Protadius

ON SAINT PROTADIUS, BISHOP OF BESANCON.

Year of Christ 626.

Protadius, Bishop of Besancon (Saint)

I. B.

[1] We gave on February 8 the Life of Saint Nicetius, Bishop of Besancon, who is said to have flourished in the time of Pope Saint Gregory I and was a friend of Saint Columban. The era of Saint Protadius; He was succeeded, during the reign of Clothar II, by Saint Protadius. Clothar succeeded his father Chilperic in the year 584, and obtained the monarchy of all Gaul after the death of Theoderic II in the year 613, the thirtieth of his paternal reign, as was shown on February 1 in the Life of Saint Sigebert. Protadius was not elevated to the episcopacy before that year, and perhaps even somewhat later. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, in his Vesontio, part 2, chapter 23, considers that he died on February 10 of the year 626.

[2] In the same place he presents his Life from the records of the Church of Besancon. A fuller version we received from his brother Pierre-Francois. Life, Some epitome of it exists in three Lessons of the Breviary of Besancon. The sacred day for Protadius is the tenth of February, on which he flew to heaven, as the same Chifflet attests, along with Aubert Le Mire in his Belgian and Burgundian Fasti. On the same day Molanus has this in his Additions to Usuard: "At Besancon, feast. the burial of Prothadius, Bishop and Confessor, in the time of King Clothar." Ferrarius likewise in the General Catalogue of Saints: "In Burgundy, Saint Prothasius, Bishop of Besancon." He cites Molanus, but did not read Protasius there: he says he was the ninth Bishop of that See, and flourished under King Clothar around the year 502. But there was no King Clothar at that time; rather the first of that name became a tetrarch eight years later upon the death of his father; his grandson was Clothar II, to whom Saint Protadius was a contemporary, as was said before, and also a close associate; but the twenty-third, not the ninth, Bishop of that place. Saussay also records him on this day with a notable eulogy.

[3] "The most present help of Blessed Protadius," says Chifflet in the cited passage, patronage for rain and fair weather, "the people of Besancon experience, both in many other matters and especially in either releasing or restraining rains, as need requires." Therefore, since his body had long been preserved in a wooden casket, otherwise not inelegant, recently the Chaplains of Saint Peter's had a silver head made for the enclosure of his sacred skull, Relics. and the citizens had a silver casket made for the remaining bones: into which, in our presence, they were transferred on February 9 of the year 1614, by the hands of the Reverend Father Philibert Pourtier, Canon of Besancon and Vicar General. Saussay inscribed this transfer of relics to another casket in his Gallic Martyrology under February 9, in these words: "At Besancon, in the basilica of Saint Peter, the reposition of the sacred body of Blessed Protadius the Bishop, whose glorious passing is celebrated on the following day."

LIFE BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR

from the codices of the Church and diocese of Besancon, transcribed by Pierre-Francois Chifflet, S.J.

Protadius, Bishop of Besancon (Saint)

BHL Number: 6974

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

[1] Natural memory, which is innate in the minds of the human race, does not shine forth in the same way in all: for it thrives more and more brightly in one than in another; whence we clearly see that some excel others in memory. But since the human race is born to be at some point reduced to destruction, it was a mark of no small industry and sagacity that someone first took pains to discover letters for this purpose: that those things which he recognized as having been done nobly for the praise of his Creator, he might impress upon the memory of posterity through these same letters. The Lives of Saints are profitably written. For when by reading we recall the lives of the holy Fathers, we either ardently desire to be able to imitate them, and wish that something similar may be accomplished in us, or we commend ourselves more attentively to their merits. Wherefore, taking our example from a similar case, we commend to letters for the knowledge of those who follow the Life of Blessed Protadius, Archbishop of Chrysopolis: as also this Life of Saint Protadius: and this all the more devoutly as it is more certain; because we believe him to be numbered among the hosts of Angels, and in his praise we do not doubt that the protections of the Angels are present with us.

[2] In the time, therefore, of Clothar, the illustrious King of the Franks, the most Blessed Protadius, a man of apostolic authority, he was made Bishop under Clothar II, having obtained the See of the city of Besancon, governed the episcopacy not so much by gift as by merit: because he received the honor through no earthly ambition, in which the grace of the Holy Spirit had consecrated for itself a perpetual dwelling. For with the greatest labor he strengthened his spirit toward virtue from boyhood: noble, and, as he was of the most noble birth, he did not obscure his nobility by his conduct, which shone in him in every way through the splendor of good deeds. dear to Princes, revered by all, Kings and Princes greatly feared him; likewise they greatly loved him. For the constancy of his faith confirmed the doubting, his gravity tempered the rash, and his severity corrected their wantonness.

[3] Indeed, the glory of his heavenly manner of life shone forth in him, in whom there was continual abstinence in food (for he ate only to live, not lived to eat), sobriety in drink, constancy in vigils, and diligence in pure prayer: the good shepherd led an angelic life, from whose mouth the praise of the Lord never departed. distinguished for virtue, He also always had prophetic praise, whose life, not only death, was precious in the sight of the Lord. What then was more luminous than this Priest? What more brilliant than this holy Bishop? In whom not only was the principle of continence found in the sparseness of food and the mortification of the body, but he possessed also the ampler goods of that virtue which pertains to the chastity of the soul; which not only restrains the concupiscence of the flesh, but also tramples upon the vanity of worldly wisdom. and learning; For no one could deceive him through philosophy and empty deceit, who was supremely learned in the knowledge of the holy Scriptures and supremely filled with the invisible teaching of the Holy Spirit.

[4] For in his days the enemies of truth were not lacking — as they still exist — who stirred up civil wars within the holy Church: whose cunning the spiritual Pastor, armed with the impregnable helmet of faith, hostile to heretics, girded about with the unconquerable breastplate of charity, and fortified also with the indivisible shield of truth, striking with the standard of the Lord's Cross, not only confuted, but also brought back, perfectly healed, to the bosom of the holy Mother Church very many who had been infected with the venom of that serpentine cunning. With what great virtue, moreover, and what great power of God our apostolic man rooted out the heresy that especially the Simoniacs; at that time — the Simonian heresy — had greatly defiled the Gallic Churches, if anyone diligently and carefully inquires, he will find in the Register of Blessed Pope Gregory, who, in greeting the Kings of the Franks on this matter, rendered praises and acts of thanksgiving to God. For his industry resisted all errors in this regard: and he fortified the Catholic faith against all assaults.

[5] A special care for the poor also greatly prevailed in him, among whom he remained an outstanding distributor of clothing and food in secret: generous to the poor, because he knew himself to be clothing and feeding Christ under the form of the poor. The life of his household he directed by examples as much as by instruction to the harbor of blessedness; living not for himself but for them. caring for those of his household, And this excellent householder brought forth from his treasury things new and old for the peoples, who taught the one and the same sacrosanct mystery of both Testaments, and increased the Lord's flock by faithful preaching; to whom also the definition of a Bishop was fittingly applied with no dissonance, because he was irreproachable in every way.

[6] For the praise, then, of this holy apostolic man, material will not be lacking in our life, by whose virtues the whole country shines forth. But who could ever worthily praise him, whose manner of life on earth had already joined him as a citizen of heaven to the inhabitants above? For as a faithful and prudent servant, justly and providently dispensing all things, placed in the house of the householder, he sagaciously distributed the measure of wheat in due time to his fellow servants, so that to each the fitting portion would be appropriate, sufficient for living well, and that from the whole nothing would be lost in the Lord's storehouse: who not only satisfied the souls of his citizens with the bread of blessedness, but also provided bodily sustenance, and protected by his prayers those whom he shielded from the incursion of all enemies. O blessed man, and praiseworthy in all things, by whose merits the holy Church is strengthened, the city is advanced in the state of its dignity, and the people are governed in general!

[7] Among other things indeed ascribed to the praises of this most blessed man, it is recorded that, when the clerics were in doubt among themselves concerning the diverse usages of the Churches, at the request of Stephen of blessed memory, he writes a book on Ecclesiastical order: Dean of the holy Mother Church of Blessed John the Evangelist, and Hayminus, Dean of Saint Stephen's of the same city, he published a little book in which, to remove every ambiguity, he left the following in writing: What ought to be done in the Assembly of the Brothers, what the Church should hold and what it ought to avoid; how many ministers of sacred Orders the festive days should have; where and when processions should be held; at what time the congregations of the whole city should assemble at the mother Church, and whatever else should be done throughout the cycle of the year in the Church, his holy industry taught to posterity.

[8] King Clothar, moreover, held him in such great affection or rather awe, he is consulted and honored by Clothar II, that without his nod or counsel he presumed to do nothing in the kingdom: whom he cultivated with such wondrous devotion that in every document (as his memorials still testify) he called him Father and Lord, and the magnificent King submitted himself as servant and son. Nor is it surprising if an earthly and mortal King feared him, in whom the heavenly and immortal King perpetually dwelt.

[9] He, moreover, divested of the flesh by a happy departure on the tenth of February, entered heaven, where, placed among and joined to the angelic spirits, he intercedes for the people before the Lord. He dies on February 10. His most holy body was carried to the monastery of Blessed Peter the Apostle, and placed at the altar in the sanctuary. He is buried in the church of Saint Peter. Where if help is sought with a devout mind, the divine bounty is quickly found to be present; through the granting of the only-begotten Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all ages of ages, Amen.

a The prologue is missing here in Chifflet's Vesontio.

b Why Besancon is called Chrysopolis and by whom, consult the same, part 1, chapter 2.

c This heresy was also attacked by Saint Nicetius, as was said in his Life; and by others afterward.

d Saint Gregory had died at least ten years before Protadius became Bishop. But it is likely that Protadius, while holding some other office in that Church under his Bishop Saint Nicetius, labored in the extermination of that plague, with Gregory's encouragement.

e Saint Gregory wrote much about the abolition of Simony to Gaul, to various Bishops, and to Queen Brunhild and her son Childebert, whose zeal for the Catholic faith he praises in letter 7, in Sirmond, volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul. Moreover, what the Breviary of Besancon commemorates in Lesson 2 about this heresy disseminated through Gaul is in these words: "For there was in Gaul a certain false prophet who followed the heresy of that ancient Simon the magician, and stirred up very great disturbances among the people. Clad in skins as if religious, he prayed and attributed to himself the power of divination. Saint Protadius resisted him manfully, whence he also merited the greatest praise in the Catholic Church." Whether these things were received from certain documents or from the tradition of the Church of Besancon alone, we do not know.

f Jean-Jacques Chifflet reads "martyrium" martyrdom.

g The contents of this section are missing in the same Chifflet.

h Chifflet treats in various places of this most ancient basilica and of the appellation "Mother Church," and of how the Chapters of that church and of Saint Stephen's were united by the decision of Cardinal Hugh of Saint-Cher.

i That book of rites (says Chifflet) written by Saint Protadius still exists today in the church of Saint John.

k The same, "memoralia." The observance of Clothar toward the holy Bishop is treated in the same Breviary, Lesson 1.

l This is a parochial church and did not belong to monks, as Chifflet attests: but the name "monastery" for "church" is frequent in the writings of the ancients.