Constantius of Lyon, in his Life of *Germanus (bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, S00455), recounts how straw which had been placed in the bed Germanus slept on was used as a contact relic to heal a man possessed by a demon, c. 435. Written in Latin at Lyon (south-east Gaul) between c. 460 and c. 480.
E06020
Literary - Hagiographical - Lives
Constantius of Lyon, Life of Germanus of Auxerre 22
For a full account of Constantius' Life of Germanus, see E05841.
This incident takes place when Germanus is travelling from Auxerre to Arles in order to request a remission of taxes from the Praetorian Prefect. It is preceded by Constantius' account of Germanus miraculously thwarting a horse thief: E07554.
Praeterire silentio impium puto in Alisiensi loco absens quantum uirtutis operatus est. Erat illic presbyter Senator nomine, natalibus nobilis, religione nobilior. Coniunx illi Nectariola, similis sanctitate; quos praeteriens pro studio antiquae caritatis expetiit. Aduenienti praeparant mansionem, et quantum maior persona aderat, tantum minor inpenditur apparatus. Matrona furtim stramen in lectulo subdidit sacerdotis, quo ille inscius cubitauit, deductaque nocte oratione uel psalmis, die reddito, iter quod agebat ingreditur.
Inlustrato hospitio familia tota gaudebat strati reliquias fidelis matrona collegit et condidit. Accidit post dies aliquot ut Agrestius quidam bene ingenuus, habens uxorem, filios et parentes, possessio fieret inuadentis inimici, suorumque omnium fletibus non minus Germani absentia quam infelicis captiuitas lugebatur.
Et cum nihil remedii possit adhiberi, praesumit uirtutem fidei matrona uenerabilis. Stramen conditum profert quo furiosus circumdatus conligatur. Qui spatium noctis unius quasi adposito uallatus incendio, inclamato semper nomine sacerdotis qui, cum abesset praesentia, uirtute non deerat, diuino purgatur auxilio neque umquam postea in omni uitae suae spatio periculum temptationis incurrit.
'I would think it a sin to pass over in silence the miracle he worked while stopping at Alesia [Alise-Sainte-Reine]. There was a priest there named Senator, noble by birth and nobler still by piety. He had a wife, Nectariola, equally pious. The bishop, for the sake of an old-time friendship sought them out when he passed through the town. They got the house ready for his visit, but the things that had to be provided were inversely proportionate to the importance of the visitor. The lady of the house, however, secretly put some straw under the bishop's pallet and he lay on it without knowing. He gave the night to prayer and psalms and when morning came resumed his journey.
The whole household were delighted to have had so illustrious a visitor and the good lady collected the remains of the straw and preserved it. Some days later a man of good position named Agrestius, with a household consisting of his wife, children and parents, was entered by a demon, which took possession of him; and the absence of Germanus was as much lamented by the family as the possession of the unhappy man himself.
But as there was no cure to be found, the revered lady Nectariola resorted to the power of faith. She brought out the straw she had put by and it was wrapped around the raving man. For a whole night he kept shrieking out the name of the bishop as if he were in a furnace, for though the bishop was absent his power was not. In the end the man was delivered from the demon by the divine aid, nor for the rest of his life did he run such a risk again.'
This incident is followed by a passage in which Constantius claims that Germanus carried out numerous miracles at Lyon: E07557.
Text: Borius 1965.
Translation: Hoare 1954, slightly modified.
Exorcism
RelicsContact relic - other
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Demons
Source
Germanus of Auxerre (PCBE 4, 'Germanus 1', pp. 878-883) was the most important and revered episcopal saint of 5th-century Gaul. The Life of Germanus was written some years after his death (traditionally dated to 448, but perhaps earlier) by Constantius, a literary figure, possibly a cleric, attested in Lyon in the 460s and 470s (PCBE 4, 'Constantius 3', pp. 521-522). The precise date when he composed the Life is not documented, but it must have been sometime between the 460s and the early 480s. For full discussion of the authorship and date of the Life of Germanus, see its overview entry: E05841.Discussion
This miracle takes place when Germanus is travelling from Auxerre to Arles, to request a tax remission for Auxerre (his mission is described in § 19).The use by Nectariola, the wife of Germanus' host, of straw that had been slept on by Germanus to heal a man possessed by a demon is an interesting example of miraculous healing by a pure contact relic, which Constantius tells us Germanus himself did not know he had been in contact with.
Precisely how the straw came into contact with Germanus is not entirely clear from Constantius' account: he says that Nectariola put it in lecticulo, literally 'in the bed' (the use of the diminutive lecticulus implies it was something smaller than an ordinary bed – hence Hoare translates it as 'pallet', while Borius has 'le pauvre lit'), but that she did so secretly (furtim) and that Germanus did not notice its presence. Hoare's translation, 'under the bishop's pallet' is strictly speaking a misrepresentation of Constantius' Latin, though one can see how he came to it in attempt to convey a scenario in which the straw was there but Germanus did not notice it. The situation becomes even less clear when Constantius goes on to describe the healing of Agrestius, the victim of demonic possession, when it emerges that far from there being merely a few wisps of straw, there was sufficient for him to be 'wrapped' in it (circumdatus conligatur). Possibly the straw was actually the filling of the mattress Germanus slept on, but Constantius was unable to state this clearly in view of his earlier claim (§ 4) that Germanus never slept on one.
Bibliography
Editions:Borius, R., Constance de Lyon, Vie de saint Germain d'Auxerre (Sources chrétiennes 112; Paris: Cerf, 1965), with French translation.
Levison, W., Vita Germani episcopi Autissiodorensis auctore Constantio, in: Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici V (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 7; Hannover and Leipzig, 1919), 246-283.
English translation:
Hoare, F.R., The Western Fathers (London, 1954), 283-320. Reprinted in T.F.X. Noble and T. Head (eds.), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 75-106.
David Lambert
15/05/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00455 | Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, ob. 445/450 | Germanus | Certain |
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