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the real st. germain

There is much emotive writing about St Germain, clouded in pseudo mystery to stimulate the curiosity of spiritual seekers. The Theosophists were the first to spin up a new St Germain in the 18th Century. Isabel Cooper-Oakley then wrote an account based more on hearsay and her theosophical rooted imaginings then any objective truth.

Her book can be downloaded off the internet here.

And the Theosophical Society spin can be read here.

It is this literature that Guy and Edna plundered when concocting their St Germain.

Few I AM students are aware of the highly fabricated history of this new St Germain. Far fewer are aware of the real St Germain, who was responsible for the name being so prominent in France. Below is a short description of the real St Germain.

Germanus (Germain) of Paris B (RM)

Born near Autun, France, c. 496; died in Paris, France, May 28, 576; canonized 754.

Saint Germain was ordained in Autun in 530 and ten years later was elected abbot of the monastery of Saint Symphorian there. About 556, he was in Paris when the bishopric fell vacant and was appointed both bishop and archbishop to King Childebert I.

In no way did the great office affect the saint's pattern of life. Always austere, he was continuously pestered by the poor and never repulsed them; history has given him the title, "father of the poor." Germain was unwearying and fearless in his endeavors to put a stop to civil strife and to curb the viciousness of the Frankish kings, but with little effect.

Through Germain, God cured King Childebert of an illness and converted him from licentiousness. It was to him that Saint Radegund appealed successfully for protection against her brutal husband, Chlotar I.

When he died, the great poet Venantius Fortunatus wrote a eulogy of his life which, in spite of its many incredible miracles and legends, fittingly thanks God for a vigorous and noble saint.

The oldest and greatest of the medieval abbeys of Paris, Saint- Germain-des-Prés, was in fact founded in the saint's own lifetime--in 558 by King Childebert I. Saint Germain consecrated it to Saint Vincent and to the Holy Cross. When Germain died at the age of eighty, he was buried in this abbey in a sumptuous tomb that the French revolutionaries destroyed; and when he was canonized it was reconsecrated in his name. That King Childebert I should have founded such a place of Christian learning is a tribute to the influence of Saint Germain (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley).

Saint Germanus is depicted in art lying in bed and extinguishing a fire by his prayers. At times he may also be shown with a chain and key in his hand or as Saint Peter appears to him with a key (Roeder). Germanus is the patron of choral singing, and invoked against fever, fire, and on behalf of prisoners (Roeder).