ON ST. LEONTIUS OF AUTUN.
From the Martyrology of St. Jerome.
CommentaryFifth Century.
Leontius, Bishop of Autun, Confessor (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
As celebrated as is the memory of Leontius of Autun in the copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology, so are his deeds buried in long oblivion; nor in the Sammarthani has he any other elogium besides the bare announcement, taken from the appendix of Ado, with no source assigned Known in the ancient Martyrologies from which it proceeded. If the series of the preceding and following Bishops is rightly arranged there, it is gathered that Leontius flourished at the beginning of the fifth century; Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology page 692 thinks that his death pertains to about the year 430. Now let us run through our Hieronymian codices a little. The most ancient Epternach codex reads: At Autun, the deposition of Leontius the Bishop. The rest subscribe, with this sole difference, that the Florentinian text from the Lucca codices wrongly has "Leo"; but the Corbie codex inserts the title "blessed." Among the more contracted Hieronymian codices, the Barberini and that of the Queen of Sweden or of St. Columba, praised by Holstenius, follow the Epternach: the Reichenau more briefly places: At Autun, of Leontius the Bishop; most briefly the Gellone, Augsburg, and Labbe, At Autun, or Aug., of Leontius. The Usuardine codex of Daveron reads: At Autun, the deposition of Leo the Bishop; the Lübeck-Cologne edition: At Autun, the deposition of St. Leo the Bishop and Confessor, which are also the words of the Florarium; but the supplement of Greven restores the true name, Of Leontius the Bishop and Confessor.
[1] Thus far all things are sufficiently certain and undoubted; Florentinius raises a scruple in the present note from another Martyrology, that of St. Sabinus of Levitania, he is rightly distinguished from St. Leonorius. which here reports almost the very announcement of the Epternach codex; but Florentinius adds: Molanus seems to call this one Leonorius in the appendix to Usuard. By no means; for Molanus there calls Leonorius a Bishop in lesser Britain, whose life we shall give below. You would say that the praised Florentinius drew his scruple from the Britannica of Ussher, where page 168 Ussher excellently hallucinates, when he dances outside the chorus. Hear his words: On the same Kalends of July, that the memory of St. Leonorius the Bishop and Confessor is celebrated in Britain, John Molanus noted from a certain Martyrology, but, here, as I think, mutilated. Namely, because so it pleased Ussher: for I should believe, he says, that it was rather first written in it: In Britain of the holy Martyrs Julius and Aaron. At Autun, the deposition of St. Leontius the Bishop and Confessor. Let Ussher turn chronological things, but let him not put his sickle into an unknown harvest. Most rightly by Molanus, in the second edition, it is written: In Britain, etc., as will be demonstrated below; of Leontius he nowhere speaks. But concerning this one we have said enough from the most ancient monuments. What concerning Julius and Aaron has been handed down in the ancient Martyrologies, what concerning them in his first edition, in smaller type, Molanus copied from Greven, you have above, where those Martyrs were treated.