ON ST. LUPIANUS.
Fourth Century.
Notice from St. Gregory of Tours.
Lupianus, Confessor in the territory of Rezé, among the Armoricans (S.)
J. B. S.
The material of this little commentary John Bolland had long since begun to arrange, who on XVII February had referred Lupianus hither, with a few things collected which survive concerning the Saint's memory in Gregory of Tours alone. The birthday of St. Lupianus, In the ancient and classical Martyrologies Lupianus is plainly unknown, unless here our very ancient codex under the number ✠ Ms. 120 A be preferred to other Wandelbertine apographs; in which a little verse, not found elsewhere, is added in the fifth place concerning the Saints: "You too, Lupianus, by your merits adorn them with celebration"; for which in the Spicilegium is: "Salvius and the holy one then visited the shores of the Scheldt," reported by others on XXVI June. Whether these are the genuine words of Wandelbert, I forbear to ask; certainly neither in Usuard, nor in any Usuardine supplements is his birthday referred to this day, except in Hermann Greven, writing in his heap of Saints added to Usuard: Of Lupianus the Confessor. Whence he received it, is a difficult conjecture, unless he saw Wandelbert similar to the one already cited, or the great manuscript Ado, which is extant in the monastery of St. Lawrence, near Liège, in which is had: On the same day, of Lupianus the Confessor. Nor did the author of the manuscript Florarium find more, badly connecting Lupianus with another: Likewise of the holy Lupianus and Theodulf the confessors. Castellanus in his Universal Martyrology spoke a little more distinctly from Gregory of Tours: In the territory of Rezé (pays de Rets) in (lesser) Brittany, of St. Lupianus, who died in the very week in which he was baptized: namely in his baptismal robes, as Gregory has it; whence the praised Castellanus called him in the index a neophyte. Whether this is the true day of his death or deposition, who could divine? I think it more likely that it was arbitrarily selected by him who first extracted the Saint from Gregory of Tours and inserted him into the Fasti.
[2] who died in his baptismal robes, Further, the words of Gregory from On the Glory of the Confessors chapter 54 are these: Within that very boundary of Poitiers, which adjoins the city of Nantes, that is, in the village of Rezé, a certain Lupianus, passing away in his baptismal robes, rests. He is said to have received the gift of baptism from the blessed Prelate Hilary: but soon, as we said, he departed from the body. To whom by God, the bestower of all good things, so great then by miracles. grace was attributed that at his tomb the blind deserved sight, the paralytic gait, the mute speech. St. Lupianus is invoked in the Poitevin litanies, which the most illustrious Henri Louis Chasteigner de la Rochepozay, Bishop of Poitiers, composed, who also in his notes adduces the cited words of Gregory, and indicates that the village of Rezé is now called Rie, which perhaps Castellanus above better called pays de Retz. But since Chasteigner assigns no day to Lupianus, as to most others, he sufficiently intimates that no celebrity of him is held in that diocese; unless perhaps he is there to be referred to XI October, since in the aforesaid notes he is placed after St. Genardus.
[3] It may be asked whether the relics of our Lupianus were translated to the Arverni? Was he translated to Clermont? Thus the manuscript Usuardine codices seem to indicate—the Anchin, Bordeaux, Cluny, Altemps, Daveron, Caudiac, and that of D. le Mare marked C—as may be seen in the Usuardine supplements on XVII February: of the printed ones, Belin, Galesinius, Wion, Ferrari; all with one phrase: At Clermont, the translation of St. Lupianus the Confessor. Saussay in the Martyrology of Gaul, on the same day, and again in the Supplement, with the same words in both: Among the Arverni, the translation of St. Lupianus the Confessor. But Canisius and Molanus, with no mention made of a translation: At Clermont, of St. Lupianus the Confessor. Nevertheless in Molanus there is a manifest error; for since by the letter R he testifies that he copied himself from Belin, if he did not wish to corrupt the text, he could not but add the word "translation." From all differs Maurolycus: At Clermont, the translation of St. Lupinianus the Confessor. Whether this is the same Lupianus, of whom St. Gregory of Tours speaks, or another, there is nothing whence we can certainly define; nor is it worth the trouble to dwell longer on these things. In Savaron, in the Catalogue of Arvernian Saints, there is no Lupianus.