Paxentius and Albina

ON SS. PAXENTIUS AND ALBINA, MARTYRS AT PARIS,

AT PARIS

COMMENTARY.

Saints unknown to the ancient martyrologists, their Acts fabulous, their relics and remarkable cult.

Paxentius, Martyr, at Paris (S.)

Albina, Martyr, at Paris (S.)

BY J. P.

The memory of the Saints in the more recent Calendars only. I assign these Saints to the city of Paris, not because, as is commonly done in our Work, I judge that they either lived there or won there the palm of martyrdom, but because it is certainly established that their relics are venerated and honored there with the highest reverence. For the place and time of their martyrdom I cannot confirm by suitable testimonies: nay, nor even affirm that their very names became known from any other source than the occasion of the aforesaid veneration, begun, continued and increased through benefits without doubt divinely granted. Indeed in the genuine Calendars of the ancients they do not appear: first there occurs Paxentius alone in the Usuard enlarged by Munerat, published at Paris in the years 1490 and 1536, on this day in these words: On the same day, of Paxentius the martyr, whose body is honored and venerated in the convent of holy Martin des Champs at Paris. The same things Molanus adopted in his additions; likewise the author of the German Martyrology; there followed Filippo Ferrari in the General Catalogue of Saints, Castellan in the Universal Martyrology, and the Parisian martyrologist. Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology the Saint also

celebrates on this day with a longer eulogy, which, as being taken from the lesson of the Office to be recited below, does not require a place here. Presently the same author mentions St. Albina also in the following words: In the same place the birthday of S. Albina, virgin and martyr, the sister of the blessed Paxentius himself, crowned for the maintaining of piety and modesty, whose sacred spoils are preserved with his relics. Saussay was followed by Arthur du Moustier in the Gynæceum, whom I too here follow, although Albina's particular and chief festival is noted elsewhere on the XXVI day of September, as we shall afterward see; the reason is that St. Paxentius can hardly be treated of without bringing forward at the same time nearly everything that has become known about St. Albina.

[2] Their Acts Our Bolland, while in the preceding century he was seeking out on all sides materials for advancing the Work, having probably learned of the notable cult of St. Paxentius at Paris, gave diligent pains, so far as I conjecture from letters sent to him and from other notices of our Museum, that he might obtain the things which existed there concerning his deeds: but he brought back nothing that was worth the labor. A friend at Paris, in a letter given on the XXVIII of November 1634, wrote these things to him: I have diligently inquired about a certain holy martyr Paxentius, who is venerated in this city on the XXIII of September in the edifice of S. Martin des Champs, a Priory certainly famous and very ancient of the Cluniac Order … I have zealously inquired whether I might obtain any Acts of his; at length after long inquiry … I found an old manuscript containing nine lessons of the same Paxentius, but unpolished in diction, foolish and insipid in sense, so that I judged them unworthy for me to have transcribed and sent to Your Reverence. The same man, in the same year on the XVIII day of December, in another letter speaks thus: I had written some days ago to Your Reverence about S. Paxentius the martyr and his Acts, which exist here in the edifice of S. Martin des Champs, which seemed to me insipid. I have conferred about them with M. du Chesne: to him these are fables: but he is truly a martyr, sent to them from Rome by Gregory VII, who was a Cluniac monk before the supreme Pontificate, and since no Life was at hand, one was foolishly forged by some dolt. His judgment the aforesaid M. du Chesne, a man most illustrious in erudition, confirmed to Bolland himself; for to Bolland's inquiry, as Papebroch noted with his own hand, he answered that the Acts were not worth reading, and were forged after the relics and the head of the Martyr, pierced as it were by a driven-in mallet, had been obtained from the Pontiff.

[3] I have by me a manuscript transcript of the Acts of St. Paxentius, fabulous, published in Latin in print in the 16th century by brother Richard le Moine, a religious of the said Priory of S. Martin. But I cannot persuade myself that they are the same as the old manuscript just mentioned, containing nine lessons of St. Paxentius: for ours are marked not only as copied from a printed text, but are also so prolix that they fill twelve pages, each of which would suffice for three lessons, and besides they have prefixed a prologue of the aforesaid le Moine to his Prior Stephen Gentil. He was not, however, their author, but only their editor, nay also their translator. For they were published anew by an anonymous writer at Paris in French in the year 1677 under this title: The Life of S. Paxentius the martyr and of S. Albina, virgin and martyr, his sister, titular and tutelary patrons of the royal monastery of S. Martin des Champs at Paris, of the Cluniac Order, where their sacred bodies have rested for more than four hundred years, and work very many miracles among the sick: and then is subjoined: Turned into Latin a hundred and sixty years ago by F. Richard le Moine, a religious of the same house, and lately into the French tongue by a religious of the strict observance of the sacred Cluniac Order. Hence I suspect that they were first written in the old language of the French and thence translated into Latin. Whatever it be, whether these Acts be the same as those praised above or different, they do not deserve a milder censure; it is a medley of ill-cohering marvels not clothed with likelihood, which I turned over with great weariness and with grief at time lost in vain.

[4] The deeds of both Saints, contracted most compendiously into two lessons and formerly wont to be recited in the Office, the lessons of the Office are extant in the ancient Breviaries of the church of Paris; but purged of those open fables. One lesson is conceived in these words: Paxentius, a freeborn youth, under the emperor Antoninus accused of the Christian faith, showed forth manly strength of heart kindled with divine love in his confession: for since he could not be bent by many blandishments to forswear the acknowledged name of Christ the Redeemer, and had intrepidly despised the threats too and all the terrors by which the judge strove to shake his constancy; at last, after the bitternesses of monstrous torments bravely endured for the faith, a beam-nail being driven into his head, crowning his contest, he received for the prize of victory the diadem of comeliness and the unfading palm of glory from the hand of the Lord. The other runs thus: Under the same tyrant Albina, a noble virgin, the sister of the same Paxentius, also accomplished a most glorious combat, who, though she excelled in surpassing beauty of body and was strong in the marks of faith and modesty, being likewise assailed under the name of Christianity, displayed her Brother's constancy in an undaunted confession of Christ. For since she could not be drawn away by any enticements or terrors from the proclaiming of the divine truth revealed to her and from her purpose of integrity, being condemned in her head and slain by the sword, she flew away to heaven to the longed-for nuptials of the heavenly Lamb, etc. The rest pertains to the cult of both Saints, to be set forth below.

[5] Both lessons are purged of fables, as I have already warned, nor do they contain anything which absolutely and of itself smacks of fable: omitted in the more recent Breviaries. but not even so are they free from suspicion of fiction, since no other source can be assigned from which they were drawn, except the most fabulous Acts, composed, in the judgment of the learned, after the sacred remains were translated into Gaul; nor are even the very names of the Saints found in writers earlier than the translation. Their mind upon this matter the more recent and more discerning Parisians have abundantly indicated, though at first tacitly, when they altogether omitted the lessons just recited from the Breviaries of the years 1636 and 1640 in the editions of the years 1680 and 1700, and more openly in the most recent edition of the year 1736, where this single lesson is substituted for them: Paxentius is reckoned among the ancient martyrs by a common tradition which some places of Gaul preserve. A church in his name stands at Massay in the district of Bourges. His cult in the monastery of holy Martin des Champs, where his relics have been placed, began to flourish toward the end of the eleventh century. In the year one thousand three hundred and seven, on the day of the Circumcision of the Lord, the pledges of the holy Martyr were translated from an old wooden chest into a silver one by John, bishop of Le Puy, and in the same chest the relics of the holy virgin Albina were laid up. And so great was the veneration of the Parisians toward the holy Martyr already from the end of the thirteenth century, that his chest has a place among those which are carried about in public supplications with the body of blessed Genevieve. Hence let the reader gather what can be determined about the deeds, the time, the arena and the circumstances of the martyrdom and about the conjunction of the Saints' blood. Meanwhile let us set forth a little more fully those things which have been touched upon in passing about their relics and cult.

[6] The relics obtained in the XI century, That the relics of St. Paxentius were sent from Rome to the church of S. Martin des Champs by S. Gregory VII the Pontiff, the letters cited at number 2 testify; but whether the writer learned this from an ancient monument, or rather from the tradition of the religious, is not added. The latter seems to me more likely, because in Martin Marrier, in the History of the same royal monastery, carried down from the year 1060, to which he attaches its foundation, to about the year 1633, and confirmed with charters and diplomas, I find neither instrument nor mention of the said translation. But the tradition also seems to me most likely, both because in the lesson of the Office recited in the preceding number the Saint's cult is said to have begun there toward the end of the eleventh century, and because the dedication of the church of the new monastery was made in the same century, namely in the year 1067, only six years before Gregory VII was raised to the supreme Pontificate. With no such probability can I write of the time in which, and the place from which, the relics of St. Albina were brought thither, who is not even named in the instrument of the translation of St. Paxentius, made from a wooden chest into a silver one in the year 1307; as is accurately noted in the most recent Parisian Breviary.

[7] in the 14th century they are placed in a silver case, That instrument the aforesaid Marrier exhibits, book 3 of the History, page 222, conceived in these words: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. For perpetual memory let all know that the body of B. Paxentius the martyr was translated from a certain wooden chest into this chest of silver, made by the venerable Odo Chapitelli of Troando, Prior of this place of S. Martin des Champs at Paris of the Cluniac Order, by us, by divine mercy John bishop of Le Puy, Bertrand humble minister of the church of Cluny, and Berengar abbot of Figeac of the aforesaid Order, on Monday on the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord, in the year thereof one thousand three hundred and seven, under the testimony of our seals. The editor subjoins in another type: And to this charter three seals of yellow wax hang, each under a double tail, and it is preserved in the same chest. Then from an old French manuscript he teaches that that chest is of the weight of one hundred and ninety two-thirds. Nevertheless that the relics of St. Albina also were then enclosed in the same chest becomes undoubted from another charter which Marrier delivers in the same place, page 264.

[8] It runs thus: In the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and nine, which in the 16th century on Thursday, the last of the month of May. This present chest, made and dedicated in honor of B. Paxentius the martyr, being then in several of its parts broken and burst apart, was opened and visited by the reverend lord Stephen Gentils, Prior of this Priory of S. Martin des Champs at Paris, there assisting him the lords Richard le Moine cellarer and subprior, Michael Goupil infirmarian, Germain Nicolas subsacristan. The relics being drawn out thence, namely the body of the aforesaid B. Paxentius the martyr, and the body or relics of B. Albina, virgin and martyr, laid separately in two linen bags, together with the relics of certain other Saints, men and women, wrapped separately in various little cloths, approved by the testimony of the reverend fathers in Christ, the lords bishop of Le Puy and abbots of the monasteries of Cluny and Figeac, as duly and in writing appeared.

[9] And then, the chest itself being restored, repaired and newly gilded, was renewed. three marks, six ounces, two and a half groats of silver being added, so that it rose to the weight of one hundred and ninety marks of silver excellently gilded; the said bodies of the blessed martyrs Paxentius and of Albina the aforesaid virgin, together with the other relics above mentioned, as they had been before, were honorably replaced and laid up by the said Reverend Father lord Stephen Gentils the aforesaid Prior,

there assisting him the venerable and religious lords Richard le Moine, the aforesaid subprior and cellarer, John Biscieu sacristan, Michael Goupil infirmarian, with all the other monks of the same Priory and several other persons of both sexes, solemnities being employed, with great applause and exultation of devotion of all, on the XV day of the month of August in the aforesaid year. So it is. Signed: Stephen Gentils, the aforesaid Prior of S. Martin. This festive transferring of the relics into the renewed chest was without doubt the occasion for the aforesaid Richard le Moine to commit to the press the Acts of St. Paxentius mentioned at number 3, and to dedicate them to lord Stephen his Prior.

[10] With what cult the Religious of S. Martin followed SS. Paxentius and Albina, their patrons, Paxentius is venerated today with a solemn feast as we saw above their titulars and tutelaries, we are taught from the appendix of the lesson on St. Albina recited from the Parisian Breviary at number 4, reserved for this place. For the rest, the body of holy Paxentius is preserved in the church of the royal monastery of holy Martin des Champs, laid in an honorable coffer: where his birthday is celebrated for eight days with great solemnity and concourse of people. The precious pledges likewise of blessed Albina are preserved in the same place with her Brother's relics, where also her venerable memory shines forth for cult. But the present-day and solemn veneration is set forth by the Parisian Spiritual Calendar (Almanach spirituel), which is wont to be printed yearly in French, so that anyone may be able to know the festivals, confraternities, indulgences, sermons, and the other exercises of piety which are held on each day through the year in the churches.

[11] I have various copies of it from the year 1686 down to 1712; and from the last these things, which are also nearly the same in the others, are prescribed on the XXIII day of September: in the monastery of S. Martin des Champs, S. Paxentius M. in the East. At S. Martin des Champs, plenary indulgences, his reliquary is uncovered; and his head is carried about in the supplication; a sermon on the preceding and following Sunday. But these things on the XXVI day of the same month: S. Albina. At S. Martin des Champs; her relics in the case of S. Paxentius, which is uncovered on the front part. Besides, in the Calendar of the year 1686 these things are read at the XVIII day of September: The reception of relics. At S. Martin des Champs; a solemnity, the exposition of the relics of the treasury. This solemnity probably has regard to our Saints also; I do not know, however, whether it is celebrated yearly, or only at intervals of some years; certainly in the other Calendars it is not noted at that day. There is also another thing which I do not know; namely, whence at last it became known that S. Paxentius suffered in the East.

[12] Albina on the 26th of September: a Hymn For the rest, from the Calendars cited it is manifestly plain that St. Albina is commemorated there with a particular festival every year on the XXVI day of September, and hence Arthur in the Gynæceum, commemorating her on the XXIII and in the Annotations citing the Proper of the church of S. Martin des Champs, says that her feast is kept there as a double. That Proper is not at hand: but the editor of the French Life adds at the end some things which without doubt were formerly read, and perhaps even now are read, in the Office of St. Paxentius, as follows:

TO HOLY PAXENTIUS

AN ODE

From an ancient codex.

Let this day be celebrated with a glad hymn, On which the God of heaven, of sea and of earth, O holy Paxentius, granted to thee an everlasting hall.

By the mediating gift of the Holy Spirit, Full of grace from thy tender years, Thou hast ever loved to obey Christ and the supreme Triad.

Neglecting the frivolous cults of the ancient gods, the frauds of demons and magical sports, Thou wert a Soldier of the faith with steadfast mind.

Bids thee be punished, bound with cords, Beaten with iron scourges and shut in a black prison.

The lictor strikes, the chains resound, The loins torn with whips crackle, A copious shower of blood, like a fountain, flows down.

Firmer than rocks, than adamant, than iron, Thou remainest ever in the one God: The king rages, because neither death nor any sword terrifies thee.

A woman laboring with putrid leprosy Straightway felt healing by thy prayers, Returning brighter than new-fallen snows and than privet-blossoms.

Now, girt with a crown worthy of thy merits, Thou enjoyest eternal rest, Among the laurelled martyrs to thee an unfading palm.

Therefore, O King of kings, by the prayers of the blessed Martyr free our souls from every Fault, and from the leprosy of crimes, and receive them into heaven.

Be honor and triumph to our God, Than whom nothing greater or better lives, Who as supreme God reigns without end, Three and One. Amen.

[14] Let us pray. O God, who didst strengthen blessed Paxentius thy martyr with the virtue of constancy in his passion, grant us by imitation of him, and a twofold prayer; to despise prosperity for love of thee, and to fear none of its adversities. Through our Lord, etc. To these is subjoined another hymn, less well composed, with an Antiphon and a prayer, which alone I transcribe: Let us pray. Almighty and most merciful God, who among the other works of thy loving-kindness didst deign to enlighten blessed Paxentius thy precious martyr, riches that pass away being spurned, with the light of thy knowledge; whom, shining with heavenly virtues and miracles, his enemies being overcome after many kinds of torments, thou hast wondrously crowned with glory and honor: grant us, we beseech thee, by his merits and prayers to know thee the true God and to love thee above all things, that following him in virtue, after the course of this slipping life we may be able together with him to enjoy perpetually thy glorious vision. Who livest, etc.

[15] In the diocese of Paris itself the yearly memory of our Saints was formerly celebrated on the XXVI day of September with a simple Office, with a Prayer common to both, and with a second lesson concerning St. Paxentius, his cult in the diocese of Paris and elsewhere. a third concerning St. Albina; these I gave above, and the prayer was this: May the intercession, we beseech thee, O Lord, of thy holy martyrs Paxentius and Albina never cease to appease thy majesty on our behalf, that they who pleased thee by firmness of faith and integrity of flesh may make our service to thee continually devout. Through our Lord. But for the reason also implied above, these things were struck out of the Breviaries, and in the editions of the years 1680 and 1700 a commemoration of St. Paxentius alone from the common of one Martyr was prescribed at the XXIII day of September. The same was observed in the edition of the year 1736; but there was added to the Office of St. Thecla, virgin and martyr, a third lesson concerning St. Paxentius, which I recited at number 5, and from which we abundantly understand with how great piety the Parisians are borne toward that Saint. Of the miracles which, as the title of the French tract praised at number 3 sets forth, are wrought in very great number at the bodies of both Saints, I find none set forth in particular. Of St. Paxentius at the end of the same tract I read only the following: His most sacred body rests at Paris in the altars of the church of S. Martin des Champs, where God works many miracles, especially restoring health to dying infants and freeing from pains of the head the sick who run thither from every side, with so ready and immense a consolation that the increase of trust and of the multitude of the people fleeing to his help seems to grow daily. As for what concerns the church of S. Paxentius in the district of Bourges, mentioned at the beginning of the same lesson, the author of the letter praised at number 2 relates also that there is a certain village near Bourges which is designated by the name of S. Paxentius and possesses some of his relics; and that this is to be understood of our Saint is signified by Castellan in the Universal Martyrology on this day, noting in the margin that he is commonly called by the people of Bourges S. Paissent, and by Nicolas Catherinot at the end of the first part of the Sanctuary of Bourges, where among the Saints of that province, to be inserted in the second part, he reckons on the XXIII S. Paissant. This part, from which we might perhaps be taught more, I neither have nor do I know whether it ever went to press; and therefore I stop here.