ON ST. GERMANUS OF BESANÇON, BISHOP,
IN THE COUNTY OF BURGUNDY
ABOUT THE YEAR 407
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti, ecclesiastical cult, the Acts to be edited, the time of his death.
Germanus, bishop of Besançon in the county of Burgundy. (S.)
BY J. B. F.
Besançon, which, held in the ancient Notitiae of the Provinces and Cities of Gaul as the greatest metropolis of the Sequani, The Saint, who is inscribed in the sacred Fasti mentioned here, is an archiepiscopal city in the county of Burgundy, numbers among its illustrious bishops St. Germanus, famous also for the crown of martyrdom. Monsieur Dunod de Charnage, royal professor at Besançon, in volume 1, page 34, of the History of Besançon which he published in the year 1750, relates that the Saint is named in the ancient Catalogues of the bishops of the same diocese, and that his memory is celebrated on this day in the Martyrologies of the said church. Certainly in an ancient manuscript Martyrology of Usuard, augmented for the use of the churches of Alsace and Burgundy, the following is read: At Besançon, of St. Germanus, bishop and martyr. Further, there come in addition to this Usuardine Auctarium Molanus, Castellanus, and Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology. And these indeed — to whom must also be joined the present Roman Martyrology, since it commemorates the Saint today in these few words only, At Besançon in Gaul, of St. Germanus, bishop and martyr — commemorate Germanus today very briefly; but Miraeus in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti does so, employing also the following more extended elogium: 9th of October, St. Germanus, 12th bishop of Besançon. He was slain near Grandfontaine (a town noble at that time, now reduced to a village, at the fourth milestone from Besançon), about the year 396, by the Arians, whom the good Prelate had cast out of the city of Besançon. He rests at Baume (a town which is ten miles distant from Besançon) in the convent of nuns which, begun by St. Desideratus, the 11th bishop, St. Germanus had completed. Du Saussay, in part 2 of the Gallican Martyrology, subjoins to the announcement of the Saint his very Acts as well, excerpted from Chifflet's Vesontio, but rendered in a more polished style and reduced to the form of an elogium; but since the sacred Fasti just mentioned, in which Germanus stands inscribed, are not older than the tenth century nor classic, and therefore do not prove his ecclesiastical cult, it will be helpful here, before I begin to speak of those Acts and of other things pertaining to our Saint, to have placed before the reader's eyes what clearly proves that Germanus has enjoyed ecclesiastical cult in the church of Besançon from a very long time, and thus claims for himself a place in our Work.
[2] and enjoying ecclesiastical cult In our Museum there is preserved an ancient manuscript Breviary of the said church of Besançon on parchment, in which an Office of nine lessons is prescribed for St. Germanus, but to be taken from the common. Besides this, there is extant in our possession also another Breviary of the same church, printed in type in the year 1590, in which the Saint is honoured with an Office of nine lessons, of which three are proper to him. These, which also present a compendium of his Life, I subjoin here. Lesson IV. Germanus, bishop of Besançon, successor of Desideratus, experienced nothing but troubles and labours in that office. He was of such perfection that he often enjoyed the ministry of Angels in the sacred rites. He converted many men from idolatry and brought back heretics to the faith of the church. Lesson V. Before he became bishop he had already been examined as a confessor before a tyrant; and having become bishop, he was dragged not once only but seven times to the tribunal of the governor, and always persevered in the confession of Christ the true God. And he attacked the heretics sharply in his sermons, although they, like asps, stopped their ears lest they should hear the words of the Charmer. Lesson VI. There was at that time, at the fourth mile from the city, a town fortified with walls and towers, named Grandfontaine. To that place the heretics used to come together for their conventicles, fearing the authority of the Bishop. Coming out from this place, therefore, when on one occasion Germanus was returning late from preaching and had stopped in the church of a certain neighbouring village for the sake of prayer, the heretics, by an ambush, pierced their Bishop with arrows as he prayed, and also cut off his head with a sword. He was buried at Baume in the church of the Nuns which he himself had founded.
[3] you enjoy, Not only the two ancient Breviaries of the church or archdiocese of Besançon already cited, but also the veneration shown there to the relics of St. Germanus, whose beginning no one could easily determine, and the churches erected to God under his name, whose age I find nowhere assigned, are indubitable proof that our Saint obtained in the said archdiocese, from a very long time, the honours customarily paid to the Saints. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, in his Vesontio, part 2, page 58, relates that the sacred bones of St. Germanus are piously preserved in the abbey of noble Virgins of Baume in the same archdiocese, commonly Baume-les-Nonnes, which makes famous the town of the same name in Gaul, in the county of Burgundy, on the river Doubs, 4 leagues above Besançon towards Montbéliard. Agreeing with him, Dunod, in the History of Besançon, volume 1, page 34, which we have said was published by him in the year 1750, writes thus: his (St. Germanus's)
that is) sacred relics, namely the body enclosed in a very old wooden reliquary and the head in a silver one, rest with honour in the church of the monastery of Baume. The Office of the Saint of Besançon just cited, and the ancient tradition which still persists today in the said monastery, hold that St. Germanus, his martyrdom completed, was buried in the church of Baume; and so this convent of virgins is said to have enjoyed that precious pledge from about the year 407, which we shall see below was the year of his death. But the praised Dunod says that this is far from the truth, and contends that that convent of noble virgins was first founded about the year 763 by the munificence of Duke Garnerius. Besides, the same author conjectures that at the same time the relics of our Saint were granted to that duke by the archbishop of Besançon, so that he might build the church of Baume over them, as was then the custom. We shall submit Dunod's reasons to the reader's judgment below, where we shall begin to speak of the foundation of this monastery, which his very Acts also hold to have been carried out by the Saint. Bernuinus, who occupied the see of Besançon about the year 787, received certain particles of that sacred body, and, when he was consecrating the metropolitan church of St. John, restored by him from its foundations, inserted them, together with some relics of other Saints, into the high altar of that church. And the prelate Hugh, who flourished as the 11th century was verging towards its middle, did this same thing when he dedicated with solemn rite the basilica of St. Paul at Besançon. I learn this from the codices edited in Chifflet's Vesontio, part 2, pages 92 and 176. As for the churches of the diocese of Besançon consecrated to God under the name of St. Germanus, Dunod affirms that these exist in considerable number, though in the meantime I find their age assigned neither by him nor by anyone else; and since there is no reason why credence should not be given him in this matter, it ought, from all that has now been said on this argument, to seem wholly certain and placed beyond all controversy that the honours proper to the Saints have indeed been paid to St. Germanus in the diocese of Besançon from a very long time.
[4] The ecclesiastical cult of the Saint being thus sufficiently established, he has Acts written many centuries after his age let us now turn our discourse to his Acts, which, as has been said, are extant in Chifflet's Vesontio, and first examine what credit or what authority they deserve. That those Acts were written by an author removed many centuries from the Saint's age appears beyond doubt even from the single name Chrysopolis, by which he calls the city of Besançon. For I think no one is unaware how much more recent that name is than that it could be fitted to the time of St. Germanus. This expression, as Adrien de Valois notes in the Notitia Galliarum, wonderfully pleased the people of Besançon in the middle age, after someone had taught them that in a certain little book of the Provinces, under the Province of the Sequani, it was thus written: Metropolis civitas Chrysopolinorum, that is, Vesontionum; which most smatterers soon began to believe ought to be read Chrysopolitanorum, and to hold it for indubitable truth. Wherefore not much credence seems to be given to these Acts, except in those things which it shall be established the biographer drew from monuments worthy of credence.
[5] Monsieur Perreciot, thoroughly versed in the Ecclesiastical History of the diocese of Besançon, and counsellor of the royal treasury at Besançon, written centuries. from whom I had requested through a friend certain documents concerning St. Germanus, recently wrote back that nothing is found apart from the Acts already edited by Chifflet; yet that he would gladly communicate what he thinks of them. The praised man judges that this composition in Chifflet, like the Acts of the first Archbishops of the said diocese, was composed by the prelate Ternatius, who flourished in the year 675, or rather excerpted from the Chronicle of this prelate by the careful attention of Hugh I, who presided over the metropolis of Besançon in the year 1040. But even if it were made probable by plausible reasons (which has not yet been done) that the Acts of our Saint too were handed down to posterity by the diligent zeal of Hugh, who is said to have consigned to writing the illustrious deeds of his predecessors from ancient monuments, yet I think these, since they were afterwards unskilfully interpolated by a feeble biographer and clumsily augmented with fables, will win for themselves not much credit and authority with men of sound judgment, unless what is asserted in them be proved from elsewhere.
[6] These, however fabulous in some things, The most learned Dunod, who in the book cited above illustrated the Catalogues and Lives of the Archbishops of Besançon with Commentaries, sets out what he thinks of the Saint's Life in the French tongue, which I render thus in Latin: In the Lessons of his (namely St. Germanus's) ecclesiastical Office we read that the Saint, dragged to the tribunal of the governor, always persevered in the confession of the true God: we read also that he, pierced with arrows, submitted his neck to the sword in the town of Grandfontaine. All of which, he says, the editors of this Office copied out from his Life preserved in the abbey of Baume and edited by Jacques Chifflet. These excepted, the rest contained in the said Acts teem with fables and deserve no credence. I gladly admit that these Acts are fictitious in some things. For who would not reduce to old wives' fables the prodigy by which the corpse of St. Germanus is feigned to have raised itself up and to have carried in its hands, for a space of seven leagues, its cut-off head, on which the Holy Spirit sat in the form of a dove, the earth meanwhile trembling and the walls and towers of the town of Grandfontaine falling? This carrying of the head the biographer certainly asserted from the fact that he had seen the holy Martyr depicted carrying his neck in his hands, to signify the kind of his death. And since he saw the body of the Saint resting with honour in the church of the monastery of Baume, striving to adorn the fable with a new addition, he wrote that the Saint went from the town of Grandfontaine, the place of his martyrdom, as far as the said convent, carrying his cut-off head before him in his hands. These fictions, vainly defended by Chifflet, the editors of the cited Breviary deservedly omitted in the lessons of the Office transcribed above.
[7] rightly nevertheless by St. Germanus, as here Let us now examine by what reason Dunod was impelled to place among the fables that the monastery of noble virgins of Baume was founded by the Saint, as the Acts hold; and whether he did not break the law of the most learned Mabillon, which he proposed to himself to be constantly followed in the first edition of the History of Besançon in the year 1735: If it is shameful, says Mabillon, to assent to what is false, we must beware lest we be caught by the vice of the other extreme; for truth deserves no less reverence on account of the errors poured around it. Let us hear the praised Dunod reasoning. An argument, he says, most suitable for proving that St. Germanus (who died about the year 407, as we shall see immediately) did not erect the said convent is supplied to us by the anonymous author of the Life of St. Romanus, written in the 6th century, when he asserts that before the foundation of the monastery of St. Claude — which, as Dunod admits, was carried out about the year 430 by St. Romanus (concerning whom see our Work at the 28th day of February) — no monastery existed in the Province of the Sequani. Take the words of that biographer: Before Romanus no one of the monks within the province of the Sequani, under the profession of religion, followed the life either of solitary or of common observance. Accordingly Dunod would have it made likely that no convent of virgins either existed in the said province before that time. But whence does he contend that this follows? Did any law ever prescribe that monasteries of men must be erected before those of women? And besides, are facts consigned in History overturned by arguments drawn from probability? The Acts of St. Germanus hold in express terms that he founded the convent of Baume, and Jacques Chifflet affirms that he had read this elsewhere too than in these Acts: That convent, he says, we read was begun to be built while St. Desideratus (the predecessor of our Saint) was living; then completed by St. Germanus and assigned by him to pious women consecrated to God. Similarly, in the Life of Leontius — who, as Dunod admits, had already governed the church of Besançon for more than 25 years in the year 443 — it is read that he built here a convent of virgins on the mount called Chaudanne near Besançon, which Dunod likewise, adhering to the words of the anonymous biographer of St. Romanus, denies. Behold, therefore, two ancient monuments which clearly hand down that monasteries of virgins were erected in the province of the Sequani before St. Romanus. Facts so expressly marked in ancient monuments seem in no way to be lessened by light conjectures. Which Dunod himself also afterwards sufficiently perceived; for in the more recent edition of the cited Work in the year 1750, no longer relying on the words of the anonymous biographer of St. Romanus, he called Leontius the founder of the abbey mentioned above; and thus he seems to have disapproved the argument which he had earlier thought most suitable for denying that St. Germanus was ever founder of the convent of Baume, and for that reason not to have proposed it to the reader to be embraced in the more recent edition of his Work praised above.
[8] Another argument by which Dunod defends his opinion, is shown against Dunod, and contends that the convent of Baume was founded in the time of Charlemagne by Duke Garnerus, he draws from these words of Hugh of St. Victor which Alberic relates in the Chronicle at the year 763: This Duke Garnerus founded the abbey of nuns of Baume, where he was laid, and still has there a most noble sepulchre. It is most certain that Hugh speaks here of the monastery of noble virgins of Baume; but it is no less true that Hugh was deceived. He had certainly read or heard somewhere that a certain Duke Garnerus had bestowed very many gifts on this monastery and rests there in a fine mausoleum; and since he found that a certain Duke Garnerus existed in the time of Charlemagne, he judged him to be the same as the duke who had bestowed very many gifts on the said convent, and ascribed to him all the honour which Garnerus, or Vuarnarius, count of the Burgundian palace, had acquired about the year 600 by rebuilding the said monastery, previously devastated by the Vandals, and enriching it with revenues. Chifflet here writes opportunely for our purpose thus: That convent, we read, was begun to be built while St. Desideratus was still living; then completed by St. Germanus and assigned by him to pious women consecrated to God (who afterwards followed the Benedictine institute); afterwards scattered by the Vandals, and then about the year 600 rebuilt and increased in revenues by Vuarnarius, count of the Burgundian palace.
[9] they ascribe the foundation of the convent of Baume, From the genuine and credible Life of St. Ermenfredus, first abbot of Cusance, edited in our Work at the 25th day of September — which Egilbertus, abbot of the said house, and his monks wrote before the year 732, and therefore before the birth of Charlemagne, which, as Pagi shows in the Critica, occurred in the year 742 — it becomes manifest that the abbey of Baume was erected before the year 763, which Dunod denies; for there the monks of Cusance speak of that convent as though it were already held ancient in their age. Chapter 3 of the cited Life has this: But neither is this especially to be passed over in silence, that a certain enclosed nun, who was at the monastery of virgins of Baume, distant from that same cell more or less six miles, at the moment of his (Ermenfredus's) death, having called her attendant to her, said: Go, she said, quickly tell Warnerius or the sisters that the lord Ermenfredus is now passing from this life to the Lord. For it was a custom of old
in the aforesaid monastery that one of them, whose mind the Holy Spirit had more ardently illumined, should be kept enclosed, together with one attendant only. Let the fair reader now judge whether the conjectures and reasons of Dunod brought forward here prove evidently, as he himself contends, that the monastery of noble virgins of Baume was not erected by the munificence of St. Germanus. Let him judge whether it follows from the arguments of the praised author that the Acts of our Saint, and the ancient tradition which persists even today, are fictitious when they hold that he founded the abbey of Baume.
[10] [and edited by Chifflet, from which it is deduced that the Saint died about the year 407,] It remains that we now inquire into the time at which our Saint entered upon the see of Besançon and left it vacant by a death precious in the sight of the Lord. He is listed thirteenth in the older Catalogue of the archbishops of the said diocese, but twelfth in the more recent, because the episcopate of Ferreolus, whom the older Catalogue places in the middle between Linus and Maximinus, is not sufficiently established. The Acts of the Saint hold that he succeeded St. Desideratus, thus: After the glorious passage of blessed Desideratus to heaven, blessed Germanus, an apostolic man, … was elected. But since neither the Acts nor the Catalogues expressly state the year of the death of St. Desideratus, but only relate that his death occurred about the year 400, as may be seen in our Work at the 27th day of July, it hence comes about that it is not readily possible to determine for certain the year in which the Saint entered upon this see. Nor do either his very Acts or the Catalogues of the bishops of Besançon edited in Chifflet and by the praised Dunod assign the year in which St. Germanus exchanged this mortal life for the immortal. Pierre-François Chifflet, S.J., who commented on the cited Catalogues in the Illustrationes Claudianae, edited in our Work at the 6th day of June, having made a reckoning of the years during which the Saint's predecessors and successors are found in credible monuments to have occupied the said see, referred the time of his death to about the year 407; and agreeing with him the brothers Sainte-Marthe in Gallia Christiana, and Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology, write that he was rewarded by God with eternal recompense about that year. Cardinal Baronius says, not without error, that he departed from this life in the year 372; for since St. Fronimius or Frominius (whom St. Desideratus, and then our Saint, succeeded) is read in his Acts, related in our Work at the 10th day of May, to have lived in the time of the supreme Pontiff Siricius, who presided over the Church from the year 385 to 398, the time of the Saint's death cannot be fixed to the year 372, when he was not yet bishop.
[11] Dissenting from the praised authors, Dunod contends that the time of the Saint's episcopate and death is to be fixed about the year 270, the Catalogues of the bishops of Besançon, as the things adduced here suggest, for the following reasons, which he deduces from these words of the Saint's biographer: He before his episcopate was an approved confessor, and in his episcopate was once and again examined and judged for the name of the Saviour. From these, says Dunod, it follows that at that time the tribunal of persecutors existed, which certainly could not have been the case in the time of Honorius, under whose rule our Catalogues hold that the Saint died; for the whole Church, and especially that of Besançon, was already enjoying the desired peace while Honorius held the reins of the empire. But so far is it from following from these Acts that the Saint underwent martyrdom at a time when the church of Besançon was suffering persecution, that, on the contrary, those same Acts sufficiently insinuate that the Catholic religion was then altogether dominant; for they hold in express words that the heretics, driven by the Saint from the city of Besançon, did not dare thereafter to enter it, and that St. Germanus was not condemned to death by a judge but was crowned with martyrdom, death being inflicted on him by heretic assassins. If in his episcopate, as his Acts hold, he was once and again, up to seven times, examined and judged for the name of the Saviour, this will have been done by heretical or pagan governors of the province, who never dared to rage against him with a heavier penalty. This circumspection of theirs sufficiently declares that the Saint lived under Catholic emperors; for if he had governed the church of Besançon a little after the year 267 and in the time of the Aurelian persecution, he would not have been so often examined and judged: the judges would certainly have put an end to his case at the first occasions. Those troubles created for the Saint are not inconsistent with the reign of Honorius, from whom, being then still a minor and very far removed from the Province of the Sequani, the governor of this province could easily conceal his designs.
[12] These things being so, the Acts of our Saint — from which surely, as is clear from what has just been alleged, what Dunod would have does not follow — support also the Catalogues of the bishops of Besançon mentioned above, support, and are to be subjoined to this Commentary. from which it is deduced that the Saint departed from this life about the year of restored Salvation 407, and therefore they ought not to cause us not to subscribe here to these, together with the authors praised above. Besides, since the same Acts also rightly record, as is plain from what has been alleged above, that the monastery of noble Virgins of Baume was founded by St. Germanus, and are therefore not wholly unworthy of the light, we shall subjoin them to this Commentary, excerpted from Chifflet's Vesontio, with Annotations also added from time to time where the matter shall require it; judging, namely, that, although they are sprinkled with fables, as has been said, we shall nevertheless do a thing not altogether unwelcome to the reader, who will thus have them at hand, and will not need to have recourse elsewhere for this purpose, if some reason should perhaps impel him to consult them.
ACTS,
By an anonymous author,
Edited in Chifflet's Vesontio from the manuscript Legendary of the monastery of Baume.
Germanus, bishop of Besançon in the county of Burgundy. (S.)
BHL Number: 3483
By an Anonymous author.
SOLE CHAPTER.
The exceptional sanctity of Germanus, his zeal against the heretics, the death inflicted on him by them, the prodigy that followed it.
The Saint, who while still only a presbyter had shone forth with sanctity, After the glorious passage of blessed Desideratus a to heaven, blessed Germanus, an Apostolic man, renowned for signs and prodigies, by the concordant favour of the people, or rather by the proclamation of the Spirit of God (a man formerly deputed to the ministries), was at one time elected a priest for the sacred altars. Having therefore been made a presbyter, he shone forth with such sanctity that at the solemnities of the Masses an angelic ministry appeared between his hands. He too, raised to the summit of so great a dignity, was afflicted with many calamities and tribulations of this world for the name of Christ.
[2] [having been made bishop, he most vigorously fulfils all the parts of this charge,] He enjoyed no prosperity, since he bore all adversities for the love of Christ. He before his episcopate was an approved confessor, and in his episcopate no less was once and again, up to seven times, examined and judged for the name of the Saviour: he made very many sacred vessels, fit for the sacred altars; he also ordered the sacred ministries with skilful industry; finally, by his preaching and teaching, he converted many to belief and to the baptism of Christ.
[3] and while he pursues the heretics, by them, But after the aforesaid Pontiff of God had converted the aforesaid people to the true worship of God, and had freed many from various infirmities, he also gravely attacked in his preachings the heretics who had remained in his city of Chrysopolis b, and, in order to bring them back to the way of truth, he reproved them now with blandishments or exhortations, now with rebukes or reproaches: but because, as the scripture says: Into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter, nor into hardened hearts and those subject to sins c — as the deaf asp against the charmer, so also the heretics stopped their ears against the word of preaching; and as the Jews against blessed Stephen, so these gnashed with their teeth against blessed Germanus; and, if they had been able to find him outside the city, these would have stoned Germanus no less than the Jews stoned Stephen.
[4] Now there was, at the fourth mile from the city, a certain city, whom he had compelled to go away from Besançon to Grandfontaine, namely by name Grandfontaine; into which city indeed many heretics had flocked for refuge, on account of fear of blessed Germanus, who was rooting out of the city and the homeland all the heretics he could find: and there day and night the said heretics carried out their wicked counsels. The glorious Germanus therefore, hearing these things, went out of Chrysopolis and proceeded to that city: at his coming, through hatred and envy, they went out and bound themselves together to pursue him.
[5] What more? They bent their bow to shoot in secret at the Immaculate one [d], he is attacked there by an ambush, that is, they lay in wait for him to deliver him to death if they could: yet because they did not dare to harm him in the open, they arranged to lay an ambush for him. For there was a certain village in the city, through which he was accustomed to go and return: and since God willed to reward that Servant of His, the champion of truth, with the gift of heavenly glory, he was taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul e.
[6] And truly taken away; for when one day he was returning late from the city, and at length is slain: and wished to pass through that village, as he was accustomed, those wretches who had stretched the bow of ambush, leaping out like an arrow from the hidden places of the ambush, found St. Germanus praying: and while he was praying, a voice was heard consoling him; hearing which the heretics f said that it was magic art; but others said it was angels strengthening him: by grace of which very many were converted. While he was praying they shot him with arrows and with their weapons deprived him of his head: thus, being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled long times, for his soul was pleasing to God.
[7] After these things, bending down, he took up his head between his arms: he seizes his head, cut off after his death, and thence at which many, being astounded, fled. The glorious martyr of Christ Germanus, therefore, and most beloved priest of the Lord, holding his head in his embrace, advanced, an angel leading and a heavenly light going before, bearing above his head the Holy Spirit in the likeness of a dove. When he had gone out of the village, the earth trembled, and the walls and towers of that city fell g. And those who saw all these things said: Truly great is the Lord who works such things; truly this man was a friend of God: and many peoples were converted.
[8] carrying it in his hands, he proceeds as far as Baume. When he had come before the church of the blessed martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrutius h, he bowed himself there; and passing on from there around Chrysopolis on the side above, bowing himself towards the church and the city, he went on without delay as far as Baume, and turned aside to a certain basilica beside the greater church i, for there he had founded nuns, and there he fell asleep in the Lord Jesus Christ. The other miracles we shall omit for the sake of brevity: for he excelled in such sanctity that he was also full of the spirit of prophecy: he drove out all diseases from human bodies, the Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom is honour and glory for ages of ages, amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
d. Psalm 63, verse 4.