Saint Valerian of Tournus

But hell, jealous of so many successes, wished to stop their course and avenge its losses through the death of Valerian. The instrument that had served it so well at Chalon would serve it again. Priscus Influential citizen of Chartres who protected the cult of the Virgin. Priscus, the dreadful Priscus, still stained with the blood of Marcellus, undertook a journey to Lyon. Only ten days had passed since the martyrdom of the apostle. He was undoubtedly going to bring the news of his exploits to that city, to adorn himself with them as a glory, and to receive an ovation worthy of him there. And so he departed, already marching like a triumpher. He embarked on the Saône with part of his escort and his baggage, while the other part followed parallel along the main road, and everywhere the herald's voice announced his presence. That same evening, September 14, he arrived in Tournus in the midst of this almost royal procession.

There, while he matched, with a barbaric and senseless joy, the delights of the feast with the account of the death of Marcellus, he was informed that Valerian, the other Christian prisoner who had escaped from the dungeons of Lugdunum, was hiding in the vicinity and had already made numerous proselytes. Both cruel and ambitious, he shuddered at this news with a ferocious pleasure. For would he not reach a double goal with the same blow? He would give himself once again the spectacle, still so piquant for him because of its rarity, of the death of a Christian in the midst of torments. And then, how proud he would be to appear before the eyes of the prefect with this added merit and glory! The opportunity was too good not to take advantage of it. He could not let this new prey escape: he wanted to have him in his hands that very day. "Let them go in search of Valerian," he shouted to his men, "let them find him and bring him to me tomorrow morning. I must have this Christian."

The tyrant's satellites, led by some pagans, soon discovered the Apostle's dwelling. The latter, believing that they were neophytes coming to find him, rose immediately to go and receive them, making the sign of the cross, offered them with his usual charity a cordial hospitality, and begged them with a touching kindness, capable of softening the hardest hearts, to please accept something. But they, like cruel wolves that nothing can tame, threw themselves upon the gentle lamb; and while preparing the chains with which they were to cover him to take him away captive, they overwhelmed him with outrages and asked him with derision: "What is this sign that you have just made upon your person? What singular ornament decorates this wall?" "And here it is again," said another, noticing the cross that the Saint wore under his cloak.

Valerian, following the example of the divine Master, surrendered himself to them, without offering the slightest resistance, without opening his mouth to complain; and, preoccupied with a single thought, the glory of God and the salvation of these poor people who do not know what they are doing, he hastened to take advantage of this opportunity to make Jesus Christ known to them. "This sign that I have made," he replied with a noble and kind air, and with an accent full of conviction and sweetness, "this sacred object that adorns my dwelling and my breast, is the image of the cross upon which the Son of God, through infinite love, died in our place to spare us an eternal death and to merit for us the immense happiness of immortal life in the heavens." — "Escaped from prison," replied these wretches, well worthy, it seems, of being the instruments of their master's cruelty, "do you then not fear, any more than your companion Marcellus, to confess yourself a Christian? But we shall soon see." — "Yes, I am the companion of Marcellus, and I glory in it. Like him, I am a Christian. Nothing will prevent me from proclaiming it, and it will be the last word that will leave my mouth with my final breath."

During this dialogue, the preparations for departure had been completed. The Saint had his hands tied behind his back, he was loaded with chains and dragged in this manner like the lowest of villains before the tribunal of Priscus. The tyrant, fixing a tawny eye upon him, similar to that of a ferocious beast whose cruelty he had in his heart, said to him: "You are this Valerian who always has the name of a certain Christ on his lips, are you not? Wretch, who exposes yourself to death for a kind of error! Perhaps you do not know the fate of your companion Marcellus, victim of the same obstinacy in the same reveries?" — "I know everything," Valerian replied in a grave and modest, yet firm tone. "It is you who do not know that by speaking to me of the glorious death of my blessed brother, you only give me one more motive to excite my courage. He has conquered you: his example will teach me to fight valiantly like him, in order to win the victory as he did." — "Take care of yourself and adore the immortal gods, such is the will of our most divine emperor. And learn that these gods, objects of our worship, do indeed exist; for their entire divine race was once seen on earth by our ancestors and now reigns in heaven. Now, it is their images that are before your eyes. Here is the all-powerful Jupiter, with Juno his wife and sister; there is Venus, the daughter of this great god; there is Mars, there is Vulcan, who are the brothers and at the same time the husbands of this goddess. We are therefore quite right to worship these sacred images. Offer them your homage too, or else I will inflict upon you torments far more terrible than those I have made your worthy colleague Marcellus suffer."

Then the Saint spoke, less to defend himself than to instruct those present by making them point to the ridiculousness of paganism. "All this display," he said with a tone of authority and celestial inspiration, "shows me that you are indeed the magistrate, invested in this region with public authority; but in truth, I would have difficulty believing it, if I did not consider your ignorance. For, after all, in speaking as you have just done, you cast discredit, as if for pleasure, upon the decrees of the prince and the laws of the empire. What! You dare to name such deities! You call gods infamous incestuous beings who were the husbands of their own sisters! But your words are sacrilegious, insulting blasphemies against both religion and the very authority of which you are the depositary. Do you not know that the laws forbid and punish incest? And what is a crime and a shame among men, you want me to approve and venerate in the gods! You are not thinking, and you condemn yourself. How I pity you!... You were speaking to me just now of my brother Marcellus. Ah! If only you had been shaken by the spectacle of his courage! If only you had understood the high lesson he was giving you! Instead of speaking so indignantly of the divinity, you would worship, like him, like me, the only true all-powerful God, creator and master of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ his son, the innocent victim who was willing to take on a life similar to ours, in order to sacrifice it to expiate the crimes of guilty humanity and give us, through his glorious resurrection, an assurance of our own resurrection for the heaven where he reigns and will reign for all ages. There is the true living God. He is found neither in a block of stone nor in a piece of metal; but he is worshipped through faith in the eternal temple."

"Ah! You are not afraid," said the president, astonished, but seeking to hide his astonishment, "of all these instruments of torture that surround you; furthermore, while spouting your delirious nonsense, you dare to speak to me as if the roles were reversed and you were the judge and I the accused! Now, it is my turn. Your death in the midst of torments will show us which are the most powerful, our gods or yours." — "Yes, we shall see," replied the generous confessor of the faith in an energetic tone and with a calm but assured gaze, under the weight of which Priscus found himself almost trembling. "My companions have already shown it enough in Lyon, in Vienne, in Chalon, by triumphing over the same tortures with which you threaten me: and I hope, by their example and by the grace of God, to show it to you as well by triumphing as they did." Suddenly, Priscus, in a fury, ordered him to be tied to a post and torn with iron claws. As the holy martyr, assisted by Our Lord Jesus Christ, seemed not to suffer from this horrible torture and did not cease to praise God, the tyrant, ashamed to see himself defeated, and especially fearing that the spectators, already struck by the superhuman constancy and the heavenly air of his victim, might declare themselves Christians if the spectacle lasted any longer, hastened to finish it. "Take him away from here," he said with dark fury and poorly concealed spite, "and cut off his head." The order was carried out instantly.

During the journey, Valerian, full of joy, gave thanks to God who was willing to give him, in exchange for a few days of a perishable life, an eternal reward. Soon he arrived at the place of execution. There, while kneeling on the ground and about to receive the blow that would break his mortal shell, he thought of the first deacon, the first martyr, his patron, his model, and as he, a deacon and martyr himself, prayed for his executioners and lifted his eyes to heaven saying: "Lord, receive my soul!" Saint Stephen appeared to him in the midst of divine glory, holding in his hand a crown that he presented to him on behalf of the supreme Rewarder. A moment later, the valiant athlete of Jesus Christ was to receive this prize reserved for the victor, on September 17, around the year 178. His head had just fallen in this very place that his memory, his name, his cult, and his precious remains have consecrated forever.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

The faithful, having buried the body of Saint Valerian, did not delay in erecting a small oratory over his tomb where divine worship was celebrated. After the conversion of Constantine, the humble sanctuary, no longer sufficient for the multitude of pilgrims, was transformed into a basilica. By the 6th century, this church was already ancient, for, according to Gregory of Tours who came himself to pray before the body of the holy martyr, it was already in need of major repairs. The king had a basilica built in his honor. Later, this abbey, having received Géun and his monks, who brought with them th e body of Saint saint Philibert Founder of Jumièges whose relics were transferred to Tournus. Philibert to save it from the profanations of the Normans, took the name of this saint, the founder of Jumièges and Noirmoutier (875). But the cult of Saint Valerian, far from diminishing, received new luster. In the 10th century, Abbot Stephen I, after repairing the devastations of the barbarians in the church and the abbey, first had a new altar erected over the stone tomb containing the body of the Apostle of Tournus. This tomb was in the crypt. On January 26, 580, his bones were removed from the tomb: the head was placed in a special reliquary made entirely of gold and adorned with precious stones, representing the bust of the Saint; the small cross that rested on his chest was enclosed in a silver casket; all the large bones were deposited in a superb shrine; the smallest part of the relics was left in the old stone tomb, which was hermetically sealed. The relics were then carried in triumph and placed on the high altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. This translation was followed by a great number of miracles.

The cult of Saint Valerian endured through the centuries, despite revolutions. In 1006, the abbey and the church having been consumed by fire, Abbot Bernère, fifteen years later, rebuilt them and had them dedicated. Later, the church being too small for the number of the faithful, which had increased considerably, a second one was built, which, under the name of the holy martyr, became the parish church. In 1562, the Protestants pillaged the church and the abbey, consigned the body of the holy martyr to the flames, and cast its ashes to the wind or into the Saône. There remains in the old and beautiful church of Saint-Philibert only a few fragments of this sacred body and the stone tomb where it had rested for so long, the rest having been destroyed by the impiety of the revolutionaries.

The stone on which the Saint had his head severed was enclosed in the altar of a chapel built in his honor in the church of the hospital of Chalon. This chapel having been demolished in 1796, the venerated stone was placed in the altar of the Blessed Sacrament chapel. In 1851, a confraternity was formed under the patronage of Saint Valerian, which received the approval of the Holy See.

Acta Sanctorum; Dinet: Saint Symphorien and his cult; Proper of Autun.