CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYRS OF CAUNES,
AMANDUS, LUCIUS, ALEXANDER, AUDALDUS;
HONORED IN GAUL NEAR NARBONNE.
A CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
Concerning their cult, fatherland and translation, and Acts of such a kind that they seem to have been borrowed from the Novidunensian Martyrs.
Amandus, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
Lucius, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
Alexander, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne. Audaldus, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
Theodulf, in the 9th century of Christ Bishop of Orléans, in book 2 of his Poems,
in that which he writes to the Monks of S. Benedict, of the Benedictine monasteries in Narbonnese Gaul bidding Abbots known to him to be greeted with a Salutation, after a longer discourse concerning the Mitiacensian monastery of S. Maximin in his own diocese of Orléans. He further sends his letter to other monasteries, for the sake of the same office, singing thus:
Hence seek the dwellings of Father Nebridius the venerable, And soon let the house of Donatus too be seen by thee: But neither pass by the places of the holy Brother Atilus, And reverently approach the roofs of my Anianus. Let Nampius behold thee giving him the gifts of salvation, Let Atala see thee; Say, Olemundus, farewell.
Stephanotius the Benedictine, praised by Mabillon after part 2 of the 4th century in the Additions to part 1, as one who accurately investigated the affairs of the Province of Narbonne, judges that the Atala here named is the founder of the convent of S. Polycarp of Narbonne; Nebridius, of Crassa; Anianus, of Celto, afterward translated to Caunes; Olemundus, of S. John de Castro-malasti or of Mons-olivi; Attilo, of S. Caesarius or of S. Tiberius — that they were Abbots. after the year 818 Caunes added: These things I have brought forward, that it may be understood that the Monastery of S. Peter of Caunes (which Claudius Robertus on page 92 wrongly calls "de Cannis," elsewhere "de Canibus") did not yet exist at all, or at least was not yet subjected to the Benedictine Order under the title of S. Peter, while that Anianus, a contemporary of Theodulf about the year 818, and numbered among the chief helpers of Benedict of Aniane in the reformation of monasteries, still governed the Celtonense. From this, furthermore, I infer that it could entirely have come to pass that the church of the town of Caunes, before it received either the Rule or the Reformation, bore the title of S. Tertullinus the Martyr; it had the bodies of 4 brother Martyrs: and that into it some Irenaeus, Bishop of Narbonne (one, namely, of those whose names lie hidden down to the year 422) brought the bodies of the aforetitled Saints on the 7th day before the Ides of September, as is said at the end of the Acts.
[2] Those Acts were exhibited to us by the 2nd volume of manuscript monuments, collected from everywhere by that most celebrated and most studious man André du Chesne, and most kindly communicated by his son François, then living at Paris, in the year 1662, whose manuscript Acts offered to us under this title: Here begins the passion of the blessed Martyrs, Amandus the Bishop, Lucius, Alexander, and Audaldus, who suffered in the time of Prince Antonius, under the Governor Aurelius, in the city of Nividunum, for the name of Christ. And soon it is subjoined, that S. Amandus held the Episcopate in the city of Nividunum; and he had three brothers, Lucius, Audaldus, and Alexander: whose tender years the Governor afterward, pitying them, in number 5 calls them little Children; and the first of them, Lucius, in number 6, they seem now to be unknown in that very place. confesses himself a boy, no more than nineteen years old. That they were brothers, or at least are held so by tradition, those sufficiently indicate, who, when Saussay was about to write the Supplement of his Gallican Martyrology, suggested these things to him for the 6th day of June: In the monastery of Caunes near Narbonne, the natal day of the holy Martyrs, Alexander, Lucius, Amandus and Audaldus. where they are believed to be natives; Who, from the town of Caunes (where their paternal house is even now shown), carrying about the flame of the Christian faith and piety which they had received, while they seek the glory of Christ, and toil to spread far and wide his splendors, and strenuously rout everywhere the gloom of unbelief by works of light and discourses of truth, intercepted by the emissaries of the Prince of darkness, when they declared that they could die, but testified that they could not cease from the proclamation of divine grace and glory; having suffered dire torments, at last in the final agony they poured forth souls worthy of blessed immortality.
[3] These things, as much as they make us certain that four Martyrs are there truly venerated under those names, whom the Acts make of Novidunum, and that the same are believed born at Caunes, and perhaps to have suffered at Narbonne, and that nothing more is now known there about them; so much do they render the Acts suspect to us, lest the whole be a gratuitous fiction, founded on this; that, the bodies having been found in the old church of S. Tertullinus, and translated to the new one of S. Peter, when a suitable day was sought in the Martyrologies, there were found on this day the names of SS. Amantius, Lucius, Alexander, Andrew, who suffered at Nividunum, of whom we have treated above: which, since they did not greatly differ, it pleased to ascribe to Nividunum the passion of the nearly synonymous Caunesian Martyrs, the Author being in no way anxious or rather they feign it, occasion being taken from the likeness of the names; how far or near that was; adding from himself that the Bishop was the elder by birth, and not considering how that seems not well to consist with so tender an age, such as he invents, of the brothers. And so I think we have no great treasure in the Acts, composed not very prudently in the 10th or 11th century; when some, not indeed bad, but too simple, preferred to invent things of whatever sort, than to have none which they might recite of the deeds of their Patrons.
[4] Yet it was a moderate invention. For the things which the Governor and the Martyrs are said to have spoken to one another, and the things which these suffered, could all have been done and said; yet they seem to be brought forward here. nor do they have attached circumstances apt rather to excite admiration than to win belief. The Prince Antonius too can have been written for Antoninus Pius; to whom, because Marcus Aurelius his son-in-law succeeded, it seemed suitable to introduce this Governor, as though sent into the Province to harass the Christians: for under each it is agreed that some were made Martyrs, although neither by public edicts ordered the Christians to be punished. Yet of whatever sort those Acts are, not only had they themselves perished for the people of Caunes, but even their memory, when they informed Saussay about their Saints: wherefore I judge it worth the labor that they be brought forth here, to be offered for the censure of those curious about the antiquities of Narbonne; since it can come to pass that even such things afford occasion for further, and not altogether useless, inquiry.
[5] The church of S. Tertullinus to which the bodies were first translated As regards S. Tertullinus, to whose church the bodies are said to have been translated, him, although he is here called Bishop and Martyr, yet, because all Gaul, as widely as it extends, knows no such one, I should believe to be a Presbyter Martyr, who suffered at Rome under the Emperor Valerian, about the year of Christ 260; some of whose Relics, brought into the diocese of Narbonne, may have given occasion for naming a church of this kind. He is venerated on the 4th day of August, on which day Saussay says in the Supplement, that his sacred bones are also kept at Le Puy in the church of S. Mary, deposited in two little caskets, at the high altar with great reverence. But I fear that these bones were more recently brought to Le Puy, and only through excessive credulity are thought to be those of that celebrated S. Tertullinus; some seem to have been at Caunes, just as through similar credulity the same Saussay had written of him in his Martyrology, that his body, taken from the sand-pit in which S. Stephen the Pope had buried it, and carried into Gaul, is kept and venerated at Luxembourg in Belgica. We treated on the 10th day of May of the translation of SS. Tertullinus and Chrysanthus, Roman Martyrs, dug out of the Cemetery of Callistus about the year 1623, made to the church of our College of Luxembourg in the year 1647; and in the Appendix we said that their Festivity is now yearly commemorated on the 3rd Sunday of July. But neither to us, nor to the Fathers of Luxembourg, did it ever come into mind to believe that those are the bodies whose deeds and names are celebrated in the Roman Martyrology. From his own invention, therefore, Saussay took the person and the day, and he deservedly becomes suspect to us, lest he did the same concerning the Relics, which he had understood to be held at Le Puy. but long after the age of S. Irenaeus of Lyons, more ancient than he. Howsoever it be, it would be foolish to think that the translation of the Caunesian Martyrs to any church of S. Tertullinus was made by S. Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons (whom alone of this name Gaul knows as a holy Bishop), since it is agreed that he lived in the time of S. Eleutherius the Pope, nearly a hundred years before the age of the Emperor Valerian, and the passion of S. Tertullinus.
THE APOCRYPHAL ACTS
From the manuscript of the most illustrious André du Chesne.
Amandus, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
Lucius, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
Alexander, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne. Audaldus, Martyr at Caunes, near Narbonne (S.)
BHL Number: 0331
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
[1] Prologue. The end of all Christianity is the religion of life, holy devotion, and the true faith of the Martyrs: and in it the dread of sin ceases, and the highest promise is paid: after this, we do not fear the world, which we see triumphantly overcome by those same holy Martyrs: whom we ought to honor with so much loftier reverence, by how much we know them to be of more excellent merit before God for their own blood, shed for the sake of the faith itself. For we believe that they obtained a greater reward of the highest labor from Christ, who by a greater toleration of torments, being placed in the contest, willed to assert the cause of the faith itself with a joyful and invincible mind, and labored that they might affirm it; as it is written, Every one shall receive his own reward according to his labor. For the holy Martyrs, torn by the atrocity of their punishments, when they could in no way be softened from the stability of their faith; as if in the exercise of the contest affirmed that their faith, for which they thus triumphed victoriously, was true: and just as here men, Athletes, equably tolerate every injury of the contest for the sake of crowns; so also the servants of Christ suffered persecutions and beatings, that they might obtain the crown of victory. 1 Matthew 16, 17 The spirit indeed, which is ready, rejoiced amid the torments in the hope of heavenly things; but the flesh, which is weak, was tormented by the same: but when they were snatched from punishment, they now became secure of glory.
[2] And so S. Amandus, who held the Episcopate in the city of Nividunum, invited by the desire of this glory, the persecution being imminent, laid aside all dread of bodily weakness, having with a ready mind embraced the passion. He had three brothers, Lucius, Audaldus, and Alexander: whom, when the Governor Aurelius had called together with many standing by, They are presented to the Governor knowing their religion, thus angrily interrogates them, saying: Before you begin to be subjected to various torments, set forth with fullest faith the sect of Christianity. But when they said nothing, again the Governor rebukes them: You love, he says, as I see, punishment, since you hesitate to answer. Then the holy Martyrs broke out, Amandus the Bishop, Lucius, Audaldus and Alexander, and said: Tyrant, so great a fury has lifted you up, that what you do not deign to worship, you wish even, which is more bitter, to mock: but you would do better, if, heeding the admonitions of salvation, you believed in the omnipotent God, Creator of all creatures; namely the Lord Jesus Christ. The Governor Aurelius said: Take away the deceit of words, and answer with open confession, lest you be subjected to torments. S. Alexander said: Why do you seek out arduous things unknown to all? what we know well, and what will pertain to the questioner, we will confess. The final end now awaits you, Tyrant. Aurelius said: As far as is given to understand, you hasten to death. S. Amandus the Bishop said: Thus you threaten us with torments, as though we were to be either free from death or your companions. Aurelius said: There is no need for us to say with words, set forth your God quickly,
that we ourselves may offer the consecrated libations. S. Audaldus responded: Hear, Tyrant, in the holy Scriptures we read that the Devil suddenly took so great audacity, that to the Lord Jesus Christ, who had then for our salvation assumed a human body, he dared to approach; and said to him, Tell these stones that they become loaves. But Christ responded: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God: and I likewise say (if small things are to be taken for great) Thou shalt not tempt the servants of the Lord God. Matthew 4, 1 The Governor Aurelius said: When I behold in you tender years and green youth, a heap of grief grows upon me. Why do we delay? Sacrifice to the immortal gods. S. Lucius responded: We spurn the consolation of the enemy, and shudder at the solace of the ancient foe. Whence know that we will not adore the vain idols.
[3] But when the altercation seemed continual, the Governor straightway ordered them to be hung up and tortured. After many an onset of the claws indeed, when they thought they are scraped with claws: that all the entrails of the Martyrs and all the inner parts of their members were laid open, the Governor Aurelius said: You do not yet feel a strong punishment: unless perhaps you quickly deny your God, you will be deprived even of life itself, nor will you obtain the help of him whom you fear. But the holy Martyrs, as if from one mouth, said to the Governor: Unhappy Tyrant, satisfy your impious will. For the rest, we do not feel the torments, being once strengthened by the Omnipotent, who from all punishments and torments will be able to free us, who always helps his Saints, to the praise and glory and honor of his holy name. For he hears those who invoke him, protects, and defends them, and is accustomed to glorify those who glorify him; from whom every best gift, and every perfect gift, proceeds.
[4] Then the Governor, vehemently enraged, ordered the holy Martyrs of God to be cast into a furnace of burning fire. cast into a furnace, Engines of wood having therefore been built up on high, the flame rose to heaven, which surpassed even the wishes of him who had ordered it. But the holy servants of Christ, having beheld so great a fire, sighing heavily, looked up to heaven. Whom when the Governor Aurelius beheld he said: It is a grief to me to see your punishment, and when I see so great a beauty in you, you do not flee the torment when you could escape. S. Amandus the Bishop, together with Alexander, said to the Governor: Your eyes are full, not of weeping, but of venom: for they carry one thing within, and show another without. We have already often told you, do not tempt the servants of God: weep rather for yourself and lament: because your destruction will come, whence you have not to hope for pardon, but for punishment. Then the angry Governor, to the soldiers looking around, thus spoke: Hurl down these rebels, and cast them into the midst of the furnace. But the holy Martyrs, signed on their foreheads in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, having entered the furnace, thus began to give thanks to God: We give thanks to thee, O Lord, for this passion, for which we await that thou shouldst confer on us so noble a birth of the promise: the ministers being burned, they are kept unharmed: snatch us from this flame, thou who wast present to the three children condemned to a like punishment. Whom when the Governor Aurelius beheld, he said to his soldiers: I hasten quickly to approach, that I may hear what they say. But the attendants, whom he had brought with him, were so wrapped in the turbulence of the fire, that, very many being killed, scarcely some half-burnt or wounded were carried off; and when all immediately fled, that little cell of the furnace was made colder than ice. Again the holy Martyrs, lifting their eyes to heaven, said: We give thanks to thee, O Lord, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, and God of the twelve Prophets, and God of the twelve Patriarchs; who sittest upon the Cherubim, because thou dost not forsake our souls, nor art conquered by our sins, but hast rendered the accustomed glory of thy mercy.
[5] Then the angry Governor ordered them to be beaten with cudgels: and when the holy Martyrs were beaten, and beaten with cudgels they chant. they chanted, saying: The Lord is our helper, as the Scripture said, we will not fear what man may do to us. The Governor Aurelius said: You wretches torment yourselves by magic arts. Psalm 117, 6 Believe me, sacrifice to the gods: for you will not flee my hands. S. Alexander said: Your hands indeed we will flee, even though dead; but the hands of the Lord you will be able to flee neither living nor dead. Then the Governor ordered [all] to be taken back into prison; and on another day, sitting in judgment, he ordered the Saints to be presented to him. And looking upon S. Amandus the Bishop, S. Amandus is beheaded: he said to him: Amandus, sacrifice to the gods, lest you perish. But he responded: I do not sacrifice to demons, but I hasten to be a partaker of the holy Martyrs. And the Governor, hearing this, ordered him to be beheaded. When this had been so done, he ordered Lucius, Alexander, and Audaldus to stand before him, and said to them: Since you are sprung from most noble births, how have you, through I know not what vain sect of the unhappy Christians, shown yourselves degenerate? Moreover I hear that you have insolently spoken many evils against the omnipotent Gods. The holy Martyrs said: Hear, Governor, if they are gods, it is agreed that they are of free will. The Governor Aurelius said: How? The Saints, answering, said to the Governor: Therefore we said that it is agreed that they are of free will; because if truly, as you say, they are gods, and use any divinity, they have free will, and can freely do what they wish: the others convince the Governor: but if they can do this, and wish to use our service; not leaving this in your power, let them themselves command us this, that they be worshipped by us, let them themselves take vengeance on those not worshipping them, let them themselves defend themselves by their majesty, O Governor! Be ashamed to hope for help from those who cannot help themselves. If they are gods, let them rise, walk, sit, talk: if for these things they are useless to themselves, how will they profit others also? One must therefore withdraw from them, and cleave to Christ the Lord alone and living, the true and highest God, continually to be venerated and besought: after these and many other and similar things spoken by the holy Martyrs, the Governor Aurelius said: O little children, your heart hurls you to death. S. Lucius responded: Not to death, but to life and to everlasting glory, will the belief of our hearts lead us: for it is written, With the heart one believes unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10, 10 The Governor Aurelius said: I persuade you not to die cruelly by death: because, what is enough to know, your age is more or less than twenty years.
[6] Lucius said: Do not vainly applaud yourself, Governor Aurelius, because we fear neither your threats nor your torments, nor even death itself, having the consolation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who says: Fear not them S. Lucius after a free confession who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul: but fear him, who can cast both body and soul into hell. Matthew 10, 28 Wherefore hear from me a boy, I am no more than nineteen years old, but of no small knowledge and sense: For our Lord Jesus Christ deigns to grant such understanding in us, that, as we have said before, we do not fear all the terror of Princes. Therefore it is manifest that your gods, whom you exhort us to worship, are demons: who are adored in the figures or images of dead men, namely of those who did not even spare their own parents. With what brow then do you, with the ready appellation of zeal, commemorate those whom your own authors commemorate as most flagitious in crime? This your own writings testify. Hearing this, the Governor Aurelius, moved with indignation against him, he is struck with the head, i.e. beheaded. and terrified with shame, changed his countenance greatly: for he was greatly confounded that he had been overcome by common reasoning by boys, and ordered S. Lucius to be led on the mountain road, and there to undergo capital sentence. After these things the Governor Aurelius made the holy Martyrs of God, Alexander and Audaldus, stand before his Tribunal, and said to them: Sacrifice to the gods. But they responded: SS. Alexander and Audaldus are killed with leaded scourges, We believe in God the Father almighty himself, him we worship, him we fear, and his Son our Lord Jesus Christ: but we will not adore false idols. Then the Governor, moved with wrath, ordered them to be beaten with leaded scourges until they should fail.
[7] On the same day Christians ran together … Eustochius and Sothicus, Zacheus and Germanus, and several other Brethren; they are buried. and they took the bodies of the holy Martyrs, and clothed them, secretly placed them in a little coffin; and brought them by night to the walls of the city, into the place which is beside the estate of Adamantus, a most faithful man, and there they buried them: in which place now great healings are done by the merits of the holy Martyrs, demons are purged, renowned for miracles, the fevered are healed, and likewise many other ailments, through our Lord Jesus Christ. These things therefore … we have written, that among all the people of God the Confession of the most blessed Martyrs may be read, that many Brethren may believe and grow in faith, and that they may exhort the unbelieving and those doubtful concerning the word; believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. These things were done in the city of Nividunum on the 8th day before the Ides of June, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honor and glory unto ages of ages. Amen. And the bodies of the blessed Martyrs, Alexander, and they are translated. Amandus the Bishop, Lucius and Audaldus, were translated by Irenaeus, a most holy man and Bishop, into the Church of S. Tertullinus the Bishop and Martyr, on the 7th day before the Ides of September.