Abraham

ON SAINT ABRAHAM,

ABBOT AT CLERMONT IN GAUL.

From the Saints Gregory of Tours & Sidonius Apollinaris.

AFTER THE YEAR CDLXXII.

Abraham, Abbot at Clermont in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 0014

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Gregory Bishop of Tours, in book 2 of the History of the Franks chapter 21, describes the deeds of the Bishops of Auvergne, Life written by Gregory of Tours. of Eparchius & Sidonius Apollinaris, of whom the latter was substituted for the former, having departed from life about the year CCCCLXXII. In his time, he says, when Victorius still tarried near the city of Auvergne, there was in the monastery of B. Cyricus, an Abbot of that very city, by name Abraham: who in faith & works shone like that prior Abraham, as we have written in the book of his Life. This Life is extant in chapter 3 of the Lives of the Fathers, & is of this kind.

[2] To none of the Catholics I think it is hidden, what the Lord says in the Gospel: Amen I say to you, if you shall have entire faith, & shall not have hesitated; if you shall say to this mountain, Transfer thyself, it shall transfer itself: & all things whatsoever you shall ask in my name, believe that you shall receive, Like the Patriarch Abraham, adorned with faith & virtues, & they shall come to you. Matt. 17 Therefore there is no doubt, that the Saints can obtain from the Lord, what they shall have asked: because in them faith, with the foundation placed, vacillates with no waves of hesitations. For which faith, not only within the boundary of their own country, while they desire to lead a heavenly life, have they been made exiles; but also they have sought transmarine & foreign places, that to him, to whom they had devoted themselves, they might please more. So now B. Abraham the Abbot, who after many temptations of the age, entered the boundaries of the Auvergne territory: who not undeservedly is compared to that old Abraham, for the magnitude of faith, to whom once God had said; Go out of thy land, & from thy kindred, & go into the land, which I shall show thee. Gen. 12 But he left not only his own land, but also that action of the old man; & put on the new man, who was formed according to God, in justice, holiness, & truth. And therefore when he saw himself perfect in the work of God; he did not doubt in faith to ask, what through holy life he trusted to obtain. Through whom the artificer of heaven, sea & earth, miracles small indeed in number, but admirable, deigned to work.

[3] Therefore this Abraham was born upon the bank of the river Euphrates, he goes off to Egypt, captured on the way comes to the Arvernians: where advancing in the work of God, he desired to go to the solitudes of Egypt to visit the Eremites. But while he was heading there, apprehended by the Pagans, & afflicted with many blows for the name of Christ, he is cast into chains: in which exulting for five years, at length with an Angel loosing him he is released. Wishing also to visit the Western region, he came to the Arvernians; & there at the basilica of S. Cyricus placed a monastery. He was however of wondrous virtue, a putter-to-flight of demons, & illuminator of the blind, also a most powerful curer of other diseases. Therefore when the festivity of the aforesaid basilica had come, he calls the Provost, that he should compose the vessels full of wine for refreshing the people, who were present at the solemnity, in the atrium as was the custom. The Monk pleads, lest the wine fail by praying he obtains. saying: Behold thou hast invited the Bishop with the Duke & citizens, & scarcely four amphorae of wine remain to us: whence wilt thou complete all those things? But he: Open, he said, the storehouse to me. With which opened, he entered; & pouring forth prayer, as a new Elias, with hands raised to heaven, & with eyes suffused with weeping, said: Let not, I pray, Lord, the wine fail from this little vessel, until it shall have been ministered to all in abundance. And with the holy Spirit rushing upon him, he said: Thus says the Lord: The wine shall not fail from the vessel, but to all asking shall be granted abundantly, & it shall abound. With this said, the wine, at the word & cheerfulness of his dispensation, was ministered to all the people in abundance, & was left over. But because the diligence of the Provost had previously measured the fifty-gallon vessel, & had found the measure of four palms; seeing what had been done, on the morrow measuring again, he found as much in the vessel, as he had left in it on the preceding day. From this the virtue of the Saint was declared among the peoples: in the monastery itself he died full of days, & there with honor was buried.

[4] There was however at that time S. Sidonius Bishop, & Victorius Duke, S. Sidonius asked by Volusianus, to write his epitaph who had received the principate over seven cities, with Eorichus King of the Goths indulging. The Epitaph of this Saint B. Sidonius wrote, in which some things about those, of which I have spoken, was prefaced. But to the sepulchre of this blessed Abraham mostly those lying with shivers, are relieved by the protection of celestial medicine. The Epitaph itself, written by S. Sidonius, receive with the Epistle XVII of book VII, to S. Volusianus Bishop of Tours, about whom we treated XVIII January, written in these words: Thou commandest me, Lord brother, by the law of friendship, which it is sinful to harm, to place fingers now long sluggish on the anvils of the old workshop, & for the holy Abraham having departed life to inscribe a sepulchral lament in mournful verses. I shall quickly obey the things enjoined, both drawn by thy authority, & principally prevented by the devotion of the most ample man Count Victorius, whom by secular law as patron, by ecclesiastical law as son, I cultivate as a client, I love as a father: who has sufficiently taught, what or of what kind care for the servants of Christ burned in him, when bending over the couch of the lying Antistes, no less in dignity than in members, & over his face, pale with neighboring death, made one color with him in grief, what he wished for the man with indescribable tears he showed. And because to himself he snatched the greatest parts of burying the body, imparting all the apparatus of the supervening expense, which would befit the Priest to be buried; at least for the obsequy, what remained, words we contribute; about to inscribe nothing else by the impress of the carving stylus, than the testimony of mutual love. As for the rest the man's manners, deeds, virtues, most unworthily by the vileness of my words shall be weighed.

[5] Abraham, to be deservedly associated with the holy Patrons,

Whom I do not tremble to call thy colleagues: he says fugitive from Persia on account of persecutions,

For so they precede, that soon however thou thyself mayest follow;

The portion of martyrdom gives a part of the kingdom.

Born at the Euphrates, for Christ having suffered prisons,

And for five years chains loosed by hunger,

Escaping the truculent King of the coast of Susiana,

To the western soil alone thou hastenest as far.

But signs of virtues follow the Confessor:

And to malign spirits thou bringest, fugitive, flight. the greater cities being dismissed,

And wherever thou comest, the throng of lemurs clamors that it is being cut:

Thou orderest demons to go as exile into exile.

Thou art sought by all, nor does any ambition take thee,

To thee is delivered honor not burdensome.

Thou fleest the Romulean & Byzantine din,

And the walls broken by arrow-bearing Titus:

The wall of Alexander does not hold thee, & of Antioch:

Thou spurnest the Byrsic roofs of the Edessean house.

The populous fields of marsh-dwelling Ravenna thou despisest,

And those which have name from the wool-bearing pig.

This corner pleases, & the poor little retreat,

And a cottage whose roofs would be pressed with thatch,

Thou buildest here thyself a temple venerable to God,

Thou thyself made a temple of God in body before.

The course of life & of way finished here,

For thy sweat a double crown remains. come to the Arvernians & built a monastery there

Now stand around thee the thousands of the sacred paradise,

Now Abraham as fellow-pilgrim holds thee.

Now thou enterest the homeland the seat from which Adam fell,

Now thou canst go to the fountain of thy river.

[6] Behold, as thou hadst enjoined, what remains, we have paid just things to the buried: but if in turn by the commands of charity, brethren, friends, fellow-soldiers, it is fitting to obey; in turn I pray that thou also, by what institutes thou eminentest, approach to console his disciples: & he asks that he look out for this one. & the fluctuating Rule of the destitute Brethren, according to the statutes of the Lirinensian Fathers or of the Grenoble ones, swiftly inform: of whose discipline if any rebels, thou thyself chastise: if any followers, thou thyself praise. Provost over them indeed seems S. Auxanius, who as a man (as thou knowest) somewhat more than just both weak in body, & shy in disposition; & therefore more ready to obey than to command; demands that thou be asked, that under thy magistery he himself as master of the monastery may approach: & if any of the younger shall have despised him, as imperitous or pusillanimous, through thee alone let him feel that either is not contemned with impunity. What more? Wilt thou in few words recognize what I want? I pray that Brother Auxianus be Abbot over the Congregation, but thou over the Abbot. Farewell.

[7] Thus Sidonius, Bishop (as I said above) of Tours, to whom as Metropolitan also the Auvergne diocese ought to be of care: & whom therefore, according to some Mss. he here calls Domine Major, where others have Domine Frater: but in book 4 Epist. 18 to Lucentius too Brother, & common Brother he calls; & here near the end he wishes Auxianus to be above the Abbot, successor of S. Abraham, what persecution did the Saint flee? although in that congregation an eminent man. Then Victorius alone he honors with the title of Count, inasmuch as then he presided over only the city of Auvergne; But Gregory of Tours, in book 2 of the History of the Franks ch. 20, calls him Duke, namely by Euric or Eorich King of the Goths set over seven cities. The piety of this Victorius Sidonius praises here: but that he was not always similar to himself, & on account of lust a fugitive from the Arvernians, & at Rome overwhelmed with stones, the said Tourainian writes. But S. Abraham was born at the Euphrates: then as an elder under the truculent King of the Persians Sapor (who here is called King of the coast of Susiana, with allusion to the city of Susa, most known from the book of Esther) prisons & chains for five years having suffered, he is praised, because for his dwelling he did not choose Rome, or Constantinople, not Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, or Carthage, not even Ravenna or Milan, where Isidore wrote a sow was found in the midst of wool. In the monastery however, constructed by him, the statutes of the Lirinensian Fathers or of the Grenoble were vigorous. About the Lirinensian monastery, built by S. Honoratus, is treated at length in his Life, edited by us on the day XVI January: but that the Grenoble cenobia, founded by the holy Pontiffs of the city of Vienne, contained almost five hundred monks, have the Acts of S. Clarus Abbot of Vienne, printed on the Kalends of January.

[8] That S. Abraham placed his monastery at the Basilica of S. Cyricus, the above Tourainian indicates; about which Basilica in the first little book on the Saints, Churches, & Monasteries of Claromont, in Savaro chapter 4, what statutes of his monastery. these are read: In the church of S. Cyricus the altar of S. Cyricus,

where S. Abraham, & S. Justus, & S. Silvinus rest. Most celebrated is the solemnity of this Saint in the said church of S. Cyricus; & thence translated to the whole diocese, which in the Ms. Martyrology of Claromont thus is promulgated: XVII Kalends of July, at the Arvernians the birthday of S. Abraham, Abbot & Confessor. Which nearly the same is read in Molanus, Galesinius, Canisius, & others, with today's Roman Martyrology. More from the Acts has been heaped up by Saussay. But Savaro, in his Notes to the said Church of S. Cyricus, adds, Cult 15 June, that a limpid fountain glides not far from the Church, & is commonly called, la fon de S. Abraham: & he reprehends the old wives' superstition, by which infants more than equally wailing were accustomed to be immersed there, that they might be healed of the wailing & infantile weeping. Which benefit however that there is paid them Saussay praises. I do not see what of superstition is in it, if for the hidden disease or discomfort, which is the cause of enormous wailing, & a fountain useful to infants, a remedy from that water is hoped through the invocation of S. Abraham; since it is certain that infants often suffer many things, of which nature has no other indication ready than wailing: which if it be continuous & enormous, cannot proceed from light evil.

[9] On XVI of this month are venerated, most known to the Greek & Latin Fasti, SS. Cyricus or Quiricus, & Julitta, mother & son, Martyrs, with bodies translated into Gaul, & singularly in Auvergne celebrated. In their Acts, & thence in various Martyrologies, & today's Roman, is read about the son, that as a three-year-old little boy, when his mother, who was being most cruelly beaten with sinews before Alexander the President, he was bewailing with implacable grief, dashed against the steps of the tribunal he died. There is no need of more, that it be understood that of any religion's origin, from the old devotion to S. Cyricus. in that place, more ancient than Abraham himself, founded on the aforesaid wailing of S. Cyricus: of which church the adjoined fountain, when for obtaining a remedy for infantile wailing was commonly frequented, & a new venerability had accrued to it from S. Abraham, accustomed to drink from the same fountain; the fountain itself began to be called of S. Abraham; & the benefit, which used to be related as received from S. Cyricus, to be ascribed to Abraham himself. Savaro was a learned man, but it seems to have happened to him here, what to many in this age, who often impute to superstition, that of which they are ignorant of the true cause & origin, about to praise, if someone should suggest it to them, such as we here judge is suggested commodiously enough.