ON ST. APPIAN, AFRICAN BISHOP, AT PAVIA IN ITALY,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 6TH CENTURY.
COLLECTION
Appian, African bishop, at Pavia in Italy. (S.)
BY V. D. B.
§ Sole section. The distinction between St. Appian, African bishop, venerated at Pavia, and St. Appian, monk of Pavia. The instruction of St. Appian the bishop by St. Vindemialis, an African bishop. Three former feasts of St. Appian the bishop. The form of the name. The time.
The praises of Pavia or Ticinum have been quite often celebrated in our work; [St. Appian, entered in the sacred calendars at the 4th and 18th of March and the 29th of October, was according to the people of Pavia an African bishop,] and indeed at the very beginning of the present volume: so that it is permissible to abstain from them in this place. In its most celebrated church, which Liutprand built anew for Benedictine monks with the title of St. Peter in Cælo Aureo and enriched with the body of St. Augustine, brought from Sardinia, there is preserved under the altar which is called St. Appian's the body of this blessed man; whence the chapel, which was formerly called that of SS. Basil and Florentius, began to be called St. Appian's Acta SS. vol. I of March, p. 320.. But who is that Appian? If the people of Pavia seem to be asked first, before all must be heard Filippo Ferrari, a distinguished man of the Order of Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary and master of mathematics in the public school of Pavia: The deposition of St. Appian, bishop, he says Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, pp. 132 and 133., is venerated on this day (namely the 4th of March) at Pavia in the basilica of St. Peter, called in Cælo Aureo (in which his body is preserved). Of what city he was bishop could not be known. It is no slight conjecture that he was African, because his body was translated from Sardinia to Ticinum together with the body of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the church, as the ancient monuments and marble inscriptions of the aforesaid basilica testify. And since St. Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, cast out of Africa by the Vandals together with very many African bishops, brought the body of the holy doctor together with the relics of other saints to Sardinia, it could have happened that among the other bodies of the saints he also brought the body of St. Appian. Whose festival also is celebrated in the same church on the III[I] before the kalends of November. These things he adds that he received from the monuments of the church of St. Peter in Cælo Aureo at Pavia, and that one day seems to be the birthday or day of death, the other that of the translation. Similar things are delivered by Romualdo of St. Mary, himself also a citizen of Ticinum, at the 4th of March Flavia Papia sacra, vol. I, p. 80, and vol. II, p. 42.. (A third feast will occur below.)
[2] [And according to Henschenius a monk of Pavia, who died as a hermit at Comacchio on the 6th of November.] But our Henschenius went to an altogether different opinion. For when he had found in a very old codex of Cardinal Barberini a Life of St. Appian, who had earlier been a monk in the monastery of St. Peter in Cælo Aureo at Pavia, then, sent to Comacchio, had lived there most piously enclosed in a little cell, and there at length had been buried near the church of St. Gervase and finally, into a church dedicated to his name,
had been solemnly translated, he judged that in Cælo Aureo not a bishop but this monk of his was celebrated. In very truth this man is reported in his Acts to have died on the eighth before the ides or the 6th of November, on which day that predecessor found his name entered in no martyrologies; nor is it reported in these Acts that his body was translated to Pavia, but on the contrary was preserved at Comacchio; but the people of Pavia are said at some time to have attempted to steal his remains there (on which occasion they were deposited in the church of St. Maurus of Comacchio), and what they could not do then, that same predecessor of ours judges to have been accomplished about the year 808, namely after Comacchio had been crushed by the Venetians in revenge for the slaughter of Marinus, sent to Rome by the doge his brother; and that then a liturgical office was made in honour of St. Appian as a confessor not a bishop; that afterward, with the transfer of the monastery of St. Peter in Cælo Aureo from the Benedictines to the canons of Mortara (which transfer took place in the year 1221), the ancient monuments having been lost, the office began to be recited as of a confessor bishop; who was believed to have been an African bishop, whose relics had been brought there together with the body of St. Augustine, although in the memorials of the translation of St. Augustine the name of St. Appian does not appear Acta SS. vol. I of March, p. 320 and following..
[3] [But this man was formerly venerated not on those days, but on the 6th of November, and probably was not yet living,] But these are mere conjectures, resting on no other foundation, except that the people of Pavia at one time vainly endeavoured to recover their Appian, buried at Comacchio, and that in the history of the translation of the relics of St. Augustine no mention is made of the relics of Appian the bishop. Henschenius saw this and for that reason himself indicated that that opinion of his was doubtful to him, namely that the St. Appian who is entered in the sacred calendars at the 4th of March and the 29th of October was the same as the hermit of Comacchio Ibid., p. 321, no. 3.. The learned man rightly doubted, and would more rightly have altogether denied: but there had not come to his notice the documents which emerged later. Above all our predecessor erred in this, that he believed that the name of St. Appian of Comacchio was inserted in no calendars at the 6th of November. In the Florentine codex of the Martyrology of Usuard these words were found at that day In Du Sollier, Martyrology of Usuard, p. 656.: Of St. Appian, confessor, who, a Ligurian by nation, was a monk in Cælo Aureo. Similarly in a calendar which is Tuscan in origin and was probably in use in the Pavian monastery of St. Bartholomew of the Olivetan monks (these indeed arose near Siena in Tuscany) is read at the same day Bandini, Biblioth. Leopoldina Laurentiana, vol. I, col. 223.: Of SS. Appian and Leonard, confessors. Nor is it to be wondered at that a saint of Comacchio, and thus from the province of Ravenna, is recorded in Tuscan calendars; for the ancient calendars of Flaminia, Tuscany, Æmilia, and Liguria often have the same names: but this argument is too ample to be treated in this place. This one thing now suffices, that the sixth of November is the proper day of St. Appian the Ligurian, and not the 4th of March. The people of Comacchio have long known nothing of him except what they have learned from the Acta Sanctorum Compare Ferro, Istoria dell' antica città di Comacchio, p. 363 and following..
[4] [Since St. Appian, master of St. Vindemialis, an African bishop, was already renowned; who afterwards continued to be venerated on the 29th of October.] Then, perhaps before St. Appian of Comacchio was alive, there was known in upper Italy St. Appian, African bishop. For in the Life or History of the translation of the bodies of SS. Florentius and Vindemialis (which translation from the island of Corsica to Treviso Titian, bishop of Treviso, carried out and committed to writing, before the times of Charlemagne), these things are read of St. Vindemialis, African bishop, sent with many others by Huneric into exile on the island of Corsica Acta SS. vol. I of May, p. 272.: The most blessed Vindemialis therefore was born and nurtured on African soil; but taught by the blessed confessor of Christ, Bishop Appian, and imbued with heavenly conversation, faith, and religion, he attained the dignity of the presbyterate; in which, soldiering worthily for God, he came even to the burden of the episcopate. The name of St. Appian, African bishop, was therefore formerly renowned. Whence it is not surprising if in an ancient Perugian calendar, that is, in a calendar made or remade for the use of the Hermitage of Avellana of St. Saviour de Montemalbo in the county of Perugia, and afterwards quite often enlarged, is read at the present day Sarti, De episcopis Eugubinis, pp. CXXIV and CXXXIV.: Of St. Apian, martyr: which praise of martyrdom is given in the liturgical books also to many other bishops, and especially to Roman pontiffs, who underwent many disturbances, yet not a violent death. Nevertheless there are preferred the things which occur at the present day in a calendar of the Leopoldine Library of the 14th century, whose origin Bandini did not know, but which was manifestly both written at Pavia and used at Pavia Bandini, Biblioth. Leopold. vol. I, p. 142.: Of Appian, bishop; similarly in a calendar of Brescia of the 13th century, which Zaccaria published in his Anecdota of the middle age. On this side of the mountains too came the name of St. Apian, bishop and confessor; for today, with that praise attached, it occurs in the additions to Usuard of Greven and of Molanus, and from there in the Canisian Martyrology of Wallasser.
[5] [Probably by Liutprand at the beginning of the 8th century he was translated with other saints from the island of Sardinia to Pavia. A feast in memory of this on the 18th of March. The form of the name and the time of death.] Although Ferrari and Romualdo of St. Mary speak so doubtfully about the origin of the Pavian relics of St. Appian, yet the tradition is by no means recent. For the Anonymous of Ticinum, whom Romualdo of St. Mary calls Sigibert Flavia Papia sacra, vol. II, p. 31., in the Commentary on the praises of Pavia, which he communicated to the public at Avignon in the year 1330, committed this to memory In Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italic. vol. XI, col. 13.: The church of St. Peter in Cælo Aureo, which Liutprand, king of the Lombards, enlarged and endowed. In which lies the body of most blessed Augustine, bishop of Hippo, the outstanding doctor, who has shown many powers there; and the bodies of the Blessed Martyrs Luxorius, Cisellus, Camerinus, Robustian, and Mark, and also of Blessed Apian, bishop and confessor: all of which were translated from Sardinia there with the body of Blessed Augustine by the said king. And these things, like the rest which are read in the first chapters, seem to have been taken from the Chronicle or Catalogue of the relics of the saints of Pavia; which Catalogue Blessed Rodobald, bishop of Ticinum, wrote in the year 1237, after he had diligently inquired into the bodies of the saints resting at Pavia: but I have already spoken elsewhere about that matter Acta SS., Supplement to vol. VI of October, p. 22 and following.. Yet I should not wish stubbornly to affirm that the relics of St. Appian were translated together with the body of St. Augustine from the island of Sardinia to Pavia. They could have been carried off at another time, and also from another place: although it is more prudent to follow the old writings (as far as is permitted) and thus to hold that St. Appian came to Sardinia together with other bishops and that from there at the beginning of the 8th century his remains were brought to Pavia, when the Lombard kings were wholly engaged in decorating their royal city with churches and fortifying it with the patronages of the saints, carrying off sacred bodies from every side. Besides the feasts of the 4th of March and the 29th of October, a third is celebrated at the 18th of March in the additions to Usuard of Greven and Molanus in these words: On the same day the laying-up of St. Apian, bishop and confessor. All memory of this anniversary has long since perished at Pavia. But since in the same place is read: Likewise the passion of SS. Luxorius, Cisellus, and Camerinus, martyrs, who suffered under Diocletian in Sardinia on the 21st of August and whose bodies (as we saw a little above) the people of Pavia hold to have been brought to them together with the body of St. Augustine; although the Sardinians deny this, and other Italians boast that they possess them; it is plain that the arrival of those relics was being celebrated. But of this matter there has been speech in our work at the 21st of August Acta SS. vol. IV of August, pp. 414 and 415.. This one thing is clear from it, that the people of Pavia formerly commemorated on the 18th of March the deposition among them of all these saints. Now, as is established for me from the Ordo of the divine office of the year 1847, the people of Pavia do not keep the feast of St. Appian, bishop and confessor, except on the 29th of October, with a double rite, but with everything taken from the common office of confessor pontiffs. To close these things at last, I shall advise the reader that in the books I have found Appianus and Apianus; I myself have written Appianus, since it is derived from Appius: in which, after it nearly prevailed that consonants be doubled after long vowels, almost no one fails to write two p's. — For the time of his death I have written AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 6TH CENTURY, since, under King Thrasamund, the African bishops went into exile to Sardinia [Old chronicle in Ruinart, History of the Vandal persecution, p. 115. Compare Morcelli, Africa christiana, vol. III, pp. 240 and 241; Martini, Storia ecclesiastica di Sardegna, vol. I, p. 100 and following; Fontanini, De corpore S. Augustini Ticini reperto, p. 4 and following.].