Ecclesius

ON ST. ECCLESIUS, BISHOP, CONFESSOR,

OF RAVENNA IN ITALY.

In the year 534.

HISTORICAL COLLECTION

On the cult, age, and deeds.

Ecclesius, bishop, confessor, of Ravenna in Italy (St.)

BHL Number: 2381

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

Concerning Ravenna and its various holy bishops there has already been so much treatment in this work that concerning the city itself or other things pertaining to it there is no need at all to speak again here: He is certainly venerated as a Saint, would that somewhere it had been so explained how many bishops have been endowed with the title of sanctity and with true cult. For in the Calendar of that church, which we have published for the year 1660, there are numbered in all twenty whose feasts are there recounted: only seventeen Ughelli expressed: in the topography of Baronius of the Roman Martyrology no more than twelve are exhibited. Meanwhile, in the Pontifical book of Agnellus, or on the Lives of the pontiffs of Ravenna, published by the distinguished man Benedetto Bacchini and illustrated with most learned observations, there are computed in continuous series the first twenty-seven bishops, all distinguished with the title of sanctity, and besides SS. Felix the 38th and Valerius, added by Bacchini, 44th in order. I do not think that all these are acknowledged as such by the people of Ravenna, at least celebrated with an annual festivity, on which matter it will be inquired more opportunely elsewhere: here only there could be doubt whether Ecclesius is reckoned in the number of the Saints or blessed, honored with a solemnity of this kind, were he not in the cited Calendar reported on this day with a double Office, and had he not been praised as such by our elders on the 22nd of February in the Life of St. Maximian, in which some things are handed down which are common to him with this our Saint, and therefore are not to be repeated here.

[2] I greatly wondered at this, that this holy Ecclesius is marked in absolutely no classic sacred Calendars, although unknown to the ancient Calendars not even anywhere in the Usuardine supplements, so that I seem able to say safely that he was inscribed by Ferrarius alone in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and afterward also in the more general one, whence without doubt Castellanus transferred him into his universal Martyrology. But from whatever cause this happened, that today he is venerated at Ravenna is so certain that all doubt could easily be laid aside. Nor indeed is there need here to dispute concerning the antiquity of the same cult, for whether his feast began to be celebrated first in the past century, or from several centuries; we ought to be secure that at this time he has been brought to the altars, and that his festivity is recalled annually with that solemnity which we have just indicated, namely with a double ecclesiastical Office. Besides that on an ancient stone they would have the title of Saint expressed; and Bacchini exhibits his image, bearing a temple in his hand, to which is subscribed St. Ecclesius: which nevertheless it is a wonder that Rubeus did not see, writing thus on page 154: Argentarius took care that the image of Ecclesius be painted on the vault of the temple in mosaic work, which still exists, holding a temple in his hands, on which is inscribed Ecclesius BISHOP. For the rest, the things which pertain to his present cult I think already sufficiently demonstrated.

[3] on this day as his birthday. Concerning the true birthday of the Saint, or his proper day of death, nothing is at hand by which it can certainly be defined, the Pontifical of Agnellus being silent, whence it especially should have been drawn out, which, since he nowhere expressed it, it seems can not ineptly be gathered from that silence, that at least in the ninth century, in which Agnellus flourished, neither St. Ecclesius nor most other bishops, whom nevertheless he roundly calls Saints, had a determined day of ecclesiastical cult, nor accordingly were honored with an annual festivity. When this cult began, I indeed forbear to inquire; it is enough now established that on this day the Saint is celebrated by legitimate authority, perhaps because Rubeus expressly marked that very day on the already said page 154 with these words: In these days dies Ecclesius, archbishop of Ravenna, in the very middle of the building of the temple of St. Vitalis, on the 6th of the Kalends of Sextilis. It would have sufficed to write "bishop," since Rubeus himself a little below confesses; nor for many years afterward were the prelates of Ravenna called archbishops. But whatever be the case of this, on which Bacchini disputes at length, the day noted there, the 27th of July, has today prevailed, with none, so far as I know, Rubeus dissenting, and Bacchini confessing that St. Ecclesius at least in that month of July departed from life, so that now in this part no difficulty seems able to be moved.

[4] The 28 years of his episcopate Not equally plain are the things which we have handed down by the writers of Ravenna concerning the age of St. Ecclesius, especially concerning the beginning, duration, and end of his episcopate: among whom the chief, the praised Rubeus, seems to have given others occasion for erring. It is not mine here to arrange or order the whole series of the predecessors and successors of St. Ecclesius, which Bacchini has already abundantly performed, when from Agnellus he laboriously restored the times of this Saint and of the other bishops in his fourth Dissertation, whose beginning I have thought must here be transcribed: In order that, as I have performed in the preceding, I may illustrate to the best of my power the chronology of the pontiffs of Ravenna, this dissertation must be premised to the following five bishops. Rubeus, whom those who wrote more recently have followed, neglecting in part those things which Agnellus hands down pertaining to deciding the times of the aforesaid, defines the see of each prelate in this manner. He determines that Aurelianus died in the year 510, on the 7th of the Kalends of June, and from that same year he begins the beginnings of Ecclesius the bishop. He marks the death of Ecclesius in the year 542, and substitutes Ursicinus, whom, following Agnellus, he says sat three years, and died in the year 545, etc.

[5] Most received, therefore, was the opinion of the writers of Ravenna, also of Girolamo Fabri and others, better restricted, from Agnellus, to 10. that St. Ecclesius sat twenty-eight years, as Ferrarius observes in his annotation from Onofrio Panvinio, namely from the year 514 to 542, which Ughelli plainly followed when he made the Saint survive in that dignity twenty-eight years

, erring no less in the day of his death, where he says that he rested on the 6th of the Kalends of September, for which he ought to have written August. I observe moreover that by all these more recent writers it is determined that St. Ecclesius was in order the 26th bishop, contrary to what Agnellus numbers, calling him only the 23rd, from which ninth-century writer Bacchini more happily unearthed the age of the Saint and the other things pertaining to it. What sort of man, moreover, for the rest that Agnellus was, and of how modest authority he must be judged in most matters, the same Bacchini so pathetically and clearly set forth in his preface, that to treat of these things here at length is superfluous; let it suffice for us to have drawn from him the true age of St. Ecclesius, at least the times of his episcopate, according to the praised dissertation, where I read thus on page 10: Ecclesius, therefore, will have died in the aforesaid year 534; since he sat, according to our reckoning, 10 years, 5 months, 5 days, it follows that he was ordained about the beginning of the year 524, wherefore in the following year 525 he could go to Constantinople with John the Roman Pontiff and the other bishops, which Agnellus himself hands down. See the chronological table added at the end of the dissertation.

[6] And these things indeed could so far be reduced from the Pontifical book of Agnellus to a more accurate chronological arrangement; Rubeus treated of his deeds most briefly, but this is most greatly to be lamented, that he tasted the Life of St. Ecclesius so meagerly that of his deeds he scarcely recorded anything beyond those things which he is said to have contributed to the building or adornment of churches. Nor does Rubeus here help, who, narrating more richly the deeds of some pontiffs of Ravenna from ancient monuments, of this one has scarcely anything besides the brief compendium of Agnellus, whom without doubt he saw; in book 3 referring, at the year 514, his beginnings wrongly, as we have said: in the same book at the years 524 and 525 the most well-known embassy to Justin, undertaken by command of Theodoric with St. John the Pope and others: in the year 526 a dispute with the clerics, composed by Pope Felix IV: in the year 541 the erection of a temple of the most blessed Virgin Mary out of his own dwellings, all of which are read in Agnellus. But since Rubeus adds there some things which are wanting in him, hence we shall more opportunely take the conclusion of our Collection, since from elsewhere absolutely nothing is suggested which may conduce to illustrating the deeds of St. Ecclesius. Behold, then, the things which Agnellus narrates, in his manner rather disturbedly and confusedly, mixing in also some things which pertain less to the Acts of the Saint, and which with the rest are found explained in Bacchini, as best it could be done. Thus he writes in chapter 1, ON ST. ECCLESIUS.

[7] Ecclesius, the 23rd. A holy vessel. Of even stature, he neither displayed a tall one, nor from Agnellus nor turned away a short one. Having a head full of hair, and shaggy; above the ear a little grayness, and comely in form. In his times the church of the blessed martyr Vitalis was founded by Julian Argentarius, together with the Prelate himself. And this Pontiff, in his right of ownership, built the church of the holy and ever undefiled Virgin Mary, which you behold, of wondrous magnitude, and the vault of the tribune: in the vault the effigy of the holy Mother of God, whose like the human eye could never behold. If any man has dared to gaze very long upon that image, thus are the metric verses beneath her feet, namely:

The kindly Virgin shines, who received Christ from the stars, / the angel, messenger from heaven, was before. / A mystery! Genetrix of the Word and perennial Virgin, / and made the parent of her author, the Lord. / The true things the Magi, the lame, the blind, death, life confess. / The sacred summits Ecclesius dedicates to God.

[8] Agnellus continues: But the beginning of the building of the church was prepared by Julian, many things pertaining to him are drawn out. after the aforesaid pontiff Ecclesius returned to Rome from Constantinople with John the Pope and the other bishops, sent by Theodoric on an embassy, as you have heard above. He built the Tricoli, but left it unfinished. Alas for you, O flocks, what sort were your shepherds! How changed you are from them! They were true lamps in the Church, whose lamp-light daily shone for those who were in the house of God, as the Lord says: The lamp of your body is your eye; if your eye be single, your whole body will be lucid; and otherwise: If your eye be evil, your whole body will be dark. Let these things suffice today, that, this one removed, we may introduce another pontiff. But as I said above, in his time the church of the blessed martyr Vitalis was built by Julian Argentarius. No church in Italy is like it in buildings and in mechanical works. But the expenses in the church of the aforesaid martyr Vitalis, as we find in the eulogy of holy recollection and memory of Julian the founder, 26 thousand gold solidi were spent. Therefore that most blessed one died and was buried in the church of the blessed martyr Vitalis, below the monastery of St. Nazarius, before the altar, in the middle place beside the body, on this side of the blessed prelate Ursicinus and on that of the blessed Victor, and this one in the middle.

[9] The controversy with the clerics composed at Rome, Few things for many, and what is not beside the point? In chapter 2 he touches on the disturbances between the clergy of Ravenna and the holy Bishop, composed by Pope Felix: It happened at that time that between the blessed pontiff Ecclesius and the priests a contention had grown up concerning the several matters of the church. They went to the holy Pope Felix of the city of Rome, that he might sanction just regulations between them; who, having summoned the pontiff of Ravenna with the whole clergy, presently established and confirmed a decree between them, containing thus. There follow the letters of Pope Felix, so incorrect and in various places mutilated, that Bacchini had to labor strenuously, both to restore the genuine text, corrupted by an unskilled copyist, and to compose an analysis by which he might in some way set forth the intricate controversy. But since these exist there, and have been published again among the Writers of Italian affairs, tome 2, revised with second care by the distinguished man Ludovico Antonio Muratori, I did not think it worth the labor to describe here either the letters themselves or the observations, because they contribute little to the excellent deeds of the Saint, and perhaps seem to have been adduced by the schismatic Agnellus to stir up some odium against St. Ecclesius. Thus he himself concludes his narration, such as it is.

[10] the remainder of his life and his death; But blessed Ecclesius came to himself after these things, and thus was to his sheep as a father with his sons, and bestowed all things on his clerics, as he had been rebuked by the Roman Pontiff; nay, he was made even more liberal, and thereafter ruled his church in peace, and heard no word of murmuring, but only praises from his clerics, and these statutes remained for his successors for a long time. He was buried, as we said, in the church of St. Vitalis: and in the atrium of the same font * of the hall he ordered metric verses to be written in silver tesserae, containing this:

The lofty temples rise with venerable summit, / sanctified to God under the name of Vitalis. / And Gervasius holds this citadel together with Protasius, / whom race and faith and temples associate. / To these sons their father, fleeing the contagions of the world, / was an example of faith and of martyrdom. / Ecclesius first handed over this citadel to Julian, / who wondrously accomplished the work committed to him. / This too he commanded to be held by a perpetual law; / let it be lawful for no one to lay his limbs in these places. / But since the monuments of the former pontiffs stand there, / let it be lawful only to place there, but the like.

And he sat 10 years, 5 months, 7 days. So that Bacchini above in number 5 wrongly wrote 5 days.

[11] Lest I allow anything to be wanting concerning the glorious deeds of the Saint, especially in munificence toward the churches, I here add those things which, besides the Agnellian, Rubeus supplied, cited already more than once on page 154: gifts bestowed on the churches. The care of this temple, namely of St. Mary Major built by himself, he handed over to the priests, keeping community of life and food, with these gifts added: a paten of gold; seven silver sacred vessels, one of gold; four estates in the territory of Ravenna. To the Ursian temple too he gave as a gift a paten of gold of five pounds; several sacred vessels of gold, adorned with most precious gems: twelve candelabra of silver: he also erected an altar of silver of two hundred pounds; and moreover he adorned many other temples with gifts. For at this time too the church of Ravenna was enriched with the goods of the martyrs, which had been added to the treasury of Caesar in the age of those calamities. Wherefore, with a much more efficacious appellation, they called the church of Ravenna holy and ample, because it was enriched and strengthened not only by the very blood of the martyrs, but also by their goods. Ecclesius, having undertaken the Tricoli, could not finish it, just as neither the temple of St. Vitalis, whose building Justinian, according to the opinion of the writers of Ravenna, had committed to Ecclesius and Julian.

* elsewhere "of the front."