Macarius the Bishop
Acta Sanctorum, May 4
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-04/macarius-the-bishop.html
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ON S. MACARIUS THE BISHOP

IN THE TERRITORY AND CITY OF BORDEAUX.

CENT. IV OR VI.

[Commentary]

Macarius the Bishop, in the territory and city of Bordeaux (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Jerome Lopez, in the History of the Archbishops
of Bordeaux in French written,
which by his gift we received the eighth after the edition
year MDCLXXVI, [At Bordeaux in the altar Relics,] in part 1 chapter 5 treating of the aforesaid church's restoration and
second consecration, made by Urban Pope II, after the Council
of Clermont celebrated in the year MXCV there passing,
says, on that occasion to have been imposed on the high altar Relics
of SS. Andrew, Peter, John the Baptist, Stephen,
Laurence, Vincent, Macarius, Agatha and
Eulalia. Of these since known were the rest as Saints more ancient,
it remained to inquire about S. Macarius, who he was: and we found
by the author of that history at length of him to be treated chapter 6,
and to be cited an ancient Legend of the Saint, which by his
benefit to be able to be had not in vain hoping, by his hand, through
letters asked, we received from the archive of this kind lessons.

[2] [Lessons in the archive,] Macarius, Bishop of Laon, by B. Martin
of Tours the Bishop, to whom with great familiarity
he was joined, into lower Aquitaine's parts of preaching
for the sake was sent. Who when to Ligeni the city,
on the shore of the Garonne situated, with companion disciples
Cassian and Victor, he had landed; in a short time of his name
the fame, which the preaching's ardor and the life's sanctity
had augmented, all Aquitaine pervaded. At the last
broken with labors from life he departed, the reward of the labors,
which for Christ he had borne, in heaven about to receive.
* At Ligeni moreover Macarius in the temple of S.
Laurence by the disciples buried, with a multitude of miracles
began to be made more celebrated. [witnesses of the translation and miracles:] Whence when of so great a man
by the protection his city Count William, surnamed
the Good, to fortify wished; by the Archbishop's
of Bordeaux authority, his sacred Relics by the river
down to Bordeaux with great pomp and veneration
he carried, and them in the high temple honorably
placed. * On the journey moreover this singular was,
that the burning tapers, of veneration's sake near the Relics
placed, by no force of winds or rains extinguished,
to Bordeaux even were brought. But the whole
Clergy and people with solemn pomp to meet advancing,
that so great a treasure congratulating he might receive; when
a certain miller to so great a congratulation failed, nor
his work intermitted, suddenly the mill all dissipated
and broken was.

[3] [the eulogy in the Gallican Martyrology:] The same with the same nearly words long ago we had read on
the I of May in the Gallican Martyrology; but in these now more safely to trust
we can, the fountain recognized whence his drew Saussay, otherwise
suspect to us, because often detected the truth of things
to alter by conjectures and amplifications his more than
rhetorical, sometimes even by haste of writing; which
last vice also here on him crept, that for Victor, of the preaching
the companion, Castor he wrote, in the rest faithfully
enough either the words or the sense of the Lessons to him sent representing;
which although ancient they are called, of few nevertheless
centuries the age savor. The first moreover from popular only
tradition about the coming of S. Macarius treating, after eight or
ten centuries' lapse, what wonder if it contain something,
which by the defect of more ancient monuments rather benignly
ought to be received than scrupulously to be examined?

[4] Such is first, that Bishop of Laon he was
and to S. Martin of Tours familiar. [he seems not to have been Bishop of Laon,] Died S. Martin,
just as elsewhere proved by us is, in the year CCCXCVII:
of whose disciples and monastery speaking S. Severus
Sulpicius in the Life of the same S. Martin, Several, he says of
these afterward Bishops we have seen: for what would be the city
or church, which not for itself from Martin's monastery
would desire a Priest? But how could of them
one have been Macarius, and the same have been Bishop of Laon?
since this Episcopate is certain first to have been instituted
about the year DXV? Answers by conjecture Lopez, it could
have been that by S. Martin ordained for the people of Laon
Bishop, and they him on account of the inveterate Gentilism's stubbornness
not receiving, to his ordainer returned, [nor by S. Martin of Tours ordained:] sent
he was to the faith in Aquitaine to be preached. But neither credible
it is in S. Martin's age any to have been a city or more celebrated
town, in which prevailed idolatry; nor if there had been,
to S. Martin's Office it pertained through Gaul Bishops
to constitute, much less new to institute dioceses, the peoples not yet
converted, under conversion's future hope of whatever kind: and
indeed so remote peoples: for whom so many other nearer Bishops
could and ought to provide, and before them of the province
the Metropolitan and of all Gaul the Primate of Sens.

[5] The ancient Bordeaux church's Martyrology, which
of Usuard is, but augmented with proper there Saints, thus on
the Kalends of May to be read sets forth: [but rather of Lyon of the Convenae,] At Bordeaux the city
the birthday of S. Macarius, Bishop of Lyon. And so I would esteem
anciently it named; but since among the Lyon
Archbishops none was found of that name, the authors
or reformers of those lessons judged, that to be understood
it ought Lugdunum Clavatum, by a more common name
Laudunum. But I on the first of May, treating of S. Africanus,
suggested another Lyon, to Aquitaine neighboring, Lyon
namely of the Convenae, at the Pyrenees' roots,
by Strabo and Ptolemy remembered, to which in S. Martin's time
its own to have been Bishops quite is credible. This therefore
See if then it be supposed to have held S. Macarius, he could here roused
by the fame of S. Martin to him, as to a common
of all Gaul oracle, in common of the orthodox faith affairs
or for his church's private advantages to be consulted
have run out to Tours; [whence to Tours running out he died at Ligeni,] and thence returning, at Ligeni on the Garonne
to have died, on the confine of the Bordeaux and Bazas dioceses;
where more known after death than in life, on account of the miracles'
frequency, he effected, that the prior name abolished thenceforth
S. Macarius's town it should be called. There is nevertheless one who thinks
the old name to have remained on the opposite bank, where a little town is
Langon called.

[6] So to him his from the ancient appellation Episcopate would remain,
to no just contradiction obnoxious; nor difficult would it be
to a certain century to affix the age of him, who with most holy Martin
lived. [long perhaps after the death of S. Martin,] Of this nevertheless to fear one might, lest elsewhere
detected of the crowd error here also place have had, and it be said
to have come to S. Martin and to him familiar to have been, who to
the dead long ago sepulchre a pilgrim had come, and in
the monastery of him more familiarly had conversed. And so
even to the Visigoths' times, the Convenae infesting,
as well as the aforenamed S. Africanus, referred could be. Wherefore
nothing of his age defining, only I note the Birthday of S. Macarius
to seem to have been the I of May, [on the day I of May.] whence in the very old register of the church
of Bordeaux thus it is noted, On the Kalends of May is made the feast
of S. Macarius, as of one Confessor Bishop: and in
the Breviary of the Parochial church of S. Columba; which in the year
MCCXX from another older of S. Eulalia transcribed was, is prescribed
an Office of S. Macarius, Bishop and Confessor,
on the I of May.

[7] Because nevertheless SS. the Apostles Philip and James by a stronger
right seemed to demand, that their to the whole Catholic Church
common feast should not be postponed to any other whatever
commemoration; [whence to the 4th transferred now the feast] instituted by a more recent use at Bordeaux it is,
that the feast of S. Macarius thenceforth should be kept on the day IV, with that almost
all solemnity; which to the primary of the Church and Diocese Patron
S. Andrew is exhibited. Nay even by use it has obtained, that when
in the public processions, around the Metropolitan to be instituted
wont, from the feast of the Trinity even to Easter is sung a Responsory
of the same S. Andrew; [as of a Patron:] from Easter even to the Trinity
is sung of S. Macarius, whose body is preserved in a place
sublime behind the high altar; and in the year MDCLXXVI it was written
that as soon as possible it was to be transferred into a new and notable
silver casket, by the care and expenses of the Chapter made.
For when the King's Mother Anne of Austria at Bordeaux was
in the year MDCL, [The bones in a silver casket.] and piously visited the church of S. Andrew, before whose
principal altar once she had been joined in matrimony to the King
most Christian Louis XIII; and had understood the sacred
S. Macarius deposit still no more honored to be held, than
it was held in the time of her betrothal; six hundred soon of silver
pounds for the new chest's making to be begun she donated,
which with four hundred others added now perfected is held.

[8] In that place, where that holy body once rested,
and which even now the name retains, our Society a Residence
has with a church; [the shoulder-blade in the town of his name.] but otherwise than once situated: for the prior
site into a garden is converted. In it moreover keeps the remaining
one of the old deposit shoulder, and on his feast day
exposes religiously to be venerated. The other bones to Bordeaux is said
to have translated Count William surnamed
the Good. Of this Count an indubitable notice I find
in Gregory VII book 6 of the Register Epistle 24, by which in the year
of his Pontificate VI Indiction XIII, that is in the year of Christ
MLXXXVII, thus he writes to Bertrand Abbot of the monastery
of the Holy Cross and the Brethren: [the body could not have translated William the Good in the 9th or 10th century:] The church of S. Macarius, by
our Brethren's counsel to your monastery we have adjudged,
and that William the Good, formerly
Count of Bordeaux, founder of the same monastery,
reasonably to the same monastery granted the church
of S. Michael outside the city of Bordeaux. When
therefore that William's Principate began before the year
DCCCXLVIII, in which, according to the fragment of the Chronicle of Fontanella,
the Normans Bordeaux the city took, and the Duke
of the same William by night; consequent to be it seemed,
that also the church of S. Macarius before that year should be said
into another's right to have passed, and deprived to have been of its Patron's body,
or at least in the following century X, if true is that he to whom
the Good's surname adhered, an heir instituted William
Sancius Duke of Vasconia, in the year DCCCCLXXXII still surviving,
with his consort the Countess Urraca.

[9] But from this opinion quickly me removed Jerome
Lopez, at the Life of Godfrey II Archbishop of Bordeaux,
producing an instrument from the register of the monastery of the Holy
Cross, [which in the 11th century still was in the first place] made (as says he himself, the time's characters I know not
by what counsel here omitting) in the year MXXVII, in which William
by the grace of God Count of Aquitaine at the same time and Duke of Vasconia
and his wife Remberga … give and grant the cell
of B. Laurence, where the precious of B. Macarius buried
body rests, with tithes and justices and with
customs on land and on sea. And this donation
was made, to Gombaldus the Abbot, of the church of Bordeaux
the Archbishop Godfrey. There was therefore then still in
the prior place the body of S. Macarius. But that instrument this
truly pertains to the year aforenoted and the time of Godfrey
the second, not the first who sat in the year DCCCCLXXII, persuades
another by the same Jerome produced instrument,
by which to Ama the Countess of Bordeaux or of the Périgord
country, to a certain monastery constructed in honor of
S. Maria of the ends of the earth, she donates the heritage Medrins
called: and This, says she, donation made, in the year
MXLIII of the Lord's Incarnation, of the Franks Henry
the King reigning, presiding Godfrey … to the See
holy of the Church of Bordeaux, Lord Gombaldus
the Abbot assisting of the monastery, in the first of S. Cross and
S. Maria and S. Macarius. William therefore who above is noted, of William Sancius the aforementioned the son was, first and
by his own name Sancius called, by which alone he subscribes the aforecited
instrument of his Father, from the tables of the foundation of the monastery of S.
Severus in Vasconia to be read in Jerome Lopez page
176: because then still lived the elder and there subscribed
brother Bernard William, on whose death he began first
together with the Principate the William name to use.

[10] From these moreover it appears so far to be that the translation
of the holy Body was made under William the Good, he who is reckoned
the first among the Counts of Bordeaux, from those of Poitou
most diverse (although both Williams, both of Aquitaine
Counts or Dukes were called) that neither under Sancius
William, nor for some time after credible it is it to have been performed.
For what under this last still by the first name
was called the Cell of S. Laurence, after into the right of the monastery
of the Holy Cross it passed, is called the church or monastery
of S. Macarius. Whence we learn his cult by the care of the common
administrator, or (as Ama the Countess calls)
Assistant Gombaldus, notably to have flourished again, since other
of the changed name cause cannot be brought, or perhaps even a new for
the old church to have arisen: which done not would have been, if there not
had been present the body of the Patron. [and as the most under the last William translated,] Nay neither in the year MCXX anything
changed to have been seems, since even to that year
the Prior and monks of S. Macarius of so great were power, that
from the obedience of the Abbot of the Holy Cross they wished to be held exempt,
which suit then first they being condemned decided Arnald
II Archbishop of Bordeaux. Before nevertheless than an end
should receive the century XII, I believe carried off to Bordeaux
to have been the body of S. Macarius; and perhaps by William IX, extinguished
long ago of the Counts of Bordeaux and Dukes of Vasconia the stock,
of all Aquitaine the most powerful Duke, all things in the churches at
will doing in the time of the schism, by whom through S. Bernard
drawn away, but no more than before kinder toward the monks,
easily could he this also among the rest have attempted, that S. Macarius's
church and monastery he should despoil of the Patron, with whom the Cathedral
of Bordeaux he might adorn.

[11] Died William that, not by a bad at length death, at
Compostella a pilgrim from a vow, in the year MCXXXVII, [before the year 1137] as
is shown before the Life of S. William the Hermit, with whom
this Duke ill by very many is confounded, § 4 on the day X of February,
and in him ceased of the Dukes of Aquitaine the series. But him
ruling the Bordeaux See held, whom I said,
Arnald II, surnamed Geraldus, elected in the year MCIII
and nearly to the year MCXXXV surviving, when place
he made for Gaufridus III surnamed Loriolus. But whoever
of them it was, under whom was made the aforesaid translation, his first
care to have been it seems, that in his Cathedral church a proper
to S. Macarius altar he should erect. For, as Jerome Lopez
us taught, [an altar to the same proper erected.] in the often praised monastery of the Holy Cross register
is found an instrument, under Elias de Malamorte made
in the year MCXCII, in the church of S. Andrew before the altar
of S. Macarius. Moreover when or how the stone tomb,
that Saint's body containing, from that altar, in which first
to have rested I esteem, was translated behind the high altar, where
in this century he was venerated, nowhere noted I find.
I believe moreover not long there to be left, after the sacred bones transposed
shall have been into a new casket silver: of which action
I awaited letters of R. P. Peter Coulon, by whom our there
College being governed, effected it had been, that these to comment I could
about S. Macarius, before known from Saussay's only relation;
when I understood from the letters of R. P. Francis Cosso, to whom
his dying turns of answering he had bequeathed, to have died him on November XI
of the year MDCLXXVI.
