ON SAINT LIBERALIS,
AT ALTINUM IN THE TREVISAN TERRITORY.
ABOUT THE YEAR 400.
PrefaceLiberalis, at Altinum in Italy (Saint)
Altinum, once counted among the noblest cities of Italy, whose ancient name may be read in Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, Mela, Tacitus, and Martial, Altinum, once a flourishing city in the Venetian dominion, was the homeland of Saint Liberalis, and the palaestra of many struggles with the Arians. It is situated in the Trevisan territory, at almost equal distance between Treviso and Venice; now, beyond its name, which because of the destruction of Altinum is commonly called "Altino," it is observable only by a single tower and the traces of a once flourishing and ample city. That it was burned in the year 452 destroyed in the year 452 by Attila, by Attila, king of the Huns, Giovanni Candido in book 3, and Gregorio Amaseo in the History of Aquileia, relate: and the Life of Saint Heliodorus, Bishop of Altinum, transcribed from the Camaldulensian Codex, and to be given on July 3, relates this, suggesting again that in the year 568, by Alboin king of the Lombards, when he was coming from Pannonia to ravage Italy, by the same disaster it perished. It was an Episcopal See, which on the testimony of Ughelli, tom. 5 of Italia Sacra in the Bishops of Torcello, and once an Episcopal See, about the year 635 was transferred to Torcello, a town of the Venetian dominion, which he narrates thus: "The Altinates, after the destruction of their city, who occupied the islands lying in the marshes around Venice, built Torcello, and they called that city Torcello, as it were 'Turricellum,' from the sixth part of the destroyed city. It is now, because of the heaviness of the air, scarcely inhabited by any dwellers, nor does it display scarcely any of its buildings to neighbors. but afterward translated to Torcello, was born, The Bishopric was established nearly a thousand years ago: for in the year of the Lord 635, when Rothari, King of the Lombards, had cut down eight thousand Romans at the Scultenna, most of the peoples of Venetia for fear of him retreated to the lagoons. Accordingly Paul, Bishop of the Altinates, transferred his Episcopal See thither, with Severinus, Roman Pontiff, approving." So far Ughelli.
[2] Altinum, therefore, was the homeland of Saint Liberalis, whom to refer to a definite time, he flourished in the 4th century, Saint Heliodorus, namely his master and Bishop of the city of Altinum, must be consulted. He held the episcopate in the year 381, when, celebrating the Council of Aquileia with Saint Ambrose and many other bishops, Palladius
and Secundianus, who were infected with Arianism. He is praised in several letters by Saint Jerome, who died in the year 420. Whence you may conclude that Saint Liberalis flourished almost at the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the next, and died before Saint Heliodorus, when he was going to him, then living in the desert having laid aside the Episcopal insignia. There is no mention in the Life of Saint Heliodorus cited above by us that he was his disciple: but this need not seem strange, a disciple of Saint Heliodorus the Bishop, since the author omits many other things pertaining to Heliodorus, and asserts that he is narrating not all but only the few things which he had learned about him. He is inscribed in the Additions of the Brussels Charterhouse to Greven on April 13: but to the other Martyrologies, reported in Martyrologies: Whitford, Canisius, Maurolycus, and Molanus, on the 27th. Maurolycus's words are: "At Altinum, Saint Liberalis, raised by Bishop Heliodorus, conspicuous for abstinence and charity." Molanus: "In the city of Altinum, of Saint Liberalis, Confessor, raised by Bishop Heliodorus: who when the city of Altinum was destroyed was transferred to Treviso." At what time was the body translated to Treviso? In what time this translation fell, we have not ascertained: the twin synopsis of the Life, which we shall now give, indicates that the sacred body, not because of the destroyed city, but so that it might be safe from the injuries of the Arians, was transported from Altinum to Treviso, in the time of John governing the Trevisan Church with Episcopal dignity. Going through in Ughelli, tom. 5 of Italia Sacra, the catalogue of the Trevisan Bishops, there occurs John, Bishop, both first in dignity and name, assigned to the year 320, and his successor to the year 350 Paulinus; then another John to the year 1351: so that it remains uncertain to us who that John was, under whose presidency over the Trevisans, and with the Arians prevailing at Altinum, the translation of Saint Liberalis took place: which certainly cannot have been made in the year 320, under John the first, inasmuch as Saint Liberalis was perhaps then not yet born, nor is it to be extended to the year 1351 to the other John. Unless it be permitted to suspect that John in both synopses of the Life has been wrongly placed; or that John I, who without any adduced foundation with his successor Paulinus is assigned to the said years, should be moved closer to Titian, who ruled the Trevisan Church about the year 400; or finally that the name of John, under which Bishop the translation was made, has fallen out from records or memory. Meanwhile Ughelli in the Bishops of Torcello narrates from Dandolo Whether afterward to Torcello? that the body of Saint Liberalis was translated from Altinum by Deusdedit, about the year 697, the fourth Bishop of Torcello, to Torcello: which Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy wishes to be understood of some part of the holy body, the same Ughelli in the Bishops of Treviso asserting that the body of Saint Liberalis was given as a gift by the Altinates to the Trevisans. [He is venerated at Treviso with a Double Office, whence a synopsis of the Life is given,] Treviso certainly, as its singular patron on April 27, venerates him with a Double Office: from whose manuscript lessons of the Church we give some summary of his life, which we received at Rome in the library of the Oratorian Congregation, from the Collection of Lives made by Agostino Manni. Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, exhibits another Summary of the Life: and because this contains not a few things omitted in the lessons already mentioned, we think that some more prolix Life exists among the monuments of the Trevisan Church, which Ferrari cites. another from a more extensive Life which is desired If this is so, we ask those who know of it not to be burdened by sending a copy to us; so that in a future Supplement of this work, with greater authority and dignity, we may be able to treat of this holy man, the whole of his Life being brought forward, whence these summaries were taken.
SUMMARY OF THE LIFE
From Trevisan manuscripts preserved at Rome.
Liberalis, at Altinum in Italy (Saint)
BHL Number: 4905
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
[1] Liberalis was born at Altinum of honorable but pagan parents, born at Altinum, while Heliodorus was Bishop of that same city: who by assiduous preachings strove to uproot idolatry and to defend the Christian faith against the Arians. a disciple of Heliodorus, Bishop of Altinum Scarcely had Liberalis passed his boyhood when he began to attend the sacred discourses of Heliodorus, through which God led him marvelously to the light of eternal brightness. For, moved by the public sermon and particular exhortations of the holy Bishop, trampling down all human allurements, he gave himself wholly to be instructed in his discipline. Therefore by assiduous reading of the sacred books he profited so much in the knowledge of divine things that in preaching the word of God, having become in the progress of his age a cooperator of the Bishop, he converted very many to the faith of Christ; and a helper in the propagation of the faith: but he so assailed the Arian heretics that their madness and ferocity, who sought to kill him as a destroyer of their sect, not by flight, but by his presence and by the work of divine discourse, he often appeased. He adorns himself with various exercises of virtues, So great was the force of his preaching the word of God that six hundred worshipers of idols, besides wives and children, at one and the same time embraced the faith. To this labor of sacred preaching he joined the greatest severity of life, inasmuch as he spent whole nights in the church chanting psalms and praying, and with assiduous fastings and prayers, being so taught by the holy Bishop his preceptor, and with haircloth and chastisements he afflicted his body: a perpetual cultivator of chastity, and most liberal dispenser of his wealth to Christ's poor. The merits of which virtues He who is wonderful in His saints so esteemed, he heals the blind and lame, that Liberalis restored both sight to the blind and wholeness of limbs to the lame, and health to all others who were oppressed by various and most grievous diseases. Wherefore, when his sanctity and the fame of his miracles being spread abroad, through neighboring places and regions, on a certain day no small multitude of the blind and lame had flocked to him, and God through his Liberalis had miraculously restored to them sight and gait, he is placed in prison by the Arians and released, the Arians roused their sleeping madness, and seized him in the church of Saint Maurus near the city, and cast him into prison.
[II] In prison he at once sent away sound the other one hundred and twenty who were languishing and imploring his aid, and were held by other infirmities, who had accompanied him into prison, after pouring forth prayers to God: they, praising God, and through streets and squares proclaiming the praises of the holy man, so stirred up the people of Altinum against the Arians, that the Arians, fearing for themselves, immediately freed Liberalis from prison. But when the holy Bishop Heliodorus had determined to lay down the episcopal burden, Heliodorus seeking the desert, and to exercise himself for all the remaining time of his life in some solitude of the desert, and Liberalis could not dissuade him from his purpose, he followed him as he was departing; and on the way, entering a church of the most blessed Virgin, prostrate in prayer before the altar with an immense shedding of tears, he besought God not to allow his flock to be forsaken. This done, he continues the journey with Heliodorus, and mounting a boat (for they had come to the sea) they desired to be carried over to certain islands. But immediately a great tempest was stirred up in the sea, so that the boat was already being plunged into the waves. But when Liberalis saw this happening by divine counsel, he calms the sea's tempest by throwing his cloak, he spread his cloak upon the waves and miraculously made the sea tranquil, and so both returned to Altinum. But Heliodorus, tenacious of his purpose, appointed the holy man Ambrose as Bishop in his place; and again departing from the city, he came to the neighboring islands, which today are called Torcello, Burano, Mazzorbo, and Murano; and there, devoted to prayers, vigils, and other chastisement of the flesh, he led his life holily in divine praises.
[III] Liberalis, bereft of such a Master and Pastor, instituted an even stricter manner of life than before: he builds various churches, he built several churches in honor of the most blessed Virgin and the holy Martyrs. At length, bewailing the calamity of the Altinate Church, which was being daily more and more seduced by the Arians, he determined to go to Heliodorus. Going to Heliodorus, he dies on the way, Therefore, having begun the journey, when the boat failed and the sea swelled, he was compelled to tarry on a certain island, on which a church of Saint Lawrence had been built: where, seized by illness, knowing the hour of his dissolution to be imminent, he wonderfully consoled and exhorted the priests of that church; and with hands joined and eyes raised to heaven, on the fifth day before the Kalends of May, between the hands of those same priests, he gave back his most holy soul to his Creator. The Christians laid his body in a marble ark in the same church of Saint Lawrence, and at his tomb, imploring his aid, all rejoiced that they had obtained their requests from God. But long after, when now Arian perfidy and savagery had occupied all of Altinum, the body is transferred to Treviso. and John, a Pontiff of great sanctity, presided over the Church of Treviso, the Catholics of Altinum, lest the sacred body of Liberalis be left exposed to the injuries of the Arians, with the greatest reverence transferred it from the church of Saint Lawrence to the cathedral church of Treviso, with the great exultation of the whole city: where God works marvels through His servant.
ANOTHER SUMMARY OF THE LIFE
By the author Filippo Ferrari.
Liberalis, at Altinum in Italy (Saint)
[1] Liberalis, also called Liberius, of Altinum, born of noble parents, a disciple of Saint Heliodorus, Bishop of Altinum, shone with sanctity and marvelous working of virtues. By preaching, not without manifest peril of his life, he led many of the Arians to the Catholic faith. Two brothers at Altinum, falsely accused of theft and homicide, he converts Arians convicted by false witnesses and condemned to death, when their innocence had been divinely disclosed, he defended before Antherius, Lord or Prefect of the city. The nephew of this Antherius, contracted in hands and feet, he frees those unjustly condemned to death, entering his house with his disciples Lenticus and Andrew, he marvelously healed. This Antherius, having left the military life, with riches despised, and by the exhortation of Liberalis, the castle which he had built on the border of the Trevisan territory, and by ravaging their borders had been the cause of hatred and enmities between the Trevisans and Altinates, being demolished, having been converted to the Catholic faith, led a life worthy of praise. The Prefect of Altinum by his exhortation leads a holy life, After this, Liberalis, on a certain day in the church of Saint Maurus outside Altinum pouring forth prayers, was seized by the Arians and cast into prison: whence, when he had cured many suffering from various diseases (of whom on one day he imparted health to a hundred and twenty by divine virtue), he was rescued by the people flocking to him.
[2] He receives from Christ the garment given to a poor man, When, in the wintertime, he was going to the Cathedral Church, to a poor man naked and shivering from excessive cold, meeting him, he handed over his garment taken off: who appearing to him the following night said he was Christ, and restored the garment, clothed in which he was more than once preserved from dangers. For when, with the Arians prevailing, Saint Heliodorus with his disciples, that he might find a solitary place in which he could serve God, had boarded a ship, and a savage tempest had arisen;
Liberalis, having cast the edge of that garment into the sea, calmed it. which calms the sea's tempest. Returning to Altinum, when he saw evils being multiplied, and Ambrose, appointed by Saint Heliodorus, not sustaining the burden as reason required, he humbly prayed God to rescue him from such great miseries. An Angel appearing to him in sleep announced the nearness of the end of his life. Wherefore Liberalis, rejoicing, having withdrawn to a neighboring island, on the 5th day before the Kalends of May, rendered his soul to God: whose body, laid in a marble ark, was by some of the Altinates—the homeland being deserted on account of the assiduous molestations of the Arians—brought to Treviso, where John the Bishop, conspicuous for doctrine and probity of life, presided, and is most religiously preserved in the Cathedral Church.