ON ST. FLORENTINUS, ABBOT,
AT ARLES IN GAUL.
IN THE YEAR 553.
Historical Collection
The Acts, the Epitaph, and his monastery.
Florentinus, Abbot of Arles in Gaul (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
There are extant the proper Offices of the Saints of the Church of Arles, struck in the year 1656, in which the feast of St. Florentinus the Abbot is prescribed to be celebrated under a double rite; Cult and from the Ecclesiastical Annals and from the Cartularies of Arles these things are recited in the second Nocturn. Florentinus the monk, A compendium in the Lessons, most renowned for doctrine and holiness, was first set as Abbot over the royal monastery of Arles, which in the time of Vigilius the Supreme Pontiff Childebert the first King of the Franks built. His body in the thirty-fifth year, after the soul's
passing, gave forth many and notable miracles. But from that monastery long since conveyed, Constantine the Abbot for honor's sake placed it in the church of the holy Cross, which is situated in the ancient suburb of Arles, and laid it in a marble sepulchre. Hilarianus the monk engraved on marble the eulogy of this Saint, written likewise by Januarinus the monk in heroic and acrostic verses: and so the monument of so great a man, out of the various remnants of this ancient city often demolished, has remained entire into these times. When Florentinus had lived about seventy years, and had been set over that monastery five years and as many months, he passed to Christ on the day before the Ides of April, in the twelfth year after the Consulship of Basilius the Younger. But his feast at Arles on the twelfth of the Kalends of June is venerated with great veneration of the people, on which his bones were translated into the said church of the holy Cross. Thus there. The Gospel of the third Nocturn begins: Fear not, little flock. The Prayer common of Abbots. The prescribed twelfth year after the Consulship of Basilius falls upon the year of Christ five hundred fifty-three. On the day XII of April, on which he is said to have died, among the Things Passed Over we treated of him; when also his silver statue is carried in procession. On both days mention of him have made Saussay, and Ferrarius. But the former also in his Supplement, on March XXII, thus writes, At Arles is recalled the finding and elevation of St. Florentinus the Abbot, whose solemn deposition is there on the day before the Ides of April, but the Translation on the XII Kalends of January, but here is a slip of the pen, and it should be written, of June.
[2] All the notice which can be had of this Saint, is taken from the huge marble sepulchre, taken from the old Epitaph, which to this day is extant in the Parochial church of the holy Cross. The first to bring this into light was Pierre Saxi in his Pontifical of Arles, at the life of St. Aurelian the Bishop: from whom transcribed it Caesar Baronius and Charles le Cointe in their Annals, both at the year 553, with almost the same errors which are in Saxi, and which the Curate of that church D. Masson, having accurately scrutinized the single letters, advised to be corrected by ocular inspection: which again after the same the same did by himself our Father Charles Faber, and suggested all the same corrections again. The acrostic, prefixed by the verses, has these words, Florentinus the Abbot here rests in peace. Amen.
EPITAPH
OF ST. FLORENTINUS THE ABBOT
Seeking the shining realms, called by celestial lot, And joyful penetrating the heights of eternal light, But the best and pious, now Florentinus in this Tomb resplends, by his merits a most holy Abbot: Who once trampling the fierce dangers of the tongue, Studied neither to wish evil, nor to harm anyone. in which he is praised for the custody of his tongue, Yet he himself terrified the easy ones, nor publicly, with words, Keeping the path of justice with paternal peace. Spreading to all conversations ignorant of swearing, Skillful he brought forth the words of God from his whole breast, By which the holy proclamations of the Lord ever resound, And with most assiduous concerts they applaud the heavens. Waging wars against the pestiferous vices of the flesh, And warring openly, he conquered the most savage battles. But hence, happy, now taking the lofty rewards of heaven, A companion of the Saints he enjoys with praise the crown. For the body of this man, hallowed through all things Long since, conveyed with the ample praises of the Lord, Constantine the Abbot exulting happily placed, Burying it within the blessed heights of the sacred Cross: and he is said translated to St. Cross, And also fixing the precious coverings of the tomb He firmly built the supports with crusted marble. Yet now seven lustres being at last accomplished, In what sepulchre the limbs of the aforesaid had been laid, They shone forth at length from the seat of blessed Peter, Which by their own merits here disclose the signs of salvation, who before at St. Peter's had coruscated with miracles. And of virtues at once afford also large commodities, Giving to the infirm a strong vigor through all things. Therefore, powerful Shepherd, recompense the splendid rewards Of the vow: but to Christ commend often the Poet, Whose small songs have brought forth thy praise; Januarinus thence, whom with candid mind thou hast made bright; And likewise the little one, the sculptor of this marble, By urgent prayers to the Lord, through all ages, After thy manner placid commend continually: hence now, Know also died April 12, 553. the monk too, whom kindly, Holy one, Now also in the eternal Hilarianus ever adorn.
The first therefore was St. Florentinus Abbot of our monastery for V years, and VI months. Who lived PL. M. LXX years. He died the day before the Ides of April in the twelfth year after the Consulship of Basilius, most renowned man, the Younger, in the first Indiction. After this the second was the Lord Redemptus Abbot. Where note that by others was written only PL. M. L. that is more or less fifty, for seventy, because the XX in the most minute little letters sculpted above the L, had escaped the eyes of Saxi: as also into his pen came not the VI months.
[3] The first Abbot was nowhere else It is asked what was that monastery, in which both St. Florentinus himself and Constantine the author of the translation and builder of that marble tomb were Abbots. Saxi dares to define nothing; Baronius and Saussay following him call it the monastery of the holy Cross: others the famous Abbey of Montmajour, consecrated under the name of St. Peter, one milestone from the city. Archangel Guin, an Augustinian of Arles (who lent his hand to the aforesaid D. Masson his nephew by a sister, in transcribing the Epitaph, and added notes by which he asserts St. Florentinus to his own Order, equally as SS. Hilarius and Caesarius and the Cassianites monks in Lérins) thinks the suburban monastery of his own Order, to have been founded by St. Hilarius, and from his name called Hilarianum, relying on the authority of Saxi conjecturing, that this name expressed in the last verse of the Epitaph, is not of a Monk, but of the monastery, which destroyed by the Goths, Childebert restored from the foundations rather than first built. I believe none of these things. For Hilarius preceded Florentinus by one century, and accordingly this one could not have been the first Abbot of a monastery founded by him. The house of the holy Cross received only the body of one long since dead, conveyed from elsewhere: but whence? unless (as verse 18 of the Epitaph intimates) from the Seat of Blessed Peter, than at the monastery of St. Peter, where in the year XXXV after the death and burial of St. Florentinus, that is in the year of Christ 588, the body being found and elevated, signs shone forth, on account of which he began everywhere to be called and venerated as a Saint: and that long since before the times of Constantine the Abbot, and the aforesaid translation. But the monastery of St. Peter, called of Montmajour, was first built about the middle of the X century (as is plain from the instrument of Manasses the Archbishop, concerning the estate granted to the founders by exchange for building it and related by the Sammarthani) and so something more ancient is to be sought.
[4] in the year 548 founded in the city, This very thing St. Gregory suggests, book 7 epistle 117 thus writing to Vigilius Bishop of Arles: Of glorious memory Childebert King of the Franks, kindled with love of the Catholic Religion, within the walls of the city of Arles establishing a monastery of men, as we find by writing, for his own reward, granted there certain things for the sustenance of the dwellers… which he asked to be confirmed by Apostolic authority… Whence, because both the royal will and the thing greatly desired demanded the effect, by our predecessor Vigilius, Bishop of the Roman See, to your predecessor Aurelian writings were transmitted. Childebert reigned, third-born son of Clovis I, by the part of the kingdom left to him by his brothers, and had at Arles the seat of empire, from the year 510 to 558. Vigilius governed the universal Church as Pontiff from the year 537 to May of the year 555. Aurelian is said to have presided over the people of Arles from the year 546 down to 553: which all so agree, that Florentinus set as Abbot over that monastery, began to govern it, in the year 548, and so died in the aforenoted year 553. But that St. Hilarius should be feigned to have built it, and called it from his own name, by no means fits that one, of which the first Abbot was Florentinus; since he created Bishop from the year 429, did not sit beyond XX years, by a whole century older than St. Florentinus.
[5] Further St. Caesarius, made Bishop in the year 502, called by Aeonius his kinsman and predecessor from the monastery of Lérins, the monks being brought thither from the Island of St. Peter; the Abbot having died in the island of the city's suburb, as is read in his life, had been sent that the monastery destitute of a ruler he himself, succeeding by the same authority of reverence, might inform with monastic discipline, as he did, having also written his own proper Rule. But why shall we not say? that that suburban island, was the same which in the aforecited instrument of Manasses is called, the Island of St. Peter which is named from Montmajour, whence the monks were translated, the same title of St. Peter being kept, within the walls of the city of Arles; so that this being augmented daily with new increases, that island ceased to be insular, and by some transaction came into the power of the Provost of Arles; from which again it returned to the same monks under the already-mentioned Manasses. These things being so placed, I seem by a not improbable conjecture able so to order all things, that the urban monastery of St. Peter, which Childebert had founded, being consumed by flames or other fortune, the monks passed over to the church of the Holy Cross, the body of St. Florentinus being left among the ruins: which after the lapse of some years, who returned thither in the 10th century, in the time of the Abbot Constantine being found and elevated, on the day XXII of March, at length on this day XXI of May was solemnly translated to the sepulchre, which even now is extant, of marble and that of the IX century, when the studies of letters, even of Greek, under Charlemagne now Emperor, and his son Louis the Pious, had begun to flourish again: for the Greeks in that middle age for the most part used Acrostics, and the affectation of Grecism savors the very title, expressed in Greek letters. Then in the X century in the time of Manasses the Archbishop, when over the monastery presided Garnerius the Abbot, and in the year 952 Teucinda devoted to God had adorned with a new monastery built the possession of the Island of St. Peter redeemed by exchange of another of her allods, there was a migration back by the Monks into the island, the body of St. Florentinus being left at the church of the holy Cross, but that those Monks then lived under the Rule of St. Benedict no one would doubt; nor would anyone prudently say that SS. Caesarius or Florentinus professed it; but when it was received by their successors, whether before or after Constantine the Abbot, let others inquire.
[6] A foundation of our conjecture concerning the last migration the Sammarthani afford, when they say, that at the monastery of Montmajour there is to this day a chapel of the holy Cross, having before stayed in St. Cross from about the year 800. with an old epigraph, in which it is said, the monastery was renewed by Charlemagne after the destructions of the Saracens. That the Epigraph is faulty they argue from the instrument of Manasses, demonstrating the monastery of Montmajour to be almost three centuries more recent. But if you refer it to the urban monastery of the holy Cross, because either brought from it, or the founders of the new monastery
wished it to be preserved, in the title of the chapel erected there even after the migration of the monks, it ought by no means to be esteemed deceptive; and we shall have the time of the body translated from the ruins of the Childebertine monastery; be it now that at the holy Cross no notice survives of the monks who were there; just as neither in the whole city of Arles do traces survive of that Childebertine monastery, which yet it is established to have been in it. The Annals of the Franks relate everywhere the victories of Charles over the Spanish Saracens at the year 777, and to this seems to look the Epistle of Alcuin, related by the Malmesburian book 1 chapter 4, that the Dukes and Tribunes of the same most Christian King took a great part of Spain from the Saracens, about three hundred thousand in length along the coast: otherwise about forty years before, Charles Martel, the grandfather of the Great, had cut down the Saracens pressing upon Gaul.
[7] Now as concerns the author of the Epitaph, he seems not obscurely to call himself Januarinus, The hallucinations of Saussay. the sculptor Tantillus; but in the third place to commend Hilarianus, as a kind monk, that is, exceptional in kindness, as if diverse from both, although by others confused with the sculptor, perhaps because, next in degree to the Abbot Constantine in the rule of the monastery, he contributed much to the fabric of the aforesaid sepulchre. This one thing if you except, all things stand and agree with the Epitaph, which are read in the Proper of Arles. But from it and from the truth further and more often departs Saussay, when he wrote, that St. Florentinus, a disciple of St. Caesarius in the old monastery of Arles, and indeed under the Rule of St. Benedict, was by the same set as Prefect over the new monastery of the holy Cross, which he had constructed; then governed the old monastery, in which dead and buried in the thirty-third year after his death, was conveyed back to the monastery of the holy Cross; which prolixly drawn out on April XII it irks to relate word for word, although with an elegant and flowery period they fill the ears; since the style of the Epitaph can in no way be referred to the VI century.