ON SS. FIRMATUS AND FLAVIA, DEACON AND HIS SISTER, VIRGIN (FLAVIA ALSO CALLED FLAVIANA), AT AUXERRE IN GAUL,
PERHAPS IN THE V OR VI CENTURY.
SYLLOGE.
Firmatus, deacon, at Auxerre in Gaul. (S.) Flavia or Flaviana, virgin, his sister, at Auxerre in Gaul. (S.)
BY C. B.
All the larger Hieronymian copies in Fiorentini — St. Firmatus the deacon, and his holy sister Flaviana or
Flavia, at Auxerre, The Saints today in the Hieronymian which is an episcopal city of the Gauls, under the archbishop of Sens, annexed to the duchy of Burgundy, on the river Yonne, mark today. And the Lucca copy indeed, with which that of Blumius agrees exactly, as having no variant reading here, does this in these following words: And in Gaul, in the city of Auxerre, the deposition of the holy siblings Firmatus the deacon and Flaviana the virgin consecrated to God: but the Corbie copy, although it agrees well enough with the Lucca one, nevertheless omits And in Gaul, in the city at the beginning, and consecrated to God at the end, which the Antwerp or Echternach copy likewise does, omitting besides the word deposition, and neither calling the Saints siblings nor writing Flaviana, but Flavia, after the manner still used elsewhere. To these more diffuse Hieronymian copies of Fiorentini can be added also, from among the more contracted, the Labbe copy, with us in tome VII of July, which, although, having besides omitted the title of deacon at the name of Firmatus, it announces most briefly St. Firmatus and the holy virgin Flavina (for so it forms it for Flavia or Flaviana, which is common also to some other sacred Fasti and Hieronymian codices), nevertheless joins Faustus and Pelagius to the Saints. And the very same thing is done also, with us in the place cited, by the Augsburg copy of the monastery of St. Ulrich, and, in d'Achery, in the Spicilegium, which came out in a repeated edition in the year 1723, tome 2, page 35, by that of Gellone, which you might not unfittingly bring back into the class of the Hieronymian ones: but Faustus and Pelagius are to be removed from Firmatus and Flavia, Saints of Auxerre, and the three Hieronymian copies just mentioned seem to have been corrupted by a transposition of names.
[2] So I judge, both from the fact that three of the larger Hieronymian copies already praised, and in Ado, if not the pure, namely the Lucca, that of Blumius and the Corbie, expressly mark Faustus and Pelagius elsewhere than at Auxerre; and from the fact that both these and the Antwerp copy likewise praised, and at the same time Ado and Usuard, who had before their eyes the Martyrology commonly circulated under the name of St. Jerome, commemorate by unanimous consent, and in almost the same words, only the saints Firmatus the deacon and Flavia or Flaviana the virgin at Auxerre, as will become manifest to anyone from the comparison of the announcements which they use. Nor is there reason for you to object that Firmatus and Flavia are not even found in the pure Ado in Rosweyde; for besides the fact that, even so, what has already been said appears sufficiently founded in the enlarged Hieronymian copies and in Usuard, Jacob Mosander, whom besides the Adonian codices described by Domenico Giorgi in the Preface to Ado, number 5, support, brings forward this announcement of Saints Firmatus and Flavia or Flaviana as proper to Ado, inasmuch as he does not mark it with an asterisk: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Firmatus the deacon and of Flaviana the virgin; and that Rosweyde took away from Ado the announcement of Firmatus and Flaviana set down by Mosander in these words Sollier, in his Observation on Usuard for today, wonders for this reason, that he could have taken this equally with the other, in which he commemorates today Placidus, Eutychius and thirty others in Sicily, from the Hieronymian ones together. And indeed, since he marks Placidus and his companions from the Hieronymian ones, why would he have omitted Firmatus and Flavia? Will you perhaps say that Firmatus and Flavia are not sincere or genuine Saints of the Hieronymian ones, and that they are held by Fiorentini, in his Annotations for today on the Martyrology commonly ascribed to Jerome, to be additions by a Gallic antiquary? But whether Fiorentini at his own discretion rightly recognizes these heavenly ones, namely Firmatus and Flavia, among the additions by the Gallic antiquary, Sollier also calls into doubt in the place just cited.
[3] And truly not undeservedly: for since (go to the same Sollier in his Preface to Usuard, number 22) the Hieronymian Martyrology was perhaps woven together not earlier than the sixth century, which here why could not Firmatus and Flavia, of whom it is quite doubtful from what is to be said whether they did not flourish before that same sixth century, have been commemorated by its author himself? I admit indeed that not a few Saints of Auxerre, as Fiorentini inculcates in the sixth preliminary Admonition and often elsewhere, are found marked in the Martyrology commonly attributed to Jerome only by an addition made by a Gallic antiquary; but why ought that to be extended either generally to all, or by name to Saints Firmatus and Flavia? Is it perhaps from the fact that these Saints of ours, contrary to the style of the Hieronymian copies, which are wont to express only the name of the Saints, the place and the day of their happy departure from the living, are celebrated somewhat more prolixly, with the titles of Deacon, Virgin and Siblings added, in the more diffuse Hieronymian codices praised above? But from the mere inspection of the Hieronymian ones in Fiorentini anyone will without difficulty detect that to genuine Hieronymian Saints titles of deacon, priest, bishop, virgin or others similar are also from time to time added, so that on that head nothing prevents the announcement of Saints Firmatus and Flavia from being held truly Hieronymian, if not that somewhat more prolix one transcribed here from the Lucca copy at number 1, at least another more contracted one, from which this could have arisen by addition, framed in these very few words in the Antwerp or Echternach copy in Fiorentini: At Auxerre, of Firmatus the deacon and Flavia the virgin.
[4] is disputed, But even granting for a moment that our Saints are not truly Hieronymian, you will not prove even so that they are to be taken away from Ado. For since it can indeed not be denied that they are inscribed, at least by addition, in the Hieronymian copies of Antwerp and of Blumius, of which the first was drawn up at the beginning of the eighth century, the second in the year 772, why could not Ado, who about the middle of the ninth century put together his Martyrology from the Martyrology of Bede, enlarged by Florus, and from very many codices, as he himself intimates in the Preface, collected from all sides, have excerpted them from the same Antwerp and Blumian copies, or from similar Hieronymian copies interpolated by an old hand? So Rabanus, who, Sollier teaches in his Preface to Usuard, number 64 and following, went before Ado, and used chiefly Bede and Florus in writing his Martyrology, brought these same Saints of ours into his Martyrology from elsewhere, although they are not mentioned by Bede, whether pure or supplemented by the work of Florus. Nor is there reason for you to reply finally that Sollier contradicts himself when he wonders that Firmatus and Flavia, whom Notker does not mention, are taken away from Ado by Rosweyde; for although he indicates in his Preface to Usuard, number 154, that in general the Saints rejected by Rosweyde into the Appendix, and at the same time found both in Usuard and in Notker, can without hesitation be attributed to Ado, he does not on that account establish in the same place that all whom either Usuard or Notker does not mention are therefore at once to be taken away from Ado, as Domenico Giorgi in his Preface to Ado, number 8, seems wrongly to have thought.
[5] at least in the enlarged, and they are inscribed in other sacred Fasti. However all these things at length stand, Firmatus and Flavia are indeed inserted today in the Hieronymian ones and in Ado, if not the pure, at least the enlarged, and at the same time in the pure Usuard and in Rabanus, as you will easily understand from what has already been said. To these, further, are added many more hagiologists, not indeed those whom we call classical, or the most ancient of all, but others: namely the author of the Franco-Gallic Hagiology of Labbe, who is himself also ancient, and the compiler of the Martyrology of Auxerre, of equal or even greater antiquity, which is extant in Martène, tome 6 of the Ancient Writers, from column 686 to column 738; whom afterwards follow in long series much more recent ones, namely the author of our Manuscript Florarium, Belinus, Greven, Molanus, and very many others, all of whose names it is not worth while to recount here, much less to bring forward their announcements. Yet, that I may show them all to the studious reader as it were under one view, I transcribe here the announcement of the present Roman, which agrees almost exactly with all the rest. It runs thus: At Auxerre, the deposition of the holy siblings Firmatus the deacon and Flaviana the virgin. In the Plantin edition of the Roman Martyrology made in the year 1701 our Saint is called not Firmatus but Firmanus, and Sollier says in his Observation on Usuard for today that he does not know why this is so. What if, then, it be called merely a slip of the typesetters? Certainly Firmatus, as he had been in the editions of the same Martyrology preceding the year 1701, is restored in the later edition of the year 1746.
[6] Chastelain, who inserted the present Roman, turned into the French language, into his universal Martyrology, [Flavia is foisted on as the sister of the Benedictine St. Placidus, Firmatus as a companion:] indicates not obscurely by two little notes set in the margin today that he is of that opinion by which he judges that St. Placidus, the Sicilian martyr, marked today with Eutychius and thirty anonymous companions in the three larger Hieronymian copies in Fiorentini, which are rightly judged to be pure here in the Commentary prefixed today to the Acts of St. Placidus, number 4, is foisted on for St. Placidus, the disciple of St. Benedict mentioned in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, and our holy virgin of Auxerre Flaviana, changed into Flavia, as she is also called elsewhere, for the sister of the same Benedictine St. Placidus in his fabulous Acts, found only in the twelfth century; which surely, as also that in the same Acts St. Firmatus the deacon is passed off as one of the companions who suffered with the Benedictine Placidus, appears most probable even from this, that the inventor of those Acts (go to the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Placidus at this day, number 10) most probably scraped together the names, scattered here and there on this day through the Hieronymian codices, of martyrs or other Saints, namely Eutychius, Victorinus, Faustus, our saints Firmatus and also Flavia, and fastened them at his discretion on the sister, brothers and guests of the Benedictine Placidus who suffered with him at Messina, whom he did not know by name; keeping, meanwhile, besides Eutychius, also the number of thirty anonymous martyrs which the Hieronymian copies just praised, pure here from what has been said, join to their Placidus.
[7] Hence, further, it now also follows that, since Saints Fiorentini wrongly doubles them. to whom names of other Saints, taken from the Hieronymian copies, are fastened, are not on that account considered inscribed in them, it is not necessary to call mutilated those same Hieronymian copies which today mark Placidus with Eutychius only and thirty other anonymous companions, and to distinguish a double Firmatus and Flaviana or Flavia who would demand a place in these when restored to integrity, as Fiorentini does today in his Annotations on the Hieronymian Martyrology, who besides in the same place wrongly adduces as part of his argument, for making that distinction, the old Franco-Gallic Hagiology of Labbe, in which our holy Deacon is named not Firmatus, as the companion in martyrdom of the Benedictine St. Placidus, but Formatus, and our Virgin of Auxerre not Flavia, as the sister of the Benedictine St. Placidus, but Flaviana. For although in that old Hagiology our Saint is called Flaviana, it is not on that account certain that she is not equally fitly called Flavia, since she is found so called also in the most ancient Antwerp Hieronymian copy in Fiorentini and elsewhere. And as for what pertains to St. Firmatus the deacon, since in that one old Hagiology of Labbe he is Formatus, but in the ancient sacred Fasti praised above
and in almost all others he is constantly named Firmatus, there seems no room for doubt that it arose from the sole carelessness of the copyists that he is called Formatus in the Franco-Gallic Hagiology.
[8] Why they are given here separately from the same Placidus, But why are Saints Firmatus the deacon and his sister Flavia or Flaviana, noted today in the Hieronymian copies, as I have already shown, given here separately from the Benedictine St. Placidus, while Eutychius, Victorinus and Faustus, likewise noted today in the Hieronymian copies, are not given separately from him also — who have their names, no less than Firmatus the deacon and Flaviana or Flavia the virgin, fastened by the biographer of the Benedictine Placidus on the companions of St. Placidus, unknown by name, in the martyrdom endured at Messina, and so seem to be wrongly foisted in for these, from whom nevertheless they are most probably different? There is indeed reason why this may seem strange to someone: but it can be said, first, that Eutychius, Victorinus and Faustus are known from the Hieronymian ones alone, and since the announcements by which these three Saints are celebrated today have been transcribed in the Commentary on the Benedictine St. Placidus, they have at the same time been sufficiently treated there; which also let be the answer to one asking why the Hieronymian St. Placidus himself at least, and likewise St. Pelagius, mentioned here at numbers 1 and 2 and likewise inscribed today in the Hieronymian ones, are not treated separately. There is added that it is not in every respect certain that the Benedictine Placidus, Eutychius and Victorinus his brothers, and Faustus his companion in martyrdom, are distinguished from the Hieronymian Placidus and Eutychius and the thirty anonymous companions; whereas Firmatus the deacon and his sister Flavia or Flaviana are sufficiently distinguished, even in the Roman Martyrology itself, from Firmatus, the companion of St. Placidus in martyrdom, and his sister Flavia, since it celebrates these with one announcement and those with another on one and the same day; and in fact too they are beyond all doubt distinct, as is clear even from this, that Firmatus, the companion in martyrdom of the Benedictine St. Placidus, and Flavia his sister passed to those above at Messina in Sicily, whereas our Firmatus and his sister Flavia did so by a happy death at Auxerre in Gaul.
[9] whether martyrdom, as Bargedé will have it, There is added that the companion and sister of the Benedictine St. Placidus, called Firmatus and Flavia by fastened-on names, besides that they were not, like our Saints, joined to each other by the bond of close kinship, undoubtedly obtained the palm of martyrdom; whether our Firmatus the deacon and his sister Flavia or Flaviana also obtained it is quite doubtful, as I now show. In most of the larger Hieronymian copies, and in the other sacred Fasti praised above, the word deposition is set to the names of our Saints, which seems to argue them confessors; for although that word, as Fiorentini rightly teaches in the 9th preliminary Admonition, according to the old ecclesiastical writers is not unfittingly applied also to martyrs and their burial, it is nevertheless more frequently attributed to confessors, or to those who fell asleep in peace outside the storms of persecution. Yet, since in the Hieronymian ones and the other sacred Fasti thus far cited Firmatus and Flavia are named expressly and explicitly neither martyrs nor confessors, and those who lack both these titles in the Hieronymian ones are mostly martyrs, there is indeed reason why they too may seem to have ended their life by martyrdom. And indeed both the older Breviary of Auxerre which we have openly makes them martyrs, inasmuch as it prescribes the commemoration of Firmatus and Flavia to be made today as of martyrs, and so too Bargedé, assessor of the senate, or, as they call it, the presidial court of Auxerre: for he, in the Calendar of the Saints of Auxerre which he wove together, and which is extant with us in Manuscript, celebrates our Saints today thus, in French words rendered by me in Latin: St. Firmatus, deacon of Auxerre, and St. Flavia his sister, a nun at Auxerre, were the first who, during the persecution of Euric, suffered martyrdom on this day.
[10] So he, at the same time also supplying the things from which under Euric, king of the Visigoths, you may without difficulty gather at about what time he judges our Saints suffered. For since he also writes at the 1st day of July in the praised Calendar that Saints Felix and Moderatus at Auxerre were afflicted with martyrdom by Evaric or Euric, the Arian king of the Goths or, if you prefer, of the Visigoths, who, having occupied a great part of the Gauls, stirred up a savage persecution against the Catholics, he undoubtedly designates by the words transcribed here this very Euric under whom our Saints underwent martyrdom. Now since Evric, or Euric or Evarix, or also Eoric (for the name of this king is rendered variously by various people), became king of the Visigoths in the year 464, having killed his brother Theodoric, and exchanged life for death in the year 485 (go to Pagi in the Critica at the year 464, number 2, and at the year 484, number 24), it follows that Bargedé would have Saints Firmatus and Flavia or Flaviana — whom he himself calls a nun, while by some of the martyrologists recounted above and by others she is called a Virgin consecrated to God — to have been taken from the living by martyrdom in that space of time which runs between the year 463 and the year 486. But that writer brings forward no surety at all for the assertion by which he says the Saints underwent martyrdom under Evric or Euric, and he is too recent to be able by his sole authority to make the martyrdom of Firmatus and Flavia undoubted, much less its very time. Nor, even if he were older, would he on that account join certain credit to his words in this matter: for it is doubtful whether Euric, king of the Visigoths, raged against the Catholics everywhere for the sake of faith, as Bargedé thought, to such a degree that the martyrdom of the Saints could be quite fitly attributed to him.
[11] Gregory of Tours indeed writes, book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 25, [who does not seem to have raged everywhere with slaughters against the Catholics, underwent,] that Evaric or Euric stirred up a grievous persecution in the Gauls, everywhere cut down men not consenting to his perversity, cast clergy into chains, drove bishops partly into exile, partly killed them, and ordered the entrances of churches to be barred with thorns; but he wrongly interpreted the letter of Apollinaris Sidonius to bishop Basilius, from which he himself adds in the place cited that he drew these things, as Valois, book 5 of the Frankish Affairs, page 239, and after him Pagi in the Critica at the year 475, number 4, rightly observe: for in the praised letter, as will be evident to one inspecting it either in Baronius at the year 475, number 23, or in Sirmond, tome 1 of the Various Works, among the Letters of Apollinaris Sidonius, book 7, chapter 6, Sidonius only writes that the bishops Crocus and Simplicius were banished, and that at Bordeaux, Périgueux and very many other cities over which Euric held sway the chief priests were cut off by death, that is, died by their own death, and none were substituted in the places of the dead, the rustic parishes were deserted, the roofs of the churches had fallen, or, the hinges of the doors having been torn away, the entrances of the basilicas were blocked with brambles; he calls this the hidden sickness of the Catholic state, and says Euric seemed to him to be plotting not so much against the Roman cities as against the Christian laws; all of which do not indicate that Euric, as Gregory of Tours wrote, raged everywhere with slaughters against the Catholics who opposed the Arian perversity. Whence it comes about that, even granting what Bargedé likewise affirms at the 1st of July in the cited Calendar, that Auxerre was subdued by arms by Euric, it would not be certain on that account that our Saints were slain under him for the faith, and that accordingly this writer, asserting it, even if he were older than he is, would not join undoubted credit to himself in this matter.
[12] about what time they departed this life, Now, since these things are so, there remains uncertain, whatever Bargedé may write, not only the martyrdom of the Saints but also, what would otherwise have been defined near enough, the very time at which they, whether martyrs or confessors, died. Let us consider, then, whether it cannot after a fashion be defined in some other way. In the Calendar which the more recent Breviary of Auxerre, printed in the year 1736, has in front, and likewise in the little Note which the Paris Martyrology, published in the year 1727, has added in the margin today, Saints Firmatus and Flavia are marked as having departed from the living in the V or VI century: but on what foundation? The authors of the Calendar and of the Note, who add no reason for the time of death thus assigned by them to our Saints, at least in a broad manner, probably believed that Firmatus and Flavia were added to the Hieronymian ones only by a Gallic antiquary, as Fiorentini thought from what has been said, and hence inferred that they passed from the living to those above not before the V century, since they judged that otherwise they would have had to be inserted in the pure Hieronymian Martyrology, made perhaps in the V century itself or the following one. Besides, since they saw the same inscribed in the most ancient Hieronymian copies of Echternach and of Blumius, of which the one was drawn up already from the beginning of the VIII century, the other in the year 772, perhaps suspecting that Firmatus and Flavia had had a place also in older copies of the VII century, and so they at length concluded that their death, which for that reason they did not dare to put off into the VII century, happened disjunctively either in the V or the VI century. And indeed, since the Saints, as it is permitted to gather from what has already been said above, were perhaps really only added to the Hieronymian Martyrology by a Gallic antiquary, and were perhaps inscribed in its copies already from the VII century, their death is not altogether unfitly tied, broadly speaking, to the V or VI century, and hence I wrote above in the margin both these centuries disjunctively, with the particle of doubt perhaps also added.
[13] and with what cult they are honoured in the diocese of Auxerre. And let these things said about the kind and time of the death which the Saints met suffice; it remains that I now subjoin a few certain things about their cult in the diocese of Auxerre. In the older Breviary of Auxerre of the XVI century the commemoration of Saints Firmatus and Flavia, as I have already intimated above, is prescribed today. The same is also done in the more recent Breviary, likewise of Auxerre, just praised, which besides supplies a lesson to be read in the third place, in which these things are read about the Saints: On this fifth day of October were buried at Auxerre St. Firmatus the deacon and his sister St. Flavia or Flaviana, a virgin consecrated to God. A certain part of the relics of this Virgin was carried to Saint-Ferréol in the diocese of Auxerre, where she is still venerated. So the aforesaid lesson: nor could I find another of more proved credit either about the Saints themselves or about their cult among the people of Auxerre. Du Saussay indeed in his Gallican Martyrology records moreover about Saints Firmatus and Flavia today thus: At Auxerre, of the holy siblings Firmatus the deacon and Flaviana the virgin consecrated to God, who, spending the pure services of chastity and faith on Christ through the whole course of their life, enriched with the merits of virtues, passed to the joys of everlasting glory; but since these things are almost only consequences of the office of deacon which Firmatus discharged, and of the quality of virgin consecrated to God by which Flavia or Flaviana shone,
they add nothing very worthy of note to the knowledge of the Saints thus far supplied from elsewhere, nor, even if he added something, would he establish credit, being only a more recent writer.