Again, from Drafts. I was apparently attempting to translate this text about Saint Eugene. I no longer have any idea re 'Claude' beyond the title here i.e. he is author of Histoire littéraire de la France?
Saint Eugene, of whom we speak here only because there are attributed to him certain Christian poems, was the companion or disciple of Saint Denis the first Bishop of Paris. According to some acts of the saints he came from Rome to the Gauls along with Saint Denis, Saint Quentin, Saint Lucien and others. But as these acts are not the original texts nor conformed to the truth on many points, we can also well believe that our Saint was one of those who Saint Denis converted from among the Gauls by his preaching.
We can say little about the details of his life because little is verifiable. After having assisted Saint Denis in his ministry in service of the Gospel, he suffered martyrdom for Our Lord in the village of Deuil near Montmorency, a brief time after (or perhaps even before) Saint Denis, about the year 286. The church of Deuil still bears his name and the Church of Paris honors him as a Martyr on the 15th November. His body was borne to the Abbey of Saint Denis and toward 920 the monks gave a part of the relics to Saint Gerard Abbot of Brogne in the diocesee and County of Namur.
In the course of time, our holy Martyr became 'the Bishop of Toledo' in Spain, without any legitimate foundation. All the Spanish writers, from 1148, have recognised two Eugenes Bishops of Toledo, both posterior to Saint Denis and his companions in martyrdom. The source of the error, so it seems, lies in the fact that several poems of the second of those two Eugenes were published by P. Sirmond in 1619, and Abbé Hilduin had cited a hymn of that Eugene on Saint Denis, which was misattributed to Saint Eugene martyred in the diocese of Paris, making him into the bishop of Toledo.
These poems consist in an oration comprising 22 hexameters, which Molanus gives in its entirety, and a hymn on Saint Denis the Areopagite and Martyr. These two pieces, according to Molanus, were found at the time he was writing in a very old manuscript of Saint Eugene belonging to the Abbey of Brogne. The prayer is edifying and instructive, and can only have been the effusion of a heart devoutly Christian, filled with his desires addressed to God pour le prier de les remplir. He asks all that is necessary to pass this life in tranquillity and holiness. Whatever the merits of this poem, it appears to us however to breathe less the air of the 3rd century than of writings of the following centuries, by this measure making it one of Eugene of Toledo's works. It will have been an easy enough error to make, mistaking the name of the author and attributing this to another Eugene.
So far as the hymn Caeli cives applaudite goes, it is not found among the work of Eugene of Toledo; it is, moreover, found in a MS of Reims which contains the life of Saint Eugene the Martyr of whom we speak, and to whom this hymn is attributed. This is the same hymn Abbé Hilduin cites under the name of Eugene of Toledo. Maître de Launoy regards it as "comme une piece suposée à l'un et à l'autre". We have no proofs to contradict his sentiment. Au contraire, l'hymne étant sur saint Denys de Paris et le confondant avec l'Areopagite, ou le Sophiste, comme porte le manuscrit dont parle Molanus, et qui semble n'être pas different de celui de Reims, c'est un puissant préjugé de suposition de la piece. CLAUDE
We can say little about the details of his life because little is verifiable. After having assisted Saint Denis in his ministry in service of the Gospel, he suffered martyrdom for Our Lord in the village of Deuil near Montmorency, a brief time after (or perhaps even before) Saint Denis, about the year 286. The church of Deuil still bears his name and the Church of Paris honors him as a Martyr on the 15th November. His body was borne to the Abbey of Saint Denis and toward 920 the monks gave a part of the relics to Saint Gerard Abbot of Brogne in the diocesee and County of Namur.
In the course of time, our holy Martyr became 'the Bishop of Toledo' in Spain, without any legitimate foundation. All the Spanish writers, from 1148, have recognised two Eugenes Bishops of Toledo, both posterior to Saint Denis and his companions in martyrdom. The source of the error, so it seems, lies in the fact that several poems of the second of those two Eugenes were published by P. Sirmond in 1619, and Abbé Hilduin had cited a hymn of that Eugene on Saint Denis, which was misattributed to Saint Eugene martyred in the diocese of Paris, making him into the bishop of Toledo.
These poems consist in an oration comprising 22 hexameters, which Molanus gives in its entirety, and a hymn on Saint Denis the Areopagite and Martyr. These two pieces, according to Molanus, were found at the time he was writing in a very old manuscript of Saint Eugene belonging to the Abbey of Brogne. The prayer is edifying and instructive, and can only have been the effusion of a heart devoutly Christian, filled with his desires addressed to God pour le prier de les remplir. He asks all that is necessary to pass this life in tranquillity and holiness. Whatever the merits of this poem, it appears to us however to breathe less the air of the 3rd century than of writings of the following centuries, by this measure making it one of Eugene of Toledo's works. It will have been an easy enough error to make, mistaking the name of the author and attributing this to another Eugene.
So far as the hymn Caeli cives applaudite goes, it is not found among the work of Eugene of Toledo; it is, moreover, found in a MS of Reims which contains the life of Saint Eugene the Martyr of whom we speak, and to whom this hymn is attributed. This is the same hymn Abbé Hilduin cites under the name of Eugene of Toledo. Maître de Launoy regards it as "comme une piece suposée à l'un et à l'autre". We have no proofs to contradict his sentiment. Au contraire, l'hymne étant sur saint Denys de Paris et le confondant avec l'Areopagite, ou le Sophiste, comme porte le manuscrit dont parle Molanus, et qui semble n'être pas different de celui de Reims, c'est un puissant préjugé de suposition de la piece. CLAUDE
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