ON ST. MARCELLINUS OF RAVENNA, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, IN ITALY,
IN THE YEAR 346.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Marcellinus, bishop and confessor, at Ravenna in Italy. (S.) BHL Number: 5229
BY C. B.
§ I. The sacred Fasti and chief writers who have mentioned the Saint.
Among the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris, first bishop of Ravenna, in the sacred see of that city, The Saint, who in the present Roman and other sacred Fasti all of whom popular tradition holds to have been designated for this see by the sign of a dove descending from heaven, all of whom, with the single exception of Proculus, I find inscribed in the sacred Fasti, St. Marcellinus occurs in the tenth place, who, although indeed, like St. Severus, his immediate successor, he is not inscribed in the older or classical Martyrologies, is yet commemorated in the present Roman, just as eight of his predecessors are, namely Aderitus, Eleucadius, Martianus, Calocerus, Probus, Dathus, Liberius and Agapitus: and all these indeed, if you except Probus alone, who is inserted in no sacred Fasti at all before the 10th day of November, are given that sacred honour on various days of the preceding months, on which accordingly they have already been given in our Work; but Marcellinus today. The words in which this last is done there are these few: At Ravenna, of St. Marcellinus, bishop and confessor. Further, I think this our Saint, who today also is venerated yearly with an Office in the church of Ravenna, was taken from the sacred tables of that church, such as Baronius praises in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology; whence likewise, most probably, flowed the announcement by which in two Roman manuscripts
manuscripts older than the present Roman, the Florentine Codices of Usuard, namely the Medicean and the Strozzian, reviewed by our Sollerius in the Preface to Usuard, number 254, and then related by him among the Usuardine Auctaria, he is found today, although meanwhile in them Marcellus is wrongly written for Marcellinus, celebrated in this manner: At Ravenna, of St. Marcellus, bishop of the same city and confessor.
[2] To this Usuardine Auctarium are added the sacred Fasti he is inscribed today, and with eulogies too, composed by Galesini, Ferrari and Chastelain. And Chastelain indeed, in his Universal Martyrology, briefly commemorates the Saint in exactly the same words, rendered in French, as is done in the Roman; but Galesini, and especially Ferrari, the former in his Martyrology of the year 1578, the latter in the General Catalogue of the Saints of Italy of the year 1613, do so in a somewhat longer statement. I copy the words of both. Those of the former are these: At Ravenna, of St. Marcellinus, bishop, a man of such holiness that by his reputation alone he deterred men from evil-doing and inflamed them to observe the divine laws; and those of the latter these: Marcellinus, the 10th bishop of Ravenna from St. Apollinaris, chosen by the sign of a dove, presided over the church of Ravenna after St. Agapitus in the year of Salvation 230, Urban being Supreme Pontiff. Which church he administered for 50 years, or, as others relate, 47, with such holiness and piety, joined with prudence, that by this reputation he frightened men away from evil-doings and inflamed them, chiefly by his example, to observe the divine laws; so that he freed many oppressed by the demon, and, assailed by many snares of the demons, he overcame them by fleeing to the divine help. At last, grievously afflicted amid great disturbance of affairs and persecution of the Church under the emperor Aurelian (under whom, while he was still bishop, Fusca the virgin and Maura her nurse were crowned with martyrdom), he departed from life on the third day before the Nones of October, Felix being Pope. His body, buried in the church of St. Probus, is said to have given forth a most sweet odour.
[3] from the lessons and tables of the church of Ravenna Nor do they only adorn the Saint with these eulogies, but they also assign as the source from which they drew them the History of Ravenna of Girolamo Rossi. To this, moreover, Galesini adds the writers of the Annals of the city of Ravenna, and Ferrari the monuments of the church of Ravenna. But who or what those Annals or their writers are, and what or what sort those monuments are, they do not declare. A Work composed under the title of Annals of Ravenna I have surely not known so far; but as regards the monuments of the church of Ravenna praised by Ferrari, since this hagiologist, treating of other Saints of Ravenna, from time to time also praises the lessons of the same church, which, however, he wrongly calls ancient (see our Work on St. Agapitus at the 16th of March), these perhaps make up no small part of those monuments, together with the Tables which, as I noted above, Baronius cites, and which I think are chiefly Calendars or Catalogues in which various Saints of Ravenna are inserted on various days of the year, either by name only or with a brief eulogy added, or with a precept of ecclesiastical cult to be paid to them. However the matter stands, Galesini at any rate has nothing that does not agree with Girolamo Rossi, and almost the whole eulogy with which Ferrari adorns the Saint is taken from the same historian of Ravenna. That judgment may be passed on the matter, it will be helpful to have transcribed his words too that bear on it.
[4] and from Girolamo Rossi Agapitus, he says towards the end of book 1, was succeeded as archbishop of Ravenna by Marcellinus, about the two hundred and thirty-second year from the birth of Christ, Urban being still Roman Pontiff. Marcellinus presided over the church of Ravenna for fifty years with such holiness and innocence that by his reputation alone he deterred men from evil-doing and inflamed them to keep and observe the divine laws. Very often (so great in him was the magnitude and excellence of the divine benignity) he suppressed without any labour the fury of the evil demons; and when they held the holy Man hemmed in and had surrounded him with snares laid, at his suppliant invocation of God they were at once prostrated and miserably afflicted. So far he; who then, setting out at somewhat greater length the various vicissitudes of the Roman empire, several irruptions of the Barbarians into it, the glorious martyrdom of Saints Fusca and Maura, the savage persecutions against the worshippers of Christ, and some other things which he would have to have happened while St. Marcellinus governed the church of Ravenna, finally concludes thus about the Saint: About that time (namely in the reign of Aurelian), Marcellinus, prelate of Ravenna, miserably and grievously affected amid such disturbance by the varied course of events, breathed out his soul on the third day before the Nones of October. While he was drawing his last breath, his corpse, they say, breathed forth a divine odour of most sweet ointments. He was buried in the church of St. Probus.
[5] Compare these now with the two eulogies transcribed here above, taken, he is celebrated by Galesini and Ferrari, and besides by two, and you will see that Galesini and Ferrari, their authors, undoubtedly drew from Girolamo Rossi, who besides teaches in more than one place the election to the episcopate of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris by the sign of a dove descending from heaven. Nor did both these hagiologists alone do this, but also Girolamo Fabri, canon of the metropolitan church of Ravenna, to be praised more than once below, in a book written in Italian which he entitled the sacred Monuments of ancient Ravenna and published in the year 1664, and some others who, after the year 1572, in which the History of Girolamo Rossi first came out, wrote about the affairs or Saints of the church of Ravenna. It is not worth the trouble to enumerate all these here, since they neither strengthen nor weaken Rossi's assertions about our Saint, and had taught almost nothing that was not drawn from them; and I proceed accordingly to the two ancient writers (for I do not stay here over the several others more recent than these) whom Girolamo Rossi, already so very often named, had as his lights, still only in manuscript, and used for composing the History of Ravenna.
[6] The former is Agnellus, also called Andrew, who wrote the Pontifical book, or Lives of the Pontiffs of Ravenna, about the year 840. who are older than the rest, the writers, namely Agnellus, Benedetto Bacchini, abbot of St. Mary of Lacroma, of the Order of St. Benedict of the Cassinese Congregation, dug this Work out of a manuscript Codex of the Este Library, and, having variously illustrated it, first made it public in print in the year 1708; and Muratori afterwards, having collated it anew with the Este codex, brought it in a repeated edition into volume 2 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, together with Bacchini's Observations and Dissertations upon it. Both, moreover, prefixed to the edition which they prepared a truly learned preface, in which they clearly set out who Agnellus was, in what age he flourished, and how far he is worthy of credit, with the defects under which he labours added too. The principal points bearing on this are extant with us, excerpted from Bacchini's Preface, in volume 5 of July, page 343, to which therefore, studious reader, or to the Preface of Bacchini, or also of Muratori, if it is at hand, I refer you for the sake of brevity for a fuller knowledge of Agnellus and of the Pontifical composed by him. Here now is what Agnellus, in Bacchini's edition, which I shall always mean here unless I say otherwise, part I, page 162, hands down to memory about our Saint, whom, regarding the order in which he sat after St. Apollinaris, he calls the tenth, in a single chapter under this title, Life of St. Marcellinus.
[7] Marcellinus the 10th, he says, just and God-fearing, laid low the camps of the demons by his prayers, whose words are recited here, and diligently guarded the sheep which had been entrusted to him by the Lord, lest that most savage wolf, which daily rages and storms, should be able to tear the camps of his church and snatch prey from his sheep, lest he should devour with bestial throat the souls of Christians which the holy Man had acquired for the Almighty Lord, lest he should subject them to his dominion, bound with the infernal chains of gehenna. And after the course of a very great space of years had passed, he lost his pontificate and his life, and his body gave forth such fragrance that the nostrils of those burying him perceived the most precious perfumes of myrrh and incense. He was buried, as others confess, in the basilica of blessed Probus. And he sat … years … months … days. So far Agnellus, whose words about our Saint I have wished to transcribe here chiefly for this reason, that they will still be of use below, although meanwhile, besides the duration of St. Marcellinus's see and the place of his burial, they teach almost nothing worthy of note. They do indeed besides depict the Saint as a most vigilant pastor, nor do I doubt that he in fact watched most diligently over the flock committed to him; yet, since vigilant and sedulous care of guarding the flock against all the snares of the demons is common to absolutely all pastors or bishops conspicuous for the praise of holiness, Agnellus perhaps attributed it by name to our Saint, although not specifically noted in the ancient monuments, lest otherwise his Life should appear too meagre. For since this writer, as Bacchini teaches in his first Dissertation upon him, chapter 2, had no written Acts whatever of either St. Severus, the twelfth prelate of Ravenna, or of his predecessors, he frequently builds only upon probable conjectures what he specifically hands down to memory about them, as he himself indicates clearly enough in the case of St. Exuperantius, the 19th prelate of Ravenna.
[8] and by an anonymous writer who reveals himself a canon, he is commemorated. Let us now proceed to the second of the ancient writers whom I mentioned above. Muratori, in the same manuscript codex of the Este Library from which Bacchini had unearthed Agnellus's pontifical book of the church of Ravenna, found Lives of some of the first bishops of Ravenna, or rather sermons delivered to the people about them, to which the title of Life was afterwards added, together with some other little Works, and inserted them all, distinguished by the title of Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna, into volume 1, part 2 of the Writers of Italian Affairs. He teaches in the Preface the causes for which he published this Work, and also that all those little lucubrations which it comprises proceeded from various authors who flourished after Agnellus; which, however (see our Work, volume 7 of September, page 400, number 9), seems, as regards the Lives of the bishops of Ravenna, to be so understood that of all of them there was one and the same collector, namely one who also from time to time changed and interpolated them at his pleasure, far later than the 13th century. Further, in that collection which he arranged, or, as Muratori preferred to call it, in the Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna, at page 554 and following, is read the Life of St. Probus, into which is inserted the History of the translation of him and of seven other prelates of Ravenna, made about the year 963, committed to writing by an anonymous author who was present at the event and reveals himself a canon (see the same volume 7 of September, page 403, number 25 and following); and this man, who, what chiefly bears on this, is himself the latter of the two ancient writers mentioned above, reckons St. Marcellinus among the holy bishops of Ravenna whose bodies he relates were translated. The words which he supplies pertaining to the translation of our Saint I shall copy below in their place, when there is talk of it. I now approach the things which must still be treated beforehand, and, that they may be set forth in the order in which they took place, a beginning must be made from the Saint's election to the see of Ravenna.
§ II. What helps and what, on the other hand, stands against the tradition of the people of Ravenna by which the Saint and the other first ten successors of St. Apollinaris in the see of Ravenna are said to have been chosen by the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of a dove.
That the Saint was designated bishop by a miracle, the popular (tradition), St. Marcellinus, and his nine predecessors in the see of Ravenna, and his immediate successor Severus, were prodigiously taken up to the episcopate by the Holy Spirit, who appeared in the form of a dove above the head of those to be chosen, if only the popular tradition which flourishes among the people of Ravenna and is believed by them is to be stood by. But what, after all, is to be determined about it? That St. Severus was in truth designated bishop by the sign of a dove appearing from heaven is not commonly called into doubt by the learned, although meanwhile it is not found handed down to memory by writers older than the ninth century and removed less than four hundred years from the event; but as regards St. Marcellinus and his nine predecessors, our Predecessors have already brought seven of them into our Work, as what I said at number 1 sufficiently discloses; yet concerning this tradition, as it extends at once both to St. Severus and to our Saint and his nine predecessors, that is, to all the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris in the see of Ravenna, they nowhere openly declared their mind. For although they then from time to time related, as the reasoning of the argument required, monuments or words of writers not obscurely insinuating it, yet they by no means pronounced whether these were consonant or dissonant with the truth, and they have left the matter, constantly believed by the church of Ravenna for many centuries now, to be more diligently discussed and defined by others until now, chiefly, as I think, for this reason, that suitable documents were not at hand for proving it invincibly and entirely according to the desire of the people of Ravenna.
[10] And indeed, since it is moreover not consonant with reason to reject ancient traditions of particular churches undoubtingly as false and invented without any solid and, as they call them, positive arguments, concerning which one must not pronounce rashly, tradition holds. and since they probably did not find such arguments militating against that ancient tradition of the people of Ravenna, they surely did so by the best and most prudent counsel; and it is therefore my fixed resolve, since moreover that tradition about the prodigious election to the episcopate regards our Saint no more than his predecessors already given in our Work, to follow their footsteps here, and wholly to abstain both from admitting and from rejecting it, since I understand that nothing at all is to be rashly pronounced about it. Yet, since this will perhaps not be pleasing to all who desire controverted and doubtful matters to be decided, or at least reasons apt for maturely weighing and balancing them to be proposed, I not only refer curious readers, as has already been done with us in volume 7 of September, on St. Aderitus, number 2, to Girolamo Fabri, who defends the tradition with all his strength, and to Benedetto Bacchini and Muratori, who propose what is apt to render it suspect of falsity; but also, for the benefit of those to whom these three writers may perhaps not be at hand, I copy the principal arguments which each adduces for his case, either in their own very words or at least contracted into a summary, adding observations from time to time too, where that shall seem opportune or fitting. I begin from those which Girolamo Fabri brings forward.
[11] Writers and monuments by which Fabri defends it. This writer, in the Work which, as I have already said, he entitled the Sacred Monuments of ancient Ravenna and published in print at Venice in the year 1664, part 1, page 344 and the three following, most zealously gathers together absolutely everything by which he perceived that the election to the episcopate of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris, made by the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of a dove, could be supported; and presently, having asserted that this is not a bare and simple tradition of the church of Ravenna but is affirmed by historians of great name and made of undoubted credibility by the most noble monuments of many centuries, he reviews various writers of various times who have approved that prodigious manner of election by their vote or confirmed it by their testimony. To these, further, among whom he also inserts the mosaic or tessellated work of the Ursian or cathedral church at Ravenna, which is nevertheless rather to be numbered among monuments than writers, he then adds various ancient monuments indicating that same manner of election, namely the Calendars of the church and province of Ravenna, the Lessons of the Breviary of Erfurt on St. Severus, the decree on the observance of feast days published in a provincial council by Giulio Feltrio della Rovere, Cardinal of Urbino, archbishop of Ravenna, the very ancient Painting of the church of St. James at Argenta, an ancient manuscript Missal which is kept in the archive of the chapter of Ravenna, and finally the very arms of the church of Ravenna, which comprise a white cross on a red field and, on its right, a likewise white dove holding a branch of green olive in its beak. Receive now what occurs to be observed on all these monuments and on the writers placed before them.
[12] together with some (others). Among these our Bolland is reckoned, as one who, on Saints Severus, Calocerus and Eleucadius, bishops of Ravenna, given in volumes 1 and 2 of February, holds as proved the election of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris made by the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of a dove; with what right this is done I do not at all perceive. For although Bolland there transcribes some words of earlier authors by which that heavenly manner of election is asserted, yet he neither adopts them nor declares whether they are consonant with the truth. But however this may be, besides not a few more recent writers, Desiderio Spreti, Pietro de' Natali, Riccobaldo of Ferrara, and finally also Blessed Peter Damian, a native of Ravenna, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, bishop of Ostia, are deservedly adduced by Fabri for the miracle of the election of which we are discoursing here, as also the mosaic or tessellated work of the church of Ravenna, since in it the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris, and no more, are seen depicted with a dove appearing above the head of each, a work praised more than once by our Predecessors too, on St. Agapitus at the 16th day of March, and elsewhere. But this too, as Fabri himself teaches, was not constructed before the year 1112, and of all the writers named the oldest is Blessed Peter Damian, who nevertheless was not born before the tenth century was nearly elapsed (see our Work, volume 3 of February, page 415), and who accordingly, whether, together with that ancient work of the church of Ravenna and the mentioned writers of a later age, he can make certain and undoubted the history of the prodigious election of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris, of whom the last, St. Severus, began to sit in the year 346, from which he was distant by more than six centuries elapsed between about the year 1000 and the year 346, let others judge.
[13] I now proceed to what it is also fitting to observe on the monuments enumerated above. which it is fitting to note, are proposed, Blessed Peter Damian is likewise, as far as I think, older than all these, and Fabri certainly brings forward nothing by which he might aptly prove the contrary. He says indeed that the arms of the church of Ravenna, which he praises in the last place, are more than a thousand years old, since they were already used in the very age of the exarchs of Ravenna, which, according to the opinion now more commonly received among the learned, runs from about the year 567 to about the year 742; but so ancient a use of those arms, about which it does not please me to dispute more here, he neither proves, nor, even if he proved it, would it on that account certainly follow that it was originally introduced from that prodigious election of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris in the see of Ravenna, made by the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of a dove; which, however, everyone sees is necessarily required for the end intended by Fabri. Further, this writer also adds to the monuments, about which let what has now been noted suffice, as a kind of corollary, the ancient Life of St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna, brought by Bolland into volume 1 of February of our Work, which most luminously teaches, in the cited volume, page 82 and the following, number 4, that the first successors of St. Apollinaris were chosen by the sign of a dove; but this, since, as Bolland teaches in the Commentary prefixed to it, number 5, it has an anonymous author of only the tenth or eleventh century, and hence not much older than Blessed Peter Damian, indeed perhaps even more recent, adds no great weight to the writers and monuments brought forward by Fabri for that prodigious election.
[14] Something somewhat stronger for the same can be argued from Agnellus, whom Fabri did not see, and an argument, at least favouring the tradition, is added: and whom he would otherwise also have called to his aid. For this writer, who, from what has been said, committed to writing the Lives of the prelates of Ravenna about the year 840, and hence flourished at least a century and a half before Blessed Peter Damian, part 1, page 169, introduces St. Severus, as he was meditating going to the church to be present at the election of the new bishop of Ravenna, speaking to his wife in these words: I will go, and I will see a wonderful vision, how a dove will come from high heaven and alight upon the head of the one chosen; which surely seem most plainly to indicate that the descent of the Holy Spirit under the visible form of a dove above the head of the one to be chosen in the elections of the pontiffs of Ravenna was already long customary in the age of Severus: and although, from the fact that Agnellus drew what he writes here about St. Severus not from ancient monuments but only from the narration of many elders, as he himself confesses, and was distant by the space of several centuries from all the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris, it could perhaps not undeservedly be contended that the prodigious election of these by the sign of a dove is not made certain by the recited words of that writer, yet there is, as far as appears, reason why it should be concluded from them that the tradition of the people of Ravenna about it is much older than the tenth or eleventh century, contrary to what some think.
[15] But if you wish to stand by Bacchini, whose arguments, and those of Muratori, are now to be produced, whence this, to whose antiquity Bacchini by reasoning, you will not admit even so great an antiquity for that tradition, as you will presently understand, and whence someone might perhaps suspect it to have arisen; for in the Observations which that writer appends to the Life of St. Severus, at page 174, he inclines to the opinion which holds that Severus perhaps pronounced by a prophetic spirit about his own future election the words of Agnellus just transcribed here, and this, as I think, on account of the reasons contained in the reasoning which he had set out there and on the preceding page, and which is reduced to about this: Agnellus writes thus of the prodigious election of St. Severus to the episcopate also in chapter 1, page 16: Whose (namely St. Severus's) priesthood was so much predestined by the Almighty Lord that at his election the Holy Spirit was sent in the form of a dove, which all the people saw with bodily eyes, and it rested upon his head, whence into a proverb, etc.; by which words he seems to hint at or explain a special miracle, previously unwonted at Ravenna, which first shone forth in the election of St. Severus through the Holy Spirit appearing under the form of a dove,
manner of divine providence, and moreover sufficiently suggests this by his silence about the dove which appeared at the election of the predecessors of St. Severus, constantly kept everywhere in the Lives of all of them.
[16] this, as regards substance Moreover, the priest Luidolph, who wrote another Life of St. Severus, likewise edited by Bolland in volume 1 of February, introduces there, at page 89, number 7, a monk of Ravenna whom he had himself heard, speaking thus of St. Severus: And while the people were praying, behold, suddenly a certain dove, flying down from above, settled upon his head, all beholding. Which some taking for a sign judged him worthy of the priesthood: but others, indignant that, clothed in such mean garments, he had presumed to stand among the chief men of the city, compelled him to go out of the church dishonourably, as his wife had wished would befall him; and on the second day, when he wished to lie hidden in the church, being betrayed by the dove on that day too, he stirred the hearts of those looking on. And on the third day, when, placed in the church, they were awaiting some sign from God, He who sees and judges not in the face but in the heart, as it were rebuking their hardness, showed openly to all, as before, through the dove, that he was worthy of the priesthood.
[17] described, is opposed, By which words it seems to be indicated that the prodigy of the Holy Spirit appearing under the form of a dove above the head of the prelate of Ravenna to be chosen first occurred at the election of St. Severus, the last of the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris; for by them the monk of Ravenna, or, if you prefer, Luidolph, from the account which he received from that man's own mouth, narrates that, the dove descending upon the head of Severus, some held him worthy of the priesthood, others otherwise, who also expelled him from the church, and did not obey the second descent of the dove, but waited for a sign to be shown; but all these things could not have happened if it had been known among the people of Ravenna from the elections of the preceding pontiffs that the man above whose head a dove appeared was designated bishop by God. And now, since the priest Luidolph too, as Bolland teaches in the cited volume of February, in the Commentary preliminary to the Life of St. Severus, number 7, flourished in the same ninth century as, from what has been said, Agnellus, who would not conclude from their words just recited that, in the course of the 9th century or even as it was inclining to its end, the prodigious election by the sign of a dove was reckoned peculiar to St. Severus, which in later times was believed common to all the prelates of Ravenna who sat in the chair of Ravenna from St. Apollinaris up to St. Severus?
[18] someone might perhaps suspect it first arose, Such, nearly, as regards substance, is the reasoning set up by Bacchini in the cited place; and if you think it legitimate, consider both whether the words of Agnellus transcribed here in the former place, that is, at number 14, are not to be taken in the sense towards which, from what has been said, this writer inclines, and also whether from these words, wrongly understood, the tradition of the people of Ravenna about the prodigious election of all the first eleven successors of St. Apollinaris did not first arise; which, although indeed it was not yet widely spread in the 9th century, yet in the course of time so gained strength that it seems to have been commonly admitted by all, at least by the people of Ravenna, not only in the 12th century, in which the mosaic work of the Ursian or cathedral church of Ravenna praised above was constructed, but also in the 11th century, in which Blessed Peter Damian flourished, who too, what is well to be noted, copied almost the very words of Agnellus recited there, in Sermon 1 on St. Severus, with these two words, solito more, which touch the knot of the difficulty proposed at number 14, added, introducing this Saint as saying to his wife: I will go and I will see a wonderful vision, namely, how a dove comes from heaven and settles upon the head of the one chosen, IN THE WONTED MANNER.
[19] But truly, however these things stand with regard to the tradition of the people of Ravenna, and whence in fact it arose, Muratori, to whom I come at last, suspects a far different origin of it. Hear him himself, in volume 1 of the Writers of Italy, part 2, page 527, in the Preface which he prefixed to the Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna, speaking thus in his own words: I would have you notice that it is commonly believed there (namely at Ravenna) that the Holy Spirit, under the visible form of a dove, indicated the first twelve bishops to be chosen by the clergy and people. For my part, I have no intention of snatching this persuasion from them (the people of Ravenna). Yet I do not cease to suspect whether such an opinion may have gained strength from some old painting wrongly understood. For since the election of bishops formerly depended on the votes of the clergy and people, and the secret motion of the divine Spirit was thought, and rightly, to influence it, and especially whenever the election fell upon holy Men, painters, forming the image of those bishops, painted the Paraclete above their head under the form of a dove, so that what had been accomplished by an invisible action only might be displayed sensibly to the eyes.
[20] Accordingly, the ignorant common people of the following centuries could easily take the symbol for history, Muratori suspects. and a fiction permitted to the painter for a certain fact. So the common people persuaded themselves that so many martyrs, after their neck was cut off, survived, not without an immense prodigy, and carried their head elsewhere in their own hands, for this one reason, that they had seen them in paintings carrying their head in their hands, whereas the painters wished to signify nothing else than that those martyrs underwent death for Christ by the loss of their head. There are also six hundred errors of this kind, or ill-supported opinions, to which only the licence of painters, wrongly received and explained by posterity, gave origin. Let the people of Ravenna be permitted to defend their tradition tooth and nail; but let me too be permitted to put forth my doubt in this place. You have now, learned reader, what favours and what, on the other hand, is opposed to the tradition of the people of Ravenna; whether it is rather to be assented to than dissented from, let each now determine at his discretion.
§ III. The time at which the Saint began to sit and died.
The Saint, whom, contrary to what our Predecessors once Our Predecessors treated in more than one place of the series and chronology of the first prelates of Ravenna, and first of all at the first day of February, sacred to St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna and confessor. What need of many words? In the Commentary preliminary to the Life of this Saint, §1, number 4, having brought forward some sacred Fasti in which at the Kalends of January the memory of another Severus, a martyr of Ravenna, is marked, with the title of bishop also added, they pronounce thus about this latter Severus, whom they had already brought into our Work at the said day of January: Since nothing is established about the martyr of Ravenna Severus, whom Girolamo Rossi says is venerated on the 1st of January, others refer to the 1st of February, except that he was crowned with martyrdom under Maximian, may it not be permitted to suspect that he was bishop; but that, since his Acts lay hidden, the more celebrated memory of the later Severus, the confessor, was preserved? But Ughelli pronounces severely, in volume 2 of Italia sacra, that it is a lie to assert several Severuses. We do not indeed assert it; but by what argument the most learned man would confirm his severe censure we do not sufficiently perceive. That there was certainly a celebrated opinion long ago about St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna and martyr, will be plain below from the Life by Luidolf, to whom, in chapter 2, number 5, the monk of Ravenna answers thus: "Severus, whose Life you desire to know, was not a martyr, but a confessor." Therefore Luidolf had so inquired about the bishop as to think him a martyr; if indeed the answer fits the question.
[22] suspected, St. Severus the martyr did not precede, To these, further, after they had disputed some things against Girolamo Rossi in §2 about the age of St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna and confessor, that is, the time at which he began to sit and died, they also subjoin at number 13: If anyone proves that St. Marcellinus was older, and that some Severus succeeded him, let him by all means say that there were two Severuses, Baronius himself not altogether opposing, but that the fame of the former was obscured by the celebrity of the latter. What if that martyr Severus, whom we have said is venerated on the Kalends of January, killed under Maximian, was a bishop? Many, as we said in the preceding § and at that day, establish a bishop and martyr on that day. Nor can it be proved from the Acts of his martyrdom, which do not exist, that he was not a bishop. Our Predecessors therefore, as is plain from these two texts now transcribed here, once suspected that before St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna and confessor, and hence also before our Saint, since, according to themselves and to what is to be said, he was his immediate predecessor, the St. Severus the martyr mentioned above had also sat in the chair of Ravenna, and that another Marcellinus, distinct from our Saint and older than he, could also have preceded him. But St. Peter Chrysologus, himself too a bishop of Ravenna, before the year 449, in which he departed from the living, spoke of St. Apollinaris, the first prelate of Ravenna, in Sermon 128 in this manner: Blessed Apollinaris, in the first priesthood, alone adorned this church of Ravenna with the native and illustrious honour of martyrdom. And by these words we are clearly taught that no prelate at all of Ravenna who lived before Peter Chrysologus, if you except St. Apollinaris, was crowned with martyrdom, and hence that St. Severus the martyr, put to martyrdom about a century and a half before the age of Peter Chrysologus, as is noted about him with us in volume I of January, page 20, cannot be placed in their series before our Saint and St. Severus the confessor, who ended his life about the year 390.
[23] Nor is there reason why you should on that account accuse our Predecessors here: Marcellinus, also older, for since they spoke not by asserting but only by suspecting, they did not need to inquire so very scrupulously into the matter, and to consult the mentioned sermon which Peter Chrysologus delivered about St. Apollinaris, not about St. Severus the martyr. Moreover, they themselves laid aside that suspicion, which they had insinuated when they published the aforesaid volume of February in the year 1658, only a decade later, when publishing the second of March, on St. Agapitus, who, from what is to be said, was the immediate predecessor of our Saint in the see of Ravenna. For there, of the mosaic or tessellated work of the Ursian church at Ravenna mentioned above, which they had previously known only somehow from the description of Italy of Leandro Alberti, and had then themselves seen with their own eyes at Ravenna and found to be very ancient, they speak thus at number 3: We surely defer much to that ancient picture, and, so long as no more weighty monuments are at hand from which it may be shown that some fault has crept into that series, we judge that it must be stood by: and in this series of the bishops of Ravenna which they record in these words only the following nine occur who sat before St. Severus the confessor and his immediate predecessor St. Marcellinus, namely Aderitus, Eleucadius, Martianus, Calocerus, Proculus, Probus, Dathus, Liberius and Agapitus or Agapetus; so that our Predecessors, since they nonetheless judged, in the place just cited, that one must not depart from that series, had already laid aside their suspicion, which I have set out, about St. Severus the martyr and an older Marcellinus, when they made public the second volume of March in the year 1668. And surely in fact also
Severus the martyr, and a Marcellinus older than our Saint, seem to be excluded from the number of the bishops of Ravenna if only for this reason, that they do not appear in the series of these bishops assigned by Agnellus either, since it is plainly similar to the one already produced from the mosaic work of the Ursian church, Agnellus being, from what has been said, older both than this mosaic Work itself and than all the writers who treat of the succession of the prelates of Ravenna.
[24] But, you will perhaps say, in the Life of St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna, or any other, whatever may be opposed, already praised above at number 13, and printed with us in volume I of February in the former place, the anonymous author records thus at number 4: For Christ, the king so clement and pious, adorning this city (namely Ravenna) above others, distinguished it for the preeminent merits of the same its triumpher, blessed Apollinaris, to such a degree that, from the time that that happy soldier, crowned with the laurel of martyrdom, entered into the joy of his Lord, He supplied, after the likeness of the twelvefold summit of the Apostles, twelve successors to him through various courses of years, not chosen by human industry but rather called by divine providence, and upon whose heads a dove sent from heaven rested; and by these words it is most clearly indicated that twelve successors of St. Apollinaris in the see of Ravenna were designated to the episcopate by the sign of a dove sent from heaven. Now, since of all the bishops of Ravenna who are said to have been chosen by a miracle of this kind the last of all, as is now sufficiently agreed among the learned, was St. Severus the confessor, and since in the series which both Agnellus and the mosaic work of the Ursian church present only ten successors of St. Apollinaris precede him, it is necessary that there be added to that series, if not either St. Severus the martyr or a Marcellinus older than our Saint, at any rate another successor of St. Apollinaris of another name who sat before St. Severus the confessor and his predecessor Marcellinus. Moreover, you will go on, in the Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna inserted by Muratori into volume 1, part 2 of the Writers of Italy, and praised above, at page 552 the anonymous author of the Life, as it is called, of St. Proculus, bishop of Ravenna, writes thus: It (the church commonly named of St. Theodore) is situated within the walls of the city of Ravenna, where these miraculous and marvellous things (he means the descent of the Holy Spirit in the Form of a dove) always took place in the elections of the pontiffs of Ravenna from the glorious passing of blessed Apollinaris up to the times of blessed Severus, prelate of the same church, who was the twelfth from blessed Apollinaris in the order of the pontificate, as the tradition now common and the sufficiently certain assertion of persons has it; and from these words exactly the same seems to be concluded as from those of the Life of St. Severus just recited.
[25] not expressed in the Agnellian series, he had no predecessor, I confess it can not undeservedly seem so, and so indeed it seemed to Muratori in the Annotation which he subjoined to this text. But who can declare for certain whether that anonymous author, by no means to be praised for accuracy, does not make St. Severus the confessor the twelfth successor of St. Apollinaris chosen by the sign of a dove, counting St. Apollinaris himself, who, although indeed he was not designated bishop by the visible sign of a dove sent from heaven, yet can be believed to have been constituted first prelate of Ravenna by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Why cannot the anonymous writer of the Life of St. Severus, whose words too I gave in the preceding number, be understood in a similar sense? Desiderio Spreti, On the Origin and Greatness of the city of Ravenna, book I, most luminously teaches that twelve successors of St. Apollinaris were raised to the episcopate by the sign of a dove sent from heaven, and yet, presently reviewing them one by one, assigns only nine who sat before St. Marcellinus, the immediate predecessor of St. Severus, and nevertheless adds expressly that St. Severus is the last of the prelates of Ravenna at whose election the Holy Spirit descended by a certain divine providence. The anonymous author of the Appendix added by Bacchini to the pontifical book of Agnellus does the same too, although less openly; so that it does not seem at all unusual for writers, when they say that twelve successors of St. Apollinaris were chosen with a dove as indicator, to reckon St. Apollinaris himself among them. However that may be, since of the two anonymous authors of the Lives of Severus and Proculus already praised the former, as I said at number 13, flourished not before the tenth or even the eleventh century, and the latter, as he himself indicates soon after the words already recited from him, not before the thirteenth century, both are far more recent than Agnellus; whence it comes about that he rather than they is to be stood by, and hence that, whatever they write, more probably no other either, distinct from St. Severus the martyr and the older Marcellinus, whom the Agnellian series of the prelates of Ravenna does not present, occupied the chair of St. Apollinaris at Ravenna before St. Severus the confessor and his immediate predecessor Marcellinus.
[26] and immediately to St. Agapitus, not about the year 231, as Rossi would have it, Further, that you may understand why so much deference is besides to be paid to that series, or rather to Agnellus, hear Bacchini speaking, in his first Dissertation upon this writer, page 119, about the source from which he drew it: We know…, he says, that the series and names of the pontiffs were sufficiently known to the ancients from the Diptychs, by which they were recited in order during the solemnities of the Mass, from which it is fitting that the series of the pontiffs of Ravenna was gathered by Agnellus, or by the elders who supplied the information, or from the Ursian church, in which he says elsewhere that he was brought up from his earliest age. So he; and since it appears that one must subscribe to him here, I am persuaded that our Saint, who, from what has been said, did not, I think, have as predecessors St. Severus the martyr and some older Marcellinus, since they are not expressed in the Agnellian series, succeeded St. Agapitus immediately in the see of Ravenna, since in the same series he is placed after him with no one in between. But, to come now to the chronology, at what time did this happen? Girolamo Rossi (see his words copied at number 4) pronounces for about the year 231; but he brings forward no older guarantor at all for his statement, nor do I think this conformable to the truth. For suppose for a while, as he adds, that Marcellinus presided over the church of Ravenna for not less than fifty years; even so it will necessarily follow that he was taken from among the living not later than the year 281, since fifty years added to the year 231 lead to that.
[27] But in fact, since, as Rossi himself confesses, St. Severus immediately succeeded Marcellinus but, the year in which he died being determined, as and was present at the council of Sardica, held, as is agreed among all, in the year 347, it will be necessary, if the calculations of Girolamo Rossi are to be stood by, that he occupied the see of Ravenna for at least sixty-six years; nay more, since it is proved by our Predecessors, volume 1 of February, page 80, number 9, that he was still surviving among the living about the year 390, he would have lived more than a century in the episcopate; and since this appears altogether incredible, it is necessary that Marcellinus be established to have died later than the year 281, and also to have been substituted for St. Agapitus in the see of Ravenna later than the year 231, lest otherwise his episcopate too be excessively prolonged. But how much later did this promotion of the Saint to the episcopate take place? That depends partly on the year which was that of his death, and I accordingly designate this here beforehand. Since St. Severus was present as bishop at the council of Sardica, held, as I have said, in the year 347, he certainly did not receive the church of Ravenna to govern later than this very year; and that this happened in the year 346 our Predecessors prove, in volume 1 of February, in the Commentary preliminary to the Acts of this Saint, number 9, from the Life written by an anonymous author, in which at number 6 it is expressly related that St. Severus was created bishop in the consulship of Constantine for the 4th time and Constans for the 3rd time, Augusti, that is, in the already mentioned 346. And surely that this did not happen earlier than this year appears if only from the fact that otherwise the episcopate of Severus, since he was still surviving among the living about the year 390, as I have already said, would have to be prolonged beyond what is sufficiently credible. Now, since according to the Agnellian series, which, from what has been said, is to be stood by, our Saint immediately preceded St. Severus in the episcopate, he most probably exchanged this mortal life for the immortal in that very year.
[28] Let us now consider about how much later than Rossi establishes it is shown that he succeeded at or about the beginning of the 4th century, St. Marcellinus was created prelate of Ravenna. Agnellus (see number 7) writes thus of the Saint: And after the course of a very great space of years had passed (that is, as I think, a very great space having passed through the course of years), he lost his pontificate and his life; the Saint, therefore, according to this writer, than whom we have none older or of greater authority in this matter, held the pontificate of the church of Ravenna for a very great, or rather a very long, space of years, so that Girolamo Rossi, who had Agnellus in manuscript as his light, although he does not praise him there, not without foundation defines it, in the words recited at number 4, as fifty years, although he wrongly indicates that these ran from the year 231 to the year 281. Yet, since only forty years, or a few fewer still, seem also capable of being called a very great or very long space of years when there is talk of the time during which someone sat as bishop, our Saint succeeded St. Agapitus not, indeed, undoubtedly in the year 296, as would have to be said if he had certainly sat fifty years, but more probably at or about the beginning of the 4th century, to which chronological limit, since it comprises a latitude of some years, both forty and fifty years lead, computed in retrograde order from the year 346, in which, from what has been said, Marcellinus died. Gather from this now about how much later than Rossi establishes St. Marcellinus was substituted for St. Agapitus in the see of Ravenna.
[29] nor the Acts of the Roman council, since they, Further, the matter could be defined more closely than from what has been said, if only the year about which St. Agapitus, our Saint's immediate predecessor, departed from the living were known for certain from elsewhere; but I do not know whether it can be assigned sufficiently aptly and safely in any other way than that in which we have already determined, after a fashion, the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint. Nor is there reason why you should adduce for this purpose the acts of the Roman council, celebrated, as most will have it, in the year 337 under Pope Julius I, and our Predecessors, who, because St. Agapitus, bishop of Ravenna, is mentioned in them, deferred, in volume 2 of March, page 426, the death of this Saint, and the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint, beyond the said year 337; for those Acts are not apt for determining the time at which St. Agapitus died and St. Marcellinus began to sit, since they are supposititious and altogether unworthy of credit, as will become plain from what is presently to be said; and as regards our Predecessors, there is no reason why anyone should greatly wonder that they deferred the death of St. Agapitus and the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint beyond the year 337: they did
so because they had not yet seen Agnellus, by whom it is luminously related that St. Marcellinus, having ended his life in the year 346, as they themselves establish in the same place, lived in the episcopate for a space of very many years, and because to represent the aforesaid acts as supposititious, or even only to call them into suspicion of forgery, while the reins of criticism, even sound and moderate, were still drawn too tight, would perhaps have been reckoned an impiety by some.
[30] although they were held in esteem by some, Moreover, that it may seem still less wonderful that our Predecessors were moved by the aforementioned acts of the Roman council to defer the death of St. Agapitus and the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint until after the year 337, they were not the only ones who deferred much to these; for Baronius in the Martyrology and the Annals, Girolamo Rossi, although he too had access to Agnellus, in his History of Ravenna, and Ughelli in volume 2 of Italia sacra, among the archbishops of Ravenna, in order to place fittingly among them St. Agapitus, whom they saw mentioned in the said Acts, turned upside down the series of the same archbishops of Ravenna assigned by Agnellus and expressed in the mosaic work of the Ursian church, in which Marcellinus immediately follows Agapitus, Severus Marcellinus, and Liberius II Severus: and Baronius indeed establishes that Agapitus sat immediately before Severus; but Ughelli and Rossi multiply Agapituses, the latter devising another Agapitus after Severus, the former making three out of one, of whom the first occupied the see of Ravenna before St. Marcellinus, the second after him, and the third finally after St. Severus. So much did these three writers just praised, and many others, once make of those Acts of the Roman council, which are found inserted in volume 2 of the Councils in Labbe; but on the contrary they are now held in no esteem at all among the more recent critics, and deservedly indeed: for that, whatever may meanwhile be the case with the council itself, which perhaps was in truth celebrated, they are certainly supposititious, Tillemont, volume 7 of the Mémoires, Note 2 on Pope Julius I, Bacchini, Dissertation I on Agnellus, already cited more than once, and some others demonstrate most luminously; and that the studious reader may perceive this, and that the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint is not to be placed after the year 337, I copy, as regards substance, the principal arguments by which they establish it.
[31] Those Acts, from the various chronological characters which they contain, yet that they are supposititious, are marked at the beginning: In the fourth year of the Augusti Constantius and Constans…, in the sixth Indiction; and at the end: Felicianus and Maximianus, most illustrious men, being consuls; but this college of consuls is nowhere found in the whole series of the Fasti; and the sixth Indiction by no means coheres with the fourth year of the reign of the Augusti Constantius and Constans, since the latter designates the year of Christ 340 and the former 347, so that from this head alone the forgery of the Acts sufficiently betrays itself. But the council itself, considered in itself, demonstrates this still more evidently. For it consists only of a sermon of Pope Julius against the Arian heresy, which contains nothing at all of the greatness of mind which shines forth in the known letter of this Pontiff to the Orientals, and on the contrary offers nothing that is not worthy of the barbarism of Isidore Mercator, who forged two letters for the same Julius. That sermon is first directed to the Fathers of the council, and then degenerates into a letter written to absent bishops, in which they are asked to subscribe to the council, which defines nothing at all. It is also to be noted that the third part of that sermon, from the words, for those who divide, etc., up to the words, but has before the ages, is taken word for word and in continuous sequence from the encyclical letter of the council of Sardica, as it is found in the Tripartite History, comprising the end of the genuine letter of the council and the beginning of the speech joined to it by Theodoret.
[32] Hence it now comes about that the Acts, whose forgery I judge to be proved by Bacchini and Tillemont, are demonstrated, prove that this happened later. are surely deservedly called by some, with whom Pagi agrees in his Critica at the year of Christ 337, in Labbe, in the volume of Councils cited above, page 527, in a Marginal Note, a farrago reduced to the form of a council by Isidore Mercator from the Tripartite and other sources. Further, the bishops too whose names are listed most plainly betray its falsity or forgery; for among them, to omit the others who are likewise wrongly named, there appears in the fourth place Julius, bishop of Milan, unknown to all antiquity; Baronius indeed inclined to the opinion by which he persuaded himself that that Julius, bishop of the Milanese, was surnamed Maternus, and was not distinguished from that very man whose notable Work on the mysteries of profane religions we have under the name of Julius Firmicus Maternus, vir clarissimus. But, besides the fact that Bacchini clearly proves this author different from Maternus, bishop of Milan, to whom the other name of Julius cannot therefore be ascribed, Maternus, bishop of Milan, could not have been present at a Roman council celebrated in the year 337, since by a happy departure from the living he had already migrated to those above either in the year 305, as Cuper more probably thinks in volume 4 of July, in the Commentary preliminary to the Acts of this holy prelate, number 8, or in the year 303, as Papebroch and Sassi contend in the Bishops of Milan. I add no more, since what has been brought forward suffices, as I think, for everyone to perceive that the Acts of the praised Roman council have been most luminously demonstrated by Tillemont and Bacchini to be supposititious; and now, that I may at length put an end to this §, since this is so, those Acts surely by no means prove that either the death of St. Agapitus or the beginning of the episcopate entered upon by our Saint is to be deferred beyond the year 337, or even removed from the beginning of the 4th century.
§ IV. Place of burial, finding and translation of the relics, present-day cult.
The body of the Saint, which was laid in the church of St. Probus at Classe, In what place the sacred corpse of St. Marcellinus, which is said to have breathed forth a most sweet odour immediately after his death, was committed to the tomb, Agnellus teaches in the eulogy which I recited above, in these few words about the Saint: He was buried, as others confess, in the basilica of blessed Probus; so he; and although he received the matter, as he hints, only from tradition, yet it does not seem that it should be doubted that our Saint in fact obtained his tomb in the church of St. Probus, since his sacred remains were afterwards found in it, while Peter the fourth, according to others the fifth, was governing the church of Ravenna, as I shall teach below. Further, that church of St. Probus, about which see also our Work, volume 7 of September, page 401 and following, was situated in the town of Classe, which today is about three miles distant from Ravenna towards the sea, and which formerly constituted a part of this most celebrated city, if these words, which Rossi supplies in book 4 of the History, page 224, are consonant with the truth: And there were five equally noble parts of Ravenna: Classe, Caesarea, Ravenna, Palatiolum and Tauresium. So much of the place where the Saint was buried; now we must speak of the finding and translation of his body. It had lain laid up in the church of St. Probus at Classe, together with the bodies of some other prelates of Ravenna, for not less than six centuries, when at length they were all found in the 10th century, translated to Ravenna, and honourably deposited there in the Ursian or metropolitan church, as what is now to be said will disclose.
[34] found about the year 963, and translated to Ravenna, by an anonymous writer, The History of the finding and translation is found inserted in the Life of St. Probus, which Muratori presents in volume 1 of the Writers of Italy, part 2, in the Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna, page 554 and the three following. This an anonymous author, notice of whom you will find here at number 8, and in volume 7 of September, page 403, numbers 25 and 26, committed to writing, and he writes that the event, at which he himself was present, took place under the care of Peter the Younger, the fourth prelate of Ravenna of that name; so that, since he occupied the chair of Ravenna from the year 923 up to the year 970 (see the same volume 7 of September, page 403, number 26), those sacred bodies were found and translated to Ravenna within that space of time which runs between these two years, namely about the year 963, as some relate. They were eight in number; and at first, the praised anonymous writer relates, only three of them were found, which were those of Saints Probus, Aderitus and Calocerus; and after he has set forth at the same time in what order and manner these were carried to Ravenna, with what joy, preparation and pomp they were received by the archbishop and people and deposited in the metropolitan church, he subjoins, only a few things being interposed, that not long afterwards there stood by a certain Urbanus in his sleep (Rossi, who comprises the anonymous writer's lucubration in a compendium in book 1 of the History of Ravenna, calls him a patrician of Ravenna) a Man honourable in countenance, venerable with white hair, who taught him in these words that five other bodies of holy prelates of Ravenna lay laid up besides in the church of St. Probus at Classe: You have done quite enough justly, you who have not permitted the bodies of the Saints to be divided without faction: but you have left five others; and there * they are not inferior to those whom you carried away.
[35] Having said this by way of preface, he presently sets forth the solicitude of the bishop for finding those five other bodies of Saints, whose words are given here, it is related, and then, after some things interposed, in which he teaches the reader that these were the sacred remains of Saints Proculus, Dathus, Liberius, Agapitus and Marcellinus, he proceeds thus: Having learned which things, the Prelate directed the same Nathinaeus, namely he who had earlier searched for the bodies of Saints Probus, Aderitus and Calocerus, with certain chief men and kinsmen of that city, to search out the bodies of these (namely of Saints Proculus, Dathus, Liberius, Agapitus and Marcellinus). And they, searching vigorously in the aforesaid church of blessed Probus, at length with much sweat found two sepulchres, lying hidden in different ways and ingeniously opened, and in one of these they saw three bodies buried, in the other two. And drawing these out of the wooden cases, because these were very old, and wrapping them in linen, they carried them to Ravenna with many hymns, exulting with great joy. And because it was the second day of the Rogations before the solemnity of the Lord's Ascension, the whole people with the prelate himself, as we said before, came to meet us. Then a certain man, straitened by an infirmity which physicians call mania, while the bodies of the Saints were being carried to the Ursian church, was brought, being very furious, by his sons, whom he strove, as far as he was able, to devour with his bite; yet so compelled he was brought with them as far as the aforesaid church, and was placed with great force beneath these and the three former; although he was not at once snatched from his sickness, his fault hindering, yet the time was not long protracted by their prayers before he was restored to health; whom we afterwards saw, not a little modest and devout, making supplication at the bodies of the aforesaid Saints. Him too we asked whether he was well: he replied thus, with a modest face, that by the prayer of the Saints, not by his own merit, God favouring, he was so sound that he felt nothing of the weakness of his past sickness. But finally, the five bodies of these Saints
have not yet been laid in the ground. For they still remain wrapped in linen upon a certain vault beneath the arched roof of the church.
[36] So far he, not only teaching the translation and finding of the sacred bodies of St. Marcellinus and the other four, where afterwards, but not in the very namely Proculus, Dathus, Liberius and Agapitus, but also most plainly indicating towards the end that those sacred remains had not yet, at the time when he wrote these things, been laid up beneath the high altar of the metropolitan church; with which honour, however, they were afterwards endowed, as will become plain from what is to be said. Girolamo Rossi, already so very often praised, hands down to memory thus in book 5 of the History of Ravenna, at the year 963: At this time Archbishop Peter (namely the fourth, as has been said above) caused the holy corpses of Saints Aderitus, Calocerus, Probus, Proculus, Dathus, Liberius, Agapitus and Marcellinus to be translated from the church of St. Probus, which was by the sea, to Ravenna, into the Ursian church, as we have related above (namely in book 1), and consecrated and dedicated to all these most holy archbishops the high altar of the same Ursian church on the third day before the Nones of March. Were the bodies of Saints Marcellinus, Probus and all the others listed here perhaps deposited by Archbishop Peter beneath this altar of the Ursian or metropolitan church at Ravenna at that very time which Rossi designates in the recited words? This surely probably happened then to the venerable remains of Saints Probus, Aderitus and Calocerus, but not to those of Saints Marcellinus, Proculus, Dathus, Agapitus and Liberius.
[37] in the year of the translation. So I judge because the anonymous writer, whose words regarding the translation of St. Marcellinus I have already copied, presently subjoins to the narrative in which he comprises the translation of Saints Probus, Aderitus and Calocerus that on the third day before the Nones, that is, on the fifth day of March, an altar, which, as far as I think, was the highest or principal one, was consecrated or dedicated to them in the metropolitan church; but to the narrative in which he records the translation of St. Marcellinus and the other four, made, from what has already been said, in the same year as that of Saints Probus, Aderitus and Calocerus, he adds nothing at all from which you could in any way understand that an altar was dedicated to them in the same Ursian basilica on the third day before the Nones, that is, on the fifth day of March; so that I plainly do not know whence Girolamo Rossi learned that this was done then to them too, and hence that I do not dare to infer from the High altar of the Ursian church, which according to his testimony was consecrated to Saints Marcellinus, Proculus, Dathus, Agapitus and Liberius on the fifth day of March in the year 963, that their sacred remains were then deposited in that same altar by Archbishop Peter, especially since the opposite must be established from the end of the words of the anonymous writer just recited, who, it is easy to gather from what has been said, certainly did not write before that fifth day of March on which the thing would have been accomplished.
[38] beneath the high altar of the metropolitan church However that may be, that the sacred remains of our Saint and of the other four Saints already named several times were afterwards deposited in the principal altar of the Ursian basilica, since they are kept in it even today, is certain and undoubted. And that this was done already in the fourteenth century appears from the anonymous author of the Life of St. Proculus, bishop of Ravenna, likewise inserted in the Spicilegium of the History of Ravenna cited above, since he seems to have lived then, and writes thus towards the end: The names of those kindly pontiffs, and of the other Saints with whose presence the holy mother church Ursiana shines, and which she keeps in her halls as a most precious treasure and incomparable pearls, we have today thought fit reverently to express in the present little Work for perpetual memory, and they are these: Aderitus, Calocerus, Probus, Datus, Liberius, Agapitus and Marcellinus, to whose catalogue and sarcophagus is added this Proculus, kindly confessor. Which precious bodies without doubt were translated from the church of blessed Proculus to the Ursian church, and remain venerably placed in the sarcophagus and altar which is today commonly called the Ark of the Saints; so he, in whose words, however, as appears, an error lies as regards the sacred building from which St. Marcellinus and the others listed here were translated to the Ursian church.
[39] was deposited in the altar, For I nowhere find that there exists today, or ever existed before, at Ravenna or near that city, whether in the town of Classe or elsewhere, a church dedicated to St. Proculus, prelate of Ravenna. Moreover, the anonymous writer of the Translation praised above, much older than the anonymous writer of the Life of St. Proculus, clearly teaches, according to what has already been said, that St. Marcellinus, Aderitus, Probus, Proculus and all the others who are narrated in the recited words to have been translated from the church of St. Proculus were found in the church of St. Probus at Classe and translated thence to Ravenna to the metropolitan church; and Agnellus also supports him, since he affirms that all the same Saints, if you except Proculus alone, about whom he says he is in doubt, were buried in the church of St. Probus at Classe, as may be seen in the eulogies of each in him. I do not doubt, therefore, that in the text of the anonymous writer just recited the church of St. Proculus is wrongly written for that of St. Probus, whether meanwhile this fault is to be ascribed to the author himself or rather to the copyists. But however that may be, he at any rate here rightly relates that St. Marcellinus and the others whom he records were kept in his age beneath the altar of the metropolitan church which was called the Ark of the Saints, and which I do not doubt was the highest or principal altar of that sacred building, beneath which, even today, the bodies of Saints Marcellinus and the other seven holy bishops whom we have named here more than once are honourably preserved, as Girolamo Fabri witnesses in the Work cited above several times.
[40] And this indeed, as must now be said here, is one kind of the cult and the Saint himself is venerated yearly with an Office of the double rite. which is paid to the Saint at Ravenna today; receive now also the other, and that the principal one. Girolamo Fabri, or, as I likewise find it written, de Fabris or also Fabrus, who composed the book on the Antiquities of Ravenna cited more than once above, also composed, by mandate of the archbishop and chapter of Ravenna, Proper Offices of the several Saints whom the metropolitan church of Ravenna venerates, which, approved by the sacred congregation of Rites and printed, he himself sent as a gift to our Predecessors, as is noted in volume 2 of March, page 426. Among them, further, there occurs an Office of our Saint to be recited yearly on the fifth day of October under the double rite; and in the Rubric which it bears it is prescribed to be taken entire from the Common of a confessor pontiff, except the fourth Lesson, taken almost entire from the eulogy recited above with which Rossi adorns the Saint, as is clear from a comparison of it with that; and that anyone may be able to make this comparison, I close this Commentary by copying the lesson too. It is couched in these words: Marcellinus, God indicating from heaven through a dove, succeeded Agapitus, prelate of Ravenna, in the episcopate, and flourished with such outstanding holiness and innocence that he deterred men from evil-doing and inflamed them, chiefly by his example, to keep the divine laws. Very often too (so great in him was the magnitude and excellence of the divine benignity) he suppressed without any labour the fury of the demons. He presided most holily over the church of Ravenna for nearly fifty years, and at length, amid great disturbance of affairs and persecution of the Church, in the year of Salvation two hundred and eighty-two, on the third day before the Nones of October (Agnellus did not know the day of the Saint's death: how then could Fabri, or rather Rossi, know it?), he fell asleep in the Lord; and while he was drawing his last breath, his body was fragrant with the odour of heavenly ointments. Which, entombed in the basilica of St. Probus near Classe, and translated thence to the metropolitan church, was honourably laid there beneath the high altar.
Annotation* sivistis; iique