Valerius

ON ST. VALERIUS, BISHOP OF SORRENTO IN ITALY.

Sorrento is a maritime city of Campania, not far from the promontory of Minerva. Here St. Valerius was bishop, whose feast day on this date Philip Ferrarius records in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy The feast of St. Valerius, and in the general Catalogue of Saints. Five are venerated as the principal patrons of the city of Sorrento: St. Antoninus the Abbot on February 14; four bishops — St. Renatus on November 12, our Valerius here on January 16, St. Athanasius on the 26th, and St. Baculus on the 29th of the same month. His acts. Their deeds were collected by David Romaeus, a priest of Sorrento, but regarding Valerius he had very little, as one who had not even ascertained the time in which he lived. It is certain, however, that he lived after St. Renatus, his era, who flourished in the fifth century, and before the time of Duke Roduald, who held the principate of Benevento around the year 650, or of his nephew Romuald.

LIFE BY DAVID ROMAEUS.

[1] Concerning Valerius, Bishop of Sorrento, the things we had to say were nearly those which we wrote in the lives of Renatus and Antoninus; for the matter is not such that we can come nearer by conjecture, even though conjecture would not be difficult. Nevertheless, lest what seems probable to us should appear otherwise to others, we wish to be modest and sparing in extending our discourse. We say that Valerius, as soon as he passed beyond boyhood and had finished those arts by which the age of boyhood is accustomed to be formed toward humanity and holiness — so that he might spend the whole time of his life in tranquility without vexation — betook himself to solitude he lives as a solitary, and built for himself a small dwelling contiguous to and adjoining the church of St. Renatus.

[2] He is renowned for miracles. There, leading a life with virtue in poverty among wild beasts, he came into such familiarity with God (this intimacy was known to all) that they would ask many things of him, and through him they had all things from God, who for his sake did all things. The people of Sorrento, who in those days cared for and dealt with everything they judged pertinent to the worship of God more studiously and diligently than in this present time, when their wished-for and hoped-for occasion arose, entrusted the pontificate to Valerius, most unwillingly on his part; for they knew him well. While he was conducting himself well in this office, Jesus Christ, who had said, "I will, Father, that where I am, there also my servant may be," summoned the young man to himself on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of February, and he was buried in the same little dwelling which he had inhabited while alive, before the pontificate. In what years this occurred, I have not discovered, as has been said. He dies.

Prayer. Almighty and eternal God, who commanded the most blessed Valerius, your Confessor and Bishop, a wondrous defender against our enemies and a man of patronage, to preside over us: to those who devoutly celebrate the deposition of his body and its annual solemnity, graciously grant victory over enemies and pardon for offenses. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

MIRACLES

from the Life of St. Renatus, by the same author.

[1] The Lombards, a people that set out from the island of Scandinavia and found its surname in Italy from their longer beards — formerly called Longobarba, then Longobarda — were summoning the temples of the immortal God, the roofs of cities, Roduald besieges Sorrento, indeed all of Italy to destruction and desolation. When their Duke Roduald was besieging, assaulting, and undermining Sorrento, and had pitched his camp at the wall, and could not break or subdue the citizens, and there was no stratagem that had not been attempted by him, there intervened one and then another marvelous, divine, and almost incredible occurrence, either as a witness of this affair or as a pledge of the kindness of God.

[2] They had seized a certain man named Felix, a Sorrentine, upon whom they wished to pour out the venom of their savagery; for they led him bound and fettered to his death. When they had come to the stone bridge, at which there is a turn in the road to the tombs of Saints Valerius and Renatus, where they had resolved to slaughter him with the sword, Felix, seeing death before his eyes, A certain man escapes death by the aid of Saints Valerius and Renatus, and being unable to slip from their swords and hands, and to obtain not only escape but not even a postponement of death — terrified by this dreadful situation, he trembled and turned pale, and speaking to himself, he prayed to the God of Saints Valerius and Renatus — who, at their request, would deny nothing concerning Sorrento — with divine knowledge and mind, to avenge him and free him from them; and he hurled himself from that very high bank of the torrent into the water. The enemies, believing him to be dead from all his limbs being broken on the rocks, left his body to be torn apart by dogs and birds. Afterward, hearing that he was alive, they could not persuade themselves of this, nor could the testimony of all lead them to believe it. They wished to see him; and having given their word, Felix returned to the camp, and when questioned, he replied that he had commended himself to Saints Renatus and Valerius, and that as he threw himself down they had aided him to safety and had broken his bonds; and when asked, he led them to their tombs.

[3] By night in the camp of the enemy, an old man resembling St. Renatus was seen, St. Renatus is seen in the camp, whom, suspecting to be some steward or spy sent into the camp, they rushed upon with all their might, and attacking him with their swords to cut off his head from his neck, they cut only the air; their assaults came to nothing, and the old man eluded their assaults, their weapons, and even their charges. When they had done this repeatedly, they thought they had seen the form of saints and began to hold the opinion that some saint was protecting, defending, guarding, and keeping the city safe.

[4] While they were speaking of this matter, some were making honorable mention of Saints Renatus and Valerius before Roduald — the ancestral saints who presided over the city — Roduald attempts to win the saints over to himself: and were frequently recounting their powers, so that Roduald would visit the tombs, try to tempt them with money, was accustomed to promise them lavishly and generously much of his own resources on his own initiative, and vowed that he would give them many things — not only a tithe but also temples full of dignity, spacious and splendid, adorned and filled with statues, paintings, and all things — if they would withdraw from the Sorrentines and stand with him against them; and there was an ostentatious display in the recounting of money. Things go badly when what ought to be accomplished by virtue is attempted with money.

[5] When Agapitus, a man dear and pleasing both to God and to men, who was Bishop of Sorrento at that time, heard of this, he appeared so disturbed The Sorrentines act more piously, at the Bishop's urging, that, although he understood what the best course of action was, the thought both of his duty and of the danger to the city kept him anxious. He feared lest his city had failed in its duty and that the saints who presided over that place and temple might be led away elsewhere if offended by some vices there. Immediately he convened the citizenry, and when it had assembled in great numbers, the Bishop laid bare the matter so that they could see it before their eyes; and having set forth his counsel, with a public supplication decreed to all the temples, they prayed and weeping besought the saints not to reject their vows and prayers from their hearts, nor to bend the greatness of their spirit because of any man's offense, nor to bring the enemy over to their side. The saints, won over by the Sorrentines, did not spurn their prayers, devotion, and complaint, but met them in their prayers, desires, and fasting. For never was a suppliant people — especially one upright and innocent — rejected by God.

[6] Meanwhile the city was being assailed by that wicked band; and Roduald, dragging priests from the very altars and sacred couches, did not cease going to the tombs of Saints Renatus and Valerius, trying to draw them away from their defense of the opposing side and to win them over to his own. O remarkable madness, turbulent dementia, no small insanity! O singular folly! O incredible stupidity! O the outstanding rashness of men who tried to corrupt saints with bribes and to undermine their faithfulness with money! The saints do not depart from right, from faith, from constancy, either by the magnitude of rewards or of fear. Roduald, however, pressed on and urged, promising most generously, and that he would most scrupulously observe and most diligently carry out what he promised and undertook to them, and that he would build a temple furnished with all things necessary and enriched with excellent paintings, if Sorrento should not concern them and its safety and dignity were not their care; nor did he fail to bring some gift to the temple every day. The saints spurn the gifts of the barbarian duke. But things turned from joy to fear. For the saints not only did not show themselves easy in hearing these men, but actually rejected them, avoided them with their eyes, spurned them with their ears, and despised them in their hearts; and what was brought into the temple was of itself, with no one assisting, suddenly carried out, and untouched by anyone was cast forth and driven beyond the doors and the threshold of the temple.

[7] Certain ones of these men, raised to anger and taking offense from this event, equipped with a certain impious fury and audacity, scorning God and the saints (a fierce people who did not know what kind of God it is fitting to have, to whose divine power all things are subject, Those who violate their temple perish wretchedly, and who is understood by Christians alone) — began to plunder the shrine. But God did not leave them long unavenged; for those who laid sacrilegious hands upon the shrine were immediately seized by the satellites of hell and, dragged on high from the sight of nearly all, out of their minds, they rushed with blind force against the walls and against one another; they struck their foreheads against the wall, and with their skulls broken they fell dead, expelled from the number of the living, consigned below among the dead to eternal darkness and chains, to suffer the punishments of the impious in the infernal regions. The tombs of the saints, the pavement, and the walls of the temple are said to have been spattered with their blood at this time.

[8] This translated the spirits of the enemy from a lesser concern to the greatest fear, so that they fled barely having waited for their baggage. The city is freed from the siege. The saints repelled the first attackers, destroyed the last, and left not a spark of that most foul war remaining; they benefited Sorrento with a divine boon; they drove back the violence, dangers, savagery, and fury of the enemy from the necks of their people; they happily drove the enemy back from Sorrento and at last relieved their suppliants, tossed about in dangers for so many months. The people gave great thanks to God and to the most ancient guardian saints of the city, because under the leadership and aid of those saints they were free in a short time and had so often escaped that foul, so horrible, and so hostile pestilence to the Republic.