Honoratus

ON ST. HONORATUS, BISHOP OF MILAN

In the year of Christ 570.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Honoratus, Bishop of Milan (St.)

By the author I. B.

Section I. The flight of St. Honoratus on account of the Lombards.

[1] At the time when the Lombards, under the leadership of Alboin, subjugated the Insubres and other peoples of Cisalpine Gaul, the Church of Milan was governed by Bishop Honoratus, conspicuous for such holiness of life that he is not only celebrated among his own people with an annual solemnity but has also been inscribed in the Roman Calendar under the sixth day before the Ides of February with these words: "At Milan, the deposition of St. Honoratus, Bishop and Confessor."

[2] Scarcely anything at all was committed to writing by the ancients concerning him, except these few words of Paulus Diaconus in book 2 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 25: "Alboin therefore, entering Liguria at the beginning of the third Indiction, on the third day before the Nones of September, in the time of Archbishop Honoratus, entered Milan. Thereafter he took all the cities of Liguria except those situated on the seacoast. Honoratus the Archbishop, abandoning Milan, fled to the city of Genoa." Paulus also reports: "The Patriarch Paulinus, having exercised the priesthood for twelve years, was taken from this light, and left the Church to be governed by Probinus." This Paulus is elsewhere, and universally, called Paulinus, the pseudo-Bishop of Aquileia, called Patriarch by the schismatic Bishops—a new and proud title which, however, the Roman Pontiffs afterward tolerated in his successors, when the Church was reconciled, for the sake of peace. What is said to have occurred at the beginning of the third Indiction, in the month of September, took place at the end of the year 569 of the common era.

[3] Whether Honoratus fled from fear of the approaching enemy, or after he saw the city, which had been surrendered on his advice, plundered as if it had been captured by storm, the opinions of more recent writers leave in doubt. Bernardinus Corius, in part 1 of his History of Milan, writes thus: "Then Alboin entered Milan on the third of September. For this reason, Archbishop Honoratus fled from the city to Genoa." Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, in book 10 of his Chronicle: "Honoratus, fearing the onslaught of Alboin, King of the Lombards, for a time abandoned his Church and fled to the city of Genoa." Carolus Sigonius, in book 1 of the Kingdom of Italy, under the year 570: "Alboin, having set out against the Insubres, was received within the city of Milan on the advice of Archbishop Honoratus. Then he advanced his army against the very capital of the province, Milan. The city was protected neither by a strong garrison nor by powerful fortifications. And so, as the arrival of Alboin was imminent, Archbishop Honoratus, terrified by the reported savagery of the powerful enemy, betook himself to the city of Genoa, situated on the sea, and most of the leading men followed him. Alboin, moving his army up to the walls and showing that he would storm the city if it did not surrender, drove the citizens, struck with terror of utter destruction, to capitulation. Thus Milan was received on the Nones of September, in the third Indiction." So Sigonius, who should have added, as Paulus Diaconus has it, that this occurred at the beginning of the third Indiction, and on the third day before the Nones of September, not on the Nones themselves. Antonius Beffa Nigrinus reports the same in his Eulogies of the House of Castiglione: that when Alboin was approaching with a powerful army, the Bishop, together with a great part of the people, since there were not the forces to resist the barbarian, withdrew to Genoa. And Joannes de Deis writes: "Fearing the fury of Alboin, King of the Lombards, he abandoned for a time the Church entrusted to him and fled to the city of Genoa." Franciscus Besutius writes the same.

[4] But Blondus Flavius, in decade 1, book 8, of his Histories: "Then, having crossed the river Adda, Alboin led his army to Milan; and when the citizens surrendered the city at the persuasion of Bishop Honoratus, he quickly took it. Honoratus had hoped to mitigate the savagery of the barbarians through the ease of the surrender; but perceiving the contrary shortly after, he betook himself to Genoa, a city that remained loyal to the Roman people." Tristanus Calcus writes more briefly to the same effect in book 4 of his history of the fatherland: "In the third year, having marched against the Insubres, he was received within the city of Milan at the persuasion of Archbishop Honoratus; and shortly afterward, contrary to his promises, he allowed the city to be plundered by the barbarians. Honoratus, moved by the indignity of this affair, went into exile at Genoa." Georgius Merula also, in book 1 of the Antiquities of the Visconti: "He was received into the city by the Milanese at the persuasion of Bishop Honoratus, and contrary to the agreements, he plundered the city."

[5] Josephus Ripamontius amplifies the entire matter, not without some reproach of Honoratus, in book 8 of his History of the Church of Milan: "Honoratus of the Castiglione family, from the Milanese nobility, had succeeded Auxanus—in other respects a great man, but less fortunate in this one aspect, that he ended his life in voluntary exile and almost seemed to deserve that the Milanese should hold him responsible for the calamity of the city's destruction. For when the barbarian approached the walls and, though the situation was difficult, it seemed that the first assault could be withstood, and the citizenry was inclined in that direction, Honoratus is said to have been the author of surrendering the city, having received an assurance from the barbarians that they would not violate the surrendered city. But soon, contrary to the agreement, it was plundered no less than if the enemy, worn out by a long siege, were raging against the captives out of fury and grief. Nor was there an end to the complaints by which they accused Honoratus as a betrayer of the public safety. And he, both unequal to the grief of seeing his people dragged about and laid waste, and burdened by the hatred which the public calamity was fanning and which individuals severally aggravated, voluntarily went into exile among the Ligurians."

[6] What Leander Albertus writes about these matters in his account of Transpadane Lombardy diverges from the opinion of the others and, as I believe, from the truth itself: "The Lombards," he says, "after the departure of Narses, under the leadership of Alboin, penetrated into Italy through the territory of Friuli; and having subdued all of Venetia, they marched to Milan, and after a severe and long siege, took it by capitulation. Wherefore Alboin here received the iron crown from Bishop Frontinus, according to the ancient custom." He adds: "Merula, however, writes that Alboin was received within the walls at the persuasion of Bishop Honoratus, and that he plundered the city contrary to his pledged word. Blondus indeed reports that Alboin was introduced at the persuasion of Honoratus, but he makes no mention of plundering; indeed, elsewhere he expressly denies that the city suffered any damage from Alboin." So Leander, neither very successful in what he draws from his own judgment or from fabulous annals, nor faithful in citing others. For Milan was not besieged for a long time by Alboin, nor was Probinus then the Bishop, nor would Alboin, a pagan, have wished to have the crown placed on him by a Bishop—to say nothing of the institution of the iron crown, which he himself admits is established by more serious writers as much more recent than the age of Alboin. But how does Blondus make no mention of the plundering, when we have cited his words from the eighth book of his Histories? And he also speaks thus in his Italia Illustrata: "The same city was not indeed destroyed by the Lombards (no one asserts this) but was subjected to the greatest disturbances." Is this "to suffer no damage"?

[7] Which of these judgments of the writers concerning the flight of Honoratus is more worthy of belief, I would not venture to pronounce. But lest I seem to have concealed anything, I consider that the Bishop consulted the interests of his Church better by temporarily avoiding the fury of the barbarians, especially if the majority of the people, and at least the leading men, were taking flight, and the rest were not left destitute of all priestly protection. Nor indeed could the leading men of the Clergy and people fail to advise him of this—not so much that he should not risk danger to his own person, but that he should not be compelled to pay an enormous sum, by which not only the resources of the Church but also the private fortunes of all would be exhausted. There was also hope that the barbarians would not linger long in those places but, laden with booty, would return to Pannonia whence they came, or would otherwise be expelled by force of arms—just as shortly before, the rule of the Vandals in Africa and of the Goths in Italy had been overthrown by the Emperor's generals. Furthermore, the Bishop of the chief city, born of a noble house, seemed likely to implore the Emperor's aid with greater authority than anyone else. It was therefore better that he should allow the city—not long before devastated by the Goths and perhaps not yet adequately furnished with buildings or fortified with walls and ramparts—to suffer the lightest possible fate, to be restored shortly after (if God should grant it) to its former liberty and power, rather than that, by attempting to resist the victory-elated King without a strong garrison, he should drag it along with its entire populace into utter destruction. What if he withdrew because he perceived that the people wished to come to terms with the enemy, while he himself was averse to that course? For what others conjecture is no more credible than this. Everyone can draw the weight of the arguments in the direction to which his own thoughts more incline, since there is no writer close to those times on whose authority one can rely with sufficient certainty.

Section II. The pseudo-synod of Aquileia in the time of St. Honoratus; another, far later, believed by Baronius to be the same.

[8] The feast of St. Honoratus is a solemnity for the Church of Milan, as is evident from the Breviary printed in the year 1535; the Office, however, is that which is common to all Bishops, without even proper Readings—I believe because there was nothing available from which these could be suitably composed. Ferrarius, however, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, drawing from a Breviary that was perhaps older and later set aside, and from the Acts of the Church of Milan, reports the following about St. Honoratus—though he himself admits that it requires some critical examination: "Honoratus, born at Milan of the Castiglione family, was endowed with such virtues that he succeeded St. Auxanus in the episcopate, especially on account of his eloquence, learning, and sanctity of life, under the Supreme Pontiff Benedict. He largely restored the Church, which had been greatly weakened by the barbarity of the Lombards. He attended the Council of Aquileia, in which he admirably defended the Council of Chalcedon against the heretics, and there he consecrated Paulinus as Patriarch of Aquileia. After these and other pious deeds, by which his sanctity shone forth, he rested in the Lord on the seventh day before the Ides of February, having presided over the Church of Milan for three years. His body was buried in the basilica of St. George at Noxeta."

[9] Here two things are imputed to Honoratus as though most honorable, which, if he had done them, ought to be turned to his greatest disgrace: namely, that he attended the Council of Aquileia (which Besutius also reports of him) and that he consecrated Paulinus. If any assembly of Bishops was held at Aquileia at that time—about which we shall presently inquire—it was not a legitimate council of the Church but a conventicle of those who maliciously disparaged the authority of the Apostolic See; in which, under the pretext of defending the Council of Chalcedon, a most terrible schism was fomented, by which the Bishops of Istria and Venetia separated themselves from the communion of the Apostolic See on account of the Three Chapters, which we discussed at length on 5 February in connection with St. Ingenuinus of Brixen.

[10] Pope Pelagius seems to be referring to this conventicle in epistle 5 to the Patrician Narses, which we shall cite in full below, where he speaks thus: "Nor has it ever been permitted to anyone, nor will it ever be permitted, to convene a particular synod"—meaning, of course, one convened for the purpose of consecrating the Bishop of Aquileia. A synod was held around the same time in Illyricum (unless it is the same one, with the name of Illyricum taken in a broader sense) in support of the Three Chapters; St. Isidore mentions it in his book On Illustrious Men, chapter 31, where he writes of the Emperor Justinian: "He also composed a rescript against the Synod of Illyricum and against the African Bishops who, with perverse zeal, defended the Council of Chalcedon." Baronius considers the Synod of Aquileia to have been different from the one of Illyricum, in volume 7 under the year 553, number 222. "Hence it happened," he says, "that the Bishops of Venetia and the adjacent regions, since they were under the dominion of the Franks (for the Franks then ruled those provinces), convened a Council at Aquileia against the Fifth Synod," which Bede mentions. Severinus Binius writes that the Council of Aquileia was convened in the year 553 because in places within the Roman Empire, by the edict of Justinian, who was persecuting the defenders of the Three Chapters, this was not permitted; he then cites the words of Bede from his book On the Six Ages of the World.

[11] What places the Franks held in Italy in the year 553, I do not find, nor do I inquire. In the following year, under the auspices of King Theudebald, Buccelinus overran a great part of Italy and was then killed by Narses, and Italy was taken for the Emperor's side, nor was there anyone to recover it thereafter—as St. Gregory of Tours relates in book 4, chapter 9, of his History of the Franks. This happened either in the year 554 or at the beginning of the following year. In the same year 555, Pope Vigilius died and was succeeded by Pelagius, in whose time that Synod of Aquileia was held, in which Paulinus was ordained around the year 557 or 558, when the Franks had long since been expelled from those places.

For this reason Archbishop Honoratus fled from the city to Genoa. Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, in book 10 of his Chronicle: "Honoratus, fearing the onslaught of Alboin, King of the Lombards, abandoned his Church for a time and fled to the city of Genoa." Carolus Sigonius, in book 1 of the Kingdom of Italy, under the year 570: "Having set out in the third year against the Insubres, he was received within the city of Milan at the persuasion of Archbishop Honoratus; and shortly afterward, contrary to his promises, he allowed the city to be plundered by the barbarians. Honoratus, moved by the indignity of this affair, went into exile at Genoa." Georgius Merula also, in book 1 of the Antiquities of the Visconti: "He was received into the city by the Milanese at the persuasion of Bishop Honoratus, and contrary to the agreements, he plundered the city."

[5] Josephus Ripamontius amplifies the entire matter, not without some reproach of Honoratus, in book 8 of his History of the Church of Milan: "Honoratus of the Castiglione family, from the Milanese nobility, had succeeded Auxanus—in other respects a great man, but less fortunate in this one aspect, that he ended his life in voluntary exile and almost seemed to deserve that the Milanese should hold him responsible for the calamity of the city's destruction. For when the barbarian approached the walls and, though the situation was difficult, it seemed that the first assault could be withstood, and the citizenry was inclined in that direction, Honoratus is said to have been the author of surrendering the city, having received an assurance from the barbarians that they would not violate the surrendered city. But soon, contrary to the agreement, it was plundered no less than if the enemy, worn out by a long siege, were raging against the captives out of fury and grief. Nor was there an end to the complaints by which they accused Honoratus as a betrayer of the public safety. And he, both unequal to the grief of seeing his people dragged about and laid waste, and burdened by the hatred which the public calamity was fanning and which individuals severally aggravated, voluntarily went into exile among the Ligurians."

[6] What Leander Albertus writes about these matters in his account of Transpadane Lombardy diverges from the opinion of the others and, as I believe, from the truth itself. He states that the Lombards, after the departure of Narses, penetrated into Italy through the territory of Friuli under the leadership of Alboin, and having subdued all of Venetia, marched to Milan, and after a severe and long siege took it by capitulation; and that Alboin received the iron crown from Bishop Frontinus. He then cites Merula and Blondus with inaccuracies. Leander is neither very reliable in what he draws from his own judgment or fabulous annals, nor faithful in citing others. For Milan was not besieged for a long time by Alboin, nor was Probinus the Bishop at that time, nor would Alboin as a pagan have wished a Bishop to crown him; and Blondus does indeed mention the plundering, as we cited from his eighth book of Histories.

[7] Which of these judgments concerning Honoratus's flight is more worthy of belief, I would not venture to pronounce. But I consider that the Bishop consulted the interests of his Church better by temporarily avoiding the fury of the barbarians, especially if the majority of the people and the leading men were also taking flight. There was hope that the barbarians would not linger long but would return to Pannonia laden with booty, or be expelled by force of arms. It was better that the city should suffer the lightest possible fate and be restored later to its former liberty, rather than that an attempt to resist the victory-elated King without a strong garrison should drag the city into utter destruction.

Section II. The pseudo-synod of Aquileia in the time of St. Honoratus; another, far later, believed by Baronius to be the same.

[8] The feast of St. Honoratus is a solemnity for the Church of Milan, as is evident from the Breviary printed in 1535; the Office, however, is the common one for all Bishops, without even proper Readings. Ferrarius, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, drawing from an older Breviary and the Acts of the Church of Milan, reports: "Honoratus, born at Milan of the Castiglione family, was endowed with such virtues that he succeeded St. Auxanus in the episcopate, especially for his eloquence, learning, and sanctity of life, under Pope Benedict. He largely restored the Church weakened by the Lombards' barbarity. He attended the Council of Aquileia, in which he admirably defended the Council of Chalcedon against the heretics, and there he consecrated Paulinus as Patriarch of Aquileia. He rested in the Lord on the seventh day before the Ides of February, having presided over the Church of Milan for three years. His body was buried in the basilica of St. George at Noxeta."

[9] Here two things are attributed to Honoratus as though most honorable, which if he had done them ought to be turned to his greatest disgrace: attending the Council of Aquileia and consecrating Paulinus. If any assembly of Bishops was held at Aquileia at that time, it was not a legitimate council but a conventicle of those who maliciously disparaged the authority of the Apostolic See, in which a most terrible schism was fomented over the Three Chapters.

[10] Pope Pelagius seems to refer to this conventicle in his epistle 5 to the Patrician Narses. A synod was held around the same time in Illyricum in support of the Three Chapters; Baronius considers the Synod of Aquileia to have been different from the Illyriciana. Severinus Binius writes that it was convened in 553 because in places within the Roman Empire, the edict of Justinian against the defenders of the Three Chapters made it impossible.

[11] What places the Franks held in Italy in 553, I do not find. In the following year, Buccelinus overran a great part of Italy under the auspices of King Theudebald and was then killed by Narses. In 555, Pope Vigilius died and was succeeded by Pelagius, in whose time the Synod of Aquileia was held, in which Paulinus was ordained around 557 or 558, when the Franks had long since been expelled from those places.

[12] But the Synod of which Bede speaks was held about one hundred and forty years later, in the time of Tiberius Absimarus, who was proclaimed Emperor by the army in the year of Christ 696. Thus Bede, in volume 2 of his book On the Six Ages: "Tiberius, seven years. A Synod held at Aquileia, through ignorance of the faith, hesitated to accept the Fifth Ecumenical Council, until, instructed by the salutary admonitions of the Blessed Pope Sergius, it also consented to agree with the other Churches of Christ." For how can it be thought to have been instructed by the admonitions of Sergius and to have agreed with him, if it had been held so long before? This is confirmed by Anastasius in his account of Sergius, writing thus: "In his time, the Archbishop of the Church of Aquileia, and the Synod convened under him, who had hesitated, as being in error, to accept the holy Fifth Ecumenical Council, were converted, instructed by the admonitions and teachings of that same most blessed Pope, and they accepted the venerable Council with satisfaction; and those who had formerly been held in the defect of error, illuminated by the teaching of the Apostolic See, were released to their homes in peace, in accord with the truth." St. Sergius held the papacy, as we shall say on 9 September, from the year 687 to 701. Not all the Bishops of Aquileia remained in the schism until that time, however, since we read that Maximus, the most holy Bishop of Aquileia, participated in the Lateran Council under Pope St. Martin. But it is plausible that the poison, lodged in the minds of some, flared up repeatedly.

Section III. The ordination of the pseudo-Bishop Paulinus, wrongly attributed to Honoratus.

[13] Now we must treat of the ordination of Paulinus. He died, as was said before, when Alboin was invading Liguria, in the year 569 or at the beginning of 570, after holding the See for twelve years. He was therefore ordained in the year 557 or 558, and indeed by the Archbishop of Milan. This is evident from epistle 5 of Pope Pelagius, which reads as follows: "Pelagius to the Patrician Narses. This is what we have demanded of you, and now demand again: that Paulinus, the pseudo-Bishop of Aquileia, and that Bishop of Milan, be sent under proper guard to the most clement Prince, so that the former, who can in no way be a Bishop because he was made one contrary to all canonical custom, may not further corrupt others; and the latter, who presumed to ordain him contrary to ancient practice, may be subjected to the punishment of the Canons. Nor has it ever been permitted to anyone, nor will it ever be permitted, to convene a particular Synod; but whenever any doubt arises among any persons about an Ecumenical Synod, either those who desire the salvation of their soul should voluntarily come to the Apostolic See to receive an explanation of what they do not understand; or if perhaps (as it is written of such people: 'When the sinner comes into the depth of evils, he shows contempt') they should prove so obstinate and contumacious that they refuse to be taught, it is necessary that they be drawn to salvation by those same Apostolic Sees by whatever means, or, lest they become the ruin of others, that they be restrained according to the Canons by the secular powers."

[14] He makes a similar request of the same Narses in epistle 4: "Remove such men from that province; make use of the opportunity offered you by God to suppress the treacherous. This can be done more fully if the authors of the crimes are sent to the most clement Prince, and especially the invader of the Church of Aquileia, who, both in schism and accursed therein, will be able to retain neither the honor nor the merit of a Bishop." Epistles 2 and 3 are of the same argument, and in the latter he has, among other things: "What shall I say of the Bishops of Liguria, Venetia, and Istria? Your Excellency is competent to restrain them both by reason and by power; yet you allow them, in contempt of the Apostolic Sees, to glory in their boorishness? Since if anything about the judgment of the Ecumenical Synod which was recently enacted at Constantinople during the first past Indiction troubled them, they ought to have sent (as has always been done) some chosen representatives of their own who could give and receive an account to the Apostolic See, and not, with closed eyes, rend the Body of Christ our God, that is, the holy Church." What he says was enacted "during the first Indiction" indicates the year 553, the twelfth year after the consulship of Basilius, in which the Fifth Synod was held.

[15] What Pelagius so strongly reproaches in the Bishops of Milan and Aquileia was this: that the latter had been ordained by the former without the approval of the Apostolic See—approval which he did not hope to obtain, since he stubbornly adhered to opinions proscribed by the Church. In order to spur Narses more forcefully to bring aid to the Church and to restrain the attempts of the seditious Bishops, Pelagius recalls to him his former deeds: "Your Highness ought to recall what God accomplished through you at the time when, with the tyrant Totila holding Istria and Venetia, and the Franks also devastating everything, you did not allow the Bishop of Milan to be made until you had reported the matter to the most clement Prince and had recognized again from his writings what ought to be done; and amid enemies raging everywhere, both he who was to be ordained and he who was to ordain were brought to Ravenna by the foresight of your eminence." From which he draws the conclusion that, with all the more reason, one who was ordained without consulting the Roman Pontiff and who openly resists the edict of both the Pontiff and the Emperor should be removed from his rank, especially since he is striving to rend the Church itself into factions.

[16] Such was the character and such the manner of Paulinus's elevation to the episcopate. But by whom was he consecrated? Erycius Puteanus, in book 2 of his History of the Insubres, perhaps following the old Acts cited by Ferrarius which we have reported above, says: "By Honoratus, Archbishop of Milan." By a holy man, and one whom you have seen celebrated at Milan with heavenly honors? "Certainly," he says, "but contrary to ancient precedents." With an equally frivolous conjecture, in the same book, he supposes that St. Maximianus, Bishop of Ravenna, who is venerated on 24 April, is the same person whom Pope Pelagius in epistle 2 to Narses calls Maximilianus, and writes that he has only the name of Bishop, being separated from the unity of the Church and most unjustly disturbing its peace, raging to the destruction of himself and others.

[17] We shall vindicate Maximianus from that reproach in its proper place, as Ripamontius does for Honoratus: "Other documents," he says, "attribute this consecration of Paulinus to Honoratus, the successor of Auxanus, and the Reading of the daily prayer Office itself states as much—no small injury and reproach to that Bishop. For he, being a holy man and most devoted to the Apostolic See, would never have committed himself to meddling in a matter of such danger with the risk of giving offense, and thereby in a way nourishing quarrels and disputes." Quarrels and disputes, do you say? Rather, the pride, wickedness, and stubbornness of a schismatic, wickedly contriving a dreadful dissension and tumult in the Church.

[18] Ripamontius then identifies the imprudent and wicked ordainer: "This," he says, "could apply to Vitalis, who weighed all matters and affairs more by worldly experience and common prudence than by the heavenly Spirit. For Honoratus to have permitted such a thing would have been horrifying, given his extraordinary piety and his eminence in heaven through his undoubted contempt for worldly things." Vitalis was the predecessor of St. Auxanus—the very one, I believe, whom Narses had arranged to be brought to Ravenna to be consecrated as Bishop there.

[19] Finally, most of those who attribute this to Honoratus contradict themselves, since they acknowledge that he held the episcopate for only three years and was still alive when Alboin took Milan, at the very time when Paulinus died after holding the episcopate for twelve years. Even further from the truth is what Antonius Beffa writes, that Probinus, the successor of Paulinus, was consecrated by St. Honoratus. How would a holy man have wished to undertake what he knew had been so strongly disapproved by the Supreme Pontiff before? Or how could he have approached one whom it was not even safe for him to be with at Milan?

Section IV. The age, writings, burial, and feast day of St. Honoratus.

[20] Just as (a point we have already lamented more than once) there is scarcely anything certain about the deeds of St. Honoratus, so too it is not established when he assumed the episcopate or how long he held it. The Acts cited from Ferrarius in Section 2, along with Franciscus Besutius and Joannes de Deis, hold that he was elevated to the episcopate under Pope Benedict, who was made Pope on 16 May in the year 573, Indiction VI, and died on 31 July in the year 577, Indiction X. How, then, could Bishop Honoratus have departed from Milan at the beginning of the third Indiction, namely toward the end of the year 569? Others, as Ferrarius notes in his annotations, make an even worse blunder in claiming he died in the year 558 or 568.

[21] Antonius Beffa writes that he was made Bishop under John III in the year 566; Donatus Bossius in 567; Panvinius and Ughellus in 568; and some of these say he held the See for three years, Beffa for five—so that he seems to have died in the year 570 or 571, or even 574. Beffa says he was kindly received by St. Felix, Bishop of Genoa, who is venerated on 9 July, and died there not long after. Ripamontius writes: "There the tradition is that in an obscure and remote place he wasted away from old age and grief." Others have reported a more illustrious end for this Bishop, claiming that he was absent only until the Lombard fury subsided, and that after it had subsided he returned to his homeland bearing many great honors. This is indeed what the Acts cited above from Ferrarius report: that he largely restored the Church, which had been greatly weakened by the barbarity of the Lombards. Besutius says the same.

[22] Bergomensis, Joannes de Deis, and Beffa Nigrinus report that he composed certain works on the divine Scriptures. Ripamontius also hints at this: "There is no doubt," he says, "that he was among the foremost of his time both in the ornaments of intellect and in virtues of the soul, since the letters of St. Gregory attest to this." But which letters? I certainly do not recall that St. Gregory, in his epistles to the Bishops Laurentius, Constantius, and Deusdedit of Milan, ever mentioned Honoratus. I fear that Ripamontius had no other evidence than those words of Bergomensis: "The divine Gregory extols this Honoratus with many praises in his book of Dialogues." But in the Dialogues he is not treating of this Honoratus but of the Abbot of Fondi, of whom we treat on 16 January. Besutius writes that he is praised both by St. Gregory in the Dialogues and by Paulus Diaconus in his history. We have given the words of Paulus above, from which it is not clear whether he is praised.

[23] Concerning the burial of St. Honoratus, Donatus Bossius writes in his Catalogue of Bishops: "His body was then transferred to Milan and buried in the church of St. George at Nuceta." But in his Chronicles he says: "He lies in the church of St. Eustorgius at Noxeta." Ferrarius, cited above, calls it St. George's. Ripamontius mentions that church in another connection in book 6: "From which a small walnut tree gave the surname to the church of St. George." That church, as Beffa writes, is commonly called St. George at Nucula, or alla Nocetta; but now "At the hand of the white well," or "Alla mano del pozzo bianco." He attests that the body of St. Honoratus is still preserved there.

[24] The feast of St. Honoratus, which is now celebrated on the sixth day before the Ides of February, used to be observed on the sixth day before the Kalends of March, that is, the 24th day. Thus Joannes de Deis: "His feast is celebrated by the Church of Milan on the sixth day before the Kalends of March." On which day Galesinius declares the following about him: "At Milan, St. Honoratus, Bishop. A noble man of extraordinary virtue, renowned for the glory of the deeds which he performed through constant exercise of the Christian religion, he died in the Lord."

[25] In the Life of St. Veranus, Bishop of Cabellio, which we shall present on 11 November, the following is found: "He traveled as far as Milan," namely returning from Rome. Then, after an account of several miracles performed by him there, it is added: "Then, at the request of the most holy man Honoratus, Bishop of that city, he departed and proceeded to the city called Albingaunum." Ughellus places Honoratus first among the Bishops of Albingaunum, who received St. Veranus as a guest when he was returning from Rome in the year 377, "as is plainly read in the acts of this Saint." Namely, such as the acts of St. Veranus that Petrus of Equilium recounts in book 10, chapter 50, who writes that he lived in the time of the Emperor Valens and intimates that Valens was then in Gaul and that Veranus was elevated by him to the episcopate. St. Veranus was promoted to the See of Cabellio by Sigebert I, son of Clothar I, King of Metz, upon his return from Italy. Sigebert obtained that kingdom of Metz, or Austrasia as they later called it, in the year 561, and died in 575, as we have stated elsewhere. This chronological marker confirms the age of St. Honoratus. From the journey of St. Veranus through Italy, moreover, one may infer that the Lombards do not seem to have been in Italy at that time; for how could he have traveled so safely from Rome to Ravenna, thence to Milan, and from Milan to Albingaunum, with the arms of the barbarians raging on every side?—unless one says that everything was safe for a poor pilgrim.