ON ST. MODERATUS BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
AT VERONA IN ITALY.
In the fifth century.
The public cultus of the Saint, his eulogy, his body, his age.
Moderatus, bishop and confessor, at Verona in Italy (St.)
J. P.
So few are the documents which forgetful antiquity has transmitted to posterity concerning this holy Prelate He is praised by various writers as a Saint: that it has made us destitute of nearly all things which pertain to him. Concerning the public
cultus of the man there is sufficient certainty for him to be numbered among the other Heavenly ones of this day as a saint. This title is given him by Ferrari in both his Catalogues, by Ughelli, volume 5 of Italia sacra, among the bishops of Verona, column 695 of the latest Venetian edition, and by other writers to be cited below; to whom add Castellanus in his universal Martyrology. The praised Ughelli records these things concerning him: The feast of St. Moderatus, prelate of the same see, is celebrated on the X Kal. of Sept., concerning whom it is read, as he adds, reporting a short eulogy of this Man: Moderatus, bishop of Verona, kept moderation through all the time of his episcopate: he so tempered the severity of the law with clemency that all both loved and revered him, and most willingly followed his will and authority. Toward the poor he showed himself liberal. He died on the X Kal. of Aug. He lies buried in the same church of St. Stephen, near the holy water. Like things are found in Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on this day, and in the most illustrious Augustino Valerio among the Ancient Monuments of the Holy Bishops of Verona, folio 41.
[2] In the same place, folio 10, these things had preceded: The body of St. Moderatus, bishop of Verona, rests in the church of St. Stephen, his body laid up in the church of St. Stephen: as from the ancient tablet of parchment, concerning which above, where of St. Alexander… The same is had from the synodal constitution on the XXIII day of August, and from the tablet of the Saints on the same day; concerning which above. Further, that church Onofrio Panvinio describes in book 4, chapter 4, of his Commentaries on Veronese Antiquities: The basilica of St. Stephen at Verona is among the most ancient churches of that city, built in the first times of the Christians a little outside the gate of the city, in the place which was called At the Little Springs, on the road to Trent: which is handed down to have been at one time the cathedral. When Theodoric, king of Italy, an Arian hostile to the Homoousians, had ordered it to be destroyed, being prevented by death he could not do it. In it are laid up the bodies of many holy bishops of Verona: and among them that of St. Moderatus.
[3] he sat in the 5th century. Now, even as the deeds of this holy Bishop are unknown, so likewise I do not read the time in which he lived, or the years during which he sat, determined by the authors whose passages I cited; nor in the Catalogue of the bishops of Verona which Giovanni Battista Peretti drew up. Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Ughelli designated before, indicate that he was the twenty-fourth bishop in order, the successor of St. Felix. But what could you closely determine from this, since in the catalogue of the Prelates of Verona in the same Ughelli there are set down not a few predecessors and successors of St. Moderatus without any note of the years of their life and episcopate? Yet Syagrius, whom our Saint follows in the sixth place there, and who, as is there said, lived in the year CCCLXXX under Theodosius, opens some chink of light, so that, even if we can establish nothing certain hence concerning the years of our Saint's life and see, yet from the order of the bishops which he sets down we can gather that St. Moderatus was bishop in the fifth century. But by what reasoning it may be permitted to draw this out, we set forth in a few words. After Syagrius, of whom we have already treated, six bishops are set down, St. Moderatus being reckoned among them; but after him there follow another eight; to whom is subjoined St. Simplicius, who, as is added, flourished about the year CDXC. If therefore we go back hence to Syagrius, we have altogether sixteen bishops, who from the year of Christ 360 down to about the year 490 lived. Whence it seems to follow that St. Moderatus governed the church of Verona in the fifth century, according to the order of the praised Ughelli, in which he composed the series of the bishops of Verona. Peretti sets the time of Syagrius and of St. Simplicius a little later, saying that the former lived about the year of the Lord 380, and the latter about the year 500; but he omits the prelates interposed between the two just named. There may be consulted what was said concerning St. Maximus, bishop of Verona, among us on the XXIX day of May, page 37, and concerning St. Alexander, prelate of the same city, on the IV day of June, page 399. Nor are there more things at hand which we might bring forward concerning this holy Prelate of Verona.