ON ST. MARTIN,
BISHOP OF TRIER AND MARTYR.
From the more recent Martyrologies.
ABOUT THE YEAR 210.
CommentaryMartin, Bishop of Trier and Martyr (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
It was long ago and truly said by the Sainte-Marthe brothers that the mention of the bishops of Trier seems, in the first centuries down to Agricius, exceedingly obscure, or altogether small, in the ecclesiastical Diptychs, From monuments neither ancient nor certain, by which a legitimate succession might be proved. How great and how laborious a work our Henschenius bestowed on that matter, those know who are not strangers in this work. In the Exegesis on the bishopric of Tongeren and Maastricht, prefixed to volume VII of May, he diligently handled that most intricate business, if ever anyone did, in the very first chapter enumerating nine bishops of Tongeren before St. Servatius, whom he judges most probably to have been wrongly inserted into the Catalogues of the bishops of Trier. That dispute has not yet been plainly settled, nor indeed will it easily be settled according to the mind of the Trevirans. He who not long ago reduced the bishops of Trier into chronological order, a learned man of our Society, by whose kindness I obtained a copy of the work he had begun, numbers St. Martin tenth in order, whom he wishes to be called the first of that name, following Brower in the Annals of Trier, book 3, at the year 202, page 177, and others here and there, as also the proper Offices of Trier, where he is venerated on this day not as a martyr, which they think most probable, but as a confessor, a title as uncertain as is the very place where he exercised the episcopal dignity, which I could wish might be gathered a little more certainly from the older Martyrologies.
[2] But the authors of these are too recent for anything to be established on their authority, inasmuch as they cleave either to the Chronicle, The more recent Martyrologies marked Martin, often overturned by Henschenius, or to traditions of this kind, from which nothing but ambiguous and uncertain things can be dug out. Let us weigh the things which seem first to have flowed either from the author of the manuscript Florarium, or perhaps from Ado's appendix: At Trier, of blessed Martin, bishop and martyr. The Lübeck-Cologne edition reads Treveris. Grevenus has: At Trier, of blessed Martin, first bishop of that same city and martyr. But Molanus (whom Canisius here follows) differs in this, that he numbers him the tenth bishop, from whom Baronius confesses he received that Saint, observing in his notes some things which cannot be admitted. Thus he has: This one is distinct from the one who succeeded
Agricius, who was present at the Second Council of Arles, and preceded St. Maximinus, who is found among the Fathers who were present at the Council of Cologne, and sat about the last times of Constantine, and is numbered the twenty-fifth bishop of that see in the tables described by Demochares: but this one is placed tenth. It is displeasing that Baronius should wish some holy Martin to have succeeded Agricius, whom the Trevirans do not acknowledge, inasmuch as it is certain to them that Maximinus himself was substituted for Agricius: whom they themselves call Martin II, you have in Brower's chronological index.
[3] also with eulogies. However these things may be, from what has been said it is clear that all who wrote of St. Martin of Trier are of a more recent age; to whom may be added Galesinius, mentioning him in a few words; likewise the brief eulogy of Constantine Ghini: At Trier, of St. Martin, bishop and martyr, who, succeeding Moses and preceding Anastasius, is numbered the tenth prelate of that same see. Much more elegantly did Saussay express his own in this paraphrase: At Trier, the birthday of St. Martin, archbishop of that see and martyr, who, auspiciously filling the place of Moses, ruled that church according to the good pleasure of God, and, amid the disturbance stirred up by the impious against the people entrusted to him, having discharged great labors and struggles to confirm them, at last, for the faith itself and the protection of the church committed to him, closed his pontificate in a notable combat, and abundantly obtained the rewards destined by the King of glory for the valiant champions of piety. Castellanus did not hesitate to add a little note to the Roman announcement, by which he plainly insinuates that most probably this Martin is the same as the one of Tongeren, of whom Henschenius long ago treated on the 21st of June; which, although it seems to us too almost so, yet here we report from the cited Martyrologies that Martin the First as a distinct person, who is distinguished from the one of Tongeren at least by some features. Behold now, from the Lectionary of the Proper of Trier, published in the year 1645, the third lesson, beyond which we know nothing handed down concerning the Saint.
[4] What the Lectionary of Trier has of him. July 19. Of St. Martin, bishop and confessor of Trier. Lesson III. Martin, upon the death of bishop Moses, was set as tenth in order of the prelates of Trier over the episcopal see, amid the greatest disturbances and dangers of the Church; at that time when Septimius Severus rushed bloodthirstily to the slaughters, massacres, and ruins of innocent Christians: so much so that in some places, while the most holy pontiffs were provoked to the contest of martyrdom, every age and sex, with almost the whole people of their city, hastened, through unheard-of torments endured for the faith, to the most sweet embraces of Christ. That Martin is to be enrolled among the company of these Martyrs at Trier in Belgica is a constant tradition, by which we venerate him as having been put to death in the year of Christ two hundred and ten, on the 14th Kalends of August. That the age of the Saint, like the rest, is uncertain, we have already said sufficiently: the epoch of the martyrdom is received from Brower's conjecture, cited above from the Annals of Trier, book 3, number 10; but concerning the birthday he himself had nothing to establish, so that the festival has been affixed to this day by mere choice; unless perhaps some translation is indicated, such as, I know not whence, the manuscript additions of the Carthusian house of Brussels reported to Grevenus on the 7th of June, as you have there among the Passed-Over. Nor do more things occur that can be safely commemorated concerning St. Martin of Trier.