ON ST. ASPREN OR ASPRENUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT NAPLES IN CAMPANIA.
About the END OF THE FIRST CENTURY, OR THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND.
HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
Aspren, Bishop and Confessor, at Naples (S.)
BHL Number: 0724
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The cult, Acts, and posthumous glory of the Saint.
The citizens of Naples venerate the Saint set forth in the title as the first prelate of their city, who on this day is announced in the Roman Martyrology thus: At Naples in Campania, of St. Aspren, bishop, who, cured of his infirmity by St. Peter the Apostle, The cult of the Saint is proved from the Roman Martyrology, and afterward baptized, was ordained bishop of that same city. I marvel indeed that a Saint so illustrious and so ancient is not mentioned in the Martyrology of Usuard, nor in its supplements, nor in other ancient Menologies. Nevertheless from elsewhere his legitimate title of sanctity is sufficiently established: for in the first place Peter the subdeacon, or the anonymous writer of the ninth century, in the Life of St. Athanasius of Naples, which we published from a manuscript codex at the XV of July, in Volume IV of that month, page 78, calls Aspren "most holy." Moreover we amply gather the immemorial cult of this holy Prelate from the ancient and sacred monuments of the church of Naples, which we shall now bring forward.
[2] and from ancient hymns, Bartholomew Chioccarello, in his work on the bishops and archbishops of Naples, presents three ancient hymns customarily recited in honor of St. Aspren, of the first of which he prefaces thus on page 13: There is also a hymn, which from the most ancient times the church of Naples was accustomed to recite in the solemnities of Aspren, in a certain book of that church, which is called the Hymnary of the church of Naples, which seems to have been written above eight hundred years ago (now they would have to be reckoned nearly nine hundred), set down in Lombard letters, and is kept among us, in this manner:
O holy and renowned Prelate, Aspren most worthy of God, Beseech the Lord, the King of the heavens, Pray for us all.
Blessed Aspren, we beseech you, Be present to our prayers, That your holy merits May lead us to the heights.
St. Peter the Apostle Gave you to our people, And made you bishop In our place, the first.
The Creator of all things Protected you in all, And gave you grace To save many souls.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
[3] To this he there subjoins on page 14 two other ancient hymns, which the church of Naples one of which is even sung in the Proper Office, which was published in the city of Naples in the year 1525, at First Vespers thus:
Sing, my tongue, the mighty deeds Of the glorious Prelate, The vows of a joyful heart Giving glad proclamations, While Aspren passes over To the joys of the luminous kingdom.
While the Prince of the Apostles Preaches the Word by word, Declares Him made flesh For the salvation of the peoples About the end of the ages, Aspren applies his mind.
Preaching the grace Of the highest condescension, He raises up sound from the ground One oppressed by the force of languor, Whom, soon instructed, he chooses To the summit of honor:
For, rising from his languor, By the power of the proclamation, Made whole with vigor, His footstep now firmed, He went to Peter, by whose dew He grows rich with eloquence.
The first Christian, therefore, In this city, taking the grace Of the new law by hand, He strengthens, and to the fatherland Of life leads the people, made whole, Through the glory of doctrine.
For the word is accompanied By the marks of miracles: To the blind is sight, to the maimed are given The functions of their limbs, Steps are restored to the lame; To all let there be gladness.
So great a Teacher, therefore, With devout offices Let us implore as our protector, By whose benefits We shall embrace the Savior In the delights of heaven.
To the King of kings be salvation, life, Praise and jubilation, Once, now, and ever thus, God, exultation Be to Him, whose infinite Duration endures. Amen.
[4] has sung from time immemorial The other hymn is recited at Lauds in the same Office thus:
On Aspren's birthday Let us rejoice eagerly, Who from the beginning Planted the faith in us bountifully.
How fully, first, eagerly Had he drunk from the fount of Peter, The truth he clearly Unlocks by the word of doctrine.
The grace of the doctrine of life He strengthens, and by his virtues The true glory of miracles He sets forth before their eyes.
Whence it comes that crowds of citizens Run to the fount of grace, Anxiously seeking for themselves The kindly Son of God.
The course of his pastoral office Having bravely finished, He happily attains The course of the hundredfold reward.
Glory be to You, O Lord, Who now make Aspren shine, By whose prayer may You receive us Into the host of the Saints. Amen.
[5] in the Proper Office of its holy Prelate, Moreover in the said edition of the same Office is recited the following prayer or collect: Almighty and everlasting God, who gladden us by the festival of your holy confessor and pontiff Aspren, grant, we beseech, that we may be fortified by the protection of him whose solemnity we keep. Through our Lord, etc. David Romæus, in his book on the Seven holy guardians and patrons of the city of Naples, page 92, appends the same prayer to the Acts of St. Aspren. Hence I suspect that the Collect which Sigismund Sicola inserted into his Italian work On the Glorious Nobility of St. Aspren, part 1, observation 5, page 75, and which he asserts is sung even today in these words, is of more recent date: O God, who established blessed Asprenus, cleansed by baptism from the Apostle Peter, as our first prelate, grant to your suppliants that we may prove by good works the faith which we received through him. Through Christ our Lord, etc.
[6] in which are also contained nine Lessons, For the rest, in the aforementioned ancient Office are read the Acts of the same holy Prelate divided into nine Lessons, concerning which the praised Chioccarello thus forewarns us on page 10: There is also the Life of St. Aspren, and the history of this narration of the matter set down most sincerely, though in a rude style, with no coloring, nor elaborated with elegance of speech, but filled with sincere historical truth only, which seems to have been written (if there is room for conjecture) a little after the times of Pope Sylvester and Constantine Augustus, which is preserved, set down in ancient Lombard letters, in the chapel of the treasury of the major church. This the church of Naples had been accustomed from the most ancient times to recite in the ecclesiastical Office of that same Saint, arranged into nine Lessons, which Office is indeed held published in print. Then he there presents those Acts, which we shall here faithfully transcribe, for the clearer understanding of what follows, from the already mentioned edition of the ecclesiastical Office.
[7] which relate how St. Peter the Apostle, Lesson I. The Prince of the Apostles, Simon Peter, having founded the church of Antioch, coming toward Rome, arrived by passing to the walls of the city of Naples; where, wearied by the long journey, resting a little, he beheld a certain old little woman passing by
pass by: he inquires of her about the state of the city, about the disposition of the citizens, about the form of their manners, about the qualities of their minds—what was their life, what their laws, what the ceremonies of their laws, what devotion they had in the worship of the Deity, what religion in piety; and whether, if the plan of some new sect, incapable of refutation, were made known to them, they would become ready and disposed to receive it.
[8] Lesson II. Of his own condition also, by whose prompting he was hastening to the city, passing through Naples he told the little woman what news he brought, what unseen, what unheard-of and happy things had then in modern times come forth; preaching Christ, he opens it up in order: and how, on account of the transgression of the first parent, when men had been given over into the captivity of the devil, God, born of a Virgin, was made man, that, the bonds of servitude being burst, he might loose the snares of human error; relating to her the signs and wonders of Christ, seen through him: to which saying of Peter the old woman, breaking her silence, said: I will hold it for certain, and believe it without doubt, if, the name being invoked of Him whom you extol with such proclamations, my pains being loosed, health be fully restored to me.
[9] Lesson III. Then Peter, the name of Christ being invoked, preached the Christian faith, said: To you who so impiously torment this old woman, pestilent disease, flee, vanish, and be emptied into nothing, giving honor to the name of Him whose power is equal with the Father and the life-giving Spirit, honor equal, glory concordant, majesty the same through all ages of ages. And when the followers of Christ from the region of Antioch, who had followed the footsteps of Peter, had answered Amen, the old woman was at once healed, and marvels that she was so quickly renewed by so swift a snatching-away, and made another out of the former. The woman believed, and is sprinkled with the saving dew of the regenerating water of Baptism, and the woman says to Peter: I have a certain dearest friend, named Aspren, shaken by a most dreadful disease, a man kindly, pious, modest, sober, and religious (if there can be or be said to be religion in any way among the heathen), who, if he can be healed through you, will straightway receive the faith which you preach, and will prove a fit asserter, a robust defender, and a champion of it.
[10] Lesson IV. Then Peter said to the old woman: Go quickly, and had instructed Aspren, and, taking Aspren by the hand, say to him: Peter, the disciple of Jesus Christ crucified in Judea, commands you that, the sickness vanishing, you be at once restored to your former health. And the woman coming to Aspren, scarcely fulfilling the precepts of Peter, he was immediately healed. At once rising, Aspren, forgetting his tunic, put on only his cloak; he came at length to Simon, and, prostrate on the ground, kissed the feet of Peter. Peter opens his mouth, catechizes Aspren, and baptizes him, and instructs him in the doctrine of the Christian religion, and Aspren began to be the fellow-worker of his master, and, at the calling upon the name of the Savior, to work signs and wonders, to give light to the blind, to make firm the lame, and to strengthen others who were sick and weak.
[11] Lesson V. Naples having been won for Christ the Lord, Peter resolved to go to Rome, who afterward propagated the same, but at the prayers of the people of Naples the Apostle consecrated Aspren as bishop of Naples: who, advanced to the summit of the pontificate, began the more urgently to keep watch by the word of doctrine, to persist in preaching, and, in season and out of season, most constantly, unfailing and untiring, he preached even unto death. And he died an old man full of days, and of virtuous works, on the third of the Nones of August, shining with miracles.
[12] Lesson VI. In the city of Naples there were a husband and wife, spouses fearing God, and there to various sick persons, walking in the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame, rich, with a large household (yet they had neither son nor daughter), and they earnestly begged by assiduous prayer, through the merits of the holy Prelate, that by his merits a son or daughter might be granted them. They obtain their requests; a son is born to them, and is adorned with most honorable manners. And the spouses themselves, rendering thanks to God and to the merits of the Prelate, build most fittingly a basilica in honor of St. Aspren, which unto this present day is called the basilica of Stephania.
[13] imploring his aid, Lesson VII. In the city of Rome a certain afflicted man was tormented by various long infirmities of the head, grievously by sickness; now he lay on his back, now on his face; now he was turned to the left, now to the right side: he calls to mind the great merits of Aspren, and unceasingly prayed to that same Prelate of Naples for the relief of his health. Christ the Lord inclines his ear to the voice of his Aspren, and restored the sick man himself to health. Being healed, he at once went to the basilica of the holy Prelate, and there offered victims of thanksgiving to the Lord in his Prelate, and to the Prelate in the Lord.
[14] restored health, and after his death Lesson VIII. A certain man, Sergius by name, tormented long by iliac pain, approached the threshold of the church of the life-giving Aspren, and a little after returned to his own house restored to fullest health. Another certain Sergius, afflicted by the straits of the same disease, when he could find no remedies, turned himself with whole faith to seeking the intercessions of St. Aspren, and, at the frequent calling out of the sick man, the languor being dismissed, he was made wholly sound.
[15] was renowned for miracles. Lesson IX. Aspren, the most holy prelate, was renowned also for many miracles, and therefore let us keep the yearly solemnities of the devotion * of the present day with due and worthy reverence, that by the diligent intercessions of that same glorious Confessor we may be able to come to the perennial heavenly festivals, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, blessed God, unto the ages of ages. Amen. These Acts are simpler, and please me above others more diffuse; although perhaps they do not have so great an antiquity as Chioccarello ascribes to them above.
[16] Certain authors Yet at least they seem more ancient than those which the praised Chioccarello published in the work already cited, from page 11, and to which he prefixed this notice: There exists also another, fuller narration of the same history, and the Life of that St. Aspren, which, written in Lombard characters, is preserved in the archive of the Canons of the cathedral church. That history John Villani of Naples, who flourished in the year 1390, seems to have transcribed almost word for word in his Chronicle of Naples, from chapter 34 of the first book up to chapter 38, who adorned his chronicle with it, as with a garland and a gem, being translated by him into the Italian tongue. To these he subjoins the history itself of the same Life, which scarcely differs from the Acts already given, except that it is more wordy, and therefore appears less genuine.
[17] in a more diffuse style The same Acts seem to have served as a source for a certain Alberic, who before the middle of the thirteenth century composed another Life of St. Aspren by order of Peter, archbishop of Naples, as Chioccarello testifies in the work so often praised, page 161, in these words: This our Peter too showed himself very religious and pious toward the Saints, and especially those whose relics were preserved at Naples, or whose solemn memory was kept in his church, to which he seems to have turned his whole mind: since he took care that their deeds, most diligently drawn from ancient monuments, be written in prose, of which some still survive written in Lombard character on parchment, among which is the Life of St. Aspren, bishop of Naples, which by his order a certain Alberic composed, and it is kept among us, as its preface shows, which begins: TO THE MOST HOLY AND MOST REVEREND FATHER PETER, ALBERIC offers THE SERVICE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE, etc.
[18] We ourselves had long since received the same manuscript little work of Alberic; wrote the deeds and miracles of St. Aspren, but it is not worth the trouble to publish it in this place, both because Ughelli afterward inserted it into his Italia Sacra, and because the author said few things at length, and embellished with a more diffuse style the briefer Acts which he had before his eyes: for Alberic himself, in Ughelli, in the most recent Venetian edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 6, column 20, sufficiently indicates what he accomplished in this lucubration, when he there writes among other things thus in his wordy preface: Obeying therefore your commands, O father eight times most blessed, I strive to follow the manner of those who are accustomed to address the people declamatorily in church, and, intermingling in a different style, in the proclamation of the holy Confessor, those things which you yourself gave set down, into nine divisions of Lessons of moderate size, I shall attempt to belch forth some sort of sermon. And because synonyms allude to praises or proclamations, imitating as much as possible that John of the golden mouth, I have resolved to weave at the close of the history the praises of the holy Prelate by synonyms, and by that embellishment which the rhetoricians call amplification, to extend the very few things into more. From these we gather that the ancient Lessons of the Proper Office were only augmented and embellished by Alberic with the rhetorical phrases of that age. Wherefore we here rightly omit his lucubration, because we are delighted rather by the bare truth of things than by such trappings of words.
[19] Further, the Acts and miracles of St. Aspren are represented, painted in ancient times, in the chapel which was built for his posthumous glory, which are also depicted in the chapel in which his relics rest. as Chioccarello testifies on page 9 in these words: In the major church also, in the chapel of St. Aspren, the Life and miracles of that same holy man, and his institution into bishop made by Peter, are set forth expressed in ancient paintings and images, which, although they are ancient, yet older ones are seen beneath them: for since on account of their age they could scarcely be discerned, they were restored and again renewed and outlined. Sigismund Sicola, in the Glorious Nobility of St. Aspren, part 1, observation 18, reports most of the inscriptions of these paintings, which are set down in the ancient Italian idiom. In that same chapel now rest the venerable relics of St. Aspren, as the just-cited Chioccarello asserts in this manner on page 8: Aspren was buried in the oratory which he himself built; whence he was afterward translated into the church of Stephania: but at present he rests in the chapel of the family of Tocco in the metropolitan church, under the altar, on which is read this inscription: HERE LIES THE BODY OF ST. ASPREN, FIRST BISHOP OF THE CITY OF NAPLES AND CONFESSOR. Now some circumstances of his deeds must be examined, which the tradition of the Neapolitans adds to the ancient Acts of St. Aspren.
Annotata* read "devotion"
§ II. Examination of certain circumstances which the Neapolitan writers added to the Acts.
There are examined those things There is no leisure here to enumerate the individual more recent writers of the Acts, who drew their material from the sources assigned above, and added to them from popular tradition certain circumstances of the deeds. Ughelli briefly expressed most of those traditions when, in the already-mentioned Venetian edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 6, column 18 and following, he thus contracted the Life of St. Aspren: St. Asprenus or Asprenas, by others Aspren, a citizen of Naples, illustrious in Roman nobility, conspicuous for integrity of manners and constancy of patience (inasmuch as he had discharged the praetorship at Naples, and had spent twenty years sick in bed), was cured of his infirmity by blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, when he was hastening to Rome—Candida, a most honorable elderly old woman, who had received the Apostle into her lodging, and had been converted by him to Christ, taking pains—by the touch of the staff on which the Saint was supported,
and, initiated together with Candida by sacred Baptism, was ordained the first bishop of the church of Naples in the year of salvation 44.
[21] things which some hand down He dedicated an altar not far from the walls of the city, where sacrifices had been accustomed to be offered to idols, on which the Apostle had first celebrated the sacred rite; to which afterward, a church having been built, they gave the name of St. Peter at the Altar of Naples, near which he buried St. Candida, when she had most holily ended her day, in the year of Christ 78. Asprenus built another oratory with a cell in honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary, which they afterward called St. Mary de Principio: there the effigy of that same Mother of God was first painted; where afterward the Neapolitans, in memory of their first bishop, raised up a precinct and a house with a church, that the succeeding bishops might dwell there, which they named Stephania, and which afterward was the major church and the episcopal residence. But Asprenas himself, when he had strengthened the church entrusted to him by the preaching of the Gospel and by the precepts of the Christian faith, having endured many things, and having regenerated to Christ innumerable heathen, cleansed by the sacred font from the worship of idols, rested with a blessed end, renowned in merits and renowned in miracles, on the third of the Nones of August, in the year of salvation 79, the thirty-third of his prelacy. You see that in this compendium of the Life many things are reported of which the Lessons related above, or the more ancient Acts, made no mention. But now we shall in a few words discuss each of the several points of these additions, in the order in which they are set down in this synopsis of the Acts.
[22] concerning the Saint's name, First, as regards the name of this holy Prelate, which is expressed by Ughelli in three ways, Antonius Caracciolus discusses it at length in his singular book on the sacred monuments of the church of Naples, chapter 6, section 2, and after a long examination of that name at length adds also this concerning it: But before we depart from the name, it must here be briefly inquired whether this word Asprenas was the proper name of our Prelate, or not: for since among those ancient Roman Asprenates it was indeed a cognomen, not a praenomen or a nomen, one might therefore justly suspect that it was not the proper name of our bishop, but a cognomen: inasmuch as, as those skilled in Roman affairs and names teach, although in the flourishing Republic that was the proper name of the ancient Romans which was placed in the first position, and for that reason was called the praenomen, as Marcus was the proper name to Cicero, and Caius to Caesar; yet in a later time, and with the Republic rushing to worse, the contrary usage prevailed, namely that not what was placed first, but what was placed last, should be each one's proper name, and by that one alone, if ever one chose to abstain from several, each person was designated.
[23] After he proved this by some examples, he continues thus in the same place: or a cognomen, And this very thing must be said of our Prelate, who certainly lived after the corruption and overthrow of the Republic: namely, that Asprenas was his proper name. And because everywhere that word is read solitary, and joined to no other, therefore his nomen and praenomen are unknown. But that in the flourishing Roman republic Asprenas was a cognomen, not a proper name, does not stand in the way of a proper name being able to emerge from a cognomen: for that this very thing happened in many other cases, Praetextatus, in Macrobius, book 1 of the Saturnalia, chapter 6, teaches at length and learnedly… I confess that nowhere have I read what the praenomen of Asprenas was. Nor ought this to seem remarkable or unusual. Frequent is this custom among the Romans and foreigners, to understand the praenomen from the cognomen or nomen alone. Thus by Nero placed bare, we mean Nero Claudius; and by Cicero, M. Tullius Cicero. This whole reasoning of Caracciolus we submit to the judgment of the learned reader, since in the ancient Acts that holy Prelate is called only Aspren, though we, for the sake of clarity, have inflected that name according to the Latin manner, and in the course of the work call him St. Asprenus.
[24] But at least from these conjectures of Caracciolus it follows that St. Asprenus did not have the cognomen "de Sicola," which is thought hitherto to have clung to the noble family, although Sigismund Sicola in the Glorious Nobility of St. Aspren, which we cited above, seems to suggest it: for to the second part of that Italian work he prefixed an image, in which is represented St. Asprenus seated, and clad in episcopal ornaments, before whom Theseus de Sicola with many knights of that same family bends the knee, and holds forth in his hand the insignia of his nobility. But beneath the very effigy of the holy Prelate are read there the following: St. Aspren de Sicola, first bishop of Parthenope, that is, of Naples. But lest anyone think that these things were so expressed at the pleasure of a more recent painter or engraver, the praised Sigismund Sicola endeavors to procure some authority for this engraving from some sort of antiquity, and above, in the same image, he ordered these words to be cut in bronze: So it is delineated in an instrument drawn up by order of King Charles III, on the day the 5th of October 1383, by the hand of the noble notary Antonius Pappansogna of Naples.
[25] But perhaps someone will say that this cognomen "de Sicola" clung to this holy Prelate only afterward, on account of a certain event, on account of a certain event which Franciscus de Magistris, in the State of the Church of Naples, book 1, §1, number 24, page 14, sets forth in this manner: The cognomen of the Siculi took its origin from the celebration of St. Aspren: for while he himself was saying in that celebration the words PER OMNIA SECULA SECULORUM "through all the ages of ages", his kinsmen standing there began to say so likewise, and were called "de Siculis" from that phrase "seculorum," as is proved from the ancient instrument by the hand of the notary Antonius Pappansogna, a noble of Naples, of the said year 1383, of which I saw a copy in the possession of the said Sir Sigismund.
[26] In the year of Christ 1696 Sigismund Sicola, whom Franciscus de Magistris here most probably designates, inserted into the Glorious Nobility of St. Aspren, part 2, observation 2, the Italian chronicle of Rogerius Pappansogna, and, in the following observation, the Latin instrument of Antonius Pappansogna, is said to have clung. in which the same cause or occasion of the cognomen is reported in a barbarous style. But how little faith is to be placed in these monuments, Nicolaus Toppius sufficiently indicates in the Neapolitan Library, page 365, where, on the occasion of Joannes Baptista Bolvitus, he mentions four manuscript volumes left by him, in which are found certain apocryphal things, among which he reckons by name the chronicle of Pappansogna. Chioccarello and Caracciolus also made little of those testimonies, as will appear below from their own words. Meanwhile we leave these things to be further investigated by the genealogists, and we wish nothing of nobility to be detracted from the illustrious family of the Sicolas, although hitherto it has not yet been made persuasive to us that that noble stock sprang from the brothers of St. Aspren, or received the surname Sicola from the above-mentioned event.
[27] It is disputed against Baronius The most eminent Baronius, on this day, in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, says that this holy Bishop was perhaps called Asprenas (yet none of the ancients expressly attributes that name to him, so far as I know), and from this Roman name of Asprenas conjectures that he was Roman by origin. But Antonius Caracciolus, in the work cited above, chapter 6, section 1, assigns him Naples as his fatherland, and thus meets the opinion of the most eminent writer: But since Baronius, in his notation on the Martyrology at the III of August, calls him Asprenas, and teaches that this name was Roman, I ought indeed, lest anyone, abusing the authority of so great a man, should judge that this our first Prelate was not a citizen of Naples but of Rome, at once to meet this opinion.
[28] concerning his illustrious stock Certainly the opinion of all who have hitherto written on this matter testifies that he was a Neapolitan; and three hundred years ago Theseus Sicola, constable of Charles III, king of Naples, openly asserted it, and fortified it as an ancient tradition by a public diploma: namely, that Aspren was a Neapolitan, and that his four full brothers gave a beginning to the Sicola clan. And Rogerius Pappansonius, in that chronicle of his, of the Montanean theatre, such as it is, which he records that he wrote two hundred years ago, and thereby collected our antiquities, affirms the same thing. But would that our elders had not allowed those ancient codices, from which he drew these antiquities, to perish, the sources being wrongly spurned, content with muddy streams. These were afterward followed by Tarchaniota, book 1 On the Site of Naples, and Falcus in the Description of Naples, page 23; and most recently Gualterius in the Chronological Tables, who calls him a citizen of Naples.
[29] and his Neapolitan fatherland, Then he thus reconciles the opinion of the most eminent Baronius with the tradition of the Neapolitans: Nor does Baronius dissent, as perhaps it will seem to someone, his words being little considered: for he says that the name indeed—that is, the stock to which this surname of the Asprenates clung—is Roman; and to establish this he alleges Dio, Suetonius, Pliny, Seneca, and Cassiodorus: which indeed I do not deny. But concerning the man himself and our Prelate Asprenas, whether he was a Neapolitan or not, he says nothing. Ughelli too seems to have wished thus to reconcile Baronius with the Neapolitan writers, when in the compendium of the Acts related above he writes that St. Aspren was a Neapolitan citizen, illustrious in Roman nobility. But these suspect monuments of Pappansonius, and the more recent authors, do not settle the matter, although it is not improbable that St. Asprenus was a Neapolitan by fatherland, since he was there converted to the Christian faith by the Apostle Peter. Finally Caracciolus there strives to show his Neapolitan fatherland from the office of praetor, which Asprenus is handed down to have administered in that city before his conversion. But this is the work, this the labor; since the ancient lessons and the other old writers of the Life make no word of this praetorship of his.
[30] Indeed I confess that that praetorship is found in the Chronicle of Pappansogna, where also, before his conversion, as Chioccarello testifies, who, in the catalogue of the prelates of Naples, page 15 and following, reports these things: This is also had more fully in the Chronicle of the noble seat of Montanea, which the notary Rogerius Pappansugna, a patrician of Naples, composed on the day the 25th of November 1408, which the author is said to have drawn from the public records and chronicles then in the archive of the tribunal of St. Lawrence of that city, who adds besides that Aspren, before the coming of Peter, was governor of the city of Naples, and, seized in his limbs, was accustomed to be carried about the city on a litter. And when he had been restored by St. Peter to his former health, he hands down that he was appointed bishop by him, and had four full brothers, from whom in the course of time came forth innumerable soldiers, nobles, barons, and illustrious men, the surname Sicula being taken. But as regards his family and brothers, and the governance of the city of Naples, let the faith rest with the author: for it is not established from elsewhere, nor have we it ascertained otherwise, since the others who treat of Aspren pass over these things in silence, and the chronicles and records from which he took them are at present not extant. Chioccarello, by this manner of speaking, sufficiently indicates that he places not much faith in this Chronicle of Pappansogna.
[31] Nevertheless Caracciolus, in chapter 6 of the praised work, section 4, tries to establish the Neapolitan praetorship of St. Aspren from
similar monuments of that age, he is said to have exercised the office of praetor, and after other conjectures thus concludes: The praetorship of that city, therefore, he is written to have exercised in those very manuscript ancient commentaries of John Villani, Theseus Sicola, and Rogerius Pappansonius, of whatever worth they are to be esteemed, which authors, though not very ancient, nothing forbids us to believe in these matters: for they were in that age much more skilled in Neapolitan affairs, I add, and more sincere, than the writers of recent times. What Caracciolus here asserts about the sincere writers of that age is not to be understood so generally, as if then no impostors were found: for before and after these times fabricators were found, who under a feigned mask of antiquity foisted their more recent dreams, as Joannes Annius of Viterbo teaches by his own example, and other vendors of fables, concerning whom Melchior Canus, book XI of the Theological Places, chapter 6, and most recently the Palatine associates in the Replies to the Censures on the dissertation of medieval Italy, page 3 and following, may be consulted. Why does Caracciolus himself, above at number 28, compare those very monuments to muddy streams, unless because he himself held them suspect?
[32] Wherefore he desires to persuade us further of that office of St. Aspren by the authority of the most eminent Baronius, as Caracciolus wrongly proves from Baronius, whom he there thus summons to the patronage of his cause: Certainly Baronius, than whom you will find no more solid and weighty historian, judges our Asprenas to have been a man distinguished and eminent from Roman nobility. Therefore it would not itself be absurd to hold, with those writers, that before he became bishop he exercised the praetorship of the municipality of Naples, he who had as his progenitors renowned consuls at Rome. But Baronius himself, whose solid erudition we deservedly admire, here affirms nothing for certain; but in the present-day notes to the Roman Martyrology only in passing conjectures that the name of this first Neapolitan Prelate was perhaps Asprenas, and on that hypothesis thinks that he probably sprang from the Roman stock of the Asprenates. Therefore, according to Baronius, that nobility of St. Aspren cannot be more certain than is the hypothesis on which it rests. Add that from that nobility, even granting it freely, it would only follow that Asprenus could have administered the office of praetor at Naples, which we by no means deny. But here we ask whether he did in fact probably administer the praetorship, and, on account of the deep silence of the ancient Acts concerning that dignity, we judge that Neapolitan tradition to be altogether uncertain.
[33] and other appendages, which are handed down about the staff For the same reason we doubt about the staff of St. Peter, at whose contact Asprenus is said to have been healed, as Ughelli and some other more recent writers hand down: for Alberic, and the other more ancient Acts, only relate that St. Peter commanded the old woman that she should quickly go to the sick Asprenus, and, his hand being taken, should restore him to his former health, as was straightway done. I am not ignorant that at Naples a certain staff is preserved under this title, as Philip Ferrarius notes in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the III of August in these words: At Naples, in the cathedral church, the staff of St. Peter, by the touch of which St. Aspren was healed, is still shown, religiously preserved. But perhaps it is the staff of Aspren himself, or of some other Saint, which the Neapolitans, by a harmless error, venerate as the staff of St. Peter. At least our Nicolaus Parthenius Giannettasius, in volume 1 of the History of Naples, book 1, page 9, thus cautiously pronounces concerning it: In the principal church a certain staff is preserved, and is honored with the utmost reverence, and the common people, led by I know not what reasoning, assert that it is the one which Peter gave to Candida (namely, that she might carry it to Asprenus). Whatever it be, the Lessons of the Proper Office related above, and the other ancient Acts which we have hitherto been able to see, make no mention of this staff of St. Peter.
[34] and the altar of St. Peter are handed down. On a firmer foundation rest those things which Ughelli, with the Neapolitan writers, hands down about the place in which St. Peter is reported to have celebrated Mass: for these at least are read in those Acts of St. Aspren which Chioccarello published in the work on the bishops and archbishops of Naples, page 11 and following. Moreover Caracciolus, in the singular book on the sacred monuments of the church of Naples, chapter 3, sections 6 and 12, confirms that Neapolitan tradition with probable arguments. Whence also Baronius, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 44, in our edition number 28, writes thus concerning this matter: Of the other places to which Peter turned aside when about to come to Rome, noble vestiges of antiquity have remained in them, confirmed rather by tradition than by writing: for (to omit speaking of the individual ones, which we have not yet ascertained) there is at Naples in Campania a most celebrated memory, where that same Prince of the Apostles, when he had been carried to Naples by ship, celebrated Mass together with his companions. Nevertheless concerning similar traditions we pronounce with the same most eminent writer, who there after a few words thus concludes: But concerning matters so ancient and uncertain, what we ought most of all to affirm is not sufficiently established.
[35] Besides the few deeds of this holy Prelate, Further, we know few of the things, one by one, which St. Asprenus did after his conversion, although Paulus Regius, in the Italian Life of that Saint, chapter 4, recites for us a sermon of his, or rather composes it under his name. Nevertheless that many miracles were wrought by him while yet living, we gather from the above-mentioned Lessons, which concerning this matter thus have it in general: And Aspren began to be the fellow-worker of his master, and, at the calling upon the name of the Savior, to work signs and wonders, to give light to the blind, to make firm the lame, and to strengthen others who were sick and weak. But what he did in his episcopate, the same Lessons indicate in these words: Advanced to the summit of the pontificate, he began the more urgently to keep watch by the word of doctrine, to persist in preaching, and, in season and out of season, most constantly, unfailing and untiring, he preached even unto death.
[36] John the Deacon, in the Chronicle of the bishops of Naples, which we know from ancient monuments, which was lately published among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 1, part 2, from page 291, there on page 292 wove a brief eulogy of the same holy Prelate in this manner: I. Bishop Asprenas (in our manuscript transcript, which we received from the Vatican library, he is expressly called Aspren) was a lover of the poor, and of such great blessedness *, that he willingly received every man from the greatest to the least, and through the acceptance of the Lord's talent daily called the peoples to the way of salvation. I do not know whether in this text the name Asprenas, which is there expressed in capital letters, was placed at the pleasure of the editor, or faithfully according to the manuscript codex. Rather, however, I suspect that the editor followed the conjecture of Baronius, of which I treated above, both because this holy prelate is called Aspren in our Vatican apograph, and because the anonymous author, or Peter the subdeacon, who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, in the Life of St. Athanasius, published by us at the XV of July from a Lombard manuscript codex, and lately reprinted among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 2, part 2, page 1053, expressly names this our Saint Aspren, when he there writes thus concerning him: For indeed the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, ordained the most holy Aspren the first bishop there. These are all the things which we can safely affirm concerning the deeds of this holy Prelate.
[37] It is not agreed among the Neapolitan writers how long St. Asprenus ruled the church of Naples, The remaining matters concerning the duration of his episcopate and in what year he migrated to heaven: for our Giannettasius, in volume 1 of the History of Naples, book 1, page 11, attributes to him thirty-six years of governance in these words: In the following year, which was the 80th from the birth of Christ, Asprenus, after he had ruled with the utmost vigilance for thirty-six years the church founded by the Apostle and enlarged by himself, having laid aside his mortality, was received among the Blessed. Others commonly attribute thirty-three years of rule to him. The Catalogue of the prelates of Naples, which Blanchinus, in the Prolegomena to the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, volume 2, page 61, not long ago published from the Florentine library of St. Mark, and concerning which we must treat more fully below, ascribes to St. Aspren only twenty-three years of episcopate.
[38] Nor is there greater concord concerning the year of his death, and the time of his death which Chioccarello, in the work already so often praised, page 7, reports at the year of Christ 77 thus: At length, his age growing heavy, he migrated to the heavenly fatherland at Naples on the day the III of August, in the year 77 from the birth of Christ, shining with many miracles, having sat for thirty-three years. Ughelli, in volume 6 of the Italia Sacra, column 19, fixes his death at the year of Christ 79. Franciscus de Magistris seems to admit these different years indiscriminately, when in the State of the Church of Naples, book 1, §1, page 33, number 47, he thus writes concerning the death of St. Aspren: On the day the III of August, 77, or 79, or 80 (as some have wished), under the Pontificate of St. Linus, he likewise flew to heaven. Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, reports the synopsis of his Acts from Paulus Regius, and in the Annotation to this compendium of the Life contends that the death of St. Aspren must be deferred to the year of Christ 89. Alberic, who before the middle of the thirteenth century embellished the Acts of this holy Bishop, expresses no certain year, and records his death in Ughelli, in the volume just cited, column 24, thus: And he died an old man and full of days, on the third of the Nones of August.
[39] are uncertain. The anonymous author of the Life, of whom we made mention above, differs much from all these, and in Chioccarello, in the catalogue of the prelates of Naples, page 13, thus closes the Acts of this holy Prelate: For under the said blessed Aspren the Christian faith took its beginning, who for thirty-three years in the city of Naples fulfilled the office of a good shepherd, and, an old man in days, died on the third of the month of August in the year of the Lord sixty-nine. Caracciolus, in the work already often cited, chapter 6, section 6, thus corrects this writer of the Life: But concerning the age of Asprenas the reading of the ancient codices varies. Almost all have it that he lived up to the year of Christ 80, that is, ten years after the death of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Yet the History of the Life and deeds of St. Asprenas, which was composed by Alberic (or rather he should have called this an anonymous author, since Alberic notes no year, as we saw above), which we once read written in an old codex, has it that he departed in the year of Christ 69: An old man in days, he says, he died on the third of the Nones of August, in the year of the Lord sixty-nine. But we judge this to be a copyist's error. Otherwise, in what way could it stand with what is read a little above in the same codex, that he himself was bishop of Naples for thirty-three years? For it is established that in the second year of Claudius, that is, of Christ 45, or, as some of our native
historians reckon (but wrongly), 46, Peter came to Italy, and to the city of Rome. If, therefore, thirty-three years be added to these, it makes the year 79, not 69. The codex, faulty in its number, must therefore be corrected in the note. Although I would not here examine the particulars, and do not approve this chronology, yet Caracciolus rightly argues ad hominem. Meanwhile in a matter so ancient and uncertain I dare determine nothing for certain, and I proceed to discuss the chief and constant tradition of the Neapolitans.
Annotata* Manuscript: "of gentleness"
§ III. Our judgment concerning the substance of the Neapolitan tradition.
All the Neapolitans assert The Neapolitan writers with unanimous consent assert that St. Peter the Apostle, having set out from Antioch for Rome, turned aside on his journey to Naples, and that then St. Aspren was baptized by him and appointed the first bishop of his church. The aforementioned Caracciolus, in the singular Book on the sacred monuments of the church of Naples, chapter 3, section 6, proves this assertion of his fellow-citizens from immemorial tradition, ancient inscriptions on stones, manuscript codices, and other testimonies, and among other arguments alleges the text of St. Luke, who in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 28, verses 13 and 14, describes the Roman journey of St. Paul in this manner: On the second day we came to Puteoli, where, having found brethren, we were asked to remain with them seven days, and so we came to Rome. All know that Puteoli is a town near Naples.
[41] Whence Caracciolus, in the place just cited, thus argues from these words of Luke: Paul found brethren, that St. Aspren was given as bishop to them by the Apostle Peter; that is, Christians: for that, while charity then flourished, was the surname which the followers of the Christian law bore. There were therefore already in that city and region Christians. I ask, who then had brought them over to the faith of Christ before the coming of Paul? Certainly none other than Peter: for none of the disciples of Christ is read to have traveled through Italy and Campania before Peter, as those skilled in sacred history, and among them Cardinal Baronius in his note at the XI of June, rightly note and establish. And so those Christians whom Paul found in the cities of Campania were disciples of the Apostle Peter, converted to the true faith, namely, by him preaching at Naples and in the neighboring places. Indeed I know that these things can be explained otherwise.
[42] Nevertheless this, and the other arguments of the Neapolitans, are so probable that foreign authors also admit that tradition that even foreign authors have embraced their opinion, among whom our John Lorinus, in his Commentaries on the aforesaid text of St. Luke, writes thus: The Neapolitans hand down (nor do the vestiges of this matter, though obscure, show it) that Paul turned aside to them also in passing. This is probable on account of the nearness, and because those making for Rome from Puteoli deviate but slightly that way. There is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology St. Candida of Naples, an elder, who first met St. Peter when he came to that city, and was baptized by him. The Neapolitan annals report that this happened when Peter first came from Antioch to Rome, and at the same time converted Aspren, who was the first bishop of that city. Wherefore Paul could find the faithful at Puteoli, neighboring Naples, and much more at Naples.
[43] To these foreigners must also be added our Peter Joseph Cantelius, certain foreign writers, who in the year 1684 published at Paris the civil and ecclesiastical History of the metropolitan cities, and in volume 1 of that work, part 3, Dissertation 1, chapter 4, seems to admit the sum of the Neapolitan tradition in these words: Caracciolus, Chioccarello, and Ughelli report many things about the beginnings of the church of Naples, whether from tradition or from ancient monuments. It is not of our purpose to pursue the particulars; but to explain in few words those things which are more certain and more illustrious. They report that St. Peter, while making for Rome from Antioch in the year of Christ 42, passed through Naples, and there preached the Christian faith. As many gave their names to Christ, so chief among them was Asprenus, a rich and noble man. He, suddenly cured by the Apostle of the disease from which he had long labored, is washed in the sacred font, and, instructed in the faith, is set over this nascent church as bishop. By the labor, zeal, and industry of Aspren, not only at Naples, but in the neighboring towns also, Christian piety began to be propagated.
[44] Having weighed the reasonings of the Neapolitans, I had resolved to follow the example of these associates of mine and of other learned men, [and concerning which, however, on account of the old catalogue, lately published,] and to subscribe to this tradition, though I was not ignorant that that opinion is opposed by Tillemont, who in the Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 1, page 190, judges it not sufficiently probable. But meanwhile there fell into my hands the second volume of Anastasius the Librarian On the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, which Franciscus Blanchinus had not long ago published with most copious notes, and into which, in the Prolegomena, page 61 and following, he had inserted an ancient catalogue of the prelates of Naples from the Florentine library of St. Mark, where concerning this first Prelate of Naples the following is read: Bishop Aspren sat twenty-three years. He was in the times of Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, and Alexander, Pope; and under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian.
[45] To open my mind candidly, this reading of the old and previously unknown catalogue deterred me from my former plan, I began to doubt; and I began to doubt not a little concerning the Neapolitan tradition: for thus I reasoned with myself: The ancient author of this catalogue places the episcopate of St. Aspren only under Clement and his successors: the tradition of the Neapolitans therefore wavers, who suppose that first Prelate to have been given them by St. Peter: for without doubt the writer of that catalogue would have placed St. Aspren also under the Pontificate of St. Peter, if he had believed him to have been ordained bishop of the church of Naples by the Apostle. Thus I reasoned with myself. Yet, lest I should determine anything rashly, I wrote to the most illustrious Sir Dominicus de Georgio of Naples, a most obliging helper of our work, and set these difficulties before him. He, in his kindness toward us, at once consulted a certain most learned Canon of Naples, whom I would gladly name for the sake of honor and of erudition, had he not wished his name to remain hidden.
[46] but a certain unknown Canon, from a writer of the ninth century, This altogether learned man, as sufficiently appears from his reply sent to us, briefly and clearly sets forth the chief arguments of the Neapolitan tradition in these words: The tradition of the church of Naples concerning the baptism and episcopate of St. Asprenas, its first bishop, conferred by the prince of the Apostles St. Peter, is most firmly upheld, first, by the authority of Peter the subdeacon in the Life of St. Athanasius, bishop of Naples, which he wrote in the ninth century. To these he faithfully subjoins the very words of Peter the subdeacon (I have called this writer of the Athanasian Life, which was published in our work at the XV of July, the anonymous author, of whom I shall say a few words at the end of this paragraph), which sound thus: Since not only from the time of Constantine, the most pious prince, the first of the Augusti to be most Christian, but many years before, the Christian religion flourished there; inasmuch as the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, ordained there the most holy Aspren as bishop.
[47] by the very ancient usage of the church of Naples, After these things that most learned Canon brings forward another argument for the Neapolitan tradition, which he proves (I use his own words) secondly by the most ancient usage of the church of Naples: for in the book entitled the Hymnary of the CHURCH of Naples, which the authors of Neapolitan affairs assign also to the ninth century, there was a proper hymn in the Office of St. Asprenas, of which this is the third strophe, reported by Chioccarello, a man born for the investigation of antiquity, in the book on the bishops of Naples, in the section on St. Asprenas:
St. Peter the Apostle Gave you to our people, And made you bishop In our place, the first.
Already above, in §1, we gave this hymn entire, and others like it, from Chioccarello, to whose antiquity the Proper Lessons, or the simpler Acts of St. Aspren, which we there transcribed, seem not to yield.
[48] and by other testimonies, To these, according to the same defender of the Neapolitan tradition, is added, thirdly, the authority of the catalogue of John the Deacon, likewise a writer of the ninth century, who must have held exactly the same as his church, as Peter the subdeacon: and although the Vatican codex is there mutilated, where it should have made mention of the consecration of St. Asprenas, yet from what he prefaced it can be conjectured that he said the same as Peter the subdeacon: for he mentions those emperors and Pontiffs who fill the times of the seat of St. Asprenas, as all the authors of catalogues were accustomed to do. Nor does the catalogue of the Florentine library of St. Mark, published by Franciscus Blanchinus among the notes to the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs by Anastasius, volume 2, in the Prolegomena, page 61, stand in the way of this authority, as we shall prove a little later. But as regards the mutilated catalogue of John the Deacon, from which above at number 35 we recited the brief eulogy of St. Aspren, and which was lately published in print among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 1, part 2, from page 291, the most learned Muratori there, on the following page, in the notes, number 3, indicates this lacuna of the codex in these words: In the Vatican manuscript codex here is the end of the eighth page, where certainly one little leaf, or two pages, is wanting. And it is to be lamented that the narration was here interrupted: for perhaps the author was relating who first introduced the Christian religion into the city of Naples, and which of the Roman Pontiffs gave that city its first bishop.
[49] The same tradition of the Neapolitans (here again let me borrow the words of the above-mentioned defender) is not a little confirmed, fourthly, by a solid conjecture from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 28, verse 14, and by an argument, he learnedly proves that tradition, where the Apostle Paul is said to have found brethren at Puteoli in the year 57. Therefore the Apostle Peter had already begotten the Puteolans to Christ, since it is handed down that before him none of the disciples of the Lord came into Italy. But the Apostle Paul, bound and surrounded by a guard, hastened by the shorter Campanian way to Capua, and thence to Rome. Peter, however, being free, and intent on propagating the faith, is not to be believed to have passed by Naples, a city celebrated at that time, to which the shortest journey led, Mount Posilipo having already been dug through to Mergellina, by which opened passage Puteoli and Naples are reckoned not two cities, but almost one, so that even now the bishop of Puteoli, dwelling in the Olympian district, which is a suburb of the city of Naples, is thought to reside there. To this he subjoins the words of our Lorinus, which above on another occasion we gave, and adds that the most eminent Bellarmine, in volume 1 of the Controversies, On the Roman Pontiff, book 1, chapter 2, §13, used a similar argument to refute the heretics who deny that the Apostle Peter was at Rome.
[50] Then that most learned canon thus shows the feeble credit of the Florentine catalogue: and he detects certain errors in the contrary catalogue, To these authorities and to the most ancient and constant tradition is opposed the catalogue published by Blanchinus, whose authority ought to be of no moment: for it is by a writer of the tenth century, who abridged the catalogue of John the Deacon, and inconsiderately ascribed the continuous series of emperors and Pontiffs to the individual prelates: for in the article of St. Asprenas,
which pertains to this question, it errs first, in attributing to the seat of St. Asprenas twenty-three years, and in asserting that he sat under Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, and Alexander, Pope, whereas from the exile of St. Clement, in the year 76, to the beginning of the Pontificate of St. Alexander, in the year 108, there intervened thirty-two years.
[51] A grosser error is that by which he joins the Pontificate of Alexander with the reign of Hadrian: for he says: he detects it in the lately-published one, Bishop Aspren SAT TWENTY-THREE YEARS. He was IN THE TIMES of Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, and Alexander, Pope, AND under the emperors Trajan AND Hadrian. And yet, by the testimony of Blanchinus, St. Alexander suffered martyrdom on the day the III of May, in the same year in which Trajan perished at Selinus; but before the reign of Hadrian, who indeed in the same year was proclaimed emperor, but at least three months after the death of St. Alexander. These are the words of Blanchinus, in the same volume 2, page 80. And since after the death of St. Alexander the seat was vacant for thirty-five days, Xystus had already been taken up when Hadrian entered upon the empire. And if the conjecture drawn above from chapter 28 of the Acts is worth anything (and it ought to be worth very much among fair judges), who can believe that religion was introduced, and the first bishop given to the city of Naples, under St. Clement, Pope, who was ordained by St. Peter in the year 64, when there were already Christians there in the year 57, at the coming of St. Paul?
[52] and he shows that it was written in the tenth century, But that the author of the Blanchinian catalogue wrote in the tenth century, this proves it, that to the catalogue of John the Deacon, ending with St. Athanasius, he added the seat of Athanasius the second, and of Stephen the third, which Stephen was living in the year 920: for that he was present at the translation of St. Severinus the abbot is written by the other John the Deacon, a synchronous author and eyewitness, and he affirms that that translation was celebrated with the joy of all ranks on the day the X of October 920, and in the same year, on the day the XXVII of August, he reports that the body of St. Sosius the martyr, companion of St. Januarius, was found at Misenum and translated to Naples, and laid up in the church of St. Severinus by this Stephen III, bishop. Ughelli, in volume VI of the Italia Sacra, column 83, likewise fixes the same translation of St. Severinus, made under Stephen III, bishop of Naples, in the year of Christ 920; but our Bollandus, in the Addenda to volume 1 of January, page 1098, from the twenty-fourth year of the emperor Leo, which is there noted, more probably places that translation in the year of Christ 909. The most distinguished Muratori, in the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 1, part 2, page 288, suspects from another diploma that it can be referred to the year of Christ 901. However that obscure and intricate chronology may stand, at least from these things it follows that the author of the Florentine catalogue wrote in the tenth century.
[53] Further, the praised Canon distinguishes a twofold John the Deacon, and he distinguishes a twofold John the Deacon. and strives to show this against the opinion of Muratori by the following argumentation: The force of this reasoning Ludovico Muratori seems to weaken, who in the Preface to the catalogue of John the Deacon, which he published among the Authors of Italian Affairs, volume 1, part 2, page 291, contends that both Johns the Deacon were one, chiefly from this, that the one calls himself John the Deacon, to whom was committed the governing of the Deaconry of St. Januarius; but the other, John the Deacon of St. Januarius. But these two Johns the Deacon could not distinguish themselves more clearly; which, that it may be plain, it must be known that there is at Naples a most ancient church of St. Januarius, which is now called "at the Elm," nearest to the monastery and church of St. Severinus, and that in it there is, and from the beginning was, a College of sixteen Collegiates under an abbot or rector and a primicerius, that it had an attached hospital, and the said deaconry, which was given in commendam to one of the canon deacons of the cathedral church, which giving in commendam lasted up to the memory of our fathers: for in the year 1592 Vincentius Raius, canon of the cathedral church, abbot and rector, granted the use of that church to the priests of the congregation of St. Michael the archangel, an instrument having been drawn up by the public notary John Dominic de Lieto on the day the XXVII of October: but now the aforesaid abbey is united to the parochial table. John the Deacon, therefore, to whom was committed the governing of the deaconry of St. Januarius, was a canon deacon of the cathedral church, and John the Deacon of St. Januarius was one of the collegiates of the church of St. Januarius. Of this dispute I do not wish to be the arbiter.
[54] Nay rather, the mentioned Canon freely leaves the Florentine Catalogue its full credit, and on that account contends that it in no way hinders the Neapolitan tradition, by this reasoning: Then he freely leaves that catalogue its full authority But not even the full authority asserted for the Blanchinian catalogue can in any way stand against the tradition of the church of Naples: for indeed the tradition can very well hold, even if St. Asprenas be said to have sat under Clement, since all know how great was the darkness of the Pontifical history of the first century. Tertullian, however, in the book On Prescription, chapter 32, and Epiphanius, in Heresy 27, make Clement the immediate successor of Peter; nor does Anastasius, in the life of St. Clement, seem to shrink from this opinion. The same teaches Vindelinus, in Cotelerius, volume 1, page 139, from the anonymous Greek writer On the life, journeys, and death of Peter and Paul. But from the fact that Linus and Cletus died before the Apostle Peter—and the catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs of the Colbertine library agrees, fourth in order among those reported by Antonius Pagi, volume 1 of the Critique on the Annals of Baronius, page 165 (I find it in the Prolegomena to volume 1, page 53), where it is said: Peter YEARS 25, MONTHS 1, DAYS 7. Linus YEARS 15, MONTHS 3, DAYS 12. Cletus YEARS 8, MONTHS 2, DAYS 10. The EPISCOPATE was VACANT 22 DAYS. THESE TWO WERE CO-BISHOPS, ONE NAMELY AFTER THE OTHER IN THE TIMES of blessed Peter. And similarly, nearly, the sixth catalogue. If, therefore, the author of the Blanchinian catalogue believed that St. Clement held the Pontificate immediately after Peter, what wonder if he determined that the seat of St. Asprenas began under Clement?
[55] But—be it said, saving the peace of the most learned man—here, however, he seems to concede too much in this place he seems to act too liberally, when he freely concedes so great credit to the Florentine catalogue: for if its authority stands whole, certainly it is remarkable that its author determines that the seat of St. Aspren began under Clement, even if he were following the already-mentioned system of the Pagian catalogue. Why, I pray, did he omit the Pontificate of St. Peter, if he believed St. Aspren to have been raised to the chair of the church of Naples under him? Rather, therefore, he would have continued to make little of the authority of this Florentine catalogue on account of the above-mentioned errors, just as Blanchinus himself, in the Prolegomena to volume 2, page 31, withdraws credit from a much more ancient catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs in these words: In the third place he sets down the years of the Pontiffs and the consuls, assigned to the beginning and end of the Pontificates; but in most places so contradicting themselves, that the reckoning of years and months is at odds with the consuls, and the times of the consuls designate fewer or more years than are exhibited by the catalogue. So too the Florentine catalogue attributes to the episcopate of St. Aspren twenty-three years, whereas meanwhile thirty-two years elapsed in the time of those Pontiffs whom it there enumerates. I do not doubt that more errors of this kind would have to be detected, if there were leisure here to investigate them.
[56] Finally the often-praised vindicator of the Neapolitan tradition thus replies to the long life of St. Aspren, and thus resolves the difficulties, which I had objected: But neither is the tradition harmed by the fact that the same catalogue extends the seat of St. Asprenas to the Pontificate of St. Alexander: for the tradition determines nothing about the time of the life of St. Asprenas; nor is it impossible for a man to live beyond ninety. For indeed from the coming of the Apostle Peter into Italy to the Pontificate of St. Alexander there flowed, by the chronology of Blanchinus, sixty-eight years, by the perhaps more emended chronology of Pagi, fifty-four years. The example, therefore, being set forth of St. Timothy, whom the Apostle calls a youth in I Timothy, and whom Father Calmet determines to have been ordained bishop at the age of thirty-six (I pass over the example of St. Eleutherius in Nicephorus, book 3, chapter 29, who is said to have been ordained bishop at the age of twenty by St. Anicetus, Pope), then, according to Pagi, St. Aspren at ninety saw the Pontificate of St. Alexander; according to Blanchinus, at the age of one hundred and four. What miracle is there in this age, since not only of holy men, but even of scoundrels most defiled in this age with luxury and drunkenness, there is more than one who now counts his years on his right hand?
[57] that we may prefer the substance of the tradition to this catalogue. At length he thus concludes: The church of Naples therefore hopes that the authority of Peter the subdeacon, and the credit of its own monuments, are to be preferred to the ill-furnished Blanchinian catalogue, by an author certainly foreign, in the tenth century. Rightly and deservedly does the church of Naples hope this: for, all things being maturely weighed, I judge the testimony of Peter the subdeacon, or of the anonymous writer, who certainly in the ninth century composed the Life of St. Athanasius of Naples, to be preferred hitherto to the faulty catalogue of the tenth century. Moreover, to form this judgment, besides the other arguments of the Neapolitans, the Lessons related above move me, which contain the simpler Acts of St. Aspren, and seem ancient, although I am ignorant of their distinct age. But in the following paragraph, from the very monuments of the Neapolitans, and the chronology of Blanchinus, I shall propose a certain system, in which the Neapolitan tradition (except the time at which St. Aspren is said to have been consecrated bishop) is preserved whole, and some difficulties are avoided. But here first, on the occasion of the so often mentioned Peter the subdeacon, I must institute a little disputation of light moment with Ludovico Antonio Muratori.
[58] On the occasion of Peter the subdeacon, who is here often mentioned, In the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Athanasius, bishop of Naples, which I published in our work at the XV of July from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Cassino, §2, number 16, I had alleged the words of Baronius, who ascribes the Life of that Saint to Peter, deacon of Cassino. Then I there argued thus: I know not whence Baronius dug up this Peter, deacon of Cassino, a writer of the ninth century. At least in the Acts of St. Athanasius, a great part of which Baronius there inserted into his Annals, nowhere does the author betray his own name, or profession of life. Certainly the synchronous author of those Acts could not have been Peter, deacon of Cassino, who only in the twelfth century published several little works; nor his master, called by the same name. From these things, finally, with Caracciolus, I concluded that the writer of this Life is anonymous.
[59] and whom Muratori contends Muratori, among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 2, part 2, reprinted this Life of St. Athanasius together with my Commentary and notes, and in the preliminary notice, page 1045, most confidently determines that the synchronous author of this Life was Peter, deacon or subdeacon of Naples. Then he thus proves his opinion: We have a fit witness in this matter in Baronius, who, bringing forward fragments of his Life, everywhere names the writer Peter the deacon (he ought to have added "of Cassino"), which a man far from dreaming would by no means have done, unless the Vatican codex, to which alone we owe this Life, had prefixed the author's name.
[60] that he wrote the Life of St. Athanasius of Naples, In the first place I do not understand how we owe this Life to one and only Vatican codex, since I received it from a Lombard codex of the monastery of Cassino, as I noted at the XV of July in the Preliminary Commentary and in the very title prefixed to the Acts. Moreover, on that account Baronius need not have been dreaming; but he could have been deceived, because perhaps on the cover of that codex or elsewhere the name of Peter, deacon of Cassino, was expressed, for the reason that that codex belonged to his use, or had been transcribed by him from a more ancient codex, from which Baronius may have thought that Peter, deacon of Cassino, was the author of this Life. However it be, if Baronius found only "Peter" in his codex as the author of this Life, he wrongly added "deacon" and "of Cassino," since the author of it was Peter, subdeacon of Naples, as Muratori contends.
[61] Further, that man continues thus: Yet the above-praised Father Cuper, thinking he would act more cautiously, was of this opinion (following Antonius Caracciolus and Ughelli), that this Life is by no means to be attributed to Peter the deacon, for various reasons we think, and that its writer is rather to be called anonymous, because forsooth Peter, deacon of Cassino, flourished only in the twelfth century; but the author of the Life wrote these things in the ninth century, and while St. Athanasius himself was living, or had been snatched from the living a few years before. I had objected these very things to myself, in the preface to the commentary of John the Deacon, part 2, volume 1, of this Collection, page 289. And indeed I too judged that we must depart from Baronius, where he reckons Peter the deacon, or subdeacon (these orders differ from each other; and Baronius nowhere calls his Peter a subdeacon), the author of this Life, among the monks of Cassino; but I think we must still hold with him, when he attributes the Life of St. Athanasius to a certain Peter, whom I say to have been a subdeacon of Naples. And so from the name Peter alone he infers that he was a subdeacon of Naples.
[62] Then he rightly demonstrates that about the times of St. Athanasius of Naples there lived a certain Peter, subdeacon of the church of Parthenope, that this conjecture of his is altogether uncertain, who in Ughelli, in the old edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 6, column 76, collected the miracles of St. Agnellus the abbot, and from that indication he there concludes thus: We have therefore Peter, subdeacon of Naples, contemporary of both Athanasii the bishops, and a biographer of those times. Wherefore it can scarcely be doubted that to him also must be attributed the Life of St. Athanasius, published by Father Cuper, and here to be reprinted. But Ughelli too, in the place just cited, had known this Peter, subdeacon of the church of Naples, and nevertheless judges that the writer of the longer Athanasian Life is anonymous. Nor is it yet clear to me from this conjecture of Muratori that the Life of St. Athanasius was written by that Peter the subdeacon: for in Surius too, at the day the XXIII of September, in the finding and translation of St. Sosius, page 237, I find a certain Peter the subdeacon of those times, or of the beginning of the ninth century, whom, however, I can suspect to be different from the above-mentioned subdeacon of the church of Naples, until Muratori shows that he is the same.
[63] At least the adversary will be forced to confess that Baronius nodded, and thus far we suppose, if from the name Peter alone he surnamed that writer a deacon and of Cassino, or if perhaps he took the possessor or transcriber of his manuscript codex for its author. But if a man far from dreaming, as Muratori speaks, would by no means have done this, unless the Baronian codex had prefixed the author's name, it will be necessary to say either that Baronius was deceived by someone who wrongly prefixed to that codex the name of Peter, deacon of Cassino, or that the synchronous author of this Athanasian Life was really a certain Peter, deacon of Cassino, whom hitherto we have not known, and about whom the history of the monastery of Cassino and other bibliographers have kept deep silence.
[64] But if none of these please, let Muratori explain to us how Baronius could call the writer of the Athanasian Life, instead of Peter subdeacon of Naples, Peter deacon of Cassino. This intricate difficulty moves me, so that I still judge that the author of that Life is prudently called anonymous. that those Acts are prudently to be attributed to an anonymous writer, and that that Life of St. Athanasius can be ascribed to Peter, subdeacon of Naples, only from uncertain conjecture. Yet I shall gladly embrace the opinion of Muratori, and by his example change my judgment, and report to him this notice of the distinguished biographer as received, if any certainty accrue from elsewhere, especially since about those times a certain Peter, subdeacon of Naples, lived. Now from this digression I return to my purpose, and propose to the learned a certain conjecture concerning the Baptism and episcopate of St. Aspren.
§ IV. A new system concerning the time at which the Saint was taken up into the Neapolitan episcopate.
The Neapolitan writers everywhere hand down Chioccarello, in the Catalogue of the prelates of Naples, with other writers, thinks that St. Aspren was not long after his conversion appointed by the Apostle Peter bishop of the church of Naples, as in the brief eulogy of that Saint he sufficiently indicates there on page 7 in these words: Aspren was made whole, and restored to his former health: wherefore Aspren, coming at once to St. Peter, prostrate at his feet, kissed them, and is catechized by St. Peter, and imbued with the Christian religion, and washed with the water of Baptism. And when Peter had converted the city of Naples to the Catholic faith, and, in a place not far from the walls of that city, where sacrifices had been accustomed to be offered to idols, an altar having been set up there, had celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, at which Aspren and the Christians who accompanied Peter from Antioch were present, Peter, wishing to set out for Rome, whither he was making, appointed Aspren, at the prayers of the Neapolitans, their bishop; who, made bishop, began to watch continually, and to persist in the word of doctrine and in preaching unto death unfailingly and untiringly, and began to be the fellow-worker of Peter his master, and, at the invocation of Christ Jesus the Savior, to work signs and wonders, to give light to the blind, to raise up the lame, and to strengthen others who were sick and weak. In this text I omitted one word or another which vitiated the sense.
[66] that St. Aspren was consecrated bishop immediately after his conversion, For the rest, I here note in passing that the order of the narration was changed by Chioccarello concerning the first cooperation of St. Aspren, which in the simpler Acts, published by Chioccarello himself, page 10, is thus placed before his episcopate: Peter opens his mouth, catechizes Aspren and baptizes him, and instructs him in the doctrine of the Christian religion; and Aspren began to be the fellow-worker of his Master, and, at the calling upon the name of the Savior, to work signs and wonders, to give light to the blind, to make firm the lame, and to strengthen others who were sick and weak. Naples having been won for Christ the Lord, Peter resolved to go to Rome; but at the prayers of the people of Naples the Apostle consecrated Aspren as prelate of Naples; who, advanced to the summit of the pontificate, began the more urgently to keep watch by the word of doctrine, to persist in preaching, and, in season and out of season, most constantly, unfailing and untiring, he preached even unto death. I do not deny that these Acts too suggest that St. Aspren was consecrated bishop of the city of Naples at the first passage of St. Peter; but I am of opinion that by their author and by other writers two journeys of St. Peter, or two visitations of the city of Naples, are confounded into one, and that deeds of different times are wrongly placed in the same year, as I shall now try to show by several reasons.
[67] In the first place, it is not probable that St. Peter then lingered long at Naples, when St. Peter first came to Naples; since he was hastening from the city of Antioch to found the Roman chair: nay, it is more probable that he, after the manner of the other Apostles, scattered on that journey in passing the seed of the Gospel, which would gradually grow, and whose fruit he would afterward, through himself or his disciples, more easily gather on account of the nearness of the region. I gladly admit, therefore, on account of the tradition and the ancient monuments of the Neapolitans, that at Naples, in that passage, Candida, Aspren, and perhaps some others were converted by St. Peter to the Christian faith, by whose example, exhortation, and miracles various of their fellow-citizens were led to embrace the same religion, and thus by degrees the number of Christians there grew, since in all the Acts of St. Aspren we read that he, after his conversion, began to be the fellow-worker of St. Peter, and, at the invocation of Christ, to work miracles.
[68] But I shall not easily believe that St. Aspren was immediately after his conversion raised to the dignity of the episcopate: but since St. Paul forbids a neophyte to be at once raised to that dignity, for from admitting that opinion I am chiefly drawn back by the admonition of the Apostle Paul, who, in the first epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, among the other endowments which he requires in a bishop, does not wish a neophyte to be promoted to that dignity, lest, lifted up in pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil. Now in Greek νεόφυτος is as it were "newly planted," that is, recently converted from heathenism or Judaism to the Christian faith, and grafted into Christ by baptism, as the interpreters of Sacred Scripture everywhere explain this word. St. Chrysostom renders the reason of this precept, in homily 10 on the same epistle of Paul, thus: For since then most of the gentiles were coming to the Church and being baptized, he admonished that care must be taken lest one newly imbued with the Sacraments of the Church be at once advanced to bearing the burdens of this principate; for if, before he were a disciple, he were taken as a master, he would very soon be lifted up into the haughtiness of arrogance; if, before he learned to be subject, he were placed in the order of rulers, he would quickly swell up. Therefore he subjoins: Lest, being lifted up, he fall into the judgment of the devil, that is, lest he incur the same damnation which that one endured through arrogance.
[69] That premature promotion of neophytes to the episcopal office St. Jerome graphically depicts, and St. Jerome judges such promotion unseemly, when in the epistle to Oceanus, volume 4 of the most recent Paris edition, part 2, column 653, he thus explains the same text of the Apostle: Yesterday a catechumen, today a pontiff; yesterday in the amphitheater, today in the church; in the evening at the circus, in the morning at the altar; a while ago a patron of actors, now a consecrator of virgins. Was the Apostle ignorant of our evasions, and did he not know the follies of our arguments?… But as to what he says: Lest, lifted up in pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil, who does not prove it true by example? The momentary priest is ignorant of the humility and gentleness of country folk; he is ignorant of Christian kindnesses; he knows not how to despise himself: he is transferred from dignity to dignity. He has not fasted, has not wept, has not often reproved his own manners, and corrected them by assiduous meditation, has not distributed his substance to the poor. From a chair, in a manner, he is led to a chair, that is, from pride to pride. But the judgment and ruin of the devil, none doubts, is arrogance: they fall into it who, in the point of an hour, being not yet disciples, are already masters. From these things it is plain how dangerous and unseemly it is, if a neophyte immediately after his conversion be raised to the episcopal chair. Nor do I hitherto see why St. Peter should have exempted Aspren from this common law.
[70] more probably we defer that consecration to another time When, then, you will say, did the Apostle Peter set St. Aspren over the church of Naples? I answer that I am not concerned about the certain time, provided you grant that it was done after some years. Caracciolus, in the singular Book on the sacred monuments of the church of Naples, chapter 3, section 13, enumerates various occasions and various years on which St. Peter could afterward have returned to Naples. Among others he there assigns the twentieth year from the passion of Christ, on which St. Peter is believed to have visited the neighboring peoples of Italy, and finally concludes that St. Peter, having often set out from Rome, probably also more than once sought Campania and Naples. If St. Peter, having set out from the city of Rome, revisited the far-distant churches of the East, certainly it is very probable that he also from time to time visited the neighboring churches of Italy, watered the tender plants of the Christian faith with the dew of the divine word, and set pastors over new flocks of lambs. Further, after the founding of the chair of the Roman Church, choose out of these apostolic excursions the one which pleases more, and in one of them I will say that St. Aspren received the pastoral governance of the church of Naples from the Apostle Peter, lest I be forced at once to promote a neophyte to the episcopate, against the law laid down by the Apostle Paul.
[71] on which St. Peter returned to Naples, The very monuments of the Neapolitans furnish some foundation for establishing this my opinion: for from them our Giannettasius, in volume 1 of the History of Naples, book 1, pages 9 and 10, relates the following: In the year 54 from the restoration of the world, Peter, sailing again to Rome from Jerusalem, whither he had returned from Italy on account of the edict of Claudius, is by most ancient report said to have been carried to Retina, distant six miles from Naples. Here he cleansed very many by Baptism, among whom was the chief man Ampellus, who built a church in that little town, which up to our age retained its name from him. Thence, having set out for Naples, he was received by Aspren and the rest of the Christians with the utmost honor and gladness. That at that time he inaugurated the church where he had first performed the sacred rites, a most ancient stone, which is kept in the high altar of that building, is a most clear witness. At length, after he had taught Aspren at Naples much concerning the sacred rites, and had by his divine eloquence brought many heathen to Christ, he at once departed to the citadel of the Roman empire, the city that is mistress of the whole world, that in it, the superstition of the nations being overthrown, he might introduce the true religion. Since, then, St. Peter taught Aspren at Naples much concerning the sacred rites, it is surely no wonder that at the same time he raised him to the seat of the church of Naples: for if St. Aspren had already before been a bishop, he would without doubt not have been ignorant of the sacred rites.
[72] as is drawn from the very monuments of the Neapolitans. Further, the most ancient stone, of which Giannettasius here makes mention, or rather the renewed memory of that stone, John Anthony Summonte, in the History of Naples, which was reprinted in Italian at Naples in the year of Christ 1675, book 1, page 303 and following, thus reports from Schrader: After the RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ AND HIS ASCENSION TO THE HEAVENS, IN THE TWENTIETH YEAR, the BLESSED Peter the APOSTLE, COMING to Naples, LAID THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS OF THE PRESENT CHURCH, NAMED FROM HIM, AND, FOR THE MEMORY OF POSTERITY, THERE STOOD A TITLE INSCRIBED ON A MARBLE STONE, BUILT INTO THE WALL OF THE BELLS, WHICH, WHEN A BARBARIAN ARMY OVERRAN THE Neapolitan FIELD, WAS INTERCEPTED. Then in a different character he there adds this from the same Schrader: The same prince of the Apostles consecrated the same church by his own self, and in memory of this dedication there stands a marble stone carved with Greek letters, which is seen on the right horn of the high altar. Caracciolus, in the sacred monuments of the church of Naples, chapter 3, section 6, makes mention of both these stones. I do not wish here laboriously to inquire into what year of the common era that twentieth year after the resurrection and ascension of Christ falls, since concerning that matter the opinions of chronologers are various, and it suffices me that St. Aspren was appointed bishop of the city of Naples by the Apostle Peter some years after his conversion.
[73] Franciscus Blanchinus defers longer the episcopal consecration of St. Aspren, Blanchinus, whom Muratori thinks contrary to the Neapolitan tradition, made by the Apostle Peter, and judges in his chronology that it happened after the year of Christ fifty-six, which I too gladly embrace. But perhaps someone will marvel that I have here alleged Blanchinus for my opinion, since Muratori, among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 1, part 2, page 292, in the notes to the Chronicle of John the Deacon, number 4, on the occasion of St. Aspren, writes thus about him: It is the constant opinion of the Neapolitans that this first bishop was given to their city, and indeed by the Apostle Peter; nor is it a recent opinion. Peter, subdeacon of Naples, in the Life of St. Athanasius, bishop of the same city, about the year of Christ 872, wrote this: The most blessed Peter, PRINCE of the Apostles, ORDAINED the MOST HOLY Asprem (or Asprenas) THERE AS BISHOP. Certainly most ancient tradition holds that not a few churches of the West were founded by St. Peter, and the more illustrious churches in Italy have referred their beginnings to him. But that St. Asprenas flourished far later, the most distinguished Franciscus Blanchinus contends in the notes to the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs by Anastasius the Librarian. Who from this observation of Muratori would not conjecture that the episcopate of St. Aspren is deferred by Blanchinus to after the death of St. Peter, and that it is expressly denied by him that the first bishop of Naples was consecrated by that Apostle?
[74] Nevertheless that opinion cannot be attributed to Blanchinus, favors our opinion, unless perhaps it be inferred from the above-mentioned catalogue of the prelates of Naples, which he first published in the Prolegomena to the second volume On the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, page 61, from the Florentine manuscript codex of St. Mark. But from the clearer words of the same editor it rather follows that by him the Neapolitan tradition is preferred to the authority of that catalogue: for, unless Blanchinus has contradicted himself, he not obscurely admits the tradition of the Neapolitans concerning their first bishop, when in volume 2 of the praised work, section 4, in his historical notes to the Pontificate of St. Clement, page 53, he writes thus: In the year 56, therefore, Linus and Cletus having been thus promoted to the episcopal order, Peter, setting out from Rome now to the Eastern, now to the Western provinces of the empire to imbue them with the faith, was laying the foundations of churches, and appointing bishops in very many places, especially those in the West whom, in the notes of Somier to section 1 above, we reported on page 23, column 2, enumerated from the monuments and traditions of those churches.
[75] But the eminent Sir John Claude Somier, a Lotharingian by nation and doctor of sacred theology, in Blanchinus at the place just assigned, page 23, column 2, among the episcopal seats of the Western churches and the institution of the Neapolitan episcopate which more probably derive their origin from the Apostle Peter, enumerates certain cities of Italy, and among them Naples is there expressly reckoned. Blanchinus, in the same volume 2, page 18, in the Annals of the Pontificate of blessed Peter, chronologically arranged by him, had already indicated this very passage of Somier in this manner: About this year 56 of the common Christian era, or a little before, blessed Peter wrote his first epistle, which it is established was given after the disciples had been called Christians, and after churches had been founded in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, and increased with elders or presbyters; and before the eighth year of Nero, marked by the martyrdom of Mark the Evangelist, since Peter salutes with his name the churches of the faithful to which he writes: thence to the year 65 of the common Christian era, occupied partly in the city, partly through the provinces of the West, and busied in enlarging the bounds of the Church, he especially adorned with bishops those seats which the notes of Somier below enumerate near the end.
[76] he refers it to the year of Christ 57 or 59, Finally the same learned illustrator of Roman antiquity and of the Pontifical See, in his Chronology, inserted in the Prolegomena of the second volume, assigns more distinct times to this institution of the Western churches, for there on page 174 he reports this at the year of Christ 57: Peter, Linus having been appointed vicar, visits the Western provinces, and institutes bishops throughout the cities. Then on the following page, at the year of Christ 59, he again writes thus: The Apostle Peter, traveling through the Western provinces, and instituting bishops in them, is said even to have penetrated to the Britons, as in the notes, page 53, it is handed down from ancient writers observed by Vendelinus. From these things I confidently infer that Blanchinus is not opposed to the weightier Neapolitan tradition, and that he altogether favors my opinion concerning the episcopal consecration of St. Aspren, which I judge must be deferred some years from his Baptism.
[77] which chronology we gladly admit. Wherefore I shall gladly follow in this matter the chronology of Blanchinus: for whether St. Aspren was ordained bishop of Naples by the Apostle Peter some years after his conversion, in the year of Christ 54, as above at number 70 I conjectured from the Neapolitan monuments, or whether this was done, according to the chronology of Blanchinus, in the year of Christ 57 or 59, after he had without doubt given remarkable proofs of Christian constancy and holiness, it makes no difference to me, and the law of the Apostle Paul, by which a neophyte is forbidden to be raised to the episcopate, always remains inviolate. Moreover in this system the difficulty is more easily avoided which could be raised, concerning the great age of St. Aspren, from the Florentine catalogue, in which he is said to have lived up to the Pontificate of St. Alexander: for if in the year of Christ 57 or 59 St. Aspren, at forty years of age, was promoted by the Apostle Peter to the Neapolitan episcopate, he could have seen the beginning of the Pontificate of St. Alexander, and departed this life at about ninety. Add that in this opinion the full authority of Peter, subdeacon of Naples, or of the anonymous writer, is preserved, who in the ninth century, in the Acts of St. Athanasius, does not express the time of this consecration; but only testifies that St. Aspren was ordained bishop of the city of Naples by the Prince of the Apostles. But if, however, this my opinion should displease the Neapolitans, let their learned writers suggest another more probable one, and confirm it with solid arguments.