ON ST. STEPHEN, BISHOP OF LYON IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR 512.
CommentaryStephanus, Bishop of Lyon in Gaul (St.)
By the author I. B.
[1] St. Rusticius held the episcopal chair at Lyon when, about the year 494, St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, came as Legate from Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, to redeem captives, as St. Ennodius, his successor, writes in the Life of Epiphanius on January 21, chapter 12, number 50. In place of Rusticius Stephen was substituted, a saint for a saint. St. Stephen, successor of St. Rusticius, friend of St. Ennodius, Ennodius was an intimate of Stephen, as he himself testifies in book 3, letter 17, daring to complain that he had given him no letters since he had been proclaimed Bishop, though in other respects most kind: Since, he says, your dignity has been restored to your merits, and the honor which your life demands has been conferred, I have received, for my sins, no writings of your Beatitude. The forgetfulness that is kept toward me is foreign to your purpose, or to your manners toward suppliants. Then near the end of the letter he implores his prayers thus: kindly, My lord, paying with all devotion the service of salutation, I hope in the first place that the serenity of your prayers will not omit to make mention of my person too, and pious; when you supplicate the Divinity without intermission.
[2] In that letter Ennodius commends to Stephen Benenatus, who was making for Gaul on certain business, or, as the same Ennodius says in the preceding letter, in which he commends the same man to Laconius, coming on account of his runaways, that is, pursuing fugitive slaves. And from this Sirmond draws a solid conjecture that this Stephen was Bishop of Lyon, Bishop of Lyon, although otherwise the letter is inscribed only to Stephen the Bishop, because Laconius too lived at Lyon, where the court of Gundobad was, with whom how much Laconius availed in favor, and by what merits, where also Laconius the same Ennodius shows in the cited Life of Epiphanius, number 54, in these words: But he (Gundobad, King of the Burgundians), having called Laconius, to whom the trust of affairs and of words was always safely committed by him, intimate Counsellor of King Gundobad. whom both the prerogative of his birth and the curule chairs of his ancestors have raised up through the insignia of a masterly probity: with whom he confers whenever he meditates pious and religious things: and as nobility is not associated with vices, nor is the light of nature bound to allurements, if the King wishes to do anything kindly, this man, being called in, urges that it be doubled. To whom the Prince said: Go, Laconius, and hoist all the sails of your wishes, a pious man: the Priest and Blessed Epiphanius has also been willingly heard by us, by whose prayers the tears, indexes of minds, testified that you were moved when he was speaking before us, etc.
[3] This favor, then, says Sirmond, the people of Lyon owe to Ennodius, that they see preserved by this letter the memory of their Bishop, which remained slight and obscure among them. There is extant, to the same Stephen, letter 24 of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, in which he exhorts him that a certain person desiring to be converted from the heresy of the Donatists St. Stephen consults St. Avitus about a converted Donatist, be reconciled to the Church at once, lest even the very name of that overseas heresy be heard in Gaul, where otherwise the tares of the Arian growth were diffused, as he says, with numerous corruption. ... Wherefore, he says, bury at once the name of the Donatists with a life-giving blessing, lest it be able to live long in a foreign place. In the very birth of its tinder let the fire of the wandering little spark grow cold. Lest even the smoke of its report should sprinkle the nostril of innocent Gaul, apply the imposition of hands to the person of whom you write, forbidding mention of that very name hereafter, if he is converted from the heart. From this, moreover, is perceived the solicitude of Stephen himself, who, as if terrified at the sight of an unaccustomed monster, at once consulted the most wise Bishop Avitus as to what he should do in that matter. Whose zeal Avitus thus consoles and stirs up at the beginning of the letter: However attentive the servants of the Lord's cultivation may be, solicitous and zealous, amid the constant pursuits of planting, things always spring up too which it is expedient to cut down. Therefore, by the ever-wakeful pursuits of your solicitude, the most opportune interest of acquiring salvation grows for these works.
[4] Sirmond conjectures that letter 51 of book 2 written by Ruricius of Limoges was to the same Stephen (although the title of Bishop is lacking in the inscription): the opening of which letter indicates Stephen's courtesy and the sweetness of his manners: The lovingkindness of your holiness, he says, friend of Ruricius, Bishop of Limoges: has so enticed me to its cultivation in a very few days, that although, God being propitious, I hold you in my heart and behold you with the eyes of the mind, yet, affection urging me, I always seek you. Near the end he shows that he was far removed from him, namely as great a space as there is between Limoges and Lyon: I say, therefore, very great greeting to your beatitude, and ask that you supplicate incessantly our common Lord, that according to the riches of His goodness and power, to which we confess all things possible, if in this world, on account of the turbulences and storms of this life and the distances of regions, we cannot see each other more often, He may at least cause us to meet at that city which is built as a city, to which the mercy of the Lord will be able to carry us, and your merits you.
[5] The Life of St. Avitus, number 1, intimates that Veranus succeeded Stephen. He, it says, gave the venerable Veranus, Abbot of monks, as Bishop to the people of Lyon. He also designated as Bishop for them St. Viventiolus, chosen from the flock of the Priests of God. whether ordained by St. Avitus, as St. Viventiolus was? I do not know whether Stephen should not rather be read than Veranus. The Catalogues of the Bishops of Lyon indeed show one Veranus, but one who lived in the times of St. Leo and St. Hilary, Popes, thirty or forty years before the Episcopate of Avitus. But Sirmond writes that St. Viventiolus was substituted immediately for Stephen. Since, however, Avitus, as his Life has it, gave St. Viventiolus as Bishop to the people of Lyon, and Veranus II (if there was a second Veranus), why not Stephen too? For Avitus was already then strong in the same authority as afterwards while Rusticius was still living. So Ennodius of him in the Life of St. Epiphanius, number 55: There gave also Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, most eminent among the Gauls, in whom skill has shut itself up as in the lodging of a bright house. Why then, when St. Rusticius died, perhaps about the year 500, did he not substitute Stephen, as afterwards Viventiolus? Viventiolus was present at the council of Epaon in the year 517. From which it can be gathered that Stephen died some years before, perhaps about the year 512, or 510.
[6] When did he die? Stephen has been inscribed in the calendar of the Blessed. And in some manuscript codices he is assigned to February 12, on which day Galesinius, and from him Canisius, have the following: At Lyon, of Ss. Stephen the Bishop, Damian, and Julian. This is our Stephen. Julian is the one who is mentioned by most on this same February 13. inscribed in the Martyrologies on February 12. Damian was a soldier who obtained the laurel of martyrdom in Africa, inscribed also in other Martyrologies on the same day, February 12.
[7] On the 13th day, the most ancient manuscript Roman Martyrology, which we call that of St. Jerome, in more, on February 13, commemorates Stephen thus -- if indeed it was written by him, it was certainly afterward augmented, as is clear from this alone, since Stephen lived a hundred years after Jerome -- thus it commemorates Stephen: At Lyon, the deposition of Stephen the Bishop. Nearly the same is found in the manuscripts of Reichenau, and of the monastery of St. Cyriacus at Rome; likewise Bede, Rabanus, Notker, the Paris edition of Bellinus from the year 1536, and very many manuscripts. Peter de Natalibus, book 11, the last chapter, number 63, makes him a Martyr, a Martyr to some, as does Maurolycus; but the Roman Martyrology, the manuscript Florarium, Ghinius, and many others call him a Confessor. Our Theophilus Raynaud also testifies that in the Lyon Breviary an Office is noted for him as for a Confessor Bishop; more correctly a Confessor. and that he is honored with this title also in the catalogue of Relics of the Church of St. Justus, in which he rests. Jacob Severt mentions Stephen in his Chronology of the Bishops of Lyon. But he errs when he writes: "His century is not recorded." Saussaius, following the common catalogues, makes him the predecessor of St. Lupicinus, of whom we treated on February 3.