St. Lupus, called in French St. Leu, was born of a noble family at
Toul, and being learned and eloquent, pleaded at the bar for some
years with great reputation. He married Pimeniola, a virtuous sister
of St. Hilary of Arles. After six years spent in holy wedlock,
fired with an ardent desire of serving God with greater perfection,
they parted by mutual consent, and made a mutual vow of perpetual
continency. Lupus betook himself to the famous abbey of Lerins, then
governed by St. Honoratus. He lived there a year, and added many
austerities to those prescribed by the rule, yet always regulated
his fervor by the advice of St. Honoratus. He sold great part of his
estate for the benefit of the poor, when he renounced the world.
After the first year, when St. Honoratus was made bishop of Arles, he
went to Macon in Burgundy to dispose of an estate he had left there,
in charitable uses. He was preparing to return to Lerins when he was
met by the deputies of the church of Troyes, which, upon the death of
St. Ursus, in 426, had chosen him bishop, the eighth from St. Amator,
founder of this see. His resistance was to no purpose, and he was
consecrated by the prelates of the province of Sens. In this dignity
he continued the same practices of humility, mortification, and as
much as possible even of poverty. He never wore any other garments
than a sackcloth and a single tunic, lay upon boards, and allotted
every second night entire to watching in prayer. He often passed
three days without taking any nourishment, and after so rigorous a
fast allowed himself nothing but a little barley bread. Thus he lived
above twenty years; laboring at the same time in all his pastoral
functions with a zeal worthy an apostle.
About the latter end of the fourth century, Pelagius, a British
monk, and Celestius a Scot, broached their heresy in Africa, Italy,
and the East, denying the corruption of human nature by original
sin, and the necessity of divine grace. One Agricola, a disciple of
these heresiarchs, had spread this poison in Britain. The Catholics
addressed themselves to their neighbors the bishops of Gaul, begging
their assistance to check the growing evil. An assembly of bishops,
probably held at Arles in 429, deputed St. Germanus of Auxerre and
St. Lupus of Troyes, to go over into our island to oppose this
mischief. The two holy pastors, burning with zeal for the glory of
Christ, accepted the commission the more willingly as it seemed
laborious and painful. They came over and entirely banished the
heresy by their prayers, preaching, and miracles. St. Lupus, after
his return, set himself with fresh vigor to reform the manners of his
own flock. In this he displayed so great prudence and piety, that St.
Sidonius Apollinaris calls him, “The father of fathers and bishop of
bishops, the chief of the Gallican prelates, the rule of manners, the
pillar of truth, the friend of God, and the intercessor to him for
men.”[266] He spared no pains to save one lost sheep, and his labors
were often crowned with a success which seemed miraculous. Among
other instances it is recorded that a certain person of his diocess,
named Gallus, had forsaken his wife and withdrawn to Clermont. St.
Lupus could not see this soul perish, but wrote to St. Sidonius,
then bishop of Clermont, a strong letter so prudently tempered
with sweetness, that Gallus by reading it was at once terrified
and persuaded, and immediately set out to return to his wife. Upon
which St. Sidonius cried out, “What is more wonderful than a single
reprimand, which both affrights a sinner into compunction, and makes
him love his censor!” This letter of St. Lupus and several others
are lost; but we have one by which he congratulated Sidonius upon
his promotion to his see, having passed from a secular prefecture or
government to the episcopacy, which charge he shows to be laborious,
difficult and dangerous. He strongly exhorts him, above all things,
to humility. This letter was written in 471, and is given us by
D’Achery.[267]
God at that time afflicted the western empire with grievous
calamities, and Attila with a numberless army of Huns overran
Gaul, calling himself “The Scourge of God,” to punish the sins of
the people. Rheims, Cambray, Besançon, Auxerre, and Langres had
already felt the effects of his fury, and Troyes was the next place
threatened. The holy bishop had recourse to God in behalf of his
people by fervent prayer, which he continued for many days, prostrate
on the ground, fasting and weeping without intermission. At length,
putting on his bishop’s attire, full of confidence in God, he went
out to meet the barbarian at the head of his army. Attila, though an
infidel, seeing him, was moved to reverence the man of God, who came
up to him boldly, followed by his clergy in procession, with a cross
carried before them. He spoke to the king first, and asked him who
he was? “I am,” said Attila, “the scourge of God.” “Let us respect
whatever comes to us from God,” replied the bishop; “but if you are
the scourge with which heaven chastises us, remember you are to do
nothing but what that almighty hand, which governs and moves you,
permits.” Attila, struck with these words, promised the prelate to
spare the city. Thus the saint’s prayer was a better defence than
the most impregnable ramparts. It protected a city which had neither
arms, nor garrison, nor walls, against an army of at least four
hundred thousand men, which, after plundering Thrace, Illyricum, and
Greece, crossing the Rhine, had filled with blood and desolation the
most flourishing countries of France. Attila, turning with his army
from Troyes, was met on the plains of Chalons by Aëtius, the brave
Roman general, and there defeated. In his retreat he sent for St.
Lupus, and caused him to accompany him as far as the Rhine, imagining
that the presence of so great a servant of God would be a safeguard
to himself and his army; and sending him back, he recommended himself
to his prayers. This action of the good bishop was misconstrued by
the Roman generals, as if he had favored the escape of the barbarian,
and he was obliged to leave Troyes for two years. He spent that
time in religious retirement, in great austerity and continual
contemplation. When his charity and patience had at length overcome
the envy and malice of men, he went back to his church, which he
governed fifty-two years, dying in the year 479. The chief part of
his body is kept in a rich silver shrine; his skull and principal
part of his head in another far more precious, in the figure of a
bishop, formed of silver, adorned with jewels and diamonds said by
some to be the richest in France. Both are in the abbatial church of
regular canons of St. Austin, which bears the name of St. Lupus. He
was first buried in the church of St. Martin in Areis, of the same
Order, then out of the walls, though long since within them. Many
churches in England bear his name. The family name of Sentlow among
us is derived from St. Leu, as Camden remarks.
It was by omnipotent prayer that the saints performed such great
wonders. By it Moses could ward off the destruction of many
thousands, and by a kind of holy violence disarm the divine
vengeance.[268] By it Elias called down fire and rain from heaven. By
it Manasses in chains found mercy, and recovered his throne; Ezechias
saw his health restored, and life prolonged; the Ninevites were
preserved from destruction; Daniel was delivered from the lions, St.
Peter from his chains, and St. Thecla from the fire. By it Judith and
Esther saved God’s people. By the same have the servants of God so
often commanded nature, defeated armies, removed mountains, cast out
devils, cured the sick, raised the dead, drawn down divine blessings,
and averted the most dreadful judgments from the world, which, as an
ancient father says, subsists by the prayers of the saints.[269]