ON ST. LUBENTIUS, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR, AT KOBERN IN THE DIOCESE OF TRIER,
AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE 4TH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The memory of the Saint in the Martyrologies: his cult and ecclesiastical office: the Life, of what kind, to be published: the time of his death: he was not the spiritual son of St. Martin, bishop of Trier.
Lubentius, presbyter, confessor, at Kobern in the diocese of Trier. (S.)
BY J. B. F.
The village of Cubrinum, called by others Cuberinum, by later men Coverna, perhaps from Caverna "cave", The Saint, whom the martyrologists commemorate, at Kobern because it is situated in a valley between three mountains, on the left of the Moselle as it flows down, near Koblenz, venerates on the thirteenth day of October St. Lubentius, who, as Brouwer relates in book 4 of the Annals of Trier, page 269, first brought the inhabitants of the said village to the faith of Christ. "Lubentius," he says, "sent by St. Maximinus to the township of Cuberinum, brought to the peoples of the Lower Moselle and to the neighboring Ripuarians and the people of Koblenz, who until that day had lain in the dense darkness of errors, the most joyful message of heaven opened to men." On the same day the name of our Saint has been entered in the Sacred Tables of Trier. An old Manuscript Martyrology, which the church of Aachen still uses, has only this: "Of Lubentius the presbyter." Maurolycus: "Of Lubentius the confessor." Molanus in the Additions to Usuard: "At Trier, of St. Lubentius the presbyter." The Manuscript Index of the Martyrology of Hermann Greven: "13 October, Lubentius, presbyter and confessor, in the territory of Trier." Ferrari: "At Trier, of St. Lubentius the presbyter." But Chastelain commemorates our Saint in these fuller words: "At Kobern near Koblenz, of St. Lubentius the parish priest, who was initiated into the priesthood by St. Maximinus of Trier." Du Saussay, in part 2 of the Gallican Martyrology, wrongly naming him Lupentius, celebrates him thus: "At Trier, of St. Lupentius, presbyter and confessor, illustrious for divine glorifications."
[2] On the bank of the river Lahn, which, running out of Upper Hesse, and is venerated in the churches of Dietkirchen, and at Trier flows into the Rhine a little above Koblenz, thirty-two thousand paces from the Rhine (as Brouwer says; for his Life has eight miles) toward the East, on a rather high rock, stands the church of Dietkirchen, which religiously preserves the body of St. Lubentius, carried thither against the current of the river by divine power when he had died at Kobern, and every year on this day, as Conrad Esser, superior of the college of the S. J. at Hadamar, writes to Fr. Henschen, the said church, which is distinguished by a college of canons, honors our Saint with the ecclesiastical Office. On the same day also the church of Trier celebrates the memory of this Saint with an Office of nine Lessons, of which the middle three, contained in the Lectionary of the Saints of the said church published in the year 1645, briefly narrate his deeds thus: "Lesson IV. Lubentius, a boy of good disposition, diligently instructed in every kind of virtue, set out to blessed Maximinus, archbishop of the Treveri. He afterwards ordained him, when of mature age, presbyter at Cubrinum, a village of his diocese on the Moselle. Maximinus meanwhile, having returned to his own people in Aquitaine, and having there been taken from human affairs, gave back his soul to the Creator.
[3] he is honored by the recitation of these Lessons. "Lesson V. His successor in the episcopate, Paulinus, sent Lubentius, with some of the clergy and people joined to him, into Aquitaine to seek the relics of his predecessor and spiritual father. When Lubentius had arrived there, since he could not find out from the inhabitants of the place where the treasure of the sacred body lay hidden, persisting in assiduous prayers, he learned it, an angel revealing it to him. Therefore, the body of St. Maximinus having been carried away from Aquitaine, he at once returns with his companions to Trier. Thereafter, occupying himself with pious and good works at Cubrinum, and diligently instructing the flock committed to him by word and example, in the time of the Arian emperor Constantius he flew away to heaven. Lesson VI. The neighboring priests assemble for the purpose of honoring him and of seeing to his funeral; which, however, the sins of the inhabitants so requiring, could in no way be moved from the place. The fame of the miracle having been carried to Trier and Cologne, the prelates hasten thither with clergy and people, and, taking counsel, they place the body of the holy Man in a skiff and commit it to divine providence and to the river Moselle; which, God so directing, first indeed went down as far as the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle, thence ascending the Rhine, enters the Lahn where it washes the Rhine; and, going up some miles as far as Dietkirchen, so named from its founder Diether, is honorably buried there."
[4] The Life, of what kind, to be published. What we see recounted about our Saint in these Lessons is read, almost the same but adorned with a more prolix style and with wonderful additions altogether savoring of fable, in his Life, composed by an anonymous author, which Dom Johann Hoffman, formerly provisor of the monastery of Arnstein, of the Premonstratensian Order, sent to Rev. Fr. Henschen, faithfully copied from the Passional of the Saints of the said abbey. In what century the biographer composed it he nowhere states, nor in the whole course of his lucubration is any chronological mark found from which the time at which it was elaborated can be drawn out. From these words indeed, "The aforesaid Life of St. Lubentius has been copied word for word from the third volume, entitled Passional of the Saints, namely from a great parchment book which a certain religious of the monastery of Arnstein wrote in elegant characters about the year of the Lord 1170," which are found added at the end of this copy, it becomes manifest that the Life of our Saint was composed before the year 1170, in which the cited Passional containing it is noted to have been written; but it does not follow from this that it was not elaborated very many centuries after the death of St. Lubentius, which we shall see below occurred when the 4th century had passed its middle. However that may be, although it is disfigured, as I have already hinted, by fabulous additions, and it is by no means established that its author, who perhaps flourished some centuries after the Saint's age, was sufficiently informed about his deeds, and consequently no great
authority seems likely to be won for it with the reader; yet, because it is not very prolix, I think it will not be useless to subjoin it to this Commentary, so that thus the reader himself, when it has been placed before his eyes, may pass his own judgment upon it and consider whether we have rightly judged that no great credit is to be given to this little lucubration.
[5] It remains that we inquire into the year in which St. Lubentius received the eternal reward of his virtues, He died when the 4th century had passed its middle. and then investigate whether our Saint was the spiritual son of St. Martin, bishop of Tours. As regards the first: in the Life to be published, which does not express the year of his death, the Saint is read to have returned to the village of Cubrinum, and there to have departed from this life, after the translation of the sacred body of St. Maximinus, bishop of Trier, from Aquitaine to Trier, at which he had been present by order of St. Paulinus, who occupied the see of the same church after St. Maximinus from the year 349 (as may be seen in the Commentary on his Life in our Work at the 31st day of August) until the year 359 or 360. "Thus blessed Lubentius," says the biographer, "having obtained the desired treasure," namely the sacred relics of St. Maximinus, "returned to Trier. After this, returning to the village to which he had been given as shepherd, the term of his life completed, he happily gave back his spirit to God." From which it follows that the said translation did not take place before the year 349, in which, from what has been said, St. Paulinus ascended the chair of Trier, and consequently that our Saint did not depart from this life before the said year. The Lessons transcribed above, customarily recited in honor of St. Lubentius, relate that, the body of St. Maximinus having been brought back to Augusta Treverorum, he exchanged mortal life for immortal in the time of the Arian emperor Constantius, who presided over the whole empire from the year 353 to 361. But the praised Chastelain opposes this assertion, who in the Universal Martyrology fixes the Saint's death in the year 369. Since these things are so, we cannot determine the year of our Saint's birthday in heaven; wherefore we have marked the time of his death above in the margin as when the 4th century had passed its middle.
[6] Now let us proceed to the second question, namely whether St. Lubentius was the spiritual son of St. Martin, bishop of Tours. Whether the Saint was taken as spiritual son by St. Martin, bishop of Tours. This indeed the Life of the Saint affirms in these words: "Blessed Lubentius was offered by his parents to St. Martin, bishop of Tours, and was lifted by him from the sacred font, and adopted as his spiritual son. Clinging diligently to his footsteps, the Boy of good disposition shortly afterwards becomes his companion when he visits Trier, and there is committed to St. Maximinus, bishop of the same city … to be nurtured." In almost the same words also the biographer of St. Maximinus, prelate of Trier, relates, as may be seen in our Work at the 29th day of May, that our Saint was the spiritual son of St. Martin of Tours. But this cannot be true: for Maximinus, who ordained St. Lubentius presbyter, had departed from life and the episcopate at least 21 years before Martin was taken up to the chair of Tours. There are those who fix his promotion in the year 370, others in the year 371. Tillemont, tome 10 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 315, supposes that it took place in the year 372. Chifflet, in the Dissertation on the reckoning of the times of St. Martin, num. 16, and Pagi on the Annals of Baronius contend that he first went to the see of Tours in the year 375. Which opinion strays less from the truth will be considered at the 11th day of November, sacred to St. Martin. Henschen treated of St. Maximinus in the place of our Work just cited, and tied his death to the year 349, in which we said in the preceding number that it was proved that St. Paulinus succeeded him.
[7] taken as spiritual son. Yet this parachronism, which makes contemporaneous the episcopates of the two Saints, separated from each other by so many years, some perhaps will try to excuse in the following manner. The biographers of SS. Lubentius and Maximinus, they will say, used prolepsis, and meant nothing else than that Martin, who afterwards presided over the church of Tours, took our Saint as his spiritual son, and then handed him over to St. Maximinus to be educated, while he was still serving as a soldier under the standards of Constantine the Younger or Constans, during whose reign in Gaul Maximinus, prelate of the Treveri, flourished. I confess it; thus every anachronism will vanish, nor is there reason why the biographers of SS. Lubentius and Maximinus should be believed certainly not to have used prolepsis. But since St. Lubentius was promoted to the priesthood by St. Maximinus, who died in the year 349, and was appointed parish priest in the village of Cubrinum, does it not follow that before the death of St. Maximinus, that is, the year 349, he was at least 25 years old, and consequently, since these, subtracted from the year 349, lead to the year 324, that he was born in this latter year? Moreover, since in the year 324 St. Martin, by the consensus of all the historians who have mentioned him, had not yet been regenerated by the sacred water of Baptism, which grace he finally obtained in the year 337 or, as others would have it, 334, will not those who contend that St. Lubentius was the spiritual son of St. Martin have to say that he, while still a catechumen, lifted St. Lubentius from the sacred font and took him as his spiritual son, which is repugnant to the sacred rites of the Church? By no means, these will say: for St. Martin could, in the year 334, in which he had received the grace of Baptism, have lifted St. Lubentius from the sacred font, though he was at that time ten years old. But even if this is so, since the authors who contend that the biographers of SS. Lubentius and Maximinus used the said prolepsis allege no reasons by which we may be convinced that the praised biographers certainly spoke proleptically; and since it is established that these were neither contemporaries nor near-contemporaries of SS. Lubentius and Maximinus, whose deeds they wrote, but on the contrary lived removed by several centuries from their age, and do not seem to have been sufficiently informed of the things they narrated, we shall not be charged with rashness if we at least call into doubt whether St. Martin, as they relate, took Lubentius as his spiritual son.
LIFE OF ST. LUBENTIUS, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR,
By an anonymous author,
From the 3rd tome of the Passional of the monastery of Arnstein.
Lubentius, presbyter, confessor, at Kobern in the diocese of Trier. (S.)
BHL Number: 4968
aBY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.
SOLE CHAPTER.
The Saint is lifted from the sacred font by St. Martin, bishop of Tours: he is made parish priest by St. Maximinus of Trier: he translates the body of the latter, after his death, from Aquitaine to Trier: he dies and is buried.
[The Saint, lifted from the sacred font by St. Martin, is made parish priest by St. Maximinus,] Blessed Lubentius was offered by his parents to St. Martin, bishop of Tours, and was lifted by him from the sacred font, and adopted as his spiritual son b. Clinging diligently to his footsteps, the Boy of good disposition shortly afterwards becomes his companion when he visits Trier, and there is committed to St. Maximinus, bishop of the same city, a man of wonderful holiness, to be nurtured. The blessed bishop, therefore, having received the Boy and instructed him in no ordinary degree in all things, afterwards ordained him presbyter in the village of Cubrunum c. And blessed Maximinus, piously mindful of his kinsfolk, revisited Aquitaine, his homeland, and there, departing from human affairs, gave back his soul to the Creator.
[2] Paulinus, therefore, a most blessed man, succeeding him in the episcopate, [by order of St. Paulinus he translates the body of the latter, after his death, from Aquitaine to Trier,] sends this blessed Lubentius, supported by the suffrage of a multitude of clerics and of the rest of the people, to the parts of Aquitaine, to search for the body of his master. None of them, however, which was the harder thing, knew the place of his burial. Therefore, while the rest were resting and indulging in refreshment of the body, blessed Lubentius prostrates himself in prayer, beseeching the mercy of God that he would deign to show where the holy members rested. While St. Lubentius was praying, behold, suddenly a shepherd boy, who was pasturing sheep nearby, uttering first the name of St. Maximinus, threatened a straying sheep that he would strike it if it went off anywhere other than he wished.
[3] But St. Lubentius, having perceived such an omen, called the boy and began carefully to inquire having done which, he dies in what part the body of the Saint whose name he had invoked was resting. When the boy had shown it, blessed Lubentius, going to his companions, admonished them to apply themselves to prayer. While they were praying, behold, an angel of the Lord, standing by, addressed blessed Lubentius thus: "Know that here the body of a most holy priest is entombed. Come then," he said, "and now take the key of the church from the head of the sleeping custodian, and carry away the desired treasure as you wish and as you know how." Thus blessed Lubentius, having obtained the desired treasure, returned to Trier d. After this, returning to the village to which he had been given as shepherd, the term of his life completed, he happily gave back his spirit to God.
[4] [His body, which is prevented from heaven from being carried to the church of Kobern,] But after the departure of St. Lubentius, when the neighboring priests with the people of Cubrunum wished to place the venerable body in the same church, it happened by the power of God, to the wonder of all, that the body stood immovable and could nowhere be moved by the natives. When, wondering greatly, they tried it more often and were frustrated, yielding this to the divine will and the merits of the holy Man, lest they should be found rebels against God in a foolish contest, they reckoned themselves unworthy of the obsequies of so great a Patron, and the place all too unworthy. Nor is it a wonder; for a hard and provoking people, since it had not before received the admonitions of virtue from its pious teacher, but unwillingly endured him, living soberly, justly and chastely, as burdensome to itself and contrary to its works, could not, as a sign of its contempt of him, obtain the holy body. What then is done? Cubrunum is filled * with mourning, wailing and weeping, and the fame of so great a miracle reached Trier and Cologne e. Prelates and other leading men are present, with clergy and people, each striving eagerly to transfer the holy body to their own places; but since human opinion has no effect in the inscrutable counsel of the Saints, it pleased the more prudent to test the judgment of the divine disposition in this cause.
[5] [placed in a skiff, he is committed to the Moselle, and, going down first to Koblenz, thence to Lahnstein] This being decided, ministers having been chosen, as was fitting, chaste and simple men of approved life, the sacred body with its sarcophagus was lifted and carried with all veneration to the bank of the Moselle f, and was placed in a little boat, which, lacking men, and, according to the decrees of the elders, pushed off indeed by men but steered by divine help, floated downstream. Meanwhile the peoples on both sides of the river went along, following the holy Man, thinking indeed that he would remain at Koblenz g, or that the little boat, seized by the current of the Rhine h, would float downstream. Having this expectation, therefore, those upstream, struck with excessive fear, were lamenting and beseeching God that he would deign to visit them in his salvation. But those downstream, to whom the descent of all floating things is always easy and downhill, as if they had already obtained their desired hope, were exulting beyond measure, clapping their hands and shouting. And without delay, when the Rhine was reached, the aforesaid skiff, laden with its happy burden,
the grace of the Holy Spirit filling its sails, ascended the Rhine. At the sight of this miracle the faithful of Christ were encouraged, and the people of the Rhine, running to meet it from both banks, glorified God with the voice of exultation. And the little boat, passing Koblenz and two villages of the Rhine situated nearby, soon directed into the river which is called the Lahn i, and which flows into the Rhine from the East, put in at the township of Lahnstein, which extends along the same river.
[6] put in, in which village two sisters Wonderfully, therefore, the same village resounded at the arrival of so great a body, and the common folk rushed from every side to the bank to receive the new Guest. Some said that that place was in the care of God and his Saints, which divine grace had regarded above others in its Saint by so unusual a visitation; others maintained that they were unequal to it and did not suffice for the service of so great a sacred thing destined elsewhere. There were at that time in the same countryside two sisters, free of husbands and children, enjoying very few vineyards; one of whom, kindled with divine love, hastening to the little boat, handed over her portion as property to St. Lubentius, without any contradiction, before her heirs and the great crowd that was present. But the other sister, when she could by no means be compelled to do likewise, was at once driven into such a frenzy that through that whole night she was held to be insane.
[7] When morning came, therefore, her kinsfolk and friends urged her consecrate part of their inheritance to the honor of St. Lubentius; that she too should offer part of her patrimony to God and his Saint, fulfilling her sister's request; so that, having recovered soundness of mind through the merits of the same Saint, she might receive with her sister the rewards of eternal life. And when all had spent that night solemn and sleepless, and had decreed that a three-day fast should be held with all devotion, so that they might be able worthily to receive and keep the holy Guest; behold, the light of the following day arose, and the vessel of the Confessor of Christ, impelled by heavenly power, slipped back and began to ascend the Lahn. When this was known, all that people groaned, protesting that they had done nothing worthy of God and his Saints, and did not dare to touch his little boat, nor to hinder the will of him who walks upon the wings of the winds, whose way is in the sea and his paths in many waters, and his footsteps shall not be known.
[8] Then at last that woman, before obstinate, repenting they consecrate; that she had been wrongly tenacious the day before, and that she had not exchanged great things for small, eternal for temporal, through the grace of God and the merits of St. Lubentius recovered her mind, and suddenly leaping forth crossed the river; for the sacred vehicle, passing over to the other bank, had turned aside to the foot of the mountain, as if about to wait for someone there. And she, approaching, accompanied by kinsfolk and friends, and humbly bowing herself, bent her knees seven times, and then at last offered of her own free will to St. Lubentius, the faithful who were present bearing witness, the gift of her inheritance. That these things truly happened there is witnessed by a sacred spring flowing there from that same day up to the present day; to which also its name came from the name of the same Saint, because the same Confessor of Christ is always to be sought and desired by all who thirst for the Lord.
[9] The aforesaid little boat, therefore, with its steersman, making its way freely through the wilderness to the place predestined by God, then it ascends as far as Dietkirchen, driven by favorable south winds, ascended the river Lahn, which at that time was still overgrown everywhere with forests and mountain woods full of wild animals and beasts, but inhabited by a small concourse of men. That region did not yet have the castles of tyrants, nor the harsh strongholds of robbers, nor the various dealings of merchants. Moreover the river was amazed at the unusual course of this little boat; and the mountains and hills with the trees of the forests resounded to the praise of so great a Patron; the beasts made leaps over the fields before the face of this Saint; the springs, flowing more abundantly with their rivulets, ran out to meet him; the very fish too, suspecting that that raft was not a fishing one, swam together with it, playing before it. And what shall I relate of the birds? Since not only those of the air but also those of the water, clapping their wings, chattering with their beaks, greeted the Saint of God in place of men; for although brute animals lack reason, yet they have over them the constraining power of God, which they obey; at whose nod even insensible things follow. Hence indeed it is that the ravens fed Elijah, the lions preserved Daniel, the whale gave back Jonah. Thus every condition of created forms obeys the service of the Saints.
[10] and there he is honorably buried. There is a rock stretched out on high, projecting toward the East above the bank of the aforementioned river, about eight k miles from the Rhine, upon which an oratory called Dietkirchen had been placed, named, as report goes, after its founder, namely Dietger l; he, when once he dwelt, rich in cattle, a little higher on the same side of the river in a small village called Derna, and had learned from the reports of his servants, nay, by experience, that the same rocky hill, overgrown with woods, was often illuminated with heavenly splendor and was awesome with angelic visitation, made an oratory there, and there, as long as he lived, imploring the grace of Christ, happily rested. Meanwhile the happy and memorable day arrived on which the body of blessed Lubentius, translated by angels, put in at the aforesaid rock. And behold, religious men, clerics as well as laymen, were present, who had followed the vessel of the most holy Patron; and an earthquake having taken place, the same hill trembled on every side, and those who were present, testifying that the divine power was at hand, ran humbly to meet him, and, taking up the Saint of God, glorified him with Hymns and Psalms. Thus finally the same Patron of ours, humbly laid down in the aforesaid oratory, rested, until the clemency of Christ, as is still evident, exalted him with miracles and mighty works, and made him wonderful through every age with the blessings of divine grace.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Read repletur "is filled".