ON ST. DATHUS THE BISHOP
AT RAVENNA IN ITALY.
ABOUT THE YEAR 185.
COMMENTARY.
Dathus, Bishop, at Ravenna in Italy (S.)
BHL Number: 2103
J. B. S.
In no ancient calendars or Martyrologies is this Saint found, except in the Florentine codices of Usuard—the Medicean, the Strozzian, and another printed in 1486, which we have counted among the Usuardine additions—in this manner: At Ravenna, St. Datus or Dathus, Archbishop and confessor. He is known from the monuments of Ravenna, Received, I suppose, from the memorials or tables of Ravenna, whence also, either from the cited Martyrologies, or perhaps from the history of Rubeus, printed in 1603, he is first read as inserted into the modern Roman Martyrology in the Plantinian edition of the year 1608, in these words: At Ravenna, St. Dathus, Bishop and confessor. Baronius notes the tables of the Church of Ravenna. Then: Agnellus and Girolamo Rossi, at greater length, in the history of Ravenna, book 1. They hand down that he flourished in the times of the Emperor Commodus. These same tables or monuments Ferrari somewhere calls the ancient lections of the Church of Ravenna, such as Papebroch did not acknowledge, in treating of St. Agapitus, Bishop of Ravenna, on the sixteenth of March, volume 2, page 427, who there described them, as not yet introduced into ecclesiastical use. Let the reader see what is there set forth more fully concerning the first eleven Bishops of the Church of Ravenna, chosen by the sign of an apparent dove, and there expressed in ancient tessellated work, and other things bearing on the same, which it would be vain to repeat here. The observation of the most learned Bacchini on the life of St. Severus, in the edition of the Pontifical book of Agnellus, volume 1 from page 173, may be consulted.
[2] For the rest, whatever be both the tables of Baronius for the Church of Ravenna, chiefly from the History of Rubeus, and the ancient lections of Ferrari, and the chronology of Ughelli, they seem to have no other author than Rubeus alone, in whom, book 1, page 37, I read thus: To this Probus, Dathus is set over the people of Ravenna by the Holy Spirit through a dove, whose face, beyond what can be told, is said to have shone with divine splendor. When he had administered the church for nine years, he died on the fifth day before the Nones of Quintilis. His place of burial was given in the church of St. Probus, in the pontificate of Eleutherius, who had followed Soter, while Commodus Antoninus foully befouled the dignity of the empire. Rubeus relates in the same place that a translation of Dathus and of other ancient Bishops was made by Archbishop Peter from the church of St. Probus of Classe, not far from the sea, to the Ursian temple; concerning which Papebroch too, at the place cited, may be seen, following a chronology far different from that of Rubeus, and no less from that of Ughelli, both of whom multiply the Agapiti, so that Ughelli enumerates three of the same name within a brief space of time, placing Marcellinus almost at his own discretion, and yet not even so ordering the series correctly enough—of which matter there will be a place to treat elsewhere: we here for the present leave St. Dathus as eighth in order, and his age defined from the year 175 to 185, according to the mind of Rubeus, although, as Bacchini observes, both he and Fabrus assert their own views, with no witness and no reason offered.
[3] Behold now what the praised Papebroch described from the lections of Ravenna: and from lections not very ancient. On the third of July, of Dathus the Archbishop and confessor, from most ancient manuscript codices. Dathus, the seventh from St. Apollinaris, chosen by a dove, presided over the Church of Ravenna, the successor of Probus, whose face, beyond what can be told, is said to have shone with divine splendor. For nine years he administered his church; he died in peace, in the pontificate of Eleutherius and under the Emperor Commodus, in whose time no persecution was given to the Christians. Wherefore a great accession was made of many hastening to receive the faith, and especially of those who excelled at once in nobility and in nobleness of spirit. Dathus was buried in the temple of St. Probus, and thence, many years after, translated by Archbishop Peter to the sacred Ursian temple. Thus far the lection, transferred by Ferrari into the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, abridged by Ughelli, who wrongly substituted the fifth before the Nones of June for the fifth before the Nones of Quintilis. Before them Ghini had trifled somewhat in his words, writing thus: At Ravenna, St. Dathus, Bishop and confessor, who, chosen by the sign of a dove, as though given by God, following the simplicity of the dove and the prudence of the serpent, most excellently ruled and guarded the people committed to him. And this is the whole notice that is had of St. Dathus; nor does Agnellus, edited by the praised Bacchini, volume 1, page 157, add much of anything, when he relates these few things: Dathus, the eighth. For this man was religious and exceedingly pious, and watchful in nightly prayers, and a special winner of souls, a frequent preacher to men and to the people, and, like a mirror, his face shone more brightly than all men's; for when he was called to the grace above, his holy soul departed from the body. And as some assert, he was buried in the church of Blessed Probus. He sat, moreover, for years … months … days …