ON S. CERATIUS THE BISHOP,
OF SIMORRE IN GASCONY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
On the cult, and the Life written after the translation, and his uncertain age, and his Episcopal See.
Ceratius, Bishop in Gaul (St.)
BY THE AUTHORS G. H. & D. P.
[1] Of Novempopulania, which is the third province of Aquitaine toward the Pyrenees mountains, Elusa the Metropolis of Novempopulania, the Metropolis was formerly Elusa, on the river Gélise, which in the ancient Notitiae of the Provinces and in the subscriptions of the ancient Councils of Gaul is called "the metropolitan city of the Elusates or Elosasii." This same most opulent city Mela called Elusaberris; where "Berris," in the proper idiom of the region, signifies a village or fortress, as Peter de Marca, in Book 1 of the History of Béarn, chapter 6, learnedly explains. Under this Metropolis eleven cities are placed in the ancient Notitiae, among which, sometimes in the last, sometimes in the next place, is constituted the city of the Ausci, to which the Metropolitan dignity was transferred, the Church of Elusa with its revenues being united to it. The last Bishop of this Church is reckoned Sennocus, who, Fredegar being witness, chapter 54, in the 43rd year of the reign of Chlothar II, of Christ 626, was thrust into exile together with his father Palladius, because they had been conscious of some rebellion stirred up among the Vascones. But because afterward Elusa was reduced to the smallness of a little town; therefore the Acts of the ancient people of Elusa seem to be attributed also to the city of the Ausci.
[2] The first Bishop of them is reckoned by the more recent writers S. Ceratius, where the Bishop Ceratius, of whom we here treat. His memory is inscribed in the ancient Martyrology of the monastery of S. Sabinus in the territory of Tarbes, near the said Pyrenees mountains, in Saussay toward the end of the Gallican Martyrology, where on page 1248 these things are read: "On the 24th day of April, of Saint Ceracius, Bishop and Confessor." Arnaldus Oihenartus, in the Notitia of both Vasconias, Book 3 chapter 8, enumerating the Archbishops of Elusa, he is venerated on the 24th of April: thus begins: "Blessed Ceratius, founder of the Church of Elusa, presided over it for 43 years"; and this (as he says) "from the monuments of the Church of Auch." The Sammarthani, before the Archbishops of Auch, preface the Archbishops of Elusa, and of the first they have these things: "Blessed Ceratius, the herald of the Gospel throughout Novempopulania, disciple of Saturninus, Bishop of Toulouse, is said to have informed Aquitaine, which pertains to the Pyrenees, his body is preserved at Simorre. with the dogmas of the Christian faith, and to have instituted this Church of Elusa. His sacred Relics, most celebrated for the fame of miracles, rest at Simorre in a most ancient monastery of the Order of S. Benedict. He presided over the See of Elusa for 43 years, as the monuments of the Church of Auch report." Saussay in the Supplement of his Martyrology on the 24th of April hands down these things: "At Augusta of the Ausci, of S. Ceracius Bishop and Confessor, who in great disturbances of the Church fulfilled the ministry of peace: and, the fierce whirlwinds of persecutions overcome, his flock happily preserved and increased, he departed to the merited reward of his pastoral care strongly accomplished. The glorious Pontiff rests in the Benedictine monastery of S. Mary of Simorre, of the aforesaid diocese of Auch." The above-mentioned Saturninus, Bishop of Toulouse, is venerated on the 29th of November, when there will be time to examine his See. What we have said concerning his and his companions' coming into Gaul on the 22nd of March, in the Life of S. Paul, Bishop of Narbonne, §. 2, may be seen.
[3] The old Martyrologies ascribe him to Grenoble, Now it is asked whether he is different from, and confused into one person at Simorre with, that man whom three transcripts of the Hieronymian Martyrology refer to on this 6th of June, in the last place, thus: "At Grenoble, the deposition of Ceratus the Bishop." So the Manuscript of Epternach, of Corbie, and the Blume one, indeed also the Lucca one, but by error at the beginning of the following day. Concerning him, moreover, Wandelbertus of Prüm, about the middle of the 9th century, wrote thus:
"The eighth before the Ides Ceratus the Bishop adorns, Who shone in the city called after Prince Gratian."
There follow the old Manuscripts both of the Queen of Sweden, and of S. Maximinus near Trier; and with these and others seen elsewhere, Molanus, Canisius, and Ferrarius. Nor did the people of Simorre, to whom his body came, believe otherwise; and they who believe him to have died among them, in the Gallic Life, which Peter Possin transmitted to us from the old papers of our Odo Gissaeus. It will be sufficient to have contracted this into a few things from a context exceedingly verbose, whose substance is nearly this. and the Life makes him a disciple of S. Ambrose: S. Ceratius was born in the dominion of the Burgundians, in some slender town, of an illustrious father of the family of a Prince. Instructed in letters and studies by S. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, created Bishop of Grenoble, he had two Deacons with him, Gervasius and Protasius; but different from the holy Martyrs of the same name, who are invoked in the Litanies. But because the Burgundians are said to have been seduced by the sect of the Sadducees, he had a long disputation with one of these heretics, and expounded to him the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, and converted him. But a great persecution having arisen against him, who, famed for miracles in Gascony driven from his See, he came with his Deacons into the province of Astarac; and in a place called Saintes, near a church, he received lodging; and he began to shine with miracles, freeing the possessed, giving light to a blind man, and raising from death a host named Justus.
D. P.
[4] Thus far Henschen had written, and I was proceeding to render the rest from the Gallic, in the same brevity: when there came into my hands the remaining part of the Life, taken from the Latin original, and found by us at Paris among the Feuillants, under this title, "On S. Ceratius, Archbishop of Auch and Confessor, 24th of April": notwithstanding which, the Saint is presently said to have died on the 6th of June, so that it can altogether seem that that other and earlier-noted day, unknown to the old Martyrologists, was the day of the translation to be mentioned below. I therefore render the old context, which I would not doubt to affirm to be far prior to the Gallic one; and composed in the monastery of Simorre, for the use of the Choir, just as the Gallic one was thence taken for the instruction of the common people. "When a very great multitude arrived—of the languishing, the blind, the lame, the withered, the deaf, the dumb, the faint-hearted, those possessed by demons, those of diverse infirmities—they were freed by the intercession of the servant of God. Whose fame being spread abroad through all regions, he died there, from the great sea even to Rome, and from the threshold of Blessed Ambrose his Master even to the Pyrenees mountains, all from everywhere came imploring his aid: and thus, the sanctity of the blessed man being spread abroad through all Vasconia, worn out by journeys, he laid down the maceration of his flesh, secure of the perpetual inheritance, and ended the close of life in peace on the eighth day before the Ides of June…" (Here were added, not entirely correctly transcribed, the verses of Wandelbertus, as if S. Paulinus, Bishop of the city of Nola, had published them; wherefore I have removed them, already reported above, from the context)…
[5] "The inhabitants of the district of Simorre hearing this, in a marble sarcophagus, and translated to Simorre, first venerated outside the town, and in the church of Blessed Andrew the Apostle, which even in our times is within the walls of the burg, they buried him: and it is said that his shroud, set against a storm, renders the air exceedingly calm. At whose most sacred tomb also remarkable miracles were divinely wrought; so that deservedly the inhabitants themselves wished to convey the most sacred body within the district. Which, prayers of supplication having first been sent up, certain ones of the Clerics and Religious, wishing to accomplish it; the vessel in which he lay trembled, and the iron plates by which it was held were loosened, and thence a great odor of sweetness sprang back; and the men who had come to receive the holy body, considering the matter, by no means dared to enter. But at last, fear being laid aside, they raised the covering of the sepulchre, then carried within it: and took the body, wrapping it in a new cloth; and a great heat seized them, so that one, who had touched the holy body with unwashed hands, applying his hand to his forehead, immediately lost his hairs: that it might be plainly shown that S. Ceratius did not wish to be moved. But a certain Religious, supplicating in prayer, obtained that the translation should be made, God willing, saying: 'Blessed Ceratius, you shall always remain with us, God granting it: and we will serve you as is fitting.' And so with hymns and canticles they carried and placed him with worthy honor."
[6] "It seems, moreover, that the matter must be narrated concerning two Sacristans of the same church, where his most sacred body lies buried. The first, by name Geitardus, who, because from the time of his youth, overcome in a fierce contest of the flesh, and handling the mysteries and offices of Blessed Ceratius dishonestly, had many times been rebuked by the men of the same church; a matter very memorable befell him. For on a certain night, while he had risen more hastily than he was wont, to ring the bell and to refill the lamp; behold, suddenly Blessed Ceratius, in a white stole and bearing a rod in his hand, stood before him, saying thus: 'Geitardus, why do you not attend to me and to the rebukes of the elders?' Which said, and fear being inflicted, he vanished; but so great a trembling came from this vision upon the aforesaid Geitardus, that thereafter he could not rise from his little bed; but doing penance for all his offenses, Blessed Ceratius being interceded, he recovered; and he ordered a silver shrine, which even now is held in his basilica, to be made from his own labors in honor of S. Ceratius."
[7] and had restored health to a paralytic. "Likewise, as many trustworthy men testify, a certain guardian of the church called Giraldus, a man of great humility and virtue, so faithfully served Almighty God and Blessed Ceratius, that Blessed Ceratius showed his goodness to all by signs. For a certain man, being a paralytic, when with his hands
he crept to the doors of the church; and dragged his dissolved body, with veins and nerves torn apart, along the ground; and had long asked the aforesaid Confessor of Christ Ceratius to restore his health; in an hour of the night he addressed him after a vision, saying thus: 'Go to my sacristan Giraldus, and tell him that I have destined you to him, that he ought to heal you.' But when he did not know who the aforesaid sacristan might be, at earliest morning the one he desired met him at the doors of the church; whom he addressed thus: 'I pray you, Lord, show me who is the sacristan Giraldus.' Who answered, 'I am he.' Then the other: 'Our most glorious Father Ceratius appeared to me a sinner in a vision, and commanded that I should beseech you, so far as to make me free from this infirmity.' Then the other said: 'If he sent you to me, rise up recovering.' And immediately he held his hand, and made him whole from all infirmity, and so from that hour the paralyzed and maimed limbs of that paralytic were restored to soundness. This paralytic, moreover, in honor of Christ and Blessed Ceratius, ordered two silver crosses to be made, with a censer, and a tablet, and an upper-tablet for the altar of that Saint, and a most excellent silver image in honor of the Mother of God."
[8] The same Life, rendered into French, With these the French context so agrees that most things appear rendered word for word; except that, for the image, it substitutes a Missal; and ends with those very words which are read concerning the widely-spread fame of miracles at the beginning of the Latin fragment. It pertains, therefore, to both contexts, to leave to the reader the liberty, concerning the Saint's Deacons named Gervasius and Protasius, whether he wishes to suppose that these were the true names of the companions of Ceratius, or that they were taken over, on the occasion of S. Ambrose, from the Saints whose bodies that man elevated. As regards the places, the province of Astarac, according to Oihenartus on page 494, is girt by the counties of Armagnac, whose head is Auch, of Bigorre, and of Comminges; and it received its first Count in the 10th century, when Garsias Sancii, surnamed the Crooked, divided Vasconia among three sons; and (as it is in the old Auch monument in Oihenartus page 425) "to Sancho Garsiae he gave greater Vasconia, he ascribes Simorre to the province of Astarac. to William Garsiae Fézensac, to Arnald Garsiae Astarac," commonly Estarrac; whose head is Mirande, and other not ignoble little cities, among which Simorre, at nearly an equal interval of seven leagues looking between Mirande and Auch toward south and north. When this place received Benedictine Monks, I have not yet found out: I would wonder, however, if the body was translated to them and the Life written before the 11th or even the 12th century.
[9] Various conjectures concerning the Saint's age and Bishopric. Meanwhile, to illustrate in some measure the controversy raised above, between the people of Auch and of Grenoble, it occurs to consider that S. Ceratius could have been an Apostolic Bishop, among the Allobroges in the city of Calorone or the Colony of the Acusii, which afterward received its name from the Emperor Gratian: and driven thence into Aquitaine, he came, and undertook to rule the Church of Auch. But because the aforesaid Gratian was contemporary with S. Ambrose of Milan, therefore perhaps it pleased to make S. Ceratius the disciple of this man, rather than of S. Saturninus: and because the Burgundians, who, carried from Germany into Gaul, occupied the whole dominion of the Allobroges, were at some time infected with the Arian stain, first around the year 500, under S. Sigismund, converted to the Orthodox faith; therefore the whole disputation in the Life of Ceratius is formed concerning the Trinity, so far indeed as we know from the French version. What of the fact that the Arians, even before the Burgundians, and in the age of S. Ambrose, greatly corrupted the Gallican provinces? But if one pleases to believe Ceratius older than Ambrose, he could have suffered from the Pagans the persecutions and contradictions which are commonly attributed to the Burgundians, the later inhabitants of those same parts.
[10] Yet the authority of the old Martyrologies moves me, He seems to have lived at Grenoble. to think that Ceratius really lived and died at Grenoble, younger than S. Ambrose; but that, when the Burgundians invaded those regions, his body was carried by the faithful to the people of Elusa, whom perhaps he had even earlier cultivated, into Vasconia, and deposited at Simorre.