Antoninus

ON ST. ANTONINUS, MARTYR AT APAMEA IN SYRIA, AT APAMEA IN SYRIA

In the second or fourth century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0573, 0576

BY J. S.

§ I. The various cities to which some saint Antoninus is ascribed on this day or the next: Antoninus suffered neither at Capua nor at Palencia: some Antoninus is to be assigned to Apamea in Syria, whose ancient cult is demonstrated.

Sollerius, in this Work at the IV of July, gave a preliminary Commentary, in which he disputed concerning the saints named Antoninus, [Some Antoninus is assigned to various cities: the one of Piacenza distinguished from the rest,] who are variously announced on the 2nd, 3rd, and 30th of September in various Martyrologies, not that he might there laboriously discuss the deeds of them all, but that he might inquire whether all the Antonini who are attributed on the aforesaid days to various cities are distinct from one another. For one Antoninus was attributed to Apamea in Syria, another to Apamia in Gaul; another to Piacenza, another to Capua in Italy, and finally another to Palencia in Spain. Some learned men supposed that he was one and the same Antoninus who is assigned to the five places mentioned. But Sollerius showed that St. Antoninus, who is venerated at Piacenza on the IV of July, and in the Roman Martyrology on the XXX of September, is distinct from the others, and he so examined the deeds of that St. Antoninus, with whom he was expressly dealing, that thus far no further matters concerning him present themselves for discussion. Of this Antoninus, therefore, we do not here treat.

[2] Sollerius further proved that the Antoninus attributed to Capua together with Aristæus, the one of Apamea wrongly attributed to Capua: although he is announced at Capua by Ado, by Usuard, and by the Roman Martyrology itself, is no other than the Antoninus whom the older martyrologists attribute to Apamea in Syria, and whom it is established to have died there. That this error crept first into the Martyrology of Ado, perhaps through the fault of copyists, and thence passed into Usuard and into the Roman Martyrology, he shows at nn. 7 and 8 of the Commentary cited, that is, in vol. 2 of July, p. 8. This can be confirmed from the Breviary of the church of Capua itself, of the year 1489, in which at the 2nd of September there are three lessons on St. Antoninus the martyr, and their beginning is as follows: Now the most blessed boy Antoninus was born in the town of Apamea. Michael Monachus in his Sanctuarium Capuanum, p. 71, admits that this Antoninus is not of Capua; nor was he able to adduce any monument of the church of Capua by which he might claim St. Antoninus for it. He adheres nevertheless to the authority of Ado and of the Roman Martyrology, and adduces the words of Peter de Natalibus, bk. 8, ch. 33, where he affirms that the martyrs Antoninus and Aristæus suffered at Capua. But Sollerius uncovered the source of the error, so that there seems no need to add more on these matters.

[3] Thirdly, the said Sollerius showed in §4 that no Antoninus is to be sought in Spain who suffered at Palencia on this day or the next, [Nor is any Antoninus to be assigned to the Spaniards; the dispute concerning the one of Apamea is to be examined.] since the Spaniards themselves had always believed the Antoninus whom they venerate at Palencia to be a Gaul, before certain men, on the strength of the fictitious Chronicle of pseudo-Dexter, dared not only to claim St. Antoninus for Spain, but even to invent a city Pamia in Spain — men already sufficiently refuted by Sollerius, and more fully by Nicolas Antonio in a Work hitherto unpublished, of which we have a transcript. There remain, therefore, only Antoninus of Syrian Apamea and Antoninus of Gallic Apamea, concerning whom Sollerius disputed much in §§1 and 3, yet in such a way that he referred the controversy, as needing fuller examination, to this place. Moreover, after Sollerius, the learned Benedictines who lately published in French the History of Occitania disputed about one or two Antonini of Apamea, in vol. 1 of the said Work from p. 621, and in part they agree with Sollerius, in part departing from him they suggest another opinion, and treat another controversy, which I had nowhere hitherto found. For this reason, that the controversy may be better elucidated, I shall briefly set forth what seems sufficiently proved, and what still remains doubtful.

[4] St. Antoninus, who is announced in the Hieronymian and other ancient Calendars, First, it is certain that some holy Antoninus, a martyr, suffered at Apamea, or rather in the territory of Apamea in Syria. He is announced in many Hieronymian transcripts on the III of September, to which day Wandelbert also attached him. The same is thus commemorated by Ado, Usuard, Notker, and by the Little Roman Martyrology, which is older than these, but on the 2nd of September, and in these words: At Apamia, of Antoninus the martyr. All these things may be seen more fully in Sollerius, §1. I add a few things from the most ancient Martyrologies which Edmund Martène afterwards published in vol. 3 of the Thesaurus anecdotorum, from col. [ ]. The first of these mentions there the bare name of Antoninus on the III of September. The second, however, has the name Antonius on the 2nd of the same month. The Corbie Martyrology which follows has on the III as follows: The birthday of SS. Antonius the boy and Aristus the bishop. There follow a Fragment of the Martyrology of Tours, and next the Corbie Calendar, in which Antoninus is not read. But the last Calendar, published from a Ms. of the monastery of Lyre, has on the III of September: Of St. Antoninus the martyr. The said Martène published other Martyrologies and ancient Calendars in vol. 6 of the Collectio amplissima, where at col. 675 the Calendar of the monastery of Stavelot has thus at the III of September: Of St. Antoninus the martyr. The Calendar of Verdun agrees at col. 682. Finally the Martyrology of Auxerre, in the same place at col. 719, agrees with Usuard and others at the 2nd of September: At Apamia, of St. Antoninus the martyr; and at the following day: At Capua, the birthday of the holy martyrs Antoninus the boy and Aristæus the bishop. Now this is to be noted as occurring in these Martyrologies, that none of them, except the last, records two Antonini on these days, or an Antoninus together with an Antonius. For hence it becomes the more likely, as Sollerius long ago observed, and as the said Benedictines agree with him in the History of Occitania, vol. 1, note 32, n. 1, that only one Antoninus the Syrian is mentioned in the Hieronymian transcripts on the second and third of September, even though in some he is doubled under the name of Antonius and Antoninus on the 2nd, and on the third the name of Antoninus is again repeated in certain others.

[5] That the Antoninus who is announced on those days is a Syrian, is with certainty the Syrian of Apamea, is established from various considerations so certainly that it seems not to be doubted. First, in various Martyrologies, among which is the Martyrology of Rabanus, the province of Syria is expressed. Next, the Gallic Apamia could not have been designated in the ancient Hieronymian Martyrologies, nor even in the Little Roman, in Ado, Usuard, or Notker, since these were written before that city existed, or at any rate before it became known by that name. That Apamia or Pamia of Gaul was unknown to the ancient geographers Sollerius had already said at n. 21. Yet the Benedictines just cited teach this more clearly and more emphatically in this manner: To this proof (concerning the one Antoninus the Syrian announced in the ancient Martyrologies) we can add that the name of the Gallic Apamiæ (Pamiers) was unknown in the Gauls before the twelfth century, and that we have no monument which makes mention of this city before that time. Indeed the abbey of St. Antoninus of Apamia, which is now the cathedral church, was formerly called Fredelacensis (de Fredelas), not Appamiensis: which name was certainly given it from the castle which the counts of Foix took care to have built at the beginning of the twelfth century, or toward the end of the preceding one, and which they named the Castle of Apamia, as we shall presently say. From these things it is gathered that all the martyrologists who announce St. Antoninus the martyr at Apamia in the Gauls are later than the eleventh century. And hence it further follows that in Ado, Usuard, Notker, and the others reported, Antoninus of Apamea in Syria is to be understood.

[6] That St. Antoninus the martyr was venerated at Apamea in Syria already in the sixth century, whose cult is established from the sixth century. and very probably much earlier, we have from a Petition presented by the monks of Apamea to the bishops of Second Syria, in which these words are read: But how many and how great were the things variously perpetrated in the venerable house of the victorious martyr Antoninus — what nature endowed with reason will recount them without tears? For he had so come into the habit of killing monks, … that through his followers, whom he wickedly hired, he slew venerable orthodox monks, who were gathered there in honor of the celebration being performed. Severus the heretic and Peter, bishop of Apamea, are accused, who do not pertain here. But the church of St. Antoninus which is here mentioned teaches that the Saint from the beginning of the sixth century, or earlier, was an object of veneration to the faithful, since this instrument was not only read in the Council of Constantinople under Mennas in the year 536, as may be seen in Labbe, vol. 5, col. 243; but it had been presented long before to the bishops of Syria, as Baronius relates at the year 518, nn. 48 and 49. Hence Tillemont, vol. 4, note 15 on Dionysius of Paris, rightly affirms that this church existed in the year 515, and that the Saint's feast was celebrated in it. But for how long it had by then existed is plainly uncertain.

[7] The elogium from the Menologium of Sirletus, We are equally ignorant whether the feast of St. Antoninus the Syrian was formerly celebrated in the Eastern Church on the 2nd or the 3rd day of September, as his memory is announced in the Hieronymian transcripts and the other Martyrologies reported. For in the Greek Calendars the same Saint is now found on the IX of November. Take the elogium from the Menologium of Sirletus at the said day: On the same day, the commemoration of the holy martyr Antonius, from the region of Syria, who, being a hewer of stones, and seeing the heathen sacrificing in the temple of the idols, sought to dissuade them from that empty superstition: but afterwards, entering into their temple, he shattered the idols themselves. For which he was seized and severely beaten, and being released he went away into Apamia of Syria, and there obtained from the holy bishop leave to build a church under the name of the Holy Trinity: which, when he had begun it, and the natives had learned of it, they rushed upon him by night and cut him limb from limb with swords. With these things the Greek Menæa sufficiently agree at the same day, as does the Menologium published by order of the emperor Basil, and they add only a few things. In the Menæa the Saint is called Antonius, in the Menologium Antoninus.

[8] the same more fully from the Basilian; the verses of the Menæa. Now the Menologium, in the translation of Arcudius and the edition of Ughelli in the Anecdota, p. 290, runs thus: Antoninus, a Syrian by race, worked in a stone quarry. He, when he had seen the heathen entering into a certain shrine and busying themselves with the gods, urged them to abandon the superstitious worship of the idols. But when he accomplished nothing by speaking, he set out for solitary places, and having found a man, an anchorite serving God, Theotimus by name (in the Menæa, Timothy), he stayed with him two years. Afterwards, relying on this man's prayers, and returning to his native place to the same temple, which by the various deceits of the demons was leading the minds of mortals astray, he came upon men keeping a festal day to the demons; and entering the temple, he broke the idols in pieces. For which he was seized and most grievously beaten. Then, being released, he withdrew to Apamea of Syria, and when he had obtained from the most holy bishop of that city leave to found a church to the Holy Trinity, and its foundations had already been laid, the natives set upon the man and cut him limb from limb: whose spirit joined itself to God. The Menæa agree, as I have said, as to the substance: and two verses are there added, of which I shall subjoin the Latin translation. Ἀντώνιον κτείνουσι τὸν θεῖον ξύλοις, Οἱ τὸ ξύλον τιμοῦντες ὡς θεὸν πλάνοι. They slay divine Antonius with wooden clubs, Deceivers who honor wood as God. But these verses do not agree with the elogium, in which he is said to have been cut in pieces with swords, and indeed limb from limb, unless perhaps they killed the Saint with clubs and raged with swords upon the lifeless body. Thus far concerning St. Antoninus the Syrian. Now it must be seen whether there is another Antoninus in Gaul, whose veneration is famous among the Gauls of Apamia.

§ II. The cult of Saint Antoninus in various places of Gaul.

[ ] [In the ninth century there existed a monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni;] Although the ancient martyrologists announce St. Antoninus in Syria, as we have shown, it is nevertheless certain and beyond doubt that some holy Antonius or Antoninus was venerated in Gaul at least from the ninth century. For in the Notitia concerning the monasteries which owe to the king of the Franks military service, gifts, or prayers alone, written at the assembly of Aachen in the year 817, under the emperor Louis the Pious, there is reckoned among others in Aquitaine the monastery of St. Antonius. Now Baluze, who published this Notitia in vol. 1 of the Capitularies from col. 589, observes the following in the notes to vol. 2, col. [ ]: We should read Antoninus. In the Conigonian parchment praised above there is mention of a monastery, "where the head of Antoninus the martyr with a part of his body rests in the valley which is called Nobilense, where a congregation of clerics appears to preside." The reference there is to the monastery of Saint Antoninus in the diocese of Rodez, in which I have found, in the most ancient records of that monastery, that the venerable head of the same Martyr, laid up with the highest honor, was celebrated far and wide by signs and miracles. Now at that time it was a monastery of clerics or canons; and there exists a bull of Urban II for the Canonry of Saint Antoninus. The same writer, at col. 1434, from the archive of the monastery of St. Antoninus of Rodez, recites an ancient document under this title: An old narrative concerning the origin and privileges of the monastery of Saint Antoninus in the diocese of Rodez, in which are recounted various things granted to the said monastery by King Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious.

[10] Take those things which chiefly bear upon our purpose, [indeed the Saint's head is said to have been there already in the eighth century,] even if they may perhaps be faulty: And burning with such a desire (King Pippin), toward the place of the blessed martyr Saint Antoninus, most highly to be venerated on account of the intercessions of his servants, because the venerable head of the same Martyr, there laid up with the highest honor, was renowned by signs and miracles far and wide, when the pious king had come, and had carefully weighed the great praises of the Martyr, … for the honor and reverence of the blessed martyr Antoninus, … he gave in perpetual gift the abbey which by surname is called Saint Audard's , to the head of the blessed Antoninus and to the altar which rests in the honor and glory of God, and to the clerics present and future dwelling therein, etc. It is added thereafter that the same was confirmed by Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, and another privilege of the same Louis is appended. The said writers of the History of Occitania, among the proofs at col. 23, adduce another donation of Pippin made to the church of Saint Antoninus the martyr, which is situated in the valley which is called Nobilis, where a boundary is known to be in the district of Rodez, in which it is said that Justinus the bishop was present, stricken with the royal disease, who, prostrating himself before the altar where the head of St. Antoninus the most glorious martyr was kept, was suddenly fortified by divine protection, and by his intercession was set free. And lower down: All (who were present) with one voice judged and moreover acclaimed, with a very great throng of people who were there, that it was fitting that the house of God be increased for the love and reverence of the blessed martyr Antoninus, who had always been defender and protector to the king and to all his army. To whose acclamation the most serene King Pippin assented, that the house of God should be increased with royal donations. And so, having taken counsel with his magnates, the monastery of Saint Peter the apostle, which is called Mormacus, which is situated in the district of Caturcinum upon the river Aveyron, he handed over as a possession to the head and altar of the blessed martyr Antoninus, in which it rests with the honor and blessing of God, and to Abbot Fedancius, a venerable man, and to the monks and clerics dwelling therein, present and future, etc.

[11] but these later documents are not authentic, These monuments would altogether prove that the cult of St. Antoninus flourished in the eighth century, provided they were such that there could be no doubt of their authority. But the said writers of the History of Occitania, vol. 1, p. 622, contend that by these documents, which they wrongly call charters of Pippin or attributed to Pippin, on account of their interpolations, anachronisms, and facts contrary to true history, it cannot be proved that the relics of St. Antoninus were preserved in the said abbey in the eighth century. Yet I do not sufficiently see why we ought to take away from those documents all authority to such a degree that we should not even believe those things which are on other grounds quite probable. Certainly it is probable that the abbey of St. Antoninus, which existed in the time of Louis the Pious, is older than that emperor, and that the name of St. Antoninus was given it from no other cause than that his relics were preserved there. And so I readily confess that those documents cannot be held as authentic charters of Pippin, since the Baluzian one was written in the time of Louis the Pious or later; but neither were they published as charters of Pippin, but rather as Notices of the things which Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious had granted to the monastery of St. Antoninus, the second treating of Pippin alone. Wherefore, since the Notitia published by Baluze is ancient, and does not at least openly labor under many defects, it becomes probable from it that certain gifts were given by Pippin, Charles, and Louis to the abbey of St. Antoninus, and that the Saint's head was renowned for miracles in that same abbey; nor do I therefore judge that the said Notitia is to be reckoned among authentic instruments. Indeed the said Writers themselves, at the year 767, from their own document, which is more faulty than Baluze's, relate that Pippin betook himself to the monastery of St. Antoninus, to give thanks to God for the prosperity of his expedition, and that he gave much to the monastery. They add, however, that some things are found in that instrument which appear doubtful; but they assert that not all things are on that account false.

[12] [so that the Saint's cult in the eighth century is probable, not certain: the Saint shines with miracles in the eleventh century.] I think the same of both; and therefore I adduce what is read in them concerning St. Antoninus only as probable, not as plainly certain. Nevertheless it is certain that that monastery, at least from the beginning of the eleventh century, was so famous for votive pilgrimages and the Saint's miracles that the place grew into a town and a viscounty, whose viscount is already mentioned in the year 1083, as may be seen in the aforesaid History of Occitania, vol. 2, p. 264. Adémar of Chabannes, in his Chronicle, which he carried down to the year 1029, in Labbe, vol. 2 of the Bibliotheca, p. 179, has thus: At that time St. Leonard the confessor in the Limousin, and St. Antoninus the martyr in the Quercy, began to flash with miracles, and peoples flowed thither from every side. This he writes about the year 1015 or 1020, for he does not attach each event to its own year. Among the more famous places of the Saints which Robert, king of the Franks, visited toward the end of his life, on the testimony of Helgald in his Life, in Duchesne, vol. 4, p. 76, this church of St. Antoninus is also reckoned. Of the several donations made to it the authors of the History of Occitania treat here and there, who also write thus concerning the present state of that ancient abbey, vol. 1, p. 622: This abbey is the same as the monastery of St. Antoninus, which still subsists (without the title of abbey) on the borders of the province of Rodez, Cahors, and Albi, and which is still of the Canons Regular of the Congregation of France. The town, which was formerly fortified, together with the church belongs to the province of Rodez.

[13] Mabillon in the Annals, vol. 2, p. 438, The monastery of Lézat, of another St. Antonius. having assigned the monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni, adds this concerning another: There is also the monastery of Saint Antonius of Lézat in the county of Foix; but it was founded in the middle of the tenth century. Yet afterwards, at p. 617, he refers the beginnings of the same monastery to about the year 840. Again in vol. 3, at the year 940, n. 13, he took up the earlier opinion, and referred the beginnings of the monastery of Lézat, which by later men was called of Saint Antonius and Saint Peter, as it has been called, to the body of Saint Antonius the confessor, which, as they report, was translated thither about the year 940. Finally, in the corrigenda of that volume he adds the following: Others refer the origin of the monastery of Lézat, which is indeed most obscure, to the ninth century, as I said in book XXXII. The writers of the History of Occitania think that the monastery of St. Antonius of Lézat was founded about the year 845, as they have it in vol. 1, p. 541, and they acknowledge as founder Antonius, viscount of Béziers. The same men, among the proofs in vol. 2, col. 161, recite a charter of the year 1002, and at col. 393 another of the year 1114, in which mention is made of the relics of St. Antonius preserved in the abbey of Lézat. Among us too, in vol. 2 of January, p. 195, certain things are read concerning the translation of those same relics. But St. Antonius of Lézat is everywhere called a confessor, so that he seems other than St. Antoninus the martyr. We therefore greatly desire to know whose saint Antonius's relics the men of Lézat believe themselves to have had. From this digression, occasioned by Mabillon's note, let us return to St. Antoninus the martyr.

[14] This Saint the city of Apamia in Narbonese Gaul claims for itself before all others, The Saint is chiefly venerated at Apamia in Narbonese Gaul, and to it he is attributed by Baronius, who inscribed St. Antoninus in the Roman Martyrology on the 2nd of September in this manner: At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus the martyr, whose relics are kept with great veneration in the church of Palencia (in Spain). This text of the Martyrology we could easily excuse from all error, even if it were certain that Saint Antoninus did not suffer there, since he could be announced at Apamia in Narbonese Gaul on account of the most famous veneration with which he is there honored for many centuries. Hence in the Martyrology of Paris he is rightly commemorated in these words: On the same day, the birthday of Saint Antoninus the martyr, patron of Pamiers in Occitania; in whose name a church stands in the diocese of Paris at Châtres-Brie. But Baronius's annotation cannot be equally excused, unless Antoninus really suffered at Pamiers in Occitania. For he observes this: Now he suffered not at Apamea in Syria, as many have supposed, but at Pamiers near Toulouse, as is established from the records of the church of Palencia, in which his birthday is solemnly kept, where the sacred relics of his body rest. Of the relics preserved at Palencia in Spain we shall treat below.

[15] The city of Pamiers, or Appamia, whose patron today is St. Antoninus, was raised to episcopal dignity in the year 1295 or 1296, as various writers relate. Bernard Gui, who lived at that same time, and the church, of which he is patron, was made a cathedral in the year 1295. in his Life of Boniface VIII sets forth the matter in this manner: Likewise that this Boniface in the second year of his pontificate newly erected into a cathedral church the abbey of Saint Antonius of the Canons Regular, then of the town of Appamia, and made of that town a city, and instituted Bernard Saisset, then abbot of that monastery, as its first bishop, and most excellently endowed and delimited that church with certain and many churches and monasteries and diverse revenues. Spondanus, afterwards bishop of that same city, at the year 1296, n. 8, testifies that the bull of erection was given in the year 1295, but published in the year 1296. Nevertheless Bernard did not immediately enter into possession of the erected bishopric, King Philip IV of the Franks opposing him: but St. Louis, in the same year 1296, raised from the Order of Minors to the bishopric of Toulouse, governed Apamia at the same time until his death, as the said Spondanus rightly sets forth. Hear William of Nangis in his Chronicle at the year 1296, where he has thus: The city of Appamia, separated at this time from the bishopric of Toulouse, obtained its own bishop through Pope Boniface; but at once Louis, son of the king of Sicily, a Friar Minor, obtained both entire from Pope Boniface himself. The same at the year 1298: Louis, bishop of the city of Toulouse, having died (on the XIX of August of the preceding year), Appamea, separated from Toulouse, received its own bishop, namely that same Bernard whom the Pontiff had from the beginning appointed. Hence a few things must be corrected which were said of these matters in vol. III of August, p. 783, in the treatise on St. Louis of Toulouse, n. 38, where Spondanus is wrongly corrected.

[16] [his abbey at the beginning of the thirteenth century held the lordship of the town of Apamia,] Just as from what has been said it is certainly established concerning the time at which the abbey of St. Antoninus was raised to episcopal dignity, so it is altogether obscure and uncertain at what time the abbey itself was founded, and the Saint's cult there begun. About the beginning of the thirteenth century the abbey had grown so far that the town of Apamia belonged to it, which is called a castrum after the manner of that time. At the same time it possessed the body of St. Antoninus, which was carried about each year in procession. Both facts we learn from the History of the Albigensians by Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, a monk, who mentions Pamiers frequently. He relates in ch. 24 that the abbot of St. Antoninus came to Simon de Montfort, leader of those signed with the cross against the Albigensians, that he might hand over Pamiers to him, and he sets forth that surrender in these words: The count (de Montfort) came by a direct route to Appamia, whom the abbot honorably received, and handed over to him the castrum of Appamia, which the count received from him, and did homage to the abbot, as he ought. For the castrum properly belonged to the lordship of the abbot and Canons of St. Antoninus, who were Canons Regular, and no one ought to have anything in it save from the abbot. But the most wicked count of Foix, who ought to have held that castrum from the abbot, wickedly wished to claim it all for himself, as we shall show below.

[17] and the Saint's body, which was carried about in procession each year: The same author in chs. 44 and 45 relates various things perpetrated by the count of Foix against the abbot and canons of St. Antoninus. From these I select only those which make mention of the body of St. Antoninus. The count of Foix, as he explains more fully, wished the abbot to hand over without delay the keys of the monastery, which the abbot was unwilling to do. Nevertheless the abbot, fearing lest that tyrant should carry off those same keys by violence, went in and placed the often-named keys upon the body of St. Antoninus the martyr, which was upon the altar with many other relics of the Saints, in whose honor also that church had been founded. But the aforesaid count, following the abbot, showing no deference to the church, taking no account of the relics of the Saints, that most shameless violator of sacred things snatched the aforesaid keys from off the body of the most holy Martyr, etc. Then in ch. 45: There is a certain church on the brow of a certain mountain near the said monastery, which, when once in the year, as they are accustomed, the Canons were visiting it, and in venerable procession were honorably bearing the body of their patron, the venerable Antoninus, it happened that the aforesaid count, riding by chance, passed by; who, showing deference neither to God, nor to the holy Martyr, nor to the religious procession, could not so much as humble himself by outward signs, nor did he take care to dismount from the horse on which he sat, but with neck stretched out in pride, and with stiff-necked haughtiness, which was very much his familiar habit, went by pompously. Seeing which a certain venerable man, namely the abbot of Mont-Sainte-Marie, of the Cistercian Order, who … was at that time present at that procession, cried out after him: Count, you show no deference to your lord the holy Martyr; know that in the town in which you now hold lordship on the Saint's behalf, you shall be deprived of that lordship, so that, by the Saint's doing, you shall feel yourself disinherited while yet alive. And confidence in the good man's words follows, as is most manifestly declared by the outcome of the matter. All these things abundantly show that a famous cult of St. Antoninus flourished in his abbey, and that this abbey was very powerful, and possessed the Saint's body, or at least believed so, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the foregoing events occurred. Of the body of St. Antoninus preserved in the aforesaid abbey mention is also made in a charter of the year 1228, recited in the History of Occitania, vol. 3, among the instruments, col. 217.

[18] In the same place, col. 216, is published a charter of the year 1209 concerning the pacts between the abbot of St. Antoninus and Simon de Montfort, [the castrum of Apamia and the town of Frédelas were already in the twelfth century under the lordship of the abbey:] in which Vitalis, abbot of the church of Frédelas, that is, abbot of the monastery of St. Antoninus, speaks thus: I grant to you, Count Simon, … the castrum of Appamia with the fortress, and the fortresses *, which are there, and shall hereafter be, and the whole town both old and new, adjoining that castrum of Appamia, that you may remain a faithful keeper of that castrum and town, and may be, with respect to the town of Frédelas and to the whole abbey and to all the honor belonging to that abbey, a true helper and defender, to the honor of God and of Saint Antoninus, and of his clerics both present and future, etc. Older still is another charter of the year 1149, which the said writers published in vol. 2 among the instruments, col. 525. In this is described an agreement between Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, who was at the same time abbot of St. Antoninus, and Roger-Bernard, count of Foix, and the count mentions the whole town of Frédelas, and the castrum of Appamia, and the whole town both old and new adjoining that castrum of Appamia, etc. The same castrum of Appamia is mentioned in a Charter of the year MCXI concerning pacts between the abbot of St. Antoninus and Roger II, count of Foix, namely that he and his uncle had unjustly possessed the town of Frédelas and the abbey of St. Antoninus, which, he says, were never taken away or possessed, justly or unjustly, by our predecessors, that is, by the count of Foix and of Carcassonne.

[19] But I observe that the same is not said of the castrum of Appamia, but by a probable argument it is shown not to have been founded long before. that it had been unjustly taken from the abbey. Yet he reckons that same castrum among the things which he restores to the abbey, when the same count then subjoins this: I render back … to the Lord God and to Saint Antoninus, and to future abbots canonically elected, and to Isarn the prior, and to his successors, and to the canons both present and future, the whole town of Frédelas, and the castrum of Appamia, and the whole abbey of St. Antoninus, that is, the entire territory of the abbey. Further, from the restitution of the castrum of Apamia, which the count does not say that he took from the abbey, it can probably be gathered that that castrum was founded in the territory of the abbey, and indeed at that time in which Roger II or his uncle was unjustly usurping that territory: for thus it ought not to have been numbered among things unjustly taken away, and yet in some fashion restored, since it had been founded on another's territory. This conjecture is confirmed by the fact that before that time no memory anywhere exists of the castrum of Pamiers, as the often-cited writers of the History of Occitania testify, vol. 2, p. 358, where they set forth the conjecture thus: We believe that it (the castrum) was built on the estate of the monastery by order of Roger II after his return from the Holy Land, and that the name of Apamea or Apamia was imposed on it in memory of the city of Apamea in Syria, from which Roger had brought relics, perhaps also of St. Antoninus, the martyr of that city. Whence it came about that this saint Antoninus was confounded with St. Antoninus, the Aquitanian martyr, the ancient patron of the abbey of Frédelas. This is a second conjecture concerning the Saint himself, of which we shall speak hereafter. Now I add only that the castrum was presently handed over to the count to be kept, and that the pact was confirmed by an oath of the count made upon the body of blessed Antoninus. But of that body no older mention exists either, deserving of credit, than this of the year MCXI.

[20] [The abbey of Frédelas already bore the name of St. Antoninus in the tenth century,] Nevertheless the abbey of St. Antoninus of Frédelas, which was afterwards named of Apamia, is much more ancient, and that under the name of St. Antoninus. In the Life of St. Raymond, bishop of Barbastro, published in vol. IV of June, p. 127, it is said of him: At length he returned of his own accord to the study of letters, and, being offered by his parents in the religious church of blessed Antoninus of Frédelas, he devoutly took up the yoke of the canonical rule. From these words of a contemporary writer it is certainly gathered that that church of St. Antoninus flourished in the eleventh century, since Raymond, after very many years had meanwhile elapsed, was elected bishop about the year 1104, after he had been Prior of St. Saturninus at Toulouse. Other instruments of the eleventh century, in which mention is made of the church of Frédelas of St. Antoninus, are recited in vol. 2 of the History of Occitania, but it is not necessary to transfer them all hither. At col. 238 is read a letter of Roger, count of Foix, to St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny, written about the year 1060, in which the count speaks thus: To you, Hugh, living in holiness, most famous throughout the world as abbot of Cluny, I Rodgarius and my wife, for the obtaining of eternal life, grant, with all things pertaining to it, with the assent and unforced consent of the count of Toulouse, the place of Saint Antoninus, which is commonly called Fredeleiz, to the end that there, by your appointment, the regular order of the monastic habit may be introduced, etc. But the reformation does not appear to have been carried out by the Cluniacs: for the men of Frédelas remained Canons Regular, as they were, as is clear from the words just adduced from the Life of St. Raymond. The same was observed by the authors of the said History, p. 206, because the counts of Foix went on possessing the goods of the monastery until the year MCXI.

[21] They also published, after Mabillon, in vol. 2, col. 107 and following, the testament of Raymond I, count of Rodez and marquis of Gothia, and also in the tenth century, in which it seems to have been founded. or rather the codicil of the year 961, in which is found the first mention of the abbey of Frédelas of St. Antoninus in these words: And let that allod of Carliacum remain to Roger the son of Arnald: after his death let it remain to Saint Antoninus of Fredelesium. Then two further legacies are given to the church of St. Antoninus in the same codicil; but in these places the church of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni, mentioned before, seems to be understood. Further, the said writers at p. 93 suspect that the abbey was founded about the same time, or at any rate not long before, by Arnald, count of Carcassonne, or by Roger his son, since it lay within their lordship. And so this abbey was probably founded in the tenth century, and it seems to have borne the name of St. Antoninus from the beginning, or at any rate bore it about the middle of the tenth century. But of relics, or of the Saint's body preserved there, nothing at all is said anywhere before the twelfth century, except in the apocryphal Acts of the translation, which now come to be examined.

*. Theodard's. It is now the cathedral of Montauban.

*. perhaps Caturcinum

*. i.e. fortified castles

§ III. The Acts of the body's translation in the year DCCCLXXXVII are wholly fabulous: the cult of St. Antoninus in Spain, which probably was not begun before the irruption of the Saracens, which took place in the eighth century.

[ ] [A certain instrument is in circulation, in which the body is said to have been translated in the year 887,] Catel in his History of Occitania, bk. 4, p. 621, testifies that he saw a Ms. of the Acts of the translation of St. Antoninus in the library of the Fathers Preachers at Toulouse, and that they were written in very ancient letters. I suspect that those Acts are meant which Nicholas Bertrand recited in his Work on the Deeds of the Toulousans, fol. 22 and 23, or at any rate ones like them: for the same year 887 is assigned in both places to the translation, and nearly the same persons are said to have been present. Sollerius, in his treatise on St. Antoninus, n. 28, deferred the examination of those Acts to this place, lest he should determine anything prematurely. But the authors of the History of Occitania, vol. 2, p. 528, have abundantly proved that no credit is owed to those Acts, and I shall briefly transfer their arguments hither. This is the beginning of the Acts in Catel: In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord eight hundred and eighty- seven, on the thirteenth of the Calends of June, the translation of the body of the blessed martyr Antoninus, Charles the Younger reigning as king of the Franks. Then the persons who are said to have been present at the translation are named thus: At the translation of the relics of the most glorious martyr Antoninus there were present fit witnesses, namely most holy prelates, and most illustrious men of diverse holiness, whose names are these: Theodard, archbishop of Narbonne, and with him Arnulph, bishop of Carcassonne, and the venerable Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, Roger, bishop of Couserans, (with) Fulcran of Rodona (Catel suspects that Ruthena or Ruthenica is to be read), and the bishop of Albi named Flotard, and the bishop of Cahors named Gerald, by whose order, and at the prayers of other noble men, and by the command of the most noble count of Carcassonne named Roger (of Roger), we have written and testified all these things which we have seen (and) heard. In Bertrand the bishop of Albi is omitted, and Flotard is named as of Rodez. But that difference is of small moment.

[23] but it swarms with anachronisms, But the said writers observe greater faults in the said instrument. First, the words, Charles the Younger reigning as king of the Franks, suit neither Charles the Fat the emperor, nor Charles the Simple, king of the Franks, much less any other Charles. For Charles the Fat is nowhere found called Charles the Younger, and was rather to be styled emperor than king of the Franks. Charles the Simple was not yet reigning in the year 887, nor did he obtain the kingdom before the year 893. To neither, therefore, do the words of the epoch reported apply. Secondly, there is brought in here Roger, count of Carcassonne. But, they say, We know of no Roger, count of Carcassonne, before the tenth century. Thirdly, the same men discourse thus of the bishops who are said to have been present: If we except Theodard, archbishop of Narbonne, who was really living (and presiding over that church) in the year DCCCLXXXVII, we have no argument that the other prelates who are asserted to have been present at this translation were at that time presiding over the churches which are attributed to them. Nay rather, of some of them we have arguments proving the contrary. We know in fact that Willerannus (or Gislerannus) then presided over the church of Carcassonne, and that in the year DCCCLXXXVII he was present with his metropolitan at the council of Nîmes held in the villa of Port, not that asserted Arnulph. The bishop of Toulouse at the same time was Bernard or Berno, as also in the year DCCCXC; but not Raymond. Fulcran, bishop of Lodève (who, omitted above, is reckoned among the rest, or rather is substituted for Fulcran of Rodez by Catel, p. 853), was not elected before the middle of the tenth century. (See the Gallia Christiana, vol. 6, col. 532, where he is said to have been elected in the year 949.) Finally, according to the Acts of the said council of Nîmes, in the month of November of the year DCCCLXXXVII Eligius was bishop of Albi (as is also read in the Gallia Christiana, vol. 1, col. 7), and not Frotard; and Adolenus had already succeeded him in the year DCCCXCI. All these reasons leave us no doubt that the Acts of this translation are wholly spurious.

[24] and it is wholly spurious. If anyone will read through with attentive mind the Acts of the translation themselves in Bertrand, he will scarcely be able to doubt that they are of the same author who filled the Life and martyrdom of the Saint with so many fables that in his whole account I find nothing which I should dare to embrace as certain. Moreover, how various and how fabulous are all the Acts of St. Antoninus, both those published and those in Ms., Sollerius has abundantly explained in his preliminary Commentary, §3, so that it is not necessary to add anything here about them. Now indeed, since the asserted translation of the year 887 rests upon no other foundation than the Acts just discussed, which deserve no credit at all, we can safely assert nothing about the body of St. Antoninus, except that it was preserved in the abbey of Frédelas at least from the twelfth century. It is now also necessary to examine from what time the relics of St. Antoninus were in Spain, and how ancient is the veneration of that same Saint there, so that from all these things some light may shine forth by which we may discern whether there was one, or two, or more Antonini, who for many centuries have been venerated in places so diverse.

[25] That the veneration of St. Antoninus the martyr is ancient at Palencia in Spain we learn from various monuments. [The Saint's ancient cult in Spain is gathered from his church discovered in the eleventh century;] For first, mention is made of this Saint in the Toledan or Mozarabic Breviary, where at the 2nd of September his feast is announced. Next, Rodrigo Ximénez, archbishop of Toledo, in bk. 6 of the Affairs of Spain, ch. 6, relates this to our purpose concerning Sancho the Great, king of Navarre, who flourished in the eleventh century: King Sancho, called the Great, having enlarged the bounds of his country, and having settled peace among his sons, took up arms against Bermudo, king of León, and acquired very many places from his kingdom. This Sancho, while on a certain day he was refreshing himself in the pursuit of hunting and following a boar, chanced, in a city once noble, then deserted, which was called Palencia, to find a crypt in the form of a church, and an altar in honor of Saint Antoninus the martyr still standing. To which, when the fleeing boar had come, and the king, brandishing his hunting-spear, wished to kill the beast in the crypt, being struck by a divine miracle, he could not accomplish what he purposed. For his right arm grew stiff, and thus the boar escaped unharmed. But the king, turning to prayers, implored the help of the blessed martyr Antoninus, and being at once released * he ordered the ruined city to be repaired, and a church to be built over the crypt, and he procured that a bishop be consecrated there, and he offered by liberal donation the whole city with all its bounds and full lordship to the bishop and to the church, adding besides other villas and possessions, in which the church of Palencia rejoices still to this day. Thus Rodrigo in the thirteenth century. The same things other Spanish historians after him have recorded. From this history, provided all things are true enough, of which there may be doubt, it is gathered that the veneration of St. Antoninus flourished at Palencia from the eleventh century, and doubtless earlier, since his church lay destroyed in the eleventh century.

[26] Nay rather, from the same history the Spaniards infer that the cult of the same Saint had already been begun in the time of the Goths, before the irruption of the Saracens into Spain, [The Spaniards would have it founded before the irruption of the Saracens, in which they say the city was destroyed in the eighth century:] which took place about the year 711. For most of them contend that Palencia, together with the church of St. Antoninus, was laid waste in the said invasion of the Saracens, and in its own ruins lay for about three hundred years, until in the eleventh century it was restored by Sancho. Francisco de Sandoval, canon of Palencia, in his Apologetic Discourse, in which he strives to prove that the St. Antoninus venerated in Spain is other than the St. Antoninus who is patron of the people of Pamiers, strives to show this at length in §5, and besides the authority of various writers who have embraced that opinion, he adduces a fragment of letters under the name of King Sancho himself, whom at p. 47 he brings in writing thus: We have found the church of Palencia destroyed of old by the Hagarenes, and for more than three hundred years deprived of episcopal governance, etc. He adds a fragment of letters in the name of Ferdinand the Great, in which the same is asserted. He asserts that Sancho's letters were given in the year 1037, the others in the year 1060. Truly the matter would be certain enough from these letters, if these very letters seemed authentic. But the style of the letters by no means suits the eleventh century; and the life of Sancho the Great is generally not extended by writers to the year 1037, but his death is more commonly fixed in the year 1035, and Pagi confirms this epoch of his death by various arguments in the Critica at the year 1032, n. 6.

[27] Moreover, since the said instruments seem spurious, the opinion of the Spaniards concerning the destruction of Palencia becomes doubtful, although on other grounds it appears somehow probable that that city was laid desolate at the first entry of the Saracens into Spain: [but neither is it proved by certain monuments that Palencia lay destroyed from the eighth century,] for I find no mention of it in the wars waged thereafter with varying fortune between the Saracens and the Christians in the kingdom of León and the rest of Spain. Ambrosio de Morales in his universal Chronicle of Spain, bk. 17, ch. 44, relates the restoration of Palencia and of the church of St. Antoninus just as we have given it from Rodrigo, and adds the following to our purpose: The crypt (found by Sancho) is still seen today beneath the choir of the canons, with an altar and a lamp placed within to preserve the ancient veneration of that place. And the veneration of the holy martyr Antoninus must have been much extended through this region, since even the greater church of Medina del Campo * has him as patron, there being also certain other churches in this region which rejoice in his patronage. On account of what has been said, I should not dare to affirm with certainty that the cult of St. Antoninus was begun in Spain at the beginning of the eighth century, or earlier; nor should I wish contentiously to deny it. For the discovery of the church of St. Antoninus in the ruined city of Palencia does not appear so certain on the authority of Rodrigo, who first related that history, as to admit of no doubt. Again, it is not altogether certain that Palencia was destroyed at the beginning of the Saracen irruption. It cannot, therefore, be certain — what from these uncertainties is gathered — that the church of St. Antoninus at Palencia existed from the beginning of the eighth century.

[28] nor is the discovery of the church itself certain enough: Nay rather, it does not appear altogether likely that in a church deserted for three hundred years an altar survived, and that it could at once be recognized, and its patron Antoninus. Truly, if we weigh Rodrigo's account, as Sandoval and other Spanish writers agreeing with him set it forth, it will seem more like a popular tradition than true history. Sancho, says Rodrigo, in a city then deserted (for three hundred years, if we believe the Spaniards) found a crypt, … and an altar in honor of Saint Antoninus the martyr still standing. And when, as he wished to kill the beast in the crypt, his arm had grown stiff, he implored the help of the blessed martyr Antoninus, and being healed he built the church together with the city. I do not sufficiently perceive here how King Sancho at once recognized that that altar was St. Antoninus's, if for three hundred years the place had been deserted. No more do I understand why the same king, divinely stricken, implored the patronage of St. Antoninus rather than of another Saint. It is not credible that in a crypt deserted for three hundred years the altar bore such notable marks that at the first glance it could be recognized to what Patron it was consecrated. Equally incredible is it that the king would not have implored divine aid before he had taken care to examine whose was the altar which he had wished to violate. Mariana, bk. 8, ch. 14, does indeed relate the same history of Sancho, but cautiously subjoins these words: We neither add credit to it nor take it away: let the readers determine of themselves what the matter deserves. Zurita seems to have held the same history suspect, since in bk. 1 of the Annals, ch. 13, he relates the deeds of Sancho the Great, and does not so much as mention these things by a word, reporting only that ample possessions and revenues were given by Sancho to the cathedral church of Palencia.

[29] [the Saint's cult in the eighth century is therefore uncertain, and perhaps was only begun in the eleventh.] From what has been said gather that that whole history of the ancient altar of St. Antoninus discovered is quite uncertain, and therefore that from it it cannot certainly be inferred that St. Antoninus was venerated at Palencia before the destruction of that city, especially if it was destroyed in the eighth century, as the Spaniards would have it. But if anyone should think that the destruction of Palencia befell toward the end of the tenth century, when Almanzor, the Saracen king of Córdoba (otherwise Alhagib), besides many other places of Spain, laid waste the whole kingdom of León and occupied the city of León itself, as Rodrigo relates in bk. 5, chs. 14 and 15, the account of Rodrigo would be rendered more probable, who nowhere says how long Palencia lay deserted. But from that conjecture, even if it were more certain than it really is, it would only follow that the church of St. Antoninus existed in the tenth century, and was restored by Sancho after it had been desolate for about forty years. Further, if we must proceed by conjectures, as in an uncertain matter, it seems to me more likely that the cult of St. Antoninus began at Palencia with the restoration of the city, the relics of the said Saint having been translated thither by Sancho or his successor. For it is not likely that St. Antoninus was venerated at Palencia, or in other places of Spain, before his relics were had there. Nor does it appear credible that his relics were at Palencia before the destruction of the city, since thus they would probably have been lost. I should prefer, therefore, to suspect that the Saint's relics were carried thither by Sancho himself, the restorer of the city, who could easily have received them from the abbey of Frédelas, neighboring on his kingdom, where they were preserved in the eleventh century.

[30] The church of Palencia not only celebrates the feast of St. Antoninus its patron on the 2nd of September, [St. Antoninus is venerated at Palencia as patron: the feast of the translation is also celebrated.] but also his translation on the XVIII of May. That feast of the translation is announced by Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology, and by Ferrari in the General Catalogue in these words: At Palencia in Spain, the translation of St. Antoninus the martyr, patron of that city. But Tamayo in his annotations, from the words of the Office which is recited on the feast of the translation, shows that no translation of the body from Gaul into Spain is celebrated; but rather the translation which is said to have been made in Gaul. Whence it is clear that the people of Palencia do not claim for themselves the body of St. Antoninus, but only some relics of the same Saint. These, if we believe Tamayo in the place just cited, are the right arm with its shoulder-blade. In this sense the words of the Roman Martyrology concerning St. Antoninus the martyr can rightly be explained: Whose relics are kept with great veneration in the church of Palencia. The Office in use in the church of Palencia is of St. Antoninus, whom they believe to be the Gaul of Apamia, nor have the people of Palencia acquiesced in the fictions of pseudo-Dexter or Julian, out of which Sandoval, Bivar, Tamayo, and others have tried to make him a Spaniard. Other arguments by which Sandoval and others have tried to claim Antoninus for Spain are drawn from the time at which they would have the man of Apamia to have lived, together with the fabulous Acts. But even if those Acts were true, even if he had lived in Gaul under Pippin, from what we have said concerning the cult in Spain the arguments of the Spaniards would even so fall to the ground. It is therefore altogether to be believed, with the more prudent Spaniards, that the Antoninus who is venerated in Gaul and in Spain is the same. But now at last it must be inquired who that Antoninus is, and in what place and time he won the laurel of martyrdom, and whether he is the same as Antoninus the Syrian or distinct from him, and other things of this kind, which are wrapped in the greatest difficulties.

*. perhaps restored

*. Medina del Campo

§ IV. The opinion of those who suspect that St. Antoninus of Syrian Apamea and the Gallic one are the same is examined and confirmed.

[ ] [It is disputed whether St. Antoninus, patron of the people of Pamiers, is the same as the one of Apamea in Syria:] Philip Ferrari in the General Catalogue at the 2nd of September announces St. Antoninus in these words: In Syria, of St. Antoninus the martyr. Then in his annotations he observes the following: He does not seem different from him who is reported on this day in the Roman Martyrology to have suffered at Pamiers in Aquitaine; and there are those who think that for Pamiers in Gaul we should read Apamea in Syria. For Usuard and the rest have Apamia, not Pamia. Tillemont, vol. 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 15 on St. Dionysius of Paris, discusses that opinion of Ferrari, and so turns it about that he seems to prefer it to all the rest, as Baillet also does at the 2nd of September, and finally our Sollerius, cited above, at the IV day of July, in the treatise on St. Antoninus of Piacenza, §3. Nevertheless none of them intended to establish anything certain, and Sollerius in particular referred a more exact examination of the matter to this place. Wherefore we must accurately weigh what reasons, and how solid, are found in favor of this opinion, and whether they outweigh those which can be brought to the contrary. I know that I undertake a hard matter, and that neither opinion can be established by arguments plainly evident and certain. Nevertheless that examination must be undertaken according to our plan.

[32] Only a Syrian is announced in the ancient Martyrologies, not a Gaul; The first reason which suggests that St. Antoninus, famous in Gaul and in Spain, is no other than St. Antoninus the Syrian, of whom I treated in §1, is sought from the ancient Martyrologies, in which St. Antoninus of Gallic or Spanish Apamia is not known, as I have already shown in that same place; where this reason was confirmed by the fact that the present city of Pamiers in the county of Foix did not yet exist when Usuard, Ado, and the other older martyrologists announced St. Antoninus at Apamia or near Apamia. Usuard, therefore, could not, nor Ado, nor Notker, nor the author of the Little Roman Martyrology, designate a Gallic Apamia, which was nowhere; but they designated Apamea in Syria. Truly Rabanus at the 2nd of September thus records Antoninus: In Syria, of Antoninus, a boy of twenty years. It is not, therefore, to be doubted that others also announced the Syrian, who were nearly contemporaries of Rabanus, even though they expressed the elogium in a different manner, following different Hieronymian codices, or different fragments of certain Acts. The learned writers of the History of Occitania, who otherwise would have St. Antoninus the patron of the people of Pamiers to be other than the Syrian, candidly acknowledge that in all the said Martyrologies only one St. Antoninus, the Syrian, is announced.

[33] who does not seem distinct from the Syrian: Of how great weight this reason is, hear in a few words. On the same day on which St. Antoninus is announced at Apamia, or Apamea, in Syria by Usuard, Ado, and the other martyrologists cited, St. Antoninus is venerated at Pamiers in Gaul. How strong a suspicion these things bring in, that one and the same man is venerated in both places, everyone will easily see. Next, the monastery of St. Antoninus among the Rutheni was already known in the year 817, before Usuard, Ado, Rabanus, and Notker composed their Martyrologies. Who then would believe that Antoninus, the patron of that monastery, was unknown to all of them and altogether passed over? And yet, unless he is the same as St. Antoninus the Syrian, his memory was omitted not only by them, but by all the others also through many succeeding centuries. If anyone should wish to answer to this, that other Saints also are not inscribed in the aforesaid Martyrologies, concerning whose cult and country nevertheless it is established from other sources, I shall freely confess that this is true of a few. But thus it does not become likely that the same befell St. Antoninus: for concerning him we have no authentic monument by which he could certainly be attributed to a Gallic place; nor does any city strive to claim him for itself, save that one alone which did not exist at the time of his martyrdom, and to which he can with no likelihood be ascribed. How, I ask, could it have come to pass that the Gauls as well as the Spaniards attributed the holy Martyr to a city of which before the twelfth century no traces are found, unless because they seem to have had certain monuments from which they learned that he was really crowned with martyrdom at Apamea, or in its neighborhood; and they understood the Gallic Apamia for the Syrian? This error could easily creep in, and for other reasons also it is very likely.

[34] We have seen that the Saint's cult in Gaul was begun in the eighth or ninth century, the beginning of the cult in Gaul seems to be ascribed to a translation; when there existed the monastery of St. Antoninus in the Noble Valley of the province of Rodez. Before that time no monument concerning St. Antoninus is found in Gaul, nor any word among Gallic writers. Yet it is likely that the Saint suffered under the heathen emperors, or at any rate not long after, while idolatry still flourished. What reason, then, can be given why the name of a Saint who afterwards became so greatly renowned should have been so obscure in Gaul for so many centuries, especially since no occasion is known by which he at length became renowned? The only cause, I think, is that he was crowned with martyrdom far from Gaul, and that in the seventh or eighth century the Saint's relics were translated into Gaul. Thus the cult could have been begun, and, miracles being added, the name gradually rendered famous. Take, studious reader, how in the Acts the occasion of the cult's beginning is reported among the Rutheni, where the Saint's name became renowned earlier than at Pamiers. Two things from that account, fabulous though it be, we shall be able to gather; namely, that the Antoninus who is venerated in the monastery of his name among the Rutheni is not another, or at any rate was not believed to be another, than he who is celebrated at Pamiers. The other is that the beginning of the cult there is ascribed to the translation of the head. For the Acts in Labbe, vol. 1 of the Bibliotheca, p. 688, run thus: It is therefore related by the opinion of many that, when the head of the holy Martyr was cut off by the executioners and most abominably thrown into the whirlpool of the river, at once by angelic reception, with Christ's help, it was placed in a small coffer, and laid in a little boat made ready by angelic service for its receiving.

[35] Then at last, through long spaces of lands, by the running waters of rivers, as in the fabulous Acts the translation of the head namely by the river which is called the Areia, coming as far as the river Garonne, which, flowing past, makes for the western parts, swimming on continuously and finding another river which is called the Tarn, falling into the Garonne, by the Lord's assent it at once halted in it . Then, leaving off to run down to the western parts, it swiftly sought the eastern regions. Taking therefore a backward course, it entered by the river Tarn into the channel of the Aveyron. And so, by the disposing grace of Christ, and with angelic guard ever attending, the little boat was led, as is reported, in the likeness of two eagles white as a ship. And now at last, happily hastening, it came to the place destined for it. Which place indeed at that time was called the NOBLE Valley, in which valley finally was the dwelling of a certain great prince, who was called Festus. Which dwelling, indeed, as is relatively reported , that same holy martyr Antoninus, traversing that same region in preaching, had asked of that prince Festus for a habitation. And when the little boat had now come to the shore of the river, it happened that one of the servants of the aforesaid prince wished to come to the place of the shore. Approaching, therefore, he beheld the little boat from afar, and in it he looked upon the head of Antoninus the martyr, and having called together the rest of his fellow servants, and the miracle having been seen by all, he hastened to announce it to his lord as quickly as possible.

[36] the beginning of the veneration among the Rutheni is attributed. And when that same prince, already named Festus, had come to the place, greatly marveling, he understood, by the inspiring grace of the Godhead, that the head of Antoninus the martyr was present, destined for him, and calling to mind the petition which the aforesaid holy Martyr had formerly made to him, at length returning to his own conscience, he said to all who were with him: Do you perceive, said he, the great mystery of God? For while he was yet alive, he had sought a dwelling from me; now, crowned in heaven by God's disposing, the precious Martyr claims it for himself. Then, therefore, he removed his dwelling from that place; and dedicating a church, he placed in it the head of the most glorious Martyr with great veneration, giving thanks and praising God, and blessing the Lord. These things are reported in the same manner in the Acts published by Chifflet and in the Mss.; nor can it be doubted that they are wholly fabulous and fictitious.

[37] [The tradition of the Gauls is that the Saint is of Apamea, but that tradition was gradually corrupted,] Further, from that fabulous history of the translation of the head it is also gathered what the opinion of the people of Rodez concerning St. Antoninus was. Truly they did not think that the Saint had suffered in their own province, or in the neighboring one of Cahors, but they acknowledged that his head had been brought to them from elsewhere; and since they were not sufficiently instructed concerning his translation, they had recourse to the fables just reported, that they might explain in what way through the various rivers falling into the Garonne that sacred deposit could have been carried from the city of Apamea to a monastery of the province of Rodez. The opinion, therefore, of the Writers of the History of Occitania, who take St. Antoninus away from Pamiers in order to attribute him to Rodez, Cahors, or some other province of Aquitaine, seems contrary to the tradition which for many centuries has ascribed St. Antoninus to Apamea, but in such a way that gradually for the Syrian Apamea there was substituted the Gallic city of the same name, Apamia.

[38] as is also proved from the Acts, The Acts themselves, fabulous though they be, favor this opinion of a single Antoninus of Apamea, even if at the end they contain the contrary opinion. For at the beginning they assign the Saint's native city in these words in Labbe and elsewhere: Now the most reverend boy Antoninus was born in the town of Appamia. The Ms. of the Queen of Sweden: And so the Saint to be remembered, Antoninus, born at Apamia, etc. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. 13, ch. 35, from his acts, has thus: Saint Antoninus, born in the town of Apamea, etc. All the Acts, in short, attribute the Saint to Apamia or Apamea, and assert that he was crowned with martyrdom at Apamia or near Apamia. Yet it is certain that Pamiers in Gaul was founded many centuries after St. Antoninus. Shall we then judge that what is read of that place in all the Acts, even the briefer and less openly fabulous ones, is wholly fictitious? I should hardly let myself be persuaded of that. But I should prefer to suspect that the place of the martyrdom was received from more ancient monuments, namely from those very ones from which the ancient martyrologists announced Antoninus at Apamea; but that afterwards, through added fictions, it came about that the place was believed to be in Gaul which was in Syria.

[39] Various things there are which make this suspicion of mine likely. from Vincent of Beauvais and Peter de Natalibus: In the first place, the said Vincent of Beauvais, who probably had Acts older than Gallic Pamiers, adduces no word by which he suggests that the Saint suffered in Gaul, but rather designates Apamea of Syria: for the place of the martyrdom he calls Apamea, as the city of Syria on the river Orontes was really named, by others Apamia, and in Greek Ἀπάμεια. But the Gallic one was commonly at that time called the castrum of Apamia, or Apamia, Apamiæ, or Pamia. Certainly the editors of the Speculum Historiale understood the place of Apamea of Syria, since in the margin they added this little note from Baronius: St. Antoninus suffered not at Apamea, as Vincent and many others have supposed, but at Pamiers near Toulouse, etc. Peter de Natalibus, bk. 8, ch. 24, likewise brings forward nothing by which the city of Pamiers in Gaul must be understood. Hence I gather that those Gallic rivers, by which the city of Apamia would seem to be attributed to Gaul, were added to the Acts after the times of Vincent of Beauvais, since he would doubtless have named them if they had then been found in the Acts: for he narrates the whole Acts, even the translation of the head, a little more briefly, and says that the Saint was slain on the bank of the river running down at the roots of Apamea. But later writers added the name not only of this river, but of others also, through which they fabled that the head was carried by angels in a skiff. Since, therefore, those names of rivers alone designate the Gallic Pamiers, and that for a time in which they did not exist; while all the other things which are read in the Labbean Acts and others like them can rightly be understood of Apamea of Syria, it is credible that Apamea became known from ancient monuments, and that the Syrian Apamea is to be understood.

[40] This conjecture is favored by the fact that in the said Acts there are various things [The Acts of the Gaul and of the Syrian agree in many points: he therefore seems to be one,] which fit St. Antoninus the Syrian. For he is said to have gone forth from his native place and afterwards to have returned to it: he is related to have rebuked the errors of the heathen, and by them to have been seized and cut limb from limb. But all these things are also reported by the Greeks of St. Antoninus the Syrian. I confess indeed that more things are narrated of Antoninus in the Latin Acts than are reported in the Greek Menologies. But from that it does not follow that different men are treated of, since the Greeks could omit many things in the Menologies, and the Latins invent many. The most fabulous Acts of all, which make St. Antoninus the son of a king of Apamia, also contain the facts just reported, but mingled with insipid fables. One thing therefore remains, namely that we should show that it is not improbable that the body of St. Antoninus the Syrian was translated into Gaul, and thence conclude that our opinion is the more probable in proportion as all the opinions of others concerning the time at which St. Antoninus is said to have suffered in Gaul appear the more improbable. And that these are improbable I shall show, as soon as I have proved the translation to be likely.

[41] whose relics may have been carried into Gaul with other relics from Apamea. The Sainte-Marthe brothers, in vol. 2 of the Gallia Christiana, p. 161, have this to our purpose: The chief patron of the church (of Pamiers) and of the city is saint Antoninus, … whose martyrdom the city itself, as also the cathedral chapter, bears in place of arms: with whom are celebrated saints John and Almachius, companions of Antoninus in preaching and in his passion, and a continual commemoration of them is made in the divine office, as also of Caius and Alexander, martyrs of Apamea in Syria, whose sacred relics had been carried thence to Pamiers in Narbonese Gaul, on a certain sacred expedition, by one of the counts of Foix, and enclosed in silver caskets adorned with gems, and placed in the aforesaid church of B. Mary of the Field; but the caskets having been plundered, the relics were burned with fire by the heretics, as also those of saint Antoninus and his Companions, and likewise of saint Natalia, virgin and martyr of Pamiers. We see here that the relics of the saints Caius and Alexander, as also of St. Natalia, martyrs of Apamea in Syria, were equally preserved at Pamiers, as was the body of St. Antoninus. Why then should we not believe that these four bodies were carried into Gaul at the same time? Truly the translation of the body of St. Antoninus was no more difficult than that of the others, and the reasons which persuade us that he is the same as St. Antoninus the Syrian are so various that they ought to prevail over the popular and fabulous traditions of the people of Pamiers, who attribute that Saint to their own city.

*. in the Ms., "somewhat"

*. in Labbe, "and"

§ V. An answer is made to the arguments brought against our opinion in the History of Occitania.

[ ] The first objection against the translation of the body from Syria, The said writers of the History of Occitania, who have drawn the controversy elsewhere, as I have already noted, contend that the translation of St. Antoninus is not likely on our opinion, and they speak thus in vol. 1, p. 623: In truth it is in no way likely that the body of St. Antoninus the martyr of Apamea was translated into Gaul in the fifth or sixth century, as the Bollandists suggest (namely Sollerius, n. 27, but doubtfully), nor even in the eighth. For if in Gaul we have relics brought from the East, these were scarcely brought except from the time of the expeditions of the crusaders, when the lords who had set out on those expeditions brought some back on their return, after they had received them from cities wrested from the dominion of the infidels, or in another way. And presently they subjoin that the bodies of the saints Caius, Alexander, and Natalia, martyrs, were brought from Apamea of Syria into Gaul by Roger, count of Foix, while he was returning from the first expedition of the crusaders. But, they say, since these relics were not translated to the abbey of Frédelas until the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, and since we have already shown that the relics of a certain saint Antoninus were long before honored in the monastery of this name in the province of Rodez, these things give us cause to think that there was in the Gauls some saint Antoninus, a martyr, distinct from the one of Apamea in Syria. This is the chief argument which the said writers use to prove that St. Antoninus suffered in Gaul, yet in such a way that they leave the place of the martyrdom uncertain, and depart from the tradition of the people of Pamiers, who would have the Saint to have suffered in their own city.

[43] I confess that this conclusion is so prettily drawn that at first sight I doubted whose antecedent proposition is neither proved nor true, whether I ought not to assent to it. But, having diligently discussed the antecedents, I find many things asserted without proof, so that the conclusion necessarily totters. A translation in the fifth, sixth, indeed also the eighth, and consequently also the tenth century is in no way likely to the said writers. What then? Did not St. Radegund in the sixth century receive relics from the East, and indeed from different places? Let us hear her Life, written by Baudonivia, a contemporary nun, in our work, vol. III of August, p. 79: At length there came to her (St. Radegund) word concerning the lord Mammes the martyr, that his holy limbs rested at Jerusalem. Hearing this, … she sent the venerable man Reoval the priest, who was then a layman, and still survives in the body, to the patriarch of Jerusalem, asking for a pledge of blessed Mammes. And this priest, on his return, brought her, as is more fully related, a finger of St. Mammes. In the same Life it is presently related that St. Radegund sent messengers with letters of commendation from King Sigebert to the emperor Justin, that she might ask of him a part of the Lord's Cross and other relics of the Saints. The holy queen obtained the relics she asked, on the testimony not only of this Life, but also of Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus, whose words are recited in the same place in the Preliminary Commentary, §5. Hence the said Baudonivia, enumerating several others, speaks thus in general of the relics collected by St. Radegund: After she had entered the monastery, how great a multitude of the Saints did she gather by most faithful prayers! To this the East bears witness, the North, the South, and the West declare it: for from every side precious gems, laid up in heaven, and such as paradise possesses, she in her devotion obtained for herself, as much by gifts as by prayers. This example of St. Radegund alone can suffice for us to judge that not a few relics were brought from the East into Gaul before the sacred expeditions begun at the end of the eleventh century.

[44] Nevertheless there would be no lack of other examples of relics translated in those times from the East into Gaul, but rather contrary to certain facts, if it were necessary to heap them up in this place both from the Acts of the Saints and from elsewhere. Baronius in the Annals at the year 637, n. 1, prudently observes that most of the relics of Eastern Saints which we have in the West were translated after Egypt and Syria and other neighboring provinces were occupied by the infidels. For, having reported the storming of Antioch by the Saracens, he subjoins this: Plainly in these times, in which, whether earlier by the Persians or later by the Arabs, that is by the Mahometans and Saracens, the most noble cities of the East, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, were captured, together with the regions subject to them, it came about that, whether by inhabitants migrating to the West, or by merchants safely dealing with those same heathens, or by other faithful Christians taking care of the matter, very many bodies of saints, both martyrs and confessors, were translated to the West, and placed in diverse places, whether at Rome, at Venice, or elsewhere. That the venerable relics of Ignatius the martyr were then translated from Antioch to Rome, constant report and old tradition rather than writings signify. Which is likewise to be said of very many other relics of the Saints, which, brought from the East, diverse places of the Western world keep. Thus far Baronius, and rightly.

[45] it is utterly overthrown: Now from these things it becomes not only likely that certain relics of the Saints were translated from the East into Gaul in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries; but also, from the time of the occupation of Antioch by the Saracens, under which Apamea lay, it appears little likely that the bodies of SS. Caius, Alexander, and Natalia were translated thence about the end of the eleventh century, as the said writers would have it, but without adequate proof. For, since that whole province remained under the dominion of the Saracens from that time until nearly the end of the eleventh century, who would readily believe that so many sacred bodies were preserved there for four centuries and a half under the tyranny of the Mahometans, and at last carried off, when they might have been more safely preserved under a Christian prince? Nay rather, it seems to me more likely that these sacred bodies did not remain at Apamea even until the year 637: for Apamea, on the testimony of Evagrius, bk. 5, ch. 10, was taken by Adaarmanes under Chosroes, king of the Persians. And having taken it, Adaarmanes burned it entirely, and, having plundered all its goods contrary to the faith given, departed, leading away all the citizens and their neighbors as captives: among whom he carried off with him the bishop of the city himself, and him to whom the administration of the province had been committed. Pagi refers the storming of the city to the year 573, n. 7. All these things persuade us that the aforesaid sacred bodies did not remain at Apamea until the sacred expeditions. And so the tradition reported by the Sainte-Marthes concerning the bodies translated by one of the counts of Foix can have little authority, and seems to be attributable to conjecture. Certainly that tradition, if it were true, would not yet prove that it was done by Roger, who perhaps was never at Apamea. That whole argument, therefore, falls, and it remains likely that the body of St. Antoninus was brought into Gaul together with the bodies of the other saints of Apamea after Apamea was laid waste.

[46] the second objection adduces the authority of those who favor our opinion: The said writers, the argument now refuted, subjoin the authority of Vincent of Beauvais and of St. Antoninus, whom they believe to favor them. The Acts also, though they confess them fabulous, or at least very greatly interpolated, they assert to favor their opinion the more, in proportion as they agree with one another in this one article, which they call conformable to ancient tradition. But I have already shown that Vincent of Beauvais, with whom St. Antoninus, title 8, ch. 1, §42, wholly agrees, as does Peter de Natalibus, altogether favors my opinion, since none of them so much as by a word suggests that the Saint suffered in Gaul, but they write that he suffered at Apamea, which was not then in Gaul, as is agreed between us. And the Acts support this opinion the more, in proportion as they conspire with the said writers for Apamea as the Saint's arena, and for the other deeds reported in the same manner by all. The names of the rivers alone, afterwards added to the Acts, suggest Gaul, and nothing else in the Acts from which you might gather that the Saint is to be ascribed to Gaul. This whole proof of the authors of the History of Aquitaine is therefore more rightly adduced for us, since they themselves would have the Saint not to have been crowned with martyrdom at Pamiers in the county of Foix; and yet Apamia or Apamea is assigned by a wonderful consent of all, so that it must be sought in Syria. Nor does tradition even favor them: for that has it that the Saint suffered at Apamia, not in another place of Gaul. And who does not understand that error could more easily arise in places of the same name than in places of a different name, and thus that Gallic Apamia could more easily be substituted for Syrian Apamea than any other city whatever.

[47] At last the said writers adduce some Martyrologies not very old. an answer is made to the third objection, In the Martyrology of Centula, or of St. Riquier, written probably in the fourteenth century, this is read: In Gaul, in the territory of Catercum (of Cahors, I suppose), of saint Antoninus, priest and martyr. On the same day, of another saint Antoninus, a boy, martyr. On this the learned men observe the following: That Martyrology reckons on the 2nd of September a certain saint Antoninus, priest and martyr, in the territory of Cahors, distinct from the Syrian, whom it calls a boy, and whom it commemorates on the same day. I ask, whence did the compiler of that Martyrology draw this? From the Acts? From the Hieronymian transcripts? From Usuard, who commemorated the one on the same day and the other on the following, and whom he wrongly corrected? Whatever the case, that writer is too recent for us to believe on his authority alone that some Antoninus was crowned with martyrdom in the territory of Cahors. Truly I should believe that by that martyrologist St. Antoninus was ascribed to the territory of Cahors because he believed that the same Saint's monastery, in which he is venerated, belonged to the said territory, to which in fact it is neighboring. And I should think that two were reckoned by this writer and by others because in the Hieronymian transcripts he is now called a boy, now a martyr, whom others adorned with the title of priest from the Acts: for the Acts themselves call him a boy at the beginning, and afterwards assert him a priest; nor does it seem doubtful that those titles were derived from the Acts. Nothing, therefore, does the authority of that martyrology contribute to the matter.

[48] Nor can the Victorine codex, that is, of St. Victor at Paris, avail more, as also the fourth, which is various, in which it is thus read in Sollerius on Usuard at the 2nd of September: In the city of Brugdunum, the passion of St. Antoninus the levite, with John the priest and Almachius the boy. By no means, I say, more solidly do the learned adversaries infer from these words that this Antoninus is other than St. Antoninus the Syrian. Nevertheless I subjoin their whole reasoning: But this Antoninus must be the Aquitanian, because in the church of Pamiers * there were venerated the relics of two of his companions, John and Almachius, whom no one assigns as companions to St. Antoninus of Apamea. Hence it is clear that the new Roman Martyrology, into which Cardinal Baronius inserted at the 2nd of September: "At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus the martyr, etc.", is not the first Martyrology which records a certain saint Antoninus in the Gauls. The said Cardinal, however, erred in the place of the martyrdom. Thus far they, who add to this only that the Saint's cult in Gaul and Spain is ancient, and especially in Aquitaine and Auvergne, and would have it that it would not have come about that this cult should be so widely extended, unless the Saint had suffered in Gaul. But as regards the cult, it could have had its origin from the relics carried into Gaul, as happened in Spain; nor was the cult of St. Antoninus ever so widely extended through Gaul that from it the place of the martyrdom could probably be inferred. It is more rightly gathered from a cult begun late that the Saint did not in fact die in Gaul.

[49] But now I could wish that the learned writers had explained where in the Gauls that city of Brugdunum is, and too vague, to which the Victorine Martyrology attributes St. Antoninus the levite with his companions John and Almachius. This Antoninus, they say, must be the Aquitanian. In what part of Aquitaine, then, is that city of Brugdunum? That surely ought to have been set forth before a determinate region should be inferred from a city wholly unknown. But they say that his companions John and Almachius are attributed by no one to Antoninus the Syrian. I answer that those companions are wrongly attributed to St. Antoninus, just as in the Martyrology of St. Savin of Levitania, Anicetus and Formus are wrongly joined with St. Antoninus, who elsewhere is more rightly Photinus. Moreover, if the learned men had seen the source from which this martyrologist drew his trifles, they would have altogether abstained from this argument. That martyrologist produced a new arena for the Saint, new companions of martyrdom, a new title of levite, that is, of deacon, and all from the same source, namely from the most fabulous Acts, of which I have a transcript from the Rebdorf codex. These agree in many things with the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître and with the Acts which Bertrand followed, but in various points also they disagree with all of them.

[50] and which flowed from a most impure source, Take a few things as a specimen. They say that Antoninus was born in the town of Apamia of Toulouse … in the times of King Pippin and of Theodoric, whose nephew also he was. Having set out for the thresholds of the Apostles, … he went on to the city of Salerno, where in the desert he dwelt for eighteen continuous years. Then came King Pippin with the holy bishop Helenus … into the city of Rome to take the empire for himself. He, having sent for Antoninus, brought him back with him into the city of Brucdunum. Thence Antoninus went on into the region of Movitum with the aforesaid bishop Helenus. And when Antoninus had returned, King Theodoric wished to make him bishop of Toulouse; various monasteries too desired him as their abbot. But he, refusing both dignities, was at last with difficulty overcome by prayers to this, that he should take the honor of the diaconate. After this he was shut up in prison by Theodoric, where he was fed by an angel, and refreshed by a certain boy Almachius. Almachius, having been found in the prison, was, at the king's command, cast down from a height by the guards. But the boy, protected by an angel, unharmed presently began to preach. Not long after, Theodoric having been slain by Pippin in battle, Galatianus (elsewhere Gerlacius), a king, assails Antoninus with various torments, that he may renounce the faith, but he could neither be killed by boiling lead nor suffocated by water: Then pious peoples snatched blessed Antoninus thence from the hand of King Galatianus, and sent him into the city of Frigdela, where he found his boy Almachius. … And they remained together in the place which is called Orientalis, … for numberless days.

[51] namely, from the most fabulous Acts of all. Then there came to them, an angel admonishing him, John the priest. And not long after they were all captured and led before the sight of King Metopius. Their faith having been tempted in vain, they are led to the bank of a certain river, where the executioner, seizing a sword, divided saint Antoninus limb from limb into two parts from the shoulder, right and left, so that the head and the right arm remained in one part, but the body and the left, that is, the left hand, lay in the other part. But Almachius and John the priest … completed a glorious martyrdom by the striking off of the head. Then the bodies, by order of Effrasia, who was the most pagan niece of King Metopius, were cast into the river. But the head, by the ministry of angels, is written to have been carried through the Areia * and other rivers to the place which is called the Noble Valley, in such a way that from these things the place of the martyrdom would have to be set near the Pamiers of today. Finally the bodies of the three Martyrs are said to have been buried in the city of Frigdela, and there afterwards they built a great church. All these things, moreover, are so embellished with many miracles, apparitions, and other fictitious additions that those Acts deserve no credit whatever; nor does that martyrologist deserve more, who from them imprudently transcribed the city of Brugdunum, the office of deacon, and two companions of the martyrdom.

[52] Furthermore, those companions John and Almachius are also joined with St. Antoninus in the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître, [John and Almachius, who by some are given as companions to Antoninus, prove nothing:] and in Bertrand; but those Acts are in no way better, since they contain the same fables, except for those unknown cities, and a few other things, for which they have other fictions equally manifest. Gonon too, in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, p. 256, records John and Almachius with St. Antoninus, but from the same Acts, which he gives in summary, certain anachronisms and the more open fables being omitted. Spondanus too briefly touched on the same things at the year 1295, n. 12. But that there were relics of SS. John and Almachius at Pamiers I do not deny. Yet neither can it thence be inferred that these Saints suffered with St. Antoninus, and much less that St. Antoninus died in Gaul: for we do not know whether the relics of those two were brought to Pamiers together with the relics of St. Antoninus, or separately. We do not know whether they were brought thither from another part of Gaul, or from elsewhere. And so from the relics of John and Almachius once preserved in the city of Pamiers nothing more fitting can be concluded than that these gave occasion to more recent fabulists to invent that those Saints were St. Antoninus's companions in martyrdom. Wherefore the relics of Pamiers avail no more toward St. Antoninus's being attributed to Gaul than do the Martyrologies of obscure name adduced. But what is said of the Roman Martyrology has little to do with the matter, unless perhaps the learned men wished to contradict Sollerius, who at n. 6 had said that Baronius was without doubt led by more recent writers, Maurolico, Felicius, and Galesinius, To mark at the 11th of September "At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus the martyr", the other, the Syrian of Apamea, being plainly neglected and passed over. This certainly he could not have drawn from the ancient, nay from any classical Martyrology at all. But these words rather confirm our view, since they agree that he is not rightly announced at Pamiers in Gaul, and since they acknowledge the Syrian of Apamea.

[53] More openly the same writers censure Sollerius at p. 622, an answer is made to certain other because he had called Aquitanian St. Antoninus, whom the Gauls of Pamiers claim for themselves. It is worth hearing the censure: Wherefore, they say, the Bollandists erred when, supposing that St. Antoninus underwent martyrdom at Pamiers in Gaul, they make the martyr an Aquitanian: for the territory of Toulouse constituted part of Narbonese Gaul. The said historiographers might have omitted this correction, since it was useless for claiming St. Antoninus for Gaul, which was the one thing they were about there. Nay rather, it ought altogether to have been omitted, since Sollerius spoke rightly, who was not ignorant that Toulouse is in Narbonese Gaul: for already at n. 2 he had spoken of Antoninus in Narbonese Gaul; but the same Sollerius was not ignorant that the First Narbonese itself, in which is the district of Toulouse, was once part of Aquitaine taken generally. Nay rather, the said writers themselves often acknowledge this in their History. Why then was it not permitted to Sollerius to name St. Antoninus, if he suffered at Pamiers, an Aquitanian, just as he sometimes called him an Occitanian, and more often a Gaul? Certainly even at this time, in ecclesiastical matters, whatever lies between the Ocean, the Pyrenees, the Rhône, and the Loire is by received usage named Aquitaine.

[54] There is no need to answer at length the observation which the same historiographers made on the words of Adémar of Chabannes: observations of the same writers. St. Leonard in the Limousin, and St. Antoninus the martyr in the Quercy, began to flash with miracles; from which they strive to infer that St. Antoninus, in the opinion of Adémar, suffered in the province of Cahors, Because, they say, he joins him with St. Leonard, who was a Saint of that very place, and who certainly died in the territory of Limoges. This observation proves nothing more than that the said writers omitted nothing which they believed would help toward claiming St. Antoninus for Gaul. I do not grudge him to the Gauls, but according to our plan I inquire what seems to be true. For the rest, before I depart from this, two things are to be observed. The first is that neither Tillemont nor Sollerius inclined to that opinion, so as to suspect that no Antoninus at all should be adjudged to Gaul, but that they treated only of him who is venerated at Pamiers, so that the recent editors of the Occitanian History did not properly refute them, but rather changed the state of the question, when they tried to prove that the Saint suffered in another place of Gaul. The other is that in vol. 2, p. 358, they assert that relics of the Saints of Apamea in Syria were brought by Roger II, count of Foix, and perhaps also of St. Antoninus, the martyr of that city, whereby it came about, they say, that this Saint was confounded with St. Antoninus the Aquitanian martyr, and ancient patron of the abbey of Frédelas. But no one hitherto has sufficiently known an Aquitanian Antoninus distinct from the one of Apamea; and all the Acts affirm that the head of the same Antoninus was in the monastery among the Rutheni, whose body was at Pamiers, and some relics in Spain. Besides, I have already observed that that translation is attributed to Roger without proof, and without much likelihood.

*. of Pamiers

*. the Ariège

§ VI. The opinions of certain men who believed that St. Antoninus suffered at Pamiers in Gaul are examined.

[ ] [Chifflet would have St. Antoninus of Apamea to have been a companion of St. Dionysius,] Peter Francis Chifflet in his Dissertation on the one Dionysius, where he published the Acts of St. Antoninus the martyr, judges that St. Antoninus was a companion of St. Dionysius of Paris, whom he believes to be the same as the Areopagite. From this opinion, if it were true, it would follow that St. Antoninus suffered in Gaul in the second century. And Chifflet strives to prove his opinion from various writers, whom he alleges in his Dissertation. Hear his words at p. 145: Since all these epochs (of others concerning the age of St. Antoninus) rest upon no foundation, nor are so much as lightly touched upon by the writer of his Life, it is easy, these being rejected, to think Antoninus the martyr a disciple of St. Dionysius, whom he sent from the port of Arles into Aquitaine, as an anonymous Greek cited by Methodius testifies, and Methodius himself, and Anastasius the translator of Methodius, and Hincmar of Reims, openly distinguishing two Antonini, the elder and the younger; since Appamia is situated in the province of Toulouse in Aquitaine; nor is it known what became of that Antoninus, the disciple of St. Dionysius, unless he is Antoninus of Appamia, famous for the preaching of the Gospel, for martyrdom, and for miracles. The whole reasoning comes to this. There was some Antoninus, a companion of St. Dionysius, or even two of the same name. This one, or one of the two, was sent into Aquitaine to preach the Gospel. But it is not likely that he lacks all cult and is wholly unknown. And so it is credible that this Antoninus is the martyr of Apamia, in whose Life nothing is found which is repugnant to that conjecture.

[56] I would not here deny that there was some holy Antoninus among the companions of St. Dionysius of Paris, [to whom he attributes two Antonini as companions, from a letter falsely ascribed to Hincmar, and enlarged at the end:] and whether he is the Areopagite will be examined in its own place. Certainly the said Methodius, in Chifflet, p. 21, has concerning Dionysius that he came to the port of Arles, from which, he says, he sends Marcellus to Spain, Antoninus into Aquitaine, to sow and to strengthen the word. But this Antoninus the people of Meaux claim for themselves, and have venerated him for many centuries, formerly indeed with a semidouble Office, but now with a simple commemoration at the XXX of September, as may be seen in the History of the church of Meaux by Toussaint du Plessis, vol. 1, p. 7, and more fully in note 5, pp. 621 and 622. Chifflet readily agrees that Antoninus the companion of Dionysius is to be attributed to the people of Meaux, but at p. 97 he speaks thus for his own opinion: Hincmar of Reims in his letter to Charles the Bald commemorates two Antonini, disciples of saint Dionysius; the one, the elder, sent by him into Aquitaine; the other, the younger, who betook himself to Rome to Pope Anacletus with Sanctinus, whose successor also he was in the bishopric of Meaux. Now the Antoninus sent by St. Dionysius into Aquitaine (as far as I can attain by conjecture) is himself the patron and martyr of the people of Pamiers. But that letter does not seem to be Hincmar's. Hear the Benedictine writers of the Literary History of France, vol. 5, p. 577, in the article on Hincmar, where they speak thus of the said letter: But the learned are today persuaded that this letter is spurious. Then they observe that the letter ends with those words it shines forth the more brightly into the light, as it was published in Mabillon, vol. 1 of the Analecta, p. 59, and vol. 3 of the Annals, p. 198: but the rest which follows in Surius at the IX of October was added by some other man. And so, since the letter is neither Hincmar's nor has anything about the Antonini, that second Antoninus rests only on a fabulous history which has been added to the said letter, and deserves no credit.

[57] Nothing, therefore, can be inferred from that letter for two Antonini; but his opinion lacks a fit foundation, and on other grounds too is not likely. nor anything from the mission of Antoninus into Aquitaine, even if that mission, which rests on an uncertain foundation, were plainly certain and undoubted, since from Aquitaine the same man could have withdrawn to Meaux. Wherefore the Chiffletian opinion lacks a fit foundation, nor has it any likeness of truth drawn from the Acts of St. Antoninus. Chifflet himself had seen this, and therefore he tries to dissolve that argument at p. 146 in these words: Nor indeed let it cause a scruple that the author of this History (who used no mark of time by which either his own age or the century of the Antoninus of whom he writes could be recognized) makes no mention of Dionysius, by whom he was sent; nay, asserts that he was born at Appamia. For nothing forbids that Antoninus, born at Appamia, and having set out abroad to seek teachers of the true faith, or to catch an occasion of martyrdom (as his Life has it), met Dionysius or his companions, and, being imbued by them with the more sacred mysteries and initiated into the priesthood, returned to Appamia, that from the place whence he had been brought forth into mortal life he might thence be born into the heavenly country. But these things contradict one another: for if he was born at Pamiers, if in the port of Arles he met Dionysius, how was he presently so perfectly instructed that from the port of Arles he was sent into Aquitaine to preach the Gospel? Next, by whom had he been instructed in the Christian faith, so that already before the coming of Dionysius the Areopagite, as Chifflet would have it, he left his country for love of martyrdom? Add to these what we have often said already, that Pamiers at that time did not exist in Gaul, and you will not doubt that Chifflet's opinion is altogether to be rejected.

[58] [Gonon would have the Saint flourish in the fifth century, and embraces many fables;] Gonon, in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, bk. 4, pp. 256 and 257, attributes other deeds to St. Antoninus, and a very different age. For he would have him to have been the son of Fredelasius, king of Apamea, and to have flourished about the year of the Lord CDXLIX in the time of Meroveus, king of the Gauls, and that his uncle also was Theodoric, king of Toulouse. And he says that this man was that king of the Visigoths who perished in war, when he was bringing aid to Attila, king of the Huns, in the Champagne of Gaul against Meroveus, king of the Franks, who slew him. (In the year 451 Theodoric fought against Attila together with Aetius, the Roman commander, and Meroveus, king of the Franks, and did not bring aid to Attila, as is wrongly said.) Finally he ascribes Antoninus to the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, and asserts that he was a martyr under the pagan king Galeatius and Metropius. All things here are equally confused and false. For Fredelasius, king of Pamiers, is unknown and doubtless fictitious, since Pamiers itself did not exist, nor is any king of Pamiers known among the ancient writers. No better known, I suppose, was at that time in Gaul the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. Fictitious likewise is King Galeatius, who is said to have succeeded Theodoric, as also Metropius, or Methopius: for Theodoric being slain, his son Thorismund succeeded, and him Theodoric II. Finally this whole epoch is invented, since in the fabulous Acts, from which all things are drawn, Pippin and St. Ouen occur, so that he who contends to defend those most fabulous Acts must necessarily look to the seventh or eighth century.

[59] The Sainte-Marthes confound St. Antoninus of Apamea with the one of Lucca: The Sainte-Marthes, in vol. 2 of the Gallia Christiana, p. 157, narrate the deeds of St. Antoninus in almost the same manner as I have said they were reported by Gonon, though some fables are omitted. But these men add some things concerning his cult in Italy, which are to be discussed in this place: He visited, they say, many sacred places, dwelt in various deserts, and after having traversed for a long time, and made illustrious by miracles, the whole surrounding region, he came to the city of Rome, whither he was brought, and to the rest of Italy, where his memory is still notable in the town of Castelnuovo, about twelve miles distant from Rome, where as chief patron both of the place and of the church he is venerated with great religion and veneration, etc. And with some things interposed they thus continue: And the neighboring peoples themselves frequent with great veneration a church by a certain wood nearest to Castelnuovo, where he dwelt for a long time, painted with the miracles of the said Saint. It is not sufficiently clear to me what town the said writers meant to designate by Castelnuovo, or Castrum Novum, since various places of that name are found in Etruria. I scarcely doubt that it is further distant from Rome than twelve miles. But whatever be the case as to the site of the place, I in no way doubt that the Antoninus who is patron there is another. Certainly our Predecessors treated at the XXVII of April of St. Antonius, priest and hermit, who is commonly called Antoninus, and who is venerated at Lucca, at Siena, and in other places of Italy. Him, I suppose, the inhabitants of Castelnuovo have as patron. But whether that be Castelnuovo of Siena, or of Volterra, or another in Etruria; or perhaps the place which in various maps is called St. Antonius, and is marked on the boundary of the territory of Siena, I cannot hitherto affirm. Finally, from these things it is likely that certain deeds of this Antoninus also, priest and hermit, have been attributed to St. Antoninus of Apamea. Such may seem the eremitic life, the priesthood, and the Italian journey, which are ascribed to St. Antoninus of Apamea in the Acts with little likelihood.

[60] The last opinion is that of those who connect St. Antoninus with King Pippin, [the opinion of others, who would have the Saint flourish in the eighth century, is also improbable.] and with the eighth century. If that opinion were supported by better Acts, it could more easily be reconciled with the beginning of the cult in Gaul and in Spain. But those Acts swarm with so many anachronisms and fables, as I have already indicated, that both the epoch and the whole opinion which rests on so ruinous a foundation must be rejected. There is added that not even at that time had Gallic Pamiers been founded, to which the birth and death of the Saint are attributed. Besides, that opinion is rendered wholly unlikely if we consider that the chief martyrologists were near to those times, and that by them St. Antoninus is announced at Apamea in Syria, as we have proved. And so, since all the opinions which ascribe St. Antoninus to Gallic Pamiers appear altogether improbable, and the learned writers of the History of Occitania acknowledge this with us; and since also all the Acts, the chief martyrologists, and the tradition of many centuries assert that the Saint was born at Apamea, and there or near it suffered; nothing seems to remain but that we should judge that Apamea in Syria is to be understood, for which by an easy error the Gallic one was substituted in later centuries, because the relics had been brought thither, and the cult there long since begun.

[61] Nevertheless I do not therefore contend that there is no St. Antoninus in Gaul, [The conclusion of the Commentary, and a notice concerning the Acts to be published.] nor have I refuted with any other intention the reasons alleged by the writers of the History of Occitania than that I might show that St. Antoninus, who is venerated at Pamiers, is probably not a Gaul, as they were endeavoring to prove. If there is another Antoninus at Meaux, another in Auvergne, others in other places of Gaul, of these I do not here dispute. If he too who is venerated among the Rutheni can be proved distinct from the one of Apamea, of him again other questions may be asked. For the rest, what we have disputed for the sake of investigating the truth we shall gladly abandon or correct, if anyone shall be able to find things more certain and better concerning St. Antoninus. But now, all the more prolix Acts being set aside, I shall subjoin two Acts that are briefer, the one from a Ms. of the Queen of Sweden, the other from Vincent of Beauvais, not indeed as authentic, but as less faulty. Truly it is not to be doubted that those more prolix ones which were published in Labbe and Chifflet are more fabulous, and that the worst of all are Bertrand's and the Mss. like them. Yet we shall publish those briefer Acts in such a way that in the Annotations we shall add from various Mss. all those things which we judge useful to the Reader.

THE FIRST ACTS

by an anonymous author From the Ms. codex 33 of the Queen of Sweden.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0568

By an Anonymous author.

The Saint's country and his fervor of religion, And so the ^a Saint to be remembered, Antoninus, born at Apamia, when in a certain village he alone among the darkness of the heathen shone with the light of his faith, as with the splendor of some star, in order to avoid their sacrilegious madness, according to the precepts of the sacred Scriptures, migrated to another village, in which there was the society of some Christians: and persisting in that same place in the zeal and diligence of holy work, he nevertheless never ceased from the rebuking ^b of the impious. And when the diabolical rage against him grew inflamed in the sacrilegious torturers, and the time of his triumphal crown was also at hand, he himself foretold his own contest [c] as at hand.

[2] his martyrdom, which he had foretold: the parts of his body cast into the river, For when the solemnity of the days of the Christian law was being kept, and there was in it a devotion of festival for religious men, to come together to the places consecrated to sacred ministries, when he had accordingly said to some that he would go a little further, and at the same time announced with prophetic mouth ^d that he would by no means return thence, but would be seized by the hands of the impious and struck down by their fury. And so, just as he had proclaimed, taught by the divine spirit, he was by the heathen, who were watching for his holy goings-out, so laid low in the setting-forth of his journey, that for the confession of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, while the heathen madness thinks that the penalty of one death inflicted upon him cannot suffice, being divided into very many pieces ^e, he was cast by the sacrilegious hands of the impious into the aqueduct ^f which flowed down to the city of Apamia.

[3] in it his body is wonderfully preserved, as also his blood: But presently the present Godhead approved the everlasting palm of his most glorious Martyr. For the sacred limbs of the venerable body, which had before been scattered, gathered themselves of their own accord as it were into one and the same frame: his most glorious blood too, poured out for the love of our Lord, was so joined to the rushing fury of that water as if it had been collected by resting in one place on dry ground: the wave, claiming nothing thenceforth of the moving element for itself, scattered it not; but as it were by some most faithful service joined it whole and unimpaired to his limbs: and so what the raging sacrilegious hand had scattered, the more faithful water preserved, as though recognizing the servant of Christ: for no small heap of clotted gore was found around the body. Afterwards the stream also of that aqueduct, as if it feared to inflict injury on the holy body, held itself back from its accustomed course and flow, and presented a dry place for the sacred limbs, as in the manner of the sea divided for the Israelite passage, or of the Jordan turned backward.

[4] the finding of the body and its translation to the place of burial: Thereafter, when numerous throngs of divers peoples had come to lift the most sacred body, he never suffered himself to be carried by many; but by two poor women only, who had been kindled with ardor of faith, that he might be translated thither where he had wished to be entombed, he thereupon suffered himself to be borne secretly; namely that here too the power of the Martyr might be shown: since indeed what had been arduous and impossible for many was made most light for two persons only of the frailest sex ^g.

[5] And when, with all ease, he had been brought by those women, most brave in faith, to a certain priest, to whom the most blessed martyr had plainly wished to be carried, burial, miracles: the time of the martyrdom. before he was entombed with solemn obsequies, he sent before him great proofs of his powers: for demons having been put to flight and bodies purged and set free, he restored many to their former health. And the most blessed martyr Antoninus suffered in the time of the emperor Antoninus, surnamed Pius ^h, not far outside the walls of the aforesaid city, upon the bank of the river which is called the Areia ⁱ; and he was buried honorably by most religious Christians in the place to which he had been carried by the two women already mentioned, on the fourth of the Nones of September ^k.

ANNOTATA.

OTHER ACTS

From the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, bk. 13, ch. 35.

Antoninus, martyr, at Apamea in Syria. (S.)

BHL Number: 0570

The Saint, born at Apamea, and afterwards initiated into the priesthood, Saint Antoninus, born in the town of Apamea ^a, noble by birth, began from infancy to be strong in holy virtues, and being taught in the sacred letters, he read the saving precepts and strove to fulfill them. And when he burned with the desire of martyrdom, going forth from the town of Apamea and seeking out Christians, he found very many, among whom, dwelling for a long time, he was promoted to the priestly ^b dignity. And when he was making a journey in preaching, and burning fiercely with thirst from the labor of the journey, he besought the Almighty to succor him. And his prayer being finished, he confidently struck the bare ground with his staff, and thence a spring ^c burst forth, which, brought by the Lord for the holy Man, also affords great health to infirmities.

[2] preaches the faith to the heathen, and having foretold his martyrdom is crowned: And so the holy Man, having returned to Apamea, there persisting in the zeal of religion, preached, and did not cease to rebuke the perfidy of the heathen. And when the diabolical rage against him grew inflamed in the breasts of the sacrilegious, being filled with the divine spirit he himself foretold to the few Christians (who were then present) that his martyrdom, which he had learned by divine means, was now imminent. And so when the Christians were visiting in prayer the sacred places (where the bodies of the Saints rested), he, going with them, made known to them that he would go somewhat further for the sake of prayer, but foretold that he would by no means return thence, but would be struck by the sword of the impious. Perceiving, therefore, that the heathen lying in wait for him were drawing near, he offered himself to them of his own accord, and was held by them; and being led away with blows to the bank of the river ^d which runs down at the roots of Apamea, remaining in the confession of the Lord, he was beheaded.

[3] Finally the most impious guards, lest, being found by the Christians, he should be honored as a martyr, the body cast into the river is wonderfully preserved together with the blood: sank the whole body, cruelly torn apart, together with the severed head, in the river. But religious men, having devoutly sought the Martyr's body, found it without a head, and buried it honorably. But in a wondrous manner that blood poured out for Christ and cast into the water was coagulated amid the clashing of the waters, and drawn together, and the force of the waters scattered nothing of it, but as by a certain most faithful service, to the limbs of the body, whence it had flowed, it joined it whole and undiminished. But the water of the river itself also, obeying its Creator and recognizing the Servant of Christ, so withdrew itself from its accustomed course and from the place where it flowed down, that it showed itself to fear to inflict injury on the holy body, and prepared a fitting way for the faithful peoples to seek out the blessed Martyr's limbs.

[4] It is also related ^e by the opinion of many that when the Martyr's severed head popular tradition concerning the translation of the head. was cast into the river, it was at once by angelic reception placed in a small coffer and set in a little boat, and, with angelic guard ever attending, (as is reported) the little boat was led along in the likeness of two snow-white eagles, until it came to the place destined for it, namely to the dwelling of a certain prince Festus ^f, from which same prince the Martyr (as is reported), traversing that same region in preaching, had asked that place for a habitation. When therefore it had come thither to the shore, Festus the prince, marveling, and understanding by the spirit what it was, devoutly received the holy head, and removing his dwelling from that place, and at length dedicating it into a church, placed the head in it with honor and thanksgiving. His passion is commemorated on the IV of the Nones of September.

ANNOTATA.