Saint Virgil of Salzburg (died 784)

Ireland and the departure

Virgil was born around 700 in Ireland, then a home of monastic and missionary life. Several sources present him as abbot of Aghaboe (County Laois), but the identity between Feirgil the abbot of Aghaboe and the future bishop of Salzburg is disputed among historians.^[8][9]

Around 743-745, he left Ireland for the continent. He passed through the court of the Frankish kings, at Quierzy or Compiegne, then reached Bavaria, where Duke Odilo welcomed him. He arrived in the region of Salzburg around 743-745 as a missionary.^[10][11]

Abbot of Saint Peter's in Salzburg

In Salzburg, Virgil became abbot of Saint Peter's Abbey, the powerful monastery founded by Saint Rupert in the 7th century. He administered the community and the diocesan region, but he did not yet have episcopal consecration: a fellow Irish bishop, Dobdagrecus, was called to exercise the episcopal functions in his place for about two years.^[12][13]

Bishop of Salzburg

The sources diverge on the date of his accession to the episcopate:

• The German notice (German Wikipedia) gives episcopal consecration on 15 June 749 (or 755, according to a reported variant).
• The Catholic Encyclopedia and the English notice make him bishop in 766 or 767, after the martyrdom of Saint Boniface (in 754).^[14][15]

Whatever the exact date, Virgil exercised the episcopal office for nearly forty years, until his death in 784. He was both abbot of Saint Peter's and bishop of Salzburg, a frequent combination at the time.^[16][17][18]

The mission in Carantania

Before 767, Virgil sent two collaborators, Modestus and Libellus, to evangelize Carantania (present-day Carinthia and its surroundings). This mission earned him the title of apostle of Carinthia. The main centres of the mission were Maria Saal, Sankt Peter in Holz and Sankt Johann near Knittelfeld.^[19]

The mission was part of the evangelization of the Alpine Slavs in the 8th century, in the footsteps of Saint Rupert and before the great expansion of the Carolingian era.

Salzburg Cathedral

Virgil had the first cathedral of Salzburg built. It was dedicated to Saint Rupert on 24 September 774 (or 784, according to a variant dating). He had Rupert's relics transferred to Salzburg to lay them there.^[20][21]

This cathedral definitively anchored the episcopal see of Salzburg. An altar was erected there to Virgil's memory in 1288; he still rests there today.^[22]

Two cases set Virgil against Saint Boniface (c. 675-754), the apostle of Germany, who brought them before Pope Zachary (741-752). They are distinct, and must be presented separately.

The baptismal formula

The first controversy concerned the validity of a baptism administered with a garbled formula.

An unlettered priest is said to have pronounced, instead of the received Trinitarian formula (Baptizo te in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"), a corrupt formula which the Catholic Encyclopedia renders thus: Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et spiritu sancta. The formula is Trinitarian in structure, but the Latin cases are wrong: patria and filia instead of patris and filii, sancta instead of sancti.^[23]

Virgil held that the sacrament had been validly conferred: though corrupt, the formula expressed the Trinitarian faith, and the baptism was valid. Boniface, on the contrary, judged this baptism null and that rebaptism was required. He brought the case before Pope Zachary.^[24][25]

The pope decided in favour of Virgil: a baptism administered in the Trinitarian faith is valid, even if the formula was deformed by the minister's ignorance. That is the position retained by the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.^[26]

"The latter, however, decided in favour of Vergilius." Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "St. Vergilius of Salzburg"^[27]

The German Wikipedia notice qualifies this point: it holds that the pope "did not really decide in favour of Virgil", and that the questions were soon forgotten after Zachary's death. Secondary sources thus diverge on the exact scope of the decision; the fact of the dispute itself is solidly attested.^[28]

The antipodes

The second controversy is more famous and more serious. Boniface accused Virgil of teaching that there is another world and other men under the earth, descended from an ancestor other than Adam, contrary to the Scriptures.^[29][30]

The theological stake was considerable: if there are men who do not descend from Adam, the doctrine of original sin and the universality of redemption are called into question. Boniface, a pastor of the frontier, saw in it a threat to the faith of his flock.

The pope Zachary answered with a conditional reply, preserved in the Epistolae selectae (Jaffe, Biblioth. rerum germ. III, 191; MGH Epistolae Selectae 1, 80, pp. 178-179): if the facts are proved, a council must be convened, Virgil must be deposed and expelled from the Church.^[31][32]

Virgil justified himself and was cleared. The treatise he is said to have composed on the question is lost. William Turner, the author of the Catholic Encyclopedia article, suggests that Boniface may have misunderstood Virgil's position, which may have concerned the round earth and the antipodes in the geographical sense, not the existence of a humanity foreign to Adam's descendants.^[33]

The wording "baptism of little children"

Some translations or older notices group these two cases under a formula such as the "baptism of little children". The primary sources and reference works (Catholic Encyclopedia, MGH, Jaffe) do not present the controversy thus: the first concerns the validity of a baptismal formula deformed by an ignorant minister, and the second the doctrine of the antipodes. Neither concerns specifically the baptism of children: the facts are presented here as the sources give them, without attaching them to that label.^{[34][35][36][37]}

Canonization

Virgil was canonized on 18 June 1233 by Pope Gregory IX. It was one of the formal canonizations of the 13th century, at a time when the procedure was beginning to be centralized by the Holy See.^[38][39]

Feast

His feast is on 27 November, the date of his death, in the General Roman Calendar. In Germanic calendars, he is also celebrated on 24 September, jointly with Saint Rupert, on the anniversary of the dedication of Salzburg Cathedral.^[40]

Tomb

He rests in Salzburg Cathedral, where an altar was erected to him in 1288. His cult has endured in Bavaria, Austria and Ireland.^[41]

Iconography

Iconography depicts him:

• As a bishop, with mitre and crozier.
• Sometimes with a book or a model of a church, referring to the building of the cathedral.
• The statue on the facade of Salzburg Cathedral and the fresco of Sankt Adolari (Tyrol) preserve significant depictions of him.

The photograph of the statue at the head of the article is by Karin Rager (Wikimedia Commons, GFDL licence).^[42]

The historical core is solid: an Irish monk named Virgil lived in Salzburg in the 8th century, became its bishop, sent a mission to Carantania, had the cathedral dedicated to Saint Rupert built, and was involved in two controversies brought before Pope Zachary. His cult is ancient and his canonization is dated (1233).^[43][44][45]

What cannot be affirmed with certainty:

1. The date of death: 784 (FR/EN/DE notices) or 789 (Catholic Encyclopedia).
2. The date of episcopal consecration: 749, 755, or 766-767 according to the sources.
3. The identity with Feirgil, abbot of Aghaboe, disputed among historians.
4. The exact scope of Zachary's decision on the baptismal formula (decided in favour of Virgil according to the Catholic Encyclopedia; a less clear-cut decision according to the German notice).
5. The precise content of Virgil's position on the antipodes: the treatise is lost, and Boniface's accusation may have been a misunderstanding.
6. The date of the dedication of the cathedral: 774 or 784.

Nothing here adds to the record: no invented speech, no miracle reported beyond what the cited sources attest.

• Saint Columbanus: another great Irish monk and missionary on the continent, a century before Virgil.
• Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg: bishop of the same region, a century and a half later.