ON SAINT LEONTIUS, BISHOP OF SAINTES IN GAUL.
SIXTH CENTURY
CommentaryLeontius, Bishop of Saintes in Gaul (Saint)
[1] The ancient city of Saintes among the Aquitanians is adorned with an Episcopal See, in which several Bishops inscribed in the tables of the Saints are found, among whom Saint Leontius flourished in the seventh century of Christ, mentioned by Antoine de Mouchy (Demochares), Jean Chenu, Claude Robert, and the Sainte-Marthe brothers in their Catalogues of the Bishops of Saintes, and honored by them with the title of Saint. The title of Saint Saussay adorns him with this eulogy in the Gallican Martyrology: "Among the people of Saintes, of Saint Leontius the Bishop, successor of Saint Palladius, famous for the friendship and imitation of Saints; who, having formed his Clergy with outstanding morals, adorned churches with excellent buildings, and led his flock into the paths of salvation by the examples of a holy life, rich in merits, gloriously passed to heavenly joys." His celebrated memory is observed in the Church of Saintes, in whose Breviary, printed at Poitiers in the office of the Marnesius brothers in the year 1538, Ecclesiastical Office. the feast of Leontius, Bishop of Saintes, with nine Readings is noted on the fourteenth before the Calends of April; six of the readings are largely drawn from the Life of Saint Maclovius or Machutus, or Macutus, Bishop of Aleth in Brittany, to be given on November 15, in whose Life no certain mark of time appears, and which is perhaps to be aided by the dates of the Life of Saint Leontius, who buried him and attended the Synod of Reims held under Bishop Sonnatius in the year 624 or the following, as we have shown at length in book 4 of our Diatribe on the Three Dagoberts, Kings of the Franks, chapter 1. The following Prayer is also read on his feast: "O God, who adorned Blessed Leontius, your Confessor and Pontiff, with a praiseworthy life on earth, Prayer. and exalted him with eternal glory in heaven: grant, we beseech you, that by the support of his merits, our life may be commended to you." And the Readings for the Life are as follows:
[1] Readings for Matins. In the same century, among the people of Saintes, Macutus and Leontius, the Pastor of the city of Saintes, were conspicuous for the perfection of all virtues. Leontius was distinguished by the lineage of his ancestors, and still more distinguished by faith, piety, and charity, as the deeds of his episcopate testify.
[2] He, recognizing the virtues for which Macutus was celebrated among his own people, generously gave him a certain estate of no small revenue to inhabit, and fruits with which he and his monks might be nourished.
[3] And the inhabitants of his estate and village gave the same Macutus a donkey, which he might use for carrying wood for his own needs; and when a wolf caught and devoured the unwary animal, the ravenous wolf was ordered to succeed to the donkey's duty, fitted with a packsaddle and girded with straps; which the wolf, willing and gentle, performed for as long as he lived.
[4] Afterward, Bishop Leontius begged Macutus to deign to visit his diocese with him, parish by parish, abundantly and village by village. Macutus obeyed Leontius. And when in visiting they came to a village named Brya, through the prayers of Macutus a twelve-year-old boy was raised from the dead.
[5] Afterward, when Macutus had reached 133 years, he departed by a happy death; and Leontius reverently honored his body with a pious funeral and buried it in a church consecrated to the same Macutus, near the walls of the city of Saintes, on the western side.
[6] Then at last Leontius, after he had most strenuously discharged his duty, full of many years and still fuller of virtues, sensing that the last day of death was imminent, migrated to the Lord no less cheerfully than happily, and his body was interred in the monastery of Saint Eutropius.