ON S. AVITUS, HERMIT IN THE DIOCESE OF SARLAT AMONG THE PEOPLE OF PÉRIGUEUX.
ABOUT THE YEAR 570
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On his life, age & cult in various churches of his name.
Avitus, Hermit of Périgueux in Gaul (S.)
P. D.
At almost the same time at which, having died, that holy Avitus began to make illustrious Lyonnese Gaul with many miracles, of whom we have already treated, the Abbot buried among the people of Orléans about the year 527; kindled with a similar love of the solitary life, another Saint of the same name sought & found for himself an eremitical retreat among the people of Périgueux, & inhabited it whole forty years, surviving to about the year 570; & having died on the same day, the 17th of June (as is reported) as the former, certainly obtained from posterity an ecclesiastical cult in no way inferior, on such a day. The Life, although it was not written immediately after his death, nor in the same century, as the Life of that one: yet it was written a few centuries after, from very distinct notices, as to the names of places & persons; at least before the new church was built on the ridge of the mountain under which he had dwelt; & the body was transferred into it from the lower one, where it had been buried: the Chronicle-monument of which Translation, there carved on stone, translated in 1118 in March. is read thus:
In the year a thousand, a hundred, & thrice six, To the mountain of holy Avitus the body is transferred.
That the anniversary of that Translation is celebrated on the 22nd day of the month of March, there wrote to us the same one who sent the Life, illustrated with certain Annotations of his own, from a Ms. Legendary & an ancient Sarlat Breviary, Armandus Girard, Canon of Sarlat: by whose kindness we also received the book of Joannes du Puy, on the state of the Church of Périgueux after the introduction of Christianity, Hence a new Office in the Proper of Sarlat. where the Life itself of this Saint is narrated in French.
[2] The same Armandus, about the year 1677, had printed at Paris by the order of his Bishop, what with special diligence he had collected over many years, a new Proper of the Church of Sarlat; where three Lessons conformable to the old Life are set forth, which it pleases here to set first, for the sake of greater clarity. Avitus of Périgueux, sprung from the village of Linocassium on the river Dordogne… served under Alaric King of the Visigoths, who formerly had his quarters at Poitiers. Him Clovis, to provoke to battle, He was in the year 507 a soldier under Alaric the Goth King, pitched camp at Poitiers, & Alaric thus provoked, goes out from Poitiers with his army, & at the tenth mile from the city, power of fighting being given… with great slaughter the Visigoths were routed & put to flight, Alaric slain by the hand of Clovis, very many made captive; among whom Avitus, who was led to Paris of the Parisii. These things were done in the year 507, so that if Avitus was then about twenty years old, & lived up to the year 570, he was more than eighty when he died; so that some suspect the surname of "the Elder" thence adhered to him: for the place is commonly called "saint Avit le Senieur": But such a suspicion easily collapses, from the fact that the word "Senieur," although derived from the Latin "Senior," is yet a title of honor, not of age. This suspicion therefore rejected, about to bring forward another more probable soon, I return to the Lessons of the new Office.
[3] Freed from captivity, while he seeks again his homeland; at Orléans he heals a certain citizen, Benedictus by name, sick, deaf & mute, & takes him as an inseparable companion. Both proceed to Poitiers: & when at the edge of the Province, weary, he rested, he is so overwhelmed by the frequent concourse of peoples, that hence he was compelled to flee into the monastery of Bonneval of the territory of Poitiers, then through Poitiers, where he had put on the Monk's habit, where he is clothed with the Monk's garment by the Abbot. From the same he obtains a place, in which he may lead a solitary life: he weaves an oratory from the branches of trees; commanded, he cultivates a vineyard: content with a single dish in the week, the remainder of the nourishment supplied to him from the monastery, he distributes to the poor.
Hence he was ill spoken of among the Brethren, who, having gravely complained of him to Abbot Lucinus, by stripping off his tunic, revealed his flesh half-eaten by worms, and turned it into a charge against him. For this reason he was unworthily expelled from the monastery.
[4] He set out for Périgord, unknown to his own people, and at Mauregius, Benedict, having returned to the Périgord region, his faithful companion, died; where afterwards a church was built in memory of him and of St. Avitus. After Benedict's death, the holy man, not abandoning the journey he had begun, found at the village of Bana one Secundinus, who joined himself to him as a companion. Both go on to the place of Ruffiacus, and in a dense grove St. Avitus builds himself an underground cell, in which for forty years he gives himself to fasting, vigils, and prayers. At last, full of merits and virtues, after three days of prayer, having received the sacred Viaticum, he dies full of years on the fifteenth of the Kalends of July. His body is buried in the church of Blessed Mary of the Valley: from where it was translated in the year 1118 into a church built to his name on the mount of Dauriacus, there he died and was buried, which had been consecrated by William, Bishop of Périgueux, in the preceding year.
This last point is gathered from the marble, on the right side of the high altar in the wall, inscribed thus: In the year 1117, William, Bishop of Périgueux, of Alba-rupes, in honor of Blessed John the Baptist and Evangelist, on the sixth of the Kalends of January, consecrated this altar.
[5] Whether in that place, where, when the Life was being written, more were found gathered together, were Regular or Secular Clergy, Clergy gathered at his body are thought to have been seculars, before the aforesaid change of the church, I understand to be disputed with ambiguous opinions. The seculars, as they now are, claim that they were so from the beginning; under cover of a sentence passed in the year 1292, by which it was decreed that it should be held a secular church, under seventeen Canons, among whom are a Prior, Cantor, Sacristan, and Overseer of Works. Since to the temporal and supreme dominion of these belong the whole mount and the surrounding fields, as well as many other places bearing the name of St. Avitus, Armandus thinks in his observations that this is rather the reason why that principal church was commonly called Saint-Avit le Senieur; perhaps it should be written in full les Senieurs; now they are Canons, and it seems to be called from them St. Avit le senieur, so that it is "St. Avitus of the Lords," that is, of the Canons, just as in the diocese of Tours they are called Fontaines les Blanches, that is, "Fountains of the Whites," namely of the Cistercians; and everywhere the names of dioceses are added to the names of monasteries by the article les, e.g. Beaulieu les Mans, S. Lucian les Beauvais, etc., as may be seen in Pierre du Val in his Alphabet of the Abbeys of France.
[6] The churches and places, however, which depend on the jurisdiction of the Canons of St. Avitus and also bear his name, under the same name of St. Avitus, four other churches, and at the same time prove a cult widely spread through Périgord, are indicated thus by Armandus. I. St. Avitus de Riperia, commonly de Riviere, distant only one league from the principal place; which is seven leagues from Sarlat, nine from Périgueux, between the towns of Bellomontium and Molariae, commonly Beaumont and Molieres. II. St. Avitus de Grave meyrous at the borders of the diocese of Sarlat, near St. Foy and the bank of the Dordogne. III. St. Avitus de Villariis, near Bugum in the diocese of Périgueux, four leagues from Sarlat to the West. IV. St. Avitus de Solegia, of the diocese of Agen, near the river Dordogne and St. Foy. In all these places, therefore, St. Avitus called of Périgueux is venerated as Patron, and is prescribed to be celebrated with a double Office throughout the whole diocese of Sarlat (and perhaps also of Périgueux), with this proper collect: Grant, O Lord, that we may be cherished by the supplications of thy holy Confessor Avitus, The body is now sought in vain, that we, who celebrate his death with an annual office, may be relieved by his intercessions and merits.
[7] The body, which we said was translated in the year 1118, is now unknown as to where it is: and although in the year 1644 the Lord de Lingendes, then Bishop of Sarlat, afterwards of Mâcon, ordered the earth to be deeply explored under the aforesaid monument of the translation once made, where by tradition it was thought those sacred Relics had been buried, nevertheless nothing was found. The aforesaid Canons too, in the year 1663, when Armandus wrote these things to us, having diligently searched the foundation of the old church at the foot of the mount, and the very crypt which the Saint inhabited, found nothing more: for it had been hidden more carefully during the previous wars, nor is there anyone who can divine in what place. But neither does there survive any part kept outside the chest at the time of the earlier Translation, as is commonly done in similar acts, for the greater convenience of the people and as an incitement to devotion.
VITA.
From two manuscripts of Sarlat.
Avitus the Hermit of Périgueux in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 0884
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.
Blessed Avitus, springing from a noble stock, by sprouting up to lofty things, at the appropriate time produced ripe fruits with a sweetness fragrant far and wide. Nobly born and well educated, He flourished, according to the manner of a courtly lineage, sprung from the seed of high birth, and of the princes of the place; and in a certain village named Linocasium of the province of Périgord he took the beginning of his happy birth. Scarcely had the time of weaning passed, when, at the urging care of his parents, he was handed over to be imbued with the studies of letters. Having therefore passed the prize of the goal of boyhood, now growing with the youthful flower of puberty, he reached the fork of the Pythagorean letter: in which crossroads of the twofold life, he chose beforehand the right branch by wise counsel; preferring to be constrained in the exile of this life, rather than, by living ambitiously or following the breadth of pleasures, to be condemned in the final judgment.
[2] At that time Alaric, public enemy of the Christian name, held the kingdom of the Goths: under Alaric king of the Goths, who, by the tyrannical fury of a cruel mind and by the savagery of beastly ferocity, puffed up into pride by the power of the kingdom he had acquired, and because by the arm of his strength he was wont to conquer his neighbors on every side; animated by the confidence of a greater hope, namely for the sake of attacking the kingdom of France, disposed to march against it; and that this vow of his obstinacy might appear more firmly strengthened by the assent of his men of the whole kingdom, a heavy mass of silver was melted into one body by the tax-collectors: and everyone of the military Order powerful in strength, willing or unwilling about to receive the King's donative, was invited by heralds with an urgent decree.
[3] Blessed Avitus, therefore, the most strenuous athlete of God, having now nobly obtained the triumph of the philosophical wrestling-ground, with a greater rank of property, enrolled in the army, of the equestrian degree of birth, although unwilling, was assigned to secular warfare, like another Martin about to receive the military donative, marked down among the rest, that he should fight against the hostile battle-line of the Franks. He, not a deaf hearer of that Gospel where it is commanded, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," girded outwardly with a sword-belt and overshadowed with secular arms, but inwardly bearing the hidden warfare of Christ, approached the earthly King to fight, but in the time of war to follow the heavenly one under the banner of faith. Luke 20:25 As the swift report of the coming of that Alaric came flying to the ears of the nobles of France, a battle being joined with the Franks, they, together with their King Clovis, a hand of very great multitude having been gathered, with hasty assault run to meet the Goths. There is on both sides very great slaughter: at last the Franks obtain a noble victory.
[4] By this outcome of the war, at the judgment of supernal disposition, He defends His recruit Avitus, fortified with the banner of faith, he is captured, providing for the salvation of many, from the javelins of the enemy: but that he might understand this, that "through many tribulations it behooves us to enter into the Kingdom of God," for a time he is deprived of liberty, and as a captive is confined with chains, and is destined for servitude to a foreign master; and treated generously by his master, but his master, when he recognized in him the constancy of character, and that he was strong in divine and human wisdom, with a wondrous affection of love and with every office of humanity, did not treat him as a person of servile condition, but placed him more honorably than the rest in his house in the position of a son. Now by the example of the Patriarch Joseph, the slave is preferred to the free, becomes greater than all the free.
[5] After some time the Lord consoled [him] thus through an angelic vision: My good and faithful servant Avitus, an angel appearing to him, who up to here have fought the good fight; it behooves you to become a preacher of my word far and wide; and you, my faithful witness, will labor much for my name. Having steadfast confidence in me, visit the province of Périgueux, he is commanded to preach to the people of Périgord, there is reserved a crown for your contest: there many will believe in my name through you. In the place which is called Ruffiacus, you will utterly destroy the sacred rites which you will find; and you will drive away the most wicked art of diabolical fraud, by which there it lies in wait for the human race; and in my name, having made the sign of the cross, you will utterly exterminate all the contagions of idols. Living there until the end of your life, you will complete the course of the good fight.
[6] Blessed Avitus, not a little strengthened by this vision, obeying that command and giving faith to so manifest a revelation, soon set out on the journey, and, the Lord leading, came as far as Orléans. Stopping at Orléans, In which city, resting a little while, by no means could so clear a lamp be hidden under a bushel: for in that same city a certain man deaf and dumb and burdened with infirmity, after a prayer was made for the sick man, soon obtained full restoration of health, he cures a dumb and deaf man, entirely. In which matter all the inhabitants of the city, astonished, extolled to heaven the wondrous clemency of divine goodness, and, eagerly desiring to offer the comfort of all humanity, with one accord wished to retain the man of God.
[7] But Blessed Avitus, the man of God, neither turning aside to the left nor to the right from the undertaking of his purpose, accompanied by that one companion of the journey, known also at Poitiers through miracles, who had obtained the grace of healing, at last halted within the borders of the province of Poitou: where, while he tarried for some little time, on account of his continence of character and the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the wisdom which shone in him, he was held known to all; and by the untimely rushing of peoples, he was frequented day and night. By his intervention, all who were beset by the trouble of infirmity returned to their own homes restored to perfect health: and not only did his prayer profit the weak or sick for obtaining health, but very many subject to the grievous burden of poverty were sustained by the comfort of his protective charity.
[8] Out of a zeal for concealment he withdraws into the Province, But while for so many benefits he was held famous with illustrious renown through all the borders of the province of Poitou, day by day from everywhere among the neighboring peoples, wishing to avoid the favor of popular clamor and the loss of secular intercourse, accompanied by the said companion, he went to a place of the same province, which is commonly called Bonevallis; where at that time a monastery, built according to rule and fitted for divine service, was held by the inhabitants in reverence of the greatest honor. When, by the Lord's disposing, he had come there, he is honorably received by the Brethren of the place.
[9] St. Avitus, by no means forgetful of his purpose, humbly set forth before all the cause of his coming; and being received into the monastery, with the greatest devotion entreating them how they might receive him into the fellowship of the monastic flock, and that they would not deny him the habit of holy intercourse. The Brethren, assenting to his petition, obeying with equal consent, received him as a Brother. And it came to pass that, while he became a perfect imitator of all, he obtained from all the testimony of perfection. He obtains a solitary cell, He humbly asked the Father of the Monastery to provide for him, not far from the cells of the Brethren, a place suited to the solitude he desired. The Abbot, gladly receiving this petition, entrusted to him, for cultivation as an obedience, a vineyard near the monastery: in which the man of God soon built a little oratory woven of twigs, as best he could: where even today, in memory of his manner of life, a church afterwards erected by the inhabitants shines with stones.
[10] In which little oratory he meditated praises to the Lord day and night: but the expenses of the common allowance, where, living most abstemiously, which he had received daily from the Brethren, he distributed with a generous hand to the poor: while he himself, by mortifying his body, was refreshed only once a week. But the enemy of the human race, grieving over the man of God's abstinence, craftily distilling the poison of his envy through the hearts of the Brethren: for the Brethren, envying his solitary manner of life, observed with too great diligence what his abstinence might be: and when they frequented his cell more often for this cause, on one Sabbath day, coming upon him again, they found him with a cheerful countenance giving to the poor the provisions which he had received from the monastery for the use of the whole week. This sort of thing seen by chance, being intoxicated by the poison of envy, they reported to the Abbot in order as it had been done. "Abbot, unless your divine mind takes heed, has not this stranger become a ruin and a scandal to all? It is not enough for Avitus to be refreshed by the regular institution, or to fast; but with presumptuous rashness, contrary to the custom of the Brethren, accused of being indiscreet, he is refreshed only once a week, in order to propagate the name of his novel manner of life: and under the appearance of vain religion he gathers vagrant men and uselessly distributes the substance of the monastery: but also from his body flows a horrid rot; which disturbs us all: in the hut of his cell, moreover, he rejoices more to be associated by habitation with worms, than to be visited by the consolation of the Brethren."
[11] These and such things being heard, Abbot Lucinus straightway summoned the man of God: and in the presence of the Brethren addresses him with such a saying: and vainly dissembling what he suffered, "Is it so, Brother, that these things are held against you in this matter, which these men testify against you?" But the man of the Lord, conscious of his own simplicity, answered him not a word at all: for what the Brethren, enviously accusing him and secretly convicting him, imputed as a fault; he truly esteemed as a great triumph of glory: and in the likeness of the patient Job, "In all these things he sinned not with his lips." Job 1:22 But at length, as they asked him many times, he gave only this answer with a placid countenance: "Let it suffice you sometimes to seek me, he is found wholly eaten by lice, and not at all to find me." But the Brethren, seizing him as if a madman, took off all his garments entirely; and so, as they had before reported to the Abbot, they found his whole body full of worms, and with wounds eaten away to the bones, furrowed with rot. At last, the Abbot's command compelling, by the medicinal care of the Brethren, in thirty days his wounds were entirely restored to health: after which the Brethren, calling him together, said to him with one accord, and being cured he is dismissed, "Depart from us: for we do not wish so indiscreet an example of your manner of life." Avitus, beloved of God, not unmindful of his purpose, seeing that he could not agree with their ways, admonished by the consolation of an angelic visitation, bidding farewell to all the brethren, returned to his own home.
[12] Therefore Blessed Avitus returned to the province of Périgord: and lest he be drawn away from his purpose by the care of his noble parents, returned to his homeland, altogether fleeing the acquaintance of his own, he avoided the place of his own birth: and here and there he ran through the deserts and byways of the region. At last he came to a certain place which is called Mauregius, and there, worn out with weariness, he disposed to remain a few days. And while he gave himself to hymns and praises of God, he buries his companion who died there, it happened, by God's disposing, that his disciple worthy of God, named Benedict, departed from this world to the Lord: whose obsequies the holy man having celebrated as is fitting, he handed him over to be buried in a tomb: over whose mausoleum he built a Church, which up to the present day shines, by the merits of the same blessed man Avitus and of his venerable disciple Benedict, famous for the virtues which Christ works.
[13] After whose death the holy man, not abandoning the journey he had begun, sets out to a certain church, which was held in a place named Banavicus, and, having taken on another, wanders through the deserts, in honor of Pantaleon the Martyr; where he is soon honorably and with spiritual joy received by the natives. And when he tarried for some days there, a certain man of laudable life, named Secundinus, is joined to the man of God for the grace of greater intimacy. And when both, by completely avoiding the dwelling-places of men, passed with difficulty through the thickets, and explored the hollows of the mountains and the recesses of remote valleys; at last, as it pleased the supernal provision, they came to where now his most holy Body rests; where on every side the sight of a vast solitude presented itself, where the place was more fit for the habitation of wild beasts and serpents than of men. and at last he comes to a horrifying place, But the man of God Avitus approached the place undaunted: and, the prayer finished, the whole multitude of huge beasts and serpents suddenly vanished. In the same place there was a neighboring grove of the Pagans, near which there was wondrously built a temple of idols, in which were worshiped by the pagans (as the report of antiquity notes) three thousand statues of idols. St. Avitus, together with his aforesaid companion, with knees bent in inner humility, pours forth prayers to the Lord; and, the prayer completed, there was a great earthquake in that same place, so that it could be known by a manifest sign that that place was fit for the service of God: in which the prayer of the faithful servant of God Avitus was heard.
[14] Therefore the man of God Avitus, wishing to be removed from all, where, a little cell having been built, built himself a cell of stones of modest quantity; near which he constructed a Church in honor of the holy Mother of God Mary, called Our Lady of the Valleys: in which until the end of his life for forty years he gave himself to fasting, vigils, prayers, and almsgiving; and he often enjoyed for his comfort the conversations of Angels, and by humbling himself he was day by day exalted by God.
[15] At a certain time a certain most mighty robber, stealing a beehive from his little garden, and most renowned in fame through all that province, secretly approached the cell of the man of God, and through the secret of night did not fear to break stealthily into the garden which was adjoining the cell: and when he had entered in, he ran about feeling for the swarms of bees. At last he found one vessel heavier than the rest, which he did not delay to lift: and having placed it well and aptly for carrying, he disposed to go away with hasty rush: but, having striven here and there long and much in vain, the immobile body almost denied the function of motion: which, that the miracle of divine power might be confirmed by the testimony of many, and being punished with immobility, for three days and as many nights, like an immobile statue, remained inflexible in all his limbs. Seeing this, very many who came up glorified God, who does not let those who offend against His servants go away unpunished. But on the fourth day the robber, seeing that he could not move himself at all, begged the servant of God, saying: "Servant of God, have mercy on me: absolve those who offend against you, and do not punish so grievously one who sins: let so long a vengeance suffice, he induces him to confess his sins, provided that the offenses be corrected for the better: this so strong binding of my limbs will, for certain, become a correction of my morals: I know that my time presses, and for my innumerable evils I am afraid." To whom the man of God Avitus said: "That fear profits little, which is not followed by the love of correction: if you wish to go away loosed, with a compunct heart confess whatever sins you have done. For there is by no means there a true remission, where true confession does not go before."
[16] At another time also, while the man of the Lord Avitus, He drives away a demon seen in the appearance of a woman, was persevering in prayer in the church which he had built for himself, the perfidious tempter, clothed in the appearance of a woman, knocked at the door, saying: "I beg you, servant of God, bring me into the shelter of your lodging, and do not let me be condemned to death by the wild beasts of this vast solitude." To whom soon the man of God, weighing the fraud, breathed into her face: and at once that cunning enemy, melted into thin air, vanished.
[17] A certain man, Liberius by name, of the province of Bordeaux, of the villa which is called Prisciagus, he saves one who had been given poison to drink, in drink, through the maleficence of a deceitful man, had unwarily drunk the poison of death: he came to the holy man of God Avitus, and, fallen at his feet, begged that he would have mercy on him; whom, when he had fortified on every side with the sign of the Cross, he suddenly vomited up the deadly poison. But on a certain day, while Avitus, the man of all Mercy, was in his cell, certain hunters, fiercely pursuing a certain hind, brought her, worn out with weariness, and frees a hind from the hunters, and wounded by the point of their sword, to the door of the cell of the man of God. To whom the man of God opened the door of his cell: and, moved with compassion, snatched her from the pressing hunters, and, unharmed and sound, the terror of all the hunters being driven far off, sent her back to the byway places of the desert.
[18] When for these and other powers of miracles he was held famous far and wide, and beloved both by God and by the people; now an old man and full of days, entering into that aforesaid little oratory, built in honor of Holy Mary, and there for three days and as many nights persevering in prayer, celebrating the solemnities of masses, taking the most holy Viaticum of the Lord's body, he rendered his spirit to the Lord in that same place: at the obsequies of whose little body, and of his memory commended, in the same place where he rests, several were gathered together, by the favor of God, to whom is honor and glory unto the ages of ages.
ANNOTATIONS OF F. B.
p What if this Benedict was afterwards translated thence to his homeland, and is he of whom Saussay speaks on 24 October: "On the same day in the district of Poitou, the gracious privileges of St. Benedict Confessor are celebrated"? About him certainly we have so far found nothing elsewhere, and we desire to learn.
q It seems to be Banes on the Consa, between the town of the same name and Bellomontium, a place one league distant from St. Avitus of the Lords.
r St. Pantaleon M. is venerated on 27 July, known everywhere with celebrated cult.
s So it was probably believed by tradition: but that the ancient Gauls truly worshiped idols in one temple, contrary to the custom of the Romans, into whose power and likewise religion they had passed, you would hardly prove.
t That church still survives at the foot of the mount, next to the crypt of the Saint: and the Chapter of St. Avitus itself, to whom it once served as parish, goes there in procession on certain days of the year, to sing Mass there.
u Perhaps today Priezac in Limousin, according to the Alphabet of P. de Val. I have not yet read it on the maps; the Limousin, moreover, can be referred in some measure to the Province of Bordeaux: but this is a conjecture.
x The Ms. has "of Masses" throughout: it does not seem, however, that he himself was a Presbyter, so as to be able to celebrate Mass by himself; but he could have it cared for by another, and under it have received the Viaticum.
y That is, the college of Canons not yet being constituted, when these things were written; but they were simple Clerics, if not Monks.
z The Life was divided into 17 Chapters, whence I made as many Paragraphs.