ON ST. METROPOLUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, VENERATED AT TRIER,
Perhaps about the beginning of the fourth century.
SYLLOGE.
The cult of St. Metropolus: his episcopate and martyrdom uncertain.
Metropolus, bishop, confessor, venerated at Trier. (S.)
BY J. B.
St. Metropolus is commonly marked at this day in the Calendars, but not very ancient ones: among the Usuardine additions the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the year 1490 has thus: St. Metropolus announced at Trier At Trier, of saint Metropolus, bishop and martyr. Galesinius, Greven, Ferrarius in the General Catalogue agree, who however adds that St. Metropolus suffered under M. Aurelius Antoninus. A little more at length Ghinius in the Natales of the holy Canons, although Metropolus does not pertain to these: At Trier, he says, of St. Metropolus, bishop and confessor; who, son of Metropolus, duke of Lorraine, by a daughter of the king of Hungary, became bishop of Trier and Tongres in the year of the Lord CCXXI, and, when, playing the part of an excellent priest, he had rightly governed the peoples entrusted to him for eighteen years, died in the Lord in the year of Salvation CCXXXIX. Du Saussay likewise: At Augusta of the Treveri, the natal day of St. Metropolius, bishop of that Metropolis, and martyr. He, set over the government of so great a see in calamitous times, when the butchery of the faithful was being practised openly everywhere, especially in Gaul, of which Trier was then the chief city, Decius raging, contending bravely for the law and flock of Christ, piety having been gloriously defended by mouth and deed, flew away by a bloody but happy triumph to the ethereal seats, to be rewarded by the king of glory with the prize of immortality. At this day likewise Chastelain writes thus in French in the Universal Martyrology: At Trier, of St. Metropolus, bishop, in which diocese he is venerated as a martyr.
[2] But far otherwise, and indeed at the 29th day of September, and at Tongres; but venerated at Trier, as has been observed in our Work among the Passed Over at the same day, our Ms. Florarium of the Saints, composed as the fifteenth century was declining: and it has thus: At the city of Tongres, the natal day of St. Metropolus, fourth bishop of the same city. He lived holily, and, going round the regions, converted very many to the faith of Christ by his preaching. He died in the year of Salvation CCXXXIX. In all these scarcely anything certain occurs about St. Metropolus, except what Chastelain writes of the sacred cult wont to be shown him in the diocese of Trier. The Calendar prefixed to the Lectionary on certain Saints of the Office of Trier, printed in the same city in the year 1645, recalls St. Metropolus thus at the 8th day of October: At Trier, of Metropolus, bishop and martyr of Trier: but in the Lectionary at the aforesaid day only the third Lesson, from the common, is prescribed to be recited. As bishop and martyr of Trier he is marked at the 8th day of October also in the Calendar which is prefixed to the winter part of the Breviary of the village perhaps of Fisbach, situated in the diocese of Trier and the duchy of Luxembourg. That he has a place even today in the Breviary of Trier, and that more things are recorded of him there, I gather from the Preliminary Commentary on the History of the Martyrs of Trier by the most illustrious John Nicholas von Hontheim, bishop of Myriophitum, suffragan of Trier, § XVII, where that most learned man, teaching also when he first began to be entered in the ecclesiastical tables among the people of Trier, speaks of St. Metropolus in this manner: That Metropolus was substituted when Marcellus had been slain, our modern Breviary narrates: the Calendars of the tenth century do not have him: nay, nor does the Passionale of St. Simeon, which is at least a whole century later. Two other ancient Calendars likewise are silent of him: one exhibits him written in at the side in a younger hand: "Metropolus:" another of the fourteenth century has him in its order. The Ordinarius of Baldwin (archbishop of Trier, who died in the year 1354) says: "Let memory be made of St. Metropolus, bishop of Trier."
[3] From which indeed it is evident that the honours wont to be paid to Saints have been accustomed to be rendered to St. Metropolus by the people of Trier from the fourteenth century: by Hariger that all the rest is almost uncertain we shall see a little later. Meanwhile, in the name and title of the sacred cult alone, which he has obtained among the people of Trier already for some centuries, we have given him a place here in our Acts, as I see was done by our predecessors in the case of St. Navitus, tom. 2 of July, page 464, and of St. Marcellus, tom. 2 of September, page 202, whose cause is almost the same as that of St. Metropolus. Further, no proper day has been assigned to Metropolus by the people of Tongres, so far as I know, although they contend that he is theirs; but since the people of Trier have done so, I have therefore thought that the Saint should be ascribed rather to Trier, where I knew he was certainly venerated, from the place of his cult, than to Tongres. So much for the cult of St. Metropolus: but the things which pertain to his episcopate, the age in which he flourished, the manner of his death, and the like, I have already said above are altogether uncertain. So far no writer is known to exist more ancient than Hariger, abbot of Lobbes, who has made mention of St. Metropolus. He flourished about the year 980, as John Chapeaville writes in the Preface to the reader which he prefixed to the chief writers on the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Tongres, Maastricht and Liège. Hariger leads their column; who, after he has gone through the deeds of St. Maternus, whom the people of Tongres venerated as their first bishop, presently names eight bishops of Tongres who governed the church of Tongres between SS. Maternus and Servatius.
[4] of the Tongrians The words of Hariger are these: After his (St. Maternus's) decease there succeeded one another in order in the Pontificate Navitus, Marcellus, Metropolus, Severinus, Florentius Martinus Maximinus, Valentinus. And in the time of what emperors or consuls these flourished, or what end the life of each had, and how many years each administered the office of the pontificate, or which is the place of the burial of any of them, let no one's exaction require of us, since the overthrow made by the Huns abolished the memory of the churches of all Gaul, namely a little after the death of St. Servatius, who being dead, that episcopal see was placed at Maastricht on the Meuse. This we hold certain, Hariger continues, that the resources of all the churches abounded, namely about those times in which Constantine Augustus presided over the Roman city, his sons Constans and Constantius succeeding him. So much only does Hariger say about those eight bishops, although he testifies, cap. 1, that the things which could be scraped together from anywhere about the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Liège up to his own times had been collected by him; whence it comes about that first indeed the things which are recorded more fully about those bishops by writers younger than Hariger without certain testimonies are to be held either for fictions or for doubtful: then
that not even those very things which Hariger wrote about them after the lapse of several centuries from little-known monuments ought to be held as certain.
[5] Hariger was of opinion that St. Maternus was sent in the first century by St. Peter to Trier together with SS. Eucharius and Valerius, he was a bishop and, having spent forty years in all in the episcopal office at Trier, Cologne and Tongres, passed to the immortal and blessed life in the year 130. But so ancient an origin of the churches not only of Trier, Cologne and Tongres, but also of many others in the Gauls, is today for the most part either called into doubt or plainly rejected by the learned. And as regards the first two, the mission into the Gauls of SS. Eucharius, Valerius and Maternus, whom the people of Tongres acknowledge as the very first to have preached the faith to them, is bound to the time when the third century had passed its middle part, or even somewhat later, in tom. 4 of September, § XII, on St. Maternus. Consult also Hontheim's excellent Dissertation on the era of the founding of the episcopate of Trier, prefixed to tom. 1 of the History of Trier, especially § VI, where he contends that Maternus of Trier, not different from him of Cologne and of Tongres, sat at the beginning of the fourth century. With the most illustrious Hontheim agrees also Fr. John Baptist de Marne in the Dissertation on the time at which St. Maternus preached the faith in the Gauls, subjoined to the History of the County of Namur.
[6] Hariger was further of opinion that St. Maternus was the first bishop of Tongres, the third from Maternus: which seems to be understood in a sound sense: it is indeed more probable, as was said in tom. 4 of September, page 378, num. 123, that St. Maternus, at the time when St. Valerius presided over the church of Trier, made excursions to the neighbouring Ubii and Tungri, and by preaching the faith among them laid the foundations of the episcopates of Cologne and Tongres; and that, Valerius having died, he occupied for some time the episcopal see already established at Trier, until, the number of Christians having increased after Constantine the Great about the year 311 had given his name to Christ, he himself, leaving the see of Trier to St. Agritius, placed his see at Cologne, from which he governed the Ubii and Tungri indeed, but in such a way that he was not the particular bishop of the Tungri: and the Tungri were so far a part of the episcopate of Cologne; although they too afterwards received their own bishop: and hence I judge it came about that at the council of Arles of the year 314, to which Agritius subscribed as bishop of Trier, Maternus subscribed as bishop of Cologne, as may be seen in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Councils, col. 1430. Nor are these things contradicted by the Catalogues of the prelates of Trier, which number twenty and more bishops between Maternus and Agritius, and among these indeed those eight bishops whom Hariger relates to have presided over the Tungri next after Maternus. For that those catalogues have been enormously interpolated, Hontheim, de Marne, and our Perier, § VI of the Commentary on St. Maternus, show at length.
[7] but neither Maternus But if these things are so, tell me, you will say, who was the first proper and particular bishop of the Tungri? Was it St. Navitus, or Avitus, who, Hariger writes, succeeded St. Maternus next at Tongres? If Hariger had numbered only one or two bishops between St. Maternus and St. Servatius, this could perhaps be said not unfittingly. But in the year 314 Maternus certainly presided over the church of Cologne; in what year he departed from this life is uncertain: de Marne conjectures not improbably that it happened in the year 328. And Henschenius, tom. 3 of May, page 210, judges that St. Servatius was created proper prelate of the Tungri about the year 336, and writes that he was present at the council of Sardica in the year 347: now from the year 300, much less from the year 314 or 328, up to the year 347 there did not intervene a sufficient space of time for eight bishops to seem to have succeeded in order after St. Maternus in the meantime: so that before St. Servatius there seems to have been no one whom you could say for certain was the proper and particular bishop of the Tungri; and Navitus, Marcellus, our Metropolus, Severinus, Florentius, Martinus, Maximinus and Valentinus, or at least most of these, seem to have been formerly thrust into the Catalogue of the prelates of Tongres chiefly for this cause, that the antiquity of the church of Tongres, which was thought to have been born in the first century of Christ, might somehow be preserved unharmed: just as, most probably for the same cause, they were wrongly entered in the catalogues of the prelates of Trier.
[8] nor before Servatius was any other Far be it, however, that we should on that account blame either the people of Trier or the people of Tongres, who venerate them either in part or all together. For they may perhaps have been bishops of other places, conspicuous for holiness, known in former times, and worthy of ecclesiastical cult, but wrongly entered in the series of the prelates of Tongres, in altogether the same manner in which, after St. Maternus, Mansuetus and Auspicius of Toul, Clement, Felix, Auctor of Metz, and others were wrongly entered in the not very genuine catalogues of the bishops of Trier, concerning whom see what was said in tom. IV of September, page 373 and the following. And to say something specially of the Tongrian bishops intermediate between Maternus and Servatius, Severinus is perhaps the same as St. Severinus of Cologne; and Maximinus the same as St. Maximinus of Trier, who flourished in the fourth century. Perhaps also, and perhaps more probably, either all or most of them, under the auspices or after the example of St. Maternus, towards the end of the third century or the beginning of the following, spread the faith by their preaching in these or those tracts of the Tungri, the people of Cologne, and the people of Trier, being almost like chorepiscopi as regards the office which they discharged, although they were not in truth bishops, and performed some other parts of the episcopal office; and for that reason perhaps they were called bishops by the writers of the middle age, with which name Mabillon records, by various examples which he adduces in the Preface to part 1 of the third Benedictine century, num. 37, that several were then honoured on account of the office of Gospel preaching, although they were only priests. Mention is made of a priest Metropius in the Acts of the Council of Agrippina, celebrated, as some say, in the year 346, in Labbe, tom. 2, col. 616, whom I do not dare to say is the same as our Metropolus: although the necessity of filling a gap of nearly two hundred years in the series of the prelates of Tongres perhaps impelled those who formerly wished to defend a church of Tongres born in the first or second century to devise similar things and hand them down in writings.
[9] Further, the Acts of St. Martin, Apostle of the Hesbaye, printed by us in tom. 4 of June, page 71, was the proper bishop of the Tungri: although of no great age or credibility, yet record such things about the faith propagated through villages and hamlets by his work and sweat as could suit priests of this kind, such as we have mentioned above. As much may be said of the eulogy which is attributed to Metropolus in our Ms. Florarium, related at num. 2. Finally, our Metropolus, and others who are said to have been bishops of Tongres between Maternus and Servatius, may perhaps have been of those ministers of God who, Eusebius writes, book 1 of the Life of Constantine, cap. 17, were conversant in the palace of Constantius, and who, it is probable, then, having obtained under Constantine a freer field for preaching the faith, made excursions more often hither and thither, or were set over certain villages and camps, to protect and promote the Christian cause there; and that several such were then dispersed through those regions may be gathered from the Acts of the council of Agrippina, in which Justinian, bishop of the Raurici, speaks thus: From the letter of the clergy of Agrippina, and also of the brethren established in the several camps … we have learned, etc. And let it suffice to have said these things about the doubtful episcopate of St. Metropolus and the others: if anyone shall bring forward better things on that matter, we shall embrace them not unwillingly. Let us return to Metropolus.
[10] Not only the episcopal dignity of Metropolus, but his martyrdom also is uncertain. There were few martyrs in the Gauls under Constantius: granted that Metropolus and others preached the faith to them: whether a martyr fewer under Constantine: those therefore do not seem to be heeded who will have it that he was taken off by martyrdom in the year 303. Nor do I know whence the martyrdom of St. Metropolus could have been found out by more recent writers; since Hariger, who carried the torch for the rest here, candidly confesses that he does not know what was the end of the life of each of those eight bishops, as he will have them. Nor is the place of burial more certain, which Hariger likewise professes is unknown to him. If Giles, monk of Orval, a writer of the thirteenth century, is to be believed, they were buried at Tongres in the church of St. Mary: so he writes in his Additions to cap. 17 of Hariger: Which overthrow being imminent, blessed Servatius, of whom we are about to speak, translated their bodies, buried in the city of Tongres, to Maastricht, and buried them honourably in the crypt where he himself was afterwards buried, with many other relics of the Saints, which he had translated from the city of Tongres. And a little after he says of Valentinus, the ninth, as he will have it, bishop of Tongres: And he was buried honourably in the church of St. Mary of Tongres beside his colleagues: namely the bishops of Tongres.
[11] and where he was buried is uncertain. At Trier, on the contrary, if one is to stand by the interpolated Gesta Trevirorum in Calmet, page 9: all are believed to have been buried in the church of St. Eucharius. But neither he nor these deserve certain credence; perhaps, however, SS. Martin and Valentinus obtained a sepulchre at Tongres, whose relics I learn are preserved at Maastricht on the Meuse in the church of St. Servatius, from the sacred Treasury of that church elucidated by Andrew Bouwens and printed at Liège in the year 1672, page 58, translated thither, namely, as is believed, from Tongres; but not by St. Servatius, as Giles writes, but later, as tom. 3 of May. For Servatius, as Gregory of Tours relates, book 2 of the History of the Franks, cap. 5, when about to leave Tongres, seems to have carried nothing to Maastricht besides the things which were necessary for his burial and which he had hastily taken. And as for St. Metropolus being born likewise of a father Metropolus, duke of Lorraine, and of a daughter of the king of Hungary, count it among the other fables of John Placentius in the Catalogue of the bishops of the Tungri, etc. From which indeed I judge it to be clear that almost all things which are carried about concerning St. Metropolus are either fictions or very uncertain, if you except his sacred cult among the people of Trier.