CONCERNING S. APRUNCULUS BISHOP
OF LANGRES, THEN OF CLERMONT IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR CCCCLXXXVIII.
CommentaryAprunculus, Bishop of Langres, then of Clermont in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
[1] In the fifth century of Christ the cities and regions of the Gauls were plundered, devastated, burned and destroyed by the Vandals, Alans, Burgundians and Goths. Then Attila the King of these is believed to have plundered and burned Langres about the year 450, and thence to have crossed to the Alps, and besieged Aquileia. Then the city of Langres came
into the power of the Burgundians. Jacobus Vignerius in the Chronicle of Langres says, The afflicted city of Langres S. Aprunculus Bishop of Langres, a new Bishop restored, a man of remarkable probity, Aprunculus, the eighth from S. Desiderius, the tenth from B. Senator, although from the assertions of Gregory of Tours it appears, that he for the most part fixed his see at Dijon rather than at Langres, by no means safe from the recent ruin. That this man was familiar to Apollinaris Sidonius, Prefect of the Gauls for the Romans, afterward Bishop of Clermont, is clear from his epistles. Thus Vignerius. The Acts of the mentioned Desiderius we give on 23 May, but the Life of S. Apollinaris Sidonius will have to be given on 23 August. There is extant of his an epistle book 9 chapter 10 which we here insert. Sidonius to the Lord Pope Aprunculus salutation. He has rendered to you my letters, who ought to have offered yours to me. For our brother Caelestinus, lately returned to you from Béziers, drew from me a certain bond of cession concerning the status of our Injuriosus. Which indeed I wrote, broken not less by your modesty than by your will. For it became us of our own accord to meet your modesty, as it were with certain feet of obedience. Wherefore me also willing possess the thing granted, but liberally: for not, as I suspect, did you yourself seek anything more of this kind of solace. Whom by letters not less commendatory than refunding now appeased I introduce, so however that he assist you, obey you, follow you, and that, if he remain with you, he be judged the servant of neither of us. If perchance he depart, let him be sought as a fugitive of both. Deign to be mindful of us, Lord Pope. These things S. Sidonius Apollinaris concerning Injuriosus, a bondman or servant, given his liberty in favor of S. Aprunculus.
[2] Meanwhile the kingdom of the Franks was advanced under Childeric the son of Merovaeus, to whom about the year 480 succeeded Clovis I. To this Childeric S. Aprunculus seemed to be affected, suspected by the Burgundians he flees: and on that account, had he not fled, he would have been killed by a certain one, whom the Burgundians had suborned. Gregory of Tours sets forth the matter done in book 2 of the History of the Franks chapter 23 thus: Meanwhile when now the terror of the Franks resounded in these parts, and all with a desirable love desired them to reign: S. Aprunculus, Bishop of the city of Langres, began to be held suspected among the Burgundians. And since the hatred grew from day to day, it was ordered that he be secretly struck with the sword. Which message being brought to him, by night let down from the castle of Dijon through the wall, he came to the Arverni, he is made Bishop of Clermont. and there according to the word of the Lord, which he put in the mouth of S. Sidonius, he is given as the eleventh Bishop. This his translation from the See of Langres to that of Clermont Saussajus celebrates in the Gallican Martyrology on the 9th of March in these words: At Clermont the reception of S. Aprunculus Bishop and Confessor, who from the Prelacy of Langres passing with great splendor of virtues to this Chair, 9 March. illustrated it with the eminent rays of sanctity, then enriched with the increases of the sacred ministry, went on to the glory of the heavenly court.
[3] familiar to Ruricius Bishop of Limoges, But when he resided at Clermont, he had as a neighboring Bishop of Limoges Ruricius, a man illustrious both by the noble lineage of the Anicii and by eminent doctrine: of whom there are extant two books of epistles, of which five were inscribed to S. Aprunculus. Of these the first is the forty-eighth of the second book under this text. To Bishop Aprunculus Bishop Ruricius. solicitous for his health. The affection of mutual love has exacted to send letters to your inseparable sanctity for this sole cause, even if an opportune occasion has not offered itself. Whence through the man of my son Leontius I have given these to your Apostleship, by which, your safety being preferred, how, according to your wish, God favoring, you fare, I inquire. Because you yourselves know, your soundness to be our gladness, hoping that, the aforesaid returning, you render us, by propitious Divinity secure, concerning your acts, whom you see to be solicitous concerning your prosperity. The other is number 54 of the same book 2 thus composed. As I received the letters of your sanctity through the venerable man Elogius with congratulation; so these, the same returning, I gladly send back: by which to your Apostleship I pay the due office of soundness, he commends himself to his prayers, and at the same time I demand, that you would deign to pray for us, and to ask this more peculiarly of the common Lord, that now at length at some time we may merit to come into one and to see us: that the charity, which according to the Lord's sentence in our breasts through absence, what is of time, has grown cold, through presence again in the lulled ashes may be roused; and he longs for his presence. and by living voices, as by new breaths, the revived burning of old love may be repaired: which after the manner and virtue of that fire, which the Lord sent into the earth, may both burn up the thorns of our negligence and idleness by the force of powerful nature, and illumine the darkness of the sleeping heart. Matt. 24, 12, Luke 12, 49
[4] These things there. There follow consequently three other letters of Ruricius to the same, of which the first is like those already given, and the following is more clearly contained in the last, wherefore this also we subjoin, set forth in this phrase. The day before I received the letters of your Sanctity, I had directed my fellow-Presbyter, as you will be able to know from his report, to your brotherhood, in the same cause in which you wrote to me. And because not only that son of ours Eparchius himself, but also his brother tearfully supplicated me by letters, that I should approach your Apostleship as an intercessor: to whom both by confession of fault, and by deprecation of pardon, finally praising his rigor in the excommunication of a certain matter and by the affection of consanguinity compelled, I indulged; because I did not believe you would write to me concerning this matter: but because you deigned to consult my humility, on account of that charity which is between us, God being propitious, that I should indicate to you whether your strictness was just, especially by my letters; let our Lord know, that I both approve and commend and vehemently admire your deed. Because while to one not despairing through the admonition of the spiritual sword for restoring his salvation you brought pain, to many languishing you conferred health. For many in the Church, he asks mercy for the same, who cannot be cured by word, are healed by example. It remains that mercy follow severity, that you receive with the gentleness of a father, whom you reproved with the authority of a Pontiff. And according to that Evangelical one we invoking, whom we ought through all things both to follow and to imitate, who to the son the squanderer of the paternal substance, and confessing the crime not only clemently imparted pardon, but also gladly indulged the former grace: let us also condole with the lapsed, succor the bruised, embrace the returned, rejoice over the found. Luke 15, 30 Which I am sure your Apostleship did for this cause, that you might exclude the somewhat infirm son a little from the mother, that you yourself after a little might restore him unharmed; and might sadden him for a time, concerning whom you desire to rejoice for ever. These things there. Hence we know Bishop Ruricius lived in the fifth century, and his grandson Ruricius after some intermediate ones a successor in the Episcopate, flourished in the sixth century, as one who was present at the Councils of Clermont and Orleans IV.
[5] The mentioned Saussajus on this 14 May celebrates his Birthday in this manner: his birthday 14 May. At Clermont of the Arverni S. Aprunculus Bishop and Confessor, who first on account of Apostolic graces made Bishop of Langres, when he ruled the flock of the Lord in all piety, by the Burgundians, who accused him of seeking the dominion of the Franks, expelled from his See, at that time betook himself to the Arverni, in which B. Sidonius had broken off the thread of mortality: from whose vaticination raised to the vacant Chair, the light which by the setting of so great a star was thought extinguished, he unfolded by the rays of his sanctity and divine wisdom: and brought to the afflicted church those solaces, by which he shook off all the grief of the recent bereavement. For so much did Aprunculus show himself in morals and doctrines, that he genuinely reproduced the religion, vigilance, mercy, doctrine, chastity of the deceased, and living and dead deserved the praises of all the most excellent Priests. The blessed man was buried in the suburban basilica of S. Stephen, as dying he had betrayed that he desired. All these things Saussajus, which we should wish to read in more ancient writings. There remained something concerning the time of the See and the place of burial, which through the carelessness of the typesetter being omitted, the Reader will find in the Appendix.