ON ST. GAUDIOSUS THE AFRICAN, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT NAPLES IN CAMPANIA,
IN THE YEAR 453 OR 468
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE
Gaudiosus, African bishop, at Naples. (S.)
BY J. V. H.
§ Sole. The saint distinguished from his namesake of Salerno; an exile from Africa, he builds a monastery at Naples, where he lays up the portentous blood of St. Stephen; his death; his Relics are preserved to this day.
The present-day Roman Martyrology proclaims the Saint in these words: At Naples St. Gaudiosus, St. Gaudiosus the African, praised in various Martyrologies, an African bishop, who, coming into Campania on account of the persecution of the Vandals, rested with a holy end in a monastery near the same city. From the Acts of St. Agnellus the abbot, says Cardinal Baronius in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology, he was surnamed Septimius Caelius. In the Marble Calendar of Naples, which according to the learned is assigned to the ninth Christian century, and on whose first six months Alexius Mazzocchi has learnedly commented [Vetus Kalend. marmor. Neapolit., vol. I, p. XVIII and following. Angelo Mai, Scriptt. Vett. Nova collect., vol. [ ], p. 58], we have at the 27th of October: Dep. gaudiosi epi, that is: the deposition of Gaudiosus, bishop. Already at the 26th day of October, when we treated of St. Gaudiosus, bishop of Salerno, we said that it was uncertain to us which Gaudiosus, the Salernitan or the African, the marble calendar indicates Acta SS., vol. XI of October, p. 901, especially since the Relics of the Salernitan also rest at Naples Ibid., pp. 902 and 903. I should not doubt at all that the African prelate is indicated, if his memory were indicated on the following day; but this bishop Gaudiosus stands in the middle between the 26th day of October, on which the Salernitan, and the 28th of the same month, on which the African is celebrated. But which was more celebrated among the people of Naples, so that the name was set down in the calendar, is unknown to us: certainly today in the liturgical Directories of Naples, which I have before me, neither is venerated with any rite.
[2] distinguished from St. Gaudiosus of Salerno, What antiquity has left us about St. Gaudiosus the African is to be taken from the History of the Vandal Persecution of St. Victor of Vita and from the traditions of Naples. Above all, says Cardinal Baronius in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology at the 26th day of October, there is to be carefully distinguished Gaudiosus the African bishop from his namesake of Salerno: and not only because the Relics of the Salernitan formerly rested at Salerno; for often the bones of the same Saint are found in two, indeed in several places. But chiefly because Gaudiosus of Salerno ended his days in his see, while the African finished his life in a monastery built by him. Then, what is decisive, the Salernitan flourished about the middle of the seventh century Ibid., vol. XI of October, p. 901; but our Gaudiosus the African scarcely passed beyond the middle of the fifth century; for while the persecution of Genseric raged, he landed as an exile at Naples in Campania, and there passed the rest of his life. But in what definite year St. Gaudiosus began to dwell at Naples cannot be accurately indicated, since the principal and almost only witness of this persecution, Victor of Vita, says nothing expressly about our Saint.
[3] at the time of the Vandal persecution he was bishop of Abitina; We know from the Chronicle of St. Prosper of Aquitaine Migne, Patrol., vol. LI, col. 598 that in the consulate of Theodosius XVII and Festus, that is in the year 439, Genseric on the 14th of the kalends of November (the 19th of October) invaded Carthage by a treacherous peace, and, the citizens being tortured with different kinds of torments, turned all its wealth to his own possession. Nor did he abstain from despoiling the churches, which, emptied of the sacred vessels and deprived of the administration of priests, he ordered to be no longer places of divine worship, but dwellings for his own people: savage against the whole order of the captive people, but especially hostile to nobility and religion, so that it could not be discerned whether he had brought war rather on men or on God. Among those whom Genseric persecuted for the cause of religion, our St. Gaudiosus also has his place, of whom Ughelli said that he was bishop of Bithynia Ital. Sacra, vol. VI, col. 43. But there is no see of a Bithynian bishop in Africa: but on the contrary there is in Proconsular Africa the see of Abitina, which we believe St. Gaudiosus occupied; for so think Theodoric Ruinart, On the Vandal Persecution Migne, Patrol., vol. LVIII, col. 406, and Stephen Morcelli Afric. christ., vol. I, p. 64: and not without foundation. For, says Ruinart, Abitina was a city of the Proconsular province, and indeed fairly celebrated, as is clear from the synodal letter of the bishops of the same province
to Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, which was read in the Lateran council under St. Martin in session II. For to it among others there subscribed "Augustalis, by the grace of God bishop of the holy Church of Abitina." The Acts of the Martyrs of Abitina, who were formerly called by mistake Martyrs of Alutina, we have brought forward among the other sincere ones at the year 304; from which it is also clear that this city belonged to the Proconsular province. That it was an ancient episcopal see is gathered from the council of Carthage under St. Cyprian, at which among other rebaptizers there was present "Saturninus of Avitina." Morcelli reports that the city of Abitina was situated not far from Membressa. And Membressa according to the ancient Itineraries is distant from Carthage 51 thousand paces, or 17 French leagues Cosmography of Aethicus, p. 90. Basel edition, 1575.
[4] driven into exile about the year 440, At about the same time as St. Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage, of whom it was treated at the 26th day of October Acta SS., vol. XI of October, p. 845, our St. Gaudiosus too went into exile. Yet he does not seem to have been put on the same ship as St. Quodvultdeus. For in Victor of Vita we read that Quodvultdeus and a very great crowd of clerics were placed on broken ships and expelled naked and despoiled Migne, Patrol., vol. LVIII, col. 187, without mention being made of any other bishop. Wherefore the Carthaginian alone was placed on a broken ship, since, as Alexius Mazzocchi says Vetus marmoreum kalendarium, vol. I, p. 39, they would not have thrown other bishops into the crowd of clerics. We have from the Acts of St. Castrensis at the 11th day of February another vessel, similarly broken and driven to the shores of Campania, in which there went into exile with St. Castrensis, whose Acts were edited at the 11th day of February Acta SS., vol. II of February, p. 527, eleven other bishops, namely Sts. Rossius, whose Acts exist at the 16th day of May Ibid., vol. III of May, p. 577, Secundinus, Heraclius, Benignus, Priscus, Elpidius, Mark, Augustus or Augustine, Canion, Vindonius and Tammarus, of whom, if you except Benignus, whom I have found reviewed in no Catalogue of the saints, it is treated at the 1st day of September Ibid., vol. I of September, p. 200. In this group of bishops our Gaudiosus is not named. Yet because there is a constant and very ancient tradition of the people of Naples that he was both an African and expelled by the Vandals and driven to the shores of Campania, there can be no doubt that, driven into exile in the same manner as the rest, he was a sharer in that prayer which St. Castrensis poured forth, that those whom from one alone he deigns to transfer for the glory of his name, he may grant by his mercy that within the bounds of one homeland our bodies be buried.
[5] he brought with him to Naples the blood of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, St. Gaudiosus is reported, when he set out from Africa as an exile, to have brought with him to Naples a glass ampoule of the congealed blood of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. This ampoule, says Baronius in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology at the 3rd day of August, is religiously preserved to this day in the same place in the church of St. Gaudiosus: where the miracle still persists, that when the ampoule has been placed on the altar, while the sacred solemnities of the Mass are being performed, it is sometimes seen to liquefy, like blood newly shed; and that on this very day on which the finding of the body of St. Stephen is celebrated. But this is plainly most worthy of admiration, that whereas formerly this used to happen each year on the third of August; even in the very year in which by the authority of Pope Gregory XIII of most holy memory the Roman Calendar was restored, according to the form of the reduction of the year, not as formerly ten days later, but on the same very feast-day, the blood was seen to have boiled up, and so in the following years, and the same happened with the blood of St. John the Baptist. There is of this matter a most trustworthy and most sincere witness among others in the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Francis Mary Tarugi, now cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who, formerly superior of our congregation of the Oratory existing at Naples, when he was saying sacred Mass at the altar where the ampoule of blood was, the congealed blood, like a stone, was seen to liquefy entirely into drops.
[6] which, as it seems, translated from Uzalis, on certain days The praised Baronius judges moreover that this very ampoule, translated from Africa to Naples, is the same one which had once been exposed to public veneration at Uzalis, or at least very like it. For at Uzalis (which is a city near Utica, and thus in the Proconsular province) there was preserved an ampoule full of the congealed blood of St. Stephen, as is clear enough from the two books On the Miracles of St. Stephen Migne, Patrol., vol. XLI, col. 834, where it is said in Book I, ch. I Ibid., place cited: To a sacred handmaid of God, or nun, a certain ampoule is shown, having within it a certain sprinkling of blood and a sign of ears of grain as it were of bones… The ampoule, just as the handmaid of God had seen it with her eyes in the revelation of the dream, so the priest afterwards received it into his hands. To the blood of St. Stephen, carried also to other places, testimony is borne by Mark Antony Boldetti in his work on the Cemeteries of the Martyrs Osservaz. sopra cemat. Dei SS. Mart. Moreover the ampoule of Naples, as Francis de Magistris narrates in the book on the State of the Church of Naples P. 330, was found anew in the year 1561, on the 1st day of September. We note in passing that Cardinal Baronius first published the Martyrology with notes in the year 1586: and thus 25 years after the finding of the ampoule Biographie univ., under Baronius. When the altar of the Chapel of the Most Holy Conception in the sacred church of St. Gaudiosus had been demolished, there were, says the author, found two pots, one of glass and the other of clay, and in that glass one was the said glass ampoule with the said blood, and in the clay one were found certain small wooden caskets with many Relics, which were solemnly deposited in the sacristy. Where, although the said prelates and canons had applied great diligence to seeing what matter was contained in the said glass ampoule, there was being beheld a certain black, thick, hard and congealed matter, and thus after much they concluded to put it back in the same place. Nevertheless Canon Lucian, a man of holy reputation and good life, when, filled with great faith and hope, he had received the said ampoule into his hands, touched in his heart by the holy Protomartyr, began to invoke his name with the antiphon "Behold I see the heavens opened".
[7] it boils up portentously. When these words were spoken by the canon, the said blood began to boil up and liquefy, and the more prayers were poured out in honour of that Saint, the more strongly the blood boiling up increased, from which it was necessary to put it in two other phials. Whence with great joy the said great treasure was preserved (sic), which on all the solemn festivals of the year is displayed for veneration in the same church, and while it is in public it always boils up and liquefies, and when it is put away it seems to harden: as is the practice with the blood of St. John the Baptist, St. Januarius and St. Patricia. The prelates and canons who were witnesses of the said finding, and who are alleged in the above-said text, are Julius Pavesi, archbishop of Sorrento, then vicar general of Naples, and the canons Lucian Rappulo, Felix de Dominico, Fabricius Grasso and Fabius Polverino. It ought not to escape us that liquefactions of the blood of Holy Martyrs are very frequent in the region of Naples. Of St. Patricia, patroness of the people of Naples, ours have treated at length at the 25th day of August Acta SS., vol. V of August, p. 199.
[8] While African bishops serve churches in various places, The bishops, exiles from Africa on the shores of Campania, were also profitable to their hosts. Which a certain Angel of the Lord had foretold to the holy confessors, as we read at the 11th day of February in the Acts of St. Castrensis, no. 5 Ibid., vol. II of February, p. 526: Know all of you, he says, that the eternal King has a place prepared for each of you, in which you yourselves may rest in Christ, and may absolve from all error the multitude of the peoples dwelling in those parts. And indeed among the Campanians there is a tradition that various African bishops presided over Churches, at least, as we say today, as commendatories: thus St. Castrensis at Sessa, St. Priscus at Capua, St. Tammarus at Benevento, St. Adjutor at Cava, St. Elpidius at Atella are related to have lent their labour Monaco, Santuar. Capuan.. But we read nothing similar of our Gaudiosus, whether because, being now of great age, he could not give himself to apostolic labour in a foreign province, or because, dreading approaching death, after the manner of many holy men, he thought to spend the rest of his life on God and himself. Just as, therefore, the African bishops on the shores of Campania absolved from all error the faith which they had received from Italy or Rome; so too St. Gaudiosus renewed the monastic institute, brought from Milan into Africa through St. Augustine [Cf. Acta SS., vol. VI of October, p. 829 and following. Life of St. Augustine by the Maurists, Book III, ch. V, no. 4. Migne, Patrol., vol. XXXII, col. 174], by a new monastery and new examples of holiness.
[10] our bishop builds a monastery; For from the very beginning of his sojourn at Naples St. Gaudiosus undertook a monastery, and indeed about the middle of the fifth century. He chose for himself a place separated from the commerce of men, outside the walls of the city of Naples, where he remained in enclosure with his companions. And the Saint founded this monastery as soon as he reached the place of exile, or about the year of Christ 440. For St. Nostrian, whose Acts ours have given at the 16th day of August Acta SS., vol. III of August, p. 294, having died about the year 444, as is most probably clear from his successors, Timasius and Felix Parascandalo, Memorie della Chisa di Napoli, vol. I, p. 70 and following, is said in John the deacon of St. Januarius Muratori, Scripttor. Rer. Italic., vol. I, part II, p. 295 to have been buried in the church of Blessed Gaudiosus, confessor of Christ, situated in the portico outside the city as one goes to St. Januarius the martyr. Nor do I doubt that St. Gaudiosus brought into the monastery the monastic discipline such as flourished in Africa: and thus that the Rule of St. Basil of the monks was by no means observed there. Moreover the said monastery, under St. Agnellus the abbot, who flourished at the end of the sixth century Mazzocchi, Vetus marmor. kalendar., vol. I, p. 8, and whose Acts will be illustrated at the 14th day of December, was given to a certain woman and her four lustful daughters, who, despising the world and bridling their concupiscences, wholly devoted themselves to living the religious life: whom St. Agnellus clothed in monastic garments and led into the monastery. Such is about the account of Francis de Magistris, who wrote in the year 1676 on the State of the Church of Naples, and he adds De statu Eccl. Neap., p. 329 that in that monastery many others followed that matron and that at present eighty nuns are present in this place
under the Rule of St. Benedict, and that for divine worship there are present eight priests, one confessor and two clerics.
[11] in which he dies holily and is buried: St. Gaudiosus died in the monastery built by him and obtained burial in the hypogeum of the church. His body was set in an arcosolium. And an arcosolium is an arched monument, cut out in the wall Martigny, Dictionn. des Antiquités chrét., under Arcosolium. This arcosolium is situated in the crypt of St. Mary of Health; for such a name the monastery of St. Gaudiosus afterwards received Parascandalo, Memorie, vol. I, p. 852. On the front is an inscription, unhappily mutilated, which the Neapolitan priest D. Aloysius Parascandalo presents Ibid., p. 68. Cf. Acta SS., vol. XI of October, p. 852:
HIC REQUIESCIT IN PACE S. GAUDIOSUS
EPISC. QUI VIXIT ANNIS LXV … US DIE
VI KALE. NOVEMBRES CO … DIC VI.
[Here rests in peace St. Gaudiosus, bishop, who lived 65 years … on the 6th day of the kalends of November, in the consulate of … in the 6th indiction.]
From these words one may divine to some extent the death-year of our saint; since he is said to have died in the 6th indiction, which from the year 440, in which he landed in Campania, falls in the year of Christ 453 and 468: one or other of these years therefore was the death-year of St. Gaudiosus: if the name of the consul, indicated in mosaic work, had not fallen out. But since it is uncertain; and so too the death-year, the death is to be placed in one or other indiction. For St. Gaudiosus was not an exile before the year 439, nor can the year of death be placed after the year 468; since the following sixth indiction reaches to the year 483: in which case the saint would have reached Naples in the eighteenth year of his age, at which he certainly would not have been a bishop. And so the death-year of the saint was either 453 or 468. For this reason at the head of this sylloge I wrote that St. Gaudiosus died in the year of Christ 453 or 468. I admit, however, that the very image of the monument expressed in lithograph, which the praised priest Parascandalo presents, stirs a scruple in me: for after the words vixit annis, in place of the number LXV, there is clearly read the letter M and, after the interval of one letter, VS, so that the former element may signify five, the second sepultus.
[12] by Stephen II, bishop of Naples, It was already said in the Acts of St. Quodvultdeus at the 26th day of October Acta SS., vol. XI of October, p. 852 that the Saint rested in the church of St. Gaudiosus within the city and that that translation was celebrated by Stephen II, bishop of Naples, who flourished in the eighth century. But in the chronological arrangement of that bishop some things occur that are uncertain to me. John, deacon of Naples, in the Chronicle of the bishops, teaches that Stephen II sat 33 years, 5 months, 27 days Muratori, Scriptt., vol. I, part II, p. 309. The same time is assigned to the pontificate of Stephen by the Bianchini Catalogue, cited by the priest Parascandalo Memorie, vol. II, p. 78. On the other hand we have that Lord Stephen, the supreme Apostolic (that is, Pope Stephen III) consecrated the Neapolitan elect as bishop by regular promotion. But Pope Stephen was first ordained on the 7th day of August of the year 768: and thus he could consecrate Stephen of Naples by regular promotion only after his own ordination. Whence even if Pope Stephen had consecrated the Neapolitan immediately after his own ordination, by adding to the common year 768 33 years, 5 months and 27 days, we fall upon the death of the bishop of Naples in the year 802 and the month of February. Nevertheless the same John the deacon says that Stephen sat as bishop at Naples in the times of the Apostolics Stephen and Hadrian … that he was buried in the monastery of St. Januarius in the current … eighth indiction Muratori, vol. I, p. 311. These two things by no means agree with the years of the episcopate of Stephen. For at the end of December of the year 795, Leo III had already succeeded Pope Hadrian: and thus it would have to be added that Stephen was bishop also in the times of Leo: then the eighth indiction ran from the month of September 799: in that year or the following, therefore, the death of Bishop Stephen is to be marked.
[13] who died in the year 799, From what has been said it is manifest that John the deacon is not consistent with himself: and so that either three years are to be cut from the time of the episcopate of Stephen, or the time of Pope Leo III is to be added, or finally the indiction is to be corrected. For which correction, since we have no suitable element, we are forced to leave the matter open. But notwithstanding these chronological entanglements, it is certain from the same John the deacon that Bishop Stephen made three monasteries within the same city (of Naples), which he entitled to the name of St. Festus and of St. Pantaleon, martyrs, and of St. Gaudiosus, confessor. In these he established regular virgins, many things being offered, under the discipline of an abbess. He added also in the monastery of St. Gaudiosus the basilica of St. Fortunata, in which he laid up with great honour the body of the same martyr, brought from the church of Patria; where she had first wished to be buried Ibid., p. 310. There was therefore at Naples a twofold monastery of St. Gaudiosus, one outside the walls founded by the holy Confessor himself, and one within the walls by Stephen II, bishop of Naples. The priest Parascandalo adds that the body of St. Gaudiosus was translated by Bishop Stephen from the monastery outside the walls to that within the walls, together with the relics of St. Quodvultdeus and the prodigious blood of St. Stephen the Protomartyr Memorie, vol. II, p. 68. This perhaps was not said accurately enough. For besides Francis de Magistris, cited above at no. 10, Aloysius d'Afflitto, Olivetan abbot, in his Neapolitan Itinerary says Guida di Napoli, vol. II, p. 139 that once every year the archbishop with his clergy went to the church of St. Gaudiosus, and there celebrated Mass with solemn rite, but that when the Christians had ceased to use the subterranean cemeteries for their burial, the church of St. Gaudiosus was gradually neglected, inasmuch as it was situated at the entrance of the hypogeum, and then in the lapse of time was filled by alluvial flood and overgrown with thickets. But in the year 1569, by a new inrush of waters, the ground being cleared to some extent, the hypogeum in great part appeared anew, whence it was evident that the place had once been sacred.
[14] translated, and found in the sixteenth century, Wherefore Mario Carafa, the archbishop, sent some canons to examine the place. These, besides a very ancient image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, found the tomb of St. Gaudiosus and a stone episcopal chair together with Relics of Sts. Quodvultdeus and Nostrian. Then in the year 1577 Blessed Paul of Arezzo, cardinal and archbishop of Naples, whom Pope Clement XIV in the year 1772 enrolled in the number of the blessed, granted the place to the Order of St. Dominic. The course of the matter is accurately set out by Joseph Silos in his Histories of the Clerks Regular: There was once, he says, a very ancient little church sacred to holy Gaudiosus, in that suburban region which they call of the Virgins; but age and neglect had so spoiled it that it could already seem a profane place. After many years there came the piety of a man who strove to clear it and restore it to its dignity and religion: and he brought it about that Mario Carafa, then bishop of Naples, thought of assigning it to some sacred family. Which plan, because fate intercepted it, Arezzo, who succeeded, afterwards carried out with God's good favour. For when he had been informed of this matter, and especially advised that in the main part of this church there was seen a beautifully formed image of the Great Mother, he wished to visit the church, and, such was his observance toward the Virgin, more than once to venerate that sacred image above all; and there he was accustomed to linger long and pour out prayers. Meanwhile the Virgin was seen to ennoble the place and as it were to claim it for herself, very many miracles being performed at that image.
[15] in the same church, Into these Arezzo ordered inquiry to be made with the highest good faith and zeal: by Blessed Paul of Arezzo and these being proved, in order to increase the faith of the peoples, a public procession being decreed with solemn rite, that sacred building, which soon took its name from the Mother of God, began to be celebrated with burning vows and an incredible concourse of the peoples. And there was added to the Mother of God herself an appellation: for when the bishop heard from John Bernardine Longo, a very celebrated physician, that the region was most healthful for its inhabitants, and that on account of the temperate air and climate the valley was once named of Health, the name at once pleased him, and he thought it should be happily transferred to the Virgin, and he ordered that she be called Holy Mary of Health. This was received with vast applause by the peoples, whose principal care is to be kept safe and sound. And that she had found a name suited and fitted to her kindness the Mother of God then repeatedly showed, so that not by the mildness of the air, but by her more healthful aid and protection, very many mortals began to recover. Now to provide for the piety of the place, a religious family had to be sought, which, assigned to the sacred building, should nourish that recent observance of the Neapolitans toward the Virgin with exquisite worship of God and handling of sacred things. Wherefore Fathers of the Order of Preachers were summoned by Cardinal Arezzo, who willingly and gladly entered upon the church freely offered and whatever of ground and building pertained to it. And the Mother of God at once declared by the frequency of miracles that their arrival and pious cares were very dear to her. And they, a certain distinguished manner of life and a stricter observance of the laws being there aroused, flourished exceedingly under those Marian auspices in discipline, morals and the fame of virtues.
[16] preserved by the Dominican Fathers, to whom they were given. They enlarged the church to a certain new form of substructure, to which they added a monastery altogether to be admired. For, the site of the steep place being mastered, and the rock of the mountain being cut through, they hung a very ample and vast building amid those very difficulties by which a house seemed to be excluded. Moreover the Dominican Fathers wished this proof of the benevolence of Cardinal Arezzo to stand publicly and for the memory of the age, a marble being inscribed in these words:
THIS HOLY CHURCH, CLEANSED OF FILTH,
AND RESTORED TO DIVINE WORSHIP,
WHERE YOU HAVE THE SOLICITUDE OF THE MOST BLESSED MOTHER OF GOD
FOR OUR SALVATION MADE PALPABLE,
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST REVEREND PAUL OF AREZZO
PRIEST CARDINAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH
AND BISHOP OF NAPLES
GRANTED TO THE KINDLY FAMILY OF THE DOMINICANS
IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD M. D. LXXVIII.
The praised priest Parascandalo adds that this monastery became most magnificent: but at the end of the century just past it was laid waste by a horrible fire. Wherefore a great part of the Relics was carried to the metropolitan church: while the prodigious blood of St. Stephen the Protomartyr was deposited in the monastery of the Sapienza Memorie, vol. II, p. 68. And these are the things we have found to be treated about St. Gaudiosus, bishop of Abitina.