Alodius

ON ST. ALODIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR OF AUXERRE,

IN THE DUCHY OF BURGUNDY

After the middle of the fifth century.

COMMENTARY.

His memory in the Fasti; some of his deeds; the place of his burial; the translation and inspection of his body; his cult.

Alodius, Bishop and conf., at Auxerre in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)

BHL Number: 0000

BY J. P.

The sacred memory of our Bishop is celebrated today in a good many Martyrologies; and indeed in those which are distinguished by the name of St. Jerome, both the larger and the shorter. His name is entered in the ancient Martyrologies Among the larger ones published by Florentini the older has it thus: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Alodus the bishop; the most ancient: At Auxerre, of Elodus the bishop; the Corbie one, which d'Achery had also published in the year 1661 in tom. 4 of the Spicilegium: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Alodus, bishop and confessor. But, what is to be noted, in those three transcripts this announcement of our Saint is added in a distinct hand only at the foot of the column: and accordingly it must be taken only as an addition of the Gallic antiquary, additions of which kind about the Saints of Auxerre are very frequent there. Among the shorter Hieronymian ones with us in tom. VII of June, one, that of Reichenau, has it thus: At Auxerre, of Alodus the bishop: in the others the name only is exhibited: in the Augsburg one Alodus, in the Labbean Aladus, and in the Gellone one, in the said d'Achery, tom. 13, Alodus. The Saint occurs also in the Martyrology of Auxerre in Martène, tom. 6 of the Amplissima Collectio, in exactly the same words as in d'Achery's Corbie one, but he is called Alodius.

[2] Rabanus calls him Alodus: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Alodus the bishop: and the more recent ones; the old classic authors, Bede, Ado and the rest, passed him over in their genuine Martyrologies; in the genuine ones, I say; for in the Tournai Bede and in various supplements of Usuard his deposition is generally mentioned, and the name is written Alodius, except in the Centula Usuardine one, where Alogius is read. The chief editors of the Adonian Martyrology, Mosander and Rosweyde, found our Bishop in none of their codices, and this I conjecture from the fact that neither did the former place him among those marked with an asterisk, nor the latter among those rejected into the appendix. Nevertheless Domenico Giorgi, out of his own Adonian transcripts, as he supposes, adorns him with the following elogium: At Auxerre, the deposition of blessed Alodius the bishop, who was of the disciples of St. Germanus. And, while he himself still ruled with apostolic dignity the church divinely committed to him, he was abbot of his own monastery: after whose glorious passing also he received by divine providence the pontifical chair; which ruling gloriously for about XXX years, 1 month and XII days, he at length rested in peace, and was buried in the church of blessed Germanus, his predecessor, bishop and confessor. And the see was without a bishop at that time for X years, on account of the barbarians. Whence that elogium attributed to Ado was drawn, the reader will easily perceive from what is to be recited below.

[3] some of his deeds In our manuscript Florarium he is mentioned not only today: At Auxerre, the birthday of St. Alodius the bishop; but also on the V day of May: Of Alodius, bishop of Auxerre, as was said there in the Prætermissi. On the contrary, our Saint is passed over in complete silence in the Franco-Gallic Hagiology and in the present Roman Martyrology; Galesini, however, had given him, whose elogia and those of Saussay and other more recent writers I forbear to transcribe. Some things about his deeds the authors or collectors of the History of the bishops of Auxerre committed to writing, in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 417, and Heiric or Eric, a monk of St. Germanus of Auxerre, in the Life and Miracles of the same St. Germanus, in the same place, pages 532 and 565, and with us in tom. VII of July at the XXXI day. That those authors flourished in the ninth century was said at the XXV day, in St. Aunarius, here at page 87, where and elsewhere in the course of the Work mention has been made of their lucubrations. It will suffice to have transferred hither what they have about St. Alodius, that it may soon appear how little the said History is to be trusted in the first bishops.

[4] related by authors Having reported the death of St. Germanus, And the city was, say the authors of the History, without a bishop for four years: then they go on: Alodius sat XXX years, 1 month, XII days. Of what merit or dignity this Alodius was may be gathered from this, that, while blessed Germanus was still living, he presided over his monastery as archimandrite. And when he too had afterwards been raised to the heavenly kingdoms, he deserved to succeed him in the lot of the pontificate. He, an imitator and heir of his master, profited many by word and example: in the time of his bishopric holy Marianus, coming from the parts of Bourges, asked to be joined to the monastery of St. Germanus; because that same monastery, keeping the state of its ancient blessedness, breathed a most sweet odour; and how excellent a memory and how great a sanctity that blessed man had, the little book published about his life more fully makes manifest. Holy Alodius, therefore, rich in the wages of the best merits, departed in peace on the IV of the Kalends of October, and was becomingly buried in the basilica of blessed Germanus. After whose death the city remained without a bishop for X years. Namely on account of the savagery of the barbarians laying Gaul waste. And he lived in the times of Leo the Great and of Hilarus, Roman Pontiffs, in the reigns of Leo and Zeno.

[5] of the ninth century, Let us now hear Heiric in his prologue, with us in tom. VII of July, page 255: As is found noted in the archives of our church, when the most blessed Germanus was taken from human affairs, Alodius, substituted in the bishopric, fulfilled the function of his pontificate for nearly thirty years. When he had departed this life, by reason of the madness of the barbarians arising within Gaul, the privileges of ecclesiastical liberty were sunk, its dignity overwhelmed, its splendour dulled, and they lost all the force of Christian strength: and so the city remained ten years widowed of a bishop; which being passed, Fraternus, the third from blessed Germanus, is put in his stead in the pontificate. He, on the same day on which he was ordained, was also slain by those same barbarians and crowned with martyrdom. To him the aforenamed Censurius is substituted in the fourth place. From the death, therefore, of the most blessed Germanus down to this Censurius, more or less forty years are gathered, running on in the order set down above. Thus Heiric the monk. The same writer, in the said tom. VII of July, treats of the Saint again at page 280, but in almost the same words which we have given from the History; except that he does not assign how long the see was vacant between Germanus and Alodius; says nothing about St. Marianus; and does not recount the Roman Pontiffs and emperors in whose time St. Alodius is reported to have sat or flourished. Now let us run through the several points in the order in which they have been set down.

[6] It is to be noted beforehand that St. Germanus departed from among the living in the year 448, on the XXXI day of July: labour under errors and so, by the reckonings of the authors of the History, Alodius mounted his see, which was vacant four years, in the year 452, in the month of August, and occupied it until the XXVIII of September 482, namely for 30 years, 1 month, 12 days. Add to these the ten years for which they hand down that the chair was again vacant, both the authors of the History and Heiric, and Fraternus and his immediate successor Censurius will not have entered on the bishopric before 492. Heiric does not seem to have acknowledged, and certainly did not express, the four years' vacancy between Germanus and Alodius, and so according to him the beginning of Censurius can be set in the year 488, from the death, as he says, of the most blessed Germanus … more or less forty years. The Acts of St. Censurius, to whom the same authors and Heiric attribute 38 years of episcopate, Henschen illustrated at the X day of June, and proved that his death must be fixed about the year 500, and thence rightly concluded that there is an error either in the years assigned to Alodius, or in those attributed to Censurius, or in both.

[7] Monsieur Le Beuf, tom. 1 of the Records of Auxerre, page 104 and following, must have acknowledged the error in both; chronological since he circumscribes the episcopate of Alodius by these limits: From the year 451 to 472; and that of Censurius by these: From the year 472 to 502: so that, excluding the long vacancy of the see between the two, he grants the former only about 21 years, and the latter only 30. The reason why he does not extend the time of St. Alodius beyond 472 he doubtless drew from the letter of St. Sidonius Apollinaris to Censurius the bishop. For that letter was written while the Visigoths were making inroads into Auvergne, that is, as is determined in Tillemont, tom. 16 of the Records, page 249, and with us in tom. VII of July, page 191, about the year of Christ 473 or the following: when accordingly Alodius no longer sat. Another argument against the long tenure of St. Alodius is drawn from the letters of Constantius the presbyter, prefixed to the Life of St. Germanus in the said tom. VII of July, page 200 and following. For thence it is clearly drawn out that Censurius, to whom one of them is inscribed, was bishop when St. Patiens, to whom the other is directed, held the see of Lyons: whereas St. Patiens died about the year 480, as we showed in tom. III of September, page 796.

[8] The writers of the History of the bishops of Auxerre did not go so far astray in the chronological notes with which they close the elogium of St. Alodius, another is saying that he lived in the times of Leo the Great and of Hilarus (elsewhere Hilarius), Roman Pontiffs, in the reigns of Leo and Zeno. For Pope St. Hilarus died in the year 467, and Zeno began to reign in 474. But they betray their earlier error afresh in Censurius, when they say that he lived in the times of Hormisdas, the Roman Pontiff, in the reign of Justin the elder: whereas Hormisdas did not ascend the Chair of St. Peter before 514, nor did Justin obtain the empire before 518. Wherefore, since the reckonings are so uncertain and almost everywhere erroneous, and no better ones offer themselves from elsewhere, it does not please me to determine the year by divination, and therefore we have marked the death of St. Alodius broadly above as after the middle of the fifth century. We pass on to another assertion of those same writers: This Alodius … while blessed Germanus was still living, presided over his monastery as archimandrite. The same

is read in Heric in the Miracles of St. Germanus; the same in the Martyrology which Dominicus Georgius ascribes to Ado, and the same in the Chronology of Robert, monk of St. Marianus, and in the lucubrations of others, whom, as agreeing among themselves in so great a number, Henschenius followed without further examination in SS. Mamertianus and Marianus, volume 2 of April, page 759.

[9] More probably by Alogius the abbot, mentioned in the Life of St. Germanus. But the truth of this assertion was afterwards denied by Tillemont and Chifflet. Cuper, in volume VII of July, page 211, hung in doubt, and referred the question hither to be examined. Tillemont declares the reason why he denies it, in volume 15 of the Monuments, page 839: "I do not know," he says, "whether they" (the authors named in the preceding number) "believed themselves to be followers in this of Constantius, who" (a contemporary of St. Alodius in the Life of St. Germanus) "testifies to us that the abbot Alogius presided over the monastery of St. Germanus while Germanus was still living. But he says that St. Mamertinus succeeded in that office upon the death of the abbot Alogius, and not upon his advancement to the episcopate." And indeed it would be difficult to construct any other sense for the words of Constantius, which run thus: "Mamertinus therefore" (converted to the faith and baptized by St. Germanus) "consecrated himself to the monastery of the holy bishop Germanus… whose holy manner of life so flourished in spiritual learning that, when the archimandrite Alogius, who had made him a monk, was dead, he himself took up that man's office by the hereditary right of holiness.[]" Cuper notes that in all the manuscript copies of the Life of St. Germanus* which he had, the archimandrite is called Alogius, except in one Lyons codex, in which he is called Alodius; so that the very diversity of the name also favors the negative opinion, which is both more probable to me and now seems to be the common view of the learned men of Auxerre — seeing that in their present-day Breviary Alodius the bishop is clearly distinguished from Alogius the abbot. That Breviary was printed in the year 1736, and at the twenty-eighth day of September, in the lesson of the Office of St. Alodius, it has the following: "Very many flowed together to him" (Alodius the bishop) "from the neighboring provinces, whom either he himself instructed with fatherly charity, or else he commended to the abbot Mamertinus, who had succeeded Alogius, to be steeped in the precepts of the Christian life."

[10] Of his burial, translation, and the inspection of the body. What the often-mentioned writers of the History of the Bishops of Auxerre say concerning the place of the Saint's burial admits of no controversy. There, that is, in the church of St. Germanus, he remained until about the year 865, when he was translated, together with the bodies of other Saints, into the new crypts. The history of this translation, drawn up by Heric, a contemporary writer and in all likelihood an eyewitness, we have given in this volume at page 98, in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Aunarius, which consult. In the year 1636 there was made an inspection of the sacred bodies and relics resting in the said crypts, by the most illustrious Lord Dominic Seguier, bishop of Auxerre, as we have also related at greater length in the Commentary just praised, at page 101, where, from that same bishop's instrument drawn up concerning that inspection, we transcribed the things which pertained to St. Aunarius; but those things which concerned the image and sarcophagus of St. Alodius, found there together with two epitaphs, were likewise printed in volume VII of July, page 158, where St. Ursus, bishop of Auxerre, was treated of; to which, for brevity's sake, we also refer the reader. The epitaphs, of which one is Latin and the other French, labor under the same errors as the History of the Bishops, in accordance with which they were in all likelihood put together. The Latin one alone will suffice: "Here rests Alodius of holy memory, who was archimandrite of this church: afterwards, having been made bishop, he ruled the church of Auxerre for thirty years, one month, and twelve days."

[11] Out of these words — "who was archimandrite of this church" — some observations are made; his cult a new error arises. For even if we were to grant gratuitously that St. Alodius presided over some monastery before he was raised to the episcopate, not even so could the monastery distinguished by the name of St. Germanus be understood, in whose church both Alodius himself and the other bishops were buried; but there would have to be understood the monastery over which, on the testimony of Constantius, the biographer of St. Germanus, St. Mamertinus presided after Alogius, and into which St. Marianus was afterwards received. Constantius did indeed call it the monastery of St. Germanus, but only because St. Germanus had erected it. It had, however, been consecrated to SS. Cosmas and Damian; afterwards it took on the name of St. Marianus, and has retained the same down to these times of ours. Concerning the ancient cult of St. Alodius there is scarcely anything in particular to be said; that his annual memory was celebrated from a long time back. Two Breviaries of the church of Auxerre urge an ecclesiastical Office, of which one is noted as printed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the other in the year 1571. Both, moreover, present the following rubric at the twenty-eighth day of September: "Of Alodius, bishop and confessor. Let all be done from the common of one confessor bishop."

[12] is set forth: In the present-day Breviary of that same church, an Office to be recited at the said day is assigned with a semidouble rite from the same common, but a third lesson is added to it, which, as being sufficiently consonant with the more probable opinions, I transcribe. "Alodius first excelled among the disciples of blessed Germanus in holiness of life: then he was taken up to his see. He, an imitator and heir of so great a master, taught the people committed to him by word and by example. Very many, drawn by the fragrance of his virtues, flowed together to him from the neighboring provinces, whom either he himself instructed with fatherly charity, or else he commended to the abbot Mamertinus, who had succeeded Alogius, to be steeped in the precepts of the Christian life. After some twenty years spent in pastoral vigil, he was called to the eternal rewards on the twenty-eighth day of September, and was buried in the basilica of holy Germanus about the four hundred and seventy-second year. His body was carried down in the ninth century into the crypts of that same place, and set near the tomb of blessed Germanus on the right-hand side, where up to now it rests in a wooden chest enclosed in a stone sarcophagus." In our Auxerre manuscript codex, under the name of Master Georgius Viole, often praised elsewhere by us, we are advised that the Saint's festival is more solemnly kept on the same twenty-eighth day in the abbey of St. Germanus than in the cathedral church; but we are taught nothing more explicit.

. Otherwise, of hereditary holiness*.