Cyprian of Toulon

ON ST. CYPRIAN OF TOULON, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, IN PROVENCE IN GAUL,

ABOUT THE YEAR DXLV.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, confessor, at Toulon in Provence in Gaul. (S.)

BY J. G.

§ I. Notice of the place; the Saint's memory in the Martyrologies; his cult and ecclesiastical Office.

"Telo or Telo-Martius is the name of a maritime city of the province of Arles," says Adrien de Valois in the Notitia of the Gauls. At Toulon, of which a notice is given, Some have corruptly called this city Tolo or Tolonum; whence, the letter o having been changed into the diphthong ou, the present French name Toulon emerged. Mention of the port of Telo-Martius is made in the maritime Itinerary of Antoninus Augustus, where it is distinguished from the port of Citharista, contrary to what someone contends. The name was given to it either from a customs-house established there, where the publicans, Τελῶναι, (exacted) from the merchants harbour-dues and tributes under the name

of the commonwealth of Marseilles; or, as pleases others, Telo-Martius received its name from some Telo, a noble of Marseilles, founder or leader of the colony. The city is ennobled by an episcopal see, and that a very ancient one. Honoré Bouche, in tome 1 of the Chorography and chronological History of Provence, page 337, relates that its cathedral church, which is also parochial, was formerly built and consecrated under the patronage of St. Stephen. Whatever may be the truth of this assertion, it is ascertained that in these our times the patron and titular of the mentioned church, after the Virgin Mother of God, is St. Cyprian, bishop, whose Life I here set about illustrating, so far as the scarcity of documents permits.

[2] St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, as Baillet rightly observes, certain more recent Martyrologies mention St. Cyprian, is of that class of Saints the knowledge of whom has been obscured by the blind and immoderate zeal of men who, when they found little or nothing certain and established about their Saints, published their own fictions in place of historical truth, so as even thus to commend their memory to posterity. Many things, therefore, have long since been handed down about him which a writer loving the truth would make it a matter of conscience not to refute; yet here and there certain scattered things are to be found which, the truth being safe, commend that Saint not moderately. And indeed, although I have been able to learn nothing about his public cult from the ancient Martyrologies, those at least which I have consulted; nay, although many more recent ones are silent about him, there is nevertheless no reason why we should doubt the legitimate veneration of the Saint. Thus Ferrari, in the general Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, announces our Cyprian, whom from faulty tables he called Abbot: "On the V Nones of October… At Toulon in Gaul, of St. Cyprian, abbot." More accurate than Ferrari, Chastelain explicitly expresses his episcopal dignity at the III day of October. "At Toulon," he says, "of St. Cyprian, bishop, disciple of St. Caesarius and writer of his Life." And although in the Supplement he would have this whole announcement deleted, he seems to have done so for no other reason than that he was not sufficiently certain of the ecclesiastical cult of the Bishop, which is certain to us from elsewhere. Whence also, treating of him among the Aemeri at the III day of October, he calls him only by the title of Venerable, while for the rest he here again attributes the episcopal dignity to him. His former announcement is supported by the Paris Martyrology published in the year 1727, which relates thus at the same day: "At Toulon, the feast of St. Cyprian, bishop, who was present at the fourth council of Arles, the second of Orange and other councils."

[3] and various authors, Things consonant with these are related by J.-B. Guesnay in the Annals of the province of Marseilles, page 601, by Honoré Bouche, Chorography and chronological History of Provence, tome 1, page 645, and tome 2, page 991, by Denis de Sainte-Marthe in the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tome 1, column 741, by the writers of the Literary History of France, tome 3, page 237, by Baillet, tome 3, page 39, and by other trustworthy hagiophiles who have celebrated the memory and cult of our Saint. It is not permitted, however, to pass over here the error of Baillet and Chastelain, when they assert that the body of St. Cyprian was found in the year 1301. For it is established from a public instrument of Pons Ransin, or, as Denis de Sainte-Marthe reads, Pons Rausin, bishop of Toulon, issued in the year 1205, which is extant in the praised Guesnay, Annals of Marseilles, page 341, that the body of St. Cyprian was found in the episcopal house in the year of the Lord MCCI (and so a whole century earlier than Baillet would have it) and on the III day of October, "as is more fully testified" (these are the words of the aforesaid instrument) "in the process of translation made." That public instrument, from which these things have been taken, see entire, if you please, in the mentioned Guesnay at the cited page 341. And hence is refuted another error of Baillet, who denies that Pons Rausin was bishop of Toulon at the beginning of the XIII century and contends that he sat in that chair only a whole century later. In this at least Baillet slipped, that he silently passed over Pons, bishop of Toulon, the I of this name, and transferred what happened in his time to the other Pons, the II of this name; but again not without error: for since the immediate predecessor of Pons II did not depart from among the living before the year 1311, as the enlarged Gallia Christiana relates from the Necrology of Toulon, the instrument issued in the year 1205, or, as Baillet would have it, in the year 1305, cannot be ascribed to this Pons, created bishop in the year 1311 or the following. These things having been said in passing, let us return to the cult of the Saint.

[4] Du Saussay, in the Supplement of his Gallican Martyrology, page 1176, not only mentions Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, among whom du Saussay without foundation asserts two other namesakes. but besides him announces two other namesakes at Toulon. "At Telo-Martius," he says, "on the coast of Provence, of St. Cyprian, abbot: who, a native of Marseilles, exercised the mastership of the religious life among the people of Toulon; made a teacher of all evangelical perfection as much by word as by work: which office having been fulfilled to the full, the father of many most religious ascetics, he departed from this wrestling-school and went on to the reward laid up for him by the Lord in heaven, leaving a memory in the mother church of Toulon, thenceforth celebrated in the sacred Fasti, in which there flourishes also, to be cultivated with perennial cult, the remembrance of blessed Cyprian the martyr, slain there at the altar by the Saracens invading Gaul. And also of St. Cyprian, bishop of that same church of Toulon, who wrote the Life of St. Caesarius of Arles: and in some councils, great and famous, shone forth in doctrine and holy manners." Thus he: but, to use Chastelain's words, "after his fashion, without any testimony for his announcement": so that his words would in no respect be to be stood by here, did we not have from elsewhere what is to be thought of St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, and of his cult.

[5] Further, that the Saint is venerated on the III day of October the Directories of the dioceses of Marseilles and Toulon show. His cult attached to the III of October, The Order of reciting the divine Office, in which the proper feasts of which the Office is said at Marseilles… and at Toulon are arranged, each on its own day, printed at Marseilles in the year 1676, prescribes that St. Cyprian, bishop, is to be venerated on the III of October with semidouble rite at Marseilles, but with double rite and of the first class with an Octave at Toulon. The Order of proper feasts of which the Office is said in the chief cities of each diocese of Provence on the assigned day presents it thus: "At Toulon, of Cyprian, Bishop and Confessor and Patron. Double of the I class with Octave." That the feast of our Saint is of precept at Toulon, even, as they say, for the people, and that on his sacred day the relics of this their Patron, enclosed in a silver casket, are carried about in a solemn procession of supplicants, was written in full to our Stilting, from the testimony of citizens or inhabitants of Toulon, by a most distinguished man who has deserved exceedingly well of our Museum, Dom Joseph-Antoine de Brantes, treasurer and penitentiary of the church of Avignon, in letters given at Avignon on the IV day of the month of March in the year of the Lord 1762: so that even from these, if testimonies from elsewhere were lacking, no room would remain for doubting the cult of St. Cyprian.

[6] But it is not so clear at what time the festival of the Saint began to be celebrated at Marseilles and at Toulon. at Marseilles at one time interrupted, then restored; The praised Bouche, having nothing from which to assign a certain year or century, relates in tome 2 of the Chorography and chronological History of Provence, page 991, that it flourished among the people of Marseilles from of old on the III day of October, which he asserts is established from the Missal of Marseilles printed at Lyons in the year 1630, and from the old Breviary of the church of Marseilles likewise published at Lyons in the year 1526. And since, through the iniquity of the times, the festival of the Saint had lapsed at Marseilles, the most illustrious bishop of Marseilles, Étienne Puget, by a decree issued on this matter on the IX day of August in the year 1655, commanded that it be again kept with double rite in his church, and brought back the name of St. Cyprian into the roll of the Saints of Marseilles, as is recorded in the praised Bouche at the cited page 991. And this was the success of the pious efforts of Dom Antoine de Felix, that due veneration should be restored to the Saint, whom he contended was his blood-relative. On which matter consult, if you please, the writer just praised.

[7] That the cult of St. Cyprian was celebrated at Toulon at the beginning of the XIII century but at Toulon flourished for some centuries back, is evident from the words of Pons Rausin praised at number 3: nay, that the people of Toulon pursued their Patron with no moderate veneration even from the XI century is derived from the instrument of foundation of the church of Blessed Mary de Sedis, sealed by Gilbert or Guibert, count of Provence, in the year 1096; which, as Guesnay, Annals of Marseilles, page 311, relates, "having been afterwards set aside in darkness in a cupboard, I know not for what cause, and hidden within a wall, was found in the year 1374, John Sylvester being bishop of Toulon, as we have recorded below in its place" (namely in the cited Work, pages 428 and 429), "and is now kept under seal in the archive of the church of Toulon, and is preserved most diligently." From this instrument of foundation, if any credence is to be given to Guesnay and to the testimony adduced at pages 428 and 429, which is certainly wholly different from the one which Bouche, tome 2, page 86, narrates was invented by an impostor in the century just past, I judge it is rightly made out that already in the year 1096 the divine Office was celebrated in his honour by command of the bishop; which cult of the Saint at Toulon we do not read was ever interrupted. For the rest, to conceal nothing, although those Acts which Gilbert, count of Provence, is said to have believed ancient and to have brought to light in the same year 1096 were either spurious or at any rate foully adulterated; nay, although that very instrument of the mentioned foundation, found in the year 1374, is not immune from chronological and historical blemishes, as Guesnay shows at pages 428 and 429; yet I would not dare to hold as fictions all the things which are related there about the cult of St. Cyprian. For even if someone should prove to me that it was invented by an impostor of the XIV century and craftily inserted into the old wall, which was then to be repaired, he would not therefore overthrow the antiquity of the cult. For if in the XIV century a not very ancient cult was being paid to St. Cyprian, with what appearance of truth would the fabricator of that instrument have mentioned that cult so explicitly, or by what means, not to say by what spell, could he have deceived the canons and the nobles of the city in a matter which ought to have been perfectly well known to all? It is not indeed new or unusual for impostors of this kind to mix false things with true. But when they are not safe from public authority, we know them to be so astute and cautious as not to assert things by which they know they will immediately be convicted of foul fraud. Accordingly, I subjoin here the words of that instrument bearing on this, from Guesnay, pages 312 and 313; for the rest I leave to the reader free judgment of its forgery or interpolation as regards other things.

[8] from the instrument of foundation, which is partly presented, When Gilbert, count of Provence, many things about building a new church and transferring into

it the relics of certain Saints had set forth, and had subjoined that he wished their heads to be enclosed in silver caskets, and their other remains to be laid in a marble tomb, he at last continues thus: "Which indeed we also will to be done with the body of Blessed Gratian, bishop of the said city" (of Toulon), "whose body indeed is buried in the chapel of Blessed Cyprian with others: and whose head also we will to be made of silver and gold, and the relics of the body, as also of the others, to be enclosed in a marble monument. Likewise we ordain and have decreed that in the said chapel of St. Cyprian, to the honour of God and of the Virgin Mary and of Blessed Cyprian and of the other Saints, for the everlasting memory of the matter, according to the request of the said most reverend lord bishop, the divine Office be celebrated every day on account of the honour of those Saints, etc." To pursue the cult of the Saint, I do not inquire whether the Jacques de Palma mentioned in this instrument, who does not appear among the prelates of Toulon in Gallia Christiana, actually held that chair, and whether these things were ordained by Gilbert at his request; nor shall I set about examining here what is the authority of that ancient manuscript which, as is said in the instrument of foundation, was read and touched with his hands by Gilbert, since this is to be treated separately at numbers 21 and 22.

[9] Let us hear, then, the other writers speaking who relate some things pertaining to the cult of the Saint. it is shown, and confirmed from Baillet and Denis de Sainte-Marthe. Baillet in the Life of St. Cyprian, number 4, has this: "The body of the holy Bishop was buried in his (cathedral) church, in which afterwards a magnificent chapel was set up in his honour, which is said to have existed until, in the time of Henry IV (king of France), Gilles de Septres, bishop of Toulon, changed it into a sanctuary or treasury of relics." Denis de Sainte-Marthe, praised above, in tome 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 754, says that the same bishop ordered the altar of St. Cyprian to be transferred to the chapel of the holy relics. "Whatever that change was," says Baillet, "nothing was taken away on this occasion from the cult which the city rendered to its Saint. It always venerates him as its Patron and second Titular after the most blessed Virgin, and the relics of the Saint are held there in the highest honour. His head had been separated from the rest of the body in the year MCCV, or rather in the year MCCCV" (rather, in the very year 1205 first assigned), "to satisfy the devotion of two nobles of Marseilles, of the name de Montolieu, who said they were descended from the family of St. Cyprian, and who also caused to be made at their own expense a silver head gilded with gold," or chased, in which the sacred remains of St. Cyprian might be enclosed; namely, either because that reliquary of gilded silver which Gilbert, count of Provence, is said to have ordered to be made seemed to these noblemen not worthy enough of the relics of so holy a Prelate; or perhaps because what Gilbert is reported to have commanded had not been carried into execution in every part. For the rest, the same bishop Pons decreed that a festive commemoration of the translation of the relics of St. Cyprian made under Pons I, bishop of Toulon, should be made every year in the city and in the whole diocese, as is related in the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tome 1, column 746.

[10] Further, the ecclesiastical Office of St. Cyprian which was formerly customarily recited in the church of Toulon the ecclesiastical Office of Toulon, as it was the most distinguished Dom Antoine du Blanc, provost of the same church, at the command of Gilles de Septres, bishop of Toulon, endeavoured in the year 1618, not without labour, to purge of its faults and to bring to the norm prescribed by the council of Trent, as he himself testifies in the Dedicatory Letter to the praised bishop given in the year 1618. Which errors, however, were then removed from that Office I cannot declare, since I do not have it at hand, and it does not seem worth while to search for it again and again. This one thing I can assert, that that Office was not so happily emended by the praised Dom Antoine du Blanc that the Lessons composed by him do not here and there need either animadversion or the sponge, as will be shown in its place in the course of this Commentary: although the effort of a man well deserving of the Saint ought not to lack its praise, who, since after the diligence applied in investigating the genuine Acts of the Saint he had found little or nothing about him among the chronicle-writers, as he himself confesses, published only those things which he seemed to himself to have drawn from approved authors as either certain or conformable to truth. And behold that present-day Office, which the most praiseworthy Dom de Brantes, written out with his own hand, most courteously sent to us.

OFFICE OF ST. CYPRIAN, BISHOP OF TOULON AND CONFESSOR.

Antiphons at both vespers and at lauds.

[11] The day of gladness is at hand, the palaces of heaven lie open, purged in the year 1618 of many faults, is presented. To the Doctor of the new grace new glory is conferred. Free from the prison-house of the flesh, now with the shepherd's reward He possesses the pasture of heaven, and is illustrious in the doctor's seat. Living, he shines with grace; after the end of labour, a twofold Glory, of life and of honour at once, the Saint rejoices in. O holy Father, bestow a blessing on your sons, Obtain for us salvation, the fullness of grace. Consort of the spirits of heaven, loving Father of the wretched, Receive now the just vows of your own who pray.

Chapter from the common of a Confessor Pontiff.

Hymn.

Light of the eternal light, Jesus, faith of those who believe, And hope of those who hope in thee. We ask thee for the light of heaven, By which light we honour the light, By which, through thy grace, once Our church shone forth. O how great a light from the ether Flashes, from so holy a star, By which, under thy auspices, is illumined Cyprian the pontiff! He, having discharged the sacred summit, Now with radiant head, After he has ascended the ether, Glitters among the stars. Grant that she whom he lit with his rays May now be propped up by his protection, And may the prayers of the Prelate commend Her whom he protected with his mitre. To the unbegotten Parent, To the only-begotten Son, To the proceeding Spirit Be praise, to the three; to the one Deity. Amen.

℣. Pray for us, Blessed Cyprian, etc.

Antiphon at the Magnificat.

O excellent Shepherd, doctor of truth, Thou rule of justice, judge of equity, Mirror of purity, guardian of holiness, Lead us to the kingdom of glory with the Blessed.

PRAYER.

Be propitious, we beseech thee, Lord God almighty, to our prayers through the glorious merits of St. Cyprian, thy confessor and pontiff of the people of Toulon, that by his pious intercession we may always be protected here and everywhere from all adversities. Through the Lord

At Matins

Invitatory from the common, and Hymn as at first Vespers.

Antiphon. Cyprian, a most excellent man, most faithful in Christ, Disciple of Caesarius, becomes his inseparable companion And keeps his admonitions. The humble people of Toulon, now with pure and suppliant heart, Prays and beseeches thee that it may have thee as patron And feel the power of one who prays. Merciful Father, give salvation to your wretched sons, And obtain virtue resisting vices.

Lessons of the 1st Nocturn: FIDELIS SERMO, from the common of Pontiffs.

℞ I. Under the great father Caesarius the most excellent Man serves as a soldier Responsories and Versicles of the same kind. And, most holy in mind, following his paths. ℣. Taught by the converse of so great a Father, he shines with the eloquence of the sacred word, Like a light not covered by a bushel. Following his paths. ℞ II. The seed of the word, which he reaped, he afterwards scattered more abundantly, And the reward which he merited he now enjoys more happily. ℣. After labours he possesses rest in heaven, beholding the face of God, A servant so faithful. He now enjoys more happily. ℞ III. When thou didst ascend the summits of the heavens, after the contests of the world were overcome, The glad columns of the Saints run, they sing sweet songs. ℣. O Senator of the heavenly court, be mindful of thy household. The glad columns of the Saints run, they sing sweet songs.

In the other Nocturns all from the common.

LESSON IV

From book 1 of the Life of Blessed Caesarius of Arles, in Surius.

[15] Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, exceedingly learned in human and divine letters, From the Saint's proper Lessons are related his upbringing, his diaconate; flourished in the times of the emperors Anastasius, Justin and Justinian, and of Clovis, king of the Franks, and of Childebert his son. From his earliest age he adhered to blessed Caesarius, bishop of Arles, the first book of whose Life he described in a simple but nevertheless ornate style, where, after the narration of the war which was waged between Alaric, king of the Goths, and the aforesaid Clovis, who killed Alaric himself in the war in the year five hundred and nine: "Today," he says, "the city of Arles obeys Childebert, king of the Franks, son of Clovis." And, speaking of blessed Caesarius and of himself: "Woe," he says, "to me, wretched Cyprian, who was so tepid in learning that now I both recognize and grieve that I have not drawn from the richness of so great a fountain as much as my dryness demanded." And when the province of Narbonne was labouring under the heretical plague of the Arians, having been made deacon by blessed Caesarius, he followed him in the synod of Agde, which was celebrated in the time of Alaric, king of the Goths.

LESSON V.

[16] And when Mendrianus and Flavianus, noble soldiers from the parts of Saxony, still worshipping false gods, his promotion to the episcopate, had come into the camp of King Alaric to fight against Clovis, king of the Franks; and one day had heard blessed Cyprian publicly disputing about the true religion in the presence of the aforesaid Alaric, pricked in heart, converted and penitent, instructed in the faith by him, baptized and absolved from their sins, they followed him as far as Toulon, and there by the sea led the eremitical life after the manner of anchorites. Cyprian, therefore, keeping the admonitions of blessed Caesarius his preceptor, having been taken up to the episcopal office and made his companion, was present with him at many councils, especially at the second council of Orange, which was celebrated on the fifth Nones of July, the most illustrious man Decius the Younger being consul, in the year of the Lord five hundred and twenty-nine.

LESSON VI

[17] and a holy death after many things splendidly done. And when the prelates of Christ dwelling near the Isère, gathered by the love of charity, had assembled in the city of Valence, whither blessed Caesarius, on account of infirmity, could not hasten as he had planned, he nevertheless sent most excellent men from among the bishops, with presbyters and deacons, among whom Cyprian also, prelate of Toulon, shone forth great and illustrious, confirming all that he said by the divine Scriptures and proving it by the most ancient institutions of the Fathers: to whom blessed Caesarius bequeathed by testament his better mantle and girdle. Cyprian himself was also present, with Atilius, bishop of Vaison, at the fourth council of Orléans, in the time of Pelagius the first, supreme Pontiff, and of the same Childebert, king of the Franks, in the year of the Lord five hundred and fifty, and the thirty-sixth of Childebert himself. After these things Cyprian, celebrated for his life, skilled in doctrine and proved in the holiness of religion, watching over the flock committed to him by the Lord, fed it by word and example, and after many labours endured for his * sheep, fell asleep in the Lord on the fifth Nones of October.

In the III Nocturn, Homily from the common of doctors.

Hymn at Lauds.

By the reward of blood agreed upon, Hear, O Christ, from heaven The laments of our groaning. The snares of the enemy press upon us, Noxious plagues run riot, But amid these perils Our crimes weigh more heavily. Through this hard exile, The help which we seek Grant to us who supplicate, Grant to the prayers of Cyprian. This good Shepherd of the people, Glory of the clergy, light of the age, Instructed them in holy manners, Helped them, adorned them with gifts. He scattered the darkness of falsehood, Spurned the allurements of the flesh And the vain glory of the world, Overcame the pride of the enemy. He being suppliant for us, Look upon our evils, Snatch us from perils, Loose us from the bonds of sin. To the unbegotten Parent, etc.

Antiphon at the Benedictus. Splendour of mind, nobility of flesh, grace of manners and freeborn dignity; light of doctrine, the equity of a shepherd, and wonderful charity adorn the just man.

Antiphon at the Magnificat at 2nd Vespers. The sun risen of divine grace, the gift given to the city of Toulon, Cyprian, the humble people praises, and prays to God with suppliant mind.

* perhaps "suis" [his]?

§ II. Inquiry is made into the Saint's fatherland and noble lineage.

St. Cyprian, not at Arles, as some would have it, It usually comes about through the celebrity of a distinguished Man that, when undoubted documents about his fatherland are not brought forward, various cities vie in claiming him for themselves and making him their citizen. To say nothing of Homer, what we read happened in the case of SS. Laurence, the empress Helena, Jerome, Ambrose and other men illustrious for holiness, in a not very dissimilar manner two cities contend about Cyprian's fatherland; for the people of Arles say he is their citizen, while the people of Marseilles proclaim him to be theirs. The authors of the Literary History of France, tome 3, page 237, relate that the fatherland and family of St. Cyprian are unexplored; yet they seem to incline to making him of Arles. "The presumption," they say in the cited place, "favours the people of Arles": which opinion indeed I think pleases them on this head, that our Saint had been enrolled in the clergy of Arles before he was raised to the chair of Toulon. But the matter is not proved from this, since it was nowhere forbidden at this time to bishops, still less to metropolitans, to bind to their own church by sacred ordination laymen born in another diocese, and especially in a suffragan one, as Louis Thomassin shows at length, On the old and new Discipline of the Church, part 2, book 1, chapter 3. So that Cyprian could easily have been enrolled in the clergy of Arles by St. Caesarius even if he had not been of Arles by origin or domicile.

[20] The people of Marseilles fight to snatch Cyprian from the people of Arles, but was born at Marseilles of a noble family, and, relying on records ancient, as indeed it seems to them, make this Saint their countryman, asserting his father, the name of his family and other circumstances as certain and established. The praised Guesnay leads their column, Annals of Marseilles, page 198, and page 601, where he intrepidly maintains that our Saint was born at Marseilles of the illustrious family of Monteolinus, commonly Montolicus or de Montolion, now in French de Montolieu, of his father Julius. There would be, I confess, no room for doubting about the name of his lineage if Gennadius and Messianus had really published those testimonies about St. Cyprian which Guesnay, Annals of Marseilles, page 609, asserts are extant in them, and which he presents thus: "Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, a man splendid in holiness and virtue, wrote with great learning and grace two books on the state of monks, three books On the praises of the Church, also some Works on the creation of the world, which two I heard from himself and saw at Marseilles… We have read the books which you sent to us … without the author's name, but I think these Works were made by Cyprian de Montolio, who is splendid in learning." Thus Gennadius, if we believe Guesnay, chapter 86 or 88, and chapter 95. And Messianus, on the same witness, wrote this of Cyprian in book 2 On the Illustrious Men of the Church, chapter 10: "But much more also the noble Ecclesiastical writers, namely Venantius Fortunatus … Cyprian de Montolino, an illustrious man of Marseilles." The founder of the Annals of Marseilles, a man certainly not bad, may have related these things in the best faith; but Gennadius could not have written these things about Cyprian the bishop, who, according to the chronology received today by the learned, ceased to live towards the end of the V century, or easily 15 years before Cyprian became bishop. As regards Messianus, either he never published a book On Ecclesiastical Writers, or at least this Work of Messianus, if it ever existed, has escaped the eyes of the learned for many centuries back. Some spurious offspring of Gennadius and Messianus beyond doubt deceived Guesnay, whose defect was hidden from him either by an excessive love of adorning Marseilles or by a not sufficiently frequent use of the critical art.

[21] besides a certain anonymous writer, of whose For the rest, Guesnay makes as surety for his assertion a certain anonymous writer, whose writing, he relates, pages 198, 211, 212 and 313, was both approved and sealed by Bishop Desiderius and the whole clergy of Toulon in the year 570, and held in the greatest esteem in the year 1096 by Guibert, count of Provence, on account of its antiquity and truth; where he also presents those instruments by which he contends that the greatest credence is to be given to this anonymous writer. But weighty reasons deter me from agreeing with Guesnay. And first, indeed, I do not deny that in the year 570 Desiderius was bishop of Toulon; I also admit that, as the XI century was drawing to its end, there existed Gilbert or Guibert, count of Provence, and that some old manuscript volume could have been shown to him; but that it was genuine, and that very one which Guesnay reported at pages 198 and 212, I cannot but deny, since in the VI century years were not reckoned in public instruments from the Nativity of the Lord, nor does this phrase savour of the VI century: "In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, of his Nativity 570"; and finally since at that time the figures which we call Arabic ciphers were most certainly not used, which were adopted by notaries or public writers only many centuries afterwards, as Papebroch shows in tome III of May, in the preliminary Treatise On the Bishops and Patriarchs of Jerusalem, pages LV, LVI and LVII. And although public instruments were written in former times also for the perpetual memory of a matter, yet that in the VI century these phrases, "For the perpetual memory of the matter," "in the present public instrument," and others of the kind, were by no means in use, no one fails to see who knows even slightly the elements of the diplomatic art. I pass over that ridiculous subscription of the Life by Peiro Vasqui, bishop of Toulon, and Jean Belline, collector of these summaries; I pass over here also various anachronisms and historical errors, to be refuted below in their places.

[22] credibility he discourses, These things seem to me to suffice for pronouncing, with Le Cointe and Baillet, that those codices which Guesnay thought very ancient and authentic are far more recent, nay, in Le Cointe's judgment, of no credibility, namely, as I judge, when they relate things which cannot be derived from elsewhere, either from approved historians or from ancient tradition or solid reasons. These things having been premised about the authority of the anonymous writer, let us hear him describing the birth of our Saint. "Cyprian," he says, Annals of Marseilles, page 198, "full of virtue and splendid, was famous from the time of Anastasius, Justin and Justinian, and of Clovis, the first of the name king of the Franks; he was born at Marseilles of the illustrious family of Monteolinus, commonly Montolicus, of his father Julius." Prettily indeed! As if at that time, when similar family surnames were wholly unusual in Gaul, the surname of Monteolinus or Montolicus had been given to Cyprian's father or family by a special prerogative! Our Papebroch, tome IV of May, page 12, Mabillon, du Cange and Ludovico Muratori, Italian Antiquities, tome 3, Dissertation 41, page 721, have demonstrated that names of this kind were unknown not only in the time of the first and second race of the Franks but also in the beginnings of the third; and, on the testimony of Muratori in the place cited, it is to be held almost immediately as an argument of falsity if any charter written before the thousandth year is brought out which the surnames of our age adorn or burden. The anonymous writer therefore deserves no credence when he asserts that the family from which he narrates Cyprian came forth was in the VI century called Monteolina or commonly Montolica.

[23] Yet I would not on that account deny as false that St. Cyprian drew his origin from the same family which long afterwards, the proper Offices assert say in the XI century or the following ones, bore the name of Montholica. If the anonymous writer and Guesnay contended only this, they would have no one of the learned contradicting them; nay, they could defend their opinion by testimonies not to be despised, though by no means contemporary. That our Saint sprang from a noble stock is hinted by the Office of St. Cyprian emended in the year 1618 by command of the bishop of Toulon, in which, in the Antiphon at the Benedictus, he is said to have been distinguished by splendour of mind and nobility of flesh. The proper Offices of the holy church of Marseilles agree, published at Marseilles in the year 1662 by the work and zeal of the venerable Chapter of the cathedral church and furnished with the approval and authority of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Étienne de Puget, bishop of Marseilles, where at page 194, in the title of the proper Office, our Saint is found surnamed Cyprian de Monte Olivo, not indeed in the opinion of the anonymous writer and Guesnay, which we have just shown to be false, but in the sense just set out by us.

[24] Among other more recent writers, to whom, however, while they are not supported by the authority of the ancients, and various more recent authors, little deference is owed in the subject matter, Claude Robert favours this opinion in his Gallia Christiana, where in the Catalogue of the bishops of Toulon he has this: "Cyprian … he is, as I think, the one who is called Saint … of the family afterwards named Montholia (Montholieu)." Honoré Bouche, Chorography and chronological History of Provence, tome 1, page 645, asserts in explicit words that St. Cyprian was born of the family of Monteolinus or Montolieu: nor does Denis de Sainte-Marthe deny him the aforesaid illustrious lineage, tome 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana. You have his words at column 745: "Pons Rausin in the year MCCV translated with solemn rite into the cathedral church the relics of St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, which had lately been found in an old chapel of the episcopal buildings, and had been enclosed in a silver casket at the expense both of the bishop and chapter and of the lords de Montolieu of Marseilles, who say they are of the family of St. Cyprian. Honoré Bouche relates these things in book VII of the History." So the praised Sainte-Marthe; and the aforesaid Bouche adds, tome 2 of the chronological History, book 9, page 195, that the lords de Montolieu hold from tradition that this Saint is of their family: but let us weigh how ancient this tradition is.

[25] It is hitherto unknown to me in what century that tradition at length began to prevail; whose opinion an instrument of the XIII century favours; but that it was firmly established even from the beginning of the XIII century is proved from the public instrument by which the above-praised Pons Rausin, bishop of Toulon, the (devotion) of the noble Monteolini towards their holy Kinsman

liberality he wished to be attested and recompensed. I do not think it necessary to report it entire here; lest I be too long, I transcribe the words which pertain to this from Guesnay's Annals of Marseilles at the year 1205, page 341: "Be it known … that … we grant … a perpetual privilege to the said de Monteolivo (the brothers John and Vincent) in remuneration of three hundred coins, which were given by them for the construction of the head of St. Cyprian de Monteolivo, of their kindred" (that is, their kinsman, or, as they say in French, qui est de leurs parens)… "Which three hundred gold coins the said de Monteolivo gave for the construction of the said head of St. Cyprian in gold and silver … on account of which, for their life and that of their descendants with them, satisfaction ought to be made; at the next feast of St. Cyprian, to the said nobles de Monteolivo and to others who shall follow them by disposition of life, we grant a perpetual degree of honour on account of their nobility, that the said John and Vincent de Monteolivo and theirs, in the procession or feast of St. Cyprian to be instituted and made by us around the city with a lamp of white wax , they and all who shall come on their part, ought to walk behind the same body of St. Cyprian, beginning at the following feast of the same and others. The same they ought to do in celebrating the high Mass, on account of and in memory of St. Cyprian, which privilege indeed is communicated both on our part and on the part of the said canons."

[26] yet this is not historically certain. The prerogatives granted by this instrument, on the testimony of Honoré Bouche, tome 2, page 991, were enjoyed in the year 1655, and beyond doubt are enjoyed even now, by the same title of kinship and pious liberality, by that illustrious family of the Monteolivi, very greatly devoted to St. Cyprian from ancestral piety, a specimen of which was given by Antoine de Felix, praised at number 6, who declared that he was a kinsman of our Saint on the side of his mother Marguerite de Montolieu, and caused his cult to be restored at Marseilles. Since, therefore, against the testimonies thus far adduced for the noble family of the Saint no document, so far as I know, either old or recent, can be opposed by which that tradition might either be convicted of falsity or be dislodged from the seat of its long possession, it would not be fair to snatch from the distinguished family of the Monteolivi their Kinsman and from the people of Marseilles their Countryman. It must be confessed, however, that the testimonies which tell for these things do not have such strength as to render the native soil and lineage of St. Cyprian historically certain. It would therefore have been honourable to the people of Marseilles if, using the occasion given of writing about him, they had published instruments venerable for credibility and antiquity, supported by which every prudent writer could have asserted the illustrious family and fatherland of the Saint without fear of error. For as, what was said long ago, it is the part of an envious man to take away from the Saints their true nobility, and of an idle and vain one to attribute a false one; so it is the part of a moderate and fair critic not to assert confidently, without ancient documents of entire credibility, the noble birth and certain fatherland of the Saints.

* facienda to be made

* cum cereo albo with a white taper

* possint procedere may proceed

* facere ipsis licet it is permitted them to do

§ III. Chronological-historical series of the things done by the Saint up to his episcopate.

St. Cyprian, having been taught human letters by his father, as is reported, About the year of St. Cyprian's birth on earth, his instruction and the things done before his episcopate, there is the utmost silence of contemporary and nearly contemporary authors. The aforesaid anonymous writer, and J.-B. Guesnay following his credit, declare that he was instructed by his father in Latin, Greek and Hebrew letters; and Guesnay adds, page 601, that he shortly attained such knowledge of all great things and arts that by the zeal and effort of St. Caesarius, archbishop of Arles, he was promoted to the place of Gratian, prelate of Toulon, deceased, and to the most lofty seat of honour and dignity. I shall readily believe, with the emender of the Office of Toulon, that Cyprian was exceedingly learned in human and divine letters; nay, I would not dare to deny that besides Latin he was also versed in the Greek language; since St. Jerome, in the Proem of book 2 on the Epistle to the Galatians, relates from Varro that the people of Marseilles were once trilingual and spoke Greek, Latin and Gaulish: and that the use of these languages remained down to the sixth century among the people of Arles (and why not also among the neighbouring people of Marseilles?) even among laymen and plebeians is evident from the Life of St. Caesarius, which is extant among us in tome VI of August, page 64 and following, number 15, where these things are read of Caesarius: "He added also and compelled that the lay populace should learn psalms and hymns, and with loud and modulated voice, after the manner of clerics, some in Greek, some in Latin, should sing proses and antiphons, so that they might have no space in the church to be occupied with idle tales." Nor is it very unlike the truth that he learned the Hebrew language; for although at the end of the V century the study of letters had not moderately collapsed in Gaul, yet, since in these times many Hebrews seem to have lived at Marseilles, some special reason either of necessity or of utility could have moved Cyprian's father to learn this language himself, and either to teach it to his Son himself or to have him taught by others.

[28] However it may be with that knowledge of various languages he learned divine (letters) under St. Caesarius; which St. Cyprian is said to have received from his parent, St. Caesarius certainly contributed very much to his instruction in divine letters and precepts, which becomes plain from book 1 of the mentioned Life, among us number 40, and in Mabillon number 30, where Cyprian, out of his modesty, complains that he had not made under St. Caesarius such progress as he believed he ought to have made under so illustrious a preceptor. "Woe to me, wretched Cyprian," he exclaims, "who have been so tepid in learning that now I recognize and repent it! Why did I not draw from the stream of so great a fountain as much as my dryness needed?" That our Saint was a disciple of St. Caesarius, praised above, is likewise affirmed with good right by Denis de Sainte-Marthe in the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tome 1, column 741, by the writers of the Literary History of France, tome 3, page 237, and by not a few others, with whom the proper Office of Toulon wholly agrees, where in the 1st Antiphon at Matins he is called "most faithful in Christ, Disciple and inseparable Companion of Caesarius," to whom, as is related in Lesson IV, he adhered from his earliest age.

[29] The words adduced in the last place, however, give birth to a difficulty. but about the time For if St. Cyprian did not begin to adhere to St. Caesarius until the latter had already been created bishop, he will surely not be said, except quite improperly, to have adhered to him from his earliest age. For, as was shown among us at the XXVII day of August, page 52, St. Caesarius was ordained bishop in the year of Christ 502; and since our Saint was consecrated deacon by St. Caesarius in the year of Christ 505 or 506, as we shall show at number 33, it follows that in the first year of St. Caesarius's episcopate, or the year of Christ 502, he counted about twenty-seven years. For although the prelate of Arles did not prescribe to other bishops the law which he had made for himself, yet he had himself determined never to ordain a deacon in his church before the thirtieth year of his age, as is asserted in the cited Life of St. Caesarius, book 1, number 43 among us. But who, preserving the propriety of words, would say that a disciple adhered to his master from his earliest age who began to commit himself to his discipline when about twenty-seven years old?

[30] and the place, Nor again would I think that Cyprian was his disciple at the time when St. Caesarius was living in the monastery of Lérins. For besides its being manifest from his aforesaid Life that St. Caesarius, while he was in the monastery of Lérins, was quite young, inasmuch as he is there called only a youth, the Life, already so often mentioned, makes it undoubted that no other office was committed to him by his abbot Porcarius than that he should have the care of the store-room, or act as cellarer, and that, having afterwards been removed from this office, he so macerated himself by the longed-for assiduity of reading, psalm-singing, praying and keeping vigil that, seized with illness, he had at length to be sent back to Arles for the sake of recovering his health. It does not become likely, therefore, that St. Caesarius, at that same time when he himself, still a youth, was applying himself to religious perfection under Abbot Porcarius, had our Cyprian or other disciples under him whom he might imbue with the institutes of regular discipline. What of the fact that it cannot be derived from anywhere, even by conjecture, that our Saint ever saw the monastery of Lérins, still less stayed there under anyone's discipline?

[31] where he learned these is not so clearly established: Accordingly, if St. Cyprian did in fact adhere to St. Caesarius as a disciple from his earliest age, one may suspect that towards the end of the V century, when St. Caesarius began to preside over the monks on the island of the Rhône, being zealous for evangelical perfection, having heard of the virtues of the illustrious man, he subjected himself to his discipline at that time, being about twenty-two years old, and from that time adhered to him as an inseparable companion and faithful disciple, until, Caesarius himself having been raised in the year 502 to the chair of Arles, he himself was afterwards established in the see of Toulon, in which, treading in the footsteps of his preceptor, he retained the same norm of religious life which he had learned: and, as the lower clergy often strive to conform themselves to the manners of their prelate, he had in so holy a kind of life various clerics of his diocese as diligent imitators of his virtues and kind of life; whence also perhaps in later times St. Cyprian was believed to have been an abbot. These things, as they are not foreign to the truth, if they in fact hold good (for who would dare to assert similar things without a surety or ancient witness?), it will be easy to understand that that Cyprian the abbot, a native of Marseilles, whom du Saussay without any testimony makes different from ours, is wholly the same as the Bishop of Toulon, who exercised among the people of Toulon the mastership of a religious life truly worthy of a prelate, made a teacher of all evangelical perfection as much by word as by work. These things are so much the more probable, and tell so much the more strongly against du Saussay, in that antiquity nowhere, so far as I at least know, has mentioned that different Cyprian, abbot of Toulon; nor is any monastery which he could have ruled read to have existed then in that city.

[32] yet this seems to have happened at Arles. Nevertheless, since nothing compels us to insist so strictly on the alleged words of the Office of Toulon, what if we lay down that our Cyprian committed himself to the discipline of St. Caesarius not so much at the beginning as in the advance of his age, or in about the twenty-seventh year of his age, namely when the latter, given as prelate to the people of Arles, gave himself wholly (as his Life has it, number 13) to the word of God and to reading, and to unresting preaching as well, and, as is said there at number 40, when in discoursing on the Scriptures and in elucidating the obscurities

he shone forth; so that Cyprian, together with Firminus and Viventius, afterwards bishops, Messianus the presbyter, Stephen the deacon and other men famous for piety and learning, was by far the more illustrious part of the pupils whom the prelate of Arles, a school having been set up in the episcopal house, diligently instructed in the cultivation of the virtues and in the sacred Scriptures. On which matter see more in tome 3 of the Literary History of France, page 23, and in Thomassin, On the old and new Discipline of the Church, part 2, book 1, chapter 93. Certainly with this opinion the very words of St. Cyprian at the cited number 40 agree exactly, where, after he had set out the episcopal gifts of St. Caesarius, his zeal in teaching and discoursing, and his manner of questioning his hearers, he subjoins: "Woe to me, wretched Cyprian, who have been so tepid in learning that now I recognize and repent it!"

[33] And this indeed Cyprian (says) out of his humility, Consecrated deacon by St. Caesarius in the 30th year of his age, who nevertheless had made such remarkable progress in virtue and sacred learning under so great a master that the latter, since he laid hands on no one but a man thirty years old and adorned with great skill in the sacred Scriptures, created him deacon, and wished him to be present with him at the synod of Agde, over which he was to preside with the authority of metropolitan. Hear on this matter the Breviary of Toulon, Lesson IV: "Having been made deacon by blessed Caesarius, he followed him in the synod of Agatha (in French d'Agde), which was celebrated in the time of Alaric, king of the Goths." Since, therefore, this council, as its title in Labbe, tome 4, column 1381, bears, was celebrated on the day III Ides of September, Messala, a man most illustrious, being consul, that is, in the year of Christ DVI, the XXII of Alaric, king of the Goths in Gaul, the VIII of Pope Symmachus, this epoch, provided Lesson IV of Toulon relates the truth, can serve us to dig out in some manner the year of St. Cyprian's birth on earth, which no authentic documents, those at least which it has been possible to obtain, expressly mark. For if Cyprian was present at the aforesaid synod with the prelate of Arles, his master, having been consecrated deacon in the same or perhaps the preceding year, then, a subtraction of thirty years being made backwards, it comes out that he first drew breath about the year 475 or 476, since St. Caesarius, as was said above, did not ordain deacons younger than thirty years.

[34] Not in like manner can we reach from anywhere by conjecture the year in which he was consecrated bishop. Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tome 1 of Gallia Christiana, column 741, afterwards he is established by him as bishop of Toulon; treating of his assumption to the episcopate, makes no mention of the year in which this happened. The writers of the Literary History of France, tome 3, page 237, assert that he was created bishop before the month of June of the year 524. And certainly the beginning of his episcopate cannot be deferred beyond this time, since it is beyond controversy that in that year he subscribed to the IV council of Arles. Baillet, tome 3, at the III day of October, ties his episcopal ordination to about the year 516; Guesnay, however, Annals of Marseilles, page 198, to about the year 511. Since, therefore, various persons think so variously on this matter, or rather assert it by conjecture, we too are not forbidden to contribute our share, and to declare here what seems to us more probable in an uncertain matter. If in fact after Gratian, bishop of Toulon, who, as Gallia Christiana relates in the place cited, fell as a martyr about the year 472, no one was raised to that see, as at least no one in between Gratian and St. Cyprian is found in any Catalogues of the bishops of Toulon, what forbids us to believe that St. Caesarius, metropolitan of Provence, even before the year 516, say in the year 510, in which Arles had been freed from the peril of siege, out of his zeal for feeding the sheep, gave the people of Toulon their own shepherd, and raised St. Cyprian, instructed in his school in the government of souls, to the chair of Toulon as soon as he could according to the prescription of the Church and judged it opportune?

[35] [not before the war between Clovis and Alaric, as the anonymous writer would have it,] Here, it seems to me, the anonymous writer, already so often cited, must be taken to task, when he asserts that our Saint was placed in the see of Toulon before the time when the war arose between Clovis, king of the Franks, and Alaric, king of the Goths. Let us hear him speaking: "When he had returned to Arles, Caesarius gives up to him (St. Cyprian) the bishopric of Toulon… but a little afterwards, Clovis, king of the Franks, fighting with Alaric, king of the Goths, etc." By which words he puts the dissensions and the decisive battle between these kings after the beginning of St. Cyprian's episcopate; but certainly less rightly. For since the chronologers and historians of France now everywhere relate, from authors of the best repute, that Alaric was routed in battle and killed on the plains of Vouillé, not in the year of Christ 509, as the Lesson of the Office of Toulon relates, but in the year 507, it would follow that St. Cyprian, when he had scarcely been distinguished with the diaconate, was established as bishop by St. Caesarius: which is shown to be not only not likely but wholly false from the fact that our Saint, on the testimony of the anonymous writer himself, was present at the synod of Agde, celebrated on the III Ides of September of the year 506, consecrated only a deacon. There is added that he did not subscribe to the mentioned synod, as is evident in Labbe, tome 4 of the Councils, columns 1394 and 1395; although all the bishops, and the very priests and deacons delegated by absent bishops, confirmed this synod with their subscription. Guesnay without doubt noticed these things in the Annals of Marseilles, page 198; and hence, although he generally follows the anonymous writer as a faithful guide, he did not dare to cling to his footsteps here, and judged that Cyprian's episcopal ordination was to be tied to about the year 511.

[36] nor again because he successfully defended St. Caesarius, falsely accused, Nor do I agree any more with our anonymous writer when he hints that Cyprian was established as bishop by St. Caesarius for this reason, that he had vigorously conducted the cause of his metropolitan when accused of heresy before Alaric. "Which Cyprian indeed," he says, "defended the cause of Caesarius before King Alaric, who was charging him with heresy. But when he had returned to Arles, he gives up to him the bishopric of Toulon." That the prelate of Arles was accused of a grave crime by calumny three times at different times is beyond doubt; and first indeed in the year 505, or, as others would have it, in the year 506, then about the year 509, and thirdly about the year 512 or 513: how these calumnies were built by the enemies of Caesarius and repelled by him has been set out in our Work at the XXVII day of August. The aforesaid anonymous writer treats of that first accusation; but he slips when he indicates that the crime falsely charged against him was heresy, and that he was cleared of it by the work of St. Cyprian. Who would believe that the prelate of Arles was accused of heresy, certainly of none other than the Arian, which was then flourishing, before an Arian king, and on that account banished into exile at Bordeaux? Who would bring himself to think that Cyprian, the disciple of the accused bishop, before a king to whom he himself ought to have been no less suspect than his preceptor, conducted the cause of St. Caesarius so successfully and vigorously that the Arian king, moved by his reasons, sent St. Caesarius back free to his own people with much honour?

[37] Let us rather hear the course of the accusation and defence from Cyprian himself, which is proved from the Life of St. Caesarius; the biographer of St. Caesarius. In book 1, numbers 16 and 17, we read these things: "After a few days the envious adversity of the devil disturbed the tranquillity of this holy man (Caesarius): and to one against whom it had no vices of body to oppose, it objected the crime of a traitor. For after some time a certain abandoned man among the notaries of the blessed man, Licinianus by name" (whom Sigonius, On the Western Empire, book 16, number 504, calls Licumannus), "undertook to do against the apostolic man what the disciple Judas did not fear to perpetrate against our Saviour, the Son of God. For, armed with the poison of a savage accusation, he suggested through the whisperers to King Alaric that most blessed Caesarius, who had his origin from Gaul, was aiming with all his strength to subject the territory and city of Arles to the dominion of the Burgundians: when indeed that most excellent shepherd was asking of the Lord in general, on bended knees, day and night, the peace of the nations and the quiet of the cities. For which reason it is the more to be believed that the barbarian ferocity was stirred up to the exile of the holy man at the instigation of the devil… Condemned by false and illicit accusations, when he had been dragged away from Arles, he was banished as though in exile to the city of Bordeaux. But that the grace of God might not lie hidden in him, it happened by chance that one night the city was blazing with a savage fire, and the people, running together swiftly to the man of God, cried out: 'Holy Caesarius, extinguish by your prayers the raging fire.' When the man of God had heard this, moved with grief and pity, he prostrated himself in prayer in the way of the coming flame, and immediately fixed and drove back the balls of flame. Seeing which, the praise of the divine power through him was celebrated by the voices of all those running together. After this miracle he was held in such admiration by all that in the same city he was held not only as a priest but as an apostle, and the author of the persecution, that is, the devil, was confounded, who saw him whom he had striven to assert guilty eminent in the miracles of divine working. That it was so done we have ascertained by faithful reckoning." So Cyprian himself.

[38] Then in the same place he goes on to prove how falsely is proved; the crime not of heresy, as the anonymous writer would have it, but of treason was cast upon St. Caesarius; and at length he subjoins: "After these things, the innocence of the blessed man having been ascertained" (which, namely, not Cyprian's patronage but St. Caesarius's integrity of manners, holiness of life and so conspicuous a miracle could not fail to make evident to King Alaric), "he (Alaric) requests that the holy prelate (Caesarius) should return to his former church and present himself to the city and likewise to the clergy; and the king ordered his accuser to be stoned; but the most excellent prelate withdrew this unworthy notary of his from the death he had deserved." Cyprian narrates these things in book 1 of the Life of St. Caesarius, numbers 17 and 18. From which it is plain to the eye how much our anonymous writer was deluded when he relates that Caesarius was accused of heresy by calumny, and invents that Cyprian was raised by him to the chair of Toulon for having vigorously defended this cause of his master. Nor shall I be induced by Baillet either, although in assigning the crime charged against him by calumny he agrees with the Biographer of Caesarius, to believe him when he asserts, without witness or surety, that it was brought about by Cyprian's eloquence and effort that Alaric recalled the innocent prelate of Arles from exile to his own see. Certainly neither a trace nor a shadow of a patronage so successfully undertaken by St. Cyprian is found in the Life of St. Caesarius or in any trustworthy instrument; nor by Firminus or Viventius, who otherwise wove a magnificent eulogy of our Saint, (is) anything similar

has been handed down in writing. Carlo Sigonio, On the Western Empire, is likewise silent about a defence of this kind, both in book 16, number 504, and elsewhere; nay, the emender of the Office of Toulon, otherwise by no means sparing in relating things done by St. Cyprian, has not even one word on that matter.

[39] nor does he seem to have disputed about religion before King Alaric. No less deep is the silence of the ancient writers about the public disputation which St. Cyprian is said to have held about the true Religion before the same King Alaric, in Lesson V of the Office of Toulon, expressed in these words: "And when Mendrianus and Flavianus, noble soldiers from the parts of Saxony, still worshipping false gods, had come into the camp of King Alaric to fight against Clovis, king of the Franks; and one day had heard blessed Cyprian publicly disputing about the true religion in the presence of the aforesaid Alaric, pricked in heart, converted and penitent … they followed him as far as Toulon, and there by the sea led the eremitical life after the manner of anchorites." That this Alaric was not very hostile to his Catholic subjects, provided they plotted nothing against the Arians, is well enough known; but no one will persuade me without weighty reason or authority that he was so cold a defender of the Arian dogma that he either permitted a foreign deacon, nay a priest if you will, to dispute publicly and in his presence about the Catholic religion at Toulouse, which was the capital of his kingdom; or, what is still less credible, that the king himself, having gone to Arles, where Cyprian was living, not only encouraged him by his presence while disputing, but also allowed his soldiers, converted by him to the Catholic faith, to be led away into the desert, especially at that time when he had no small fear of Clovis, king of the Franks. And these are the reasons why, before number 34 in this chronological series of events, I have granted no place to that public disputation asserted in the Office of Toulon.

§ IV. Continuation of the same chronological-historical series, in which especially the councils at which the Saint was present and which he subscribed are enumerated.

He was present at various councils: at the 4th of Arles, There seems to be no doubt that our holy Prelate, of whose deeds splendidly done in the episcopate the ancients have left us only a few, showed himself to the church an example of good works, made a pattern of the flock, and embraced the faithful word which is according to doctrine, that he might be able to exhort in sound doctrine and not without fruit to refute those who then chiefly contradicted, the Arians and the followers of Pelagius. That he was a vigorous and most keen defender of the Catholic faith and of ecclesiastical discipline is proved by the quite numerous councils at which he was present and which he subscribed. To our purpose the emended Breviary of Toulon speaks thus of him, Lesson V: "With him (St. Caesarius) he was present at many councils, especially the second of Orange." Likewise the Paris Martyrology at the III day of October testifies that he was present at the fourth of Arles, the second of Orange and others. Of these we shall here treat in particular. And the first council indeed at which St. Cyprian, already made bishop, was present and which he subscribed was the fourth of Arles (in French d'Arles), which was called the third by Baronius, but, with better right and deservedly, the fourth by Labbe, Sirmond, Pagi, Hardouin and others, from a collation of most ancient manuscripts.

[41] Nor can it here be objected from Baronius at the year of Christ 453 celebrated in the year 524; that St. Cyprian, who above at number 33 is laid down to have been born about the year 475, could not have been present at this council, celebrated, as this writer would have it, in the year 453. For that would be clearer than light, if Baronius had written rightly in this matter. But this most learned founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals erred when he referred this council, which he had read was celebrated in the consulship of Opilio, to the year of Christ 453, in which year a certain Opilio held the consulship with Vincomalus. But, admonished of the anachronism by our Sirmond, the Cardinal, most loving of the truth, acknowledged that this synod of Arles was held in the consulship of Justin Augustus for the second time and Opilio, that is, in the year of Christ 524, and taught that this council of Arles and the others over which … Caesarius presided … were thenceforth to be recalled from those seats in which they had been wrongly placed to their own, as Sirmond relates, tome 4 of the Councils, columns 1625 and 1626. Honoré Bouche and the Benedictines who published the Literary History of France are also mistaken: the former indeed when he asserts in his Chorography and chronological History of Provence, tome 1, page 634, that Cyprian was present at the fifth council of Arles; the latter when they assert, tome 3, page 237, that he was present at the sixth of Arles. The title of the mentioned council in Labbe, tome 4 of the Councils, column 1622, is given in these words: "Fourth Council of Arles. Constitution of the holy bishops who assembled in the city of Arles for the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary on the VIII Ides of June, Opilio, a man most illustrious, being consul," that is, in the year of Christ DXXIV, the second of Pope John, the XXXII of Theodoric, king of Italy. Four canons pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline were enacted in it, which see, if you please, in the praised Labbe, tome 4, columns 1622 and 1623. To these our Saint subscribed in the eighth place after his Metropolitan in these words: "I, Cyprian, bishop, have consented and subscribed."

[42] Three years after the IV of Arles, that is, in the year of Christ 527, Cyprian was present at the council of Carpentras (in French de Carpentras), whose title is read thus in Labbe, the cited tome 4, at that of Carpentras in the year 527; column 1663: "Council of Carpentras. Constitution of the holy bishops of the council of Carpentras, on the day VIII Ides of November, Mavortius, a man most illustrious, being consul," that is, in the year of Christ DXXVII, the 2nd of Pope Felix IV, the 2nd of Athalaric, king of Italy. To this synod, from whose Acts this alone is found to have been sanctioned, how much and in what manner the bishop may take from the goods offered to a parish church, St. Cyprian subscribed in the antepenultimate place in this manner: "I, Cyprian, a sinner, have consented and subscribed." But the letter of the same synod to Agroecius, bishop of Antibes, our Saint signed first after Caesarius in these words: "I, Cyprian, bishop, have subscribed." One may suspect that this honour was accorded him perhaps for this reason, that in this cause of Agroecius he had shown himself, beyond others, strong and constant in urging the observance of the decreed laws. Certainly some cause must have underlain why the Fathers of Carpentras fortified with their subscription the synod and then the synodal letter in so different an order among themselves; but who could declare this for certain?

[43] at the II, otherwise III, of Vaison, in the year 529, in the month of November, For the rest, although (as the Addition from the codex of Lyons to the Constitution of the bishops of the council of Carpentras has it) it had also pleased the aforesaid Fathers that this be kept, that in the following year (which was 528) a council should be assembled in the village of Vaison (in French Vaison) on the eighth Ides of November, nevertheless, whether because the synod proclaimed for this year could not easily be gathered; or because nothing very much urged that it be gathered; or rather because business of graver moment, for example the questions of grace and free will, then keenly agitated, demanded the zeal and solicitude of the Fathers in preference to the constitution and perfection of ecclesiastical discipline; the council of Vaison, which with Sirmond, Pagi, Hardouin and Longueval we call the second, was deferred to the year 529 and the V day of November. The title of this council in Labbe, the cited tome 4, column 1679, is given in these words: "The III Council of Vaison" (by others, as was said above, the II) "which was celebrated in the village of Vaison in the time of Liberius, praetorian prefect and Patrician, on the Nones of November, Decius the Younger, a man most illustrious, being consul," that is, in the year of Christ DXXIX, the 4th of Pope Felix IV, the 4th of Athalaric, king of Italy. St. Cyprian subscribed to this synod also, in the third place after St. Caesarius, using quite the same words with which he had subscribed to the Constitution of the council of Carpentras, namely these: "I, Cyprian, a sinner, have consented and subscribed." See the Canons enacted in it in the cited tome 4, columns 1679 and 1680.

[44] at the 2nd of Orange, in the year 529, in the month of July, Nor did Cyprian allow himself to be missed at the 2nd council of Orange (in French d'Orange), which, as it is in the title in Labbe, cited tome, column 1666, was held on the V Nones of July, Decius the Younger, a man most illustrious, being consul, that is, in the year of Christ DXXIX, the 3rd of Pope Felix IV, the 3rd of Athalaric, king of Italy. The Fathers themselves set out the occasion of gathering the synod in the Preface, cited column 1666; and our Stilting treats of it, tome VI of August, page 57, and Longueval in the History of the Gallican church, tome 2, page 366 and following. That this was always especially celebrated, not indeed for the number of the Fathers and illustrious men who were present at it (for they were not more than twenty-one), but for the things done in it and for the crushing of the heresy of the Pelagians and Semipelagians, no historian or theologian is ignorant. To the canons enacted in it St. Cyprian subscribed in the fourth place, as can be seen in the praised Labbe, column 1672. Our Saint therefore also had his part, and that no small one, in the victory over Semipelagianism here related; and perhaps on this head he is duly saluted in the Office of Toulon, in the Antiphon at both Vespers, as Doctor of the new grace, that is, of the grace newly asserted and approved both here and in the synod of Valence.

[45] But since many rivals had arisen from the obstinate remnants of the Semipelagians who resisted the doctrine of St. Caesarius on grace, and were contriving to bring up a last engine by which they might either shake or elude the chapters of Orange, at that of Valence on the Rhône, as the year 529 was passing or in the year 530; against these was celebrated the council of Valence on the Rhône (to the French, Valence) in Viennese Gaul, as the year of Christ 529 was passing or at the beginning of the year 530, as is set out among us in tome VI of August, page 58. What was done in this synod, or what St. Cyprian accomplished in it, we can learn from nowhere else than from Firminus and Viventius, who wrote some part of the Life of Caesarius. Thus they, book 1, number 46: "Many rivals indeed arose who resisted his (St. Caesarius's) doctrine on grace. But O felicity worthy of emulation! For through whisperings and the evil interpretation of certain persons there arises in the parts of Gaul a sinister suspicion, in vain, against the preaching of the man of God. On account of this the prelates of Christ dwelling beyond the Isère (to the French, l'Isère), gathered by the love of charity, assemble in the city of Valence: whither indeed blessed Caesarius, on account of his customary infirmity, could not hasten as he had planned. He sent, however, most excellent men from among the bishops, with presbyters and deacons, among whom also holy Cyprian of Toulon shone forth great and illustrious, affirming all that he said indeed from the divine Scriptures, and proving from the most ancient institutions of the Fathers that no one can seize anything by himself in divine advances unless he has first been called by the preventing grace of God." And so indeed Cyprian

above the rest conducted the cause of the Catholic faith and of his preceptor with prosperous success and triumphed over Semipelagianism.

[46] About twelve years after the synod of Valence, and afterwards at the IV of Orléans in the year 541; St. Cyprian, together with 37 other bishops and some presbyters, was present at the IV council of Orléans (to the French, d'Orléans), and subscribed among the first in this manner: "I, Cyprian, bishop of the church of Toulon, have consented and subscribed." This council, which, as Labbe has it, tome 5 of the Councils, column 380, was celebrated three years after the III of Orléans, in the fourth Indiction, Basilius, a man most illustrious, being consul, that is, in the year of Christ DXLI, the 2nd of Pope Vigilius, the XXX of King Childebert, was the last of all which our holy Prelate, already more than sixty years old, is read to have fortified with his subscription. Of it these things are related in Lesson VI of the Office of Toulon: "Cyprian himself was also present, with Atilius, bishop of Vaison, at the fourth council of Orléans, in the time of Pelagius the first, supreme Pontiff, and of the same Childebert, king of the Franks, in the year of the Lord five hundred and fifty, and the thirty-sixth of Childebert himself." These words of the Office of Toulon, as true as they are as regards Cyprian's presence in this synod, are just as foreign to the truth as regards the circumstances and chronological characters, as it will help to have noted here in passing.

[47] I at least judge thus, that not a few errors lie in those few words of the Office of Toulon. [not, as the Lesson of the Office of Toulon has it, in the year 550 and in the time of Pope Pelagius I,] For, besides that the prelate of Vaison who was present at that synod was called not Atilius but Alethius, as is evident from his subscription in Labbe, tome 5 of the Councils, column 388, and tome 1 of Gallia Christiana, column 921, it is certainly wrongly asserted that that synod was gathered in the year of Christ 550 and in the time of Pelagius I, supreme Pontiff. For it is established that the mentioned council, as was also indicated above, was celebrated not in the year 550 but in the year 541; for, as is said in its Canon XXVII, another synod of Orléans, namely the III in order, had been gathered three years before this; and since that took place in the IV year after the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, a man most illustrious, that is, in the year of Christ DXXXVIII, the II of Pope Silverius, the XXVII of King Childebert, as can be seen in the cited tome of the Councils, columns 294 and 304, it necessarily follows that the IV of Orléans was gathered in the year of Christ 541; on which matter consult, if you please, Hardouin, tome 2 of the Councils, columns 1435 and 1436, Le Cointe, Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, tome 1, page 595, Pagi in the Critique, tome 2, page 581, number 9, Denis de Sainte-Marthe in Gallia Christiana, tome 1, column 741 and often elsewhere, the Literary History of France, tome 3, pages 185 and 238. Nor is it less certain from the ecclesiastical historians, contrary to what the author of the Office of Toulon asserts, that Pelagius I did not sit in the Roman Chair before the year of Christ 555; so that it is strange that this error could have been admitted by him, and a synod ascribed to the Pontificate of Pelagius I which preceded his assumption to the Chair of Peter by 14 years, and which therefore should have been placed under the Pontificate of Vigilius, his predecessor.

[48] nor in the 36th year of Childebert, king of the Franks. But neither did the author of the Office of Toulon more happily connect the year of the gathered synod with the 36th year of Childebert, king of the Franks. For since this king died in the year of Christ 558, as Henschenius relates from the Chronicle of Marius in the Exegesis on the Bishops of Tongres and Maastricht, page 42, and as Le Cointe, Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, tome 1, page 845, Daniel, History of France, tome 1, column 149 of the Paris edition of the year 1713, and Longueval, Ecclesiastical History of the Gallican church, tome 2, page 567, show; since, I say, Childebert died in the year of Christ 558 and reigned 48 years, or, as Daniel would have it, 47, the author of the Office of Toulon ought to have laid down for the year of Christ 550, to which he was tying the synod of Orléans, not the 36th of Childebert's reign, but the 39th completed or the 40th begun. Although it matters little to us and to the readers whether chronological characters which otherwise stray far from the truth, as is evident from what has been said, cohere among themselves or are consistent with themselves or not. Dropping, therefore, these chronological questions, let us turn our discourse to those things which pertain more nearly to our Saint, and let us look into whether he himself committed to writing the Life of St. Caesarius, formerly his preceptor, the arguments of those who dissent on either side being adduced.

§ V. A further continuation of the same series, in which the former book of the Life of St. Caesarius is adjudged to Cyprian, bishop of Toulon.

Cyprian, disciple of St. Caesarius, Having returned from the IV synod of Orléans into Provence, Cyprian lost in the year 542, as our Stilting shows, tome VI of August, page 61, St. Caesarius, his dearest master and his metropolitan. Caesarius, not unmindful of his Cyprian, had wished when dying that there should be given him his mantle and his better girdle, or, as others read in the Testament of Caesarius, "cinctorium meliorem" ; and had wished that the Younger Caesaria, then abbess of the monastery founded by him, to whom also he had likewise bequeathed by testament the larger mantle which she herself had made of hemp, should be earnestly commended to his successor, the prelate of Arles, "asking him again and again, by the divine grace, to have the greatest care of the aforesaid monastery, and with great piety to busy himself that the good name of them" (the nuns) "be provided for," as is set out in the same testament among us, tome VI of August, page 62. Caesaria, therefore, and the choir of fellow-nuns committed to her, desiring to read the Life of their deceased founder, pressed a certain Cyprian and other disciples of St. Caesarius that, going back from the beginning, they would comprise in writing the life and conversation of their holy founder. Cyprian, assenting to so pious wishes of the virgins, undertook before the others to write about him the things which he himself either had ascertained about him, or had seen, or had learned as brought forward from the report of the venerable disciples of Caesarius. So almost word for word the biographer of St. Caesarius in the Preface to his Life, cited tome VI of August, page 64.

[50] Further, this Life of St. Caesarius, since it had hitherto come out interpolated in many places, and his biographer, was presented pure and entire by Mabillon, Benedictine Century 1, page 658, as he relates in the first preliminary Observation. The same Life exists among us in tome VI of August, divided into two books, of which the former bears this title: "Book one, by the bishops Cyprian, Firminus and Viventius, from the manuscript of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, of the Order of Cluny, at Paris, collated with the edition of Mabillon": and the latter book in the cited Acts of the Saints at the XXVII day of August is distinguished with this title: "Book two. By Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon, from the edition of Mabillon." That a certain Cyprian was for the greatest part the writer of the former book the very title of the Life makes manifest, and this is abundantly confirmed from book 1, number 40 among us. And that the latter book was written by Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon is also clearly evident from the end of book 1 and the beginning of book 2. Hear the author of book 1, number 48: "And since of his (St. Caesarius's) innumerable (deeds) we have presumed to touch these few: let the manifest suffice, even if the hidden are concealed. We ask you, however, holy brethren Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon, to whom many things about him are known, because you were in his service from adolescence, to join your contribution, or another book of the Life, to this little Work." So Cyprian. But whether he is different from our Bishop of Toulon, or one and the same with him, there is no agreement at all among the recent critics.

[51] The proper Offices of the Saints of the church of Arles, printed at Avignon in the year 1612, adjudged the former book to our Prelate, many lay down that he is the same as our Saint; at the end of Lesson VI at the XXVII day of August, where it is said: "St. Cyprian, formerly his (Caesarius's) disciple, bishop of Toulon, wrote his Acts." But this very thing is afterwards tacitly retracted, since in the same proper Offices printed at Paris in the year 1618 the mentioned words are omitted. The Office of Toulon, emended in the year 1618, has this to our purpose: "From his earliest age he (St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon) adhered to blessed Caesarius … the first book of whose Life he described in a simple but nevertheless ornate style." Du Saussay, in the Supplement of his Gallican Martyrology, tome 2, page 1176, Honoré Bouche, Chorography and chronological History of Provence, tome 1, pages 643 and 645, and Guesnay, Annals of Marseilles, page 198, lay down our St. Cyprian as the writer of this Life. With these agrees Mabillon, Benedictine Century 1, page 658, observation 1, where he writes this: "Cyprian (the author of the Life of St. Caesarius) is not different from Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, disciple of St. Caesarius, to whom Caesarius left his mantle by testament." The Writers of the Literary History of France defend the same opinion, tome 3, page 238: "The only Work," they say, "that is extant, and that we know is to be adjudged to St. Cyprian" (bishop of Toulon), "is the Life of St. Caesarius of Arles, written for the greatest part by him."

[52] but Hardouin, whose opinion On the contrary, however, Hardouin, tome 2 of the Councils, column 1102, makes Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, different from Cyprian, the biographer of Caesarius. In the cited column, in a marginal note, letter c, he pronounces thus about our Saint, who subscribed to the 2nd council of Orange: "Bishop of Toulon, other than Cyprian the deacon, who wrote the Life of Caesarius of Arles and kept silent about this synod." If Hardouin thinks so for this reason, that no mention is made of this council in the Life of St. Caesarius, the force of his negative argument will be slight. For it does not appear why the biographer of St. Caesarius should have had to undertake a discourse about the 2nd council of Orange. For anything to be concluded against the adversaries on this head, it would first have to be demonstrated that the biographer of St. Caesarius, if he had been Cyprian, prelate of Toulon, could not but have enumerated all the councils, to the last one, at which he was present with Caesarius, or at least could not but have expressly mentioned the 2nd of Orange. But no one has undertaken to demonstrate this. Nor, if anyone had attempted to show it, could he easily have accomplished it. For the biographer of Caesarius, as he himself speaks at number 48 among us, had deliberately fixed to touch and comprise in writing, "of his (St. Caesarius's) innumerable" (deeds), few, and only those, as he says in the Preface, "which would burden less and be removed from prolixity." He knew also that both the bishops Firminus and Viventius and Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon would contribute their work to the little Work begun. What, then, would have impelled him to make special mention to the nuns of the 2nd of Orange, at which he had been present with Caesarius? I at least do not see by what right or on what head the burden of speaking about that synod can be imposed on our Cyprian, so that he may be held as the biographer of Caesarius.

[53] is here refuted. The opinion of Hardouin and of those agreeing with him collapses also from another side. For this same Cyprian, the biographer of Caesarius, whom he calls only a deacon, Messianus and Stephen, book 2, number 1, explicitly call bishop. "Being about to tell," they say, "those things which we have known about him either together or separately, or have seen together with the most holy fellow-bishops (of St. Caesarius), that is, the lord Cyprian and the lord Firminus and holy Viventius; who also concluded the things which have been written about him above, relating them from the beginning to the end of the article" (that is, of the former book). "This also appears," says Mabillon in the preliminary Observations to the Life of St. Caesarius, Benedictine Century 1, page 658, "from the inscription prefixed to this Life in the manuscript codex of Montmajour: 'Here begins the Prologue and Life of Caesarius, which the lord Cyprian and the most blessed Firminus and holy Viventius, bishop, and Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon wrote.'" And although this inscription of the Life expresses the word "bishop" in the singular number, yet the praised Mabillon rightly advised that "bishops" is to be read in the plural. And that Viventius was a bishop is also abundantly evident from Messianus's letter to him, which is extant in the praised Mabillon, tome 1 of the Benedictine Annals, page 683; and that Cyprian and Firminus were likewise of episcopal dignity is also luminously shown from the words of Messianus and Stephen cited above. Nay, Le Cointe himself, who dissents from us in assigning Cyprian, the biographer of St. Caesarius, calls those three prelates praised above fellow-bishops of St. Caesarius, tome 1 of the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, page 454, number 9.

[54] More strongly, however, than Hardouin does Le Cointe here press his adversaries, and Le Cointe make him different from our Saint. when in the cited tome, at the year of Christ 542, number 25, he denies that the Life of St. Caesarius was written by Cyprian, bishop of Toulon. Hear him discoursing: "We cannot," he says, "agree with the tables of Toulon and the Gallican Martyrology cited above, and with other writers who would have the Life of St. Caesarius written by Cyprian, bishop of Toulon. We reckon that the Cyprian who committed the Life of St. Caesarius to writing is to be distinguished from the Prelate of Toulon. We seek the reason from the same Life. The Author speaks humbly and modestly of himself, magnificently and encomiastically of the Prelate of Toulon. For he speaks thus of himself" (chapter 27, but according to our division, tome VI of August, page 73, number 40, in which, with a few changes, the same things are read): "'In the blessed Man (Caesarius) one could see all the virtues, virginity joined with sincerity, modesty with bashfulness, prudence with simplicity, severity with gentleness, learning or knowledge with humility, finally a life immaculate, a life liable to no reproach, a life always like itself. Woe to me, wretched Cyprian, who was so tepid in learning that now I both recognize and grieve that I have not drawn from the richness of so great a fountain as much as my avidity demanded.' And a little after" (namely chapter 28, according to us number 43): "'I, Cyprian, a sinner, am witness of his holy conscience, that whatever he either commanded others or did himself, all things etc.' But thus of the bishop of Toulon" (chapter 30, according to us number 46): "'Most excellent men,' he says, 'from among the bishops, with presbyters and deacons, among whom also Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, a great and illustrious prelate, shone forth etc.' Certainly he puts much difference between himself and the bishop of Toulon; he calls himself WRETCHED and a SINNER, but calls the bishop of Toulon A GREAT AND ILLUSTRIOUS PRELATE." So Le Cointe in the place cited, whose entire text I have given, lest I falsely ascribe any opinion to him or weaken the force of his argument.

[55] Satisfaction is given to the reasons alleged by this writer But truly, if Le Cointe wishes to conclude anything legitimately against the adversaries from the humble and modest appellation of sinner which the biographer of Caesarius uses when speaking of himself, he surely accomplishes little or nothing; and by the same right by which he denies that the Cyprian who professes himself a sinner is the bishop of Toulon, that is, by no right, he will deny that our Cyprian was present at the council of Carpentras, because in his subscription to it also he calls himself a sinner: "I, Cyprian, a sinner, have consented and subscribed." That magnificent eulogy of the prelate of Toulon, however, I confess was not prepared by our most modest Bishop; nor, therefore, does the conjecture of Longueval, tome 2 of the History of the Gallican church, page 372, which he himself seems afterwards to have retracted at page 474, please me, which makes St. Cyprian himself the author of the mentioned testimony about the prelate of Toulon. But that Le Cointe's reasoning does not press the adversaries so closely as some nevertheless seem to wish to persuade themselves, our Stilting, praised above, shows in a few words in the Commentary on the Life of St. Caesarius, tome VI of August, following in this his opinion about the biographer of Caesarius Jean Mabillon, who at page 658 of Benedictine Century 1, in the 2nd preliminary Observation to the Life of St. Caesarius, says thus: "Nor does it matter that the writer of the former book speaks modestly and humbly of himself, but magnificently of Cyprian, prelate of Toulon. For Cyprian did not write that of himself, but those who with him composed the former part of this Life."

[56] by the answer of Mabillon and others Which, lest it seem said without ground, he proves by this argument: "For although Cyprian is the chief author, yet he was not alone in writing it" (the Life): "but with him Firminus and Viventius contributed their work. Which indeed is manifest from the beginning of book 2." Then, the words which we gave at number 53 having been interposed, he confirms his statement from the testimony of Cyprian himself, number 29 in him, 39 among us: "One of ourselves, who have written these things." And presently Mabillon continues: "That eulogy, therefore, which you read of Cyprian of Toulon at number 35" (among us 46), "ascribe to Firminus and Viventius as authors: just as, when in book 2, number 40" (for which read number 6, which is 7 among us), "Messianus is called a venerable Man, no one will not grant that this was written by Stephen the deacon, not by Messianus himself." Denis de Sainte-Marthe agrees with Mabillon, tome 1 of Gallia Christiana, columns 741 and 742. "Nor will it seem strange," he says, "if in book 1, number 35" (among us number 46), "Cyprian the bishop himself is praised; for this book is read to have been dictated not only by Cyprian but also by Firminus and Viventius; which two beyond doubt completed this book, at whose end the eulogy of Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, occurs." The writers of the Literary History of France likewise weigh at length and learnedly the difficulty objected by Le Cointe, and dispose of it in the same way, whom the reader, if he will, may consult, tome 3, page 239 and following.

[57] and the (former) book of the Life of St. Caesarius is adjudged to our Cyprian. Since, therefore, we are so far from having to deny the former book of the mentioned Life to Cyprian, prelate of Toulon, on account of the reasons brought forward by Hardouin and Le Cointe, that rather the contrary seems to be proved from the easy solution of those objections and from the arguments adduced by Mabillon and our Stilting, I willingly subscribe to the opinion of these, by which they lay down our Cyprian as the author of the aforesaid book, and, if it is permitted to add anything to the statements of most weighty writers, I confirm that opinion by this reasoning. If all the indications by which the author of this book declares himself suit no one else than our Cyprian alone, surely there can be no fair judge of things who does not attribute this book to our Saint: but whether these indications do not fit aptly our Prelate alone I leave to the learned to judge. Certainly the chief marks, and the most expressed characters, from which the author of that book can be discerned, are the following. 1. That Cyprian who for the greatest part wrote the former book of the aforesaid Life shone with episcopal dignity when he was writing that book; which is openly proved from the words of Messianus and Stephen cited at number 53, and at the same time from the title of the Life itself. 2. The biographer professes himself, at number 1 in the Preface of the Life, an eye-witness of many of the things which St. Caesarius did. 3. That the author of that book was a diligent disciple of St. Caesarius is more manifest from book 1, number 40, in Mabillon 30, than that anyone could deny it. Now, I ask, did any Cyprian, a bishop, besides our Saint, exist at this time who was a diligent disciple of St. Caesarius and an eye-witness of the things done by him? Who has dared to assign an episcopal chair to that other Cyprian even by conjecture alone? What diptychs, or which of the ancient or recent writers, have mentioned even most lightly that other Cyprian? Surely I wholly persuade myself that twin Cyprians, and they bishops in Provence or a neighbouring region, and at the same time pupils of St. Caesarius, were unknown to all past antiquity, nor would I think there will be anyone who will present to us from any trustworthy instruments whatever two prelates of this name, eye-witnesses of the things done by Caesarius. Therefore what was long ago believed before Le Cointe and Hardouin, that St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, wrote the former book of the Life of St. Caesarius, let it remain safe and entire, until the weight of the reasons which we have adduced is refuted and more solid documents are brought forward to the contrary.

[58] For the rest, although Baillet himself, tome 2, in the critical Table to the Life of St. Caesarius at the XXVII day of August, seems to agree with us in assigning the biographers of Caesarius, Baillet is refuted, who passes an unjust censure on that Life. yet he subjoins a censure of their work much different from ours. If we listen to Baillet, the Life of St. Caesarius, even as it exists in Benedictine Century 1, page 659 and following, can be held suspect for a defect of native purity and sincerity; nay, Baillet seems to strike not lightly with his censorial rod even the most holy biographers themselves, the disciples of the prelate of Arles, as though they had been addicted beyond measure to narrating prodigies. But this censure of his the learned writers of the Literary History of France, tome 3, pages 240 and 241, deservedly and indignantly hiss off. They confess indeed that certain astounding things are related in that Life of St. Caesarius, especially in book 2, but, as they rightly observe, these are so clothed with their circumstances, and approved by such reasoning, that it is by no means the part of a wise critic to call them in doubt. What they themselves think of that Life they set out at page 240: "However simple the style of the Work may be, it must nonetheless be counted among the most precious records of the sixth century. You will find few of this kind which suggest more sentiments of true piety, or which recount more historical facts pertaining to the Gallican church. It is wrong to doubt the authority of that Life. They are bishops, and those disciples of St. Caesarius, who wrote it. Gravity, candour, piety, and the very

unction of the Holy Spirit this whole Work, as much as it is, breathes." See also our Work at the XXVII day of August, page 50, numbers 1, 2 and 3; where it is shown that that Caesaria to whom St. Cyprian inscribed his book was not (as Cave would have it) the sister of St. Caesarius (for she had died before her brother), but another, younger namesake, and abbess of the house of Arles.

* pallium cloak

* cingulum melius the better girdle

§ VI. The last part of the chronological-historical series, in which the time and kind of death of St. Cyprian are examined.

Although it is uncertain in what year the Saint died, How long St. Cyprian survived St. Caesarius, translated to the heavenly ones in the year of Christ 542, or in what year or on what day he himself departed to the Lord, has not hitherto been able to be determined for certain. Baillet, tome 4 of the Chronology of the Saints, page 161, puts it that the Saint died in the year of Christ 547; but in tome 3, at the 3rd day of October, he does not designate a certain year of death. The Paris Martyrology, published in the year 1727, fixes his death about the year 545. Chastelain among the Aemeri speaks thus of him: "His (St. Cyprian's) body was found in the year MCCCI" (that the year 1201 is to be substituted was proved at number 3); "the day of his death, however, could not be discovered." Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tome 1 of Gallia Christiana, column 741, having first stated that St. Cyprian, already then an old man, was present at the IV council of Orléans in the year 541, keeps silent about the year in which he died, relating this one thing, that he was not among the living in the year 549, "in which year," he says, "it is established that Palladius" (St. Cyprian's successor) "was bishop of Toulon." The writers of the Literary History of France, cited tome 3, page 238, relate nothing more certain or more determined than that. "St. Cyprian," they say, "did not long survive St. Caesarius, who died in the year DXLII; he is believed not to have been among the living in the year DXLV or DXLVI. This at least is established, that before the month of October of the year DXLIX his successor was Palladius," who in this same year, already created bishop of Toulon, was present at the V council of Orléans, and also subscribed to it in these words: "I, Palladius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Toulon, have subscribed." See Labbe, tome 5 of the Councils, column 398.

[60] yet wrongly in the Office of Toulon, in the year of Christ 550; Since, therefore, it is beyond doubt that St. Cyprian had died before the month of October of the year 549, it must be that the emender of the Office of Toulon either had corrupt codices before his eyes, or certainly was deluded, when he narrates that he was among the living in the year 550, nay, even that he fell asleep in the Lord only some time later, fixing the day of his death, taught by I know not what instrument, on the fifth Nones of October. If, however, the Office of Toulon is to be credited in assigning the day of his death, the Tables of Toulon cited by Guesnay, Annals of Marseilles, page 198, which assign his day of death to the fifth Ides of August, will again have to be emended here. I would much more willingly say that the day and year of our Saint's death are unknown to me than rashly fix each to a determinate day and year without an instrument of sufficient credibility. That the memory of St. Cyprian is celebrated on the III day of October, however, I judge can be ascribed to the finding of his body, which, as we said at number 3, happened on that day: for it is not unusual in the Church that, when the birthday of some Saint in heaven is not known, his solemnity is referred to that day on which the sacred remains of his body were either found by happy chance or formerly translated with solemn rite.

[61] And although I would not dare to tie the death of the holy Prelate definitely to the year 545 rather than to one of the three following, inasmuch as I am not supported in this matter by the testimony of the ancients, yet I do not fear to assert [but most wrongly is the Saint's death tied in the Tables of Toulon to the year 556.] that the Tables of Toulon, which Guesnay, cited page 198 of the Annals of Marseilles, writes were brought to light by Gilbert de Tarenta, most unhappily referred the death of the Saint to the year 556. Thus it is read in the aforesaid tables: "After the death of St. Caesarius, Cyprian remained in his bishopric in peace… But a little afterwards Albionus" (rather Alboin), "king of the Lombards, came with a great army from the side of Gaul, invaded with arms and fire almost all the cities of Narbonese Gaul, and his soldiers killed a great part of the people and many bishops, rejoicing in the shedding of Christian blood; and one band of them came near Toulon, rushing into the city like lions upon their prey, and the said soldiers walked into the temple of God, and found Blessed Cyprian with his companions Mandrianus and Flavianus, cast them out of the temple and killed them in the field, like sheep of Christ, in the year of the Lord DLVI, on the V Ides of the month of August."

[62] As regards the martyrs Mandrianus and Flavianus, That he was not put to death by martyrdom, our Cuper has long since shown, in the Acts of the Saints, tome 3 of August, page 749, that they were not killed in the year of Christ 556 under Alboin, king of the Lombards. Whence the evident reasons which he adduced for establishing his opinion demonstrate also that our Cyprian, who, as we saw at number 59, had beyond all doubt closed his day by a happy death in the year 549, could not in the year 556, still less in the year 566, have been put to death as a martyr by the Lombards under King Alboin, who came from Pannonia into Italy only in the year 568. At the time when our Saint died (that is, about the year 545), the Gallican churches, as is evident from Honoré Bouche, tome 1 of the Chorography and chronological History, page 645, and from Le Cointe at the year of Christ 542, number 25, and other historians, suffered no persecution, and therefore Le Cointe expressly denies that St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, was crowned with martyrdom, and indeed with the fullest right. It does not please, however, when he adds that he judges that our Saint was confused, by those who published the Tables of Toulon long after his death, with a martyr of the same name, namely that one whom du Saussay, tome 2, page 1176, writes was slain at the altar at Toulon by the Saracens invading Gaul.

[63] For whether that Cyprian the martyr ever existed, nor that there existed at Toulon namesakes, killed at Toulon by the Saracens about the year of Christ 730, as Guesnay adds, our praised Cuper long since doubted for most weighty reasons, and proposed his scruples on this matter, which no one has hitherto plucked out, to the learned in our Work at the XIX of August in the Life of SS. Mandrianus and Flavianus, martyrs; where also, on account of the utmost silence of antiquity about him and for other reasons, he did not dare to admit Cyprian, abbot of Toulon, as distinct from our Saint. I do not deny indeed that in du Saussay on the III day of October at Telo-Martius there exists the memory both of Cyprian the abbot and of a martyr of the same name, and finally of Cyprian, bishop of Toulon: but who does not know that he more than once, without any testimony of the ancients, either multiplied or confused Saints at his own discretion? Following du Saussay, Guesnay and Le Cointe made mention of that Cyprian the abbot and of the martyr of the same name; but they themselves could no more than du Saussay confirm their assertion by an expressed instrument of even the slightest credibility. And surely, if besides our Prelate there existed at Toulon twin Cyprians, the one so conspicuous by the mastership and prelacy of the religious life, the other by the palm of martyrdom, as du Saussay asserts; if the remembrance of each, as he speaks, flourishes, to be cultivated with perennial cult, let him explain to us why the directories and proper Offices of Provence, at least those of Toulon, prescribe not even any commemoration of either or of one or the other, either on this or on another day. There is added that Chastelain, a most skilled investigator of the Saints as few are, mentions only Cyprian the bishop; and finally, that the people of Toulon, to whom it most mattered, have not hitherto been able to show the distinction of Cyprian the martyr and of the namesake abbot from our holy Prelate, and no one has been found among the learned French who has attempted to meet with any plausible reason the difficulties raised by our Cuper.

[64] the one a martyr, the other an abbot, is shown. These things can be an argument that, since the people of Toulon had no certain documents about their Saint, the pious credulity of certain Provençals once without foundation made one Cyprian of theirs threefold; which could easily happen from this, that, the memory of the Saint having been obscured by lapse of time and the incursions of barbarians, it was unexplored to them by what title they ought to honour him, some perhaps venerating him as bishop, others as martyr, others as abbot; whence, errors having crept into the Saint's titles, it was easy for them either to double him or to make him threefold from one. Others, on the contrary, going off in a different direction, on no more solid foundation, granted to their one prelate Cyprian, besides the episcopal insignia, the abbot's crozier and the palm of martyrdom. Nor can the Tables of Toulon cited at number 61 help these in anything: for the things which are read towards their end are so openly false that for refuting them I would rather refer the reader to numbers 21 and 62 of this Commentary, or to tome III of August of our Work, page 749, than demonstrate the falsity of that martyrdom more evidently here by setting out all the errors one by one, not without the reader's nausea. That those Tables of Toulon are of dubious credibility in asserting the Saint's martyrdom the most distinguished Dom du Blanc also sufficiently shows, who certainly had them before his eyes, and yet, when he prepared the Office of the Saint for the use of the clergy of Toulon, did not even lightly mention his martyrdom. Finally, the very churches of Provence celebrate Cyprian not as a martyr but only as a Confessor Pontiff, both in the canonical hours and in the sacred Office of the Mass.