ON SS. SEVERINUS OF TONGRES AND FELIX I, HELD TO BE BISHOPS OF TRIER,
CRITICAL SYLLOGE.
Severinus of Tongres, confessor and bishop (S.)
Felix I, called of Trier, confessor and bishop (S.)
BY V. D. B.
§ Single. On the first bishops of Trier. Confusion of the bishops of Trier, Tongres and Cologne. Whether St. Felix of Trier existed. Whether he was not fashioned from the one of Metz. Whence the cult of St. Severinus arose.
[SS. Severinus I and Felix I, often mentioned already in the Acts, are announced anew on this day in some sacred calendars. St. Felix seems never to have been venerated;] On the sixth day of February, on which the solemn commemoration of all the saints of the city of Maastricht was formerly made there, in the Passed Over of that day St. Severinus, whom the people of Maastricht also claimed for themselves, was sent off by our predecessors to be illustrated at the present day; and this was done by them a second time in the Passed Over of the 18th day of April, on which day there was praised, in a manuscript addition to Usuard of a certain Carthusian of Brussels, St. Severinus, bishop of Trier and Tongres, and St. Felix, bishop of Trier. This St. Felix was likewise transferred there to the present day also; as also in the Passed Over of the 11th day of April, at which they wrote these words: St. Felix, bishop of Trier and martyr, is celebrated in the manuscript Florarium of the saints. He seems to be the sixth bishop of the church of Trier and to have flourished in the second century of Christ. Brower, in book II of the Annals of Trier, page 187, says that “his having departed from the midst without the crown of martyrdom moves no slight suspicion for believing it;” and so he is reported without mention of martyrdom in the Martyrology printed at Cologne and Lübeck in the year 1490: and by Greven in the additions to Usuard he is called a confessor; but on a day on which he is reported again in the Florarium, the 24th of October. Elsewhere, however, the name of that St. Felix does not appear, nor is he listed in any liturgical calendars of Trier; and that he was reported at this day by Greven and by the author of the Florarium and of the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard, the cause is this, that namesakes are wont, where the birthday lies hidden, to be proclaimed on the feast day of some more celebrated man; so that for no other reason was the name of St. Felix of Trier attached to the present day than that on it St. Felix of Tubzoca was venerated. Nor is this an empty conjecture; for as his name appears in no calendars of Trier, either ancient or more recent, so in the Calendar of the close of the thirteenth century, prefixed to the weekly book of the church of St. Simeon, one reads Hontheim, Prodromus historiæ ecclesiæ Trevirensis, volume I, page 406.: IX kal. Nov. Of Felix, bishop, and Boniface, Pope; which are doubtless abridged from the Martyrology either of Ado or of the augmented Usuard [Compare the editions of Usuard by Sollerius and of Ado by Giorgi at the 24th day of October.], and by which SS. Felix, bishop of Tubzoca, and Boniface, Pope I, are understood. It may also have come about that the cult of St. Felix of Tubzoca, copies of whose Passion were scattered through the whole world, prevailed there for some time, just as we shall say in its place that it obtained at Tournai and Utrecht.
[2] but St. Severinus even now has an ecclesiastical office. Better is the condition of St. Severinus, who is truly venerated by the people of Trier. In the Lectionary of certain saints of the diocese of Trier, printed in the year 1645, his feast is ordered to be kept on this day at simple rite, everything being drawn from the Common. But in the Proper Offices of the archdiocese of Trier, brought to light in the year 1706, the same office is prescribed to be celebrated with the following proper third lesson: Severinus, first bishop of that name of the Trevirans, succeeded St. Metropolus as in episcopal dignity so also in the honour of martyrdom, at a time still when to be called to the episcopate and to martyrdom appeared to be the same thing for most prelates. Whence no one readily came to the pontifical staff unless he was ready, by the purpose of a holy life, to undergo death for Christ. Severinus certainly approached the administration of the church of Trier both with excellent care for his sheep and with a heart resigned to laying down his life. Nor was he long cheated of this expectation of his, for having completed the fourth year of his rule, already ripe for heaven, he became a victim of the tyrant Maximian at Trier. With a better right, therefore, than concerning St. Felix one reads on this day in the Lübeck-Cologne and in Greven's edition of the Martyrology of Usuard: At Trier, of Blessed or St. Severinus the First, bishop and martyr. Ferrarius has the same in his general catalogue of the saints, borrowing them from the Natales sanctorum Belgii of Molanus, where it is added: Who with the church of Trier administered also that of Tongres, not yet divided from it.
[3] [Under those names lies hidden the whole controversy over the time of the preaching among
of the Gospel at Trier, on which some general observations are made.] I need not point out here again that under the names of SS. Felix I and Severinus I there lies hidden the whole question of the preaching of the Gospel at Trier. But since this has been duly elucidated by my colleague at the 17th day of October, on which St. Florentius is venerated by the people of Trier, I may surely abstain from treating it anew. Afterwards, indeed, the Rev. Dom Marx, professor of ecclesiastical history and canon law in the seminary of Trier, published a learned dissertation on the same matter Geschichte des Erzstifts Trier, volume I, part I, page 30 and following.; but since he has not read my colleague's lucubration, and much less refuted it, there is no reason why I should call this argument back to the anvil, much less depart from my colleague's opinions. But whoever holds that already in the first century of the Christian era the Christian religion had become known in those parts ought not on that account to admit all the names of bishops that are carried about everywhere; and I shall myself openly declare that St. Felix, called the First and bishop of Trier, seems to me to be fashioned from St. Felix, bishop of Metz, and to have been referred to this day (as I have already pointed out) on account of St. Felix of Tubzoca; while St. Severinus, likewise called the First and bishop of Trier, is the same as St. Severinus of Tongres, whom they have confounded with St. Severinus of Cologne; of whom we treated at the preceding day. This opinion is indeed midway between those who admit and those who cast away all the names in controversy; nor does it shrink from gaps and interruptions in the catalogues of bishops, and it readily admits bishops who presided at several dioceses at once. For he deceives himself who measures the affairs of the primitive Christian Church according to the manners and laws of today. It is plainly not to be thought that in the first times the dioceses were defined by fixed limits; which did not obtain even in Cyprus, as is clear from the controversy of St. Epiphanius, at the end of the fourth century. Further, when bishops died others were not immediately substituted, but very often the sees were left vacant, the care of the administration devolving on the neighbouring bishops. Generally, in so great a scarcity of workers, account was taken rather of the power of order than of jurisdiction. In a word, the presidents of the churches had the manner of regionary bishops, who were attached to no single place, but in the apostolic fashion went round the surrounding regions; a discipline which the Scottish or Irish church, far more tenacious than others of its former customs, observed for a very long time. It is also a common error that the churches were formerly diligent in writing down and transmitting to posterity the catalogues of their bishops; whereas in the most ancient catalogue of the Roman church, commonly called the Liberian, there are missing the names of three most celebrated pontiffs, Anicetus, Eleutherius and Zephyrinus; which, unless we knew them from St. Irenaeus, Tertullian and Eusebius, would lie buried in thick night. If anyone keeps these things before his eyes, he will not trust much to catalogues of definite bishops, to measure from them at what time the Christian faith was first planted anywhere; nor will he wonder that one and the same bishop is held common to several sees, whether this comes about because he really at some time had charge of the Christian cause in several cities, or the cause of it is later historians, who, seeing an empty space, thought it should be filled up with names called in from the neighbourhood. Nor need these things be pursued at greater length for it to be understood that it can be established that the Catholic faith was sown at Trier in the first century of the Christian era, and yet that there can be gaps or lacunae in the series of bishops.
[4] The Gesta Trevirorum and Heriger of Lobbes on our saints: Let us now come to the Gesta Trevirorum, such as Pertz has recently published them with the utmost zeal and diligence. We read in them these words Monumenta Germaniæ, volume VIII, page 148.: Then, namely after St. Maternus, a certain Auspicius held the government. Then, by lawful successions, there stood forth, distinguished, mighty in sanctity and grace, Felix, Mansuetus, Clement, Moses, Martin, Anastasius, Andrew, Rusticus, Auctor, Fauricius, Fortunatus, Cassian, Mark, Navitus, Marcellus, Metropolus, Severinus, Florentius, Martin, Maximinus, Valentine, of whom the last eight are known to have presided also over the church of Tongres; all of whom at different times, being active and illustrious, not only in their own province but also in the farthest and remotest parts, not only by confession but by martyrdom too, overcame even the kingdoms of the tyrants. All which bishops are believed to have been buried in the church of St. Eucharius. These words are lacking, Calmet notes, in the ancient codex of St. Matthias of Trier, the source of the Gesta, and Hontheim points out the same concerning a certain other codex Compare Pertz at the place cited.. In the twelfth century Pseudo-Methodius first indicated the fourteen earlier names; the eight later ones the compiler of the Gesta afterwards added from Heriger, abbot of Lobbes Compare the same, ibidem.. Pseudo-Methodius I omit; but take the words of Heriger, a writer of the end of the tenth century In Pertz, volume VII, page 171.: On the eight bishops who succeeded Blessed Maternus in the see of Tongres. And he (namely St. Maternus) having been taken from among men, second in that chair sat Navitus, third Marcellus, fourth Metropolus, fifth Severinus, sixth Florentius, seventh Martin, eighth Maximinus, ninth Valentine. In the times of what emperors or consuls they shone, and what ends of life each had, and for how many years each administered the office of the pontificate, or where the tomb of each is, or how much each enlarged the revenues of his church, since the overthrow of all Gaul by the Huns has abolished the record not only of our churches but of others, let no reader's exaction require of us. This we hold for certain, that the resources of all the churches abounded about those times in which Constantine Augustus of divine memory presided over the Roman world, then his sons Constans and Constantius.
[5] [The commentary of Giles of Orval. The eight bishops, called of Tongres by Heriger, seem to have administered at the same time the church of Cologne and that of Trier.] To omit the others, as not pertaining here, Giles of Orval, a writer of the middle of the thirteenth century, added these words by way of commentary to those of Heriger on St. Severinus In Chapeaville, Gesta pontificum Tungrensium, volume I, page 23.: The fifth bishop, mighty with five talents, was the holy prelate Severinus. This St. Severinus is not that archbishop of Cologne of whom one reads in the Life of St. Martin, but there was another before him… When the overthrow by the Huns was impending, Blessed Servatius, of whom we are to speak, translated their bodies buried in the city of Tongres to Maastricht, and in the crypt where he himself was afterwards buried he honourably buried them, with many other relics of saints which he had translated from the city of Tongres. And it must not be passed over that these eight bishops already mentioned are read to have presided also over the church of Trier; namely in the Acts of Trier recited a little above: indeed this is hinted at by Heriger himself. For this writer, where he first related that SS. Eucharius, Valerius and Maternus entered the city of the Trevirans, that everywhere the Trinity which they preached might be truly known under the worship of the one true God, says that under the pontificate of each one of these three they added to themselves two other adjoining cities, Agrippina surnamed Cologne and Tongres; and then he explains the deeds of each and their burial in the suburban or cemeterial basilica of Trier of St. Eucharius, afterwards St. Matthias; and finally he passes on to the eight bishops who succeeded Blessed Maternus in the see of Tongres; and so the churches of Tongres, Trier and Cologne were held by Heriger to have been one single church in the first three centuries of the Christian era. It can therefore be said, on Heriger's witness, that St. Severinus of Trier was at the same time bishop of Tongres and Cologne.
[6] [The statements of Heriger, namely the names of the eight bishops alone, are to be admitted; the rest, added afterwards, seem to deserve neglect.] But in truth, are those eight bishops, listed by Heriger, but so long unknown to the people of Trier, to be admitted? First of all, no one can rightly deny that they were at least bishops of Tongres; and it is very likely that the Christians of Cologne and Trier also were governed by them; and indeed I should think that, moved by this likelihood, the monks of St. Matthias at Trier transferred St. Severinus and the seven others mentioned by Heriger into their Gesta Trevirorum. That they most certainly presided over the people of Tongres rests, it is true, on the single witness of Heriger; but this is so weighty that, even if it stands alone, it merits belief. For no one in that age approached writing furnished with more aids than Heriger, as his more recent editor Koepke has diligently noted In Pertz, volume VII, page 144., accurately listing the books and all the writings that the abbot of Lobbes had at hand; but even he could not list all; since Heriger himself has passed over many in silence. And Heriger is most prudent in reporting things, and wonderfully cautious. Truly it is of an ingenuous spirit, says Koepke Ibid. page 144 and 145., that confession which he brings forward, that it is better “modestly to confess ignorance than irreverently to lie for the sake of piety.” And in fact in that very passage which I reported from him above, he brings forward the names of the bishops of Tongres as certain, because he had before his eyes a good catalogue; all the rest he professes not to know: namely at what time they flourished; what death, natural or bloody, they met; how long they held the episcopate; what they did; where they were buried. From which it is clear at the same time what credit the Gesta Trevirorum deserves, when it testifies that these bishops were martyrs and were buried in the basilica of St. Eucharius or St. Matthias; and similarly what is to be thought of Giles of Orval, where he maintains that they were first buried at Tongres and then translated by St. Servatius to Maastricht.
[7] [Hontheim contends that our St. Severinus is the same as the bishop of Cologne venerated on the 23rd day of October;] Giles of Orval pointed out above that our St. Severinus is not the same as St. Severinus, prelate of Cologne, of whom one reads in the Life of St. Martin, and whose acts my colleague illustrated yesterday. But Hontheim thinks quite otherwise. There is preserved, he says Historia Trevirensis diplomatica, volume I, page XXIX., in the library of St. Simeon at Trier a Psalter, written in the eleventh century (as far as may be gathered from the form of the letters, the parchment and other things), and which is believed to have been among the first choir-books used by the same collegiate church, founded about the year 1042. To it is prefixed a Calendar, written by the same hand as the Psalter itself. Since very many days in it were vacant, a later age, neither by one hand nor at the same time, inserted in it feasts introduced later. Of the nine saints whom we have just mentioned, and who were venerated by the people of Trier in Hontheim's time, only four are seen in this Calendar, and among these only one written in the original script, namely on the tenth day before the kalends of November (23 October) Of Severinus, Bishop, without however the addition of Trier or even Martyr. On the same day the churches of Cologne and Bordeaux
celebrate the feast of St. Severinus, as the proper prelate of each of them, who departed this life about the beginning of the fifth century; an undoubted argument that he is the same saint who is venerated on the same day at Trier also. Today, indeed, the people of Trier keep the feast of St. Severinus on the following day (the translation of St. Maternus, which is now more solemnly celebrated on the tenth day before the kalends of November, being an impediment), and indeed as that of a bishop and martyr crowned at Trier under Maximian (as is recited in the newer lesson). But the identity of the feast and the saint is preserved by another Calendar of the thirteenth century, which is prefixed to a manuscript of St. Maximin's (in which are contained a Martyrology, the Rule of St. Benedict and a Menology), in which at the often mentioned tenth day before the kalends of November one reads together: Of Severinus, Bishop. Translation of St. Maternus; and in the Martyrology of the same codex on the very same day: At Cologne, of Severinus, Bishop.
[8] [indeed by an error that cult was substituted for the cult of St. Severinus of Cologne; but the two are certainly different;] Whoever should affirm that there is nothing good in this argumentation of Hontheim's would doubtless have to be called little fair. In my judgment it is most certainly established that the people of Trier from the eleventh century (in the calendar prefixed to the Psalter of St. Maximin, which was written at the beginning of the tenth century or even earlier, and is now kept in our museum, the name of St. Severinus does not yet appear) — in my opinion, I say, it is certain that the people of Trier in the eleventh century, in which the Calendar and Psalter of St. Simeon were written Compare Hontheim, Prodromus historiæ Trevirensis, volume I, page 385 and 392., venerated St. Severinus of Cologne on the 23rd day of October; similarly in the twelfth century, in whose year 1128 the ecclesiastical Computus, again of St. Simeon's, was written with a Calendar Ibid. page 399.; and likewise in the following century, as is established both from the Calendar of St. Maximin praised by Hontheim, and from the Calendar of the Weekly Book of St. Simeon Ibid. page 406., where at the 23rd day of October one reads: Translation of St. Maternus and of Severinus, bishop; and at the 24th, as I have already pointed out: Of Felix, bishop, and Boniface, Pope. This arrangement, as far as concerns SS. Severinus and Maternus, is still observed in the Breviary according to the use of the monasteries of SS. Maximin, Willibrord and Nabor, printed in the year 1600 by the monks of St. Maximin; so that their names are inscribed in the Calendar at the 23rd, and the office is made from the Common of confessors with a proper prayer in which the names of both saints are joined. Further, it seems to me certain that Hontheim rightly said that the feast of St. Severinus of Cologne was deferred from the 23rd day of October to the 24th on account of the concurrent translation of St. Maternus; for where St. Severinus, bishop, is inscribed in the Calendars of Trier under the 23rd day of October, no St. Severinus appears on the following day; but where he has found a place on the 24th, no further memory of him is made on the preceding day: and I do not see what could be stronger than this for demonstrating the translation of a feast. Now (as was apt to happen) when ignorance had gradually crept in as to who that St. Severinus was who was venerated on the 24th day of October, he was thought to have been a bishop of Trier; which error must be older than the end of the fifteenth century, since it occurs in the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard, and was then repeated by Greven. Thus far, therefore, we agree with Hontheim; but we depart from him altogether where he maintains that the people of Trier or Tongres had no Severinus of their own, and that they took this one to themselves from that translation of the feast of St. Severinus of Cologne. This is not so at all. He was known to them through Heriger three centuries before the feast of St. Severinus of Cologne was moved from its place in any calendars of Trier. Let the festivity of St. Severinus of Tongres or Trier, which is now kept on the 24th day of October, be said therefore to have arisen from an error; I shall in no way oppose it, indeed I shall approve it: but let it by no means be established that St. Severinus, bishop of Tongres or Trier, did not exist, and that he who is now venerated is no other than the one of Cologne; that is utterly false. When, however, the people of Tongres began to venerate St. Severinus is hidden from me; they are said, however, to have venerated him, although the people of Maastricht and Liège, who could have done so by the same right, do not seem ever to have done so. In the old Breviary of Tongres of St. Servatius, says Ghesquière Acta SS. Belgii, volume I, page 174., his feast is assigned at the tenth day before the kalends of November, and besides a proper prayer there are prescribed in his ecclesiastical office three lessons to be recited, which treat of his deeds and of other things pertaining to him. But I greatly fear that Ghesquière has confounded St. Severinus of Tongres with St. Severinus of Cologne, venerated on the tenth day before the kalends of November.
[9] [he is likewise to be distinguished from the St. Severinus who on the 21st of December is listed in the Martyrologies among the bishops of Trier.] But if it is asked at what time St. Severinus lived, there are as many opinions as heads. For each sells his own conjectures and divinations. Whether he died a martyr or a confessor, whether he was buried at Tongres or at Trier, some determine one way and some another, each contending for the glory of his fatherland. But it is not pleasing even to examine these things, as we are content with Heriger to be ignorant of all this. There remains therefore this one thing to observe, that our St. Severinus is different from another St. Severinus, likewise called bishop of Trier and praised by Baronius in the Roman Martyrology at the 21st day of October in these words: At Trier, of St. Severinus, bishop and confessor. In the notes to this passage Baronius teaches that he received this memorial from the additions to Usuard, especially that of Molanus; where most certainly, as may be seen from Sollerius's edition, there is celebrated St. Severinus the Second, bishop of Trier. In the Lectionary of Trier too, printed in the year 1645, a double commemoration of St. Severinus of Trier is prescribed, one on the 24th day of October, the other on the 21st day of December; but this latter was afterwards suppressed, since St. Severinus, celebrated on the 21st day of December, seemed to be the same saint as St. Severinus of Bordeaux, who is venerated on the 23rd day of October. Certainly the Acts of both are the same; but whether they are one and the same person, as Hontheim and others maintain, can be more opportunely examined elsewhere.
[10] [St. Felix I, bishop of Trier, first brought forward by Pseudo-Methodius, seems the same as St. Felix of Metz.] The condition of the affairs of St. Felix, bishop of Trier, is far worse. I should not wish to renew the whole controversy over the ancient bishops of Trier; but I shall candidly confess that most of those whom Heriger does not have seem to me to be called in from elsewhere, and that the conjecture of Hontheim Historia Trevirensis diplomatica, volume I, page XXXII. and Perier Acta SS. volume IV of September, page 373. is approved by me, that St. Felix I of Trier is the same as St. Felix of Metz, of whom our predecessors spoke at the day on which he is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, the 21st of January. I have already pointed out that that Felix I of Trier was brought out of the darkness by Pseudo-Methodius; to which observation I shall here add that the chronicle of this masked man, on which they formerly relied very much (because it had been sprinkled into the Chronicle of Blessed Marianus Scotus, in the form in which it was edited by Pistorius), has almost lost whatever authority it still preserved on account of the name and merits of Blessed Marianus Scotus; for since the time when Pertz published the book of Blessed Marianus according to the pure copies, it is established that that writing was never used by the Scottish chronologist, but that it was stuffed into his work by some monk of St. Disibod. For the rest, that holy Felix never had a feast day or commemoration at Trier; and since the Floraria and the additions to Usuard cited at the outset are very slight indications of ecclesiastical cult, it can be doubted whether there were admitted concerning that St. Felix other things than historical errors.