ON ST. FELIX, BISHOP OF BRESCIA IN ITALY
AROUND THE YEAR 652.
Preliminary Commentary.
Felix, Bishop of Brescia in Italy (St.)
J. B.
[1] The Roman Martyrology, augmented in this part by Baronius, and Galesini, testifies that the annual commemoration of St. Felix, Bishop, is celebrated at Brescia on the seventh day before the Kalends of March. Ascanio Martinengo composed his Life in the Italian language, feast day of St. Felix; Life which we have translated into Latin, even though in many words it contains almost only what Giovanni Francesco Fiorentini thus summarized in the chronological index of the Bishops of Brescia: "St. Felix governed the Church for about forty years; other things briefly written of him with the help of the Kings Adaloald and Theodolinda he erected very many churches and increased their endowments; by his exhortations he obtained auxiliary troops from the city against Muhammad; finally, by his efforts he brought it about that the Arian Bishop whom Rothari, King of the Lombards and of the same sect, had placed over the city was removed shortly after." His ashes were translated from a humble place in the church of St. Afra in the year 1508 to an alabaster casket previously prepared by the council of the city. He is celebrated on the seventh before the Kalends of March.
[2] Ferrari also has an epitome of his Life in the Catalogue of Saints of Italy, in which the following details are peculiar to him, in which he differs from Martinengo and Fiorentini: that St. Felix persuaded King Arioald by many to send troops gathered together as reinforcements to the Emperor Heraclius against the Saracens in Asia. On what ancient writer's testimony does he prove this? He adds that St. Felix opposed the Arian Bishops whom Rothari had arranged to be ordained in many places, both in person and in writing. Who cites those writings? Finally, that he preserved the city immune from that stain, disregarding the King's threats, who brandished exile. Ughelli reports more, that Felix was expelled from Brescia: "However, Felix," he says, "was not so happy as not to experience under the Arian King Rothari the misfortunes of insulting fortune. For he grieved that an Arian Bishop was preferred to himself in the See of Brescia. But by his patience and holiness he not only broke the force of the undeserved persecution, but even compelled the King to expel the Arian and restore the Catholic Pastor to his See." was he deposed from his See by Rothari? But since Paul the Deacon writes that two Bishops were established simultaneously, not that Catholics were expelled, I do not know whether this is credible regarding St. Felix -- unless perhaps he provoked the King against himself by fiercely opposing his decree. It is far more likely what Martinengo writes: that Catholics were confirmed in the faith by St. Felix, the errors of the heretics learnedly refuted, and the people so inflamed that the King judged it best, for the sake of peace, to recall the Arian from there, perhaps also impelled by the advice of Pollio (if, as some hold, he was the royal Chancellor and a citizen of Brescia). Elsewhere the Arian Bishops were themselves converted, as Paul the Deacon reports of Anastasius of Pavia in book 4, chapter 44. Regarding the reinforcements sent to Heraclius, what the same Ughelli writes is less unreasonable, though I do not easily show myself credulous: "He exhorted the people of Brescia in very frequent sermons to carry aid against the sect of Muhammad into the East." Most of these things are taken from the Brescian history of Elia Capreolus.
[3] Ferrari writes that Felix presided over that Church for thirty years, and died around the year 656 of Christ; and he faults Martinengo, time of his See who assigns him forty years, yet wants him to have been made Bishop in the year 626 and to have died in 656. Martinengo clearly writes that Rothari died around the year 656, near the end of Felix's life, and that Rodoald then held the kingdom for five years, and Aripert after him; but that nothing memorable was accomplished that would seem to pertain to Felix. The rest agree on forty years, but Ughelli begins them from the year 612. No ancient chronological data are brought forward from which we could determine anything with certainty.
LIFE, from the Italian of Ascanio Martinengo.
Felix, Bishop of Brescia in Italy (St.)
From the Italian of Martinengo.
[1] The same difficulty I experienced in writing the Life of St. Faustinus the Bishop presents itself, The author, with monuments failing him considerably more serious, to one wishing to commemorate the deeds of St. Felix. For whereas there I was aided by barely a thin mention in the annals or a fragment of musty antiquity, and was compelled to weave together a very brief commentary on his life, here everything fails me: for neither has any antiquity that sets forth the illustrious deeds of St. Felix come into my hands, nor have his foreign historians or even the annals of our own affairs mentioned him except in passing. Therefore I ask pardon from those who will read this, if -- passing over the family from which he sprang, the names of his progenitors, his education, the excellent gifts of his mind and body, and the things that happened to him personally, about which there is profound silence among all writers -- [he gathers the Life of St. Felix from the conditions of the times in which he lived] I shall pursue only those events that befell the Christian religion and especially our city of Brescia in that period, from which a conjecture may be drawn about the piety and other virtues of this most holy Bishop.
[2] St. Felix is listed in the Brescian annals as the twenty-seventh Bishop of that city, and is recorded as having succeeded Dominicus. Rambertus subscribes to the annals. Felix was raised to that degree of dignity, St. Felix becomes Bishop around the year 625 as is commonly believed, around the year of Christ 625, and held it for about forty years, as far as I have been able to determine from the reliability of the annals and the records of other writers. The Lombards then held power, and Brescia was under their dominion. The rule among them was obtained around the year of Christ 618 (as Matteo Palmieri reports in the appendix to Eusebius's Chronicle) by Adaloald, after Agilulph died -- either still a boy, as Paul the Deacon attests, under King Adaloald or already of a more mature age, having married the daughter of Theoderic, King of the Franks, as our annals record. He administered the kingdom for ten years with his mother Theodolinda, a woman of singular piety. In the last years of their reign, therefore, chiefly through the intercession of Felix, who was held in high esteem for his sanctity, he restores churches many sacred buildings in our city were restored and endowed with ample revenues.
[3] When Adaloald then lost his mind, Arioald took up the reins of government around the year of our salvation 628, when Felix had already held the episcopal office for three years. At that time (as Capreolus believes; for Palmieri assigns it to the reign of Adaloald), the impious Muhammad, arrogantly assuming for himself the name of Great Prophet and Spirit of God, emerged from Arabia, filled the world with the fabrications of his wicked doctrine, and had drawn many peoples of Asia and Africa into partnership with his impiety, since no one was instructing those rude peoples with sound doctrine. Those who then wished to be called Saracens, as though descended from Sarah, the legitimate wife of Abraham, and heirs of the divine promises, as if by a divinely imposed nomenclature. The wickedness of those times so complied with this madness that, having assembled a numerous army, they burst into Syria and, raging far and wide with fire and sword, brought destruction to many cities and subjected many peoples to themselves. Heraclius, the Emperor who then ruled the East, having removed the most holy Cross of Christ from Jerusalem to Constantinople lest it fall into the hands of the Barbarians, whose terror was spreading far and wide, gathered all his forces and the aid of his allies and marched to meet them, intending to drive that monstrous calamity from the boundaries of the Empire. Our Felix, therefore, he is said to have roused his people to go to war against the Mohammedans as a prudent and wise helmsman who from afar perceived and watched the storm approaching and threatening the ship of the Church -- a storm that a dark cloud then arising in the East was menacing -- with the assent of King Arioald, so inflamed the spirits of his fellow citizens by the force of his eloquence that they themselves raised considerable troops, which, joined with the other Italians who championed the Christian religion, brought no little aid, with distinguished praise for the Italian nation, in checking for the time being the enemy's assault and driving them from the provinces of the Empire already occupied.
[4] Not long after, Arioald departed this life. The kingdom was conferred upon Rothari, a man outstanding in the praise of wisdom and military discipline, around the year of Christ 640. A new and more bitter occasion of labor was then afforded to Felix. For, whether Rothari had imbibed that poison with his mother's milk or had fallen unwittingly into error through confidence in his considerable talents, when Rothari intruded heretical Bishops he had undertaken to protect the Arian heresy to such a degree that -- monstrous beyond belief -- he wished two Bishops to be chosen in each city, one Orthodox and the other Arian, so that the Church, the beloved spouse of Christ, might by a new kind of monstrosity raise a double head. When this had been done at Brescia too, it is scarcely possible to express in words how much distress and grief it caused Felix, that most holy and most zealous Pontiff. How constantly he consoled the weak, confirmed the doubting and wavering, raised up the fallen, Felix strengthens his people and convinced with solid arguments the obstinate, in whose souls that perverse and wicked superstition had already struck deep roots! This was the appearance of a continual war: the arena for joining battle was every place; the weapons with which the enemy was to be struck were arguments; the means by which his hurled missiles were to be repelled were responses full of wisdom and prudence; ceaselessly contending with the Arians the sum of victory was the silence imposed upon the adversaries.
Engagements took place everywhere -- in churches, forums, crossroads, and houses. With what ardor of spirit Felix rushed here and there! How diligently he performed all the parts of a provident commander! How he added courage to the Catholics! How he supplied them with arms! But wherever he perceived the battle-line to be weaker, how he threw himself in! How he restored the spirits of the stricken! How he carried back a varied and illustrious victory! Moreover, the Arian impiety asserted that the Son was less than the Father, and the Holy Spirit less than both -- inflicting, to be sure, a horrible blasphemy upon the most holy Trinity. For in it the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal, as sun, ray, and light, none of which is born without the others; of one and the same substance, and refuting their errors as the water of a clear spring, of the stream flowing from it, and of the lake into which it flows; equal in glory and perfection, as the form of a living face is displayed in a polished mirror or a crystalline spring. Since, therefore, that furious impiety assailed with such rashness the most splendid glory and ineffable majesty of the most holy Trinity itself, all the more fiercely did Felix and the other Orthodox, roused by a just indignation, fight as faithful vassals for the honor of the eternal King. At length the unwearied ardor of Felix was so powerful that the citizens were almost turned to sedition. Rothari, perceiving the occasion of the popular tumult, removed the other Bishop from there -- especially when he heard he obtains the removal of the Arian Bishop that the Catholics had imposed silence upon the Arians with efficacious arguments. Felix, filled with extraordinary joy of soul, because like a noble eagle he had defended his young from the serpent, gave the greatest thanks he could to God with public sacrifices.
[5] Rothari then ordered (as Paul and Palmieri report) the laws, which had been preserved by memory alone and committed to no writing, to be collected and written down, compiled into a single codex; and that entire law was called the Edict. For in seventy-seven years the Lombards had lived without any written laws, so vast a realm having none. he ensures that the rights of the Church are not injured by the Lombard Law The chief author of so illustrious an accomplishment was Pollio, a man of outstanding learning, Rothari's Chancellor, a native of Brescia, as the Annals testify. Here too (as I believe, even though no writers report it) Felix and the other Bishops took care that no statutes should be included in the code of laws that would violate or impede ecclesiastical liberty and jurisdiction.
[6] At that time there befell a calamity mournful in the extreme: for the whole of Italy was shaken by an enormous earthquake, he comforts citizens afflicted by earthquake, floods, and plague and especially the city of Brescia, where many buildings were prostrated to the ground and many mortals crushed by the collapse. There followed prolonged and copious rains; from these came a flood by which very many houses were utterly destroyed and even entire villages; many people perished; the fields were widely inundated and the hope of crops was cut off. Then (as one calamity is usually the step to another) from the noxious and putrid vapor that exhaled from the earth, a pestilence arose by which the bodies that were affected swelled in so hideous a manner that people could not be recognized. So fiercely did that plague rage that the greater part of the citizens of Brescia was destroyed, and everywhere fetid bodies were seen, some stretched on beds, some on the bare ground, just as they had been seized and laid low by the sudden violence of the disease. How grievously this public calamity wounded the soul of Felix cannot be expressed in words. But by his singular wisdom, since he felt that all these scourges were inflicted by the divine hand (for God alone disturbs the elements, shakes the earth, stirs up the water, infects the air, when provoked by the sins of mortals), he seized upon a salutary remedy, he exhorts them to repentance and prayer the plan of appeasing the divine Majesty. Therefore, by public sermons to the people and private conversations, with remarkable fervor of spirit and eloquence, our Jonah exhorted all to repentance -- which alone can check divine vengeance and calm the angry countenance of the Deity.
[7] Then, stretching out his arms and raising his eyes to heaven, with his spirit wonderfully inflamed, he prayed to God thus: "Forgive, Lord, Your people. Do not suffer the Mohammedans and heretics to insult them, who, upon seeing this cruel slaughter of them, blasphemously conclude that our faith and religion are not acceptable to You. I know, Lord, he himself prays fervently for them that creatures are not usually armed against man by Your divine hand except in vengeance for grave crimes by which Your divine Majesty has been offended. For this reason the world was once swallowed by the flood, five cities destroyed by fire, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram swallowed by the gaping of the earth, Nadab and Abihu struck by flame, and the numerous army of Sennacherib slain by the sword of the Angel. For the same reason now, this city has been shaken by earthquake, the field laid waste by flood, mortals destroyed by pestilence. But what more, Lord? Open Your bosom, stir up the bowels of Your mercy, say to the Angel brandishing the avenging sword: 'It is enough; withdraw Your hand.' But if You are about to strike yet another blow, behold me ready, as it were with wings, to cover my children: strike me, and thus let Your just indignation subside. Spare Your people, or blot me from the number of the living, and take me from this fleeting life. A death will befall me precious and joyful, which preserves life for these whom I hold most dear." Thus Felix often prayed in secret. Thence it is credible that he turned to decreeing public supplications, employing the Litanies which the great Gregory had composed not long before to avert a similar calamity. Meanwhile, to succor the afflicted with every aid, to bury the bodies of the dead without any regard for filth or corruption, and helps them and with equal service of humility and humanity to assist the needy with ample alms and other relief. Near the end of Felix's life, when Rothari died around the year 656, Rodoald held the kingdom for five years; then Aripert succeeded him. Nothing memorable was accomplished at that time.
[8] These are the things I have been able to gather about the virtues of Felix and the deeds nobly accomplished by him. In this obscure silence of writers, in which his life is enveloped, these sparks of his virtue, drawn from the conditions of the times in which he lived, can testify to the outstanding gifts of his soul. For must not his sanctity have been illustrious, recapitulation of what has been said whom kings and peoples valued so highly? His devotion, who restored so many churches? His zeal, who persuaded that arms be carried far from home against the Mohammedans? His learning, who crushed the Arian heresy? His piety, who succored his flock in such a bitter calamity? Were these not the outstanding works that won for him such great glory on earth and a crown in heaven?
[9] At length Felix came to the end of his life, having reached extreme old age. For since in those times none were made Bishops St. Felix dies a pious death unless they were of mature age, and he himself spent forty years in that office, he must have been of very advanced years. And no less than his life, as is believable, was his death holy -- both conspicuous for many miracles, even if they have not come to our knowledge. Perhaps our sluggishness in preserving the memory of our spiritual progenitors deserved this. What the reputation of his sanctity and merits was, however, is evidenced by his tomb. he is buried with honor It was a coffin of variegated stone, truly precious, which I would believe to have been quarried not in these regions but in Africa, adorned on the front with very many slender statues dressed in the Lombard fashion. When this was later moved, it was broken, and its value was perceived; it was cut into pieces, from which were fashioned the railings that are seen before the altar of the church of St. Afra. The fact that this stone was so ancient as to be already beginning to be worn away by age, and the statues carved in the Lombard fashion, besides the inscription found inside on a plate, clearly attested that this monument was erected for Felix in those very times of the Lombard rule in which he died. One may conclude that this was the work either of those pious Princes or of the city itself, wishing to erect for the sacred bones of its Bishop a tomb worthy of his greatness, reputation, and merits, since the stone was so precious, so distinguished by various and elegant veins, brought from distant regions, and carefully carved, even if with a rough chisel, as those times were. The sacred body, therefore, was deposited within that coffin with a distinguished funeral procession, with many pious tears, in the church of Saints Faustinus and Jovita at the Blood, which is now called St. Afra's. It was never removed from it, although the coffin itself was placed at various times in one part of the church or another. At last, in the year 1508, it was found in a chapel on the south side; the body found in 1508 the sacred treasure was carried into the new basilica and placed not far from the place where it had first been deposited, at the central altar of the church, which was turned toward the south side for the sake of greater elegance and adornment.
Annotationsp. Others say 638. What Martinengo narrates here about Rothari and about two Bishops established in almost all the cities of the kingdom, and about the Lombard Laws compiled into a single codex, is found in Paul the Deacon, book 4, chapter 44.
q. So Capreolus narrates in the Brescian annals.
r. Others place the death of Rothari or Rotari in the year 654; and perhaps it should be placed even earlier, since Rodoald his son is said to have reigned five years, then Aripert for nine, whose sons were expelled by Grimoald, who seized the kingdom in the year 662, as we have shown on February 9 in the Life of St. Sabinus, Bishop of Canossa, section 10, number 60.
s. This church was treated on February 15, in the Acts of Saints Faustinus and Jovita, section 3, number 11.