Andochius and Thyrsus and Felix

ON SS. ANDOCHIUS AND THYRSUS AND FELIX, MARTYRS,

AT SIDOLOCUS IN THE TERRITORY OF AUTUN IN GAUL.

More probably under Caracalla.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

Andochius, presbyter and martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

Thyrsus, deacon and martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

Felix, martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. The famous memory of the Saints in the sacred calendars: an account of the place of their contest: the various copies of the Acts.

The memory of these three illustrious martyrs of Gaul among the Ædui is famous on this day, on which they are venerated, in the ancient Martyrologies as well as in the more recent ones, These holy martyrs some of which I subjoin. Among the Hieronymian ones, the Antwerp, or Epternach, in Franciscus Florentinius, has at this day thus: In Gaul, in the city of Autun, in the village of Sedulum, the birthday of the holy martyrs Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix. The Gellone Martyrology, published by Luc d'Achery in tom. 13 of the Spicilegium, says on the same day: At Autun, Sedulum, of Andocius, Thyrsus, Felix, martyrs. Then indeed on pag. 426 the editor observes that in another copy of the same Martyrology, that of the monastery of St. Gall, in place of Sedulo Andoci is read Sedeloco vico, Andacii — a later reading which is more correct as to the place of the contest, and more faulty in the Martyr's name. In the Corbie Martyrology, in the same d'Achery, tom. 4, among the three Martyrs already named, another one, a certain Aprilis, who certainly does not belong here, is read inserted thus: In the city of Autun, in the village of Sedilocus, the birthday of the holy martyrs Andocius, Thyrsus, Aprilis and Felix. The Augsburg one, published among us in tom. VII of June by Sollier, wrongly calls Thyrsus Direus, saying: At Autun, Sodilia [] of Andochius, Direus, Felix, martyrs.*

[2] The Labbean Martyrology in the same place has it a little more correctly: in nearly all the ancient ones At Autun, Seld. Sedilocus of Andocius, Thyrsus, Felix. Another Hieronymian one, finally, published by Martène in tom. 3 of the Thesaurus Anecdotorum and called most ancient, makes mention of St. Andochius alone thus: At Autun, Sedulum, of Andocius. So much for the Hieronymian ones. The Venerable Bede in his Martyrology, as it stands published by my predecessors before tom. 2 of March, celebrated the same at the said day with the following eulogy: And at Autun the birthday of St. Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix, who, sent from the East by St. Polycarp to teach Gaul, were most gloriously crowned under the emperor Aurelian. For they were beaten with scourges, hung up at the last for a whole day with their hands turned backward, cast into the fire but not burned; and finally their necks were struck with bars. There Symphorian, then twenty years old, who afterward suffered, always kept vigils and prayers. These things are taken from the Acts of these same Martyrs, of whose untrustworthy credit we shall treat more fully below. Meanwhile it will be worth observing here that in these Acts Felix is indeed called a man of the East, yet not sent with the other two by St. Polycarp, but a Christian merchant, who carried on trade at Sidolocus near Autun while the Saints were preaching in that place. Secondly, where Bede has in ultimo ("at the last"), the Acts have in ulmo ("on an elm").

[3] and in the classic Martyrologies, Ado of Vienne, following Bede as usual, in his Martyrology set down the same things in the same phrases, save for a few added at the end, thus: And at Autun, the birthday of St. Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix. Who, sent from the East by St. Polycarp the bishop to teach Gaul, were most gloriously crowned under the emperor Aurelian. For they were beaten with scourges, hung up for a whole day at the last with their hands turned backward, and cast into the fire but not burned. Finally their necks were struck with bars, and thus they most gloriously completed their martyrdom on the eighth of the Kalends of October. As Ado copied out Bede, so Usuard copied Ado, omitting however these words: And thus their martyrdom, etc. Rabanus Maurus likewise transferred Bede's text into his own Martyrology; Notker reported Ado's with some change. The writer of the Fulda Martyrology, in Domenico Giorgi, more conformably to the Acts which are extant, makes St. Felix the host of the others, not their companion on the journey from Asia, and also assigns their place of contest more correctly, in these words: In the territory of Autun, in the village of Sedelocus, the birthday of the holy Andocius the presbyter and Thyrsus the deacon, who, sent from the East by St. Polycarp to teach Gaul, were most gloriously crowned under the emperor Aurelian together with St. Felix, who had received them into his hospitality. Similar things are read in Labbe's Franco-Gallic Hagiology, where however, perhaps through the carelessness of the printers, under Amelianus is found in place of under Aurelian.

[4] The same Martyrs, finally, were celebrated also by Wandelbert, as also in the more recent ones on this day, singing thus in his metrical Martyrology at this day:

The eighth [] John, conceived in a barren womb, hallows,* And Andochius, martyr and kindly presbyter; Whom Thyrsus and Felix accompany with equal love.

I pass over other things, and subjoin a few also from the more recent ones. The Roman Martyrology of Baronius, formerly in the first place, but now, because of the added Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Ransom, in the second place, says these things on the same day, from Ado and Usuard, though prudently omitting the name of Aurelian: At Autun, the birthday of the holy martyrs Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix, who, sent from the East by blessed Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to teach Gaul, were there most severely beaten with scourges, and hung up a whole day with their hands turned backward, and cast into the fire but not burned; at last their necks are struck with bars, and thus they are most gloriously crowned. To the author of the Paris Martyrology their Acts were without doubt suspect, and therefore he announced the same more briefly, saying: At Sidolocus, in the territory of Autun, the birthday of the holy martyrs Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix.

[5] André du Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology wove together a very prolix eulogy of the same, in several also at other days in which, although the rest agree in the substance of the matter with the Acts to be enumerated, yet no mention is made of Aurelian, and some circumstances also vary in such a way that, unless he himself altered them according to his own judgment, he must be said to have had other Acts than those which we have, as we shall see in its place. The same martyrologist records another festival of the same at the III day of April in his Supplement, thus: On the same day, the meeting and covenanting of the holy martyrs Andochius the presbyter and Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix their host, and also of Irenæus their fellow-initiate. But I do not know what Meeting and Covenanting du Saussay here indicates, or where the memory of it is kept. Did he perhaps mean to designate the apparition of St. Irenæus, bishop of Lyons and martyr, made to St. Polycarp, as the Acts have it, that he should send SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus into the Gauls; or that other apparition of the same St. Irenæus which other Acts report to have been shown to SS. Benignus and the two aforesaid companions in the island of Corsica, that they should there await St. Andeolus? But in neither place is any mention made of St. Felix in what we have, nor is it indicated on what days that twofold apparition took place.

[6] Or did he by a slip of memory put St. Irenæus for St. Zacharias the presbyter, are announced; but they are believed to have suffered on this day. whom SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus (elsewhere Andeolus also is added) are said in the Acts to have met hiding in a crypt near Lyons of the Segusiani, and thence to have gone forth by common counsel to preach? But from this too St. Felix was absent; and the day on which this was done (if indeed it was ever done) is equally unknown to me. Finally, that I may not detain the reader longer to no purpose, I desire to learn from others what du Saussay meant by these things. Meanwhile I suspect that occasion for the framing of this announcement was given by Maurolico, who at the said day of April reviewed the same Saints thus: On the same day, of SS. Irenæus the bishop, Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, Felix the merchant. Felicius agrees in his Calendar; but two Usuardine codices, namely the Victorine and that of the Queen of Sweden, in Sollier, commemorate them in the same words on the day before, namely the 2nd of April. Besides, in the same Maurolico, Greven, Canisius and Ferrari, at the I of May, on occasion of St. Andeolus, SS. Andochius and Thyrsus are again reviewed together with Benignus. On all these matters our Work may be consulted in the Prætermissi at the aforesaid days, as also at the XIX of April, where Thyrsus the deacon alone is reported from a Roman manuscript of the Duke of Altemps. For the rest, in the Acts our Saints are said to have suffered on this day, the XXIV of September.

[7] An account is given of the place, For the place of contest of our Martyrs we shall see that by some martyrologists Autun is assigned, by others the city of Autun — under which name the territory of the same city also passes — and by others finally, from the Acts of the same, Sedulum, Sedilocus, or a place of similar name situated in the territory of the same city of Autun; concerning which we shall here note some things. Autun, now called by the natives Autun, is an ancient city of Gaul among the Ædui, situated in the present duchy of Burgundy on the river Arroux, commonly l'Aroux, and is the capital of the district of Autun, in French l'Autunois, so called from it. Sedelocus, which in all our copies of the Acts is said to have been the place of their contest, and which in the Martyrologies is sometimes written a little differently and more corruptly, is called in the Itinerary of Antoninus, as it stands published by Bertius, cosmographer to the king of the Gauls, Sidolocus or Sidolocum, and is marked between Abbalo (in French Avallon) and Autun at XXVIII miles, for which the editor advises that XVIII miles should be read, distant from that city. In the Peutinger Table it is faultily read in the same place as Sedetoco; in Ammianus Marcellinus, book 16, on the Gauls, chapter 2, Sedelaucum.

[8] in which they underwent martyrdom. Hadrianus Valesius in his Notitia Galliarum, from the same Ammianus, put Sidoleucum; from the Itinerary of Æthicus, Sidoloucum; yet Valesius himself also calls that place Sedelaucum, and observes that by others too it is called Sidolocus. In Baudrand's Lexicon also Sadoleucum; in Corneille likewise in his Lexicon, besides these, Sedlocus and Scidoleucus; but in tom. 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, col. 318, it is said to be called Selocus and Solis-locus, and at col. 441 besides that Salvus-locus. It is moreover a town of Celtic Gaul,

now called by the natives Saulieu, in the district of the duchy of Burgundy called the Auxois, commonly l'Auxois, and in the diocese of Autun, whose bishop enjoys the title of count from that town. Baudrand places it 6 miles to the north of Autun; others make the distance of the two places about eight miles, and to these the geographical maps which I have consulted come nearer. Perhaps that discrepancy of the Lexicons arose from a varying measure of the mile. For the rest, that town has a collegiate church sacred to St. Andochius, which was formerly an abbey of the same name, as we shall say in its place.

[9] The various copies of the Acts are enumerated, We have various manuscript exemplars of the Acts, some indeed a little more prolix than others, but agreeing with one another in nearly all the chief heads of the matter. Peter Francis Chifflet of our Society, often to be named by us for the labor he bestowed on our Museum, once transmitted to us four exemplars of this kind. One of these, written in Chifflet's own hand, bears this title: The Acts of the holy martyrs Andochius the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, and Felix the merchant, written by Faustus, an illustrious man of prefectorian rank, who buried their sacred bodies together with his son Symphorian. Then is added: From a very ancient manuscript codex of St. Benignus of Dijon, with which agrees the Vatican codex cited by Baronius at the IV Kalends of July, letter c, from which codex we have received, transcribed, both the Acts of St. Irenæus bishop of Lyons and the imperfect Acts of these Martyrs. Their beginning is: After the glorious Irenæus, bishop and martyr, passed to heaven. The second copy is noted as received from a manuscript of the monastery of Acinctum and of St. Benignus of Dijon and of La Charité, and it agrees with the former except here and there in the wording; and moreover in its own text it is read that the Acts of these Saints were written by Faustus. Whence Chifflet believed that the ancient author of that copy interpolated Faustus' little work with his own style; on which matter what is to be thought we shall discuss below.

[10] Plainly like this is the third, transcribed from two manuscript codices of Dijon. received from various places, The fourth, finally, received from the said man out of a manuscript codex of a library not specified, is shorter and different from the aforesaid, and adds to the holy Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus a companion, St. Andeolus, whom it declares to have been sent with them into the Gauls by St. Polycarp of Smyrna. Yet it seems to be nothing but an abridgment of those presently to be praised. It begins thus: Blessed Andochius, disciple of St. Polycarp, bishop of the Smyrnæans and pupil of blessed John the Evangelist, was sent together with Benignus the priest and Thyrsus the levite and Andeolus the subdeacon, by the same most holy Polycarp, to preach the word of God to the peoples of the Gauls, etc. Besides the Chifflet copies we have another copy from manuscripts of the church of Clamecy in the province of Nevers, given to our predecessors in the year 1658 by the Reverend Dom Pierre le Venier, penitentiary of the church of Auxerre. In this it is said that St. Andeolus was likewise sent into the Gauls by the same St. Polycarp, admonished by St. Irenæus appearing after his martyrdom, and that he came to SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus, who were divinely detained by the force of a storm in the island of Corsica, and continued his journey with them.

[11] These Acts have a Prologue prefixed with this opening: which as to the substance of the things narrated agree pretty well. It is worthy to keep festively the memory of the Saints unto the praise of God's name, etc. They have also an Epilogue, which begins not without a fault: But we who have run over with the plectrum of the tongue the most renowned passion of the holy Martyrs, have determined that it should be reckoned worth while that from that which we have taken up we should take at least something for imitation, etc. The rest, though expressed in other phrases, are sufficiently consonant with the more prolix Chifflet copies. A sixth exemplar was received in the year 1666 from Brother Louis Nicquet, librarian of the Celestines of Soissons, and it conforms to the Chifflet copy which we reviewed in the second place. A seventh, transcribed from the Utrecht manuscript of St. Saviour, is an epitome of the others. The eighth, finally, which is entitled The Passion of SS. Herenæus the bishop, Andochius the presbyter, Benignus the presbyter, Thyrsus the deacon, Felix the merchant, does not declare whence it was received; but it seems to be Roman, and is mutilated in a great part of itself. Nor however do we grieve at this loss, since it seems to be only a panegyrical sermon composed out of the Acts spoken of above. So much for our copies. Further, frequent mention is made of the same holy Martyrs also in the Acts of St. Symphorian, of SS. Speusippus, Eleusippus and Meleusippus, and especially in the metrical Life of St. Benignus, of all which the discussion will recur in the following §, in which the credit of all the aforesaid must be debated at greater length.

* Sediloco

* Kal. Septemb.

§ II. The Acts to be published are denied to Faustus: the opinions of the learned for the emending of the same are weighed.

[ ] The Acts, which as though written by Faustus the host of the Saints Baronius in his Notes on the Martyrology says on this day concerning our Saints: The Acts of these are reported to have been written by Faustus and Sypronianus; where without doubt by the latter he meant to designate St. Symphorian, Faustus' son. The same Faustus is made the author of the same by our copy, praised by us in the second place at num. 9. Before the Acts also mentioned in the first place, the following admonition concerning their author is read: He who transcribed these Acts with the style somewhat altered, a more recent anonymous writer (whose Work we shall subjoin to this more ancient and original one), since he adds at their end, "Now the most noble man Faustus composed and wrote the Passion of the blessed Martyrs, with God's help"; and since it is narrated in these Acts that lately all the friends and the household of Faustus' house obtained the grace of Baptism through these Martyrs — we have not been permitted to doubt, though both the exemplars we have used (namely the Dijon one of St. Benignus and the Vatican) are silent about the author's name, that these very Acts are the Acts which Faustus wrote. And let no prudent man suppose that he transgressed the laws of Christian modesty because he here calls himself in more than one place A MAN OF PREFECTORIAN RANK, and ILLUSTRIOUS, and MOST NOBLE; rather it is to be judged that he would have sinned against historical faith and truth if he had silently passed over these particulars of the persons, which certainly would have availed not a little toward a full knowledge of the Martyrs' deeds. And since he reports that both Symphorian his son, and Speusippus, Eleusippus and Meleusippus, the grandsons of his sister Leonilla, suffered martyrdom — the former when he was about twenty years old, these when twenty-five — from this too it may be gathered that he was divinely reserved to survive them, that he might sustain by his services and authority the then newborn flock of the Christians.

[13] were sent to us, are shown to labor under such foul anachronisms Thus far the Admonition written in Chifflet's hand; yet whether it contains his own censure or that of some other, I cannot say with certainty. However that may be, no one will justly call into doubt the credit of these Acts, provided it be established that they were really written by that illustrious Faustus, who in the Acts is narrated to have been not only contemporary with the Saints, but even their host and disciple. But these very Acts, which that admonisher pronounces to be the original ones of Faustus, if they be taken according to the tradition of the people of Autun and the common judgment of writers, clearly betray that they cannot be his, but altogether another writer's, one very far removed from the age of those Martyrs; since he has fallen into anachronisms into which that Faustus could not have fallen. For first indeed the writer of the Acts relates that St. Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, appeared to St. Polycarp after his own martyrdom, and charged him to send SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus into the Gauls to preach; and that he shortly gave this order execution. That by this Polycarp, whose episcopate is not expressed in the said Acts, is designated the famous bishop and martyr of the Smyrnæans, is urged by the title of Saint added to him both in these and in the other Acts and Martyrologies, and also by other copies of the Acts, in some of which he is expressly called bishop of Smyrna, in others said to have been a disciple of St. John the apostle; with which agree the tradition of the church of Autun and the modern writers everywhere.

[14] Further, St. Polycarp bishop of Smyrna certainly did not survive to the year of Christ 170, that they cannot in any way be his genuine work: nay, it is most likely as may be seen in our Work at the day XXVI of January, on which he is venerated, and in Tillemont and others. But that St. Irenæus bishop of Lyons suffered when the third century had already begun, and not before the year 202, has likewise been shown among us at the XXVIII of June. By what reasoning then could he have appeared after his own martyrdom to St. Polycarp of Smyrna, to command him that mission? Or how could Faustus, the host of SS. Benignus and his companions, have written these things, who must have received the matter as it had been done from their own mouth, nor could have been ignorant that, while St. Polycarp was alive, it was not yet Irenæus but Pothinus who presided over the church of Lyons? Assuredly, even if besides this nothing faulty occurred in these Acts, from this head alone they could not be admitted as the original and genuine work of that Faustus, in the opinion of those who understand by the aforesaid Polycarp the Smyrnæan. Yet there are also other things which persuade that the same must be denied to him. Those Acts make Aurelian the immediate successor of the emperor Severus, and say that under the first of these the Saints were sent by Polycarp into the Gauls, and under the second were afflicted with martyrdom — with a truly monstrous confusion of times and things.

[15] For Septimius Severus, as Pagi has it in his Critica on Baronius, that they are not older than the seventh century, held the empire from the year of Christ 193 until 211, in which he died; to which Aurelian was raised only after many others between, in the year 270. St. Polycarp of Smyrna therefore did not reach by his life to the reign of Severus, and suffered martyrdom at least a whole century before Aurelian's reign. Hence again it is concluded that those Acts cannot be ascribed to the said Faustus, who, if he lived under Severus, could scarcely, or not even scarcely, have known Aurelian reigning; or if anyone should wish to feign so unusual an age for him and for our Saints, yet Faustus could not have been ignorant that between Severus and Aurelian, in a space of nearly sixty years, many others reigned. Nay, I strongly suspect that those Acts, as they stand, are not older than the VII century; and why I do so must be explained at somewhat greater length. Our Bolland at the day XVII of January gave two sets of Acts of the holy Triplets, or Speusippus, Eleusippus and Meleusippus. The first of these, published from an old manuscript of Marcus Velser, relate that those Triplets suffered in Cappadocia, and have nothing about SS. Benignus and his companions. With this agree the Menæa of the Greeks at the XVI of January, and Maximus of Cythera in the said Bolland, who may be consulted there.

[16] The second Acts have for their author Warnaharius, probably a presbyter of the church of Langres in Gaul, and are partly taken who, being asked, transmitted them to St. Ceraunius or Cerauneus, bishop of Paris, when the VII century was some years begun, that they might be placed among the Acts of other martyrs. In these the same holy Triplets

are said to have dwelt not in Cappadocia but in the city of Langres in Gaul, and to have been baptized there by St. Benignus, who at Faustus' request, and with SS. Andochius and Thyrsus consenting, had come thither from Autun for that purpose. Bolland left this question undecided, content to say that Langres had been ennobled either by the birth or by the relics of the Triplets. Yet he hinted not obscurely which opinion he preferred, since he published in the first place those Acts which assign the place of these martyrs' contest in Cappadocia. Rader, in his manuscript Notes on the Menæa, praised in Bolland, held that they suffered in Cappadocia, and asserted that they had been translated to Langres (which however he wrongly placed between the Po and the Alps). Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, Note 2 on St. Benignus, inclines to the same side; but he dares decide nothing with certainty. But Claude Chastelain in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology at the day XVII of January did not hesitate to say that they were crowned in Cappadocia, and that their bodies were carried into the Gauls.

[17] from the Acts of the holy Triplets by Warnaharius, He also shows there at length that Warnaharius so compiled his own Acts from those earlier ones that, with the circumstances of the matter altered here and there, he transferred to Langres what in those are narrated as done among the Cappadocians, and moreover added the mission of SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus by St. Polycarp, in order to make the Triplet martyrs be baptized by that same Benignus. But he also began the last point unhappily enough; for whereas in the earlier Acts the same Triplets are said not yet to have been baptized when they suffered, Warnaharius, to whom those Acts served as a guide, forgetting the Baptism which he had himself said was conferred on them through St. Benignus, exclaimed concerning them, unharmed in the fire, as though they were unbaptized: O blessed fire, which purged only original sin, and brought no loss of diminution by burning upon the Saints' limbs! Chastelain's opinion pleased our Sollier also in his Observations on Usuard, and I judge the same, if not altogether certain, at least most likely. Further, to return to the Acts of SS. Andochius and his companions, it seems beyond doubt that their author followed Warnaharius in asserting the Baptism of the Triplets by Benignus.

[18] whom I believe to have suffered not in Gaul but in Cappadocia. So the author himself persuades, who, after he had briefly narrated the same things as Warnaharius about Benignus being sent by Faustus to St. Leonilla, the grandmother of the Triplets, and about the baptism conferred on them by the same Saint, and had said finally that they suffered for Christ, at once refers the reader to their Passion, saying thus: Which their Passion has declared more fully. And that nothing else is here designated than Warnaharius' little work may be gathered from this, that in the other Passion of the holy Triplets no mention is made of Faustus, none of St. Benignus, none of the Baptism received by them, but all things contrary are reported; and that our writer of the Acts in one place even imitated Warnaharius' very phrases. Take the passage. Warnaharius, as published among us, chapter 1, num. 6, says thus: And so the aforesaid Faustus sent holy Benignus to his sister (St. Leonilla) as a divine gift, such as he was, from the present occasion. She indeed received him with all veneration, as it were the manna which came down from heaven. Now our writer turns these words thus: Then that most excellent man (Faustus) sent St. Benignus the presbyter to his sister like a precious pearl or a heavenly gift: Leonilla received him like heavenly manna or a shining pearl. Whoever will compare these two texts will, I think, sufficiently perceive that the one is closely enough akin to the other, so that the author of the latter, when he praised the Passion of the holy Triplets, seems to have designated the one written by Warnaharius. I cannot therefore, with Chifflet, or whoever is the author of the aforesaid Admonition, ascribe these Acts of SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, as we have them, to Faustus, the host of the same Saints, nor believe that the Triplet martyrs were baptized by them. [Yet because they seem to have been enlarged from more ancient ones, they will be published after examination.]

[19] Further, although those Acts are disfigured by the aforesaid errors, and from that cause their other assertions also cannot but seem suspect, yet nothing forbids that there existed more ancient Acts than these, which afterward, as often happens, some later hand unskilfully interpolated. Nay, it appears to me plainly likely that Warnaharius had more ancient ones, from which he first excerpted what he has about the mission of our Saints by Polycarp and their deeds among the Ædui, in order to persuade others also that the holy Triplets, whose bodies Langres possessed, were his own countrymen and had suffered (as perhaps he believed) in his own Langres homeland. But because we have nothing better, I shall print those from our manuscript Dijon copy of St. Benignus, after I have set forth what in them must certainly be rejected, and what on the contrary may at least probably be admitted. That St. Andochius was a presbyter and Thyrsus a deacon, all the copies of the Acts and the Martyrologies reviewed in §1 agree, with which also agree several Acts of other Saints in which mention is made of them; nor do I know anyone who has wished to deny this or call it into doubt.

[20] St. Felix, their companion in martyrdom, the same Acts make a Christian merchant of the East residing in the village of Sidolocus near Autun, St. Felix did not come with Andochius and Thyrsus and so it is read also in the Autun Breviary of the year 1534, which I have in hand. Wherefore I judge that it came about by an error that Bede, and the martyrologists who followed him, said that Felix was sent together with the rest from the East into the Gauls, affirming of three what pertained only to the first two. Nay, Bede himself at the 1st day of November, in St. Benignus, reviews his companions Andochius and Thyrsus, Felix being omitted. Ado does the same both at the said day of November and at the Kalends of May in St. Andeolus, whom he affirms to have been sent into the Gauls by St. Polycarp together with SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus, with no mention likewise made of Felix. In this part therefore I think we must stand by the Acts and the tradition of the people of Autun which agrees with them. As for St. Andeolus, his fellowship with the other Saints in the mission is not so certain, since it is not read in all the copies of the Acts, nor in those with which we are now concerned. Bede too did not find him in his own copy, since he made mention of him neither at this day, nor at the 1st of May, on which he is venerated, nor at the 1st of November in St. Benignus. Nor did that fellowship stand in those documents from which Warnaharius praised above, writing nearly the whole first chapter of the Passion of the holy Triplet martyrs, Andeolus being likewise passed over, narrated that only Andochius and Benignus the presbyters and Thyrsus the deacon were sent by St. Polycarp into the Gauls.

[21] Yet Andeolus is joined to them, besides the copies which we reviewed at num. 10, from Asia into the Gauls, but St. Andeolus probably came. by his own Acts, published in our Work at the Kalends of May; where however our Henschen acknowledges that they were composed after the passage of many centuries (from the death of the same Saint), … not by a contemporary author. Some copies of the Passion of St. Benignus agree, as also an old poet, to be praised more fully below, and Ado in his Martyrology at the aforesaid Kalends of May. Usuard finally favors it, saying there of the same: Whom St. Polycarp sent from the East together with others to preach the word of God in Gaul. Finally the Autun Breviary, which I mentioned just now, likewise makes him a companion in our Saints' mission. However that may be, the Ædui affirm that these Saints, their apostles, came to them from the East, or from Asia; and both the Acts and the Martyrologies, as we have said, constantly asseverate it. And this indeed ought to seem the less wonderful because the first bishops of Lyons also, SS. Pothinus and Irenæus, were Greeks; and the latter too was at one time a hearer of St. Polycarp of Smyrna; and because the letters of the people of Lyons about their martyrs, sent to the churches of Asia and Phrygia — on which consult Eusebius, book 5 of the History, chapter 1 and following — sufficiently intimate that a certain particular tie existed between the church of Lyons and those of Asia. Add finally that traditions of this kind, which make the Saints foreigners, ought to be less suspect, since love of country is wont rather to make them countrymen. Nevertheless at what time, and by whom, they were sent into Gaul, is not so easy to determine.

[22] [Some, erasing from the Acts the apparition of St. Irenæus, judge that we must retain] From what has been said thus far it is beyond doubt that St. Irenæus of Lyons could not have appeared after his own martyrdom to St. Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, that the latter might send SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus, and perhaps also Andeolus, into the Gauls; and therefore one or the other of these must be struck out of the Acts. It is likewise certain that if these Saints were really sent by the aforesaid Polycarp, this was not done while Severus was reigning; nor were they crowned with martyrdom under the emperor Aurelian. Hence different men have taken different ways to emend those errors. The learned Benedictine who wrote on the church of Autun, in tom. 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, col. 316, says these things in favor of retaining altogether the mission made by St. Polycarp of Smyrna: That the Æduan Apostles were sent by Polycarp, not only those Acts affirm, but also all the more ancient Martyrologies, and the constant and almost unbroken tradition not only of the Autun district but also of the Vivarais and of Langres. For this cause he contends that the apparition of St. Irenæus, which he acknowledges cannot be reconciled with those circumstances, was added to the Acts; and this is rendered most probable from this, he says, that all the Martyrologies, even the most ancient, are silent about Irenæus and his vision, and the tradition of the church of Autun is silent. These things laid down, he advises that for Aurelianus in the Acts we should read Aurelius, and so thinks the whole difficulty removed. Yet another remained: namely, how the Saints are read in the same Acts to have been sent under Severus, and that Aurelian or Aurelius succeeded Severus.

[23] St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and read Aurelius for Aurelian, The most illustrious François Bosquet, prætor of Narbonne, afterward first bishop of Lodève and at last of Montpellier, in book 2 of the History of the Gallican Church, chapter 12, likewise erasing the apparition of St. Irenæus, believed that in the Acts of St. Andeolus we should read for Severus the name Verus, namely Marcus Aurelius, who before receiving the empire was surnamed Verus, by which word he is also sometimes designated by ancient writers. He proves this from Eusebius, who in book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, in the Preface, called him Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Verus, and in the title of chapter 1 says that the persecution stirred up under him was made while Verus was reigning. Baronius may be consulted in the Annals at the year of Christ 163, where he praises other ancients also for the same appellation. Moreover Bosquet observes that the name Verus could easily be changed into Severus by the carelessness of copyists; just as on the contrary he judges that in Tertullian's Apology Verus is read for Severus. The passage of Tertullian, which

he praises, I suspect is from chapter 5, where it is read: No Verus imposed, that is, published, laws against the Christians; for which Pamelius, cited by Baronius at the year 164, advised that we should read No Severus. Baronius however opposes Pamelius, because, as he says, all the codices, both those anciently written (with two exceptions) and those printed before Pamelius, had it in the former way.

[24] and that Verus should be read for Severus; Which way it is to be read is now of no concern to us; but from this it is sufficiently clear that such an interchange of the two names does not lack precedent. Yet I add another instance also from the same most eminent Annalist, who at the year 163, num. 4, observes that Gallienus' text is corrupt, in which the same Marcus Aurelius was said also to have been called Severus, and to have called his colleague in the empire Lucius Severus; whereas in both places Verus must certainly be read. This emendation being admitted in the Acts of St. Andeolus, and the apparition of St. Irenæus being rejected, he could have been sent by St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and crowned under Marcus Aurelius, who was otherwise called Verus. As for SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, the said Bosquet substitutes Aurelius for Aurelianus, under whom they are read in the Acts to have suffered — namely the same of whom we spoke above. I do not deny that those two names are often confounded in manuscripts, and that this happened here too the more probably, as I shall admit below with learned men. But if St. Andeolus' biographer designated Verus by Severus, while in the Acts of St. Andochius and his companions Marcus Aurelius Verus is indicated by Aurelianus, by what reasoning is it said in these Acts — which Andeolus' biographer partly transcribed and partly praised — by what reasoning, I say, is it said in them that on Severus' death Aurelian, that is, according to those emendations Marcus Aurelius Verus, succeeded himself when dead?

[25] Besides, what the Benedictine praised above affirmed for the rejection of St. Irenæus' apparition whose opinions and the retention of St. Polycarp of Smyrna in the Acts is not altogether certain. The second part we shall examine in the following §, the first here. The apparition of St. Irenæus is found in all our copies of the Acts except one more abridged one of uncertain provenance; it is found likewise in the Acts of St. Andeolus published among us, and in the old poet in the rhythmic Life of St. Benignus, as also in some exemplars of the same Saint's prose Passion. But the silence of the tradition of the church of Autun the said writer perhaps objects for this reason, that in the Breviaries of that church no mention is made of it. I do not know what the ancient or the more recent Breviaries have on this subject; for I have only a single one at hand, printed in the year 1534 by order of the most illustrious Jacques Hurault, bishop of Autun, in which I confess that it is not mentioned in the Office of these same Saints. In the second Lesson of the second day within the Octave of the same it is only said: It was divinely revealed to blessed Polycarp that Andochius with his companions should be sent into Gaul; but what that revelation was, is not explained. The first antiphon of the first Nocturn of the first day also has thus: SS. Andochius and Benignus and Thyrsus were sent by Christ to the cities of the Gauls, full of virtues and wisdom.

[26] But since for the second antiphon there is assigned this: are weighed. And when morning was come, blessed Polycarp addresses his Brethren, reporting to them what had been done; which very words are read in the Acts after the apparition of St. Irenæus, it cannot be denied that these served as a guide to the author of the Breviary. And hence it is likely that he, when he noticed that the said apparition could not be reconciled with the time of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, preferred to pass over the former in silence in the said Office rather than the latter. However the matter stands, our Acts are certainly much more ancient than Breviaries of this kind, and therefore the ancient tradition can be gathered better from the former than from the latter. Finally, that the ancient Martyrologies are silent about the same apparition by no means proves that it was afterward added to the Acts; since martyrologists are not wont to insert into their calendars everything they have read in the Acts. For the same opinion, however, Warnaharius too can be praised, who in the Acts of the holy Triplet martyrs says that SS. Andochius, Benignus and Thyrsus were sent by St. Polycarp under the emperor Aurelian, with no mention likewise made of Irenæus; but that writer, for the reasons said above, is of too little credit for his authority to be preferred to the rest. It therefore remains doubtful whether the aforesaid apparition of St. Irenæus should be retained in the Acts or struck out of them.

[27] Henschen substitutes another bishop of Smyrna for St. Polycarp. Our Henschen, in the Acts of St. Andeolus at the 1st day of May, taking a plainly opposite way, retained the apparition of Irenæus and struck out Polycarp. He suspected that the name of St. Polycarp had been rashly used in place of some other bishop of Smyrna whose name had dropped out, Polycarp being the better known in Gaul because St. Irenæus had been his disciple. These things laid down, he judged that in St. Polycarp's place should be substituted some other bishop of Smyrna from among that Saint's successors, and that the times of St. Andeolus should be so ordered that St. Irenæus, put to death by martyrdom in the year of Christ 202, appeared to that unknown bishop of Smyrna, by whom St. Andeolus was sent with Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus into the Gauls, and there the first of these was slain under Severus in the year of Christ 207. He so determined, because not only in the Acts but also in the Martyrologies St. Andeolus is read to have suffered while Severus was reigning, and by that reckoning the other things asserted in the same Acts can be reconciled. Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, Note 2 on the Persecution of Severus, following Henschen, whom after his manner he calls Bolland, judged that the martyrdom of St. Andeolus should more probably be referred to the same persecution. Further, although in this opinion of Henschen's the said difficulties are solved without much trouble, yet another pleases me more, which I shall propose in the following §.

§ III. The mission of the Saints into the Gauls is proposed as more probably made by Polycrates of Ephesus.

[ ] The author of the Rhythmic Life of St. Benignus Among the copies of the Acts of St. Benignus we have one in rhythm, by an anonymous author, which Peter Francis Chifflet, priest of our Society, transcribed with his own hand from a manuscript codex of St. Benignus of Dijon, and gave to our Museum, adding his own censure, which I subjoin. Very ancient is the writing of this codex, and it shows nearly eight hundred years. Nor perhaps was the writer himself much more ancient, or even different from the copyist, since besides this one exemplar of that rhythm, or poem, scarcely another is anywhere to be found. The Work itself is eloquent and sprinkled with manifold learning; and it is of singular value in this, that out of hoary antiquity it skilfully distinguishes, for the confuting of the errors of more recent men, Polycarp of Smyrna from Polycarp, or Polycrates, of Ephesus, by whom he affirms that both Benignus with his companions and Irenæus himself were sent into the Gauls. Although, as to the reckoning of times, what this author signifies is less well ascertained, namely that the two Polycarps were plainly contemporaries and likewise disciples of John the apostle; and that he thought St. Benignus suffered under Aurelius, the successor of Macrinus, that is, Elagabalus. For Polycarp of Ephesus was scarcely born in the twentieth year after the death of the apostle John; nor was he a contemporary of Polycarp of Smyrna, but somewhat later. And St. Benignus suffered under Aurelius Caracalla, the son and successor of Severus. All which we have proved in their places. Thus far Chifflet, according to whom that codex must consequently be referred to the ninth century.

[29] writes that our Saints That anonymous poet, who sometimes also mingles verses of various kinds with his rhythms, confesses that another and more ancient Life served him as a guide, whose errors he intends to emend; and although he himself is not free from errors, he removes the chief difficulty of the Acts, namely the Saints' mission, in so probable a way that the chief heads of the Acts can be conveniently expounded. For which reason I shall here report from him those things which pertain to our Saints, leaving the rest for the Kalends of November, at which St. Benignus must be treated. The poet, in the first rhythm, after much preface concerning the fall of our first parents, and the mournful state of the human race through it, and the redemption through Christ, at last proceeds thus concerning the mission of the Apostles and of apostolic men:

In great glory after these things He [] himself, ascending the stars,* Sent the Holy Paraclete To teach his own abundantly.

They, driven by tongues of flame, Thunder with wondrous words, Then with signs and miracles Flash renowned upon the world.

Thus salvation and redemption Is poured out upon the peoples, And sets free unnumbered men Through magnificent authors.

Of whom, a shining gem, Great John flashes forth, Whom Jesus alone had chosen To speak deifying words.

[30] His greatest hearer, The excellent Polycarp, not by St. Polycarp of Smyrna but by him of Ephesus, Shone forth as bishop of Ephesus, The Asian metropolis.

This, the work of the Amazons, Set on the shore of the seas, Built in David's times, Famed under many names; Ptele, Smyrna and Ephesus, It is read, on Pliny's witness. A city once noble in fame, Now most renowned through John, Praiseworthy through Polycarp.

He, like a fruit-bearing tree, Bore the admonitions of the Word, Directing his disciples As a fair vine-shoot its tendrils.

Among whom the excellent man Irenæus is recognized, Who goes before the nation of the Gauls And stands their leader and martyr.

So he, who says that St. Benignus with his companions also was sent by the same Polycarp of Ephesus; but whom he understands by that Polycarp, and to what time he assigns that mission, let us hear him expound more clearly in the second Poem.

[31] But after the Godhead Had given the pledges of salvation, or sent into the Gauls by Polycrates, This [] the honey-flowing admonitions of John* Consecrated to Christ, Who with a special glory Shone by his grace.

At Rome, under the emperor Trajan, He rested peacefully, Who for his wondrous rest Is said, though buried, to live.

Radiant with the splendor of his beam, His disciples: Polycrates Is read as bishop of the metropolis Of Ephesus, And the teachable Polycarp Shone out among the Smyrnæans.

These two luminaries Then shone in Asia, When Marcus Verus Aurelius Antoninus, and Lucius, Ill bore the sceptres, And destroyed the worshippers of God.

Then noble Polycarp Bore off the palm of martyrdom, But Polycrates retained The distinction of that name.

Whose pious sagacity Transmitted the doctrines to the Gauls, And afterward the excellent wisdom Of Irenæus shone forth; Who worthily succeeded the holy Photinus, the most illustrious, First bishop of Lyons, Then consecrated by martyrdom.

[32] The Severian fierceness Had overrun the laws of the world, and suffered under Heliogabalus; Who after the funeral of Pertinax Had succeeded Commodus.

Himself worse than the wicked, He sought Christ with the sword, By whose most evil edicts Irenæus fell.

For in his times, As we have already related above, We learn that the Saints Came to the borders of the Gauls.

After whom Antoninus Caracalla Took up the ensigns; Marcus, who is also read As Aurelius Aurelianus, Under whom we describe the deeds, Is set over after Macrinus.

These things we have already described before, But we repeat them for this cause, That the truth of the history May be borne in worthy order.

For it is agreed that in the time Of Severus, Antoninus, Macrinus and Aurelius They poured forth those streams of doctrine; But the historical reporter, The times not being examined, Introduced an error of names Into the true deeds of the Martyrs.

[33] and the same writer their mission Concerning the apparition of St. Irenæus, and the mission of the holy Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus by Polycrates,

whom according to what has been said he calls by the name of Polycarp, he had set down beforehand the following.

The glorious Irenæus, After by worthy deeds He had merited the crown of life In the very onset of the contest, Stood by the chamber-bars of Polycarp, Then the chief teacher, Afterward the bravest athlete, As he took his rest.

"Know, O best of shepherds," He said, "that we live with Christ; He has diminished nothing of his promises, For small things he has rendered great.

Now as a most dear father I urge and greatly entreat thee, Take counsel for the nation of the Gauls, Seized by the stain of error: Men eminent in doctrine, Excellent in virtues, Benignus and Andochius, Who give the sacred office, And Thyrsus the deacon also, Of like honorableness — Since the King of kings commands it, Send them thither as soon as thou canst."

[34] "For there," he said, "the service Is open wide for belief, Whereby they themselves too may raise up The nation by their own spoils. he says was commanded by St. Irenæus appearing.

When the martyr with honey-flowing mouth Had spoken these things, straightway, With a wondrous fragrance And exceeding splendor, Girt about by a heavenly throng, He revisits the realms above, While with the fragrance of that odor He warms the father's couch.

Soon the bishop, embracing in spirit His dearest sons, Discloses the heavenly commands; Minds and bodies obey.

Swiftly they raise their palms, With one accord they praise Christ, Saying that most gladly they undergo Every hardship for his sake.

The best of shepherds, exulting, With the Brethren led forth with him, Prayed here for prosperous things For those to be carried in a doubtful skiff, etc.

[35] According therefore to the judgment of this old poet, SS. Benignus, That Polycrates, of whom an account is given, is not venerated in the Church, Andochius and Thyrsus, to whom he adds Andeolus also, were sent into the Gauls after the martyrdom and apparition of St. Irenæus — and before them St. Irenæus himself too — by Polycarp or Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus; and of these Irenæus, while Severus was reigning, and Andochius and Thyrsus under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Heliogabalus, obtained the palm of martyrdom. All which must now be examined; for that writer, as I have noted above, is not free from errors of his own. That Polycrates was bishop of the church of Ephesus while Commodus was reigning, Eusebius writes in book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapters 22 and 24, where he narrates his controversy with St. Victor the Pope about the observance of Easter. St. Jerome also makes mention of him in his Catalogue of Writers, in which he notes that he flourished in the times of the emperor Severus. The said controversy you have illustrated among us by the learned Emmanuel Schelstrate, in the same St. Victor at the day XXVIII of July, from pag. 538; whence it will be enough to have observed here that Polycrates with his Asians was indeed excommunicated by St. Victor, but that soon, on St. Irenæus' intervention with the same Pope, the excommunication was first suspended, and then, when Polycrates revoked his error, removed, the Asians being permitted their own custom of celebrating Easter. Others contend that St. Victor only threatened excommunication and did not actually inflict it; but the opinion of the former appears the truer. However that may be, that Polycrates may have been good in other respects, and after correcting his error may even have shone in pious works.

[36] Nevertheless whether he ever also merited the title of Saint, with which our poet honors him, was somewhat later than St. Polycarp, and not a disciple of St. John. and whether he was crowned with martyrdom, as the same poet intimates above, I would not dare to say. His memory is indeed read in the Centula codex, and in Greven at the day XXVI of October, among the Usuardine Supplements in Sollier; the first of which has thus: At Ephesus, of holy Polycrates, an eminent bishop and a most noble man; the other thus: At Ephesus, of Polycarp, bishop and confessor; but Sollier there notes that he knows of no other Polycrates or Polycarp of Ephesus besides the one with whom we are dealing, whom he denies to have any cult in the Church. Further, from what has been said gather first that Polycrates of Ephesus was indeed somewhat later than St. Polycarp of Smyrna, but not his contemporary, as the poet intimates; that he could however have sat at Ephesus in the times of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, under whom St. Polycarp of Smyrna suffered. Gather secondly that neither can what the poet says be admitted, that Polycrates was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist; since Polycrates himself, in the said Eusebius, in the letter which he wrote toward the end of the second century to St. Victor the Pope and the Roman Church, expressly says that he was at that time only sixty-five years old in the Lord. But if anyone should prefer to interpret these words of his Baptism received and not of his age, yet Polycrates was then too far removed from the times of St. John the Evangelist for him to be believed ever to have been that Saint's disciple.

[37] The mission of the Saints by Polycrates being admitted, By whom, or at what time, St. Irenæus was sent into the Gauls, is not sufficiently established; more commonly however his mission is attributed to St. Polycarp of Smyrna, from Gregory of Tours, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 27. This opinion is favored by St. Jerome in the Catalogue of Writers, in which he asserts that he was that Saint's disciple. Nay, Irenæus himself, in Eusebius, book 5 of the History, chapter 19, in his letter to Florinus, testifies that when he was still a boy he was his hearer. Nevertheless, since Irenæus there made mention only of his boyhood, and Eusebius too, in book 5, chapter 5, makes him a disciple of Polycarp in his youth, nothing can be certainly determined from this in favor of that mission. Papebroch in the historical Commentary on the same St. Irenæus at the day XXVIII of June only reported the opinion of Pierre Halloix, according to which he was sent by the said St. Polycarp. Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, in St. Irenæus, art. 3, speaks doubtfully on the same subject; while the writers of the newest Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, in the church of Lyons, col. 6, candidly confess that when, by whom, and on what occasion he was sent, is uncertain. Our anonymous poet therefore cannot on this head be convicted of error, when he made St. Irenæus a disciple also of Polycrates of Ephesus, and said he was sent by him into the Gauls. For St. Irenæus could have passed into the discipleship of Polycrates, whose see of Ephesus is not far from Smyrna; at least it cannot be proved that this was not so done.

[38] The anachronisms of the Acts are removed, For ascribing the mission of SS. Benignus, Andochius, Thyrsus and Andeolus to the same Polycrates there is a special reason; for as their Acts labor under faults not to be emended, if we hold that they were sent by St. Polycarp of Smyrna, so the same can be expounded without difficulty if with the poet we put Polycrates of Ephesus in his place. Papebroch tied the martyrdom of St. Irenæus to the year 202 or 207; from whom others do not much differ, among whom some prefer the year 202. Now nothing forbids that Polycrates of Ephesus could have been still among the living even then, and that St. Irenæus should appear to him soon after his martyrdom, that he might send the succor of apostolic men to the afflicted Gauls. At the same time Severus held the empire, under whom the Acts relate that they came into Gaul, and under whom St. Andeolus is said to have suffered both in several of these Acts and in the Martyrologies. When Severus died in the year of Christ 211, his two sons succeeded, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla and Septimius Geta; of whom the latter not long after was slain by his brother's crime, and the former obtained the empire alone. This therefore may be that Aurelius who in the Acts is said to have succeeded Severus, and, his name being somewhat altered, is wrongly called Aurelianus.

[39] with Aurelius substituted for Aurelian; In a plainly similar way St. Symphorian, in his Acts published by Théodoric Ruinart among the Selected Acts of the Martyrs, and by our Cuper at the day XXII of August, is read to have undergone martyrdom under the emperor Aurelian; for which each advises that Aurelius should be substituted, with the agreement of the most illustrious Bosquet, book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, chapter 27, of Pagi in the Critica on Baronius at the year of Christ 272, and of Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, Note 6 on St. Benignus. The said Ruinart in his prefatory Admonition adds: In manuscript codices Aurelius and Aurelianus, Fabius and Fabianus, Valerius and Valerianus, and other like names, are very often confounded; which it would be most easy to prove by six hundred examples. Usuard had already noticed the error in the name before them, or at any rate had found it more correctly, who at the said day of August in Symphorian, where Florus and Ado have Aurelianus, put back Aurelius. I confess however that the aforesaid writers understand by Aurelius here not Caracalla but the one surnamed the Philosopher; because they were proceeding on that opinion which holds that St. Benignus and his companions were sent by St. Polycarp of Smyrna. But that Caracalla is rather designated here is urged by that Aurelian's succession to the Roman empire immediately after Severus, as asserted in the Acts; and it is urged the more if the Acts of St. Andeolus, as Bosquet asserts in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, chapter 12, make that Severus the father of that Aurelian: for neither point can fit anyone but Caracalla, who was Severus' son and immediate successor.

[40] But that this exchange of Polycrates into Polycarp may seem less strange, and that the name of Polycrates could easily be changed into that of Polycarp, it will be worth while to have observed some things here. Occasion for it could have been given by the famous memory of St. Polycarp among the Gauls, and by the affinity of the two names. For since they believed that St. Irenæus, whom it was agreed had been Polycarp of Smyrna's disciple, was also sent by him, they could easily be led by the likeness of the name of Polycrates to ascribe to the same Polycarp the mission of St. Benignus and his companions too; and this the more readily, because the latter is illustrious above the former by sanctity and the palm of martyrdom, and because particular churches were once the more eager to claim that their first apostles were received from the Apostles of Christ themselves, or from the disciples of the Apostles; as various churches at this time, after a sounder criticism has been applied, acknowledge to have been wrongly done among themselves. Nor does the confusion of these two names lack precedent. In Sozomen, book 7 of the History, chapter 19, the following may be read: But I judge that the controversy which once arose about it (about the time of Easter) was most wisely settled by Victor, at that time bishop of Rome, and by Polycarp of Smyrna. On these words the most illustrious Pierre de Marca, in book 3 of On the Concord of the Priesthood and the Empire, chapter 9, not without cause advised that for Polycarp of Smyrna should be read Polycrates of Ephesus, who it is agreed had that controversy with St. Victor, St. Polycarp having been taken away by martyrdom many years before the same Victor's Pontificate. With that most illustrious writer agrees Pagi in the Critica on Baronius at the year of Christ 196; and both may be consulted.

[41] Besides the affinity of the names, the nearness of the time in which both flourished, is shown by various reasons, and there also favor it and of the cities in which they sat, favored the confusing of the two. For that Polycrates lived contemporary with St. Polycarp for many years is established from what has been said above. And Smyrna and Ephesus, cities of Asia Minor, were situated on the shore of the Ægean Sea, and in that region which was called Ionia by the Greeks. Strabo in his Geography, book 14, places between them three hundred and twenty stadia in a straight line, or forty miles. Besides, it favored it that Ephesus was once also

had the name of Smyrna, as our poet at num. 30 not idly observed from Pliny, namely book 5, chapter 29 of the Natural History, where that city is read to have been called also Smyrna, with the surname Trachea. Strabo too, just praised, writes that the same was called Smyrna, and interprets the word Smyrnæans in Callinus of the Ephesians. The suspicion that the name of Polycarp was intruded for Polycrates is increased also by the copies of the Acts of St. Benignus, in which St. Polycarp, bishop of Ephesus, is said to have sent them into Gaul. We have these transcribed by Peter Francis Chifflet from several manuscript codices of St. Benignus of Dijon, one of St. Paul of Besançon, and another of the monastery of La Charité of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Besançon, as they declare at their head.

[42] [several manuscripts and printed books, so that it may be believed to have been altered:] The following notice, moreover, was prefixed by the same Chifflet: Most of the more recent exemplars of these Acts, at the beginning, in those words "Polycarp, bishop of the city of Ephesus," render, for Ephesus, "of Smyrna." Some name neither city, but only present "Polycarp the bishop." But the most ancient and best exemplars have it as we have set it down, namely: "Polycarp, bishop of the city of Ephesus." Thus far Chifflet on the Acts of St. Benignus; but of our copies of the Acts of SS. Andochius and his companions only two, namely the Clamecy one and the other of uncertain provenance mentioned at num. 10, make that Polycarp of Smyrna; the rest are silent about the place of his see, except one mutilated one, on which see num. XI, which likewise calls Polycarp bishop of Ephesus. There agree also the Acts of St. Symphorian by Warnaharius, in which that St. Polycarp is said to have been bishop of the city of Ephesus. To these I add besides the writer of the History of the bishops of Auxerre in Labbe, tom. 1 of the manuscript Bibliotheca, pag. 412, who writes that our Saints were sent by St. Polycarp from the city of Ephesus. I add finally another anonymous writer, the author of the Chronicle of St. Benignus of Dijon, published by d'Achery in the Spicilegium, tom. 1, who, since there at pag. 354 he ascribed the mission of the Saints to Polycarp, metropolitan bishop of Asia, must be expounded rather of the Ephesian than of the Smyrnæan.

[43] which opinion we embrace as the more probable. Further, as it is established that St. Polycarp sat at Smyrna and Polycrates at Ephesus, so it cannot be doubted that the aforesaid manuscript and printed copies err either in the bishop or in the see. And for charging the error rather upon the see there makes the consent of the copies in this, that nearly all make Irenæus the disciple of that Polycarp, and a few even make the latter the disciple of St. John the Evangelist; whereas we know from elsewhere that St. John the Evangelist was the master of Polycarp of Smyrna, and that this Polycarp was the master of Irenæus. On the contrary Polycrates of Ephesus could not have been that holy Evangelist's disciple, and we do not know whether, as the poet asserts, St. Irenæus ever had Polycrates of Ephesus for his master. But whence that opinion could have arisen we have already shown at sufficient length; and this at last is certain from what has been said, that either St. Polycarp of Smyrna must be struck out of these Acts, or the chief heads of the same must be erased from them. That this opinion of the poet's about substituting Polycrates pleased Peter Francis Chifflet greatly is clear, both from his own words given at num. 28, and also from what was published among us in tom. VI of June, part 1, in the Appendix to the day XXVIII of the same month, pag. 265 and following; but I do not know what little Work he there praises, and whether it be printed or manuscript; nor could I be informed of this even at Paris, whither I had recourse by letter. However that may be, that opinion appears to me more probable than the rest; since in it, as I have said, the chief heads of the Acts, which otherwise cannot be sustained, are easily reconciled, and there are not wanting other reasons on account of which St. Polycarp of Smyrna may be believed to have been inserted into the Acts by interpolators in the place of Polycrates of Ephesus.

* Christus

* Galliam Lugdunensem

§ IV. Several other assertions of the Acts are examined: the time of the martyrdom: churches and monasteries dedicated to them: the translation of the relics: the ecclesiastical Office.

[44] Very doubtful is the Saints' meeting with St. Zacharias The Acts relate that SS. Andochius and his companions first put in by ship at Marseilles, and then setting out by land journey for Lyons of the Segusiani, met St. Zacharias the presbyter hiding there in a crypt among the tombs of the martyrs; and that while they were conferring their counsels with him, being admonished by an angel, they went on to Autun. Other copies, which add St. Andeolus as companion to the rest, add that he went on to the city of Carpentras. Agreeing with these, our anonymous poet sang thus:

Swiftly they make for Lyons, Where they find the confessor Zacharias in hiding.

Citizen embraces citizens; They rejoice in the sight of one another; The Holy Spirit in them Applauded their righteous deeds.

And again, after some lines, he continues afresh:

Here the Saints had chanced to sit, Praising the grace of Christ; When an Angel admonishes them That holy Andeolus Should be sent to Carpentras For the healing of the nations.

The writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, col. 12, make Zacharias a presbyter of St. Irenæus bishop of Lyons and his successor in the episcopate, praising St. Ado in his Chronicle and the Catalogues of the bishops of Lyons, some of which they say are older than Ado.

[45] They also produce from a certain old manuscript of the church of Lyons meeting in the crypt of Lyons. this command given to St. Irenæus by an angel: See to it that Zacharias the presbyter carefully hides himself, who, being thy successor after thy departure, may confirm the brethren in Christ. Yet they wonder there that Gregory of Tours is silent about his pontificate, and Bede after him is silent too. They add that he is praised everywhere with the title of Saint, and by some also, but without any foundation, held for a martyr. Moreover they note that they have found no memory made of him, although du Saussay assigns his feast to the day XXVIII of June. All the circumstances sufficiently show that the same man is here indicated whom in our Acts the Saints are said to have met; nevertheless whether that Zacharias, either as presbyter or as bishop of Lyons, ever existed, our Papebroch not without cause doubted, tom. V of June, in St. Irenæus, pag. 340, whom consult. For the reasons there alleged, since I have no other evidence of the antiquity of the Catalogues of the bishops of Lyons, it is also permitted to doubt of the meeting of St. Andochius and his companions with Zacharias of Lyons; and therefore I reckon this as very uncertain and perhaps added to the Acts by the interpolator. I go on to examine the rest.

[46] Among the first apostolic fruits of these men in Gaul, there is set down in all the Acts the baptism by them of the whole household of Faustus, Nothing forbids that St. Symphorian, who, worshipping Christ secretly at Autun, had received them joyfully into his house on their arrival, and cherished them kindly. This Faustus in the Acts is called a most noble man of prefectorian rank; but in the Passion of the Triplet martyrs by Warnaharius, chapter 1, a man of most noble family, conspicuous for senatorial dignity, and raised by the prætorian fasces. Hence Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, in St. Benignus and his companions, judged that he was one of the decurions, of whom, he says, the city senate consisted, and that he had at one time held the duumvirate, or supreme magistracy of the city. His family was chiefly made illustrious by his son St. Symphorian, the most famous martyr among the Ædui, whom St. Benignus is narrated in the Acts to have baptized when he was about three years old, St. Andochius being sponsor. The same Acts declare that he, when he was about fifteen years old, together with his father Faustus committed to burial the bodies of SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, and at last, being now nearly twenty years old, was crowned with a glorious martyrdom. Of the Baptism the Passion of the holy Triplets by Warnaharius has the same, concerning which our anonymous poet also says these things:

Where Faustus, a noble man, Worshipping Christ in secret, While he kindly receives them, Perceives them worshippers of God: To whom he offers his most illustrious son, To be dedicated to God, Symphorian, a noble martyr To be consecrated hereafter.

[47] St. Andochius being his sponsor, may be believed baptized by St. Benignus. The Life of St. Symphorian our Cuper reprinted at the day XXII of August from Ruinart's edition among the Selected Acts of the Martyrs, where he judged it not indeed original, but yet taken from genuine sources and enlarged. This Life, though it has nothing about the said Baptism, yet rather favors than hinders it, since it has thus: There was then (the persecution having arisen) in the city of Autun a son of Faustus, a noble man, named Symphorian, of a Christian family, well instructed in letters and in morals, so that, anticipating the life of old men, he surpassed the flourishing years of his early disposition by the sincerity of an unstained mind. Moreover Cuper observes in the preliminary Commentary, §2, that the same things which we have said about the Baptism conferred on him by SS. Benignus and Andochius are read also in another copy of the same St. Symphorian's Life, sent by Chifflet, as also in codex 81 of the most serene Queen of Sweden, from which he reviews them there, noting that the same copies agree in other respects pretty well with Ruinart's Acts. There is favor also in the Mass of St. Symphorian in the ancient Gothic, or Gothico-Gallican, Missal, in Mabillon, book 3 of the Gallican Liturgy, pag. 281, where at the Immolation of the Mass, or in the Preface, the following are read: Who (St. Symphorian) deserved to shine not only by the brightness of his earthly birth, but also by the sublimity of heavenly virtues, and, shining by the race of Faustus, is raised to the summit of a fortunate (fausti) martyrdom: who, following the blessed fathers Andochius and Benignus, was chosen and came through the ardor of martyrdom to the palm.

[48] The Saints seem to have suffered, The said Ruinart and Cuper agree with me, who therefore hold that in the Acts of this holy martyr, in which he is said to have suffered under Aurelian, Aurelius should be put back; and because they were proceeding on that opinion which relates that St. Benignus with his companions was sent by Polycarp of Smyrna, they believed this Aurelius to be Marcus Aurelius Antoninus surnamed the Philosopher, and placed St. Symphorian's martyrdom about the year of Christ 180. But since their mission seems more probably to be ascribed to Polycrates of Ephesus, St. Symphorian's martyrdom must be fixed under the other Aurelius and much later, according to what we are now about to say concerning the time of the martyrdom of SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix. The anonymous poet above at num. 32, with the Acts to be published, places the Saints' arrival in the Gauls under Severus, but their passion under M. Aurelius Antoninus Heliogabalus, who in the year of Christ 218 succeeded Macrinus in the empire. About the arrival we too agree; and this is also conformable to the Acts of St. Andeolus, and to the Martyrologies, in which he is declared to have suffered under Severus, under whom too our Henschen at the day I of May, and Tillemont, referred his martyrdom.

[49] The poet was followed by the author of the Chronicle of St. Benignus of Dijon, not under the emperor Heliogabalus, published by d'Achery in tom. 1 of the Spicilegium. But I do not know why they assigned Heliogabalus rather than Caracalla, since in the Acts the Saints are said to have suffered under Aurelian, the immediate successor of Severus, by whom nothing but Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla can be denoted, as has been shown above. Perhaps the poet so thought because in the same Acts mention is made of Severus' death and Caracalla's succession before

the baptism of Symphorian, then a boy of three years, who is there said to have been about fifteen years old when he buried their bodies. For since within the years of Christ 211 and 217, within which Caracalla's reign is enclosed, that increase of St. Symphorian's age cannot be found, he could have believed that their martyrdom must on that account be thrown back to Heliogabalus. But the writer or interpolator of the Acts could easily have made mention of that succession too soon, because he was hastening to indicate the emperor under whom they had suffered; and that it was so done, what I subjoin persuades. In the same Acts it is also said that that emperor, himself residing in the Gauls, condemned St. Andochius with his companions; on which matter the Acts of St. Benignus, the poet, and the said chronicler also agree. But as this can fall upon Caracalla, so it cannot be said of Heliogabalus. For it is agreed that the latter was never in the Gauls; whereas of Caracalla, Spartianus writes in his Life: He made for Gaul; and as soon as he came into it, he killed the proconsul of Narbonne. Then, all who governed affairs in Gaul being thrown into confusion, he earned a tyrant's hatred, although he sometimes feigned himself kindly, though he was by nature savage.

[50] Wherefore, since they allege no reasons for Heliogabalus, but more probably under Caracalla. nothing compels us in this part to depart from the Acts, with Aurelian however changed to Aurelius, which the learned everywhere admit must be done here; although, as we have said, they understand another Aurelius. Tillemont, tom. 3 of the History of the Emperors, in Caracalla, art. 9, placed this journey of his into Gaul about the year of Christ 213; to about which if we refer the martyrdom of SS. Andochius and his companions, and tie their arrival in Gaul to the year 202 with Henschen in St. Andeolus, then also what is read about St. Symphorian's age in the Acts of our holy Martyrs will stand correctly. For let us suppose with the Acts that St. Symphorian was about three years old in the year 202, when he was baptized; he could have been about fifteen years old in the year 213, when he is narrated in the same Acts to have buried the Martyrs' bodies. I confess however that in Acts which are not original, emperors in whose times martyrs were crowned are often brought in as present, even though they were then far away; and therefore what is said in these of ours about the presence of Aurelian or Aurelius is not altogether certain. For the rest, I have judged that these Acts should be examined somewhat more fully, because the often-praised Peter Francis Chifflet valued them so highly as to believe that they were written by Faustus himself, the host of the same Saints; which, if he also excludes from them all interpolation, cannot in any way be admitted, as I think is abundantly established from what has been said.

[51] A church built at Sidolocus, and a monastery, That the bodies of the holy Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix were buried by Faustus and his son St. Symphorian, hastening by night to Sidolocus, where they had been put to martyrdom on the VIII Kalends of October, we have already said from the Acts; in which moreover it is added that the said St. Symphorian was wont to spend himself in vigils and prayers amid pious tears at their tomb, until he too obtained the palm of martyrdom. It can scarcely be doubted that, when it was permitted through Christian emperors, the Ædui also set a church over the tomb of their Apostles. I suspect this to be the one which Stephen the African, a presbyter of the VI century, mentions in the Life of St. Amator, bishop of Auxerre, who died when the V century was young. It is published among us at the day I of May, where at pag. 58, num. 27, St. Amator, on his way to Autun to obtain St. Germanus as his successor, when he had met on the road a thief with stolen goods, is said to have commanded him not to harm the thieves, but, having recovered his own property, to bring them to the church of SS. Andochius and Thyrsus and bind them by an oath not to steal in future. Hasten, he says, together to the tabernacle of the most blessed martyrs Andochius and Thyrsus, and there delay not to entangle them in the bonds of oaths, that they may promise not to attempt this crime further.

[52] which was afterward turned into a college of canons. That a monastery was also joined to it, called St. Andochius', we gather from the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, col. 441, the time of whose first foundation is unknown. Nevertheless the monastery of St. Andochius (say the learned Benedictine writers in the same place) at Sedelocus or Salvus-locus, Saulieu, already existed in the year DCCXXII, in which Widerad in his testament, or document of the foundation of Flavigny, styles himself abbot of this monastery. Mention is made of the same Charter in Labbe, in the Bibliotheca of manuscripts, tom. 1, pag. 269, where it is said: The testament of Widerad the abbot, son of Corbo, a most illustrious man, who governed the basilicas of St. Andochius of Sedelocus, of St. Regina of Alise, of St. Ferreolus, where they themselves rest in the body. The said writers of the Gallia Christiana add that that same monastery was, by a diploma of Charles the Bald, which they exhibit among the Instruments, in the year 843 made subject to the church of St. Nazarius of Autun, and at last, at the close of the twelfth century, converted into a college of secular canons, which consists of a dean, a provost, twelve prebends and several chaplains; and that at the same time the abbatial revenue was annexed to the episcopal one of Autun.

[53] The Martyrs' bodies were not by Queen Brunichild André du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology at this day, and from him Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, pag. 40, and Baillet, write that the sacred bones of these Martyrs were, by order of Brunichild, queen of Austrasia and Burgundy (Baillet adds, through Syagrius bishop of Autun), translated thence to Autun, and there laid in the convent of maidens which she had founded. To the same translation are perhaps to be referred the words which are read in the often-praised Gallia Christiana, col. 318: And there (at Sidolocus) their sacred remains long continued; but at last they were translated to Autun, and laid up in the nunnery of St. Andochius. With these agrees Augustin Lubin in the Roman Martyrology Illustrated, table 3 at the same day, where he says: Their bodies were laid up in the basilica built by Queen Brunichild, which even now is called St. Andochius'; where there is a famous convent of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict. Of the same monastery treat Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, tom. 1, at the year of Christ 589, num. 66, and the Gallia Christiana, tom. 4, col. 483 and following, where they teach that it was founded by Queen Brunichild and bishop Syagrius as a hospice and a monastery of men, over which from its very institution the abbot Senator presided; but that already before the middle of the ninth century it was inhabited by sacred virgins, and is so held even now. They praise also the letters of St. Gregory the Great, given both to Queen Brunichild herself and to the abbot Senator for the confirmation of this and other monasteries, which see in the newest Paris edition of the same holy Pontiff's Works by the Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maur, book 13 of the Register, letters 6 and 8; but in these no mention is made of St. Andochius or his companions.

[54] Hence it may be doubted whether that hospice or monastery was from its first foundation enriched with the sacred bones of SS. Andochius, translated to Autun to the nunnery of St. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, and called by the name of St. Andochius. The first point, if it be taken of their entire bodies, is absolutely denied by the anonymous writer of a French little Work on the Lives of the holy Patrons, martyrs and bishops of Autun, published at Dijon in the year 1713, who in part 2, pag. 34 and following, says these things: Monsieur du Saussay and some others have said that their relics, after they had rested at Sidolocus until about the end of the sixth century, were translated to Autun by the care of bishop Syagrius, and laid in the new abbey which Brunichild, queen of Austrasia and Burgundy, had lately founded, and which is called St. Andochius'. But these relics could not have been the body of these holy Martyrs: for the most illustrious Gabriel de Roquette, bishop of Autun, governing usefully and wisely the church which they founded, when in the year MDCLXXV, on their very feast-day, he had come to Sidolocus with a great retinue of priests and an unusual concourse of the people, took up the bodies of these three Saints from their ancient coffins, and laid them in an elegant chest which he himself gave, in which they are kept in three separate compartments.

[55] Thus far the anonymous writer; whose words however are not to be so taken but only the greatest portion of St. Andochius in the ninth century as though the bodies of all these three Martyrs remained always at Sidolocus entire, or at least for the greater part. For we learn the contrary from the charter of Jonas, bishop of Autun, in tom. 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the Instruments, col. 51 and following. By this charter the said Jonas, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLVIII, the XVIII of the most glorious and most serene king Charles, Indiction VII (read VI), and, as is added below, the XIII of the Kalends of June, giving many things to the aforesaid monastery of virgins, says among the rest: In the aforesaid estates and places, finally, whatever had formerly been conferred on that same venerable place by the faithful, we have taken care to assign to the uses of the handmaids of God; and if more shall be found there of the jurisdiction of the church committed to us, or perchance of our own right, for the love of the Almighty and the veneration of St. Andochius, WHOSE PATRONAGE HAS THERE BEEN BROUGHT BY US FOR THE GREATEST PART, we would yield it with most ready will, for the fitness of the same place, to its venerable inhabitants. From these words we have first, that what du Saussay and others after him asserted about the bones of SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix being translated from Sidolocus to the convent of maidens at Autun is not true, if indeed they meant to say this of their entire bodies or of the greater portion of them.

[56] We have secondly, that St. Andochius' body (for that is here designated by patronage) was for the greatest part brought thither by bishop Jonas a little after the middle of the ninth century; was laid there by bishop Jonas, and therefore that it rests at Sidolocus neither entire nor for the greater part, as the anonymous writer intimates; unless anyone should hold that the relics were afterward carried back from Autun to Sidolocus, which I have read asserted by no one. Moreover, since the said Jonas made mention of Andochius alone, it may be gathered that the relics of him alone, at least such notable ones, were laid by him in the said monastery. Of the other two mention is indeed made in the privilege of Charles the Bald, in which he confirmed the donations of Jonas, in the XIX year of his reign, Indiction VII, the XVIII of the Kalends of July, in the aforecited Work, col. 56 and following; but yet nothing is there read about relics, and the monastery is named from St. Andochius alone. Take king Charles' words: Jonas, venerable bishop of the church of the Ædui … presented to our view a certain privilege, … in which was contained inserted, how the same Jonas, touched by divine love, for the honor of God and the reverence of the blessed martyrs Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, taking charge of the nuns choosing the Regular life within the city of the Ædui in the monastery of St. Andochius, etc. It was possible therefore that some smaller portions also of the bones of SS. Thyrsus and Felix were there

kept, and perhaps laid there by Jonas himself at that time; nevertheless I have nowhere found that monastery distinguished by their name.

[57] from which time perhaps that monastery began to be called St. Andochius'. Further, from this translation of St. Andochius, made by bishop Jonas about the middle of the ninth century, the name of St. Andochius perhaps first clung to the aforesaid nunnery of Autun. Nor does the Flavigny Necrology stand against this suspicion, from which the writers of the Gallia Christiana, in asserting its restoration by Decia, sister of Widerad — who is said to have died about the middle of the eighth century — review at col. 483 the following: On the XII of the Kalends of November died Decia, sister of holy Widerad, who made (that is, restored, they say) the monastery of holy Andochius. It does not stand against it, I say, this Necrology: because, since it does not add in what place that monastery of St. Andochius stood, we can interpret it as well of the one at Sidolocus as of the one at Autun; and that we should interpret it rather of the one at Sidolocus is not a little favored by the fact that Decia's brother Widerad, the founder and perhaps abbot of the monastery of Flavigny, also governed the basilica of St. Andochius of Sedelocus, as was said at num. 52. For the rest, what remains at this time in either place of the relics of SS. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, and whether any of them were translated to other places, I have not learned from elsewhere.

[58] Their ecclesiastical Office at Autun and elsewhere. As for their cult otherwise, in the Æduan Breviary printed in the year 1534 an Office of them of triple rite with an Octave is prescribed on this day, the XXIV of September, which has its own antiphons and responsories. For the first day nine proper Lessons also, framed out of the Acts, are assigned; on the other days only an Office of three Lessons is read. But since from all these we learn nothing beyond what the Acts teach, I shall not report them here, except the Collect, which follows. O God of inestimable glory, who hast consecrated this day by the illustrious martyrdom of the blessed Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, grant us by their intervention so eagerly to persevere in thy service that we may deserve to be partakers of their eternal joy. Through our Lord, etc. Since I do not have the more recent Breviaries of the church of Autun, I cannot say whether, and what, was afterward changed in that old Office. In the Sens Breviary also of the year 1625 an Office of them of simple rite is prescribed on the same day, with three proper Lessons; in the Langres one of the year 1604, and the Paris one of the year 1736, likewise a simple one with a single proper Collect. Perhaps in other dioceses too some memory of them is kept, which there is neither leisure nor profit to inquire into here at greater length. Take, then, the Acts.

ACTS

By an anonymous author

From a very ancient manuscript codex of St. Benignus of Dijon.

Andochius, presbyter and martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

Thyrsus, deacon and martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

Felix, martyr, at Sidolocus in the territory of Autun in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 0424, 0426

By an anonymous author.

St. Irenæus appearing to Polycarp bids After the glorious Irenæus ^a, bishop and martyr, passed to heaven ^b, about the middle of the night, with terrible countenance yet peaceful of shade ^c, coming with a multitude of martyrs to holy Polycarp ^d, he said: Acknowledge thy son, whom thou hast instructed, father. Holy priest, acknowledge that Irenæus was thy minister. Behold, we have received the promise which the King of heaven and earth promised us. Our Redeemer has defrauded us of nothing of his promise. Hear, father, the words of thy son: send now two Presbyters, that is, Andochius and Benignus, and Thyrsus the deacon, to the cities of the Gauls, men full of virtues and wisdom, whom a like glorious triumph awaits: that, since but a few Christians have remained there, they may offer the grace of Baptism. For be it known to thee, most holy father, that that nation, by the Lord's inspiring, abundantly desires to serve Christ. As he spoke these things, even as he recognized him, so also the blessed Martyrs in another chamber heard him and saw him in their sleep. But when he had spoken these things in his holy discourse, again, chanting psalms and rejoicing, they returned to the heavens: in which chamber so great an odor of sweetness prevailed that they judged themselves to be set among the wondrous fragrances of paradise.

[2] And when morning was come, St. Polycarp addresses his Brethren, that SS. Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus be sent into the Gauls; reporting to them what had been done, and he bids them undertake the happy journey. And St. Andochius himself and Benignus and Thyrsus, doing what they are bidden, Christ strengthening them, filled with great joy at so holy a command of Christ, not slow in the precepts, having watched through the night, giving thanks to God with psalms and hymns []. St. Polycarp, leading them down to the little ship and bidding them farewell, said: May the Angel of the Lord accompany you; may the Holy Spirit be in your inmost parts. Great heavenly glory awaits you, O most pious Brethren. Preach the word of the Lord to the nations; announce to all the coming of Christ. O how beautiful are the feet of them that preach peace! You have many helpers and intercessors of yours, who cease not to entreat the Lord for you. Let not the harshness of the long journey trouble you, nor the remoteness of the region; nor let your heart congeal with longing for your kindred. Let not threats trouble you, nor the impiety of the most impious Cæsar. Let the word of blessed Paul the apostle be in your hearts: That the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which shall be revealed in the Saints.* Polycarp said: Bid us farewell, Brethren; and weeping he said to them: May the glory of paradise, and Christ before his tribunal, receive you bringing back the fruit of your labor, and may he join his Athletes together in that region of the happy and the just, where light abides and life reigns; where the blessed faith of the men of old shines out from the presence of his countenance with living brightness; where the throng nurtured of paradise and made white for heaven is enclosed.

[3] who, putting in at Marseilles, are directed thence to Lyons and to Autun And going aboard the little ship, the wave of the sea swiftly brought them to Marseilles ^e. So, having come ashore, they are directed to the city of the Lyonnese, and coming as far as St. Zacharias the presbyter ^f, who was hiding secretly in a crypt among the tombs of the martyrs; and meditating with him on the word of the Lord, and rejoicing and hoping in Christ that he would direct their steps, they are, at an angel's admonition, directed to the city of Autun ^g. There was at that time Faustus, a most noble man of prefectorian rank ^h, who beneath his cloak (because of the threats of the most iniquitous Cæsar) secretly worshipped Christ; and having heard of that blessed man's kindness and most full faith, they come to him at an angel's admonition. And when he had seen them, he received them as a heavenly treasure: and when he knew them to be presbyters, he humbly besought them that they would bestow on all his friends and household the grace of Baptism. So when the most wicked emperor Severus had died by the death which he sought and found ⁱ, and the yet more wicked Aurelian ^k succeeded — who, as he obtained the empire, so also obtained the malice of it — he orders that Christians everywhere alike, who had not sacrificed to the idols, worn down through the various provinces by various torments, be finished by sentence of the sword. But where faith is most full, it neither fears the hostile power nor stands in awe of threats.

[4] they come, where they baptize Faustus' son and others; Benignus with Andochius The illustrious man Faustus had at that time a son of about three years, by name Symphorian ^l; and he humbly besought them that they would consecrate him too with the grace of Baptism. And they rejoicing, St. Benignus baptized him, and Andochius received him from the sacred font. This Symphorian, filled with the Holy Spirit, when he was nearly twenty years old, deserved to receive the glorious and unfading crown of martyrdom; and he always shone forth in virtues by manifest proof. Lately ^m indeed, at that very time, all the friends and household of the house of Faustus obtained the grace of Baptism through these most blessed Martyrs. There was in them the wondrous power of Christ; they poured light into the eyes of the blind, they drove demons out of possessed bodies, they restored health to the limbs of the feeble. Now the illustrious man Faustus had a sister of his own blood, a matron of the city of Langres ⁿ, by name Leonilla ^o, whose little grandsons by her son were three twin-born, men most beautiful in aspect, more beautiful in mind; that is, Josephus and Eleusepphus and Melasippus, whom she instructed in the divine letters. There was in them full grace, but there was none to offer them the washing of baptism.

[5] setting out for Langres, baptizes St. Leonilla's household. Then that most excellent man sent St. Benignus the presbyter to his sister like a precious pearl or a heavenly gift; and Leonilla received him like heavenly manna or a shining pearl. When he had been received, these three twin-born brothers obtained the grace of Baptism. And they, having received the Holy Spirit, when they were twenty-five years old, were seized by the persecutors. It is long to relate how great a punishment they endured; but they receive the victorious crown. These follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, whom the purity of the Lamb himself crowned with signal gems; which their Passion has declared more fully [p]. This matron likewise consecrated all of the house, of either sex, condition and age, with the grace of Baptism through St. Benignus. The faithful of that most faithful house rejoiced in Christ; an unwavering and most full faith was strengthened in them. Now the most iniquitous Cæsar Aurelian [q] was stationed in the farthest parts of the Gauls, and coming to the city of Sens [r], sentence was given by him to all the officials of the place, that those who professed themselves Christians should be worn down by various torments and delivered over to tortures; and whosoever shall not have sacrificed to our gods, we order them to be finished by sentence of the sword and of capital punishment [s].

[6] Now there was an estate of a most noble man, whose name is Sedelocus [t]. Andochius, Thyrsus and Felix, seized at Sidolocus, While SS. Andochius and Thyrsus were coming boldly to the aforesaid house, which is on the public highway, and by their preaching were thoroughly teaching all men unto salvation, a certain merchant residing there, by name Felix [u], already a Christian, a man of the East, whose trade was daily paid out to the poor, received St. Andochius the presbyter and Thyrsus the deacon into his service [*]. And when they were showing themselves to the people by virtues in manifest delivery, suddenly the emperor Aurelian, coming from the city of Sens, when he had approached the aforesaid house, ordered his tents to be pitched. One doorkeeper of the most cruel Cæsar, when he had entered Felix' lodging, found SS. Andochius and Thyrsus preaching the word of Christ: coming back raging, he announced that Christians were staying in the house of Felix. Hearing which, after the manner of his own fury he ordered them to be presented in his sight. Felix said to Andochius: Suffer me not to be separated from the crown of thy piety, which thou art to receive from Christ, Father; but, helped by your prayers, bring me likewise to the precious crown of your martyrdom. And prayer being made, they go forth undaunted [x]. With their hands bound behind their backs, they were led into the sight of the most iniquitous Cæsar.

[7] To whom Aurelian said: Of what region are you men? and, having confessed Christ before the emperor, or what is your name? or what God do you wish to worship? St. Andochius said: We are men of the East

sent by our holy father Polycarp the bishop. We worship Christ, the founder of heaven, sea and earth, and of the things that are in them. My name is Andochius, my brothers' Thyrsus and Felix. Aurelian said: Have you come over so long a space of journey to provoke our power and that of our gods and goddesses? Andochius said: We have come admonished by Christ, whose word uncorrupted we preach to the nations. Aurelian said: Have you not learned, in your own regions or in this province, what the authorities of the emperors our predecessors and our own have decreed — that those who shall not have sacrificed to our gods, afflicted with various torments, we order to be finished by sentence of the sword? St. Andochius said: It is unlawful to forsake God the founder, and to worship stones and wood, dumb and deaf idols. Aurelian said: Dost thou say that the unconquered Jupiter, and Mercury, and Saturn are dumb and deaf? Andochius said: Those whom thou namest are proved by manifest tokens to be demons; for their forms are seen to be without sight, without step, without touch.

[8] Aurelian said: Sacrifice to our gods, that, rewarded from the public treasury, they are beaten, and hung from a tree with their hands turned backward; I may appoint you first in my palace; and that you may not die wretchedly for your Christ, who was crucified by men. At this word these three cried out and said: Let thy gold and thy silver be with thee in perdition, ravening wolf; for thou believest that thou canst supplant the gift of God by money. We would rather die for Christ than withdraw from him, where the just shine forth in the kingdom of heaven more than the sun; and there shall be for them there eternal light and immortal life, and there shall be given them there what neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath it ascended into the heart of man, which God hath prepared for them that love him. For those who serve thy gods shall go into the outer darkness, into unquenchable fire [*], which he hath prepared for thy father the devil and his angels. There shall be their weeping and gnashing of teeth; they shall long for the light, and shall not see it. For if thou wilt believe in Christ, thou shalt not enter therein. Then the most iniquitous Cæsar delivered them to the torturers, saying: Unless they sacrifice this day, afflict them with various punishments. Then the blessed Martyrs, having been beaten [y], are hung up together on a certain elm with their hands turned backward, and wheels filled with stones are bound to their feet.

[9] taken down from it, and steadfast in the faith And while they had endured so great a punishment the whole day, they chanted psalms, saying: O God, come unto our help; O Lord, make haste to help us. And yet they were so whole as though they had not received a single stripe. After these things the most iniquitous Cæsar ordered them on the morrow to be presented to him, and said: Sacrifice to our gods, you who for your disobedience have endured such punishment. They answered him, saying: Know, wretch, that thy threats and torments furnish us refreshment. Beaten, we did not deny the Author of light; hung up, we always confessed Christ. Look upon us; unharmed we stand before the sight of our God; because our Christ, whom thou deniest, has promised always to guard his servants. But Aurelian, hearing these things, ordered a fire to be prepared; and the fire being kindled, he said: Either sacrifice to the gods, or I will order you to be cast into the fire with hands and feet bound. To this all three, crying out with one voice and one consent, said: Behold the flesh, which thou hast for a time in thy power. Do what the devil shall have dictated to thy malice; strike, kill, roast, and eat; for thou dost not change us from the confession of Christ, who is also to wipe away thy perfidy.

[10] they endure the fire unharmed, and at last And the fire being kindled, he ordered them to be cast into the fire with hands and feet bound: and, in no way harmed [] by all the burning of the fire, their bonds loosed, standing firm in the faith, they chanted psalms in the midst of the fire, saying: Thou hast proved us, O God, thou hast tried us by fire, as silver is tried: we have passed through fire and water, and thou hast brought us out into refreshment.* While these things are done, so great a heavenly flashing roared, and a shower of rain came down upon the fire, that no one would have judged that a fire had been kindled there. And so undaunted and delivered they stood in the sight of Aurelian, saying: Know us, wretch; see how great is the power of Christ. Thou seest us meet thee again unharmed in thy presence. Believe in Christ, and thou shalt not fear the constraint of that last day; for as much as man is careless in transgressing, so much is the mercy of the Lord rich in forgiving. Aurelian said: Our gods come to your aid; and you say that you have been defended by Christ's help. Andochius said: Thou hast a heart of stone, that thou believest not in the Creator of heaven and earth, nor in his wonders.

[11] [their necks being struck with bars, they expire, and are buried by Faustus and St. Symphorian.] Then the most impious Cæsar, after the manner of his fury, ordered their necks likewise to be struck with bars, that so they might end a precious and splendid temporal life, being about to receive the joys of eternity and an unfading crown. These things were done concerning the holy Martyrs of God, that is, Andochius the presbyter and Thyrsus the deacon and Felix, on the eighth of the Kalends of October [z]. After this the emperor Aurelian is directed to the city of Autun. But Faustus, hearing that the devil had done such things through the emperor Aurelian against the Saints of God on his own estate, coming by night with his son Symphorian, who was then already about fifteen years old [aa], laid the holy Martyrs of God in tombs, where daily the wondrous power of the Lord is declared. There St. Symphorian, pouring forth tears, spending himself in vigils and prayers, would not be removed from that place [bb]; until, by the help of Christ's grace, perfected in the grace of God and clothed with the breastplate of faith, he hastened to the crown of martyrdom, which he also deserved to receive, by the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and praise and glory and power with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. See what I have noted from this passage also against the antiquity of the Acts which I here publish, in the Commentary, num. 18.

q. That Aurelius should here be substituted in Aurelian's place, almost all the learned agree; but some understand M. Aurelius Antoninus surnamed the Philosopher, another Heliogabalus, another Caracalla; which last we have said is more conformable to the Acts in the Commentary, which consult at num. 48 and the two following.

r. Sens, an ancient city of Gaul, the chief city of the nation of the Senones, once also called Agendicum, now in French Sens, situated on the river Yonne, illustrious for its archbishopric and its antiquity. Further, that M. Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla was in the Gauls about the year of Christ 213, as Tillemont judges, I said in the preliminary Commentary, num. 50; but whether he was at Sens and there published some edict against the Christians, I would not dare to assert. See what is said in the place cited.

s. These, as it were the words of an edict, the biographer recites — a writer of small authority with me.

t. Consult the Commentary, num. 7 and 8.

u. The Venerable Bede, and others cited at num. 2, 3 and 4 in the Commentary, said that this St. Felix was sent into the Gauls together with the rest by St. Polycarp. See what is said in the same place.

x. Du Saussay

in the Gallican Martyrology — I know not whether from other Acts or from his own judgment — everywhere substitutes a governor for the emperor, and says that St. Felix' house, when he had refused to hand over the Saints, was broken into by force, and that so they were captured, and that Felix followed them of his own accord.

y. Tillemont, tom. 3 of the Monumenta ecclesiastica, pag. 39, observes that in Bede's Martyrology it is read that they were beaten with scourges, which he denies is read in his own manuscript. I confess that in our manuscripts no mention is made of scourges either; but they are nevertheless said in all of them to have been beaten. The same Bede in the same place, and those who followed him, Ado and Usuard, presently read, for in ulmum ("on an elm"), in ultimo ("at the last"); but wrongly, as is clear from the context.

z. That these things perhaps happened about the year of Christ 213, I have said in the preliminary Commentary, num. 49 and 50.

aa. In another copy, that of Acinctum, it is read about twenty-five years old; but the error is manifest, since in the same copy St. Symphorian is also said to have undergone martyrdom when he was nearly twenty years old.

bb. In the manuscript just praised there is here added: Now the most noble man Faustus composed and wrote the Passion of the blessed Martyrs, with God's help, to the praise of him to whom be honor and glory and power with his Saints now and always, and unto all the ages of ages. Amen. But see the Commentary, §2.

* nay, they give (thanks)

* his, that is, God's

* al. into his lodging

* al. unquenchable fire

* i.e. having suffered