ON ST. NAVITUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR
AT TRIER, OR TONGEREN, IN BELGIUM.
Perhaps THIRD CENTURY.
A Collection on the episcopate, cult, and doubts occurring concerning the Saint.
Navitus, Bishop and Martyr, at Trier or Tongeren in Belgica (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Long known to the world of letters is the learned Diatribe of our Godfrey Henschenius on the Bishops of Tongeren and Maastricht, published from the year 1653, prepared for the press by the author himself with second care, under the name of Exegesis, in the year 1680, Nine Bishops asserted by Henschenius to belong to Tongeren, and at last reprinted with his elogium before volume 7 of May; which indeed Nicolas Fizen, canon of Visé, dared to gnaw at from a distance, with his very brief little vindications, namely of truth and of the church of Tongeren, published in the aforesaid year 1653 with no profit of the work: but of the people of Trier no one, as far as I know, has thus far assailed it. To these especially pertains, in the Diatribe book 3 chapter 5, the first chapter of the new Exegesis, in which part it is treated of the ten earliest Bishops of the city of Tongeren, of whom the last was St. Servatius, the first St. Maternus, founder of its cathedral church, and the intermediate successors, eight in number, Navitus, Marcellus, Metropolus, Severinus, Florentius, Martinus, Maximinus, and Valentinus. These Henschenius judges to have been wrongly thrust into the Catalogue of the Bishops of Trier, from the Chronicle of Trier, fabulous about its beginning, inasmuch as they pertain to the church of Tongeren, thus, with his modesty, addressing the people of Trier at number 7: These things we propose to be considered by men learned in antiquity at Trier, who, if they can prove the contrary by evident arguments, we will gladly enter upon the surer way to be shown by them, in the next month of June, in which three of the said Tongeren Bishops are venerated, and among these St. Martinus, reported on the twenty-first, on whom we establish the things here said in Acts already prepared for the press; as also on the 7th and 20th of June, on which are venerated SS. Maximinus and Valentinus, successors of the said Martinus.
[2] These things have now for so many years been made public, no one of the people of Trier, among whom St. Navitus is snatched from the people of Trier as far as we have known, protesting, among whom it is most difficult to fix the beginnings of the episcopate, and to assign their times to so many Bishops in so brief an interval, as Henschenius there most learnedly shows, being wont to turn over matters of this kind not idly. Nor indeed is that opinion new or devised by Henschenius, which among the people of Tongeren, today of Liège, has for so many centuries been received, as is taught at length from Hariger, abbot of Lobbes, and Giles of Orval in the cited chapter, our Bartholomew Fizen assenting in the Flowers of the Church of Liège on the sixth of February. In this the people of Tongeren can seem more negligent, that they did not assign proper days to those several Saints, as was done at Trier, where they decreed a feast to St. Navitus on this seventh of July. That tradition must have prevailed there for two and more centuries, since in the augmented Usuard of the Lübeck-Cologne edition, of the year 1490, it is plainly read: At Trier, St. Navitus, Bishop and Confessor, which Greven described in nearly the same words in both his editions of 1515 and 1521. And these are the most ancient Usuardine auctaria in which the memory of St. Navitus is kept, altogether unknown to all the ancient Martyrologists, even of the ninth and tenth centuries, so that it can easily be conjectured that everything flowed from the aforesaid Chronicle of Trier.
[3] greatly wavering in the series of their first Bishops Indeed I confess it plainly a wonder that so many holy Bishops of Trier, who in the first three centuries alone are reckoned to more than twenty, could have been neglected by those classical Martyrologies, which mentioned other neighboring Saints, if truly all occupied that see with the glory of sanctity. Not thus judged the brothers of Sainte-Marthe, when, about to treat of the episcopate of Trier, they wrote thus: The mention of the Bishops of Trier seems moreover very obscure in the first centuries up to Agricius, or altogether small in the ecclesiastical diptychs, by which the legitimate succession might be proved. Certainly the so polished series of the Bishops of Trier, which is set forth in the annals of Brouwer, published by Masen, seems to need apodictic Commentaries no less than that vast Gallican Martyrology of Saussay, from which the most Illustrious author, however provoked, prudently abstained: nor will it be obvious enough to the people of Trier ever to establish the successions of their Bishops, drawn down to the very first century, on solid reckonings; so that to admit them is not free for me, and I am thus compelled to enter upon that way which Henschenius paved, in the three last of the number of eight reported in the month of June, most willingly about to leave it, if the learned people of Trier deign to teach better things. Nor yet meanwhile do I altogether snatch the Saint from them, since I faithfully report whatever in their favor it was permitted to find from monuments, though not the most ancient.
[4] The cited Cologne Martyrologies above favor the people of Trier by attributing St. Navitus to them, Unknown to the ancient Martyrologists, by the recent ones but under the sole title of Confessor, which nevertheless they themselves today do not acknowledge, so that consequently the tradition must have grown by lapse of time, and a new glory to the Saint; so that Molanus in his additions to Usuard of the last editions wrote: At Trier, the birthday of St. Navitus, bishop and martyr; which laurel we too ourselves attribute not unwillingly, although concerning his passion nothing more certain survives than concerning his race, fatherland, age, the time of his see, or his other deeds, which from Jan Placentius of Sint-Truiden the Dominican, or other writers of that kind, would not be drawn out safely enough. Meanwhile Galesini adorned the Saint with this notable elogium, received I know not whence, which the author of the German Martyrology transcribed nearly word for word, whether that was Canisius or Walasser: At Trier, St. Navitus, bishop and martyr. He, born of royal stock, a hearer and disciple of the blessed Bishop Maternus, among the Tongrians, with religious piety and magnificent work built a church to the most blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of God; and for the glory of Christ and for the salvation of the people committed to him, besides other things which he did, at last also underwent martyrdom. These are the common praises of the Saints among the more recent Martyrologists, neither to be admitted at once, nor to be rejected. However they be taken, it is enough for us here that St. Navitus, now for several centuries endowed with the honors of the Saints, still enjoys them.
[5] Shorter is the announcement of Ferrari: At Trier, St. Navitus, bishop and martyr. He is ascribed to Trier, He indeed names Galesini and others in his notes, but abstains from their words, which certainly he could not have adduced from Molanus's little Index of the Saints of Belgium, since he, folio 67 verso, mentions nothing beyond the Saint's name. Much more widely Ghini spreads his sails, with a panegyric elegant enough, whose source we shall exhibit below. This is his oration: At Trier, St. Navitus, bishop and martyr; who was son of the Duke of the Gauls, and nephew, on his brother's side, of the king of the Tongrians, disciple and successor of St. Maternus, first bishop of the Tongrians: since from him some Bishops of Trier were also prelates of the Tongrians, of Maastricht, and of Liège. He among the Tongrians built a church of the most blessed Virgin Mary with royal work, and for the glory of Christ and the salvation of the people underwent many labors and at last martyrdom in the year of the Lord 190, in the fortieth of his see. The race of the Saint so illustrious, the determined epoch of the martyrdom, and the forty-year duration of the occupied see of Trier, the people of Trier themselves do not acknowledge, from whose own Offices we shall add a lesson taken, succinct enough, conceived in such terms that even in so great a mist of times and universal uncertainty of matters it may offend no one greatly.
[6] Have therefore the words of the Lectionary concerning certain Saints of the Trier Office, as also in the Lectionary, moderate enough. accommodated to the use and rite of the Roman Breviary and printed at Trier in the year 1645, and so not much to be commended by antiquity. They name Navitus the nineteenth Prelate of Trier, and the second of Tongeren; who established in the Christian faith the nation of the Tongrians, going backward from the death of St. Martinus [*], the storms of persecutions driving them, and nearly relapsed to paganism, so that from himself the successors might learn what this office requires. After so many labors therefore, and cares, a great number of Christian sheep being gathered, having attested religion by his blood and life, he attained the palm of martyrdom, and, famous for very many miracles, went to heaven. Whom the people of Trier, carried back to their own borders, placed with other holy Bishops, to be honored on the Nones of July. For whom, amid the inhumanity and tortures of the most foul tyrants, who strove with more than barbarous savagery to extinguish the nascent Christian religion in the whole world, neither the exact time of the administered church, nor the kind of torment, can be defined. Ingenuously indeed, but the author could have added, that the history of St. Navitus is so obscure that neither the kind of death, nor the translation, nor its time, nor the other things pertaining to the Saint, can thus far be said to be sufficiently ascertained by his votaries.
[7] To those Martyrologists and encomiasts add, if you please, Saussay, Castellanus, What Placentius and others have, and however many more recent ones may occur, claiming St. Navitus for the people of Trier; in so great an obscurity of matters nothing of moment will accrue to their opinion. Let them venerate as they venerate; and with a cult, if they will, more famous; still the opinion of Henschenius will always seem preferable, until it be overthrown by surer documents. To others will be pleasing a middle opinion, which many follow, and from which the people of Trier by no means shrink, concerning those nine Bishops governing the church of Trier and of Tongeren at once, as they will have it; that St. Maternus administered not only those two, but also the Cologne church at one time. Perhaps that controversy can one day be more elucidated. Let the praised Jan Placentius close this little dissertation, in his Catalogue of all the Prelates of the Tongrians, of Maastricht, and of Liège, where, establishing St. Navitus as the second Bishop of the Tongrians, he thus speaks of him: But dying, St. Maternus had especially commended Navitus; for in faith and merit he went before the rest, and prevailed, of a nobility of body as well as of mind pre-eminent; inasmuch as he was son of the Duke of the Gauls, and nephew, on his brother's side, of the king of the Tongrians. Wherefore easily by the votes of all he entered upon the administration in the year of salvation one hundred and thirty-one.
[8] all things are doubtful and uncertain. Who forthwith, surpassing the hope and expectation of the people by the beneficence of a master, evangelized on foot, and went round the whole province far and wide, thinking that he should by no means spare himself. Whence, vehement in speaking, he called very many away from vices; until by his supreme authority he rekindled the hearts of the people of Trier, who had nearly fallen away from the faith, whose charity had now grown cold, so that of their own accord they acknowledged him the undoubted successor of Maternus, and sought him as their Bishop. Whom he governed with so great gentleness of rein, that his seven successors on both sides presided for about one hundred and twenty-eight years. For the rest, having gloriously discharged his office for forty years, he met death
in the year of salvation one hundred and ninety. What is this drowsiness of the man? St. Navitus entered upon the administration in the year 131, died in the year 190, and yet discharged his office only for forty years. Giles, in Henschenius at number 4, connects his own data better. But more probably? I would not dare to assert; all things are uncertain. Placentius adds the day of death, the twelfth of the Kalends of October; and says he was buried at Tongeren: and that he flourished under the Apostolic men Sixtus I, etc.; in all which there is just as much marrow as in the rest which up to this point, concerning his episcopate, age, and deeds, we have collected more laboriously than truly. The immemorial cult of the Saint persists to this day, for the sake of which alone we have here given him a place.
Annotation* Or rather of Maternus?