ON ST. PAULINUS, BISHOP OF TRIER,
IN PHRYGIA,
In the year CCCLIX or CCCLX.
Preliminary Commentary.
Paulinus, bishop of Trier, in Phrygia (St.)
BY J. P.
§ I. His cult from the sacred calendars; his birth, education, the beginning of his episcopate; his acts on behalf of St. Athanasius against the pseudo-synod of Sirmium.
Trier, or Augusta Trevirorum, a city of Belgica Prima, memorable for its antiquity and for the sojourn and martyrdom of very many Saints, He is inscribed in the sacred calendars on this day, needs no lengthy description, being sufficiently well known, as we indicated on the XXV day of July in the account of St. Magnericus, archbishop of that same city, where on page 168 we assigned most copious notices of it. But among the other prelates of hers whom she piously venerates as inscribed in the sacred calendars, there occurs on this day St. Paulinus. His yearly memory is announced in very many Martyrologies, of which I shall report only a few of more ancient note. Ado thus commemorates and praises him: At Trier, the birthday of St. Paulinus, bishop and confessor: who in the time of the Arian assault, banished into exile by the emperor Constantius on account of the Catholic faith, and wearied even unto death by the changing of his places of exile, even beyond the bounds of the Christian name, at the last, having died in Phrygia, received from the Lord the crown of a blessed passion. Usuard has the like. Wandelbert composed this metrical eulogy of St. Paulinus:
On the day before, Paulinus lights up the walls of the Treveri, A bishop renowned by exile for the true doctrine.
Rabanus also records this Prelate. Sollier, in his observations on Usuard, notes that he is set forth everywhere by the Martyrologists, especially the Hieronymian, and that in these, though placed today, At Trier, the deposition of St. Paulinus, bishop and Confessor, he is again repeated on the IV day of September: At Trier, the deposition of St. Paulinus.
[2] Florentinius, in his notes on that same IV day of September, and on 4 September. says: Why both our books and the Corbie Martyrology should repeat here the deposition of St. Paulinus bishop of Trier, when they have indicated the same on the day before the Kalends of September, it is hard to affirm: unless some translation is honored under the name of a deposition, inasmuch as his body was translated from his exile in Phrygia, where the martyr died. It seems to us probable that a sufficiently fitting explanation of this twofold announcement may be assigned, if recourse be had to the translation just mentioned, or to another translation, or to the elevation or the finding of the body. I do not know why Notker, accustomed everywhere to copy most of his matter from Ado, did not follow his guide faithfully enough, when he said, In Africa he received the crown of a blessed passion. For the rest, St. Paulinus is found also in the Roman Martyrology, and in almost the same words which we have recited from Ado and Usuard. Above we announced him as in Phrygia, because it was in that region of Asia Minor that he received from God the crown of his virtues and labors. Now we shall try to illustrate his deeds.
[3] He is said to have been sprung from Aquitaine, and to have had a birth of the highest nobility. [he is said to have been born in Aquitaine: his nobility, his education under St. Maximinus,] Brower, in volume 1 of the Annals of Trier, book 4, page 236, number 73 of the second edition, records this to our purpose: The ancients say that he too took his origin from Aquitaine, of parents of the first nobility; and that he was educated and trained in the disciplines of Christian wisdom by Bl. Maximinus, and set out with him for Trier while Agritius was still living; and they hand down hardly anything more about his youth. But of the Saint's nobility he discourses thus: I do not indeed fear to refer his family to the Pauline house, noble above all in Aquitaine: because our forefathers so constantly declared him to be an Aquitanian by nation and by house, of a most noble lineage. And truly, without the commendation of wealth and of senatorial authority, it is scarcely otherwise credible that he attained so high a summit in a foreign and ambitious commonwealth. And although there are not wanting learned men (see Baronius at the year 394, from number 78) who reckon the Pauline house also among the Roman senators — of whom Prudentius, writing against Symmachus and treating of the conversion of the senate to Christ, says in book 1:
*The ready faith of the Paulini, of the Bassi, did not hesitate To give itself to Christ,*
yet I shall more gladly embrace that family which, flourishing at Bordeaux, bore the forename of Pontius, from which they will have it that a quarter of the city survives even today, named after the Paulini: whose ancient pedigree Venantius Fortunatus wonderfully extolled in his account of Leontius, bishop of that city, when in book 1, poem 15, he sang his praises. Brower continues: Apollinaris Sidonius, regarding the same things, writes this of another man of the same family, book 8, epistle 12: Behold my Leontius, easily the first of the Aquitanians; behold Paulinus, now but little inferior to his father. And presently Sidonius is cited by the same Brower singing thus of the stronghold of Pontius Leontius, Poem 22:
Which Paulinus Pontius, prince of his race, of old, When the Latian ruled his fatherland, encircled with lofty Walls, and whose towering turrets pierce the air.
From these passages, says the same writer of the Annals, it is sufficiently gathered that the lineage of the Paulini was illustrious in Aquitaine. From this, if we believe the writer of the Life of our St. Paulinus, who will relate at number 2 that this same Prelate was born of a most noble lineage from the parts of the Aquitanian region, the Saint may have drawn his birth; although I cannot conceal that I should adhere to the present matter with greater confidence if I saw it confirmed from elsewhere.
[4] and under St. Agritius. By a testimony also of better note than
the Life of St. Agritius, bishop of Trier, published by us on the XIII of January, I could wish that those things were established which are recorded in it concerning St. Maximinus and St. Paulinus, his disciples, page 780: It is therefore not to be doubted, my brethren, that this holy man was taught beforehand by a prophetic spirit how necessary such champions would be in the house of God, upon whom he is known to have bestowed so special a care of discipline. The eulogy of both is found in the same place. But in what year St. Paulinus came to him I have not ascertained. Brower treats of his death at the year 335; and we, thinking that he should be followed, in the Preliminary Commentary on the Life just indicated, page 773, connected his death with about that year: beyond which time, therefore, according to this chronological note, St. Paulinus's coming to his school cannot be deferred; nay, it may perhaps have happened some years earlier, since St. Maximinus, the successor of Agritius in the see of Trier, is marked by us at about the year 332, on the XXIX day of May, page 19, in the Commentary preliminary to his Life; but his death in the year 349. One may also read what Tillemont has in volume 7 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, in note 2 upon St. Maximinus, where on page 695 he adopts both these years from us. Having therefore long lived under these holy masters Agritius and Maximinus, St. Paulinus had the opportunity of being instructed by their counsels and examples, and strengthened for fighting the battles of the Lord against the Arians. And these indeed are the glories with which that most renowned Man chiefly adorned his episcopal see, admirably repairing the loss which the Catholic Church had suffered by the death of St. Maximinus.
[5] In the year 349 St. Paulinus began his episcopate, which does not seem capable of being deferred any later on account of the service rendered by him in the cause of St. Athanasius, Dissertation which is chronologically connected with the said year. For to that same year must be assigned the recantation of Valens and Ursacius, by which, in order to be admitted into the communion of the Church, they declared, in an instrument published by them and signed with their own hand, that all the charges brought by them against St. Athanasius were mere impostures. I set forth the matter somewhat more fully. In volume 1, part 1, of the Works of St. Athanasius published by the Benedictine monks, in the Apology which he wrote against the Arians, page 177, they say this to the aforesaid Saint: Know by these letters that we truly have place and ecclesiastical communion with you. In the letter to Pope Julius, in the same place, page 176, they say: Since it is established that we have heretofore insinuated in our letters many grave things about the name of Athanasius the bishop, … we profess … that all things … were falsely insinuated by us. But St. Athanasius had in the same place prefixed the following. When Ursacius and Valens saw these things (the Saint had treated of his own restoration to the church of Alexandria), their conscience condemning them, they set out for Rome, and, led by repentance, confessed their sin and begged for pardon, and wrote these things to Julius, bishop of the elder Rome, and likewise to us: copies of which were sent to me by Paulinus, bishop of the Treveri. In the Greek it is Τριβέρων. One may also consult the History of the Arians to the Monks of the same holy Father, in the place cited, page 359, where the same Greek word occurs. Tillemont, in note 3 upon St. Maximinus, observes that elsewhere is read Τιβέρων, and on the same occasion heaps up much concerning the reading Τιβέρων and Τριβέρων; and he indicates that the name is formed in the former way in the Paris edition of the year 1627, and without doubt is so found in others also, since Baronius at the year 350, number 20, calls him bishop of Tibur (and Tibur is a city in Latium).
[6] And indeed Baronius, at the same year, number 28, was so far from believing that this Paulinus was bishop of Trier that in place of Maximus the bishop he substitutes St. Maximinus, St. Paulinus's predecessor, who had already died, as will presently be proved: At this same time, he says, an embassy was sent by the tyrant Magnentius to the emperor Constantius. And there were chosen for this work … Servatius and Maximinus, the former bishop of the city of Tongres, the latter of Trier, etc. See the Apology of St. Athanasius to the emperor Constantius, page 300, and the notes there, where among other things is this: In all the printed editions and manuscripts of Athanasius's Apology against the Arians, page 150, is read Τιβέρων, and Nannius translates "to Paulinus, bishop of Tibur," whom Baronius followed. But the Paris editors on their own authority put "to the bishop of Trier." It is indeed more likely that the bishop of Tibur, rather than the bishop of Trier, transmitted to Athanasius the letters given to Julius of Rome, although the matter is not altogether ascertained. For this reason without doubt, as is noted in Tillemont in the place cited, the Benedictines, who had caused Τριβέρων to be printed in their new edition, corrected it with the pen so as to leave Τιβέρων there. So he indeed; but in my copy of that edition, page 176, which is assigned by Tillemont and was indicated by me a little before, I read nothing changed. In the Life of St. Athanasius which the editors of his Works place after the preface, this is said on page XLVII: Having returned to their sees (Ursacius and Valens), their fear not yet laid aside, they send letters witnessing to their repentance to Pope Julius: a copy of which was transmitted to Athanasius by Paulinus, bishop of Tibur.
[7] in which St. Paulinus For it is plain that we ought to read here of Tibur, not of Trier: since in the manuscripts is Τιβέρων, and the bishop of Tibur is called in Photius (it is not added where) ἐπίσκοπος Τιβερέων. It is indeed more probable that an Italian bishop of Tibur, rather than one of Trier, sent to Athanasius the letters of Valens and Ursacius to Julius. Tillemont opposes this: for since it is established that an error has crept into one or other of the passages (page 176 or 300), and the Benedictines themselves put Τριβέρων in the last passage, it seems, he says, that an error can be supposed in the first place as much as in the second; then he adds that it is more probable that St. Athanasius, writing in Greek, would have put the name Tibur in the singular number, as the Latins do, and that he would not have used the plural number except to conform himself to the usage of the Latins, who named in the plural number the city of which he here wished to speak. Thus far he. As to what concerns Photius, from him it follows only that he so read in the ninth century, not indeed that he read rightly, or that it ought then to have been so read, or ought now to be so read. These things, therefore, being considered, it appears to us more probable that the St. Paulinus named above by St. Athanasius is not different from ours.
[8] began to preside over the see of Trier: Baronius, at the year 350, number 2, assigns the Council of Jerusalem held under St. Maximus to that same year, and therefore after the death of the emperor Constans, who had died in the month of March, as Baronius thinks, or rather in the month of January according to Tillemont, volume 4 of the Emperors, in the account of the emperor Constantius, article 16, and Pagi, at the year 350, number 2. Then the same Baronius reports the recantation or retraction of Ursacius and Valens at number 18 of the year 350 already mentioned; and at number 16 he treats of St. Athanasius restored to the church of Alexandria; but Pagi, number 3, connects the matter with the year 349, as does Tillemont in note 64 upon St. Athanasius, page 693. For that synod writes thus in the Apology of St. Athanasius against the Arians, page 175: We are not able to give worthy thanks to the God of all … since … he has restored Athanasius to you. The letter of the synod is addressed to the people of Alexandria and to others: But it is your Duty, he says, to pray for the piety of the most religious emperors.
[9] Constans, therefore, was still living at that time, after whose death the East acknowledged only one emperor until the year 351, began to preside: as Tillemont observes, page 694, in which year Gallus was made caesar. When St. Athanasius had recited this letter of the synod, he sets down the names of those who subscribed; and presently he subjoins the repentance of Ursacius and Valens: When they saw these things, etc., which I recited above. It cannot therefore be said that that retraction was sent by St. Paulinus to Athanasius before the latter had been ordered to be restored in the year 349. The same is confirmed by the order of the narrative in the History of the Arians to the Monks of the same holy Father, in which, having set forth the joy of the Egyptians at his coming, he subjoins on page 359 the repentance of Ursacius and Valens by these letters which they sent, written in Latin, to Julius the bishop, and which were translated into Greek. A copy of which was transmitted to us in Latin by Paul (so he is there called) bishop of Trier. This matter, therefore, happened before the Council of Jerusalem, and after the return of St. Athanasius to the Alexandrians, and therefore before the death of the emperor Constans, and before the end of the year 349; and therefore in that same year 349 St. Paulinus was bishop of Trier. The letter of Ursacius and Valens presented to Pope Julius Pagi connects with the same year, as may be seen there at number 5, where he adds that they were bishops of Pannonia and Moesia. But let us now proceed to other matters.
[10] The Synod of Sirmium against Photinus was held in the year 351, his acts in the cause of the faith as the collector of the Ecclesiastical Monuments in his notes upon the Arians, volume 6, page 766, and Pagi at that year from number 10, record, against Baronius, who at the year 357, number 1 and following, connects that council (rather to be called, he says, a conventicle of Satan) with that year, which is also done in the collection of councils of Labbe and Hardouin. Brower, at the year 351, number 75, says: The affairs of religion, since the Arians were then throwing all things into confusion, were tossing in uncertainty: for the learned have thought good to refer the acts of the conventicle of Sirmium to this same year, without loss, as I judge, to the truth; which acts both Socrates and Sozomen so expressly support, etc. Nay, since the remarkable constancy of Paulinus, bishop of the Treveri, and the weight of his judgment, shone forth in this affair of Sirmium, you will scarcely find, unless this time be fixed, where you may well place that writing and censure of Paulinus concerning the acts of Sirmium, which Sulpicius Severus celebrates, before the blessed Prelate's exile.
[11] The aforesaid Sulpicius Severus, in book 2 of the Sacred History, from page 165 of the Louvain edition, thus commends his orthodox faith: and of St. Athanasius. At that time the Arians concealed their perfidy, not daring openly to preach the doctrines of their error: they bore themselves as Catholics, thinking that nothing was to be done by them sooner than to remove Athanasius from his church, who had always stood against them as a wall: which done, they hoped that the rest would yield to their pleasure. But that part of the bishops which followed Arius received the desired condemnation of Athanasius; a part, compelled by fear and faction, had gone over to the zeal of the parties; a few, to whom faith was dear and truth of more account, did not accept the unjust judgment. Among whom Paulinus, bishop of the Treveri, when the letter was offered to him, is said to have subscribed thus: that he gave his consent to the condemnation of Photinus and Marcellus, but concerning Athanasius did not approve .* And by this deed indeed the most holy Bishop
seemed as it were to make a prelude to many other deeds, by which, both doing great things and suffering many, in the cause of the Catholic faith and of St. Athanasius, he proved himself in both an unconquered champion against the Arians.
Annotations\ Perhaps præbere*.
§ II. The Saint is banished into exile by the conventicle of Arles; he is praised by St. Athanasius; the place and year of his death; whether he was a martyr; his sacred crypt at Trier.
The Saint, opposed to the Arians, The conventicle of Arles, infamous for its most wicked machinations and wiles against the orthodox faith and its champion St. Athanasius, was in the year of Christ 353 the public theater in which St. Paulinus — while the other bishops assembled there consented to the condemnation of Photinus, Marcellus, and St. Athanasius, and he indeed alone, as Tillemont reports in the chronological Index to volume 6 of his Monuments, page 833 — set himself as an unconquered wall on behalf of that same holy man, and was banished into exile. Of this council the collector of Ecclesiastical Monuments cited above writes various things from various authors in article 45, among those things which he has concerning the Arians, page 357. St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, in the Fragments which were published at Paris in the year 1598, says: I shall begin from … that time when first, in the town of Arles, my brother and fellow minister Paulinus, bishop of the church of the Treveri, did not mix himself in their ruin and dissembling; and I shall set forth what his judgment was, from which, withdrawing his consent, he was judged by the bishops unworthy of his church, and by the king worthy of exile. Thus that holy Father there, page 6; but in the edition of the Works of St. Hilary published by the Benedictine monks, Fragment 1, number 6, columns 1282 and 1283. The same holy Father, in book 1 to Constantius Augustus, number 8, column [ ], says: I come now to that which was lately done … Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, is a man serving God in his whole life. He, after the synod of Arles, when Paulinus the bishop had opposed such great crimes of these men (namely in the year 353), is commanded to come to Milan (in the year 355). Before the Council of Milan, therefore, St. Paulinus withstood the Arians, from this passage of Hilary; but from the other just cited he was ordered to go into exile at the Council of Arles.
[13] is sent into exile, which others also underwent; but not The exiles of the holy men Paulinus, Eusebius, Lucifer, and Dionysius, St. Hilary reports in his single book against the emperor Constantius, column 1238, where, as you see, he joins several together: but lest these be confounded, the Benedictine editors observe this on this passage of Hilary: That Paulinus was driven from his see by the synod of Arles at the end of the year CCCLIII is established both from the first little book to Constantius, number VIII, and especially from fragment 1, number VI; but Lucifer, Eusebius, and Dionysius by the synod of Milan in the year CCCLV. Nor was Athanasius ignorant of what was done in each of those synods, concerning which he writes to the Solitaries, page DCCCXXIX: When he (the emperor) was at Arles and at Milan, he did all things at the exhortation and suggestion of the heretics, or rather they themselves acted and, girt about with the power of the caesar, insulted all men. Yet because he, in the Apology, page DCXCII, just as our Hilary here does, records the exile of Paulinus together with the exiles of Eusebius, Lucifer, and Dionysius, it came about that Socrates, book 11, chapter XXXVI, and Rufinus, book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter XIX, supposed that Paulinus with the rest had been thrust into exile by the one synod of Milan. Nay, Rufinus adds to these Hilary and Rhodanius, who are likewise joined to the foregoing by Sulpicius Severus. Whence Blondel writes that Hilary was banished in the year CCCLIV. But it was not one time, but one cause, that joined all these in exile, namely the defense of Athanasius and of the Nicene faith. It will be useful to remember these things at chapter 1 of the Life, number 8.
[14] Hence correct Brower, who at the year 355, at the same time: number 83, treating of the Council of Milan, confounds the aforesaid exiles, and praises the constancy of St. Paulinus as though present at that council in these words: When this was heard, Dionysius of Milan, Paulinus of the Treveri, and those who were present on behalf of Liberius, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, took up an especial constancy in the defense of the Nicene faith, and openly declared there that they thought fit that the question of the bishops' faith should be brought forward before the cause of Athanasius was examined. But that our most valiant Champion was assailed by the same emperor Constantius, on behalf of the excellent cause of St. Athanasius, not only with exile but besides with other calamities and even with blandishments, St. Hilary, just cited, teaches, where at column 1246 he inveighs against him thus: Or was it you who banished Paulinus, a man of blessed passion , after tempting him with flattery, and despoiled the holy church of the Treveri of such a priest? You have terrified the faith with edicts. Him you have shifted about with exiles and wearied even unto death: you have banished him even beyond the bounds of the Christian name, that he might not take bread from your granary, nor await it, profaned, from the den of Montanus and Maximilla. The most pious people of Milan, etc. Baronius, at the year 355, number 29, says: Hilary says these things of Paulinus for this reason, that he was first banished into Phrygia, where were the Cataphrygian heretics, the sectaries of Montanus and Maximilla, but was thence sent away among the barbarians. The editors add on this passage of Hilary in their notes: As though he should say: It was too little for Constantius to have sent Paulinus away among the Cataphrygians; he also drove him out beyond the bounds of the Christian name. As to the reading here Montanae, we think it a slip of the copyists, especially since in book 2 to Constantius there stands Montanus, not Montana.
[15] But so many are the things which illustrate the exile of St. Paulinus and of the other Catholic bishops, a eulogy of them that they deserve to be recorded from St. Athanasius in the History of the Arians to the Monks, from page 363, where he writes this: For relying on his authority (the emperor Constantius's) the adversaries of Christ accomplish all that pleases them at their own discretion. Yet while they think that by his agency they are laying snares for very many, they do not perceive that they are in fact making many confessors. Of whose number are men who have already made an illustrious confession, and those religious and upright bishops, Paulinus bishop of Trier, the metropolis of Gaul, Lucifer bishop of the metropolis of Sardinia, Eusebius of Vercelli, a city of Italy, Dionysius of Milan — and this too is a metropolis of Italy. For the emperor, having summoned them, commanded that they should subscribe against Athanasius and communicate with the heretics. And when they were astonished at the strangeness of the thing, and said that this was not of the ecclesiastical canon, he at once said: But let what I will be held as a canon: for the bishops of Syria bear with me when I speak thus. Either therefore obey, or you too shall be banished.
[16] from St. Athanasius: Hearing this, the bishops, marveling exceedingly at the matter, with hands stretched out to God, addressed the man and taught him that the empire was not his own but God's, who had given it: they asked him to fear him, lest he should suddenly take away what he had given: they threatened him with the day of judgment, and urged him not to ruin the affairs of the Church, nor to mingle the Roman empire with ecclesiastical statutes, nor to bring the Arian heresy into the Church of God. But he neither listened nor allowed them to say more; nay, he threatened them the more sharply with drawn sword, and indeed had ordered some of them to be led off to punishment; but afterwards, like Pharaoh, he changed his sentence. And so those Saints, shaking off the dust and lifting up their eyes to God, neither dreaded the emperor's threats nor betrayed the truth through fear of the drawn sword: but they held their exile as the duty of their ministry. For while they passed through places and through cities, even though bound with chains, they nonetheless preached the Gospel, and, proclaiming the pious faith, condemned the Arian heresy with anathema, and made public the repentance of Ursacius and Valens. Which turned out for their plotters otherwise than they had reckoned: for the longer the distance at which the place of exile lay, the greater was the hatred stirred up against them, and the migration of the holy Men was a true preaching against their impiety. For who, when he saw them journeying through, did not admire them as confessors, and did not turn from and execrate the Arians not only as impious but even as executioners and murderers, and call them by any name rather than that of Christians?
[17] the place of his exile, and the year These most praiseworthy champions of Catholic truth received therefore their glorious exiles as a prize. Among whom St. Paulinus was sent away into Phrygia, a region of Asia Minor, the impious emperor Constantius contriving that, by changing the places of his exile, he might weary that most holy Man even unto death, as St. Hilary just cited related; who, however, names no place of exile in Phrygia, which is also unknown to us from any other source. There too that most unconquered Champion set the goal of his illustrious contests with the Arians for the orthodox faith, and laid down his life, in the year 358, according to the Chronicle of St. Jerome, says Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 6, in the account of the Arians, article 50, page 361, published at Amsterdam in the year 1658: for he indicates in the table of citations before that same volume that he uses this edition. But in the Leiden edition of the year 1606, which I use, I read thus at the year 359: Paulinus, bishop of the Treveri, dies in exile in Phrygia. Baronius marks the same year in the Annals (see there number 109), citing also the Chronicle of Jerome. But Pontac's edition writes the year 362. Brower places his death in the year 358, as does Baillet also in his Life. And this was the ninth year of his episcopate, the fifth of his exile, according to what has been said above. From these things it appears that there is not sufficient agreement among the authors about the year of our Confessor's death precisely taken. We, holding as it were a middle way, have assigned him above at number 1 to the year 359 or 360. And it is believed that he died on this XXXI day of August.
[18] of the death of St. Paulinus: These things being thus set forth, who would not marvel that Florentinius could write this in his notes on this day? Besides those things which Cardinal Baronius brings forward on this very day for the holy exile and confessor Paulinus of Trier, Mersaeus is to be consulted in the Annals of the archbishops of Trier: where he teaches that St. Paulinus was consecrated by St. Martin of Tours, and was beloved and trained by St. Ambrose. St. Martin was raised to the see of Tours in the year 371, or more probably 372, as Tillemont affirms, volume 10, article 3, page 315, among very many other things which he has collected about that holy prelate. But the year 371 is preferred by Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church, book 2, page 301, who adds that this was about the fifty-fifth year of his age. But St. Ambrose, in the volume of Tillemont just cited, article 3 in the account of the same St. Ambrose, page 82, is set down as born about the year 340; which pleases Pagi also, at the year 369, number 13. Hence it is plain how ineptly Florentinius sends the reader to Mersaeus, that he may learn anachronisms of this kind.
[19] St. Paulinus received the most illustrious name of confessor from the weightiest writers. he was not But why he cannot truly be called a martyr, when the cause of his exile was the faith;
and the exile brought on his death — see the Annotations on chapter 1, letter o. There are, however, those who hold that he was slain by a violent death for Christ. For our manuscript Florarium has this on this day: But Paulinus, prelate and martyr of Christ, was sent by the Arian emperor Constantius as an exile into Phrygia for the cause of the true faith, and there was beheaded for the name of Christ and buried. For while he preached the true faith the more urgently, he was slain by the heathen, who were kindled to fury. From this opinion Brower does not shrink, at the year 358, numbers 97 and 98: There are among our own writers, he says, who relate that Bl. Paulinus was beheaded, and underwent martyrdom not only by his confession or by the hardships of exile, but also by the shedding of his blood: whose authority I shall by no means shun, since a certain ancient marble cenotaph of Bl. Paulinus speaks for them, which stands today in the choir of the basilica, joined to the high altar.
[20] To which he then subjoins this: And they report that, although it is by no means doubtful that the ashes of Bl. Paulinus rest in the lower crypt beneath the choir, a martyr in the strictest sense of the name, that marble stone which I mentioned, composed of slabs after the manner of a sepulcher, was begun to be built in the age of Charlemagne by Amalarius Fortunatus, bishop of the Treveri, that the sacred ashes might be translated thither; but the work not being yet finished, Fortunatus, already dead, himself obtained the tomb which he had prepared for Bl. Paulinus. Thus our own writers (a manuscript On the relics of the church of St. Paulinus being cited in the margin). But continuing, he says: Yet the records of Metz attest that this Amalarius Fortunatus was buried in the old and now demolished basilica of St. Arnulf, and was formerly honored with the honor of a Saint. For the rest, the lettering cut in the marble, though skillful and pleasing by its very antiquity, is nevertheless much hindered in the sequence of its lines, and, the altar being set before it toward the West, is broken off in a certain part. It is moreover of this kind:
In the third year of the reign of Constantius, Bl. Paulinus, for the Catholic faith, beyond the bounds of the Christian name [banished, and wearied even unto death by the changing of his exiles, to the Phrygians] and to the Micones * preached, and, the gods of the gentiles being broken, founded churches; at the last, in Phrygia, tried with many kinds of torments, he was beheaded on the II of the Kalends of September, in the year CCXCV of the incarnate Word, and, magnificently made illustrious by miracles, by St. Felix translated from Phrygia to Trier, whose grace and intercession, and also the glory and crown of the martyrs under Rictiovarus *, the people of the faithful here adore, and, obtaining their vow, entreat pardon.
[21] as some will have it: But this inscription, engraved a very long time after the death of St. Paulinus, has not sufficient antiquity to persuade us of those many kinds of torments and of the beheading, inasmuch as it cannot have been written before Dionysius Exiguus, who flourished in the sixth century and first began to count the years from the Incarnation of Christ, as is done in the aforesaid inscription. One may see Baronius at the year 527, number 71. But certain other things occur to be observed concerning the same inscription. You see in it letters of unequal size, enclosed in brackets []: which is done in Brower in order that those things might be restored which could no longer be read. But the year CCXCV renders that inscription suspect as well. Nor do the words persuade us of a martyrdom consummated by a violent death which Brower had prefixed from the book of Lucifer of Cagliari, in which he teaches that we must die for the Son of God, rebuking the cruelty of Constantius: You have slaughtered very many at Alexandria, you have torn certain men in the whole world, you have scattered those who resist you in various places; but all these — which you are by no means willing to hear — are martyrs. All those most blessed men slaughtered by your sword we believe indeed to be in paradise … You torture, kill, and destroy men dedicated to God, and you are unable to give reasons why you do these things, or grounds for your hatreds. From which he concludes this: It is therefore not alien from the manner of Constantius, nor from the condition of those times, that Bl. Paulinus should have fallen by the sword of the persecutor. But from these things it can only be concluded that there is nothing to prevent its having been able to happen; but that it actually happened is not sufficiently proved from thence. I for my part can believe neither that the Prelate was taken off by a violent death nor by beheading, since genuine ancient authority is silent on that matter.
[22] the place where his body was laid among the people of Trier. The aforesaid founder of the Annals of Trier, at number 98, treats of the Saint's sepulcher, saying: Today, in the place where the body of Bl. Paulinus, resting in the crypt, is encircled by a crown of most excellent Martyrs, there are inscribed in ancient letters upon the paneled ceiling above, in mosaic work, verses which, drawn through the hollow vaults with tesserae composed by excellent craftsmanship and illuminated with various color and painting, represent by their course that solemn Chi-Rho, the symbol of Christ's name:
How well do the leader of the pontiffs and the patrician cohere! Palmatius gives the Gallic ranks, Thyrsus the Theban. Each leads his own, and a priest leads them both.
There is seen also in the middle of the summit of the paneled ceiling — since the vaults, resting upon marble columns in the figure of a hemicycle, come together above — a circle of the same workmanship, representing the Lamb of God with the banner of the cross, with this inscription: THOU HAST REDEEMED US UNTO GOD. But concerning that sacred crypt, which I have here described in passing, following Brower, more will be said below.
Annotations\ Read Calaris*.
\ Elsewhere, confessionis*.
\* Perhaps LYCAONIBUS.
\* PASSORUM.
§ III. The body translated from Phrygia to Trier; preserved from the profanation of the Northmen, and afterwards found.
The body honorably laid at Trier, which the Northmen Brower, at the year 396, number 209, narrates this concerning the body of St. Paulinus translated from Phrygia to Trier: At that same time, when Felix, bishop of the Treveri, … had bound to himself the zeal of the city, … he easily obtained that at the public expense of the province he might translate the body … of Bl. Paulinus … from Phrygia, where it had hitherto been kept, to his own see … And after Felix returned … he set up a basilica of elegant workmanship in the city, with a monastery; which, vowed and dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mother of God, he adorned both with the consecrated bones of the Martyrs of the Trier and of the Theban name, as with certain gems, and fortified with the body of Bl. Paulinus, religiously suspended by chains in the crypt … He fitted a coffin to the body of everlasting — and, as I judge, of cedar — wood, our forefathers confessing that the kind was unknown to them; and upon its breast, clothed in fine linen and silk, he laid a silver disk with the then solemn inscription of the name of Christ, which was also figured at the head of the tomb and at the Martyr's feet on the outside; the design of which is exhibited by Brower in the same place. And the position and veneration, as he continues at number 210, remained inviolate for the sacred pledge until the irruption of the Northmen; who, though they twice brought in torches, were nevertheless in vain, being divinely prevented from the violation of the most holy Prelate, not without a notable miracle — which I shall afterwards relate from a manuscript of Trier, together with the history of the said translation and the other prodigies which followed thereafter. Mention has been made by us of the church of St. Paulinus on the XIII day of January, in the Life of St. Agritius, page 775.
[24] Brower records the greatness of the work: The mass of the old basilica, he says, in the ninth century set up by Felix, they say measured four hundred and ten feet in length, and one hundred and twenty in breadth. And this … is the origin and adornment of the basilica: which, having afterwards suffered various disasters from enemies, and having been afflicted by frequent fires, retains scarcely any traces of its ancient seat. Of the antiquities of that sacred building it is written in the same Brower, in the Proparasceve before volume 1 of the Annals of Trier, page 40. Moreover in the same it is asserted thus at the year 396, number 210: The report of this most celebrated translation and deposition preserves its memory on the III of the Ides of May; concerning which the sacred calendars may be consulted, cited by us on the same day among the Praetermissi, page 187. But what I just now said about the profanation attempted by the Northmen against the sacred deposit of St. Paulinus is thus declared and confirmed in D'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 12, page 217, where in the History of Trier the following is narrated: In the year of our Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXXX, upon the death of the emperor Louis (the editor notes in the margin, namely the king of Germany, son of Louis king of Germany, who nevertheless died in the year DCCCLXXXII), the Northmen, hearing of his death, going forth with all their forces, seized the city of the Treveri on the Nones of April, on the most sacred day of the Lord's Supper, Bertulf the bishop having slipped away in flight with certain of the citizens.
[25] In which city, refreshing until the holy day of Easter their bodies wearied by the journey, they demolished to the ground the whole territory round about the city, and slew with the sword all whom they found within and without the city, and set fire to the city itself and to all the monasteries. attempt in vain to profane: And when they had many times cast fire also into the monastery of St. Paulinus, but it was divinely extinguished, they broke the iron chains by which his sarcophagus hung; yet nevertheless the sarcophagus, though the chains were broken, in no wise settled nearer to the ground, but remained hanging in the air: until, after many years, being pressed down by certain unbelievers, it sank, not without vengeance poured out upon them: for whosoever served this sacrilege with their hands received each his several stroke of infirmity. Brower weaves together the ravaging of the Northmen among the people of Trier, and the death of King Louis, and the hostile invasion of the basilica of St. Paulinus, and also the wonders then wrought there, at the year of Christ 883. And in the same place, at number 7, he brings forward another miracle: In the same building, he says, they (the Northmen) gave an example of their monstrous cruelty, shutting a living man in the sarcophagus and cutting him off from all use of the air: who nevertheless, by the intercession of St. Paulinus, when the Northmen departed thence, was preserved and found there unharmed. For which matter Sighard the monk is cited in the margin, in the memoir of the Life of St. Maximinus. This miracle is narrated also in the Life, chapter 2, number 19.
[26] the same body is sought in the eleventh century The same author of the Annals of Trier, at the year 1070, number 18, relates this from a manuscript of St. Paulinus: Moreover in the same course of time a keen desire seized the clergy of Trier of digging out the relics of the Saints, which the mad fury of the Northmen had concealed down to this day, from the hiding-places and vaults in which their forefathers had hidden them for fear of the barbarians, and of restoring them to their ancient place of veneration. But the memory of the place being wholly lost made that business exceedingly arduous and difficult. Then, prayers having been poured out for the finding of the sacred relics, there was a twofold apparition preceding the search for their vault, of which the one was made to a certain blind man Folbert, in the same place at number 18, the other to Frideburga a nun, at number 19, as Brower relates at greater length, and in a manner indeed sufficiently wonderful. The search for the relics in the church of Bl. Paulinus, he says, was begun to be carried on with more intent care in the following year. And presently, passing on to the year 1071, he subjoins this: And so, the matter having been announced to Archbishop Udo, they ask that by his authority power be given them to dig up the ground and demolish the crypt and certain altars. Which being obtained, on the appointed day it was thought good that all the most distinguished men, both of the clergy and of the bishop's retinue, should be summoned, under whose eyes the whole affair might be carried out. These, therefore, when they stood by intent upon the spectacle and full of veneration, then and there, to the incredible joy of all, thirteen most sacred bodies of Martyrs were found, partly of the sacred Theban legion, partly of the senatorial body of Augusta Trevirorum,
pledges.
[27] and it is found, new splendor being added Nay, when the foundations of the crypt had been laid bare more deeply, they came by digging even to the precious body of Bl. Paulinus; near whose coffin was found a marble tablet, buried in the earth ever since the flood of the Northmen, and likewise another of lead beneath it, which set forth the position and arrangement of the other bodies, and also the contests and names of the Martyrs, in exactly these words. There follows in Brower, at number 21, the inscription of these matters; which I do not transcribe here, but send the reader to the Life of St. Felix, archbishop of Trier, which is found in volume III of March, on the XXVI day of that month, from which, at page 623 there, I cull these things which pertain to St. Paulinus: But in the midst of them is the body of St. Paulinus, the most illustrious archbishop of the Treveri, suspended by iron chains, which St. Felix, bishop of this see, having translated it from Phrygia by the forces of the whole realm, honorably suspended there on the III of the Ides of May … He therefore who is placed on the right side of St. Paulinus was called Palmatius … And at the head of St. Paulinus lay seven senators of this city … And at the feet of St. Paulinus, on either side, are placed four men, most illustrious in birth and in virtue.
[28] Sigebert, a contemporary writer, reports the aforesaid inscription more concisely at the same year 1071. with new splendor. Now of the Martyrs of Trier there will be an account on the VI day of October, with the Roman Martyrology; but of the Theban Martyrs on the XXII day of September, with the same Martyrology. Then the report of this so unexpected and novel event, as the author of the Annals of Trier records at number 22, when it had spread far and wide through Germany and the neighboring border of Gaul in men's talk, and had stirred the minds of all with a certain holy reverence and a pious desire to see it, it pleased the archbishop presently to unfold with more magnificent work the crypt of the basilica — that low crypt indeed, and then obscure through the injury of the times — and to add to it a splendor worthy of the majesty of the Saints: which afterwards, having suffered the vicissitudes of adverse fortunes, lost that former splendor, and exchanged it for decayed rubble, as will be seen in the next paragraph. But to the church of St. Paulinus there accrued in the twelfth century that title of honor, that it was consecrated by Pope Eugenius III while he was staying at Trier, as is reported among the Deeds of the Archbishops of Trier in Edmund Martène's Most Ample Collection of Ancient Writers and Monuments, volume 4, column 204, in these words: The lord Apostolic consecrated the church of St. Paulinus on the second of the Kalends of February. The event is narrated at greater length, and is reported to have happened in this manner in Brower, at the year 1148, number 68: The basilica of St. Paulinus, four and fifty years before this, under Egelbert, was afflicted by the disaster of a destructive fire, and thereafter for not a few years deserted, and then restored; and at the request of Albero, on the day before the Kalends of February of the year then beginning, it was dedicated by Eugenius to the name of the Mother of God, and adorned anew by him with most ample ornaments of exemptions and indulgences. Baldwin of Caesarea in Palestine assisted at the ceremony, who on the same day consecrated the crypt, noble for the sepulcher of St. Paulinus, and likewise the altar of St. Marus the prelate, and another which they call the New, for the laying up of the relics of certain most excellent Saints. In volume II of January, on the XXVI day of that month, page 730, we have treated of St. Marus, bishop of the Treveri.
§ IV. Another finding of the body; the inspection of the same; the head, separated from it, is honored with great veneration; the vicissitudes of the church of St. Paulinus; the Acts of the Saint.
Schavart, at the beginning of the fifteenth century At the beginning of the fifteenth century another finding of the body of St. Paulinus took place, which Brower thus handed down to posterity in volume 2, at the year 1402, number 103: At the first spring of the beginning of the year, on the ninth of the Kalends of April, the sacred sepulcher of Paulinus, the most glorious bishop of the Treveri, was opened; and, only private witnesses being admitted to the sight, the body was found still entire in its bones and joints, and wrapped in seemly coverings. The author of this finding was Frederick Schavart of Trier, provost of the church of St. Paulinus; who, being both by his own will inclined to zeal and honor toward so great a patron, and moved by men's talk, who contended that the head of St. Paulinus had been left in Phrygia — because report held that he had suffered martyrdom there by beheading — thought that he ought to inquire into that matter more diligently. And so on the very day of the Parasceve, with mind composed to religion, when, going down into the crypt, he ordered the iron fastenings of the sarcophagus to be pulled off, and the covering of the tomb was removed, the vault appeared longer than usual, strewn with silken cloths of divers kinds.
[30] inspects the body of the Saint In this stood a coffin of wood of unknown but elegant form, so wrought that, being seemly bound with silver bands, it had upon their surface figures in relief, and between each pair of bands there shone little silver spheres, also skillfully marked with their own figures. The coffin was also bound about with copper bands inlaid with silver, from whose rings it was believed to have hung of old, since it is related that, being bound with iron chains, it hung aloft. Finally, an entrance was opened toward the head, where the same coffin was seen gracefully closed with silver bolts. Upon the breast was laid likewise a silver disk, with the ancient inscription of the Christians X and P, representing the name of Christ in about this manner. This is the same form of that disk, and the same inscription, of which we treated above in §3. But besides the sepulcher already described from Schavart, Brower also reports the inspection of the sacred body and its public veneration, continuing thus at number 104:
[31] and separates the head from it, Now Frederick himself pursues the rest in that little commentary which, arranged in twenty-five chapters, he left to posterity concerning the commendation of the city of Trier, the finding of St. Paulinus, and the religion of his church. The coffin therefore being opened, there lay in it the body of the most blessed Man, wrapped with great care in silken cloths of divers colors; which, when we undid them with our unworthy hands, we saw with astonishment this naked body composed after the manner of men, like a whole man with his own head, and without corruption of the limbs. And when we touched this most blessed body, desiring above all to lift up his head, humanly doubting whether by reason of the antiquity of so long a time it might threaten to fall to pieces, we touched first the nostrils, then the crown, at last the back of the head. And since by God's grace the firmness both of the head and of its joining to the body was most welcome and evident, we took it up, ever to be honored with especial veneration, with immense joy of heart, closing up the sarcophagus with iron and mortar with the utmost diligence we could.*
[32] and exposes it to public veneration, Moreover, this most precious head being taken up, the clergy and people of the city being honorably assembled — namely on the day on which the translation of St. Paulinus is honored, which is wont to be held a solemn day, the Sunday next before the feast of blessed Gangulf — after the procession had been led round according to custom, and the divine offices duly performed for the giving of thanks and praises to God, then for the first time the heads of St. Paulinus and of St. Simeon the Greek monk, whose head had been raised in the preceding year, and also of St. Maximinus, with many other relics, were publicly offered to the people to behold. Of St. Gengulf the martyr, as he is called by us, see volume II of May, on the XI day, from page 642. Of St. Simeon, the recluse in the gate of Trier, we have treated in volume 1 of June, on the 1st day, page 87 and following. Let us hear what Brower subjoins at number 105 concerning the yearly solemnity established:
[33] Frederick then records, suppressing his own name, an endowment founded in perpetuity for the Saint's cult that, for the perpetual and grateful memory of the deed and for the propagation of the cult and veneration of the heavenly citizens who rest in that same basilica, a certain person, lavishing his patrimony upon that end, brought it about that on the vigil of that same day three congregations every year — one of the canons of St. Simeon, two of the monks of St. Maximinus and of the Mother of God at the Martyrs — should attend the church of St. Paulinus, with solemn Vespers and an appointed chanting of antiphons; and that then on the very day of the translation the same should come together into one, and should grace the pomp of the carrying about of the head, the senate following, with a perpetual distribution of money appointed to those present; and on the day before, an honorary serving of wine.
[34] And from this time the head of St. Paulinus, enclosed in a statue drawn in silver as far as the breast, with adornments gracefully wrought of gold and gems, his memory: was wont to be looked upon with great reverence, and in our own memory it scarcely escaped the sacrilegious hands of Jews, although silver rather than the sacred pledge seemed to be sought by that theft, since, the head being cast away, the breastplate was carried off or taken away, yet presently returned to its owners, but not undamaged. Thus far Brower, from Frederick Schavart, whose composition, of which we spoke above, consisting of twenty-five chapters, we have in manuscript.
[35] Further, that the church of St. Paulinus afterwards suffered the vicissitudes of human misery, Brower indicates in volume 2, [in the 16th and 17th centuries the church of St. Paulinus suffers adversities; the state of the sacred] at the year 1552, number 84, pages 381 and 382: On the Kalends of September, he says, the margrave (Albert of Brandenburg) … attempted a sally upon Machera, a little town set on the banks of the Moselle, and, the inhabitants being overwhelmed by his sudden coming, thence took Echternach … a little town on the river Sûre … On the tenth day of September the basilicas of St. Paulinus and of St. Maximinus were despoiled of their bell metal … but on the XXV day of September, the sun having already set, the precincts of St. Paulinus and the suburban monasteries of St. Maximinus and of the Martyrs, torches being applied, were burned up with deadly flame at the command of the prefect (the author had treated of Dalberg). To which it is permitted to add these things, which I report from a letter of Fr. Sixtus Hesselmeir of the Society of Jesus, written from Trier to Fr. Cuper on the XXIX day of August in the year 1738: It is known to your Reverence that near the walls of this city there stood the church of St. Paulinus, which of old suffered various injuries, and in the year MDCLXXV was again leveled to the ground, so that the canons had to perform the divine offices in the neighboring parish church; and a vast treasure of sacred pledges lay buried beneath the earth.
[36] This year at last the most eminent Elector (who follows with great veneration the place of which he is provost) crypt. ordered the rubble to be removed, purposing perhaps to restore the church itself. When the earth had been dug out, there appear in the crypt the bodies of various Saints in nearly the same order in which Master Enen reports them to have been laid. They are enclosed in stone coffins; one and another of which was broken by the weight of the stones pressing upon them, so that the bones of the Saints had to be taken out. On some are inscribed the names of the Martyrs: to Constans and Hormisdas the title of consul is added. These things I observed in passing, nor was I permitted to examine the rest, since on a second occasion I found the entrance closed; which, however, I believe will not be difficult, if the lords canons be applied to. Other sarcophagi (of which the author speaks) are seen round about, fourteen in number. Three archbishops, enclosed in different coffins, rest in the lesser crypt, which is separated from the one mentioned above by stone steps descending to each. The Epitome, otherwise the Marrow, of the deeds of the Treveri, published in Teutonic or German by Johann Enen, Scheckmann published in Latin in the year 1617. And treating of the Saints who are laid up in the collegiate church of St. Paulinus, folio 51 verso, he says: In the crypt of this church rests the archbishop and martyr of Trier, from whom the basilica took its name. But the above notices I have transcribed from the said letter,
that the reader might know the most recent state of this sacred crypt and of St. Paulinus laid up in it.
[37] The Acts of the Saint, Concerning the Acts of this holy Prelate, and certain manuscript copies of them, I offer the following notices. To one transcript this title is prefixed: Certain excerpts from the Life of St. Paulinus, from the library of St. Matthias at Trier. They begin: Deeming it worthy to serve the memories of the holy fathers, etc. They end with these words: Our predecessors are to be blamed, who did not take care to hand down to writing or to memory the miracles of the blessed Father which they had seen, but rather suffered them to fall away through negligence and forgetfulness. Another transcript is noted as taken from a manuscript of St. Martin at Trier: whose prologue is: Deeming it worthy to serve the memories of the holy fathers, etc. But toward the end, after these words throughout the whole span of his life he was in no wise lacking, there is added an appendix, which I shall omit in our edition of that same transcript. Another copy, from a manuscript of St. Maximinus at Trier, bears this title: The Passion of St. Paulinus, archbishop and martyr. It begins: Being gathered together, dearly beloved brethren, on the illustrious solemnity of St. Paulinus, his life, pleasant to recite, sweet to hear, and also worthy and glorious to imitate, brings many consolations to the faithful of Christ even in the present world, and furnishes many proofs for the beholding of the rewards to come, etc. Its end is, throughout the whole span of his life he was in no wise lacking.
[38] and our observations. Nor shall I pass over a copy written in another hand, to which is appended in a different script: This Life is in the manuscript of St. Matthias at Trier; and it has the same beginning as the copy of St. Maximinus: Being gathered together, dearly beloved brethren, on the illustrious solemnity of St. Paulinus. But it reports his death thus: At the last, beheaded in Phrygia, he received from the Lord the crown of a blessed passion on the day before the Kalends of September; and again in a different script is noted: Here ends the manuscript of St. Matthias. And then there are narrated in the said manuscript the translation of the body from Phrygia to Trier, the flame extinguished under the Northmen, and other miracles: concerning which see the copy which will be given to the press from the manuscript of St. Martin at Trier, because it is shorter than that of St. Maximinus. But that his Acts were written many centuries after the death of St. Paulinus, and therefore are of no great authority, this is an argument: that in them mention is made of the ravaging of the Northmen among the people of Trier, which, from what was said in §3, number 25, Brower weaves in at the year of Christ 883, Sigebert's Chronicle recording at that same year 883: The Northmen burn the city of Trier. But the same Acts cannot have been committed to writing after about the year 1071, since I read nothing in them concerning the finding of the sacred pledges under Archbishop Udo, mention of which was made above at number 26. Whence I conjecture that their composition can be referred to those times which lie between the said ravaging and the translation. Having said this by way of preface, I subjoin the Acts of the Saint, distinguished as usual by numbers, titles, and chapters, to which various notes are also added.
Annotations\ Read: and the joining of the head — we took it from the body.*
LIFE
by an anonymous author
From a manuscript of St. Martin at Trier, collated with another.
Paulinus, bishop of Trier, in Phrygia (St.)
BHL Number: 6562, 6563
BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER.
PROLOGUE
The author reports a few things of many concerning the Saint: Deeming it worthy to serve the memories of the holy fathers, we desire not to keep altogether silent about those things which we have learned to have been done from the report of antiquity: for to make known the miracles of the holy fathers is a magnificent thing, that thereby we may know more surely who and how great they are to whose merits we ought to commend ourselves. Whence certain deeds of our venerable father Paulinus, bishop of the city of Trier — some heard from the relation of our elders, some found here and there in the copies of the holy fathers — we wish to make known to our successors, lest the memory of his virtues be given wholly over to oblivion: for indeed there existed among the people of Trier no small volumes of his deeds, which in the burning a of that very city, by the Lord's permission, are said to have been consumed. And now, about to speak of a few things out of many, we commend ourselves to the aid of him whose work's title has been noted beforehand for you here present.
ANNOTATION.
CHAPTER I.
His birth, education; his journey to the people of Trier; his acts on behalf of St. Athanasius; his exile.
Born in Aquitaine; his parents; his education under St. Maximinus: It is established, therefore, that Paulinus, archbishop of the Treveri, as the histories report, was born of a most noble lineage from the parts of the Aquitanian region. For his parents, adorned with the defense * of the Catholic faith, when their son had been dipped in the font of baptism, as the custom is, most humbly besought the most blessed Maximinus a that he would receive him from the laver: and he, obeying their will, took him to himself as a spiritual son, not unaware of things to come, the Lord showing them to him. And so the boy, growing up, was weaned, and was handed over to the aforesaid father, to be steeped in the pages of the sacred letters b: the memory of which (may he by his loving-kindness come to the aid of our need, break open hell, open paradise, and grant us to be partakers of the everlasting recompense, who lives and reigns, God, unto ages of ages) faithfully retaining, he did not delay, already now in his boyish time, to gather like a most prudent bee those things which the Lord foreknew were afterwards to be dispensed through him to the faithful when they should be toiling under the unbelief of the Arian doctrine.
[3] both, setting out for Trier, dwell with St. Agritius, Now Maximinus, desiring to follow the Lord's teaching, together with his most beloved son left the soil of his birth, went to the parts of Gaul, and, the Lord leading, came to Trier, where at that time St. Agritius c is known to have ruled most vigorously the church committed to him by apostolic authority. The venerable Maximinus, therefore, being honorably received by him, enjoyed his companionship so intimately that he set men of riper age after him by the privilege of love.
[4] to whom St. Maximinus succeeds in the episcopate: St. Paulinus also, esteeming at no small worth his spiritual father whom he had followed, clung to him at all hours and at every moment with all subjection of humility, and without giving offense. But the oft-named pontiff, now weighed down with exceeding old age, being warned by angelic signs through a certain priest named Quiriacus, raised the blessed Maximinus, with the consent of the throngs of the people, to the dignity of the pontifical summit; and not long after, leaving earthly things, he sent forth his spirit, secure of the reward of his work, to the joys of eternity, at the Lord's bidding.
[5] and, when he had ended his life, St. Paulinus: Meanwhile, as the Arian heresy sprouted through the churches of God, there arose from the emperor Constantius d, son of Constantine the father of the Augusti, a most hostile indignation against the Catholics. For wherever a guardian of this most holy faith was heard or seen, he was straightway either punished by him with immediate death or made to endure the losses of a long exile. Shunning his face, the most blessed Pontiff resolved to go to his own native land of the region of Aquitaine and to revisit his own people, and not long after ended his life there e. After his departure the care of pastoral vigilance is committed to blessed Paulinus, a man of wondrous holiness f. He therefore, not unmindful of the body of his most beloved master, having gathered a multitude of the people of Trier, commanded them, being of one mind for this search and burning with the love of sincere affection, to make their way toward Aquitaine.
[6] who, when his body has been translated to Trier, buries it, and bravely Obeying him, they take up the journey into an unknown region, and, aided by angelic signs, brought back to Trier, the Lord leading, a most precious treasure: whom Paulinus, the prelate most worthy of the Lord, meeting with glory and the melody of psalms, buried the body of the holy father in the suburb of the city of the Treveri in the basilica of blessed John the Evangelist g. But he himself, as a faithful shepherd, intent with watchful care upon the flock divinely committed to him, kept off with the sword of the spirit the assaults of the wolves rushing in from every side, avoiding far indeed that reproach which is spoken by the Lord through the prophet: You have not gone up against the adversary, nor set up a wall for the house of Israel, that you might stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Indeed in the holy contest he finished his course: for he labored even unto chains, he resisted even unto blood. For with what injuries he was assailed in the assertion of the Catholic faith, and to what great perils he was exposed, the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History h thus teaches us.
[7] sets himself against the Arians Now Constantius, already infected in every part with the aforesaid Arian heresy, determined this as the crown of his wickedness: that the bishops of all the Eastern and Western parts should without hesitation subscribe to his sect; and, summoning all, he appointed that a synod be held at Milan i, and commanded them fully to be present there before him. Of the Easterners, therefore, not many came, since old age or the length of the journey prevented most of them. But of the Westerners more than three hundred were present, carrying out the commands of the prince, namely that a synod should be celebrated in the aforesaid place: where the Easterners, coming together, demanded before all things that a common decree should be made against Athanasius k, that most valiant defender of the faith, so that by this deed the entrance to Alexandria might be wholly closed to him l.
[8] And when Paulinus m of Trier in Gaul, Dionysius of Alba * n the metropolis of the Italians, in the cause of the faith and of St. Athanasius: and Eusebius of Vercelli o, bishops, perceived this — that for the destruction of the faith the Easterners were contriving to act against Athanasius — rising up they cried out with a loud voice that by the things which were being done deceit and circumvention were being brought upon Christian doctrines: for they said that the charges against Athanasius were not true, since such devices were proved to have been invented for the retraction of the faith. While they were thus proclaiming, the council of bishops is then dissolved: for Athanasius being deposed, the heretics were seen to set forth another doctrine of the faith; but neither of these things could be brought to effect, while in the prince's presence it was cried out that what was being done was unjust and impious. Whereupon they too were driven from their churches and commanded to dwell in the uttermost ends of the earth.
[9] For at that time, when the churches were at peace and the peoples were praying in their assemblies, he is sent into exile the Pontiff of the Roman see, Liberius [p], and Paulinus, metropolitan bishop of the Gauls, and Dionysius the Italian, Lucifer metropolitan of the islands of Sardinia [q], Eusebius from Italy — all good bishops and preachers of the truth — are snatched away and delivered to exile, having no fault, because they refused to consent to the Arian madness, nor did they subscribe to the calumnies against us. Eusebius of Caesarea [r] also, recording these same things in the books of the Ecclesiastical history which he writes, says: Constantius, when he had come to the parts of the West to avenge his brother's murder [s] and to recover the kingdom, and, the tyrant [t] being destroyed, alone obtained the sovereignty by craft , undertakes to harass the Western bishops and by deception to force them to consent to the Arian heresy, Athanasius having first been condemned, and, as it were, the obstruction of a most powerful barrier removed.
[10] For this cause a council of bishops is summoned at Milan. together with other bishops: Many were deceived; but Paulinus [u], archbishop of the Treveri, Eusebius, and Dionysius * and Lucifer, proclaiming that there was deceit in the business, and asserting that the subscription against Athanasius was contrived for no other cause than the destruction of the faith, were thrust into exile: all of whom, however, except Paulinus, Julian the Apostate [x] afterwards recalled, rather that he might commend the first-fruits of his reign under the veil of an artificial piety,
than that with a right intention — as became known shortly after — he might correct the calamity of the Church. But Paulinus he seems either to have excepted from the common benefit, because he feared him, if he were brought back, as a sharper adversary of that madness which he was already bringing to birth in his mind, or else to have passed him over unremembered in the first onrush of his edict, inasmuch as he was banished among barbarous nations and, beyond all the rest, most remote from the sight of the empire.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. In the Praetermissi on the 27th day of August we deferred him to the 23rd of September.
q. His Acts we have illustrated on the 20th day of May, in volume 5 of that month, page 197 * and following.
r. This Eusebius is here brought in as speaking by the biographer and by the manuscript of Saint-Maximin on the occasion of the synod of Milan, which we just said, at letter i, was held in the year 355; I read that he died in the year 340 in the Chronological Library of Writers published by Labbe, page 31, and in the heterodox Cave, who marks his death about the same year in his Ecclesiastical Writers, page 92, not to mention Baronius and Pagi, who write that he died in the year 340.
s. Of the emperor Constans, slain by Magnentius, who claimed the empire for himself, in the year 350, Baronius treats at the same year, number 1.
t. The overthrow of the tyrant Magnentius, and the death he inflicted upon himself, Baronius records at the year 353, number 6.
u. Here again St. Paulinus appears wrongly, as also immediately after under the emperor Julian.
x. He reigned from the year 361 to 363.
\ Perhaps lumine*.
\ Perhaps almae*.
\ Manuscript of St. Maximinus of Trier: nisi quia*.
\ In the same place, arce*.
\ Strike out vero*.
CHAPTER II.
His death in exile; his body translated to Trier; miracles.
The Saint, in exile, by apostolic labors, At last blessed Paulinus, set in captivity for the name of Christ, did not delay to open by preaching the utterances of the divine word to the nations dwelling round about; and what he was not permitted to do in his own bishopric, this, devout and worthy of God, he took care to fulfill in his pilgrimage. Whence the Savior of all deigned to confer upon him the grace of great miracles, so that those whom he could not convert by words he might lead by divers miracles to the knowledge of their Creator: for, as the blessed Apostle says, Signs were given to unbelievers, not to believers.*
[12] For it was granted him by the Lord to enlighten the blind, to cleanse lepers, and by the invocation of the holy Trinity forthwith to drive out demons from bodies possessed; and, that he might deserve to become master of such gifts, he strove by most frequent bestowals of alms to be a most humble father of widows, orphans, and all the needy, always endeavoring to fulfill that precept of the wise man in which it is said: Hide alms in the bosom of the poor. Supported, therefore, by these and other props of his goodness, he is wearied even unto death, and even beyond the bounds of the Christian name, by the changing of his exiles; and at the last, having died in Phrygia, he received from the Lord the crown of a blessed passion a b.
[13] Therefore the people of Trier, learning of his death, grieved exceedingly that him whom they had not been allowed to possess while he was living, they had not the fortune at least in death to honor with the due obsequies. And so, gathering together, not only these but the peoples of the neighboring cities declared that for the relics of their most holy Pastor they would most gladly traverse such vast spaces of lands, inasmuch as they, lately laid waste and afflicted by the most savage fury of the persecution of the Greeks c, hoped that through his intercession at last Christ, the giver of all good, would make an end of so great slaughter.
[14] And so, going to Phrygia, which lies on the borders of Asia, to obtain the body of their bishop: they began to search out with all diligence where the clay of the blessed Pontiff lay buried; and when by God's will they had found it, they ceased not to implore the clemency of God himself, that their city, namely Trier, might not be defrauded of the patronage of so great a Father. The Asians, straightway perceiving their desire, endeavored to keep them from their borders; and their endeavors would have been followed by success, had not perhaps some intervened among their own who followed rather the tokens of gravity, or the devices of levity or contentiousness. The people of Trier, therefore, now betrayers of their own purpose, said that they had come for no other cause than to seek the relics of their holy Pastor.
[15] And so, when those manfully refused that this should be done, and desired to retain the body of the Pontiff, but when the Asiatics opposed them, the matter is decided by divine means, they declared that they would by no means go away to Trier unless they had been made masters of so great a pledge. For long was the contest between both peoples; but the holiness of the Saint turned that contest into a union of charity. For, counsel having been taken, placing the clay of the venerable Pontiff in their midst, they implored his clemency that to whichever party he wished to cleave, by that party he would allow himself to be carried away; but from whichever he did not wish, by that he might not be moved at all. Very many of the Asians, therefore, coming forward, strove indeed to lift the coffin, but no movement whatever was effected in it. Then the people of Trier, without delay, by the favor of their Pontiff lifting the bier with all speed, returned home rejoicing and glad d, leaving there, however, a few relics of his body, for the love of brotherhood and for the title of Christianity.
[16] and the body, brought to the people of Trier, is buried. And so there comes to meet the saving body, from the neighboring cities, together with the clergy, an innumerable people, receiving it with glory, and moreover blessing the everlasting Son of God, who would not deprive the city of Trier of the Patron long and greatly desired. There stands, then, not far from the oratory of blessed Maximinus, a most illustrious basilica dedicated in honor of the holy Mother of God, in which, laying down the body of the most holy Pontiff, they decreed that a place of sepulcher should be made there; and, building a crypt e well suited to his bones, they caused it to hang in the midst of the crypt in a sarcophagus with iron chains , which so hung until the times of the Northmen f; and when the chains were broken by them, the sarcophagus did not settle nearer to the ground.
[17] Many indeed were the notable miracles of blessed Paulinus wrought at that time, which, although they were not handed down in writing, yet, even if in the smallest part, have not escaped us, being learned by hearing; Many miracles not written down: and we believe ourselves exceedingly slothful if we neglect to pass on * to our posterity, as though esteeming it lightly, that which the kindness of the Lord toward us unworthy ones deigns to work for the praise and glory of his name, whether by himself or through his Saints: wherein our predecessors are to be blamed, who did not take care to hand down to writing or to memory the miracles of the blessed Father which they had seen, but rather suffered them to fall away through negligence and forgetfulness. But these things being passed over, let us return to the sure path of our purpose.
[18] The flame cast upon the Saint's sacred building For the aforesaid nation of the Northmen, sent forth by God's permission, the sins of the Christians requiring it, raged with such slaughter through the dwellings of the Saints that there was utterly no place where woe and wailing were not heard. Rejoicing therefore in the destruction of many cities, and about to do the same, they attacked this city no less: and while they were burning up the habitations of the Saints round about it, it happened that they also came to the oratory where the consecrated body had been laid, into whose roof, when the flame had flown, it is reported to have been so extinguished as if it had never felt the force of fire.
[19] is wondrously extinguished; a certain man is delivered from death: And again it was cast upon other roofs, and was itself extinguished in like manner; and repeating the same thing again and again, and being able to accomplish nothing of what they wickedly attempted, at last, seeing that their madness availed nothing, they seized a man, and opening in that same church a sarcophagus of wondrous size, and placing him within the middle of it, they caused the weight of the lid to fall from above; and so, thinking that satisfaction had been made to their madness, they hastened to lay waste other places. Yet after their departure he was found sound and unharmed, which is not to be doubted, by the merits and help of the oft-named Pontiff. At another time also, having * hidden themselves in the same basilica at the hour of evening, they rise from their lurking-places in the silence of the dead of night, and endeavored to snatch away whatever they found there. And when they perceived that they had been detected by the keeper of the church, adding a heap to their evils, they rose up against him and destroyed him by a wretched death; whose destruction the divine vengeance presently followed.
[20] For, being struck * with blindness, and through the whole
night wandering about hither and thither, the thieves are punished: though the doors stood open, yet the means of going out was in no way afforded them. But about cockcrow, when the time of the nocturnal vigils was now at hand, and no one struck the signal for this office, the clergy dwelling round about were roused, and coming to the monastery found them, as has been said, wandering about with the doors open; and when they had been seized and at early morning handed over to the judge of the city, at the dictate of a lawful sentence their rashness obtained the punishment of the noose of the wood g.
[21] Very many miracles like these were formerly shown forth by blessed Paulinus in that same basilica; a certain man deprived of the use of his feet and limbs is healed: but (alas!) by our forefathers, as has been said, they were given over to oblivion rather than to memory: of which we shall take care to set down one which has been brought to our knowledge by report. A certain provost of that same monastery h, whom many still surviving have known, receiving in a cart a certain man who lacked the use of his feet and the motion of his other limbs, ordered the steward that he should be maintained in the court i at the public charge; and when he had lived there many years, being carried to the church on the festival of blessed John the Baptist, as the praise of the matin hymns was ending, by the merits of blessed Paulinus he returned glad and nimble to his own cottage without anyone's support: and, that the knowledge of such a miracle might be plain to all, that very cart was hung up before the doors of the church in the sight of all: and it hung there so long until it ceased to be what it was.
[22] At another time certain pilgrims, coming for the remission of their sins, a woman's theft desired eagerly to visit the dwellings of the Saints set round about; but they were somewhat hindered by ignorance of their situation. Whence a certain woman was hired by them for a fee, who was proved to be well enough fitted for leading them through the churches. And when she had led them through the dwellings of the Saints lying in the valley of the oft-named city, it happened that under her guidance they came also to the church of the aforesaid Pontiff: into which, when they had entered and had gone round the altars in prayer, they came to the window of the crypt, in which the body of the Pontiff is enclosed by the right of sepulture. And when they had learned the knowledge of this matter from that woman, they cast in three silver pieces out of the excellence of their devotion, and withdrew.
[23] is punished. But the woman, lingering a little behind, stealthily carried them off, and, hiding them * in her bosom, returned in haste: in a wondrous manner she had not yet reached the threshold of the monastery when suddenly, crying out in madness, she began to redouble and repeat "Woe!" running about through the street, while all were ignorant whence so sudden a madness had come upon her. And so her kinsfolk, stirred by this report, gathering together, scarcely obtained from her that she should disclose the guilt of her offense; which nevertheless being disclosed, when she had been brought back to St. Paulinus with those very coins which she had stolen and with other offerings, she indeed by his merits afterwards had a little rest from that madness; but throughout the whole span of her life she was in no wise free of it k.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Perhaps convertere*.
\ Manuscript of St. Maximinus of Trier: insignia*.
\ In the same place, quam*.
\ The manuscript of St. Maximinus of Trier adds, on the third of the Ides of May*.
\ sarcophagus*
\ Perhaps propalare*.
\ Perhaps fures se*.
\ In the same place, perculsis*.
\ In the same place, reconditis*.