Rusticus

ON ST. RUSTICUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,

AT CLERMONT IN GAUL.

About the middle of the fifth century.

COMMENTARY

His memory in the ancient and the more recent calendars; his deeds, partly certain from St. Gregory of Tours, partly doubtful from others; his cult.

Rusticus, bishop and confessor, at Clermont in Gaul (S.)

BY J. P.

At Clermont, which is a city of Gaul and the capital of the province of the same name, now called Clarus-Mons, commonly Clermont, St. Rusticus is celebrated and announced at this day in many Martyrologies, and those of no mean note, The Saint's name inserted in the ancient calendars — among the inhabitants St. Rotiry. Among those which are distinguished by St. Jerome's name, there occurs first the Corbie one, published under the title of "most ancient" by d'Achery, tom. 4 of the Spicilegium, edition of the year 1661, and it has thus: At Clermont, the deposition of holy Rusticus the bishop; the Augsburg one, which stands among the Abridgments among us at the end of tom. VII of June: At Clermont, of Rusticus the bishop; the little Barberini one, of which, and of the two next to be cited, we keep manuscript copies, and about whose value Sollier may be consulted in the Preface to Usuard: At Clermont, the deposition of St. Rusticus the bishop; the manuscript of St. Cyriacus: Elsewhere, the deposition of St. Rusticus the bishop; likewise the Cassinese manuscript: Of Rusticus the bishop; the very ancient Gellone one, closely akin to the Hieronymian, in the said d'Achery, tom. 13: At Clermont, of Rusticus the bishop. In the older Lucca one, and in the Epternach or most ancient St. Willibrord one of the Hieronymian family, published by Florentinius, the announcement is the same which I gave from d'Achery's Corbie one, except that in the Epternach one the word Sancti is omitted. Now the same Florentinius thinks that the announcement of St. Rusticus flowed from the antiquarian records of Gallic writers, and hence came into the Hieronymian calendars, and for that reason he printed it in another type, as he is accustomed when he separates additions from the genuine text. To this opinion I readily assent, both because St. Jerome, if indeed he really be the author of the calendars which pass under his name, does not seem to have outlived our Saint, and because the latter is not commemorated in the genuine Martyrologies of Bede, Ado, Usuard and other ancients.

[2] The Martyrology bearing Bede's name, printed by the Plantin press in the year 1564, does indeed have St. Rusticus; in today's Roman one and in the more recent. but Henschen and Papebroch, in their far more correct edition before tom. 2 of March, struck him out and placed him among the added ones: the same did Sollier in Usuard, in whose Supplements our Saint is very frequent, as the curious reader may see there: for it would be long, and less useful, to review here the several codices or to report their words, in nearly all the same as those cited in the preceding number, if you except this one thing, that in most of them the title of confessor is added. That title is likewise attributed to him by Galesini, and by the most eminent Baronius in today's Roman Martyrology, whose announcement is this: At Clermont, the deposition of holy Rusticus, bishop and confessor. I pass over other more recent martyrologists, especially the Gallic ones, who vie in celebrating St. Rusticus on this day, and among these du Saussay with a longer eulogy, which I shall use below.

[3] His deeds, which do not rest on the testimony However famous the Saint's name was from ancient times, as what has been brought forward so far bids me believe, yet few things, and those not fully proved, have become known about his deeds, apart from the wonderful election to the episcopate, presently to be reported from St. Gregory of Tours. Jacques Branche, in his French Work on the Lives of the Saints of Auvergne, printed in the year 1652, begins his deeds in nearly these words: St. Rusticus, who never showed anything of rusticity, was born in the city of Clermont, of the senatorial order of Auvergne, while Honorius was reigning. And as he was noble by descent, so also he was furnished with all the endowments which can ennoble a mind: for he knew the divine and human sciences perfectly, and was adorned with such lofty virtues that these both won him the title of saint and made him a bishop out of a senator. He made so little of the world's excellences and pomps that, in order the more easily to withdraw from them, as soon as he had reached the due age he was made a priest, and that he might the better apply himself to the exercise of good works and the salvation of his neighbor, he undertook the pastoral care of the village of Aulnat. God, aware of his fervor, not long after committed to him a charge suited to his desire. Thus far the said author, presently adding also in French what St. Gregory of Tours narrates about the Saint's election to the episcopate, book 2, chapter 13 of the History of the Franks, and which I shall here transcribe in Gregory's own Latin words from Théodoric Ruinart's edition.

[4] of St. Gregory of Tours, Gregory first praises St. Venerandus, St. Rusticus' predecessor, and then goes on thus: He is reported to have passed away on the very vigil of the Lord's birth. And when morning was come, the procession of the solemnity was the service of his funeral: after whose death a foul contention [] over the episcopate was stirred among the citizens. And when the parties, divided among themselves, wished to raise up now one and now another, there was a great clashing among the peoples. But as the bishops were sitting on the Lord's day, a certain woman, veiled and vowed to God, boldly enters in to them, and says: Hear me, priests of the Lord. For know that God's good pleasure is not in those whom these men have chosen for the priesthood. For behold, the Lord himself will today provide himself a bishop. Therefore do not trouble nor bring the people to blows, but be patient a little while: for the Lord is even now directing him who shall govern this church. And while they wondered at these words, suddenly one Rusticus by name, who was a presbyter of the diocese of that same city of Clermont, arrived: for he had already been pointed out to the woman by a vision. Seeing whom, she said: Behold him whom the Lord has chosen: behold what a bishop the Lord has appointed for you: let him be ordained bishop. As she said these things, all the people, laying aside all contention, cried out that it was worthy and just. And he, placed in the chair, received the honor of the pontificate, seventh in that same place, the people rejoicing.* Besides these things Gregory reports nothing of the Saint's deeds.

[5] Branche adds: He was received and consecrated with the applause of the whole region in the year CDXXIII, most are doubtful; some things while Theodosius the second was emperor and Pharamond the first king of the Franks was reigning: he bore himself most worthily in the exercise of his charge, and when he had led an altogether holy life, he died on the twenty-fourth day of September; his body was laid at Aulnat, over which he had presided as pastor. Now the said author cites as witnesses of his History Gregory of Tours, Surius, the Clermont Breviary, the Roman and the Gallican Martyrologies, Pietro de' Natali, Savaron, and Baronius' annotations at the day XXIV of September. All these lucubrations I have consulted, except only the Clermont Breviary, which is not at hand — nay, also Tillemont's Monumenta Ecclesiastica, Baillet's Lives of the Saints, the Clermont bishops of Claude Robert, of the brothers Sainte-Marthe and of Denis de Sainte-Marthe, in the places where there is discussion of St. Rusticus; nor could I elicit anything thence by which to confirm the nobility of birth and the senatorial order attributed to him by Branche; wherefore I reckon these among the things not fully proved, and I suspect besides that there was applied to St. Rusticus what St. Gregory asserts in the same chapter of St. Venerandus, saying: Venerandus is ordained bishop from among the senators.

[6] That St. Rusticus was by birth of Auvergne or of Clermont reported by more recent writers other more recent authors also relate, treating of him at somewhat greater length, and it is altogether likely, although St. Gregory only says that he was a presbyter of the diocese of Clermont; but what Branche writes, that he was born while Honorius was reigning, taken in a strict sense, cannot so easily be reconciled with what he relates of his presbyterate and episcopate; for he says that the priesthood was received by him as soon as he had reached the due age, and the episcopate in the year 423; but the due age for the priesthood in those first centuries, as Thomassin contends, tom. 1, book 2, chapter 67 of the Ancient and New Discipline of the Church, was the thirty-fifth or at any rate the thirtieth year from birth: and accordingly either the Saint was born before the reign of Honorius, whose beginning is everywhere set in the year 395, or he was raised to the episcopate after the year 423, since otherwise he would not yet have attained the due age for receiving the priesthood, much less for the episcopate.

[7] Branche's assertion about St. Rusticus' pastoral charge agrees well enough with the words of St. Gregory of Tours, are set forth and in it more recent writers also agree, who everywhere call the place Alnatum or Aulnatum. The year of his entering on the episcopate Baillet designates the same as Branche; but Tillemont, tom. 15 of the Monumenta, pag. 410, places St. Venerandus' death and consequently St. Rusticus' election about 410; but no testimony is produced confirming either opinion, no ancient monument from which you could elicit one determinate year in which he occupied the see, none finally from which you might learn even a single deed of the Saint not reported by St. Gregory. At first sight indeed, when I consulted Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 2 of the Gallia Christiana, col. 230, treating of our Saint, I thought I had found something there alleged from Mabillon, book 4 of the De Re Diplomatica, in the Notes on table 19; but when I attended to the chronological notes, I clearly ascertained that the dedication of the church of St. Vincentianus there mentioned does not belong to the fifth century but to the seventh, and that the Rusticus there named was not a bishop of Clermont, as by a copyist's error perhaps is read in Mabillon, but of Limoges, as is expressly and repeatedly written in Le Cointe, cited by Mabillon, in the Annals at the year 667. Sainte-Marthe afterward noticed, unless I am mistaken, the error lurking in Mabillon's Work; since in the same tom. 2, col. 505, he numbers Rusticus among the bishops of Limoges and judges that he should be placed, following Le Cointe, at the said year 667.

[8] and discussed. Most writers set our Saint eighth among the bishops of Clermont, although he is called only the seventh by St. Gregory, inasmuch as the latter indeed acknowledged Stremonius or Austremonius as the first, but began the count of them from his successor, as is clear from his words in book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 39, which I subjoin: But among the people of Clermont, after Stremonius the bishop and preacher, the first bishop was Urbicus: then, when some of his deeds have been narrated, in whose place, he says, bishop Legonus is substituted; and when he died, holy Hillidius succeeded… To him holy Nepotianus succeeded. Then in chapter 41 he begins thus: And so among the people of Clermont holy Nepotianus was reckoned the fourth bishop. Namely by the same reckoning by which he had called Urbicus the first, he called Nepotianus the fourth, and Rusticus the seventh. Further, as most of his deeds, and perhaps all upon which Gregory did not shed light, have remained wrapped in darkness, so also it is hidden how long he occupied the see of Clermont, and in what year he died. For my part, dismissing the conjectures of others, I have broadly fixed his death about the middle of the fifth century, because St. Sidonius Apollinaris, whose Acts we illustrated in tom. IV of August, received the insignia of the episcopate of Clermont about the year 472, and between him and St. Rusticus, on Gregory's witness, two occupied the same see: Namatius, whom from the same Gregory it is established was bishop more than twelve years, and Eparchius, the duration of whose see is also unascertained.

[9] The place of burial and the cult. That the Saint died on the day XXIV of September is the common opinion, confirmed by the authority of the ancient calendars, as we have seen above; that he was buried in the village of Aulnat, John Savaron also writes in his Origines Claromontanæ, published from the press in the year 1607, pag. 124. Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology adds that this was done by the Saint's own command: His body, he says, was not buried in the mother church, but by his command (since the great Man desired a humble situation) it was carried back to Aulnat and there laid up: and so he holds a perpetual guardianship before God over this place, of which while he lived he took special care. Of the relics both he and all the others cited hitherto are silent, so that we do not know whether any exist at the present day, and whether the Saint's festival is celebrated there with a more solemn cult than in the cathedral of Clermont itself, where on the day XXIV of September an Office of him is recited with semidouble rite; as I learn from a manuscript list of the proper feasts of that same church, and likewise from a manuscript Order of the divine Office for the year 1656. Besides, du Saussay celebrates two festal days of the Saint, namely the XXIV of November in the following words: At Clermont of Auvergne, the translation of holy Rusticus the bishop, whose birthday is famous on the fourteenth [] day of September: and the XXX of December in these: Likewise at Clermont, the ordination of holy Rusticus the bishop, whom the Holy Spirit destined for this pontificate with an illustrious commendation, and, filled with the manifold gift of grace, illustrated and heaped with the insignia of divine glory.* From what has been said before we sufficiently gather what ordination du Saussay here commemorates, and likewise what translation; that one without doubt by which his body was laid at Aulnat: but we doubt whether either is recalled yearly: certainly nothing of this kind occurs in the manuscripts just praised, nothing in the authors we have seen.

* i.e. contention

* nay, the twenty-fourth