Sequanus

ON ST. SEQUANUS, ABBOT,

IN THE TERRITORY OF LANGRES IN BURGUNDY

About the middle of the sixth century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

The memory of the saint in the calendars, his name, his cult. Were the Acts to be published written by a contemporary author and of undoubted credit?

Sequanus, abbot and confessor, in the territory of Langres in Gaul. (S.)

BY J. C.

The territory of Langres venerates today with a special cult St. Sequanus, whom Usuard announces thus: In the territory of the city of Langres, of St. Sequanus the priest; St. Sequanus in the sacred calendars supply the deposition, as it is in some copies of the Hieronymian Martyrologies; some of these insert after Sequani the words abbot of very great righteousness, some monk. Ado at this day has it thus: In the territory of the city of Langres, of St. Sigo the priest; from which, unless I am mistaken, Greven attributed a double name to our saint, when he speaks thus at this day: In the territory of the city of Langres, of St. Sequanus (or Sigo) the priest. Florentinius doubts whether this is correct enough; namely whether that holy Sigo is the same who in other calendars is called Sigonus, Segonus, Sego, Sigonius, Segomus, Segomius, Seguncus, Signus, and even Sequatius. What could have moved Florentinius's doubt was not so much the variety of the name — from which anyone who wished to argue might easily fashion for himself here six different saints — as Florus's memory of St. Sigo at the 18th day of September, and the reading of other codices, which seem to double the saint. Florus at the aforesaid 18th day has it thus: In the territory of the city of Langres, in the monastery of Segestre, the deposition of St. Sigo, priest and confessor. Of St. Sequanus there is in him no mention. Among other calendars the Martyrology of St. Sabinus of Levitania announces in this manner: On the same day (the 18th of September) in the territory of the city of Langres, in the monastery of Setgestre, the deposition of St. Sego, priest and confessor; and presently on the following day, the 19th: In the territory of Langres, the deposition of St. Sequanus the abbot. So the Brussels one: In the territory of the city of Langres, the deposition of St. Sequanus the abbot, and of St. Sigo, priest of very great righteousness, where two are manifestly distinguished and expressed, and in that of St. Sabinus of Levitania are indeed referred to different days.

[2] As regards Florus, I ascribe that transposition to the drowsiness of the copyists, or to his own error, he is designated by various names since in him no mention is made of St. Sequanus, of whom almost all the Adonian and Usuardian Martyrologies speak at this day, and since the territory and the monastery where he is said to have ended his day so indicate him that they seem to suit him alone. Nor is the authority of the remaining two copies so great as to add weight to Florentinius's doubt: for that the Brussels writer interpolated his own most licentiously and scraped together various things from various sources is known to all, and almost every page proves it. Nor does more seem to be to be granted to that first one, which both everywhere teems with the most frequent errors and here, following his example, brought back St. Sigo, whom he had drawn from Florus, to the preceding day, and then, following other codices, annexed St. Sequanus to the following day. What could have cast a shadow over them in their error was the diversity both of the name which is attributed to the saint and of the territory and city where they commemorate his deposition, which they found written faultily and with one inflection after another in those volumes from which they compiled their own. Certainly that one and the same St. Sequanus is designated by those different appellations is the constant and common opinion among the learned, to which I shall likewise adhere until something of such a kind is brought forward about St. Sigo as does not seem to suit exactly, and indeed to suit Sequanus alone. To him, if that Sigo lived, he was contemporary, or flourished after his times, since it is manifest that St. Sequanus founded the monastery of Segestre and there established the first monks. And thence, among so many writers who have handled the affairs of that place and time, an easier inquiry will be made, which so long as it does not succeed for those who doubt less, their silence will continue to favor us.

[3] a conjecture about them. Moreover, if it be allowed to conjecture, some reason could be brought forward for the double name attributed (Sequanus and Sego, to which the remaining derivatives are easily reduced). Segestre, as most of the ancients write it, is a place situated not far from the source of the most famous river Seine, where the saint built his monastery and where he flourished in the fame of learning and virtues. And so the saint's proper name would be Sego, and his surname from the neighboring source of the Seine, Sequanus: easily from that could Sego, the lord and master of that place, be called Sequanus; and the appellation abbot Sequanus could also cling to the founder of the monastery built there, under which name afterwards, according to the custom of those times, he came to be known among the monks of the surrounding monasteries, and from them passed on to us. But if you prefer that Sequanus was our saint's birth-name, there is also a reason why I should think him surnamed Sego; for Sego seems to be derived from Segestre. Certainly the part of the territory where St. Sequanus founded his ascetery rejoiced in the name of Segestra, and was owed to him by hereditary right, as is rightly gathered from our manuscript, but wrongly from that which Mabillon published. But now what forbids that he should have been called Sego from the proper name of that place, either because he ennobled it by his retirement and by the monastery built there, or because it was his hereditary estate? Indeed, in old times men were frequently designated by the names of their fields and estates. But the Seine also, as Ruinart rightly notes, is not rarely called Segona and Sigona by Fredegar. Whence by like reasoning the saint could be called Sego or Sigo, as Sequanus from Sequana.

[4] That the cult of St. Sequanus is most ancient the most ancient Hieronymian copies testify, The saint's cult most ancient. in which his memory is made; the Life of St. Benedict, abbot of Aniane, written by St. Ardo at the beginning of the ninth century, testifies it, where his monastery is said to have been distinguished by the name of St. Sequanus already forty years before. Of him St. Gregory of Tours, in chapter 88 of the book On the Glory of the Confessors, which he composed in the sixth century, speaks as of a man of great virtue and most famous for miracles both while he lived and after his death. But whether he was even then venerated is uncertain to me. The Sainte-Marthe brothers, volume 4 of the Gallia Christiana, column 693, assert that he is celebrated every year with a feast day throughout the whole territory. His holy remains rest to this day in the monastery which he founded, and are celebrated with a great concourse of the neighboring people. are celebrated. That there was already of old a church dedicated to St. Sequanus and called by his name is clear from an old charter which I report from Mabillon at the saint's Life in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 1, folio 263. Godfrey the bishop, etc. Long was a controversy held between the monks of St. Sequanus and Albert, lord of the village which is called Dreez. It was restored to the good of peace. There is in the county of Montagne a possession of great antiquity, Valeriacus by name, and in it a church of blessed Sequanus, and to his name

dedicated and subject to his right. Within the bounds of this the said Albert built the village named above, namely Dreez, together with a chapel. This chapel the monks claimed from us as situated within the bounds of their parish, but Albert strove against it, etc. Godfrey, bishop of Langres, whose this charter is, flourished a little after the beginning of the twelfth century. The district Valeriacus is to this day called by the natives Verri, or Verri sous Dreez, that it may be distinguished from another of the same name which is some hundreds of paces distant from it. Thither St. Sequanus first withdrew, burning with the desire of a more austere life, of which he is believed, while still a boy, to have laid the foundations there. In memory of this I suspect that a church was erected to him in that place. The Sainte-Marthes praised above also mention a Translation of St. Sequanus, which they say is kept on the 2nd of January. But whether an exaltation of the holy body took place, or a part of it was carried elsewhere, or finally that whole sacred treasure was translated from one place to another, and at what time or on what occasion these things happened, they do not say. In the Prato codex, on Bouillart's testimony, at the 23rd day of May there is read written to Usuard in a more recent hand: At the place of Sigestrum, the dedication of the church of St. Mary and St. Sequanus.

[5] The Life published and to be published The Life and Acts of St. Sequanus our Rouvier first published entire in the Life of St. John, abbot of Réome, chapter 3, page 31, from a manuscript codex of the same monastery. Le Cointe comments on this in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 1, at the years of Christ 518 and 534. The same, from another manuscript differing somewhat from Rouvier's, Mabillon gave among the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 1, folio 263, and from it Baillet put together his own, volume 3, the 19th of September. We have another twofold manuscript, once sent to our elders, about which see Sollier in his Usuard at this day. One was written out by Pierre-François Chifflet, and is noted in the margin: From a manuscript of the monastery of Accinctum, and of Carneolum, and of Dijon. This, differing in the very fewest points from Mabillon's, I shall illustrate and compare with his. The other manuscript is much briefer, and thus bears the heading: From a manuscript of Dom Belfort. But opposite, in the margin of the page, there is: Dom Belfort copied these from a manuscript of Longpont: and a little below: The same things which are in the Réome one are found in manuscript 79 of the Queen of Sweden. The Belfort one seems to be an abridgment of our first, and appears many years more recent than it. I shall give a very few things noted from it. Mabillon, and as many as after him have treated of the Acts and Life of St. Sequanus, judged that they were written by a contemporary author, a disciple of the same saint. And the often-praised Mabillon indeed prefixes this to the chapter of the Life of St. Sequanus: By an anonymous contemporary author, as appears from number 13. He asserts the same in the Annals, volume 1, book 7, at the year of Christ 580, folio 179, number 8. Him Baillet followed, in the Critical Table, volume 3, and the Benedictines of St. Maur in the Literary History of France, volume 3, sixth century, page 367, and thence they infer that the authority of these Acts cannot be doubted.

[6] [it does not seem to have been written by a contemporary author, from his own words.] I do not find the foundation of so great and so certain an authority: let us see on what Mabillon relies, and let us investigate the origin of the error. Number 13 in him, where he asserts that a contemporary author appears, is this: From that time he (Sequanus) began to be most famous and to be very widely reported for miracles, more than he had been. Many indeed, innumerable miracles of healings he wrought in the sight of his people: but those which we saw to suffice for a concise brevity we have taken care to set down in this volume. And before all the things which Sequanus, a most holy man, instituted for the use and profit of the monastery, he also built with his own labors a church, in which now his bones rest peacefully, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom be honor and glory, unto the ages of ages. Amen. Who, I ask, would dig a contemporary author out of that? I have weighed and considered everything attentively, and yet I could find nothing of the kind. Doubtless the most learned man was deceived, unless I am mistaken, by the word vidimus, whose meaning in that place, though obvious and clear from the circumstances, he allowed to slip from him. Certainly in this the writers of the Literary History of France were mistaken, when in the place cited above they assert that the author of this Life professes that he writes nothing except what he had been an eyewitness of. Into the same error, though more cautious than the rest in this, that he restricts the we saw to the miracles alone, Baillet stumbled, saying in his Critical Notes at this day that this disciple of St. Sequanus narrates only those miracles which he had beheld with his own eyes.

[7] The age of the writer is doubtful, And so the writer of the Life nowhere else professes himself a contemporary, nor does anything occur from which this could be more deduced than from this passage: But those which we saw to suffice for a concise brevity, etc. But to those moderately instructed in the Latin tongue it must be manifest that the verb vidimus here means the same as judicavimus; and that the sense is: but those things which we judged, thought, to suffice for a concise brevity, we have taken care to set down in this volume. Indeed in the meaning which those most learned writers fasten upon it, it cannot be taken unless they wish the following words to suffice for a concise brevity to be deleted, and so twist the mutilated sense of the author to their own. Therefore, since we have nothing certain from that quarter, let us examine the rest. As regards the style in which this Life and these Acts are written, it is concise and not everywhere consistent with itself; now rising with a loftier phrase, now sunk low and creeping; for the most part contorted by a study of far-fetched words, and those not sufficiently proper. The narration of facts is brief, contrary to the manner of those times and of contemporary authors; the description of places and the like is fuller and luxuriant, and much adorned. The Literary History of France praised above indulges the writer as candid and of good faith, who would hand down only those things which he had seen with his own eyes. I, though I have shown that the most learned authors were mistaken in this, nevertheless do not wish either candor or good faith to be snatched from this writer of ours. But since it is permissible to be in doubt about the time at which the Acts were written, and it is uncertain by what way the Life of St. Sequanus came to him, I subjoin certain things which can instil some doubt about the truth of what is narrated in those who do not readily give credit to prodigies unless they are proved by undoubted faith from elsewhere.

[8] Before St. Sequanus withdrew from his father's house, he is said to have held the whole Psalter so in memory and the truth of what is narrated that no one like him in the reciting of it could be found at all. He withdraws to the village whose name is Valeriacus, … where he built with his own hand an enclosure, though a most humble one … And when he was delighting himself there … with most salutary fastings … for nearly three years, he was brought by the wasting and the foulness of his leanness to such a death that … his dry skin clung to his bones. He is led to Eustadius, priest of Montagne, a most holy man, who shorn the crown of his head, signed with the Lord's character … and from that time the most religious Sequanus began to comply with Eustadius the priest and to become his attendant … at length, the people of his church (of Montagne) being called together, since they too had experienced the fruits of so great sanctity and abstinence in Sequanus, they consecrated him to the Levitical ministry with testimonies before the bishop. Now the most blessed Sequanus, when he obtained the Levitical grace, was about fifteen years old … and he discharged the Levitical office for five years. Then … he is promoted to the grace of the presbyterate, namely in his twentieth year. Astonishing things, many in few words, are here narrated. He was about fifteen years old when he was distinguished with the diaconate, against the express authority of the sacred canons, which required a full twenty-fifth year, but the thirtieth, that anyone should be promoted to the Order of the presbyterate, which Sequanus is recorded to have obtained in the twentieth year of his age. A remarkable privilege indeed, which is read to have been granted to very few, and hardly ever without a previous manifest testimony of the divine will, when flocks destitute of a pastor and the great good of the Christian cause demanded such a thing!

[9] The over-hasty ordination of St. Sequanus described here has troubled from the too premature ordination all who have illustrated this Life, and especially those who judged that undoubted credit was to be given to those Acts. Le Cointe at the year of Christ 518, page 308, roundly denies that these things so happened, and judges that the biographer should be corrected on this point. Rouvier, Annotation 60, page 517, conjectures that the prohibitions and penalties of the canons were either not yet known there or not yet observed, especially since Zosimus had indeed threatened suspension from office to bishops ordaining men before the proper age, but had not yet inflicted it. But the canonical statutes were known to the clergy of Montagne, since for that very reason they accused Sequanus through envy of transgressing them. For the rest, whether Rouvier, thinking thus, consults sufficiently for the fame of that bishop of Langres, whoever he was, and for his observance toward the Roman see, I do not inquire: certainly he presently takes refuge elsewhere, and calls in St. Remigius and others ordained before the prescribed time to his own support and to the defence of the contemporary and trustworthy writer. Mabillon does the same in Note B. But that the appointed time should be anticipated in ordaining those most illustrious and most holy men, the necessity of the churches pressed, for which pastors and bishops were destined by no obscure will of God. Nothing of the kind greatly required it in the case of St. Sequanus; for there was no great scarcity of priests in the town of Montagne, where certain clerics complained about Sequanus being set over them. Then I do not think that St. Sequanus, who on the death of Eustadius immediately withdrew thence, would have left the people most devoted to him destitute of sufficient pastors. Finally, this Sequanus is said to have been ordained deacon in his fifteenth year, which is read to have been granted to none of those saints at so tender and boyish an age, and thence one may rather marvel at the greater prerogative, if not deny that it was received.

[10] and boyish age There are also not a few other things, and no less astonishing, which are apt to cast some scruple upon the truth of what is narrated. Before Sequanus obtained the Levitical order, he lived for some time with Eustadius, and that must have been not at all brief, so that the people, prudently called together at Eustadius's bidding, should have given such testimonies about the outstanding virtue and sanctity of Sequanus (which I do not find to have been proved at that time by prodigies) as should have moved the bishop of Langres to break the statutes of the sacred canons, and, fearing nothing for himself from the censures and penalties threatened against their transgressors, to anticipate by a full ten years the time fixed for those to be ordained. Let us grant therefore at least two years, in which Sequanus, living with Eustadius, proved his singular and constant virtue by practice to the people of Montagne, so that at about thirteen years of age he was distinguished with the clerical tonsure. I subtract from these the nearly three which he before consecrated to solitude in the village of Valeriacus, and I have a boy of about ten years, who had long since so learned the whole Psalter that he recited it entire from memory day by day, and surpassed all in faithful recitation. I have almost an infant, so constantly and with so great ardor demanding the office of the clerical state that he strove against the contrary wishes and cares of his parents

strenuously, and, bearing no further refusal, at ten years old withdrew from their house, and himself built with his own hand an enclosure in which he might lie hidden for three years. And indeed how did his parents, who most tenderly loved their son, since they had him as an only child, hoping that through him the shoots of their mortal stock would sprout, look on idly at this withdrawal — if not rather a flight — at the solitary life of a tender boy, his fastings, vigils, and immoderate afflictions of the body? For it is not likely that all those things were unknown to them, who were held conspicuous in the town of Montagne, from which the district of Valeriacus was distant only one French mile. Assuredly Baillet will not persuade me that his parents bore these things most grievously, yet bore them, lest they should afflict with grief the son whom they followed with the tenderest love: for so that love is imagined as too blind and preposterous.

[11] and other marvels. To these add things no less marvellous which are said about the neighbors of that place which Thiolaïfus showed to Sequanus; namely, that they fed on human flesh and blood after the manner of beasts; which are so incredible that those who did not dare to be in doubt about the truth of what was narrated have nevertheless ascribed these things to metaphors and figurative expressions, so as to represent to us ferocious men. To like ornaments of speech they might have reckoned also the things which I subjoin: For it (the cave, to which Sequanus had come, penetrating with difficulty the forest which had never through a long age been violated) was a lodging of raging demons and of robbers, … a lurking-place of unclean spirits. Then this: And after the building of the monastery, after no long space of time, a multitude of monks was gathered to the place, drawn from the four parts of the world by the repute of Sequanus, a most prudent man; which savor no less of hyperbole, if not rather of little fables, as narrations of this kind about demons are wont to do, unless they be asserted with undoubted credit. Certainly I do not grasp how monks flew thither so quickly from the four parts of the world. And from these things let the reader determine in what place these Acts are to be held: let us say something about the year in which St. Sequanus is recorded by some to have departed from among the living.

[12] At the beginning of this Commentary I broadly assigned the middle of the sixth century to the deposition of St. Sequanus, it is highly uncertain that St. Sequanus died thinking that nothing certain besides could be fixed. Mabillon, however, Baillet, the authors of the Literary History, and others refer his death to about the eightieth year of the sixth century. Let us examine whether they establish this conjecture of theirs on sufficiently solid reasons. Sequanus, on Mabillon's testimony, is said in a manuscript of the monastery of Cheminon to have rested in peace full of days: therefore he survived St. John of Réome by about forty years. So the already praised writer conjectures at number 13 of the Life of our saint, whom the rest seem to have followed. Mabillon strives to confirm his reasoning from the fact that Sequanus while still a youth handed himself over to the discipline of John, abbot of Réome. But who does not see how weak is the argument deduced from that? For let us grant that St. John founded the monastery of Réome at forty years of age (no one, I think, who has read his Life will require more): to these let us add (that we may go on being generous) twenty others, in which he gradually shone so in learning, in skill in monastic discipline, in the fame of virtue and sanctity, that his name traversed all the provinces and drew thither St. Sequanus, seeking for himself a teacher of the spiritual life. To Sequanus, when he betook himself thither, let us allow the lowest age we can, so that his twenty-fifth year coincides with John's sixtieth. He lived, as the same authors testify, and as is manifest from his Life, a hundred and twenty years. Add therefore the remaining sixty years of John of Réome to the twenty-five years of Sequanus, coming to Réome when John was sixty, and imagine both to have died in the same year of Christ 539, in which, as Mabillon fixes it, John died: could not Sequanus thus be said, an old man almost ninety, to have rested in peace full of days? But if you please to add forty others over and above, beware lest you attribute too many days to him. Certainly the most learned writers of the Literary History, who in volume 3, page 285, do not seem likely to grant to St. John of Réome an old age of a hundred and twenty years unless undoubted authority proved it, will not admit, on a conjecture arbitrary on every side, that Sequanus reached a hundred and twenty-five years.

[13] For the rest, although there is nothing which certainly persuades that St. Sequanus's novitiate happened in that sixtieth year of the abbot of Réome rather than in other later ones, about the eightieth year of the sixth century. a few things nevertheless persuade that he died about the middle of the sixth century or even before. St. Gregory of Tours wrote the book On the Glory of the Confessors about the year 590, on Mabillon's testimony, perhaps even before, for he could have added to a work long since written chapter 106 on St. Radegund and the few following with which he concludes it. Moreover Gregory, in chapter 88, treating of St. Sequanus, narrates a miracle which had happened at his tomb. Three men had fled thither as to a sanctuary, fearing the anger of king Guntram; and this being discovered, the king orders them to be bound in chains. At midnight a light, brighter than human light, arises in the basilica: the chains fly apart, the bound are loosed. From which I suspect that St. Sequanus had already been dead some years when Gregory wrote these things: for that prodigy seems to be referred to the first times of king Guntram, when an immoderate passion for hunting exacted so grave a vengeance for a hunting-horn carried off that those accused of this theft were not allowed to be safe at the tombs of the saints, but were seized even in sacred places and there bound with chains: for afterwards the veneration of the pious and holy king toward all sacred things was other than this. Guntram came to the throne in the year 561: these things must have happened a little after, St. Sequanus having already died some years before, by so much as you would afterwards grant St. Sequanus a longer life; and the sooner you set his death, the nearer to John's sixtieth year you will bring back our saint's stay in the monastery of Réome, in which he certainly seems to have been instructed in sacred discipline before St. John, in his zeal for hiding himself, secretly fled away to the monastery of Lérins. This flight of John of Réome falls, for Le Cointe and Mabillon, at the beginning of the sixth century, for he sets the letters of Gregory, bishop of Langres, given to him while he was dwelling at Lérins, in the year of Christ 507: and so John at eighty years old lived unknown among the younger men in that monastery; whether this is true, and whether that Gregory is the same who came to that see in the year 506, I do not here discuss. Certainly it is hard to believe that John at 88 years of age lay hidden unknown among the men of Lérins, which must be admitted by those who hold that he died at 120 years of age in the year 539. Meanwhile this remains certain to me, that no chronological indication drawn from the Life of St. John of Réome or from the Acts of St. Sequanus compels us to fix the latter's death after the year 540.

THE LIFE

By an anonymous author, of uncertain date

From a manuscript and from Mabillon, from whom the text of Chifflet's manuscript differs in a few words.

Sequanus, abbot and confessor, in the territory of Langres in Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 7585

By an anonymous author.

PROLOGUE.

Although the life of most blessed men, which, by the Lord's attestation, is written in an immortal book by a spiritual pen, has no need of the mortal monuments of letters; yet it is worth the labor to commend it also to volumes of paper; for it was devised by the most eloquent zeal of antiquity, by pen and by the work of letters to offer the deeds of persons now passed away to the eyes of those who did not know them; so that, if credit attend the writings, to read may be the same as to see.

CHAPTER I.

The Acts of St. Sequanus up to the founding of the monastery of Segestre.

[ ] The birth, upbringing, and withdrawal into solitude of St. Sequanus. Sequanus, therefore, a man of most approved character, was forestalled by the grace of God before he was formed in his mother's womb ^a: and from his very cradle he was known to almost all peoples by his fruitful works, born in the town of Montagne ^b, and there brought up by Christian parents ^c. By divine providence, therefore, inflamed with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, though still hindered by his infant age, he most sturdily fulfilled within the recesses of his breast the precepts of the Lord and Savior. And after, passing beyond the years of infancy, he advanced to the grade of boyhood, he so most tenaciously mastered the whole Psalter, his memory following it, that no one like him ^d could be found at all in reciting it. But his parents, because they had him as their only son, loved him tenderly, and hoping that through him the shoots of their mortal stock would sprout, forbade him the office of the clerical state. But he, through whom the shoot of a most splendid spiritual offspring was to be propagated, seeing his parents' wishes set against his own, withdrawing a little from the common habitation, in the village whose name is Valeriacus ^e, built with his own hand an enclosure [] of the humblest sort, yet suited to his sanctity and use ^f, and began in the aforesaid place at continuous moments to offer to Christ the votive [] libations of prayers, and to waste with abstinences his unripe limbs and his still soft little body: for he took no food before he had recited the whole Psalter, persevering in prayer. And under the very habit of a layman he bore the manners of a most gentle monk [*], and under the hair of an unshorn head the fruit of a shorn breast. When therefore he had been delighting himself with most salutary fastings and fruitful sparingness for nearly three years, he was brought by the wasting of his body and the foulness of his leanness to such a death that his shrunken and dry skin clung to his bones.

[2] On a certain day, therefore, when his parents beheld him exhausted of strength He is distinguished with the tonsure of clerics by Eustadius and hedged about with a mortal pallor, bursting forth with exceeding wailing, they said: If you desire the tonsure, and for its sake have lost the vigor of your body, we ourselves now relieve you of the burden, as you think it, of these locks. Then one of their neighbors who was attached to their company ^g, impudent and rash, snatching shears, strove to cut off the hair of the most holy man with his hands: but when, brandishing the shears, he stretched the fingers of his palm above the crown of the aforesaid man, straightway a chill fear glided with winding turns into his heart, and with a certain trembling shook the shears out of his hand ^h, and there took place the first miracle of his renown, the steel shaken out of the hand of him who wielded it. But then his parents, astounded with a new amazement, vowed that a priest should be summoned: who, a blessing having been first given, cut [] the hair of the most reverend youth. Now there was at that time in the town of Montagne a priest in character and in years, by name Eustadius ⁱ, a man worthy of God and most holy, to whom the parents of the most blessed Sequanus brought him with gladness to be shorn ^k; and when he had come, prayers having been poured out to God, he shore the crown of his head, signed with the Lord's character ^l, and after the shearing, imprinting chaste kisses upon his head and lips, he blessed him, saying: May the power of our Savior be with you, my son, by whose gift of majesty I see you already forestalled ^m. I admonish you, most beloved, to spare your abstinence a little, and, obedient to the apostolic precepts, to use a little wine for your stomach's sake and for your frequent infirmities: indulge also in foods which can restore your slender body.*

[3] with whom afterwards he lives, and to the diaconate, From that time therefore the most religious Sequanus began to comply with Eustadius the priest, and to become his attendant in the grace of God. While they were therefore most frequently persisting in the Lord's watches and in prayers and fastings, it was revealed to the most holy Eustadius that Sequanus would be the father of many peoples predestined to rest. At length, the people of that church having been called together, since they too had experienced the practice [] of so great sanctity and abstinence in Sequanus, they consecrated him to the Levitical ministry, before the years of his age, before ⁿ the bishop with testimonies. Now the most blessed Sequanus was about fifteen years old when he obtained the Levitical ^o grace; and he began so to dispense the dignity of his honor without offence that he offered no occasion of any complaints of immature age to men seeking one []. To his elders he did not cease to render reverently the obedience of his grade, to his companions the affection of charity, and to the people the office of most devoted humility. Thus therefore he showed himself all things to all, so that he adorned himself in respect of sanctity, and provoked to his own example the hearts of every order and age: in whom without doubt that saying of the Prophet was fulfilled, who said: That he might instruct his princes as himself, and teach his ancients wisdom.

[4] five years later he is promoted to the presbyterate, He discharged the Levitical office for five years, then, the five years being completed, on account of the shining beauty of his humility and continence he is promoted to the grace of the presbyterate. Then certain of the clerics of the town of Montagne, first in age yet last in character, seeing Sequanus set before them in the honor of the second priesthood [p], began to murmur against him, and, regarding him with sidelong looks, strove to reprove him as a transgressor of the canons. But that good man, taught from heaven by the sincere doctrine of charity, not only did not render them evil for evil, but even repaid good for evil. Nearly in those days in which these things were done, blessed Eustadius passed from earth to heaven. Then Sequanus, pleasing to God, resolved to leave the ecclesiastical office and to seize the monastic life, the friend of silence: but since he was inexperienced in the monastic Rules, his wishes were for a little while delayed from their own arrangement. Day by day therefore with keen search he sought an archimandrite who should teach him the life of the monastery, and instruct him more and more by the conferences and institutions of the most holy fathers.

[5] [being instructed by St. John in the monastery of Réome in the sacred letters and the precepts of the religious life,] Now there was in those days in [] the monastery of Tonnerre [] an abbot [q], John by name, whose singular sanctity had traversed all the provinces: to him therefore, the tokens of that report having been ascertained, the most holy Sequanus turned aside. And having received him with the utmost gladness, with a pure affection of mind [r] he so imbued him in a short time with regular skill, and poured into the inmost parts of his heart the light of truth, that he was a mirror to all who lived well and who strove toward God with the whole devotion of their mind. Sequanus therefore, a venerable man, after he saw himself instructed in the teachings of all the divine Scriptures and trained in the praiseworthy diligence of the monastery, most frequently searched for a place suitable for building himself a monastery; and when moment by moment he went round the neighboring places and brought the resolve of his will to the knowledge of his friends, one of his kinsmen, Thiolaïfus by name, said to him: Since you have questioned me, and your counsels have been sincerely laid open to me, I shall disclose to you, most holy man [], a place, and shall show you one in which you can settle, if the things which you prepare to fulfil have been begun with the ardor of God. There is indeed a place fully owed to you [s] by hereditary right, unless I am mistaken, but the neighbors of that place feed on human flesh and blood after the manner of beasts, so that the path through them is easy for no one, unless he be surrounded by a multitude of armed men.*

[6] To whom blessed Sequanus: Do you only show me the place you know, he seeks a place for building a monastery, and if my wishes have been conceived by the prompting of the Godhead, all their ferocity, being soothed, shall be turned into the simplicity of a dove. Having therefore taken companions with him, they set out and came to the place of which they had spoken. Now there was a forest never through a long age violated, the tops of whose trees almost struck the clouds. Then, while they were seeking approaches by which they might penetrate the secret of the forest, a certain narrow path shone upon their gaze, only so much the narrower [*] and more thorny that the feet of each could with difficulty go along it with an even step, but a foot scarcely followed the foot put forward, the thickness of the branches hindering. Nevertheless, though not without their own labor, nor without the tearing of their garments, they came into the roughest inner parts of the forest. Then, bending themselves to the ground, they began with keen sight to search out the dark hiding-places. Fixing therefore their gaze for a long while on one point, they beheld the very narrow jaws of a certain cave shaded with wild vines and ferns: and above, the leaves of the branches so entangled with one another had made the cave dark that even the wild beasts dreaded to approach it: for it was a den of robbers and a lurking-place of unclean spirits.

[7] And when they drew near to it, Sequanus, a man beloved of God, at its entrance with bended knees, whose foundations he lays in the forest. casting himself with his whole body upon the brambles, tearfully poured out prayers to God, saying: Lord, who hast made heaven and earth and all things that are in them, who givest the wish for what is to be desired and blessest the years of the just, from whom is every beginning of good, and without whom the things are empty upon which human rashness strives, if thou biddest me be kept [] in this wilderness, show it, I beseech thee, to the eyes of thy servant, and bring to effect the beginning of my devotion granted to me by thee. And when the prayer was finished, he rose and stretched [] toward heaven the keenness of his eyes, moistened with tears, together with his palms. Recognizing therefore that, under the leadership of the Savior's power, he had been brought to that squalid forest [t], a blessing having been first given, he immediately laid the foundations of a little cell in the place where he had fixed his knees for prayer: and the rumor of his coming was carried on wings to the ears of the neighboring proprietors, who, worshipping [*] one another in rivalry, compelled by a divine nod, set out to him: and when they saw him close at hand, from wolves they were made as gentle as sheep, so that those who had lately been a cause of terror straightway became ministers of help. And that place became from that same time a dwelling of the innocent, which had been a lodging of raging demons and of robbers.

ANNOTATIONS.

who were too negligent in taking clerics into their church, in this tenor: For there are some (parish priests, as he had said a little before) who have the goods of their churches in fulness, and have no care of having clerics … therefore this holy synod ordains that all parish priests, according as they perceive that they have the means in the goods so entrusted to them, should make clerics for themselves from the household of their church, whom, etc. But I fear that it is not there proved so certainly that the faculty of tonsuring was conferred on parish priests, as that the avarice of some is censured who scraped together ecclesiastical moneys and used a scanty clergy in their churches, lest they should be bound to feed more out of their revenues. However it be, this matter is clear enough from the canons of the councils of Carthage in the same authors.

p. Here the reading varies in the codices and leaves an obscure sense. Rouvier's has: Seeing Sequanus set before them as priest of the second honor: Mabillon's, Sequanus set before them in the honor of the priesthood of the second order: Belfort's, Sequanus set before them, contractedly according to custom, the rest being omitted. Ours seems more correct; the sense there can be: Seeing Sequanus set before them by a twofold ordination, or rather by the dignity of the presbyterate, which is not rarely called the second priesthood, as the episcopal dignity is called the first.

q. Of St. John of Réome Bolland treated on the 28th day of January. The Acts and Life of the same saint you have in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 1, page 633, from a manuscript of St. Germain-des-Prés, different from that which Rouvier published. In this last the coming of St. Sequanus to the monastery of Réome is described thus: A certain man, forestalled by a noble intention, Sequanus by name, having learned the fame of John the servant of God, in the institution of the earlier Fathers, which he too thirsted for with a burning love, coming on a certain night from the parts of Montagne through the thick darkness, secretly entered the basilica, knocking upon the common Lord with prayers. Which was divinely revealed to the man of God (holy John). And swiftly he commands his minister to go with quickened step, and, the signal being struck, to rouse his companions, because our common brother Sequanus, secretly entering the doors of the church, is knocking upon the Lord with prayers. That it was so was ascertained by a most certain finding, and the most ardent charity of the brethren paid to the venerable servant of God for a very long time the due office of hospitality. On which Rouvier zealously inquires why Sequanus came thither by night and secretly, and conjectures that it was done so that from his first entrance Sequanus might know that he had to do with a man from whom nothing was hidden and to whom all things were divinely revealed.

r. St. John followed the Rule of St. Macarius, and St. Sequanus prescribed to his own the same as received from him, some change however being made in it, as appears from the paralytic whom he received into the church for Mass and Communion on the very feast-day of Easter, which was forbidden by the Rules of Réome; for when Agrestius begged that he might deserve to receive the consecrated body of Christ from John's mouth, … Go out, said John, Agrestius, outside … lest we seem to make void the precepts of the holy fathers, or presume to relax the regular censure. Both monasteries long held the Macarian Rule, then embraced the Benedictine, wherefore both holy founders are numbered among the saints of the Order of St. Benedict by the writers of that institute.

s. What is here added, to you, restricts the sense, which is ambiguous in Mabillon's codex. In the same are omitted: the tokens of that report having been ascertained: with a pure affection of mind: poured into the inmost parts of his heart the light of truth: striving toward God with the whole devotion of their mind, and not a few others like these: in these ours agrees more with Rouvier's. Belfort's manuscript is here much contracted, and then in almost the same words pursues that most ornate description of the forest.

t. The territory where Sequanus begins the building of his monastery, called Segestre and anciently Sicastre, was of the dominion of the town of Montagne, as is clear from the Precept of Charles the Fat: afterwards the monastery, increased by the addition of many buildings, grew into a town which is called St. Sequanus, in French Saint-Seine. The monastery obtained its own jurisdiction apart from that of Montagne, to which are subject both that town and the neighboring hamlet which even today is called Segestre or Sestre. For the rest, Rouvier judges that Segestre is derived from seges (a crop); whence the Latins long ago formed segestria, a straw wrapping. If it be so, one may the more wonder that a forest never violated through a long age, bristling with the most hidden caves, was in a not very spacious field which took its name from a numerous and luxuriant crop. This monastery is distant from Dijon five miles, and nearly as many from the district of Montagne. Its abbots have the right of session in the general estates of Burgundy.

Mab., more correctly, septa vilissima*

Mab. devota*

Mab. lectissimi*

Mab. incideret*

Mab. fructus*

Mab. præstaret*

* Tonnerre

Mab. cognominato Reomaus*

Mab. certissime*

Mab. angustus*

Mab. conversari*

Mab. tetendit*

Mab., more correctly, adhortantes*

CHAPTER II.

The remaining deeds of St. Sequanus, the miracles wrought by him, his death.

[ ] St. Sequanus founds a monastery. Now the builders of the work pressed on, those neighbors who had come; part to make solid the joinings of the foundation, part to raise the walls, part to cut down the groves of the shady forest and to prepare a dwelling for the future monks: after no long space of time a multitude of monks was gathered to the place by the repute ^a of Sequanus, a most prudent man, drawn from the four parts of the world. And that most approved man, singular in the gift of wisdom, so instructed at that time the multitude of monks coming to him, that the other monasteries greatly [*] marvelled at their continence and obedience of purpose and their increase in the sacred letters. The fame of the most holy man therefore became most celebrated in all the borders of Gaul. And all who were held afflicted with divers disease or languors, either carrying themselves on their own feet or borne on the necks of others, sought the monastery of the most blessed man: whom, with fruitful groans, the name of the Lord being invoked, and the standard of the Cross set upon their brow, anointing them with sanctified oil ^b, he restored to their former health. If ever those vexed by unclean spirits came to him, he afflicted himself along with them with most salutary fastings and also with prayers, until he shut out the author of evils and made of what had been a dwelling of a demon a temple of Christ the most glorious Redeemer. And some of those who received health returned home; but some, persisting in prayer, were joined to the fellowship of the monks, to serve there perpetually Christ, by whose grace they were healed.

[9] A certain man therefore, robbed of temporal light and deprived of the brightness of this day, He restores sight to a blind man. is presented before his eyes; and seeing him he questioned him, saying: What do you wish that I should do for you? And the blind man answered: The fragrance of your good repute has breathed upon my ears; therefore I have been brought hither, that through your prayers I may receive light. Hearing these things, the most blessed man, at once prostrating himself on the ground, poured out a prayer to Christ in these words: God, who didst offer thyself to be beheld by this world, that thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and lead out the bound from darkness to light, and to those who had been set in the shadow of death ^c, the gloomy shades being put to flight, mightest render the splendor of brightness, grant, I beseech thee, to this man deprived of light, through the invocation of thy name, to receive sight, and to behold thine image, which the vice of allurement [] has striven to deform, in the beauty of clear vision, and the light of this world.* And when he had poured out these and like things continually to the Lord day and night, within the shortest time he who did not see received sight, and resolved, for the gift of so great a light, to render service to God in the same monastery. Then, the habit of a layman being changed along with his morals, he was joined to the company of the monks.

[10] He gives back health to a paralytic. A certain paralytic also, having learned the fame of the most blessed Sequanus and the miracles of healings [*] which the Lord Jesus Christ most frequently wrought through him, besought those who were nearest to him by kinship that they should carry him to the holy Sequanus: and they, yielding to his prayers, brought him to the aforesaid man, pre-eminent in all virtues ^d. Now it was, when he was brought, the holy day of the vigil of Easter. And the most blessed man Sequanus, both for the solemnity of the day and for the paralytic brought to him most trustingly, persevered watching through the whole night in prayers and in the Lord's vigils; and just as, trusting in God, he was accustomed to anoint the rest of the sick with the liquid of sanctified oil to shut out their sickness, so of the paralytic

also, the name of Christ being invoked, he anointed each several limb. And when the nocturnal celebration of the Vigils was finished and the brightness of the feast-day was shining, the most blessed man at the appointed time of day offered the libations to God. Now before the altars during the whole time of the Sacrifice this paralytic of whom I have spoken lay prostrate with suppliant mind. And so, the office of the Sacrifices being completed, the most blessed Sequanus offered to the mouth of the lying paralytic the Eucharist of the Lord's body and the liquid of his blood. After the receiving therefore of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most holy man, raising his eyes on high, set the sign of the Cross upon the limbs of the man lying there. Its vigor so penetrated into his bones that he would never have thought himself to have been hindered by the length of a diseased sickness: and at once, as soon as the sick man received the little sign of the Cross, strength is restored to the weary man, marrow to the bones, connection to the sinews; the shrunken skin is stretched out, the soles of his feet are made firm; a true color, the pallor being shut out, is given back to his face, and the strength of all his limbs is repaired for its former offices; and he who had been brought to holy Sequanus by the hands of bearers, supporting himself on his own feet, with the praises of God returns dancing to his own household.

[11] He calms a storm. But neither do I think it right to pass over that miracle which was set forth by a gift of God not unequal to his other gifts. When by the quality of the season the hay was now ripening in the meadows, and by its very ripeness had in a manner invited the hands of mortals to the mowing, Sequanus, a praiseworthy man, sets out along with his monks to mow the hay. Going therefore together, they came to the meadow to which they were making their way. Then, when after the manner of laborers, the hooked scythes being extended, with a whirling stroke they were casting the crop of hay to the ground, behold, suddenly a storm driven in the manner of a whirlwind rushed in, and, with most ferocious eddying devouring the earth and scattering [] the sheaves of hay through the air, it terrified the mowers placed together [] and brought them to an exceeding despair of life. But when the insolence of the tempest came to the place in which the monks together with the aforesaid man were giving their labor to the work, the air being dry and the clouds ceasing — wonderful to say ^e! — the storm was turned into a shower. And the neighbors who were present, beating their breasts, seeing these signs, were astounded and marvelled; but afterwards, coming to themselves, they said: Truly this is a most holy man, for to whom has it ever been granted to change the eddies of raging storms into the clearest rain? From that time he began to be most famous and to be very widely reported for miracles more than he had been. Many indeed and innumerable miracles of healings he wrought in the sight of his people; but those which we saw to suffice for a concise brevity we have taken care to set down in this volume. And before all the things which Sequanus, a most holy man, instituted for the use and profit of the monastery, he also built with his own labors a church, in which now his bones rest peacefully ^f, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom be honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mab. in ejus cænobio*

faultily. Rov. in celebri parte*

Mab., better, miraculis*

Mab. communis.*

APPENDIX

OF ST. GREGORY OF TOURS

From the Book on the Glory of the Confessors

CHAPTER 88.

Of St. Sequanus the abbot.

Sequanus, abbot and confessor, in the territory of Langres in Gaul. (S.)

Of great virtue also was that Sequanus, abbot of the territory of Langres, who while living often loosed men from the bond of the devil's knot, and after his death ^a permitted those bound at his sepulchre with a prison chain to depart free by his merits. At length king Guntram lost by theft a horn, by whose sound he had been accustomed either to gather his hounds or to drive off those herds of the horned ^b tree-like ones: which matter cast many into chains and deprived some of their property: of whom three men sought the monument of the said confessor: and the king, learning this, ordered them to be bound with chains and fetters; and so it was done. But at midnight a light brighter than human light arises in the basilica: the bars of the iron foot-fetters fly apart, and, the links ^c of the chains being broken, the bound are loosed. Hearing which, the king in terror very swiftly granted them the power of free choice.

ANNOTATIONS.