Sacerdos

ON ST. SACERDOS, BISHOP OF LYONS,

AT PARIS IN GAUL,

In the year 551 or 552

A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Sacerdos, bishop of Lyons, at Paris in Gaul (St.)

BY C. S.

§ I. His memory in the ancient and more recent martyrologies: the day and place of his death: whence his deeds are to be drawn out: his birth, his taking up of the episcopate, and the churches founded by him.

[ ] Of the holy bishops who illustrated by their merits and sanctity the metropolitan see of Lyons of the Segusiani, on this day St. Sacerdos — otherwise also Sacerdus, in French called Serdot — has been inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in these words: In the ancient martyrologies at Lyons At Lyons, the deposition of St. Sacerdos the bishop. He seems to have been unknown to Ado and Usuard; but in the Appendix of the former, in Rosweyde, at the same day is read: At Lyons, the deposition of St. Sacerdos, bishop and confessor. In the supplements of Usuard also, in Sollier, mention of him is frequent on the same day. Similarly, in the Hieronymian transcript of Florentinius, and in the Barberini codex of Bede published before tom. 2 of March, the deposition of St. Sacerdos the bishop is read as added by the interpolators at the present day, and he is likewise announced at Lyons. To these are added the Martyrology of Rabanus, the Gellone one in d'Achery, tom. 2 of the Spicilegium, our manuscript Florarium, the Franco-Gallic Hagiology of Labbe, and other more recent ones, in which the memory of our saint is celebrated at Lyons at the same day.

[2] But another ancient Martyrology under the name of Bede, in Martène, tom. 6 of the Ancient Writers, col. 646, in others he is announced at Paris omitting the place either of cultus or of death, has only: On the second of the Ides, the birthday of St. Sacerdos the bishop. On the contrary, Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology announces him not at Lyons but at Paris, saying: At Lutetia of the Parisii, the deposition of St. Sacerdos, bishop and confessor of Lyons. With him agrees the author of the Paris Martyrology, who at the mentioned day speaks thus: At Paris, of St. Sacerdos, bishop of Lyons, who was present at the Fifth Council of Orléans and at the Second of Paris. Castellanus also, although following the stream he commemorates the saint at Lyons, nevertheless notes in the margin that he should be announced at Paris; because, that is, he had learned from St. Gregory of Tours that he ended his life in this city, as we shall see below. Hence also Théophile Raynaud in the Hagiology of Lyons observes the following: That in the Roman Martyrology and in Bede's (that is, in the supplements) and in the appendix of Ado, on the 12th of September — which day is marked by the happy death of St. Sacerdos — is read in these words: "At Lyons, the deposition of St. Sacerdos the bishop," is not to be taken of the holy prelate's death in the city of Lyons, but of the festive memory of the deposition made on that day at Paris.

[3] at this day, which perhaps is not the day of his death. Therefore it must be said that the mentioned martyrologies assigned Lyons not as the place of his death, but as the place of his see and cultus and of his preserved sacred body. Besides, whether the holy prelate died on this twelfth day of September his epitaph, to be recounted below, makes doubtful; for in it is read: He died on the third of the Ides of September; and thus his happy passage to the heavens would have happened on the eleventh day of September. Nevertheless, that he was venerated from of old on the twelfth day is established from the martyrologies adduced, with which agrees also another ancient manuscript Hagiology, formerly of the monastery of St. Martin de Canali, praised by the writers of the reissued Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, col. 33, in which it is there said to be read thus: On the second of the Ides of September, the birthday of \ St. Sacerdos, and the dedication of the church of St. Paul, which he built with marvelous workmanship.* Likewise agrees the author of a manuscript Breviary of Lyons, of whom mention will recur below, who, although he mentions from the praised epitaph his death undergone on the third of the Ides, nevertheless placed his Office at the twelfth day. Perhaps because the eleventh day was taken up by the feast of St. Patiens, the memory of our holy prelate was referred to the twelfth.

[4] Juan Tamayo Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology, contending that our St. Sacerdos passed from the bishopric of Lyons to that of Sigüenza in Spain, In the Spanish Martyrology and is honored there, announces him at the 5th day of May in this manner: At Sigüenza in Celtiberia of Hither Spain, of St. Sacerdos, bishop of that city; who, when he was discharging the office of prelate at Lyons in Gaul, being sent by Childebert the elder, king of the Gauls, into Spain with the title of ambassador to Athanagild, prince of the Goths, tarried among our people for a time, and being elected pontiff of the see of Sigüenza, left there the greatest example of himself to posterity. Afterward, having returned to Lyons, he was present at the Council of Orléans; and at last, stopping at Paris, famous for his virtues, he rendered his soul to God to be crowned. His sacred head, carried to Sigüenza, is honorably venerated with due cultus in the sacristy of the mother church.

[5] For this contention he praises the Chronicle of Julian and the poems of Aulus Halus, he has been wrongly inserted by Tamayo. that is, supposititious and fabulous documents. Nay, he even reproves Diego Sánchez Portocarrero, a knight of St. James, because he doubted stubbornly, in his Catalogue of the bishops of that see, concerning the bishopric of Sigüenza of St. Sacerdos of Lyons, notwithstanding the mentioned documents. But how deservedly Portocarrero did this the learned know, who have long had those fabulous papers thoroughly examined. Consult also, if you please, tom. 2 of May at the 5th day among the things passed over, among which that prelate of Sigüenza has been reported. At the same day, however, in the Roman Martyrology the memory of Sacerdos, bishop of Saguntum, has been written, the Tables of the same church and the Flos Sanctorum of Spain being praised among the notes; but whoever that saint may have been (whom nevertheless the praised Diego Portocarrero, on Tamayo's testimony, did not find in the ancient Breviary of the church of Sigüenza), we shall undoubtedly believe him distinct from St. Sacerdos of Lyons, until other monuments than those which Tamayo brings forward be produced.

[6] No Acts of the saint exist, or at least none have come to our hands, Acts do not exist. although Henschen in tom. VI of May, p. 10, no. 17, set forth to learned lovers of the saints his desire and hope of obtaining them. There exists, however, a memory of him in Gregory of Tours and in the Acts of the Fifth Council of Orléans, from which Stephen de Vernay, a priest of Lyons, in the Breviary of which we have made mention above, and which he himself in the same church

composed for use in the seventeenth century, put together proper lessons of the saint, with the addition besides of some things sought from elsewhere and to be examined below. Whether, however, that Breviary was afterward approved and printed, we do not know, since besides that one there exists none in our Museum.

[7] That St. Sacerdos was sprung from a noble family we learn from St. Gregory of Tours, Born of noble parents, who in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 8, no. 1, of Ruinart's edition, writes that St. Nicetius — whom in the same place at no. 3 he calls his nephew — was begotten of a father Florentius, elsewhere Florentinus, one of the senators. And Gregory of Tours could have his family excellently well known, since he himself was of the same; for his own mother had the praised St. Nicetius as her uncle, as he testifies in book 5 of the History of the Franks, chapter 5. The same connection of blood is asserted in the epitaph of St. Nicetius, given in tom. 1 of April, p. 95, in these words:

And this holy man, the next heir of Sacerdos, Joined to him in blood, in eminence, and in see alike.

Finally the saint's own sepulchral inscription records that he was of patrician stock:

And the glory of his character raised him to patrician eminence: So do brave hearts lift up the honors thus won.

[8] He succeeds Licontius in the episcopate, Of his deeds before the episcopate I have found nothing anywhere; but of his taking it up and administering it nobly the manuscript Breviary of Lyons, which we have praised above, has thus: Sacerdos, such in mind as in name — in faith, in merits, in piety, in office, in worship, in worth, in heart, in rank — from a manuscript Register of the church of St. Nicetius, whose patron he was, succeeded Leontius in the bishopric of Lyons, about the year 546, the common suffrages of clergy and people concurring with the command of Childebert, king of the Franks. And this burden, taken up indeed unwillingly, he administered in the fear of God, with the highest testimony of episcopal virtues; and ecclesiastical discipline, almost fallen down whether through the engines of preceding wars or of heretics, he restored with a vindication at once wise and strenuous. On these things let us observe a few points. Since nothing is said of the age of the praised register, it remains uncertain of what credit it is — and therefore also what is narrated of the common suffrages of people and clergy and of Childebert's command, and likewise of the episcopate unwillingly taken up; although both the custom of that time and the virtue of the holy man make these things likely.

[9] He builds the church of St. Paul, He who is here called Leontius is, in three Catalogues of the bishops of Lyons published by Fr. Pierre-François Chifflet in his Paulinus illustrated, called Liconcius, Lycontius, and Licontius, and is likewise placed as the saint's predecessor in the see of Lyons. The same do the writers of the Gallia Christiana, who write Licontius, and say that nothing beyond his name is available concerning him. Sévert is of opinion that he sat from the year 542 for the following two years; which indeed we do not deny, although we cannot establish it with certainty. Let us return to the Breviary. He repaired, it continues, the ruined masses of the sacred walls; nay, he also built the collegiate church of St. Paul with marvelous workmanship, and another parochial one, sacred to St. Eulalia, which is now St. George's. That the church of St. Paul was in fact founded with marvelous workmanship by St. Sacerdos we have seen from the ancient Hagiology, formerly of the monastery of St. Martin de Canali, reported at no. 3; which Hagiology is perhaps the same as that which Sévert, §8 in Sacerdos, praises for the same opinion under the name of an old manuscript Martyrology of the collegiate church of Beaujeu, since in it also our saint is read, on the testimony of Sévert, to have built the mentioned church of St. Paul with marvelous workmanship, on the day before the Ides.

[10] and perhaps also a nunnery Concerning the church of St. Eulalia or St. George the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, col. 33, note these things: Nay, the writers of the affairs of Lyons commonly exhibit him (St. Sacerdos) as the author of the sacred building of SS. George and Eulalia, which was first of nuns, and was restored by Leidrad, and at length in the eleventh century was given to the Knights of the Temple, and is now a preceptory of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. That instead of "the eleventh century" something else must be read is clear, since the Order of the Knights of the Temple was first begun in the twelfth century. Mabillon, tom. 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 547, no. 30, likewise ascribes both churches to St. Sacerdos as founder, with the help of king Childebert; and he judges the one to have been presently destined for holy virgins, but affirms that the other is thought by many to have been at first handed over to monks. Childebert, he says, favored monks no less than other kings, nay, far surpassed others in this respect. For, not to repeat earlier things, he brought help to Sacerdos, prelate of Lyons, in building the basilicas of St. Paul and St. Eulalia… Many are of opinion that the basilica of St. Paul at Lyons, which is now collegiate, was once of monks, its author being Sacerdos, metropolitan of that place, who built the convent of virgins of St. Eulalia in the same city, Childebert with queen Ultrogotha bringing aid.

[11] Both places (Mabillon continues) Leidrad the archbishop restored, he builds the church of SS. George and Eulalia; as he himself testifies in his letter to Charlemagne. "In the same city of Lyons I have restored other churches: one in honor of St. Eulalia, where there was a monastery of maidens in honor of St. George, which I roofed anew in part, and whose walls I raised from the foundations. Another house also, in honor of St. Paul, has been newly roofed." This letter of Leidrad you will find in tom. 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana among the documents, no. 2; and from what has been said you will conclude, first, that the mentioned church of SS. Eulalia and George was more probably destined at the first not for a parish, as the author of the manuscript Breviary will have it, but for a company of maidens; secondly, that Paradin erred when in book 2, chapter 7, of the History of Lyons, from the twin patron of that building he supposed there were twin churches, and both built by St. Sacerdos. Sévert too acknowledges only one; but he affirms from a certain Homiliary — of what antiquity or credit I do not know — that it was at the first instituted by the holy prelate as a parish church.

[12] The same author of the Breviary mentions besides another nunnery, and also a monastery of St. Peter? called St. Peter's, founded at Lyons by the same saint, praising a certain most ancient book, produced by the chapter of St. Nicetius against the nuns of the aforesaid monastery in the year 1309. I likewise do not know of what authority that book may be; but Mabillon, tom. 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 590, no. 222, and after him the writers of the praised Gallia Christiana, col. 283 and following, show indeed that the foundation of that place is obscure, but none of them mentions that it is ascribed by anyone to St. Sacerdos.

[13] Yet perhaps to his counsel is owed the erection of the hospice of Lyons, which Sévert says was in his own time called after the Blessed Virgin Mary, The hospice perhaps erected by his counsel. which the Fifth Council of Orléans, to be mentioned below, approved and established. Canon 15 treats of it, where the fathers say: But concerning the hospice which the most pious king Childebert, or his consort queen Ultrogotha, founded in the city of Lyons at the Lord's inspiration — the order of whose institution and the reckoning of whose expense we have confirmed at their own request by the subscription of our hands — it has seemed good, for the contemplation of God, being joined together into one, to decree by an authority that shall abide, etc. The erection of this hospice, I say, St. Sacerdos perhaps obtained and promoted, who had much influence with king Childebert, as will appear from what is to be said.

\ perhaps est*

§ II. He is present at the Fifth Council of Orléans: was he also at the Second of Paris? The fabulous Spanish legation and bishopric of Sigüenza: his death undergone at Paris: his body translated to Lyons: his tomb and its inscription: of what sort is the head kept at Sigüenza?

[ ] At the Fifth Council of Orléans Labbe in tom. 5 of the Councils, from col. 390, exhibits the Fifth Council of Orléans, to which fifty bishops — and among them St. Sacerdos of Lyons, and many illustrious for holiness and reckoned among the saints — and others of a lower order, deputed by their bishops, are read to have subscribed. In it twenty-four canons were framed; and since the first of these execrates and anathematizes the wicked sects of Eutyches and Nestorius, condemned by the holy See, Binius there in his notes is of opinion that it was assembled on the occasion of the Three Chapters, which at that time were stirring up such great commotions in the East — which Baronius also judges in the Annals at the year of Christ 552. Besides this, another cause also is alleged by Jacques Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church, tom. 2, at the year 549; namely the case of Marcus, bishop of Orléans, of whom St. Gregory of Tours in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 6, no. 5, Ruinart being the editor, has these things: But at the city of Orléans, when bishop Marcus had been accused by wicked men and thrust into exile, a great assembly of bishops was gathered, at the command of king Childebert; in which synod the blessed bishops, recognizing that what had been muttered against him was empty, restore him to his city and his see.

[15] he presided, or at any rate was present The same is the judgment of Ruinart in his notes, and of the writers of the Gallia Christiana, tom. 8, col. [ ]; and the reason is that no other council of Orléans can be assigned in which this was done. For to the fourth synod, held according to Labbe in the year 541, Marcus himself subscribed, but by no means to the fifth, because, that is, he was then still living in exile, or at any rate, being compelled to plead his own cause, he did not obtain a place among the fathers. I wonder, however, that in the published canons of this synod nothing is recorded of this case of Marcus. Further, that St. Sacerdos presided at this fifth council of Orléans writers everywhere gather from this, that he is read as subscribed in the first place; yet there are not wanting manuscript codices in which he occurs only in the second place. For, on the testimony of Sirmond in his notes, in the Lyons codex and in the shorter Pithou one, contrary to what is in others, Aurelian the bishop holds the first place, then Sacerdos. This was St. Aurelian, prelate of Arles, whose deeds have been elucidated at the 16th day of June, where on page 109 this subject also is treated.

[16] in the year of Christ 549; However all these things may stand, the subscription of St. Sacerdos, from which we have the year in which the synod was held, is read thus: In the name of Christ, I Sacerdos, bishop of the church of Lyons, have read over and subscribed our constitution. I noted it on the fifth day before the Kalends of November, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of our lord king Childebert, in the thirteenth Indiction. From these chronological notes Sirmond, Pagi, and others rightly draw out the year of Christ 549; for both the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Childebert — which he had entered upon at the end of November of the year 511, after the death of his father Clovis — and the thirteenth Indiction fell in this year. But the most eminent Baronius in the Annals, Binius in his notes in Labbe, and Sévert gathered from the same notes the year of Christ 552, following, that is, the opinion of those who judged that the death of Clovis and the beginning of Childebert's reign should be tied to the year of Christ 514; to whom the author of the manuscript Breviary of Lyons also adhered. But from what is to be said it will be clear that our holy prelate

had already ceased to live in the month of October of the year 552.

[17] Not long afterward another council was celebrated at Paris, and perhaps also at the Second of Paris, called the second, in which Saffaracus, bishop of Paris, being convicted of a grave crime, was condemned and expelled from his see. Sirmond and Binius in Labbe referred it, from mere conjecture, to about the year of Christ 555. But the writers of the Gallia Christiana, tom. 7, col. 17, note that it must be placed a little earlier, because they will have it that St. Firminus, bishop of Uzès, who was present at it, died in the year 553 — which will have to be examined at the 11th day of October, on which he is venerated. Hence they are of opinion that it was held in the year 551, or rather a little later; which to us also appears more likely, for reasons to be stated, provided it be not deferred beyond the year 552.

[18] Whether our saint was present at this synod is made doubtful by the edition of the Works of St. Gregory of Tours prepared by Thierry Ruinart; convoked in the year 551 or 552. for in it, in book 4 of the History of the Franks, chapter 36 — which is one of six chapters that he himself, since they were not found in other editions, inserted from a manuscript codex of Monte Cassino — these things are read: But when Sacerdos, bishop of Lyons, died at Paris after that synod which expelled Saffaracus, St. Nicetius, elected by him, as we have written in the book of his Life, took up the bishopric. Hence it becomes likely that the saint was present at the mentioned synod, or at least came to Paris on account of it, but, being seized by his last illness, was prevented from being present; for among the subscriptions exhibited by Labbe his name does not occur.

[19] More of the saint's deeds we do not have, besides his death, The fabulous Spanish legation of which we shall presently treat, after we have briefly refuted the fables of Tamayo. He, in his Martyrology mentioned above, at the 5th day of May, recites these things from the supposititious Chronicle of Julian at the year of Christ 557: The holy pontiff Sacerdos of Lyons came to king Athanagild, sent by the kings of Gaul, and was made bishop of Sigüenza by the same king. The holy man died on the third day of September in the year of the Lord 570. Instead of 570 Tamayo notes that 561 should be put; and he says that the legation was undertaken by St. Sacerdos in order to obtain Brunhild and Galswintha, daughters of Athanagild king of Spain, to be joined in marriage to Sigebert and Chilperic, kings of the Gauls. Further, he places the saint's arrival in Spain about the year of Christ 556, and fables that while he stayed there he was set by Athanagild over the see of Sigüenza as bishop.

[20] The falsity of all these things — to pass over others — is clear from the year of the saint's death, and his taking up of the bishopric of Sigüenza is rejected. which we shall presently see cannot be deferred beyond the year of Christ 552; and so he could not have discharged, in the year 556, the mentioned legation, unknown to all writers, to Athanagild, king of the Visigoths in Spain, who, as Tamayo admits, first obtained the kingdom in the Era 592, that is, in the year of Christ 554. Then, who would believe that St. Sacerdos, at the same time at which he presided over the metropolitan see of Lyons, took up the bishopric of Sigüenza in Spain? Did he then hold two bishoprics at once, or did he administer one after the other — first that of Lyons, then that of Sigüenza, and again that of Lyons on his return to Gaul? These are trifles, and not worthy of an answer.

[21] Lying at Paris in his fatal illness, Of the saint's last illness and happy death Gregory of Tours writes the following in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 8, no. 3, of Ruinart's edition: When Sacerdos, prelate of Lyons, was sick in the city of Paris, since he was loved by Childebert the elder with great love, the king wished to go even to his little bed and to visit the sick man. And when he came, the bishop said: "You know very well, O most pious king, that I have faithfully served you in all your necessities, and have devoutly fulfilled whatever you enjoined; now I pray, since the time of my dissolution is at hand, that you do not let me depart from this world with sorrow; but grant willingly the one petition which I make." And he said: "Ask what you will, and you shall obtain it."

[22] he obtains St. Nicetius as his successor: "I ask," he said, "that Nicetius the priest, my nephew, be substituted as bishop of the church of Lyons. For he is — as the words of my testimony declare — a lover of chastity, and a lover of the churches, and very devoted in almsgiving, and whatever befits the servants of God he practices both in works and in character." The king answered: "God's will be done." And thus by the full suffrage of king and people he was ordained bishop of Lyons. See also what was said at no. 18. After these things St. Gregory runs out into the praises of St. Nicetius, and so tacitly shows that St. Sacerdos, moved not by the connection of blood but by the merits and virtues of Nicetius and by his own zeal for his flock, asked the bishopric for his nephew; of which how worthy he was his sanctity has proved, seeing that, reckoned among the saints, he is venerated on the 2nd day of April, at which we have illustrated his Acts.

[23] he dies there The year in which the saint departed to the heavenly country his epitaph sets forth with these notes: Who lived in the love of God sixty-five years; he died on the third of the Ides of September, after the consulship \ of Justin, a most illustrious man, consul \, in the first Indiction. Light is thrown on this inscription by what Antoine Pagi has in the Hypatic Dissertation, p. 324 — namely, that the same year of Christ 540, which in some western provinces was marked as the sixth after the consulship of Paulinus, or the sixth year after the consulship of Paulinus, was in the greater part of the empire marked by Justin the younger alone. Therefore from the epitaph adduced it appears that it was not unusual for the people of Lyons after the year 540 to number their years by the post-consulships of Justin — as we see was done also in the sepulchral inscription of St. Aurelian, bishop of Arles, reported at the 16th day of June, p. 61. For there he is said to have died on the sixteenth of the Kalends of July, eleven times after Justin's, in the fourteenth Indiction; from which our Papebroch laid down that the year of that saint's death fell in the year of Christ 551. Finally, we shall see that the same thing occurred in the epitaph of St. Nicetius.

[24] in the year 552 Which year after the consulship of Justin it was is not expressed in our manuscript of St. Sacerdos' epitaph, nor did Sévert find it in his own — whether it was in fact not added, or was worn away from the marble. In both, however, the first Indiction is written; and from it Le Cointe, at the year 551, no. 4, accuses that epitaph of error. For Justin, he says, held the consulship in the year of Christ 540, and the following year is tied not to the first Indiction, but to the fourth; to which, as he adds, it is established that Sacerdos survived. But I gather the contrary from this: for since the first Indiction current on the eleventh day of September first occurred, from Justin's consulship, that is from the year 540, in the year 552, I judge that this is designated in the mentioned epitaph as the last of the saint's life; so that the sense is that he died on the third of the Ides of September, twelve times after the consulship of Justin, in the first Indiction, that is, in the year assigned.

[25] Against these reckonings, however, some difficulty arises from St. Gregory of Tours, or 552. compared with the sepulchral inscription of St. Nicetius, whom we have said succeeded Sacerdos. For the former in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 8, no. 5, says of Nicetius: In the twenty-second year of his episcopate, at the age of sixty, he departed to Christ. Likewise in book 4 of the History of the Franks, chapter 36, in Ruinart: He, having ministered in the priesthood twenty-two years, departed to the Lord. Further, St. Nicetius died in the year 573, as was said at the 2nd day of April, on which he is venerated, and as is clear from his epitaph in Sévert, where is read: He died on the fourth of the Nones \ of April, or the thirty-third after Justin, and in the sixth Indiction* — all which declare the aforecited year. Nor can the death of Nicetius be placed later, since his successor St. Priscus was present at the Fourth Council of Paris, held in the same year on the third of the Ides of September, as was observed in the same place in the notes on chapter 2. But now if you count from the month of September of the year 552 to the 2nd day of April of the year 573, you will find only the twenty-first year of the episcopate of Nicetius begun by some months; and therefore our Henschen at no. 1 of the Commentary on the Life of Nicetius fixed the death of St. Sacerdos in the year 551. It must be therefore that an error lurks either in the reckonings of Gregory of Tours or in the epitaph of St. Sacerdos; and therefore I have fixed the saint's death, under doubt, in 551 or 552.

[26] The body of the deceased was carried from Paris to Lyons, either soon after his death, at the procuring perhaps of St. Nicetius, his nephew and successor, The body carried to Lyons, where his tomb or afterward; where his tomb was found in the church of St. Nicetius in the year 1308, together with the tombs of other saints, and lawfully recognized. The instrument of this finding, so far as it concerns all the saints whose relics were then found, has already been published in tom. VI of June in the Appendix to the 13th day, and therefore I shall here report only what pertains to St. Sacerdos. And so those deputed for that work, after they had treated of the tomb of St. Nicetius, thus continue: Likewise beside a certain other altar, called the altar of St. Sacerdos, was the tomb of St. Sacerdos, as appeared by the letters comprised in a certain marble stone laid over it, which are as follows.

[27] found with its inscription in the year 1308, Sacerdus, renowned in name, in mind, in faith, in merits, in piety, In office, in worship, in worth, in heart, in rank; In doctrine, in counsel, in understanding, in probity, in vigor, In lineage, in censure, in religion \*; Snatching away the joys of all, leaving laments behind, Here shut in as to his limbs \*, holding ample things in praises; And the glory of his character \* raised him to patrician eminence; So do brave hearts lift up the honors thus won \*. For a great good does he furnish by the heavenly power: Though bodies be wanting, illustrious deeds remain. Cleaving here by the last lot to the side of a torn pledge \*, Whom love bade take by blood \* in life. And how great the wisdom of this man that shone upon the world, The glory of the age to come shall be witness.

Who lived in the love and fear of God sixty-five years. He died on the third of the Ides of September, after the consulship of Justin, a most illustrious man, consul, in the first Indiction. The same epitaph Sévert recites, but somewhat differently, as we have noted in the margin \\.

[28] Besides, we have reexamined the sixth hexameter from the same, because in our manuscript it is read still more corruptly — lasteri for laceri. it was afterward profaned by the Calvinists. Perhaps from the antiquity of the writing these and other faults have crept in, and here it must be read:

Cleaving thus by the last lot to the side of a pledge, Whom love joined in life by blood, in death by burial;

so that the sense may be that the saint's tomb fell to him near St. Nicetius, to whom, as his paternal or maternal uncle, he was joined by blood. What further became of that sacred body we do not know. Sévert raises the suspicion that it was scattered by the impious followers of Calvin in the sixteenth century; for after he had recited the mentioned epitaph, he subjoins: But I, the writer, in the year 1616, in the month of July, read it over from

express profession at least these last verses on the very ancient aforesaid white marble, still recognized and made conspicuous from the dug-up earth of the tomb before the great altar of the same church of St. Nicetius, which of old, being hollow, the Calvinists had filled with wet earth and stones in the year 1562.

[29] What is to be thought of the head, Before I make an end, a few things remain for me with Tamayo. He not only inserted our St. Sacerdos among the bishops of Sigüenza, as we have seen above, but also contends that his head is kept at the same Sigüenza. To prove this he produces the Chronicle of Julian, in which after the words given at no. 18 is read: Whose head is kept in the same see, but his body at Lyons; he adduces also the fabulous poems of Aulus Halus, in which the same things are read; and finally an ancient Spanish Breviary, which nevertheless, lest it be contrary to him, he liberally alters. Receive the words of the Breviary: He (St. Sacerdos) was buried in the church of Limoges (correct, says Tamayo, of Lyons); but in the course of time afterward his head was translated into Spain into this church of Sigüenza (where on this day he is venerated). What is to be thought of all these things I judge sufficiently manifest from what has been said above; yet it will be well to have subjoined here the judgment on this matter of the most illustrious man Nicolás Antonio, which the very reverend and most worthy lord Adrian Connink, his kinsman, communicated at Madrid in the year 1721 to our Pinius of pious memory from his manuscripts, that the reader may understand what that learned Spaniard thought.

[30] kept under the name of St. Sacerdos He, having hissed off what Tamayo had reported from Pseudo-Julian concerning the Spanish legation of St. Sacerdos and the see of Sigüenza, thus continues: By so many lies it stood Pseudo-Julian to give a life and a man to a head which is religiously kept in the church of Sigüenza under the name of St. Sacerdos, bishop of that city. Of which holy prelate indeed mention was let into the Roman Martyrology at the 5th day of May by Baronius, who followed the tables of this church and the Flos Sanctorum. Nor could it come into anyone's mind to wish to detract from the tradition of a most worthy church concerning its own bishop; yet we hope that the men of Sigüenza are not of so dull a nose that on the testimonies of Julian alone (to whom Tamayo has added his own trifles, so often arraigned and convicted of falsehood) they should wish, at the greatest cost to their own prudence and learning, to confound Sacerdos their bishop with Sacerdos, bishop of Lyons — since there have been several men of this name famous in reputation — and to hold at any price the most empty ravings of the Toledan pseudo-historians.

[31] and preserved at Sigüenza in Spain Nor is it my purpose to linger over refuting the computations, errors, and corrections of Juan Tamayo, since they all easily fall from what has already been said, and it has escaped Tamayo himself whence the truth may appear as if from a stage-machine: that the men of Sigüenza have in the Lessons of their ancient Breviary that St. Sacerdos was buried in the church of Limoges, but that in the course of time his head was translated into that church of Sigüenza — where Tamayo wished to be read, instead of "of Limoges," what is perhaps correct, "of Lyons," setting the entire credit of the Breviary after the no-credit of Pseudo-Julian; whereas it is more likely that the Lessons of the Breviary do not stray from the way than that Julian does not wander from it. St. Sacerdos, bishop of Limoges, shone with marvelous holiness in the time of Clovis, king of the Franks, whose memory stands in the Roman Martyrology on the 4th day of May; and the describers of the Lives of the saints have gathered more concerning him and his death and his translations, from which what makes most for our purpose and for the tradition of the men of Sigüenza is this: that there was no trace of the head or of any part of it in the church of Sarlat in Gaul (whither it had at last come) in the year 1629, at which time, by decree of the chapter, there was made an exhumation and recognition of all the relics of the holy prelate, as may be read in the praised authors. Thus far Nicolás Antonio.

[32] is to be judged. The deeds of St. Sacerdos of Limoges you have in our work, tom. 2 of May, at the 5th day; and in the same place, p. 23, his sacred bones which had survived the sacrileges of the Calvinists are enumerated, and yet no mention is made of the head; but this, as also many other things, were perhaps scattered by those impious heretics. I confess, however, that the Breviary of Sigüenza, which, as we have seen, indicates that the head kept at Sigüenza is that of St. Sacerdos of Limoges, not of Lyons, has by so much the more authority with me than the Chronicle of Julian, as it is the more certainly established concerning the latter's trifling, and not so concerning the former's. Nevertheless others ascribe that same head to Martin Hortanus, abbot and afterward bishop of Sigüenza, as was observed among the things passed over at the 5th day of May; how true which is, it is not the place here to inquire. Let it suffice to have said this one thing: that the Chronicle of Julian is utterly unfit to build up credit concerning the head of St. Sacerdos, bishop of Lyons, being kept at Sigüenza.

\ i.e., consulatum*

\ i.e., consulis*

\ Nonas*

\ elsewhere, cliens*

\ elsewhere, arcubus*

\ elsewhere, paternumque*

\ elsewhere, partas*

\ elsewhere, vitam*