ON ST. MARTIN OF VIENNE.
Second Century.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE on his age, ancient cult, and the elogia of the more recent Martyrologists.
Martin, Bishop of Vienne, disciple of the Apostles (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Just as concerning some of the first Apostles of the Gauls there was long ago much disputation, so certain critics, accustomed to doubt of almost everything, scarcely dare to admit the first Bishops of Vienne. Among these, Tillemont in Volume 3, The series of the first Bishops of Vienne. note 3 on St. Irenaeus, from page 621, learnedly collects not a few things which show the age and deeds of those former Bishops to be, at the least, not sufficiently exact. All those doubts perhaps the authority of Ado would dispel, or at least restrain, if his Chronicon survived pure and whole; for what we have published is so little chronological that no one thus far has been able rightly to arrange from it the series of the Bishops of Vienne. It must moreover be confessed that the most celebrated Prelate, being a writer only of the ninth century, is not an irrefragable witness in those things which so far precede his times; although it is credible that older records of the church of Vienne shone before him, in which he found monuments so well-approved that he thought they could safely be relied upon. Thus our Predecessors seem to have judged, who in the first two Bishops, Crescens on XXVII June, and Zacharias on XXVII May, adopted, if not the times, at least the Bishops themselves as the first of Vienne and nearest to the times of the Apostles: whose not-unfounded credulity I rather choose to emulate than the sometimes too-scrupulous religion of the neo-critics, although for the rest I find very many things very unskillfully arranged.
[2] in Ado's Chronicon not sufficiently exact Here is the order of succession established by Ado in his Chronicon. After he related under Nero: At which time Paul is believed to have come into Spain, and to have left at Arles Trophimus, at Vienne Crescens, his disciples, to preach; speaking of the times of Trajan, he has thus: Under whom also that most glorious old man Zacharias, Bishop of the church of Vienne, is crowned with martyrdom. For first Crescens, disciple of the Apostles, resided some years at Vienne; he having returned to Galatia, third Martin, Bishop and disciple of the Apostles, resided at Vienne. That these things are disturbed everyone sees, nor do the things which he subjoins a little after bring light: The true Bishop of Vienne, who was one of the disciples and hearers of the Apostles, in the times of Trajan flourished in doctrine and confession of the faith: which if understood to the letter, it must be said that Zacharias and Verus, and consequently the intermediate Martin, flourished or suffered in the time of Trajan, in which the Chronicon of Ado, either interpolated or truncated, seems to me at least to need restoring to some extent, if for "Trajan" one may read "Hadrian." Thus the series itself will somehow be reconciled, and at once, from the historical pontifical List in Boscius's Floriacensian Library, the times may be so divided that Zacharias, substituted for Crescens, after many years obtained the crown of martyrdom, whom then succeeded he of whom we treat, St. Martin, likewise a disciple of the Apostles or of apostolic men, thus depicted in the aforesaid List in Boscius:
[3] After blessed Zacharias (the year of his martyrdom he does not define) the holy Apostles (I should wish those writers had indicated Boscius, who likewise which Apostles were at that time surviving in those parts) directed to this then most flourishing city in the Gauls a third Bishop, Martin by name, who had seen with his own eyes Christ hanging and suffering on the cross, and who, after strenuously running the course of the evangelical preaching entrusted to him, at length under Vespasian fell asleep with a peaceful end (others make him a Martyr), honored by his successors with annual memory on the Kalends of July; yet in such a way that he altogether lacks both office and ritual commemoration, known only by name in the Breviary of the year 1522. There follows in the cited List Bishop Verus, who afterward on the Kalends of August under the Emperor Nerva empurpled the church of Vienne with his own blood: to whom also Pius I, Roman Pontiff, transmitted an apostolic rescript. A monstrous anachronism, by which Nerva, dead in the year 98, has his reign most ineptly connected with Pope Pius, who is later by fully fifty and more years. For the rest, Chenu almost copied the List of Boscius: Claudius Robertus and the Sammarthani, concordant in the order of names (although these say that Verus must be restored to the 12th place, in the year 314), cautiously avoid noting the times more distinctly; and that is the safest way, so long as more certain documents are not at hand, whence the entangled things may more probably be unravelled.
[4] Meanwhile Bosquetus and Labbeus prefer to defer the martyrdom of Verus to the times of Pius I, whence it would follow nor among others, either that the former Bishops lived long, or at least began a little later than the tradition of the Vienne people bears, from which also the Chronicon of Ado, not, I think, by his own fault, but that of the interpolators, has both in the former matters been thrown forward, and in the case of Justus the fifth Bishop extended, while in the year 120 he writes: At this same time also Justus, most illustrious Bishop of the church of Vienne, stood firm in confession: but then about the year 163: Justus, Bishop of Vienne, long macerated in exile, is made a glorious Martyr; all of which in the List of Boscius are no more accurate. But Justus was abundantly illustrated by Henschenius on VI May, not greatly solicitous about preserving the chronological series of the first-mentioned Bishops, although he would easily recognize it, as well as that of the Sammarthani, to be most disturbed. For us also it will be enough to bring forward those things which, pertaining to the ancient cult of our Saint, we have found handed down in the ecclesiastical Fasti. But if it be permitted to change a few small things in the Chronicon of Ado, we do not despair of shedding some light on the most obscure chronology.
[5] still less in Lievré: But here too John Lievré seems first to demand his place, in his French work on the antiquities of Vienne, more than once cited and refuted by our Predecessors, whose most unskillful way of distributing the times shows clearly enough how uncertain among the people of Vienne is the reckoning of those first Bishops. The aforesaid Lievré therefore establishes, by his zeal for vindicating the nobility and antiquity of his fatherland, chapter 7 page 55, that the Apostle Paul himself was the first Pastor of the church of Vienne. By which means he snatches from the people of Arles all matter of glorying in St. Trophimus, once so greatly agitated. So illustrious a beginning being laid down, Crescens will be second, Zacharias third, but our Martin must be numbered fourth in order of Bishops. To Zacharias he attributes forty-two years of rule; after whom he asserts that church was widowed, until the pontificate of Alexander I (he sat in the time of the Emperor Hadrian from about the year 119 to 130), who destined St. Martin, a Roman by nation, of Christ the Redeemer, etc., to Vienne. Martin further sat three years, one month, crowned with martyrdom under Vespasian in the year 112. Thus Lievré, who whether he wrote these things while dreaming I know not, when he makes Pope Alexander I equal to Vespasian, but makes the latter surviving in the year 112, who, it is established, did not prolong his life beyond XXIV June of the year 79 (to Baronius 81).
[6] from whose Martyrology of Vienne There is among our various manuscript Martyrologies which embrace only the Saints of particular churches, the Order and series of the Saints of the holy and ancient church of Vienne, metropolis of the Allobroges in Gaul, as they are arranged in the Martyrology, extracted by the care of R. P. Peter Francis Chifflet, which, while present at Vienne in the year 1662, Papebroch copied entire under this title: Martyrology of the church of Vienne, lately reformed, and chiefly arranged by St. Ado Archbishop of the same church, restored by the labor and study of John le Lievre, doctor of Theology, canon of the same church, and abbot of St. Ferreol. Of both the same is the discourse, the same the sense; and since they were compiled by the same Lievré, author of the history of the antiquities of Vienne, it is surely no wonder if both the Martyrology and the history concoct on both sides things invented, very few excepted, which the curious reader will easily observe for himself. It is well here to transcribe the whole text of the aforesaid Martyrology, received, unless I am mistaken, from some legend, such as the Bodecensian codex relates, cited by Henschenius in Zacharias, Volume VI of May page 659 number 6. Let us hear Lievré on I July:
[7] an elogium ill arranged is given. The birthday of St. Martin the Martyr, who, third from blessed Crescens, was Bishop of Vienne, a disciple of the Lord Savior, whom he himself saw suffering on the cross with his own eyes, yet, marveling at the sun darkened over the earth and the dead raised, is said to have exclaimed with many others: Truly this man was the Son of God. He therefore, blessed Zacharias having been stoned by the infidels, sent and consecrated to Vienne by Pope Alexander I, after that church had been deprived of a pastor for many years, began to build a little house near the tomb of St. Zacharias in honor of the Lord Savior, blessed Peter and the holy Apostles; where he celebrated Mass and preached the word of God. But after he had sat at Vienne three years and a month, he himself was crowned with martyrdom under the Emperor Vespasian, in the YEAR from Christ 112, and laid in the same little house. There stands in the city of Vienne a church in his name, built by St. Nicetius Archbishop of the same city and inhabited by canons regular of St. Rufus. His feast day is kept on the Kalends of July.
[8] These things Lievré, or rather the Martyrology restored, The truer praise of St. Martin or shall I say depraved, by him; to refute whose ineptitudes, since they are most patent, there is no leisure to take further pains. To the truer, certainly more illustrious praise of St. Martin of Vienne the most approved Martyrology of Ado greatly contributes, as it was augmented by him with second cares, while he occupied the see of Vienne, as I have noted in various places in the most recent recension of the Usuardine Martyrology. Indeed, when he had composed the aforesaid Martyrology of his from the Little Roman, from Bede augmented by Florus, and from the collected Acts of the Saints at Lyon, such as came anonymously into the hands of Usuard, as we showed in the preface chapter 3 article 3 from number 160, after he was raised to the infulae of Vienne, he afterward added, each in its proper place, his predecessors, the holy Bishops, before passed over; which was the reason why Usuard was ignorant of most of them, indeed some copies of Ado survive from which those Bishops of Vienne are absent. Let our manuscript codices, the Morinensian and that of the Queen of Sweden, be an example, which on this day make no mention of St. Martin. But the complete editions of Mosander and Rosweyd, and likewise all other manuscript codices, thus distinctly pronounce: At Vienne, of blessed Martin, third Bishop of the same city, sent by the Apostles to the aforesaid city.
[9] In the true Adonian text this announcement is referred in the last place, in Ado, who, as Bishop, augmented his Martyrology. so that you easily understand it to be an addition, but one made by Ado himself. But he who edited Ado under the name of Bede, whom others call the spurious or supposititious Bede, we the Plantinian, inserted those very words of Ado into the middle of the text. What Notker means on XI May I do not indeed sufficiently perceive; hear his text: At Vienne, of the blessed Bishops Martin and Maternus. Which Maternus, on account of impending disasters, we related to have instituted Litanies on the solemn triduum before the Ascension of the Lord. I am greatly mistaken, unless he meant to say Mamertus, who is honored on that day: but what is that connection of two Saints separated by so many centuries? Why is Martin referred to XI May, whom all most constantly place on I July? For the rest, the ancient veneration of our St. Martin is abundantly proved by these two classical Martyrologies, to which we will subjoin the augmented Usuardine codices with other more recent Martyrologies, among which the Brussels codex, the Lübeck-Cologne edition, Greven, and from him Canisius, report almost the very words of Ado unchanged: as also the manuscript Florarium, in which the added year can neither be read, nor, if it could, would it signify anything.
[10] A little fuller is the phrase of Galesinius, writing thus in the second place: What Galesinius and Saussay. At Vienne, of St. Marinus the Bishop, disciple of the Apostles, who, succeeding blessed Zacharias the Martyr in the episcopate, shone with heavenly doctrine and an illustrious confession of the faith. In a note he rightly warns that it should be read Martin; but whence he dug out the year of Christ 94 under Nerva and Trajan, I plainly do not know. It is likely enough that it passed from Galesinius into the Roman, but with a compendious period: At Vienne, of St. Martin the Bishop, disciple of the Apostles. No one gave more words than Saussay with his usual elegance: At Vienne of the Allobroges, the passing of St. Martin, disciple of the Apostles, second Bishop of this city. He whom they report to have beheld with his own eyes Christ hanging and suffering on the Cross for our salvation. Having advanced from the East into the West, he came to Rome with Paul the teacher of the nations, already made illustrious by the evangelical heralding of Peter; where, having received from those princes of the faith authority to preach in Gaul, with Verus, given to him as helper of the holy office, he scattered the word of salvation in various places of Vienne and of Celtic Gaul. Then, Zacharias, Pontiff of the church of Vienne, who was the first victim of the faith in Gaul, being laureated with a noble contest for the assertion of piety, he set out to Vienne to console the scattered sheep, and entered there a glorious episcopate, and remained there so long, advancing the glory of Christ and the welfare of his flock, partly by word, partly by signs and apostolic conduct, until, having strenuously run through the office of evangelical preaching, at length under the prince Trajan he fell asleep with a peaceful end; and, associated with the chief heralds of Christ in heaven, he received, his holy warfare well accomplished, the eternal reward. Whose name remaining in benediction, inscribed thenceforth in the sacred diptychs, and honored with worthy cult, perpetuated the glorious memory of so great a hero.
[11] By what reasoning the Bishops of Vienne In commonplaces of this kind Saussay far surpasses all the other Martyrologists: but concerning the ancient cult of St. Martin we have already said enough; let it be permitted at last, by at least some not altogether improbable conjecture, so to arrange the first Prelates of Vienne that all things inept and absurd are utterly eliminated. Let today's doubters grant us that Crescens was in Gaul and even at Vienne, as the most illustrious de Marca, in his celebrated letter to Henri de Valois, and other most learned men try probably enough to prove, whatever others resist: it does not immediately follow that Zacharias succeeded him immediately in the see of Vienne, in the way that vacant sees are today disposed of: no one anywhere so scrupulously discussed the deaths or successions of the first Bishops. Let then, after Crescens, who set out to Galatia, second Zacharias have been afflicted with martyrdom in the last times of Trajan (which in no way conflicts with the Chronicon of Ado), about the year 115, to whom if, with Lievré, it be right to attribute a full 42 years of episcopate, by a retrograde order we shall easily ascend to the year of Christ 73, to be combined with the departure of Crescens. But now our Martin, having succeeded St. Zacharias afterward, sat some years while Hadrian reigned, and reached the times of St. Pope Alexander I, under whom either laid to rest in peace, or perhaps crowned with martyrdom, he yielded place to Verus, who, flourishing in the times of Hadrian (not Trajan as we said) in doctrine and confession of the faith (for thus we think the Chronicon of Ado must be restored), can most rightly be said to have survived to the pontificate of St. Pius I, and thus to have received that rescript about which there is controversy among the learned.
[12] may seem able to be arranged. Thus indeed I think that all the roughness which offends readers in the Vienne writings can be somewhat smoothed and explained. If these things do not please, find something more accurate to substitute. But in that way Martin cannot so conveniently be called a disciple of the Apostles, or to have seen Christ hanging on the Cross, etc. Away with minutiae perhaps devised yesterday. Let the people of Vienne hear me, I beg, and, not carried away by love of their fatherland, let them not litigate about these circumstances, but content with the opportune gift, let them willingly desert the things more recently invented, and that the more easily because by the sufficiently common acceptation they are understood to be disciples of the Apostles who lived with the first apostolic men. If they delight too much in paradoxes, let them themselves teach by which Apostles, after the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, Martin and Verus were destined to Vienne: I shall surely seem to have proved much in their favor, if I shall have shown that the series of their Prelates can be led down to the times of the Apostles not so incongruously. To elucidate and establish the age and order of those following is not of this place; we lay the way, which if the people of Vienne are willing to enter, they will arrange the catalogue of their Pastors by a safer method than Boscius, Lievré and others have hitherto done, scarcely anywhere consistent with themselves. Let these things said on the occasion of St. Martin suffice.