ON ST. PRIMUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND CENTURY.
CommentaryPrimus, bishop of Alexandria. (S.)
BY G. V. H.
On St. Primus, Galesinius at the Kalends of November: At Alexandria, of St. Primus the bishop, who, fourth in succession from the apostles, taking up the ministry of that church, St. Primus, bishop when he had presided over it for twelve years, rested in the Lord. In certain additions to the Hieronymian martyrology mention is made on this day of St. Primus the bishop, venerated at Autun in Gaul, which passage Fiorentini has usefully annotated: This addition of St. Primus, bishop of Autun, is read also in the appendix to Ado and in du Saussay, in the supplement to the Gallican martyrology at the Kalends of November, from Pietro Galesini, whom he praises because he was the first to restore St. Primus, bishop of the Aedui, from the tables of the Greeks. But Galesini on this day commemorates St. Primus the bishop at Alexandria, not at Autun, the fourth successor from the apostles of that see, and rightly, as he added in his notes, could from the tables of the Greeks indicate a bishop of Alexandria, but with the greatest difficulty one of the Aedui, among whose bishops the Sainte-Marthe brothers assign Primus no place.
[2] fifth of Alexandria, Peter de Natalibus in book XI, chapter 6, among the bishops of Alexandria distinguished with the laurel of sanctity, reckons St. Primus fifth in order, whom others call fourth, as Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History book IV, chapter 1, who writes thus: About the twelfth year of Trajan, Cerdo, bishop of the church of Alexandria, of whom we made mention a little above, departed from life, and Primus, fourth from the apostles, obtained the ministry of that church. Now it is clear that Primus is reckoned fifth or fourth in place according to a different way of computing. He who says fifth, like Peter, begins the number from Mark; he who says fourth, like Eusebius, leaving Mark outside the number, draws the order from his first successor. That Primus presided over the church of Alexandria for twelve years is clear from Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History book IV, chapter 4, where he writes: And in the third year of Hadrian, Alexander, bishop of the city of Rome, died, when ten years
of his administration had been completed; and Xystus succeeded him. About the same time, Primus having died in the twelfth year of his episcopate, Justus took up the priesthood of the church of Alexandria, about the year 121. Some difference is to be noted concerning the year of Trajan in which Eusebius in the History writes that Primus came to the throne of Alexandria, namely the twelfth, whereas in his Chronicle he seems to indicate the tenth or eleventh year. But such a difference occurs more than once between the History and the Chronicle of Eusebius, and to whom you should ascribe it you can scarcely say, whether to Eusebius, to Jerome, or to a yawning copyist. Wherefore with Valesius, in a note at that place, we rather follow Eusebius in the History, which he wrote after the books of the Chronicle, and which ought therefore to be less suspected of error.
[3] also Of the life and deeds of this holy patriarch at Autun in Gaul of Alexandria we find nothing handed down to memory. But the question is raised whether this Primus is to be attributed to Autun or to Alexandria as bishop. It cannot be denied that in certain exemplars of the Hieronymian martyrology St. Primus, or Priminus, is read on this day, 1 November; for the name varies. For the sake of clarity we shall set down the announcements of several different exemplars. That of Bern: In Gaul, at Autun, of Priminus the bishop. Fiorentini's: At Autun of Gaul, the deposition of St. Primus the bishop. That of Antwerp: At Autun, of Priminus the bishop. That of Corbie: At Autun, of Primus the bishop. It is true that one reads in the appendix to Ado made by Heribert Rosweyde: At Autun, of St. Primus the bishop; but with words marked by an asterisk; which, I beg, let the reader carefully observe, that he may properly understand what this announcement in the appendix to Ado is worth. For before it Rosweyde had set the following notice to the reader: You have in this appendix the things which have hitherto been inserted in the martyrology of Ado, though they are from another hand. And indeed those marked with asterisks were judged foreign to Ado also by the judgment of Jacob Mosander, who first published Ado. His reasoning he himself gives to the reader thus: "This martyrology we have written out with our own hand from four very old manuscript codices corresponding with one another. But the fourth, written by a monk of the Order of St. Benedict, contained the names of some saints which were not found in the other three. Since we were in doubt about these, whether they were Ado's or rather were added to his martyrology by the said monk, using the counsel of learned men, we have marked the same saints beforehand with the sign in this way, to avoid all error and scruple." Thus far Mosander. But I, by collation of three manuscript codices older than Mosander's codices, of which I spoke at the beginning of Ado in the address to the reader, detected many more things that are not Ado's. These too I have transferred to the appendix, without the sign of the asterisk however, so that it may be evident which are to be cut away from Ado by the common consent of ourselves and Mosander, and which further by the judgment of the three manuscript codices I have mentioned. It is manifest therefore that the saints marked with an asterisk in the appendix rest on the sole authority of that Benedictine, with six very old codices denying them, and so are foreign to pure Ado. Wherefore neither is Primus, bishop of Autun, to be praised on the authority of Ado.
[4] once honoured with ecclesiastical cult, In order to settle this question, being destitute of the aid of ancient martyrologists, I shall enter upon this safer way, as I think: first indeed to claim his place for Primus the patriarch of Alexandria, since truthful history acknowledges him with no one contradicting, and Galesini and Peter affirm that he is endowed with the honour of the saints. Next it seems that it must be established that there existed a certain saint of the same name, whom the Aedui once venerated with the sacred honours of the heavenly ones, and that this man once celebrated among the Aedui is the same as St. Primus, bishop of Alexandria. While I cannot win this by certain arguments, yet it so agrees with the circumstances of things and persons that the opinion can be approved. For the ancient church of the Aedui was more Greek than Latin; whence it could easily have happened that so great a man as Primus was, set over the first church after the Roman see, enjoyed the honour of the blessed heavenly ones among the Hellenizing Aedui. I am not unaware that another way too can be entered upon, and an error of copyists be supposed, which might be urged even from this, that in the various exemplars we read now Primus, now Priminus, and moreover a little later we meet the very well-known bishop's name Pirminius; or even that a proper name to which the adjective primus was attached has fallen out, so that no Primus is acknowledged among the Aedui. Yet I should not wish, no cause compelling me, as it seems to me at least, to insist on this way; nor again to acknowledge today two saints by the name of Primus, one of Alexandria, the other of the Aedui, with Ferrari, who after announcing the Alexandrian adds the Aeduan, on the authority of Ado in the appendix.
[5] yet not bishop of Autun, But much less would I agree with du Saussay in the supplement to the Gallican Martyrology, which Fiorentini reproved above, and whose complete text, no doubtful proof of Saussayan levity, I subjoin here: At Autun, of St. Primus, bishop of the Aedui, whose memory, though it long since dropped away among his own people, yet being propagated among the Greeks (so had the divine man filled the whole world with the renown of his proven sanctity) has sprouted even to our own days; and being claimed from their calendars it has at length come back into the light, God willing, by the pious work of Pietro Galesini, protonotary of the apostolic see, who, recovering the venerable name of this most holy prelate from the monuments of the Greeks, entered it in the sacred tables of the Latin Church, which he dedicated as a worthy gift to Gregory XIII, supreme pontiff. From these it has been transcribed on this very day into the new catalogue of saints, published under the sacred auspices of Pope Urban VIII, now sitting. Thus du Saussay, by whose testimony we learn that up to that day his Primus, bishop, was unknown to his own Aedui. As for what he says of Galesini, whose eulogy of Primus we recited at the head of this treatise, it is an open sign of a most frivolous mind, if not a most lying one. For Galesini had assigned Primus not to the Aedui but to the Alexandrians. What he dreamed about Urban VIII, I certainly cannot make out. If the words have sense, I understand at any rate that from Galesini the name of St. Primus passed into the Roman Martyrology published by order of Gregory XIII, and thence into the same martyrology as revised by Urban VIII, which came from the Vatican press in the year 1630; all of which is false. Meanwhile from the wagonload of lies (for so, as Castellan witnesses, the French used to call the Gallican Martyrology), this, I say, this one gem of truth let us gather, that up to that day, 1637, the memory of Primus their bishop had dropped away among the Aedui. From this fog of ignorance, illuminated by no light, not even the faintest, it is concluded quite suitably that Primus never presided as bishop over the Aedui.
[6] he is not mentioned in the Greek hagiological documents. Meanwhile I should greatly like to know from which tables of the Greeks Galesini himself dug out the name of St. Primus. For as I searched through all the menaia, synaxaria and calendars of the Greeks that could be found, the man's name constantly eluded me. Wherefore I am forced to suspect that Galesini and Peter de Natalibus drew this notice of Primus from Eusebius or Syncellus alone. This suspicion may perhaps lead the fastidious reader into another question, namely from what source the sanctity of Primus and his public and ecclesiastical cult are established. To this I must frankly answer that, besides those things recited by me from the martyrologies, I have found no trace or testimony of cult. Yet this ought by no means to prevent everyone from believing that Primus, bishop of Alexandria, was exalted with the glory of sanctity. For it could hardly have been that in those first times of the Church a bishop presided over the second see of the whole Catholic Church who was not illustrious for a distinguished gift of sanctity, especially when history has marked nothing against him.