ON ST. DIVITIANUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT SOISSONS IN GAUL,
ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE 4TH CENTURY.
SYLLOGE.
Divitianus, bishop and confessor, at Soissons in Gaul. (S.)
BY C. S.
You have the Deeds of Saints Sixtus and Sinicius, the first bishops of Reims and Soissons, illustrated in this our Work at the Kalends of September. He is commemorated on this day in three Martyrologies, Next after Sinicius in the Catalogues of the prelates of Soissons is placed St. Divitianus, known to very few martyrologists. Yet the Martyrology of Paris, published in the year 1727 by the authority of the Most Eminent Cardinal de Noailles, archbishop of Paris, commemorates him on this 5th day of October. The words are these: At Soissons, of St. Divitianus, bishop, whose body rests at St. Crispin the Greater. Chastelain had gone before in his Universal Martyrology, saying exactly the same in French. Somewhat more at length, but less rightly, André du Saussay had said at the same day in the Gallican Martyrology: At Soissons, of St. Divitianus, bishop and confessor, who, successor of the holy martyr Sinicius, as near to him in merits as remote in time, first governed the church in peace, which he happily led into the path of justice by holy admonitions and examples, and so came to glory. What displeases in this brief eulogy I shall say below.
[2] The brothers de Sainte-Marthe likewise honour him with the title of Saint, and note that he died on the 5th day of October, [on which he is said to be venerated; as mention is made of him in the (codex) of Reims] as do the learned Benedictines who continued their Gallia Christiana; but Claude Robert, likewise in his Gallia Christiana, speaks in such a way that you do not know whether he means the 5th day of October to have been his day of death or sacred to his cult. That he is venerated today, however, Claude Dormay, priest and canon Regular of the abbey of St. John of the Vineyards at Soissons, also expressly asserts in the History of that city, volume 1, book 2, chapter 5, saying in French: It will suffice to know that he (Divitianus) is venerated by the Church as a Saint and bishop of this city, and that his memory is celebrated by that church on the 5th day of October. Nevertheless, in the manuscript codex of the church of Saints Timothy and Apollinaris at Reims, praised by our Sollerius among the Usuardine Auctaria, his Deposition is read at the 28th day of the same month in these words: At Soissons, the Deposition of St. Divitianus, bishop and confessor.
[3] on the 28th day of this month, for a cause unknown to me. Perhaps Marlot praised the same codex in the History of the metropolis of Reims, book 1, chapter 17, when he says: The Martyrology of Reims (where all things are related briefly) has the bare name of Divitianus, adorned with a brief eulogy, in these words: "On the fifth day before the Kalends of November, the Deposition of St. Divitianus, bishop and confessor." Then Marlot subjoins here: And that is a deposition by which a man, released from the bonds of the flesh, about to go free to heaven, lays down his earthly body; from St. Ambrose, in the sermon on the deposition of St. Eusebius. Marlot therefore wishes the day of death of St. Divitianus, not the time of his burial or translation, to be marked in the codex of Reims. I do not examine whether that sermon, which in the latest edition of the Works of St. Ambrose is listed among the supposititious ones, is truly his; nor do I deny that the word depositio is commonly used in the way in which it is in Marlot; yet I should not dare to assert for certain that it is to be taken so here, in such a way that no suspicion can remain that the day rather was marked on which the body of St. Divitianus was at some time placed in a more honoured tomb. But in whichever way that word is to be explained here, it is clear from what has been said that St. Divitianus belongs to this 5th day of October at least by reason of his cult.
[4] We know little of him, from Flodoard. I have so far read no one who says that any ancient Acts of St. Divitianus exist; and if you consult the more recent writers, you will likewise find nothing about this notable Man among them, except the mention of him made by Flodoard, book 1 of the History of Reims, chapter 3, which I transcribe from the edition of Colvener. But St. Sixtus, first bishop of the people of Reims, is said also to have founded the church of Soissons *, and to have established there blessed Sinicius, his fellow labourer and co-worker; who, after the death of the same St. Sixtus, having ordained as pontiff at Soissons his nephew, as it is said, St. Divitianus, because the newly instituted church of Reims was perhaps still cherishing tender children with milk, not yet strong enough to bear the pontifical burden, took up the archiepiscopal chair at Reims (necessity compelling). This, and no more, says the historian of Reims about Divitianus; from which you may easily conjecture how slight a memory of his deeds existed already from the middle of the 10th century, in which he wrote. Of his own time Marlot says: Devouring time has obliterated the course of so great a Prelate in the pontificate, the manner and year of his death, and the memory of his deeds.
[5] Let the reader therefore expect no more. All the Catalogues list him in the third place in the series of the bishops of Soissons, he succeeded St. Sinicius about the end of the third century, constantly assigning the first to St. Sixtus and the second to Sinicius, and mentioning no vacancy of the see. Wherefore, since no reason, even the slightest, compels us to assert one, the time of the see of Divitianus must be elicited from that in which his immediate predecessor Sinicius sat; and this would be done even more certainly if what Flodoard asserted doubtfully were established, that Divitianus was the nephew of Sinicius, and was substituted in the see of Soissons when the latter moved to the see of Reims. There were, moreover, those who, following Flodoard, believed that Saints Sixtus and Sinicius were sent from Rome into Gaul in the first century of the Christian era by St. Peter, prince of the Apostles: but this opinion both others and our Stilting, at the Kalends of September, on the same Sixtus and Sinicius, have refuted more than enough, referring them to about the year 300. For the same reason Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology, and the author of the Martyrology of Paris, noted that Divitianus flourished about the same year 300; and in my judgment rightly, yet in such a way that it is altogether uncertain to me whether he is to be believed to have died a few years before the end of the third century or after the beginning of the fourth; for who, groping in such darkness, could divine that?
[6] Du Saussay, in whose words, related at number 1, I said nor was he taken off by martyrdom, that certain things displeased me, since he was of the opinion which attributes the mission of Saints Sixtus and Sinicius to St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and asserts that they were taken from among the living not by natural death but by martyrdom; and since (as I think) he could not easily bind the time of the see of St. Divitianus, whom all name the successor of St. Sinicius without any intermediary and record as having died a confessor, to the so dreadful persecutions of the first century, devised that he lived remote from the time of St. Sinicius, and that he was the first of the bishops of Soissons who governed that church in peace. But he is mistaken: for neither did Sixtus and Sinicius flourish in the first century, as we have said, nor were they crowned with martyrdom, as those reading their praised Acts and the Commentary preliminary to them will easily perceive. Add that du Saussay in this opinion of his is compelled to say that the episcopate of Soissons was vacant for more than two centuries after the death of St. Sinicius, which he would have proved by no probable reason.
[7] but he died a confessor. Marlot, whose words I gave at number 3, wished it to be believed that the manner of St. Divitianus's death, namely whether it was violent or natural, is unknown. Perhaps he thought so because he was of the same opinion as du Saussay about the time of the mission of Saints Sixtus and Sinicius, and could hardly reconcile a natural death of St. Divitianus with that most bitter age of the Church, or affirm without a suitable witness so long a vacancy of the see between him and Sinicius. And yet Divitianus is expressly announced with the title of Confessor even in the manuscript codex of Reims which Marlot saw and praised, nor did Marlot bring forward any other codex in which the laurel of martyrdom is read ascribed to the same Saint: would he not, then, have more rightly said that he died a natural death than affirm, from a badly fixed time of the mission of Saints Sixtus and Sinicius, that the manner of his death is unknown? We therefore call St. Divitianus a Confessor, with the codex of Reims, whether there are two or one, and with the more recent Martyrologies which we have produced above, such as we have said his predecessors Sixtus and Sinicius also were.
[8] His body at Soissons in the abbey of St. Crispin the Greater. With what the Martyrologies of Paris and of Chastelain assert about the body of the same Saint resting at St. Crispin the Greater, the brothers de Sainte-Marthe agree, in volume 3 of Gallia Christiana, in the series of the bishops of Soissons, in which at page 1041, in the third place, it reads thus: St. Divitianus, whose body is laid in the church of St. Crispin the Greater. The Benedictine continuators of the same Work do not dissent, volume 9, column 334; but they say with a certain caution: The Sainte-Marthes relate that his body was laid in the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater, perhaps in the place where this basilica was afterwards built. I do not think that the Sainte-Marthes wished to indicate by the recited words that St. Divitianus was buried immediately after his death in the praised church, which did not at all exist at that time; but neither are they to be judged to have insinuated by the same words that he was first interred in that place where the said basilica of St. Crispin was afterwards built; since they could have spoken so truly provided only that his sacred body rested in the same basilica at the time when they were writing, at whatever time it had at length been carried there from elsewhere. For the rest, that basilica and abbey of the Order of St. Benedict, commonly Saint-Crépin-le-Grand, is situated above the city of Soissons on the river Aisne; concerning which the praised continuators of Gallia Christiana may be consulted, volume 9, from column 394. More (which we regret) we do not know about this holy Bishop of Soissons.
Annotation* others Suessionicam