Andeolus

Saint Andeolus, Hieromartyr, was, according to tradition, a Christian missionary who suffered in Gaul, at Bourg-⁠Saint-⁠Andéol, where his memory is kept. He is remembered on 1 May.

He is said to have been born at Smyrna in the second century. A deacon (in some sources a subdeacon), he was sent by Saint Polycarp, with Benignus, to preach in southern Gaul. According to the Passion of Saint Benignus, their ship was wrecked on Corsica, but they made their way to Marseilles. From there they went up the Rhône and the Saône as far as Autun, where they brought Symphorianus, son of the nobleman Faustus, to the faith, who later suffered as Saint Symphorian. Andeolus then went to the Vivarais. The emperor Septimius Severus, passing through that region, ordered him put to death. He was beheaded on 1 May 208 at Bergoiata, a Gallic settlement on a rocky peak above the Rhône, later called Bourg-⁠Saint-⁠Andéol. His body, thrown into the Rhône, was found later and laid in a sarcophagus by a rich Roman woman, Anycia or Amycia Eucheria Tullia (Blessed Tullia), daughter of the senator Eucherius Valerianus. A sarcophagus ascribed to Andeolus was rediscovered in 1865, in excavations in the chapel of Saint Polycarp of the eleventh-⁠century church at Bourg-⁠Saint-⁠Andéol in the Ardèche.

Scholars consider the stories of Benignus and Andeolus to belong to a group of legends that arose in the early sixth century, to show the early beginnings of Christianity in cities such as Besançon, Autun, Langres and Valence. Louis Duchesne regards them as historically unreliable, and the very existence of some of the martyrs linked with these places is doubtful. His veneration at Bourg-⁠Saint-⁠Andéol is, however, old and lively.