ON ST. ANIANUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT BESANÇON IN GAUL.
About the year [ ].
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The Saint's cult and his age proved as far as may be: a short eulogy of him.
Anianus, bishop and confessor, at Besançon in Gaul (S.)
BY J. S.
St. Anianus bishop of Besançon has been omitted by most martyrologists, and is commemorated only in certain Fasti of Besançon and by a few moderns. The Saint commemorated in the more recent Fasti, Filippo Ferrarius seems to have been the first among these to announce him in the General Catalogue, where at this day he has thus: At Besançon, of St. Anianus the bishop. In the annotations he cites the registers and the Calendar of the church of Besançon. Ferrarius was followed by Saussay, and briefly by Castellan in the Universal Martyrology, in which he commemorates St. Anianus bishop of Besançon today. I subjoin Saussay's eulogy: Likewise in the same place (Besançon) the deposition of the same blessed pontiff Anianus, who eighth in order presided over this noble church; but, equal in merits to the bishops who went before, he shone before those who came after like a bright star of all grace and virtue: and, adorned with every ornament of religion, having most worthily discharged the pastoral office, he went on to his reward. Of the translated bodies of SS. Ferreolus and Ferrutius the martyrs he had prefixed this: Whose bodies, illustrious with the marks of Christ, blessed Anianus, pontiff of that city, found by a divine benefit, and with a notable triumph translated to the basilica of St. John the Evangelist; until in the place of their confession he had raised a notable monument: which being built, the same blessed Prelate carried thither to the new church those very precious remains, and laid them up with spices, with a notable retinue of the clergy and a copious concourse of the devout people venerating the authors of their faith. Not a little rhetorical ornament has been mixed into this eulogy.
[2] Jean-Jacques Chifflet in the Vesontio part 2 pag. 49 brings forward from the Martyrologies of Besançon a double announcement agreeing with these. and in those of Besançon: an ancient cult, First, on the Nones of September, he testifies that these words are read: The finding of the holy martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrutius: and then this: The deposition of St. Anianus, who translated their bodies to the church of St. John. From these the Saint's cult is now clear; and it is confirmed from the ancient catalogues of the bishops of Besançon, in which the title of Saint is joined to Anianus; and from the Breviary of the same church, to be mentioned more at large below, in which he is called Blessed. But the antiquity of the cult is the more proved from the translation of St. Anianus's body together with the body of St. Silvester his successor: of which Chifflet adduced these words from the Martyrology of St. John: On the Nones of June, the translation of the holy confessors Silvester and Anianus, archbishops of the church of Chrysopolis []. Ferrarius on the same day commemorates Silvester and Anianus; but he seems to have been ignorant why they were placed on that day, since he made no mention of a translation. Saussay wandered further, who introduces an altogether different festivity of Anianus, writing thus at the Nones of June: At Besançon, the metropolis of the Sequani, the ordination of St. Anianus bishop and confessor* &c. For a translation he wrongly substituted an ordination.
[3] proved from the translation of his body. Further, since that translation was doubtless made many centuries ago — although the time is unknown, as Chifflet confesses, though he gives some conjecture, which may be seen in our work under St. Silvester at the day X of May — it becomes certain also that St. Anianus's cult, such as it was, is already ancient. Pierre-François Chifflet of the Society of Jesus, in the Claudian Illustrations (which posthumous Work was inserted by us in tom. 1 of June) at pag. 682, discourses thus of the said translation: I suppose that he (St. Silvester, Anianus's successor) was buried in the upper basilica of St. Stephen: and when it was enlarged by Walter or by Hugh the first (each was a bishop in the XI century), that he was translated with Anianus his predecessor into that plainly very ancient tomb which is now at the wall, near the altar of the chapel of St. Agapitus. For in that tomb, in the year of Christ MDCXXVII, at my request and in my presence opened by the lords canons, there were found the very large bones of two bodies, heaped together confusedly and rotting from the dampness of the place; and in the heap of bones a golden ring, which was carried back into the sacristy and hung upon a certain reliquary. Thus far Chifflet, whose conjecture seems probable.
[4] The Saint's age is fixed about the year 370, Of St. Anianus's age Jean-Jacques Chifflet treats briefly in the Vesontio pag. 49, where of the time when the bodies of SS. Ferreolus and Ferrutius were found by St. Anianus he speaks thus: And that they were found while Valentinian and Valens reigned, many ancient registers testify (although some codices wrongly have, under Julian), which also note that St. Anianus died about the year of Salvation CCCLXXIV. Pierre-François Chifflet, praised just now, agrees, weaving such a eulogy for Anianus: Anianus, over the bodies of the holy martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrutius, unexpectedly found, raised a sacred building at a thousand five hundred paces from the city, while Valentinian and Valens reigned, about the year CCCLXX. He is venerated on the Nones of September, on the very day of the finding of the martyrs. This epoch admits a latitude of some years, in which the finding may have taken place before or after the year 370, if it was made under Valentinian and Valens, as is asserted in the Acts of the later translation of the same martyrs, which was made in the XI century. These Acts were given by us in tom. III of June pag. 13, where this is read: But while Valentinian and Valens reigned, and blessed Anianus presided in the chair of the holy church of Besançon, they (Ferreolus and Ferrutius) were found by a wondrous disposition of God; even as
can be found set out in the narrative of the finding itself. But blessed Anianus, an outstanding preacher of the Christian faith, incomparably rich from the treasure of the Lord which he had found, built a church in that place, where, establishing the most holy life of monks, since he was filled with the perfection of all religion, he shortly made a monastery, well content with the necessaries assigned to it by his providence.
[5] Whether either Chifflet had more ancient monuments for fixing the epoch already named, [whether he was the eighth or the ninth bishop of Besançon is not sufficiently established.] I plainly do not know, and therefore I cannot tell how certain it is, although otherwise it coheres not ill with the time at which both Chifflets place the preceding and succeeding bishops; and on that head it becomes the more probable. Further, I do not care to inquire whether he was the eighth bishop of Besançon, as he is set down in many catalogues, or rather the ninth, as is found in a certain manuscript catalogue, and as Pierre-François Chifflet would have it, who with that catalogue reckons St. Ferreolus among the bishops of Besançon in the second place: for perhaps some of the earlier ones who are inserted into the catalogue of the bishops of Besançon never presided over that church, as Henschen has already observed in tom. VII of May pag. 36. The same writer in tom. III of June, in SS. Ferreolus and Ferrutius pag. 12, proved that the Acts of the finding of those Saints are not by a contemporary writer; and that his words, when he says that he learned them from Anianus, are not so to be understood as though he had himself heard the deed from Anianus narrating it, but that the account is to be believed handed on through many hands, and taken only mediately from the Saint. These things being premised, I transfer hither a short eulogy of St. Anianus from the Acts of the translation of SS. Ferreolus and Ferrutius, meaning to omit all those things which pertain rather to the Saints found than to St. Anianus.
[6] At last, blessed and holy Anianus the pontiff making it known, The bodies of SS. Ferreolus and Ferrutius, having been found, the miracles of the holy martyrs, and all their glorious contests, were manifestly revealed and shown. For while he was discharging the episcopal office in the aforesaid city, a certain tribune of the soldiers, who had been appointed to the guard of the city, went out for love of hunting about a mile and a half from the city. And when he was following with dogs a fox that he had found, the fox by chance fled into the ancient pit of the martyrs' monument: but the tribune, pressing on persistently, ordered the soldiers to bring a mattock. While this was searched through the pit, the hidden building where the bodies of the holy martyrs rested is found… A messenger therefore is at once sent to blessed Anianus. But he hastened to meet him: because he had already heard this before by the report of the people; and since he had been breathed upon by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the loving-kindness of the Godhead in mercies of this kind was not hidden from him. The burial place of the martyrs therefore is uncovered at his command: and at once the bodies of the Saints are found in the monument… And so blessed Anianus the archbishop, and the tribune too with the soldiers, return to the city in triumph, and with the greatest watches of the governor carry the bodies of the Saints with the utmost reverence to the mother church of St. John the Evangelist, whose disciples they had been…
[7] he translated, and built a church. But meanwhile a church is built by the aforesaid most blessed Anianus in the place of burial, and the bodies of the Saints are there buried anew with spices. A community of Brethren is established there to serve the Lord in the veneration of the holy martyrs… But since we have learned these things from our most holy father Anianus the archbishop, and have touched upon his inestimable life not in order but in passing, it is fitting that, according to the measure of our frailty, we should set forth his most blessed end. For when the courses of some years had been completed after the finding of the holy bodies, on the very day of that same finding, as he had kept the inner man unspotted, so, with those very martyrs whom he had devoutly served bearing him thither, he passed to the Lord. More concerning this Saint that might be transferred hither I do not find.
Annotata. That is, of Besançon.*