ON SS. ACIUS AND ACHEOLUS,
MARTYRS AT AMIENS IN GAUL.
CommentaryAcius, Martyr at Amiens in Gaul (S.)
Acheolus, Martyr at Amiens in Gaul (S.)
G. H.
[1] Amiens, an ancient city of Belgic Gaul, Episcopal, and the head of present-day Picardy on the river Somme, venerates these holy Martyrs: whose memory was inscribed in the ancient Corbie transcript of the Hieronymian Martyrology, Sacred cult. printed at Paris, May 1 in these words: In the city of Amiens the birthday of SS. Agius and Aciolus the Martyrs. From the ancient Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of Amiens these things were wont to be thus announced. In the city of Amiens the deposition of the holy Martyrs Acius and Acheolus. Which also in a similar manner are related in other Martyrologies MS. and printed. Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology adorns them with this eulogy: At Amiens of the blessed Martyrs Acius and Aciolus, who after the noble contest of faith, there shine with the glory of many helpings.
[2] We have old Breviaries of the Church of Amiens, printed in the year 1550 and 1554: in which on the Kalends of May the whole Office is of the holy Apostles Philip and James, but on the morrow of the same Kalends is celebrated the Commemoration of Achius and Acheolus the Martyrs, May 2 under the Semidouble rite with nine Lessons: in which is explained this sentence, If God be for us who is against us; as if this were the only voice of the Martyrs, amid false opprobria and crimes objected, amid iron chains and prisons, amid claws and lacerations of members: and for the confirmation of the saying is adduced that of the Apostle: that God spared not his own son, but for us all delivered him up. These things there. That feast we have learned to be now translated to the day May IV from the Schedules of D. Mauritius du Pres, and May 4. of the Premonstratensian Order, thence transmitted.
[3] We gave the Life of St. Salvius Bishop of Amiens, on the day January XI: The bodies buried by St. Salvius: where in number XI these things are read: But also the Saints of God Firminus the Bishop and Confessor, and Aceus also and Aceolus Martyrs of Christ, in the eastern crypt he reverently buried, and becomingly adorned. St. Salvius flourished about the beginning of the seventh century: Firminus is venerated on the Kalends of September, and by him is said once to have been built a temple of the Virgin Mother of God outside the city, to which afterward the body of St. Acheolus translated from the church of St. Peter, is reported to have shone with so many miracles, the temple of St. Acheolus that the temple was thereafter called of St. Acheolus. Rorico Bishop of Amiens constituted there Canons Regular of St. Augustine in the year 1085. The successor of Rorico, Gervinus, confirmed all things, with the Abbey which that one had granted in favor of St. Acheolus, and added besides a prebend of the Cathedral Church of Blessed Mary, yet so that the Clerics of St. Acheolus and the Prior himself, for their turns, should be bound to fill a week in the Church of the Blessed Virgin.
[4] Concerning these things can be consulted the Sammarthani in Christian Gaul, both in the Bishops of Amiens, and in the Abbey of St. Acheolus, where a copy of the constitution of Bishop Rorico, drawn from the old archive, is extant: printed also by Lucas d'Achery in volume 2 of the Spicilegium of the old Writers page 601. The first Abbot of this monastery was Deodatus, as is established from a charter of Theodoric Bishop of Amiens, who raised the said Priory in the year 1145 into an Abbey. That the rest of the Acts of these Martyrs perished the aforementioned Mauritius du Pres indicated to us. Relics at St. Quentin, The arrival of the relics of SS. Acius and Aciolus, in the basilica of St. Quentin on the day May XIX, is commemorated in the MS. Martyrology of Laetia. That some of their relics are preserved in the church of the Carthusians of Abbeville hands down Ignatius Josephus de Jesu Maria book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Abbeville chapter 54. and at Abbeville.
[5] Andreas Saussay, besides the things related above, again in the Supplement hands down these things: At Carpentras the birthday of the holy Martyrs Acius and Aciolus, Whether slain at Carpentras. whose venerable remains translated to Amiens, raised a notable temple and monastery, which is seen almost at the walls of the city, under their appellation. These things there. But we much fear, lest the name Carpentras was in some MS. wrongly transferred hither from the Acts of St. Andeolus, which we gave above, and that Saussay without any examination transferred it hither. Carpentras is an Episcopal city and the head of the County of Venaissin, in the Pontifical dominion under the Metropolis of Avignon, distant from Amiens by a great part of the kingdom of France: and so much the less probable is rendered, what without the testimony of any old writer Saussay is found to have first asserted.