ON ST. GENEROSUS, ABBOT AND CONFESSOR, AT ENIXIO AMONG THE PICTONES IN GAUL. In the VI Century. A notice from the Acts of St. Paternus, Bishop of Avranches.
Generosus, Abbot and Confessor, among the Pictones in Gaul (S.)
I. B. S.
Of St. Paternus, Bishop of Avranches, there had been treatment in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, first century, page 152, and there some things established which were afterward better revised by Mabillon in the Supplement of the second century, Scarcely known from elsewhere, from page 1100; after he had the Life, written by Fortunatus of Poitiers, communicated to him by the distinguished Lord d'Hérouval. On his proper day, the XVI of April, our Predecessors also illustrated his Acts from various other Manuscripts, with the faithful companion St. Scubilio added, who, as neither in life nor in death, so neither in cult ought to be torn away from St. Paternus. From the Life of these Saints is chiefly made known he of whom we here treat, St. Generosus (in French Generoux), under whose discipline in the monastery of Enesio (by others Enestio, Enexio, Enixio, Hensio — which is now believed to be the monastery of St. Jovinus of Marnes, St. Jouin de Marnes, of the diocese of Poitiers, concerning which the first day of June, page 73, is to be seen) the praised St. Paternus, afterward bishop, established a religious life, as you have in our Acts, on the cited day of the XVI of April, chapter 2, number 6, from which I shall here subjoin what can chiefly be recorded of our holy Generosus. Thus it is there read:
[2] The fame of which matter growing, the venerable man, their abbot Generosus, after three years, set out to seek the monks, as from the Acts of St. Paternus; fugitives so well fleeing to Christ. Having found them, he recognized that St. Paternus had climbed to a very arduous life, so that besides bread and water, or vegetables seasoned with salt, he took no food. But he removed his gaze not only from the presence of women, but even of friends, that, removed from all, he might better await angelic visitations, and grow in divinity what was lacking in man: never using a bed… Which his abbot, seeing that it was beyond the intention of the rule, like a horse impatient of the rein, called back to moderate fastings; commanding that he should not be so strictly enclosed as to deprive himself of the sight or conversation of men. Moreover, that he should visit by turns the little cells which he himself had built. Concerning whom, because he was of good parents, testimony was given both by the Pontiff Leontianus and by the citizens. Commending him in that place, calling back blessed Scubilio to the monastery with himself, after a short interval he permitted him to return to his brother.
[3] it is proved that he lived in the VI century, On the name of Generosus, Henschenius thus observed: St. Generosus was abbot of Ausio; but who is said to have lived in the following (that is, the VII) century in the old Lectionary, unless there is an error, which will have to be examined on the X of July, on which day he is venerated in the monastery of Ausio, and in the church of the priory of St. Generosus, commonly S. Generone, in which his relics are kept. All which things Mabillon confirms in the cited Supplement of the second Benedictine century, where to the same name of St. Generosus this annotation is appended: Hence it is manifest that the abbot Generosus belongs not to the VII century (as we said elsewhere) but to the VI. The old Lectionary of Ausio is therefore to be corrected, in which St. Generosus is said to have flourished at the time when Constantine Augustus, the third from Heraclius, governed the Roman empire, and Childebert, son of King Theodoric, grandson of Dagobert I, presided over the commonwealth of the Franks. Generosus is read to have received the monastic habit in the monastery of Ausio under St. Launegisilus. In the year 1159 a certain weaver at the town of Thouars, for having violated the feast day of St. Generosus, being punished with a numbness of his limbs, penance being done in the church of St. Generosus, was healed. Likewise a certain Aimeric, surnamed de Villia, seneschal of Thouars, for the ornaments of the same church which he had plundered, is said to have paid the penalty. St. Generosus is venerated on the VI day before the Ides of July in the monastery of Ausio, or St. Jovinus of Marnes, and in the church of the priory of St. Generosus, commonly S. Generoux, which is distant one league from that monastery, and preserves his relics.
[4] and that he is venerated on this X of July. The Lectionary, of which we have already spoken, we have never seen; nor could other things pertaining to St. Generosus be found, since no written Life or Legend of him is known: certainly it has hitherto come neither to Mabillon nor to us. In the sacred Fasti he is nowhere known, not even in the great Gallican Martyrology of Saussay, who at last, in the final appendix of his work, page 1251, produces an excerpt from the sacred monuments of the church of Poitiers, received recently, after this work was nearly published, by the gift of the most Reverend Lord Bishop in the month of September of the year 1636, in which he testifies that on the XVI of July it is thus had: Generosus