The Latin Life of *Aunarius/Aunacharius (bishop of Auxerre, ob. 605, S02173) presents the saint as an ideal bishop and miracle-worker, both in life and from the grave; Aunacharius was ordained at the tomb of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050), and buried near that of *Germanus (bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, S00455). Someone needing healing was advised in a dream by *Lupus (probably Lupus of Troyes, S00418), to seek it from Aunacharius. Written at Auxerre (central Gaul), in the early 7th century.
E05909
Literary - Hagiographical
Life of Aunarius (Aunacharius), bishop of Auxerre (BHL 805; omitted from CPL)
The correct form of this bishop's name is Aunacharius, but this was often contracted to Aunarius by medieval scribes. The contracted form is given here in accordance with the printed edition used.
Summary:
(1.) Aunarius was the child of noble inhabitants of the city of Orléans. His parents were named Pastor and Ragnoara. During his youth, in the time of King Guntram, he read widely and piously. (2.) Wishing to devote himself to religion, he secretly left his parents and travelled to Tours, accompanied only by two servants (pueri). At the tomb of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050) he received the tonsure and exchanged his worldly clothes for the dress of a cleric (ad sepulcrum sancti Martini coma capitis detonsa, clericali habitu secularem vestem mutavit). (3.) When Bishop Syagrius of Autun heard about this, he summoned Aunarius to Autun and trained him in erudition and doctrine so that he was fit to become a bishop. When Bishop Aetherius of Auxerre died, all the clergy, with the agreement of the people, were inflamed to elect Aunarius as their bishop.
(4.) Aunarius was brought to Auxerre and was consecrated on the day before the Kalends of August [31 July]. He was loving to the citizens, devoted to the clergy, generous to the poor, and his devotion to the saints was so great that no mortal tongue can tell it (quam magna fuerit cura illi in sanctis, non potest lingua mortalis percurrere). His preaching enlivened everyone and built up the hearts of the faithful, and God carried out many miracles through him.
(5.) Once, when Aunarius was on his way to the church of *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) [this was the cathedral of Auxerre], he encountered a woman possessed by a demon, which was twisting and tormenting her body. He made the sign of the Cross upon her and ordered the demon to depart; she was instantly cured.
(6-7.) An abbot who had lost the use of his feet was healed by Aunarius' shoes, after having a vision of *St Lupus (probably Lupus, bishop of Troyes, ob. 479, S00418). On this passage, see E05966.
(8-9.) A spring (fons) in the countryside near Auxerre was possessed by a demon, which caused a man to fall in and drown. The local people, who relied on it for water, appealed for help to Aunarius. He gave them a grain of salt that he had blessed, and told them that if they dropped it into the spring in the name of the Trinity, the spring would be purified. They did this, and as a proof of its effect, a woman, possessed by a savage demon, immediately came to the spring and drank some water from her cupped hands. As soon as she did so, she vomited and went away cured.
(10.) Aunarius governed the church of Auxerre for 44 years, 1 month, and 23 days; he migrated from the world on seventh day before the Kalends of October [25 September]. He was taken to the church of the blessed *Germanus (bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, S00455) to be buried (in ecclesia beati Germani tumulandus deducitur). 'Where, buried with worthy honour next to the body of the same most holy father and most blessed confessor, he is joyfully venerated' (ubi, condigno honore propter corpus eiusdem sanctissimi patris et beatissimi confessoris sepultus, libenter excolitur).
(11.) To ensure that the memory of his sanctity is not lost, he continues after his death in the flesh to display the divine power through miracles. A boy from Sens who had been blind from birth gained his sight when he prayed at Aunarius' tomb. He immediately became a cleric and still serves at the tomb today. Another blind person, a man named Begto, was healed when he touched Aunarius' tomb. (12.) A woman from the Vastinensis pagus [Gâtinais] was completely paralysed. She asked to be carried to the tomb of Aunarius in the hope that he would hear her laments and take pity on her. On the Sunday after Ascension day she poured out prayers, groans and tears, and was anointed with oil from the lamp that hung in front of the bishop's tomb (oleo est peruncta lampadis quae dependebat ante sepulcrum sanctissimi praesulis). Her body was soon healed so thoroughly that no one would have known she had ever been ill unless they had previously seen her. Twelve years later, it is said, the same woman suffered from contracted hands. She was healed as soon as she touched the panels of Aunarius' sacred tomb (sacri tabulas sepulcri). And still today those seeking divine blessings at his tomb receive them.
Text: Acta Sanctorum, Sept. VII.
Summary: David Lambert.
Saint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityBurial ad sanctos
Visiting graves and shrines
Prayer/supplication/invocation
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Exorcism
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Other miracles with demons and demonic creatures
RelicsContact relic - saint’s possession and clothes
Contact relic - oil
Touching and kissing relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Cult Related ObjectsOil lamps/candles
Source
Date and authorshipThe Life was written at Auxerre and its anonymous author was almost certainly a cleric there. Since it describes several posthumous miracles, it must have been written at least some years after Aunacharius' death in 605. It seems most likely that it was written within a generation or so of his death, in the hope of strengthening the cult centred on his tomb (the focus of the posthumous miracles), although there is no definite evidence of its existence until the 870s, when it was used by the authors of the Deeds of the Bishops of Auxerre. In their entry on Aunacharius they refer (Sot et al. 2002, 67) to 'the book about his life' (libellus de vita ipsius), and the details and verbal reminiscences in their entry leave no doubt that this was the extant Life.
Editions and manuscripts
The first printed edition was produced in 1657 by the Jesuit scholar Philippe Labbe (Labbeus, ob. 1667), who stated (Labbeus 1657, 528) that his text was based on a manuscript transcribed by another celebrated Jesuit, Jacques Sirmond (ob. 1651), collated with 'old manuscripts in my possession' (no further details provided). The Acta Sanctorum edition (the only subsequent one) states (Perierus 1760, 87) that it was based on a collation of Labbe's edition with three manuscript copies of the Life: one 'from the sixth volume of the legendary of Sens' (ex tomo sexto legendarii Senonensis); another from the church in the village of Clamecy, near Auxerre, in which much was omitted and the text was divided into six sections to be used for readings; and a transcription from an unknown source-manuscript provided to 'our predecessors' (maioribus nostris) by the Jesuit scholar Pierre-François Chifflet (ob. 1682). None of these are listed by BHLms (bhlms.fltr.ucl.ac.be), but it lists two other manuscripts: Chartres, Bibliothèque municipale 115 (63), a 9th-century manuscript originally from the abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée in Chartres (like many Chartres manuscripts, this was destroyed when the library was bombed during the Second World War), and Orléans, Bibliothèque municipale 346 (295), a 10th-century manuscript originally from Fleury (Pellegrin and Bouhot 2010, 505-6).
Discussion
The Life of Aunacharius is a fairly short text, and aside from the account of Aunacharius' youth and consecration as bishop (§§ 1-4), it focusses almost entirely on his miracles, both from his lifetime and posthumous. It thus follows the standard pattern of the Lives of Merovingian holy men, although the two miracles which the Life describes at the greatest length, the abbot who regains the use of his feet by putting on Aunacharius' shoes (§§ 6-7), and the purification of a spring inhabited by a demon by means of a grain of salt blessed by the saint (§§ 8-9), are unusual in their details.The Life states (§ 10) that Aunacharius was buried in the basilica of Germanus in Auxerre (on which see Picard 1992, 58-9), next to Germanus' tomb. It goes on (§§ 11-12) to describe four healing miracles that occurred when people prayed at Aunacharius' tomb or touched his tomb, in one case also being anointed with oil from the lamp that hung by the tomb.
Aunacharius' career as a bishop is unusually well-documented, primarily because of the survival of a number of documents from his tenure (in this database, see E05621, E05712, E05897, E05911, E06028), but one key piece of information depends on the Life: the accepted dating of his episcopate to the years 561-605. While these dates are not actually given in the text, they depend on the length it gives for his tenure (44 years, 1 month, and 23 days), combined with its statement that he was consecrated as bishop on 31 July (the latter date is confirmed by the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, E04899). Bishops were almost always consecrated on a Sunday, and 561 is the only year within the general period in which Aunacharius was in office on which 31 July fell on a Sunday and which is possible as the beginning of a forty-four year tenure without trespassing on the attested periods in office of one of his predecessors or successors (for the argument in detail, see Duchesne 1899, 436). This, of course, presumes that the figure given in the Life is accurate; the period during which Aunacharius is independently attested is considerably shorter, running from 573 (attendance at the Council of Paris in that year) to 589 (as one of the bishops who investigated the disorders in the monastery of Radegund at Poitiers – Gregory of Tours, Histories 9.41). A date of 561 for Aunacharius' consecration is also incompatible with the Life's own statement that he grew up in the reign of Guntram, who only became king in 561 (though since Aunacharius was definitely in office by 573, this claim seems untenable in any case).
Bibliography
Editions:Labbeus, P., Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum librorum, vol. 1 (Paris, 1657), 528-530.
Perierus, J., Acta Sanctorum, Sept. VII (Antwerp, 1760), 106-107.
Further reading:
Duchesne, L., Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule. Tome deuxième, l'Aquitaine et les Lyonnaises (Paris, 1899).
Egmond, W. van, Conversing with the Saints: Communication in Pre-Carolingian Hagiography from Auxerre (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).
Pellegrin, E., and Bouhot, J.-P., Catalogue des manuscrits médiévaux de la bibliothèque municipale d'Orléans (Documents, études et répertoires de l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes 78; Paris: CNRS, 2010).
Picard, J.-C., "Auxerre," in: N. Gauthier and J.-C. Picard (eds.), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, vol. 8: Province ecclésiastique de Sens (Lugdunensis Senonia) (Paris: Boccard, 1992), 47-65.
Sot, M., Lobrichon, G., and Goullet, M. (ed. and trans.), Les gestes des évêques d'Auxerre, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002).
David Lambert
22/08/2024
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00418 | Lupus, bishop of Troyes, ob. 479 | Lupus | Uncertain | S00455 | Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, ob. 445/450 | Germanus | Certain | S02173 | Aunacharius, bishop of Auxerre, ob. 605 | Aunarius | Certain |
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