Saint Sanctinus

He therefore came to the borders of the lands that the author calls, by anticipation, Neustria and Austrasia, w ith the priest An le prêtre Antonin Roman emperor under whose reign the martyrdom is situated. tonin, his companion, and they learned that the Gospel had not yet been preached in Verdun. Before entering this entirely pagan city, they stopped on the mountain, between the south and the west, in the place where the hermitage of Saint-Barthélemy would later be. They were deeply pained there to see the abominable sacrifices that the idolaters of the city and the countryside offered to demons under monstrous figures known as Fauns and Satyrs. While their hearts, inflamed by their apostolic zeal, rose to heaven to ask God for the conversion of so many souls abandoned to the prey of demons, they saw three doves fluttering in the air, which came to land on the branches of the trees covered by the altars of these idols; taking this as a sign of the success of their preaching, they began to announce the worship of the true God in that place. They lodged in a neighboring house, situated near the place where the church of Saint-Vanne was built; Saint Saintin built an altar there to celebrate the holy mysteries and obtain the conversion of the people of Verdun. Armed with a holy confidence in the all-powerful virtue of Jesus Christ, he would stop those who passed before this house to go and worship the idols, asking them if statues of stone and wood, which have neither life nor movement, could make them happy, and if reason and common sense did not tell them that they should rather address themselves to the living God, creator of heaven and earth, to obtain the health and other goods they desired. He intimidated them with the fear of the eternal punishments they deserved by rendering divine honors to figures made by the hands of men, and by committing several other sins against the laws of the great Master of the universe, who will infallibly punish those who have not obtained pardon for them through penance. Those whom he saw disposed to listen to him were encouraged by him to come to the instructions he gave every day; he visited them in their homes to maintain and strengthen their good dispositions, insinuating himself little by little into the families that showed less opposition to the truths he explained to them familiarly. He then preached before the people of the city assembled in the public squares. All admired the poverty of his clothes, the majesty of his face, the eloquence of his speeches, and the efficacy of the miracles he performed to confound those who contradicted the Gospel.

Some said that he was filled with a divine virtue that made him powerful in works and in words; but most of the others opposed the change of religion as much as they could, whether out of interest or out of attachment to their superstitious worship and to the vices and disorders of their passions. Those who manufactured the idols of wood, marble, gold, and silver, which each family worshipped as its tutelary gods, made every effort to decry Saint Saintin as a seducer and a madman who wanted to abolish the ancient religion of this city to make them worship a crucified man; their partisans turned all the holy truths into ridicule. They employed imposture, calumny, and all sorts of insults to stir up the people against the holy bishop when he appeared in the public squares. The magistrates, who were no less opposed to the change of religion, authorized the mistreatment that the fury of the idolaters could invent to prevent the establishment of Christianity in this city: it is not seen, however, that they took any legal action against the person of Saint Saintin; our historians speak neither of imprisonment nor of torture; but they allowed the vexations proper to prevent the preaching of the Gospel, and they incited frequent popular riots to mistreat Saint Saintin and load him with insults. He was several times outrageously struck, wounded, and thrown half-dead out of the city.

This mistreatment did not discourage him; he was prepared to sacrifice his life and to suffer the most cruel torments for the salvation of those who persecuted him; and, groaning over their blindness, he did not cease to pray to God for their conversion. The more he was persecuted by the idolaters, the more his courage was animated and strengthened to overcome the opposition he found in Verdun to the establishment of the Christian religion. The divine love with which his heart was all inflamed increased his constancy and made him invincible. He continued his public preaching when he could find the opportunity, and he instructed in secret in the houses that received him out of commiseration as a poor man of Jesus Christ, devoid of all the goods of this world, but very full of divine riches. His patience, his candor, his gentleness, and the joy of his heart that shone through in all his actions, in the midst of insults and outrages, touched those who were the least opposed to the truths of the Gospel, and who were prepared by the movements of grace. Many cried out that this man was animated by the Holy Spirit and that God spoke and acted in him, and they asked for baptism. The fervor of these first faithful was all the greater as they were more mistreated by their parents and friends, who deprived them of their company and the other goods of civil life. This mistreatment increased even more when pagan influence regained the upper hand under the reign of the apostate princes, and most of the faithful were forced to withdraw into the caves of the solitude of Flabas, three leagues from this city, where they lived by the work of their hands and in the exercises of penance. The small number of the faithful who remained in the city generously suffered the contempt, the stinging mockery, the insults, and the opprobrium they received from their fell ow pag Flabas Place of retreat for the first Christians of Verdun. an citizens. They were strengthened by the examples of the two apostolic men, who exhorted them continually to the practice of good works and exercised them in prayer and the meditation of the Holy Scriptures, of which they gave them the explanation, without discontinuing their care for the conversion of the idolaters. This work was long and very painful. Saint Saintin could only with great difficulty form subjects capable of helping him in his instructions, the lack of letters and sciences, which were not taught in Verdun, making the people very coarse and ignorant; this was the main reason why the Christian religion was only established slowly in this diocese.

Saint Saintin made the journey to Rome with the pri est Ant Antonin Roman emperor under whose reign the martyrdom is situated. oninus, who fell ill in Italy with a fever from which he died. But he was resurrected by the prayers of Saint Saintin. After reporting to the Pope the martyrdom of Saint Denis, first bishop of Paris, they gave him an account of the establishment of the Christian religion in Verdun, where they were sent back with three other evangelical workers, of whom history names only Saint Maur. Upon his return, Saint Saintin governed the Christians of Verdun, enriching his new Church with what he was able to bring from the Confession of the sepulcher of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

He continued his apostolic labors there for twenty-one years with indefatigable zeal. It was not without difficulty that he formed his clergy; he found few subjects who were literate and capable of helping him in the evangelical work he had begun. Moreover, the alms and offerings of a small number of the faithful were not sufficient to sustain them; the rich of this city were always opposed to the preaching of the Gospel, which required detachment from the goods, honors, and pleasures of the world. But the holy bishop, trusting in the all-powerful virtue of Jesus Christ, applied himself only to establishing His reign. He chose those who were most pious and docile among the faithful; he instructed them in the science of the Holy Scriptures, to prepare them to receive ordination. Saint Maur, who was his first Saint Maur Disciple of Saint Benedict who saved Placidus from drowning. disciple and the first priest ordained in Verdun, gave great luster to this holy school. The austerity of his exemplary life led him to take charge of the conduct of the solitaries who had retired to the desert of Flabas. The other disciples of Saint Saintin had no less fervor: they assisted him in the celebration of the holy Mysteries, in the psalmody of the praises of God, in the administration of the sacraments, and in the instructions he gave in the city and the countryside, with the three missionaries he had brought from Rome. The zeal of our holy bishop was not limited to the diocese of Verdun. As he wished to ensure the establishment of the churches he had founded, he made several journeys into the provinces where he had planted the Christian faith. In these apostolic travels, he strengthened the people through his preaching, supported the pastors with his wise and prudent counsel, and took precautions to ward off from the churches the heresy of the Arians, which was then spreading in the Gauls. Euphrates, bishop of Cologne, having preached some errors against the divinity of Jesus Christ, a council was held in that city where his errors were condemned. The great occupations of Saint Saintin did not allow him to attend this assembly in person. He sent his deputies there, who gave their votes against Euphrates, along with fourteen present bishops and nine others absent, whose names are marked. A few years after the holding of this council, the Christians of Meaux wrote to Saint Saintin regarding the pitiful state to which they were reduced by the oppressions and violence of the governor of the city.

Our holy bishop, touched by the calamities of his church of Meaux, and burning with the ardent desire to end his life by martyrdom, made a final journey there. Before leaving, he chose from his clergy two priests capable of leading his flock in his absence. As soon as he arrived in Meaux, he went to find the governor and spoke to him in an intrepid manner, yet accompanied by the moderation, gentleness, and gravity worthy of a holy bishop; he showed him the injustice of his violence against an innocent people and reproached him for his vexations against the Church, threatening him with divine vengeance if he did not cease his persecutions. The tyrant could not endure these reproaches from the holy man; in the first movement, he was on the point of piercing him with his sword. But then he contented himself with having him arrested and locked in a prison, where he was deprived of all the help necessary for life. While he was thus closely confined, he addressed to the clergy and the faithful of Verdun a letter filled with the movements of the inner joy he tasted in his bonds; and, giving them notice of his approaching death, he exhorted them to thank God for the grace He had granted him to end his life in suffering for the cause of Jesus Christ; to choose his disciple Maur to succeed him in the episcopal see, and to continue the work of the conversion of the pagans in that diocese. The spirit of the holy prisoner was strengthened every day as his body, already exhausted by the frailty of a very advanced age and by the fatigues of his long apostolic labors, was weakened by hunger, thirst, and the other hardships of prison. These hardships finally procured for him a death very precious before God, which he had merited by the holiness of his life and the practice of the most brilliant virtues, whose radiance had attracted the peoples he converted to the faith more effectively than the great number of miracles he performed during his life.

The news of the death of Saint Saintin spread extreme sadness in the Church of Verdun, which mourned the loss of its pastor. Some, touched by feelings of gratitude toward this father who had begotten them in Jesus Christ, published his virtues, his benefits, and the pains he had endured for their salvation; others, recalling in their memory the words of life he had preached to them, testified to their deep regrets at seeing themselves deprived of him forever. The clergy and the faithful, who saw themselves delivered to the fury of the pagans in this perilous juncture for their religion, were seized with general consternation.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

The Church of Meaux, which provided the burial place for Saint Saintin, honored him as a Martyr, and that of Verdun rendered him singular veneration as its apostle and an illustrious confessor of Jesus Christ. Since that time, his feast has been instituted in these two churches, first on October 11; it was of solemn rite, with an octave in the diocese of Verdun; since 1779, this feast has been transferred to September 23, as in the Roman martyrology and that of France. In the diocese of Verdun, his feast is currently celebrated on the third Sunday of October.

There can be no doubt that the Church of Meaux had the honor of providing the burial for the body of Saint Saintin, whose merits were so gloriously crowned by a kind of martyrdom in that city. It appears that he was interred in the place where the church that then took his name stands today. These holy relics were later transferred into a reliquary at the cathedral church of the same city, where they were in 1302. At this latter date, they were transferred to Verdun.

The verification of this precious treasure was made by Richard I of the name, and fortieth bishop of Verdun, who transferred it into a reliquary in 1044. An inscription was placed there containing an abridgment of the life of Saint Saintin, and of his death, in the city of Meaux. In 1132, Albéron, bishop of Verdun, had a new reliquary made for Saint Saintin, and transferred his bones there on Ascension Day, the one-hundredth year since their transport to Verdun. The inscription found in the old reliquary is proof that the opinion of those who noted therein that Saintin had been a disciple of Saint Denis the Areopagite was the common opinion of Verdun, under the episcopate of Richard I, as Laurent of Liège says. In 1477, Matthieu, abbot of Saint-Vanne, had the reliquary of Saint Saintin made, which one sees at present, and which is one of the most magnificent in the diocese. The ceremony of this last translation took place in Lent, on Laetare Sunday, in the presence of the cathedral clergy, Bishop Guillaume de Haraucourt being absent. It was opened in the year 1622, with the permission of the Lord Bishop of Verdun and the consent of the definitors of the Company of Saint-Vanne, upon the instances and prayers of the Bishop of Meaux, to whom Daugnon, a canon, brought a rib of this holy body, which he received with great solemnity at the head of his clergy. The marks of piety and veneration rendered to the memory of Saint Saintin increased even more in Verdun, upon seeing the precious treasure of his holy relics in the church where he had preached the Christian faith, which has been preserved there in all its purity. The people of this diocese flocked there, hoping to obtain from God, through the merits and intercession of this great Saint, the graces necessary and the aid suitable for the goods of the earth.

The reliquary that contains the precious remains of Saint Saintin is placed in a small edicule in the form of a temple, supported by twenty-eight columns. On each face, the holy bishop is represented seated in a chair and vested in pontifical robes. The roof, covered with silver plates, is crowned by an elegant turret.

This reliquary has been opened several times by the Bishops, and verification of the inestimable treasure it contains has been made with solemnity and striking marks of confidence and devotion.

At the time of the Terror, pious faithful had hastened to hide it from the devastating fury of the impious who were desolating the Church of Verdun, by entrusting them by night and secretly to the bosom of the earth.

When these deplorable days had passed, and peace had been restored to the Catholic religion, the holy relics were raised in great pomp, and a solemn verification was made on October 30, 1804, under the episcopate of Bishop Antoine-Eustache d'Oumond, who then governed the dioceses of Nancy and of Verdun.

Bishop Letourneur, in 1843, had these distinguished relics examined, which were replaced in the reliquary provided with the seals of the prelate. In 1858, Bishop Ressat, assisted by his chapter, made a final verification, and the seals of Bishop Letourneur were affixed again on these holy relics which were found in the state in which they were in 1843. At each of these ceremonies, the piety of the faithful has testified that confidence in the powerful intercession of our holy apostle is still as lively in the depths of hearts.

persecutor. No kind of struggle was to be missing from the glory of the Church and the sovereign Pontificate.

Liberius was a Roman; he had been ordained a deacon by Pope Saint Sylvester, and had distinguished himself by his virtues and his humility in the functions of his order. When he was elected Pope, he resisted for a long time before accepting the formidable charge; but it was reserved, alas! for him to bear its full weight. Constance II Roman emperor who exiled Eusebius for his opposition to Arianism. Constantius II, the second son of Constantine, and sole master of the empire, was about to make Arianism triumph with him. From the first year of the pontificate of Liberius, t his prin Athanase Patriarch of Alexandria, defender of orthodoxy against Arianism. ce, prejudiced against Athanasius, demanded his condemnation. The Pope assembled a council in Rome which recognized the innocence of Athanasius, and Liberius wrote to the emperor to that effect. Constantius flew into a rage; the Pope delegated Vincent of Capua to him, who went to Arles, where he had the weakness to subscribe to the condemnation of the holy patriarch. The fall of Vincent deeply afflicted the Pope: "I expected much from his intervention," he wrote to Hosius of Cordoba; "he was personally known to the emperor, to whom he had previously carried the acts of the Council of Sardica, and not only did he obtain nothing, but he allowed himself to be drawn into a deplorable weakness. I am doubly afflicted by it, and I ask God to die, rather than lend myself to the triumph of injustice." He openly disavowed the prevaricating legate, and begged the emperor to consent to the meeting of a general council.

The council assembled in Milan, but tumultuous scenes and the conduct of Constantius deprived it of all freedom. Lucifer of Cagliari, the Pope's legate, showed great firmness: "Even if Constantius," he said, "were to arm all his soldiers against us, he will never force us to deny the faith of Nicaea and to sign the blasphemies of Arius." — "It is I," Constantius said to him, "who am personally the accuser of Athanasius; believe therefore in the truth of my assertions." — "This is not," replied Lucifer with the Catholic bishops, "a temporal affair, where the authority of the emperor would be decisive, but an ecclesiastical judgment, where one must act with equal impartiality toward the accuser and the accused. Athanasius is absent; he cannot be condemned without having been heard. The rule of the Church opposes it." — "But what I want," said Constantius, "must serve as a rule. The bishops of Syria recognize it. Obey, or you will be exiled." The three legates of the Pope, Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercelli, and the deacon Hilary were indeed exiled; Hilary, whose firmness had displeased more, was even whipped in the public square before leaving for the place of his exile. The persecution extended to the whole empire; Saint Athanasius took refuge in the desert; the Christian women and virgins of Alexandria were indignantly outraged; forty-six bishops of Egypt were banished from their sees; all defenders of the consubstantial were declared guilty of high treason, and a great number of faithful Catholics obtained the glory of martyrdom (356).

Pope Liberius wrote to the exiled bishops a letter full of tenderness and charity. "What praises can I give you," he said to them, "divided as I am between the sorrow of your absence and the joy of your glory? The best consolation I can offer you is that you would believe me exiled with you. I would have wished, my beloved brothers, to be the first sacrificed for you all, and to give you the example of the glory that you have acquired; but this prerogative was the reward of your merits." The storm that Liberius deplored came to reach him in its turn. He was asked directly for the condemnation of Athanasius; he refused; then he was

taken to Milan, where Constantius was, and the emperor himself tried to bend the courage of the holy Pontiff. The account of this interview forms one of the most beautiful pages in the history of the Popes; we borrow it from Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, who lived at the beginning of the following century:

THE EMPEROR. As you are a Christian and a bishop of our city, we have judged it appropriate to have you come to exhort you to renounce this cursed extravagance, the communion of the impious Athanasius. The whole earth has judged him so, and he has been cut off from the communion of the Church by the judgment of the Council of Milan. — LIBERIUS. Lord, ecclesiastical judgments must be made with great justice. Order therefore that a tribunal be established, and if Athanasius is found guilty, his sentence will be pronounced according to ecclesiastical procedure; for we cannot condemn a man whom we have not judged. — THE EMPEROR. The whole earth has condemned his impiety; he only seeks to gain time, as he has always done. — LIBERIUS. All those who have subscribed to his condemnation have not seen with their own eyes all that has happened; they were touched by the desire for the glory that you promised them, or by the fear of the infamy with which you threatened them. — THE EMPEROR. What do you mean by glory, fear, and infamy? — LIBERIUS. All those who do not love the glory of God, preferring your benefits, have condemned without judging him whom they have not seen; that does not befit Christians. — THE EMPEROR. He was judged at the Council of Tyre, where he was present, and in that council all the bishops condemned him. — LIBERIUS. He was never judged in his presence; at Tyre, he was condemned without reason, after he had withdrawn. — THE EMPEROR. For how many then do you count yourself in the world, to rise up alone with an impious man to trouble the universe? — LIBERIUS. Even if I were alone, the cause of the faith would not succumb for that. — THE EMPEROR. What has been settled once cannot be overturned; the judgment of the majority of the bishops must prevail, you are the only one who clings to the friendship of this impious man. — LIBERIUS. Lord, we have never heard it said that an accused person not being present, a judge would treat him as impious as being his personal enemy. — THE EMPEROR. He has offended everyone generally, and me more than anyone. I applaud myself more for having removed this scoundrel from the affairs of the Church than for having defeated Magnentius. — LIBERIUS. Lord, do not use the bishops to avenge yourself on your enemies; the hands of ecclesiastics must be occupied with sanctifying. — THE EMPEROR. It is only a question of one thing: I want to send you to Rome when you have embraced the communion of the Churches. Yield to the good of peace, subscribe, and return to Rome. — LIBERIUS. I have already taken leave of the brothers of Rome, for the bonds of the Church are preferable to the stay in Rome. — THE EMPEROR. You have three days to deliberate if you want to subscribe or return to Rome; now, see in what place you want to be taken. — LIBERIUS. The space of three days or three months does not change my resolution; send me therefore where you please.

Two days later, Constantius sent for Liberius, and, as he had not changed his sentiment, he had him relegated to Beroea, in Thrace. When Liberius had left, the emperor had five hundred gold solidi offered to him for his expenses. "Go," said Liberius to the one who brought them, "return them to the emperor, he needs them for his soldiers." The empress sent him as many. "Return them to the emperor," said Liberius again, "he needs them for the expense of his armies." The eunuch Eusebius wanted in his turn to make him accept money. The holy Pontiff refused by saying: "You have rendered the Churches of the world desolate, and you offer me an alms as to a criminal; go, start by making yourself a Christian." And, without having accepted anything, he left three days later for his exile.

Heresy was triumphing. As soon as Liberius had left Italy, the emperor had an anti-pope, Felix, archdeacon of the Roman Church, consecrated. The Roman people refused to communicate with this Pope, to whom, moreover, one must grant the justice that, while favoring the Arian party, he did not abandon the faith of Nicaea and was irreproachable in his conduct (355). Thus, several ecclesiastical writers, among whom are Bellarmine and Roncaglia, do not consider him an anti-pope. According to them, Saint Liberius, not wanting Rome to remain without a pastor during his exile, had provisionally abdicated and advised the election of Felix, who, upon his return, would have voluntarily renounced the sovereign pontificate. When Gregory XIII had a new edition of the Roman Martyrology made in 1582, the name of Saint Felix II was kept by his order after that of Saint Liberius. The trial lasted more than a year. Constantius finally yielded to public opinion. Liberius returned to Rome in 359, and Felix retired to another city.

The return of Saint Liberius to Rome did not put an end to the sorrows of the Church: the Arians continued their intrigues; Catholic bishops gave sad examples of weakness; Constantius had council after council assembled to impose error, but Liberius conducted himself with such prudence and firmness that the error could never triumph except partially. Constantius had been a persecutor: it was unlikely that he would die in the midst of prosperity. He was indeed occupied in a war against the Persians when he learned that the legions of Gaul had revolted and had proclaimed the Caesar Julian, nephew of Constantine, emperor at Lutetia. Constantius, furious, set ou le César Julien Roman emperor and persecutor of Christians. t to punish the rebel, of whom he had been the benefactor and to whom he had given his own sister in marriage; but he died on the way, at Mopsucrene in Cilicia, after having received baptism from an Arian bishop, and Julian remained sole master of the empire (361).

To the bloody persecution and heresy succeeded a more refined, more learned, and a thousand times more dangerous persecution: that of Julian the Apostate. But before the unshakeable rock of the Church, it remained powerless like the others: Saint Liberius was able to witness the horrible agony of the Apostate (June 26, 363) and contemplate, in the midst of the ruins accumulated on all sides, the triumph of Christianity; and, although the last years of his Pontificate were still troubled by the intrigues of the Arians and those of the Macedonians, partisans of the intruder Macedonius, who, developing the Arian heresy, had ended by denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit, he had the consolation of finally seeing peace restored to the Church, the orthodox bishops re-established in their sees, and the political power disposed to support the true faith.

It was in the midst of these glimmers of hope that Saint Liberius rendered his heroic soul to God, on the 8th of the Kalends of October (September 24, 366). He had occupied the pontifical see, in a first period, from May 22, 352, to March 10, 358; and, in a second, upon his return from exile, from 359 to 366. Rome owes to this Pontiff, among other monuments, the Basil ica of Saint Mary Major, so calle basilique de Sainte-Marie-Majeure Roman basilica founded during the pontificate of Liberius. d because it holds the first rank among the churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.