Genesius the Notary

ON ST. GENESIUS THE NOTARY, MARTYR AT ARLES IN GAUL,

About the year CCCIII or CCCVIII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Genesius, notary and M. at Arles in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 3306, 3307

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The distinction of this Saint from other martyrs of the same name, his ancient worship among the French and Spaniards; on which occasion two Genesii, who have been wrongly inscribed in the Spanish Martyrology, are examined in passing.

Pietro de' Natali, bishop of Equilio, in the Catalogue of the Saints, book 7, chapter 110, welded into one two distinct Martyrs of today of the same name, Certain writers this Martyr of Arles and wrongly attributed the Acts of the one to the other, as appears from the following beginning of the Passion, which in him, in the place just cited, thus runs: Genesius the martyr suffered at the city of Arles under the emperor Diocletian: who, being sprung from that same city, practising the art of the mimostella , obstinately mocked the Christians. Then he narrates the Acts of St. Genesius of Rome, which we have given above from Ruinart, and sets to them an equally inept ending in this manner: He was beheaded, and buried in the city of Arles on the VIII Kalends of September. Pietro of Equilio in his error was followed by Mombritius, who in our possession, tom. 1, fol. 333, thus begins the same Passion with these words: In the reign of Diocletian, when for four years the churches had ceased as regards all bishops and priests, there was in the city of Arles a mime of the temelean art, by name Genesius. But at least afterwards Mombritius in our possession, in the same tome, folio 341 verso, abridged the genuine Acts of St. Genesius of Arles, of which Pietro of Equilio makes no mention.

[2] It is not so wonderful that these simpler men erred so basely in those times wrongly confound with the Roman martyr of the same name, in which the critical art was neglected. But we wonder more that the most learned Jean Savaron in the past century fell into the same gross error, when he writes notes on two anonymous booklets of the tenth century on the Saints, churches, and monasteries of Clermont, where on page 37, among the other holy Genesii recounted by him, there is set first that Arlesian one who, from a stage-player made a Christian and martyr, is renowned among all. From this mode of speaking it is plain that by the incautious Savaron St. Genesius of Arles, the notary and martyr, was confounded with St. Genesius the stage-player, or mime and martyr of Rome. This error of Savaron our Heribert Rosweyde also indicated in the notes to the Works of St. Paulinus of Nola, which in the year of Christ 1622 he caused to be published at Antwerp from the Plantin press, where on page 834 he assigns various Saints of this name, and briefly distinguishes them thus from today's St. Genesius, martyr of Arles: Another is Genesius the mime, master of the thymelic art, whom the Martyrologies likewise record on the same day; whom Savaron, book 1 on the churches of Clermont, chapter XVII, not rightly confounds with the former: for the thymelic one was at Rome; that shorthand-writer at Arles. Another likewise is Genesius the martyr, who is known to the Roman Martyrology on the XI of October, with Anastasius the presbyter and Placidus and other companions.

[3] and therefore he is here accurately distinguished There are also two other Genesii outside the Roman lists, yet renowned in their own churches in Auvergne. The former is Genesius the martyr near the castle of Thiers, who, being set in white robes, migrated to heaven through martyrdom, about whom Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter LXVII; whose feast, by the witness of Savaron above, is celebrated on the V Kalends of November. The latter was the XXV bishop of Clermont, and his memory is renowned on the III of June, at which day, in tom. 1 of June, page 322 and following, his Acts were illustrated by Henschen. To these I add moreover holy Genesius, martyr of Beorritum or of Bigorre, who is unknown to various Martyrologists, and about whom St. Gregory of Tours in the book On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 74, narrates the following: There is another Martyr within the border of the city of Beorritum (the Fleury codex, six hundred years old, expresses in the very context the proper name of this Saint, which other codices commonly have in the title, as Ruinart among the addenda and corrigenda to his edition of Gregory of Tours, Col. [ ], testifies) endowed with the honor of the presbyterate, the history of whose passion is read among the inhabitants of the place.

[4] He, while he was in the body, obtained by his prayers that a chestnut tree long dry should return to greenness: from other Saints of the same name, in whose basilica, although marvels are for the most part shown upon the sick, that above the rest is wonderful, that a lily long since gathered and dried grows green again at his solemnity, so that on that day the peoples behold new flowers which they had before seen withered. For at his tomb a lying oath commonly uttered by the faithless is confuted by the Martyr's power, so that he who had come puffed up with rashness departs amended. Would that Gregory of Tours had indicated the age and the yearly festival of this St. Genesius of Bigorre! Lastly there is still recorded in Gaul broadly so called St. Genesius, monk and martyr, whom Saussay in the Appendix to his Gallican Martyrology, tom. 2, page 1223, announces in these words: Holy Genesius the monk, impiously slain by the Danes, when the monastery of Bèze, four leagues distant from Dijon, was overthrown by them in the year of salvation DCCCLXXXVIII. These things about various Genesii I have wished to relate, lest anyone perhaps confound those Martyrs of Gaul of the same name among themselves or with others. Therefore from all that has hitherto been related let it remain certain that today's St. Genesius of Arles must be distinguished from the Roman actor and from the other Martyrs of the same name already recounted.

[5] I scarcely understand what our Jean Roberti means, when among the Eulogies of fifty holy Jurists, page 35, to the eulogy of today's holy Notary or Shorthand-writer, which he excerpted from his genuine Acts, he prefixes this title: Holy Genesius, martyr of Arles, a Roman. For what cause is that Martyr here surnamed a Roman? Hence certainly a doubt arose among the Roman Jurists, which our Friedrich Ampring, staying at Rome in the year 1680, thus proposed to our predecessors: May your Reverence pardon a brief inconvenience, which in the present matter no one knows better how to dispatch. The Roman notaries would gladly wish to know how it is proved that St. Genesius the martyr of Arles was a Roman, as Fr. Jean Roberti names him in the Eulogies of fifty holy jurists. About holy Genesius the mime it is certain that he was a Roman; but about the other no foundation can be had in the Acts related in Surius on the day XXV of August, that he was a Roman. Papebroch answered our Ampring that that expression is likely to be attributed to an erring memory, unless perhaps the author of the aforementioned Little Work wished improperly to call that Martyr a Roman, because the city of Arles was once a Roman colony, and is called by Ausonius a Gallic, or rather a Gallic little Rome, as may be seen in Hadrianus Valesius, Notitia Galliarum, page 38. We too know no other escape by which this improper expression may be excused. Wherefore we go on to demonstrate the ancient and renowned worship of this holy Martyr of Arles.

[6] In the most ancient copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology St. Genesius of Arles is announced on this day, Martyrologies and other ancient testimonies of writers indicate as may be seen in Florentinius. There is added the old Roman Martyrology of our Rosweyde, which on the same day briefly indicates the memory of holy Genesius of Arles. But these brief announcements Ado, who without doubt saw his genuine Acts, has today enlarged in this manner: On that same day, the birthday of holy Genesius of Arles, who before the tribunal of the judge, discharging the office of shorthand-writer, when he was unwilling to take down the impious edicts by which the Christians were ordered to be punished, his tablets being cast down in public, testified that he was a Christian and withdrew; and after a short interval, being caught by the apparitors, and beheaded on the bank of the river Rhône, received the glory of martyrdom, baptized in his own blood. This eulogy Usuard abridged from Ado, as the almost identical words indicate, which in his Martyrology are thus read: On the same day, of blessed Genesius of Arles, who, discharging the office of shorthand-writer, when he was unwilling to take down the impious edicts by which the Christians were ordered to be punished, being apprehended and beheaded, received the glory of martyrdom, baptized in his own blood. That I may omit other more recent Martyrologists, Wandelbert adorns that same Martyr of ours with this little verse:

The eighth day hence Arles celebrates thee, holy Genesius. Namely, every year on the VIII Kalends of September, or the day XXV of August, is celebrated the renowned martyrdom of this Saint, and on other days is kept the yearly memory of certain matters which pertain to the honor of that same Saint, as we shall presently see.

[7] the immemorial worship of that same Martyr, The Christians of Arles from immemorial time built, to the glory of their holy Fellow-townsman, an altar and a temple, whose yearly dedication is related on the day XVI of December in Florentinius, page 1032, from the old Martyrologies, where one copy has thus: At Arles, the dedication of the basilica and altar of holy Genesius. But another, the Corbie one, expresses the same commemoration in the same place more correctly in these few words: At Arles, the dedication of the basilica and altar of holy Genesius the martyr. Whence Saussay also on the day XVI of December inserted this yearly festival of the dedication into his Gallican Martyrology. We judge that this church of St. Genesius at Arles was already renowned at the close of the fourth century, when Prudentius, the Spanish poet, in the Work On the Crowns of the Martyrs, hymn 4, after other things thus sang:

And thee shall pre-eminent Arles possess, holy Genesius.

Certainly in the following century Venantius Fortunatus, in the fourth Poem of the eighth book, seems to have imitated Prudentius and to have indicated the public worship of St. Genesius of Arles by this hexameter verse:

Comely Arles herself offers pious gifts to Genesius.

But that veneration of St. Genesius the martyr, which among the people of Arles had its beginning from immemorial time, will be not a little confirmed from the Acts themselves and from other monuments to be published below.

[8] which is confirmed from the ancient pilgrimages Meanwhile the ancient renown of this church of Arles is also gathered from the Acts of holy Quinidius, prelate of Vaison, who died after the middle of the sixth century, and whose deeds our Bolland illustrated at the day XV of February. In these Acts, num. 2, about the mother of that bishop of Vaison there are read to our purpose the following: After the manner of the Christian religion the festival of blessed Genesius, martyr of Christ, who suffered at Arles for his confession, was being kept. And behold, among the throng which was gathering from every side to the thresholds of the blessed Martyr, the mother of Quinidius, soon to be so, heavy in the womb, laden with a happy childbearing, came, led by the ardor of piety: for she too more familiarly embraced the place. The doors of the church being barred, when for love of the Martyr she had stayed outside, about to keep vigil, with pious affection suffused with tears, as she is caught up into the love of God, she continues her prayer, and straightway hears, because of the memorial of the holy Martyr, a most sweet and astonishing harmony of angels.* After these things there is narrated in the same place how the doors of the church of Arles lay open to this woman, and how the happy birth of St. Quinidius was foretold to her by an angel. From this great concourse of people we manifestly conclude that anciently the yearly festival of St. Genesius was solemnly celebrated in the church of Arles.

[9] In the same century flourished holy Apollinaris, bishop of Valence in Gaul, appointed to the church of Arles, whose Life Edmond Martène, the Benedictine, in his most ample Collection of ancient monuments, tom. 6, col. 779 and following, published not long since from a Ms. codex of the queen of Sweden. In these Acts, which were written by a contemporary author and eyewitness, in the same place, col. 781, mention is made of a journey which that holy prelate of Valence undertook to the city of Arles, that he might present himself both at the thresholds of holy Genesius the martyr, and to the sight of the pontiffs, and to the affection of his kinsfolk. Then that contemporary biographer narrates that he came to the city of Arles with holy Apollinaris, when St. Caesarius was bishop there. From this testimony of a contemporary author it is confirmed that before the middle of the sixth century, in which St. Caesarius of Arles died, pious pilgrimages to the church of St. Genesius at Arles were already frequently undertaken. This chronology will be able to be indicated more distinctly at the day V of October, on which St. Apollinaris, bishop of Valence, is placed in the Roman Martyrology. Meanwhile we cannot sufficiently wonder that the most learned editor of this Life, Martène, there at the name of St. Genesius the martyr set the following annotation: He, when at Arles he was representing the sacred things of the Christians in the theatre by way of mockery, being enlightened by a divine light, and from a mime made a Christian, sealed the faith of the Saviour with his own blood. In this annotation we see a manifest confusion of two Martyrs, which has been abundantly refuted above, and thence we learn that sometimes even the most circumspect men hallucinate basely, which is human, and therefore we do not think it foreign from ourselves.

[10] Now we return to the immemorial worship of St. Genesius of Arles, and thence it was propagated to the church of Lodève, which was little by little extended to other churches of Gaul, as we gather from the Life of holy Fulcran, prelate of Lodève, about whom Bernard Gui in our possession, at the day XIII of February, num. 15, thus writes: But when the work of the basilica of holy Genesius was finished, in which he raised, enlarged, and strengthened it, at length he took pains honorably to dedicate it, having called together to the dedication the most reverend lord Aimeric, archbishop of Narbonne, Ryquinus of Maguelonne and Deusdedit of Rodez, most reverend bishops; which was done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation CMLXXV. The most illustrious Jean Plantavit de la Pause, in the past century bishop of Lodève, in the Chronology of the prelates of Lodève, page 60, asserts that this church long before had the title of St. Genesius, and was only restored by holy Fulcran, as from the proper Office of the church of Lodève he there relates in these words: The cathedral church, built of mean material some centuries before in honor of holy Genesius, martyr of Arles, he so restored and enlarged from the foundations that he is said to have built it anew. Whence the people of Lodève acknowledge St. Genesius of Arles as the chief patron of their church, and solemnly celebrate the yearly festival of the dedication on the first Sunday of October under a double rite with an Octave, as is prescribed in the directory.

[11] This piety of the people of Lodève toward their Patron likely grew still further after receiving his relics, where his feast is celebrated with a solemn Office, concerning which Pierre Saxi, canon of the church of Arles, in his Pontificium Arelatense, in Johann Burkhard Mencke among the Writers on German Affairs, tom. 1, col. 288, thus makes mention: At length, the right of tithes being settled with the citizens of Arles, Jean de Baussan, prelate of Arles (for the discourse there is about him), granted to the church of Lodève relics of blessed Genesius of Arles the martyr, namely an arm and blood enclosed in a pyx, and he dies in the year MCCLVII. The most illustrious Jean Plantavit in the Work praised above refers this translation of relics to between the year of Christ 1245 and 1246, and accuses Saxi's narration of a parachronism in these words: About the same time relics of holy Genesius the martyr, first patron of the people of Lodève, namely an arm and blood enclosed in a pyx, Jean de Baussan, the eighty-fourth archbishop of Arles in the nomenclature of that same Saxi, granted to our William (this was William de Casellis, who from the year of Christ 1241 to the year 1259 sat in the see of Lodève), as he was returning from that same council and passing through Arles (and not in the year MCCLVII, as Saxi noted in the Pontificium Arelatense); which he laid up with solemn rite in the basilica of that Saint. But, saving the peace of the most illustrious Plantavit, Saxi by this mode of speaking perhaps meant only to signify that that translation of relics was made in the time of Jean de Baussan, prelate of Arles, who departed this life in the year of Christ 1257.

[12] and likely to other churches of Gaul. Whatever be the truth of this chronology of Saxi, the people of Lodève even today celebrate the yearly commemoration of this translation under a double rite, as is prescribed in the proper Offices of the church of Lodève, and as Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology at the eleventh day of April testifies in these words: At Lodève on the fifteenth day after Easter there is kept in the greater church the feast of the translation of holy Genesius the martyr, patron of that same church. Further, the church of Lodève at the day XXV of August yearly commemorates the martyrdom of St. Genesius with a proper Office of the first class with an Octave, and then for eight days solemnly sings the deeds and miracles of its holy Patron from ancient authors. We do not doubt that many other churches of the Gauls venerate this holy Martyr on account of his sacred relics or for other causes, although a distinct knowledge of them has not come to us.

[13] Nay, his veneration was extended to the Spaniards, Nor did that solemn veneration keep itself within the bounds of Gaul; but it surmounted the Pyrenean mountains, and some centuries ago passed into Spain, as is clear from the old Mozarabic Breviary, part of which I copied out while staying at Toledo in the year 1722. That in that Office of venerable antiquity St. Genesius of Arles is celebrated the proper hymn proves clearer than light, whose barbarous style I shall in some measure correct by conjecture or explain in the margin. But that ancient hymn, among other things not pertaining to our purpose, has these words about the holy Martyr of Arles:

Genesius therefore, that young man, a distinguished citizen of the town of Arles, passing through the little flowers of his earliest age, obeys the order enjoined upon him. While therefore he was shining as a shorthand-writer, and was writing the public orders upon his tablets, being suddenly breathed upon by a heavenly gift, whereby he heaps up pious vows, forthwith he refuses the impious office, and declines to set his hand to the wax, desiring to be made a dweller of heaven in life, in vows, and in manners. Afterwards, as the Gospel word sounds forth, seeking divers hiding-places through the region, he secretly betakes himself into hidden places in horror of that ministry. Whom a crowd of attendants seeking with all their might, and not finding him anywhere as it wished, the judge, bellowing with vast open jaws, cries out: Take up the steel: Go swiftly with hasty steps, and when the runaway is found, smite him, strike him, who has dared to despise our admonitions, nor honors the sacred gods. Which report, carrying to the Martyr's ears, and since he knew that he had not been washed in the water, with fervent spirit he seeks the Rhône, wherein he may be able to wash away his stains. Returning thence brighter than gold, being found, his throat is laid low by their onset, and he is straightway joined to the hosts of heaven, his head adorned with laurel.

From these things it evidently appears that the Spaniards anciently solemnly honored St. Genesius of Arles in their own country. Nay, we readily believe that both today's Martyrs of the same name obtained an immemorial worship in Spain, since indeed in the old Breviary of Burgos, which was printed in the year 1502, on this day the following prayer, common to both, is read: O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly solemnity of thy blessed martyrs Genesius and Genesius, grant, we beseech thee, that we may be stirred by the examples of those in whose merits we rejoice. Through &c. But the proper lessons which are there recited pertain only to St. Genesius of Arles. Yet the common lesson of several martyrs seems to be referred to Genesius of Arles and to the Roman Mime.

[14] But afterwards certain pseudo-writers added to these other martyrs of the same name, some fabulists however and will have them to have suffered in Spain, as we shall now briefly show. Juan Tamayo de Salazar, after the example of the Pseudo-Dexter and the Pseudo-Julian, feigned two other Spanish Genesius-martyrs, of whom on this day XXV of August he thus announces one in his Spanish Martyrology: At Córdoba in Baetic Spain, of holy Genesius, soldier and martyr, who, that he might serve the Lord, having cast away the soldier's belt and put on the Catholic breastplate, being apprehended in the first persecution of Nero in Spain, and not desisting from the faith, that remarkable champion, armored for Christ, ascended to glory. But the other, who suffered with martyr companions in an uncertain place, he fraudulently filched from the Roman Martyrology and placed at Mantua of the Carpetani, or Madrid, as in his Spanish Martyrology at the day XI of October he boldly indicates by this announcement: At Mantua among the Carpetani of Spain, of the holy martyrs Anastasius the presbyter, Placidus, and Genesius, who, when the storm of persecution of the emperor Julian, that most monstrous apostate, was raging against the ascetics of Christ, being apprehended for the name of the Crucified, when they could be moved neither by threats from the Godhead nor by blandishments from the name, being crowned with martyrdom, earned eternal glory.

[15] Among the posthumous manuscripts of the most learned Nicolás Antonio, two other martyrs of the same name of which mention has already been made often enough elsewhere, we have a prolix dissertation, both Latin and Spanish, in which that sincere Spanish writer adjudges both those Genesii away from his countrymen, and proves by solid arguments that the churches and other tokens of public veneration which still remain in Spain pertain to St. Genesius of Arles alone. But it neither pleases us nor have we leisure to transcribe that long disputation, especially since on nearly every day like little fables occur in the Martyrology of Tamayo, which we have already too often laboriously refuted. Wherefore on this matter we shall briefly excerpt the prudent judgment of Nicolás Antonio from the Old Spanish Library, in which, book 6, chapter 20, num. 451, or tom. 1, page 399, he refutes a certain incautious defender of fables in these words: Yet whatever he may say about four Genesii — first the Arlesian, second the Roman, third the one born at Barcelona and slain at Mantua of the Carpetani, whose Acts he brings forward, fourth at last the Cordovan, of whom we now treat — it must be held most certain that to none other than the first, the Arlesian, the shorthand-writer or public notary, was worship offered by the Spaniards in the dedication of churches.

[16] rashly and deceitfully ascribed to their own country. Then in the same place, in the following number, Nicolás Antonio confirms his opinion from the proper Mozarabic Office which is celebrated at Toledo of St. Genesius of Arles, and, after exhibiting a fragment of the hymn related above, thus questions his adversary: Dost thou think that the solemn Office of worship was once directed to the one, but that to the other Genesius sacred temples were dedicated, not only at Madrid and Toledo or Córdoba, but also at Seville and Salamanca and perhaps elsewhere? Let Bivar, Ramírez, Tamayo (who brings forward a certain poem of his supposititious Cyprian of Córdoba), and Argáiz believe it, superstitiously rising up before these false divinities of history; not the rest, to whom it has already been intimated often enough to avoid these rocks, upon which we have already dashed almost the whole ship of the authority of our antiquities. Certainly the Pseudo-Dexter and other impostors have brought so many fables into the History of Spain that scarcely can the true be separated from the false, as we shall find in the following paragraph.

* that is, mimic

* that is, thymelic

* that is, at Arles

* that is, was growing famous

* that is, a dweller

* that is, as the Gospel admonishes

* that is, the judge

* that is, honors.

* for the water of baptism

for abluere*

* that is, his head is cut off

§ II. It is inquired who or of what sort was holy Genesius, who in the Carthaginian province of Spain among the Minorite Fathers of Xara is honored today.

In the Carthaginian province of Spain The most illustrious Francisco Gonzaga, in the Work On the origin and progress of the Seraphic Religion, describes the place in which this Saint is honored to this day, and from which he is called by the Spaniards in the vernacular san Gines de la Xara, that is, holy Genesius of Xara, as the XVI Convent of the Carthaginian province, in our possession, fol. 972 verso, in these words: That this Convent, situated in a deserted place and of vast solitude, ten thousand paces from New Carthage, and three thousand from the Ocean sea, turned out to be dedicated to St. Genesius, the cause is the devotion of the surrounding peoples toward that Saint on account of benefits received from him: for by the mandate of the supreme Pontiff Innocent VIII, who once gave to the renowned hero Juan Chacón the faculty of building it in the year from the Virgin's childbearing MCDXCI, it was to be consecrated to the Annunciation of the most holy virgin Mary. To these was added a little chapel already existing in the same place, in honor of that same holy Genesius raised, which was most highly commended to the aforesaid peoples.

[18] This monastery therefore stood built, inhabited for the most part by twenty Brethren, immediately from the year of the Lord MCDXCI, by the aforesaid hero Juan Chacón, a certain St. Genesius is honored, and that by the Apostolic authority of Innocent VIII; yet with this law laid down, that it should serve the Franciscan Amadeans, and should be immediately subject to the general Minister of the whole Minorite Order. To the same law Alexander VI, Supreme Pontiff, subscribed in the year of the Lord MCDXCIII. The diplomas of both supreme Pontiffs are had in the archives of this very place. Yet this law, because of the very many inconveniences which followed, lacked execution; nay, the Convent itself from its first erection obeyed the Fathers of this province. This place is most renowned among the Carthaginians, but especially among those in peril at sea, because holy Genesius, once the son of Roland the great king of the Franks and of queen Oliva, whose body is believed to be buried in a hidden place in the church of the present monastery, is opportunely present to them in every necessity.

[19] What in this place the most illustrious Gonzaga pronounces about the parents of that St. Genesius, whose history is uncertain, he doubtless drew simply from a certain popular tradition of the inhabitants of Xara, which is not greatly to be esteemed: for who is that Roland, great king of the Franks and husband of queen Oliva, who begot holy Genesius? Is perhaps that famous Roland the hero indicated, who furnished abundant matter for the fabulous narration of the Pseudo-Turpin in the Life of Charlemagne? But he never administered the kingdom of the Franks. Add that this Saint, by another tradition of the same place, is called the brother of Roland in the Spanish Life which Melchior Huelamo published at Murcia in the year 1607, and enlarged with various episodes and suspect histories. Therefore this uncertain popular tradition deserves little credit, since it is not consistent with itself, and is established by no ancient instruments.

[20] More safely and more certainly can Juan Tamayo de Salazar be exploded, and whom Tamayo the Spaniard, who in his Spanish Martyrology attached to this St. Genesius the name and Acts of St. Adalard, abbot of Corbie in Gaul, and on the second day of January announced that holy abbot in place of St. Genesius of Xara in these words: At Corbie in Gaul, the birthday of holy Adalard surnamed Genesius, bishop, as is believed, of Urci in Spain, who, being exiled by Louis the Pious, prince of the Franks, dwelling near Carthago Spartaria and building a hermitage, afterwards returning to Corbie most holily closed his last day. Then in the same place, in the notes, he abridged into Latin from Melchior Huelamo the Spanish Life of St. Genesius, and concocted other Acts of the same Saint at his own pleasure, and mixed them together, that he might utterly transform St. Adalard of Corbie into St. Genesius of Xara. But that all these things were gratuitously devised by him for introducing confusion, the cautious reader will easily perceive who shall be willing to run through even with a light eye the ancient Acts of St. Adalard of Corbie, which our Bolland published at the second day of January, and in which no mention is made of the name or surname of Genesius which this holy abbot ever bore.

[21] If thou ask Tamayo where he found that surname given to holy Adalard of Corbie, relying on the authority of pseudo-writers, he confidently alleges his pseudo-masters Julian and Luitprand, and thinks that by these two oracles every doubt is removed. But we esteem the authority of these two witnesses, whom we have often found lying, as though he had cited no one, and we judge these two Saints far different from one another. But if to prove this difference thou shouldst say that they are celebrated on different days, Tamayo answers undaunted in this manner: Although the festival of holy Genesius is there referred to the day XXV of August, this does not disturb our exposition; because, since our elders utterly lost the Acts of holy Adalard, nor knew what was to be held as regards the day of his passing, being drawn by the likeness of name of holy Genesius of Arles, whose feast the Church celebrates on that day, they likewise appended his, whereas in truth it ought to be appointed today* (namely on the second day of January, of which he treats). But that unskilled fabulist did not observe that the very day of his death is expressed in the ancient Acts of St. Adalard of Corbie, and that this Saint is therefore by almost all Martyrologists referred to the second day of January, as Tamayo himself had before imprudently confessed.

[22] confounds with Adalard, abbot of Corbie, The inhabitants of Xara, from some tradition or other, think that the sacred relics of St. Genesius still rest among them in a hidden or unknown place, as may be read in his Spanish Life in Melchior Huelamo, chapter 4. But when the above-said Tamayo saw that this common tradition of the people of Xara did not fit well enough holy Adalard, abbot of Corbie, who had died in Gaul, and whom he had confounded with St. Genesius, he began to devise a way by which he might defend that confusion he had made, and might place the sacred remains of this abbot of Corbie in Spain. And so with the Pseudo-Julian he feigned that the bones of this holy Abbot were translated from Corbie in Gaul, where a hundred years before he had died, into Spain, and in his Spanish Martyrology he confidently announces this translation on the day XXI of May in this manner: Near Carthago Spartaria at mount Larinus, the translation of the sacred pledges of blessed Adalard surnamed Genesius the abbot from the city of Corbie in Gaul, where his sanctity flourishes with a notable frequency of marvels.

[23] as our Elders long since observed. Our elders detected that fraud of the Spanish Martyrologist, and therefore among the Passed-over at the day XXI of May roundly indicated their opinion on this matter in these words: The translation of the sacred pledges of holy Adalard the abbot from the city of Corbie in Gaul to mount Larinus near Carthago Spartaria is inscribed in the Spanish Martyrology of Tamayo de Salazar, with the Adversaria and Chronicle of Julian Peter cited, lately trimmed up. Nay, he had treated of him on the second day of January, and everywhere gives the surname of Genesius and the title of bishop, as is believed, he says, of Urci in Spain; and he says that, being driven into exile by Louis the Pious, he lay hid on the said mount Larinus, for which Usuard is cited, much younger than he, at this XXI of May. All which things have been impudently feigned. Adalard the abbot lived as an exile on the island of Noirmoutier in Aquitaine, and it is established that his body was still at Corbie in the XII century; accordingly it was not translated into Spain about the year DCCCI. Consult his various Acts and miracles with the translations published by us on the second of January.

[24] We confess with Wadding the Minorite, Because of these fables of Tamayo and the uncertain tradition of the people of Xara we doubt, or rather do not know, what can safely be believed about the Acts of this holy Genesius. The same doubt or ignorance held Wadding in suspense, who in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1437, num. 48, thus writes about the origin of the Convent of Xara: In the register of the Order I read that the Minister General in this year on the XVIII day of May gave leave to the brethren Alfonso Rubio of Cuenca and Francisco de Molina, sons of the Castilian province, to pass over to the hermitage of holy Genesius, of the diocese of Cartagena, and to abide under the obedience of the Guardian of that Convent. Wherefore it must be judged that the house was not so much made as remade or enlarged by that illustrious hero, by whom Gonzaga seems to hold that it was first built in the year MCDXCI under Innocent VIII. To him also Melchior Huelamo refers the origin of this monastery, in a special book which he wrote about the Life and miracles of holy Genesius, with many things inelegantly heaped up which conduce not at all to the argument of the history he had set himself. I have read three men who wrote about this holy Man: the two aforesaid, Gonzaga and Huelamo, and a third, Juan Márquez; but all disagree about his parents: the last calls Adalard Genesius, on I know not what foundation, and confounds him with Adalard, abbot of Corbie, from the conjectures of others. I have found nothing certain about his parents, the time of his death, or the settled state of his life.

[25] Besides those three authors whom Wadding cites in this place, that the deeds of this Saint are unknown to us, we have also read Francisco de Cascales, who in the Historical Discourses on the Kingdom of Murcia, which he published in Spanish at Murcia in the year 1621, fol. 451 and following, sets forth more fully the tradition about St. Genesius of Xara. This

Spanish writer of that same Carthaginian province also wrongly confounds his own holy Genesius with holy Adalard the abbot, and adopts all the fables of Tamayo and of other pseudo-writers. Hence we gather how little one ought to trust this tradition, which is found so faulty and so various. Wherefore we frankly confess that all things are uncertain or unknown to us which are commonly reported about that holy Genesius, if thou except his proper name, his immemorial worship, and some miracles or benefits of a more recent age.

[26] In the first place we find his name and the title of holy in the diploma of Pope Alexander VI, and although at Xara he is said to be honored as a confessor who in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1493 granted leave to build or restore a Convent of Friars Minor in the hermitage called of holy Genesius de la Xara, in a certain deserted place, and distant from the city of Cartagena by ten miles

or thereabouts, and lying near the shore of the sea, as is read in the Pontifical Register after the seventh tome of Wadding's Annals, page 96 and following. This immemorial worship of holy Genesius Pope Clement VIII confirmed and increased, whose Bull in Melchior Huelamo, after the Spanish Life of St. Genesius, fol. 168 verso, is related in this manner: Whereas, as we have heard, in the church of holy Genesius de la Xara of the Carthaginian diocese there exists a pious confraternity of Christ's faithful of either sex, not however of one special craft, called the Cord-bearers of holy Francis, canonically instituted, which has been wont to exercise itself in good works; We, that the aforesaid confraternity may day by day receive greater increase, … to those who are now and shall in time be confraternity members, as well as to other of Christ's faithful of either sex, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed with the most holy Communion, who shall devoutly visit the aforesaid church on the feast of that same holy Genesius the CONFESSOR, which is celebrated on the twenty- fifth of the month of August, from first Vespers until the setting of the sun of that festival, mercifully grant in the Lord a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins. Clement VIII gave this Bull in the eighth year of his Pontificate, which answers to the year of Christ 1599, as is indicated there at the end.

[27] from the popular and uncertain tradition of the people of Xara Although in this Bull St. Genesius is called by the surname of confessor, yet this appellation has no greater certainty than the wavering tradition itself of the people of Xara, who without doubt suggested that title to the Roman Pontiff. But who would warrant that that tradition of the people of Xara about the deeds of St. Genesius the confessor did not, a century and a half ago, come forth from those fabulous Chronicles and other like figments, with which certain pseudo-writers have contaminated and obscured the whole of Spanish antiquity, as we have shown above? We at least, two hundred years ago, in instruments worthy of credit, find no worship of St. Genesius the confessor, although then and before the worship of St. Genesius, martyr of Arles, was most renowned in Spain, as we have shown from the old Mozarabic Breviary. To this is added that the temple of St. Genesius at Córdoba, of which St. Eulogius in the Memorial of the Saints, book 2, chapter 10, makes mention near the end, must be attributed to St. Genesius the martyr, and that Nicolás Antonio judges the same must be held also of other churches of that name in Spain.

[28] yet with our Papebroch we doubt, Whence our Papebroch, in a slip of paper before the Spanish Life of St. Genesius of Xara, thus admonished his successors: It must be examined whether it be not a fable: for perhaps the worship of St. Genesius the martyr, introduced there by some pious hermit, gave occasion to a fiction of this kind, so that the miracles truly pertain to Genesius the martyr, who also

is honored on the XXV of August. Wherefore we would here have the learned men of the Carthaginian province asked to take this scruple from us, and to establish their tradition about the deeds and age of St. Genesius the confessor from ancient documents. This suspicion of our Papebroch is not altogether rash, since Wadding, even after the publication of the Bull of Clement VIII, which we have in part related above, in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1397, num. 2, called this same St. Genesius of Xara by the surname of martyr, where he thus begins the Acts of B. John de Cetina: John, born of his father John Lorenzo of Cetina (it is a town on the borders of Aragon toward Castile), in his younger years served a certain Aragonese lord; uselessly, however, and with no greater fruit than the loss of time and of virtues. Coming to himself by a certain divine spark, he bade farewell to his lord and to the world, and sought the hermitage of holy Genesius the MARTYR, not far from the city of Murcia, of the diocese of Cartagena, where for some years he lived piously.* Then he relates the deeds and martyrdom of this John.

[29] whether this change of a Martyr into a confessor But Wadding (the people of Xara, defenders of their own tradition, will say) in the same Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1437, num. 48, revokes his former opinion in these words: All call him a confessor; whence that place must be corrected where formerly, from the Life of our blessed John of Cetina, I called him a MARTYR and set his house near Murcia, ten leagues distant. Whence it must thus

be read: and he sought the hermitage of holy Genesius, not far from the city of Cartagena. I confess indeed that these things were thus corrected by Wadding. But would that at the same time he had expressed the urgent reasons for which he changed his opinion! But this one cause seems to be alleged by him, that all the inhabitants of Xara call that St. Genesius a confessor. Perhaps Wadding understood from his own Brethren at Xara that this was the common tradition of the place about their St. Genesius, and therefore he revoked his former opinion about the martyrdom of that St. Genesius. Whatever be the cause of that revocation, we are not so easily moved by the common opinion of the crowd, whose origin and antiquity we do not know. If further the people of Xara shall show that this tradition of theirs is ancient, and rests on a solid foundation, we shall imitate Wadding in retracting.

[30] But although Wadding in the place cited above confesses did not arise from the fabulous chronicles of the Spaniards, that he found nothing certain about the parents of that holy Genesius, the time of his death, or the settled state of his life, yet from popular tradition he presently subjoins in the same place the following: They report that the Saint flourishes with many miracles, that he was a kinsman of the kings of the Gauls, and a nephew of Charlemagne, and lies buried there. Very many flock thither to venerate him and to obtain benefits; and these he frequently bestows, especially upon those

in peril at sea. But this great nobility of birth or royal kinship is not a little suspect to us, both because the ancient French and Spanish writers nowhere record it, and because more recent Spanish fabulists attribute a like brilliance of birth to Adalard, abbot of Corbie, whom they surname Genesius, and wrongly confound with St. Genesius of Xara, as we have seen above. Whence not without reason we fear that the tradition of the people of Xara about the noble stock of their holy Genesius came forth from that fabulous confusion, and took its origin from these pseudo-writers.

[31] As regards the miracles with which this St. Genesius is said to shine in the Carthaginian province, and accordingly whether the miracles, we give an easier credit to them, because they are more recent, and were written by contemporary or nearly contemporary authors: for Melchior Huelamo in the Spanish Life of St. Genesius, chapter 14 and following, narrates at length some things which happened not long before his own age. Whether these miracles pertain to St. Genesius the confessor, as the people of Xara think, or to St. Genesius the martyr of Arles, as our Papebroch, alleged above, suspected, we shall briefly record them to the honor of one or the other Saint, since today mention is made of both those Genesii (if they are two distinct men), and since about neither will a more fitting occasion of treating offer itself elsewhere. Tamayo abridged these miracles or benefits into Latin faithfully enough from the Spanish book of Melchior Huelamo, and related them in his Martyrology at the day XXI of May, although there he wrongly ascribed them to St. Adalard of Corbie.

[32] His Latin rendering, which for brevity's sake we here transcribe, which Tamayo from the Spanish book of Huelamo in tom. 3 of the Spanish Martyrology, page 266, thus runs: In the year MDLIII a ship, loosing from the harbor of Cartagena, being assailed by strong winds, was looking for its final ruin, when a servant of the ship's master, drawing out a small piece of stone from the tomb of holy Genesius, and, his name being invoked, casting it into the sea, straightway the storm was stilled. In the year of the Lord MDLXI Francisco Xorquera and three other companions, who were seeking a livelihood by fishing, an ambush being laid by the Moors, were reduced to captivity. They, the name and help of holy Genesius being invoked, casting themselves into the sea,

returned free to the harbor, after they had swum nearly four leagues without peril and without anxiety.

[33] An almost like miracle befell sixteen citizens of Cartagena in the year MDLXIII: for when they were loosing from the harbor and seeking the Numidian shore, that, raids being made, they might return to their country laden with spoils, it happened that, being intercepted by a Moorish cutter, reduced into a Latin compendium, they bewailed their liberty lost; but, prayer being made to God by the merits of holy Genesius, straightway a strong wind arising so seized the cutter of the Moors that it was never again seen by anyone, and they came to Spain rejoicing. A certain son of a knight of Murcia, laboring with the disease of quinsy, died within a short interval; whose father, pierced with grief at his son's death, promised to God and to holy Genesius (if his son should enjoy the light of this life) that he for a year, and his son for six years, would serve continually in the ministries of the monastery. This vow being made, ordering his son's corpse

to be placed on a litter, going to the church in which the pledges of the holy Abbot rest (he wrongly means Adalard, abbot of Corbie, as we warned above), and setting it upon the altar, prayer being repeated for three days, by alms and by vow he received back his young son alive. We have been unwilling in this place to correct Tamayo's faulty Latinity or his dislocated periods, since at least the substance of the matter which he narrates is sufficiently understood.

[34] are not to be ascribed to the holy Martyr of Arles. From these and other miracles, which Melchior Huelamo sets forth in Spanish with wordy episodes, let no one confidently infer that the body of St. Genesius is buried there, as the people of Xara from their tradition contend: for one proposing such an argument would receive from us the same answer which St. Gregory once gave to a certain Peter asking why the Saints should work greater signs where they least lie in their own persons. Namely St. Gregory the Pope, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 38, in the newest edition of his Works at Paris, tom. 2, col. 276, thus answers this question: Where the holy Martyrs lie in their own bodies, there is no doubt, Peter, that they can show many signs, as indeed they do, and to those who seek with a pure mind they display innumerable miracles. But because it can be doubted by weak minds whether they are present to hear where it is plain that they are not in their own bodies, there it is necessary that they show greater signs, where a weak mind can doubt of their presence. But those whose mind is fixed in God have so much the greater merit of faith, the more they know that there they both do not lie

in the body and yet are not wanting to hear. For the rest, these are our conjectures about St. Genesius of Xara, which we have proposed to the learned in so great a scarcity of ancient documents, willingly to revoke them or to change our opinion if anyone shall teach us more certain things. Now from this necessary digression we return to St. Genesius of Arles.

perhaps synonymia read procul, as will presently be said. § III. The sincere Acts of the holy Martyr of Arles, their doubtful writer, the uncertain year of the martyrdom, and a twofold tradition of the people of Arles refuted. About the true writer of the Acts, Although among the learned it is not yet altogether certain who left to posterity the Acts of St. Genesius of Arles, yet all, even the most severe censors of ancient monuments, hold them for genuine, and by common consent affirm that that renowned martyrdom was faithfully transmitted to posterity by a sincere author. Certainly the pious writer of this Passion, who perhaps flourished at the beginning of the fifth century, in his prologue warns his readers that he gathered these Acts thus in good time, lest those things which are still related with a living recollection of events, as they were done, should, the credit either of those who hand them down or of those who receive them vanishing through time, be believed fabulous. Therefore Ruinart, before the Passion of this holy Martyr of Arles, which he published at Paris among the Sincere and select Acts of the Martyrs, on page 601 of that edition thus prefaces: Since in the time of persecution no one had described the martyrdom of blessed Genesius

of Arles, peace being at length restored to the Church, this loss was repaired by the pen of some faithful and

pious writer, who committed to writing the Passion of Genesius

which we now exhibit.

This Laurentius Surius published under the name of blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola, with whom most authors agree, nor do the manuscript codices oppose it. And indeed, although some doubt whether it be a true offspring of blessed Paulinus, yet no one can deny that it was written by an author of that same age.

[36] Then Ruinart testifies in the same place that in three or four Ms. codices the name of Paulinus the bishop is read expressed before these Acts, who flourished in the V century, and that therefore he too prefixed it to his edition. But hence it does not follow that that lucubration is to be attributed to the Nolan prelate of this name: for our Rosweyde, in the notes to his Antwerp edition of St. Paulinus of Nola, page 834, hints that it can more probably be ascribed to Paulinus, bishop of Béziers, who after the beginning of the fifth century held that see, as may be seen in the Sainte-Marthes, Gallia Christiana, of the old edition, tom. 2, page 408. Perhaps Rosweyde judged that this narration about a Martyr of Gaul more likely fitted a French bishop than an Italian. Yet that little work most more recent critics attribute to St. Paulinus of Nola, together with the recent French editor of the Paulinian lucubrations, whom Tillemont, tom. 5 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 569, surnames in the vernacular le Brun. This editor left that martyrdom of St. Genesius of Arles among the Works of St. Paulinus of Nola, which he published at Paris in the year 1685, and in the notes, tom. 2, page 114, gives the following warning: Rosweyde doubts whether the history of holy Genesius the martyr is a genuine offspring of our Paulinus; he thinks it can be adjudged to a certain Paulinus, bishop of Béziers, who sat in the year CDXX.

Yet this is commonly attributed to Paulinus of Nola; nor indeed does anything stand in the way of its being ascribed to him, although we do not see what occasion he had for weaving that narration.

[37] Whatever be the truth about the true writer of that history, who certainly deserves great credit, it is disputed among the learned, we, for want of surer knowledge, leave this suit undecided, after the example of Ruinart, who, after assigning from his Ms. codices the name of Paulinus the bishop, in the praised preliminary admonition to that same Passion, page 602 of the Paris edition, thus hesitates in doubt: But who was that Paulinus? Whether the Nolan or the Béziers bishop, or another, is plainly uncertain. Therefore, on account of the authority of the ancient codices which Ruinart alleges, we shall prefix to these Acts the name of Paulinus the bishop, and from him, after the preliminary Commentary, we shall reprint that same Passion of St. Genesius, about which that editor thus forewarns the reader: But this, which the collector of the new edition of the Works of holy Paulinus published from Surius (here Ruinart designates that French collector whose surname I have indicated above from Tillemont), we exhibit collated anew with some manuscript codices. But since in that edition, and in the single Colbert codex, there sometimes occur whole sentences which are not had in other manuscript codices, and which yet do not seem altogether to be rejected, we have left them enclosed in little brackets.

[38] as also about the author of the Homily, Besides this brief history of the Passion there still remains a Homily which was recited in praise of St. Genesius of Arles in the same fifth century, and whose author is still more than the preceding brought into controversy among the learned, as may be gathered from the following reasoning of Ruinart, which in the preliminary admonition already often cited is expressed in these words: A little afterwards Faustus, bishop of Riez, or Eucherius of Lyons, or another author, some of whose Homilies with others of other authors have been published under the name of Eusebius of Emesa or Eusebius Gallicanus in the fifth tome of the Library of the Fathers, published a homily on blessed Genesius, in which he often uses not only the sentences of this Passion but its very words, as will appear from some passages which we shall bring forward in the little notes … Further, Papire Masson in the Description of France by its rivers praises an elegant homily of Patiens, bishop of Lyons, on holy Genesius of Arles, which, since we have not been permitted to see it, whether it be different from that Passion which we have said was published under the name of holy Paulinus, or from the homily of Eusebius Gallicanus praised, under whose name some little works of Eucherius of Lyons have been published, we cannot judge; since indeed it is certain that other authors also wrote about the praises of holy Genesius. Among other sermons of the holy men Augustine, Caesarius, Faustus, and of other writers of the same age, which are had at Rome in a manuscript codex, num. 3836, of the Vatican library, there stand two about holy Genesius without the author's name. But Hadrianus Valesius in the Notitia Galliarum, page 38, prefers to attribute this Homily to St. Hilary of Arles, as he there indicates in these words: The author of the Homily on holy Genesius the martyr, native and patron of the city of Arles (whether he was Paulinus, bishop of Nola, or Paulinus of Béziers, or Patiens, prelate of Lyons, or, as I rather think, Hilary of Arles) teaches that this city was twin or double in his own age. But Valesius confounds the Homily with the Passion, as appears from the words of the Acts which he alleges in this place.

[39] which we publish from a Ms. copy, Our Théophile Raynaud in the Hagiologium Lugdunense, page 76, attributes this Homily to holy Patiens, bishop of Lyons, and more clearly distinguishes it from the Passion of St. Genesius of Arles in this manner: The eloquence of holy Patiens is shown by the flowery homily in praise of holy Genesius, which is read in the miscellany marked with the name of Eusebius Gallicanus or of Eucherius: for that homily Papire Masson, in the description of Gaul by its rivers, treating of the city of Arles, attributes to holy Patiens, and it is established that it was delivered outside Arles, as will be clear to the reader. But Masson does not seem to treat of that other writing which is read in Surius, tom. IV, on the day XXV of August, and is had mingled with the Works of holy Paulinus of Nola, under the title of the Martyrdom of holy Genesius: for that writing must not be called a homily, nor confounded with that truly homily on holy Genesius which stands in the Eusebian miscellany (as was wrongly done by Aubert Le Mire in the Auctarium on ecclesiastical writers, chapter 118), since that writing which I have mentioned is a historical narration of the manner in which holy Genesius suffered. In a parchment codex of our Museum, which is marked ✠ Ms. 201, we have this homily mingled with the sermons of Eusebius of Emesa or Eucherius of Lyons, which Surius on the day XXV of August, after the Acts and miracle of St. Genesius of Arles, also put to the press.

[40] Since therefore this homily contains and illustrates certain deeds of that holy Martyr, and in which it is narrated, with which the Acts to be reprinted after this preliminary Commentary may be compared, we shall here publish it, collated with the Surian edition, from the aforementioned Ms. codex of ours, which at folio 68 and the following thus has: Today we celebrate the birthday of holy Genesius; and rightly do we call the passions of the blessed Martyrs their birthdays, since the life of martyrdom and the faith of glory, while it thrusts them upon death, bore them unto eternity, and brought forth perpetual joys by a brief pain. Rightly indeed must those be called birthdays through which they who had been born into this misery of human frailty are suddenly reborn into glory, taking the beginning of everlasting life from the end of death. For indeed, if we call those days birthdays on which we are born into this light in sins and sorrows unto sorrows, on which we enter into this world wailing with the cry of infancy, every man, as it were a prophet of the misery to come through the whole of life, testifies also to the unhappiness of his nature by that first tearful voice; since indeed in the first state the life of those being born, which is taken up for the whole course, is passed in tribulation. More justly therefore are those birthdays celebrated on which the Saints come out of a corruptible light

into that new brightness of the world to come, and the sons of men ascend into the adoption of the divine fatherhood, and, a little before companions of mortals, suddenly begin to be citizens of the angels.

[41] Of their number was that Blessed one, whose renowned triumph of glorious struggle we today celebrate; how St. Genesius of Arles, who, being still a catechumen, still a stranger to the divine laws, still an alien, suddenly fulfilled in himself all the commands of piety with the fulness of faith. A catechumen, he advances to the contests of confession; he is not dipped in a font, but is washed by his passion; he is not quickened by baptism, but is regenerated by death; and what at last he believed, or what he owed for it to his Redeemer, he confesses by the pouring out of his blood. He cannot indeed say: I am buried together with Christ by baptism into death; but he can say, By death I am joined to him in baptism, that is, in death. For the Lord himself proclaimed his own death a baptism, saying: I have a baptism wherewith to be baptized, which ye know not. The blessed and renowned witness of Christ therefore, even if he did not set forth this death of his Lord in the mystery, it is more that he imitates it by example.

[42] O how much does that divine fire work in human breasts! while still a catechumen, A catechumen has found eternal life. Not yet set forth to the warfare of Christ, and already worthy of his friendship. Not yet taken up

to service, and already fit for testimony. Not yet let in at the door of the Church, he suddenly penetrates the very palace of heaven. Not yet a soldier of God, and already a coheir. Not yet a member of the household in the house of God, and already a son in the kingdom of God. And indeed that unshaken virtue of soul in so great a Martyr, and greatness of faith, long nourished by a hidden love of Christ, and approved by sudden proofs, deserved this glory. For when the still secret Servant of God was serving in the order of shorthand-writers, and was standing before the tribunal of a pagan Caesar, hearing him pronounce bloody sentences upon the head of the Christians, he called back his pious right hand from taking down as from sacrificing, and trembled to impress the sacrilegious words, because he bore Christ inscribed on the pages of his heart.

[43] a public profession of the Christian faith And so, his tablets being cast down before the eyes of the profane judge, he condemns his wicked words and impious edicts and decrees with all the freedom now of a martyr. Torments were before his eyes; the pain of those whom the punishment had torn reached even to the fear of the executioners,

even to the trembling of the torturers; and amid these things he cried out with all exultation that he was a Christian, as though Christians were sought not for punishments but for rewards. How great and how new spectacles did the faith of the pious afford to God and to his angels! Behold, in the service of a sacrilegious tyrant Christ found his own soldier. The Church was wont to send martyrs to the tribunals of persecutors; behold, now by an astonishing kind the tribunal of the persecutor sent forth a martyr to the Church. He proclaims therefore: I am a Christian. All the madness of the persecutor, his fury being turned upon him, rises up; the bloody judge seethes with pain and confusion; the more he blushes that a worshipper of the faith has emerged from the party of faithlessness.

[44] confirmed by the shedding of his blood, And so, the weight of persecution pressing upon him, and the devil's ministers pursuing, he casts himself into the streams of the Rhône. To the farther bank, from city to city, the river obeying him, he crosses over; not that he might flee a glorious death, but that nothing might be lacking from the order of martyrdom, since the Lord himself says: If they persecute you in this city, flee

into another. There, being apprehended, he is offered up to Christ, and is drenched with triumphal gore. By the wave of his precious blood the sacraments of baptism are completed. The victim of piety falls for the price of truth. Beneath the very walls of that most happy city the funeral of the renowned Victor is borne in upon the shoulders of the faithful. Whence now, glorious with a twofold honor between both parts of that city, he sanctifies that bank by his triumph, this by his tomb; that he ennobles by his blood, this by his body.*

[45] by whose example his hearers And so the faithful peoples, more especially exulting in the help of their perpetual champion, bring vows to his tomb, and from the tomb bear back the joys of their vows. These knock with prayers, he answers with powers: by the daily benefits of the Martyr the observances of his foster-city are surpassed. Whence rightly in prosperity they honor him whom they have known present in perils. And so by frequent tribulations they have proved how much their own Advocate avails with God. How precious are the wounds of the martyrs! How glorious their contests, in which, living amid torments and triumphing amid deaths, being vexed in few things, they shall be well ordered in many. Afflicted before men, to be glorified before the angels, they have lent to God a brief life in exchange for eternity: and therefore, as gold in the furnace of fire, so they, tried in the furnace of tribulation, shall shine as the sun; of whom through blessed John the divine voice testifies: These are they who came out of great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb; for this cause they shall stand in the sight of the throne.

[46] are stirred up to a spiritual martyrdom. These therefore, dearly beloved, let us so admire as to remember that they were men; these, I say, let us so admire as to know that they were like ourselves, and

that they lived under the same frailty of flesh in which we are; and thereby let us follow, so far as we can, their faith; let us pursue that virtue of soul by which, spurning earthly and present things, they did violence to the heavenly kingdoms. They overcame the pains of the body; let us overcome the passions of manners and of hearts; they conquered torments, let us conquer vices; they shuddered to sacrifice to demons; let us detest malice, envy, detractions, contentions, as profane sacrifices; that amid the conflicts of this world, vices, the persecutors of virtue, may prove us to be martyrs. Let us persecute in ourselves our sins and iniquities. Let us storm pride, let us war down wrath. Let us ourselves in ourselves discharge both the part of the persecutor and that of the martyrs, by the chastisement of vigils, by the contrition of fastings, by the keeping of chastity. Let us present our bodies a living victim, holy, pleasing to God. Let us acquire for ourselves a new martyrdom, not by the death of the flesh, but by the mortification of the fleshly life, so that of us also, even while living, it may be said: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints.

Therefore, so far as it can be done, let whatever of sin there is be extinguished in us; let what is of the world be mortified unto death, that the death of the living may be made precious in the sight of the Lord; that passions, covetings, and the blandishments of present things, even as death will wrest them from us unwilling, so the truth of faith and the fear of God may take them from us; and that not necessity may separate them from us, but will, so that not destruction but progress may make an end of our vices, a limit to our concupiscences and offences.

[47] In this homily St. Genesius of Arles is said publicly to have made a noble profession of the Christian faith From this Homily some assign the year of the Passion, when he was standing before the tribunal of a pagan Caesar. Hence Adrien Baillet in the French Acts of that same St. Genesius gathers that the emperor was then present in the city of Arles, although the name of that emperor or Caesar is not expressed. But since Maximian Herculius in the year of Christ 308 resumed at Arles the diadem of the Roman empire, which he had before unwillingly laid down, thence Baillet further infers that the martyrdom of St. Genesius of Arles can probably be fixed to this year. Although this conjecture is not altogether improbable, yet it seems to us uncertain, since Diocletian and Maximian Herculius himself were in Gaul, and perhaps at Arles, some years before, in which this martyrdom of St. Genesius of Arles could be placed by a like conjecture. Add that in the year of Christ 308 such was the condition of Maximian Herculius that it would not have much pleased him to persecute the Christians, as he will easily understand who shall be willing to consult the Roman history of that time.

[48] The most eminent Cardinal Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 303, num. 130, places various martyrs in Gaul in this year under the governor Rictius Varus, which however we think uncertain, and among them records today's St. Genesius in these words: At Arles

there suffered then also Genesius, shorthand-writer of the public Acts; he indeed, being bidden before the tribunal to take down a decree against the Christians, wearied of the crime, his tablets being cast down before the judge's feet, fled away and lay hid, and, breathed upon by the divine Spirit, asking that baptism be imparted to him by the bishop, it happened by God's will that, before he could obtain it, being forestalled by the governor's ministers, he was baptized in his own blood, and obtained the crown of martyrdom, and by a renowned memory, on the day on which he suffered, was inscribed in the lists of the holy martyrs. But Tillemont, tom. 5 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 3 and following, thinks that Rictius Varus, prefect of the praetorium, died before the end of the third century. Ruinart and others judge that the year in which St. Genesius of Arles underwent martyrdom is uncertain. To these last authors we adhere, until from some quarter a greater light of surer chronology shall shine forth. Yet meanwhile at the beginning of this Commentary we noted in the margin the year 303 or 308, that we might at least assign approximately some time for that martyrdom. Now we shall examine one and another tradition of the citizens of Arles which pertains to this martyrdom.

[49] and two popular traditions of the people of Arles The above-praised Pierre Saxi in the Pontificium Arelatense, which in Mencke among the writers on German affairs has lately been reprinted, in the same place, tom. 1, col. 123, sets forth the first popular tradition of the people of Arles in these words: Further, the citizens think that Genesius, when he was withdrawing his neck from the tyrant's cruelty, and wished to pass over into that part of the city where today is the suburb of Trinquetaille, the waves of the Rhône withdrawing, crossed over with dry foot. This tradition must not be so very recent, since the old Mozarabic Office makes mention of the same matter in the proper prayer or collect, which is thus recited: Almighty Lord, who didst permit thy most blessed martyr Genesius to be tried, but not overwhelmed, by the goads of sufferings and the masses of the impending waves, since neither did punishment overcome him as he fought, nor did the wave, when he was plunged in, sink him; because thou both wast present to him there, that he might not be conquered by torments, and here didst grant that against nature he should be borne up by the waves: by such great miracles grant faith to all, that vows may most devoutly be conferred upon those who celebrate them. Amen. Here the Mozarabs seem to hold that crossing of the Rhône for a miracle.

[50] destitute of ancient testimonies, Yet the most ancient writers of his Passion and of his miracles acknowledge no miracle in that crossing of the river: for holy Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 69, simply indicates that this holy Martyr swam in the Rhône, as on another occasion we shall afterwards relate. Nay, the first writer of the Acts, in the Passion to be reprinted after this Commentary from Ruinart, in our text at num. 5, expressly asserts that our Saint, being near the peril of apprehension, by the Lord's instinct cast himself into the Rhône, and so by the help of swimming reached the other bank of the river. If St. Genesius was skilled in swimming, as here seems to be supposed, no miracle is to be sought in that crossing of the river, of which also the most ancient writers afford no token by their silence.

[51] or rather contrary to them Certain Ms. codices express these things a little otherwise, and add the example of St. Peter the Apostle walking upon the waters, in this manner: And this indeed was the cause, that he should reach it by the help of swimming, who, after the example of the most blessed Peter, tending toward Christ, could have walked upon the tops of the whirlpools. What if the Mozarabs, from this period ill understood, thought that St. Genesius, after the example of the most blessed Peter, was borne up by the waves against nature, as in their collect they hint? Perhaps some of the people of Arles, on account of the comparison elsewhere alleged of the Israelite people crossing the Red Sea in a prodigious manner, thought that the holy Martyr too, the waves of the Rhône withdrawing, crossed this river with dry foot, as Saxi above testifies. Hence that popular and inconstant tradition could arise among the people of Arles, and pass over to the Mozarabs, and gradually grow strong. But from whatever source it had its origin or increase, we do not dare to multiply miracles without the manifest testimony of ancient writers.

[52] we reject because of the silence of the Acts. In the place cited above Pierre Saxi thus relates another tradition of the people of Arles: They affirm that Genesius, coming forth from the river, being struck by a public servant, carried his head in his hands, like another Dionysius, as far as that place where a mulberry tree, watered with the Martyr's blood, had grown up. But Saxi himself, canon of the church of Arles, about that carrying of the head in the same place briefly and cautiously thus pronounces: But that he carried his head, since I have nowhere read it (although painters and statuaries

so represent him), I do not assert; yet the church acknowledges him renowned for miracles. It is helpful on this matter to hear our Henschen, when at the day XXV of May, on occasion of SS. Maximus and Venerandus, martyrs of Évreux, who in fabulous Acts were also said to have carried their own heads, tom. VI of that month, page 38, he explains that carrying of the head in these words: To these things we have nothing else to say than that, the custom having once been received throughout Gaul of representing in statues or paintings all those Saints who were believed to have been beheaded, with their own head lifted in their hands before the breast, a popular error grew strong, whereby they were believed to have lifted up their severed heads after death and to have carried them to the place dedicated to their veneration. This may really have happened once and again; but, that deceptive principle being once recognized which has led so many into error, it can be prudently believed of no Saint whose Acts are not altogether most sincere, and most remote, because of the indubitable credit of their authors, from every suspicion of interpolation. We for confirmation add to these things

that the Acts of our St. Genesius are indeed sincere, but that in them not a word is said of this carrying of the head, and therefore that that tradition of the people of Arles seems to us utterly improbable. For the rest, with Saxi and with the church of Arles we acknowledge other notable miracles of this Martyr, which now in the following paragraph we shall gather from witnesses beyond all exception.

Sur. prophetia Sur. suspecta Sur. (dico) Sur. implere Sur. hostis § IV. Various miracles wrought by the Saint's patronage after his martyrdom, and written by authors most worthy of credit. An eyewitness narrates, Before the year of Christ 429, in which St. Honoratus, prelate of Arles, migrated to those above, there happened by the intercession of St. Genesius a notable miracle, which St. Hilary, an eyewitness and the immediate successor of holy Honoratus, bishop of Arles, committed to writing, as the learned commonly hand down. Yet the famous Quesnel strives against the torrent, and in the edition of the Works of holy Pope Leo, tom. 1, page 730, adjudges this little work away from holy Hilary of Arles in these words: The narration of the miracles of holy Genesius, which is read in Surius adorned with the name of Hilary, is abhorrent from his eloquence, and utterly smacks of the style of Honoratus of Marseilles, whom Gennadius also testifies to have written several things pertaining to the Lives of the holy Fathers. But this slight little reason, or rash conjecture of Quesnel, seems to fall by chronology alone: for in the year of Christ 427 or 428 that miracle of St. Genesius was wrought, at which the writer himself was present, as in his narration he testifies. But Honoratus of Marseilles was still living in the year of Christ 494, which vast interval of time renders the aforementioned conjecture of Quesnel utterly improbable. Further, Tillemont and other severe censors of lucubrations find nothing in the history of this miracle unworthy of holy Hilary of Arles, as may be seen in the Benedictines in the Literary History of France* lately published,

tom. 2, page 269.

[54] how very many citizens of Arles, Jean Salinas, Canon Regular of the Lateran, in the year 1731 at Rome published this narration of the miracle among the Works of St. Hilary of Arles, reprinting it from

Surius, and seems to have collated it with other codices or editions. We shall here transcribe the same, collated with the printed copies, from the Chifflet Ms. copy, which thus runs: To relate the works of the Lord is honorable. It is therefore worth the labor to narrate the miracles of the divine work, to be referred to the glory of the holy martyr Genesius: for on his birthday that frequented accident in the city of Arles, by the peril of a broken bridge, shook the whole city with exceeding trembling, and, men's minds being shaken by the hazard of a sudden terror, it rendered the gladness of the solemnity gladder still by the grace of recovered safety, the joy being doubled: for when at this festival Arles had gathered her own people and even more than her own, for the keeping of whose joys on that day the city itself was too narrow, and the paths and spaces of the fields, and therefore, the throng sticking fast upon itself and all laboring by their own density, there went toward the farther bank of the river, in honor of the Martyr, an army devoted to Christ, with dear wives and sweet children, hastening to obtain many benefits at once, and not content to pour out vows in one place, keeping vigil in the church, before dawn hastened to the place of the slaying and of the blood; likewise to the tomb, offering the victims of their joys, it hurried as though to occupy the Martyr's ears; nor did it wait for the offices of the Clergy solemnly ordered, nor at last for the very time of daylight: for the splendor of the festival, the whole city shining, had driven away in every way all the horror of the night.

[55] the bridge of the Rhône being broken, Meanwhile that way of ships, by which between the cities confederate with one another the back of that terrible Rhône

is trodden, suddenly, either under an uneven burden or by the excessive weight of timbers, or through the slanting waters, was spread out headlong to its fall. It is uncertain by what accident (yet certain by whose snares) the ill-hanging roadway set down its precious burden, that is, a troop of the faithful, in the midst of the waves, myself standing by, which I speak truly, and drawing back my foot from the bridge itself, so to say. Straightway a huge crash arises of the people, both those falling and those standing round; terror runs through the whole city. This man fears for his wife, that man for his children, others for kinsfolk, others for friends, all together with divers affections. Amid these things, upon the prelate of holy memory, Honoratus, in whom that people then rejoiced as their shepherd, fearing alone for all, the whole weight of the disaster lay. What goads did that piety then receive? With what sudden sickness of soul was he sicker than the sick? His eyes being straightway raised to heaven, and the intention of his heart made equal with his eyes, he so departed wholly from us who stood round in an ecstasy of mind, that no one doubted that he stood before the tribunals of Christ with holy Genesius to obtain help against the present evil.

[56] came into the greatest hazard of drowning, Meanwhile pitiable shipwrecks were being enacted with great tumult; caparisoned horses mingled with men, indignant at their hindered swimming, tossed their legs with high breasts; trampling down whatever met them, whether admonished by the peril or panic-stricken by instinct: mothers' arms entwined with fearful strength about their dear burdens, and servants pressed by the matrons' sedans, and all the solemn procession of its own journey mingled with the wreckage. Let no evil interpreter meet us in this place, let none by malignant detraction darken so great a glory of the Martyr, and let no one allege a neighboring bank;*

let no one assert that they were caught by shallows, whom the divine right hand openly saved. Ships of inestimable burden, laden with the wares of foreign shores, are daily moored to those same banks: an ancient ordinance set a boat there for bearing bridges, as though it despaired of laying a foundation with mounds. It exposed in this vast whirlpool as great a weight of crowded people as it had received in beams most long, most strong, and broken by that same weight.

[57] Let there occur now to the minds and eyes of those recalling these things all at once and by the help of St. Genesius the Rhône, the ruin, the shipwreck, the diverse crowd of wretched people to be entangled, a destruction massed into one by the devil's snares. Nothing was lacking to the peril, that nothing might be lacking to the Martyr's glory. For when should the river drown his nurslings, which on that same day he had consecrated by pious swimmings? O great glory of God! There burst forth from the vast whirlpool a glorious army. Thou wouldst believe that Jordan again, the stream being divinely broken, had lain open; or that again the seas had, as once under Moses their leader, at the command of the rod, afforded to God's people a solid way amid the waters. The ruin shook no one, the river wrapped no one weighed down by his garments, upon no one did the river force its draught; unhurt and safe the native and familiar bank received them all. All the procession, as it had entered, came forth. Mothers of families bore from the deep*

upon the necks of their servants the secret places of their movable chambers: maidens adorned in God's honor felt no loss of their floating necklaces: the very pins, so to say, clung fast as they had been fixed by their mothers' hands. No one received any loss of goods, no one any harm to his safety.*

[58] Dear children meet dear children; each one joyfully embraces his neighbor that present peril of death for whom he had feared most. Whose present power, save Christ's, wrought these things through the intercession of his Martyr? And so the bishop met the Martyr, and the Martyr the Lord. There was shown the office of a faithful people worthy of safety. And at last very many (which perhaps with me ye also who did it acknowledge) on the spot, lest the enemy should be permitted even lightly to disturb their holy devotion, with their garments as they were soaked, go aboard the boats, and, with fervent hope, despise the morning chill of the river; hastening, with conquering spirit they come whither they had purposed, namely to the place of the slaying, to pour out their vows with greater eagerness after so recent a peril.

[59] O prayers worthy to be heard, which, not broken

by injuries, know not how to impute that they were endangered, but know how to give thanks all escaped unhurt by a prodigy, that they had escaped. All dance for joy; at length they attend the solemnities gladly; it delights them to have been present at perils, because it is a notable thing to have been present at miracles. So much was it worth to each to have doubted of his safety, that he might wondrously gain his safety. Honoratus the shepherd exults in the entire number of his own; who indeed could have committed these things to writings that should last for a perpetual age with a more polished hand and greater grace, had he not, conscious of the divine gift, and designated a partner in the embassy of the holy Martyr, feared to exult too insolently that the Lord had bestowed these things while he was prelate. And indeed benefits diffused through many come to us. But how many private ones do men know in themselves? Which we ascribe to God alone, who, the maker of all things and conscious of all, is worshipped and lives with the Son and the Holy Spirit, through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[60] Now upon that narration of the miracle certain things occur to be noted. First, from the episcopate of holy Honoratus of Arles it appears upon which narration we observe certain things, that this prodigious preservation of the people of Arles cannot be deferred beyond the year of Christ 429, in which that holy prelate departed this life. Secondly, from various places of this history it is clear that its narrator was at the same time an eyewitness of that same miracle; from which reckoning alone of time and presence it follows, against Quesnel, that this lucubration is improbably ascribed to Honoratus of Marseilles, who was still living among men in the year 494, as we warned above. Thirdly, in the very reading we have already found that this narration is here and there not clear enough. But this obscurity we impute partly to the style of that century, partly to unskilled copyists, who have dislocated some periods, as sufficiently appears from the variant readings which we have set in the margin. Lastly, to the glory of the holy Martyr we have wished to exhibit to the curious reader that fragment of sacred history, which is to be venerated more for its credit and antiquity than for its eloquence.

[61] and to it other miracles of the same Martyr To this we add other miracles of the same holy Martyr, which Gregory of Tours doubtless gathered from more ancient monuments or from faithful tradition: for after that holy writer, book 1 On the glory of the Martyrs, chapter 67, had made mention of certain relics of St. Genesius of Arles being translated, as we noted in the Acts of St. Avitus, prelate of Auvergne, at the day XXI of August above, page 447 of this tome, in the edition of Ruinart, chapter 68, he narrates the following about the same holy Martyr of Arles: But this martyr Genesius by the cutting of his neck consummated his struggle for the name of Christ at that same city, namely Arles, the fervor of his faith prevailing. Now there is there a tree where he is said to have been beheaded, of the kind of mulberry, from which many benefits have for the most part been granted to the sick, the Martyr imparting them. But as time ran on,

when its branches and bark were plucked off by many for healing, it withered. Nevertheless, what remains of the trunk still lives for those who ask faithfully, affording like remedies.

[62] from St. Gregory of Tours Then in the following chapter he abridges the miracle which we have already related above from Hilary, prelate of Arles, and to this in the same place he subjoins certain others in this manner: But also a bridge once over the river Rhône, where the blessed Martyr is reported to have swum, on the day of his solemnity, its chains being broken, because it was set upon boats, began to sway, and, from the exceeding weight of the peoples, those very boats gaping apart were drowning the people in the channel of the river. Then all, being together set in hazard, cried out with one voice, saying: Most blessed Genesius, snatch us by the power of thine own sanctity, lest the people perish which has faithfully come devoutly to celebrate thy solemnities. Presently, a wind blowing, all the common folk, being brought back to the shore, marvel that they were saved by the Martyr's power. For the lattices also of the blessed tomb were often broken by the Lombards or by other enemies.

But men, seized by a demon, or caught with madness, raving or tearing themselves with their own teeth, carried off nothing of those things which they had violently taken.

[63] we subjoin They report also that in this city there was a woman upon whom a charge was fastened by her husband, and not at all proved, and she was adjudged by the judge to be plunged in the waters; and when a huge stone had been bound with ropes to her neck, she was cast headlong from a boat into the Rhône. But she besought the help of the blessed Martyr, and, invoking his name, said: Holy Genesius, glorious martyr, who hast sanctified these waters by the stroke of thy swimming, deliver me according to my innocence; and at once she began to be borne upon the waters. Which the peoples seeing, took her into a boat, and led her unhurt to the Saint's basilica; nor was she thereafter sought by her husband or by the judge. Since indeed Pierre Saxi, canon of Arles, already often praised, in the place cited above testifies that very many miracles remain, upon which he does not wish to dwell, we do not doubt that this holy Martyr conferred many other benefits upon his clients. Yet since these have not come to our knowledge, we end this Commentary, and illustrate with the accustomed annotations the Passion of the Saint, reprinted from Ruinart.

al. obliquum amnis illapsum al. ægris præsto that is, laden with the burdens of their mistresses al. natalibus al. viderunt*

ACTS

by the author Paulinus the bishop. From the Sincere and select Acts of the Martyrs which Ruinart published at Paris in the year 1689, and which we have collated with other Mss., page 603 and following. Genesius, notary and M. at Arles in Gaul (St.) BHL Number: 3304

BY PAULINUS THE BISHOP.

A prologue being premised, The most blessed Genesius the martyr, proper and native to the city of Arles, a nursling of the same by right of birth, its patron by the power of his dying — him the zeal of all the faithful, all the writings of religious men, ought from the very beginning to have celebrated and extolled; that the glorious proofs of so great a merit, consigned by the credit of writers, and commended to living monuments, might come down to posterity unimpaired and entire; which admiration would always make new, and veneration would approve as ancient. But since the ages, succeeding one another through the uncertain time of life, preferred to hand these things down to one another by mutual memory rather than to commit them to writing, it is fitting even now to transmit the same by faithful writings into the times to come, lest those things which are still related with a living recollection of events, as they were done, should, the credit either of those who hand them down or of those who receive them vanishing through time, be believed fabulous ^a.

[2] Holy Genesius therefore, in the earliest flower of his youth, the writer of the Acts narrates, took up the first service of the provincial militia [b], [having embraced with zeal and art that part of the office which by a new swiftness of signs, or of the right hand, might match the words of his patrons with the sound of the voice [c]; prefiguring a spiritual image of his glory to come, so that he who quickly heard the divine precepts might take them down in the faithful notes of a pious mind.] But it happened that, while he was discharging the office of shorthand-writer before the tribunal of a judge, the impious and sacrilegious commands of a persecution enjoined were read out; which when [d]

his hearing, devoted to God, refused, and his holy hand declined to impress upon the wax.

[3] His tablets therefore being cast down before the judge's feet, his mind, now consecrated to God, fled that sad ministry. on which occasion St. Genesius, And that in nothing the act of martyrdom might swerve from the Gospel precepts, by which we are either permitted or bidden to decline the onset of persecution,

[one hiding-place after another, and even the city itself, being changed, since in another place also it is written, The spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak] he hid himself for a little while from the wrath of the raging judge. Who, when he had ordered him to be seized forthwith and produced, and no easy search reached the hiding-place he had procured, commanded the most cruel ministers of punishment to slay with the sword wherever they found him. Which when it was learned by blessed Genesius, either by secret messengers or by rumor, he changed divers places of hiding — as the outcome teaches, not from weakness of spirit, but from the trembling of the flesh.

[4] the notary of Arles, And meanwhile, though superfluously, being anxious about the confirmation of the faith he had presumed, since he was not yet reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he asked through faithful go-betweens the gift of baptism from a prelate of the Catholic religion. But he, perhaps hindered by the straits of time, or distrusting his youthful age, put off his burning desires faithfully indicated to him that a full consummation even of this gift would be given by a ready shedding of blood for Christ. [And this hesitation of the priest was, as I judge, prompted and disposed by the divine nod and judgment; that concerning his solemn consecration human offices should cease, for whom the twofold grace of one baptism, namely from each [e] side of Christ, both water and blood, was being prepared.]

[5] nobly professing the Christian faith, And so, since now the Lord, searching through the Holy Spirit the secrets of the future martyr, would not suffer the crown to be deferred where he saw the victory prepared, he offered him to his slayers, and showed him to those whose greedy cruelty gaped after him. And he, when he perceives himself caught, by the Lord's instinct made for the Rhône, and commits his holy limbs to the stream, [that there a hidden baptist might purge him from mortal contagion, as it were by the waves of another Jordan; and by a mutual and alternate mystery he consecrated both his body by the waters and the waters by his body. And this indeed was the cause,] and so, when by the help of swimming he had come to the other bank, [who, after the example of the most blessed Peter, tending toward Christ, could walk upon the tops of the whirlpools * [f].]

[6] Having straightway crossed into the farther parts of the river, and being secure, with Christ as surety, of the rewards of the passion he was to undergo, in that place suffered martyrdom for it, which the Lord had chosen for the pouring out of his glorious blood, and which is now frequented with assiduous prayer and vows never in vain, the slayer overtakes the blessed Martyr, and by the longed-for stroke of the sword loosed his soul, hastening to God, from the bonds of the body in which it was held; and, each substance seeking again the elements of its own origin, he commends meanwhile his earthly members to the earth, and sends forth his heavenly spirit to heaven. Yet the faithful servants of God of that time provided that the protection of one Martyr should fortify both banks of the river, to be encompassed by twin cities ^g. For in the very place of the blessed passion, leaving the traces of the consecrated gore, they translated the honored relics to the other side of the river, so that, holy Genesius being present in both places, there he might be had in his blood, here in his body.

[7] and he exhorts his readers to the veneration of this Martyr. All these things faithfully, and as they were done, whether ascertained or reported, do ye who knew them recognize with willing and devout minds; ye who knew them not, learn them; and, beholding with the eyes of the mind the glory of so great a Martyr, growing through each several space of years, and destined to live unto eternal ages, prepare your minds each one according to his strength for the like, if a like time should offer itself; and pray that blessed Genesius, standing before the Lord's throne until the time of his vindication, may be a patron to the priests and ministers, to the clergy, and to you all, and to him who composed these things for your instruction. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.