ON SAINT MARCELLIANUS BISHOP OF AUXERRE IN GAUL.
ABOUT A.D. CCCXIV
CommentaryMarcellianus, Bishop of Auxerre in Gaul (St.)
G. H.
The ancient Bishops of the Church of Auxerre and other Presbyters seem to have been very much given over to the veneration of the Saints. Hence the ancient Hieronymian Martyrology apographs which we have, everywhere have subjoined the prior holy Bishops of the Church of Auxerre, so that their very protograph of the rest seems to have been preserved by them. Sacred cult. There is venerated on this XIII May St. Marcellianus Bishop of Auxerre by the Ecclesiastical office of three lessons, as the ancient Breviaries of the same Church indicate, sent to us by Peter le Venier, Penitentiary of the said Church: of whom the cited Hieronymian Martyrology apographs of Echternach, Blumian and Corbey of Paris printed have these words: In the city of Auxerre the deposition and translation of St. Marcellianus the Bishop. In the apograph of Lucca it is said the deposition and translation of the body of St. Marcellinus the Bishop. But the deposition of St. Marcellianus the Bishop alone have the ancient MSS. of Trier of St. Maximinus, and another of the Queen of Sweden published by Holstenius, and the MS. Florarium, and with them Notker, Greven, Maurolycus, Canisius; likewise the Martyrology of Cologne and Lübeck printed in the year 1490, in which Marcellianus is said. But Marcellinus, in MSS. of Reichenau and some of Trier of St. Maximinus. Of him a long encomium is published by Saussaius in the Gallican Martyrology, which can there be read.
[2] The History of the Bishops of Auxerre from MSS. drawn out by Philip Labbe and printed in volume I of the New Library, chapter 2 about St. Marcellianus has these things. Marcellianus, by nation a Gaul, Eulogy. sat XXXIX years. He in the office of preaching faithfully laboring, with happy course migrated to Christ on III Ides of May, and was buried on the mount Autricus. He was however in the times of Alexander and Maximus the Emperors, Aurelian and Marcellinus being Consuls; presiding at the city of Rome Felix and Eutychianus. Thus far that text. There were Aurelian Emperor for the III time, and T. Avonius Marcellinus Consuls in the year CCLXXV, in which year also St. Felix I Pope was succeeded by St. Eutychianus: but far from that year are the Emperors above indicated. For Alexander after thirteen years of empire killed in year CCXXXV was succeeded by Maximinus, who above is called Maximus. But lest by this manifest fault of history the reader be disturbed, let him remember that we have shown on the Kalends of May, on the Life of St. Amator the Bishop, that the names of Emperors and Pontiffs with great confusion of things had been inserted into the said history. The predecessor of St. Marcellianus is said to be St. Peregrinus, the first Bishop of Auxerre sent by St. Sixtus II, Roman Pontiff, and not long afterward crowned with martyrdom XVI May: Time of his see. after whom are placed SS. Marcellianus the second Bishop, Valerius the third, and Velerianus the fourth, of whom we have treated on VI May, and have said that St. Valerianus was designated Bishop around the year CCCXXXIV, therefore from the martyrdom of St. Sixtus the Pope until his Episcopate intervene LXXXVI years: of which in the said History are assigned to St. Marcellianus thirty-nine, and to St. Valerius seventeen: and so twenty years are found, in which the See would have been vacant, which we would judge could be conceived as the next from the martyrdom of St. Peregrinus. What if Marcellianus should be said ordained when Aurelian and Marcellinus were Consuls? Thus he would have survived to about the year CCCXIV or the following. We here affirm nothing for certain: only some things as more probable to further discussion of others we propose. Bucelinus mentions the same in the Benedictine Sacrarium, that at Auxerre in the monastery of St. Germain he was buried.