Antoninus

ON ST. ANTONINUS, MARTYR AT APAMEA IN SYRIA,

AT APAMEA IN SYRIA

In the second or fourth century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0573, 0576

BY J. S.

§ I. The various cities to which some saint

Antoninus is ascribed on this day or the next: Antoninus suffered neither at Capua

nor at Palencia: some Antoninus is to be assigned to Apamea in Syria, whose

ancient cult is demonstrated.

Sollerius, in this Work at the

IV of July, gave a preliminary

Commentary, in which he disputed

concerning the saints named Antoninus, [Some Antoninus is assigned to various cities: the one of Piacenza distinguished from the rest,] who

are variously announced on the 2nd, 3rd, and 30th of September in

various Martyrologies,

not that he might there laboriously discuss

the deeds of them all, but that he might inquire whether

all the Antonini who are attributed on the aforesaid days to various cities

are distinct from one another. For

one Antoninus was attributed to Apamea in

Syria, another to Apamia in Gaul; another to Piacenza,

another to Capua in Italy, and finally another to Palencia

in Spain. Some learned men supposed

that he was one and the same Antoninus who is assigned

to the five places mentioned. But Sollerius showed

that St. Antoninus, who is venerated at Piacenza on the

IV of July, and in the Roman Martyrology on the XXX of September,

is distinct from the others, and he so examined the deeds of that

St. Antoninus, with whom he was expressly dealing,

that thus far no further matters concerning him present themselves for discussion.

Of this Antoninus, therefore, we do not here treat.

[2] Sollerius further proved that the Antoninus attributed to Capua

together with Aristæus, the one of Apamea wrongly attributed to Capua: although he is announced at Capua by Ado,

by Usuard, and by the Roman Martyrology itself,

is no other than the Antoninus whom

the older martyrologists attribute to Apamea in Syria,

and whom it is established to have died there. That this error

crept first into the Martyrology of Ado,

perhaps through the fault of copyists, and thence passed

into Usuard and into the Roman Martyrology,

he shows at nn. 7 and 8 of the Commentary cited,

that is, in vol. 2 of July, p. 8. This can be confirmed

from the Breviary of the church of Capua itself, of the year

1489, in which at the 2nd of September there are three

lessons on St. Antoninus the martyr, and their beginning

is as follows: Now the most blessed boy Antoninus

was born in the town of Apamea. Michael

Monachus in his Sanctuarium Capuanum, p. 71, admits

that this Antoninus is not of Capua; nor

was he able to adduce any monument of the church of Capua

by which he might claim St. Antoninus for it. He adheres

nevertheless to the authority of Ado and of the Roman

Martyrology, and adduces the words of Peter de Natalibus,

bk. 8, ch. 33, where he affirms that the martyrs Antoninus and Aristæus

suffered at Capua. But Sollerius uncovered the source

of the error, so that there seems no need to add more

on these matters.

[3] Thirdly, the said Sollerius showed in §4 that no

Antoninus is to be sought in Spain who

suffered at Palencia on this day or the next, [Nor is any Antoninus to be assigned to the Spaniards; the dispute concerning the one of Apamea is to be examined.] since

the Spaniards themselves had always believed the Antoninus whom they venerate at Palencia

to be a Gaul, before certain men, on the strength of the fictitious

Chronicle of pseudo-Dexter, dared not only to claim St. Antoninus

for Spain, but even to invent a city Pamia

in Spain — men already sufficiently refuted by Sollerius, and more fully by Nicolas

Antonio in a Work hitherto unpublished, of which

we have a transcript. There remain, therefore, only Antoninus

of Syrian Apamea and Antoninus of Gallic Apamea,

concerning whom Sollerius disputed much in

§§1 and 3, yet in such a way that he referred the controversy,

as needing fuller examination, to this place.

Moreover, after Sollerius, the learned Benedictines who lately published in French

the History of Occitania disputed about one or two Antonini of Apamea,

in vol. 1 of the said Work from p. 621,

and in part they agree with Sollerius, in part

departing from him they suggest another opinion, and treat

another controversy, which I had nowhere hitherto

found. For this reason, that the controversy

may be better elucidated, I shall briefly set forth what

seems sufficiently proved, and what still

remains doubtful.

[4] St. Antoninus, who is announced in the Hieronymian and other ancient Calendars, First, it is certain that some holy Antoninus,

a martyr, suffered at Apamea, or

rather in the territory of Apamea in Syria. He is announced

in many Hieronymian transcripts on the

III of September, to which day Wandelbert also attached him.

The same is thus commemorated by Ado,

Usuard, Notker, and by the Little Roman

Martyrology, which is older than these, but on the 2nd of September, and in these

words: At Apamia, of Antoninus the martyr. All

these things may be seen more fully in Sollerius,

§1. I add a few things from the most ancient Martyrologies

which Edmund Martène afterwards published in vol.

3 of the Thesaurus anecdotorum, from col. [ ]. The first

of these mentions there the bare name of Antoninus on the III of

September. The second, however, has the name Antonius

on the 2nd of the same month. The Corbie Martyrology which follows

has on the III as follows: The birthday of SS. Antonius the boy

and Aristus the bishop. There follow a Fragment of the Martyrology

of Tours, and next the Corbie Calendar,

in which Antoninus is not read. But

the last Calendar, published from a Ms. of the monastery

of Lyre, has on the III of September: Of St.

Antoninus the martyr. The said Martène published other

Martyrologies and ancient Calendars in vol.

6 of the Collectio amplissima, where at col. 675 the Calendar

of the monastery of Stavelot has thus at the

III of September: Of St. Antoninus the martyr. The Calendar of Verdun

agrees at col. 682. Finally the Martyrology

of Auxerre, in the same place at col. 719, agrees with

Usuard and others at the 2nd of September: At Apamia,

of St. Antoninus the martyr; and at the following day:

At Capua, the birthday of the holy martyrs Antoninus

the boy and Aristæus the bishop. Now this

is to be noted as occurring in these Martyrologies, that

none of them, except the last, records

two Antonini on these days, or an Antoninus together

with an Antonius. For hence it becomes the more likely,

as Sollerius long ago observed, and as

the said Benedictines agree with him in the History

of Occitania, vol. 1, note 32, n. 1, that only

one Antoninus the Syrian is mentioned in the Hieronymian transcripts

on the second and third of September,

even though in some he is doubled under the name

of Antonius and Antoninus on the 2nd, and on the third the name

of Antoninus is again repeated in certain others.

[5] That the Antoninus who is announced on those days

is a Syrian, is with certainty the Syrian of Apamea, is established from various considerations so certainly

that it seems not to be doubted. First,

in various Martyrologies, among which is the Martyrology

of Rabanus, the province of Syria is expressed. Next,

the Gallic Apamia could not have been designated in

the ancient Hieronymian Martyrologies, nor even

in the Little Roman, in Ado, Usuard, or Notker,

since these were written before that city existed,

or at any rate before it became known by that name. That Apamia

or Pamia of Gaul was unknown to the ancient geographers

Sollerius had already said at n. 21.

Yet the Benedictines just cited teach this more clearly

and more emphatically in this manner:

To this proof (concerning the one Antoninus

the Syrian announced in the ancient Martyrologies) we

can add that the name of the Gallic

Apamiæ (Pamiers) was unknown in the Gauls

before the twelfth century, and that we have no monument

which makes mention of this city

before that time. Indeed the abbey of St. Antoninus of Apamia,

which is now the cathedral church,

was formerly called Fredelacensis (de Fredelas), not

Appamiensis: which name was certainly given it from

the castle which the counts of Foix took care to have built

at the beginning of the twelfth century, or toward the end of the preceding one,

and which they named the Castle of Apamia, as

we shall presently say. From these things it is gathered that all the martyrologists

who announce St. Antoninus the martyr

at Apamia in the Gauls are later than the

eleventh century. And hence it further follows that in Ado,

Usuard, Notker, and the others reported, Antoninus

of Apamea in Syria is to be understood.

[6] That St. Antoninus the martyr was venerated

at Apamea in Syria already in the sixth century, whose cult is established from the sixth century. and very probably

much earlier, we have from a Petition presented by the monks

of Apamea to the bishops of Second Syria,

in which these words are read: But how many

and how great were the things variously perpetrated in the venerable house of the victorious

martyr Antoninus — what nature endowed

with reason will recount them without tears? For he had so

come into the habit of killing monks, …

that through his followers, whom he wickedly

hired, he slew venerable orthodox

monks, who were gathered there in honor of the celebration

being performed. Severus the

heretic and Peter, bishop of Apamea, are accused,

who do not pertain here. But the church of St. Antoninus

which is here mentioned teaches that the Saint from the beginning

of the sixth century, or earlier, was an object of veneration to the faithful,

since this instrument was not only read

in the Council of Constantinople under Mennas

in the year 536, as may be seen in Labbe, vol.

5, col. 243; but it had been presented long before to the bishops

of Syria, as Baronius relates at the year

518, nn. 48 and 49. Hence Tillemont,

vol. 4, note 15 on Dionysius of Paris, rightly affirms that this

church existed in the year 515, and that the Saint's feast

was celebrated in it. But for how long

it had by then existed is plainly uncertain.

[7] The elogium from the Menologium of Sirletus, We are equally ignorant whether the feast of St. Antoninus

the Syrian was formerly celebrated in the Eastern Church

on the 2nd or the 3rd day of September, as his memory is announced

in the Hieronymian transcripts and the other

Martyrologies reported. For in the Greek Calendars

the same Saint is now found on the IX of November.

Take the elogium from the Menologium of Sirletus at

the said day: On the same day, the commemoration of the holy

martyr Antonius, from the region of Syria, who, being

a hewer of stones, and seeing the heathen sacrificing in the temple

of the idols, sought to dissuade them from that empty superstition:

but afterwards, entering into their

temple, he shattered the idols themselves. For which he was seized

and severely beaten, and being released he went away

into Apamia of Syria, and there obtained from the holy bishop

leave to build a church under

the name of the Holy Trinity: which, when he had begun it,

and the natives had learned of it, they rushed upon him by night and

cut him limb from limb with swords. With these things

the Greek Menæa sufficiently agree at the same day,

as does the Menologium published by order of the emperor Basil,

and they add only a few things. In the Menæa the Saint is called

Antonius, in the Menologium Antoninus.

[8] the same more fully from the Basilian; the verses of the Menæa. Now the Menologium, in the translation of Arcudius

and the edition of Ughelli in the Anecdota, p. 290,

runs thus: Antoninus, a Syrian by race, worked in a stone quarry.

He, when he had seen the heathen entering into a certain shrine

and busying themselves with the gods, urged them

to abandon the superstitious worship of the idols.

But when he accomplished nothing by speaking, he set out

for solitary places, and having found a man, an anchorite

serving God, Theotimus by name

(in the Menæa, Timothy), he stayed with him

two years. Afterwards, relying on this man's prayers, and

returning to his native place to the same temple, which by the various

deceits of the demons was leading the minds of mortals

astray, he came upon men keeping a festal day

to the demons; and entering the temple,

he broke the idols in pieces. For which he was seized and most grievously

beaten. Then, being released, he withdrew to Apamea of Syria,

and when he had obtained from the most holy bishop of that city

leave to found a church to the Holy Trinity,

and its foundations had already been laid,

the natives set upon the man and cut him limb from limb:

whose spirit joined itself to God. The

Menæa agree, as I have said, as to the substance: and two

verses are there added, of which I shall subjoin the Latin

translation.

Ἀντώνιον

κτείνουσι

τὸν

θεῖον

ξύλοις,

Οἱ

τὸ

ξύλον

τιμοῦντες

ὡς

θεὸν

πλάνοι.

They slay divine Antonius with wooden clubs,

Deceivers who honor wood as God.

But these verses do not agree with the elogium, in

which he is said to have been cut in pieces with swords, and indeed limb from limb,

unless perhaps they killed the Saint with clubs

and raged with swords upon the lifeless body. Thus far

concerning St. Antoninus the Syrian. Now it must be seen whether there is another

Antoninus in Gaul, whose veneration is famous

among the Gauls of Apamia.

§ II. The cult of Saint Antoninus in various places of Gaul.

[ ] [In the ninth century there existed a monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni;] Although the ancient martyrologists announce St.

Antoninus in Syria, as we have shown, it is nevertheless

certain and beyond doubt that some holy

Antonius or Antoninus was venerated in Gaul at least from the ninth

century. For in the Notitia concerning the monasteries

which owe to the king of the Franks military service, gifts,

or prayers alone, written at the assembly

of Aachen in the year 817, under the emperor Louis

the Pious, there is reckoned among others in Aquitaine the monastery

of St. Antonius. Now Baluze, who published this

Notitia in vol. 1 of the Capitularies from col. 589,

observes the following in the notes to vol. 2, col. [ ]:

We should read Antoninus. In the Conigonian parchment

praised above there is mention of a monastery, "where

the head of Antoninus the martyr with a part of his body

rests in the valley which is called Nobilense,

where a congregation of clerics appears to preside."

The reference there is to the monastery of Saint Antoninus

in the diocese of Rodez, in which I have found, in the most ancient records

of that monastery, that the venerable head of the same Martyr,

laid up with the highest honor, was celebrated far and wide

by signs and miracles. Now at that time

it was a monastery of clerics or

canons; and there exists a bull of Urban II for

the Canonry of Saint Antoninus. The same writer, at col.

1434, from the archive of the monastery of St. Antoninus of Rodez,

recites an ancient document under this

title: An old narrative concerning the origin and privileges

of the monastery of Saint Antoninus in the diocese of Rodez,

in which are recounted various things granted to the said monastery

by King Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious.

[10] Take those things which chiefly bear upon our

purpose, [indeed the Saint's head is said to have been there already in the eighth century,] even if they may perhaps be faulty:

And burning with such a desire (King Pippin), toward the place

of the blessed martyr Saint Antoninus, most highly to be venerated

on account of the intercessions of his servants,

because the venerable head of the same Martyr, there

laid up with the highest honor, was renowned by signs and miracles

far and wide, when the pious king had come,

and had carefully weighed the great praises of the Martyr, …

for the honor and reverence of the blessed martyr

Antoninus, … he gave in perpetual gift the abbey which by surname

is called Saint Audard's *, to the head of the blessed Antoninus

and to the altar which rests in the honor and glory of God,

and to the clerics present and future dwelling therein,

etc. It is added

thereafter that the same was confirmed by Charlemagne and

Louis the Pious, and another privilege of the same Louis

is appended. The said writers of the History

of Occitania, among the proofs at col. 23, adduce another

donation of Pippin made to the church of Saint

Antoninus the martyr, which is situated in the valley which

is called Nobilis, where a boundary is known to be in

the district of Rodez, in which it is said that Justinus the bishop was present,

stricken with the royal disease, who, prostrating himself

before the altar where the head of St. Antoninus

the most glorious martyr was kept, was suddenly

fortified by divine protection, and by his intercession was set free.

And lower down: All (who were present) with one voice judged

and moreover acclaimed, with a very great throng

of people who were there, that it was fitting that the house of God

be increased for the love and reverence of

the blessed martyr Antoninus, who had always been defender and protector

to the king and to all his army.

To whose acclamation the most serene King Pippin

assented, that the house of God should be increased with royal

donations. And so, having taken counsel with his magnates,

the monastery of Saint Peter the apostle, which

is called Mormacus, which is situated in the district of Caturcinum *

upon the river Aveyron, he handed over as a possession

to the head and altar of the blessed martyr Antoninus,

in which it rests with the honor and blessing of God, and

to Abbot Fedancius, a venerable man, and to the monks and

clerics dwelling therein, present and future,

etc.

[11] but these later documents are not authentic, These monuments would altogether prove that the cult

of St. Antoninus flourished in the eighth century, provided they

were such that there could be no doubt of their authority.

But the said writers of the History of Occitania,

vol. 1, p. 622, contend that by these documents,

which they wrongly call charters of Pippin

or attributed to Pippin, on account of their interpolations,

anachronisms, and facts contrary to true history,

it cannot be proved that the relics of St. Antoninus were preserved

in the said abbey in the eighth century. Yet I do not sufficiently

see why we ought to take away from those documents all

authority to such a degree that we should not even

believe those things which are on other grounds quite probable.

Certainly it is probable that the abbey of St. Antoninus,

which existed in the time of Louis the Pious, is older than that

emperor, and that the name of St. Antoninus

was given it from no other cause than that

his relics were preserved there. And so I readily

confess that those documents cannot be held

as authentic charters of Pippin, since

the Baluzian one was written in the time of Louis

the Pious or later; but neither were they published as charters

of Pippin, but rather as Notices of the things which Pippin,

Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious had granted to the monastery

of St. Antoninus, the second treating of Pippin

alone. Wherefore, since the Notitia published by Baluze

is ancient, and does not at least openly labor under many

defects, it becomes probable from it that certain gifts

were given by Pippin, Charles, and Louis

to the abbey of St. Antoninus, and that the Saint's head

was renowned for miracles in that same abbey; nor

do I therefore judge that the said Notitia is to be reckoned among

authentic instruments. Indeed the said Writers themselves,

at the year 767, from their own document, which is more faulty

than Baluze's, relate that Pippin betook himself

to the monastery of St. Antoninus, to give thanks to God for the prosperity

of his expedition, and that he gave much

to the monastery. They add, however, that some things

are found in that instrument which appear

doubtful; but they assert that not all things are on that account false.

[12] [so that the Saint's cult in the eighth century is probable, not certain: the Saint shines with miracles in the eleventh century.] I think the same of both; and therefore

I adduce what is read in them concerning St. Antoninus only

as probable, not as plainly certain. Nevertheless

it is certain that that monastery, at least from the beginning

of the eleventh century, was so famous for votive pilgrimages and the Saint's

miracles that the place grew

into a town and a viscounty, whose viscount

is already mentioned in the year 1083, as may be seen

in the aforesaid History of Occitania, vol. 2, p.

264. Adémar of Chabannes, in his Chronicle, which

he carried down to the year 1029, in Labbe,

vol. 2 of the Bibliotheca, p. 179, has thus: At that

time St. Leonard the confessor in the Limousin,

and St. Antoninus the martyr in the Quercy, began to flash

with miracles, and peoples flowed thither from every side.

This he writes about the year 1015 or

1020, for he does not attach each event to its own year. Among

the more famous places of the Saints which Robert,

king of the Franks, visited toward the end of his life, on the testimony

of Helgald in his Life, in Duchesne, vol. 4,

p. 76, this church of St. Antoninus is also reckoned.

Of the several donations made to it the authors of the History of Occitania

treat here and there, who also write thus concerning

the present state of that ancient abbey,

vol. 1, p. 622: This abbey is the same as

the monastery of St. Antoninus, which still subsists

(without the title of abbey) on the borders of the province

of Rodez, Cahors, and Albi, and which

is still of the Canons Regular of the Congregation

of France. The town, which was formerly fortified,

together with the church belongs to the province of Rodez.

[13] Mabillon in the Annals, vol. 2, p.

438, The monastery of Lézat, of another St. Antonius. having assigned the monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni,

adds this concerning another: There is also the monastery

of Saint Antonius of Lézat in the county of Foix;

but it was founded in the middle of the tenth century. Yet afterwards,

at p. 617, he refers the beginnings of the same monastery

to about the year 840. Again in vol. 3, at

the year 940, n. 13, he took up the earlier opinion,

and referred the beginnings of the monastery of Lézat,

which by later men was called of Saint Antonius and Saint Peter,

as it has been called, to the body of Saint Antonius the confessor,

which, as they report, was translated thither about the year

940. Finally, in the corrigenda of that volume

he adds the following: Others refer the origin of the monastery of Lézat,

which is indeed most obscure, to the ninth

century, as I said in book XXXII. The writers

of the History of Occitania think that the monastery of St. Antonius of Lézat

was founded about the year 845, as they have it

in vol. 1, p. 541, and they acknowledge as founder

Antonius, viscount of Béziers. The same men, among

the proofs in vol. 2, col. 161, recite a charter

of the year 1002, and at col. 393 another of the year 1114, in

which mention is made of the relics of St. Antonius preserved in the abbey

of Lézat. Among us too, in vol. 2

of January, p. 195, certain things are read concerning the translation

of those same relics. But St. Antonius

of Lézat is everywhere called a confessor, so that

he seems other than St. Antoninus the martyr. We therefore

greatly desire to know whose saint

Antonius's relics the men of Lézat believe themselves to have had.

From this digression, occasioned by Mabillon's

note, let us return to St. Antoninus the martyr.

[14] This Saint the city of Apamia in Narbonese Gaul

claims for itself before all others, The Saint is chiefly venerated at Apamia in Narbonese Gaul, and to it

he is attributed by Baronius, who inscribed St. Antoninus in the Roman

Martyrology on the 2nd of September in

this manner: At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus the martyr,

whose relics are kept with great veneration in the church of Palencia (in

Spain). This

text of the Martyrology we could easily excuse from all error,

even if it were certain that Saint

Antoninus did not suffer there, since he could be announced at Apamia

in Narbonese Gaul on account of the

most famous veneration with which he is there honored

for many centuries. Hence in the Martyrology of Paris

he is rightly commemorated in these words: On the same day, the birthday

of Saint Antoninus the martyr, patron of Pamiers in Occitania;

in whose name a church stands in

the diocese of Paris at Châtres-Brie. But

Baronius's annotation cannot be equally excused, unless

Antoninus really suffered at Pamiers in Occitania.

For he observes this: Now he suffered not

at Apamea in Syria, as many have supposed, but

at Pamiers near Toulouse, as is established from the records of the church

of Palencia, in which his birthday is solemnly

kept, where the sacred relics of his body

rest. Of the relics preserved at Palencia in Spain

we shall treat below.

[15] The city of Pamiers, or Appamia, whose

patron today is St. Antoninus, was raised to episcopal

dignity in the year 1295 or 1296,

as various writers relate. Bernard Gui,

who lived at that same time, and the church, of which he is patron, was made a cathedral in the year 1295. in his Life of Boniface

VIII sets forth the matter in this manner: Likewise that

this Boniface in the second year of his pontificate newly erected

into a cathedral church the abbey

of Saint Antonius of the Canons Regular,

then of the town of Appamia, and made of that town a city,

and instituted Bernard Saisset, then abbot of that monastery,

as its first bishop,

and most excellently endowed and delimited that church with certain and many

churches and monasteries and diverse revenues. Spondanus, afterwards bishop

of that same city, at the year 1296, n.

8, testifies that the bull of erection was given in the year

1295, but published in the year 1296. Nevertheless

Bernard did not immediately enter into possession of the erected bishopric,

King Philip IV of the Franks opposing him: but St. Louis, in the same year

1296, raised from the Order of Minors to the bishopric of Toulouse,

governed Apamia at the same time until

his death, as the said Spondanus rightly sets forth.

Hear William of Nangis in his Chronicle

at the year 1296, where he has thus: The city of Appamia,

separated at this time from the bishopric of Toulouse,

obtained its own bishop through Pope Boniface;

but at once Louis, son of the king

of Sicily, a Friar Minor, obtained both entire from

Pope Boniface himself. The same at the year

1298: Louis, bishop of the city of Toulouse, having died (on the XIX of August of the preceding year),

Appamea, separated from Toulouse, received its own bishop,

namely that same Bernard whom the Pontiff had

from the beginning appointed. Hence a few things must be corrected

which were said of these matters in vol. III of August, p. 783,

in the treatise on St. Louis of Toulouse, n. 38, where Spondanus

is wrongly corrected.

[16] [his abbey at the beginning of the thirteenth century held the lordship of the town of Apamia,] Just as from what has been said it is certainly established concerning

the time at which the abbey of St. Antoninus was raised to episcopal

dignity, so it is altogether obscure

and uncertain at what time the abbey itself was founded,

and the Saint's cult there begun.

About the beginning of the thirteenth century the abbey had grown so far

that the town of Apamia belonged to it,

which is called a castrum after the manner of that time.

At the same time it possessed the body of St. Antoninus, which

was carried about each year in procession.

Both facts we learn from the History of the Albigensians by Peter

of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, a monk, who mentions Pamiers

frequently. He relates in ch. 24 that the abbot of St.

Antoninus came to Simon de Montfort, leader

of those signed with the cross against the Albigensians, that he might

hand over Pamiers to him, and he sets forth that surrender in these

words: The count (de Montfort) came by a direct route

to Appamia, whom the abbot honorably

received, and handed over to him the castrum of Appamia,

which the count received from him, and did homage to the abbot,

as he ought. For the castrum properly

belonged to the lordship of the abbot and Canons of St.

Antoninus, who were Canons Regular, and no one

ought to have anything in it save from the abbot.

But the most wicked count of Foix, who ought to have held that

castrum from the abbot, wickedly wished to claim it all

for himself, as we shall show below.

[17] and the Saint's body, which was carried about in procession each year: The same author in chs. 44 and 45 relates various things

perpetrated by the count of Foix against the abbot and canons

of St. Antoninus. From these I select only those

which make mention of the body of St. Antoninus.

The count of Foix, as he explains more fully, wished the abbot

to hand over without delay the keys of the monastery, which the abbot

was unwilling to do. Nevertheless the abbot, fearing

lest that tyrant should carry off those same keys by violence,

went in and placed the often-named keys

upon the body of St. Antoninus the martyr, which was

upon the altar with many other relics of the Saints,

in whose honor also that church had been

founded. But the aforesaid count, following the abbot,

showing no deference to the church, taking no account of the relics

of the Saints, that most shameless violator of sacred things

snatched the aforesaid keys from off the body of the most holy

Martyr, etc. Then in ch. 45:

There is a certain church on the brow of a certain mountain

near the said monastery, which, when once

in the year, as they are accustomed, the Canons were visiting it,

and in venerable procession were honorably bearing the body

of their patron, the venerable Antoninus,

it happened that the aforesaid count, riding by chance,

passed by; who, showing deference neither to God,

nor to the holy Martyr, nor to the religious procession,

could not so much as humble himself by outward signs,

nor did he take care to dismount from the horse on which he sat,

but with neck stretched out in pride, and with stiff-necked

haughtiness, which was very much his familiar habit,

went by pompously. Seeing which a certain venerable

man, namely the abbot of Mont-Sainte-Marie,

of the Cistercian Order, who … was at that time

present at that procession, cried out after him:

Count, you show no deference to your lord the holy

Martyr; know that in the town in which you now

hold lordship on the Saint's behalf, you shall be deprived

of that lordship, so that, by the Saint's doing, you shall feel yourself

disinherited while yet alive. And confidence in the good man's words

follows, as is most manifestly

declared by the outcome of the matter. All these things abundantly show that a famous cult

of St. Antoninus flourished in his abbey,

and that this abbey was very powerful, and possessed the Saint's

body, or at least believed so, about

the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the foregoing events occurred.

Of the body of St. Antoninus preserved in the aforesaid abbey

mention is also made in a charter of the year 1228, recited

in the History of Occitania, vol. 3, among the instruments,

col. 217.

[18] In the same place, col. 216, is published a charter of the year 1209

concerning the pacts between the abbot of St. Antoninus and Simon

de Montfort, [the castrum of Apamia and the town of Frédelas were already in the twelfth century under the lordship of the abbey:] in which Vitalis, abbot of the church of Frédelas,

that is, abbot of the monastery of St. Antoninus,

speaks thus: I grant to you, Count Simon, … the castrum

of Appamia with the fortress, and the fortresses *,

which are there, and shall hereafter be, and the whole town

both old and new, adjoining that

castrum of Appamia, that you may remain a faithful keeper of that castrum

and town, and may be, with respect to the town of Frédelas and

to the whole abbey and to all the honor belonging to that

abbey, a true helper and defender,

to the honor of God and of Saint Antoninus, and

of his clerics both present and future,

etc. Older still is another charter of the year 1149,

which the said writers published in vol. 2 among

the instruments, col. 525. In this is described an agreement

between Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, who

was at the same time abbot of St. Antoninus, and Roger-Bernard,

count of Foix, and the count mentions

the whole town of Frédelas, and the castrum of Appamia,

and the whole town both old and new adjoining

that castrum of Appamia, etc. The same castrum

of Appamia is mentioned in a Charter of the year MCXI concerning

pacts between the abbot of St. Antoninus and Roger II,

count of Foix, namely that he and his uncle

had unjustly possessed the town of Frédelas and the abbey of St. Antoninus,

which, he says, were never taken away or possessed,

justly or unjustly, by our predecessors,

that is, by the count of Foix and of Carcassonne.

[19] But I observe that the same is not said of the castrum

of Appamia, but by a probable argument it is shown not to have been founded long before. that it had been unjustly taken from the abbey.

Yet he reckons that same castrum among the things which

he restores to the abbey, when the same count then subjoins

this: I render back … to the Lord God and to Saint Antoninus,

and to future abbots canonically elected,

and to Isarn the prior, and to his successors, and to the canons

both present and future, the whole town

of Frédelas, and the castrum of Appamia, and the whole abbey

of St. Antoninus, that is, the entire territory of the abbey.

Further, from the restitution of the castrum of Apamia,

which the count does not say that he took from the abbey,

it can probably be gathered that that castrum was founded

in the territory of the abbey, and indeed at that

time in which Roger II or his uncle

was unjustly usurping that territory: for thus it ought not to have been

numbered among things unjustly taken away, and yet

in some fashion restored, since it had been founded on another's

territory. This conjecture is confirmed

by the fact that before that time no memory anywhere exists of

the castrum of Pamiers, as the often-cited writers

of the History of Occitania testify,

vol. 2, p. 358, where they set forth the conjecture thus:

We believe that it (the castrum) was built on the estate

of the monastery by order of Roger II after his return

from the Holy Land, and that the name of Apamea

or Apamia was imposed on it in memory of the city of Apamea

in Syria, from which Roger had brought relics,

perhaps also of St. Antoninus, the martyr of that city.

Whence it came about that this saint Antoninus

was confounded with St. Antoninus, the Aquitanian martyr,

the ancient patron of the abbey of Frédelas.

This is a second conjecture concerning the Saint himself, of which

we shall speak hereafter. Now I add only that the castrum was

presently handed over to the count to be kept, and that the pact

was confirmed by an oath of the count made upon

the body of blessed Antoninus. But of that body no

older mention exists either, deserving of credit,

than this of the year MCXI.

[20] [The abbey of Frédelas already bore the name of St. Antoninus in the tenth century,] Nevertheless the abbey of St. Antoninus of Frédelas,

which was afterwards named of Apamia,

is much more ancient, and that under the name of St. Antoninus.

In the Life of St. Raymond, bishop of Barbastro,

published in vol. IV of June, p. 127, it is said of him:

At length he returned of his own accord to the study of letters,

and, being offered by his parents in the religious church

of blessed Antoninus of Frédelas, he devoutly took up the yoke

of the canonical rule. From these words of a contemporary

writer it is certainly gathered that that church of St.

Antoninus flourished in the eleventh century, since Raymond,

after very many years had meanwhile elapsed, was elected bishop

about the year 1104, after he had been Prior

of St. Saturninus at Toulouse. Other instruments of the eleventh century,

in which mention is made of the church of Frédelas of St. Antoninus,

are recited in vol. 2 of the History of Occitania,

but it is not necessary to transfer them all hither. At col.

238 is read a letter of Roger, count of Foix, to

St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny, written about

the year 1060, in which the count speaks thus:

To you, Hugh, living in holiness, most famous throughout

the world as abbot of Cluny, I Rodgarius and

my wife, for the obtaining of eternal life, grant,

with all things pertaining to it,

with the assent and unforced consent of the count of Toulouse,

the place of Saint Antoninus, which is commonly called

Fredeleiz, to the end that there, by your appointment,

the regular order of the monastic habit may be introduced, etc. But the reformation

does not appear to have been carried out by the Cluniacs: for

the men of Frédelas remained Canons Regular,

as they were, as is clear from the words just

adduced from the Life of St. Raymond. The same was observed by

the authors of the said History, p. 206, because the counts

of Foix went on possessing the goods of the monastery

until the year MCXI.

[21] They also published, after Mabillon, in vol.

2, col. 107 and following, the testament of Raymond I, count

of Rodez and marquis of Gothia, and also in the tenth century, in which it seems to have been founded. or rather the codicil

of the year 961, in which is found the first mention

of the abbey of Frédelas of St. Antoninus in these words:

And let that allod of Carliacum remain to Roger the son of Arnald:

after his death let it remain to Saint Antoninus

of Fredelesium. Then two further legacies

are given to the church of St. Antoninus in the same codicil;

but in these places the church of St. Antoninus

among the Rutheni, mentioned before, seems to be understood. Further, the said

writers at p. 93 suspect that the abbey was founded about

the same time, or at any rate not long before,

by Arnald, count of Carcassonne, or

by Roger his son, since it lay within their lordship.

And so this abbey was probably founded in the tenth century,

and it seems to have borne the name of St. Antoninus from

the beginning, or at any rate bore it about the middle

of the tenth century. But of relics, or of the Saint's body

preserved there, nothing at all is said anywhere before

the twelfth century, except in the apocryphal Acts

of the translation, which now come to be examined.

*. Theodard's. It is now the cathedral of Montauban.

*. perhaps Caturcinum

*. i.e. fortified castles

§ III. The Acts of the body's translation in the year DCCCLXXXVII

are wholly fabulous: the cult of St. Antoninus in Spain, which probably was

not begun before the irruption of the Saracens, which took place in the eighth century.

[ ] [A certain instrument is in circulation, in which the body is said to have been translated in the year 887,] Catel in his History of Occitania, bk. 4, p.

621, testifies that he saw a Ms. of the Acts of the translation of St.

Antoninus in the library of the Fathers Preachers

at Toulouse, and that they were written in very

ancient letters. I suspect that those Acts are meant which

Nicholas Bertrand recited in his Work on the Deeds of the

Toulousans, fol. 22 and 23, or at any rate ones like them:

for the same year 887 is assigned in both places

to the translation, and nearly the same persons are said

to have been present. Sollerius, in his treatise on St. Antoninus, n. 28,

deferred the examination of those Acts to this place,

lest he should determine anything prematurely. But the authors

of the History of Occitania, vol. 2, p. 528, have abundantly proved

that no credit is owed to those Acts, and I shall briefly

transfer their arguments hither. This is the

beginning of the Acts in Catel: In the year from the Incarnation

of the Lord eight hundred and eighty-

seven, on the thirteenth of the Calends of June, the translation

of the body of the blessed martyr Antoninus, Charles

the Younger reigning as king of the Franks. Then the persons

who are said to have been present at the translation are named thus:

At the translation of the relics of the most glorious

martyr Antoninus there were present fit witnesses,

namely most holy prelates, and most illustrious

men of diverse holiness, whose names are these:

Theodard, archbishop of Narbonne, and

with him Arnulph, bishop of Carcassonne, and

the venerable Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, Roger,

bishop of Couserans, (with) Fulcran

of Rodona (Catel suspects that Ruthena or Ruthenica

is to be read), and the bishop of Albi

named Flotard, and the bishop of Cahors named

Gerald, by whose order, and at the prayers of other

noble men, and by the command of the most noble

count of Carcassonne named Roger (of Roger),

we have written and testified all these things

which we have seen (and) heard. In Bertrand

the bishop of Albi is omitted, and Flotard is named

as of Rodez. But that difference

is of small moment.

[23] but it swarms with anachronisms, But the said writers observe greater faults in the said instrument.

First, the words, Charles

the Younger reigning as king of the Franks, suit neither

Charles the Fat the emperor, nor Charles the Simple,

king of the Franks, much less any other Charles.

For Charles the Fat is nowhere found called

Charles the Younger, and was rather to be styled

emperor than king of the Franks. Charles the Simple

was not yet reigning in the year 887, nor did he obtain the kingdom

before the year 893. To neither, therefore, do

the words of the epoch reported apply. Secondly, there is brought in

here Roger, count of Carcassonne. But, they say,

We know of no Roger, count of Carcassonne,

before the tenth century. Thirdly, the same men discourse thus of the bishops

who are said to have been present:

If we except Theodard, archbishop of Narbonne,

who was really living (and presiding over that church)

in the year DCCCLXXXVII, we have no

argument that the other prelates who are asserted to have been

present at this translation were at that time presiding over

the churches which are attributed to them. Nay rather, of

some of them we have arguments proving

the contrary. We know in fact that Willerannus (or

Gislerannus) then presided over the church of Carcassonne,

and that in the year DCCCLXXXVII he was present with his metropolitan

at the council of Nîmes held

in the villa of Port, not that asserted Arnulph.

The bishop of Toulouse at the same time

was Bernard or Berno, as also in the year DCCCXC;

but not Raymond. Fulcran, bishop of Lodève

(who, omitted above, is reckoned among the rest,

or rather is substituted for Fulcran of Rodez

by Catel, p. 853), was not elected before

the middle of the tenth century. (See the Gallia Christiana,

vol. 6, col. 532, where he is said to have been elected in the year 949.)

Finally, according to the Acts of the said council of Nîmes,

in the month of November of the year DCCCLXXXVII Eligius

was bishop of Albi (as is also read

in the Gallia Christiana, vol. 1, col. 7), and not

Frotard; and Adolenus had already succeeded him

in the year DCCCXCI. All these reasons leave us no

doubt that the Acts of this translation

are wholly spurious.

[24] and it is wholly spurious. If anyone will read through with attentive mind the Acts of the translation themselves

in Bertrand, he will scarcely be able

to doubt that they are of the same author who

filled the Life and martyrdom of the Saint with so many fables

that in his whole account I find nothing which

I should dare to embrace as certain. Moreover, how various

and how fabulous are all the Acts of St. Antoninus, both those

published and those in Ms., Sollerius has abundantly explained

in his preliminary Commentary, §3, so that

it is not necessary to add anything here about them.

Now indeed, since the asserted translation of the year 887 rests upon no

other foundation than the Acts just discussed,

which deserve no credit at all, we can safely assert nothing

about the body of St. Antoninus,

except that it was preserved in the abbey of Frédelas at least from

the twelfth century. It is now also necessary to examine

from what time the relics of St. Antoninus were in

Spain, and how ancient is the veneration of that same

Saint there, so that from all these things some light

may shine forth by which we may discern whether there was one, or two,

or more Antonini, who for many centuries have been

venerated in places so diverse.

[25] That the veneration of St. Antoninus the martyr is ancient

at Palencia in Spain we learn from various

monuments. [The Saint's ancient cult in Spain is gathered from his church discovered in the eleventh century;] For first, mention is made of this Saint

in the Toledan or Mozarabic Breviary,

where at the 2nd of September his feast is announced.

Next, Rodrigo Ximénez, archbishop of Toledo,

in bk. 6 of the Affairs of Spain, ch. 6, relates this

to our purpose concerning Sancho the Great,

king of Navarre, who flourished in the eleventh century: King Sancho,

called the Great, having enlarged the bounds of his country, and

having settled peace among his sons, took up arms against Bermudo,

king of León, and acquired very many places from

his kingdom. This Sancho, while

on a certain day he was refreshing himself in the pursuit of hunting

and following a boar, chanced, in a city once noble,

then deserted, which was called Palencia, to find a crypt

in the form of a church, and an altar in honor

of Saint Antoninus the martyr still standing. To

which, when the fleeing boar had come, and the king,

brandishing his hunting-spear, wished to kill the beast in the crypt,

being struck by a divine miracle, he could not accomplish

what he purposed. For his right arm

grew stiff, and thus the boar escaped unharmed. But the king,

turning to prayers, implored the help

of the blessed martyr Antoninus, and being at once released * he ordered

the ruined city to be repaired, and a church

to be built over the crypt, and he procured that a bishop

be consecrated there, and he offered by liberal donation

the whole city with all

its bounds and full lordship to the bishop and to the church,

adding besides other villas and possessions, in which

the church of Palencia rejoices still to this day. Thus Rodrigo in the thirteenth century.

The same things other Spanish historians after him

have recorded. From this history, provided all things

are true enough, of which there may be doubt, it is gathered

that the veneration of St. Antoninus flourished at Palencia

from the eleventh century, and doubtless earlier, since his church

lay destroyed in the eleventh century.

[26] Nay rather, from the same history the Spaniards infer

that the cult of the same Saint had already been begun

in the time of the Goths, before the irruption of the Saracens

into Spain, [The Spaniards would have it founded before the irruption of the Saracens, in which they say the city was destroyed in the eighth century:] which took place about the year

711. For most of them contend that Palencia,

together with the church of St. Antoninus, was laid waste in the said invasion of the Saracens,

and in its own ruins

lay for about three hundred years, until in the eleventh century

it was restored by Sancho. Francisco de Sandoval,

canon of Palencia, in his Apologetic Discourse,

in which he strives to prove that the St. Antoninus venerated in Spain

is other than the St. Antoninus who is patron of the people of Pamiers,

strives to show this at length in §5, and besides

the authority of various writers who have embraced

that opinion, he adduces a fragment of letters

under the name of King Sancho himself, whom

at p. 47 he brings in writing thus: We have found the church of Palencia

destroyed of old by the Hagarenes,

and for more than three hundred years deprived of episcopal

governance, etc. He adds a fragment of letters

in the name of Ferdinand the Great, in which

the same is asserted. He asserts that Sancho's letters were given in the year

1037, the others in the year 1060. Truly the matter would be certain enough

from these letters, if these very letters seemed authentic.

But the style of the letters by no means suits

the eleventh century; and the life of Sancho the Great is generally not

extended by writers to the year

1037, but his death is more commonly fixed in the year

1035, and Pagi confirms this epoch of his death

by various arguments in the Critica at the year

1032, n. 6.

[27] Moreover, since the said instruments seem

spurious, the opinion of the Spaniards concerning

the destruction of Palencia becomes doubtful, although on other grounds it appears somehow

probable that that city was laid desolate at the first entry of the Saracens into Spain: [but neither is it proved by certain monuments that Palencia lay destroyed from the eighth century,]

for I find no mention of it in the wars

waged thereafter with varying fortune between the Saracens

and the Christians in the kingdom of León and the rest of Spain.

Ambrosio de Morales in his universal Chronicle

of Spain, bk. 17, ch. 44, relates the restoration

of Palencia and of the church of St. Antoninus just as

we have given it from Rodrigo, and adds the following

to our purpose: The crypt (found by Sancho) is still seen today

beneath the choir of the canons,

with an altar and a lamp placed within to preserve

the ancient veneration of that place. And the veneration

of the holy martyr Antoninus must have been much

extended through this region, since even

the greater church of Medina del Campo * has him

as patron, there being also certain other

churches in this region which rejoice in his

patronage. On account of what has been said, I should not dare to affirm with certainty

that the cult of St. Antoninus was begun in Spain

at the beginning of the eighth century, or earlier; nor should I wish

contentiously to deny it. For the discovery of the church

of St. Antoninus in the ruined city of Palencia does not appear so

certain on the authority of Rodrigo, who first

related that history, as to admit of no

doubt. Again, it is not altogether certain that

Palencia was destroyed at the beginning of the Saracen irruption.

It cannot, therefore, be certain — what from these

uncertainties is gathered — that the church of St. Antoninus at Palencia

existed from the beginning of the eighth century.

[28] nor is the discovery of the church itself certain enough: Nay rather, it does not appear altogether likely

that in a church deserted for three hundred years an altar

survived, and that it could at once be recognized,

and its patron Antoninus. Truly, if we weigh

Rodrigo's account, as Sandoval and other Spanish writers

agreeing with him set it forth, it will seem more like a popular

tradition than true history. Sancho, says

Rodrigo, in a city then deserted (for three hundred

years, if we believe the Spaniards) found a crypt, …

and an altar in honor of Saint Antoninus

the martyr still standing. And when, as he wished

to kill the beast in the crypt, his arm had grown stiff,

he implored the help of the blessed martyr Antoninus,

and being healed he built the church together with the city. I do not

sufficiently perceive here how King Sancho at once

recognized that that altar was St. Antoninus's, if for

three hundred years the place had been deserted. No more

do I understand why the same king, divinely stricken,

implored the patronage of St. Antoninus rather than of another

Saint. It is not credible that in a crypt

deserted for three hundred years the altar bore such notable

marks that at the first glance it could be recognized

to what Patron it was consecrated. Equally incredible

is it that the king would not have implored divine

aid before he had taken care to examine whose

was the altar which he had wished to violate. Mariana,

bk. 8, ch. 14, does indeed relate the same history of Sancho,

but cautiously subjoins these words: We

neither add credit to it nor take it away:

let the readers determine of themselves what the matter deserves. Zurita

seems to have held the same history suspect,

since in bk. 1 of the Annals, ch. 13, he relates

the deeds of Sancho the Great, and does not so much as mention

these things by a word, reporting only that ample possessions

and revenues were given by Sancho to the cathedral church

of Palencia.

[29] [the Saint's cult in the eighth century is therefore uncertain, and perhaps was only begun in the eleventh.] From what has been said gather that that whole history

of the ancient altar of St. Antoninus discovered is quite uncertain,

and therefore that from it it cannot certainly be inferred

that St. Antoninus was venerated at Palencia before the destruction

of that city, especially if it was

destroyed in the eighth century, as the Spaniards would have it. But if anyone

should think that the destruction of Palencia befell

toward the end of the tenth century, when Almanzor,

the Saracen king of Córdoba (otherwise Alhagib), besides

many other places of Spain, laid waste the whole kingdom

of León and occupied the city of León itself,

as Rodrigo relates in bk. 5, chs. 14 and 15,

the account of Rodrigo would be rendered more probable, who nowhere

says how long Palencia lay deserted. But

from that conjecture, even if it were more certain than

it really is, it would only follow that the church of St. Antoninus

existed in the tenth century, and was restored by

Sancho after it had been desolate for about forty

years. Further, if we must proceed by conjectures, as

in an uncertain matter, it seems to me more likely that the cult

of St. Antoninus began at Palencia with the restoration of the city,

the relics of the said Saint having been translated thither by Sancho

or his successor. For it is not likely

that St. Antoninus was venerated at Palencia, or

in other places of Spain, before his relics

were had there. Nor does it appear credible

that his relics were at Palencia before the destruction

of the city, since thus they would probably have been lost.

I should prefer, therefore, to suspect that the Saint's relics

were carried thither by Sancho himself, the restorer

of the city, who could easily have received them from

the abbey of Frédelas, neighboring on his kingdom, where they were preserved

in the eleventh century.

[30] The church of Palencia not only celebrates the feast

of St. Antoninus its patron on the 2nd of September, [St. Antoninus is venerated at Palencia as patron: the feast of the translation is also celebrated.]

but also his translation on the XVIII of May. That feast of the translation

is announced by Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology,

and by Ferrari in the General Catalogue

in these words: At Palencia in Spain, the translation

of St. Antoninus the martyr, patron of that city. But Tamayo

in his annotations, from the words of the Office which

is recited on the feast of the translation, shows that no

translation of the body from Gaul

into Spain is celebrated; but rather the translation which

is said to have been made in Gaul. Whence it is clear that the people of Palencia

do not claim for themselves the body of St. Antoninus, but only some

relics of the same Saint. These, if we

believe Tamayo in the place just cited, are the right arm

with its shoulder-blade. In this sense the words

of the Roman Martyrology concerning St. Antoninus the martyr can rightly be explained:

Whose relics are kept with great veneration in the church of Palencia.

The Office in use in the church of Palencia is of St. Antoninus,

whom they believe to be the Gaul of Apamia, nor have

the people of Palencia acquiesced in the fictions of pseudo-Dexter or Julian,

out of which Sandoval, Bivar, Tamayo,

and others have tried to make him a Spaniard.

Other arguments by which Sandoval and others

have tried to claim Antoninus for Spain are drawn

from the time at which they would have the man of Apamia to have lived,

together with the fabulous Acts. But even if those Acts

were true, even if he had lived in Gaul under Pippin,

from what we have said concerning the cult in Spain

the arguments of the Spaniards would even so fall to the ground. It is therefore

altogether to be believed, with the more prudent Spaniards,

that the Antoninus who is venerated in Gaul

and in Spain is the same. But now at last it must be inquired

who that Antoninus is, and in what place and

time he won the laurel of martyrdom, and whether he is the same as

Antoninus the Syrian or distinct from him, and other things

of this kind, which are wrapped in the greatest difficulties.

*. perhaps restored

*. Medina del Campo

§ IV. The opinion of those who suspect that St. Antoninus of Syrian Apamea and the Gallic one are the same is examined and confirmed.

[ ] [It is disputed whether St. Antoninus, patron of the people of Pamiers, is the same as the one of Apamea in Syria:] Philip Ferrari in the General Catalogue at

the 2nd of September announces St. Antoninus in these

words: In Syria, of St. Antoninus the martyr. Then

in his annotations he observes the following: He does not seem different

from him who is reported on this day in the Roman Martyrology

to have suffered at Pamiers in Aquitaine; and there are

those who think that for Pamiers in Gaul we should read Apamea in Syria.

For Usuard and the rest have Apamia,

not Pamia. Tillemont, vol. 4

of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 15 on St. Dionysius of Paris,

discusses that opinion of Ferrari, and so

turns it about that he seems to prefer it to all the rest,

as Baillet also does

at the 2nd of September, and finally our Sollerius, cited above,

at the IV day of July, in the treatise on St. Antoninus

of Piacenza, §3. Nevertheless none of them intended

to establish anything certain, and Sollerius in particular

referred a more exact examination of the matter to this place.

Wherefore we must accurately weigh what reasons,

and how solid, are found in favor of this opinion,

and whether they outweigh those which can be brought

to the contrary. I know that I undertake a hard

matter, and that neither opinion can be established

by arguments plainly evident and certain. Nevertheless

that examination must be undertaken according to our plan.

[32] Only a Syrian is announced in the ancient Martyrologies, not a Gaul; The first reason which suggests that St. Antoninus,

famous in Gaul and in Spain, is no other

than St. Antoninus the Syrian, of whom I treated in §1, is sought from

the ancient Martyrologies, in which St. Antoninus

of Gallic or Spanish Apamia is not known,

as I have already shown in that same place; where this reason was confirmed

by the fact that the present city of Pamiers

in the county of Foix did not yet exist when

Usuard, Ado, and the other older martyrologists

announced St. Antoninus at Apamia or near

Apamia. Usuard, therefore, could not,

nor Ado, nor Notker, nor the author of the Little Roman Martyrology,

designate a Gallic Apamia, which

was nowhere; but they designated Apamea in Syria.

Truly Rabanus at the 2nd of September thus

records Antoninus: In Syria, of Antoninus, a boy of

twenty years. It is not, therefore, to be doubted that others also

announced the Syrian, who were nearly contemporaries

of Rabanus, even though they expressed the elogium in a different manner,

following different Hieronymian codices,

or different fragments of certain Acts.

The learned writers of the History of Occitania, who

otherwise would have St. Antoninus the patron of the people of Pamiers

to be other than the Syrian, candidly acknowledge that in

all the said Martyrologies only one

St. Antoninus, the Syrian, is announced.

[33] who does not seem distinct from the Syrian: Of how great weight this reason is, hear in a few words.

On the same day on which St. Antoninus is announced at Apamia, or Apamea, in

Syria by Usuard, Ado,

and the other martyrologists cited, St. Antoninus

is venerated at Pamiers in Gaul. How strong a suspicion

these things bring in, that one and the same man is venerated

in both places, everyone will easily see.

Next, the monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni

was already known in the year 817, before Usuard,

Ado, Rabanus, and Notker composed

their Martyrologies. Who then would believe that Antoninus,

the patron of that monastery, was unknown to all of them

and altogether passed over? And yet,

unless he is the same as St. Antoninus the Syrian, his memory was omitted

not only by them, but by all the others also through

many succeeding centuries.

If anyone should wish to answer to this, that other

Saints also are not inscribed in the aforesaid Martyrologies,

concerning whose cult and country nevertheless it is established from other sources,

I shall freely confess that this is true of a few.

But thus it does not become likely that the same

befell St. Antoninus: for concerning him we have no

authentic monument by which he could certainly be attributed to a Gallic

place; nor does any city strive to claim him

for itself, save that one alone which did not exist at the time of his

martyrdom, and to which he can with no likelihood

be ascribed. How, I ask, could it have come to pass

that the Gauls as well as the Spaniards attributed the holy

Martyr to a city of which before the twelfth

century no traces are found, unless because they seem

to have had certain monuments from which

they learned that he was really crowned with martyrdom at Apamea,

or in its neighborhood; and they understood the Gallic Apamia

for the Syrian? This error could easily creep in,

and for other reasons also it is very

likely.

[34] We have seen that the Saint's cult in Gaul was begun

in the eighth or ninth century, the beginning of the cult in Gaul seems to be ascribed to a translation; when there existed the monastery

of St. Antoninus in the Noble Valley of the province of Rodez.

Before that time no monument concerning St. Antoninus

is found in Gaul, nor any word among Gallic

writers. Yet it is likely

that the Saint suffered under the heathen emperors,

or at any rate not long after, while idolatry

still flourished. What reason, then, can be given

why the name of a Saint who afterwards became so greatly renowned

should have been so obscure in Gaul for so many centuries,

especially since no occasion is known by which

he at length became renowned? The only cause, I think, is

that he was crowned with martyrdom far from Gaul,

and that in the seventh or eighth century the Saint's relics

were translated into Gaul. Thus the cult could have been begun,

and, miracles being added, the name gradually

rendered famous. Take, studious reader,

how in the Acts the occasion of the cult's beginning is reported

among the Rutheni, where the Saint's name became renowned earlier

than at Pamiers. Two things from that account,

fabulous though it be, we shall be able to gather; namely,

that the Antoninus who is venerated in the monastery

of his name among the Rutheni is not another, or at any rate was not

believed to be another, than he who is celebrated at Pamiers.

The other is that the beginning of the cult there

is ascribed to the translation of the head. For the Acts

in Labbe, vol. 1 of the Bibliotheca, p. 688,

run thus: It is therefore related by the opinion of many

that, when the head of the holy Martyr was cut off

by the executioners and most abominably thrown into the

whirlpool of the river, at once by angelic reception,

with Christ's help, it was placed in a small coffer,

and laid in a little boat made ready by angelic service for its receiving.

[35] Then at last, through long spaces of lands,

by the running waters of rivers, as in the fabulous Acts the translation of the head namely by the river

which is called the Areia, coming as far as the river Garonne,

which, flowing past, makes for the western

parts, swimming on continuously and finding another river

which is called the Tarn, falling into the Garonne,

by the Lord's assent

it at once halted in it *. Then, leaving off to run down to the western

parts, it swiftly sought the eastern

regions. Taking therefore a backward

course, it entered by the river Tarn into

the channel of the Aveyron. And so, by the disposing grace of Christ,

and with angelic guard ever attending, the little boat was led,

as is reported, in the likeness of two eagles white as

a ship. And now at last, happily hastening, it came to the place

destined for it. Which place indeed at that

time was called the NOBLE Valley, in which

valley finally was the dwelling of a certain great prince, who

was called Festus. Which dwelling, indeed, as is

relatively reported *, that same holy

martyr Antoninus, traversing that same region in preaching,

had asked of that prince Festus

for a habitation. And when the little boat had now come

to the shore of the river, it happened that one of the servants of the aforesaid

prince wished to come to the place

of the shore. Approaching, therefore, he beheld the little boat

from afar, and in it he looked upon the head of Antoninus

the martyr, and having called together the rest of his fellow servants,

and the miracle having been seen by all, he hastened

to announce it to his lord as quickly as possible.

[36] the beginning of the veneration among the Rutheni is attributed. And when that same prince, already named

Festus, had come to the place, greatly marveling,

he understood, by the inspiring grace of the Godhead, that the head

of Antoninus the martyr was present, destined for him, and calling to mind

the petition which the aforesaid holy

Martyr had formerly made to him, at length returning

to his own conscience, he said to all who

were with him: Do you perceive, said he, the great

mystery of God? For while he was yet alive, he had sought

a dwelling from me; now, crowned in heaven

by God's disposing, the precious Martyr claims it for himself.

Then, therefore, he removed his dwelling

from that place; and dedicating a church, he placed in it

the head of the most glorious Martyr with great veneration,

giving thanks and praising God,

and blessing the Lord. These things are reported in the same manner

in the Acts published by Chifflet and in the Mss.;

nor can it be doubted that they are wholly fabulous

and fictitious.

[37] [The tradition of the Gauls is that the Saint is of Apamea, but that tradition was gradually corrupted,] Further, from that fabulous history of the translation

of the head it is also gathered what the opinion of the people of Rodez

concerning St. Antoninus was. Truly they did not think

that the Saint had suffered in their own province, or

in the neighboring one of Cahors, but they acknowledged that his head

had been brought to them from elsewhere; and since they were not sufficiently instructed

concerning his translation, they had recourse to the fables just

reported, that they might explain in what

way through the various rivers falling into the Garonne that sacred

deposit could have been carried from the city of Apamea to a monastery

of the province of Rodez.

The opinion, therefore, of the Writers of the History of Occitania,

who take St. Antoninus away from Pamiers in order

to attribute him to Rodez, Cahors, or some other

province of Aquitaine, seems contrary to the tradition

which for many centuries has ascribed St. Antoninus to Apamea,

but in such a way that gradually for the Syrian Apamea

there was substituted the Gallic city of the same name,

Apamia.

[38] as is also proved from the Acts, The Acts themselves, fabulous though they be, favor

this opinion of a single Antoninus of Apamea,

even if at the end they contain the contrary opinion.

For at the beginning they assign the Saint's native city in these words

in Labbe and elsewhere: Now the most reverend

boy Antoninus was born in the town of Appamia.

The Ms. of the Queen of Sweden: And so the Saint

to be remembered, Antoninus, born at Apamia,

etc. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. 13, ch. 35, from his acts,

has thus: Saint Antoninus, born in the town of Apamea,

etc. All the Acts, in short, attribute the Saint to Apamia

or Apamea, and assert that he was crowned with martyrdom at Apamia

or near Apamia.

Yet it is certain that Pamiers in Gaul

was founded many centuries after St. Antoninus. Shall we

then judge that what is read of that place in all the Acts,

even the briefer and less openly fabulous ones, is wholly fictitious?

I should hardly let myself be persuaded of that.

But I should prefer to suspect that the place

of the martyrdom was received from more ancient monuments,

namely from those very ones from which the ancient martyrologists

announced Antoninus at Apamea;

but that afterwards, through added fictions, it came about

that the place was believed to be in Gaul which was

in Syria.

[39] Various things there are which make this suspicion of mine

likely. from Vincent of Beauvais and Peter de Natalibus: In the first place, the said Vincent of Beauvais,

who probably had Acts older than Gallic Pamiers,

adduces no word

by which he suggests that the Saint suffered in Gaul,

but rather designates Apamea of Syria: for the place

of the martyrdom he calls Apamea, as the city of Syria on the river Orontes

was really named, by others

Apamia, and in Greek Ἀπάμεια. But the Gallic one was commonly

at that time called the castrum of Apamia, or Apamia,

Apamiæ, or Pamia. Certainly the editors of the Speculum

Historiale understood the place of Apamea of Syria,

since in the margin they added this little note

from Baronius: St. Antoninus suffered not at Apamea,

as Vincent and many others have supposed,

but at Pamiers near Toulouse, etc. Peter de Natalibus,

bk. 8, ch. 24, likewise brings forward nothing by which

the city of Pamiers in Gaul must be understood. Hence

I gather that those Gallic rivers, by which the city of Apamia

would seem to be attributed to Gaul, were added to the Acts

after the times of Vincent of Beauvais,

since he would doubtless have named them if they had then

been found in the Acts: for he narrates the whole Acts, even

the translation of the head, a little more briefly, and says that the Saint

was slain on the bank of the river running down at the roots

of Apamea. But later writers added

the name not only of this river, but of others also,

through which they fabled that the head was carried by angels in a skiff.

Since, therefore, those names of rivers alone designate

the Gallic Pamiers, and that for a time in which

they did not exist; while all the other things

which are read in the Labbean Acts and others like them

can rightly be understood of Apamea

of Syria, it is credible that Apamea became known from ancient monuments,

and that the Syrian Apamea is to be understood.

[40] This conjecture is favored by the fact that in the said

Acts there are various things [The Acts of the Gaul and of the Syrian agree in many points: he therefore seems to be one,] which fit St. Antoninus the Syrian.

For he is said to have gone forth from his native place

and afterwards to have returned to it: he is related to have rebuked

the errors of the heathen, and by them to have been seized

and cut limb from limb. But all these things

are also reported by the Greeks of St. Antoninus the Syrian.

I confess indeed that more things are narrated of Antoninus

in the Latin Acts than are reported in the Greek

Menologies. But from that it does not follow that different men

are treated of, since the Greeks could omit many things in

the Menologies, and the Latins invent many. The most fabulous Acts of all,

which make St. Antoninus the son

of a king of Apamia, also contain the facts just reported,

but mingled with insipid fables. One thing therefore

remains, namely that we should show that it is not

improbable that the body of St. Antoninus the Syrian was translated

into Gaul, and thence conclude that our opinion

is the more probable in proportion as all the opinions

of others concerning the time at which St. Antoninus

is said to have suffered in Gaul appear the more improbable.

And that these are improbable I shall show, as soon as I have proved the translation

to be likely.

[41] whose relics may have been carried into Gaul with other relics from Apamea. The Sainte-Marthe brothers, in vol. 2 of the Gallia Christiana,

p. 161, have this to our purpose:

The chief patron of the church (of Pamiers) and of the city

is saint Antoninus, … whose

martyrdom the city itself, as also the cathedral chapter,

bears in place of arms: with whom are celebrated

saints John and Almachius, companions of Antoninus

in preaching and in his passion, and a continual

commemoration of them is made in the divine office, as also

of Caius and Alexander, martyrs of Apamea in Syria,

whose sacred relics had been carried thence to Pamiers in Narbonese

Gaul, on a certain sacred expedition, by one

of the counts of Foix, and enclosed in silver caskets

adorned with gems, and placed in the aforesaid church of B.

Mary of the Field; but the caskets

having been plundered, the relics were burned with fire by the heretics, as

also those of saint Antoninus and his Companions, and likewise of saint

Natalia, virgin and martyr of Pamiers.

We see here that the relics of the saints

Caius and Alexander, as also of St. Natalia,

martyrs of Apamea in Syria, were equally preserved

at Pamiers, as was the body of St. Antoninus. Why then

should we not believe that these four bodies were carried into Gaul

at the same time? Truly the translation of the body of St. Antoninus

was no more difficult than that of the others,

and the reasons which persuade us that he is the same

as St. Antoninus the Syrian are so various that

they ought to prevail over the popular and fabulous traditions

of the people of Pamiers, who attribute

that Saint to their own city.

*. in the Ms., "somewhat"

*. in Labbe, "and"

§ V. An answer is made to the arguments brought against our opinion in the History of Occitania.

[ ] The first objection against the translation of the body from Syria, The said writers of the History of Occitania, who

have drawn the controversy elsewhere, as I have already noted,

contend that the translation of St. Antoninus is not

likely on our opinion, and they

speak thus in vol. 1, p. 623: In truth it is in no way

likely that the body of St. Antoninus the martyr

of Apamea was translated into Gaul in the fifth

or sixth century, as the Bollandists suggest (namely Sollerius,

in the eighth. For if in Gaul we have relics

brought from the East, these were scarcely brought except

from the time of the expeditions of the crusaders, when

the lords who had set out on those expeditions brought

some back on their return, after they had received them

from cities wrested from the dominion of the infidels, or

in another way. And presently they subjoin that the bodies of the saints

Caius, Alexander, and Natalia, martyrs, were

brought from Apamea of Syria into Gaul by Roger,

count of Foix, while he was returning

from the first expedition of the crusaders. But,

they say, since these relics were not translated

to the abbey of Frédelas until the end

of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, and since we have already shown

that the relics of a certain saint Antoninus were long before

honored in the monastery of this name

in the province of Rodez, these things give us cause

to think that there was in the Gauls some saint

Antoninus, a martyr, distinct from the one of Apamea

in Syria. This is the chief argument

which the said writers use to prove that St.

Antoninus suffered in Gaul, yet in such a way that

they leave the place of the martyrdom uncertain, and depart

from the tradition of the people of Pamiers, who would have the Saint

to have suffered in their own city.

[43] I confess that this conclusion is so prettily drawn

that at first sight I doubted whose antecedent proposition is neither proved nor true, whether I ought not

to assent to it. But, having diligently discussed

the antecedents, I find many things asserted without proof,

so that the conclusion necessarily totters.

A translation in the fifth, sixth, indeed also the eighth, and consequently

also the tenth century is in no way likely to the said

writers. What then? Did not St. Radegund

in the sixth century receive relics from the East,

and indeed from different places? Let us hear her Life,

written by Baudonivia, a contemporary nun, in our work,

vol. III of August, p. 79: At length there came

to her (St. Radegund) word concerning the lord Mammes

the martyr, that his holy limbs rested at Jerusalem.

Hearing this, … she sent the venerable

man Reoval the priest, who

was then a layman, and still survives in the body,

to the patriarch of Jerusalem, asking for

a pledge of blessed Mammes. And this priest,

on his return, brought her, as is more fully related, a finger of St. Mammes.

In the same Life it is presently related that St.

Radegund sent messengers with letters of commendation

from King Sigebert to the emperor Justin,

that she might ask of him a part of the Lord's Cross and other

relics of the Saints. The holy queen obtained

the relics she asked, on the testimony not only of this Life,

but also of Gregory of Tours and Venantius

Fortunatus, whose words are recited in the same place in the

Preliminary Commentary, §5. Hence the said Baudonivia,

enumerating several others, speaks thus in general

of the relics collected by St. Radegund:

After she had entered the monastery, how great

a multitude of the Saints did she gather by most faithful prayers!

To this the East bears witness, the North, the South,

and the West declare it: for from every side precious

gems, laid up in heaven, and such as paradise

possesses, she in her devotion obtained for herself, as much by gifts

as by prayers. This example of St. Radegund alone

can suffice for us to judge that not a few

relics were brought from the East into Gaul before

the sacred expeditions begun at the end of the eleventh century.

[44] Nevertheless there would be no lack of other examples

of relics translated in those times from the East

into Gaul, but rather contrary to certain facts, if it were necessary to heap them up in this place

both from the Acts of the Saints and from elsewhere.

Baronius in the Annals at the year 637, n. 1,

prudently observes that most of the relics of Eastern Saints

which we have in the West

were translated after Egypt and Syria and other neighboring provinces

were occupied by the infidels.

For, having reported the storming of Antioch by the Saracens,

he subjoins this: Plainly in these times, in which,

whether earlier by the Persians or later by the Arabs,

that is by the Mahometans and Saracens, the most noble

cities of the East, Alexandria, Jerusalem,

and Antioch, were captured, together with the regions

subject to them, it came about that, whether by inhabitants migrating

to the West, or by merchants safely dealing

with those same heathens, or by other

faithful Christians taking care of the matter, very many

bodies of saints, both martyrs and confessors,

were translated to the West, and

placed in diverse places, whether at Rome, at Venice,

or elsewhere. That the venerable relics of Ignatius the martyr were then translated

from Antioch to Rome, constant report and old tradition

rather than writings signify. Which is likewise to be said

of very many other relics of the Saints, which,

brought from the East, diverse places of the Western world

keep. Thus far Baronius, and rightly.

[45] it is utterly overthrown: Now from these things it becomes not only likely

that certain relics of the Saints were translated from the East

into Gaul in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries; but also,

from the time of the occupation of Antioch by the Saracens,

under which Apamea lay, it appears little

likely that the bodies of SS. Caius, Alexander, and Natalia

were translated thence about the end of the eleventh century, as

the said writers would have it, but without adequate proof.

For, since that whole province remained under the dominion

of the Saracens from that time until

nearly the end of the eleventh century, who would readily believe

that so many sacred bodies were preserved there for four centuries and a half

under the tyranny of the Mahometans,

and at last carried off, when they might have been more safely preserved

under a Christian prince? Nay rather, it seems to me more likely that these sacred

bodies did not remain at Apamea even

until the year 637:

for Apamea, on the testimony of Evagrius, bk. 5, ch. 10,

was taken by Adaarmanes under Chosroes, king

of the Persians. And having taken it, Adaarmanes burned it entirely,

and, having plundered all its goods contrary to the faith given,

departed, leading away all the citizens and their neighbors

as captives: among whom he carried off with him

the bishop of the city himself, and him to whom the administration

of the province had been committed. Pagi refers the storming

of the city to the year 573, n. 7. All these things persuade us that the aforesaid sacred

bodies did not remain at Apamea until the sacred

expeditions. And so the tradition reported by the Sainte-Marthes

concerning the bodies translated by one of the counts

of Foix can have little authority, and

seems to be attributable to conjecture. Certainly that tradition,

if it were true, would not yet prove that it was done

by Roger, who perhaps was never at Apamea.

That whole argument, therefore, falls,

and it remains likely that the body of St. Antoninus

was brought into Gaul together with the bodies of the other saints of Apamea

after Apamea was laid waste.

[46] the second objection adduces the authority of those who favor our opinion: The said writers, the argument now refuted,

subjoin the authority of Vincent of Beauvais

and of St. Antoninus, whom they believe to favor them.

The Acts also, though they confess them fabulous, or at least

very greatly interpolated, they assert to favor their opinion

the more, in proportion as they agree with one another

in this one article, which they call conformable to ancient tradition.

But I have already shown that Vincent of Beauvais,

with whom St. Antoninus, title 8, ch. 1, §42,

wholly agrees, as does Peter de Natalibus,

altogether favors my opinion, since none of them

so much as by a word suggests that the Saint suffered in

Gaul, but they write that he suffered at Apamea, which

was not then in Gaul, as is agreed between us. And the Acts

support this opinion the more, in proportion

as they conspire with the said writers

for Apamea as the Saint's arena, and for the other deeds reported

in the same manner by all. The names of the rivers alone,

afterwards added to the Acts, suggest Gaul,

and nothing else in the Acts from which you might gather

that the Saint is to be ascribed to Gaul. This whole

proof of the authors of the History of Aquitaine is therefore more rightly

adduced for us, since they themselves would have the Saint

not to have been crowned with martyrdom at Pamiers in the county

of Foix; and yet Apamia or Apamea

is assigned by a wonderful consent of all, so that it must be sought

in Syria. Nor does tradition even favor them:

for that has it that the Saint suffered at Apamia,

not in another place of Gaul. And who does not understand

that error could more easily arise in places of the same name

than in places of a different name, and thus

that Gallic Apamia could more easily be substituted for

Syrian Apamea than any other city whatever.

[47] At last the said writers adduce some

Martyrologies not very old. an answer is made to the third objection, In

the Martyrology of Centula, or of St. Riquier, written

probably in the fourteenth century, this is read: In Gaul,

in the territory of Catercum (of Cahors, I suppose),

of saint Antoninus, priest and martyr. On the same

day, of another saint Antoninus, a boy, martyr. On

this the learned men observe the following: That Martyrology

reckons on the 2nd of September a certain saint

Antoninus, priest and martyr, in the territory

of Cahors, distinct from the Syrian, whom it calls a boy,

and whom it commemorates on the same day. I ask,

whence did the compiler of that Martyrology draw this?

From the Acts? From the Hieronymian transcripts?

From Usuard, who commemorated the one on the same

day and the other on the following, and whom

he wrongly corrected? Whatever the case, that writer is too

recent for us to believe on his authority alone

that some Antoninus was crowned with martyrdom

in the territory of Cahors. Truly I should believe that by that

martyrologist St. Antoninus was ascribed to the territory of Cahors

because he believed that the same Saint's monastery,

in which he is venerated, belonged to the said territory,

to which in fact it is neighboring. And I should think that two were reckoned

by this writer and by others because in the Hieronymian transcripts

he is now called a boy, now a martyr,

whom others adorned with the title of priest from the Acts:

for the Acts themselves call him a boy at the beginning,

and afterwards assert him a priest; nor does it seem doubtful

that those titles were derived from the Acts. Nothing,

therefore, does the authority of that martyrology contribute to the matter.

[48] Nor can the Victorine codex, that is, of St. Victor at Paris,

avail more, as also the fourth, which is various, in which it is thus read

in Sollerius on Usuard at the 2nd of September:

In the city of Brugdunum, the passion of St. Antoninus the levite,

with John the priest and Almachius the boy. By no means, I say,

more solidly do the learned adversaries infer from these words

that this Antoninus is other than

St. Antoninus the Syrian. Nevertheless I subjoin their whole reasoning:

But this Antoninus must be

the Aquitanian, because in the church of Pamiers * there were venerated

the relics of two of his companions, John

and Almachius, whom no one assigns as companions to St.

Antoninus of Apamea. Hence it is clear that the new Roman

Martyrology, into which Cardinal Baronius inserted at

the 2nd of September: "At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus

the martyr, etc.", is not the first Martyrology

which records a certain saint

Antoninus in the Gauls. The said Cardinal, however,

erred in the place of the martyrdom. Thus far they, who

add to this only that the Saint's cult in Gaul and Spain is ancient,

and especially in Aquitaine

and Auvergne, and would have it that it would not have come about

that this cult should be so widely extended, unless

the Saint had suffered in Gaul. But as regards

the cult, it could have had its origin from the relics

carried into Gaul, as happened in Spain;

nor was the cult of St. Antoninus ever

so widely extended through Gaul that from it the place

of the martyrdom could probably be inferred. It is more rightly gathered from a cult

begun late that the Saint did not in fact die

in Gaul.

[49] But now I could wish that the learned writers had explained

where in the Gauls that city of Brugdunum is, and too vague,

to which the Victorine Martyrology attributes

St. Antoninus the levite with his companions John

and Almachius. This Antoninus, they say, must

be the Aquitanian. In what part of Aquitaine, then,

is that city of Brugdunum? That surely ought to have been set forth

before a determinate region should be inferred from a city

wholly unknown. But they say that his companions

John and Almachius are attributed by no one

to Antoninus the Syrian. I answer that those companions are wrongly

attributed to St. Antoninus, just as in the Martyrology of St.

Savin of Levitania, Anicetus and Formus are wrongly joined

with St. Antoninus, who elsewhere is more rightly

Photinus. Moreover, if the learned men had seen the source from which

this martyrologist drew his trifles,

they would have altogether abstained from this argument.

That martyrologist produced a new arena for the Saint, new companions

of martyrdom, a new title of levite, that is, of deacon,

and all from the same source, namely from the most

fabulous Acts, of which I have a transcript

from the Rebdorf codex. These agree

in many things with the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître and with the Acts

which Bertrand followed, but in various points also

they disagree with all of them.

[50] and which flowed from a most impure source, Take a few things as a specimen. They say that Antoninus

was born in the town of Apamia of Toulouse …

in the times of King Pippin and of Theodoric, whose

nephew also he was. Having set out for the thresholds of the Apostles,

… he went on to the city of Salerno, where in the desert

he dwelt for eighteen continuous years.

Then came King Pippin with the holy bishop Helenus …

into the city of Rome to take the empire for himself.

He, having sent for Antoninus, brought him back with him

into the city of Brucdunum. Thence Antoninus went on

into the region of Movitum with the aforesaid

bishop Helenus. And when Antoninus had returned,

King Theodoric wished to make him bishop of Toulouse;

various monasteries too desired him as their abbot.

But he, refusing both dignities, was at last with difficulty

overcome by prayers to this, that he should take

the honor of the diaconate. After

this he was shut up in prison by Theodoric, where he was fed by an angel,

and refreshed by a certain boy

Almachius. Almachius, having been found in the prison,

was, at the king's command, cast down from a height by the guards.

But the boy, protected by an angel, unharmed presently

began to preach. Not long after, Theodoric having been slain

by Pippin in battle, Galatianus (elsewhere

Gerlacius), a king, assails Antoninus with various torments,

that he may renounce the faith, but he could neither be killed by boiling

lead nor suffocated by water: Then

pious peoples snatched blessed Antoninus thence from

the hand of King Galatianus, and sent him into the city

of Frigdela, where he found his boy Almachius. …

And they remained together in the place which is called

Orientalis, … for numberless days.

[51] namely, from the most fabulous Acts of all. Then there came to them, an angel admonishing him,

John the priest. And not long after they were all captured

and led before the sight of King Metopius. Their faith

having been tempted in vain, they are led

to the bank of a certain river, where the executioner,

seizing a sword, divided saint Antoninus limb from limb into two parts

from the shoulder, right and left,

so that the head and the right arm remained in one

part, but the body and the left, that is,

the left hand, lay in the other part. But Almachius

and John the priest … completed a glorious martyrdom

by the striking off of the head. Then

the bodies, by order of Effrasia, who was the most pagan

niece of King Metopius, were cast into the river. But the head,

by the ministry of angels, is written to have been carried through the Areia *

and other rivers to the place

which is called the Noble Valley, in such a way that from these things

the place of the martyrdom would have to be set near the Pamiers of today. Finally

the bodies of the three Martyrs are said to have been buried

in the city of Frigdela, and there afterwards

they built a great church. All these things, moreover,

are so embellished with many miracles, apparitions, and other

fictitious additions that those Acts

deserve no credit whatever; nor does

that martyrologist deserve more, who from them imprudently transcribed

the city of Brugdunum, the office of deacon, and two companions

of the martyrdom.

[52] Furthermore, those companions John and Almachius are also joined

with St. Antoninus in the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître, [John and Almachius, who by some are given as companions to Antoninus, prove nothing:]

and in Bertrand; but those Acts are in no way

better, since they contain the same fables,

except for those unknown cities, and a few other things,

for which they have other fictions equally manifest. Gonon

too, in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, p.

256, records John and Almachius with St. Antoninus,

but from the same Acts, which he gives in summary,

certain anachronisms and the more open fables

being omitted. Spondanus too briefly touched on the same things

at the year 1295, n. 12.

But that there were relics of SS. John and

Almachius at Pamiers I do not deny. Yet neither can it thence be inferred

that these Saints suffered with St. Antoninus,

and much less that St. Antoninus died in

Gaul: for we do not know whether the relics of those two

were brought to Pamiers together with the relics of St.

Antoninus, or separately. We do not know whether they were brought thither

from another part of Gaul, or from elsewhere. And so

from the relics of John and Almachius once preserved in the city of Pamiers

nothing more fitting can be concluded

than that these gave occasion to more recent fabulists

to invent that those Saints

were St. Antoninus's companions in martyrdom. Wherefore

the relics of Pamiers avail no more toward

St. Antoninus's being attributed to Gaul than do the Martyrologies

of obscure name adduced. But what is said

of the Roman Martyrology has little to do with the matter,

unless perhaps the learned men wished to contradict

Sollerius, who at n. 6 had said that Baronius

was without doubt led by more recent writers,

Maurolico, Felicius, and Galesinius, To mark at the 11th of September

"At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus

the martyr", the other, the Syrian of Apamea, being plainly neglected

and passed over. This certainly he could not have drawn from the ancient,

nay from any classical Martyrology at all.

But these words rather confirm our view, since

they agree that he is not rightly announced at Pamiers in Gaul,

and since they acknowledge the Syrian of Apamea.

[53] More openly the same writers censure Sollerius

at p. 622, an answer is made to certain other because he had called Aquitanian St.

Antoninus, whom the Gauls of Pamiers claim for themselves.

It is worth hearing the censure: Wherefore,

they say, the Bollandists erred when, supposing

that St. Antoninus underwent martyrdom

at Pamiers in Gaul, they make the martyr an Aquitanian:

for the territory of Toulouse constituted part

of Narbonese Gaul. The said historiographers might have omitted this correction,

since it was useless

for claiming St. Antoninus for Gaul, which was the one thing

they were about there. Nay rather, it ought altogether to have been omitted,

since Sollerius spoke rightly, who was not

ignorant that Toulouse is in Narbonese Gaul:

for already at n. 2 he had spoken of Antoninus in

Narbonese Gaul; but the same Sollerius was not ignorant

that the First Narbonese itself, in which is

the district of Toulouse, was once part of Aquitaine taken

generally. Nay rather, the said writers themselves often acknowledge this in their

History. Why then

was it not permitted to Sollerius to name St. Antoninus, if he suffered

at Pamiers, an Aquitanian, just as he sometimes

called him an Occitanian, and more often a Gaul? Certainly

even at this time, in ecclesiastical matters, whatever

lies between the Ocean, the Pyrenees, the Rhône, and

the Loire is by received usage named Aquitaine.

[54] There is no need to answer at length the observation

which the same historiographers made

on the words of Adémar of Chabannes: observations of the same writers. St. Leonard

in the Limousin, and St. Antoninus the martyr in

the Quercy, began to flash with miracles; from

which they strive to infer that St. Antoninus, in the opinion

of Adémar, suffered in the province of Cahors,

Because, they say, he joins him with St. Leonard,

who was a Saint of that very place, and who certainly

died in the territory of Limoges. This observation proves nothing more

than that the said writers

omitted nothing which they believed would help

toward claiming St. Antoninus for Gaul.

I do not grudge him to the Gauls, but according to our plan

I inquire what seems to be true. For the rest,

before I depart from this, two things are to be observed.

The first is that neither Tillemont nor Sollerius

inclined to that opinion, so as to suspect

that no Antoninus at all should be adjudged to Gaul,

but that they treated only of him

who is venerated at Pamiers, so that the recent editors of the Occitanian History

did not properly refute them,

but rather changed the state of the question, when

they tried to prove that the Saint suffered in another

place of Gaul. The other is that in vol. 2, p. 358,

they assert that relics of the Saints of Apamea in Syria were brought

by Roger II, count of Foix, and

perhaps also of St. Antoninus, the martyr of that city,

whereby it came about, they say, that this Saint

was confounded with St. Antoninus the Aquitanian martyr,

and ancient patron of the abbey of Frédelas.

But no one hitherto has sufficiently known an Aquitanian

Antoninus distinct from the one of Apamea; and all the Acts

affirm that the head of the same Antoninus was in

the monastery among the Rutheni, whose body was at Pamiers,

and some relics in Spain. Besides,

I have already observed that that translation is attributed to Roger

without proof, and without much likelihood.

*. of Pamiers

*. the Ariège

§ VI. The opinions of certain men who believed that St. Antoninus suffered at Pamiers in Gaul are examined.

[ ] [Chifflet would have St. Antoninus of Apamea to have been a companion of St. Dionysius,] Peter Francis Chifflet in his Dissertation

on the one Dionysius, where he published the Acts of St. Antoninus

the martyr, judges that St. Antoninus was a companion

of St. Dionysius of Paris, whom he believes to be the same

as the Areopagite. From this opinion, if it were

true, it would follow that St. Antoninus suffered in

Gaul in the second century. And Chifflet strives to prove his opinion

from various writers, whom

he alleges in his Dissertation. Hear his words

at p. 145: Since all these epochs (of others concerning the age

of St. Antoninus) rest upon no foundation,

nor are so much as lightly touched upon by the writer of his Life,

it is easy, these being rejected, to think Antoninus

the martyr a disciple of St. Dionysius, whom

he sent from the port of Arles into Aquitaine,

as an anonymous Greek cited by Methodius testifies,

and Methodius himself, and Anastasius the translator of Methodius,

and Hincmar of Reims, openly distinguishing two Antonini,

the elder and the younger;

since Appamia is situated in the province of Toulouse in Aquitaine;

nor is it known what became of that Antoninus,

the disciple of St. Dionysius, unless he is Antoninus

of Appamia, famous for the preaching of the Gospel, for martyrdom,

and for miracles. The whole reasoning comes

to this. There was some Antoninus, a companion of St. Dionysius,

or even two of the same name. This one, or

one of the two, was sent into Aquitaine to preach

the Gospel. But it is not likely that he

lacks all cult and is wholly unknown. And so

it is credible that this Antoninus is the martyr

of Apamia, in whose Life nothing is found

which is repugnant to that conjecture.

[56] I would not here deny that there was some holy

Antoninus among the companions of St. Dionysius of Paris, [to whom he attributes two Antonini as companions, from a letter falsely ascribed to Hincmar, and enlarged at the end:]

and whether he is the Areopagite will be examined in its own place.

Certainly the said Methodius, in Chifflet, p.

21, has concerning Dionysius that he came to the port of Arles,

from which, he says, he sends Marcellus to Spain,

Antoninus into Aquitaine, to sow

and to strengthen the word. But this Antoninus

the people of Meaux claim for themselves, and have venerated him

for many centuries, formerly indeed with a semidouble Office,

but now with a simple commemoration at

the XXX of September, as may be seen in the History of the church of Meaux

by Toussaint du Plessis, vol. 1, p. 7,

and more fully in note 5, pp. 621 and 622. Chifflet readily agrees

that Antoninus the companion of Dionysius is to be attributed

to the people of Meaux, but at p. 97 he speaks thus

for his own opinion: Hincmar of Reims in his letter

to Charles the Bald commemorates two Antonini, disciples of saint

Dionysius; the one, the elder,

sent by him into Aquitaine; the other,

the younger, who betook himself to Rome to Pope Anacletus

with Sanctinus, whose successor also he was in the bishopric

of Meaux. Now the Antoninus sent by

St. Dionysius into Aquitaine (as far as I can attain

by conjecture) is himself the patron and martyr

of the people of Pamiers. But that letter does not seem

to be Hincmar's. Hear the Benedictine writers

of the Literary History of France, vol. 5, p. 577, in the article on

Hincmar, where they speak thus of the said letter:

But the learned are today persuaded that this

letter is spurious. Then they observe that

the letter ends with those words it shines forth the more brightly

into the light, as it was published in Mabillon, vol.

1 of the Analecta, p. 59, and vol. 3 of the Annals,

p. 198: but the rest which follows in

Surius at the IX of October was added by some other man.

And so, since the letter is neither Hincmar's nor

has anything about the Antonini, that second

Antoninus rests only on a fabulous history which

has been added to the said letter, and deserves no credit.

[57] Nothing, therefore, can be inferred from that letter for two

Antonini; but his opinion lacks a fit foundation, and on other grounds too is not likely. nor anything from the mission

of Antoninus into Aquitaine, even if that mission,

which rests on an uncertain foundation, were plainly certain

and undoubted, since from Aquitaine the same man

could have withdrawn to Meaux. Wherefore the Chiffletian opinion

lacks a fit foundation, nor has it any

likeness of truth drawn from the Acts of St. Antoninus.

Chifflet himself had seen this, and therefore he tries to dissolve

that argument at p. 146 in these

words: Nor indeed let it cause a scruple that the author of this

History (who used no mark of time by which either

his own age or the century of the Antoninus of whom he writes

could be recognized) makes no

mention of Dionysius, by whom he was sent;

nay, asserts that he was born at Appamia. For nothing

forbids that

Antoninus, born at Appamia, and having set out abroad to seek

teachers of the true faith, or to catch an occasion of martyrdom

(as his Life has it),

met Dionysius or his companions,

and, being imbued by them with the more sacred mysteries and

initiated into the priesthood, returned to Appamia, that from the place whence

he had been brought forth into mortal life he might thence be born

into the heavenly country. But these things

contradict one another: for if he was born at Pamiers, if in

the port of Arles he met Dionysius,

how was he presently so perfectly instructed that from

the port of Arles he was sent into Aquitaine to preach

the Gospel? Next, by whom had he been instructed

in the Christian faith, so that already before the coming

of Dionysius the Areopagite, as Chifflet would have it,

he left his country for love of martyrdom? Add to these

what we have often said already, that Pamiers at that time

did not exist in Gaul, and you will not doubt that

Chifflet's opinion is altogether to be rejected.

[58] [Gonon would have the Saint flourish in the fifth century, and embraces many fables;] Gonon, in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, bk.

4, pp. 256 and 257, attributes other deeds to St. Antoninus,

and a very different age. For he would have him

to have been the son of Fredelasius, king of Apamea, and to have flourished

about the year of the Lord CDXLIX in the time of Meroveus,

king of the Gauls, and that his uncle also was

Theodoric, king of Toulouse. And he says that this man

was that king of the Visigoths who perished in

war, when he was bringing aid to Attila, king of the Huns, in the Champagne

of Gaul against Meroveus, king of the Franks,

who slew him. (In the year 451

Theodoric fought against Attila together with Aetius,

the Roman commander, and Meroveus, king of the Franks,

and did not bring aid to Attila, as is wrongly said.)

Finally he ascribes Antoninus to the Order of Hermits

of St. Augustine, and asserts that he was a martyr

under the pagan king Galeatius and Metropius. All things

here are equally confused and false. For Fredelasius,

king of Pamiers, is unknown and doubtless fictitious,

since Pamiers itself did not exist, nor is any

king of Pamiers known among the ancient writers.

No better known, I suppose, was at that time

in Gaul the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. Fictitious

likewise is King Galeatius, who is said to have succeeded

Theodoric, as also Metropius, or Methopius:

for Theodoric being slain, his son Thorismund succeeded,

and him Theodoric II. Finally

this whole epoch is invented, since in

the fabulous Acts, from which all things are drawn,

Pippin and St. Ouen occur, so that he who contends

to defend those most fabulous Acts must

necessarily look to the seventh or eighth century.

[59] The Sainte-Marthes confound St. Antoninus of Apamea with the one of Lucca: The Sainte-Marthes, in vol. 2 of the Gallia Christiana,

p. 157, narrate the deeds of St. Antoninus in almost the same manner

as I have said they were reported by Gonon, though some fables

are omitted. But these men add some things concerning

his cult in Italy, which are to be discussed in this place:

He visited, they say, many sacred places, dwelt in various

deserts, and after having traversed for a long time,

and made illustrious by miracles, the whole surrounding region,

he came to the city of Rome, whither he was brought, and to the rest

of Italy, where his memory is still notable

in the town of Castelnuovo, about twelve miles

distant from Rome, where as chief patron

both of the place and of the church he is venerated with great religion and veneration,

etc. And with some things interposed they thus

continue: And the neighboring peoples themselves frequent with great veneration

a church by a certain wood

nearest to Castelnuovo, where he dwelt for a long time,

painted with the miracles of the said Saint. It is not sufficiently

clear to me what town the said writers meant to designate

by Castelnuovo, or Castrum Novum,

since various places of that name are found

in Etruria. I scarcely doubt that it is further

distant from Rome than twelve miles. But

whatever be the case as to the site of the place, I in no way doubt

that the Antoninus who is patron there is another.

Certainly our Predecessors treated at the XXVII of April of

St. Antonius, priest and hermit, who is commonly called Antoninus,

and who is venerated at Lucca, at Siena, and in other

places of Italy. Him, I suppose, the inhabitants

of Castelnuovo have as patron. But whether that be

Castelnuovo of Siena, or of Volterra, or

another in Etruria; or perhaps the place which in various

maps is called St. Antonius, and is marked on the boundary

of the territory of Siena, I cannot hitherto affirm.

Finally, from these things it is likely that certain

deeds of this Antoninus also, priest and hermit,

have been attributed to St. Antoninus of Apamea. Such may

seem the eremitic life, the priesthood, and

the Italian journey, which are ascribed to St. Antoninus of Apamea

in the Acts with little likelihood.

[60] The last opinion is that of those who connect St. Antoninus

with King Pippin, [the opinion of others, who would have the Saint flourish in the eighth century, is also improbable.] and with the eighth

century. If that opinion were supported by better Acts,

it could more easily be reconciled with the beginning of the cult in Gaul

and in Spain. But those Acts swarm with so many

anachronisms and fables, as I have already

indicated, that both the epoch and the whole opinion which

rests on so ruinous a foundation must be rejected.

There is added that not even at that time had

Gallic Pamiers been founded, to which the birth

and death of the Saint are attributed. Besides, that opinion

is rendered wholly unlikely if we consider

that the chief martyrologists were near to those times,

and that by them St. Antoninus is announced

at Apamea in Syria, as we have proved. And so, since

all the opinions which ascribe St. Antoninus

to Gallic Pamiers appear altogether improbable,

and the learned writers of the History of Occitania acknowledge this

with us; and since also all

the Acts, the chief martyrologists, and the tradition of many centuries

assert that the Saint was born at Apamea,

and there or near it suffered; nothing

seems to remain but that we should judge that Apamea

in Syria is to be understood, for which by an easy error

the Gallic one was substituted in later centuries, because

the relics had been brought thither, and the cult there long since

begun.

[61] Nevertheless I do not therefore contend that there is no

St. Antoninus in Gaul, [The conclusion of the Commentary, and a notice concerning the Acts to be published.] nor have I refuted with any other intention

the reasons alleged by the writers of the History

of Occitania than that I might show that St. Antoninus,

who is venerated at Pamiers, is probably not a Gaul,

as they were endeavoring to prove. If there is another

Antoninus at Meaux, another in Auvergne, others in other

places of Gaul, of these I do not here dispute. If he too

who is venerated among the Rutheni can be proved

distinct from the one of Apamea, of him again other questions

may be asked. For the rest, what we have disputed for the sake

of investigating the truth we shall gladly abandon or correct,

if anyone shall be able to find things more certain

and better concerning St. Antoninus. But now, all

the more prolix Acts being set aside, I shall subjoin two Acts

that are briefer, the one from a Ms. of the Queen of Sweden, the other

from Vincent of Beauvais, not indeed as authentic,

but as less faulty. Truly it is not to be

doubted that those more prolix ones which were published in Labbe

and Chifflet are more fabulous,

and that the worst of all are Bertrand's and the Mss.

like them. Yet we shall publish those briefer Acts in such a way

that in the Annotations we shall add from various Mss.

all those things which we judge useful to the Reader.

THE FIRST ACTS

by an anonymous author

From the Ms. codex 33 of the Queen of Sweden.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0568

By an Anonymous author.

The Saint's country and his fervor of religion, And so the ^a Saint to be remembered, Antoninus, born at Apamia,

when in a certain village he alone

among the darkness of the heathen shone with the light of his faith, as with

the splendor of some star, in order to avoid their sacrilegious

madness, according to the precepts of the sacred

Scriptures, migrated to another village, in which

there was the society of some Christians:

and persisting in that same place in the zeal and diligence of holy work,

he nevertheless never ceased from the rebuking ^b of the impious. And when

the diabolical rage against him grew inflamed in the sacrilegious

torturers, and the time of his triumphal crown

was also at hand, he himself foretold his own

contest [c] as at hand.

[2] his martyrdom, which he had foretold: the parts of his body cast into the river, For when the solemnity of the days of the Christian law

was being kept, and there was in it a devotion of festival

for religious men, to come together to the places consecrated to sacred

ministries, when he had accordingly said to some

that he would go a little further,

and at the same time announced with prophetic mouth ^d

that he would by no means return thence,

but would be seized by the hands of the impious and

struck down by their fury. And so, just as he had proclaimed, taught

by the divine spirit, he was by the heathen, who were watching for his

holy goings-out, so laid low in the setting-forth of his journey,

that for the confession

of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, while the heathen madness thinks

that the penalty of one death inflicted upon him

cannot suffice, being divided into very many pieces

^e, he was cast by the sacrilegious hands of the impious

into the aqueduct ^f which flowed down to the city

of Apamia.

[3] in it his body is wonderfully preserved, as also his blood: But presently the present Godhead approved the everlasting

palm of his most glorious Martyr.

For the sacred limbs of the venerable body, which

had before been scattered, gathered themselves of their own accord as it were

into one and the same frame:

his most glorious blood too, poured out for the love

of our Lord, was so joined to the rushing

fury of that water as if it had been collected

by resting in one place on dry ground: the wave, claiming nothing thenceforth

of the moving element for itself, scattered it not;

but as it were by some most faithful service joined it whole

and unimpaired to his limbs: and so what

the raging sacrilegious hand had scattered, the more faithful water preserved,

as though recognizing the servant of Christ:

for no small heap of clotted gore was found

around the body. Afterwards the stream

also of that aqueduct, as if it feared to inflict injury

on the holy body, held itself back from its accustomed course

and flow, and presented a dry place for the sacred limbs,

as in the manner of the sea divided for the Israelite

passage, or of the Jordan turned backward.

[4] the finding of the body and its translation to the place of burial: Thereafter, when numerous throngs of divers peoples

had come to lift the most sacred body,

he never suffered himself to be carried by many;

but by two poor women only, who had been

kindled with ardor of faith, that he might be translated thither

where he had wished to be entombed, he thereupon suffered himself

to be borne secretly; namely that here too the power of the Martyr

might be shown: since indeed what had been arduous

and impossible for many was made most light

for two persons only of the frailest sex [g].

[5] And when, with all ease, he had been brought by those women, most brave in faith,

to a certain priest, to whom the most blessed martyr had plainly wished

to be carried, burial, miracles: the time of the martyrdom.

before he was entombed with solemn

obsequies, he sent before him great proofs of his powers:

for demons having been put to flight and bodies purged

and set free, he restored many to their former

health. And the most blessed martyr

Antoninus suffered in the time of the emperor Antoninus,

surnamed Pius ^h, not far outside the walls of the aforesaid

city, upon the bank of the river which is called the Areia

[i]; and he was buried honorably by most religious

Christians in the place to which he had been carried by the two

women already mentioned, on the fourth of the Nones

of September [k].

ANNOTATA.

and in certain points they differ from all the rest, and for this cause

they are published. But even if there are fewer fables in these Acts, they are

not without their own defects.

the elogia of the Greeks.

g. This

translation of the body by two women is found in this Ms. alone. In

others indeed it is narrated in what way the body and the blood were preserved

in the river, but of the finding and burial of the body there is only the briefest

mention. This translation of the body to the place of burial appears therefore no more

certain than are the other marvels inserted into the Acts.

and therefore from these things the Saint's death would have to be fixed about the middle of that

century. Moreover this epoch of the martyrdom is read not in these Acts alone, but

also in a certain other Ms. of the library of Melk, in which it stands thus: Here ends the Passion of St. Antoninus the martyr, whom the pilgrims (namely the Spaniards) call Antolinus, who suffered in the city of Apamia, under Antoninus of the aforesaid surname of Pius, on the IV of the Nones of September. I would

not, however, contend that this epoch is certain enough, since the two Mss. mentioned

have not sufficient authority for it. In two Hieronymian

transcripts the Saint's martyrdom is placed under Constantius, and this does not

displease Tillemont. But those announcements, since they are longer

than commonly occurs in the Hieronymian, seem interpolated. The former, in

Florentini at the III of September, has thus: And in the region

of Apamia, in the village of Aprocavitum, under the emperor Constantius, in the province of Syria,

of the saints Antoninus, a boy of XX years, and Arestus the bishop, whose deeds

are extant. The other announcement in the Codex of the Queen of Sweden is such:

In the province of Syria, under the emperor Constantius, the passion of St. Antonius,

a youth of XX years, and of Arestus the bishop, whose deeds are extant. The

authority of these codices too is not sufficient to fix the Saint's age certainly

under Constantius. The other Acts, except those which most wretchedly connect King Pippin with

the Saint, designate no time. And so either the Saint's death is

to be fixed under Antoninus Pius, or under Constantius, or no time is

to be determined, save that vague one in which idolatry still flourished, which

was not yet extinct under Constantius.

i. The river Areia

is unknown to the ancients, as I suppose; nor is the name of the river expressed in

Vincent of Beauvais, in Peter de Natalibus, or in St. Antoninus, none of whom would seem

to have omitted it if he had found it in the Acts. Valois in the Notitia Galliarum,

p. 26, took that name from the Acts of St. Antoninus, and writes this of the river itself:

The Areia, which in the old maps is also Aregia, as Novientum and

Novigentum, Albia and Albiga, is the river commonly called the Ariège,

by some corruptly l'Auriege; by Masson, ignorant of that river's ancient name,

styled with a new and ridiculous name Aurigera, which washes Apamia

and is received by the Garonne, as is also the Tarn, which the Aveyron increases. But I greatly doubt whether Areia is a name as old as Valois would have it. Certainly he adduces no monument save the Passion of St. Antoninus, which he would have to be much older than the writers of the thirteenth century; but I should not dare to call it older than the thirteenth century. Truly I can with difficulty understand how a writer older than the thirteenth century could make Pamiers contemporary with St. Antoninus, since it arose about the beginning of the twelfth century. For the rest,

the writers of the Acts gave a name to the river, which before had not been expressed, when

the opinion concerning the Saint's martyrdom at Pamiers began to grow strong.

k. It would be

doubtful whether these things are to be understood of the day of his death or of the day of his burial,

did not others clearly assign the same day to the Saint's martyrdom. But even so it is

uncertain whether the Saint really died on that day.

OTHER ACTS

From the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, bk. 13, ch. 35.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0570

The Saint, born at Apamea, and afterwards initiated into the priesthood, Saint Antoninus, born in the town of Apamea ^a,

noble by birth, began from infancy to be strong

in holy virtues, and being taught in the sacred letters, he read

the saving precepts and strove to fulfill them.

And when he burned with the desire of martyrdom, going forth from the town

of Apamea and seeking out Christians, he found

very many, among whom, dwelling for a long time, he was promoted to

the priestly ^b dignity. And when

he was making a journey in preaching, and burning fiercely with thirst from the labor

of the journey, he besought the Almighty

to succor him. And his prayer being finished, he confidently struck

the bare ground with his staff, and thence

a spring ^c burst forth, which, brought by the Lord for the holy Man,

also affords great health to infirmities.

[2] preaches the faith to the heathen, and having foretold his martyrdom is crowned: And so the holy Man, having returned to Apamea, there

persisting in the zeal of religion, preached, and

did not cease to rebuke the perfidy of the heathen.

And when the diabolical rage against him grew inflamed

in the breasts of the sacrilegious,

being filled with the divine spirit he himself foretold to the few Christians (who

were then present) that his martyrdom, which

he had learned by divine means, was now imminent. And so when

the Christians were visiting in prayer the sacred places (where the bodies of the Saints

rested), he, going with them,

made known to them that he would go somewhat further for the sake

of prayer, but foretold that he would by no means return thence,

but would be struck by the sword of the impious.

Perceiving, therefore, that the heathen lying in wait for him were drawing near,

he offered himself to them of his own accord, and was held by them;

and being led away with blows to the bank of the river ^d

which runs down at the roots of Apamea, remaining in the confession

of the Lord, he was beheaded.

[3] Finally the most impious guards, lest, being found by the Christians,

he should be honored as a martyr, the body cast into the river is wonderfully preserved together with the blood: sank the whole body,

cruelly torn apart, together with the severed head,

in the river. But religious men,

having devoutly sought the Martyr's body, found it without

a head, and buried it honorably. But in a wondrous

manner that blood poured out for Christ and

cast into the water was coagulated amid the clashing of the waters,

and drawn together, and the force of the waters

scattered nothing of it, but as by a certain

most faithful service, to the limbs of the body, whence

it had flowed, it joined it whole and undiminished. But

the water of the river itself also, obeying its Creator and

recognizing the Servant of Christ, so withdrew itself from its accustomed course

and from the place where it flowed down, that it showed itself

to fear to inflict injury on the holy body,

and prepared a fitting way for the faithful

peoples to seek out the blessed Martyr's limbs.

[4] It is also related ^e by the opinion of many

that when the Martyr's severed head popular tradition concerning the translation of the head. was cast into the river,

it was at once by angelic reception placed in a small

coffer and set in a little boat, and,

with angelic guard ever attending, (as is reported)

the little boat was led along in the likeness of two snow-white eagles,

until it came to the place

destined for it, namely to the dwelling of a certain prince

Festus ^f, from which same prince the Martyr (as is reported),

traversing that same region in preaching,

had asked that place for a habitation.

When therefore it had come thither to the shore, Festus

the prince, marveling, and understanding by the spirit what it was,

devoutly received the holy head,

and removing his dwelling from that place, and at length

dedicating it into a church, placed the head in it with

honor and thanksgiving. His passion

is commemorated on the IV of the Nones of September.

ANNOTATA.

nor is he called a priest among the ancient martyrologists, as neither in

the preceding Acts; so that that title is little probable, even though

it is read in most of the more prolix Acts. I have observed in the Commentary, n.

58, that perhaps this dignity was transferred from another Antoninus to the one

of Apamea.

c. Of

this spring there is nothing in the Greeks, nothing in the Acts just given. But in

all the more prolix ones the same things are read more fully concerning this spring which here

are read more briefly. But the more it seems invented, the more confidently do all

affirm the benefits of that spring, and yet none assigns the place where

it was.

that name seems to have been added after Vincent of Beauvais. The Greeks have nothing of

the body cast into a river; but we ought not on that account to believe it certainly false, since in their brief elogium they probably passed over many things, and did not even narrate the burial.

is true or invented, no one will easily determine. If one were pleased to listen to

the more prolix Acts, which describe the head's journey through the rivers Aregia, Garonne,

Tarn, and Aveyron, as far as the monastery of St. Antoninus among

the Rutheni, where there is now a town of the same name, it would have to be said that Festus

dwelt about the borders of the provinces of Rodez, Cahors, and

Albi; and that he built the Saint's first church in the province of Rodez.

But Vincent of Beauvais knew nothing of that journey, which otherwise he would doubtless

have mentioned; nor is it in any way likely that the head was carried thither

immediately after the Saint's death, while idolatry still flourished in the Gauls.

I suspect, therefore, either that that name of Festus is fictitious, or that he dwelt

in Syria. But if it could be proved that a certain noble man named Festus

was the founder of the monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni, I should judge that the head of St. Antoninus was translated to him, but some centuries after the Saint's death. For the rest, I here

repeat what I said before, that in this whole account not a word is found from which

it can be inferred that the Saint suffered in Gaul.