ON ST. CONSUL, BISHOP
OF COMO IN INSUBRIA.
From Ferrari and the Annals of Como.
In the year 495.
CommentaryConsul, Bishop, at Como in Insubria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Luigi Tatti first, in the sacred Annals of the city of Como, decade 1, book 7, from page 482, composed a long oration under the title of St. Consul, the whole marrow of which, in the part that regards the Saint, can be nearly contracted to those things which Ferrari handed down of him in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy: It is established that the Saint was Bishop of Como and is venerated there: for although that Annalist inserts here and there some curious things in his digressions; at number 5 he ingenuously confesses that in all the ancient tables nothing is found concerning St. Consul beyond his fatherland and the sanctity of his life, by which he governed his sheep and consummated his life; so that it seemed to me indeed a wonder that a man, otherwise learned, after so holy a protestation, should have referred so many other things to St. Consul, that with them he filled fifteen and more pages. Nor indeed is the first part of his very brief assertion thus far received enough among the people of Como, since Ferrari, from the monuments of the church of the same city, pronounces St. Consul a German, of Neuss on the Rhine, below Cologne, but Tatti contends that he was an Oriental, a Greek or Egyptian, divining the occasion and time at which he came, or at least could have come, into Italy, and arranging a chronology from his own conjectures, which it is just as easy to overthrow. Our Theodor Rhay, among the Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, etc., wrote thus on the sixth of July: Today Neuss, a not ignoble city on the Rhine, rejoices in its citizen Consul, who, once acting as Bishop of Como, enriched very many places with great virtues.
[2] His fatherland, age, and deeds are uncertain. The duration of the episcopate Tatti restricts, against the five lustra of others, to a few years, so that by his reckoning the Saint scarcely sat for six years, in those most afflicted times, when Lombardy was devastated in a wretched manner by Odoacer, Theodoric, and Gundobad, nearly innumerable captives being led away into servitude, which to recall here to an exacter balance is neither worth the trouble, nor of this design. The things which he conjectures concerning St. Consul, when Theodoric submitted his own to him, with Laurentius of Milan and Epiphanius of Pavia, Bishops, and again withdrew them, etc., are not without probability; and to these he subjoins not amiss the joy of the holy Pastor, when he had back not a few of his little sheep, freed from the servitude of Gundobad through St. Epiphanius. The rest are supported by like conjectures. The Saint's death is fixed in the year 495 or 497, by an uncertain epoch, I think, since Ferrari from the same tables of Como drew out the year 550. Tatti says he passed to the heavens on the 2nd of July, but on account of occurring feasts the celebrity was deferred to this seventh of July, on which he is consigned by Ferrari in both Catalogues and by Castellanus, who judged it his very birthday, as Ferrari plainly declares. The little verse of Bruschius is not so inelegant:
Consul took counsel for his own and for Como's welfare, after he began to feed the sheep of Como.
[3] The elogia of Ferrari and Tatti In his last article Tatti observes that St. Consul was buried in the church of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul near his predecessor St. Abundius, where he is said to have lain up to the year 1587, when he was discovered with the bodies of other holy Bishops, as he insinuates that he will prove more fully elsewhere; which I would not wish to call into doubt. The festivity of the aforesaid translation Tatti solemnly celebrates in his Como Martyrology on the very Kalends of July. This one thing remains, that we here annex a brief elogium of the Saint from Ferrari and Tatti's Martyrology. Thus has the former in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on the seventh of July: Consul, born of the city of Nussia (which by the ancients seems to be called Nuesium or Novesium, a city of Lower Germany on the Rhine, beyond Cologne of Agrippina), was endowed with such erudition and probity of life, that he deserved to be substituted in the episcopate for St. Abundius, a most learned and most holy man. In which office he conducted himself so piously and nobly, that he not only obtained praise among men, but also, when he had met his day (which was on the Nones of July), was held in the number of the Saints, and was wont to be venerated on this day by the church of Como. Now hear the Martyrology of Tatti: At Como, in the church of St. Abundius, the birthday of St. Consul, bishop and confessor, who, when by divine prompting he had come from Greece to Como, was received into the fellowship of his clergy by the same St. Abundius: for whom also, when he was called by the Lord to heaven, on account of the notable sanctity of his life he deserved to be substituted. Kindled with the highest zeal of charity toward the sheep entrusted to him, he ceased not both to nourish them with the food of the divine word, and to direct them to the heavenly fatherland. In the frequent incursion of the barbarians and devastation of the region, tossed about with his people, he obtained for them by assiduous prayers the divine mercy and help. At last, worn out with age and labors, he passed to the seat of eternal reward and rest. If the people of Como can suggest more, a place will be found in which these things may be illustrated.