ON ST. CASSIAN, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT BENEVENTO IN ITALY.
About the middle of the fourth century.
CommentaryCassian, Bishop and Confessor, at Benevento in Italy (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
This holy Prelate of the church of Benevento among the Samnites, however ancient he be, was first, so far at least as we know, He is celebrated on this day somehow made known elsewhere by Filippo Ferrari in the year 1609 in his New Topography upon the Roman Martyrology, page 20; but more fully in the year 1613 in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at this day, the XII of August, adorning him with this eulogy: Cassian, bishop of Benevento, the fourth from St. Januarius, administered that church for many years. Having suffered many hardships and adversities and persecutions, he overcame all things by patience. Given to prayers, taking care of the poor, and feeding by word and example the flock committed to him, at length being called to his reward, he departed from life on the day before the Ides of August; and after his death he flashed with many miracles: for whatever sick person approached his tomb was healed of any disease whatever. That plainly wonderful thing is read consigned to writing, that no one riding could pass near the church in which the sacred body of Cassian was preserved unless he had first dismounted from his horse; and that this happened until it was translated thence into the church of the holy Mother of God together with the relics of several Saints.
[2] He thereupon cites in the same place ancient monuments from which he composed this eulogy, in the church of Benevento adding these words: From the ancient Breviary of the church of Benevento, and from a very ancient codex of the same church. Then follows this Annotation of his: To some it has seemed that this same Cassian is he who is venerated at Imola (to be recorded by us on the following day); but this is repugnant to the ancient tradition of the church of Benevento, which always acknowledged him as its own bishop and venerated him as a confessor: of whom mention is also made in the provincial synod. Further, in his later general Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, the same author recorded him at the same month and day thus: At Benevento in Samnium, of St. Cassian the bishop; subjoining in his annotations: From the records of the church of Benevento at this day. He is related to have been the fourth bishop of that see after St. Januarius (namely the first of this name), as the ancient monuments of that church, written in Lombard character, testify. Ferrari indeed was preceded by that Calendar of Capua which Michele Monaco exhibits in the Sanctuary of Capua, and which at page 398 at the day XII of August has this: XII. The passion shall be of Cassian M.; but that our Cassian is not treated there, but another, namely one celebrated elsewhere on the following day, the word "Passion" and the note of Martyr appended sufficiently indicate. In the manuscript additions of the Charterhouse of Brussels to Greven also, on this day is read: Of the holy confessors and bishops Cassian and Leucius; but neither is any place appended, nor is the age of those additions known, nor their authority.
[3] with a double rite. Ferrari on this day Constantino Ghini cites and follows in the Birthdays of the Canonical Saints. There succeeded Mario de Vipera, archdeacon of Benevento, in the Catalogue of the Saints whom the church of Benevento celebrates with double and semidouble rite. He notes at the day XII of August that St. Cassian, bishop of Benevento, is celebrated in the aforesaid church with a double rite; then he subjoins a eulogy, for the most part framed in the very words of Ferrari, and therefore not to be repeated here. He says this further or more expressly, that St. Cassian was the XVII bishop at Benevento; that he succeeded St. Apollonius (whom we gave from him on the VIII of August, page 579); that St. Januarius II succeeded Cassian; finally, that our Saint has at Benevento a church once dedicated to him, parochial, but fallen through the antiquity of the times. He cites indeed in the margin a manuscript codex of the library of Benevento, On the deeds of the Saints, part 2, marked number 168, page 26; and a Chronology of the bishops of Benevento under the prelacy of himself and of St. Januarius II. He himself also published a Chronology of the bishops of his church in the year 1636 at Naples, in which he treats of St. Cassian at page 16; but teaching nothing new, except that he writes that he flourished about the year of the Lord CCCXI; but there seems to be an error in the number, since in the same place he had fixed the beginning of his predecessor about the year of the Lord CCCXXVI. And so Ughelli, Italia Sacra, volume 8, among the bishops of Benevento, judges that he flourished about the year CCCXL. This too Mario changes in the Chronology, that he says the church of our Saint in the city of Benevento is not absolutely fallen, but as it were fallen; and also that in the same place in the margin he further cites for himself from the library of his church a most ancient manuscript Martyrology, marked number 178. We lack the instruments with which to illustrate these things. Of his immemorial cult certainly there can be no doubt, since he himself, after the so recent Bulls of Pope Urban VIII, under the eyes of that same Pontiff, then still living, did not hesitate to assert it repeatedly.