ON SAINT LIBERIUS,
BISHOP OF RAVENNA.
ABOUT THE YEAR 200.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Liberius, Bishop of Ravenna (St.)
[1] There were several Bishops of the Church of Ravenna of this name: this one is the first in order among those of the same name, and is distinct from him who, third of the same name, has his veneration on December 30. Mention in the calendars of Saints, In the Catalogue of Saints, which we transcribed from the most well-stocked library of Charles Strozzi, Senator of Florence, it is thus inscribed on April 29: "At Ravenna, Saint Liberius the Archbishop." On the same day in the Calendar of the said Church, with these words, he is ordered to be venerated with a double office: veneration, "Saint Liberius, Archbishop and Confessor of Ravenna, double." Where the title of Archbishop, which his successors long afterwards usurped, is used by prolepsis. Ferrarius also mentions him in both Catalogues: and in that which he composed of the Saints of Italy, in accordance with custom, he weaves for him this eulogy from the monuments of the Church of Ravenna and from Hieronymus Rubeus in his History of the People of Ravenna: "Liberius, a Greek by nation, homeland, a philosopher most learned in Greek and Latin, eighth Bishop of the people of Ravenna, was created, by the sign of a dove, after Saint Datus, in the time of the Emperor Commodus. He, wholly dependent on God, and diligently carrying out the office of pastor, zeal for souls, led back many who had strayed from the truth, and drew others to the knowledge of the truth: whom he encouraged by assiduous public and private speeches that they might persevere in the observance of the religion they had received. He lived in the episcopacy twenty-one years, up to the time of Pope Victor and the Emperor Severus. Finally, worn out by pious labors, on the third of the Kalends of May, he flew away from this fading life to eternal life."
[2] time of his episcopacy, By Ughelli in volume 2 of Italia Sacra and by Hieronymus Rubeus in his History of the people of Ravenna, he is said to have been created ninth in order as Bishop in the year of our Lord 185, and to have departed this life in the year 206, death, in the reign of Septimius Severus, and while Zephyrinus was holding the Supreme Pontificate of the Roman Church. The same authors hand down that he was buried in the church of Saint Probus, in which also his predecessor Saint Dathus or Datus had been interred. The body, by Peter V, who is written to have held the Archbishopric of Ravenna from the year 923 until 970, was discovered in the said church, and from there was transferred by the same man to the church of Saint Ursus: which Rubeus continues thus in book 1 of his History: "Five days after this, discovery of the body and translation, it was revealed by a vision to Urban, a Ravennese patrician, that five more bodies of bishops of Ravenna were concealed in the same church. Whence it happened that, when Peter had again betaken himself there, and had searched diligently, he found two tombs, in one of which were two bodies, in the other three: which doubtless, if we believe antiquity, must be thought to be of Proculus, Dathus, Liberius, Agapitus and Marcellinus, bishops of Ravenna, as we shall narrate. And since they had produced many admirable things, they were brought into the church of Saint Ursus." Ughelli adds, that Peter consecrated a larger altar in honor of these his predecessors.
[3] ancient image: Hieronymus Fabri, our friend, in the sacred memories of ancient Ravenna, which he published in the Italian language in 1664, part 2 §2, has the same things which we have indicated thus far, and among the authors whom he followed, he first praises Desiderio Spreti and Giovanni Pietro Ferretti: he also notes that an effigy of this holy Bishop, painted in mosaic, is seen in the apse of the Cathedral church; with a dove added at the head, and a book placed in the right hand, the latter attesting to his excellent learning, the former to his divine election; with the inscription "S. Liberius." Finally he observes that an error crept in upon Baronius, the reviser of the Roman Martyrology, error noted in the day. who, wishing to inscribe the first Bishop of Ravenna of this name in the sacred calendar (as is clear from the time of his seat defined in the Annotations), did so on December 30: when at Ravenna the anniversary of Saint Liberius the Bishop, third of such name, is celebrated: whence he argues that one was confused with the other.