Genitus

ON ST. GENITUS, CONFESSOR, IN AQUITAINE,

ABOUT THE YEAR 250.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Genitus, confessor, not a bishop, at Bourges. (S.)

BHL Number: 3352

BY R. D. B.

§ Sole section. The cult and biographers of St. Genitus. He is called the father of St. Gendulf, and to have preached Christ with him in Gaul. His death and burial.

Chastelain in his universal Martyrology entered St. Genitus on the 30th of October, St. Genitus, once entered in the sacred calendars, on which day (as we shall see below) he is reported to have departed from the living; but Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology began the 29th of October with these words: At Bourges, metropolis of both Aquitaines, of St. Genitus, confessor, adding after a long encomium that his birthday is assigned to the 29th of October in the ancient tables of Bourges. Ferrari had gone before Du Saussay, on the 29th of October, in the General Catalogue of the Saints, saying: At Cahors, of St. Genitus, confessor. And if Du Saussay relates that he departed from the living among the people of Bourges, Ferrari among the people of Cahors, the reason appears to be that he was reported to have spread the Christian religion in both cities together with his son Gendulf, a bishop of uncertain or of no see. The same Du Saussay supposes that the 29th of October was selected by the people of Bourges for recalling the memory of St. Genitus because they judged that it was not lawful to keep the blessed man's feast on the 28th of October (on which he was wrongly said to have died), since that was the day sacred to SS. Jude and Simon. We, however, following in the footsteps of our predecessors, who (as far as could be done) referred the saints in their work to the genuine day of their cult, have judged that St. Genitus should be spoken of on the 29th of October. Further, the cult of St. Genitus is very ancient: for his body, as we shall see below at no. 9, was honourably raised from the earth in very remote times together with the body of St. Gendulf; and in three very ancient Lives, one of which we shall show to have been written before the 9th century, he is called a saint. In our age, however, no memory of St. Genitus is made in the liturgical books of Bourges and Cahors; and this omission is not so very recent; for at the time when Du Saussay was writing, namely in the year 1637, as is easily gathered from his words cited above, St. Genitus was no longer recorded in the sacred tables of the church of Bourges; and in fact neither in the ordo of the divine office of the year 1625, nor in the Calendar or Proper Offices of the saints used among the people of Bourges at that time (all of which are preserved, copied by the hand of our predecessors, in our museum) is mention of St. Genitus made anywhere. But the commemoration of St. Gendulf, who is called his son,

or his feast, was kept from the remotest times and is still kept among the people of Cahors on the 17th of January, and among the people of Bourges on the 20th of June.

[2] His Life is inserted in three Lives of St. Gendulf; Three men, the one following the other in the manner of sheep, have handed down to posterity the Lives of St. Genulf or Gendulf which still survive. Two of these Bollandus published in volume II of January, at the 17th day: the one, composed after the year 900, from a manuscript codex of Ripatorium, collated with a Norman manuscript book; the other from the Floriacensian Library of Jean du Bois Acta SS. vol. II of January, p. 82 and following.. The third Life, which I judge to have been nowhere printed up to now, formerly transcribed by Combefis from two codices and sent to Bollandus after the January volumes had been printed, is preserved in our museum. I think it older than the middle of the 9th century, because it is entirely silent about the translation of St. Gendulf, carried out in the time of Charles the Bald; which translation is narrated in the other Life and in the Miracles collected by an anonymous Benedictine Ibid., pp. 99 and 102.. From these Lives not a few things will have to be excerpted, since whatever we know about St. Genitus is narrated in them. But since the Combefis Life is older than the others and is as it were the source or exemplar, it will be chiefly of use to us; but from the others we shall add several things which it lacks. Nor must it be passed over that at the end of the three Lives it is read that Blessed Sebastes, the disciple of St. Gendulf, wrote the Life of his master: which Life, if they could be trusted, supplied the three biographers of St. Gendulf with the matter of their writing.

[3] Which Lives swarm with blunders. But in the three Lives already so often mentioned there are many blunders. I pass over indeed that it is related in them that St. Gendulf, at the age of five, was instructed by St. Sixtus the pope, and then created bishop, although St. Sixtus II presided over the universal church only from the year 257 to 258: for nothing prevents that St. Sixtus, as Bollandus well observes Ibid., p. 83., while not yet pontiff, should have received St. Gendulf at the age of five to be educated in sacred disciplines, and that afterwards, having been made pontiff, he should have appointed him bishop. A greater difficulty indeed arises from the fact that St. Sixtus, according to the three biographers, sent SS. Genitus and Gendulf into Gaul at the time of the persecution of Decius to preach the religion of Christ: for on the one side Decius held the reins of the Roman empire from the year 249 to 251; on the other St. Sixtus was pontiff of the whole church from the year 257 to 258. Wherefore, if those Acts were to stand, it would be necessary to say that SS. Genitus and Gendulf made for the Gauls from Rome under the emperors Valerian and his son and colleague Gallienus, also persecutors of the church (of whom the former held the empire from the year 253 to 263, the latter from the year 253 to 268). Into the same error fell the author of the Passion of St. Marcellus and his companion St. Anastasius, saying that St. Marcellus, in the time of the Decian persecution, a disciple of Blessed Sixtus the pope, at the instigation of St. Lawrence, deacon of the same Blessed Sixtus, made for Gaul and there shed his blood for Christ Ibid., vol. V of June, p. 477 and following.. And St. Gendulf is reported by his biographer to have built an oratory in honour of St. Marcellus. Which circumstances strongly suggest that the Passion of St. Marcellus and the Life of St. Gendulf were originally composed by the same writer, or at least that the author of one had the other before his eyes.

[4] What appears to us to have been their origin; But many other things too trouble us in the Life of St. Gendulf. The first of which is that it contains many wonders which exceed belief, not because they are wonders, but because they lack the authority of suitable testimonies. Ordinary matters are by their nature likely and in that degree credible; and since prodigies lack that likelihood, it is necessary that this defect of internal credibility be supplied by the abundance and weight of external authority. But this authority is plainly absent from those Acts. For as to the biographers' saying that they followed the narrative of St. Sebastes, disciple of St. Gendulf, this is a manifest mask and fiction by which they might gain themselves some credit, and which is detected also in other Lives and Passions, and even in more recent histories. Besides, the appellations of St. Genitus and of St. Genulf or Gendulf are not names of the same period. For Genitus is Latin and designates a man Roman or Gallo-Roman by race; but Genulfus or Gendulfus is an entirely Germanic or Frankish name, consisting of two juxtaposed words: Kun, Chun, Hun, Gun, Ken, Gen, Cyn, in Latin strong Compare Wiarda, Ueber deutsche Vornamen, p. 43., and Ulf, Wulf, Olf, Helf, in Latin help Ibid., p. 49.; and Genulfus is the same as Gonulfus, just as Gendradus Beyer, Urkundenbuch Z. G. der mittelrheinischen Territorien, vol. I, p. 744. is said for Gondradus or Gunderadus Ibid., p. 761.; nor does Genulfus differ from Gendulfus, as Cundprecht agrees with Cunibertus Goldast, Rer. Alamannicarum scriptores, 3rd edition, vol. II, part I, p. 97., although Cund or Cundo seems to be another root, signifying known Compare Schilter, Glossarium teutonicum, under Chund.; but d is easily taken on after n, as in the Latin idiom itself, for example in induere. In truth the law of names is neither perpetual nor always certain, since barbarians sometimes took Latin or Greek names: so it is; but it is almost unheard of that the son of a Roman man (St. Genitus) should have been called by a barbarian name. What then? If I may freely set forth my opinion for myself, I decide thus: that St. Genitus came from Rome into the Gauls in the middle of the 3rd century; that St. Gendulf was a man barbarian by nation, converted to the faith in the Gauls in the 4th or 5th century and taken up among the clerics, and even made bishop; that the bodies of both were buried or preserved in the same tomb, and that hence it came about that the one was called the father and the other the son of the other; for sometimes kinship among saints was devised and established for much slighter reasons, for example among the twelve martyrs of Hadrumetum; that the Life or Passion of St. Gendulf was accordingly compounded partly from popular traditions about St. Genitus, and partly from traditions about St. Gendulf.

[5] St. Genitus his son St. Gendulf I both see and confess that these are no more than conjectures. But in the midst of that darkness what remains besides conjectures and divinations? If our suspicions do not please anyone, let him now accept what is read about St. Genitus in the Life of St. Gendulf which Combefis formerly sent to the Bollandian Museum. From this all will be able to learn what was handed down more than a thousand years ago about St. Genitus at Bourges in Aquitaine.

In the times of the emperor Decius, which is from the year 249 to 251, the persecution of Christians was raging fiercely in the city of Rome, so that nearly all who confessed Christ throughout the empire of the aforesaid Augustus were either compelled to sacrifice to idols or were put to death by various torments. In those days there was a certain most Christian man, Genitus by name, of noble race and sprung from an illustrious lineage, keeping the habit of Christianity in secret, giving very devoutly many alms to the poor, widows, and orphans, observing that saying: "Give alms and all things are clean to you." He, not for love of illicit pleasure, but for the procreation of children, took a wife in keeping with his nobility, sprung from a most excellent birth, Adia by name, much beloved of God, and though they dwelt together for a long time according to custom, they could not beget a son. But both were just, walking in the commandments and justifications of the Lord; and each of them poured out prayers to the Lord, that He would deign to imbue their inmost parts with sacred seed, so that they might be able to procreate a son. He heard their prayers, and gave a conception to the most blessed Adia. Seeing which, blessed Genitus rendered countless thanks to God, knowing that a fruitful offspring would be begotten for him, God being propitious to him. Then, a most splendid birth having been brought forth by the mother, the parents greatly rejoiced at his nativity, and coming together for the washing of holy baptism, they called the child, beloved of God, Gendulf.

[6] [He entrusts to St. Sixtus to be educated, who consoles him for the death of his wife] And when he had grown, all marvelled at his elegant form and exceptional beauty. For when he had completed the course of a lustrum, they handed him over to blessed Sixtus, the Roman pope, asking him to imbue the boy with sacred disciplines, so that he might be able to follow the Lord's footsteps as far as is humanly possible. The most holy man accordingly received him with joy, and within a short space delivered to him the old and new testament. And the boy himself, sustained by the divine clemency, though he was a boy in age, was yet an old man in character. For if any of his companions and of the young men abused him and beat him, he bore it patiently with great joy for the name of the Lord. Blessed Sixtus too, seeing his sanctity, and also his patience, committing to him in order all the ecclesiastical grades, at the last ordained him bishop. And while he was staying in his scholastic disciplines, his most blessed mother departed from the world. His father, grieving greatly at the death of his wife, would receive no consolation. Yet, coming to the most blessed Sixtus, to whom he had entrusted his son, he told him the grief which he had contracted from the loss of his wife. Blessed Sixtus therefore consoled him with many words. And having now received consolation, he went away to his house, giving great thanks to God for his wife, whom the Lord had now taken into His kingdom.

[7] [And afterwards together with his son he sends him to preach the Gospel to the Gauls.] For it happened at that time that the emperor Decius came to Rome with great fury and anger against the Christians, so that, if he could find any who were reported to confess the name of Christ, he would either make them sacrifice to vain idols or perish by diverse tortures, commanding all his counts, and vicars, and soldiers that they should put to death with various tortures all the Christians they could find. Blessed Sixtus therefore, hearing that Decius, so truculent, had now arrived with such fury, ordered blessed Genitus to come to him, and said to him: "O brother Genitus, do you not see how that malicious man wishes to destroy all Christians? Be mindful of that saying:" He who loves father or mother, or sons, or fields, or the pomp of this world more than me, is not worthy of me. And if they persecute you in one city, flee to another. "So you too, brother, fulfil this and give to the poor, and flee to the parts of Gaul, together with your son Gendulf, because the Gauls have now received the word of the Lord."

[8] They first baptize in the Geturnican city a widow with her household. And at once he caused the most holy man Gendulf the solemnities of Mass with great honour

to celebrate. And the solemnities of Mass having been celebrated, the most blessed Sixtus bade farewell, and gave to the venerable man Gendulf the power of preaching and teaching through all the regions through which they were to go. And departing at once from the city of Rome, they sold all their possessions, and gave the whole price to the poor, orphans, and widows; and they began to hasten to the parts of Gaul. Whatever house they entered, blessed Gendulf at once said: "Peace be to this house: peace to those going in and coming out." And thus he began to preach the remission of sins… And when they had come to the city which is called Gedurnicensis, they entered the house of a certain widow, who had an only son whom she greatly loved. And that boy was possessed by a demon, and she held him strongly bound, because all whom he could attack he tore with bites and destroyed in many ways. When the holy men entered, then, where the boy was bound, blessed Gendulf said: "Peace to this house." And at once the demon began to cry out through the boy's mouth, and to say: "Why do you persecute me, holy Gendulf, why do you persecute me?" Hearing the boy crying out, the mother and the servants began to marvel within themselves and to say: "Who has told him the name of that man?" Then blessed Gendulf, turning to the boy, said: "I adjure you in the name of my God, whom I preach and adore, to go out from this boy, most wicked demon." Then, crying out with a great voice, he was freed from the demon, and fell to the earth as if dead. But blessed Gendulf, taking his hand, raised him from the earth sound and unharmed. And the mother, seeing her son standing sound and unharmed beside the man, in terror fell at his feet, saying: "My lord, I see in you as it were an angelic countenance: I beseech you therefore to baptize me in the name of your God, and to teach me the way of truth, because until now we have served vain idols. But now we have come to know that the Lord Jesus sent you into this city, to rescue it from the error by which it is held." And St. Gendulf, seeing the faith of the woman, said to St. Genitus: "Truly I now know that the Lord Jesus has brought us here. Let us stand, if need be, for the name of the Lord even unto death." And turning to the woman whose son he had freed from the demon, he said to her: "Do you believe with your whole heart what you promise with your mouth?" And she answered: "If I had not believed, I would not be confessing my sins to you." Then the most blessed man Gendulf enjoined on her a three days' fast, and on the third day he baptized her together with her son, whom he had freed from the demon, and with all her household. The number of those who were baptized was twenty-eight.

[9] But Dioscorus, count of the city, ordered them to be tormented; Meanwhile, as these things were being done, a certain man went off and announced to Dioscorus the count that two magicians had arrived there from the parts of Rome, who were saying that the temples should be destroyed, the ceremonies rejected, and all the decrees of the ancient law uprooted. For they preach that one God is to be worshipped, of whom also they declare themselves servants. Hearing this, the count sent soldiers to bring them into his sight; and when they had been led before him, he questioned them, saying: "Are you not those magicians who are subverting our city?" To this blessed Gendulf answered: "We are not magicians, but servants of the Lord Jesus Christ." Then the count said: "Unless you sacrifice to the gods, and call back all whom you have led into error, I will kill you with many torments." Then St. Gendulf answered: "We fear neither you nor your torments, because you have no power to harm us further than our Lord permits you." Then the count, moved with anger, ordered them to be beaten with clubs; and as they were being beaten, they blessed God who was strengthening them. And seeing that he could do them no harm, he ordered them to be put into a burning furnace. When they had been put into it, an angel of the Lord came down from heaven strengthening them. And the fire being cooled, the furnace at once became like dew. And the people began to cry out and say: "There is no God in all the earth, except the God of the Christians, whom his servants Gendulf and Genitus preach." But the aforesaid count had been seized by such madness that not even so did he blush. And he ordered the holy men to be drawn out of the furnace; and perceiving that he could do them no harm, he commanded iron rings to be put on their arms, and that they should be thrust into prison until the morrow.

[10] But, his son having died And as they were being led to the prison, a voice came to them from heaven, saying: "Be strong, O holy men, and be comforted in the Lord, because tomorrow all the inhabitants of this city will come through your preaching to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." And the people asked the most holy man Gendulf that they might be baptized by him. Blessed Gendulf, having taken water, consecrated it, and baptized on that day more than three hundred men, besides little children and women, and he preached to them that they should have peace among themselves. And that same night the son of Dioscorus, seized by a demon, breathed out his spirit. And Dioscorus, seeing his son dead, began to weep with excessive grief, because he was his only one. And his wife said to him: "On account of the men whom you ordered to be thrust into prison this evil has befallen us. Send therefore in haste, and order them to be brought out of prison; and ask them to pardon you all the evils which you have inflicted on them, and promise that you will believe in him whom they preach, if they raise your son in the name of their God. For I believe that you can obtain this from them." And he sent in haste to the prison, and commanded that the holy men be brought into his sight. And when they had come before him, he said to blessed Gendulf: "You say that your God is the one God, and that those who believe Him with a perfect heart will obtain." Then blessed Gendulf answered: "My God is the one God, who created heaven and earth, and fashioned man to His image and likeness. And He sent His only-begotten Son into this world, to free the human race from the power of the devil. Who also for us and for our salvation permitted Himself to be seized by the Jews, to be bound, to be crucified; and at the last He did not disdain to undergo death. And on the third day He rose again, that He might give us access to rise from death to life."

[11] [He being raised in the name of Jesus, he himself and the whole city are baptized;] To this the count said: "If what you say is true, raise this boy, and I will believe in your God with all my people." Blessed Gendulf answered: "If you believe with your whole heart, go, take his hand, and say: 'In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom his servants Gendulf and Genitus preach, arise and stand on your feet sound.'" And when he did so, the boy revived and, opening his eyes, rose, and was made sound. Then the count, seeing his son raised to life, fell at the feet of SS. Gendulf and Genitus, saying: "My lords, forgive me the injury which I inflicted on you, because I sinned in ignorance; and baptize me with my wife and son, and all the people who are in this city. For now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except the God of the Christians." Blessed Gendulf enjoined on him a three days' fast; and the third day now being past, he baptized him with all his people; and he built churches for them, consecrating them in honour of holy Mary, Mother of God, and also of all the apostles; and he taught them for three months the word of the Lord. And these are reported to have been the deeds of SS. Genitus and Gendulf in the Giturnican city.

[12] Which city does not appear to be Cahors. But where the seat of this city may have been is not equally clear to all. William Lacroix, indeed, Du Saussay, Claude Robert, and several others, whom Bollandus enumerates, took the Giturnican (otherwise Geturnian) city for that of Cahors. But Bollandus rightly doubted whether the Geturnican city be the same as that of Cahors, or even whether it be in Aquitaine or Gaul, and not rather situated on this side of the mountains. For one reads in the former Life of St. Gendulf, published by Bollandus: All being thus confirmed (in the Giturnican city) in the service of the Lord, they both (SS. Genitus and Gendulf) departed from there; and after some small stretches of laborious road, they came to the Gauls, to a small estate which was called the Cell of the Demons, situated upon the little river Naon, and lying in the territory of Bourges Acta SS. vol. II of January, p. 87.. Likewise in the other: And after this the holy men, bidding farewell to all the brethren of that (Giturnican) church, departed from there and made for Aquitanian Gaul Ibid., p. 96.. Nor could his doubt fail to grow, when some years later he came upon these words of the Combefis Life: Afterwards departing from there (the Giturnican city) they came into Gaul, to the village which is called Catralus upon the river Ogra. I for my part wholly agree with Bollandus, all the more because that distinguished man Maximin Deloche Cartulaire de Beaulieu, p. CLXXXIV and following., gathering with great diligence the various and very ancient appellations of the city of Cahors, does not list the name of Giturnicum, although the work of William Lacroix on the series of the bishops of Cahors, who thought that Giturnicum and Cadurcum were the appellation of one and the same city, was much in his hands. Nor shall I therefore deny that the Christian truth was spread in the district of Cahors by SS. Genitus and Gendulf, though at different times; since a prudent man does not reject such traditions of churches except for the strongest reasons.

[13] From there both Saints come to Catralus, where St. Genitus dies. The author of the Combefis Life goes on: Afterwards departing from there (from the Giturnican city) they came into Gaul, to the village which is called Catralus upon the river Ogra . Blessed Gendulf built an oratory there in honour of the most blessed martyr Marcellus, and laboured day and night so that all his disciples might be able after his departure to serve God there. The biographer then relates some quite wondrous deeds of St. Gendulf, which pertain less to St. Genitus. But of this holy man's death he does not make even a word; which death is thus narrated in the former Life of St. Gendulf published by Bollandus: At this time (namely when he was converting many to Christ in the district of Bourges) *his dearest father Genitus, after many signal marks of virtues, after the warlike contests of worldly exertion which he waged daily in resisting vices and concupiscences, passed in peace to the Lord on the third day before the kalends of November. Blessed Genulf for the moment grieved greatly, and was wholly dissolved in tears, wailing with much lamentation that he should now remain an orphan, and so sweet a father,

so gentle, so kind. And rising after his tears, he washed the body with his holy hands, arranged the garments, wrapped it also fittingly in shining linen cloths; and with a very great company of faithful men and with fitting honour he buried him not far from the oratory of St. Peter, which he himself had completed fittingly on so stable a foundation, as far as his means allowed, and which was upon the stream Naon Acta SS. vol. II of Jan., p. 87.. This place appears to be the one which in the Chorography of Berry is called Celle-sur-Nahon Ibid., p. 102.

[15] SS. Genitus and Gendulf buried in the same tomb. We omit from the Combefis Life several miracles performed by St. Gendulf after the death of St. Genitus; but it is not permissible to pass over how this holy bishop, having finished his life, is reported to have been placed there in a tomb beside St. Genitus by his disciples. Then the disciples, says the biographer, taking that most holy body, wrapped according to his precept in a sack of haircloth, buried him at the side of blessed Genitus, near the oratory of St. Peter, which is built upon the river Naon. And that place, which before was called the Cell of the Demons, after the coming of the most holy men from that day onward is commonly called the Cell of St. Gendulf, confessor of our Lord Jesus Christ. When therefore three years had rolled by after blessed Gendulf had departed from this light, there came one of his disciples, Leontius by name, to blessed Sebastes and told him of the death of the most holy man Gendulf, and how strait a life he had led for the name of the Lord. And blessed Sebastes, hearing all the things which the venerable man Gendulf had done in this life for the name of the Lord, came there with tapers and lamps and great ceremony, and with great honour raised the bodies of SS. Gendulf and Genitus, and carried them into the oratory of St. Peter, which they had built with their own hands, and he placed the body of St. Gendulf on the right side for those entering and on the left for those going out. He also built crypts over each body, and afterwards returned to his own home. He also wrote the deeds of the most holy men, which he had approved as they were read over by Leontius and the other disciples of blessed Gendulf. And how many blind, or how many possessed, or those held by other infirmities, were made whole there through the intercession of the saints, it would be too long to tell. Thus far the unpublished biographer. The sacred remains of both stayed together, until by licence of King Charles the Bald the body of St. Gendulf, lest it should suffer harm through the iniquity of wars, was translated to the Stradensian monastery in the district of Bourges (namely six miles distant from the oratory of St. Peter). But the earthly remains of his blessed father Genitus they allowed to stay Ibid.. And these are the things which we have been able to gather about St. Genitus.

[16] The question of distinguishing the SS. Gendulf deferred to the 13th of November. But at the end we wish this to be noted, that on the occasion of St. Genitus, whose deeds are so obscure, we have not wished to inquire into the affairs of St. Gendulf, which are wrapped in no less darkness, and about which (as we said at the beginning) Bollandus wrote at the 17th of January and in the appendix to the same day. In which appendix he taught that St. Gundulf is venerated at Bourges on the 17th of June, at one time (as is reported) archbishop of Milan, then a hermit in the countryside of Bourges, and after death translated to Nobiliacum, where he lay honourably buried in the middle of the choir of Blessed Mary. But Sassi and others, who have diligently endeavoured to compile the catalogue of the prelates of Milan, deny that any St. Gundulf ever presided over the church of Milan. In the Life of St. Radegund, which was illustrated on the 13th of August, there occurs a St. Gundulf, afterwards made bishop at Metz; but before the 9th century no one by this name is read to have sat at Metz; so that some say that the word Gundulfus is corrupt, others the word Mettis; and the latter judge that the same Gundulf is designated who is elsewhere called of Milan. It might therefore have been asked in our work how many Saints Genulf, Gendulf, or Gundulf are to be distinguished at the 17th of January, the 17th of June, and also the 7th of September, at which day the Acts of St. Gundulf, bishop of Metz in the 9th century, were given; but this has so far been omitted. The occasion for this matter will return at the 13th of November, on which the Parisians formerly kept the festival of St. Gundulf, venerated by the people of Bourges.

* perhaps La Chatre

* perhaps Angerem (Indre)