ON ST. EULALIUS OR EULADIUS, BISHOP OF NEVERS IN GAUL,
Under, or not long after, the beginning of the VI century.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
The Saint's cult; another wrongly confounded with him; some corollaries upon this argument.
Euladius or Eulalius, bishop of Nevers in Gaul (St.)
BY J. P.
Nevers, of which we treated in volume III of August, page 295, celebrates on this present day the annual memory of this its holy Bishop. In some places he is announced on the IV day of the same month, He is announced on this day in various sacred Fasti. as may be seen in the same place among the Passed Over; but we then indicated that we should treat of him professedly on the XXVI day of August. And indeed this day is noted in the sacred Fasti as proper to his cult. Among the supplements to the Martyrology of Usuard published by us he is then thus related from the Victorine codex and that of the Queen of Sweden: In the city of Nevers, the birthday of saint Eulalius, bishop and confessor. Maurolico and Ferrari, to whom add Du Saussay in his Supplement, express his name in the same manner. He is called Euladius by Castellanus. We wonder that in the new Parisian Martyrology Æoladius is written, and that he is thus announced: At Nevers, of saint Æoladius the bishop, who was present at the second council of Lyons. For why is this man confounded with the present day, since he is altogether different from the former? I say confounded, because, besides the Fasti just cited, Michel Cotignon in his Historical Catalogue of the bishops of Nevers, page 7, testifies that St. Eulalius is held for a Saint in the diocese of Nevers on the XXVI of August, and that his feast is celebrated every year. Add Guy Coquille in his History of Nevers, published at Paris in the year 1622, page 39; where, although he melts Euladius or Eulalius and Eoladius into one person, he nevertheless indicates that the feast falls upon the aforesaid day. But that Euladius is altogether different from Æoladius will be said afterward.
[2] There is related Forgetful antiquity has begrudged us nearly all the deeds of this holy Man. But among the few things which remain concerning him, that prodigious healing deserves to be related which St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, while he was setting out from the monastery of Agaunum into France to restore his former health to king Clovis I, who had been sick for two years already, conferred upon our holy Prelate in passing through Nevers in an altogether marvelous manner. The deed is narrated in our work in volume 11 of February, in the Life of St. Severinus, which is contained on the XI day of that month; where at page 549 these things are recorded of him: Straightway departing from the place (namely the monastery of Agaunum), he pursued the path of the journey he had begun; and when, the greater part of the journey's space being now traversed, he had come to the city of Nevers, the holy man, turning aside for the sake of prayer, entered the church of God; and when he had prayed there, he at once asks the keepers of the church, as though ignorant, saying: Where is your Pontiff, brethren? But the keepers answering said: Our Pontiff or bishop Eulalius, being smitten from the previous year with a most grievous stroke, is dumb and deaf, and lies wearied upon his pallet all but unto death; and the second year is now begun since he has neither sacrificed at the altar, nor blessed the people after the custom, nor, what is graver, has he been able at all to rise from his bed; but very often he is reckoned by his servants rather dead than alive.
[3] To whom the man of the Lord himself, moved with pious compassion, said: a prodigious healing; Might I be able to go in to him for the sake of visiting him, that I may at least bring him a few words of salvation? But they at once say: Come, lord father, and go in to him straightway, as you wish. And so the most reverend servant of God Severinus, having entered the Pontiff's chamber, came in haste to the place in which the bishop Eulalius lay, deprived for a whole year of the use of tongue and ears. And when he had looked upon him, he began to grieve over his sickness, and, giving himself straightway to prayer, earnestly besought God for the restoring of his health. And when he had prayed a very long while prostrate upon the ground, he rose up quickly, and turning himself to Eulalius, said to him: Speak with me, I pray, Pontiff of God. To whom the prelate Eulalius, until then dumb and deaf, answering at once, said: Bless me, most holy man of God, who hast come sent by the Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation, that thou mightest cure me of my infirmity. And let the name of the Lord be blessed in all ages, who has deigned to have mercy on me through thee.
[4] Finally the devout servant of God Severinus, reaching out his hand to him, which St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, raised him up and said: Arise, servant of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and clothe thyself in thy garments, giving thanks and rejoicing at the scourges of him who chastised thee to this end, that he might save thee, and scourged thee to this end, that he might crown thee. For today, paying thy vows with me at the altar of God after the custom, thou shalt bless the people subject to thee. And while he was yet speaking, straightway the bishop Eulalius, raising himself from the bed, gave thanks to God, who through his servant Severinus had manifested so great a power upon him, that by his prayers he was snatched from the danger of impending death. And so, being restored to health on that same day, celebrating Mass also immediately, he blessed the people. All who were there present marveled that he had so suddenly recovered from the trouble of his infirmity, rendering due thanks to God for the restoration of their Pastor.
[5] O how wondrous is the clemency of God, and how ineffable the gift of his loving-kindness! restored to him. For that Prelate, weak in speech and hearing, is in the space of a single hour so restored to his former soundness that no calamity of sickness was thought to have been in him at all. These things have been published in our work at the place cited above, by an Anonymous author, from two old manuscripts. But that prodigious healing is narrated much more briefly in the Life of the aforesaid St. Severinus among the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict in Mabillon, century 1, page 569, which Life Faustus the monk, a disciple of St. Severinus, composed; whose narration, relating the healing of St. Eulalius, ought to please the reader the more, the further it is removed from the Anonymous writer's interpolation. But the deed is narrated by Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 506, number 3, as also by Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 2, book 5, page 284.
[6] that St. Eulalius Cotignon affirms that the Legend of St. Eulalius which stands in the Breviary of Nevers is to be reformed in two matters, the first of which lies in this, that it says that St. Eulalius existed in the time of Clovis II; for he rightly observes that the Saint lived under the king of that same name the first; and this is manifestly plain from the history of the prodigious healing which we have recited before. The other point in which he corrects the Breviary is this, that in it Eulalius is said to have been present at the first council of Lyons, in the sixth year of the reign of Guntram, king of the men of Orleans and of the Burgundians. Let it suffice to have compressed these few things summarily from the aforesaid author; but what he subjoins to them we forbear to transcribe, since a little later there must be set forth and declared at greater length things which conduce to our purpose. But now meanwhile it is well to meet with another writer.
[7] with St. Æoladius Guy Coquille, cited before, gives the fifth place to St. Euladius or Eulalius among the prelates of the chair of Nevers; contemporary with Clovis II, king of the Franks, called in the first council of Lyons by the name of Eoladius, healed by St. Severinus; and he indicates that his feast is celebrated on the XXVI day of August. But how great a confusion has been made in Coquille, in that he melts two prelates into one, we shall presently say. But Cotignon rightly separated the one from the other. The matters will sufficiently unfold themselves from Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 1, at the year of Christ 506, number 7; where, besides the other questions of which he had treated before on occasion of St. Severinus the abbot, he says: A fourth question may be raised concerning Eulalius, pontiff of Nevers, whom the abbot Severinus, setting out from Agaunum to Paris and making his journey through Burgundy, healed.
[8] is wrongly confounded, The Sainte-Marthes, who published the latest catalogue of the prelates of Nevers, made no mention of Eulalius, and began their lucubration from the bishop Tauricianus, who subscribed the council of Epaon under Sigismund king of Burgundy, in the year of Christ five hundred and seventeen. Coquille wrongly confounded Eulalius with Æoladius, who ruled the diocese of Nevers under king Guntram; for so long as Guntram reigned, no Clovis held the principate in other parts of France. In the Breviary which Arnaud Sorbin, bishop of Nevers, revised in the year of Christ one thousand six hundred, Clovis, who recovered health by the prayers of the abbot Severinus, is called the second of that name, with no less an error; because Clovis the second did not reach the twenty-fifth year of his reign, and in the list of the abbots of Agaunum there is not found a Severinus who governed the monastery of Agaunum while Clovis the second reigned.
[9] from Le Cointe, Euladius and Æoladius are to be distinguished, of whom the former is honored in the Breviary of Nevers on the seventh of the Kalends of September, the latter in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology (in Du Saussay) on the fourth of the Kalends of March; and from the Acts of Severinus praised above there is to be preserved in the catalogue of the prelates of Nevers blessed Eulalius, who flourished under Gundobad king of Burgundy, father of Sigismund, preceded Tauricianus in the pontificate, and in the year of Christ five hundred and six was restored to his former health by Severinus, abbot of Agaunum; whom Clovis the first of that name, king of France, being sick in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, was summoning to Paris. These things Le Cointe, proving not obscurely from the chronological marks that SS. Euladius and Æoladius are not to be confounded, the cult of the one and of the other on altogether different days being also added.
[10] But for the greater confirmation and declaration of this matter, and Henschen it is well to subjoin what our Henschen published to the present purpose before Le Cointe, in volume III of February, page 663, on the XXVI day of that month, on which he treats of SS. Æoladius and Agricola, bishops of Nevers, and by the same opportunity proves that Æoladius is different from Eulalius, in these words: St. Eulalius is numbered as the IV bishop of Nevers,
whom in the time of Clovis the first, king of the Franks, St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, … cured … That this Eulalius is honored on the XXVI of August is delivered by Du Saussay in his Supplement, and by Coquille, page 39; where, by a new error (he had written of another a little before), he sets the same as successor of St. Agricola. But St. Eulalius having departed this life either under Clovis I or in the years next after his death, the church of Nevers was governed by Tauricianus, who in the year DXVII was present at the synod of Epaon; then Rusticus, who subscribed the third of Orleans in the year DXXXV or the following, and the fourth of Orleans held about the year DXLI; Aregius, or rather Aridius, the fifth of Orleans in the year DXLVII, and the second of Paris about the year DLV, where he is written Aridius, for which in Coquille, Chenu, and Robert is read Clementinus; but he, bishop of Apt, subscribed both councils.
[11] Euphronius is substituted by Chenu and Robert, and he is said to have subscribed the privilege of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, for the monastery of St. Vincent, is proved. in the fifth year of Charibert, of Christ DLXV. To him then succeeded St. Æoladius, who subscribed the second of Lyons in the year DLXVI in these words: "Æoladius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Nevers, have subscribed." Then the aforesaid Henschen, having brought forward his epitaph from Claude Robert, subjoins these words: By Jean Chenu he is called St. Æolalius or Æoladius, concerning whom how many years he sat, or when he departed this life, is not established. His successor was St. Agricola, in some Agricolus and Agricolaus, in French St. Arigle. He was present at the councils of the first of Mâcon, the third of Lyons, and the second of Mâcon, in the years of Christ five hundred and eighty-one, eighty-three, and eighty-five. He was present also at the assembly of bishops before king Guntram, and with others confirmed the excommunication passed before by the bishops gathered at Poitiers against Chrodield and the other nuns who in the year DLXXXIX had withdrawn from the monastery of St. Radegund, etc. You have, reader, the chronological arrangement of Henschen, by which he endeavored to restore the above prelates of Nevers to their order of time and see. Meanwhile it seemed good to transcribe hither what both he and Le Cointe alleged above have recorded to our purpose. Perhaps the learned continuators will see something more upon this argument in their new edition of the Gallia Christiana, when they shall have come to the metropolitan chair of Sens, to which that of Nevers is suffragan.
[12] It remains that we draw certain corollaries from what has been said. Various First, it seems abundantly proved that there existed two prelates of Nevers of nearly the same name, and of the same century — namely the sixth of the vulgar era — yet so distinguished from one another by different marks that the one cannot be confounded with the other. Second, it follows from the above observations that Euladius or Eulalius was older than Æoladius in the bishopric of Nevers; and that the latter indeed was present at the second council of Lyons, but not the former, who had died by about the middle of the century. Third, but why Æoladius is announced in the new Parisian Martyrology on this XXVI day of August, with the year about 580 set in the margin, whereas elsewhere he is honored on the XXVI day of February, we have not perceived; but we think that he was wrongly thrust in here, as we indicated above at number 1. On the same day of February also we find nothing concerning him in Castellanus. Fourth, as regards the time of his Life: it is established indeed that St. Euladius flourished at the beginning of the sixth century of Christ; but not so how long he afterward survived, or in what year he ceased to live.
[13] from the foregoing But that he did not prolong the time of his life beyond the year 517 is concluded from his next successor Tauricianus, who in that year was present at the synod of Epaon, according to what was premised above at number 10; and not toward the year 525, which Castellanus marks in the margin to his announcement, brought forward by us before at number 1. But in his corrections and additions, page 978, he indicates that the sixth century should be set; which note of time, besides that it is very vague and undetermined, befits St. Æoladius also. We therefore have more determinately set the death of St. Euladius under, or not long after, the beginning of the sixth century. Hence another question may be proposed, for the solving of which in some fashion that time is suitable, especially if you add other circumstances; concerning which matter receive the following.
[14] corollaries are drawn. Fifth, St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, of whom we treated on the XVII day of July, volume IV of that month, page 271 and following, has among his other letters two, namely book 3, letter 18, page 92, and book 4, letter 3, page 107 (we use the Sirmondian edition), which are inscribed to Eulalius the bishop: to ours, or to another of the same name? Sirmond in his notes upon the said letter 18, page 18, says: See whether to the bishop of Syracuse, who was present at some synods of Pope Symmachus, and is adorned with many praises in the Life of St. Fulgentius. But it may be that that age had other bishops also of the same name. It certainly had our bishop of Nevers. Our Bolland set with his own hand upon this observation of Sirmond this marginal note: He seems to be the bishop of Nevers, of whom in the Life of St. Severinus of Agaunum on the XI of February, as was also indicated among the Annotations to the same Life, page 550. But neither the place nor his family seems to make for this opinion. Not the place, because Pavia and Nevers are very far distant from one another; and therefore from this it does not appear that Eulalius, bishop of Syracuse in Sicily, is to be excluded as the one to whom those letters were inscribed. Not his family; although, as is read in Sirmond in the Life of Ennodius, he drew it from Gaul. Ennodius, he says, more than once testified that he was a Gaul by lineage, and begotten of Gaulish parents. But whether he was born in Gaul, that is at Arles, whence his origin was, and which he calls his sweet seat; or, as I rather think, at Milan in Liguria, he left uncertain. At Milan certainly he had his home from boyhood. Besides, what stands concerning his family in our work, volume IV cited above, page 271, may be consulted. But when he calls Arles his sweet seat, he not obscurely intimates that he dwelt there or fixed his seat there; whence perhaps an easy approach lay open to him to acquaintance, and perhaps even to a certain familiarity, with our Prelate of Nevers.