ON SAINT SYAGRIUS
BISHOP OF NICE IN THE MARITIME ALPS.
ABOUT 787.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY,
On his Acts, profession, relics, lineage.
Syagrius, Bishop of Nice in the Maritime Alps (S.)
BHL Number: 7696
BY G. H.
Nicaea or Nicia, at the foot of the Maritime Alps,
not far from the mouths of the river Var,
by which Gaul is now bounded from Italy,
is an Episcopal city under the dominion of the Duke of Savoy,
with a most fortified citadel.
Of this city was Bishop S. Siacrius, or Syagrius, reported
by Ferrarius in the general Catalogue on this 23rd of May, Memory on May 23.
who adds that he had received from there his Manuscript Life: but what
that could be, we do not at all know. Some Italian writing was sent to us
at Turin by John Jacob Turrinetto, then Rector of the College
of the Society of Jesus there: but which seems taken
for the most part from that Life of S. Siacrius, which from
ancient Manuscripts of the monastery of S. Pontius, Life from a Manuscript of S. Pontius. which he had erected,
vindicated from various solecisms, edited
in the Chronology of the Saints of the Lerins Monastery Vincent Barrali in part 1 page 132,
which is of this kind.
[2] Blessed Siacrius, the first Bishop of the city of Nice,
was by nation and family of Charlemagne the Emperor,
son of Pippin. Having proceeded with Charlemagne, Which Charlemagne, by divine inspiration
disposing toward the parts of the Province of the Provinces,
came, that he might expel Pagans and infidels from the said places,
and bring back that very people to the Catholic faith.
Who when he had come to the borders of Cimella
and Nice; the Cimerian, Cimellan,
and Nicean King by divine power he destroyed and put to flight. But the same
Charlemagne had brought with him the beloved and honest
youth Blessed Siacrius, his nephew
Count of Brie: who finding in the district of Cimella
a church, he sees to the monastery of S. Pontius being erected by him, in which the body of S. Pontius the Martyr
was venerated; longing to follow the monastic rule, from his
uncle Charlemagne, that there a monastery be built for him,
with most insistent prayers obtained. In which
afterwards B. Siacrius like a bright ray shone forth in virtues
and many miracles, and decorated that monastery itself
with a manifold kind of virtues. To
his pious petition the same Emperor the County
of Cimella, and the Comitate of Cimella to be granted: to him and to the monks, present and future,
militating perpetually for God in the aforesaid monastery,
for sustaining daily burdens, benignly
ceded and bestowed.
[3] But while Pope Hadrian the First was governing the supreme
helm of the Apostolic See, in his fifth year, who
was of the Lord seven hundred seventy-seven, from Abbot becomes Bishop of Nice; dies May 23
B. Siacrius drawn from the monastery, was ordained the first Bishop
of the city of Nice: in which
for ten years he lived laudably, shone with eminent virtues,
and at last his soul on the tenth Kalends
of June, with flesh loosed, ascended to the ethereal regions,
with Christ to reign perennially, happily.
But his body was committed to burial in the basilica
of the aforesaid monastery of S. Pontius, in which he had stood forth as the first
Pastor of the Monks.
[4] Furthermore this Saint Siacrius, in his adolescence and
in all his life, by divine generosity, merited to cure
the sick, to put demons to flight, to exercise many virtues: he performs miracles,
in whom such great light of celestial grace radiated wondrously,
that the Lord obtained the hearts of rebels not less
by miracles than by preachings through him.
So great finally and so profound humility he was endowed with,
that even though great and ineffable wonders the Lord through
him, with the people seeing and hearing, brought forth,
never however did he lie under the vice of vain glory.
Once a certain boy with loose reins riding in flying course,
and incautiously leaping from the horse, was killed.
Then the cry of the people is raised, he resuscitates the dead: and reaches the ears
of S. Siacrius: who at once ran up, and prayer made,
with the sign of the saving Cross imposed, the boy revived, and
he restored him sound to his father, with the people applauding and saying:
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
O blessed man Siacrius, O outstanding Pastor, suppliantly we
beseech you, that for us you may pray to the Lord,
who grants you to reign with him for every age.
Amen. He died about the year of the Lord seven hundred
eighty-seven.
[5] Thus far those Acts in Vincent Barrali, who
in the Index asserts his natal day to be this 23rd of May: on which day
he is also reported by Saussajus in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology,
so however that not from the monastery of S. Pontius, but from
Lerins is said the Saint to have been called to the Bishopric.
Ferdinand Ughelli in volume 4 of Italia Sacra among the Bishops
of Nice, edited the same Life, but contracted. Francis
Augustine ab Ecclesia, in his Chronological History of the Piedmontese
region chapter 15, in the Series of the Bishops of Nice
has some compendium of the Life, Of the Benedictine Order? in which the Abbey
of S. Pontius he asserts to have been of the Order of S. Benedict. Whether however
from the beginning under S. Siacrius, John Mabillon seems to doubt,
who in part 2 of the 3rd Benedictine century rejected him to the Omitted,
although Menardus and Bucelinus had inscribed him in the Benedictine
Fasti. The author of the above-mentioned Italian Manuscript,
to the miracle of the boy fallen from his horse and resuscitated by the Saint,
adds another similar one of a boy, whom having as only-begotten
a noble matron, with great laments brought to the Bishop,
obtesting that he might restore him alive to her by praying; which he
moved by mercy granted. He adds also that Siagrius after his death
shone with many miracles.
[6] As to his Genealogy, the aforesaid author
Italian, after he laboriously refuted those who believed him to be
grandson of Charlemagne through his son Pippin, Neither son of Charlemagne through Pippin, nor brother, makes him grandson of Charles Martel
through King Pippin; and so confuses the younger brother
of Charlemagne with his namesake uncle, and
thinks Siagrius moved by his example longed for monastic quiet.
On the contrary, that Siagrius was the son of the younger Carloman,
and so grandson of Charlemagne through his brother,
write Buchetus in Vera Origine Familiae Regiae page 12,
Honorat Bouché in book 5 of the History of Provence section 2 chapter 2,
Philip Labbe in the second Genealogical Tablet chapter 10 and
others. This Carloman was King of Alsace, Burgundy, and
Provence, and when King Pippin died about the year 768
the Franks were treating about establishing the kingdom of his sons,
it pleased that an alliance be contracted with Desiderius King of the
Lombards. But that this should be done, the man who that same
year had ascended to the Roman Pontificate, nor was he grandson through brother Carloman, Pope Stephen
III, attempted to impede: and interposed the threat of anathema, on this
ground especially, that each King already by God's will and
by their father's command had been joined in lawful matrimony.
But that such matrimony was never consummated,
nor even contracted, but stood within
the limits of betrothal, we said at the Life of S. Hildegard
the Queen on April 30, number 9; and we showed that, notwithstanding
the prohibition of the Pontiff, Carloman took a wife from the Lombards;
which also Charlemagne did with the good leave of the Pontiff
almost in the year 770, and the following
year on the 2nd Nones of December Carloman died.
Whose kingdoms when Charlemagne claimed for himself, his wife and sons,
about to impede this, proceed to Italy, as is had
in the Annals of the Franks. Of the sons the first Pippin,
is believed to have died as a boy, the second if he was this Siagrius, surely
neither in the year 777 could he have been drawn from the monastery,
which he ruled as Abbot, to be ordained Bishop, since
then not yet eight years old; nor about the year 787
could he have died. Furthermore not Charlemagne, but Martel
expelled the Saracens from Provence and the Nicean tract: nor was
the title of Counts of Brie known at that age. Therefore in many
ways the Acts in Barrali waver.
[7] But if anything is to be conjectured, I will suspect, that Siagrius
was grandson of Charles Martel, not through Pippin, but rather grandson of Martel through Carloman, paternal uncle of the Great. but through Carloman,
paternal cousin of Charlemagne. For this Carloman,
before he, with the kingdom abdicated, donned the monk's habit in
Italy, had a wife, and from her a son Drogo, why not
Siagrius too? who by his father's example also chose to be a monk,
born about 24 years when Charlemagne began to reign.
So in the fifth year of Pope Hadrian he would have been thirty-three
years old, and could have died in the tenth year of his Episcopate,
otherwise to be deferred to much later years. Of S. Pontius
the Martyr, to whom the Abbey reported was dedicated, we illustrated the Acts
on the 14th day of May, where we widely described the situation of the ancient
Cimellan city, which there the benevolent Reader can
see. The Relics of him and Siacrius in the said Abbey
of S. Pontius are still preserved, asserts the said Bouché in book 2
chapter 29 and book 5 chapter 3.