CONCERNING S. ARMENTARIUS, BISHOP OF PAVIA IN ITALY.
After the year of Christ 730.
CommentaryArmentarius, Bishop of Pavia in Italy (S.)
[1] Although the deeds of S. Armentarius, and of several other Bishops of Pavia, have perished on account of the frequent devastations of that city; nevertheless his body is religiously preserved there in the sacristy of the cathedral church, and his birthday is celebrated on 30 January; on which day the Roman Martyrology: The birthday of S. Armentarius, At Pavia, S. Armentarius, Bishop and Confessor. Galesinius: At Pavia, S. Armentarius, Bishop and Confessor: whose body, where it has been placed, has shone forth by the divine gift with many miracles. Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy writes the following about his life:
[2] Armentarius presided over the Church of Pavia after S. Damian from about the year 720 after the birth of Christ. Deeds from Ferrari, He was most especially devoted to prayers, and was accustomed to say that it was impossible that petitions justly asked should not be heard; and that prayer was most efficacious for obtaining what we ask, and more sublime than command: for the power of prayer, he used to say, extinguished the power of fire, closed the mouths of lions, dissolved wars, expelled demons, drives away storms and diseases, and breaks the bonds of death, and averts the wrath of God and all evils from us. When the holy man had administered the Church of Pavia holily for some years, on the third day before the Kalends of February, on which day his birthday is recalled by the Church of Pavia, he flew to heaven for his reward. In his Notes he adds: He is reported to have lived twelve years in the episcopate, and to have died under Pope Gregory III and the Iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Gregory III sat from 16 February of the year of Christ 731, the fifteenth of the Emperor Leo, until 28 November of the year of Christ 741, the first of the Emperor Copronymus.
[3] his era. Stephanus Breventanus treats of S. Armentarius in book 2 of his History of Pavia, chapter 20; who in chapter 11 says that S. Damian, the successor of Armentarius, concerning whom we shall treat on 12 April, was made Bishop in the year 690, and sat for thirty years. Ferrari, as we shall say in that place, shows that he was made Bishop before the year 690. Giovanni Maria Spelta writes nearly the same things about Armentarius as Ferrari and Breventanus, in his Catalogue of Bishops of Pavia.