The Latin Martyrdom of *Genesius (notary and martyr of Arles, S00263) is composed in Arles, at an uncertain date, probably in the 5th or 6th c. It emphasises Genesius' link to the river Rhône, and mentions the translation of his body and his patronage over the communities of both river banks. Full text, and full English translation.
E00486
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyr Genesius (Passio sancti Genesi martyris; BHL 3304, CPL 509)
(1.) Proprium atque indigenam Arelatensis urbis beatissimum Genesium martyrem, alumnum eiusdem iure nascendi, patronum virtute moriendi, celebrare iam a principio atque extollere omnia fidelium studia, omnes religiosorum litterae debuerunt, ut tanti meriti gloriosa documenta, consignata scriptorum fide et vivacibus commendata monumentis, inlibata atque integra ad posteros pervenirent, quae admiratio semper faceret nova et veneratio probaret antiqua. Sed quoniam succedentes sibi per incertum vitae tempus aetates tradere haec invicem memoriae mutuae quam mandare litteris maluerunt, vel nunc oportet eadem fidelibus scriptis in tempora secutura transmitti, ne ea, quae adhuc viva recordatione rerum, uti sunt gesta, referuntur, vanescente per tempus vel tradentium vel accipientium fide, fabulosa credantur.
(2.) Sanctus itaque Genesius in iuventutis flore primaevo provincialis militiae tirocinia suscepit, eam officii partem studio et arte conplexus, quae patronorum verba vel iudicum, signorum brevium enotata conpendiis, manu raperet, et memoriae velocitate vel dexterae sonum vocis aequaret, spiritalem futurae gloriae imaginem praefigurans, ut qui praecepta divina celeriter audiret et fidelibus notis piae mentis exciperet. Accidit itaque, ut, eodem hoc munus implente, impia atque sacrilega mandata, persecutionis iussa, legerentur, quae cum devotus Deo repudiaret auditus et inprimere ceris manus sancta respueret, abiectis ante pedes iudicis tabulis triste ministerium sacrata iam Domino mens refugit. Et ut in nullo a praeceptis evangelicis actus martyrii deviaret, quibus declinare persecutionis impetum vel permittimur vel iubemur, alia atque alia non solum latebra verum etiam civitate mutata, cum et alio loco scriptum sit "Spiritus quidem promptus, caro autem infirma", ab ira se furentis iudicis paulisper occuluit. Qui cum eum corripi protinus offerrique iussisset neque facilis investigatio ad procuratam latebram perveniret, crudelissimis poenae ministris, ut, ubi repertum, gladio interficerent, imperavit. Quod ubi beato Genesio vel occultis nuntiis vel rumore conpertum est, diversa latendi loca, ut exitus docet, non infirmitate spiritus sed carnis trepidatione mutavit.
(3.) Atque interim, licet superfluo, de praesumptae fidei confirmatione sollicitus, quoniam necdum ex aqua et spiritu sancto renatus, per fidos internuntios a catholicae religionis antistite donum baptismatis postulavit. Sed ille, vel temporis angustiis inpeditus vel iuvenili aetate diffidens, ardentia vota distulit ac fideliter indicavit, quod plenam consummationem etiam huius muneris daret prompta pro Christo cruoris effusio. Et haec quidem cunctatio sacerdotis divino, ut aestimare promptum est, nutu atque iudicio provocata vel disposita est, ut circa eius sollemnem consecrationem officia humana cessarent, cui unius baptismatis duplex gratia, ex utroque scilicet Christi latere et aqua et sanguis, parabatur.
(4.) Sed iam Dominus, per Spiritum sanctum intima futuri martyris scrutatus archana, subeundae constantiam passionis vel fecerat vel videbat neque patiebatur differri coronam, cum videret paratam esse victoriam. Itaque percussoribus eum suis obtulit et his, quorum in eundem avida crudelitas inhiabat, ostendit. Atque is, ubi se perspicit deprehensum, instinctu Dei Rhodanum petit et sancta fluvio membra committit, ut eum illic a concretione mortali velut alterius Iordanis undis occultus Baptista purgaret et mutuo alternoque mysterio et aquis corpus et aquas corpore consecraret. Atque haec causa profecto extitit, ut natandi adminiculo ad ripam alteram perveniret, qui exemplo beatissimi Petri ad Christum tendens per summa gurgitum ambulare potuisset. Transgressum in ulteriora fluminis et subeundae praemiis passionis Christo sponsore securum in eo loco, quem effusionis sanguinis gloriosi Dominus elegerat quique nunc oratione adsidua et votis numquam inritis frequentatur, percussor adsequitur exoptatoque gladii ictu festinantem ad Deum animam vinculis corporis, quibus tenebatur, absolvit, et, utraque substantia proprlae originis elementa repetente, terrena interim terris membra commendat, caelestem spiritum emittit ad caelum.
(5.) Providerunt tamen fideles temporis illius Dei servi, ut utramque fluminis ripam, geminatis urbibus ambiendam, unius martyris tutela muniret. Nam in ipso beatae passionis loco consecrati cruoris vestigia relinquentes in alterum fluvii latus honoratas reliquias transtulerunt, ut utrobique praesens Genesius illic sanguine haberetur, hic corpore.
(6.) Haec omnia fideliter atque, ut gesta sunt, vel conperta vel dicta libentibus devotisque animis, qui noveratis, recognoscite, qui ignorabatis, agnoscite, et gloriam tanti martyris, per singula annorum spatia crescentem et in saecula aeterna victuram, mentis oculis contuentes, unusquisque pro viribus ad similia, si fides desideraverit, animos praeparate et, ut beatus Genesius, throno Domini usque in vindictae suae tempus adsistens, sacerdotibus, ministris, clero vobisque omnibus et ei, qui instructioni vestrae ista composuit, patrocinetur, orate.
'(1.) Our own and native martyr of the city of Arles, the most blessed Genesius, offspring of it by right of birth, patron by the power of his death, ought to have been celebrated and extolled from the beginning by all the efforts of the faithful, by all the writings of the religious, so that glorious proofs of such a great achievement, sealed by the faith of writing and entrusted to long-lived monuments, should reach posterity intact and undiminished, always made new by admiration and proved old by veneration. But because succeeding ages preferred to pass these things on in memory through the uncertain time of life, rather than set them down in writing, it is now appropriate to commit them to trustworthy writings to be transmitted to ages to come, in case events which, through the still living memory of things, are recalled just as they happened, come, because the faith of either the tellers or the listeners fades over time, to be seen as fables.
(2.) And so the holy Genesius, in the first flower of his youth, enlisted as a recruit in the provincial service, assuming with zeal and skill that position within the administration that takes down by hand the words of advocates and governors, noted down by means of collections of brief signs, and equals the sound of the voice in quickness of memory and hand. He thus prefigured the spiritual image of his future glory, as one who would hear quickly the divine precepts and record them in his pious mind with faithful notes. And so it happened that, while fulfilling this office, impious and sacrilegious commands, orders of persecution, were read out, which as one devoted to God he refused to hear, and which his holy hand refused to imprint in the wax. Throwing down his writing tablets at the feet of the governor, his mind, already consecrated to the Lord, fled that grim service. And, that the action of the martyr might in no way deviate from the precepts of the Gospels, by which avoiding the fury of persecution is permitted or even commanded [Matthew 10:23], he not only hid himself from the wrath of the infuriated governor in different hiding places, but even fled to another city, since elsewhere it is written that "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" [Matthew 26:41]. The governor ordered that he immediately be seized and brought to him, but when a quick search had not managed to find his hiding place, he commanded his most cruel executioners to kill him with the sword wherever they found him. When the blessed Genesius learned this, by means either of secret messengers or rumour, he switched to different hiding places, seeking escape, not because of an infirmity of spirit, but through bodily fear.
(3.) Meanwhile, concerned, perhaps unnecessarily, about the confirmation of his newly accepted faith, since he was not yet born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he requested through faithful messengers the gift of baptism from a bishop of the Catholic religion. But the latter, either impeded by the difficulties of the time or not trusting Genesius on account of his youth, rejected his burning desire, and rightly stated that this duty could be fully effected by willingly shedding his blood for Christ. And indeed this hesitation of the bishop, as is easy to gauge, was caused and ordained by divine permission and judgement, so that human duties should be absent from his solemn consecration: for him was prepared the double grace of a single baptism with both water and blood, just as they had flowed from each of Christ's sides.
(4.) But now the Lord, having already, through the Holy Spirit, probed the innermost secrets of the future martyr, ordained and foresaw the constancy with which he would suffer martyrdom, and did not allow the crown to be delayed when he saw that victory was at hand. And so God gave him to his persecutors, and revealed him to them whose eager cruelty sought him. And he, when he knows himself discovered, prompted by God, makes for the Rhône, and commits his holy body to the river, so that there, as in the waters of another Jordan, a hidden Baptist might cleanse him from mortal accretion and consecrate, in a mutual and reciprocal mystery, both his body with the waters and the waters with his body. And this thing surely occurred so that he should reach the other bank by means of swimming, who, striving for the example of the most blessed Peter to Christ, would have been able to walk across the surface of the waters. When he has crossed to the far side of the river, and is sure, with Christ as his sponsor, of the rewards of the passion he is to undergo, in the place which the Lord had chosen for the glorious shedding of his blood and which is now the scene of constant praying, and prayers that are never ineffective, an executioner follows and with the longed-for sword-stroke frees his soul – hurrying to God – from the chains of the body that bound it, and, with each substance returning to the elements of its own origin, he entrusts his earthly limbs to the earth, he sends forth his heavenly spirit to heaven.
(5.) The faithful servants of God of that time provided, however, that the protection of one martyr should guard both banks of the river, which were to embrace twinned cities. For leaving the traces of his consecrated blood in the place of his blessed martyrdom, they carried his hallowed remains across to the other side of the river, so that Genesius would be present on both sides, there with his blood, here with his body.
(6.) Faithfully recognise all these events as they occurred – revealed and told to willing and devout minds – you who have already heard them; you who did not know them, learn of them. And contemplate with the eyes of your mind the glory of such a great martyr, growing with each year and destined to live into eternal ages. And each prepare your minds for similar things, according to your strength, if faith desires it, and pray that the blessed Genesius, seated at the throne of the Lord until the time of his judgement, may protect the bishops, ministers, clergy, and all of you, and him who composed this for your instruction.'
Text: Cavallin 1945.
Translation: Joe Church.
Place of martyrdom of a saint
Holy spring/well/river
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Saint as patron - of a community
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Bodily relic - blood
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Officials
Source
Authorship and dateThe Martyrdom of Genesius is anonymous: all that can be said about its author is that he is likely to have been a cleric from Arles. In a number of manuscripts, the Martyrdom is attributed to a 'Bishop Paulinus', which led some editors to attribute it to Paulinus of Nola, including the editor of the CSEL edition of Paulinus' works, Hartel. However, this attribution was dismissed by the Martyrdom's most recent editor (Cavallin 1945, 174), and no longer has any currency.
The Martyrdom has sufficient similarities to the sermon on Genesius in the Eusebius Gallicanus collection (E00795) to show that one must be dependent on the other, or both on a common source; among other parallels, both justify Genesius' attempt to escape by citing Matthew 10:23 ('When they persecute you in this city, flee to another'). Cavallin argued that the contrasting use of this biblical text in the two works showed that the Martyrdom was dependent on the sermon (Cavallin 1945, 169-171). The preacher of the sermon uses it as a conceit referring to the two halves of the city of Arles (sermon, § 5): by swimming across the Rhône, Genesius tries to flee from 'one city' (the urban core of Arles) to 'another' (the suburb across the Rhone). The Martyrdom has a longer and more laboured passage (the second half of § 2) in which the author, seemingly afraid that the fact that Genesius tried to escape will detract from his status as a martyr, insists that Genesius was consciously acting in obedience to the Gospel command, and even claims – nonsensically in the context of Genesius' martyrdom narrative – that in order to do so he literally fled from Arles to another city. Cavallin's argument that the author of the Martyrdom has misunderstood and garbled the reference in the sermon is certainly plausible even if not absolutely conclusive (other explanations are possible, for example that both texts are responding to an earlier version of the Martyrdom).
The sermon on Genesius is usually dated to the mid 5th century (see discussion in E00795), so if the Martyrdom is later it dates from no earlier than this. Cavallin dated it to the 6th century (Cavallin 1945, 173), but his reasoning here seems questionable: apart from citing two particular Latin usages as characteristic of the 6th century, his only argument was that what he described as the Martyrdom's 'mixture of inflated rhetoric and naive narration' ('son mélange de rhétorique enflée et de narration naïve'), was typical of 6th century literature, a judgement which is clearly subjective and now quite dated in its attitude towards late-antique literature.
An issue that impinges on the date of the Martyrdom is its relationship to the Martyrdom of Ferreolus of Vienne (E06311). This depicts the soldier-martyr Ferreolus as swimming across the Rhône and being martyred on the other side, in the same way as Genesius. The Martyrdom of Ferreolus is generally accepted as dating from no later than around 470, since it depicts Ferreolus as still being venerated in his original tomb, while we know from a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris dating from 473/4 (E06742) that he had been translated to a new shrine by Sidonius' friend, Bishop Mamertus of Vienne. If the Martyrdom of Ferreolus is indebted to the Martyrdom of Genesius, then the latter work must already have been written by that point (this was argued by Franchi de Cavalieri 1935). Cavallin accepted that the Martyrdom of Ferreolus was influenced by the Martyrdom of Genesius, but insisted that both works must therefore date from the 6th century, dismissing the lack of reference to the translation of Ferreolus in his Martyrdom as an argument from silence (Cavallin 1945, 173, n. 1). A stronger argument would be that it is actually far from clear that there is any dependency between the two Martyrdoms. The basic incident of swimming the Rhône seems to be a doublet of the Genesius tradition, but there are no verbal or structural similarities between the two texts of a kind that would prove dependency (as there are between the Martyrdom of Genesius and the sermon on Genesius). The author of the Martyrdom of Ferreolus could have been influenced by the sermon on Genesius, which Cavallin himself dated to the 5th century, or simply by oral traditions about Genesius, in which case it would have no significance for dating the Martyrdom of Genesius.
Manuscripts and editions
The Martyrdom of Genesius is preserved in a large number of manuscripts, and was clearly a popular text. Twenty-four manuscripts are listed in BHLms (bhlms.fltr.ucl.ac.be), of which the oldest dates from the late 8th or early 9th century (Turin, Biblioteca nazionale D. V. 3, fol. 173v-176r).
The first printed edition of the Martyrdom appeared in the collection De probatis sanctorum historiis, compiled by the Counter-Reformation hagiographer Laurentius Surius (Cologne, 1573). It appeared in numerous other editions in the early modern period (for a full list, see its BHL entry, 3304), including Ruinart's Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta (Paris, 1689); Ruinart's edition was reprinted by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, with their own discussion and annotation. A modern critical edition, based on a large number of manuscripts and with a full discussion of the manuscript tradition, was published by Samuel Cavallin in 1945 in the journal Eranos.
Discussion
The Martyrdom of Genesius claims to be the first written account of Genesius, whose story had previously been handed down by oral transmission (Genesius is usually assumed to have been martyred during the Great Persecution at the beginning of the 4th century, though in fact neither the Martyrdom nor any other early source specifies when his martyrdom took place). The text is quite brief, focussing on a small number of key points which by the time it was written had evidently become central to his cult.Genesius' martyrdom is notable for resulting from his job, as a shorthand-writer (exceptor in Latin) in the service of the provincial administration. Genesius, a Christian but not yet baptised, refuses to transcribe 'orders for persecution' (persecutionis iussa), flinging his wax-tablets at the feet of the provincial governor (iudex). This act sets the scene for his martyrdom, but in the Martyrdom's narrative it does not take place immediately: instead Genesius flees and successfully hides from the pursuers sent by the governor, changing his hiding places and moving to another city, which the author justifies by reference to Matthew 10:23 ('If they persecute you in this, city flee to another'). While he is in hiding he contacts a bishop to ask for baptism, a request which the bishop rejects, ensuring that Genesius' baptism takes place through martyrdom, the 'baptism of blood'.
It is when Genesius is finally tracked down that the key event for his later cult takes place: he attempts to escape by jumping into the River Rhône and swimming to the other side. However, he is caught and put to death on the far side of the river. The author devotes a passage (§ 5) to describing the significance of these events for the community in Arles. The city of Arles was divided by the Rhône, a wide river and a significant barrier between the two parts of the city. The Martyrdom describes how his body was taken back across the river for burial, while his blood remained in the place of his execution, thus ensuring his presence in both halves of the city.
While the Martyrdom is not specific on this point, we know from the later topography of Genesius' cult that he swam from the eastern side of the Rhône, where the urban core of the city was located, to to the western side, where his martyrdom was commemorated at a site in the present-day Trinquetaille district. His body was taken back to the eastern side, where his tomb (and later church) was located in the extramural Alyscamps cemetery, where burials ad sanctos later took place (see E07705). By the 420s, his feast day was celebrated by a vigil at his tomb followed by a procession over the bridge of boats which crossed the Rhône at Arles to the site of his martyrdom (see E05724). For Gregory of Tours' description of Genesius' cult sites in the 6th century, see E00480, and on the topography of Genesius' cult, see Février 1986, 83-4.
Bibliography
Editions:Cavallin, S., "Saint Genes le notaire," Eranos 43 (1945), 160-164.
Hartel, W., S. Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani opera. Pars I: Epistulae (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiarum Latinorum, 29; Vienna, 1894), 425-428.
Acta Sanctorum, Aug. V (Antwerp, 1761), 135-136.
Further reading:
Cavallin, S., "Saint Genes le notaire," Eranos 43 (1945), 150-175.
Février, P.-A., “Arles,” in: N. Gauthier and J.-Ch. Picard (eds.), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, vol. 3: Provinces ecclésiastique de Vienne et d'Arles (Viennensis et Alpes Graiae et Poeninae) (Paris: Boccard, 1986), 73-84.
Franchi de Cavalieri, P., "S. Genesio di Arelate, s. Ferreolo di Vienna, s. Giuliano di Brivas," in: Note agiografiche 8 (Studi e testi 65; Vatican City, 1935), 203-229.
Loseby, S.T., "Arles in Late Antiquity: Gallula Roma Arelas and Urbs Genesii," in: N. Christie and S.T. Loseby (eds.), Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1996), 45-70.
Joe Church (translation); David Lambert
07/08/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00263 | Genesius, notary and martyr of Arles | Genesius | Certain |
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