Baring-Gould’s sources: Ado, Usuardus, the Belgian Martyrologies, the Modem Roman Martyrology, Authorities The life of S. Servais by Heriger, abbot of Lobbes, at the eud of the ioth or beginning of the nth century, and mention by S. Gregory of Tours. J It is not known whence S. Servais (Servatus) came. He was bishop of Tongres, near Maestricht, and was present at the council of Cologne, held in 346, in which the bishop of Cologne was deposed for his Arianism. The words used by S. Servais on that occasion were: “ I know for certain what this false bishop teaches. I know it not from hearsay, but from having heard him with my own ears. As our dioceses adjoin, I have often remonstrated with him when he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. I have done so in private and in public, before Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. My advice is, that he should no longer be a Christian bishop, and that they who communicate with him should not be regarded as Christians/’’ He must have been in the presence of S. Athanasius when that saint was exiled to Treves, between the years 336 and 338.
He was present at the council of Sardica in 347, and at the council of Rimini in 359, in which he long stood out against the Arians [followers of Arius, who taught that the Son is a created being, not fully God]. The bishops of the West there assembled were told that the Eastern bishops assembled at Seleucia had accepted the Arian creed as the emperor insisted. This was most false, but the bishops yielded one after another. Nevertheless, above twenty held out, headed by S. Servais and S. Phcebadius. of Agen. They were menaced,, but Phcebadius replied, “Any suffering rather than an Arian creed/' The Emperor Valens, after some days had thus been spent, equivocated, pretended he was not an Arian, and the minority, hoodwinked and wearied out, yielded. But no sooner had they returned to their sees, and discovered the treachery to which they had been victims, than they vehemently repudiated all sympathy with Arianism. Whilst S. Servais was engaged, after the council of Rimini, in confirming the faith of his flock, the Huns [nomadic invaders from Central Asia, led in the 5th century by Attila] broke into Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium], ravaging and slaying. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, and on his way back was taken by the Huns, and thrown into a dungeon. But a bright light filling his prison at night, the Huns were frightened and released him, and he hastened home over the Alps of Savoy and the Vosges. On his return to Tongres, he informed his people that they must not expect to escape the ravages of the Huns, and that he must leave them to seek elsewhere a peaceful grave. He retired to Maestricht, where he died on May His relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] are preserved in an ancient shrine at Maestricht.
In Art he appears sometimes with an eagle over his head; for, according to tradition, one day an eagle sheltered him from the sun with his expanded wings. But his special symbol is a silver key, which he is said by popular legend to have received from S. Peter himself in a vision, and this key was wrought in heaven by angelic hands. In truth the key was one of the claves confessionis S. Petri, which the popes were wont to bestow on special favourites, and in which particles or filings of the chains 0/ S. Peter were inserted. Pope Pelagius II. gave such a key of pure gold to the Lombard king, and S. Gregory the Great sent others to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch,1 the ex-consul John,2 to the Bishop Columbus,8 to Childebert, king of the Franks [the Germanic people who ruled Gaul and gave France its name],4 and to Reccared, king of the lwAmatores autem vestri B. Petri Apostoli vobis claves transmisi quae super aegros positae multis solent miraculis coruscate.” S. Greg. Magn. Opera, lib. i., S. John the Silentiary.
Visigoths.1 These keys were called claves confessionis S. Petri, because they were copies of the key which unlocked the crypt in which the body of the Prince of the Apostles lay, in the old basilica of S. Peter.2 Pope Vitalian in 657, to take one more instance, sent such a key containing a filing of the chains of S. Peter, to the queen of Oswy, king of Northumberland.3 Such a key is preserved to this day at Li^ge, and others in the Middle Ages in Corsica and La on. The workmanship of the key at Maestricht may belong to the 4th cent., but it certainly has all the appearance of belonging to the nth. It appears to have been gilt.4 At Maestricht are preserved also the drinking cup and the staff of the saint, as also are his bones in one of the most splendid reliquaries of the Middle Ages that have been preserved to the present day.
