ON STS. CASTUS AND CASSIUS,
BISHOPS, MARTYRS IN CAMPANIA.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
On the legitimate cult, the supposititious Acts, the uncertain Relics.
Castus, Bishop, Martyr in Campania (S.)
Cassius, Bishop, Martyr in Campania (S.)
G. H.
Michael Monachus, Canon of Capua, in the Sanctuary of Capua, diligently collected the things which became known concerning the veneration and Acts of these Martyrs, and among the four Calendars of Capua drawn from very ancient parchments, the third and fourth at this XXII of May, bring forth the Holy Martyrs Castus and Cassius, Sacred cult at Capua: and in the third it is added that three lessons are recited. Likewise in the second they are mentioned, the title of Martyrs being omitted. We have an ancient Breviary of Capua printed in the year MCCCCLXXXIX, in which the veneration of these Martyrs is prescribed, and concerning them are had three Lessons to be recited at Matins: but these, even in the judgment of Michael Monachus, rather contain an encomium or prologue of the Acts, than the Acts, to which the same Michael adds other lessons, which explain the Acts of martyrdom more, from elsewhere. In them they are said to be raised to the honor of the Episcopate, which Monachus thus confirms: SS. Castus and Casius are believed Bishops and are venerated by the people of Sora: for at Sora in an arch above the altar, and at Sora. are their images with the miter and Pastoral staff: Thither on May XXII proceeds the Clergy, who being received by the Prefect of the citadel with signs of joy, there celebrates a solemn Mass. When once Sora was besieged by enemies, in the night the Saints were seen above the mount, having in their hand a torch, and on the four sides of the mount a vast number of soldiers distributed in the form of a Cross. By which vision the enemies terrified withdrew, and invading Cales the city in their way they laid it waste.
[2] Thus far Monachus, in the Notations to the Lessons from the ancient Breviaries of Capua: the Acts borrowed from the Acts of SS. Castus and Secundinus July 1. which Lessons we would subjoin, were it not manifest to us, that they are word-for-word contracted from the more prolix Acts, transmitted to us from Gaeta, of SS. Castus and Secundinus, who suffered at Sinuessa, to be brought forth at the first of July on which they are venerated, laid at Gaeta under the altar near the sacristy, and brought into that city long before the year DCCCCLXVI, as we shall then say. These therefore leaving to the people of Gaeta, we give to the people of Sora those who are now venerated, as distinct: although not without scruple; not indeed as to SS. Secundinus and Cassius, whom their names sufficiently distinguish, but as to Castus; fearing lest he be one and the same, and, the Relics being divided into several cities, in one place joined to S. Cassius, in the other added to S. Secundinus, with a common feast in both places with this one and with that be venerated. Peter the Deacon book 2 on the Illustrious Men of Monte Cassino chapter 32 says: Gregory, Bishop of Terracina, offered as a little boy at Monte Cassino, of tenacious memory, lively in talent, was of so great gravity, sweetness, and eloquence, that by some he was called a column of the Church. He wrote the Passion of SS. Castus and Cassius … the Chant of SS. Castus and Cassius: their Hymns… But he was in the times of Alexius, Henry and John the Emperors, at the beginning of the XII century. Would that these his writings were extant unaltered.
[3] Concerning the time all things are equally uncertain to us, but we wished to subjoin their memory immediately to the memory of SS. Castus and Aemilius the Africans, The Relics whether at Prague, that the difference might more easily appear.
He who in the Ms. Martyrology of Monte Cassino at June XXI is referred to as S. Cassius the Martyr, perhaps belongs here. By a similar conjecture John Pezzina de Czechorod, Dean of Prague and Bishop of Samadria, in the Diary of his Metropolitan Church of S. Vitus at May XXII, indicated, that in it is had a notable part of the Relics of Castus the Martyr, brought from Lower Germany to Prague in the year MCCCLXXII. But perhaps these are of S. Cassius: at Cambrai, for Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium of Belgium, of his bones says there are some at Cambrai in the church of S. Autbert of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine; and a great bone in the Floreffe Abbey of the Premonstratensians at the Sambre near Namur. Aegidius also Gelenius, enumerating the Relics which are at Cologne in the Dutch chapel of SS. Willibrord and Boniface, makes mention of one orb, in which from the bodies, and at Cologne? both of eight other Saints, and of S. Cassius something was placed. But who shall make it probable that all are of one? Finally from letters given at Sora we understand, that there in the citadel a chapel is consecrated under the name of S. Castus, but nothing besides the bare name to this day with the title of Bishop and Confessor is found in the books of the Cathedral church.