Saint Eleutherius

A general and solemn procession: *Quod si die ordinatus processio solennis et generalis*, says the rubric. See Monographie de Saint-Front, by Abbé Carles, missionary. The relics of Saint Memorius have disappeared; but his small statue has remained in the cathedral to this day.

Here is the collect and three beautiful antiphons from his office:

*Deus qui innumera Sanctorum coronas millia; concede propitius, ut B. Memerii, Martyris tui atque innocentis, cujus te donante experti sumus merita, percipiamus suffragia.*

*Ad Magnif. — Ave, Martyr sanctissime, avo sancte Memori, molestiae concors militiae, qui primorum vaginum purpureos flores Regi cœlestium offerens, superna Majestatis viciniora marniati subcellis; unde a te petimus, ut pro tuis vernaculis Dominam orare non desinas, tibi superius quo fiant cohæredes. Alleluia.*

*Ad Bened. — O Beate Memori, qui inter collectantium cusum parvulorum sublimior aditas ante superni judicis thronum; semper tuorum memor esto servulorum. Alleluia.*

Périgord still possesses the relics of another Holy Innocent: those of Saint Sicarius, which are at Brantôme. This young Martyr has several churches dedicated to him in Périgord, such as Montagrier and the chapel that formerly existed at Périgneux, at the bottom of the hillside facing the new Mission, which bears his name. Several villages or hamlets bear his name and celebrate his feast. Two feasts of this Saint are held at Brantôme, the great and the small, in the month of May and the month of October; and some relics of this Saint are still possessed.

Here is the collect of his office, according to the Bollandists:

*Deus, qui Ecclesiam tuam meritis et orationibus pretiosissimi Martyris tui splendore clarificas; concede propitius, ut qui solemnitatem ipsius celebramus in terris, intercessionem ejus apud te mereamur in cœlis. Acta SS., 2 and 26 May; local notes.*

Let us enter into some details. A this reign belongs the miracle performed in favor of a Roman legion. Let us listen with respect to Bossuet: « Sometimes the persecution would slacken. In an extreme scarcity of water that Marcus Aurelius suffered in Germania, a Christian legion obtained a rain capable of quenching the thirst of his army, and accompanied by thunderbolts that terrified his enemies. The name of Thundering was given or confirmed to the legion for this miracle. The emperor was touched by it, and wrote to the senate in favor of the Christians. In the end, his diviners persuaded him to attribute to his gods and his prayers a miracle that the pagans did not even think to wish for. » One can still see in Rome a testimony of this miracle on the bas-reliefs of the Antonine Column. The Romans are represented there with weapons in hand, against the barbarians, who are seen lying on the ground with their horses. A rain mixed with lightning and thunderbolts falls upon them, which seems to strike them down. On this occasion, Marcus Aurelius did indeed write letters to the senate in which he declared that his army, near death, had been saved by the prayers of the Christian soldiers.

The figure, whom the Chronicle of the Popes designates by the name of King Lucius, bears in ancient Gaelic legends the name of Lever-Maur. — Great Light. — Numismatics has noted two medals where he is designated as follows: Lucius, Christian King, such that Lucius would only be the Latin translation of the Gaelic. Attempts have been made to prove that he was descended from Cogidunus or Caractacus, a British hero made by Emperor Claudius (45-54) King of the Dobuni, who inhabited the current county of Gloucester. This Cogidunus had a daughter, called Claudia after the name of the Roman Emperor Claudius I, patron of his family. Raised in Rome, she was one of the first Christians converted by the Apostles, and Saint Paul mentions her in his second epistle to Timothy. There was therefore Christian blood in the veins of Lucius: contemporary events, full of resonance, such as the miracle of the Thundering Legion, the edict issued by Marcus Aurelius, his patron, in favor of the Christians, and the conversions taking place in the ranks of the aristocracy, must undoubtedly have influenced the determination of the British prince. The names of the two missionaries sent by Pope Eleutherius to the Britons are k Fugace Missionary sent by Eleutherius to Great Britain. nown : they Damien Physician and martyr, brother of Saint Cosmas. are Fugatius and Damian, Saint Fagan and Saint Dwiwan in the Gaelic language: they died in the territory belonging to the current diocese of Llandaff, and were buried at Glastonbury. One reads in Harpfield's History of England that there was in the principality of Wales a church dedicated under their invocation; the Annals of Stow mention the same particularity for a parish church in the deanery of Dunster, in the county of Somerset.

Criticism had naturally rejected this fact, under the pretext that the Liber

1. Discours sur l'Hist. univ. — 2. Usherius, Antiq. britan. ch. 3. 3. Saluting Eubulus and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. (II Timoth., iv, 21.) It is curious to compare the apostolic text with that of an epithalamium where Martial gives Claudia the title of "foreigner" (peregrina):

Claudia, Rufe, meo nubit peregrina Pudenti.

(Mart. Epigramm., lib. IV, no. 13. Ad Rufum de nuptiis Pudentis et Claudia peregrina, edit. Varior, page 221.)

Pontificalis alone bore witness to it. However, criticism had not read the History of England, had not read the numerous paleographic copies that have been found of the Liber Pontificalis and which all agree on this point.

The pontificate of Saint Eleutherius is also famous for the birth of the Montanists. These Jansenists of the 2nd century, who affected excessive severity in morals, fasted frequently, distinguished like the Jews between clean and unclean meats, refused absolution to those who had fallen into some fault of impurity, etc. But these false zealots soon grew tired of the austere life they affected to lead. God, to punish them for their pride, permitted them to fall into the most shameful disorders. What was most deplorable is that enlightened and illustrious Christians, such as Tertullian, and confessors who had braved all the fury of the persecutions, became the dupes of this lying rigorism. Among the latter were some of the companions of the martyrdom of Saint Pothinus of Lyon. This exaggerated austerity, which the people of Lyon practiced no doubt in good faith, moved the pastors of souls: a deputation was sent to Rome. "The blessed confessors of the faith," we read in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, "wrote to Eleutherius, bishop of the city of Rome, concerning this nascent heresy. They had their letter carried to him by Irenaeus, a priest of Lyon, whom they recommended to him in a very special way, Irénée Bishop of Lyon and Doctor of the Church, mentor to two saints. as one can be convinced by their very expressions. 'Above all, venerable Father,' they said, 'we pray God to always fill you with His favors. This letter will be delivered to you by our brother and colleague, Irenaeus, who has yielded to our requests by accepting this message. We beg you to welcome him as a zealous Apostle of the Testament of Jesus Christ, and we recommend him to you in this capacity. If rank could add anything to merit, we would insist, to recommend him even better to you, on his dignity as a priest of the Church, for he is one.'"

May we be permitted to ask here of the Protestants, who reject both the supremacy of the Popes and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, what this recourse to Rome signifies, addressed by the captive confessors at the moment when persecution was raging with the greatest violence; when the blessed Pothinus, by his death, had just left a desolate Church widowed, and the faithful, hunted like wild beasts, were awaiting only the hour of martyrdom? We are told that the supremacy of the Roman pontificate is an ambitious usurpation, slowly prepared and skillfully maintained, favored by the centuries of barbarism. Yet here, in the most beautiful century of the primitive Church, around the year 170 of our era, when the Popes could not be accused of any ambition other than that of martyrdom, forty-eight Confessors of the faith, imprisoned in a dungeon in Lugdunum, ready to shed their blood for Jesus Christ, addressed themselves to Pope Eleutherius as the common Fat her of C Lugdunum Episcopal see of Saint Eucher. hristendom, and asked him, regarding a question concerning dogma and discipline, what they should believe and practice! That is not all. To transmit their collective letter to the supreme seat of the apostolate, they chose the most distinguished priest among them, and consequently the one whose presence would have been most necessary to their Church during this terrible storm. They had to do violence to him himself to make him accept this message. The term they use makes this sufficiently understood. The priest Irenaeus would have liked to share their martyrdom, but his mission was imposed upon him, and not only was this sacrifice demanded, but new honors were claimed for him. What, indeed, would be the meaning of the insistent recommendation made to Eleutherius? The Martyrs of Lyon were sending to the Pope the most illustrious of their priests, so that the Pope might return to them a second and illustrious bishop in his person. And this is so true that the following year Irenaeus returned at last to sit on the episcopal seat of Lugdunum, left vacant by the blessed Pothinus. Irenaeus was therefore, without a doubt, one of the fifteen bishops consecrated according to the Liber Pontificalis by the very hand of Eleutherius, and sent by this pontiff to various churches of the West. The Pope, in raising him to the episcopal dignity, handed him a response addressed "to all the churches that fight for the faith of Jesus Christ in the provinces of Gaul." The new distinction that Montanism, further exaggerating Jewish observances, claimed to establish between forbidden or permitted foods, was condemned therein by the authority of the Scriptures and tradition.

We have seen that the Liber Pontificalis relates this decision among the dogmatic constitutions of Saint Eleutherius. This holy Pope declared that among the meats suitable for nourishing man, there were none that were bad in themselves and from which one should abstain for that reason. This does not prevent one from abstaining from them for mortification and penance, and to withdraw from the flesh what may feed the fire of concupiscence; it is in this spirit, and not by the ridiculous error of these heretics, that the Catholic Church obliges the faithful to fast and to perform some abstinences. She knows well that the foods she forbids them are not bad in themselves, since she permits them at other times, and she permits them at all times to the infirm; but she knows the true interests of her children, and she imposes these prohibitions upon them to oblige them to satisfy the justice of God, and to mortify their bodies, so that they do not rise up against the spirit.

The glorious pontificate of Eleutherius ended in 185, with the death of this Pope, to whom some Martyrologies give the title of Martyr. We have seen that the text of the Liber Pontificalis is completely silent on this point. In this time of intermittent persecutions, the name of Martyrs was often given to those who had confessed the faith of Jesus Christ before the tribunals, without having lost their lives in the torments. One will easily understand the reason for this fact, if one refers to the etymology of the name martyr, which properly means witness.

If Saint Gregory the Great is rightly called the Apostle of the English, because he sent Saint Augustine, Saint Mellitus, and several other preachers to work for their conversion, we can, for the same reason, call Saint Eleutherius the Apostle of Great Britain, for having employed Saint Fugatius and Saint Damian for the conversion of the peoples who inhabited it in these first centuries of Christianity. Thus, Saint Eleutherius is represented entrusting their mission to Saint Fugatius and Saint Damian.

Cf. Besides Godescord and the authorities cited in the notes, Arland de Montanr, Histoire des Papes; Darras, Histoire de l'Église.