Castor of Apt (died ) was a bishop of Apt, in Gaul, perhaps the 4th bishop.Joseph Hyacinthe Albanès, Gallia christiana novissima... Volume 1: Province d'Aix (Montbéliard: Société anonyme imprimerie Montbéliardaise 1899), pp. 195-199.
Life He was born in Nîmes and may have been the brother of Bishop Leontius of Fréjus.Alexandre C. Germain, Histoire de l'eglise de Nimes, Volume 1 (Nîmes: Giraud, 1838), pp. 41-42. He was educated at Arles, and, after the death of his father, he became a lawyer. Castor undertook the case of a wealthy widow with a single daughter, and not only won the case, but visited the imperial court and obtained a rescript ending the lawsuit once and for all.Albanès, Gallia christiana novissima... , pp. 196-197. On his return, when the widow's daughter reached marriageable age, Castor married her."La reconnaissance de celle qu'il avait sauvée lui offrit, lorsqu'il fut de retour, avec la main de sa jeune fille, devenue nubile, la possession de tous ses biens, et ses instances furent si vives qu'il dut se rendre à ses désirs. Il vécut un petit nombre d'années dans le mariage, jusqu'à la mort de sa belle-mère. A few years later, on the death of his mother-in-law, by mutual agreement Castor and his wife entered enter the religious life; she herself entered a nunnery, while Castor founded the monastery of Saint-Faustin, in Manauque (Monanque) in Provence, which followed the monastic rule of John Cassian. He refused the post of abbot, until, when the first abbot was near death, he ordered Castor to accept the post as his successor out of obedience.Albanès, Gallia christiana novissima... , p. 197.
Castor was subsequently made bishop of Apt.The Saints of the Diocese of Nîmes When already a bishop, he wrote a letterAlbanès, Gallia christiana novissima... , "Instrumenta," p. 127. to John Cassian, abbot of S. Vincent in Marseille, requesting him to write a book on the customs of monks of Egypt and Palestine, De institutis coenobiorum.. F.G. Dunlop-Wallace-Goodbody, "All that Remains of Forum Julii," in: The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 297 (Bradbury, Evans, 1904), p. 295 On 13 June 419, Pope Boniface I wrote a letter to 14 named bishops and the other bishops of the Gauls and Septimania, ordering them to hold a synod before 1 November concerning crimes imputed to Maximus, Bishop of Valence. One of the names is Castorius.Philippus Jaffé & S. Loewenfeld, Regesta pontificum Romanorum , Volume 1 (Leipzig: Veit 1885), p. 53, no. 349. Albanès, Gallia christiana novissima, p. 198.
He died of natural causes, on 21 September, of a year unknown in the reign of the Emperor Honorius, who died on 15 August 423.
Veneration His feast day is September 2. His remains are still preserved in the cathedral of Apt, of which he is one of the patrons.
References
External links Catholic Online: Castor of Apt Saints of September 2: Castor of Apt Saint Castor