HE was born in Aquitaine, not at Agen, as Scaliger, Vossius, Baillet,
&c., have falsely inferred from a passage of his history,[2] but near
Toulouse. That he was of a very rich and illustrious Roman family, we
are assured by the two Paulinus's, and Gennadius.[3] His youth he spent
in studying the best Roman authors of the Augustan age, upon whom he
formed his style, not upon the writers of his own time: he also applied
himself to the study of the laws, and surpassed all his contemporaries
in eloquence at the bar. His wife was a lady of a consular family, whom
he lost soon after their marriage, but he continued to enjoy a very
great estate which he had inherited by her. His mother-in-law, Bassula,
loved him constantly, as if he had been her own son: they continued to
live several years in the same house, and had in all things the same
mind.[4] The death of his beloved consort contributed to wean his heart
from the world: in which resolution he seems to have been confirmed by
the example and exhortations of his pious mother-in-law. His conversion
from the world happened in the same year with that of St. Paulinus of
Nola,[5] though probably somewhat later: and St. Paulinus mentions that
Sulpicius was younger than himself, and at that time (that is, about the
year 392) in the flower of his age. De Prato imagines Sulpicius to have
been ten years younger than St. Paulinus, consequently that he was
converted in the thirty-second year of his age. Whereas St. Paulinus
distributed his whole fortune among the poor at once; Sulpicius reserved
his estates to himself and his heirs, employing the yearly revenue on
the poor, and in other pious uses, so that he was no more than a servant
of the church and the poor, to keep accounts for them.[6] But he sold so
much of them as was necessary to discharge him of all obligations to
others. Gennadius tells us that he was promoted to the priesthood; but
from the silence of St. Paulinus, St. Jerom, and others, Tillemont and
De Prato doubt of this circumstance. Sulpicius suffered much from the
censures of friends, who condemned his retreat, having chosen for his
solitude a cottage at Primuliacus, a village now utterly unknown in
Aquitaine, probably in Languedoc. In his kitchen nothing was ever
dressed but pulse and herbs, boiled without any seasoning, except a
little vinegar: he ate also coarse bread. He and his few disciples had
no other beds but straw of sackcloth spread on the ground. He set at
liberty several of his slaves, and admitted them, and some of his old
servants, to familiar intercourse and {304} conversation. About the year
394, not long after his retreat, he made a visit to St. Martin at Tours,
and was so much taken with his saintly comportment, and edified by his
pious discourses and counsels, that he became from that time his
greatest admirer, and regulated his conduct by his direction. Ever after
he visited that great saint once or twice almost every summer as long as
he lived, and passed some time with him, that he might study more
perfectly to imitate his virtues. He built and adorned several churches.
For two which he founded at Primuliacus, he begged some relics of St.
Paulinus, who sent him a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was
crucified, with the history of its miraculous discovery by St.
Helena.[7] This account Sulpicius inserted in his ecclesiastical
history. These two saints sent frequent presents to each other, of poor
garments or the like things, suitable to a penitential life, upon which
they make in their letters beautiful pious reflections, that show how
much they were accustomed to raise their thoughts to God from every
object.[8] Our saint recommending to St. Paulinus a cook, facetiously
tells him that he was utterly a stranger to the art of making sauces,
and to the use of pepper, or any such incentives of gluttony, his skill
consisting only in gathering and boiling herbs in such a manner that
monks, who only eat after having fasted long, would find delicious. He
prays his friend to treat him as he would his own son, and wishes he
could himself have served him and his family in that quality.[9] In the
year 399 St. Paulinus wrote to our saint that he hoped to have met him
at Rome, whither he went to keep the feast of the prince of the
apostles, and where he had stayed ten days, but without seeing any thing
but the tombs of the apostles, before which he passed the mornings, and
the evenings were taken up by friends who called to see him.[10]
Sulpicius answered, that an indisposition had hindered him from
undertaking that journey. Of the several letters mentioned by Gennadius,
which Sulpicius Severus wrote to the devout virgin Claudia, his sister,
two are published by Baluze.[11] Both are strong exhortations to fervor
and perseverance. In the first, our saint assures her that he shed tears
of joy in reading her letter, by which he was assured of her sincere
desire of serving God. In a letter to Aurelius the deacon, he relates
that one night in a dream he saw St. Martin ascend to heaven in great
glory, and attended by the holy priest Clarus, his disciple, who was
lately dead: soon after, two monks arriving from Tours, brought news of
the death of St. Martin. He adds, that his greatest comfort in the loss
of so good a master, was a confidence that he should obtain the divine
blessings by the prayers of St. Martin in heaven. St. Paulinus mentions
this vision in an inscription in verse, which he made and sent to be
engraved on the marble altar of the church of Primuliacus.[12] St.
Sulpicius wrote the life of the incomparable St. Martin, according to
Tillemont and most others, before the death of that saint: but De Prato
thinks, that though it was begun before, it was neither finished nor
published till after his death. The style of this piece is plainer and
more simple than that of his other writings. An account of the death of
St. Martin, which is placed by De Prato in the year 400, is accurately
given by St. Sulpicius in a letter to Bassula, his mother-ill-law, who
then lived at Triers. The three dialogues of our saint are the most
florid of all his writings. In the first Posthumian, a friend who had
spent three years in the deserts of Egypt and the East, and was then
returned, relates to him and Gallus, a disciple of St. Martin, (with
whom our saint then lived under the same roof,) the wonderful examples
of virtue he had seen abroad. In the second dialogue, Gallus recounts
{305} many circumstances of the life of St. Martin, which St. Sulpicius
had omitted in his history of that saint. In the third, under the name
of the same Gallus, several miracles wrought by St. Martin are proved by
authentic testimonies.[13] The most important work of our saint is his
abridgment of sacred history from the beginning of the world down to his
own time, in the year 400. The elegance, conciseness, and perspicuity
with which this work is compiled, have procured the author the name of
the Christian Sallust; some even prefer it to the histories of the Roman
Sallust, and look upon it as the most finished model extant of
abridgments.[14] His style is the most pure of any of the Latin fathers,
though also Lactantius, Minutius Felix, we may almost add St. Jerom, and
Salvian of Marseilles, deserve to be read among the Latin classics. The
heroic sanctity of Sulpicius Severus is highly extolled by St. Paulinus
of Nola, Paulinus of Perigueux, about the year 460.[15] Venantius
Fortunatus, and many others, down to the present {306} age. Gennadius
tells us, that he was particularly remarkable for his extraordinary love
of poverty and humility. After the death of St. Martin, in 400, St.
Sulpicius Severus passed five years in that illustrious saint's cell at
Marmoutier. F. Jerom de Prato thinks that he at length retired to a
monastery at Marseilles, or in that neighborhood; because in a very
ancient manuscript copy of his works, transcribed in the seventh
century, kept in the library of the chapter of Verona, he is twice
called a monk of Marseilles. From the testimony of this manuscript, the
Benedictin authors of the new treatise On the Diplomatique,[16] and the
continuators of the Literary History of France,[17] regard it as
undoubted that Sulpicius Severus was a monk at Marseilles before his
death. While the Alans, Sueves, and Vandals from Germany and other
barbarous nations, laid waste most provinces in Gaul in 406, Marseilles
enjoyed a secure peace under the government of Constantine, who, having
assumed the purple, fixed the seat of his empire at Arles from the year
407 to 410. After the death of St. Chrysostom in 407, Cassian came from
Constantinople to Marseilles, and founded there two monasteries, one for
men, the other for women. Most place the death of St. Sulpicius Severus
about the year 420, Baronius after the year 432; but F. Jerom de Prato
about 410, when he supposes him to have been near fifty years old,
saying that Gennadius, who tells us that he lived to a very great age,
is inconsistent with himself. Neither St. Paulinus nor any other writer
mentions him as living later than the year 407, which seems to prove
that he did not survive that epoch very many years. Guibert, abbot of
Gemblours, who died in 1208, in his Apology for Sulpicius Severus,[18]
testifies that his festival was kept at Marmoutier with great solemnity
on the 29th of January. Several editors of the Roman Martyrology, who
took Sulpicius Severus, who is named in the calendars on this day, to
have been this saint, added in his eulogium, Disciple of St. Martin,
famous for his learning and merits. Many have proved that this addition
was made by the mistake of private editors, and that the saint
originally meant here in the Roman Martyrology was Sulpicius Severus,
bishop of Bourges;[19] and Benedict XIV. proves and declares[20] that
Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of St. Martin, is not commemorated in
the Roman Martyrology. Nevertheless, he has been ranked among the saints
at Tours from time immemorial, and is honored with a particular office
on this day in the new breviary used in all that diocese. See his works
correctly printed, with various readings, notes, dissertations, and the
life of this saint, at Verona in 1741, in two volumes folio, by F. Jerom
de Prato, an Italian Oratorian of Verona: also Gallia Christiana tum
Vetus tum Nova: Tillemont, t. 12. Ceillier, t. 10, p. 635. Rivet, Hist.
Litter. de la France, t. 2, p. 95.
Footnotes:
1. Severus was his own proper name, Sulpicius that of his family, as is
testified by Gennadius and all antiquity. Vossius, Dupin, and some
others, on this account, will have him called Severus Sulpicius,
with Eugippius and St. Gregory of Tours. But other learned men
agree, that after the close of the republic of Rome, under the
emperors, the family name was usually placed first, though still
called Cognomen, and the other Praenomen, because the proper name
went anciently before the other. Thus we say Caecilius Cyprianus,
Eusebius Hieronymus, Aurelius Agustinus, &c. See Sirmond, Ep.
praefixe Op. Serva. Lapi, and Hier. De Prato in vita Sulpicii Severi,
p. 56, &c.
2. Sulp. Sev. Hist. l. 2, c. 44.
3. {Footnote not in text} Ib. c. 48, and Ep. ad Bassulam. de Prato, p.
57.
4. S. Paulinus, Ep. 5 & 35.
5. Ib. Ep. 11, n. 6.
6. S. Paulinus, Ep. 1 & 24.
7. Ib. Ep. 52.
8. Sulpic. Sev. Ep. ad Paulin. ed a D'Achery in Spicileg. t. 52, p.
532, et inter opera S. Paulini, p. 119.
9. Ibid.
10. S. Paulin. Ep. ad Sulpic. Sev. p. 96.
11. Baluze, t. 1, Miscellan. p. 329.
12. S. Paulinus, Ep. 32, p. 204.
13. Many, upon the authority of St. Jerom, rank Sulpicius Severus among
the Millenarians, though all allow that he never defended any error
so as to be out of the communion of the church. But that he could
not be properly a Millenarian, seems clear from several parts of his
writings. For, Ep. 2 and 3, he affirms, that the souls of St. Martin
and St. Clarus passed from this world to the immediate beatific
vision of God. He establishes the same principles, Ep. 1, ad
Claudiam Soror., c. 5. And in his Sacred History, l. 2, c. 3,
explaining the dream of Nabachodonosor, he teaches that the
destruction of the kingdoms of this world will be immediately
succeeded by the eternal reign of Christ with his saints in heaven.
In the passage, Dial. 2, c. 14, upon which the charge is founded,
Sulpicius relates, in the discourse of Gallus, that St. Martin, on a
certain occasion, said, that the reign of Nero in the West, and his
persecution, were immediate forerunners of the last day: as is the
reign of Antichrist in the East, who will rebuild Jerusalem and its
temple, reside in the same, restore circumcision, kill Nero, and
subject the whole world to his empire. Where he advances certain
false conjectures about the reign of Nero, and the near approach of
the last judgment at that time: likewise the restoration of
Jerusalem by Antichrist; though this last is maintained probable by
cardinal Bellarmin, l. 3, de Rom. Pontif. c. 13. But the Millenarian
error is not so much as insinuated. Nor could it have been inserted
by the author in that passage and omitted by copiers, as De Prato
proves, against that conjecture of Tillemont. St. Jerom, indeed, l.
11, in Ezech. c. 36, represents certain Christian writers who
imitated some later Jews in their Deuteroseis in a carnal manner of
expounding certain scripture prophecies, expecting a second
Jerusalem of gold and precious stones, a restoration of bloody
sacrifices, circumcision, and a Sabbath. Among these he names
Tertullian, in his book De Spe Fidelium, (now lost,) Lactantius,
Victorious Petabionensis, and Severus, (Sulpicius,) in his dialogue
entitled, Gallus, then just published: and among the Greeks, Irenaeus
and Apollinarius. De Prato thinks he only speaks of Sulpicius
Severus by hearsay, because he mentions only one dialogue called
Gallus, whereas two bear that title. At least St. Jerom never meant
to ascribe all these errors to each of those he names; for none of
them maintained them all except Apollinarius. His intention was only
to ascribe one point or other of such carnal interpretations to
each, and to Sulpicius the opinion that Jerusalem, with the temple
and sacrifices, will be restored by Antichrist, &c., which cannot be
called erroneous; though St. Jerom justly rejects that
interpretation, because the desolation foretold by Daniel is to
endure to the end. In the decree of Gelasius this dialogue of Gallus
is called Apocryphal, but in the same sense in which it was rejected
by St. Jerom. Nor is this exposition advanced otherwise than as a
quotation from St. Martin's answer on that subject. See the
justification of Sulpicius Severus, in a dissertation printed at
Venice in 1738, in Racolta di Opuscoli Scientifici, t. 18, and more
amply by F. Jerom de Prato, Disser. 5, in Opera Sulpicii Severi, t.
1, p. 259, commended in the Acta Eruditor. Lipsiae, ad an. 1760.
Gennadius, who wrote about the year 494, tells us, (Cat. n. 19.)
that Sulpicius was deceived in his old age by the Pelagians, but
soon opening his eyes, condemned himself to five years' rigorous
silence to expiate this fault. From the silence of other authors,
and the great commendations which the warmest enemies of the
Pelagians bestow on our saint, especially Paulinus of Milan, in his
life of St. Ambrose, (written at latest in 423,) and St. Paulinus of
Nola, and Paulinus of Perigueux, (who in 461 wrote in verse the life
of St. Martin,) l. 5, v, 193, &c., some look upon this circumstance
as a slander, which depends wholly on the testimony of so inaccurate
a writer, who is inconsistent with himself in other matters relating
to Sulpicius Severus, whose five years' silence might have other
motives. If the fact be true, it can only be understood of the
semi-Pelagian error, which had then many advocates at Marseilles,
and was not distinguished in its name from Pelagianism till some
years after our saint's death, nor condemned by the church before
the second council of Orange in 529. Pelagius was condemned by the
councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416, and by pope Innocent I. in
412. If Sulpicius Severus fell into any error, especially before it
had been clearly anathematized by the church, at least he cannot be
charged with obstinacy, having so soon renounced it. We must add,
that even wilful offences are blotted out by sincere repentance. See
F. Jerom de Pram in vita Sulp. Sev., Sec.12, pp. 69 and 74, t. 1, Op.
Veronae, 1741.
14. The sacred history of Sulpicius Severus is a most useful classic for
Christian schools; but not to be studied in the chosen fragments
mangled by Chompre, and prescribed for the schools in Portugal. True
improvement of the mind is impossible without the beauties of method
and the advantages of taste, which are nowhere met with but by
seeing good compositions entire, and by considering the art with
which the whole is wound up. A small edition of Sulpicius's history,
made from that correctly published by De Prato, would be of great
service. Nevertheless, Sulpicius, though he has so well imitated the
style of the purest ages, declares that he neglects elegance; and he
takes the liberty to use certain terms and phrases which are not of
the Augustan standard, sometimes because they were so familiar in
his time that he otherwise would not have seemed to write with ease,
and sometimes because they are necessary to express the mysteries of
our faith. How shocking is the delicacy of Bembo; who, for fear of
not being Ciceronian, conjures the Venetians, _per Deos immortales_,
and uses the words _Dea Lauretana!_ or that of Justus Lipsius, who
used _Fatum_ or destiny, for Providence, because this latter word is
not in Cicero, who with the Pagans, usually speaks according to the
notion of an overruling destiny in events which they by believed
ordained by heaven. For this term some of Lipsius's works were
censured, and by him recalled.
15. Vit. St. Martin, versu expressa, l. 5, v. 193, &c.
16. Tr. de Diplomatique, t. 3.
17. Hist. Litter. t. 11, Advertissement preliminaire, p. 5.
18. Published by Bollandus ad 29 Jan. p. 968.
19. See Annalus, Theolog. positivae, l. 4, c. 26, and Dominic Georgi in
Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad {} Jan.
20. Benedict. XIV. in litteris apost. praefixis novae suae editioni Romani
Martyrologii, (Romae, 1749,), Sec.47, p. 34.