Amandus of Strasbourg

ON ST. AMANDUS OF STRASBOURG, CONFESSOR AND BISHOP, FIRST BISHOP OF STRASBOURG,

AFTER THE YEAR 346.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Amandus, confessor and bishop, at Strasbourg. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. St. Amandus, first bishop of Strasbourg, whether different from St. Amandus of Maastricht.

When about the year of Christ 980 Cf. Grandidier, Hist. de l'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 140. an anonymous St. Amandus, who in the 10th century was held to be the apostle of Strasbourg, monk of Lure published the Life he had written of St. Deicolus, formerly abbot of Lure, not far from Luxeuil in the county of Burgundy, and before that a disciple of St. Columban, the people of Strasbourg reputed and venerated as sowers of the Christian faith among them and as patrons of their city SS. Amandus, Justinus, Arbogast, Florentius and some others. For that biographer, reviewing in his first chapter the more important saints who at that time were receiving ecclesiastical honours in various places of Gaul, namely at Paris, Tours, Poitiers, Limoges, Bourges, Orléans, Fleury, Lyon, Reims, Soissons, Toul, Metz and Trier, before he comes to Besançon, utters these words concerning the apostles and patrons of Strasbourg Acta SS. vol. II of January, p. 201.: Nor does it seem that we should carelessly pass over the parts of Alsace on this side of the Vosges, whose head and whole glory is recognized to be the city of Argentina, which by a common term is called Strazburch; which, apart from the principal relics, rejoices to possess its own patrons, whom it received from the Lord as founders of the true faith and lavish sowers of the divine word, that is, Amandus, Justinus, Arbogast, Florentius and some others, whose names that heavenly palace holds without end traced or written in the white roll of the blessed order. It is plain, then, that these four most blessed men were reckoned among the saints in the 10th century; that their bodies were preserved in the diocese of Strasbourg besides other principal relics; and finally that they were held to be bishops of Strasbourg and as it were apostles.

[2] and he was placed at the head of the catalogues of the prelates of that see, These things agree with what Erchanbald, bishop of Strasbourg from the year 965 to 991, wrote in verse shortly before his death concerning his predecessors, beginning with these words [Boecler, Kulpis and Schilter, Scriptores rerum germanicarum, part III, p. 120; J. F. Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germanicarum, vol. III, pp. XIII and 1.]:

Alpha shines, the worthy father of this see, Amandus; Justus, follower of the highest justice, is added after; Hence Maximinus bears the staff, worn * in the line: And Valentinus then, a blessed pastor: Solarius at last possessed the same chair.

And in a Catalogue of the bishops of Strasbourg, written (as it seems) in the 12th century, there come In Boehmer, vol. cited, p. XIII. these first names of the bishops of Strasbourg. St. Amandus. Justus. Maximinus. Valentinus. Solarius. Arbogast. Florentius. And in another, which ends at the year 1299 Ibid. p. 5.: Here begin all the names of the bishops of Strasbourg: St. Amandus first. St. Justus, second bishop. Maximus third, and so in order to the end. Valentinus. Solarius. St. Arbogast. St. Florentius; and in a third Ibid. p. XVI. Maximinus also, Valentinus and Solarius are called saints. It is agreed, then, that St. Amandus was the first bishop of Strasbourg. To which is added the very presence of his body: the fortunes of which we shall explain below.

[3] is falsely by many, especially by Schoepflin, who long thought otherwise, These things, if they stood alone, would plainly suffice to show that St. Amandus, bishop of Strasbourg, is different from St. Amandus, prelate of Maastricht. Yet the two were once confused, until in the middle of the 17th century Henschen in the Life of this St. Amandus, at the 6th day of February, distinguished them from each other, with such authority that it is a wonder that grave men should afterwards have arisen who would have the prelate of Maastricht to be the author of the episcopate of Strasbourg. There were such, however; among whom none has gained greater praise for learning than Schoepflin. Yet that learned man did not always follow this opinion. In the Illustres ex Clodovei historia controversiae, a dissertation he published in the year 1725 Number XIV, p. 17., and published again in the Commentationes historicae et criticae in the year 1741 Number XIV, p. 381., he had openly taught that traces of the episcopate of Strasbourg are already found in the fourth century; similarly in the Dissertation on the monument of the Tribocci, which he read publicly at Paris in the year 1738, on the 21st day of February, after he had mentioned the Notitia of the empire, written about the year 400, he had added Mémoires de I'académie des inscriptions, vol. XV, p. 458. that shortly afterwards Strasbourg, when the Christian faith had prevailed there, was made the episcopal see of Lower Alsace or of the ancient Tribocci; and finally, when in the year 1748 at the request of Cardinal de Rohan he wrote the catalogue of the bishops of Strasbourg to be prefixed to the new Ritual, he recorded in the 4th century both the birth of the episcopal chair of Strasbourg and the ordination of St. Amandus, its first prelate In Grandidier, Histoire de I'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, pp. 75 and 76..

[4] confused with St. Amandus, bishop of Maastricht. But three years later, when at Colmar he brought to light the first volume of Alsatia illustrata, he defended altogether different positions, namely that in the 4th century there was no Amandus, bishop of Strasbourg, and that Erchanbald in his poem not

meant that supposed Amandus of the 4th century, but the Aquitanian Amandus of the 7th century, who, being bishop of Maastricht, was called into Alsace by Dagobert. This I determine, he says Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, p. 337., for two reasons: I. Since Erchanbald mentions only one Amandus, surely that one is to be understood who was renowned for miracles among the Alsatians, who is celebrated in the catalogue of saints, of whom the Alsatian annals of the middle age speak in rivalry; for the other, of the 4th century, is neither enrolled among the saints nor celebrated for any deed. II. Between Amandus and Arbogast Erchanbald placed only four bishops: but how is it possible that in three whole centuries only four prelates occupied the episcopal throne of Strasbourg? This latter argument is plainly laughable, since the ancient catalogues of bishops of almost all sees, and also the Liberian one of the Roman pontiffs, have gaps, because the names of ancient prelates, especially if they lacked ecclesiastical cult, were obliterated by forgetfulness and neglect. What of the fact that (as we shall say in its place) Strasbourg, when it perished in the 5th century by the incursions of the Germans, could not but lose its episcopal chair? so that the list of the prelates of Strasbourg is perhaps complete; although between SS. Amandus and Arbogast there are only three names whose memory has reached us.

[5] [As by the testimony of Erchanbald, by the silence of the biographers of St. Amandus of Maastricht, by the writing of the Life of St. Amandus of Strasbourg by Utho, and by the existence of two bodies] Nor is the former reason of any weight. For first St. Amandus of Maastricht was never bishop of Strasbourg; and so, since Erchanbald in this verse:

Alpha shines, the worthy father of this see, Amandus,

openly speaks of the first bishop of Strasbourg, a stale error should not rashly be fastened on him. Secondly in the several Lives of St. Amandus of Maastricht, in which his affairs are most accurately explained, far from its being narrated that he went off to Strasbourg and there performed the episcopal office, not even by a trace is it indicated that he ever turned his journey to these parts. Thirdly, since there existed several Lives of St. Amandus of Maastricht, there was no reason for Utho, who bore the mitre of Strasbourg before Erchanbald, to write his Life; and yet Wilhelm Eisengrein, who in the middle of the 16th century laboured on the library they call ecclesiastical, mentions that there was written by that Utho, besides the Life of St. Arbogast, which our predecessors edited at the 21st day of July Acta SS. vol. V of July, p. 168 and following., a Life of St. Amandus, surely the bishop of Strasbourg. And although this is not to be found in the appendix to the Lombard History or Golden Legend, which was printed at Strasbourg in the years 1491, 1492 and 1496 and at Hagenau in the year 1516 There are copies in our Museum., and although our Henschen Acta SS. vol. I of February, p. 829., the writers of Gallia Christiana Vol. V, cols. 777 and 789. and Philippe Grandidier Hist. de l'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, pp. 74 and 75, 126 and 127. have searched in vain for this Life, and our fortune has been no better, yet no one refuses credit to Eisengrein; indeed, on his authority Possevino Apparatus sacer, vol. II, p. 546., Vossius De scriptoribus historicis latinis, second edition, p. 346., Fabricius Biblioth. med. et inf. latinitatis, under Utho., Du Cange Index auctorum, under Utho. and Rivet Hist. litt. de France, vol. VI, p. 304. ascribe a Life of St. Amandus to Utho, prelate of Strasbourg in the middle of the 10th century; judging that it is now lost. Fourthly the body of St. Amandus of Maastricht was preserved at Elnone in the territories of Belgium, but that of St. Amandus of Strasbourg in this his own diocese: nor may one here think of some relics, which elsewhere are often called a body; but it will appear in its place that the whole body, so that nothing but an arm bone was lacking, was and still is among the people of Strasbourg.

[6] and by the novelty of that opinion, which is not older than the 15th century: Fifthly the Alsatian annals of the middle age by no means speak in rivalry of St. Amandus of Maastricht; that is a more recent error, not older than the 15th century. For in the Calendar (which Beck edited under the title of German Martyrology, but which is shown to be the calendar of a men's monastery of the diocese of Strasbourg on the one hand by the names of presbyters and monks inscribed in the Necrology, and on the other by the feasts of St. Aurelia, virgin of Strasbourg, SS. Arbogast and Florentius, bishops of Strasbourg, St. Attala, abbess of St. Stephen of Strasbourg, and St. Odilia, abbess of Hohenburg, in the diocese of Strasbourg), at the 6th day of February there occurs indeed the name of St. Vedast, but by no means of St. Amandus Martyrologium Ecclesiæ germanicæ, p. III and following.; which also appears in the second place in the Rheinau calendar of the diocese of Strasbourg Gerbert, Monumenta veteris liturgiæ allemanicæ, part I, p. 457.; nor does the same recur anywhere else. The name of St. Amandus of Strasbourg is indeed absent too; but since that was always obscure, whereas the memory of St. Amandus of Maastricht has always been celebrated, the condition of each is different. This argument alone would suffice to persuade us that St. Amandus of Maastricht never stayed at Strasbourg, much less was bishop there. And that the error consisting in confounding the two into one is not older than the 15th century, we have Schoepflin himself as witness Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, p. 337.; who, where he reviews those on whom he relies, first brings forward Königshofen, chronographer of the 15th century, who in the Latin manuscript Chronicle of Strasbourg (for Schilter edited the German one) added this scholium to the first verse of Erchanbald's poem: “This Amandus was the first bishop of Strasbourg. He died in the year of the Lord 620, as is read in the Lombard (rather Lombardic) history. But in other legends it is read that he was in the times of Dagobert, king of the Franks, who began to reign in the year of the Lord 631 (rather 622 in Austrasia, and 628 in the monarchy) and reigned 34 years (rather down to the year 638); whose son Amandus baptized (in the year 635 at Orléans), imposing on him the name Sigebert. Whom St. Arbogast afterwards raised from death.” Of the same opinion, Schoepflin thus goes on, is Jakob Wimpfeling Catalogus episcoporum Argentinensium, p. 7 and following., living almost a hundred years after Königshofen. In agreement finally are Caspar Brusch De episcopatibus Germaniæ, p. 55., François Guillimann De episcopis Argent., p. 69. and Gabriel Bucelin Germania sacra, part I, p. 7.. Why did Schoepflin not add that in the Breviaries of Strasbourg, printed in the years 1478 and 1489, at the 26th day of October there exist lessons taken from the Life of St. Amandus of Maastricht, but transferred to St. Amandus of Strasbourg Cf. Acta Sanctorum, vol. I of February, p. 829.? as though, that is, Dagobert had called him from Maastricht and placed him over the new chair of Strasbourg.

[7] [It has happened rather often that the Life of one saint has been applied to another.] But neither from this place, nor from the writers reviewed by Schoepflin, can anything else be gathered except that in the 15th century the two most holy men were confounded with each other and that the Acts of one were attributed to the other. Which is by no means rare: certainly from the time when we took up anew the task of illustrating the Acts of the saints, there has met us at the 16th day of October the Passion of St. Symphorian, martyr of Autun, with the name changed, transferred to St. Silvanus, martyr of Ahun Ibid., vol. VII of October, p. 823 and following., and two days later to St. Caprasius, bishop of Agen Ibid., vol. VIII of October, p. 816.. But there is perhaps no more splendid example than that the Acts of St. Odilia, abbess of Hohenburg in Alsace, were fastened upon St. Adela, who is festively venerated in Orp-le-Grand, a village of the diocese of Mechelen, on the 30th day of the month of June Ibid., vol. V of June, p. 587.; and indeed there are now shown in that parish the sites of seven churches, designated in the Life of St. Odilia, the seat of the monastery and all the rest, which have never been seen outside Alsace. Hence it was easy for those saints to whom the same deeds were ascribed, especially if they were of the same name, to be fused into one; indeed at the 12th day of February you have a specimen of this in St. Eulalia of Barcelona and St. Eulalia of Merida: whose Acts having been confused, their persons also were confused Ibid., vol. II of February, p. 576.. But nothing is more customary in this our arena, as Henschen long ago observed Ibid., p. 742. Cf. vol. VIII of Oct., p. 323.. From these things, then, nothing whatever can be gathered to establish that St. Amandus of Maastricht was the founder of the episcopal chair of Strasbourg or that he ever sat in it; so that the arguments by which we indicated at the beginning that the prelate of Strasbourg was an individual man, plainly different from the bishop of Maastricht, remain altogether intact.

[8] [The two Saints Amandus are distinguished above all because the one of Strasbourg was present at the council of Cologne in the year 346.] Which matter can be shown much more luminously from his presence at the synod of Cologne, held in the year 346 against Euphrates, prelate of Cologne. But there have arisen so many controversies about the council of Cologne that it seems necessary to discourse on it separately; all the more because not so long ago there have come forth most weighty documents by which the difficulty raised against the Acts of that assembly is wholly removed.

* trinus threefold

§ II. St. Amandus was present at the council of Cologne, by which Bishop Euphrates was condemned. Opposing opinions on this council.

[St. Amandus was present at the council of Cologne in the year 346 and consented to the deposition of Euphrates, who] After the consulate, then, of Amantius and Albinus, that is, in the year 346, on the 4th before the Ides of May, when the bishops had taken their seats in the city of the Agrippinenses, that is, Maximinus of Trier, Valentinus of Arles, Donatian of Chalon, Severinus of Sens, Optatian of Troyes, Jesses of the Nemetes, Victor of the Vangiones, Valerian of Auxerre, Simplicius of Autun, [had denied the divine nature of Christ before many and before St. Athanasius himself.] Amandus of Strasbourg, Justinian of the Raurici, Eulogius of Amiens, Servatius of the Tungri, Discolius of Reims: Martin, bishop of Mainz, Victor of the Mediomatrici, Desiderius of Langres, Pancharius of Besançon, Sanctinus of Verdun, Victorinus of Paris, Superior of the Nervii, Mercurius of Soissons, Diopetus of Orléans, and Eusebius of Rouen consenting and giving their mandate; and when the letter of the people of the Agrippinenses, and also of all the camps of Germania Secunda, had been recited, concerning the name of Euphrates, who denied Christ as God Labbe, Collectio conciliorum, vol. II, col. 615 and following.; those bishops one by one in their order pronounced sentence against Euphrates; among whom Bishop Amandus said: Since indeed in the present, when Euphrates received sentence from five bishops, I confess myself to be in agreement among them; I who by my letters consented to deposing the same, in accordance with the false doctrine of the man who denies Christ the Lord as God, it is established that sentence has deservedly been passed upon him: to whose condemnation I consent.

The rest spoke similarly. Yet Jesses, bishop of the Nemetes or of Speyer, brought forward some particular things. Not only, he said, by the letters of all the churches, which have heard that Euphrates denied Christ as God, but because I myself heard it with my own ears in the presence of Martin, our fellow elder, and Metropius the presbyter, and Quintinus the presbyter, and Victor the deacon, therefore I have consented that he has been justly deposed. And Servatius, bishop of Tongeren, said: What Euphrates the pseudo-bishop has done, or what he has taught, I have learned not by opinion, but in truth, by reason of the city adjoining a neighbouring place: and I have often opposed him publicly and privately, when he denied Christ as God, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, hearing it (in the Life of St. Servatius: learning of it), and very many presbyters and deacons. And therefore I judge that he cannot be a bishop to Christians, because he denied Christ as God with a sacrilegious voice: and that he is not to be judged a Christian who shall have been found to be his neighbour.

[10] [The Acts of that council, long since known and rightly approved by the best critics.] Those who in former times would have it that no credit is to be given to the Acts of this synod could not, however, deny them the praise of antiquity, since they were read by the ancient biographer of St. Servatius Ibid. col. 618., by the biographer of St. Severinus, the successor of Euphrates, which biographer lived in the 8th century Grandidier, Hist. de l'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 66., and also by the anonymous writer who in the 8th century wrote the Acts of St. Maximinus edited by the Bollandists Acta SS. vol. VI of May, p. 873.; to whom are added other more recent writers who used those monuments [Bertharius, Jucundus, Aegidius, writer of the History of Trier etc. in Binterim, Geschichte der deutsche Concilien, vol. I, p. 359.]. From which it is manifest that the Acts of that synod were kept in episcopal archives before the Normans and other barbarians laid waste the banks of the Rhine and the Meuse. But their form too is such that even the fiercest assailants of the genuineness of these Acts, I mean Hedderich and Molkenbuhr In the same author, vol. cited, p. 364., agree that they were written and fabricated in the 4th century by the Arians, in order to destroy the memory of Euphrates, their strongest adversary; just as of Pope Liberius, Hosius of Cordoba, Potamius of Lisbon, Phoebadius and even St. Servatius of Tongeren; from whom however Binterim departs Ibid. p. 376., wanting them to have been forged in the 8th or 9th century. But those who have been the most diligent of all in collecting and treating the acts of councils have with almost one voice, although the time assigned to the synod of Sardica made an insoluble knot, received the Acts of the council of Cologne as pure and genuine, because their form so savours of the middle of the 4th century, and all things are so accurate, that a forger cannot be judged ever to have made anything like them. Among whom Grandidier reviews Hist. de l'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 66 and following. Pierre de Marca, Denis Petau, Jean de Launoy, Pierre Pithou, Godefroid Henschen, Gilles Boucher, Balthasar Bebel, Christoph Brouwer, Hermann Conring, David Blondel, Antoine Pagi, René François Sluse, Charles Le Cointe, Ulrich Obrecht, Louis Laguille, Jacques Longueval, Augustin Calmet and Domenico Mansi.

[11] [Others have tried to reconcile them in other ways with the synod of Sardica, which they falsely thought was held in the year 347.] And indeed the form of the Acts and their antiquity, resting on monuments of the 8th and 9th centuries, are of such weight that no one would ever have doubted of their genuineness any more than of the Acts of the conference of Carthage with the Donatists; had they not seemed to conflict with the synod of Sardica, which was thought to have been held in the year 347, not much after the assembly of Cologne, and by whose fathers that same Euphrates of Cologne had been entrusted with an honourable charge: which stumbling block some have striven to remove, by establishing, against the credit of the Acts of St. Severinus, two men named Euphrates in the chair of Cologne, namely Ephrata, also called Euphraxius and Euphrasius, condemned by the fathers of Cologne, and Euphrates, held in the highest honour by the synod of Sardica; others contending that there is an error in the consuls prefixed to the Acts of the council of Cologne; others judging that it should be read: After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus in the fourth year, on the Ides of May (on the Ides of May); Mansi finally, relying on the Alexandrian chronicle, of which we shall say more below, fixing the synod of Sardica to the end of the year 344, held that Euphrates fell into heresy some months later and was deposed in the year 346 at the council of Cologne: but since this Chronicle is everywhere sprinkled with errors, it had less force in producing belief. Though these things were so, all the most excellent writers could not persuade themselves that the Acts of the council of Cologne were spurious. But after Cureton in the year 1848 at London in Syriac, and Cardinal Mai Patrum nova bibliotheca, vol. VI, p. 1 and following. in the year 1853 at Rome in Syriac and Latin, and also Migne Patrologia græca, vol. XXVI, col. 1339 and following. in the year 1857 at Paris in Latin, published twenty-seven Heortastic or festal epistles of St. Athanasius, with a likewise festal Chronicle prefixed, in which the annual deeds of St. Athanasius are most accurately indicated, that difficulty has wholly vanished; since it is now certain that the synod of Sardica, which showed such great confidence in Euphrates of Cologne, was held in the year 343, three years before the council of Cologne: which interval is ample enough for Euphrates, like so many others, to have allowed himself to be seduced by the Arians and to have consented to their positions. This argument we shall now explain with the necessary diligence: for our predecessors had always been persuaded that the Acts of the council of Cologne were genuine; but since Binterim had attacked them with such impetus and weight of reasons that it seemed nothing stronger could be devised, he drew to his opinion my colleague, Joseph Van Hecke; who for love of the truth, which he judged to stand on this side (for the new documents had not yet come into our hands), departed from the positions of his predecessors Acta SS., auctarium of volume V of October, p. 47..

§ III The principal affairs of St. Athanasius from the year 339 to 347, from his heortastic epistles. The date of the synod of Sardica.

[The heortastic letters were published about Epiphany, but were usually written and sent much earlier.] Now in order to show by the help of the Chronicle and the Festal Epistles of St. Athanasius that the synod of Sardica was celebrated not in the year 347, but four years before, it is not enough to call up one place in which this is reported; for in that way we should have accomplished no more than Mansi did, in adducing the Alexandrian Chronicle or Maffei's anonymous writer. The whole series of the deeds of St. Athanasius within seven years must be run through (since those who have woven their chronology have so entangled everything with everything else that they cannot easily be untied one by one): and indeed, since not only the Heortastic Chronicle, but also the Epistles contain some acts of the most holy prelate, before all else it must be inquired at what time of the year those Epistles, by which the day of the coming Easter was indicated, were written and sent. If we care to listen to Cassian, we shall easily fall into error. For he says Conference X, ch. 2.: Within the region of Egypt this custom is preserved by ancient tradition, that, when the day of Epiphany is over, letters of the pontiff of Alexandria are directed through all the churches of Egypt, by which the beginning of Lent and the day of Easter are indicated, not only through all the cities, but also through all the monasteries. But since this care of the patriarch of Alexandria looked not to Egypt alone, but it had been delegated to him, as the Venerable Bede expresses it De ratione temporum, ch. 42., dutifully to apply his labour and care to the investigation of the paschal reckoning, so that, announcing it to the pontiff of the apostolic see, he might through him make known to the other princes of the churches the solemn day of Easter, it was necessary that letters should be written long beforehand and dispatched in every direction: and so, when the patriarchs of Alexandria had ceased to announce Easter outside Egypt, and this annual duty had devolved on the individual archbishops, there was framed in the year 633 at the fourth council of Toledo a canon from which the old custom may be known: There is apt to be in the Spains, are the words of the canon Collectio canonum ecclesiæ Hispanæ, p. 367., a variety of proclamation about the paschal solemnity: for different observance of the tables of the paschal festival sometimes gives birth to error: therefore it has been resolved that three months before Epiphany the metropolitan bishops should inquire of each other by letter, and, instructed by common knowledge, should make known to their comprovincials the day of Christ's resurrection and announce it as to be celebrated at one time. And long before the African council had decreed that bishops should always be instructed from the church of Carthage concerning the day of Easter, not within a narrow space of time, but when they should come together and celebrate the autumn council Cod. can. eccl. Afric., number 51, in Labbe, Conc., vol. II, col. 1073.. Wherefore the words of Cassian are to be interpreted as meaning that the patriarchal letters, sent in every direction long before Epiphany, were publicly read about the feast of Epiphany; just as the lenten mandates, which are now publicly set forth at the beginning of the fast and to which (if the arguments or matter be considered) those heortastic epistles come very near. This was the more necessary because a great many Christians would omit the fast unless it were proclaimed in good time. For Athanasius himself wrote this to Serapion, bishop of Thmuis, at the end of the year 339 In Mai, Bibliotheca nova, vol. VI, p. 114.: Now I have written to each that you are to proclaim Lent to the brethren and to persuade them to the fast; … lest anyone should use this excuse, that the epistle has [not] been read, for our not acknowledging the obligation of the fast: this pretext must be removed, and pains must be taken that it be by all means read before Lent, lest, some handle being seized, the fast be wholly omitted. For the rest, indications appear here and there from which it is clear that those letters were written some months, indeed sometimes almost a whole year, before the Easter to be proclaimed: and so the time of writing can for the most part be defined more nearly.

[13] [In the year 339 Gregory arrived at Alexandria and St. Athanasius fled to Rome; where he also resided in the following years.] The beginnings of the difficulties are to be placed at about the year 339: which I shall so pursue as to bring back to definite years all the chief matters over which Mansi Supplementum conciliorum Labbei, vol. I, p. 203 and following. and Mamachi De ratione temporum Athanasianorum, p. 380 and following. have fought each other, both drawing up a chronological table, making use of the Chronicle and the Heortastic Epistles; whose authority some have tried in vain to weaken. The year 339. In this year, many tumults having been stirred up, Athanasius was sought by his persecutors by night on the 22nd of Phamenoth (the 18th of March); but on the following day he fled from the church of Theonas, after he had baptized many there. Then on the fourth day Gregory the Cappadocian entered the city as bishop. So the Chronicle; in which, when it is added that Philagrius was then for the first year prefect of Egypt, it agrees with St. Athanasius' History of the Arians to the Monks; where at number 10 Philagrius from the emperor Constantius and Gregory with a military band to Alexandria at one

time are reported to have been sent Migne, Patrolog. græca, vol. XXV, col. 706.. Nor did St. Athanasius give heortastic letters in this year for the year 340; but from his hiding place he wrote to Serapion, as I said above, enjoining on him to proclaim Lent to the brethren Epist. to Serapion, in Mai, Bibliotheca nova, vol. VI, p. 114 and following.. Which however Serapion did not do. The year 340. As Gregory increased the acts of his oppression, therefore no festal epistle was written. Wherefore when the Arians had proclaimed Easter for the 27th of Phamenoth (the 23rd of March), they were greatly laughed at for this error; yet they, changing their opinion in the middle of Lent, kept Easter with us on the 14th of Pharmuthi (the 6th of April); which day of solemnity Athanasius indicated to the presbyters of Alexandria by a brief epistle; because he could not send the customary epistle on account of flight and betrayal (from the Chronicle); let this epistle have arrived at Alexandria at the end of February of the year 340. And these things are so singular, especially the error of the Arians and the laughable correction of the error (although the Catholics themselves strayed from the truth by a whole week, since Easter should lawfully have been celebrated on the 30th of March), that they could not have arisen from the fancy of a chronologer; and they so cohere among themselves as to be very strong by their mutual conjunction. Beware, however, of believing that St. Athanasius in the year 339 left the country or went off to Rome; only a year later did he cross the sea, as will appear from what is to be said. At that time indeed he was forced to leave the city: but, as the people favoured him most warmly, he remained in hiding for some time in the vicinity, fearing betrayal, as is said in the Chronicle at the year 340; which betrayal would not have been to be feared unless that most blessed man had then still been staying in Egypt. This explanation (unless my opinion deceives me) is much simpler and easier than the conjectures by which those most excellent and sagacious men Karl Joseph Hefele Conciliengeschichte, vol. I, p. 568 and following. and Albert de Broglie [L'Église et l'Empire romain au IVe siècle, vol. III, p. 32 and following, edition of 1862.] tried to extricate themselves from those rough places; who alone so far among historians have used the Chronicle and the Festal Epistles. Not long, then, after the month of February of the year 340, St. Athanasius boarded a ship and, contrary to the expectation of the Eusebians, arrived at Rome Apology against the Arians, number 20, in Migne, vol. XXV, col. 279.. In the same year he wrote the festal epistle for the following year, using these words Bibliot. of Mai, vol. VI, p. 116.: Behold, I write to you from the city of Rome; in which, keeping the feast with the brethren, I shall celebrate it with you also in spirit and will, who has granted us not only to believe in him, but also now to suffer for him.

[14] [In the year 341 the council of the dedication was celebrated at Antioch, by which Gregory could not have been ordained; and in the year 343 the synod of Sardica assembled, as is established from the Festal Chronicle] The year 341. There was a schism in Augustamnica on account of Gregory's staying in the city (of Alexandria), which he was oppressing until he began to be afflicted with disease; and for this reason the pope (Athanasius) did not write a festal epistle. From the Chronicle. Yet at the opening of the following year, when the feast was now near, he gave a letter, which see in Mai Ibid., p. 124.. In the same year 341, in the consulate of Marcellinus and Probinus, as St. Athanasius himself reports [Epistle on the synods, number 25, in Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXVI, col. 726,], there was celebrated after the beginning of the month of May, and indeed about the month of August, the council of Antioch called that of the dedication. Whence it is clear that it cannot be that after its end Gregory the Cappadocian was created bishop of Alexandria, as Socrates Eccl. Hist., bk. II, ch. 10. and according to him Sozomen Eccl. Hist., bk. III, ch. 6. have reported; since he had long been occupying that see, sent thither by an earlier Antiochene assembly of the Arians; which indeed many would have to be the same as the council of Antioch of the dedication or at the encaenia; but in the epistle of St. Julius the pope [St. Athanasius, Apology against the Arians, number 29, in Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, p. 298.], in which alone its memory has been preserved, there exists no indication by which one may be persuaded that Gregory was created pseudo-bishop of Alexandria in the council of the dedication rather than in any other assembly of the Arians. Further, at almost the same time at which the council of the dedication was held, St. Julius the pope celebrated at Rome a council in the case of St. Athanasius; for St. Athanasius Cf. Mamachi, De ratione temporum Athanasianorum, pp. 219 and 225. affirms that it was held a year and a half after his arrival in the city. The year 342. As Gregory was gravely ill in the city, the pope (Athanasius) was for that reason unable to send the epistle. The year 343. In this year Easter Sunday was on the 1st of Pharmuthi (the 27th of March), the 15th of the moon, the 6th before the Kalends of April, epact 11, of the gods 5, indiction 1, in the consulate of Placidus and Romulus, the same Longinus of Nicaea governing as prefect of Egypt. In this year the synod was held at Sardica: on learning of which, the Arians betook themselves to Philippopolis. And when Philagrius had been their adviser to assemble a synod in this city, they were reviled in every place, and were excommunicated also by the Roman church. And when they had written of their repentance to Pope Athanasius, Arsacius and Valens were ashamed of the agreement made at Sardica, about Easter; and they issued a decree to last for fifty years, as the Romans and Alexandrians were accustomed everywhere to publish. Athanasius also wrote a festal epistle; which has perished. From the Chronicle, all of whose words at this year it has been a pleasure to copy, so that it might be manifest both from the consuls and from Easter that the year 343 is most openly designated, in which the council of Sardica was celebrated. Which, far from conflicting with the other marks of time, we shall show in a few words to agree with them wholly.

[15] and in many other circumstances. St. Athanasius, in the History of the Arians to the Monks, narrating at number 16 how the Eusebians refused to enter the synod of Sardica: When, he says Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 711., they had brought a more absurd excuse than the one lately at Antioch: namely that the emperor had indicated to them by his letters a victory won over the Persians, they took to flight; which victory is not the one that was won in the year 345 at Singara, though with doubtful arms, but the one which Theophanes has reported was celebrated with a triumph by Constantius at the year 343 Bonn edition, vol. I, p. 55.. The same St. Athanasius in the Apology to Constantius, number 4, narrates that the synod of Sardica was assembled in the fourth year after he had come as a fugitive from Alexandria to Rome: From Alexandria, he says Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 599., I set out … that I might make for Rome … Three years having passed, in the fourth year Constans summoned me by letter, at which time he was staying at Milan; … and I learned that certain bishops who had withdrawn there had asked him to write to your piety for the assembling of a synod … And afterwards, while I was staying in the aforesaid city, he sent me again into Gaul: for father Hosius also had withdrawn there: so that we might make together from there for Sardica. And after the synod was concluded he sent a letter to me, then staying at Naissus. And since he fled to Rome at the opening of the year 340, the fourth year from this flight agrees with the year 343. Whether in this same year a synod was held at Milan, whose Acts have perished or which is now called the first, it is not relevant to ask. Of the death of Gregory, pseudo-bishop of Alexandria, and the return of St. Athanasius, on which the date of the synod of Sardica also depends, it will be said below.

[16] The year 344. When Athanasius had returned from the synod, In the year 334 Euphrates came to Antioch, sent by the synod of Sardica. held at Naissus, where he had also celebrated Easter *, he accurately indicated to the presbyters of Alexandria the day of Easter; to the other places, however, he could not. (From the Chronicle.) But as St. Athanasius himself wrote to Constantius Apology to Constantius, number 4, Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 602., having set out from Naissus, he afterwards stayed at Aquileia, where the letter of Constantius was delivered to him. Now while the holy man was at Naissus, Euphrates of Cologne and Vincent, bishop of Capua, were staying at Antioch, sent there by the synod of Sardica. This matter St. Athanasius again explained [History of the Arians to the Monks, numbers 20 and 20, ibid., col. 715 and following, and Historical Fragment, ibid., vol. XXVI, col. 1293.] and Theodoret somewhat more fully Eccles. Hist., bk. II, ch. 9.; but Mansi has narrated it more briefly and neatly Supplementum conciliorum, vol. I, col. 174.: When, namely, the innocence of Athanasius had become clearly apparent at the council of Sardica, it seemed good to the emperor Constans and the fathers to decree an embassy to Constantius, his brother, emperor of the East, to urge in his name the return of Athanasius with him. There was chosen for this purpose Euphrates, bishop of Cologne, with Vincent of Capua as companion, who committing themselves to the journey came to Antioch. That chair was then occupied by a certain Arian bishop Stephen, who endeavoured by treachery to contrive this calumny against the envoys. He caused a prostitute to be secretly brought into the bishops' lodging in the very silence of the night, planning that as soon as she had entered the bedroom, he would openly send attendants with guards to that lodging; by whom, the prostitute being caught by night in the priestly lodging, the bishops would be held guilty of the crime discovered. The matter did not turn out as desired: for Euphrates, awakened by the sound of the woman walking, raised a noise and roused the household; who at once, shutting the doors of the lodging, seized the woman with some others, accomplices of the plot; from whom the whole secret of the contrivance was revealed. All these things, St. Athanasius notes, happened “in the very days of most holy Easter.”

[17] In the year 345 he met St. Athanasius at Trier, already perverted, The year 345. When Athanasius had set out for Aquileia, he spent Easter there; and he indicated * accurately the day of Easter to the presbyters of Alexandria, but to the other places he could not. (From the Chronicle.) That festal epistle still survives; and another on the Easter of the following year, which he dispatched not long after it to the presbyters and deacons of Alexandria. But while the most holy man was staying at Aquileia, or rather when he had gone on from there at the request of Constans into Gaul [Apology to Constantius, number 4, in Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 602.] and had come to Trier, Euphrates, already perverted by the Arians, seems to have approached him, and in his presence and that of St. Servatius to have uttered impious words on the divinity of Christ. And since the venerable Hefele Conciliengeschichte, vol. I, pp. 729 and 730. rejects the synod of Cologne on this head, that in it St. Servatius of Maastricht is read to have said Labbe, Collect. concil., vol. II, col. 617.: I have often opposed him publicly and privately, when he denied Christ as God,

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, hearing it, and very many presbyters and deacons; as if after the synod of Sardica Euphrates could not have seen St. Athanasius, it is fitting to adduce the very words of St. Athanasius on his new journey into Gaul Apology to Constantius, number 4, place cited above.: After the synod (of Sardica) was concluded (Constans) sent a letter to me, then staying at Naissus; and setting out from there, I afterwards stayed at Aquileia; where your (Constantius') letter was delivered to me. Summoned thence again by the man of blessed memory, I made the journey to Gaul: and from there at last I came to your piety. But that St. Servatius often resisted Euphrates by no means requires a long time, since St. Servatius burned with zeal for the right faith and Maastricht almost adjoins Cologne. And the perversion of Euphrates should surprise no one, since so many others in those troubled times allowed themselves to be swept off the road; so that, on the testimony of St. Athanasius and St. Hilary of Poitiers, very much had to be relaxed of the severity of discipline in receiving lapsed bishops who repented of their error.

[18] [and in the year 346 he was condemned by the council of Cologne; St. Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.] The year 346. Since, then, Euphrates did not restrain his blasphemous mouth, after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus, on the 4th before the Ides of May, the bishops designated above came together at Cologne and deposed the wretched apostate. And when Gregory, pseudo-bishop of Alexandria, had died, I use the words of the Athanasian or Heortastic Chronicle, on the 2nd of Epiphi, that is, the 25th or 26th of June, Athanasius returned from Rome out of Italy and entered the city and the church. And he was thought worthy of a wonderful welcome; for on the 24th of Paophi, that is, the 21st of September, the people and all the magistrates went out to meet him as far as the hundredth milestone; and thus honoured he rested. The festal epistle of this year he had already a whole year before, as we have said, briefly sent to the presbyters and deacons. With these things the headless Chronicle of Maffei plainly agrees, in which is read In Mai, Bibliotheca nova, vol. VI, p. 161.: And it came to pass after the death of Gregory, Athanasius returned from the City and the parts of Italy; and he entered Alexandria on the 24th of Paphi, in the consulate of Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd, which is in the year 346, that is, after 6 years; and he remained at rest at Alexandria for 16 years and 6 months. Theodoret nearly agrees, inasmuch as he narrates Ecclesiastical History, bk. II, ch. 4. that Gregory, when for six * years he had laid waste the flock with all cruelty like a wild beast, at last paid the penalty of his wickedness, being wretchedly torn apart by the sheep themselves. St. Athanasius himself agrees, who in the heortastic epistle by which he indicated the Easter of the year next to come, professes that he was staying at Alexandria: I likewise, he says Mai, Bibliotheca nova, vol. VI, p. 143., give thanks to God for these new miracles and helps supplied to us: for though he has chastised us, yet he has not given us over to death, but has recalled us from the most remote ends of the earth, and has joined us to you for the purpose of celebrating the feast.

[19] Mamachi has attacked Mansi in this controversy not more happily than abusively: The year 347. Residing at Alexandria, Athanasius sent the customary epistle of paschal indication, which he had not been able to do before; he had sent it, namely, after the 21st of September of the previous year, when he had returned to Alexandria; yet later than usual. But here it is pleasing to stop; since the remaining matters cohere less with the times of the council of Sardica. Mansi indeed and Mamachi, disputing about the same things, mingle many others; but in such a way that the age of the assembly of Sardica is not defined from these, but they try to deduce from this age when these things were done. But there is this difference between Mansi and Mamachi, that the former, although he was without our best documents (since they still lay hidden in the monastery of the Mother of God in Scetis), yet properly discovered the year of the council of Sardica, and elsewhere often saw the truth or came very near to it; while the latter, everywhere abusive toward Mansi, pursues his designs with uncouth clamour and incredible boasting, falling continually into manifest errors and scarcely anywhere proceeding with Christian sincerity. A specimen of this, bearing on our argument, it is fitting to indicate. When Mansi had seen that the chronology of Socrates and of Sozomen, who usually follows him, plainly did not agree with his findings, he had to lessen their authority in the arrangement of times. He had written, then Supplementum conciliorum Labbei, vol. I, cols. 175 and 176.: Nor indeed did it first occur to me to convict those celebrated writers of error, since writers of great name teach that they have often stumbled elsewhere too, Tillemont in the Life of St. Athanasius, note 44, Valois everywhere in his notes, and as regards indicating years by consuls Baronius at the year 357, number I, and Sirmond in the Dissertation on the synod of Sirmium. Indeed that they seldom fail to err in the consulates will easily result from what we shall discuss below; and elsewhere [Apologia of Joh. D. Mansi, number 26, after Mamachi's Epistolæ de ratione temporum Athanasianorum p. 371.] he produces others, among them Pagi Critice in Annales Baronii, at the year 365, number 2., who says: Socrates, when he uses temporal notes of this kind, not rarely falls into error. And yet Mamachi everywhere heaps all the odium of this censure on Mansi alone.

[20] [how rightly Mansi has said that Socrates and Sozomen are accustomed to err in the arrangement of times.] Yet it is so manifest that Socrates everywhere mixes everything, times, places, men, and has led others who came after him off the road, that they can in no way be harmonized with the historical writings of St. Athanasius. Hear what the Maurist editors have said in the Notice to the Apology against the Arians of the most blessed bishop of Alexandria Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 246.: From this Apology, then, as from a most pure source, the true ecclesiastical history of the fourth century from the year 300 to 350 is to be drawn. For Athanasius far excels all other writers of this history; both because he himself was for the most part an eyewitness, and because he most accurately narrates the things done, and often brings forward the very monuments, than which nothing is safer. On the contrary, other authors, namely Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, are to be used most cautiously, except when they too bring forward the monuments of the things done; which happens more rarely. For besides sometimes narrating histories less certain, they very often confuse matters, and arrange the times preposterously: a most luminous example of this is supplied by Socrates, who reports the matters comprised in the first part of this Apology thus. And then they present a whole series of incredible errors in the gravest matters; which they close with these words: Nor indeed Socrates alone, but also Theodoret, and much more Rufinus and Sozomen, very frequently narrate things either otherwise than they were done, or preposterously. Yet far be it that this should tend to the disparagement of these authors. For the fault is to be ascribed to the age rather than to the writers: for in that age they were not accustomed to trace out such intricate matters with so much study, and they neglected especially the reckonings of time. These things we have recited chiefly for this reason, lest anyone should remain hesitant because we have departed from the chronology of Socrates and Sozomen.

* celebravit he celebrated

* significaverat he had indicated

* septem seven

§ IV. The arguments of Binterim against the genuineness of the council of Cologne, drawn from the silence of the historians, from the post-consulate of Amantius and Albinus and from the word Castrum, are refuted.

[Binterim wrongly opposes to the Acts of the council of Cologne the silence of contemporaries,] From these things, then, which we have deduced above according to a certain reckoning of the years, it is altogether manifest that neither from the time of the synod of Sardica, nor from the deeds of St. Athanasius can anything be gathered which agrees less well with the council of Cologne of the year 346; on the contrary, that all things cohere excellently among themselves. But as to Binterim's objection Geschichte der deutschen Concilien, vol. I, p. 373. of the silence of SS. Hilary, Sulpicius Severus, Gregory of Tours, and of the heresiologists SS. Epiphanius, Philaster, Augustine, John Damascene and the Praedestinatus, it has no weight; since St. Hilary was occupied rather with doctrine than with history, and Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours, though they have narrated the deeds of past times, are too meagre to seem to have applied diligent labour to composing a whole narrative of the ecclesiastical affairs of Gaul. Nor is there any reason why the heresiologists should have mentioned Euphrates, since he was not the author of a new sect.

[22] and the post-consulate of Amantius and Albinus: which is a mark of genuineness: He next urges that in the month of May of the year 346 the new consuls Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd time, the Augusti, could not have been unknown at Cologne; and hence that the form: After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus is an indication of forgery. But so far is it from the hand of a forger appearing from this, that a most manifest argument of genuineness is detected therein. For it was proper to this year 346 that in the whole West, even at Rome, at least up to the month of September, it was designated not by the new consuls, but by the post-consulate of Amantius and Albinus, while meanwhile in Egypt and in the whole East the new consuls Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd were inscribed in public monuments and calendars. In testimony of this matter Baronius has called up a profane stone monument, which was once in the house of the Porcari Annales eccles. at the year 346, number I., inscribed POST. AMANTI. ET ALBINI CONS. After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus; Mansi another, inscribed with the same words and drawn from the Collection of Gruter On the Annales of Baronius, at the year 345, number 1.; Muratori reports a third epigraph, of Lucca, placed beneath the statue of L. Turcius Apronianus Inscriptiones, vol. I, p. CCCLXXIX, number 1., with this clause: DECRETA EST AVTEM POST CONSVLATVM AMANTII ET ALBINI And it was decreed after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus. Christian examples, to which the months are added, are presented by the most deserving knight de Rossi; namely one of Rimini, in which these words nearly survive Inscriptiones christianæ, vol. I, p. 59, number 90. … dep. … IVNIAS QUI VISIT (l. vixit) ANNOS VII [me]N V DIES OCTO post. cons. a MANTII ET ALBINI [… buried … of June, who lived 7 years, 5 months, eight days, after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus]; and this other of the month of July from the Rusconi museum Ibid., p. 60, number 93.: [eut]RO. PIVS. FLORE. COIVG. I. FEC. ET. SI. BI. QVE. VIX it annos… DP. DI. E XIIII KAL. AVG. POS. AMAN. ET ALBINI consulatum [Eutrus(?), pious, made it for Flora his wife and for himself, who lived … years, buried on the 14th day before the Kalends of August, after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus]; and this third, of the month of August, from the Vatican library Inscriptiones christianæ, vol. I, p. 60, number 91.: B. M. IN P CHERETIO QV ANN. V. M V D XV CHERETIUS ET SEVERA PARENTIS DP. VI. KAL. SEPTEMBRES POS. CONSVLATVM AMANTI ET ALBINI [To the well-deserving in peace, Cheretius, who lived 5 years, 5 months, 15 days, Cheretius and Severa his parents; buried on the 6th before the Kalends of September, after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus]; and finally this fourth, of Velletri, of the month of September Ibid., p. cited, number 92.: BONOSO BENE. MERENTI IN PACE QVI VIXIT ANNIS. II. M. III. D. XX DEP. PRID. IDVS. SEPT. POST CONSS. AMANTI ET ALBINI [To Bonosus, well-deserving, in peace, who lived 2 years, 3 months, 20 days, buried on the day before the Ides of September, after the consulate of Amantius and Albinus]. By which

is added, as Mansi has observed Notes on the Annales of Baronius, at the year 346, number 1., that in the Vienna or consular calendars this year is noted: After Amantius and Albinus; in the Booklet on the prefects of the city and in the Paschal table in Boucher: After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus; so that all the Philocalian tables, as de Rossi has observed Inscriptiones christianæ, vol. I, p. 59., everywhere agree among themselves. Add to these Cassiodorus, who in his Chronicle, or rather list of consuls, has indeed fallen into error, but not so as to close the way to the truth; for he has written Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LXIX, col. 1240.:

Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd. Amantius and Albinus. After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus. Rufinus and Eusebius.

Where the consuls Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd were not to be placed first, but to be written on the same line as After the consulate of Amantius and Albinus.

[23] the origin of the post-consulate. What the origin of this formula was is so far wholly unascertained: earlier this method was sometimes kept in the provinces, because the new consuls were unknown, as appears in the council of Cirta, celebrated in the year 305 on the day before the Ides of February after the consulate of Diocletian for the 9th time and Maximian for the 8th; in the City itself in the year 307, in which the consuls who went forth were M. A. V. Maximian Herculeus Augustus for the 9th time and Flavius Valerius Constantine Caesar, and which was designated by the shorter formula For the ninth time and Constantine Fasti Idatiani, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LI, col. 907. (as the year 308 For the tenth time, that is, M. A. Val. Maximian Herculeus Augustus for the 10th time and C. Galerius Maximian Augustus for the 7th time, consuls), from the month of April, as is reported in the Booklet of the prefects of the city, it began to be said: After the sixth consulate, namely of Constantius Augustus for the 6th time and Galerius Maximian Augustus for the 6th time, the tyrant Maxentius, who dominated Italy, so willing it (as it seems). But why was a similar norm used in the year 346? That a grudge existed between Constantius and Constans was said by Panvinio Fasti, p. 292. and Noris Cœnotaphia Pisana, p. 433.; that the decision of Constantius, detained by the Persian war, did not reach Rome and the rest of the West in time was said by Baronius Annales, at the year 346, number 1.: but neither reason pleases Tillemont [Empereurs, l'Empereur Constance, art. X, Brussels edition in folio, vol. IV, p. 140.] and the knight de Rossi Inscriptiones christianæ, vol. I, p. XXVI.; for there was at that time still agreement between the two Augusti, nor did commerce with the City cease on account of the Persian war: so for an unknown cause the names of the new consuls were not set forth in the West before September. But whatever that is, just as the council of Cologne would incur the charge of spurious origin if Constantius for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd had been inscribed, so its genuine birth shines forth from the post-consulate of Amantius and Albinus.

[24] Binterim wrongly blames the word castrum But in other words too Binterim seemed to himself to detect the hand of a forger, namely in the words: And when the letter of the people of the Agrippinenses had been recited; and also of all the camps of Germania Secunda; for Town, as being long since customary and in these others: From the letter of the clerics of the Agrippinenses, and also of the brethren established in the several camps: in which two indications of a later time lie hidden; namely that it is there supposed that the province of Germania had already been divided into Germania Prima and Germania Secunda; and that no one has mentioned this partition, as Pagi determined Critice in Annales Baronii, at the year 374, number 8., before Festus Rufus, who dedicated his Breviary to Valens in the year 369; nor was it made much earlier: and next, that the word castrum, by which a town is designated, belongs on the testimony of Du Cange Glossarium latinum, under Castrum. to middle Latinity, and was first used in the Notitia of the empire, which was written about the year 400. But to begin from this latter assertion, as castrum and castellum belong to middle Latinity, so also to early Latinity; as may be seen in the Thesaurus of Forcellini at these words, where examples are recited from Quintus Curtius, bk. V, ch. 3; from Cornelius Nepos in the Alcibiades, ch. 9; from Pompey to Domitius after epistle 12 of book VIII to Atticus; from Virgil's Aeneid, bk. VI, v. 776; from Varro in Servius on the Aeneid, bk. IX, v. 7; where there are also indicated from Pliny, bk. III, ch. 1, Castrum Julium in Spain, and in the book cited, ch. 5, Castrum Novum in Etruria: to which add from Titus Livy, the epitome of book XI, Castrum in Italy, and bk. XXXI, ch. 2, Castrummutilum, now Medolo. Then the old itineraries and geographers are full of similar names; Gaul too abounds in them Cf. Valois, Notitia Galliæ, p. 132 and following and p. 401 and following.; indeed not so far from Cologne you have Castrum Divitensium, now Deutz, opposite Cologne; then Castra Vetera, Castra Ulpia, Castellum Morinorum or of the Menapii; most ancient names, whose origin is clear.

[25] to designate military stations. For military camps had the form of towns, and the Romans loved to bring neighbouring colonists into them; both because they were unaccustomed to farms scattered through the countryside (for in Italy colonists were everywhere assigned to towns, as they are even now); and because there was scarcely any other way for the conquered to speak the Latin tongue: which was a matter of the highest care to the Romans: and finally because, if the Gauls had remained scattered, a conspiracy being easily formed, they would have broken out unexpectedly into rebellion, while on the contrary, received into camps, they would become messmates of the soldiers, would share the right of marriage, and even, if an enemy attacked, would lend their labour to defending the fortifications, in order to protect their wives, children, homes and their liberty from injury. Wherefore, as Valois accurately observes Ibid. p. 402., Augustus Caesar brought the Cantabrians and Asturians down from the mountains and (as Florus says), fearing the confidence inspired by the mountains to which they used to retreat, ordered them to inhabit and dwell in his camps, but such as were in the plain. I recall explaining in the Commentary on St. Bertrand, bishop of Comminges, the origin of this city, from robbers and assembled refugees brought down by Pompey from the heights of the Pyrenees. Thence new towns arose everywhere, which were called by the common name of castra; which name became proper to some of them. But we have allowed ourselves to be led further than is right, since this one thing was to be shown, that the name of castrum was used for a town long before the Notitia of the empire was composed. But the name of Castrum is not ecclesiastical, but military. I wonder at this Persian dart; as if the idiom of priests and soldiers were wholly different, especially in those times, when the religion of Christ had scarcely been free for thirty years and peoples were embracing it in crowds; and in those places where certainly soldiers and the inhabitants of camps first, and long before the pagans, gave their names to Christ.

§ V. The argument drawn from the words Germania Secunda is refuted. Whether Germania was not divided into two provinces until the middle of the 4th century. Whether the ancient division was only military. Arguments drawn from history are refuted.

[The division, by which Germania from the beginnings of the empire was distributed into upper and lower,] I wonder much more that learned and very erudite men still go so far in this opinion as to determine that before the middle of the 4th century Germania was not divided into two parts; since the same men, when it falls to be shown that not long after the death of Christ the Gospel doctrine was propagated as far as the Rhine, bring forward the words of St. Irenaeus on the Germanies (and not on Germania); but this place will return below. It is true that Sextus Rufus In D. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, vol. I, p. 564. mentions two Germanies and two Belgicas; but long before his time, to begin from the geographers, Claudius Ptolemy, who wrote under Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: The part of the region, he says Ibid. p. 78., which is about the Rhine, from the sea to the river Obringa, is called Lower Germania; … and the region which extends from the river Obringa toward the south is called Upper Germania; and he assigns to each its own cities. In the Periplus of Marcian of Heraclea there is a whole chapter on Belgica with Upper and Lower Germania Ibid. p. 93.. To Dio, who published his books under Alexander Severus, both Germanies are no less known Ibid. p. 520.: the upper, which begins from the sources of the Rhine; the lower, which extends as far as the British Ocean. Tacitus, who is somewhat more ancient, mentions at the year of Christ 69 Hist. bk. I, ch. 12, in the same, p. 427. that the legions of Upper Germania, having broken the reverence of their oath, demanded another emperor; and lower down ch. 53, p. cited. of Upper Germania and Lower Germania; nor was this division wholly unknown to Pliny the Elder Hist. natur. bk. IV, ch. 17, in the same, p. 56..

[27] [pertained not only to geography and military affairs, but also to the civil administration of presidents and procurators;] But not many years ago a new controversy arose, namely whether both Germanies were from the beginning individual provinces, or only dioceses or military tracts under one president of Belgica, with which they made up one province. This matter, indeed, so far as it pertains to our argument, I could settle in one word, since those who defend the latter opinion determine that by Diocletian, by whom (as Lactantius reports De morte persecutorum, ch. VII.) the provinces were cut into pieces, the Germanies were raised into two individual provinces, that is, half a century before the council of Cologne; yet it is fitting to dispose of this matter briefly, since the political divisions of the Gauls have much importance in duly explaining the beginnings of the episcopal sees. Although, then, the greatest men have gone off to other sides, it seems plainly manifest that this partition was much more ancient than the times of Diocletian. Further, that the Germanies, whether they were individual provinces or part of Belgica, were subject to the emperor is admitted, since all the provinces of Gaul belonged, not to the senate, but to Caesar. Now into this kind of province propraetors were destined, furnished with military, juridical and civil power; who were called both legates, and legates of the Augustus or Augustal legates, and propraetorian or praetorian legates Eckhel, Doctrina numorum, vol. IV, p. 234 and following.; and indeed, at different times, prefects of the province, provosts of the province, curators, correctors, rectors, moderators, presidents, and in a later age juridici, judges, cognitores. That procurators presided over the lesser provinces Tacitus testifies: The two Mauritanias, he says Hist. bk. I, ch. 11., Rhaetia, Noricum, Thrace and the others that are controlled by procurators. Yet by this name a fiscal office

was for the most part indicated; which in the provinces of the senate the quaestors shared, and in the provinces of Caesar the procurators alone exercised. Usually there was one in each province; sometimes however two; but more often one managed several provinces: of which the books are full of examples. In the provinces of Caesar, when the propraetors had departed from among the living, all power fell into the hands of the procurators: who whenever they obtained the supreme authority in the provinces were called procurators acting as president, procurators with the right of the sword, procurators and presidents, procurators and prolegates, and sometimes simply procurators. The reckonings and duties of the propraetors, procurators and all the others who had a part in administering the provinces have been explained with singular care, after a great many others, by the most noble Gottlieb von Ankershofen [Handbuch der Geschichte des Herzogsthumes Kärnten vor und unter der Römerherrschaft, p. 347 and following.]. But in monuments far older than Diocletian, not only are both Germanies given the name of provinces, but legates and propraetors are said to be sent to them, to preside over them or to govern them; by which it may be luminous that their partition did not consist in mere military command. Let us review in order the documents belonging to the principate of each of the Caesars.

[28] as is shown through the reigns from the historians Further, that in the VERY TIMES OF JULIUS CAESAR the jurisdiction in Germania was one thing, and in Belgica another, so that they were two provinces, is established by the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus: All the Gauls, he says Bk. XV, ch. 11, in D. Bouquet, vol. I, p. 546., from the time when they yielded under the pressure of frequent wars to Julius the dictator, were ruled with power divided into four parts: of which Narbonensis, one, contained within itself the Viennese and the Lyonnese; another presided over all the Aquitanians; Upper and Lower Germania and the Belgae were ruled at the same times by two jurisdictions. These words indeed have been attacked in many ways; but to no purpose. But gradually the number of provinces grew, especially to the north, where the attacks of enemies were more to be feared. Under Augustus himself, then, Germania seems to have been divided into two provinces, to which the words upper and lower were then first added. And indeed AT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 14, when Augustus had scarcely died and it was not yet known in Gaul that Tiberius had taken up the reins of empire: There were two armies, says Tacitus Annals bk. I, ch. 31., on the bank of the Rhine: the one called upper, under C. Silius, the LEGATE; the lower was in the charge of A. Caecina. The direction of the whole matter lay with Germanicus, then intent on conducting the census of the Gauls: by whose supreme authority and extraordinary legation neither the power of the praetorian prefects of the Gauls nor that of the presidents of the provinces had been removed Cf. Sanclemente, de Æræ christianæ emendatione, p. 444 and following.. Tacitus, then going on to narrate the sedition of the soldiers in the territory of the Ubii or in Lower Germania: Nor did the LEGATE, he says, go to oppose it … When Septimius had fled to the tribunal and thrown himself at the feet of Caecina etc.; Caecina, then, is openly called legate of Lower Germania, as Silius of Upper. AT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 21, under the emperor Tiberius, the people of Tours, says Tacitus Annals bk. III, ch. 41., were crushed by the legionary soldiery whom Visellius Varro, LEGATE OF LOWER GERMANIA, had sent. AT THE YEAR 28, under the same emperor: When this became known, says Tacitus again Ibid. bk. IV, ch. 73., to L. Apronius, PROPRAETOR OF LOWER GERMANIA. AT THE YEAR 47, under the emperor Caligula: The CHAUCI, says the same man Ibid. bk. XI, ch. 18., … while Corbulo was approaching, overran LOWER GERMANIA … But Corbulo, entering the PROVINCE, drove triremes along the channel of the Rhine …. AT THE YEAR finally 59, under the emperor Nero: Affairs had been quiet in Germania to that time, says the same Ibid. bk. XIII, ch. 53., by the disposition of the leaders … Paullinus Pompeius and L. Vetus at that time commanded the army. Lest however they should keep the soldiery sluggish, the former … completed a dyke for confining the Rhine: Vetus was preparing to connect the Moselle and the Saône, by making a canal between them … Aelius Gracilis, legate of Belgica, grudged the work … Moreover by the continual idleness of the armies a report spread that the right of LEADING AGAINST THE ENEMY had been taken from the LEGATES … Dubius Avitus, having received the PROVINCE from Paullinus, … forced Verritus … to entertain petitions. Behold, then, three legates, Pompeius Paullinus of Lower Germania, Vetus of Upper, Gracilis of Belgica; and indeed Avitus, who succeeded Paullinus in the province of Lower Germania. Moreover in four places in the Histories Hist. bk. I, chs. 12, 50 and 53; bk. IV, ch. 70. Tacitus mentions Upper Germania, as distinct by its own boundaries. AT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 69, Galba reigning, Aulus Vitellius, son of Lucius, emperor … was SENT by Galba to LOWER GERMANIA contrary to expectation; are the words of Suetonius Bk. VII, Vitellius, numbers 2 and 7.. Who likewise ABOUT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 69: Domitian, he says Bk. VIII, number 6., finished, while absent, the civil war stirred up by L. Antonius, PRESIDENT OF UPPER GERMANIA. ABOUT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 180, under the emperor Commodus, Didius Julianus, who not long after obtained the empire, on the testimony of Aelius Spartianus In Didius Julianus, ch. I., after his praetorship commanded the 22nd Primigenia legion in Germania. Thence he ruled Belgica holily and long … Thence he received Dalmatia to rule … Afterwards, he ruled LOWER GERMANIA.

[29] and from stone inscriptions: To which are added several inscriptions; of which the first was set up under Hadrian about the year 130: A. PLATORIO A. F. NEPOTI consuli AVGVRI LEGATO AVGusti PRO PRÆtore PROVINCiæ BRITANNIÆ LEGato PRO PRætore PROVINciæ GERMANiæ INFERIORis etc. [To A. Platorius Nepos, son of Aulus, consul, augur, legate of the Augustus with the rank of propraetor of the province of Britain, legate with the rank of propraetor of the province of Lower Germania etc.] Roulez, Magistrats romains de la Belgique, p. 24.; the second erected at about the same time: L. DOMITIO GALLICANO PAPINIANO C. V. LEG. AVG. PR. PR. PROVINCIÆ GERMANIÆ INFERIORIS LEG. AVG. PR. PR. Provinciæ Hispaniæ Citerioris LEG. AVG. PR. PR. DALMATIÆ COnsuli DEsignato [To L. Domitius Gallicanus Papinianus, a most distinguished man, legate of the Augustus with the rank of propraetor of the province of Lower Germania, legate of the Augustus with the rank of propraetor of the province of Hither Spain, legate of the Augustus with the rank of propraetor of Dalmatia, consul designate] Masdeu, Historia critica de España, vol. V, p. 458.; the third, in the middle of the 2nd century, under the emperor Antoninus Pius: L. DASVMIO … LEGATO PRætorio PROVINCIARUM GERMANIÆ SVPERioris ET PANNONIÆ [To L. Dasumius … praetorian legate of the provinces of Upper Germania and Pannonia] Zell, Delectus inscriptionum romanarum, number 1599.; the fourth at about the same time: CL. ÆLIO POLLIONI LEG. AVG. PRO PRætore Germaniæ superioris PRÆSIDI INTEGERRIMO [To Cl. Aelius Pollio, legate of the Augustus with the rank of propraetor of Upper Germania, a most upright president] Steiner, Codex inscript. rom. Rheni, number 446.; the fifth to another Augustal legate with the rank of propraetor: GerMANIÆ INFERioris iTEM HISPANIÆ CITER of Lower Germania, likewise of Hither Spain Ibid. number 788.; the sixth: L. POPILIO LEGATO IMPeratoris CÆSaris ANTONINI AVGusti PII PROPRÆTori GERMANIÆ SVPERioris ET EXERCITVS IN EA TENDENTIS [To L. Popilius, legate of the emperor Caesar Antoninus Augustus Pius, propraetor of Upper Germania and of the army encamped in it] Gruter, inscript. p. CCCCLVII, 6.. The seventh: L. MARIO MAXIMO PERPETVO AURELIANO C. V. PRÆSIDI PROVINciæ GERMANIÆ INFERioris [To L. Marius Maximus Perpetuus Aurelianus, a most distinguished man, president of the province of Lower Germania] Muratori, Inscriptiones, p. DCCXIX, 2.. The eighth, which to Aesculapius: L. CALVINIANVS LEGatus LEGionis I Minerviæ piæ fidelis LEGatus augusti PRAetorius PROVINCiæ Germaniæ Inferioris Dedicavit [L. Calvinianus, legate of the legion I Minervia, pious and faithful, praetorian legate of the Augustus of the province of Lower Germania, dedicated] Steiner, Codex inscript. p. 71.; the ninth, set up: C. CÆSONIO C. F. QVIR. MACRO RUFINIANO … COMITI IMP. SEVERI ALEXANDRINI AVG … LEGato AVGustali PRO PRætore GERMANiæ SVPERIORIS [To C. Caesonius Macer Rufinianus, son of Gaius, of the Quirina tribe … companion of the emperor Severus Alexander Augustus … Augustal legate with the rank of propraetor of Upper Germania] Masdeu, Historia critica, vol. V, p. 493 and following.; and the tenth finally, wrongly (as it seems) copied: COCIAVIO TIDIO … PRISCO LEGato CONSVLARI PROVINCiæ GERManiæ SVPERIORIS To Cociavius Tidius … Priscus, consular legate of the province of Upper Germania Muratori, Inscript. p. DCCXCI, 7.. These things are so manifest that a great many words would have to be twisted from the sense which they elsewhere always have, and a double meaning would have to be attributed to one word in the same pericope, if you were to wish, for example, that Platorius was propraetor of the province of Britain and propraetor of an army, not even in the province, but in a military tract wrongly called a province, of Lower Germania; and so on.

[30] contrary arguments are briefly washed away. But what is said against these things? That all those Augustal legates, propraetors, praetorians and presidents of the provinces of Upper and Lower Germania had only military command; that there exists a fragment of a stone, set up: AVGVRI. LEGato PRO PRætore EXERcitus GERManiæ INFERioris LEGato PRo PRætore PROVINCIÆ AQVITANICÆ [To an augur, legate with the rank of propraetor of the army of Lower Germania, legate with the rank of propraetor of the province of Aquitania] Ibid., p. DCCLXIII.; and that above there has been seen L. Popilius, legate of the emperor and propraetor of Upper Germania and of the army encamped in it. But indeed this matter seems to have no difficulty. Whichever you determine, that one province consisted of Belgica and both Germanies or that they were three distinct provinces, it is clear from the first stone that at some time there was a propraetor of the army of Lower Germania who was not president of the province; and certainly nothing else: and from the other stone that the same arrangement held in the times of Antoninus Pius, yet in such a way that both offices, namely of propraetor of Upper Germania and of propraetor of the army that was encamped there, were held by Popilius. Which is not at all to be wondered at. For as often in troubled times the armies of several provinces were subject to the command of one leader or prefect Cf. Ankershofen, Handbuch, etc. etc. p. 355, and app., pp. 108 and 109. (and this could not happen without the military command of the presidents almost ceasing), so also in neighbouring and restless provinces there were sometimes reasons why, the propraetor or president being occupied with civil and juridical business, an individual propraetor should be assigned to the army. This partition of authority, however, was not made perpetual before Constantine, having taken away military command from the praetorian prefects, wished that in the provinces the commander should be one man and the president another Ibid., p. cited.. But Pliny wrote as though there were only one Germania, in no way divided: When (Trajan) presided over Germania, he says Panegyric., ch. 9.; and likewise everywhere Dio Cassius; inasmuch as he mentions the triumph Γαιου Σεντιου του της Γερμανιας ἀρχοντος Bk. LV, Caesar Augustus, pp. 567 and 568, edition of 1606.; and Quintilius Varus, who μετα την των Συρων ἀρχην, την τε ἡγεμονειαν την Γερμανιας λαβων και τα παρ᾽ ἐκεινοις ἐκ της ἀρχης διοικων, was the cause of the rebellion Ibid., bk. LVI, p. 582.; and the suspicions of Tiberius, fearing και τον Γερμανικον, τον τοτε Γερμανιας ἀρχοντα Bk. LVII, Tiberius, p. 603.; and the insane cruelty of Caligula, who Γαιτουλικον Λεντουλον, και της Γερμανιας δεκα ἐτεσιν ἀρξαντα, ἀπεκτεινεν Bk. LIX, Caligula, p. 657.; and Rufus, who, ἀρχων της Γερμανιας, moved forces against Vindex, clothed in the purple in Gaul after the death of Nero Bk. LXIII, Nero, p. 725.; and a certain Antonius, who, ἐν Γερμανιᾳ ἀρχων, dared to rise against Domitian Bk. LXVII, Domitian, p. 764.; and M. Ulpius Nerva Trajan, afterwards emperor, of whom he wrote: Ἠρχε δε της Γερμανιας ἐκεινος. But the reason why Pliny and Dio said simply Germania, without defining whether they meant both provinces or one of the two, seems to be either that they were writing of an extraordinary legation, as is plainly established of Germanicus, or that they were speaking more carelessly,

as appears in the case of Rufus; for a little before, Dio, narrating the wretched lot of another Rufus and Proculus of the Scribonii, reports that τας Γερμανιας δε ἀμφοτερας ἐπι πολυ ἁμα διῳκησαν Bk. LXIII, Nero, p. 722.; certainly in such a way that one governed the lower, the other the upper.

[31] [In the 4th century in place of Upper and Lower Germania they said First and Second.] One thing remains, that in the council of Cologne it is not called Lower Germania, but Germania Secunda; a term we have not so far met with. It occurs in an inscription, erected: TIB CL. CANDIDO COS … PROcuratori XXæ HEREDItatum PER GALLIAS LVGDVNENSEM ET BELGICAM ET VTRAMque GERMANIAM PRÆPOSITO COPIARVM EXPEDITIONIS GERMANIÆ SECVNDÆ [To Tib. Cl. Candidus, consul … procurator of the twentieth of inheritances through the Gauls Lugdunensis and Belgica and both Germanies, commander of the forces of the expedition of Germania Secunda]; who it is agreed lived at the beginning of the 2nd century Masdeu, Historia critica, vol. V, p. 449.. But in better copies [Flórez, España Sagrada, vol. XXIV, part II, p. 448 and following. Roulez, Magistrats romains de la Belgique, p. 38.] is read: Of the second German expedition; by which the sense is wholly changed. Why should I not admit that the words Germania Prima and Germania Secunda do not seem older than the 4th century? But in this very century, as is clear from Ammianus Marcellinus, who was contemporary with the council of Cologne, it was called Germania Secunda. Take his words Amm. Marcellinus, bk. XV, ch. 8.: And he indicated, that is, the messenger, that Cologne, a city of ample name in Germania Secunda, had been laid open by an obstinate siege of the barbarians. I pass over the title of St. Hilary's book on the Synods, in which Germania I and II likewise occurs: for there is a controversy whether it is genuine. But I should not wish to pass over the Notitia of provinces and cities, edited by Sirmond, the Booklet of provinces and the Notitia of dignities, which are not much later: in all of which Germania Secunda is read Cf. D. Bouquet, Recueil, vol. I, pp. 123, 124 and 128.. It is most manifest, then, that Germania was cut into two parts, under the emperor Augustus or Tiberius, one called Upper, the other Lower; and that in the middle of the 4th century the term Germania Secunda was in use.

[32] [That Simplicius of Autun, Desiderius of Langres, Discolius of Reims, Valentinus of Arles are read as having been present at the council of Cologne] But the names read as ascribed to the council of Cologne cannot agree with the catalogues of bishops! This argument they embellish thus: that the exemplar of the synod of Sardica lit the way for the forger, in which the names of the bishops present and of their sees were still read; from which, however, some geographical terms had vanished; that these were added from his own wit by that wicked man: and so that the chair of Autun was assigned by him to Simplicius, although Simplicius of Autun lived a whole century later (as if two men of the same name could not sit in the same chair, separated by a space of a hundred years); and that there is no place for him in the series of the bishops of Autun (as if between St. Cassian, who died about the year 340, and St. Hegemonius, who lived to about the year 370 Acta SS., vol. II of August, p. 63., a space of thirty years did not lie sufficiently open for the episcopate of Simplicius and of Hegemonius to be interposed); that the age of St. Desiderius of Langres stands in the way, who died in the 3rd or 5th century; but nothing at all is known of him except that he was bishop of Langres, killed by barbarians: all the rest, say the authors of Gallia Christiana Gallia Christ., vol. IV, col. 510 and following., is uncertain; that the bishop at Arles at that time was Saturninus, and not Valentinus, who is read in the council of Cologne; but see this assertion refuted in Gallia Christiana Ibid., vol. I, cols. 523 and 524.; that Discolius, bishop of Reims, who is read in the Acts of the council of Cologne Acta SS., vol. VI of October, p. 491., was unknown to Flodoard and was excluded by Ebbo, inasmuch as he says that St. Donatian was the seventh bishop of Reims, who, with Discolius interposed, would be the eighth: but is not, as I have already said, the Liberian catalogue of the Roman pontiffs full of gaps, with the years so arranged that, for example, there is no place for St. Zephyrinus? Was not one of the Dagoberts, kings of the Franks, long unknown? Are not new consuls found every year on stone monuments? What is weaker than this argument, especially when contemporary biographers are lacking?

[33] [and Superior of the Nervii, and the absence of the bishops of Novempopulana and Aquitania, do no harm.] But Superior also, bishop of the Nervii, causes difficulty: for in no ancient catalogues does the chair of the Nervii occur; it is indeed established by Wendelin at Bavay, but without warrant. But that other bishops of the Nervii are not mentioned is an excellent indication that no hand of a forger intervened here, for he would have brought in the names of dioceses known in his own time. And indeed, even if the authority of the council of Cologne were absent, it would be plainly likely that in the 4th century, when the Christian religion was spreading in a wonderful manner in the lands of the Romans, there was a bishop among the Nervii: for their region extended immensely, three times greater than the present diocese of Tournai; and it was much inhabited by Romans, since even now in that tract, although the Franks or Teutons established their kingdom there for many years, the French tongue alone is used. But as to the addition that no bishops of the provinces of Novempopulana and Aquitania I and II were present at the council of the Agrippinenses or of Cologne, it is laughable; why were not all the Spaniards present, all the Italians, all the Africans, etc.? But this is an indication that the council of the Agrippinenses was forged in the 8th century, when a duke presided over those provinces: away with it! what end at last will there be of empty suspicions and conjectures?

§ VI. That the council of Cologne was celebrated on a Sunday, whether it is on that account to be called false. On what day of the week councils were begun.

[Some would have it that councils were formerly by custom celebrated on Sunday, others on Monday; but both wrongly.] There remains finally one argument, which is not firmer than the others, but whose use extends very widely; indeed I shall admit that I once relied on it at some time, although for the most part there is no force in it. It concerns the day of the week on which councils were accustomed to be celebrated: some affirming universally that councils were appointed for Sunday Mansi, Notes on the Annales of Baronius, at the year 662, note 1.; others for the day of the moon, that is, Monday [Garnier, Dissert. de synodo v, ch. v, §2, in Theodoret's Works, vol. V, part I, p. 543, Halle edition, 1774; Pagi, Critice in Annales Baronii, at the year 374, number 9; Binterim, Deutsche Concilien Geschichte, vol. I, p. 190; Van Hecke, Acta SS. vol. V of Oct. auctar. p. 47.]; others finally in the first centuries for Monday, but afterwards for Sunday: which argument (which holds certainly in the ordinations of bishops and presbyters) critics everywhere use in arranging the times of councils to which definite years are not ascribed, and other things of that kind. Surely if the dispute were about St. Amandus of Strasbourg alone or the council of Cologne, the controversy could be settled in a few words: since some defend the genuineness of this council because it is read to have been held on a Sunday; Binterim denies it because at that time councils were accustomed to assemble only on Monday: for it could be shown very briefly that in the 4th century they were gathered both on Sunday and on Monday and on other days of the week also; and that there was no day of the week fixed by general law. But this chronological norm must at some time be wholly excluded from ecclesiastical history.

[35] By conciliar laws and other similar ones of the East. What, then, Binterim affirms Geschichte der Deutsche Concilien, vol. I, p. 380., that in ancient Orders for celebrating a council the sacred assemblies of bishops are ordered to be held on Monday, far from being supported by any monuments, conflicts utterly with ancient ecclesiastical decrees. These it is fitting to recite from collections of canons and liturgical books, since they were much more in use than the documents of individual councils. In the Code, then, of the ecclesiastical canons and constitutions of the holy apostolic see, the most ancient of all, which the Ballerini with splendid study brought to light, in the first chapter, in which the canons of the first council of Nicaea are said to be contained, title IX, on the synod to be celebrated twice a year in each province, ends in these words Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LVI, col. 392.: Let councils be held once before the days of Lent; … and the second time about the time of autumn; and in chapter LIX, by which the council of Antioch is concluded, at number 20 is read Ibid., cols. 711 and 712.: It has seemed sufficient for a council of bishops to be held twice a year in each province: first after the third week of the paschal festival; so that in the fourth week that follows, that is, of mid-Pentecost *, the council may be completed … And let the second council be held on the Ides of October; which day among the Greeks is found to be the tenth of the month Hyperberetaeus: which day could fall on any of the days of the week.

[36] of the Roman church and of Carthage, In the Collection of canons of the Spanish church, which first saw the light in the year 1808, the same canons are found, except that the latter is ascribed once to the council of Antioch, once to the council of Riez, celebrated in the middle of the 5th century Collectio canonum ecclesiæ Hispanæ, cols. 47 and 216.. There among the Decretal Epistles comes, at number LXIII, the epistle of St. Leo the pope to the bishops of Sicily, where at number 7 you have these words Ibid. Decretal Epist. p. 100.: Let three of you always meet without pretext at Rome on the third day before the Kalends of October, to be joined in a fraternal council. But when, on account of the poverty of bishops and the length of the journeys, there had gradually prevailed, the councils being indulgent, that episcopal assemblies should be celebrated only once a year, it pleased the fifth council of Carthage that the day of the council should be kept on the 5th before the Kalends of November, and that it should be written to the primates of each province that, when they gathered a council among themselves, they should not hinder that day Ibid. col. 156.; and in the council of Hippo the 10th before the Kalends of September was appointed Codex canonum Eccl. Afric. number 73, in Labbe, Concilia, vol. II, col. 1093..

[37] [and likewise of Spain, on certain days of the month and on uncertain days of the week] On the contrary the third council of Toledo ordered that the judges of the localities or the agents of the fiscal patrimonies, by decree of the most glorious lord Recared, should come together with the priestly council in the autumn season on the day of the Kalends of November Collectio canonum Eccl. Hispanæ, col. 353.. Similarly it pleased the twelfth council of Toledo that according to the institutions of the earlier canons the bishops of each province every year in whatever province should come together on the Kalends of November to celebrate councils; and whoever on the aforesaid Kalends of November should have delayed to come for the celebration of the synod should be subject to due excommunication Ibid. col. 501.. That the institutions of the earlier canons are recalled to memory has this reason, that there had been a departure from them. For the fourth council of Toledo

had passed this law Ibid. col. 366.: On the fifteenth before the Kalends of June a synod is to be gathered in each province on account of the spring season, when the earth is clothed with grass and the fodder of sprouting things is found; for bishops and nobles came to synods with a great retinue of servants and horses. But neither did this long please, and the eleventh council of Toledo had decreed that every year the solemnity of the council should be performed in the metropolitan see at the time which the choice of the prince or the metropolitan should determine Ibid. col. 484.; which was the discipline of the second council of Arles Ibid. col. 201.. And all these canons are contained in that most ancient collection of canons, but scattered about. There, however, they are comprised under one title, which is on the time of celebrating a council, in another Spanish collection, which they refer to the age of St. Isidore of Seville, but which rather Silvestre Pueyo, canon of Barbastro, in the last century arranged to the norm of the corpus of canon law [Collectio maxima conciliorum Hispaniæ, part I, p. 520 and following. Cf. pp. 518 and 519.].

[38] [councils had to be held; either on a Tuesday or on the anniversary of the consecration of bishops.] Now the decrees which I have recited, drawn from the most ancient collections, were known in Gaul, England, Germany and in part even in the East. And yet since the Ides of October, the third before the Kalends of October, the fifth before the Kalends of November, the tenth before the Kalends of September, the Kalends of November, the fifteenth before the Kalends of June are fixed days of the year, which fall on all days of the weeks, it is manifest that no account was taken of the days of the week. Indeed in the 7th Order for celebrating a council, or that of Bordeaux, these things are added at the end De antiquis ecclesiæ ritibus, vol. III, p. 401.: The winter synod is celebrated and observed on the Tuesday before the feast of the apostles Simon and Jude, unless it be changed. And the paschal synod on the Tuesday after the Sunday on which Jubilate is sung. And these things were done in the said place (in the monastery of St. Romanus or St. Saviour of Blaye, which is the second see in the diocese of Bordeaux), those above-mentioned being present, and many others, in the year of the Lord 1003, in the paschal synod. Add to these that it was also the custom that the Roman pontiff and also metropolitans should celebrate councils on their birthday, that is, on the anniversary of their consecration. Thus St. Hilarus the pope in his epistle to the bishops of the various provinces of Gaul mentions a numerous council gathered also from various provinces, by the grace of God, for the day of his birthday, in honour of blessed Peter the apostle Maurists, Conciliorum Galliæ collectio, vol. I, col. 605.; and in the epistle to the bishops of the province of Tarragona, an assembly of the brethren whom the festival of his birthday had gathered Ibid. note 3.; which birthday indeed Augusti seemed to himself to detect as having been moved to the following Sunday Handbuch der christlichen Archäologie, vol. I, p. 589., from epistle LXXXI of St. Leo, in Quesnel XI, but now IX; but there the matter is not of the birthday or anniversary of consecration, but of the very day of consecration. Nor, then, were these councils attached to a fixed day of the week.

[39] [Since at the end of the 7th century it was introduced by a council of Toledo that on the first three days of synods there should be fasting or litanies,] More moment seems at first sight to lie in the fasts and litanies, which had also the character of penance; since it was forbidden to fast on Sundays and feast days, on which accordingly litanies also were not usually held. And yet in the 2nd Order for celebrating a council, which Martène edited from an old codex of Fleury De ant. eccl. ritibus, vol. III, p. 401., it is prescribed that a beginning be made with three days of litanies, in which the bishops are to hold conference only on divine matters. These things rest on decree I of the seventeenth council of Toledo, which at the end of the 7th century believed it opportune to institute at the beginning of the whole assembly that, a fast running through the space of three days, conference should be held among the bishops on the mystery of the holy Trinity and other spiritual matters Collectio canonum ecclesiæ Hispanæ, col. 590.. Similarly in the third Order, drawn from the codex of St. Martial of Limoges De antiquis, etc., vol. III, p. 404., litanies and psalms are ordered to be sung on the first three days; which in the 6th Order or that of Besançon are called the three days of litanies Ibid., p. 410.. Not otherwise in the old formula for celebrating a provincial council in the church of Rouen, edited by Mabillon Analecta, p. 227., and in the formula for holding a general council inserted in the Order of Cardinal Gaetani Musæum Italicum, vol. II, p. 395., in which on the first day litanies are ordered to be recited. Likewise in the Constitutions of the church of Clermont of the year 1268 priests are strictly commanded to enter the synod fasting; and similarly in the Synodal Statutes of Meaux, that they enter the synod shaven as to the crown and fasting, under the penalties established by law Cf. Benedict XIV, de Synodo, bk. III, ch. 11, number 1.. Not otherwise is it read in the Order how a synod is to be begun, used in the synod of Bayeux of the year 1300 Labbe, Concilia, vol. XI, col. 1450.. This fast was known also beyond the Rhine; for in Germany Hartzheim, Concilia Germaniæ, vol. III, p. 15. these things occur: And they are to be admonished that no one should come to the synod not fasting or withdraw from the common assembly before the general withdrawal comes. And so also let the synod of the first day be dismissed.

[40] [and before that sometimes, especially in Greece, there was fasting before the beginnings of councils,] Does it follow from this, then, that councils were never celebrated unless the first three days did not fall on Sunday? By no means. In the first place the origin of that three days' fast is not so ancient, since it is to be referred to the end of the 7th century. Before that, another method of fasting had sometimes been observed even in the West, as is clear from the third national synod of Toledo, which was held on the 8th before the Ides of May, era 627, that is, the year of Christ 589, on a Sunday. For when King Recared had ordered all the prelates of his government to come together, he admonished and likewise exhorted them to give their efforts to fasts and vigils, that the canonical order might again be opened to them by divine gift. And thereupon, giving thanks to God and to the most religious prince, the whole council acclaiming with praises, a three days' fast was thereupon proclaimed. But when on the eighth day before the Ides of May the priests of God were present in one assembly, … behold, again there was present in their midst the most serene prince Collectio canonum ecclesiæ Hispanæ, col. 337., and then AFTER the preceding three days' fast the council was begun. Which though it was undertaken without a fixed law, but by a pious motion of the mind, yet did not lack the authority of example. For when Paul and Barnabas, as is read in the Acts of the apostles, ch. XIII, 1 and following, were set apart, there was celebrated at Antioch a council of some sort, from which the religion of fasting was not absent. This the Greeks diligently kept in the first centuries. Tertullian is a witness: There are held, he says Against the Psychics, edition of Pamelius, p. 1181., throughout those Greeces, in fixed places, prescribed councils from all the churches; through which both the higher matters are treated in common, and the very representation of the whole Christian name is celebrated with great veneration. And how worthy this is, faith leading the way, to be gathered from every side to Christ! … But those assemblies, FIRST working at stations and fastings, know how to grieve with the grieving and thus at last to rejoice with the rejoicing. But these things by no means availed for it ever to be instituted in the Latin church by firm law or precept that a three days' fast be observed before councils. Wherefore I gladly admit that these examples were extended by me more widely than was right in the Commentary on St. Fromundus, bishop of Coutances in Normandy, at the 24th day of October Acta SS., vol. X of October, p. 844, number 5., and that it was wrongly stated by me that this three days' fast was usually kept in the West BEFORE the beginnings of councils: for, as is clear, although it was sometimes held beforehand, yet it was never the custom that it should be held beforehand. But the example of the third council of Toledo availed to have the common law on the three days' fast passed a hundred years later in the seventeenth council of Toledo, which gradually spread to other regions; yet by that law it was not prescribed that the three days' fast be kept before the celebration of councils, but at their beginning. Nor have I found anything anywhere prescribed about keeping this fast before this latter council, which was held in the year 694: so that the appointment of councils down to this year was wholly free from this law of fasting and litanies, and ecclesiastical assemblies could be begun on any day of the week.

[41] [yet it can only rarely be determined from this on what day of the week councils were begun.] But although in the West the authority of the councils of Toledo was very great, yet since this law on the three days' fast was not contained in the Formula or Order for celebrating a council, drawn up at the fourth council of Toledo in the year 633 and everywhere received, it is no wonder if that fast was not attended to everywhere; nor does this method of fasting seem ever to have become known in the East.

[42] In no Orders is it prescribed that councils begin on Monday. But as to what they affirm, that synods were begun on Monday according to the custom of our forefathers, after divine service had been duly performed on Sunday: I for my part have inquired whether, as the solemnity of ordinations was begun on Saturday and completed on Sunday, so also the solemnity of beginning councils, started on the evening of Sunday, was prolonged into the following day; but I have nowhere detected anything of the kind: on the contrary it is everywhere prescribed by the most ancient formulas that at first dawn, even before sunrise, the churches be emptied of laymen and the bishops and others lawfully called be brought in, to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass: so that nothing can be determined from this head either. And if at any time there was a departure from this, that was done neither by law nor by custom, but because it so pleased the bishops, the emperor or the king.

[43] [By a list of the councils of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th centuries it is shown that councils were begun on all days of the week.] These things being so, it is readily clear that the chronological canon drawn from the beginnings of councils has no force at all: yet that this may be beyond all controversy, it has seemed opportune to review all the councils of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th centuries to which, in the work Art de vérifier les dates, the year and day are attached. I know indeed that not all agree about all the marks of time indicated there, and I myself have detected some errors; yet they are very generally received, and since they are so great in number, they plainly suffice for it to be understood that almost no account was taken of the days of the week in beginning councils: which conclusion can suffer nothing from some few slips.

Whence it should be clear and manifest even to the blind that no law was observed about celebrating councils on a fixed day of the week; that the chronological canon drawn from this is plainly trifling; in a word, that the sacred assemblies of bishops were held on all days of the week almost without any distinction; and consequently that in the fact that the council of Cologne was assembled on a Sunday there lies no ground why some should call it genuine, others spurious. Nothing, then, of firmness is taken away by this from the unshaken foundations on which the Acts of this synod rest, and the presence of St. Amandus, bishop of Strasbourg.

[44] St. Amandus seems to have subscribed to the council of Sardica. Further, since he was present at it and consequently lived in that age, the opinion of those who hold that he also subscribed to the council of Sardica is very likely. For St. Athanasius, reviewing the names of those who wrote in the synod and then of other bishops according to the order of regions, when he comes to Gaul, in the 27th place names Ἄμαντον [Apology against the Arians, number 50, in Migne, Patrologia græca, vol. XXV, col. 337.]; by which it is clear that Amandus is indicated. But it comes to be observed that not all who are read there were present at the synod of Sardica, and that St. Athanasius accordingly records the names of other bishops who, though they could not be present, yet, the synodal letter having been sent to them, themselves also approved the decrees of the synod by their votes: and that these latter are those reviewed by St. Athanasius according to the order of regions has been shown by the brothers Ballerini [Appendix to the Works of St. Leo, part I, ch. 7, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LVI, col. 55 and following.]; since St. Amandus or Ἄμαντος is of their number, it is surely to be judged that he did not go on to Sardica, but assented to it before or after, by letters given. No more of his deeds is known. Yet for my part it is permissible to make St. Amandus a sharer in the praises with which St. Hilary, at the end of the year 358, in the book on the Synods [Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. X, col. 479 and following. Cf. Grandidier, Histoire de L'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 136 and following.], heaped the bishops of Gaul for their constancy in the faith, at whose head he placed his most beloved and most blessed brethren and fellow bishops of Germania Prima.

[45] Whether St. Amandus lived as a solitary on the Rhine island of Honau. Some would have it, so speaks Grandidier Ibid., p. 138 and following., relying on some writings preserved in the archive of Old St. Peter's, that St. Amandus suffered much while the persecution of Julian the Apostate raged; and that with some of his presbyters and clerics he withdrew to the island of Honau or Honovia and, a basilica of St. Michael having been built, led a solitary life; indeed they refer to this, as if St. Jerome had lived with the holy man there, the following words of his in the epistle to Rufinus Epist. III, number 5, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. XXII, col. 334.: Lord Jesus, … thou thyself knowest, … how I and he (Bonosus, who had embraced the monastic life) grew up together from tender infancy to the flower of life, … and how, after our Roman studies, on the half-barbarous banks of the Rhine we enjoyed the same food, a like lodging, so that I first began to wish to worship thee. But no authority from antiquity supports these things; but the occasion of inventing them was that his body at one time came into the keeping of the canons of Honau. Grandidier records the death of St. Amandus at the year 359 Histoire de L'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 139.; but this too is bare divination. He is also said to have flown to heaven on the 26th day of October, because on this day his feast is celebrated; but this argument is less certain, especially since in the ancient martyrologies which Henschen has produced [Acta SS., vol. I of February, p. 829; Cf. the Auctaria of Usuard, Galesini and Ferrari at the 25th day of November.] his feast is inscribed on the 15th day of November.

* others media Pentecoste at mid-Pentecost

§ VII. The ancient condition of Strasbourg, suitable for the establishment of an episcopal see.

[Strasbourg, of Celtic origin, was the station of the 8th legion and the head of several military roads;] Now since St. Amandus was the first bishop of Strasbourg and the prince and founder of this see, it seems that a few things should be said about the beginnings of this city. That the city is of Celtic origin the very name seems to indicate. For ratum or ratus, in which it ends, in Irish rath or rat, signifies a fort, a military station and a guard post O'Brien, Focaloir, p. 397; O'Reilly, Irish-English dictionary, under Rat.; and as to what the sense of the word argent may be, which is also a part of the names Argentomagus, Argentogilum, Argentacum and Argentoduplum, several have formerly dared to define it Cf. Schoepflin, Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, p. 53 and following.: but now, when the reckonings of the old languages lie open much better, they philosophize more soberly about this matter. Certainly Zeuss Grammatica Celtica, cf. the Gallic index, vol. II, p. 1157 and following., who has indicated the meaning of many Gallic names, has studiously omitted Argentoratum and other similar forms; and August Friedrich Pott Die Personennamen … under Berücksichtigung der Ortsnamen, p. 434., a philologist of bold and most happy talent, admits that an unknown meaning lies in the name of Argentia, which is a town of Cisalpine Gaul. But although the city had already been founded before the arrival of the Romans, because it was small no one mentioned it before Ptolemy; who taught that the eighth legion Augusta was its garrison Geogr., bk. II, ch. 9; cf. Schoepflin, Alsat. ill., vol. I, p. 206.: which legion, as is clear from surviving inscriptions, long occupied the bank of the Rhine in both Germanies, especially the upper. In the 4th century, when the enemy was continually threatening, its site and position availed to make it grow in strength and circuit, since it had to be diligently guarded. For founded on the left of the Rhine at the river Ill, it was as it were the head or navel of several military roads. For from here one went to Trier by way of Tabernae, Pons Saravi, Decempagi, Duodecimum, Metz, Coranusca and Ricciacum; to Augusta Rauracorum and thence to Milan and Novara, by way of Helellum, Argentovaria, Cambate and Artalbinum; to Noviomagus or Speyer by way of Saletio and Tabernae and by way of Brocomagus and Concordia; to Besançon by way of Helellum, Mons Brisiacus, Urunci, Artalbinum, Vindonissa, Cambate and Epamanduodurum, and from Vindonissa to Vemania by way of Fines, Arbor Felix and Bregantia.

[47] [in the 4th century it was a notable municipium and the second city of Germania Prima, having a factory of all arms;] Ammianus Marcellinus calls it a municipium; by which are understood towns using their own laws and magistrates; and he lists it among the chief cities of the Rhine: Germania Prima, he says Bk. XV, ch. 2., where besides other municipia there are Mainz, the Vangiones (Worms), the Nemetes (Speyer) and Strasbourg, known for barbarian disasters. Indeed in the old Notitia of the Gauls of Sirmond, which is of the end of the 4th century, it comes in second place among the cities of Germania Prima or Upper In D. Bouquet, Recueil, etc. vol. I, p. 123.: Metropolis, the city of Mainz. — The city of Strasbourg. — The city of the Nemetes. — The city of the Vangiones. This one indication alone would be enough for it to be understood that at that time a bishop already sat at Strasbourg. And in the Notitia of the Empire, which all agree was written about the year 400, under the disposition of the illustrious master of offices, among the 8 factories in Gaul, there is read that of Strasbourg, of all arms, a particular kind of arms being assigned to the others Ibid., p. 126.. And it was the head of a military province, named the tract of Strasbourg, under the disposition of the distinguished count of Strasbourg Ibid., p. 127..

[48] not long after it perished, and it probably lost its episcopal see: But not long after, by the madness or the perfidy of Stilicho, the Rhine frontier having been stripped of garrisons and soon broken through by the barbarians, Mainz, once a noble city, was captured and overthrown, and in the church many thousands of men were slaughtered. The Vangiones were destroyed by a long siege. The very powerful city of Reims, Amiens, Arras, the Morini, furthest of men, Tournai, the Nemetes, Strasbourg, were transferred into Germany St. Jerome, Epist. XCI to Ageruchia, in D. Bouquet, vol. I, p. 744.; which is the expression of Florus, signifying that the countryside was occupied by the Germans and only the towns left to the Romans. Whence, since the Germans were unwilling to settle within walls and the lot and condition of the townsfolk became daily heavier, as if they were besieged, the cities of the Rhine which had not been destroyed gradually perished: by which reasoning, unless the Vandals under King Gunderic or the Huns under the leader Attila overthrew Strasbourg, it must have lost its former splendour in the 5th century; not to recover it, had not the Alemanni built in the vicinity, upon the public road joining Gaul and Germany, long called Oberstrass, a fort or burg; at whose sides a settlement soon grew up, called together with the burg Strassburg: which name was already known to St. Gregory of Tours Cf. Schoepflin, Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, p. 218 and following.. Meanwhile, while Strasbourg lay in ruins, Schoepflin judges that almost all indications of the Christian religion gradually vanished Ibid., p. 329.; certainly it so suffered that the place no longer seemed suitable for an episcopal see. And when a bishop was lacking, the disciplinary laws of that time allowed neighbouring bishops to extend their authority to the deserted diocese. By which it could have come about that in this interval it was subject to the bishops of Metz: although the arguments brought forward Ibid., p. 346. are less certain than they appear at first sight. But we have inverted the order too much; we must first come to the beginnings of Christianity.

[49] the Christian origins of Strasbourg. While, then, the Romans ruled there, that the Christian doctrine was propagated is stated on the authority of St. Irenaeus Antiquitates Germaniæ primæ, p. 14., who mentions the churches which have been founded in Germania, indeed in the Germanies, τας ἐν Γερμανιαις ἱδρυμενας ἐκκλησιας, and indeed so conspicuous that their doctrine was not to be neglected in the review of the apostolic traditions. Not, then, within a space of a few years did the divine seed make those increases by which, in the middle of the 4th century, there appeared a most beautiful harvest of Christians, not only in Germania Prima or Upper, nearer to Italy and Lyon, but (as is read in the council of Cologne) in all the camps of Germania Secunda or Lower. That the Christian religion was brought there by soldiers and colonists has been the opinion of Bebel Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, pp. 326 and 327., Schoepflin Histoire de L'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 42., Grandidier Das Elsass, neue historische topographische beschreibung, vol. I, p. 51., Aufschlager Vaterlandische Geschichte des Elsasses, vol. I, p. 53. and Strobel Acta SS. vol. VIII of October, p. 31 and following.: a general argument which one of my colleagues has already somewhat polished long ago

at the 17th day of October [Cf. Bebel, p. 91; Schoepflin, Alsatia ill. vol. I, p. 507 and following; Strobel, vol. I, p. 53, note 3.], and which I should say was of great strength in this place, if among the inscriptions and memorials of the 8th legion, which was stationed at Strasbourg (as Ptolemy said above and surviving stones testify Cf. Schoepflin, Alsatia illustrata, vol. I, p. 329.), any indication of Christian profession occurred. But whatever that is, for St. Irenaeus' credit to stand, it is necessary that bishops established in other cities of Gaul visited these parts, and ordained presbyters there to administer Christian affairs, until in the times of Constantine the Great St. Amandus was created first prelate of Strasbourg. What of the fact that St. Aurelia, whose Acts we gave at the 15th day of October, seems to have undergone martyrdom there before peace was restored to the church? For it is most certainly a fable that she was of the company of St. Ursula: for she was already publicly venerated in the 6th century, and the particular companions of St. Ursula began to be venerated outside Cologne only in the 12th century. Pass over St. Maternus, who is also read to have preached the faith there; whom St. Amandus is even said to have gone out to meet: these things rest on documents not good enough. Nor does it seem that more should be said of the origin of Christianity among the people of Strasbourg, which could not but be most obscure, since from the 5th century all the institutions of the Roman age perished there.

§ VIII. The fortunes and the cult of the body of St. Amandus.

[The first burial of St. Amandus unknown: his body, which came into the keeping of the canons of Honau or Rheinau, is visited in the year 1371;] That St. Amandus was buried in a suburban church is suggested by the customs of the 4th century; yet no memory of this matter survives. Some report, as Gallia christiana Vol. V, col. 778. and Grandidier Hist. de L'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 140. are witnesses to me, that he was laid in the valley of the Bruche, which in the 18th century was held to have contained the valley of Schirmeck and the bailiwick of Dachstein; and indeed at Haslach: where they seem to judge that he was committed to the earth for this reason, that St. Florentius, before he succeeded St. Arbogast in the chair of Strasbourg, founded the monastery of Haslach, and on that occasion is said to have raised the body of St. Amandus from the earth and to have exposed the relics to public veneration. But this opinion does not please Grandidier, who is more inclined to think that he obtained rest from the beginning at Rheinau, if it were sufficiently established that this island of the Rhine and monastery already had inhabitants in the 4th century: but this too is a weak opinion. This one thing is established, that in the 10th century the fame and veneration of St. Amandus were great and that his body was in the keeping of the canons of Honau, before in the year 1290, from the Rhine island of Honovia or Honau, two leagues below Strasbourg, on account of frequent inundations of the river, with the consent of Conrad III, prelate of Strasbourg, they transferred their seat to Rheinau, six leagues above the city: for then his relics shone with so many miracles that on the 3rd day of November of the year 1371 it seemed good that his tomb should be opened. The head, found uninjured and whole, was placed separately in a pyx, with a very brief writing by which this invention was committed to memory together with the signs and prodigies with which the sacred pledges had flashed there. On account of this translation, such as it was, his feast is noted in some calendars at the 3rd day of November.

[51] [he is solemnly translated in the year 1398 to Strasbourg to the church of Old St. Peter;] But the remains of St. Amandus did not have a stable dwelling there either. For since Rheinau was no less inconvenient than Honau, with the consent of Wilhelm of Diest, bishop of Strasbourg, on the 22nd day of May of the year 1390 they transferred their seat with all their goods to the city itself; placing the bones of St. Amandus in the church of St. Catherine of the nuns of the order of Preachers, until they should have prepared a fitting place in the parochial church of Old St. Peter, which the prelate had granted them. And when the time of the translation drew near, the bishop wished his first predecessor to be honoured with the highest reverence. So on the 19th day of October he set forth a public edict, by which he ordered that all the secular clergy, and exhorted that the regular clergy likewise, should be present at the solemnity, and by the reward of indulgences enticed innumerable faithful to it, and he appointed it for his feast day, the 26th of October of the year 1398: in which mandate the bishop said that the body of St. Amandus would be translated from the first place of its rest to the said place of St. Peter, as if it had first been committed to the earth at Rheinau: but unless we wish to err of set purpose, the words are not to be pressed. From this time the bones of the holy prelate were preserved with much care in a chest of gilded wood; with this distich inscribed:

Receive, devout wayfarer, the sarcophagus of Amandus, The excellent first prelate of this city;

but the head in a silver pyx.

[52] [he is often visited, having suffered nothing from heretics in the 16th century and from the impious at the end of the 19th century. The cult is approved by Roman pontiffs.] While the Lutheran heresy dominated at Strasbourg, the sacred pledges were placed on the high altar, fastened with several keys; which three or four canons kept in their own possession, who (though all signs of the genuine religion were interdicted) never deserted the city. But when Louis XIV occupied the city and Catholic rites were brought back by right of postliminy into the church of Old St. Peter on the 29th day of September of the year 1682, the shrine of St. Amandus was brought back to its former niche, which is near the high altar above the door of the sacristy. In the years 1697 and 1700 François Blouet de Camilly, vicar general of William Egon of Fürstenberg, bishop of Strasbourg, recognized the holy pledges; and when he had found them genuine and approved them, he permitted them to be exposed to popular piety. About the year 1736 they were examined by the doctor of medicine Le Maire, chief surgeon of the military hospital of Strasbourg, and he found that all the bones were there, except that one arm bone was lacking. And when on the 5th day of February of the year 1759 the bishop of Aretha, in the name of Cardinal Constantin de Rohan, visited the church of Old St. Peter, he did not fail to inspect the wooden shrine of St. Amandus and the silver pyx. The sacred relics did not perish at the time of the upheaval of the French state; and so, as is read in the Office, they are exposed to the public veneration of the faithful in the church of Old St. Peter down to the present day; and the head every year on his feast day is placed in a solemn location. In the restoration of the cult of St. Amandus the authority of Roman pontiffs also intervened, of Benedict XIII in the year 1726, and of Benedict XIV in the year 1748 [Cf. on all these things Schilter, Chronicum Alsatiæ Kœnigshovii, p. 1158; La Guille, Hist. de la province d'Alsace, vol. I, p. 318; Grandidier, Hist. de L'Église de Strasbourg, vol. I, p. 140 and following; Hunckler, Hist. des saints d'Alsace, p. 499 and following; Officia propria ecclesiæ Argentinensis of the year 1838, pp. 281 and 282.]; and now his feast is kept in the greater double rite in the whole diocese of Strasbourg, with an office approved by the apostolic see. The form of the Prayer is this: Lord Jesus, who hast given blessed Amandus, thy confessor and bishop, as a good pastor; we suppliantly beseech thee that by his intercession all straying sheep may now be converted to thee, the shepherd and prince of their souls: who livest, etc. Lessons of the I Nocturn: Fidelis; of the III Nocturn from the Gospel of St. John, ch. 10: I am the good shepherd, with the homily of St. Augustine, Sermon 138 on Scripture: Exponit apertius. I shall give in full the lessons of the II Nocturn, which briefly comprise the deeds of St. Amandus.

[53] Lesson IV. That Alsace was illumined by the sacred light of the Gospel Lessons of the II Nocturn, confirmed not so long * after the times of the apostles can scarcely be doubted, on the testimony of Irenaeus: that the churches situated in the Germanies believe and hand on the same doctrine as the other churches. But the flock of the faithful was then small, dispersed, and not yet furnished with its own pastors. The sacred mysteries were celebrated in secret, and, the worshippers of idols raging, the oppressed church lay hidden. At length by the kindly disposition of divine providence, about the end of the third century, as Maternus with his companions preached in Alsace, a huge number of the inhabitants were converted to the faith of Christ, churches were built, and the first foundations of the episcopate of Strasbourg were laid; which church a little later Amandus governed as first bishop.

[54] by the sacred congregation of Rites; Lesson V. Arduous was the ministry of Amandus: to scatter the errors of the Gentiles, to illumine minds, to win hearts, and so to multiply the flock of Christ he strove with cares by day and night. Nor was his solicitude for the faithful less: he strengthened the weak in faith; he spurred on the sluggish; in all he kindled the ardour of charity and piety, and he provided for the needs of all. And with how much zeal he guarded the deposit of faith shines forth from this, that when Euphrates, bishop of Cologne, infected with the Arian heresy, denied the divinity of the Word, Amandus, shuddering at the impious doctrine, with fourteen other bishops assembled in the year 346 in the council of Cologne, condemned the Arian impiety; and in the following year (rather in the year 343), subscribing to the council of Sardica, gave repeated testimony to the consubstantiality of the Word: by which vigilance the holy prelate preserved the truth of the faith uncontaminated in his church.

[55] are recited. Lesson VI. Amandus received the unfading crown of glory from the prince of pastors, having died on the 7th before the Kalends of November after the middle of the 4th century. His sacred body long rested in the church of Rheinau, renowned for prodigies. But when in the year 1398 the college of canons was transferred from Rheinau to Strasbourg, to the church of St. Peter commonly called the Old, William II, bishop of Strasbourg, ordered the body of St. Amandus to be transferred at the same time. There was assigned for the translation the very anniversary feast day of the blessed prelate, on which, both the secular and the regular clergy, and also the whole people going out to meet them, the sacred relics were received with the highest feeling of joy and devotion, and brought to the said church and replaced in it; where they are exposed to the public veneration of the faithful down to the present day.

* multo much