ON SAINT HESYCHIUS, BISHOP OF VIENNE IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR 490
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Hesychius Bishop, at Vienne in Gaul (S.)
[1] Vienne of the Allobroges, the metropolis of a most noble province in Gaul on the river Rhone, and the seat of a famous Archbishopric; in which in the fifth century of Christ there were successively three Bishops of outstanding sanctity: Mamertus, Hesychius, and Avitus. Of these, Mamertus is venerated on the eleventh of May, Avitus on the fifth of February, in whose Life most of the things about Saint Hesychius, S. Hesychius, whether the son of the Emperor Avitus, whose son he was, have been said by us. Bouchet, the writer of French affairs, in part 1 on the true origin of the second and third line of the Kings of the Franks, chapter 2, asserts that Hesychius, Senator and then Bishop of Vienne, was the son of the Emperor Avitus, who reigned partly in the year 455 and partly in the following year. Ado, Bishop of Vienne, in his Chronicle at the sixth age, celebrates Hesychius, first a Senator, then Bishop of Vienne, but is silent about his father and other progenitors: of whom some were distinguished by the episcopal dignity, as his son Saint Avitus teaches in his Poem on the praise of Virginity addressed to his sister Fuscina, a Virgin devoted to God, Senator, whom he addresses at the end thus:
Now as standard-bearer we follow you, and the banner of Christ, With you bearing it, the ancestral line gladly pursues: Whom though the world endowed with ancient honor, And shows them by their titles from noble birth always; Yet it adorned more those who bore the divine emblem, Because in their own rank they merited holy Chairs. He had Bishops among his ancestors, I will not now trace back for you great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, Whose illustrious life rendered them worthy Priests; Behold your father, taken up as Pontiff for sacred duties. And when your father or uncle, great on every side, After civil offices, deign to take up the flock of peoples; Receive as humble brothers to the fellowship of fathers Those whom the Church, joining them in similar office, has united. These brothers are Bishops: the writer Saint Avitus, and Saint Apollinaris, Bishop of the city of Valence, on the same bank of the Rhone flowing past as Vienne: and his sons SS. Avitus and Apollinaris: to whom the fifth day of October is sacred. But who is joined with Saint Hesychius his father as uncle cannot be determined with equal certainty. Is it Saint Sidonius Apollinaris, from Senator become Bishop of the Arverni? That Papianilla, the daughter of the Emperor Avitus, had been previously joined to him in marriage is testified by Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 21, especially then if Saint Hesychius were the brother of this Papianilla.
and as the kinsman of Saint Sidonius, both, the father and uncle of Saint Avitus, were said, after holding the offices of secular dignities, to have taken up the burden of the Church's people, or the episcopal miter.
[2] How holily Saint Hesychius lived in marriage with his wife Audentia, Saint Avitus thus indicates in the aforesaid Poem near the beginning:
When the mother Audentia had produced a fourth child, And gave you to the family in her last fruitful delivery, after having four children, continent, Immediately she promises to lead a sparing life, And henceforth to keep the marriage bed chaste with equal Vows — the care of the loving parents resolved. And because you would be the beginning of so holy a covenant, You are at once offered to Christ, who forthwith he consecrates his daughter Fuscina to God: Receives the nursing limbs in the consecrated cradle.
Afterwards in the said Poem various virgins consecrated to God from the same stock of Saint Hesychius are mentioned: Aspida, the elder Fuscina, and Euphrosyna, with their Superior the Mother Severiana: whose exercises in holiness are indicated there, to which Fuscina, the daughter of Saint Hesychius, is urged by her mother Audentia. For this was the care and solicitude of both parents, that their sons and daughters should be holily educated. Saint Avitus in his Homily on the Rogation Days gratefully acknowledges that his parents procured for him Saint Mamertus the Priest as his spiritual father from baptism: S. Avitus commends S. Mamertus the Bishop: whom not a few years before the father of his flesh, Hesychius, had succeeded in receiving, as it pleased God, the time of the priesthood. That Mamertus flourished in the year 463 and the following year is indicated by the letters of Pope Hilary, given in the consulship of Basilius and after his consulship, in the case of Mamertus on account of his having ordained a Bishop for the people of Die outside his own borders. Saint Sidonius, then a Bishop, wrote to the same Mamertus the first letter of the seventh book, therefore not before the year 472, in which he was ordained. Indeed, that he survived to the year 475 is indicated by the profession of faith of Lucidus the Priest, surviving to the year 475, professing his faith according to the statutes of the Synod of Arles, which Sirmond relates was held about the said year.
[3] After the death of Mamertus on the eleventh of May, Saint Hesychius succeeded him: about whom we regret that no proper Acts survive written by contemporary authors. In the Life of Saint Avitus these few things are found: In the time of the Emperor Zeno, Blessed Avitus the Bishop, admirable in wisdom and learning, he succeeds him in the time of the Emperor Zeno, God favoring mortals, took over the governance of the Church of Vienne after his father Hesychius, also a Bishop. Zeno ruled from the year 474 to the year 491, under whom about the year 490 we have said he departed from this life, in the Life of Saint Avitus. In the Life of Saint Apollinaris, the other son, only these things pertain here: Blessed Apollinaris, Bishop of the city of Valence, was both born and educated at Vienne, who, conspicuous for his noble birth, raised the titles of his lineage by the elevation of his mind, which nobility he then reclaims. Somewhat more is indicated by Ado in his Chronicle in these words: At that time Severus the Priest, an Indian by birth, a man most famous for miracles, having destroyed the temple of idols, where pagan error worshipped a hundred gods with the most insane worship, was preparing a church of the most blessed Protomartyr Stephen to be consecrated outside the gates of Vienne... Hesychius at that time was governing the Church of Vienne, the sixth from Blessed Paschasius, in whose days the aforesaid glorious Priest Severus came from India to Vienne. He flourished as Bishop up to the times of the Emperor Zeno. Thus Ado. We have a manuscript Martyrology of the Saints of the Church of Vienne, in which at the seventeenth day before the Kalends of April, the following is read: On the same day, the Birthday of Saint Hesychius the Great, the first of this name, Confessor, and the eighteenth Archbishop of Vienne. Who in the times of the Emperors Leo and Zeno, taken from the Senatorial rank of Lyons to the episcopal dignity, on account of his singular learning and integrity of faith, exhibited a great example of his holiness to the whole Church; he dedicates the church of S. Stephen: and left both his sons Avitus and Apollinaris, whom he had begotten while joined in marriage, to his Church of Vienne — Avitus, that is, as his survivor, and Apollinaris to Valence — as two shining stars. He solemnly dedicated the church of the blessed Protomartyr Stephen at Vienne, built by Saint Severus the Priest, and illustrious for miracles, falling asleep, he was laid to rest in the church of the Apostles. To those who annually visit his relics on this day, Innocent IV, Supreme Pontiff, piously granted an indulgence of forty days. We found the same Martyrology at Vienne, restored by the labor and industry of Jean le Lievre, which, omitting a few things at the beginning, begins thus: At Vienne, of Saint Hesychius the Great, the eighteenth Archbishop, who in the times of the Emperors Leo and Zeno, from Senator of Lyons, etc. But since his son Saint Apollinaris was both born and educated at Vienne, and his son Saint Avitus also had Saint Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, as his spiritual father from baptism, why should he not be said to have been taken from the Senatorial rank of Vienne rather than of Lyons, to the episcopal dignity, not under Leo but under his successor the Emperor Zeno, as is clear from what has been said above? Since Mamertus seems to have lived until the year of Christ 475, the second year of the reign of Zeno.
[4] The Breviary of the Archiepiscopal Church of Vienne, printed in the year 1522, he is venerated on March 16. at the seventeenth of March prescribes the veneration of Saint Hesychius, Bishop and Confessor, as in the Common of one Confessor. Prayer: Grant, we beseech You, almighty God, etc. He is also inscribed on the same day in the ancient manuscript Calendar of the Church of Vienne, and in the Martyrology of Saint Ado, afterwards Bishop there, in Mosander and Rosweyde: Likewise at Vienne, of Saint Hesychius the Bishop. The same things are in the manuscript Ado of the monastery of Lobbes and of Saint Lawrence among the people of Liege, which are absent from the manuscript Ado of Florence of the monastery of the Holy Cross, and from another of the Church of the Morini. The same things meanwhile are read in the manuscripts of the Church of Prague, and of the Brussels and Ulariaco monastery of Saint Nabor, likewise in the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, as in the manuscript and printed Martyrologies under the name of Bede, likewise in Galesinius, Canisius, Ferrarius, and Grevenus in the Supplement of Molanus. Saussay differs from the others when he writes these things for this day: also referred to November 12. At Vienne of the Allobroges, the ordination of Saint Hesychius the Bishop, successor of Saint Mamertus, whose happy passing is celebrated on the day before the Ides of November. On which day he celebrates him with this encomium: At Vienne, of Saint Hesychius, Bishop and Confessor, who after Mamertus, the Pontiff of famous blessedness of that Church, undertook the pastoral office to be performed, and illustrious for the acts of vigorous administration, outstanding in virtues and miracles, after gathering abundant sheaves of souls for God, he departed to his reward. He rests in the basilica of the Apostles, and to those who piously visit it on this his feast in his honor, Pope Innocent IV bestowed an Indulgence of forty days from the treasury of the Church Militant. These things Jean le Lievre also wrote in his History of the Antiquities of Vienne. perhaps not sufficiently distinguished from S. Hesychius II. But in both manuscript Martyrologies of Vienne, the second of which is said by the said Jean to have been restored, at the twelfth of November, the entry concerns Saint Hesychius II, Bishop of Vienne, who flourished under the Emperor Justinian. Whence perhaps the occasion for error was given, both to Saussay and to the Sammarthani in volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, when they ascribed to this Hesychius the epitaph of Saint Hesychius or Isichius II: which Chesne, cited by them, had previously published in volume 1 of the Writers of French History, among whom it was read to exist in the Antiquities of Vienne at the end of the Bibliotheca Floriacensis, in which Jean du Bois rightly observes that it is Saint Hesychius the second, the successor of Saint Pantagathus, to whom the age and deeds correspond, as indicated there.