ON SAINT OPTATIANUS,
BISHOP OF BRESCIA.
FIFTH CENTURY.
CommentaryOptatianus, Bishop, at Brescia in Italy (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
That several holy Bishops of the church of Brescia, passed over by all the more ancient Fasti, were first inserted into the Roman Martyrology, our predecessors long since observed, inasmuch as of many it has already been treated, and indeed on days almost immediately following, on March 3 of St. Titianus, Among the holy Bishops of Brescia inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, on the 4th of Paulinus, on the 7th of Gaudiosus, otherwise Gaudentius, the predecessor of this our St. Optatianus; where the reckoning of the times, not sufficiently exact, Henschenius easily observed; which he was content to taste cursorily, following rather the writers of Brescia than to discuss them more laboriously, since the Catalogues disagree among themselves both in order and in number, nay even in the names. That this may be clear in today's Saint, this one is to John Francis Florentinius, author of the Chronological Index, printed at Brescia in the year 1614, and to Ferrari, fourteenth in the series, who to Ughelli and Faino is called the sixteenth. To follow the footsteps of Henschenius is certain also for us, being about to leave the age of the Saint and his succession in the episcopate to their judgment, whether he flourished from the year 440, as Ferrari will have it, silent about his death: or, as others prefer, from the year 450 to 504, since there is nothing at hand by which these things may be impugned, still less by which they can be established. But for the rest, since the deeds of St. Optatianus are almost buried in oblivion, nothing remains for us but that we here briefly set before the eyes a few fragments of the writers.
[2] St. Optatianus also has a place, That in collecting those Saints of Brescia Galesinius shone before the revisers of the Roman Martyrology, seems to me at least beyond doubt: he cites on this day the "Gypteca" of the Bishops of Brescia and the Annals of Capreolus; he meant to say the diptychs, or rather the Catalogues, and the history of Elias Cavreolus, in which the Saint is scarcely more than saluted in passing by name. But of the received cult there is no need here to dispute, where all the first Bishops are decorated with the title of sanctity up to the thirty-second, one only excepted. Today's announcement of the Roman Martyrology is this: At Brescia, of holy Optatianus the bishop; to which
announcement Baronius added his own in this manner: This man lived in the times of the Emperor Valentinian III, when St. Leo the Pope presided over the Roman Church, in whose time he was present at the Milanese synod under Eusebius, bishop of Milan, whose synodical letter is extant, written by the Bishops who were present to St. Leo, where in the subscription of the Bishops for Optatianus "Octavianus" is faultily read. Rampertus, bishop of Brescia, mentions the same in his sermon on the translation of St. Philastrius, and reckons him the seventh from Philastrius. To him succeeded Vigilius. With these agree the Catalogues already mentioned, from which you would scarcely draw more than what has here been handed down by Baronius, as you may see in the praised Index of Florentinius, whose words are to be fitted to those of Baronius.
[3] Florentinius further adds: His relics and those of his successor St. Vigilius, of whose deeds few things survive, laid up in the church of St. Lawrence, in the year 1497 Bernardinus Fabius, bishop of Faro and provost of the same church, translated from the older high altar into a new one; afterward drawn out from the same, adhering to the wall, and carried in solemn procession through the city, they were brought into another more august one, which Octavius Hermannius the provost had set up in the middle of the choir, in the year 1596. He is celebrated on the day before the Ides of July. Here you have the chief things which can be proclaimed of the deeds or posthumous glory of St. Optatianus, and which Ferrari on this day contracted in his greater Catalogue, noting with the rest that the Bishop of Brescia, who is read subscribed to the synodal letter of Eusebius, bishop of Milan, to Pope Leo I, is called Octavianus, not Optatianus; but since the difference of name is not great, he seems the same who is called Octavianus and Optatianus. However much therefore Bernardinus Faynus may exhibit a good long list of Writers, hold it for certain that no more of solid historical substance is to be beaten out of them. Let us set before it his text at the day before the Ides of July: At Brescia, of holy Optatianus the bishop, in the church of St. Lawrence, distinguished by the praise of pious deeds, by which he merited for himself an eternal place in heaven.
[4] Hear now the forest of proofs. Of him treat the Roman Martyrology, Galesinius, although Faynus adduces many writers. the Brescia manuscript, the sermon of Rampertus the bishop on the translation of St. Philastrius, all the Catalogues and tables of the church of Brescia, Ludovico Zacchono in the compendium of the Saints, Abbot Ascanius Martinengo in the little book of the Saints, and Obitius the Capuchin On the Nobility of Brescia, Scipio Covus in his Memoirs, Abbot Ughelli in volume 4 of Italia Sacra, John Baptist Zanettus in the Life of St. Titianus, the Register of the New City, also the Annals of Elias Capreolus, of John Baptist Nazarius, of Octavius Rossi, and of Abbot Patritius Spini. Add Ferrari and perhaps others, of whatever number, from which you would draw nothing beyond what has already been said. The sermon of Rampertus so often cited, in which only the name of St. Optatianus is expressed, will be given in the Acts of St. Philastrius on July 18, with most deserved praise of that distinguished man Paul Galiardi, canon of Brescia, from whom the sermons of St. Gaudentius, and in them what pertains to St. Philastrius, published in most elegant type at Padua in 1720, we received not so long ago. I subjoin the last words of Faynus: His (St. Optatianus's) sacred ashes, translated to the high altar in the middle of the choir, are reported under the day February 25, his head being laid in a bust of gold and silver for devout exposition. Of the same wrote the Bishop of Sarzana in his poetic Martyrology, namely Nicolaus Brautius, rarely wont to be cited by us:
That he might be possessed of what he desired, he looked on no sleep with his eyes, nor was there any rest for his limbs.