ON ST. APOLLONIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
AT BRESCIA IN INSUBRIA IN ITALY.
Second Century.
COMMENTARY.
Apollonius, Bishop, at Brescia in Insubria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. On the cult of the Saint from the more recent Martyrologies.
To Pietro Galesini the people of Brescia owe it that their holy Bishop Apollonius has a place in the modern Roman Martyrology, Cardinal Baronius indicating openly enough in his notes that he received Apollonius from him, inserted into the Roman Martyrology from Galesini, inasmuch as he had cited the ancient tables and annals of the city of Brescia—Apollonius being altogether unknown to all the other more ancient Martyrologies, of whatever note or kind. Galesini's words are: At Brescia, St. Apollonius the Bishop; whose pious deeds and life, conformed to the institutes and precepts of the Gospel, and admirable and divine actions, were first consigned to the monuments of letters by Faustinus, the seventh Bishop of Brescia. He wished to say, I think, that the Life of St. Apollonius was written by Faustinus, the seventh Bishop of Brescia, in the opinion that Ursicinus, after a long vacancy of the see, succeeded St. Apollonius, fifth in order; and to him that Faustinus of whom we treat; against whom the people of Brescia laboriously contend against the neighboring Milanese writers, plainly rejecting that vacancy: whom therefore on the preceding day we admonished to lull their domestic disputes, and to bring their own affairs to the right standard of history, before with too immoderate an onset they should assail other historiographers of the Saints.
[2] Whence, further, it could have been established to Galesini that that Faustinus, seventh Bishop of Brescia, whose elogium was deservedly rejected. consigned to the monuments of letters the Life … and the admirable and divine actions of the present-day St. Apollonius, one would very hardly show, unless he have recourse to the pretended ancient annals of the city of Brescia, which we should wish expressed not by so vague a citation, but a little more distinctly. I know that Ughelli, in his Bishops of Brescia, wrote similar things of Faustinus, when he assigns him the ninth place; but we require the credit of him too, who often asserts many things from mere popular traditions, which ought to have been established by greater authority. The praised Cardinal Baronius certainly took care that Galesini's elogium should not be inserted into the Roman Martyrology, when he wrote most simply: At Brescia, St. Apollonius, Bishop and Confessor. But in the Annals he seems to have taken no account at all of the monuments of Brescia, not deigning even to name St. Apollonius; at least so far as I have found; so that it is no sin to call into doubt the credit and authority of such instruments, until they be more accurately enumerated, distinguished and explained by their characteristic marks, by which both the authors and their age may be discerned.
[3] Let us explore the matter more closely, whether perhaps some light may shine from the Brescian Martyrologies themselves. What the Brescian Martyrologies hand down, Behold the words of a manuscript: At Brescia, the birthday of the holy Father Apollonius, Bishop and Confessor of that same city. This holy pontiff converted many thousands of men to Christ and baptized them, and buried many bodies of the holy Martyrs, and did many other things, which were first consigned to the monuments of letters by the holy Faustinus, seventh Bishop of Brescia. His holy body was translated by Landulf, Bishop of Brescia, into the cathedral church, and laid in an honorable tomb. Here some things agree well enough with Galesini, but whether this Martyrology is older than Galesini, I confess I have not ascertained. Now let us hear Fayno, and him too not greatly disagreeing: At Brescia, the birthday of the holy Bishop Apollonius, in the cathedral, illustrious for apostolic virtues: for he converted the whole region, and first of all Faustinus and Jovita, to Christ, and initiated them in sacred orders, and joined them to himself as companions in the conversion of the nations: by whose help he prepared for the Lord an innumerable and perfect people: at last, worn out with age in the episcopate, illustrious in life and death, he slept in peace. Whether these things agree well enough with the very Acts of SS. Faustinus and Jovita, you will understand from what is to be said below.
[4] Now the annotations of Fayno will suggest to us the ancient annals. and the annotations of Fayno, They have concerning him, he says, the Roman Martyrology, that of Galesini, that of Alexander Peregrinus, and the manuscript Brescian one, together with the Tables of this see. Those Tables we desire to be designated by name and one by one. Also in the ancient Breviaries and Catalogues of the Bishops. Why is the age of these instruments always so studiously dissembled? The Breviaries of the sixteenth century have perhaps seemed ancient; the Catalogues of the Florentines are no older, and do not ascend beyond the same century, with whatever titles the Brescian Annalists may be adorned. Fayno goes on: All the Acts of the holy Martyrs Faustinus and Jovita in Surius, Lipomanus, Metaphrastes, John Bolland of the Society of Jesus, and others. Surius he marks not amiss; Lipomanus reports only that which we said was wrongly ascribed to Ado in our observations on Usuard on the fifteenth of February. What Metaphrastes Fayno here brings into the light, I confess I am altogether ignorant. The threefold Acts Henschenius illustrated; how far he approved them is not obscurely gathered from his notes: it is confessed that by the learned today they are by no means to be admitted as genuine. What we think of them, posterity will explain, when toward the end of the work the month of February will come to be augmented and reprinted.
[5] here somewhat discussed. But Fayno indicates the Brescian Annals more closely, when he names Malvezzi, Nazari, Capriolo, Maggi, Abbot Spino, Ottavio Rossi, and Capriolo, in their Annals of Brescia. Abbot Ascanio in his book on the Saints, Ferrari on the Saints of Italy, and many books of the Provisions of the City, David Podavino too, and Obizio the Capuchin. The age of all these the people of Brescia know, wont to recite many names of their writers, which, if they were multiplied even a hundred times, would give no greater credit in history than are the first documents alleged by them: and these, further, I do not see can be adduced further than to the already mentioned Acts of SS. Faustinus and Jovita, in which I confess St. Apollonius is named, as will appear below. But who at last will demonstrate to us that these were composed by Faustinus, seventh Bishop of Brescia, whose age and deeds are not certain enough; the very Acts doubtful enough, in several points diverse, and variously embellished? And who will prove that that same holy Faustinus consigned to the monuments of letters, by a singular work, as Galesini wished, the Life and admirable and divine actions of St. Apollonius? So the Brescian Annalists hand down and describe things from one another, supposing that which ought first to have come into question.
[6] No ancient Life of St. Apollonius, I ask, who has seen that Life of St. Apollonius, or brought it into the light? Who could truly cite anything else concerning this Saint than what is narrated of him here and there, in more than one way, in the passions of SS. Faustinus and Jovita, nothing less than genuine and authentic? I have at hand nine manuscript lessons from an ancient printed Office, among the nuns of St. Catherine of the Order of St. Dominic, in which I scarcely find a word that is not taken from the aforesaid Acts. And to this at last, as far as I at least grasp, come down those ancient Annals of the city of Brescia; from which I would have nothing detracted, but which I judge of very slight authority for confirming those things which they contend happened in the second century of Christ. Nor are the things more certain which Fayno subjoins: Apollonius ruled this church after Latinus, from the year 116 up to 160, by a round reckoning indeed; from which Ferrari here subtracts not a few years, when he brings the beginnings of St. Apollonius back to the year 129, attributing not more than thirty years of rule. In which he sat as fifth Bishop: neither is this indubitable enough; yet tolerable, and what I shall grant to the people of Brescia not unwillingly. Let us run through the rest.
[7] nor his lately-invented family known to any. Thus Fayno continues: And through every part, by his vigilance, sanctity, and labor, he made it Christian; and saw it sanctified by the blood and merits of many thousands of Martyrs. These things agree rightly with the times. The following itch I do not digest: He was of the noble family of Cropella or Gracchia, and by origin a Brescian. Long since Papebroch showed nobility so far-fetched to be vain and empty, and had in this matter, out of Italy itself, men illustrious as well as learned agreeing with him, nay, the universal judgment of the learned there, whom the smoke of apocryphal antiquities could not delight, as see in the Responses to article 3 number 77. And indeed either here or elsewhere Fayno erred, for in the Brescian Martyrology, transmitted by himself, which Papebroch published before volume 2 of April, page 42, number 14, it is thus read: For in the time of St. Apollonius of the Oropelli, a noble of Brescia and Bishop of Brescia. In his Brescian Heaven he had written that St. Apollonius had the surname of Cropelli, and was also called of the Crofalli. But indeed we bear Oropellum no more than Gracchus, Crofallum, or Cropella: nor do those surnames thus far become more probable to us than that SS. Faustinus and Jovita were begotten of the blood of the Brignacchi; or, I know not what Josaphat, of the Chizzolani. St. Apollonius may have been the first of the holy Bishops, patron of the Brescian church, and famous for miracles, whence on his feast day in both forums all courts are silent; of the last Fayno could testify: the cult at any rate we admit,
and the solemn celebrity on the feast of St. Apollonius.
§ II. On the deeds of St. Apollonius from the passion of SS. Faustinus and Jovita; likewise on the translations.
We have now sufficiently shown that the whole knowledge of the life and acts of St. Apollonius is to be received from the Passions alone, long since illustrated by Henschenius on the fifteenth of February, From the Acts of SS. Faustinus and Jovita which therefore are here to be run through by us: not the Italian manuscript Acts, sent to us by the above-praised Fayno, which it is a wonder could be commended by a man not unlearned, nor another Latin Legend, which is said to have been received from the library of the supreme Pontiff, perhaps worse than all the others. Of these, I say, we shall not treat, about to cling to the Henschenian alone. The first Life there, from the manuscript of St. Maximin and from Surius, connects the deeds by a tolerable enough method; certainly more probably than the two later ones do, in which the holy Brothers are declared preachers of the Divine word, and conquerors of many torments, before they are endowed with any character, nay, almost before they are baptized. More rightly are these things in that first Life, which from its very first number has thus: There was indeed at that time a Bishop of that same city of Brescia, Apollonius by name, who for fear of persecution hid himself in secret places. He, when he saw that the servants of God had a most ardent fervor toward the zeal of preaching, having summoned them to himself, raised them to ecclesiastical grades. Finally to Faustinus, because he was the elder, he gave the order of the presbyterate, but Jovita, the younger, he associated to the number of the ministers of Christ. You have here St. Apollonius, Bishop of Brescia, but not a word of the Oropella, Cropella, Crofalla, or Gracchia family, which must have flowed from sources like the Chronicle of Guerrino Cereto and the like.
[9] A little freer is the second Life, received from a Neapolitan manuscript: a few things are culled, which pertain to the Saint: where first the holy Brothers are accused before the Emperor Hadrian, delivered to prison, exposed to lions, leopards, and bears; first, I say, they are tortured in various and dire ways, before any word is made of St. Apollonius, of whom first at number 5 it is said, not assertively enough, that St. Afra was afterward, without doubt, sprinkled by the blessed Bishop Apollonius, with the rest of those believing in Christ, with the wave of holy baptism. At number 6 it is had: But of those believing, more than three thousand were sprinkled by the blessed Bishop Apollonius with the wave of the sacred font. There follow other kinds of torments overcome by the holy Martyrs, and at last at number 10 the Acts thus narrate: But on the same night the angels of God led the blessed Martyrs out of prison, and brought them to the blessed Bishop Apollonius, to whom also they said: Lay hands on these and consecrate them, who are to win many to the side of Christ. And the blessed Apollonius consecrated Faustinus a presbyter, and Jovita a deacon: but the people, who believed, coming to the holy Bishop and to the holy Martyrs of God, asked them to bestow on them the grace of baptism: and there were baptized that same night a not small number of both sexes.
[10] in which he is said to have ordained the aforesaid Saints, The whole matter the third Life explains much more fully and copiously, or rather the part of the greater Life reported by Mombritius, in which, the enormous torments of the holy Brothers Faustinus and Jovita being also premised, the things which pertain to St. Apollonius are thus set forth at large from number 4. I describe the text: But all the people of the city of Brescia gathered themselves, seeking the good Shepherd Apollonius the Bishop, that he might give them baptism. And they found him hidden on account of the persecutions of Hadrian, and led him secretly into the city, saying: Give us a sign, by which our city or we ourselves may be made free. St. Apollonius said to them: Little sons, come and ascend with me to the mountain which is above the city; that, when we have adored, a sign may be shown us from the heavens. For Apollonius feared, on account of the throng of the people, lest they should surround him; and all ascended with him into the mountain: and there, kneeling, they adored in the sight of God. Then the blessed Apollonius raised himself from the ground, and said: Lord, hear my prayer, let all flesh come to thee. When he had said these things, the people praying, there appeared seven angels, shining like the sun, and they said to Apollonius: What seekest thou? The Lord has sent us, that we may be for thee a help to this flock, which desires the fountain of salvation, never failing. Behold, we have ready a fountain, in which thou mayest renew them: make them rise, laying upon them the blessing of the Lord. For we will go to the prison, and will bring Faustinus and Jovita, whom the Lord has commanded to be made priests, Faustinus a presbyter, and Jovita a deacon, on account of the sheep which wander through diverse places, that they may restore them to their Creator.
[11] the one a presbyter, the other a deacon And the angels went to the prison, and saluted Faustinus and Jovita, saying: Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord, in the sight of the nations give praise and glory. Rise therefore, ye holy Martyrs of God, and come with us, that you may see the sheep which you have acquired for the Lord. Who, at once going out of the prison, went with the angels to St. Apollonius, and found him blessing the people. And the blessing being finished, he came to the place where the angels were with Faustinus and Jovita, and saluted them, saying: Behold men in whom no guile is found. He laid his hand on Faustinus and blessed him into a presbyter; likewise he blessed Jovita, and made him a deacon, and gave them peace. Then the angels said to Faustinus and Jovita: Wheresoever you shall have a contest with Hadrian, baptize all who have believed through your martyrdom in the Lord. Approach therefore, now baptize these sheep. And it was about the sixth hour of the day, and they began to baptize the people believing in the Lord.
[12] Then came Calocerus with his Office, and prostrated himself on the ground, thus praying: Have mercy on me, for I fail exceedingly; and a trembling seizes my body from the fear of the God of glory, and to have baptized very many with St. Calocerus. who dwells in the Saints, and looks upon the lowly in heaven and on earth. But Apollonius, seeing Calocerus confidently seek the sign of Christ, ordered him to come to the fountain, and said to him: Calocerus, dost thou believe that God will raise thee from the dead? He answered: Assuredly I believe, that through the renewal of the fountain I shall rise from the dead. He caused his Office also to be brought: and likewise said to them the same: But they all with one voice said: We believe one God in Trinity to be in the heavens. And he laid hands on them, and made them catechumens, and baptized them. And Apollonius received Calocerus: and Faustinus and Jovita his Office, like all the people. All who were baptized were about twelve thousand men, and it was about the twelfth hour: and they had no altar on which to give them the strengthening of the Lord's body. They therefore made a prayer, and, looking, saw a snow-white cloth spread out, as if over an altar: and it was full of the body of the Lord; and the chalice of the Lord's blood was full upon it. Then Apollonius, approaching before the altar of the Lord, began to pray: and behold there appeared four lamps burning in the sight of the people, for it was now night: and he made the Mass, and gave the body of the Lord, likewise also the Chalice. Then all through the night departed with Apollonius: but the blessed Martyrs of God returned to the prison.
[13] There are in this brief fragment of the passion of SS. Faustinus and Jovita In those fragments certain things are worthy of examination; things which may deservedly displease those skilled in these matters; but it is not the place here to discuss them more scrupulously, or from the diversity of the narratives to oppose some things to others, which, being about to examine wholly in their proper place, the continuers of our work, I have already promised: let the people of Brescia meanwhile remain in possession of their Acts, such as they are, but let them refrain from adding more, unless they can prove these from genuine and authentic instruments—such as certainly are not those things which the above-praised Fayno embellished, or described as feigned by Guerino Cereto, concerning the holy Faustinus and Jovita the second of the Brignacchi family, and concerning Josaphat Chizzola—invented, unless I am mistaken, only for this, that, the bodies of the holy Faustinus and Jovita being doubled, those disputes might be composed, concerning which the cited Antiquarian Propylaeum of Papebroch before volume 2 of April is to be consulted, and his Responses, from which candidates of history can learn to what balance not only profane but also ecclesiastical monuments ought to be brought, when they are weighed prudently, moderately, and with a mind free from prejudices, to human credit.
[14] Toward the end of the first Life at number 20, this one thing pertaining to St. Apollonius is added; more in the things which Ferrari added. that, the holy Martyrs Faustinus and Jovita being brought back to Brescia, the Christians met them with St. Apollonius their Bishop, and rejoiced with too great exultation over their return. In the others you will not find a fuller knowledge of St. Apollonius. I do not know whence were received the things which Ferrari mentions in the other part of his elogium, in these words: But when SS. Faustinus and Jovita had been afflicted with martyrdom, the holy Bishop, coming down from the mountain with other Christians, buried by night the beheaded bodies of the holy Martyrs, with what reverence he could and ought. But when, Hadrian being dead, under Antoninus Pius the Church began to breathe again, Apollonius, leaving the hiding-places of the mountains, betook himself into the center of the city, where by assiduous sermons and private conversations he both confirmed the old sheep in the faith, and acquired several new ones for Christ; and when he had driven the heresy of Valentinus, asserting that Christ took nothing of the body of the Virgin, far from the city of Brescia, worn out with age, foreknowing his own death, having summoned the people to himself, having exhorted them to keep the faith to Christ, he fell asleep on the Nones of July. Whose body was then laid in a church dedicated to St. Andrew, in which place afterward a temple was raised under his name. Thus far Ferrari.
[15] The relics received and translated to Canossa. A little more certain I judge the things which, concerning the translations of the sacred body, Fayno inserted into his Martyrology on various days, here to be culled in few words. In the present-day annotation he writes thus: Atho, Marquis and Lord of Canossa, an excellent town in the territory of Reggio, on account of his notable devotion to this Saint (from whom Hildegard, his wife, had received the grace of the light of her eyes), coming to his tomb in the year 970, on the thirteenth of July, with a great retinue; secretly obtained from Gotifred, his son, then shining in the see of Brescia, the head and the right arm, with the upper arm, of St. Apollonius himself, which he placed in the abbey there erected by the same under his name, together with other sacred relic-cases. On which occasion this wonderful thing happened; that when the said members were being cut from the body, living blood flowed abundantly, as if the Saint himself were complaining of so great an injury. These things, Fayno says, are recounted by many writers, of whom the last, Ughelli, mentions these verses concerning the relics of St. Apollonius, carried off from Atho to Canossa.
Other relics great Brescia gave to thee: for the head, and the right shoulder, and likewise the upper arm, she offers freely: and Gothifred the Bishop did this: because he was sprung from the loins of this Prince. This Bishop unlocked the sacred coffer of the body, and cut the members: blood soon came forth. Whence the good Prince, greatly marveling, straightway vowed to him a tithe of his own land and of his money: and glad he led away with himself these sacred pledges.
[16] The various translations of the body are enumerated. Therefore up to the year 970 the body of St. Apollonius remained untouched, and laid away in its first tomb. Now let us follow Fayno. The remainder, he says, of the body of this divine Bishop, lying outside the city in the New Borough, in its own church, Landulf Castellonaeus the Bishop (they say he sat from the year 1002 to 1027), for the greater safeguard of so great a treasure, in the year 1025, on the sixth of October, a solemn supplication being proclaimed, translated into St. Peter Major within the city. The whole matter is mentioned by Fayno in a special announcement on the said day the sixth of October. Thereafter the memory of the Saint had perished, until, by a public decree of the city, in the year 1478, on the twenty-sixth of February, a diligent search was made for his sacred body, until, God so granting, the venerable bones were found in the year 1503 in the basilica of St. Peter Major … and at last in the year 1510, on the seventh of July, they were devoutly laid back in a marble ark prepared by the college of the Notaries, as Fayno narrates at greater length on the sixth of January, the memory of that finding being solemn. But there the sacred remains of St. Apollonius did not remain, for afterward in the year 1604, on the twentieth of February (Marino Giorgio being Bishop), they were translated into the Cathedral, into the chapel of the Holy Trinity, together with his admirable ark, on which this memorial, engraved in the year 1510, was read: To the divine Apollonius, Bishop of Brescia, Patron of the College of Notaries, the well-deserving one, a monument set up. The memory of the same translation is kept on the twentieth of February. And these things pertain to the posthumous glory of the Saint, concerning which we find nothing beyond what has already been said.