Gregory of Tours, in his Miracles of Julian (10), describes how a man who tried to drag from the church of *Julian (martyr of Brioude, S00035) in Brioude (central Gaul) a man who had struck him, lost his sight, but recovered it after praying at Julian's tomb and forgiving his aggressor. Written in Latin in Clermont and Tours (central and north-west Gaul), 570/587.
E05151
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours, Miracles of Julian (Liber de passione et virtutibus sancti Iuliani martyris) 10
Quidam dum in seditione, quam commoverat, cum oculum amisisset, hominem qui ictum intulerat de basilica conabatur extrahere; quod dum agit, non modo amissi oculi non recepit lumen, verum etiam sentit, alium, quem sanum habuerat, obcaecari. Porro, cum peccata sua confiteretur, dicens: 'Merito mihi evenit iudicium sine misericordia, qui non feci misericordiam', prostratus coram sancto sepulchro cum populo, qui tunc ad festivitatem advenerant, indulgens laedenti, et visum recepit et gratiam. Sicque factum est, ut is qui sancti auxilium expetierat tutaretur, et ille vero qui io non credebat argueretur; et sic uterque laetus emendatusque discessit.
'After a man lost an eye during a brawl that he had initiated, he tried to drag from the church the man who had struck him. While he was doing this, not only did he not recover his sight in the eye he had lost, but he also realized that his other eye that he thought was intact was going blind. So he confessed his sins and said: 'Because I showed no compassion, I have deservedly and without compassion suffered this penalty.' Along with the people who had arrived for [Julian’s] festival this man knelt before the holy tomb; after he apologized to the man who had struck him, he received his sight back as well as the support [of Julian]. And so it happened that the man who had requested the saint’s assistance received protection, and the man who did not believe was censured. Both men then departed, chastised but happy.'
Text: Krusch 1969, 119.
Translation: Van Dam 1993, 170-171.
Saint’s feast
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityVisiting graves and shrines
Prayer/supplication/invocation
MiraclesMiracle after death
Punishing miracle
Healing diseases and disabilities
Miraculous protection - of people and their property
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOther lay individuals/ people
Source
Gregory, of a prominent Clermont family with extensive ecclesiastical connections, was bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594). He 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.The Miracles of Julian, full title Martyrdom and Miracles of the Martyr Saint Julian (Liber de passione et virtutibus sancti Iuliani martyris), consists of 50 chapters. It opens with a brief account of Julian's martyrdom and of the discovery of his head in Vienne (chapters 1 and 2), followed by 48 chapters of miracles effected by the saint, primarily at his tomb in Brioude (south of Clermont, central Gaul), but also through relics distributed in other areas of Gaul (and in one case, chapter 33, even in an unnamed 'city of the East').
Brioude and the shrine of Julian are within the ancient territory of Clermont, Gregory's native city, and the attachment that he and his wider family felt towards Julian is manifest in a number of stories in the Miracles, including evidence that Gregory often attended the feast of the saint on 28 August. In chapter 50 Gregory addresses Julian as his patron and asks for his support through the remainder of his life.
Gregory wrote the Miracles of Julian over an extended period, very possibly starting before he became bishop of Tours in 573. Statements he makes in chapters 32 and 34 suggest that he initially planned to draw the book to a close with less chapters than the fifty we have, and that this was soon after his consecration to Tours; but, learning later of more miracles (primarily from Aredius of Limoges, chapters 41-45) and himself witnessing a further miracle (chapter 46a), he extended the book to 50 chapters, completing these in the early or mid 580s. Chapter 50 addresses the reader in a valedictory tone, with a personal invocation of Julian; but it is possible that the work was never published in Gregory's lifetime.
For discussion of the work, see:
Krusch B., Gregorii Turonensis Gregorii episcopi Turonensis Miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum I.2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 2.
Monod G., Études critiques sur les sources de l’histoire mérovingienne, 1e partie (Paris, 1872), 42–45.
Van Dam, R., Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 162-163.
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.
Discussion
The festival of Julian was celebrated in Brioude on 28 August.Bibliography
Edition:Krusch B., Gregorii episcopi Turonensis Miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum I.2; 2nd ed.; Hannover 1969), 112–134.
Translation:
de Nie. G., Lives and Miracles: Gregory of Tours (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 39; Cambridge MA, 2015).
Van Dam, R., Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 200–303.
Further reading:
Murray A.C. (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden and Boston, 2015).
Shanzer, D., "So Many Saints – So Little Time ... the Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003), 19–63.
Katarzyna Wojtalik
04/03/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00035 | Julian, martyr of Brioude (southern Gaul) | Certain |
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