ON THE HOLY BISHOPS OF CANUSIUM, RUFFINUS AND MEMOR: A HISTORICAL NOTE.
AROUND THE YEARS 500 AND 514.
CommentaryRuffinus, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (St.) Memor, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (St.)
By I. B.
[1] Canusium was a city of Apulia, situated on the river Aufidus, which is now called the Ofanto, or Lofanto. It was not also called Cannae, as Leander Albertus stated in his description of Apulia Peucetia Canusium is distinct from the village of Cannae — a manifest error, since it is established from Livy and others that when the Roman army was slaughtered by Hannibal near Cannae, then an insignificant village, about two thousand took refuge in the village itself, and there were surrounded by Carthalo and the cavalry, with no fortification protecting the village; others retreated to Canusium and were received within the walls and buildings by the citizens, and were aided with grain, clothing, and provisions by a certain wealthy woman. And soon other forces also were brought there by the Consul Varro, so that there was now some semblance of a consular army, and they appeared likely to defend themselves against the enemy with walls, if not with arms. afterwards an episcopal city. And Procopius in book 3 of the Gothic War expressly testifies that the distance between Canusium and Cannae was twenty-five stadia. Cannae, however, was later built up into a city and adorned with an episcopal throne once the religion of Christ had spread throughout Italy. The Antipater, however, whom Charles de Saint-Paul cites in his Sacred Geography as having subscribed to the fifth Roman Synod under Symmachus after the consulship of the younger Avienus, in the year of Christ 503, was not a bishop of this see. For he is called there not Cannensis but Caunenus, and is the same person who is read to have attended the Council of Chalcedon as Bishop of Caunus, a city of Lycia, and is cited elsewhere by the same Charles. But the most learned man did not notice that among those who are recorded as having subscribed to that fifth Roman Synod under Symmachus, there are nearly one hundred and fifty Eastern bishops, most of whom attended the Council of Chalcedon, celebrated fifty-two years before this Roman council, so that it is apparent (as Baronius notes in volume 6 at the year 503, number 9, and Severinus Binius after him) that these are the subscriptions of another council held in the East not long after Chalcedon — which, however, no longer survives — recklessly appended by a scribe to that Roman council. now destroyed. But around the time of the same Roman council there lived St. Roger, Bishop of Cannae, patron of the city of Barolo (commonly called Barletta, formerly, as Cluverius judges, Barduli), whose Life we shall give on October 15. But nothing remains of Cannae now except ruins.
[2] itself also destroyed, and rebuilt elsewhere. The old Canusium itself was also later destroyed by the Saracens, as is widely reported. At what time this appears to have happened will be discussed below in the Life of St. Sabinus the Bishop. Afterwards, perhaps from its ruins, another town of the same name was built and can be seen as a town on a hill, commonly called Canosa, three miles from the old site and from the river Aufidus (as Ferrarius writes in his Topography of the Martyrology), notable for absolutely no evidence of antiquity, as Leander says; yet founded, as will be said below, before the year of Christ 965.
[3] The bishops of that old Canusium, before St. Sabinus, were SS. Ruffinus and Memor, who have been considered in the number of the Saints by the Churches of Canusium and Bari from time immemorial. On what day they are venerated, however, we have nowhere discovered; therefore we have thought they should be placed alongside the same St. Sabinus on this day. Their Acts either were not committed to writing or certainly perished in the many devastations of Apulia.
[4] When Bishop Probus of Canusium had died (whom Pope Simplicius sent as a legate of the Apostolic See to the Emperor Leo, as Pope St. Gelasius testifies in letter 13 to the bishops of Dardania, the feast day and Acts of SS. Ruffinus and Memor are unknown, not letter 11, as Baronius cites at the year 467, number 12) — when this man had died, Ruffinus was substituted for him. In what year this occurred, we cannot precisely state. In the year of Christ 495, when that letter to the bishops of Dardania was given by Gelasius, in the consulship of Viator, the distinguished man (not Victor, as is erroneously printed in the published volumes of the Councils), Probus was already dead, for the Pontiff calls him "Probus, Bishop of the city of Canusium, of holy memory." Whether the see of Canusium was then vacant, or Ruffinus held it, is not clear to us. Ruffinus subscribed to the first Roman Synod under Symmachus in the year of Christ 500, St. Ruffinus died around the year 500, after the consulship of Paulinus, the distinguished man — because indeed John Gibbus, who alone had been created Consul in the East, was not yet known at Rome on the Kalends of March, when that synod was held.
[5] Nor did Ruffinus long survive after her. For in the third Roman Synod under the same Symmachus, in the consulship of Ruffus Magnus and Faustus Avienus, distinguished men, in the year of Christ 501, St. Memor 514. assembled on the tenth day before the Kalends of November, among others Memor of Canusium subscribed: likewise to the fourth, which was also called the Palmaris, in the consulship of Flavianus Avienus, distinguished man, in the year of Christ 502, and to the sixth under the same Symmachus. That Memor sat at Canusium for fourteen years and died in the year of Christ 514, our Antonius Beatillus writes in the Life of St. Sabinus, chapter 4.
[6] When Canusium had been overthrown, or at least occupied by enemies, Their bodies translated to Bari, the bishops of that see established their seat at Bari, and were called Archbishops of Bari and Canusium. Angelarius is said to have been the first to hold both titles; the same Beatillus in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Bari says that from the year 845 to 868 he administered both Churches, in truly wretched times, when the Saracens of Africa held Bari, though public liberty of sacred worship was permitted to the bishop and citizens. He translated the bodies of SS. Ruffinus, Memor, and Sabinus the Bishops to Bari, but without any pomp or ceremony, which perhaps the calamity of those times did not allow, and lest the wretched remnants of the Canusians should be more grievously disturbed, if they perceived that their Patrons were being snatched from them. Nevertheless, the report of the deed persisted among the Barensians: for John, Archdeacon of Bari, in his history of the Discovery of St. Sabinus, which we shall give below, as ancient tradition holds, writes that Urso (who in the year 1079 was transferred from the See of Rapolla to the See of Bari, by the authority of Gregory VII, and the will of Duke Robert Guiscard, and held it for nine years and eight months) had frequently inquired of the senior Priests of that Church about the ancient altar which was in the Confession — by what Bishop it had been consecrated, or whose Saint's relics had been placed upon it — but at that time they reported nothing certain; yet he adds: From their predecessors, however, they retained by memory the tradition that the bodies of the holy Confessors Memor and Ruffinus, who were formerly Bishops of the Church of Canusium, were preserved hidden there. A conversation therefore was held between us (for the writer himself was already then Archdeacon, having been appointed by the same Urso) and the same Archbishop Urso about searching for the bodies of those Saints beneath the aforesaid altar. And then, after relating the death of Urso and the consecration of his successor Elias, he adds: For the aforesaid Archbishop Elias began, as soon as — as was previously noted — he became concerned about seeking the bodies of the Confessors Memor and Ruffinus in the aforesaid altar, in order to be certain, he did not rest, etc.
[7] Whether, however, their bodies were found together with that of St. Sabinus, the same Archdeacon does not state. Beatillus says it is established from various manuscript records of the Church of Bari and manuscripts that the bodies of those three Saints were brought together to Bari; and in one handwritten codex the following is read: The Blessed Sabinus, Bishop, sat in the Church of Canusium for fifty-two years: whose body rested there until the time of Peter the first Archbishop: and Angelarius his successor, when Canusium was destroyed, brought to Bari the body of the Blessed Sabinus, as well as the bodies of the holy Fathers Memor and Ruffinus, Bishops of the See of Canusium.