ON ST. PHILIP OF FERMO, BISHOP AND MARTYR, IN PICENUM,
PERHAPS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRD CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
The memory of St. Philip. Whether he can properly be called bishop of Fermo. A certain fiction of Tamayo de Salazar is washed away. Cult and relics.
Philip, bishop and martyr, at Fermo in Picenum. (S.)
BY B. B.
His memory is had on this day in the Roman Martyrology: At Fermo in Picenum, of St. Philip, We have few things about St. Philip, bishop and martyr. And a little more fully in the manuscript Kalendar of the church of Fermo, which, in the judgement of Catalani On the church of Fermo and its bishops, p. 41. Fermo, 1783, was written in the thirteenth century: On the eleventh day before the Kalends of November, of St. Philip, bishop and martyr, whose body lies in the cathedral church in the confession Ibid., p. 62. Likewise in the Martyrology for the use of the metropolitan church of Fermo, published in 1797: At Fermo in Picenum, of St. Philip, bishop and martyr, who, in the suburban field of the road of St. Mary by the sea, as is handed down, slain for Christ, by a glorious passion the church of Fermo
entrusted to him he made illustrious, whose sacred body rests in this metropolitan church. And Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy: Philip, a native of Fermo, as the ancient tradition of that church has it, raised on account of his virtues to the episcopal summit, shone with wonderful holiness, and adorned the church of Fermo with his blood, crowned with martyrdom, slain by enemies because, a persecution having been stirred up, he did not fail to preach and to lead many from heathenism to Christ. Whose body, entire, is fittingly kept in the crypt or underground sacred building of the basilica of Fermo together with his congealed blood, and has no slight veneration among the people of Fermo. His feast is celebrated at Fermo and in its whole diocese on the eleventh day before the Kalends of November. From the Tablets and monuments of the Church of Fermo. To the same Tablets Baronius appeals in the notes on the Roman Martyrology, which he asserts he received, brought to Rome: but what they contain besides the memory he nowhere sets out, as Colucci observes Antichità Picene, vol. II, p. 168. Fermo, 1788. According to Catalani As above, p. 89, St. Philip is to be thought to have ascended the chair of Fermo in one or the other of the two intervals of time in which Gallus, who succeeded Decius, or Valerian, who succeeded Gallus in the empire, gave the Christians some truces; and to have been crowned with martyrdom in the very persecution of Valerian about the year 257, or in that of Aurelian about the year 272. Of the place of martyrdom Colucci has this Ibid., vol. III, Preliminary Dissertation, p. XXVIII: If any credence is owed to tradition, the place of martyrdom would be known distinctly enough. According to it, St. Philip would have suffered outside the city, half a mile from the gate which today is called after St. Francis, beside the road which we call that of the Pines (dei Pini); in the place where a most ancient benefice, existing under the title of this holy Bishop and Martyr, had a small estate, on which an old church had been built, perhaps over the sepulchre of the holy Martyr, as used to happen in that age. But afterwards, by the vicissitude of the times, that church having collapsed, the title was transferred to the parish of St. Gregory; and the estate, on which it would have been fitting that at least a very small chapel should be built in memory of the martyrdom, was given to a certain private man, under the burden of a canon or rent to be paid every year. There exist in the archiepiscopal archive very ancient charters pertaining to the aforesaid benefice, which is known to have existed from time immemorial. Catalani has similar things As above, p. XXVII: Not far from that gate of the city which faces east, the place in which St. Philip suffered is pointed out; in which place indeed a church was raised in his honour in ancient times, whose ruins were still to be seen within the memory of those who are living. And by the owner of the estate an annual canon is to be paid to the benefice whose title is "St. Philip by the well"… Further, that benefice is in the parish church of St. Gregory, for this reason, as I think, that there too in early times an altar of its own was dedicated to St. Philip. For Alexander III, in a diploma of the year 1130 for the monastery of St. Peter the Old, to which that church belonged, mentions an altar of St. Philip placed in the church of St. Gregory. But in this age St. Philip Neri is venerated there, all memory of St. Philip, bishop of Fermo, being utterly obliterated. For the rest, as a learned man wrote back to us from Fermo in these days, there exists no Life or Legend of St. Philip, nor are any Acts of his martyrdom brought forward.
[2] and those fairly uncertain. And these are the things, at least more or less probable, that have come down to us. For, as again Colucci, a diligent collector of Picene matters, writes Ibid., p. LI: Obscure and uncertain is the epoch in which SS. Alexander and Philip suffered (the latter succeeded the former), because no memory, whether certain or doubtful, exists of them except the inveterate tradition and the cult in the church of Fermo. Considering, however, the cult and the tradition, it is not out of keeping to admit that they shed their blood for Christ. They refer the martyrdom to the times of the emperor Decius; and those two holy Men are reputed the first in the series of bishops of the church of Fermo; which I indeed shall neither affirm nor deny, since, as I have said, absolutely no document on these matters has come down to us. Ferrari agrees in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy: The time, he says, and the manner of martyrdom could not be known, since about the year of the Lord 1176, the city (of Fermo) having been taken and burned by Christian (in name, not in fact), bishop of Mainz, who commanded the forces of the emperor Frederick I, the histories of the Saints perished among other things. Ughelli too relates Italia sacra, vol. II, col. 680 that in this disaster almost all the monuments of writings were destroyed. And so much of the martyrdom.
[3] Of his episcopate As regards the episcopate, the aforesaid Colucci expressly undertakes to prove Antichità Picene, vol. II, p. LI that no episcopal chair was erected in the cities of Picenum except after the conversion of Constantine the Great to the faith. Whence it follows that St. Philip, if he truly was a bishop, was not titular but regionary. Michele Catalani thinks somewhat otherwise. At what time chiefly, he says [Commentary on the church of Fermo and its bishops and archbishops, p. 5. Fermo, 1783], the Christian religion made such progress among the people of Fermo, and such an abundance of faithful and of sacred ministers began to be had, that a particular bishop was assigned to them and the church of Fermo was founded, is a thing altogether unascertained. Wherefore, since we labour under a complete lack of monuments, we must settle the matter by arguments sought from the ancient system of ecclesiastical discipline. And to me indeed those seem no less to be rejected who carry back the origins of the churches, or, what is the same, of the bishoprics, to the age of the apostles, than some who think that bishoprics were then first constituted when the fifth century was passing. For as regards those first, there is no one who does not know that in the age of the apostles bishops by no means had a fixed see, but, as Thomassin most rightly says, "bishops of this kind were ordained not for one city but for a whole nation, because very often not even the names of the cities were known"… Hence further it came about that bishops of this kind were called Regionary or Apostolic. Catalani adds Ibid., p. 6 that the opinion of Marangoni, by which he lays down that bishops attached to one fixed church were first given to Picenum Suburbicarium in the fifth century, is very injurious to the name of Picenum, since from it this must follow, that far later progress was made by the Christian religion in Picenum Suburbicarium than in the other provinces, or those bordering on it: for I think there is no one who is unaware that long before that time very many episcopal chairs had been constituted in the regions of Italy… I shall turn, therefore, to those who have treated the matter more diligently and with the use of a more penetrating critical art, whom indeed I also divide in two: for some will have most churches founded at the beginning of the fourth century, when the peace of the Christian name was established by the emperor Constantine; others, on the contrary, if not as the second century was passing, at least at the beginning of the third. Catalani then discloses his own opinion: To me, however, that I may open my view about the church of Fermo, it seems very likely that it took its origin in the third century, verging towards the middle, in the time of the emperor Philip and of Fabian, the supreme pontiff. Namely, it is established that many bishoprics everywhere were erected already from the second century, as is especially clear of Italy from the pontifical book of the Roman church Ibid., p. 7; at the beginning of the third century bishops to the number of seventy met with Agrippinus of Carthage; about the middle of the same century, on the witness of St. Cyprian, the heretic Privatus was condemned by the sentence of ninety bishops; in the year 251 Pope Cornelius assembled against Novatian a synod of sixty bishops, from neighbouring provinces at any rate, says Catalani Ibid., and he adds: While, therefore, even the more remote and less noble recesses of Italy had episcopal chairs, who would doubt that they had long since been erected in each of the more noble cities, and above all in those which … in a most splendid province were numbered among the first and chief, such as was the city of Fermo? He argues similarly Ibid., p. 7 and following from the Roman council under Miltiades in the year 313, in which Optatus of Milevis, according to Du Pin's edition, marks as present some prelates from Picenum.
[4] of Fermo. Here is the passage of St. Optatus, On the Schism of the Donatists, book I Migne, Patrologia, vol. XI, col. 931 and following: They came to the city of Rome, these three Gallic bishops and fifteen other Italians. They assembled in the house of Fausta in the Lateran, Constantine for the fourth time and Licinius for the third time being consuls (that is, in the year 311 or 313, as Aubespine notes in the same place), on the sixth day before the Nones of October, on the sixth day of the week. When there had sat down Miltiades, bishop of the city of Rome, and Reticius and Maternus and Marinus, Gallic bishops: and Merocles of Milan, Florianus of Sinna, Zoticus of Quintianum, Stennius of Ariminum, Felix of Florence of the Tuscans, Gaudentius of Pisa, Constantine of Faventia, Proterius of Capua, Theophilus of Beneventum, Subinus of Terracina, Secundus of Praeneste, Felix of the Three Taverns, Maximus of Ostia, Evander of Ursinum, Donatian of Forum Claudii, etc. To Picenum are expressly ascribed the cities Sinna or Pinna, Ariminum and Ursinum or Urbinum by Catalani, a judge certainly competent, being eminently versed in matters pertaining to that region. Compare also the notes on St. Optatus, where the various readings of the words Sinna and Ursino are recited and weighed. For the rest, of the other sees praised, several were not far from Picenum. And from these Catalani thus concludes: Indeed, if in the year 313 bishops of Picenum show themselves in our sight, who would bring himself to think that only in that year were bishops delegated to those cities, and not much before, and that they did not have others before them whom they themselves succeeded? The argument is certainly valid so far as it shows that before Constantine the Picene cities had their own bishops. Nor does anything prevent bishops having been constituted there in the third, the second, nay even the first century. From Optatus, therefore, we have for the fourth century (unless one should hesitate on account of the various readings of the words and their interpretations) a certain argument, for the earlier centuries a more or less probable one. Finally Catalani adds Catalani, ibid., p. 8: This further is to be laid down with stronger reason and according to the laws of sounder criticism: had the monuments of the first centuries not perished, had age or the fury of the emperors raging against the Christian religion by no means grudged us the acts of the councils held at Rome in the third, fourth and fifth centuries and the signatures of the bishops; surely the bishops of many cities (and why not of Fermo too) from the middle of the third century would be known to us. Since, however, they are not in fact known, it is clear that nothing certain can be established about them. Catalani is followed, with neither reason nor citation added, by Cajetan
Moroni [Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, vol. XIV, p. 34. At the word Fermo]. Consequently we have only probabilities. Certainly Ughelli Italia sacra, vol. II, col. 680, in the Catalogue of the bishops of Fermo, ascribes years to none of these before Justus, seventh in the order of succession according to him, who was present at the Roman council under Pope Symmachus in the year 500, and also subscribed it. For the rest, in arranging the series of the first bishops writers vary, some making a beginning from one, others from another. Colucci, as we have seen, begins from St. Alexander, then St. Philip; Ughelli puts first in order St. Hadrian, second St. Alexander, third St. Philip. Catalani agrees with Colucci. He besides, in his Prolegomenon II On the church of Fermo, pp. 79–86, treats expressly of the bishops to be struck out of Ughelli's series, of which kind he numbers fourteen in all, and in the first place St. Hadrian. It is known that Sixtus V, the supreme pontiff, in the year 1589 raised the see of Fermo into a metropolitan one Ibid., p. 9. Nor indeed, adds Catalani Ibid., did Pope Sixtus act in this inconsiderately, so to speak, or allow himself to be carried away by some blind love towards that city in whose district he had been born, or towards that church which he had administered for five years. For a most diligent inquiry was instituted into the merits and dignity of the church of Fermo, etc.
[5] A fiction of Tamayo is washed away. Tamayo de Salazar, a fertile multiplier of Saints, as he is called somewhere by our men Acta SS. on the 6th of July, among those Passed Over, announces on this day in his Spanish Martyrology, and that in the first place, a certain St. Philip Philotheus, who is no other than our Bishop of Fermo, but so deformed by fabulous fictions that he can scarcely, nay not even scarcely, be recognized. Celebrated (the words are Tamayo's) in Spain is the memory of St. Philip Philotheus, governor of the Arevaci among the Spaniards, who, when St. Paul the apostle came to our shores, being converted by him and made his disciple, set out for Rome with the apostle, where he was present at the martyrdom of him and of Peter, the prince of the apostles; afterwards going to Milan, he buried the bodies of SS. Gervase and Protase, martyrs; thence, having returned to Rome, ordained bishop by blessed Clement, he is sent as legate to the West; undertaking the burdens of which office, he visited the Gauls and the Spaniards, and visited the cities of those provinces; afterwards, an excellent man and faithful servant, he entered into the joy of his Lord. There are subjoined Acts scraped together from the pseudo-Dexter, Braulio and others (illustrious sources, of course!); notes are added, by which the ecphrasis is illustrated, that satisfaction may be given to all. There is no need of a long refutation to wash away a farrago of this kind, since we censure Tamayo's crafty arts enough and more than enough both elsewhere rather often and again on this day in the Acts of St. Mellonus of Rouen. Let it suffice to have written down what the learned man Don Pedro Sainz de Baranda has in his excellent Spanish Calendar, very lately brought to light Clave de la España Sagrada, p. 427. Madrid, 1853: St. Philip, bishop of Fermo, whom the falsifiers will have come into Spain, heaping up innumerable fables about him. Compare Don Nicolás Antonio in the Censure of fabulous histories Censura de historias fabulosas, book IV, chap. 1, p. 111. Valencia, 1742.
[6] cult and relics. In the Calendar of Fermo the feast of St. Philip is indicated at the 22nd of October. On the preceding day First Vespers are sung in the metropolitan church, during which the sacred body of the blessed Pontiff is exposed to the veneration of the faithful; on the 22nd a canonical mass is celebrated, with the chapter present, which, however, is not proper; the same is true of the collect and the office, but everything is said from the Common of Martyrs. Again the sacred body, together with the numerous Relics of other Saints which are in the same metropolitan church, is shown for veneration on the 1st day of May. So, namely, from letters written back to us from Fermo on the 21st of December 1856, where likewise I find this about the Relics: The body of St. Philip is kept today in the metropolitan church under the table of the high altar, where it was placed in a coffer or reliquary of recent work by Alessandro Borgia, who held the see of Fermo from the end of the year 1724 until the 14th day of February 1764 Catalani, pp. 299 and 305, who himself, in a homily he delivered to the people on the feast of St. Philip in the year 1739 Compare Catalani, p. 305, relates that he translated it there from the marble sepulchre in which it rested before, and which is still to be seen now in the crypt. On the opposite side of the aforesaid high altar is read an inscription written in larger character: CORPORA BEATISSIMA SS. PHILIPPI EP. ET MAR. AURELII MAR. The most blessed bodies of SS. Philip, bishop and martyr, and Aurelius, martyr. Before the destruction of the old metropolitan church there existed another epigraph, in which mention was made of St. Philip:
SS. MM. ALEX. ET PHILIPPI EPP. FIRM.
EX CAN. ANTONII PACINI LEGATO.
CAN. VINCENTIUS SPACCASASSIUS
ANT. ALBERTUS RICCIUS
THOMAS JOSEPH GUERRERIUS
EREXERE A. D. MDCCVIII.
[Of SS. Alexander and Philip, martyrs, bishops of Fermo. From the legacy of Canon Antonio Pacini. Canon Vincenzo Spaccasassi, Antonio Alberto Ricci, Tommaso Giuseppe Guerrieri erected it in the year of the Lord 1708.]