Agobard

ON SAINT AGOBARD,

ARCHBISHOP OF LYONS.

A Collection on his cult, acts, faith, and age.

IN THE YEAR 840.

Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons in Gaul (St.)

BY G. H. THE AUTHOR

Stephen Baluze of Tulle, among other monuments published by him, brought forth in the year 1666 the works, as he calls them in the title, of Saint Agobard Archbishop of Lyons, and illustrated them with Notes. In these, he says, we attribute the title of Saint to Agobard, after the edition of Masson; His cult and because heavenly honors are paid to him in the Church of Lyons, where he is commonly called Sainct Aguebaud: then also in the Martyrologies of those parts he is called a Saint. Antonius Monchiacenus Demochares, Jacobus Severtius an Ecclesiastic of Lyons, Joannes Chenu of Bourges, and Claudius Robertus a Priest of Langres, in their Catalogues of the Archbishops of Lyons, honor St. Agobard with the title of Saint, and by Claudius Robertus is cited the Breviary of Lyons, on the eighth of the Ides of June. In the Calendar of the Breviary of Lyons, which together with the Lives of the Saints of Lyons Stephen de Vernay, a Priest of Lyons, had prepared for the press, and communicated to us in the year 1662, there is added the rite of nine Lessons. The Sammarthani in the Archbishops of Lyons write thus: Among the Saints of Lyons, on the eighth of the Ides of June, his memory is honored with anniversary honors in the Fasti of the Church. From these Baluze alleges the words of the Martyrology of the Church of Lyons, and of the manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of St. Claude. To which I add Ferrarius in his general Catalogue, citing the Breviary of Lyons. and the title of Saint, equally due to him, Finally Theophilus Rainaudus, in the Index of the Saints of Lyons, which he wrote at Lyons and published twice, honors the same among the rest of the Saints of Lyons with the title of Saint, and asserts that he is venerated at Lyons with the rite of a double office. Incited by so many arguments and authorities, we venture also to attribute the title of Saint to Agobard; nor are we deterred by the authority of Andreas Saussay, who after the conclusion of this day's Martyrology, in the customary formula, places him among the Pious, but with this more honorable phrase: The Church of Lyons celebrates today happily the deposition of Blessed Agobard, its distinguished Archbishop. Perhaps he thought that his exile was prejudicial to his holiness, and to Bernard of Vienne, his companion in exile, on account of his conspiracy with Lothair against Louis the Pious, the Emperor his father. But this was not prejudicial to St. Bernard, Archbishop of Vienne, whom nevertheless, notwithstanding that, Saussay himself extols with the highest praises on the 22nd of January; on which day we have illustrated his various Acts, Miracles, and the deeds of his Translation, and have given various things about the exile of both, from which we repeat these words of Ado in his Chronicle: Bernard and also Agobard still governed the Church of Vienne and of Lyons. Both of whom, having been accused before the Emperor, the Churches being deserted, betook themselves into Italy to Lothair the son of the Emperor, on account of the favor shown to Lothair, against his father. and afterward, by the pious Emperors acting, Agobard recovered the See of Lyons, Bernard that of Vienne. Behold the same cause of the exile of both, and their happy return to their Sees, perhaps after their innocence had been proved.

[2] We find no Acts of St. Agobard written by the ancients: the cited Rainaudus published some. We give a few things excerpted from the relations of this man and of other ancients. Ado in his Chronicle, In the year 814 constituted Bishop, after relating the death of Charlemagne the Emperor, who died on the 28th of January in the year 814, subjoins these things: Bernard was Bishop of Vienne, and Leidrad of Lyons, who at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Louis sought the place of the monastery of Soissons, and in his place Agobard, Chorbishop of the same Church, with the Emperor consenting and the whole Synod of the Bishops of the Gauls, was substituted as Bishop. Which some wishing to defend (that is, to forbid), said: That the same venerable Agobard had been ordained by three Bishops in the See of Lyons, Leidrad commanding it. But the canonical authority is, that in one city there should not be two Bishops: nor while the Bishop lives ought he to elect a successor for himself. And therefore those things, for whatever cause, ought not to be passed over against the rule of the Church, fixed in so great an order. against detractors he is defended in a Synod. Philip Labbe, in the Appendix to tome 7 of the Councils, column 1864, judges that this Synod was held at Lyons in the year 814: in which, against those gainsayers, the true Bishop of Lyons was constituted. The same things, taken from Ado, are confirmed from the Chronicle of Verdun of Hugh Abbot of Flavigny, where also the consent of the Emperor is expressed. Now he had before been ordained Chorbishop, similar to those whom we now call Suffragans, who in the more principal Churches and ampler Bishoprics were taken on, that they might relieve Bishops weighed down by the mass of things to be done or by old age, in the conferring of Orders, and most of all in visiting the rural diocese. Rainaudus would prefer that it be read Coëpiscopus, whom we now call Coadjutor with the right of succession, which Leidrad had already disposed, having abdicated the Bishopric, on his entrance into the monastery of St. Medard of Soissons.

[3] He was a protector of the true faith, However it be, says Rainaudus, Agobard, having obtained the Bishopric, did very many things in it worthy of a Bishop, and of the Prelate of so great a See. There had lived in that time Felix Bishop of Urgel, who had revived the seeds of the Nestorian sect, and after several recantations had relapsed. The foundations of this dogma Agobard demolished, by a book inscribed to the Emperor Louis, which is reckoned in the first place among his works, distinguished into 46 chapters. To this succeeds another to the same Emperor, on the insolence of the Jews; with another adjoined, on Jewish superstitions: and this he offered in his own name and that of St. Bernard Archbishop of Vienne, and of Eaofus or Fagua Bishop of Chalon. To these are added shorter treatises on the Baptism of Jewish slaves, and on avoiding the company and society of the Jews. Whence his zeal for the true Christian religion shines forth, as also from his book against the law of King Gundobad, and the impious contests which are waged through it; and likewise from another, against certain objections of Fredegisus the Abbot.

[4] He strenuously defended the Ecclesiastical rights, says Rainaudus, and of Ecclesiastical law: and generously kept off the laity who invaded Ecclesiastical goods … This was excellent in Agobard, that he busied himself to arrange his Clergy and the Ecclesiastical rites and the form of the divine office: in which respect he seemed a little more morose or scrupulous than just, since besides the Scriptures he admitted nothing to the divine Offices. Which things are more widely explained there. More serious, says the same Rainaudus, are the things charged against St. Agobard from his Commentary on pictures and images. For he is said to have denied the cult of images, retaining only their use for memory. Among the many things discussed here he adds, that he held a Catholic view about images, nor wished anything else than that images are not to be adored with supreme worship: nay that of themselves, and apart from all order whatever to the prototype, they are not worthy of worship: nor that images, insofar as they are images, were devised for this end, that they should be invoked and worshiped, but that they should serve the memory, and lead by the hand to the prototype, instilling the knowledge of it, whether also the veneration of images? and the worship of the prototype in them

in the images, and by helping through them: which is most true … And so Agobard, although he speaks inconveniently, and his manner of speaking is not to be approved at this time, yet in reality seems to have been free from the error of the Iconoclasts. These and many other things to the same end Rainaudus. But most worthy to be read is the Dissertation of Mabillon on the cult of Sacred images, which forms the third § of the Preface to the 4th Benedictine Century: for although it does not tend to this, as if he thought the Gauls of that time wholly free from all fault; if not in the rite of venerating images, at least in the manner of impugning the decree of the Nicene Synod; yet he wishes their religion toward sacred images to have been examined and approved by the Roman Pontiffs, both from the responses of Adrian I, who nowhere notes them with error; and from other Pontiffs, who raised no trouble for the Gallican church on this matter.

[5] After the dissension, employed by Louis the Pious in affairs, As regards the dissensions between Louis the Pious and Lothair and his other sons, there is extant a tearful Epistle of Agobard to Louis: from which is gathered his sincere mind even toward him; to whom if in anything he was opposed, this is to be attributed solely to a not altogether vain scruple and fear of violating the oath, sworn by the son at the father's instance. Which oath, he says, seemed to no one to be despised or superfluous, but rather opportune and legitimate, in that it seemed to pertain to peace and concord. Which thing Louis also seems to have weighed, who, Agobard being restored to his See, held him dear again, and employed him in affairs, and led him with himself into Aquitaine, where he is read in the Annals of St. Bertin to have busied himself to settle the Aquitanian disturbances, for the year 840, he dies in the year 840 in which year he seems to have departed from this life. For, with Ado as witness in his Chronicle, Agobard, placed at Saintes in the royal expedition, dies. Rainaudus adds these things: The Church of Lyons, illustrious for miracles, honors him with the honors of the Heavenly ones, and inserted in its Calendar on the eighth of the Ides of June celebrates him with the rite of a double Office. So that it may not be permitted to doubt, but that either he was free from the charges laid against him, or washed them away before death with worthy showers of penance. In the Chronicle of St. Bénigne of Dijon the death of St. Agobard is compared with the death of Louis the Pious the Emperor, and the former is referred to the eighth of the Ides of June, the latter fourteen days later, June 6. namely to the twelfth of the Kalends of July. But in the Additions of Greven to Usuard, by I know not what error, he is assigned to the following day.