ON ST. TERENCE, BISHOP OF LUNI AND MARTYR,
AT SARZANA IN ITALY.
From Ferrarius.
Perhaps 9TH CENTURY.
CommentaryTerence, Bishop of Luni and Martyr, at Sarzana in Italy (S.)
J. B. S.
This Saint, plainly unknown to all the other Martyrologists, Ferrarius announces in both his Catalogues; in the General indeed in these words: In the territory of Luni, of St. Terence, bishop and martyr. But he cites, for the certainty of the religious veneration wont to be exhibited to the Saint, An Italian or a Gaul, uncertain. the records of the church of Sarzana, which succeeded that of Luni, and which even today acknowledges him as its bishop; although he confesses that that matter is not so explored, as he had explained a little more fully before in the greater Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, where concerning the Saint's deeds he had very few things to relate; concerning his age almost nothing. Behold his annotation there: There are, however, he says, those who think that Terence the bishop, not of Luni but a Gaul, who, setting out to Rome for the sake of fulfilling a vow, and passing through this region, was killed by robbers, as was narrated above, and that in the reign of the Emperor Charles the Fat, when Gualterius the bishop governed the church of Luni. Which of them think rightly, I do not inquire; Ughelli had nothing whereby he might illustrate the obscure matter; nor does the somewhat longer portentous Italian narration of some more recent writer please, in which I find nothing solid: but since we have adopted the Saint on the faith of Ferrarius, testifying concerning the cult, we describe his eulogy in his very words:
[2] The eulogy. Terence, bishop of Luni (as the records of the church of Sarzana testify), among his other virtues, was endowed with the greatest kindness toward the poor: for in whatever place he was, he largely imparted alms to them. And when outside the city, on the road, he was distributing alms to the poor after his custom, he was assailed by robbers, hoping to find with him a great sum of money, and was killed, near the river Laventia, which flows into the Macra. Whose body, placed on a wagon, by
untamed young oxen, carried to that place which is called St. Terence, was there laid up, a church being there built to his name.