ON ST. CALLISTUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR,
AT TODI IN UMBRIA.
In the year 528.
CommentaryCallistus, Bishop and Martyr, at Todi in Umbria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
The things which were noted yesterday concerning the cult and relics of St. Cassian, likewise bishop and martyr of Todi, He is announced on this day in the Roman Martyrology: pertain equally to this St. Callistus; nor do we judge that they must be repeated here. Each was added to the Martyrology at the same time; but Callistus at this day, in these words: At Todi, of holy Callistus, bishop and martyr; before this he was unknown to all the Calendars outside the church of Todi. He had ancient Lessons in the Office among his own people, which Louis Jacobilli in the Lives of the Saints of Umbria, volume 2, page 118, testifies are still preserved there in the episcopal archive; adding that others, new ones, are now read, approved by the Sacred Roman Congregation in the year 1602; and that his feast is now celebrated at Todi with a double rite. No Acts of his are known, except those which John Baptist Possevino collected in a brief Italian compendium from the Annals of Todi preserved there in the city's record office, at this day in the Lives of the Saints of Todi, page 37. But since from that compendium the Latin eulogy scarcely differs which Ferrari sets forth on this day in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy from the Office of the church of Todi, it has seemed good to recite this rather than to translate that. Thus therefore it runs:
[2] Callistus, bishop of Todi, notable for piety, administered the church of Todi at that time he has a eulogy in Ferrari and in others. in which the Arian Goths had occupied Italy. Who, when he bore the episcopal office with great constancy and religion in that calamity of the times, preserved his church untouched by that stain of the Arian heresy. He built the cathedral church of St. John the Baptist near the forum of the city. Fortunatus of Poitiers, a most holy man, setting out from Gaul to Rome, he received in hospitality; whom also on his return he made helper of the episcopal court, and afterwards had as successor in the bishopric. With a most harsh hair-shirt, which even now sends forth a most sweet odor, he macerated his body. Famous for these and other pious deeds, the holy Bishop, while he rebuked the abandoned manners of certain men, was most cruelly pierced through by the spears and swords of their retainers, and flew away to the everlasting palm of martyrdom on the XIX of the Kalends of September, in the year after the birth of Christ 528. Whose body rests honorably in the church of St. Fortunatus. Thus Ferrari; to which not unlike are the things which Ughelli reports in Italia sacra, volume 1, among the bishops of Todi, and the Jacobilli just praised, who, since he adds that he sat only four years, determines that he was bishop from about the year of Christ 524. Concerning St. Fortunatus, who is here said to have succeeded St. Callistus, we shall treat on his birthday, the XIV of October.