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E00536: Gregory of Tours, in his Glory of the Martyrs (36), tells of relics of Clement (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00111) being brought to the territory of Limoges (western Gaul); their authenticity was proved when they miraculously regenerate a dry spring, invoked by the prayers of Aredius (monk of Limoges, ob. 591, S00302). Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 580/594.

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posted on 2015-05-21, 00:00 authored by kwojtalik

Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs 36

A spring in the territory of Limoges, which had provided abundant water to sustain crops and plants, dried up, or rather moved to the middle of a swamp, where it was of no use.

Tertio quoque anno accidit, ut quidam iter agens beati Clementis martyris, cui iam supra meminimus, reliquias exhiberet, quas Aridio ipsius urbis presbitero, viro in omni sanctitate religioso, detulit. Ad quem cum die noctuque vicinia maesta penderent, confisi de eius oratione, quod, si peteret Dominum, fontem possit suo restituere loco, ait: "Eamus", inquid, "dilectissimi, et si vera sunt, quae portitor noster adseruit, haec esse Clementis martyris pignora, nunc apparebit, cum eius fuerit virtus manifestata". Tunc cum psallentio ad locum fontis accedit. Et dictis psalmis, in oratione prosternitur; positisque sanctis reliquiis in ipso fontis aditu, petiit, ut, qui quondam in deserto damnatis ad secanda marmora flumen inriguum patefecit, in hunc locum aquas, quas prius pia indulserat clementia, Clementis iterum intercessio revocaret. Ilico vena recurrit ad aditum, magnas evomens aquas, illumque quem prius tenuerat alveum decurrendo replevit; admirantibus populis, inmensae gratiae Domino referuntur, qui et martyris virtutem prodidit et fidelis sui orationem implere dignatus est.

'But in the third year [of the drought] a man happened to travel by and displayed relics (reliquias) of the blessed martyr Clement, whom I have already mentioned. He brought these relics to Aredius, a priest of Limoges and a man devout in all holiness. Day and night the [people in the] neighbourhood sadly gathered around Aredius. Since they trusted his prayer that, if he petitioned the Lord, the Lord was able to restore the spring to its proper spot, Aredius said: 'Beloved brothers, let us arise. If the claim of our traveller that these are relics (pignora) of the martyr Clement is true, then it will be apparent when his power is revealed.' With the accompaniment of the chanting of psalms he went to the [former] location of the spring. After the chanting of the psalms he knelt in prayer and placed the holy relics in the source of the spring. He prayed that [just as] intercession had once revealed to those condemned in the desert the refreshing water from a split rock [Numbers 20: II], so again the intercession of Clement should recall to this spot the water which faithful mercy had earlier granted. Immediately the flow of water reappeared at the source, and it spewed out [so] much water [that] it filled and overflowed the banks that had earlier contained it. The people were full of wonder and gave great thanks to the Lord, who had displayed the power of the martyr and had deigned to grant the prayer of his faithful [servant Aredius].'

Text: Krusch 1969, 61. Translation: Van Dam 2004, 34-35, lightly modified.

History

Evidence ID

E00536

Saint Name

Clement, bishop of Rome and martyr, ob. c. 100 : S00111 Aredius, monk of Limoges (Gaul), ob. 591 : S00302

Saint Name in Source

Clemens Aridius

Related Saint Records

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles Literary - Hagiographical - Other saint-related texts

Language

Latin

Evidence not before

583

Evidence not after

593

Activity not before

570

Activity not after

591

Place of Evidence - Region

Gaul and Frankish kingdoms

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Tours

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Tours Tours Tours Toronica urbs Prisciniacensim vicus Pressigny Turonorum civitas Ceratensis vicus Céré

Major author/Major anonymous work

Gregory of Tours

Cult activities - Liturgical Activity

Procession

Cult activities - Places

Holy spring/well/river

Cult activities - Rejection, Condemnation, Scepticism

Scepticism/rejection of specific relics

Cult Activities - Miracles

Miracle after death Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather) Material support (supply of food, water, drink, money)

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy

Cult Activities - Relics

Unspecified relic Transfer, translation and deposition of relics Privately owned relics

Source

Gregory, bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594), was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Internal references to datable events and to other work by Gregory, suggest that he wrote the greater part of his Glory of the Martyrs between 585 and 588, though there is one chapter (ch. 82), long before the end of the book, that describes an event that is most readily dated to 590. It is in fact likely that Gregory was collecting and recording these stories throughout his life, and, fortunately for our purposes, precise dating is not of great importance, since his views on the role of saints and the correct ways to venerate them do not seem to have changed during his writing life. The work was probably never fully completed and polished: the version we have closes with four very disparate chapters, including one (105) about the divine punishment of an avaricious woman that bears no obvious connection to the overall theme of the book. (For discussions of the dating, see Van Dam 2004, xi-xii; Shaw 2015, 104-105, 111.) In his preface, Gregory states that his aim in the work is 'to publicise some of the miracles of the saints that have until now been hidden' (aliqua de sanctorum miraculis, quae actenus latuerunt, pandere), so, as in his Glory of the Confessors, his focus is not on the lives of the saints, nor on the details of their martyrdoms, but on miracles they have effected, particularly through their relics. Miracles are recorded from many places; but unsurprisingly the largest number is from Gaul. The book opens, rather curiously, with a sizeable number of miracles and relics of Jesus and his mother Mary, neither of them conventional 'martyrs'. The explanation for this must be that Gregory's interest was really much more in relics and miracles in general than in martyrs specifically. Many of the Gallic saints he included are somewhat obscure, but outside Gaul he concentrates for the most part on major saints; towards the end of the book, however, he slips in a couple of lesser Syrian saints, probably because they had interesting specialisms: Phokas and Domitios, with, respectively, particular skills at curing snake bites and sciatica. In the case of the non-Gallic saints, it is not always clear whether they were attracting active cult in Gaul – Phokas and Domitios, for instance, almost certainly didn't. It is only when Gregory tells us of a church dedication or relic that we can be certain that the saint concerned had serious cult in Gaul: in the case of the martyrs of Rome, for instance, this is true of Clement and Laurence, but not of Chrysanthus and Daria, Pancratius, and John I. Although each section contains extraneous material, the work can be broken down very roughly into the following sections: *Chapters 1-7: Miracles and relics of Jesus (with some of Mary), including three chapters (5-7) on relics of the Passion. (For the most part, these chapters are not covered in our database.) *Chapters 8-19: Miracles and relics of Mary and John the Baptist. *Chapters 20-25: Miraculous images of Jesus, and a spring associated with Easter. *Chapters 23-34: Miracles and relics of the Apostles and Stephen (i.e. New Testament saints). *Chapters 35-41: Miracles and relics of the post-apostolic martyrs of Rome. *Chapters 42-46: And of northern Italy. *Chapters 47-77: And of Gaul (in no obvious order, except that the first three chapters are occupied by early martyrs). This is the longest section of the book. *Chapters 78-87: Very miscellaneous, with only marginal references to saints: three anti-Arian stories (79-81); two stories regarding relics of Gregory's (82-83); four stories of the punishment of impure people (84-87). *Chapters 88-102: Miracles and relics of martyrs of Spain, Africa (just one, Cyprian of Carthage), and the East, in that order. *Chapters 103-106: Miscellaneous. But tight structuring was never a great concern of Gregory's, so within this broad framework, he often wanders off his main theme. For instance, a clutch of miracle stories relating to John the Baptist (chs. 11-13) lead Gregory into a general discussion of the River Jordan (ch. 16), which then leads him to discuss some springs near Jericho (ch. 17), linked to the preceding chapter by the common theme of 'miraculous waters in the Holy Land', but with no connection to any martyr. Similarly, a miracle story involving relics of St Andrew and the punishment of an Arian count (ch. 78) leads Gregory into three stories against Arians with no relation to saints. These digressions did not bother Gregory and are part of the charm of his work. Gregory very seldom tells us about his sources, which for the most part were certainly oral; he had a wide circle of acquaintances within the Gallic church, and also met and collected stories from travellers from abroad, including (if the source is to be believed) a man who had travelled to India (ch. 31). But Gregory also used a range of written texts, including Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (chs. 20 and 48), the poems of Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Venantius Fortunatus, and a substantial number of Martyrdoms (Van Dam 2004, xiv-xvi). Because many of his stories are set abroad, Glory of the Martyrs is less informative about cult practices than Glory of the Confessors, with its very local and very Gallic focus, but it is still a gold-mine of information. To take just two examples: the story of Benignus of Dijon is a remarkably rich and detailed account of the discovery and enhancement of a previously unknown martyr (ch. 50), while that of Patroclus of Troyes shows the importance of a written Martyrdom, and the degree of scepticism that might greet a new one (ch. 63). There is a good general discussion of Glory of the Martyrs in Van Dam 2004, ix-xxiii, and of Gregory's hagiography more widely in Shaw 2015. (Bryan Ward-Perkins)

Discussion

For the overview of the Glory of the Martyrs see E00367. Aredius was well known to Gregory, who refers to him often in his works (S00302), always as an exceptionally holy man and very often in conjunction with miraculous events. Indeed, after Aredius' death in 591, Gregory is happy to proclaim him a saint, able to effect miracles in his own right (E02387); but before this Gregory is always cautious, attributing the manifested miraculous power either entirely, or at least predominantly, to the relics of an established saint (here Clement). Gregory's closing sentence is carefully crafted: 'admirantibus populis, inmensae gratiae Domino referuntur, qui et martyris virtutem prodidit et fidelis sui orationem implere dignatus est. (The people were full of wonder and gave great thanks to the Lord, who had both displayed the power of the martyr and had deigned to grant the prayer of his faithful [servant Aredius].)'

Bibliography

Edition: Krusch, B., Liber in gloria martyrum, in: Gregorii Turonensis Opera. 2: Miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1.2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969). Translation: Van Dam, R., Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs (Translated Texts for Historians 4; 2nd ed., Liverpool, 2004). Further reading: Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition, and Authorial Conception in the Miracula", in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston 2015), 102-140.

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Keywords

S00111 S00302 History

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