ON ST. VALERIAN, MARTYR,
AT TOURNUS IN THE DUCHY OF BURGUNDY,
ABOUT THE YEAR 178.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Valerian, martyr, at Tournus in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)
BY J. P.
§ I. The Saint's memory in the Martyrologies; the Acts of his martyrdom, and their authors.
[ ] Almost all the Calendars of the Latin Church celebrate on this day the memory of our most valiant Athlete. Among the lesser Martyrologies Many Hieronymian Martyrologies commemorate the Saint; which pass generally under the name of St. Jerome,
these mark him either by his name alone or with the title of martyr added: the Reichenau, the Augsburg, the Labbean — published in print by us in volume 7 of June; the Gellone with the Saint-Remi; the one collated with the Saint-Gall and the Baluze, in Achery, volume 2 of the Spicilegium, in the reprint of 1723, page 34; the Murbach in Martène, volume 3 of the *Thesaurus Anecdotorum*, col. [ ]. With these agree the greater Hieronymians, though among themselves, as Sollerius observed on the text of Usuard, they differ very greatly in expressing and determining the place of the martyrdom: the Lucca one, which Florentinius, who published it, calls more ancient, has thus: In the territory of Chalon, in the fort of Tremorcium, of St. Valerian the martyr. The most ancient Antwerp one: In the fort of Caulomum, of Valerian the martyr. The Corbie: In the territory of Chalon, in the fort of Ternocium, the birthday of St. Valerian the martyr. The Blume one, whose readings, differing from the more ancient, the same Florentinius sets out at the end: In the fort of Trenoremum.
[2] The same diversity of spelling prevails likewise in the other classical Martyrologies. Bede, Rabanus, Notker, Ado, In Bede's Barberini codex the announcement is this: In the territory of Chalon, in the fort of Trinorchium, of Valerian. This in Rabanus's Martyrology: In the territory of Chalon, in the fort of Nortium, the birthday of St. Valerian the martyr. This in Notker: In the territory of Chalon, the birthday of St. Valerian the martyr. More correctly did Ado of Vienne designate the place of the martyrdom, adding besides a longer history of the contest: On the same day, in the territory of the people of Chalon, in the fort of Trenortium, the birthday of St. Valerian the martyr, who was one of the number of the fifty Saints who in the times of Antoninus Verus had been thrust into prison at Lyons, and who with Blessed Marcellus, the bars of the prison in which they were held being opened by divine power, escaped. And when he had reached the aforesaid fort, and preaching the name of the Lord Jesus Christ had converted very many, by his inspiration, to his faith, he was denounced, as the governor Priscus was returning from the city of the people of Chalon, where Priscus had put to death the blessed martyr Marcellus for the name of Christ, to that same governor Priscus. And he, causing him to be brought into his presence, tried first to break him by threats and terrors; then, having hung him up and tormented him with a grievous laceration of the iron claws, when he saw him unmoved in the confession of Christ and continuing with a joyful mind in his praises, he had him at once put to death by the sword in that place where now his sacred body is honoured with due veneration.
[3] Usuard, the present Roman, and more recent martyrologists; St. Gregory of Tours Usuard abridged Ado after his manner, and yet kept closely to his words; as will be plain to one comparing the texts: In the territory of Chalon, of St. Valerian the martyr, whom the governor Priscus, having hung him up and tormented him with a grievous laceration of the iron claws, when he saw him unmoved in the confession of Christ and continuing with a joyful mind in his praises, caused to be put to death by the sword. This whole text of Usuard has passed into the present Roman Martyrology with this sole difference, that at the end is read præcepit ("ordered") instead of fecit. From the Calendars adduced it is sufficiently gathered that the Saint's name was by no means neglected in the more accurate more recent Martyrologies, so that we may accordingly be excused from a lengthy enumeration of them. His memory is honoured also among other writers, both ancient and recent, especially the French. Of the recent there will be opportunity to speak here and there below; but among the ancient the chief are St. Gregory of Tours and the two biographers of St. Marcellus the martyr; the former in Ruinart, book 1 *On the Glory of the Martyrs*, chapter 54, columns 784 and 785, where among other things he reports a notable benefit obtained by St. Valerian's patronage; we shall give his words at number 19; the latter in our Work, volume 2 of September, on the fourth day, where to the Commentary on St. Marcellus's deeds and glory we subjoined a twofold Passion, a shorter and a longer; and vindicating the former against certain persons' very frivolous conjectures, we said it was not proved that the latter is of the fourth or fifth century.
[4] and the biographer of St. Marcellus, M. The author of the shorter Passion, after prefacing some things about the martyrs who about the year 177, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, were cast into prison at Lyons and won the laurel of martyrdom, writes in this manner: Of which number of martyrs Marcellus and Valerian, the bars of that prison to which they had been consigned being broken open by divine power, in accordance with the Gospel's authority, and [*] secretly take flight to another city. Which no one should doubt was ordained by God's providence; namely, that they should hasten toward those places where the consummation of their passion was owed to them, and should strengthen by the examples of their martyrdom the minds of the Gentiles who through them were to believe in Christ. Indeed, that they might more safely turn aside from that whirlwind of persecution, they are divided not in mind but by a river, not in faith but in their journey: of whom Valerian, taking [*] the road to Autun, Marcellus sets out on the road of the territory of the Sequani; that they might convert the dwellers on either bank to the worship of the true God by the preaching of the divine word, and might triumph over the devil not only by the shedding of their own blood but also by the belief of many in Christ. The same in substance is read in the longer Passion of St. Marcellus; nor do the Acts of our Saint's martyrdom differ much from them; of which we must now treat.
[5] The history of St. Valerian's passion, written by an anonymous author, Various copies of the Passion composed by an anonymous author. has already more than once gone to press. François Bosquet inserted it in his History of the Gallican Church, part 2, page 102; and Pierre-François Chifflet placed the same, from the manuscript Codices of Acey, Chalon and certain others, among the proofs of the History of Tournus, page 33. Bosquet's edition was followed by the author of the History of Chalon published by Pierre Cusset, and by Claude Perry, priest of our Society, likewise historiographer of the same city, both at the end of their Work; whereas Chifflet's edition was followed by Pierre Juénin in volume 2 of the new History of Tournus, page 2 — with this difference, however, that both the historians of Chalon prefixed to the Bosquet edition a Passion of the Saint extracted from the old Legendary of the church of Chalon alone, lacking prologue and epilogue, but in the rest agreeing with it; whereas Juénin took care to have the said prologue and epilogue printed in characters different from the body. For what purpose I observe these things will soon be seen.
[6] Our predecessors had laid aside for this day four manuscript copies of the same Passion: copies. the first sent from the Lectionary of Chalon, without prologue and epilogue, by the aforesaid Perry; the second by Chifflet from the Acey manuscript, which they themselves afterwards committed to the press; the third was received from Louis Nicquet, librarian of the Celestine Fathers of Soissons; the fourth is noted as taken from the manuscript of the lord Belfort, several times cited in our Work, and collated with the codex of the Queen of Sweden. Both of the latter flowed from the same source as the printed ones; but in the Belfort one more frequent variant readings occur, which, if it be worth while, I shall indicate in the Annotations; observe, however, in advance that it has a much shorter prologue, and altogether lacks the epilogue. So much for the Passion of St. Valerian, the most ancient, as we believe, of all that are extant; of the author's date and authority, more presently.
[7] His martyrdom was also committed to writing by Fronto, It is probably older than that of Fronto, who in the eleventh century, a monk and chronicler of the abbey of Tournus, who used more ancient monuments, as he hints in the preface to his chronicle, thus addressing his abbot: You enjoin upon me, and by the authority of your prelacy compel me, that I should take pains, having examined the sequence of the times, to set in order in the body of a single volume some ancient monuments of deeds which we have found written indeed by certain of our own men but undigested. And after much else: Lest I bring weariness upon you by a superfluous digression, I shall at once take up as the boundary of my narrative the triumph of the blessed martyr Valerian, related with compendious brevity; not, however, repeating what is known in the same order, but striving with diligent consideration to derive certain things from the same sources. Whether this author meant thereby to designate that Passion of the Saint just mentioned by us, I would not dare to assert with certainty: yet this is clear enough from a comparison made, that although his phrasing is different, his arrangement different, and his use of digressions, by which he breaks the thread of the history, more frequent, there is such conformity in the substance of the things narrated that, if he had not the same before his eyes, he certainly had one not much unlike it. The aforesaid Fronto flourished between the years 1066 and 1108, while Peter the first of that name governed the abbey of Tournus, whom at the very beginning of the chronicle he addresses thus: To the venerable abbot of the church of Tournus, P. (Peter), F. (Fronto), not unknown to your paternity, etc. He did not, however, carry the same Chronicle beyond the year 1087, since it ends in the account of the donation made to the monastery of Tournus by Queen Constance, wife of Alfonso king of Castile, and confirmed by Odo duke of Burgundy. The instrument on these matters, drawn up in the said year, you have in Chifflet and Juénin among the proofs.
[8] and than that of Garner, who wrote in the twelfth century; Not long after, another monk of the abbey of Tournus, Garner by name, exercised his pen upon describing the same passion, and indicates that he did so at the command of Peter the abbot, by whom some understand Peter the second of that name, because the author asserts in the prologue that he will make a new work out of an old one; partly from the History of Eusebius of Cæsarea, partly from the descriptions of illustrious men of our time, namely of Baldric, archbishop of Dol, and of Falco, a man exceedingly learned and religious; but Baldric did not enter upon the see of Dol before the year 1108, the last year of the first abbot Peter. Juénin, however, says he inclines rather to believe that Garner's Work was begun while Peter I was still living; but he adduces no other reason than that the words of his just alleged were found merely in the margin of the manuscript, and attached to the rest by some sign, which could have been done after the death of Peter the first. This conjecture, as being of the least moment, I do not discuss further; for by whatever prelate's command Garner at last wrote, it cannot be doubted that he is later than Falco and than Baldric, who according to the brothers of Sainte-Marthe governed the church of Dol from the year 1114 to 1131.
[9] nor is Baldric The little works of Falco and Garner are extant in the aforesaid Chifflet and Juénin; and, if some after Chifflet conjecture rightly, Baldric's composition is not different from the Passion of whose various editions we treated at number 5, to which the said Chifflet prefixed this title: The Acts of St. Valerian the martyr, by, as it seems, Baldric archbishop of Dol. The reason why it so seemed to him I do not find set out in his work. Yet it is easy to divine it: he could not find the author of the Passion; he had read that Garner had used a description by Baldric, and, not finding this description elsewhere either, he judged that it was the very Passion of the anonymous writer. Chifflet's judgment, and that of others, displeased Juénin, and he contends that the shorter Passion cannot be ascribed to Baldric: first, because the author towards the end of the Work hints that he is either a religious of Tournus, or dwells in the monastery, or at least in its neighbourhood, since he reckons himself among the number of those who venerate the sacred body there, when he says that the Saint underwent martyrdom in that place in which we now honour the relics of the venerable body: but Baldric does not seem to have dwelt in the abbey of Tournus or in its neighbourhood; therefore he is not the author of the said Passion. Secondly, the same Juénin says it is most likely that the Passion by Baldric
is older, since in this no mention is made of the translation of St. Valerian, which took place about the year 980; whence it follows that the Passion was written before the translation and before Baldric's times; for the author of the Passion could not have been ignorant of the translation, nor, had he not been ignorant of it, would he have wished to pass it over in silence. Thirdly, he thinks that, a comparison having been made, it manifestly appears that Ado borrowed from the same Passion whatever he has in the elogium recited above. To reasonings of this sort the aforesaid historian adds another drawn from conjecture, by which he strives to show that it is at least not improbable that the Acts of St. Valerian — or rather this Passion — existed in the time of St. Gregory of Tours.
[10] Whatever the truth may be, for my part I do not find a sufficient foundation the bishop of Dol for yielding to the opinion of Chifflet and others and judging that Passion so recent: great, I confess, is the likeness between it and Garner's composition; nay, so great that, if we except a few things, this may seem to be merely a longer paraphrase of that. But why should I rather believe that Baldric's composition was enlarged by Garner, than the Triumph of St. Valerian, related with compendious brevity, which Fronto, cited at number 7, attests was found by him among the ancient monuments of deeds — especially when Garner himself professes that he is making a new work out of an old one? He adds indeed: Partly from the History of Eusebius of Cæsarea, partly from the descriptions of illustrious men of our time, Baldric … and Falco; but this I understand only of the additions, phrases and observations with which, taken from these sources, he interpolated and adorned the old Passion; for he would absurdly have called the Work of Fronto and of Baldric an old one, since he calls those writers men of his own time. As to Eusebius, he could draw nothing from him except what he records at the beginning about the captivity of St. Pothinus and his companions, the martyrs of Lyons, and, at the end, about the time in which they suffered, since not even the names of our Valerian and of Marcellus are read in the said Eusebius.
[11] Therefore, since it is most evident from Falco's testimony [had for its author, though it may seem to have been written long after the Saint's death,] that there existed among the men of Tournus some Passion of St. Valerian, Chifflet's mere conjecture does not persuade me to ascribe to Baldric the shorter one which we have; but the reasons hitherto adduced, and above all the great conformity with it which prevails both in Ado's elogium and in Garner's composition, lead me rather to think that the one mentioned by Falco is no other than ours, out of which, as an old one, Garner made a new and enlarged one. Nevertheless, in calling it old, I would not have this so taken as though I attributed to it as much credit and authority as we are wont to attribute to Acts composed by contemporaries or by men not far removed, but only so far as that I would have it older than the others. For if there applies to it what Fronto in general warns concerning the monuments to be collected by himself, saying: I shall take pains, having examined the sequence of the times, to set in order in the body of a single volume some ancient monuments of deeds which we have found written indeed by certain of OUR OWN men but undigested — if, I say, this applies to the Passion of St. Valerian, and by the phrase "our own men" he designates monks, as is likely, we shall have to suspect that that Passion is some centuries later than the martyrdom; but how many, is uncertain.
[12] For, as Chifflet and Juénin confess, it is unknown it can be thought to have been written, at what time the church of St. Valerian (of which we shall speak again) passed into an abbey, of which, as being nevertheless ancient, the first mention occurs in a diploma of Charles the Bald, by which on the fourteenth of the Kalends of April in the year 875 he granted it to Geilo and the monks of St. Filibert. The said diploma Chifflet and Juénin inserted among their proofs; whence we transcribe a few things pertaining hither: We, for the love of God and the patronage of the aforesaid Saints, and for the reward of eternal recompense, and also as alms for our lord and father Louis, the most pious Augustus, and for our renowned mother Judith, and for the salvation of ourselves and of our most dear wife and offspring, do bestow upon the aforementioned Mother of God, Mary, and upon the fostering confessor of Christ, Filibert of Hérius, and also upon Geilo the venerable abbot and the congregation committed to him, the abbey of St. Valerian the martyr, which is in the district of Chalon, upon the river Saône, where also the same venerable Martyr rests in body; and the fort of Tournus, which belongs to the same abbey, and all the properties which were formerly conferred upon the aforesaid Martyr by faithful Christians, in whatever manner they may since have been taken away from it; and the villa of Ternucium, with the household of both sexes and every property belonging to it … with entire integrity and fullness, to be had for ever and possessed by ecclesiastical right; and in bestowing them we grant them.
[13] Certain more recent writers, however, do not prove this with certainty. Tillemont in volume 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 306, and the continuators of the new *Gallia Christiana* begun by Denis de Sainte-Marthe, volume 4, column 861, adhering to Chifflet's judgment about the Passion of St. Valerian, assert that it is like the Acts of St. Marcellus and much more recent, because in it Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea is cited. But if this alone told against its antiquity, the answer to the argument would be easy, by saying, namely, with Juénin, that the prologue in which Eusebius is mentioned, as also the epilogue, were afterwards attached to a Passion written long before; nor is this remote from all likelihood, since the editions of Perry and Cusset and our manuscript, extracted from the Lectionary of Chalon, lack those same prologue and epilogue. See what we have observed besides on these matters at number 6. Whatever in the end the said Passion may be, we shall give it as the work of an anonymous author, of uncertain date, but probably the most ancient of all; yet because this is not certain, we shall subjoin the History of the martyrdom from the Chronicle of Fronto, who, that he had a most ancient one at hand, no one hitherto has denied.
Annotata* "&" is superfluous
* others read "compita"
§ II. The place and time of the martyrdom; the basilica erected to him; the antiquity of his cult.
[ ] [Opinions about the Saint's country and his kinship with St. Marcellus. At Tournus, where he suffered,] Of St. Valerian's country, family or condition nothing is recorded in the Acts of the martyrdom. Théophile Raynaud in the *Little Index of the Saints of Lyons, and Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology*, write that he was a citizen of Lyons, and among the chief of the fifty seized for Christ with Blessed Pothinus in the persecution of Antoninus; the same and others gather, not without foundation, that he was a kinsman of St. Marcellus, from the words of St. Gregory of Tours, who says that the blessed athlete Valerian was near to Marcellus in blood and in his contest. About the arena of the martyrdom, which we have seen expressed by the ancients in various ways in several examples at number 1, and more of which may be seen in Adrien de Valois, all writers agree; namely that it was a town of the Ædui in the present duchy of Burgundy, situated on the river Saône, at almost equal distance from Mâcon and Chalon, of which diocese it forms a part. The Latins today write indifferently Trenorchium or Trenorcium, Turnucium and Tornucium; the French, Tournus; which variety seems to have remained from the fact that that place was once divided into three parts: the fort of Trenorchium, the villa of Turnutium, and, as is clear from the diploma of Charles the Bald, the abbey of St. Valerian the martyr, which in other diplomas is also called the monastery of Tornutium. The former two are now enclosed within the circuit of the town, from which the latter is separated only by its own wall.
[15] There survives at this time in the town itself, as Perry writes, a notable monument of St. Valerian's martyrdom, a huge stone, which is believed to be even now sprinkled with several drops of his blood, traces of the martyrdom survive to this day, and which, another stone being laid over it, is not uncovered, for reverence' sake. More about it is recorded by Chifflet, an eyewitness, in the History of Tournus, page 15; I turn his French words into Latin: Before the old church of the lords of Verius at Tournus stand two great sepulchral stones, one of which is laid upon the other. Now the tradition of the inhabitants holds that St. Valerian's head was cut off upon the lower one. And in truth that stone is even today stained with several drops of blood, which I myself saw, still red, and so conspicuous and well preserved as if they were veins that had arisen in the quarry and were proper or natural to the stone itself. This favour I owe to the lord Machou, magistrate (in French, Lieutenant ès justices) of Tournus, who in the year 1655 conducted me to that place where those two stones are kept, and in the presence of many men ordered the upper one to be removed, that I might contemplate the one which bears the marks of St. Valerian's martyrdom. Thus Chifflet. Juénin also mentions the same stone, volume 1, page 10, and indicates that it is now kept in the hospital house, having been brought thither in the year 1693.
[16] The year of the martyrdom, not marked by our anonymous author or by Falco, which happened about the year 178. Garner determines in this manner: Now the most blessed Valerian suffered in the one hundred and seventy-ninth year from the Incarnation of the Lord, Marcus Antoninus, surnamed Verus, administering the Roman empire, Lucius Aurelius and Commodus being jointly consuls. This author is deservedly rebuked here for having cut into two a single consul, the emperor Lucius Aurelius Commodus, who in the year 179 had as colleague T. Annius Aurelius; but as to the year assigned he has obtained several followers after Tillemont, who professes that he adopts it because he finds no fitter time. Juénin, in volume 1 of the History of Tournus, page 10, thinks the year should not be accepted, and that it was assigned by Garner only because he believed that the martyrs of Lyons suffered in the same year: whereas according to a better chronology this happened in the year 177, in which the same Lucius Aurelius Commodus held the consulship with Quintillus, and to which accordingly Juénin says the martyrdom of SS. Marcellus and Valerian can more rightly be assigned; since from their Acts we sufficiently perceive that they did not survive the martyrs of Lyons by two years. For my part I shall here follow the same course which we took when we had to treat of St. Marcellus, killed a few days before St. Valerian, and shall set the epoch of the martyrdom about the year 178, a time which cannot be extended more widely than to the years 177 and 179, and this for the reasons alleged in volume 2 of September, page 196, to which for brevity's sake I refer the reader.
[17] That the Saint received burial in the same place in which he received the laurel of martyrdom Over his tomb a basilica was built, is the constant tradition of the people of Tournus, confirmed in some measure by the testimony of the anonymous biographer, who says that he was slain by the sword where now we honour the relics of the venerable body; and likewise of Fronto, who writes thus: In which place the sons whom he himself had begotten to Christ … built for him a modest basilica, according to the time and their means, in which, as the number of the faithful gradually increased, some disciples devoted themselves to the divine worship. Juénin so interprets Fronto's words that for the basilica is to be understood the cave or modest dwelling which the Saint, as the same Fronto relates, had built for himself beside the walls of the town of Tournus, and which the faithful continued to frequent in order to pour out their prayers to God beside his tomb, so that it truly became an oratory
or modest basilica could be called; until, the Roman emperors being converted to the faith, it became possible to erect another basilica, of which Garner records this: Prosperity thereafter succeeding, and the number of the faithful increasing, they prepare for Valerian a church less suitable, indeed, in respect of the artifice of human ornament, but more precious in the devotion of our faith; where to this day, above the venerable mausoleum, in honour of our Martyr a most sacred altar is built for the celebration of the Lord's Body and Blood, and it is venerated with daily vigils by all the crowds of peoples flowing together.
[18] much frequented and famed for miracles: Fronto writes that many miracles and benefits were obtained there at the Saint's invocation. Hear the words which he subjoins presently to those recited in the preceding number. From that time that place began to be frequented by a copious concourse of the faithful, while none of those flowing thither was disappointed of the effect of his prayers; so much so that the multitude of believers became through the signs almost more numerous than the multitude which before had been converted to Christ through the holy Man's preaching. Clear indeed would these be as testimonies of a notable and unbroken cult, if only the authors had been nearer to the times of which they treat: we believe nevertheless that they received these things either from more ancient documents or from tradition, confirmed by the Martyrologies which we gave in the preceding paragraph, and which leave no doubt that in early times the Martyr's memory was there held in great veneration. But that in the sixth century in particular his cult was famous, a contemporary and perhaps eyewitness attests, St. Gregory of Tours, whose text, once and again cited, I set out entire.
[19] St. Gregory of Tours reports a notable miracle To this martyr (St. Marcellus) was near both in blood and in his contest the blessed athlete Valerian, who at the fort of Trinorcium, at the fortieth milestone (or rather, according to Valois, the twenty-first) from the city of Chalon, was buried when his contest was finished. Now Gallus, count of that city, being weighed down with the pain of a colic disease which had so inflated his whole belly not only with torment but also with swelling that he was thought dropsical, could eat nothing and take no drink; and it came about along with this affliction that he was failing from the disease of starvation. He, being almost lifeless, when he saw himself despaired of, asks to be carried to the blessed Martyr's tomb. And when he had been laid down there, there came to him the presbyter Epirechius, who then governed that church, a man of virtues and a man of pure mind, as we ourselves beheld with our own eyes, and he said to him: If thou wilt be made whole, trust in the power of the glorious Martyr, and vow that thou wilt send one beam with its fastenings for the repairing of the roof of this temple. For it will be a protection to thee if thou devoutly fulfil what thou promisest. And he, praying more earnestly, vowed what the presbyter had indicated: and at once, being made whole, he ordered the beam, with none reminding him, to be furnished to the Saint's basilica. Behold what the Lord Jesus Christ bestows on earth upon his holy Martyrs, whom, being glorified, he has taken to himself in the heavenly kingdoms. And not undeservedly, because, believing his sacred name in their heart, invoking it in their works, confessing it in temptations, they not only followed the Lord as faithful servants, but also incited others by their examples to follow him.
[20] Certain things Juénin here observes, volume 1, page 14. First, from which various conjectures are formed about the celebrity of the cult, that in so brief a narration he calls the church of St. Valerian a church, a temple and a basilica; secondly, that Epirechius is said to govern the church, that is, to rule it as a pastor; and thence he says it follows that this church was the parish church of Tournus; thirdly, that this rector or pastor was a contemporary of St. Gregory, and of this there is no doubt; but it might be doubted whether St. Gregory was not present at the miracle narrated: for these words, *as we ourselves beheld with our own eyes*, do not so necessarily affect only those immediately preceding but that they may seem also able to regard each of the things narrated to have happened then in the church. But besides these things it follows from the same text of St. Gregory that the Saint's cult was not only most famous at that time, but also that it had not lately arisen, nor been confirmed beforehand by few benefits or miracles; for it does not seem likely to me that the count of Chalon would have conceived so great a hope of recovering his health as he must have conceived, who, already almost lifeless, wished to be carried thither not without the utmost trouble of the journey; or that Epirechius would with such confidence promise him health, unless certain and notable proofs of like benefits had gone before them. And thus are confirmed the things written by Falco about the many signs and benefits formerly wrought at the tomb of St. Valerian; which would that they had reached us, consigned to writing in his honour!
[21] Secondly, it follows that in St. Gregory's age, that is in the sixth century, [the antiquity of the church, and the beginnings of the monastery of St. Valerian.] the church of St. Valerian was very ancient, inasmuch as it needed the repair of its roof and beams. Thirdly and lastly, it is probably gathered that at that time the church had not yet passed to monks, of whom St. Gregory makes no mention, but only of Epirechius, presbyter and rector. Chifflet and Juénin conjecture, however, that the beginnings of the abbey of St. Valerian may be assigned to the same century, led by this reasoning: King Guntram in that century founded near the city of Chalon an abbey, now the priory of St. Marcellus, and it is not likely that he pursued with less veneration and piety his companion St. Valerian, at whose tomb so illustrious a benefit had been obtained by Gallus, count of the city of Chalon and of the ordinary seat of the kings of Burgundy; and therefore to the same king Guntram, who at the end of the sixth century died holily at Chalon, the beginnings of the abbey of St. Valerian are perhaps to be ascribed. Nothing occurs to me by which I might either disapprove that conjecture, or even much approve it, amid so great a silence of the writers who have recorded St. Guntram's deeds.
§ III. The continuation of the ancient cult; the translation of the relics; coins marked with his name; a new church consecrated to him.
[ ] [Although from the sixth century to the ninth no monument of the Saint's cult exists,] Chifflet rightly complains that from the times of St. Gregory of Tours down to the translation of St. Filibert to Tournus, made in the year 875, when, as was shown above, the abbey of St. Valerian was granted to Geilo and his monks by Charles the Bald, so great was either men's carelessness or the injustice of wars, that no knowledge of the miracles of St. Valerian, none of the abbots of Tournus who were Geilo's predecessors, has come down to us; adding that he does not doubt both that miracles occurred and that there were abbots. This latter is certain to us from the diploma of Charles the Bald, and the former most likely from this, that we abundantly gather that the Saint's cult persevered always, in the same splendour in which it flourished in the sixth century, down to the ninth century. And what makes me believe this is, in the first place, the studied addition in the aforementioned diploma and in others that followed of these words, *where the same venerable Martyr rests in body*; the testimony of Ado of Vienne makes for it, whose Martyrology, older than that diploma, has thus: *Where now his (St. Valerian's) sacred body is honoured with due veneration.* Lastly, our biographer makes for it, who, as it seems, is older than Ado, and who had expressed the same in almost the same words: *In which we now honour the relics of the venerable body.*
[23] it is more likely that it was neither interrupted nor diminished. The same biographer in the epilogue (if indeed it belongs to him) plainly indicates that the festal memory of the Saint, as of a particular Patron, was celebrated yearly in his own age; for he has thus: Celebrating his (St. Valerian's) yearly festival, let us with good minds implore his patronage, that he may increase the faith of the people, may guard his own province, and may by his pious intercession preserve all the people that cleaves to his worship. Nor did anything of the splendour of that cult perish through the coming of Geilo and his monks with the body of St. Filibert, whom hitherto they had venerated as their chief patron; for these presently, as it appears, began to pursue St. Valerian, the patron of the church and of their new dwelling, with the highest veneration, and, as is most certain, strove thereafter with all their strength to promote the same among the people, especially about the year 980, when Stephen the first of that name governed the abbey.
[24] In the tenth century his relics were honourably elevated and translated. For that abbot Stephen, after he had repaired the very many damages inflicted some years before by the incursions of the barbarians upon the monastery and the church, erected a new altar to St. Valerian in the subterranean church, where the sacred remains of the Martyr were believed first to have been committed to the earth by the faithful, and to have remained whole and untouched to these very times in a stone tomb. This he then ordered to be opened, and the sacred head and the other larger bones, placed in reliquaries of gold, silver and gems previously made for that purpose, to be translated into the upper church and set in the principal altar, which had also once been consecrated to the holy Martyr; where for some time they were exposed to public veneration. That elevation and translation I here touch upon with such brevity, and add nothing about the great preparation for them, the concourse of the peoples from every side, or the miracles and benefits that shortly followed; because the reader will learn each abundantly from the accounts written by the aforementioned Falco and Garner, which I shall subjoin to the Acts and illustrate with due annotations. But lest I interrupt the order of time, I shall indicate below in what manner the people of Tournus were deprived of that precious treasure.
[25] Perhaps in the same century or the preceding, To the same tenth century perhaps, or rather to the preceding, are to be referred the silver coins of which Chifflet treats on page 107 and Juénin on page 60 of the History of Tournus, and from which it shines out wonderfully how greatly St. Valerian's memory was esteemed. Such at that time was the power of the prelates of Tournus, such their favour with the kings, that the right of striking their own money was granted them. In testimony of this the aforesaid historians produce among their proofs diplomas of many kings of the Franks, namely of Odo about the year 889, and of Charles the Simple about 915, granting or confirming that faculty to the abbots. Chifflet says that money of this sort once came into his hands, and describes it in this way: On one side a head is seen and in the circle this inscription: ✠ SANCTUS VALERIAN. On the other a Cross in the middle and in the circle ✠ TORNVTIO CAST. Juénin says he has a double silver coin of that kind, which, describing it in almost the same way, he reports to have been struck thus.
[26] For my part, when I consider the front side of the coin, money bearing the Saint's name I by no means find in its middle the form of a head, as it seemed to Chifflet, or of a head or bust, as to Juénin; but, unless the engraver has strayed far, it is rather a monogram, of I know not whom. Du Cange in his Glossary exhibits the type of a similar coin, but somewhat larger, in a different position, however, and perhaps a more natural one.
The aforesaid Juénin believes that those coins were struck before the year 915, because on them the king's name or sign is not read, which nevertheless Charles the Simple had expressly enjoined in the privilege of the year mentioned: We grant also that the place should have money-changers
as aforesaid, who shall impress the sign of our name on every coin, lest a mixture of metals be able to be present. Which restriction was not added to the privilege granted by king Odo. But since in their middle there is expressed not a head or a bust but a monogram, what if this very thing be the sign of the royal name? On that supposition, the coins will be later than the Carolingian privilege.
[27] It seems to me more likely, however, that the monogram does not enfold the king's name was struck. but the abbot's, perhaps Geilo's or Walter's, who are indeed older than king Odo by a short interval of time, and yet beyond doubt possessed the right of striking money, since Odo, when he grants to the church of Tournus a mint and tolls, clearly adds that he does this as his other predecessors did. And I judge thus not only because there appears at least some affinity of the monogram with the abbots' names given, but also because Du Cange and Juénin in the place cited give the type of another coin struck there, whence I may conjecture that after the times of Charles the Simple there remained on the coins a monogram representing the name of the abbot then living, and that there was added the king's name impressed in full characters. For on one side of the aforesaid coin there stands a cross in the middle, and in the circle this inscription: ✠ LOTARII REGIS PMSINE, that is, permissione (by permission); on the other side a monogram designating, unless I am mistaken, the name of Hervey the third, who in the times of king Lothair held the abbey until the year 960. But in his circle the inscription
is ✠ SCI PHILIBERTI MONETA. Now
this coin also Juénin exhibits in one position, Du Cange in another, as may be seen in their works.
[28] The church and monastery, consumed by fire, are built anew, At the beginning of the eleventh century, through the carelessness of certain servants, as Falco writes in his Chronicle, the whole monastery of St. Valerian was consumed by fire with all its offices; and so violent, from the blast of the winds, was the devastation of the fire, that almost all the furniture of the monastery was consumed, except the memorials of the Saints and part of the ornaments belonging to the worship of God, which the hiding-places of the crypts of that monastery were scarcely able to conceal. That fire writers generally attach to about the year 1006, two years before the death of abbot Wago, under whose successor Bernerius the structure of the new abbey and church was completed, and its solemn dedication celebrated on the twenty-ninth day of the month of August in the year 1019, as Falco expressly notes in his Chronicle; for after he had mentioned a notable gift conferred upon the abbey by Hugh, count of Chalon and bishop of Auxerre, he writes thus: This gift was made in the year one thousand and nineteen from the Incarnation of the Lord, at Tournus, on the fourth of the Kalends of September, on the day on which the same monastery was dedicated, in the presence of the venerable bishops Joffred bishop of Chalon and Gauslin bishop of Mâcon. Falco's epoch most of the more recent writers have adopted; but the author of the History of Chalon, published by Cusset, places the dedication in the year 1018 on the twenty-eighth day of the month of August, and seems to ascribe it to abbot Stephen, who nearly fifty years before had restored the old monastery, and had already ceased to live about thirty years earlier.
[29] and are consecrated; not, as some have thought, The same author affirms that the new abbey was dedicated to St. Filibert, however much a hundred and fifty years before it had been agreed between Geilo and the ancient monks of St. Valerian that the name of the Patron of the church and monastery should not be changed. This author was followed by Baillet in the *Lives of the Saints* on the twentieth day of August, sacred to St. Filibert, and on the fourth of September, where he treats of SS. Marcellus and Valerian; something similar is hinted by Chifflet and Juénin in their Histories, and they cast the cause of this change upon the people, among whom, from the times of St. Filibert's translation to Tournus, the abbey had begun to go under that Saint's name, and to which custom accordingly the monks conformed themselves at the dedication of the new abbey.
[30] to St. Filibert alone, But first, I am not altogether satisfied about the aforesaid agreement between Geilo and the ancient monks, since no indication of it occurs either in Fronto or in any writer older than Pierre de Saint-Julien, whose Work, written well on in the sixteenth century, on the antiquities of Tournus, the aforesaid historians cite. Secondly, what they say — that the abbey was dedicated to St. Filibert — I can by no means so admit as though it was dedicated to him alone, or as to a primary patron. For Falco, treating of the gift just mentioned, expressly says: Hugh, count of Chalon and bishop of Auxerre, for the honour of God and of his Mother and of the aforesaid Saints, moved in part by a benefit, gave and granted to God and to the Saints in whose honour the aforesaid church is known to have been dedicated, and to the venerable abbot Bernerius, and to the monks of the same place both present and future, the villa which is called Isleis. Therefore the new abbey was consecrated to several Saints. But to which? This the reader will clearly perceive from the words of the various donations which after the dedication were made to the same church or abbey, whose charters Chifflet produces among his proofs.
[31] On page 310, Falco of Jalligny, brother of abbot William, but, as is gathered from various bestowing about the year 1056 many estates and rights upon the abbey, speaks in this manner: I have given to the blessed Mary, Mother of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to blessed Valerian and also to the renowned Filibert. On page 322, Philip I, king of the Franks, about the year 1075, confirming the ancient privileges of the monastery, says: Let the whole body of our faithful know that Peter, abbot of the monastery of Tournus, which is built in honour of the holy Mother of God, where also the blessed martyr Valerian and the most glorious confessor Filibert rest in body, etc. On page 326, Hugh archbishop of Besançon, in a charter drawn up about the year 1076, signifies that he has given to God and to holy Mary, and to the saints Valerian and Filibert and to the holy church of Tournus, and also to abbot Peter … the church of St. Cornelius and the church of St. Desiderius, etc. On page 331, Odo, duke of Burgundy, in the year 1087 by a public instrument restored to the monastery of Tournus the goods which Constance, queen of the Spains, had given to the Lord God and to the blessed Mother of God and also to the saints Valerian and Filibert, etc.
[32] Lastly, on pages 401 and 419 there are instruments of the Pontiffs Calixtus II and Innocent II, instruments, to the blessed Virgin Mary, St. Valerian and St. Filibert. dated in the years 1120 and 1132, in which after other privileges the Pontiffs say: To these we add that the same place, in which the bodies of the blessed martyr Valerian and of the holy confessor Filibert rest, shall be preserved free for ever from every yoke of secular power. And a little below: Moreover, for reverence of blessed Mary the Mother of the Lord, with whose name your place is marked *, we grant to the abbot or the brethren to pronounce the angelic hymn among the solemnities of the Masses on the Annunciation of the Lord. The words hitherto recited abundantly attest that the new abbey was not dedicated to St. Filibert alone, but to him together with St. Valerian, and primarily indeed to the most holy Mother of God. I do not deny, however, that the abbey was in later centuries more frequently named from St. Filibert; this is clear enough from other instruments which are subjoined to those already assigned in the same Chifflet.
[33] But neither do I altogether assent to the aforesaid author and to Cusset, Another church also was erected to St. Valerian, who here again cite Pierre de Saint-Julien; namely that this had so far prevailed in usage in the times of abbot Bernerius that he, before proceeding to the dedication of the new basilica of the monastery, built another building close by under the name of St. Valerian, lest, while the abbey was called by most from the name of St. Filibert, there should be given over to oblivion St. Valerian, the apostle of the people of Tournus, who had both imbued that place with the Christian faith and watered it with his own blood. For since for such an origin of the second church no ancient documents are produced, and since Falco, who diligently noted whatever pertained to St. Valerian, and who besides described, at least compendiously, the deeds of abbot Bernerius, nowhere mentions this church, the testimony of Pierre de Saint-Julien, an author, as Juénin confesses, of little accuracy, does not carry full credit, and does not exceed the limits of conjecture; to which accordingly nothing forbids us to add our own.
[34] I should think, then, that for Bernerius, or rather for someone of his successors, the chief — nay, the only — cause of founding the second basilica which was once the parish church of the town of Tournus. was the number of the inhabitants and neighbours, increasing more and more with the lapse of time, for holding whom the basilica of the abbey alone would not suffice; and since this second one also was dedicated to St. Valerian as the primary patron of the city, thence I judge it arose that gradually, to avoid confusion, the church of the abbey took on the name of St. Filibert alone, and the other that of St. Valerian, which it enjoys to this day. That it was once a parish church Juénin shows in volume 1, page 88, and besides other things cites an instrument of the year 1483, in which Bartholomew Chanorrie is called rector or curate of the church of St. Valerian. The same is today used by religious virgins of the Order of St. Benedict, by a faculty granted them about the year 1686 by the college of secular canons, into which the abbey of St. Filibert was converted, with the approval of Pope Urban VIII by a Bull given on the sixth day of the month of August in the year 1623, which you have entire in Chifflet and Juénin.
Annotata* others read "insignis"
§ IV. The Saint's relics almost wholly scattered by the Calvinists in the sixteenth century; his cult today at Tournus and elsewhere.
[ ] The relics scattered by the heretics Very many damages both the incursions of the barbarians and conflagrations formerly brought upon the city and the abbey of Tournus; for we read that the latter was three times devastated by fire from about the year 937 to 1245; such nevertheless were these, that, as in fact happened, they could be repaired in a short time by the pious munificence of the faithful. But about the year 1562 there befell a misfortune which the monks greatly bewailed, and which at this time the pious people of Tournus rightly bewail, inasmuch as no hope of repairing it shines forth: I speak of the lost body of St. Valerian, the great protection of the city and the incitement of the inhabitants to piety. That treasure, which they had always guarded with such care that neither the fury of barbarians nor the violence of flames reached it, they could not withdraw from the greedy impiety of the Huguenots or Calvinists. For these, having entered the city in the said year, profaned and destroyed whatever was sacred: and — to say nothing of other things — in the church of St. Valerian they broke the greater effigy of the holy Martyr set in the principal altar; and in the abbey, searching through everything and turning it upside down, they found his sacred remains hidden beneath the ground, and carrying off the precious caskets, they cast out and scattered the Saint's bones, and, as some add, consumed them with fire, and committed the ashes to the river. We have gathered these things from Juénin, Cusset, Chifflet and others.
[36] except a few; Baillet thinks the greater part was preserved; Nevertheless, however those furious men raged against the sacred relics of the Martyr, at least some particles of them escaped their hands, as I shall presently show; and, if you believe Baillet, not few
nor slight ones. That author, in the Lives of the Saints on the fourth day of September, treating of St. Marcellus together with St. Valerian, after reporting the impiety of the heretics against the Saint's relics, continues roughly thus in his French idiom: But the foresight of abbot Stephen, in some measure like the foresight of the patriarch Jacob, who, fearing his brother Esau, had divided his household into various companies, was the cause of preserving the greater part of the relics. Would that the case were so! But there are many things which bid me fear lest it has been exaggerated beyond measure, and rests merely upon conjectures drawn from Garner or Fronto. And these do indeed attest that some relics of the Saint remained in the stone tomb, when the head and the bones were elevated by abbot Stephen and enclosed in caskets about the year 980. Hear Garner: Moreover, with more prudent foresight, men of a shrewder wit left no small quantity of the aforesaid body in the stone monument, and smearing it on the outside with a stronger bitumen, and depositing it in the lower crypt of the monastery behind the most sacred altar of the most blessed Valerian, they departed.
[37] "No small quantity," he says: but for my part I would not dare on account of those words to assert but from Chifflet that the greater part was so preserved; especially when Fronto, nearer to the elevation and translation than Garner, speaks much more sparingly in this manner: Having therefore taken the relics of the larger limbs, they laid them in the chest which we mentioned above as newly made, the remaining remains, or ashes of the body, being left in the sepulchre. To this is added that no one whom I have seen has recorded anything of the sort except Baillet; on the contrary Chifflet, who of set purpose treated the affairs of Tournus, and who ought to have had a nearer and fuller knowledge of this matter, writes in such a way that he could rightly be rebuked if in his time the greater part of the relics had survived: for on page 15, treating of the stones mentioned at number 15, he speaks thus: These are pledges of the protection of this great Saint over the city of Tournus, which the fury of the Calvinists could not abolish, however much it scattered and destroyed his sacred bones and all, or almost all, the other relics.
[38] Juénin, the other writer on the affairs of Tournus, and Juénin fuller and more recent, treats in two places, namely on pages 24 and 267, of the Saint's relics scattered by the heretics, yet in neither does he hint anything of a greater part of them withdrawn from their madness; he certainly, who had before his eyes the Works both of Chifflet and of Baillet, would not have left this matter untouched if only he had been able to prove Baillet's assertion; but he would have corrected Chifflet, as he does elsewhere in matters even of lighter moment. His silence accordingly abundantly convinces us that Baillet extended his conjectures too far. Besides, the same Juénin relates on page 358 that some relics of our Saint were at the beginning of this century dug out of the old altar of the chapel of St. John the Baptist in the abbey church, and were therefore placed by the lord canons in the reliquary of St. Filibert, because none of the holy Martyr's now remain so well attested or so beyond doubt as those are.
[39] Whence you may gather what the aforesaid author's judgment was concerning the relics the contrary is drawn: which before the said discovery were believed to survive at Tournus. But, you say, perhaps Baillet designated those very relics which Juénin affirms were found in this century in the old altar. I answer that I am not easily persuaded of this, both because from Juénin's words I gather nothing else than that in the old altar there were found such particles of relics as are wont to be placed in altars when they are consecrated; and because it is more likely that Baillet had already written about SS. Marcellus and Valerian when the discovery of the relics occurred, since the second edition of his Work was made in the year 1704, whereas the discovery of the relics fell between the years 1701 and 1703. Now the sepulchre of St. Valerian mentioned several times, or the stone monument, is to this day seen, on Juénin's testimony, in the same place in which, after the elevation of the body, Garner above records that it was set; whether it was afterwards opened, so that what relics lay hidden in it might be known, or not, I do not find handed down in writing.
[40] More perhaps could have been imparted to the reader on this matter had we possessed the first part of a French Work written not long ago under this title: *Historical Dissertation on St. Valerian, martyr and apostle of Tournus, [it is likewise disputed whether the relics preserved at Sens and at Tournus in the church of St. Mary Magdalene] and on his relics.* The second part was sent to us at Paris by Father Étienne Souciet, who had had it transcribed there in the year 1737. The author's name is not affixed to the manuscript; nevertheless I scarcely doubt that he was someone of the clergy of the abbey or collegiate church of Tournus, of which he is an ardent defender in the cause of St. Valerian's relics. Now from him we learn that there are preserved at Sens in the parish church of St. Columba, and are several times a year exposed to public veneration, relics of St. Valerian the martyr, and, as the people of Sens contend, of the apostle of Tournus; and that afterwards that opinion of the people of Sens was adopted by certain people of Tournus, who enclosed several particles of the same relics, obtained from the people of Sens in the month of July of the year 1696 through the parish priest of the church of St. Mary Magdalene of Tournus, in a great reliquary resting on two tall columns and placed in the middle of the choir of the same church.
[41] where they are held in great honour, Those particles, according to the same anonymous writer, are treated at Tournus with such cult and veneration that in the divine Offices incense is offered first to the most holy Eucharist, then to the aforementioned reliquary, and only in the third place to the altar; that on every Sunday and feast day the antiphon Iste Sanctus, etc., is sung at the reliquary, with the versicle Ora pro nobis sancte Valeriane, etc., and beyond doubt — though the author does not express it — with a prayer; that the name of St. Valerian is inserted in the litanies of the Saints; that a new confraternity has been instituted under his invocation and patronage; and that finally there has been question of changing the title of the church of St. Mary Magdalene into the title of St. Valerian. For the rest, our anonymous author is wholly occupied in showing that the relics of Sens, and therefore also those of the church of St. Mary Magdalene at Tournus, nay, and others also which are venerated in the village of the diocese of Sens which takes its name from St. Valerian, are not those of our St. Valerian, but of another Saint perhaps of the same name.
[42] are those of our St. Valerian, or of another. His first argument, and, as it appears, his chief one, consists in this: that, as his very adversaries confess, the relics of St. Valerian existed at Sens, or rather at Vareilles in the district of Sens, from the middle of the ninth century, having been translated thither by Wenilo, prelate of Sens, as Clarius expressly records — an author of the closing eleventh century — in the Chronicle of the monastery of St. Peter the Living, in Achery's Spicilegium, volume 2 of the new edition, columns 465 and 466, writing thus: Now the same archbishop (Wenilo) completed the basilica of St. Remigius at Vareilles, and dedicated it on the Kalends of November, carrying thither on that very day the body of the blessed martyr Valerian, and enriching it with great wealth, while Ravilaud the abbot of that monastery was still alive. Ravilaud's death is believed to have occurred about the year 847; and Wenilo's death Clarius attaches to the year 865. But, says our anonymous author, the sepulchre of St. Valerian of Tournus was not opened before the times of abbot Stephen, that is, before the year 960, between which and 980 the body was found just as it had been placed in the sepulchre by the faithful at the time of his passion, according to Falco's testimony. Therefore the relics of Sens, or the body, as Clarius calls it, cannot be those of our St. Valerian. By this and like arguments, deduced at very great length, he defends his opinion, and refutes here and there the reasons objected to him by his adversaries; but since these, as they were propounded by those adversaries, have not come into our hands, we abstain from further discussion of the matter, and remit the dispute to be settled by those who have an equal supply of the reasons brought forward on both sides.
[43] That elsewhere than in the abbey of Tournus the relics of our holy Martyr were formerly preserved, Relics of our Saint in the diocese of Uzès. and perhaps are preserved to this day, is indicated by an old inscription which in volume 2 of September, on the occasion of St. Marcellus, we printed with brief observations by Juénin the historian of Tournus, and which, reprinted with the same, we here subjoin: In the temple of St. Marcellus of Careyret in the diocese of Uzès, which is two leagues distant from Bagnols, is read the following inscription, cut on a stone monument adorned with vine-tendrils, leaves, etc.
On the side opposite the inscription a cross is carved on the stone, not unlike the cross of the knights of Malta. It is unknown to us on what occasion or at what time the relics were carried thither; as also with what cult the Saint is honoured in that place or in others; for that very many places are consecrated to his name and patronage, the anonymous writer cited at number 40 is authority.
[44] The yearly festival of their Apostle and patron, as Chifflet notes in the proofs of the History, page 33, His Festival is celebrated at Tournus on the fifteenth of September, the people of Tournus keep on the fifteenth day of September, and this is confirmed by a series of certain proper festivals which the same Chifflet produces in the same work, page 308, from an ancient Calendar of Tournus, where it is read thus: The fifteenth of September, St. Valerian the martyr. Wherefore when our Perry, in the proofs of the History of Chalon, page 13, and Cusset likewise in the proofs of the History of the same city, volume 2, page 5, or others, say that the feast of St. Valerian is celebrated on the seventeenth day of September, although he died on the fifteenth day of the same month, I think they are so to be interpreted that their words concern only those places in which the holy Martyr's festival is celebrated less solemnly, and the octave of the Nativity of the most blessed Virgin Mary is preferred to it.
[45] For that reason doubtless, in the Proper of the Saints of the church of Chalon, [in the diocese of Chalon on the seventeenth of the same. The feast of the translation on the twenty-sixth of January.] printed in the year 1620 by the authority of Cyrus de Thiard the bishop, an Office is prescribed to be recited in the cathedral church and throughout the whole diocese under a semi-double rite on the seventeenth day. This Office is wholly from the common of one Martyr except the lessons of the second Nocturn, abridged from the History of the passion, but with this clause: His body, buried in that place which he had dedicated with his blood, being afterwards renowned for miracles, was enclosed in a silver casket, and is held in great honour, a church having been built in the holy Martyr's name. Whence we conjecture that the said lessons were composed before the sacred body was destroyed or burnt by the Huguenots and the reliquary carried off, and that afterwards, unchanged, they passed from an old lectionary or Breviary into the aforementioned Proper of the Saints, a copy of which we keep in our Museum. For the rest, besides the Saint's chief festival, Chifflet and Baillet record that another is yearly celebrated at Tournus in memory of the translation made by abbot Stephen in the tenth century, and I find it thus noted in the aforesaid series of festivals: The twenty-sixth of January: The Translation of St. Valerian.
THE PASSION
By an anonymous author.
From various manuscript and printed copies collated with one another.
Valerian, martyr, at Tournus in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)
BHL Number: 8488
Under M. Aurelius Antoninus he is shut up with others in the prison of Lyons Now from those days b in the times of the emperor Antoninus a most grievous urgency of persecution was springing up, so much so that in all the provinces of his empire it was published by general * authority and established by imperial decrees that, wherever a person of the Christian religion should be found — without distinction of honour, sex, or birth — he should be afflicted with various punishments and put to death by beheading c. Then in the city of Lyons, the greatest or chief city of the Gauls, Photinus, a bishop of holy memory, whose merits of life the consummation of martyrdom declared, was accounted a most learned instructor of Christians; who d, being seized with forty-eight other e martyrs by the urgency of the persecutors, is consigned to the darkness of the dungeon, and fifty f souls confessing the glory of Christ are thrust together into one prison.
[2] he escapes by divine aid, but halting near Tournus is discovered, Of these, St. Marcellus and St. Valerian, being at night summoned by the announcement of an Angel and likewise loosed g, sought, the one the provinces of the Sequani, the other those of the Ædui, the Saône lying between them h. And so it was by the impulse of divine providence, that by their instruction the hearts of the gentiles might attain to the grace of the heavenly religion, and that the said provinces might be fortified for ever * with the perpetual patronage of the Martyrs. At that time, after St. Marcellus's glorious contest of martyrdom, completed by the examination of the governor Priscus, and after no long interval i, while the governor himself was hastening to the city of Lyons at the voice of a herald, and along the public causeway with mule-drawn vehicles, and along the river Saône * by a ship's course, his train being divided, he came to Tournus, which at that time, in the distribution of the soldiers' rations, was called the camp granary k, the day already declining toward the evening hours. Where, while he announced with a mad recital what things had been done in the city of Chalon l concerning the passion of St. Marcellus, he learned by the suggestion of the gentiles that St. Valerian had for himself a most secret little cell of prayer, and had already made many worshippers of Christ.
[3] and by the soldiers, by whom he is seized, Then the most wicked governor, having turned over that same night a savage design, when light was now coming on, as the cruelty of his mind demanded, ordered St. Valerian to be sought out by the officers m and to be set before his own sight. When the soldiers sent to his hut had arrived, he, thinking them Christians, invites them out of the grace of charity and after the manner of hospitality. And they, looking at him first *, beheld that he both had the sign of the cross within his cell and had applied it to his own countenance; and having at once seized him, they take him away n, being anxiously concerned with shrewd inquiry as to what that sign was which they had found within his hut, and which, as * they came in, he seemed to have signed upon his own face.
[4] Then St. Valerian answered: This is the sign of salvation, having freely professed himself Valerian and a Christian, in which the Lord of heaven and earth, the Son of God o, Jesus Christ, reigning together with the Father and the Holy Spirit before the ages and abiding unto eternity *, redeemed us by his passion, and by dying, the bonds of death being broken, bestowed upon us the rewards of eternal life. Then they said: So thou too, the companion of Marcellus, dost declare thyself a Christian? St. Valerian answered: That I am both the companion of St. Marcellus and a Christian, I profess with a voice free and to abide unto the end.
[5] Chains therefore being put upon him, and his hands bound behind his back, he is set before the governor Priscus, whose idols as one guilty of a wicked crime, he is presented to the governor Priscus by the officers. And when the latter beheld him, inflamed with the harshness of a beastlike heart, he spoke thus: Art thou Valerian, preaching the name of Christ, about to perish through a superfluous error? Or have perhaps the things which were done concerning thy companion Marcellus, deceived by a like error, not at all come to thy knowledge? Take thought for thyself, by venerating the divinities of the immortal gods. Learn what the authority of the most sacred emperor has decreed to be adored — what * our fathers also saw, and whose most holy effigies we adore, and whose offspring most manifestly rules in heaven.
[6] Adore therefore almighty Jupiter, Juno his wife and sister, seeing, and preaching the true God Venus also, the daughter of so great a god, and Vulcan and Mars, his brothers alike and husbands. And unless thou do this, thou shalt be punished with far graver torments than thy colleague Marcellus. St. Valerian answered: That thou art a governor and judge of provinces the staff standing around thee declares; but the error of the gentiles renders thee ignorant of all knowledge. How dost thou overthrow the decrees of thy emperor and of the emperors by a nefarious religion? What are these names which thou speakest? The provisions of the laws command incest to be punished, and thou with sacrilegious voice professest that he is a god almighty who, thou hast not denied, was the husband of his own sister; and dost thou judge that his daughter Venus, his brother's wife, is to be adored by me? Dost thou pronounce these crimes to be venerated in divinities and condemned in men? Thou confoundest thyself abundantly enough by thine own error. And dost thou threaten to bring upon me * the punishments of my most blessed brother Marcellus, overcome by his glorious contest? And would that thou didst recognize thyself vanquished, and vanquished by his power, by thine own pronouncement, and didst with sound senses adore the God of heaven and earth, the ruler and fashioner * of all things; who, being without crime, suffered that by his own death he might free us from the eternal crime of death, and that by his * resurrection he might show us the confidence of perpetual salvation: of whose kingdom neither end nor beginning is found!
[7] This is the living God, who is found not in metals nor in stones, after threats and hard torments he is beheaded. but in the temple of faith and by the grace of eternal blessedness. The governor Priscus said: Dost thou not fear the punishments standing about thee, and, as if thou wert to judge * the judge, dost thou pronounce certain empty ravings? Now more evidently shalt thou approve the power of my divinities, or the emptiness of thy God's power, failing under the torments. St. Valerian answered: Those torments which thou namest have already been overcome by my fellow-soldiers who went before me [p]. Then the most savage governor ordered the holy Martyr, hung upon a stake, to be torn with iron claws. And when by Christ's help he continued in the praise of the Lord, wearied by no punishments, and the most wicked governor feared that through his perseverance very many would come to the true religion of the Christian faith, he ordered him, loosed thereupon, to be slain by the stroke of the sword in the place where now we honour the relics of the venerable body [q]. Then St. Valerian, calling to mind the grace and glory of the first martyr and levite, St. Stephen, gazing upon the heavens, saw him offering him a crown, to whom by dying he did not fear to render the victory of martyrdom. Thus therefore the holy Martyr consecrated that place with his body, ascending in spirit to the kingdoms of the heavens [r].
ANNOTATIONS.
a. The Prologue is in many manuscript and printed copies attached to the Passion, as we noted in the preliminary Commentary at number 13. We have judged that it should be cut off from the rest of the body, both because we much doubt whether it had the same author as the Passion itself, since in other copies it is either not read at all or is much shorter; and because it contains scarcely anything that pertains to our Saint. The author seems to have had this one thing before his eyes: to commend earnestly Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea for his learning and diligence in collecting the deeds of the Saints and martyrs, and for his probity and holiness, as was formerly done by not a few others; however much it is clear from the testimonies of many Fathers and from Eusebius's own writings that he was infected with the Arian heresy, and that he was the most open champion, standard-bearer and chief of Arius's impiety — by which names St. Jerome calls him, cited by Florentinius in his Exercitatio on the letters prefixed to the Hieronymian Martyrology, from page 71 to 84: where the same Florentinius speaks thus, doubtfully and modestly, about his repentance: That Eusebius … repented, which some suppose, is so uncertain that very many of the ancients do not believe it. What is to be determined in this matter, let the judgment of the Roman Pontiff altogether be. The same matter our Papebroch treated briefly in volume 4 of the month of June, page 75; Tillemont at greater length in volume 7 of the *Monuments of Ecclesiastical History*, from page 69, whom see. Receive now the Prologue mentioned.
The glorious contests of the most blessed Martyrs are celebrated for the honour of Christ our Lord and God with assiduous rites and with a yearly solemnity, so that while the devout people learn the faith of the Martyrs, they may both rejoice that they triumphed and trust that they themselves are to be protected by their patronage. For it is held famous [that Eusebius of holy remembrance,] the historian, bishop of the city of Cæsarea, [a most blessed priest of excellent life, most learned also in ecclesiastical instruction, and to be venerated with especial solicitude throughout the whole world, in so far as, with the divine Spirit aiding, he was able to discover, as it was done, the truth of the matter having been run through,] declared how the cities, places or towns of the several provinces deserved to be made illustrious by the heavenly triumphs of the Martyrs [and under what princes' time, the urgency of the offices being appointed, innumerable persecutions were carried out]: who, although he did not set out the entire passions of the several Martyrs, yet truly made known to devout and faithful Christians whence they ought to be written or celebrated. [Therefore the faithful worshipper honoured the grace of God diffused throughout the whole world; and as from a tiny seed of wheat copious harvests are begotten by the fertility of the field, and increase in multiplied abundance, so by the account of the aforesaid man, from the fount of a single book, with the writings of the faithful flowing forth, the passions of the Martyrs to be celebrated watered the whole world.] We, however, Note: the Belfort Ms.: "truly" following the order of the matter, have taken care to write the passion of St. Valerian the martyr with that devotion with which, Christ triumphing, we have found it accomplished with the most certain truth. So in the copies cited; but in the Belfort Ms. all that we have here enclosed in brackets is wanting.
e. With Photinus, or Pothinus — as Théophile Raynaud would have the name given — the author would have said more correctly that forty-nine martyrs were seized, as is rightly read in the codex of the Queen of Sweden alone: since all reckoned together were fifty in number, as is expressly said in the Passion of St. Marcellus and in Ado's elogium recited at number 2 of our Commentary.
of the 48 Martyrs, that is, of St. Pothinus and his companions crowned at Lyons, we treated on the second day of June, where we set out each of their names.
p. Those longer conversations between the Saint and the judge and the soldiers Fronto avoided altogether; Garner most of them, and both embraced the deeds in a bare narration, believing doubtless, and not without likelihood, that those questions and answers did not proceed in precisely those words from the mouth of St. Valerian or of the gentiles, but rather from the author's invention, who introduced them speaking in that manner in which he judged it could have been done according to the circumstances of the case.
q. About the place and time of the martyrdom we gave some foretaste in the Commentary, §2.
r. To the copies to which we said the prologue was prefixed there is also subjoined the following epilogue, or conclusion of the Passion:
Celebrating his yearly festival, let us with good minds implore his patronage, that he may increase the faith of the people, and by his pious intercession preserve all the people that cleaves to his worship; and that he who as a devout and faithful writer has honoured his triumph in the present age may in the age to come be fortified by his patronage with eternal grace, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom is dominion and power with the Father and the Holy Spirit world without end. Amen. Here ends the Passion of St. Valerian the martyr.
* others read "fuerit"
* others read "proprio"
* others read "Saucone"
* others read "primitus"
* others read "aut"
* others read "æternum"
* others read "quam"
* others read "te illaturum"
* others read "factorem"
* others read "& sua"
* The Acey Ms.: "Justificaturus"
THE SECOND PASSION
By Falco, monk of Tournus.
From the Chronicle of the same place, published by Chifflet and Juénin.
Valerian, martyr, at Tournus in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)
By Falco the monk.
The author's prologue. To the venerable abbot of the church of Tournus, P., F. a, not unknown to your paternity, to deserve the joys of eternal life. To your frequent urging I had opposed a slowness that rivalled again and again my slender talent or eloquence: you on the contrary held that it sufficed, and was not useless, to attempt something according to the measure of one's strength. For you enjoin, and by the authority of your prelacy compel me, that, having examined the sequence of the times, I should take pains to set in order in the body of a single volume some ancient monuments of deeds which we have found written indeed by certain of our own men but undigested. And since I thought it by no means fitting to resist longer, I at last acquiesced, resolving both that I would not further fail your petition, and that I would hand down to the knowledge of posterity in the same little work certain things not yet published by anyone, which have been done among us up to now, or which are still frequently wrought, God working, as miracles. And lest I bring weariness upon you by a superfluous digression, I shall at once take up as the boundary of my narrative the triumph of the blessed martyr Valerian, related with compendious brevity; not, however, repeating what is known in the same order, but striving with diligent consideration to derive certain things from the same sources b.
[2] Nothing is known of the Saint's country and deeds up to his martyrdom. Those who faithfully gird themselves to relate the brave deeds of the Fathers, by which they earned entrance into the heavenly kingdom, generally strive at the outset to mention the family, the beginnings of the life, and the very country which deserved to be made illustrious by the birth of any such man; so that from the beginning, the faithful man's first service being known, the following order of his deeds may be the more readily embraced. But although all these things seem to be lacking to our knowledge concerning him whom the present purpose strives to serve (I mean blessed Valerian) — since nevertheless the outcome of events evidently shows that from his earliest years he clung to the Lord's precepts — we not unjustly proclaim that his family and life proceed from God, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, the common lot being set aside. For thus it is written: But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, to them that believe in his name; who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Furthermore, the country of his birth we may none the less, under the same understanding, not deny to be this, which, as though brought forth from the narrows of the womb, destined him by a truly happy birth through martyrdom to live in heaven without end c.
[3] But let us now return to the course of the narrative. And first it must be said that with great fervour of faith he consecrated the first-fruits of his life to the service of Christ. Seized with Marcellus and forty-eight other Christians, For that he flourished in the grace of sound doctrine, and was strong with an unconquerable power for overcoming the darts of the faithless, that notable proclamation of his election makes known: that while that venerable band, namely forty-eight Martyrs, on Eusebius's testimony d, for the profession of the sacred faith, awaited at Lyons, with the blessed prelate of that city, Photinus, under the custody of prison, the glory of martyrdom, this most blessed Man and Marcellus, as being conspicuous alike for the fullness of richer doctrine and of constancy, being thereupon loosed by the divine nod and by an angel's e ministry, are both destined by God's command to preach to Gaul: that authority of the precept being observed by which our Redeemer sent two before his face.
[4] So the blessed Men, having gone forth (as has been said) from prison, he is freed by divine aid, like heavenly stars from the blind gloom of the clouds, two illustrious Lights, with the same fervour, and finally with the same spirit with which they had not refused to be given over to death for Christ, do not fear to approach those parts of the Gauls which more than the rest a fiercer, blind error of the gentiles had seized, so that you could not doubt that there truly reigned that head of pride which promised itself that it would set its throne above the stars of heaven and would sit on the sides of the North. But since divine providence had chosen these Men for this, that through them the word of life might be made known to the diverse parts of the world f; the one manfully approaches the provinces of the Sequani, the other those of the Ædui, separated by the Saône but not by diversity of mind, in the office of the preaching they had undertaken.
[5] Nor was there wanting to the heralds of the new grace the necessary fullness of powers once promised by the Saviour to the disciples, and the devil gnashing his teeth, by which, while he instructed them for the saving contest, he said: Behold, I have given you power to tread upon all demons, and that ye, believing in my name, may work mighty deeds. Amid these things the devil, the author of malice, seeing that loss was being prepared for himself and increase of salvation for the faithful, straightway blazed into his accustomed wrath. Nor is it strange; for he saw that things had turned out otherwise than his hope promised him, while the hearts of the gentiles, over which hitherto he ruled through torpor, rejoiced in the warmth of faith and in the fervour of the Holy Spirit; and, as captive animals are wont, at the voice of their own begetter, to run to him, forsaking their false master, he groans; and he who boasted that he would sit above the stars and reign, being greatly despised, is disappointed of his own dwelling. Therefore what he cannot effect by his own strength he strives to effect by another's.
[6] In those same days there presided over some parts of Burgundy, a demon, under the emperor Antoninus, a certain profane governor named Priscus, whom the malignant enemy, stirring up against God's Saints, hoped that some approach to recovery would be restored for himself if he should withdraw from the presence of this light those through whom he was not ignorant that so great loss was being wrought for him. The wretch was assuredly blind in this endeavour of fury also, not knowing that the church takes its strength from that whence the world's downfall is known to threaten. But in what manner the aforesaid governor, when in the territory of Chalon blessed Marcellus was proffering to the people the cups of life and spurning both him and his laws, after he had won for God a countless multitude of people, gave to the living man for a punishment that which is offered to the dead for rest, you will find written elsewhere. But let us give attention to our promise, pursuing what we have begun with Christ going before.
[7] at Tournus he converts many It is related in what follows that blessed Valerian built himself a dwelling beside the walls of the town of Tournus, notable for divine gifts, modest in structure, outstanding in charity, unadorned with worldly pomp; since indeed it is agreed that there was in it nothing besides the banner of the Lord's Cross, which he himself was wont to venerate with a particular reverence. But why the holy Man chose this place, rather than others lying round about, for his dwelling, reason makes plain. For it is said that the same place was once called by the ancients the Camp Granary; from this, without doubt, that from more remote parts the customary tolls, or the other tributes of the various provinces, to be transported to Rome by the rivers Saône and Rhône g, and then by sea, were brought to that same place. There therefore, since, as we have said, men flowed together thither from the diverse parts of the world, the man of God chose to dwell; so that those arriving, refreshed from his mouth as from a most limpid fount by the cup of the saving Gospel, might none the less proffer the saving draught to their fellow-citizens. And just as they took care to render to Cæsar, according to custom, what they knew to be Cæsar's, so at last they busied themselves with pious zeal to render to God what they had learned to be God's.
[8] to the faith of Christ. What more? By injuries of this kind was the ancient enemy provoked; and after the Man of God, through the ministry of holy preaching, had won for God an innumerable people, he stirred up against him, as has been said, to the heaping up of his own damnation, a most savage governor named Priscus. Nay rather, it is recognized to have been done by the accustomed loving-kindness of the merciful God, who is wont to use even evils well, namely to this end, that * the most unconquered Champion of Christ's grace, his enemies being triumphed over, might be enriched with the worthy reward of his merits. And because the blessed Man had illumined the neighbouring places of the province with the sacred proofs of the faith, they could in no wise be ministers of blindness who rejoiced that through him they had both come to know and had believed in the Author of light.
[9] The gentile governor Priscus, Whence the devil, roused by that goad of wickedness by which he did not fear to deliver the Lord Jesus to death, or by which he did not hesitate lately to slay blessed Marcellus, straightway through his own agents informs the aforesaid governor, as he was approaching Tournus, about blessed Valerian
by his satellites, that not only the inhabitants of the neighbouring countryside but also the peoples of almost the whole h of Gaul had passed over through him to the worship of a foreign religion: that the common danger must be removed as quickly as possible, and the Roman laws be seasonably succoured. The governor put off to the morrow the investigation of this report, since he considered that what remained of the day could by no means suffice for it, the recent conflict with blessed Marcellus being in mind. For he learned from the earnestness of those who reported it that there was in this man the strength of a constancy not unequal to that which he had encountered in the aforementioned martyr. And the more vehemently he plotted to rage against him, the more widely he learned by sure experience that worship of this kind was being spread abroad in every direction through him.
[10] But when morning came Priscus hastens to carry out what he had meditated: and sending his officers he commanded the holy Man to be presented to him forthwith. As soon as he saw them, with his accustomed service of charity he went forth to meet them, armed with the sign of the Cross, and earnestly begs them to take food. But they, rejecting the meal of charity of which they were not worthy, hastened to satisfy the cruel precept of their lord, for which they had been sent.
[11] Being asked by them for information about the sign unknown to them, to be brought before him, and his constancy tried in vain, he set forth with a plain answer and a most true profession of the sacred faith. Bound therefore with most cruel thongs, and struck with various injury, the Servant of God was presented to the servant of the devil; and, that he might the more easily be subdued, casting up against him the crime of the deed lately committed, they urgently threatened him with harder things unless, coming quickly to his senses, he should comply with the governor's commands. And so, when the divinities to which he was ordered to submit had been enumerated, and their most filthy marriage recounted, the Man of God meets the charges with a fitting answer, and utterly refuses to be defiled by the service of such beings. What more? When these and many other and various altercations had been held on both sides, and when the mad prefect perceived that he was striving in vain against the Man of God, and when to several bystanders his answers and rebukes were no small instruction, he ordered him at last to be hung upon a stake and there to be torn with iron claws.
[12] Come, executioner, if from the stock of the human condition any blemish has clung to his flesh, to be torn with iron claws and beheaded. busy thyself to have it lopped away with the dread comb. Truly thine own has been granted thee unto destruction, so that in this too, which thou cruelly performest against God's Saint, thou mayest serve God's justice; and what thou couldst not accomplish as a friend, thou mayest avail to do as an enemy. Bear this cruel javelin of the tyrant too, O Martyr, being about shortly to see him for whose love thou dost not refuse to die; mindful of that apostolic saying: If we suffer together, we shall also reign together. And now, the inward parts of Christ's Martyr being laid bare on every side, while, only his spirit remaining vigorous, the substance of his flesh torn by the comb seemed to have failed, and no man's eye, nor even the executioner's, could for horror look upon him, at Priscus's command he is taken down from the stake, and is ordered to be led to the appointed place to be struck on the head.
[13] And as he was being led thither, and giving thanks to almighty God, he has Christ appearing to him, and looking up to the heavens with a devout gaze, he beholds Christ offering him himself as the reward of his contest, and a crown [i]. Since therefore (dearly beloved) the contemplation of the heavenly majesty commends throughout the whole world the wholly singular prerogative of blessed Stephen, and it is held worthy of all reverence that he contemplated the Lord of glory as being concerned in his cause, not undeservedly should a reasoning not much different persuade us that blessed Valerian, distinguished by exceptional gifts, is truly to be set equal to those by whose zeal or labour the faith was chiefly made known to the world. For you will scarcely be able to find any of the Doctors, apart from the Apostles and the Apostles' disciples (of whom, however, he himself is recognized to have been one k, according to the tradition of the Chronicles), of whose doctrines of the faith he, being an emulator, is not proved to have built upon his foundation; but (as has been said) from the very beginning of his belief he is believed to have fought by the true assertion of that same sacred faith.
[14] But let us now return to what we began. Strengthened therefore and at the same time refreshed by so great and so wonderful a vision, he is slain; a basilica is raised to him in the same place; and this not being hidden from certain of the faithful, secure of his reward he went before the lictors at a run, and rejoicing, with bent knees, he is punished in the head, about to enjoy for ever the joy of the citizens above. In which place the sons whom he himself had begotten to Christ, and for whom he had by his preaching prepared starry mansions in heaven, built for him a modest basilica l, according to the time and their means; in which, as the number of the faithful gradually increased, some disciples devoted themselves to the divine worship.
[15] he shines with miracles. From that time that place began to be frequented by a copious concourse of the faithful, while none of those flowing thither was disappointed of the effect of his prayers; so much so that the multitude of believers became through the signs almost more numerous than that which before had been converted to Christ by the holy Man's preaching. For the true husbandman prunes through martyrdom the branch that abides in the true vine and bears fruit, that it may bear more fruit; and therefore the holy Man, as when alive, so also when dead did not cease to win peoples for Christ. But all these things are works of the divine Majesty, which, calling us through visible things to invisible, not only, when we were the servants of sin, restored us to our former liberty, but also gave to us, who have believed in his name, to become through grace the sons of God — who lives and reigns world without end. Amen.
[16] Epilogue. These things, which up to now we have set forth in whatever style, are known to pertain particularly to the passion of blessed Valerian. The rest, which follow, although they may seem to differ from what we have said above in the diversity of the times and in the narration of events, yet in no wise depart from the order of a single reason: namely that which the divine clemency willed to work for the increase of the proclamations of the aforesaid Martyr's merits, which are to be told. To the relating of which, according to the truthful tradition of the Fathers, I shall gird myself so far as my strength allows, ever invoking him who says in the Gospel: Without me ye can do nothing.
ANNOTATIONS.
d. The Acts of the martyrs of Lyons Eusebius inserted in book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, from the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons written to the Christians dwelling in Asia and Phrygia according to the testimonies of those who had been present at the contest. Consult the Annotations on the earlier Passion, letter a.
i. That vision, which Falco relates to have occurred on the journey, Garner says happened, more conformably to the text of the first Passion, when the Saint was already awaiting the blow. Receive his words: But while the Martyr, a victim of most sweet odour, was bending his neck to the smiter, his knees fixed on the ground for prayer, his eyes raised to heaven with all the longing of his mind, he deserved this before the fullness of the glory that followed: that he should behold the heavens themselves opened to him, Jesus, the pillar of immortality and of the common hope, leaning toward him from heaven, and bringing down from above to his Martyr, with a more festive countenance, a crown of most splendid beauty.
the year 178, if what is handed down in the Chronicles cited is true. I should prefer to believe that his teacher was one of the disciples of the Apostles.
* others read "videlicet"
THE TRANSLATION AND MIRACLES
By the same Falco.
From the editions of Chifflet and Juénin.
Valerian, martyr, at Tournus in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)
The Saint's sepulchre On his death also a Stephen is put in his place in the government of the monastery. His zeal, or the devotion which he had toward blessed Valerian, the outcome handed down to memory declares. For the body of this Martyr, just as it had been placed in the sepulchre by the faithful at the time of his passion, had remained shut up in the earth through the spaces of many years b; which the aforesaid father not unjustly deemed unfitting — namely that his body should be covered with earth whose spirit enjoyed in the heavens the fellowship of the angels, and by whose merits the divine power had bestowed immense benefits upon his people. He began therefore, first in silent meditation with himself, to arrange the order of the translation; then gradually to prepare what would be necessary for the coming work: gold and silver, and precious stones of various kinds.
[2] Then, a skilled craftsman being called in, he was seen to have made a mausoleum skilfully wrought. with great preparation Which being finished, awaiting a suitable time, on an appointed day he caused a multitude of religious to come. There was present none the less a copious multitude of the people of various cities, believing that it would be a great advantage to the faithful that this solemnity of the raising from the tomb of the blessed Martyr had been found. And since, by the attestation of miracles, we have clearly learned that it was pleasing to God, not undeservedly (dearly beloved) ought we to honour it with worthy observances and to receive it with the greatest joy.
[3] There are chosen therefore three monks venerable for the merit of their life, who, repentance for their offences with satisfaction being first made, the sepulchre, when opened, exhales a sweet odour clothed in white garments, approach with the utmost reverence the place where they knew St. Valerian was buried. But to none of the others was it granted to enter c; rather the people stood waiting, without doubt not inferior in devotion to that people which awaited the coming forth from the temple of Zacharias the priest at the hour of incense. When at last the stone by which the tomb was closed had been rolled away, a mighty odour, after the manner of spices, poured over the brethren; so that he who, while living in the flesh, had been through the ministry of holy preaching an odour of life to the faithful, should now also, dissolved in body, offer a sweet odour.
[4] The relics, enclosed in a reliquary, are translated Meanwhile the brethren, looking within, find the sacred head lying not according to the order of the members, but carefully placed in the position where the breast seemed to have been; where also they find a small piece of a cloak, as though it had then been newly put there,
silver phylactery. That he himself, while still alive, wore this on that part of his garment which covers the breast, is not doubtful, so that his dress might indicate what his profession declared. Having therefore taken the relics of the larger limbs, they laid them in the chest which we mentioned above as newly made, the remaining remains, or ashes of the body, being left in the sepulchre. And when they had set it on their shoulders, they carried it to the oratory of the upper monastery, and reverently placed it upon the altar of the blessed Mother of God.
[5] and are exposed for some days. How great rivers of pious tears were there poured out, which the immensity of the great joys called forth! The people at last, their vows and prayers being exultantly performed, returned rejoicing to their own homes. But in the image which by the command of the same father had been made in those same days, the sacred and venerable head of the often-mentioned Martyr was placed; and by setting this against the violent onsets of storm, or the various inclemencies of the airs, or any adversities of things whatsoever, we are often, by God's mercy, defended from them. And on the day of the Purification of blessed Mary, which came after a short time d, the shrine in which the bones of the blessed Martyr were laid up was carried into the lower oratory [e], which was unceasingly frequented by the people, and was placed upon the altar which had recently been built.
[6] A cripple is restored; And while the people in the upper monastery were following the customary f procession, a certain poor little man, so pitiable that, almost the whole mass of his body being drawn together like a ball, he was forced to look only upon the ground, having with great labour entered that sacred oratory, began there tearfully to pour out his prayers, imploring that the divine clemency, by the merits of blessed Valerian, would be present to him. And when he repeated this again and again, suddenly his sinews and the whole frame of his body began in a wondrous manner to be loosened; and being stretched on the ground, he began to cry out with a great shout. And now the choir was pressing on with the offices of the solemn Mass. But the people, hearing the shout, ran, and found the man stretched on the ground and having received the form of such a length that, whereas before he did not seem to exceed the size of a child of three or four years, he now surpassed nearly all in height. And so, praises and vows being paid to God, the people returned exulting to their homes.
[7] a blind woman receives sight; another is freed from a demon and a fever; A certain old woman too, from whom either age or infirmity had taken away the light of her eyes, there, by God's mercy, deserved to recover it by the merits of the same Martyr. Nor could the knowledge of this matter be hidden even from those dwelling far off; rather, many flowed together from every side, driven by various afflictions; among whom a certain woman of advanced age, worn out with a twofold pain, came with another as companion; for she burned with dreadful fevers, and the wretched woman was held by a savage demon. To her too the divine loving-kindness did not long defer the wished-for benefit. For she returned healed, both the heat of the fevers and the strength of the raging enemy being put to flight.
[8] A certain soldier none the less came, brought by his friends, likewise a fever-stricken soldier is healed. so overwhelmed with the weariness of the fevers under which he had long laboured, that he would rather be released from this life by death than be further burdened by such an affliction. To him too Christ's mercy brought a remedy without long delay; for on returning to his own home, he greatly gladdened his friends by the benefit of the health he had obtained.
ANNOTATIONS.
c. These things at first sight will perhaps seem to conflict with what is related by Garner in the other History of the same translation, number 4, where abbot Stephen and very many persons of unblemished name are said to have approached the sepulchre. But they will be reconciled without difficulty if we so set out the order of the matter that the abbot and many others came down from the upper church into the lower or subterranean one as far as the chapel in which, beneath the altar consecrated to the Saint, the tomb lay hidden, and that they all halted there before the door or entrance, except the three monks mentioned by Falco.
on Juénin's testimony, volume 1 of the History of Tournus, pages 371 and 380, the lord de Sauvajot, cantor of the college of canons, adorned in the present century with a new altar and other ornaments.
THE TRANSLATION AND MIRACLES
By Garner, monk of Tournus.
From the editions of Chifflet and Juénin.
Valerian, martyr, at Tournus in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)
BHL Number: 8490
By Garner the monk.
Abbot Stephen, much devoted to the holy Martyr, Having run through above, so far as our mediocrity could grasp, the order of the passion a by which the most blessed Valerian, Christ's martyr, deserved to obtain in the heavens the crown of a precious stone, we are compelled to turn our hand again to the disinterment of his most sacred body; so that, namely, by the intervention of our effort, the dignity of that truth already known may shine forth more beautifully in a more concise style. After innumerable revolutions therefore from his passion — I do not say of years, but of many periods of time — a venerable man named Stephen, a person noble indeed by an illustrious family, but nobler by the elegance of his character and the observance of a most holy religion, is known to have bestowed his pastoral vigils upon the monastery of Tournus (as we read in the more ancient charters of the same monastery). Now it pleased the Holy Spirit that in the times of that most blessed man the body of the above-mentioned Martyr, to be mentioned again and again, should be translated from a lowlier place, and be set with due reverence in a loftier one.
[2] meditates the elevation of the body, Wondrous indeed and incomprehensible in truth is the depth of the divine counsel, that through so many courses of preceding centuries, under the meanest covering of a single stone, the dust of a Martyr beloved of him should have lain neglected and grown old, and that as under a most obscure bushel the lamp of a most brilliant star should have long lain hidden. But although among us at that time Valerian's monument was esteemed of the briefest and, as it were, of no moment b, we ought nevertheless to remember, more certainly than certain, that our Martyr holds a most ample seat more gloriously in the senate of heaven. It was indeed by the senatorial judgment of that court that it was resolved secretly to put it into the mind of the aforesaid Stephen, the religious abbot, that he should gather the remains of the precious Martyr, so that, his merits going before, some profit of so pious a solicitude might by divine gift be rendered to him in return.
[3] and after taking counsel proclaims a three days' fast; Nevertheless, since according to Solomon he had learned that all things are to be done with judgment, lest perchance he should be held rash, or presumptuous in respect of the greatness of the matter, he chose to make the business known to riper persons, and to await the more wholesome concurrence of the elders. And so, persons of established repute having been called in from every quarter of the province, by common counsel a three days' fast is proclaimed to all round about [c], and the time of the blessed expectation is everywhere preached among the peoples. Why do I delay? After the three days' abstinence which we have mentioned, from their own places to Tournus flow together men of every sex and age, desiring with all eagerness of mind to behold the treasure they longed for, and most earnestly wishing to honour it more skilfully with the gifts due according to the law of oblations.
[4] he goes forward to the sepulchre with a great throng of pious men, Coming together therefore from both sides to the most sacred church of the most blessed Martyr, first indeed lying prostrate on the ground in prayer with sighs and an immense river of tears, they implore the mercy of the almighty Godhead: that what they had conceived at the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, the ill-persuading allurement of carnal pleasures and the enormity of past offences may not insolently void of the effects long desired. While thus they pray, while the thronging crowd weeps, the aforesaid abbot Stephen, a man outstanding in all religion, and with him very many persons of unblemished name, their faces bathed in most copious weeping, trusting with pious presumption in the Lord's mercy, humbly approaching the Martyr's sepulchre [d], apply themselves again to prayer more devoutly than was their wont, sacrificing themselves with all anxiety of spirit as a living victim.
[5] and when it has been reverently opened, While these things are being done, the God-fearing men, rising at last, suffused with pious trembling, lay trying hands upon the sarcophagus to see whether they might be able to lift up that stone covering, of a weighty bulk indeed (as is seen), by which the opening of the lower vessel was closed. The things which are impossible with men are possible with God: for hands failing through the three days' fast, and bodies wearied by the bending of the knees and by continual bowings, lifted the aforesaid mass with such lightness as it would not be believed could be moved apart even by innumerable and strong men [e]. While therefore the heavenly treasure is opened to the devout eyes of the faithful who had long desired it, a mighty cry, made more prosperous by sighs and by deeper sobbing, is raised in common; guilty breasts are smitten by all; the earth is beaten by the noise of feet, heaven itself, echoing back, by the ineffable concord of the people crying out together, as of one voice.
[6] Who could set forth in writing for you the most sweet odour, more fragrant than every incense, the sacred bones are uncovered, with the head, breathing sweetly, sweeter than every nectar-like liquor? Who could by any service of the human voice designate the wondrous whiteness of the inner casket? Nor, as with bodies that rot, is corruption found (as commonly happens); but all the Martyr's members, according to their natural composition, cohering to one another by cartilages and sinews, were beheld with a certain amazement of the beholders. from the most blessed body by a single stroke of the executioner, so rested upon his venerable breast. In this manner all these things are beheld by all; they are venerated by all; each kisses them, all water them with tears. Meanwhile a silver coffer is brought into the midst, of workmanship elaborate enough, wonderfully adorned with the manifold splendour of divers gems, with golden plates and with the radiant carving of ivory; such indeed that the workmanship surpassed the material; prepared by the zeal of abbot Stephen, a man of sanctity to be recalled, with pious devotion and not without lavish expenditure.
[7] There is placed within, by the consecrated hands of religious priests, and enclosed in precious caskets, with its head apart, limb by limb the body of the divine martyr Valerian; and it is venerably set upon the altar of the blessed Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary, with the exultation of the whole people. But the head is set up separately beside the aforesaid coffer, in a certain image fittingly fashioned of gold and most precious gems as into the likeness of the Martyr. For the cross of cloth, which they had found upon the wasted members of the body — all the other remains having been worn away by long lying and by lengthy age — they carefully enclose in a silver cross.
[8] Moreover, with more prudent foresight, men of a shrewder wit left no small quantity of the aforesaid body in the stone monument, a part of them being left in the tomb, they are solemnly translated. and smearing it on the outside with a stronger bitumen, and depositing it in the lower crypt of our monastery, behind the most sacred altar of the most blessed Valerian, they departed. Then with due praises and pious thanksgiving the solemnities of the Masses are more festively celebrated by the throngs of all the monks and clerics, and with the immense gifts of the princes present and with the offerings of the common people the relics of the glorious Martyr are eagerly venerated with Christian solicitude. Now this translation of the change which we have described was made under Stephen, religious abbot of the monastery of Tournus, who in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and sixty by divine
promotion was advanced to govern our monastery, and, completing in it the full perfection of twelve years [g], rich in virtues and in the fruitfulness of good works, ended in peace the last day of his mortal life.
[9] It would be superfluous to subjoin to this our narrative the innumerable number of miracles About the same time several miracles are wrought there. which the omnipotence of the Godhead, with the hand of a more bounteous mercy, does not cease effectually to dispense to this present day upon sick people of every kind, on account of the notable merit of Valerian the precious martyr. A few nevertheless — that is, two — lest we should seem utterly wanting in our duty, which it is plain happened in the days next after the aforementioned translation, it has pleased us to insert, to the praise and glory of him who is truly believed to be the crown of his martyrs, Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and rules as God through all ages of ages. Amen.
[10] A man wretchedly While the venerable choir of the several orders was celebrating the most sacred solemnities of the Masses, and was with one mind persisting in the divine praises, there lay hidden in the crypts whence the most blessed body of Valerian the martyr had been taken away a certain wretched little man, by a very long-standing paralysis wholly rolled up into himself with an arched curving into the appearance of a kind of globular roundness, propped on one hand by a small wooden stool, with the other dragging his whole feeble body along the ground by a very short staff, so that he seemed rather a creeping than a walking creature. He, bearing in his hand a slender candle, which for reverence of the aforesaid Martyr he had kindled with fire, levelled with the ground, his belly swollen, awaited with sighs the help of heavenly succour.
[11] drawn together is raised up; Therefore, while in affliction of spirit and anxiety of heart, rolled upon the ground, he repeated the glorious name of Valerian again and again with mouth and spirit, suddenly, struck with a certain amazement and terror alike, he felt the passages of his veins little by little grow warm with heated blood, and his sinews, loosened from their own and as it were inborn rigidity, grow supple. Why say more? While beside a certain little door, set between hope and fear, he humbly lay hidden — wondrous to tell! — with divine favour going before and the pious suffrage of our Martyr following after, his body was drawn out to such a length that presently, when, being made whole, he raised himself upon his own feet, he stood out taller than the people present from the shoulders upward h. Straightway the church resounds together with worthy praises to God, and the thronging crowd of faithful peoples crowns with pious thanksgiving the remains of Christ's Martyr there present. The aforesaid man is presented at the sacred altars not as one restored to health, but as one suddenly brought forth from the heavenly courts. Thereafter he returned with joy to his own home.
[12] a blind woman is given sight. A certain woman, passing the ninetieth year of her mortal life, had fallen into a very long-standing blindness of the eyes; yet even in that darkness she pursued no less than usual, as by an inborn garrulity, scurrilous talk and old wives' tales. Now while she was staying in the very village of Tournus, having heard the report of the miracles which the divine power was working through its martyr Valerian, sitting at home she cried out, saying: Lord God, grant me at least this, that through the merits of blessed Valerian I may be able to see my own hands before I die. She had spoken, and sooner than the word, turning the twin orbs of her eyes upon the household standing round, she beheld with a most clear gaze not only the hands about which she had asked, but also whatever lay before the sight of one present. Thus, the soundness of her own vision being recovered, she entered, with the crowds following, the church of the glorious Martyr, to render due thanks with rejoicing.
ANNOTATIONS.
not published by us in print, because they differ so little from the Passion printed in the first place that we scarcely doubt either that this very one lay before him, or another not much unlike it, which he merely altered with a new and fuller phrasing, as I indicated in the preliminary Commentary, §1. The same Garner likewise used Falco's Chronicle when he composed the history of the translation; but he departed from it rather more, mixing in here and there things omitted there, and amplifying what had been briefly touched; and in this indeed he sometimes went so far that, through intemperance of words or a not sufficiently apt choice of them, the things narrated turn out less likely, and he seems to conflict either with Falco or with himself. Since, however, he also hints that he used the more ancient charters of the monastery, some things may be believed to have been taken thence which Falco had before neglected; and that consideration moved me not to suppress Garner's composition altogether.
e. Of that prodigy Falco is silent; nor does Garner set it out with sufficient likelihood. Of how great a mass would that stone covering at last have been, which otherwise could not be moved apart by innumerable and strong men?
f. Juénin, volume 1 of the History of Tournus, page 79, rightly observes that this passage is to be expounded in a convenient sense: namely that there happened then what often happens elsewhere when tombs are first opened, and that St. Valerian's limbs at first appeared in such a state as if they were then still furnished with cartilage and connected by sinews, but that when they had been exposed to the air, or shaken by some movement, the bones alone remained, while the rest went to ashes. And indeed Garner's passage, taken in a strict sense, agrees ill with what he says below about the cross found upon the wasted members of the body. Add that Falco again is silent about so great an incorruption of the body, and sufficiently hints that the limbs or bones were not so connected, when he affirms that the relics of the larger limbs were placed in the chest.
g. Chifflet and Juénin here detect an error, and by producing documents prove that abbot Stephen did not depart this life before the year 980; and consequently either he was promoted to the prelacy later, or he held it more than twelve years.