ON ST. PAUL, BISHOP, AT SENS IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR 530.
Account from the Martyrologies and the Breviary of Sens.
Paul, Bishop, at Sens in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Of the illustrious brother of this St. Paul and his predecessor in the same see, St. Heraclius, we treated on the VIII of June, although in the Breviary of Sens his memory is festively recalled on this day, as we noted above in the Passed-Over. There Henschenius followed the Martyrologies, He is venerated at Sens on 5 July, which mark St. Heraclius on that day, just as we here now report St. Paul, wont to be celebrated in the church of Sens with a double Office on the V of this month, on which day we remitted him hither from Galesinius, Ferrarius, Ghinius, and others, meaning to treat of both, inasmuch as the Acts of the one are inserted in the deeds of the other, since nothing is known of St. Paul which is not contained in the aforesaid Acts of St. Heraclius, and which Saussay has almost embraced in his own elogium, thus announcing on the V of July: At Sens, the deposition of St. Paul, Bishop and confessor of the same city, who, substituted to his brother Heraclius as metropolitan of this see, not only filled his place with the same dignity, but also adorned it with equal holiness, and, his pontificate being briefly but gloriously accomplished, was made both the companion of his tomb and a partaker of his brother's blessedness. So to the aforesaid day; to which it is not worth the labor to add the words of the other Martyrologies for this day, straying here and there.
[2] But on this day it thus stands in the Supplement, page 1143, at the VII of the Ides: known from the Acts of his brother St. Heraclius, At Sens, the entombment of St. Paul, Bishop of this metropolis and confessor: who, brother of St. Heraclius, was his successor in this church: which, when he had governed with the same vigilance and piety, he fell asleep in eternal peace. On the same day at Troyes, the festival of St. Heraclius, brother of the same Blessed Paul, who, having died on the VIII of June, so received his own brother, whom he left heir of the sacred office, when after his happy death he had been brought to his tomb, at the monastic house of St. John the Evangelist, as a consort by right of the sepulcher, that, embracing him rewarded with the prize of the same glory in heaven, he had him a blessed companion. Of the deeds of St. Paul there remains nothing to add; I will subjoin below what is recorded of the translation of both in the Lessons of the Breviary of Sens, published in the year 1625. But thou wilt observe that on the day of V July the Office is performed under a double rite for St. Paul, but the whole is taken from the common of a confessor bishop. Castellanus noted the year of death as 535; but that he departed a little earlier thou wilt make out from the things disputed in the commentary on St. Heraclius; we preferred to write indeterminately about the year 530, the Sammarthani abstaining from all reckoning. Behold now what is contained concerning the translation in the Acts of St. Heraclius and in the aforesaid Breviary of Sens, in the eighth and ninth lesson:
[3] with whom his sacred body was translated. At length, as the course of many times slipped away, and as the number of those persecuting the Christian name increased, all the inhabitants of this city, fearing lest the pagans, coming, should handle the bodies of the Saints irreverently, who during that same time were laying waste the whole region: gathered together from every side by common consent, taking up the relics of both, with the clerics chanting, with the greatest honor, they bore them into the principal church of the blessed Stephen the protomartyr. There also, as can still be seen, placed in one and the same spot, they rest in the peace of the Lord, magnificently and religiously entombed with gold and silver. But we believe, and it ought to be a doubt to no one, that whosoever, with these same interceding, asks divine aid, if he has lived well, obtains pardon through their merits from our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through all, etc. I have not noted what is said in Ghinius, that he was the sixteenth Bishop in order and, spent with age, departed to the Lord in the year of salvation 569: from the commentary already mentioned on St. Heraclius, VIII June, thou wilt be better instructed.