Apollinaris of Valence

ON ST. APOLLINARIS OF VALENCE, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, IN GAUL,

ABOUT THE YEAR 520.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Apollinaris, bishop and confessor, at Valence of the Segalauni in Gaul. (S.)

BY J. G.

§ I. The memory of the Saint in the classical and other Martyrologies: various Eulogies: the author of the Acts: from what manuscript they are to be edited.

Valence of the Segalauni, which St. Apollinaris, called by the inhabitants St. Aiplonay, illustrated by many examples of virtues while living, at Valence of the Segalauni, of which notice is given, and by no fewer prodigies when dead, is the same city which the Ptolemy of Bertius places in Narbonese Gaul, page 55, and which in the old Notitiae (more recent, however, than Pliny and Ptolemy) … is numbered in the sixth place among the 14 cities of the province of Vienne, as Adrien de Valois writes in the Notitia of the Gauls, at the word Valentia, page 581; whose words I have therefore adduced and compared with Ptolemy's geographical account, lest anyone should think that a different Valence is treated here, when he understands that it is placed now in the Narbonese, now in the Viennese province. Further, Baudrand in his geographical Lexicon described this city thus: Valentia, a city of Narbonese Gaul according to Ptolemy, capital of the Segalauni, now Valence to the inhabitants, Valenza to the Italians, an ample and cultivated city of Gaul, in Dauphiné, and in the Valentinois tract named from it, is episcopal under the archbishop of Vienne, with a citadel and a celebrated academy, on the river Rhone and opposite the province of the Vivarais, a little below the confluence of the Isère with the Rhone. The principal church of this city, as Jean Columbi testifies, book 1 On the Deeds of the bishops of Valence, page 246, was formerly dedicated to Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, now to St. Apollinaris, of whom we treat here, and it is ennobled by an illustrious college of canons.

[2] In this sacred building, as also throughout the diocese of Valence, our Saint long ago began to be venerated with a double Office of the first class with an Octave, [he is especially venerated, and is announced in the Martyrologies of St. Apollinaris,] as will be manifest to one who inspects the proper Offices of the church of Valence: but when veneration was first paid to him with so solemn a rite, nothing occurs from which it can be defined with any certainty. That he was in great veneration from many past centuries the announcements of the classical Martyrologies show, all of which I think it superfluous to transcribe here. Let Ado of Vienne alone be heard for all, in his Martyrology at this day: In Gaul, in the city of Valence, of St. Apollinaris, bishop: whose life was distinguished by virtues, and whose death is nonetheless adorned with signs and prodigies. With the announcement of Ado in our Rosweyde there agrees to a tittle that which is read in the Martyrology of the same Ado which Domenico Giorgi, having revised it with the help of the codices of the Vatican Library and illustrated it with annotations, published in print in the year 1745, where, in the Annotations subjoined at this day, he observes this: Apollinaris, bishop of the church of Valence in Gaul, is venerated on this day by the Hieronymian martyrologies, as Sollerius indicates, by Rabanus, our Ado, Usuard, Wandelbert, although he confuses him (as Sollerius judges) with Apollinaris of Ravenna, Notker, the Martyrology of Fulda, the Ottobonian, that of Reichenau, of Augsburg and the Labbean. The Gellone martyrology mentions him on this day with others. From these Ecclesiastical Fasti, as also partly from the annual Booklet of the venerable Bede, priest, edited in volume 6 of the Amplissima Collectio of Edmond Martène, page 638, the eulogy of St. Apollinaris was brought into the present Roman Martyrology and other more recent ones, whose long catalogue it does not seem necessary to weave here, in these words: At Valence in Gaul, of St. Apollinaris, bishop, whose life was illustrious for virtues and whose death was adorned with signs and prodigies.

[3] whose eulogy, from Agobard and the Chronicle of Ado, This eulogy is excellently established by the testimonies, succinct indeed but full of well-merited praise, which Agobard, prelate of Lyon, in the book On the Jewish superstitions, and Ado, prelate of Vienne, in the 6th age of his Chronicle, left in writing about our Saint. The former, namely, writing about 300 years after the death of St. Apollinaris to the emperor Louis the Pious against the Jewish perfidy, superstitions and innumerable errors, after adducing the most weighty testimonies and examples of the holy Fathers Hilary, Ambrose, Cyprian and Athanasius against the obstinate impiety of the Jews, comes down to the venerable authority and synodal statutes of the Fathers of the council of Epaone, among whom especially St. Apollinaris decreed that the society of the Jews was to be wholly shunned by Christians; and, that he may add no slight weight to his speech by the equal judgment and example of this holy Prelate, who execrated the Jews just as Saints Hilary, Ambrose, Cyprian and Athanasius did, he praises him for his holiness and for the frequent miracles wrought even in his own time, in this manner: How great St. Apollinaris, bishop of the church of Valence, was and is, not only the deeds written about him, but also his frequent miracles, sublimely testify up to today. And Ado, in the cited place, has this about St. Avitus and his brother St. Apollinaris at the year 492: Avitus too, bishop of Vienne, preeminent in eloquence and holiness, whose brother Apollinaris, bishop of Valence, was distinguished for miracles, two lights, the most illustrious sons of Isicius, a man at first a senator, afterwards bishop of Vienne. What St. Ado, prelate of Vienne, has brought forward here about St. Isicius, the father of St. Apollinaris, and about his brother St. Avitus, is manifestly plain from what is to be said below, and most of all from what has long since been said in our Work, volume 2 of March, from page 447, and volume 1 of February, from page 660; and that what both he and Agobard brought forward about our Saint is also most true will become clear to the reader from the course of this Commentary and from the Life to be edited below.

[4] With Agobard and Ado there chime the Hymns proper to our holy Prelate, both from the Hymn at Vespers of the proper Office which Vincenzo Barrali published in his Chronologia of Lérins in the year 1613, page 379, and which are also found among the proper Offices according to the use of the cathedral church of St. Apollinaris at Valence, emended with the greatest care and diligence, as their title bears, at page 71 and page 80. And thus indeed the Hymn at Vespers sings of St. Apollinaris:

Exult, assembly of the clergy, Rejoice, devotion of the people; For the grace of Apollinaris Applaud, happy Valence. Then * holy nobility And noble holiness Made him worthy to shine With a pontifical star. The merits of his honest life, Displayed to the world by signs, Declared to the peoples The fame of the blessed Prelate. The king's wife obtained What the king himself did not deserve, For through the aid of his garment The force of the fevers was taken away. To the One in threefold glory Be praise that passes not away, Who exalted Apollinaris With illustrious merits. Amen.

[5] And the Hymn at Lauds recounts in these words various miracles by which the Saint was renowned, and by another at Lauds is supplied, and which will come to be illustrated afterwards:

O how happy the digging, When the river denied drink, By which the gift of Christ is seen And the holy Man is refreshed. While the wave of the river swells, The wind of the whirlwind raging, Presently all things become prosperous With free tranquillity. The Prelate, having suffered injury, Of his own accord gives pardon: Releasing from punishment one subjected to it, He puts to flight the malignant spirit. The tallness of the columns And the brightness of the tapers Testify that the life of the Prelate Shines with miracles. To the One in threefold glory, etc.

Other things too, done by the Saint both piously and prodigiously, are recounted with praise here and there in the Antiphons and Responsories in the Office proper to him of the church of Valence; and since du Saussay, in his Gallican Martyrology at this day, has illustrated most of them quite fittingly, contracted into an epitome in the order in which they happened, I have judged it would not be out of place that the encomium of our holy Prelate published by him should, for the greatest part, be subjoined to the eulogies now produced.

[6] Thus he has it at page 690: At Valence of the Segalauni, under Vienne the first (in the time of Ptolemy it was reckoned under the Narbonese), of St. Apollinaris, and a compendium of the Life is subjoined, bishop of that city and confessor, a man of wonderful holiness and sign-bearing virtue. He, son of Isicius, senator of Vienne and afterwards its prelate, and brother of St. Avitus, archbishop of the same metropolis, after a long interpontificate of the see of Valence (which Maximus, a follower of the Manichaeans, had defiled by the impiety of his heresy and by his shameful life, and for that reason had been cast down from the prelacy by a synodal condemnation of the bishops of Gaul by order of Pope Boniface the first), in order that after long darkness a shining star might restore * the light of piety, almost extinguished there, illustrious for the merits of holiness and of rare learning, having been promoted by divine counsel to the episcopate of that city, spreading forth the rays of apostolic spirit and virtue, gladdened the desolate citizens. For by abundant doctrine, by burning love towards God, by outstanding love of his sheep, and by the examples of a most holy way of life and also by admirable signs, he brought it about that the Christian Religion, presently vindicated, resumed its strength and former glory, and that the inhabitants walked unanimously in the ways of peace and justice.

[7] which du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology The envious enemy of the pious and perpetual adversary of the ways of God did not take this pleasantly. For when he had put into the heart of Stephen, the curator of the treasury of king Sigismund, so great a heat of lust that he joined to himself in unlawful marriage the sister of his deceased wife, and the Man of God Apollinaris, burning, as John once did, with zeal for justice and decency, after he had often rebuked the unspeakable crime, had struck that incestuous man, obstinate in the stench of lust, with the sword of anathema in a synod which he had held for that reason with his brother Avitus, his metropolitan, and the bishops of the province, then the demon, through that lost sinner, so moved the mind of the king that he threatened every dire thing to the holy prelates sitting together, and most of all to blessed Apollinaris, unless they at once received back into communion the man excluded from the sacraments. Yet, his fury somewhat abating (lest he should deprive so many churches of pastors at once), he ordered the other bishops who were still sitting in the synod to return home. But when Apollinaris, who seemed the chief in the case, persisted in his sentence, and could not be led away from it by any enticements or terrors, then the king vomited out all the venom of his hatred upon him: and, assailing him now with injuries, now with snares,

he compelled him to leave his soil and his throne: with some faithful followers, therefore, the blessed Pontiff withdrew into a desert place, where, when they were suffering from great thirst in the parched ground, by his prayer he obtained a fountain of living water to relieve the burning of his companions, which, when he departed thence with his companions, was presently dried up.

[8] he published, taken for the greatest part from the Saint's biographer, It happened meanwhile that the king himself, who would neither see nor hear the blessed Prelate, for whose destruction he had sworn, fell, God so willing, into so grave a fever that he was believed by the physicians to be very near death. In that crisis the faith of the queen prevailed: she, borne up on the wings of piety, hastening to the most blessed Pontiff, begged him with fervent devotion that, unmindful of the injury, he would obtain safety for the king by his gracious prayers to God. He, shaken by the despair and weeping of the religious princess, gave her his cowl, at whose touch the feverish heat should be at once extinguished. The queen returned, supported by so great a pledge; and with firm faith, when she had spread the garment of the Man of God over the king, he at once, the attack of the disease being put to flight, received the grace of perfect health. The divine Man put forth many other prodigies, as when he checked the swelling waves of the Rhone and the vehement winds which were shaking the ship in which he was: and when he freed the boy Aliphius, possessed by a demon, and a priest vexed by the same attack. At last, after a glorious excursion, he returned to his see: where, shining with the testimonies of justice and fortified with the Lord's Sacraments, he happily migrated to his reward. He presided over the church of Valence thirty-four years. So far the eulogy of our Saint, taken from the biographer of St. Apollinaris and adorned here and there by du Saussay. The remaining things which the praised martyrologist goes on to record about him, drawn from other sources, I shall pass over here for a while to the more fitting place which they will afterwards have, that the reader may be instructed about the age of the praised biographer and other things pertaining to him before he sees the deeds of our holy Prelate arranged and composed by us on the credit and testimony of the same writer.

[9] That he was not only contemporary with St. Apollinaris, but also his familiar, a familiar of his, who a little after the Saint's death and an eyewitness of many of the things which he narrates, is made out so luminously from the Life to be edited below and from the testimonies presently to be transcribed here, that controversy cannot be raised about it except rashly. For thus he speaks at number 9: These things done, while thanks were being rendered by all to the divine power, WE ARRIVED, the Rhone serving us, in sight of the city of the people of Arles; by which word he most plainly indicates that he was the companion of St. Apollinaris's journey as he went by ship to Arles, as also a little later, speaking thus: In which place, while he (namely St. Apollinaris) was prolonging the spaces of his stay for the sake of charity, at the invitation of Arcutamia, a senatorial lady, his kinswoman, the wishes of the Massilians receive US. And at number 10, treating of Paragorius, who, at the instigation of the demon, had given the holy Prelate a slap and was stuck motionless at his little bed, our biographer uses these words, by which he expressly testifies that he entered the chamber of the Prelate as he lay sick, and learned the sequence of the whole event from his own mouth: hear him: But WE, having rendered the praises to God according to custom, when the little cell of the chamber lay open to US returning, SAW him (Paragorius), who stood bound, holding a place not permitted: and when WE were indignant that presumption should claim what is wont to be avoided out of reverence, WE LEARNED the cause of the event as much from the words of the Saint himself as from the silence of the one stuck fast (Paragorius). Hence how great is the authority of our biographer everyone understands who knows that among historiographers worthy of credit above the rest the highest rank belongs to those who commit to writing things explored with their eyes and intimately perceived by them.

[10] But as regards the very time at which the biographer wrote this Life, wrote his Life; he was not a monk of Lérins, I have found nothing from which I could solidly designate a certain year. Since, however, the biographer wrapped in the deepest silence the miracles afterwards wrought at the Saint's tomb, which Agobard, praised above, records to have continued up to his times, it becomes very probable from this that he elaborated his Life a little after the death of St. Apollinaris; and so too judge the authors of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 143. But whether this Life was originally written by a monk of Lérins, as Baillet relates in the critical Table at this day, is indeed called into doubt with the best right, since it is confirmed by no testimony of antiquity or other indication. Did Baillet perhaps establish as a monk of Lérins the author of no other Life than that which was edited by Vincenzo Barrali in the Chronologia of Lérins? Be it so. But he certainly cannot be held to be the true biographer of St. Apollinaris, who published only a fragment of a Life composed, as is plain, by another, and that, by the most equitable judgment of the authors of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 144, very faultily. However that may be, it does not appear on what head the biographer of St. Apollinaris could be said assertively with Baillet to have been a monk of Lérins. It remains that we now investigate the name of the same biographer, if it can in any way be probably elicited.

[11] Labbe, Edmond Martène and the already praised writers of the Literary History of France, with unanimous opinion, establish him as anonymous, but he seems to have been the Saint's deacon, named Eladius, and not indeed without cause, since he himself nowhere expressly expressed his name, nor are other ancient writers found to have handed it down to memory. Yet I think Pierre Chifflet was impelled by some reason, and that not an empty one, to prefix with his own hand these words to the Life of St. Apollinaris copied out for us from an old manuscript of Saint-Claude and collated by him with other manuscripts: By, as it seems, Eladius, his (St. Apollinaris's) deacon. Further, this Eladius, in Chifflet's mind, is that same deacon who, in Labbe, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of manuscripts, pages 691 and 692, and in Martène, volume 6 of the Amplissima Collectio, column 782, has, perhaps from a copyist's fault, the name of Claudius, and who recurs more than once in the Life of the holy Prelate. But from what indication or on what reason the praised Chifflet made this conjecture, so as to write that our biographer had the name of Eladius and was not different from the said deacon, he himself nowhere declared. I suspect, however, that he, since he seems to have preferred the reading of the old Saint-Claude manuscript to the rest, was moved by the reason which can be taken in this manner from the words of number 11 of the Life of St. Apollinaris, as they are read also in the Cistercian and Ourscamp manuscript codices, to be transcribed below. He who, as is read in these three manuscripts, is narrated to have inquired of Leubaredus, archdeacon of our holy Prelate, why the holy Prelate was absent from the divine Office contrary to custom, is himself the writer of the Life of St. Apollinaris, as is clear from these words of number 11: And returning, I should inquire of him the cause of this failure in duty; and he who, after hearing the cause of the absence, answered the archdeacon Leubaredus in these words: You are indeed, as you relate, overcome by fear of joys, but it befits you to exult, etc., he, I say, without any doubt, as the words of the same number bear, was the oft-mentioned deacon named Eladius. Since therefore it is probable that the biographer, out of reverence for the Prelate, did not wish to inquire of the archdeacon before others why the holy Prelate had been absent from the divine Office, or, if you would have it that this was done with witnesses not removed, since it is yet still probable that he who presently takes up the archdeacon's answer with another answer is the same who had first put the question about the cause of the Prelate's absence, as usually happens among those conferring earnestly in familiar conversation about the cause of an unusual thing; hence, I think, Chifflet made the conjecture, and that not an improbable one, that Eladius the deacon is the same as the biographer, who, as we have already said, inquired of the archdeacon the cause of the Prelate's absence, and who, having heard it, pronounced that one should rather rejoice over the glorious death of the holy Prelate than grieve.

[12] whose Work, vindicated from a somewhat severe censure, However that may be, at least from this fact and these words of the anonymous writer joined to it: I have related these deeds which I remember, we have it abundantly confirmed again that the biographer was certainly contemporary with St. Apollinaris and very familiar with him. Hence you will gather, says the praised Martène in the Preliminary Observations on the Life of St. Apollinaris, how much this Life, although very brief, is to be esteemed by learned and pious men. The already praised writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, pages 143 and 144, dissent here from Martène, where they speak in French to about this effect: An untimely scruple and an indiscreet modesty held the biographer back from recounting in order the illustrious deeds of the holy Prelate; hence he, making no investigation of them, narrated only those things which came into his mind of their own accord and without effort, … and pursued them in a style so redundant and involved that it can be said without injustice that he narrated very few things in many words. His Preface to the Life of the Saint is more obscure than the other parts, because he strove after the inept eloquence of his age. So far they: with whom I gladly agree when they carp at the faulty eloquence of the 6th century, and complain that many things nobly done by the holy Prelate were left untouched by the same biographer. But I do not see by what right they so severely accuse him of a meagre flow of words, since he wrote a good many things which could not be narrated equally fully in fewer words than he himself used. So that I prefer, with the praised Martène, to call the Life of St. Apollinaris very brief, and to hold it in esteem with learned and pious men, rather than to stand by the judgment of the writers of the Literary History of France when they define this Life as rather verbose, or rich in words, and meagre in actual matter.

[13] Now I must render a reason why, of the various copies of this Life which we have, [it is to be edited below from the manuscript of Pierre Chifflet, the other copies being set aside.] both printed and manuscript, I have judged that that one should be edited in preference to the rest which Pierre Chifflet, a learned man of our Society, formerly sent to us. Besides some lacunae that meet those inspecting the Life in volume 6 of the Collection of old writers, from the codex of the Queen of Sweden, there are some faults in it into which a novice in Grammar would not stumble, and which it is not credible proceeded from a biographer not so unskilled in Latin. Add that some phrases exist in it disordered or dislocated which are more entire and plainer in the same Life as it was edited by Labbe from old parchments. But since this too, although free of lacunae, is not without its blemishes, which are also found in the copy taken from the Cistercian manuscripts, volume 6, number 40, and in the transcript of the Ourscamp manuscript, I have judged that the copy of the Life transcribed from the manuscript codex of Saint-Claude and collated by the praised Chifflet with the manuscript of the monastery of Accinctum, being, in my judgment, more correct and plainer than the others, should be edited in preference to the rest: to which I was not a little moved by the fact that the author of the Life of St. Avitus, with us in volume 1 of February,

page 667, seems to have followed an almost exactly similar copy, down to the tittles, when he took from the Life of St. Apollinaris those things which St. Avitus had in common with him.

* perhaps Hunc (Him)?

* perhaps repararet (restore)?

§ II. The Saint's family, illustrious for nobility and piety: his native place and education: the time of the episcopate he held is assigned, and hence the year of his birth and of his death are elicited.

St. Apollinaris, who had as own brother St. Avitus, That our Apollinaris had as brother on both parents' side St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne in Gaul, our biographer expressly relates at number 2, praising both Saints thus in the case of the incest of Stephen (of which below): On which matter the holy and most blessed apostolic men Avitus and Apollinaris (who were brothers ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, and in the work of Christ most famous brothers, … learned with fervent spirit) … being gathered together in one, decreed that Stephen himself should be deprived of holy communion. Nor must there be understood in any other sense than our biographer's either St. Avitus himself, who in the title of the Prologue to the five books of his Poems, published at the exhortation of St. Apollinaris, and in other places addresses himself as his brother, or our Saint himself, when he greets him in Letter 11 among the Letters of St. Avitus as Bishop and brother. And lest any doubt could remain whether perhaps, just as all bishops are wont to call one another by the name of Brothers, so St. Apollinaris could be understood as only a spiritual brother, or brother in Christ, and not an own brother of St. Avitus according to the flesh, hear the same St. Avitus, in the Preface to the sixth book of Poems, written on the consoling praise of chastity to his sister Fuscina, speaking to St. Apollinaris in these words: But let your piety remember to give this very little book, since you call it so, disputing rather familiarly either about the religion of our COMMON PARENTS or about the virgins of our family, to be read only by those whom in truth either the bond of kinship or the purpose of religion joins to us. That both Saints therefore had common parents, and so too the other blood-relations, it is not necessary, after it was treated more copiously in volume 1 of February, from page 660, in the Life of St. Avitus, and in volume 2 of March, from page 447, to discourse more fully here again on this same argument, in so far as it pertains specifically to St. Apollinaris. Omitting accordingly a good many things which do not pertain closely to this point, notice of both parents, taken partly from St. Ado and partly from St. Avitus, will suffice in this place.

[15] and as father St. Isicius, and as mother Audentia, And Ado indeed, already cited before at number 3, asserts that the father of Saints Apollinaris and Avitus, whom he calls Isicius, was first adorned with the senatorial dignity and afterwards raised to the chair of Vienne in Gaul. St. Avitus indicates the same things, though with the name of his parent suppressed, in his poem just praised on the consoling praise of chastity to his sister Fuscina, where, at verse 657 and following, he sings in these words that his father, after the fasces, namely, of secular dignities, for instance the senatorial and others of this kind, was taken up to the fasces of the Church of the peoples, that is, to the episcopal insignia:

Look upon your father, taken up as pontiff for sacred things, And since your parent or uncle, great on every side, After the fasces were pleased to take up the fasces of the peoples, Receive the humble brothers into the fellowship of the fathers. The church, joining them alike in office, has united them.

And the same Avitus most plainly declares his own, and so also St. Apollinaris's, mother, when he calls her Audentia, and relates, at verse 19 and following, that after bringing forth Fuscina in her last childbirth she, together with her husband St. Isicius, preserved perpetual chastity by equal consent, and that by vow:

When your mother Audentia had brought forth her fourth offspring, And, fruitful in her last childbirth, had given you to the family, She at once promises to lead a sparing life, And thereafter the care of the dear parents resolved By equal vows to keep a chaste bed.

[16] ancestors and great-grandfathers most noble, Further, although the heavenly ones, now endowed with a supernal nobility, do not count among their own the nobility of the flesh and race and forefathers, and the things which they themselves did not do; yet, because holiness joined with nobility appears more illustrious to mortals, it will be helpful to have set out here from how noble and pious a stock our Saint sprang. So St. Avitus sang of his father and grandfather in the Poem to his sister Fuscina, praised more than once, at verse 651 and following:

Whom although the world had endowed with ancient honour, And shows by titles to be ever of generous birth: Yet it adorned them more, bearing a divine distinction, That by their own order they merited holy chairs.

And not only the father and grandfather, but also the ancestors and great-grandfathers of St. Apollinaris, whether released by their wives' having died according to the laws of marriage, or separated perpetually from the marriage bed by their wives' will, were illustrious no less for priestly dignity than for the ancient honour of the world and ancestral nobility. Hear Avitus again speaking of these:

I shall not now unfold to you the ancestors and great-grandfathers Whom an illustrious life rendered worthy as priests.

Therefore, on the testimony of this prelate of Vienne, our Saint drew his race from parents great on every side.

[17] But whether among his forefathers ought to be reckoned Avitus, among whom perhaps the emperor Avitus who, as Cassiodorus testifies in the Chronicle, took up the empire in Gaul after Maximus, our Henschenius left undecided in volume 1 of February, page 660; which neither should I dare to assert for certain, since St. Avitus, our biographer, and Saints Agobard and Ado, praised above, nowhere expressly testified that the emperor Avitus was the grandfather of our Saint or the father of St. Isicius. There are, however, certain indications which render this origin of our St. Apollinaris sufficiently like the truth. For what St. Avitus writes of his grandfather and father, that, although endowed with the ancient honour of the world, they became more illustrious, That by their own order they merited holy chairs, fits most exactly, if any illustrious man of that time previously adorned with secular fasces, certainly the emperor Avitus (for there is no point in saying anything here about St. Isicius), since he, from a senator of Auvergne, was declared emperor in the year 455, as Marius of Avenches testifies in the Chronicle, in Bouquet, volume 2, page 12, and afterwards, namely in the consulship of John and Varana, was made bishop in a city, namely Piacenza, as Jordanes sets out, in the same place, page 27. Add that St. Avitus, own brother of our Saint, writing to the illustrious man Apollinaris, son of St. Sidonius, makes his parents and his own common: hear the bishop of Vienne speaking in his own words, Letter 45: For there came into my mind, as your poet says, the image of the dear father, as I recalled in memory that a certain lot of our COMMON PARENTS is carried down, envy pursuing it, even to our persons, however different in profession, by likeness of labours. And a little later: Whenever it seemed to be assailed, OUR FAMILY was subject to accusation, not to crime.

[18] Our Sirmond, not rashly conjecturing that this letter was sent by St. Avitus he is to be counted, when Apollinaris, son of St. Sidonius, had returned with his favour unimpaired from king Alaric, before whom he had been accused, annotates thus on the words just mentioned: So great was the connection of the family of Avitus (bishop of Vienne) with that of Sidonius that he makes it the same, and in turn transfers and exchanges names. Wherefore, since, as St. Gregory of Tours testifies, book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 21, Papianilla, daughter of the emperor Avitus, married St. Sidonius and had by him that son Apollinaris with whom St. Avitus professes that he has common parents, it seems to follow from this that the emperor Avitus, who was certainly the maternal grandfather of Apollinaris, son of Sidonius, was also the grandfather of our St. Apollinaris and of St. Avitus; maternal indeed, as it seems to those who judge that by the uncle praised by St. Avitus, because after the fasces of secular dignities he was taken up to the fasces of the church of the peoples, St. Sidonius was designated; but paternal, as those would have it who establish St. Isicius, by whom, before he entered upon the episcopate, our St. Apollinaris was given to the world, as a son of the emperor Avitus besides Ecdicius and Agricola, mentioned by Sirmond in the Notes on the letters of St. Sidonius, or confuse him with one of these. Whatever it is, certainly, if the custom usual at that time is regarded, that grandsons or sons obtained their name from their grandfathers or father, the very name of Avitus, which was given to the own brother of St. Apollinaris, can suggest that the emperor Avitus was not a stranger to that family from which Saints Avitus and Apollinaris were brought forth into the light. But of this origin of both Saints, about the rest of whose kinship I shall treat afterwards, I think I have now said enough. Wherefore I now proceed to inquire into the place where St. Apollinaris was born and brought up.

[19] he was born and brought up at Vienne of the Allobroges; Of this Baillet spoke thus rather timidly at this day: He (St. Apollinaris) is believed to have been born at Vienne. But he could certainly, if he had read our biographer, have pronounced with complete confidence that he was both born and brought up at Vienne of the Allobroges. Hear the biographer at number 1: Blessed Apollinaris, therefore, bishop of the city of Valence, was both born and brought up at Vienne. By which words is also refuted the opinion of those who would have it that our Saint was brought up in the monastery of Lérins, about sixty leagues distant from Vienne of the Allobroges. Nor truly can there be opposed to so express a testimony of our biographer these words, which Vincenzo Barrali alleges in the Chronologia of Lérins, page 378, as words of Pietro de' Natali: Apollinaris, bishop in Gaul in the city of Valence, … of whom the tables of Lérins constantly say: St. Apollinaris, bishop of Valence and monk of Lérins. For, as will be clear to anyone consulting the Work of Equilinus, printed in the year 1493, this writer relates nothing about our Saint, in book 11, number 272, besides the eulogy of St. Ado recounted at number 3. What of the fact that after Chapter 129 of the same book 11 the same Pietro de' Natali openly indicates that he could find absolutely nothing about the life or deeds of St. Apollinaris, as of the other Saints whom he enumerates there, except their names and the days of their feasts? But, you will say, although the praised Equilinus does not make him a monk of Lérins, yet the tables of Lérins constantly make him such, as Vincenzo Barrali writes. But if these tables are old, if authentic, why does he not indicate their age and credibility, why does Vincenzo not produce them? If more recent, they are not of such moment that, even if the authority of Equilinus and other more recent writers were added to them, they could in any way outweigh the testimony of the contemporary biographer. Our biographer does indeed assert at number 5 that our holy Prelate wore a cowl, which the queen of the Burgundians asked to be given her that she might spread it over the sick king: but whoever contends from that that he was a monk of Lérins must needs have it that all bishops and men of any condition who before the caps of our time

used hooded garments were likewise monks of Lérins.

[20] and he held the episcopate of Valence for 34 years, Not in the same way as it is established by the testimony of contemporaries about both parents of our Saint and about his native place do express documents of ancient authors remain to us about the very year in which he was either born or died. Hence I should not dare to determine either of his natal years exactly and for certain. Yet there is ground from which the Saint's age, and hence his natal years, can be plausibly elicited quite closely. Thus our biographer writes to our purpose at number 7: When in the thirty-fourth year of his venerable life he was completing the course of his pontifical office, moved by a heavenly admonition, he resolved to hasten to visit his fellow priests and kinsmen, saying that before his passing (which he had learned by divine revelation was now swiftly impending) he wished to present himself in person at the threshold of St. Genesius the martyr as well as to the sight and converse of his kinsmen. Since therefore, on the testimony of our biographer, death was swiftly impending over St. Apollinaris, as the divine revelation bore, in the 34th year of his episcopate, perhaps he exchanged the mortal life for the immortal in the same year, or at least in the following. Join to these the about 33 years which the Saint numbered when he was raised to the see of Valence; there will arise in all about 67 years during which he lived on earth. And that these cannot be extended beyond the year of Christ 531, or removed below the year 450, I show in this manner. In the year 529 or the beginning of the following the synod of Valence on the Rhone was held, as has already been said by us in the Life of St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, number 43, and in the Life of St. Cyprian, bishop of Toulon, number 45. But since St. Apollinaris was not present at it (for the biographer, who professes to disclose what he recalled that the Saint did as the end of his worldly life was now drawing near, and so related his exile and then his deeds, would not have wrapped this in silence), it must be that the holy Prelate had already then ceased to be among the living, and so that the 34 years of his episcopate cannot extend to that point. This opinion St. Ado excellently confirms in the Chronicle, Age 6, at the year 492, where he establishes that St. Apollinaris was already then a bishop: from which it follows that he was not surviving among the living in the year 531, since otherwise he would have held the see of Valence not for 34 or 35 but for 39 or 40 years, which cannot easily be reconciled with the biographer's words adduced above.

[21] Wherefore I do not see what could have impelled Le Cointe to write thus about our Saint at the year of Christ 534, number 9: [and he probably died about the year of Christ 520, in about the 67th year of his age.] Then there could still be among the living Saeculatius, bishop of Die, and Apollinaris, bishop of Valence, who had been present at the council of Epaone under Sigismund, king of Burgundy. Nay, on the contrary, from this very head, that St. Apollinaris was present at the synod of Epaone in the year 517, and yet does not appear, either in person or through vicars, at the council of Arles held in the year 524, among those prelates together with whom he had himself subscribed at Epaone, it could be made out with sufficient probability that he had already departed from the living from the year 524; and this epoch of his death indeed seems not to have displeased Chastelain, since he bound the Saint's death to the year 520. Certainly, on account of what has been said, it seems more plausible that his death took place about the year 520, that is, between the year 518 and 524, than between the year 525 and 534, as the Martyrology of Paris, printed in the year 1727, asserts. Chastelain's epoch, therefore, being admitted as the more probable, it follows that St. Apollinaris was raised to the see of Valence about the year 486, and so began to shine with the episcopal dignity about four years before St. Avitus, his younger brother by birth, as Sirmond and others commonly judge; which dignity Henschenius shows was conferred on St. Avitus about the year 490, volume 1 of February, page 661, number 6, and in his Annotations on his Life, in which St. Apollinaris was named before St. Avitus, certainly because he was the elder by birth; which the writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 116, our Longueval, volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, page 218, and other learned men commonly relate; and hence St. Ado in the Chronicle by no means opposes our chronotaxis mentioned above when he mentions Saints Avitus and Apollinaris only at the year 492, since in the cited place he does not teach that both Saints received episcopal ordination in that year, but rather seems to insinuate that they, created bishops already before, shone then most of all and thereafter with doctrine and virtues. But if we look back to the pitiable state of the church of Valence, bereaved of its pastor, as it appears, for very many years before, it may seem wonderful that St. Apollinaris was not placed over it before about the year 486; which, however, I should think did not happen for this reason, that he had not yet attained before that time the years required by the sacred canons. These things being thus established after a fashion, as an uncertain matter allows, if from about the year of Christ 486 there are subtracted the almost 33 completed years which St. Apollinaris spent before entering upon the episcopate, one will return to about the year 453, which was that of his birth on earth.

§ III. Deeds and various virtues of the Saint of which no mention is made in our biographer.

In St. Apollinaris, pastoral solicitude for his flock, Having established from our biographer the Saint's most noble kinship, native place and education, and having designated from the same, as closely as could be done, the time of his birth, of the episcopate undertaken and of his death, I am now compelled to turn aside from him for a while, lest I pass over altogether in silence the deeds and virtues of the holy Prelate which he did not explicitly recount, intending however soon to return to the same guide when we must treat of the things done by St. Apollinaris towards the end of his life. If it is permitted to adhere to Jean Columbi, who, on the credit of old Monuments and manuscript codices of the episcopal archive, studiously comprised in four books the deeds of the bishops of Valence and Die, and to the brothers de Sainte-Marthe, volume 3 of Gallia Christiana, page 1109, and to other writers, St. Apollinaris held the see of Valence after Maximus, the first of this name. Further, this man, as Sirmond writes on the Letter of Pope Boniface I in Labbe, volume 2 of the Councils, column 1816, was that same one whom the clerics of the same church accused before Boniface (the first of this name, as I have said) as having formerly been involved in the sect of the Manichaeans, condemned for homicide in a secular court, and covered moreover with many crimes, asserting that he had refused to be present at the inquiries delegated and constituted in the province, and had always evaded all judgments. The Pontiff, since he had not come to Rome, decreeing that he should be judged within the province, orders a synod of bishops to be gathered on a fixed day, and in it the case of Maximus to be discussed and sentence to be pronounced whether he were present or absent. What was done by the bishops with the accused man I have nowhere found handed down in writing. This is certain, that the flock of Valence, under a pastor, as is said in the Letter of Boniface, cited volume, column 1584, involved in the darkness of the Manichaeans … and in crimes committed on every side, could not but suffer much damage, and that many labours therefore had to be endured by his successor St. Apollinaris, and he had to toil most intensely with vigilant care, to restore to its former vigour the purity of faith and morals shaken by the perverse doctrine and bad examples of Maximus. From so difficult and arduous a labour the Saint perhaps contracted that illness by which, created bishop not so long before, as Sirmond judges, he was confined to bed at Lyon, where St. Viventiolus, as is clear from Letter 17 of St. Avitus, visited and consoled him in friendship. These Apostolic labours of St. Apollinaris and his other virtues our biographer, as I have already noted, did not express one by one; but that they are nonetheless not to be doubted his words teach us, in which he comprised in general his episcopal endowments, openly professing at number 1 that he was unequal to recalling each worthily.

[23] Among these episcopal virtues no lowest rank was held by a burning zeal for propagating the Catholic faith, burning zeal for defending and propagating the Catholic faith, and for uprooting the Arian heresy, which he had in common with St. Avitus his brother and other very great men then shining with the episcopal dignity. The Conference of the bishops before king Gundobad against the Arians testifies to this, held, as is said in volume 3 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery, edition of 1723, page 304, and in Longueval, volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, page 254, in 499, at which the bishop of the city of Valence is narrated to have been present, who, as is shown from the years of his episcopate, cannot be other than our St. Apollinaris. And although the desired outcome did not in every part correspond to the efforts of the Catholic prelates, yet their zeal brought it about that the Catholic subjects of the king of the Burgundians remained in the Catholic faith, and that very many Arians, although king Gundobad himself neither publicly professed the equality of the Trinity nor abjured the Arian perfidy, yet came to penitence and after some days, as is related in the cited volume, page 306, column 2, were baptized; namely, as the praised Longueval aptly observes, volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, page 254, because they were followers of Photinus or Paul of Samosata, whom canon 19 of the council of Nicaea, and afterwards also canon 16 of the 2nd council of Arles, held in the year 452, ordered to be baptized in these words: That the Photinians or Paulianists must be baptized according to the institutions of the fathers. And that these heretics infested Gaul during these times, as Sirmond observes in the Notes on Letter 28 of St. Avitus, the 2nd council of Arles, chapter 16, and the 12th Letter of Sidonius, book 6, to Patiens, bishop of Lyon, indicate. Whence also blessed Avitus is called by Agobard a most powerful vanquisher of the Photinian heretics. The rest of what was done and said on both sides by the Catholics and the Arians in this conference read in the cited volume 3 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 304 and following: where too you will deservedly admire the submission and humility of St. Apollinaris and the other prelates, who, although they were senior to St. Avitus in episcopal dignity and in age, as the Acts of the Conference, St. Avitus's biographer and others insinuate, yet with a willing and ready mind deferred this to him, that he alone should speak in the name of them all against the Arians before the king. So far from our Saint and his other fellow bishops was that untimely desire of defending their own honour and increasing their glory which has often at other times been damaging to the Church.

[24] And as those to whom the propagation of the Catholic Religion and the extinction of heresies is dear hold nothing more important of defending the dignity of the Apostolic See than that its dignity and authority be kept intact for the Apostolic See, so too St. Apollinaris yielded to none of his colleagues in this respect. Let us go back a little further with the matter: what had been

the schism that arose on the occasion of the election of St. Symmachus, Pope, seemed extinguished by the judgment delivered in his favour by Theodoric, the Arian king, and by the synod celebrated at Rome on the Kalends of March in the year 499, when it broke out again with a more bitter effort. False witnesses having been suborned, the adversaries brought all the greatest crimes against the legitimate Pontiff, and prevailed with Theodoric that Peter, bishop of the city of Altinum, should be given by him to the Apostolic See as visitor, to take cognizance of the accusations brought against Symmachus. This visitor having been rejected, as was just, and condemned together with the antipope Laurence in a synod of 115 bishops, St. Symmachus, conscious of his innocence, yet assailed by the calumnies of his adversaries, yielded his right and submitted himself to the judgment of a synod gathered with his consent, so that his integrity might thus become known more manifestly to all. The sentence delivered upon Symmachus by the gathered bishops of Italy might have seemed not so unjust a thing, since this sentence had declared him innocent before God, and, as regards men, immune and free from the crimes alleged; but the bishops of Gaul, Avitus, Apollinaris and all the others, did not bear that inferiors had dared to deliver judgment on the case of the Roman Pontiff, even though he consented to it.

[25] his highest zeal, and his illustrious reverence towards the Roman Pontiff. Hence St. Avitus, as he asserts in his letter to Faustus and Symmachus, senators of the City, in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1362, was charged by all the Gallican brothers, and hence most of all by his brother St. Apollinaris, who, as will be plain below in the case of Stephen, was strenuous and constant above the rest in defending the prescriptions of the Holy Canons, no less by commissions than by letters, with this very thing, that he should give letters as witnesses of the veneration of himself and all the fellow bishops of the Gallican church towards the Apostolic See; in which this above all deserves to be observed, which yet a certain modern writer has impudently carped at: In the other priests, if anything perhaps has wavered, it can be reformed: but if the Pope of the City is called into doubt (or, as he had said before, if the superior is judged by inferiors), it will now seem to be the episcopate, not a bishop, that totters. And a little after: It is not for the flock to terrify its own shepherd, but for the judge. There are many other virtues too which St. Apollinaris had in common with his brother Avitus and other bishops of his time, for instance, a vehement solicitude that the church of Constantinople should be brought to Catholic communion, and also a quite singular reverence and submission of mind towards the Roman Pontiff, of which the same St. Avitus again writes, Letter 87, to Pope Hormisdas: I promise securely, I shall not say of the devotion of Vienne (alone) (in which province Apollinaris occupied one of the principal sees), but of that of all Gaul, that all await your sentence on the state of the faith. But let us now proceed to those virtues which were proper to our Saint.

[26] outstanding purity of life, and piety towards the faithful departed, Of these St. Avitus speaks thus in Letter 12, sent to St. Apollinaris: It appears clearly how great is the grace of God in your merit, or how great a heap of virtues ought to be conjectured, where error itself is so holy. And on what occasion these things were uttered by him it pleases me to review here. To St. Apollinaris, on the same night on which the anniversary of his deceased sister was being celebrated at Vienne of the Allobroges in his absence, an altogether unwonted appearance had been presented in sleep; or, to hear St. Apollinaris himself speaking: On that holy night itself, in a vision, something or other had stuck to my hands, which a most shining dove, but red with an unwonted colour, sitting beside me, was plucking away. And when, awakened, I recognized indeed the daily roughness of my hands, but nonetheless remembered that I was being cleansed undeservedly, while I turn over with myself, sad and anxious, that very ambiguity, or what the appearance set before me portended, suddenly, as if struck with a goad, I at once remembered the interest left owing. Now what confusion then oppressed me, and what bitterness, your holy piety will weigh; namely, that he had forgotten to send the generous gift, as he was wont to do every year, for the celebration of the anniversary. To these things St. Avitus answers with the words adduced above, and subjoins to them: While a just accuser of himself tries to convict himself of what he could not sin in, the humility of the one confessing grows to merit, not the truth of the confession to guilt. You exceeded, I confess, the custom: but with increase of piety you deign always to remember this day… You have shown with how great spirituality it delights you to exercise yourselves, since having passed it by so grieved you. Truly a holy revelation followed the dignity of your fault: and such a punishment was found in the one sleeping as had been the sin in the one waking. Then, having set out his opinion of that vision, in which he proclaims his brother's outstanding piety and the innocence and simplicity of his most holy life, he concludes the letter thus: You have therefore indeed enlarged, as has been said above, the accustomed interest: nor yet was that lacking to custom which you thought. For on that very night, which, Christ rousing you, it was not permitted to forget, your offering nonetheless still shone from the abundance of the former year. So, from a certain irrigation of heavenly blessing, what you spend each year suffices for many. I pray God that your piety may some day pay this to me too. And hence everyone can easily judge how upright in life St. Apollinaris was and pure even of the slightest fault, how pious towards his kinsmen who had died before him, how liberal towards churches.

[27] But, to leave undecided what Jean Columbi relates without authentic testimony, in book 1 of the Deeds of the Bishops of Valence, page 248, about the estate of Subdio given to the church of Valence by St. Apollinaris, great liberality towards churches, his liberal and munificent disposition towards churches is certainly manifested also by Letter 79 of St. Avitus, in which he gives the highest thanks to St. Apollinaris, in these words, for the gifts which he had sent for the adornment of the church of Vienne when he could not be present at its festivity: Bound alike and burdened by the condescension of your solicitude, by the greatness of the gift, by the custom of your piety, with what worthy thanksgiving, I shall not say with what diligence of service, can I respond? Unless perhaps, weak in many ways, I am sustained in this by the same grace of yours which burdens us. May almighty God grant you to the adornment of the church, to our consolation and refreshment, so that, since in truth you live not for yourselves alone, you may heap up your merits through the consolations of others. My sins indeed caused a not ordinary necessity, by which, on the day of our little festivity undertaken, we were defrauded of the bodily presence of your piety. But you have given back and represented to us the exchange of your sight in the light, of your mouth in the discourse, of your touch in the work. I hope in the mercy of God that not in my time only, but also in the time to follow, our little church will venerate the gift of your offering. Which, as I desire to keep while I live in testimony of inexhaustible largesse, so may God grant me that your authority may commend it particularly also to him whom, after me, when God shall command, your election shall have decreed. And he who conferred gifts with so generous a hand on the church of Vienne, which was only related to him, that St. Avitus could not give thanks equal to the munificence, ought by no means to be judged to have been sparing towards his own spouse, the church of Valence. Hence I should think that both those churches were built at his own expense to whose twin dedication he had earnestly invited his brother St. Avitus, as is clear from the latter's Letter 25: and on these churches St. Apollinaris seems to have poured out his wealth to such an extent that, compelled by want, he did not dare to call more than a few to the festivity of the dedication. St. Avitus seems to allude to this, writing to him thus in Letter 25: Wherefore, although you say that you have asked few, although you rejoice that you are relieved by the dismissal of a courtly assembly: yet if any opportunity of making the excursion shall be given me, you will invite even those unwilling who shall come upon you. God will provide banquets for the multitude that are your guests. There the food of the poor will be heaped up, the jar of oil and the jug of meal persisting. There, if there are even five loaves, it will suffice to have provided a double fish. And this I promise faithfully after these experiences of miracles, that, Christ by no means being about to fail the assembly of His poor, the more thousands of the peoples you gather, the more baskets you will carry back.

[28] a wonderful observance of fraternal charity and other virtues shone forth. There shone forth also in our Saint a not common kind of munificence, by which he was wonderfully borne towards those with whom he could not unjustly have been angry. He had most earnestly asked his brother Avitus to come to a festivity (he perhaps means the annual memory of the dedication of his church), and yet he, as he writes in Letter 63, had not come to the festivity. Therefore St. Apollinaris, from whom it was either hidden, or at any rate could be hidden, that his brother had not been present in person because necessity prevented him, thinking over and handling his brother's failure in duty, or, as the latter says, his want of devotion, judged nothing worthier than that, avoiding injury, he should attempt nothing less zealously, and should employ no other kind of punishment against his brother than that by which evil is conquered in good: therefore in place of punishment he sent him gifts. The unwonted kind of vengeance could not but move the mind of St. Avitus; who praised it no less vehemently than wittily, and, that he might inflict a like punishment on so holy an avenger, repaid him with like zeal by sending gifts. A contest worthy of the love of brothers, says Sirmond rightly in the Notes on Letters 62 and 63, nay, a notable proof of Christian munificence and fraternal charity. And with these virtues indeed, besides many others, our holy Prelate was adorned, which, because the biographer had left them untouched, it was necessary to draw out from other pure sources and to review indiscriminately, since they could not be bound to a chronological order. Now, as I promised, I return to our biographer, to pursue under his guidance the remaining deeds of our Saint and, where the matter requires, to illustrate them with other genuine documents.

§ IV. The Saint, on the occasion of the canon passed in the synod of Epaone against incestuous marriages, is sent into exile by Sigismund, king of the Burgundians: a miracle performed by him in the place of exile: health having been divinely restored to the king, he is recalled thence. At what time these things happened.

A canon having been passed in the synod of Epaone Our biographer, already often praised, since he had proposed to himself to commit to posterity only those things which had been nobly done by St. Apollinaris towards the end of his life, that he might excite it, as he says, by praiseworthy emulation through proclaiming these acts and glorious examples of the Saint, nowhere made express mention of the synod of Epaone, gathered in the estate of Tortillianum or Ebao, a place near Vienne, or, as others would have it, in the village of Ienna, situated on the Rhone, at which St. Apollinaris had been present. Yet, if we wish to go back to the origin of the history of the Saint's being driven into exile, the sequence of the narrative must be led down from this council, celebrated in the year of Christ 517, as the learned commonly judge. The matter stands thus. Perhaps at the same time at which Victurius, prelate of Grenoble, consulted St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, in Letter 14, about what should be done concerning Vincomalus, a citizen of Grenoble, who

had joined to himself in marriage the sister of his deceased wife, it happened, as our biographer relates, that a certain man of the household of king Sigismund, named Stephen, who held the headship over all the administration of his treasury, after his wife had died, joined to himself unlawfully in union the sister of his wife. Not infrequent, as is clear from these examples, were those incestuous marriages among the Burgundians at that time, by which husbands brought into their bed the sister of a deceased wife.

[30] But since, as is plain from the letter of the same bishop Victurius, by a canon against incestuous marriages, it was not so settled and fixed for some bishops what they ought to decree about such a case, namely whether those incestuous spouses were to be withdrawn from communion or admitted, either of which some determined only with trepidation, so far was the evil from being met in this way that, on the contrary, there was imminent danger that the contagion should grow worse daily. Therefore the bishops who had been gathered by St. Avitus for the synod to be held on the eighth day before the Ides of September in the parish of Epaone, as his tractoria Letter in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1573, indicates, obeying the command of Sigismund, king of the Burgundians, among other canons framed on ecclesiastical discipline, adopted among their own, in order to bring a remedy to the creeping evil, canon 61 of the council of Agde, framed in a like case in the year of Christ 506 by the bishops subject to Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and declared in canon 30 that they reserved no pardon whatever for Incestuous unions, unless they have healed the adultery by separation. And they judged that incest, which is not to be veiled by any name of marriage, besides those which it is deadly even to name, is this among others, if any brother takes the sister of his wife.

[31] and Stephen, prefect of king Sigismund's treasury, being excommunicated, Stephen, prefect of the royal treasury, and his partner Palladia were struck by this canon. And hence, since he was especially dear to and in favour with king Sigismund, the Fathers of Epaone surely had reason to fear lest, struck by this canonical thunderbolt, he should approach the king now with deceits, now with calumnies, and exasperate Sigismund's mind against them, especially against those whom he knew to be the chief authors of the passing of this sentence. Yet, as became strenuous prelates, the inviolability of the Ecclesiastical laws came first with them before all fear of unjust persecution, and, obeying God rather than men, the holy and most blessed apostolic men Avitus and Apollinaris, as the biographer says at number 2, preserving the synodal institution, being gathered together in one with the rest of the pontiffs, decreed that Stephen himself should be deprived of holy communion: so that, namely, the unchastity of human frailty being trampled underfoot, shameless presumption might not dare to claim what the justice from on high has condemned. Whether the biographer here understood by the synodal institution the synod of Agde, or the aforesaid canon 30 of the synod of Epaone, or rather the constitution of both councils, is unexplored by me, nor does it make much to our purpose. This is undoubted from the testimony of the council of Lyon itself, in Labbe, cited volume, column 1584, that our St. Apollinaris and ten bishops who were present at the synod of Epaone together with him, gathered again in one in the name of the Trinity, decreed, in the case of Stephen, polluted with the crime of incest, that they would inviolably maintain this act of theirs which they had subscribed with one consent for the condemnation of him or of her whom he had unlawfully joined to himself: which it was resolved should be observed not only concerning the aforesaid same persons but in all who in any place or time should be detected in this perversity. So, almost word for word, canon 1 of the council of Lyon, which was celebrated in the same year of Christ 517, as it seems to Labbe and many others.

[32] [the Saint prefers to suffer all things rather than that the discipline of the Church be shaken,] Since therefore it was fixed in the mind of the bishops gathered at Lyon to suffer all evils rather than permit the Ecclesiastical discipline in restraining incestuous persons, common both to the Greek Church, as St. Basil testifies, Letter 197 to Diodorus, and to the Latin Church, as the synod of Agde testifies, to be violated with impunity, with minds presaging the persecution impending over them they decreed thus in canon 2: that if for this cause any one of them should perhaps have to endure any tribulation or bitterness or disturbance from the power, all should suffer with him with one and the same mind: and whatever losses one should undergo on the pretext of the case, the consolation of fraternal anxiety should relieve the afflicted: and in canon 3: But if the most excellent king shall suspend himself further * from the Church or from the communion of the priests, giving him place for coming to the bosom of the holy Mother, let the holy prelates betake themselves without any delay into monasteries, as shall be opportune for each, until, bent by the prayers of the saints, he shall deign, according to his power or piety, to restore entire peace for preserving the fullness of charity. So that no single one shall depart from the monastery in which he has chosen to dwell before peace has been promised or restored to all the brothers generally. Yet, lest they should seem to have wished to defer nothing at all to the dignity and sentence of king Sigismund, who was pleading most earnestly for his Stephen, they granted, following the king's sentence, as is said in canon 6, this measure of mitigation, that they allowed to the aforesaid Stephen or to Palladia (for that was the name of his incestuous wife) a space for praying in the holy places up to the prayer of the people which was read after the Gospels (that is, up to the Orate fratres).

[33] Nevertheless, as the biographer writes, the king, moved by the fury of dire madness, hence he goes into exile with other bishops and is alone retained and, as is credible, circumvented by the arts or calumnies of Stephen, did not cease to injure the most blessed pontiffs most bitterly by laying snares. But the apostolic and venerable men, by no means fearing the threats of an earthly king, armed with heavenly commands, so bound themselves with the bond of justice that, whatever punishments were inflicted on them, they would endure the torments as companions in suffering. For it seemed good to them that, in a town of the city of the people of Lyon which is called Sardinia, they should keep one another company together, as assigned to exile, with the Lord's help. Which indeed I think was done by the bishops not of their own accord, in which sense the biographer might be understood, but under compulsion of the king's mandate. Yet Sigismund did not long hold each of them banished from home. For, seeing, as the biographer says, that their constancy was incorruptible, not ceasing from his wrath, he commanded that the pontiffs who were residing there together (namely in exile) should return home, and should wait upon the king one by one month by month. But because most blessed Apollinaris seemed to be persevering in the condemnation of Stephen (perhaps because he wished to relax nothing of the utmost rigour of the Canons, and that Stephen should not only be admonished to do public penance but compelled to it by the threats of all the ecclesiastical penalties), he (the king) was eager to watch him first, that is, to proceed more severely against him, namely by detaining him alone in exile, the other bishops being recalled. Then all (the other bishops), beseeching the divine power with tears not to forsake him, bidding farewell, prayer having been celebrated, set out. Further, which that town of the city, or territory or province, of the people of Lyon, called Sardinia, is, to which St. Apollinaris was relegated by order of king Sigismund, since, besides others, Valesius, Baudrand and Bouquet are silent, and the writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 95, in the Annotations, testify that this place is unknown at the present time, I should not dare to declare. Hence I spare conjectures about the situation of this Sardinia and return to St. Apollinaris.

[34] How long a stay the holy Prelate was compelled to make in this place of his exile [for the space, as it seems, of one year, during which time he performs a miracle,] it is easy to understand from the prodigy which the biographer narrates was performed by him there, if indeed, as Sirmond, the authors of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 93, and others think, another council was in fact celebrated at Lyon by eleven bishops a little after the council of Epaone, and, this being finished, they were at once driven into exile. For since the biographer says that, while Apollinaris was still living in exile, the streams of the Rhone were so warmed by the burning heat that the water from it could not be drunk by the thirsty, it follows that, the other bishops having been brought back to their sees about the end of the year 517, he himself remained banished from his episcopal see until the summer or autumn of the following year. Hear the biographer speaking again in his own words: In which place, while the Man of God was sustaining the spaces of his stay because of necessity, the streams of the Rhone were warmed by the burning heat, so that the water from it could not be drunk by the thirsty. And because no well nor spring was found there from which water ought to be drawn, the most blessed Man of God, strengthening himself with the Holy Spirit, and secure in the virtues of a power not unknown, betakes himself to a place designated by God, and secretly ordered a hoe to be brought to him by his people: which having been brought, prayer having been completed, he said to them: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, open this place. This done, presently, with the assent of Him who orders the waters to boil in the heart of the earth, a spring arose: and as long as the most blessed Pontiff stayed there, by the benefit of almighty God he merited always to have water pleasing to him: but after his departure the spring was dried up, so that all might recognize that the spring itself had rendered its service by the merits of the Servant of God, and had returned to its former course.

[35] and then, health having been divinely restored to king Sigismund, The miracle divinely performed by St. Apollinaris, if it had reached the ears of Sigismund, could have moved his mind not to hold any longer banished from his own see the undeserving Prelate, whose innocence and holiness those above had approved by a prodigy: but, whether by the cunning of Stephen or of other courtiers, nothing seems to have become known to the king about it until after, as appears, he had been informed about it by his wife, who had gone to the holy Prelate to plead for him. Certainly before that time he was not a whit fairer towards St. Apollinaris, so that on the contrary, as the biographer testifies, he would not even see that apostolic Man, but was rather eager to lay snares; when at length God (the words are again the biographer's), who is the praiseworthy judge of most upright merits and of immense virtue, showing swift vengeance, brought it about that the king himself so incurred the force of fevers that he was believed to be funereal rather than living. Then his queen (I think Sigismund's former wife, Theodoric's daughter, called Ostrogotho, as Jordanes testifies, chapter 58, is designated here), kindled with faith, and, as appears, rightly divining the cause of the sickness sent by God, came with eager haste to the place where the most blessed Pontiff was residing, and with avid devotion asked that through his intercession her lord (Sigismund) might receive the gift of safety. But the Man of God, renouncing the haughtiness of worldly elation, refused in every way the service of going. And the more that queen, watering his feet with tears, begged that at least his cowl be given her, which she might spread upon the king. Conquered by her weeping, he yielded. And when, God granting it, it had been spread upon her husband with confident constancy, at once the attack of the fevers, or whatever other assault appeared, being put to flight, he obtained the gift of prosperity.

[36] he is thence led out by him with honour. So the good prince, restored to health and to himself, remembering the misdeed which he had committed by the unjust persecution of the bishops, although filled with great confusion, yet exulting that by the suffrage of the Pontiff (St. Apollinaris, whom he had detained in exile longer than the other bishops) he had merited to obtain his former health through the covering of his garment, hastening forward, was first eager to merit to behold with visible eyes the waters of so great a miracle and so great a virtue, that is, the spring which had arisen divinely by the work of the holy Prelate in the place of his exile, and which, as the biographer seems to hint, was distinguished by other prodigies or benefits. Presently, the grace of the virtue having been recognized, he came to the Man of God, and, placed before him and embracing his feet, with a weeping of exultation begged pardon, saying: I have sinned, I have acted wickedly, in that I have often inflicted undeserved tribulations on the just. So far, almost, the biographer, describing the sickness divinely inflicted on Sigismund and his repentance for the fault committed; who, although he does not there openly declare that St. Apollinaris was brought back to his see by Sigismund at that time, yet sufficiently hints it, when he writes that the king submissively begged pardon for the offence committed by him, and at once proceeds to those deeds of the holy Prelate which show clearly enough that he was then restored to his see by the king. And in this manner it came about that their vigour stood firm for the Ecclesiastical laws, and that the undaunted endurance of an unjust persecution by our Prelate checked the pride of the incestuous Stephen, who refused to submit himself to them, and the wrath of the king, who had been miserably deceived or circumvented.

[37] Before I proceed to the remaining deeds of the Saint, I must take up Baillet, [But these things happened, not before the conversion of Sigismund, as Baillet would have it,] who, placing the synod of Lyon and the exile of the prelates just now mentioned before the complete conversion of Sigismund to the Catholic faith and before the synod of Epaone, departed from the more probable opinion, as it seems to me at least. And surely there are many things which make against Baillet, while only the biographer of St. Avitus, younger than Ado and less happy in designating chronological marks, favours him somehow, when, treating of Sigismund, instructed by St. Avitus in the faith of piety, he added, not from Ado's Chronicle but of his own, that this was done after the exile of St. Avitus; in which matter, since he is too remote from the times of our Saint and destitute of the testimony of the ancients, he deserves scarcely any credit. But the things which oppose Baillet's opinion, and render the chronotaxis fixed by us against it all but undoubted, are these: that the synod in the case of the incestuous Stephen was held at Lyon in the time of king Sigismund, and that it was not distant by a long interval of time from that of Epaone, celebrated in the year 517, Sirmond rightly observed in the Notes, in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1586, and that both from the fact that the name of king Sigismund occurs in both synods, and from the fact that the very same bishops, to a man, who were present at Epaone were present also at Lyon. Add to these that, as we have taught at number 31, the Fathers of Lyon openly declare in canon 1 that they were gathered again, that is, for the second time, in the case of Stephen, in order to see to it that what they had before decreed with the highest consent against incestuous marriages, namely in the synod of Epaone, should be observed inviolably by all, no one excepted. Wherefore, if Baillet wishes to be consistent with himself, it is necessary that, while he places the council of Lyon before the complete conversion of Sigismund, he should not only remove it by about ten years from that of Epaone, but also, the words of canon 1 already cited resisting, place it before the latter by as many years; since, as is manifestly plain from Letter 27 of St. Avitus, given in the name of king Sigismund to Pope Symmachus, and from the Note of Sirmond added to it, long before the death of this Pontiff, who died in the year of Christ 514, Sigismund was thoroughly Catholic, and on this account had formerly been received at Rome by Pope Symmachus very kindly and familiarly.

[38] What of the fact that Baillet himself, on the 1st day of May, in the Life of St. Sigismund, who wrongly places the synod of Lyon some years before that of Epaone, hints that this young prince, a good deal before he succeeded his father Gundobad in the kingdom in the year 516, had turned the admiration of the whole paternal court upon himself by his piety and holy morals; so that accordingly, as I have already noted above, if Baillet wishes to speak consistently, he is compelled to separate the two synods by about a decade, not to say more years, and to place that of Lyon before that of Epaone by as many years. In which opinion I do not know whether he will now have the learned supporting him, or by what reasoning the words of the canon 1 of Lyon can be aptly reconciled with the decree of Epaone. Add that, although Sigismund, as is clear from the same Letter of St. Avitus, bore the name of king while Pope Symmachus was still living, and so, as Sirmond, already praised above, observes, was not first called king in the year of Christ 516, yet it is not credible that the royal name was solemnly granted him by his father Gundobad, who was too much a servant of political art and of the times, as soon as he had been converted by St. Avitus to the Catholic faith, whether in some fashion or completely, not without the indignation of the Arian princes and subjects. Whence, since Sigismund in the inscription of the council of Lyon already enjoys the name of king, it follows that it was not celebrated at the time when he had begun to be Catholic in faith, much less before he had been imbued with the Catholic religion by St. Avitus; lest otherwise you be compelled to remove the synod of Lyon even further than Baillet from that of Epaone, celebrated, as I have said, in the year 517, and to bring the young prince to the kingdom of the Burgundians much earlier than the old historians allow. Add to these that, if the synod of Lyon had been celebrated while Gundobad was still living, nay, much before Sigismund was raised to the kingdom by his order, as Fredegar testifies in the Epitome, chapter 34, it would have been said in the inscription of the council that it was held not simply in the time of king Sigismund, but either in the time of king Gundobad alone or of the kings Gundobad and Sigismund.

[39] [but they happened after the synods of Epaone and Lyon, celebrated in the year 517.] On the other hand, while the synod of Lyon is placed after that of Epaone, it is most rightly said to have been gathered in the time of Sigismund, since in the year 516, that is, in the consulship of Peter, as Marius of Avenches writes in the Chronicle, king Gundobagaudus had died, and his son Sigismund had been raised to his kingdom as king, with whose consent, in the year 517, in the parish of Epaone, on the eighth day before the Ides of September, the bishops of the kingdom of the Burgundians were gathered in one. To spare other absurdities following from Baillet's opinion, who would believe that eleven bishops would have dared, at Lyon, in the very royal seat of the Arian prince Gundobad, to gather a synod without his order, in which they should declare a client most in favour with him excluded from the communion of the Church, his son Sigismund being most unwilling? Or why, if Gundobad was still surviving at the time of this council, were St. Viventiolus, prelate of Lyon, and the other bishops driven into exile not by him but by king Sigismund? These and other things discordant with the truth are far absent from our chronotaxis, nor is anything related by our biographer or in the synods of Epaone and Lyon which cannot easily and excellently be reconciled with it. And as for my calling this, though Pagi protests at the year 517, number 10, not the synod of an uncertain place but the synod of Lyon, I surely do not do so rashly, since the very words of canon 1 most plainly testify that this synod was held at Lyon. Hear them: Gathered again in one in the name of the Trinity, in the case of Stephen, polluted with the crime of incest, and staying in the city of Lyon, we have decreed, etc. Sirmond therefore did not call it the synod of Lyon, as Pagi asserts, because Viventiolus, bishop of Lyon, subscribed to it first, but because, as I have just said, canon 1 of the council most expressly assigns Lyon as the place of the synod held.

* perhaps rather ultro (of his own accord)?

§ V. The Saint's journey towards Arles and Marseilles undertaken for the sake of piety: his wonderful death: the burial of his body, translations and miracles performed after death.

His time of death being foreknown, the Saint sets out for Arles After the synods of Epaone and Lyon had been held, therefore, when St. Apollinaris had been brought back from exile to his episcopal chair with honour, as I hinted at number 36, he bent all his mind and care, according to his vigilance and solicitude, to this, that what had been most salutarily decreed in both synods should be most accurately carried out, each in its time, in his diocese. But this diocese did not long afterwards enjoy so vigilant a Pastor: for, divinely admonished of his impending passing to immortal life, when, as our biographer says at number 7, he was completing the course of his pontifical office in the thirty-fourth year of his venerable life, moved by a heavenly admonition he resolved to hasten to visit his fellow priests and kinsmen, saying that before his passing (which he had learned by divine revelation was now swiftly impending) he wished to present himself in person at the threshold of the holy martyr Genesius as well as to the sight of the pontiffs and the converse of his kinsmen. There was at Arles at this time, as also long before, as our Cuper has demonstrated in volume 5 of August, pages 124 and 125, the especially celebrated sepulchre of the martyr St. Genesius, and solemn pilgrimages were wont to be made to it; there were also living in the city of Arles St. Caesarius, its bishop, and, among the blood-relations of St. Apollinaris, the illustrious men Parthenius and Ferreolus. Hither, then, our Saint resolved to sail by the downward course of the Rhone, that he might at once show his veneration towards the most celebrated martyr Genesius and say a last farewell to his blood-relations.

[41] What was done by St. Apollinaris on this journey, and what miracles were performed by him, to visit the sepulchre of St. Genesius, martyr, and his blood-relations, since they have been set out quite fully by the biographer, I shall relate here only in their main heads, content to note this one thing beforehand, that the talk here is not of the sepulchre of that Genesius who at Rome, from a pagan mime, became a Christian and then a martyr, but of another martyr Genesius, namely him who, as Usuard testifies, discharging at Arles the office of notary, when he would not take down the impious edicts by which Christians were ordered to be punished, was seized and beheaded, and, baptized in his own blood, received the palm of martyrdom; about whom consult, if you please, the Annotations here on chapter 2, letter b, and volume 5 of August from page 123. This, then, is the sum of the things done by our Saint on the journey. They had already, by the downward flow of the Rhone, come in sight of the city of Avignon, when the ship in which St. Apollinaris was carried with his companions began, a storm suddenly arising, and by the work of the demon, as the biographer writes, to be vehemently tossed, and one of the boys, named Alifius, began to be pitiably vexed by an evil demon leaping into him. But presently the holy Prelate went to meet both evils, and, as the biographer says, sleeping he checked the insolence of the waves, and waking he put to flight the demon from the body it had seized, namely by ordering Salutaris the priest, who himself too was often infested by the assault of the demon, to lay his hands on the possessed boy

which being done, both the possessed boy and Salutaris the priest himself were rendered permanently unharmed. And while meanwhile all were rendering thanks to almighty God for the benefit received, Apollinaris, having put in at Arles, was received most honourably by St. Caesarius, prelate of Arles, and by Liberius, Parthenius and Ferreolus, the inhabitants of the whole city running together; where, prevailed upon by the prayers of all, he stayed a little longer than he had determined, and was enriched by his blood-relations with many gifts, which the most munificent Prelate exhausted almost at once in relieving the needy inhabitants.

[42] of one of whom, named Ferreolus, Of these things our biographer treats more at length in chapter 2, whom accordingly, together with the Annotations, the studious reader may consult at his discretion. But because the things which come to be said about one of the Saint's blood-relations already mentioned cannot be set out within their narrower limits as clearly as would be fitting, it has seemed good to discourse on him somewhat here. That the Ferreolus who, with Parthenius, received our Apollinaris even with the highest honours he could was not that prefect of the Gauls who took to wife Papianilla, daughter of Syagrius, a most illustrious man, there is no need to prove at length, since he flourished under the emperor Honorius and so was about a century older than our Prelate. But was it not of this Ferreolus's son, whose name was Tonantius Ferreolus, that the biographer treated here? So indeed the most learned Edmond Martène seems to have thought, when, in volume 6 of the Old Writers, column 782, he takes up our biographer's words about Ferreolus thus: I think that Ferreolus is the same as the Ferreolus of whom Sidonius Apollinaris, having set out for Nîmes, says in book 2, Letter 9, to Donidius: "Among most pleasant fields, with most courteous lords, Ferreolus and Apollinaris, I spent a most delightful time." For since Martène could not have understood these words of Sidonius either of Ferreolus, the husband of Papianilla cited above, or of his grandson by his son, to be mentioned below, the learned man must be judged to have wished to speak in his Annotation of no other than Tonantius Ferreolus, praetorian prefect of the Gauls, to whom Sidonius sent several letters. And there is surely reason why the Ferreolus praised by Sidonius in book 2, Letter 9 should be believed to be altogether the same as Tonantius Ferreolus, praetorian prefect of the Gauls; since in the same Letter 9 Sidonius makes him his blood-relation and calls him a Man of prefectorian rank, such as certainly was Tonantius Ferreolus, of prefectorian rank, grandson by a daughter of Afranius Syagrius, mentioned by the same Sidonius in book 1, Letter 7, in these very words; about whom see more, if you please, in Le Cointe, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, at the year of Christ 451, number 6.

[43] it had to be discoursed on here somewhat more fully, But that what we have already recounted above from the biographer's chapter 2, number 9, cannot be understood of this Tonantius Ferreolus, it pleases me to show against Martène in this manner: This Ferreolus was already praetorian prefect of the Gauls when Attila, having crossed the Rhine, penetrated as far as Orléans, as our Sirmond has shown from Letter 7 of book 1 of Sidonius, and especially from annotation 1 on Letter 12 of book 7, and as Le Cointe at the cited year 451 and others teach. And it is agreed among the learned that this expedition of Attila took place in the year of Christ 451. Add that Sidonius, book 7, Letter 12, testifies that Thorismund, king of the Goths, whom Aëtius could not have turned away by battle, was, bent by the grave and unwonted eloquence of Ferreolus and received at a luncheon, removed from the city of Arles, which that king was besieging; which thing can by no means be deferred beyond the year of Christ 454. Since therefore, as is plain from these things, Ferreolus about the years of Christ 451 and 454 must have been a man grave and venerable both in authority and age, he could not about the year of Christ 519 have venerated our Apollinaris at Arles with assiduous attendance, as the biographer says, unless you add to him the about 70 years which flowed between the expeditions of Attila and Thorismund and the journey of our Saint to Arles, and so establish Ferreolus as an old man more than a hundred years old; about which the deepest silence both of our biographer and of all the other writers whom I know would be altogether wonderful. Wherefore, leaving Martène's opinion, I judge that the Ferreolus mentioned by our biographer is he who was the son of the aforesaid Tonantius Ferreolus and grandson of Ferreolus I and Papianilla, to whom, besides the name of Tonantius, which Sidonius, already often praised, gives him in Letter 13 of book 9 and elsewhere, the name of Ferreolus too was given, just as to his father and paternal grandfather. This opinion of mine the same Sidonius confirms in the cited Letter 13, written certainly before the year of Christ 488 and perhaps about the year 470, in which he addresses this Tonantius as still a young man; so that he, born, as Le Cointe thinks in the cited place, before the year of Christ 455, or at any rate not later, could easily, living at Arles, have received our Apollinaris with due honour about the year of Christ 519, being himself by then a man advanced in age and not unequal in number of years to our Apollinaris.

[44] But while we have detained for a while, for the sake of elucidating the truth, the Prelate prolonging, as the biographer says, the spaces of his stay at Arles for the sake of charity, then from Arles he goes to Marseilles, whence, having returned home let us now follow the rest of his journey. When he had now satisfied his piety towards St. Genesius the martyr and the wishes of his blood-relations, having bidden farewell to the people of Arles, he departed for Marseilles, whither he had been invited by Arcutamia, a senatorial lady, likewise his blood-relation; and on that journey the money which still remained from the Saint's most generous alms, lost by a servant, was happily recovered by the merits of the holy Prelate, and a little later health and salvation were restored by his prayers to a possessed man, who was moreover deaf and dumb, as soon as he had been anointed with holy oil by a priest at the order of Apollinaris. So far the biographer, who, presently leaping forward to the Saint's last illness and his pious death, wraps in silence what was done by him at Marseilles and by what way he returned to Valence. Further, from what the biographer subjoins about St. Apollinaris at number 12 in these words, He himself, having obtained only so much space for returning (from Marseilles to Valence), seeking the heavens, soon left the world which he had always despised, we have it expressed clearly enough that the Saint's last illness, with which he had indicated at number 10, in a time not sufficiently defined and in a rather broad phrase, that he was seized after some days when he had returned to Valence, could be deferred for only very few days, and that the holy Prelate had scarcely arrived at Valence from the journey when he entered upon the journey of blessed eternity, to receive the rewards of his labours and apostolic virtues. It pleases me to review here from the same biographer the circumstances of this event.

[45] When, a very few days after his return, the Prelate, hindered by indisposition, as the biographer says, he presently dies, not without a prodigy. that is, by sickness, had not been able to rise to perform the morning Offices according to the custom of the Church, it happened that one of the keepers of the chamber, named Paragorius, at the instigation of the demon by which he was seized, approached with insane daring the place where the Prelate lay, and did not fear to violate the face of the Pontiff with a slap. But the wretch at once paid the penalty for his unspeakable deed, and stuck divinely motionless in the place to which he had rashly approached, until, the Saint's ministers having returned from the Ecclesiastical Office, the power of going away was given him by the Saint, prevailed upon by prayers. So, almost, the biographer at number 10, whom we can deservedly credit as an eyewitness and a grave man; which credit he likewise deserves when he narrates at number 11, almost thus, that another prodigy occurred at the very death of the Saint. When Leubaredus, archdeacon of the holy Prelate, very anxious about his health, had come at earliest morning to the cell of the sick man, and saw it shining with an unwonted light, astonished at the novelty of the thing he at first stood fast. But when, the more the brightness of the prodigious light increased, the more evidently he recognized the miracle, having taken courage for a while, he began to survey everything more attentively with his eyes. And behold, he sees his Prelate already dead, and composed in such a posture that, with both hands stretched out to heaven, his eyes open and his face turned towards things above, he seemed to follow his mind with his body and to gaze on the kingdoms of heaven with his eyes. And before him and behind were two columns, conspicuous for wonderful height, radiant with burning light, and each bearing twin tapers at the top. These things the biographer relates more diffusely from Leubaredus the archdeacon, an eyewitness; and since he did not express the year in which these things took place, we have tried to elicit it after a fashion at number 21. Thither accordingly let the curious reader return, if he wishes.

[46] The Saint's burial, Being now about to treat of the burial of the Saint's body and of the translations made of it, would that the testimonies of contemporary writers likewise lighted my way, by which each thing could be established for certain in its place and time, at least as closely as possible! But, as has happened to others who have so far written on this argument, so too no other document is at hand for me than that which Vincenzo Barrali published in the Chronologia of Lérins, page 378, communicated to him, as he writes, by the Most Reverend lord Pierre André de Leberon, bishop of Valence, from an old manuscript of the successions of the prelates of Valence. That full credit is not to be given to this instrument in all things is clear from the fact that it relates that the Saint's death took place in the time of Clovis, the first most Christian king of the Franks, whereas St. Apollinaris was present at the synod of Epaone, celebrated in the time of Sigismund, ruling over the Burgundians, in the year 517, and so certainly survived among the living for 7 years king Clovis, who died in the year 511, as is now agreed among the learned. But yet, since the things mentioned there about the Saint's burial and about the two translations of his relics are not convicted of falsity from elsewhere, and since that document was perhaps taken from a quite old manuscript, it will not be irksome to transcribe here from it what makes for our subject, to which let each give what credit he will. Here are its words, the printer's errors corrected: Blessed Apollinaris was buried … in the church of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the suburb of Valence.

[47] translations of his body And thereafter, in the time of Dambert, bishop of Valence (whom Barrali makes the sixth bishop from St. Apollinaris himself, the ancients being silent), the multitude of the faithful increasing, with the greatest devotion, because the church of St. Stephen the protomartyr was more august and more celebrated, the relics of blessed Apollinaris were translated from the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul to the same basilica of blessed Stephen with the highest veneration and concourse of the peoples, and laid there with honour. Then, a miracle being interposed, performed about the year of Christ 1060, as is said there, of which we must treat below, it recounts the second translation of the Saint's relics thus: And in the year one thousand and ninety-four the body of the same St. Apollinaris was translated a second time from the church of St. Stephen into the major basilica distinguished by his name, and placed in the high altar, where it remained with the highest honour and veneration. But what is added in the same instrument, in Barrali in the cited place, that it was in the highest veneration

the Saint's remains up to these recent times of the Calvinist heresy, by which * both the basilicas were levelled to the ground and the sacred remains of the Saints were consumed by devouring flames, this was certainly either added to this instrument by a more recent hand, or, if all was written by the same hand, these words most plainly betray its younger age. And these are the things which I have found recorded about the Saint's burial and his translations, and which du Saussay also, praised at number 5, added at the end of the eulogy of St. Apollinaris.

[48] Of the miracles performed through many centuries at the Saint's tomb, and miracles performed after death. as is clear from the words of Agobard praised at number 3, there can be no doubt. But none of them described individually has come down to us, which I do not know whether you would more rightly ascribe to the carelessness of the ancients or to the unfairness of the times. Of the prodigies, however, which happened after the times of Agobard, the praised Barrali relates one, on what author or witness he does not declare, of a boy dumb from birth, named Pastorellus, who, as he narrates, when in the church of blessed Stephen the evening Lauds were being begun by the hebdomadary, and they had come up to the canticle of the angels exclusively (namely the Alleluia) … by the merits of blessed Apollinaris uttering his first voice, sang the Alleluia with the whole choir. Two other miracles, performed in the church of St. Apollinaris, Jean Columbi, praised above, recounted in book 1 On the Deeds of the bishops of Valence, page 252, by one of which a girl named Richildis, contracted for many years, … was at once so raised up and made sound as if she had never felt pain of the loins and legs. At the same time also, says the same writer from the Breviary of Valence, a certain girl named Ermengardis, daughter of Ragebartus, was badly vexed by a demon. The malignant spirit would by no means allow her to enter the church, etc. She, as Columbi relates, was cured, a vow having been made; and when her brother did not fulfil it, she was again seized by the demon, and, having been brought in iron chains to the bed of the glorious Pontiff, the demon left her. So he: but it will be helpful now rather to hear our biographer, an eyewitness, as we have said, of the things done by our Saint, and a witness not at all suspect.

* quibus (by which)

LIFE,

By a contemporary author, perhaps Eladius the deacon,

From an old Manuscript of Saint-Claude, collated with the Manuscripts of the monastery of Accinctum, of Ourscamp and of Cîteaux, and likewise with the editions of Labbe, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, page 689, and of Edmond Martène, volume 6 of the Amplissima Collectio, page 779.

Apollinaris, bishop and confessor, at Valence of the Segalauni in Gaul. (S.) BHL Number: 0634

By a contemporary, perhaps Eladius.

PREFACE.

Why the deeds of St. Apollinaris were committed to writing. As much as the life of all the Saints has not only made itself illustrious in the present age by blessed acts and sacred virtues, but has also raised itself up with the titles of eternity in the future, so much do they present to the minds of the faithful a guilt of misuse, if, praises being denied by the silence of the tongue, they are neglected ^b. And although it suffices them to have won present joys by the short ways of labours, yet they are defrauded of memory among posterity, if their living deeds are denied by silence in the succeeding ages. And although they have filled the spaces of the whole world with admiration of their deeds, and there is no place of the Christian name which either lacks the glory of the elect or is ignorant of the praises of their happy works; yet the deeds of Apollinaris, the highest pontiff, admonish us that diligence should not pass over in its wishes what the tongue cannot * equal to the successes ^c.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Martène: saeculis (ages)

* others: negligantur

* Labbe: compedibus (fetters)

* Labbe: memoriae

* Martène: a

* Labbe: vocis

* the same: nequaquam valet

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's native place and family: on account of a courtier, excluded from holy communion for incest, the Saint is driven into exile: he performs a miracle there: he is recalled from exile by the king, whom he had divinely cured by the touch of his garment.

Blessed Apollinaris, therefore, bishop of the city of Valence, The Saint's native place, family, education, virtues in general. was both born and brought up at Vienne. He, conspicuous for the noble origin of his family, raising the titles of his birth higher by the loftiness of his mind ^a, while with a Pastor's care he cherished the flock entrusted to him with paternal governance, is established to have shone forth with many virtues, which unskilled presumption has preferred to pass over on account of the immensity of his deeds ^b; lest the merits of so great a Man, approached with unworthy supports, should not so much be committed to words as be confounded * by the injuries of words. Yet what we recall that he did when the end of his worldly life was now approaching we disclose to present as well as future ages ^c, that posterity may be excited to praiseworthy emulation by the acts and glorious examples to be proclaimed.

[2] It happened, therefore, that a certain man of the household of king Sigismund ^d, On account of a courtier deprived of holy communion for incest named Stephen, who held the headship over all the administration of his treasury ^e, after his wife had died, joined to himself unlawfully in the union of marriage the sister ^f of his wife . On which matter the holy and most blessed apostolic men Avitus and Apollinaris (who were brothers according to the flesh ^g, and in the work of Christ most famous brothers, ever at all times devoted to divine works, their nobility being known, learned in prudence, in sacred doctrines, with fervent spirit), preserving the synodal institution ^h, being gathered together in one with the rest of the pontiffs, decreed that Stephen himself should be deprived of holy communion: so that, namely, the unchastity of human frailty being trampled underfoot, shameless presumption might not dare to claim the incest which the justice from on high has condemned ⁱ.

[3] Then the king, moved by the fury of dire madness, did not cease to injure the most blessed Pontiffs he is sent into exile, most bitterly by laying snares ^k; but the apostolic and venerable Men, by no means fearing the threats of the earthly king, armed with heavenly * commands, so bound themselves with the bond of justice that, whatever punishments were inflicted on them, they would endure the torments as companions in suffering ^l. For it seemed good to them ^m that, in a town of the city of the people of Lyon which is called Sardinia ⁿ, they should keep one another company together, as assigned to exile, with the Lord's help. But that king, seeing that their constancy was incorruptible, not ceasing from his wrath, commanded that the Pontiffs who were residing there together should return home ^o, and should wait upon the king one by one month by month. But because most blessed Apollinaris seemed to be persevering [p] in the condemnation of Stephen, he was eager to watch him first. Then all, beseeching the divine power with tears not to forsake him, bidding farewell, prayer having been celebrated, set out.

[4] where he draws forth a spring by a prodigy. In which place, while the Man of God was sustaining the spaces of his stay because of necessity, the streams of the Rhone [q] were warmed by the burning heat, so that the water from it could not be drunk by the thirsty. And because no well nor spring from which water ought to be drawn * was found there, the most blessed Man of God, strengthening himself with the Holy Spirit, and secure in the virtues of a power not unknown, betakes himself to a place designated by God, and secretly ordered a hoe [r] to be brought to him by his people: which having been brought, prayer having been completed, he said to them: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, open this place. This done, presently, with the assent of Him who orders the waters to boil in the heart of the earth, a spring arose: and as long as the most blessed Pontiff stayed there, by the benefit of almighty God he merited always to have water pleasing to him: but after his departure the spring was dried up, so that all might recognize that the spring itself had rendered its service by the merits of the Servant of God, and had returned to its former course [s].

[5] The king cured of fever by the touch of his garment. And when the king would neither see that apostolic Man, but was rather eager to lay snares, He who is the praiseworthy judge [t] of most upright merits and of immense virtue, showing swift vengeance, at once it happened that the king himself so incurred the force of fevers that he was believed to be funereal rather than living. Then his queen [u], kindled with faith, came with eager haste to the place where the most blessed Pontiff was residing: and with avid devotion asked that through his intercession her Lord [x] might receive the gift of safety. But the Man of God, renouncing the haughtiness of worldly elation, refused in every way the service of going. And the more that queen, watering his feet with tears, begged that at least his cowl [y] be given her, which she might spread upon the king. Conquered by her weeping, he yielded. And when, God granting it, it had been spread upon her husband with confident constancy, at once the attack of the fevers, or whatever other assault appeared, being put to flight, he obtained the gift of prosperity [z].

[6] He begs pardon for his offence as a suppliant. These things done, that king, remembering the misdeed which he had committed, although filled with great confusion, yet exulting that by the suffrage of the Pontiff he had merited to obtain his former health through the covering of his garment, hastening forward [aa], was first eager to merit to behold with visible eyes the waters of so great a miracle and of so great a virtue's largesse , which the Lord granted to His Servant by a gift of kindness. The grace of the virtue having been recognized, he came to the Man of God: and, placed before him and embracing his feet, with a weeping of exultation begged pardon, saying: I have sinned, I have acted wickedly, in that I have often inflicted undeserved tribulations on the just. For the heavenly justice which knows not how to be overcome is stronger by that very thing by which it is assailed . O indulgence of the heavenly King, who wills that not the souls of sinners but their faults should perish! O glory of virtues, which through His servant Apollinaris, worldly cares being rejected, shone with a twofold grace of virtue! Finally, standing up for justice, he checks the madness of the king and his swollen pride, and by the effect of prayer releases * him from the mortal sickness by which he was held [bb].

ANNOTATIONS.

he made, or, as the biographer says, raised higher by the loftiness of his mind. The manuscripts of Ourscamp and Cîteaux read mentis fatigatione (by the weariness of his mind); but wrongly. For that the noun is derived from the verb fastigare, which is taken by Pliny, Solinus and others for to extol and to elevate, is clearer than to need proving by arguments.

p. Consult number 33.

q. The well-known river of Gaul, commonly called le Rhône. Further, from this narrative of the biographer it is made out that St. Apollinaris was banished from his episcopal see until, more probably, the summer or beginning of autumn of the year 518. Consult number 34.

r. A sarculus or sarculum is a rustic instrument with which crops or gardens are weeded.

s. Similar things are read in various Lives of the Saints.

t. The Labbean manuscripts read thus: quem meritorum rectissimorum et immensae virtutis laudabilis judex celerem ultionem demonstrans, illico contigit, ut etc. The manuscripts of Ourscamp and Cîteaux also read quem; but faultily, as is plain. But Martène has it thus: Qui est meritorum rectissimorum judex et immensae virtutis laudabilis, celerem ultionem demonstrans, contigit, ut ipse rex illico ita vim febrium incurreret etc. By which words the biographer means that God, the most equitable judge, avenged the injury done to St. Apollinaris by seizing Sigismund with so burning and violent a fever that he at once seemed from it to be very near death.

u. The former wife of St. Sigismund, of whom I judge the biographer treated here, had, as Jordanes testifies, On the Origin of the Getae or Goths, chapter 58, the name Ostrogotho, and was the natural daughter of Theodoric, king of the Goths, by a concubine, whom, as the same Jordanes testifies, born in Moesia, he joined in marriage to Sigismund as soon as he came into Italy. There are those who give her the name of Amalaberga, but with no testimony of antiquity, as I think. That she was converted to the Catholic faith, just like her husband and their common son Segisric, and an unnamed daughter, our biographer's narrative suggests, although, to confess the truth, this is not equally undoubted, since no Homily of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, or its title, expressly testifies this of her as of the others.

x. Namely king Sigismund. In the sacred Scriptures too we read that husbands were addressed by their wives with the title of Lord.

y. Whoever should contend from this that St. Apollinaris was a monk of Lérins would consequently have to establish as monks of Lérins absolutely all men of whatever condition who at that time had the custom of wearing hooded garments.

z. That very many sick people were suddenly healed by the touch of the garments with which holy men were clothed, both the sacred Scriptures and the Ecclesiastical Annals and the Acts of the Saints most evidently demonstrate.

aa. Martène alone reads: Percurrens primum studuit (running through, he was first eager). Our reading is preferred; and by it the biographer indicates that Sigismund, the fever having been divinely shaken off, presently flew to the very place of exile where the Saint was living, both to behold with his own eyes the spring drawn forth by a prodigy, of which he had probably been informed by his wife, and to beg as a suppliant pardon for the offence committed by him and himself to conduct the holy Prelate with honour to his see.

bb. That king Sigismund was not free of fault in defending his Stephen the thing itself declares. Yet the holiness of the most pious king is not overthrown by this, since the biographer says that whatever stain he contracted in this business he washed away with worthy penance. Add that he proceeded rather sharply against the most holy bishops rather from a headlong mind, and circumvented by the arts and deceits of Stephen, or perhaps rather from ignorance of the Ecclesiastical laws concerning incestuous persons, than from his own perversity of mind, much less from pride and madness, as the biographer writes by way of exaggeration.

* Martène faultily: mandaretur et confunderetur

* Martène faultily: cumularet

* Martène: nobilitatis

* in Martène cælestibus is lacking

* i.e. posset (could)

* largitate is superfluous

* Martène faultily: impugnat

* Labbe faultily: absolvitur

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's voyage down the Rhone, the healing of a possessed man: his arrival in the city of Arles: the finding of money that had been lost, ascribed to his merits: another healing of two demoniacs: a wonderful vision at his death: his death in the city of Valence.

The Saint, sailing on the Rhone, It is worthy, therefore, that the things which the Godhead works in His servants should not be denied by keeping silent, but should be disclosed to the believing people, God favouring. When therefore in the thirty-fourth year of his venerable life he was completing the course of his pontifical office ^a, moved by a heavenly admonition, he resolved to hasten to visit his fellow priests and kinsmen, saying that before his passing (which he had learned by divine revelation was now swiftly impending ^b) he wished to present himself in person at the threshold of the holy martyr Genesius ^c as well as to the sight of the pontiffs and the converse of his kinsmen. Then he took up the journey he had arranged by the course of navigation: and although the streams of the swift [d] Rhone terrified the others, yet, trusting in the merits of the holy Pontiff himself, they hastened safe amid the threats of the waves with favourable tides; so that it is manifest that the river, given over to accidents ^e, was then without dangers. The admirable and not unknown power of the eternal King, therefore, who once opened the seas to His own steps ^f, then subjected the rivers to His Saints: and the river, which had before known how to terrify with deadly rapacity, learned by the Lord's command to serve. And now, the ferocity of the waters being despised *, their bodies were being loosed in sleep throughout the vessel; so that the blessed Prelate showed by his sleeping the security which he had merited by his vigils: who yet, unsleeping in strength, confounded by the attack of his unwearied mind the devil, whom he had often conquered by sleeplessness, as the following event also disclosed.

[8] For when Avignon ^g was already showing in sight its citadel strengthened by the defence of nature, [he cures one possessed man through a priest, himself also formerly infested by the demon;] the vessel which bore the holy Prelate, sudden waves being stirred up, began to be vexed by a diabolical sending: so that it could be troubled by the despair arising among the voyagers ^h, whereas it was rather much more secure by the governance of the one sleeping. Then a certain deacon, named Eladius ⁱ, sitting at the side of his little bed, was running through a book of St. Hilary ^k with zeal for reading: who, looking round, saw one of the boys ^l, named Alisius , vexed by the assault of the demon: which he betrayed not only by the disturbance of his limbs, but also by neighing, lowing, or the bleating of cattle. And when he perceived that the danger of the ship had been removed by the succession of this misery ^m, he at once compelled the Saint to be roused from sleep by an importunate approach. And when the Man of God had learned from him too both the sequence of the calamity and the fear of the preceding danger, he said to them weeping: We have now waged a great contest with the adversary of the human race in sleep. That this stood firm in truth the following example showed: for both sleeping he checked the insolence of the waves, and waking he put to flight the demon from the body it had seized. Which virtue, that it might also escape the danger of vanity, through Salutaris

the priest, he wished to cure him: who, scarcely compelled at length by the Prelate's order, both laid his hand on him and, the devil departing, called him back to his former quiet. And because the priest himself often sustained the assault of the demon, the holy Bishop aimed the more at this, that he should know that that adversity ⁿ itself was driven away from him * in the name of the Saviour, since it had tried to overcome him by frequent attack. For both, having received health, taught by a perpetual cure that our Pontiff had accomplished their salvation in them by his prayers ^o.

[9] [while he stays at Arles with St. Caesarius and his blood-relations, lost money is recovered:] These things done, while thanks were being rendered by all to the divine power, in sight of the city [p] of the people of Arles, the Rhone serving [q], we arrived; where the holy and eminent man, the lord Caesarius [r], bishop, accompanied also by the attendance of the people, and likewise Liberius [s] the prefect, surrounded by his thronging staff, both hastened with sedulous zeal to meet him and honoured him with joyful discourse: confident that in his coming they had received the divine mercy. The city, rejoicing in this protection, exulted with the zeal of the peoples. Hence St. Apollinaris, assenting to the citizens, granted a little delay to their prayers: where, when he was venerated with assiduous attendance by his blood-relations Parthenius [t] and Ferreolus [u], who also loaded him with many gifts for the benefit of his health: which gifts the devoted city retained almost entirely, what it had given, by the hands of the needy. In which place, while he was prolonging the spaces of his stay for the sake of charity, at the invitation of Arcutamia [x], a senatorial lady, his kinswoman, the wishes of the Massilians [y] receive us [z]. And there, while the deacon [aa] mentioned before was hastening ahead, he learned by a truthful answer from his companion on the journey, named Leo [bb], that he had lost the very solidi [cc] which had remained over from the alms, the linen cloth in which they had been tied being safe [dd]. Then that deacon, trusting in the security of the Pontiff's merits, said to him [ee]: We must be angry, lest what has been assigned to the poor should perish. Therefore, going back, they at once found all the scattered solidi, nor could the heap of sand which had received it defraud of a thing now belonging by sacred largesse * to the poor.

[10] It happened, He Himself working it, a clear or great miracle. For certain people, presenting a deaf and dumb son (the cause of which twofold calamity the assiduity of the demon nourished with long standing [ff]), suppliantly asked that he might be healed from this tribulation by the prayers of St. Apollinaris. two possessed persons are cured by him: He ordered him to be brought secretly into the church by his priest: where, when he had been anointed with holy oil [gg], as had been commanded by the pontifical order, at once, his infirmity being removed, the devil fleeing, he obtained the reward of health. And it followed after some days that the Bishop himself [hh], held by indisposition [ii], was not able to rise to discharge the morning Offices [kk]. And while he was resting in his little bed for the sake of bearing his infirmity, a certain one of the keepers of the chamber, named Paragorius [ll], moved at the instigation of the demon, came to his bed, madness leading him, and, persuaded by the audacity of the adversary himself [mm], did not fear to violate the face of the Pontiff with a slap. Condemning which wicked deed by his own binding [nn], it came about that he was bound by the Pontiff's strength and by his own daring. For, sticking at once to the pallet to which he had been brought, he remained motionless. But we [oo], having rendered the praises to God according to custom, when the little cell of the chamber lay open to us returning, saw him , who stood bound, holding a place not permitted: and when we were indignant that presumption should claim what is wont to be avoided out of reverence, we learned the cause of the event as much from the words of the Saint himself as from the silence of the one stuck fast. Then the Servant of God, the devil being put to flight, prevailed upon by prayers , granted release to the captive, and in one deed twin virtues shone forth, so that kindness freed the one whom power had bound.

[11] Leubaredus [pp] too, the archdeacon, was at that time attached to the service of the Servant of God himself; a wonderful vision at his death: and when he had been absent while we were rising to render the morning Lauds, and on returning I inquired of him the cause of this failure in duty [qq]. The companions in the offices having been removed, he said , I went, in the wish of my solicitude, to the little cell of the lord Apollinaris: and when I saw it shining with immense light, desiring by the prompting of love to investigate the entirety of the miracle, I burned with the zeal of devotion. And when, the light being let in between the open doors, I believed I could see everything; although I was terrified by the great brightness, yet the more the brightness had increased, the more evidently the miracle was known. For our Patron and pontiff, with both hands stretched out to heaven, his eyes open, and his face turned towards things above, seemed to follow his mind with his body; so that he was believed with undoubting faith to behold even with bodily eyes the open kingdoms of heaven. And before him and behind were two columns, conspicuous for wonderful height, radiant with burning light, and each bearing twin tapers * at the top. Frightened by which brightness and made to tremble by the greatness of the joys, returning I laid my limbs on my little bed. For I was so terrified by the order of that vision itself that, drinking in eternal things with mortal eyes, I was not able to bear heavenly things with earthly senses: therefore I lay overcome, and, weighed down in the vigour of my poor body, I succumbed to the mass of joy. Then the oft-mentioned deacon said: You are indeed, as you relate, overcome by fear of joys; but it befits you to exult, that you have merited to behold with your sight things higher than mortal. For almighty God, to strengthen the hearts of His faithful, always grants such incitements, that He may govern by His command.

[12] which happened a little after the Saint returned to Valence. I have related these deeds which I remember, which the Master himself, aspiring to heaven, left to the earth by notable examples. For he himself, having obtained only so much space for returning, seeking the heavens, soon left the world which he had always despised. But now let Valence [rr], the fair city which then wept for the Pontiff it had lost, rejoice * that it has sent from itself to things above an assiduous advocate, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is power, honour, dominion and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen [ss].

ANNOTATIONS.

Hence, as some would have it, this river was called in the Greek idiom Ρὁδανὸς by the Massilians, Greeks who came from Phocaea in Asia, because it was the most rapid and torrential of all the rivers of Gaul. So, almost, Valesius in the Notitia of the Gauls, page 473. Whatever the etymology, the Rhone is certainly memorable for the headlong course of its waters. Hence Strabo, book 4, called it rapid and difficult for those sailing upstream, Annaeus Florus, book 3, On the Allobrogian War, unresting, Seneca in the Satire most rapid, Claudian swift and fierce, Ausonius headlong. And Silius Italicus, book 3, celebrates the threatening banks of the swollen Rhone and describes it thus:

From the Alpine ramparts and the snowy rock the Rhone Leaps forth among the Celts, and draws out a mighty stream, Cleaving the plains with foaming flood, And rushes swiftly, driven, into the sea with broad channel.

p. Arelas or Arelate, in French Arles, also lies beside the Rhone, and is distant from Avignon about seven greater French leagues, of which twenty make one degree, as the geographical Map published in Bouquet indicates. See more about this city in Valesius, Baudrand or other geographers.

q. That is, by the downward or favourable course of the Rhone.

r. St. Caesarius, as our Stilting judges, volume 6 of August, page 52, held the see of Arles from the year of Christ 502 up to 542, and died, as his Life testifies, in the 73rd year of his age. He is venerated on the 27th of August, on which day his deeds have been illustrated in our Work.

Not to repeat what has been said, see what has been said about this man, most illustrious both for his deeds and for his virtues, in volume 6 of August, page 78, in the Annotations on the Life of St. Caesarius, by Stilting, just praised. Yet let it be permitted to add to these some things which Sirmond wrote excellently about Liberius on the first letter of book 5 of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, not, as has been put by a printer's error in Stilting's Annotations, of book 7. That age, says Sirmond in the cited place, had nothing more illustrious than the name of Liberius. For first he stood faithfully for Odoacer against Theodoric; afterwards, Odoacer being vanquished, under Theodoric, as long as he reigned, having discharged the highest honours of the toga and of military service, he did many things in Italy and Gaul with illustrious praise, and likewise under Athalaric. Chosen also as ambassador of king Theodahad to the emperor Justinian, he was finally placed by Justinian himself over military forces against the Goths in Italy and Sicily, a man, as Procopius testifies, καλός τε καὶ ἀγαθὸς διαφερόντως, λόγου τε τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἐπιμελεῖσθαι ἐξεπιστάμενος. So far the most praiseworthy writer, citing Cassiodorus, Procopius and Ennodius as authorities in several places. The illustrious deeds of Liberius are likewise excellently celebrated in the epitaph which was formerly placed at Rimini by his sons for their father, conceived, as Sirmond recounts in Annotation 2 on Letter 23 of book 9 of Ennodius of Pavia, in these words:

Nature the creatress gave this law to the human race, That tombs should cover buried limbs. The offspring of Liberius, surviving both mother and father, Rendered the sad service with pious mind. Here indeed are the limbs, but the urn holds not the fame, For fame, knowing not how to die, endures in inscriptions. He ruled the Romulean fasces in running years, Holding with equal success the Gallic jurisdiction. These honours he did not buy at an unwarlike price, But kindly faith conferred them, greater than price. For the Ausonian peoples he duly disposed the gentile cohorts, Sanctioned treaties, gave laws. Father to all in mind, venerable in his whole age, He fell near to thrice ten lustres. O how much things well done avail! When the limbs depart, Fame knows not how to die, a shining life remains.

In the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, now Vatican, he is called Partemius. Further, this is, unless I am mistaken, the Parthenius who had as mother the own sister of St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, as the latter writes in book 5, Letter 9, to Faustus, in these words: Hence our Parthenius, son of my sister, spurred on, hastens to visit Rome, in which is natural learning. To the same Parthenius, in Sirmond's judgment, there exists an Elegiac poem of Arator the subdeacon, published about the year of Christ 545, which may be seen in volume 1 of the Various Works of Sirmond, column 1148, Venetian edition of the year 1728, and which the same writer also mentions in the Annotation on book 6, Letter 1 of Ennodius. Further, in the inscription of this poem, or Letter if you prefer, Arator calls Parthenius most magnificent and most exalted, master of the offices and patrician; and in the first verses he praises the nobility of his family and his character thus:

If I wished, great one, to recount to you the fasces of your forebears, A page read even on its back would scarcely give the measure. Powerful from great-grandfathers and ancestors, you surpass your pedigrees In character, and your origin yields to your merits.

And hence I should believe that this Parthenius was different from him whose gluttony, scurrility and cruel jealousy, and finally most calamitous death, St. Gregory of Tours described, book 3, chapter 36. But whether, as Martène conjectures in this place, our biographer here designated Parthenius, bishop of Gabalum, mentioned by the same St. Gregory, book 4, chapter 40, no authority of older writers is at hand for me by which I could establish it.

u. On that Ferreolus see what has been disputed in the Commentary, numbers 42 and 43.

x. This matron is called Arculamia in Martène, Arcucamisa in the manuscript copy of Ourscamp, Arcucanisa in the Cistercian one, but Arcutamia in the old Labbean parchments and in the Saint-Claude manuscript, and she is, unless I am mistaken, the same noble woman to whom St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, professes himself bound by the law of blood-relationship, book 6, Letter 24, and of whom he writes, book 7, Letter 14, that she had so advanced above the brightness of her family by the light of her character that she could be an example and incitement to her son, a priest, who from zeal for religion had withdrawn to the desert of Lérins. Mention is also made of her in the Letter of king Theodoric to Marabadus and Gemellus in Cassiodorus, book 4 of the Variae, Letter 12, where, as in Ennodius, by a slight change of the word, she is called Archotamia.

y. Massilia, a very well-known city of Gaul, is commonly called Marseille; of which Valesius in the Notitia of the Gauls and other geographers have treated most fully; consult them.

z. Hence it is manifestly clear that the biographer was an eyewitness of the things which he records here.

aa. Namely Eladius, called by others Claudius.

bb. About this Leo I have found nothing.

cc. The most learned Muratori, Dissertation 28, on the various kinds of money, speaks thus to our purpose: As among the Romans, so also among the Italian kings, the Goths, Lombards, Franks and Germans, public commerce was carried on with a threefold kind of money, namely gold, silver and bronze… And no kind of coins was more usual in antiquity than that of solidi. They were at first gold; then there were silver ones too; and their name prevailed before the times of Constantine the Great. Whether the biographer here meant gold or silver solidi, since he himself does not declare it, who could assert for certain? I should nevertheless think that he can more rightly be explained of gold than of silver ones, since he had said a little before that St. Apollinaris was loaded with many gifts by Parthenius and Ferreolus, men flourishing both in wealth and dignity, nor does it appear probable that they would have wished to burden the Prelate, as he made his journey, with the heavier weight of silver coins of less value. But if in fact, as I at least think, the biographer here treated of gold solidi, the loss then incurred was not slight; since, as Cassiodorus testifies, book 1 of the Variae, Letter 10, They (the ancients) willed that the solidus be six thousand denarii. See more in Du Cange at the word Solidus.

dd. For salvo linteo the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden has soluto lineo. The sense in both is that the solidi themselves were lost, while the linen purse was yet retained, entire indeed and safe, but untied and open.

ee. Martène edited these words thus: Ait ad eum succensendum: Est nobis, ne pereat, which sense is doubly faulty. Nor yet is our reading, although constantly the same in all the other copies of the Life, free of error. Since therefore, as it appears, the biographer meant that it was the duty of office both of the deacon Eladius and of Leo, his companion on the journey, to guard carefully the money destined for the poor, he probably used not succensendum but studendum, connitendum, incumbendum or some other synonymous verb, so that the sense is: We must strive that the money, now lost by chance, may not perish for the poor for ever, or remain lost; and therefore they at once went back to seek everywhere the lost money over the ground they had passed; in which matter the outcome at once so answered their wishes that they found all the solidi, to the last one, scattered in the sand.

ff. In the manuscripts of Ourscamp and Cîteaux veterane is corruptly read; more rightly in Martène veteratorie, that is, craftily; where, however, for nutribat one should read nutriebat.

gg. That the sacred oil of the sick, or the Sacrament of extreme Unction, is not treated here is openly clear from the fact that that wretched son was not dying; but neither is the talk here of the Sacrament of Confirmation, as is plain from the fact that its minister is the bishop, whereas the anointing of which the biographer treats a simple priest performed. For the rest, that very many sick persons have often been cured of their ills by the merits of the Saints through non-sacramental anointing with sacred or blessed oil occurs commonly to those reading the Lives of the Saints.

hh. When you hear that St. Apollinaris is here called sacerdos, understand of the first order, so that you may distinguish the bishop from simple presbyters, who are called priests of the second order. See the Notes of Sirmond on Sidonius, Letter 11, book 3.

ii. That is, sickness, ill-health or disease. See in Du Cange at this word how frequently inaequalitas is taken in this sense.

kk. The writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 144, rightly observe that the lacuna which is in Martène's edition is well filled by Labbe thus, to the Morning Offices, so that the sense is that St. Apollinaris, seized with sickness, could not assist according to custom at the morning Offices of the Church.

ll. This Paragorius is unknown to me from elsewhere.

mm. See above, letter n.

nn. The copies vary in this place: the Cistercian has prope for propria; the Ourscamp reads condempnatur in place of the participle condemnans; yet all have religatione. But perhaps one should read propria religione, that is, conscientia (by his own conscience), in this sense, namely, that Paragorius, as soon as the wicked deed had been perpetrated by him, himself recognized and condemned his crime, yet nevertheless, by way of punishment, constrained by an invisible bond through the work of St. Apollinaris, was compelled to stick motionless to the bed: unless you prefer that the insane man bound himself once and again in condemnation of his crime, and was still so constrained by an invisible bond by the Pontiff's strength that he could neither leave the place nor move himself in any way.

oo. See the Commentary, number 9.

pp. Of the archdeacon Leubaredus, whom the Ourscamp manuscript calls Leuburedus, I know nothing.

qq. So 3 manuscripts. Consult the Commentary, number 11.

rr. Martène has these words thus: At vero Valentina urbs, quem tunc flevit amissum, urbs decora Pontificem destinasse ad superna assiduo nunc gaudet advocatum. But less rightly, as is plain.

ss. This doxology, which is lacking in Martène, is related thus by Labbe and in the manuscripts of Ourscamp and Cîteaux: Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is power, honour, dominion and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit in perfect Trinity, for ages of ages. Amen.

* Labbe: ferocitate

* others: Alisium

* Martène: per suum

* Cistercian manuscript: cognosceretur

* Labbe: sacratam largitioni

* Martène: Deindeque post dies aliquos

* these words are lacking in the Ourscamp manuscript

* Labbe: vendicare auderet

* Cistercian manuscript faultily: et oratu

* others lack inquit

* Martène: paterna

* Martène corruptly: ceterosque

* Ourscamp manuscript: gaudet