Calocerus

ON ST. CALOCERUS, BISHOP OF RAVENNA IN ITALY

under the Emperor Hadrian

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Calocerus, Bishop of Ravenna in Italy (St.)

By G. H.

I. The episcopate of St. Calocerus, his sacred cult, and the translation of his relics.

[1] The Church publicly venerates Bishop Calocerus of Ravenna on the eleventh of February, concerning whom the Roman Martyrology transmits the following: At Ravenna, St. Calocerus, Bishop and Confessor. As Baronius attests in the Notes, St. Calocerus is venerated on 11 February both the Ravennate tables and Hieronymus Rubeus in book 1 of his History of Ravenna treat of the same, and from this work Surius as well. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy for the same eleventh of February composed a brief summary of his Life from the same Rubeus and from certain ancient readings of the Church of Ravenna. A similar eulogy we have among the Lives of Saints which we received from the manuscript codices of the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome. Ferdinandus Ughellus likewise in volume II of Italia Sacra reckons St. Calocerus as the fifth among the Archbishops of Ravenna, and briefly comprehends his Acts. In the manuscript Florarium of Saints for the sixteenth of January the following is declared: At Ravenna, St. Calocherus, Bishop, and on 16 January disciple of St. Apollinaris, the first Bishop of the same city. He is venerated on the twenty-third of July: on which day we shall give his Life there from Mombritius and Laurentius Barreus and various manuscripts, a work also published by Surius, though in polished style. In this most ancient and most certain memorial of St. Calocerus there exists the source from which others have for the most part excerpted and composed their accounts.

[2] Rubeus and Ughellus write that he was Greek by nation, which they perhaps infer from his name, whether Greek by nation? by which he is called among the Greeks Kalokairos from beautiful horns. The same Ughellus makes him a pupil of St. Apollinaris; Ferrarius makes him a disciple. But at what time he was taken up by him a disciple of St. Apollinaris is not indicated. St. Apollinaris, as his Acts relate, was sent to Ravenna by the holy Apostle Peter, with no mention made of disciples or other companions. On his first arrival at the city of Ravenna, he restored sight to the blinded son of a certain soldier who was his host; then in the city itself he freed the wife of a Tribune from a long illness. After this, the Tribune with his wife and children and his entire household, believing in Jesus, were baptized. But many others also from among the pagans who were present received the faith of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile blessed Apollinaris dwelt in the house of the Tribune, whether converted at Ravenna? and daily many from among the people came to him, and he taught them secretly, saying: Believe in Jesus, for he himself is the God of heaven and earth. And those who believed were baptized. Moreover many nobles gave their sons to blessed Apollinaris, that they might be instructed by him in the sacred Scriptures. For those who already believed, blessed Apollinaris celebrated Masses and baptisms in the house of the Tribune with his disciples. Thus the Acts. But were these disciples the sons of Ravennate nobles instructed by him in the sacred Scriptures? St. Calocerus appears to have been from among those converted there. For, as is added, within the twelve years he is consecrated a Priest during which he taught there, he ordained two Priests, Adheretus and Calocerus; and he made Marcianus, a most noble man, and Eleuchadius, a philosopher, Deacons. He also appointed six Clerics, with whom he sang Psalms to the Lord day and night. St. Peter Damian writes that St. Eleuchadius was converted at Ravenna, as will be said on the fourteenth of February, number 6. Afterwards St. Apollinaris was led away by the Duke Saturnus to the priests of the idols, by whom, when he had mocked the ornaments of the temple of Jupiter, he was beaten with excessive violence and cast out toward the sea, and left half alive. His disciples, gathering him up, hid him in the house of a certain Christian widow, applying care to him: among whom we believe St. Calocerus to have been.

[3] After very many years, however, as is read in the same Acts, the most blessed Apollinaris went to Aemilia, secretly teaching the peoples whom he could draw by his word. Meanwhile the Priest Calocerus governed the Church vicar of St. Apollinaris, renowned for miracles which was at Ravenna in secret, performing many miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Not long afterwards the most blessed Apollinaris returned from Aemilia and was received by the Christians with all joy. Hence Calocerus is said to have presided over the Church of Ravenna as Vicar of St. Apollinaris in the manuscript codex of the Fathers of the Oratory, and in the summary of Ferrarius, and in the History of Ravenna by Rubeus.

[4] When subsequently the daughter of the Patrician Rufus had been raised from death by St. Apollinaris through the invocation of Christ, during his exile, he with others governs the Church of Ravenna and had been baptized together with her mother and household numbering three hundred and twenty-four of both sexes; and when many other pagans also had believed in Christ; by the Emperor's command St. Apollinaris was seized, beaten, suspended on the rack, and afterwards sent into exile. Three men from the Clergy followed him, who ministered to him. Meanwhile the Priests governed the Church which was at Ravenna, namely Adheretus and Calocerus, together with the Deacons. The number of Christians continued to grow. When St. Apollinaris returned, for three years after the third year he entered the city of Ravenna: and the Christians, receiving him, rejoiced with great joy, glorifying God, who had recalled their Father and Teacher to them. Again we believe the same Calocerus assumed the care of the Church of Ravenna when the Prefect Taurus detained St. Apollinaris, and after sight was restored to his blind son, secretly removed him from the people and sent him by night under guard as if to be kept in custody: and again for four years where he remained four years, six miles from the city. For the Prefect Taurus had previously asked him whether he had any helpers, and where they might be. To whom he had replied that there were indeed very many, and that they resided in the city of Ravenna: among whom we rightly believe St. Calocerus to have been, and to have either presided over them, or at least to have been among the chief helpers.

[5] Finally, when St. Apollinaris had governed his Church for twenty-nine years, he was martyred under Vespasian Augustus: Three bishops succeed St. Apollinaris and the above-mentioned fellow disciples of St. Calocerus succeeded him: first St. Adheretus, or Aderitus, consecrated Priest together with him by St. Apollinaris, whom the Roman Martyrology celebrates on the twenty-seventh of September; then the two who were ordained Deacons at the same time, St. Eleuchadius, and after his death St. Marcianus, to whom the twenty-second of May is sacred. What St. Calocerus did during the time of these Bishops is not established. We gather from the remaining Acts that he rendered diligent and often vicarious service to them. St. Peter Damian describes the order of this succession in his sermon on St. Eleuchadius, below at the fourteenth of February, number 6. In the place of Marcianus, says Rubeus, Calocerus was chosen, by the same method as the former, elected by God through the releasing of a dove. Since he had obtained tranquility of all affairs under the Emperor Hadrian, by constant exhortation, then St. Calocerus with God granting efficacy and strength to his words, he so persuaded almost all the people of Ravenna, having abandoned the false gods, to adhere to the holy religion, who converts the Ravennates that there were exceedingly few who did not accept the worship and knowledge of the true God. Hadrian ruled from the year of Christ 117 to the year 137: under whom Calocerus, having surpassed his hundredth year of age in green old age, and dies a centenarian exchanged death for life on the third day before the Ides of February, and was buried not far from Aderitus, namely in the town of Classis, in that place he is buried where not long after a temple was built by St. Probus, not far from the sea. Thus Rubeus. St. Proclus succeeded St. Calocerus, and St. Probus succeeded him: by whom, as Ferrarius relates for the tenth of November, which is his feast day, the bodies of Saints Aderitus and Calocerus were placed in this temple built by himself. translated by St. Probus Jordanes in his work On the Gothic Wars, chapter 29, says that the city of Ravenna glories in a threefold name and exults in its triple arrangement, the first part of which is

Ravenna, the last Classis, and the middle Caesarea between the city and the sea. Sidonius Apollinaris, more ancient than Jordanes, in book 1, epistle 5, calls these three parts the Old City, the New Port, and the Way of Caesar: at which place, he says, you would be uncertain whether the Way of Caesar connects or separates the Old City and the New Port. At this time Classis, or the New Port, is distant from the city of Ravenna three miles toward Ariminum, distinguished by the monastery and temple of St. Apollinaris.

[6] The relics of St. Calocerus and of other Bishops were translated from the temple at Classis by Peter, Archbishop of the Ravennates, then in the tenth century the Fifth of that name, commonly reckoned the Fourth, ordained in the year of Christ 923, who, as St. Peter Damian attests in his epistle to Pope Nicholas II, voluntarily abdicated his episcopal dignity and office. Honestus, Abbot of the monastery of Classis, succeeded him, which event Rubeus records as having occurred in the year 971 in book 5. Rubeus in book 1 narrates the said Translation as follows. When the Saracens were plundering all the shores of the Adriatic Sea, and had stolen away all the ornaments of the temple of St. Apollinaris, which were very great and most magnificent, [on account of the Saracen depredation, by Peter, the fourth Archbishop of Ravenna] and since many others had attempted to steal these most sacred remains; Peter of Bologna, Archbishop of the Ravennates, fearing lest some evil befall them, judged by most holy counsel that it would be best to have them brought into the city. Since, however, it was uncertain where they should be deposited, and on the day before the Kalends of February he had devoutly prayed to God, first at the church of St. Apollinaris and then at that of St. James, that He would show him the place where those most sacred remains lay; they began to dig, albeit with anxious and uncertain mind, where conjecture most strongly led them. All the remaining Priests, digging with the utmost veneration, continued the work the Archbishop had begun: and they had not dug far when a Priest, striking a brick with his mattock, opened the entrance to a hidden chest beneath the altar. Wherefore, when the marble slab that formed the altar had been lifted and the sepulchre thereby uncovered, a wooden vessel was found, corroded by decay on account of its age, in which separate compartments were visible. together with the relics of Saints Aderitus and Probus In one were two bodies, in the other one, with no inscription to indicate the names. They conjectured, however, that the two bodies were those of Aderitus and Calocerus, and the third that of Probus. Leaving behind a small portion of the relics there in memory of the Saints, he is elevated with the bodies placed on the Archbishop's chair, immediately, though the sky had been foul with heavy rain, it cleared and became serene. Moreover a certain Moses, one of the monks of the monastery of St. Apollinaris at Classis, who had been suffering from fever for many days, and miracles are performed touched the chair and was restored to health. And so, carried first with the utmost veneration of all and not without tears, the sacred bodies were brought to St. Apollinaris, then to St. Severus, whose feast day fell on the morrow: he is translated to the Ursian church, and an altar is dedicated to them at last with hymns and tears and immense joy they were transferred to the Ursian church. Where God willed to be a witness of their sanctity through many miracles, and on the fifth day before the Nones of March Archbishop Peter dedicated an altar to them. Thus far Rubeus. These matters are briefly touched upon in the manuscript codex of the Fathers of the Oratory: The body of this Calocerus was translated by Peter, Archbishop of the Ravennates, to the Ursian church. Ferrarius relates nearly the same. The Ursian church, moreover, is so named from its founder St. Ursus the Bishop, who gave it the name Anastasis in memory of the resurrection of Christ, and dedicated it on Easter day itself, on the Ides of April in the year 383. St. Ursus is venerated on the thirteenth of April. We have treated of St. Severus, Bishop of Ravenna, on the first of February, where we said that the temple dedicated to him, together with its monastery, lies between the town of Classis and the city of Ravenna, but closer to the former.

II. Whether St. Calocerus was a disciple of St. James in Spain?

[7] Joannes Tamayo Salazar inscribed the same St. Calocerus in the Hispanic Martyrology with these words: At Ravenna in Italy, St. Calocerus, Bishop of that city, who, having first discharged the duties of discipleship under the blessed Apostle James throughout the Spains, proceeding to Italy and attaching himself to blessed Apollinaris, drew the people of Ravenna to the worship of God, having cast aside the fictions of the idols. St. Calocerus is inscribed in the Hispanic Martyrology of Salazar Having been made Bishop of that See, he so wove the fabric of his life that, being more than a centenarian, laden with the burden of many virtues and distinguished by the honor of miracles, he happily rested in the Lord. The same Salazar composes at length the Acts of the same St. Calocerus, and thus relates how his early years were spent: Calocerus, Greek by origin, while still a young man went to Jerusalem, as if taken up as a disciple by St. James at Jerusalem where, having learned of the wonders of the Apostles of Christ, and having heard the light of doctrine for the attainment of eternal life, illuminated by the ray of the Holy Spirit, he embraced the faith with ardent zeal. From its beginning James the Apostle was his master, to whom he attached himself, and made Lector and daily drinking in from him the discipline of truth, he attained by his own virtue to the grade of the order of Lector. But when his master James crossed the sea to the Spains, not wishing to abandon him, he came as his attendant to the West, having set out with him to Spain from among the number of his twelve disciples, with burning devotion. Following therefore the footsteps of the holy Apostle through the Spains, he visited nearly all the cities of the region. But when, by the command of the blessed Virgin Mary, James had hastened to return to Jerusalem, he dismissed Calocerus with a delegation of his teaching authority, to revisit and preach to the Carpetani. he is said to have preached to the Carpetani Sustained by the Apostolic command and departing, he traversed that entire region, disseminating the word of God, and having gathered a not sterile harvest of believing souls, it came to his hearing how his holy Master had been killed at Jerusalem and crowned with martyrdom, and how his body, extracted by his fellow disciples and placed in a ship, had arrived at the port of the city of Iria Flavia in Gallaecia. Having learned this news, he immediately went to Iria, and joining himself to that assembly of his holy fellow disciples, with them he likewise erected and consecrated the tomb and is said to have been present at the Translation of the body of St. James in which the body was to be buried, and as a minister of his Order performed the sacred rites. When this was completed, while the others sought different regions, Calocerus betook himself to Italy, to St. Apollinaris, etc.

[8] These things are reported there, which we have no desire to examine one by one. We shall treat of St. James on the twenty-fifth of July. The grounds of probability must be drawn from the testimony of the ancients. And first, Sampirus, Bishop of Astorga (who carries his history from King Alfonso III, called the Great, down to Bermudo II the Gouty, that is, to the year of Christ 982), reckons Calocerus among the disciples of St. James, Sampirus mentions a certain Calocerus as a disciple of St. James when he reports that in the Hispanic Era 927 an altar over the body of the blessed Apostle James was consecrated by his seven disciples, whose names are these: Calocerus, Basilius, Pius, Grisogonus, Theodorus, Athanasius, Maximinus. Thus Sampirus, whose history was continued by Pelagius, Bishop of Oviedo, from the said Bermudo to the death of Ferdinand the Saint, that is, the year of Christ 1065. Our Mariana in book 4 of the History of Spain, chapter 2, attributes to this Pelagius what we have just quoted from Sampirus: Pelagius, Bishop of Oviedo, he says, who wrote his history nearly five hundred years ago, makes as disciples of James: Calocerus, Basilius, Pius, Grisogonus, Theodorus, Athanasius, and Maximus. Then Mariana appends his own judgment: of doubtful reliability Since the antiquity of events detracts certain credibility from the written record, and nothing certain can be adduced concerning the disciples of the Apostle James, let us leave the judgment free to the reader. Others were seven Bishops ordained by the Apostles at Rome and sent into the Spains, namely Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indaletius, Caecilius, Hesychius, and Euphrasius, the feast of all of whom, according to the Roman Martyrology, Usuard, and others, is celebrated on the Ides of May, as was said on the Kalends of February, where we treated separately of St. Caecilius.

[9] He who published the Hispanic Chronicle collected from various sources under the name of Flavius Dexter, an ancient author, the same is then established as Bishop of Ravenna by the Chronicle of Dexter combined the two aforementioned groups thus: In the year 37, St. James also brings with him to Spain many disciples, but chiefly twelve in number, in the Apostolic manner: namely Bishops Basilius, Pius, and Athanasius; Priests Maximus and Grysogonus; Lectors Theodorus, Caecilius, Ctesiphon, Hesychius, and Calocerus; the Exorcist Torquatus; and Doorkeepers Secundus, Indaletius,

and Euphrasius. ... Afterwards Calocerus, having gone to Italy, attached himself to Apollinaris, Bishop of the Ravennates, and having been made Priest by him, succeeded Marcianus and became Bishop, being more than a centenarian, yet still vigorous. The other seven, having been made Bishops by blessed Peter, are sent back to the Spains. Then under the year 44 the following is read: Calocerus, disciple of St. James, preaches throughout Carpetania, or, as Maurius Castella Ferrera explains in book 2 of the History of St. James, chapter 19, throughout the kingdoms of Toledo and Murcia and other dominions. Finally the death of the same is described under the year 130: St. Calocerus, disciple of St. James and Bishop of Ravenna, more than a centenarian, illustrious in the glory of miracles, departs to heaven. Thus that author: to which Sampayus added the journey to Jerusalem. But since certain credibility is not ascribed to the written record by ancient and approved authors, we leave this entire narrative under suspicion.