ON ST. DEUSDEDIT THE CONFESSOR,
AT ROME.
From the Roman Martyrology.
VI century.
CommentaryDeusdedit, confessor, at Rome (St.)
BY J. B. S.
Of this name in the sacred Calendars there is known one and only one, whom we gave on the XV of July, He is ascribed to the Saints by Baronius namely the bishop of Canterbury, sixth in order: but he of whom we here speak has hitherto been found in no Martyrologies, not even the more recent, except in today's Roman one, as it was reviewed and enlarged by Baronius, which he confesses openly enough in the notes, when he cites none but St. Gregory in the Dialogues, book 4, chapter 36, who nevertheless, however he may have praised the Man, nowhere honored him with the appellation of Saint or Blessed, proclaiming him by that title only which you have written down in the Martyrology, where he is set down with these words or eulogy: At Rome, of St. Deusdedit the confessor, who used to bestow on the poor on the Sabbath day what he had earned during the week by working with his own hands. It pleases us no more to pluck at the announcement of that most eminent man, admitted and in some manner approved by the Church, than at the one given above concerning the Carthaginian virgins and Martyrs. It will conduce to a somewhat fuller knowledge of the matter if we here subjoin entire the very text of St. Gregory. It runs thus:
[2] Here also a certain religious man, Deusdedit by name, dwelt near us, because he is praised by St. Gregory, Pope, who was accustomed to make shoes, of whom another saw by revelation that his house was being built, but that in it his builders seemed to work only on the Sabbath day. He, afterward subtly inquiring into that same man's life, found that out of those things which he earned by his daily labor, whatever could be left over from food and clothing, he was accustomed on the Sabbath day to carry to the church of blessed Peter and to distribute to the needy. From which consider that not without cause his building grew on the Sabbath. This Ferrari somewhat abridged, adding of his own as though it were part of Gregory's text: He passed from this life on the IV of the Ides of August to receive the fruit of his almsdeeds. He would better have observed that the praised Baronius chose this day as, so to speak, his birthday.