ON ST. ANTHOLIANUS, MARTYR, AT CLERMONT IN GAUL,
Circa A.D. 255.
Historical Commentary
Antholianus, Martyr at Clermont in Gaul (Saint)
By J. B.
[1] The Martyrologies — the Roman Martyrology, Bede, Ado, Usuard, Notker, Bellinus, Maurolycus, Galesinius, The name of St. Antholianus in the Martyrologies, Petrus de Natalibus, book 11, chapter 130, number 51, and the most ancient Roman Martyrology which we call that of St. Jerome — record that the triumph of St. Antholianus the Martyr is commemorated among the Arverni in Gaul on the 8th day before the Ides of February. The published text of Bede and a manuscript of Ado from the monastery of St. Lawrence at Liege call him Anatolius; certain manuscripts have Antholius; variously written: Canisius has Anatolianus; our Labbeus, from a manuscript of the monastery of St. Lawrence at Bourges, has Ancolianus; the manuscript Florarium has Antholianus or Anatolius; a manuscript from the monastery of St. Maximinus at Trier has Amilianus. Galesinius celebrates him with this eulogy: he was not a Bishop: At the Arverni, St. Antholianus the Martyr, who in that city, by shedding his blood for Christ, gave an illustrious testimony of faith. In his Notes he writes (unless it is an error from the carelessness of the printer) that in correctly written codices, Anthoenus is found everywhere. We certainly have not found it so written in any manuscript codex, of which we possess several. Nor is he called a Bishop, except in a single codex of the monastery of Centula, bearing the name of Bede, in which it reads: At the Arverni, St. Antholianus, Bishop and Martyr. At the margin of the Martyrology of Usuard edited by Molanus, our Andreas Scottus had noted, from I know not what copy: At the Arverni, St. Antolinus, Bishop and Martyr.
[2] The Acts of St. Antholianus were written by St. Praeiectus, Bishop of the Arverni. So states the author of the second Life of this saint, on January 25, Acts written by St. Praeiectus: chapter 1, number 9: He composed in a glorious style the Passions of the Martyrs Cassius, Victorinus, Anatolianus, and Astrebodius, and of the other Saints who shed their blood for Christ in that same city. We have not yet had the opportunity to see them. If they have not perished, Ignatius Joseph a Iesu Maria, a learned and devout man of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, who has long been meditating a sacred history of the Arverni, will bring them forth and illuminate them.
[3] The contemporary author of the first Life of St. Praeiectus reports the following about St. Antholianus and his companions, chapter 1, number 5: It is held as a true opinion that in that same city, he underwent martyrdom at Clermont, under pagan rulers, a holy legion of Saints perished, who shed their own blood there for the name of Christ. Antiquity confirms that the leaders of this legion were Cassius and Victorinus, and also Anatolianus. If the author speaks of a military legion, he is certainly refuted — as far as Cassius and Victorinus are concerned — by the words of St. Gregory of Tours, which we shall presently adduce; but if his discourse concerns a company of Christians who together attained the palm of martyrdom, he appears to speak most truthfully.
[4] Let it be permitted, however, to suspect not without reason that St. Antholianus and his companions were slain not by the Roman governors of Gaul, under Chrocus, King of the Alamanni, in the time of Gallienus but by Chrocus, King of the Alamanni. For St. Gregory of Tours, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 30, writes thus: In the twenty-seventh place, Valerian and Gallienus obtained the Roman empire, and in their time they stirred up a grievous persecution against the Christians. Then Cornelius at Rome, and Cyprian at Carthage, shed their blessed blood. In their time also that Chrocus, King of the Alamanni, having raised his army, overran all Gaul. This Chrocus is said to have been of great arrogance; having devastated Gaul; and after he had committed many unjust deeds, by the counsel (as they say) of his wicked mother, having gathered together the Alamanni nation (as we have said), he overran all Gaul and overthrew from their foundations all the buildings that had been erected in ancient times. Coming to the Arverni, he burned, demolished, and destroyed that temple which in the Gallic tongue they call Vasso Galatae...
[5] Near this city rest the Martyrs Liminius and Antholianus. There Cassius and Victorinus, united in fraternal affection through the love of Christ, under whom also Saints Cassius and Victorinus; together attained the kingdom of heaven through the shedding of their own blood. For antiquity relates that Victorinus was a servant of the priest of the aforementioned temple. While he repeatedly visited the district which they call the Quarter of the Christians, in order to persecute the Christians, he found Cassius, a Christian. Moved by his preaching and miracles, he believed in Christ; and leaving behind the filth of paganism and being consecrated by baptism, he shone forth greatly in the working of virtues. Not long after, united in martyrdom on earth as we have said, they together departed to the heavenly kingdom.
[6] When the Alamanni burst into Gaul, St. Privatus, Bishop of the city of the Gabali... of whom we treat on August 21... breathed his last. St. Privatus, Bishop of the Gabali, at Mende, But Chrocus was seized at the city of Arles in Gaul, subjected to various torments, and perished by the sword — not undeservedly paying the penalties which he had inflicted upon the Saints of God.
[7] Why was the mention of Antholianus and his companions interjected into the narrative about Chrocus, unless because they were killed by him or by his soldiers, just as St. Privatus of the Gabali was? For although on account of that Arvernian temple which he destroyed — to whose priest St. Victorinus had formerly been a servant — Gregory might have mentioned Victorinus, and together with him Cassius; yet not Liminius and Antholianus. Moreover, since the barbarian is said to have paid the penalties which he had inflicted upon the Saints of God, those Saints seem to be indicated who had been named immediately together with St. Privatus. Finally, the most learned Andreas Saussaius confirms this by his own judgment in the Gallican Martyrology, writing thus: At Clermont of the Arverni, the birthday of St. Antholianus the Martyr, who for the testimony of the faith was condemned to death by the impious tyrant Chrocus, the devastator of Gaul, and there, having raised an immortal trophy, St. Liminius, was buried with St. Liminius, his companion in the glorious contest, near the city walls, in the place where now the church of St. Gallus is seen to have been built. Nearly the same things he states on March 29 concerning the death of St. Liminius. More about the other companions of Antholianus — with no mention made of the time when they perished — is found on May 15: At Clermont of the Arverni, he says, the birthday of Saints Cassius and Victorinus, who, united in fraternal affection through the love of Christ, together attained the kingdom of heaven through the shedding of their own blood. With whom Maximus, Anatholianus, and Austremonius, and another 6,200 suffered at the Arverni: and six thousand two hundred and sixty-three others (whose names God knows), struck down in this savage slaughter, fell in a glorious contest for the faith and glory of Christ, separated neither in spirit nor in body, etc. In the Index he notes 6,663 martyrs on this day, having thus interpreted the "legion" which the author of the Life of St. Praeiectus cited above asserted to have perished there. But he certainly separates Austremonius far from these on the Kalends of November, making him a disciple of the Apostle St. Peter. In book 1 On the Churches of Clermont, published by Savaron, chapter 10, six thousand two hundred are said to rest in a body in the church of St. Venerandus — of which we shall treat on May 12.
[8] Nor should it here be passed over in silence that the Chrocus who is an Alamannian King is a different person from the other Chrocus, who, having accompanied Constantine as an auxiliary and being his chief supporter, is recorded in book 11 of the Historia Miscella, chapter 2, as the one through whose aid Constantine seized the empire. But the elder Chrocus, together with the nation of the Vandals, as well as the Suevi and the Alans, is said by Aimoinus in the History of the Franks, book 3, chapter 1, to have devastated Gaul; and at length, after having destroyed various cities, when he attempted to storm Arles, he was captured by a certain soldier named Marius, led through the cities he had destroyed, tortured with punishments, Chrocus himself was captured and slain by Marius. and perished. This soldier Marius is perhaps the one who is mentioned seventh among the Thirty Tyrants by Trebellius Pollio — a vigorous man who rose through the military ranks all the way to the imperial throne. He certainly served in Gaul, first under Postumus, one of the 30 Tyrants. the commander of the Transrhenane frontier, who for seven years bore himself as emperor, restored Gaul by driving back all the Germanic peoples, and, when the empire was already tottering under the dissipation of Gallienus, reformed it to its former Roman state. Then, after Lollianus the assassin of Postumus was killed, under Victorinus — a man of military industry and a champion of the Roman name, whom Postumus had called to a share in the empire — the same Marius served; and by Victorinus's mother Victorina, or Victoria, called Augusta and Mother of the Camp, he was himself promoted to the empire after Victorinus, but was killed on the third day by a certain soldier. These things about Chrocus the tyrant and the martyrdom of St. Antholianus, of which more and more certain details could perhaps be drawn from the Life of St. Cassius, which Savaron cites in manuscript.
[9] Concerning the church built in his honor at the beginning of the sixth century, St. Gregory of Tours relates the following in book 1 of Miracles, chapter 65: A temple built for St. Antholianus, The Martyr Antholianus consummated his martyrdom at the city of the Arverni. In his honor, Alcima the sister and Placidina the wife of Bishop Apollinaris, desiring to build a temple, removed many bodies of Saints while they were laying the foundations, not knowing the merit of those whose tombs they had found. Since they were unable to bury them individually, because of the multitude of other tombs which had filled that place from antiquity, (having gathered into one place the bodies of many Saints.) they cast the assembled mass of bones into one pit and covered them with earth. And because this was not acceptable to God or to the holy Martyr, it appeared to a certain man in a vision, and that man saw Blessed Antholianus complaining together with the other Saints and saying: which displeased him) "Woe is me, because on my account many of my brothers have been wronged. Truly I say that those who began this work will not be able to bring it to completion." And so it came to pass. Yet after the walls had been erected, above the altar of that building they raised a tower with arches spanning between columns, pharos, and heracles, adding a marvelous painting adorned with a variety of colors on the vault. adorned with an elegant tower or dome; For this work was so elegant and refined that, having been divided over a long time by the multiplication of cracks, it seemed to hang almost in ruin.
[10] Seeing this danger, Bishop Avitus, anticipating the future collapse of the columns, ordered the beams, planks, and tiles to be removed. When these had been taken away, and no supports having been placed against the columns, by the will of God — as the builders descended from the scaffolding to take food, which afterwards collapsed, and the rest also withdrew from the basilica — the columns, given their immense weight, fell with a great crash upon and around the altar, and the building was filled with a cloud of dust from the shattered lime. The Bishop, pale with fear and sighing over the losses of two calamities — whether the marble had been broken and whether anyone of the people had perished — could not know what damage had occurred. without injury to men or to the altar beneath it. For no one could approach that place on account of the cloud of dust. But after a space of two hours, when the cloud had receded, they entered either to collect the bodies of the dead or to examine the fragments of the columns. They discovered that no one had perished; they marveled also that the altar was unharmed — that the columns, having fallen from so great a height, had inflicted no damage upon it. What more? They found everything intact; they beheld all things preserved; they glorified the Martyr; they perceived the power of God, who had thus kept the altar and columns unharmed.
[11] Thus far Gregory, from the manuscript of St. Lawrence at Liege, collated with the Cologne edition of Maternus Cholinus. In the latter, however, certain things were read differently. Indeed, in both texts, in place of the words "Alcima the sister and Placidina the wife," there was: the temple was built by the sister and wife of Bishop St. Apollinaris. "Alchima, sister of Placidina, wife of Bishop Apollinaris." Our Sirmondus taught us the correct reading in his Notes on Sidonius Apollinaris, book 3, epistle 13. This Apollinaris, whose wife was Placidina, was the son of Sidonius Apollinaris, as the same author demonstrates; he was enrolled in the registers of the Saints no less than his father, the son on September 25, the father on the 20th, on which day is also celebrated the feast of Bishop Avitus — who is here narrated to have wished to support or restore the deteriorating church of St. Antholianus. But what Gregory of Tours says (if I understand correctly), that arches spanned from columns to pharos and heracles, I interpret thus: Heracles and pharos in the vault. the arches rested upon Telamons or Atlantes, which he calls heracles (as if Hercules figures), or upon the larger cornice of the columns, and were bound together by transverse beams (whether of wood, if they were wooden, or of stone) converging in a conical fashion toward the peak of the vault, and thus intersecting; and those beams are called pharos because they rise in the manner of a lighthouse. Those skilled in the art of architecture will explain this passage more clearly.
[12] In the booklet on the Churches of Clermont published by Joannes Savaron, written — as he judges — around the year 1450, The relics of St. Antholianus. no mention is made of the church of St. Antholianus, since it had been completely destroyed beforehand. But in the earlier booklet, chapter 8, it is said that in the church of St. Gallus, within the altar of St. Mary, St. Antholianus rests along with others. Elsewhere Savaron reports that after the church of St. Gallus was destroyed, the relics of St. Antholianus were translated to St. Illidius.