Fidelis

ON ST. FIDELIS, MARTYR, AT COMO IN CISALPINE GAUL OR INSUBRIA,

UNDER MAXIMIAN, MORE PROBABLY IN THE YEAR CCLXXXV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Fidelis, martyr, at Como in Italy. (S.)

BHL Number: 2926

BY B. B.

§ I. The memory of St. Fidelis is lacking in the ancient martyrologies. But in the sixth century he is praised by St. Ennodius of Pavia; likewise in the ninth century in a diploma of Lothar. There are also extant a sermon and a hymn of Blessed Peter Damian on St. Fidelis, whose feast is moreover noted in an old calendar of Milan. The Acts were written down in the tenth century, or perhaps earlier.

The martyrology of Como announces on this day [Sanctuarium or martyrology of the holy church of Como, by Primus Aloysius de Tattis. Como 1675]: At Como in his own church the feast of St. Fidelis, martyr, Memory in the more recent martyrologies. who, very dear to the emperor Maximian on account of the brilliance of his family and his warlike courage, was converted to Christ at Milan and cleansed in the saving waters by St. Maternus the bishop, and for some time visited the Christians who were in chains and supplied them with the necessities of life. When he had afterwards set these free, he also took to flight along with them and withdrew to Como. But when meanwhile Cassius, Licinius, Severinus, Secundus and Alexander had been captured by the satellites of Maximian, he, bidding farewell to his companions, embarked in a small boat and came to Samolaco; where, arrested by the persecutors of the faith, since he could be persuaded by no blandishments or threats to deny Christ by sacrificing to idols, he was weakened with cudgels and subjected to other tortures, and at length, struck with the axe, he most happily completed the course of martyrdom. The memory of this holy martyr is likewise recorded, but in very brief words, in the Roman Martyrology; as also by Maurolico and Châtelain; likewise, but more fully and according to the norm of Como, by Galesini and Ferrari Catalogus SS. Italiæ, 28 Oct.. Mention of him is also made by Dominic Giorgi Martyrol. Adonis recognitum et illustratum, pp. 715 and 719. Rome 1745 in Milanese calendar I, from an Ambrosian breviary, written at the beginning of the year 1465, where one reads: On the 5th of the kalends (of November) of the holy apostles Simon and Jude and of Fidelis mar. Neither Bede nor the supplement of Florus makes mention of our holy Martyr. Baronius in his Notes, therefore, wrongly relates that mention of St. Fidelis is made in the martyrology of the venerable man. Nothing likewise in the older one of Fiorentini; likewise in those of Echternach and Corbie. He is also lacking in Ado, in pure Usuard, and indeed in the supplements too, if you except one alone. Rabanus and Notker are likewise silent.

[2] The testimony of Blessed Ennodius on St. Fidelis, sixth century, But if the memory of St. Fidelis among the martyrologists is rather recent, from other sources more ancient testimonies are available, and by no means to be despised. St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, in the Life of Blessed Antony, monk of Lérins, writes at the beginning of the sixth century: Antony chose a retreat not far from the tomb of the blessed martyr Fidelis, where the Larius lays aside the threats of the Ionian sea, when the opposed banks, curbs of the earth, resist it lest it wander further. There, with its summit thrust into the clouds, a mountain flashes, which by its sublimity overcomes the sight; but as proud as it is in magnitude, so difficult is it in ascent. So it stands in Tatti [Degli annali sacri della città de Como, vol. I, p. 934, in the Register. Como 1663], who, however, in the margin writes Felix in place of Fidelis. But he observes that this reading is to be rejected, since in his judgment it certainly concerns St. Fidelis; both because no martyr of the name of Felix is venerated by the church of Como, and because the place, such as is described by St. Ennodius, can be no other than the chapel or oratory where the body of St. Fidelis rested for three centuries and more, as we shall explain more fully below. Moreover the opinion of Tatti is confirmed by comparing the various editions of the works of St. Ennodius.

[3] as in his published works The first of all is found in the Monumenta Orthodoxographa, printed at Basel by the labour of Grynaeus in the year 1569. But this is in many ways defective and imperfect. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, in nearly the same year, there appeared a twin ἐκδωσις of the same works; the one at Tournai in the years 1610 and 1611, under the care of our Andrew Schott, who in the dedicatory epistle testifies that Ennodius was edited by him complete, from the best parchments found long ago among the Morini, the most remote of the Belgians; and yet the holy writer did not then appear altogether complete; since shortly afterwards, unless you would rather say at the same time, namely in the year 1611, he came into the light more ample and more correct, as Fabricius notes, by the labour of James Sirmond of the Society of Jesus, checked against two exemplars of proven fidelity, the Vatican one and that of Nicholas Le Fèvre. And indeed there are in Sirmond some things written either in metre or in free speech, which are wanting in Schott's recension; but as regards correction, in the matters common to both editors, apart from variant readings of no great moment, they agree with each other almost exactly. Indeed (this should be well noted) in the three recensions mentioned the Life of Antony, which alone concerns us here, occurs almost the same. It is everywhere complete; somewhat more correct in the two later ones than in the first, although Grynaeus himself also has the principal readings noted in the margin. All who after him devoted their labour to editing Ennodius followed Sirmond; whence Fabricius remarks: They (the works) were also reprinted in the more recent Paris, Cologne and Lyon Libraries of the Fathers from the recension of Sirmond, but with the notes omitted; so too Galland judged that the distinguished edition of Sirmond should be committed to the press, with the notes not omitted, and indeed with some added which are not found in his forerunner. Finally in our own days Ennodius was reprinted in Migne's patrology, altogether the same as in Galland.

So much for the editions of the works of Ennodius, of which three principally come to be considered by us, namely those of Grynaeus, Schott, and Sirmond. In the two former it is expressly found: Of the blessed martyr Fidelis, and Schott adds in the margin: Fidelis of Como, mart., in Usuard (Compare above no. 1) on the 28th of October and the Roman mart. But in the latter, that is, Sirmond's, there is placed Of the blessed martyr Felix, and neither is any variant reading noted here, as Tatti falsely insinuates. If we stand therefore with Grynaeus and Schott, blessed Ennodius treats of our holy martyr Fidelis; but if faith is to be given to Sirmond, of a holy martyr likewise, Felix.

[4] it is read far more probably. The reading of the former two seems altogether to be preferred, both because they themselves are proved to have had in hand manuscript codices of no low rank (at least as concerns the life of St. Antony), and because, as we have already noted above, no martyr of the name of Felix is venerated in the church of Como; and finally because the place described by Ennodius (as Tatti asserts, and Paolo Giovio favours in his famous Description of Lake Larius) suits exceedingly well the tomb of St. Fidelis, and not that of any other martyr of whom knowledge has come down to us. Compare the Annotations where they treat of Samolaco. The opinion is strengthened by the Chronology of Lérins, published by Barralis about the same time at which Schott and Sirmond put their Ennodius to the press; and the author testifies that he edited the life of St. Antony from a Vatican codex: It happened in earlier years, namely in one thousand five hundred and ninety-one, that we hastened to the City for a cause of no small importance to the abbey of the said monastery of Lérins, and before all else it was our chief care to have the aforesaid life of our most blessed Antony (I had already learned of it in the Vatican library), sincerely written by St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, faithfully transcribed from a manuscript codex of the sacred Vatican library, and to bring it with us to Lérins as a great gift. So Barralis [Chronologia sanctorum et aliorum virorum illustrium ac abbatum monasterii sacræ Insulæ Lerinensis. Part II, pp. 148 and 149. Lyon 1613]. Now the codex mentioned reads thus: He chose a retreat not far from the tomb of the blessed martyr Fidelis Ibid., p. 145. Whether that codex is the same one that also guided Sirmond, I would not dare expressly to affirm. Yet I would not readily admit that two different Vatican codices exist, of which one came into the use of Barralis and the other of Sirmond. Perhaps this will seem more probable, that the codex of Le Fèvre (which together with the Vatican one served Sirmond for editing the works of Ennodius) was principally employed by the learned man, and that this bore Felix, and that the editor did not look to see whether the reading of the Vatican codex agreed at this place or not. Nor is what our Zaccaria has in his little work written in Italian on the Holy Martyrs Fidelis, Carpophorus etc. to be passed over: In the first edition, he says De' santi martiri Fedele, Carpoforo, Gratiniano e Felino, p. 2. Milan 1750, of Sirmond, which we have at Milan in the library of St. Fidelis (that is, of the professed house of the Society of Jesus), at p. 69, in the annotation of that learned Jesuit on the passage of St. Ennodius, I find "St. Fidelis of Como." And where at p. 470 "Felicis" had been printed, the word was struck out by an old hand from beyond the mountains (perhaps of Sirmond himself), and in its place there is put "Fidelis." From what has been related thus far, then, it is clear that there are four learned men who edited the Life of St. Antony of Lérins from manuscripts; and that three of these read Of the blessed martyr Fidelis. But since Sirmond had written otherwise, and he was thought to have brought out Ennodius more amply and more correctly (and so indeed it is in speaking of the works, but not if the Life of St. Antony alone is considered, which, as we have said, is found nearly the same in all); hence it came about that writers everywhere, especially in the Gauls, have related that St. Antony lay hidden for some space of time not far from the tomb of St. Felix: so has D. Ceillier Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques, vol. XV, p. 428, so the Benedictines in Literary France Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. III, pp. 103 and 104; but the Italians who treat of the affairs of Como unanimously note the tomb of St. Fidelis. So Tatti, likewise Ravelli; the latter however noting that some codices depart from this reading. Nothing therefore prevents us from asserting, if not altogether certainly, at least far more probably, that St. Ennodius at the beginning of the sixth century wrote a distinguished testimony about St. Fidelis; indeed it is at least probable, from the note of Zaccaria set down a little above, that Sirmond himself came round to this opinion.

[5] Another testimony, of the ninth century; We have another testimony in a Diploma of Lothar, given at Compiègne in the year 824 and addressed to Leo, bishop of Como. I excerpt the words pertinent to our purpose: The properties themselves (which were at issue) were baptismal churches, one at Amatia and another at Burmis, a third at Postelave, and the little monastery of St. Fidelis, belonging to the bishopric of Como [Tatti, vol. I, p. 450. Le Cointe at the year

824, vol. VII, p. 686. Ughelli on Leo, bishop of Como, Italia sac., vol. V, col. 267]. The diploma is recited by Ughelli, Le Cointe and Tatti; and although it is not without blemishes, it is commonly thought genuine by Muratori [Annali di Italia sacra, vol. IV, p. 529 and following. Compare Ravelli, vol. II, p. 53] and others. Moreover no doubt remains to Tatti that the little monastery of St. Fidelis is to be referred to our blessed Martyr. Yet, on the testimony of the same writer, we are altogether ignorant when, how, by whom and in what place it was erected, although it is more probable that it stood in the Valtellina Tatti, vol. I, p. 829 and following.

[6] a third in the eleventh century, Finally a most distinguished testimony (and concerning this there is no controversy) is rendered to St. Fidelis by Blessed Peter Damian in a sermon delivered to the people at Milan, more probably in the year 1059, and on this very day, the 28th of October: Behold Blessed Fidelis, martyr, whose festival we celebrate today, etc. Migne, vol. 144, cols. 807 and 811. You will find the whole sermon at the end of this Commentary. In this place we subjoin another testimony of the same holy doctor, namely a poem or hymn composed in honour of our renowned Champion; and it is as follows Migne, vol. 145, col. 956 and following:

The holy Church sets forth The great merits of Fidelis, Who by death destroyed death And as victor sought the stars.

The burden of the flesh cast off, He is clothed in the robe of glory; The tears wiped from his face, He gains true joys.

When he dies, cut down by the sword, A savage tempest arises; Thus upon the impious is threatened The vengeance of the just Judge.

One of the executioners An evil spirit assails; As soon as * he is joined to the sacred clay, The dread plague is driven out.

With prayers of heart and mouth We beg you, kindly Martyr, That by your footsteps You lead us to the rewards of life.

To the unbegotten Father be praise, To the Only-begotten be honour, To the Spirit equal to them both Be highest majesty. Amen.

[7] likewise another of about the same age. We also have another testimony, of about the same age, in a calendar which Muratori notes that he edited Scriptores rerum Italicarum, vol. II, part II, p. 1023 from a codex of Camillus Sitonus of Milan. In this there is noted at the 5th of the kalends of November, or the 28th of October: Sts. Simon and Jude and the passion of St. Fidelis in the same church, that is of St. Mary in Solario, which is mentioned in the preceding announcement and was afterwards named after our holy Martyr, as will be said more fully elsewhere, where we shall take up discussion of the cult. As regards the age of the codex, Muratori says: Written, if I remember rightly, seven hundred years ago, and thus about the middle of the eleventh century, since Muratori is known to have been born in 1672, and to have died in the year 1750 Biographie Universelle. Yet at first sight it would appear on other grounds that the codex was written not before the beginning of the twelfth century, indeed not before the middle of the following century. For, as Muratori himself notes Where cited above, certain historical notes have also been added in the Sitonian codex, which are accustomed to mark the day and a certain year of some past human event. Now at the aforesaid 28th day of October one reads: In the year of the Lord MCIII the church of St. Lawrence fell; and at the 28th day of January: MCCCLIII on a Tuesday a certain monster appeared in the church of St. Vincent. It would be clear from these that the codex is no older than that year, unless it were established from a comparison of the years to which they refer that those notes were added to the codex later. For there is only one which concerns the eleventh century, namely the year 1071; fifteen pertain to the twelfth century; of these the earlier in time mark the years 1103, 1104 etc., the later the years 1171 and 1176. Again there is only one which regards the thirteenth century, namely the year 1253. And so unless we say that the codex of the Sitonian calendar was written not seven hundred years ago, as Muratori thought, but only five hundred (which would be an incredible hallucination in such a man), we must admit that the notes were added by another hand, and either all at one time after the year 1253, or at different times and at intervals, as events prompted.

[8] The Acts, But of what age the Acts are, whether they were written after St. Damian or rather before his times, and are thus to be reckoned among the older testimonies of which we have spoken, I find has not so far been rightly settled by anyone. Ravelli notes Vol. I, p. 268 that the martyrdom of St. Fidelis itself cannot indeed be called in doubt; but whether it occurred in such a place and in these or those circumstances which are related in his Acts; that indeed, he says, ought to rest on more certain documents; and that the Acts as they were edited by Mombritius do not seem older than the twelfth century; and thus more recent than the sermon of St. Peter Damian. As for Mombritius, moreover, it is established that he committed the lives of the Saints to print in the time of Sixtus IV, who sat from the year 1471 to the year 1484 See Macri, Hierolexicon, under the word Birrus, and indeed, in the judgment of Ebert Algemeines Bibliographices Lexicon, about the year 1479. (Compare the Annotations.) Yet from these things nothing certain can be determined about the age of the Acts, since some in Mombritius are older than others; indeed some are thought to have been written not so very long before. But on what foundation Ravelli (a man certainly learned, erudite and prudent [Compare Cantù, Storia della cità e della diocesi di Como, vol. I, p. 14 and following. Como 1829],) supposes that the Acts of St. Fidelis do not go back beyond the twelfth century, neither does he himself explain, nor am I able to reach by conjecture. On the contrary, it is shown false by comparing them with the sermon of St. Peter Damian, which, as we have said, was delivered about the middle of the eleventh century.

[9] inasmuch as they were not unknown to St. Peter Damian, For it seems certain to me that our Acts were not unknown to the holy doctor. Let the following passage from the sermon serve as proof: And, as he himself (St. Fidelis) seems to assert in his own words, while he was engaged in secular military service, he obeyed the divine command rather than the earthly, to such a degree that he restrained some from the profane cult of idolatry and called them to the knowledge of the true God by saving admonitions. In the Acts, then, the holy Martyr answers the torturers, when they threatened him, that he has no fear, because, he says, from my infancy I have served Christ the Lord with devoted mind: for living in secular military service, I did not soldier for an earthly empire; but I obeyed the heavenly King. And I arranged this, that I might call back the Gentiles serving idols from error to the way of truth. The words are nearly the same in both places. And again in the sermon: Of how great glory is it, that as soon as the blessed… Martyr had his head cut off, a turbulent tempest and excessive lightning is said to have broken forth? In the Acts: And when he had been beheaded, there came a great commotion and lightning. The same follows again from the narrative about that torturer who is freed from the demon as soon as he touched the Martyr's corpse. Of this deliverance mention is made in the rhythm recited above: One of the executioners etc. See at the end the Acts and the sermon.

[10] written at least in the tenth century; It does not seem to be doubted, therefore, that the Acts are earlier than St. Damian; and that they were thus already known in the middle of the eleventh century. Indeed it is very probable to me that the history of his deeds of which the holy doctor speaks is nothing other than our Acts; from which it may also be concluded that they were written at least in the tenth century; for no one would readily assert that they came into the hands of St. Peter at the same time as they appeared. For the rest, the very character, so to speak, of the writing would not prevent us from giving the Acts a greater antiquity: certainly nothing occurs in them, whether you regard the matter or the style, which departs much from the manner of the Passions which are thought to have been written in earlier centuries. But that I may pass over nothing of what may help the learned reader in judging this question, I note that Zaccaria dissents from us. For having recited the words of St. Damian: As the history of his deeds testifies; he adds De' santi martiri Fedele etc., p. 4: Whether this be the same which we have edited by Boninus Mombritius, who will tell us; since Mombritius tells us nothing of the codex from which he copied the Acts of St. Fidelis, and of what age it was? I have said in the preceding number what I thought after a diligent comparison of the sermon and the Acts; nor does the silence of Mombritius objected by Zaccaria prevent me from persisting in my opinion. But I agree with him when he adds: That whether the history or the Mombritian Acts, they do not display those marks of sincerity which the learned of our age require, in order that they may be safely trusted. Compare the Annotations on the Sermon.

[11] to which are added the Acts of other Saints, yet not sufficiently trustworthy. Some things about St. Fidelis and Carpophorus occur in the Acts of St. Alexander of the Theban legion, edited, as Zaccaria notes, in the place cited, by Father Peter Grazioli, in appendix II to the dissertation on the distinguished buildings of Milan, and also by our predecessor Stilting Vol. V of August, at the 26th day, p. 806. But the two learned men do not agree on the age of the writing; the former judges the Acts to be older than Ado; the latter far more recent, although perhaps drawn from older ones, but corrupted or amplified without the testimony of the ancients, since they were written in the twelfth century Ibid., p. 789, about the year 1125. Stilting has other Acts of the same St. Alexander of much better quality and greater age, submitted to him by Martin Antony Guerrini; but in these there is nothing about St. Fidelis. Similarly in a single lesson on St. Maternus, bishop of Milan, from the breviary of the year 1635 (which in the following century, in the year 1750, on the testimony of Zaccaria, was still in use) one reads: Inflamed by which (piety) (Maternus) sent the blessed martyrs Carpophorus and Fidelis to the city of Como, that they might fight there for the glory of God. See our Cuper in the Acts of St. Maternus at the 18th day of July Acta SS., vol. IV of July, p. 362, where he recites from another older breviary, namely one printed in the year 1529, three other lessons on the same holy prelate, adding that he does not see how these lessons sufficiently agree with one another. For the rest, in these again there is nothing about St. Fidelis. And in general the same Cuper notes that in the former lesson certain things are narrated which are not expressed in the three older lessons and the fuller Acts of St. Maternus Ibid., which holds of St. Fidelis, of whom there is mention neither in these nor in those.

supply: ut*

§ II. Of the year of the martyrdom of St. Fidelis and of his first burial. The translation from Samolaco to Como; likewise two further translations in the same city.

He seems to have suffered shortly after the slaughter of the Theban legion It is commonly related that the martyrdom of St. Fidelis occurred about the time when the Theban legion was slaughtered near Agaunum. On this supposition Zaccaria Pp. 8 – 10, comparing together the Acts of St. Alexander, who gained the palm at Bergamo (on whom in our work Stilting at the 26th day of August Vol. V of August, p. 798), the Acts of Sts. Carpophorus, Exanthus, Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius (on these Solier, but after his manner very briefly, at the 7th day of August Vol. II of Aug., p. 187), the Acts of St. Maternus, bishop of Milan, whose memory is kept on the 18th of July and is illustrated by Cuper Vol. II of July, p. 362, and finally the Passion of our St. Fidelis, judges it not improbable that his martyrdom occurred in the year 285. This opinion he thus either proves or explains. We learn from the Acts of St. Alexander that blessed Fidelis was living at Milan when St. Maternus held the mitre there; and he, in the judgment of Papebroch and Cuper, sat from the year 252 to the end of the year 302; the same Acts moreover teach that at that time Maximian stayed for some while in that city, namely during the expedition which he had undertaken into the Gauls: He ordered the armies of his soldiers to return into the province of the Gauls for battle; and as regards the word remeare, the same Zaccaria asserts that in that place this signifies altogether the same as to set out, to go. From this it follows that the martyrdom of St. Fidelis is wrongly attached by Grazioli to the year 404, when St. Maternus was already dead, in whose lifetime, and while Maximian was staying at Milan, St. Alexander was visited in prison by Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus. But the expedition against the Bagaudae, near the beginning of which the Thebans were killed, was undertaken by Maximian Caesar in the year 285. This opinion of Zaccaria I too held as the more probable in the Acts of Sts. Crispin and Crispinian, where this controversy was spoken of at length Vol. XI of October, § I. But it is asked whether St. Alexander and others suffered before the slaughter of Agaunum, or after it? On the testimony of Baronius At the year 297, no. 16 there were seen to precede the Thebans to martyrdom, before the Roman army had passed the Alps, two distinguished soldiers of the same legion, namely Secundus and Alexander, certainly with some companions. Others (the words are Stilting's Vol. V of Aug., p. 799) would have Alexander crowned after the Theban legion, and, having slipped by flight from the slaughter of his fellow soldiers, would have him gain the delayed crown of martyrdom after the return of Maximian to Italy. But the opinion of Baronius seems more probable, because no mention is made in the Acts of Alexander's flight from Gaul, none of the Theban legion's having been previously slain. We therefore think that St. Alexander went before the Theban legion to the palm of martyrdom. Since therefore, adhering to our Acts, St. Fidelis departed to heaven not long after St. Alexander and his companions, his crown is to be attached to the aforesaid year 285.

[13] probably, in Zaccaria's judgment, on the 28th day of October in the year 285; The whole matter, the often-mentioned Zaccaria thinks Pp. 9 and 10, can be conveniently arranged thus. A few days before Maximian left Rome, the Theban legion moved toward Gaul; but when it became known that St. Alexander and Sts. Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius were followers of Christ, all these were sent to prison at Milan until Caesar should arrive, that is after about fifteen days, as the more correct Acts of St. Alexander have it Vol. V of August, p. 804, 3. In this interval of time St. Fidelis was able to visit the captives, whose constancy, after the arrival of Caesar, was tried in many ways, and this about the end of July of the aforesaid year 285. A little later, Alexander having escaped by flight with the four companions named above and Sts. Fidelis, Carpophorus and Exanthus, when they had reached Como together, Alexander alone went on to Bergamo, where he was seized and beheaded and underwent martyrdom on the 26th day of August. About this time Maximian set out into the Gauls and by his order the Theban legion was slaughtered near Agaunum on the 22nd day of September. But the satellites of Caesar, after Alexander's throat had been cut at Bergamo, pursued his companions, and, several days being spent, as may be believed, in running here and there, they struck them down with the sword when they were found; first Carpophorus and Exanthus, then St. Fidelis. Thus, says Zaccaria, the Acts of those holy martyrs are consistent with one another, and moreover the feast-day of each noted in the martyrologies is preserved. Perhaps also Sts. Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius, after they had parted from St. Fidelis, reached the palm before St. Alexander, on the 7th of August, on which day their mention recurs in the Roman martyrology. If this is truly so, it will now be no wonder that nothing has been handed down to memory about those four after the flight of Alexander, and that so little about them is found in the Acts of St. Fidelis. I admit that in the Roman martyrology the same four champions are written as companions in the passion of Sts. Carpophorus and Exanthus; yet I would not readily admit that they suffered so long (nearly three months) before St. Fidelis, since from his Acts it is rather demonstrated that this happened a few days before. Thus therefore, so far as is possible through such dense darkness, the age of St. Fidelis and the time of his martyrdom are determined. He died, namely, on the 28th day of October of the year 285; and since it appears from the whole series of the Acts that he was then in the flower of his age, we may suppose that he was born about the fiftieth year of the third century. And so, to draw together Zaccaria's views in a few words, in the year 285 in the month of July Sts. Fidelis, Carpophorus and Exanthus visited the four blessed Theban soldiers, Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius, held in prison at Milan, while St. Maternus was still living as pontiff of that church. About the end of the same month all those named above, St. Maternus alone excepted, slipped away from Milan by flight; first there were seized and struck with the sword the four Thebans Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius, on the 7th day of August; then St. Alexander on the 26th of the same month, and thus these five gained the palm before the slaughter of Agaunum on the 22nd of September 285; after this, namely at the waning of the month of October, Carpophorus and Exanthus were likewise crowned, and a little later, namely on the 28th day of the said month, St. Fidelis.

[14] although documents are lacking, We have set out these things more explicitly because Solier at the 7th of August, very briefly, as I noted above, spoke of the four Theban soldiers, and added to them as companions of martyrdom, as in the Roman martyrology, Carpophorus and Exanthus. But the learned predecessor thinks that what Tatti has gathered about those holy martyrs, even though he cites fifty writers, … is not supported by documents which explain the matter sufficiently solidly, let alone prove or establish it, so that there remain in the end the same things which Ferrari brought forward, namely the monuments of the said churches, from which this at last is established, that for many centuries those illustrious martyrs have been celebrated with solemn cult in those places Vol. II of August, p. 187. And so Solier thought that apart from the cult there was hardly anything that seemed worthy of remembrance. Yet this judgment of his did not prevent Stilting afterwards in our work, namely at the 26th day of the same month of August, from speaking much more fully of St. Alexander of Bergamo, reviewing two sets of Acts, and indeed he thought highly of the one, which comes first at the end of the commentary, edited from three apographs, as is clear from these words of his Vol. V of August, p. 798: An anonymous author, ancient at any rate, yet not contemporary or nearly so, since he reports everything as long past; the other longer, but of much lighter moment.

[15] on which one may safely rely, Certainly if the aforesaid were sincere, I would gladly subscribe to the chronological scheme established by Zaccaria (which he himself does not hold as altogether certain), but since they are not such (although some are better than others) it must be confessed that his views, or if you prefer his conjectures, rest on foundations not solid enough. In our opinion, therefore, it remains uncertain in what year St. Fidelis gained the palm. The more probable opinion to me is that this occurred in the year 285, if he was killed before the slaying of the Thebans at Agaunum, but in the following year, if after it. That Sts. Fidelis and the others of whom we spoke above suffered about that time, the Acts plainly relate, and this opinion has commonly prevailed among writers. Yet Solier and Stilting doubted it; since each noted from the start and in the margin: Under Maximian, assigning no certain year of martyrdom. Finally Ravelli, a diligent investigator of the affairs of Como and a writer toward the end of the past century, thinks that nothing certain has come down to us about St. Fidelis, except that by a glorious contest and the shedding of his blood he confirmed the faith given to Christ. Compare no. 8.

[16] and others determine otherwise. Since even those who hold that the death of the aforesaid martyrs was connected with the slaughter of Agaunum mark different years, according to the opinion they embrace about the death of the Thebans; we think it not superfluous to copy some things from Tatti, where he has drawn together in brief both his own views and those of various others. All, he says Martyrol., 28 Oct., assert that Fidelis was crowned under Maximian, and indeed the Acts plainly teach this. Abraham Bzovius assigns a certain year for the contest, and says it occurred in the year 300. Baronius mentions it at the year 303. Ballarini finally contends that it is to be attributed to the year 306. Yet none of them, if we bring the matter to the Lydian stone, has reached the truth (as neither has Tatti himself, in our opinion at least). For if the slaughter of the Theban legion, as we said above, took place on the seventh of the ides of August, with Baronius and other writers of better note, in the year of the Lord 297, and if in the following year 298 Carpophorus, Exanthus and the other four companions of St. Fidelis underwent martyrdom, it must be admitted that St. Fidelis too fell in the same year; because only some weeks after their passion was he seized, and refusing to sacrifice to idols followed them to the laurel. And so Fidelis was truly slain in this same year 298 as his companions; not in the year 300 as Bzovius declared; nor in the year 303, as Baronius, … nor in the year 306, as Ballarini; because three years before Maximian had ceased to be emperor, having abdicated the purple and the sceptre at Milan, as Eusebius testifies in his Chronicle at the year of the Lord 304; and yet all confirm with one mouth that Fidelis obtained the palm of martyrdom under Maximian, the colleague of Diocletian. Tillemont under the year of Christ 305 mentions the abdication not only of Maximian but at the same time also of Diocletian. For both laid aside the purple on the kalends of May of the aforesaid year; the one at Milan, the other at Nicomedia Histoire des empereurs, vol. IV, p. 302. Brussels 1732. The other things less accurately brought forward or asserted by Tatti will be easy to correct from what we have argued on various sides in the preceding numbers.

[17] The burial and first Translation of the body of St. Fidelis, It is related in the Acts that the body of the holy Martyr was committed to the earth by one of the persecutors, at any rate in the very place of the passion, or at least not far from it. Afterwards a chapel was built in the same place, which we read was overthrown by barbarians at the beginning of the sixth century; whence the tomb of St. Fidelis too, overwhelmed by rubble, lay hidden for some centuries, until at length, more probably in the year 964, it was found, not without divine aid, and translated to the city of Como. Let us hear Benedict Giovio in the History of Como, Book II Thesaurus antiquitatum Italiæ, vol. IV, part II, col. 117: In the times of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian … Fidelis consummated his martyrdom at the vicus of Samolaco, situated at the head of the Larius; his body was laid in a chapel built to his name. And it lay hidden until the year of the Lord nine hundred and sixty (see below), at which time Ubaldo was bishop of Como; to whom a certain woman named Dominica, warned in sleep, reported that he should have the relics of holy Fidelis carried back into the city. He, giving credence to the good woman, sailed to Samolaco with her, and she at once showed the unknown place of the Martyr. His relics, taken up from there, were translated into the city to the very church of holy Euphemia, which for that reason was afterwards dedicated to Fidelis himself. Thus far Benedict Giovio, who himself too was an ornament of the city of Como, in which he saw the light. The memory of this translation is kept at Como on the 13th day of June, and it is announced in these words in the martyrology of the church of that city: At Como the first translation of St. Fidelis, martyr, from the vicus of Samolaco, in which he had lain for six hundred and sixty-six years, to the collegiate church of St. Euphemia, virgin, in the city. The finding of this, divinely revealed, Ubaldo bishop of Como, a vast multitude of the peoples having poured forth to receive the sacred pledge, celebrated with the highest sign of joy and the greatest solemnity, and placed it in the aforesaid basilica before the high altar, which, its former title soon being abandoned, began to be named St. Fidelis on account of its new guest. What Tatti here succinctly gives (for he is the author of the martyrology of Como) he unfolds very broadly after his manner in his Annals, and adds some things that will not easily gain belief. For example, he relates that a bell in the city of Como, moved of its own accord, as soon as the bishop looked upon the uncovered body of St. Fidelis at Samolaco, did not cease until it had been deposited in the church of holy Euphemia Annali sacri di Como, vol. II, p. 79. The error ought not to be passed over in this place into which Ferrari fell on this 28th day of October in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, writing: The body … was translated to Como and laid in his own church most magnificently built for him. The church of St. Euphemia was standing when the remains of the blessed Martyr were brought into it. Unless perhaps Ferrari means that that church was afterwards renovated. Finally we note that the feast of this Finding and Translation is found in the new breviary of Como at the 15th day of the same month of June Cantù, vol. II, p. 221. Yet the Ordo for the year 1847, which I have in hand, is altogether silent about St. Fidelis on both the one day and the other. Compare § IV.

[18] more probably about the year 964; Writers do not agree about the year of the Translation. Some would have it occur in the year 936; but wrongly, replies Tatti Martyrol. of Como at the 13th day of June: for by this year Ubaldo had not yet obtained the tiara of Como. Certainly Sigonio seems altogether to attach the beginning of the episcopate of Ubaldo (whom he himself calls Valdo) to the year 947, under which he reports De regno Italiæ, Book VI. Works, vol. II, col. 411. Milan 1732, in folio: Moreover Berengar, when he was distributing the churches, substituted Antony at Brescia in place of Joseph, but at Como he appointed not Adelard, as he had promised, but a certain Valdo. Ughelli writes the same year in the margin Italia sacra, vol. V, col. 476. Others, like Benedict Giovio above, place the Translation in the year 960: But, says Tatti Where cited above, in this year the embassy of the same man to Germany … to Otto the Great, afterwards emperor, took Ubaldo away from the church of Como; at the very time, namely, at which he is supposed to have carried out this Translation at Como. This embassy is also mentioned by Sigonio Ibid., p. 421 and George Giulini Memorie spettanti alla storia etc. di Milano, vol. II, p. 292 at this year; yet it does not clearly follow from the words of either that Ubaldo was absent for the whole year. Tatti then adds in the martyrology: We therefore think truer the reckoning of Quintilius Lucinus Passalia, who, adhering to the old monuments seen by him, asserts that the translation of St. Fidelis was made by Ubaldo in the year 964. Ughelli determines nothing on this matter; he only writes in the margin: About the year 964, as Tatti conjectures Italia sacra, where cited above. Giulini likewise hesitates: Amid the tumults of war, that pontiff (Ubaldo) did not neglect his sacred functions, if indeed in this year, as Father Tatti supposes, the translation of the relics of St. Fidelis was made by him. So too Ravelli. Ubaldo, he says Storia di Como, vol. II, p. 67, stormed the Isola Comacina in the year 964, in which year Tatti too, relying on an old breviary of Como, places the Translation of St. Fidelis. All therefore being agreed that under the prelacy of Ubaldo the relics of the holy Martyr were brought from Samolaco to Como; but as to the year they contend, most marking the year 964, as very recently Cesare Cantù Storia della cità e diocesi di Como, vol. II, p. 222. Como 1829.

[19] a second in the year 1365; A second Translation of St. Fidelis is celebrated on the 4th day of June. Mention of it is made in the diptych of the bishops of Como edited by Lazarus Carafino (see the following number). Concerning this the martyrology of Tatti has: At Como the second Translation of St. Fidelis, martyr, in his own collegiate church, when from the middle of the choir of the church the sacred body of this athlete was laid more honourably above the high altar by Stephen Gotto, bishop of Como. And somewhat more precisely Ughelli: Stephen, he says Italia sacra, vol. V, col. 509, translated the body of St. Fidelis, and near the high altar of the cathedral (rather of the collegiate church) … in a chest of the whitest marble, supported by two columns. Tatti rightly notes that Ughelli is hallucinating when he says that the body of St. Fidelis is preserved in the cathedral church, since it is clearer than the noonday light that it has always been venerated with all honour in his own collegiate church from its first translation, of which we have spoken above. Moreover there is recited both in Ughelli and in Tatti an inscription, witness of the whole matter, which was then carved on the marble, and it is framed in these words:

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD MCCCLXV

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MONTH OF JUNE, ON THE FOURTH DAY

THE BODY WAS TRANSLATED

OF THE MOST BLESSED ATHLETE AND MARTYR FIDELIS

SOLEMNLY FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE CHOIR OF THIS CHURCH

PRESENT TO THIS

MARBLE CHEST, AND IN IT *

REVERENTLY LAID UP,

THERE BEING PRESENT THE REVEREND FATHER LORD STEPHEN

BY THE GRACE OF GOD

BISHOP OF COMO, AND ALSO

STANDING BY IN THE SAME PLACE IN PERSON

THE WHOLE CLERGY AND ALL THE PEOPLE

DEVOUTLY OF COMO.

[20] likewise a third in the year 1638. Finally there is noted on the 19th day of April in the same martyrology: The third Translation of the same holy Martyr, when his venerable body was opened up by Lazarus Carafino, bishop of Como, and from the high altar, above which it stood out, was placed beneath the same altar with the greatest concourse and joy of the people. Concerning this prelate Ughelli has little, since while he was still among the living the Italia sacra was committed to print. He ascended the see of Como in the year 1626; he held a synod and published it together with the diptych table of the bishops of Como… The noble prelate presides over and benefits the noble church, etc. Ibid., col. 322. But to return to the Translation, Tatti notes the following at the aforesaid 19th day of April: Concerning this Translation there exist tables written at the order of Lazarus Carafino, our bishop of Como, by Father Peter Casati, notary of the episcopal chancery and provost of St. Sixtus, of which a copy was laid up together with the bones of St. Fidelis in his former tomb with the subsequent document, in which both former translations are clearly commemorated: The bones of the glorious martyr Fidelis, who suffered under the emperor Diocletian, sought out by Ubaldo the XXXVIIII from the district of Samolaco at a heavenly warning and brought to this church; placed behind the altar by Stephen, the LXIII of the bishops of Como; Lazarus Carafino, the LXXXVI bishop of Como, having adorned the church and levelled the presbytery, beneath the same altar on the 19th of April 1638 with solemn celebrity and the greatest concourse of the people enclosed in this marble tomb: he consecrated the altar, granted an indulgence of one year on the day of consecration itself and of 40 days on the anniversary to those visiting. And so much for the relics and the translations at Como.

Tatti: ipsaque*

§ III. The dispute over the relics of St. Fidelis between the people of Como and of Milan is set out and examined. The former assert that the body of the blessed Martyr has been perpetually preserved at Como; the latter would have it translated about the thirteenth century from Como to Arona, and from there, by the labour of St. Charles Borromeo, to Milan, and indeed first to the old church of Blessed Fidelis and not long after to the new one.

The dispute over the relics between the people of Como and of Arona; Let us hear Zaccaria, who wrote a special book on St. Fidelis and some other martyrs. Ripamonti, he says De' santi martyri Fedele, Carpoforo, Gratiniano e Felino, p. 20. Milan 1750, in the History of the church of Milan, Paul Morigia in the Sanctuary, Baldesano in the History of the Theban Legion, the writers of the Life of St. Charles Borromeo, an Anonymous in a Life of St. Fidelis published in the Italian tongue at Milan in the year 1610, and others, as also after Zaccaria Count George Giulini Memorie spettanti alla citta di Milano, vol. VIII, pp. 175 – 77, would have the bodies of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus translated from Como to Arona about the year 1350 (or rather earlier) by the abbot of the monastery of Sts. Gratinian and Felinus; Bascapè adds that this abbot was a native of Como, and that the holy relics were deposited in a small altar, because in the greater one rested the bones of the holy martyrs from whom the monastery has its name. And again: But the writers of Como hold the contrary, both because in the breviary of this diocese on the 7th of August one reads expressly of St. Carpophorus: "Where (in his church) he now rests with his companions"; and because in the year 1365, and thus in the fifteenth year after the alleged translation to Arona, the body of St. Fidelis was recognised and placed in a more fitting place by Stephen, bishop of Como, as we too have related above; and finally because two other recognitions or translations are proved to have been undertaken; the one of St. Carpophorus in the year 1611; the other of St. Fidelis in the year 1638 (compare no. 20). And so much in summary from Zaccaria on the state of the question. The hinge of the whole matter, as is clear, turns on the former translation, namely from Como to Arona, this if

it be true, no doubt will remain that the relics of the people of Milan are held to be genuine, since the translation carried out by St. Charles is established by altogether certain documents. What then is to be thought of the treasure of the old abbey of Arona?

[22] If you listen to Tatti, the people of Arona claimed for themselves the possession of the holy Body altogether in vain. the assertions of the people of Como are explained; But that, he says Martyrology of Como, 28 October, the body of this our St. Fidelis is still preserved at Como in the collegiate church dedicated to his name, and not at Milan (translated, that is, to this place from Arona) … is more certain than certain from the most recent inspection by Lazarus Carafino, bishop of Como (in the year 1638, compare no. 20), who found it almost whole in his ancient sarcophagus, if we except small and, as they say, less principal parts of the body. But concerning this truth even the fathers of the Society of Jesus themselves, who at Milan thought that they were venerating the bones of the Martyr, as eyewitnesses recognised what is rightly to be held, so that we think it vanity to call this into controversy again. What these last words may mean, or what our Fathers may have declared, I could not easily say. This is certain, that Zaccaria, a priest of the same Society, in the year 1750, in which the little work on Sts. Fidelis, Carpophorus, etc. came out in print, held altogether otherwise; for in his opinion, as will be said more explicitly below, the body of St. Fidelis rests at Milan; nor does he anywhere insinuate by even one word that his predecessors had any other mind. Whence the assertion of Tatti seems to me at least of very suspect credit. In another place the same Tatti Ibid., 19 April asserts again that the whole body is preserved at Como, and thus that it is falsely said to be sought partly at Milan, partly elsewhere. Zaccaria agrees Zaccaria, p. 24, asserting that the bodies are certainly not preserved in both places; that is, taking, as often happens, by synecdoche a part for the whole body. The recognitions made on both sides are against it, from which it is established that both the people of Como and those of Milan claim for themselves entire bodies. For that reason Tatti thinks that one must altogether say that there is one St. Fidelis, who suffered on the furthest shore of the Larius and, brought to Como, found the highest veneration among us; and another who is believed to rest at Milan together with St. Carpophorus, although from the identity of name and the nearness of places they are thought, wrongly, to be one and the same. Thus far Tatti in the martyrology. Zaccaria replies that neither can this be reconciled with the aforesaid recognitions, from which it is plainly established that the matter concerns the relics of the same holy martyrs; and he adds that the names Carpophorus and Fidelis, though not altogether wanting in the sacred calendars, are yet found more rarely than the names of many others, for example Victor etc. It seems certain, therefore, that one side or the other is in error. We have seen by what reasons the people of Como contend; now let us examine those the others bring forward.

[23] [the translation to Arona is supported by documents of the thirteenth century and following.] And first they adduce from the old archive of the monastery of Sts. Gratinian and Felinus a constitution of Abbot Conrad Bossi, given and confirmed in chapter in the year 1259 (thus a full century earlier than the anonymous of whom no. 21 has it), in which one reads expressly Ibid., p. 150: The chapter having been convened … these are the ordinances made … by the lord Conrad Bossi, by the grace of God abbot of the above-written monastery of Arona, with the consent and will of the undersigned monks… To the honour of God the Father almighty and of the blessed saints Gratinian, Felinus, Carpophorus and Fidelis, lying in the said monastery. See, if you please, the whole constitution in Zaccaria. At the aforesaid year Count George Giulini reports another testimony [At the year 1259. Memorie spettanti alla storia etc. della citta di Milano ne' secoli bassi, vol. VIII, p. 176] from Goffredo da Bussero, a writer of the thirteenth century, inasmuch as he was born in the year 1220. He, treating of St. Maurice and his companion martyrs, names individually those who are related to have met death at Como and in the neighbourhood, and they are Sts. Fidelis, Carpophorus, Cassius, Exanthus, Licinius, Severus and Secundus; and he adds: But two bodies of these were given to the monastery of Arona. I do not see how these words could concern any others than Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus. Let us return to Zaccaria, who invokes another charter from the same archive of Arona, namely of the year 1321. This begins Zaccaria, where cited above: In the name of the Lord and of the most blessed Virgin Mary and of the holy martyrs Gratinian, Filinus, Carpophorus and Fidelis and of all the saints; it is not indeed added that the bodies rest there; but it is certainly understood: for you would not easily find any other reason why those four should be named together, as in the constitution of the year 1259. Again in the fifteenth century we find an instrument concerning possession of the abbey, entered upon in the year 1488 in the name of Jerome Callagrani, through James of Volterra and John Bosco, of which this is the beginning Ibid.: The suffrage of Almighty God the Saviour etc. and of the holy etc. glorious Gratinian and Filinus, patrons of this venerable monastery of Arona of the order of St. Benedict, and of Carpophorus and Fidelis, of all the holy Martyrs, the bodies of all of whom have been laid in the church of the said monastery … being mercifully implored. These things will become clearer from what is soon to be said.

[24] especially by the instrument of reposition of the year 1489. In the following year we have the Instrument of the reposition of the bodies of Sts. Carpoforus and Enfidelis, which it is helpful to copy out here in full from the praised book of Zaccaria P. 55 and following. In the name of the Lord in the year from his nativity one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine, in the seventh indiction, on Tuesday, the second of the month of June, a little before the hour of vespers, in the presence of me the notary and of the witnesses written below, specially called and asked for these things, and of many other persons there standing by. The Reverend Father in Christ, Lord James of Volterra, archdeacon of Volterra, secretary of the holy Apostolic See and protonotary of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord Innocent the Eighth, by divine providence Pope, and nuncio and orator of the same holy See to the most illustrious and most excellent prince Lord John Galeazzo, Duke of Milan Compare Art de vérifier les dates, p. 839, and having the care of the monastery of Sts. Gratinian and Filinus of Arona in the diocese of Milan (which the Reverend Father Lord Jerome Callagrani, protonotary of the aforesaid See, and subdeacon and familiar of our aforesaid Lord Pope, his continual table-companion and privy chamberlain, holds in commendam by apostolic dispensation); who today caused to be built in the main chapel of the new church of Sts. Gratinian and Filinus of the aforesaid monastery of Arona one altar of stones and cement on the right side, on entering the said chapel, fixed to the wall of the chapel, in which are to be laid up the bodies of Sts. Carpoforus and Enfidelis, martyr, from the place where they had first been deposited, on account of the demolition of the old church of the aforesaid Sts. Gratinian and Filinus; translated today by his command to that new church, to the honour of God and of his most blessed mother the Virgin Mary, and of the same Sts. Carpoforus and Enfidelis, he laid them up and deposited them in the aforesaid altar built today, in one marble casket well closed and sealed, there standing by the aforesaid undersigned witnesses and many other persons there gathered to the praise of God and of the whole triumphant heavenly court, the aforesaid Lord James asking me Jacobinus Ponzoni, the undersigned notary, that concerning all and each of the foregoing I should draw up a public instrument; and then, as above, there were present there as witnesses the venerable lords, the priests Peter de Carchano of Milan, canon of the church of St. Fidelis of Como, and Bartholomew de Buziis, rector of the church of St. Valeria at Milan, both doctors of Decretals, and the lord priest Lawrence de Cenis de Contubernia of the church of St. Mary of Borgo Ticino, the lord priest Bernardine de Castano, rector of the church of St. Mary of Dromeleto, both of the diocese of Novara, the lord priest Thomasinus de Senis, son of Jacomolus Thomasinus, Antony de… son of Lord James, both dwellers in the burgh of Arona of the diocese of Milan, Master Polliacetus de Luonibus of Milan, sculptor of stones, son of … dwelling at Milan, and Jacobinus de Rubeis, called Caldirolus, son of John, dwelling at Mercurago, all called as suitable to the foregoing and asked — I Jacobinus de Ponzonibus of Gallarate, son of Lord James, dwelling at Arona, public notary by imperial authority, being asked, delivered, wrote and subscribed. In the margin one reads in the hand of the same notary: Note, that besides me Jacobinus Ponzoni, notary, the notaries written below also being with me, each of us in full was asked concerning this reposition; namely Lord Ponzelinus de Bexutio, John de Pizio of Lesa, Quintinus Ponzoni at Arona, John Job of Anono at Arona, and John Philip Catia at Arona, all public notaries. It exists in a manuscript book entitled: Instruments of the taking of possession of the goods of the abbey in the name of the commendatory Jerome Calagrani, p. 12. So Zaccaria P. 55

[25] which is certainly of great moment; Nor do I suppose that anyone will be moved because Enfidelis is written in place of Fidelis. Such things frequently occur in charters of otherwise the best quality. This document is certainly of the greatest moment, from which we learn that the reposition was made in the presence, and with no contradiction in any way, of Peter de Carchano, canon of the collegiate church of St. Fidelis of Como.

[26] and by two recognitions under St. Charles Borromeo, To this also relates the twofold recognition of the same relics made by St. Charles Borromeo; the one when they were carried from Arona to Milan; the other when, in order to console the people of Arona, the reliquary being opened again, he drew out two bones. Having been received, says Oltrocchi in his Notes to the Life of the holy Prelate by Giussano P. 440, the sacred bodies were first in the college of Brera (of the Society of Jesus at Milan), where they were recognised by the holy Cardinal, and public records were also drawn up of their recognition. Then they were at once carried into the sacred church of St. Simplician in the city, and there they lay hidden on the following day. On the last day of the same month (of February in the year 1576), after Charles had kept vigil before them through the preceding night in continuous prayer … he carried them into the old church of St. Fidelis… But our city had scarcely begun to enjoy this benefit when the pious voices of the people of Arona overwhelmed the Cardinal's ears, crying out that their common native place (the holy prelate had been born at Arona) had been defrauded of the sacred pledge, and earnestly demanding it back. To indulge them, Charles assigned to the people of Arona to keep a bone of the arm cut from each of the holy martyrs (Fidelis and Carpophorus). Of these things more fully elsewhere.

[27] and, in Zaccaria's judgment, it is proved. And these are the things by which the opinion opposed to the people of Como is supported. Namely two testimonies pertaining to the thirteenth century; one brought to light by Zaccaria; the other unknown to him, but afterwards discovered by George Giulini; likewise three others, of which the first is of the fourteenth century, the two latter of the fifteenth; which finally are confirmed by the acts of St. Charles Borromeo toward the end of the sixteenth century Compare Zaccaria, p. 23. Relying on these (one excepted) Zaccaria Ibid., p. 24 and following reasons thus: 1° It is no wonder that the people of Como, with whom for many centuries the sacred relics

were, should persist in this opinion, namely that the bodies had remained with them right down to our times; but from where did the people of Arona get the opinion that they possessed this treasure, which must have been brought to them from elsewhere? Surely because such a translation was once truly made. 2° Therefore either the people of Como lent to the abbot of Arona or to some other two bodies, pretending that they were the remains of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus, or that abbot or some other secretly carried them off, as is proved by not a few examples to have happened in these centuries. If the first, how does it come about that all memory of any such handing over or fiction has perished? How does it come about that a canon of the collegiate church of St. Fidelis of Como, when he was present at the reposition made at the end of the fifteenth century, made no protest? But if they were stolen secretly, who does not see that the people of Como could more easily have been deceived than those of Arona, the defrauded rather than the defrauders? 3° It is established from a certain document, namely the constitution of the year 1259, that all the monks of the abbey of Sts. Gratinian and Felinus were then persuaded that the bodies of two holy martyrs were preserved in their church; it falls therefore to the people of Como to overturn this proof not by conjectures but by more certain testimony. It is moreover well to note that the aforesaid constitution was drawn up a full century before Stephen, bishop of Como, undertook the recognition so often objected by Tatti. Nor do the following recognitions certainly have greater force of proof. 4° Finally to these recognitions are opposed others, both at Arona and especially two made at Milan by St. Charles Cardinal Borromeo. 5° As regards the breviary or Proper of Como, mention of which occurred above at no. 21; he rightly notes that nothing certain is to be concluded from it, since very often the learned depart from the Roman breviary itself, where the question is of preserved relics; why should it not be permitted also to depart from the Proper of a particular church, especially in a matter very much disputed? From which it is clear enough and more that Zaccaria favours the people of Milan.

[28] The conjecture of the same Zaccaria on the manner of the translation, The same Zaccaria moreover suspects that the matter happened thus. A certain abbot of Arona, whether a native of Como or transferred from the monastery of St. Carpophorus of this city to that of St. Gratinian (both belonged to the Benedictines), knowing where the bodies of the holy martyrs lay, may have set his mind on enriching his church with such precious relics. And so, either secretly or by corrupting the guardians with money, he carried off the relics of St. Fidelis, to which (and this was easier for him) he joined others of St. Carpophorus. The learned man came to this opinion both because in that age it was almost customary to commit pious thefts of this kind; and because if it had been done not secretly but openly, either by force or with the consent of the canons and monks, we should certainly have it handed down to memory in some way; but not even the slightest trace is found anywhere. Zaccaria adds that it is probable to him that the author of the theft substituted two other bodies for the former, either brought from the Roman cemeteries or found at Como; which is demonstrated by certain testimonies to have happened elsewhere too. Nor is there any reason for you to object that the people of Como themselves could equally easily have procured those other bodies, to hand over to the deluded people of Arona as the remains of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus. The praised writer replies: they would perhaps indeed have acted so, if in some way they had been forewarned of the design of the despoiler; but it is otherwise if, as Zaccaria supposes or conjectures, the matter was carried out secretly. And by these things in his opinion the otherwise inextricable knot is untied; namely how it comes about that at Como as well as at Arona or Milan entire bodies have been several times both found and recognised.

[29] and the time at which it happened. Monuments are lacking from which it may be determined in what year the venerable bones of the holy martyrs reached Arona. It would not be absurd, however, in the judgment of the often-mentioned Zaccaria, if someone were to say that it happened between the year 1127 and the year 1259. For it is certain from the words recited of the constitution praised above, that in the latter year the bodies rested in the church of St. Gratinian: Lying in the said monastery; from which formula it seems it can be inferred that they had already for some time been found there Zaccaria, p. 27 and following. And we know that in the year 1127 (others would have it the following year [See Sassi on the history of Milan of Landulf the Younger, Rerum Ital. scriptores, vol. V, p. 509]) Como was stormed and destroyed by the people of Milan, as is narrated by a contemporary anonymous poet, a native of the aforesaid city, and first brought to light by Muratori, with the excellent corrections and notes of D. Joseph Mary Stampa of the Somaschan congregation. The most celebrated editor prefaces this among other things Ibid., p. 401: After a long war waged between that people (of Como) and those of Milan with vast contention of spirits and courage, whose beginning was the year of the Christian era MCXVIII, its end the year MCXXVII, the city of Como, compelled to yield to the stronger, was despoiled not only of liberty but also of the honour of towers and walls. And at the same time there was found a poet, who was present at the sufferings of his native place… Hence arose the poem, which now for the first time begins to enjoy the use of the light. And a little below: He shows himself everywhere a most inept … poet, rushing into a style not only inelegant but crawling on the ground … But it turned out well that this poem was entrusted to the singular skill and talent of the above-praised Father Stampa … so that almost nothing has been left that still calls for the physician. As a specimen then we add the little verses in which the final destruction of the city is described:

At once by a signal they order the wall to be laid low; They lay low the high towers and at the same time the houses * They lay waste the city, the enemy move up fiercely. They break the walls apart and lay bare the foundations. Meanwhile they lay low the walls of the long suburb, They throw down the towers, fiercely they press the houses; And the roofs, while they burn within, smoke through their peaks.

It could indeed have happened, either during the destruction itself or while the final calamity was impending, that a monk of St. Carpophorus (I use the words of Zaccaria P. 28) undertook to convey the bodies of the holy martyrs to Arona, either with the intention of adorning the abbey with them, or to prevent them from coming into the hands of the enemy, by whom they would be profaned. This at any rate is mere conjecture. Indeed it is against it that in many instruments given from the year 1127 and collected or reviewed by the same Zaccaria Pp. 126 – 149, only two names are found, namely Gratinian and Felinus; and Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus appear for the first time in that more solemn Constitution of the year 1259, far longer than the others, and confirmed in the chapter itself Pp. 150 – 154. Is it not lawful to infer from this that the bodies reached Arona either in this year or at least about that time? And this is the opinion of George Giulini, whom we mentioned above: for he, at this very year, to the following words of Goffredo da Bussero: But two bodies of these were given to the monastery of Arona, subjoins: not therefore carried off by theft, as Zaccaria suspected Memorie della cita di Milano, vol. VIII, p. 176, but given for a reason unknown to us and not to be attained unless new lights should come. If he had known the aforesaid testimony of Goffredo, perhaps Zaccaria would have departed from his conjectures.

[30] In which direction is the question to be settled? What then? From the arguments brought forward on both sides, my opinion remains in suspense. For on the one hand there are testimonies drawn from sincere documents that the sacred remains have lain at Arona at least from about the middle of the thirteenth century, yet without its being established in what year and still less in what manner the translation from Como was made; on the other hand there is the perpetual persuasion among the people of Como (as is plainly shown from the recognitions) that the bodies of the holy martyrs have remained in their city. Moreover from the same arguments and assertions it is clear that there is no place for us to say (what Bosca sets out at length, yet does not assert, in his notes to the martyrology of Milan on the 28th day of October) that parts of the same relics are preserved in both places, which, as not rarely holds, are called bodies by synecdoche; nor finally is it demonstrated by any weighty or sufficiently solid reason that the relics belong to different holy men of the same name. After this it will be of use to hear Oltrocchi in the notes to Giussano Life of St. Charles Borr., col. 441: The citizens of Como, he says, laugh at this whole narration of ours, who claim for themselves the long possession of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus, and also oppose two most distinguished writers, Fathers Aloysius Tatti and Joseph Mary Stampa, who, long pulling the rope of contention, in some way insult the devotion of the people of Milan. But the distinguished Father Francis Antony Zaccaria, in the most learned book which he published last year (that is, in the year 1750) on these Holy Martyrs, relying on a noble conjecture throws back the suspicion of error upon the people of Como themselves, whom he proves to have been thrust from this possession long before the year MCCLIX (this not said with sufficient accuracy by Oltrocchi, compare no. 29) from authentic documents of the college of Arona, and whatever reasons they heap up he ingeniously dissolves. It will suffice for us in this place to venerate and cherish the opinion and most prudent judgment of Charles (Borromeo), who asserted this right to the city of Milan as certain. "Wherefore" (to use the words of the same distinguished writer) "if the people of Como see that they are conquered by those of Milan and deprived of this right, let them attend to what remains; namely that they emulate or even surpass the religion and piety of our citizens; and thus it will indeed be more glorious for them to venerate the memory of the Saints than to retain the bodies; indeed even much more useful than to hurl uncertain arguments or jibes at us. But if they wish to hold their opinion tooth and nail, let them hold it, with the kindly aid of those above; and let them at least concede this, that we be free also to hold what we can prove Compare Zaccaria, p. 27 and following." Thus far Oltrocchi. The latest historiographer of Como, the distinguished Cesare Cantù, touching on the controversy in passing, seems to leave the matter open, saying only: We learn from Tatti that all the other saints of the same name, who are venerated elsewhere, are different from our blessed martyr, namely Fidelis Storia di Como, vol. I, p. 222. Ravelli, whose distinguished history is not carried beyond the middle of the fourteenth century, is silent about the translation to Arona, so far as is established for me from frequent inspection of the work (which, as is certainly to be regretted, lacks indexes of matters and words). Perhaps the learned man had proposed to himself to treat this question where he would have to deal with Stephen the bishop, who is read to have recognised the relics of St. Fidelis in the year 1365, as we saw at no. 19. It remains doubtful, therefore, as I said at the beginning of this number, in what place the relics of St. Fidelis are preserved at the present day. Whence not without point Bosca in the martyrology of Milan, printed at the archiepiscopal press in the year 1695, as Philip Argelati has it: Certainly the people of Milan judge that their Fidelis, whom the Roman martyrology mentions today, is entombed in their city; but the people of Como

in theirs. As for me, to untie this knot, I am Davus, not Oedipus.

simulet æde*

§ IV. By what means and at what time the translation of the body of St. Fidelis from Arona to Milan was made, first indeed to the old church of the same blessed Martyr, then to the new; both under St. Charles Borromeo.

[The Fathers of the Society of Jesus, called to Arona by St. Charles, recognise the relics of the blessed Martyr;] It remains for us to speak of the time and manner in which the translation from Arona to Milan was made. We shall follow Zaccaria, adding some things from Oltrocchi and the history of the Society of Jesus, and from the great geographical-historical dictionary of the kingdom of Sardinia. Arona is a town of the Borromeo family on Lake Verbano (Maggiore). There is situated the abbey of the martyrs Gratian (commonly Gratinian) and Felinus, which had long remained with the Borromei, and St. Charles had held this as his first honour of the sacred service. This he assigned to the academy of Brera (compare below) in such a way that, since he wished to provide also for his people of Arona (he had been born in that city), a college (of the Society of Jesus) or house of probation should likewise be established there. To all this was added the authority of Pope Gregory (XIII) Historia soc. Jesu, part III, Book VIII, p. 187. It was an abbey of the Order of St. Benedict, founded in the year 979, destroyed in the fourteenth century; secularised by Martin V in the year 1427. Callagrani, a secular abbot, rebuilt the church in the year 1489, and St. Charles resigned it to the Society of Jesus in the year 1573 [Dizionario geografico-storico-statico-commerciali degli stati del re di Sardegna, under Arona, vol. I, p. 30 and following], that a house of probation of this order might be established there. And so five members betook themselves to Arona in the following year Zaccaria, p. 30 and following, to arrange the affairs of the novitiate. These, desiring to make themselves agreeable to the citizens, began diligently to search for the relics of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus, which they knew were resting in the church of the abbey; and they found them, not in the high altar, as Giussano wrongly wrote, but in a lateral one, and indeed in the same marble casket into which they had been transferred in the year 1489 by the apostolic nuncio. Compare above no. 24. But this distressed the fathers not a little, that a sufficiently suitable place was wanting for setting them, and that from no other source were funds available for building a new chapel, as Zaccaria found expressly testified in the archive of our professed house at St. Fidelis of Milan. It happened, however, that at that time Jerome Ragazzoni, bishop and apostolic visitor, made a journey through Arona. He, having duly inspected everything, judged it would be best, since at Milan a new and magnificent church was being built to be dedicated to St. Fidelis, that his sacred relics should be destined for it. The plan did not displease the fathers, provided it was approved by St. Charles.

[32] these he decrees and arranges to be translated to Milan, Returning to Milan, Ragazzoni took up this business with the holy prelate. He asked for some days' respite; on the lapse of which he gave his assent, because he had come to know that this would turn out to the greater honour and veneration of both holy martyrs; he therefore asked the visitor that, by issuing a decree, he should prescribe the translation to be made. It is helpful to copy out the tenor of the decree, whose original Zaccaria saw in the aforesaid archive. In the church of Sts. Gratian and Felinus of Arona, of the Society of Jesus, let the bodies of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus be translated to Milan into the church which is now being built by the same Society under the invocation of St. Fidelis, there being left in the aforesaid church of Sts. Gratian and Felinus the bodies of those saints under whose auspice that church was built. At Milan, the 25th day of January 1576. It was signed: Jerome, bishop of Famagusta, apostolic visitor. On the following day St. Charles wrote to Prosper Colonna, provost of Beruzzo and, as they say, his vicar forane, that he should betake himself to Arona and be personally present at the translation, and should help the fathers with all his might in these circumstances. See, if you please, the letter, given in Italian, in Zaccaria.

[33] first indeed in the year 1576 to the old church of St. Fidelis, And so on Thursday, the 9th of February of the same year 1576, the matter was carried out by Father Tullius Racelli, as secretly as could be done. The bodies were first received in the college of Brera, and there diligently recognised by the holy cardinal, as is shown by the public records drawn up by John Baptist Oldoni, notary of the archbishopric; and at once they were carried to St. Simplicius in the city, in which church they lay hidden on the following day. On the Saturday following, that is the 11th of the said month, after Charles had kept vigil through the night praying before the relics, reverently with Ragazzoni, having raised them on his shoulders, he bore them out into the old church of St. Fidelis, the fathers of the Society of Jesus, the clergy and the magistrates of the city escorting them very honourably Compare Oltrocchi, Life of St. Charles, col. 440. When they had come there, the litanies having been solemnly sung, he handed over the sacred remains into the hands of Father Francis Adorno, the provincial, Father John Baptist Perusco, the provost, and other fathers of the same Society who were present; and again records were drawn up by the aforesaid Oldoni and John Ambrose Spanzola, notaries. But that satisfaction might be given to the people flowing together in crowds and from every side, they remained exposed on the following Sunday until the third hour of the evening (sino alle tre ore de notte, says Zaccaria). Then Father Perusco, commissioned for this by the archbishop and the Provincial, with many of the members standing by (among whom the well-known interpreter of the sacred Scriptures Emmanuel Sa) and other witnesses, as is again clear from another instrument, sealed the reliquary and deposited it beneath the high altar, a brick wall (muro di cotto) being raised in order to withdraw it from the eyes.

[34] [where they are again recognised, and two bones are drawn out to be taken back to Arona;] But behold, a few days afterwards legates arrive from the people of Arona (the relics, as we have said, had been conveyed secretly from their city), complaining bitterly about the removal of the treasure. Charles received them kindly, well perceiving from what source the complaints flowed, namely from a sincere affection toward the holy martyrs, and bids them have good hope. A little later he sends for his physician and with him a very experienced surgeon (his name was Gabrius of Cuneo); accompanied by these he goes to the church of St. Fidelis; he orders the brick wall to be thrown down and the reliquary to be brought out and opened; a second time he visits and recognises the relics. He then commands the surgeon to detach a bone from each arm; these two bones he wraps in a silken cloth of red colour, and adding ashes he lays them in a little box, which, covered with a like cloth, he closes, seals and gives to the Father Rector of the college of Brera to be brought to Arona. But then a new dissension arose. The people of Arona wished the sacred treasure to be deposited not in the church of the abbey, now the novitiate of Jesus, but in the principal church of the city. The matter being brought to the cardinal, Borromeo preferred to adjudge it to the Fathers, whom he loved dearly; where, says Zaccaria, the relics have remained to this day, and the 13th day of March, on which they were carried back to Arona, is each year celebrated with joy by the citizens with a pious procession and other sacred ceremonies.

[35] and then in the year 1579 to the new church of the same holy Martyr. At length there was brought to its summit at Milan the church begun three years before, and it was sufficiently ready for the performance of the divine offices. Wherefore on the 24th day of June in the year 1579 St. Charles betook himself there, accompanied by the chapter, surrounded by an innumerable multitude, to translate the bodies of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus from the altar of the old church, where they had been deposited three years before, to the new, likewise beneath the high altar. On this occasion he delivered a sermon to the people on the two holy martyrs, and a procession having been held, he celebrated the sacred rites, which then for the first time took place at the said altar; he distributed the divine Eucharist to the dense throng of the people who were ceaselessly hastening to the veneration of the holy relics. Finally the excellent and most holy prelate deigned on this day to sit at the Fathers' table. It may be permitted to add that the Fathers, grateful for so many and such great benefits, set up a marble image of so distinguished a benefactor at the entrance of the professed house at St. Fidelis, beneath which the following inscription fixed to the wall was once read:

TO ST. CHARLES

Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Archbishop of Milan, who increased with the greatest benefits the Society of Jesus, which at Rome he began to love, which he defended with perpetual patronage, which he sent ahead from the City to Milan in the year MDLXIII, and placed in three churches of his diocese, as long as he lived employing the industry and labours of its members * for the education of youth; he duly laid the foundations of this church, and translated hither with sacred pomp the bodies of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus, martyrs, brought from Arona; the House of the Professed, established by the same author, grateful, mindful, devoted, to its most deserving Patron, its most loving Parent, on account of his signal benevolence toward the entire Order and his most ample merits.

Placed as an eternal monument in the year MDCXV Latuada, descrizione di Milano, vol. V, p. 434 and following.

usns*?

§ V. Of the cult of St. Fidelis both at Como and at Milan and Arona. Lessons from two breviaries of Como and from the present-day Proper, in which some things about his family, native country, etc. are not sufficiently proved. The feast and memorials of the translations.

Cult in many churches, After the body of St. Fidelis was found and translated under Bishop Ubaldo the cult began to take the greatest increase, not only in the city of Como, but also in the whole diocese, and indeed in the entire land of the Lombards. Tatti enumerates churches of several places in which at that time veneration toward the holy Martyr either arose or grew Tatti, vol. II, p. 80; noting at the same time that among them are those which (though wrongly in his judgment) glory in preserving either the sacred body itself or at least no small parts of it Ibid., p. 81 and following. Of this kind there are altogether three at Milan, of which one is that of St. Fidelis (of which, as also of the monastery of Arona, it has already been spoken above), another St. Victor of the Olivetan Fathers, the third St. Peter of Monteforte, of the congregation of Somasca; in this last it is certain that the relics belong to another saint of the same name, inasmuch as they, says Tatti, were given to our congregation by the most eminent Cardinal Borghese, and were dug out of the Roman cemeteries a few years before. The people of Piacenza also claim for themselves a holy body in the church of St. Mary of Peace; which, since as they themselves admit it was brought from the island of Sardinia in the year 1646, is clearly different from the holy Martyr of Como. Finally at Verona some small bones are displayed, which, whether they belong to this or to another St. Fidelis, is uncertain. So much in summary from the praised writer of the sacred annals of the church of Como; related by us with the intention of showing that the cult of St. Fidelis was diffused far and wide. I add one thing, namely that in a recent Geographical … diocesan handbook of the province of Como there is marked a tract or district which, like its principal town, has its name from St. Fidelis Pp. 60 and 233. As regards the, as it is commonly called, authenticity of the various relics, see above § II and III.

[37] chiefly at Como in his own church; There are two most distinguished monuments of the cult paid to the holy Martyr, preserved to this very day; namely two churches dedicated to his name; one at Como, the other at Milan. Although mention of both has already often occurred, yet it will not be out of place in this present place to speak somewhat more fully. We saw at no. 17 that St. Fidelis was brought from his original tomb to the church of St. Euphemia, which soon, its title being changed, was named after St. Fidelis. The antiquity of this sacred building is established from the testament of Bishop Walpert made on the 27th day of May in the year 914, by which he bestows very many estates on the church of St. Euphemia at Como. See the instrument in Tatti Vol. II, p. 709 and following. Falsely therefore Ferrari wrote that it was erected at the very first translation (compare no. 17). But that, as the often-mentioned Tatti notes Martyrol., 13 June, this basilica stood under the title of St. Euphemia, is taught not only by the records of Walpert … but also by the most ancient tradition of the city, by which it has always believed that it drew its origin very many centuries before, and probably while St. Abundius presided over it. Blessed Abundius held the mitre of Como third after St. Felix, from the year 450 to the year 469, (with Henschen rather 468 Acta SS., vol. I of April, day II), as Ughelli has it Italia sacra, vol. V, col. 259 and following against Tatti.

[38] dedicated in antiquity to St. Euphemia, Whether the age of that church goes back to the fifth century, I would not wish to affirm; but certainly a high antiquity is asserted by Benedict Giovio, a writer of the sixteenth century, inasmuch as he is known to have died in the year 1544, past seventy, whose diligence and erudition Tiraboschi commends not a little [Storia della litteratura Italiana, vol. VII, part II, p. 242 and p. 303. Compare Biographie univers., under Giovio Ben.]. He says, then, in the history of Como, Book II: The church of Holy Fidelis was indeed first dedicated to St. Euphemia. It is praised by architects as of an ancient structure, and there are those who think it was founded by the pagans; but it is the work of Christians, as a certain sculpture of Daniel in the lions' den and of Habakkuk carried by the angel by the hair clearly marks. It had a very beautiful propylaeum of marble columns, which was called the "atrium". For so the Christians called the front porticoes of churches, without which in antiquity they built none, etc. [Graevius, Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiæ, vol. IV, part II, col. 117].

[39] afterwards a collegiate church; And to come closer to the present state of this church, Orlendi has as follows Orbis sacer et profanus, part II, Book II, ch. IX, no. V: In the city (of Como) there are moreover twelve parishes, among which stands out the distinguished collegiate church of St. Fidelis. Similarly Ughelli Italia sacra, vol. V, col. 257: In the city there are 12 parish churches, among which stands out the collegiate church of St. Fidelis, which shines with the dignity of a provostship, with seven canonical prebends, and the archipresbyteral church of St. George and the Provostship of St. Domninus. Finally in the geographical … diocesan handbook of the province of Como, dedicated to the prelate of this see, Charles Romano, and printed in the year 1846, there is counted among the parishes of the city P. 231: Of St. Fidelis, a provostal church, of free collation, with two subsidiaries, one of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, the other of St. Sixtus. The parish has 2500 inhabitants. But what is to become of this church hereafter, in so great a disturbance of all things both sacred and profane, God alone knows. From what has been said, however, it is clear that this notable monument of the cult of the holy Martyr has lasted from antiquity right down to our times.

[40] and at Milan likewise in his own church, What happened at Como to the church of St. Euphemia, namely that its title being abandoned or changed it was called after St. Fidelis, happened similarly at Milan to the church of St. Peter in Solariolo or Solario, which likewise received its name from our holy Martyr. In what year this change of title took place at Milan cannot be determined. It is established that it already so held in the year 1120, from a public and original document, as Puricelli says [Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica and monastery of Milan, no. 280. In Graevius, vol. IV, part I, col. 213 and following. Compare Latuada, Descrizione di Milano, vol. V, p. 430], of the abbey of San Dionigi among us, and which, the same writer asserts, was drawn up near the urban church of St. Fidelis, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and twenty, on Thursday the eleventh of the month of March, in the thirteenth Indiction. And he subjoins: Moreover that church of St. Fidelis was there where now, the name of the same saint being retained, is the professed house of the fathers of the Society of Jesus. And likewise in the years of Christ twenty-six and forty-five above the thousand it was called "St. Mary in Solariolo". For so we find from the public documents of the same abbey. Thus far Puricelli. In the Sitonian Calendar (which Latuada says was written after the middle of the eleventh century Latuada, Descrizione di Milano, vol. V, p. 430) there is noted at the 24th day of October: On the 9th of the kalends (of November) the Dedication of St. Mary in Solario. Compare no. 7. From the documents praised by Puricelli it follows that the change of title occurred after the year 1045 and before the year 1120, and thus either in the later eleventh century or at the beginning of the twelfth. Since, however, St. Damian delivered a sermon on Blessed Fidelis in the year 1059, and indeed on the feast-day of the holy Martyr, it is certainly natural to suppose that this was done in the building of which we are treating, and that it had already at that time received its new name. Yet in the whole sermon I do not find even one word from which it could in some way be concluded in what church the address was delivered. We are ignorant, therefore, in what year as also on what occasion this sacred building took its title from St. Fidelis. Then in the year 1567 it was handed over by St. Charles Borromeo to the fathers of the Society of Jesus, with the intention that a college should be begun there Hist. societatis Jesu, part III, Book III, no. 108; but in the year 1572, in which the holy cardinal established the academy of Brera, the college being transferred to it, a house of the professed was established at St. Fidelis Ibid., no. 110.

[41] which under St. Charles was renewed from the foundations. But already three years before the same most holy prelate had begun to build a new church to replace the old, as is proved from the following inscription carved on a stone Latuada, where cited above, p. 433: To God the Best and Greatest. Charles Borromeo, priest cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, archbishop of Milan, in restoring this church of Holy Fidelis, martyr, first laid this stone, blessed by him with the rite of the Church. On the 3rd of the nones of July MDLXIX. The building was brought to its summit in the space of ten years, and the church dedicated with solemn pomp by St. Charles himself on the 24th of June in the year 1579; the old one was then levelled to the ground Ibid. Likewise Hist. soc. Jesu, part IV, Book VII, no. 54. We said above that the bodies of Sts. Fidelis and Carpophorus, which, translated from Arona, had three years before been deposited in the former church, when the new church was opened, had thereafter their seat in this. See no. 35. Today the church is thus designated in the little book which is published every year under the title Milano sacro: St. Mary at the Scala in St. Fidelis (alla Scala in S. Fedele), and it is a distinguished parish provostship numbering 5941 souls Milano sacro, year 1855, p. 77.

[42] Lessons from an old breviary of Como, The ancient lessons, long sought in vain both at Como and at Milan, I at last found in our Museum, among some others concerning saints of the same church, once submitted to one of our predecessors by a member of the Society at Como, as is clear from these words written at the end of the bundle: The rest which your Reverence desires could not be found after great diligence was applied. Farewell, my Father, and pray for an old man who is near the grave, whose hands and fingers tremble in writing, and whose eyes grow dim. Who that good old man was we have not been able to find out, as neither who he was to whom the bundle was addressed, perhaps Bolland. In the first place there are the Lessons of St. Fidelis contained in the old breviary at his feast on the 28th of October, from which we learn that the feast, which afterwards as also now was on the 29th of October, was then celebrated on the day before. And the lessons are as follows: Lesson 1. Today, dearest brethren, is the feast of St. Fidelis, martyr, who, a most Christian soldier, when the emperor Maximian was residing at Milan and raging against the Christians, slipped away in flight and came to the city of Como, and there, finding a small boat, sailed across the lake. — Lesson 2. Hearing this, the sacrilegious emperor Maximian ordered most trusted men to follow after him. — Lesson 3. Then the persecutors, by the command of the prince, running with all haste after St. Fidelis, spoke to him, saying: Either sacrifice and return to the emperor together with us, or you will be killed by various punishments. — Lesson 4. But St. Fidelis said: If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, not only will you not inflict the punishments which you set before me, but rather you will come together with me to eternal glory. — Lesson 5. And when he had said this, severe punishments were inflicted on him by the persecutors. But St. Fidelis constantly said: The punishments which you make do not fix pain in me, but rather afford refreshment. — Lesson 6. Then the executioners led St. Fidelis bound to a place which was called Turricula, where a pine tree had grown below the sailors' village, and there they cut off his head. Everyone will at once recognise that these things agree with the Mombritian Acts.

[43] likewise from another and from the Proper of the year 1846. In the other breviary, which that excellent old man calls new, the feast is prescribed to be celebrated on the 29th day of October, as in the present-day Proper of Como, and the three lessons in both places are altogether the same, except that in the latter there are added the things which happened after the death of St. Fidelis. It will suffice, therefore, to have recited them from the Proper [Proprium sanctorum pro sancta Novocomensi ecclesia. Autumn part, p. 67*. Como 1846, in octavo].

Lesson IV. When the emperor Diocletian, from the hatred which he had toward Christ the Lord, had decreed to destroy and utterly abolish the name of the Christians, the administration of the empire having been shared with Maximian, who was held by the same madness, he betook himself to Nicomedia; and there he far surpassed the cruelty of all previous princes in the persecution of the Christians. Rivalling this fury of mind, Maximian at Milan showed himself a most bitter enemy to the Christians. For in this calamity of the times Fidelis, very dear to Maximian on account of the brilliance of his family and the strength of his body, and the virtue of his soul among military men, by the blessed

Maternus, bishop of Milan, was baptized.

Lesson V. Fidelis therefore, urged both of his own accord and by the persuasions of St. Maternus, frequently visited the Christians who were in chains, supplied them with funds, and showed them all the offices of Christian piety; and he desired nothing more than to set them at liberty. And so, having shared his plan with Sts. Carpophorus and Exanthus, he led out of prison the holy martyrs of Christ, Cassius and his companions, who were held in chains. And in order to avoid the tempests of that tyrant's persecutions, which were being stirred up more violently day by day, he betook himself with them to Como; where for some time, devoting themselves to prayers and fasts, they lived together apart from the throng of men.

Lesson VI. Fidelis afterwards hearing that Maximian, having learned of their flight, was more violently exasperated and had sent satellites to pursue and kill them, bade farewell to his companions, embarked in a small boat, and hastened to Samolaco, a vicus on the furthest northern shore of the Larius. In which place, seized by the persecutors, he is tempted to venerate the gods and return to the emperor, honours being set before him and the very great favour which he would obtain from it; but that if he refused to do so, they had it in orders to kill him, tortured with every kind of torment. But Fidelis, strengthened in the constancy of faith, since he was moved neither by promises nor by threats or terrors, nor could be persuaded by any means to take up the rites of idols and deny Christ, is first weakened with cudgels, then severely tortured with many other torments, and finally, persisting in the confession of Christ, willingly offering his neck, he is struck with the axe. (Up to this point the lessons of the breviary praised above agree word for word; what follows is new.) His sacred body, which lay there buried in an obscure and ignoble place, after many courses of time was made manifest to a certain holy woman divinely admonished, and Ubaldus, bishop of Como, brought it with a very large escort from there to Como to the church of St. Euphemia, and there, the city being full of the highest signs of joy, he deposited it in a marble tomb with the greatest celebrity at the high altar of the church, which, its title being changed for the sake of honour to the saint, is called by the name of St. Fidelis. These things were more probably omitted in the other breviary because in it the Translation of St. Fidelis is marked to be celebrated on the 13th of June. See below.

[44] [What is found in the lessons about the birth, native country, baptism and profession of the holy Martyr is elucidated.] It will be helpful to elucidate somewhat what is related in these lessons about the family, baptism, and the life led by the holy Martyr before his passion: for not all are equally proved. That Blessed Fidelis sprang from a noble and wealthy family St. Peter Damian expressly teaches in the sermon: Since he was upheld, he says, by the brilliant titles of his birth, and with abundance of goods smiling on him etc. And in the Acts of St. Alexander, though less trustworthy (compare no. 11), we read Zaccaria, p. 35. Acta SS., vol. V of August, p. 806: The son of a certain illustrious man Praetestatus, Fidelis by name. In the judgment of Zaccaria Where cited above, p. 6, the word Praetextatus (by no means to be taken here adjectivally, as they say) is the name of a family or clan, and indeed of no inferior bench, and the learned man thinks this proved from several inscriptions which he recites. Our Acts are silent about his family; the same writer adds Ibid., p. 8 that it is hidden from us in what place St. Fidelis was born, whether at Milan, as Bosca has it Martyrology of Milan, 28 Oct., adducing Ripamonti as a witness, or rather elsewhere, as Zaccaria supposes or conjectures, but from lighter indications. This is certain, that in no ancient document that I know of is the place of his birth marked. Neither is it clearly established concerning the baptism conferred by the holy prelate of Milan. So indeed one reads in the same longer Acts of St. Alexander, as also in the Proper of Como; but nothing of the kind is found either in the shorter Acts of St. Alexander, those which, as we have noted from Stilting, are far more correct, or in the life of St. Maternus edited by our Cuper at the 10th day of July, in which St. Fidelis is not even once named; or in the two breviaries of the church of Milan recited by the same Cuper, or finally in the sermon of St. Peter Damian. On the contrary, our Acts conflict with it, where the holy Martyr testifies that from his infancy he has served Christ the Lord with devoted mind. In the other of the breviaries just mentioned it is related only that St. Maternus sent the blessed martyrs Carpophorus and Fidelis to the city of Como, that they might fight there for the glory of Christ Vol. IV of July, p. 362; which however are wanting in the older and better breviary; so that in this nothing at all is read about St. Fidelis. It is otherwise with his profession: for in all the monuments which treat of him, that he was a soldier is either declared in express words or plainly supposed. Compare the sermon of St. Peter Damian, no. 5 and following. What pertains to the passion we have either elucidated above, or shall set out more precisely in the Annotations, where there will be need.

[45] The feast and the memory of the translations Since the day of his death falls according to the Acts and other monuments on the 28th of October, which is sacred to Sts. Simon and Jude, the feast of St. Fidelis in the church and Proper of Como is put off to the following day, on which one reads thus in the Ordo for the year 1847, which I have at hand: 29 October, Friday. St. Fidelis, martyr, double. Lessons of the 1st Nocturn "Igitur Eleazarus" (from Book II of Maccabees) of the 5th Sunday of October. The rest in the book of the Saints of Como. Mass "In virtute" with the Gospel "Si quis vult" from the Mass "Sacerdotes Dei." The proper Collect is: May the suppliant prayer of St. Fidelis thy martyr help us before thee, we beseech thee, O Lord; that, asking thy benefits, we may obtain by his prayers what we cannot by our merits. Through the Lord. Moreover in the Sanctuarium or Martyrology of the holy church of Como, by Primus Aloysius de Tattis, a threefold Translation of St. Fidelis is celebrated, of which we have spoken at length in § II. The first is marked on the 13th of June; the second on the 4th of the same month; the third on the 19th of April. The first is announced in these words: On the Ides of June. At Como the first Translation of St. Fidelis, martyr, from the vicus of Samolaco, in which he had lain for six hundred and sixty-six years, to the collegiate church of St. Euphemia, virgin, in the city of Como. See the rest at no. 17. And on the day before the Nones (that is the 4th day) of the same month of June: At Como the second Translation of St. Fidelis, martyr, in his own collegiate church, when from the middle of the choir of the church the sacred body of this Athlete was laid more honourably above the high altar by Stephen Gatto, bishop of Como. Finally at the 19th day of April: At Como in the collegiate church of St. Fidelis, the third Translation of the same holy Martyr, when his venerable body was opened up by Lazarus Carafino, bishop of Como, and from the high altar, above which it stood out, was placed beneath the same altar with the greatest concourse and joy of the people. No memory of these three Translations is made in the aforesaid Proper and Ordo. In the bundle of which we spoke above at no. 42, I find it noted: The Translation of St. Fidelis is celebrated on the 13th of June in the new breviary, where no lessons are set down. But everything, it says, is said from the common of one martyr except the collect. In the old breviary no mention is made of the aforesaid translation. I add from the Martyrology of Milan of Bosca, on this 28th day of October: At Como St. Fidelis, citizen of Milan, who under the emperor Maximian crowned the brilliance of his family with the laurel of martyrdom. And in the notes: St. Fidelis (is mentioned in) the proper offices of the church of Como, in which on the following day the office is celebrated … with double rite; the Ambrosian breviary and missal, in which today a commemoration of this Martyr is made; while on the following day the priests who chant according to the Roman use perform the office of St. Fidelis with semi-double rite. Finally we learn from Zaccaria P. 34 that at Arona the 13th day of March is celebrated, on which by order of St. Charles Borromeo two bones were brought back from Milan to this city; one of St. Fidelis, the other of St. Carpophorus.

PASSION OF THE MOST BLESSED MARTYRS FIDELIS, EXANTUS AND CARPOFORUS

From Boninus Mombritius, vol. I, folio 288 verso and following, collated with a manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Ambrose at Milan.

St. Fidelis together with certain fellow soldiers betakes himself from Milan to Como, and crosses the lake, his companions being left behind. The satellites sent after them first put these to death; then, finding St. Fidelis, they try him with threats and cudgels. But he, unmoved, confesses and proclaims Christ. He is beheaded. A satellite is freed from a demon.

Fidelis, martyr, at Como in Italy. (S.)

BHL Number: 2922

FROM MOMBRITIUS AND MANUSCRIPTS

St. Fidelis, together with two companions, withdraws not far from Como. When Maximian ^d, the sacrilegious emperor, was residing in the city of Milan , he ordered the army of his soldiers to return ^e from battle with the Gauls into the province. Then St. Fidelis together with his fellow soldiers ^f Exantus and Carpoforus, who from their earliest age, placed under earthly military service, were shining for the heavenly palace, with one counsel took themselves off and came to the city of Como ^g; and when they had come to a place which was called Sylvula ^h, not far from the city of Como, a mile more or less, there Carpoforus and Exantus stayed, hiding themselves in that Sylvula. But St. Fidelis went on as far as the lake which is called of Collerius ⁱ. And finding a small boat there, he entered it, and sailed across the lake .

[2] Maximian, hearing this, that Carpoforus and Fidelis and Exantus were Christians and had slipped away (escaped) by flight ^k, The companions, sought out by order of Maximian and found, are killed. ordered his most trusted men to follow after them; to whom he gave orders that wherever they could find them they should kill them by various punishments. Then the persecutors, running with all haste , came to Sylvula, where St. Carpoforus and Exantus were lying hidden, because there Christ the Lord had them to be consecrated as his martyrs; and when they had been found there, they put them to death by capital sentence.

[3] St. Fidelis, seized, freely confesses Christ; Then those persecutors came to the city [l] of Como, and entering a small boat they went on ^m after St. Fidelis; and coming to the vicus of Summolacunum ⁿ they found St. Fidelis, and they spoke to him, saying: Either sacrifice to the gods and return with us to the emperor, or you will be killed by various punishments. To them St. Fidelis replied : This is the place where Christ has ordered me to rest: for the punishments which you are trying to inflict on me I do not * fear at all, because from my infancy ^o I have served Christ the Lord with devoted mind. For living in secular military service, I did not soldier for an earthly empire, but I obeyed the heavenly King. And I arranged this, that I might call back the Gentiles serving idols from error to the way of truth.

[4] he yields neither to cudgels nor to threats; Then the persecutors, raging, beat him with cudgels, and said: Unless you sacrifice to the gods today and renounce the superstition which you practise, you will be killed by various punishments. But St. Fidelis spoke to them, saying: If you believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, not only will you not inflict the punishments which you set before me; but rather together with me to eternal glory coming (sic) .

[5] [nor is he turned from his purpose by the sincere but perverse exhortation of a fellow soldier.] Then one of the persecutors, trembling, said to his other colleagues: What are we doing? If we let our fellow soldier go, we in common are condemned (sic), we shall suffer from the emperor; and if we kill him, we are guilty of the blood of our brother. And after this he who had spoken took himself off rather secretly , and made a burial-place where the body of St. Fidelis should be laid. And coming again to St. Fidelis in sympathy, he said to him: Brother Fidelis, think of your soul and sacrifice to the gods, that we may not be found guilty of your blood . But St. Fidelis replied: If you were willing to consent to me and your love were true; you would believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, and choose to die for the name of Christ; because this is the part which leads to eternal life: for you do not persuade me to withdraw from him whom I have always served with devoted mind.

[6] He is beheaded and a tempest arises; And when he had said this, severe punishments were inflicted on him by the persecutors. But St. Fidelis constantly said: The punishments which you make do not inflict pain on me but afford refreshment. Then the executioners led St. Fidelis bound to a place which was called Turriculus *, where a pine tree had grown below the sailors' village [p], and there they cut off his head. And when he had been beheaded, there came a great commotion and lightning, that the persecutors themselves might now know that truly Christ God had received the soul of the Martyr.

[7] one of the persecutors, seized by a demon and freed; After this, that the power of the Godhead might be more fully shown, one of the persecutors, seized by an unclean spirit, began to cry out: St. Fidelis, free me, and when I have been freed, I will give your body with great reverence to the tomb. And while he was crying this * at the body of the most blessed Martyr; as soon as he touched his body, he was freed from the demon.

[8] Maximian orders that the prodigy not be made known. And when the persecutors saw this, fearing and trembling they fled to the small boat. And entering the boat they returned with all haste to Maximian [q], their prince. And when they reported what they had seen happen, Maximian, the sacrilegious emperor, ordered that they should never tell anyone the marvels which God had shown through his most faithful Martyr.

[9] The time of the martyrdom. St. Fidelis was beheaded under the emperor Maximian, on the fifth of the kalends of November [r], our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

Of this writer mention has already been made several times by our predecessors; for instance by Bolland in the general preface Ibid., vol. I of January, p. XX; noting that two huge volumes were published by him, in which he embraced the acts of the Saints, as he found them in manuscript codices; by Henschen in the Acts of St. Abundius, on the 11th day of April Ibid., vol. I of April, p. 90. We copy his words, because we find they were not rightly understood by Ravelli. Henschen says: His Acts (those of St. Abundius) John Baptist Marus had communicated to us at Rome … but the fire at Amsterdam consumed them. We make good the loss from the works of Boninus Mombritius, who in the first place (his collection begins with this) edited the life of St. Abundius, bishop of Como, reprinted by Surius, with which we had previously collated the manuscript Acts. From this Ravelli concludes Vol. I, p. 289(a) that our predecessors procured for themselves a copy of all the manuscript Acts committed to print by Mombritius. Certainly the conclusion of the learned man reaches too widely; Henschen regards only the Acts of St. Abundius. Again Cuper on St. Marcellina, 17 July Acta SS., vol. IV of July, p. 234: But who the author of the address (of the life of St. Marcellina in Mombritius) is or in what century he lived, we are entirely ignorant. We know only that Mombritius in the time of Sixtus IV, Roman pontiff, edited the acts of the saints from an ancient Passionary in manuscript on parchment, which was preserved in the Lateran archive, as Macri teaches us. And he has in his Hierolexicon, under the word Birrus: Brother Mombritius however, who from an ancient Passionary … preserved in the Lateran archive had copied out the acts of the saints and in the time of Sixtus IV had committed them to print, etc. From which it seems to follow that everything contained in the two Mombritian volumes was drawn from no other source than the praised manuscript Passionary. Yet it is not so. With the greatest labour, says Argelati Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, vol. I, p. CXLVIII. Milan 1745, and study he composed lives of the saints, arranged in alphabetical order and drawn from the most ancient manuscripts, which, comprised in two great volumes, have been of no small help to all hagiographers for illustrating ecclesiastical history, and even in the present age make a rare prize of distinguished libraries. By which words it is certainly proved that Mombritius did not patch together his volumes from the one manuscript Lateran Passionary. Tiraboschi expressly confirms the same Storia della litteratura Italiana, vol. VI, part I, p. 239, asserting that he with great labour searched in libraries for the old acts of the martyrs. He adds that not all are genuine, but that many spurious things are mixed with the sincere, which, he says, is to be attributed to the fault of the time, in which the beginnings of the art, as it is called, of criticism were only appearing, and in which there was a labouring penury of monuments brought before the public. For the rest, the work of Mombritius was published in print without year, printer or place Argelati, where cited above, p. DCX. But from an epigram printed at the front of the first volume to Cicco (Francis) Simonetta we have the time of the publication of the work. The poem begins:

Cicco, salvation of kings, governor of the Latian rein, And who are the guardian of my duke without stain, etc.

From these verses, says Argelati Ibid. (m), is drawn the time at which this edition, celebrated by the mouth of all, was carried out at Milan; namely that which intervened between the guardianship of John Galeazzo undertaken by Cicco and the year 1480, in which Cicco most miserably died by the hand of the executioner, namely, as is declared elsewhere, by the lust of an overmighty envy P. CLXVI. Ebert therefore is not far from the truth in assigning the edition of the praised book to about the year 1479. Compare the Preliminary Commentary, no. 8.

Concerning the antiquity and origin of this city many fable many things. See, if you please, Orlendi Orbis sacer et profanus, part II, vol. I, p. 248. Cato in the fragments of the Origins so far known writes [In Judas Bonutius, in the little book Historia antiqua, that is, the book of Myrsilus of Lesbos on the origin of Italy, Fragments of M. Porcius Cato … of Archilochus etc. etc., p. 4. Edition of 1599]: The inhabitants assert that all the Alps of Italy were colonies of the Tuscans, and that names were given to nations and places by them or by leaders or heads of their origins; as the Rhaetians from Rhetus, king of the Lydians… the people of Como from Coma. And again In Judas Bonutius, where cited above, p. 5: All the Transpadane places beneath the Alps the ancient Tuscan settlers held by sending colonies, and from these many places retain their names. The Gauls wiped out more of them, who first under the leadership of Aruns of Clusium crossed the Alps, and gradually drove Etruria from all Cisalpine Gaul. Finally a little below he says Ibid. that Novara was formerly called Olanum after a leader of the Tuscans, who first settled there with colonists of Oropia, whose origin is uncertain, as is that of Comum, Bergomum and Lycinophorus and of some peoples around. These things are indeed not so clear. Certainly from them Pliny the Elder teaches Hist. Nat., Book III, vol. I, p. 372. Paris 1685. Hardouin, in quarto: Cato is the authority … that Comum is of the stock of the Orobii; but he confesses that he does not know the origin of the nation. As regards Comum, we learn indeed from Cato that the people of Como were named after Coma, a leader of the Tuscans as it appears, but that the city itself is of uncertain origin. Nevertheless Justin (who is commonly thought to have composed his Epitome from Trogus Pompeius under the Antonines) expressly relates that Comum was founded by the Gauls Histories, Book XX, vol. II, p. 42. Paris 1833, Panckoucke. For when he had said that envoys of the Gauls, who months before had burned Rome … had gone to Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, he adds: When they (the Gauls) had come into Italy, they drove the Tuscans (who had succeeded the Orobii) from their seats, and founded Milan, Comum …; Giovio adds Hist. Novocomensis, Book. Graevius, vol. IV, part II; p. 2: That is, they surrounded them with walls, when men had previously dwelt there in villages, which can certainly be reconciled with what is said by Cato. To Christopher Cellarius Notitia orbis antiqui, p. 544 and following. Leipzig 1773 (Schwartz): Comum, an ancient city and once powerful … afterwards a not obscure municipium, to which Julius Caesar added new colonists, whence it was very commonly called "Novocomum". Whence Catullus, a native of Como:

Let him come to Verona, leaving the walls Of New Comum and the Larian shore.

Cellarius moreover observes: But in time the surname of newness became obsolete, and Pliny (the Younger, also born at Comum) simply called it Comum… Nor in the Itineraries otherwise than Comum. In the Peutinger table "Como" in the sixth case, and in the Antonine Itineraries, one proceeds from Brigantia to Milan and to Comum itself:

Summus Lacus, Comum, Milan.

Nevertheless the above-praised Benedict Giovio entitled his history Novocomensis. Moreover, as Orlendi notes Orbis sacer et prof., where cited above, p. 249 and following, the city, following the fortune of the Roman Empire, when its majesty had faded, itself also met a varied lot, oppressed now by the yoke of the Goths, now by that of the Lombards. These having been driven out, at times it assumed a certain likeness of a republic; at times, entangled in the factions of Italy, it passed under various lordships, until it was transferred freely and willingly to Azzo Visconti, duke of Milan; then thereafter it admitted the Sforzas, the French and the Spanish; now at length it reveres the fasces of Charles VI (crowned in the year 1711, he died in the year 1740), the august emperor, and of the Austrian house. Toward the end of the past century, occupied by the French, it remained in their power until about the year 1814; then again it was conceded to the Austrians until a few years ago, namely after the victory won at Solferino, Napoleon III handed over Lombardy, acquired by right of war, to Victor Emmanuel, king of Sardinia, who, having annexed to himself the provinces of several other princes, was hailed by his own as king of Italy. The ancient episcopal see of Como has still remained, and it is today suffragan to the metropolitan of Milan [Lanzani, Manuale geographico, statico, commerciale e diocesano di Como, p. 230. Edition of 1846]. Besides the cathedral seven parish churches are numbered Ibid., p. 26. Inhabitants 17400 Ibid., p. 27.

Turriculus … subtus vicum nautarum. To

this place, for the sake of elucidation, Zaccaria recites an ancient inscription, which had already been made public by Doni and Muratori, but more mutilated: for even now it does not seem altogether entire. And in the aforesaid Zaccaria it runs as follows P. 47:

D. M.

EPTYNCHAN

MM. SER.

CISALPIM ET

TRANSALPIM

PATR. COLL. NAVT. COMENS.

HERED. FAC. CVR.

[To the divine shades. Eptynchan, MM. SER. Cisalpine and Transalpine, patron of the college of boatmen of Como. His heirs had this made.]

The learned man therefore suspects from the sigla MM. SER. that the stone is broken. The reason is that it is not easy to divine what they mean; whereas it was customary among the ancients that what was given by abbreviation could without difficulty be completed or supplied by all. Let the two last little lines be an example, which are certainly to be read thus: Patrono Collegii nautarum Comensium, Heredes faciendum curarunt. Did the Vicus of the boatmen, of which the Acts speak, perhaps get its name from such a college, or was there a refuge of theirs in that place?

q. We have said in the Preliminary Commentary, § II, that Maximian was staying in the Gauls at the time of the passion of St. Fidelis. What is related in this place about his presence, therefore, is either false or to be understood in a wide sense.

r. That is, the 28th of October, in the year 285, according to the opinion which seemed to us more probable, Preliminary Commentary, § II.

In diebus illis dum c. a.*

in Mediolanensi urbe.*

Cumensem*

Et dum*

ibi*

ingressus in eam per lacum navigavit.*

sacrilegus imperator*

jussu principis*

et pervenientes*

locuti sunt autem*

illis*

tunc*

in nullo*

superstitionem.*

read pervenictis.*

read damnum or communiter damnabimur.*

ille*

sanguine tuo*

ut crederes*

utique eligeres.*

Turricula*

factum fuisset, ut*

renuntiantes*

illis*

HISTORICAL SERMON OF BLESSED PETER DAMIAN ON THE FESTIVAL OF ST. FIDELIS, MARTYR (FROM ZACCARIA, SURIUS, THE PATROLOGY)

Fidelis, martyr, at Como in Italy. (S.)

BHL Number: 2924

FROM ZACCARIA ETC.

The examples of the Saints fire us to serve God bravely and faithfully; You know, dearest brethren [b], that we come together frequently by ecclesiastical institution to hear the victories of the martyrs of Christ for this reason, that while we are instructed by their deeds, we may be more fervently fired with love of the heavenly homeland, which they gained by manly contest: and that when we hear that they, despising the edicts of kings, the threats of princes, the tribunals of judges, passed through so many kinds of punishments, the noble minds of the faithful may be ashamed not at least to withstand the vices of their own flesh. For it is shameful so to look on the victories of the warriors of Christ that, while we behold others distinguished by triumphal titles carrying off spoils from the enemy, we ourselves in domestic peace should feebly succumb to the creeping vices, as to adversaries lying in ambush. Now the blessed martyrs, even before they shed their blood in the contest, flourished in various virtues. For us, however, since we cannot die for the defence of the faith, the victory is complete if we strive to live in the conduct of holy virtues, that we may thence be transferred straightway to the kingdom, whence they merited martyrdom; for from the merits of life by which they merited to obtain the palm of their contest, from thence we are led without any obstacle of persecution to the crown.

[2] What we ought to admire in them, what to imitate. One thing therefore we ought only to venerate and admire in the holy martyrs; another also to imitate. Let us admire them, that is, dying constantly and nobly; let us imitate them, living in honest conduct of morals. Let us venerate in them that they delivered their bodies for the faith to various punishments; but let us imitate that they had first crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences. Let us admire them dying like men, that they might not deny the Life; but let us also imitate them pressing on with holy exhortations through the zeal of charity, that they might draw others also to life. And, to conclude what I am eager to do in briefer speech, the memory of the martyrs is then worthily recalled, if, while their death when heard brings home a miracle, their preceding life also is taken as an example.

[3] St. Fidelis, a despiser of perishable things, Behold this blessed martyr Fidelis, whose festival ^c we celebrate today, as the history of his deeds testifies ^d, is known to have led a life worthy of martyrdom even before the occasion of martyrdom was offered. For though he was upheld by the brilliant titles of his birth ^e, and, with abundance of goods smiling on him, could have taken the way of the world not ingloriously, despising the patronage of any of the magnates, he devotedly preferred to attach himself to a religious bishop ^f, that he might openly show that he did not pant for the favour or riches of the powerful, but rather chose the blessing of a priest. With him, namely, he thought it right to go not to the wranglings of forensic disputes, not to the illusory fictions of the stage, not to the theatrical spectacles, but rather he visited the prisons of the martyrs.

[4] devoted to the martyrs, And because he was devoted to the martyrs, he himself also merited at length to become a martyr. Thus once that steward of the royal house, Abdias, fed a hundred prophets hidden in caves, and he himself afterwards received, worthily rewarded, the prophetic grace. III Kings ch. 18 And he who then with bread and water fed the crowd of prophets by a diligent ministry, now by the oracles of his prophecy, that is, by heavenly nourishment, refreshes and feeds the universal Church. Thus Joshua, Jos. ch. I who paid the service of attendance to Moses, the leader, namely, of the people of Israel, afterwards both presided laudably over the same people and triumphed with great glory over their adversaries. Why should I speak of Elisha, IV Kings ch. 2 who, while he does not suffer himself to be separated from Elijah even for a moment, straightway merits his double spirit? As if already then the Lord were thundering that Gospel saying: He that receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet. Matt. ch. 10

[5] [and standing for the heavenly camp beneath the cloak of earthly military service,] For not only to the holy martyrs did this blessed Fidelis show the office of pious humility, but he extended his diligence to the winning of those who were held by the errors of idols, and, as he himself seems to assert in his own words, while he was engaged in secular military service ^g, he obeyed the divine command rather than the earthly, to such a degree that he restrained some from the profane cult of idolatry, and called them to the knowledge of the true God by saving admonitions. He was indeed present in the military camps, but he bore the standards of the heavenly host. He seemed, in a word, to mix with the wedges of armed men, but he strove to join to himself for the heavenly camp soldiers of another profession. To whom assuredly he promised not the belt of earthly military service, not the donative of temporal pay, but the citizenship of the heavenly court. And so beneath the cloak of earthly military service he stood for the heavenly camp, that he might make deserters from the earthly, with whom he might increase the number of the heavenly host.

[6] not unlike David, We know that David too did something like this, namely when, fleeing Saul, he stayed with Achish, king of Gath, he often carried off rich spoils from those regions over which the aforesaid Achish ruled; and according to what Scripture testifies, to speak in its own words, "David smote all the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and taking the sheep and the oxen, and the asses and the camels and the garments, he returned and came to Achish; and when Achish asked him: Against whom did you rush today?" He declared that he had "leapt upon" the south of Judah or the regions of Israel I Kings ch. 17. David therefore, under the press of necessity, had shown himself as if devoted to the foreign king, but he was heaping up very many slaughters from his profane people. But Blessed Fidelis, under the profession of secular military service, was sweating in the campaign of the heavenly camp. Therefore, mocking the world, or rather the prince of this world, whom he seemed in outward show to serve, he strove to draw away all who followed * and to join them to the companies of a better military service.

[7] he converted very many pagans, The former, then, cut down barbarous nations with iron; the latter with the sword of the spirit, Eph. ch. 6 which is the word of God, slew from carnal life men of uncouth and truly barbarous rite; the former carried off herds of different animals; the latter led brutish men to the stable of the Church, and to the life-giving pasture of grasping reason. The former, on being consulted, testified that he stood opposed to the people of God; the latter too in a certain way declared that he resisted the party of the faithful, since he seemed to bear secular military service with the unbelievers. For by his military profession he seemed on the surface to assert that he was attacking the inheritance of God, of which he himself was a part, with different customs as with certain swords. So assuredly, so the holy deceit proceeded the more freely, while he of whom there was no suspicion pressed on with the acquiring of faithful for Christ.

[8] and thus by good works he prepared himself for martyrdom. We shall see, therefore, that Blessed Fidelis reached the crown of martyrdom by preceding merit, * who sweated in the zeal of true charity for winning souls even before martyrdom. For like good and fertile earth he first brought forth the shoot of holy work, and so thereafter received the light of triumphal glory. For hence it is that in the beginning of this world the earth is first commanded to bring forth, Gen. ch. 1 but on the following day the lights are made in the heaven; because it is necessary for us first to bear the living fruits of holy working, that we may be able afterwards to come to the contemplation of the light of the supreme Truth. For he had founded his house in peace upon the firm rock, Matt. ch. 7 whence afterwards, while the winds of threats raged, while the various waves of punishments dashed against him, he remained immovable, and like the root of an excellent trunk he had first conceived in secret the strength by which, thereafter supported, the grown crop did not fall under the driving breezes. In peace, therefore, he merited by good working that he stood unconquered and undaunted in the stadium of persecution. He laboured in leisure for what he overcame in war; within the walls of peace he acquired what he obtained as victor in the field.

[9] At his death a tempest arose, But among the other distinctions of his merits, of how great glory is this, that as soon as this blessed and most unconquered Martyr had his head cut off, a turbulent tempest [h] and excessive lightning is said to have broken forth? This indeed was a judgment of divine equity, that by this it might plainly appear that he who was receiving his Martyr in glory was worthily terrifying his torturers in wrath. To terrify the reprobate, therefore, there burst forth lightning and tempest, namely those accompanied by which the supreme Arbiter comes to judgment, as is said through the prophet: A fire shall go before him, and in his circuit a mighty tempest. Ps. 19, Matt. ch. 27 Moreover at the death of the Lord the elements are read to have been disturbed. Of how great dignity therefore is it, and how noble a mark of triumph, that after the likeness of the Lord's death the elements were moved also at the beheading of the Martyr, that in some part he might hold in dying the form of the death of him whose teaching he imitated in living.

[10] and a demoniac cured at his body. That too is no small thing for the persecutors, that a certain one of the persecutors is reported to have been seized by a demon; who, assuredly, when he promised that he would commit the body of the Martyr to burial with great reverence, if by his intervention he should merit to be freed from the demon, as soon as he touched the martyr's corpse, the demon departed [i]. In this too there is clearly seen the example of the same our Redeemer,

since those of the Lord's persecutors themselves who merited to touch the mystery of his most sacred body were loosed from the yoke of demons, redeemed by the very blood which they shed. And that in his martyrdom the Servant might seem to imitate the passion of his Lord like a follower on foot, when the executioners reported to their prince ^k the miracles which had been shown through the blessed Martyr; he altogether forbade them to report such things to anyone, and in terror commanded them to be concealed for ever. For who, hearing this, would not at once recall to memory what the chief priests said to the guards: Say, they say, that his disciples came by night, and stole him, while you were sleeping; and if this be heard by the governor, we will persuade him, and make you secure. Matt. 28 These indeed taught the guards to feign a lie; he ordered his officers to suppress the truth by silence. Both assuredly are enemies of the truth, whether they wickedly fabricate the inventions of deceit or hide the truth in the silence of malice.

[11] An exhortation to fight against the enemies after the example of St. Fidelis, But we, dearest brethren, who have heard of the constancy of so excellent a Warrior, who behold the distinctions of such great virtue as if placed beneath our eyes, let us too strive with the help of almighty God to possess virtues. Let us be ashamed to languish in the torpor of sloth, we who see others passing through to heaven with such great glory. Let our mind grow hot for the struggle of the contest; and if it does not fear to fight boldly with the enemy, let it not doubt that with Christ as leader an easy victory will come to it. And indeed our labour is less, though yet the reward is common. For who does not know that it is incomparably more difficult to submit the neck to the sword than to restrain the enticements of the gullet? Who would not rather burn in labours, or grow cold in nakedness, than endure the burnings of raging flames? Who would not think it lighter to hunger and thirst than to be raked with claws or given to the bites of beasts? Is it not more dangerous to despise in public the flashing commands of raging kings than secretly in the mind to oppose depraved thoughts; to give oneself voluntarily to death than to bridle one's own wills and the desires of the flesh? Since therefore by labouring less we tend to the same beatitude, why do we neglect to imitate those contending in the stadium, that we may be able to be sharers with the victors in the homeland?

[12] especially the enticements of the flesh. Let us fight therefore, my brethren, and let us take care to cut off the enticements of the vices that attack us: for according to the voice of Paul we cannot rejoice here in the world, and there reign with Christ. And indeed we know that the blessed martyrs fought with the members of the devil; but we have the struggle of an unreconcilable fight with the very head of the wicked. They conquered him savagely raging through his members; we are commanded to overcome him lurking under the deceits of snares. In both ways the glorious martyr Fidelis obtained the triumph over him, who both in peace through the grace of edification snatched some from his chain, and when the crisis of persecution offered itself, despised him, none the less, flattering and terrifying through his members. Conquered he conquered, cast down he ascended, he submitted his own head to the sword, and trampled the neck of the devil with the foot of perpetual victory. Now without doubt he shines among the fiery stones of the Jerusalem above, and with his purple-clad fellow soldiers he sings in alternation to his Emperor the song of heavenly harmony. By a happy exchange indeed he put off the fragile tunic of the body and obtained the white robe of immortality. Beheaded, he lost his head, and now he goes forth crowned with a precious stone. For he rewards him as victor in rest now eternal, who also long ago protected him contending amid wars, Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

St. Damian alluded to this tempest in the hymn which he composed in honour of St. Fidelis, and which we recited at the Preliminary Commentary, no. 6.

From this place moreover it appears that our Acts were not unknown to St. Peter. Preliminary Commentary, no. 9.

Of these again in the hymn:

One of the executioners An evil spirit assails; Soon he is joined to the sacred clay, The dread plague is driven out.

Perhaps there is to be supplied in the third line the word ut; namely: as soon as (ut) he is joined (committed) to the sacred clay (that is, earth), the dread plague (the evil demon) is driven out (from the body of that executioner). Of the credit of the Acts we have spoken in the Preliminary Commentary, no. 10.

quosque Surius, quousque*

pertinuit* Migne