ON SAINT AMANDUS,
BISHOP OF BORDEAUX IN AQUITAINE.
5TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
From the Letters of Paulinus, the History of Saint Gregory of Tours, and others.
Amandus, Bishop of Bordeaux in Aquitaine (Saint)
G. H. & D. P.
Amandus, Bishop of Bordeaux and Metropolitan of the second Aquitaine, flourished in the fourth and fifth century of Christ, distinguished for wisdom and sanctity. The first notice of him is offered in the letters of Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, who wrote six of them to him, when he was still either Presbyter or Deacon of Saint Delphinus, Bishop of Bordeaux. He is praised by Saint Paulinus Hence too he calls himself the planting, the joy, the crown, the care, and the daily labor before Christ of Delphinus and Amandus, in the third and fourth Letters to Amandus, as if received by them in baptism, or at least instructed in the catechesis. But the second letter attributes this singular grace to Saint Amandus: We know, he says, that, serving Him [God] from boyhood, and nourished on the sacred letters, polluted by no stain of earthly conversation and of the flesh, you have found grace in the sight of the Most High. Hence he inscribed his Letters with this title: To the holy and deservedly venerable and most beloved Amandus, Paulinus. And the first Letter he thus begins: We have tasted the most sweet savor of your mouth, in a brief discourse of your sanctity. whom he had spiritually instructed, For as a drop of honey has the same taste as the whole comb; so also, though in one word, the dripping of your tongue conveys the whole savor of your holy soul: because whatever is brought forth from a good treasure is good and precious: nor is a Pearl therefore worthless because it is small; but the more precious for this, that even in a small measure it has a great price… But the grain of mustard too, which seems least among seed, yet stands greatest among the herb. The word of which seed, because it is sown in you, and thrives in your heart (whence the heart burning in the way of the Lord), therefore even your brief discourse holds the sweetness and at the same time the vigor of the heavenly kingdom, and ministers it to us, that we too may be seasoned with the salt of your prudence. Then in the rest of the letter he commends the soul of his dead brother and himself to the prayers of Amandus. The second letter he writes chiefly on the grace of God, no less pious than elegant, commemorating the benignity of God and the depth of the Divine counsel concerning the salvation of the human race. But with what Spirit Amandus received the like doctrine, we gather from the third Letter, in which Paulinus lovingly expostulates with him, because he had impelled Bishop Delphinus to seek something of saving doctrine from him; but he excuses his own unskillfulness, and implores their help: meanwhile prudently sprinkling in many things for the instruction of piety.
[2] In the fourth letter Paulinus announces that he was made a Priest against his will, and is asked to be willing to do this further. and touches on the parts of the Priestly office; and implores the help of him and Delphinus, through whom he had been born to God, for fulfilling them, and among other things speaks thus: Instruct us often by your letters with the necessary supplements: for, nourished on the discourses of faith and good doctrine, which from boyhood you have pursued in the sacred letters, form us to the rule of direction; feed us with spiritual food, that is, with the word of God, who is the true and living bread, and in whom one lives more than in bread itself: since He Himself is the nourishment of the just, who live by faith. Nor be the more negligent on this account about the solicitude of my instruction, that we are separated by the place of the Church, not only in body. For there is one God, one mediator of God and men, who is the head of the Church: in which, since we are all one, we live as in one house … Therefore, seeing and holding me spiritually as yours and remaining with you, instruct, help, exhort, confirm. For born to God in Christ from you and through you, I ought to be especially your care: because I shall be your reproach, if unworthy; or your
joy, if I am recognized to be a branch from the good fruits of your tree. Thus there. Would that, if the letters of Saint Amandus lie hidden somewhere, they may sometime be brought forth into the light, for the illumination of holy souls, with which we judge those letters to be most fully furnished. In the fifth letter Paulinus describes the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John, by which one thing alone he says are shut all the mouths that bark against both the Deity and the humanity of Christ. In the sixth he congratulates Amandus that Bishop Delphinus, freed from a grave infirmity, had been restored to his former health.
[3] This Delphinus too is a Saint, and inserted in the Calendars of the Roman Church on the 24th of December: He succeeds Saint Delphinus after the year 400, there are extant five Letters of Saint Paulinus to him: in the second of which he describes the charity toward himself of Anastasius the Roman Pontiff and of Venerius the Prelate of Milan. We illustrated the Acts of Saint Anastasius on the 27th of April, and of Saint Venerius on the 4th of May. From these, the Pontiff Anastasius presided over the universal Church from the year 398 to 402, and Venerius over his diocese from the year 400 to the year 409. Whence we conclude with certainty that Saint Delphinus was still among the living in the said year 400. The words of Paulinus are these: The Bishop of Milan too, new, hitherto your son, now a brother, Venerius, had already written to us after his Ordination. Meanwhile Delphinus seems to have lived still longer, on account of the other three letters sent to him by Paulinus, in the next-to-last of which he congratulates him on his health restored: unless perchance the order of the letters has been changed.
[4] Saint Delphinus, therefore, having died on the 24th of December, Saint Amandus succeeded, he is held a guardian of faith and religion whom Gregory of Tours celebrates in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 13, where concerning the illustrious Bishops of Aquitaine he writes these things in the words of Paulinus: For if you should see these Priests worthy of the Lord, whether Exuperius of Toulouse, or Simplicius of Vienne, or Amandus of Bordeaux, or Diogenianus of Albi, or Dynamius of Angoulême, or Venerandus of the Arverni, or Alethius of Cahors, or now Pegasius of Périgueux, however the evils of the age stand, you will assuredly see most worthy guardians of all faith and religion. Thus there. Of these indicated Bishops we celebrated Saint Venerandus, Prelate of the Arverni, on the 18th of January; Saint Simplicius of Vienne, on the 3rd of February: concerning Saint Exuperius of Toulouse there will be treatment on the 28th of September: the names of the rest we have not yet found inscribed in any sacred Calendars. At the time when the said Delphinus and Amandus presided over the Church of Bordeaux, the Bishop of Cologne was Saint Severinus, who is said to have drawn his origin from a most noble family of Bordeaux, and obtains a most solemn veneration with an Octave among the people of Bordeaux and of Cologne. He is also assigned to the Calendars of the Roman Church, on the 23rd of October, when his Acts, from various manuscripts, will have to be brought forth, and they are also found in Laurentius Surius; from which we now bring forth the following.
[5] He receives Saint Severinus, Bishop of Cologne, The Church of Cologne, therefore, having been crowned and well established by the grace of God, remaining untiring in the work of God, he is admonished through a vision, that he should not hesitate to visit, for the sake of heavenly gain, the town of Bordeaux and the parts of Aquitaine, whence too he is said to have drawn his illustrious origin. Who at once, having known the will of God, although now weighed down by senile age, undertook to accomplish it. While, therefore (as Gregory of Tours proceeds, On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 45), he was making the journey, and Amandus the Bishop was governing the Church of Bordeaux, the Lord appeared to him in a vision of the night, saying: Arise and go out to meet my servant Severinus, and honor him, as the Holy Scripture teaches, a friend of the Divinity: for he is better than you and more sublime in merits. And Amandus the Bishop, rising, having taken a little staff in his hand, went forth to meet him, knowing nothing of the holy man, and substitutes him in his own place: except what the Lord had revealed. And behold, Saint Severinus was coming as if to meet him. Then, approaching each other, and saluting one another by their proper names, they rush alike into embraces; and having kissed each other, prayer being poured forth, they entered the Church with a great choir of those singing psalms. Whom thereafter Amandus the Bishop loved and venerated to such a degree, that he substituted him in his own place, and he himself was regarded as a junior. Finally, after a few years, the most blessed Severinus died; him having died in the year 508, he buries, and he being buried, Amandus the Bishop received back his place; which was without doubt rendered to him through the obedience which he exercised toward the Saint of God. Thus the Tours writer. Aegidius Gelenius, in book 1 on the greatness of Cologne Agrippina, page 58, writes that Saint Severinus the Aquitanian, the 8th Bishop of Cologne, died at Bordeaux on the 10th of the Kalends of November in the year of the Christian era 408.
[6] The Sammarthani, in the Archbishops of Bordeaux, from the Cartulary of the Abbey of Saint Severinus, note very many things on page 197, whence we excerpt these: Saint Amandus at that time was Count and Archbishop of Bordeaux, when Saint Severinus arrived; but at the Angel's command he handed over both the Archbishopric and the County to Saint Severinus, that he might be under his dominion. After the passing of Saint Severinus (whom Saint Amandus, at his request, buried at this place, out of reverence for the holy Confessor) Saint Amandus imposed this law upon this place: That whoever should be constituted Count in this country, at this place, for the honor of Saint Severinus, should place his sword upon his altar, he is said to have promoted his veneration. and with the banner and the same sword should receive the County from Saint Severinus: and through all time, whatever great thing he was about to do, whether in battle or in another affair, he should do by the authority and license of such a Patron. From which time, by the disposition of Saint Amandus, such is the law and custom of that place, that every year at the time of Saint Severinus's festivity, the Count should pay to this place and to the Canons serving Saint Severinus such a tax: four quarters of grain, and a measure of pure wine not mixed with water, five pigs, and one boar, and one cow, for which are paid every year ten shillings on the festivity of Saint Severinus. Thus there. But many things here were inserted by later men when the monastery was in the hands of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, which now the cited Sammarthani write to be in the hands of seculars: whence what is brought forward about the County we should wish to be confirmed by some more ancient instrument: nay, neither was the Archiepiscopal name then in use, although the office itself was in the hands of the Metropolitan Bishops.
[7] How long, after he resumed the Episcopal administration upon the death of Saint Severinus, The year of death is unknown. Saint Amandus survived, we cannot attain even by any conjecture, since nothing certain is established concerning his successors: and he who in the Catalogues is substituted, Gallicinus, seems to be the same one whom Sidonius Apollinaris writes to have been killed in the year 475 with other Bishops in the savage slaughter of the Goths, in the Sixth letter of the seventh book to Bishop Basilius. His birthday is held on the 18th of June, on which day in the city and diocese of Bordeaux he is venerated with an Ecclesiastical Office under a double rite, and by Grevenus in the Auctarium of Usuard, printed at Cologne in the years 1515 and 1521, he is recorded with this encomium: In the city of Bordeaux, of Saint Amandus, Bishop and Confessor, who received Blessed Severinus, Archbishop of Cologne, by an Angelic admonition; and saluted by his proper name him whom he had not seen before. His birthday on the 18th of June in the sacred calendars. He is also mentioned in the manuscript Florarium, likewise by Canisius, Ghinius, and Molanus, and cited in the Roman Martyrology. A larger elogium Saussay collected in the Gallican Martyrology, but from things already related by us. In the register of the benefices of the city and diocese of Bordeaux there is indicated, in the Archpresbyterate of Buch and the Born parish, a Saint Amandus of Ceurgas: but whether of this one, or of Saint Amandus Bishop of Maastricht, also a native of this Aquitaine and banished into the same exile, we cannot judge from the bare name.