Saint Pothinus and his companions

From a literary point of view, this Letter has been compared, by the most recent historian of Saint Pothinus, to those cyclopean monuments whose powerful foundations and severe lines reject ornaments made for humbler styles, for edifices of an inferior order. A stranger to any literary preoccupation, the author of this Letter effaced himself completely; he was very careful not to make it a work of his own through personal labor; thus, he did not reserve for himself the privilege, which would have been perfectly acceptable, of affixing his signature. A collective work of the Churches of Vienne and Lyon, this Epistle was not intended, even in form, to strip away its general character to assume that of a too-pronounced personality.

Well! It turns out that this absence of any literary artifice achieves a power superior to all the effects of art. This exact, scrupulous reproduction of the scenes of the forum, the prisons, and the amphitheater brings our soul into contact with the great soul of the Martyrs. Seized with admiration, we feel passing through us something of the spirit that animated these Christian heroes. The communicative virtue of their moral greatness is such that it elevates us, that it arms us with courage for this martyrdom of detail, the condition of every seriously Christian life.

However, as attentive as he was to effacing himself, the author of the Letter could not help but leave something of his manner, his style, a slight imprint of his talent. Forced to abbreviate it considerably, we have not been able to reproduce its marvelous beauties; but the whole and the details of this monument betray a skillful hand, a cultivated mind; one encounters many traits that denote a writer of exquisite taste, familiar with all genres of beauty. Thus, when the blessed Pothinus appears at the foot of the tribunal, the author has a magnificent brushstroke to represent to us the generosity of the holy bishop, the thirst for martyrdom that devoured him. "Exhausted by age and infirmities," says the Letter, "he held his soul in his body in order to spare a glorious triumph for Christ through his death." The following passage paints with rare happiness the chained ones of Christ; it brings out vividly to our eyes the serenity of these Christian heroes. "The Martyrs appeared joyful; their foreheads breathed a mixture of grace and majesty. The chains composed an admirable adornment for their limbs; they were the bracelets of the bride, dressed in a tunic with golden fringes, with varied designs." Here now is a graceful image to retrace in their entirety the tortures that ended the life of the Martyrs: it is a crown of flowers placed on their tomb. "They accomplished their martyrdom by various kinds of death. In this way, they offered to the heavenly Father a crown braided with varied flowers, nuanced with different colors." In more than one place, the expression, like the thought, is of remarkable force and energy. After having said that the martyrs obtained through their prayers the conversion of several who had had the weakness to deny their faith, the author adds: "They (the Martyrs) gripped the infernal dragon so strongly by the throat that they forced him to render alive those he thought he had devoured."

We have four Latin translations of this Letter: we owe them to four authors who translated the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius into the language of Rome. The first in antiquity, but not in merit, is that of Rufinus, priest of Aquileia, so well known for his disputes with Saint Jerome. Rufinus looks more to the meaning than to the words. His translation is too free. The version published by the Protestant minister Wolfgang, around the middle of the 18th century, is clear, precise, but quite often unfaithful to the meaning. The same qualities and defects are found in that of Christophoron, Anglican Bishop of Chichester; Baronius followed it and owes to it, it is said, several of the chronological errors into which he fell. Coming last, that of Henri de Valois is the most exact.

The French language possesses two complete translations of the history of Eusebius. The first, published in 1532, is of an aged and obsolete style: we owe it to Claude de Seyssel, Bishop of Marseille; the second, correct, even elegant, but too free, is by President Cousin. — The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyon has been translated separately by a large number of authors, and among others by Drouot de Maupertuy, in the Acts of the Martyrs, translated from Dom Ruinart. This translation is the best known, and yet it is full of defects.

"Maupertuy gives himself too much leeway; his version plays around the text in the manner of a commentary rather than a strict translation. Now, with this breadth of interpretation, the meaning is not always saved; the beauties of the original are tarnished, erased; the general character of the Letter, its accent and its color disappear; and, instead of an exact reproduction, you are left with only a pale and unfaithful copy of a Christian masterpiece."

We have avoided, this time, reproducing Maupertuy. The best translations being those of M. Cellombet, in his Saints of Lyon, 1835; and of Father Gouilloud in the history of Saint Pothinus and his companions, martyrs, 1868, we have combined them to give as much as possible an idea of this masterpiece.

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius positively indicates that the blessed Pothinus suffered in the seventeenth year of the r eign of Mar Marc-Aurèle Roman emperor marking the chronological limit of Hegesippus's work. cus Aurelius. As this year corresponds to the year 177, we therefore have the precise date of the time when the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyon was written. It remains to fix the day.

According to the common opinion, the last Martyrs were put to death at the beginning of the month of August. The author of the Letter does not expressly signal this time, but he gives it to be understood sufficiently by the term he employs. In this panegyric, the historians of Lyon agree in seeing the immense gathering that the festivals in honor of Rome and Augustus, celebrated on the Kalends of August, attracted from all parts to Lyon. There is therefore no reason to postpone the final interrogation by two months, as one author does. The feast of Saint Pothinus and his companions, fixed by the Church on the second day of June, in no way favors this opinion. According to the terms of the Letter, the great slaughter where the Martyrs of Lyon were immolated was consummated at the amphitheater, during the festivals which, in all likelihood, were the festivals of the month of August (177).

"It was," says the Letter, "at the beginning of a solemn gathering which attracts a great concourse of foreigners from all countries. The president brought the Saints to his tribunal, to give them as a spectacle to the multitude. He subjected them to a new interrogation. After which, all those who were found to have the right of citizenship had their heads cut off; as for the others, they were delivered to the beasts."

After the persecution, the Church of Lyon, in instituting a feast in honor of Saint Pothinus, did not wish to separate from the pontiff those who had been associated with him in his sufferings.

Vettius Epagathus is the first whose name is written in the Letter of the two Churches. By the nobility of his birth, he walked as an equal to the most distinguished men in Lyon and in the province. His family had attained the highest honors: the name of the Vettii had been inscribed several times in the consular fasti; it had also shone on the album of the Roman senate. To this profane brilliance, there was added in Epagathus the luster that comes from the true faith. He was, it seems, the grandson of Leocadius, that senator who, in the 1st century, had given his palace in Bourges to Saint Ursinus so that he might convert it into a church. If this is so, we see that we were right to say that Lyon contained Christians within its bosom before the arrival of the blessed Pothinus. Gregory of Tours, it is true, reverses the roles and makes Leocadius a descendant of Vettius Epagathus; but it will suffice to observe that the chronology of the Father of the history of France is at fault, concerning the history of Lyon, as on many other points. Thus, to cite only one example, he places the martyrdom of Saint Irenaeus before that of Saint Pothinus. Moreover, after having said in his History of the Franks that Saint Ursinus was sent to Bourges in the 3rd century, under the empire of Decius, he contradicts himself in his Book of the Glory of the Confessors, and represents this same Saint Ursinus as being sent by an immediate disciple of the apostles, that is to say, around the time of Claudius, in the 1st century. The likelihood is therefore in favor of the pre-existence of Leocadius.

As for the homeland of Vettius Epagathus, no monument makes it known in a precise manner: it is natural to think that he was from Lyon, since he was well known there and was the grandson of a senator who had resided in that city.

The author of the Letter then introduces onto the scene Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus , and Bl Blandine Martyred slave, emblematic figure of the Martyrs of Lyon. andina; a deacon, a Roman citizen, a neophyte of yesterday, and a slave.

Sanctus was born in Vienne to a free family. Henri de Valois, translator and annotator of Eusebius, thought that Sanctus was born in Vienne and that he had been attached to the clergy of Lyon in the capacity of deacon. Although the Greek text lends itself to a double interpretation, it suffices to dispel any ambiguity by resorting to local traditions. Now, according to the traditions of the churches of Vienne and Lyon, not only was Sanctus from Vienne, but he belonged to the clergy of that latter city. But, one might ask, how was Sanctus in Lyon, and how could the president of the Lyonnaise have condemned a citizen belonging to the Narbonensis province? The answer is easy. Ties had been formed between the two Christian communities long before the persecution of 177. The persecution having broken out in Lyon, the faithful of Vienne came to the aid of those of Lyon. Now, according to Roman laws, the president of a city had jurisdiction over foreigners when they had committed some crime.

We know nothing about Maturus, except that he was a provincial subject of Lyon and that, having barely emerged from the sacramental bath, this Christian of yesterday had become a generous athlete, thus realizing the meaning of maturity that his name carries.

Attalus was a Christian of high birth. A Greek from Asia by origin, he had been born in Pergamum and was perhaps descended from one of the freedmen of the kings of that country. Attalus is represented to us as one of the pillars of Christianity in Lyon: this will not be surprising if one considers that it is probably he whom Saint Justus, bishop of Vienne, had chosen to go and fulfill a mi ssion to Pope Sain pape saint Pie Ier Sovereign pontiff and martyr of the 2nd century. t Pius I in the name of the church of Vienne. This is the occasion: Christians had succumbed in Vienne, victims of a local persecution whose causes are unknown, during the reign of Antoninus Pius. Saint Justus charged Attalus to go and carry the Acts of these Martyrs to the See of Peter. The letter, qualified as a golden letter by Baronius, which the Pope wrote in response to Saint Justus, begins thus: "Attalus has come to us and he has filled us with joy by giving us the account of the triumph of the Martyrs." Most orthodox scholars do not hesitate to see in the courier sent to Rome this same Attalus who was brought before the tribunal of the president of the Lyonnaise. This point admitted, one is authorized to recognize that Attalus belonged to the church of Vienne, rather than to that of Lyon.

After Sanctus, Maturus, and Attalus, comes Blandina the slave.

The contrast of her condition with the nobility of her character contributed not insignificantly to highligh Blandine Martyred slave, emblematic figure of the Martyrs of Lyon. ting Blandina. A heroism starting from so low a place raised the humble slave so high, set her upon such a lofty pedestal, that among the forty-eight Martyrs of Lyon, she occupies one of the first places in the admiration of the faithful as well as in historical and liturgical monuments. Having descended into the bloody arena with her mistress, she shone there with such a bright light that she completely eclipsed the Gallo-Roman matron whose property she was. Her name was gathered by the Letter of the two Churches; it has reached us glorious among the forty-seven others; and the name of her mistress, immolated for Jesus Christ like her, is known to God alone. Better still, it is Blandina's privilege to walk as the equal of the blessed Pothinus in the cult rendered to the Martyrs of Lyon. In the eloquent homily pronounced by Saint Eucher to the glory of these Christian heroes, she is distinguished among all the others; she is named there alone with the blessed Pothinus. Sometimes even the Christian heroine completely erases all her companions in suffering, so that express mention is made only of Blandina. Thus, in several ancient martyrologies and orations, she has the singular honor of appearing alone, of being alone invoked by name. This privileged mention, this exceptional invocation, happily translate the title of mother of the Martyrs which is given to her by the Letter of the two Churches.

The author of this Letter makes the heroic Blandina stand out vividly before our eyes; he pauses with a sort of complacency before her charming figure, and each time he returns to her, while remaining in his role as a faithful witness, he lets a nuance of tender admiration show through, something that resembles a sort of predilection. Thus, the slave disdained by men has become a type of moral greatness, the personification of the martyrs of Lyon.

The name of the Christian slave has remained attached to an oratory built near the place that was the theater of her immolation. The crypt of the church of Ainay is called the crypt o f Sai Aynay Presumed site of the amphitheatre and the final martyrdom. nt Blandina.

We believe that near the amphitheater there was a special prison where those condemned to the beasts were locked up, while waiting for the hour of the games, or when they had to appear several times in the arena. According to this, Saint Blandina would have been taken from the dungeons of the hill, and would have remained in the prison contiguous to the amphitheater until her last combat. From there would have come to the faithful the thought of raising a chapel to her in the place where she had been locked up between her first and last exposure to the beasts.

Be that as it may, we cannot, for lack of data, assign a certain date to the current crypt. During the era of persecutions, a Christian chapel could not exist two steps from the altar of Rome and Augustus. One cannot therefore date the construction of an oratory raised to Blandina at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône earlier than Constantine. We know that a hermit by the name of Badolphus came to settle in this place, to shelter there his life of penance and prayer. But at what period? Is it in the 4th or 5th century? We do not know. Assuming that Badolphus lived only in the 5th century, it would remain to be known if this hermit found, towards the extremity of the delta, an oratory already existing in honor of Saint Blandina, or if he was the first to lay its foundations.

The crypt that one visits today shows a very high antiquity. Its architectonic character allows it to be dated back to the 5th century.

Let us add that the oratory of Saint Blandina rests on the ancient Roman ground, and that the progressive raising of the terrain has buried it in such a way as to make it a sort of crypt.

Precious to the piety of Lyon, this crypt is also so from another point of view: it seems to support the tradition regarding the location of the amphitheater. According to us, it is an indicator monument that signals the place where Blandina and several other Martyrs of Lyon were immolated.

Nothing else is known about Blandina other than what is learned from the Letter of the two Churches. Saint Eucher, however, seems to say that she belonged by birth to Lyon, when in his homily on the Saint, he exclaims in the name of the city of which he was the pastor: "O Bethlehem, where Blandina could not find a place in the choir of your Martyrs!"

As for Ponticus, some authors have made him a brother of Blandina, and have placed him in the servile condition. The Acts do indeed call Blandina his sister; but the place of this fraternity was probably only that of Christian fraternity. If Ponticus had been a slave, the author of the Letter would not have failed to highlight this detail to the honor of Christianity, friend of the little ones and the disinherited of this world.

The Letter of the two Churches designates only ten of the forty-eight blessed who compose the legion of the Martyrs of Lyon. Here are the names of these ten: Pothinus, Vettius Epagathus, Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus, Biblias, Alcibiades, the physician Alexander, Ponticus, and Blandina.

The others had not been passed over in silence. The author of the Letter had signaled them all by name, but Eusebius omitted, in his Ecclesiastical History, the passage that contained these names, and referred to his collection of the Acts of the Martyrs which is lost. This list has been restored by means of Gregory of Tours and Ado who were able to consult either the lost work of Eusebius or the diptychs of the Church of Lyon.

By filling in the gaps and comparing the variants, here is how the most authoritative critics have deemed it necessary to establish the list of the first forty-eight Martyrs of Lyon:

Had their heads cut off as Roman citizens: Zacharias, Vettius Epagathus, Macarius, Alcibiades, Silvius, Primus, Ulpius, Vitalia, Commiuns, October, Philominus, Geminus, Julia, Albina, Grata, Regata, Æmilia, Posthumiana, Pompeia, Rhodana, Biblias, Quiuta, Maturus, Helpis, also called Amnas.

Were exposed to the beasts: Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus, Alexander, Ponticus, and Blandina.

Died in the prisons: the blessed Pothinus, Arescius, Cornelius, Zozius, Titus, Zoticus, Julius, Apollonius, Geminianus, Gannite, Julia, Æmilia, Pompeia, Antonia, Alumna, Justa, Trophima, Antonia.

Let us say a word about the dreadful underground where the first bishop of Lyon died, where the first Martyrs of this city were crowded together like filthy beasts.

Let us climb the Montée Saint-Barthélemy together, and enter the Antiquaille through the service door. Once the threshold is crossed, we arrive on the level into a fairly spacious prism, around which is a simple gallery. The prison extends precisely below this courtyard. Let us descend the steps of a stone staircase leading to another courtyard below the first, and we enter the venerated dungeon through a modern door. Above this door, we read, on a wooden frame applied to the wall, the following inscription:

"The Church of Lyon, by a constant tradition, has always venerated this vault as the prison where Saint Pothinus, its first bishop, was saint Pothin First bishop of Lyon and predecessor of Irenaeus. imprisoned with forty-eight Christians, and where he crowned his martyrdom."

While on the surface of the ground everything has been overturned by the action of time and the hand of man, the prison of the Martyrs, buried underground, has escaped these upheavals. The dark underground measures only six meters long by five wide, and three in height at its center. The lowered vault falls back in an irregular curve to the ground, on which it rests on three sides. Towards its middle, it is supported by a column with stone courses. According to tradition, Saint Blandina was tied to this column; an iron trellis protects it today against the indiscreet hands of visitors. Around this pillar once hung from the vault several iron rings intended to hold the prisoners. Only one of these rings can still be seen today; all the others have unfortunately disappeared. To the right upon entering, opens, in the form of a niche, the excavation where the blessed Pothinus was imprisoned.

In a corner of the prison, a modest altar rises. Each year, on the feast of Saint Pothinus, and during the entire octave that follows the feast, the crypt, draped in white and red fabrics, adorned with garlands and green foliage, opens to the piety of the faithful. A large crowd climbs the hill, visits the dungeon dear to the Church of Lyon. It performs this pious pilgrimage in order to renew its faith under these vaults where the memory of the Martyrs is still alive. For their part, a large number of priests are happy to celebrate the holy mysteries in the dark vault, very close to the cell where the blessed Pothinus rendered his beautiful soul to the Lord.

This prison extended, like a vestibule, in front of three other dungeons, lower and of smaller dimension. Only one of these secondary dungeons remains today; it is placed to the left of the original entrance. These four places of confinement had been provided by the Romans with solid doors, grilled in diamonds. In 1627, the year the Visitandines took possession of the Antiquaille, they were still all in place. In 1659, the one that closed the cell of Saint Pothinus also existed. It is deeply to be regretted that these doors were removed to serve other uses; the memories attached to them should have protected them, made them respected as precious relics.

The prison receives a little air and light only through the door; no skylight, no air vent opening to the outside. The door closed, it is a sepulchral darkness; therefore one must arm oneself with a torch to visit this underground. Under Roman rule, the state of these places does not seem to have been different. In an account she wrote in the year 1695, a sister of the Visitation affirms that, under the Romans as in her time, daylight only penetrated the dungeons through the door. According to everything known about Roman prisons, this deprivation of air and light is nothing to be surprised at.

The palace of the emperors rose above or very close to this prison, which it crushed with its mass and its luxury. The Martyrs of Lyon were imprisoned under this palace, the residence of the president of the Lyonnaise and his main agents: the victims under the feet of their executioners. Below the ground, deprivations and sufferings of all kinds; above, the delights of feasts and the wild joys of debauchery. Roman civilization delighted in these contrasts.

This palace, built at great expense by the Romans, embellished by arts and luxury, has been completely erased from the ground. A water reservoir, a conduit that connected this reservoir with the aqueducts, some debris exhumed from the ground, that is all that remains of the splendid edifice, ornament of the hill, pride of the city. And the fabulous dungeon where the first bishop of Lyon drew his last breath has resisted the insults of time and men; it is still there with its dark walls, with the power of the memories it awakens. Thanks to this preservation, it is not difficult to imagine Saint Pothinus in his cell; Blandina tied to the ring of the column; the other Martyrs bound, chained, their feet in shackles.

As for the place where the Martyrs sustained their combats, our ancient historians affirm that it was on the hill, in the enclosure of the Minimes, where until recently one could still see some ruins of a Roman monument, of which nothing remains today. In the 18th century, these ruins, although already very incomplete, nevertheless allowed one to distinguish the hemicycle of a theater, with some vestiges of the tiers where the spectators were seated.

In the opposite part was the stage, below which Father Colonia had believed to recognize one of the caves or cellars in which the ferocious animals were kept. He concluded from this that this theater could have served both for scenic games and for gladiatorial and beast combats, although the latter, ordinarily, only took place in amphitheaters. Modern writers have not admitted this dual use: they have thought that the inclined vaults placed under the hemicycle, of which Father Colonia speaks, had no other purpose than to support a staircase with two ramps. But where then was the Lyonnais amphitheater? Some have suspected that perhaps it occupied the space that the Rue Tramassac crosses. All our historians have signaled the existence, in this place, of a very considerable monument which, according to this system, they would have wrongly taken for a temple dedicated to Antoninus. A fragment of an inscription, found in the ruins of the porticoes of this edifice, fixed the date of its construction to the year 174 of Jesus Christ, under the consulship of Orfilus and Maximus, and our Martyrs only suffered in 177. However, it is considered unlikely that an amphitheater existed in this place at that time. Finally, at various dates, and quite recently again, vast Roman substructures have been recognized in the part of our city called La Déserte, cut by water pipes which seem to indicate a naumachia. Now, nautical games often took place in amphitheaters, where waters were poured through secret channels. No one, however, has ever affirmed that the Martyrs of Lyon sustained their glorious combats at La Déserte. The most accredited opinion today is that they were put to death near the altar of Augustus, at Aynay. To justify this, in the absence of any vestige of an edifice, it is supposed that, during the first centuries of our era, the Romans had established, in this place, a provisional construction intended for bloody games, just as a temporary circus. Perhaps one could reconcile the various hypotheses by admitting that the first combats of the confessors of the faith took place on the hill, and the last before the altar of Augustus, in the month of August, the time at which solemn games took place.

Be that as it may, oral tradition and written tradition, sacred monuments and profane ruins, everything tells the Lyonnais that the place where the Martyrs suffered was at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône, in the surroundings of Aynay. The Letter of the two Churches affirms that the Martyrs fought at the amphitheater; now, according to Gregory of Tours and Ado, echoes of tradition in the 6th and 9th centuries, these Martyrs suffered at Athanæum (Aynay). The rigorous consequence is that the arenas, reddened by the blood of the soldiers of Christ, extended in the zone currently occupied by the church of Aynay and the adjacent streets. Four granite columns, upon which the church of Aynay still rests, come from the ruins of this amphitheater. It is generally thought that these four pillars, joined two by two, formed the columns of the altar of Augustus and that each of these columns was surmounted by a colossal statue of victory. We may be reproached for invoking here the testimony of Gregory of Tours, when we so often reject it. We answer that in a question of topography, Gregory of Tours is perfectly admissible, since he spent his youth in Lyon. It is not a question here of high criticism or chronology. Ado, for his part, is an exact author: he lived in Vienne, barely four leagues from Lyon: as he is in agreement with Gregory of Tours, one can think that he came to collect on the spot details that would interest the Church of Vienne as much as that of Lyon.

Many think that the bodies of our holy Martyrs were burned in an ustrinum, of which, in the 16th century, vestiges were found while digging the ground to lay the foundations of a house on the Place de Bellecour. The ustrinum, which, according to Roman laws, could only be placed outside a city, served to consume the bodies of children, mainly those of poor people who could not afford the cost of a funeral pyre. The one of which we speak was not far from the confluence of our two rivers, where, according to Saint Gregory of Tours, the pagans threw the ashes of the Martyrs.

In the midst of the various assessments that we have just mentioned, one fact is beyond doubt: it is that the confessors of the faith must have been interrogated at the Forum, which occupied the summit of the Fourvière hill; for it is there that justice was administered. It is probable, then, that they were locked in the prisons of which one sees the remains at the place we call the Antiquaille, where the palace of the emperors once stood. It is there, in fact, that tradition places the dungeon in which Saint Pothinus expired.

Here now, in a few words, are the main phases through which the Church of Saint-Nizi er, cradle of Christia église de Saint-Nizier A church in Lyon built on the oratory of Saint Pothinus. nity in Lyon, has passed.

The oratory of Saint Pothinus was replaced by a church in the shape of a Greek cross. At the peace granted to the Church by Constantine, this destroyed sanctuary was rebuilt on the same foundations and dedicated by Bishop Vocius to the holy Apostles. This monument, built by the unusual architects of that era, required a new reconstruction a century later. In the 5th century, Saint Eucherius built a church of larger proportions. In this reconstruction, the oratory of Saint Pothinus was restored to its primitive state; it communicated with the new church, to which it probably served as a baptistery. Saint Nizier, who died in 575, having been buried in this church, his tomb became famous for a great number of miracles. This is why this church, placed first under the invocation of the Holy Apostles, took the name of Saint-Nizier. The monument raised by Saint Eucherius subsisted until the invasion of the Saracens (732), who razed it to the ground. In 800, Leidradus raised it from its ruins. The work of this great bishop, a friend of Charlemagne, lasted until the end of the 13th century. The construction of the church that we see today was begun in 1303. The work, interrupted several times for lack of funds, lasted until the 18th century. These intermittencies explain the varieties of style that one notices in this monument.

It is to be regretted that the work carried out in the 15th century altered the character of the crypt, an alteration aggravated in our day by unintelligent restorations.

For a long time, the crypt of Saint Pothinus has been abandoned, forgotten; today, most of the inhabitants of Lyon are unaware even of its name. This oratory opens only once a year, on the day of the feast of Saint Ennemond. For several centuries, the gratitude of the people of Lyon was expressed by frequent visits to this sanctuary. Let us hope that the initiative of the clergy will cause these long-interrupted visits to resume.

The cult of Saint Pothinus and his companions must have begun shortly after their martyrdom; the solemnity in their honor later took on an exceptional character: under the name of the F east of Wonders, it fête des Merveilles Ancient nautical procession in honor of the martyrs of Lyon. was celebrated with extraordinary brilliance and pomp. It consisted of a procession made in boats on the Saône. The bishop's boat, escorted by four others acting as acolytes, led the way. Then came the magistrates in official costume, the principal inhabitants in festive attire, and the guilds with banners unfurled.

The procession on the water passed through the places marked by the principal circumstances of the combat of the Martyrs. Thus, it departed from the church of Vaize, because it was in this remote suburb that the martyrs Alexander and Epipodius were discovered; upon arriving at the bridge of the Saône, the boats passed one after the other under the arch closest to Saint-Nizier, and this arch was called the 'Marvelous' one. At the same time, the Laudate Dominum was intoned to salute the oratory of the blessed Pothinus. At the height of Ainay, everyone disembarked, and the procession headed toward the abbey church. Having entered the sanctuary, all members of the clergy pressed their lips to the stone known as that of Saint Pothinus: this stone, according to tradition, came from the dungeon where the holy pontiff had expired for Jesus Christ. Ainay was therefore the second station. The third was at the church of Saint-Nizier, originally the church of the Apostles. They returned there by land. A solemn mass celebrated in this church, which had received the ashes of the Martyrs miraculously returned by the Rhône, crowned the religious solemnity.

It is easy to see that, just as we follow the sorrowful path of Jesus Christ by making the Way of the Cross, so the ancestors of the Lyonnais followed the triumphal path traveled by their Martyrs, stopping at the principal places marked by the circumstances of the combat. As for the general meaning of the procession, it is easy to grasp: this journey on the water was made in memory of the miracle by which the waters of the Rhône returned the relics of the Saints.

We have spoken of the Feast of Wonders in the past tense, for it has no longer been celebrated since the middle of the 15th century; while one cannot specify the date of its suppression, which was brought about because of the abuses that were introduced over time, it is even less possible to specify the era when it began.

The church of Saint-Leu in Amiens possesses a large bone of Saint Blandina, framed behind the altar.

Saint Pothinus and his companions, martyrs; Origins of the Church of Lyon, by Fr. André Gouilloud, of the Society of Jesus; and the Great Memories of the Church of Lyon, by D. Mayots.