Fortunatus

ON SAINT FORTUNATUS,

BISHOP OF NAPLES IN CAMPANIA.

ABOUT THE YEAR CCCL.

Sylloge concerning his age, cult, body often translated.

Fortunatus, Bishop of Naples in Campania (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

John the Deacon of Naples, who wrote the Chronicle of the Bishops of his Church about the year DCCCLXXX, mentions the above-titled Saint thus in Bartholomew Chioccarelli, in the Catalogue of the Neapolitan Antistites pg. 33. Fortunatus, IX Bishop, Translated from the church of his name to Stephanea, was most holy in life, most holy in prayers. Day & night without ceasing doing this, the kingdoms of the heavens, as he desired, he obtained; buried outside the city about four stadia. Then a long time after, the peoples, seeking his patronage, transferring [him] from the church consecrated to his name, by the hands of the Pontiffs, placed him in the church of Stephanea, of the right side to those entering up, where there is an oratory, at the head of the Catacomb. The same treating of S. Maximus Bishop X, held as Martyr on account of the death endured in exile, mentions the church of S. Fortunatus, as also his successor S. Maximus, into which the body was brought back, when he says, First in the church of B. Fortunatus the Priest & Confessor of Christ, he was buried: but now in the oratory of the church of Stephanea, of the left side to those entering, having obtained the sacred altar he exults, as is said on XII of this month, on which day now S. Maximus is venerated, indicates Caesar Eugenius Caraccioli I in his Sacred Naples part 1, pg. 645, whereas before on the XI day he was venerated. The same is indicated to have happened to S. Fortunatus, about whom the aforesaid Chioccarelli: That the Neapolitan Church from primitive times had a distinguished memory of him, & in his honor celebrated solemnities, we hold explored. For in the most ancient Offices, he was venerated on 19, now on 15 June. cut in Lombard character, which are preserved among us, we have inspected the feast of him accustomed to be celebrated; since in the tables of the Kalendar on the XIX day of June is read the name of S. Fortunatus Neapolitan Bishop inscribed: but Caraccioli says this is now done on the XV day.

[2] About his church further so Chioccarelli: There was from the most ancient times a church at Naples in the suburbs, erected to his name, near the oratory of S. Severus Bishop; whose collacrimable relics still survive, which at present serve profane uses: to which in our age it has been assigned. Where also the most ancient images of this holy Fortunatus, clothed in Pontifical vestments & adorned with an Aureola, Translation depicted in the Greek manner were seen. When however his body from his church, together with the body of S. Maximus, was translated to Stephanea, although John the Deacon does not explain; yet he seems sufficiently to indicate, that it was done nearly in his time, when he uses the adverb, Now. But of conjecture there is no need, with those having most certain testimony, together with the bodies in the year MDLXXXIX found in the shrine Euphebian, granted to the Capuchin Fathers, namely an Epigraph conceived in these words: made under Paul I Bishop of Naples. HERE LIE THE BODIES OF THE HOLY MAXIMUS AND FORTUNATUS BISHOPS, UNDER PAUL THE FIRST. This is Paul, of whom in the Acts of S. Agrippinus, to be illustrated on IX November, mention is made in these words: In the times of blessed recordation of Lord Paul the first, our most holy & senior Bishop, with respect indeed to the next, with a certain Stephen intervening as successor, thus called with respect to a successor. also Paul, whom Chioccarelli surnames Second; certainly by the example of other writers, having no consideration of one of that name most ancient, who years before XXX even before S. Agrippinus himself in the I century held the Neapolitan Church.

[3] He is to John the Deacon in Chioccarelli the XXXVIII Bishop, & with the same testifying sat IIII years, II months, VI days. He was however in the times of Pope Paul (namely the First, from the year DCCLVII to DCCLXVII having functioned in the Pontificate) & when he was performing the office of Diaconate of the Neapolitan Church, He was a friend of Pope Paul I frequent Legate he went to the City of Rome; where he conglutinated to himself as friend by celestial love the aforesaid Pope, still adorned with the Levitical infula. Who when on a certain day mutual friendly conversations were turned, as if flattering the Neapolitan Levite said, May the Omnipotent grant, that I may see thee Apostolic. To whom soon the aforesaid Pope answered, And I thee a Bishop. What more? With Lord Stephen the Apostolic having died, Paul the Deacon to the honor foretold to him is chosen: (ordained XXII May) & so not long afterwards, with the venerable Bishop Calvus dying to the Lord, this one also received the Neapolitan Cathedra. by whom, in the 10th month from his election, he is ordained at Rome. But on account of the detestable altercation of images, which was turning between the authority of the Apostolic path & the most foul madness of Constantine Caballinus, nine months elapsed, in which he could not be consecrated: because then the Parthenopean people favored the power of the Greeks. Yet this one, when he desired to support the aforesaid Pope, as a friend, in such matters in some way, secretly proceeded to Rome.

[4] Who at once consecrated Bishop, was directed to Naples: but on account of the connection of the Greeks his fellow-citizens did not wish to receive him. Yet counsel having been initiated, they transmitted him to the church of S. Januarius Martyr of Christ, dedicated not far from the City; in which living for almost two years, he constructed many buildings: among which he made a triclinium, which is to those entering on the right side. he sat 4 years 2 months 6 days. Indeed all the Clergy & all the people canonically obeyed him as a true Pastor, & all the affairs of the Church without any hindrance he obtained & disposed. He also constructed in the same place a marble Baptismal font, in which on Paschal & other feasts all those approaching, baptized their sons. Meanwhile the Nobles of the Neapolitans, seeing so eminent a city languid for so great a Pontiff, with one counsel & one consent rejoicing & exulting, introduced him to the Episcopate of that city, where after two years rolled around he rested in the Lord. For on the Lord's day of holy Easter, with the solemnities of Masses almost completed, he kissed all the Clerics; & with all the people exhorted, by spirit he migrated to the heavens, Soon his exequies the whole Clergy, & every sex & age, dying on the day of Easter itself together with the boys baptized in the same night, led to the basilica of S. Januarius, & in the same place buried him in the portico before the church of S. Stephen, in the forty-eighth year of Constantine the Emperor Caballinus, & of Leo the Emperor son in the fifteenth year, with the Indiction running …

[5] The number of the Indiction either John omitted, or the librarian of Chioccarelli could not read, or Chioccarelli himself

passed over, seeing that it did not agree with the year DCCLXIII, which he had prefixed as the last for Paul; I do not know however whether he animadverted to the year of the Emperors, who here are not numbered from the entered administration of the Empire after the death of the fathers, in the year of Copronymus 46, of Leo the son 15, of Christ 765, but from the first Coronation, made with them still living. But if he animadverted, he could not but have also animadverted, that in either number there is a vice, & one ought to have numbered the year either XLVI of Constantine, or XVII of Leo: for it is established, Constantine indeed was crowned the first time in the year XX of the VIII century, Indict. III; but his son Leo, in the year LI, Indict. IV the first on the day of Easter XXXI March, the other on the day of Pentecost VI June, so that the rest of the year is for them numbered as whole. Thus the XLVI year of Constantine, the XV of Leo, falls in the year of Christ DCCLXV Indiction III; the year however XLVIII & XVII in the year DCCLXVII Indiction V. But the earlier year pleases more; rather than two years later: that of both Pauls, the Pope, & the Bishop

the beginnings, may as little as possible be separated from one another. For in the year DCCLXV the Bishop having died on the day of Easter, that is XIV April retreating through IV years, II months, VI days, which to his see John attributes, he would have been ordained on the Sunday of Quinquagesima, on the VIII day of February in the year of Christ DCCLXI, but of Paul the V year, which otherwise would have to be deferred to the VII year of the Pontificate. The election however nine months preceding the Ordination, will have to be reckoned to have been made at the beginning of May of the year DCCLX. so that that translation was made about the year 763. These things it was fitting to deduce thus, that there might be held the year of the bodies translated to Stephanea, of Fortunatus & Maximus Bishops, the third or fourth namely of Paul the Bishop, of the Christian era about DCCLXIII; from which furthermore numbering to the year MDXCI, in which the Saints appearing to Sixtus V forbade their bodies to be separated, who for about eight hundred years had rested conjoined, there would be reckoned years about XXVI above eight hundred;

[6] That Epigraph however, on which we rely, does not seem to be held whole: but the whole I think ought to have been so read. Here lie the bodies of the Holy Bishops Maximus & Fortunatus, under Paul the First brought to the church of S. Salvator, translated to Stephanea, The second to the shrine of Euphebius, & under M. placed in this of S. Euphebius. Truly the adverb Here, can scarcely indicate anything other, than that church, in which the Epigraph was found: for it cannot have been placed at the time of the first translation under Paul himself, because the number of the name we then are accustomed to apply, only when several of the same name are to be distinguished: thence far more agreeably is believed, that such an Epigraph was written at the time of the second Translation; this however made after the age of John the Deacon, is best deferred until after the entire extermination of the Saracens occupying or infesting Sicily & Campania in the XI century, or rather after the established empire of the Normans there under King Roger, taken up by the Neapolitans about the year MCXXXIX, when Marinus Archbishop was sitting, as from the year about DCCCCLX the Antistites of his See had begun to bear that title. But under Marinus, as the Cathedral church about the year MCL by the highest & incredible expenses, & by the hands of illustrious architects & artists, in the 12th century, perhaps under Marinus the Archbishop. was erected, & adorned with sculpted marble statues & with icons skillfully made, which in Chioccarelli Georgius Vasarus testifies; so it is credible, that several churches both urban & suburban received new splendor, & in these the Euphebian was resuscitated from the foundations; & with the bodies of the old Patron & of the other two Bishops brought there it was strengthened, since now Stephanea had ceased to be held as the Cathedral.

[7] About the last finding of the aforesaid two & of holy Euphebius, made in the year MDLXXXIX by the Capuchins, holding this church, & their solemn carrying around the city, in the year MDXCI on the VIII day of June, under Archbishop Annibal Capuanus, I repeat nothing; where in the year 1589 the bodies found, because to the XXIII May day of S. Euphebius, enough has been said about them: I only wish, that there in the preliminary Commentary near the end, after the words of Caraccioli, the 10 following lines be deleted, & in their place certain others be placed, conformable to the things said here, & to be given in the supplement; likewise to the history of the Invention & translation on pg. 248 col. 1 line 6 & the following 7, where Chioccarelli from a certain wrongly understood place of his pg. 92, is badly argued as contrary to himself. But his doubt there proposed about the truth of the aforesaid invention, would more rightly be dissolved, by establishing, & solemnly elevated they were. as we have done here & shall do in the Supplement, that long after the age of John the Deacon, even if it were extended to the end of the IX century, the Translation of the Saints to the Euphebian church from Stephanea was made, which with what John said about Stephanea, as in his time possessing those bodies, very well consists.

[8] The same Chioccarelli, after he had brought into one whatever he could elicit about S. Fortunatus, Neapolitan Bishop, from John the Deacon & other memories, proving the cult as of a Saint; thus proceeds. Fortunatus, Neapolitan Bishop, presided in the year CCCXLIII, under Julius the Roman Pontiff, to whom & to other Bishops of the Catholic Church is extant an Epistle directed by the Pseudo-synod of Sardica, compelled by the Arian pseudo-Bishops, in which they transmit the decree issued by them of Arian impiety to the Catholic Bishops, & exhort them to subscribe to their errors: which Epistle, edited by the work of Nicholas Faber under the name of Fragments of S. Hilary, which also Caesar Cardinal Baronius in tome 3 of the Annals refers, thus titled: To Fortunatus, Bishop of Naples of Campania. Whether however this was the same Fortunatus, who is also the prior, is unknown to us. If conjecture may be used, we judge it the same as the prior: for John the Deacon ascribes only two Fortunati to the Catalogue of Neapolitan Bishops; namely the Saint, the immediate predecessor of S. Maximus: of whom above has been treated, whom he makes the predecessor of S. Maximus, which has also happened to this Fortunatus Bishop, but another, who under Gregory the first Pontiff flourished two hundred & more years after.

[9] for he who in the year 347 with Hosius was present at the Sardicensian Synod, I indeed judge the conjecture of Chioccarelli to be more than probable; indeed on account of the silence of John I vehemently doubt, whether Calepodius, with Hosius of Corduba in the year CCCXLVII Legate of the Apostolic See to the Council of Sardica, & sometimes called Calepodius Neapolitanus, sometimes Calepodius from Campania, sometimes simply Calepodius, is rightly thought to have interpolated the Episcopates of SS. Fortunatus & Maximus; & rather should be reckoned a Greek for the Greeks, under either or even under both of the aforesaid, to have ministered episcopally at Naples. Certainly in the Acts of S. Athanasius Bishop, created about the year DCCCLXXVIII, to be produced on XV July, the coeval Author praises the Neapolitan Church, that it inwardly bears two Sees of Prelates, like two Testaments, although there is one which governs & rules the other, it seems he was only a Greek Bishop for the Greeks, as from the head are ruled the different limbs. Nor does this, even for the IV century, the Nicene Canon forbid to believe, providing that in one city there be not two Bishops: for as in the Anamnesis to the Chronico-historic Attempt about the Roman Pontiffs, part. 1 pg. 220 near the end, I have proved from the very Canon, there only is treated of two, of whom one is not subordinated to the other.

[10] See Chioccarelli treating these at length pg. [4] 95 & following & from the aforesaid Acts of S. Athanasius, how for liberating him the Greek & Latin Sacerdotal part labored; who also says about the Greeks, that their Priests, of whom at Naples there were six Parish churches, obtained six Parochial churches at Naples, where they performed the Sacred in the Greek manner, & on appointed days they recognized the Neapolitan church, as head & mother, namely the churches of S. George at the Forum, S. Januarius at the Diaconry, SS. John & Paul, S. Andrew at Nido, S. Mary the Round, & S. Mary in Cosmedin… Whose Priests (as the Chronicle of S. Mary of the Beginning, & the ancient Offices of the Neapolitan Church, written in Lombard letters, testify) were bound in the Neapolitan Church, that is in the Cathedral, on the sixth feria of greater week to recite six Greek Lessons, & on the day of the Lord's Resurrection in the Cathedral to assist the Cimeliarch of the greater church, & to sing Credo in unum Deum, in the Greek idiom & in the Greek manner, & to perform other rites: which at other times was observed a little differently, as from the constitutions or customs of the Neapolitan Church, edited by John the Archbishop in the year MCCCXXXVII, under as many Presbyters subject to the Cathedral. we have apprehended: namely that on the sixth feria of greater week the Presbyters of the aforesaid six churches were accustomed to read six Greek Lessons, & on the day of Easter to begin Credo in Greek speech if it pleased; & the Archpresbyter of S. George at the Forum, & the Presbyter of S. Mary the Round to sing the whole in Greek speech before the Lord Archbishop, & other (or of another) Choir singers alternately in the Latin tongue to repeat. Where you see in one church, at the time of one & the same solemn Office, on this side a Greek, on that a Latin Choir, with a Latin Archbishop officiating; but to the Greek tongue, as nobler & more ancient is to be attributed, that before the Latin born from it it is named; although the Greek Bishop was subjected to the Latin Bishop (as now Chorepiscopi or Suffragans) & the Latin Clergy in the Latin city held the more powerful parts, & by far the greatest number of churches, with the Greeks holding only six.

[11] The feast is transferred from 14 to 15. There is no reason therefore, why in the series of Latin Bishops thou shouldst think the Catalogue of John the Deacon to fail, on account of that Calepodius & some similar few perhaps Greeks, whose series no one took care to weave. About S. Fortunatus however, on whose cause we have deduced these things, just as we believe those asserting, that his name in older Fasti is found inscribed on XIV June; so we think we should follow the authority of Caraccioli, writing about the year MDCXXIII, that today the feast is held on XV of the same month; namely transferred on account of the more powerful festivity of S. Basil; from the Roman rite undertaken after the Tridentine Council. I doubt however, whether outside the church of S. Euphebius, where the bodies are held, the cult of him & of S. Maximus has extended itself, or now extends.

[12] We have the Order of reciting the divine Office, for the whole city & diocese of Naples printed in the year MDCLXXXV, without any mention of either Saint either through the year, or in the Kalendar: & an ancient booklet of proper Offices, at the end of which is read, Here ends the Office of the Saints & Protectors of the city of Parthenope, The Translation is celebrated 9 June, printed at Naples in the year of the Lord MCCCCXXV, has nothing about those Saints. Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of Saints of Italy, confounded S. Fortunatus, whose body is held in the church of S. Euphebius, with another younger, coeval with S. Gregory Pope & Agnellus Abbot, not yet inscribed among the Saints, nor everywhere to be praised: & since the day on which he migrated from this life is unknown, His birthday, he says, is celebrated on IX June: on which day a solemn procession is held to that church, in which his body is buried; which long unknown, in the year of salvation MDLXXXIX was found, & together with the body of S. Maximus the Bishop placed in a leaden chest. And so in the alphabetical Index of names both he & S. Maximus are noted, & in both places is added on IX June the body in the church of S. Euphebius.