Papylinus

ON SAINT PAPYLINUS

MARTYR AMONG THE GREEKS.

Papylinus, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)

D. P.

This holy Martyr is suggested to us by MS. Greek Menaea, which at Dijon in the College of the Society of Jesus with Petrus Franciscus Chifletius we found: in which these things are read: On the same day S. Papylinus, who struck by the sword, by martyrdom finished life. And these verses are added Ὁ Παπυλίνος τραῦσιν ἑυρὼν ἐκ ξίφους, Πάπους πλάνης ἔτραυσε καὶ θέρος ἅμα. While Papylinus finds a wound from the sword, the Papi of error & the harvest at the same time he kills. But the Papi or Pappi, to which here is alluded, are those down feathers, which to the falling leaves of thistles succeed, & by the wind then snatched, scatter widely evil seeds, whence ἐκπαπποῦσθαι, to depart in pappi. Aptly therefore, taken from the name of Papylus the occasion, the holy Martyr is said in the very seed to have extinguished the hope of a noxious harvest, that is of error of gentility, justly to be compared to vile & flying papi or (as I shall speak diminutively) papyli of this kind.

ON S. FORTIS BISHOP AND MARTYR

AT BORDEAUX IN AQUITAINE.

Fortis, Bishop & Martyr, at Bordeaux in Aquitaine (S.)

D. P.

In the MS. Martyrology of the Church of Bordeaux under the name of Usuard, which at Dijon with Petrus Franciscus Chifletius we found, these things on this day are read: At Bordeaux of S. Fortis, Bishop & Martyr. Sacred cult: Which the very same has Ferrarius in the general Catalogue, From the tablets, as he says in the Notes, of the Church of Bordeaux, recently transmitted to us: in which however nothing about the time, when he lived, or under what Prince he suffered, is read. Nor a wonder, because about the first Bishops of this Church nothing certain is established; until the beginning of the IV century, in which Orientalis the Bishop, & Flavius his Deacon from the city of Bordeaux participated in Council I of Arles in the year 314; from which again a hiatus of about forty years until S. Delphinus, who is venerated XXIV December, & in the year 381 participated in the Council of Saragossa. Saussay in the supplement of the Gallican Martyrology on this XVI of May, At Bordeaux, he says, the natale of S. Fortis Bishop & Martyr, there with sacred anniversaries on this day honored. In the proper Feasts of the Church of Bordeaux is prescribed of him an Ecclesiastical Office under double rite, as from the Calendar sent to us is established.

[2] We have the Metropolitan and Primatial Church of S. Andrew of Bordeaux, the time uncertain, by Hieronymus Lopez Theological Canon of the same in the year 1668 illustrated, & eight years after by the same kindly given to us, who in part 2, chap. 4, with no mention anywhere made of S. Fortis (I believe therefore, because no certain time of him he knew) names as the first Bishop Orientalis, after whom if S. Fortis had succeeded, it could be believed under Constantius the Arian to have endured Martyrdom in that time, in which he staying at Arles, made force on the Bishops convoked from all Gaul, that against S. Athanasius they should subscribe, from October of the year 353 until spring of the following year: & thus somehow the aforesaid hiatus would be filled. He could also have been before Orientalis, & under some of the Heathen Emperors made martyrdom: for it ought to be presumed that Bordeaux, as according to the division of the Roman Empire was the head of the second Aquitaine, & seat of the Governor of the Province, so & metropolis of other sees in the same Province was, even under Gentiles. And it itself indeed by S. Martial glories that the faith was announced to it, as also the first Bishop of Bordeaux, whether in the I century & time of the Apostles, or indeed under Decius, this does not look here to define: but that in the letters, supposed to the same Saint, the first by him constituted Bishop is named Sigebert, that to Lurbaeus in the Chronicle seems to have given occasion of establishing Gilbert, with corrupted name, first in the order of Bishops, & to Lurbaeus following Chenu, Robertus, Sammartani; of whom these seeing, that scarcely could it be, that the name of Gilbert, equally as of Sigebert, at Bordeaux had been used, perhaps the first, they say, was in dignity of sanctity, not in order of time.

[3] who is wrongly feigned to be called Sigebert, But of this his sanctity from no head is established to us; since neither memory of him is found in the Fasts of Bordeaux, nor any vestige either of sepulchre or relics, &, as I said, born from the fictitious Sigebert of Martial, seems to have crept into history. That those letters which are circulated were supposed to S. Martial, no one will doubt, who shall have considered that texts of Scripture are alleged in them according to the version of Jerome; & that in that very Epistle to the Bordelois about which here can be treated, about the mystery of the most holy Trinity most distinctly speaking, thus about the Holy Spirit he discourses; The Spirit of God, who has sanctified you believing in Him, who the natural Son & to Himself according to eternity coequal in all things resuscitated on the third day from the dead, is not begotten as the Word: because also the Spirit himself, in divine equality glorious, proceeded ineffably from Him who begot & who is begotten: and so the Spirit of the Lord not begotten, not made, not created, but proceeding is from the Father & the Word. Those skilled in old Theology know, of what age these things savor: wherefore they will not wonder at him, from SS. Martial, & Aurelianus. who dared thus to introduce Martial speaking at the beginning of the Church, also about Sigebert could so write: Whom I established for you by the command of God, it is just to be preserved by you: for he himself Sigebert, who before consulted demons a slave of the creature; now in the faith of O. L. Jesus Christ perfect, serving the Creator alone, considers as dung those very demons, whom before he served. Drew this fabricator, from no better S. Martial's Life, under S. Aurelianus's name put forth, in which is said Sigebert, the highest Priest & Pontiff of the gentile temples among the Bordelois, by the nightly complaint of the demons among themselves, about the faith to be preached by Martial pre-warned, broke the idols & overturned the temples, except the temple of the Unknown God: who there also is called Prince of the Bordelois, &

his wife Benedicta.