaginians, but especially
among those in peril at sea, because holy
Genesius, once the son of Roland the great king of the Franks and
of queen Oliva, whose body is believed to be buried in a hidden
place in the church of the present monastery,
is opportunely present to them in every necessity.
[19] What in this place the most illustrious Gonzaga pronounces
about the parents of that St. Genesius, whose history is uncertain, he doubtless
drew simply from a certain popular tradition of the inhabitants of Xara,
which is not greatly to be esteemed: for who is that Roland,
great king of the Franks and husband of queen Oliva,
who begot holy Genesius? Is perhaps that famous
Roland the hero indicated, who furnished abundant matter
for the fabulous narration of the Pseudo-Turpin in the Life of Charlemagne?
But he never administered the kingdom of the Franks. Add
that this Saint, by another tradition of the same place,
is called the brother of Roland in the Spanish Life which
Melchior Huelamo published at Murcia in the year 1607,
and enlarged with various episodes and suspect histories.
Therefore this uncertain popular tradition deserves little credit,
since it is not consistent with itself, and is established by no
ancient instruments.
[20] More safely and more certainly can Juan
Tamayo de Salazar be exploded, and whom Tamayo the Spaniard, who in his Spanish Martyrology
attached to this St. Genesius the name and Acts of St. Adalard, abbot of Corbie
in Gaul, and
on the second day of January announced that holy abbot in place of
St. Genesius of Xara in these words: At Corbie
in Gaul, the birthday of holy Adalard surnamed
Genesius, bishop, as is believed, of Urci in
Spain, who, being exiled by Louis the Pious, prince of the Franks,
dwelling near Carthago Spartaria
and building a hermitage, afterwards returning to Corbie
most holily closed his last day. Then
in the same place, in the notes, he abridged into Latin from Melchior Huelamo the Spanish
Life of St. Genesius, and
concocted other Acts of the same Saint at his own pleasure,
and mixed them together, that he might utterly transform St. Adalard
of Corbie into St. Genesius of Xara.
But that all these things were gratuitously devised by him for introducing
confusion, the cautious reader will easily perceive
who shall be willing to run through even with a light eye the ancient Acts
of St. Adalard of Corbie, which our Bolland published at
the second day of January, and in which
no mention is made of the name or surname of Genesius which this
holy abbot ever bore.
[21] If thou ask Tamayo where he found
that surname given to holy Adalard of Corbie, relying on the authority of pseudo-writers,
he confidently alleges his pseudo-masters Julian
and Luitprand, and thinks that by these two oracles
every doubt is removed. But we esteem the authority of these
two witnesses, whom we have often found lying,
as though he had cited no one, and we judge these two Saints
far different from one another. But if to prove this
difference thou shouldst say that they are celebrated on different days,
Tamayo answers undaunted in this
manner: Although the festival of holy Genesius is there referred
to the day XXV of August, this does not disturb our
exposition; because, since our elders utterly
lost the Acts of holy Adalard, nor knew
what was to be held as regards the day of his passing,
being drawn by the likeness of name of holy Genesius*
of Arles, whose feast the Church celebrates on that day,
they likewise appended his, whereas in truth
it ought to be appointed today (namely on the second day of January,
of which he treats). But that unskilled
fabulist did not observe that the very day of his death
is expressed in the ancient Acts of St. Adalard of Corbie,
and that this Saint is therefore by almost all
Martyrologists referred to the second day of January,
as Tamayo himself had before imprudently confessed.
[22] confounds with Adalard, abbot of Corbie, The inhabitants of Xara, from some tradition or other,
think that the sacred relics of St. Genesius still rest
among them in a hidden or unknown place, as
may be read in his Spanish Life in Melchior
Huelamo, chapter 4. But when the above-said
Tamayo saw that this common tradition of the people of Xara
did not fit well enough holy Adalard, abbot of Corbie,
who had died in Gaul, and whom he had confounded with St. Genesius,
he began to devise a way by which he might defend
that confusion he had made, and might place the sacred
remains of this abbot of Corbie in Spain.
And so with the Pseudo-Julian he feigned that the bones of this
holy Abbot were translated from Corbie in Gaul, where a hundred years
before he had died, into Spain,
and in his Spanish Martyrology he confidently announces this
translation on the day XXI of May in this manner: Near Carthago Spartaria at
mount Larinus, the translation of the sacred pledges
of blessed Adalard surnamed Genesius the abbot from
the city of Corbie in Gaul, where his sanctity flourishes with a notable
frequency of marvels.
[23] as our Elders long since observed. Our elders detected that fraud of the Spanish
Martyrologist, and therefore among the Passed-over
at the day XXI of May roundly indicated their opinion on this matter
in these words: The translation of the sacred pledges of holy Adalard
the abbot from the city of Corbie in Gaul to mount Larinus near Carthago
Spartaria is inscribed in the Spanish Martyrology
of Tamayo de Salazar, with the Adversaria and Chronicle of Julian Peter
cited, lately trimmed up.
Nay, he had treated of him on the second day of January, and everywhere
gives the surname of Genesius and the title of bishop,
as is believed, he says, of Urci in Spain;
and he says that, being driven into exile by Louis
the Pious, he lay hid on the said mount Larinus, for which
Usuard is cited, much younger than he, at this
XXI of May. All which things have been impudently feigned.
Adalard the abbot lived as an exile on the island of Noirmoutier in Aquitaine,
and it is established that his body was still at Corbie
in the XII century; accordingly it was not translated into Spain
about the year DCCCI. Consult his various Acts
and miracles with the translations published by us
on the second of January.
[24] We confess with Wadding the Minorite, Because of these fables of Tamayo and the uncertain
tradition of the people of Xara we doubt, or rather
do not know, what can safely be believed about the Acts of this holy Genesius.
The same doubt or ignorance
held Wadding in suspense, who in the *Annals
of the Minors* at the year of Christ 1437, num. 48,
thus writes about the origin of the Convent of Xara: In
the register of the Order I read that the Minister General
in this year on the XVIII day of May gave leave to the brethren
Alfonso Rubio of Cuenca and Francisco
de Molina, sons of the Castilian province, to pass over
to the hermitage of holy Genesius, of the diocese of Cartagena,
and to abide under the obedience of the Guardian
of that Convent. Wherefore it must be judged
that the house was not so much made as remade or
enlarged by that illustrious hero, by whom Gonzaga seems to hold that it was first built
in the year MCDXCI under Innocent VIII. To him also Melchior Huelamo refers the origin
of this monastery, in a special
book which he wrote about the Life and miracles of holy
Genesius, with many things inelegantly heaped up
which conduce not at all to the argument of the history he had set himself.
I have read three men who wrote about this holy
Man: the two aforesaid, Gonzaga and
Huelamo, and a third, Juan Márquez; but
all disagree about his parents: the last calls Adalard
Genesius, on I know not what foundation,
and confounds him with Adalard, abbot of Corbie, from the conjectures
of others. I have found nothing certain
about his parents, the time of his death, or the settled
state of his life.
[25] Besides those three authors whom Wadding
cites in this place, that the deeds of this Saint are unknown to us, we have also read Francisco
de Cascales, who in the Historical Discourses on the Kingdom
of Murcia, which he published in Spanish at Murcia in the year 1621,
fol. 451 and following, sets forth more fully the tradition
about St. Genesius of Xara. This
Spanish writer of that same Carthaginian province
also wrongly confounds his own holy Genesius with holy
Adalard the abbot, and adopts all
the fables of Tamayo and of other pseudo-writers.
Hence we gather how little
one ought to trust this tradition, which is found so faulty
and so various. Wherefore we frankly
confess that all things are uncertain or unknown to us
which are commonly reported about that holy Genesius,
if thou except his proper name, his immemorial worship,
and some miracles or benefits of a more recent age.
[26] In the first place we find his name and the title of holy
in the diploma of Pope Alexander VI, and although at Xara he is said to be honored as a confessor
who in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1493 granted
leave to build or restore a Convent
of Friars Minor in the hermitage called of holy Genesius
de la Xara, in a certain deserted place,
and distant from the city of Cartagena by ten miles
or thereabouts, and lying near the shore of the sea,
as is read in the Pontifical Register after
the seventh tome of Wadding's Annals, page 96
and following. This immemorial worship of holy
Genesius Pope Clement VIII confirmed and increased,
whose Bull in Melchior Huelamo, after the Spanish Life of St. Genesius, fol.
168 verso, is related in this manner: Whereas, as
we have heard, in the church of holy Genesius de la
Xara of the Carthaginian diocese there exists a pious confraternity
of Christ's faithful of either sex, not however
of one special craft, called the Cord-bearers of holy
Francis, canonically instituted,
which has been wont to exercise itself in good works;
We, that the aforesaid confraternity may day by day receive
greater increase, … to those who are now and shall in time be
confraternity members, as well as to other of Christ's faithful of either
sex, truly penitent and
confessed and refreshed with the most holy Communion,
who shall devoutly visit the aforesaid church on the feast of that same holy
Genesius the CONFESSOR, which is celebrated on the twenty-
fifth of the month of August, from first Vespers until
the setting of the sun of that festival,
mercifully grant in the Lord a plenary indulgence and remission of all their
sins. Clement VIII gave this
Bull in the eighth year of his Pontificate, which
answers to the year of Christ 1599, as is indicated there at the end.
[27] from the popular and uncertain tradition of the people of Xara Although in this Bull St. Genesius is called
by the surname of confessor, yet this appellation
has no greater certainty than the wavering tradition itself
of the people of Xara, who without doubt
suggested that title to the Roman Pontiff.
But who would warrant that that tradition of the people of Xara
about the deeds of St. Genesius the confessor did not, a century and a half ago,
come forth from those fabulous Chronicles and other
like figments, with which certain pseudo-writers
have contaminated and obscured the whole of Spanish
antiquity, as we have shown above? We at least, two hundred years ago,
in instruments worthy of credit, find no worship of St. Genesius
the confessor, although then
and before the worship of St. Genesius, martyr of Arles,
was most renowned in Spain, as we have shown from the old Mozarabic
Breviary. To this is added
that the temple of St. Genesius at Córdoba, of which St.
Eulogius in the Memorial of the Saints, book 2,
chapter 10, makes mention near the end, must be
attributed to St. Genesius the martyr, and that Nicolás Antonio judges
the same must be held also of other churches of that name
in Spain.
[28] yet with our Papebroch we doubt, Whence our Papebroch, in a slip of paper before
the Spanish Life of St. Genesius of Xara, thus admonished his successors:
It must be examined whether it be not
a fable: for perhaps the worship of St. Genesius the martyr,
introduced there by some pious hermit, gave occasion
to a fiction of this kind, so that the miracles truly pertain
to Genesius the martyr, who also
is honored on the XXV of August. Wherefore we would here have the learned men
of the Carthaginian province asked
to take this scruple from us, and to establish their tradition
about the deeds and age of St. Genesius the confessor
from ancient documents. This suspicion of our Papebroch
is not altogether rash,
since Wadding, even after the publication of the Bull of Clement VIII,
which we have in part related above, in the *Annals
of the Minors* at the year of Christ 1397, num.
2, called this same St. Genesius of Xara by the surname
of martyr, where he thus begins the Acts of B. John
de Cetina: John, born of his father John
Lorenzo of Cetina (it is a town on the borders
of Aragon toward Castile), in his younger
years served a certain Aragonese lord;
uselessly, however, and with no greater fruit than
the loss of time and of virtues. Coming to himself by a certain divine
spark, he bade farewell to his lord and to the world,
and sought the hermitage of holy Genesius the MARTYR, not
far from the city of Murcia, of the diocese of Cartagena,*
where for some years he lived piously. Then he relates the deeds
and martyrdom of this John.
[29] whether this change of a Martyr into a confessor But Wadding (the people of Xara, defenders of their own
tradition, will say) in the same Annals of the Minors
at the year of Christ 1437, num. 48, revokes his former
opinion in these words: All call him a confessor;
whence that place must be corrected where formerly, from the Life of our blessed
John of Cetina, I called him a MARTYR and set his house near Murcia,
ten leagues distant. Whence it must thus
be read: and he sought the hermitage of holy Genesius,
not far from the city of Cartagena.
I confess indeed that these things were thus
corrected by Wadding. But would that at the same time he had expressed the urgent
reasons for which he changed his opinion! But
this one cause seems to be alleged by him,
that all the inhabitants of Xara call that St. Genesius
a confessor. Perhaps Wadding understood from his own Brethren
at Xara that this was the common tradition of the place about their St. Genesius, and therefore
he revoked his former opinion about the martyrdom of that St.
Genesius. Whatever be the cause of that revocation,
we are not so easily moved by the common
opinion of the crowd, whose origin and antiquity
we do not know. If further the people of Xara shall show
that this tradition of theirs is ancient, and rests on a solid
foundation, we shall imitate Wadding in retracting.
[30] But although Wadding in the place cited above
confesses did not arise from the fabulous chronicles of the Spaniards, that he found nothing certain about
the parents of that holy Genesius, the time of his death,
or the settled state of his life, yet from popular
tradition he presently subjoins in the same place the following: They
report that the Saint flourishes with many miracles, that he was a kinsman
of the kings of the Gauls, and a nephew of Charlemagne,
and lies buried there. Very many
flock thither to venerate him and to obtain benefits;
and these he frequently bestows, especially upon those
in peril at sea. But this great nobility of birth
or royal kinship is not a little suspect to us,
both because the ancient French and Spanish writers
nowhere record it, and because
more recent Spanish fabulists attribute a like brilliance of birth
to Adalard, abbot of Corbie,
whom they surname Genesius, and wrongly confound with St. Genesius
of Xara, as we have seen above.
Whence not without reason we fear that the tradition
of the people of Xara about the noble stock of their holy Genesius
came forth from that fabulous confusion,
and took its origin from these pseudo-writers.
[31] As regards the miracles with which this St.
Genesius is said to shine in the Carthaginian province, and accordingly whether the miracles,
we give an easier credit to them, because they are more recent,
and were written by contemporary or nearly contemporary authors:
for Melchior Huelamo
in the Spanish Life of St. Genesius, chapter 14 and following,
narrates at length some things which happened not long before
his own age. Whether these miracles pertain
to St. Genesius the confessor, as the people of Xara
think, or to St. Genesius the martyr of Arles,
as our Papebroch, alleged above, suspected,
we shall briefly record them to the honor of one or the other Saint,
since today mention is made of both those Genesii (if
they are two distinct men), and since about neither will a more fitting
occasion of treating offer itself elsewhere. Tamayo
abridged these miracles or benefits into Latin faithfully enough from the Spanish
book of Melchior Huelamo,
and related them in his Martyrology at the day XXI of May,
although there he wrongly ascribed them to St. Adalard
of Corbie.
[32] His Latin rendering, which for brevity's sake we here transcribe,
which Tamayo from the Spanish book of Huelamo in tom. 3 of the Spanish Martyrology,
page 266, thus runs: In the year MDLIII
a ship, loosing from the harbor of Cartagena, being assailed by strong
winds, was looking for its final ruin, when
a servant of the ship's master, drawing out a small piece of stone from the tomb
of holy Genesius, and, his name being invoked,
casting it into the sea, straightway the storm
was stilled. In the year of the Lord MDLXI Francisco
Xorquera and three other companions, who were seeking
a livelihood by fishing, an ambush being laid by the Moors,
were reduced to captivity. They, the name and help of holy
Genesius being invoked, casting themselves into the sea,
returned free to the harbor, after they had swum
nearly four leagues without peril and without anxiety.
[33] An almost like miracle befell sixteen
citizens of Cartagena in the year MDLXIII: for when
they were loosing from the harbor and seeking the Numidian shore,
that, raids being made, they might return to their country laden
with spoils, it happened that, being intercepted by a Moorish
cutter, reduced into a Latin compendium, they bewailed their liberty lost;
but, prayer being made to God by the merits of holy Genesius,
straightway a strong wind arising
so seized the cutter of the Moors that it was never
again seen by anyone, and they came to Spain
rejoicing. A certain son of a knight of Murcia, laboring
with the disease of quinsy, died within a short interval;
whose father, pierced with grief at his son's death,
promised to God and to holy Genesius (if his son
should enjoy the light of this life) that he for a year, and his son
for six years, would serve continually in the ministries of the monastery.
This vow being made, ordering his son's corpse
to be placed on a litter, going to the church in
which the pledges of the holy Abbot rest (he wrongly means Adalard, abbot of Corbie,
as we warned above), and setting it upon
the altar, prayer being repeated for three days,
by alms and by vow he received back his young son
alive. We have been unwilling in this place to correct Tamayo's faulty
Latinity or his dislocated periods,
since at least the substance of the matter which he narrates
is sufficiently understood.
[34] are not to be ascribed to the holy Martyr of Arles. From these and other miracles, which Melchior
Huelamo sets forth in Spanish with wordy episodes,
let no one confidently infer that the body of St. Genesius
is buried there, as the people of Xara from their tradition
contend: for one proposing such an argument would receive
from us the same answer which St.
Gregory once gave to a certain Peter asking
why the Saints should work greater signs where they least
lie in their own persons. Namely St. Gregory the Pope,
book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 38, in the newest edition of his Works
at Paris, tom. 2, col. 276, thus answers this question: Where
the holy Martyrs lie in their own bodies, there is no doubt,
Peter, that they can show many signs,
as indeed they do, and to those who seek with a pure mind
they display innumerable miracles. But because
it can be doubted by weak minds whether they are present
to hear where it is plain that they are not in their own bodies,
there it is necessary that they show greater signs, where a weak mind
can doubt of their presence. But those whose
mind is fixed in God have so much the greater
merit of faith, the more they know that there they both do not lie
in the body and yet are not wanting to hear.
For the rest, these are our conjectures about St.
Genesius of Xara, which we have proposed to the learned in so great
a scarcity of ancient documents, willingly to revoke them
or to change our opinion if
anyone shall teach us more certain things. Now from this necessary
digression we return to St. Genesius of Arles.
Annotationsperhaps synonymia*
read procul*, as will presently be said.
§ III. The sincere Acts of the holy Martyr of Arles,
their doubtful writer, the uncertain year of the martyrdom, and a twofold tradition of the people of Arles refuted.
About the true writer of the Acts, Although among the learned it is not yet altogether
certain who left to posterity the Acts of St. Genesius of Arles,
yet all, even the most severe censors of ancient monuments,
hold them for genuine, and by common consent affirm
that that renowned martyrdom was faithfully
transmitted to posterity by a sincere author. Certainly the pious
writer of this Passion, who perhaps flourished at the beginning of the fifth
century, in his prologue warns his readers
that he gathered these Acts thus in good time,
lest those things which are still related with a living recollection of events,
as they were done, should, the credit either of those who hand them down or of those who receive them
vanishing through time, be believed fabulous. Therefore Ruinart, before the Passion
of this holy Martyr of Arles, which
he published at Paris among the Sincere and select Acts of the Martyrs,
on page 601 of that edition thus prefaces:
Since in the time of persecution no one had described the martyrdom of blessed Genesius
of Arles, peace being at length restored to the Church,
this loss was repaired by the pen of some faithful and
pious writer, who committed to writing the Passion of Genesius
which we now exhibit.
This Laurentius Surius published under the name of blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola,
with whom most authors agree, nor do the manuscript codices
oppose it. And indeed, although some doubt
whether it be a true offspring of blessed Paulinus, yet no one
can deny that it was written by an author of that same age.
[36] Then Ruinart testifies in the same place that in three
or four Ms. codices the name of Paulinus the bishop is read
expressed before these Acts, who flourished in the V century, and that therefore
he too prefixed it to his edition. But
hence it does not follow that that lucubration is to be attributed to the Nolan
prelate of this name: for our Rosweyde,
in the notes to his Antwerp edition of St. Paulinus of Nola, page 834, hints
that it can more probably be ascribed to Paulinus, bishop
of Béziers, who after the beginning of the fifth century held that see,
as may be seen in the Sainte-Marthes, Gallia
Christiana, of the old edition, tom. 2, page 408.
Perhaps Rosweyde judged that this narration
about a Martyr of Gaul more likely fitted a French
bishop than an Italian. Yet that
little work most more recent critics attribute to St. Paulinus of Nola,
together with the recent French editor of the Paulinian lucubrations,
whom Tillemont,
tom. 5 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 569, surnames in the vernacular
le Brun. This editor left that martyrdom
of St. Genesius of Arles among the Works of St.
Paulinus of Nola, which he published at Paris in the year 1685,
and in the notes, tom. 2, page 114, gives the following warning:
Rosweyde doubts whether the history of holy Genesius
the martyr is a genuine offspring of our Paulinus;
he thinks it can be adjudged to a certain Paulinus, bishop of Béziers,
who sat in the year CDXX.
Yet this is commonly attributed to Paulinus of Nola; nor
indeed does anything stand in the way of its being ascribed to him,
although we do not see what occasion he had
for weaving that narration.
[37] Whatever be the truth about the true writer of that history,
who certainly deserves great credit, it is disputed among the learned, we,
for want of surer knowledge, leave this suit undecided,
after the example of Ruinart, who, after assigning
from his Ms. codices the name of Paulinus the bishop,
in the praised preliminary admonition to that same
Passion, page 602 of the Paris edition, thus
hesitates in doubt: But who was that Paulinus? Whether the Nolan
or the Béziers bishop, or another, is plainly
uncertain. Therefore, on account of the authority of the ancient codices
which Ruinart alleges, we shall prefix to these Acts the name
of Paulinus the bishop, and from him,
after the preliminary Commentary, we shall reprint that same
Passion of St. Genesius, about which that editor thus forewarns
the reader: But this, which the collector of the new edition of the Works
of holy Paulinus published from Surius
(here Ruinart designates that French collector
whose surname I have indicated above from Tillemont),
we exhibit collated anew with some manuscript
codices. But since in that edition,
and in the single Colbert codex, there sometimes
occur whole sentences which are not had in other
manuscript codices, and which yet do not
seem altogether to be rejected, we have left them enclosed in little brackets.
[38] as also about the author of the Homily, Besides this brief history of the Passion there still
remains a Homily which was recited in praise of St. Genesius
of Arles in the same fifth century,
and whose author is still more than the preceding
brought into controversy among the learned, as
may be gathered from the following reasoning of Ruinart,
which in the preliminary admonition already often cited is expressed
in these words: A little afterwards Faustus, bishop of Riez,
or Eucherius of Lyons, or
another author, some of whose Homilies with others
of other authors have been published under the name of Eusebius of Emesa
or Eusebius Gallicanus in the fifth tome
of the Library of the Fathers, published a homily on blessed Genesius,
in which he often uses not only the sentences
of this Passion but its very words, as will appear from
some passages which we shall bring forward in the little notes …
Further, Papire Masson in the Description
of France by its rivers praises an elegant homily of Patiens, bishop of Lyons,
on holy Genesius of Arles, which, since we have not been permitted to see it,
whether it be different from that Passion which we have said was published
under the name of holy Paulinus, or from the homily
of Eusebius Gallicanus praised, under whose name
some little works of Eucherius of Lyons have been published,
we cannot judge; since indeed it is certain
that other authors also wrote about the praises of holy Genesius.
Among other sermons of the holy men Augustine, Caesarius, Faustus, and of other writers
of the same age, which are had at Rome in a manuscript
codex, num. 3836, of the Vatican library,
there stand two about holy Genesius without
the author's name. But Hadrianus Valesius in the Notitia
Galliarum, page 38, prefers to attribute this Homily
to St. Hilary of Arles, as he there
indicates in these words: The author of the Homily on holy
Genesius the martyr, native and patron of the city of Arles
(whether he was Paulinus, bishop of Nola,
or Paulinus of Béziers, or Patiens, prelate of Lyons,
or, as I rather think, Hilary
of Arles) teaches that this city was twin or
double in his own age. But Valesius confounds the Homily
with the Passion, as appears from the words of the Acts
which he alleges in this place.
[39] which we publish from a Ms. copy, Our Théophile Raynaud in the Hagiologium
Lugdunense, page 76, attributes this Homily to holy
Patiens, bishop of Lyons, and more clearly distinguishes it from the Passion
of St. Genesius of Arles in this
manner: The eloquence of holy Patiens is shown by the flowery
homily in praise of holy Genesius, which is read
in the miscellany marked with the name of Eusebius Gallicanus or
of Eucherius: for that homily Papire
Masson, in the description of Gaul by its rivers, treating of the city of Arles, attributes
to holy Patiens, and it is established that it was delivered outside Arles, as will be clear
to the reader. But Masson does not seem
to treat of that other writing which is read in Surius,
tom. IV, on the day XXV of August, and is had mingled
with the Works of holy Paulinus of Nola, under the title
of the Martyrdom of holy Genesius: for that writing
must not be called a homily, nor confounded with that truly homily on holy Genesius
which stands in the Eusebian
miscellany (as was wrongly done by
Aubert Le Mire in the Auctarium on ecclesiastical writers,
chapter 118), since that writing which I have mentioned
is a historical narration of the manner in which holy Genesius
suffered. In a parchment codex of our Museum,
which is marked ✠ Ms. 201, we have this homily
mingled with the sermons of Eusebius of Emesa or Eucherius
of Lyons, which Surius on the day XXV
of August, after the Acts and miracle of St. Genesius of Arles,
also put to the press.
[40] Since therefore this homily contains
and illustrates certain deeds of that holy Martyr, and in which it is narrated,
with which the Acts to be reprinted after this preliminary
Commentary may be compared, we shall here publish it,
collated with the Surian edition, from
the aforementioned Ms. codex of ours, which at folio 68 and
the following thus has: Today we celebrate the birthday of holy Genesius;
and rightly do we call the passions of the blessed Martyrs
their birthdays, since the life of martyrdom
and the faith of glory, while it thrusts them upon death,
bore them unto eternity, and brought forth perpetual joys by a brief pain.
Rightly indeed must those be called birthdays
through which they who had been born into this misery of human
frailty are suddenly reborn into glory,
taking the beginning of everlasting life from the end of death.
For indeed, if we call those days birthdays
on which we are born into this light in sins and sorrows
unto sorrows, on which we enter into this world
wailing with the cry of infancy, every
man, as it were a prophet of the misery to come through the whole of life,*
testifies also to the unhappiness of his nature by that first tearful
voice; since indeed in the first state the life of those being born,
which is taken up for the whole course, is passed in tribulation. More justly therefore are those*
birthdays celebrated on which the Saints come out of a corruptible light
into that new brightness of the world to come,
and the sons of men ascend into the adoption of the divine fatherhood,
and, a little before companions of mortals,
suddenly begin to be citizens of the angels.
[41] Of their number was that Blessed one, whose
renowned triumph of glorious struggle we today
celebrate; how St. Genesius of Arles, who, being still a catechumen, still a stranger
to the divine laws, still an alien, suddenly fulfilled in himself all
the commands of piety with the fulness of faith.
A catechumen, he advances to the contests of confession;
he is not dipped in a font, but is washed
by his passion; he is not quickened by baptism, but
is regenerated by death; and what at last he believed,
or what he owed for it to his Redeemer, he confesses
by the pouring out of his blood. He cannot indeed
say: I am buried together with Christ by baptism
into death; but he can say, By death I am
joined to him in baptism, that is, in death. For the Lord himself
proclaimed his own death a baptism,
saying: I have a baptism wherewith to be baptized, which ye
know not. The blessed and renowned witness of Christ therefore,
even if he did not set forth this death of his Lord in the mystery,
it is more that he imitates it by example.
[42] O how much does that divine fire work in human
breasts! while still a catechumen, A catechumen has found eternal
life. Not yet set forth to the warfare of Christ,
and already worthy of his friendship. Not yet taken up
to service, and already fit for testimony.
Not yet let in at the door of the Church,
he suddenly penetrates the very palace of heaven. Not yet a soldier
of God, and already a coheir. Not yet a member of the household
in the house of God, and already a son in the kingdom of God. And indeed
that unshaken virtue of soul in so great a Martyr, and greatness
of faith, long nourished by a hidden love of Christ,*
and approved by sudden proofs, deserved this glory.
For when the still secret Servant of God
was serving in the order of shorthand-writers, and was standing before
the tribunal of a pagan Caesar, hearing him
pronounce bloody sentences upon the head of the Christians,
he called back his pious right hand from taking down
as from sacrificing, and trembled to impress the sacrilegious*
words, because he bore Christ inscribed on the pages of his heart.
[43] a public profession of the Christian faith And so, his tablets being cast down before the eyes of the profane
judge, he condemns his wicked words and impious edicts
and decrees with all the freedom now of a martyr.
Torments were before his eyes; the pain of those
whom the punishment had torn reached even to the fear of the executioners,
even to the trembling of the torturers;
and amid these things he cried out with all exultation that he was
a Christian, as though Christians were sought
not for punishments but for rewards. How great
and how new spectacles did the faith of the pious afford
to God and to his angels! Behold, in the service of a sacrilegious tyrant
Christ found his own soldier.
The Church was wont to send martyrs to the tribunals of persecutors;
behold, now by an astonishing kind the tribunal of the persecutor
sent forth a martyr to the Church. He proclaims therefore: I am
a Christian. All the madness of the persecutor,
his fury being turned upon him, rises up;
the bloody judge seethes with pain and confusion; the more
he blushes that a worshipper of the faith has emerged from the party of faithlessness.
[44] confirmed by the shedding of his blood, And so, the weight of persecution pressing upon him,
and the devil's ministers pursuing, he casts himself into the streams
of the Rhône. To the farther bank, from city to
city, the river obeying him, he crosses over;
not that he might flee a glorious death, but that
nothing might be lacking from the order of martyrdom, since the Lord himself says:
If they persecute you in this city, flee
into another. There, being apprehended, he is offered up to Christ,
and is drenched with triumphal gore. By the wave of his precious
blood the sacraments of baptism are completed.
The victim of piety falls for the price of truth. Beneath*
the very walls of that most happy city the funeral of the renowned Victor
is borne in upon the shoulders of the faithful.
Whence now, glorious with a twofold honor between both
parts of that city, he sanctifies that bank by his triumph,
this by his tomb; that he ennobles by his blood,
this by his body.
[45] by whose example his hearers And so the faithful peoples, more especially exulting
in the help of their perpetual champion, bring vows
to his tomb, and from the tomb bear back the joys of their vows.
These knock with prayers, he answers with powers:
by the daily benefits of the Martyr the observances of his foster-city
are surpassed. Whence rightly in prosperity
they honor him whom they have known present in perils.
And so by frequent tribulations
they have proved how much their own Advocate
avails with God. How precious are the wounds of the martyrs!
How glorious their contests, in which, living amid torments
and triumphing amid deaths, being vexed in few things,
they shall be well ordered in many.
Afflicted before men, to be glorified before the angels,
they have lent to God a brief life in exchange for eternity:
and therefore, as gold in
the furnace of fire, so they, tried in the furnace of tribulation,
shall shine as the sun; of whom through blessed
John the divine voice testifies: These are they who
came out of great tribulation, and washed their robes,
and made them white in the blood
of the lamb; for this cause they shall stand in the sight of the throne.
[46] are stirred up to a spiritual martyrdom. These therefore, dearly beloved, let us so admire
as to remember that they were men; these, I say, let us so
admire as to know that they were like ourselves, and
that they lived under the same frailty of flesh in which we are;
and thereby let us follow, so far as we can,
their faith; let us pursue that virtue of soul
by which, spurning earthly and present things, they did violence
to the heavenly kingdoms. They overcame the pains
of the body; let us overcome the passions of manners and of hearts;
they conquered torments, let us conquer vices;
they shuddered to sacrifice to demons; let us detest
malice, envy, detractions, contentions,
as profane sacrifices;
that amid the conflicts of this world, vices, the persecutors
of virtue, may prove us to be martyrs.
Let us persecute in ourselves our sins and iniquities.
Let us storm pride, let us war down wrath.
Let us ourselves in ourselves discharge both the part of the persecutor
and that of the martyrs, by the chastisement of vigils,
by the contrition of fastings, by the keeping
of chastity. Let us present our bodies a living
victim, holy, pleasing to God. Let us acquire
for ourselves a new martyrdom, not by the death of the flesh, but
by the mortification of the fleshly life, so that of us
also, even while living, it may be said: Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints.
Therefore, so far as it can be done, let whatever of sin there is be extinguished
in us; let what is of the world be mortified
unto death, that the death of the living may be made precious in the sight
of the Lord; that passions,
covetings, and the blandishments of present things,
even as death will wrest them from us unwilling, so the truth of faith
and the fear of God may take them from us; and that
not necessity may separate them from us, but will, so that
not destruction but progress may make an end of our vices,
a limit to our concupiscences and offences.
[47] In this homily St. Genesius of Arles is said
publicly to have made a noble profession of the Christian faith
From this Homily some assign the year of the Passion, when he was standing before the tribunal of a pagan Caesar.
Hence Adrien Baillet in the French Acts
of that same St. Genesius gathers that the emperor
was then present in the city of Arles,
although the name of that emperor or Caesar
is not expressed. But since Maximian Herculius
in the year of Christ 308 resumed at Arles the diadem
of the Roman empire, which he had before unwillingly laid down,
thence Baillet further infers that the martyrdom
of St. Genesius of Arles can probably be
fixed to this year. Although this conjecture is not
altogether improbable, yet it seems to us uncertain,
since Diocletian and Maximian Herculius himself
were in Gaul, and perhaps at Arles, some years before,
in which this martyrdom of St. Genesius
of Arles could be placed by a like conjecture.
Add that in the year of Christ 308 such
was the condition of Maximian Herculius that it would not
have much pleased him to persecute the Christians, as he will easily
understand who shall be willing to consult the Roman history
of that time.
[48] The most eminent Cardinal Baronius in
the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 303,
num. 130, places various martyrs in Gaul in this year
under the governor Rictius Varus, which however we think uncertain, and among them
records today's St. Genesius in these words: At Arles
there suffered then also Genesius, shorthand-writer of the public
Acts; he indeed, being bidden before
the tribunal to take down a decree against the Christians, wearied
of the crime, his tablets being cast down before the judge's feet,
fled away and lay hid, and, breathed upon by the divine
Spirit, asking that baptism be imparted to him by the bishop,
it happened by God's will that, before he could
obtain it, being forestalled by the governor's ministers,
he was baptized in his own blood, and
obtained the crown of martyrdom, and by a renowned memory,
on the day on which he suffered, was inscribed in the lists of the holy
martyrs. But Tillemont, tom. 5
of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 3 and following, thinks that Rictius
Varus, prefect of the praetorium, died before the end of the third
century. Ruinart and others judge
that the year in which St. Genesius of Arles
underwent martyrdom is uncertain. To these last
authors we adhere, until from some quarter a greater
light of surer chronology shall shine forth. Yet meanwhile
at the beginning of this Commentary we noted in the margin the year
303 or 308, that we might at least assign
approximately some time for that martyrdom.
Now we shall examine one and another tradition of the citizens
of Arles which pertains to this
martyrdom.
[49] and two popular traditions of the people of Arles The above-praised Pierre Saxi in the Pontificium
Arelatense, which in Mencke among the writers
on German affairs has lately been reprinted,
in the same place, tom. 1, col. 123, sets forth the first popular tradition
of the people of Arles in these words: Further,
the citizens think that Genesius, when he was withdrawing his neck
from the tyrant's cruelty, and wished to pass over into that
part of the city where today is the suburb
of Trinquetaille, the waves of the Rhône withdrawing,
crossed over with dry foot. This tradition
must not be so very recent, since the old Mozarabic
Office makes mention of the same matter in the proper prayer or collect,
which is thus recited: Almighty Lord, who didst permit
thy most blessed martyr Genesius to be tried, but not overwhelmed,
by the goads of sufferings and the masses of the impending waves,
since neither did punishment overcome him as he fought,
nor did the wave, when he was plunged in, sink him;
because thou both wast present to him there, that he might not be conquered by torments,
and here didst grant that against nature he should be borne up
by the waves: by such great miracles grant faith to all,
that vows may most devoutly be conferred upon those who celebrate them.
Amen. Here the Mozarabs seem to hold that
crossing of the Rhône for a miracle.
[50] destitute of ancient testimonies, Yet the most ancient writers of his Passion
and of his miracles acknowledge no miracle in that crossing of the river:
for holy Gregory of Tours,
book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs,
chapter 69, simply indicates that this holy Martyr
swam in the Rhône, as on another occasion
we shall afterwards relate. Nay, the first writer of the Acts,
in the Passion to be reprinted after this Commentary
from Ruinart, in our text at num. 5,
expressly asserts that our Saint, being near the peril of apprehension,
by the Lord's instinct cast himself
into the Rhône, and so by the help of swimming
reached the other bank of the river. If St.
Genesius was skilled in swimming, as here seems
to be supposed, no miracle is to be sought in that crossing of the river,
of which also the most ancient
writers afford no token by their silence.
[51] or rather contrary to them Certain Ms. codices express these things a little otherwise,
and add the example of St. Peter the Apostle
walking upon the waters, in this manner:
And this indeed was the cause, that he should reach it by the help
of swimming, who, after the example of the most blessed
Peter, tending toward Christ, could have walked upon the tops of the whirlpools. What if the Mozarabs, from this
period ill understood, thought that St. Genesius,
after the example of the most blessed Peter, was borne up by the waves against nature,
as in their collect they hint? Perhaps some of the people of Arles,
on account of the comparison elsewhere alleged of the Israelite people
crossing the Red Sea in a prodigious manner,
thought that the holy Martyr too, the waves of the Rhône
withdrawing, crossed this river with dry
foot, as Saxi above testifies. Hence
that popular and inconstant tradition could arise among the people of Arles,
and pass over to the Mozarabs, and
gradually grow strong. But from whatever source it had
its origin or increase, we do not dare
to multiply miracles without the manifest testimony of ancient writers.
[52] we reject because of the silence of the Acts. In the place cited above Pierre Saxi thus relates
another tradition of the people of Arles: They affirm
that Genesius, coming forth from the river, being struck by a public
servant, carried his head in his hands,
like another Dionysius, as far as that place
where a mulberry tree, watered with the Martyr's blood, had grown up.
But Saxi himself, canon of the church of Arles,
about that carrying of the head in the same place briefly
and cautiously thus pronounces: But that he carried his head, since
I have nowhere read it (although painters and statuaries
so represent him), I do not assert; yet the church acknowledges him
renowned for miracles. It is helpful on this matter to hear
our Henschen, when at the day XXV of May,
on occasion of SS. Maximus and Venerandus, martyrs
of Évreux, who in fabulous Acts were also said to have carried
their own heads, tom. VI of that month,
page 38, he explains that carrying of the head in these
words: To these things we have nothing else to say
than that, the custom having once been received throughout Gaul
of representing in statues or paintings all those Saints
who were believed to have been beheaded, with
their own head lifted in their hands before the breast,
a popular error grew strong, whereby they were believed
to have lifted up their severed heads after death and to have carried them
to the place dedicated to their veneration. This may
really have happened once and again; but,
that deceptive principle being once recognized which has led so many into error,
it can be prudently believed of no Saint
whose Acts are not altogether most sincere, and most remote,
because of the indubitable credit of their authors,
from every suspicion of interpolation. We for confirmation add to these things
that the Acts of our St. Genesius are indeed sincere,
but that in them not a word is said of this carrying of the head,
and therefore that that tradition of the people of Arles
seems to us utterly improbable. For the rest,
with Saxi and with the church of Arles we acknowledge
other notable miracles of this Martyr,
which now in the following paragraph we shall gather from witnesses beyond
all exception.
AnnotationsSur. prophetia*
Sur. suspecta*
Sur. (dico)*
Sur. implere*
Sur. hostis*
§ IV. Various miracles wrought by the Saint's patronage after his martyrdom, and written by authors most worthy of credit.
An eyewitness narrates, Before the year of Christ 429, in which St. Honoratus,
prelate of Arles, migrated to those above,
there happened by the intercession of St. Genesius a notable miracle,
which St. Hilary, an eyewitness and the immediate
successor of holy Honoratus, bishop of Arles,
committed to writing, as the learned commonly
hand down. Yet the famous Quesnel strives against
the torrent, and in the edition of the Works of holy
Pope Leo, tom. 1, page 730, adjudges this little work
away from holy Hilary of Arles in these words:
The narration of the miracles of holy Genesius, which
is read in Surius adorned with the name of Hilary,
is abhorrent from his eloquence, and utterly
smacks of the style of Honoratus of Marseilles, whom Gennadius also testifies
to have written several things pertaining to the Lives of the holy Fathers. But this slight little reason,
or rash conjecture of Quesnel, seems to fall
by chronology alone: for in the year of Christ 427 or
428 that miracle of St. Genesius was wrought,
at which the writer himself was present, as in his narration
he testifies. But Honoratus of Marseilles
was still living in the year of Christ 494, which vast
interval of time renders the aforementioned conjecture of Quesnel
utterly improbable. Further, Tillemont
and other severe censors of lucubrations
find nothing in the history of this miracle unworthy of holy Hilary
of Arles, as may be seen in the Benedictines
in the Literary History of France lately published,
tom. 2, page 269.
[54] how very many citizens of Arles, Jean Salinas, Canon Regular of the Lateran,
in the year 1731 at Rome published this narration of the miracle
among the Works of St. Hilary of Arles, reprinting it from
Surius, and seems to have collated it with other codices or
editions. We shall here transcribe the same,
collated with the printed copies,
from the Chifflet Ms. copy, which thus
runs: To relate the works of the Lord is honorable.
It is therefore worth the labor to narrate the miracles of the divine work,
to be referred to the glory of the holy martyr Genesius:
for on his birthday that frequented accident in the city
of Arles, by the peril of a broken bridge,
shook the whole city with exceeding trembling, and, men's minds
being shaken by the hazard of a sudden terror, it rendered
the gladness of the solemnity gladder still by the grace of recovered safety,
the joy being doubled: for when at this
festival Arles had gathered her own people and even more than her own,
for the keeping of whose joys on that day the city itself
was too narrow, and the paths and spaces of the fields,
and therefore, the throng sticking fast upon itself and all
laboring by their own density, there went toward the farther
bank of the river, in honor of the Martyr, an army devoted
to Christ, with dear wives
and sweet children, hastening to obtain many benefits
at once, and not content to pour out vows in one
place, keeping vigil in the church, before dawn
hastened to the place of the slaying and of the blood; likewise to the tomb,
offering the victims of their joys, it hurried
as though to occupy the Martyr's ears; nor did it wait for the offices
of the Clergy solemnly ordered, nor at last
for the very time of daylight: for the splendor
of the festival, the whole city shining, had driven away
in every way all the horror of the night.
[55] the bridge of the Rhône being broken, Meanwhile that way of ships, by which between the cities
confederate with one another the back of that terrible Rhône
is trodden, suddenly, either under an uneven burden or by the excessive
weight of timbers, or through the slanting waters,
was spread out headlong to its fall. It is uncertain*
by what accident (yet certain by whose snares)
the ill-hanging roadway set down its precious burden, that is, a troop
of the faithful, in the midst of the waves, myself standing by,
which I speak truly, and drawing back my foot from
the bridge itself, so to say. Straightway a huge
crash arises of the people, both those falling and those standing round;
terror runs through the whole city. This man
fears for his wife, that man for his children, others for kinsfolk, others for friends,
all together with divers affections. Amid
these things, upon the prelate of holy memory, Honoratus, in whom
that people then rejoiced as their shepherd, fearing alone for all,
the whole weight of the disaster lay.
What goads did that piety then receive? With what
sudden sickness of soul was he sicker than the sick? *
His eyes being straightway raised to heaven, and the intention
of his heart made equal with his eyes, he so departed wholly from us who stood round
in an ecstasy of mind, that
no one doubted that he stood before the tribunals of Christ with
holy Genesius to obtain help against the present evil.
[56] came into the greatest hazard of drowning, Meanwhile pitiable shipwrecks were being enacted with great tumult;
caparisoned horses mingled with men,
indignant at their hindered swimming, tossed their legs with high
breasts; trampling down whatever met them, whether
admonished by the peril or panic-stricken by instinct:
mothers' arms entwined with fearful strength about their dear burdens,
and servants pressed by the matrons' sedans, *
and all the solemn procession of its own journey mingled with the wreckage.
Let no evil interpreter meet us in this place, let none
by malignant detraction darken so great a glory of the Martyr,
and let no one allege a neighboring bank;
let no one assert that they were caught by shallows, whom the divine right hand
openly saved. Ships of inestimable burden, laden
with the wares of foreign shores, are daily moored
to those same banks: an ancient ordinance set a boat there
for bearing bridges, as though it despaired
of laying a foundation with mounds.
It exposed in this vast whirlpool as great a weight of crowded people
as it had received in beams most long, most strong,
and broken by that same weight.
[57] Let there occur now to the minds and eyes of those recalling these things
all at once and by the help of St. Genesius the Rhône, the ruin, the shipwreck,
the diverse crowd of wretched people to be entangled,
a destruction massed into one by the devil's snares.
Nothing was lacking to the peril, that nothing might be lacking to the Martyr's glory.
For when should the river drown his nurslings,
which on that same day he had consecrated by pious swimmings? O great glory of God! There burst forth from the vast*
whirlpool a glorious army. Thou wouldst believe that Jordan again,
the stream being divinely broken, had lain open; or
that again the seas had, as once under Moses
their leader, at the command of the rod, afforded to God's people a solid way
amid the waters. The ruin shook no one,
the river wrapped no one weighed down by his garments,
upon no one did the river force its draught; unhurt
and safe the native and familiar bank received
them all. All the procession, as it had entered,
came forth. Mothers of families bore from the deep
upon the necks of their servants the secret places of their movable chambers: *
maidens adorned in God's honor felt no loss
of their floating necklaces: the very pins, so to say,
clung fast as they had been fixed by their mothers' hands.
No one received any loss of goods, no one any harm
to his safety.
[58] Dear children meet dear children; each one
joyfully embraces his neighbor that present peril of death for whom he had feared
most. Whose present power, save
Christ's, wrought these things through the intercession of his Martyr?
And so the bishop met the Martyr, and the Martyr the Lord. There was shown
the office of a faithful people worthy of safety. And at last
very many (which perhaps with me ye also who did it
acknowledge) on the spot, lest the enemy should be permitted even lightly
to disturb their holy devotion, with their garments as they were
soaked, go aboard the boats, and, with fervent hope,
despise the morning chill of the river;
hastening, with conquering spirit they come whither they had purposed, namely to the place
of the slaying, to pour out their vows with greater eagerness
after so recent a peril.
[59] O prayers worthy to be heard, which, not broken
by injuries, know not how to impute that they were endangered,
but know how to give thanks all escaped unhurt by a prodigy, that they had escaped. All
dance for joy; at length they attend the solemnities gladly;
it delights them to have been present at perils, because it is a notable thing
to have been present at miracles. So much was it worth to each
to have doubted of his safety, that he might wondrously gain his safety.
Honoratus the shepherd exults in the entire number of his own;
who indeed could have committed these things to writings
that should last for a perpetual age with a more polished hand and greater
grace, had he not, conscious of the divine gift,
and designated a partner in the embassy of the holy Martyr,
feared to exult too insolently that the Lord had bestowed these things while he was prelate.
And indeed benefits diffused through many
come to us. But how many private ones
do men know in themselves? Which we ascribe to God alone,
who, the maker of all things and conscious of all,
is worshipped and lives with the Son and the Holy Spirit, through
infinite ages of ages. Amen.
[60] Now upon that narration of the miracle certain things
occur to be noted. First, from the episcopate
of holy Honoratus of Arles it appears upon which narration we observe certain things, that this prodigious
preservation of the people of Arles cannot be deferred
beyond the year of Christ 429, in which that holy
prelate departed this life. Secondly, from various
places of this history it is clear that its narrator
was at the same time an eyewitness of that same miracle;
from which reckoning alone of time and presence it follows, against
Quesnel, that this lucubration is improbably
ascribed to Honoratus of Marseilles, who
was still living among men in the year 494, as we warned
above. Thirdly, in the very reading we have already found
that this narration is here and there not clear enough.
But this obscurity we impute partly to the style
of that century, partly to unskilled copyists,
who have dislocated some periods, as sufficiently
appears from the variant readings which we have set
in the margin. Lastly, to the glory of the holy Martyr
we have wished to exhibit to the curious reader that
fragment of sacred history, which is to be venerated more for its credit
and antiquity than for its eloquence.
[61] and to it other miracles of the same Martyr To this we add other miracles of the same holy Martyr,
which Gregory of Tours doubtless gathered from more ancient monuments
or from faithful tradition: for after that holy writer,
book 1 On the glory of the Martyrs, chapter 67, had made mention
of certain relics of St. Genesius of Arles being translated,
as we noted in the Acts of St. Avitus, prelate
of Auvergne, at the day XXI of August above, page 447
of this tome, in the edition of Ruinart,
chapter 68, he narrates the following about the same holy Martyr of Arles:
But this martyr Genesius by the cutting of his neck
consummated his struggle for the name of Christ at
that same city, namely Arles, the fervor of his faith prevailing.
Now there is there a tree where he is said
to have been beheaded, of the kind of mulberry,
from which many benefits have for the most part been granted to the sick,
the Martyr imparting them. But as time ran on,
when its branches and bark were plucked off by many
for healing, it withered.
Nevertheless, what remains of the trunk still lives
for those who ask faithfully, affording like remedies.
[62] from St. Gregory of Tours Then in the following chapter he abridges the miracle
which we have already related above from Hilary, prelate of Arles,
and to this in the same place he subjoins certain others
in this manner: But also a bridge once
over the river Rhône, where the blessed Martyr
is reported to have swum, on the day of his solemnity, its chains being broken,
because it was set upon boats, began to sway,
and, from the exceeding weight of the peoples,
those very boats gaping apart were drowning the people in the channel
of the river. Then all, being together set in hazard,
cried out with one voice, saying: Most blessed
Genesius, snatch us by the power of thine own sanctity,
lest the people perish which has faithfully come
devoutly to celebrate thy solemnities. Presently, a wind blowing,
all the common folk, being brought back to the shore, marvel
that they were saved by the Martyr's power. For the lattices also of the blessed
tomb were often broken by the Lombards or by other enemies.
But men, seized by a demon,
or caught with madness, raving or
tearing themselves with their own teeth, carried off nothing of those things which
they had violently taken.
[63] we subjoin They report also that in this city there was a woman
upon whom a charge was fastened by her husband, and not at all proved,
and she was adjudged by the judge to be plunged in the waters;
and when a huge stone had been bound with ropes
to her neck, she was cast headlong from a boat into the Rhône.
But she besought the help of the blessed Martyr,
and, invoking his name, said: Holy
Genesius, glorious martyr, who hast sanctified these waters by the stroke of thy swimming,
deliver me according to my innocence; and at once she began to be borne upon the waters.
Which the peoples seeing, took her into a boat,
and led her unhurt to the Saint's basilica;
nor was she thereafter sought by her husband or by the judge. Since indeed
Pierre Saxi, canon of Arles, already often praised, in the place cited above testifies
that very many miracles remain, upon which he does not wish to dwell,
we do not doubt that this holy Martyr
conferred many other benefits upon his clients.
Yet since these have not come to our knowledge,
we end this Commentary, and
illustrate with the accustomed annotations the Passion of the Saint, reprinted
from Ruinart.
Annotationsal. obliquum amnis illapsum*
al. ægris præsto*
* that is, laden with the burdens of their mistresses
al. natalibus*
al. viderunt*
ACTS
by the author Paulinus the bishop.
From the Sincere and select Acts of the Martyrs which Ruinart published
at Paris in the year 1689, and which we have collated with other Mss., page 603
and following.
Genesius, notary and M. at Arles in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 3304
BY PAULINUS THE BISHOP.
A prologue being premised, The most blessed Genesius the martyr, proper and native
to the city of Arles, a nursling
of the same by right of birth, its patron by the power of his dying —
him the zeal of all the faithful, all the writings of religious men,
ought from the very beginning to have celebrated and extolled;
that the glorious proofs of so great a merit, consigned
by the credit of writers, and commended to living
monuments, might come down to posterity unimpaired and
entire; which admiration would always make new,
and veneration would approve as ancient.
But since the ages, succeeding one another through the uncertain
time of life, preferred to hand these things down to one another
by mutual memory rather than to commit them to writing,
it is fitting even now to transmit the same by faithful writings
into the times to come, lest those things which
are still related with a living recollection of events, as they were done,
should, the credit either of those who hand them down or of those who receive them
vanishing through time, be believed fabulous a.
[2] Holy Genesius therefore, in the earliest flower of his youth,
the writer of the Acts narrates, took up the first service of the provincial militia b,
[having embraced with zeal and art that part of the office
which by a new swiftness of signs, or of the right hand, might match
the words of his patrons with the sound of the voice [c];
prefiguring a spiritual image of his glory to come,
so that he who quickly heard the divine precepts
might take them down in the faithful notes of a pious mind.] But it happened
that, while he was discharging the office of shorthand-writer
before the tribunal of a judge, the impious and sacrilegious commands
of a persecution enjoined were read out; which when d
his hearing, devoted to God, refused, and his holy hand
declined to impress upon the wax.
[3] His tablets therefore being cast down before the judge's feet,
his mind, now consecrated to God, fled that sad ministry. on which occasion St. Genesius,
And that in nothing the act of martyrdom
might swerve from the Gospel precepts, by which
we are either permitted or bidden to decline the onset of persecution,
[one hiding-place after another, and even the city itself,
being changed, since in another place also it is written, The spirit indeed
is ready, but the flesh is weak] he hid himself for a little while
from the wrath of the raging judge.
Who, when he had ordered him to be seized forthwith and produced,
and no easy search reached the hiding-place he had procured,
commanded the most cruel ministers of punishment
to slay with the sword wherever they found him.
Which when it was learned by blessed Genesius, either by secret
messengers or by rumor, he changed divers places
of hiding — as the outcome teaches, not from weakness
of spirit, but from the trembling of the flesh.
[4] the notary of Arles, And meanwhile, though superfluously, being anxious
about the confirmation of the faith he had presumed, since
he was not yet reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
he asked through faithful go-betweens the gift of baptism
from a prelate of the Catholic religion. But he, perhaps
hindered by the straits of time, [or distrusting
his youthful age, put off his burning desires] faithfully indicated to him
that a full consummation
even of this gift would be given by a ready shedding
of blood for Christ. [And this hesitation
of the priest was, as I judge, prompted and disposed by the divine
nod and judgment; that concerning his solemn consecration
human offices should cease, for whom the twofold grace
of one baptism, namely from each e side of Christ, both water and blood,
was being prepared.]
[5] nobly professing the Christian faith, And so, since now the Lord, searching through the Holy
Spirit the secrets of the future martyr, would not suffer
the crown to be deferred where he saw the victory
prepared, he offered him to his slayers,
and showed him to those whose greedy cruelty gaped after him.
And he, when he perceives himself caught,
by the Lord's instinct made for the Rhône,
and commits his holy limbs to the stream, [that there
a hidden baptist might purge him from mortal contagion, as it were by the waves
of another Jordan; and by a mutual and alternate
mystery he consecrated both his body by the waters and the waters
by his body. And this indeed was the cause,]
and so, when by the help of swimming he had come to the other
bank, [who, after the example of the most blessed
Peter, tending toward Christ, could walk upon the tops of the whirlpools * f.]
[6] Having straightway crossed into the farther parts of the river,
and being secure, with Christ as surety, of the rewards of the passion he was to undergo,
in that place suffered martyrdom for it,
which the Lord had chosen for the pouring out of his glorious blood,
and which is now frequented with assiduous prayer and vows
never in vain, the slayer overtakes the blessed Martyr,
and by the longed-for stroke of the sword loosed his soul, hastening
to God, from the bonds of the body in which it was held;
and, each substance seeking again the elements of its own origin,
he commends meanwhile his earthly members to the earth,
and sends forth his heavenly spirit to
heaven. Yet the faithful servants of God of that time
provided that the protection of one Martyr should fortify both banks
of the river, to be encompassed by twin
cities g. For in the very place of the blessed passion,
leaving the traces of the consecrated gore, they translated
the honored relics to the other side of the river, so that,
holy Genesius being present in both places, there he might be had
in his blood, here in his body.
[7] and he exhorts his readers to the veneration of this Martyr. All these things faithfully, and as they were done,
whether ascertained or reported, do ye who knew them recognize with willing and devout
minds; ye who knew them not, learn them;
and, beholding with the eyes of the mind the glory of so great a Martyr,
growing through each several space of years, and destined to live
unto eternal ages, prepare your minds each one according to his strength
for the like, if a like time should offer itself;
and pray that blessed Genesius, standing before the Lord's throne
until the time of his vindication, may be a patron
to the priests and ministers, to the clergy, and to you all,
and to him who composed these things for your instruction.
Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
And so St. Genesius discharged that office which the heathen poet M. Manilius, three hundred years before that martyrdom, described in book 4 of the Astronomicon in these verses:
Here too will be the swift writer, to whom a letter is a word,
and who may outrun the tongue with his signs, and take down the course
of the speaker, long words through new abbreviations.
Hence a little after that holy Martyr is called a shorthand-writer, and elsewhere he is said to have served in the order of shorthand-writers.
Open, double Arles, thy harbors, winsome hostess.
Gallic little Rome, Arles; whom Narbo Martius, and whom
Vienne, rich with Alpine settlers, dwells beside:
So cut through by the streams of the headlong Rhône
that thou makest a mid-street of a bridge of boats.
Hadrianus Valesius in the Notitia Galliarum, page 38 and following, shrewdly observed this phrase of our martyr-writer, and thence in the same place thus discourses about the origin of the bridge and of the second city of Arles: Arles indeed was at first single, and set wholly on the left bank of the Rhône; but afterwards Constantine the great Augustus set up a new city on the right bank of the river over against the old, and joined both by a bridge of boats … Since therefore Arles was neither double, with the Rhône flowing between, nor adorned with a bridge of boats under Diocletian and Maximian the Augusti, when Genesius fell; but was double and had a bridge of boats under Valentinian the Elder, or in the age of Ausonius, that is, about sixty years after the purple was laid down by Diocletian and Maximian; since both banks of the river Rhône WERE TO BE ENCOMPASSED by twin cities in the age of Genesius, and WERE ENCOMPASSED in the age of Ausonius: between the princes Maximian and Valentinian I find no other emperor to whom that bridge of boats and that new city of Arles could rightly be attributed than Constantine the great Augustus.
al. potuisset*.