ON ST. MARCELLUS OF TONGRES, BISHOP AND MARTYR AT TONGRES OR TRIER IN GERMANY,
Century III.
SYLLOGE.
The episcopate of Tongres; deeds falsely attached to the Saint; the uncertain tradition of the people of Trier, who honor him as the prelate of their own church and as a martyr.
Marcellus, bishop and martyr, at Tongres or Trier in Germany. (S.)
BY J. L.
No one has hitherto produced an author who commemorates this St. Marcellus more ancient than Heriger, abbot of Lobbes. [The bishops of Tongres between SS. Maternus and Servatius, known to Heriger by name alone.] He, as the tenth century was declining to its close, wrote the Deeds of the first 27 bishops of Tongres and Maastricht, published in the year 1612 by Jean Chapeauville with the additions of Giles of Liège, monk of Aureavallis, who flourished about the year 1240. Although Heriger in his Proem testifies that he had collected the times and deeds of each pontiff which could be scraped together from any quarter: yet of the saints Navitus, Marcellus, and the six other bishops who after St. Maternus presided over the church of Tongres, he found nothing to bring forward beyond their bare names and the order in which they succeeded one another. After his decease, he says in chapter 17 — namely St. Maternus's — there succeeded one another in order in the pontificate Navitus, Marcellus, Metropolus, Severinus, Florentius, Martinus, Maximinus, Valentinus. And in what time of what emperors or consuls these flourished, or what end the life of each had, or how many years each administered the office of the pontificate, or what is the place of their burial, let no man's demand seek from us, since the overthrow wrought by the Huns has abolished the memory of these things of the churches of all Gaul. So cautiously and wisely Heriger, who preferred frankly to profess that the determined time of their life, the kind of their death, the duration of their episcopate, and the place of their burial were unknown to him, rather than to establish anything about them from conjecture. Not so sincere and prudent were the writers younger than Heriger, who handed down various things about them, which are either today rejected by the learned as figments, or called into doubt as uncertain opinions. Nay, there are not lacking learned men to whom St. Maternus, the third of the bishops of Trier and the first of Tongres, seems not to be distinguished from St. Maternus, bishop of Cologne, who in the year 314 subscribed the council of Arles. Whence it follows that between him and St. Servatius, who in the year 347 was present at the council of Sardica, fewer without doubt than eight prelates ruled the church of Tongres, since one or two suffice to fill up the years which flowed between the episcopate of Maternus and of Servatius: so that concerning our Saint nothing is placed beyond all controversy except his cult, for the sake of which alone we here give him a place, entering meanwhile on the way which Henschen paved in his preliminary Exegesis on the episcopate of Tongres and Maastricht, prefixed to volume VII of May; [St. Marcellus, successor of Maternus and Navitus, was of old venerated on the 25th of September: various figments about him.] where the eight prelates named are granted to Tongres. The very grave question which we have just touched will be discussed on the 14th of September, when St. Maternus is venerated.
[2] To the cited Heriger Giles added this about St. Marcellus: After whose decease (St. Navitus's) there succeeded as third saint Marcellus, a man conspicuous in all sanctity. The codex of Aureavallis, as Chapeauville testifies, has this addition in the margin: By some his feast is kept on the seventh of the Calends of October. Although today the people of Tongres venerate the Saint neither on that nor on another day, yet I suspect that they are designated by the word some; for on the same day, the 7th of the Calends of October, in our manuscript Florary of the Saints there is had: Among the people of Tongres, the birthday of saint Marcellus, the third bishop of that same city, disciple of saint Navitus the bishop. This man preached vigorously beyond the sea, so far that Lucius king of Britain sent word to Pope Eleutherius (as was noted above) that he wished to be baptized with his people. From that time the revenues of the churches of Tongres are thought to have come from England. He died on the 7th of the Calends of October in the year of salvation XXCC. This fabulous eulogy, without a day and year of death, is also read in the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Liège, carried by an anonymous author down to the year 1343, which is extant in a manuscript codex of our museum, marked ✠ Ms. 112. The same fiction about Lucius king of Britain, moved to embrace the true faith by St. Marcellus, John Wilson inserted into his English Martyrology on the 4th of September, adding that the Saint was by nation a Briton, and gathered together the Christians scattered in his own country, whom St. Joseph of Arimathea and his companions had converted to Christ. In the margin he cites Antoine de Mouchy Démochares, book 2 On the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass, chapter 37; where I read this: Marcellus (in the same place at chapter 33 he calls him Marcellinus) of Tongres becomes bishop in the year 191. He enlarged Tongres with four sacred buildings, the first of which he inscribed to the divine Maternus, the second to John the Evangelist, the third to James the Apostle, the fourth to the divine Andrew. Lucius, prince of Britain, with his whole people he moved by his preaching. He presided twenty-nine years, until the year of salvation 220. The praised Démochares, being about to treat of the bishops of Tongres, Maastricht and Liège, forewarns the reader that he collected their catalogue chiefly from Jan Placentius of Sint-Truiden, a Dominican, a most trifling writer, who, to be silent about his other inepitudes, sets out the country and family of almost every prelate of Tongres. The divine Maternus, he says, was a Lombard, born of a father who was count of Pavia; Navitus, the son of a duke of the Gauls and nephew by a brother of the king of the Tungri; our Saint, a man of Tongres, of approved nobility; his successor Metropolus, son of Metropolus duke of Lorraine by a daughter of the king of Hungary, etc. But from these ridiculous figments let us return to the cult of St. Marcellus.
[3] Our Saint, who succeeded Maternus after Navitus in the government of the church of Tongres, The people of Trier venerate him on this day as their bishop also the people of Trier place twentieth in the series of their prelates; and on the 4th of September they venerate him not only as their bishop, but also as a martyr: for the Lectionary on certain Saints of the Trier Office, printed in the year 1645, proposes his memory to be kept on the said day under a simple or ferial rite thus: Of saint Marcellus, bishop and martyr of Trier. The third Lesson, to be recited at Matins, is subjoined thus: Marcellus, enrolled in the order of the prelates of Trier and of Tongres, guarded the peoples of both churches with a common care and vigilance at that time when the emperor Diocletian and Maximian, his partner in the empire, burned with equal hatred of the Christian name, and were to punish with the gravest torments those who held the true religion: and the Theban legion and the chief men of Trier were cut down [] in the cause of Christ under Rictius Varus, who had entered Trier, amid these storms. During those same days therefore Marcellus, having bravely wrestled for Christ, with his blood poured out in the arena of martyrdom, paved for himself the way into heaven, famous on the day before the Nones of September. Christoph Brower, book 3 of the Annals of Trier*, page 212, writes that St. Marcellus undertook the sacred government in the year 282, and at page 220 that he underwent martyrdom in the year 286; in which he also narrates that the Martyrs of Trier, of whom it will be treated on the 6th of October, were crowned.
[4] and as a martyr; The cult which the Saint obtained among the people of Trier is not ancient; since he is related at Trier on this day in no Martyrology which surpasses in antiquity our manuscript Florary of the Saints, to which the author says in the conclusion that he put the last hand in the year of salvation 1486, on the very day of Lucy the glorious virgin, that is, the 13th of December. The Florary's announcement is: At Trier, of Paul the confessor — that is, Paulinus, of whom it was treated on the 31st of August — likewise of blessed Marcellus bishop of Trier and of Tongres. The title of martyr is ascribed to him in the enlarged Usuard of the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the year 1490: Likewise at Trier, of blessed Marcellus bishop and martyr. Greven adds: who ruled at once the churches of Trier and of Tongres. Of the Martyrologies more recent than Greven I transcribe hither only two eulogies; the one brief, from the present-day Roman: At Trier, of saint Marcellus bishop and martyr; the other lengthy, from Saussay's Gallican: On the same day at Trier, the birthday of St. Marcellus, bishop of this metropolitan see and martyr, who, succeeding St. Avitus [] at that time when the storm of persecutions was shaking the ship of the Church with harsh commotions and dire billows, sat at the stern of the vessel shaken on every side, a watchful and vigorous look-out man against so many black whirlwinds, and, all the eddies being overcome, directed and carried the souls entrusted to him by a happy rowing into the harbor of salvation. For, being mighty in word and work, as he bravely overcame the impious enemies of the faith, so he diligently encouraged the pious and lovers of Christ, made firm in the true religion, to pursue the blessed path of justice and virtue by which one goes to heaven. To whom, being purpled also with his shed blood, he pointed out beforehand the entrance to the joy of heavenly happiness.*
[5] whom Henschen judges to have sat at Tongres, not at Trier: Henschen knew that the church of Trier honors with an ecclesiastical Office, as her own bishops, Navitus on the 7th of July, Marcellus on this day, Metropolus on the 8th, Severinus on the 24th, Florentius on the 17th of October, Maximinus on the 20th of June and Valentinus on the 16th of July; nor was he ignorant that these holy Prelates are announced as of Trier in the Roman Martyrology, except Navitus and Metropolus, not yet inscribed in it. Nevertheless in the Exegesis on the episcopate of Tongres and Maastricht before volume VII of May, chapter 1, he judged that all of them, together with Florentius's successor Martin, the apostle of Hesbaye, whom he afterward illustrated on the 21st of June, are to be struck out of the catalogue of the prelates of Trier, as men who occupied no other than the see of Tongres. After Henschen had produced the arguments fit for establishing his opinion, which may be read in the place cited, he thus modestly addresses the people of Trier: These things we propose for the consideration of men learned in antiquity at Trier, who, if they can prove the contrary by evident arguments, we shall gladly enter upon the surer way to be shown by them. On the 7th of June, treating of St. Valentinus, bishop of Tongres, whom the people of Trier, as I was just saying, venerate on the 16th of July, that man most loving of truth again professes that he will gladly retract his opinion with thanksgiving, if surer records be produced than the Chronicle of Trier, fabulous at its beginning and not more ancient than the eleventh century; on which alone the tradition of the people of Trier rests, and whose slight authority the reasons adduced in the praised Exegesis sufficiently lessen. After Valentinus, Henschen gave Martin and Maximinus, and Sollier Navitus, on the days assigned above to each, adhering to the system handed down in the same Exegesis: on which I too stand, until it be overthrown by the people of Trier, none of whom, so far as I know, has hitherto assailed it.
[6] Of the martyrdom of St. Marcellus Barthélemy Fisen, in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, on the 4th of September, thus pronounces, according to my sense: his martyrdom uncertain. Of the first fathers of the church of Tongres this is one whom nevertheless learned posterity knows only by name, and by his episcopal dignity and the testimony of his sanctity. That he attained the palm of martyrdom pleases some: … but in truth it cannot be proved by certain reasons. But He can be ignorant of nothing, for whom we contend in this life, and who crowns the victors in heaven. To these I add that the holy Prelate, if he was a martyr, more likely did not suffer at Trier, since he sat only in the see of Tongres. Again I speak according to the opinion of Henschen, from which I have judged that I ought not to depart. Meanwhile I confess that it is not to be held for certain and indubitable. And this is the reason why I have to the people of Trier
by no means wholly taken away St. Marcellus, although they believe him bishop and martyr of their own church without a solid foundation, and why I have inscribed this sylloge On St. Marcellus, bishop and martyr, at Tongres or Trier in Germany. In the margin I have noted that he passed to a more blessed life in the third century, to which most of the more recent writers refer his death.
Annotatacæduntur*
Read, Navitus*.