ON S. CAELESTINUS THE MARTYR,
PRESERVED AT RONSE IN FLANDERS.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION
Refuting the Roman Pontificate unskillfully attributed to him.
S. Caelestinus, Martyr, preserved at Ronse in Flanders.
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] Rotnacum or Rotornacum, to the inhabitants Ronse, to the French Renessa, a town of Flanders, situated two leagues from Oudenaarde, four from Geraardsbergen, is called by Baldric in book 1 of the Cambrai Chronicle chapter 75 the village Rotnasce of Brabant, namely in ancient Brabant beyond the Scheldt. At Ronse among other Relics There is in the same place a collegiate Church, sacred to S. Hermes the Martyr, whose body that there is, translated from Inden by the Emperor Louis II, son of the Emperor Lothair, Miraeus relates in the Belgian Fasti, at the day XXVIII of August sacred to S. Hermes: where he adds, that by the same Louis the Relics of SS. Cornelius the Pope, Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, and S. Caelestinus were deposited among the people of Ronse with an ample dowry. Miraeus adds, that he had received from the Archives of the Church of Ronse, that the body of S. Caelestinus on the XVI Kalends of June of the year MCLXVII, from an old bier into a new one, by the permission of the Bishop of Cambrai (he was Peter of Alsace, son of Thierry Count of Flanders, a Bishop only by title, as being destitute of sacred Orders) was translated by the Abbot of Eename, the body of S. Caelestinus is elevated in the year 1167. and to the same Abbot then was given the Head. But concerning that new bier Raissius treats in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium page 428, where he says, that the Relics of the holy Martyrs Cornelius the Pope, Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, and S. Caelestinus, which the Emperor Louis deposited at Ronse, were piously and honorably preserved in a copper bier, in the times of John Hay, Theologian and Canon of Tournai: which bier was inlaid with the images of the Apostles, whose length nearly equalled five feet, and on its margin such verses were seen inscribed:
A double life holds the heavens, here the bones are held: The bones a laborious hand here sealed. It suffices for the title: the hall holds Caelestinus. Cornelius and Cyprian rejoice in the heavens. as of a Martyr The life of Caelestinus had been given an end by the sword: Cornelius received his death by the edge of the sword. With whom twice ten and one are slain by the sword. And by the hand of the executioner thus had Cyprian suffered. Here it places Caelestinus among the Saints, and Cyprian This short ark joins together the three Apostolic Fathers.
[2] Moreover, just as the name Apostolic, in so far as it is also attributed to S. Cyprian, cannot be received in that stricter signification of its, by which the Roman Pontiff is called Apostolic: so neither is it necessary to understand it so attributed to Caelestinus; especially since he is said to have been slain by the sword, whose Relics are had at Ronse. It is indeed true, that neither is S. Cornelius believed by us to have ended his Life by a bloody martyrdom, not as of a Roman Pope. and that the whole history of his Passion is to be rejected and refuted in the Treatise which we have long had prepared on the Chronology of the Roman Pontiffs. Yet it must be confessed that that history, or if you prefer to call it a fable, is most ancient: which therefore, suspect to no one then, the people of Ronse could and ought to have followed, in composing that epigraph: but why they should have erred concerning Caelestinus, who it was established had ruled the church in peace, and had died in the year of Christ CCCCXXXII, the IX of his Pontificate, no reasonable cause can be feigned. What? that those who had taken up SS. Cornelius and Cyprian to be venerated with the rest of the Church on the XVI of September, nor were ignorant that to S. Caelestinus the first Pope the VII day of April is assigned by the old Martyrologies, by Anastasius the day VI, when we too treated of him, having dismissed April preferred to venerate their S. Caelestinus on the XVII of May, when the aforesaid translation was made. Wherefore although by posterity, finding no S. Caelestinus Martyr in the Martyrology of Usuard, which the Belgian churches almost used until the most recent recognition of the Roman, it was at some time believed that at Ronse was had the body of S. Caelestinus the first Pope; yet greater faith is to be had in the older authors of the aforesaid Epigraph, asserting their Patron to have been slain by the sword: as also Saussay had to them in the Gallican Martyrology, calling him a Martyr. And this opinion Bartholomew Peter of Lierre and George Colvener, Doctors of Theology of Douai, embraced, who took care that the Belgian Natales of John Molanus, in which Caelestinus was called Pope, should be reprinted with Notes in the year MDCXVI.
[3] As to the Head separated from the body; Luke d'Achery published in volume X of the Spicilegium of ancient writers the History of the monastery of Affligem, situated near Aalst, the Head at Affligem. not so long ago continued from the proper monuments of the place: where it is said on page 614 that Arnulf the Abbot, from a monk and Prior of Affligem, elected Abbot by the people of Eename, when he had long ruled with praise, Godescalc abdicating himself, was demanded back by the people of Affligem as Abbot: and then on page 615 it is added: But he himself brought the head of S. Caelestinus the Pope from Eename, or as the people of Eename will have it, from Ronse to Affligem… he died full of merits and days about the year MCLXVIII. Thus there. The above-indicated Raissius pages 3 and 4 relates the Relics preserved at Affligem, without any mention of S. Caelestinus. Other than this S. Caelestinus the Martyr seems also to be Caelestinus, Abbot of Blandinium, Another Caelestinus, Abbot of Blandinium. by fatherland a Scot: whom, thrust into exile by Charles Martel, because he was said to be of Ragenfrid's party, Meyer in the Annals of Flanders relates to have died in the year DCCLXV in the monastery of Rotornacum. If, however, it could be shown that from his death he was illustrious by miracles, and held for a Martyr; I would scarcely doubt that the old simplicity of our forefathers, confounding persons and times on account of the homonymy, together with the famous Relics of the Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, believed also brought by the Emperor Louis the body of this S. Caelestinus, as of one who for the Christian faith under the heathen Emperors had consummated the contest of martyrdom by the sword: although in truth not dead, but alive, he once came thither.