Sabinus

ON ST. SABINUS, BISHOP OF CANUSIUM IN APULIA

ABOUT THE YEAR 566.

Preliminary Commentary.

Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (St.)

By I. B.

Section I. Was St. Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium, one person or two? His feast day.

[1] Bari is a maritime city of Apulia Peucetia, and the capital of the region which takes from it the name Terra di Bari. An archiepiscopal see is located there, and the archiepiscopal see of Canusium has been united with it the Bishopric of Canusium in Apulia, for nearly eight hundred years. There had been Bishops at Canusium from the earliest times of the Christian religion, among whom the celebrated Probus, learned in his scholarship, was sent as legate by Pope Simplicius to the Emperor Leo about the year 467, and Sabinus, of whom we are about to treat here. Peter, who, as some maintain, held that Church in the time of the Emperor Louis the Pious, or perhaps a full century earlier, is said to have been called Archbishop: nor is there any doubt that the Roman Pontiff sanctioned this by his authority, to make it legitimate; after being made an Archbishopric, whether that see was autocephalous, or had certain other bishops subject to it from among those who now are suffragans of Bari. But when shortly afterwards the Saracens invaded Apulia, and captured Canusium itself, and perhaps in great part destroyed it, they report that Angelarius was made Archbishop of Canusium, and then simultaneously of Bari. Whether he was spontaneously summoned by the Clergy of Bari, or ordered by the Roman Pontiff to administer both Churches; which see (the city perhaps being destroyed) or whether, to escape the fury of the Moors of Spain, serving under Prince Sigenulph, he withdrew with his people to Bari, where under the protection of the African Saracens it was possible to be somewhat safe; and there, upon the death of Archbishop Sebastianus, the holy guest was adopted to the vacant throne of that city by the Barensians — all this is obscure. After him the two united sees remained with a single occupant. This union was either first made by the command of the Roman Pontiff, or confirmed by his decision. For Urban II, united to the see of Bari. invited to Bari in the year 1089 to enshrine the body of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, which had been brought there, consecrated Archbishop Elias, contrary to the custom of the Roman and Apostolic Church, as he himself states in the diploma which Baronius recites at the same year, number 5, in his own see — overcome by reverence for the Blessed Nicholas and by love of the people of Bari. In that diploma he speaks thus: Since in our times Almighty God has deigned to visit the Church which by God's authority you govern, dearest Brother — the Church of Bari (which is also called that of Canusium) — with the body of his blessed Confessor Nicholas, etc. And below: To exalt your Church of Bari (which is also considered the Church of Canusium) over which you preside by God's authority, etc. And then: We confirm to you by the authority of this present document the entire Archbishopric of Bari (which is also that of Canusium). And further: Without prejudice therefore to the rights of any Churches whatsoever, following the tenor contained in the privileges of our predecessors, we grant you and your successors the possessions and dioceses of the Church of Bari or Canusium, to be held and governed in perpetuity.

[2] The principal Patron of that city is St. Nicholas, whose most celebrated and most sumptuous church is to be seen there, St. Sabinus is Patron of both, as Leander testifies, and Miraeus in his Register of Bishoprics. The other patron, however, is St. Sabinus, not only because his body was translated there by Angelarius, but especially because he had been the primary Patron of the Church of Canusium before. For that reason the same Pontiff Urban, in the cited diploma, specifically grants the use of the Pallium to the Archbishop of Bari on the feast of St. Sabinus: on whose feast the Archbishop uses the Pallium. Furthermore, he says, we grant to your fraternity the use of the Pallium according to custom,

that you may use it during the solemnities of the Mass on these feasts only: namely, the Nativity of the Lord, St. Stephen, Epiphany, Holy Thursday, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the birthdays of the Apostles, and the three feasts of the Blessed Mary, the feasts of SS. Nicholas and Sabinus, the feast of All Saints, on the annual day of your ordination, at the ordination of Bishops or other Clerics, at the consecration of churches, and also on the Translation of the Lord's Confessor Nicholas.

[3] There were perhaps two Sabini; It may, however, rightly be doubted whether there was a single Bishop of the Church of Canusium named Sabinus, or two. Silvester Aiossa, Parish Priest of St. Leucius in the city of Capua, a most learned man, believes there were two. Nor can everything that is recorded of St. Sabinus easily be fitted to a single person. For, as we shall relate below from his Italian Life written by Antonius Beatillus, he built a church to St. Andrew the Apostle in the city of Barletta, and obtained from Pope St. Gelasius himself that he should come to Apulia to dedicate it. Gelasius died on November 21, in the fifth year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 496. one before SS. Ruffinus and Memor, But after that year the holy Bishops Ruffinus and Memor, whom we previously mentioned, administered the Church of Canusium: and the Sabinus who was appointed after Memor in the year 514 was therefore a different person from the predecessor of Ruffinus. Beatillus asserts that it is the same Sabinus the other after them: who was made Bishop in the year 514, afterwards accomplished many distinguished deeds, and had previously built that church at his own expense, before he attained to that or perhaps any grade of ecclesiastical dignity at all.

[4] In the times of the same Gelasius, St. Sabinus was present at the dedication of the altars of the crypt of St. Michael on Mount Gargano: likewise not yet a Bishop, says Beatillus. We treated of that crypt on February 7 when dealing with St. Laurentius, Bishop of Siponto, and shall treat of it again shortly from the Life of St. Richard of Andria. But in this Life, after the memorable prodigy of the bull struck from the cave, when the Sipontines asked what should be done, Gelasius is said to have answered that, if it pleased the holy Archangel of God, they should found a church in praise of St. Michael where he wished: and that this should be carried out through the holy Bishops of God — Laurentius of Siponto, [the earlier one was present with other bishops at the dedication of St. Michael on Mount Gargano in the year 493:] Sabinus of Canusium, Pelagius of Salapia, Roger of Cannae, and Richard of Andria. After this was reported to him, being summoned to perform such a ministry, he proceeded on foot both to Canusium and to Cannae, and together with the Blessed Roger of Cannae and Sabinus of Canusium, Bishops, being on foot as they were, they committed themselves to the journey. And after many things, the Blessed Richard returned with the Blessed Roger and the Blessed Sabinus to their Churches — the latter to Canusium, the former to Cannae, and the Blessed Richard arrived at Andria. Could it be more clearly expressed that Sabinus was then a Bishop and was exercising the proper functions of the episcopal Order? Therefore that Sabinus is different from the one who is said to have been made Bishop of Canusium only twenty-one years later: and the former was the successor of Ruffinus, the latter of Probus.

[5] What is more, the body of St. Sabinus the Bishop is preserved in different places — at Atripalda and at Bari. If the body is entire in both places, then it is not of one person. his body which is preserved at Atripalda seems to be his: But the people of Atripalda boast that they have the entire body of St. Sabinus, with the head placed separately. At Bari, too, weighty authorities have reported that there are not merely relics of St. Sabinus and some part of his body, but simply his body. If you ask whose body is at Atripalda, Aiossa responds: that of the younger, of whom mention is made in St. Gregory's Dialogues, and in the Acts of the Synod of Constantinople under Mennas: for returning thence to Rome, he died at Atripalda on the journey and was buried there, while the other had died at Canusium long before. But how can it be supposed that he died on the way, when his encounter with Totila, King of the Goths, is recorded as having occurred several years after his return? that of the younger is at Bari. The Barensians also say that while he was sailing from Constantinople to Italy, he diverted his course to Lycia, to venerate the relics of St. Nicholas the Bishop at Myra: and that there the Saint appeared to him and declared that it would one day come to pass that the relics of both would be venerated in one city: which afterwards happened when the body of each was brought to Bari. Therefore the body of St. Sabinus which is venerated at Bari must be acknowledged to be that of the younger one: unless the fame of that prophecy has been wrongly handed down to posterity.

[6] the Acts of both are confused, The Life, which was written at least two hundred years after the death of the younger Sabinus (if indeed there were two), has embraced the deeds of both as if they were those of one person: whence posterity recognized only one, and so did Beatillus, who recently published a book on the Bishops of Canusium and the Life of St. Sabinus. It is, however, most common in the Acts of the Saints that those who bore the same name have their deeds recklessly mixed together by unskilled or overly hasty writers, even though they were neither born of the same nation nor flourished at the same time. Examples occur everywhere.

[7] Nor shall we here distinguish what was done by one Sabinus and what by the other: since we cannot remove every scruple even for those who doubt such as we shall also give here. whether there were two or not. If a diligent reader should unearth other records by which it is established that there was a single Bishop of Canusium named Sabinus, we shall say that the one at Atripalda was a Bishop of another see. What is certain about his relics, veneration, and miracles, we shall report separately.

[8] The Martyrologies themselves, since both are venerated on the same day, February 9, present only one, and him as Bishop of Canusium. Concerning him, the ancient manuscript Martyrology which is in our possession, brought from Italy, both are venerated on February 9 has the following: At Canusium, a city of Apulia, the burial of the Blessed Sabinus, Bishop and Confessor. In nearly the same words the Roman Martyrology: At Canusium in Apulia, St. Sabinus, Bishop and Confessor. The Calendar of the monastery of St. John at Capua, published by the monk Michael, at the same day: The burial will be of St. Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium. Another from the same monastery: St. Savinus, Bishop of Canusium. A fourth finally (for the third is mutilated at the beginning) has: St. Savinus, Bishop and Confessor of Canusium. Reading 3. A certain manuscript booklet of the Carthusian house of Brussels: In the city of Canusium, of the holy Bishops Sabinus and Winandus. On the same day Constantinus Ghinius records him in the Birthdays of the Holy Canons. The Calendar published by Wolfgang Eder at Ingolstadt from the Macerata exemplar has on February 8: Sabinus, Bishop and Confessor. But the Florarium of the Saints places him on February 12. Many others on February 17, following Peter de Natali, book 3, chapter 133. Maurolycus and Felicius: Likewise of Savinus, Bishop of Canusium, of whom Gregory writes. Molanus in the first edition of his Additions to Usuard: Sabinus, Bishop of the city of Canusium, of whom Gregory writes in the third book of the Dialogues. In a later edition he omitted him. Hermann Greven in his Additions to the same Usuard: Sabinus, Bishop of the city of Camisina (Canisius has it the same way in both editions), of whom among other things Gregory reports in the third book of the Dialogues that, when at the instigation of his Archdeacon, who was seeking the bishopric, poison was offered to him, knowing this by the Prophetic Spirit, he drank it without harm, commanding the Archdeacon: I drink the poison, but you will not be Bishop. Therefore at that same hour the Archdeacon died. Concerning his various Translations, and on what days they are recalled, we shall speak below: where it will also be permitted to ask perhaps the other formerly on another day: whether perhaps the other Sabinus died on February 17 or 12, and was recklessly assigned to this day, as if he were the same person who was inscribed in the sacred tables on this day.

Section II. The Life of St. Sabinus. When was it written?

[9] The deeds of St. Sabinus, whether of one person or of two mixed together, were committed to writing in the third century after the death of the younger. The author was a contemporary of Bishop Peter, and indeed wrote that history at his command, and learned many things from his account. He himself testifies to this in chapter 5, number 13: Concerning the virtue and miracles of the life of the aforesaid servant of God, we have spoken as much as comes to memory: the Life was written at the command of Bishop Peter, now, however, with God's help, let us speak of what merit he possesses, and with what great virtues his bones shine. These things, however, which I am about to say, I heard from the venerable man Peter, Bishop of the same Church. He was accustomed frequently to narrate to me the things about his predecessor Sabinus, which he had heard through many inquiries more diligently from the elder priests, or which he was able to read from the inscription; and he commanded me to write these things. Beatillus, in chapter 15 of his Italian Life of St. Sabinus, says indeed that Peter commanded the deeds of St. Sabinus to be written, but by the mandate of Pope Leo III; because the Author begins his narrative thus: I desire to obey your will, Supreme Pontiff; not of Pope Leo III; but my hand shrinks, burdened by such great sins, from revealing the miracles of the virtue of so great a man. But there is no necessity that those words, Supreme Pontiff, and what soon follows, I obey

the pontifical commands, be understood of the Roman Pontiff — whether, as Beatillus wishes, Leo III, who reigned from December 26 of the year 795 to June 12 of the year 816, or any other.

[10] Perhaps the Author addresses Peter himself, by whose command he testifies later that he was compelled to write that history; or some other of his successors. For he did not complete that Life while Peter was alive; or at least he interpolated it afterwards. For in chapter 6, number 18, he writes thus: afterwards interpolated: Nor do I think this should be passed over in silence, which he asserted he had heard from the Primicerius of the same Church, saying: In the time, indeed, of the venerable Bursa, who was, by God's bounty, Bishop in this Church (whose Archdeacon Audoaldus is also recorded to have been, who in the third place after the aforesaid venerable Bishop Peter exercised the pontifical office) — in the time, therefore, of the aforesaid Bursa, etc. From these words it is clear that after the death of Peter, and indeed of Audoaldus, who governed that Church as the third after him, this Life was written, or again polished with the pen and amplified by the author himself.

[11] Here we must inquire about the age of Peter. Beatillus writes that Peter himself, who commanded the Acts of St. Sabinus to be written, was appointed to the episcopal insignia of Canusium shortly after the year of Christ 800, a Lombard by nation, Peter did not live at the beginning of the 9th century; closely related by blood to Grimoaldus, Prince of Salerno, and renowned for his reputation for holiness: but that when Canusium was destroyed by the Saracens, and the citizens scattered in various directions, he withdrew to Salerno, and there in the year 834, when Rodoaldus, Bishop of that city, had died, was substituted, and died ten years later. The same is reported by Gaspar Musca in his book on the Bishops of Salerno, who says that Ractulus succeeded him at Salerno, then Magnaldus, then Teupus, Aio, and Landemarius. But Beatillus maintains that after the death of Peter, the Church of Canusium was united with Bari and entrusted to Archbishop Angelarius. But if there was at that time a Peter who was elevated from the See of Canusium to that of Salerno, he must necessarily be a different person from the one by whose authority the Life of St. Sabinus was written. For this one had successors at Canusium, and among these Audoaldus as the third, formerly Archdeacon under Bishop Bursa, whom Peter had succeeded — and perhaps not immediately. Moreover, how can this seem sufficiently credible: that Audoaldus had been Archdeacon long before Peter became Bishop, and after Peter had sat for about forty-four years, only in the third place after him was he made Bishop, at a now decrepit age, having spent nearly sixty years in his former office, nor was he the last Bishop of Canusium, which is surely not usually conferred upon adolescents? And who is that Grimoaldus, Prince of Salerno, whose blood relative Beatillus supposes this Peter to have been? There was indeed a Prince of Benevento, and consequently also of Salerno, named Grimoaldus, son of Arechis, in the year of Christ 788, whom after eighteen years another Grimoaldus, his own Treasurer, succeeded, who was killed by Sico in the year 817 or 818. But the principate of Salerno was first separated from that of Benevento about the year 850, and attributed to Sigenulph, son of Sico.

[12] Furthermore, if Peter had fled to Salerno when Canusium was destroyed, how is it that the Author never mentions this anywhere, since he was writing after Peter's death? nor was Canusium then immediately destroyed. And indeed, not even in the time of the second Peter (if there was a second), when the Saracens, summoned into Italy partly by Radelchis, usurper of the principate of Benevento, and partly by Sigenulph, wrought vast devastation far and wide, was Canusium entirely destroyed or deserted by its citizens, so that it thereafter lacked any inhabitants at all; since the Emperor Louis II, son of Lothar, stationed a garrison there when he was about to wage war against the Saracens of Bari, as Eremperts testifies in chapter 34.

[13] The Author provides another chronological indicator of his age with these words: this Life was written under Emerith, Prince of the Salentines, These things were written in the time of the rule of the most glorious man Emerith, offspring of Grimoald; in whose times many prosperous things befell the Salentine people, through the granting and ordering of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever, Amen. The Salentine region extends from Tarentum all the way to the Iapygian promontory, which is the extreme point of Italy toward Greece, and that entire region is now called Hydruntina, or Terra di Otranto, from the city of Hydruntum. Perhaps this writer reckons the beginning of the Salentine people from the river Aufidus. After Italy was occupied by the Lombards, the Salentines and Calabrians remained for a long time under the rule of the Emperor of Constantinople: afterwards subdued by the Lombards, then the Saracens, then yielding to the Franks and again to the Greeks, with fortune frequently alternating; until the Normans gained power there.

[14] But when did Emerith, or (as the Capuan manuscripts have it) Hermarich, or Ermenrich, preside over that province? No mention of him is made either in the Lombard history of Paul the Deacon, or in the history of Eremperts, as far as I remember, unless perhaps he had two names, as Totila was called Badiula or Badwilla. He is called the offspring of Grimoald, Prince of Benevento, as I suppose. There were in all four Grimoalds who held the territory of Benevento: I. the son of Gisulf, Duke of Friuli, the son of Grimoald, who afterwards seized the kingdom of the Lombards about the year 662. The second, his grandson, son of Romuald and Theoderada. The third, the son of Arechis, of whom above. The fourth, who succeeded the third, afterwards killed by Sico. Of which of these four Grimoalds was Ermenrich the son? Grimoald I, when he was invited to seize the kingdom of the Lombards while the sons of King Aripert, Godebert and Bertarid, were quarreling among themselves, placed his son Romuald in charge of the Beneventans, perhaps of the second Duke of Benevento of that name, and afterwards gave him Theoderada, daughter of Lupus, Duke of Friuli, as wife, about the year 663 or 664, from whom he had three sons: Grimoald, Gisulf, and Arichis. Grimoald succeeded his father, but (as is said below in chapter 5, number 16) under the guardianship of his mother Theoderada, and he married Wigilinda, daughter of King Bertarid, who seems to have been previously relegated to Benevento by King Grimoald, together with her mother Rodelinda and her brother Cunibert, while her husband was in exile. Grimoald died in the third year of his principate, and was succeeded by his brother Gisulf, who in turn was succeeded by his own son Romuald. Perhaps, therefore, a son was born to Grimoald II by Wigilinda, but since at his father's death he was still in the cradle, or indeed not yet born, the government was transferred by the Lombards to his uncle Gisulf; who may then have entrusted to him the administration of the Salentine territory, which Romuald, father of Gisulf and grandfather of Emerith, had added to the Lombard dominion; as Paul the Deacon testifies in these words, book 6 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 1: While these things were being done among the Lombards beyond the Po, Romuald, Duke of the Beneventans, having assembled a great multitude of his army, attacked and captured Tarentum, and in like manner Brundisium, and subjugated the entire vast surrounding region to his dominion.

[15] However, Emerith could also have been the son of the elder Grimoald, under whom the Life of St. Sabinus was written; for Grimoald, who had previously begotten from a captive girl, but nevertheless a noble one, whose name was Itta, or indeed of the first, who was also King, his son Romuald and two daughters, as Paul writes in book 4, chapter 47; the same, having obtained the kingdom, married the daughter of King Aripert, from whom he had Garibald, whom his uncle Bertarid afterwards drove from the kingdom. Perhaps Emerith was a brother of this Garibald, and when Garibald was cast down from the kingdom, was either sent back to his elder brother Romuald by King Bertarid, or voluntarily carried thither by his guardians, and there raised, and at length placed in charge of the Salentine region either by Gisulf or by Romuald II. He certainly does not seem to have been able to be a son of Grimoald III, but not of the third, who succeeded his father Arechis in the year 788; since that Grimoald, as Eremperts implies, had no offspring from his wife Iriantia, the granddaughter of the Emperor of Argos, and indeed repudiated her in order to ingratiate himself with the Franks. And if Emerith had been born of Grimoald IV, how could the Author say nor of the fourth: that in his times many prosperous things befell the Salentine people? And Sico, who killed his father — why did he not also lay hands on him? Why did not Louis the Pious take him under his protection and with fatherly clemency restore the principate to him? But let us grant that he escaped the hands of the parricide, or was defended by the favor of the Emperor, and ruled the Salentines; what prosperous things could then have befallen that people, when impious Saracens and treacherous Christians were broadly polluting the holy places, as is said in volume 2 of the French Writers of Chesne, in the deeds of Louis II?

[16] It is therefore more likely that both Bishop Peter and this anonymous writer flourished shortly after the year 700, under Gisulf and Romuald II. where was this published? This Life, moreover, Beatillus unearthed from the ancient manuscripts of the Church of Bari and transmitted to us. We received a duplicate copy of the same from Capua from Silvester Aiossa, transcribed from the ancient codices of the monastery of St. John by his uncle the monk Michael, by whom he writes it was also annotated: The Acts of St. Sabinus, previously published, but slightly interpolated. which were preserved in manuscript in the Church of Canusium, Felix Siliceus, Provost of Canusium (who later became Bishop of Troia, his native city), arranged to have printed at Bologna, where he was residing with the most Eminent Cardinal Antonio Caetano the Legate in the year 1623. These differ little or not at all from our text, but in those few points ours are more authentic. So he writes. We have not yet seen that edition. The same monk indicates that some things were inserted by Siliceus himself from time to time.

Section III. Other Lives of St. Sabinus.

[17] John the Archdeacon also described the Life of St. Sabinus, shortly before the year 1100, in elegiac verse, which the same Beatillus communicated to us, having unearthed it from the manuscripts of the Church of Bari. Another Life of St. Sabinus written by John, Archdeacon of Bari, This is the same John who committed to writing the Discovery of the same St. Sabinus, at which he was present, and who testifies that he was ordained by Urso, Archbishop of Bari, from the first ecclesiastical grade up to the Levitical order, and then adorned with the honor of the archdeaconate. Nicephorus of Bari mentions him in his history of the Translation of St. Nicholas with these words: Meanwhile a legation was directed to the Lord Archbishop Urscio, who at that time was residing at the cities of Canusium and Trani, whose pontificate he exercised together with the Archbishopric of Bari; thence after two days, with his Archdeacon John accompanying him, he was about to set out for Jerusalem. Therefore, when he heard the news of so great a novelty, he immediately renounced his intention of proceeding to Jerusalem. Afterwards, however, as John himself testifies, Archbishop Urso went to Jerusalem for the purpose of prayer at the sepulcher of the Lord: whether he himself accompanied him, he does not indicate. The same John also described the Translation of St. Nicholas, which exists on May 9 in Surius.

[18] Different from this John, and easily one hundred and eighty years more ancient, is John the Deacon, by whom the Life of St. Nicholas was written, who says the following about himself in its prologue: I, the unworthy John, Deacon of the servant of St. Januarius, greatly shrinking from this, not John the Deacon of St. Januarius: was opposing to you the obstacle of my rusticity, Brother Athanasius, as you repeatedly asked me. He lived at the beginning of the tenth century, and committed to writing the Translation of St. Severinus, Apostle of the Noricans, at which he was present, which took place in the twenty-fourth year of Leo the Wise, the year of Christ 909, as we said on January 8. He then wrote the Translation of St. Sosius, which he begins thus: After the destruction, therefore, of the town of Lucullanum, as is expressed in another booklet, when the aforesaid Abbot had merited to obtain the body of St. Severinus, he began, etc. And a little further on: Encouraged immediately by such testimonies, the Abbot himself summoned me, John, Deacon of St. Januarius, and Aligernus the Primicerius, and Peter the Subdeacon; and having given us a commission, he enjoined that we should set out for Misenum with his Provost John, surnamed Majorinus, and Athanasius the illustrious monk, and that our judgment should determine whether the testimony of so many monks had brought to light anything of value.

[19] Finally, the cited Antonius Beatillus wrote the Life of St. Sabinus much more brilliantly in the Italian style, making use of various instruments of the Chapter of Bari another in Italian by Antonius Beatillus, and other ancient records: and he published it at Naples in the year 1629, printed by Aegidius Longus, dedicated to Ascanius Gesualdus, Archbishop of Bari and Canusium; who, having succeeded his uncle Decius Caracciolo, who died on May 27, 1613, entered Bari solemnly the following year on the very feast day of St. Sabinus, February 9, and having afterwards performed various legations for the Apostolic See, was adorned by Pope Paul V with the dignity of Patriarch of Constantinople. The following, however, seemed remarkable to not a few, which happened at Naples before that Life, already written by Beatillus, was put to press. Our Marcus Antonius Palumbus, himself also distinguished by his published commentaries on the first part of St. Thomas, was carrying this Life somewhere under his arm, and it is an object of horror to the devil: wrapped in a cloak in our fashion, as it was written in the Author's hand, and was going through the city of Naples in such a manner that no one could perceive with their eyes what he was carrying, or indeed whether he was carrying anything at all. Here, not far from the monastery of St. Sebastian, he met a woman possessed by a demon, who, terrified by this encounter, began to make wild gestures. When those present asked the cause, she replied that she was disturbed by the booklet which that Father was secretly carrying. Asked further what kind of book it was, she said: It is the Life of the most mortal enemy of all who ever lived. Then the Father showed the book to those standing by, who all professed with great alacrity of spirit that they would thenceforth venerate that Saint with special devotion, since they knew that even his Life was an object of horror to the devil.

[20] Philip Ferrarius briefly summarized the deeds of St. Sabinus in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at this day, and Peter de Natali in book 3, chapter 133, at February 17; St. Sabinus is mentioned elsewhere. Constantinus Ghinius in his Birthdays of the Holy Canons. Since, moreover, certain things are reported by Beatillus which are not found in the manuscript Life, having been unearthed by him from the ancient records of the Church of Bari, we shall briefly pursue them here. Nor should it seem surprising to anyone that the Author who wrote the deeds of St. Sabinus easily two hundred years after his death did not achieve everything; since Peter the Deacon, in book 3 of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, chapter 5, after the same holy Pontiff had related two miracles of St. Sabinus, adds these words: These things are wonderful and greatly astonishing to our times; but the life of this same man is reported to be such that whoever has known his manner of living ought not to marvel at his virtue.

Section IV. Illustrious deeds accomplished by St. Sabinus before his episcopate, if he was a single person; or by the elder, if there were two.

[21] Sabinus is believed to have been born at Canusium of wealthy and noble parents, at about the time when Majorian Augustus somehow retained the Empire of the West, Leo the Thracian that of the East, Leo I presided over the Roman Church, and Probus — of whom we treated above — administered the church of Canusium, The homeland, family, and education of Saint Sabinus: with a distinguished reputation for learning. He was then trained in every form of piety, perhaps under the instruction of this same Probus; and when he had grown up, he began to devote his very ample resources partly to the building and partly to the restoration of basilicas of the Saints. Several are mentioned in his Life as either first constructed or enlarged and adorned by him; celebrated among them is the one he established at Barletta in honor of Saint Andrew the Apostle. Barletta (which the Peutinger itinerary map calls Bardulos) is a noble, populous, and wealthy city of Apulia, the church at Barletta, numbered among the four most noble towns of Italy — Fabriano in the Marches, Prato in Tuscany, and Crema in Lombardy — as Leander attests. But what the same writer states — that Barletta was built by the people of Canusium after their own city was destroyed and was enlarged by the Emperor Frederick II — does not seem to agree sufficiently with this Life of Saint Sabinus. at his initiative, For who would believe it was merely a village on the Apulian shore that Sabinus wished to adorn with so splendid a building that he invited the Roman Pontiff Gelasius himself to its dedication? Those who admit only one Sabinus necessarily assert that at that time he had not yet become a Bishop, since — as we said above — Saints Ruffinus and Memor presided over the Church of Canusium after the death of Saint Gelasius. The ancient writer of the Life of Saint Sabinus appears to have thought that when that church at Barletta was dedicated, he was already a Bishop — which supports our conjecture concerning two Sabinuses.

[22] That Sabinus should appeal to the Supreme Pontiff for the dedication of that church was brought about by the authority of the ancient canons dedicated by Saint Pope Gelasius, and perhaps of Gelasius himself. For the latter, in his ninth epistle addressed to the Bishops established throughout Lucania, Bruttium, and Sicily — without whose command it was unlawful to do this: and indeed perhaps throughout the rest of Italy — professes that he so weighs the decrees of the ancestral canons and so measures the precepts of the Bishops, his predecessors, that what the necessity of the present times demands for the restoration of Churches, he tempers with careful consideration applied as far as possible. And yet in section 6 he expressly decrees: "Let them not dare to dedicate newly established basilicas without having sought the customary permissions." And then in section 27: "Concerning the consecration of holy places, although it was briefly comprehended in what preceded, it has also been made known to us that, without a decree of the Apostolic See, some presume to consecrate churches or oratories that have been built." Baronius thinks, at volume 8, year 591, number 24, that it pertains to the observance of those ancient canons that Saint Gregory directed the dedication of various churches to be performed in the epistles cited there, especially book 7, epistle 15. But that Gelasius did not delegate the dedication of the church at Barletta to any neighboring Bishop, but undertook so long a journey himself for this purpose, indicates the humility and piety of Gelasius himself, and how great was Sabinus's favor with him — not merely on account of his noble birth, but especially on account of his extraordinary piety and learning, known to him either through the reports of Bishop Probus or perhaps observed with his own eyes in the company of the same Probus. Anastasius the Librarian records many churches dedicated by him outside the city of Rome, concerning which see his Life on November 21. That the church of Saint Andrew built by Sabinus still stands at Barletta is reported by Beatillus.

[23] Another dedication of a sacred building was performed in the same times of Pope Gelasius, as indicated above, at which Sabinus was also present — namely that of the church which was then built on Mount Gargano in Apulia by the citizens of Siponto. Concerning this we have treated on February 7 in the Life of Saint Lawrence, at the dedication of the church of Saint Michael on Mount Gargano and the more proper place for discussion will be at September 29, on which day the anniversary of this dedication is celebrated. Beatillus writes that this was done when Sabinus had returned from Constantinople, which (as will appear below) could scarcely have happened before the end of the year 536. But the ancient history of the dedication, which exists both in manuscript and in print, reports that it occurred in the times of Pope Gelasius. The Chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux, as edited by R. Lawrence Barrius, at the year 488 (which he establishes as the second of Gelasius) has this, which is absent from the Miraeus edition: "At this time the discovery of the cave of Saint Michael the Archangel on Mount Gargano took place, whence also his memory is celebrated each year with a solemn festival in the Churches of God." in the year 493 Baronius, at the year 493, which was truly the second of Gelasius, reports the discovery of that cave. Our John Paul Grimaldus concurs in the Life of Saint Roger, Bishop of Canne. Philip Ferrarius also, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy under September 29, testifies that the consecration was performed under Gelasius, Saint Sabinus invited with other Bishops, in the presence of Saints Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium; Roger, Bishop of Canne; and Richard, Bishop of Andria. But, as we have often said, unless there were two Sabinuses, at that time the one who afterward flourished under the Emperors Justin and Justinian had not yet been elevated to the episcopate.

[24] It will be worthwhile here to commemorate the wonders that befell the Bishops on their way to that dedication, because Sabinus was also present — illustrious for miracles on the journey, if not as a Bishop, then at least with a celebrated reputation for learning and piety. Beatillus and Grimaldus narrate these things in Italian, both drawing from the Life of Saint Richard, Bishop of Andria, written in Latin two hundred years earlier by Francis de Baucio, Duke of Andria, which we shall give in full on June 9; here we relate only what pertains to Sabinus as well.

[25] When Richard had persevered for many years in such holy works, it pleased Blessed Michael the Archangel, the Prince of the universal Church and the receiver of souls, to build an oratory on Mount Gargano, which is called by his name. When the marvelous apparition of the bull had occurred, as is contained in its history, and the victory in that affair had been granted to the people of Siponto, through their Bishop, Blessed Lawrence, who was sent to Pope Gelasius to inquire what should be done in the place chosen by Saint Michael the Archangel, he received the response from the same Pontiff that, if it pleased the holy Archangel of God, they should found a church in praise of Saint Michael wherever his will should be; and that this should be carried out by the holy Bishops of God: Lawrence of Siponto, Sabinus of Canusium, Pelagius of Salpi, Roger of Canne, and Richard of Andria. When these things had been reported to the latter, having been summoned to perform such a ministry, he went on foot both to Canusium and to Canne, and together with the Blessed Roger of Canne and Sabinus of Canusium, Bishops, as they were on foot, they committed themselves to the journey to proceed to Siponto. Since they were worn out by constant fasting and labors and were oppressed by the heat of the sun (for it was the month of September), and since that road is (as is that region, stripped of trees) exposed to the sun's heat, they prayed to Almighty God that He would deign to grant them some gentle breeze to refresh them against such heat. O wondrous thing, unheard of before! O admirable power of God! From this it was clearly evident how propitious God is to those who love Him. For the prayer of the servants of God was not yet finished when suddenly an eagle of immense size appeared, hovering above their heads and rendering a twofold service to those holy men: an eagle shading them against the heat. for walking beneath the shadow of the eagle's wings, they felt nothing of the former summer heat, and a gentle breeze arising from the motion of its wings, refreshing their weary bodies, made them more inclined to complete the journey.

[26] Whence it came to pass that they finally arrived at Siponto to Blessed Lawrence. There, having celebrated the Divine Office at Vespers, they gave themselves to rest for the remainder of the day and the following night. That night, the Archangel Michael appeared to Blessed Lawrence of Siponto in a dream and said that it was not the office of man to consecrate the church which he himself had dedicated to his own name. For he had chosen that place as an oratory for himself and had consecrated it by his coming; the cave dedicated by Saint Michael himself, and that this might be better known to all, he said that he had left, as proof of so great a matter, the imprints of the soles of his feet impressed upon the marble stone on his venerable altar, and also before the door of the oratory a stone image sculpted with the figure of the Archangel, by which he might afterward be depicted. These things Blessed Lawrence disclosed to the holy Bishops of God just as he had received them in the vision. They, gladdened by so great a vision and understanding the ministries of the holy Archangel, and how great an indulgence had been granted by Almighty God through the intercession of the Blessed Archangel Michael to that church, exhilarated with joy, gave thanks to the immortal God and to Blessed Michael, through whom they had received these things.

[27] But since, on account of the concourse of all those visiting that church, one altar was not sufficient for performing the divine mysteries, they consecrated three altars there: other altars consecrated by the Bishops. the first in honor of the Blessed and Glorious Virgin Mary, near the holy water called the stilla; the second in honor of Blessed John the Baptist; and the third in honor of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. When these things were accomplished, they entrusted the care of all matters pertaining to that church, and also the ordination of the entire Clergy, to Blessed Lawrence, Bishop of Siponto. This done, Blessed Richard, together with Blessed Roger and Blessed Sabinus, returned to their own churches — the latter to Canusium, the former to Canne — and Blessed Richard arrived at Andria. So much for that account. The same things concerning the altars consecrated by the Blessed Lawrence, Sabinus, Roger, and Richard are briefly reported in the Office of Saint Richard, printed at Rome in 1586, Lesson 6; and by Philip Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, in the Life of Saint Richard on June 9, in the Annotations to the Life of Saint Roger on October 15, and in the Annotations to the dedication of Saint Michael on September 29.

[28] There flourishes at Barletta a perpetual memory of that miracle by which an eagle overshadowed the holy Bishops Richard, Roger, and also Sabinus — whatever grade of ecclesiastical dignity he then held — as they journeyed. Anniversary commemoration of that journey at Barletta. For although the people of Barletta possess very many relics of illustrious Saints, which they reverently venerate in various basilicas of that most noble city — such as a part of the arm of Saint John the Baptist, the tongue of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, and others of that kind — yet on the feast day of Saint Roger, Bishop of Canne, who is their principal patron, in the public procession through the streets of the city with the sacred head of Roger, they carry around only the relics of Saints Sabinus and Richard: so that those who once traveled the road together as mortals, posterity may reverently behold their remains — now enjoying immortal life — being carried together through the streets.

Section 5: The Episcopate of Saint Sabinus. A Calumny Overcome. His Familiarity with Various Saints.

[29] At last, when these works of piety had been justly and deservedly accomplished, or honored with his presence, The time of his obtaining the episcopate — if it is the same person, certainly worthy; if a different one — Sabinus was elevated to the episcopate of Canusium in the year 514, when Saint Memor had died. What Platina writes, therefore, under Pope Pelagius I: and of his death. "The times of Pelagius were also adorned with the holiness and learning of Sabinus of Canusium, Gregory of Langres, Vedast," etc. — this is not true of Vedast, since he died in the year 540; but it is most true of Sabinus, who is reported to have died at last in the year of Christ 566, six years after the death of Pelagius, in the fifty-second year of his episcopate.

[30] That time was not so tranquil for him as not to have been tried by many adversities, which is the almost proper fortune of the Saints. For besides the fact that Italy was then shaken by the Gothic wars, accused of magic and summoned to Rome, he himself was denounced before Pope Felix IV, around the year 528, by nefarious men whom his admonitions and zealous guardianship of Ecclesiastical discipline had irritated, on the charge that he both neglected the duties of the Episcopal order and practiced the magical arts. The Pontiff was surprised that this charge was leveled against a man whose holiness he had long heard celebrated; yet, knowing how easily the minds of men are changed and bent toward the worse, he summoned Sabinus to Rome to plead his case. The holy man immediately set out on the road, prepared to endure whatever insult and reproach, if God should so permit. He arrived there in a single day: But even in the manner of the journey there was a prejudgment from divine favor: for in a single day he covered more than two hundred miles — which is the distance between Rome and Canusium. The Pontiff was astonished at the unexpected arrival of the man; and perhaps that speed of travel did not a little to impress more deeply upon his mind the suspicion of necromancy, conceived through the fraud of his adversaries. Receiving him, therefore, with little kindness or courtesy, he forbade him to set foot outside the palace that night, so that his case might be examined first thing in the morning; yet he assigned him a decent chamber. There, Sabinus, around midnight, after his custom, began to chant the divine praises and psalms. While Angels sang psalms with him at night, His piety was proved by a heavenly sign. For choirs of Angels were present, singing the psalms in alternation with him. That concert, heard in the dead of night through the papal apartments, roused the household and Felix himself. They found the chamber flooded with immense light. The Pontiff immediately burst in, prostrated himself at the feet of his holy guest, and his chamber was divinely illuminated, and begged forgiveness for the severity he had shown the day before. Sabinus, weeping, humbly besought the Pontiff in turn to rise, pressing upon him the saying: he is absolved: "The servant is not greater than his Lord." On the following day, the Pontiff recounted what he had seen and heard in the night, and having pronounced his judgment, absolved Sabinus, and afterward sent him back to his Church not without outstanding tokens of good will.

[31] When Sabinus was returning from Rome to his people, there is no doubt that he turned aside to Cassino to visit Saint Benedict the Abbot, he visits Saint Benedict: with whom he had a singular familiarity, as is recorded in his Life, and as we shall confirm below with the most weighty testimony of Saint Pope Gregory. And it is generally the case that the holier Bishops love and foster the pious institutions of the religious, which no pious man hates or scorns — unless perhaps he labors for a time under ignorance of the truth. An acquaintance was then also formed between Sabinus and the holy disciples of Benedict. Among them was Placidus, who was sent by the holy Father to Sicily around the year 530, or not long after — but not in 536, as his Life states (which is said to have been written by his companion Gordianus, but was afterward interpolated by some unskilled hand, as we shall show on October 5) — not, I say, in that year, since Sabinus was then absent from Italy, as we shall presently say. Placidus then visited on his journey Saint Germanus, Bishop of Capua, a very close friend of Sabinus and of his Father Benedict; and then Marcianus, Bishop of Benevento; and then Sabinus himself. Gordianus describes this meeting of holy men as follows:

[32] The most blessed Placidus, greeting Saint Marcianus the Bishop with a holy kiss, after some days came to the city of Canusium in Apulia, where, on account of his love for Blessed Benedict, he was received with great joy and affection he is visited by Saint Placidus, by Saint Sabinus, Bishop of that city. The same Saint Sabinus the Bishop showed every kindness of hospitality to both the most blessed Placidus and all who had come with him. Saint Sabinus, keeping Blessed Placidus with him for three days, sowed among themselves in turn the sweet discourse of everlasting life; and at intervals of the hours, he questioned him about the miracles which the Divine Majesty had worked through the most blessed Father Benedict, and also about his life and most honeyed and most discreet teaching.

[33] Meanwhile, while these things were being discussed and those things reported, a certain man named Landulph, having a withered and bent hand, by whom a certain man's withered hand is healed, when he learned that Placidus, a disciple of Blessed Benedict, had come there, came weeping and wailing, and cried out: "Placidus, most holy of men, I adjure you by Him who created all things, and by the holy name of your Master Benedict, that you implore the benefit of healing for me from the Lord; for I trust that through you the Lord will show me His mercy." When he had said this with great weeping, he showed his withered hand to the most blessed Placidus. All who were present at that spectacle, and all who could come, together with Saint Sabinus the Bishop, humbly besought the same thing, asking him to pray to the Almighty Lord on his behalf. But Placidus, being most compassionate, drawing long sighs from the depths of his heart, poured forth his prayer to the Lord with tears, saying: "O Almighty God, to whom nothing is impossible, who created heaven, earth, the sea, and all that is in them, from nothing; who gave to this your servant in baptism the remission of all his sins: deign to restore him to his former soundness through the merits of our most blessed Father Benedict, through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you as God forever and ever." When he had said this, grasping his withered hand with both of his own hands, he said: "May the Lord Jesus Christ heal you, who deigned to stretch forth the withered hand in the synagogue." Immediately that withered and bent hand was extended and restored to its former health. When Saint Sabinus the Bishop perceived such a miracle performed through Blessed Placidus, to the applause of Sabinus, he glorified the Lord, saying: "I give you thanks, O Life and Salvation of all, who granted to your most blessed servant Benedict to nurture such a disciple, through whom it has pleased you that signs and wonders be wrought. May your name be blessed from this time forth and forevermore." Those who were present, seeing this, glorified God and extolled the most holy Father Benedict with the highest praises. Saint Placidus, bidding farewell to Blessed Sabinus the Bishop and hastening his journey from there, after not many days arrived at Reggio, a city of Calabria.

Section 6: The Legation of Saint Sabinus to Constantinople.

[34] Afterward Sabinus undertook greater labors for the glory of God, performing an illustrious legation of the Apostolic See. For when in the year of Christ 535 Agapetus was proclaimed Supreme Pontiff, the Emperor Justinian congratulated him on this dignity, sending a profession of faith; and in other letters he requested that those who converted from the Arian heresy might retain their former dignities, and that the Bishop of Prima Justiniana, where the Emperor himself was born, might be honored with the pallium and exercise the functions of the Apostolic See. Agapetus, in his first epistle, approved the profession of faith insofar as it was consonant with the Sacred Canons — not as though he appeared to give the Emperor any authority to teach or to handle and arrange Ecclesiastical affairs: "The epistle of your piety," he says, "concerning the exposition of your faith, recently addressed to our predecessor of blessed memory, John, Bishop of the Roman See, through the Bishops Hypatius and Demetrius, and confirmed by the aforesaid Prelate, we also confirm, praise, and embrace by our own authority; not that we admit to laymen the authority of preaching, but that we confirm and strengthen the zeal of your faith as agreeing with the rules of our Fathers." In his third epistle, however, to the same Justinian, he thanks him for congratulating him on the pontificate and praises his faith, but denies that by the Sacred Canons fallen Bishops can be received with their dignities; [At the request of the Emperor Justinian, Legates were sent by Pope Agapetus to Constantinople,] and regarding this matter, Legates were sent by him, as the Emperor had requested: "And therefore," he says, "since your Clemency has deigned to offer in a salutary manner that the whole matter should be handled by our Legates, we entrust this task, with God as author, to those whom we are sending immediately." And then: "Concerning this same matter, and also concerning the city of Justiniana, which knows of your glorious birth, and also concerning the authority of our See to be conferred, whatever shall have been more fully determined — with the primacy of Blessed Peter, whom you cherish, preserved, and with the affection of your piety — we shall promptly communicate through the Legates whom we are sending to you, with God's favor."

[35] Who those Legates were, Agapetus did not specify in that epistle. Their names are found recorded in each of the Sessions of the Council of Constantinople held under Mennas in the following year. For it is clear that those who are mentioned there had been previously sent by Agapetus, from the beginning of the first Session of the same Synod, where this is read: "And sitting on his right of Mennas, and co-hearing with him, according to the pious command of our Christ-loving and God-guarded Emperor Justinian, of whom the foremost was Sabinus: the most holy and most God-beloved Bishops, Sabinus of Canusium, Epiphanius of Aeclanum, Asterius of Salerno, Rusticus of Fiesole, Leo of Nola — all from the region of Italy, first sent by the Apostolic See; and then unanimously consenting with the arrival here of the sainted Pope Agapetus of Old Rome," etc.

[36] For Agapetus himself was compelled to set out for Constantinople shortly afterward, Agapetus himself was compelled to set out by King Theodatus where he died around April 22 of the year 536. The cause of the journey is explained in book 16, chapter 3, of the Historia Miscella in these words: "Meanwhile Athalaric, King of the Goths, who had reigned while not yet having completed the years of boyhood, was cut short by a premature death. His mother Amalasuntha, after his funeral, associated Theodatus with herself in the kingdom. But that same Theodatus, unmindful of the benefit conferred upon him, commanded her to be strangled in a bath some days later. And because she, while still alive, had commended herself and her son to the Emperor, Justinian Augustus, upon hearing of her death, immediately blazed with grave anger against Theodatus. Theodatus, perceiving that the Emperor was hostile to him, sent the blessed Pope Agapetus to Constantinople in order to obtain impunity for his deed from Justinian." Amalasuntha was the daughter of Theodoric the Amal, King of the Goths in Italy, previously married to Eutharic, who died before his father-in-law. Theodatus, however, was the son of Amalafrida, the sister of Theodoric. For this reason Jordanes writes in De Rebus Goticis, chapter 59, that he was summoned from Tuscany by Amalasuntha on account of their kinship, where he was living a private life, occupied with his own labors. He then adds: "Who, unmindful of their kinship, after some time, having taken her from the palace of Ravenna, relegated her to exile on an island in the lake of Bolsena. Where, spending a very few days in sorrow, she was strangled in the bath by his satellites."

[37] The death of Athalaric and the murder of Amalasuntha occurred in the year of Christ 534, He deposes Anthimus, the heretical Bishop under the consulship of Justinian IV and Paulinus. In the following year Agapetus was sent to Constantinople. But Epiphanius, Bishop of the royal city, as the Chronicle of Marcellinus has it, died before the arrival of the Roman Pontiff. In his place, through the agency of the Empress Theodora, Anthimus, Bishop of Trebizond, a champion of the Eutychian heresy — to which Theodora herself was also devoted — was installed. Agapetus deposed him from that See and substitutes Mennas and substituted Mennas, whom he consecrated with his own hand, a Catholic man of Alexandrian origin, as Liberatus testifies in the Breviarium, chapter 21. What else Agapetus accomplished at Constantinople we shall relate on September 20, the day on which he is venerated by the Church. When he was preparing to return to Italy, dying, he commands Sabinus to remain with his companions with Mennas having left the Deacon Pelagius of the Roman Church as his representative with the Emperor, he departed this life — having first appointed Mennas as Vicar of the Apostolic See, and having commanded Sabinus and the other Bishops whom he had previously sent to remain with him and attend him, and to carry out the legation previously imposed upon them until the election of a new Pontiff.

[38] Mennas, truly worthy of those encomia with which Agapetus praises him in the letter addressed to Peter of Jerusalem — which we too shall discuss on August 25 — after the death of Agapetus, soon held a council with his legates and other Bishops, he is present at the council under Mennas in the year 536 and subscribes on the sixth day before the Nones of May, after the consulship of Belisarius, that is, in the year of Christ 536, against Anthimus, Severus, and other heretics. In each of the Sessions, the order in which Saint Sabinus and his companions sat is recorded. In the Fourth Session he subscribes to the sentence of the Council against Anthimus thus: "I, Sabinus, Bishop of the holy Church of Canusium, following the definition of our Father of holy memory, Pope Agapetus, concerning the person of Anthimus, formerly Bishop of Trebizond, have subscribed to all things." At the beginning of the Fifth Session, mention is made of him as follows: "And on the right side, sitting as co-auditors with him Mennas, according to the pious command of Justinian, the Christ-loving and God-guarded Emperor — the most excellent and most holy and most God-beloved Bishops: Sabinus of Canusium, Epiphanius of the Aesculani, Asterius of the Salernitans, Leo of the Nolani, Rusticus of the Faesulani, Theophanes, Roman Deacon, Pelagius, Roman Deacon — all indeed recently sent from the Italian region by the Apostolic See, and afterward consenting to Pope Agapetus of ancient Rome who came here." Finally, Sabinus subscribed to the sentence of the Patriarch Mennas against Severus, Peter, and Zoara in the same Fifth Session thus: "I, Sabinus, Bishop of the holy Church of Canusium, following in the Synod the definition of Pope Hormisdas of holy memory, anathematizing and condemning Severus and his impious writings, and Peter, formerly Bishop of Apamea, and their accomplices and followers, and also Zoara, and their communicants, and those persisting in the same error, have subscribed."

[39] That Sabinus suffered many harsh things during the time he was at Constantinople cannot be in the least doubted, since the impious Empress left no stone unturned he suffered much from the Empress Theodora to dislodge Mennas from the episcopal throne and restore Anthimus to it. For if she induced Vigilius, the Deacon of Agapetus, with the hope of the pontificate, to pledge himself as patron of Anthimus; if she drove the Deacon Pelagius to intercede lest Pope Saint Silverius be sent back from Patara, where he had been relegated by Belisarius, to Rome — as Liberatus writes in the Breviarium, chapter 22 — what engines did she not bring to bear, what terrors did she not threaten, what frauds and deceptions did she not compose, in order to conquer the spirits of Sabinus, a man of the greatest gravity, and of his fellow Bishops?

[40] Against the Emperor himself, too, Sabinus and his companions had to take up a struggle, together with the Pontiff Agapetus himself, and even before his arrival. and perhaps from Justinian For neither concerning the promotion of the lapsed to ecclesiastical dignities, which the Emperor wished, could he obtain what he wanted from the Legates, nor concerning the Bishop of the city of Justiniana; and indeed it is manifest that they resisted the ordination of Anthimus, who afterward so steadfastly adhered to Mennas. What sort of man Justinian was, and with what force he pressed what he had conceived in his mind, is evident from the encounter between him and Saint Agapetus, described by the author of the Historia Miscella, book 16, chapter 4, in these words: "When the holy Pontiff had gone to the Emperor Justinian, and had had a discussion of faith with him, he found that he had fallen into the doctrine of Eutyches; from whom, the day before, the blessed Prelate had suffered grave threats. even against the Pope, who was excessively harsh But when he perceived that he had found in him an unshaken constancy in the Catholic faith — for indeed it had progressed so far in words that the Prelate should say to him: 'I desired to come to Justinian, the most Christian Emperor, but I have found a Diocletian' — at last, by the will of God, acquiescing in his admonitions, he returned to the confession of the Catholic faith, together with many others who had likewise erred." If Justinian dared to threaten the Pontiff himself, what must he be believed to have done to his Legates, who are known not to have consented to his wishes?

Section 7. The Return of Saint Sabinus to Italy. Divine Revelations.

[41] When the Synod was at last concluded — the Fifth Session of which is found to have been held on the day before the Nones of June, after the consulship of Belisarius, in the fourteenth Indiction, the year of Christ 536 — and when, returning to Italy in the year 536 or 537 as is likely, the news of the creation of Silverius had already been brought, those who had been sent by Agapetus to Constantinople returned to Italy — the Legates Sabinus and the other Bishops, who had been commanded to remain there for a time after his death — while the Deacon Pelagius remained there. Unless perhaps the Bishops themselves did not immediately depart from the royal city either, for the time of their departure is not recorded.

[42] While returning to Italy, Sabinus turned aside to Lycia and venerated the sepulcher of the holy Bishop Nicholas in the city of Myra. If, He turns aside to Myra to the sepulcher of Saint Nicholas as is found in the appendix to the Chronicle of Marcellinus, in the fifteenth Indiction, after the second consulship of Belisarius, in the year of Christ 537, Belisarius relegated Pope Silverius — and indeed to Patara, a city of Lycia, as Liberatus testifies — it could appear that Sabinus journeyed thither to visit and console him. But at whatever time, he is certainly recorded to have come to Myra and to have visited the tomb of Saint Nicholas, formerly Bishop of that city, celebrated for miracles and the concourse of peoples, so that he might in person implore the patronage and protection of one whose manner of life he was zealously imitating. There, therefore, marveling at the sacred liquor flowing from his bones — which the Italians now call Manna — and at the assistance rendered through him to many mortals, he poured forth assiduous prayers at his tomb. One day, as he was beseeching God more fervently that through the intercession of that holy Bishop He would grant him His divine favor, and bestow upon him the grace of persevering in the pursuit of virtue until death, while he prays there, Saint Nicholas foretells perseverance and heavenly honors as he prayed, I say, Nicholas suddenly stood before him and thus addressed him: "Well done, Sabinus; God has heard your prayers, and in reward for the veneration here shown to my body, He has commanded me to announce these things to you: You will persevere in the worship of God until death, and when you have finished your life, the Catholic Church will inscribe you in the rolls of the Saints; and at length, after a long course of years, the relics of both of us will be translated to one and the same city, whose protection we shall both undertake." This at last came to pass when the body first of Saint Sabinus and then of Saint Nicholas was brought to Bari. This heavenly response (from the ancient records, as we believe, of the Church of Bari) is commemorated by Beatillus in the Life of Saint Sabinus, chapter 8, and in the History of Saint Nicholas, book 5, chapter 23, and book 6, chapter 3, where he testifies that whenever a provincial synod is held at Bari, when at the end the customary auspicious prayers and acclamations are made, the Archdeacon pronounces these words: "Let us celebrate the glorious Bishops Sabinus and Nicholas, whose memory is in blessing"; and all respond: "Let us celebrate." Hence we said above that if there were two Sabini, the body of the younger is preserved at Bari.

[43] Since at the very entrance of the Adriatic gulf there is a small island to which the ignorant populace gives the name Saseno, while the learned call it the island of Saint Sabinus, the same Beatillus conjectures that Sabinus perhaps landed there and performed some miracle there — though he confesses that no writer makes mention of this. Where did he land? He also believes that Sabinus, as soon as he came to Italy, proceeded to Rome in order to render account to Saint Silverius of the legation he had carried out. This does not seem so certain to us, since Italy was already disturbed by wars, and Rome was perhaps being besieged by Vitiges — if Silverius had not already been sent into exile, as we indicated.

[44] Restored therefore to his own See (being now about eighty years old, if there was only one Sabinus), the repose which seemed to be afforded him either by age or by the Apostolic See, he turned to a more ardent pursuit of virtue, especially of prayer and the contemplation of divine things. Divine liberality never allows itself to be outdone by human services. It therefore heaped upon Sabinus ever greater consolations and heavenly gifts from day to day. It is wonderful what they relate happened to him at that time — a small deed in itself, but no small proof of the heavenly wisdom infused into his soul. As he was walking in his domestic garden and, among the flower beds, reciting certain hymns and Psalms of David, he perceives distant events from the song of birds or by divine revelation an immense cheerfulness was poured into his soul, which he also betrayed by an unusual laugh. Those watching from a distance were amazed and asked what occasion for laughter had presented itself to him while he was singing the psalms. The holy man concealed from them the secret that was turning in his mind; yet he deflected their curiosity elsewhere: "Do you hear," he said, "those little birds which, fluttering joyfully, fly from one tree to another and soothe the air with their sweetest harmony? They have come here to summon their companions to a certain place not far distant from here, to feed on the grains of wheat which, a cart having overturned by accident, lie scattered on the ground. Who indeed would not exult in spirit when he hears those who lack the use of reason inviting one another with such great love to food and refreshment?" "Thus indeed that thing moved me, so that I could not repress the feeling of my exulting soul from bursting forth." In this way he eluded those who questioned him, concealing the gifts of grace that had been infused into his soul from heaven. They, marveling, secretly sent someone to investigate the matter. He found both the overturned cart and a great quantity of grain scattered on the ground. This was proof of how great the mysteries of heaven were that God communicated to him for knowledge and enjoyment — he who had discovered so small a thing either truly from the chattering of birds or by divine illumination. Beatillus commemorates these things in chapter 9.

Section 8. The Blindness of Saint Sabinus. The Gift of Prophecy.

[45] Totila, who is also called Badwilla or Badiulla, was the seventh King of the Ostrogoths in Italy. He obtained the kingdom in the seventh year of the Gothic War, which had been brought against Theodatus in the year of Christ 535, as Totila raged and soon setting out with his army into Campania and Samnium, he took the strong city of Benevento and demolished its walls; soon having gained possession of all Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, he also occupied Naples — though here he used his victory kindly, in contrast to Belisarius six years earlier. From there he came to Saint Benedict on Monte Cassino, who predicted that he would reign for nine years and die in the tenth, having first visited Sicily and occupied Rome, as Saint Gregory relates in book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 15. He besieged and captured Rome in the eleventh year of the Gothic War, the year of Christ 545, and deliberated on its utter destruction, as Procopius writes in book 3. Very many feared this, even at the very beginning of his reign, and among them Saint Sabinus, whose spirit Saint Benedict raised to a better hope, as is commemorated below by the writer of his Life. It is pleasant here to relate the same in the words of Saint Gregory. He writes thus in the same chapter 15 of book 2 of the Dialogues:

[46] "Moreover, the Bishop of the Church of Canusium was accustomed to come to the same servant of God, whom the man of God greatly loved for the merit of his life. When therefore he had a conversation with him about the entrance of King Totila and the destruction of the city of Rome, he said: 'Through this King that city will be destroyed, so that it shall no longer be inhabited.' [Saint Benedict predicts to Saint Sabinus that Rome will not be destroyed by Totila] To which the man of the Lord replied: 'Rome will not be destroyed by the nations, but, weakened by storms, lightning, hurricanes, and earthquake, she will wither in herself.' The mysteries of this prophecy have now become clearer to us than light, who behold in this city the dissolved walls, the overturned houses, the destroyed churches in the hurricane; and we see that her buildings, worn out by long old age, are being prostrated by ever-increasing ruins. Although Honoratus, his disciple, from whose account I learned this, declares that he himself never heard this from his mouth; but he testifies that the Brothers told him that he had said it."

[47] Sabinus himself also, having become blind either from old age or from some other mishap, began to see more clearly with his mind, illuminated by the Spirit of prophecy. Saint Gregory himself also testifies to this in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 5: "For certain religious men, known in the parts of the province of Apulia, are accustomed to testify what has become widely known far and wide concerning Sabinus, Bishop of the city of Canusium: Sabinus himself was also gifted with the spirit of prophecy that the same man had already lost the light of his eyes through long old age, so that he could see nothing at all. When Totila, King of the Goths, heard that he possessed the Spirit of prophecy, he did not believe it in the least, but endeavored to test what he had heard. When he came into those parts, the man of the Lord invited him to dinner. When they had come to the table, the King declined to recline, but sat at the right hand of the venerable man Sabinus. When a boy was offering Sabinus a cup of wine in the customary manner, the King silently stretched out his hand, took the cup, and offered it himself to the Bishop in the boy's place, to see whether, foreseeing in spirit, he would discern who was offering him the cup. (which Totila tests) Then the man of God, receiving the cup but not seeing the attendant, said: 'May that hand live!' At this word the King was both delighted and embarrassed, because although he himself had been detected, yet in the man of God he found what he was seeking." If this happened in the first year of Totila, when, having captured Benevento and stripped it of its walls — as we related above from Procopius — and having destroyed Cannae, as is said in the Life of Saint Laurentius of Siponto on February 7, he subjected to himself all Apulia, Lucania, and Campania, it must be said that Saint Sabinus became blind shortly after his return from Constantinople, and was thus tested by God for at least twenty years; and that he was already blind when he received from the mouth of Saint Benedict the aforementioned prophecy about the destruction of Rome.

[48] Saint Gregory brings forward in the same place another proof of the prophecy with which Saint Sabinus was gifted, which is also narrated below by the writer of his Life, but has greater authority when related in the words of the most holy Pontiff. It reads thus: "When the life of this venerable man was being drawn out into old age, as an example for the life of those who followed, his Archdeacon, kindled by the ambition of obtaining the episcopate, attempted to destroy him with poison. When he had corrupted the soul of the wine-pourer, [he perceives that poison is being offered to him through the Archdeacon's treachery] so that he would offer him a cup of wine mixed with poison, at the hour of the meal, when the man of God had already reclined at table to eat, the boy, corrupted by bribes, offered him the cup of poison which he had received from his Archdeacon. The venerable Bishop immediately said to him: 'You drink what you offer me to drink.' The boy, trembling and feeling that he was discovered, preferred to die by drinking it rather than to endure the punishments for the guilt of so great a murder. And as he was lifting the cup to his lips, the man of the Lord restrained him, saying: 'Do not drink; give it to me, I will drink it; but go, say to him who gave it to you: I indeed drink the poison, and drinks it unharmed but you will not be Bishop.' Having therefore made the sign of the Cross, the Bishop drank the poison in safety. And in that same hour, in another place where he was, his Archdeacon died, as if through the mouth of the Bishop the poisons had passed into the bowels of the Archdeacon. Yet although corporeal poison failed to bring death to the Bishop, but the Archdeacon dies though absent the poison of his own malice slew the Archdeacon in the sight of the eternal Judge." So writes Saint Gregory. Vincent of Beauvais in book 21, chapter 66, relates the same things about Totila recognizing him, the poison drunk, and the death of the Archdeacon, somewhat more briefly.

Section 9. The Death of Saint Sabinus. The Irruption of the Lombards.

[49] Not only in these private matters did Saint Sabinus show himself endowed with the Spirit of prophecy, but also in predicting the public devastation of all Italy that was imminent. And he contended indeed, Saint Sabinus prays against and foretells the calamities of Italy as long as he lived, by pouring forth assiduous prayers, to propitiate God who was angry with the people and to avert that calamity. This is evident from the inscription that exists in the church of Canusium, according to Beatillus. For as he was praying to God with great fervor of soul, a voice came to him, formed by the work of an Angel, of this kind: "Sabinus, ask of the Lord, and you will obtain." Sabinus replied: "I ask, O Lord, that Your wrath may be stilled, and be merciful over the wickedness of Your people, and deliver them from the hands of their enemies." But when he was already near death, as is said in chapter 4, number 10, he more clearly announced the evils that were to come.

[50] He died in the fifty-second year of his episcopate, the year of Christ 566, When did he die? as Beatillus establishes in chapter 11, where he also says he was buried in the basilica of Saint Peter, which was the Cathedral both in Sabinus's own time and long afterward. He was placed in a tomb which he himself had caused to be prepared for himself while living; but not long afterward his relics were removed by the priests of Canusium and deposited in another place not far from that tomb, without any inscription or other mark, so that by this means they might escape the sacrilegious hands of the Barbarians. So writes Beatillus, perhaps from the records or tradition of the Church of Canusium — though these do not entirely agree with the Life, as we shall say below. But it seems that the Canusians, warned by that prophecy of Saint Sabinus, deliberately buried his body in such a way that it could not easily be found, and so it would be withdrawn from the fury of the impious.

[51] For two years later the Lombards, a fierce nation -- so called either from the length of their beards or rather from the length of their swords -- invaded Italy, which certain of their forces had previously traversed, sent to the aid of Narses against the Goths. These, having departed from Scandinavia, as Paul the Deacon (himself a Lombard) writes, dwelt in Pannonia for forty-two years; The Lombards departed from Pannonia, from which they set out in the month of April, in the first Indiction, on the day after holy Easter, the feast of which that year, according to the reckoning of the calendar, fell on the very Kalends of April, when already five hundred and sixty-eight years had elapsed since the Incarnation of the Lord. So writes Paul concerning the deeds of the Lombards, book 2, chapter 7. That was the eighth year of Pope John III and the third of the younger Emperor Justin. Alboin was King of the Lombards, they occupy Italy, son of Audoin, a bloodthirsty man who had fashioned the skull of Cunimund, King of the Gepids, whom he had slain, into a drinking cup, from which he was accustomed to drink. He, in the following year, at the beginning of the third Indiction, on the third day before the Nones of September, entered Milan; then he captured Ticinum after a siege of three years and reigned in Italy for three years and six months; and finally perished through the treachery of his own wife Rosamund, daughter of Cunimund, in the year 572. In his place, by the common decision of the Lombards, Cleph, a most noble man, was appointed; and when he was removed after a year and a half, thirty Dukes, having divided among themselves nearly all of Italy, ruled for ten years, raging with every kind of cruelty, especially against sacred persons. Paul the Deacon himself testifies this of his own countrymen in book 2, the last chapter: and they rage fiercely therein. "Through these Dukes of the Lombards, in the seventh year after the arrival of Alboin and the whole nation, with churches despoiled, priests slain, cities overthrown, and peoples who had grown up like crops extinguished -- except for those regions which Alboin had captured -- Italy was for the most part taken and subjugated by the Lombards." Five Dukes are named by Paul: Zaban, who held Ticinum; Wallari, Bergamo; Alachis, Brescia; Eoin, Trent; Gisulf, Forum Julii. But there were also other thirty Dukes besides these in their own cities. If you add to these King Alboin himself, residing at Milan, there will be thirty-six, as many as are enumerated by others.

[52] And indeed the beginning of the principate of these thirty Dukes must be reckoned not from the death of Cleph, but from the entry of Alboin into Liguria, or from the time when the cities or provinces which each of them held were subjugated. And indeed, passing over the rest who have nothing to do with Canusium or Saint Sabinus, the chronology of the Dukes of Benevento can be arranged from Paul the Deacon as follows: Chronology of the Dukes of Benevento, "The first Duke of the Lombards in Benevento was named Zotto, who held the principate there for the course of twenty years" (book 3, chapter 34). Then Arichis, a kinsman of Gisulf, Duke of Forum Julii, for fifty years (book 4, chapter 46). His son Aio for one year and five months. Romuald, son of Gisulf of Forum Julii, for five years. Grimoald, brother of Romuald, for twenty-five years (book 4, chapter 47); but of these he spent nine in the kingdom, which he had seized from the sons of Aripert, Bertarid and Godebert (book 5, chapter 33).

[53] Moreover, the time at which Grimoald seized the kingdom can be clearly established from the Preface of Grimoald himself to the Laws which he added to the Edict of King Rothari, especially of King Grimoald. as can be seen in the code of Lombard Laws which Basilius Johannes Herold published. The Preface reads thus: "On the preceding page of this Edict it is read as follows -- which, with the Lord still assenting, you will be able to recall -- that concerning individual cases which are not at present appended, we ought to add them to this Edict, provided that cases which have been judged and concluded not be reopened. Therefore I, the most excellent Grimoald, King of the Lombard nation, in the sixth year, God being propitious, of my reign, in the month of July, in the eleventh Indiction, at the suggestion of the Judges and with the consent of all, those things which seemed to them harsh and unjust in this Edict, that we should correct and revoke them to a better state and a more merciful remedy -- this we have done, as is read." Let there be collected, therefore, the twenty years of Zotto, the fifty of Arichis, the one year and five months of Aio, the five of Romuald, the sixteen of Grimoald, and let there be added the six of his reign: they will amount to ninety-eight years and five months. Let these be added to 568: the total will be 666 and a half. Therefore the nearest eleventh Indiction must be sought, in which those Laws were enacted: that will be the year 668. Therefore Grimoald began to reign toward the end of the year 662 or the beginning of 663, as Baronius establishes at this year, number 6 -- though I do not quite see why he there reproaches Sigonius for placing the beginning of Grimoald's reign in the year 661. For Sigonius places the death of Aripert in the year 661. While the sons enter upon the kingdom -- Godebert at Ticinum, Bertarid at Milan -- while hatred grows between them, while Grimoald is summoned by the one, while the other is slain, the fugitive, soon returned, is sought for death; while the Franks, coming to avenge the fugitive, are defeated -- one year and three months elapsed, which Paul the Deacon in book 5, chapter 33, states flowed from the death of Aripert to the seizure of the kingdom by Grimoald. If Aripert died when the year of Christ 661 was already advanced, the kingdom could not have been secured by Grimoald until the end of 662 or the beginning of 663. He had already dismissed the Beneventan army when, at the beginning of spring in the year 663, the Emperor Constans came into Italy and besieged Romuald at Benevento, to whose aid his father Grimoald hastened. These things, I say, were done in the spring, as is evident from Anastasius the Librarian, who in the Life of Pope Saint Vitalian (which we gave on the twenty-seventh of January), after many things which Paul the Deacon relates in book 5, chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as done by Constans and his generals, finally writes that he came to Rome on the fifth day of July, a Wednesday, in the sixth Indiction -- that is, in the same year 663.

[54] This being established, to return to the earlier Dukes: if from the year 668, which was Grimoald's sixth, ninety-eight and a half are subtracted, the remainder will be 569 and a half. And this is the very time at which Alboin, having entered Liguria, besieged Ticinum, having sent Dukes into various regions to subjugate the rest of Italy. From that year, therefore, or the following, the beginning of the Beneventan principate must be reckoned. Under Duke Zotto of Benevento, the Lombards rage against sacred persons, Now in the first seven years especially the Lombards raged. So writes Saint Gregory of Tours, who was living at that time, in book 4, chapter 35: "Having entered that region (Italy), roaming through it especially for seven years, despoiling churches and slaying priests, they brought it under their power." The Lombards were partly pagans, partly Arians, as Baronius shows at the year 573; where he then describes what slaughters of the Saints they perpetrated, what sacrileges and other crimes they committed, chiefly from Saint Gregory the Pope, who was present during those evils -- for Paul the Deacon, who lived two hundred years later, either did not know most things or concealed them out of loyalty to his nation. Yet not all; for in book 4, chapter 30, speaking of Saint Gregory, having cited his epistle 1, book 7, to Sabinianus the Subdeacon, he writes thus: "Behold how great the innocence of one who did not wish to involve himself even in the death of the Lombards, who were indeed both unbelievers and were devastating everything." and temples and monasteries, And in chapter 18 of the same book: "About this time the monastery of the blessed Father Benedict, which is situated on Monte Cassino, was invaded by the Lombards at night; who, plundering everything, were unable to seize even one of the monks, so that the prophecy of the venerable Father Benedict, which he had foreseen long before, might be fulfilled, in which he said: 'Scarcely was I able to obtain from God that the souls in this place should be granted to me.'" Saint Gregory relates that prophecy in book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 17, and from him Baronius at the year 573, number 24. Peter the Deacon of Cassino and Marcus Antonius Scipio hold that this sacking of the Cassinese monastery occurred in the year 589. Leo of Ostia places it in the year 590, which was the last year of Duke Zotto. I suspect it happened somewhat earlier.

[55] Nor did the Lombards keep their impious hands from the very tombs and bodies of the Saints. Paul, somewhat earlier than Paul the Deacon, -- that is, Pope Saint Paul -- testifies to this in his epistle to Abbot John concerning the church and monasteries erected by him on his paternal estates, the tombs also, and the bodies of Saints. under the title of Saints Stephen, Pope and Martyr, and Silvester, Pope and Confessor, writing thus: "Therefore, since over the course of elapsed years, the various cemeteries of the holy Martyrs and Confessors of Christ, situated in ancient times outside the walls of this city of Rome, remained quite neglected and in ruins, it afterward came to pass that they were utterly demolished by the impious assault of the Lombard nations. Who also, digging up and impiously devastating several of the tombs of those same Martyrs, plundered and carried off with them the bodies of certain Saints. From that time onward, the honor of due veneration was exhibited to them in an entirely negligent and careless manner. For even (which it is impious to say) various animals had access to some of those same cemeteries of the Saints," etc. This epistle was given and subscribed by the Bishops on the fourth day before the Nones of June, in the twenty-first year of the Emperor Constantine, in the fourteenth Indiction -- that is, in the year of Christ 761, the fourth of Pope Paul himself. Baronius recites the same in volume 7, at the year 573, number 5, and says that to keep away animals stabling in the cemeteries, the entrances of many were closed, and the memory of them thereafter perished; but many have been discovered in our own age. Yet we think that not a few of these cemeteries were blocked up for no reason of animal contamination, but lest they be violated either by the sacrilegious hands of the Lombards or even earlier by those of others, and that they remained unknown to posterity.

[56] Furthermore, if the Lombards dared such things in the suburbs of Rome -- who nevertheless never gained possession of the city itself -- what do we suppose they did elsewhere, in those cities which they captured or even destroyed? Providently, therefore, the Canusians either buried deeply in the earth the body of their most holy Bishop, Therefore the body of Saint Sabinus was hidden. or indeed concealed it elsewhere than where it had first been buried; together with money that had been buried, whether from the treasury of the Church itself, or contributed by private individuals for the future restoration of the sacred edifice and its furnishings, or so that by this means it might be more safely preserved for its owners. But all who were privy to this died before that double treasure could safely be exhumed; and accordingly it lay hidden, buried in oblivion, for more than a hundred years.

[57] And the city of Canusium was at that time exhausted in a wretched manner, whether by the cruelty of Duke Zotto, or by famine and the pestilence and other calamities that follow upon famine. For in the Life of Pope Benedict I, who sat from the sixteenth of May 573 until the thirty-first of July 577, Anastasius the Librarian writes thus: "At the same time the Lombard nation invaded all of Italy, and likewise an exceedingly great famine, The mournful condition of the Church of Canusium at that time. so that even a multitude of fortified places surrendered to the Lombards, that they might be able to alleviate the distress of hunger." What the condition of the city of Canusium was at that time is evident from the epistle of Pope Saint Gregory to Bishop Felix of Siponto, given in the ninth Indiction, the year of Christ 591, being epistle 51 of book 1. It reads thus: "It has come to our attention that the Church of Canusium is so destitute of the priestly office that neither can penance be administered there to the dying, nor baptism to infants. Moved therefore by the burden of so pious and so necessary a matter, we command your Charity that, admonished by the authority of this precept, you should go as visitor to the aforesaid Church and ordain at least two parochial Priests, whom however you shall have determined to be worthy for such an office by the reverence of their life and the gravity of their morals, and against whom nothing in the statutes of canonical discipline shall stand -- so that provision may be made for the holy Church with due care." So writes Gregory, concerning things which had plainly been predicted by Saint Sabinus in chapter 4, number 10.

Section 10. The Dukes of Benevento. The Finding and Translation of Saint Sabinus.

[58] Upon the death of Zotto, Duke of the Beneventans, about the year 590, as we have shown above, Arichis succeeded him in his place, Duke of Benevento 2: Arichis, sent by King Agilulf, as Paul the Deacon writes in book 4, chapter 19. He had been born in Forum Julii and had raised the sons of Gisulf, Duke of Forum Julii, and was a kinsman of that same Gisulf. It is plausible that the Canusians and the other Apulians were thereafter treated more gently, under the long and consequently moderate dominion of Arichis (or Arigisus); more moderate, whom we may gather to have been Catholic from an epistle sent to him by Pope Saint Gregory. For it begins thus: "Gregory to Arigisus the Duke. Because we confide in Your Glory, as truly in our son, because Catholic, we are emboldened to make some request of you with confidence, reckoning that you will by no means allow us to be saddened, especially in such a matter, by which your soul may be greatly aided." And then, after proposing the matter he was requesting of him: "For we promise that when the business shall have been completed, we will send you a worthy gift that will not be offensive. For we know how to take account and to respond to our sons who show us good will. Wherefore again we ask, glorious son, that you should so act that we may be your debtors for the benefit conferred, and you may have a reward for the churches of the Saints." He would never have called a heretical man "son," nor so confidently implored his aid for the promotion of the building of churches, nor promised him a reward from that work and assistance to his soul. Paul recites this epistle of Saint Gregory in book 4, chapter 20.

[59] The same Arichis gave another distinguished proof of his moderate spirit. For when his son Aio, having been sent to King Rothari, had been given at Ravenna, through the malice of the Romans, and moderate. such a potion, as the same Paul writes in book 4, chapter 45, "as made him lose his mind, and from that time he was never of full and sound senses," his father, drawing near to his last day, "commended Romuald and Grimoald, who were already in the flower of youth, to the Lombards who were present, as though they were his own sons, and told them that these could govern them better than his son Aio." Yet they, 3: Aio. as Paul relates, "obeyed Aio after his father's death as their elder brother and lord in all things." But when he was slain by the Slavs after one year and five months, 4: Romuald. and Romuald died after five years, Grimoald at last was made Duke and governed the Duchy of the Samnites for twenty-five years. Paul the Deacon, in book 4, chapter 38, admirably praises the enormous courage of this man even in his very boyhood. 5: Grimoald, himself also Catholic, Johannes Antonius Guarnerius in his book on the Saints of Bergamo, and Carolus Sigonius in book 2 of his work on the Kingdom of Italy, write that he was converted from the Arian heresy by Saint John, Bishop of Bergamo, who is venerated on the eleventh of July. That he was certainly Catholic, Erycius Puteanus aptly argues in book 2 of his Insubrian History, from the fact that Paul in book 5, chapter 33, testifies that a church dedicated to Saint Ambrose -- that fierce enemy of the Arians -- was founded by him.

[60] He held the Beneventan principate for twenty-five years; but in the sixteenth year he set his son Romuald over it and himself seized the kingdom from the sons of Aripert, depriving one of them even of life; he himself died about the year 671. For since he himself testifies that in the eleventh Indiction, the year of Christ 668, he was in the sixth year of his reign, who was also King. and he reigned altogether for nine years, he must have survived to 671 or the beginning of 672. That the twenty-five years of the principate include also the years of the reign seems to be established from what has been said above. For if he had completed twenty-five years before the seizure of the kingdom, and these were combined with the seventy-six years of the preceding Dukes, the total would be at least one hundred and one years: and if these were added to the year 568, the result would be altogether 669; and thus the sixth year of his reign would be the year of Christ 674, in Indiction II -- not, as he himself has it, in Indiction XI.

[61] When in the year 663 Grimoald was heading for Benevento to bring aid to his son Romuald, lest anything be disturbed meanwhile among the Insubrians, 6: Romuald; he placed Lupus, Duke of Forum Julii, in charge of the royal court. Lupus, thinking he would not return, committed many insolent acts at Ticinum. But when Grimoald returned, conscious of his own villainy, as Paul writes in book 5, chapter 18, he rebelled. Grimoald sent the Huns against him, and when these same Huns, after Lupus was slain, refused to withdraw from the province they had occupied, he drove them away, terrified by a remarkable stratagem. He then gave Lupus's daughter Theuderada in marriage to his son Romuald, who was governing Benevento, his wife Theodorada, by whom he begot three sons: Grimoald, Gisulf, and also Arichis. So Paul writes in book 5, chapter 25; and then in book 6, chapter 2, he writes that Romuald governed the Duchy for sixteen years. These years, however, seem to be reckoned from the death of his father, not from the time when the latter seized the kingdom. the time of his rule. For if it was not until the year 664 or 665, after the Greeks had been repelled from the siege of Benevento, Lupus had been slain with the aid of the Huns, and these same Huns had been expelled from Forum Julii, that a wife was given to Romuald -- who was already in his second or third year as prince -- how would it be plausible that Wigilinda, daughter of Bertarid, was joined in marriage to his son, who survived his father by only three years, when that son was still almost a boy? Moreover, the chronology of the succeeding Dukes will stand perfectly if we place Romuald's beginning in the year 671, when his father died, or 672; otherwise it would totter. Therefore Grimoald succeeded his father, who departed this life in the year of Christ 671, and ruled for sixteen years.

[62] In his place in the year 687 his son Grimoald was appointed, still an adolescent, under the care of his mother Theodorada, as is said in the Life of Saint Sabinus, chapter 5, number 16. 7: Grimoald. He married Wigilinda, daughter of King Bertarid, and died in the third year of his principate. To him (his son being passed over, if he had any -- perhaps even a posthumous one, as we said above in section 2 we suspected) 8: Gisulf. his brother Gisulf (or Gusulf) succeeded, and in the time of Pope John -- namely the sixth of that name (who sat from the twenty-ninth of October of the year 701 to the tenth of January 705) -- he burst into Campania. But the Pontiff checked his efforts by sending Apostolic gifts to him, as Anastasius writes, and brought it about that he led his army home. Gisulf presided over the Beneventan province for seventeen years, as Paul testifies in book 6, chapter 2. His son Romuald II for twenty-six years (same chapter, 55). 9: Romuald II. When his son Gisulf was still unfit for government on account of his age, King Liutprand took him with himself into Cisalpine Gaul, 10: Gregory. appointing in the meantime his own nephew Gregory over the Beneventans; and when Gregory died after seven years, Godescalc was appointed in his place in the year 736 or 737. Since Godescalc, together with Trasimundus, Duke of Spoleto, adhered to the Pope, 11: Godescalc, allied with the Pope. Liutprand attacked them in war, for no other crime, as Gregory III writes in epistle 7 to Charles Martel, "except because they refused last year to burst forth from their territories upon us, and (as those others did) to destroy the properties of the holy Apostles," etc. Moreover it is evident from the Life of Pope Saint Zacharias in Anastasius, in the seventh Indiction, 12: Gisulf II. that is, the year of Christ 739, that the expedition against those two Dukes and the Romans was undertaken by Liutprand. When the Beneventans had killed Godescalc, Gisulf II was restored to his father's dominion; 13: Arechis II. and when he died about the year 762, the Duchy was conferred by King Desiderius on Arichis; 14: Grimoald II. and to him in the year 788 his son Grimoald succeeded by the authority of Charlemagne.

[63] These matters having been thus set forth for the clarity of Beneventan history, it will be more expeditious to indicate the time of the Finding and Translation of Saint Sabinus. Beatillus in chapter 13 says that about the year of Christ 700, a certain Gregory, a Spaniard, was divinely admonished [The body of Saint Sabinus found under Grimoald II and his mother Theodorada, about the year 688.] to betake himself to Italy, where he would find a remedy for his illness at the tomb of Saint Sabinus. The anonymous writer of the Life, in chapter 5, number 16, says this happened at the time when Theodorada, after Romuald's death, was governing the Samnite people with her young son. Romuald died, as we have already established, in the year 687, and his son Grimoald in the year 690. Therefore it was in the time of the younger Grimoald that the sepulchre of Saint Sabinus was found and opened, and a church erected over it and variously adorned. From this you may conclude, contrary to what Beatillus relates, that the sepulchre was not buried in the church of Saint Peter but elsewhere. For if it had been in the church of Saint Peter, how did they build a church over it? He himself interprets it as a chapel, or a small church attached to the larger basilica. But in chapter 7 it is said to have been a thousand paces from the cathedral. not in the church of Saint Peter, which was the cathedral: Nor indeed, within the church itself, however deeply buried, would the holy body and the money added to it have been safe from the Barbarians. Was it originally interred in the church itself, as Beatillus says? There is no evidence from which to establish this with certainty; for no mention is made of an empty sepulchre, and it is expressly stated that the sepulchre was found and opened, so that it seems to have been the original one in which Sabinus was buried -- but that, at the approach of the Lombards, it was so covered over with earth, any small building that stood over it having been demolished, that no suspicion of a hidden treasure would be offered to them.

[64] The author of the Life relates that Bishop Peter narrated this history of the Finding to him, as he testifies in chapter 5, number 13; afterward translated to it by Bishop Peter, on the thirtieth of June, and Peter himself had heard it from elderly priests through many diligent inquiries -- those, as I believe, who had been present in the time of Theodorada, so that it is probable that Peter presided over the Church of Canusium in the times of Dukes Romuald II or Gregory, or not long after. He then, as is related in chapter 7, translated the body of Saint Sabinus from the church which Theodorada had built to the cathedral church, where it might be honored with the greater devotion of the people flocking thither. The marble tomb was opened on the twenty-ninth of June, from which a most sweet odor spread far and wide. On the following day, with fragrant liquid emanating from the marble tomb, the sacred body was translated to the cathedral, a thousand paces distant, and was illuminated by heavenly light at night, while the Bishop looked on. He was afterward seized by a fever and in his sleep was restored to health by Saint Sabinus, as though speaking to him from the sepulchre, and was commanded to see to it that the slaves of others, who were being wrongfully detained by his own men, should be returned more quickly to their masters. Having carried this out as soon as possible, deposited in it on the first of August, he immediately returned to Canusium (for this had been done outside the city) and splendidly and piously deposited the body of Saint Sabinus beneath the altar of Saints John and Paul on the Kalends of August.

[65] Beatillus, besides being in error about Peter's age, as it seems to us, narrates this entire Translation differently. He holds, then, that the sepulchre of Sabinus and the altar erected over it by Theodorada existed in the cathedral church dedicated to Saint Peter; and that since the city had been disfigured by the ruins of the Lombard incursion and the cathedral was far from the dwellings of the citizens, another cathedral was built by the Bishops of Canusium, to which Peter attempted to transfer the body of Saint Sabinus. not returned to the former tomb. Then what is said about the slaves of others unjustly detained and restored, he would have Peter understand as referring to the bones of the holy Bishop to be returned to the earth, as though they were his proper servants, and accordingly carried back to the old place. But anyone who reads that seventh chapter attentively will perceive that these interpretations are foreign to the mind of the ancient writer.

Section 11. The Relics of Saint Sabinus Translated from Canusium to Bari.

[66] The same Beatillus writes in chapter 16 of the Life of Saint Sabinus that about the year of Christ 818, Canusium was captured and plundered by a sudden incursion of the Saracens, and the citizens scattered in various directions; Was Canusium captured in the year 818, overthrown in 829? that Bishop Peter, who had already been honored with the title of Archbishop by the Roman Pontiff, withdrew to Salerno, and there in the house of the Prince, to whom he was related by blood, he lived many years in great holiness. But when in the year 829 other forces of Saracens, having landed in Italy, laid waste all of Apulia and overthrew Canusium, and all hope of returning to his Church was now taken away, in the year 834 he was declared Bishop of Salerno upon the death of Rodaldus, and finally died in the year 844. From that time the See of Salerno was committed to Rattulus, and the See of Canusium to Angelarius, who was at the same time Archbishop of Bari. By him the relics of Saint Sabinus were translated to Bari. Gaspar Musca in his book on the Bishops of Salerno records the same things about Peter's exile and the See of Salerno.

[67] Before we treat of the Translation of Saint Sabinus, the time of the destruction of Canusium must be investigated. After those Dukes whom we listed in the preceding section as having presided over the Beneventan dominion from about the year 570 to 818, the affairs of the Lombards began to flow backward, The affairs of the Beneventan Dukes collapsed, especially after they, dashing against one another in civil wars, summoned to their aid the impious Saracen nation, by which innumerable calamities were inflicted on the Italian provinces for nearly one hundred and fifty years. How these affairs stood, Leo of Ostia in the Chronicle of Cassino, Erchempert, and Caesar Baronius in volumes 9 and 10 of the Annals relate. We shall briefly set forth from these what pertains to our subject. Grimoald IV was slain by Radelchis, Count of Conza, and Sico was put in his place, in the year 817, as Marius de Vipera and others write -- or rather 818. after the slaying of Grimoald IV in the year 818. For, as is evident from the Annals of the Franks published under the name of Einhard, when Louis the Pious, having set out from Aachen after Easter of the year 818 into Armorican Brittany, and having pacified it had come to Angers, and there his wife Ermengarde had died on the fifth day before the Nones of October, and he himself, returning through Rouen, Amiens, and Cambrai to Aachen to spend the winter, had come to Heristal, he encountered the envoys of Sico, Duke of the Beneventans, bringing gifts and accusing him -- or rather, excusing him, as is evident from the Life of the same Louis written by a contemporary -- of the killing of his predecessor Duke Grimoald. Louis could not, after the fifth day before the Nones of October, first attend to the burial of his wife and then travel from Angers to Heristal (which is a place on the Meuse near Liege in Belgium) before the month of November. And who would believe that Grimoald, a tributary of Louis, had been slain so long before, and that the Emperor had not earlier wished either to avenge his death or to have his successor ingratiate himself?

[68] Sichardus, son of Sico, succeeded him. However, in the Catalogue of the Dukes of Benevento prefixed to the Epitome of Erchempert there is an error, 16th Duke: Sico. when it says that Sico ruled for twelve years and two months, and Sichardus for six years and ten months -- from which it would follow that Sichardus was killed in the year 837. Leo of Ostia, in book 1, chapter 26, of the Chronicle of Cassino, writes that Bassacius was made Abbot of Cassino in the year 837, 17th: Sichardus, and in his third year, "with the aforesaid Prince Sichardus still living, the body of the blessed Apostle Bartholomew was translated from the Lipari Islands to Benevento," which occurred on the twenty-fifth of October 839. More correctly, then, Vipera places the death of Sico in the year 832, and Sichardus in the year 839. Radelchis was substituted for him, against whom Siconulf, brother of Sichardus, 18th: Radelchis: relying on the resources of the Capuans, rebelled. But finally in the year 851, Louis, son of the Emperor Lothar, divided the entire Beneventan province between them by equal right, as Leo writes in chapter 31. The first Prince of Salerno, therefore, was Siconulf, who, as Erchempert testifies, did not long survive this division, made by the authority of Lothar and Louis, and left his son as heir of his office. But Radelchis also did not long outlive him; and when he departed, his son Radelgarius was chosen to the principate in his place. Radelgarius was succeeded by his brother Adelchis. Therefore Peter could not have resided in the palace of the Prince of Salerno from the year 818, since the Salernitani Prince was not yet distinct from the Beneventan.

[69] Now let us come to the Saracens. Leo of Ostia writes in chapter 23 that in the year of Christ 820, the third of Abbot Apollinaris of Cassino, the Saracens, coming from Africa, entered Sicily and captured Palermo. But Cedrenus, Zonaras, and the Curopalates write that they gained possession of Sicily through the treachery of Euphemius, from this time the Saracens, having previously entered Sicily, in the last years of Michael the Stammerer, in the year, as we have said elsewhere, 828. Baronius refers it to the year of Christ 827. From that time they harassed not only Sicily but also Calabria and many provinces of Italy, as the same authors relate. Out of fear of them, Pope Gregory IV founded Gregoriopolis at the mouth of the Tiber and laid the foundations of the Leonine City, "grieving that the suburb of the city of Rome around the church of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, was being vexed and devastated by the frequent incursions of the Saracens." So Sigebert at the year 830, and it is reported by Baronius at the year 829, number 9. But the Saracens did not invade the Beneventan province until the year 842 or 843, having been summoned from Sicily by a certain Pando, Prefect of Bari, to the aid of Radelchis; summoned into Apulia, who, having been placed on the seashore near Bari, penetrated the city by night through a secret entrance, and having wrought enormous slaughter and having cast the Prefect himself into the sea, held it for nearly thirty years. "Radelchis, because he could not tear them from the city," says Erchempert, "began to cultivate them as familiar friends and gradually to summon them to his assistance." Then Siconulf, against the African Agarenes, as the same author says, (against his rival Siconulf, aided by Spanish Saracens, enlisted Spanish Ishmaelites; and while they alternated between civil and foreign wars, "the lands beyond the sea were being filled with captive peoples of both sexes and every age." Siconulf seized from Radelchis all cities except Siponto and Benevento. Yet that even this last was captured is written by Nithard in book 4: "At the same time the Moors, brought in by Siconulf, brother of Sichardus, for his own aid, invade Benevento." But Erchempert reports that Benevento was indeed besieged by Siconulf, but not, however, intercepted.

[70] In the same year, the seventh of Abbot Bassacius, the year of Christ 843, Siconulf carried off from the Cassinese monastery, under the name of a loan, the entire treasury and the precious gifts of the Frankish Kings and other Princes, to lavish them upon the Saracens. who carries off the Cassinese treasury to pay the Saracens From that time he never afterward obtained any victory. So Leo in chapter 28, and from him Baronius at the year 843, number 30. The following year he came to Rome with a great army to Louis, son of the Emperor Lothar, by whom he was honorably received; and having reverently kissed the feet of the Supreme Pontiff and received his blessing, he returned to Campania. In the year 846 the Moors, coming to Rome with an army, since they could not break into the city, devastated the church of Saint Peter. So Baronius at that year, number 2, from the Annals published by Pithou; and then he relates what other damages were inflicted on Latium and Campania by them, from Leo of Ostia and Anastasius.

[71] In the year 847, when a great earthquake shook Italy in the tenth Indiction, as the same authors testify -- Anastasius in his Life of Leo IV, Leo of Ostia in chapter 30, and from them Baronius at number 24 -- Massar, the Saracen leader who, dwelling at Benevento, was in the military service of Prince Radelchis, they rage fiercely: both afflicted the Beneventans themselves in a cruel manner and devastated everything far and wide. But in the year 849 those Moors who had landed on the Roman coast from Africa were utterly routed and destroyed. In the year 851, however, at the entreaties of Bassacius, Abbot of Cassino, King Louis, son of the Emperor Lothar, came to Benevento with an army, they are slaughtered. and ordered all the Saracens who were at Benevento, and indeed Massar himself, to be led outside the city on the day before Pentecost and put to the sword; and he established peace between Radelchis and Siconulf. He then came again into Italy against the Saracens of Bari, at the urgent entreaty of the Beneventans through the Abbots of Cassino and Saint Vincent; 19th Duke: Radelchis. but through the treachery of the Capuans he was unable to accomplish anything memorable. Erchempert intimates that this happened while Prince Radelgarius was still living.

[72] Then Seodan, the most cruel King of the Saracens, having marched out from Bari, ravaged the entire Beneventan dominion Seodan, King of Bari, cruel and impious, and compelled Prince Adelchis, brother of Radelgarius, by whom he had been summoned, to purchase peace by means of an agreed tribute and the giving of hostages. Then, having gained a fresh victory over other Princes (which he used most insolently, killing very many and putting captives to death by fire), he utterly destroyed Benevento and its surrounding territory, as Erchempert writes, "so that no place except the principal cities escaped his ferocity." But Leo of Ostia writes in chapter 37 that he "captured and utterly destroyed all the strongholds round about, except the principal cities," and had proceeded to such a degree of impiety "that he drank from sacred chalices and ordered incense to be offered to himself in golden thuribles."

[73] In the year 866 the Emperor Louis II, at the most humble entreaty of the Lombards, came again into Italy with a powerful army; defeated by Louis II the Emperor, and first captured Capua, which had been deceiving him with its customary fraud, after a siege of three months, and destroyed it for the most part. He then went to Salerno, Amalfi, and Benevento; and near Lucera he engaged the Saracens in battle, at first with adverse fortune, but afterward obtaining a notable victory. Finally he besieged Bari for four years. Meanwhile he laid waste by fire and sword Matera, a most strongly fortified city of the Saracens; then he came to Venusia and placed a garrison there and at Canusium. Therefore Canusium had not been previously destroyed, unless he himself restored it, which Erchempert intimates concerning Venusia in these words: After the capture of Bari, the rest were slain, "Then he came to Venusia, pitched camp, and began to restore it; and attacking Bari from this side and that, he demolished it; and having placed a garrison of fighters in Canusium, he kept assailing them in turn with carriages," etc. At last, having gained possession of Bari, he ordered all the Saracens to be put to death; but Seodan was ill-advisedly spared, only Seodan he spared with ill-judged clemency -- which turned almost to his own destruction. For after he had vainly besieged Taranto and subdued certain rebels and had come to Benevento, and on Adelchis's advice had dismissed his army, he was seized by that same Adelchis (or Adelchi), bound by an ignominious agreement which he was also compelled to confirm by oath; but soon afterward he was released from the obligation of that oath, which had been extorted by force, by the Pontiff, and he sent his wife with an army to Benevento. Adelchis, terrified, fled to Corsica; but was afterward received again into favor.

[74] dismissed by Adelchis, the twentieth Duke of Benevento, Seodan rages again, When Adelchis released Louis from custody, he retained all his treasure and the most villainous Seodan. The latter, having obtained his freedom, went to Taranto, and there, having been made King, harassed the Beneventan borders and Apulia more cruelly than before. Nor after the death of the glorious Emperor Louis II, who died in the year 875, was there any hope of obtaining aid from France. The Greeks are summoned to Bari. The Barians, therefore, since they were no match for the Saracens, summoned from Otranto Gregory the Bailiff, the Prefect of the Emperor Basil, with his forces. What the state of Italy was at that time, Baronius sets forth at the year 876, number 31, from an epistle of Pope John VIII to the Emperor Charles the Bald, in which, among other things, are these words: "The blood of Christians is being shed; a people devoted to God is being devastated by continual slaughter. For he who escapes fire or the sword becomes a prey, is dragged off a captive, and is made a perpetual exile. The wretched face of Italy. Behold, cities, fortresses, and villages, bereft of inhabitants, have perished; and Bishops are scattered hither and thither. Only the threshold of the Prince of the Apostles is left to them as a refuge, while their episcopal seats have been reduced to the lairs of wild beasts; and they themselves, found wandering and without shelter, are no longer permitted to preach but are reduced to begging." What wonder that these things happened at that time, when the Christian Princes themselves, having entered into an alliance with the Saracens, raged no less cruelly than they? And among them Athanasius, Bishop of Naples, who, as Leo of Ostia writes in book 1, chapter 42, "having established a peace with the Saracens and settling them near Naples, began to plunder Benevento, Capua, Salerno, and Rome fiercely together with them; and at that time many monasteries and churches, together with villages and cities, were consumed by the fire of the impious."

[75] It is unnecessary to recount the innumerable other evils which the authors cited above so frequently commemorate. As for Canusium, which we have said was still standing in the year 866 and could not have been overthrown by the Saracens in 829, since they had not yet invaded Apulia, when at last it was overthrown -- whether in these times of the tyrant Seodan and Pope John VIII, and whether it perished by enemy steel or by accidental fire, or was demolished by the hands of its own inhabitants so that a more strongly fortified town might be built elsewhere -- I have nowhere yet read. Before the reign of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, who assumed the empire in the year of Christ 963 and held it for seven years, a new Canusium had already been founded. New Canusium founded before the year 963. For Leo of Ostia in chapter 43, speaking of that time, mentions "old Canusium," which he would not have so called unless there were another, in respect of which the former was called old. But from this it is also established that the old city was not at that time entirely razed to the ground, but was perhaps only disfigured by hostile pillage. For Leo says: "Basilius also, the Protospatharius of the Emperor, being at Salerno, when our monks approached him, made a document of restitution and confirmation concerning all the properties of this monastery throughout all Apulia, which at that time we had lost -- namely the church of Saint Benedict of Lesina ... in old Canusium the church of Saint Benedict, and a mill, and estates."

[76] These things about the incursion of the Saracens and the destruction of Canusium having been premised for the sake of historical clarity, let us return to Saint Sabinus. His body, as John the Archdeacon testifies in the history which we shall presently give, was found in the year 1091, The relics of Saint Sabinus translated from Canusium to Bari in the year 851, two hundred and forty years after it had been brought thither by Archbishop Angelarius. Therefore it was translated by Angelarius in the year of Christ 851, whether Canusium had already been destroyed -- either by the Spanish Moors serving under Siconulf, or by Massar, the leader of Radelchis's Saracens -- or whether it still stood, but Angelarius feared that if Louis pursued the Barians in war, as he afterward did, safe access to the Church of Canusium would not be available to him, and that either the Franks would carry the sacred relics off to Gaul or some sacrilegious person would disperse them. To the relics, deposited in a suitable place, Angelarius added the following inscription, which John the Archdeacon testifies was found with them: ANGELARIUS THE BISHOP BROUGHT THE BODY OF SAINT SABINUS.

[77] Beatillus also recites these things from a manuscript book of the Archiepiscopal Church of Bari, but not written, I think, in the age of Angelarius: by Angelarius, Archbishop of Canusium and Bari. "The blessed Bishop Sabinus sat in the Church of Canusium for fifty-two years, and his 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, and also the bodies of the holy Fathers Memor and Rufinus, Bishops of the See of Canusium." We have shown above that Angelarius did not immediately succeed Peter. Moreover, Beatillus relates that he took up the administration of both Churches about the year 845, and that he died on the tenth of May in the year 868, about three months after the Saracens had been expelled from that city. He seems to have followed the chronology of Lupus the Protospatharius, who writes thus: "In the year 868, in the first Indiction, the Agarenes departed from the city of Bari through the Franks on the third day of the beginning of the month of February, and in the same year the aforesaid Louis was seized at Benevento." But Leo of Ostia, a contemporary of Lupus the Protospatharius, writes in chapter 38 that in the year of Christ 866 the third expedition of Louis against the Saracens was undertaken, and after other places were captured, Bari was besieged for four years; from which it follows that it was not captured until 870. Erchempert, Baronius, and others agree; indeed some hold that Bari was captured even later, as Beatillus himself acknowledges in book 1 of the History of Bari, where he also writes that Angelarius was previously Archbishop of Canusium, a city which had been for the most part recently overthrown by the Saracens; but that when Sebastian, Archbishop of Bari, died, he was called to that Church; and that when he departed from Canusium, he carried with him the relics of the holy Bishops Rufinus, Memor, and Sabinus -- secretly, however, both lest those inhabitants who remained in Canusium be struck with dismay at the sense of a triple loss at once -- of their buildings, their pontifical dignity, and their tutelary Saints -- and lest the Saracens, who at Bari indeed permitted the citizens to practice their ancestral sacred rites freely and openly to some degree, in order to attract the remaining Apulians by a reputation for clemency, should on some trumped-up pretext lay their sacrilegious hands on this divine treasure.

Section 12. The Relics of Saint Sabinus Found and Honored at Bari.

[79] From that time, for two hundred years, that part of Italy which was formerly contained in the Beneventan principate was variously shaken by the arms of Saracens, Greeks, Hungarians, and Germans. At length, by the valor of the Normans, the Saracens were conquered and destroyed, the Greeks expelled, and a new dominion founded under the title of the Duchy of Apulia. The first Duke was Robert Guiscard, a most valiant man. He, after other cities, captured Bari after a three-year siege in the year of Christ 1070, on the fifteenth of April, as Geoffrey Malaterra writes in book 2, chapter 43 -- which Lupus the Protospatharius referred to the year 1071. During that long interval of time the celebrated name of Saint Sabinus and his public veneration indeed flourished, Those relics fell into oblivion, but all memory of the relics which Bishop Angelarius had brought and cautiously buried was obliterated; and it was believed that they were still preserved in the Church of Canusium, where they were repeatedly sought in vain by Mordaca and Rainerius and other Provosts (for so those who governed the Canusine clergy after the bishopric was transferred to Bari were called).

[80] At length, at Bari, beneath the altar of the Confession -- which in Angelarius's time had been the cathedral church -- they were discovered while the relics of Saints Rufinus and Memor, Bishops of Canusium, were being sought, found in 1091, which tradition held had been brought thither by Angelarius. The history of the Finding was carefully described by John, Archdeacon of Bari, By whom was the history of the Finding written? who was present in person -- the very same man of whom we treated above in section 2. We received this history from Antonio Beatillus, transcribed from a handwritten codex of the Archiepiscopal Church of Bari; Whence published here? from which codex, on the anniversary day of this Finding -- that is, the tenth of December -- the same history is read in the Choir as Lessons for the Divine Office. Baronius also recites the same history in volume 11, at the year 1091, numbers 17 and following. He, as Beatillus testifies, when he had been granted the Provostship of Canusium by Clement VIII and had to insert into his Annals the diploma of Urban II, given at Bari after the Council of Melfi in the year 1089, inquired of the Barians why the Supreme Pontiff had granted their Archbishop the use of the Pallium on the feast day of Saint Sabinus. The Barians replied that he was the Patron and Protector of their city, and that his body was preserved in the cathedral basilica. When the Cardinal learned this, he immediately wrote to Canusium and ordered the most diligent investigation to be made as to whether the relics of Saint Sabinus might not be found in some sacred building there. approved by Baronius: When he learned that nothing had been found anywhere, he not only inserted the said diploma in volume 11 of the Annals at the year 1089, number 5, but also this history of the Finding, received from Bari, diligently examined, and judged worthy of record; to which he appends the following testimony of a public notary: "I, the Notary Giovanni Battista Pirris of Bari, attest that the present copy has been diligently extracted from an ancient book of the Lessons of the Saints, written in large characters by hand on paper pages, existing in the archive of the royal Church of Saint Nicholas of Bari, there deposited in the great collegiate church. I have therefore executed and signed the present document upon request. Praise be to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary."

[81] Beatillus narrates the same Finding in chapter 17 of the Life of Saint Sabinus, anniversary commemoration. and more briefly in book 2 of the History of Bari. That the anniversary of this Finding should be celebrated at Bari was decreed by Archbishop Elias, as John the Archdeacon writes, and as is evident from what has been written above. Ferrarius recorded this solemnity in the general Catalogue of Saints in these words: "At Canusium in Apulia, the Finding of Saint Sabinus, Bishop." More correctly he should have said, "At Bari."

[82] When Archbishop Elias had deposited the relics of his holy predecessor in a marble tomb, he caused an inscription to be engraved, composed by his own Archdeacon John, as the latter testifies in number 5. This indeed appears to be the one which Baronius and Beatillus recite: The relics deposited anew; "Angelarius, Archbishop of Canusium, brought hither from Canusium the body of Saint Sabinus, which lay hidden in this church until the time of Elias, Archbishop of the Barians and the Canusians, by whom it was found and here honorably placed, in the month of February, Indiction XV." For that sacred treasure was found in the month of December in the year 1091, Indiction XIV; but it was deposited again in February following, Indiction XV, which according to ecclesiastical usage begins from the Kalends of January. From that time, by the decree of Archbishop Elias, as Beatillus is our authority, that ancient cathedral church of Bari was called the Confession of Saint Sabinus.

[83] The fourth Archbishop from Elias was Matthew, who, Beatillus writes, was consecrated by Honorius II in the second year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1126, on the twentieth of December, and had previously been Abbot of the monastery of Saint Laurence at Aversa. He was contemplating the restoration of that old Archiepiscopal church, which was threatening to collapse, if a longer life had been granted him. But after two years had passed he died, the church restored, and was succeeded by Angelus; and because Angelus adhered to the Antipope Peter of Leon, Pope Innocent II substituted John IV for him. But because John IV had also admitted the schismatic Angelus to a share in the administration, and was himself likewise leading a shameful life, Eugenius III removed him in February of the sixth year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1151, and himself consecrated John V on the seventeenth day of February of the same year. The latter, having arrived at Bari, expelled Angelus and John from all of Apulia. He then renovated the Confession of Saint Sabinus, which Matthew had previously resolved to do. When the altar of the same Confession was demolished, he reverently removed the body of Saint Sabinus, which had been placed under it by Elias; and afterward, when on the ninth of February in the year 1156 he dedicated that same church, thus restored, and the three altars erected in it, in the year 1156, the relics reposited again by Archbishop John, he deposited that venerable treasure, enclosed in the original tomb, beneath the middle altar, which, larger than the rest and built of elegant marble, is dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. This monument of the event exists on a marble tablet set into the wall:

This tomb contains the remains of the blessed Sabinus: Bishop Angelarius deposited those remains here; Which Elias, the first Primate of Bari, brought to light. At length, with the favor of Him who exalts the Saints, The city of Bari was consoled by Father John, Who, simple, just, prudent, pious, and chaste, Renewed this basilica, ancient and exceedingly dark, As was fitting and proper, with worthy adornment. After he consecrated it with three altars in the customary manner, In the central one he placed the remains of Saint Sabinus, Which, consecrated under the honor of Mary Magdalene, Is not lacking either in the relics of the first Martyr. The fifth day before the Ides of February, Indiction IV.

I am uncertain, however, whether, as Beatillus would have it, John himself caused this to be engraved, or whether it was rather done after his death. For in the same year 1156, William the Bad, King of Sicily, cruelly destroyed Bari at the beginning of June: the citizens, granted a two-day period to carry out whatever they wished, emigrated to various places; the Archbishop himself also departed. But in the year 1166, when the Bad had died, William the Good succeeded to the kingdom, and he permitted the fugitive citizens to return to Bari and to rebuild the houses that had been destroyed. John himself also returned, and repaired a number of basilicas, and aided the citizens with whatever support he could; but he survived scarcely three years. The inscription just cited, therefore, while after the repositing of the relics in the year 1156 it was being prepared more carefully, as is customary, was delayed by the destruction of the city that soon followed, for a decade; nor does it appear to have been the first of the sacred works after the citizens returned, but was at last completed after the death of John.

[84] Moreover, when the same John deposited the body of Saint Sabinus beneath the altar of Saint Magdalene, as has been said, An arm placed separately, he detached one arm from it and placed it among the other relics of his Church, encased in gilded bronze. Roger Sanseverino, who was made Archbishop of Bari in the year 1337 and was transferred ten years later to the See of Salerno, caused it to be skillfully covered with silver and adorned with gems variously adorned afterward; and with the very ring that had been placed on its fingers at the solemn consecration. To this arm, distinguished by the adornment we have described, the people flock in great numbers on several days of the year, especially on the feasts of Saint Sabinus, to venerate and kiss it.

[85] Antonio Puteo, upon the resignation of his uncle Cardinal Giacomo Puteo, was made Archbishop of Bari in the year 1562. He elegantly adorned with silver plates that marble altar built by John V, beneath which we said the tomb of Saint Sabinus was placed, as also the altar, under which is the sepulchre. and caused the principal Acts of the same Saint to be engraved upon them. Afterward Giulio Cesare Riccardo, Antonio's successor, and after him Cardinal Bonvisio Bonvisio, heaped up splendid and large offerings of silver on the same altar. These things are related largely by Beatillus in his Life of Saint Sabinus and his Catalogue of the Archbishops of Bari.

HISTORY OF THE LIFE, FINDING, AND TRANSLATION OF SAINT SABINUS, BISHOP

Written by an anonymous author in the eighth century, published from three manuscripts.

Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (Saint)

BHL Number: 7443

By an anonymous author, from manuscripts.

CHAPTER 1. The Virtues and Episcopate of Saint Sabinus.

[1] I desire to obey your will, most holy Pontiff, but my hand shrinks back, weighed down by so many sins, from publishing the miracles of so great a man's virtue. Yet a clear light is accustomed to be shed through an earthen lamp, The author excuses his unworthiness: and the finest ointment to be found in a leaden vessel. Indeed, because I obey pontifical precepts, I trust that I am aided by his prayers. For my part, I have long since found the miracles of this most holy man in the Dialogues of the blessed Gregory, which I think are also very well known to Your Holiness; but they are more pleasing when from a holy mouth they soothe our ears, as it were, like philosophical songs. Yet I think I should first write whence he received what he writes? those things which we have found set down in books, and then those things which in our own times can be known with the fullest truth.

[2] During the reign of the Emperor Justinian, holy men in many places, with his favor, shone forth in no small number to the glory of Christ; among whom many pleasing and wonderful things are found in our books. Dialogues, book 2, chapter 15; and book 3, chapter 5. Among these the blessed and venerable Sabinus, Bishop of the Church of Canusium, shone forth. Saint Sabinus under the Emperor Justinian. He, from infancy desiring to please almighty God in all things, restraining the pleasure of the flesh, raised his mind to heavenly things. So great also was the grace in him that no one doubted he was constantly meditating upon heavenly things. He flourishes in virtues: For his outward work showed what he was constantly meditating within. For he was a worshiper of piety, a lover of justice, generous to the poor, gracious to strangers, the relief of orphans, the protection of widows. Who came to him sorrowful and did not depart joyful? Who was agitated by anger in his sight and was not immediately calmed? Who, placed in the pride of arrogance, was not made humble by his admonition? From his mouth, as from a late and timely rain, his words irrigated the hearts of his hearers. No one of a hard mind could come to him without being delighted by his teaching: he converts many: indeed, by listening, as a stone is accustomed to be softened by a supreme craftsman, so was he softened. Hence he led the hearts of many Italians from the darkness of the pagans to the true light of faith; and he also recalled certain Christians, who were still laboring in pagan error, to the norm of the Church.

[3] And that, as a lamp placed upon a lampstand, according to the voice of the Gospel, he might illuminate all who were in the house of God, he was raised to the glory of the pontificate. Matthew 5:15 But he becomes Bishop, as much as he perceived himself to be at the highest summit, so much did he restrain himself by the rudders of humility, remembering what is said: "The greater you are, humble yourself in all things"; humble, and steadfast. whence he was loved by all. Ecclesiasticus 3:20 For who could write how great was the generosity of the Creator in him? He who was so immovable that he was moved by no adversities, uplifted by no happiness, turned aside by no gift to any party. But if we wished to narrate all the things of his life, we should have to cease from the things that must be told. And would that an Augustine or some Doctor had been in our times, who might compose the miracles and virtues of so great a man in polished speech. But I, feeble and the most worthless of men, since I am unable to weave the life of this man in more elegant words, shall adorn it with his own miracles.

The Prologue as far as "During the reign of Justinian," etc. is absent from the other Capuan codex. Beatillus understands the "most holy Pontiff" to be Leo III, who sat from December 26, 795 until June 12, 816. But we have shown above in section 2 that the Author seems to have written many years before that pontificate, and that this work was rather dedicated to some Bishop of Canusium than to the Roman Pontiff. The Capuan manuscript reads "the mind shrinks back, weighed down by many sins," etc. Beatillus's manuscript has "nostro" instead of "sancto." The same has "extracted from books." Justinian reigned from the Kalends of April 527 jointly with his uncle Justin, and from the Kalends of August alone until November 13, 565. Both Capuan codices read: "restrained the pleasure and with every effort aspired to heavenly things." The same: "and outwardly showed." Beatillus's manuscript: "elevated, and did not calm the madness of his mind?" Idolatry was in force in certain places in Italy down to the very age of Saint Sabinus, as we showed above on February 7 in the Notes to the metrical Life of Saint Laurentius of Siponto. Beatillus's manuscript: "should be exalted." The Capuan manuscripts: "ignorant of letters."

CHAPTER 2. The Friendship of Saint Sabinus with Saints. His Buildings.

[4] Therefore all the Nobles and principal men of Italy often desired to see the face of the aforesaid servant of Christ, familiar with Saint Germanus, Bishop of Capua, and to feast on heavenly nourishment with the most holy man. Whence also he was accustomed to meet frequently and familiarly with Germanus, Bishop of the Church of Capua. But he also conversed in constant friendship with the servant of Christ, Benedict, established on Monte Cassino; and with Saint Benedict; and he was accustomed to visit him every year, whom the man of God greatly loved for the merit of his life, as Gregory, Bishop of the city of Rome, relates. For at a certain time, when the aforesaid man had come to visit the same servant of God, Benedict, and a conversation arose about Totila, King of the Goths, and the destruction of the city of Rome, Benedict said: "Rome will not be laid waste by the nations, but, wearied by her own decay and earthquakes, will wither in herself." from him he learns that Rome will not be destroyed: Which we see has come to pass in great part, as those who more frequently travel those roads have reported to me. For they say that from so great a multitude it has remained without inhabitants; and where the glory of learned men once flourished, it now abounds in solecisms and various faults. Yet we say this in silence, since the vigor of the holy Church, with God's favor, still holds the primacy there.

[5] But since we have departed a little from the narrative, let us return to relating the miracles of the holy man. And so the servant of God, Sabinus, was rightly venerated by all, to such an extent even that Gelasius, the Pontiff of the city of Rome, regarded him before all other Bishops as his associate and intimate friend. For when he wished to dedicate the church at Barletta in honor of the blessed Apostle Andrew, he asked Pope Gelasius himself to come to him Saint Gelasius he invites to the dedication of a church, (which he also did) and requested him to dedicate the aforesaid church, rejoicing greatly at the arrival of the Bishop of the First See. Wherefore, with joyful spirit, together with the other Bishops whom he had invited to the dedication of the same church, he gave thanks to almighty God with other Bishops: that so great a Pontiff had come to him. For I think the names of the Bishops who were invited should also be enumerated here: Laurentius, Bishop of the Church of Siponto; Palladius, of Salpis; Eutychius, of Trani; John, of Ruvo; Asterius, of Venusia.

[6] The same venerable man was also a restorer of churches, eminently devoted to the governance of souls; and the talents of the Lord which he had received for trading, he diligently sought to return to his Lord with profit; and since he recognized in himself five and two talents, he desired to double what he believed had been entrusted to him. Therefore in outward matters he increased the five, and inwardly the two -- of the active and contemplative life, by which the holy and immaculate Church lives. In him understanding was not without work, he preaches constantly: but work was ever in harmony with understanding, and what he preached to his flock, he practiced more abundantly. He persuaded all that the prosperous things of this world are most vain and perish more swiftly, like flowing rivers. Never did his tongue cease from teaching, nor his hand from the restoration of venerable places. With how beautiful a work indeed he built in the city of Canusium a basilica in honor of the blessed Martyrs Cosmas and Damian, he builds churches. and adorned it with various columns and mosaic. He also founded a lofty chamber for the Blessed John the Baptist and Precursor of our Lord Jesus Christ, next to the church of the most blessed and ever-Virgin Mother of God, Mary. And before the church of the aforesaid Precursor he established a temple to the Lord Savior with great beauty.

Concerning Saint Germanus, Bishop of Capua, we shall treat on October 30. Concerning Saint Benedict, on March 21. Both Capuan codices read "with frequent familiarity," but then "with constant friendships." Therefore the Author himself had not seen Rome. Saint Gregory, cited in section 8, thinks this prophecy of Saint Benedict was fulfilled before his own age. [The destruction of the city of Rome predicted by Saint Benedict: when was it to happen?] But if the holy Abbot prophesied about the destruction of the city such as Saint Sabinus feared (and such as Totila had inflicted on Cannae, and vowed to inflict on the other cities, as is said on February 7 in the First Life of Saint Laurentius of Siponto, chapter 4, number 17), this must rather be referred to the last times of the world. The Capuan manuscripts read: "where glory then flourished, it now abounds in various faults." The following words up to number 5 are absent from Beatillus's manuscript. Beatillus's manuscript reads "companion." Concerning this dedication, more was said above, and it was shown that Barletta, now called Barletta, was already a city at that time. Concerning these Bishops, see the treatment at the metrical Life of Saint Laurentius on February 7. Both Capuan manuscripts have "Rubesanae," as does the metrical Life of Saint Laurentius, where we also treated of Ruvo, a city that is still episcopal. The Capuan manuscripts: "Asterius." In the printed Acts, the Monk Michael notes that the following was added by Felix Siliceus from Baronius's Notes to the Martyrology: "He was indeed most distinguished not only for holiness of life but most vigilant in performing his ecclesiastical duties: for he carried out an Apostolic embassy at Constantinople against Anthimus, the heretical Patriarch of Constantinople, after the consulship of Belisarius in the year 536, as appears from the First Session of the Fifth Ecumenical Council."

CHAPTER 3. The Gift of Prophecy of Saint Sabinus.

[7] The holy man, therefore, since he was wearied by so long an old age, had lost the light of his eyes; Saint Sabinus, blind, is gifted with the spirit of prophecy: but assuredly the light of the Holy Spirit had illuminated the eyes of his mind; and he who had been adorned with many special gifts began, even though blind, to see by the spirit of prophecy. Nor did this remain hidden for long: for all Italy heard that he possessed the spirit of prophecy, which was also believed by all the faithful people, who rejoiced that the Lord Jesus had appointed such a Bishop for them in their days. At that time also, when Totila, King of the Goths, of whom we spoke above, was tarrying in those parts, he heard of the gift of the Holy Spirit which the man of God had received; which he by no means believed, but, as he was a man of a most hard and treacherous mind, he recognizes Totila trying to mock him, he attempted to test him. For when the venerable man had invited him to dinner, the King sat at his right hand and took the cup from the hand of his boy at the hour of drinking, and offered it to the Bishop in the boy's place. But this did not escape the man of God: for with the utmost speed, having received the cup, he said to the King: "May that hand live!" The King, although he was of a treacherous mind, led to the truth, was uplifted with joy, and covered his face with shame -- joyful because he had found what he had heard about the holy man; ashamed because he had presumed to mock so great a man. Nor did any scruple of doubt remain in his heart, since he who could not discern by the light of his eyes had with such speed discovered what had been done to him by a trick. he obtains that his diocese be spared: Thereupon both the King and those who were with him began to hold the holy Bishop in the highest veneration, as a Prophet, to such a degree that he who had already devastated all of Apulia and Calabria with plundering restrained his men from the diocese of the holy servant of God, so that no one dared to touch even the smallest and meanest thing belonging to it.

[8] Therefore, that we may show more clearly that he possessed the spirit of prophecy and how great his virtue was, let us turn our pen to the narrating of the destruction of his Archdeacon, named Vindemius. When the same venerable Bishop was of advanced age, the aforesaid Archdeacon, instigated by the malignant spirit of ambition, through the Archdeacon's treachery, wholly devoted himself to gaining the episcopate against the Bishop. He therefore summoned the boy who at mealtimes was accustomed to hand the Bishop his cup, and addressed him with these words, speaking with a diabolical mouth: "I marvel how you endure with equanimity the prolonged burdens of the old man. If he had departed from life, you would immediately be held in greater honor. Oh, if you had had such a Bishop as could visit the boundaries of his diocese with a vigorous body the servant being corrupted, at the proper time!" At these words the boyish heart began to soften and to obey the malignant counsel of the Archdeacon, to such an extent that he mixed poison given to him by Vindemius with wine and offered it to the Bishop to drink. For when the hour of the meal had come, the boy attempted in the customary manner to hand the Bishop the cup stained with poison. The Bishop said to him: "You drink what you offer me; he divinely perceives that poison is being offered to him, I know what lurks within it." The boy, immediately seeing that what he had done was brought to light, was terrified; and because he could not bear the face of the holy man, he sought more quickly to destroy himself, bringing his hand to his mouth to drink the poison. At this the Bishop said: "Give it to me, most faithful boy. Far be it, far be it, that in the sight of the Bishop, however unworthy, anyone should end his life by poison. I will drink it; yet he drinks it, but he who willed to perpetrate this crime will not be Bishop." And immediately seizing the cup, he drank the poison. But a wonderful and astonishing miracle occurred: announcing the death of the Archdeacon (which happened at that very moment). for while he himself was drinking the poison, the wretched Vindemius, who was in the Third Village, three miles distant from the dwelling of the holy servant of God, died. And he who desired to bring death to the holy man was himself slain by his own malice; and while he wished to kill by poison, he was killed by the poison of his own wickedness: he wished to serve the cup, and it was served to him. O unhappy Vindemius, more wretched than all others! To you indeed were entrusted the commandments of God; to you the Gospel was given, that you might preach it to all. Did you not publicly sing: "He who digs a pit for his neighbor falls into it"? Proverbs 26:27 This befell you, unhappy man, which you used to warn others to avoid. Immediately what had happened resounded in the ears of the servant of God, who, kind toward the dead man, grieving more for the death of his soul than of his body, with most holy piety ordered him to be buried near his own sepulchre.

So the crafty heretic attempted to mock Saint Benedict and Saint Laurentius of Siponto, as related on February 7; in both cases (as here also) he was detected. "Most faithful" is absent from the Capuan manuscripts. The same add "safely." The same: "to hear of the death of the holy man." These words are absent from them.

CHAPTER 4. The Last Admonitions of Saint Sabinus to His People. His Death.

[9] Nor did the man of God, Sabinus, tarry long in this life: for with all his Clergy standing about him, he predicted that the last day of his body was imminent. Nor was what he predicted long delayed. When illness supervened, the hour of death drew near. Placed at the very moment of his departure, sitting up on the bed in which he lay, he spoke to all, with the Clergy standing about him and the multitude which had flocked to the holy man because of the departure of his soul, in a clear voice, as far as he was able: On his deathbed he exhorts his people "You see, Brothers and sons, that the dissolution of my body is close at hand: I therefore think it necessary to leave to you the final instructions of my preaching. Above all, I teach you all to hold peace more strictly: to peace, for no one who departs from it can accomplish any good. This indeed is the second commandment of God: for by two precepts, as I have so often made known to your love, the Church of Christ is preserved -- first, that God be loved with all one's strength; then, that one's neighbor be loved with a pure heart. From these, know that the rest of the commandments are derived. faith, Let no one of you depart with all his understanding from the unity of the faith: for unless one keeps the eyes of the mind fixed on the Trinity, he labors in vain. purity of soul, Always restrain the mind from every crime with watchfulness: and if anyone has been caught, let him immediately have recourse with a devout mind to the remedies of Confession. Rejoice in hospitality: let no one attempt to move the boundaries of the poor and of widows. mercy, hearing of Mass, Never turn your minds from the solemnities of the Mass at the proper time, remembering what is said: 'Walk while you have the light: the hour is coming in which no one can work.' John 12:35 Know that the pleasures of this world, which you behold, flow away like running water. Believe that all perishable things perish like a puff of smoke: contempt of the world, the snares of the devil to be avoided, and flee fleeting things, lest you fall with things that are falling. That bloody beast, which hastens cruelly to tear the minds of men with its bites,

and to defile exceedingly with its filth the hearts of the servants of light: what it promises, it deceives, and to those who consent to it, it lies. It burns with envy, and from where that liar could not stand, it strives to drive others away. Rather direct the eyes of your minds to the summit of heaven, that you may deserve to recover the homeland which our first parents lost by obeying the ancient serpent.

[10] Amid these things, he marvelously prophesied to them what was to come, in this manner: "I," he said, "am now released from the prison of the body. I commend to the Lord the flock which He gave me to pasture. He predicts the devastation of Italy, I know that after the time of my death you will be grievously torn by the teeth of wolves exceedingly. For Italy will be oppressed by the pillaging of nations for no small course of time, so that the fields will appear abandoned without farmers, on account of the terror of the nations. For which reason the tomb of my remains will be left unknown for a long time, and without the support of Pastors this Church will be left neglected. and that his own Church will be laid waste, through the Lombards: No clamor of those praising or the sonorous voice of those singing will be heard in it. These places, abandoned by men, only wild beasts will occupy." Which indeed we find fulfilled according to the prophecy of the prophet. For who does not know that by the coming of Alboin, King of the Lombards, all Italy was devastated?

[11] While he was saying these and similar things, the voice of those lamenting arose, and no one could restrain themselves from tears, grieving that they had heard such things from the mouth of the Bishop. And so all the ranks of the priests and the rest of the people, with hearts deeply moved, said: "Whom, best of Bishops, do you leave us as a Pastor? Why do you not still, though your age is failing, govern the Church entrusted to you? Surely you could, he consoles his people, if you wished to beseech Christ, bear our burdens for some time yet." To whom he replied: "Do not say this to me, my co-heirs and sharers in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. longing for heaven: For I, paying the debt of death, long to see Christ with all my desire. Now I am being led back to the homeland forbidden to our first parents. Now I behold the faces of the two who were speaking with the Lord when He was transfigured on the mountain. Luke 9:30 Now I rejoice, seeing the shining hosts of Apostles and Martyrs; I delight in beholding the throng of Virgins and the white-robed ranks of Angels. Why then do you strive to impede my journey? If you love me with all your affection, hasten hereafter to come to me as quickly as possible, through Him who gives life to those who seek Him."

[12] The most holy Bishop, preaching and prophesying many other things like these to the people, worthy of all glory and deserving of the stars of heaven, he dies on February 9, after fifty-two years during which he governed the holy Church of Canusium, on the fifth day before the Ides of the month of February, passed from this light to the Lord. Therefore all the Clergy and the entire multitude that had gathered for the death of the most holy man, gleaming with many torches, accompanied the funeral of the most holy body with heavenly hymns, until it was committed to burial. He is buried amid the great mourning of all. All, with hands stretched forth, cried out to the Thunderer of the heavens; light struck the eyes, the voice of those mourning struck the hearts, and the sound of the psalms ran through the ears. Virgins, with hair unbound and the modesty of their faces forgotten, gave forth wailing; and the old also, with trembling voice, as they were able, poured forth tears; the cry of infants resounded among all who were wailing. From distant places also, not only from nearby, all had gathered, so that with the combined voice of those singing psalms and mourning together, they might honor Sabinus. Behold, he enters the eternal homeland; behold, he is honored with the hymns of heaven; behold, he is received by the hands of Angels; behold, what had been entrusted to him, he has returned to the Lord doubled. Therefore let us hear what the Lord said to him: "Well done, Sabinus, you have been faithful in small things; I will set you over many." Immediately he is clothed in a garment whiter than snow and crowned with shining gems; with the Prophets rejoicing and the choirs of Angels exulting, the man of God was at once placed among the Saints.

The Monk notes that the following seven words are absent from the printed exemplar. Beatillus's manuscript: "cerminiculo." These are absent from the Capuan manuscripts. The Monk testifies that the printed edition has: "Who does not know that by the coming of Hannibal the Carthaginian, all Ausonia was devastated?" Perhaps some pedant had embellished the text thus: "For who does not know that, as formerly by the coming of Hannibal the Carthaginian, so also by the coming of Alboin, King of the Lombards," etc. We indicated above that Alboin came into Italy in the year of Christ 568, more than 780 years after the invasion of Hannibal. Beatillus's manuscript: "with heart moved." This about the infants is absent from the Capuan manuscripts. Beatillus's manuscript: "of parents."

CHAPTER 5. The Sepulchre of Saint Sabinus Revealed; Honored by a Miracle and a Church.

[13] Concerning the virtue and miracles of the life of the aforesaid servant of God, we have said what comes to memory: Whence did the Author receive what he writes about Saint Sabinus's miracles? but now let us speak, with God's help, of what his merit may be, and with what virtues his bones flourish. Now these things which I am about to tell, I heard from the venerable man Peter, Bishop of the same Church. He was accustomed to narrate to me, often and at length, what he had heard from the elderly priests through many diligent inquiries about his predecessor Sabinus, or what he could read from an inscription, and he commanded me to write these things down.

[14] A certain Spaniard named Gregory was weighed down by a grave illness of the body. While he was traveling through the places of the Saints so that he might find a remedy for his body, one night, while he was committing himself to the Lord with all his strength and beseeching His mercy with many prayers to forgive his sins A sick Spaniard, by divine admonition, and more quickly free him from the dangers of his body, after his prayer he was immediately seized by sleep, and he heard someone saying to him: "Arise, Gregory, and hasten to Italy: there through Bishop Sabinus you will find healing not only of your body but also of your soul." Soon, waking from sleep, he did what had been commanded him, and came with swift course to Italy, in Italy seeks the sepulchre of Saint Sabinus: as he was able. Having entered it, he began to inquire anxiously of the inhabitants of that land in what place the body of the blessed Bishop Sabinus lay. He was answered: "He rests at the city of Spoleto; for there he was crowned with martyrdom at the time when the Church of Christ was suffering persecution from the pagans." Hearing this, he immediately set out and began to walk with all joy, thinking this was the Sabinus whom he had heard of while in his own land. Having taken the road, he came to Spoleto; At Spoleto, Saint Sabinus the Martyr bids him go to Canusium: he quickly found the church of the most blessed Martyr of God; having entered it, he prayed for a long time, asking that the Lord might deign to bestow quickly upon him through His servant what He had promised. But after a few days the blessed Martyr said to him seeking healing, through a vision: "Why do you beseech me with daily tears? You were not sent to me, but to my brother and fellow bishop Sabinus, the servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Lord gave to the city of Canusium in Apulia as Bishop and Father."

[15] Hearing this, he sought Apulia, and at the church of the blessed Apostle Peter, the seat of the episcopate of that same Sabinus, he prostrated himself before the Lord with many prayers, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, good Shepherd, who restored the creation of this world with Your blood, and led what had been deceived by diabolical fraud to Your holy and true knowledge, that all things might be washed in confession; as he prays fervently here, I ask Your clemency to forgive my sins and free my poor body from infirmity. Look upon me, a pilgrim, wearied by long journeys, and believing in Your holy promise. I hope to have what was promised to me through You, who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one substance, one power, perfect Trinity, world without end, Amen." When his prayer was finished, he was received by the Clergy, and they asked why he had wished to come to these places through such great distances of land. And he made known the reason for his journey. At this, those who heard him said: "The sepulchre of him whom you seek remains unknown to men to this day; yet God is able even now to bring this to light and to fulfill His promises." To whom the aforesaid Spaniard said: [Saint Sabinus reveals his own sepulchre, previously unknown, and restores health,] "Help me with your prayers, I beseech you, while I await His mercies." After this he was not wearied for long. For while he was resting after the vigils of prayer, the most blessed man of God, Sabinus, appeared to him, saying: "Gregory, your body has been restored to its former health, and your soul likewise to salvation." And he added: "Make my sepulchre, which has lain hidden for many years, known to all in that place, and tell Theodorada to build a church over it; and commands that a church be built, for in it she will find the means by which she will be able to fulfill what I command more abundantly."

[16] At that same time Grimoald held the governance of the kingdom of the Lombards; he had appointed his son Romuald as Prince of Benevento and had given him in marriage the daughter of Lupus, who was of noble lineage, named Theodorada, whom we have just mentioned. When Romuald died, he left her to govern the Samnite people with their young son. Therefore this woman, hearing the command from the aforesaid Spaniard and hastening to fulfill it, went joyfully to the sepulchre of the servant of God; The sepulchre is opened, and breathes forth a sweet odor: and she ordered it to be opened, while all the Priests who were present sang psalms and rendered hymns to God. They opened the sepulchre, in which (wonderful to behold) they found a marvelous treasure hidden, fragrant with an ambrosial odor. And in a certain part of the sepulchre, a not inconsiderable weight of gold was found. We believe this was done on account of the mad incursion of the pagans, which before these times, as the man of God had predicted, devastated all of Italy to the point of destruction; and perhaps also so that it might be preserved for the construction of a church.

[17] But Theodorada, forgetting the command, took the gold, left the sepulchre, and hastened to Benevento, wishing to return to her seat. But when she had come to the bridge which was built by the Emperor Trajan over the waters of the Aufidus, the treasure having been taken from it, Theodorada is admonished by a fall, by the judgment of almighty God, the horse on which she was sitting slipped with its foot. She immediately fell to the ground and was lifted from the earth by the arms of her servants; and after the fall she recognized who Sabinus was and of what merit, whose command she had forgotten by I know not what sequence of events. She therefore ordered herself to be led back to the sepulchre of the man of God, and with all haste, just as had been commanded, she built a church, she builds and adorns a church. and set up an altar of beautiful marble over the body of the man of God; for the furnishing of which she ordered a chalice and paten to be made from the gold which she had taken; and she adorned the altar coverings with gold and gems. The Spaniard, indeed, took care to serve God in fear in that same church until the end of his life.

It is plausible that in the church built by Theodorada some inscription was placed, as is customary, for the memory of posterity. Many Sabini are enumerated by Beatillus in chapter 13, whose anniversary veneration takes place in various cities of Italy on different days; we shall treat of each in its proper place. Many Saints named Sabinus in Italy. This one of Spoleto, who was Bishop of Assisi and a Martyr, is venerated on December 7 and 30.

Beatillus's manuscript here has "Theodoratae"; below, as also the Capuan codices here, it calls her "Theodoradam." Concerning King Grimoald, son of Gisulf, Duke of Forum Julii, and concerning Romuald, Lupus, and Theodorada, the matter was treated above. The Capuan manuscripts more briefly: "of a certain nobleman." This bridge is called Pons Aufidi by the Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table. Cluverius judges it to have been where the town of Monteverde now is, The town of Pons Aufidi. six thousand paces distant from the town of Carbonara, which he believes was formerly called Aquilonia, and eight from Venusia -- the same distance from each at which Pons Aufidi was situated.

CHAPTER 6. A Cripple, Also Deaf and Blind, Healed by the Aid of Saint Sabinus.

[18] Nor do I think this should be passed over in silence, which I recall having heard from the Primicerius of the same Church. He said: "In the time of the venerable Bursa, who by the bounty of God was Bishop of this Church (whose Archdeacon is also commemorated to have been Audoald, who held the pontifical office in the third place after the aforesaid venerable Bishop Peter; therefore in the time of the aforesaid Bursa) a certain Aquitanian ran to the fame of the man of God, Sabinus, who was so disjointed in the frame of his body that he could never bring his hand to his mouth, nor move his feet to walk; and what was harder, his feet were held joined to his buttocks. His ears could never hear any sound, crippled, blind, deaf, nor were his eyes open to the light of mortals; and, to speak more truly, his soul remained as if in a kind of little vessel. In order that almighty God might make known the virtue of his servant through this man for the salvation of his soul, He bound him on every side, as I suppose. For who would doubt that all things are arranged and moved by divine judgment, whose eyes are said to behold all the ways of the sons of Adam? For He has care for all. By divine admonition he is sent to the sepulchre of Saint Sabinus: Whence it was also commanded to this disabled man, while he was still dwelling in his own land, that he should come as quickly as possible to the sepulchre of the servant of Christ, so that he might be able to have a remedy for his body."

[19] He came, therefore, and while on a certain day he was secretly praying to the Lord at the same church, as he was able, for the healing of his limbs, it happened that the Bishop was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass for the people, as was customary, in the basilica of the blessed Apostle Peter; and the man of whom we have spoken was lying utterly alone at the sepulchre of the blessed Sabinus. A wonderful thing, worthy to be praised in our days, became manifest. For when, as was customary, the end of the solemnities of the Mass was given by the Deacon, a great noise was heard in the chamber where the sick man lay alone; he is healed while praying, and at this the ears of the men and of all who were present were startled; and they ran quickly to see what had happened. But as soon as they entered the chamber, they found the man who had been infirm now healthy beside the altar of the man of God, and blood flowing from the joining of his limbs. When they questioned him, he made known how this had happened, saying: the Saint appearing to him: "Someone seizing me stretched me out powerfully, so that he seemed to separate all my limbs by his strength, who declared his name to be Sabinus. About this I think I received the command while I was still in my native land, whose coming put to flight the blindness of my eyes; and he also wondrously reformed my ears with hearing." Immediately, while all marveled, praising and proclaiming eternal glory to the unbegotten Father, to the only-begotten Son, and likewise to the Holy Spirit, he went out to the people. At this sight, all the people together with the Bishop and the entire Clergy rendered thanks to Christ with boundless joy, that through Sabinus His servant He daily blessed His Church with miracles.

[20] After the restoration of his body, the aforesaid Aquitanian, when he beheld animals, he marvels at everything he encounters, never having seen it before, would say to the bystanders: "What are these? I beg you, tell me quickly." For he had seen absolutely nothing in this life except after the visitation, and he showed this not so much by words as more by his actions. One day, while a little donkey was being led by someone along the road, he said: "Come here, come here, friends, and carefully examine what is walking along this road." When those present heard this, they immediately gave themselves over entirely to laughter at such a remark. To whom he said: "Why, I beg you, do you laugh? Rather let me know what this is." And they, leaving off their laughter, said: "What you ask about, brother, is called a donkey." At this he said: "For what purpose, pray, is it considered necessary?" And they: "For carrying burdens, among other animals, almighty God created it." After this, for two years he served in the same church, and then returned to his own land in good health, with all exultation, praising the Thunderer.

Beatillus's manuscript: "he asserted that he had heard, saying: In the time of the venerable Bursa indeed." What is here enclosed in parentheses was absent from both Capuan codices; it was found in Beatillus's manuscript and, as the Monk testifies, in the printed edition. Beatillus makes him a Gascon. For the same author writes in chapter 14 that after the body of Saint Sabinus was found, many miracles began to happen there. And it is evident below, at number 19. The Capuan manuscripts: "in every joint." The following, down to "Whence also to this man," is absent from the Capuan manuscripts. "By a heavenly voice," says Beatillus -- an internal one, of course, for how otherwise would a deaf man have heard? Beatillus's manuscript: "from the disjointing." The same: "was making known." I conjecture this is how it should be read. It seemed to read "medical." It was absent from the Capuan manuscripts.

CHAPTER 7. The Translation and Miracles of Saint Sabinus.

[21] I think it best now also to commit to posterity the things which have been done in these days through the most blessed Sabinus. The aforesaid venerable man, from whose mouth I heard all the things I narrate, moved by heavenly love, endeavored to bring the body of the servant of Christ into the pontifical See of the city of Canusium, Bishop Peter considers transferring the body of Saint Sabinus: where it might be honored by constant praises, by the gathering of the people, and by the psalmody of the Clergy; because it was distant, I think, a thousand paces from the See, to which all were accustomed to gather -- well and excellently considering that so great a Bishop should lie openly, for the praise of the Lord and the salvation of the people. On the solemnity of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, accordingly, with all the people of both sexes, they had come to this great and laudable spectacle, all desiring to find the sacred treasure of Christ. While these stood outside, the Bishop with the choir of singers, a sweet odor bursts from the sepulchre, as though about to receive Christ, entered the sepulchre. When the marble was removed, they reached the holy and venerable body; but so great a fragrance of odor immediately burst forth that it satisfied the nostrils of all, as if from various blooming flowers. The body was not, however, translated at that same hour, but he reserved it to be carried on the morrow, and left it sealed with the episcopal ring.

[22] But when on the following day the Bishop had come with a multitude of people to carry it, and the seal having been removed, when he was approaching the venerable body, a fragrant liquid drips: God wondrously manifested to His priests a new and astonishing miracle. For from the marble, just as drops of balsam are accustomed to drip, a liquid emanated with an indescribable odor. All who were present, believing that angelic ministries were there, prayed more intently with exultation and awe. the sacred body is translated: What more? They bore the body with hymns and heavenly canticles, and with all the people exulting and gleaming with various torches, they came to the place which he had prepared for it. For some time, however, having been placed in the church, not yet consigned to the altar, it rested. Meanwhile, when the venerable Bishop Peter, before the time of prayer, in the dead of night, entered the church to sing psalms to the Lord alone, he found so great a light poured out over the body of the servant of God a light appears above it at night: that all places of that church shone as if at midday; but after a little while, nevertheless, what he had seen was suddenly extinguished, as if so great a brightness had never been there.

[23] Therefore after these things, the aforesaid Peter, servant of Christ, wishing to visit his diocese according to custom, the Bishop healed of fevers and admonished, was seized by a most grievous illness and tormented by the heat of fever. The man of God, Sabinus, deigned to visit him gasping in his anguish, weighed down a little by sleep, and said: "How goes it, Bishop?" To whom he replied: "As you see, Lord, I am wearied by exceedingly great distress." The man of the Lord, Sabinus, said to him: "Know that you have been restored to health. But correct this: that the slaves of others, who are wrongfully detained by your men, be returned more quickly to their masters." Having spoken these things as from his sepulchre, the man of God in the same form as he is depicted, he woke up now in good health; and he sought out most diligently what had been told him, and found what he sought, and most diligently fulfilled what he had received as a command. the body is deposited on August 1. He immediately returned to his own See and placed the man of God, Sabinus, with great joy and exultation, in a chamber beneath the altar of the most blessed Martyrs John and Paul, on the day of the Kalends of August; and he placed over his body a coffin covered with silver and gold, and bestowed various ornaments upon it.

[24] And so, if we wished to narrate all the miracles which occur at the tomb of the holy man, Many miracles are performed there. both the hand of the writer and the ears of the listener would immediately be wearied. How many in our days have we heard were healed by the man of God when tormented by fevers and laboring under various infirmities! Who will be able to tell with how many miracles Apulia shines from his bones? Of these, this writing contains very few, for the praise of our God Jesus Christ and the consolation of our people, since He Himself grants salvation and perpetual joy to all the Churches, with which He promised to remain unto the end of the age. And to me, who have undertaken to write the virtues of the most blessed Sabinus, may the Lord Jesus, by his merits, grant the divine light for ever and ever, and cause me to remain with him in eternal glory.

[25] These things were written during the principate of the most glorious Emerith, When these things were written. offspring of Grimoald, in whose times many prosperous things befell the Salentine people, with the favor and assistance of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever, Amen.

The Capuan manuscripts: "Pontiff." The same: "in the Pontifical church." Beatillus's manuscript: "with the Clergy, as though about to receive Christ, singing." The Capuan manuscripts: "flowing with aromatics." The same manuscripts: "balsam is accustomed to drip in drops." The same: "with candles and torches, to the place." The same: "the altar not yet having been built." Beatillus's manuscript: "I will quickly restore." The Capuan manuscripts: "When these words were said, that vision was taken away; and the Bishop awoke in health." The Capuan manuscripts: "woven." The Capuan manuscripts: "Hermerich." The Monk says the printed edition has "Ermenrich" for "Legrimoalt," incorrectly. Whose son this Grimoald appears to have been, we have said above.

ANOTHER METRICAL LIFE

By John, Archdeacon of Bari, from the manuscripts of the Church of Saint Nicholas of Bari.

Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (Saint)

BHL Number: 7444

[1] Receive, Father, the modest odes which we now pour forth to you; O venerable one, receive, Father, our modest prayers. This people asks you, who reverently honors you, Who celebrates your feasts -- this people asks you, That the reverence it shows you may profit it; What it applauds with joy, may it profit. For by your merits you are joined to the Most High: God gives every good thing by your merits. The virtues of Saint Sabinus, The deserving Bishop He set over His peoples of old; He gave you to the Church, a deserving Bishop. You, the pious rector of the Church and kind shepherd, You had been its guardian, pious toward the Church. Therefore to your flocks you gave fitting streams; his preaching. You had provided pastures to your flocks. The talents entrusted to you, increased, you returned to God; Rendered with interest, the increased talents, to God. You imparted the teachings of the faith to those entrusted to you; From your own mouth you gave the teachings of the faith. But first, nurturing Father, you accomplished those things by deeds; You formed these for yourself first, nurturing Father. What you published outwardly, agreed well with your heart; It was firmly within, what you published outwardly.

[2] Him, O pious people, beseech, venerate, fittingly honor; He will hear your prayers -- him, O pious people, beseech. He himself heard the prayers of many who were praying; Of the sick Gregory, he himself heard the prayers. By his aid a sick man is healed; For this man was indeed infirm in his whole body; Languid and sorrowful, this man indeed was. But he, leaving behind, hastened from his native Spanish fields; A poor man, he abandoned the fields of his native land. He came to Italy, seeking the holy Sabinus; And for his own salvation, he came to Italy. He came at last to the church and the tomb of Sabinus; That he might beseech the Saint, he came to the church. He himself heard the prayers of the one beseeching him with a suppliant heart; The constant prayers he offered, he himself heard. At length the Holy One restored him to his former health; What he had sought for himself, at length he restored.

[3] Another ailing man hastened to his temple; He came, that he might beseech him -- another ailing man. He was an Aquitanian, without sight, lacking speech, and likewise another. Crippled in his limbs, this Aquitanian was. He lacked the service of his body, of hands and feet -- He, without the service of his entire body. But by the merits of the Bishop he is restored to health: The Lord heals him by the merits of the Bishop.

[4] O venerable elder, you were deprived of the light of the flesh, Having the light of the heart, O venerable elder. You were blind in body, but in heart you saw things to come; A prophet with a pious mind, you were blind in body. King Totila wished to test the seer Sabinus; To know the servant of God, King Totila wished. Totila mocking the blind man is detected; But he recognized that the servant of the Lord was indeed a seer; He saw and acknowledged the servant of the Lord. For, in the boy's place, he himself gave the Saint the wine; He himself became the cup-bearer, in the boy's place. The provident old man saw at once with the light of his heart; He saw and accepted it, the provident old man. King Totila therefore honors him with greater veneration; He believed him a seer, King Totila therefore.

[5] Vindemius first stains his mind with ambition, And that of the innocent boy, Vindemius stains. He who is badly deceived by deceitful words, guiltless, By his own simplicity he is badly deceived. Too credulous, he prepared the wines; with poison and the boy offering poison, He mixes the cups with dark venom, too credulous. Behold, the boy came as the customary servant; Bearing a draught of death, behold, the boy came. He holds it before the Father, as though the Father saw no evil in the wine, That he might offer it to him -- he holds it before the Father. But he sees within what that one did not see without; The liquid that the vessel holds, he sees within. The Bishop says to the boy, who holds the cup before him, Who was ill-faithful -- the Bishop says to the boy: "Drink this, faithful boy, what you yourself offer to me; The death you give me -- drink this, faithful boy." "But rather give it to me: I would not have you die by poison; That this old man may drink it -- rather give it to me." He took it and drank therefrom the poison that was in the vessel; With body unharmed, he took it and drank therefrom. the one who had prompted it being suddenly killed. Vindemius dies as soon as this one drinks the poison; He who was far from here -- Vindemius dies. You, Father, at last ascended to the heavenly kingdom; You were carried to the Lord, you, Father, to the heavenly kingdom. Him, nurturing Father, beseech on behalf of me, John, who composed this; And on behalf of God's people -- him, nurturing Father, beseech. Glory be to the Unbegotten, and glory ever to the Son, And to the Spirit likewise, who is One God. Amen.

SECOND HISTORY OF THE FINDING OF SAINT SABINUS, BISHOP OF CANUSIUM,

By John, Archdeacon of Bari, from the manuscripts of the Church of Saint Nicholas of Bari.

Sabinus, Bishop of Canusium in Apulia (Saint)

BHL Number: 7445

In the year 1091.

By John the Archdeacon, from manuscripts.

CHAPTER 1. Archbishop Urso Inquires about the Relics.

[1] In the time of Archbishop Urso (who had previously been Bishop at Rapolla, but was afterward, through the power and will of Duke Robert, translated by Pope Gregory -- who is also called Hildebrand -- to the Church of Bari and ordained Archbishop; who ordained me from the first ecclesiastical grade up to the Levitical, Urso, Archbishop of Bari, and granted me, unworthy though I was, the honor of the Archdeaconate), a conversation among the elder Clergy of our Church, familiar with the Author, in his presence, about the old altar in the Confession, arose many times. For the Archbishop himself used to inquire of the senior priests about the same altar and its consecration, or its relics, or by whom it had once been consecrated; and about many other matters of our Church, as is the custom of men who wish to know, he would ask. They reported to him in answer that the church which is now the Confession had been the Archiepiscopal church; he learns which was the old cathedral of Bari, but that afterward a church was begun above it in honor of the most blessed and ever-Virgin Mother of God, Mary, by Archbishop Bisantius, and completed by Archbishop Nicolaus his successor. However, they were intent upon the altar of the aforesaid Confession, by whom the new one was built. by which Bishop it had been consecrated and whose relics had been placed beneath it. They retained in memory from their predecessors that the bodies of the holy Confessors Memor and Rufinus, who had formerly been Bishops of the Church of Canusium, were preserved there in hiding. what relics had been brought there; A conversation was therefore held among us with the same Archbishop Urso about searching for the bodies of those Saints beneath the aforesaid altar, since what was reported about them remained doubtful in our minds.

[2] But because the Archbishop was hindered by many and various affairs, this investigation was postponed and deferred in its time. For he was the intimate counselor and participant of nearly all the greater causes of Duke Robert, he himself was intimate with Robert Guiscard, since he had already found him to be a most faithful agent in certain embassies. For he had frequently sent him as legate to the aforesaid Pope, and had sent him to Spain when he gave his daughter in marriage to the Count of Barcelona, whom he had conducted from his own principality to this land, which was under the Duke's dominion, for the confirmation of the marriage, always at his side, with a great retinue and sumptuous display. Moreover, he rode with the same Duke wherever he went for almost the whole space of the year, since for the reasons we have mentioned and others, the Duke wished him to dwell near him and to share in his affairs, as we have noted. Very rarely, therefore, did he come to his bishopric -- rarely present to his people: either at Easter or at the solemnity of Christmas, or at certain few periods of the year, yet he did not stay long, but only four days or at most a week. In this manner, therefore, passing through the times, wearied and restless, as he himself related to us, he had lived often under many labors and journeys and cares, as one who wished to serve and greatly please so great a Duke. At length, however, he set out for Jerusalem for the purpose of prayer, to the sepulchre of the Lord, and in the same year returned thence to Bari, and after some time had passed he went to Canusium, having returned from Jerusalem, he dies. and there fell ill and died, and was buried on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of March. He lived in the Archbishopric of Bari for nine years and eight months.

Baronius has "Rapullam." Miraeus in his Catalogue of the episcopal cities of Italy calls it both "Rapollum" and "Rapolla," and says the See was united to that of Melfi. Rapolla and Melfi (or Melphia) are situated between Venusia and the town of Monteverde, or Pons Aufidi, which was discussed above at chapter 4 of the Life. Since Urso died, as is said below, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of March in the year of Christ 1089, having held the episcopate for nine years and eight months, it follows that he was translated from Rapolla to the See of Bari in the year 1079, in the month of June, in the seventh year of Blessed Gregory VII. Baronius and others commonly write "Hildebrandus." He is venerated on May 25. Baronius explains in his Notes to the Martyrology for July 6 what the "Confession" is: namely that part of the church in which the relics are preserved, The "Confession" in a church. which is sometimes a crypt or subterranean chapel beneath the choir or the high altar; otherwise some other chapel or inner sanctuary. Among the Greeks the term "martyrion" is broader; for it signifies the entire sacred building. Beatillus, writing on the Bishops of Bari under John III, says that the old cathedral basilica is now called the Confession of Saint Sabinus -- which agrees with what John the Archdeacon writes here. Lupus the Protospatharius writes at the year 1028: "Then John, Bishop of Bari, died, and Bisantius was made Archbishop." Beatillus in his Catalogue of Bishops writes that John III died on May 27, but in book 1 of his History of Bari he says he died on May 22. Bisantius and Romulantes, Archbishops of Bari. At the year 1035, from a codex of the Duke of Andria, the following appears in the same Chronicle: "In the year 1035, on the day of Epiphany, Byzantius, Bishop of Bari, died at Constantinople. He was indeed the father of orphans, the founder of the primary church of Bari, the guardian and outstanding defender of the city against the Greeks. And Romulantes the Protospatharius was elected Bishop; but in the month of April he was summoned to Constantinople by the Emperor, and died in exile; and in his place Nicolaus was elected." Beatillus says that both Bishops, Bisantius and Romulantes (or Romuald), were summoned to Constantinople because they zealously defended their citizens against the tyranny of the Catapan, or Governor of Apulia. Nicolaus died in the year 1062. Concerning these, we have treated above on this same day. Baronius in volume 11, at the year 1074, number 23, recites from the letters of Gregory himself: "Moreover, know that Robert Guiscard frequently sends us suppliant legates." Urso was perhaps among these legates. She is called Mathilda or Mahalta by Martin Carillo in his Annals; Guiscard's daughter married to the Count of Barcelona. she was married to Raymond Berengar II, surnamed "Tow-head" from his blond and thick hair. He succeeded his father Raymond Berengar the Old in the year 1076; he was killed by his brother in the year 1082, having shortly before received a son from Mahalta. So Carillo, Marinaeus, Tarapha, etc.

CHAPTER 2. Archbishop Elias Finds the Relics of Saint Sabinus.

[3] After his death, Archbishop Elias succeeded him -- he who had previously been an Abbot and held the body of Saint Nicholas in his care and governance. When he was elected Archbishop, Elias his successor, with the will and consent of Duke Roger, son of the said Duke Robert, we went to Melfi to see Pope Urban, who was there celebrating a Synod in the month of September. We asked him to come down to Bari and to consecrate the aforesaid Elias to the honor of the Archbishopric, with the Lord Bohemund joining us in petitioning the same Pope -- he who at that time already held Bari under his dominion. consecrated by Urban II, When he had been consecrated by the same Pope in the church of our Archbishopric, we often spoke with him about the aforesaid bodies and the altar. He therefore began to be anxious to inquire, so that concerning what was said and held ambiguously, he might be certain and doubt no longer. seeking the relics of Saints Rufinus and Memor, For of the body of Saint Sabinus there was no mention at all, but only of the aforesaid Confessors, neither in the times of the aforesaid Archbishop Elias nor of Archbishop Urso: for it was believed that the relics of that saint had been hidden in the Church of Canusium -- which the truth of the matter afterward proved to be false. those of Saint Sabinus being entirely unknown, For inquiry was made many times in that same church concerning the body of the same Confessor, both by a Provost named Mordaca of the aforesaid Church, and by Rainerius, and by others who had presided, but it could never and nowhere be found by them up to this time. And indeed, since it was not there, how could they find it?

[4] In this manner, then, in our Church, by the divine will, what had been unknown for many years, with no written record indicating it, was at last found. For the aforesaid Archbishop Elias immediately began to be anxious about searching for the bodies of the Confessors Memor and Rufinus in the aforesaid altar, when the altar was demolished, he finds them, so that he might be certain about the whole matter. Nor did he rest, nor consign it to oblivion, as Archbishop Urso had done, but he ordered the altar to be destroyed. When it was demolished, bones appeared in the front face of the altar, deposited as if in a sort of small cave or burial place, covered with a certain cloth. When this was seen, the same Archbishop immediately began to remove it cautiously and gently; yet it did not come away entirely whole -- for particles of it, translated there 240 years before, corrupted from the original integrity in which they had first been, and already decayed, were falling off. For the passages of many years had already passed: for from that time when the aforesaid bones had been placed there until now, we found that about two hundred and forty years had elapsed, counting carefully, as we were able, the years of the Bishops who had presided over this our Church. When the aforesaid cloth was found in the manner described above, letters were seen and read, with several inscriptions, which said: ANGELARIUS THE BISHOP BROUGHT THE BODY OF SAINT SABINUS. An inscription of this kind was also found on a marble tablet which was discovered there at the same time, and also on a piece of tufa; from which, namely from the time of this Bishop Angelarius to the time of the same Archbishop Elias, the years written above were counted.

[5] He removes it from the tomb, The Archbishop, therefore, together with all of us who were present, being made most joyful, immediately began, as was fitting, to extract reverently what had been unexpectedly found, and then to place it honorably in a wooden chest. Meanwhile, on swift wings, the news suddenly flew through the city and, striking the ears of all, announced what had been done. Therefore both sexes and every age suddenly ran together, full of happiness and joy, with a concourse of the people, and rendered due praises to the Lord almighty, who in His own time had granted so great a grace by His generosity. The Archbishop did not negligently allow the holy remains, thus placed for the moment, to remain so for the future; in a marble tomb, but he ordered a marble tomb to be aptly composed, as is customary, and also a marble slab likewise for its covering, with letters thereon designated by engraving, signifying the finding and the time and his own name, as is noted above, dictated by us, to be prepared. with Bishops assisting, When these and other things that were necessary were finally completed, he summoned the suffragan Bishops of our Church, all the Clergy, and the people on a day appointed in advance. Then, with the ecclesiastical orders arranged in the customary manner, as is usual on solemn days, with lights and incense, he reverently translates them, with the Bishops attending, he honorably placed the same relics beneath the same place where they had been found. When these solemnities were finally thus completed, he ordered an altar to be built above, and decreed that this feast of the Finding should be celebrated on the tenth day of the incoming month of December, and establishes an anniversary commemoration. which was also the day of the Finding, in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand and ninety-one, in the fourteenth Indiction.

[6] For this gift, we ought to render due praises and thanks to almighty God, Thanks must be rendered to God for so great a treasure. who through His grace has deigned to grant us that from which we have common joy. For rightly we ought to rejoice, because if any man, as it is written, finds a treasure in a field, he sells all that he has and with joy buys that field -- how much more ought we to rejoice for this treasure, far better than gold and silver? Matthew 13:44 Which we did not buy in such a manner, for which we made no exchange, but receiving it by gratuitous generosity -- by which our Church has been honored -- finding it, we accepted it; and having accepted it, let us honor it with all reverence, since the reverence which we show to it will without doubt profit us. The Lord almighty repays His faithful ones who honor, venerate, and in their necessities beseech His Saints -- since he who honors these, there is no doubt, shows honor to God. For He Himself said: "He who honors you, honors Me; he who receives you, receives Me." Matthew 10:40 It is fitting, therefore, that we should honor them in every way we can and beseech them for our salvation, so that the Lord our God may grant us, through His grace, to go to their glory, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

He had previously been a monk in the Monastery of Cava, as Beatillus testifies, and was then made Abbot at Bari. Honorable mention is made of him in the cited history of the Translation of Saint Nicholas. This one was the son of Guiscard; and when Guiscard died, with the help of his uncle Roger, Count of Sicily, he was made Duke of Apulia. Roger, Duke of Apulia, son of Guiscard, brother of Bohemund. Therefore Bohemund, the elder brother, also called Marcus, aggrieved at being passed over, waged war against his brother. Bohemund was born of Alberada, a woman of honest and illustrious lineage, as Geoffrey the Monk writes in book 1, chapter 30, but dismissed on account of consanguinity; Roger, however, was the son of Gaita (or Sigelgaita), daughter of Gaimarius, Prince of Salerno. Peace was then made between the brothers, with Oria, Otranto, Taranto, Gallipoli, and other places being conceded to Bohemund; who, having set out with other Western Princes for Syria, was made Prince of Antioch and far surpassed his brother in military glory. Baronius at the year 1090, number 2, from the Chronicle of Romuald of Salerno, reports that this Synod of Melfi was held in the year 1090, Indiction 13; and Binius follows him in volume 3 of the Councils. But Lupus the Protospatharius writes that it was held in the year 1089. Synod of Melfi in the year 1089. Lupus: "In the year 1089, a Synod of all the Bishops of Apulia, Calabria, and Bruttium was held in the city of Melfi, at which Duke Roger was also present with all the Counts of Apulia, Calabria, and other provinces; at which it was decreed that the holy truce should be maintained by all subjects. In this year Ursus, Archbishop of Bari, died; and Pope Urban by name came to the city of Bari and there consecrated the Confession of Saint Nicholas and Elias the Archbishop." Urban II then comes to Bari. So writes Lupus, and correctly: for Baronius himself at the year 1089, numbers 5 and following, recites the diploma of Urban "given at Bari, through the hands of John the Deacon, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and eighty-nine, in the second year of the Lord Pope Urban, in the thirteenth Indiction, on the ninth of October," in which he testifies that, "invited by the entreaties of the most beloved sons of the Roman Church, Duke Roger and his brother Bohemund, and of Elias himself, he came to Bari, deposited the relics of Saint Nicholas, and consecrated Elias." But the Indiction 13, which began in September 1089, misled the author of the Beneventan Chronicle into referring it to September 1090. "Contrary to the custom," says Urban himself, "of our Roman and Apostolic Church." Elias had previously been familiar with Urban, as Beatillus writes in his History of Bari, since they had both been monks together in the Monastery of Cava. Baronius has "Mordaco." The Provost of Canusium is so called because, after the Episcopal See was transferred from that city, he presides over its Clergy, as Beatillus relates in chapter 17; and in chapter 18 he says that Cardinal Baronius himself was granted the Provostship of Canusium by Pope Clement VIII. Baronius: "immediately, as has been noted." Therefore, as we said in section 11, in the year 851 those relics had been translated. Tufa is a stone that is rough indeed but can easily be broken down into sand. That chest is still preserved at Bari, with this inscription: "Chest of Saint Sabinus the Bishop." So Beatillus. Beatillus says the people were roused and ran together at the sound of a Campanian bell. This appears to be the inscription which we cited above from Baronius and Beatillus. It was doubtful whether the manuscript read "attestantibus" (attesting) or "assistentibus" (assisting). Baronius has: "supporting the same relics, beneath the same place," etc. Baronius: "when the solemnities were thus completed."

CONCERNING SAINT SABINUS THE BISHOP AND SAINT ROMULUS THE DEACON, AT ATRIPALDA IN ITALY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Sabinus, Bishop, at Atripalda in Italy (Saint) Romulus, Deacon, at Atripalda in Italy (Saint)

By J.B.

Section 1. Saint Sabinus, Patron of Atripalda: Is He the Bishop of Canusium?

[1] The Tripaldus is a river in Italy (also called Tripaltus, by Flavio Biondo Tropoaltus and Tropoaldus, and more commonly the Sabbato), celebrated even in ancient times; The town of Atripalda, in the Hirpinian territory which, rising from the Apennine mountains, joins the river Calore near the city of Benevento, and then with it flows into the Volturno. Above Benevento, on this river, is situated Tripalta, or Atripalda, distinguished by the title of Duchy; whose suburb, called the Sedile, extends along the left bank of the Sabbato toward the city of Avellino. For Avellino is more than a mile from the Sabbato, with another river flowing between, Patron: Saint Hypolistus, May 1, called the Puntarola (by some Pontodora and Pandorola), which below Atripalda mingles with the Sabbato. The principal basilica of the town of Atripalda is dedicated to Saint Hypolistus, Priest and Martyr, whose feast is celebrated with solemn rite on the Kalends of May. His companions in the contest are believed to have been the boy Crescens and others, whose bodies were recently found.

[2] and Saint Sabinus, February 9. In addition to Saint Hypolistus, the primary Patron, Saints Sabinus the Bishop and Romulus the Deacon are venerated there on the ninth of February, from whose marble tombs flows a sacred liquid, salutary against diseases, which the people commonly call Manna. It flows particularly on these days: All Saints, Saint Catherine, Saint Sabinus, Saint Hypolistus, and the day before and after the last of these. Therefore Leander Albertus wrote that this manna flows from the sepulchre of Saint Hypolistus, in these words: "Then the Tripaltus enters the Calore (he incorrectly makes the Tripaltus different from the Sabbato). Nearby is the noble town of Tripalta, known for its iron workshops and adorned with the title of Marquisate. There, in the principal church, the body of Saint Hypolistus, Martyr and Priest, is preserved, at whose monument miracles are divinely produced; and on the day before, the day after, and on his very feast day, Manna is sent forth with the marble exuding. And they say that Saint Sabinus and Romulus are there also, as the appended epitaph teaches." But in truth this miracle is proper to these latter alone, although the day of Saint Hypolistus is especially honored by it.

[3] Some believe this Saint Sabinus to be the same one who is venerated at Bari in Apulia, Bishop of the Church of Canusium, of whom we have treated at length above -- not only because the one is venerated at Atripalda and the other at Bari and Canusium on the same day, believed by some to be the same as the one venerated at Bari; but because the liquid that flows from the tomb of Saint Sabinus at Atripalda is also reported to have flowed from the former sepulchre of the same Saint Sabinus at Canusium. For the anonymous author of his Life writes thus in chapter 7, number 22: "God wondrously manifested to His priests a new and astonishing miracle. because both exude Manna, For from the marble, just as drops of balsam are accustomed to drip, a liquid emanated with an indescribable odor." And indeed one might rightly marvel that no Acts at all exist of this Sabinus of Atripalda, who is renowned for that prodigious liquid and other miracles, if he is different from the one of Bari. Nor is it unusual for relics of a single Saint to be preserved in many places, and for each to be considered (by synecdoche, of course) to possess the whole body. Thus the relics of Saint Sabinus that were translated from Lesina to Naples in the year 1598, in the Catalogue of Saints which Cardinal Decius Carafa, Archbishop of Naples, ordered to be celebrated throughout that diocese in the year 1609, are said to be those of the same Bishop of Canusium. Why then could some not have been transported to Atripalda, just as they were to Lesina?

[4] However, the fact that he is venerated on the same day is not of great force, and is venerated on the same day, since, as Michael the Monk writes in the Capuan Sanctuarium on page 151, where he treats of Saint Matrona the Virgin, it is not unusual for several feasts of the same name to fall on the same day: "as among us," he says, "two men named Priscus and two named Rufus are commemorated by the Martyrology on one day." which is a weak argument: Other examples can be read, such as that of Saint Candida on September 4, of Saint Modestus on February 12, of Saint Stephen likewise on February 13. Baronius gives this reason for this in his Notes at February 12, letter e: "We have observed that the heaping together of so many Saints of the same name under one day was sometimes done by our forebears because the birthday of a certain Martyr was uncertain -- as in the example of Columba of Cordoba, whose birthday, as long as it was unknown, was customarily celebrated on the same day as the solemnity of Columba of Sens." And indeed this Sabinus is also commemorated on another day. perhaps formerly venerated on another day: For Philippus Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy records Saints Sabinus and Romulus on the Kalends of May together with Saint Hypolistus (whom he calls Hippolytus), and makes them all Martyrs; and he acknowledges, as also in the topographical Index prefixed to the same Catalogue, that they belong to February 17. And we have shown above that many place Saint Sabinus of Canusium on February 17. What if the Sabinus and Romulus of Atripalda were inscribed in the ecclesiastical tables on that day, and someone composing a Martyrology, not knowing who they were, rashly believed Romulus to be the same one who is commemorated elsewhere as crowned with martyrdom on that day together with others, and Sabinus to be the Bishop of Canusium and therefore to be referred to the ninth day? Although it could also have happened that, when Sabinus was venerated at Atripalda on February 17, it was suggested to the Bishop of Avellino, in whose diocese Atripalda lies, that the name of Saint Sabinus is found in the sacred Calendar at February 9, and by his decree his solemnity was moved to that day.

[5] We do not deny, however, that this Sabinus who is venerated at Atripalda if there are two Sabini among the Canusians, which is probable, may have been a Bishop of Canusium. For we have shown above in the preliminary Commentary on the other man's Life, section 1, that there seem to have been two Bishops of the Church of Canusium named Sabinus: one in the time of Pope Saint Gelasius, before the year 500, and the other during the reign of Justinian, a contemporary of Saint Benedict the Abbot -- although the Life, written three centuries later, intermingles the deeds of both and attributes them to one; and asserts that he died and was buried at Canusium shortly before the Lombards invaded Italy; and that his body was afterward revealed by divine intervention more than a hundred years later, translated to the cathedral basilica of the city of Canusium, and then to Bari, where it is still preserved.

[6] If this conjecture is approved, we shall acknowledge that the senior Sabinus appears to be the one who is venerated at Atripalda. Yet we have placed him second, this one should be called the senior, because from the things that have been said about the other, the deeds of this one must be illuminated. To him, therefore, as we have previously noted, should be ascribed both the foundation of the church at Barletta and the honored celebration of the cave of Saint Michael on Mount Gargano with the dedication of altars and miracles. But if the learned reject this conjecture, we shall say that this Sabinus, Patron of the Atripaldensians, is another, different from the Barian one, unknown to us. The sole reason we cannot acknowledge the younger of the two Bishops of Canusium named Sabinus to be venerated at Atripalda is that it is reported that Saint Nicholas predicted to him at Myra (since Saint Nicholas predicted that the younger would be translated to Bari) that it would happen at some time that the remains of both would be brought to a single city, of which they would both be the Patrons. If anyone rejects this tradition of the Barians, I indeed see no reason why the earlier Sabinus could not be thought to have died and been buried at Canusium, and the younger at Atripalda -- whom some want to have been born at Rome, while the other was a native of Canusium. But we can assert nothing except that it seems to us that there were two Bishops of Canusium named Sabinus; and that the one who is venerated at Atripalda, certainly a different person: whoever's Bishop he may ultimately have been, is different from him whose body was translated from Canusium to Bari.

[7] Saint Romulus (of whom no mention is made in the Life of Saint Sabinus related above) is said to have been the Deacon of the one who is venerated at Atripalda; at whose tomb at Atripalda his own Deacon, Saint Romulus, prayed. and to have spent his time at Atripalda before the cave of the holy Martyrs in constant prayers and lamentations, lest he be deprived of the companionship of his Master. From which it follows that this very Sabinus, his master, either died there or was translated there shortly after his death, while his Deacon Romulus was still living. No one, therefore, can suspect that some part of the body of Saint Sabinus was given to the people of Atripalda from his body which was buried at Canusium and found so long afterward, since his own Deacon is remembered as having kept constant and holy vigils at his tomb, and indeed at Atripalda. Moreover, our Antonio Beatillus, who recognized only a single Bishop of Canusium named Sabinus, plainly pronounced the Atripaldan one to be different from him.

Section 2. The Memory and Epitaph of Saints Sabinus and Romulus.

[8] The Acts of Saint Sabinus of Atripalda (if he is not the other one of the Canusians) and of Saint Romulus do not exist -- either because they were never written, or because they were destroyed by some accident. Saint Sabinus, whether the earlier Bishop of Canusium or another, If you shrink from our conjecture about two Sabini, you may suspect that he was Bishop of Avellino and wished to be buried at Atripalda among the bodies of the Saints; or that he was expelled from Africa by the Vandals and settled here; or that he came here from elsewhere for religious reasons and died here -- the choice is free. He is listed with Romulus, besides the previously cited Ferrarius, by David Romaeus in the Index of holy men who were born or buried in the Kingdom of Naples, in these words: "At Atripalda, near the sources of the Aufidus: Hippolytus, Priest and Martyr; Sabinus; Romulus." The Aufidus indeed rises from the same mountains as the Sabbato, but the town of Atripalda is many miles distant from its sources. Paul Regio, Bishop of Vico Equense, in part 1, in the Life of Saint Hypolistus (whom he calls Ippolistro), chapter 5, writes the following: "And because, as has been said, buried at the church of Saint Hypolistus: the body of the holy Martyr had been hidden in the earth, devout men built there a private and pious oratory, and in it they deposited his sacred relics within a marble tomb, with an altar dedicated to the memory of the Martyr in the Catholic rite; where afterward two other altars were erected on either side, and in them were placed the relics of two other Saints, Sabinus and Romulus." But the tomb of Saint Hypolistus is not marble, nor, as he adds, does the sacred liquid drip from it, although on his feast day [and from his tomb and that of Saint Romulus (but not that of Saint Hypolistus) Manna flows.] and the day before and after, it flows from the marble tombs of Saints Sabinus and Romulus, as we have said. Although the author of the Life of Saint Hypolistus, a more recent writer following Regio, writes: "Wherefore they built a church there after the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian, and placed the body in a private oratory beneath the pavement of the church in a marble urn, which around the three days of his feast exudes Manna that benefits innumerable faithful." But, as we shall say in its proper place, the tomb of Saint Hypolistus is of brick, while the two of Saints Sabinus and Romulus are of marble, and these alone exude Manna.

[9] The same anonymous writer of the Life of Saint Hypolistus adds: "In which oratory, or chapel, with the passage of time, the bodies of Saints Sabinus the Bishop and Confessor and Romulus his Deacon were buried. Individual epitaphs are engraved on their sepulchres." When Michael the Monk examined these carefully in the year 1643, when were the epitaphs engraved? he judged, with his excellent discernment, from the form of the characters and the style of the entire structure, that they had been made in the times of the Lombards, at least seven hundred years before. And it is established that this flow of Manna has been in effect from time immemorial. We shall give here these two epitaphs, preceded by two concerning Saint Sabinus.

[22] On the aforesaid sixteenth day of September, having first obtained permission from our most holy Lord Paul V, then Supreme Pontiff, through the Most Reverend Lord Mutius Cinquina, Bishop of Avellino and Frequento, then in 1612, on September 16, in the old tomb; the same tomb was raised by two palms and placed within the old wall; and in the tomb itself a leaden casket was enclosed, in which the body of the holy Bishop was at last deposited, the head elsewhere. but without the head: for the head had been enclosed in a silver case (just as afterward the head also of the holy Martyr Hypolistus was enclosed in the year 1634) and carried processionally through the town, and on certain feasts it is customarily so carried through the streets of the town.

[23] In the year 1629, during the general visitation of the Most Illustrious Lord Bartholomew Giustiniani, Bishop of Avellino and Frequento, on account of the firm tradition of the citizens and the inscription engraved on the tomb of Saint Romulus, which says "before the cave of the Martyrs," at the petition of the Magnificent Governors and the reverend college of Canons, the same Most Illustrious Giustiniani granted permission to dig in the aforesaid crypt, so that the bodies of the Martyrs themselves might be found; The bodies of five Saints found: and with the same Most Illustrious prelate present, and other persons selected for this purpose, there was found the mosaic pavement that was mentioned at the beginning; and upon it a certain small vault, raised to a height of four palms by walls on either side, and sepulchres, and in the sepulchres the bodies of Martyrs, which at that time appeared to be only five in number, arranged to the right of the same pavement. When these were found, the citizens wished to proceed no further at that time; but at the consultation and decree of their Most Illustrious Bishop, they resolved to enlarge the crypt, the crypt enlarged: adding two other wings, as they call them, toward the north, besides the one which had previously been added toward the south through the piety and at the expense of Prince Camillus.

[24] In the year 1633, on the fifteenth day of the month of March, the aforesaid wings having been added, with the same Most Illustrious Giustiniani and his Vicar General Giovanni Battista Grifo present (and in the first place the Most Illustrious Archbishop of Taranto, Lord Thomas Caracciolo, then Bishop of Cyrene), at the body of Saint Hypolistus, eight other bodies found, which had been found in the place previously indicated (or pointed out with the finger) according to ancient and firm tradition, at the entrance to the holy crypt on the right side as one enters, together with those other bodies of Martyrs near his own burial place, which together with the body of Saint Hypolistus appeared to be five in number, when they caused excavation to be made, eight other bodies of Saints were found. And the head of Saint Hypolistus, which some believed his body to lack, on account of certain people reporting that it had been cut off at the time of his martyrdom and thrown into the river Sabbato, was found wrapped in a great quantity of chalk and plaster; and the head of Saint Hypolistus with part of the rope, and not long afterward, beneath it, similarly entirely wrapped in plaster and clay, was found that part of the rope sprinkled with sacred blood, by which the more ferocious unbelievers had dragged the holy man of God from the Capitoline hill to the aforesaid river at the tail of a fierce bull. And now that part of the rope is preserved in a crystal vial -- of rock crystal, as it is commonly called -- by the Most Illustrious Lord Thomas Caracciolo, Archbishop of Taranto. afterward decently preserved;

Likewise at the same time a golden ring found in one of the two tombs of the boy Martyrs is kept with great devotion; and for the purpose of preserving in it the head of the holy Martyr, it was decided and decreed that in the meantime a silver case should be made.

[25] In the year of salvation 1634, on the first day of the month of May, upon the first entry that the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Prince Francesco Marino Caracciolo, Duke of the Atripaldensians, made to take possession of the town, the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Bishop of Cyrene, Lord Thomas Caracciolo, now Archbishop of Taranto, came to Atripalda, and with the will and express consent of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Bartholomew Giustiniani, the head enclosed in a silver case: having celebrated Mass, he duly and solemnly deposited the head of the holy Martyr Hypolistus in a silver case and ordered it to be carried processionally through the town, which was duly carried out.

[26] The body of the glorious Martyr, however, and the other twelve bodies of Saints found near his burial place, the remaining bodies placed in the altar: were carried to the head of the last wing toward the north, and placed in wooden chests on the altar where there is now the image of Saint Hypolistus himself and his companions -- until, God granting, they may be preserved in more fitting monuments. On the aforesaid fifteenth day of the month of March, in the year of salvation one thousand six hundred and thirty-three, there were also found in the rear part of the monument of Saint Romulus three other bodies of Saints; three other bodies found, but not moved from their place. and besides these (though not so openly) many others, among which one near the sepulchre of Saint Romulus, of tall stature, with its head placed upon its breast. But these were neither carried away nor moved from there, lest the monument of Saint Romulus, which stands over their sepulchres (being composed of only two stone slabs, one for its front piece and the other for its cover, but cemented at the back and bottom), should suffer collapse, and the Manna should cease to flow from it. Indeed, another golden ring found in one of those same sepulchres was left where it was found. On the wall built in front of the aforesaid bodies of the Saints, this verse was placed:

HERE THE WALL ENTOMBS THE BODIES OF MANY SAINTS.

[27] In the year of salvation 1635, on the twenty-sixth of December, on the night following the most holy Nativity of our Redeemer, the dome, or tribuna as they call it, of the upper basilica fell, and on account of the impact of the falling stones and mortar, the pavement being broken and nearly the whole vault of the crypt of the holy Martyrs and the sepulchre of Saint Romulus, it filled nearly the entire cave of the Martyrs with stones and mortar. It was remarkable, however, that in the course of only twenty-four hours, on account of the crowd of both sexes and children running together, [The collapse of the dome broke and then repaired the front piece of the tomb of Saint Romulus:] everything that had fallen was removed and carried away. And no less remarkable was the fact that the front piece of the tomb of the holy Deacon, broken into many pieces (some of which were very small), with all the fragments found, was, by the Lord's mercy, restored to its original form. It was a matter of both great consolation and wonder that, although all feared the sacred liquid would cease entirely, the opposite happened; the Manna flows more copiously: for on the following ninth of February, on which the feast of Saint Sabinus is celebrated, the liquid flowed more copiously from the monument of Saint Romulus, just as at that time the tomb of Saint Sabinus also overflowed more copiously with the same. Wherefore the Archpriest, with greater devotion and joy, read it out according to custom and reverently distributed it to the people.

[28] This sacred liquid is accustomed to emanate not continuously on every day of the year, but at certain specific times, and particularly in Advent, on the feasts of All Saints, of Saint Sabinus the Bishop, and of Saint Catherine the Martyr; its abundance an augury of fertility, and indeed when it flows copiously, the citizens more joyfully expect the harvests and vintages and the gathering of other produce, especially hazelnuts. And when the sacred liquid is less abundant, they do not retain hope for greater abundance. But this should not be passed over in silence: namely that it frequently happens that before the first Vespers of the aforesaid feasts nothing of the liquid appears in these sacred monuments, but when Vespers begin, there hang upon them tiny drops, like pearls and beads.

[29] So far that account. Whatever else we have reported here concerning Saints Sabinus and Romulus beyond that account, we have received mostly from the same Don Silvester Aiossa, the Reverend Father Giacinto Rugerio of Atripalda, of the Order of Preachers, Professor of Sacred Theology in the Royal Convent of Saint Louis at Aversa, and Father Antonio Beatillus, Priest of the Society of Jesus. also of hazelnuts. From the fact that you hear an abundant crop of hazelnuts is foretold when a more generous liquid flows from the tombs of the Saints, you may conclude that not only Avella (or Abella), a city situated between Nola and Avellino, but also Avellino itself abounds in hazelnuts. Indeed, Pliny himself writes that hazelnuts, or filberts, were called "Abelline." So in book 15, chapter 22: "In the rest, whatever substance they have is solid, as in filberts, a species of nut which formerly they called Abelline from the name of their native land." It is doubtful whether he means they were called Abelline from Abella, or (as Leander thinks) that Abella itself was called Abellinum, or finally whether he judged that those nuts -- which are commonly called Avellane or Abellane from Abella, a city of Campania -- were named from the nearby Hirpinian city of Abellinum.