Firminus the Confessor of Amiens

ON ST. FIRMINUS THE CONFESSOR OF AMIENS, BISHOP, AT AMIENS IN GAUL

About the year 370 or 380.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

There are two Firmini of Amiens, the one a martyr, the other a confessor: the Acts of the latter are defiled with anachronisms: elogia drawn from elsewhere; the time of his life discussed.

Firminus, bishop and confessor, at Amiens in Gaul. (S.)

Written by J. S. The Ambiani, an ancient people of Gaul in Belgica Secunda, between the Bellovaci and the Atrebates, dwell by the river Somme, which the Latins formerly called the Samara, Amiens formerly called Samarobriva and Somonobria; as appears from the ancient name of their chief city. For Cicero, with the ancients, named the chief city of the people Samarobriva; others more recently called it

Somonobria and Somanobria, as may be seen in Valois in his Notice of the Gauls, pages 15 and 539. But now the city itself is everywhere called Ambianum from the name of the people, and by the French Amiens. Further, the city of Amiens, as it was the chief, enjoys an ancient bishopric, and among its bishops venerates two Firmini, the one a martyr, who is celebrated on 25 September, the other a Confessor, whose festivity falls on this day. The celebrity and antiquity of the cult of St. Firminus the confessor we shall more conveniently show below, on occasion of the controversy that arose about the possession of his body. Here we shall briefly discourse about his Acts and his age: for although the man's excellent sanctity sufficiently shows itself, few things nevertheless have been written down about his deeds, and fewer are the monuments about him which deserve full credit.

[2] Certain Acts of St. Firminus the confessor have been written, The Acts of St. Firminus the confessor defiled with anachronisms: of which we have two manuscript copies. The first was sent to our elders by Nicolas Belfort, frequently praised in this work; the other the Reverend Father Jean de Saint-Martin sent hither from Amiens in the year 1660. These copies agree with one another, if we regard only the facts which are related in them; but the Amiens one is here and there interpolated, with phrases added and words from time to time changed, that the style might be more elegant. Further, the Acts themselves do not agree with themselves, but are defiled with various anachronisms. For they say that Faustinian, the Saint's father, flourished in the reign of Gratian, that is, about the year of Christ 370 or 380; but then they prolong the age of St. Firminus the confessor beyond the times of Attila, king of the Huns, who about the middle of the fifth century miserably laid waste the Gauls; nay, they even bring our Saint to Pope Vigilius, so that he must have lived almost to the middle of the sixth century, in which Vigilius held the pontificate. That these things do not cohere is plain of itself, and they can cohere so much the less because Faustinian is said to have been converted by St. Firminus the martyr, who suffered under Diocletian and Maximian. All things indicate that those Acts were compiled by an unskilled man, who mixed and confused many things, and therefore that they do not deserve certain credit. Besides, certain other things occur in the same Acts which either appear doubtful or are utterly to be rejected, as I shall show in the annotations.

[3] [various summaries lacking them: an elogium of him in the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr:] The Breviaries of the church of Amiens which are at hand to us, printed in the sixteenth century, namely in the years 1550 and 1555, exhibit nine lessons in the Office of the Saint, in which the said anachronisms are not found, although they otherwise agree everywhere with the Acts. Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror recites a summary of the life of St. Firminus the confessor; another like it Peter de Natalibus in his Catalogue of the Saints. And finally, to omit the more recent writers, certain things also about St. Firminus the confessor are had in the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr, which have gravity and antiquity, as Tillemont confesses, even though he tries to detract from the credit of these Acts also.

[4] these very Acts Tillemont assails, but his chief argument proves nothing, Further, since we have nothing about St. Firminus the confessor older than the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr, I shall briefly discuss the chief argument of Tillemont by which he impugns those Acts, in volume 3 of the Monuments, note 2 on St. Saturninus. First he says that the death of St. Firminus the martyr is sometimes placed in the Acts under Diocletian, sometimes under Decius and Valerian. He alleges no other reason for this assertion than that the Acts themselves in Bosquet, pages 146 and 152, are to be inspected. Nevertheless about Decius and Valerian it is not so clearly stated that the words do not admit of another explanation, and therefore they must be explained otherwise, since it is not likely that a writer to whom Tillemont himself attributes gravity in Saturninus, page 304, contradicted himself so openly in a matter so clear. Take therefore the author's own words: The governor, giving order, commanded that the councillors and the priests of the temples should assemble in his presence; and while they stood by, Sebastian the governor said: The most sacred emperors Decius and Valerian have decreed that the honour and worship of the gods should be preserved by the peoples and nations in all the borders of the world, and that the altars should be venerated with incense according to the old and ancient customs of the princes; and if anyone shall try to go against the decrees of the most sacred emperors, or shall be unwilling to preserve them, let him be afflicted with various kinds of torments; and it has been established by decree of the senate and of the Roman princes that he shall undergo the capital sentence.

From these words it cannot be gathered that the martyrdom of St. Firminus is set under Decius and Valerian, since the same things could be said under Diocletian, especially before he, at the end of his reign, had promulgated his deadly decrees against the Christians. For, since the decrees of deceased emperors passed against the Christians were not abrogated, but their execution only intermitted, the governors of provinces could use those decrees, and in fact from time to time did use them for persecuting the Christians. The passage therefore is to be explained of the edicts of Decius and Valerian long since dead, and cannot be explained of both as living emperors, since they did not reign together. For which cause Tillemont ought not to have asserted that the death of St. Firminus the martyr is placed in the Acts now under Diocletian and Maximian, now under Decius and Valerian, as though this were clear; but he ought to have proved that this follows from the words alleged, lest he should thrust his own inconsequences upon his readers for the words of the Acts.

[5] He objects moreover that what is read in the Acts about forty thousand men converted at Pompeiopolis by St. Saturninus is not likely, other slighter objections will be discussed in their place: the elogium nor about the many others brought to the faith in Gaul by St. Firminus. And finally he says that many other things occur in the Acts which diminish their authority. Whether the number of the converted is too much exaggerated, and whether the Acts labour under other blemishes, can be examined more at large at 25 September, on which St. Firminus the martyr is venerated. We meanwhile are not deterred by these slight objections from transferring hither all that is read about St. Firminus the confessor in the aforesaid Acts. Where the author had narrated that the body of St. Firminus the martyr was buried by Faustinian, whom the Saint had before converted, he then subjoins these things to our purpose: But Faustinian, whom we mentioned before, who also laid the body of blessed Firminus the martyr in the tomb, out of love and memory of blessed Firminus, martyr and confessor, called his only son by the name of Firminus, and, having him imbued with sacred letters, handed him over to religious men to be instructed; who afterwards in wisdom and doctrine shone out to all in the parts of the Gauls like a most brilliant ray of the sun. For while he was comely in speech, most sure in manners, and upright in chastity, he was made a father and master to all the churches of Europe; and when by the degrees of virtues he had climbed to the summits of the church, he was seized by John, prelate of the church of Lyons, for the office of the episcopate; through whom the divine mercy deigned to show many miracles in the holy Church.

[6] For he both restored many paralytics to their former health, of St. Firminus the confessor from the Acts of the Martyr, and freed the son of the patrician Callistus from fevers by the power of prayer, and many times cleansed those vexed by demons in various places, even as he himself today by his merits shines far and wide upon each who invokes him and hopes in him; who also built a church in honour of holy Mary the Virgin, in which holy Firminus, martyr and pontiff, is handed down to have been laid, and in which Firminus the bishop had chosen to have his own burial made. But since it was doubtful, on account of the persecution, which had then overflowed there, where holy Firminus the martyr was laid by the illustrious Faustinian, yet it is not doubtful where holy Firminus the confessor and bishop, after many virtues shown, was laid, where also without doubt he must be believed to rest. And he lived forty-seven [*] years, and on the day of the Kalends of September happily departed from the world, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, who with the Father together and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through the immortal ages of ages. Amen. Here ends the passion of holy Firminus, bishop and martyr. The chief difficulty of this elogium is that among the bishops of the metropolis of Lyons no John is found before the twelfth century. Nor is it lawful to have recourse to Lugdunum Clavatum or Laon, which received a bishop later. Lugdunum Convenarum perhaps had a bishopric even then, but the first bishops of that city are unknown. Nevertheless John, bishop of Lyons, is said to have ordained our Saint also in the Acts to be published. It may be that John was passed over in the catalogues of the prelates of Lyons, unless we prefer to suspect that an error has crept into the name of that bishop or of his church.

[7] a second from Vincent of Beauvais, Another elogium Vincent of Beauvais hands down in book 16, chapter 89, in these words: About the same time (that is, in the reign of Gratian, of whom he had treated) Faustian, a man noble by race, was prefect not only of Amiens but of all Gaul. He had an only son, whom in honour and memory of holy Firminus the martyr he called Firminus. Who, beginning to be a boy of good disposition, consecrated his tender years to the Lord. And when by the degrees of virtues he seemed to climb to the summits of the church, he is ordained bishop, welcome to the people of Amiens. What and how great he there showed himself, who could worthily set forth? Who is furnished with such abundance of words that he could pursue all his good deeds as is fitting? The city being purged from all error of the faithless vain superstition of the gentiles, in the place where the body of blessed Firminus the martyr was buried, he built a church of the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, which the concourse of the peoples endowed with the highest honours. In which, while at the Paschal festivity he was performing the sacred mysteries, the heavens being opened, he beheld the palm of our Lord Jesus Christ, which blessed the most sacred anointings of his life; and he who was consecrated by the vision, nay by the receiving, of that most sacred gift, remained thereafter unharmed by every defilement of flesh and spirit. O how often for the assertion of the truth did he hold death ready; but although the lot of his time could not grant him martyrdom, yet he did not lose the glory of martyrdom, because for the hope of eternity he laboured continually. Distinguished therefore and shining with fresh miracles, on the Kalends of September he passed to Christ.

[8] a third from Peter de Natalibus: Take also a third elogium from the Catalogue of the Saints of Peter de Natalibus, who in book 7, chapter 137, has this: Firminus, bishop of the city of Amiens, which from the circuit (ambitus) of the river is called Ambianum, sprung from that same city, was the son of Faustian, a most noble man, who in honour of holy Firminus the martyr called his son Firminus… He, a boy of good disposition, growing as his age advanced by the increases of virtues, was made bishop of the city; who directed the people by word and example into the way of salvation, and purged the city from every error of heathenism; and above the tomb of holy Firminus the martyr he built and consecrated a church of the Mother of God; in which, while on the holy day of Easter he was celebrating, the heavens being opened, he beheld a palm glided down to him from above; and from that day he remained pure from all defilement and motion of the flesh. He rested in peace on the third of the Kalends of September, buried in the aforesaid church. Whom there succeeded the holy Honoratus … and Salvius. A like elogium Saussay composed at 1 September. He adds nevertheless two things: first, that he succeeded in the bishopric Eulogius, second bishop of the people of Amiens, as all the catalogues have it; the other, that besides the church built above the tomb of St. Firminus the martyr, which he affirms was appointed by him as the cathedral, he asserts that another was built by the same man, in these words: Moreover he founded a small church of the blessed Virgin, to which in course of time the pontifical see and the ecclesiastical senate were translated. But that St. Firminus was the author of this second cathedral church I nowhere read in the older writers.

[9] Finally I subjoin the lessons indicated before from the Breviary of the year 1550, a summary of his life since they seem to contain almost all that about the Saint's life is more probable than the rest. But what is said not rightly about the city of Amiens will be corrected in the annotations to the Acts: Our God and Saviour Jesus Christ reigning through the ages, in the eightieth sixtieth seventh year from the founding of the City, Antonius [*] Pius with his son Aurelius founded the city, which from the neighbouring river he called Somonobria. This he hallowed with divine gifts, endowed with wealth, and ennobled with warlike men. And Gratian, son of the great Valentinian of old, after the courses of many years set it, thus supported by these munificences, under his own dominion, and there obtained for himself the imperial dignity. To which also, changing its name, he gave a new one, and from the circuit of the rivers ordered it to be named Ambianum.

[10] About the same time Faustinian, a man noble by race, not only administered the prefectorial dignity of the Ambiani, from the Breviary but also presided as supreme over the hierarchic order of all Gaul. He had an only Son, whom, in love and memory of the blessed martyr of Christ Firminus, by whose teachings and holy preachings he had long before received the grace of baptism, he called by the name of Firminus.

Who, living as a little boy with his parents, and beginning to be of good disposition, consecrated his tender years to Christ the Lord. And being handed over to wise and religious men, he daily increased in good works. Perfected therefore in the wisdom and doctrine of God, he shone out to all in the parts of the Gauls like a ray of the sun. Firminus therefore, a worshipper of God, was by the blessed man John, prelate of the church of Lyons, consecrated bishop for the people of Amiens. And so, the bishopric being taken up, he returned to the see of Amiens, ever persevering in the pursuit of virtues. He bore the same anxious care for the poor as before. For he endured untiringly in the services of the poor and in his diligence toward strangers.

[11] For in the place which by the ancients is called Abladana, where the body of blessed Firminus the martyr had been buried by the senator Faustinian, of Amiens. he built a church of the blessed Virgin Mary; in which, while at the Paschal solemnity he was performing the divine Office, he beheld the palm of the Lord blessing in his stead the anointings. But when he felt the saving day of his departure drawing near, having called together his disciples, he said to them: If you love me, love Jesus always, and fix his precepts in your minds: for I go the way of all flesh. I commend therefore into your hands this day the salvation of your souls. Amid these words, with suppliant eyes and hands raised to heaven, he poured out long a silent prayer. Then breaking into speech, he said: Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And so his soul, the burden of the flesh being cast off and freed from earthly oppressions, in this order flew joyfully to its Author. And blessed Firminus lived sixty-seven years; who, shining with miracles, on the day of the Kalends of September happily passed to Christ. And he was buried honourably in the church of blessed Mary the Virgin, which he himself built, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit be honour and glory through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[12] The chronological notes which are had in the elogia are explained, The preceding elogia contain some chronological notes, but vague and scarcely cohering with one another, nay in appearance contrary. Hence the Saint's age cannot certainly be determined. First, Faustinian, the holy Confessor's father, is said to have been converted by St. Firminus the martyr, so that the age of St. Firminus the confessor ought not to be removed too far from St. Firminus the martyr. This note is more certain than the rest, since it is had from the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr. 20. Vincent of Beauvais and Peter de Natalibus, with the Breviary, so speak as if Faustinian had still been living in the reign of Gratian, which is not likely, if he buried St. Firminus the martyr. Hence what is said, about the same time, does not seem to be taken so strictly. 30. St. Honoratus both here by Peter, and in his own elogium, and in others cited in the same place in his Acts in volume 3 of May, pages 612 and 613, is said to be the successor of St. Firminus the confessor. But St. Honoratus seems to have flourished about the end of the sixth century, according to others in the seventh already advanced, so that this must not be understood of an immediate succession, since several came between the two, not named in the older catalogues, as Henschen there notes: For, he says, catalogues of this kind seem for the most part to have been taken from the litanies and Martyrologies of the church of Amiens, in which those bishops were noted who had flourished in sanctity, the rest being omitted, whose memory seems to have perished by the injury of wars or by the negligence of our elders. And some of these, afterwards recalled to notice by others, are thus indicated: Leodardus, Audoënus, Edibius and Beatus, who was present at the fifth council of Orléans, held in the year 547. All these are also found in the same order in the Sainte-Marthe brothers, volume 2 of Christian Gaul, page 92, and in Adrien de la Morlière in his Antiquities of Amiens, book 2. Henschen subjoins: There is recorded from a most ancient Martyrology of the church of Amiens a bishop Deodatus, but when he presided is unknown. He therefore might also have sat between St. Firminus and Honoratus, and others still unknown. Further, St. Honoratus and St. Salvius our Elders placed, with Morlière, before Berecundus, and fix the death of Honoratus about the year 600, of Salvius about 615, and allege not a few reasons for this chronological arrangement, which see in volume 1 of January, page

704, and volume 3 of May, pages 612 and 613.

[13] [more probably the Saint lived 67 years, and St. Firminus the martyr suffered under Diocletian:] Fourthly, a difficulty arises because the Saint's age is noted in different ways in the Acts. For the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr as published attribute to Firminus the confessor only forty-seven years, while his own Acts number sixty-seven. There is no doubt that the Acts of the Martyr are better; but neither can I doubt that in this place the others are to be preferred, since it is certain that by the carelessness of copyists a fault has crept into the numbers. I have detected it in our Mss.: for in one there are noted forty-seven years, as in Bosquet; but in the other, that of Saint-Omer, sixty-seven. Then the Breviaries of Amiens also note sixty-seven years, and that seems to have been of old the common opinion, which will also be able to cohere more rightly with the chronological arrangement to be given. Morlière, just praised, on page 160, with certain others whom he names, ascribes a very long Life to our Saint, for no other reason, I think, than that he might the better fill up all the time, and leave no gap in the catalogue of the bishops. But this reason does not suffice. I should therefore prefer to embrace the opinion of an age of sixty-seven years as more probable, until someone find more certain monuments. 50. It must be laid down that the death of St. Firminus the martyr was under Diocletian and Maximian according to the Acts, and before the general persecution, because in the same Acts no mention is made of the edicts of Diocletian, but of those of Decius and Valerian. These things being premised, and the errors being disregarded which are read in the Acts about the times of Attila and Vigilius,

I shall briefly show what about the age of St. Firminus the confessor seems more probably to be laid down.

[14] The Saint may have been born about the year 310, or even some years later, [from what has been said such a chronological arrangement of his life as can be is given,] because his father Faustinian is said to have given him the name of Firminus out of love and memory of the blessed martyr of Christ Firminus, by whose teachings he had long before received the grace of baptism. Our Saint therefore was not born while St. Firminus the martyr was living, but long after his death, probably in the reign of Constantine; and the time of his entering the bishopric also suggests this. For he was made Bishop after the year 347: for between the two Firmini all set as intermediate Eulogius, who was at the council of Cologne in the year 346, and at that of Sardica in the year 347. I know indeed that the opinion of all is not the same about the council of Cologne or Agrippina, and that it is held fictitious by some; but I neither assent to their opinion, nor does the assertion depend upon it, since the council of Sardica at least stands, and there among the bishops of Gaul Eulogius subscribed, no other assuredly than the bishop of Amiens. Further, Eulogius is everywhere set down as second bishop of Amiens, because between him and St. Firminus the martyr none is found intermediate. Hence it is likely that he was already old at the time of the council of Sardica, and that St. Firminus the confessor succeeded him not many years after, perhaps between 350 and 360. Finally, how many years he held the bishopric, or in what year the Saint died, the ancients do not express. The new Martyrology of Paris notes in the margin about the year

390; Morlière would wish to prolong his life as far as 430, but with little probability.

[15] If Sigebert seemed to be listened to, we should have to prolong the Saint's life almost to the middle of the fifth century:

and the opinion of Sigebert is rejected. for so he has it at the year 382: At that time the illustrious man Faustinian was administering the Gallic prefecture, who begot a Son whom for love and memory of blessed Firminus the martyr he called Firminus, at a later time bishop of the church of Amiens. But it is clear that these things were taken from the Acts of St. Firminus the confessor, together with the other things which he premises about the city of Amiens, and therefore are referred to the reign of Gratian, because the Acts mention Gratian, and presently subjoin: About the same time Faustinian, etc. And we believe that in his Acts mention was made of the emperor Gratian for no other cause than that he was associated in the empire at Amiens in the year 367, and is reported to have changed the name of that city, to which he was beneficent. But those words of the Acts, About the same time Faustinian … was administering the prefectorial dignity of the Ambiani, which Sigebert closely followed, we hold as nothing else than the words of a man everywhere disturbing the times, and most openly contradicting himself, as I have proved before. Hence I judge that the death of St. Firminus is to be placed about the reign of Gratian, namely about the year 370 or 380, or even a little later: for the age of 67 years and the time of the death of St. Firminus the martyr do not allow us to prolong the life of the holy Confessor to much later times. To these I subjoin the Acts, such as they are, that we may then discourse more fully about the cult and relics of the Saint.

in one Ms., more correctly, sixty-seven Antoninus

ACTS SPRINKLED WITH ANACHRONISMS

by an anonymous author From the Ms. of Nicolas Belfort, collated with the Amiens one.

Firminus, bishop and confessor, at Amiens in Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 3012 Various things about the city of Amiens, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ reigning through the ages, in the eight hundred and sixty-seventh year from the founding of the city, Antoninus Pius ^a with his son Aurelius founded a city which, from the neighbouring river Somme, he called Somonobria, and hallowed it to the divine deities, endowed it with wealth, and ennobled it with warlike men. For it was fruitful in lands, wooded with trees, filled with the commerce of the money-changer [b], and fortified on one side by the said river through the various windings of its streams, which abundantly furnishes the citizens with a plenty of fish, and is known to afford no small defence to the walls. This city at length Gratian, son of the great Valentinian [c] of old, a king, set under his own dominion, and obtained there for himself the imperial dignity, and, the name being changed, ordered it to be named Ambianum from the circuit of the rivers.

[2] [and about Faustinian, the Saint's father: St. Firminus's pious boyhood and youth:] About the same time Faustinian, a man noble by race, not only administered the prefectorial dignity of the Ambiani, but also presided as supreme over the hierarchic order of all Gaul [d].

He had an only son, whom, in love and memory of the blessed martyr of Christ Firminus [e] (by whose teachings and preachings long before, his former sins being cast out, he had received the perfection of the grace of baptism, with great joy of the Christians), he named Firminus. This boy, of good disposition, consecrated his tender years to the Lord, and, being handed over from his earliest age to wise and religious men, clung assiduously to reading; and, passing beyond his boyish years by his shrewd industry, he spent the season of youth with great solicitude; and the spirit of wisdom, with the grace of humility, shone in his face. He was frequently present at the assemblies of the churches, and whatever was recited from the divine [*] Scriptures he drank in most eagerly, and, storing it in his heart, when he was absent he ruminated on it most intently. Perfected at length in wisdom and doctrine, like a most brilliant ray of the sun he shone out in the parts of the Gauls: for he bore the simplicity of the dove, that he might contrive no deceits against anyone, and had also the astuteness of the serpent, that he might not be tripped up by the snares of others [f].

[3] his episcopal ordination, Meanwhile, when by the degrees of virtues he seemed to climb to the summits of the church, the bishops of Gaul being called together, it was decreed by common consent that the Man of the Lord, full of the divine spirit, on account of the persecutions [g] which then hung over the Christian people, should be ordained bishop in the western parts. Firminus therefore, amid the throngs of the people, amid the ranks of the clergy, amid the choirs of those singing psalms, was by the lord, the most blessed man John, bishop of Lyons [h], consecrated bishop for the people of Amiens. Who, the bishopric being taken up, returning [i] to the see of Amiens, exercising himself in the pursuit of virtue, most constantly persevered in the purpose he had begun. The same humility was in his heart, the same gravity in his countenance [k], the same fraternal love, the same constancy of mind remained; save that the episcopal honour, which is wont to supply to others the fuel of pomp, showed in him a greater zeal for the virtue of humility.

[4] He was therefore pre-eminent in doctrine, always armed with devotion, his various virtues: teaching by his work, vehement in correcting, ardent in loving, patient in adversities, conquering the insolent not with arms but with patience, and subjecting them to the most sweet yoke of Christ; gentle in discipline, ready to pardon, assiduous in his studies, anxious with the fear of death; devout in funerals, glorious in mercy; endowed with an excellent genius, a provident shepherd of the church, guarding against his own fault, mourning another's as his own; persevering untiringly in his services toward the poor and toward strangers. For he had a place set apart, into which on certain days he brought in the needy and the feeble; and he himself, as he had long been accustomed, busying himself after the manner of servants, served them very devoutly. Yet on each day he refreshed a fixed number of twelve, very often even dining together with them at one table, in such wise at least that he first poured water on the hands of each, and offered wine and bread with his own hand. He did this assiduously: for what he first vowed to God he bound to no business of the world.

[5] This same blessed Man, ever wondrously intent upon such works, his journey to Rome to the thresholds of the Apostles, supported by divine protection, sought Rome.

To which when he had come, satisfied with holy desire, imprinting sweet kisses on the thresholds of the Apostles, by day he went round the places of the churches, but by night returned to the most sacred dwellings of blessed Peter. Meanwhile the fame of his sanctity being heard by blessed Vigilius ^l, the Apostolic head of the holy Roman Church, a most prudent man, he was honourably received; and both holy Pontiffs kissed one another with great sweetness of charity. For the supreme Pontiff rejoiced over so great a Guest, and blessed Firminus over such a host; and amid such joys they presently offered the Sacrifice to the divine sight for thanksgiving. Celebrating also the solemnities of the Masses, they persisted together very long in holy prayers.

[6] And when three years had been spent with him, holy Firminus, desiring to increase his labours for Christ, whence he is said to have returned with the power of an apostolic legate: confessed to blessed Pope Vigilius that he wished to return to the western parts. Who, discerning in him every zeal of sanctity, handed over to him all the power of Apostolic dignity, that the churches which far and wide had been overthrown throughout Europe by Attila [m], the most fierce king of the Huns, might by his shrewd genius be restored to divine worship. Bidding farewell therefore to the supreme Pontiff, blessed Firminus, and to all the prelates of the said city, returns to blessed John, his ordainer. To whom, when he had related how the supreme Pontiff had handed over to him the citadel of the supreme pontificate of the churches of Europe which had been destroyed by Attila, blessed John said: Go, dearest brother, light and honour of the church, and, as a prudent watchman appointed by the Lord, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reproving, entreating, rebuking, in all patience and doctrine, ever holding, in the things which are of God, a pleasant address to the people or conference of brotherly familiarity, that thou mayest hold the peace of a most fierce nation and convert a copious people to the faith.

[7] he builds a church above the body of St. Firminus the martyr; Blessed Firminus, strengthened by these words in the grace of Christ, traversing the churches of Europe [n], ordained bishops, presbyters, deacons; and moreover, all filthiness being cast out, he restored the holy places, teaching the people to come together to church, to build monasteries, and to serve God diligently in good deeds. All these things being duly accomplished, he came at last to the city of Amiens. Which being purged from all faithlessness and heathen superstition, in the place which by the ancients is called Bladana [o] (where the body of the blessed martyr Firminus had been buried by Faustinian, senator and likewise ordinary), he built a church of the blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, which the concourse of the peoples endowed with the highest honours.

[8] he shines with miracles, In which, while at the Paschal solemnity he was performing the festive Office and handling the sacred Mysteries, the heavens being opened, he beheld the palm [p] of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which in his stead blessed the most sacred anointings. And he himself, by the vision of so great a gift, nay by the receiving of sanctity, remained thereafter unharmed by every defilement of flesh and spirit; and in that same city God deigned to show many miracles [q] through him. For he restored very many paralytics to health, and freed the son of the patrician Callistus from fevers by the power of prayer. Many times he cleansed those vexed by demons in various places; even as to this day his merits shine far and wide upon each who invokes him and hopes through him.

[9] he preaches the word of God to the neighbouring peoples For the rest, anxious with a shepherd's care, he went round the cities and townships committed to him; whom the Morini [r], the Pontinenses, the Vinniacenses [s], the Talaonenses [t] also, and the Caldenses [u], and all the barbarians dwelling about the shores of the sea (whom, as remote in the farthest parts, no ploughshare of preaching had yet furrowed), at first received with hostile mind and perverse spirit. But afterwards, when little by little he had begun to instil the word of God, the greatest part of that fierce and barbarous people, leaving their idols, was subjected to Christ. And so he destroyed several of their shrines, and idols of various kinds, wherever he found them, he overthrew utterly. Amid these things, however, while he always kept a sober and religious discipline, he was nonetheless frequently harassed by an ungrateful and faithless people, and provoked almost to the point of insult; but, by no means resting from the doctrine he had received, with unspeakable subtlety, gently and composedly, he goaded the minds of the barbarians, who were nothing anxious about a future hope, to the love of God.

[10] with great fruit: Whence those very men who at first desired to tear him in pieces like the fiercest of beasts, afterwards, attending to his goodness and gentleness, desired to become his imitators [x]. Nor was his fame content to make illustrious only the Gauls round about, but it filled foreign provinces indeed, the grace of his merits running before. O how often for the assertion of the truth did he hold death ready, and he would have satisfied his desires if the lot of his time had granted it. But although the condition of the time could not afford him martyrdom, yet he did not lose the glory of a martyr, who laboured continually for the hope of eternity.

[11] sick, he gives his last admonitions to his own, When he now felt the saving day of his departure drawing near, his disciples being called together, whom he was now beginning to leave orphans, if not in spirit yet in body, he began thus to them: Receive, dearest ones, the last sentence of my littleness, the last words of him who loves you. If you love me with a returning love, strive to fulfil the divine commands, sigh ever for Jesus, fix his precepts in your minds. If you are truly my lovers, love the name of Christ, as I also do, ever dread the terrible judgments of God, and anxiously weigh what you shall be on the day when you must be presented at the judgment. For I, according to the words of the Scriptures, enter the way of all flesh. I commend therefore this day into your hands the salvation of your souls: remember my admonitions, and let each think of his own self.

[12] Amid these words, with suppliant eyes and hands raised to heaven, and piously dies. he poured out long a silent prayer; then breaking into speech he said: Remember me, thou who alone art without sin, Christ the redeemer of the world. Thou hast ever been my protector, my helper: into thy hands, Lord Jesus, I commend my spirit. His holy soul therefore, the burden of the flesh being cast off, in this order flew back joyful to its Author. The venerable and magnificent prelate blessed Firminus lived sixty-seven years, distinguished by virtues and miracles. On the day of the Kalends of September he passed to Christ, and was buried with magnificent honour in the church of the holy Mother of God, which he himself built; where his benefits shine forth to those who ask with right faith, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ granting it, to whom with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit be power, honour, glory and dominion through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

q. The following miracles deserve more credit, since they are related in the same way in the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr, adduced in the Commentary at number 5. r. The peoples enumerated seem really to have been under the bishopric of Amiens in the time of St. Firminus. Certainly the Morini, who inhabited the maritime parts between the rivers Scheldt and Samara or Somme, are read not yet to have had a bishop at that time. The county of Ponthieu, sometimes called Pontium and Pontiu, now commonly le Pontieu, from which he calls them Pontinenses, and in the other Ms. Pontinienses, is today also under the bishop of Amiens.

s. Vinniacenses, in the other Ms. Vimacenses. The peoples of the district of Vimeu are indicated, of which Valois treats in his Notice of the Gauls, page 612. The district is found called by various names commonly Vimau, Vitmau, Vitnau and Wimnau, now le Vimeu. In Latin also the name varies: for Usuard, he says, and Ado in their Martyrologies call it the district of Vimnacum on the river Somme in the borders of the Ambiani, otherwise the district of Vimacum. The situation of this district the same writer indicates in these words: It lies between the rivers Bresle and Somme, or between the districts of Talou and Ponthieu.

t. The Taraonenses, in the other Ms. faultily, as it seems, Thalaonenses, are a part of the Morini, whose chief city Taruanna, Teruanna and Taruenna, in French Thérouanne, afterwards had an episcopal see, until it was utterly destroyed. u. By Caldenses, as it is in both Mss., there seem to be designated the inhabitants of the district of Caux, the name being somewhat corrupted. The city of Rouen indeed already had its own bishop, to whom the district of Caux, now commonly le Pays de Caux, if it be considered as a whole, was nearer; but, since perhaps those people were still pagans, St. Firminus could come in for a share of the labour, and cultivate those of Caux who were nearer to Amiens. x. Take certain things added in the other Ms. in this place; such as I have said were inserted in other places also by someone who tried to make the phrasing fuller: For who would be so obstinate that, beholding his modesty, he would not straightway be struck dumb with admiration? Or what arrogant man, considering his sober life, would not at once turn himself to equity? For the report of his familiar virtues daily grew in him: he sowed among the people words of truth overflowing with the fruit of faith, seasoned with sufficient salt, and as it were infused with aromatic ointments.

THE POSTHUMOUS GLORY OF THE SAINT.

Firminus, bishop and confessor, at Amiens in Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 3014 § I. The Saint buried in the church of the blessed Virgin

[ ] Mary which he himself had built; there he shines with miracles and is venerated from the sixth century at least: the controversy lately stirred up about the present possession of his sacred body is set out.

[The Saint buried in the church built by himself, and venerated there before the seventh century;] That St. Firminus the confessor was buried with magnificent honour in the church of the holy Mother of God which he himself built, the Acts just given have at their end. The same is asserted in the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr, whose words I gave in the Commentary at number 5, where there is added: It is not doubtful where St. Firminus the confessor and bishop, after many virtues shown, was laid, where also without doubt he must be believed to rest. The Saint also shone with miracles: for these words are set before them concerning him: Even as he himself today by his merits shines far and wide upon each who invokes him and hopes in him. Besides, from the words invocantibus and in se sperantibus it is gathered that the holy Confessor was already an object of veneration to the faithful when the author was writing these things; and probably that cult had already long flourished, since he does not speak of it as of a new thing. Further, it is clear that those Acts were drawn up before the translation of the bodies of both Firmini, which we shall show below happened about the year 613. There seems therefore to be no doubt that the Saint was venerated by the people of Amiens before the seventh century. But let us return to the place of his burial.

[2] nor does the place of burial seem doubtful; The Finding of the body of St. Firminus the martyr, in Le Cointe at the year 687, number 17, has this about the place of the burial of both Firmini: But he (St. Salvius) knew that it (the body of St. Firminus the martyr) rested in the church of the blessed Virgin Mary, which blessed Firminus, confessor of Christ, had built, who both by the lot of his name and by the merit of his worth stood forth in this city as a most illustrious pastor, and had chosen that his burial should be made in that same church. Further, someone has raised a doubt whether the holy Confessor was really buried in the same church, because both here and in the Acts of St. Firminus the martyr it is only said that in that church he had chosen that his burial be made, and not clearly, that he was buried in it. But this is a frivolous quibble: for the same writers would have added that he was buried in another place, if that had been done. Nay rather I suspect that those writers knew of his having chosen a burial there from no other source than that they knew he was buried there. Hence in his own Acts, in Peter de Natalibus, and in various Breviaries of Amiens it is clearly said that he was buried in the church which he himself built above the body of St. Firminus the martyr, namely in the cemetery of his father Faustinian outside the city of Amiens: for Faustinian had buried St. Firminus the martyr, as his Acts say, in his own cemetery, which is called Abladana.

[3] That this church of the blessed Virgin Mary afterwards changed its name, [that church, first sacred to the blessed Virgin Mary, is now called St. Acheul's:] and began to be called St. Acheol's, commonly Saint-Acheul, whose body perhaps had been translated thither, can abundantly be shown. Rorico, bishop of Amiens, granted that church in the year 1085 to the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, who possess it even now, with the famous abbey of the same name near Amiens. The instrument of the donation, which is published in Labbe, volume 10 of the Councils, column 407, in d'Achery, volume 2 of the Spicilegium, page 60, and in the Sainte-Marthe brothers, volume 4, page 7, has this: Rorico … humble prelate of Amiens… A certain church which blessed Firminus the confessor, when he first delivered this city from the worship of demoniac servitude, and when he himself, a heavenly bridesman, joined by the laver of salvation a chaste virgin, having no spot or wrinkle, to the one man Christ, founded in honour of the holy and perpetual Virgin; but afterwards it chose for itself a name from the holy martyrs Aceus and Acheolus in the time of our antiquity, … we decree to be free from all revenue of the bishop and his ministers, and we appoint in it clerics who may serve God canonically and regularly, etc. First therefore that church was dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, then it assumed the name of SS. Aceus and Acheolus, and at last the name of Acheolus prevailed. Further, there might here be some doubt on account of what is added about St. Firminus, whether by the word confessor St. Firminus the martyr should not be understood, who was the first bishop of Amiens, and afterwards is called both confessor and martyr in the same diploma, were it not shown from the very Acts of the holy Martyr that the ancient church of the blessed Virgin Mary was founded not by Firminus the martyr but by Firminus the confessor. Thus far about the place of the Saint's burial, which gave occasion to a sharp controversy. But before we discuss the translations of the sacred body, we shall briefly treat of his memory in the Martyrologies.

[4] I do not find our Saint commemorated by any of the older martyrologists. the Saint's memory in the sacred Calendars on 1 September, Yet to various of the older Martyrologies his memory is found added. First of all the Hieronymian, in volume 2 of the reprinted Spicilegium, at 1 September has this: At the city of Amiens, the deposition of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. The Corbie one in Martène, volume 3 of the Anecdota, col. [ ], by a more recent hand at the same day: And of holy Firminus, confessor and bishop. The Corbie Calendar in the same place, col. [ ]: At Amiens, of Firminus the bishop. To very many codices of Usuard the memory of the same Saint has been added. Take a few elogia out of the many which may be seen in our Usuard. The Amiens codex: At Amiens, the passing of blessed Firminus, bishop and confessor, who among other marks of his goodness, while he was consecrating the Body of the Lord on earth, deserved to see his hand in heaven. The Lübeck-Cologne edition: In the city of the people of Amiens, the deposition of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. He flourished with such knowledge and sanctity that he was made doctor and ruler of all the churches of Europe; then bishop of the church of Amiens; and, forty-seven years of his age being completed, passing to Christ, he rested with a holy end. Who was buried in the church of blessed Mary the Virgin beside the body of his predecessor, the holy martyr and prelate Firminus, whose name he had obtained. What in these elogia is doubtful or false we have already discussed before. Grevenus gave this elogium more rightly: At Amiens, of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor, who by his father Faustinian, a noble man, was called by the name of Firminus in honour of holy Firminus, bishop of Amiens and glorious martyr, whom he had buried. St. Firminus is also commemorated by our manuscript Florarium in these few words: At Amiens, of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. All these things at 1 September, on which is celebrated at Amiens the festivity of the holy Confessor with great solemnity, as will appear in the course of this.

[5] and on other days also; a translation recorded on 10 January and 21 March. On other days also the Saint's memory is announced, namely on 18 and 30 August, as has been declared by us in the Passed-over at the same days. Ghini adorns him with an ample elogium at 23 October; but I do not delay on these. His consecration and ordination is noted in the Martyrologies of Amiens on 19 August, as Bolland noted on the manuscript Life, but I do not know on what foundation that day of consecration rests. On various days also the translation of St. Firminus the confessor is announced. These things Bolland noted from the Martyrologies of Amiens: On the fourth of the Ides of January, at Amiens, the translation of the body of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor. That the translation was long celebrated on this day, 10 January, we shall see. It is added at the day 21 March in these words: On the twelfth of the Kalends of April, the translation of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor. The translation on the later day Sollerius likewise found recorded in the Amiens codex of Usuard in these words: On the same day, the translation of St. Firminus, bishop and confessor. But at the day 10 January he did not indeed find it in his Amiens copy, but in that of Reims of the church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris, where these are the words: At Amiens, the translation of the body of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. He adds the edition of Molanus, which has it thus: At Amiens, of the translation of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. The translation on the day 10 January several others have commemorated, who in the Passed-over at the same day are briefly thus indicated: The translation of St. Firminus the confessor, third bishop of the people of Amiens, is celebrated on this day, as is established from Saussay, Galesinius, the manuscript Florarium, and other Martyrologies. Hence I gather that at least two translations were celebrated by the people of Amiens, as we shall prove below that the Saint's body was twice translated. Finally there is found recorded the Coming of relics into the basilica of St. Quentin, not only of St. Firminus the confessor, but also of many Saints whose relics were at Amiens, as may be seen in the Passed-over at 21 May: but these things are to be understood of certain bones, not of whole bodies. These things being despatched, I shall briefly explain the occasion of the controversy that arose about the possession of the body of St. Firminus the confessor.

[6] For many centuries no one had doubted that this Saint's body had been translated and was preserved in the cathedral church of Amiens; and both very many monuments testified it, [The translation of the body, which had been held for certain, on account of certain tombs found,] and the festivity of the translation long celebrated, and the reliquary customarily carried about every year, had deeply impressed it on the minds of all. But that translation and the possession of the cathedral church, although they seem certain, and were held as undoubted almost to the end of the preceding century, began to be gravely assailed in the year 1697. Occasion for the controversy was given by the tombs found on 10 January 1697 in the church of St. Acheul, of which Mabillon, in his Little Work on the Cult of unknown Saints, reprinted among his posthumous Works, volume 1, page 279, speaks thus: But far more venerable is another inscription, which, with others almost obliterated, was uncovered at the beginning of the year 1698 (read 1697) at Amiens in the suburban basilica of the martyr St. Acheul, which the Canons Regular of the reformed Gallican congregation occupy. There, while the earth was being dug out for the foundation of a new altar, five tombs were uncovered near the tomb of St. Firminus, bishop and martyr, who had been placed behind the old altar. Two of them were set on this side and that: one on the Gospel side without an inscription, and the other on the epistle side with an inscription, which are believed to be those of Eulogius, second bishop of the people of Amiens, and of his immediate successor St. Firminus the confessor. Before the altar three other tombs were found, one only with an inscription, namely that of Faustinian, as they conjecture, not without foundation, from the remaining traces of an almost effaced inscription. Then, after relating certain things from the Acts about Faustinian and about both Firmini buried in the same church, he adds this: The aforesaid monuments I examined with a great sense of piety; but the inscription of the tomb, as is believed, of Faustinian I could scarcely read.

[7] These tombs being found, since on one of them some thought they read the name Firminus, it began to be denied in the year 1697: hence a grave controversy arose, and that tomb contained human bones, they easily believed that those bones were of St. Firminus the confessor. There was added a false rumour, which added weight to that opinion: for it was spread among the common people that the reliquary in which the Saint's body was preserved in the cathedral church had been opened and found altogether empty. There appeared therefore in the same year a dissertation written in French by an anonymous author, whose title was: A letter to an inquirer about the ancient tombs found on 10 January of the year 1697 under the chief altar of a certain church which formerly was the cathedral of Amiens. That anonymous writer tried to show that one of the five tombs was that of St. Firminus the confessor, and that his bones had never been removed from that sepulchre. But since he not only defended a bad cause, but also had not kept himself sufficiently within the bounds of modesty, that dissertation or Letter was in the same year forbidden by the most illustrious bishop of Amiens, Henri Feydeau de Brou, who by a decree given on 20 July censures it with a grave censure, and at the same time briefly refutes it. Yet an end was not so quickly put to these disputes: for the cause of the Canons Regular of St. Acheul was undertaken to be defended by Jean-Baptiste Thiers, a man not unknown to the literary world by his writings. He published in the year 1699 a Dissertation likewise in French, which the Council of state presently suppressed by a decree given to that end on 27 April of the same year. But when a copy of this Dissertation had come to Liège, the Dissertation was reprinted there in the same year, and in the same year sent hither, we know not by whom. This title was prefixed: A dissertation on the place where now rests the body of St. Firminus the confessor, third bishop of Amiens.

[8] [and various things written against the translation, but the same solidly defended.] To this Dissertation, which is fuller of affected erudition and of its author's wondrous self-confidence than of solid arguments, no one replied until the year 1711. In that year at last Nicolas de Lestocq, a doctor of the Sorbonne and canon of Amiens, prefect of Theologicals, undertook to defend more fully the cause of the cathedral church of Amiens. He published in French a Little Work under this title, A dissertation on the translation of the body of St. Firminus the confessor, etc., in which he closely and solidly proves that the body of St. Firminus was translated and is preserved in the cathedral church of Amiens, and so answers the arguments of his adversaries that he seems to leave no doubt that the cathedral church possesses the body of the Saint. Here the defenders of the recently found sepulchre would have rested, if the patronage once undertaken of a preconceived opinion could rest. Thiers had meanwhile died, and his arms, as also the Anonymous writer's, which had never held together well enough, were utterly broken. The Anonymous writer nevertheless, although he could bring forward nothing of solid reason for his cause, was unwilling to keep wholly silent; but he prepared a reply to Lestocq's Dissertation, and entitled it The Shade of Thiers. The empty words which that masked Shade had poured out Lestocq easily refuted in a second dissertation. The Anonymous writer again opposed Critical Observations, which likewise Lestocq confuted. At last the chest was opened in which the sacred body of St. Firminus the confessor was enclosed; and when it was found in the chest with the instrument of the last translation, an end was put to the long dispute. It seemed good to premise these things before I narrated the translations of the sacred body: for I have determined so to relate them that I shall bring forward Lestocq's chief arguments, and briefly refute the quibbles of his adversaries.

§ II. The first translation of the body: the church into which it was translated, and the time of this translation, are inquired into.

[ ] [St. Salvius translated the body into a church built by himself: which being burnt in the year 1218,] The Life of St. Salvius, bishop of Amiens, in our volume 1 of January, page 706, having first related the finding and translation of St. Firminus the martyr, subjoins these things to our purpose: But also the saints of God, Firminus the bishop and confessor, and Aceus and Aceolus, martyrs of Christ, he reverently laid in the Eastern crypt, and fittingly adorned them. Into what church these sacred bodies were translated, the same writer intimates a little before, where he has this: Finally the church which was not yet in that place he built with worthy work, and reverently hallowed it in honour of the prince of the Apostles, blessed Peter, and also of the doctor of the gentiles, St. Paul. For presently he says that the body of St. Firminus the martyr was placed in the church which that most blessed prelate Salvius himself had built, in the Eastern crypt, in which afterwards he affirms that the bodies of others also were laid. That church of SS. Peter and Paul built by Salvius does not survive at this time; nor is that to be wondered at, since almost all the older churches of Amiens have undergone the same fate, Morlière testifying in book 1, page 90, that scarcely any survived which was older by five hundred or six hundred years when he was writing. Lestocq in his first Dissertation, chapter 1, affirms that the said church was consumed by fire in the year 1218, and that the foundations of the new cathedral church, which stands magnificent to this day, were laid in the year 1220 by Everard, bishop of Amiens. That the cathedral church was consumed by fire, and the structure of another begun by Everard, Morlière agrees, page 90, citing also these words of Gaufrid or Godfrey II, prelate of Amiens, by which the burning of the former cathedral is indicated: For if, our sins requiring it, the Lord has permitted our church to be burnt up, let us believe that this has happened for our profit.

[10] Next to or contiguous with this ancient cathedral church was the church of St. Firminus the confessor, a new and larger one is built, which perhaps was destroyed in the same fire, or at least had to yield place to the enlarging of the cathedral, and was restored in the place where it is now seen. These things, together with the burning of the ancient cathedral, are gathered from the fragments of the letters of Godfrey II and of his successor Arnulf, which Lestocq brought forward, page 234. The fragment of Godfrey has this: Since by the bishop Everard of famous memory it had been ordained, with the consent of the clergy and people of Amiens, as though it had been inspired in them by the Lord, that he should enlarge and cleanse the foundations of the holy church, … it was necessary that the church of blessed Firminus the confessor should yield to the foundations of its mother. And Arnulf speaks in this manner: In the letters of our predecessor Godfrey of good memory, bishop of Amiens, presented to us, we have seen it contained that, when it had befallen the church of Amiens in the time of Everard, bishop of Amiens, of pious memory, then presiding over it, to fall by fire, it had been ordained by the same bishop Everard, with the consent of the clergy and people of Amiens, and it was necessary, that he should enlarge the foundation of the said church, to which enlargements the church of blessed Firminus the confessor, situated behind it, had to yield. Thiers in his Dissertation, chapter 9, page 79, likewise affirms that the present cathedral was begun in the year 1220 by bishop Everard, adducing these verses from his epitaph:

Who fed the people, who laid the foundations Of this structure, to whose care the city was given.

[11] But the same Critic conceals the burning of that cathedral church [each was a cathedral; the first probably sacred to SS. Peter and Paul, but that of today to the blessed Virgin Mary.] in whose place the present one was built. He certainly had need of that concealment, in order that from the epoch of the founding of the cathedral, by I know not what consequence, he might conclude that the sacred body of St. Firminus was not carried by St. Salvius to the cathedral church, as though there had been no cathedral before this one was founded. Le Cointe in his Annals of the Franks at the year 689, number 13, treating of this translation, writes the following: Salvius raised two basilicas at Amiens, one in the name of the Princes of the Apostles, in which he placed the relics of holy Firminus the confessor, whence also it received the name of St. Firminus; the other of the most blessed Virgin, in which he placed the body of holy Firminus the martyr. For an old Breviary of Amiens on the fourth of the Kalends of November has this in the feast of holy Salvius: “He built two basilicas at Amiens: one in the name of holy Peter and Paul, which is now called that of holy Firminus the confessor, the other of holy Mary the Virgin, into which he translated the body of blessed Firminus the martyr, found in his own time.” Le Cointe followed that Breviary faithfully enough; but it has little antiquity, since it is only of the year 1607. Further, to this opinion the Life of St. Salvius seems repugnant, which intimates that that church of SS. Peter and Paul was the cathedral. Besides, I have at hand two older Breviaries in which nothing is read about two churches built by St. Salvius, nothing about a church of St. Firminus the confessor. Then the Life of St. Salvius clearly indicates that the bodies of both Firmini were carried to the same church. Wherefore, although it makes no difference for proving the present possession of the body, I judge it more probable that the cathedral was built by St. Salvius under the name of Saints Peter and Paul, and that the bodies of the said Saints were carried into it; but that the same church, after it had been burnt, was restored by Everard under the name of the blessed Virgin Mary.

[12] [Of the age of St. Salvius, who translated the body, nothing certain is had from his Life alone;] At what time St. Salvius lived, who translated the body of St. Firminus, can with difficulty be shown, because the writers have gone off into very different opinions. That Saint's Life indeed, published at 11 January, has some chronological notes, but these do not suffice for establishing his age with certainty, since they are variously explained by various writers. There is added the fact that the writer of that Life confused different Salvii, and for that cause we ought not to rely much on his authority. Bolland in the Commentary prefixed to the Life adduced some arguments to show that Salvius flourished at the beginning of the seventh century, and fixed his death about the year 615. Some of Bolland's arguments Le Cointe rightly refuted at the year 686, in which he would have Salvius created bishop; but he adduced none better for his own opinion, nor did he answer solidly to everything. The Life of Salvius at number 8 has this: And at that same time Theuderic, the glorious king of the Franks, was exercising the monarchy of royal power; who, hearing that holy Honoratus the bishop had departed from the world, sent his envoys to the city of Amiens, namely holy Hautcarius, pontiff of the church of Noyon, intimating to the citizens that they should elect a bishop worthy of God and salutary for themselves. After which the election of St. Salvius is presently subjoined. By king Theuderic, under whom Salvius is narrated to have been elected, Bolland understands Theuderic, king of Burgundy, son of Childebert II. But Le Cointe contends that the thing happened under Theuderic III, because Theuderic in the Life of Salvius is described as monarch of France. I freely confess that I should think Le Cointe's opinion rather to be followed than Bolland's, if Theuderic alone came up for the arranging of the chronology, especially because neither Amiens nor Noyon was in the dominions of Theuderic, king of Burgundy; but as much as Theuderic favours Le Cointe, so much does Honoratus, the predecessor of Salvius, oppose him; and moreover Hautcarius, prelate of Noyon, who is otherwise written Haudgarius, Acarius and Acharius, favours Bolland, as he observes in the annotations.

[13] although the chronological notes expressed in it, Le Cointe saw that Honoratus did not cohere with his opinion; but he applies an easy solution at number 8, saying: There is an error in the name of Honoratus, in whose place Dado must be restored. If Theuderic could no better be reconciled with our opinion than Honoratus with Le Cointe's, why should it not be lawful for me with the same facility to reply, There is an error in the name of Theuderic, in whose place must be restored Chlotar II? Nay, this error will be much more likely, because Theuderic II and Chlotar II reigned at the same time in different parts of Gaul, so that a writer who was long after them could easily attribute to the one what had been done by the other, having perhaps found in older monuments only the fact without the king's name expressed. But that same writer could not so easily err in the order of the bishops of Amiens, of whom catalogues doubtless existed; nor is it likely that Honoratus was by him to be set immediately before Salvius, if he had been earlier by a whole century, as Le Cointe contends. No less easily does Le Cointe extricate himself at number 10 from Hautcarius, who is said to have presided over the election of St. Salvius. No one doubts that St. Acharius presided over the church of Noyon and Tournai before St. Eligius, who succeeded him about the year 640; nor can any fit reason be given why he could not have been bishop from the beginning of the seventh century, even though the beginning of his bishopric is unknown. No other Hautcarius is found in the ancient catalogues of the bishops of Noyon, nor in any councils or in any other ancient monuments whatever: the Sainte-Marthe brothers first, in volume 3 of Christian Gaul, page 812, inserted a Hautgarius, distinguished from Acharius, into the catalogue of the bishops of Noyon from this passage, without any other proof, and that before St. Mommolenus, who certainly succeeded St. Eligius, so that the error is manifest.

[14] The praised Le Cointe embraces a distinction asserted without foundation, [rather intimate that he sat at the beginning of the seventh century than at the end of it.] but does not keep the same order: for, placing Hautgarius after Mummolenus, he writes thus: Nothing hinders that Acarius, who preceded holy Eligius in the bishopric, should be distinguished from Hautcarius, who after holy Mummolenus, the successor of holy Eligius, began to sit. Add that Theuderic, son of Childebert, who after his father reigned in Burgundy, could not have sent Acarius, bishop of Noyon, to the city of Amiens, for he died before Acarius was promoted to the bishopric. But the distinction is opposed by the silence of the catalogues of Noyon, and by the lack of sufficient reason for asserting the distinction. As for his saying that Theuderic II died before the bishopric of St. Acharius, it is denied with the same facility with which it is asserted. Mabillon in his Benedictine Annals, volume 1, page 604, at the year 695, among the bishops who without the name of their see subscribed to a certain privilege there related, reviews a certain Hectarius, whom he believes to have been Hautcarius of Noyon. Uncertain seems to me this conjecture, which he supported with no reasons; but if in fact some Hectarius had then been bishop of Noyon, it would still not be established whether he rather than St. Acharius, who preceded St. Eligius, was designated in the Life of St. Salvius. Hence I conclude that no note of time is found in the Life of St. Salvius which is certain enough for assigning his age; but that those which we have reviewed favour Bolland more than Le Cointe.

[15] Let us see therefore whether from the catalogues themselves of the bishops of Amiens, attentively considered, the age of St. Salvius may not somehow be found. [Unless SS. Honoratus and Salvius are set in the eighth and ninth place, an improbable gap is left in the catalogue,] In the first seven bishops Claude Robert, Morlière and the Sainte-Marthe brothers agree. Of these the seventh is set by all as Beatus, who was present at the fifth council of Orléans in the year 549. Robert and Morlière place in the eighth place St. Honoratus, in the ninth St. Salvius. But the Sainte-Marthe brothers place these two a whole century later, and insert in the eighth place Bercundus, whom others hold to be the tenth, quite improbably. For Beatus lived in the year 549, and Bercundus was bishop in the time of St. Walaricus the abbot, of whom we treated at 1 April, and Bercundus survived him when he died about the year 622, and wished to translate the dead man's body. Let the studious reader therefore observe how great a gap is left between Beatus, sitting in the year 549, and Bercundus, surviving after the year 622, unless Honoratus and Salvius be interposed. And this gap is the more improbable because Honoratus and Salvius are then inserted in a place where the catalogue can be continued without a gap even if these two are set before, nay where they leave no place for St. Theodefridus, who must necessarily be inserted, as we shall show.

[16] and other monuments are departed from, To these reasons is added that various monuments, partly cited in St. Salvius at 11 January, partly in St. Honoratus at 16 May, testify that St. Honoratus sat in the time of king Childebert, and therefore in the sixth century, whether Childebert the first be understood or the second: for the third cannot be understood, as our adversaries will readily admit. Le Cointe saw this, and, that he might fill up the aforesaid gap and might not remove Honoratus from the time of Childebert, he left him in his own place as eighth; and for Salvius, whom against all the catalogues he tore away from Honoratus, he substituted in the ninth place Deodatus, whom others make twelfth or thirteenth. Thus he changes almost the whole order without any solid reason. The time between Beatus and Bercundus will be more rightly filled if Honoratus and Salvius are left in their own place; and that no other place can probably be assigned to them I now undertake to show.

[17] and since St. Theodefridus, from abbot of Corbie The tenth bishop for us is Bercundus, contemporary with St. Walaricus and surviving him. To him succeeded Bertefridus, as all confess, who for us is the eleventh, as also for Robert and Morlière. Bertefridus was still living in the year 666, when Drausius, bishop of Soissons, sent to him and to other bishops a privilege granted to the nunnery of blessed Mary, as may be seen in Mabillon, volume 1 of the Annals, page 482. Le Cointe fixes the same privilege in the year 668. In the time of this Bertefridus St. Bathildis founded the monastery of Corbie, over which St. Theodefridus first presided. To this monastery Bertefridus granted a privilege of immunity in the year 663, at the petition of king Chlotar and queen Bathildis, in which, in Mabillon, volume 1, page 470, among other things about the election of the abbot this is read: To this, when the abbot has died, let him (the bishop of Amiens) ordain his successor, unanimously elected by the monks, when the mandate has been received from the prince. These words I have thought should be recited, that from them I may clearly show that Theodefridus, abbot of Corbie, is to be numbered among the bishops of Amiens. The Sainte-Marthe brothers and Le Cointe admit it, against whom I dispute in other matters; but Mabillon doubts, and Bolland at 26 January wrongly numbered him among the bishops of Albi, among whom he can have no place. Of his bishopric there is no doubt, but Mabillon doubts, page 502, whether he was bishop of Amiens; nor does he seem to doubt for any other cause than that he cannot reconcile him with the opinion of the Sainte-Marthe brothers, which we are refuting.

[18] was made a bishop, not of Cambrai, Hear Mabillon himself, who, when he had proved that Theodefridus was not created bishop before the principate of Theuderic III, thus continues: Certainly in his reign Theodefridus became a bishop from an abbot, and he retained that dignity even at the time when that anonymous writer was writing the little book on the life of holy Bathildis, that is, a little after the death of that queen, whom that author rightly praises for the founding of the monastery of Corbie, “Where,” he says, “the venerable man lord Theudofredus, now already a bishop, but then an abbot, presided over a great flock of Brothers.” Theudofredus therefore was a bishop through almost the whole principate of Theuderic; but of what place, authors do not agree, some of whom make him bishop of Amiens, others of Cambrai. But that he was of Cambrai, although certain papers of more recent times favour this opinion, I should not easily assent: both because the name of Theodefridus is wanting in Baldericus in the Chronicle of Cambrai; and because through almost the whole principate of king Theuderic Vindicianus ruled this church, who obtained it after holy Autbert while Chlotar survived. That the reader may understand these things to be true, he need only inspect the catalogue of the bishops of Cambrai in volume 3 of the reprinted Christian Gaul. Mabillon goes on: But whether Theodefridus was prelate of Amiens I should not wish to affirm, although he has a place in the published lists (in the Sainte-Marthe brothers) after the holy Honoratus and Salvius, who, if they held that see in the time of Theuderic the third, leave no vacant place for Theodefridus under this king, in whose reign nevertheless that he was made a bishop is established from the diploma of that same king, confirming, as we have already said, the election of the abbot Erembert after the episcopal promotion of Theodefridus, who had suggested him as his own successor, namely after Chrodegarius, who first succeeded Theodefridus.

[19] These things indeed Mabillon says doubtfully. But all doubt seems to be removed by the diploma of Theuderic just praised, but of Amiens, which the Sainte-Marthe brothers published in volume 4 of Christian Gaul, page 293, and in which this is read: Concerning the most sacred monastery called Corbie, built in the district of Amiens, to our royal presence the monks and men of God, coming, suggested to the ears of our serene clemency that, since the venerable man Chrodegarius the abbot, according to the custom of human frailty, is known to have passed from this light to the Lord — whom the apostolic man, our lord and father Theodefredus the bishop, when he deserved to receive the pontifical burden, by our will and command appointed to rule and govern the aforewritten monastery — with the report and consent of the whole congregation of that monastery they asked that it might be lawful for them, according to their own election and according to the holy privilege which was granted to that [*] holy place by royal munificence and by the concession of the priests, to choose a ruler from among themselves. And since their petition seemed to our serenity fitting and reasonable in all things, the venerable man Erembert, who was brought up in that monastery, those men, with the will of the aforewritten pontiff, lord Theodefredus the bishop, elected, etc. From these words, if only we attend, it clearly follows that Theodefredus was bishop of Amiens. For, as the words of the privilege given at number 17 have it, the monks were to elect the abbot, and the bishop of Amiens, having received the king's mandate, to ordain him. But Theodefredus by the command of Theuderic appointed Chrodegarius abbot. He was therefore bishop of Amiens, and was ruling that same church when Erembert was elected, who therefore is said to have been elected with his will. These things seem clearer than to need further elucidation. Hence, according to Mabillon's opinion, Theodefredus leaves no place for Honoratus and Salvius under the principate of Theuderic III. But this must be set out a little more.

[20] Bertefridus was still sitting in the year 666, and probably some years later, until Theodefredus succeeded, who took up the bishopric under the principate of Theuderic. Certainly in no way can Honoratus and Salvius be interposed between Bertefridus and Theodefredus, nor even Salvius alone, [there is no other place in the catalogue for Honoratus and Salvius, nor even for Salvius alone,] since he presided longer than is the space which could be found intermediate for them. There is added that Mummolenus presided over the see of Noyon until about the year 684, so that no Acharius or Haudgarius could at that time sit at Noyon who should have presided over the election of Salvius. None therefore sat between Bertefridus and Theodefredus; or, if anyone was intermediate, he was one of those who about the same time are found in the catalogue of the bishops of Amiens without a note of time. Further, Theodefredus was still surviving when the Life of St. Bathildis the queen was written, whose death Mabillon places about the year 680; and that that Life was written some years after the Blessed one's death can sufficiently be gathered from the miracles related in the last chapter. The same man was among the living when Erembert, the third abbot of Corbie, was elected, which Mabillon believes happened about the year 681, volume 1, page 565. Nor do I see why he could not have survived to the end of Theuderic's reign: for the year of his death is uncertain. After Theodefredus I have hitherto seen Salvius placed by no one; nor would he probably be placed there, since Deodatus, Dado and Bertmannus are found in the catalogues before Dominicus, who is said to have been present in the year 720 or 721 at the translation of St. Lambert. Thus there is no place for St. Salvius: for three are found to fill up the interval of time which one could fill. From what has been said thus far I conclude that the order of the bishops is to be left as it was arranged by Claude Robert and Morlière, but that Theodefredus is to be inserted in the twelfth or thirteenth place, as the Sainte-Marthe brothers and Le Cointe rightly inserted him.

[21] who sat at the beginning of the seventh century, and translated the body, Salvius therefore sat between Honoratus and Bercundus at the beginning of the seventh century, as Thiers also tried to prove in the said Dissertation, chapter 16, fixing the translation of St. Firminus the martyr in the year 613. He brings forward on page 202 an inscription which he says still survives in the church of St. Acheul under the ancient altar. And that inscription notes the year 613, and from it he infers that in the same year the body of St. Firminus the martyr was translated. Further, not only Thiers but also Lestocq favours our opinion: for although the former established that epoch in order to show that the body of St. Firminus could have been translated again under Dagobert to the abbey of St. Denis, whither he contended against Lestocq that it was afterwards translated; yet Lestocq, who refutes that second translation in his first Dissertation, last chapter, page 201, was unwilling to deny the established epoch of the first translation, even though the whole history of the second translation collapses if the body was translated by Salvius in the seventh century drawing to its close. Why, I ask, did Lestocq refuse to dispute about that matter, who had diligently surveyed all the monuments of Amiens? He knew that Le Cointe had used that argument; he saw that Le Cointe was not rightly refuted by Thiers, who without any proof supposed that Salvius sat before Bercundus, which Le Cointe had denied. For no other cause doubtless was Lestocq unwilling to assail the epoch of St. Salvius proved by us, than because he believed it true and consonant with the monuments of his own church. For the rest, whether in the same year 613, in which the body of St. Firminus the martyr is believed to have been found, the body of St. Firminus the confessor was also translated, I do not inquire. It suffices me to have shown that this was done at the beginning of the seventh century.

* perhaps supradicto

§ III. The arguments against the testimony adduced from the Life of St. Salvius are solved: and the translation is confirmed from other monuments.

[ ] Various objections against the authority of the Life of St. Salvius, That the translation, whose place and time we have inquired into, was called in doubt I have already noted. Those who assailed it objected many things against the Life of St. Salvius, which first furnishes the testimony of this translation. Thiers in chapter 9 of his Dissertation contends that this Life lacks authority: first because it is by an anonymous author; secondly because it was written a long time after the death of St. Salvius; thirdly because its writer did not use fit criticism, since he confused many things and attributed various things to Salvius of Amiens which belong to Salvius of Albi. These things Thiers objected against the authority of the whole Life, which afterwards, by those who pursued the defence of a bad cause with greater contention than judgment, were divided into several parts and published in French as a Criticism of the Life of St. Salvius. And by name he blames that passage where the translation of St. Firminus and of SS. Aceus and Acheolus is asserted in these words: But also the saints of God, Firminus the bishop and confessor, and Aceus and Aceolus, martyrs of Christ, he reverently laid in the eastern crypt, and fittingly adorned them. After which the writer, proceeding to other things, says: For also men, etc. He carps first at what is said about Aceus and Acheolus being translated: for he says that he does not understand whether the writer means that their bodies were translated from the church of St. Acheul, which he contends is false; or whether that author says that those bodies were found elsewhere. Of no moment is that objection, since the writer says only that they were laid in the same crypt with the body of St. Firminus the confessor, and does not add whence they were translated: for not even Thiers himself dared to deny that those bodies are preserved in the cathedral of Amiens. There is no need therefore to inquire whether those bodies were first translated to the church of St. Acheul, and thence to Amiens, or whether from elsewhere, after their finding, they were straightway carried to Amiens.

[23] The same passage Thiers then tries to make suspect of interpolation, [and other things, to show it interpolated: but the first reason of interpolation is plainly frivolous;] and that objection his followers continued. He affirms on page 86 that the interpolation appears from the context itself, since that passage does not cohere with what precedes and what follows. I answer that it coheres excellently with what precedes: for at number 11 the author narrates the building of the church of SS. Peter and Paul; presently at number 12 he subjoins the finding of St. Firminus the martyr and his translation, and finally the translation of St. Firminus the confessor and of the martyrs Aceus and Acheolus. What follows also coheres rightly, although we confess that it does not pertain to Salvius of Amiens but to Salvius of Albi, whose deeds he transferred to the one of Amiens, as we shall say afterwards. Thiers's whole scruple consists in certain particles which he believed were unfittingly placed. The author says at number 10, "finally he built a church"; then at number 11, "but afterwards," etc.; and at number 12 "for," etc., as I adduced the passage above. But if perhaps Thiers was ignorant that the particle denique was used not only at the end of a sentence, and that the particle nam is employed in many ways by the ancients themselves, certainly he does not seem to have been ignorant that the writers of the middle age were less scrupulous in the use of such particles. Frivolous therefore is the objection and the scruple most empty; nor is it necessary here to play the grammarian, since one need only inspect Calepinus's Dictionary to understand that neither does the particle denique always intimate the end of a sentence, nor is a reason for what precedes always given by the conjunction nam, as Thiers contends.

[24] the second no better, Thiers presently alleges another reason to prove that the Life of St. Salvius is interpolated. André du Chesne, in volume 1 of the Writers of the history of the Franks, pages 686 and 687, published two fragments from the Life of St. Salvius, which Thiers liberally calls the Life. Hence he reasons thus: All those things, as also many others, are not found in the same Life of St. Salvius published by du Chesne, which is an argument of interpolation. This reason again the author of the Criticism of the Life of St. Salvius pressed at §7, even though Lestocq in Dissertation 1, chapter 1, had already answered that only fragments of the Life were published by du Chesne, not the whole Life, and that this is plain of itself, since he published them after many other fragments of Lives, and prefixed to those same fragments this title: From the manuscript Life of St. Salvius, bishop of Amiens. Nevertheless that author of the Criticism goes on to contend by certain futile reasons that the whole Life of St. Salvius was published by du Chesne. But it does not please me to prove further things which are clearer than the sun; let it suffice to have said that that anonymous writer was not even mindful of the common saying: Speak not against the sun. Further, since du Chesne published such fragments as he judged more conducive to elucidating the history of the kings of the Franks, it may not with difficulty be divined why he passed over the account of the translation of St. Firminus the confessor, as also of the finding of St. Firminus the martyr, with many other things — namely because the kings had no part in them. If the praised collector left in his fragments other things from time to time which were no more necessary for the knowing of the history of the kings of the Franks, as we do not deny was done, it is not necessary to inquire why he did not proceed in the same way everywhere: for he seems to have done this at his own discretion.

[25] Menard in his Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology, page 449, wrote a compendious Life of St. Salvius, nor does the third prove anything: of which he says on page 451: This Life I composed from an old manuscript of the monastery of Montreuil, where are the relics of holy Salvius in a chest covered with silver plates, on which such a Life is engraved, with characters explaining the several histories. Menard does not relate the translation of the body of St. Firminus the confessor, nor even the finding of St. Firminus the martyr, except briefly in the annotations from the Acts of the church of Amiens. Thiers observed this briefly, adding some Breviaries of Amiens, one Calendar, Peter de Natalibus, and Juan Maldonado, who likewise were silent about that translation, that he might increase the suspicion of interpolation. To Menard and the Breviaries (for Peter de Natalibus and Juan Maldonado are too brief to need an answer) Lestocq rightly answered that the Life engraved on the said chest was taken from the Breviaries in use in the year 1435, in which the chest was made; but that the Breviaries of that time did not have in the lessons of St. Salvius the history of the translations of both Firmini, because the lessons, as they had been too long, had at various times been curtailed. First, he says, the whole Life of St. Salvius was inserted into the Breviary, divided into nine lessons. At the end of the thirteenth century, when the length bred weariness, the lessons were abridged, the eleventh article of the Life nevertheless being left, in which both translations are read. But about the end of the fourteenth century or the beginning of the fifteenth there followed a second abridgment of the lessons, by which that eleventh article was cut away with the tenth, the twelfth, and the greatest part of the Life. And it is the Life thus abridged which Menard praises. Who therefore would infer from this that the Life of St. Salvius is interpolated, because it contains some things which are read neither in the Breviaries thus abridged nor in Menard?

[26] It remains that we inquire whether the writer of the Life of St. Salvius deserves credit in the translation he asserts: although the author of the Life of St. Salvius confused many things, for Thiers said truly that the author is anonymous, that he is far later than Salvius, and finally that he confused the deeds of two Salvii, namely of the one of Amiens and the one of Albi; and of that confusion not even du Chesne's fragment is free. For what is read in that fragment, as in the whole Life, about the patrician Mummolus belongs to Salvius of Albi, to whom likewise the second chapter of the Life belongs. Then what Thiers and his defender said about the age of that writer is not true, since he lived long before the thirteenth century, and Lestocq would have him write in the ninth; yet it is true that he is far later than St. Salvius. Jacques le Long in his Historical Library of France, page 184, and the Benedictine writers of the Literary History of France, volume 4, page 50, say that the Life of St. Salvius was written under the later kings of the first race, that is, in the eighth century, and suspect that the deeds of St. Salvius of Albi were inserted into this Life by those who copied out the Life: Certainly, say the latter, it is true that those things (of Salvius of Albi) are not found in certain ancient Mss. But I suspect that the learned men are deceived in this matter, since those things are found in Bolland's three Mss., in all seen by Lestocq, and in the ancient Breviaries of Amiens; and not even du Chesne's fragments, or the abridged Life of Menard, are wholly free from them. Where then do those Mss. lie hidden in which that confusion is not found? Why the praised writers assert without any proof that the Life of St. Salvius was written in the eighth century I no more perceive, since Lestocq would have it drawn up only in the ninth.

[27] But whether the Life of St. Salvius was composed in the eighth or ninth or tenth century, [yet it deserves credit in the asserted translation of St. Firminus the confessor.] no fit reason can be brought forward why it should not deserve credit in the asserted translation of St. Firminus the confessor. That the author confused two Salvii, and attributed the deeds of two to one, we readily admit as true and certain. Hence he narrates various things about Salvius of Amiens which belong to the one of Albi, and falls into certain errors. Besides this confusion, Thiers assigned no error in that Life; and certainly no such error can be assigned as to betray the author's bad faith and show him guilty of fiction. He is therefore to be judged to have written in good faith, although he was deceived by confusing the Acts of two Salvii. Further, this very confusion shows that the biographer drew from older monuments what he narrated. For Gregory of Tours, in book 7 of the History of the Franks, chapter 1, related of Salvius of Albi what he here by error attributes to the one of Amiens. He therefore confused true things drawn from older sources; he did not invent falsehoods. Now no one will dare to suspect that the body of St. Firminus the confessor was translated by some other Salvius, and that by a confusion of Salvii it was ascribed to the one of Amiens. It remains therefore that we believe it truly done by Salvius of Amiens, especially since that was the constant opinion of all almost to our own times, and no one formerly contradicted the praised writer; and finally because the translation itself is confirmed by so many arguments that they leave no doubt.

[28] The same translation is proved from the translation of relics made by Otger, First, Otgar or Otger, bishop of Amiens, who sat at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, gave to the church of St. Quentin various relics of the Saints whose sacred remains were preserved at that time in the church of Amiens. The feast of that translation is inserted into the Breviary of St. Quentin in the Vermandois under this title, The Coming of the sacred relics of Firminus, etc.; and in the fifth lesson of the matins Office this is related in Thiers, chapter 2: Otger, pontiff of the people of Amiens, trained in that old discipline of the Christians, more than two hundred years before Godfrey, set apart from the abundance of holy pledges with which the church of Amiens shone forth some portions of SS. Firminus, Victoricus, Fuscian, Gentian, Aceus and Acheolus, martyrs; of the other Firminus, of Honoratus and Walaricus, confessors; and gave them by pious munificence to the church of St. Quentin. The same feast, with the names of the same Saints, is indicated from a Ms. of Liessies in our Passed-over at 21 May. And since Otger is said to have set apart some portions, it is clearly indicated that the greater relics of those Saints rested in the church of Amiens, from which those portions were translated. But there could not be in that church relics of St. Firminus the confessor, unless they had before been translated thither. The whole force of the argument Thiers well felt, and therefore he filled ten pages declaiming against Breviaries and the histories related in them. Indeed there was no need of so long an excursion to persuade the learned that breviaries everywhere are not free from every error; but he ought rather to have shown that in this matter it was probably an error of the authors of that Breviary. But this error is by no means likely, since a festivity of the Coming of the relics was instituted, and feasts are not instituted rashly.

[29] which Thiers does not solidly assail: Thiers indeed objects on page 27 that it is not likely that the bones of the Saints were divided by Otger, and brings forward examples of Roman Pontiffs who refused to sever some bones of Saints from the rest of the body, as also the opinion of Guibert, abbot of blessed Mary of Nogent, who disapproved it. But I can scarcely persuade myself that a man not ignorant of ancient usage could sincerely object these things, or hope by such an objection to instil a doubt about the translation into a learned reader, since countless examples are found of bones severed from the rest of the body, and that usage is abundantly gathered from Guibert's own words. For why does he assert that it is found from very many documents that the Saints are angry for this cause, if it was not done frequently? Different therefore were the opinions. Some divided the bones of the Saints, that they might be venerated in several places. Others were imbued with such reverence toward the Saints that they did not presume to touch their bodies, much less to divide them. Guibert disapproved what was frequently done; nor could his censure bring it about that that usage should be abolished. Thiers objects secondly on page 31 that not all the bodies of the Saints enumerated above were in the church of Amiens, and Lestocq confesses this of the body of St. Walaricus, page 54; but he answers that Otger could give to the church of St. Quentin relics of St. Walaricus, provided some of his relics were in the church of Amiens. But of the relics of St. Firminus the confessor the same may be said, so that this translation of relics does not directly prove that the body of St. Firminus the confessor was at that time in the church of Amiens. Yet Lestocq rightly uses that argument on page 47, and reasons about thus. Relics of St. Firminus were given to the church of St. Quentin; therefore St. Firminus's sepulchre was opened, and relics drawn out, nay the whole body removed thence. For who would believe that so great a treasure was left in the earth, when the piety of the faithful ardently sought sacred relics? Who would persuade himself that the sepulchre had to be covered again with earth and with masonry, if the sacred body had been left in it? In what way finally would it have remained without any veneration, and at last have passed into oblivion in a church whose founder he was, and in which clerics always performed the divine service? These things assuredly are not likely, and that they are not true will be shown by other arguments.

[30] Rorico, bishop of Amiens, in letters given in the year 1085 in favour of the canons of St. Acheul, the same is proved from the diploma of bishop Rorico, in Labbe, volume 10 of the Councils, column 408, alleges this reason for his favour: And because, as we have said before, this church had been dedicated to the Mother of God, and the sacred dust of the pontiffs of this see had long lain hid in it, etc. From the word had lain hid it is rightly gathered that in the time of Rorico there did not survive in the church of St. Acheul the bodies of the prelates of Amiens who had been buried in it, among whom is St. Firminus the confessor. Thiers indeed tries in chapter 3 to answer something, but does not break the force of the argument. First he says that the body of St. Firminus the confessor could have lain hid long, and then have been found and, being found, left there. That is true; but the argument is not thereby solved. For if the body had at that time been in the church of St. Acheul, Rorico would not have said as the reason of his favour, because it had lain hid in it, but because it is preserved in it; since this reason is much more urgent. Thiers says secondly that it treats only of the body of St. Firminus the martyr, which in fact had long lain hid in that church, and which he confesses was translated. He believes that this explanation follows from the words, as we have said before, because he had spoken before about the body of Firminus the martyr alone. But to me it is more likely that those words, as we have said before, refer only to the dedication, of which also he had treated before. Certainly, since Rorico had said that that church was built by St. Firminus the confessor, he would not have passed over the fact that his body was preserved there, if that had been true; just as he did not omit that the sacred dust of Pontiffs — of two at least or more — had long lain hid in it: for it is more honourable for a church to possess a sacred body than to have possessed it at some time. Finally these words, of the pontiffs of this see, cannot be explained of one bishop, except by violence.

[31] Lestocq in chapter 4 further proves the translation from the Martyrologies. from various Martyrologies, Of the three of Amiens in which this translation is found inserted, he says the most ancient is of the eleventh century, as he affirms appears from the script and from the additions. In it this is found: At Amiens, the translation of the body of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor. The same the two more recent ones have, to which not a few others may be joined, adduced at number 5. Thiers answers in chapter 6, first by asking why the church of Amiens did not insert the translation into its Martyrology earlier than the thirteenth century, to which he brings back the age of the first Amiens one just praised, but without proof. He adds that not even in the Breviaries of Amiens is that translation read; and contends that it was inserted into the Martyrologies from the Life of St. Salvius. Finally he heaps up many things about the additions which are found in old Martyrologies, and thence lowers their authority. But the first answer is inept, since he assigns no more ancient Martyrology of Amiens which lacks the announcement of the said translation. The second answer is not altogether true: for Lestocq testifies in chapter 5, page 7, that that translation is recorded in two manuscript Breviaries which are kept in the archive of the chapter of Amiens: one of these he affirms is of the thirteenth century, the other of the fifteenth. And that it is not read in the more recent Breviaries came about from the abridgment of the lessons of the Office of St. Salvius, in which, with the rest, that translation was cut away. The third answer is of little moment: for those things which are added to the Martyrologies of any church are not rashly added, and therefore do not lack authority, especially if the additions are made in that church in which the added festivity is celebrated, or the added Saint venerated.

[32] and from the celebrated festivity of the translation. The feast of the translation was celebrated for many centuries in the church of Amiens on 10 January, as Lestocq affirms in chapter 5, but was afterwards abrogated. Thiers confesses both in chapter 7. The former rightly confirms the translation from the celebrated festivity. The latter strives to weaken it from the abrogation of the said festivity. No one, I think, will deny that from a festivity of a translation a translation is rightly inferred, since festivities are not wont to be instituted except for a certain cause, or at least one that seems certain. Why afterwards the same feast was abrogated Lestocq sets out well enough, namely because it was within the octave of the Epiphany; and he teaches at the same time that the feast of the holy Lucian, Maximian and Julian, martyrs, was abrogated, which was kept on 8 January within the same octave. This objection of Thiers therefore is of no moment. Nor is that better which he presently adds, namely that in the Office nothing was read about the translation: for he himself confesses that this title was prefixed to the Office: A sermon on the finding and translation of blessed Firminus, bishop and confessor. Thus the translation was in the title, and probably nothing about it was inserted into the lessons, because the circumstances of the translation were not sufficiently known for lessons to be composed from them. In the same way of many Saints an Office is read in which nothing occurs about their deeds, because these are not sufficiently distinctly known.

§ IV. Other arguments for the translation of the body: the same placed in a new shrine in the year 1279, and thereafter begun to be carried about every year.

[ ] [The translation of the body is shown from the shrine which existed before the year 1254,] Lestocq in chapter 6 proves from a statute of the canons of Amiens of the year 1254 that the body of St. Firminus the confessor was at that time preserved in a certain shrine, and suspects it to be the same chest in which it had probably been placed by holy Salvius. The same statute teaches with what solemnity the Saint's festivity was then celebrated. Wherefore the fragment given by him on page 237 I here subjoin: In the year of the Lord 1254, in the general chapter which begins on the morrow of Magdalen's day, it was ordained that the feast of holy Firminus the confessor be kept as a great double without a concurrent, and that the bells be rung, and lights kindled, and that both the altar and the church and the persons be prepared [*], as at great doubles. Let two precentors rule the choir, let the responsory be sung by the archdeacons, let the canons read and in silks… Nor is there a procession, unless it fall on a Sunday, which if it sometimes happen on account of a Sunday, yet the little chest shall not be carried; but nevertheless it shall be kept in silks and through the cloister, etc. The whole statute he published after the second dissertation, because his adversary had answered some things to cast a suspicion of interpolation; but those are of too little moment to detain us.

[34] In the year 1279 the body of St. Firminus the confessor was translated into a new shrine by Simon, Cardinal and legate in France, from the translation into a new shrine, who afterwards under the name of Martin IV ruled the universal Church. This translation is certain, and confirms the former so certainly that no doubt about it can remain to a man not litigious. Thiers tried to refute that argument in chapter 4, but before it had been lawfully brought forward; and therefore all the arguments which he uses to show that the Acts of that translation are not authentic assail only a certain French version of that instrument, which in fact is not free from faults, and might be suspect, had there not afterwards been brought forward a copy of the Latin instrument, which was found in the chest itself in the year 1500. Lestocq produced it on page 237 from the archive of the bishopric of Amiens, where he says it is kept under this title: A copy of the authentic letter found in the chest or ancient shrine of the most blessed Firminus the confessor, bishop of Amiens, in the year of the Lord fifteen hundred. Another copy he affirms is kept in the chartulary of the chapter, under this title: The present writing was extracted from the chest of blessed Firminus the confessor.

[35] And the letters themselves are conceived in these words: To all who shall inspect the present letters, William, archbishop of Rouen, which was made in the year 1279, Philip of Évreux, Reginald of Beauvais, Guy of Langres, Robert of Bath and William of Amiens, by the grace of God bishops, eternal salvation in the Lord. Know that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation twelve hundred and seventy-nine, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of June, in the second year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Nicholas III, the most reverend father and lord, the lord Simon, likewise by the grace of God Cardinal priest of the title of holy Cecilia, legate of the apostolic See, in the presence of the most excellent Philip, by the grace of God king of France, and Edward king of England, of Charles prince of Salerno, son of the most excellent king of Sicily, and of ourselves, and also of many other princes of the kingdoms of France and England, of abbots, of magnates, and of a copious multitude of clergy and people, placed the body of blessed Firminus the confessor, once pontiff of Amiens, in the present shrine, with that solemnity being employed which is customary in such matters. In witness whereof, for the perpetual memory of the thing, we have thought that the present letters should be strengthened with the safeguard of our seals. Given as above. What can solidly be opposed to this instrument I do not see. Thiers had already said on page 38 that that instrument was fit to convince, provided it were established to be authentic. The author of the Shade of Thiers, chapter 3, page 48, asserts that there would be no one who would not yield, provided the shrine were opened and the authentic instrument itself found there. The chest was at last opened, as we shall see, and the authentic instrument found with the Saint's body, as we shall say in its place. It would therefore be superfluous here to review the vain evasions of those who before tried to render it suspect.

[36] In the year 1317 it was decreed in the cathedral chapter that the chest of St. Firminus the confessor should be carried about every year in procession. That decree Lestocq recites on page 238 from the book in which the statutes of the chapter are collected, from the chapter's decree about carrying the body about every year, and which was composed by its mandate in the year 1412. Take the words: In the general chapter which was on the morrow of blessed Firminus the martyr in the year 1317, it was ordained that on the day of blessed Firminus the confessor, and on the day of the blessed Fuscian and his companions, solemn processions be made through the cloister, if the weather allow, and that their bodies be solemnly carried in their processions, and likewise that a solemn ringing of bells be made. To this statute Lestocq subjoins the letters of Robert de Fouilloy, bishop of Amiens, which even now are kept authentic with the bishop's seal appended in the archive of the chapter of Amiens. A copy of the same letters is found in the second volume of the Martyrology of Amiens, on Lestocq's testimony, page 86. Hear part of them: Whereas our beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of the church of Amiens, over which, though unworthy, we preside, have thought fit humbly to petition us that, to the praise of the divine name and the devotion of the Christian people, we should consent that the venerable body of blessed Firminus the confessor be carried on his feast, which at the beginning of September is celebrated by the inhabitants, … considering that the said glorious Confessor, who in ancient times laudably presided over that same church, living piously and holily, mighty in bright virtues to the honour of the highest priesthood, and by very many miracles which the almighty Lord has wrought for him, and daily still works, wondrously adorned that same church; … we establish, will and ordain, willing, establishing and also ordaining that the body of that blessed and renowned Firminus the confessor on his feast, and the blessed bodies of the martyrs Fuscian, Victoricus and Gentian on the feast of their passion, as aforesaid, be reverently and honourably carried through that church and its cloister, if the quality of the weather allow, at all times hereafter, in each single year, and be set down and replaced in their due places; that the bells be rung by our people famously and solemnly at our own cost and expense, as hitherto it has been customary to ring at those feasts and at other great doubles, and more solemnly if it be fitting.

[37] which from that time was solemnly done, Thiers knew the statute of the chapter of Amiens, and turned it over in chapter 6; but he seems to have been ignorant of the bishop's ordinance, since he makes no mention of it. This argument so bound the man who had lent his labour to a bad cause that in anger he rose up against all chapters. But arguments are not to be solved thus, nor is truth thus to be sought. I should dare to say that Thiers answered nothing, since he answered nothing fittingly, nothing worth relating. For which cause, letting go the taunts of an angry man, I shall add a few things which Lestocq excerpted from the Ordinal, as they call it, of the year 1337, page 243: The little chest of blessed Firminus the confessor, prepared in the evening upon the great altar, is carried by the canons… At the procession which is made through the cloister in silken copes, … the little chest of blessed Firminus the confessor is carried… After the sixth hour the said little chest of blessed Firminus the confessor is brought back and replaced upon the greater altar. Almost the same things are found in the ancient Ordinal, but added in the margin, since the book was older than the praised institution. There are added there these words cited by Lestocq, page 242: After matins the little chest of blessed Firminus is carried into the middle of the church. Many other fragments of this kind, excerpted from various books, I omit for brevity's sake, although they all make mention of the Saint's translation; and from all the monuments, which Lestocq adduced from the church of St. Firminus the confessor, I select only one, because by it we are at the same time taught in what manner the Saint was venerated in his own church. The ancient Ordinal of the praised church, on Lestocq's testimony, page 244, has this: The translation of blessed Firminus, bishop and confessor, 9 lessons, a great double, etc. On the translation of holy Firminus, bishop and confessor, a great double is kept, etc. It is to be known that … at … the translation of blessed Firminus the confessor the altar is covered with green, and green ornaments are used.

[38] The translation of the body of St. Firminus the confessor Lestocq also proves from his various relics and finally from this Saint's relics, which are kept apart from the body: for those relics could not be had in other places if the Saint's body had always remained unmoved in its sepulchre, as the adversaries had contended. Hear the praised writer on page 110, where he has this in French: In this church (of St. Firminus the confessor) there has always been continued the exposition of the relics of St. Firminus the confessor, which are kept there for many centuries. These relics are enclosed in two shrines. One represents a bishop's head, where there is a tooth with an ancient inscription which says that the tooth is of this Saint. The other shrine is a silver arm, in which are enclosed certain bones of this Saint's arm. Since these things are not denied by Thiers, it is not necessary to bring forward a certain writing of the year 1442, in which the latter relics are again mentioned. It may be seen in Lestocq, page 245. Thomas Greffius, canon of Amiens, in the year 1261 founded a chapel in the hospital of St. John the Baptist at Amiens, and gave it various relics, among which were, of the wrist-joint of blessed Firminus the confessor, placed in one silver vessel, as the instrument adduced by Lestocq, page 254, has it.

[39] That the same relics are kept to this day in the church of the hospital of Amiens with this Latin inscription, which are kept in various places. of the wrist-joint of St. Firminus the confessor, the praised writer testifies on page 116, where he says it is a bone of that part of the hand which the anatomists call the carpus. He goes on then to show that a bone of the arm of the same Saint was at one time kept in the cathedral church of Noyon; that other relics of St. Firminus the confessor are recorded in the church of Longpré [*] in the diocese of Amiens, others in the place which is called the Chin of St. James, and others at Amiens in the collegiate church of St. Nicholas, which belong to a certain Confraternity of St. Nicholas instituted in the said church many centuries ago. Finally on page 121 he adduces a modern writer who assigns to the church of St. Acheul an arm of our Saint. But the author of the Shade of Thiers, page 19, denies that arm to the abbey of St. Acheul. It has pleased me to collect these things, that the reader may at the same time understand that the relics of St. Firminus the confessor were in veneration in various places, although otherwise the argument drawn from this for proving the translation is not so effective as are certain others brought forward before. I shall now briefly discuss the arguments of the contrary party, which denied the translation, before the chest was opened and the body found.

* that is, let them be adorned

* Notre-Dame de Longpré aux Corps Saints

§ V. By what reasons doubt was cast upon the translation of the body.

[ ] [The first argument of those who denied the translation, from the sepulchre found,] The occasion of the translation being denied by some I set out briefly at number 6 and following; but here their arguments must be examined, which reduce to two. The first is this. There was found in the church of St. Acheul the sepulchre of St. Firminus the confessor, as is plain from the inscription. But that sepulchre is not empty; rather there were found in it the bones of a human body, which can be no other's than St. Firminus's, buried there. Therefore the bones of this Saint remain in their first sepulchre, and were never translated elsewhere. The several parts of this reasoning the defenders of that opinion tried to prove by many arguments. But they could never so show those things from which the whole force of the reasoning ought to arise that they were not easily refuted by the patron of the opposite side. That the name Firminus was found on the stone of the sepulchre of one of the five uncovered was asserted with wondrous confidence by the author of the Letter to an inquirer, and afterwards by Thiers; and they exhibited a figure of the letters found, engraved on copper, in this manner.

But the most illustrious de Brou, bishop of Amiens, in his Censure of the said Letter to an inquirer, complained that the figures of the letters exhibited differ much from those which were found on the sepulchre and drawn by his order. And the figures faithfully drawn in the bishop's presence Lestocq thus represents on page 172.

[41] on which they said the name Firminus was inscribed; but they did not prove it; Further, that the earlier figures are not exactly like those found upon the sepulchre, the author of the Shade confesses openly enough in chapter 10, where he attributes to the engravers and printers whatever was represented less exactly. Then he does not deny that the figures given by Lestocq are more exact. Thiers also in chapter 13 preferred to show by a long disputation that the sepulchres of Saints are known from inscriptions, which no one could deny, rather than to treat much of the likeness of the figures; and he acknowledges the unlikeness clearly enough on page 156, since he excuses it. Nevertheless the whole force and efficacy of the argument given above depended on the figures of the letters. For if the figures do not designate those letters out of which the name Firminus is formed, whence can it be gathered that it is the sepulchre of St. Firminus? If the figures of the letters are doubtful, with what useless and vain boasting did Thiers conclude from them, on page 165, that he is worse than a Sceptic who dares to doubt whether the body of St. Firminus the confessor was at that time still in that uncovered sepulchre? If the figures are such that they exhibit nothing certain, or rather another name, does not the whole argument plainly collapse? Thus Thiers and his followers ought solidly to have proved that the figures of the letters are such that from them the name Firminus is formed. But although they have very often affirmed this as certain, they have nowhere proved it. But Lestocq in part 2 of his Dissertation, chapter 2, clearly shows that the name Firminus cannot be formed from the figures of the letters found upon the sepulchre. His chief reasons I shall briefly exhibit.

[42] First, it cannot be proved that that letter Y, which the adversaries explained as F, but by other arguments is the first letter of the name carved on the sepulchre: for other letters precede at so great an interval that between these and it there could have been several intermediate ones. And if it cannot be shown which of the letters is the first of the carved name, how will it be proved that that name is Firminus? To this argument, by which alone all certainty of the inscription perishes, the author of the Shade answered nothing. Secondly, even if it were certain that that letter is the first of the name, it would still be uncertain what letter is designated by the figure inscribed on the sepulchre. For Mabillon indeed in his work on Diplomatics, page 347, in the Alphabet of old Gallic, among the seven figures by which F is designated, sets a like one, as the adversaries objected; but in the same Alphabet he set a like figure also for the letter S. In the Epitaph of a certain Gordianus (in Aringhi in his Rome subterranean, book 3, chapter 22) a like figure is set several times for N. Another explained it as V, and thought it should be read vikmin. Who therefore shall determine here what letter that first figure designates, if indeed it is the first?

[43] To these things the author of the Shade answered on page 159 that Mabillon's Alphabet was taken from the abbey of St. Acheul by Boterovius, it is manifestly shown, from whom Mabillon received it: Two epitaphs, he says, of Leudelinus and Valdolina, discovered in this abbey, supplied him with all the characters from which he composed his Alphabets; and he asserts that in the words defunctus and ficit of the epitaph of Leudelinus, F is expressed by that figure about which we are disputing. He adds that by the following letters it is sufficiently intimated that F is altogether designated by that figure. But what he says about the following letters, as explaining the first, is frivolous and empty, since those also are uncertain. But about the monuments cited Lestocq answered thus in Dissertation 2, chapter 1, after he had reported his adversary's words: The monument therefore of St. Acheul, whose copy is set out in Boterovius, is the judge whom the Shade adopts. But that judge pronounces in my favour. What the Shade affirms, that F was formed in this manner Y in the words DEFUNCTUS and FICIT, is most certainly false. It is most certain that F is expressed by another figure in those two words. It is also most certain that it is the letter S which is thus expressed Y in that monument, not once but six times… It is therefore decided, according to the second monument of St. Acheul, set out in the book of Boterovius, that the letter which we are examining is S, and consequently that the name of Firminus is sought in vain in this inscription. To these Lestocq rightly adds other things, but for brevity's sake we omit them.

[44] Thirdly, the second letter appears indeed to be I, as Lestocq goes on, page 176 of Dissertation 1, from the figures found on the sepulchre but it may also be part of a letter whose remaining parts are effaced. The third letter is wholly effaced, as the adversaries confess, who suspect for no other cause that R was placed in that spot than that it is necessary for composing the name of Firminus. The fourth figure is not M, as the Religious of St. Acheul would have it: for nowhere is the letter M read expressed in the way in which that figure has been faithfully given by Lestocq, who observes that the intermediate lines may perhaps be the letter V, since it is so formed in the Rome subterranean. By this observation it becomes uncertain whether that figure designates only one letter or several; nor did the Shade remove that doubt, page 158, answering that certain minuter defects of a letter less skilfully carved do not prevent it from being M, because, as Lestocq rightly replies in Dissertation 2, page 11, those minutiæ, such as these are, at least render it doubtful. That the sixth letter of the inscription is not N, as the adversaries would have it, the praised Lestocq shows clearly enough on page 178 by this reason. The letter N has three lines, of which the middle so connects both the lateral ones that it obliquely descends from the top of the first lateral line to the lower part of the second lateral, in this manner N. But the figure of the inscription has the oblique line so formed that it ascends from the lowest part of the former lateral line, which never happens in the letter N. Ill therefore did they divine when they said the last lateral line was effaced: for even if the other lateral were present, not even so would the letter N be recognized, but a figure would arise distinct from all the characters. More probably Lestocq suspects that V is designated by that figure, or perhaps G, for such a G is found in the epitaph of Gordianus mentioned before. Various things to these the author of the Shade answered, pages 162 and 163; but they do not remove the difficulty, and therefore I pass over both them and Lestocq's answer to them: for whoever desires to see all the most minute little objections and to understand their solutions, may consult the often-mentioned Dissertations.

[45] that the name Firminus cannot be formed; and that the argument is of no weight. Take therefore the conclusion rightly deduced from the aforesaid by Lestocq, page 179: It is not known therefore whether the first of those six figures is the beginning of the name; it is not known whether that first letter is F or S or N or V. The second perhaps is not I, but the remnant of some letter. The third is wholly unknown. The fourth is not M. The last cannot be N, as would be necessary for composing the word Firminus. The letters therefore found upon the sepulchre which is on the Epistle side are so far from being able to prove that the name of St. Firminus was carved there, that on the contrary they show that that name could not have been noted there by those letters; and this inscription alone would suffice to refute the fabulous opinion of the Religious of St. Acheul. Mabillon, who had seen this sepulchre, says nothing about the meaning of the inscription found there, doubtless because that learned man was persuaded that it could not be read. Yet the opposite party boasted that Mabillon favoured their opinion, and the author of the Shade adduced certain fragments of letters, page 155, to show that Mabillon did not doubt that the name of Firminus was carved on the sepulchre. But those letters were not Mabillon's, but those of others who said they had heard it from him. But Lestocq in Dissertation 2, chapter 2, set forth two letters of Mabillon himself by which he not obscurely intimates that the opinion of the men of Amiens pleased him. Further, although from what has been said it is clear that that sepulchre was attributed to St. Firminus without fit foundation, Lestocq nevertheless wished to use other arguments also, and tried to prove that the bones found in that sepulchre could not be those of St. Firminus the confessor, even if it were established that it was his sepulchre. But since the arguments by which it is proved that the body was translated are so solid, and the translation itself, from the opening of the chest presently to be narrated, is so brilliantly confirmed and made manifest that it can now be denied only with the mark of obstinacy, I do not think I should be doing anything worth the labour if by collecting all the arguments I made this disputation longer.

[46] For this cause also I shall indicate the adversaries' second argument only in a few words; Their second argument, which Thiers adorned with a ridiculous criticism, for it can be refuted by no words so clearly as it was refuted when, the chest being opened, the body of St. Firminus with the due inscription lay open to the eyes of all present. The author of the Letter to an inquirer and Thiers asserted in several places that the shrine in which the body of St. Firminus the confessor was believed to be laid had been opened in the year 1696 in the presence of the dean of the chapter and of four other persons, and that nothing at all had been found in the chest, but that it was altogether empty. And with such confidence did they boast this that they could scarcely have spoken more positively if they themselves had examined an empty chest. Hear on what foundation. They kept saying that they had the whole matter from the testimony of Jean du Croc, a locksmith, who had been present, and had narrated the whole series of it to the abbot and to certain religious of St. Acheul. They confessed indeed that the said locksmith, when he was asked to confirm that testimony in writing, was unwilling to do it; but they freely boasted that he was held back only by fear of incurring harm if in that way he provoked the indignation of the canons. Thus all their certainty rested on the words of one man, whom they acknowledged to be so timid that he did not dare openly to be an advocate for the truth; or rather, as the event taught, from certain words of the man, perhaps ambiguous and certainly wrongly understood, they had invented for themselves that emptiness of the chest. It is worth hearing what criticism Thiers uses here, page 89: It is true, he says, that the testimony of this locksmith is single; but it is equivalent to many, because it is sincere, and ought to prevail over many on this occasion, conformably to the law Ob carmen, which says: “Regard must be had not to the multitude, but to the sincere trustworthiness of the testimonies, and to those testimonies which the light of truth rather attends.” The testimony of one man, even if he dare not confirm it in writing, nay even if he deny it, is nevertheless equivalent to many, if we believe Thiers. Why so, I ask? Because it is sincere, he says. And the sincerity he excellently proves in this way: If he varied his last answers, or rather, if he refused to confirm in writing what before he had only said by word of mouth, it is sufficiently understood that this was not done except after the expostulations with which he was assailed for having confessed the truth so ingenuously, and through fear of falling from the favour of the chapter and canons of Amiens, and especially of losing the custom of hiring out his work to them. Are then the variation of answers, the refusal of written testimony, and so effective a fear of loss, excellent arguments by which it is proved that the testimony of one locksmith, and that uttered only by word of mouth, is to be preferred to the testimonies of many others?

[47] Other tokens of sincerity indeed must be brought forward, is shown to be utterly false but they will not favour the cause which Thiers had undertaken to defend. When the assertion of the Religious of St. Acheul about the testimony of Jean du Croc had been heard, boasted by word and by writing, he appeared before notaries with Louis Debonnaire, a presbyter and sacristan of the cathedral church, and Damian le Quien, a goldsmith, who with him had examined the chest of St. Firminus. These three before two royal notaries declared and, with their names subscribed, testified the following, which I shall give in summary. They affirm that they had heard that there was spread in the city of Amiens a printed writing in which various facts were asserted concerning themselves, about a pretended opening of the chest of St. Firminus the confessor, all which had equally sprung from calumny. Hence they declare, first, that in the month of August of the year 1696, after the festivity of the Assumption of the Virgin, by order of the lord Joly, canon of Amiens, they came to the lower sacristy of the cathedral church, to examine whence arose the excessive weight of the shrine of St. Firminus the confessor, and to inquire whether that shrine could not be made lighter. 20. That for this cause the goldsmith le Quien lifted two silver plates with which the shrine was covered, and found nothing between those plates and the wood of the shrine whence the excessive heaviness could arise. 30. That for the same cause they bored with an auger in two places the wooden boards of the shrine, to investigate whether within the wooden shrine another of lead was enclosed, which was the cause of so great a weight; but that they understood through those two holes that no leaden shrine was enclosed, but that that excessive heaviness arose from the thickness of the wooden boards and from certain iron bars which may be in the shrine for joining the boards. 40. That, when they saw that the shrine could not be made lighter, they at once well closed the holes made, and replaced the silver plates. 50. There add two witnesses, Debonnaire the presbyter and le Quien the goldsmith, that, while they were tilting the shrine to one side, they felt the movement of a certain burden, which doubtless was the bundle on which the relics are laid. 60. They testify that nothing else was then done.

[48] is shown. 70. Du Croc the locksmith added that he had been asked by the procurator of the abbey of St. Acheul to subscribe his name to a certain writing and to confess the truth about the opening of the said shrine; and that he replied that he was ready to swear, touching the most holy Gospels, that the said opening had never been made. These things, set out a little more at large, they confirmed with subscribed names: Louis Debonnaire, Damian le Quien, Jean du Croc, Boucher, and de le Warde. Sealed on 10 July of the year 1697 and recognized on the same day. The whole Declaration was published in French in Lestocq, page 254. With this testimony about the shrine not opened agrees the letter of the lord de Riencourt, dean of the cathedral chapter, who also had beheld everything as present. Lestocq recites the letter from page 149, from which I take nothing but the manner they used to explore whether a leaden shrine was enclosed in the wooden one. Holes having been made with an auger, they inserted a very slender rod through them into the shrine, and by its help understood that no leaden shrine was there. The same things both he and the canon Joly, that is, all who had been present, asserted everywhere by living voice, as Lestocq testifies. Nevertheless not even with so authentic a testimony did the patrons of the contrary party acquiesce; but the author of the Shade contends on page 132 that the shrine was examined twice in the same year, and that in fact it was opened on the 2nd day of November, on the Commemoration of all the dead, that is, at the second visitation. Hence the same three witnesses, namely the sacristan, the goldsmith and the locksmith, again before a notary declared in the year 1712, on the third day of June, that all that had been declared before was true, and that they had not been present at a second visitation of the shrine, nor had heard anything about a second visitation. Consult the whole Declaration, sealed on the fourth day of June, in Lestocq, Dissertation 2, from page 181. It shames me to report all the quibbles which obstinacy invented in this contention; and it is by no means necessary to draw out this disputation further. Wherefore I proceed to the visitation of the shrine itself: for contentious men clamoured for nothing so much as that the shrine should be opened, so that at last every controversy might cease. § VI. The shrine being opened, the sacred body is found with the authentic testimony of the deposition, as is understood from the bishop's report given here: the declaration of the abbot of St. Acheul. [ ] [The bishop of Amiens, before the chief persons of the city, in the choir of the church] In the year 1715, on 10 January, Pierre Sabatier, prelate of Amiens, that he might put an end to the long contentions, opened the shrine of St. Firminus the confessor before the chief persons of the city of Amiens, both ecclesiastical and secular. The Acts of this visitation, printed in French, I subjoin translated into Latin: Pierre, by the grace of God and of the apostolic See bishop of Amiens. We make known that on this Thursday, the tenth day of the month of January of the year 1715 (since our promoter had suggested to us that by our decree given on the 2nd of this month, after the matter had been communicated with our venerable brethren the dean, canons and chapter of our church, we had determined to proceed today to the opening of the shrine of St. Firminus the confessor, and that consequently he had invited the bodies and chief persons of the city, both ecclesiastical and lay, and that by name he had taken care to have invited, and, so far as was necessary, summoned and called upon on the 4th of this month, by the work of the apparitor Biberel, the abbot and Religious of St. Acheul, that they might be present at this opening, because an anonymous author of several pamphlets, printed some years ago, had rashly asserted that the body of this Saint is still in the church of St. Acheul, and that the shrine which is kept in our church is empty); we came about the ninth hour of the morning to our said church with our ministers, and, clothed in pontifical habit, entered into the choir, where we found the lords of the chapter, the lord king's advocate [*], the lords senators of the presidial court, the lords mayor of the city and aldermen, all placed as is customary in public ceremonies, and the rest of the choir wholly filled with the chief persons of the city, both of the secular and regular clergy and of other orders.

[50] The shrine being placed in the middle upon a table, and we placed before it on a throne prepared for this, [examines and orders the shrine to be opened, in which he finds a bundle of relics,] we set forth to those present the reasons which we had for calling them together, a discourse being made upon this matter. Which being ended, we examined the shrine, which is three feet, four inches and a half long, two feet and a half high, and sixteen inches and a half wide. The chest, of very thick wood, is set off by gilded silver plates, which in half relief represent the chief deeds of the Saint with such workmanship that it seems to be of the thirteenth century, as is easily understood from the garments of the persons who are represented there. Then we had it opened by Firmin de Bray, the usual locksmith of the abbey of St. Acheul, assisted by Jean du Croc, locksmith of our church, and Damian le Quien, goldsmith. We found there the precious relics of this Saint (which are partly whole bones, partly fragments of bones of divers parts of the body, partly ashes), wrapped in a very white linen cloth, and covered with English cotton woven of a thicker thread [*] and striped with white and blue. The measure of the whole mass together equalled a cylindrical form about two feet long, and of a diameter of five inches. These being set out upon the table placed before us, we with all who were gathered prostrated ourselves to honour them, and ordered for this end that the hymn of the holy Confessors be sung with musical concert, and we recited the prayer proper to this Saint.

[51] which are severally recognized and named; After this, taking up these sacred bones one by one in turn, we caused them to be named and designated in a loud voice by the lords Jean Baptiste Mouret, doctor of medicine, dean of the physicians of this city, and Jean Baptiste Jolibois, sworn master surgeon. These declared that in this shrine we have the following bones, namely, the whole forepart of the arm [], which in Latin is called the humerus []; another forearm; the hip bone, which is called the femur; various fragments of ribs; the shoulder-blade, or humerus; the lesser bone of the arm; two fragments of the femur; another bone of the shoulder-blades in fragments; a fragment of the ribs; two other fragments of the femur; a fragment of the shoulder-blade, with a notable quantity of other fragments, among which are those of the whole head, especially of the skull, of the vertebræ, of the spine of the back, of the loins, of the hip bone. Further, a conjecture may be made that fragments are present from all the parts of the body, which cannot easily be known, because those fragments are broken small and therefore shapeless. This denomination was at the same time written down by the lord Denis la Pierre, canon of St. Firminus, our secretary, and by the lord Adrien Dehen, secretary of the chapter, in two distinct memoranda, which were afterwards confirmed with subscribed name by themselves and by the said lords Mouret and Jolibois. In the said linen cloth, in which these bones were, there were also found two other bundles of cloth, in one of which, the smaller, were several fragments of human bones, and a parchment band half a finger broad with this inscription: These are the relics of holy Firminus the confessor. The other, much larger, contained a quantity of ash or dust, and of small fragments, with a parchment band like the preceding, on which was this inscription: The dust of St. Firminus the confessor. These two inscriptions were of a very ancient character.

[52] [he also finds letters witnessing the deposition of the body in the shrine, to which were appended] Finally we found there a bundle of grains of frankincense, which our pontifical book orders to be placed with relics at the consecration of altars; whence we gathered how circumspectly this sacred body had been placed in this new shrine; in which we also found a box of birch wood with a lid of oak, which was fastened to it with a cord, in which were parchment letters, unhurt and entire, eight inches long save three lines, five inches and three lines high, secured with six seals also entire, hanging from knots of green silk. These we ordered to be read aloud by our secretary, of which this is the content: “To all who shall inspect the present letters: William, archbishop of Rouen, Philip of Évreux, Reginald of Beauvais, Guy of Langres, Robert of Bath, and William of Amiens, by the grace of God bishops, eternal salvation in the Lord. Know that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation twelve hundred and seventy-nine, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of June, in the second year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Nicholas the third, the most reverend father and lord, the lord Simon, likewise by the grace of God Cardinal priest of the title of holy Cecilia, legate of the apostolic See, in the presence of the most excellent Philip, by the grace of God king of France, and Edward king of England, of Charles prince of Salerno, son of the most excellent king of Sicily, and of ourselves, and also of many other princes of the kingdoms of France and England, of abbots, of magnates, and of a copious multitude of clergy and people, placed the body of blessed Firminus the confessor and once pontiff of Amiens in the present shrine, with that solemnity being employed which is customary to be employed in such matters; in witness whereof, for the perpetual memory of the thing, we have thought that the present letters should be strengthened with the safeguard of our seals. Given as above.”

[53] The first of the said seals represented the archbishop clothed in a chasuble, the seals of six bishops, here described: with the pallium, mitre and cross, and with this inscription: S. Guillermi. Dei grā. Archiepi. Rothomagen.; and on the opposite seal, the Annunciation of the Virgin with this inscription: Contra Sigillū. Archiepi. Rothomagen. The second represents a bishop with cross and mitre, likewise clothed in a chasuble, with a lily on each side, and this inscription: S. Philippi. Dei Gra. Ebroicensis epi.; and on the opposite seal, the Virgin holding in her hands the boy Jesus with these words: Ave Maria gratia p̄la. The third has a like figure of a bishop with three lilies on each side, and this inscription: S. Reginaldi de Nantolio. Di grā … lvacen.; and on the opposite seal, a chequered shield marked with a cross angled with four keys, with these words: Secretū. R. Epi. Coītis. Belvacn. The fourth contains a like figure of a bishop, and this inscription: S. Guidonis: Dei grā Epi. Lingonen.; and on the opposite seal a bishop praying on bended knees, and these words: Secretum. G. Epi: Lingonensis. The fifth likewise represents a bishop, with two keys painted on one side, and on the other a certain form of the cross of St. Andrew, with this inscription: Robertus. Dei. gra. Bathoniensis. et Weliensis. [*] Eps.; here there is no opposite seal.

The last has the figure of a bishop, like the others, with a lily on each side, and this inscription: S. Guill. Dei. gra. Ambianensis Epi.; and on the opposite seal the blessed Virgin, holding her Infant, with these words: Contra S. G. Ambian. Epi.

[54] We then permitted those present to draw near, to examine the bones, [then he offers the bones and all the rest to be inspected by those present, and writes this report,] the writings, and the said opened shrine; and we found with them that in it were two holes, made with an auger above and below, which afterwards were closed with wooden pegs strongly driven in. Through them nothing could be inserted but a slender rod to explore the thickness, nor could it be that through them anything should be seen, anything taken away, or anything put in. But after the devotion of those present and their pious curiosity had been abundantly satisfied, we caused all things to be put back again into the shrine, the opening to be closed by the same locksmith, and our seal to be affixed with the seal of the chapter, to close it permanently, when we shall have placed in it new letters confirmed by us with subscribed name and with our seal added, that we may commend to the memory of posterity what was done on this day, on which it pleased God to show the truth of this Saint's relics, and to confound the rashness of those who presumed to assail them. And that we might give thanks to him for this, we sang the hymn Te Deum, all the bells sounding; and we ordered the shrine to be set down near the altar, that satisfaction might be given to the devotion of the people, until the Sunday, the 20th of this month, on which we decreed that it should be carried in a general procession. After this we withdrew, to draw up this report of the thing done, to which we subscribed our name, and to which we allowed all to subscribe who are of our chapter, of the presidial court, of the body of the city, the parish priests, the superiors of the communities, and other distinguished persons who, being present with the king's advocate, desired to set down their names.

[55] to which he himself subscribes with all the canons, Pierre, bishop of Amiens. Le Scellier de Riencourt, dean, abbot of Forest-Montiers. Joyeux, doctor of the Sorbonne, provost. Forcedebras, archdeacon of Amiens. De Fay Greffontaine, governing the prefecture of Amiens [*]. De Herte de Haille, noble esquire, first president of the presidial court of Amiens. Picquet, archdeacon of Ponthieu. Glachant, doctor of the Sorbonne, cantor. Moreau, scholasticus. Le Caron, penitentiary. Fournier. T. Trouvain. Pinguet. Boistel, the eldest. Moreau, doctor of the Sorbonne. Trancart, doctor of the Sorbonne. Lallemant. F. Trouvain. Le Mercier, doctor of the Sorbonne. Benoise, abbot of St. Salvius. M. Filleux. Hurache. Caignart. Picquet. Masclef. L. Boistel, doctor of the Sorbonne. N. de Lestocq, doctor of the house of the Sorbonne, canon prefect of theologicals. De Fay, licentiate of the Sorbonne. P. Chaux. Durand. Fr. le Caron, doctor of the Sorbonne. Priolo, doctor of the Sorbonne. De Herte.

N. Filleux, doctor of the Sorbonne. Pingre. Canon, licentiate of the Sorbonne. Creton, noble esquire, president of the presidial court of Amiens. Le Boucher, noble esquire, lord of Famechon, assessor. Ducroquet, dean of the senators. Vacquette du Cardonnoy, noble esquire, veteran senator and senator secretary of the king, and emeritus Mayor of the city. Mouret, veteran senator. Le Gillon du Grotison. Damyens. Vacquette de Frechencoury. Houlon. J. B. Cornet. De Herte de Haille. Pingre de Sourdon, noble esquire. Dufresne. Sentier, senator, cleric. Mouret. Claude Louis Vacquette. Petyst, royal advocate. Pingre, noble esquire, royal procurator. Le Boucher. Forcedebras, all canons of the cathedral church.

[56] Du Fresne de Fredeval, Mayor and general prefect of civil order. and with several others of various orders. Ducandas, alderman. Destrees, alderman. Jacques Fr. Cornet, alderman. Damyens, alderman. Galand the eldest, alderman. J. B. Roussel, alderman. De Bragelongne, prior of St. Martin's. Joly, canon of St. Nicholas. De Villers, canon and provost of the chapter of St. Firminus the confessor. De Raveny, parish priest of St. Martin's. Turquet, parish priest of St. Firminus the confessor. F. J. le Seigne, parish priest of St. Germanus. Fr. Antoine Emmanuel Brunel, doctor of the Sorbonne, prior of the abbey of St. John of Amiens, of the Premonstratensian Order. Piole, parish priest of St. Michael's. Dehangest, doctor of the Sorbonne and parish priest of St. James's. Demarinne, parish priest of St. Remigius's. F. J. Patissier, prior of the Celestine Fathers. Sezille, superior of the seminary of Amiens. Charles Jameron, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus. Fr. Nicolas de Hollandes, prior of the Dominicans of Amiens. Fr. Augustin Moreau, prior of the Augustinians. Fr. Claude of the Cross, definitor-provincial and prior emeritus of the Discalced Carmelites. Fr. Antoine Elias of All Saints, Discalced Carmelite. Fr. Jean Marie, guardian of the Capuchins. Fr. Nicolas of Amiens, Capuchin preacher. Fr. Jean Vacquette, corrector of the Minims. Baron de Lamaronde, royal councillor, prefect of waters and forests of Amiens. Cattelet, royal procurator of waters and forests. Nicolas Artus, alderman emeritus. Adrien Cornet the father, citizen of Amiens. Firmin Palyart. Ducastel, advocate in the supreme court, bailiff of the bishopric and chapter of Amiens. Dehangest, notary by office and procurator of the chapter of Amiens, as also of the bishopric. Le Caron, royal councillor, sub-prefect for waters and forests. Degrain, provost of the chaplains. Tavernier, registrar of the ecclesiastical court [*].

[57] Besides, on Friday, the eighteenth day of the same month, The bishop, some relics being set apart, at the petition of our said promoter, Vespers being ended, we came to the choir of our cathedral church, clothed in a stole over the camail [] and the rochet [], there assisting us the lords Alexandre le Scellier de Riencourt, dean of the said church, François Moreau, canon scholasticus and official, Nicolas de Lestocq, canon prefect of theologicals and curator of the chapter, our vicars general, and in the presence of the lords Louis le Caron, penitentiary, Joseph Fournier, Charles le Mercier, Jean Baptiste Pingre, canons of our church, and the lords Denis la Pierre, canon of St. Firminus, our secretary, Antoine Adrien Vilman, canon of St. Nicholas, our almoner, and the servants of our sacred treasury: whither after we had come, the most holy Sacrament being first adored, and prayer being made before the shrine, in which we found our seal and the seal of the chapter unhurt and entire, we ordered it to be opened by the same workmen who had opened it before; and when we had taken out the relics, which we placed upon a table prepared for this purpose, by the counsel of our venerable brethren, the dean and the canons present, we took a part of the bone which is called the FEMUR, that we might afterwards enclose it in a particular shrine, so that it might more easily be exposed to the devotion of the faithful, who on this occasion showed a plainly singular devotion. We took also about one spoonful of the ashes, mingled with certain fragments of bones, that from them we might distribute something to the abbey of Corbie, whose Prior and Religious asked of us a small part, that they might add it to the treasury of their church; and then that from them we might give something to the parish of St. Firminus the confessor of this city, whose rector and subjects likewise asked of us a small part, that they might join it with that which they have had for many centuries.

[58] [encloses all the rest again in the same shrine with the testimony of his visitation,] After this we placed all the bones in order in the same linen cloth in which we had found them; into which also we inserted all the fragments with the parchment band on which is written: These are the Relics of St. Firminus the confessor. In it moreover we enclosed the bundle of ashes with a like parchment band, on which is inscribed: The dust of St. Firminus the confessor; as also the bundle of frankincense which we found there. All being decently wrapped, with a veil of green Damascene silk sewn on every side, which was substituted for the English cotton, which was too worn, we replaced them in the chest in the same state in which they were. Into the same we then put back the authentic letters of the year 1279, in the same box in which they had been, closed with a band of green silk. To these letters we added others, likewise enclosed in the box, which, signed by us, are of this purport: “Pierre, by the grace of God and of the holy apostolic See bishop of Amiens, to those present and to come, salvation and blessing. We make known that we, in the year of the Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifteen, on the fourth of the Ides of January, on the very day on which the memory of the translation, first made by our predecessor blessed Salvius, of holy Firminus the confessor and bishop of Amiens, from the place in which he had been buried, into our cathedral church, is renewed each year, opened this chest, in which the body of the aforesaid holy Firminus, confessor and bishop of Amiens, is preserved, and which iniquity with rash daring had falsely said to be absent, in the choir of our already named cathedral church, that the mouth of those speaking iniquity might be stopped; and, with due veneration, the rites being observed, and the chief men of this city looking on, with the clergy and people exulting with incredible joy, we inspected, recognized, and replaced in the same chest the relics of that Saint, which, taken from another humbler shrine, were in the year twelve hundred and seventy-nine laid in this nobler one. Given as above under our sign and seal. Pierre, Bishop of Amiens.” To this we ordered our seal to be affixed, impressed on red wax, and hung from ribbons of green silk.

[59] After this we ordered the same to be closed permanently by the same workmen, and subscribes with others to the report of the thing done. as it had before been closed, and we left it still exposed to the veneration of the faithful until the procession should be ended. Finally, prayers being again poured out, we withdrew to draw up this very report of the thing done, deposited in the archive of our bishopric, that recourse may be had to it when it shall be necessary. Given on the said day and year expressed above. Pierre, bishop of Amiens. Le Scellier de Riencourt, dean, vicar general. Moreau, scholasticus, vicar general. De Lestocq, canon prefect of theologicals, vicar general. Le Caron, penitentiary. Fournier. Le Mercier. Pingre, canons. Filleux, promoter. Vilman, canon of St. Nicholas, almoner. By the mandate of the most illustrious and most reverend Lord bishop of Amiens. La Pierre.

[60] With this instrument of the inspected body there was printed another likewise in French under this title: [The declaration of the abbot of St. Acheul, laying aside his doubt about the body,] The declaration of the lord abbot of St. Acheul about the opening of the chest of St. Firminus the confessor, made in the cathedral church of Amiens on 10 January of the year 1715. This likewise, translated into Latin, I subjoin: Before the undersigned royal and apostolic notaries appeared the lord Pierre de l'Etoile, abbot of St. Acheul near Amiens, who declared that, on occasion of certain ancient sepulchres found in his abbey in the month of January of the year one thousand six hundred and ninety-seven, he had doubted whether the body of St. Firminus the confessor, third bishop of Amiens, was in the shrine which is exposed in the cathedral church of Amiens; that for a long time he had believed his doubt not to lack foundation; but that after, on the tenth day of the present month of January, this shrine was publicly opened, in which the bones of this Saint were found with authentic letters of the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-nine, secured with the seals of six bishops who were present at the deposition of that body in this chest, which demonstrate its truth, he is now persuaded that there remains no reason for doubting that the body of this Saint is preserved there.

[61] The same lord appearing moreover declared that he does not assent to the deeds and sayings [and disapproving what was written on this occasion against the honour of the chapter.] which are inserted into the writings published on this occasion, and which may harm the honour of the lords of the Chapter of the said church of Amiens, and of the clergy of the diocese; that he so far from approving them that he would wish they had not been inserted in them. Of this and of all the aforesaid the said lord abbot appearing asked public letters from the said notaries, who gave him these, drawn up and granted in the said abbey of St. Acheul on 23 January of the year 1715, that they might remain among the chief records and acts of the notary Dehangest, one of the undersigned; and the aforesaid lord abbot subscribed, with the said notaries, and with the lord François du Fresne, knight, lord d'Epagny, president in the fiscal jurisdiction within the borders of Amiens, who was then present in the said abbey of St. Acheul. Signed: De l'Etoile, abbot of St. Acheul, du Fresne, Dehangest, and Denis with a mark added to the name. Recognized at Amiens on 24 January of the year 1715 by de Ligny, and sealed on the same day. Dehangest. In the year 1715, on 25 January, this Declaration was consigned to the public records and entered in the Acts of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese of Amiens, and recognized by me the undersigned. Tavernier.

lieutenant du roy moire d'Angleterre l'avant bras better, cubitus (the forearm) Bath and Wells in England commandant de l'officialité camail

* rochet § VII. The edict of the bishop of Amiens, by which the reason for opening the shrine is given, and the festivity of the translation is restored. [ ] [The bishop declares that he did not open the shrine because he doubted about the presence of the body:] At last it pleases us to subjoin the letters of the most illustrious bishop of Amiens, in which various things are alleged about the controversy related before, and on this occasion the festivity of the translation of St. Firminus the confessor is restored. The French phrasing I shall render into Latin in the same way in which I rendered the preceding. These letters also were printed in the same year, and run thus: Pierre, by the grace of God and of the holy Apostolic See bishop of Amiens, to the clergy and people of our diocese, salvation and blessing in the Lord. You will doubtless wonder, dearest brethren, that a visitation of the shrine of St. Firminus the confessor was instituted by us, after we had long doubted whether it seemed to be made. But hear the reasons which at last moved us to it. We never doubted for a moment that our church for many centuries possessed the precious relics of St. Firminus the confessor, third

bishop of Amiens. We had seen in the archives of the bishopric and of the chapter a copy of the public letters which were drawn up in the year 1279 by Simon the Cardinal, legate of the holy See, in the presence of several bishops, of the kings of France and England, of the prince of Salerno, and of all their courtiers, when the relics of this Saint were translated from a shrine doubtless of common worth into this which we now behold.

A thousand reasons equally solid and convincing prove the tradition of our church, and the devotion of the faithful for this cause.

[63] [but, since those who denied the translation, although their first two Little Works had been condemned,] Nevertheless the author of the Letter to an inquirer, pretending to be ignorant of the truth which he could not fail to know [*], “ignorant with wondrous blindness (as St. Augustine says), or with damnable animosity pretending not to know,” wished from the year 1697 to breed some doubt about this translation in the minds of the peoples. But, since in this writing he had asserted propositions false, rash and calumnious, having borrowed the style and manner of speech of the most abject writers who are found among the heretics, and having embraced with little judgment certain commonplaces which they are wont to use for assailing the use of sacred relics, he was most justly condemned by our illustrious predecessor. This author, confounded but not converted, called to his aid the deceased lord Thiers, parish priest at Vibraye, whose pen he used to defend so bad a cause. But again with grief and confusion he saw this Work suppressed by an edict of the Council, given in the king's presence.

[64] These things ought to have sufficed to blot out the impressions which those two Little Works could have made on the minds of those men and, being solidly refuted, and a third likewise refuted, who cannot of themselves know the truth of the facts which had been assailed. But when it was understood that it was still spread among men that condemnations are not proofs, and that those whose cause is bad are wont to flee to authority, there was published a Dissertation, no less to be commended for elegance and sincerity than for erudition and eloquence, which communicated to all the proofs which had been assailed in vain. After to authority reasons had been joined, the demonstration ought to have seemed evident enough for the dispelling of the darkness which they had tried to spread over this translation, and so that it might be said with St. Augustine: “What can be answered to these things, unless obstinacy strain its fighting sinews against the constancy of perspicuous truth?” But nothing is evident enough to a writer who flees the light. In truth, from the fictitious tomb of the lord Thiers a Shade was quickly seen to come forth, which laboured in vain to obscure the truth; and since it brought forward nothing solid, that Shade was straightway dispelled by the Little Work which the author of the Dissertation set against it, that he might defend it.

[65] From that time the cause would have been wholly ended if silence could be imposed upon falsehood and vanity, with a fourth little work they again demanded the opening of the shrine; as St. Augustine says. But, as vanity, as soon as it cannot be forced to be silent, ever flattering itself, feigns that it has answered everything, and even persuades itself that it will prevail over truth because it knows how to shout louder (it is easy for anyone to seem to have answered, if he has been unwilling to be silent: for what is more talkative than vanity, which is not therefore able to do what truth can, because, if it will, it can even shout more than truth), it was believed that the Apology would not long lack a reply. Nor was that believed in vain: for not long after there appeared Critical Animadversions by an author still lying hid, who strove to bring the whole controversy back to the opening of the shrine, who complained that there was disputing about difficulties which he could seem to unravel in a single moment, who finally boasted that we confessed that his objections could not be answered by us, because we refused to do what he demanded.

[66] Although these vain Animadversions had scarcely appeared [although the demand was unjust; that he consented in order to increase the devotion of the faithful:] but they were straightway confuted, and thence this demand was ever rendered more rash, we judged nevertheless, dearest brethren, that it was expedient to assent to it, not that we might satisfy the peevish judgment of that author, who, lest he should be forced to believe what he refused to see, prepared for himself an unworthy refuge, as it is said, spreading among the people that men can put into a shrine whatever they will, and that no instrument is found so ancient or authentic that it cannot be corrupted. This talk (if it were true, which we willingly do not believe; “For report is wont to lie,” as St. Augustine said)

would be equally rash, impious and calumnious, which will never find credence in the world, provided there be moderately known the probity, the religion, and the mind alien from all covetousness of those who are the possessors of this sacred treasure; and it would stir up as much indignation among the upright as it could beget joy among libertines and heretics. We do this only that we may satisfy our own devotion, not his curiosity; that there may be increased in this diocese the love and veneration due to that Saint who was the heir of the name, the zeal, the piety, and the chair of the great Firminus the martyr; that we may repair, so far as we can, the honour which they tried to snatch from him, traducing as a superstitious worship that veneration with which his relics have hitherto been honoured, which with such solid reason were believed to be enclosed in the shrine which we have opened.

[67] then he briefly sets out the certainty of the body found, You have, dearest brethren, the reasons by which we were moved. By reading our Report of the thing done you will understand what was performed in this holy and august ceremony, of which so many men distinguished by their condition and learning wished to be witnesses and admirers, and by which they were moved even to tears. They themselves will tell you that with their great consolation, as well as ours, they saw that multitude of whole bones, of fragments of many others, and of ashes, which we drew out, and which demonstrate what we had always believed. They will say that we found authentic records, secured with the seals of six bishops, which testify that the body of St. Firminus is enclosed in this shrine. And we are persuaded that if anyone, after arguments so evident of our tradition, should still wish to inspire in you some doubt, we should have nothing else to say to you, that we might dispel it, than what St. Augustine used to say to his people on occasion of the Donatists: See whether you would not rather believe witnesses so venerable and judges so learned than obstinate critics and self-loving litigants, who, when they have lost their cause, do nothing but murmur. “Let them choose therefore whether they would rather believe what ecclesiastical judges have pronounced, than what defeated litigants murmur”; and that you would not hesitate even for a moment whether you would follow the opinion of your fathers, who always venerated in this shrine the relics of this holy Confessor.

[68] he condemns two pamphlets written by the contrary party, For these causes, that there may be removed from you all that could assail the tradition of our church and disturb your devotion toward these holy relics, we forbid you to read or to keep the pamphlets whose title is this: The Shade of Master Thiers, etc.; Critical Animadversions on the Apology of the translation, etc.; which appeared without approbation and privilege, without the name of author or bookseller, although they treat of matters which pertain to religion, which is contrary to the decrees of the councils and to the statutes of the realm. And after we have maturely examined them, heard the opinion of the doctors on this matter, and invoked the holy name of God, we condemn them as containing false and calumnious facts, as injurious to the memory of our predecessors and to the clergy of our church, tending to breed a doubt about all the relics which are there exposed to the veneration of the faithful, and to diminish the worship due to them.

[69] and exhorts their author to come to his senses. We exhort at the same time the author of these pamphlets to fulfil what he promised in his Shade, that if we should find in the shrine, with the bones, the authentic letters of which a copy had been seen, he would lay down his arms and come to venerate the bones himself with us. We adjure him to remember that, if some ancient writer said it was base to depart from one's opinion, St. Augustine answered him that this is not true unless a man be so happy as to think rightly, and to have none but right, pious and orthodox thoughts; but that nothing is more salutary and more glorious than to change one's opinion, when one has unhappily defended error and falsehood: “It is base to change an opinion, but a true and right one: for to change a foolish and hurtful one is both praiseworthy and wholesome.” We hope that he, as he is not ignorant that it is the prerogative of the sacred authors, whose expressions are dictated or directed by the Holy Spirit, that their Works suffer no change, will not wish to refer his own to that same order, and will condemn with St. Augustine the senseless pride of that philosopher who flattered himself that nothing was ever said by him which he felt should be retracted: “He never uttered a single word which he would wish to recall.” Then we assure him that, although St. Jerome admits that provoked love has a right to be angry: “Love that has been wounded ought to be angry”: whatever he may be able to do to provoke ours, our charity will ever be tranquil, and will not cease to be toward him a true and sincere charity: “Even wounded charity knows not how to withdraw from love,” as St. Gregory says.

[70] We command that the Office of the translation of St. Firminus the confessor be celebrated hereafter in the whole diocese, [He restores the feast of the translation on 10 January: he appoints a Mass and a procession] as it was formerly celebrated, on the day 10 January, according to the rite which we shall prescribe in our short letters of the following year. Besides, for repairing the honour which they tried to snatch from this Saint, for giving thanks to God for the glory which he possesses, and for the remarkable benefits obtained by his intercession, according to the counsel of our venerable brethren the dean, canons and chapter of our church, we have decreed to have sung on the next Sunday, the 20th of this month, a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, at which we shall sacrifice in pontifical rite, and to institute, Vespers being ended, a general procession, at which the secular and regular clergy will be present, to which also the bodies of this city will be invited, and in which the shrine of this Saint will be carried after the accustomed manner.

[71] We exhort you with our whole heart, dearest brethren, to be present there, in thanksgiving, at which he exhorts all not like those whom St. Augustine reproached because they came to church as to a spectacle, in which there is less of religion than of curiosity, where there is more of distraction and immodesty than of attention and devotion: “Almost with a theatrical custom, more for a spectacle … than for instruction”: but so holily and religiously disposed that with St. Ambrose you may truly be able to say that you come only to this august sanctuary in which these precious relics are preserved, which, however weak they may appear, are a terror to the demons and a veneration to the faithful; that in these relics you may honour the memory of the holy Bishop, which will be eternal in blessing on account of the virtues with which his soul was enriched: “I honour the memory of the man by the perpetuity of his virtue”; that you may honour those ashes which were consecrated by the unction of baptism and of the priesthood, and still more by the confession of the faith: “I honour ashes made sacred by the confession of Christ”; that you may honour in these ashes, which time and corruption have spared, the seeds of that blessed eternity by which they will be superior to all length of time: “I honour in the ashes the seeds of eternity”; that you may honour that body which by its preachings and examples taught us to love God, and which, venerable even now after death, teaches us not to fear death for so good a Master: “I honour the body which showed that it loved my Lord, which taught me not to fear death for the Lord's sake”; and finally that you may honour the glorious pledges of that body which honoured God by its labours, and which will be honoured by God with eternal glory in heaven: “I honour the body which honoured Christ in the world, which will reign with Christ in heaven.”

[72] he exhorts all. But we must remember that, since by contempt of earthly things he deserved this remarkable glory which he possesses in heaven, and all the honours which we show him on earth, if we were not disposed in the same way, he would doubtless say to us by an inward address what St. Augustine said to his people in the third Sermon on St. Cyprian: How can it be that you set so much store by earthly things, and gape so much after pleasures, honours and worldly things, while you praise, while you admire, while you venerate those who despised these same things? “Why do I find you lovers of those things whose despisers you venerate?” This our present edict shall be read and published in the accustomed expositions of the faith of the parishes, and by the preachers, and shall be posted wherever it shall be necessary. Given at Amiens in our episcopal palace on 12 January, in the year 1715. Pierre, bishop of Amiens. By the mandate of the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Amiens. La Pierre. All these things I have wished to recite, that the truth may appear more clearly, and that each may be able to understand that the controversy was at last ended, or at least brought so far that any prudent man ought to have believed it ended. If any afterwards still cried out, they showed their own obstinacy, but the necessity did not lay upon us the task of demonstrating further what has lain open clearer than the light.

* otherwise: debebat