ON ST. ILPIDIUS THE MARTYR IN THE GABALITAN TERRITORY OF GAUL
From the Gallican Martyrology of Andrew Saussay.
UNDER VALERIAN
CommentaryIlpidius, Martyr in the Gabalitan territory of Gaul (S.)
D. P.
The memory of these Martyrs is celebrated by Saussay in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology in these words: "In the Gabalitan territory the feast of St. Ilpidius the Martyr, who up to old age devoted to the offices of piety, Eulogy from Saussay and secretly watching over the burial of the sacred bodies of the Martyrs, made the stronger thereby, his own goods being distributed to the uses of the poor, withdrew to the high summit of a mountain near the bank of the Allier: where, when he had stayed for two years, on account of the peoples converted to Christ, under the Princes Valerian and Gallienus he was granted the laurel of martyrdom." These things Saussay says, which would that we had established from the proper Offices of the Church of Gévaudan.
[2] The chief episcopal city of his domain, Mende or Mimata, of the people of Gabalum or of the Gabali, is sometimes also called Gabala, and it had and venerates holy Bishops: Severianus, of whom our Bollandus treats on the 25th of January from Usuard, though the feast is now said to be kept on the 26th; Privatus, crowned with Martyrdom under Crocus King of the Alamanni, and assigned to the 13th of November, of whom then there is to be treated from Gregory of Tours; Firminus, of whom see what is said on the 14th of January; St. Hilary, of him and five others to be commemorated on the 25th of October; St. Ilerus or Iserus, of whom, say the Sammarthani, there are more things in the Office of the particular Saints of the Church of Mende: they do not add the day; which Saussay not only notes on the 1st of December with no long eulogy, but says is venerated again on the sixth day of October; and finally Fredaldus, on the 4th of September, The Acts are wanting for whom likewise a proper Office is cited. It is therefore to be wished by us, that those proper Offices, not yet seen by us, we may sometime be able to receive thence.