Aptonius

ON ST. APTONIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, OF ANGOULÊME,

IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Aptonius, confessor and bishop, at Angoulême. (S.)

BY R. D. B.

§ single. St. Aptonius, bishop of this city, is venerated at Angoulême. He subscribes to the fifth Council of Orléans. The time of his death. There was only one Aptonius of Angoulême.

Engolisma, commonly Angoulême, lying among the Pictones, At Angoulême, which is an ancient city of Gaul, Santones, Lemovices and Petrocorii, is said to have been reckoned of old among the number of the more illustrious cities of Gaul. For it occurs in third place after Bordeaux the metropolis and Agen, before Saintes, Poitiers and Périgueux, among the cities of Aquitania Secunda in several notices of Gaul [Sirmond, Concilia Galliæ, vol. I; Bouquet, Recueil, etc. vol. I, p. 123; Schelstrate, Antiquitates ecclesiæ, vol. I, pp. 640 and 645; Guérard, Essai sur la division territoriale de la Gaule, p. 27.] or of the Empire Schelstrate, op. cit., vol. I, p. 641., one of which most of the learned judge to have been written under the emperor Honorius: or also among the cities of the province of Bordeaux in the chronicle of Robert In Adrien de Valois in the Notitia Galliarum, p. 250.. There is added that Gervase of Tilbury Otia imperialia, in Leibniz, Rer. Brunswicensium vol. I, p. 915. and the more recent Notices of the bishoprics of Gaul [Gallia Christiana, vol. I, at the beginning; Description historique et géographique de la France. Paris, 1719, part I, bk. II, p. 164.] assign to its bishop the third place after those of Poitiers and Saintes. The first of the old writers to mention this town is Ausonius in the fourth century, and he calls it Iculisma Epist. XV, Patrologia of Migne, vol. XIX, col. 924.: to which appellation many others were added, namely Ecolisma, Iculisna, Ecolisna, Ecolesma, Ecolesima, Aquelina, Aquilina, Aquilisma, Aqualisina, Ecolisina, Ecolesina, Ecolesena, Egolisma, Ecolesina civitas, Equolisina, Ecolosina, Egolesina civitas of Aquitaine, Engolisma, Inculisma; which forms and others Adrien de Valois Notitia Galliarum, l. c. and B. Guérard Essai sur la division territoriale, l. c. have collected. It was subject to the Visigoths when Clovis came to besiege it: but the storming was easy for the king of the Franks; to whom, as St. Gregory of Tours narrates, the Lord granted so great a grace that at the sight of him the walls fell of their own accord.

[2] St. Aptonius is venerated; In these our Acts there has already been frequent discourse of the saints who dwelt in that city. For our predecessors, Papebroch and Du Sollier, enriched with commentaries the Acts of two saints of Angoulême, St. Ausonius, bishop Acta SS., vol. V of May, p. 131., St. Eparchius, a recluse Ibid., vol. I of July, p. 109., and also St. Salvius Ibid., vol. V of June, p. 196., who himself also, according to not a few, was bishop of Angoulême: in whose footsteps my colleague Joseph Van Hecke Ibid., vol. VIII of Oct., p. 59. has followed, illustrating the deeds of both Roricii, bishops of Limoges. To whom must now be subjoined St. Aptonius, bishop there in the 6th century, although Papebroch Ibid., vol. V of May, p. 132., by I know not what distraction of mind, wrote that this blessed man was never numbered among the heavenly ones, or venerated anywhere with ecclesiastical veneration. For to begin from the martyrologies, his name is read, added by a later hand, in a codex of the Martyrology of Ado, written in the 12th century Martyrologium Adonis, edition of Giorgi, pp. IX and 546., then bought by the queen of Sweden and brought to the Vatican library; where it is marked with number 512. This is the announcement of the venerable man there at the present day: On the same day of St. Abtonius, bishop and confessor; similarly in the supplement of the universal Martyrology of Chastelain: At Angoulême, St. Aptonus, Bishop; not otherwise in the Catalogue of saints male and female of Simon de Peyronnet: Apto, Aptonus, bishop of Angoulême, Angouleme, in Gaul, 26 October; and in the Parisian Martyrology of the year 1752: At Angoulême, of St. Aptonius, bishop, who subscribed to the fifth council of Orléans; and one year earlier in that of Auxerre, published by the bishop of this city Charles de Caylus: At Angoulême, of St. Aptonius, bishop, who was present at the council of Orléans with Blessed Eleutherius of Auxerre; in all which du Saussay went before in the supplement of the Gallican Martyrology: On the same day, he says, the invention

of St. Apto, bishop of Angoulême, brother and successor of St. Ausonius, the first prelate of that see. After whom, shining forth with new splendour on this people, among the darkness of unbelief and the whirlwinds of persecution, he kindled the light of faith in the hearts of many, and much enlarged it when kindled: and at length, dreadfully harassed by the impious, ascended to glory by a splendid contest. His birthday, observed by our forefathers with due honour, was long kept solemnly on the 22nd day of June. Nevertheless in the monastery of St. Eparchius at Angoulême, either because the remains of St. Aptonius were preserved there, or on account of the intercourse and fellowship of the two saints while they lived, the birthday of St. Aptonius has long been kept on the 26th day of October with an office of twelve lessons, as Simon Peyronnet, who had the Eparchian breviary before his eyes and whom I cited a little above, is witness. This former religion has not wholly ceased; for it is established to me from several Orders for reciting the divine Office and celebrating Mass in the diocese of Angoulême that even in our days the feast of St. Aptonius, bishop and confessor, is kept there in the double rite on the 26th day of October. From which historical monuments it is easily proved that the assertion of Papebroch fell from an imprudent pen.

[3] whose name has manifold forms. From these things which we have brought together so far while occupied with something else, the reader has been able to understand that the name of St. Aptonius has reached us in more than one form; and indeed some Life of St. Eparchius, in Acta SS., vol. I of July, p. 112. have written Aphtonius or Abtonius Cf. the Auctarium of the Martyrology of Ado, p. 547.; others Aptonius [Historia comitum et episcoporum Engolismensium, in Labbe, Bibl. mss., vol. II, p. 249.] or even Aptonus du Saussay, supplement to the Gallican Martyrology; nor have there been lacking Collectio Conciliorum, vol. V, col. 400. those who have said Antonius; because the name of Aptonius or Aphthonius was wholly unusual to them, or as if it were a double form of one name. But how far these stray from the truth is clear from this, that Aphthonius is a Greek name, and Antonius Latin: and further that the appellation Aphthonius was not so rare among the Greeks; from whom it passed to the Syrians and Latins. Thus from Suidas [Lexicon Græce et Latine, Halle and Braunschweig, edition of 1852, vol. I, at the word Ἀρθόνιος.], Fabricius Bibliotheca Græca, Hamburg, 1798, p. 94. and Pape Wörterbuch der Griechischen Eigennamen. Braunschweig, 1842. report that Aphthonius, a Greek sophist, wrote books many centuries before Christ; afterwards the name of Aphthonius belonged to a bishop of Heraclea in Caria Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, vol. III, cols. 480, 537, 691., who was present at the council of Ephesus; and to a lector, who was heard by the Fathers of the council of Constantinople under Menas in action V against Peter, bishop of Apamea Ibid., vol. V, col. 242.; and also to an abbot of the monastery of St. Publius in Syria Acta SS., vol. IV of May, pp. 642 and 649.. There were also two Aptonii Ibid., vol. V of May, p. 148., martyrs in Spain. But why Aptonius, not Aphthonius, is written by me, this is the reason. It is true that the genuine form of the name is Aphthonius, that is, a man without envy; and that would have to be kept, if it were written in Greek. But since the Latin tongue shuns the aspiration of consonants, and so our forefathers, as Cicero witnesses In the Orator, ch. XLVIII., spoke so as to use aspiration nowhere except on a vowel, it has seemed better to me, writing in Latin, not to depart from the common usage of the Latins.

[4] created bishop of Angoulême about the year 542, The Acts of St. Aptonius, if they were ever written, so far as I know, are lost, or at least have so far not come to the public light; wherefore it is no wonder if the office of St. Aptonius is wholly from the common of confessor Bishops. Yet his condition is better than that of many other heavenly ones, whose life has not been handed down to us by contemporary writers; indeed several of his deeds can by no means be called in doubt, since they are wholly manifest from elsewhere. For from the Life of St. Eparchius it is established that St. Aptonius did not begin his episcopate before the year 441, since in this year his predecessor Lupicinus was present through another at the council of Orléans Labbe, Collectio Concil., vol. V, col. 389.; nor after the year 542, since in that year he presided, already a bishop, at the enclosure of St. Eparchius, as our predecessor Du Sollier proves after Ruinart Acta SS. vol. I of July, p. 111.. And God used St. Aptonius both that St. Eparchius might bring back more splendid triumphs in the arena of virtue, and that the monastic life might the more easily be brought into the diocese of Angoulême, which down to these times seems to have been little practised there. How much, then, by God's mercy the most holy monk owed to the venerable bishop, let us now set forth. He is read in his Acts to have fled the allurements and honours of the world, and to have embraced the monastic life in the monastery of Sedacium in the tract of Limoges, from which he originated: and afterwards, that he might live more for God alone, to have come to Angoulême.

[5] he encloses St. Eparchius, These things having been declared, the biographer then goes on in these words: When therefore (St. Eparchius) was traversing the several places, he wished to pass through more secretly; recognized by the citizens, he was pointed out to Aphtonius, the prelate of that city; of whom report had already been flying among the breezes: and he, recognizing him more fully by himself, rejoiced, received him with great exultation, and when he carefully understood the cause of his devotion, did not permit him to go further; but bound him to himself with great love of heart and showed him the place he desired, deserted like the solitude of the desert: on seeing which, the blessed man did not speak so much with his mouth as he rejoiced in his heart, because the place was remote, and the city far off, and from above on the side of the mountain a spring of water flowed, and the river Charente shut it off on the other side. But after he had begun to be an exile from his own soil and had been very greatly detained in the city, he did not wish to be enclosed without the consent of his bishop or abbot: and so the man of the Lord Bishop Aphthonius with his envoys, that is, Fronto the archpresbyter, who afterwards merited the dignity of the episcopate, Arthemius the deacon, a man in all things a servant of Christ, and likewise Arthemius the defensor, dispatched them to Bishop Sebaudis * or to his abbot to receive peace or to obtain what he had vowed: who having returned scarcely at length report that all things were excellently and kindly permitted … Since St. Aptonius himself was not enclosed, this is not the place to describe that institution; on which moreover several have spoken, of whom Holste Rule of Grimlaic in the Codex Regularum, vol. II, p. 291. and Rader Bavaria sacra, vol. III, p. 117. — Viridarium sanctorum, part III. especially have communicated ancient monuments to the public. This one thing we shall point out, that the solemnity of enclosure was usually carried out with many prayers, sacred rites and religion; which in part were afterwards employed also in the enclosure of lepers. Nor did St. Aptonius confer this one benefit on St. Eparchius, for from him, as the biographer also witnesses Acta SS., vol. I of July, p. 112., he received the grade of the presbyterate.

[6] [he subscribes to the fifth council of Orléans, at which many bishops were present who were afterwards reckoned among the heavenly ones;] Not long after these things were done, there was celebrated in Gaul the fifth council of Orléans; which place had been chosen because, since this city was situated in the middle of the threefold kingdom, access to it from the various provinces was easier. That council had been convoked by Childebert, king of the Parisian realm (of which from the time of the death of Chlodomer Orléans was a part), that the fathers might examine the case of Mark, prelate of Orléans, accused by wicked men of very grave crimes and sent into exile [Gregory of Tours, Lives of the Fathers, ch. 6, n. 5, in Migne, Patrol., vol. LXXI, col. 1032.], and also make decisions on matters relating to faith and discipline Labbe, Collectio Conc., vol. V, col. 391.. Sentence having been pronounced on the innocence of Mark, the fathers of Orléans condemned the errors of Eutyches and Nestorius, which seem to have crept into Gaul, since not long before St. Avitus, at the request of King Gundobad, had refuted them in several epistles [Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, bk. II, ch. XXXIV, in D. Bouquet, vol. II, p. 197.]; then they issued several disciplinary canons. To which St. Aptonius subscribed in these words: I, Aphtonius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Angoulême, have subscribed. With St. Aptonius there subscribed fifty bishops, and in the name of their absent bishops ten presbyters, six archdeacons, three deacons, and two abbots Labbe, Collectio Conc., vol. V, cols. 397, 398, 399.. And this was such a pious congregation of men fearing God that, besides St. Aptonius, several of them were afterwards reckoned among the saints. Of whom these are the names: St. Sacerdos of Lyon Acta SS., vol. IV of Sept., p. 31., St. Aurelian of Arles Ibid., vol. III of June, p. 108., St. Hesychius of Vienne du Saussay, Martyrologium Gallicanum, 12 Nov. p. 867., St. Nicetius of Trier Acta SS. Ord. S. B. Sec. I, p. 191., St. Desideratus of Bourges Acta SS., vol. II of May, p. 303., St. Aspasius of Eauze Ibid, vol. I of January, p. 90., St. Firminus of Uzès Ibid., vol. V of Oct., p. 635., St. Agricola of Chalon Ibid., vol. I of March, p. 514., St. Gall of Auvergne Ibid., vol. I of July, p. 103., St. Eleutherius of Auxerre Ibid., vol. IV of Aug., p. 299., St. Nectarius of Autun Ibid., vol. IV of Sept., p. 59., St. Auregius of Nevers Ibid., vol. IV of Aug., p. 295., St. Domitian of Tongeren [Ibid., vol. II of May, p. 146; or Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 249, and vol. II, p. 162.], St. Leobinus of Chartres Acta SS., vol. II of March, p. 319., St. Lauto of Coutances Ibid., vol. VI of Sept., p. 438., St. Tetricus of Langres Ibid., vol. II of March, p. 633.; then those who were present at the council through deputies, St. Genebaud of Laon Ibid., vol. II of Sept., p. 537., St. Leontius of Bordeaux Ibid., vol. IV of Aug., p. 442., and St. Gallican of Embrun [Gallia Christiana, vol. III, col. 1061. — Migne, Dictionnaire hagiologique, col. 1154.].

[7] which was national Although these names are only the smallest part, yet since they belong to the most diverse regions, the reader cannot but suspect that that council was national: and indeed this was its character and nature. For there had come to Orléans bishops from the provinces of Lugdunensis Prima and

Secunda; from Belgica Prima; from Maxima Sequanorum; from Aquitania Prima and Secunda; from the Graian and Maritime Alps; from Novempopulana, Viennensis and Narbonensis Secunda; that is, from all the provinces of the kingdoms of Austrasia, Paris and Soissons; which then comprised all the dominions lying between the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Ocean and the Mediterranean sea; provided you except Septimania, subject to the Visigoths, and the tract of Armorica, occupied by the Bretons.

[8] and it was celebrated in the year 549. This is not the place to linger on an inquiry into the year of the celebration of that council, to which St. Sacerdos, bishop of Lyon, first subscribed, as president, with this formula: In the name of Christ, I, Sacerdos, bishop of Lyon, have reread our constitution and subscribed. I have noted it on the day 5th before the Kalends of November, in the 38th year of the reign of our lord King Childebert, indiction 13 Labbe, Collectio Concil., vol. V, col. 399.. It suffices to recall to memory that all the codices which Sirmond handled Ibid., col. 397. have the same indiction, although some bear the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Childebert, others the thirty-eighth year; and that the 5th before the Kalends of November, Constantinopolitan indiction 13, falls on the 28th day of the month of October of the year 549, as may be seen in Victorius of Aquitaine in the Paschal Cycle Boucher, de doctrina Temporum, pp. 68, 69., and in the Maurists on the chronological art Art de vérifier les dates, vol. I, p. 11.. More does not pertain to us; unless we wished to be led into the chronological labyrinth concerning the death of St. Martin and the part of the Merovingian stock.

[9] Blessed Aptonius dies about the year 574. Since the name of St. Aptonius is not found mingled in other affairs, nothing remains but to inquire in what year the most blessed man departed from among the living. The opinion of all is not the same: for Papebroch in the Acts of St. Ausonius Acta SS., vol. V of May, p. 132. supposes that he died about the year 574; Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology about the year 573, while on the contrary in the Martyrologies of Auxerre and Paris it is read that he died about the year 567. But the opinion of Papebroch rather pleases me, as more in conformity with the narrative of the writers of Frankish history, who nowhere intimate that St. Aptonius had any other immediate successor than Maracharius or Mererius; besides that Adhémar of Chabannes (whose vote however, as I shall presently say, in reporting events earlier than Charles Martel is not to be much valued) asserts in open words that St. Aptonius obtained Mererius as successor: and he must have begun his episcopate in the year 575, since St. Gregory of Tours reports that he was dreadfully slaughtered in the seventh year of his priesthood, which coincides with the fifth year of Childebert and with the year 581 of the common era Historia Francorum, bk. V, ch. 37, in D. Bouquet, vol. II, p. 254..

[10] There were not two men named Aptonius at Angoulême, But what we have disputed so far is not approved by the vote of all. And indeed we first come upon Denis de Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana, vol. II, col. 978. and Richard of the Order of Friars Preachers Bibliothèque sacrée, vol. XXVIII. Paris, 1827., who judge, against the brothers Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana secunda, vol. II, p. 378., that there existed two Aptonii, bishops of Angoulême, one in the time of Clovis, the other in the time of Childebert, and that it is uncertain which of them was the saint. They rely on these words of the history of the Counts and Bishops of Angoulême Labbe, Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum, vol. II, p. 249.: Bishop Aptonius, who had been chaplain of Clovis, was consecrated bishop also with the assent of the king himself. For the aforesaid king, besieging Angoulême, which the most wicked race of the Goths had occupied, [and] had also usurped for itself the pontificate of that city from the time of Blessed Ausonius, by the counsel of the aforesaid chaplain caused the most holy relics of the blood and water to be raised against the walls, and immediately the walls fell, and the city having been taken, and the Goths slain and the Arian bishop of the Goths expelled, he caused his venerable chaplain Aptonius to be consecrated, and established him as bishop in the aforesaid city; and the priest offered the sacred relics of the blood and water to the cathedral church, in which they are contained to the present and are venerated with the greatest honour. And then in ch. III he adds: By him St. Eparchius, patron of Angoulême, was ordained. And he was buried at the border of the city, in the western part Ibid.. And hence Denis de Sainte-Marthe Gallia Christiana, l. c. deduces that in the time of Clovis there was a bishop named Aptonius; who cannot but be different from the Aptonius who subscribed to the council of Orléans in the year 549: since it is certain that Clovis died either in the year 509 or in the year 511 [Acta SS., vol. I of Feb., p. 217. — Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 273 and following. — Works of Sulpicius Severus edited by Girolamo da Prato of Verona, vol. I, dissert. II.], and also that Eparchius was not before the year 542 Labbe, Collectio Conc., vol. IV, col. 1410, vol. V, col. 398. promoted to the presbyterate by St. Aptonius Acta SS., vol. I of July, p. 111.; whence it is evident that there were two Aptonii, separated from each other, Lupicinus being interposed: and that there is added the authority of Adhémar of Chabannes, a writer of the 11th century, from whom that place of the History of the counts and bishops of Angoulême was taken. And indeed Adhémar wrote these things in his historical books: “In that city (Angoulême) he (Clovis) caused the venerable man Aptonius, his chaplain, to be consecrated in the episcopate, the first Arian bishop of the Goths having been expelled from the same city.”

[11] [as some have tried to show from Adhémar of Chabannes, from the historian of the counts and bishops of Angoulême and from other arguments.] But neither Adhémar of Chabannes, nor the historian of the counts and bishops of Angoulême has sufficient authority to prove this. In the first place no one among the older writers, not even Adhémar and his Angoulême associate, knew of two Aptonii; next, such a miracle as is attributed to Aptonius by the historian of the Counts and Bishops of Angoulême is not narrated by St. Gregory of Tours, nor is it said by Adhémar himself to have been accomplished at his prayers, or in such circumstances: finally it is the one opinion of all that the historian of the counts of Angoulême and Adhémar of Chabannes, who generally lit his way, continually waver in ancient matters. And indeed Waitz, editor of the Historia Francorum of Adhémar of Chabannes in Pertz Monumenta Germaniæ historica, vol. IV, p. 106., complains that the works of this writer have many times been interpolated, and that sometimes he himself, when historical monuments were lacking, added what he had heard from his parents or from older monks: and in this way is explained, for example, how he wrote that St. Germanus of Paris, by mandate of King Charibert, consecrated, in the presence of St. Gregory of Tours, the basilica of St. Eparchius of Angoulême, not attending to the fact that Charibert Gebhardi, Reges Francorum Merovingici, p. 58. died several years before St. Gregory Acta SS., vol. I of Aug., p. 573. — Loebell, Gregor von Tours, p. 9. was raised to the rule of the church of Tours. On account of these and other slips grave men Rivet, Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. VII, p. 303. — Waitz, l. c. do not make so much of this part of the history of Adhémar, which precedes the times of Charles Martel.

[12] St. Aptonius was not a martyr, nor the brother and successor of St. Ausonius. Du Saussay affirms in the Gallican Martyrology that St. Aptonius was a martyr and the brother and successor of St. Ausonius, first bishop of Angoulême: but undeservedly: there stands in the way the tradition of the church of Angoulême continued to these days, as is witnessed by the Order for reciting the divine Office and celebrating Mass, where St. Aptonius is listed among the confessors; and further I know of no ancient historical monument, except the History of the counts and bishops of Angoulême (to which credit is not to be given about this age), in which St. Aptonius is read to have shed blood for Christian truth, or to have suffered anything for it in the body. For the same reason is to be rejected that St. Aptonius was the brother and successor of St. Ausonius, which seems to be taken from an apocryphal legend of this saint Acta SS., vol. V of May, p. 132. and lacks probability; besides that St. Aptonius was not created bishop before the year 541, and between him and St. Ausonius there sat Dynamius, a contemporary of St. Exuperius of Toulouse Historia Francorum, bk. II, ch. XIII, p. 168., who flourished in the 4th century, and Lupicinus, who at least from the year 511 to the year 541 ruled the church of Angoulême, as is established from the first and fifth councils of Orléans. From which also it is clear that St. Aptonius cannot be said to have been the brother of St. Ausonius, even if he had performed the office of chaplain to Clovis. So much for St. Aptonius.

* otherwise Sabaudem