Cassian of Todi

ON ST. CASSIAN, BISHOP AND MARTYR,

AT TODI IN UMBRIA.

Under Diocletian.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Cassian, bishop and Martyr, of Todi (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. His cult and relics.

To absolutely all the Martyrologists this holy Martyr was unknown before the reformation of the Roman Martyrology, He is announced on this day in the Roman Martyrology; in which he is thus reported at this thirteenth day of August: "At Todi, of St. Cassian, bishop and martyr, under the emperor Diocletian." Nay indeed, not even in that Roman Martyrology itself did he always have a place; as is clear from the Plantin edition of the year 1586, where he is not yet read. What the cause was why his announcement just recited was inserted a little afterward, Baronius seems to hint in the Annotations upon it, where he has these words: "We have received his Acts from the church of Todi, whose proem begins: 'Thou exhortest me, venerable father Bassianus,' etc. He is held to have suffered in the persecution of Diocletian under the consular Venustianus." For of whatever sort those Acts may be (which will be discussed below), they are nevertheless ancient enough to suggest an old cult of this Bishop and Martyr in the church of Todi; especially if that church once used them in its Office; which Ludovico Jacobilli plainly indicates in the Lives of the Saints of Umbria at this day, volume 2, from page 114; where, citing these Acts repeatedly, he calls them "the ancient manuscript Lessons of Todi," or "in the bishopric of Todi."

[2] And indeed there are not wanting also other arguments of his ancient and public and always continued cult, but his cult is much more ancient. which, exhibited at Rome toward the beginning of the seventeenth century (as we suspect), and lawfully proved, prevailed so that he was judged with good right to require not only a new Office among his own people, but also a eulogy in the Martyrology throughout all the churches: for that both were granted either together, or almost together, we conjecture from this, that we have read that eulogy in the edition of the Roman Martyrology of the year 1608; while Ferrari used the Office in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy of the year 1613, and there at this day calls it "the Office of the church of Todi RECENTLY approved at Rome." Further, among the arguments already mentioned, Giovanni Battista Possevino, in the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of Todi, published at Perugia in the year 1597, reckons (would that he had recited them!) on page 120 "many Apostolic Bulls of Boniface VIII, Urban VI, Boniface IX, and Alexander V," through which he says that "the bodies of the Saints of the church of Todi, Cassian, Callistus, Fortunatus, Romana and Digna, were respectively authenticated," that is, I suppose, lawfully acknowledged not only generally as true bodies of Saints and worthy of cult, but also each singly as truly that of the Saint whose name it bore. Two of these Bulls Wadding exhibits in the Annals of the Minors, or rather in the Pontifical Register to the fourth volume, page 176 and the following: the rest we have not seen.

[3] "From certain of those Bulls," says the same Possevino, "and from other authentic writings, it is established" that the same bodies "in the year 1301, on the nineteenth day of August, under the lord Nicholas Armato, bishop of Todi, A translation of the body made in the year 1301; and another more recent, were placed beneath the high altar of the church of St. Fortunatus," which fell to the Friars Minor Conventual of Todi from the year of Christ 1254. The same placing, or translation, Wadding asserts at the year 1389, number 13, and Ughelli, Sacred Italy, volume 1, among the bishops of Todi, where he treats of Nicholas Armato. But Possevino goes on in the same place and adds: "Where they were always honored with much devotion until the year 1580"; when, namely, as the same author narrates, the old altar being pulled down that a new one might be built in a more convenient place, there were found there on the thirteenth day of December those five sacred bodies, rightly preserved in four stone cases fortified with lead and iron, within a very ancient marble tomb, each with its own inscription cut in lead; then the cases were opened by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Angelo Cesi, prelate of the city, the bodies inspected, and publicly shown to the people, who had run together in very great numbers, and at length translated to the sacristy and there laid up until the new work should be finished; as he says is clear from the public instrument drawn up by Francesco Astancolli, notary of Todi, on the twenty-eighth day of December of that same year.

[4] enriched with Pontifical indulgences, The most illustrious prelate doubtless hoped that the new altar, and the new tomb beneath it, destined for the bodies to be translated with solemn rite, would be completed in a very short time; since in the following year, on the tenth day of June, he obtained a Bull granted by Pope Gregory XIII, among whose words are these: "To all the faithful of Christ of either sex, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed with the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, who shall devoutly visit the church of St. Fortunatus of Todi on that day on which the translation of the bodies of the Saints Fortunatus, Calixtus, and Cassian, and of the holy virgins Romana and Digna, shall be made from the sacristy of the said church, where they are now found, into another sepulchre honorably and fittingly prepared beneath a new altar in that same church; and thereafter every year on the day of such translation, from first Vespers until the setting of the sun of the same day, and shall there pour out pious prayers to God for the preserving of peace among Christian princes, and for the extirpation of heresies, and for the exaltation of holy mother Church, we mercifully grant in the Lord in perpetuity a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins." But these things began to be of use long afterward, on account of the poverty of the citizens, which, scarcely sufficient for the slow raising of the altar, so long delayed the tomb of the Saints designed beneath it, that the bishop at length, impatient of further delay, at his own cost completed both the chapel beneath the altar, and in it a notable mausoleum of variegated marble, before the fifth day of May of the year 1596.

[5] and most solemnly celebrated For on that same day, by a most ample edict directed to the whole clergy and people of the city and diocese, he announced the long since decreed translation of those same sacred bodies, in such wise as also to prescribe the manner which he would have observed in so great a solemnity, both in the church and through the appointed crossways and squares of the city; as may be read in the praised author from page 123. But the magnificence of that day exceeded the manner prescribed; and that there be no need to describe it in detail with Possevino, everyone will sufficiently conjecture it from what he affirms on page 147: namely, that there were expended on it, partly by the bishop, partly by the city, about six thousand scudi. Although that this very sum, however much for the matter, was little for the affection, he will easily gather who has leisure to run through the eulogies which the talents of most illustrious men poured forth in emulation, in Latin and Italian speech, in prose and in verse, each according to his own faculty, for the adorning of this celebration: these certainly Possevino, as the nobler ornaments of that day above the rest, thought should be consecrated to eternity lest they perish together, from page 185 to 291. For us it will here be enough to consider the bodies of the Saints alone.

[6] These, on the day before the translation, or the fourth day of May, the most illustrious Cesi surveyed again in the presence of the Prefect of the city, in the year 1596 on the 5th day of May, the magistrates, and the people, and, enclosing them separately in four cypress chests lined with silk, secured them with his own seal, a leaden epigraph being added to each case; and to the first indeed this: "Here rests the body of St. Fortunatus, bishop of Todi and confessor"; to the second: "Here rests the body of St. Cassian, bishop of Todi and martyr"; to the third: "Here rests the body of St. Calixtus, bishop of Todi and martyr": and these inscriptions had indeed to be renewed; but not so that which was affixed to the fourth case: "Here rest the bodies of the holy virgins Romana and Digna." Thus on the fifth day of May, being brought forth from the church of St. Fortunatus about midday, after a triumphal circuit through the chief and wonderfully adorned places of the city (which held the incredible multitude of the surging people for four whole hours with a spectacle no less religious than august), they returned to the same church; where, raised upon a stage set up before the high altar, with a guard set over them, that satisfaction might be done to the most ardent piety of all, they remained exposed until the Vespers of the following day, sung by a threefold choir of musicians; when four bishops (for so many had come together for this feast) carried the cypress shrines, each one his own, taken from the stage into the new chapel beneath the new altar.

[7] There immediately, in the presence of the governor with the chief men of the city, they were enclosed in as many other wooden chests, and to be commemorated every year on that day. fortified with lead, iron, and tin seals both of the bishop and of the people of Todi, and thus afterward were entombed in stone niches within the marble sepulchre, deeply walled up with most solid masonry, and crowned by the pinnacle of the mausoleum set above. There was also enclosed a leaden plate as witness of the deed; whose inscription differs scarcely in sense from another cut in marble by the bishop's order in the same chapel thus: "To the glory of God and the veneration of the Saints. The bodies of the holy Cassian and Calixtus, martyrs, and of Fortunatus, confessor, bishops of Todi, and of the holy Digna and Romana, virgins of the same city, translated and laid up by Nicholas Armato, bishop of Todi, in the year of salvation 1301, on the nineteenth day of August, Angelo Cesi, bishop of Todi, cleric-president of the Apostolic Chamber, having found them in the year 1580 on the thirteenth day of December, and diligently recognized them, translated them through the city with solemn rite on the fifth day of May in the year 1596, and piously placed them in this sepulchre, more magnificently built at his own expense, on the sixth day of May of the same year." On page 149 there is described by Possevino the Proclamation of a supplication, to be established yearly at Todi on the fifth day of May in memory of the five translated holy bodies, with a plenary indulgence in perpetuity; concerning which matter see also Ferrari in the general Catalogue, on the third of the Nones of May. These things at some length, for the sake of those to whom our February is not at hand, where these same translations were treated in volume III, page 376 and the following. It is certainly clear from this that the people of Todi both had and honored the body of this Martyr for a very long time before his memory was inscribed in the Martyrology. The antiquity of the public veneration is also argued by the old churches once dedicated under his name, two of which Jacobilli records here, page 117: one at Terni, formerly parochial, now destroyed; the other in the diocese of Todi.

§ II. Of what value his Acts are to be held.

The Saint's Acts are criticized by others, The Acts of St. Cassian, bishop of Todi and martyr, Giovanni Battista Possevino, priest and theologian of Mantua, first brought to light in the year of Christ 1597, in the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of Todi at this thirteenth day of August, from page 23, prefacing in the same place that they were first written in Latin "in the monuments and ancient codices of Todi," but that he had faithfully rendered them into the Italian tongue. We suspect, however, that he, using different monuments, inserted from these into the Acts of St. Cassian certain things which do not properly belong to them; as the martyrdom of St. Seustius and his companions from page 24 to 28; and what he has on page 35 concerning the martyrdom of Sts. Venustianus and Sabinus the bishop: for these things are absent from the copy which Baronius testified above that he had received from the church of Todi, and which without doubt he bequeathed at his death with the rest to the Vallicellian library, from which Father Lorenzo Koler most obligingly had it transcribed for us in the year 1648. Tillemont did not see these Acts, but only a very small fragment of them in us at the eighteenth day of April, page 541, and a summary of the same — far more tolerable than the Acts — given by Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on this day, from the Office, as he advises, of the church of Todi, "recently approved at Rome": yet from these very things that author of the Monuments, in Note 18 on the persecution of Diocletian, concluded that the Acts of our St. Cassian are of absolutely no value. Ferrari himself in the same place, in an Annotation, sufficiently censures them, when he says that they are confused with others; and no less obscurely Jacobilli in the Saints of Umbria, volume 2, from page 114; where he lops off and corrects very many things from our entire Acts.

[9] nor do they please us, because of the faults, And indeed to whom could Acts be pleasing which are everywhere stained with so many faults by an anonymous author who, although we know not when he wrote, is nevertheless certainly very far removed from the times of which he treats, and who meanwhile produces no witnesses for himself nor any monuments of an earlier age? And he would himself indeed sufficiently betray his age, since he inscribed this little work of his to the venerable Father Bassianus; were not this same Bassianus utterly unknown to us. But that he makes mention at the end of the royal citadel of Todi is an argument that he wrote at least after the overthrow of the Roman empire and the dominion of the barbarians in Italy. But how long after it? The matter is uncertain. He certainly does not seem to have reached the year of Christ 1301; since he makes mention not even with one word of the translation of St. Cassian and the others then made. Further, how much credit he deserves in this history he will easily determine for himself who reads not altogether drowsily: for the grossest errors will strike the eyes, of which behold for thee certain specimens.

[10] In the very opening of the preface he says that Sts. Anastasius the bishop (so long before us Giovanni Battista Possevino also read, page 32) and Jerome the priest pursued with their pen the Life of the holy Paul and Antony set in the desert. of which some specimens are here given That this is false of Anastasius, but true of Athanasius, thou wilt gather from the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of St. Antony at the seventeenth day of January. Although neither did Athanasius write the Life of St. Paul, nor Jerome the Life of St. Antony (which he himself hints, and many have wrongly believed). In the Acts themselves, chapter 1, number 1: "Diocletian together with Maximian returned in triumph to Rome from Numerantia"; and indeed, as appears from the attendant circumstances, when both, or at least one of them, was already Augustus; and therefore not before the year of Christ 284. And yet no Numerantia has hitherto been found in the whole world. Possevino indeed supposed Numantia in Spain; but there was there no war for these emperors, no victory. In the same place our author states that after that return Ablavius entered into marriage with the daughter of Chromatius; then that from her he begot children, first Cassian, then others, as Flaccus and Venustianus; of whom accordingly the eldest could scarcely have passed his youth by a year or two while Diocletian and Maximian reigned. And meanwhile, under their reign, he there makes Cassian a physician so skilled that before him hardly any sicknesses could remain in human bodies, and besides a great pleader throughout the whole city of Rome; and at number 3 a bishop, and at number 5 "aged in days": but his younger brothers, the one at the same time furnished by Maximian with power of life and death throughout all the cities, the other proconsul of Tuscany, numbers 4 and 5. Is not that pretty?

[11] At the same number 4 he pretends that Chromatius could not return to Rome from Milan, some specimens. because he had there Sebastian, most noble of the citizens of Milan, sentence of death not yet being given; but that he sent thither in his stead Venustianus, his grandson by his daughter, that he might receive the proconsulate of Tuscany, refused by Cassian. Who could digest these things? For first it is established from the most ancient Acts of St. Sebastian, illustrated at the twentieth day of January, that St. Sebastian was crowned with martyrdom about the year of Christ 287, or rather at the beginning of the next, that is, before Venustianus, according to our anonymous writer, could scarcely have been born. Secondly, that Chromatius had long since departed as a Christian from the idols, from his office, and from the City, before Sebastian had come under suspicion among the heathen of having changed his superstition for the Christian profession. Thirdly, that St. Sebastian suffered nothing at Milan, but all at Rome; where his religion first became known nearly three years after the conversion and departure of Chromatius; which St. Ambrose on Psalm 118 so far confirms that he asserts that Sebastian went away to Rome for this reason, that at Milan there was either no struggle at all for the defense of Christ's faith, or a lukewarm one. Truly even this single passage suffices to proscribe the credit of our biographer. Wherefore his other ineptitudes I remit to the Annotations; although not even there will all of them be able to be noted.

[12] But, thou sayest, if these Acts are such, what at last can be gathered from them with sufficient safety? Nevertheless they will here be printed, and why. I answer: the antiquity of the cult of this Cassian among the people of Todi, and the long possession of his tomb and body; that is, at least before the year of Christ 1301: for since he says that he was asked to write the Acts of Bl. Cassian, martyr and bishop of the church of Todi, he sufficiently asserts that Cassian was held and honored in the church of Todi as Blessed, as a Martyr, as once its own bishop, before he himself set about writing. Likewise, since at the end of the Acts he assigns the place of his tomb and his birthday, he does not allow us to doubt that in that same place at that time, and on that same day, he was accustomed to be approached in supplication and honored especially by the people of Todi; whether from the beginning (which he himself adds) he was buried there by his grandmother, or not: whether also on that very day he truly of old accomplished his martyrdom, or on some other than that on which he was then honored. But if the rest of the history of our St. Cassian be asked, in it I confess that I find nothing at all certain, nothing which coheres sufficiently with other histories or with this one itself. It will nevertheless be subjoined here, that it may be known; inasmuch as mention of it has already been made more than once in this Work.

[13] The time of his martyrdom. We note his martyrdom as under Diocletian, not because we can demonstrate that it befell under him, but because we cannot deny what Baronius noted concerning him on the Roman Martyrology thus: "He is held to have suffered in the persecution of Diocletian under the consular Venustianus." Our Papebroch indeed, at the eighteenth day of April, page 542, judged that this St. Cassian perished under Maxentius in the year of Christ 310; because, connecting these Acts of his with the Acts of St. Sabinus or Savinus, bishop and martyr, who is marked in the Martyrologies on the thirtieth day of December, he supposed that Cassian perished after letters were sent from Rome to Venustianus, proconsular of Tuscany, about renewing the persecution of the Christians: and the Acts of St. Sabinus relate that these letters were given on the day before the Calends of May, when Hermogenianus was Prefect of the city, whom he judged to be altogether the same as that Aurelius Hermogenes who, according to the Bucherian catalogue, held the prefecture under the emperor Maxentius from the third of the Calends of November of the year 309 until the fifth of the Calends of November of the year 310. But this opinion is, first, repugnant to the Acts of St. Sabinus, which in express words make Hermogenianus prefect of the City under Maximian Augustus. Secondly, these names Hermogenianus and Hermogenes differ, and still more these, Eugenius and Aurelius, of which the first, in Surius and Baronius where they treat of St. Sabinus, is attributed to Hermogenianus, the other, in the cited Bucher, to Hermogenes: they do not therefore seem to be confounded. Thirdly, neither with the histories of Eusebius nor with those of others does so atrocious a persecution of the Christians under the emperor Maxentius seem in any way able to be reconciled. Fourthly, so constantly in the Acts of St. Sabinus, and in the ancient Martyrologies, is the martyrdom of Venustianus himself ascribed to Maximian Augustus, that Tillemont did not hesitate to assert, in his Note 18 on Cassian in the persecution of Diocletian, that it is necessary that he suffered in the year 303, if St. Venustianus was his judge. More can be said when the Acts of St. Sabinus are to be illustrated.

[14] This St. Cassian is not to be confounded with the one of Cornelium. There are those whom either these Acts of ours or their summaries, or Ferrari, have made doubtful whether this Cassian of Todi ought not to be reckoned one and the same with the one of Forum Cornelii, who is honored on this same day. And the Acts indeed, because they feign for the man of Todi the same kind of martyrdom, namely that he expired pierced by the styluses of his own pupils; which is certain to have been proper to the man of Cornelium: but Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at this day, because he ascribes to Cassian of Todi, and that (as he adds) from his Office, a Hymn which most manifestly regards St. Cassian of Cornelium (although it is not now extant in his Office approved at Rome), and then adds: "His passion Prudentius describes in his Peristephanon"; whereas there Prudentius treats only of Cassian of Cornelium, not of the one of Todi; unless this be the same as that. I do not indeed know what that Office is which he names; I do not doubt, however, that that Hymn and the citation of Prudentius, besides

Ferrari's intention, slipped out of their own place on page 509, where the discussion is of Cassian of Cornelium, into the following page 510, where it is of Cassian of Todi. This is clear from the index of that same work, to which Ferrari himself gave the title: "Bodies of the Saints assigned to different places": for in it the body of St. Cassian is not reckoned as the same body assigned both to the church of Cornelium and to that of Todi. Further, the Acts of our Cassian are not of such value that any confusion in them, however great, ought to beget a confusion of two Martyrs in him who has read what we have just said concerning the tomb and body of St. Cassian of Todi, more than once translated and inspected; and what we adduced a little above concerning the relics of St. Cassian of Cornelium.

ACTS

By an anonymous author; from a Roman manuscript in the possession of the Reverend Fathers of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.

Cassian, bishop and Martyr, of Todi (St.)

BHL Number: 1637

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.

THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE

The author professes the truth of this history. Thou exhortest me, venerable father Bassianus, that as the blessed men Anastasius the bishop and Jerome the priest ^a pursued with their pen the Life of the holy Paul and Antony set in the desert; as also Severus, the servant of the Lord, wove that of Martin, the venerable bishop of the church of Tours; so I should pursue with my pen that of Bl. Cassian, martyr and bishop of the church of Todi. But I, although I know myself unequal to the merits of such great men, who are the walls of the churches and the fountains of eloquence, nevertheless, because I think it absurd to be disobedient to your request, will briefly satisfy your petition; nor will I overlay the truth with the paints of words, lest, while the writer seeks the pomp of elegance, the reader lose the knowledge of such great virtues: for it is not fitting to seek the trappings of words and the pomp of speeches more than the virtues of deeds and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore I beseech you all into whose hands this book shall come, that ye believe that the things which we have written are true ^b; nor let any man think that I from zeal of love have set down anything which lacks credit; since it is better to say nothing at all than to bring forth anything false; since we know that we shall render an account of all our words. Wherefore today I shall take the beginning of my narrative from the birth of Bl. Cassian; that the grace and the lineage of the Man of God may be opened to the readers.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The conversion, episcopate, and first contests of St. Cassian.

Ablavius, Cassian's father, proconsul of Tuscany, At the same time, therefore, in which Diocletian together with Maximian returned rejoicing to Rome in triumph from Numerantia ^a, there was a certain most vigorous man, Ablavius by name, in the city of Todi, who had come back with them. He took to wife the daughter of Chromatius, Prefect of the City ^b, and, against her father's will, carried her off with him to his own city; and having received offspring from her, he called him Cassian. And so when Chromatius had heard that his daughter had borne a son, he sent messengers, and caused him to be brought in swaddling-clothes, and delivered him to nurses, saying: Keep this infant, and ye shall receive what shall be just ^c. And they, going away, kept the boy. And he grew up so quickly that the Prefect himself marveled; and taking the boy back, he handed him over to learn the liberal arts. In these he became so exceedingly skilled that before him hardly any sicknesses could remain in human bodies ^d; and besides he was called a great pleader throughout the whole city of Rome. After a little time Pancratius, proconsul of Tuscany, died without offspring. Then Diocletian together with Maximian caused Ablavius to come to Rome, and, with Chromatius consenting ^e, he was made proconsul of Tuscany.

[2] having bound St. Pontian, bishop of Todi, perishes miserably. And having received an imperial sentence that wheresoever he should find worshippers of Christ, he should put them to death without any examination by divers punishments ^f, he came into the city of Todi; and when the proconsul had heard that Pontian the bishop was converting many at Todi to the faith of Christ, he caused him to be dragged out of a certain cistern in which he lay hid, and without any examination he draws a thong over him from his head to his heels ^g. And asking him of what profession he was, Pontian the bishop said: I am a Christian, an unworthy bishop. The proconsul said: Whose authority grants thee to teach in secret, to teach the peoples to forsake the gods and follow a dead man? Pontian the bishop answered: Truly he died; and he rose again on the third day; and to those who believe in him he grants everlasting life. The proconsul said: Choose thee one of two things: either sacrifice to the gods and live, or thou shalt be slain by the torments of which thou art worthy, and thou shalt rise again, like thy Lord Christ. Pontian answered: I have always desired to be slain and to die, that I may rise again like my Lord Christ. While these things were being done in the city of Todi, legates came from Diocletian and Maximian, telling Ablavius to go to Fano ^h, because many worshippers of Christ had been reported there. And straightway the proconsul delivered Pontian the bishop to them ⁱ; and he himself set out, and being struck by a kicking horse, died on the road ^k.

[3] whom Cassian, now converted and a bishop, refuses to succeed. But the legates, holding St. Pontian the bishop, led him to Rome before the sight of Diocletian and Maximian; and straightway Maximian Augustus ordered him to be cast into prison. And word was brought to Cassian; and he came, and received him into custody; and he recounted all things as they had been done. Then Cassian earnestly besought him to baptize him in the name of the Lord his God: and he was baptized, and ordained among the clergy. After his death he received the episcopate ^l secretly; and he returned to the city of Todi ^m, and there held public little assemblies with the Christians, and taught many scholars ⁿ. It was announced to Maximian Augustus that Ablavius had been struck by a kicking horse, and plunged from the bridge of Rimini ^o into the river, and had nowhere appeared. And Maximian was saddened, and the whole senate; and they decreed that the proconsulate should be given to Cassian, his firstborn son. But he, refusing, would not lose an eternal kingdom for nothing; but sent to Maximian, saying: To Maximian, victor and triumpher and ever Augustus, Cassian gives the reverence due. I beg thee, lord emperor, bestow upon another the proconsulate or prefecture which thou hast decreed to give me; because I hold another prefecture, and I long for another consulate, and I serve under another Emperor.

[4] Then Maximian, understanding that he was a Christian, His brother Flaccus, while raging at Spoleto, perishes, sent letters to Milan, where Chromatius was Prefect, announcing the death of his son-in-law, and that his grandson had withdrawn from the sacred worship of the gods. At the same time Chromatius was striving to return to Rome; but because he had Sebastian, most noble of the citizens of Milan, sentence of death not yet being given, he was not able to go back [p]. And he called Venustianus his grandson, and sent him to Rome, that he might receive the proconsulate of Tuscany, and might punish the Christians wheresoever he found them. While these things were being done at Milan, Maximian Augustus called the son of Ablavius, who was commonly held a terrible man and without mercy, Flaccus by name, and directed him to set up Jupiter through the squares of all the cities, and to punish the Christians wheresoever they might be found. Flaccus therefore, going forth, began to practice many cruel things against the Christians. It was announced to him that in the city of Spoleto there was a certain sacrilegious man, Gregory [q] by name, who day and night was subverting the people. He came therefore, and sitting in that same city on the tribunal, ordered Gregory to be presented to him, and hastened to make a quick end of his martyrdom, and wished to hurry against his brother Cassian; but by the divine vengeance which God exercised for his Saints, he expired rolling in the market-place of the city of Spoleto.

[5] While these things were being done in the city of Spoleto, Venustianus came from Milan to Rome, [Venustianus, the other son of Ablavius, tortures Cassian at Todi in various ways;] and having received the proconsulate of Tuscany, he was conducted to the city of Todi; and there sitting on the tribunal, he ordered his brother Cassian to be presented to him, and commanded him to be bound to a stake, and had him beaten by four recruits [r] on the back, and turned about upon his belly; and he said: Take counsel for thyself and for us; and publicly sacrifice to Jupiter, the highest and greatest of the gods, and thou shalt live. Then Bl. Cassian answered: I adore the Lord of heaven and earth, who deigned to become man for us, and redeemed us by his most holy passion. Then Venustianus said: O thou aged in days! thou who art about to perish, adore the lord Jupiter, and cease to adore that which is nothing. At the same hour Venustianus ordered Jupiter to be brought in, saying to him : And straightway blessed Cassian, taking Jupiter in his hands, cast him to the ground; and he was shattered [s]. When Venustianus beheld that Jupiter was broken to pieces, leaping up, he licked the ground where he had been thrown, and said: Alas! because our lord has been brought to nothing; come, and let us burn the sacrilegious man! Hearing this, the most blessed Cassian answered: Your lord has been brought to nothing; why did he not help himself?

[6] After these things Venustianus commanded a fire to be kindled, and his hands to be put into the fire. Understanding which, the Bishop said: Thou canst apply my hands to the fire, and my bowels; but my limbs also shall flee the punishments, by the accustomed power of Christ. Which being heard, Venustianus caused him to be cast into a cauldron of boiling oil. And when he was in the midst of the cauldron of boiling oil, the fire was taken up to heaven, as if bent aside by the violence of the winds. St. Cassian poured forth such prayers to almighty God, saying: Let heaven, earth, sea, and all things that are in them magnify thee, immeasurable Maker, who hast created all things: be to thee praise, honor and glory forever and beyond, who reachest forth to me thy dew from the heavens, and drivest back the flames, that they may cease from my body: therefore let all things speak praise to thy name, heaven and earth [t].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. How false these things are, we said in the Commentary, number 11.

q. This St. Gregory is honored on the 24th of December; when he will have to be treated.

r. "Tirones" are wont to be called either new soldiers, or pupils in any art whatsoever. "On the back and upon the belly" the author seems to have borrowed from the Acts of St. Gregory M. of Spoleto.

s. The same is narrated a little differently of St. Sabinus.

t. Such rare prodigies, so long unknown! Who would believe it? The same is to be judged of the things which occur below.

* supply "Adore," or something similar.

* perhaps: he did help, but in vain.

CHAPTER II.

Other torments, the martyrdom, the burial.

The same man threatens new punishments And when Venustianus had heard this, he caused him to be drawn out of the cauldron, and said to him: Cassian, brother ^a, choose thee one of two things: either sacrifice to the god Jupiter whom thou hast broken, or, bound in prison with chains, thou shalt lie in darkness. To whom the Saint said: If I be shut up in a foul prison, and be bound with chains, I shall not dread the punishments, relying on the benefits of Christ. And when Venustianus had heard this, he said: And I will have thy head cut off; and I shall see whether thy Christ deliver thee. St. Cassian answered: If the lictor make ready to cut off my head with the sword, free in the passing of my mind I shall go to the Lord. To whom Venustianus said: And I will send thee to Maximian; and thou shalt be sent into exile, and shalt perish of hunger. St. Cassian answered: I fear not exile: the world is one house to all: I despise hunger: let my word be my food. To whom Venustianus said: O sacrilegious Cassian, adore the gods Jupiter, Mars, Asclepius, and Minerva: and tell us, from whom hast thou confidence, that thou fearest not exile, hunger, death, and fire? Adore Jupiter, then, and live; otherwise thou shalt be punished with a dread sentence. To whom Cassian answered: Jesus Christ is my hope of overcoming torments, and from him this sure confidence rises up in me. Christ gives the power to suffer: Christ is he who makes to live. Not in ourselves, O Christ, do we trust, not in ourselves; but we trust in thee: make those whom thou biddest to fight to conquer, O Lord.

[8] Then Venustianus said: I call to witness the life-giving and undefiled worship of our gods, and inflicts them upon the Saint and upon his pupils; that if thou dost not at once sacrifice to our gods, as the custom is, and pour libations at the Orgies *, thou shalt straightway be punished with the sword: and if your Christ, whoever he may be, prevails, as thou assertest, let him snatch thee from my hands: and thou, who until now hast eluded torments by the magic art, from henceforth no deception profits thee, none shall bestow on thee any protection. And straightway he caused a rope to be put about his neck, and him to be lifted on high, and his nails to be torn with iron claws ^b. And the bystanders then, laughing at him, said: Let Christ come, and put nails upon thy fingers. And while St. Cassian was being raised from the ground by the rope, a great earthquake occurred in the city of Todi, and thirty-eight souls of the pagans died; and the executioners who were dragging him stood parched, and could not move from the place in which they stood. Seeing these things, Venustianus was greatly terrified; and he commanded him to be cast into prison, and his school ^c to be separated from him; and the boys were separated from the milk also of their master's sweetness; and with their hands bound he beat them, saying: O madmen; are ye also deceived? Lo, I send you into prison; and ye shall perish of hunger; and your parents shall give us no aid.

[9] who, being overcome by punishments, arm themselves against their Master, But after the boys had heard these things, they were smitten by the arrow of the devil, and began to weep. Then the lictor, understanding that the mind of the boys was changed, going round to each one of them, said: Behold, I send you all into prison with your styluses and tablets. Rise up against your sacrilegious Master, and kill him, and free yourselves; and ye shall be the friends of the prince. After these things Bl. Cassian was cast into prison, and all his scholars; the elder indeed with hands bound, but the younger were sent into prison with him with their tablets and styluses, with hands unbound.

[10] he raises a dead man: Meanwhile it befell by chance that the only son of a certain woman, mounting a horse and crossing a ditch, fell from the horse and died. And when no one could give him comfort, straightway his mother came to the most blessed Cassian, carrying the boy; and pressing before the door of the prison, with mournful voice she besought him, saying that he should raise up her only son. Straightway St. Cassian, having compassion on her grief, poured out a prayer for that boy to the Lord God, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, who for the salvation of the human race, coming into the world through a virginal womb, didst take on the form of our mortality, that thou mightest free us from death, and, immortal, being clothed with mortality, mightest bring us into an incorruptible country; who didst restore unharmed the widow's only son as he was being brought to the sepulchre; suppliantly I beseech thy grace that this boy may be restored safe to his mother, and that she may know that thou alone art Lord, working wonders in heaven and on earth. And when the prayer was finished, making * from the bottom of the prison the sign of the holy Cross, straightway the boy who was dead rose up; and he who had been carried on a litter went back on his own feet to his home. From that same hour, both from neighboring and from distant regions, the great and marvelous love of the eternal King was made known ^d.

[11] but they their Master and Prelate Then St. Cassian, set in the midst of the prison, exhorted his scholars to persevere steadfastly in the confession of Christ. While these things were being done in the prison, Venustianus sent a lictor to the prison, and commanded to be dragged forth Mark, Cletus, Tudinus, and Leontius, scholars of Bl. Cassian. Now the prison, in which St. Cassian was shut up with his disciples, was after the manner of an underground cistern, built of small stones, placed almost in the wall of the city. From these the aforesaid men were dragged out, and before the presence of the most impious Venustianus were raised upon the rack. And while they were long being racked, a messenger came from Rome to Venustianus, saying that he should go to the city of Assisi, because it had been reported that there was there a sacrilegious man and seducer, Sabinus by name. At that same hour he caused the said scholars to be taken down from the rack, and delivered them to the legates; and he set out. And he himself, after a few days, going to Assisi, commanded his brother to perish of hunger in the prison.

[12] they make an end of with their styluses in the prison, Then the boys who were with St. Cassian, rising up against him, struck him with their tablets and styluses, saying: Thou hast struck us; and, lo, we return thee the like. And he, while he was long being beaten, said: O boys, be strong; be not afraid: and what I did to you in good faith for the learning of wisdom, do ye to me, that I may attain to the heavenly kingdoms. But one, more savage than the rest, urging on the others, clenching his fist and stretching out his arm, struck the Master dreadfully on the breast with an iron stylus: whence all his blood flowed out. And a tumult arose in the prison; which when the jailer heard, he commanded a ladder to be let down by a rope ^e, and orders all to go out: and they all went out; only the Bishop remained wounded in the prison. Understanding which, the jailer, entering, drew him out.

[13] And there was a concourse of the peoples; and seeing him, the people applauding; God glorifying the Martyr, some laughing, others weeping, said: So let it be with the rebels against the gods and the despisers of princes ^f! Hearing this, St. Cassian the bishop said: Be ye sons of your father, and obedient to your princes, that ye may hold this momentary kingdom, and despise the kingdom which is everlasting. Where are your forefathers? Where are the riches which they acquired? Where is the gold and the silver? Where the mantle and the purple? Where the costlier garments? All these things have been eaten by the moth; and their bodies have been reduced to rotting earth. As St. Cassian was saying these things, a flashing splendor sent from the height of heaven shone upon him, and together with that same splendor he went forth to the Lord.

[14] Then a noble matron, and her fathers, gathered ^g his blood into glass phials, on the 13th day of August. and he commanded ^h that his body should be buried with spices in the borders of the royal citadel, which to this day the inhabitants of that land call the hill. If thou askest the day when he passed from the body to Christ, on the thirteenth day of August he was caught up to the stars of heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ being propitious, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is, sacrifices

* for "he doing it"