ON ST. PATIENS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR AT LYONS IN GAUL,
ABOUT THE YEAR CDLXXX.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Patiens, bishop and confessor, at Lyons in Gaul (S.)
BY C. S.
§ I. His memory in the Martyrologies: whence his deeds are to be drawn: the time when he took up the episcopate: S. John ordained bishop of Chalon: his zeal in converting heretics.
[ ] This illustrious Bishop of the Lyonnese Segusiani, passed over by Ado, Usuard and the other older martyrologists, He is announced in certain Martyrologies the Most Eminent Baronius inserted in the Roman Martyrology at the present day in these words: At Lyons, the Deposition of S. Patiens the bishop. Frequent also is his memory in the Auctaria of Usuard, which may be consulted in Sollerius, and among which the Centula codex designates him more clearly than the rest, saying, At Lyons, of holy Patiens, bishop and confessor, at whose exhortation the Life of holy Germanus of Auxerre was written. Like this an announcement is read in the Fulda Martyrology, which Domenico Giorgi sets forth after his Adonian one, and thinks to have been written in the X century. Receive the words: At Lyons, the deposition of S. Patiens the bishop, at whose exhortation Constantius the presbyter wrote in a most noble style the Life of the most blessed bishop Germanus, full of virtues.
[2] Our manuscript Florarium chimes in, in which besides some eulogy of the Saint is woven in this manner: at this day: At Lyons, the deposition of S. Patiens the bishop, at whose exhortation Constantius the presbyter wrote in a most noble style the Life of B. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, full of virtues. This holy Man was, after his own name, most patient: patience is a virtue common to the just with God,
which nourishes the charity of God and of one's neighbor. And thus the man Patiens offered himself to all as an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity, in sobriety, in chastity; putting forth a sound and irreproachable word, he converted no small people to the faith of Christ. Now he obtains everlasting life. Finally the same is announced also by the Adonian Appendix of Rosweyde, the Ottoboni Martyrology in Giorgi praised above, the Gellone in Martène, vol. 2 of the Spicilegium, the enlarged Hieronymian ones, both here and in Florentini, and others, which together with the more recent I pass over.
[3] in a few others at the 12th of September And all these indeed celebrate the memory of S. Patiens at the XI day of September: but the codices Victorinus, of the Queen of Sweden, and Florentinus in our Sollerius on Usuard refer the same to the XII day of the same month. The first two have thus: On the same day, of holy Patiens, bishop of Lyons: but the last thus: At Lyons of Gaul, the birthday of holy Patiens. But this seems to have come about by error, since all the rest which we have already reviewed constantly mark the earlier day, and the same is done both by the more recent martyrologists and by the author of the manuscript Breviary, and by Sirmond, presently to be praised. Peter de Natalibus likewise agrees, bk. XI, last chapter of the Catalogue of the Saints, num. 244, where he says: Patiens the confessor is deposited at Lyons on the third of the Ides of September.
[4] Jacques Sirmond in his Annotations on S. Sidonius, epist. 12 of book 6, says of the Saint's cult: but he is venerated at the XI. He is venerated by his own people of Lyons on his anniversary day, the third of the Ides of September: by which words he seems to hint that he is honored there with an ecclesiastical Office, or at least with a commemoration; for Severtius also in the Chronology of the archbishops of Lyons mentions the Breviary of this church in these words: On which day (the third of the Ides, as he had premised) his memory is kept, from the Breviary of Lyons. We have also in our Museum a manuscript proper Breviary of Lyons, composed by Master Étienne de Vernay, a presbyter of the same church, about the year 1654, to this end, that the old Breviary of Lyons might be brought back to the standard of the Tridentine or Roman one. In this, at the same day, our holy Bishop is celebrated with an Office of three Lessons: but since I have not been permitted to consult the printed Breviaries of the same diocese, I cannot declare whether he is honored there on this day or on another. A certain Directory of Lyons, printed in that city in the year 1696, makes me more doubtful, which makes no mention of the Saint at this day; yet this could have come about because perhaps his Office is celebrated only in his own church, and therefore ought not to have been inserted in the common Directory of the diocese. However these things may stand, from what is to be said it will be sufficiently established that he was honored with an ancient cult.
[5] The deeds of S. Patiens no one of the ancients, so far as I know, wrote of professedly; Some deeds are to be drawn from Sidonius Apollinaris. yet, that all should not lie hidden from us, S. Sidonius Apollinaris, a contemporary writer and most well known to the Saint himself, has provided, in his letters both to him and to others. Whence Peter the Venerable — reported by Théophile Raynaud in the Little Index of the Saints of Lyons — rightly addresses Sidonius in these words:
The prelate Patiens, who ruled watery Lyons, Of how great merit he is, is plain from thy report.
And indeed what Sidonius wrote of him is such as to make manifest that he was a very great Bishop, and to make us bear the more grievously that the rest of his deeds have been given over to oblivion. For on his testimony, bk. 4, epist. 25, to Domnulus, Patiens was a man equal to praises, however great. And so the few things which are extant in the said letters of Sidonius about this Man, given by divine Providence in the calamitous times of Gaul, we shall review from the edition of Jacques Sirmond, after we have first premised some things about the time in which he flourished.
[6] Of the Saint's birth and of his deeds before he took up the episcopate About the middle of the V century I have nowhere found anything: but what Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology says, that he was from his earliest age inflamed with a mighty charity of Christ, is indeed credible, but rests on mere conjecture. That he was bishop of Lyons is beyond doubt from the letters of Sidonius; but whom, or in what year, he succeeded in that see is not so certain. Our Bolland, vol. 1 of February, at the III day in S. Lupicinus, a bishop of the same church, lays it down that S. Patiens was substituted immediately for Eucherius; which opinion, approved also by other learned men, we have thought fit to follow. Further, Eucherius, on the testimony of Gennadius, a contemporary author, in his catalogue of illustrious men, chap. 64 of the Paris edition prepared by the Benedictines, died while Valentinian and Marcian were reigning. And so, since Marcian in the year of Christ 450 was raised by S. Pulcheria Augusta to the empire of the East, and Valentinian, emperor of the West, was slain in the year 455, according to these things S. Eucherius must be said to have died between the years 450 and 455, and holy Patiens to have succeeded him: for there is no reason why we should think that chair was long vacant.
[7] he is made bishop of Lyons: From Gennadius the author of the Chronicle which passes under the name of Prosper Tiro differs somewhat; for he fixes Eucherius's death in the last year but one of Theodosius the younger, or the 449th of Christ, saying, Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, and Hilary of Arles, consummate an excellent life by death. On the contrary, Marcellinus the count in his Chronicle likewise, at the year 456, writes of the same as though he were even then living: Eucherius, pontiff of the church of Lyons, wrote many things needful both for ecclesiastical and for monastic studies. Gennadius's authority, however, must be stood by, unless something else stand in the way; which can be examined at the XVI day of November, on which S. Eucherius is inscribed in the Martyrologies: let it meanwhile suffice for us to have referred the beginnings of our holy Prelate's episcopate to the middle of the V century from the praised chronographers. There are some who think that either Salonius and Veranus, or Veranus alone, must be placed between Eucherius and Patiens; but nothing presses us to depart from Bolland's opinion, as was shown at sufficient length concerning S. Veranus, about whom the chief question is, at the X day of this month of September. Now let us hasten to the Saint's deeds.
[8] others canvassing for the bishopric of Chalon, The first of his deeds which can be referred to any certain time was the substitution and ordination of S. John into the bishopric of Chalon, which had fallen vacant by the death of Paul, the second of that name, which is wont to be referred to about the year of Christ 470, as was said at the XXX day of April in the praised S. John. The whole matter S. Sidonius Apollinaris, bk. 4, epist. 25, to Domnulus, narrates in this manner: I cannot delay to share with thee the communion of a great joy; namely, as thou desirest to know what our father in Christ and likewise pontiff Patiens, having set out for Chalon, did after the manner of his religion, after the manner of his constancy; when he had come into the aforesaid town, with the college of the provincial priests partly going before, partly accompanying him; namely that some chief bishop might be ordained for the municipality, whose church's discipline was tottering. After the younger bishop Paul had departed and died, the pontifical council was met by the various wills of the townsmen, and also by those private zeals which always overturn the public good, which a certain triumvirate of competitors had kindled; of whom this one belched forth the ancient prerogative of his birth, destitute of every other endowment of manners; this one was thrusting himself forward by parasitic uproars, procured by the suffrage of kitchens, with Apician applause; this one, if he obtained the wished-for dignity, had promised by a silent bargain that the church's lands should be booty for his applauders.
[9] S. John, with unconquered constancy of mind And when holy Patiens and holy Euphronius (bishop of Autun, of whom there has been treatment in our Work at the 3rd day of August) saw this — who held the first place in the rigor and firmness of a sounder judgment, apart from hatred and favor — their counsel having been shared with their fellow bishops in secret before it was disclosed, and the din of the raging crowd being despised, hands being suddenly laid on him and he being seized, and wishing and suspecting nothing less than what was being done, holy John, a man notable for honorableness, humanity, gentleness … amid the discordant voices of the parties, which put off praising one who did not canvass, but neither dared to blame one who was praiseworthy, the factious being astounded, the wicked blushing, the good acclaiming, none crying out against it — they consecrated him their colleague.
[10] Now therefore … it is fitting that thou shouldst rejoice at the common concord of fathers or patrons, he ordains bishop: whether of men so judging, or of a judgment so concordant. Exult also in the name of him whom Euphronius created by his testimony, Patiens by his hand, both by their judgment. In which Euphronius did what befitted not only his own old age, but also the length of his dignity: and Patiens did — a man equal to praises, however great — what it well became that person to do, who is the head of our city by his priesthood, and of your province by his city. Farewell. Thus the holy Archbishop extinguished by the unconquered constancy of his mind the creeping plague of ambition, lulled to rest the discord of the citizens by pious industry, and set over the church of Chalon a worthy bishop. Indeed how just was this judgment of SS. Patiens and Euphronius concerning John, his sanctity declared, by which he deserved to be held in the number of the Saints, as may be seen at the aforecited XXX day of April, on which he is venerated.
[11] That he was also much concerned to bring back to the Catholic faith the Photinian or Arian heretics, who under the kings of the Burgundians had infected a part of Gaul, he labors happily in converting heretics: and that in so noble a work he labored no less happily than strenuously, we gather from the praised Sidonius, bk. 6, epist. 12, given to the Saint himself, where he says: I pass over that through thee the foundations of basilicas rise in many places … and that, while many things in the state of the faith are increased by thy dispositions, only the number of the heretics is diminished, and that thou, by a certain apostolic hunting, dost entangle the wild minds of the Photinians in the nets of spiritual preachings, and that the barbarians, now thy followers, as often as they are convinced by thy word, do not go out of thy footstep, until thou, a most happy fisher of souls, hast drawn them out of the deep whirlpool of error. These things certainly clearly declare the apostolic zeal and wonderful dexterity in handling souls of the holy Man, strenuous, severe, merciful, as the same Sidonius says in bk. 2, epist. 10.
[12] To apostolic zeal he had joined a singular urbanity and prudent magnificence, for his munificence and abstinence by which he had so bound to himself the minds of the king and queen of the Burgundians that they deigned to come to and to praise his banquets; which feasts indeed, when the time required it, he knew so to furnish, and so himself to recline at them, that he won for himself no less praise of abstinence than of munificence. Hear the praised Sidonius addressing the Saint on this matter: I pass over that thou always actest with such moderation, art always judged so humane, so abstemious, that it is agreed that the king unceasingly praises thy banquets when present, the queen thy fasts. What king Sidonius here designates is not certain enough. The Most Eminent Baronius, vol. 6 of the Annals, at the year 475, num. 30, had judged that Evaric or Euric, king of the Goths, who had invaded a part of Gaul, was indicated: but he abandoned that opinion in the Appendix, and warned the reader that, what he had said above about Evaric being deleted, he should substitute the following: To whom (S. Patiens) God granted that with the king of the Burgundians, who then had dominion over the people of Lyons,
and not the king of the Goths, he should find the highest favor, so that both the king himself and the queen greatly honored and regarded the most holy Man.
[13] by the king and queen of the Burgundians Baronius's words from the Annals Severtius adopted in his S. Patiens; whether because he preferred that opinion to the other, or because — as is more likely — he had not seen the said Appendix. Evaric likewise was understood by Théophile Raynaud in the Little Index of the Saints of Lyons, and by Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology: but that a king of the Burgundians was designated by Sidonius, the rest of the learned everywhere rightly judge with Baronius in the Appendix, although among these some lay down Chilperic, others Gundobad or Gundobald his brother. For the former stands Tillemont, vol. 16 of the Monuments, in S. Patiens, and Jean Savaron in his Annotations on this letter: but for Gundobad, Jacques Sirmond likewise in his Annotations on Sidonius, and Jacques Longueval, vol. 2 of the Gallican History, at the year 474; and their reason is that it is established that he held his royal seat at Lyons.
[14] he is praised. Longueval adds that the queen mentioned in the same place was probably Caretena; for that she was a Catholic and given to virtue, and lived in the court of Gundobad, is gathered from Gregory of Tours, bk. 2 On Miracles, chap. 8, where he praises a queen, probably the wife of Gundobad, with her name concealed, for the piety by which she took care that the sacred silver furniture carried off from S. Julian the martyr should be restored. Whoever wishes more about her, let him go to the praised Longueval at the years 491 and 500, to Adrien de Valois, bk. 6 of Frankish Affairs, and to others. For the rest, although it cannot be settled with certainty which Sidonius designated, I should nevertheless prefer to interpret it with Sirmond and the rest of Gundobad.
§ II. He founds and repairs various churches magnificently: he is believed to have translated the bodies of SS. Irenæus, Epipodius and Alexander: he is present at the councils of Arles and Lyons against the predestinarian heresy.
[ ] The munificence of the holy Prelate in building new churches and in restoring and adorning old ones, the same S. Sidonius, bk. 4, epist. 12, He repairs various churches, and builds new ones; addressing that very man, sets forth in these words: I pass over that thou dost beautify the church entrusted to thee with such adornment, that the beholder doubts whether new works rise better, or old ones are better repaired. I pass over that through thee in very many places the foundations of basilicas rise, and their ornaments are doubled. Among the rest, however, that one is celebrated which the same Sidonius, bk. 2, epist. 10, to Hesperius, records as founded by him at Lyons: A church, he says, has lately been built at Lyons, which by the zeal of pope Patiens has come to the summit of the work begun — a man holy, strenuous, severe, merciful, and who by his rich munificence toward the poor, and by his humanity, raises no lesser heights of a good conscience. On the outermost parts of this church, therefore, at the request of the aforesaid Bishop, I inscribed a hasty poem in triple trochees, most familiar hitherto to me, and now to thee. For the neighboring sides of the basilica shine with the hexameters of the eminent poets Constantius and Secundinus.
[16] Of this basilica, which the verses of Sidonius declare to have been exceedingly magnificent, among which one is celebrated, there has already been treatment in our Work at the XXVIII day of June in S. Irenæus, where the said poem of Sidonius is also recited; and more fully at the VI day of the same month in the Claudian Illustrations, composed by Fr. Pierre-François Chifflet, a presbyter of the Society of Jesus, chap. 4, in which the verses also of Constantius and Secundinus are reviewed, and it is contended against certain persons that the basilica praised in this place by Sidonius was none other than that of S. Irenæus. And so, that I may not do what has been done, I refer the studious reader thither. Tillemont, vol. 16 of the Monuments, in S. Patiens, is of opinion that it was completed about the year 470, and that it is that very one at whose solemn dedication S. Faustus, bishop of Riez, was present among the other bishops, as Sidonius writes, bk. 9, epist. 3, where, praising his eloquence, he says that he heard him speaking before the assembly, when in the weekly festivities of the dedicated church of Lyons he was entreated at the request of his most sacred colleagues to deliver a discourse. But since it is established from the testimony of Sidonius reported above that more than one church was built by our holy Archbishop, Tillemont's conjecture is indeed probable, but not certain.
[17] Into that church, or into the crypt of the same church, into which the bodies of SS. Irenæus, Epipodius and Alexander the bodies of SS. Irenæus, Epipodius and Alexander, martyrs, are thought by Chifflet to have been translated by S. Patiens, both in the place praised above, and in the Historical Deduction of the controversy stirred between the churches of Lyons of S. Justus and of S. Irenæus concerning the possession of the aforesaid bodies, which our Papebroch printed in vol. V of June from p. 342, where it may be consulted. And the sum of the reasons is this: S. Gregory of Tours, bk. 1 On the Glory of the martyrs, chap. 50, asserts that those sacred bodies in his time lay in the crypt of the basilica of B. John; and that this basilica is the same as that which was afterward called S. Irenæus's is gathered from the sentence of Jean de Roquetaillade, patriarch of Constantinople and Apostolic nuncio, by which he happily settled the suit arisen between the chapters of S. Irenæus and of holy Justus concerning the possession of the aforesaid bodies, in the year 1413, and ascribed them to the men of S. Irenæus. But now the same Patriarch confesses that no empty arguments were adduced by the chapter of S. Justus for claiming the same pledges; namely, because before the times of S. Patiens they seemed to have rested in this church, and thence to have been translated to the crypt of S. Irenæus: which translation, since the said chapter of S. Justus was ignorant of it, it believed that they were even then kept in its own basilica.
[18] Further, that this translation was carried out by S. Patiens, he is believed to have translated: the praised Patriarch asserts from certain documents; whose sentence the studious reader will find reviewed at the aforesaid XXVIII day of June in Irenæus. It will be of use, however, to have recited here some things which pertain more closely to our purpose. In some sort, he says, we thus find, for both parties (the chapters of SS. Justus and Irenæus), possible proofs and doubtful resulting presumptions, in that the party of those of S. Justus undoubtedly had, and was able — nay rather, was permitted — to pursue a probable and just cause of litigating and prosecuting (their opinion concerning the possession of the aforesaid bodies) without suspicion of evil fraud, calumny, or other machination; chiefly from this, that (as they asserted through certain written assertions and testimonies of certain ancients, who reported that they had it from other and older predecessors of theirs) the bodies of those Saints were first laid in the crypt of the church of the aforesaid S. Justus, which afterward were translated by B. Patiens to the church of S. Irenæus, as they said.
[19] this basilica destroyed by the Calvinists. To this purpose also make the verses of Constantius and Secundinus found in the crypt of S. Irenæus, on the testimony of Chifflet in the praised Claudian Illustrations at the VI day of June, of which some make no obscure mention of the sacred bodies translated or raised by S. Patiens, as will be evident to the reader:
Here two temples gleam, founded beneath one roof, Which holy Patiens, their founder, adorned. The bodies once sunk in a thicketed depth, A clear drawn light shines upon.
And that these verses can rightly be taken of the bodies of SS. Irenæus, Epipodius and Alexander, has been shown in the said Illustrations, chap. 4. Finally, what survives of that magnificent basilica the same Chifflet teaches, who, having said there at num. 33 that in the year 1562 it was razed to the ground by the impious Calvinists who had gained possession of Lyons, subjoins: Now, however, the crypt of S. Irenæus still remains; but stripped of its columns and of its gleaming crusts of mosaic work and (as they call it) of gold-leaf; over which, however, a building has been raised which does not come near the dignity of the old one.
[20] He is present at the council of Arles, Jacques Sirmond in the Councils of Gaul, and after him Labbe and Hardouin in their Collections of Councils, report a synod of Arles about the year of Christ 475, and a little after another of Lyons, at both of which S. Patiens is believed to have been present. Of the same the Most Eminent Baronius treats, vol. 6 of the Annals, at the year 490, on occasion of the book written by S. Faustus of Riez on Grace and free will: whence some have wrongly supposed that the said synod of Arles was fixed by Baronius to the aforesaid year. That in it the Predestinarian heresy was condemned is clear from the letter which Lucidus, a presbyter of great name, gave to the fathers of the council, thirty in number, among whom Patiens also occurs, for the recalling of the errors with which he had been infected; and from the letter, or preface, of Faustus of Riez to Leontius of Arles, in which he likewise mentions the synod of Lyons.
[21] in which the Predestinarian heresy Receive the words of Faustus: In that, out of pastoral solicitude, blessed father Leontius, ye gathered a council of the chief bishops for condemning the error of predestination, ye conferred a benefit on all the churches of the Gauls. And at the end: In which little Work (which he had been ordered by Leontius to write) the synod of Lyons required that, after the subscription of the council of Arles, some things should be added, new errors having been detected. There is extant also another letter of the same Faustus to the said Lucidus, by which he tries to call him away from the predestinarian heresy, and warns him to subscribe to the Catholic dogmas set forth in it, unless he wishes to be publicly refuted and chastised. He mentions also a synod either then begun or to be begun, when he says: But a copy of this letter I retain with me, to be brought forward in the assembly of the holy bishops, if it shall be so necessary.
[22] But that the letter was in fact brought forward by him and approved by the fathers of Arles may be seen in the praised Baronius, and in others; was condemned, and Lucidus was brought back to the Catholic faith: and that so happily that Lucidus, a letter having been written to the said bishops, recalled his errors, and professed the opposite Catholic dogmas. Both letters thou wilt find in Sirmond in the Councils of Gaul and in the praised Labbe and Hardouin; wherefore I shall here report only a few things from the letter of Lucidus. Thus he began it: To the most blessed lords and in Christ most reverend fathers, Leontius, Euphronius, Fonteius, Viventius, Mamertus, Patiens, Verianus, Auxanius, Faustus, Paulus, Megethius, Græcus, Eutropius, Leontius, Claudius, Marcellus, Crocus, Basilius, Claudius, Ursicinus, Prætextatus, Pragmatius, Theoplastus, Leocadius, Viventius, Julianus, Amicalis, Joannes, Opilio and Licinius, bishops, Lucidus the presbyter. Your rebuke is the public safety, and your sentence is medicine. Whence I too count it the highest remedy that I should excuse my past errors by accusing them, and should wash myself clean by a saving confession. Accordingly, in keeping with the recent statutes of the council which are to be proclaimed, I condemn with you, etc. Then, the errors of the Predestinarians being condemned, he professes the Catholic dogmas.
[23] Not long after, another synod was gathered at Lyons, he is present also at the synod of Lyons, whose fathers charged Faustus of Riez to add moreover, to his little Work which he had been ordered to write against the Predestinarian heresy, some things about certain errors detected after the subscription of the council of Arles, as we said at num. 21 from Faustus. Beware, however, of believing that this subscription was made to the books of Faustus on Grace and free will; for these at that time
he had not yet written, but had only been ordered to write; as is clear from the words of the same Faustus, with which he there proceeds thus: But in that ye have laid upon my weak shoulders the labor and care of setting in order those things which ye most learnedly brought forth in public conference, ye have taken too little thought, as I judge, for so great a business, too little for your own holy repute, and ye have burdened me with the judgment of charity, yourselves with the danger of the choice. For the rest, both these synods, in which the errors of the Predestinarians about divine predestination and the death of Christ were condemned, vex the Calvinists and Jansenists, and therefore they do not blush to accuse those two letters, nay even the holy bishops themselves who were present at these councils, and to besprinkle them with Pelagianism; as Étienne Deschamps of the Society of Jesus shows at length in his noble work On the Jansenian Heresy, bk. 1, dissert. 7, chap. 7, and bk. 2, dissert. 7, chap. 1, where thou wilt find both synods vindicated from the calumnies of the heretics.
[24] What besides was done in this assembly (of Lyons), whose Acts are obscure. says Sirmond praised above, we do not know: unless perhaps it please to refer to this synod what is read noted in an ancient codex of the Councils in these words: "Of the book of Ecclesiastical dogmas, which S. Patiens brought forward": so that, just as in the synod of Arles the books of Faustus, bishop of Riez, had been approved, so in that of Lyons we may understand that there was brought forward by Patiens, and received by the synod, the book on Ecclesiastical dogmas, whose author is believed to be Gennadius, presbyter of Marseilles. On which matter, because it is not clear, I would not readily pronounce. But however these things may stand, Sirmond was mistaken when he believed that the books of Faustus were approved by the synod of Arles — at which time, namely, they had not yet been written — being deceived by the words of Faustus reported at num. 21. Consult num. 23.
§ III. He bestows free grain on those afflicted by famine: he takes care that the Acts of S. Germanus of Auxerre be written; the lucubrations ascribed to him: the time of his death: his burial, and the profanation of the same.
[ ] A famine raging in Burgundy Among the other virtues of the holy Prelate whose memory has come down to us, there is celebrated his charity toward his neighbor, by which he most liberally succored the provinces of Gaul when afflicted with a dire famine after the inroads of the Visigoths under Evaric or Euric their king. There presided then over the Arverni as bishop S. Sidonius Apollinaris, raised to that see toward the end of the year 471 or the beginning of 472, as was said in his Acts at the XXIII day of August, §5; and he, in a letter given to S. Patiens, gave thanks in the name of the Arverni for his lavish beneficence in so calamitous a time. Of the same famine S. Gregory of Tours makes mention, bk. 2 of the History of the Franks, chap. 24, writing thus: In the time of bishop Sidonius a great famine oppressed Burgundy. And when they were scattered through divers regions, and there was none who might bestow food on the poor; a certain Ecdicius, one of the senators, his kinsman, is reported to have done then a great thing, trusting in God. Then, the truly memorable liberality of Ecdicius having been related, he proceeds: But S. Patiens also, bishop of Lyons, is reported to have bestowed on the peoples in that same famine a benefit like this. There is extant thence to this day among us a letter of blessed Sidonius, in which he praised him in declamatory style.
[26] after the Gothic ravages, The praised letter is the last of bk. 6, from which we have also reported above other deeds of the Saint, and it is of this kind: Sidonius to the lord Pope Patiens, greeting. Some men think one thing, some another; I chiefly think that he lives to his own good who lives for another's, and who, pitying the calamities and want of the faithful, does on earth the works of the heavens. To what end all this, thou sayest? The sentence aims most of all at thee, most blessed Pope, for whom it is not enough to bring help to those necessities only which thou knowest; and who, thy net of charity being stretched out to the farthest bounds of the Gauls, art wont to look at the causes of the needy before thou lookest at their persons. It hurts no man's slenderness and weakness if he cannot seek thee out: for thou dost anticipate with thy hands him who has not been able to come to thee on his feet. Thy vigilance passes into other provinces, and the breadth of thy care is poured forth to this end, that it may console the straits of those set far off. And hence it has come about that, because the modesty of the absent moves thee no less often than the complaint of those present, thou hast often wiped away the tears of those whose eyes thou hast not seen.*
[27] the Saint with memorable munificence I pass over those things which daily, for the failure of thy impoverished citizens, thou endurest in unresting watchings, prayers, expenses. He subjoins the things which we have mentioned above about the Saint's magnificence and sobriety at feasts, about the churches founded and adorned, and about his apostolic zeal in converting heretics, which being here passed over, I subjoin the rest: And some of these things, nevertheless, must perhaps be shared with thy other colleagues: but that this is owed to thee by a certain, as the jurisconsults say, special title, thy modesty will not be able to deny — namely, that after the Gothic devastation, after the crops consumed by fire, at thy own private cost thou didst send free grain to the common want throughout the desolated Gauls; whereas thou wouldst have conferred exceedingly much on peoples wasting with hunger if these things had been by trade, and not by gift. We have seen the roads narrowed by thy grain: we have seen along the banks of the Saône and the Rhone not one granary that thou alone hadst filled.
[28] Let the fictions of the fables of the gentiles give place, and that Triptolemus, borne as it were to heaven for the newly found ears of corn, bestows free grain on the wretched; whom his own Greece, famous for masons, painters, and sculptors, consecrated with temples, shaped in statues, portrayed in images. Him doubtful report commends, wandering with two ships among peoples still rude and Dodona-born — ships to which the poets afterward assigned the form of dragons — as having carried about an unknown seed. Thou, to say nothing of thy inland bounty, being about to dispense food to the cities of the Tyrrhenian sea, hast filled from thy granaries two rivers rather than two vessels. But if perchance the religious man praised is offended by the Achaean examples of the Eleusinian superstition, as less fitting; setting aside the reverence of the mystical meaning, let us compare the historical diligence of the venerable patriarch Joseph, who against the barrenness that was to follow seven fruitful years easily provided the remedy which he foresaw: yet according to the moral judgment he is in my opinion no whit less who, in a like necessity coming upon him, does not divine, and yet succors.
[29] Wherefore, although I cannot fully conjecture for which S. Sidonius gives thanks. how great thanks the men of Arles, of Riez, of Avignon , and the holder of the city of Orange also and of Alba, and of Valence and of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux pay thee; because it is hard to measure by the as the vows of those on whom thou knowest that food was bestowed without an as: yet in the name of the town of the Arverni I give exceeding abundant thanks, whom thou wast moved to succor not by the communion of a province, not by the nearness of a city, not by the convenience of a river, not by the offer of a price. And so they render mighty thanks through me, to whom it fell by the abundance of thy bread to come to a sufficiency of their own. Therefore if I seem to have sufficiently fulfilled the duties of the office charged upon me , from an envoy I shall become a messenger. Straightway, I would have thee know, thy glory is borne through all Aquitaine: thou art loved, praised, longed for, honored in the hearts of all, in the vows of all. Amid these evils of the times thou art a good priest, a good father, a good year; for whom it was worth while that their famine should be made a peril, if thy bounty could not otherwise be made an experience. Deign to be mindful of us, lord Pope. Thus far Sidonius.
[30] More about the Saint's deeds I have not found, except that at his urging He takes care that the Acts of S. Germanus of Auxerre be written: Constantius, a presbyter of Lyons, wrote the Acts of S. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, as was shown at the XXXI day of July, where they were given, in the Preliminary Commentary, §4, and as Constantius himself testified in his letters to S. Patiens and to holy Censurius, bishop of Auxerre, which may be read there. Some ascribe to S. Patiens himself a Homily on S. Genesius, martyr of Arles; but that this is altogether uncertain has already been said at the XXV day of August in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of the praised holy martyr, §3, num. 38 and following, where the reader will find that Homily recited.
[31] Some Homilies perhaps to be ascribed to him: was S. Africanus brought up by him? The Benedictine writers of the Literary History of France, vol. 2, in S. Patiens, §2, judge that there cannot be adjudged away from him another Homily, which among the rest ascribed to Eusebius of Emesa is the forty-eighth, on psalm 132: Behold how good and how pleasant. Their reason is that the most base error of the Photinians about the generation of Christ is refuted in it, and that it is otherwise established that the Saint labored to root out that heresy, which under the Burgundians flourished at Lyons. Hence they further infer that perhaps others also attributed to the same Eusebius, which overthrow the same errors, have Patiens for their author; but, as is clear, nothing certain can be laid down hence. Uncertain, finally, is what is read of the upbringing of S. Africanus in the ecclesiastical Office at the 1st day of May, on which he is venerated, chap. 3. For there it is said that he, having been handed over to S. Patiens, bishop of Lyons, to be brought up, obtained the primacy of the same church: on which matter consult, if thou wilt, our Papebroch in the place cited.
[32] The Saint's death about the year 480 Obscure likewise is the year in which the excellent Prelate was called from this mortal life to the rewards of his labors. Baillet thinks it happened about the year 491, Severtius in the year 490. Severtius so opined because, from the words of Baronius ill understood, he referred to the year 490 the synod of Lyons, which we have warned above must be fixed to about the year 475, and thought that Baronius's reckonings must be stood by, as he noted in S. Africanus. But indeed that he died some years earlier is more likely from the time in which S. Rusticius or Rusticus, who after S. Lupicinus succeeded Patiens, is established to have been bishop of Lyons. For Rusticius was already presiding over that church in the year 494, in whose month of February Pope Gelasius I gave a letter to him, in which he both gave thanks for money sent in the common calamity of Italy, and commended S. Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, sent by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, to Gundobald, king of the Burgundians, for the ransoming of captives, as may be read in the Acts of the praised S. Rusticius illustrated at the XXV day of April.
[33] must be fixed: And so, that we may leave some years to the episcopate of Lupicinus, whom we have said to have sat between Patiens and Rusticius, it must be said that our holy Bishop more probably died before the year 490; unless we wish without reason to prolong the times of this man's prelacy and to contract those of the other. These reasons impelled our Bolland to refer the beginning of S. Lupicinus's episcopate to about the year 480, and its end to about 486. The same would press still more if S. Africanus had sat midway between SS. Patiens and Lupicinus; but that is not probable enough. Wherefore we refer the happy death of S. Patiens to about the year 480 with Bolland, yet with such latitude of time that we do not deny that he died a few years before or after, for that, as is clear from what has been said,
cannot certainly be settled.
[34] his body buried in the church of S. Julius, That the venerable body of the holy Bishop was buried at Lyons in the church of S. Justus beneath a marble tomb, Saussay writes in the Gallican Martyrology, and the same is asserted in the manuscript Breviary of Lyons mentioned above, from which I have excerpted the following: He died peaceable in his own time at Lyons on the third of the Ides of September, about the year CDXC (nay, earlier, from what has been said), buried in the church of S. Justus, most dear to him, where he rested under a famous title, seen long afterward by eight doctors appointed for the task. With these agrees Chifflet in the Historical Deduction cited at num. 17, whose §1 thus begins: The church of S. Irenæus was built by S. Patiens, bishop of Lyons: prior to it was the church of S. Justus, formerly called that of the Holy Maccabees; inasmuch as in it not only S. Patiens, but also his predecessors, S. Justus, S. Antiochus and S. Elpidius, were buried.
[35] From the same Historical Deduction we learn that in the year 1287 the bones of S. Patiens were inspected by four Religious men of the Order of S. Dominic and as many of the Order of S. Francis, in the year 1287 they are laid in another case: appointed for that task, and were laid in new cases, apart from some particles of the same, which were kept separately for public veneration. For thus the aforesaid deputies testified in the instrument drawn up on this matter: The tomb of S. Justus being reserved (read: reserved) for the hand of the aforesaid archbishop (William of Vienne, the see of Lyons being vacant), we caused the sepulchres of the other Saints lying about the same to be opened, and the most sacred relics found there we laid up and enclosed one by one in single caskets specially deputed for this, together with the sacristan and several other canons of the same place: yet of the several relics we placed some apart in little bags, by the will of the aforesaid chapter, to be shown to the peoples when it shall be opportune. And the names of the aforesaid Saints are these … Likewise in another tomb the body of blessed Patiens, confessor and archbishop of Lyons, over which was a marble title expressing the name.
[36] That the same church was repaired or enlarged in the year 1246 the praised Chifflet writes, p. 344, and at the same time commemorates its destruction by the impious Calvinists raging against all sacred things in these words: the aforesaid church destroyed by the Calvinists, Pope Innocent IV, a Bull having been given at Lyons on the XV of the Kalends of January, in the IV year of his Pontificate, of Christ MCCXLVI, exhorted all the faithful settled throughout the province of Reims, Bourges, Lyons, Rouen, Sens, Tours, Vienne and Besançon to promote by their alms the structure of the church of S. Justus (which, he says, they had begun to build with a work not a little costly), indulgences of one year being offered. And commendatory letters of the same purport he gave on the VI of the Kalends of September, in the VI year of his Pontificate, of Christ MCCXLVII (nay rather MCCXLVIII, or the V year of his Pontificate) to the faithful living in the provinces of Canterbury and York. This is that very new basilica of S. Justus, notable in material, workmanship and size, which … at last in the year MDLXII was utterly destroyed by the raging Calvinists, and plainly leveled with the ground, and for more than a hundred years lies in its own ruins.
[37] The Saint's bones scattered. And that not only was the said church overthrown by the Calvinists, but also the sacred bones of the Bishop were impiously scattered by the same sacrilegious men, the author of the manuscript Breviary of Lyons writes, subjoining the following to the words reported at num. 34: The basilica itself being leveled with the ground by the deserters of their ancestral faith (the Calvinists), the remains of him and of the other Heavenly ones, which were worthy of all honor, were plundered with impious fury in the year MDLXII. Like things may be read in others also: but whether some relics of S. Patiens were withdrawn from the impious hands of the Calvinists, I have not found.
Annotatathat is, salutem* (greeting)
* another reading: Aveniocus
* another reading: implesse