ON ST. AMPELIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA.
From the Milanese tables.
In the Year 672.
CommentaryAmpelius, Bishop and Confessor, at Milan in Insubria (S.)
J. B. S.
Unknown to the ancient Martyrologies, even to the augmented Usuardine ones, St. Ampelius was first marked, so far as I know, by Galesinius on this day in these words: At Milan, of St. Ampelius the bishop; whose sanctity shone forth, He is entered in the ancient Kalendars, both in deeds religiously done and in miracles divinely wrought at his tomb. He notes indeed that he is treated more fully in a very old book, written by hand, of the church of Milan. That manuscript codex I have not seen, nor should I believe that more is contained in it than in the other Milanese monuments, testifying to the name only, to the miracles, and to the sanctity. It will presently be clear that the codex was afterward printed. In the Kalendar which is prefixed to the Ambrosian Breviary, edited at Venice in the year 1539, it is expressly read: Saint Ampelius, Archbishop of Milan, although in the Breviary itself nothing is reported of him. The later edition (Milan, 1635) of the same Breviary not only expresses the Saint's name in the Kalendar, but in its place, page 834, these things are had: On the eighth of July, of St. Ampelius, bishop of Milan, solemn. From the common of a Pontiff and Confessor. Third Lesson. Ampelius, besides his singular and excellent virtues, shone also with great and frequent miracles, both in life and after he migrated to heaven. Therefore assiduous concourses were made to his tomb, on account of the saving power which flowed thence. He died under Agatho the supreme Pontiff, and left a great longing for himself in all. In the basilica of St. Simplicianus his body is religiously preserved.
[2] In the little book entitled Successors of the divine Apostle Barnabas in the church of Milan, and in the Catalogues of Bishops, edited in the year 1584, he is reported in the forty-first order, in this manner: Ampelius, under the same Lord Pontiff, made Archbishop: whose sanctity shone forth, both in deeds religiously done and in miracles divinely wrought at his tomb: which words were above copied by Galesinius. The little book continues: At last he was entered in the number of the Saints by John V the Pontiff: (who sat
from the twenty-second of July 685 to the second of August 686.) His feast the church of Milan celebrates on the eighth before the Ides of July. His body, laid in the basilica of St. Simplicianus, was venerated by the same solemn translation made in 1582. In which translation the following verses were published:
You were a vine of the earth with sweet liquor: In heaven what will you be? Your liquor now is not Ampelius; rather he must now be called Ambrosius; two of you remain, citizens of Ambrose: he the Patron, and he who was Ampelius surviving. Ah, look upon us, best of parents, give to your sons the heavenly liquor.
[3] The series of the Bishops ordered by the cited little book Papebroch upholds in his Exegesis concerning the Bishops of Milan before tome VII of May, in which the dates setting St. Ampelius in the forty-first order, and joining his death to the year, already set by us above, 672, after about a five-year rule. There, page 67, he thus has: This Saint (Ampelius) is venerated on the eighth of July, and is thus inscribed in the Kalendars, even the more ancient. Meanwhile Ferrarius and Ughelli, from the Acts of the church composed under St. Charles, assert that he died on the sixth before the Ides of February, which seems to have happened in the year 672: and thus seven years earlier than Agatho began his Roman pontificate, first ordained in the year 679, to whose rule nevertheless he is ascribed in the synodal Table. Those who assert that he was canonized by John V, a Pontiff of only one year, ordained about the year 686, will not easily prove that it was then already received in usage that causes of this kind should be referred to the Roman Pontiff. But of this matter it has often been disputed elsewhere. For the rest, you have here in few words what can be controverted concerning the Saint's birthday and the time of his episcopate.
[4] Ferrarius and Ughelli, praised by Papebroch, bring forward nothing greatly new; not distinctly enough nor indeed is there whence the Acts of St. Ampelius may be dug out, since there survives only a rather confused memory of his episcopate and of some miracles, concerning which also Besuti, Morigia, and others, describing the same things which we have already given. That the reckoning of the times was not well arranged by the Milanese, Ferrarius also observed in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on the eighth of February, where he accuses Besuti in his pontifical history and nearly all the other Milanese tables, in that they will have St. Ampelius mount the chair under Pope Domnus or Donus, and depart from life under Agatho, while yet they bind the beginnings of his episcopate to the year 668, and its end to the year 672 or 673, whereas it is certainly established that Donus did not sit as Pontiff at Rome before the year 676, and that Agatho succeeded him in the year 678. It must be confessed that in one or the other an error crept in; namely, either the names of the Pontiffs are ill marked, or in the Catalogues of the Bishops of Milan the calculations of the years are not well computed, as Papebroch above showed.
[5] are marked. Ughelli follows another Chronology, making St. Ampelius with Besuti Bishop in the forty-second order. Thus he speaks, tome IV of Italia Sacra, column 93: Mauricillus received St. Ampelius; he meant to say plainly the opposite; St. Ampelius received St. Mauricillus in the year 673, who administered the church committed to him for a short time, since he reached only the fourth year in that see: for he died on the sixth before the Ides of February in the year 677. On what witness or surety Ughelli hands down these things, I do not sufficiently perceive, nor is this the place to discuss at length those things which may be seen in the praised Papebroch. Ferrarius in his General Catalogue marked the Saint both on the sixth before the Ides of February, and again on this day; to us the authority of the Kalendars is more pleasing. Concerning the pretended canonization made by John PP. V, enough has been said. And these are the things which we could gather concerning St. Ampelius from the cited writers. Hence indeed you may correct the things which Castellanus, in his notes to the first bimester, which alone was edited, on the eighth of February did not rightly arrange.