Establishment of Christianity in Novempopulania

"It is believed," says Abbé Menjoulet, in his Chronicle of the Diocese and Country of Oloron, "that the metropolitan church of Elusa (today Eauze) has as its founder S aint Paternus saint Paterne First bishop of Vannes, consecrated by Perpetuus. , a disciple o f Saint Saturnin or Sern saint Saturain ou Sernin Martyr to whom a basilica was dedicated in Viocourt. in, of Toulouse." And historical doubt leans toward the opinion that sets the year 232 as the time of this mission, and the year 254 for th e mission of Saint V saint Vincent de Dax Missionary active in Dax around the year 254. incent of Dax. Further on, M. Menjoulet adds: "It does not appear that the religious zeal of that era (beginning of the 4th century, reign of Constantine) produced, in our country, anything other than isolated conversions. One undoubtedly found Christian families there, perhaps one saw missionary priests there, who went from village to village, bringing the good news to the elect of God and supporting the neophytes in the practice of evangelical virtues, but there was no church properly so-called, there was not yet a diocese, either at Beneharnum or at Baro (Lescar and Oloron), and history must traverse the entire 4th century to arrive at the first bishop of Béarn." There follows the legend of Saint Julian, from saint Julien First bishop of Béarn, missionary at the end of the 4th century. which we have borrowed the translation from the same work.

Without wishing to undertake here a discussion of the question of the immediate apostolicity of evangelical preaching in the Gauls, which we will treat amply in one of the final volumes of this work, we will simply say that we find, in the very book of M. Menjoulet, the condemnation of a system according to which the church would only have been constituted in the 3rd century in Novempopulania in general and at the end of the 4th in Béarn in particular.

Indeed, when in 406, that is to say six years after Saint Julian of Lescar, Wallia Wallia King of the Visigoths who invaded Aquitaine in 406. , at the head of his West Goths or Visigoths, "depopulated everything belonging to Aquitaine and the nine peoples," the country where he camped was Catholic, and Sid onius Apollinaris i Sidoine Apollinaire Poet and contemporary who celebrated the basilica of Perpetuus. nforms us that "Bordeaux, Bazas, Comminges, Auch and many other cities were approaching their spiritual ruin through the death of their pastors, harvested without new bishops being established... In the dioceses and in the parishes, everything was neglected." Sidonius Apollinaris, in this passage, distinguishes rural parishes from urban parishes. According to Saint Gregory of Tours, it was above all the cities of the two Aquitaines and Novempopulania that saw themselves depopulated by this horrible storm.

Let us go further: the acts of the Council of Agde, held in 506, at which Novempopulania was represented by eleven bishops, including the bishop of Béarn (Lescar), saint Galactoire Bishop of Beneharnum and 6th-century martyr. Saint Galactorius, an d the bish saint Grat Martyr of Rouergue originally from Rome. op of Oloron, Saint Gratus, among others, teach us that from the first years of the 6th century, that is to say one hundred years after Saint Julian, there were in the regions of the South convents for men and women, that the clergy possessed property, that the dioceses were divided into parishes, etc. — From all this, what can we conclude, if not that at the time of the arrival of the Visigoths, at the beginning of the 5th century, the Church was everywhere hierarchically constituted, and divided into urban parishes and rural parishes.

Now, this could not have been done in a few years, as one would have to admit according to M. Menjoulet's system; above all, this could not have been done during the course of the 5th century, which was entirely prey to the devastations of the Visigoths, relentless persecutors of the Catholic Church. But this did not prevent idolatry from still reigning in certain regions, in certain remote valleys of the Pyrenees, in Oloron, for example, and this is how the mission of Saint Julian of Trier in Bé saint Julien de Trèves First bishop of Béarn, missionary at the end of the 4th century. arn at the end of the 4th century, of Saint Amand in the 7th among the Basques, of Saint Leo of Carentau in the 9th, etc., is explained.

The situation of Catholics with regard to pagans was, for long centuries, what it is today, for example, in England and Germany, with regard to dissidents. From the time of the Apostles, the Church was established in the midst of pagans, and in spite of the pagans, in the same way that it exists today, with its bishops, its priests, its schools, its churches, in the midst of heretics and in spite of the heretics.