Feast day: November 29
St. Saturninus of Toulouse
The first bishop of Toulouse, who refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods and was tied to a bull that was driven down the temple steps, dragging him to his death.
Saturninus — in French Sernin — was the first bishop of Toulouse, in southern Gaul, one of the missionary bishops sent from Rome in the third century to plant the faith in the cities of what is now France. He arrived at Toulouse about the year 250 and gathered a small Christian community in a still overwhelmingly pagan city.
His martyrdom, recorded in very ancient and reliable acts, became one of the most famous in Gaul, and it gave the city its most memorable legend. His daily route to his little church took him past the pagan temple of the Capitol, and the pagans blamed the silence of their oracles on the passing of the Christian bishop.
One day, the story goes, a crowd seized Saturninus and demanded that he sacrifice to their gods. When he refused, declaring that he feared only the one true God, they bound him by the feet to a bull that was about to be sacrificed and drove the maddened animal down the temple steps and through the streets, dragging the bishop to his death.
The place where his battered body came to rest, and the street down which he was dragged — still called the 'Rue du Taur,' the street of the bull — became sacred to his memory. Over his tomb rose the great basilica of Saint-Sernin, one of the most beautiful in France. He is honoured as the apostle and patron of Toulouse.
The street where the bull dragged him is still called the Rue du Taur — 'street of the bull' — and his great basilica of Saint-Sernin rose over his grave.
Image: artist unknown (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/13486b.htm
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