ON SAINT BENIGNUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, WHO IS VENERATED AT UTRECHT IN BELGIUM.
CommentaryBenignus, Bishop and Martyr, honored at Utrecht (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR C. J.
John Molanus, a diligent inquirer into the Saints of Belgium, from the Libraries of the Churches of Utrecht, in the Appendix to Usuardus has these things only: The Relics brought to Utrecht At Utrecht, of Benignus the Martyr and Pontiff. But in the Natales of the same Saints he sets them forth in this manner: At Utrecht, of B. Benignus the Martyr and Pontiff. This one on account of the bringing of his Body or Relics, has nine Lessons on the Vigil of SS. Peter and Paul, in the collegiate Churches of the blessed Martin and Peter. But of which B. Benignus these are the Relics, is an old controversy, not yet, as far as I know, resolved; and therefore I leave it undecided. But it is established that the Relics were brought by Baldric the Pious, by Bishop Baldric son of the Count of Cleves, who of Otto the first was Counsellor and Preceptor of his son. For opposite the Relics of B. Agnes, there survives of the said Prelate an Epitaph.
The city of Utrecht, overturned by the fierce Danes, lay hidden; This Baldric restored its ancient honor. By whose auspice now Pontius, Agnes, Benignus Preserve the city, and the church shines.
[2] Thus Molanus. John de Beka in his Chronicle or Catalogue of the Bishops of Utrecht; under the said Baldric, 15th Bishop, among other things writes these: This Bishop, in the year of the Lord 966, crossing the Alps, came down into Italy; where for certain advantages of the Church, about the year 966. he sought out the presence of King Otto. At length the same Bishop, bidding farewell to the King, the bodies of the holy Martyrs Pontianus, Benignus and Agnes with himself transferred, and the same into the Church of Utrecht with great devotion bore. Of these S. Pontianus was a Martyr of Spoleto, whose Acta we gave on the 14th of January, where more concerning the journey of Baldric and the relics carried away are had: and he alone seems to have been brought from Italy; not likewise the two others; as we shall soon say.
[3] The Acta of the Martyrdom, tolerated by S. Benignus, we have some from a Ms. of Utrecht; and a compendium of them in the Lessons of the Breviary, printed in the year 1518, [The Acta of the Martyrdom the same as those of Benignus of Dijon on the 1st of November] where Lesson VI ends thus: These things were done on the Kalends of November. But as this is the day on which died and is venerated S. Benignus, Martyr of Dijon; so from his Acta also are taken those things which we just cited, and the people of Utrecht recite them for their S. Benignus on the 28th day of June, which is held as the [day] of his translation; and they add this Prayer: Almighty eternal God, who us by the festivity of B. Benignus thy Martyr and Pontiff gladdenest; grant, we beseech, that we whose commemoration we rejoice in, may be defended by his protection.
[4] We have also a manuscript codex comprising composite Feasts, The Finding of the Bodies of S. Benignus and Agnes or the more solemn ones of some Church through Belgium, and I think, of Antwerp; in which is noted on the 2nd day of September the Translation of blessed Agnes V. M., and in the Lessons is narrated the finding of the Body of Agnes herself and of S. Benignus, Bishop of Chartres and Martyr, the narration being taken from the fuller and old Ms. History of S. Paul of Utrecht concerning the finding and translation of the same Agnes and Benignus, which Bollandus on the 21st of January after the Acta of S. Agnes printed. In that are said the aforesaid bodies, by Clovis the King, converted to the Catholic faith about the year 495, to have been brought into a monastery, by him on the bank of the Loire built and variously enriched.
[5] But that being afterward destroyed through the incursions of the Normans, in Gaul on the Loire the sacred Bodies long hidden and inglorious lay, until in the first year of Otto Augustus, crowned at Rome by John Pope XII; in the ninth of King Lothair (which times concur with the year of the common era 962) there was made by divine agency a revelation of the holy Bodies of B. Benignus the Martyr and Pontiff, which are given to Baldric, Bishop of Utrecht. and also of S. Agnes the Virgin and Martyr of Christ. But the Bodies, when found, were taken away, S. Agnes willing it, by Count Thiadbold, and given to Baldric, Bishop of Utrecht; who in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 964, in the 7th Indiction, the day before the Kalends of April, honorably replaced them in his Cathedral church. But more of these, as also the miracles wrought at the body of S. Benignus, may be read in that History on the said 21st day of January.
[6] That S. Benignus was Bishop of Chartres, I do not see why it ought altogether to be denied, even though his name is not read in the Catalogues of that church. For not all the names of the first Bishops there are, and those which are, are only indicated by name. But that Ferrarius in the General Catalogue calls S. Benignus, Bishop of Chartres, Benedict, attribute to error: but that from him Saussajus makes Benignus and Benedict two, attribute to carelessness.