6 April 861 A.D. Prudentius of Troyes—Learned Gallican Bishop
6 April 861 A.D. Prudentius of Troyes—Learned Gallican Bishop
Butler, Alban. “St. Prudentius, Bishop of
Troyes, Confessor.” The Lives of the
Saints, Volume IV: April. 1866. http://www.bartleby.com/210/4/065.html. Accessed 23 Feb 2015.
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April 6
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St. Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, Confessor
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HE was by birth a Spaniard; but fled from the swords of the
infidels into France, where in 840, or 845, he was chosen bishop of Troyes.
He was one of the most learned prelates of the Gallican church, and was
consulted as an oracle. By his sermon on the Virgin St. Maura, we are
informed that, besides his other functions and assiduity in preaching, he
employed himself in hearing confessions, and in administering the sacraments
of the holy eucharist and extreme unction. In his time Gotescalc, a wandering
monk of the abbey of Orbasis, in the diocess of Soissons, advanced, in his
travels, the errors of predestinarianism, blasphemously asserting that
reprobates were doomed by God to sin and hell, without the power of avoiding
either. Nottinge, bishop either of Brescia or Verona, sent an information of
these blasphemies to Rabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mentz, one of the most
learned and holy men of that age, and who had, whilst abbot of Fulde, made
that house the greatest nursery of science in Europe. 1
Rabanus examined Gotescalc in a synod at Mentz in 848, condemned his errors,
and sent him to his own metropolitan Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, a prelate
also of great learning and abilities. 2
By him and Wenilo, archbishop of Sens, with several other prelates, the monk
was again examined in a synod held at Quiercy on the Oise, in the diocess of
Soissons, a royal palace of King Charles the Bald, in 849. Gotescalc being
refractory, was condemned to be degraded from the priesthood, and imprisoned
in the abbey of Haut-villiers in the diocess of Hincmar. By the advice of St.
Prudentius, whom Hincmar consulted, he was not deprived of the lay-communion
till, after some time, Hincmar, seeing his obstinacy invincible, fulminated
against him a sentence of excommunication, under which this unhappy author of
much scandal and disturbance died, after twenty-one years of rigorous
confinement, in 870. Some suspected Hincmar of leaning towards the contrary
Semipelagian error against the necessity of divine grace; and Ratramnus of
Corbie took up his pen against him. St. Prudentius wrote to clear up the
point, which seemed perplexed by much disputing, and to set the Catholic
doctrine in a true light, showing on one side a free will in man, and that
Christ died for the salvation of all men; and on the other, proving the
necessity of divine grace, and that Christ offered up his death in a special
manner for the salvation of the elect. When parties are once stirred up in
disputes, it is not an easy matter to dispel the mist which prejudices and
heat raise before their eyes. This was never more evident than on that
occasion. Both sides agreed in doctrine, yet did not understand one another.
Lupus Servatus, the famous abbot of Ferrieres, in Gatinois, Amolan,
archbishop of Lyons, and his successor St. Remigius, wrote against Rabanus
and Hincmar, in defence of the necessity of divine grace, though they
condemned the blasphemies of the predestinarians. Even Amolan of Lyons and
his church, who seem to have excused Gotescalc in the beginning, because they
had never examined him, always censured the errors condemned in him: for the
divine predestination of the elect is an article of faith; but such a grace
and predestination as destroy free-will in the creature, are a monstrous
heresy. Neither did St. Remigius of Lyons, nor St. Prudentius, interest
themselves in the defence of Gotescalc, which shows the inconsistency of
those moderns, who, in our time, have undertaken his justification. 3
In 853, Hincmar and other bishops published, in a second assembly at Quiercy,
four Capitula, or assertions, to establish the doctrines of free-will, and of
the death of Christ for all men. To these St. Prudentius subscribed, as
Hincmar and the annals of St. Bertin testify. The church of Lyons was alarmed
at these assertions, fearing they excluded the necessity of grace: and the
council of Valence, in 855, in which St. Remigius of Lyons presided,
published six canons, explaining, in very strong terms, the articles of the
necessity of grace, and of the predestination of God’s elect. St. Prudentius
procured the confirmation of these canons by Pope Nicholas I., in 859.
Moreover, fearing the articles of Quiercy might be abused in favour of
Pelagianism; though he had before approved them, he wrote his Tractatoria to
confute the erroneous sense which they might bear in a Pelagian mouth, and to
give a full exposition of the doctrine of divine grace. He had the greater
reason to be upon his guard, seeing some, on the occasion of those disputes,
openly renewed the Pelagian errors. John Scotus Erigena, an Irishman in the
court of Charles the Bald, a subtle sophist, infamous for many absurd errors,
both in faith and in philosophy, 4
published a book against Gotescalc, On Predestination, in which he openly
advanced the Semipelagian errors against grace, besides other monstrous
heresies. Wenilo, archbishop of Sens, having extracted nineteen articles out
of this book, sent them to his oracle St. Prudentius, who refuted the entire
book of Scotus by a treatise which is still extant. This saint, having
exerted his zeal also for the discipline of the church, and the reformation
of manners among the faithful, was named with Lupus abbot of Ferrieres, to
superintend and reform all the monasteries of France; of which commission he
acquitted himself with great vigour and prudence. He died on the 6th of
April, 861, and is named in the Galilean martyrologies, though not in the
Roman. 5
At Troyes he is honoured with an office of nine lessons, and his relics are
exposed in a shrine. 6
See Ceillier, t. 19. p. 27. Clemencez, Hist. Liter. de la France, t. 5. p.
240. Also Les Vies de S. Prudence de Troyes, et de S. Maure, Vierge, à
Troyes, 1725. With an ample justification of this holy prelate: and Nicolas
Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispanica Vetus, l. 6. c. 1. an. 259. ad 279. which work
was published at Rome by the care of Card. D’Aguirre in 1696.
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Note 1. Rabanus
Maurus was archbishop of Mentz from the year 847 to 856, in which he died, on
the 4th of February, on which his name occurs in certain private German
Martyrologies, though he has never been publicly honoured among the saints.
See Bolland. Febr. t. 1. p. 511. and Mabillon, t. 6. Act. SS. Bened. p. 37.
His works were printed at Mentz, in 1626, in six tomes. They consist of
letters, comments on the holy scriptures, and several dogmatical and pious
treatises. The principal are his Institution of the Clergy, and On the
Ceremonies or Divine Offices, in three books; and his Martyrology, which he
compiled about the year 844. Dom. Bernard Pez published his pious discourse
on the Passion of Christ. Anecdot. t. 4. part. 2. p. 8. His poems, which fall
short of his prose writings, were published by F. Brower with those of
Fortunatus. The Veni Creator is found among his writings, and in none more
ancient; whence some ascribe to him that excellent hymn. He quotes the Gloria,
laus et honor; which is known to be the work of Theodulph, bishop of Orleans,
who died in 821, and left us Capitulars and other works in prose, and some in
verse, collected by F. Sirmond in 1646. See Opera P. Sirmundi. Venetiis,
1728. t. 2.
Hincmar, a monk of St. Denis, chosen archbishop of Rheims in 845, died in 882. His letters are much better written than his other works, nor is the style so lax and diffusive. Sirmond published his works in two vols. folio, in 1645. F. Cellot added a third volume in 1658. Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in Gatinois, (whom all now agree to have been the same person with Lupus Servatus, as F. Sirmond and Baluze have demonstrated against Mauguin,) died in 862. His letters and his famous treatise on the Three Questions (relating to Predestination) are written in a nervous and elegant style. The most accurate editions are those of Baluze, in 1664, at Paris, and with additions at Leipsic in 1710 (the title page says falsely at Antwerp). Amolon succeeded Agobard in the see of Lyons in 840, and died in 852. In the Library of the Fathers, t. 13 and 14. and in an appendix to the works of Agobard by Baluze, we have his works on Grace and Predestination, and his letter to Theutlaald, bishop of Langres, in which he orders him to remove out of the church, and bury decently certain doubtful relics, according to the practice of St. Martin, and the decree of pope Gelasius. As to certain pretended miracles of women falling into convulsions, and being seized with pains before them, he commands them to be rejected and despised: for true miracles restore often health, but never cause sickness in such circumstances. St. Remigius of Lyons, Amolon’s successor, died on the 28th of October, 875, and is named among the Saints in the private calendars of Ferrari and Saussay. On his writings, on Grace and Predestination, see Mabillon, Suppl. Diplom. p. 64. et in Analectis, p. 426. and F. Colonia, Hist. de Lyons, t. 2. p. 139. Florus, deacon of Lyons, and a learned professor, author of additions to Bede’s Martyrology, wrote both against Gotescalc and John Scotus Erigena. See t. 15. Bibl. Patr. and Baluze, t. 2. op. Agobardi. Append. [back] |
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Note 3. Bishop
Usher, Jansenius, and Mauguin are advocates for the Predestinarians;
consequently suspected persons in this history. Their vindication of Gotescalc
is confuted by the Cardinal de Laurea, Opusc. l. c. 7., Nat. Alexander, F.
Honoratus of St. Mary, and Tournely, in accurate dissertations on that
subject. F. Ziegelbaver in the Hist. Liter. Ord. S. Bened. t. 3. p. 105.
gives us both Card. Noris’s Apology for Gotescalc, and the Jesuit Du Mesnil’s
history of his heresy. [back]
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Note 4. See a
catalogue of some of his errors and absurdities in Witasse’s Tr. de Euchar.
t. 1. p. 414. and in Mu. Paris, Diss. at the end of the Perpétuité de la Foi,
art. 4. Had Dr. Cave lived to read these authors, or Mabillon, sæc. 4. and 6.
Bened. or Nat. Alexander, Hist. sæc. 9 and 10. Diss. 14. p. 359. t. 6.
&c. he would not have confounded this John Scotus Erigena with John
Scotus, abbot of Ethelinge, king Alfred’s master, and one of the first
professors at Oxford: nor is it likely he would have suppressed his errors,
or the disgrace with which, by an express order of pope Nicholas I., he was
expelled France. Hist. Liter. t. 5. p. 36. [back]
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Note 6. The
Bollandists, p. 531, on the 6th of April, with Lewis Cellot, Hist.
Gotescalci, l. 3. c. 9. charge Prudentius of Troyes with errors in doctrine,
and with opposing Hincmar out of jealousy and revenge, because the archbishop
had seemed to infringe the rights of his church, according to the author of
the Annales Britannici, who wrote within twenty years after his death. But
this seems only a slander propagated by some of his adversaries. His
writings, which are extant, t. 15. Bibl. Patr. p. 467. are understood in an
orthodox sense by most learned Catholic theologians: at least we cannot doubt
but he submitted them to the judgment of the Church. See Cacciari, Monitum in
S. Leonis, ep. 136. t. 2. p. 452.
The works of St. Prudentius, see t. 15. Bibl. Patr. His letter to his brother, who was a bishop, probably in Spain, is published by Mabillon, Analecta, p. 418. His panegyric on St. Maura, a virgin at Troyes, is extant in Surius; and translated into French, and defended against Daillé, by Abbé Breyer, canon at Troyes, at the end of his Défense de l’Eglise de Troyes, at Paris, 1725. [back] |
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