Rusticus

ON ST. RUSTICUS, CONFESSOR, BISHOP OF NARBONNE IN GAUL,

IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 461.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Rusticus, confessor and bishop, at Narbonne in Gaul. (S.)

BY B. B.

§ I. Of the monuments relating to the Acts of St. Rusticus. And first of the notable inscription of Narbonne. Likewise of another smaller one.

We have found nothing noted concerning St. Rusticus in the numerous codices Documents relating to the life of St. Rusticus: which our predecessors diligently and laboriously collected for the continuation of the Acts. Nor, so far as I know, does there exist any somewhat ancient life of the glorious Prelate of Narbonne. Yet monuments are not lacking, and those very splendid, pertaining to his deeds. In the first place comes the Inscription, contemporary with the holy Man, which, cut in marble, was formerly to be seen at Narbonne in the episcopal palace, and is now in the public garden of the museum; then the epistle of St. Jerome, which some have vainly wished to deny, or at least to call in doubt, as written to St. Rusticus; next there exist partly his letters to St. Leo the Great, in which he consults the Roman see on several difficulties that arose at that time, with the replies of the same supreme pontiff. St. Rusticus was present also at the Gallican council or second of Arles, where the bishops, assembled to the number of forty-four, adhered with the highest agreement to the very famous epistle of St. Leo to Flavian. Finally, called by a special letter from Ravennius of Arles, he was present at another council celebrated in the same city, in which the discord was settled between St. Theodore, bishop of Fréjus, and certain other prelates on the one side, and Faustus, presbyter and abbot of Lérins, and the monks subject to him on the other Gallia Christiana, vol. VI, col. 10.. To this also belong some epistles of St. Hilarus the pope, in which the Roman pontiff disapproves of the manner in which Hermes, formerly bishop of Béziers, had ascended the chair of Narbonne after St. Rusticus. Of each of these documents we shall treat in order, making a beginning from the Inscription, which a most distinguished man, more than once to be cited by us in this Commentary, J. B. de Rossi, calls most celebrated; and we were grieved that it is not found in the volume so far published of the work entitled: Christian Inscriptions of the Gauls [Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, by M. Edmond Le Blant, member of the Imperial Society of Antiquaries of France.], by the labour of the distinguished Edmond Le Blant; but, being approached in our name, the learned writer declared that the Inscription, which he himself copied in the museum of Narbonne, was to be explained in the second volume, which is in the press and partly already printed; and indeed he willingly communicated to us his manuscript leaves, soon to be given to the type; and this pledge of so notable a benevolence we received with most grateful minds; and we admit that no small assistance thence accrued to our labour.

[2] The Inscription of Narbonne, The Inscription is presented by Catel (De Catel) in book V of his commentaries on the History of Languedoc Gall. Christ. vol. VI, col. 8.. The same is found in Gruter and Angelo Mai Veterum Scriptorum nova collectio, vol. V, p. 83., from whom it is likewise recited in the epigraphic Dictionary of the Migne collection Encyclopédie. Dict. d'épigraphie, col. 966, under the word: Narbonne.; it is cited also by the Benedictines in the Treatise on diplomatics, who add only the beginning Nouveau traité de diplomatique, vol. II, p. 564.. It is brought forward entire and explained by Baluze in the notes on Salvian Salviani et Vincentii Lirinensis Opera, p. 408. Paris, 1663. and on the Capitularies of the Kings of the Franks Vol. II, col. 1255.; by Quesnel in the notes on the 167th epistle of Leo the Great [Works of St. Leo the Great, vol. II, col. 1577. Venice 1756, edited by the Ballerini.]; likewise by Pagi in the Hypatic Dissertation Apparatus to the Annales of Baronius, p. 114 and in the Critica At the year of Christ 445.; by Dom Vaissette in the history of Languedoc Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 186 and Proofs p. 4.; in the New Gallia Christiana Vol. VI, col. 8.; to whom is to be added Edmond Le Blant, of whom above. Nor is there any one of these who raises the slightest doubt about the genuineness of the Inscription. Yet since it is not interpreted in the same way by all, and indeed in some places the writers go off into opinions not a little different, we think it necessary to add it here. We shall follow Baluze, who testifies that he gives the Inscription in a more correct form from the stone itself Where cited above p. 407., and who reproduces the individual words in the order and arrangement in which they are read in the original, indicating also the gaps occurring here and there. The same, as I have already said, is found among the Proofs of the history of Languedoc, where there is seen at the same time an accurate drawing of the stone on which the epigraph was carved. The stone is somewhat mutilated on the left side, and so some words are lacking; others again have been effaced by time, the devourer of things, or perhaps worn away or broken by the carelessness and unskilfulness of workmen when it was moved from its place. Now Edmond Le Blant says Manuscript leaves: It is not known in what place the Inscription lay hidden. “It seems to have been found while the ground was being dug (in the course of the 13th century) for laying the foundations of a new church.” So in the manuscripts of Baluze, which are kept at Paris in the Imperial Library. Whence Gallia Christiana is to be corrected, where it asserts that it was found at Minerve Gall. Christ., vol. VI, col. 8. Paris, 1739.. The error arose from their having confused it with another, much shorter inscription, of which we shall speak in § V. But they rightly add: Today (the year 1739, in which the sixth volume of the said work was published) it exists at Narbonne in the episcopal palace. And again Ibid. col. 123.: Which long lay neglected before the doors of the archiepiscopal residence, which we present here, in the year 1681 Pierre de Bonzi, archbishop from the year 1673 to the year 1703, ordered to be placed in a lofty location in the residence itself. And the Rev. Mr. Dumay, presbyter and lecturer in the major seminary of Carcassonne (to this see Narbonne belongs by the concordat of the year 1801), wrote back to me on the 14th day of November of this year 1862, that even today the stone is to be seen in the garden of the Museum; which is likewise established from the manuscript leaves. Behold for you the entire Inscription from Baluze, with whom, a very few things excepted, the history of Languedoc agrees, as also Edmond Le Blant and others:

That is: God and Christ having mercy, this threshold was placed in the fourth year, Valentinian Augustus being consul for the sixth time, on the third before the Kalends of December, in the 19th year of the episcopate of Rusticus — Rusticus, bishop, son of Bishop Bonosus, nephew by a sister of Bishop Arator, companion of Bishop Venerius in the monastery, fellow presbyter of the church of Marseilles, in the 15th year of his episcopate, on the fifth day of the year, the third before the Ides of October, with (otherwise under the care of) Ursus the presbyter, Hermes the deacon and those following them, began to take down the wall of the church long since burned. On the thirty-seventh day the squared stone began to be laid in the foundation; in the second year, on the seventh before the Ides of October, Montanus the subdeacon caused the apse to be laid. Marcellus, prefect of the Gauls, a worshipper of God, by prayer required the bishop to undertake this burden, promising the necessary expenses, which for two years of his administration he furnished to the craftsmen, a wage of six hundred solidi, for the works and other things one thousand five hundred solidi. Hence offerings of the holy bishop Venerius, 100 solidi … of Bishop Dynamius … 50 … of Oresius … 200 … of Agroecius … a thousand … and of Deconia … for the salvation … And so all the learned; except that instead of DECONIÆ the historiographers of Languedoc and Edmond

Le Blant read DECONIA; the latter moreover suppresses 1 (a thousand) after the name ACROECI; I should not doubt for this reason, that when he lately inspected the stone he found those marks erased or broken. Cardinal Mai wrongly writes de conla for deconia, which is likewise found in the Migne dictionary. Edmond Le Blant observes moreover that the abbreviation or letter C, which is found at the head of the sixth line, first column, has so far been rendered by all by the preposition cum; but to me, he says Manuscript leaves, it seems rather to be read “curantibus” under the care of, a word that occurs frequently in inscriptions which are seen placed on buildings. For the previous demolition, of which mention is made in our marble, was not held a matter of small moment. Certainly the penitential books teach with what veneration the material of destroyed churches was to be treated. The learned man judges, then, that the word curantibus is to be preferred on this head. The marks SCI at the end of the third column he thinks signify scilicet namely, while all the others I have seen read Sancti of the Saint. Finally on the single letters C. L. K. T. E. he observes that the interpretation collocatum est was placed is confirmed from several inscriptions of the same kind, and so is commonly received.

[4] interpreted otherwise by Baluze, There remains by far the chief difficulty; namely in what year St. Rusticus brought his church to the roof. The inscription has: This threshold was placed in the fourth year, Valentinian Augustus being consul for the sixth time. It is asked in what year of Christ those chronological marks fall? Baluze answers that the year from the incarnation is 448: For in the year, he says, 445 the emperor Valentinian (third of this name) entered on his sixth consulate. This year (namely 445) was the first of the sixth consulate of Valentinian. For they numbered the years from the last consulate, first, second, third etc., until they should again take up the consulate, as is clear from ancient inscriptions. Since, then, between the sixth consulate of Valentinian, which falls in the year 445, and his seventh consulate, which we find noted in the year 450, there intervene five continuous years, we are of necessity forced to judge that this threshold was placed in the year 448, which was the fourth year of the sixth consulate of that emperor, counting from the year 445, which in the mind of Baluze was the first. But indeed all are far from agreeing with the learned man. Before others, so far as I at least have ascertained, there was opposed Pasquier Quesnel (the same who so obstinately championed the Jansenist errors) in his notes on the works of St. Leo the Great, of which he had prepared a new edition, of no common merit on many counts, which shortly afterwards was reprinted, enlarged and corrected, under the care of the same Quesnel. And this is the one which the brothers Ballerini again put to the press entire, adding notations both on the text of the holy Doctor and on the observations and notes of Quesnel. Now he says [Works of St. Leo the Great, vol. II, col. 1578. Venice, 1756. Edited by the Ballerini.]: I cannot persuade myself that this method of numbering years from one consulate of the emperors to another was in use at that time. Quesnel adds in the same place the reasons by which he thinks his opinion is proved, which, if you please, see in the works of St. Leo in the place cited, and we pass them over for this reason, that more solid arguments are at hand which we may oppose to Baluze.

[5] whose opinion however is shown to be false; For after the age of Quesnel, several have written luminously on the consular calendars, searching more deeply into this whole matter; from which it has come about that they have both determined more accurately the formulas employed in each period of ancient times, and have fixed rules far more certain and clearer. But among all there stands out Giovanni Battista de Rossi, a man surely very well known over the whole world, than whom in epigraphic science you would not easily find, I do not say a superior, but even an equal. He lately put to the press at Rome the first volume of a most splendid work and of no small bulk, which he had been meditating for many years now; and which those skilled in history no less than in archaeology were most eagerly awaiting; and it came forth in the year 1861 under the title: Christian Inscriptions of the city of Rome older than the seventh century. In the Prolegomena, part II, chapter III, the author treats of the laws and formulas by which the names of consuls were added to Christian inscriptions, dividing the whole age (from the year of Christ 71 to the end of the 5th century) into five periods, each of which has certain proper hypatic formulas and rules Inscriptiones christianæ, vol. I, p. XIX. Rome, 1861.. And he says to our purpose Ibid., p. LIII.: In the last place I shall lay down rules concerning the numbers of years added to the formula “after the consulate.” The notation of the second year “after the consulate” first appears in the calendars in the year 310 in these words: “In the 2nd year after the consulate of the tenth and the seventh.” But this was proper neither to the city of Rome nor to the Roman empire, but was employed outside the ordinary course only in that part of the world in which it was forbidden to name Maxentius as consul. Thence down to the year 411 I find not at all that a second year from anyone's consulate was anywhere numbered. But that the year 411 was recorded in Apulia by this formula: “a second time after the consulate of Honorius for the 8th time and Theodosius for the 3rd,” and what the particular cause of that notation was … I shall declare. At the opening at last of the year 478 that formula was first brought into the City and employed in the months of January and February: for the preceding year had lacked consuls; and the consuls of that year were unknown at Rome in those first months … In keeping with the barbarism of the age it pleased them to write “after the consulate a second time,” rather than by the right law of speaking “a second time after the consulate.” From this time, then, as often as the same case befell which had befallen at Rome in the year 478, that method of designating the year was used. Of which some inscriptions of the Gauls present luminous examples … A third year numbered from anyone's consulate before the age of Justinian I have nowhere seen. Since, then, the inscription of Narbonne is far older than the aforesaid year 478, it is clear that the interpretation of Baluze is wholly preposterous. It will be of use to add the words with which de Rossi concludes his whole disputation on this question Ibid., p. LIV.: From that licence, then, he says, by which some interpreters of old inscriptions at their pleasure reckon times after anyone's consulate beyond two years, let learned men beware; and let them not think it now open to them in the hypatic marks of the fifth and sixth centuries to number second, third and subsequent years from any consul whatever. By these things the positions of Baluze are more than sufficiently overturned. Another way, then, must be entered on for explaining the Inscription.

[6] otherwise by Quesnel, Further, says Quesnel in the place cited, I find none more fitting than that we should number that fourth year of which the matter treats, not from the sixth consulate of Valentinian, but from the laying of the foundations of the basilica. For it was familiar to the ancients to wish it to be made known to posterity by inscriptions of this kind at what time a public building had been begun to be constructed, or at what time it had been completed: which custom was always in use, and today also is everywhere employed (I should doubt that this last is said accurately enough). This then Rusticus wished to signify, that the basilica of Narbonne was built during four years, or was completed in the fourth year from the laying of the squared stone, that is, from the laying of the foundations, to the placing of the threshold, or the putting of an end to the work. For squared stone was usually laid in the foundation: whence Livy in bk. 6 writes: “the Capitol built underneath with squared stone”: thence absolutely “to lay the squared stone” was with the ancients the same as to lay foundations, and to lay the first stone of a building, as in this Inscription. Similarly since the threshold is usually laid only when the house is completed, it was the same to the ancients that a building was completed, and that a threshold had been placed or an end put to the work. Whence in the Institutes of Justinian, bk. I, tit. 12: “As thresholds make a sort of end in a house; so the ancients wished the threshold to be the end of the empire. Hence also it was called limen, as a kind of end and boundary.” So Quesnel. Du Cange agrees well enough, to whom limen is the same as church, which he thinks is proved from the very Inscription of which we treat. It will be of use to recite the place from the Glossary: Limen. Church. An old inscription brought forward by Catel … and Étienne Baluze: DŌ ET XPO … LIMEN HOC … To God and Christ … this threshold … Below, what is here a threshold is called “church.” This notation of the most learned man is not altogether accurate to me. The word church, which is read below, refers to the old building, not to the new one which St. Rusticus built: He began to take down the wall of the church long since burned. In general, as is found in Robert Estienne Thesaurus linguæ lat. under the word: Limen., limen, οὖδος, is said of what is crosswise in a doorway; and it signifies not only the lower but also the upper part of the door. Whence Juvenal:

He has left the hanging Curtains of the house and the boughs still green on the threshold.

There occurs frequently, especially in the poets, the upper and lower threshold. So Plautus:

Hail, upper and lower threshold.

And Novius in the Macco in Exile:

The upper threshold, which has often broken my wretched head; And the lower, where I have broken off all my toes.

Gregory of Tours has something similar (bk. I of the Miracles, on the Glory of the martyrs Migne, vol. LXXI, col. 761.), of a sacrilegious man, who against the warning of the priest, having mounted a horse in the atrium of the basilica, when he came to go out, his head being struck on the upper lintel of the gate, fell to the ground with his skull broken and shortly afterwards breathed out his spirit. That the stone of Narbonne deals with an upper lintel shines forth clearly both from its size and from its form; which see in the drawing, vol. I of the History of Languedoc Proofs, p. 4.. But whether, as Quesnel asserts, a threshold placed is plainly the same as a building completed is not sufficiently established to me; Edmond Le Blant also doubts. Yet from the whole Inscription it is clear that the church had been brought to the roof when St. Rusticus ordered the lintel to be placed. Whence again Quesnel, where cited above: Our opinion is confirmed from this, that after in the very head of the Inscription, contained in a long line, he indicated in general that four years were consumed in constructing the basilica, consequently in the remaining parts he explains singly what was accomplished in each year, or with what progress. In the first, namely, both the old basilica was taken down and the foundations of the new were laid. In the second the apse was laid, and all that work of two years was completed at the expense of Marcellus the prefect; in the other two years, finally, the remainder of the work was completed from the offerings of the holy bishops and others. Thus far the observation of Quesnel.

[7] whom, Baluze resisting in vain, But Baluze did not yield: for in his Notes on the Capitularies of the kings of the Franks Vol. II, p. 1252. he strove to strengthen his positions with new arguments, to which Quesnel replied in his second edition of Leo the Great Where cited above, col. 1581 and following., and he contends that what Baluze has laboriously collected, to show that before the age of St. Rusticus of Narbonne the formula P. C. (post consulatum) was used, has no bearing on the matter; since no one denies this; and that in vain a mass of examples

is piled up for the same formula “After the Consulate,” since nothing of the kind occurs in the Inscription, which has it thus: In the 4th year, Valentinian being consul for the 6th time, and not: In the 4th year after the consulate. So the interpretation of Baluze sins on a double head: first because it is not proved that in that age a first, second, third, fourth year of a consulate were numbered; next because the formula employed in the Inscription lacks the marks or abbreviations customary for indicating years after a consulate. For, as the learned de Rossi again witnesses Inscripp., p. LI., if not the consulate itself, but a year after the consulate had to be noted, from about the middle of the fourth century to the middle of the fifth (to which interval of years the Inscription of Narbonne belongs) these letters were usually written: POST CONS., or POST CONSS. (sometimes also POS); likewise with all the letters POST CONSVLATVM or POST CONSVLATV; sometimes also the word “consulatum” itself suppressed and only POST or POS engraved. In the middle of the fifth century the marks PC began to appear, and soon came to be held customary, etc. And as to Valentinian alone being named, his colleague being unmentioned, de Rossi teaches that this arose from the fact Pp. 581 and following. Among the addenda and corrigenda. that the consulate of Nomus, at least in most provinces of the Western empire, was not promulgated at all, and that at Rome too it seems to have been prescribed either never or scarcely at the end of the year that the name of that consul be inscribed in public acts. And in the same place he reprehends Pagi, who in the Hypatic Dissertation III, 1, 4 contends that in these years only one consul was inscribed on monuments “by the mere” “choice …” of each person; and cites especially the inscription of Narbonne as guarantor of his opinion, in which the consulate of Valentinian alone, his colleague Nomus being omitted, is mentioned at the end of the year. Moreover see the Prolegomena of the said writer, surely most diligent and most accurate Pp. XXXI–XXXV., where he discourses splendidly on the hypatic formulas by which halved consulates, as they say, are mentioned from the year 399 to the fall of the Western empire, and he determines P. XXXV. that Pagi and other interpreters of chronological doctrine have undeservedly thought that in the hypatic marks of the fifth century the choice of authors is to be looked for no less than fixed rules. But, he says, no sane man will make light of the concordant authority of very many inscriptions, etc.

[8] they have been followed by Pagi, the Ballerini and others generally; Rightly, then, Quesnel concludes: These things being thus explained, it becomes clear that in the very year of the sixth consulate of Valentinian, namely 445, the basilica of Narbonne was completed, which is the genuine sense of the words: “Valentinian Aug. being consul for the 6th time.” The learned have generally adhered to Quesnel; among whom Pagi both in the Hypatic Dissertation Apparatus to the Annals of Baronius, p. 111. and in the Critica at the year of Christ 445; the Benedictines in the history of Languedoc Vol. I, p. 186. In folio. and the brothers Ballerini in the annotations on Quesnel Works of St. Leo, vol. II, col. 1577 and following., where, since they resume the controversy briefly and lucidly, it will be of use to recite their words. In this age of Leo, they say, there are indeed found some examples of reckoning the first year after a consulate with this formula: in the year for example 449, “After the consulate of Zeno and Posthumianus,” who were consuls in the year 448, and that even if the ordinary consuls of the current year were known … (Compare de Rossi, Prolegomena, p. XXXVI and following.) But that in these times also a second, third and (as in our document) fourth year after a consulate was marked will be proved by no example. And much less will an example be brought forward by which it may be proved that the formula ANNO IIII CS. VALENTINIANO AUGUSTO VI was employed, that is, “in the fourth year, Valentinian being consul for the 6th time.” For if the said formula had been received in use in this age in noting years 2, 3, 5, etc., we should read written “in the fourth year P. C.,” that is, “after the consulate of Valentinian Augustus for the 6th time.” Hence, then, Quesnel has excellently interpreted that the threshold of the church was placed “in the fourth year” after the beginning of the fabric “Valentinian Augustus being consul for the 6th time.” And the interpretation of Baluze, which Quesnel then brings forward, collapses on a double head, both because it is foreign to the custom of that time to designate a fourth year after a consulate, and because that formula, “in the fourth year, consul” etc. was never employed to designate a fourth year after a consulate. Let these things suffice for vindicating the interpretation of Quesnel, so that some things which he has here pursued more diffusely for his purpose, but not very accurately, ought not to move anyone: for there is no leisure to weigh each thing.

[9] whose opinion is the truer. Thus far the Brothers Ballerini, whose assertions are excellently confirmed by the words of de Rossi which we recited above. Gallia Christiana, where St. Rusticus is treated, is not well consistent with itself: for it says first Volume VI col. 7.: And at length (St. Rusticus) is taken up to the see of Narbonne, which some (namely Quesnel and those adhering to him) would have done in the year 427, but others only in the year 430, in which Baluze contends that Rusticus was consecrated bishop on the 7th before the Ides of October … in the notes on the Capitularies of the kings of the Franks, col. 1254, where he so refutes the arguments of his adversary Quesnel that there is no room for doubting but that his opinion is true. This difference has arisen from a different interpretation of a certain inscription. But below Gall. Ch. vol. VI, col. 9.: By the first opinion (namely that of Baluze) St. Rusticus was made bishop on the 9th of October, in the year 430; but by the other opinion, which Antoine Pagi follows, he began to sit in the year 427; and this year is written in the margin, which accordingly they are to be judged to have thought the truer. Tillemont hesitates, doubtful, between the opinion of Baluze and that of Quesnel, having something to object to the positions of both Mém. vol. XV p. 887 and following.. He raises this difficulty especially, that Quesnel himself admits that in his opinion the building of the church was completed not in the fourth year from the beginning of the work but in the fifth, since indeed the fourth had elapsed some days before, when the threshold was placed. Pagi replies At the year of Christ 445. Annals of Baronius vol. VII, p. 593. Lucca 1741.: It is true indeed that from the 18th day of November of the year 441 to the 28th day of the same month of the year 445 there flowed by four years and eleven days; but Rusticus neglected those eleven days exceeding four years, as very often happens; who yet was more scrupulous in numbering the years of his episcopate, since he says that on the fifth day of the fifteenth year of his episcopate he began to pull down the wall of the church long since burned. Certainly to me this objection of Tillemont is not of such importance as to force us to depart from an interpretation otherwise most fitting.

[10] We learn many things from this Inscription about St. Rusticus. Moreover from this Inscription we learn many things of the greatest moment, which you would seek in vain elsewhere. First it becomes known who was the parent of St. Rusticus; namely Bishop Bonosus. We do not indeed know over what church he presided, but it is not to be doubted that before his election, and indeed before the reception of holy orders, he begot a son. Nor is it infrequent in those times that those who had first been joined in matrimony were then initiated into the priesthood or even adorned with the episcopal dignity. Let St. Hilary of Poitiers be an example. There is added in the Inscription: Nephew by a sister of Bishop Arator. His see, as much as that of Bonosus, is hidden from us Tillemont, Mém. vol. XV, pp. 403 and 887.. We learn secondly (I use again the words of Pagi Annals of Baronius where cited above p. 592.) that the ruins of the old church were overthrown in the year of Christ 441, on the thirteenth day (the 3rd before the Ides) of the month of October, which was a Monday, and the fifth day of the 15th year of the episcopate of Rusticus, and that on the 18th day of the month of November, sacred to the dedication of the basilicas of Peter and Paul (which was the thirty-seventh from the overthrowing), the foundations of the new basilica were laid, and that in the second year of the building's beginning, namely in the year of Christ 442, the apse was laid, namely on the ninth day (the 6th before the Ides) of the month of October. Wherefore Rusticus was ordained bishop of Narbonne in the year 427, on the ninth day of October, on which Sunday fell, on which days bishops were accustomed to be consecrated. And this last is indeed of the highest moment for illustrating the Acts of St. Rusticus. For thence we know the year and the day of his ordination as prelate of Narbonne; which otherwise would have lain hidden, wrapped in eternal darkness. It is evident that in the opinion of Baluze the ordination is to be deferred to the year 430. We learn thirdly that Bishop Hilary, whom Prosper mentions in the epistle to St. Augustine given in the year 429, cannot be Hilary of Narbonne, and that the latter has therefore been wrongly substituted by some in the place of Hilary of Arles; since Hilary was succeeded by Rusticus in the see of Narbonne. We learn fourthly that Hilary, who presided at the council of Riez held in the year 439, was Hilary of Arles, and not Hilary of Narbonne, as Baronius wrongly thought; since in that year not Hilary but Rusticus was administering the church of Narbonne. We learn fifthly that Marcellus, a man notable for piety, was prefect of the Gauls at this time, who however has been omitted in the catalogue of the praetorian prefects of Gaul. Add that from this Inscription alone we are taught both that the old cathedral church was burned (and more probably before the prelacy of St. Rusticus, as the word long since suggests), and that a new one was built by St. Rusticus, and that in a space of nearly four years; those also being named who by their liberality contributed to completing the work. It is surely to be regretted that the last part of the Inscription exists corrupt and mutilated; otherwise the names of some bishops would at least have reached the knowledge of posterity more entire. From all which it surely results that the Inscription of Narbonne is rightly and deservedly numbered among the most splendid monuments of ecclesiastical history.

[11] of another, shorter inscription. There are also three other inscriptions, but much shorter, relating to St. Rusticus. Of one I shall speak here; of the others below in § V, where the burial of the holy Bishop is treated. The first is of no small moment, since from it are plainly confirmed the things we have disputed about the years of the episcopate of St. Rusticus. It has it thus:

ANNO XVII EPISCOPI RVSTICI

ANNI DIE CCLXVI KL IVL

and it is read inscribed on the base of a column which is found to this day in the Museum of Narbonne. “We learn,” says Mr. Tournal Description du Musée de Narbonne, p. 85., “from a manuscript document of Brother Louis, of the order of Minims, that the aforesaid column formerly stood in the parish church of St. Mary Major (de la Major), and that on it rested the altar of SS. Peter and Paul, which belonged to the family De Lastours. And in very truth the marble was found in the garden of the same family, brought here without doubt when the said church was desecrated.” And Edmond Le Blant observes Manuscript leaves. that from this, as also from the larger Inscription, there become known the day and the year on which St. Rusticus was made bishop. We have seen above (namely at n. 10) that this took place on the day

9th of October in the year 427; and if from then there are numbered sixteen years and two hundred and sixty-six days, we arrive at the Kalends (the 1st day) of July (of the year 244), as the shorter inscription has it [Cf. Louis Piquet, Minim, Manuscripts in the library of Narbonne. So Edmond Le Blant.].

§ II. Of the epistle of St. Jerome to Rusticus the monk; in which are found many things about the youth of the holy Prelate of Narbonne.

The epistle of St. Jerome to St. Rusticus, There exists an excellent epistle of St. Jerome addressed to Rusticus the Monk, and it comes in Vallarsi at number CXXV in order, in the older editions IV, in the Benedictine edition of Martianay XCV. This, says Vallarsi Migne, vol. XXII, col. 1072., is the same Rusticus who was afterwards bishop of Narbonne, to whom also St. Leo the pope wrote an epistle. Authors generally agree: Baluze On Salvian, p. 410., Quesnel with the Ballerini Works of St. Leo the Great, vol. II, col. 1572., the writers of literary Gaul Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. II, p. 362., Baillet Vies des Saints 26 Oct., Longueval Histoire de L'Église Gallicane, vol. II, pp. 86 and 225. Paris, 1825.. Tillemont objects this one thing Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 887., that no mention is made in the epistle of the father and uncle of St. Rusticus, bishops, whom Jerome would certainly not have passed over in silence. But this reason, in the judgment of Tillemont himself, is light. For there are many things which could have induced the holy Doctor to be silent about both; supposing that he was informed on this matter. Moreover does not the holy Doctor mention the father, where he writes thus Migne where cited above col. 1076.: And John the Baptist had a holy mother (such as he also testifies that Rusticus has) and was the son of a priest? Quesnel thinks it not absurd Works of St. Leo in the place cited to judge that Rusticus, when he wished to consult Jerome about ordering his life, gave a letter to Sisinnius the monk, whom St. Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, sent as envoy to the East with a huge sum of money, to be spent for the solace of the monks of Palestine and Egypt; and that both from that letter and from conversations with Sisinnius, Jerome could easily have heard the things he reports of the family of Rusticus, his studies and the piety of his mother. That he heard them is certain; for he himself testifies this: I hear that you have a religious mother etc. Whether he learned it from a letter of Rusticus is a conjecture more or less probable, since this is not established from the epistle of St. Jerome: in which no word is found by which the holy Doctor might indicate that he had been approached in writing by St. Rusticus. Whether from the report of Sisinnius? The doubt is greater, since, as will be seen in the next number, the epistle of St. Jerome was certainly written after the year of Christ 410, and not in the year 407, as Quesnel would have it, adding that it is established from Jerome himself that in the year of Christ 406 Sisinnius was sent with money to the East by St. Exuperius. Whence the Ballerini Ibid.: What Quesnel conjectures about Sisinnius, the monk of Toulouse, rests on no foundation, as if he, sent to the East about the year 406 … first brought a letter of Rusticus to Jerome, and delivered Jerome's epistle in the same year to Rusticus. It is not, then, ascertained by what way and by whose report Jerome was informed of the family, studies and life of the youth to whom he writes. But this is beyond controversy, that the letter was given to Rusticus, and that this youth was staying at Marseilles, or not far from it; that the epistle agrees excellently with the inscription of Narbonne; and that no other man named Rusticus is to be found at that time in those tracts of Gaul to whom the epistle might seriously be thought to have been directed; and hence it is that the learned pronounce with almost one voice that it was written to our holy Prelate of Narbonne, who was then in the flower of youth beginning the monastic life. Dom Ceillier leaves the matter in the middle, only asserting that it was sent to a young Gallic monk Auteurs ecclésiastiques, vol. X, p. 348..

[13] given about the year 411. The letter was very probably given about the year of Christ 411. This Vallarsi expressly lays down Migne, vol. XXII, col. 1072., whose authority on this matter Schoenemann values most highly. The old editions, he says Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum, vol. I, p. 433., present the epistles not according to the order of time, but according to a certain likeness and as it were kinship of matter … The Benedictine edition, then, to remedy this fault, instituted a new order of them in such a way that, cutting off from the body itself and distributing through the several volumes many which it calls critical, it brought the remainder to the laws of time, yet with success not equally happy, as Vallarsi has indicated and shown. This province, then, was left to Vallarsi, to reform the disturbed Chronological order and to institute it anew, which no one without ill will would deny has turned out excellently for him. So a non-Catholic man. And in very truth St. Jerome declares not obscurely, when he was writing to St. Rusticus, that Rufinus of Aquileia had already met his fate, whom he taunts under the name of Grunnius in these words: Grunnius advanced with a tortoise step (if he had still been among the living, surely the present tense would be used) to speak, and at certain intervals he plucked out scarcely a few words, so that you would think him to be sobbing, not speaking out. And yet when, the table being set, he had displayed a heap of books, with knitted brow and contracted nostrils and wrinkled forehead, he snapped with two little fingers, by this sign calling his disciples to attention. Then he poured forth mere trifles and declaimed against everyone: you would say he was a Longinus the critic, and a censor of Roman eloquence, to brand whom he would and exclude from the senate of the learned Migne, col. 1083.. I have added the whole passage, though a little too long, that it may appear more clearly that Jerome is speaking of a dead man. Rightly, then, Vallarsi adds to the aforecited words Ibid., col. 167.: By which you may safely admit that he wished to censure none other than Rufinus, and him not so long dead. It is confirmed from another place of St. Jerome, where he addresses Rufinus, certainly still alive: You who mutter in Latin, and move with a tortoise step rather than advance Apology against the books of Rufinus, n. 17. Migne, vol. XXIII, col. 411.. Here, then, is the present tense, because Rufinus was living; there the past, because he was dead. Baronius notes, dealing with St. Jerome Annal. vol. VI, p. 397. At the year 402, n. XXXIX.: When he disputes against Rufinus … he sometimes derides … mocks with witticisms, and calls him by names suited to the man's manners, naming him often “Grunnius”; alluding doubtless to that Grunnius Corocotta, whose testament of the Piglet the laughing boys in the schools were accustomed to follow with mockery and laughter; for this reason, that Rufinus wrote things of no moment. So the Ballerini confidently against Quesnel Works of St. Leo, vol. II, cols. 1572 and 73.: The epistle of Jerome was most certainly written after the death of Rufinus. For “Grunius,” who is recorded in it as dead at n. 18, is none other than Rufinus of Aquileia. And he died in the year 410, and for this reason that epistle is conveniently to be attached to the year 411.

[14] Whether at that time Rusticus was already a monk; We proceed to the second question, namely whether St. Rusticus was already in a monastery when Jerome was writing his letter to him. Baluze affirms it in the Notes on Salvian; Quesnel denies it. Further, says the former On Salvian, p. 410., this Rusticus is that very monk to whom Jerome writes … For Rusticus was staying in a monastery of Marseilles. Yet afterwards Baluze partly changed his opinion, and supposed that St. Rusticus lived for some time in the monastery of Lérins. But Quesnel: That he was of Marseilles by homeland, he says Works of St. Leo, vol. II, col. 1572., I elicit from the epistle of St. Jerome already cited, where he sends Rusticus, still dwelling in his mother's house, back to the discipline of Proculus, bishop of Marseilles. The Ballerini contradict Quesnel Ibid. for a double reason: namely that Jerome indicates him both in the inscription (of the epistle) as a monk, and in the text as staying at Marseilles. And in very truth the inscription has: To Rusticus the monk; nor does Vallarsi indicate any variant reading. Yet I do not know whether titles of this kind, prefixed outside the context, are to be wholly trusted. And as regards the text, it is drawn to either side. That he was a monk is suggested, in their first obvious sense, by the following places: For now, the Lord being gracious, you hold the plough-handle Migne, col. 1073.. Now Stiva, on the testimony of Robert Estienne Thesaurus linguæ latinæ under the word: stiva., is the handle of the plough, namely what is held in the hands when ploughing; so that St. Jerome seems to indicate that Rusticus had already put his hand to the plough. There is added: Already you have climbed the roof and the upper chamber with Peter the apostle. And elsewhere Migne, col. 1075.: But you, if you wish to be a monk, not to seem one, have care not of your family property, by renouncing which you have begun to be this, but of your soul. And again Ibid., col. 1082.: So act, then, and live in the monastery, that you may merit to be a cleric. Those who think that Rusticus was indeed considering embracing the cloistered life, yet had not yet withdrawn within the enclosure of a monastery, are favoured especially by the place where the holy Doctor, after reproving the more loose morals of certain irregular monks, thus addresses his disciple Ibid.: For you when you are in the monastery it will not be lawful to do these things, and as custom gradually grows, what you were at first forced to (that is, compelled, doing violence to yourself) you will begin to will (that is, of your own accord), and your labour will delight you, and forgetful of the things that are past you will always pursue those that are before. The future tense is employed: Rusticus, then, was to do these things in the monastery, but was not yet doing them, surely because he was living outside it. Unless we should say that these things are put forward by way of a general opinion, and accordingly look equally to the present and the future tense; or that the conjunction when is put for as long as, so that the sense would be: You as long as you are in the monastery. Yet it must be admitted that this interpretation departs far more from the natural sense than if you should understand of the future those other things which we have adduced for the former opinion. Thus to hold the plough-handle can signify a purpose seriously conceived and deliberated of entering a monastery as soon as possible, and so the roof and the upper chamber to have been climbed. And that he began to be a monk by renouncing his family property is true in some sense, even if he did not go out of his mother's house. Surely if he were living in a monastery, why would he be admonished not to have care of family property; why not to live with his mother? I wish you, then, he says Ibid., col. 1078., both for the reasons I have set forth above, not to live with your mother; and especially lest, when she offers delicate foods, you either sadden her by refusing; or if you accept them, add oil to the fire; and among a crowd of girls

you should see by day what you think on by night. He had said before Ibid., cols. 1075 and 76.: See your mother in such a way that through her you may not be forced to see others, whose faces may cling to your heart … The maidservants who attend her, know that they are lying in wait for you; because the baser their condition, the easier the ruin. Surely it is not easily grasped to what admonitions and cautions of this kind would look, if Rusticus had gone out of his house and fixed his seat in the harbour of religion. So from the text of the epistle the opinion of Quesnel is the more probable.

[15] and in what monastery he lived; But although it is not proved that the holy Youth was a monk when St. Jerome wrote to him, yet there is no one who doubts that he afterwards professed the cloistered life. This is clearly established from the Inscription of Narbonne: Companion of Bishop Venerius in the monastery. But where? Authors vary, as Gallia Christ. testifies: In that of Marseilles according to the Notes of Baluze on Salvian, p. 410; in that of Lérins according to the book on the Concord of Priesthood and Empire, vol. 2, p. 680, or finally in that of Toulouse according to the notes of Quesnel on St. Leo Gallia Christ, vol. VI, col. 7.. And more explicitly the said Quesnel Works of St. Leo, vol. II, col. 1573.: The learned Étienne Baluze had placed him in that of Marseilles; but as something inconvenient occurred in that opinion, he afterwards judged that he should be claimed for the monastery of Lérins. I think I can easily prove that Rusticus lived as a monk in neither the one nor the other; but I judge rather that he was a nursling of the monastery of Toulouse. The chief reason of Quesnel is that he judges the epistle of St. Jerome to have been given in the year 407. Now not yet, he says Ibid., col. 1574., at that time had John Cassian established his seat at Marseilles, nor had he yet built the most celebrated monastery under the name of St. Victor. The Ballerini reply Ibid. col. 1571.: Besides that it is not certain, as Quesnel presumes, namely that no other monastery existed at Marseilles before that which John Cassian built after withdrawing to Marseilles after the year 407; the epistle of Jerome was most certainly written after the death of Rufinus … And for this reason that epistle is conveniently to be attached to the year 411, when the monastery of Marseilles had already been founded by John Cassian. This last the Ballerini assert too confidently: for it is not certainly established in what year the foundation of that monastery of Marseilles took place; Gallia Christiana holds about the year 413 Vol. I, col. 681., and Longueval seems sufficiently to agree with it Hist. de L'Église Gall., vol. II, p. III.. But if this is so, it is wrongly said that the monastery had already been founded when St. Jerome wrote his epistle in the year 411. In this opinion, for Rusticus to have been able to profess the cenobitic life at Marseilles, it is necessary that there existed there another monastery older than Cassian's and unknown to us; or the epistle must be removed further from the death of Rufinus. Others would have Cassian arrive at Marseilles about the year 405, and the authors of literary France judge this more probable Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. II, p. 217.. Tillemont hesitates, doubtful, between the two years Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 174.. The cause for doubting Schoenemann thus briefly sets out Bibliotheca Patrum Latinor., vol. II. In Migne, vol. XLIX, col. 9.: Leaving the desert once more, Cassian with his companion (Germanus) set out for Constantinople, attached himself to John Chrysostom and was adorned by him with the office of deacon. Soon, when the latter had been thrown down from his see by a crowd of abandoned men, he was sent on his behalf (in the year 405) with an embassy of the clergy of Constantinople to Innocent. But from that time to about the year 415 his memory is in obscurity. There are those who say that he returned to the East, and who think that he is the same as Cassian the presbyter, who in the year 414 was sent to Rome by Alexander, bishop of Antioch, to reconcile peace between the two churches; yet others think that already at that time he withdrew to Marseilles, where he was raised to the dignity of presbyter, and from about the year we have just indicated he was conspicuous for the esteem of both his life and his doctrine. He became especially renowned by the founding of two monasteries, one of men, the other of virgins. So the hinge of the difficulty turns on Cassian the presbyter; who if he is the same as the Author of the Conferences, the beginnings of the monastery of St. Victor are to be placed after the year 414: but if different (which seems rather to please Tillemont in the place cited) about the year 405. In this hypothesis, however, nothing prevents St. Rusticus from living as a monk in it, whether while St. Jerome was writing to him or a little later; nor does anything compel us, as is found in the Ballerini, to assign him to the monastery of Toulouse. So surely are congruously understood those words of the same epistle of St. Jerome about St. Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse: “Follow his footsteps from nearby;” and those about Proculus of Marseilles: “You have there the holy and most learned pontiff Proculus, who with living and present voice may surpass our little sheets, and by daily discourses may direct your way.” Do you see the difference of the formulas? Of the bishop of Marseilles Jerome speaks as of one present, because (Rusticus) was leading his life in a monastery of Marseilles: but St. Exuperius he indicates as “nearby,” for this reason, that Toulouse, though distant from Marseilles, yet compared with Palestine, where Jerome was, was near to it.

[16] more probably in that of St. Victor at Marseilles. This further is certain from the words of the epistle, that St. Rusticus was then staying at Marseilles, if not in a monastery, at least in the city or not far from it: otherwise how would he have dealt with Proculus by living and present voice? How would he have had daily discourses? It remains to speak of the monastery of Lérins, in which, according to the later opinion of Baluze, Rusticus gave himself up to cenobitic discipline. Baillet opposes this Vies de Saints, 26 Oct., because at that time the ascetery of Lérins was scarcely arising, or, as Quesnel adds Works of St. Leo, vol. II, col. 1574., had not at least become so celebrated as to draw out Rusticus by its fame from a rather distant region. But this reason is not very firm. For, as Gallia Christiana has it Vol. III, col. 1188., the monastery of Lérins recognizes as founder … St. Honoratus (afterwards bishop of Arles), to some in the year 375, to others, among whom is Baillet, in 391. Longueval Histoire de l'Église Gallicane, vol. II, p. 5. and Tillemont Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 38. are in harmony, asserting, the former at the end of the fourth century, the latter not before the year 400. More rightly and safely does Quesnel contradict Baluze from the silence of St. Jerome and others: When, he says Works of St. Leo, vol. II, cols. 1574 and following., Jerome sent Rusticus, who was meditating entering on the monastic life, back to the doctrine and admonitions of Proculus of Marseilles, and to the example of Exuperius, no one would believe that he wished to withdraw further from the neighbourhood of those bishops. And again a little lower: If Venerius of Marseilles and Rusticus of Narbonne (who the Inscription, of which in § I, teaches were companions in the monastery) had been called as bishops from the island of Lérins to the priestly mitre, it could scarcely be but that some traces of this matter would exist in ancient monuments, since they were most celebrated among the Gallican bishops. Hilary, bishop of Arles, would have spoken of these, who was living at that time in Lérins, under the same discipline of Honoratus, or the author of the life of Hilary, the other Honoratus, bishop of Marseilles. Eucherius would not have been silent about these, when writing instructions to his son Salonius he mentions those by whose conversation or admonitions he had made progress on the island. But especially Apollinaris Sidonius in his Eucharisticon to Faustus of Riez, where he recalls to memory especially for him the inhabitants of that island, namely Caprasius, Lupus, Honoratus, Maximus, Eucherius, Hilary, of whom Faustus had been a companion, would never have omitted to record either Venerius or Rusticus … Finally the Lérins Chronology, whose author spared no labour and diligence in searching out all those things which conduced to the honour of the most celebrated monastery, and who especially numbered those who had at some time adorned it by their piety, has recorded nothing at all of that excellent pair of bishops; of which accordingly he is to be believed to have found not even a jot in the ancient and very many monuments which he sifted or represents. These things indeed are negative, as they say; yet they have their weight surely. To conclude the disputation, then, in a few words: it is not clearly established in what year and to what monastery St. Rusticus enrolled himself; more probable to me is the opinion which favours that of St. Victor at Marseilles; and I should hold this certain, were there not doubt about the year in which Cassian arrived in Provence. Let the learned reader see whether that doubt is such as to adjudge St. Rusticus rather to that of Toulouse with Quesnel.

[17] The letter of St. Jerome teaches us many things about the youth of St. Rusticus. But if it is not sufficiently ascertained whether, or in what monastery, St. Rusticus was living, when Jerome was having that excellent letter carried to him; many things relating to his infancy and youth are revealed from the same letter. I hear, he says Migne, vol. XXII, col. 1075., that you have a religious mother, a widow of many years, who nourished, who educated you as an infant; and after the studies of Gaul, which are indeed most flourishing, sent you to Rome, not sparing expense, and sustaining the absence of her son in the hope of things to come; that Roman gravity might season the fertility and brilliance of Gallic speech; and that you might use with yourself not spurs, but bridles; which we read also of the most eloquent men of Greece, who dried up Asiatic swelling with Attic salt … Look up to her as a parent; love her as a nurse; venerate her as a saint. Bonosus, his father, then, had been dead for some time, since his mother, a widow of many years, nourished and educated him as an infant. Suppose that Rusticus was five or six years old when his father died: for the words do not allow us to give him more: she nourished and educated him as an infant; accordingly for a short space of time, say four or five years at most, Bonosus enjoyed the episcopal dignity: with which indeed he was marked only after having begotten his son. It would be wrong to determine otherwise. From elsewhere it is clear that St. Rusticus was a youth, indeed not much beyond the years of puberty, when the epistle was written: for Jerome says Migne, vol. XXII, col. 1073.: We say these things, that we may teach you, son Rusticus, at the very first that you have undertaken great things and are pursuing lofty things; and that trampling on the incitements of youth, indeed of puberty, you are climbing the step of perfect age. It is easy to conclude from these things that he had then scarcely reached the twentieth year of his age, or certainly had not much exceeded it. Elsewhere it is said Col. [ ]: So act, then, and live in the monastery, that you may merit to be a cleric, that you may stain your youth with no filth. Which place will show an age still younger, if, as I noted at n. 14, St. Rusticus more probably was not yet living in a monastery at that time. And again Col. [ ]: These

things I speak more expressly, that I may free my young man from the itch of tongue and ears.

[18] Where and in what place the holy Prelate was born. From the words: I wish you, then, … not to live with your mother Ibid. col. 1075., many infer that St. Rusticus was of Marseilles by homeland. Yet his mother, Bonosus having been ordained or having died, could have come to this city with her son (perhaps an only son, since no mention of brothers or sisters is made either in Jerome or elsewhere), and fixed her seat there or in the vicinity; moreover since, as we have said, the church over which Bonosus presided is unknown (there are those who have suspected Trier, but altogether wrongly Cf. Tillemont, Mémoires vol. XV p. 887.), it is wholly hidden from us whether they migrated from a distant or near place or region, if they came from elsewhere. Yet I should think that both the father and the mother, the sister of Bishop Arator, were Gauls by homeland; this is suggested both by the names themselves, and by the circumstances of places and events. That St. Rusticus was born of wealthy parents they not undeservedly conclude from the same St. Jerome: See your mother, he says Migne, vol. XXII cols. 1075 and following., in such a way that through her you may not be forced to see others … The maidservants who attend her, know that they are lying in wait for you. Elsewhere Ibid. col. 1078. mention is made of delicate foods to be offered by the mother to the son, and of the crowd of girls staying with her. Again Ibid. col. 1076.: And John the Baptist had a holy mother, and was the son of a priest; and yet he was conquered neither by his mother's affection nor by his father's wealth, so as to live in his parents' house with danger to chastity. Finally it is established that Rusticus was adorned with excellent gifts of talent, and was a youth of the highest hope, inasmuch as he had been sent to Rome that Roman gravity might season the fertility and brilliance of Gallic speech. The master admonishes the disciple: So act, then, and live in the monastery, that you may merit to be a cleric … Do not leap forward quickly to writing and be led by a light madness, etc. He is also judged worthy to hold daily discourses with Proculus, the most learned and most holy bishop of Marseilles. All which surely show that in the mind of St. Jerome the matter concerns a young man of no common place and merit. So far concerning that most splendid epistle, whose summary we add from Vallarsi: He teaches how one ought to order a life worthy of the name of monk, and he admonishes especially that the company of suspect women is to be avoided; and that it is safer for a young man to lead his life in a monastery than in solitude. Then that one should come late to teaching and to the writing of books; that the familiarity of detractors is to be fled in every way Ibid. col. 1072..

§ III. The epistle of St. Leo the Great to Rusticus of Narbonne. Likewise the epistles of St. Hilarus the pope concerning Hermes, whom the people of Narbonne had chosen as successor of St. Rusticus.

The epistle of St. Rusticus to St. Leo. The letter of St. Rusticus, to which St. Leo the Great replies, and which Hermes, archdeacon of Narbonne, as the Roman pontiff himself testifies, carried to the City Works of St. Leo vol. I, col. 1416., is lacking. The Inquiries of our holy Prelate are also lacking in all the collections later than Dionysius Exiguus; who, as the Ballerini have it Ibid. cols. 1413 and 14., omitting the Inquiries, prefixed titles in their place, by which he sometimes less aptly coupled two responses of Leo into one … But the Inquiries, without which the responses of Leo for the most part cannot be understood, Sirmond first edited. The editors of St. Leo have thereafter followed him. Let us note in passing that the aforesaid Inquiries or questions, nineteen in number, are the only writings of St. Rusticus that have come down to us. For it is not easily to be thought that a man adorned with such gifts, and celebrated for the fame of no common eloquence, laboured at nothing besides one 29 or another epistle, which themselves also have perished France littéraire vol. II, p. 364.. Now he had asked in his letter to St. Leo, first, what he should do about two presbyters who had failed in an accusation; next he had manifested his mind about resigning the episcopate; finally he had proposed questions or Inquiries.

[20] [The replies of St. Leo: the two presbyters who failed in the accusation are to be treated more mildly;] St. Leo replies to each head in order. First, then, he treats of the case of the presbyters Leo and Sabinian, who had declared certain adulterers guilty; bishops and honorati, called together by St. Rusticus, assembled to determine about the crime; but the accusers, sufficiently suitable proofs failing, did not dare to appear. Rusticus asks, then, what is to be done. The holy Doctor writes back Works of St. Leo vol. II, cols. 1416 and 17.: The allegation of your whole discourse having been grasped, and the proceedings carried out in the examination of the bishops and honorati having been reviewed, we have understood that confidence in YOUR ACTION was lacking to the presbyters Sabinian and Leo, and that no just complaint remains to those who of their own accord have withdrawn from the disputes begun. Concerning whom what form or what measure of justice you ought to hold, I leave to your moderation; yet persuading by the exhortation of charity that you should apply spiritual medicine to healing the sick, and, as the scripture says: “Be not over-just,” that you should deal more mildly with those who seem through zeal for chastity to have exceeded the measure of vengeance; lest the devil, who deceived the adulterers, should exult over the avengers of adultery. The acts of the assembly which St. Leo mentions have perished. This also is to be noted: before Quesnel, instead of your action there was read their action; which is preferred by Tillemont in a little note at the foot of the page Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 404.. And in very truth this reading, as the Ballerini observe, can seem more fitting, because the discourse is of a judicial action, which not Rusticus, but the presbyters Sabinian and Leo … had brought through zeal for chastity. Nevertheless the reading of Quesnel is to be held, Col. 869B as being adjusted to the sense of very many and far more excellent codices, which accordingly, to use again the words of the Ballerini, supported by so great authority, we have believed should not be abandoned, although the opinion underlying it is hidden through ignorance of the fact and the circumstances. Perhaps the crime of adultery was privately known to Rusticus as well as to Sabinian and Leo; whence these hoped that the same Rusticus, though in the session of bishops and honorati he bore the character of judge, would also devote “his action” against the adulterers, or his favour to the accusers. But when sufficiently suitable proofs were lacking to them, so that they of their own accord withdrew from the disputes begun; Rusticus, far from being able to favour them, judged them worthy of correction according to the laws; in which the holy Pontiff replies that he should deal more mildly Works of St. Leo vol. I, col. 1416.. From these darknesses in all likelihood it has arisen that in the Lessons of the old Breviary of Narbonne it is said: Sabinian and Leo, presbyters, who had withdrawn themselves from the judgment of Rusticus, he (St. Leo) left to his moderation; which however I should not think can be reconciled with the whole text of the holy Doctor, as will be clear to one reading more attentively.

[21] St. Rusticus must remain in the entrusted work of the episcopate; Next St. Leo enumerates and at the same time refutes the reasons for which the wish to give up his see had arisen in St. Rusticus Ibid. 1417.: But I wonder that your love is so disturbed by the adversity of scandals arising on whatever occasion that you say you prefer release from the labours of the episcopate, and would rather pass your life in silence and leisure than remain in those things which have been committed to you. But when the Lord says: “Blessed is he who shall persevere unto the end”: whence will blessed perseverance come, if not from the virtue of patience? For according to the apostolic preaching “all who will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution.” Which is to be reckoned not only in this, that there is action against Christian piety either by sword or by fire, or by whatever punishments; since the savagery of persecutions is supplied also by dissimilarities of morals and the contumacy of the disobedient and the darts of malignant tongues; by which conflicts, since all the members are always beaten, and no portion of the pious is free from temptation, so that neither leisure nor labours lack dangers; who will steer the ship among the waves of the sea, if the helmsman departs? … One must remain, then, in the work entrusted and in the labour undertaken. Justice must be constantly held and clemency kindly shown. Let sins be held in hatred, not men. Let the swollen be corrected, the weak be tolerated; and what must needs be chastised more severely in sins, let it be punished with the mind of one healing, not of one raging. And if a more vehement tribulation should fall upon us, let us not be so terrified as if we were resisting that adversity by our own strength, since Christ is both our counsel and our fortitude, and without whom we can do nothing, through him we can do all things. Who, strengthening the preachers of the Gospel and the ministers of the sacraments, says: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” And again he says: “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world you shall have tribulation; but have confidence, I have overcome the world.” Since these promises are without doubt manifest, we ought to be weakened by no scandals, lest we seem ungrateful for the choice of God, whose helps are as powerful as his promises are true. So far the most holy and wise pontiff Leo; by which things Rusticus, comforted and confirmed, is not found thereafter to have thought of laying down the burden of the episcopate.

[22] the replies to the inquiries proposed by him. Finally the supreme Pontiff proceeds to the Inquiries: Concerning the consultations, he says Ibid., 1419., of your love, which your archdeacon has brought, written out separately, what is to be thought would more opportunely be asked about each one between persons present, if the opportunity of your presence came to us. For since certain questions seem to exceed the measure of diligence, I understand that they are more suitable to conversations than to writings. Because as there are some things which can be overthrown by no reasoning; so there are many things which must be tempered either in consideration of ages or by the necessity of circumstances; that condition being always preserved, that in those things which are doubtful or obscure, we should know that that is to be followed which is found neither contrary to the Gospel precepts nor opposed to the decrees of the holy fathers. There follow the Inquiries, nineteen in number, each with the responses of St. Leo subjoined; which you may see in the works of the holy Doctor, in the epistle one hundred and sixty-seventh in order in Quesnel and the Ballerini, otherwise the second. Moreover most of the responses are found inserted in the Decree of Gratian.

[23] At what time the letter of St. Leo was written, But there is a controversy about the time at which St. Leo gave the said epistle to Rusticus. Quesnel judges that it was written about the year 442, 443 or 444; but he brings forward reasons not very firm in Tillemont's judgment Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 405.. Sirmond and Baluze lay down the year 452, resting on no document they allege. Quesnel suspects that they so determined because they thought that in this epistle, where the discourse is of those who were captured by enemies in infancy, regard is had to that devastation which the Huns brought on Gaul

in the year 451. But he contends that this place of the epistle is not to be referred to the irruption of the Huns, but to the persecution of the Vandals, who, having gained possession of Africa under Genseric, attacked the Catholics: for in Inquiry 18 these words are put forward: “Of those who have come from Africa or from Mauritania and do not know in what sect they were baptized.” Then, the Vandal persecution having been described, which was brought on the Christians in Africa after the year 439, he thinks that on this occasion some withdrew into Gaul, of whom the discourse is in the same epistle, and therefore he believes that it was given about the years indicated, 442, 443 and 444, in which that persecution was raging. So the Ballerini Works of St. Leo, vol. I, col. 1409.. But first the opinion of Quesnel is overthrown by the Inscription of Narbonne, which we have said with Quesnel himself belongs to the year of Christ 445. Now in this there is recorded Hermes the deacon, who in the epistle of St. Leo is called Archdeacon; this was accordingly written after the year 445, when Hermes had already been made Archdeacon from deacon. Nor must it be left unsaid, says Baluze Works of Salvian, p. 411., that to the same Rusticus is addressed that celebrated epistle of Pope Leo I, which is in everyone's hands, sent by Hermes the Archdeacon, of whom mention is made in the Inscription, and who was afterwards bishop of Narbonne after Rusticus. I have found no writer who doubts in the slightest that Hermes, who is named in the Inscription, is the same who carried the letter of Rusticus to Leo in the City. The Ballerini add against Quesnel Works of St. Leo, where cited above.: Although the African persecution of the Vandals flared up after the year 439, yet Mauritania remained in the power of the Romans until the death of Valentinian, which falls in the year 455. If, therefore, those who “came” from “Mauritania” into Gaul crossed over on account of the persecution, as Quesnel supposes; this would have to be determined after the year 455.

[24] probably about the year 458. But the opinion of Quesnel having been overthrown, it must be seen whether a certain time can be ascribed to the epistle. It will be of use for this purpose to add in full the last three Inquiries of St. Rusticus. Inquiry XVII has it thus: Of those who as little ones were captured by enemies, and do not know that they have been baptized; but know that they were several times brought to church by their parents; whether they can or ought to be baptized, when they have come to Romania? Inquiry XVIII: Of those who have come from Africa or from Mauritania and do not know in what sect they were baptized, what ought to be observed concerning them? Inquiry XIX: Of those who, baptized indeed as little ones, were captured by Gentiles and lived with them after the manner of Gentiles; when, still young, they have come to Romania, if they ask for communion, what will have to be observed? From these things the Ballerini infer in the place cited: Be it that the case of Inquiry 18 relates to those who for some reason withdrew from Africa into Gaul at the time of the Vandal persecution, yet the cases of Inquiries 17 and 19 cannot pertain to the same. For here are indicated those who as “little ones” were captured by “enemies” and those “Gentiles” and carried off outside the Roman empire, and at length, still “young,” had returned to “Romania” or the Roman empire, and of these some into the province of Narbonensis, on whose account the Inquiries were proposed by Rusticus. So the matter concerns neither Africans exiled or fled on account of the persecution, nor the Vandals, who were not Gentiles but Arians. We must understand, then, the Huns and other Gentile barbarians, likewise enemies of the Romans, who after laying waste the Gauls carried off captive children from them. Celebrated is their irruption (namely of barbarians of every kind Cf. Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 154.) into Gaul and into the very province of Narbonensis, which Jerome mentions in the epistle to Ageruchia in express words Epist. 123. See Migne, vol. XXII, cols. 1057 and 58. in the year 407. But if the question had been about little ones captured at this time, about the year 442 Rusticus would not, as it seems, have written in Inquiry 19 that “they came to Romania still young.” The Huns likewise fought against the Goths in Gaul in the years 437 and 439; called in as auxiliaries by Aetius [Acta SS., vol. IX of October, p. 135. Cf. Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 182 and following.]. But then they were auxiliaries of the Romans, not enemies. But Rusticus speaks of “Gentile” “enemies” and of captives who, still young, returned from the enemy to Romania. More fairly, then, is understood the irruption of the Huns into Gaul in the year 451 Cf. Hist. de Languedoc, ibid, p. 189. Likewise vol. IX of Oct., pp. 122 and 955.; when, not as auxiliaries, but as enemies, they fought against Aetius, the commander of the Romans. But if the Inquiries of Rusticus are believed to be taken of “little ones” captured in this war; that a suitable time may be left in which the same little ones, captured by the Gentiles, returned as young men to their homeland, this epistle cannot be attached to the year 452. These things, surely not absurdly brought forward by the Ballerini, do not lack probability; yet it must be recalled to mind that through the whole middle of the 5th century, of which there is question here, Romania lay open to the incursions of the barbarians; so that from these things it cannot easily be determined in what years exactly St. Rusticus proposed his doubts to St. Leo. The Ballerini go on: More probably the epistle (of St. Leo) seems to be placed about the year 458. For in the first place in two epistles of the year 458, one, 159, to Nicetas of Aquileia, ch. 5, the other, 166, to Neon of Ravenna, ch. 1, mention occurs of Romans returning to their own from the captivity of the unbelievers, of whom some had raised doubt about baptism, others about things offered to idols, just as is read in the epistle to Rusticus of Narbonne, namely about baptism; Rusticus is silent about things offered to idols. Since, further, all these epistles agree with captives who had been captured under Attila, laying waste Italy and Gaul; then indeed the epistle to Rusticus, no less than the other two, is most fairly recognized as written about the same year 458. Next in the epistle to Neon, ch. 1, Leo says: “Lately in a synod a new and previously unheard-of kind of consultation has arisen. For by the suggestion of certain brethren we have learned that some of the captives freely returning to their homes, who came into captivity at that age which could have knowledge of almost nothing, implore indeed the remedy of baptism; but whether they received the mystery of that baptism and the sacraments, through the ignorance of infancy they cannot recall.” This question is the same as that which Rusticus of Narbonne proposed. But how could Leo in the year 458 in epistle 166 to Neon have affirmed this “new and previously unheard-of kind of consultation,” if the same question had long since been proposed to him by Rusticus? How … would he have added that a longer and more diligent discussion was necessary in resolving it, if he had long since in the epistle to Rusticus resolved it in like manner? It is perceived, then, that Neon … wrote to Leo on this question before Rusticus; and for this reason this epistle to Rusticus is recognized as written out after the 9th before the Kalends of November of the year 458, on which the letter to Neon was given. But from elsewhere it appears that St. Leo wrote to Rusticus before the year 459. For as the Ballerini appositely discourse, Hermes, who in this epistle is called “archdeacon,” while Rusticus was still living was given as bishop to the people of Béziers, by whom, as he was not received, he returned to Narbonne; and on this matter the same Rusticus and Hermes gave a letter to Leo, as may be gathered from epistle 8 of Pope Hilarus. And that a suitable time may be assigned to these things before the death of Leo, which took place in the year 461, Hermes seems to have been promoted to the chair of Béziers about the year 460. But this epistle, Hermes still being archdeacon and staying at Rome, must be said to have been written at the latest in the year 459. So much for the chronological question. It is probable, then, that the letters both of St. Rusticus and of St. Leo are to be placed about the year 458.

[25] Two epistles of St. Hilarus the pope in the case of Hermes; Since discourse has fallen on Hermes, I shall subjoin in this place what pertains to his case. He is known from the Inscription as deacon of St. Rusticus about the year 445; from the letter of St. Leo as archdeacon about the year 458. A little later, ordained bishop for the people of Béziers (Beziers) (surely by St. Rusticus the metropolitan), he was excluded and driven out by his people. Wherefore Rusticus designates Hermes, whose virtue he knew, as his successor, and writes to the supreme pontiff that he should confirm his election by his authority. To a matter so unusual, as it seemed to him (nor indeed was Leo ignorant of discipline and the canons), Leo was unwilling to acquiesce. Meanwhile Rusticus having died not so long afterwards in the year 461, Hermes, who complained that he had not been accepted by the people of Béziers, passed to the church of Narbonne with the consent, as it seems (from the very letter of St. Hilarus soon to be recited, in which the pope would not have failed to make mention of dissension, if there had been any), of the clergy and people, the comprovincials and Leontius of Arles himself. Yet the matter was brought before Hilarus, who had succeeded Pope Leo, as if Hermes had seized the chair of Narbonne. So Gallia Christiana Vol. VI, col. 296.. But it is far from the case that what is reported of Rusticus in this cause is ascertained. Certainly Pagi speaks quite otherwise in the Breviary Vol. I, p. 160.: When a certain Hermes, ordained bishop for the people of Béziers, and not received by them, had intruded himself into the church of Narbonne etc. From these things no one will infer that Hermes ascended this chair according to the rules of law. What then? The question is to be decided from two epistles of St. Hilarus, who in the year 461 succeeded Leo the Great; one to Leontius of Arles, the other to the bishops of the various provinces of Gaul.

[26] The holy pontiff thus begins the former Migne, vol. LVIII, col. 24.: To his most beloved brother Leontius, Hilarus the pope. We wonder that your fraternity is so unmindful of the Catholic law, the first epistle, that whatever things are unjust and contrary to the statutes of our fathers in the province which pertains to your monarchy, if you yourself either will not or cannot, you do not even permit us by the taciturnity of your silence to correct. For indeed what we have both learned by report, and have inquired as diligently as we could of the deacon John, who has been made known to us by letter by the magnificent man our son Frederick (he was the brother of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths), that by a most iniquitous usurpation a certain Hermes has with execrable temerity presumed upon the episcopate of the city of Narbonne … On which matter, dearest brother, we admonish that if credit be given to these assertions, setting aside excuse, you should transmit a report to us … Given on the 3rd before the Nones, that is, on the third day of November, in the year 462. These things indeed favour Pagi perfectly.

[27] the later In the other Hilarus writes back Migne, where cited above.: To his most beloved brethren the bishops of the province of Vienne, of Lyon, of Narbonensis Prima and Secunda and of the Pennine Alps, Hilarus, bishop … Formerly, then, the presidents of the aforesaid cities (Narbonne and Béziers) brought to my predecessor of holy memory (Leo), no less than to us also at that time, grief, by daring to pursue with unlawful petitions what could scarcely, with our patience, be softened by the sole lamentation of necessities. For by what examples, as you also approve, is it established to have been done, and what is not most worthy of rebuke, that which is repugnant to the decrees of the holy Fathers and the very institutions of the canons? Since our brother and now fellow bishop Hermes believed that he was by right received by the church of Narbonne, for this reason, that he said he was unworthily excluded by the people of Béziers, for whom he was ordained. If he truly grieved that this was done to him, and had known how to help his own injury by a lawful remedy, he should have hoped rather for vengeance on those who had suffered than for pardon on those who had perpetrated. (Can it not at least be conjectured from the words: If he truly grieved that this was done to him, that the less worthy reception of Hermes among the people of Béziers was rather a pretext than a reason for his passing to the people of Narbonne?) Finally if now at least he would use the common mind of all the priests of the Lord, if he would imitate their example, if he would direct the eyes of his heart to these things which have been somehow laid to rest in contemplation of ecclesiastical quiet, and if for the peace or faith of the whole church he would consider the manifold errors committed: there is surely nothing that he himself would not also reprehend, and he would blush that there should be granted to him what he would laudably have disapproved in another. For we know, and have long had nothing ambiguous about the conversation of the said brother, since turning over in our mind the course of his former life and the purpose set before him (otherwise his whole purpose), we judge that he has fallen into these excesses of which we accuse him rather than committed them. Concerning which, a numerous council of the brethren presiding (perhaps it should be read being present) and gathered from various provinces for the day of our birthday (namely the 19th of November 462, on the first anniversary of the ordination of St. Hilarus) in honour of blessed Peter the apostle by the grace of God, our brethren and fellow bishops Faustus and Auxanius presiding (it would better be said being present), and very many things being done which look to the vigour and authority of judgment, this has been established by us for love of peace, that in the sentence which, the Lord Christ inspiring, we have brought forward with attention to each embassy directed from there, neither the charity of Gospel indulgence nor the rod of apostolic discipline should be lacking. For indulgence did not make us wholly remit, nor affection wholly restrain. Further, the indulgence consists in this, that Hermes is confirmed in the see of Narbonne; the restraint, that he is deprived of the right of ordaining comprovincial bishops. From him, says St. Hilarus, who is now permitted to preside over the church of Narbonne, we have taken away the power of ordaining bishops, on account of these things that have been wrongly done, which we have resolved shall belong to … Constantius, prelate of the church of Uzès, since he is said to be the first in age of honour, in such a way that if he should die while Bishop Hermes survives, this care shall fall to him whom the episcopal order shall find to be primate, that is, older by ordination. But when Bishop Hermes dies, let the custom of making prelates be at once restored to the church of Narbonne, which not the city but the cause of presumption lost.

[28] whether St. Rusticus preposterously favoured Hermes? From these things it is clear that in the judgment of St. Hilarus Hermes made himself guilty of no light fault in seizing the mitre of Narbonne. But in what the fault consisted is not easy to define accurately. To me Hermes seems to have sinned especially by leaving the see of Béziers, due authority being lacking, and going to that of Narbonne, while according to the prescription of ecclesiastical laws he was still lawfully coupled to the former church. The fault is lessened if, as many suppose, returning from Béziers or perhaps a fugitive, he was kindly received by St. Rusticus and indeed designated as successor in the see of Narbonne; and on this matter it was written by the same St. Rusticus both to St. Leo and to St. Hilarus, the Roman prelates. Those who think so rest on these words of St. Hilarus, recited above: Formerly, then, the presidents of the aforesaid cities (Narbonne and Béziers, as is evidently established from the beginning of the epistle) brought to my predecessor of holy memory (Leo), no less than to us also at that time, grief, by daring to pursue with unlawful petitions what could scarcely, with our patience, be softened by the sole lamentation of necessities. And in very truth, who else would those presidents be, if not Rusticus and Hermes? Some doubt; Tillemont openly inclines to our opinion Mémoires, vol. XVI, p. 39.. Where he also cites many examples, by which he thinks it is proved that it was not so foreign to the discipline of the canons that someone should pass as bishop from one church to another in the same circumstances as Hermes, much less that a prelate should choose or designate his successor. However that may be, even from the fact that he consulted the Roman see, it is clear that St. Rusticus favoured Hermes neither lightly nor with a preposterous mind. Moreover Hilarus himself, the matter having been more deeply examined and discussed, confirmed the ordination. The things found said more sharply in the letter are greatly tempered by the very outcome of the matter. The Benedictines assert Art de vérifier les dates, p. 249. that St. Hilarus is the first among the Roman pontiffs to have prohibited a bishop from choosing his successor; and that the same pontiff wished the Nicene canon, by which passage to another see is prohibited, to be strictly kept. It is enough to have noted this, since this is not the place to examine the question more diligently. Compare Tillemont Mémoires, vol. XVI, p. 41..

§ IV. St. Rusticus was present at the Gallican council, where the epistle of St. Leo to Flavian was treated; likewise at the third council of Arles, where the dispute about jurisdiction between Theodoric, bishop of Fréjus, and Faustus, abbot of Lérins, was settled. Other Monuments, less certain or apocryphal, pertaining to the deeds of St. Rusticus.

[St. Rusticus subscribes to the synodal epistle of the 44 bishops to St. Leo the Great;] St. Rusticus is read as subscribed, and indeed first after Ravennius of Arles, to the synodal epistle of the forty-four bishops Works of St. Leo, vol. I, col. 1107. to Leo the Great, who had caused his most celebrated epistle to Flavian on the Eutychian heresy to be sent into Gaul: I, Bishop Rusticus, venerating your Apostolate in the Lord, greet you, and I suppliantly pray that you may deign to pray for me Ibid., col. 1110.. This assembly, celebrated in the year 451, goes generally under the name of the Gallican Council or the second of Arles Tillemont, Memoires, vol. XV, p. 406. — Art de vérifier les dates, p. 180.. Yet compare Sirmond Concilia antiqua Galliæ, vol. I, pp. 13 and 102., who passes over this council and mentions only the Synodal Ibid., p. 93.. Leo replied in the following year (452), addressing his letter To the Bishops established through Gaul, naming each in the order in which they had signed the Synodal: To Ravennius, Rusticus, etc. Works of St. Leo, vol. I, col. 1136.. And he extols this very greatly, yet grieving that it was delivered to him after the departure of his legates to the council of Chalcedon. We should indeed have wished, he says, to receive the letter of your fraternity at the time you promised, that to our brethren about to set out for the East, whom we directed to the holy synod in our stead for the defence of the Catholic faith, there might be joined also the profession of your opinion. But since many obstacles brought on you unexpected delay, the epistles, however late and long awaited, we have gratefully received by our brother and fellow bishop Ingenuus (he presided over the metropolitan see of Embrun Ibid., vol. II, col. 1476., and had subscribed to the Synodal which he carried to Rome), and reviewing them with joy we have approved them, as we were confident that by the instruction of the Holy Spirit the heavenly doctrine flourishes in you etc. He announces that the Fathers of Chalcedon have consented to the epistle to Flavian and have proscribed Dioscorus. He concludes in this manner: Worthy thanksgiving having been rendered to God, then, dearest brethren, let your love pray with us that we may rejoice that our brethren (the legates), whom our expectation longs for, have returned unharmed as soon as may be, and that we may be able to instruct you more fully about all that has been done with the Lord's help. For we did not wish Brother Ingenuus to be delayed by this waiting; since for this very reason he had to return more hastily, lest the matter of common joys should longer be unknown to you, which we wish through the care of your love to reach also our brethren the bishops of Spain; that what God has wrought may be unknown to no one. Given on the 6th before the Kalends of February (the 27th of January), Herculanus, the most illustrious man, being consul with Sporatius, and so in the year 452 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 334.. So the Synodal must have been written about the end of the preceding year, or in the month of December, as the Ballerini suppose Works of Leo, vol. I, col. 1107, in the margin.; nor do I see why the Benedictines reprehend Mansi for ascribing the Gallican council, to whose Synodal St. Leo replies, to the end of the year 451 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 180.. The legates having returned from the synod of Chalcedon (the bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius and the presbyter Boniface), Leo gave, in the month of February or March of the same year 452, another letter To his most beloved brethren Rusticus, Ravennius, Venerius (of Marseilles) and the other bishops established through Gaul, whom he informs of the proceedings in the ecumenical synod and of the sentence brought forward against Eutyches and Dioscorus, a copy of which sentence he adjoins Works of St. Leo, vol. I, cols. 1140–43.. It is to be noted that in this other letter of Leo Rusticus is placed before Ravennius, while in the former he is placed after him. The reason for the difference, say the Ballerini Ibid., col. 1140. Note., is easy. In the preceding epistle Leo replies to the synodal epistle of the bishops, in which since Ravennius preceded Rusticus, he believed the same order should be followed. And Ravennius preceded Rusticus in that Synodal because it was written in a synod at Arles. For in synods the Metropolitan of the same province usually obtains the first place, even if other metropolitans of other provinces, older or more celebrated, are present. Whence in the subscriptions of the council of Aquileia of the year 381 Valerian, metropolitan of the province of Aquileia, precedes, although St. Ambrose of Milan, celebrated on so many counts, ruled the same synod and in other documents is placed before Valerian. But in the present epistle Leo is replying to no Synodal of the Gauls, and for this reason, account being taken of age, he places Rusticus before Ravennius.

[30] he was present at the third of Arles in the case of Faustus of Lérins. He was present finally at the third council of Arles, held in the case of Faustus, abbot of Lérins, about the year 455, as Sirmond would have it Concilia, vol. I, p. 120. and others commonly, although this one thing is certainly established, that the council was celebrated under Ravennius, who presided over the see of Arles from the year 449 to the year 461 Tillemont, Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 406. That is, St. Leontius, bishop of Fréjus, having died, St. Maximus, abbot of Lérins, was chosen as successor;

but he hid himself in the woods … humility leading him, and thus … begged off the honour of the priesthood. So, on his refusing, there was chosen Theodore, formerly abbot of the Stoechades islands (d'Hières, as they generally think, though Valois thinks otherwise Ibid., p. 407.). St. Maximus was succeeded at Lérins by Faustus. But Bishop Theodore was unwilling to stand by the agreements of his predecessor Leontius with the monks and abbot of Lérins, moved perhaps by the new decree of the council of Chalcedon, which orders monks to be wholly subject to bishops. Faustus the abbot … on the other side contended for his own liberty and that of his monks Gallia Christiana, vol. I, col. 422.. Hence a grave contention arose and was stirred up, not without offence to the people; to quiet and settle which, Ravennius gathered a synod at Arles, in his metropolis, sending a general epistle, as Sirmond expresses it Concilia, vol. 1, p. 120., to the bishops, in which he first sets forth the dissension that had arisen; then for remedying this scandal, then, he says, by your prayers the day of hearing has been appointed on the third before the Kalends of January (the 30th of December). We ask, therefore, that your holiness may deign to weary itself as far as Arles, etc. There is added a special clause to those who are in the Island itself; so indeed Sirmond; but Tillemont rightly observes Mémoires vol. XV, p. 888. that it should be read from the Island itself: for the matter concerns bishops, formerly monks at Lérins, as is luminously established from the words of Ravennius: It is especially fitting that your Blessedness be present, he says, whom the Island itself, cherishing you as it were in a mother's bosom, has by the instigation of the Lord brought to that grace which is now in you. And finally more specially and by name to St. Rusticus: And especially we beg your Blessedness to be present first, because a graver sickness necessarily seeks out the most skilful physicians. How splendid a testimony of sanctity and merit these words of Ravennius afford of St. Rusticus, there is no one who does not see. What was determined in this council we know from the decree which has come down to us. It is entitled thus: The Institution of the holy bishops Ravennius, Rusticus, Nectarius, Florus, Constantius, Asclepius, Maximus, Justus, Salonius, Ingenuus, Ynantius, Zoticus, Chrysanthus, in the case of the island of Lérins. It begins: When we had come together at Arles in the sacristy of the church, … we sat down, treating of the remedy for the scandal which had arisen in the monastery on the island of Lérins. It pleased us, then, the holy spirit, as we believe, governing, that … Bishop Theodore should first be entreated by us not to allow the scandal, whose arising he himself as well as we gravely regretted, … to remain longer … Nor thereafter to repeat in words or retain in mind any of those things of which he accused Brother Faustus of having done to him. And so to return fully into favour with him, yet in future claiming for himself only that which his predecessor … Bishop Leontius had claimed, that is, that clerics and ministers of the altar should be ordained by no one but himself or by him whom he himself should enjoin; that chrism be looked for only from him; that neophytes, if there be any, be confirmed by the same; that strange clerics be not admitted to communion or to ministry without his precept. But all the lay multitude of the monastery (that is, monks not initiated in holy orders) shall pertain to the care of the abbot; and the bishop shall claim nothing of it for himself, nor presume on any cleric from it, unless at the abbot's request. Faustus, of whom there is discourse here, is the same who afterwards, made bishop of Riez (Riez), stirred up sufficiently great controversies by his writings. In the writings of Faustus two things are chiefly reprehended; that he favoured the errors of the Semipelagians, and that he seems to teach that the soul is corporeal, which opinion Claudius Mamertus refutes. As regards Semipelagianism Faustus seems worthy of pardon, who wrote before the second council of Orange, by which this heresy was condemned. Yet Pope Gelasius rejected his writings among the apocrypha … St. Faustus died about the year 485, and he is venerated as a saint in his church; indeed his name has been inscribed in the sacred calendars of the Gallican church Gallia Christ. vol. I, col. 393.. See Acta SS. 16 Jan.

[31] Other less certain monuments: And these are the certain documents of antiquity which pertain to St. Rusticus; from which accordingly his acts can and must be illustrated. There are also some others, but either less genuine or doubtful or of lighter moment; which however are by no means to be neglected, and indeed are to be called in as a support.

[33] Arnobius is said to have dedicated Commentaries to St. Rusticus; In the first place come the Commentaries on the Psalms, attributed to Arnobius the Younger, and addressed by the author to the bishops Leontius and Rusticus. Cave, doubting nothing, asserts that the Commentaries are of Arnobius and dedicated to St. Rusticus of Narbonne: Arnobius, commonly called “the younger,” he says Migne, vol. LIII, col. 240., to be distinguished from Arnobius “the African,” a Gaul by race as it seems, flourished about the year 460, as is gathered from the inscription of the Commentary on the Psalms, dedicated to Leontius of Arles and Rusticus of Narbonne. Less confidently Bellarmine in the Ecclesiastical Writers Ibid. col. 237.: Nor is it improbable that the Commentaries on the Psalms which are circulated under the name of Arnobius are of this Arnobius the Younger. Le Mire leaves the matter in the middle Ibid. col. 238.: At about the time when Adrian VI was created pontiff (year 1522) in the monastery of Frankenthal, between Worms and Speyer, there were found “Commentaries on all the Psalms of David,” which Trithemius, Erasmus, Baraeus and others wrongly attribute to “Arnobius the elder” (of whom Jerome in the Catalogue, ch. 79). Bellarmine suspects that those Commentaries are the offspring of this “Arnobius the Younger.” However that may be, they savour of Pelagianism. But if they are also attributed to Arnobius the Younger, yet it would not be certainly established that they were dedicated to St. Rusticus of Narbonne. The Prologue begins: To his dearest brethren the bishops Leontius and Rusticus, Arnobius Ibid. col. 327.. The see of neither is designated; and does not the word brethren indicate that the author is also a bishop, such as Arnobius the Younger was not nor is known to have been afterwards Histoire de la France littér. vol. II, p. 343.. Moreover we know indeed that Leontius held the chair of Arles already in the year 462, yet not before the year 461, in which Ravennius ceased to live, or, as Gallia Christiana would have it Vol. I, col. 533., his successor Augustalis, whom Leontius followed. In the same year 461 Hermes was already bishop of Narbonne, as we have shown at n. 25. So St. Rusticus died at about the very time that Leontius attained the mitre of Arles. How, then, could Arnobius address his Commentaries to both bishops together? Yet, although several men of the name of Rusticus are found to have flourished about that time France littéraire, where cited above, p. 482 — Migne, vol. LVIII, col. 488., I do not see to what others the names of Leontius and Rusticus joined together would easily apply than to the two aforesaid prelates. Nor is it wholly repugnant that both should have lived together in the episcopate for some space of life; or that Arnobius, if this was his mind from the beginning, should have addressed his book to St. Rusticus, though lately dead. It remains doubtful, then, whether Arnobius (whom I hold more probably as the author of the Commentaries) had regard in the Prologue to the holy Prelate whose acts we are illustrating.

[34] they say he was also present at the consecration of Ravennius; A still greater doubt exists about the Rusticus whom St. Leo records as present at the consecration of Ravennius of Arles Works of St. Leo vol. I, cols. 890 and following., in the epistle to the bishops established through the province of Arles in Gaul, beginning: To his most beloved brethren Constantine, Audentius, Rusticus etc., whom he congratulates on the good and peaceful election of Ravennius. It was given on the 9th before the Kalends of September (the 21st of August), Asturius and Protogenes being consuls, that is, in the year 449. Sirmond notes on this epistle Posthumous notes in Labbe, Conc. vol. III, col. 1503.: It was written to twelve bishops, who had consecrated Ravennius, among whom perhaps some were called in from neighbouring provinces. For Rusticus who is named in the third place seems to be the bishop of Narbonne; and Florus of Lodève, from the same Narbonensis Prima. On the opposite side Quesnel would have it (nor do the Ballerini contradict Works of St. Leo, vol. II, col. 1442.) that the Rusticus who in the inscription of this epistle is numbered among the other ordainers of Ravennius is without doubt other than that Rusticus of Narbonne to whom St. Leo elsewhere wrote. For the metropolitan of another province, such as Rusticus of Narbonne bore himself to be, would never have mixed himself against the canons in an episcopal ordination in a foreign province, and much less in that of Vienne, whose metropolitan either still contended at that time, or certainly had not long before contended, that the province of Narbonne also was subject to him. For Rusticus would have greatly supported the wishes of the people of Arles, if he had flown to the ordination of the bishop of Arles, as a bishop of the same province. Next, Rusticus of Narbonne would not be found written third in this epistle, who elsewhere is found named either immediately after Ravennius, as in the synodal epistle of the forty-four Gallic bishops to St. Leo, and in the third council of Arles, or even before Ravennius, as is the case in the other epistle of St. Leo. (Compare n. 29.) It is better, then, to think that another Rusticus than the one of Narbonne is named in the inscription of this epistle; which we believe the more gladly because both the name of Rusticus of this kind is quite common, and we read that several in fact flourished about those times in Gaul, some of whom Apollinaris Sidonius mentions, Epistles, bk. 2, ep. 11, bk. 5, ep. 9, and bk. 8, epist. 11. Tillemont agrees with Quesnel Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 405.. Moreover Sirmond himself does not assert that the matter concerns St. Rusticus; he inclines indeed to this opinion, but for what reasons he omits to say. For my part I see no others, except that the name and the times agree with the holy Bishop of Narbonne.

[35] a certain epistle is wrongly attributed to St. Rusticus Quesnel adds where cited above: Another Rusticus, perhaps distinct from all these, wrote to Eucherius that epistle which J. Sirmond has reproduced in the Notes on epistle 11 of book, to Eucherius of Lyon. 2 of Sidonius. This Rusticus Tillemont would gladly call that of Narbonne; yet he hesitates somewhat, because that Rusticus, who had asked for the books of St. Eucherius on Scripture to be copied, does not seem to have been a bishop, and because it is not known from elsewhere that Eucherius was adorned with the pontifical dignity before St. Rusticus of Narbonne Mémoires, vol. XV, p. 405.. And in very truth that St. Eucherius, when he composed those books, was already a bishop is clear from epistle VIII of Salvian, which begins: To the Lord and most sweet Eucherius, bishop, Salvian the presbyter; and ends: Farewell, my Lord and my sweet one Baluze, Works of Salvian, p. 214 and following.. And although the year in which St. Eucherius was raised to the see of Lyon cannot be accurately designated, yet it appears certain that this did not take place

before the year 430; perhaps in the year 432, more probably in the year 434 Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. II, p. 277.. But it is established from the Inscription of Narbonne that St. Rusticus attained the mitre at least in the year 430 (far more probably in the year 427). Rightly, then, did Tillemont doubt whether Eucherius preceded St. Rusticus in the pontificate (to me the matter is all but ascertained). But if Eucherius, already a bishop, wrote the aforesaid books, and was set over the church of Lyon after Rusticus had begun to rule that of Narbonne; it follows that not he but another of the same name is the author of the epistle which our Sirmond published: for this is shown, by the very form of the inscription and salutation, to have been written not by a bishop and metropolitan, but perhaps not even by a presbyter. It begins: To the truly holy Lord Pope Eucherius, Rusticus; it closes: Pray for me, truly holy and friend of God, and pope to be received by me in Christ with all reverence Migne, vol. LVIII, col. 489.. Wherefore the authors of literary France attribute the epistle to a certain Rusticus, a lettered and rich man of that age, a friend of Sidonius Apollinaris Vol. II, pp. 428 and 29.; and they observe that the Sainte-Marthes Old Gallia Ch., vol. I, p. 295. and likewise Baronius confused this Rusticus with the bishop of Lyon of the same name, who about half a century after St. Eucherius was ordained prelate of that church. But these things are corrected in the New Gallia Christiana Vol. IV, p. 28. Cf. France litt., where cited above.. Cf. § I, nn. 10 and following.

§ V. A summary of the deeds of St. Rusticus; his death, burial, relics; his memory in the sacred calendars, where it is reported that St. Rusticus was ordained presbyter by St. Venerius of Marseilles; it is weighed in a few words by what right they assert this.

A compendium of the life of St. Rusticus, From the monuments so far brought forward and discussed we deduce and arrange in this manner the life and deeds of St. Rusticus: In Gaul, perhaps at Marseilles, he was born of wealthy and, as may be conjectured, rather noble parents; namely his father Bonosus, afterwards bishop; and his mother, a very religious woman, sister of Arator, likewise bishop. But the see both of the latter and of the former is unknown to us. Endowed with excellent gifts of nature and grace, by the care of his most pious mother, whom St. Jerome intimates was a widow a few years after the birth of her son, Rusticus, educated in all wisdom and doctrine, so advanced in the study of letters that he was judged worthy to be sent to Rome, that he might season the fertility of Gallic speech with Roman gravity. Returning to Gaul and staying at Marseilles or in the vicinity with his mother, he received about the year 411 from St. Jerome a very splendid epistle, in which are contained very many things for the praise of the holy Youth and the recommendation of the cloistered life. St. Rusticus was then about twenty years old, as may be conjectured from the words of the holy Doctor. At the same time or not much later he embraced the regular life, more probably, as I for my part judge, in the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles; and was a companion of St. Venerius (afterwards bishop of the people of Marseilles) in the monastery, as is found in the Inscription of Narbonne. Following the admonitions of St. Jerome he so acted and lived there as to merit to be a cleric; whence also in the aforesaid Inscription he is called fellow presbyter with the same Venerius of the church of Marseilles. In the year of Christ 427, of his age about 37 (standing by the conjecture we made above at n. 17 from St. Jerome), he was ordained bishop of the church of Narbonne. Some would have it (in my opinion wrongly) that St. Rusticus was present in the year 439 at the ordination of St. Ravennius of Arles. In the year of Christ 441, of his age 52, he began to build the basilica, and finished it in about four years, namely in the year of Christ 445, of his age 56. At the end of the year of Christ 451, of his age 62, he was present at the Gallican council or assembly, and there first after Ravennius of Arles he subscribed to the synodal epistle of the forty-four bishops to Leo the Great, in which they testify that they approve his letter to Flavian on the mystery of the Incarnation. In the following year two epistles were written by St. Leo; one responding to the aforesaid Synodal; the other informs the sacred prelates of Gaul of the sentence brought forward in the council of Chalcedon against Eutyches and Dioscorus. In both letters St. Rusticus is named, and indeed in second place in the former, in first in the latter. He was present also at the third council of Arles (more probably in the year 455), and indeed called by Ravennius in these special and most honourable words: And especially we beg your Blessedness to be present first, because a graver sickness necessarily seeks out the most skilful physicians. The matter was of the dissension which, not without offence to the people, had arisen between Theodore, bishop of Fréjus, and Faustus, abbot of Lérins, concerning the right that belonged to the bishop over the monastery. About the year of Christ 458, of his age 69, when on account of the iniquity of the times, the hostile incursions of the barbarians and the corruption of morals and discipline arising from them, St. Rusticus had seriously thought of laying down the burden of the episcopate, he wrote to St. Leo both to disclose this his mind, and to learn what he should do in the case of the presbyters Leo and Sabinian, who had failed in an accusation of adultery, and finally to seek from the Roman see the solution of several other difficulties. Leo replied in the year 458 that he must remain in the work (of the episcopate) entrusted and the labour undertaken; that he should deal more mildly with Leo and Sabinian, who seemed through zeal for chastity to have exceeded the measure of vengeance; lest the devil who deceived the adulterers should exult over the avengers of adultery. Finally he resolved in order the difficulties or inquiries proposed by St. Rusticus. In the last period of the holy Prelate's life (probably in the year 459 or the following) there was ordained by him Hermes, formerly his deacon and archdeacon, bishop of the people of Béziers; but, badly received, he returned to St. Rusticus, and seems to have been designated by him as successor in the chair of Narbonne. On this matter we have a sharper letter of Pope St. Hilarus, who (elected on the 10th day of the month of November) succeeded St. Leo in the year 461, by which Hermes is gravely reprehended, and St. Rusticus himself seems not to be passed over as altogether blameless. However that may be, the known sincerity of the holy Man does not allow his manner of acting in this business to be attributed to a preposterous mind.

[37] death From the said letter of St. Hilarus it is proved that St. Rusticus met his last day in the year of Christ 461, and (according to the probable numbers laid down by us above) of his age 72. For the epistle of St. Hilarus, in which Hermes is censured as having with execrable temerity presumed on the episcopate of the city of Narbonne, was given on the 3rd before the Nones (that is, on the third day) of November Sirmond, Conc. Gall., vol. I, p. 128., no consul being indicated; the other, by which the same Hermes is permitted, under a fixed law, to keep the aforesaid mitre, was given on the 3rd before the Nones (the third day) of December, Cl. P. Severus being consul Ibid., p. 131., that is, in the year 462; from which it is clear that both were written in the said year 462, since on the third of November of the preceding year St. Hilarus had not yet been taken up to the supreme pontificate. Nor is there anything to prevent our attaching the passing of St. Rusticus to the 26th of October, on which his birthday is celebrated by the martyrologists.

[38] burial Of the burial of St. Rusticus Gallia Christiana reports Vol. VI, col. 10.: There is seen not far (a thousand paces Le Blant, manuscript leaves) from Narbonne an old chapel dedicated under the invocation of St. Lupus, in which there is a single altar, on which is placed a marble seven feet long and four wide, and beneath the altar is seen an ancient stone, hollowed in the manner of a tomb, broken through the middle, and covered with another squared marble of five feet, on whose front part these words are written:

ORATE PRO ME RUSTICO VESTRO Pray for me, your Rusticus;

But on the back part, although many things are written there, only these could be read: ALTARE HOC MU … AM. HERMETIS PRBI This altar … of Hermes the presbyter. Thence Baluze conjectures, since in former times it was not the custom among the Romans to bury the bodies of the dead in cities or in churches, that Rusticus was laid there; which conjecture does not lack probability; for when in the year 1404 that chapel was visited, the acts of that visitation have it thus: “There also very many sick persons came to the tomb of Blessed Lupus, which is, with the holy body, in the middle of the said chapel, and before the entrance of the door the bodies of SS. Rusticus and Eleutherius are asserted to be buried in the ground.” So in a rude age they confused Rusticus of Narbonne with Rusticus, companion of St. Denis of Paris and of Eleutherius the deacon. The same things, but unfolded a little more broadly, are reported by the learned Edmond Le Blant, and he adds that by common opinion the tomb of St. Rusticus is to be sought there Ibid..

[39] and an altar. There is also another altar, surely very ancient and surviving down to our times; on which the same writer has discoursed in a particular treatise [Memoire sur l'autel de L'église de Minerve, by M. Edmond Le Blant. Paris. 1846. See Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, vol. II, n. 609.]. That is, between narrow gorges there rises in a rather high place, not far from the city of Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, a village, obscure today, by name Minerba or Minerva, once a noble fortress, besieged and stormed at the beginning of the 13th century by Simon de Montfort, at the request of the count of Narbonne, whose dominion was being infested by the sallying garrison soldiery of the citadel. There seems to have been in that place a temple sacred to Pallas or Minerva, and thence the appellation arose. The Castrum of Minerva, says Valois Notitia Galliarum, received its name from the worship and temple of Minerva; which was then given also to the territory. Certainly Charles the Bald in a diploma of the year 843 mentions the Pagus Minerbensis in the suburban district of Narbonne Hist. de Languedoc, vol. I, Proofs, col. 78.; and in another instrument of the year 873: In the pagus or territory of Narbonne, in the suburban district of Minerve Ibid., col. 124.. And on the testimony of Edmond Le Blant Mémoire, p. 5., the most ancient monument of all relating to Minerve is an altar dedicated by St. Rusticus about the year 460 (rather 457), as is established from the inscription:

RUSTICUS EPS ANNO XXX EPTS SVI FF

that is, Rusticus the bishop in the 30th year of his episcopate caused it to be made; since, then, we have shown in § I that the holy Man was raised to the pontifical dignity in the year 427; it follows that the dedication falls, as I have said, in the fifty-seventh year of the same century. And it is said, as has been written back to us from Carcassonne in these days, that St. Rusticus overthrew the temple of Pallas, and built upon its ruins a church sacred to the true God, in which he placed the aforesaid altar of white marble, six feet long, three wide. Edmond Le Blant notes besides Ibid., p. 6. that the altar was formerly visited by very many pilgrims, who were accustomed to carve their names on its sides; of which not a few (ninety-three) by diligent labour

the same writer has collected and illustrated with a learned commentary Ibid., pp. 8–30.. Today Minerve has at the most four hundred inhabitants Mémoire, p. 5., and it belongs to the circumscription that takes its name from the river Hérault (departement de l'Herault).

[40] Relics. As regards the relics of the holy Prelate, I find the following in the replies communicated to us from Narbonne. Formerly notable relics of St. Rusticus were preserved in the metropolitan church, and these on the feast day of the holy Prelate, namely the 26th of October, were exposed to the veneration of the faithful. When the French whirlwind raged toward the end of the past century, the shrines and reliquaries were sacrilegiously broken and scattered in the metropolitan church of St. Just, and today the sacred remains of St. Rusticus lie mingled with other bones of saints, nor can they be distinguished from one another. The priest who sent me these things at the end of the year 1862 adds: They assert that the parish priest of St. Just, not so long dead, gave an arm bone of St. Rusticus to another curate who presides over a rural church. Moreover the Rev. Mr. Dumay also informed us that there are now no relics of the holy Man of whose authenticity, as they say, there is certainty; nor is his feast celebrated among the people.

[41] The Office Formerly his day was celebrated in the double rite, as is established from the Breviary of Narbonne of the Most Illustrious and Reverend Charles le Goux de la Berchère, archbishop and prince of Narbonne (Paris 1709), where is read: On the 26th day of October. On the feast of St. Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne. Double. The Lessons of the II Nocturn we shall subjoin entire to our Commentary; here we add the Prayer: Grant us, O Lord, to be raised up by the intercessions of blessed Rusticus, bishop; that he who in thy church attained the priestly dignity may obtain for thy people, over whom he presided, the joyfulness of heavenly gladness. Through the Lord. After, the archiepiscopal see having been suppressed by the concordat of the year 1801, Narbonne was made subject to the church of Carcassonne, from the beginning at least a double Order of the divine office was published for the diocese of Carcassonne. I have in hand the Order … according to the rite of the church of Narbonne for the year of the Lord 1821, by mandate … of the Most Reverend Arnaud Ferdinand de Laporte, bishop of Carcassonne. And it is noted: 26 Oct., Friday. Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne, “double,” colour “gold.” Similarly in the Order of the Most Reverend Joseph Julien de St Rome-Gualy, bishop of Carcassonne, according to the same rite for the year of the Lord 1826: 26 Oct., Thursday. Rusticus etc. as above. In the same year and by mandate of the same prelate there was published the Carcassonne Brief, with the following notation added in the title: This Brief, ordered according to the rite of the Breviary of Carcassonne, will however be common to the Breviaries of the churches of Mirepoix, Saint-Papoul and Alet. What is written in this Brief without any annotation will be common; and then each one will order the office according to the rite of his Breviary. If there be any discrepancies, then they will be noted by the first syllable of each church, in this way: MIR. designates the Breviary of Mirepoix; S.-P. that of Saint-Papoul, EL. that of Alet. Further, the aforesaid Brief has it thus at the 26th day of October: Thursday. Rusticus, bishop, “Semidouble,” colour “white,” all from the common of a Bishop. — S-P. Rusticus, bishop, “Semidouble,” colour “green.” — EL. Rusticus “lesser double,” colour “green.” From these things it is established that the office of St. Rusticus has been celebrated so far at Narbonne in the double rite, elsewhere in the semidouble or lesser double rite. I have likewise at hand the Order of the divine Office and of saying Mass according to the rubrics of the Breviary and Missal of Carcassonne, published in the year 1844, again by authority of the Most Reverend Joseph de St Rome-Gually. In this is noted simply: 26 Oct., Saturday. “Green.” St. Rusticus, Bishop, “Semidouble.” But nearly ten years ago the Most Reverend Henri de Bonnechose, bishop of Carcassonne, now archbishop of Rouen and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, adopted the Roman Rite for his diocese, wherefore by mandate of the same prelate there were published in the year 1855 the Proper Offices of the diocese of Carcassonne according to the exemplar revised and corrected by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and approved by our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IX. At the head is prefixed a perpetual Calendar for the use of the clergy of the city and of the whole diocese of Carcassonne. On the 26th day of October is noted: St. Evaristus, pope and Martyr, “double, commemoration” St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor. In the office of that day there is found the following ninth Lesson:

[42] Lesson and prayer from the new Proper of Carcassonne. Rusticus was born in Gallia Narbonensis of most pious parents. Scarcely had he reached the years of puberty when, seized by love of solitude, he embraced the life of monks. Afterwards he was ordained presbyter by Venerius, bishop of the people of Marseilles, and at length was taken up to the see of Narbonne. Rusticus, made bishop, took the greatest care to instruct his people in faith and good morals. His supreme charity also shone forth toward the African exiles, whom the Vandals, Africa having been devastated, had compelled to leave the borders of their homeland and migrate to Gaul. All these he embraced with fatherly heart, helped them by means and counsel and provided for their salvation. For when many of them doubted whether they had been baptized by Arians or by Catholics, and most also were wholly ignorant whether they had ever been washed in that sacred font, on this matter the pious Pastor, anxious, consulted St. Leo, who replied to his consultations by a letter written back through his archdeacon Hermes; and thus he raised up his spirit which he had let fall. Rusticus is one of the forty-four bishops of Gaul gathered at Arles, who approved the epistle of St. Leo the pope to Flavian; to whom St. Leo wrote back, congratulating them on the orthodox faith, and announcing that Eutyches and Dioscorus had been condemned in the council of Chalcedon. If the death of St. Rusticus took place on the day on which his feast is noted in the martyrologies, he passed to the Lord on this twenty-sixth day of October. What in these things occurs, in our opinion, either less accurate or doubtful, I shall say in the Annotations on the Lessons of the old Breviary of Narbonne, to be recited at the foot of this commentary. The Prayer which is found in the present Proper of Carcassonne has it thus: Grant us, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy mercy, by the intercession of blessed Rusticus, bishop; and whatever thou commandest us to do, do thou help us to be able to fulfil. Through the Lord. It is not a little different from the other, set down by us above from the Breviary of Narbonne.

[43] The Memorial in the martyrologies of Usuard and the Roman; Du Sollier observes Martyrologium Usuardi, 26 Oct.: Rusticus of Narbonne is purely Usuardine, placed on this day (the 26th of October) by no one earlier or contemporary, which is certainly to be wondered at, since the matter concerns a Prelate who in his own time was renowned with such praise of sanctity and doctrine. Did the silence perhaps arise from this, that in the last period of life Rusticus too much favoured Hermes, whose passage from the chair of Béziers to that of Narbonne Pope St. Hilarus marked with so black a pebble? Add that Frederick, whom his brother Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, had given as governor to the city of Narbonne, stormed shortly after the death of St. Rusticus, namely in the year 462, was not a little hostile to Hermes, as also to the Catholic bishops in general, as being an Arian Cf. Hist. de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 209.. Whence it could easily have come about that the clergy and people of Narbonne, partly through fear both of Frederick and of King Theodoric himself, partly led or deterred by the very sharp letter of Pope St. Hilarus, abstained from inscribing Rusticus in the sacred calendars immediately after his death (as was the custom at that time); which we find was afterwards done in the course of years. However that may be, besides Usuard, neither Ado nor any other of the older Martyrologists mentions St. Rusticus. Indeed in the very numerous Auctaria of Usuard (so diligently gathered and sifted by our Du Sollier) not even once is the name of the holy Prelate indicated, and that not only on the 26th day of October, but not in the course of the whole year, a surely very rare example. Moreover Usuard celebrates the holy Prelate in these few words: In the city of Narbonne, of St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor. And from him the Roman martyrology: At Narbonne, of St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor, who was renowned in the times of the emperors Valentinian and Leo. Valentinian, third of this name, reigned in the West from the year 424 to the year 455; Leo, in the East, succeeded Marcian, the husband of St. Pulcheria, in the year 457; he died in the year 474. So St. Rusticus spent the greatest part of his life and was truly renowned under Valentinian III; not so under Leo, under whose principate he did not prolong his day beyond four years. It would be more rightly said, then, that he was renowned under Valentinian, Theodosius the Younger (he reigned from the year 408 to the year 450) and Marcian (from the year 450 to the year 457 Art de Vérifier les Dates, p. 354 and following.). Baronius notes on the Roman martyrology at this place: Of the same, Usuard. To him then a monk (cf. n. 14) St. Jerome wrote an excellent epistle on the form of living … And made bishop he reached the times of St. Leo the pope, who gave him a decretal epistle … and likewise another epistle to him and other bishops of Gaul. Whence rightly Du Sollier where cited above: The notation of Baronius indicates in a few words whatever must be observed concerning his life or deeds from the epistles of Jerome and Leo. Nor does Catel record anything further, adducing the Inscription, which has exercised the talents of many learned men, to be examined by us anew elsewhere. We have discharged the promise given by our predecessor in the present Commentary, § I.

[44] in the Catalogue of Pietro de' Natali, in du Saussay etc.; Pietro de' Natali confirms the sayings of Du Sollier, as regards the silence of the ancients about St. Rusticus. For he has it thus in book XI, last chapter: Rusticus, bishop, on the same day (the 7th before the Kalends of November) fell asleep in the city of Narbonne. At the head of the said last chapter, the author notes that there are several saints of whose life or deeds he could find nothing at all, except only their names and the days of their festivals; and nothing further, except of a few, he says, of whom I have also found written the places in which they suffered or departed without martyrdom, from the martyrology, namely, of Jerome, Usuard or Ado. And therefore … at the end of the present work I have taken care to collect these things … in this one chapter. So Pietro de' Natali. In his usual way du Saussay has woven a long and wordy encomium Martyrologium Gallicanum 26 Oct.: At Narbonne, of St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor. Who, a presbyter of Marseilles, on account of the splendid testimonies of grace with which he shone, called to the helm of this metropolitan see, bereaved by the departure of Hilary, holding to the excellent precepts with which St. Jerome had instructed him before the priesthood, when he practised the monastic life, directed that church with all religion and wisdom; whose basilica, burned before, he restored with a notable fabric. And solicitous not only of walls, but more of morals, he held the clergy in discipline, the people in the observance of piety and justice. And greeted with much honour by the supreme pontiff Leo I, having received fitting replies to his consultation by apostolic rescripts directed to him, and these as heavenly oracles with all solicitude

had committed to practice, noble with the praise of episcopal virtues, and distinguished for holy deeds in all his administration, he received from the Lord the reward of the good pastor, whose part he had fulfilled on every side. St. Rusticus is recorded on this day in the Parisian martyrology of Cardinal de Noailles; in that of Auxerre of the Most Reverend Charles de Caylus; in that of Évreux of the Most Reverend Pierre de Rochechouart. The words of the last, as being more accurate and concise than the others, we add: At Narbonne, of St. Rusticus, bishop, who by the counsel of blessed Jerome embraced the cenobitic life, and afterwards, taken up to the rule of the church of Narbonne, gave proofs of exceptional doctrine and piety, and when he had dealt with Leo the Great about resigning his office, received from him this reply: One must remain in the work entrusted and the labour undertaken. Finally Chastelain in the universal martyrology recites the words of the Roman, but turned into French. Adalbert Müller in a recent general calendar asserts that St. Rusticus was ordained presbyter by Proculus, bishop of Marseilles [Allgemeines Martyrologium, oder vollständiger Heiligenkalender der katholischen Kirche, 26 Oct. Regensburg. 1860.].

[45] by what bishop St. Rusticus was ordained presbyter. Concerning the ordination of St. Rusticus the same things are not reported by all. Some place one bishop, others another, as having conferred the presbyterate on him. Müller expressly names Proculus; in the Lesson of the new Proper of Carcassonne Venerius is designated: He is ordained presbyter by Venerius, bishop of Marseilles, n. 42. In the old Breviary of Narbonne (whose Lessons I shall soon subjoin) nothing is said of the ordaining bishop. It is not likely that St. Rusticus was marked with the honour of the priesthood by Venerius, for the following reasons: 1st, Venerius more probably ascended the chair of Marseilles only in the year 428 Gallia Christ., vol. I, cols. 631–35., at which time, as shines forth from what was said in § I, St. Rusticus had already been promoted to the episcopate of Narbonne. 2nd, In the larger Inscription St. Rusticus is read as of Bishop Venerius … fellow presbyter of the church of Marseilles, which in the obvious sense seems to be understood to mean that both stood together for some time in the same grade of the priesthood; and accordingly Venerius could not have ordained Rusticus. But nothing stands in the way of Proculus having done this, who sat at Marseilles at least from the year 381 to the year 418 and more probably down to the year 426 Ibid., and who is praised by St. Jerome in the epistle: You have there the most holy and most learned pontiff Proculus etc. This opinion is favoured by the fact that, in our opinion, St. Rusticus applied himself to monastic discipline at Marseilles in the monastery of St. Victor; but since there is a controversy on this matter, some preferring the monastery of Lérins, others that of Toulouse, it follows that it cannot be certainly determined whether Rusticus was raised to the honour of the presbyterate at Marseilles or elsewhere. Wherefore the learned generally omit to define which bishop conferred this order on him. So to me it is probable that it was Proculus; all but certain that it was other than Venerius.

§ VI. A brief notice of the province, city and see of Narbonne. Lessons on St. Rusticus from the old breviary of Narbonne.

A notice of the province of Narbonne, Adrien de Valois writes Notitia Galliarum, under the word: Narbo Martius.: To Gallia Narbonensis the name was given by “Narbo,” commonly “Narbonne,” an old and illustrious city of the Volcae Tectosages, to which, in the consulate of Porcius and Marcius, a Roman colony was led out … in the year 636 from the foundation of the City; the first of all in Gaul, three years after Carthage had been led out as the first outside Italy. Wherefore when Julius Caesar first divided the Gauls into provinces, only three are named: Lugdunensis, Belgica and Aquitanica, which were then signified by the name of the Gauls, Narbonensis being excluded, because it had long belonged to the Romans and been reckoned among the Roman provinces Orlendi. Orbis sacer et profanus, vol. I, pp. 405 and 422. Florence, 1728.; it was added to the Gallic ones by Augustus Ibid., pp. 405 and 425.. About the year 374, certainly not before the year 370, it was cut in two; namely into First and Second [Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 147. Walckenaer, Géographie ancienne de la Gaule, vol. II, p. 370. Paris, 1839.]. Narbo Martius remained the metropolis of Narbonensis Prima, while the metropolitan dignity of Narbonensis Secunda passed to Aix Orlendi, p. 426.. Finally the old province or Gallia Narbonensis, which had been one until about the middle of the fifth century, was divided into five provinces: Narbonensis Prima, whose head was Narbonne, Narbonensis Secunda or of Aix, Viennensis, the Graian Alps and the Maritime Alps Gallia Christiana, vol. VI, p. 2.. From these things it appears that the boundaries of Gallia Braccata or Narbonensis were anciently very extended, which Pliny thus describes Hist. nat, bk. III. In Harduin, vol. I, p. 145. In folio.: The Narbonensian province is the name given to the part of Gaul which is washed by the inner sea, formerly called Braccata, separated from Italy (Liguria) by the river Var and by the ridges of the Alps, most salutary to the Roman empire; and from the rest of Gaul on the northern side by the mountains Cebenna and Jura. In the cultivation of its fields, in the esteem of its men and morals, in the amplitude of its wealth, to be placed after none of the provinces; and in short Italy more truly than a province … Towns: Illiberis (Collioure …), Narbo Martius, a colony of the Decumani, 12 thousand paces distant from the sea, etc. And Pomponius Mela, where he treats of Gallia Narbonensis Bk. II, ch. V, p. 196. Leiden, 1782.: The part adjoining our sea (it was once Braccata, now Narbonensis) is more cultivated and more planted and therefore also more cheerful. Of the cities it has the wealthiest are: Vasio of the Vocontii, Vienne of the Allobroges, Avignon of the Cavares, etc. But surpassing all is the colony of the Atacini and Decumani, from which formerly help came to these lands, now both their name and glory, Narbo Martius. In the course of centuries Narbonensis Prima was called also Septimania, Gothia, and, as Adrien de Valois has it Notitia Galliarum, under the word: Septimania., Languedoc. And indeed by Apollinaris Sidonius and others following, for example Gregory of Tours, Charlemagne etc., it is called Septimania, not from seven provinces, as Scaliger supposes, but, says the said Valois, as I was the first to notice, from the number of the cities assigned and subject to the metropolis Narbonne. And these were seven: namely Toulouse, Béziers, Nîmes, Agde, Maguelone, Lodève, Uzès. To this opinion the writers of the history of Languedoc sufficiently accede Hist. de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 213.. Valois goes on: Septimania was often called also Gothia, for this reason, that from the time of the princes Theodoric the Younger and Euric it obeyed the western Goths for about 250 years, or the kings of the Visigoths ruling in Spain. He adds a little below: Since (as anciently the whole of Gaul was divided into Braccata and Comata) formerly the whole kingdom of France was divided into provinces of the tongue “ouy” and the tongue “oc” (de “langue-d'ouy” and de “langue-d'oc”), to the province of Narbonensis I or Septimania or Gothia, which was one of the provinces of the tongue “oc,” the name “Linguadokium” remained, “Languedoc …” And this division of France was made (at the end of the 13th century) into two tongues, because the Gascons, “Goths” or “Septimanians,” Provençals, Dauphinois and other peoples of twisted speech, but especially the “Goths,” were accustomed to say for “yes” or “certainly” oc, that is, “hoc;” the other inhabitants of France OUY. The historiographers of Languedoc agree Ibid., p. 584.. Septimania long obeyed the kings of the Goths, down to the beginnings of the 8th century. But Roderic (the last king of the Visigoths) having been slain in the year 712, Narbonne was occupied by the arms of the Saracens about the year 719 until the year 759, in which, the Goths favouring, .. the city (Narbonne) was handed over to Pepin, king of the Franks, and so the whole province of Septimania passed to the crown of France Gallia Christiana, vol. VI, p. 2..

[47] of the city, The city, from of old the head of the province, is read designated by various names. Narbo, Narbo Martius, either from a surname derived from Mars, as many think, or rather from the martial tenth legion: for Narbo was a “colony of the Decumani”; and the people of Narbonne were called “Decumani” from the soldiers of the tenth legion, led out there by order of Julius Caesar; as also from Julius Narbonne was called “Colonia Julia,” as may be seen in Scaliger and Sirmond Ibid., p. I. Likewise Valois, Notitia Gall.. It is also called City of the Atacini, because it is situated at the River Atax (commonly the Aude); today it is commonly called Narbona, in French Narbonne. So much for the various names of the city. That it is a very ancient city appears luminously from what has been said so far. Its size and wealth are attested by Pliny and Mela. To Strabo and Stephanus it is a celebrated emporium. It was so devoted to Augustus that three years before his death it dedicated an altar to the emperor Expilly, Dictionnaire de géographie.. When it was consumed by fire Antoninus Pius restored it at his own expense, as two inscriptions of the year 145 attest. Of such value was this city to the Romans that they adorned it with the seat of the proconsuls, sending also praetors to give law to the whole province; so great was the celebrity of its schools that in them the two sons of the emperor Constantine's brother, his nephews, studied Rhetoric, etc. Gallia Christ., vol. VI, p. 2.. It is extolled with magnificent praises by Ausonius, a native of Bordeaux, easily the prince of the poets of his age (he flourished through nearly the whole of the fourth century), singing thus in Poem XIII on famous cities Migne, Patrologia lat. vol. XIX, col. 871.:

Nor shall you, Narbo Martius, be passed in silence: by whose name A province once spread through an immense realm Held many colonists under the right of dominion. . . . . . . You first of the Gauls lift up the fasces Of the Toga-wearing name with a Latian proconsul. Who could tell of your harbours, your mountains and lakes? Who of your peoples, with their varied distinction of dress and face? … The merchandise of the Eastern sea enriches you and the Iberian Waters: you the fleets of the Libyan and Sicilian deep: And whatever is borne by varied course through rivers and straits, Sails for you from the whole world, κατάπλους (to land).

Nor did Sidonius Apollinaris sing lesser things in the following century in poem XXIII (hendecasyllabic), which is entitled Narbo, where among very many other encomia (for the poem is long) Same, vol. LVIII, col. 731.:

Hail, Narbo, powerful in healthfulness, Good to look upon both in city and in country at once, In walls, citizens, circuit, shops, Gates, porticoes, forum, theatre, Shrines, capitols, mints, Baths, arches, granaries, markets, Meadows, fountains, islands, salt-pans, Pools, river, merchandise, bridge, sea.

That these things were written after Narbonne was stormed and occupied by the Goths is clear both from the age of Sidonius, who was born at Lyon about the year 430, and from what is subjoined a little below:

But, proud through your half-ruined citadels, Displaying the glory of the old war, You bear your great stones shattered by blows, More precious for your praiseworthy ruins. Let other cities be threatening in their site, Which humble strength builds on the heights, And, placed along precipitous crests, Let their walls, never hewn, boast: You please, being struck, and your brave faith The assault you suffered has published.

Whence rightly Cluverius Introductio in universam geographiam, p. 63. Utrecht, 1701.: Narbo Martius … once a magnificent city, now especially renowned for its fortification. In the year 413 it was captured by Ataulf, king of the Visigoths, but shortly afterwards restored to the emperor Honorius; in the year 436 besieged in vain by Theodoric, another prince of the Visigoths, it at last came into their hands in the year 462, and so shortly after the death of St. Rusticus. Stormed about the year 719 by the Saracens, it was soon wrested from them by Pepin, in the year of Christ 759, the seventh of the siege Expilly, Dictionnaire des Gaules et de la France.. Thereafter in the course of time the city of Narbonne was subject to the dukes of Septimania or marquises of Gothia, and to the counts of Toulouse their successors, who also gloried in the title of dukes of Narbonne, under whom it had Viscounts in long order as rulers and lords of the city, until Gaston de Foix, son of Jean de Foix by his wife Marie of Orléans, and nephew by a sister of Louis XII, king of France, ceded this city and its dominion to the king his uncle in exchange for other lands, by an agreement made on the 19th of November in the year 1507. And so at length it was joined in perpetuity to the French crown Gallia Christ., vol. VI, pp. 2 and 3.. To come nearer to our times, Narbonne is thus described in Baudrand Novum Lexicon Geographicum, p. 509. Eisenach (Eysenach in Thuringia), 1677.: It is a large and fortified city of France, in the province of Languedoc, beside an arm of the river Aude, formerly led by hand by the Romans and called “la Robine.” In the year 1789 it numbered 8528 inhabitants; now about 11,000 Guibert, Dictionnaire géographique. Paris, 1850.. How changed is Narbonne from that!

[48] of the very ancient see, The origin of the church of Narbonne, as usually happens in other churches of Gaul also, is placed at various times by various writers. Its first prelate is indicated in the catalogues as St. Paul. And it is, on the testimony of Gallia Christiana Vol. VI, col. 5., a constant tradition of this church, which we should wish were undoubted, that he is Sergius Paulus the proconsul, who, converted to the faith, came from Cyprus to Rome, and thence to Narbonne. Indeed Usuard and Ado of Vienne recorded in their martyrologies in the 9th century the mission of Paul by the apostles, and his arrival at the city of Narbonne, as a thing certain and ascertained in the Gauls of Narbonne and Vienne; but that he was the same as Sergius Paulus, converted to the faith by the Apostle, they wrote only as probable. These things, as being not on every side sufficiently accurate, need an asterisk. Du Sollier observes at the 12th day of December on Usuard (on which day the latter mentions St. Paul, but Ado and all the others on the 22nd of March): Although he abandons the Kalends indicated by Ado, Usuard wholly embraced his opinion, which prevailed in the 9th century, about bringing back the first preachers of the Gospel in Gaul to the times of the apostles, prudently omitting that by which the bishop of Vienne (Ado) indicates that Paul of Narbonne “was that same Sergius Paulus the proconsul” Cf. Henschen, Acta SS., vol. III of March, p. 372 and following.. From which words Du Sollier seems to have thought that Paul of Narbonne was to Ado without doubt the same as Sergius the proconsul. But if this was his mind, Du Sollier himself also must be somewhat corrected. So both Usuard and Ado assert that St. Paul was sent into Gaul by the apostles; and Ado adds in his booklet on the festivals: They report (and so he does not assert) that he was that same Sergius Paulus etc. I return to Gallia Christiana in the place cited: And certainly that tradition, although constant and old in the church of Narbonne, has seemed to many to rest only on conjecture and to lack likelihood, especially to Tillemont, Baillet and other learned men, whose opinion is that Paul and other apostolic men sent into Gaul … arrived only in the middle of the third century, namely in the year 251 or 252 under the consulate of Decius, etc. There is no need to weigh these things more diligently in this place, since this has been done by us elsewhere [See the Acts of St. Florentinus of Trier, vol. VIII of Oct., likewise the Acts of St. Salome, vol. IX of Oct.].

[49] and metropolitan; This is certain, that the see of Narbonne is to be numbered among the most ancient churches of Gaul, and that it all but excelled all the others in dignity. Narbonne rightly claimed for itself the dignity of first see in Narbonensis Prima, until its rights were invaded by the metropolitan of Arles, his city having been increased by secular titles, and they were soon restored to it Gallia Christ., vol. VI, p. 3.. There is added in the same place: Some have held that under the Gothic kings the church of Narbonne obeyed the archbishops of Toledo. And so Orlendi expressly determines Orbis sacer. et profanus, vol. I, p. 426., asserting that down to the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth the province of Narbonensis I was torn from the Gauls and assigned to the Spains; and he judges this to be proved from the fact that the metropolitans of Narbonne were present at councils celebrated in Spain, which indeed is clearly established from the subscriptions. Gallia Christiana replies where cited above: But the sixth council of Toledo of the year 638 proves the contrary (namely that it was not subject). For Selva, archbishop of Narbonne, presided at it by right of seniority, above those of Braga, Seville, and Toledo itself, who were present at it. The writers of the history of Languedoc agree Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, p. 339.. It is confirmed from the epistle of Innocent III to Peter of Compostela: Nor is it proved from this, says the said pontiff, that they belong to the metropolis of Braga, because they were present at a council of Braga, since it is established that the bishop of Narbonne for a long time came to the council of Toledo, and yet the metropolis of Toledo has no right over the church of Narbonne: but those things were done by mandate of the kings, which is presumed to have been more violent than just. Nor is it proved further from the rescript of Urban II (year 1088), by which the pontiff grants to Bernard of Toledo the primacy of the whole of Spain and of Gothic Gaul or Languedoc: for the metropolitans of Tarragona and Narbonne immediately protested. Wherefore the same Urban appointed Bernard his legate through Spain and the province of Narbonne, and if indeed the archbishops obeyed, they certainly did so not by reason of the primacy of Bernard, but by reason of the legation Gallia Christiana, vol. VI, p. 3.. Similarly I should not think there is anyone still who admits that the church of Narbonne was subject in the 9th century to that of Bourges. The reasons employed for this opinion by a man otherwise learned and erudite, Pierre de Marca, are very weak and thin See Histoire de Languedoc, vol. I, pp. 450 and 731.. So (I use again the words of Gallia Christiana) the church of Narbonne, always free from all other jurisdiction, freely exercised its own over various churches according to the variety of the times, not only in Septimania, but also in the Spanish March, which comprised four dioceses: of Barcelona, Gerona, Urgel and Ausona (of this see above in the Acts of SS. Lucian, Marcian and Companions). For when after the city of Tarragona was destroyed by the Saracens, according to the discipline of those times, the churches subject to this metropolis passed to the jurisdiction of the nearer metropolitans, Urgel with the others placed in that part of the province of Tarragona which the Franks had occupied came under the power of the archbishop of Narbonne, and remained so until the end of the eleventh century. Finally to the metropolis of Narbonne, whose prelate was by birth president of the estates of Languedoc, there were eleven suffragans in the past century: Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, Alet, Béziers, Agde, Nîmes, Alais, Maguelone or Montpellier, Carcassonne, Lodève, Uzès and Elne. The last to hold that see, renowned by so many and so great names, was Arthur de Dillon, translated from Toulouse to Narbonne. For in the year 1801, by the concordat, the chair of Narbonne was suppressed by Pius VII, and the title united to that of Toulouse, whose metropolitan is accordingly styled of Toulouse and Narbonne. The Rev. Arthur is of those who were unwilling to resign their see; he died an exile from his homeland in the time, as it is usually called, of the emigration [Moroni, Dizionario, under the word: Narbona. — Notizie (commonly Cracas) for the year MDCCCXLV.].

[49] and finally of the church. From what was said in § I of this commentary it is established that St. Rusticus substituted a new basilica in the same place for the one long since burned, of which even today there is said to be seen in the garden of the palace, once archiepiscopal (which is now the seat of the prefect), a tower and a fragment of a column (Cf. n. 11), as also part of the front with the Inscription. The building founded by St. Rusticus lasted until the end of the 13th century. That is, the foundations of the present church of St. Just (once the metropolitan) were laid on the 13th day of April 1275; the choir and surrounding chapels are known to have been completed in the year 1332; a work surely of splendid structure. The Most Reverend Archbishop Le Goux de la Berchère in the year 1708 laid the squared stone for building the nave; but money failing, it was not possible to pursue the fabric begun; in the year 1772 again the Most Reverend Archbishop de Boveau seriously thought of taking up the building once more, but with the same fate and for the same cause. The walls, brought to the height of the windows, stop there; moreover this new fabric is of a wholly different structure or style from the choir. And this is the church generally called St. Just; of which Gallia Christiana: The city is adorned by the metropolitan temple dedicated to Blessed Mary and the holy martyrs Justus and Pastor, a work of stupendous magnificence, decorated with elegant chapels and various paintings Vol. VI, p. 4.. As regards the present state of the building, it has thus been written back to me from Narbonne: The very nave of the metropolitan church (which otherwise would be more rightly called the choir of a temple, as they say, Gothic, not much unlike that of Amiens and of Reims) remained intact through the whirlwind of the end of the 18th century; but almost all the monuments were destroyed, namely the tombs of the bishops, and of Philip III, surnamed the Bold, king of the French, each of excellent work; relics of the saints burned, the gold and precious stones with which they were adorned being plundered; the altars overthrown, except the high altar, on which the meretricious goddess of reason sat; the organ likewise preserved, because it would be useful for keeping the decades (so were called, as is known, the feasts of the new and impious rite, substituted for the holy festivals of the Church); there was preserved also the notable statue of the Blessed Virgin, a gift of the Most Reverend François de Conzié, archbishop of Narbonne (died in the year 1432); likewise some fragments of the bones of St. Sergius; two ancient chalices; an evangeliary, which Charlemagne had given as a gift; two missals, a reliquary of cedar wood. The capitular acts of St. Just, St. Paul and St. Sebastian were transferred to Carcassonne, by order of the civil magistrate. So the Rev. Mr. Dumay, adding that he learned these things from an excellent presbyter of Narbonne, whom he met that he might more aptly satisfy our questions. Gallia Christiana in the place cited praises a sacred vessel (commonly a monstrance) for exposing the Most Blessed Sacrament, which is, it says, of such weight that it cannot be carried by fewer than eight priests. When affairs in France were disturbed about the end of the past century, the same lot befell this most precious sacred vessel as innumerable others: namely it disappeared, nor has it so far been found, nor

is it henceforth likely to be found. Old men who had seen it maintain that it was of such brilliance that it obscured the very radiance of the sun by the splendour of its pearls. Another is now had, but not to be compared with the former. Whence the elders too, when they first beheld the new sacred vessel, shed tears; as formerly many of the priests and Levites and the chief of the fathers and the elders, who had seen the former temple (of Solomon) when it was founded, and this temple in their eyes, wept with a loud voice *.

* I Esdras ch. I, v. 12.

LESSONS FROM THE BREVIARY OF NARBONNE.

In the II Nocturn. Lesson IV. Rusticus, son of Bishop Bonosus, nephew by a sister of Bishop Arator, companion of Bishop Venerius in the monastery, fellow presbyter of the church of Marseilles, seems ^b to be the one to whom St. Jerome wrote back an excellent epistle, in which he says that he has a religious mother, a widow of many years, who nourished, who educated him as an infant, and after the studies of Gaul sent him to Rome. St. Jerome exhorts him in the same epistle, by the example of St. John the Baptist, who both had a holy mother and was the son of a priest, not to remain in his parents' house with danger; and to subject himself to the daily admonitions of Proculus, the holy and most learned bishop of Marseilles: and to follow the footsteps of St. Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, and the others like him whom the priesthood makes both more humble and poorer ^c. Lesson V. Rusticus, complying with the counsels of Jerome, so lived in the monastery ^d as to merit to be a cleric, and afterwards about the year four hundred and twenty-seven ^e he was consecrated bishop of Narbonne. In the fifteenth year of his episcopate he undertook the restoration of the church of Narbonne, long since burned, and in building it he spent four years ^f. He was present at the third council of Arles, in which the dissension about jurisdiction of Faustus, abbot of Lérins, with Theodore, bishop of Fréjus, was settled [g]. He subscribed to the synodal epistle written back to St. Leo by the Gallican bishops against Eutyches [h]. He is named first [i] among the Gallican bishops to whom the same supreme Pontiff sent a copy of the sentence brought forward against Dioscorus and Eutyches in the council of Chalcedon. Lesson VI. When grave scandals were everywhere emerging, and many doubts pertaining to the discipline of the church had arisen, he consulted the apostolic see, sending epistles to St. Leo ^k, in which he indicated that he greatly desired release from the labours of the episcopate and preferred to pass his life in silence and leisure. To whom St. Leo by letter gave courage, and fortified him with the hope of heavenly help, and at the same time replied to the doubts proposed: But the presbyters Sabinian and Leo [l], who had withdrawn themselves from the judgment of Rusticus, he left to his moderation. In the thirtieth year of his episcopate Rusticus consecrated the marble altar of the church of Minerve ^m, then within the bounds of the diocese of Narbonne, now of Saint-Pons, as an old inscription carved on this altar testifies. At length four years later ⁿ, full of merits, he went away to the Lord ^o. Lesson from the holy Gospel according to John, ch. 10. At that time, Jesus said to certain of the Pharisees: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep. And the rest.

[2] Homily of St. Leo the pope. Ep. 2, otherwise 92. To Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne. Lesson VII. When the Lord says: Blessed is he who shall persevere unto the end: whence will blessed perseverance come, if not from the virtue of patience? For according to the apostolic preaching: all who will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution. Which is to be reckoned not only in this, that there is action against Christian piety, either by sword or by fire, or by whatever punishments: since the savagery of persecutions is supplied also by dissimilarities of morals, and the contumacy of the disobedient, and the darts of malignant tongues: by which conflicts, since all the members are always beaten, and no portion of the pious is free from temptation, so that neither leisure nor labours lack dangers: who will steer the ship among the waves of the sea, if the helmsman departs? Who will guard the sheep from the snares of the wolves, if the pastor's care does not watch? Who finally will withstand robbers and thieves, if love of quiet draws away from the intentness of his solicitude the watchman placed in the outlook of observation? Lesson VIII. One must remain, then, in the work entrusted, and in the labour undertaken. Justice must be constantly held and clemency kindly shown. Let sins be held in hatred, not men. Let the swollen be corrected; the weak be tolerated: and what must needs be chastised more severely in sins, let it be punished with the mind, not of one raging, but of one healing. But if a more vehement tribulation should fall upon us, let us not be so terrified as if we were resisting any adversity by our own strength, since Christ is both our counsel and our fortitude, and without whom we can do nothing, through him we can do all things. Who, strengthening the preachers of the Gospel, and the ministers of the sacraments, says: Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the world. And again he says: These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace, yet in this world you shall have tribulation: but have confidence, I have overcome the world. Since these promises are without doubt manifest, we ought to be weakened by no scandals, lest we seem ungrateful for the choice of God, whose helps are as powerful as his promises are true. Prayer. Grant us, O Lord, to be raised up by the intercessions of blessed Rusticus, bishop: that he who in thy Church attained the priestly dignity may obtain for thy people, over whom he presided, the joyfulness of heavenly gladness. Through the Lord.

ANNOTATIONS.

g. See n. 30.

h. Compare n. 29.

i. Consult Comm. n. 29.

l. See n. 20.