Avitus

ON ST. AVITUS, BISHOP OF VIENNE IN GAUL.

AROUND THE YEAR 524.

Preliminary Commentary

Avitus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul (St.)

By G. H.

Section I. The family of St. Avitus, illustrious in nobility and holiness. His sacred cult. His writings commended by others.

[1] Three names belong to this Saint: Alcimus, Ecdicius, and Avitus. Of these, the two Alcimus and Avitus are generally used: the third, Ecdicius, is read in the heading of the letter which he prefixed to his five books of Poems, addressed to his brother St. Apollinaris, the threefold name of St. Avitus. in these words: "To the Lord, holy in Christ, most pious and most blessed Apollinaris, Bishop, Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, his brother." But with the first two omitted, the last alone prevailed as a proper name, according to the custom of that age received from the Romans. Thus for St. Jerome and Ennodius, to spare a multitude of examples, the last of three names became fixed. For their full nomenclature was: Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus, and Magnus Felix Ennodius.

[2] There flourished in Gaul another Avitus, who from a Senator of the Arverni was declared Roman Emperor in the year 455; the Emperor Avitus from whom some relate that St. Avitus the Bishop was descended as a grandson, and from whom he received his cognomen. Ado in his Chronicle, age 6, calls the father of St. Avitus Isichius, a man of Senatorial rank; and Avitus himself styles himself a Roman Senator in letter 31, and a Catholic Senator in letter 25. Buchet, a French writer, in part 1 of his work on the true origin of the second and third stock of the Kings of the Franks, chapter 2, was Isichius his father born from him? asserts that the sons of the Emperor Avitus were Isichius the Senator and Ecdicius the Count, so that from this uncle (if he is indeed to be distinguished from the father) St. Avitus seems to have obtained the name Ecdicius. Sirmond and Savaro in their annotations to Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, book 1, letter 2 and book 2, letter 12, relate that the sons of the Emperor Avitus were Ecdicius and Agricola: to the latter Sidonius inscribed those letters. Moreover, as Gregory of Tours attests in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 21, Papianilla, daughter of the Emperor Avitus, was joined in marriage to Sidonius. Hence he calls Ecdicius his brother-in-law in poem 20, dedicated to him, and in book 5, letter 16, he acknowledges him as his wife's brother, and congratulates him on having received the patrician dignity, conferred by the Emperor Julius Nepos, who held that rank for not quite five years from the year 475. St. Avitus mentions Sidonius in letters 38 and 45, but as one already deceased before he himself was ordained Bishop. St. Sidonius is venerated on the 10th before the Kalends of September, having been made Bishop from a man of Senatorial rank. [whether St. Sidonius is called the uncle of St. Avitus on account of his wife Papianilla?] Does Avitus call him his uncle, whom he records, together with his father Isichius, as having, after the fasces—that is, secular dignities—assumed the burden, or episcopal mitre, of the churches of the peoples? The complete words excerpted from Avitus's Poem we give shortly below. Other daughters of the Emperor Avitus are mentioned by Buchet, of whom one is said to have married Ommatius, son of Ruricius, Bishop of Limoges,

and the other Tonantius Ferreolus, Praetorian Prefect of the Gauls, whom Sidonius acknowledges as his kinsman in book 7, letter 12; and St. Apollinaris, brother of Avitus, as is read in his manuscript Life preserved by Buchet, is said to have gone to Narbonne and lodged with his kinsmen Ferreolus and Parthenius. other kinsmen. Now Ferreolus was the grandfather of the Senator Ansbertus, from whom and his wife Blitilde, daughter of Clothar, King of the Franks, the ancestors of the Kings of the Franks of the second line, named after Charlemagne, were descended. Christophorus Brower in his Notes to the poems of Fortunatus, book 3, poem 26, writes that Alcimus Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, was descended from the most illustrious family of the Anician blood. Which we have not read elsewhere.

[3] The name of his mother, together with a noble commendation of both parents, Avitus sets forth in his Poem on the Praise of Virginity, addressed to his sister Fuscina, the parents of St. Avitus: St. Isichius and Audentia, a Virgin consecrated to God, whose opening is:

Receive with embrace, O Virgin most worthy of Christ, These gifts which your brother Alcimus sends.

Then from verse 18 he sings thus of his parents:

When the mother Audentia brought forth her fourth child, And gave you to the family by a final fruitful birth, Forthwith she promised to lead a chaste life. And henceforth to keep the marriage bed pure, continent after four children. The care of loving parents resolved with equal vows. And because you would be the beginning of so holy a covenant, You were at once offered to Christ, who straightway Receives in the consecrated cradle your infant limbs.

Concerning the same parents and other kinsmen, toward the end of the Poem, from verse 648, he relates the following, addressing the same sister:

You first of all your kindred merited to be patroness. Already we follow you as standard-bearer, and the banner of Christ, With you carrying it, your parents' line gladly follows: Although the world had honored them with ancient dignity, And titles always mark them from noble birth; Yet more did it adorn them, bearing the Divine insignia, Because by their own merit they obtained holy Sees. the father then made Bishop after other ancestors. I shall not now recount for you great-grandfathers and grandfathers, Whose illustrious lives rendered them worthy of the priesthood: Behold your father, raised to the sacred Pontificate. And since both your father and your uncle, great on every side, Please you, after the fasces, in taking up the burden of the peoples; Receive as humble brothers joined to their fathers' fellowship Those whom the Church has united in like office.

[4] Concerning his sister Fuscina and other Virgins from his family who were consecrated to God, his sister and other women from the family who embraced the monastic life: Avitus sings in the person of the mother addressing her, from verse 75:

Fourth indeed by birth, but first by sacred gift, Sweet daughter of mine, whom both in heaven and in the flesh and in faith I bore twice, and from the womb consecrated to Christ while yet an infant. Hitherto this was our deed, but with the passage of time It is now fitting that it be yours: for that you will be kept a Virgin, The beginning came to you from me. You will be able to do all things, When the will is present: the footsteps burn, By which, following the trodden path, you may ascend to heaven: Nor are examples lacking at home. For behold how many Crowns our line, flourishing with Virgins, Has sent into heaven, whom Mother Severiana, raising them in holy doctrine, desires to be joined with you. Nor much older, now rejoicing, Aspida once Took up your duties with veiled and consecrated head, Adding twelve years to the holy altars: Though swift and final fate carried her hence by early death, Yet nothing is sudden for those who are always prepared to depart. Behold now the pillar that shines with a pair of Virgins, And that extraordinary ornament, whose namesake by right You, Fuscina, reflect as Fuscina: nor less eager is she Who, powerful in piety, if her name be sounded in the Greek tongue, Signifies by her adopted name her very disposition. Though their ages yield a retired eminence to these, And their lives prevail over all in a lofty citadel; Yet if with generous heart you follow these noble Mothers, They will rejoice to be surpassed, as you advance: and to you Their willing teachers will grant the highest palm, as you surpass their wishes.

So far from that source. But preeminent above the rest is Avitus's brother, St. Apollinaris, Bishop of the city of Valence, on the same bank of the Rhone as Vienne, toward the Mediterranean: whose Cathedral Church was then dedicated to St. Stephen, and afterward to St. Apollinaris. his brother St. Apollinaris, Bishop. He is venerated on October 5.

[5] These domestic examples of virtue were fostered by St. Mamertus, then Bishop of Vienne, his spiritual father at baptism: St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne. whom St. Avitus in his Homily on the Rogations gratefully calls his predecessor and his spiritual father from baptism, "Mamertus the Bishop, whom not a few years ago the father of his flesh succeeded, at the time of the priesthood as God willed." Mamertus had as predecessor in the episcopate Simplicius, whom Gregory of Tours, in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapters 13 and 14, links with Eustochius, Bishop of Tours, whom St. Perpetuus succeeded in the year 451, and who was Bishop for about thirty years, which we judge can be assigned to Saints Mamertus and Isichius together, and at precisely the same time. That Mamertus certainly flourished in the year 463 and the following is indicated by two letters of Pope St. Hilary, at what time did he hold his see? written in the consulship of Basilius and after his consulship, in the case of Mamertus, on account of his having ordained a Bishop for the people of Die outside his own borders. St. Sidonius also wrote letter 1 of book 7 to the same Mamertus when he was already Bishop, therefore not before the year 472, in which he was ordained. There is also extant a libellus of the Priest Lucidus, addressed to the same Mamertus and other Bishops, professing his faith according to the statutes of the Council of Arles, which Sirmond establishes as having been held around the year 475. The rest concerning St. Mamertus will be examined on May 11 in connection with his Life. Saussay asserts that the ordination of St. Isichius, his successor, is assigned to March 16, and establishes his death day as November 12, on which day another Isichius also is venerated as Bishop of Vienne, his father St. Isichius succeeds him, whom Saussay reports dedicated himself to Christ at the urging of St. Avitus. He subscribed the Fifth Council of Orleans, in the thirty-eighth year of King Childebert, the year of Christ 547. Joannes a Bosco in his Vienna Sancta records the epitaph of this man, composed by his sister Marcella, in which he is said to be buried next to St. Avitus.

[6] St. Avitus, his son, succeeded his father St. Isichius, and indeed, as his Acts below relate, St. Avitus, his son, succeeds around the year 490 in the time of the Emperor Zeno, who died in the year 491. The Burgundian Kings Gundobad and Godegiselus, brothers, then ruled, both of whom, as well as St. Sigismund, son of Gundobad, St. Avitus outlived, having died under Godomar, the other son, before that kingdom was brought under the power of the Franks. St. Sigismund, moreover, died, according to the Chronicle of Marius, in the consulship of Maximus, Indiction I, therefore in the year of Christ 523. No letters of St. Avitus to the succeeding King Godomar are extant, he dies after the year 523. so that he does not seem to have survived long under his rule. Ado attests that he grieved greatly over the death of St. Sigismund. His memory is celebrated on the Nones of February in most Martyrologies. The ancient manuscript Roman Martyrology, his death-day is celebrated on February 5. which is attributed to St. Jerome, certainly augmented after his time (as is evident from this very passage), together with the Reichenau, Centula, and other manuscripts, reads approximately: "At Vienne, the deposition of Avitus the Bishop." Usuard: "At Vienne, of Blessed Avitus, Bishop and Confessor, by whose faith and learning the Gauls were defended against the assault of heresy." The remaining Martyrologies generally agree. The most ancient Lyons Martyrology, found in Joannes a Bosco and Joannes Lievrae in the Antiquities of Vienne, as well as the Roman and some others, specify that the assault from which he defended the Gauls was that of the Arian heresy. Many augmented manuscripts of Usuard, and the ancient Cologne Martyrology, add that the Gauls were defended in the time of King Gundobad. All of these things are gathered by the printed edition of Bede and certain manuscripts. In the Florarium of the Saints these words are read: "At Vienne, of Blessed Avitus, Bishop and Confessor, who died in the year of salvation 520." In the German version it is added that his body rests there, renowned for many miracles. Maurolycus and Felicius call him Adiutus.

There is venerated on June 17 another Avitus, a Priest of Orleans: on which day Galesini says of this Bishop: "At Vienne in Gaul, his ordination on June 17 of St. Avitus, Bishop and Confessor, famous for the glory both of deeds piously and divinely accomplished, and of learning." Saussay celebrates his ordination on the same day, "whose passing," he says, "makes famous the day of February 6"; rather the preceding fifth, on which he honored him with a great encomium.

[7] We append below an abridgment of his Life, transmitted from a manuscript Vienne codex by Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius. his Life written. It is also extant in

the manuscript codices of the Canons Regular of Budeck in Westphalia. The author is later than Ado, from whose Chronicle and the Life of his brother St. Apollinaris he has transcribed very much. The rest of his virtues shine forth in his works, which are extant, either restored or first published through the care and diligence of Jacques Sirmond: concerning the books he published, the testimonies of St. Isidore of Seville, by whom the more illustrious testimonies of ancient writers are gathered together. And indeed Isidore of Seville, in his work on the illustrious writers of the Church, chapter 23, relates the following: "Avitus the Bishop, most learned in the knowledge of secular letters, published five little books composed in heroic verse, of which the first concerns the origin of the world, the second original sin, the third the judgment of God, the fourth the flood of the world, the fifth the crossing of the Red Sea. He also wrote to his sister Fuscina one book on the praise of virginity, composed in most beautiful verse, and fitted with elegant epigram." Of the former work St. Fortunatus also, himself a Poet, makes mention in book 1 of the Life of St. Martin, in this verse: of St. Fortunatus,

"What the Genealogist of old set forth in sacred order, Bishop Alcimus arranged in distinguished verse."

There are extant, of St. Gregory of Tours, as Gregory of Tours testifies in book 2, chapter 34, "admirable letters, which, as they then vanquished heresy, so now they edify the Church of God. He also wrote one book of Homilies, and six books composed in verse concerning the beginning of the world and various other topics, and nine books of letters, among which the above-mentioned letters are contained."

[8] The same St. Avitus is praised by the remaining illustrators of libraries for his illustrious published works. of Honorius of Autun, Honorius of Autun in chapter 27 calls him "a Bishop learned in the knowledge of the sacred letters," in which way perhaps Isidore above should be read, not as "most learned in the knowledge of secular letters": since St. Avitus nowhere uses the authority of profane authors, nor indeed has any fable interspersed in his poems: though he is meanwhile an illustrious Orator and Poet, of Sixtus of Siena, on account of which learning he is said by Sixtus of Siena in book 4 of the Bibliotheca Sancta to have been "most copiously instructed in secular disciplines, and conspicuous both for the holiness of his life and for his knowledge of the sacred volumes." of Bellarmine, Bellarmine calls him "a most noble, most holy, and most learned man": and reports that his six previously mentioned books of poems are "truly most weighty and most graceful," which alone, he adds, he had selected. of Possevinus, Possevinus in the Apparatus Sacer states that he excelled remarkably in the faculty of both writing and extemporaneous speaking and declaiming. Very many of his works were carried off by Arians and other heretics against whom he had written: he himself often experienced their madness and fury, and was assailed by their plots even to the point of death and exile. Sigebert also treats of his writings in his work on illustrious writers, chapter 22, and of others. Bernard Molther in his preface to the poems of St. Avitus illuminated with Commentaries: and Joannes Adelphus Muling, who first brought them to light in the year 1507.

* Euphrosyne.

* Alternatively: of sacred letters.

Section II. Captives redeemed by St. Avitus. His letter to Clovis, King of the Franks.

[9] With what solicitude Avitus both assumed the Episcopal dignity and strove to fulfill the duty imposed upon him, we gather from the pious and holy instruction inserted in the letters, the celebrated reputation of the virtue and learning of St. Avitus. homilies, and poems of the same. For in these he sometimes inculcates with what care and solicitude one must walk amid the perils of this world, and how the easy relapse into sin must be avoided: at other times he urges his people to progress in virtue, setting before them the reward of eternal salvation: at other times he teaches how much one ought to trust in Christ in the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and elsewhere he directs them to the guardianship and aid of the Angels. The distinguished doctrine and extraordinary holiness of so great a man could not long remain hidden, but soon his fame, carried far and wide throughout the Christian world, attracted into familiar acquaintance Supreme Pontiffs, Patriarchs of the East, the chief Bishops of Italy and Gaul, and also Emperors, Kings, and other men of Consular, Patrician, and Senatorial rank.

[10] Theoderic had established the Gothic kingdom in Italy, having previously been invited by the Emperor Zeno: while he was besieging Ravenna, to which Odoacer had fled after various conflicts, for three years, the Burgundians harassed Italy with frequent incursions, and, having carried off the inhabitants into captivity, devastated nearly all of Liguria. Theoderic, afterward victorious, sent St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, to Gaul in the year 494, to the Kings of the Burgundians, Gundobad and Godegiselus, he assists St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, in redeeming captives: of whom the former resided at Lyon, the latter at Geneva. About six thousand captives were freely given to St. Epiphanius by Gundobad; very many others were redeemed with money. Ennodius, afterward Bishop of Pavia and the writer of his Life, was present with St. Epiphanius, and from that Life we transfer the following here: we have presented the complete text on January 21. "After," he says, "that accumulated heap of money was brought and poured out, immediately that which is there the treasure of the Church, Syagria, supplied the necessary funds for the expense of the redemption... The most excellent Avitus too, Bishop of Vienne, among the Gauls gave, in whom learning had enclosed itself as in the lodging of a luminous house. What more need be said? By their gold for the most part it was accomplished that the youth of Liguria should no longer be led away to serve the Gauls."

[11] In this recovery of liberty for the captives, St. Avitus acknowledges the faithful assistance rendered by St. Eustorgius, Bishop of Milan, in letter 8 addressed to him. he commends this charity to other Bishops: To St. Magnus, successor in his episcopate, he commends the redemption of another captive in letter 10 sent to him. Eustorgius, the second of that name, is venerated on June 6, and Magnus on November 5. Between these two letters is placed the ninth, addressed to St. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, to whom he commends a similar charitable act, namely that he should receive as a pilgrim a certain Bishop named Maximian, who was suffering from weakness of bodily sight. In the same year in which we said gold was contributed by St. Avitus and captives redeemed, Clovis, King of the Franks, still a pagan, having invoked the God of his wife St. Clotilde, won a victory over the Alamanni, he congratulates King Clovis of the Franks on his baptism, and then embracing the Christian faith, was baptized on the feast of the Nativity of Christ. The King Clovis had announced to St. Avitus by a messenger that this solemnity would take place on that day; and since Avitus, living under another King who was moreover infected with the Arian heresy, could not personally meet King Clovis, he sent him a letter filled with divine zeal and other virtues, and most worthy of being quoted here. It is found at number 41 with this inscription: a letter sent:

[12] Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, to King Clovis.

"The followers of whatever schisms have seemed to veil the acuteness of your subtlety whom the enemies of Christ clamor against in vain, with their opinions various in sentiment, diverse in number, empty of truth, under the shadow of the Christian name. But while we commit our states to eternity, while we reserve for the future judgment what each one thinks rightly, even in the present the ray of the shining truth has blazed forth. For Divine Providence has found for our time a kind of arbiter: when you choose for yourselves, you judge for all; your faith is our victory. Many are accustomed, in this same cause, if they are urged for the sake of obtaining the health of believing, whether by the exhortation of Bishops or the suggestion of any companions, to set against it the custom of their race and the rite of ancestral observance. Thus preferring a modesty harmful to their salvation, having set aside his ancestors, while they maintain a useless reverence toward their parents in the keeping of unbelief, they in a manner confess that they do not know what to choose. Let therefore, after the miracle of such a deed, this harmful shame depart from that excuse. From the entire stock of your ancient origin, content with nobility alone, whatever the height of noble birth can adorn, having embraced the faith of Christ, you have willed to rise from your lineage by your own act. You have authors of good things; you have willed to be the author of better ones: you equal your ancestors in that you reign in this world; you instruct your posterity in that you reign in heaven.

[13] comparing him with the Christian Emperors of the East Let Greece therefore indeed rejoice that it has a Prince of our faith; but it no longer alone deserves to be illumined by the gift of so great a boon, since the rest of the world does not lack its own splendor. For in the western regions also, in a King not new, the light of a new radiance shines forth: whose splendor the nativity of our Redeemer fittingly inaugurated; he compares the baptism, received on the feast of the Nativity, so that, as a consequence, on the same day the water might bring you forth to salvation by regeneration, on which the world received the Lord of heaven born for its redemption. Therefore let the day that is celebrated as

the birthday of the Lord be yours also: on which you were born to Christ, as Christ was born to the world: on which you consecrated your soul to God, your life to those present, and your fame to posterity. What now shall be said of that most glorious solemnity of your regeneration? Although I was not present in body at its ceremonies, I was not absent in the communion of joys. Since indeed Divine goodness added this also to our regions as a cause for congratulation, that before your baptism a messenger of your most exalted humility should reach us. Whence, after this expectation, the sacred night found us now at ease concerning you. the royal pomp: For we were conferring and discussing among ourselves what it must have been like when the assembled number of Bishops, with holy ambition of service, bathed the royal limbs in the life-giving waters: when the head feared by nations bowed before the servants of God: when beneath the helmet the locks nurtured long were clad in the saving helm of sacred unction: when, with the covering of breastplates laid aside, the spotless limbs shone with a like whiteness.

[14] If you believe us at all, most flourishing of Kings, he promises him greater victories: that very softness of garments will henceforth cause the rigor of arms to avail you more: and whatever good fortune has afforded until now, holiness will henceforth add. I should indeed wish to attach some exhortation to the praises due you, if anything could escape either your knowledge or your observance. Shall we perfectly preach the faith which before any perfection you saw without a preacher? Or perhaps humility, which you have long been paying us by your devotion, and now first owe by your profession? Or mercy, which the captive people recently liberated by you proclaims to the world with joys, and to God with tears? he asks that the faith be spread among the pagans: One thing, therefore, we should wish to see increased: that since God will make your nation wholly His own through you, you should also extend to the remoter nations, which, still established in their natural ignorance, have been corrupted by no seeds of depraved doctrines, the seeds of faith from the good treasure of your heart: and let it not shame or weary you, even by sending embassies for this purpose, to build up the cause of God, who has so greatly advanced your own. So that the foreign peoples of the pagans, who will first serve you for the sake of religion's dominion, while they still seem to have their own sovereignty over others, may distinguish the nation rather than the Prince. Let no country, therefore, claim as if by a special seat, all those whom you raise through every rank of men. It is established that you are he by whom all things are enjoyed in common under the one light of a single sun. Those nearer indeed rejoice more in the light, but those more remote are not deprived of its radiance. Wherefore shine with a perpetual diadem upon those present, with majesty upon those absent. The successes of your happy triumphs, which that region bears through you, are celebrated by all. Your felicity touches us too. Whenever you fight there, we conquer."

[15] "Amid all these things, however, the affection of the Catholic religion is preserved in you by the care of compassion: he sends him a desired captive, and in the one who holds the helm at the summit of all affairs, holiness shines no less than power. From which it has come about that you ordered by a royal command that the son of your servant, the illustrious Laurentius, should be sent to you. I report that I obtained this from my Lord, obtained from his own King, the King of his own nation, but your soldier. For there is nothing in which he cannot serve; he commends the one sent. I rejoice with the one sent, I envy him who is about to see you: for it is less to be reckoned to his advantage that he is restored to his own parent, than that he is presented to the father of all." So far St. Avitus to King Clovis. He who is here called the son of Laurentius, held captive by King Gundobad, obtained illustrious intercessors for his liberation: King Clovis, as the letter quoted attests; Vitalian the Senator, grandson of Aspar and son of Patricius (through whose aid Leo, having obtained the Empire, had succeeded Marcian), with Vitalian and Celer interceding, a champion of the orthodox faith and of the Council of Chalcedon, and therefore afterward acclaimed Emperor in place of Anastasius, who was raving against the Trisagion; and also Celer the Senator, Master of Offices, by whose valor Kavadh the Persian, previously insolent in victory, was broken and made peace with Anastasius, restoring at a price the cities previously taken. There are extant letters of St. Avitus, numbers 42 and 43, concerning the son of Laurentius, written to these two in the name of Sigismund, son of Gundobad: to which Avitus alludes in letter 44, sent to the Lord Sigismund, in which he congratulates him that the son of Laurentius has been restored to his father.

[16] [and Sigismund, the King's son. The state of the Faith then throughout the Roman Empire.] Avitus prudently writes that Greece rejoices on account of its Christian Princes. For in Greece so many Emperors who embraced the orthodox faith had reigned in succession: Theodosius the Great, Arcadius, Theodosius the Younger, Marcian, Leo, Zeno—upon whose name, however, a foul stain was afterward branded on account of the Henoticon he introduced—and then Anastasius had begun with great glory, having attested his profession of the Chalcedonian faith by his own written instrument, which the Patriarch Euphemius had received and deposited in the archives of the Church. On the contrary, Avitus does not touch even with a word upon the Western Empire, which was then utterly destroyed; while in Italy Theoderic, in Gaul Alaric and Gundobad, Arian Kings, ruled, and in Africa the Vandals, and in Germany and Britain the Pagans prevailed, whom he hoped would be brought to the Christian religion through Clovis.

Section III. The familiar encounters of Avitus with King Gundobad. The labors expended in bringing him to the orthodox faith. Heresies combated.

[17] While Avitus rejoiced that this change of religion had taken place among the Franks, with King Gundobad he lamented that the people subject to him and another neighboring people were oppressed under Gundobad and Godegiselus. For, as Gregory of Tours testifies in book 2, chapter 32, both they and their peoples were subject to the Arian sect. Then, as we read in Agobard, Bishop of Lyon, in his book against the law of Gundobad: "Avitus, Catholic in faith, most eloquent in speech, most keen in intellect, a most delightful expositor of the sacred Scriptures, and most learned also in secular letters, and most facile in verse, he sets forth to Sigismund the son the dialogues on faith that were held, often debating about the faith with the same Gundobad, and both composing dialogues in his presence, and writing letters in his absence, left behind many brilliant works of his genius and virtue." One of those dialogues, or conferences, Avitus sets forth in letter 21, addressed to Sigismund, son of Gundobad.

[18] "That you blame me," he says, "for not having brought to your knowledge the account of the royal conference, I had reserved for my visit after the conclusion of the festival: because in truth the prolixity and complexity of the disputation does not permit everything to be reported to you in order by means of a written communication. For, so far as I think I perceived in the mind of my Lord, your father, he notes his feigned composure, the contest burns beneath a feigned countenance of leisure. For, as we had supposed, he did not cease when his spirit was laid aside—his restraint seeking a sudden opportunity rather than repose—nor did the brevity of the past truce conceal it, but it was so hidden that the very weapons of contention, which had as it were failed in our territory, are sought from abroad, or the fervor of his meditation awaits the return of his envoys. To me therefore, returning from the journey you know of, and meanwhile expecting nothing of propositions of this kind, whatever astute industry could have plowed over a long period through the most intricate knots of false questions false questions, was stirred up. A vigorous discussion boils with a protracted disputation, yet calm, interposing nothing of the turbulent agitation of the haughtiness of dominion; but he took care prudently, having foreseen the opportune moment of necessity and of the matter, that whatever might be the outcome of the contest, he would suffer neither the victor to swell with pride nor the vanquished to blush with shame. In short, I tell you freely without boasting: a hardened mind, to the propositions, as far as it seems to me, a response was offered which, if you had heard it, might have pleased. But in truth I fear that it satisfied more by the judgment of the hearer than it pleased by earnest endeavor. But when I shall have merited your presence, God granting, I will set forth through my own mouth the sequence of the entire debate. Meanwhile, gather the course of the discourse from its conclusion, and from the fact that he demands of the vanquished man that the responses be written out, as I departed he gave instructions, judge whether he was moved to request answers. For he ordered that whatever testimony from our Scriptures I had brought forward to the questions asked, or if perhaps anything else had occurred to me, arranged and noted down point by point, which I had fitted together at the time of the conference, I should transmit to him. to be given to the heretical Priests, When he declared that this was for the most part unknown to him, he added simply that he wished me to send what I had written to his Priests: or rather his seducers, and, to speak even more truly, his followers. From which your piety may conjecture that, although addressed to an attentive adversary, yet to a wise arbiter, the arguments did not seem weak or without force, since he desires the resolve of his own people, even if he does not wish it to be corrected, at least to be wearied."

[19] "I, however, although knowing how often, by Divine command too, lest the hostile mind of the King cause harm, truth is not yielded to powers and even to Kings, wavered long in doubt as to whether I should obey: knowing certainly, fearing the man's mind, that I would never satisfy him by these means: and that he was no less to be guarded against than an enemy, while the opposing battle line surrounds private hatreds with a public siege. But by whatever height of eminence you, God granting, possess, by zeal for religion, by the privilege of your authority, repel the discord brought to the walls, and disperse the more-than-civil wars raging in the camps, as if through the fields of Emathia. he seeks the patronage of the son. Because, since we have long been wearied by a double burden, both by the complaint of those who cry out and by the hardness of those who do not hear, it is fair, if you deign, that your severity too should either provide counsel for those to be chastised there, or feel compassion for those who blush here."

[20] Meanwhile, as Gregory of Tours teaches in book 2, chapter 34, "Blessed Avitus the Bishop, of great eloquence, at the request of King Gundobad, he writes at the King's request in defense of the Divinity of Christ, wrote against the heresy that our Lord Jesus Christ had nothing of Divinity." This is essentially contained in letter 28 to King Gundobad, where, responding to his question, he has among other things: "You command that I demonstrate to you the reason, or rather the authority, by which it may be made clear that God had a substance in His Divinity before He assumed a nature from the Incarnation, and that thereby that most pernicious heresy may be vanquished, which, contending that our Lord began from Mary, blasphemes even God the Father in the execration of the Son," etc. The same Avitus, at the demand of King Gundobad, in letters 2 and 3 refutes the heresies of the Eutychians, Nestorians, Photinians, and Bonosians. Bonosus, Bishop of Naissus in Dacia, a follower of the Photinian poison, against various heretics, taught that Christ was the Son of God only by adoption. The heresies of the others are well known and have been frequently explained by us. But he contended with the greatest toil against the Arian heresy, writing entire books, some fragments of which were published by Sirmond, formerly excerpted by Florus, Deacon of the Church of Lyon.

[21] How much Avitus accomplished by these disputations with King Gundobad, he demands of the converted King a public confession of faith, Gregory of Tours thus relates in book 2, chapter 34: "When Gundobad had recognized that the assertions of the heretics were nothing, by the teaching of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, he confessed that Christ the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are equal to the Father, and secretly requested to be anointed with chrism. To him the Bishop said: 'If you truly believe what the Lord Himself has taught us, carry it out. For He said: If anyone shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32 Thus also did He instruct His saints and beloved Apostles when He was teaching them about the temptations of future persecution, saying: Beware of men: for they will deliver you up in councils and scourge you in their synagogues, and you shall be brought before Kings and Governors for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations. and verse 17 But you, who are a King and fear being apprehended by no one, dread the sedition of the people, lest you confess the Creator of all publicly. Leave this folly, and what you say you believe in your heart, proclaim with your mouth among the people. For thus also the blessed Apostle says: With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10 And the Prophet says: I will confess to you, O Lord, in the great Church, in a mighty people I will praise you. Psalm 34:18, 58:10 And again: I will confess to you among the peoples, O Lord, I will sing a psalm to your name among the nations. But fearing the people, O King, do you not know that it is better that the people should follow your faith, than that you should favor the weakness of the people? For you are the head of the people, the people are not your head. If indeed you set out to war, you go before the hosts of the enemy, and they follow wherever you go. Whence it is better that, with you leading the way, they should recognize the truth, than that, with you perishing, they should remain in error. For God is not mocked. He does not love the one but he does not succeed: who, for the sake of an earthly kingdom, does not confess Him in this world.' Confounded by this reasoning, he persisted in this insanity to the end of his life, and refused to make a public confession of the equality of the Trinity."

[22] Avitus inculcated the same things thereafter in his letters to the King, and thus concludes his first letter: "But since the things that can be submitted in the presence of your glory are incomparably more numerous, in the closing of this discourse, he dissuades him from the company of the Arian Priests, to which you not only grant but enjoin freedom, trusting in Divine and your own promise, I beseech you and God: that those who contradict the Holy Spirit should no longer be called your Priests: that those who refuse to learn should no longer be permitted to teach in your presence: that those who refuse to hold impeding the profession of faith. what you believe should not persist in blaspheming what you hear, so as to delay your perfection any further: that by tolerating the wiles of the ignorant and the follies of the cunning, you should not be suspended from your profession, since you are already held fast in your confession. The holy Apostle Paul cries out to you through his letter: What peace has the faithful with the unfaithful? 2 Corinthians 6:12 What fellowship has light with darkness?" etc. Meanwhile he won the King over as a supporter of the Catholic faith, as he writes to him in letter 39: "Whatever my little Church has, indeed whatever all our Churches have, is yours, both in substance which you have either preserved until now or bestowed."

* perhaps "the Word"

Section IV. The conversion of St. Sigismund the King. Synods held. Bishops instructed.

[23] "Avitus the Bishop," as Agobard testifies in his book on Jewish superstitions, "how outstanding a Doctor, orthodox and eloquent he was, nearly the whole Church of Christ knows." And, as the same writer relates in his book against the law of Gundobad: he converts King Sigismund, "when Gundobad himself was lost in his perfidy, he converted his successor, King Sigismund, to the Catholic faith: at whose conversion he delivered a Homily before the people, most full of sweetness of thought and most pleasing in the composition of words." That Sigismund had embraced the Catholic faith while his father Gundobad was still long surviving, we gather from letter 21 quoted above: to which we here add letter 29, in which is indicated the zeal of both in extirpating heresy and bringing their subjects to the true religion. Thus Avitus writes to the Lord Sigismund: "At every period of my life I acknowledge myself a debtor of devoted service: but more especially on the present festival, he urges him to promote religion. which occupies your solicitude no less in investigating the efforts of the heretics than in celebrating the services of our party. For throughout the year you must labor with painstaking attention to see that, while some contagion of adversaries gathers, it should not sprout by the fraud of another's cunning, what in the name of God your victory has already cut down with celebrated valor, however much, with Christ propitious, your presence may stand in opposition. Hence the more urgent crowding at Geneva, pressed by that solicitude, which, after the manner of the first origin, sounded the serpent's poison into manly spirits with the hissing of womanly speech. Whence, if I deserve it, I am most eager to know as soon as possible whether, when mention of that ordinance fell with my Lord, the father of your clemency, which introduced the plague of the wicked, stirred up from infernal hiding places, while Catholics and Arians contended: or if the deceit of that credulity, or rather simulation, is still preserved, which, not impressed upon minds but set down upon paper, a literate promise gradually recalls into the ancient belief of its own dogma. Which if it is indeed still, as it had begun, mixed with the Arian fellowship in communion, then more glorious is our triumph under your Principate,

since, with two heresies reduced into one, he praises him for reducing the number of heretics. both winning them over and confounding them, the number of both the schismatics and the schisms diminishes. Therefore look graciously upon this service of my curiosity, and from the feasts of your particular Patron the Apostle, double the gifts of prosperity and of your address for our expectation." So far from that source. The Patron of the Church of Geneva is St. Peter, on whose feast heretics also came indiscriminately to Geneva, where Sigismund had fixed his seat after dividing the kingdom with his father.

[24] Sigismund had, as Gregory of Tours relates in book 3, chapter 5, by a former wife, the daughter of Theoderic, King of Italy, a son named Sigiricus and a daughter married to Theuderic, King of the Franks. He converts Sigiricus, his son, with his sister: The title 8 among the lost Homilies of Avitus treats of these: "Homily delivered on the conversion of the Lord Sigiricus, on the day after his sister was received from the Arian heresy, with this opening: 'How often has the Divinity, what belongs to His beloved, our Prince,'" etc. This is the same Sigiricus whom Sigismund, moved by the intrigues of his stepmother, ordered to be killed in the year of Christ 522, in the consulship of Symmachus and Boethius. There had long stood the monastery of Agaunum, of which we shall treat on February 11 in connection with the Life of St. Severinus the Abbot. This, at the persuasion of St. Avitus, was so greatly embellished by King Sigismund with new buildings and the introduction of outstanding monks he persuades him to renew the monastery of Agaunum: that writers everywhere report it as having been founded by him. Among the Titles of the Homilies there exists the seventh, delivered by St. Avitus in the basilica of the Saints of Agaunum at the renewal of the monastery itself, or on the passion of the Martyrs, whose feast day is September 22. Hither the King, repentant of his crime, according to Gregory of Tours, book 3 of the History of the Franks, chapter 5, "went and, persevering for many days in weeping and fasting, under his name he writes to the Roman Pontiff, established perpetual psalmody there," in all things following the direction of St. Avitus: who under his name wrote several letters, one to Pope Symmachus, in which he acknowledges him as the Bishop of the universal Church, and asks that sacred relics be granted to him. It is found at number 27. Symmachus died in the year 514, in the consulship of Senator: at which time we have said that King Sigismund dwelt at Geneva. Three other letters he wrote under his name to the Emperor Anastasius, which are found at numbers 69, 85 and 86. and to the Emperor; In the first, Sigismund gives thanks for the titles of honor conferred upon him: in the second he commends to the Emperor the growth of the orthodox religion; in the third he sets forth the death of King Gundobad, whom the Emperor Anastasius outlived by two years, dying in 518.

[25] The Bishops who then dwelt in the kingdom of the Burgundians sought the answers of St. Avitus on ecclesiastical matters. Thus to Bishop Victorius of Grenoble, who consulted him on whether churches should be taken from the heretics, he instructs the Bishops of Gaul, he replied in letter 6 that this was not yet expedient, lest the heretics, being mingled, and the Kings both future there and reigning elsewhere, should be offended. In letter 61 he admonishes Bishop Constantius, whether of Gap or of Martigny, not to permit a cleric to be brought before secular judges, and not to deny Communion to anyone for a light offense. Another Bishop, whose name he spares, he rebukes in letter 26 for having disclosed secrets to the heretics, and teaches that a Bishop converted from heresy may be promoted to the priesthood. In letter 24 he warns St. Stephen, Bishop of Lyon, that the poison of the Donatist schism must be vigorously repelled. He is venerated on February 13. As his successor, St. Avitus gave to the people of Lyon Veranus, formerly a venerable Abbot of monks, as the Acts below attest. He is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on November 11, he gives the people of Lyon the Bishops Saints Veranus and Viventiolus: a different person from St. Veranus, Bishop of Vence, son of St. Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon, listed on September 10 in the Martyrology of Saussay. When Veranus died, St. Avitus designated as Bishop St. Viventiolus, chosen from the flock of God's Presbyters, to whom, while dwelling in the Jura wilderness, he prays in letter 17 for the episcopal chair in exchange for the transmitted stool.He afterward wrote frequently to that Bishop, and mostly about mutual invitations to feasts, to be celebrated more solemnly in each other's presence.

[26] The diligence of St. Avitus also shone in the convocation of Episcopal Synods. He makes mention of one held at Lyon in letter 28 to King Gundobad: he attends a Synod at Lyon under Gundobad: "Returning," he says, "from the city of Lyon, the holy Bishop Chartenius, who had remained there while we were departing from the Council, to transact certain private affairs." Sirmond observes in his Notes that this Council is different from the first of Lyon published among the Councils of Gaul. The same cause appears to have been discussed in both Councils, since in canon 1 they are said to have been gathered together a second time, in the case of Stephanus, polluted by the crime of incest, who had taken two sisters as his wives: which the Acts indicate at greater length. Nor was Avitus present at the second Council held under Sigismund, nor the Chartenius mentioned here, whose episcopal see is still unknown. In a similar case of incest, St. Avitus prescribes to Bishop Victorius of Grenoble in letters 15 and 16 the excommunication of the offenders, their separation, public penance, and then the grace of reconciliation.

[27] More celebrated is the Council of Epaon, to which St. Avitus summoned all the Bishops of the kingdom of the Burgundians, of Epaon having sent an encyclical letter, which is found among his letters at number 70 and in the Notes of Sirmond to that Council: in it the month of September is assigned for holding this Council in the year 517, in the consulship of Agapitus, vir clarissimus, as will shortly appear. Concerning the place there is greater difficulty. in the year 517. Miraeus in the Chronicon Belgicum and elsewhere, citing Bucherius, not at Agaunum, conjectures that it was held in the monastery of Agaunum. But St. Avitus prescribes the parish of Epaon, not a monastery: and moreover a place convenient for this assembly, considering the fatigue of all parties; whereas Agaunum lies beyond Lake Geneva in a less convenient corner toward Sion. Sirmond in his Notes to Avitus judges that whoever finds the sepulchre of St. Firmatus will perhaps not go astray from the place of the Council. He has read in the Life that he departed from Tours and came to a place whose name is Eona upon the Rhone, and there settled: but in a place on the Rhone, now called Yenne, and he suggests that Eona was deflected from Epona. Joannes Columbi, writing on the Bishops of Valence and Die, and after him Philippe Labbe in table 4 of the Geographia Regia, assign Yenne, now a small village in Savoy on the Rhone, where immense ruins of buildings, found in nearly the whole territory, show that a city of no inconsiderable size once stood there, and stones inscribed to the goddess Epona are dug up, a sufficiently certain sign that she either gave her name to the place where she was worshipped, or drew her own surname from the place. Now from Epona or Epaona to Epiena the deflection is easy, whence later writers may have derived Yena or Yenne. This place, with respect to all the Bishops assembling from the entire kingdom, appears sufficiently convenient, being situated in the very center, indeed on the borders of the provinces of Vienne and Lyon, whose Metropolitans, Saints Avitus and Viventiolus, presided over this Synod, according to their subscriptions: he presides together with St. Viventiolus; "Avitus, Bishop, reread and subscribed our constitutions, that is, those of the Bishops of the Province of Vienne, on the 17th before the Kalends of the eighth month, in the consulship of Agapitus, vir clarissimus, at Epaon. Viventiolus, Bishop of the Church of Lyon, together with my provincials, reread and subscribed our constitutions on the same day and in the consulship written above."

[28] From the subscriptions of the others we gather that the Bishops of Besancon, Embrun, and Tarentaise, although their cities are metropolises according to the Notice of the Provinces and Cities of Gaul, Bishops of the Burgundian kingdom attend, some this Council, attended this Synod without any preeminence over the other Bishops. And indeed Viventiolus seems to have called his "provincials" those Bishops who were with him from the first Province of Lyon and from the Province of Maxima Sequanorum: namely the Bishops of Besancon and Windisch on the one hand, and of Langres, Autun, and Chalon on the other: add that of Nevers, whose See was afterward subjected to the province of Sens. The rest St. Avitus seems to have called the Bishops of the Province of Vienne, namely the Bishops of Valence, Viviers, Grenoble, some subject to St. Avitus. and Geneva, from the first or Consular Province of Vienne; of Die, Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux, Cavaillon, Vaison, Carpentras, Orange, and Avignon (at least represented by a Priest sent in his stead), from the second Province of Vienne; of Sisteron, Apt, and Gap from the second Province of Narbonne; of Tarentaise and Martigny from the Province of the Graian or Pennine Alps; and of Embrun from the Maritime Alps. From this the magnitude of the kingdom of the Burgundians may be recognized, to be more fully explained in connection with the Life of St. Sigismund the King: the Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Alamanni surrounded them. But the excellent constitutions concerning the discipline of morals and ecclesiastical regulations established at the said Council of Epaon by St. Avitus and the other Bishops, mindful of our purpose, we do not touch upon here.

Section V. Defense of the Apostolic See. Letters to the Roman Pontiffs and to the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem.

[29] Upon the death of Pope St. Anastasius on the 16th before the Kalends of December in the year 498, St. Symmachus was elected by lawful votes, and a certain Laurentius was set up against him as antipope by certain factious men corrupted by money; St. Avitus in defense of Pope St. Symmachus, whence slaughters and riots broke out in the City: until at last in a Synod held at Rome in the year 501, with the authority of King Theoderic also being interposed, Laurentius was condemned: and in the following year 502, in another Synod called the Palmarian, the decree of Odoacer was abrogated, by which he had forbidden the election of the Roman Pontiff to be valid without the consent of the King. In that Synod, Pope Symmachus, assailed by the calumnies of his adversaries, voluntarily, as though yielding his own right, subjected himself to the Synod and the judgment of his fellow Bishops, so that his integrity might become known to all. Those Bishops who dwelt throughout all of Gaul under various Kings judged that the Bishops of Italy had wrongly assumed this power of judgment over themselves; and considering St. Avitus most fit, they chose him to rebuke, in their common name, the Bishops of Italy who had gathered for that Synod, for having dared, as inferiors, to judge the cause of the Roman Pontiff. Avitus did this in letter 31, he sends this letter to Rome, inscribed to Faustus and Symmachus, Senators of the City, which we append here, as an illustrious testimony of the supreme authority of St. Avitus throughout Gaul and Italy. He writes thus:

[30] "First, such a state of affairs would have been desirable, that we ourselves should seek the City venerable to the world, for the purpose of discharging divine and human duties. But since the conditions of the times have long since made this impossible, we should wish, it must be confessed, at least to reach such a degree of security that your eminence might learn through a report of the assembled Bishops of Gaul what ought to be petitioned in the common cause. But since the province, bounded by the fixed limits of kingdoms, does not make us capable even of this wish, in the name of the Bishops of Gaul, I beg as soon as possible with suppliant prayer that this letter should not cause any distaste to your most illustrious order, as if sent by one person alone. Since by all my Gallic brethren I have been charged for this very purpose, no less by their mandates than by their letters, and I alone have undertaken to propose whatever we all desire from you. While we were too anxious and trembling about the cause of the Roman Church—feeling as it were that our own standing was tottering when the head was attacked, since one charge had struck us all, surely without the envy of the multitude, if it should have overwhelmed the position of the chief— he warns that the Pope cannot be judged by inferiors, there was conveyed to our concern from Italy, in copies, a decree of priestly form which the Bishops of Italy, assembled at the City, had issued concerning Pope Symmachus. Although the consent of so numerous and venerable a Council renders this resolution worthy of respect, we understand nevertheless that the holy Pope Symmachus, if he was first accused before the world, ought to have received the solace rather than the judgment of his fellow Bishops: because, just as the Arbiter of heaven commands us to be subject to earthly Powers, foretelling that we shall stand before Kings and Princes under whatever accusation; so it is not easily understood by what reason or law a superior should be judged by inferiors. Matthew 10:17 For when the Apostle cries out with his celebrated precept that an accusation against even a Presbyter ought not to be received, what is to be judged as lawful against the Principate of the universal Church in the matter of criminal charges? 1 Timothy 5:19 This the venerable Synod itself, with a laudable resolution, foreseeing, the matter must be reserved to the judgment of God, reserved for the Divine examination the cause which, with all due respect to it, it had almost rashly undertaken to investigate: noting, however, as briefly as it could, that nothing of the things that were alleged against the Pope had appeared either to itself or to the most glorious King Theoderic.

[31] "Having learned these things, as a Roman Senator myself, as a Christian Bishop, I entreat: so may the wished-for prosperity succeed your times by the gift of the Divinity which you worship, so may the dignity in which you flourish preserve for the whole world the appearance of the Roman name even as the world declines; that in your sight the state of the Church should not be less than that of the Republic: and what God has bestowed upon you a guardian of the faith of St. Peter, may benefit us as well: and may you love no less in your Church the See of Peter than in your city the summit of the world. If you view the matter with the profound deliberation of your counsels, it is not only the cause that is being tried at Rome that must be considered. In other Bishops, if anything perchance has wavered, it can be reformed: but if the Pope of the City is called into doubt, it will seem to be the Episcopate, not the Bishop, that wavers. You know well amidst what tempests of heresies we steer the bark of faith, as it were with winds blowing from all sides. the Church as a ship. If you share our dread of such perils, it is expedient that you protect your helmsman by sharing in his labor. But what reason is there otherwise, the shepherd of the Lord's flock. if, when the sailors rage against the captain, the danger is yielded without peril to themselves? He who presides over the Lord's fold will render account by what administration he has managed the care of the lambs committed to him. But it is not the part of the flock to terrify its own shepherd, but of the judge. Wherefore restore to us the original harmony, if indeed it has not yet been restored: because we have imposed upon your client, the venerable Presbyter Symmachus, the labor of this endeavor, that he might bring back to us in the oracle of your letters, through the announcement of restored peace, the effect of our supplication."

[32] So far St. Avitus, in the name of the Bishops of Gaul, on behalf of Pope St. Symmachus, to Faustus and Symmachus, Senators of the City. Anastasius the Librarian, in his Lives of the Pontiffs, reports that at that time only Faustus the Ex-Consul fought for the Church. the letter sent to the Ex-Consuls, Faustus Ennodius treats very frequently of Faustus, commemorating his quaestorship, prefecture, patriciate, and consulship in various places. Faustus held the consulship without a colleague in the year 483. Again, Longinus and Faustus were Consuls in the year 490. He who in the year 501 was Consul together with Pompeius, Avienus, is considered by Baronius, number I, to be the same, surnamed Faustus, as the preceding, whose son, also called Avienus, held the consulship the following year. The other to whom St. Avitus sent his letter is Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, also a Patrician, who was Consul without a colleague in the year 485. and Symmachus. There are extant in Cassiodorus several letters of King Theoderic to this Symmachus, by whom, according to book 4, number 22, he was chosen among others as a judge against sorcerers. His daughter Rusticiana was married to Boethius, the greatest man of that age, so that through these two heroes Avitus could safely acquire the greatest patronage for Pope St. Symmachus and the entire Church. Concerning Symmachus, the discussion will pertain chiefly to October 5, in connection with the Life of St. Galla the widow, his daughter.

[33] That a great familiarity also existed between Avitus and Pope St. Hormisdas, successor of Symmachus, is shown by their mutual communication of affairs transacted in the Church through letters. The Church of Constantinople had long since been severed from communion with the Roman See, because the Bishops would not erase from the sacred records the name of Bishop Acacius, who had died obstinate in heresy and schism after the sentence of excommunication pronounced by Pope St. Felix III in the year 484, [having learned of the state of the Church of Constantinople from the letters of Pope Hormisdas,] despite being admonished repeatedly in vain by the Supreme Pontiffs Gelasius, Anastasius, and Symmachus. Hormisdas, who succeeded in the year 514, omitted no diligence or opportunity to attract the Church of Constantinople to communion, of which several provinces, namely Dardania and Illyricum, then submitted themselves to Hormisdas the Roman Pontiff: which, while legations were being dispatched to Constantinople, the Pontiff indicated to St. Avitus by a letter sent out of his affection for him. Then Avitus wrote letter 87, Avitus writes back: inscribed "To the Lord most excellent in holy merits, most glorious in Christ, and most worthy of the Apostolic See, Pope Hormisdas," whose opening is: "While you perceive it to be fitting for the state of religion and the complete rules of the Catholic faith that the watchful care of your exhortation should instruct the flock committed to you through the members of the entire universal Church, you visited the Province of Vienne in the preceding year, if you deign to remember, by letters sent to my humble person; and these, which the circumstances presented had occasioned, reached me

through the clergy of the Church of Arles, and were indeed most full of pastoral solicitude. In which, he rejoices over the conversion of Dardania and Illyricum: just as you invite us to share the joys over the conversion of the provinces, that is, of Dardania, Illyricum, or Scythia, so by a most cautious admonition you instruct us as to what could befall us through ignorance." And toward the end he has: "To this is added that we have learned by trustworthy report of various persons that Greece is boasting about the reconciliation or agreement of the Roman Church, which, as it is to be embraced if it is said truthfully, so it is to be feared he pledges the obedience of the Bishops of Gaul to the Pope. lest it be cunningly feigned. We beseech you therefore, all through my service, to instruct me as to what I should reply to your sons, my brethren, that is, the Gallic bishops, if they consult me; and since I confidently promise—I will not say of the Viennese, but of the devotion of all of Gaul—that all seek your judgment on the state of the faith; pray that the pretended profession of the lost may not deceive us, just as the ascertained truth does not separate us from the unity which you govern. Received on the 3rd before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of Agapitus, vir clarissimus, through Alexius the Presbyter and Venantius the Deacon, that is, in the year 517." So far the letter of St. Avitus to Pope Hormisdas, which Hormisdas seems to discuss in his letter II, writing thus to the Emperor Anastasius: "The anxious hearts of all are hanging in suspense: a legation directed to us from the uttermost parts of Gaul inquired, following the prescribed form, whether our solicitude had made any progress concerning the restoration of unity."

[34] Meanwhile Hormisdas wrote back as soon as possible to Bishop Avitus and to all the Bishops of the Province of Vienne under his jurisdiction thus: St. Hormisdas "He who desires to be instructed concerning those things which pertain to Catholic discipline, especially when already well informed, clearly shows what zeal he has regarding the Divine commands. For such concern cannot exist he praises the sincere faith of St. Avitus: except where there is an unfalsified faith. And therefore we exult in the Lord over the sincerity of your purpose, most beloved brother, as we observe you, according to the letters sent through the Priest Alexius and the Deacon Venantius, both reviewing the constitutions of the Apostolic See concerning the impious transgressors Eutyches and Nestorius, and inquiring whether our admonition has made any progress against those by whom the Eastern Churches are thrown into confusion. A concern truly worthy of the faithful, that they should groan over the lapses of the wretched, and themselves take care lest they be polluted by another's contagion. But neither should you believe that we have neglected he excuses his silence: to send suitable information to your knowledge, should anything have been accomplished. But we briefly clear ourselves of the silence which your love reproaches. For the reason that our admonition does not more frequently reach you is that we trust in the stability of your conscience and faith. Solicitude perhaps should be expended upon the doubtful: it is enough to have indicated what is to be avoided to the perfect." Then, after having indicated the perfidy of the Greeks, he adds: "And we indeed, mindful of our stewardship, must needs approach them with the duty of a renewed legation. he proposes to send a new legation to Constantinople, By which zeal for their salvation, if they are not moved by regard for God or by the consideration of reason, let them at least yield to those who importune and persist in knocking, and either return to the right way with their errors set aside, or on account of their impenitent heart be judged inexcusable by all, who, though so often admonished, persist in the obstinacy of their perfidy. prayers therefore being implored, Do you pray, and join your prayers and vows to God with ours, that through the aid of His mercy our effort laboring for the stability of the Catholic faith may advance the spotless and whole, from every association with transgressors... Given on the 15th before the Kalends of March, in the consulship of Agapitus, the year of Christ 517."

[35] So far Hormisdas the Pope to St. Avitus. He sent the new legation mentioned above to Constantinople in the month of April; with letters and a profession of the Catholic faith addressed both to the Emperor Anastasius and to Timothy, Bishop of Constantinople. but rejected by the Emperor: But Anastasius, after the legates had been tempted in vain with gifts (these were Ennodius of Pavia and Peregrinus of Misenum, Bishops), placed them on a fragile ship, with access to any city prohibited; as Hormisdas himself testifies in his letters. In the following year, 518, the face of the Eastern Church began to change, with the death of Timothy, Bishop of Constantinople, and of the Emperor Anastasius, the purple being assumed by Justin in the latter's place, and the chair being given to John, a Presbyter and Syncellus of Cappadocia, in the former's. Then, with a third legation sent to Constantinople, peace was fully restored to the Churches, to John, Bishop of Constantinople. in the consulship of the Emperor Justin and Eutharicus, in the year of Christ 519, as John testifies in his letter to Hormisdas. What joy St. Avitus conceived when these events were announced is indicated by a letter sent to this Bishop of Constantinople, number 7, St. Avitus commends his constancy, in which he commends to him the constancy both fitting and necessary for so great an affair.

[36] During those turbulent times, St. Elias presided over the Church of Jerusalem, [from St. Elias, Bishop of Jerusalem, he obtains a particle of the Holy Cross and gives thanks:] who neither wished to assent to the impious condemnation of the Council of Chalcedon, nor could be torn from holy communion with the Roman Pontiffs; and therefore in the year 513, expelled from his See, he ended his life in exile. St. Avitus wrote several letters to him. In the one which is extant at number 23, sent after receiving a particle of the Holy Cross, he writes the following by way of thanksgiving: "Bound to your condescension by the debt of your generosity, I pay my vows of thanks through him by whom the gifts reached me — gifts to be estimated not by the value of their quantity, but by the rewards of salvation. For you have enriched with the treasures of sanctification the poverty of the extremity of the world, and you have touched the obscurity of the setting sun by sharing with us the light of the radiant East. The splendor of the gift has wiped from our provinces the rust of languishing religion: which, by the irrigation of the ever-flowing good, has rewarded our faith with contemplation, since, when the inner chambers of heavenly treasures were opened by your piety, we beheld everything that we as Catholics are commanded to believe. Pray for the rest, that you may have sent such things to worthy persons: commend us to the mysteries which you have seen fit to entrust to us. Let our devotion be edified by these things, let our region be defended: so that by the saving pledge granted to us, you who have not judged us unworthy of the earthly Jerusalem may render us fit for the dwelling of the heavenly and celestial one."

[37] Finally, the indefatigable spirit of St. Avitus in promoting the adornment of churches is indicated by fragment III of his works, where with a general exultation he rejoices that under the scepters of Catholic power, the places of prayer, the temples of the Martyrs, the sacred thresholds, flourish; he promotes the increase of temples. that towns are adorned no less with Patrons than with buildings, and indeed that through patronage, towns have become cities.

* Alternatively: "of the aforesaid."

LIFE

From the Vienne and Budeck manuscripts.

Avitus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 0885

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

[1] In the time of the Emperor Zeno, Blessed Avitus the Bishop, wondrous in wisdom and learning, God favoring mortals, received the Church of Vienne to govern, after his father Isichius, who was likewise a Bishop. He succeeds his father St. Isichius as Bishop, This Isichius was first a man of Senatorial rank; he had two sons, most illustrious luminaries, endowed with the priestly mitre: Apollinaris, Bishop of Valence, distinguished by miracles, and Avitus, who, as has already been said, was the successor of his father in the episcopate of Vienne. He contended with great toil against the Arian heresy, which had then occupied not only Africa but also Gaul and Italy in part; he combats heresies, as his most illustrious works attest: for he wrote a dialogue attacking that heresy, with most faithful, most learned, and immortal genius, addressed to Gundobad, King of the Burgundians, son of Gondoveus. Likewise two other books against Nestorius and Eutyches, authors of error, in most lucid and sufficiently polished style. he shines through his published works, Likewise on sudden penitence. Likewise a consolatory work on the death of the daughter of Gundobad. Likewise letters in which he explains that saying of the Lord in the Gospel: "Everyone who has left house, or brother, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold," etc. Likewise three books of letters to various persons. Likewise homilies for various seasons of

the year: and he composed many other works, both in prose and in verse, for the instruction of the whole Church of God, and on many occasions, on account of his learning, he was endangered by the heretics even to the point of exile and death. He gave the venerable Abbot of monks, Veranus, as Bishop to the people of Lyon. He appoints Saints Veranus and Viventiolus as Bishops of Lyon, He also designated St. Viventiolus, chosen from the flock of God's Presbyters, as Bishop for the same people. In his times, the most grievous persecution of the Vandals and other nations blazed forth in Africa, and Pope Symmachus distributed money and clothing throughout Africa and Sardinia to five hundred and fifty Bishops who were in exile.

[2] How much he suffered from the heretics and from the enemies of the holy Church of God under King Sigismund. is attested by the acts of his brother, which are as follows. And so it happened that a certain man from the court of King Sigismund, named Stephen, who held the chief authority over the entire royal domain, when his wife had died, unlawfully joined to himself in a marriage bond the sister of his wife. to prevent the incest Concerning which matter, the holy and most blessed apostolic men, Avitus and Apollinaris, who were brothers in the flesh, yet most famous brothers in the work of Christ, always at every time devoted to divine works, known for their nobility, their prudence, and their instruction in sacred learning with a fervent spirit, observing the synodal ordinance, he convenes a Synod, together with the rest of the Bishops assembled in one place, decreed that the same Stephen be deprived of holy Communion: so that, trampling upon the shamelessness of human frailty, a dishonest presumption might not dare to vindicate the incest which heavenly justice had condemned. Then the King, moved by the fury of dire madness, did not cease to injure the most blessed Bishops by continually laying snares for them. But the apostolic and venerable men, in no way dreading the threats of an earthly King, armed with heavenly commands, so bound themselves with the bond of Justice, that whatever punishments might be inflicted upon them, as companions of suffering they would endure the torments. For it seemed good to them that in the town of the city of Lyon which is called Sardinia, he suffers dire things, with his brother St. Apollinaris, they should be together as if consigned to exile, with God's assistance. The King, moreover, seeing that their constancy was incorruptible, not ceasing from his anger, commanded that the Bishops who were residing there together should return to their own places, and that they should separately await the King's pleasure each month. But because the most blessed Apollinaris seemed to be persevering in the condemnation of Stephen, the King was eager to hold him first.

[3] Then all, beseeching the Divine power with tears not to forsake them, and bidding farewell, set forth after celebrating prayer. In that place, while the man of God endured the space of a delay by reason of necessity, the waters of the Rhone were made warm by the burning heat, so that those who thirsted could not drink water from it. And because no well or spring from which water might be drawn was found there, the most blessed man of God, strengthening himself in the Holy Spirit, and secure in the powers of well-known might, betook himself to the place designated by God, and privately commanded his attendants to bring forth a mattock. When this was provided and prayer completed, he said to them: a spring received by his prayers, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, open this place." When this was done, immediately at the bidding of Him who commands the waters to boil in the heart of the earth, a spring burst forth; and as long as the most blessed Bishop remained there, by the beneficence of Almighty God he merited always to have water pleasing to him. But after his departure the spring dried up, so that all might recognize that by the merits of the servant of God the spring had rendered its service, and had returned to its original course. And when that King did not wish even to see the apostolic man, but rather strove to lay still more snares, He who is the Judge of most righteous merits and praiseworthy in His immense power, displaying swift vengeance, immediately it happened that the King himself fell into so violent a fever that he was believed to be at the point of death rather than of life.

[4] Then the Queen herself, inflamed with faith, came with eager haste to the place where the most blessed Bishop was residing, and with avid devotion she begged that through his intercession, her Lord might receive the gift of good health. But the man of God, having laid aside the pride of worldly haughtiness, absolutely refused to go in service: and the Queen, all the more bathing his feet with her tears, asked that at least his cowl be lent to her, which she might spread over the King. Overcome by her weeping, he yielded. and by his cowl When by God's gift it had been spread over the man with trusting constancy, immediately the assault of the fever was driven away, and whatever other affliction there appeared, and the gift of health was obtained. the King's fever removed. After these things, that King, remembering the offense he had committed, though filled with great shame, yet exulting that through the intercession of the Bishop and through the covering of his garment he had merited to recover his former health, hastened first of all to see with his own eyes the waters which the Lord had bestowed upon his servant by the gift of His benignity — the bounty of so great a miracle and so great a virtue. Having recognized the grace of the miracle, he came to the man of God, and embracing his feet, composed with tears of exultation, he begged forgiveness, saying: "I have sinned, I have acted wickedly, in that I have often inflicted unworthy tribulations upon the just; for heavenly Justice, which cannot be conquered, is the stronger for the very fact that it is attacked. O the mercy of the heavenly King, who does not wish the souls of sinners to perish, but their faults! O the glory of the virtues, which through His servant Apollinaris, with worldly cares cast aside, have shone with a twofold grace of virtue! At last, standing firm for Justice, he represses the madness of the King and his swelling pride, and by the power of prayer releases him from the mortal illness by which he was held."

[5] St. Avitus instructed this King Sigismund in the faith of piety after the exile, St. Avitus converts him. and at his instigation Sigismund built the monastery of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum, Maurice and his companions: whom afterward, captured and killed by the Franks, he mourned most vehemently. He was to Emperors and Kings, and also to the people, through letters, through homilies, and moreover by declaiming with his living voice, like a thunderclap. By his labor and industry the church of the baptistery was wonderfully adorned with mosaic and marble, and constructed with a pavement of elegant workmanship, and the baptistery itself, with its aqueduct and its decoration, in honor of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and St. John the Baptist, was rebuilt from the foundations with such speed that, in the homily which he composed for the people at its dedication, he writes thus: "Before a year was completed, the place was ready." But how great he was in the Church as long as he lived, whoever wishes to know fully, after his innumerable works in divine labors, let him read his Epitaph; and he will be able to see how great he was.

[6] He was buried in the Church of the Apostles, on the left side of the building, at the head of the longer wall. He wrote to Elpidius, the Deacon of Lyon, a learned and holy man, one most familiar letter, seasoned with the salt of wisdom. He died while Anastasius was still Emperor.

a Zeno reigned from 474 to 491.

b St. Isichius is venerated on November 12.

c Around the year 490.

d St. Apollinaris is venerated on October 5.

e Ado narrates these things concerning the heresies combated in almost the same words in his Chronicle.

f Under Gundobad he lived as Bishop until the year 516, in which the latter died.

g Others say Gundericus, concerning whom and his brother Chilperic we shall treat on February 28, in the Life of Saints Romanus and Lupicinus, Abbots.

h Gregory of Tours in book 2, chapter 34, of the History of the Franks counts nine books of letters.

i Concerning the promotion of Saints Veranus and Viventiolus, see section 4, number 25.

k Anastasius in the Lives of the Pontiffs, and from him Ado in his Chronicle, concerning Pope St. Symmachus: "He each year throughout Africa and Sardinia distributed money and clothing to the Bishops who had been shut away in exile." Concerning the exiles in Sardinia, see January 1 in the Life of St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, and elsewhere concerning others.

l Concerning this Stephen and the Synod held on his account, we have treated in section 4, number 26. The rest is to be more carefully examined in the Life of St. Apollinaris.

m From here many things are again drawn from Ado.

n This third title exists among the lost homilies: "On the restoration of the baptistery in his city of Vienne."

o In the Budeck manuscript, the epitaph which we append below was inserted here.

p This Elpidius was the physician of Theoderic, King of the Ostrogoths in Italy, to whom Cyprian in the Life of St. Caesarius shows that he was dear: "Elpidius," he says, "Deacon and physician, by his assiduous services intimately familiar above all with the royal power."

q This is letter 35. There also exists a letter of Cassiodorus to the same person in book 4 of the Variae, and several of Ennodius of Pavia.

r Rather under the Emperor Justin, under whom also St. Sigismund was thrown into a well, whose murder he mourned according to this author.

EPITAPH OF ST. AVITUS

From the Budeck manuscript and Sirmond.

Avitus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul (St.)

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

Whoever, as you behold the mournful honor of the tomb, Will lament that all of Avitus is enclosed beneath the turf, Cast off the anxious cares from your sorrowful breast. For he whom fullness of faith, whom the glory of a lofty mind, Whom piety, whom a generous hand, whom fame makes eternal — Nothing in common has he with death. Rather, behold The deeds of the holy man: first, flourishing, with what great natural gifts He spurned the fasces descended from an ancient line, Displaying a mature spirit in his tender years, And by the virtue of his vow rejected what the world allows. Without delay he then assumes the worthy insignia of a Bishop, That he might increase the happy beginnings of his accustomed labor. Nor yet, puffed up by the summit of the highest honor, Does he raise himself or esteem himself above others; rather, Great, he subjects himself; supreme, he preserves moderation; Sparing, he distributes; fasting, he feeds; by loving He terrifies, and to severity he mingles the greatest indulgence: The hesitant he helped by persuasion, the sorrowful by comfort, Quarrels he resolved, contending parties he joined in covenant. The discordant dogmas that corrupt the true law He subdued by exhortation, genius, warnings, and merits. He stood alone on the citadel, to whom in any style of speaking No orator was equal, and no poet: This his books, scattered through many volumes, proclaim. He who lived, lives, and through all ages will live.