Saturninus (Sernin), Bishop of Toulouse, Saint, Martyr

SATURNINUS (Sernin), Bishop of Toulouse, Saint, Martyr. - First bishop of Toulouse of the mid-3rd century. Feast on 29 November.

According to the Historia passionis (BHL, 7495-99), written at the beginning of the 5th century, St. Saturninus would have reached his see in 250 (cf. also Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francorum, I, 30; ed. W. Arndt-B. Krusch, in MGH, Script. rerum Merov., I, p. 48) and would have been put to death on the occasion of a popular tumult, assembled on the Capitolium for a sacrifice. Spotted as he was passing nearby on his way to his small church, he was seized and led before the altar of sacrifice, in which he refused to take part.

He was then bound to the bull intended for sacrifice, which, goaded on, rushed down the steps of the Capitolium, furiously dragging the poor bishop, whose head was immediately smashed. The mutilation of the corpse ceased when the rope that held him bound to the animal broke; taken up by two pious women, he received burial in a deep pit. In the 2nd half of the 4th century the bishop Hilary searched for his tomb and built an oratory on the site; his successors Silvius and Exuperius erected at a short distance a sumptuous basilica, rebuilt in 570 by the duke Launebode (cf. Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina, II, 11; PL 88, 99). The present vast basilica of St-Sernin, begun in the 11th century (Urban II consecrated its choir and high altar in 1096), was completed in the 13th century (cf. A. Aurioi - R. Rey, La basilique de St-Sernin de Toulouse, ibid. 1930).

Neither the year (it is thought that 250 refers to the martyrdom [Duchesne, Griffe etc.]) nor the day of the death of St. Saturninus is known, although the Hieronymian Martyrology and later the Roman one place his dies natalis on 29 November, the birthday of the famous Roman martyr of the same name. In the Roman liturgical books Saturninus does not appear: there is, however, in the Hadrianic Gregorian Sacramentary of cod. Ottob. lat. 313 (ed. H. A. Wilson, London 1915, p. 292) a Preface for the Roman St. Saturninus which must refer to the one of Toulouse. He is instead commemorated on 29 November in the Visigothic Orazionale (end of the 7th century - beginning of the 8th; ed. J. Vives, Barcelona 1946, pp. 26-28), in the Liber mozarabicus Sacramentorum (ed. M. Férotin, Paris 1912, coll. 29-33), in the Mozarabic calendars (ed. M. Férotin, Le liber Ordinum, ibid. 1904, pp. 488-89) and, at the beginning of Advent, in the Missale Gothicum (8th century; ed. H. M. Bannister, London 1917, pp. 39-40), to which must be added the episcopal blessing for the feast of St. Saturninus, rediscovered by G. Morin (Un recueil gallican inédit de « Benedictions episcopales » en usage à Freising aux VIIe-IXe siècles, in Rev. bénéd., 29 [1912], pp. 187-88). For the liturgical books of Toulouse and of the surrounding regions later than the 9th century, cf. V. Leroquais, Les Sacramentaires..., III, Paris 1924, p. 412 (index); id., Les Bréviaires..., V, Paris 1934 (index), where the feast of the « revelatio » is commemorated on 25 June; this is evidently the translation of 1258, since the Hieronymian Martyrology assigns to 30 October the translation of the body of St. Saturninus at the beginning of the 5th century, through the work of Exuperius, following an imperial rescript, an event commemorated on 1 November in the Mozarabic Sacramentary (ed. M. Férotin, coll. 460-64; cf. P. Batiffol, Un souvenir du royaume visigoth de Toulouse [412-507] dans une messe mozarabe, in Etudes de liturgie et d'archéol. chrétienne, Paris 1919, pp. 180-92 and Griffe, 1951) and in the Mozarabic calendars (ed. M. Férotin, Le liber Ordinum, cit., pp. 484-85). Various cities of Gaul possessed relics of Saturninus. Everything that is told about him, beyond the few notices on the martyrdom and the tomb contained in the Historia passionis, is legendary, including the apostolic character of his mission, mentioned by St. Caesarius of Arles (cf. Libellus de mysterio Sanctae Trinitatis, 17; ed. G. Morin, II, Maredsous 1942, p. 179) and his Eastern origin hinted at in the Missale Gothicum through a contamination with a prayer relating to Christ.

A. Pietro Frutaz