ON ST. NOMIUS OR NUMMIUS, CONFESSOR,
NEAR VILLEPREUX BETWEEN PARIS AND HOUDAN.
Notice from the Martyrologies.
Nomius or Nummius, Confessor, near Villepreux, between Paris and Houdan in Gaul (S.)
J. B. S.
The first memory of this Saint for this day the Paris edition of Usuard suggested, procured by Munerat in the year 1490, in these words: In the district of the Pinserais, of St. Nomius the Confessor. Another fuller Usuard of the Queen of Sweden, under number 428, wrote: Marked by the more recent Martyrologists, In the district of the Pinserais, of St. Nunnus the Confessor. The additions of Molanus to Usuard read: In the district of the Pinserais, of St. Nomius the Martyr. It must be read, I think, as Munerat and Molanus have it, that the place or position be designated not far from Poissy (in French Poissy), which Baudrand explains by the Pinserais, which is a tract of Gaul in the diocese of Chartres, toward the river Seine, whose bounds have perished; and mention is made of it only, he says, in acts of the middle age, and in the ecclesiastical affairs of that diocese. The matter a little more clearly Castellanus distinguished in the Universal Martyrology, in which on this day he thus has: Near Villepreux, between Paris and Houdan, of St. Nummius the Confessor. This is the most correct site, expressed in geographical maps, distant from Paris toward Houdan about five French miles.
[2] There I find both Villepreux and Saint-Non, which is the French name of the Saint, it is known that he has a cult, the rest is unknown. reported on this same day in the spiritual Kalendar of Paris (Almanach spirituel), as honored with some peculiar cult in that city. St. Non conf. in the Vexin: in the Vexin tract of the Île-de-France, whose head they say is Pontoise. And all these things indeed agree with the same name, except that he is wrongly called a Martyr by Molanus. But who that Saint was, or of what country, when and in what state he lived, what he did, in what time he flourished or died, I ask him who will explain to me. I had recourse to Paris, proposed my doubts, asked for light; nothing could be obtained. Saussay I had before consulted in vain: for when he writes in the Supplement to his Gallican Martyrology: In the territory of Liège, in the district of the Pinserais, the birthday of St. Nomius the martyr, the letters being inverted called Monius by some sacred censors, illustrious rather for the laurel of merited martyrdom in his death, than for the notice of deeds done in life: when, I say, he writes these things, he plainly demonstrates that he does not know of what Saint it is treated on this day; for that Monius pertains to the 18th of October, on which day Castellanus reported him in the general index, but in the text omitted him; perhaps because he did not believe him honored with a true cult, which on the said day must be examined from the Natales of Molanus.
Annotated* Others note 884.