ST. AURELIAN, ARCHBISHOP OF ARLES, C.

BEING promoted to that see in 546, he founded in that city a great monastery for monks, in which he was seconded by the munificence of king Childebert. He enriched the same with relics of the holy cross, St. Stephen, SS. Peter and Paul, St. John, St. James, St. Andrew, St. Gennesius, St. Symphorianus, St. Victor, St. Hilary, St. Martin, St. Cæsarius, &c. He compiled a rule for these monks, and another for the nunnery of St. Mary, which he also built in the same city. Both these rules are extant in the Code of St. Benedict of Anian, and in Le Cointe’s Annals. He mentions the commemoration of the faithful departed at the altar; and also of the living: in that of the saints he adds in particular those martyrs and confessors whose relies that church was possessed of. The saint usually styles himself Aurelian the Sinner. He assisted at the council of Orleans in 549; and according to the inscription upon his tomb in the chapel of St. Nizier in Lyons, died in that city on the 16th of June, 552, or, as the inscription runs, the eleventh year after the consulate of Justin the Younger, in 540.* He is commemorated on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See the Annals of Le Cointe, and Gallia Christ. t. 1, p. 537.