ON ST. BENIGNUS, PRIEST, MARTYR, AT TODI IN UMBRIA
Under Diocletian.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Benignus, Priest, Martyr, at Todi in Umbria (St.)
G. H.
[1] Todi, an ancient city of Umbria, midway between Narni and Perugia, is about twenty miles distant from each, not far from the bank of the Tiber, formerly called Tuder -- namely when, as Silius sings in book 6:
"Hannibal was heading for the Umbrian hills and fields, In the ancient city of Todi, Where on the steep top of its lofty mountain Todi hangs sloping on its side."
So also Strabo, book 5: "Tuder, a splendid city." But Plutarch in his Life of Crassus calls it "Tudertia, an Umbrian city." The same city is said to have received the Christian faith from the times of the Apostles, there were Bishop-Martyrs, although among the bishops who occupied the see in the first three centuries, only the names of two are found. Of these, one, St. Terentianus, the Patron of Todi, is believed to have migrated as a Martyr to heaven around the year 138, on the Kalends of September. The other is St. Pontianus, who completed his martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, and is venerated on July 9.
[2] and St. Benignus the Priest: Under this Pontianus lived St. Benignus the Priest, who obtained the palm in the same persecution. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on this day thus: At Todi, of St. Benignus the Martyr. John Baptist Possevinus, in his book On the Lives of the Saints of Todi, published in the year 1597, also assigns to February 13 St. Benignus, Priest and Martyr of Todi, about whom he states that nothing else is known except that he fell as a Martyr in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, and that his body is preserved with great veneration in the monastery of Todi of the Order of St. Benedict, called "of the Militias" or "de Militiis," as Baronius calls it in his Notes on the Martyrology, where he also adds that it is a monastery of nuns, concerning him there exist ancient records, and that he has seen ancient records of the Church of Todi concerning St. Benignus, shared by Angelo Cesio, Bishop of that city, who presided over that Church for forty years from 1566 to 1606, and had the ancient constitutions of the Church and new synodal additions printed, together with the Office of the Saints of Todi, approved by Apostolic authority; and an ecclesiastical office: as Ughelli reports from the manuscript Catalogue of the Bishops of Todi in the Barberini Library, in volume 1 of Italia Sacra, under the Bishops of Todi. Ludovicus Jacobillus, in his book On the Saints of Umbria, treats of St. Benignus at February 13, and calls the ancient records indicated by Baronius "ancient manuscript Lessons," and adds that he is celebrated throughout the whole diocese with an Ecclesiastical Office under the double rite. From these approved offices of the Church of Todi, Ferrarius published this epitome of his life in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, at February 13:
[3] Benignus, born at Todi, instructed from his earliest age in the Christian religion, Summary of his Life from Ferrarius, so advanced in it that he deserved to be marked with sacred orders, and at last attained the dignity of the priesthood -- at which time the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian had set a persecution in motion against Christians. When Benignus, inflamed with the ardor of divine piety and daunted by no terror, did not cease to proclaim the faith by word and example, he was seized by the worshippers of idols, subjected to various tortures, and finally crowned the priestly office with the glory of martyrdom. His body was buried in the place where a basilica with a convent of consecrated women was built in his name; the traces of this can be seen to this day, though the church itself has been leveled to the ground. From there it was translated with solemn ceremony to the church of the Benedictine nuns.
[4] A miracle of this kind occurred: when a certain lay brother, as they call them, One who was about to steal his head is divinely prevented, hid himself in the church intending to steal the sacred head of Benignus, which was kept enclosed in a silver reliquary, and having broken the reliquary with a stone, took it away, he could never find his way out of the place. For as he went around, by the working of Divine power, he could never find the door of the church. Therefore he was compelled to bring back the head and enclose it again in the same reliquary.