ON ST. MARSUS, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR, AT AUXERRE IN GAUL,
AT AUXERRE IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE END OF THE THIRD CENTURY, OR THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH.
SYLLOGE.
Of his deeds, his cult, and the translation of his body.
Marsus, presbyter and confessor, at Auxerre in Gaul. (S.)
BY C. S.
In this very Work of ours, at the sixteenth of May, the deeds of St. Peregrinus, bishop of Auxerre in Gaul, were illustrated — who, sent thither from the city of Rome by the Supreme Pontiff, crowned his apostolic labors with an illustrious martyrdom. This Saint, with his name somewhat varied, Of the companions too who are read to have come thither with him, we have given one, St. Corcodemus the deacon, on the 4th day of the same month of May, and another, St. Jovinianus the lector, on the 5th of the same; and a third, finally, St. Marsus the presbyter, many Martyrologies, ancient and more recent, announce on this 4th day of October — although some of them call the same man Marcus and Massus. To begin with those commonly called Hieronymian: in the Lucca Martyrology which Francis Florentini published, at this day, but under the Auctarium, this is read: At Auxerre, the deposition of Massus the presbyter; in the Gellone one, in d'Achéry, vol. 13 of the Spicilegium: At Auxerre, of Marcus. That he is also called Marcus in Labbe's old Hagiology of Franco-Gaul, and in the manuscript Martyrology of St. Sabinus of Levitania, the said Florentini observes; and we shall see below that he is called by that name by others too. In the Augsburg one, published in our work, vol. VI part 2 of June, he is more faultily called Marusius. But nevertheless his name is Marsus.
[2] Hence more rightly the Corbie one, in vol. 4 of d'Achéry's Spicilegium, has: [he is announced today in various Martyrologies, yet not in the genuine ones of Ado and Usuard,] At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Marsus, presbyter and confessor. With it agrees that of Reichenau, published in the aforecited vol. VI of June, saying, At Auxerre, the deposition of Marsus the presbyter. No memory of him exists in the genuine Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard. Mosander indeed found him in his Adonian transcript, but rejected him into the Appendix as an addition, which our Rosweyde too followed. Whether this was rightly done, it pleased Dominic Giorgi to call in doubt in the Annotations to the Martyrology of that same holy bishop of Vienne in his edition, on the ground that the Hieronymian transcripts make mention of Marsus, and that (as he says) the older Adonian transcripts are wont to recount the holy men of the church of Auxerre. But if Ado recorded him, why was he passed over by Usuard, before whom Ado without any doubt carried the torch? Yet, with Giorgi himself consenting, the genuine Usuard is silent about Marsus; but his Auctaria treat of him. Judge that just as much is to be laid down here concerning the genuine Ado.
[3] in ancient Martyrologies Among the ancient Martyrologies which the said Giorgi subjoined to his Adonian one, the Fulda one at this same day has: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Marsus the presbyter, who came into Gaul with blessed Peregrinus, bishop and martyr, to preach the word of God by the command of Pope Sixtus; the Ottobonian: At Auxerre, the nat. (that is, the birthday) of St. Marsus, presbyter; the Vatican: Of St. Marsus, confessor. There are added the Auctaria of the Martyrology of Usuard reported by our Sollier, in whose Rosweyde codex on the same day is read: Of St. Marsus the presbyter; in the Centula one: At Auxerre, of St. Marsus, presbyter and confessor; in the Reims one of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris: At Auxerre, of St. Marcus, presbyter and confessor. He is also called Marcus in the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard, which has thus: At Auxerre, the deposition of Marcus, presbyter and confessor. More rightly in that of Grevenus he is called: At Auxerre, St. Marsus, presbyter and confessor, a Roman by nation. To omit more, Rabanus too calls him Marsus; but the collector of our manuscript Florarium of the Saints calls him Marcus.
[4] and in more recent ones, Of more recent martyrologists Castellanus likewise celebrates his memory at the 4th day of October in the Supplement to the Universal Martyrology, saying in French: In the territory of Auxerre, St. Marsus, presbyter, some of whose relics the nuns of St. Julian keep — namely those of Auxerre, as we shall see below. The Paris Martyrology also makes mention among the Addenda and emendanda at this day of October, in this manner:
At Auxerre, of St. Marsus, presbyter, who, sent into Gaul with blessed Peregrinus, when the persecution was quieted after his martyrdom, rested in peace. Thus far concerning the martyrologists who have made mention of St. Marsus on this day; and I wonder that all of them were so far unknown to the Gallican martyrologist Andrew Saussay that he judged the same man was to be placed among the Saints and Blesseds whose days, being unknown, yet have their memory extant in the Acts of others whom he had recorded in their places in the same Martyrology — the reader being referred to the elogium of St. Peregrinus given on the 16th day of May.
[5] and in some of these neither rightly nor on his own day Wrongly too did Peter Galesinius in his Martyrology, and after him Philip Ferrari in the General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, announce Marsus as having suffered together with St. Peregrinus, on the same 16th day of May on which the latter is venerated; but wrongly, I say, because Marsus neither suffered martyrdom, nor is he known to have died on the same day on which St. Peregrinus underwent it. Theodore Rhay in The Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, etc., recognizing him as a confessor, nevertheless announces him at the same day of May, out of the records (as he says) of Essen, at Essen, where his body is honored. Take his words: Today Essen triumphs in the relics of St. Marsus, given to that place by Otto, the third emperor of that name. To which most religious emperor it was customary to translate the bones of many Saints from darkness into light with magnificent pomp, just as he also piously placed the remains of this St. Marsus in an urn of gold, worth seeing both for the fineness and variety of the workmanship and for the splendor of the gems.
[6] Hence in our Work at the aforecited day of May he was reported among the Praetermissi, as may also be seen among the Praetermissi in our work. and is there said (I know not on what authority) to have died on the 8th of June; but it is added: He is venerated at Essen in Westphalia, whither his body was translated, on the 6th of October. The said Rhay asserts that on the cited day, the 8th of June, the translation, not the death, is venerated at Essen, saying again thus: In the most illustrious church of Essen, the translation of St. Marsus the confessor, whose body, resting in a golden shrine, is from time to time exposed during the year to public veneration. And here are praised Annal Per. — perhaps of Perarius, as I suspect from what precedes, but unknown to me under that name. However it be, at the 8th day of the said month of June he is likewise recorded in our Work among the Praetermissi, deferred, as had been done before, to the 6th of October. But in both places in our work there is an error in the number, from an easy slip; and one must correct to the 4th of October for to the 6th of October, as is established to me from our manuscript Ephemerides of the Saints, of which we must treat today.
[7] That this is the true day of his ancient cult we learn both from the Martyrologies alleged he is now venerated at Auxerre on the 5th of October and from the proper Breviaries of the church of Auxerre. For of the five which I have in hand, four of the older ones assign to this 4th day of October the Office of St. Francis of Assisi with a commemoration of St. Marcus or Marsus; so that hence it is established that he was at that time venerated in the church of Auxerre on the same day on which he is inscribed in the ancient Martyrologies. But in a fifth Breviary of the same church, published at Paris in the year 1736, and in the Calendar which had preceded it in the year 1725, the memory of the same Saint is read as transferred to the following day, that is the 5th of October, to be celebrated thenceforth with a semidouble Office under the title: Of St. Marcus, first presbyter of the church of Auxerre. This Office is taken from the Common of Presbyters, except the third lesson. The Prayer, which is likewise read from the Common, is this: Lord God almighty, who didst set apart from the people Thy servant Marsus, that he might serve Thee in the priesthood, grant, we beseech Thee, that following his examples we may deserve to become a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition. Through our Lord, etc.
[8] Now take the lesson. Marsus the presbyter, sent into Gaul with blessed Peregrinus, with a semidouble Office, whose third lesson is recited. labored together for the Gospel at Auxerre. He clung to the holy prelate as an inseparable companion. When the persecution was quieted after the martyrdom of St. Peregrinus, having discharged many labors, he rested in peace on the fourth day of October. His body was buried on Mount Autricus beside St. Corcodemus, whom he himself, with the help of his companions, had buried. In the following centuries a small bone of his body was deposited in the neighboring monastery of St. Julian, and is kept to this day. But the greater part, in the time of Hugh of Chalon, bishop of Auxerre, was translated into Westphalia by the emperor Otto the third, enclosed in gold and gems, and granted to the most celebrated monastery of noble virgins at Essen, about the year of the Lord one thousand. Whence in the most ancient Calendars of the churches of Germany the memory of blessed Marsus is noted. What follows after this concerns SS. Firmatus, Flavia, and Felicula, of whom on that 5th day of October a commemoration is made there.
[9] Sent with St. Peregrinus and his companions to preach to the people of Auxerre These things, which are almost the only things we know of St. Marsus, are taken partly from the Life of St. Peregrinus, bishop, as has been said, of Auxerre and martyr, and from the Life of St. Germanus, prelate of the same see, written by Constantius the presbyter. What the former of these narrates concerning St. Marsus in our Work, vol. III of May, p. 563, take in few words. Marsus, ordained presbyter by Pope Sixtus, together with St. Peregrinus the bishop, Corcodemus the deacon, Jovianus the subdeacon, and Jovinianus (perhaps another) the lector, was sent into Gaul to preach the Gospel and to confirm the faithful of Christ; and he came to Autricum, or Auxerre, and by word and work converted a great multitude of the inhabitants to Christ. After this Peregrinus, having commended the care of that same new flock to the same companions of his labor, boldly went to another place of the region which was called Interamnus, and in which the temple of Jupiter and the altars of other idols were frequented, and deserved to be crowned with martyrdom. Constantius has things agreeing with this in the Life of St. Germanus, given in our Work at the 31st of July, chapters 3 and 4; but here St. Corcodemus, among his companions, named besides Marsus the presbyter also a certain Alexander, which it will suffice to have lightly noted here.
[10] by St. Sixtus II, it becomes doubtful from this Sixtus, the Supreme Pontiff, by whom the said apostolic men were sent from Italy into Gaul, must from the circumstances be said — and is everywhere believed — to have been St. Sixtus II, who, being substituted for St. Stephen when the latter was taken off by martyrdom in the year 257, held the Pontificate until the 6th of August of the following year, on which he too obtained the palm of martyrdom. To one or other of these years, therefore, their mission is to be referred; and accordingly our Henschen at the 16th day of May bound the death of St. Peregrinus, whose year is unknown, only to the third century. But lord Le Beuf, canon and succentor of Auxerre, in the Historical, Ecclesiastical, and Civil Monuments of Auxerre, while agreeing about the mission made by St. Sixtus II, nevertheless writes that it is the most received opinion that St. Peregrinus underwent martyrdom in the great Diocletianic persecution in the year 303 or 304; from which opinion he consequently observes that his apostolate among the people of Auxerre exceeded thirty years, unless he spent many years on his journey from the city of Rome.
[11] and from a passage of the Confession of St. Mamertinus. For this opinion he alleges these reasons: that none of Peregrinus's companions, except Jovinianus the lector, is read to have died a martyr; and that the cause why the other companions did not obtain the same laurel was the peace of the Church that followed, and that it is difficult here to understand any other peace than that which Constantine the Great granted. For these he refers the reader to the Conversion of St. Mamertinus, and from it he observes that this was at least the opinion of the people of Auxerre in the time of St. Germanus, that is, in the fifth century. The Confession in question is inserted in the Life of St. Germanus written by Constantius, in which, in our work, vol. VII of July, p. 209, n. 29, St. Corcodemus is narrated to have replied thus in a certain vision to Mamertinus as he questioned him: After the martyrdom of the most blessed Peregrinus, on the third day of his passion (not indeed at that same time, that is, not however in the same year) I passed from the world to the Lord.
[12] We had indeed desired, I with my brethren, to be sharers of the passion, whether St. Peregrinus suffered in the 3rd or the 4th century, just as we had also been bearers of one and the same commission; but after no long time an emperor was appointed, shining with Christian doctrine, who, the persecution being removed, opened all the closed churches and ordained Catholic prelates over them. Therefore we could not obtain what we wished (namely martyrdom). And my brethren were these: Marsus the presbyter, Alexander, and Jovianus. And I was buried in this place by those same brethren of mine. But they, as has been divinely revealed to me, died confessors. But Jovinianus the lector, by God's providence, consummated his martyrdom. Thus far there. Further, the emperor mentioned above could certainly have been no other than Constantine the Great, as our Bosch too annotated on that text; and accordingly, if we must stand absolutely by that passage of Constantius, or of the Confession of St. Mamertinus, it must be said that Corcodemus, who survived St. Peregrinus, reached into the fourth century, and therefore St. Marsus too, who buried Corcodemus.
[13] I said: If we must stand absolutely by that passage of Constantius or of the Confession of St. Mamertinus; and accordingly in which of the two St. Marsus, who survived Peregrinus, for so late a martyrdom of St. Peregrinus neither agrees with his Acts which are extant, nor can it be reconciled with the number of years which in the History of the Bishops of Auxerre, published by Labbe in vol. 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, are assigned to the bishops who are read to have sat between St. Peregrinus and St. Germanus. For there are reckoned there one hundred and forty intervening years; and if you begin these from the year 303, even without any vacancy of the see, you will come to the year of Christ 443, in which St. Germanus was in the twenty-third, not the first, year of his episcopate, having been ordained bishop, as is established, in the year 418. This difficulty the said Le Beuf recognized in St. Marcellianus, Peregrinus's next successor; and, to remove it, he wished to suspect that Marcellianus was elected bishop of the church of Auxerre from the time at which Peregrinus was detained by the heathen, and that his captivity lasted long — namely in such a way that a good part of the years which are ascribed to Marcellianus's see is to be referred to the third century, while Peregrinus was still living but held in prison; and the rest to the fourth century.
[14] Let the learned reader believe what he will; but to me so unusual a conjecture seems to rest on no sufficiently plausible ground; rested in peace. and I should prefer to hold the very reckonings of years in the aforesaid History of the Bishops of Auxerre as faulty. Besides, in that opinion which binds St. Peregrinus's martyrdom to the year 303 or the following, and nonetheless attributes his mission to St. Sixtus II, forty-five years will have to be assigned to St. Peregrinus's apostolate at Auxerre, and more to the apostolic labors of his companions Corcodemus, Marsus, Alexander, and Jovianus — by a rare example indeed, that they could
all of them together have endured through so great a span of years, amid so many labors, and meanwhile have lived safe from the hands of persecutors and of the enemies of the Christian name. Wherefore, since on the one hand no slight reason appears for referring their death to the third century, while on the other stands the authority of Constantius or of St. Mamertinus himself for the opposite, I have judged it safer that St. Marsus's death be set toward the end of the third century, or the beginning of the next; unless someone prefer to substitute for Sixtus II a later Supreme Pontiff, by whom he was sent with Peregrinus and his companions into Gaul.
[15] he is believed to have been buried on Mount Autricus, Now let us weigh the other statements of the Breviary of Auxerre. Its compiler could have learned from the words just alleged from the Life of St. Germanus that St. Corcodemus was buried by Marsus and his companions on Mount Autricus, commonly Mont-Artre, near Auxerre; but in that same Life it is not said that St. Marsus too was buried in the same place beside Corcodemus. Nay rather, from n. 24 of that same Life one might rather suspect that St. Marsus's burial was elsewhere. For St. Corcodemus is there brought in speaking thus from his tomb: God does not defraud me of His watchers; since with me are my brethren the two subdeacons, that is, Alexander and Jovianus, and also Jovinianus the lector. By which words he seems to have indicated nothing else than that the bodies of those three then rested in the same place. But if Marsus too then rested there, why did he not mention him also, who excelled the rest by the Order of the priesthood? But this is only a conjecture formed from the words adduced; and perhaps the compiler of the Breviary had it established from elsewhere that St. Marsus was buried in common with his companions on Mount Autricus.
[16] which is likely: some relics of his are at Auxerre. Nevertheless in the manuscript Martyrology of Auxerre, which bears the name of lord Bargede and is in our Museum, in the announcement of St. Marsus at the 4th day of October one may expressly read, but in French words: The place of his burial is not indicated. It is likely that it was on Mount Autricus, according to the usage of that time; yet this is not certain. That some relics of the same Saint, as the same Breviary teaches, are kept in the abbey of St. Julian, which is of virgins, at Auxerre, is likewise read in our manuscript on the bishops, abbeys, etc., of Auxerre, which we are wont to cite under the name of Georges Viole; and there at p. 447 it is deservedly observed that St. Marsus is wrongly called a canon of St. Julian's in the inscription of his said relics, written with a pen on parchment and affixed to those same relics, in these words: Of the relics of St. Marsus the confessor, once canon of the church of St. Julian.
[17] but the greater part of the sacred body was translated to Essen We have somewhat more concerning the greater part of his body, which the author of the Breviary acknowledges to have been translated into Westphalia to the most illustrious college of Virgins at Essen. Now Essen, commonly Essen, which is also known as Essena, Asindia, and by other like names, is a Town of Germany in Westphalia on the river Asnia, between the duchies of Cleves and Berg and the county of the Mark; which with its adjacent district obeys its most exalted princess of Essen, abbess of the noble canoness virgins. And the abbey, or the aforesaid college of illustrious canonesses, venerates as its founder St. Altfrid, bishop of Hildesheim in the ninth century, of whom treatment has been made in our Work at the 15th day of August. Over it presides at this time the most exalted princess Christina Francisca Palatine of Sulzbach, and joined to her, as they call it, as Coadjutrix is the most serene Caroline, royal princess of Lorraine and Bar, most worthy sister of the most August emperor Francis I of glorious memory and of Charles, duke of Lorraine and Bar and governor of our Belgium for the most August Empress Maria Theresa, Apostolic Queen.
[18] toward the end of the 10th century That the sacred body of Marsus is kept there to this day and religiously honored, I shall presently show, after I have premised certain things about the time and the agents of the translation. To this end Father Augustine Aldenbrück, a priest of our Society at Cologne Agrippina, being asked by me, wrote to Essen, whence he received a most courteous reply from the very Reverend and most eminent lord Graffweg, canon and treasurer of the church of Essen, to the effect that that sacred pledge was brought thither by Mechtild, abbess of that place, the second of this name, daughter of the emperor Otto II by Theophano, daughter of the emperor of Constantinople; whose term of prelacy he sets about the year 998, under Gregory V and Sylvester II, Roman Pontiffs, and the emperors Otto III and Henry II. The same has Denis de Sainte-Marthe, vol. 3 of Gallia Christiana, col. 775, in the catalogue of the abbesses of the convent of Essen, under Mechtild, whom he places in the twelfth position. I subjoin his words.
[19] Mechtild II, born of Otto II and Theophano, daughter of the emperor of Constantinople, or at the beginning of the next, by the abbess Mechtild most glorious Augusti as parents, presided over the church of Essen about the year 998 under the Pontiffs Gregory V and Sylvester II, and likewise under the emperors Otto III and Henry II. She, besides other gifts, adorned the church of Asnid with the relics of St. Marsus the priest. Otto III died in the year of Christ 1002, after which year accordingly that translation is not to be deferred, if it was made by his gift, as is read in the often-mentioned Breviary. The episcopate at Auxerre of Hugh of Chalon, mentioned in the same, the canon Le Beuf praised above carries in vol. 1 from the year 999 to 1039, where at p. 236 he hints at the occasion of the gift of St. Marsus's body made by him to Otto III, writing in French what I render into Latin: One of those two episcopal ornaments (concerning which he had premised certain things) had been given him (bishop Hugh) by the emperor Otto, with whom he was held in great esteem, and to whom he is believed to have sent relics from his own diocese, and among others the head of St. Justus. The translation of the body of St. Marsus into Germany can also belong to that time.
[20] And so Otto III may have received those sacred remains from his friend Hugh, bishop of Auxerre, and by the emperor Otto III, and given them to his sister Mechtild to be deposited in the church of Essen, over which she presided as abbess. And if this is so, as is altogether likely, it must be that that translation happened in the year 999, which was Hugh's first, or in one of the three following, the last of which was the year of Otto III's death. So much concerning the year. The day, whether of the translation, or of the arrival at Essen, or finally of its annual memory in the church of Essen, Theodore Rhay marks in The Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, etc., as the 8th of June, in the words already recited above at n. 6, and therefore not to be repeated. But in truth I am compelled with wonder to believe that neither this nor any other day in the whole circle of the year is peculiarly dedicated to the translation or to any other memory of St. Marsus in the church of Essen, nor celebrated with an ecclesiastical Office; because in the Notices which I sought concerning that Saint's cult among the people of Essen, and obtained from the said very Reverend and most eminent lord Graffweg, canon and treasurer of the church of Essen, no mention at all is made of cult of this kind. Wherefore I subjoin in the same words what those Notices contain concerning his cult among the people of Essen.
[21] where it is kept to this day in two precious cases. They run thus: On the chief festivals of the church the sacred head (of Marsus) is exposed to public cult, enclosed in a silver case skilfully wrought. The remaining bones of the Saint, entrusted to a wooden case covered with plates of gold, are carried about for cult on the feast of Corpus Christi. The form of both reliquaries is followed closely by the drawing set beneath, although formed only in idealized fashion. Then that twofold figure is subjoined, of which I have given only one to our engraver to be copied in copper, and exhibit it here to the reader. For the same engraver denied that the other was expressed distinctly enough for him to copy it without error. Besides this, those Notices say not a word about cult or Office; from which I only observe that, since nothing at all is said in them about the gems which the author of the Breviary of Auxerre and Rhay add to the golden case, either they are speaking of another reliquary which does not survive, or the gems have been taken from this one. We grieve that we do not know more about that apostolic Man.