Gregory of Tours, in his Glory of the Martyrs (38), tells of the tomb of *Pancratius (martyr of Rome, S00307) outside Rome; he is the favoured saint in Rome for guaranteeing the truth of oaths. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 580/594.
Evidence ID
E00538
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Literary - Hagiographical - Other saint-related texts
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs 38
Est etiam haud procul ab huius urbis muro et Panchratus martyr valde in periuribus ultor. Ad cuius sepulchrum si cuiusquam mens insana iuramentum inane proferre voluerit, priusquam sepulchrum eius adeat, hoc est, antequam usque ad cancellos, qui sub arcu habentur, ubi clericorum psallentium stare mos est, accedat, statim aut arripitur a daemone aut cadens in pavimento amittit spiritum. Ex hoc enim quisque fidem cuiuscumque rei ab alio voluerit elicere, ut veram cognoscat, non aliter nisi ad huius basilicam destinat. Nam ferunt, plerosque iuxta basilicas apostolorum sive aliorum martyrum commanentes non alibi pro hac necessitate nisi templum expetere beati Panchrati, ut, eius severitatis censura publice discernente, aut veritatem audientes credant, aut pro fallatia iudicium martyris beati experiantur.
'Not far from the walls of this city [of Rome] is [the tomb of] the martyr Pancratius, who is a powerful avenger against perjurers. Whenever someone who suffers from madness intends to swear a false oath at the martyr's tomb, before he approaches his tomb, or rather, after he approaches all the way to the railings that are beneath the arch where the clerics usually stand and chant the psalms, immediately either he is seized by a demon or he falls to the pavement and breathes out his spirit. In consequence, whenever a man wishes to elicit a guarantee about something from someone, he sends him nowhere else except to this church, so that he might find a true [guarantee]. For they say that although many people spend time around the churches of the apostles and of the other martyrs, they go nowhere else except the church of the blessed Pancratius for this need [of swearing oaths]. Because his harsh punishment publicly distinguishes [oaths], either listeners believe the truth or they witness the judgement of the blessed martyr against deceit.'
Text: Krusch 1969, 62.
Translation: Van Dam 2004, 37, lightly modified.
Liturgical ActivitiesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityMiracle after death
Relics
Chant and religious singing
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityOath
MiraclesMiracle after death
Specialised miracle-working
Punishing miracle
Other miracles with demons and demonic creatures
Power over life and death
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
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.The shrine of Pancratius just outside the walls of Rome must be the still existing church and catacomb of S. Pancrazio on the Via Aurelia. A church was built there by Pope Symmachus in the early 6th c. (and rebuilt after Gregory's time, by Pope Honorius I)(E01350, E01443).
Pancratius, as presented by Gregory, is a particularly good case of specialised miracle-working, focussed on the punishment of perjury. Compare Gregory's very similar account of Polyeuktos of Melitene (E00655; also E06249).
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.
Record Created By
Marta Tycner, David Lambert
Date of Entry
06/04/2016
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00060 | Martyrs, unnamed or name lost | Certain | S00084 | Apostles, unnamed or name lost | Certain | S00307 | Pancratius, martyr of Rome | Panchratus | Certain |
|---|
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