ON ST. PHOTINUS, BISHOP OF BENEVENTO IN ITALY,
IN THE FIRST CENTURY.
CommentaryPhotinus, bishop of Benevento. (S.)
G. V. H.
Among the very many disciples of St. Peter whom the pious tradition of the Italians venerates as having been set over their churches by the holy prince of the apostles, St. Photinus, first bishop of Benevento, there occurs St. Photinus, whom the Beneventans venerate as the first prelate of their church. Public cult is shown to this holy bishop in the cathedral church of Benevento, an altar having been consecrated in honour of St. Photinus together with the other holy bishops of that Church. The acts of the consecration are held in the archives of the cathedral church, which I myself read there in the year 1880, on the 5th of July, in a bundle comprising the acts from the years 1686–1692, in which last year 1692, on the second day of the month of December, the aforesaid altar was consecrated. In the diptych of the church of Benevento, which Archbishop Orsini published in the provincial synod in the year 1691, one reads thus: St. Photinus, ordained by the prince of the apostles in the year XL.
[2] on account of a deep-rooted tradition On St. Photinus, Mario de Vipera, archdeacon of Benevento Chronology of the Bishops of the Church of Benevento, p. 1, hands on the following: St. Photinus, disciple of the apostle Peter, sent by him to Benevento about the year of the Lord 40, was the first to exercise the episcopal office at Benevento, according to the tradition of our forebears. Which is probable, since St. Peter established a bishop not only at Naples but also at Pozzuoli and in other places, and much more in the city of Benevento, at that time most flourishing. Of the same saint we read in the Italian Hagiology In Ughelli, Italia Sacra, vol. VIII, p. 12: St. Photinus, as is commonly reported, was given as first bishop to Benevento by the holy apostle Peter, about the year of the Lord XL. He brought the Beneventans to the faith of Christ by his preaching, and when he had ruled the flock committed to him for the space of some years, he departed from the world, in what year is altogether unknown, just as the names and acts of his successors as far as St. Januarius have perished. Giovanni de Nicastro Pinacotheca Beneventana, book I, chapter 12, beginning the diptych of the holy church of Benevento, places St. Photinus in the first place in these words: St. Photinus, a Greek by nation, was chosen as first bishop by the prince of the apostles himself, in the fortieth year of salvation brought forth. Our Cantel also History of the Metropolitan Cities, part III, dissertation III, chapter 8, no. 6: By St. Potinus, he says (he was a disciple of the apostle Peter), the Beneventans were instructed in the Christian faith. With these agrees the distinguished Giovanni de Vita, canon of the church of Benevento [Antiquities of Benevento, vol. I, dissertation III. On the time at which the Christian faith was first received at Benevento], asserting that it was Photinus who, first ordained bishop of Benevento by the apostle Peter, laid the foundations of the Beneventan episcopate and of the Christian religion brought into that city. This tradition he says is rightly and deservedly commended by its simplicity. And as regards Benevento, the tradition of this matter, he says, has perhaps reached posterity the more sincere for being simpler than the others, since it boasts nothing magnificent or illustrious with a certain pomp of miracles about its first bishop Photinus and about the coming of Peter within its walls: content only to hold that the same Photinus was established as its first bishop by the same Peter.
[3] which the mention of St. Marcian does not weaken, One man who went against this Beneventan tradition was Francesco Pacca, archbishop of Benevento, a contemporary of Giovanni de Vita. This man, so Giovanni de Vita reports Ibid., in the encyclical letter which, raised to the pastoral office of his native city, he wrote according to custom, revealed to citizens wholly unaware of it, contrary to what had hitherto been commonly believed, that the first bishop of Benevento was St. Marcian, a martyr, disciple of St. Peter. The reason why he had departed from the received opinion he kindly gave me when I humbly inquired, namely that he recalled having once read in the Usuard of Santa Sofia, preserved in the Vatican library, to which an antiquity of the tenth or eleventh century is attributed, this in the month of June: At Benevento, of St. Marcian, bishop and martyr, disciple of St. Peter. So far Giovanni, whose following words we reproduce with entire assent. For after relating the discovery of doubtful credit, he continues thus: But I confess, I could not at once persuade myself of what the perpetual silence of everyone on this matter hardly allows to be conjectured as likely from a monument of doubtful credit; for who could believe that, when the church of Santa Sofia must for a long time have made almost daily use of that codex, and the name of St. Marcian as first bishop had thus been made known among all the Beneventans, yet the memory of the matter should have so perished that not even a slight trace reached posterity? He concludes rightly, and we conclude with him: Until, then, better things are brought forward, it will be safer for me to follow that common and most ancient tradition, approved by many writers of no mean note, which testifies that St. Photinus was ordained the first bishop of Benevento by St. Peter.
[4] he can be regarded. Let his honour and place, then, remain with St. Photinus, whom we venerate as the first bishop of that church, not indeed on the strength of any monuments of antiquity, but by the venerable tradition of the holy church of Benevento. The year of his ordination, however, which most hand down as doubtful, we by no means dare to fix about the fortieth after the birth of Christ; for we are of the opinion that Peter gave a bishop to Benevento much later.