ON ST. LUCANUS BISHOP OF SABIONA
AT BELLUNO IN THE VENETIAN TERRITORY
From the Catalogues of the Saints of Ferrarius.
Perhaps IN THE YEAR 424.
CommentaryLucanus bishop of Sabiona, at Belluno in the Venetian territory (S.)
J. B. S.
Our Elders formerly omitted nothing whereby they might dig out concerning the Saints of Belluno, and namely concerning this St. Lucanus and his foster-mother in exile St. Avatia, some monuments a little more certain than those which Raderus of ours, following the praised Ferrarius, had handed down in his Sacred Bavaria, more solicitous here and there for elegance than for sincere truth. Papebroch left this attested, where he treats of the aforesaid St. Avatia on 20 June; and I have also at hand the letters there adduced of Paul Frisch, rector of the college of Trent, and of Francis Perthanis, candidly writing back this on 27 July 1692, that he had implored the aid of the Most Reverend Vicar General there; a man, he says, by far most friendly to me: I had recourse likewise to another priest devoted to me: but from both I received the same answer, namely, that nothing at all exists in writing concerning the Life of St. Avatia and St. Lucanus: this alone is established and can be said, that they are held in veneration by the faithful people and worshipped as Saints.
[2] Trusting to these, I have here restored St. Lucanus in his due place, as one whose festivity is fixed to this day, but not concerning his deeds, although nothing certain seems able to be established either concerning the year or the day of his death; just as neither are the deeds themselves, such as they are, which Ferrarius says he received from Belluno, tolerable enough, inasmuch as they were more recently arranged, and transferred to this Saint from other similar and equally fabulous ones, which the editor could not fail to observe, and Papebroch explained a little more clearly, so that there is no need here to repeat what was said in the place cited. Under this caution I describe what Ferrarius has on this day in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy in this manner: Lucanus bishop of Bressanone (the city is Bressanone, or Brixen in Raetia, between Trent and Innsbruck), when in the greatest scarcity of things he had permitted the people to use dairy foods in Lent, was accused by the malevolent before Celestine Supreme Pontiff about the year of salvation 424. Both the matters and the times, here so confidently adduced, deserve to be supported by a little greater authority. The text thus continues:
[3] which quite marvelous things He, as he was an old man, accompanied by a single servant, setting out for Rome, at Spoleto heals by prayer the dropsical wife of his host. When he had come to Rome and gone to the Pontiff, his pallium, as though placed on a lever, wonderfully rested on a ray of the sun: which the Pontiff seeing, not only absolved him from the objections; but, having affected him with many benefits, sent him back to his church. But a little after, driven from his see by the same persecutors, he came into the valley of Agordo of the diocese of Belluno, where until his death he remained, Avatia a pious woman (who is worshipped in that valley in a temple built to her) ministering food. But when, famous for many miracles, he had died on the 14th day before the Kalends of August, his body could never be translated to Belluno, unless first his head was left at Agordo. But translated into the Cathedral church, laid in a marble ark, it has great veneration among the people of Belluno; I think because perhaps he is supposed to have been translated on this day, otherwise his festivity should be recalled on the day before.
[4] He cites the monuments of the church of Belluno, Ferrarius reported. which it is wonderful no longer survive there today: is it because the people of Belluno themselves sufficiently perceive that they can scarcely be admitted as genuine? In which, continues Ferrarius, some things are contained near to fables, as, that he rode as far as Rome to the sight of the Pontiff a bear which had devoured his horse on the journey; and that the partridges, which on the journey he had commanded to fly to Rome to be given to the Pontiff, were present before the Pontiff beforehand. The scruple annexed by Ferrarius Raderus long ago resolved, and from him Gewold in the additions to Hund in the Metropolis of Salzburg, concerning the bishops of Brixen page 457; for it is very easily understood that St. Lucanus cannot be called bishop of Brixen, unless by a prolepsis or anticipated usurpation, which is very frequent in these matters: the rest thou wilt be able to read in the places cited and also concerning St. Ingenuinus on 5 February; for me it is enough to have here asserted to St. Lucanus the deserved veneration, which alone we have already shown him to enjoy.