Damian

ON SAINT DAMIAN

Bishop of Pavia in Italy.

ABOUT THE YEAR 710.

Damianus, Bishop of Pavia, in Italy (St.)

BY G. H.

[1] Pavia, after Milan the most illustrious city of Insubria, is situated on the river Ticinus, from which in antiquity it was called Ticinum. The same was ennobled in former times as the seat of the Lombard Kings, in whose time, among other Bishops, Saint Damian the Bishop flourished there, Sacred cult: who died on this April 12, and is honored to this day with the rite of a double Office in that city and its very ample diocese. Galesinius mentions him in his Martyrology with this formula: "At Pavia, Saint Damian, Bishop and Confessor, illustrious for doctrine, sanctity, and the glory of things done divinely." Galesinius' words are transferred into the German Martyrology of Canisius, reissued and augmented in the second edition. In today's Roman Martyrology these things are held: "At Pavia, Saint Damian the Bishop": where in the Annotations Baronius adds: "The tables of the Church of Pavia treat of the same on this day. Paul the Deacon wonderfully praises him in the Deeds of the Lombards Book 5, chapter 15, and says that the epistle is his which was written in the name of Mansuetus, Bishop of Milan, Book 6, chapter 3. But I wonder indeed. For it was not Damian, but Magnus, Bishop of Pavia, who took part, together with Mansuetus, in that Roman Synod under Pope Agatho, The letter against the Monothelites composed as appears from the subscription of the Synodical letter then written, which is read in the fourth Action of the Sixth Synod. For this reason our Latinius has thought that the same Damian was surnamed Magnus." Thus Baronius, about whom Ughelli in volume 1 of Italia sacra, in the Bishops of Pavia, observes these things on Saint Damian, the 32nd Bishop: "The Roman Martyrology remembers him, and so does Baronius in his Notes on it: where he is astonished that Paul the Deacon attributed to Damian a letter written in the name of Mansuetus to the Council of Constantinople against the Monothelites; since in the Roman Council under Pope Agatho is found subscribed Magnus, not Damian, Bishop of Pavia: but if the man, most expert in ecclesiastical matters, had cast his calculations more accurately on this occasion, and observed that Magnus had subscribed himself as of Popilium, not of Pavia; and that Anastasius, who had been present at that Council, had preceded this our Damian, Bishop of Pavia; by Saint Damian, not yet Bishop he would not have wondered so much at Paul the Deacon, who attributed that letter to Damian the Bishop, who at that time was only a Presbyter, and had dictated that letter the year before he succeeded Anastasius, who himself is also found to have subscribed to the decrees of the Roman Council. Yet it is not to be counted against Paul the Deacon as a fault, if he considered it of little consequence to say whether it was as Presbyter or as Bishop that Damian composed that letter: for a weighty historian might easily overlook the delay of one year from the writing of the letter." Thus far Ughelli. The words of Paul the Deacon are these: "A heresy had arisen at Constantinople, which asserted one will and operation in our Lord Jesus Christ. For which reason Constantine Augustus caused a hundred and fifty Bishops to be gathered: recited in the Council of Constantinople. among whom were also the Legates of the holy Roman Church sent by Pope Agatho. At that time Damian, Bishop of the Church of Pavia, under the name of Mansuetus, Archbishop of Milan, for this cause composed a quite useful and right-faith letter, which in the aforesaid Synod carried no small weight." Saint Agatho the Pope is venerated on January 10, and Saint Mansuetus, Bishop of Milan, on February 19, on whose Acts we have treated of the said Councils, and have published part of the letter composed in the Milanese Council in the cause of the Monothelites, Saint Damian already then created Bishop. by the authority of Saint Mansuetus, in the year 679. Moreover the said Ecumenical Council was begun at Constantinople in the year 680 in the month of November, and finished in the following year on September 16: at which time it is everywhere handed down that Saint Damian was Bishop of Pavia, so that Paul the Deacon can for this reason be better excused, if then in the Council it was said that the letter had been composed by Saint Damian, already then created Bishop of Pavia: whom the same Paul the Deacon in Book 5 calls "a man of the Lord outstanding in sanctity, sufficiently instructed in the liberal arts."

[2] The Acts of Saint Damian were published by Bernardino Sacco, in Book 9 of the History of Pavia, chapters 17 and 18; Jacobo Guala, in Book 3 of the Sanctuary of Pavia, chapter 3; Stephano Breventano, Writers of the Life, in Book 2 of the History of Pavia, chapter 11; Antonio Maria Spelta, in the Lives of the Bishops of Pavia; Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy; and most recently Giovanni Battista de Gasparis, in the Breviary of the Holy Bishops of the Church of Pavia, which little work the author gave to us, when in the year 1662 at Pavia we were inquiring into the ancient monuments concerning the Acts of these Saints. From this we give the following elogium.

[3] "Damian, born of a noble family at Pavia, an outstanding theologian, created Bishop of Pavia for the integrity of his morals and virtues, in the year 680 flourished with admirable preeminence of sanctity and learning, as his letters, published with excellent and almost divine talent in the Sixth Synod, for the rooting out of the heretical depravity of the Monothelites, testify. After many labors of embassies, by the strength of his eloquence, peace composed: he composed the discords between the Emperor and the Lombards, and stilled the fury of wars. Inflamed with the zeal for aiding the poor, he prepared for himself and his successors a sufficiently suitable dwelling, A hostel for the poor built where he might receive the needy and pilgrims in hospitality and refresh them with food. Two sacred Fonts also he set up at his own expense for performing baptisms. Baptismal fonts made. At the time he governed the Church of Pavia, a dreadful pestilence depopulated Pavia, and day and night the air resounded with the sound of trumpets, with the invisible clatter of battles, and with the nightly apparition of two Angels, one good and one evil, terrifying the city. For when the evil one, at the command of the good one, struck the doors of houses with a spear, a great pestilence as many dead were found in each house in the morning as blows had been heard by night. Then the devout and holy Pastor approached God as a reconciler. Wherefore summoning the clergy, the people, and King Guniperto himself, he appointed prayers, fasts, public litanies, and many other works of piety. When these had been devoutly and humbly performed, God, his indignation softened by prayers, admonished Damian that the city would be freed, after the relics of Saint Sebastian were procured: if an altar to the Martyr Sebastian were erected in the basilica of Saint Peter in Chains, and something of the same holy Martyr's relics were placed in it, and held in the worship of veneration. Then by the solicitude of Damian and of King Guniperto, the arm of Saint Sebastian was brought from Rome to Pavia: and when all the other things had been performed, immediately the pestilence ceased, and the city was delivered from the deadly calamity: and to the altars of the Martyr there dedicated, each year on the day before the feast day of Sebastian, and also on the feast day itself, he, with the Ordinaries, Mansionaries, and the rest of the Cathedral clergy, went in solemn supplication, to celebrate the sacred rites. He shone with the divine power of miracles. For in an embassy which he performed in the name of the Catholic Church to George, heretical Patriarch of Constantinople, that he might recall him to the bosom of the holy Roman Church, a leper healed with a kiss, entering the city, he restored a leper to health with a kiss. When Gallus the Chaplain was trying to extract with sacrilegious hand from the tomb the sacred relics of the same Pastor, he is punished for attempting to steal his relics: buried therein, the bells of the church, which Damian himself had erected to another Damian the Martyr, so that the boldness of the sacrilegious one might be made known, gave forth a sound without anyone ringing them: aroused by which, the neighbors flowing together, seeing the sacrilegious man who was stuck immovable to the sepulchre, hurried to the Pontiff. He, when he heard the matter, at once proceeded to the temple, and there moved by mercy, ordered prayer to be offered for the sacrilegious one: who, weeping for his sin, was freed by God. But when he had performed the office of Bishop for thirty years, illustrious for doctrine and poetry, he most sacredly flew away to the embrace of his Lord on the day before the Ides of April, in the year 710. Whose venerable body, first buried in Saint Damian's, the body is translated. is now venerated in the subterranean chapel of the main basilica, which is called the Confession of Saint Cyrus."

[4] Thus far Giovanni Battista de Gasparis, ascribing this Saint to the family of the Biscossi; which invented without foundation by some other, we suppose to have been received by him from favor: who is also found elsewhere to have given somewhat too much weight to more recent conjectures, since what Paul the Deacon in Book 6, chapter 5 narrates concerning the plague, and concerning the good and evil Angel, and the Relics of Saint Sebastian, The heretical Patriarch of Constantinople refuted, who? without any mention of Saint Damian, he appropriates to him. But it especially has the difficulty, that the same de Gasparis writes concerning George as heretical Patriarch, although he seems to follow the author Jacobus Guala at the aforesaid place, who says: "The man himself, distinguished not only in sanctity but also in excellent doctrine, discharged with the voice of the universal Church at Constantinople to George there, a heretic he does not add 'Patriarch', overwhelmed with the darkness of perfidy, in order that he might lead him back into the lap of holy Mother Church." In the seventh century, when the thing would have had to be done, the Patriarchs of Constantinople were Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, again Sergius, Thomas II—all Monothelites; not certainly George. then John V and Constantine; finally Theodore, who, deposed on account of heresy, was succeeded by George the Catholic, and under him was celebrated the Sixth Council of Constantinople among the Ecumenical ones, of which mention has been made above: please see Baronius under the year 678, no. 13. Either therefore, what someone had written indefinitely concerning some heretical Patriarch was wrongly attributed to George, when it should have been attributed to Theodore, if by the authority of the Roman Pontiff that one was deposed, with Damian the Apostolic Legate passing sentence: or by some error of a copyist, for the name of Sergius the name of George has crept in—so like the former, that we have found them interchanged with each other not once.

[5] The same author adds the Epitaph of the sepulchre of Saint Damian, citing Janus Gruter, which may be seen in the said authors: in it Saint Nazarius the Martyr is said, by the industry of Saint Damian, to have merited a hall surrounded by brightness, so that Saint Damian seems to have erected a church in his honor. A temple erected to Saint Nazarius. Saint Nazarius the Martyr of Milan is venerated on July 28. Bernardino Sacco in Book 9, chapter 18, adduces an outstanding saying of Saint Damian, concerning the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, with which he refuted the audacity of a certain Hebrew, A Jew refuted. arguing that it was not in accordance with God's dignity to undergo death

—the Lord Jesus Christ: and at the end the same author adds that Damian gave many other teachings, both by voice and by writings, to his people of Pavia, especially by the innocence of his own life: but his writings, by the negligence of times and men, were taken away. In place of an epitaph we append a distich of Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, thus published in his Poetic Martyrology:

When Bishop Damian placed his mouth at the mouth of the leper, The sickly leprosy, never to return, immediately fled.

* perhaps "vice"?