Castor of Apt

Saint Castor was bishop of Apt, in Gaul (today southern France), at the beginning of the fifth century, perhaps its fourth bishop. He died a natural death on 21 September, in an unknown year in the reign of the emperor Honorius, who died in 423. The Church remembers him as a founder of monasteries and as the one who urged John Cassian to write about the order of monastic life.

The lawyer

Castor was born at Nîmes, of a distinguished family, and is thought to have been the brother of Leontius, bishop of Fréjus. He was educated at Arles, and after his father's death he became a lawyer. He took up the case of a wealthy widow with an only daughter, and not only won it but went to the imperial court and obtained a rescript that ended the lawsuit for good. On his return, when the widow's daughter came of marriageable age, Castor married her.

The monk

A few years later, on the death of his mother-⁠in-⁠law, Castor and his wife agreed together to enter the religious life. She entered a convent, and he founded in Provence the monastery of Saint-⁠Faustin at Manauque, following the rule of John Cassian. He refused the office of abbot until the first abbot, near death, commanded him in obedience to succeed him.

The bishop

Later Castor was made bishop of Apt, by some accounts against his will. Wishing the monks of his own monastery and of the others in his diocese to live after the customs of the East, he wrote to John Cassian, abbot of Saint Victor at Marseille, who had known the monasticism of Egypt and Palestine, asking him to put these customs in writing. At Castor's request Cassian wrote the Institutes (De institutis coenobiorum) and afterwards the Conferences (Collationes), books that deeply shaped Western monasticism.

On 13 June 419 Pope Boniface I wrote to fourteen named bishops and the other bishops of the Gauls and Septimania, ordering a synod to be held before 1 November concerning the charges against Maximus, bishop of Valence. Among the names is Castorius, who is taken to be Castor. His death is placed by some in the year 420 and by others in 422.

Veneration

The saint's relics are still kept in the cathedral of Apt, of which he is counted a patron. The Catholic Church commemorates him on 21 September, and the Greek synaxaria on 12 August.