CONCERNING SAINT POMPONIUS
BISHOP OF NAPLES.
ABOUT DXXXVI.
CommentaryPomponius, Bishop of Naples (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] Concerning the earlier Bishops of Naples John the Deacon of that same Church wrote in a Chronicle, who lived in the IX century in the times of S. Athanasius Bishop of Naples, whose illustrious deeds by narrating, he imposed an end on his Chronicle, and has these few things concerning S. Pomponius. He made a basilica within the city of Naples, The time of his See. to the name of the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, which is called the Church of the Greater, built with a great work: who was in the times of Pope Hormisdas and of John, Felix and Boniface the Apostolic ones, and also of Anastasius and Justin the Augusti. These holy Pontiffs lived in the sixth century of Christ, all enrolled in the Roman Martyrology. But S. Hormisdas sat from the year 514 to the year 523, then S. John the first until the year 526, afterward S. Felix IV until the year 530, and at last S. Boniface until the year 533. But the cited Emperors reigned Anastasius from the year 496 until the year 518, to whom then substituted Justin lived until the year 527. Moreover the said John the Deacon has, that Pomponius presided for 28 years and 10 days. Hence Ughellus gathers in the Archbishops of Naples, if that is true, that he was elected about the year 508, but died in the year 536. The Church of S. Mary built, But the Church of S. Maria Maggiore which he built, the same Ughellus thinks was dedicated by the said S. John the first Roman Pontiff about the year 525, when by the command of King Theodoric compelled to go to Constantinople he passed through Naples, with a retinue, as is credible, of Cardinals and Bishops. The title of this matter set in the vulgar tongue is extant in the atrium of that church, whether also it was endowed with indulgences? as in the Catalogue of Bishops Bartholomew Chioccarellus writes: but he errs, when he thinks it is brought forward by him from ancient marble. For what antiquity can there be of a stone, written there in the vulgar tongue, where not until late did the Latin tongue, not to say the Italian vulgar one, begin to be used? since before that the sacred rites were there done in Greek, and the people spoke Greek. Add that there it is said the Pontiff gave an indulgence of ten thousand six hundred days, on whatever day anyone before that same marble should recite a Pater and Ave. He must be very unskilled in ecclesiastical antiquities and origins, who now is ignorant that before the XII or XIII century nothing such could be written: therefore that it is a mere fable, by which to that marble so great an antiquity is attributed, that it was set there in the VI century; since the words sculpted in it do not bear an age of a hundred years, in nothing differing from the present-day phrase.
[2] But Caesar Eugenius being witness in the Naples Sacred page 69, the body of S. Pomponius, formerly buried in the said Church, The body under the altar. is even now preserved with due veneration under the altar; where formerly, as old tradition bears, a liquor welled forth: and this from a hole still extant in the chest whence it flowed, seems to be gathered. The same testifies Chioccarellus, saying that hole is in the marble slab, which is above the chest: but the said chest is enclosed with iron gratings, in which (as is had in the acts of the visitation of the year 1580) these letters were inscribed: This basilica Pomponius the Bishop took care to be made, whose body is here placed. That frequent miracles also were wrought through him Ughellus indicates. His feast day is celebrated on this 14 May especially in the Naples Church of S. Maria Maggiore, The cult 14 May. and from the cited tables of the Naples Church is reported in the present-day Roman Martyrology in these words: At Naples in Campania S. Pomponius Bishop. Ferrarius makes mention of the same in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, but grieves that his deeds are unknown.
[3] From popular tradition therefore only is had, what the aforesaid Chioccarellus thus narrates: At the time when S. Pomponius presided over the Church of Naples, A demon under the form of a boar infesting the city is driven out, an evil demon gravely vexed the Neapolitans and savaged immoderately and beyond what can be believed. For in a huge open space of the city, assuming the form of a horrible boar, he afflicted them with nocturnal and horrendous spectres. Wherefore they, since all hope of escaping so great a danger was cut off, seeing no other remedy to remain than to flee to divine help, together with B. Pomponius more intently commended themselves to the Saints and the blessed Virgin Mary: and B. Pomponius having set about to expiate that foulness, when on a certain Sabbath day he had celebrated Mass, the following night in sleep
the blessed Virgin appeared, by whom he is admonished what was needful to be done. For she ordered him that he should erect a basilica to the Virgin herself in that place, where he should find a cloth of blue color, and in this manner the city would be freed from that danger. But Pomponius, that place being lustrated with sacred expiations, and the horrendous monster thence cast out, there as had been commanded built the basilica of B. Mary.
[4] For the memory of which deed the Neapolitans every year, in the greater church, celebrated certain games of the cart, and the annual memory of that matter; for the solace and recreation of the mind, with a great frequency of people, which were exhibited to the people by the Vassals of the Neapolitan church, from the neighboring villages and suburbs on the feast of the translation of S. Januarius, in the month of May, namely the third Sunday of the said month: concerning which John Pontanus in the Dialogue of Charon, Matthew Afflictus in the chapter Investiture, § Moreover, num. 5 on the cognizance of fief, and Jacobus Sannazarius in his Glomeri MSS. But since the greatest abuses and excesses had crept in, in the days of our fathers they were abrogated. what one could note. Perhaps there will be one, who, recollecting how in the ecclesiastical Histories it is sometimes read, that from churches of the Arians expiated by the Catholic rite, a demon was seen to go out in the figure of a pig; how also on the 7th of April treating of S. George Bishop of Mitylene in Lesbos we narrated, in what manner there a demon occupying a pig known to the people, and bringing it into the Episcopal See, presignified (according to the explanation of S. Symeon the Solitary) a heretical man under Leo the Armenian to be promoted into it. There will be, I say, perhaps someone, who recollecting such things, will suspect that to the Eutychian heresy, which under the Emperor Anastasius implicated in the same defiled and disturbed the Church in the time of S. Pomponius, pertains such a spectre offered to the citizens, of which that was the memory: or that a place formerly infamous for harlot-like foulnesses, was by divine impulse consecrated to the Mother of God, by which under such an appearance the spirit of fornication was seen to depart.