Cassian

ON ST. CASSIAN, MARTYR,

AT FORUM SYLLAE IN ITALY.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Cassian, Martyr, of Imola (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. His cult among the people of Forum Syllae and elsewhere.

That most illustrious man Antonio Maria Manzoni, Doctor of both Laws and Canon of the cathedral church of Imola, in the Prelude to the History of the bishops of Imola published in the year 1719, thus describes Forum Syllae: At Imola, at the Saint's tomb "The city of Cornelium, which was called Forum Cornelii or Forum Syllae, founded long before the coming of Christ the Lord in the flesh, obtained this name, by the almost common opinion of the learned, from Lucius Cornelius Sylla, or Sulla, the dictator, by whom there had been established in that place a forum not only for markets but also for the administering of justice. The same city, its name being afterward changed and borrowed from the citadel which the Lombards, on the testimony of Paul the Deacon in the Deeds of the Lombards, book two, chapter eighteen, used to call Imolas, is now called Imola; and it is situated in Aemilia, a noble region of Italy, between Bologna and Faenza, under the dominion of the Apostolic See; where thirteen centuries ago and more the church adorned with a famous building and with altars the tomb of our holy martyr Cassian."

[2] This will be attested below by that lucid author Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, from the fourth century who, going to Rome about the year of Christ 407, tarried there a while, and, prostrate before the Saint's altar in that same church, sprinkled his tomb with tears which, as he afterward perceived, were happy ones. But because he does not himself declare that that building was then new, it ought not to be thought so. Nor indeed can there be any doubt that the public veneration of the Martyr flourished there before an altar and a sacred edifice began to be set over his tomb. But the beginnings of both structures are obscure; and Manzoni, who fixed them at the year of Christ 363 in his Tomb of Sts. Projectus and Maurelius Illustrated, page 116, did this, unless I am mistaken, for no other reason than that he thought the Saint's martyrdom older by only one year — a matter which will be discussed below. However that be, from the beginning of the fifth century the very frequent benefits which the most kindly Martyr had then been accustomed to confer on those who fled to him there had won for the place a very great veneration. This is hinted by these words of the sacristan to Prudentius:

"Believe me, the most prosperous Martyr hears all prayers; and he makes valid those which he sees to be approvable."

This Prudentius himself, having experienced it after that Roman journey of his and the success of the affairs to be dispatched there, which he had commended to the Saint, sings:

"I am heard: I reach the City; I enjoy favorable successes: I return home: I proclaim Cassian."

[3] Nay, the very majesty which the Martyr's lavish kindness toward his clients repeatedly brought to that shrine, his public veneration flourished; the divine severity toward opponents guarded and increased. Hear St. Gregory of Tours, who without doubt wrote thus concerning this same church in book 1 of the Miracles, or of the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 43, toward the end of the sixth century: "Cassian, a martyr of Italy, a magnificent teacher of boys, at the coming of persecution is delivered by the judgment of the persecutors to that very boyish and tender flock. But they, thirsting for the blood of their Master, dash their waxed tablets upon his head, cutting him with the broad sides of their styluses, and piercing through the limbs of their Master with tiny punctures, made him a martyr worthy of God. In whose honor so great a fear is even today entertained, that no one at all has dared to touch anything of his belongings: and if any has done so, either he is seized by a demon, or is consumed by a sudden death; nor does he depart free from vengeance."

[4] noted from thence in almost all the Martyrologies and in the Roman Breviary, It is therefore not to be wondered at if a cult so ancient, so famous, is recorded on this thirteenth day of August in the tables of nearly all the classical Martyrologies: for, to pass over the Hieronymian ones, which propagated even to Bede and Rabanus the corruption in today's announcement of our Cassian — since these, from those sources, reckoned him among the Roman Martyrs, confessing meanwhile that he is the same of whom Prudentius wrote — to omit these, I say, he is thus noted today in the old Roman: "At Forum Syllae, of Cassian." More fully Ado: "On the same day, at Forum Syllae, the birthday of St. Cassian, who, when he had refused to adore the idols, being asked by the persecutor what craft he had, answered that he taught boys their letters. And presently, his garments being stripped off and his hands bound behind his back, he is set in the midst. And the boys being called, to whom by teaching he had become hateful, permission was given them to slay him. But they, as much as they had grieved in learning, so much rejoicing to avenge themselves, some struck him with their tablets and boxwood, others wounded him with their styluses. And the weaker their hand was, the graver it made the pain of his martyrdom by delaying his death. Prudentius the poet wrote of it." Usuard, Notker, and others agree, but somewhat more briefly, and at length also the reformers of the modern Roman Martyrology; nay, the very Breviary which the Roman Church now uses, in Lesson IX of today's Office.

[5] and adorned with a proper Office in that place, The solemnity of his feast therefore persists even now, nay rather has become more illustrious, at Imola in the cathedral church, which is consecrated under the name of St. Cassian, and in the city and the whole diocese, which, as they glory in his peculiar patronage and protection, so they honor him with a peculiar Office, to which this Decree is read subjoined: "This Office of St. Cassian the martyr, patron and protector of the church and city of Imola, formerly approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites without an Octave for the church of Brixen on the tenth day of April 1604, the same sacred Congregation of Rites has also approved for the church of Imola, where the said St. Cassian received the crown of martyrdom and where his body rests, with an Octave, as is here noted, having been again diligently reviewed by the command of that same sacred Congregation, corrected, and subscribed by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinal Bellarmine; and it has given and granted license and faculty that it may freely and lawfully be recited and be valid in the church, city and diocese of Imola. On the third day of December 1616.

A. Mar., Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Gallus.

Place ✠ of the seal.

I. P. Mucantius, Secretary of the Congregation."

[6] This whole Office is from the Common of one Martyr, approved at Rome in the year 1616. except the Prayer and the Lessons; of which three are read in the first Nocturn from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17: "When the Jews at Thessalonica had known," etc.; while three of the second Nocturn exhibit a summary of the Acts of St. Cassian. In the third Nocturn is read a Homily of St. Athanasius on the Gospel of Matthew, "When they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another." On the second day within the Octave there are set forth in the second Nocturn Lessons from the sermon of Bl. Peter Damian on St. Cassian the martyr; in the third the homily of St. Athanasius on the same Gospel is continued. The remaining days are impeded up to the Octave, which in the first Nocturn has the same Lessons as the feast itself; in the second the continuation of the sermon of Bl. Peter Damian on St. Cassian the martyr; in the third, the homily of St. Peter Chrysologus on the Gospel of Luke, "The Lord appointed also other seventy-two."

[7] Whether this same Office was afterward shared with other churches, The same extended to other churches. we do not know; there is however some suspicion concerning the church of Brixen in the County of Tyrol; since indeed it anticipated Imola itself both in asking for and in obtaining his proper Office (but without an Octave), as is clear from the Decree already recited; and since it acknowledges the same Martyr not only as its patron, but also as its first bishop and apostle. And why should not the church of Comacchio, situated on the Adriatic sea between two mouths of the river Po, have asked for the same? Certainly that church also has long since venerated our Cassian as its tutelary president, on Ughelli's testimony in Sacred Italy, volume 2, where he treats of the bishops of Comacchio. The same our Rader asserts of the Boii or Bavarians, in his Sacred Bavaria, volume 3, page 3: "But Cassian," he says, "has always been honored by the Boii as their tutelary Saint, and in Regensburg, once the metropolis of Bavaria, his most ancient church is to be seen even today." And that no one may understand some other Cassian, he carefully in that same place distinguishes ours from those of the same name. Of the Roman monastery of St. Cassian, of which Aringhi makes mention in Subterranean Rome, volume 2, book 4, chapter 17, number 5, we say nothing, both because we do not certainly know of which St. Cassian it was, and because it has long since fallen into ruin. Further, since the relics of the Saints above all promote their cult, it is fair that some things be subjoined concerning these also.

§ II. His body and relics.

The body remained at Imola in its first tomb, or in a nearby hiding-place, That the body of this most holy Martyr was laid up in the city of Cornelium is a certain thing from Prudentius. That it remained there until the middle of the fifth century Agnellus teaches (who in the ninth century was writing his Pontifical Book, or Lives of the pontiffs of Ravenna) in the Life of St. Peter Chrysologus, chapter 4; where he has it thus: "But after these things this most blessed Peter knew by the spirit the end of his life. He went to the church of Cornelium; and entering within the basilica of Bl. Cassian, he offered gifts, that is, one golden bowl, and another silver patera, and great golden diadems adorned with most precious gems. All these he steeped at the body of St. Cassian," etc. There was therefore even then the body of St. Cassian there. Concerning the following centuries down to the twelfth there is no need to adduce anything; since no one disputes, but it is established by perpetual tradition, that it was never moved from the place, except when on account of the incursions of the barbarians it seemed for a time that it must be committed to safer hiding-places, until the peril of profanation and pillage had vanished; as Manzoni narrates was done, in the History of the bishops of Imola, under John I, in the year of Christ nine hundred and three.

[9] down to the 12th century, in which it was translated from the old Although indeed then it may seem to have lain hidden a good while, concealed and known to few Canons; because Manzoni, although afterward in the History of the bishops of Imola, treating of the bodies of the Saints who are protectors of the city, he names them expressly more than once, as St. Donatus, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Maurelius, pages 96 and 97, never nevertheless expresses Cassian among them; who ought to have been named in the first place, if his body also had there been in question. The first mention of him recurs in the year 1198 under Albert I, bishop of Imola, page 136; where there is narrated the settlement of a long-standing suit between that prelate and the Canons of the cathedral church, on this condition among others: "That (the Canons) should deliver to the bishop the body of St. Cassian ALREADY DISCOVERED." Whence we suspect first, that the bodies of the other Saints, which had been hidden in the same year 903 as the body of St. Cassian, had long been discovered before the body of our Martyr was found; and next, that this was found not very long before (say about the year 1188, in which it will be said below to have been translated from the old to the new cathedral basilica); and that it was then indeed found by the Canons only; since they retained it in their own power until they were compelled by sentence to hand it over to the bishop. Doubtless the causes of so long and secret a concealment may have been not only external wars, but also domestic wars of the men of Cornelium among themselves, by which from the year 1079 the three chief quarters of Imola blazed against one another in factions so murderous that they could by no means be checked save by the destruction and demolition of two of them, and the migration of all the citizens into the third quarter (which alone now bears the name of Imola). See the praised History from page 70 to page 130.

[10] [to the new cathedral church; and there most honorably placed in the 13th century;] From the same source thou wilt understand what was the reason for the building of the new cathedral church, altogether on the pattern of the old, in that place of the city where it is now seen, about the year of Christ 1187; to which presently the bodies of the patrons of Imola migrated from those former seats, being placed there no less honorably than in the place whence they had come; and the body of St. Cassian late enough indeed, since the History of Manzoni, so often mentioned, page 159, narrates that bishop Maynardinus at length in the year 1217 placed it in the cathedral, upon the altar which he had then consecrated. There, further, it remained until the year 1271, at which the same author writes thus concerning bishop Sinibald: "In the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-one, on the twenty-fourth day of October, he solemnly consecrated the cathedral church, enlarged and adorned with a comely building, and beneath it in the lower part, which our elders called the Confession, in an altar at that time anointed by him with sacred Chrism according to the rites of the Church, he laid up the body of St. Cassian; a homily being delivered by him on that day, namely the twenty-fourth of October; whose autograph, written on parchment, and very recently found by me, not without the help of that same Saint, is preserved in the chapter archive: from which it became certainly known that those are without doubt the relics of St. Cassian; and the aforesaid memorial of the dedication of the basilica shone forth most greatly; as is clear from the following beginning of that same homily, and from the title prefixed to it, namely: '1271. A sermon at the dedication of the church, or of the altar. How terrible is this place! There is nothing here but the house of God and the gate of heaven. The words spoken by St. Jacob can fitly be applied to today's solemnity, namely to the placing of the body of the blessed martyr Cassian, which was done on this day in his present church.'" Thus there.

[11] This work, on account of its age, it pleased under bishop Philip Anthony Gualterio, but more honorably laid up at the beginning of the year of Christ 1704, to restore more magnificently, and at the same time to dig up again the treasure laid beneath it and examine it, bringing forward the monuments witnessing to its former state, which Manzoni had been ordered to seek out, so that, compared with its present state, they might create a certain assurance of the identity, so to speak, of the relics. The matter was first commended to public prayers on the seventh day of April: on the next day, the doors being closed, the altar was taken apart with the pavement beneath it; which being lowered two feet, "after the very large marble stones had been torn away," says Manzoni on page 406, the same of whom we here give an epitome, "and the huge heap of rubble, sand, and overlaid lime removed, at length a marble chest was uncovered; which being opened, a most longed-for spectacle met us, the sacred pledge: for that it was such, a leaden plate laid upon it testified. On it, although in two places a very little eaten away, these words could be read: 'In the year of the Lord 1216 … (the unit figure is eaten away) in the time of Honorius III, the body of Bl. Cassian was placed at Imola in the episcopal see, and the altar consecrated by M. (Maynardinus), bishop of the same church, on the VI … (supply Ides or Calends) of September.'" From these things, besides other matters, we learn that this tomb was not changed, nor the position of the bones in it, in the year 1271 by Sinibald; but that it was translated hither and laid up just as it was, only the arm being taken out, from another altar in which Maynardinus had placed it in the year 1217.

[12] While meanwhile a festive pealing of the bells announces to the people the joy of this discovery, in the year 1704: the bones are taken out of the tomb which was found, and, most diligently separated from the fragments and dust of the wooden case dissolved by so long and damp a lying, are laid in a coffer prepared for that purpose, together with coins, I suppose of silver, which Maynardinus had there enclosed as indications of his own time, as also the epigraph already spoken of, and a part of a glass tube, which was believed to be a fragment of the phial that once contained the Saint's collected blood. After these things that coffer, closed and sealed, was carried up to the upper choir, and there deposited for a time beneath the high altar, until the structure of the lower chapel and altar was erected and completed in the space of not more than four months. Then indeed, before a most select assembly of all the orders, the relics were solemnly recognized anew, and shut up in a leaden sarcophagus; and after they had remained for three days exposed to public veneration, on the Calends of October they were carried in by the Canons and laid up within the marble chest prepared in the newly built altar. A twofold inscription preserves the memory of the matter; one enclosed in the leaden sarcophagus, the other set upon the marble tomb.

[13] The former has it thus:

The sacred body of the holy martyr Cassian, which a twin First bishop of Sabiona, or Brixen, Patron of this city of Cornelium, Brought from the older cathedral in the year 1188 Into this one, First placed by bishop Maynardinus About the year 1217, And by his successor Sinibald in the year 1271 Set beneath an altar consecrated by himself, That it might henceforth be preserved more honorably, The chapel and altar being adorned, With the assent of Philip Anthony Gualterio, bishop of Imola, Apostolic Nuncio to the king of the Gauls, At the instance of the Chapter of the cathedral, The whole city rejoicing, Raised in solemn procession, Abbot Joseph Guerra, Vicar General, Laid again in this leaden coffer In the year 1704, Indiction XII, on the twenty-seventh day Of September.

[14] inscription attests. The latter inscription is of this sort:

In the fourth year of Clement XI, Pope, Best and Greatest, In the third year of the episcopate of Philip Anthony Gualterio, Apostolic Nuncio to the Most Christian Louis XIV, king of the Franks, The venerable body of St. Cassian, bishop and martyr, And chief patron of this church, Recognized on the fifth of the Calends of October by the most serene, most serene, And laid up again in this leaden casket, Abbot Joseph Guerra, Vicar General, Solemnly placed in a marble sarcophagus On the Calends of the same October, in the year of salvation 1704, Indiction the twelfth.

Let these things be said here briefly concerning our Martyr's body: for what was devised and done at Imola for his honoring, especially in that last solemnity, how sumptuous, how august, may be read at length in Manzoni.

[15] Other relics of the same both there, There are also other relics of the same Saint, both there and elsewhere: and there indeed his arm, "which, according to the ancient custom of the Church," says the author of the History of the bishops of Imola, page 234, "bishop Sinibald willed to be kept apart from the rest of the same Saint's body for the public veneration of the faithful, and which in the fourteenth century Michael Porcelli"

"took care with munificent piety to place within a noble silver case, which represents the arm and hand of a bishop giving a blessing," as the words engraved there testify. There is besides in honor among the people of Imola a column, concerning which the same author writes thus on page 75: "In the year 1085 they relate that there was found the column to which St. Cassian, bound, obtained the palm of martyrdom, and that it was placed by Morandus (then bishop of Imola) in a chapel, which was thereafter called the Cross of St. Cassian and the Covered Cross." He adds in the Tomb of Sts. Projectus and Maurelius Illustrated, page 120: "Now in the same place, a quarter of an Italian mile distant from the city (toward Bologna), it is religiously preserved in the church built by bishop Rodolfo Paleotti on the Aemilian way near the place of the martyrdom in the year 1612: to which, on the vigil of the festal celebration of that same Saint, his sacred arm is yearly carried in solemn supplication, with the attendance of both clergies and of the confraternities." Emilio Luchini also, in the Martyrdom of St. Cassian, which he inscribed to the same Paleotti in the year 1614, page 37, records that very many benefits are there conferred on those who flee to the patronage of the holy Martyr, and that this is clear from the votive offerings hung up in the same place.

[16] and relics elsewhere. Tillemont, in the Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 5, page 532, judges that the relics of this Cassian were those which St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, in Dictio 4, signifies that Maximus his predecessor used about the beginning of the sixth century in the dedication of a certain church, which our Sirmond in the same place notes to have been consecrated by him under the title of Sts. John the Baptist, Antoninus, and Cassian. That the head of this same Martyr is preserved, Saussay seems to have believed in the Supplement to his Martyrology, page 1157; when he reported these words there at the thirteenth day of August: "At Toulouse, the veneration of the heads of the glorious martyrs of Christ, Hippolytus and Cassian." Gelenius also, at the same day, in the Calendars of Cologne, page 713, makes mention of "Three Saints who bore the name of Cassian; whose relics are preserved in different churches": but there is no leisure to discuss so vague an assertion. Rayssius, in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 304, assigns something of a certain Cassian, a martyr, at Arras; but whether of this one or of another, he does not explain. In the Relic-list of the church of the Escorial in Spain there is noted "Cassian, Martyr, 13 August," and it is added: "A part of a bone with its skin, four fingers long, three broad." Most certainly relics of our Cassian are those which, in the year 1660 at Pesaro in Italy, toward the end of November, our Henschen and Papebroch venerated in the once cathedral, but then parochial, church of St. Cassian, together with relics of St. Peter Chrysologus; since they themselves saw on the spot the authentic instruments of both; as they noted in their manuscript Itinerary. Nor is there any more room for doubt concerning those of Brixen and of Comacchio; inasmuch as they were obtained in that last solemnity already described, in the year 1704, from the treasury of the church of Imola, then opened, with the lawful consent of all, as Manzoni relates in his History, page 414. Concerning the rest, if there are any elsewhere, there is neither need here of more, nor sufficient opportunity, to inquire.

§ III. His ancient Acts; a discussion of the more recent ones.

[17] After the original Acts, long since lost That the Acts of St. Cassian, martyr of Cornelium, had long been written down and preserved before the fifth century, the sacristan of that same church at Forum Cornelii plainly asserted at that time to Prudentius, as he was contemplating his martyrdom depicted on a panel, when he said:

"What thou beholdest, stranger, is no empty or old wives' tale: The picture reports a history which, handed down in books, shows the true faith of ancient time."

But those books have now perished for very many centuries, and nothing else of them has long since survived save what the sacristan already named narrated from them to Prudentius; and Prudentius transcribed it for posterity in an elegant poem in the book Περὶ στεφάνων, Hymn 9: which very poem was afterward so highly esteemed that, because from Prudentius's bound and poetic style it could not conveniently enough be understood by the simple and unlettered common folk, some anonymous writer older than the venerable Bede turned it from this into popular and loose speech and published it, and seemed to him worthy that he himself should imitate him in the Life of St. Felix, priest of Nola, which was to be reduced from the poem of St. Paulinus into humble and plain prose for the benefit of very many. Go to Bede in the Prologue to that Life, in us, January volume 1, page 943.

[18] This judgment and testimony of so great a man concerning the lucubration of that ancient interpreter had almost induced us there has always been the greatest authority in those things, to reprint it here subjoined to the Prudentian Hymn; but the matter being more maturely weighed, it seemed better to pass it over: for our design is one thing, that of that interpreter another. He bestowed his labor upon the simple only; we almost only upon the lettered, who pant solely for the sources, especially when illustrated; but the streams, such as is that interpretation, whose whole authority rests upon that one Poem, they for the most part neglect: as could be gathered also from the summaries of the Acts given in §1: for neither what St. Gregory of Tours exhibits at number 3, nor what Ado at number 4, nor what the other Martyrologists there cited narrate of this Saint's martyrdom, savor of the style of the anonymous interpreter, nor does any one of them there make mention of him, but only of Prudentius. There is added besides this, that that Hymn has come down to us far purer than its interpretation, whether as published in Surius and Mombritius, or in manuscript, at least in five copies collated by us.

[19] which Prudentius wrote; That Hymn alone, therefore, will be subjoined to our Commentary; inasmuch as, since the Acts of this Martyr are most brightly comprised in it, they have obtained among all so constant an authority through so many past centuries down to this very day, that we remember to have read no one who has hitherto called anything of them into doubt; no one, at least whose age is clearly known, who has dared to add anything to the things there narrated before the fourteenth century was well advanced; in which Peter de Natalibus in his Catalogue, book 7, chapter 58, began openly to build up certain new things — a few, however — concerning the Brixen episcopate of our St. Cassian and his subsequent pilgrimage to the people of Cornelium. But these things are disapproved by several modern critics not unskilled, for this very reason, that they were not handed down by Prudentius, to whom alone all the heralds of that same Martyr, however ancient, have adjusted their eulogies, not even excepting St. Peter Damian in the lucid Sermon which he wrote at length in the eleventh century on the martyrdom of St. Cassian, which is in Constantine Cajetan, in his Roman edition of his Works, the fortieth of the second volume.

[20] Other assertions of the more recent writers are discussed Since we can neither sufficiently establish additions of this kind, which are not few, nor convict them all of falsehood by certain arguments, therefore, that we may not give them no place at all, we now subjoin them collected, each with its own weight, to be weighed at the judgment of the learned and pious reader. And that we may make a beginning from his birth: there are those who have made this Martyr a native of Brescia, on the testimony of Fabricius in Rader, in his St. Cassian, Sacred Bavaria, volume 3, page 4; but Rader judges that this arose from the error whereby they carelessly confounded Brixen in Tyrol, where Equilinus writes that he was bishop, with Italian Brescia. The manuscript Acts of our Saint which we have from the library of the Roman Oratory (and which we therefore think to be the same which Baronius on this day, in the Annotations to the Roman Martyrology, records that he had) make him of Brixen with this opening: "Cassian, sprung from noble and Christian parents at Brixina, which is a town in Germany,… being elected bishop of his own country," etc. But these Acts are recent and of an author quite ignorant of ancient matters: their newness is indicated by what is read there concerning the column of St. Cassian, which we said above at number 15 was first found and enclosed in a chapel in the year of Christ 1085, in these words: "Which, kept to this present day on the Flaminian Way near the walls of the city under a little cell, is in the highest veneration among the natives." From the same passage thou understandest the author's ignorance; for he places Brixen as an episcopal see in the age of St. Cassian, whereas it first began to be such in the tenth century. Then he confounds the Flaminian Way, which reached only from Rome to Rimini, with the Aemilian Way, on which Forum Cornelii was situated (and we wonder that this same thing has not been corrected in the Lessons proper to the Saint, both those of Brixen and those of Imola). See therefore how much credit Acts of this kind deserve.

[21] Manzoni, in the Prelude to the History of the bishops of Imola, by a conjecture drawn from the name of Cassian, asserts concerning the Saint's birth: that St. Cassian was by nation an Italian and by origin a Roman, "sprung from the most noble stock of the Cassian family, patrician among the Romans." But the origin of a man is very often one thing, that of a name another; and this name, which arose at Rome six hundred years earlier and was famous through the whole Roman empire, anyone anywhere among the nations might long have either received or assumed before the Christian era, even though he had never seen Italy, Rome, or the Cassian clan. And indeed who would imagine that all the ancient Cassians, all the Cornelii, all the Herculeses, Hannibals, etc., sprang from that source whence they bear their derived names? Rightly therefore, in our opinion at least, does Rader confess of the name of Cassian that it is Italian rather than German; but of St. Cassian himself he says: "I, as I have nothing certain to say of his parents, so neither can I affirm of his native land (about which chiefly the question is in this place) whether he was an Italian or a German, a Norican or a Roman." Concerning the year of the Martyr's birth, and his education in letters, we adduce nothing; because it depends on what follows, namely on the offices which he is said to have borne when grown up, and on the year of the martyrdom.

[22] A weightier question is whether he was at any time bishop of Sabiona concerning his episcopate of Sabiona, which some deny; before he came to Forum Cornelii: for this some now deny; more affirm. Now there is, or rather was, Sabio, by others Sabiona, Sabona, etc., in the vernacular Seben, a town in the modern County of Tyrol on the river Eisack, distant from Brixen toward the south almost ten thousand paces. It once had its own bishops, down to the tenth century, as we have already said; when, leaving Sabiona, they translated the see to Brixen, from which the bishops began thenceforth continuously to be called bishops of Brixen, the title of Sabiona being made obsolete. Go to Hund with Gewold's additions in the Metropolis, volume 1, from page 439. Now those who deny that our Martyr was bishop there contend by the same argument that he attained this order neither there nor elsewhere, nor indeed ever at all; because, namely, neither Prudentius, nor his ancient interpreter, nor St. Ennodius, nor St. Gregory of Tours, nor St. Peter Damian, nor any writer either earlier than these, or contemporary, or nearly so, who at least has become known hitherto, nor any Martyrologies (which otherwise are wont everywhere to express the title of episcopal dignity), and not even the most recent Roman, make our St. Cassian a bishop by any indication whatever. As for what Rader says on page 15, that Prudentius wrote only those things which he had learned from the sacristan of Cornelium; and that that sacristan, being an unlettered man, could teach nothing further than what the picture set at the tomb exhibited — this, I say, does not satisfy: first, because that sacristan or doorkeeper is rashly imagined to have been so unlettered that he did not even know how to read, whereas he was an ordained cleric, as is gathered from the letter of St. Cornelius the Pope in Thomassin, On the Discipline of the Church, volume 1, book 2, chapter 30, number 9. Next, why should that sacristan have spoken of written Acts (above, number 17), if he had not read them? Besides, that picture certainly did not exhibit the words by which the boys assailed their Master: whence, then, did the sacristan know them? Lastly, not Prudentius alone was ignorant of his episcopate, but all the others after him too, even Bl. Notker, who wrote his Martyrology about the end of the ninth century in the monastery of St. Gall among the Swiss, certainly not so far remote from Sabiona or Brixen. It is asked, therefore, whence those who assert it prove a matter unknown in so many places and for so many centuries.

[23] others assert it. Baronius on this day, in the Annotations to the Roman Martyrology, maintains it from the manuscript Acts of the Saint which he had: "From which," he says, "this also is ascertained, that this same Cassian was bishop of Brescia" (by a typographical error, I suppose, for "of Brixen"); "and that, driven thence, and intending to come to Rome, he settled at Imola, and there opened a grammar-school, and at length consummated his martyrdom." Almost the same things Peter has in his Catalogue, book 7, chapter 58. It may be replied that both these authorities are too recent to be of force for establishing by themselves alone deeds of the fourth century: concerning the age of Peter of Equilio it was said above at number 19; concerning the age of those Acts, in the following number. Next, in both places Cassian is said to have been pontiff of the city of Brixen; which the men of Brixen themselves will now confess to be false. Hund, in the place cited, brings forward for the same opinion the Catalogue of the bishops of Sabiona, now of Brixen, in which the first place is held by St. Cassian: besides this, four verses, suited, as he adds, to the matter, not to the art; which he seems to hint were brought out by him from a certain very ancient manuscript book, in these words:

"The kindly-sounding [*] voice of the Father teaches Christ in Sabiona. Imola thus with styluses immolates the Crucified [*] one himself: For him whom Sabiona received as her first preacher, Him Imola with dreadful wounds made a martyr of Christ."

But neither will he altogether acquiesce in these who has noticed in Hund himself the uncertain antiquity of that Catalogue; and then also how mutilated and how far from entire were the monuments, or shreds, out of which it at length came forth compiled in the sixteenth century. The four-line poem no one perhaps will believe older than the thirteenth century, since the rhythm appears to be Leonine. Manzoni, a champion of the same opinion, adds first the tradition of both churches, of Imola and of Brixen. But we require the antiquity of this. Secondly, the image of Cassian mitred, painted in the apse of the cathedral of Imola nearly five hundred years ago. But do five hundred years, reckoned back from the year 1719 in which Manzoni wrote, suffice for the testimony of so ancient a matter? Besides, this image may have been painted in the time of the chronographer published by Ughelli, of whom below, and may signify the Saint's episcopate at Cornelium, which that Chronographer alone builds up, and which Manzoni altogether rejects. He adds thirdly and lastly the authority of his proper Office, granted for the churches both of Brixen and of Imola; but this is greatly weakened by the time of the grant, assigned by us above at number 5. For the rest, we have not seen firmer foundations for this assertion.

[24] But perhaps two Sts. Cassian, Martyrs, are here to be distinguished; The four earlier arguments Adam Walasser had without doubt read before he put the last hand, at Ingolstadt in the year 1599, to his German Martyrology, first corrected by the labor of our venerable Peter Canisius and then published in the year 1562, and afterward emended by new labors and reprinted at Ingolstadt in the year 1573. Yet hear how timidly he assents to them at this day, when to the eulogy of St. Cassian the martyr customary among the ancient Martyrologists — that is, without any mark of his episcopal dignity — he subjoins his own little observation, which we thus render into Latin: "It is thought that this Cassian was born at Brixen, and was bishop of Sabiona, and that in the habit of a pilgrim he went thence to Imola in Italy; where he opened a school and preached Christ." (What could be more cautious? For he does not dare to declare that he adopts that opinion as probable, much less as true. But receive also what follows:) "His body rests at Brixen in the cathedral church, of which he is patron." All the same things, in the same number of words, he had published in the year 1573: for his first edition we do not have. But what is this? Can the people of Brixen not have seen this work, published in Bavaria, for at least the whole 26 years which intervened between the second and the third impression? Who would believe it? But if they did see it, since they are not known to have opposed anything, are they not to be reckoned to have approved it, and so to have acknowledged that the body of St. Cassian is preserved among them? And yet that was not the body of St. Cassian of Imola, as is clear from the preceding paragraph; nor any notable part of it: for if they had had such, they would not have petitioned again by a solemn embassy at Imola in the year 1704; as Manzoni's History, page 414, narrates. May it not therefore be permitted to suspect that, as two different bodies appear here, so two Sts. Cassian are indicated, of whom one was buried first at Sabiona, and afterward always remained at Brixen; the other suffered at Imola and was there perpetually preserved; and whose Acts, not bodies, were once confounded? We decide nothing.

[25] This seems certain, that under the name of some St. Cassian M. (certainly not without relics of the same) there were once dedicated the cathedral churches both of Sabiona and the later one of Brixen: for this is expressly handed down of the first in the diploma of Louis IV of the year 909 in the cited Hund, or rather Gewold, page 469; of the second, in the diploma of the emperor Conrad II of the year 1027, in the same place, page 472. Merian too, in his description of the County of Tyrol, page 138, subjoining a picture of the ruined Sabiona, exhibits at number 2 a very ancient monument of that same St. Cassian M. in that place, namely a tower which is recorded to have once been his prison. He exhibits also, at number 6, a little chapel of the Virgin Mother, such as they say the same Saint founded there; but he does not note whether it is believed to be that same one, or another more recent. But let us return to St. Cassian M., certainly of Cornelium, whose most ancient cult on this day we have proved.

* elsewhere: high-sounding

* elsewhere: pierced through

§ IV. A continuation of the same discussion.

Whence the Saint came to the people of Cornelium: That St. Cassian lived at Forum Syllae or Cornelii, there is now no one who disputes; but whence he came thither neither Prudentius nor others whose authority may seem sufficiently safe have indicated. Yet those same more recent writers who build up his episcopate, whether of Sabiona or of Brixen, will have it that he came thence to the people of Cornelium; to whom add the anonymous Chronographer of Imola — and, on the judgment of Tillemont, who is here fair enough, a notably fabulous one — whom Ughelli, having dug him out of the Vatican archive, prefixes to the bishops of Imola: for he, although he by no means signifies that our Martyr was bishop of Brixen (in which point he is deserted by Ughelli himself), nevertheless fetches him also thence to the people of Forum Syllae, but in a manner different from the rest: for others narrate that he came driven out by the pagans and an exile; but this man, that he was delivered by divine power from prison and came as a fugitive; and this under the emperor Valens, whom he makes a persecutor of Christians; whereas no man of sense has ever imagined that St. Cassian survived Julian the Apostate, and those most skilled in antiquity make him much earlier.

[27] whether he was their bishop: That same writer affirms that the coming of this Guest fell out so pleasing to Forum Cornelii "that by the zeal of the citizens it was brought about that he was raised by his exemplary goodness to the pontifical mitre of this city." Nor do there seem to be out of tune with him, in Ferrari at this day, an obscure epigram, by whom I know not, page 509, and a hymn, page 510, wrongly subjoined to Cassian of Todi; except that in these the episcopate of Brixen is ascribed to our Martyr before that of Forum Cornelii. But of this last the rest are silent. Nay, Manzoni in the praised Prelude, page XXXVI, says: "But most of all is it erroneous that St. Cassian was bishop of Cornelium, as a certain anonymous writer has written: for neither do the ecclesiastical Annals report this, nor has any approved author asserted it." Further, the Ughellian chronographer goes on in the same place to describe the subsequent deeds of the Saint among the people of Cornelium, and his martyrdom long afterward; but he adorns them with fables so rank, so palpable, that one is ashamed to transcribe them; since they conflict not only with sound chronology, but also with the best-known histories. Receive them rather from his proper Office of the churches of Brixen and Imola:

[28] what he did among them, "But when he had come to Forum Cornelii (which is now called Imola), seeing that people given over to the worship of idols, he purposed by divine counsel to sow there the true faith of the Christian religion; and that he might the more easily accomplish this, he began to teach boys grammar and humane letters, to whom, when it fell out that he expounded profane books, showing by reasons that the worship of images was vain, he set forth to them the chief points of the faith, and, cultivating their tender age in the Christian religion, sowed the word of God. And when this was published through that city, he is accused before the prefect of the city as the author of a new religion; by whom, being asked what art he professed, he answered that he preached Jesus Christ, the author of the salvation of the whole world, to those who knew him not. And when the prefect could by no means draw him away from that purpose, devising a new and cruel kind of martyrdom, he orders Cassian to be delivered to be tortured and slain at the will of his pupils, to whom by teaching he had become hateful.

[29] what he suffered, "But the impious pupils, stirred up against the Master from whom they had received the precepts of life, rush raging upon him bound to a marble column (which is still honored on the Flaminian Way, near the city, in a chapel which now stands as a parish church), and with their tablets and iron styluses bruise and tear his sacred body on every side. Pierced through for a long while with their wounds, and cruelly tormented, he rendered his unconquered spirit to God, on the Ides of August." Thus there — the nearer to the truth in proportion as they approach Prudentius rather than either the manuscript Acts of Baronius, or the chronicle published by Ughelli, or that other of Philip Saxus which Father Emilio Luchini praises and follows in his Martyrdom of St. Cassian. Whether, however, these very things sufficiently agree in all points with the Prudentian Hymn will presently appear, when we bring it forward, after we have interposed a few things concerning the time of the martyrdom.

[30] and when; Concerning the time of his martyrdom there were formerly several opinions; but that one has almost suppressed the rest in the sixteenth century which asserted that Cassian suffered under Julian the Apostate, a little after the law against Christian professors issued by him in the East, in the consulship of Mamertinus and Nevitta, in the year of Christ 362, on the fifteenth of the Calends of July; but received at Spoleto in Umbria on the Calends of August, and thereafter promulgated through the provinces of the West — concerning which Baronius may be read at length at that same year. But this very opinion was in the past century so assailed, among others, by that most learned man Anton Crosini, Vicar of Brixen, that it might now have seemed extinct among the learned, had not the most illustrious Manzoni in the year 1719 so laboriously revived it in the Prelude to his History. Thus there now remain two heads of this controversy: the first, of those who would have the combat of this Martyr referred to the year of Christ 362; the other, of those who contend that it befell before the reign of Constantine the Great: for concerning the day of the martyrdom or of the deposition, the thirteenth of August, all agree. Let us see the foundations of both heads.

[31] Manzoni, who maintains the first, brings forward chiefly these things for himself. whether under Julian the Apostate, First: St. Cassian was bishop of Sabiona; but Sabiona was not adorned with an episcopal chair until after the year of Christ 320: therefore he did not undergo martyrdom before the reign of Constantine. Secondly: that this Martyr fell under Julian is a long-standing tradition of the churches both of Brixen and of Imola, to which authors of the sixteenth century, neither few nor obscure, have accommodated themselves. Thirdly: Prudentius, describing his martyrdom, makes mention of his school in these words:

"The Master of the flock of pupils is dragged out from the midst of the company, because he had scorned to make supplication at the altars."

He seems therefore to hint at a twofold cause of his apprehension, corresponding to the edict of Julian alone; namely that he had scorned to make supplication at the altars, or idols; and that meanwhile he was teaching boys as master of a flock of pupils. To us these things seem of little strength; since it may be answered to the first, that it is now very greatly doubted whether he was ever bishop of Sabiona; and next, that the beginnings of the church of Sabiona are utterly obscure and unknown, which is clear even from Hund. To the second: that the tradition of those churches concerning the death of St. Cassian under Julian is indeed said to be long-standing, but is not proved; that it was certainly unknown to, or rejected by, the not very ancient writer of Imola of the Chronicle which we called above the Ughellian; nay rather, that it was tacitly disapproved by order of the Roman Congregation in the year 1616, in the Office or proper Legend of the Saint for the church of Imola, these words being struck out — "in the reign of Julian the Apostate" — which had been left in the same Legend approved for the people of Brixen in the year 1604, and which Ferrari wrongly ascribes to the Legend of Imola. To the third: that the sole cause of his apprehension was that "he had scorned to make supplication at the altars" is made manifest from the following verse of Prudentius, where the prefect who had ordered him to be apprehended is said not yet then to have known what art the Saint professed, but only this, that "he had scorned to make supplication at the altars."

[32] For the other head, not to heap up many things, these two seem to suffice: or rather much earlier. first, that, on the testimony of Prudentius, Cassian fell in a savage and general persecution of the Christians, this being expressed in the distich,

"Behold, a savage tempest, shaking their faith, was pressing hard upon the people dedicated to Christian glory"; but there was no such persecution in Italy under Julian, none after the beginnings of Constantine. The second is taken from the same Prudentius, where he narrates that the sacristan, being consulted, answered him as he gazed at the effigy of Cassian:

Here thou seest the history of his martyrdom called a history "of ancient time" at the beginning of the fifth century, that is, scarcely more than forty years after the death of Julian. Could it, pray, have been so called, if it had befallen under Julian? To me at least it does not appear so; nor now to all the others generally who have touched this argument; among whom Tillemont, volume 5 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 794, says that it is certain that this does not agree with Prudentius, who makes this Saint much more ancient than himself, though he was born about thirteen years before the reign of Julian. But how much more ancient? Much; neither he himself nor others dare to define anything further. To Crosini, however, it seems credible, what he read in George Braun, that St. Cassian perished under Diocletian; which as we ought not to deny, so we cannot confirm. Then certainly, if ever, there prevailed the most atrocious violence of those who compelled all Christians whatsoever to make supplication at the sacrilegious altars of the idols; as Lactantius teaches, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 15.

ACTS

By the author Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, in the book Περὶ στεφάνων, Hymn IX. From our parchment and most ancient codices ✠ Ms. 63 and ✠ Ms. 66.

Cassian, Martyr, of Imola (St.)

BHL Number: 1625

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.

Prudentius at the tomb of St. Cassian "Sylla Cornelius established a forum; this the Italians call a city, from the very name of its founder. Here, when I was seeking thee, Rome, greatest of all things ^a, a hope arose in me that Christ would be favorable: Laid low upon the ground, I rolled myself at the tomb which the holy Martyr Cassian adorns with his consecrated body. While weeping I reckon with myself my wounds [*] and all the toils of life, and the sharp points of sorrows, I raised my face to heaven: there stood before me, facing me, the image of the Martyr painted with hues of color [*], Bearing a thousand blows, torn through all his limbs, showing forth his skin broken with tiny punctures. Around him countless boys (a pitiable sight!) were piercing his stabbed limbs with little styluses, Wherewith [*], being wont to run over the waxen writing-tablets ^b, they had written down and noted the murmur of the school.

[2] "The sacristan, being consulted, says: What thou beholdest, stranger, is no empty or old wives' tale: learns that he had taught boys to write; The picture reports a history; which, handed down in books, shows the true faith of ancient time. He had presided over the studies of boys, and, hemmed in by a great flock, had sat as a master of letters, Skilled to compass all words with brief marks ^c, and swiftly to follow what was spoken with hurrying points. Sometimes his precepts, seeming harsh and gloomy, had stirred the beardless crowd with anger and with fear: For a teacher is always bitter to the youth who learns, nor is the discipline of childhood sweet to any. Behold, a savage tempest, shaking their faith, was pressing hard upon the people dedicated to Christian glory: The Master of the flock of pupils is dragged out from the midst of the company, because he had scorned to make supplication at the altars.

[3] "To the contriver of punishments, asking what kind of art the man knew, so rebellious in his lofty spirit, but that when persecution arose he was condemned, They answer: He governs a tender and boyish band, training them to mark words with feigned signs. Lead him away, he cries, lead the captive away, and let the scourger be freely given up to the little ones themselves: Let them mock him as they please, tear him unpunished, and dip in their master's blood their hands now on holiday ^d. It is a delight that the stern Teacher himself should furnish sport to the pupils whom he restrained too much. His hands are bound behind his back; stripped of his cloak, the band is at hand, armed with sharp styluses. As much hatred as each had conceived in silent anger, he pours forth, burning, with his gall at last set free. Some hurl their brittle tablets and break them upon his face: the wood springs apart from the battered brow: The waxen boxwood ^e crackles, dashed upon his bloody cheeks, and the curved swelling page ^f grows red from the blow.

[4] "Then others brandish their goads and iron points, with the part whereby the wax is written on in ploughed furrows, to be slain by the very styluses and tablets of these, And with that whereby the cut letters are wiped out, and the surface of the shaggy field is renewed and shines again: On this side the Confessor of Christ is dug at, on that he is cut: part enters the soft flesh, part slits the skin ^g. Two hundred hands pierced all his limbs alike, and as many drops from the wounds trickle at once. The child who had pricked the surface ^h was a greater tormentor than he who had bored through the deep inward parts: The latter was light, since a striker who denies death knows how to rage only with the barbs of pain; The former, the more inwardly he strikes the hidden seats of life, the more of healing he gives, while he brings death near. Be strong, I pray, and conquer your years by your strength: let cruelty supply what is wanting to your age. But the tender and feeble one labors in an ill-attempted task: the torments grow, while the executioner grows weary.

[5] "Why dost thou groan? cries one: thou thyself, master, gavest this iron and armed our hands. amid the most atrocious taunts: Behold, we render back to thee as many thousands of marks as, standing and weeping under thy teaching, we received. Thou canst not be angry that we write: thou thyself didst bid that the right hand should never carry an idle stylus. We do not ask, bitter teacher, for the school holidays so often refused by thee our preceptor. It is our pleasure to set down points, and to weave furrows into furrows, to entangle the bent strokes with chains ⁱ. Thou mayest correct the verses inspected in their long order, if by chance a faulty hand has erred in anything. Exercise thy authority: thou hast the right to punish the fault, if any of thine own has written more slackly than thou wouldst. Such were the sports the boys made upon the Master's limbs: nor did a long punishment release the wearied Man. At last Christ from heaven, pitying him in his struggle ^k, bids the bonds of his breast be loosed: And he relaxes the difficult delays of the soul and the moorings of life, and sets free its narrow hiding-places. The blood, following from the inward fountain of the veins the open ways, forsakes the heart, And through so many openings of the pierced body there goes forth, panting, that vital warmth of the fibres.

[6] "These are the things which, expressed in clear colors, stranger, thou wonderest at: this is the glory of Cassian. Offer, if thou hast any just or lovely prayer, but that now with God he prevails by his merits and patronage. if thou hast any hope, if within thou art troubled with anything. Believe me, the most prosperous Martyr hears all prayers, and he makes valid those which he sees to be approvable. I obey, I embrace the tomb, I pour out tears also; the altar grows warm with my mouth, the stone with my breast. Then I run over all the secrets of my trouble: then I murmur what I was seeking, what I was fearing: And the home left behind me under doubtful fortune, and the hope of future good perhaps wavering ^l. I am heard: I reach the City, I enjoy favorable successes, I return home, I proclaim Cassian."

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is, sins

* that is, with various colors

* that is, with which

* for "tingant"