ON ST. CERAUNIUS, OR CERAUNUS, BISHOP OF PARIS,
IN GAUL
Between 601 and 625.
COMMENTARY.
The virtues of the Saint known in a general way; the time of his episcopate; his memory in the more recent Fasti; the place of his burial; his relics and cult.
Ceraunius or Ceraunus, bishop of Paris in Gaul. (S.)
BY J. P.
The care and solicitude of this holy Prelate in collecting the Acts of other Saints alone brought it about The Saint, whose virtues are known in a general way that his own excellent virtues, at least in a general way, became known to posterity. For antiquity has left us nothing of his deeds except the Epistle which Warnaharius, a clerk, as is believed, of the church of Langres, prefixed by way of a prologue to the Acts of the holy Triplets, written down at his bidding, and from which many things concerning the excellence and virtues of the Man are set forth in few words to be understood. It runs thus: To the holy one, and by me to be preferred for the summit of the pontificate, the lord Ceraunius, pope, Warnaharius sends greeting. Not ceasing assiduously to be equaled in merits with the chief persons of the most blessed bishops, hastening daily to be adorned in all thy priestly converse with holy religion, thou hast traversed all doctrines by thy zeal for reading the divine Letters: now, for the love of religion, thou devoutly settest thyself to gather in the city of Paris the deeds of the holy Martyrs, to the heaping up of thy praise. Whence thou art to be made equal to holy Eusebius of Caesarea in the zeal of emulation, and to be perpetually remembered with a like gift of glory.
[2] Pardon our unskillfulness, since we are not able to praise thee as greatly as thou wouldst deserve to be preferred in the heart, if eloquence came to our aid. from the epistle of a contemporary writer, The deeds of the holy Twins, who in the suburb of the city of Langres obtained the precious consummation of martyrdom, and of the most blessed Desiderius, martyr and bishop of that city, as thou hast with zeal of devotion commanded, so most eagerly do thou acknowledge me in the obedience of service. So he in our work, tom. 2 of January, p. 76, where the Acts of the holy triplet martyrs Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus are illustrated; and Bolland warns in the Annotations that wrongly here and in many Martyrologies Eusebius of Caesarea, bishop, is called a Saint, who, although he did not ill deserve of the Church in writing down the deeds of the Saints, was nevertheless a champion of the Arian heresy. If anyone desires this question treated at greater length, let him go to Papebroch, tom. IV of June, p. 75; to Sollier in his Observation on the twenty-first of June in the Martyrology of Usuard; and to the other authors named by them. This chiefly pertains to our purpose, that, although Warnaharius was deceived about Eusebius, a bishop of a far distant region and dead at least three centuries before he himself flourished; although here and there he strayed from the right path in narrating the Acts of the aforesaid holy Martyrs, whose passion some refer to the third century, others to the second, whereas he wrote only at the beginning of the seventh; that, I say, for that reason the praises which he attributes to the contemporary and very well known bishop Ceraunius ought not to be called in doubt, and which the cult afterward shown to the same Saint confirmed.
[3] he was bishop at Paris, The time at which both our Saint and he himself flourished Warnaharius nowhere discloses; yet the more recent writers most probably extract it from the series of the bishops of Paris, in all whose catalogues that I have seen St. Ceraunius is placed as the twenty-fifth in order, and between Simplicius and Leudebert. That Simplicius sat at the beginning of the seventh century they prove from the letter of St. Gregory the Great in the year 601, written to commend the monks setting out for England, addressed both to other bishops of the Franks and by name to Simplicius, bishop at Paris. And that Leudebert presided over the same church about the year 625 they show from the synod of Reims, at which, according to Flodoard, book 2 of the History of Reims, chapter 5, together with several other bishops Leudebert of Paris was present. Hence most probably, as I was saying, nay, unless the aforesaid catalogues deceive, without danger of error, more recent writers everywhere place the episcopate of St. Ceraunius between the years 601 and 625, in the reign of Clothar the second. Most add that he was present at the council which was celebrated by seventy-nine bishops at Paris about the year 614, but whose subscriptions have perished. This, however, is not so indubitable to me, since we do not know how long Simplicius held the episcopate, or when Leudebert began to sit.
[4] where he is believed also to have celebrated a council, between 601 and 625 Warnaharius indeed wrote in such a manner that it may be conjectured that Ceraunius was bishop for no short time; but suppose for a moment that Simplicius was present at the council of Paris: for the episcopate of St. Ceraunius there will be sufficient space from the year 614 to 625. Suppose on the contrary that Leudebert was present at the same council: no less sufficient will be the space for Ceraunius between the years 601 and 614. This indeed I do not observe because I wish to gainsay that opinion which I myself believe most probable, but because I do not know why some, from conjectures only, however probable on every side, assert without doubt that Ceraunius certainly was present at the council. I should certainly prefer, while indubitable testimonies are wanting, to use the words of the authors of the Gallia Christiana, both the new and the old: As it seems; or at most to imitate Le Cointe, writing of that council at the year 614, num. 36: We believe that there then sat at Paris saint Cerannus, or Ceraunus, or Ceraunius, who is declared by many to be the successor of Simplicius and the predecessor of Leudebert; nor do we think that those are to be heard by whom he is reported to have been a contemporary of Dagobert the third, king.
[5] The aforesaid annalist does not declare whose opinion he disapproves in the latter words: not about the year 717, as is somewhere wrongly noted. perhaps among them he numbered Jacques du Breul, or rather the author of the catalogue of the bishops of Paris which du Breul sets forth in book 1 of his Theater of the Antiquities of Paris, and in which these things are read, p. 64: XXV, saint Cerannus: he flourished in the time of Dagobert II, king of the Franks, in the year of salvation 717. But that error is so gross that it seems to be attributed rather to an unskilled copyist or an imprudent interpolator than to an author, even one imbued with a slight knowledge of chronology. For in this, as in the other catalogues, he is not only set as twenty-fifth in order and midway between Simplicius the twenty-fourth and Leudebert the twenty-sixth, whose age has already been assigned; but there also presently follow Audebert the twenty-seventh and St. Landericus the twenty-eighth, who are both there expressly said to have sat in the time of Clovis II, son of King Dagobert, namely the first of that name; whom Clovis the second succeeded in the year 638, and died about 656. And that in his reign Audobert and Landericus were bishops at Paris has been proved both by others and by us at the tenth day of the month of June, on which Landericus is venerated. Believe therefore, if you please, that through a copyist's carelessness there crept into the cited place of du Breul's catalogue first Dagobert the second for Clothar the second, and then that the year 717 was added by another imprudent corrector or interpolator. But he is the more to be blamed in this, that he did not attend to the chronological notes in the successors of St. Ceraunius, especially Audobert and Landericus, occurring at once in the same catalogue and plainly forbidding that the episcopate of St. Ceraunius be deferred to the eighth century, than that he thought Dagobert, who reigned at the beginning of the eighth century until the year 716, to have been the second of that name, although he was in truth the third. For Dagobert, the son of St. Sigebert king of Austrasia, who truly was the second of that name, and obtained his father's kingdom in the year 675 and held it until 680, was for many centuries unknown to the French, even the more learned.
[6] From the source already given, namely the elogium of Warnaharius, have flowed whatever things are related in the lucubrations of more recent writers concerning the Saint while he lived among men; His name inserted in the Auctaria of Usuard certainly I have found no other source hitherto assigned, and for that reason, if anything be read in those lucubrations which is not consonant with the said elogium, or exceeds its limits, I judge that it is to be admitted only as doubtful or proceeding from conjectures. All the genuine Martyrologies of the ancients are silent concerning our Saint. Du Breul, or the author or interpolator of the Catalogue of the bishops of Paris, adds to the words cited in the preceding number these: His body was buried in the monastery of St. Genevieve on the twenty-seventh of September, as is established from a manuscript Martyrology of the library of St. Victor at Paris; but the Martyrology cited is only an Auctarium of Usuard, of which we have some extracts with this admonition of Henschen prefixed: The Paris Usuard, manuscript of St. Victor, and the printed one of Molanus, compared with a manuscript of the most serene queen of Sweden. Now among those extracts of the month of September the memory of St. Ceraunius is indeed not set down; but I do not doubt that it is found in the codex itself: Henschen perhaps omitted it, because it sufficed to have it in the edition of Molanus, where it is conceived in these words: On the same day (the twenty-seventh of September), of saint Ceraunus, confessor and bishop of the city of the Parisians. The same stands plainly in the Auctarium of Usuard prepared by Munerat and printed at Paris in the years 1490 and 1536, and thence I the more conjecture that it stands in no other words in the Victorine codex, which Munerat was able to consult.
[7] and in some sacred Fasti of more recent writers. It is not ascertained by me of what age is the aforesaid Martyrology of St. Victor, but that it is certainly not older than the twelfth century the announcement of the twenty-ninth of April at the end discloses: At Cluny, the passing of St. Hugh the abbot: for Hugh, the sixth abbot of Cluny, died only in the year 1109. Wherefore, even if, as is asserted in du Breul, it were read in that Martyrology that the Saint was entombed on the twenty-seventh day of September, it would not thence certainly be established that this is the day of his deposition, since similar things are sometimes added by more recent writers because on such a day the yearly festival of the Saints is celebrated. Further, in the aforesaid manuscript transcript of the enlarged Usuard of the queen of Sweden the memory of the Saint is likewise celebrated, but with the name somewhat corrupted and at the thirtieth day of September, as follows: On the same day, of St. Serannus, bishop of Paris. The other martyrologists, whose elogia, some longer than others for the reasons indicated above, we do not copy out, have constantly held the twenty-seventh day — Galesinius by name, Ferrarius, Saussay, Castellanus, and the author of the Paris Martyrology — and the same day all other writers everywhere assign as proper to his cult, as will presently be seen.
[8] He was buried in the crypt of St. Genevieve; What is asserted in du Breul concerning the place of his burial, from the Martyrology of St. Victor, has likewise been received by common consent. Now that place was at first a cemetery, situated outside the walls of the city, and there afterward a church was begun by Clovis the first, king of the Franks, and completed by his holy consort queen Clotilda, in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, which afterward, on account of the miracles of St. Genevieve the virgin buried there, took on the name of the same holy virgin, and retains it until now, together with the most celebrated abbey of Canons Regular. In the crypt of the said church, which to this day
is contained within the circuit of the city, there are seen even now, according to du Breul, book 2, p. 269, of the Work cited above, three stone sepulchers: the middle one that of St. Genevieve, one at the side that of Prudentius, the eighth in order of the bishops of the Parisians, the other that of St. Ceraunius, the twenty-fifth in order, who was afterward enrolled in the number of the Saints, and whose bones were laid in a gilded case, and whose solemn festival is kept on the twenty-seventh of September. And his help is invoked, as the same du Breul asserts, against toothache, as is clear from the little verses which are read carved beneath his image, placed in the same crypt, and are sung in the church on his very feast day:
He brings a remedy to the sick, and solace to the sorrowful: The huge evil of the teeth, tormenting the mouths of the nations, he freely appeases.
[9] where his tomb is seen even today, After du Breul had written these things — for his Work came forth in the year 1612 — the aforesaid sepulcher of St. Ceraunius was changed in its position, yet left in the crypt; as the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana relate, tom. 7, col. 23, writing in this manner: Ceraunius, having died, is buried on the twenty-seventh day of September in the church of saint Genevieve. His tomb was afterward translated to the right of the tomb of St. Genevieve in the crypt of this church, as is clear from the inscription then set upon the tomb, in these words: “The tomb of St. Ceraunus, bishop of Paris, who after the year of Christ 600, in the reign of Clothar II, held the chair; from which the sacred relics were of old raised; was translated to this place in the year 1628.” These things about the tomb I think have been so studiously observed because it is held in the highest esteem among the Parisians, and access to it for pious visiting lies open every year on the feast day: At St. Genevieve's, so run the words of Baillet in his Lives of the Saints at the twenty-seventh of September, on this day a solemn feast is held, where both his (St. Ceraunius's) tomb is visited and the case is exposed in which his relics have been laid. The same things are briefly noted in the Paris spiritual Calendar (Almanach spirituel de Paris) of the year 1712 at the same day, as follows: Of St. Ceraunius, bishop of Paris. At St. Genevieve of the Mount, a solemnity; his shrine and his tomb.
[10] In that tomb, if I sufficiently grasp the sense of the third Lesson of the Office presently to be mentioned, and in that church his relics enclosed in a silver case. the sacred remains of St. Ceraunius lay until the thirteenth century: I copy out the words: But his body, already raised in the thirteenth century, was solemnly laid up in a shrine on the sixteenth Kalends of December, on which day his translation is celebrated at St. Genevieve's. And the place of the church into which they were carried, and in which most probably they exist even today, the authors of the Gallia Christiana denote in the said tom. 7, col. 699: In the same (they say, cemetery), after saint Genevieve … were buried saint Alda, the companion of saint Genevieve, and saint Ceraunius, bishop of Paris, whose silver shrines were afterward placed upon the altar of the chapel of saint Clotilda, more commonly called the chapel of the Relics. Of St. Alda treatment will come at the eighteenth day of November; of St. Clotilda or Chrotilda we treated in tom. 1 of June at the third day of the month, p. 292 and following, and we gave her reliquary engraved by the graving-tool, pertaining hither so far as, among the effigies which adorn it, wrought wholly of silver with elegant workmanship, the effigy also of St. Ceraunius, as Papebroch there conjectured, is beheld.
[11] Besides what has hitherto been compiled and gathered with all the diligence I could, I have met with at least one trace of a more ancient cult in the same tom. 7 of the Gallia Christiana, col. 718, A trace of ancient cult. namely a charter of the year 1170, which I here set forth copied out: I, Agnes, countess of Meulan, will it to be known, etc., that I have assigned in alms to the church of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and of the holy virgin Genevieve Garinus or Garnerus of Maigniacum and his wife, who were my serfs from my marriage, and the issue which they had and were to have, both for the salvation of my soul and in recompense of a certain vow which my husband Waleran, count of Meulan, had made to saint Ceraunus, who lies in the same church, and had not paid. At this alms Ralph my son was present and approved it. And that this alms may not in future be invalidated, I have delivered to the abbot and the church letters strengthened by the impress of my seal. Done in the year of the Incarnate Word 1170. Witnesses of this matter are Hugh the abbot, and the Prior of St. Vincent of Senlis, Ascelin dean of St. Marcel, etc.
[12] That the memory of the translation of St. Ceraunius is kept every year in the abbey on the sixteenth day of November, and his chief festival on this day with solemn rite, has been abundantly seen from the foregoing: it remains that we investigate with what rite it is celebrated throughout the diocese of Paris. Le Cointe at the year 614, num. 36: Saint Cerannus, In the abbey with solemn rite today, and throughout the diocese, he says, is inscribed in the Gallican Martyrology on the fifth Kalends of October, and on account of the feast of the holy Cosmas and Damian is venerated on the following day in the Paris Breviary. Baillet in his Lives of the Saints, in the place cited before: The church of Paris makes only a simple commemoration of him in the Office of SS. Cosmas and Damian. With Baillet the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana agree: In the Paris Breviary his commemoration is made at the fifth Kalends of October. Rightly enough indeed Le Cointe and Baillet, according to the difference of the time and of the Breviaries which the church of Paris was using while they themselves wrote: but, unless I am mistaken, less accurately for their own time the writers of the Gallia Christiana. I have before my eyes six different editions of the Paris Breviary. The older is of the year 1584, and in it there is prescribed on this day an Office of nine lessons of SS. Cosmas and Damian, with a commemoration only of St. Ceraunius at first Vespers and Lauds from the Common of a bishop confessor.
[13] of which we have various Breviaries, he is venerated on the 28th of September. The second edition is of the year 1636 and the third of 1640: in these nothing is done today of our Saint, but on the following day there is assigned an Office of him, semidouble, of nine lessons, of which the first three are of the occurring Scripture, the fourth and fifth proper; the last four, like all the rest, from the Common. Those editions Le Cointe followed, whose tom. 2 of the Annals came to light in the year 1666, long indeed before there was prepared the edition of the Breviary which is my fourth, published in the year 1680. But in this, as also in the fifth edition of the year 1700, only on the twenty-seventh day of September is a commemoration of St. Ceraunius made, a ninth proper lesson being nevertheless added; according to these Baillet designated the rite, whose tom. 3 came from the press in the year 1704. Our later edition is of the year 1736, and its Rubrics for this day and the morrow lay down thus. In the metropolitan church of Paris, on the twenty-seventh day, the Office of SS. Cosmas and Damian with lesser double rite, with a commemoration only of St. Ceraunius. Outside the metropolitan, semidouble of SS. Cosmas and Damian; Vespers from the Chapter of St. Ceraunius, of whom on the following day there is a semidouble Office from the Common, except the second and third lessons, which are proper.
[14] With a semidouble Office, from which are given Wherefore either it must be said (which nevertheless is less likely) that a new change was made in the Paris Breviary between the years 1736 and 1744, when tom. 7 of the Gallia Christiana was published; or that its authors, saying: In the Paris Breviary his (St. Ceraunius's) commemoration is made at the fifth Kalends of October, had regard only to what is prescribed to be observed in the metropolitan, not to what outside it; or lastly — and to this I rather incline — that they consulted only the edition of the year 1680 or 1700. Further, the proper Lessons, of which mention has already several times fallen, flowed partly from the elogium of Warnaharius, partly from the series of the bishops of Paris and from the other things which, gathered from the Works of more recent writers, I have hitherto set forth: these I transfer hither, as they stand in the very latest edition of the Breviary: Lesson II. Ceraunus, taken up after Simplicius to the government of the church of Paris, shone with the splendor of all virtues. Applying himself to the reading and meditation of holy Scripture, from that fountain he drew the doctrine with which he might instruct the people committed to him. Kindled with zeal and love for the holy martyrs, he anxiously sought out their Acts, scattered here and there, and reduced them into one body. Being especially intent upon this, having written letters to Warnacharius, a clerk of Langres, he received from him the Acts of the passions of the triplets Speusippus, Eleosippus, and Melasippus, who are venerated at Langres, and also of Desiderius, bishop of that place, and willed that they be reckoned among the books of the church.
[15] Lesson III. While he sat, there was held in the basilica of saint Peter, the proper lessons. which is now called that of saint Genevieve, the fifth council of Paris, which seventy-nine bishops, assembled by the zeal of Clothar the second, king, subscribed. In it fifteen canons were issued, which the king at once ratified by his edict. Finally Ceraunus, when he had led a life worthy of a holy prelate, left his see to Leodebert, who, Dagobert having already reigned four years in Austrasia, subscribed the council of Reims under Sonnatius. He was buried in the crypt of the basilica of the Apostles at the left of saint Genevieve, where his sepulcher is still seen. But his body, already raised in the thirteenth century, was solemnly laid up in a shrine on the sixteenth Kalends of December, on which day his translation is celebrated at saint Genevieve's. The last sentence but one of this lesson seems on the face of it to be at variance with the words of the Gallia Christiana given at num. 9, according to which the tomb of St. Ceraunius is now seen at the right of the tomb of St. Genevieve, having been translated thither in the year 1628; but, unless indeed an error lurks in one place or the other, I judge that the words of the said sentence are to be taken in this sense: He was buried at the left of St. Genevieve in the crypt, where — in the crypt, that is — his sepulcher is still seen. For the rest, that I may pass over nothing pertaining to his particular cult, in the greater Litanies which are printed in all the editions of the Paris Breviary that we have, except the older one, among the confessor Pontiffs St. Ceraunius also is invoked by name. The foregoing were already prepared for the press when there was sent hither as a gift from Paris the Proper of the Saints of the illustrious and royal church of St. Genevieve, published in print in the year 1665. In it the things said at num. 12 concerning the Saint's festivals there are confirmed. For at the twenty-seventh day of September an Office is prescribed to be recited with double rite of the second class, and there are given for the second Nocturn three proper lessons, embracing in a general way the deeds and virtues of St. Ceraunius: but at the sixteenth day of November his translation is noted as to be celebrated with a semidouble Office, from which likewise nothing offers itself to be here particularly transcribed.