ON ST. AMBROSINIANUS, BISHOP AND, AS IS REPORTED, MARTYR, PATRON OF THE PARISH OF FONTAINE NEAR DIJON,
IN BURGUNDY.
A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL COLLECTION.
Concerning the cult, the fabulous Acts, and the relics of the saint.
Ambrosinianus, bishop and M., as is reported, patron of the parish of Fontaine near Dijon in Burgundy. (S.)
BY J. S.
The saint is venerated at Fontaine near Dijon, Claude Castellan, in his Universal Martyrology on the first of September, announces St. Ambrosinianus, whom I do not find to have been known to other martyrologists. I render his words in Latin: On the same day, of St. Ambrosinianus, patron of the parish church of Fontaine near Dijon, where of his relics some are had in the collegiate church of St. Stephen. Pierre-François Chifflet, in his Illustrious Lineage of St. Bernard Asserted, further established the cult of St. Ambrosinianus, and published his Acts, of which below. On page 457 he adduces from the archive of St. Stephen of Dijon letters in which, to our purpose, it is said: On the Kalends of September, therefore, the birthday of St. Ambrosinianus, who is venerated in that same place. The word ibidem is referred to the castle of Fontaine, of whose lord Bartholomew the letters treat. The letters were given in the time of Herbert, abbot of St. Stephen of Dijon. And Herbert was made abbot in the year 1125, as the Chronological Series of the abbots of St. Stephen has it, which is prefixed to the proper Offices of the same
church. John the Hermit, in the Life of St. Bernard, in the Chifflet cited, page 109, relates that the mother of St. Bernard, who is there called Aalays, was devoted to St. Ambrosinianus, and died on his festival, but he calls him Ambrose.
[2] and St. Bernard's mother was devoted to him, Receive the words of the Hermit, which he reports from the mouth of Robert the abbot: The mother, he says, of our holy father (Bernard) was most religious. Now it was her custom every year, on the solemnity of St. Ambrose, to gather all the clerics whom she could find, and on that same day, to the honour of God and of blessed Mary and of the said saint and of all the saints, solemnly to refresh them with food and drink. But God, wishing to requite her for the honour which she showed to his saint every year, made her foreknow her own death, which was to come on the anniversary day of that same festival, some days before the feast. That she did indeed die on that same festival, as she had foretold, the author subjoins. Chifflet, page 413, shows that many have understood this of St. Ambrose of Milan: But, he says, page 414, nowhere does John the Hermit call this holy Ambrose either doctor or of Milan. Another was the Ambrose (more frequently called Ambrosinianus), patron of the village and castle of Fontaine, whom it is far more likely that the lady of the place was accustomed to venerate every year with solemn offices. The birthday of this Ambrosinianus is even now kept, and beyond all memory has been kept, in the parish of Fontaine on the Kalends of September; which the records of St. Stephen of Dijon, drawn up more than five hundred years ago, prove. Then he shows that Aalays, the mother of St. Bernard, died on the Kalends of September, so that it seems in no way to be doubted that John the Hermit designated St. Ambrosinianus above, especially since it has been shown that this saint was already venerated in that same twelfth century.
[3] The Life of St. Ambrosinianus the aforesaid Chifflet had transmitted to our predecessors, a summary of his Acts, and he published the same among the documents of the said Opuscule from page 452, from a manuscript of the parish of Fontaine near Dijon, whose patron is St. Ambrosinianus, and he is venerated on the Kalends of September, as he observes in the title. The saint is there said to have been born in the Sarmatic city of Asiatic Iberia, of parents at first barren, Agarus and Sanna, who, when persecution was raging, fled to Artemita on the borders of Armenia, where also they found a shrine of the most blessed Giles. The infant, if it should please anyone to give credit to the Acts, uttered as his first word Ambrosinianus, and thence the name was imposed on him. Instructed in letters, when he had now reached twice six years, he returns to his father's house; where, tarrying a few days, he left all things and at length came to Sarlat, where he was kindly received by Nicephorus, bishop of that city, and was afterwards chosen his successor. At last, having left the bishopric, he is said to have returned to Sarmatica, and there to have preached the faith and fallen as a martyr. You have, studious reader, a summary of the Acts, which I have not judged fit to publish, both because they are utterly fabulous, and because they have already been published.
[4] Hear the judgment of Chifflet, page 415: Who further that St. Ambrosinianus may have been, which are utterly fabulous: or in what part of the world he lived, I should not dare to affirm. For his Life is suspect to me, which the Fontaine codex exhibits, written scarcely eighty years ago, in which he is read to have been born in a Sarmatic city of Asiatic Iberia, bishop of Sarlat after Nicephorus, and finally a martyr noble for many palms. The bishopric of Sarlat indeed I read to have been instituted in the province of Bordeaux by Pope John XXII from the year of Christ 1317 (as Denis de Sainte-Marthe proves, volume 2 of the new edition of the Gallia Christiana, column [ ]. But at that time Ambrosinianus had long been venerated as a saint, so that he could not have been bishop of that church; just as no Nicephorus is known there, by whom he is said to have been received.) Another episcopal see of Sarlat in the Christian world I do not find; nor likewise a city by the name of Sarmatica. It is no more likely that a church of St. Giles was in Armenia. The city Artemita, which Baudrand believes to be the one which is today called Van or Wan in Armenia, is placed by others in Assyria, and others of the same name in Arabia Deserta. Since therefore this Life is so fabulous, I have attributed to the saint neither the title of bishop nor of martyr as certain: for I judge it equally uncertain whether he was a bishop or a martyr, as the place and time in which he flourished are uncertain.
[5] The saint is patron of his own parish: certain relics in other places. Hence I add only a few things concerning the cult and relics of the saint, of which Chifflet subjoins these words before his documents: I only observe (as I have already noted) that St. Ambrosinianus is venerated at Fontaine on the Kalends of September, as the proper patron of the place; although the parish of Fontaine is read in the catalogues of the churches of the diocese of Langres to be inscribed under the appellation of St. Martin, as of a more ancient patron; namely from a little chapel dedicated to St. Martin, which still survives below the hill of Fontaine, and is said once to have been the mother church of the whole castle or village. Besides this, that certain relics of St. Ambrosinianus were enclosed in the altar which was consecrated in the crypt of St. Stephen of Dijon, on the Ides of September, in the year 1171 from the Incarnation of Christ, by Guichard, archbishop of Lyons. The record of this enclosing of the relics he recites on page 458. Of the same saint also there seem to have been the relics which were enclosed in the altar of the Charterhouse of Lugny: for from the records of the said Charterhouse of Lugny the same writer recites this fragment, page 523: In the year 1203 the church of the lower house was dedicated, and the altar consecrated by lord Helduin, bishop of Langres, on the day before the Nones of October. Among the relics enclosed in that church are numbered relics of the blood of St. Benignus, and relics of the blessed Medard and Ambrosianus.