ON ST. PATERIUS, BISHOP OF BRESCIA IN ITALY.
BEGINNING OF THE 7TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Paterius, Bishop of Brescia in Italy (St.)
By the author I. B.
[1] Among the illustrious Bishops of the city of Brescia, Paterius is listed by Bishop Rampert in his sermon on the translation of St. Philastrius, the age of St. Paterius, Bishop of Brescia which was published by Surius under July 18th. Most agree that he lived around the beginning of the seventh century after Christ. For it seems certain that Elias Capreolus errs in book 4 of his Brescian history when he assigns Bl. Paterius to the times of the Emperor Marcian. For who would believe that after St. Philastrius, who was a contemporary of St. Ambrose, seventeen Bishops had presided over the Church of Brescia in the approximately sixty years to the reign of Marcian (for Paterius is the seventeenth from Philastrius), and from him to Rampert, in 380 years, barely as many? But the age of Paterius will be fairly certain if it is established that he was a disciple of St. Gregory -- about which more later.
[2] His fellow citizens venerate him at the altars on the 21st of February, on which day the Roman Martyrology mentions him thus: his name in the Martyrologies "At Brescia, St. Paterius, Bishop." Galesinius adds, "and Confessor." Benedict Dorganius in his Benedictine Calendar: "St. Paterius, Bishop, of admirable sanctity." Arnold Wion: "At Brescia, St. Paterius, Bishop of that same city, disciple of Pope St. Gregory, a man of admirable sanctity." Menard has the same but adds that he was also conspicuous in learning. Wion in book 2 of the Tree of Life calls him a monk; in book 3, page 56, he says he was a monk of St. Andrew's at Rome. Neither Ferdinand Ughelli in volume 4 of his Italia Sacra, nor John Francis Florentinus in his Chronological Index of the Bishops of Brescia, mentions any monastic profession. Both make him a native of Antioch, while Wion (whom we more readily follow) makes him a Roman.
[3] Concerning his relics, Florentinus writes as follows: "His ashes, formerly translated from St. Florian on the Colle Digno translation of relics to the church of the same Saint which is seen in the village of St. Euphemia, were brought by the Fathers of the Cassinese Congregation into St. Euphemia at Brescia in the year 1478." He thus indicates a twofold translation; Ughelli indicates only one: "His bones," he says, "rested for a longer period in the church of St. Florian in Colledigno, and were thence translated to the church of St. Euphemia of the Cassinese monks in the year 1478." The same author also calls him St. Antherius, or Paterius.
[4] Anthony Possevinus in his Apparatus, and the already cited Wion, as well as Menard, whether he is the same who compiled the exposition of Scripture maintain that he is the same author whose Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, excerpted from the books of St. Gregory, survives. Sigebert, Honorius of Autun, and Trithemius, when they treat of Paterius the writer, make no mention of an episcopate. Sigebert in his book on Writers, chapter 43, writes thus: "Paterius, Notary and Deputy Chancellor of the Roman Church, collecting all the testimonies of divine Scripture through which Gregory elucidated the obscurities of his exposition, published three books, two on testimonies of the Old Testament and one on testimonies of the New Testament; and he called the codex itself the Book of Testimonies." Trithemius relates the same about him, but somewhat more fully; Honorius more briefly; and Possevinus in Sigebert's own words. Bede mentions his books in book 7 on the Canticles, near the beginning, with these words: "I have heard, moreover, that Paterius, a disciple of the same Bl. Gregory, collected from all of holy Scripture whatever Gregory had explained piecemeal in his works, and gathered them in order into one volume... But I have not yet merited to see it."
[5] That Exposition has been appended to the works of St. Gregory, as reviewed by Peter of Tusignano and dedicated to Gregory XIV. he excerpted it from the books of St. Gregory But there are now only two books: the first on the Pentateuch, the books of Judges and Kings, the Psalms, and Solomon; the latter on the New Testament. The Exposition on the remaining books of the Old Testament seems to have been lost. The author indicates the occasion and time of undertaking the work in the preface: "While I was reading through the writings of our most blessed and Apostolic Gregory, our Pontiff, and (I would add) your nurturer, more frequently, and the very lucid satisfaction of his words was persuading me to be with them continuously and more eagerly, I found in them something of incomparable excellence." And after a few words: "Provoked therefore by the burning desire for this matter, I had begun to pluck certain things from those testimonies in a certain brevity, passing over others by neglect. While this was happening, as my conscience is my witness, against my will and though I more carefully took precautions that this should not be known by anyone in any way, it came through certain persons to the notice of the same Apostolic Pontiff, our lord. with Gregory himself approving and encouraging him He then began to kindle me by exhorting me with those persuasive words, drawing me toward heavenly things, which Your Blessedness knows, so that I should more diligently complete what I had begun negligently -- in such a manner that I should designate in the heading both the work and the book in which the testimony was placed to be read, or from what it had arisen. Weighing the burden of this task and the impossibility of my own strength, caught in uncertainty, like a sailor troubled by a severe storm of waves, I fled, fearful I confess but trusting, to the harbor of his prayers, knowing that what was commanded me by so great a Bishop, and a thing destined to profit the edification of many, could not be impossible. And presently, spurred on by the support of his command, taking up the task with whatever diligence I could, I collected together in one the gathered testimonies of the Old and New Testaments."
[6] And at the end of the same preface, he thus addresses the person to whom he dedicates his work -- perhaps Boniface IV or Deusdedit, or certainly (as I believe) some Pontiff among those who followed most closely after St. Gregory: "These things I have endeavored to send to Your Blessedness," and dedicated to one of Gregory's nearest successors? he says, "not by a venture of presumption, but stirred by love for your study, which long burns in the search for the divine word, knowing especially in the sayings of our aforementioned Pontiff how great is the eagerness of your mind to know. From many volumes composing a few things, I have been eager to send them, beseeching with humble prayer, as best I can, that when the care of my labor in this work shall have pleased you, or whoever shall read it, they may deign to be intercessors for me before the Lord, so that, having cast off this burden of corruption, I may be found worthy to be freed from the chains of my sins."
[7] Here he sufficiently clearly indicates his own age, since he writes that he was encouraged to undertake this work by St. Gregory, the same may indeed be considered to be him who died on March 12th, the year of Christ 604, in the 14th year of his pontificate. That St. Paterius, Bishop of Brescia, lived around the same time is sufficiently clear from the catalogue of Bishops of that city in Ughelli; so that for this reason it seems credible, as learned men judge, that they were one and the same. For what Aubert Le Mire annotated on chapter 43 of Sigebert is far from the truth: "It is established from the Miscellanies of Gerard Vossius, volume 5 of the Library of the Fathers, that Paterius served as a legate to the Irish under Pope Celestine I." Indeed it was Patrick, as is clear from the cited passage; Le Mire seems only to have read the index of the Cologne edition, where "Paterius" was printed.
[8] whether he was a monk? Arnold Wion, in his Notes to the Benedictine Martyrology, perhaps in order to prove more strongly that Paterius was a monk, cites from Trithemius this beginning of his work: "While I was reading through the writings of our most blessed Apostolic Gregory, our Pontiff, and also our nurturer unto God," etc. But Trithemius only has: "While I was reading through the writings of the most blessed and Apostolic..." with no further word added. And neither he nor Bede, both Benedictines, state that he was a monk.