ON ST. DESIDERATUS, BISHOP OF BESANÇON, AT LONS-LE-SAUNIER IN THE SEQUANI.
FOURTH CENTURY.
CommentaryDesideratus, bishop of Besançon, at Lons-le-Saunier in the Sequani (St.)
J. B. S.
The people of Lons glory especially in Desideratus as their patron, and his happy departure from this life is celebrated in the diocese of Besançon on the sixth of the Kalends of August. These are the words of Jean-Jacques Chifflet in his Vesontio, part 2, Nor are his deeds known, speaking of this Saint, as bishop of Besançon, eleventh in order. The very place, of which here there is treatment, Baudrand thus describes in his geographical Lexicon: Lons-le-Saunier (Lyon le Saunier), a little town of Gaul in the county of Burgundy, which by some is called Lugdunum Salnerium (Castellanus reads Ledo Salinarius), is on the boundary of the duchy of Burgundy, eight leagues distant from Dole to the south, and nine from Chalon to the east. Here indeed the aforesaid St. Desideratus, bishop, is celebrated with a chief and more solemn cult, as one who, having died there, enriched the church of the place with his sacred remains, which, according to the praised Chifflet, page 57, he had founded before his death. His rather brief eulogy is reported in the same place, with some apology of the praised Chifflet, and a compendium of the history of the translation, namely from those monuments alone which could be supplied concerning St. Desideratus, and which will presently be described by us.
[2] From these it is easy to understand that of the deeds or Acts of this holy Desideratus nothing at all survives; nor is there ancient memory in the sacred Calendars. Castellanus confusedly assigned his age, calling it the fourth century, and that without doubt drawing it from this, that his predecessor St. Frominius, according to the same Chifflet, flourished under the supreme Pontiffs Damasus and Siricius, and his successor St. Germanus suffered martyrdom from the Arians at Grandfontaine in the year 396. Other things which are here narrated or illustrated concerning St. Desideratus, we have nowhere found, nor can anything be decided concerning his proper birthday or his cult, beyond that which is had from sole and single tradition. From the general Catalogue of Ferrarius we referred him hither on the previous day, who repeated him on this day, on which he is also marked in the Hagenau Usuard, with these words: Likewise of Desideratus, bishop and confessor. Miraeus in the Belgic and Burgundian Calendars added nothing to Chifflet. For the rest, that he is not to be confused with the synonymous bishops Desideratus of Auvergne on the 11th of February, of Chalon on the 17th of March, of Bourges on the 8th of May, or others, Saussay sufficiently took care, weaving his eulogy with a notable discourse, which here, in the lack of others, it may be useful to describe. It has thus:
[3] At Besançon, the deposition of St. Desideratus, bishop and confessor of that metropolitan see. He is praised at length by Saussay. This Man, conspicuous throughout his whole life for the highest splendor of chastity, drew his origin from a noble lineage: and born with a divine promise, and, before he was conceived, destined by a heavenly prophecy for the episcopal throne, so shone forth in his very boyhood, irradiated with the light of heavenly grace, that he displayed the clearest indications of his future sanctity and glory. For he savored of nothing but the Divine: he likewise did nothing except what invited everyone to the admiration and love of him. Enrolled therefore in the ecclesiastical warfare, he gave to the sacred order many ornaments by his accession, and, the blessed prelate Phronimus having died, on account of the favor of his merits, by one and the same verdict of clergy and people, he was substituted in his place. In which office, the things which would be pleasing to God, and useful to his flock,
the good shepherd sought only these. For assiduously feeding with holy preachings the souls entrusted to him, he took care also to relieve the languors of bodies; to redeem the bound, to furnish solaces to widows and the needy, to govern duly the church committed to him by the Lord. And having run through the path of mortal life in these illustrious deeds, the most holy prelate, at Lons, a village of his diocese, putting off the flesh, proceeded to that blessed immortality which he had longed for with perpetual panting. In the very church of Lons-le-Saunier, which he had built on the soil of his birthplace, he was given honorable burial. From whose tomb afterward water long flowed, from which the weak and infirm received health. His most sacred body was then raised, and placed in a wooden little chest: from which at last it was brought into a silver one, mitred, by Stephen Falquier, abbot of the Jura, at the instance of the decurions and inhabitants of Lons-le-Saunier, of which town the blessed man himself is patron and perennial helper, in the year 1465, on this very day of his feast, which is therefore marked not only by his deposition, but also by his translation. Thus Saussay, amply and floridly asserting more things than could be found anywhere else; and that, among others, that St. Desideratus not only founded the church of Lons, and willed his remains to be deposited there, but also was born in the same place. The rest we leave to be weighed by the judgment of the readers, with which they may compare the things which Chifflet has concerning the same Saint.
BRIEF EULOGY
From Chifflet's Vesontio.
Desideratus, bishop of Besançon, at Lons-le-Saunier in the Sequani (St.)
BHL Number: 2140
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Not much unlike the former. Desideratus, a Man conspicuous for the splendor of the highest chastity, and pleasing to God and beloved by the brightness of his own name, was sprung from most noble parents; whose parents, warned by divine revelation that they should bring forth to the world offspring a prelate worthy of God; when the little one was soon born, nourished with the food of milk, the time of the cradle being completed, they handed him over to be instructed in the studies of letters. Soon in him the lamp of heavenly grace so shone forth that he surpassed all his fellows in the schools, and outdid them in the flower of wisdom and the stream of a torrent of eloquence: and when now, as his age increased, he had begun worthily to fulfill the divine offices, with all his desire he panted for the court of paradise. But also when his fame ran far and wide, and love, gathered in the hearts of the good, grew up; as soon as the pontiff Frominius died, that St. Desideratus should receive the cathedra of the city, the clergy and people of the city of Chrysopolis unanimously elected him bishop. By divine decree, therefore, on the throne of the pontificate, he began to sow the word of God in the hearts of believing souls, and to cure the languors of bodies, to redeem the captive and bound, to bear the care of widows and the needy, to govern duly the people entrusted to him by the Lord: and because he shone in the administration of the pontificate, he left several of his disciples as successors of his priesthood. At last, after many good deeds, departing this world at Lons, a village of his diocese, he happily passed to the Lord; and with the utmost alacrity of mind, stripped of the flesh, he was fittingly given to burial in the manner he had appointed, in the church of Lons. From whose tomb water flows, from which the infirm and weak receive health: and many miracles are seen to be done there, by the merits of that same glorious Confessor. And he passed away on the sixth of the Kalends of August, made, amid rejoicing angels, a coheir of the heavenly ones.
What is here mentioned concerning the medicinal water, equally as in Saussay, Chifflet thought must be explained, whose very own words we report:
[5] These things from ancient codices. But whatever be the case concerning that water once wont to flow from the tomb of St. Desideratus (which is wont to be narrated of very many other sepulchers of the Saints), Concerning the medicinal water. now certainly nothing of the kind appears: although we have heard that it is the custom of the clerics of Lons to put water into the stone sarcophagus of St. Desideratus, by which the people believe themselves to be helped in many things. Nor is there any reason that he should incur anyone's wit and jests, or be accused of superstition, who thinks that there is in that water something of virtue beyond what is in common water: for from that stone chest, which once embraced the bones of St. Desideratus, it is most like the truth that some heavenly power, infused into the water, is derived, which pious and simple minds experience to their various benefit, and moral theologians teach that the contact of the bodies of the Saints, or of any thing which pertains to the Saints (of which kind is that sarcophagus), is sufficient for some common thing to be judged worthy of some cult. For the rest, the bones of St. Desideratus, which had long ago been taken out of the stone sepulcher, and placed in a wooden case, were translated into a silver chest in the time of Charles de Neufchâtel, archbishop of Besançon, as the narration of the deed makes credible, which, because it is rather long, we have contracted into these few words.
ELEVATION OF THE SACRED BODY.
Desideratus, bishop of Besançon, at Lons-le-Saunier in the Sequani (St.)
In the year of the Lord 1465, in the 13th indiction, An elegant compendium of the whole matter in the first year of the pontificate of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, the Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope II, on the feast day of the most blessed confessor Desideratus, which is the 27th day of the month of July, the Reverend Father in Christ and lord Stephen Falquier, by the grace of God abbot of St. Oyend of the Jura, of the diocese of Lyon, of the Order of St. Benedict, and at the prayers of the noble and honorable aldermen, burghers and inhabitants of Lons-le-Saunier, by the virtue and authority of the commission given to him on the 8th of July of the same year 1465, through the venerable and circumspect man Master Stephen de Bellevaux, licentiate in decrees, archdeacon of Gray, and canon in the church of Besançon, and vicar general in spirituals and temporals of the most reverend Father in Christ and lord the Lord Charles de Neufchâtel, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See elect, confirmed, and administrator in spirituals and temporals of the aforesaid church of Besançon; translated the bones or relics of the most blessed Desideratus, formerly archbishop of Besançon and patron and founder of the parish church of Lons-le-Saunier, from the ancient wooden chest into another silver chest, wonderfully ornamented and composed, procured and provided by the said noble and honorable burghers, and the inhabitants and dwellers of the said Lons-le-Saunier, and the parishioners of the aforesaid church of Lons-le-Saunier.
[7] And these things clearly, we have preferred to the longer instrument. briefly and elegantly contract the long and gloomy instrument of the aforesaid translation, of which I found a copy among our papers, submitted by the often most praised Father Pierre-François Chifflet, which suggests absolutely nothing of light or erudition, beyond the terms known in deputations of this kind and the many names of witnesses, here and there corrupted or abbreviated, so that accordingly I judged it must be passed over without scruple; just as also the verbose lessons, wrongly applied to the same holy Desideratus, to which the aforesaid Father Chifflet rightly added with his own hand: This Legend is a commonplace, touching nothing of the history of St. Desideratus; inasmuch as concerning him nothing anywhere has been handed down in writing, as we have already abundantly said above.