Saint Pirmin

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Pirmin (ca. 670 - Hornbach 753), also named Pirminius, was a monk, strongly influenced by Celtic Christianity and originating from the surroundings of Narbonne, possible of Visigothic origin.

In 717, he had to flee the raid of the Muslims in Septimania.

From 718 onwards, he was abbot of the monastery Quortolodora in Antwerp (Austrasia)^* and, together with its pupils, the minister of the church inside the broch, that was dedicated later to Saint Walpurga. After a while he was transferred by count Rohingus to his villa in Thommen, near Sankt Vith in the Ardennes.

Pirmin became in good books to Charles Martel. He was send to help rebuild the abbey of Disentis in Switzerland. In 724, he was appointed abbot of the abbey Mittelzell at Reichenau Island, that he had founded. Because of political reasons he was banishd to the Alsace, where he founded manny abbeys: such as Amorbach, Gengenbach, Murbach, Wissembourg, Marmoutier und Neuweiler.

In 753, he died in the abbey at Hornbach.

His De singulis libris canonicis scarapsus ("Concerning the Single Canonical Book Scarapsus") (J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 89, 1029 ff.), written between 710-724, provides the earliest appearance of the present text of the Apostles' Creed. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Longman, 1974, p. 398.

^*"De ecclesia in Antweppo (sic) castello" by Theodoricus, Codex aureus, Echternach, 1190-1191.