ON ST. NUMERIANUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
AT TRIER.
657.
CommentaryNumerianus, Bishop and Confessor, at Trier (S.)
J. B. S.
The first memory of this Saint in our Fasti I find in the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, into which, however, by the fault of the copyist, for Numerianus crept in Munerianus; for thus it is there read: At Trier, of St. Munerianus, His memory in the Fasti; Bishop and Confessor of that same city, in the year of salvation 658, which is not far from the truth. In the Auctaria of Usuard it is also referred, first from the Lübeck-Cologne edition, At Trier, the blessed Numerianus Bishop and Confessor; in which way also Greven speaks, and a certain Benedictine Martyrology, whose age I do not know, and nearly Canisius. Molanus reads: At Trier, the deposition of St. Numerianus the Archbishop. From this it was translated into the Roman, At Trier, St. Numerianus Bishop and Confessor, as Baronius confesses in the note added on this day, where he says that he succeeded St. Radoald, and flourished about the year of the Lord six hundred and forty. Ghini, following Baronius in the rest, writes the year 650. He who discussed the affairs of Trier a little more accurately, our Christophe Brouwer, calls his predecessor St. Modoald, of whom in our Acts on the twelfth of May; but the death of St. Numerianus he brings back to the year 657, relating very few things about him, which I here subjoin from him. Thus he has at the said year, book 7 page 356.
[2] Thence (namely after the death of St. Modoald) the pontifical care being transferred to Numerianus, a brief elogium from Brouwer concerning whom indeed I find nothing but the memory of an epitaph handed down in the monuments of the ancients, so that even from this it may shine forth that he did not prolong the cares of the church for a long time. His rare and excellent virtue enrolled him in the order of the Saints, antiquity consenting, his memory being consecrated on the fifth of July. His body rests in St. Helena, an old suburban village, in a church which five hundred years ago Archbishop Udo dedicated to St. Helena Augusta. That therefore I may here embrace all things together, the monument carved on his tomb once had thus:
In this coffer are gathered the sacred pledges of the fostering Bishop of Trier, Numerianus, who went to the heavens while July compasses the third Nones, and is joined with the Saints for perpetual age.
[3] and from Saussay. Here in few words you have whatever the most diligent Annalist of Trier could gather about St. Numerianus, observing this one thing, that by the word gathered is indicated not the first burial of the Saint, but some translation, which, at what time it was made, he himself was ignorant, nor shall I undertake to inquire; that inscription certainly does not seem to savor of so great antiquity. Nor would I omit in this place the elogium of Saussay concerning St. Numerianus, in which this is to be corrected, which does not agree with Brouwer's narrative, when he says that the Saint succeeded St. Chlodulf. Hear his words: At Trier, the metropolis of the First Belgic Gaul,
St. Numerianus, Bishop and Confessor, who, conspicuous by divine grace, succeeded St. Chlodulf in that see, and after a most holy administration of his sacred office, received in the heavens the crown of the stewardship entrusted to him. Concerning the city of Trier our Elders have already spoken in the Acts, so that I have judged that nothing here need be noted about it.