ON ST. GEORGE, BISHOP OF VIENNE IN GAUL,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY. [Commentary]
George, bishop of Vienne in Gaul. (S.)
C. D. S.
Bishop George of Vienne in Gaul is commemorated under this day by the Fulda Hieronymian Martyrology from the Leiden codex of the tenth century recently published by us, St. George is commemorated in the martyrologies; in these words: At Vienne, of St. George, bishop Anal. Boll., vol. I, p. 44.; and in the same or similar words Ado and very many Usuardine Auctaria, and finally the Roman Martyrology: At Vienne, of St. George, bishop. And Du Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology added this brief elogium: At Vienne of the Allobroges, of St. George, bishop and confessor, who, made bishop of that church after Bobolinus, showed himself truly a bishop, illustrious for probity of character, vigilance, compassion and ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, wonderful in every exercise of heavenly doctrine. Who at last, loaded with the merits of a most holy life, passed to the harvest of his pious labors, obtaining at once glory in heaven and veneration on earth.
[2] [but the sources do not agree as to the year of his episcopal election and of his death.] Du Saussay's one source was the Chronicle of Ado, in which one reads at the year 699: Bobolenus, the distinguished bishop of the church of Vienne, shone. After whom George, a bishop of great virtue, is established in the same city Mon. Germ. Hist., Script. vol. II, p. 318.. But the author of an index written in the year 1239 ties George's death to this very year 699, saying: St. George, in the year 699, went away to the heavenly life, on the second day of November. He lies in the church of St. Peter Cited in Hauréau, Gall. Christ., vol. XVI, p. 33.. But the necrology of Vienne Ibid., p. 34. asserts that he was a contemporary of the emperor Anastasius II, who was created emperor after the 3rd day of June of the year 713. Which assertion indeed on the one hand agrees better with Ado, who marks the death of Bobolenus, George's predecessor, at the year 699, but on the other hand disagrees with him, since the same Ado indicates that Deodatus, George's successor (passed over in the aforesaid Necrology), flourished under the times of Justinian II, and therefore before the year 711.
[3] The fabrications of Tamayo. Hardly worth mentioning are the things that John Tamayo in his Spanish Martyrology Vol. VI, p. 49. has heaped together about our St. George. He teaches, namely, that he was Spanish by origin, of Toledo by country, and that the same man, after he had been happily brought up from his infancy in the metropolitan church of this royal city and led through all the grades of offices to exercising the ministry of the altar, was raised to the prelacy of the church of Agde, which at that time was included within the bounds of Gothic Gaul, and under that title took part in the synod of Toledo convoked by King Recceswinth in the year 653; and afterwards, when he had already presided for twenty years over the church of Agde, the church of Vienne being widowed of its pastor, in the year 682 by the unanimous acclamation of all he was raised to this see, and died on the IV day before the nones of November about the year 699. For Tamayo brings forward no other surety of all these things than the fictitious poem of that fictitious Julian Peres of Toledo Cf. J. Godoy Alcantara, Historia critica de los falsos Cronicones, pp. 199, 216.; and nothing is indicated in any historical document. There occurs indeed among the subscriptions of the Council of Toledo of the year 653 the name of George, bishop of Agde Aguirre, Conc. Hisp., vol. III, p. 448; Mansi, Conc., vol. X, p. 1222.; but no one of sound mind would affirm from mere homonymy that this George is to be held the same as the bishop of Vienne.
[4] The body was raised in the year 1251. We have heard above No. 2 middle. the writer of the year 1239 affirming that the body of St. George at that time lay at Vienne in the church of the monastery of St. Peter, together, namely, with the bodies of five other holy bishops of Vienne, all of which were solemnly raised in the year 1251 by the Cardinals Hugh and William, as we are taught by a Brief given by Innocent IV at Milan on the VIII day before the Kalends of September, in the ninth year of his pontificate, in which the pontiff grants a hundred days of indulgence to those visiting the church of St. Peter on the day of their revelation. That Brief our forebears published at the 14th day of June, treating of Aetherius Vol. II Jun., p. 959, nos. 3 – 4., and it does not seem that it should be repeated in this place, except that it is useful to observe in passing that it was known to the distinguished Potthast only from the edition of John a Bosco in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis: whence among his Regesta Summorum Pontificum from the year
1198 to the year 1304 Vol. II, p. 1189. he could record only in what place and in what year it was given, but not on what day.
[5] He is venerated on the 2nd of November. Wrongly also, by I know not what heedlessness, our forebears indicated Loc. cit., no. 5 at the end. that the memory of St. George is kept on the 3rd day of November: for in all martyrologies he is commemorated at the 2nd day of the same month Cf. above, no. 1.. But we find nothing about our Saint whether in the Proper of Vienne of the year 1732, or in the Breviary of Vienne printed in the year 1783, or in the Proper of Vienne of the year 1824, which we have before our eyes.