ON ST. HABETDEUS, BISHOP OF LUNA, MARTYR.
AROUND THE YEAR 500.
CommentaryHabetdeus, Bishop of Luna, Martyr in Italy (St.)
By the author I. B.
[1] Luna was once a famous city on the river Macra, which is the boundary between Etruria and Liguria. They report that scarcely any ruins of that city now remain. The bishopric was transferred to Sarzana, some distance away, by Pope Nicholas V, but the Bishop is called Bishop of Luna and Sarzana. At Sarzana St. Habetdeus is venerated, St. Habetdeus, Bishop or (as Peter, Bishop of Equilo, speaks in book 11, chapter 59) Habetdeum. Ferrarius also in the oblique cases calls him Habetdeus. Concerning him the same Equilinus relates the following: Habetdeum, Bishop of Luna and Martyr, suffered martyrdom in Italy in the time of the Vandal persecution. While he resisted the Arian profession, he was first relegated to exile: banished by the Arians then the Vandals, recalling him, stopped up his mouth and rebaptized him with water in the Arian manner, thinking by this to violate his conscience. But since he still more strongly resisted them, he was beheaded by them. then killed
[2] Ferrarius commemorates the same in other words in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, citing Equilinus and the Offices of the Church of Sarzana. Ughellus records the same somewhat more briefly in volume 1 of Italia Sacra, where he numbers him the first Bishop of the Church of Luna. Bishop of Luna, or an African? Ferrarius doubts, however, whether he was not rather an African Bishop, both because that name was familiar to African Christians, such as Quodvultdeus, Deogratias, etc., and because although the Vandals frequently raided the maritime coast of Italy and plundered the city of Rome itself, they nevertheless never held permanent seats in Italy, so that they could be seen to have banished Bishops into exile and then recalled them. What if, harassed by them with various injuries in Africa, and finally proscribed like very many others, he came to Italy, and was afterwards killed there by the Goths, who were likewise Arians? But we affirm nothing, especially since the tradition of the Church of Luna is opposed.
[3] venerated on February 17 at Sarzana That he is venerated on February 17 by the Church of Sarzana is reported by the same Ughellus and Ferrarius, and the latter again in the General Catalogue of Saints.