CONCERNING SAINT SEZNIUS, ABBOT, PATRON OF THE PARISH OF GUIC-SEZNI IN THE DIOCESE OF LEON IN ARMORICAN BRITTANY.
IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.
CommentarySeznius, Abbot in Armorican Brittany (Saint)
[1] In the diocese of Leon there is a village in that region of Armorican Brittany that faces the tip of extreme Cornwall, which, having received its name from its Patron, The veneration of Saint Seznius on March 6 and September 19. Guic-Sezni, celebrates its feast for him with great solemnity on March 6, as Fr. Albert le Grand testifies in his work on the Saints of Armorica -- although he himself classifies him among the saints to be honored on September 19, because in the ancient Breviaries of the Churches of Leon and Cornwall he found his memorial noted on that day with an Office of nine lessons, for which in these churches Colgan suspects a festivity of translation or elevation was commemorated. But the heavenly birthday is rather the day on which this saint is venerated in his own church on this March 6. To Colgan and Albert, indeed, he is Irish; but on the authority of those Acts which, insofar as they are applied to this saint, deserve either no or very little credence. Indeed, Colgan proceeds further and, Colgan identifies him with Isserninus, relying on chronological indications -- albeit most defectively noted -- dares to assert that this is one of the first companions of Saint Patrick, whom the various Acts of that great Apostle now call Serenus, now Esserinus; but the heading of the Patrician Synod in Spelman calls Isserninus. It is indeed remarkable that this Serenus or Isserninus is read in none of the Irish hagiologies, in which nevertheless one may find almost everyone who has any name of virtue or ecclesiastical dignity in the Acts of Irish saints, especially Patrician ones. From this perhaps a not improbable conjecture is drawn that the one who has no veneration in Ireland deposited the remains of his mortality outside it. Whose death and veneration are uncertain. This itself, however, is rendered doubtful by the Annals of Ulster in Ussher's chronological index, which indicate he died in the year 469 -- which they are not accustomed to do for saints who died far from Ireland. Colgan would indeed wish this passage to be understood not of death or departure from the body, but of migration to Gaul, lest he contradict Albert, who fixes the last year of Saint Seznius at 529 of the Christian era. But first he must demonstrate that Seznius and Serenus, the companion of Patrick, are certainly one and the same.
[2] We therefore have only the veneration of this saint as certain:
who he was, The Acts are confused with those of Saint Kieran of Saighir. whence he came, and what kind of person he was, is entirely uncertain. The Acts that Albert compiled in French from the ancient legendaries of the Cathedral Church of Leon and of the collegiate church sacred to Our Lady of Foll-coat, as well as from a certain old manuscript of the parish of Guic-Sezni itself, are spurious and drawn from the Acts of Saint Kieran of Saighir, as anyone comparing the two in Colgan can see, and as is sufficiently clear from our annotations on Saint Kieran on March 5. Pages 392 and following. It is worth, however, appending in this place the last three paragraphs, which seem to pertain properly to Saint Seznius, in Colgan's translation. "Furthermore, Saint Sezninus, Brought to the diocese of Leon. having confirmed the Irish in the faith and Christian doctrine, and wishing henceforth to retire to quietude, God admonished him to cross the sea and transfer himself to Armorican Brittany, and to bring with him many of his religious. He obeyed at once and, taking with him seventy of his disciples, he sailed with a favorable wind to the region of Leon and landed at the port of Polluhelum (which is in the Parish of Keriouan) in the year 477, at which time the Franks, having crossed the Rhine, were pressing into Gaul, about the last years in which King Hoelus the Great ruled Brittany. And choosing a dwelling near this port, he had a house built there as if in a wilderness for himself and his followers, which is still seen and is called in the common language Peneti San-Sezni."
[3] "Thence he proceeded and came to the place where the parish church of Guic-Sezni now stands, Having built a monastery there, he dies. and there he built a monastery in which he lived most holily with his religious until the one hundred and twenty-seventh year of his age, and at last, worn out by old age, in the year of salvation 529, having left the people of Leon with a great longing for him, he migrated to heaven. He was buried in the same monastery under the high altar, where a certain cavity, the place of his tomb, is still seen. Relics are translated. After his death, God worked so many miracles through his intercession that the Irish, moved by the fame of these, having fitted out a fleet and entered the port of Polluhelum, carried off his sacred body by a certain force and transported it to the episcopal see he had formerly occupied; nor did the people of Leon, except with great effort and solicitation, obtain certain relics of his body, which are reverently preserved in the parish church of Guic-Sezni." In which account nothing greatly displeases, When did the Franks cross the Rhine? except the year of the Franks' crossing of the Rhine, compared with the year 477 of the Christian era -- a manifest error. For it is certain from what we demonstrated on February 1 in the preliminary commentary on the Acts of Saint Sigebert, that the first year of Childeric's reign in Gaul must be dated from the year of Christ 456; and that many years before him the Salians (who are called the first of the Franks by Ammianus), driven by the Saxons, had settled in Batavia, an island of the Rhine, and then, driven further, had maintained a quiet residence in our Taxandria; until, as the majesty of the Roman Empire was declining, King Clogio, who had begun to reign in the year 428, invaded Cambrai and subjected everything to his dominion as far as the river Somme. And not only those Franks, who alone invaded Gaul, had crossed the Rhine long before the year noted by Albert; but also the Ripuarians, in the year of Christ 448, having lost their territories beyond the Rhine, were admitted into the Cisrhenane regions by the Romans. More and graver errors in the very beginning of this Life the learned reader will detect in Albert, upon whose refutation it is not worth lingering, since we shall show that those Acts, down to the last three paragraphs, belong entirely to Saint Kieran of Saighir, albeit abridged and sprinkled throughout with many errors.
[4] Saint Serenicus, Abbot of Seez. But what could have been the reason that the people of Guic-Sezni applied these to their saint rather than any others? To one surveying everything, there occurs in neighboring Normandy, about the year of Christ 560, Serenicus, Abbot of Seez, who, while Saint Mileardus held that see (as is found in Claudius Robert from Orderic Vitalis), placed one hundred and forty monks in a monastery founded by himself, and is recorded by Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology on May 7. His veneration could have prevailed in these places either by his own migration into Armorica with some disciples, or by the translation of relics thither, or from some other conceivable cause. When thereafter the memory of his deeds was obliterated, and people inquired who that Saint Serni or Sezni was (for the Bretons willingly avoid the meeting of two liquids, changing one of them to z -- and therefore the one who is Saint Armellus to others, to be commemorated on August 16, is to them Saint Arzel), when they heard he had been a bishop or abbot of Seez, He could seem to be the same as Seznius. and found in the Irish saints the Acts of the Abbot of Saighir, nothing was easier than for unlearned people to confuse the two and to believe that their patron, about whom they remembered nothing distinct otherwise, had come from Ireland; and to imagine he had arrived at that port by ship, where perhaps he had come by land, intending to cross to that island then most famous for learning as well as holiness; but who, either by divine admonition or prevented by death from further travel, sanctified that place with the deposit of his body -- not reclaimed by Irish people of Saighir but by French people of Seez, and brought back to them on that very day on which Saussay says he is venerated. To all of which, however, since they are mere conjectures, we ourselves do not greatly trust, nor do we wish others to rely upon them. We wished meanwhile to indicate these things, and shall willingly, if more certain information is supplied, give it on September 19 or May 7.