ON ST. MARTIANUS, ABBOT OF APT JULIA IN PROVENCE OF GAUL,
About the year MX.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
His worship, age, the time of his death, whence his Life was dug out.
Martianus, abbot of Apt Julia in Provence of Gaul (St.)
J. P.
Apta Julia, commonly Apt, an ancient city of Narbonese Gaul, and episcopal under the present metropolis of Aix in Provence, The knowledge of the place being set forth, is situated on the river Calvo, commonly le Coulon, and has as neighbors, at an interval of some leagues, Aix, Avignon, and Cavaillon. These few things sufficiently indicate the site of the place in whose territory St. Martianus adorned his abbatial prefecture with virtues and merits. But if anyone desires to know more concerning that city, let him go to the Notitia Galliarum of Hadrian Valesius, and to the first tome of the new edition of Gallia Christiana, page 349. The reader therefore being briefly instructed concerning the site of this place, it seems to us that we must next treat of the public worship of St. Martianus, with which he is honored with solemn rite in the very city of Apt and in its territory.
[2] To say nothing of the announcements of certain more recent Martyrologists, the solemn worship is proved with which in the church and diocese of Apt namely of du Saussay in the Supplement, page 1161, of Ferrari in the New Catalogue of Saints, and of Castellan in the Supplement, page 703, the public veneration of this Saint is proved in Mabillon, in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, sixth century, part one, page 94, where these things are read: The relics of blessed Martianus are even now religiously kept in the cathedral church of the city of Apt; where, as also in the whole diocese, his festivity is solemnly celebrated on the XXV day of August. Whence it is a wonder, as is added in the same place and deservedly, that his name is reviewed not only not in the Roman Martyrology, but not even in any Benedictine one. The Breviary of Apt printed in the year, as is written by hand, 1532, prescribes that the feast of our holy Abbot is to be recited with the rite of a lesser double, with an Octave: and subjoins his Office. But among the proper Offices of the cathedral church and also of the diocese of Apt, printed at Aix in the year 1664, the feast of St. Martianus the abbot is read to have been raised to the rite of a double of the first class with an Octave: whence it has seemed good to taste the following to our purpose.
[3] The Hymn at first Vespers runs thus:
Out of a barren wedlock, This Saint and after many prayers poured forth, a wondrous infant is born in a town of Provence.
This Martianus, desirous of solid perfection, gives away his splendid estates, and spurns vain joys.
Intent upon the exercise of provident humility, he raises from death the son of a widow by the sign of the cross.
To the Father everlasting glory &c.
At the Magnificat, Antiphon: The sanctity of his servant Martianus God willed to attest by many prodigies. Prayer: Thy majesty, O Lord, we suppliantly entreat, that as blessed Martianus the abbot, thy power helping, raised a dead man to life, so in us, thy grace quickening us, he may effect a spiritual resurrection. Through our Lord.
[4] is celebrated every year. At Matins, the Hymn.
The Abbot failed in strength while he sought the monastery, and what was unknown this prodigy discloses.
Where he lies dead, stretched beneath a hollow rock, there the comeliness of his countenance is seen more beautiful.
The clergy go forth thither, a great people following, that they may bear the pledge of the consecrated body into the basilica.
Power, honor, praise &c.
The lessons of the fourth nocturn on the feast itself, for a day within the Octave not hindered by an Office of nine lessons, and on the day of the Octave, are indicated as taken from the monuments of the church of Apt, and contain the history of his life and his miracles.
[5] It is inquired, Although concerning St. Martianus's age it is not sufficiently determinately established for us from his Life, yet we shall endeavor to dig out from elsewhere certain chronological notes, by whose aid it may be approximately settled concerning the time in which he lived. In the new edition of Gallia Christiana, tome one, column 376 and following, there is treatment of the abbey of St. Eusebius, and of the series of abbots who presided over it. But the first abbot assigned to that monastery there is our St. Marcianus: whose time may in some fashion be dug out from the time of the foundation of that same abbey; concerning which there is thus discussion in the praised edition: Concerning the beginnings of this monastery nothing certain is at hand for us. The noble and learned man D. de Remerville of Saint-Quentin thinks its origins are to be referred at least to the end of the VIII century. For indeed the name of holy Marcianus, first abbot of that place, is inscribed in a very ancient Martyrology, in which none of the Saints of the ninth century or later is contained. Yet it is nearer the truth that this monastery did not stand long afterwards, but was destroyed in the storm of the Saracens, which brought destruction to so many other sacred places, and came into the hands of laymen. It is therefore there tacitly admitted or supposed that this monastery at least stood at that time. But Mabillon, in tome 4 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 1004, number 61, thus answers Remerville's argument and the confirmation of it which he there brings forward: But although these things be probable, yet they do not seem of such weight as to establish that the monastery of St. Eusebius is of that antiquity. Wherefore we follow the common opinion, until more certain arguments be at hand for us.
[6] But in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, which we indicated above, from page 93, he brings forward these reasons for his opinion: in what age he lived, Although in the Life the time is not expressly stated in which that blessed Man departed to those above, yet that he departed from life at the beginning of the .. eleventh century, besides the tradition of the church of Apt, the old instruments also of the monastery of St. Eusebius prove, of which he is recorded to have been the founder and first abbot. Certainly that the very DONATION OF THE PLACE was made in the year MIV an old fragment indicates, which the Sammarthani published in Gallia Christiana from the chartulary of that same monastery. This Mabillon presently subjoins; but in the new edition of Gallia Christiana the same is also had at column 377. This donation (so Mabillon goes on) we conjecture to have been made while Martianus was still living, because the donors are called FOUNDERS OF THE PLACE, they, if I judge rightly, being the chief among those whom the author of the Life praises as FAITHFUL, by whose HELP BEING AIDED the holy Man BEGAN TO CONSTRUCT A MONASTERY &c. These are the conjectures by which the learned man endeavors to bring some light to the obscure age of St. Martianus: but then he adds the following concerning the time of his death.
[7] Yet Martianus did not live long afterwards, since Durand, and about what year he died. who was the first abbot after him,
was in the year MXV elected bishop of Vence. Wherefore we think that Martianus's death took place about the year MX. For we conclude the time of Durand's rule at about five years: for that his administration was brief we conjecture from this, that he presided over the church of Vence at least until the year MLVI. If indeed he be the very same man who under that name was present at a council at Saint-Gilles for confirming a truce and peace, together with twenty-one other Gallican bishops of divers provinces. James Longueval, in tome seven of the History of the Gallican Church, book 19, among very many other things which, doubtless because he could not fit them to a determined year, he writes to have happened about the year 1010, sets at page 149 that the monastery of St. Eusebius of Apt was restored by certain lords of the people; which, as he subjoins, had been founded by St. Martianus, its first abbot: but that it cannot be known at what determined time this holy Abbot lived. He must have lived, he says, before the last ravagings of the Saracens, toward the end of the ninth century. From these things it becomes clear that the determined time of St. Martianus's life and death is wrapped in such obscure darknesses of outworn oblivion that if you should try to bring any little light to them, the matter must be dealt with by conjectures alone. Hence it has come about that, since we have not more certain documents, we have fixed our holy Abbot's death above at about the year one thousand and ten, along with Mabillon.
[8] The Saint's Life Mabillon published from Gonon, and elucidated with some annotations. Whence his Life was dug out. But that he received it from an ancient Breviary of the church of Apt the same Gonon indicates in book 4 On the Lives of the Fathers of the West, where he brings it forward. Further, that the author of that life was not contemporary with the Saint he himself not obscurely indicates below in our text at number 5, when he says, in the place which even now is called the Rock of St. Martianus. But since, besides the things which we have just said, and those which will be said in the Annotations, nothing singular occurs with which to detain the reader, it remains for us to bring it forward.
LIFE
From the Breviary of Apt, published in Benedict Gonon, book 4 On the Lives of the Fathers of the West, and reprinted in Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century VI, part 1, from page 94.
Martianus, abbot of Apt Julia in Provence of Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 5261
The Saint's boyhood and parents: Martianus, a religious Benedictine, was a man of excellent sanctity, who is said to have been sprung from the castle of Sanio, of the diocese of Apt, of the kingdom of Arles, of parents abounding in very many riches, but in ampler virtues. For Sanio a is a castle once most strong and unconquerable, and distant from Apt about two stadia b. The parents therefore of holy Martianus, living without children, strong in virtues and competently enriched with temporal goods, with continual prayers asked of the Lord, with frequent prayers, alms, groans, and tears, an offspring who should rather be the heir of virtue and of spiritual goods than of temporal. And they were not cheated of their desire. For at length they begot one by name Martianus, long desired, such as was fitting, as their sanctity and works deserved. Now the infant Martianus was ruddy of face, cheerful and pleasant in aspect, adorned in speech and manners. For it was fitting that him whom divine grace had suffused it should make to shine again inwardly and outwardly. He was in short anticipated by so great a grace, and adorned with such graces, that he was singularly loved by all.
[2] his pious works, and withdrawal into the desert. The years of his weaning therefore being past, and the years of boyhood run through innocently, he transferred his whole spirit to his God. No one in his time was more attentive in visiting the thresholds of churches and of sacred places, no one more fervent and devout in prayer. Being applied to the schools, he brought amazement not only to his fellow disciples but also to his masters, on account of his excellent wit and a wisdom surpassing his age. Being therefore sufficiently taught in the liberal disciplines, he thought to render back to his Lord doubled that twofold talent entrusted to him, namely of nature and of grace. But considering that he could not so perfectly cleave to the Lord in the world as he desired, being seized with love of the solitary life, secretly leaving his parents, he sought and dwelt in desert places, and, poor and naked himself, began to follow the poor and naked Christ. It is not the place here to declare how great heats of cold, of hunger, and of thirst, and how many illusions and troubles of demons he bore in those deserts; we leave these to be meditated upon by those who are not ignorant, and have experienced, with how great hatred the devil pursues solitaries who flee the company of men, and in a certain manner practice an angelic life on earth.
[3] He constructs a monastery: After the Man of God had for the courses of many years dwelt alone in the desert, unknown, at length, being divinely inspired, considering that he was profiting only himself, being aided by the help of the faithful he began to construct a monastery c. He himself carried stones, ministered water and other necessaries to the masons. When therefore he had taken with him six monks conspicuous in religion and sanctity, he taught them to live according to the institutes of the holy father Benedict. But he himself followed a harder and more austere manner of life. For he always used a most harsh haircloth, lay upon the bare ground, passed the night in prayers, and finally did not intermit in the monastery the solitude and silence, and the other austerities and penances which he had practiced in the desert. Although he was father of the monastery, none the less, for the food of the brethren, bearing a little bundle with great labor, he asked alms, and did not disdain to exercise other cheap and abject offices.
[4] On a certain day, when he was setting out for Apt, it happened that he lodged in the house of a certain excellent widow d, he restores life to a dead boy: who had a comely boy, and he her only one. Whom, when the holy man had seen him excellently mannered, he asked the mother to permit him to clothe him in a monk's garment. She, who had this only son alone, so comely and adorned with good manners, and whom she loved much, and whom she expected to be the staff of her old age, honorably refused. A few months having passed, while for certain affairs he had betaken himself to the said city, it happened that the boy fell sick and died. The mother, tearful and groaning, lamented her son's death through the streets. But when she had learned that blessed Martianus was in the city, not being ignorant of the man of God's sanctity, full of faith, she placed the dead boy in the street, and, when she had long sought the Man of God, at length finding him, she brought him, compelled by many tears and prayers, to the place where the dead boy lay. But he said to her: If, when I once asked thee, thou hadst given me thy son, he would not now have died. Then, being moved with compassion, a prayer being first made with tears, he restored the dead boy to life, and handed him over to his mother. Then all began to marvel, then to bless and to praise God, who had wrought so great a miracle through his servant. And straightway the mother, who before had refused her son to the Man of God asking for him, now suppliantly asks that he receive him and hand over to him the habit of monks. Whom the Man of God, kindly receiving, led with him into the monastery, and, his head being tonsured, made him a monk.
[5] Meanwhile blessed Martianus, when he had gathered many monks, his death, and the deposition of his body. and was already an old man, the strength of his body began to fail him. On a certain day, when he was returning from the city of Apt with a simple staff, laden with his bundle appointed for the food of the brethren, being set about the middle of the way, he began to fail, and, a brief pause being made, in the place which even now is called the Rock of St. Martianus e, he happily expired. Who, although he was destitute of human solace, was nevertheless accompanied by choirs of angels. For the bells too, for about three miles, without human aid, but rather driven by divine power, sounded aloud. The brethren run together, desiring to know what it might be: and, coming to the place, they wished to carry their dead father to the monastery. Then the citizens of Apt too come up, but the body could be moved by no one, until the bishop of Apt f also came, who, together with the clergy, laid the sacred body in the basilica of the holy Auspicius and Castor g, once bishops and martyrs of that same city. Nor were very many miracles lacking. For those with fevers, and others vexed with various weaknesses, running together to the holy Confessor's body, were cured and fully freed. His festivity h the church of Apt celebrates on the twenty-fifth of August with an Octave and with a proper Office. This holy Man always guarded unstained the lily of virginity.