All within a days horse ride from Annemasse
and Aosta, an autonomous area in northern Italy which has been discussed many times on here. Aosta, former home of the Celtic tribe the Salassi. Aosta was called Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in Roman times. There are few streets in Rennes le Chateau but one of them is called Rue de la Salasse.
Gerard de Sede speaks about the mysterious Ursus in his book, there was a Saint Ursus in Aosta which the French call Saint Ours who was called Sant Orso in Aosta, Italy where he founded a collegiate church there in the 6th Century. Ursa, Ours and Orso is the name for Bear in Latin, French and Italian respectively. As in Great Bear - Ursa Major.
Saint Gratus of Aosta (San Grato di Aosta) is the patron saint of Aosta. St Gratus signed the acts of the synod of Milan in 451 AD as a priest. Gratus represented the bishop of Aosta, Eustasius, at this council, signing the letter that the assembly sent to Pope Leo I the Great in order to affirm its condemnation of the heresy of Eutyches, who declared that Christ was "a fusion of human and divine elements". This after the Archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius asserted that the Virgin Mary should no longer be referred to as the ‘Mother of God’ (Theotokos), for according to Nestorius Jesus had been born a mere man and became imbued later with a divine nature, Eutyches had vehemently opposed this. However, both Eutyches and Nestorius found themselves denounced as heretics at the Council of Chalcedon in 451AD. Both Gratus and Eustasius were of Greek origin, they received their education, and ecclesiastical formation from the type of monastic foundation in Italy established by Eusebius of Vercelli and this was modeled on that of the Eastern cenobites and therefore they did not live as hermits as the Calabrian monks may have done. Gratus became bishop of Aosta sometime after 451, and presided over the translation of various relics in the city around 470AD, including those of Saint Innocent, one of the martyrs of the Theban Legion. The bishops of Agaunum and Sion were present at this translation.
Pope Liberius sent Eusebius of Vercelli accompanied by the curiously named Bishop Lucifer of Cagliari to the Emperor Constantius II at Arles in Gaul over the infamous schism between the theologian Arius and the Trinity Christians. This forced the Pope to invoke a council to discuss the Arians rejection of the dictates of the Council of Nicea, clearly as late as the 6th century Christians were still debating the true nature of Jesus.
In 1285, the Magna Legenda Sancti Grati, a fictitious and anachronistic account of Gratus’ life to celebrate the translation of the saint's relics, was composed by Jacques de Cours, then canon of Aosta cathedral.
In this account, it was alleged that St Gratus had been born into a noble Spartan family and he had studied at Athens where he became a monk. In order to escape the persecutions in the East, he fled to Rome, where he was well received and was sent as an emissary to the court of Charlemagne. Gratus had experienced a vision at the Pantheon, which had sent him to Aosta where he converted many pagans and Charlemagne aided him in this mission. The legend continues that seemingly by divine command, this vision sent him to the Holy Land to find the head of John the Baptist. Saint Jucundus (Giocondo
) accompanied him and Gratus allegedly found the relic concealed in the palace of Herod. Smuggling it out of Jerusalem, Gratus returned to Rome, where the story says that the church bells played on their own accord in celebration. Gratus presented John's head to the Pope; but in doing so, the jawbone remained in Gratus' hand. The Holy See interpreted this as a sign, and the Pope allowed him to carry that precious relic back to Aosta. This suggests that the head of St John the Baptist may be found around the town of Aosta. Gratus continued to govern the diocese, while periodically withdrawing to a hermitage with Jucundus. Caesar Baronius, who drafted a new edition to the Roman Martyrology (1586), doubted the veracity of Gratus’ tale and in the twentieth century, the historian Aimé Pierre Frutaz demonstrated without a doubt that the Magna Legenda Sancti Grati was an invented tale. However, the tale still seems to have spurred a Gratus cult into the areas of Piedmont, Lombardy, Switzerland and Savoy and these are other areas of our interest in this story.
In the town of Aosta is the Arch of Augusta erected in 35 BC to celebrate the victory of the Roman troops led by Consul Varro Murene over the local Celtic tribe called the Salassi, who had frequented this strategic passage through the Alps since 3000BCE.
Saint Gratus of Aosta is usually depicted in art with a bunch of Grapes and the head of John the Baptist and is the patron saint of the Benedictines. His feast day is September 6th.