ON ST. TULLIA, VIRGIN, AT MANOSQUE IN PROVENCE IN GAUL,
PERHAPS BETWEEN THE YEARS 425 AND 433.
HISTORICO-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.
The announcement of the Saint in certain Martyrologies and her Ecclesiastical cult: her deeds to be taken from the Acts of St. Consortia. How far these are genuine? Whether Tullia was the daughter of St. Eucherius, commonly called the Great? About when did she die?
Tullia, virgin, at Manosque in Provence in Gaul. (S.)
BY J. G.
Of all the martyrologists whom I have found, St. Tullia, celebrated by Ado and more recent martyrologists, Chastelain alone announces the virgin Tullia, wrongly called Julia by some, own sister of St. Consortia, whose Acts Henschenius and Papebroch illustrated on the 22nd day of June, separately from her parents Eucherius and Galla, on this day at Manosque in Provence in Gaul, and hints, at page 983 in the Additions and Corrections of his universal Martyrology, that she either migrated to those above or at least is venerated there on this day. Whence that diligent investigator of the Saints, especially of Gaul, drew this day of the holy Virgin's birthday or cult, since he himself is silent, is unknown to me. Yet I should not readily believe that he did it rashly. Wherefore I have determined to treat of her too on this day, since no more opportune place offers itself. I therefore take my beginning from her holiness and Ecclesiastical cult. That Tullia was long ago numbered in Gaul among the choir of holy Virgins is manifestly proved both from a contemporary anonymous writer, to be mentioned below, and from the Martyrology of St. Ado. And he indeed, on the occasion of St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, whom he announces on the 16th day of November, speaks thus of her and her sister Consortia: Their (Eucherius's and Galla's) two daughters, of whom one was called Consortia and the other Tullia, were renowned for the grace of virginity and the glory of signs. Agreeing with Ado, and on a like occasion at the same 16th day of November, our manuscript Florarium, the Brussels Usuardine codex, and also Greven reckon Tullia among the holy Virgins, as may be seen in Sollerius's illustrated Usuard. Among the more recent writers there support them Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, Lahier in the Menology of Virgins, du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, Arthur du Monstier in the Gynaeceum, and Simon de Peyronet in the Catalogue of Saints, all of whom Chastelain could have had as guides in asserting the holiness of Tullia, and without doubt followed so far, differing from them on this one head only, that he announces her at Manosque on this day separately from her parents.
[2] Thinking it superfluous to copy here the words of each, at Manosque, of which notice is given, is announced by Chastelain on this day, I bring over here the announcement of Chastelain alone in place of the rest. It runs thus at page 983, in the Additions and Corrections of his Universal Martyrology: 5 October, at Manosque in Provence, of St. Tullia, virgin, sister of St. Consortia, whose body is honoured near the same town in a church dedicated to her. And Manosque, as Jean Columbi, a native of Manosque, writes in the Virgo Romigeriana, page 63, is a city of Provence not far from the river Druentia (in French la Durance), formerly the winter seat of the counts who ruled most widely from the Rhone through the cities of Apta Julia and Sisteron to the people of Gap and Embrun, whom they held under their sway: at the sixth milestone from Forcalquier, the summer home of the same princes and the source of their family name. According to the same witness, page 64, Manosque, called in French Manosque, has two parishes,
of which one bears its name from the Saviour, the other from the Mother of God. This latter the monks of St. Victor of Marseilles have had in their charge for many centuries, or at any rate held before the year of Christ 1114, since Pope Paschal II, in a Pontifical Bull which is found in volume 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana among the Instruments of the church of Marseilles, page 115 and following, expressly lists among the possessions attributed to the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles and confirmed by him the Cell of St. Mary of Manosque, in which, as the praised writer relates at page 66, the body of St. Tullia, long since buried, was, by order of Abbot Peter and the college of the monks of St. Victor, long searched for and at length found. But whether this happened under Peter I, abbot of St. Victor, who, according to the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 683, flourished in the year of Christ 1048, or whether on the contrary the finding of the sacred body ought to be ascribed to Abbot Peter II of that name, who presided over the monks of St. Victor in the year 1130, Columbi does not set out clearly enough; nor do I have anything sufficiently certain, either from him or from elsewhere, to define the time at which the relics of the holy Virgin were carried both into the church of Sainte-Tulle outside Manosque and to other parts, and her Ecclesiastical cult begun there.
[3] However these things stand, certainly St. Tullia has been wont to be venerated with no common piety not only in the territory of Sainte-Tulle, and she is venerated in various places, where her relics are kept. near Manosque, but also at Cucuron, a place about six hours' leagues distant from Manosque. Bouche had long since testified to this, in volume 1 of the Chorography and chronological History of Provence, page 594, with whom Arthur du Monstier also in part agreed, in the Gynaeceum, page 456. But when I saw that the latter had not related things in every respect consonant with the other writers, led by zeal for inquiring into the truth I had recourse by letters to Avignon, whence, with his kindness and learning, the most distinguished lord de Brantes, treasurer and penitentiary of the church of Avignon, sent such a reply as removed all doubt for me in the matter under consideration. From this therefore I assert for certain that the feast of St. Tullia is also religiously kept on the 21st day of May both at Cucuron and in the village of Sainte-Tulle, yet that no proper Ecclesiastical Office or Legend of the Saint exists, and that only one Antiphon at the hymn Magnificat is proper to her, conceived in these words: Blessed Tullia said to her mother: Why do you mourn me as lost, whom the Lord has brought into the fellowship of sacred virgins. And as regards the body of St. Tullia, which the praised Arthur asserted is kept in a town named after her Sainte-Tulle, and Gissey asserted is religiously laid at Anicium or Le Puy in the Velay, it must be established from the testimony of the same most praiseworthy lord de Brantes that the body of St. Tullia does not exist entire in either place; since, according to his testimony, only one arm-bone of the same Virgin is kept in the church of Sainte-Tulle, and her head at Cucuron; so that accordingly only the remaining parts of the sacred body can be at Le Puy. Now from the asserted holiness of Tullia and her Ecclesiastical veneration I proceed to illustrating her deeds, as far as the matter allows.
[4] Her deeds are extant in the ancient Acts of St. Consortia, These are extant in a certain little Work which Pierre Chifflet, a learned priest of the Society of Jesus, made public in his illustrated Paulinus in the year of Christ 1662, dug out, as he himself wrote at that time at page 69, from a manuscript codex of St. Oyend of the Jura, which seems to have been copied almost nine hundred years ago and is of good repute; … with which (manuscript codex) three other codices of Lyon and one of Gigny agree. And that little Work is there entitled thus: The Conversion of St. Eucherius, bishop, and of Galla his wife: and the Life of their two daughters, Tullia and Consortia, virgins: why Mabillon, Saec. 1 Bened., page 248, turned these words of the title upside down, and in that title, expunging the Life of St. Tullia, judged that only the Life of St. Consortia and the conversion of blessed Eucherius and Galla should be retained, I shall not so easily divine, since that little Work, even as it was edited by him, relates the deeds of St. Tullia equally with those of St. Consortia, nor did Mabillon expunge in it anything of what pertains to Tullia. Further, who the author of that little Work is has not so far been explored; yet these words, which are read in the whole of number 11, show that he is contemporary: And since it is long to narrate all the things which the Lord wonderfully wrought through His servants Eucherius and Galla and their daughter Tullia, I shall relate a few things of the deeds of blessed Consortia, which I heard from the holy brothers Uranius the priest and Celsus the subdeacon, who clung to her while she lived, and also from Aurelian the priest, who until now serves God at her sepulchre, relating them; and so that anonymous writer deserves the credit which is wont to be given to those authors who drew what they relate from eyewitnesses.
[5] which, as they have been published, cannot in every respect Nevertheless certain more recent critics, and those very learned, either nibble at those Acts, as they have been published by Chifflet, Mabillon and Papebroch, or reject them outright. And there is surely reason, to confess the truth, why we should believe them partly interpolated or copied by an unskilled hand. For if anyone admits as true or genuine what is related there of the journey undertaken by St. Consortia to Chlothar I, king of the Franks, and of the marriage to be entered into by her with Hecca, a noble man, by permission of king Sigebert, he will also have to admit, against the testimony of the anonymous writer himself and of St. Ado, that Saints Consortia and Tullia were not begotten by St. Eucherius of Lyon of their mother Galla before he entered upon the episcopate; since it cannot be that a daughter of him, who was taken from among the living about the year 450, as Tillemont shows in volume 15 of the Mémoires, Note 1 on St. Eucherius, St. Consortia, was under Sigebert, king of the Franks, that is, after the year 561, a girl especially beautiful and still marriageable, such as those Acts nevertheless depict her at number 15. Hence various writers, who seem to contend that that little Work is genuine in every respect, assert as the father of Saints Consortia and Tullia that Eucherius, a bishop, who subscribed without the name of any see to four councils held under St. Caesarius of Arles in the year 524 and following, to whom, as they would have it, just as to the former Eucherius, there fell a wife Galla, a twin offspring, and, to finish in a word, afterwards the same episcopate and an equal fortune in all things. But, besides the fact that that other Eucherius of Lyon, or Eucherius the Younger, unknown to the ancient Fasti of the church of Lyon, indeed seems fictitious, as Chifflet, praised above, in his illustrated Paulinus, page 80, and Papebroch in the Commentary on the Life of St. Consortia, page 249, judged, and after them Joseph Antelmi, canon of Fréjus, and Father de Colonia, volume 1 of the Literary History of Lyon, from page 203, demonstrated no less laboriously than learnedly; even on that hypothesis, that that younger Eucherius of Lyon ever existed in the nature of things, the credibility and accuracy of these Acts, as they have been edited, cannot stand in every respect.
[6] For not even so can it be conceived on what ground St. Consortia, after the year of Christ 561, could be called a marriageable and very beautiful girl, be reconciled with historical truth; who, if the words of the Acts as they lie are to be stood by, would then certainly have been sixty years old. For, what cannot be denied even on that hypothesis, that Eucherius was already bishop of Lyon, as they would have it, in the year of Christ 524. To these is added that, as those Acts hint, Eucherius's departure from his wife and separation from the marriage bed, and his solitary life in a cave, preceded his episcopal consecration by some years. Therefore, even if it were liberally granted that that Eucherius's departure from his wife did not happen before the year 520, Consortia had then certainly already passed the twentieth year of her age; since, as those Acts testify at number 1, being placed in her childhood years she had begun to have a religious mind, and hence was at least a girl of seven before the hope of her parents was increased by receiving another daughter, whom they called Tullia. Since therefore at the time when Eucherius hid himself in the cave Tullia herself, Consortia's sister, seven years younger, was already of such an age that she could, equally with her, rule and possess by right the possessions or little means of her parents, as is said at number 2, it follows even on that hypothesis that Consortia, who exceeded Tullia, already nearly grown up, by seven years, was born in the preceding century, or at any rate not after the year of Christ 500, and so that under king Sigebert, who, as is plain in various places in Bouquet's Writers of Gallic Affairs, did not take up a part of the Gallic kingdom before the year of Christ 561, she was at least sixty years old. Since these things are so, the credibility and accuracy of these Acts cannot hold even on that hypothesis which establishes Eucherius the Younger as the father of Saints Consortia and Tullia, since they make Consortia a marriageable and very beautiful girl, who at that time must have been a withered woman and a quite aged old woman.
[7] Our Papebroch weighed these things, and since, hence Papebroch corrected some things in them; but many more the narrative of the Acts as they have been edited being preserved, he saw that Consortia and Tullia could be attributed as daughters to neither of the mentioned Eucheriuses, he turned elsewhere, and, giving place to conjecture in a doubtful matter, not as wishing to teach, for so he speaks at page 250, but as ready to learn, he judged from the situation of the place where the father of Saints Consortia and Tullia lived, namely near Manosque, five leagues distant from Riez, an episcopal city of Provence, that for the aforesaid Eucheriuses there could be substituted Emeterius, bishop of Riez, otherwise also called Eucherius, namely the one who subscribed to the Fifth synod of Orléans in the year 549. But, be it said with the authority of my most learned predecessor preserved, although the difficulty in conceiving a pair of spouses called by the same names who in the 5th and 6th centuries enjoyed almost the same fortune were not so great as it seems to others, yet this conjecture of his cannot subsist at all without its being necessary to confess that some errors lie in the aforesaid Acts, as they have so far been published, that is, that everywhere the church and city of Lyon were wrongly put for those of Riez. Wherefore, to uncover the truth if it can be done in any way, it has seemed good to me to enter upon another way; and it pleases me to inquire here whether the old copyist of the Acts elaborated by the anonymous writer did not stumble into more rough places than Papebroch enumerated, so that, if these are uncovered and avoided, not only may his credibility be preserved for the contemporary anonymous writer
its authority, but also that they may not unfittingly be reconciled with the express words of St. Ado, a not unskilled guide in the History of Lyon, by which this author establishes St. Eucherius, commonly called the Great or the Elder, as the parent of Saints Consortia and our Tullia. Meanwhile, until this argument is thoroughly treated in our Work at the 16th day of November, God willing, on which day the illustrious matron, the wife of St. Eucherius, can also be treated, I assert that nothing was said in the original Acts of St. Consortia by their contemporary author which prevents both her and Tullia her sister from being called daughters of St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, who died about the year 450; and hence that in my judgment both these Virgins can with sufficient probability be brought back from the end of the 6th century to the not so advanced 5th century.
[8] [in these Acts, which are yet not in every part fictitious, (certain things) are to be expunged,] To establish this opinion, I lay down this foundation and strength of my case: namely, I contend that the Acts of St. Consortia, in which the Life of St. Tullia is contained, are neither an inept fable throughout nor a true history throughout; that is, that additions are mixed with the original, new things with old, spurious with legitimate, false with true. As regards the former part of this assertion, I should think it sufficiently solidly confirmed by this, that it is manifest from the words recited at number 4 that the author of those Acts is contemporary, and that St. Ado, afterwards bishop of Vienne, made so much of those Acts that, while he was vigorously applying himself at Lyon to composing his Martyrology, he did not fear to take from them what he committed to writing about St. Eucherius; in which matter he also had in agreement with him Florus, deacon of Lyon, as may be seen in the aforesaid Chifflet, page 66, who praises the words of the same Florus in the Collectanea on the election of bishops edited by Papire Masson with the Works of Agobard. To these is added that, besides certain other things which pertain to St. Eucherius, Galla his wife and Consortia his daughter, nothing is specifically related in these Acts about St. Tullia which I know to have displeased even one of the severer critics. But as regards the other part of the assertion, it becomes clearly plain, both from what has been disputed at number 5 and following and from what is presently to be said, that the same lot befell these same Acts by which the best Acts, both of Saints and of emperors and kings, have from time to time been infected with fables; and if these accordingly ought to be exploded throughout, not very many things which either Ecclesiastical or profane history narrates could be held sufficiently certain. But, you will ask, which things then, from those Acts as they now exist in manuscript and also published in print, are to be eliminated as spurious and added? I answer that they are those very things which were an obstacle to Papebroch and others against establishing Consortia and Tullia as daughters of St. Eucherius, commonly called the Great, namely that Consortia is said to have gone to Chlothar I, king of the Franks, and under Sigebert his son to have been sought in marriage by Hecca, a noble man; and to show that these are added and spurious, or ineptly intruded into them by an old copyist of the Acts, nothing more is needed than to present the narrative of this part of the Acts.
[9] Thus, then, at number 12, a little after the beginning, the narrative, namely the journey of St. Consortia to Chlothar, king of the Franks, or rather the fable, of the aforesaid journey is fashioned: Consortia, who, as fictitious heroines are wont to be, is conspicuous for outstanding beauty and loveliness, that is, is an exceedingly beautiful girl, sets out on a long journey from Provence to king Chlothar, to beg of him as a suppliant that by his order she may be permitted to serve God in virginity, thinking, that is (for who could figure in his mind another cause for this journey?), either that it was unlawful for virgins to follow the counsel of the Apostle without the king's order, or that she would not be safe unless she had vowed her virginity to God with the king's express permission. Opportunely, as she approaches the king's palace, the Lord appears to Chlothar in a vision and consoles him, grieving over the sickness of his daughter, pledging His word that she will be restored to her former health if the king willingly grants Consortia whatever she shall ask. Chlothar, awakening from sleep, reveals all these things to his faithful men and orders Consortia to be diligently sought out. She, when she is set before the king, certainly conscious of her outstanding beauty, fears for her chastity from the king; but on the contrary, as the girl approaches, the king rises reverently from his throne and, going to meet her, begs as a suppliant the protection of her prayers for himself and former health for his sick daughter. At length, prevailed upon, she enters the chamber of the royal princess lying abed, and, after pouring forth prayers with tears, peaceably greets the sick girl, who, unknown, if you please, to the king, had been freed from the fever by which she was tormented as soon as Consortia had set foot in the palace. At the glad news Chlothar at once hastens there, and, the prodigy having been seen, promises that he will grant whatever Consortia shall ask in his kingdom. She at once subjoins that this is chiefly in her wishes, that by the king's permission she may be permitted securely to remain in the undertaken purpose of virginity, and that what she has conferred, or would thereafter confer, on places consecrated to God and on His servants may remain ratified by royal authority; and when the king had assented to these things, the Virgin at once betakes herself home, now secure about keeping her purpose. These things, to me at least, smack of a fable, and that a quite inept one. But behold another, much more foreign to the appearance of truth.
[10] If we dwell on those Acts at number 15 and the four following, and the marriage to be entered into by order of Sigebert, king of the Franks; when, after the death of Chlothar, a certain one of the chief men of the palace, whose name was Hecca, had by order of king Sigebert undertaken the governing of the Province of Marseilles, he understands from a certain inhabitant that there is in these places a girl, exceedingly beautiful, named Consortia, most powerful in countless money and also in service. To pursue the fable, I forbear here to refute the old copyist at length for making St. Consortia, whom he had earlier said had spent her money on the poor and made her household free, again most powerful in countless money and also in abundance of ministers. Hecca therefore orders it to be announced to Consortia by an honorary youth that he wishes to enjoy her conversation; soon following himself, after familiar talk held with her, he is received at a banquet; and without delay he is so pleasantly captivated by the beauty of his hostess and the prudence of her talk that he can hardly conceal his love; yet, without revealing his mind, he hastens swiftly to the king, and asks and obtains that she be given him by the king as wife (although he could not be ignorant that she was a virgin consecrated to God). The youth is again sent to Consortia, to announce to her that she should prepare herself for the marriage to be entered into on the thirtieth day after: to whom she, if we hear the copyist of the Acts at number 16, gives that kind of answer which can by no means be judged to have been given with truth before God preserved and with the purpose of preserving virginity before men preserved. Meanwhile, while she gives herself earnestly to prayer that the sacrilegious marriage may not take place, behold, an angel of the Lord is present in her sleep, who foretells that Hecca, the bridegroom thrust upon her, will by no means enter into marriage with her, warning her both to entertain the poor at a banquet and to cause a sepulchre to be prepared for Hecca, who is coming, in which he may be laid after three days; for the rest, to go to meet him; that he, as soon as he comes into sight, will perish by his own sword and for joy.
[11] [and so nothing forbids Consortia and Tullia to be called daughters of St. Eucherius the Great,] The event answers to the prophecy, when she, clothed in festive dress and attended by a column of the poor singing psalms, goes to meet Hecca, and he, leaping incautiously for joy from the boat in which he was crossing the river Durance, his feet slipping, falls upon his lance and expires transfixed. Presently she with tears, yet giving thanks to God, commits the body of the dead man to burial, while meanwhile Hecca's companions hasten to announce his misfortune to king Sigebert, who, when he learns from his sister that Consortia, whom he had ordered to marry Hecca, is that very virgin by whose help she herself had been cured of fevers, sends letters to the prince of Provence in which he commands by royal authority that no one should be troublesome to Consortia, but that she should be permitted to enjoy the privilege granted by Chlothar. All these things, expressed partly in the copyist's own words, which Tillemont, volume 15 of the Ecclesiastical Mémoires, page 853, and Father de Colonia, part 1 of the Literary History of Lyon, page 215 and following, deservedly and with right brand as fabulous and as ineptly intruded by an interpolator, if they are eliminated from the Acts of St. Consortia, otherwise venerable for much antiquity, as being in fact added and spurious; and if only the former words of number 12, namely those which treat of Consortia's munificence towards the church of St. Stephen and the poor, and of the manumission of her household, are joined with number 20, with which they cohere excellently, with nothing in between; then nothing will occur in them, as will be plain to one who turns over the Acts, which prevents us from embracing the opinion of St. Ado and of the anonymous author himself, who establish Consortia and Tullia as daughters of Eucherius the Great; nothing which cannot, the rules of sound criticism being preserved, be ascribed to both holy Virgins; nothing finally which does not render the sequence of the whole narrative of the contemporary anonymous writer more apt and better connected. For then the sense and connection of his words will run thus, that from that day on which Consortia built the church of St. Stephen and a hospice from her goods, and, having spent the remaining money on the poor, gave her household freedom, the Lord gave her so great favour before men that all held her as one of the angels.
[12] such as the old anonymous writer and St. Ado establish them From these Acts of St. Consortia, purged in this manner, or so far, as far as I can attain by conjecture, restored to their native credibility, it pleases me now to review those things which show that Saints Tullia and Consortia were daughters of St. Eucherius, afterwards prelate of Lyon, commonly called the Great or the Elder. The contemporary author praised above describes the birth of each Virgin thus at number 1: There was a certain man of the senatorial order, Eucherius by name, having a wife sprung of noble birth, named Galla; whom indeed an ample possession, a numerous household and an abundance of treasures had made renowned in the world; but the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, adorned them more brightly in the sight of the Creator of all. And since they had no children, they besought the Lord, and He heard their prayer, giving them a daughter, whom they called by the votive name of Consortia, desiring namely to have her as heir and propagator of their blood. And when they were bringing her up in the fear of the Lord, and she, placed in her childhood years, had begun to have a religious mind, the Lord, that is, calling her by a hidden inspiration to fellowship in the heavenly kingdom, according to the presage of her name, their hope was increased by receiving another daughter, whom they called Tullia, and they said: "The Lord will multiply our seed through Consortia and Tullia, as He multiplied it through Leah and Rachel in the house of Jacob of the future promise
as heirs." Following the anonymous writer, St. Ado of Vienne, in his Martyrology at the 16th day of November, likewise establishes as the father of Saints Consortia and Tullia St. Eucherius, afterwards bishop of Lyon, certainly no other than the one whom he himself knew as sole and unique, now by the common surname, to distinguish him from a probably fictitious one, called the Great or the Elder, a man, as he subjoins, of admirable faith, life and learning, and begotten of the most noble order of senators. The praised prelate of Vienne again agrees with the same anonymous writer when he calls the mother of Saints Consortia and Tullia Galla, who, as he adds, afterwards served God in holy habit in a cave; all of which our anonymous writer narrates more fully in the Acts of St. Consortia, number 3 and following. Wherefore, since St. Ado cannot be called so unskilled or inept as to have wished to follow an erring guide in reviewing a historical fact which was most celebrated even in his own times, credit can surely be deservedly given here both to him and to our anonymous writer.
[13] Yet, that I may conceal nothing which is opposed to the opinion establishing Eucherius the Great as father of Saints Consortia and Tullia, Things apparently opposed to this opinion, of the more recent writers I confess that, besides certain other more recent writers, Papebroch, volume 4 of June, page 249, and Périer, volume 3 of September, page 545, judged that the Eucherius now praised neither was nor could be the father of Saints Consortia and Tullia. I confess also that, except for our anonymous writer contemporary with St. Consortia, who served as a light to St. Ado, the most celebrated writers of the 5th century did not ascribe these two virgins to Eucherius and Galla as parents. But as regards the words of Papebroch and Périer, to be read in the cited places, I answer that they did not deny Consortia and Tullia to Eucherius the Great and Galla his wife except on the formerly common opinion which ascribed the journey of Consortia to king Chlothar and the history of Hecca, a noble man, to the author of the Acts himself. And so too I think Périer must be understood when he denies that any connection existed between the aforesaid Virgins and Saints Veranus and Salonius, the legitimate sons of the same Eucherius, since, namely, it cannot be on that opinion that Consortia was the daughter of the aforesaid Eucherius and own sister of Saints Veranus and Salonius, who would have to be established as still a marriageable and exceedingly beautiful girl more than a whole century after the death of the said Eucherius, that is, after the year 561. But in fact, since this age of St. Consortia rests solely on the added narrative of the interpolator, not formerly, as it seems, sufficiently suspected or discussed for falsity by learned men, nothing can be solidly proved from these glosses of the copyist of the Acts, by which he confused all the reckonings of the times, against that opinion which, on the testimony of the contemporary writer and of St. Ado, makes each mentioned Virgin the offspring of St. Eucherius the Great.
[14] Nor does it make much against us that the most celebrated authors and the testimonies of the ancients are weighed; contemporary with or nearly contemporary with our St. Eucherius, for instance Hilary of Arles, Cassian, Salvian, Mamertus Claudianus, Gennadius or others, did not mention Consortia and Tullia as daughters of Eucherius. For, besides the fact that any merely negative argumentation is to be held of lighter moment, it has no weight at all when ancient authors worthy of credit, such as no one will deny our anonymous writer and his follower St. Ado to be, expressly testify to that very thing which is not found handed down by other writings. And surely, since those most celebrated authors praised above do not seem to have had an occasion, or at any rate a necessity from the purpose of each, of writing specifically about the daughters of Eucherius, who would rightly think that the twin virgin offspring which the contemporary anonymous writer and St. Ado asserted to the aforesaid Eucherius should be snatched from him on account of the mere silence of others? For if that kind of negative argumentation is valid with anyone to that extent, he will by like reasoning have to deny Saints Veranus and Salonius as sons of the same Eucherius, since neither the old anonymous writer nor St. Ado, when they mention his progeny, anywhere say a word about them. What then? Was St. Paulinus false, and did he beat the air, when in his letter to Eucherius and Galla, alluding to verses 3, 4 and 5 of Psalm 127, he hints that their marriage was by no means unfruitful, writing thus: May the Lord bless you with that blessing with which the man who fears the Lord is blessed, perpetual spouses and parents, with the progeny of your most noble holiness blessed to God along with you? If therefore we believe that St. Paulinus thus rightly wrote to Eucherius and Galla, nothing forbids, although he did not list by name the progeny of the blessed spouses, that, just as it is permitted to establish Veranus and Salonius as sons of Eucherius from Gennadius and from Salvian's letter to Eucherius, in Chifflet's illustrated Paulinus, pages 64 and 65, so likewise we should establish Consortia and Tullia, from the testimony of the old anonymous writer and of St. Ado, as daughters of the same Eucherius, commonly called the Great.
[15] and it is concluded in favour of our opinion as the more probable. Such, the arguments on both sides having been discussed, the praised Chifflet long ago judged they should be established, in his illustrated Paulinus, page 64, commenting thus on the aforesaid letter of St. Paulinus: Further, their (Eucherius's and Galla's) blessed progeny, for which Paulinus prays well at the end (of that letter), I interpret as two sons, Salonius and Veranus, who were at Lérins under the discipline of St. Honoratus: and as many daughters, Consortia and Tullia, who were being brought up under the hand of both parents on Lero (an island neighbouring Lérins). And lest these things should seem asserted by him without ground, he produces the very words of Gennadius and Salvian commemorating the sons of St. Eucherius, and for the daughters of the same, already praised, he cites the Acts of Eucherius, or the little Work of our anonymous writer, and the Martyrology of Ado. Finally, at page 102, discoursing on the interpolation of the same little Work, he casts all the blame on the interpolator for the fact that no mention was made in it of the sons of the same St. Eucherius, and shows that he sinned in this too, that he wrapped in silence the first station of Eucherius as he swam out of the secular life, the island of Lero, although it was designated by Hilary of Arles by its vicinity to Lérins and called by name by Paulinus. But whether these things ought to be turned into a fault of the interpolator of the little Work or of the author himself, about which it is not my intention to dispute, nothing can be proved against Chifflet from its silence about the sons of Eucherius against the same man's daughters, whose names and deeds it relates; and his opinion I have judged should be embraced, because it appears to me more probable than the rest, yet in such a way that I should wish nothing meanwhile to be taken away from the not improbable conjecture of others about the parents of Tullia and Consortia. Now I undertake to discuss the other things which pertain to our Saint.
[16] When St. Eucherius, having left his sons, as it appears, on the island of Lérins, St. Tullia, after a life led for some time in solitude, withdrew with his wife and his twin daughters from the island of Lero to the mainland, and embraced the solitary life there in a cave situated at Montmajour in the territory of Aix, the praised Chifflet tried to establish by a fairly probable conjecture, at page 68 in his illustrated Paulinus, binding that event to the year of Christ 432 or the year 425, at which time nothing forbids it to be established; but, to confess the truth, nothing occurs by which that withdrawal of Consortia and Tullia with their parents into Provence can be defined sufficiently closely and certainly. Nor can it be elicited in any way, either from our contemporary anonymous writer or from another ancient writer, what was nobly done by St. Tullia during the whole time of her youth. This one thing we learn from the aforesaid anonymous writer, that St. Tullia, not long after Eucherius had hidden himself in that cave, adorned with the grace of virginity, migrated by a happy death to those above and was buried on her own estate, named Thele, which place was otherwise called Tete, and now probably, as Papebroch writes, volume 6 of June, page 253, having the name of Sainte-Tulle from this holy Virgin, situated a league and a half (or a little less) below Manosque. Hear the anonymous writer narrating these things at number 5: St. Eucherius therefore, having entered the cave, so blocked the place on every side that no one could enter to him, blessed Galla ministering food to him daily towards evening through a little window, as he himself had asked. Not many days after their conversion, their daughter Tullia, remaining in virginity, migrated to the Lord, and was buried on her estate, which is called Thele, in a double cave; hearing which St. Eucherius said: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord: as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done; and he exhorted Galla not to be saddened about this matter.
[17] I go on to review from the same anonymous writer the rest that bears on this. about the year 425 or 433 she dies, and appears to her mother. So he at number 6: And when she (Galla, Tullia's mother) would in no way receive consolation, one day, when after the morning hymns she had given her limbs to sleep, she saw in her sleep blessed Tullia, clothed in a white stole and a shining golden mantle, standing by her and saying: Why do you mourn me as lost, whom the Lord has brought into the fellowship of holy virgins? Know that you too will follow me to the Lord; for He has prepared a crown for you, since you have fulfilled His commandments. My father also, raised to the pontifical chair, will come after us, and will be great in the sight of God: further, my sister Consortia will remain in virginity, for which she is to suffer many things, until she too receives the crown of life. And when after her rest she had related these things to St. Eucherius, he, bursting out in the voice of exultation and confession, said: I give Thee thanks, good Shepherd, because there is no consoler like Thee, who hast deigned to console Thy servants and to give back joy after lamentation; and they would weep for her no further. So far our anonymous writer, from whom Chastelain must be corrected, who, at page 983 in the Additions and Corrections of his universal Martyrology, establishes the death of St. Tullia about the year of Christ 489. For since he makes St. Tullia the sister of Consortia and of Salonius and Veranus, and hence the offspring of Eucherius, commonly called the Great, it cannot be, on this opinion of his and ours, that she died in the year of Christ 489, who, as our anonymous writer hints at number 6, had already ceased to be among the living even not a little before her father, St. Eucherius, occupied the see of Lyon, which he left by his death about the year 450. More rightly, therefore, the year of St. Tullia's birthday in heaven seems to be fixed between the year 425 and 433, or at any rate not to be deferred beyond the year 441, in which Eucherius is commonly believed to have held the chair of Lyon.
[18] After death she was renowned for miracles. For the rest, that the holy virgin Tullia was illustrious for some miracles the praised anonymous writer indicates not obscurely, writing at number 11 that it would be long to narrate all the things which through His servants
Eucherius and Galla and their daughter Tullia the Lord wonderfully wrought; which St. Ado also openly testifies when he affirms that she, like her sister Consortia, was renowned for the glory of signs. Even today, as the most distinguished lord de Brantes, praised at number 3, has written, St. Tullia is invoked by the faithful against headaches, who, afflicted with that ill, are sometimes wont to lay their head upon a certain stone in her underground cave or chapel, which they relate served the holy Virgin in place of a pillow. If anyone believes the tradition of the natives, St. Tullia, when she had been carried off by hunters from her cave to a place afterwards called Sainte-Tulle, was transported back into her cave, not without a prodigy, after pouring out prayers there, from which time she was held in great veneration by the neighbouring inhabitants, who also brought their sick to her, whom she prodigiously healed by the odour of flowers. But it has not seemed good to discuss or illustrate these things, which rest, as it appears, on popular tradition alone.