ON ST. THEODOSIUS, BISHOP,
AT AUXERRE IN GAUL.
SIXTH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On the cult, age, deeds, burial, and finding.
Theodosius, Bishop, at Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
How illustrious is the church of Auxerre, from the very first centuries of Christ, its very many bishops having merited the honors and cult of the Saints, so frequent has been the memory of its tutelary patrons in these our Acts, and will be henceforth in the course of the work; Among other illustrious bishops of Auxerre, yet so that the Acts of few have been illustrated or remain to be illustrated, and our chief disquisition is engaged, not in describing or discussing their deeds, but in collecting the few notices which pertain to the ancient and constant veneration, and then to establishing their age. And of the former indeed there exist for the most part testimonies so open in the very ancient Martyrologies, that what Henschenius long ago indicated of St. Censurius, at the X of June, may safely be pronounced almost of the rest; since, as that one, so many others are found in the Hieronymian exemplars, added indeed by a Gallic antiquary, but even in the very most ancient Antwerp or Epternach one, so that additions of that kind must be almost older than the ninth century. But to define the age is not so easy, as also before me the praised Henschenius observed in the said place. Both parts, according to the subject matter, we shall briefly dispatch.
[2] He has a place in the Hieronymian Martyrology, To begin from the already mentioned Hieronymian ones; the Lucca copies of Florentinius, the Corbie, and those of the Queen of Sweden, or of St. Columba of Sens, expressly have: "At Auxerre, the deposition of blessed Theodosius the bishop," which announcement Notker most certainly described from some similar codex. In the Epternach it is, "At Auxerre, of Theodorus the bishop"; worse in the lesser Augsburg one, "of Theodora." The Reichenau and the Labbean read "of Theodosius," or "Theudosius"; but that everywhere that same Theodosius is understood, the added position "At Auxerre" evidently proves, which is expressed also in the codex of St. Cyriacus and others. That he was passed over by Usuard I do not wonder, since he was not found in his perpetual guide; for to Ado it is an added announcement; "Likewise at Auxerre, of St. Theodosius, bishop and confessor," and so too that longer one in the Mortain codex and the Liège one of St. Lawrence; of which nevertheless the text of this kind deserves to be described: "At Auxerre, the deposition of Theodosius the bishop, who, when he had ruled his church eight years and twenty-nine days, at last rested in peace, and was buried in the church of St. Germanus the bishop." And in this brief compass are contained the chief things which we have received handed down about his deeds, and which will lead us below to explain the finding of the sacred body.
[3] Among the Usuardine supplements the most ancient is that which the Rosweyde codex relates in these words: and in others more recent. "Likewise the deposition of St. Theodosius, bishop and confessor," the position being omitted which in the Centula one is not neglected. Greven uses a compendium; "Of Theodosius, bishop and confessor." Maurolyco or the other more recent ones I do not enumerate; but Galesinius and Saussay deserve a place, of whom the first thus writes: "At Auxerre, of St. Theodosius, bishop and confessor, who, under Boniface II the Roman Pontiff, shining forth with the splendor of holy deeds, was present at the first Council of Orléans": he did not preside, as the Gallic Calendar of the Saints of Auxerre, found among the collectanea of Chifflet, wrongly pronounces Galesinius to have asserted. A little more elegant is Saussay's elogium; "At Auxerre, of St. Theodosius, bishop and confessor. He, adorned with a wonderful panoply of virtues, substituted in the place of the holy Man [*], bore the crozier of this church with incomparable piety and vigilance; and so interceded in the first Council of Orléans, that to the laws there sanctioned concerning the sacrosanct polity he added very much authority by his presence; and at last, after eight years of episcopate passed, with as many months and twenty days, enriched with the great merits of pious labors, he proceeded to the fruition of heavenly rest."
[4] From the mere texts of the Martyrologies already related you readily observe, The true times of the Saint cannot be defined, that neither the beginning of the episcopate, nor its duration or end, is certain enough, which you will perceive still more from the history of the bishops of Auxerre edited by Labbé, tome 1 of the Manuscript Library, page 418, chapter 12, which I describe wholly: "Theodosius sat eight years, twenty-three days; the VI of the Kalends of August he received his last day, the time of his life being passed in 75 years; and by the merit of his sanctity he obtained a noble burial in the church of Blessed Germanus: but he was in the times of Boniface and Mercurius, who was also called John, down to Agapitus, in the reign of Justinian Augustus, Lampadius being consul. We found also that this holy Man was present at the council of bishops, which was held by the order of the most glorious Clovis, the great king of the Franks, at the city of Orléans in Gaul. The city was without a Bishop for one year." The times of Boniface, John, and Agapitus are known, with which to compose the ages of Theodosius or of his predecessors Censurius and Ursus, Henschenius long ago showed to be impossible, so that there are almost as many blunders as words; which lest you read here again to be discussed and refuted, we adopt the words of Henschenius: let the Auxerre writers see by what reasoning especially so many contradictions can be reconciled: so that we may not here add the monk Heric, to be cited below, who assigns to St. Theodosius eight years of governance indeed, but twenty-five days.
[5] By cutting down and clearing this wood, he could have deserved well who composed a treatise on the holy bishops and abbots of Auxerre, Dom George Viole of the Order of St. Benedict, nor did he explain them, who ought to have, Viole, whom, communicated to us in manuscript by Castellani, we have already noted more than once elsewhere. But he, leaving untouched the things which he had described from the praised history, subjoined others of his own no more tolerable. Hear his words, rendered from French into Latin: "St. Theodosius subscribed the first Council of Orléans in the last but one place, whence it is gathered that he was rather recently raised to the sacred fillets, although he was seventy years old or a little less; but he occupied the first place in the subscription among the bishops who with him were present at that council, in the donation which King Clovis made of the royal domain of Longret near Como to the church of St. Hilary of Poitiers, namely for the reason that that estate was situated in the diocese of Auxerre." Who would not here think some treasure dug up and recently revealed, while he understands these things so roundly sold by Viole, as if in the very Council of Orléans the charter of donation was conceived and subscribed by Clovis with thirty-two Bishops?
[6] involving the matter rather in others more doubtful. To his history of the bishops of Auxerre Viole subjoins the abbots of St. Germanus there, and then the monasteries of the whole diocese, among which, in its order, on page for me 356, is placed the monastery of St. Lawrence de l'abbaye, which he says is the very same as Langres, or Longret, and of whose various vicissitudes he weaves a long narration, from which only this pertains hither, the charter of the Clovisian donation, whose beginning he relates thus: "I Clovis, king of the Franks, give my court of Longret to the brothers of St. Hilary of Poitiers, with all its rights and appurtenances, which I promise to warrant with my sword." To a head of this kind what body should be fitted, I am mistaken if it cannot be felt by hand: see the better part of the supposititious charter in Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 511, no. 51, where he so weighs and refutes the parachronisms and the other ineptitudes with which it teems, that he has altogether snatched from us the province of refuting them; and by such a specimen has abundantly shown what is to be established of the cited treatment of Viole. More probable things are exhibited by the praised history, edited by Labbé, Heric on the miracles of St. Germanus, and the authentic instrument of the last finding, from which I subjoin the rest about the burial and present cult.
[7] The translation is described by Heric, Viole adds at last that St. Theodosius, on account of his eminent sanctity, deserved to be buried at St. Germanus', of which scarcely traces survive today: the epitaph we shall give below. Of an older translation Heric makes mention, related also by Henschenius, book 2, chapter 15, whose words are these: "After the work, comprehended far above, seemed both congruous to ecclesiastical decorum, and worthy of laying up the pledges of the Saints, the opinion of the wise being exercised, it was judged best to do, that the relics of the Martyrs mentioned above, and also the bodies of the blessed pontiffs of Auxerre, once entombed in the church itself, should be transferred into the crypts, and be laid, with special diligence of office, around the body of the most blessed Germanus, by divine mind, by upright counsel, that those whom the same royal palace of heaven contains, the capacity of the same dwelling on earth might also associate. So it was done, and on the right side, that is on the southern quarter, the bones of blessed Pope Urban with the head of Innocent the martyr were laid in the same coffer. Hence the body of the venerable Alaudius, once his successor, and then of three holy pontiffs, Ursus, Romanus, and Theodosius, at the foot part, that is on the eastern quarter, beside the altar of the precious confessor and prelate Aunarius, their most sacred members rest."
[8] and again by the aforesaid Viole. Whether in that very place the sacred body has constantly remained from the ninth century, it will soon be permitted to gather; that it escaped the sacrilegious hands of the raging iconoclasts who in the year 1570 raged at Auxerre, the verbal process, or charter of Dominique Seguier, bishop of Auxerre, afterward of Meaux, teaches, testifying of the visitation made by him in the year 1634 on the 2nd of November, in this manner: "Thence to the chapel of St. Germanus, situated in the crypts of the same church under the high altar, accompanied as above, we withdrew, and there, at the southern part of the same chapel, next to the ancient inscription which has thus: (I translate the French words into Latin) Here lies the body of the Lord St. Theodosius, who was bishop of this city and died on the XVII of July † †; some parts of the pavement being taken out, a sepulcher was found, its surface concave in the manner of a vault, which being uncovered, we saw the body almost wholly reduced to ashes, of the size of about four feet and a half, with part of the sandals not yet corrupted, and at the same time some of the bystanders attested that the sepulcher itself exhaled a most sweet and plainly most divine odor. The same sarcophagus being observed and afterward closed, we went to the sepulcher of St. Germanus, etc."
[9] The aforesaid charter or testimony of the visitation of the Saints of Auxerre, repeated at various times, was given at Meaux in the year 1642 on the XXIX day of the month of April, when Seguier had now changed his see, The Office is from the common of a confessor Pontiff. and the same is related in the Auxerre manuscript, collected by Viole, at the day 2 of November from page 265 to 297, in which you see the same circumstances
of the Theodosian burial near the body of St. Germanus explained, which we have already given from Heric, so that of the identity of the relics there seems no room for doubt. That the cult of the Saint has persevered hitherto, is plain from the printed Breviaries and from the manuscript Calendar of Louis Noël d'Amy, transmitted to our Elders, and more expressly from the Brief or Directory for reciting the Hours, printed for the year 1720 and communicated to us not long since by the Reverend Lord John le Boeuf, Canon and succentor of the same church of Auxerre, in which St. Theodosius, hitherto celebrated under a simple rite, is raised to a semidouble, for the years thereafter following. But that from the lessons of the Breviaries no aid to the history can be had, Henschenius long ago noted in Censurius, since nothing but the Commons of a confessor Pontiff are prescribed. More things are not at hand which can be commemorated of St. Theodosius.
Annotation* Read "Ursus."