ON ST. AUGUSTUS, PRIEST AND ABBOT, AT BOURGES IN GAUL,
After the middle of the 6th century.
SYLLOGE,
FROM THE MARTYROLOGIES AND ST. GREGORY OF TOURS.
Augustus, priest, abbot, at Bourges in Gaul. (S.)
BY C. S.
Not rare is the memory of this holy Confessor on the present day in the ancient as well as the more recent Martyrologies, This Saint, in the old some of which, besides the title of Confessor, also join to him the Order of the Priesthood. Of the older enlarged Hieronymian apographs, that of Echternach in Florentinius has thus: At Bourges, of Augustus, priest; and that of Corbie in d'Achery, volume 1 of the Spicilegium, second edition, page 19, thus: In the city of Bourges, of St. Augustus, priest and confessor: and that of Gellone in the same place, page 35, saying Agustus for Augustus, thus: At Bourges, of Agustus, confessor. The very ancient one of Auxerre in Martène and Durand, volume 3 of the Anecdotes, column 1561, agrees, announcing on the same day thus: At Bourges, of Agustus, confessor. Of the contracted Hieronymian ones likewise, which our Du Sollier published in volume VII of June, that of Reichenau, calling him Augustus, says thus: At Bourges, of Augustus, priest; and the Labbe one in the same place: At Bourg., of Augustus, confessor. With the name of Augustus likewise and the title of Priest he is also read, but as an addition in a different hand, at the foot of the list of this day in the Older Lucca one in Florentinius, in these words: And in Gaul, in the city of Bourges, of Augustus, priest. See also what is said on this very day among the Passed-over at the words Augustalis and Augustinus.
[2] One of the four apographs of the Martyrology of Ado, and in more recent Martyrologies, is commemorated today, which Jacob Mosander used for his edition of it, likewise agreed, in which was similarly read: In the city of Bourges, of St. Augustus, priest and confessor; but since these words were absent from the three other codices, the praised editor, doubtful whether they were Ado's, marked them with an asterisk, and had in agreement our Heribert Rosweyde, who likewise in his edition of the same Martyrology relegated the same words to the Appendix, as added by others to Ado's text. Among the Usuardine additions too, printed by our Du Sollier together with the genuine Martyrology of Usuard, the Brussels Codex and Molanus consign the memory of the same Saint on this day, the former thus: At the city of Bourges, the deposition of blessed Augustus, priest and confessor; the other thus: At Bourges, of Augustus, priest. To pass over others, Pietro Galesini, following Molanus, and Baronius, following him, inscribed him in the Roman Martyrology on this 7th day of October in these words: At Bourges, of St. Augustus, priest and confessor. Without doubt Baillet had not read these, when in the Lives of the Saints on this day, under St. Augustus, whom he says is commonly called Aoust, he observed that no memory of him is had in the ancient Martyrologies. Further, the common agreement of all those whom I have adduced in marking him on this same day is to be held as an argument of a cult once paid to him, of which I have not found any other indication elsewhere.
[3] he is believed to have been abbot of St. Symphorian's, But who, you will say, is this St. Augustus? The praised Cardinal Baronius in the Annotations refers the reader to St. Gregory of Tours in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 80, where he speaks of Augustus, priest and abbot of St. Symphorian's near Bourges, as we shall see below. Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology must be said to have agreed with Baronius, when to Baronius's announcement, turned into French according to custom, he ascribed in the margin that St. Augustus, in French saint Out, flourished about the year 560, to which time the Augustus, priest and abbot, praised by Gregory of Tours is in reality to be referred. Nor did Costantino Ghini, in the Birthdays of the holy canons on this day, Claude Robert in the Series of the archbishops of Bourges, page 29, under St. Desideratus, Denis de Sainte-Marthe, volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, under the old monastery of St. Symphorian near Bourges, column 120, as also Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals at the year 557, believe him to be any other.
[4] that he is different from him, Alone, of those at least whom I have read, André du Saussay believed that Augustus the priest, inscribed in the sacred Calendars on the present day, was different from the abbot mentioned by Gregory of Tours. Accordingly, following the martyrologists on the 7th day of October, he has this: At Bourges, the deposition of St. Augustus, priest and confessor, who, wholly inflamed with the fire of charity, anxiously sought the glory of God in the salvation of men, and, fragrant with the perfume of a holy conversation, obtained from Christ, whom he loved above all things, a reward worthy of his works. These things there rightly enough; but afterwards he repeats the same man, as another, in the Catalogue of the Saints, Blessed and Pious ones who (as he says) do not have their own histories or birthdays, but have been commemorated with praise in the deeds of the Saints written in the same Gallican Martyrology and its supplement. There, then, he noted the following.
[5] Saussay thought not rightly: Augustus, venerable abbot of Bourges, to whom St. Ursinus, admonishing him concerning the re-laying of his body, appeared again and again. Under Ursinus, 9th of November. What Saussay had recorded on the 9th day of November concerning the apparitions of St. Ursinus and his body translated by the work of Augustus the abbot, the writer of the deeds of Ursinus drew from the place of St. Gregory of Tours just cited, in which that Augustus is narrated to have been not only abbot but also priest. But Saussay, to be sure, since he had not read these things, or did not remember them, thought that the Augustus praised in the deeds of the same St. Ursinus was altogether different from him whom he had known recorded in the Martyrologies with the title of priest alone. Hence also it came about that, since he knew nothing of that Augustus announced in the Martyrologies except the bare name with the titles of priest and confessor, he was compelled to weave for him a brief elogium, common to many holy priests and without any peculiar deed; and to put the abbot among those whose cult or day of cult he did not know, and to say fewer things of him than are known from Gregory of Tours.
[6] The age in which this St. Augustus flourished becomes manifest from the time of the see of Probianus, and he flourished after the middle of the 6th century. who, substituted in the bishopric of Bourges for St. Desideratus, who died in the year 550, subscribed the second synod of Paris in the year 555 and the third in the year 557, and is believed to have died in the year 568. For while this bishop sat at Bourges, St. Ursinus, the first prelate of the same city, appeared to Augustus, then abbot of the monastery of St. Symphorian, and commanded that his body be raised from the earth, as the praised St. Gregory of Tours relates, as we shall presently report in his words. St. Germanus, already bishop of Paris, ordained about the year 555, is also said in the same place to have been present at this translation, before which year therefore the same translation did not take place; and if, as Denis de Sainte-Marthe says in volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, column 4, and as will come to be examined by us on the 1st day of November under St. Ursinus, it is customarily tied rightly to the year 558, it will have to be placed between this year and the year 568, in which Probianus seems to have died; in what year afterward, however, St. Augustus died is altogether undiscovered. The rest we shall set out in the Annotations to be made on the words of St. Gregory of Tours.
[7] This holy historian, in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 80, The body of St. Ursinus, which had long lain hidden, which is inscribed of St. Ursinus, bishop of Bourges, in the edition of Thierry Ruinart has these things to our purpose: The city of Bourges first received the word of salvation from St. Ursinus, who, ordained bishop by the disciples of the Apostles, was sent into the Gauls, and he first established and ruled the church of Bourges; who, departing from the world, was laid for burial in a field among the other sepulchres of the people. For that people did not yet understand how to venerate the priests of the Lord and show them due reverence. Whence it came about that, as the earth increased, a vineyard planted above tore up all memory of the first priest of the city, and up to that time at which Probianus was substituted as bishop of that city no speech was had of him.
[8] Now there was a certain man, Augustus by name, of the household of Desideratus, formerly bishop, St. Augustus, abbot of two places, whose hands and feet had so contracted that he could not otherwise be supported than on his knees and elbows, if he wished to go anywhere. He, God inspiring him, built from the alms of devout persons at the village of Brivae an oratory in honour of the holy and most blessed bishop Martin, and when he had brought his relics into it, at once, his members being straightened, he was made sound. Then, having gathered a few monks with him, living under the rule of a monastery, he always gave himself to prayer. Whence it came about that subsequently, summoned by the bishop, he was ordained abbot in the basilica of St. Symphorian, which the said pontiff had built in sight of the wall of Bourges. Yet not leaving the monks whom he had gathered before, but appointing a provost over them, he himself governed both little cells.
[9] Finally, while he was staying at this basilica, St. Ursinus appeared to him in a vision of the night, and St. Germanus, admonished in sleep, saying: Dig up the ground and seek my poor body. For I am Ursinus, the first bishop of this city. Who said: Where shall I go, or where shall I seek your sepulchre, since I do not know the place where you are laid? But he, taking his hand, led him to the place, and said: Under the roots of these vines my body is held. The abbot, awakened, narrated these things to his bishop: but he, making little of what was said by the priest, set no zeal for inquiring. Meanwhile blessed Germanus, bishop of the city of Paris, arrived and was received by the bishop; and when after supper he had given himself to sleep in the church house, he appeared to both in a vision, namely to the bishop and at the same time to the Abbot, and led them to the place of the sepulchre, begging that they would remove him from that place. Awakened, they come together at the same time for vigils in the very basilica of St. Symphorian, and, the morning Offices being finished, the bishop relates to the Abbot what he had seen; and he himself too confessed that he had seen the like.
[10] they find it and translate it with Probianus the bishop. On the following night, then, going there with only one cleric, who should carry a candle, they came to the place indicated, and digging it to the depth, they find the sepulchre: which being uncovered, and the lid removed, they saw the holy body, as of a sleeping man, dissolved by no corruption; and wondering at this, and putting the lid back again, they indicated to the bishop, on a day appointed, what they had seen. Then he, having called together the abbots and the clergy, with honour and psalmody they raised the blessed sepulchre; and because the poles by which it was carried were very long, when they had come to the portico they could not be turned at its entrance so as to reach the door of the building without labour. Then blessed Germanus said with raised voice: Holy priest of God, if it is your will to enter this basilica, let us feel the relief of your help. And at once, the weight being lost, the sarcophagus became of such extreme lightness that, the poles being left, a few carried with their hands what many had carried up to that place. And so, Masses being celebrated, the people rejoicing, he is buried beside the altar, manifesting himself thereafter by many miracles.
[11] Our Annotations on the persons mentioned before, To these things, which alone we know of St. Augustus, let us add our observations. First of all, for confirming the credibility of what is narrated, it will help to have observed in general that Gregory lived contemporaneously with these things. Bituriga, Biturica, or the city of the Bituriges, the metropolis of First Aquitaine, called in the vernacular Bourges, is too well known to need illustration. Concerning the time of the mission into the Gauls of its first bishop, St. Ursinus, writers vary, whose controversy will come to be weighed on the 9th day of November, on which he is venerated and is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. The age of Probianus, to whom some add the title of Saint, I have already set out at number 6. Ruinart, on this very place of St. Gregory of Tours, says of the same: He is praised by Fortunatus in the Life of St. Germanus of Paris, where this very history of the Translation (of St. Ursinus) is had. Denis de Sainte-Marthe followed Ruinart here, in volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, under St. Ursinus and Probianus: but I find nothing of these things in the praised Life, which Mabillon among the Acts of the Saints of the 1st Benedictine Century, and our Henschen on the 28th day of May, edited. St. Desideratus was the immediate predecessor of Probianus in the same see of Bourges, whose death our Henschen tied to the year 550 on the 8th day of May; but what is to be thought of his Life given there it is not to the point to examine here. See Le Cointe's opinion of it in the Annals at the year 549, number 70 and following.
[12] As regards the oratory which Gregory of Tours testifies was built and ruled by St. Augustus under the invocation of St. Martin in the place Brivae, as also of the oratory of St. Martin which the Saint founded, Ruinart observes that for Brivas Brias is read elsewhere, and adds: There is had in the archpriestship of Issoudun a place de Brivis, called Brives, where together with the parish church there exists a priory, formerly subject to the monastery of Déols, which perhaps is designated here. In the Catalogue too of the benefices of the diocese of Bourges, published in the year 1648, there are read in the same archpriestship of Issoudun the parish De Brivis, Brives l'Aumosnerie; and the Priory de Briviis l'Avmosnerie de Brives. Catherinot in the Patronages of Bourges writes that that priory was formerly indeed conventual, but in his time simple (as they call it), and that it was destroyed in the twofold siege of the city of Bourges, outside whose walls it is situated, of the years 1412 and 1562, and that the place in which it stood was called Dryas (perhaps he meant to say Brias).
[13] Of the other monastery, over which we have said St. Augustus presided, Denis de Sainte-Marthe, among the old monasteries of the diocese of Bourges, says thus: and of the other, of St. Symphorian, over which he presided, The monastery of St. Symphorian near Bourges acknowledges as its author Probianus, bishop of the church of Bourges, or Desideratus, his predecessor: for this is obscure in Gregory. This obscurity arises from the words related by me at numbers 7 and 8, in which mention is made both of Probianus and of his predecessor Desideratus, prelates of Bourges; whence it may be doubted to which of the two these words said of the church of St. Symphorian ought to be referred: Which the said pontiff had built in sight of the wall of Bourges. Philippe Labbe, in the historical Elogium of the same city, interpreted them of St. Desideratus; but Catherinot, praised above, named, by I know not what argument, St. Arcadius, the predecessor of both, of whom it has been briefly treated by us on the Kalends of August, as founder of the same church: which certainly is contrary to Gregory.
[14] and of its founder, But the author of the Patriarchate of Bourges, edited by Labbe in volume 2 of the Library of Manuscript books, chapter 22, under the same Arcadius, makes it much older, where he says: The same glorious pontiff Archadius … withdrawn from this light, departed happily to Christ on the Kalends of August; whose most sacred body was committed to burial with the honour of due veneration in the basilica of St. Symphorian the martyr, where up to now it rests gloriously beside the body of St. Ursinus, first bishop of the same city of Bourges; which church indeed was formerly built by the same
St. Ursinus, as Gregory of Tours testifies in chapter LXXX of the book In Glory of the Confessors. So indeed it could have seemed to this author, who wrote in the 16th century, from the alleged place of Gregory of Tours, because that holy Ursinus is mentioned at its beginning; but he ought to have noticed that St. Arcadius could not have been buried soon after his death in the church of St. Symphorian beside the body of St. Ursinus, which the same Gregory in the same chapter expressly affirms was first brought into it by Probianus the bishop; as the compiler of the Patriarchate himself also had set down beforehand under St. Ursinus, and then also repeated under Probianus, who, he determined, succeeded the same Arcadius after St. Desideratus.
[15] and of its present state. For the rest, This church (so Ruinart noted on the said place of Gregory), now within the walls of the city, its name being changed, is called St. Ursinus's, distinguished with a college of canons and the title of a parish. Denis de Sainte-Marthe agrees, volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, column 120, saying: Long since the monastery of St. Symphorian has been converted into a college of secular canons, now commonly called St. Ursinus's. Catherinot writes that those canons were at first Regular, but in the year 1178 were exempted from the burden of the common life by Archbishop Guarinus; which the praised Sainte-Marthe teaches at column 56 was done by him in the same year, after he had tried in vain to recall them to the common life, so that accordingly they must be said to have already fallen away from that observance before.