ON ST. JOHN ANGELOPTES, BISHOP
OF RAVENNA IN ITALY.
From Girolamo Rossi.
In the year 432.
CommentaryJohn Angeloptes, Bishop, at Ravenna in Italy (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Bolland, on the twelfth of January, on which the life of another St. John, Bishop of Ravenna, also received from Rossi, is illustrated in few words, thus observed: Three Bishops of Ravenna, called John, are mentioned by Girolamo Rossi, honored with public cult by the church. Bishops of Ravenna confused under the name of John, The first, with the surname Angeloptus, or "who saw an angel," predecessor of St. Peter Chrysologus, whom he himself hands down to have departed this life on the seventh of July, Ferrari on the twenty-first of November. The second is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology on the twelfth of January, Rossi agreeing; whom Ferrari reports on the twenty-first of November and confounds with Angeloptes. But unless I am mistaken, Ferrari does not so much confound the deeds of two Bishops under the name of John, as he seems to transpose their feasts, or to exclude that second John reported by Bolland: for the things which he there reports in the elogium pertain to a single John, and to this our first one, successor of St. Exuperantius and predecessor of St. Peter Chrysologus; and these are things suited to the age of this John alone, in no way of the other, who, as is clear from the life published on the twelfth of January, deprecated Attila from the devastation of Ravenna. In this too Ferrari is opposed to Rossi, that he transfers this John I to the twenty-first of November, whom he himself plainly asserts to have departed this life on the Nones of July, not, as others think, and indeed falsely, on the eleventh of the Kalends of December: for that is to be ascribed to John the Archbishop, who withdrew into the solitude of Arezzo.
[2] Thus Rossi book 2 of the history of the people of Ravenna page 99, by Rossi they are better distinguished. whence we take the elogium of our holy Angeloptes: Not many days after, John the Archbishop, while he was performing the sacred rites in St. Agatha's, the Gospel having been pronounced to the people, when he had signed the divine host with the sign of the cross, suddenly an angel stood beside him from the other part of the altar; and when, the mysteries being completed, he had received the most holy body of Christ, and the minister wished, according to custom, to hand him the sacred urn in which the blood was, the angel snatched it first, and offered it to John. This became known to all by this reckoning, that they saw the urn spontaneously raised from the altar. Not long after, when he had learned from heaven that the day of his death was imminent for him, his body enervated by fasting and prayers, all things being set in order, he departed this life on the Nones of July, etc. The things which Ferrari adds to these, concerning the party of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, which John followed against the usurper, and that he saw his church adorned by Valentinian with many benefits and privileges, are plainly opposed to Baronius, to whose arguments Ferrari responds frigidly: but Bacchini, in his observations on Agnellus's Pontifical book, volume 1 page 296, pronounces the privilege of Valentinian for the church of Ravenna to be spurious.
[3] No help can be had from Agnellus. In that work of Agnellus, published not so long ago, I had thought I should find some things which would more illustriously illustrate the life of the holy Angeloptes; but there is a far greater confusion of matters and persons than in Ferrari: since to one John are attributed all the things which are certainly to be ascribed to two different ones, as the most learned editor and illustrator of the work, Bacchini, easily observed; and so we had to cling to the words of Rossi alone. Plainly common things Agnellus mentions of St. John toward the beginning of chapter 1: John XX (namely in the series of the Bishops), very venerable in virtue, nourisher of the poor, adorned with modesty, lover of chastity, at whose prayer the angelic hosts descended; of middling body, of thin face, macerated with fastings, a bestower of nourishment on the needy. The rest pertain not to St. John, but uniquely to Lauricius: the following chapters, stuffed with many digressions, as Bacchini rightly notes, to John, the successor of Chrysologus; which can be recalled to examination in the Supplement of January, or on the second of December, on which day in the Roman Martyrology St. Peter Chrysologus is reported.