ON ST. JUSTUS THE CONFESSOR,
AT CAMBON AMONG THE PEOPLE OF BOURGES IN GAUL.
THIRD CENTURY.
PrefaceJustus, Confessor, among the people of Bourges in Gaul (S.)
J. B. S.
Of Saints of the same name under the name of Justus, discourse recurs more than once on this day. The cult of St. Justus of Trier alone could in some way be asserted; of the other, the Constantinopolitan or Roman, equally unknown to the ancient Martyrologies, From the tables of Bourges various confusions, not everywhere religious, had to be explained and reconciled. Justus of Lyons, marked emulously in the sacred tables, we have deferred to his proper festivity, namely to September 2, among the Passed Over. There remains another Justus, whom Castellanus suggested to us for this day in his Universal Martyrology, in these words: Near Cambon among the people of Bourges, of St. Justus the confessor, fellow-laborer of St. Ursinus in establishing the faith there, where in the margin he notes about the year 289, of which epoch or age it will have to be inquired at the Acts of St. Ursinus on November 9, on which he is placed in the Roman, or December 29, on which the people of Bourges venerate him. Saussay was not ignorant of St. Justus, but he transferred him in the Supplement to the third of the Nones of November, thus writing: At the river Utricio near Bourges, the birthday of St. Justus the martyr, who, setting out with blessed Ursinus the bishop as companion to the city of Bourges, having died nine miles distant from the city, migrated to Christ; by the same St. Ursinus he was fittingly buried, in the eastern quarter of the city. There is that which displeases Labbe as much as us in that elogium; besides that, as I was just saying, he recorded him on another day than that on which he is venerated by the people of Bourges, as will presently appear also from the praised Labbe, whose historical elogium embraces all things which he found handed down to memory concerning St. Justus.
[2] For the cult stand also the manuscript Calendars of Bourges, in which he is expressly set down as to be venerated on this July 14 with an Office of three lessons, the cult cannot be doubted. which it is not permitted here to describe, since the entire Breviary of that church does not exist in our Museum. The fourth lesson of St. Ursinus will supply it, described from the edition of the year 1625 in this manner: Blessed Ursinus, with his disciple in merits and in name Justus, sent to Bourges to announce the faith of Christ, was appointed the first bishop there. But it happened that the same Justus fell sick, and exchanged this life for a better one, before they reached the city of Bourges: and this in a village nine miles distant from the city, which thereafter retained the name of St. Justus. Catherinot's Sanctuary of Bourges, page 33, brings nothing greatly new, yet in this dissenting from Castellanus, that he will have the Saint, who by a reason frivolous enough he says can be called a martyr, to have died about the year 251, and to have been a deacon of St. Ursinus, by this argument, that bishops never went forth without a deacon. But that somewhere, namely in Saussay, he is marked on November 3, this he thinks is to be understood of some translation; on which occasion he pronounces an epiphonema worthy of Catherinot; namely that it is as difficult to make the Martyrologies agree as the clocks, as if in composing them he had worn away his age, and indeed in seeking St. Justus, of whom I do not think he found any memory anywhere in the ancient Martyrologies. These things we had to say of the cult of St. Justus; the rest which could be found will give
A HISTORICAL ELOGIUM.
From the Lives and elogia of the Saints of Bourges.
In Labbe, Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, volume 2, page 410.
Justus, Confessor, among the people of Bourges in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Of his deeds Labbe has a very little. Saint Justus, having set out from Rome with Saint Ursinus, had not yet come to Bourges for the sake of announcing the faith, when, seized with a grave disease, at the ninth mile from the city he departed from the living, and, committed to burial by his master in a place which overhangs the bank of the Avaricum or Utrio, midway on the journey between the city of Bourges and Regiodunum, from him it received its name, Saint Just between Bourges and Dun-le-Roy, on the river Auron; whereas before, if it is right to believe it, it was called Novaville, or Novabella. Thence, in the course of time, the venerable body of the holy Confessor was translated into a church, which, whereas before it had been erected in honor of St. Symphorian the martyr, afterward borrowed its surname from St. Ursinus, when about the year 570, from the nearby vineyards, in the presence of the holy prelates Probianus of Bourges and Germanus of Paris, the body of the first apostle of the people of Bourges was led with the greatest honor into the suburb of the city of Bourges. This summary we have excerpted both from the most ancient Breviary of the church of Bourges, and from other monuments of the history of our people of Bourges. At this time also, on July 14, the memory of St. Justus is recalled every year in the whole diocese of Bourges, under the title and name of confessor; and therefore it seemed to me altogether strange, that in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology it is read written: On the third of the Nones of November, at Utricio, etc., as we have above described from Saussay. These things there, says Labbe, which there is not leisure to sift more fully; nor is it in our power, the monuments of Bourges being silent, to add more to these.