ON SAINT REDEMPTUS,
BISHOP OF FERENTINO IN LATIUM.
ABOUT THE YEAR 586
CommentaryRedemptus, Bishop of Ferentino, in Latium (St.)
G. H.
Ferentinum, an ancient city of Latium on the borders of the Hernici, on account of the wars waged with the first Kings of the Romans, mentioned by Livy and others, and after the faith of Christ was received, was also ennobled with an Episcopal See. Among the Bishops was Saint Redemptus, to whom this April 8 day is held sacred. Saint Gregory the Great mentions him in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 38. For when Peter the Deacon complained in vain that the good were being taken away, because he saw also the evil perishing in droves; The memory of him in the Dialogues of Saint Gregory, Saint Gregory thus replied: "Marvel not at this matter, Peter. For Redemptus, Bishop of the city of Ferentinum, a man of venerable life, who about seven years ago migrated from this world, your love knew. This one, as he was then very familiarly joined to me in the monastery placed nearby, what in the time of John the Younger my predecessor he had learned concerning the end of the world, as had become famous far and wide, on account of a vision as if of the end of the world, inquired of by me, he himself narrated to me. For he said that on a certain day, while he was going around his parishes according to custom, he came to the church of Blessed Eutychius the Martyr. When evening came on a certain day, he wished that a bed be made for him beside the tomb of the Martyr, and there after his labor he rested: in the middle of the night, as he asserted, he could neither fully stay awake, nor was he sleeping, but pressed as is wont by sleep, his vigilant mind was weighed down by a certain burden: and before him the blessed Martyr Eutychius stood, saying: 'Redemptus, are you awake?' To whom he answered: 'I am awake.' Who said: 'The end of all flesh has come, the end of all flesh has come, the end of all flesh has come.' After this triple voice the vision of the Martyr, with the grace of omnipotent God which appeared to the eyes of his mind, vanished. Then the man of God arose, and gave himself to the lamentation of prayer. For soon those terrible signs in heaven followed, as spears and fiery armies were seen from the northern parts. Soon the wild nation of the Lombards, drawn from the sheath of their habitation, raged upon our neck: explained by the irruptions of the Lombards: and the human race, which had risen up in this land through excessive multitude as in the manner of thick crops, cut down, withered. For cities were depopulated, fortresses overturned, churches burnt, monasteries of men and women destroyed, estates deserted by men, and the land destitute of every cultivator lies empty in solitude: no possessor inhabits it, beasts have occupied the places which formerly a multitude of men held."
Thus far Saint Gregory's narration, from which it is clear in what time Saint Redemptus flourished. For Pope John the Younger, time of his life and death, under whose Pontificate the aforesaid vision happened, is John III, who sat from the year 559 to the year 572. But the greatest irruption of the Lombards happened in the year 566. Saint Redemptus however survived until about the year 586; and thus he had been dead for nearly seven years, when Saint Gregory in the year 593 was composing the books of the Dialogues. sacred cultus. Peter de Natalibus, because he did not know the birthday of Saint Redemptus, referred to him in book 11, chapter 105: but Molanus in the first edition of the Supplement to Usuard on this April 8: followed by Canisius, Ghinius, and Ferrarius in the Catalogue of Saints of Italy. On which day also in the present-day Martyrology he is adorned with this eulogy: "At Ferentinum among the Hernici, of Saint Redemptus the Bishop, of whom Blessed Pope Gregory made mention." Bucelinus inscribed the same in the Menology of the Benedictines, as if before his Episcopate he had been a monk: which also in his eulogy Ferrarius indicated: whereas he is said only to have been familiarly joined to Saint Gregory while still placed in the monastery, but as Bishop, as is clear from the time of the See of Saint Redemptus, and the monastic life of Saint Gregory, which we have set forth on his day March 12. Luc d'Achery better and more accurately weighed the matter when he did not place him in the first century of the Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict. Concerning Saint Eutychius the Martyr, whom Saint Gregory here mentions, we shall treat with the Roman Martyrology on April 15.