Saint Symphorian of Autun

While, fully occupied with the Christian education of their beloved son, even more by their examples than by their lessons, Faustus and Augusta were preparing him for baptism and, without knowing it, for martyrdom, the holy missionaries from Smyrna, Benignus, Andoc hius, a Bénigne Missionary from Smyrna, apostle of Burgundy. nd Thyrsus, arrived in Autun. Faustus welcomed them eagerly and was happy to receive them into his home. The arrival of the missionaries was a celebration for this holy house: Faustus summoned all the members of his family to celebrate it, all his friends who, already Christian by desire, were only waiting for baptism. Our holy missionaries soon had them prepared for the faith, through that charity, that amiable gentleness, and all those industrious apostolic zeal methods that know so well how to find the path to hearts. He won them over first through the sympathy that attracts, then dominated them through the holy virtue attached to the preaching of the evangelical word, and also through that supernatural ascendancy of holiness that commands respect and confidence, admiration and love, that strikes and subjugates. After having thus opened their hearts and made themselves masters of their souls, they introduced into them without difficulty, with the help of grace, truth and faith. And already, around the good shepherds, a flock was gathering that was becoming more numerous day by day.

In this fold, there was a sheep more interesting, more cherished, and more worthy of being so than all the others; it was the young son of Faustus and Augusta. With what eager and affectionate care the ministers of Jesus Christ worked to complete his Christian instruction! With what happiness, too, they deposited the holy word into this innocent and privileged soul, where not a particle of the heavenly gift, according to the expression of Scripture, was lost; where all their lessons found a precocious intelligence to grasp them, a sure and upright judgment to appreciate them, a pious heart to savor them, and all their exhortations, an echo! It is thus that Providence was preparing, unknown to men and unknown to himself, the son of Faustus for the glory of consecrating forever to Jesus Christ this Aeduan land, by the shedding of the first Christian blood. In the meantime, the amiable child, instructed to walk in the straight path, began to seek God and grew under the blessings of heaven. The Holy Spirit already showed that He was with him: his faith was strengthening to one day render glory to the Lord, and one could say of him what is said of Saint Nazarius, one of the first apostles of the Gauls: *Nondum sacramentorum conscius et in sacrificium jam præelectus*, he had not yet received the sacrament that makes Christians, and already he was chosen in advance as a pure victim destined for the immolation of martyrdom.

Soon, the will of Symphorian appeared strong enough, his mind sufficiently nourished with truth, his heart sufficiently full of faith, hope, desire, and love, for it to be permitted to set the solemnity of baptism and participation in the sacred mysteries for a very near date. In the young catechumen, piety, anticipating his age, was at once so enlightened and so lively, so solid and so affectionate, that Saint Benignus believed it was time to fulfill his wishes. He also remembered the request of Faustus and considered himself too happy to be able, by fulfilling it, to repay the hospitality of the noble citizen of Autun. However, a small secret oratory had likely been prepared in the very house of Faustus. One could see an altar there, one of the first, if not perhaps the very first, where the spotless victim, already immolated from sunset to dawn, descended from the heights of the heavens in Autun. The holy missionaries dedicated it to the Prince of the Apostles, thus placing the nascent Aeduan Church on this foundational stone chosen and designated by the divine architect himself. This place, fertile in memories, which recalls Symphorian, his family, his cradle, his baptism, and the apostles of Autun, our ancestors took care to consecrate by the construction of a church in honor of Saint Peter and an abbey under the patronage of Saint Andochius.

After the baptism that gives life and makes one a Christian, the minister of God called upon Symphorian all the gifts of the Creator Spirit that increase this heavenly life, that enlighten, that strengthen, and make a perfect Christian. He imprinted on his forehead the indelible seal that confirms all commitments and transforms the one who is still only a simple disciple of Jesus Christ into a soldier armed for the struggle and prepared for victory. This young forehead, so noble and so pure, will always keep intact the glorious sign of his enlistment in the Christian militia. He will never have to blush; he will not know how to bow under the threats of a tyrant, nor turn pale in the face of death. Thus is the son of Faustus anointed like an athlete to fight the battles of the Lord, or rather marked like a chosen victim destined for sacrifice.

After having received the great sacrament that opens the doors of the Church and of heaven, the veil of the sanctuary was lifted: the altar appeared to his eyes resplendent with light; and for the first time he could assist at the celebration of the august mysteries, the complement of Christian initiation. Symphorian soon advanced with a respect mingled with love and presented his pure hands. The flesh of the holy victim, sacrificed and yet living, was placed there by the deacon; and the angel of the earth, after having adored with the angels of heaven who accompanied him to the Eucharistic table, took the heavenly bread, source of life, germ of immortality, foretaste of eternal delights, ineffable means of union and almost of deification, invented by infinite love aided by omnipotence, and which from now on, if the veil were to fall, would be the beatific union. He was also able to dip his holily eager lips into the chalice of salvation, and draw from it a drop fallen from that torrent of unspeakable delights, the eternal intoxication of the blessed. For heaven is a first communion that lasts forever under the shadows of faith.

What would we not give to know what was happening in the soul of the future martyr, at this fortunate hour during which time seemed to have become motionless like eternity; what he said in this intimate conversation with the heavenly friend who, for the first time, rested upon his heart? Then, no doubt, was kindled that courage of a hero who would one day brave the horror of tortures, as well as the flattering seduction of promises; that love strong enough to command death to break the bonds of life rather than to fail. After having poured out all the sentiments of his gratitude toward God in a sweet and fervent act of thanksgiving, he hastened to go and thank those who had just been for him the instruments of divine goodness and his fathers in the faith. Then he ran to throw himself, all trembling with the holy joys of baptism and communion, into the arms of his parents. They too were coming out of the Eucharistic banquet: they were happy with their own happiness and with the happiness of their son. With what pious embrace did these hearts press against each other, where the God who is all charity had just descended! With what respectful tenderness did these lips, still stained with the blood of the divine Lamb, press against one another! It is fortunate, it is beautiful, it is radiant among other days, the one where, for the first time, the sacrament of the Eucharist consumes in the young Christian the most complete possession of Christ: a day of heaven rather than of earth, where the child, upon returning from the temple, brings back his God in his own body, which has become a tabernacle, and transforms into a true sanctuary this consecrated hearth, where the entire family loves and adores the divine Savior who returns with him from the mysterious feast.

The amiable and holy child had just entered early adolescence. Growing up within his family as if in a protective sanctuary, under the dual aegis of religion and paternal love, he had kept in his heart—always pure, always dear, and always alive—the memory of his baptism and his first communion. A fervent and solid Christian, a loving son, a distinguished and serious mind, raised by his sentiments as well as by his tastes above vulgar hearts and minds, he knew only the joys of piety united with those of the domestic hearth and the study of letters, that need, that noble pleasure of elite intelligences. What a joy it was for Faustus and Augusta to continue, through strong religious and literary instruction, the education of this young soul where the true, the good, the great, and the beautiful received such an eager, such a sympathetic welcome, and where nothing was lost! However, we may believe that they did not wish to handle such an important work alone. Parents as enlightened as they were good, they did not entirely abdicate—as is seen too often today—to entrust to foreign and sometimes unworthily mercenary hands the sacred functions of being their son's primary educators; but, as soon as they saw that his faculties were sufficiently developed and powerful, they joined together to have him take, under their direction and supervision, lessons from the wisest and most distinguished masters. They did not need to go far to find them: Autun was then one of the most brilliant centers of light, one of the greatest centers of study in all of Gaul. The Menian schools, which were later to cast a vivid and final brilliance under the famous rhetorician Eumenius, h ad already exist écoles Méniennes Famous public schools in Autun attended by the saint. ed for a long time and attracted a prodigious number of students. Roman policy, which used every means to achieve its ends, had not failed to establish in several large Gallic cities, such as Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Autun, schools intended to spread in Gaul the knowledge and taste for Roman literature and legislation. From these schools came most of the men who distinguished themselves in these first centuries of decadence.

We know that Symphorian made remarkable progress in the study of Greek and Roman poets, orators, and historians; for his Acts do not fail to note that the holy young man was instructed in the profane letters that had formed his mind, as well as in the holy letters that had formed his heart, enlightened his steps, and directed his conduct. His father, convinced that religion is like the aroma that prevents human science from becoming enclosed and corrupted, applied himself especially then to having him study Christianity and the holy books in a more serious, more profound manner. This faith and piety that Symphorian had sucked in with his mother's milk, and which were during his childhood years more of an intimate feeling than a reasoned belief, Faustus now strove to affirm through stronger teaching, to consolidate through reflection, which brings a more intense light and a deeper conviction. His venerable wife made it a duty and a happiness to help him in this daily work of religious education, which she considered especially from the point of view of the heart. Such is, indeed, the special work of mothers: God has given them the power of the heart just as He has given men the power of the mind. Just as the sun pours out heat while pouring out its light, illuminating and fertilizing nature; so true education, complete education, the only one capable of also illuminating and fertilizing man, is that which teaches love with truth. The religious education that the holy martyr received from his parents must have been well followed, well cared for, and very strong to have raised, with the help of grace, his young soul to the height it reached. It is to this education that history attributes the preservation of his innocence, and his virtue first, and then the courage to brave death. Already the persecution was beginning to rage. It was therefore necessary that Saint Faustus and Saint Augusta raise the spirit of their son, not only above the vices and superstitions of paganism, but also above the fear of death. When we hear his mother exhorting him at the moment of his execution, let us not think that this was the first time she had made such lessons heard by this illustrious son.

How holy, sweet, and fruitful was this family education! Symphorian, from his earliest childhood, had always seen in his mother's smile the most powerful encouragement and the dearest reward. He loved this worthy and tender mother with a love full of pious respect and accompanied by the persistent desire to be pleasing to her, to imitate her, to obey her with affectionate eagerness, and thus to walk in the footsteps of the Child-God, his model. His actions had what is missing in so many grown men, even in so many philosophers: an incontestable principle, a high, immutable, divine motive; and it was his mother who, by her examples joined to her lessons, taught him this science that is at once so simple and so sublime. It is said of the mother of Saint Nazarius that she was his mother even more by the spirit than by nature: such also was Augusta for Symphorian.

Every day, therefore, to nourish the faith and virtue of her son, she had him read the divine Scriptures under her eyes, not failing to emphasize the passages that are more particularly suitable for youth, just as she had previously taken care to draw his attention to those that concern and interest childhood more especially. "Happy the man," this good and pious mother would often say to him with the Prophet, "who has borne the yoke of the Lord from his earliest years!"—"God," she would add, "wants the first fruits of all things: give Him with a good heart, my dear child, the first fruits of your life."

Another time, Augusta summarized the various teachings to Symphorian thus: "My son, be happy to let yourself be directed. He who loves to be instructed while he is young will acquire a wisdom that will accompany him until the age of white hair. How can one find in old age what one has not gathered during the years of adolescence? He who is pleased to receive lessons is truly wise. He, on the contrary, who rejects them and does not want to be guided, because he always believes himself to be on the right path and has a presumptuous confidence in himself, is a fool. The child abandoned to his own will is the confusion of his mother, instead of being the charm of her life, the delight of her soul. The haughty and indocile young man is an object of abomination in the eyes of God. The soul of the just loves obedience, because it does not forget these words of the divine Model: Learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest. But know also, my dear child, that whoever wants to serve God must be strong and prepared for the trial. Besides, is death not better than a life poisoned by the bitterness of remorse? Watch much over your heart, for from it proceeds life. Love God in heaven, and your parents on earth. A wise son always listens to his father. Follow then his lessons and his examples, and do not despise the advice of your mother. Remember that you have cost her many groans and pains." While Augusta spoke, her son, eager and happy to hear her, lent her a piously attentive ear and kept his heart open. He saw in her the most amiable personification of virtue and kept his eyes fixed with a love mixed with sweet respect upon this mother figure, imprinted with majesty and tenderness.

Realizing in her person this magnificent ideal of the mother of a family and of the strong woman that the Holy Scripture offers us, Augusta did not forget to remind Symphorian of this simple but heroic teaching of the Gospel that has produced so many martyrs: "Do not fear those who kill only the body, fear rather Him who can destroy both body and soul. Whoever will confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father. He who preserves his life will lose it, and he who loses it for the love of me will save it." The influence that these words exerted on the great soul of the young man must have been immense, if one judges by the magnificent results it produced.

Watching over her son, praying for him, giving him religious instruction and lessons in virtue was for her a joy as much as the fulfillment of a duty. These sublime daily teachings, passing from the holy books into the heart and onto the lips of this good and pious mother, reached the most intimate part of Symphorian's soul, with the double consecration of divine inspiration and maternal love. And what sweet and profound impressions they left there! During these daily instructions that charmed and sanctified an hour of the day, Augusta saw in her child the very child of God, entrusted to her care; and Symphorian listened with a veneration mixed with filial tenderness to the one who was in his eyes the image of the angel commissioned to guard his life. Admirable family interior that calls down all divine blessings!

The angelic child, thus receiving the lessons of the best of mothers, does he not retrace for us this delightful picture, painted by the Holy Spirit Himself with such freshness in one of the pages of the book of Proverbs: "Small and tender child, only son of my mother, I stood before her, and she instructed me. She said to me: Receive my words into your heart, and do not forget them. I will show you the way of wisdom, I will lead you along the paths of justice, and thus you will become great?"

How one loves to see these blessed families where religion and maternal love reveal the art of raising children according to the heart of God and the wish of nature! The angel of the Lord seems truly to cover them with his sacred wings. There, one believes one breathes happiness, the peace of innocence, and all the perfumes of heaven. There, a noble and candid modesty, all the more amiable because it is not conscious of itself, gives a new price and an ineffable charm to everything that is done, to everything that is said. There, one finds those young souls, pure and transparent as crystal, where God Himself sometimes makes lights of astonishing splendor shine; one surprises on graceful and childish lips sublime naiveties that seem inspired from above; one meets friends, brothers, angels, children truly beautiful, beautiful as a reflection of the primitive endowment of our nature, beautiful as hope. Such was the house of Faustus, such was his son. Thus passed, tranquil and innocent, under the guard of Christian piety, under the salutary influence of domestic lessons and examples, under the happy direction of a father and a mother truly worthy of bearing these sacred names, the first adolescence of Symphorian. Religion and family, holding his young soul in the shadow of their wings like a delicate flower, prevented it from blooming too soon, and by prolonging the holy ignorance of the heart, seemed to add to his innocence a new and even more beautiful innocence.

However, the term of his first studies had arrived, and it was necessary to put the necessary complement to his instruction through more serious and higher teaching. He was therefore obliged to attend those brilliant exercises of speech called declamations, to frequent those famous public schools where the high studies of Greek and Latin letters, of eloquence and laws, flourished at that time, where Gallo-Roman youth flocked; where from afar came skillful professors who preferred the brilliance of Augustodunum to the applause of Rome and Athens. There, everything combined to attack the faith and virtue of Symphorian: the inevitable contact with numerous fellow students abandoned to themselves, without rule and without restraint, in the critical age of the awakening of passions, all pagans, all corrupted by a corrupting cult; the enticement of speeches; the even more irresistible enticement of examples; the sensual, voluptuous, lascivious poets, where paganism and vices were presented under the most seductive images; and all those intoxicating and licentious festivals, so frequent in a city where wealth and pleasures flowed at the same time. How, at this time of life when there is only dazzlement and weakness, to resist so many diverse assaults? But our generous adolescent knew, when it was necessary, how to claim for his virtue a noble independence, to surround himself with a glorious singularity, to flee the occasions of peril, and to close his ears, his eyes, and his heart at the right moment. Piety and faith, always alive in his soul, maintained there this sublime taste for virtue, this love of the sovereign good that finds the things of the earth insufficient and voluptuousness insipid; this courage that elevates, this strength that resists, this evangelical energy that does not recoil before violence against oneself, so necessary and yet so rare in an age too inclined to a blind and easy enticement, and ordinarily an enemy of a wise and vigorous reaction. Around him were always arrayed, like a guard that knows neither how to slumber nor how to betray, humble distrust of oneself supported by prayer, restrained and calm circumspection, attentive vigilance, and modest pudency. Thus he was able to tread with a firm foot the path of the just, because he walked, according to the counsel of the Apostle, with continual precaution; to traverse intact all the perils of life and all the scandals; to avoid false shames and brave the cowardly terrors of human respect; to slip away from all attacks; to dodge all traps; to escape finally from shipwreck.

where the foolish and lying illusions, the veiled or shameless seductions, the flattering and perfidious lures of the world drag so many poor young people, often even more blind than criminal, more unhappy than wicked.

While the young Celts, whom the famous schools of Autun then attracted in such great numbers to this city, threw themselves into all voluptuousness, rushed with all the inconsiderate ardor of age, all the blindness of unleashed passions, into the vain noise, into the deafening whirlwind, into the mire covered with flowers of a society and a civilization as corrupted as they were brilliant; he, calm and reserved without affectation, serious without sadness, took pleasure in frequenting wise people, formed like him by the lessons of the Gospel. He loved above all to come and take shelter under the paternal roof, to retemper himself, while relaxing, in the spirit of family, in the lessons and tenderness of his mother, to refresh his heart with the joys of the domestic hearth, the most suave and the truest that exist on earth; for the joys of conscience and piety come from heaven. He knew hardly any other places than the small oratory of the Christians, the palace of his father, and that of the schools. So that one could say of him as of the pious patriarch of the captivity: He never deviated from the true path; and while all ran to the golden calves, to the idols of wealth and sensuality, he alone knew how to keep himself apart to adore and serve the Lord his God, to renew to Him the offering of the first fruits of his life. "The sinners," he could say with the Psalmist, "waited for me to destroy me; but I had understood, Lord, and tasted your word. They told me their fables; but what are they in comparison with your law?" Never did an inconsiderate step escape him; never did the least of his actions or words smell of thoughtlessness. Thus, although still very young, he never did anything childish; and all his conduct was directed by a wisdom so remarkably precocious that history does not fail to point it out as one of the most characteristic traits of this admirable figure. "Outstripping the years," his Acts tell us, "Symphorian united the maturity of an old man to the amiable candor of a child." Still in the age of flowers, already he gave the most beautiful fruits of virtue. Similar to the one of whom Scripture traces for us such a graceful portrait by the following words: "Still very young, I sought wisdom openly, I made it the object of my prayers; and wisdom flourished in me like an early cluster, and my heart was filled with joy." One admired in his person a harmonious mixture of wisdom and simplicity, of childish reserve and greatness of soul, of innocence and gravity, of sweetness and strength. All the beautiful qualities, all the talents of Symphorian were enhanced by humble modesty, that happy ignorance of oneself that adds to all charms the most touching charm and always embellishes the most precious gifts.

Among the spiritual pearls that adorned his crown, there is one especially that by its sweet brilliance captivated the gaze, ravished the hearts, and that we love to detach for a moment to present to Christian youth: fearful and delicate modesty. A great and holy pontiff, Saint Lawrence Justinian, who since then has praised it, does he not seem to have had before his eyes the beautiful figure of Saint Symphorian, when he traced with love the following lines, an immortal sketch of a virtue that one would believe to be a flower of heaven fallen to earth: "Modesty or the vigilant fear that every dishonest action inspires is the glory of young age. What is there, indeed, more amiable than a modest and bashful adolescent? Oh! how modesty is a brilliant pearl! Where to find a more evident, more sure pledge of a good nature, a more certain sign of happy hopes? This virtue, sister of continence, puts to flight everything that can defile the soul. There is no more manifest index of virginal purity, no more faithful testimony of interior innocence. It is the torch of chastity constantly illuminating the sanctuary of the soul, and not allowing anything defiled to establish its dwelling there. Holy modesty is of inestimable price; it is the glory of conscience, the safeguard of reputation, the honor of life, the basis of virtue, the first fruits of other spiritual gifts, the triumph of human nature, the principle of everything that is honest."

However, the Church founded by Benignus, Andochius, and Thyrsus had grown peaceful and adorned with all the virtues that embellished the early ages of the faith. But suddenly, the days of pious calm were succeeded by a struggle unto blood. At the news that his land of Sau lieu ha Saulieu Site of the martyrdom and principal center of the cult of the saints. d just been sanctified by the blood of the Apostles, his friends, his hosts, his benefactors, Faustus ran there the following night to provide burial for such venerated and beloved dead. His son Symphorian wished to accompany him; and from that moment, the holy young man never ceased to go and pray in that sacred place, dear to his heart and his faith. "He spent," say the Acts of our saints, "days and nights at their tomb, and one could hardly pull him away from it." Who could tell the thoughts, the deep emotions of his soul, at the moment when he rendered such a touching duty to these heroes who died for God? Doubtless, he meditated on their sublime words, he invoked their forever blessed souls, but above all, he contemplated in heaven and envied their immortal palms; he dreamed for himself of similar trophies; he longed to seize the crown of martyrdom as well, and while kissing with the respect of filial piety the remains of Andochius, the holy priest who had presented him for baptism, did he not say to him: "O you who made me a Christian and enrolled me in the holy militia, obtain for me the favor of walking in your footsteps! May I be like you an apostle and martyr!" He would not wait long for the effect of his prayer. Soon he would be seen following into combat and triumph his blessed fathers, Andochius and Benignus, who await him in the bosom of God to offer him the prize of victory, the object of his vows.

Symphorian, in the midst of his happy family, continued to prepare in his person a model for the young people of all centuries through the cultivation of those celestial flowers called respectful obedience, filial love, humility, gentleness, charity, modesty, and reserve, which are the glory of adolescence; through the faith that enlarges and supernaturalizes the soul; through the spiritual struggle and evangelical courage that test it by exercising it, and that strengthen it in the holy obstinacy of a conscience solidly attached to duty; through the generous ardor of youth, united to that fixity of resolutions, to that unshakable virility of character, to those well-defined convictions of mature age, and to those calm thoughts, to that measured conduct of old age, which the habits of practical Christianity provide: *senum anticipans vitam*. Thus, he became more and more the admiration and delight, not only of his father and mother, but also of all the Aeduan Christendom, in those days of the primitive faith, yet so fertile in saints. Far from belying himself for a single instant, he only perfected himself further, and the Acts of his martyrdom, which follow him until his last moment, were able to say even then that the faithful regarded him as an almost supernatural being, "living in the familiarity of pure spirits," of which he offered here below, by anticipation, the ravishing image.

We have seen that Symphorian, destined for the bloody struggles of the faith, received from God, along with an early wisdom and amiable innocence, the intrepid constancy of a soul best anchored in the depths of faith. Now, the moment approaches when we shall see how necessary it was for him and to what degree he possessed that virtue which makes the heroes of the Gospel. In the meantime, he was preluding every day to the great triumph of martyrdom by his peaceful but glorious victories over evil passions, over himself, over the seductions of a corrupted and corrupting world. While the young people of his age ran to licentious feasts, he never ceased until the end to escape through a courageous flight and through all the precautions of modesty from the perils that threaten purity, that lily of celestial whiteness, the most beautiful, but also the most delicate ornament of the most beautiful age. He was thus hardened for harsher trials, by these daily combats of the Christian life, against any attack threatening in him the love of God that his heart embraced with energy. But already there is more: have we not seen him exercise himself even in braving death by going with Faustus to Saulieu to collect the precious remains of Andochius, Thyrsus, and Felix on the theater of their martyrdom, and to render, with a courage equal to his affectionate veneration, the honors of burial to his spiritual fathers? Thanks to this supernatural elevation of view and thought that faith and hope provide, the horizon of his soul was larger than the earth: he saw only heaven and feared nothing from men. Born of a heroic race, the heroic adolescent had thus manifested in several ways this invincible strength that he carried in his heart, this high independence that is the character and, so to speak, the genius of our holy religion, school and homeland of the only true liberty, the liberty of the soul, that of the children of God. At eighteen or twenty years old, he showed all the firmness of a Christian brow that the cross has hardened, not only against false shames and cowardly terrors, but also against the threats and fears of death.

The hour of the supreme glory of martyrdom had arrived. The holy young man had long been prepared for it by his courage and his virtue. He had conquered the world, the enemy of his innocence; he would likewise conquer the enemy of his faith, the enemy of his God. It is with this new enemy that we are about to see him grapple. The persecution that had just raged in Lyon, Tournus, Chalon, Dijon, Langres, and even as far as Saulieu, hung threateningly over Autun, waiting and se eking vic Héraclius Byzantine emperor who appointed John to the patriarchate. tims. Heraclius, a consular personage, had not remained behind the other Roman magistrates. Armed with the imperial edict, he had publicly announced that Christianity was proscribed, and that whoever was convicted of not worshipping the gods of the empire would pay with his head for an audacity regarded as rebellion and sacrilege. By his order, the most exact searches were made, directed by the most skillful sagacity. Infernal zeal seemed to want to defy apostolic zeal. The Christians therefore found themselves obliged to hide their pious meetings with more careful attention than ever, to bury the august ceremonies of their worship in secrecy and shadow. Knowing well that the pagans, who fled from the idea and image of death, rarely visited tombs, they went furtively and by night to the vast polyandrium of the via strata, and there celebrated the sacred mysteries in the midst of the tombs of their brothers, no doubt in one of the great funerary monuments that pride had erected there. It was momentarily transformed into an oratory placed under the invocation of Saint Peter and Saint Stephen, the first of the Apostles and the first of the martyrs, to obtain the strength and humble submission of the faith that makes one obey God, with the strength and courageous perseverance of the charity that does not fear death. It was modestly decorated with a few torches, a few images of the Mother of God and the Saints; a cross was placed there, a portable altar, with the relics of a martyr; and then everything disappeared before daybreak. Thus the dwelling of the dead served as a retreat for the persecuted living and for the true God, proscribed like His worshippers. A cemetery was in Autun, like the catacombs in Rome, the funereal and unique asylum of the first faithful; and in the capital of the Aedui, just as in the capital of the world, the cradle of nascent Christianity rested in the midst of the tombs. This did not prevent the faith from growing there at first unnoticed and without noise; then, when it was permitted to show itself in broad daylight, those who had pursued it to the limit and had flattered themselves with its destruction were astonished to see it suddenly emerge from the earth, after several centuries of persecution, full of strength and life. It was thought dead; and there it was, appearing all radiant with youth and celestial beauty, all resplendent with the glory of its long battles and its numerous triumphs.

The young Symphorian came assiduously with his family to nourish his piety, to fortify his faith in these nocturnal and so fervent assemblies of the first Christians. Slipping like the others through the tombs of the dead and the shadows of the night, he trod with a furtive and silent foot upon this historic soil, this sacred soil that we should only tread with religious respect, and which, after having received the imprint of his steps, has deserved to bear his name, dear and blessed by all generations for seventeen centuries. But each time he went to this place, the young Christian felt his ardent and generous soul revolt at the thought that truth and virtue were obliged to hide, like the shames of falsehood and crime, and that the living God did not even have the right of citizenship in his blind homeland. It was necessary, however, to escape the scrutinizing gaze of the enemy, for every day the storm rumbled louder and drew closer. Frequent news of death reached the faithful of Autun. Some time after the beautiful letter of the Christians of Lugdunum announcing the great battle and the great victory, they had learned, one after another, of the courageous struggle of Marcellus and Valerian, and then that of Benignus. Soon after had arrived another message, similar to the preceding ones, like them at once glorious and sad: it recounted the martyrdom of the two companions of the holy apostle and of Felix, their generous host. Symphorian did not content himself with giving them vain tears, like those who have no hope in their hearts nor strength in their souls. His first thought was to invoke them, and his first sentiment, a desire or rather a magnanimous impulse that raised him in an instantaneous and sublime leap to the height of martyrdom. Immediately he aspired to a similar and prompt death to go more quickly to find the fathers of his faith in heaven. In the meantime, without fearing the edicts, the spies, the threats, and the prospect of torments, he ran incontinently to Saulieu with his father to collect the blood of the martyrs, to respectfully press his trembling lips to their wounds, to water them with pious tears, and to bury the holy and cherished remains of these victims immolated to God, whom the sacrifice had just consecrated. It seemed that their spirit had descended into him, had stirred and made every fiber of his heart palpitate with the supernatural ambition to equal them. While Faustus, a worthy father of such a son, wrote with his own hand, for the consolation and edification of the Church, the history of the last combat of Andochius and Thyrsus, Symphorian, a worthy son of such a father, could not detach himself from the tomb of these holy apostles who had given him Christian instruction and supernatural life: never ceasing to ask through their intercession for the grace to imitate their courage and to share their happiness. Was such touching and vivid gratitude ever seen, such filial and tender affection, united to a faith so strong and so courageous, a heart so loving and so heroic? He did not know, the admirable young man, that his prayer was already answered; and Faustus did not know either that in bringing his son back to Autun, after having rendered the last duties to the martyrs, he was leading a victim to the altar of sacrifice.

Scarcely returned to the city, upon his return from Saulieu, he learned that new Christians had just given their blood for Jesus Christ. This time the blow had struck within his family, the sword was approaching his heart: he almost thought he felt its coldness and shuddered with Augusta, while looking at Symphorian whose intrepid, noble, and pure brow seemed to await another crown than that of virtue, wisdom, and innocence. But the two holy spouses, immediately lifting their eyes to heaven, renewed the offering that they had already made more than once in advance, and held themselves all ready for the case where God might come to ask of their love the sacrifice of Abraham.

However, great thoughts did not cease to rise in the soul of Symphorian. Already the glorious death of our holy apostles, the fathers of his faith, had given birth to or increased in his heart the desire to die like them. The new example of Christian heroism given by his young cousins was like a holy contagion that struck him and penetrated to the very depths of his being. From then on, this generous emulation of martyrdom seemed to pursue him, to obsess him at every moment.

Although Augusta had been ready for a long time to make the sacrifice of what was dearest to her in the world generously, if it were necessary, and although she had foreseen, since the beginning of the persecution, that the moment when she might be called to consummate this great sacrifice would no doubt not be long in coming; yet she felt at that hour, with a painful apprehension and a poignant vividness, all that would be stinging for her in paying for its sublime glory with all her happiness here below, in reaping its merits at the price of the agony of her mother's heart. And this agony seemed already to begin, with the terrible premonition of a near future.

Symphorian, in silently and humbly calling for martyrdom, had no thought of the high and magnificent destiny that awaited him. He did not suspect that his name was to pass to posterity, that it would be great and immortal on earth as in heaven, that it would be everywhere venerated, everywhere invoked, inscribed in all the martyrologies, celebrated in the liturgy of the universal Church, given to a superb basilica and a famous abbey raised over his tomb, as well as to a multitude of churches or altars. He could not suspect that the place where his body would rest would be filled with the most beautiful part of the history of the Aeduan Church; that the most beautiful ideal conceived by the imagination would be given as a faint sketch of his angelic figure; that his noble, his holy memory would still inspire, after so many centuries, the genius of the greatest artists, and that a skillful brush, surpassing itself, would create a masterpiece that would reproduce on a canvas admired by all of Europe the history of his martyrdom, even more admired and more admirable. He thought only of fulfilling a duty. He was quite simply a young and modest Christian, with a great and pure soul, with a straight and generous heart, who considered it a perfectly natural thing to obey God rather than men and to return to his Creator, when it was asked of him, the life he had received from Him; who had read in the Gospel that one must not betray one's faith and be ashamed of Jesus Christ. He did not even think that there was the slightest heroism in an action that seemed so just to him and which, moreover, only led to a better life, to an eternal happiness.

Since that day, a year had not elapsed when the time marked by Providence arrived. The son of Faustus was to approach his twentieth year. He was the type of the young Christian, with elevated sentiments, strong convictions, unshakable faith, full of courage and modesty, of honor and innocence, of distinction and piety. He had only walked from progress to progress, he had grown in age, in wisdom, and in grace before God and before men. Now, therefore, the victim was ready: he was crowned with all the flowers of youth, of science, of talents, and of virtue. There he was as he should be: he would be more worthy of God, and the sacrifice would be greater, more beautiful, more meritorious. Until then, precious but foreign blood had watered the Aeduan earth. Neither the old Celtic race, nor the Gallo-Roman race of Autun had yet bought the honor of being Christian. It was necessary, it was time for them to pay for it: their most noble, most generous, most pure blood, the blood of Symphorian, must be the price. Thus would be washed away on this so important part of the Gallic soil the foul stain with which paganism had defiled it.

The course of the year 180 had just brought back the month of August, and the whole city was in rejoicing; for the r eturn Cybèle Pagan goddess whose cult led to the arrest of Symphorian. of this season was always the signal for pompous festivals that were celebrated in honor of Cybele or Berecynthia, the dearest divinity of the Autunois, along with Minerva and the two children of Leda. The cult of this goddess, which was nothing other than that of the passions and of gross enjoyments and of the foul spirit, had to, in a city at once licentious, opulent, and lettered, mingle with the cult of letters and arts. The festival of the so-called mother of the gods therefore naturally found vivid and deep sympathies in all these pagan hearts that it flattered and maintained in their most cherished vices. It agreed so well with the false and corrupted civilization, with the customs of a city full of superstitions, treasures, and voluptuousness! Thus an immense crowd, in the delirium of the orgy, drunk with pleasures, debauchery, and fanaticism, filled the streets and formed a worthy escort to the image of the goddess carried triumphantly on a pompous chariot.

Symphorian groaned at these senseless joys, at these hideous and sacrilegious follies, remembering then, while blessing God who had preserved him from such blindness, these words of Wisdom: "They know not how to rejoice except by losing their reason: Dum lætantur, insaniunt". The holy young man fled these miserable festivals and did not even permit the simple sight of the sad spectacle that he deplored to soil his gaze from afar. That day, chance, or to speak better, Providence, permitted him to encounter the profane and impure procession. Immediately the blush mounted to his brow, zeal and indignation to his heart. The faith, which had become in him like a second nature, which had in some sort identified itself with his moral being or rather which had transformed him into itself, betrayed its vividness at that very instant by a generous impulse, by a sublime instinct. Immediately the delirious multitude gathered, agitated, and cried out of rebellion, of sacrilege; it insulted, it threatened, it demanded vengeance and already made words of death heard. He, calm, inaccessible to fear as to human respect, braving without effort as without ostentation this blind fury, and looking with pity upon this poor people from the height of his faith, his charity, and his great soul, presented to the riot and the anger this serene face, this beautiful brow, intelligent and noble as much as candid, this celestial air that everyone admired. Master of his soul which he kept raised toward God, motionless and without gall in his heart, he kept not the proud silence of a stoic disdain, but the silence at once dignified, benevolent, and humble, of the Christian who respects himself, who forgives, and who is resigned in advance, following the example of the divine Master, or permitted his mouth only to articulate words strong but sweet. Always unshakable, he did not cease to oppose to the ever-growing threat the modest intrepidity of a tranquil courage, the firmness of a deep conviction, the assurance given by the intimate feeling of duty accomplished, the majesty of virtue, and the peace of conscience. However, people ran from all sides: the crowd increased, agitated and roared like the waves of a sea in wrath. Some recognized the son of Faustus and were astonished. But the city plebs, which in its anger respects nothing, neither merit, nor rank, nor birth, rushed upon him in a tumult: they crowded him, they pressed him,

"You have insulted the mother of the gods!" a thousand frenzied voices then cried to him. "You must repair your crime by worshipping the goddess". And they seemed to prepare to drag him toward the idol. "Never", replied Symphorian, with an attitude full of dignity and resolution, and in a grave but strongly accented tone. At this response, the populace redoubled its vociferations and made these words heard: "He belongs apparently to this miserable, impious, and rebellious sect that despises the gods and the laws of the empire. He is a Christian! He is a Christian!" — "Well! yes, I am", replied the intrepid young man, "and I respect too much in myself this name, this honorable quality, to bend the knee before a vain and impure idol that indeed, as you say, I despise and abhor". Incapable of concealing his faith and too happy to be able to render it this first public testimony, Symphorian understood that the occasion he had called for with all his wishes had finally arrived, that the designs of God upon him were manifesting themselves, and that he had to tear away all the veils.

He was immediately arrested and tumultuously led before the proconsul as an impious and seditious person. “Your name and your status?” said Heraclius, seated on his tribunal, addressing the accused. “My name is Symphorian and I am a Christian.” “You are a Christian!... It seems you must have known how to hide yourself well; for it was difficult for there to be many of those people here. Why did you refuse with insulting contempt to worship the mother of the gods?” “I have just told you, I am a Christian and I worship only the true God who reigns in heaven. As for this simulacrum of the demon, not only will I never worship it, but this very instant, if you permit me, I will reduce it to powder.” “He affects a sacrilegious impiety joined to rebellion... Clerk, is he a citizen of this city?” The clerk replied that the accused was indeed from Autun and even from one of the first families of the city.

At this moment the proconsul, who at first had been delighted to find the opportunity to make an example, seemed to experience some hesitation. One would almost say that he would not have been displeased to escape this embarrassment and that he desired to save the young patrician brought unfortunately before his tribunal. He therefore resumed, without however letting anything show, the interrogation in these terms: “It seems, Symphorian, that you make a game and a glory of displaying a certain independence of character. It is undoubtedly your birth that inspires this presumption in you. Perhaps also the sole desire to make noise has thrown you into a cursed sect and pushed you today to this scandal? But you are probably unaware of the prince's edict. Let the clerk read it.”

After this reading, the judge resumed: “Well! Symphorian, what do you have to answer to that? Do you think that we can go against such formal orders? Now, there are precisely against you the two charges that fall under the imperial edict: you are convicted of sacrilege for your contempt regarding the gods, and of rebellion for your disobedience to the laws. If therefore you do not submit, death must expiate this double crime: the outraged gods and the violated laws demand your blood.” “No, never,” replied Symphorian, “I will never look at this statue as anything but a vile simulacrum, a fatal instrument of diabolical worship, an execrable image of the demon, a public plague, a means invented by hell for the loss of men. How then could I prostitute my homage to it? I also know that every Christian who has the misfortune to turn back, to give himself over to criminal and infamous passions, walks straight to the abyss. By retreating, he leaves the straight path, falls immediately into the traps of the enemy of the human race and loses the reward that awaits him. For our God has prizes for virtue just as he has punishments for crime: he gives life to those who obey him and death to those who are rebellious to him. Is it not infinitely better for me to persevere with unshakeable firmness in the confession of my faith and thus arrive at the port where the eternal King awaits me, than to make, by following the demon who wants only my misfortune, a mortal and irreparable shipwreck?” “Since Symphorian refuses to obey and adds to his fault obstinacy, lictors, beat him with rods and lead him to prison,” said the proconsul, hoping no doubt that a painful and infamous flagellation, solitude, darkness, the boredom of the dungeon, time, and reflection would triumph over what he called a whim of a moment, an ostentation, a bravado of a young man. He did not yet know what a Christian was: he is beginning to learn it, he will soon know it.

The order of Heraclius was executed instantly. The noble son of Faustus was therefore beaten with rods, like a vile slave, and thrown covered in chains into a horrible and dark prison. But the God who knows how to give his faithful servants a consolation for every pain did not leave him there alone: he descended there with him, according to the expression of Scripture, and lightened the weight of the irons. Also, far from experiencing in the midst of suffering and in this abandonment by men the slightest failure of courage, the young martyr seemed not to feel the anguish that at this frightful moment seizes vulgar souls, holds them desperate under their cruel attacks, tightens, beats them down, and crushes them. Accustomed to living by the best part of himself with heaven rather than with the earth, he rested calm in a pious and sweet resignation; he dilated his heart in the heroic joy of having been judged worthy to undergo, by the example and for the love of the divine Master, the pain and ignominy of the flagellation; he raised it through prayer, that sublime conversation with God, that infallible resource, that supreme consolation which never fails the Christian, when all others have failed him on earth. He offered to Jesus Christ his first pains, the first fruits of his martyrdom; thanked him for having supported him in this first struggle; asked him to be willing to support him still, to inspire in him, for the glory of the Gospel, the vigorous words that he must throw publicly in the face of the pagans, against their worship and the shameful passions deified by this abominable worship: promising him, with the help of his grace, not to keep his words captive, but to speak always and until his last breath, as a Christian must speak, of idolatry and its criminal turpitudes. We will soon see how he kept his promise.

However, several days had passed. The proconsul, hoping that the young and proud patrician, his prisoner, had had enough time to make serious reflections and appreciate the recklessness of his conduct as well as the gravity of the danger that threatened him, ordered that he appear again. They are therefore going to take from the midst of the darkness of a horrible and gloomy cell, say the Acts of the martyr, the one whose soul must soon return, like a pure ray, to the hearth of divine light, its origin and its source. He leaves the narrow and dark depths of a cruel dungeon to go and inhabit the palace of the king of glory, a place of immense happiness and eternal light. There he is, continues the story, pale and emaciated. The knots formed by the bonds that entwine him now only weakly tighten his exhausted, bruised, and livid limbs. Already he has begun to die under the blows of the rods, under the weight of the chains, and in the horror of a murderous prison: slow tortures, repeated deaths, to which the shedding of blood, which is the last, only puts an end. But while in this long agony of suffering his life was thus flowing drop by drop, his soul had found in the solitary and sublime joy of his conscience, in the supernatural courage that animates the Christian, in the grace that strengthens and consoles him, a new vigor, a new impetus: it seemed to inhabit heaven in advance and forget the pains of the body in the anticipated enjoyment of eternal felicity. Heraclius, to triumph more surely this time, neglects nothing and prepares new weapons. “Worship the immortal gods,” he said, “and I promise you an eminent position in the army with a rich reward from the public treasury. It seems to me that you would do much better, instead of persisting in wanting to die, to accept the proposals that I am making to you at this moment. You only have to bow your knee before the venerable statue of the mother of the gods, to render your homage to Apollo and Diana. If you wish, bet; and I am going this very instant to have the altars of these three great divinities adorned with garlands. You will be presented with incense and perfumes, and you will offer a solemn sacrifice.” “Such words,” replied Symphorian, “you hold very poorly, a magistrate must not consume in frivolous speeches a time that belongs entirely to public affairs, and defer the sentence by uselessly prolonging the debates. I have already said it, never will I worship miserable idols; for I know too well that, if it is dangerous to remain a single day without advancing on the straight path that leads to salvation, it is much more so to go, by straying from the route, to break against the reefs of vice where sinners perish.”

The proconsul, astonished to see his calculations thwarted, nevertheless continued to use the same tactic that had just failed in such a complete manner; and, whether he wanted to be able to save the noble accused, or rather that he was ashamed to admit himself already defeated, he attempted a new effort, by making offers even more seductive than the first time, and resumed with apparent calm: “Sacrifice to the gods, Symphorian, and you will be filled with honors in the very palace of the prince, where you will occupy a place worthy of your birth.” Symphorian answered him: “A judge defiles the tribunal where he is seated, debases his dignity, devotes his life to the curse, to the opprobrium, and his soul to eternal death, when he dares to use to seduce or to strike innocence the authority with which he is invested to punish crime. As for the rest, as for me, I do not fear death; for we must all die, Heraclius. Why then would we not offer to Jesus Christ as a gift of our love what we will have to pay him one day as a debt? I will not let myself be won over by fallacious promises either. I know what all the favors you offer me are worth: your gifts are only poisons hidden under the appearance of a deceptive honey. Woe to those who let themselves be caught by these lying exteriors! For us, Christians, our riches are in Jesus Christ. Incorruptible and imperishable, they escape the destructive action of time: death itself cannot take them from us. Whereas greed, a fatal passion, inspired by the demon and seduced by the bait of a miserable gain, while appearing to possess everything, possesses nothing; because your riches and your joys escape you at every instant. They have the brilliance of glass, but they also have its fragility. All earthly things pass quickly: the slightest accident makes us lose them, or else the years, the days soon come to take them from us. In heaven, in God alone is found the true and constant beatitude. The most remote antiquity has not seen the beginning of his glory and all the succession of future centuries will not bring its end.” “It is enough and too long,” said Heraclius, “that I have had the patience to hear you discourse about I do not know what Christ. Sacrifice to the mother of the gods; or else today even the tortures and death.” “I fear only the almighty God who created me: I worship, I serve only him. You have power for a moment over my body; but my soul is beyond your reach. As for the worship of this idol, do you not see that it is only a monstrous superstition that makes your shame, your opprobrium, and your crime? Impure young men offer their infamy as an homage to the goddess; sacrilegious priests, honoring vice under the veil of religion, dare to call an execrable abomination a sacrifice; and what fills the measure, while all these horrors are accomplished, frightful corybantes in delirium execute, in frenetic concerts, dances and songs to celebrate and applaud them!”

Heraclius, deceived and defeated, outraged by a secret spite, full of a dark fury and unable to take it anymore, abruptly interrupted the martyr with these words of death, the last reason of the persecutors: “Symphorian, by publicly refusing to sacrifice to the gods of the empire, by openly insulting their worship, their altars, is convicted of the crime of sacrilege and rebellion, of divine and human lèse-majesté. Let him have his head cut off. Thus let the crime disappear with the criminal; thus let the injury done to religion and the laws be avenged.”

Symphorien heard the fatal sentence with that same humble, calm, and dignified courage that we have already seen in him, which excludes both ostentation and weakness and constitutes the distinctive character of truly great hearts and of souls that are Christianly strong. He expected it, and his sacrifice was made in advance; but at this decisive moment, he offered his life to God once again, and from then on his thoughts were no longer on earth. However, he leaves behind a beloved father and mother. Does he forget them? No, undoubtedly, and his heart speaks very loudly; for faith does not stifle nature, of which it is only the perfection. On the contrary, it comes to its aid in difficult hours to console it, to support it, and to transform it by raising it to its own height. The Christian soul, formed by the religion of Him who is called Love itself, is more open than any other to all legitimate affections. For Symphorien, so pious and consequently so loving, the separation is therefore very sad and keenly felt. It makes him experience in his son's heart the acute pain of the tearing of three hearts; it would be intolerable and despairing if faith did not tell him immediately that it is only momentary and similar to that of travelers who, leaving a foreign land one after the other, a little sooner or a little later, are assured of seeing each other again soon in their homeland. For him, at this moment when the world seems already to be slipping away from beneath his feet, filial love, like all other sentiments, has become celestial, because his conversation, according to the magnificent expression of the Apostle, is entirely in the heavens.

However, everything is being prepared for the immolation of the young and innocent victim who had just been devoted to death, or rather, everything is being readied in heaven and on earth for the triumph of the valiant soldier of Jesus Christ who, already victorious in the first battles, was about to receive the palm while marching toward a new and final victory.

Thus begins the great scene of the sacrifice. Facing an immense crowd, eager for spectacles and especially for bloody spectacles, Symphorien stands, calm and recollected in prayer. One would say that he sees nothing, hears nothing. At this solemn hour, the brow of the young hero shines more than ever with that indescribable something that ravishes the earth and seems to belong more to the angel than to the man. Soon the lictors, raising their axes and their fasces, signs of power, place themselves at his sides, some on the right, others on the left. In front and behind, one sees soldiers and officers of Heraclius. The proconsul himself is on horseback, ready to command the march: they are only waiting for his order to head toward the place of execution, along the great street leading from the praetorium to that gate which still raises its superb arches today and has received from the Christian centuries the name of Saint-André. At the given signal, everything moves, and the pressing waves of the multitude open while trembling. Beyond and near the gate, under the walls of the city, the public field extends along the road to Langres. It is there that the martyr's head must fall; for, according to Roman laws, capital executions do not take place within the enclosure of the ramparts.

However, they are approaching the fatal end. Here are the ramparts with the great gate that dominates them. Already Symphorien has been able to glimpse through the wide arches the place designated for his execution; but he has not trembled... Suddenly a woman runs up... It is Augusta, it is his mother. Faustus perhaps and some friends accompany her. Like the mother of Jesus, she wanted to witness the passion of her son. But what is she going to do? Has nature prevailed over faith in her maternal heart? Does she come to soften with her tears this beloved son who has courageously persisted in wanting to die? The pagans who see her and who say: "Behold the mother of the Christian!" think so, no doubt. But no: she will know how to understand and fulfill to the end her great duties, her truly supernatural role; to the end she will be such as we have always seen her, a truly strong woman, a tender and devoted mother, a heroically Christian mother, or rather, she is going to surpass herself. Armed with all the courage of her great soul and her even greater faith; tearing herself away from her home, from her family, from her sorrow which would have desired, like all great sorrows, to remain mute and solitary to feed upon itself; renouncing even the intimate consolations of a prayer poured out secretly into the bosom of the only Consoler, far from eyes and far from noise, she has come to see Symphorien one last time and to follow him to death. She does not fear crossing the crowd of the curious and the indifferent; she braves the pitiless and insolent populace, the lictors, the sight of weapons, the presence, the severe, hard, and threatening air of the persecutor of Christians, of the executioner of her son. What are dangers and trembling hatreds to her? She does not even think of them. She said to herself: "Symphorien, in his final moments, in the face of death, may perhaps need a consolation, an encouragement, a holy word. Alone, in the midst of the executioners and the apparatus of the execution, it will be very easy to hear a friendly voice that speaks to him of God. And when he has seen me, his mother, exhorting him one last time to die for Jesus Christ, he will go with an even firmer and more joyful step to consummate his sacrifice; and I will be more certain of having brought him forth only for heaven."

That is why she hastens, splitting the astonished crowd which opens with an instinctive respect for her sorrow, she approaches that same rampart whose eloquent ruins, forever consecrated by such a great spectacle, are still before our eyes today. Suddenly, at the moment when Symphorien has just crossed the gate, a voice rises and silences the clamors of the multitude who watch and remain la mère du martyr Mother of Saint Symphorian, famous for having encouraged her son during his execution. struck, amazed, in expectation of the outcome of this moving scene. The martyr's mother has leaned over the parapet; and there, a new Maccabean, she addresses to him with an indescribable accent, with the strength and sweetness of a celestial enthusiasm, these words that the Church has rendered twice holy, twice immortal by adopting them in its liturgy: "My son! my son! Symphorien! think of the living God. Courage! dear child, courage! Can we fear death, the death that leads undoubtedly to life? Lift your heart on high, my son; see Him who reigns in heaven. No, life is not taken from you: it is today, on the contrary, that it is transformed for you into a better life; today that you are going, my son, by a happy exchange, to receive for this perishable life the eternal life of the heavens!"

Symphorien has recognized his mother's voice. He turns and lifts toward her and toward heaven, with an expression that seems to be in advance that of the beatific vision, his eyes and his hands, one of which then lowered to rest on his heart and thus say to his mother more than his mouth could have said to her. That was indeed his only but eloquent response. Augusta understood it; she saw the soul of her child, already almost detached from the body, pass entirely into this sublime gesture of faith, of gratitude, and of filial piety, in this look at once tender and illuminated with a divine radiance, on this angelic brow all radiant with hope and love, on this transfigured face of the Christian hero who is her son. It seemed to her that she already saw shining around his head the halo of the martyrs united to that of the virgins, and his arm extending to seize the palm and the crown that his brothers from heaven were bringing him. She gave, she received the supreme consolation; her last duty and the last wish of her heart were fulfilled, her sacrifice consummated. Resigned, submissive to the divine will, but moved, trembling, and all shaken by the shock of the two strongest sentiments that can collide in a human soul; a mother at once very happy but very afflicted, and all palpitating, she still casts from the top of the walls a long look full of tears upon her son, she renews to God the offering of this head so dear that is about to fall under the sword of the Romans, and withdraws, thanking Him for having chosen her to give birth to a martyr. After this superhuman effort of faith against nature, saintly proud but broken, always Christian but also always a mother, she goes to hide in the secret of the face of the Lord and to pour out into the hearts of Jesus and Mary, who they too had known great sorrows with great devotions, her resigned sighs and her tears, this blood of her maternal heart which she mingled with the blood of her son, at the same time that Faustus, animated by the faith of Abraham, was also making in the most secret depths of his soul as a Christian and a father, with an effort of a generous spontaneity, it is true, but incalculable, the tearing sacrifice of the unique and dear object of his hopes that God had just asked of him. Soon they arrive at the place of execution. Full of his own courage and the courage of his mother, Symphorien throws himself on his knees, joins his hands, and prays, awaiting the fatal blow that will break his mortal shell. His heart does not give a regret to the enjoyments of this earthly life, to the hopes that gild the horizon of youth. The Christians, their souls full of the emotions of tenderness and religious respect, without breath and without voice, their eyes fixed on the martyr, unite their prayers to his. Already they believe they see shining on his brow a crown that descends from the heavens, and God seems to smile upon him. Finally, he has offered his life one last time, he has been able to say again: "Lord, I commit my soul into your hands; O Jesus, receive it!" Then he gently bows his head and falls with a sublime simplicity, under the eyes of this crowd, perhaps less agitated at this supreme and solemn moment by hatred and anger than palpitating with pity and admiration; almost under the eyes of his mother, weeping supernatural tears of love and joy, saintly proud of the young victor to whom she gave birth, contemplating him and invoking him already as her guardian angel in the abode of glory. It is done, then, the victim is immolated: his head has just been severed by the sword, and his soul, which hovered above the earth and of which the earth was not worthy, is already in heaven. It flew there with his last prayer mingled with his last sigh, on August 22, around the year 180. Symphorien is no longer of this world; to use a common term, he is dead, but with the death of heroes, with the death of saints, with the death that makes one immortal.

Saint Symphorien has been depicted by artists in five circumstances: his baptism, his judgment, the moment he is exhorted by his mother, the moment he receives death, and finally his beatitude in heaven. The famous abbey of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon possessed a group of great antiquity, placed in the chapel of Saint-Grégoire, a few steps from the altar of Saint-Irénée. One could see there the young son of Faustus receiving baptism from Saint Bénigne by immersion and infusion together. This figure was very instructive: it showed how baptism was once administered. Saint Symphorien was represented there in a vessel (a baptismal font) stripped of his clothes to the waist. On the edges of this vase, there was a cloth which was apparently placed there to cover the saint upon leaving the sacred pool. Beside him, Saint Bénigne, dressed in his priestly vestments as if to say Mass, held a ewer from which he poured water over the child. He was assisted by another priest (Saint Andoche), dressed like him and with a shaved head, with a small circle of hair, as most religious wore. Unfortunately, this group, which served as a voice for history, for Burgundian traditions, and for the ancient liturgy, no longer exists. It was destroyed by the Revolution. The chapel of Saint-Symphorien, at the cathedral of Autun, is adorned with a painting also representing the interesting inauguration of the apostolate of the disciples of Saint Polycarp in these regions through the baptism of our young and illustrious martyr. The child is on the edge of the regenerating fountain, and Saint Bénigne, dressed in priestly ornaments, calls down upon him the heavenly blessings that were to be so abundant.

Above the high altar, in the church of Saint-Jean-d'Angle (diocese of La Rochelle), a painting represents the Saint in that most remarkable circumstance where his acts show him displaying in the presence of his judge a pride that is as modest as it is indomitable, an eloquent and firm frankness, and a sublime magnanimity. One sees there the young martyr before Heraclius, surrounded by lictors, and his mother who encourages him to persevere by pointing to heaven.

One sees at the cathedral of Autun a painting representing the martyrdom of Saint Symphorien. In the center of the painting, the saint is in an attitude expressing energy, devotion, and at the same time the calm of faith; his face is turned toward his mother who, from the top of the ramparts and surrounded by her husband and her household, fervently exhorts her son to persevere in his heroic resolution; behind him, the proconsul, dressed in purple, points with his hand to the place where the sacrifice must be accomplished; — to the left of the proconsul walks a priest dressed in white, having before him a little girl with her head crowned with flowers and holding in her hands the box of perfumes; — a little in front of the martyr, the lictors with athletic forms carrying the fasces and the insignia of authority; one of them, turned toward his master, seems at once to collect his orders and listen to the words that the mother of Symphorien is speaking; the other, who obeys only with difficulty, indicates, by the sagging of his arm and the moral pain that saddens his face, the sympathy inspired in him by the Christian hero in whose death he is about to participate; — around these main characters, the crowd presses, animated by diverse convictions and intentions: to the left of the Saint, a young boy picks up a pebble and looks at the heroic mother, as if he wanted to make it the target of his anger; behind the proconsul, a young patrician on horseback, in an arrogant attitude, fixes his eyes on Augusta, as if to defy her faith; on the other side, a centurion pushes back the importunate mob with his pike; here and there, a few heads indicate that brutal curiosity that the spectacle of an execution never fails to excite, but it is easy to see that almost all the witnesses of this grandiose scene feel won over by the courage and fervor of this young Christian whose pale head is about to roll before their eyes; they instinctively admire a religion that gives enough strength to leave everything, mother and family, smiling promises of a fortunate life and a youth in its flower. We will cite, as expressing this proselytism more particularly, the character placed at the left corner of the painting: his hair and beard are unkempt; he is covered in coarse clothing; his hand is clenched on his chest; faith is violently taking hold of his soul. At his side, a beautiful naked child shows both his pity for the martyr and his hatred for the executioners. Behind them, a young woman fixes her eyes full of anguish on Symphorien; she seems to say to herself with dread, while probing the future, that the child she still nourishes with her milk and whom she holds in her arms could also, when he is of an age to think and fight for his beliefs, be torn from her and led to the scaffold.

Three paintings represent the executioner consuming the sacrifice of the holy victim by cutting off his head and allowing his beautiful soul to fly to heaven. One is in the cathedral of Saint-Flour. — The second is a painting on glass that one can still see in the famous abbey church of Saint-Denis near Paris. The stained-glass window where it is found adorns the chapel which is under the invocation of Saint Hippolyte, the third on the north side. One notices there a kind of small square medallion of about thirty centimeters. On the left is a turret: the artist probably wanted to represent one of the city gates to recall what history says about the mother of Saint Symphorien, exhorting her son to martyrdom from the top of this gate. On the right, one sees two trees; on the middle plane, the executioner armed with a sword and the Saint offering his head to the executioner, one knee on the ground and both hands crossed, resting on the other knee. — The fourth painting representing the beheading of our Saint is in the church of Saint-Symphorien-de-Lay. One sees the young martyr on his knees, his neck bare and his eyes fixed on an angel holding a crown in his hand. Opposite him is the proconsul who points to the statue of Cybele; behind, the executioner, his arm armed with the sword and already raised to strike.

Two paintings represent him in heaven. One is a painting that adorns the high altar of the church of Maraussan. The other is a mural painting, on a gold background, which decorates the apsidal vault of the chapel recently erected in the enclosure of the country house of the major seminary of Autun, on the very site where the basilica of the abbey of Saint-Martin once stood, and before it the ancient temple of Saron, changed by the apostle-pontiff into a Christian church. The skillful artist has represented in the midst of the splendors of eternal glory Our Lord having beside him, on one side the young martyr of Autun, and on the other the great bishop of Tours. Both pray for the young levites whom they contemplate with interest from the heights of the heavenly homeland, preparing themselves to enter the sacred battalion of the Church militant, to also merit crowns in the Church triumphant.

The church of Crissey, a parish under the invocation of Saint Symphorien and formerly under the collation of the Chapter of Saint-Vincent of Châlon, possesses a remarkable stained-glass window that summarizes almost all the iconography of the martyr. This stained-glass window bears the date 1525. It occupies the back of the choir apse. Although partially mutilated, it still offers four very interesting panels. The first represents the baptism of Saint Symphorien. One reads in Gothic characters of the time: *Symphorianus baptizatur*. The young son of Faustus is dressed in a white robe and immersed in a baptismal font. In the second, the Saint dressed in a red robe is led before the statue of Venus placed on a column: *Ducitur Veneri libare*. In the third, Saint Symphorien is beaten with rods: *In flagellis atteritur*. In the fourth, he is led to death and exhorted by his mother: *Ad decollationem ducitur, a matre animatur*. Below the panels, one sees the soul of the martyr presented to Our Lord crucified and dressed in a tunic.

As for the other painted representations of Saint Symphorien, there are none, at least that we know of, that deserve to be signaled; and his statues are reduced almost entirely to a single type provided by history, that of an adolescent holding a palm in his hand. The Saint has also been represented as decapitated martyrs were often represented in the past, that is to say, carrying their head in their hands. At Trévoux, by a unique and curious singularity, Saint Symphorien is represented as a knight on the tokens of the former Chapter. — Finally, there exists in Autun a small engraving where one sees at the feet of the Saint the axe with which he would have liked to break the simulacrum of Cybele, and the overturned vase where the burning coals were, on which he refused to throw, in honor of the goddess, the grain of incense that the proconsul demanded. He has his eyes raised on high, and already an angel comes from heaven to bring him the crown.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The body of our illustrious Martyr was placed in a small cell, near a fountain close to the place where he had been beheaded. It was there that the faithful, and even the pagans, witnessed the numerous miracles that occurred and venerated him immediately after his death.

Towards the end of the 4th century, Saint Simplicius, Bishop of Autun, erected a chapel over the miraculous tomb, which he consecrated with the assistance of Saint Amator, Bishop of Auxerre. In the first half of the 5th cen saint Euphrone Bishop of Autun in the 5th century, builder of the Basilica of Saint Symphorian. tury, the great bishop Saint Euphronius built, very close to that spot, a famous abbey and a superb basilica under the name of the holy Martyr, in which he placed the sacred relics. In the latter half of the 7th century, Saint Leodegar had a new tomb built in the same basilica for the glorious Martyr. A translation then took place. The young son of Saint Faustus and Saint Augusta, who had apparently been placed first in the atrium of the basilica built by Saint Euphronius, was deposited in the crypt with his father and his admirable mother, as if in a family polyandrum. Cardinal Rolin, Bishop of Autun, while having the church repaired around 1467, indeed found in the underground chapel three sandstone tombs and a tablet bearing the following inscription:

*Faustus et Augusta jacent inter hæc duo busta; Integer et sanus medius jacet Symphorianus.*

"Faustus and Augusta lie between these two tombs; the whole and intact body of Symphorian lies in the middle one."

The Cardinal then took a portion of these relics, which he preciously enshrined in a silver reliquary weighing fifty marks, which was placed in the upper church.

In 1570, Admiral de Coligny, having pillaged and burned the mon l'amiral de Coligny Huguenot leader responsible for the destruction of relics in 1570. astery, had the relics thrown into the fire. However, it was possible to retrieve from the ashes some fragments that have been preserved to this day and still bear the traces of the flames that altered them. After the reconstruction of the church at the beginning of the following century, the three sandstone tombs, transported from the crypt to the upper church, were placed in an elevated position in order to better attract the gaze of the faithful and satisfy their piety. Later, in the 18th century, the religious of Saint-Symphorien placed the three sandstone tombs inside a magnificent altar they had just had built. In 1803, this altar was transported, along with the three tombs, to the church of Notre-Dame d'Autun, and the greater part of the relics from these same tombs were taken to the cathedral. Legal inquiries conducted at that time confirmed the preservation of a portion of the relics thrown into the fire in 1570, and subsequently dispersed during the Revolution. These precious remains are today in the shrines of the cathedral. A recent procedure has corroborated the first. The head of Saint Symphorian, which was not in the great basilica burned by Admiral de Coligny, but in the small church of Saint-Pantaléon-lès-Autun, built, it seems, on the site of the ancient primitive oratory of which we have spoken, escaped the fury of the Huguenots. A solemn translation of it was made during the 17th century to the abbey of Saint-Martin-lès-Autun; but this precious relic is unfortunately lost.

The feast of Saint Symphorian has always been celebrated solemnly. During the ages of faith, a great number of pilgrims traveled to his tomb, placed under the guard of the Canons Regular who, until the Revolution, occupied his abbey and served his church. Like the most illustrious Martyrs, Saint Symphorian has the signal honor of being mentioned in the Roman liturgy.

His cult is currently experiencing a new expansion. The Bishop of Autun has issued a mandate by which he gives the young Martyr as patron to the schools of the diocese, and has established for this purpose a new special annual feast.

Near the place where the Saint was martyred and originally buried, a church has been erected which will serve to revive the cult dear to the people of Autun.

In the diocese of Autun and in most of the dioceses of France, a great number of churches are under the invocation or patronage of Saint Symphorian.

This illustrious Doctor of the Church flourished at the beginning of the 3rd century. Saint Jerome says that he could not discover of which city he was bishop; but Gelasius, in his book on the two natures of Jesus Christ, calls him metropolitan of Arabia. According to Photius, he was a disciple of Saint Irenaeus, as well as of Clement of Alexandria, and a master of Oedemus. We learn from Eusebius and Saint Jerome that he wrote commentaries on several parts of Scripture, and that it was his example that later spurred Origen to do the same. A collection of his homilies existed in the time of Theodoret, who cites several; there was also a letter from him to the Empress Severa, wife of Philip, in which he treated the mystery of the Incarnation and the resurrection of the dead. In his work against Noetus, of which a considerable part remains, he clearly proves the distinction of persons in the Trinity, the divinity of the Son of God, and the distinction of natures in Jesus Christ; his authority was later used to great advantage against the Eutychians. He composed a chronicle that ended in the year 222, but which has not yet been discovered in any of the known Greek manuscripts. His paschal cycle, which fixes the time for celebrating the feast of Easter for a period of sixteen years, beginning in the first year of Alexander Severus, is the oldest work we have of this kind. We still have fragments of his commentaries on Scripture, and his homily on the Theophany or Epiphany, in which he speaks mainly of the baptism of Jesus Christ and the marvelous effects of the Sacrament of regeneration. One regrets the loss of his treatise on the Saturday fast; the one titled: *Whether a Christian should receive communion every day*; his hymns on Holy Scripture; his books *on the Origin of Good and Evil*; those he had composed against Marcion, *against heresies*, etc. In this last work, he refuted thirty-two sects, counting from the Dositheans to Noetus, who confused the persons in the Trinity and who dogmatized in Smyrna in 245.

In 1661, the book *on the Antichrist*, composed by Saint Hippolytus and mentioned by Eusebius, Saint Jerome, etc., was discovered and published. There is no doubt that it is the same work as the one mentioned by Photius. In it, the holy Doctor denounces, according to Daniel and the other Prophets, the signs by which one will recognize the Antichrist who is to come at the end of the world.

Saint Jerome calls Saint Hippolytus *a most holy and most eloquent man*. Saint Chrysostom and other ecclesiastical writers give him the honorable epithets of *source of light*, *faithful witness*, *most holy doctor*, and *man filled with sweetness and charity*. Theodoret places him in the same class as Saint Irenaeus, and calls them both *the spiritual fountains of the Church*.

Martyrologies of the 8th century, George Syncellus, Zonaras, and Anastasius say that Saint Hippolytus was bishop of Porto, in Italy. But they confused this city with that of Aden, in Arabia, which was also anciently called the *Roman Port*. It appears at least that there was a bishopric of that name in Arabia. Those who placed him in Italy would undoubtedly have mistaken our Saint for the one mentioned by Saint Prudentius.

The best edition we have of the works of Saint Hippolytus is the one that Fabricius gave in Hamburg in 1716, with dissertations, 2 vol. in-folio.

Excerpt from Godescard.