(ABOUT 524.)
[Not to be confounded with S. Avitus, P. of Orleans, commemorated on
June 27th. Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, Gallican, German, and
others. Commemorated at Vienne on August 20th. Authorities:--S.
Gregory of Tours, Hist. lib. i. c. 2; and his successor Ennodius.]
S. Avitus was the son of S. Hesychius, archbishop of Vienne after S.
Mammertus, who baptized him. He succeeded his father in the
archiepiscopal throne in 490. Ennodius, his successor, says that he
was a treasure of learning and piety; and adds that the Burgundians
having crossed the Alps, and carried off a large number of captives,
this holy prelate spent all his revenue in redeeming as many as he
could. Clovis, king of France, though still a pagan, and Gundebald,
king of Burgundy, though an Arian, held him in high veneration. The
latter, for fear of offending his subjects, durst not embrace the
Catholic faith, he nevertheless did all in his power to advance the
cause of Catholicism, and in a public conference at Lyons, in his
presence, S. Avitus boldly proclaimed the divinity of Christ and
reduced the Arian bishops to silence. Gundebald died in 516. His
successor Sigismond was brought over by S. Avitus to the true faith.
When this king had executed his son Sigeric on a false charge, brought
against him by his stepmother, S. Avitus wrought by his exhortations
so great a change in the passionate prince, that he retired to
Agaunum, now S. Maurice, in the Valais, where he lived the life of a
recluse in a cell on the face of the precipice above the monastery he
had built at its foot.
Most of the works of S. Avitus have been lost, but a poem by him in
praise of virginity, some epistles, and fragments of homilies remain.
It is a blot on the memory of the saint, that with fulsome flattery he
excused the murder of his brothers by Gundebald. See June 3, p. 26.