ON ST. DULCIDIUS, OR RATHER DULCITIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT AGEN, AMONG THE LEMOVICES, AND AT CAMBARETUM IN GAUL,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 5TH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Cult; distinction from St. Dulcidius of Toulouse; name; age; the translation of the martyrs of Agen.
Dulcidius or Dulcitius, bishop and confessor, at Agen in Gaul. (S.)
V. D. B.
St. Dulcidius, bishop of Agen, venerated on the 16th and 17th of October, As was noted on the preceding day among the Passed Over, St. Dulcidius, bishop of Agen [*], is announced in the Universal Martyrology of Claude Chastelain and in the Paris one of Cardinal de Noailles on the 16th of October. And indeed, as Simon de Peyronnet Catalogus Sanctorum ac Sanctarum, p. 285, citing a manuscript Breviary of Agen, and Denis de Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana nova, volume II, column 897., for whom the Proper of Agen lit the way, are witnesses, his feast was formerly and is still kept by the Church of Agen on this day. But in the diocese of Limoges, long since, on account of the occurring feast of St. Junianus, the birthday of St. Dulcidius is kept on the 17th of October. Hence Saussay, who had the Limoges Breviary at hand in composing the eulogy of St. Dulcidius, reported his memory on the 17th of October, and likewise after him Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints. But it scarcely deserves pardon that the former, after he had marked St. Dulcidius quite correctly on the 17th of October in the work, made his memory again in the Supplement Martyrologium Gallicanum, p. 1177. on the 6th day of October, the feast of St. Faith, martyr of Agen, forgetting that he had already spoken of him. Yet in the same error Greven, the German Martyrology, and an old manuscript Florarium which our predecessors possessed had gone before him, and Ferrarius added himself as a companion.
[2] he is properly distinguished by Simon Peyronnet from St. Dulcidius of Toulouse; This Dulcidius, however, is to be distinguished from another who is venerated in the diocese of Toulouse, and about whose cult Papebroch wrongly doubted Acta Sanctorum, volume III of May, p. 592.. For which purpose it seems best to recite the words of Simon Peyronnet, a man of Toulouse Catalogus Sanctorum etc., p. 285: "Doux, Dulcius, or Dulcidius, confessor, disciple of St. Germerius, bishop of Toulouse, of whom mention is made in the Life of the same St. Germerius, which exists in volume II of the Sanctorale of Bernard Gui, bishop of Lodève, from which the special offices of the diocese of Toulouse on the 16th of May, on which day his sacred relics are venerated together with those of St. Germerius in the parish church of St. James of Muret." On that day Papebroch published Acta Sanctorum, volume III of May, p. 592. the more ancient Life which lit the way for Bernard Gui, although it too is not genuine, as the historiographers of Languedoc have shown Histoire du Languedoc, volume I, Notes, column 672 and following.. Elsewhere the same Simon Peyronnet has: "His (St. Germerius's) body and those of his disciples, namely Dulcidius and Pretiosus, are preserved today by the church of Muret in the diocese of Toulouse, to which they were carried from the old priory church dedicated to his name, in which it is manifestly clear that they previously lay, from the Cartulary of the visitation of that church made in the year 1407 by William Rigaud, abbot of Lézat, whose autograph it was granted me to see." Of the cult, therefore, paid to St. Dulcidius of Toulouse at Murellum, not at Muretum, there is no doubting. "But there is also St. Dulcidius," says Peyronnet, "who is both Dulcius and Dulcidius, bishop of Agen in Aquitaine, who translated the ashes of the martyrs SS. Faith and Caprasius and consecrated a basilica to the memory of both, as is had in the Acts of these martyrs in Surius on the 6th of October and in the manuscript Breviary of Agen, and whose body, as is read in the Proper of Agen on the 16th of October, on which day he is venerated by the Church of Agen with a double office, was translated to Cambaretum, Chamberet, a village of the diocese of Limoges, where among his other enormous miracles those with heart disease are healed, and he is commonly called St. Doux and St. Doulcet." Of the latter St. Dulcidius, therefore, we must speak.
[3] his Life does not seem to exist; We have been able to obtain no Life of him, nor do we think that one exists anywhere. In the Catalogue, indeed, of the royal or national Library of Paris [Catalogue de la Bibliothèque nationale, volume IV, manuscripts, in the appendix, p. 512, no. 3809. A. Life 51.] there is marked a Life of Blessed Dulcius or Dulcidius, bishop, which the Reverend Father Charles Cahier copied for us; but it is nothing other than the end of the Passion of SS. Faith and Caprasius; and so, since the text is extremely confused, it seems able to be of no profit. Wherefore, for the scarcity of documents, only a few things are to be gathered about St. Dulcidius.
[4] his name was rather Dulcitius; His name is written in the most varied ways. He is called Dulcius and Dulcidius in the mentioned fragment of the Passion of St. Faith; Dulcius, Dulcedius and Dulcidius by Simon Peyronnet; Dulcedius and Dulcissimus by Saussay, who thinks they are distinct names; Dulcidius in the Universal and Paris Martyrologies and also in Gallia Christiana; Dulcissimus in the Limoges Breviary of the year 1625; Dulcis, finally, in the old manuscript Florarium or Martyrology which our predecessors had. In French Chastelain calls him St. Doucis, Simon de Peyronnet, as we have seen, Doux and Doulcet. And hence the same writer reports that women themselves were often called Dulcia, especially in Aquitaine Catalogus Sanctorum, etc., p. 472.. But amid this variety, what at last is to be chosen? That our saint was called Dulcidius in the more ancient monuments [The metrical Translation of St. Faith, Acta Sanctorum, volume II of October, p. 290; the other Translation, ibid., p. 295. The Acts of St. Faith, in Labbe, Bibliotheca nova manuscriptorum, volume II, p. 530 and following.], and moreover that the manner of speaking of the people of Agen, whose bishop he was, seems rather to be attended to than that of the neighbouring people of Limoges, who from the 14th century at least call him Dulcissimus [Cf. Bernard Gui, Opuscula historica, in Labbe, Bibliotheca nova manuscriptorum, volume I, p. 633.], I shall readily grant. Yet I should think that neither name is genuine, but that he should be called Dulcitius. For Latin names do not grow by "-dius" but by "-tius" or "-cius" according to the variety of dialects; then in the 5th and 6th centuries the name Dulcitius Cf. Labbe, Concilia, index of bishops, column 89. indeed appears, but not Dulcidius; which we see arise only in the 9th century in Spain Ibid., place cited.. And indeed in the best copy of all of the Passion of SS. Faith and Caprasius, namely that of Utrecht, Dulcitius, not Dulcidius, is read; nevertheless, so as not to confuse the reader, we shall call him Dulcidius. And once the name Dulcidius had been introduced, Dulcius would have arisen from the usual suppression of the letter d between two vowels, and hence the common appellation.
[5] he probably occupied the see of Agen at the beginning of the 5th century; Concerning the time of St. Dulcidius's episcopate our Ghesquière has already argued at length in the Commentary on St. Faith. He reports first the opinions of Tillemont Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, volume IV, p. 543., of Rivet Histoire littéraire, volume III, p. 373., of the brothers Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana vetus, volume II, p. 70. and of Denis de Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana nova, volume II, column 877. on this argument, not so much at variance among themselves, and shows that it is very probable that St. Dulcidius occupied the see of Agen about the beginning of the 5th century. He urges Acta Sanctorum, volume II of October, p. 271. first of all the authority of the Breviary of Agen, in which it is related that "after the death of the most holy prelate Phoebadius, his master, by the will of God and with all the people acclaiming, he was established in the episcopal see"; on which I shall remark that these words are of so much the greater weight as they more accurately report the old form of electing bishops [Cf., among many others, Zaccaria, Laudensium episcoporum series, p. 68; likewise Martène, Thomassin, etc.]. For a second argument Ghesquière urges that the wife of Ragnovald in the year 581 fled into the church of St. Caprasius, built by St. Dulcidius, "as to an asylum venerable by ancient religion"; but St. Gregory of Tours History of the Franks, book VI, chapter XII, in Dom Bouquet, volume II, p. 274., from whose writings these things are drawn, does not have these words, "as to an asylum venerable by ancient religion," nor others like them. The historian of the Franks means nothing else than that on that occasion the right of asylum was violated; and since this pertained to new churches equally with old ones, the passage of Gregory becomes of less weight for referring the building of the church of Caprasius to the 5th century rather than to the 6th: whence we think this proof should be set aside. Ghesquière takes a third argument from the tradition of the Church of Agen, according to which, on the witness of Labénazie, the basilica of St. Caprasius was built at the end of the 4th century by St. Dulcidius, already bishop. The fourth argument he draws from the age of the writer of the Acts of SS. Faith and Caprasius, contemporary (as it seems) with St. Dulcidius, and who he thinks lived at the beginning of the 5th century. Of all these arguments I should believe the testimony of the Breviary of Agen to be the strongest. The brothers Sainte-Marthe, and after them Denis de Sainte-Marthe, assert without hesitation that St. Dulcidius held the see of Agen in the year 504; but from where they drew it they do not disclose; nay, they immediately add that nothing is found of him in the ancient monuments except what pertains to the translation of SS. Faith and Caprasius.
[6] he translates the bodies of SS. Faith and Caprasius, And rightly indeed: wherefore let us now present this translation from that very ancient writer, with Ghesquière's remarks added: "In which place," says that anonymous writer Acta Sanctorum, volume II of September, p. 272., speaking of the first burial, "the holy bodies (of SS. Faith, Caprasius, Primus and Felician) lay through many recurrences of years, until, all the profanity of heathenism having been taken away, St. Dulcidius [*] took up the episcopate and, bearing the pastoral charge, kept watch for the salvation of all. To which prelate it was pleasing before all things that, raising the relics of the saints from an unfitting place, he should bring them forth into the light for their veneration, a new basilica having been built, the church itself being dedicated under the title of the holy Virgin.
He, when he was opening so great a treasure, not, however, as one incredulous, but terrified by fear and reverence, hesitated for a rather long time; at last, admonished in the quiet of the night not to abandon negligently what he had faithfully begun, he called together the crowds of monks and the prelates of the other order, disclosed his secret to all, and, aided by their counsel, brought it through to completion. And the rest of the people, agreeing with their wishes, honourably raise the relics of the saints from the ignoble place and set them in a sacred place; by whose merits innumerable miracles are wrought from heaven for the salvation of all." This church of St. Faith was, on the witness of the writer of the Conques translation, "outside the wall of the city, toward the northern region, in the suburb" Ibid., p. 273..
[7] and he seems to have built not two but one "Further, that the bodies of St. Caprasius and perhaps of the other martyrs of Agen were buried by St. Dulcidius not in this but in an altogether different church, the writer himself most plainly declares, going on thus: 'But St. Caprasius he carried WITHIN the walls of the city to the church founded there (by Dulcidius himself, as a most ancient tradition holds), and laid him most diligently with like honour in a sarcophagus likewise of marble.' There agrees the author of the second Translation, written in verse, who perhaps also (as Ghesquière thinks) preceded that anonymous writer, and who, likewise asserting two churches, in one of which the body of St. Faith was buried and in the other that of St. Caprasius, reconciles the younger writer who dissents from the ancient anonymous one, and sheds light on his words, while he intimates that the remains of SS. Faith, Caprasius and the other martyrs were brought to light and fittingly laid together by Dulcidius in one and the same basilica, but that the body of the holy martyr was afterwards fittingly entombed in the suburban church, and the bodies of the others in the greater basilica of the city itself, singing thus of Dulcidius: 'He had found the long-hidden relics of Faith, the illustrious martyr, together with her companions, which he had fittingly laid within the walls of the city in the greater church, which was the chief one; but the body of the Virgin alone he buried separately in a certain building constructed in the suburb.'" Thus far Ghesquière Acta Sanctorum, volume II of September, place cited., asserting a double church.
[8] the church, namely, of St. Caprasius. Nevertheless, since the most ancient author of the Passion of SS. Faith and Companions mentions only one church; since similarly Hildebert See below in the present volume at the 20th of October, on St. Caprasius., in his Poems on the same Passion, speaks of only one church; and since, finally and thirdly, these plainly affirm that the bodies of the holy martyrs were buried in one and the same place; I should believe that the writers of the Conques Translation are not to be listened to, of whom the one put hand to pen after the year 937, the other between the years 1020 and 1060 Volume II of September, p. 274., and accordingly that only one church was built by St. Dulcidius, and the other, which existed in the 10th century, by one of his successors. And if it is asked which church is owed to the holy prelate, the answer seems to be that of St. Caprasius, which was within the walls of the city and of which St. Gregory of Tours speaks. Nor does it stand in the way that in the ancient Passion of SS. Faith and Companions is read: "the church itself being dedicated under the title of the holy Virgin"; that this is an addition of more recent time my colleague shows from manuscript codices in the Commentary on St. Caprasius, no. 30, which you have in the present volume on the 20th day of October. And since this addition lit the way for St. Hildebert also, it is no wonder that he too ascribed to St. Dulcidius the building of the church of St. Faith, but omitted the church of St. Caprasius. Other deeds attributed to St. Dulcidius can be elucidated in the annotations to his lessons.
Annotata* Dulcitius in the Utrecht manuscript.
* Agen.
LIFE OF ST. DULCIDIUS
From the Limoges Breviary published in the year 1625.
Dulcidius or Dulcitius, bishop and confessor, at Agen in Gaul. (S.)
The zeal of St. Dulcidius, bishop of Agen, is praised. Dulcissimus a, born of the royal blood of the Franks b, as a youth, having heard the fame of Fedarius c, bishop of Agen, left all things and betook himself to him. By him he was thoroughly taught in the divine letters, and it is wonderful how much he advanced in them in a short time afterwards, and practised piety to the great admiration of all. Wherefore, his excellent disposition of mind having been at once recognized, he is ordained deacon d, and is designated as future bishop of the people of Agen with the agreeing wishes of all e, and he did not disappoint the opinion conceived of him. For, promoted to that dignity, he was so beneficent to the poor that he reserved nothing for his own uses or those of his household. He most keenly defended the Catholic faith, and spent almost his whole life in extirpating heresies, especially the Arian impiety f. After so many labours and contests, heavy with years, illustrious for holiness of life and for miracles, he died happily on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of November g. His body was afterwards carried to Cambaretum h, a village of the diocese of Limoges: where among his other enormous miracles those with heart disease i are healed.