ST. APER OR EVRE, B. C.

HE was born at Troyes in Champagne, as was his sister, the holy virgin Apronia, honored at Troyes and Toul on the 15th of July. Upon the death of St. Auspicius, sixth bishop of Troyes, in Champagne, about the year 486, he was chosen to fill that chair, for which he was prepared by a life devoted to the divine service from his infancy. Baronius, F. Peter Chifflet, and F. Longueval think him the same with Aper, who was married, had been a judge, and, after having led for some years a worldly life, was converted to God, and served him with great fervor, as we learn from three letters of St. Paulinus to him. But the authors of the new Gallia Christiana, and Calmet, in his history of Lorrain, show, that this Aper must have been above one hundred years old before he could have been bishop, which is incredible. Nor does it appear that the bishop had ever been married; on the contrary, he had served God in continency from his youth. He might, however, be the same to whom Sidonius Apollinaris wrote with respect. In the history of his life, his zeal, austerity, devotion, and miracles are set forth. He governed that diocess seven years, and was buried in the new church which he had begun to build in the suburbs, and which was finished by his successor. This church was dedicated under the title of St. Martin, but very soon after bore the name of St. Aper, whose relics and miracles rendered it famous. A monastery was soon after built to this church; and, in the decline of the sixth century, the abbot Apollinaris governed both this church and that of Agaunum. St. Leo IX. bishop of Toul, afterward pope, carried certain relics of St. Mansuetus (first bishop of Toul in the reign of Constantine the Great) and of St. Aper with him, and by them cured many of his attendants of the pestilence on the road, as is related by Wibert, archdeacon of that holy pope, in his life. The chief part of the relics of St. Aper is to this day kept with veneration in his church. See the life of St. Aper among the lives of the bishops of Toul, published by Martenne, t. 3, Anecd. Col. 991, and by Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, inter Instrum. col. 121, ed. 2da; also The History of the Bishops of Toul, &c.