ON ST. CANDIDA THE YOUNGER, A MARRIED WOMAN, AT NAPLES,
In the year DLXXXVI.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Her cult, elogium, year of death, and the discovery of her body.
Candida, a married woman, at Naples. (S.)
J. S.
That two Candidas are venerated today at Naples, and that they are really distinct, Various matters concerning her memory in the Fasti I have shown at length above under Candida the elder. The younger is thus announced in the Roman Martyrology after the elder: In the same place, of St. Candida the younger, renowned for miracles. Among the Neapolitan Offices printed in the year 1525 there is also found a proper Office of this Candida of nine lessons, of which six lessons, relating to the Saint's deeds, I shall give below as brief Acts. Now this Office shows that the words of the Catalogue of certain Neapolitan Saints of the year 1619, in which it is said that Candida the elder alone was venerated at Naples up to that time with a semidouble Office, need some explanation; unless perhaps the Office of Candida the younger was indeed printed in the year 1525 but not recited. I should prefer, however, to think that the words of the praised Catalogue are to be so explained that we believe Candida the younger was not venerated throughout the whole diocese of Naples. However that may be, the most illustrious Decio Carafa, archbishop of Naples, ordained that thereafter Candida the elder should be venerated with a semidouble Office, and that a commemoration should be made of Candida the younger. And of the latter the following things are noted in the praised Catalogue: Further, St. Candida the younger was married: and she lived with outstanding piety and faith before
a thousand years ago, that is, in the reign of Maurice. Of her the Roman Martyrology treats on the IV day of September, and Baronius in his notes. There exists a noble epitaph carved in marble in the church of St. Andrew, where also her body is venerated. And from thence part of her bones has been honorably translated to the archiepiscopal church into the chapel of the Treasury, and part into the neighboring church of S. Angelo a Nido.
[2] David Romæus, in the little work on the Seven holy guardians of the city of Naples, and touching the Saint's cult: where he also narrates the Life of St. Candida the younger, has this of her at page 130: Her body, buried in a tomb of marble in the church of St. Andrew in the street of Nido, and hidden in darkness, was lately found and dug out by Paolo Tasso, a Neapolitan, a pious and most upright priest, the sacristan of the church. Paolo Regio, volume 2 on the Lives of the Saints of the kingdom of Naples, page 940, relates in Italian about the Saint's burial and miracles the things which will be read below in the Office to be given. But then at page 941 he subjoins this: Further, devotion toward this holy Woman, which on occasion of changes of the state, of wars, and of pestilences had grown cold in the breasts of the Neapolitans, has by divine providence been restored in our times. The rector of that church of St. Andrew was the lord Francesco Carafa when, at the persuasion of the lord Paolo Tasso, then a canon of Naples and now the most reverend and most worthy archbishop of Lanciano , this Saint's altar was renewed and adorned with new marble; and a new image of the same St. Candida was set up, such as at this time is seen. And her sacred bones, which had already been raised from the old sepulchre, were enclosed in a marble urn, and placed under the altar dedicated to her name, beside which even now is seen the old sepulchre where the Saint was first buried. In the same place also are read some Latin verses, which contain a summary of the things we have related above.* Thus far the most illustrious Regio.
[3] her epitaph, Now the verses which he mentions are the Saint's ancient epitaph, printed in various authors, which Baronius on another occasion, at the year 715, gave thus:
✠ Death, which swallows all men in her unending gape, while she knows not how to spare, herself full often shows favor. Happy he who has been able to lay down his affections in safety: dying, he fears not the mortal road. Candida, a matron, is covered by this present sepulchre, shining in character, in wit, and in gravity. To whom a sweet husband remains * and a son survives; from her fruit the Mother is known in her offspring. This she ever sought with prayers, this with tearful voice: whose merit now her fulfilled vows approve. Though all thy house never cease to weep for thee: happy, I confess, was she to have deserved so to die.
✠ Here rests in peace Candida C. F., who lived pl. m. ann. l. die IIII. id. sept. imp. D. N. Mauritio P. P. aug. ann. IIII. P. C. ejusd. an. II. Ind. quarta. The contracted words I read thus: Here rests in peace Candida, daughter of C. (others have G), who lived more or less fifty years, (and died) on the fourth day of the Ides of September (that is, the 10th of September, but in Romæus is read on the IV day of September, the word Ides being omitted) in the reign of our lord Maurice, father of his country, augustus, in the fourth year, in the second year after the consulate of the same, in the fourth Indiction. The edition of Baronius, with whom Ughelli agrees in volume 6 of the Italia sacra, column 52, seems to be more correct than the edition of Romæus; and therefore one must read on the IV day of the Ides, that is, on the X of September, and not on the IV day of September, although various recent writers relate that the Saint died on the IV day of September, which was perhaps taken from Romæus. The learned Neapolitans themselves will be able, from the Epitaph, if it still remains entire, to establish the day of her death more surely.
[4] But the year expressed in the epitaph indicates the year 586 of the common era, from which she seems to have died on the 10th of September of the year 586: in which indeed the fifth year of the emperor Maurice began on the XIV day of the month of August, but the whole year was called only the fourth of Maurice, and the second after his consulate, which he held in the year 584. These things are more fully explained and proved in Pagi in the Critica at the years of the emperor Maurice. It will be enough to transfer hither his first words at the year 586, which he thus begins: That year is marked with this formula: "IV After the consulate of Maurice Tiberius Augustus, alone, for the second time." That is, the fourth year of Maurice, and the second after his consulate. In the same year also it was the fourth Indiction, correctly expressed in the epitaph with the rest. Wherefore Romæus strayed from correct chronology, who says that the Saint passed into heaven on the day before the Nones of September, in about the year of Christ DLXXXII, in the IV year of the reign of Maurice the Greek, Pelagius II being Roman Pontiff. The Pontiff alone is correctly expressed, the rest faultily. Caracciolo likewise gave neither the day nor the year exactly at chapter 28, where he treats of Candida the younger, writing thus: She died at fifty, her son and husband surviving, on the day before the Nones of September, as the ecclesiastical records have it, in the year DXC. In what ecclesiastical records Caracciolo read that day and year is hidden from me: certainly the Office presently to be given rightly assigns the fourth of the Ides of September, that is, the X day of this month; but it does not name the year of the common era, but designates the fourth of the emperor Maurice: nor do I doubt that these things were taken from the epitaph, in which everything is exactly set down for the time in which it was written. But he who wishes to use today's manner of speaking will say that the Saint died on the X day of September, in the year of the common era 586, the 9th of Pope Pelagius II, the 5th of the emperor Maurice, in the fourth Indiction.
[5] That St. Candida was born of a noble stock the lessons presently to be recited relate, she was of noble stock. and both the epitaph and the marble sepulchre intimate this. The praised Caracciolo strives besides to make it likely that she sprang from the Brancaccio stock, arguing thus: That she was of the most ancient and most noble family of Brancaccio is a tradition: which, if it be true, can be supported by these conjectures. That she was buried in a church adjoining the quarter in which those who were of that family are to be reckoned to have had their dwellings, whence afterwards they were enrolled in the neighboring Seggio of Nido. That the first benefit shown to mortals by Candida, after her translation into heaven, was conferred upon Filippo Brancaccio, who suffered from paralysis, as the 3rd lesson of the Lectionary has it. That frequently the rectors of the church of St. Andrew, in which she was entombed, were of that family. And that Luigi Brancaccio in the year MCCCLXX bought up certain houses for the good of that church, certainly out of piety toward his kinswoman lying there. This is attested by the recent inscription in his chapel in the church of S. Angelo at the Seggio of Nido, erected by Cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio about the year of the Lord MCCCLXXXIV, and afterwards enlarged with a hospital in the year MCDXXVI, which is of this kind: "The chapel of St. Candida of Naples, of the family of Brancaccio." Which chapel was erected on occasion of some small bones received from her body. Thus far Caracciolo, who does not intend from these reasons to establish anything certain: nor are the conjectures alleged sufficient for that.
Annotations* of Lanciano perhaps remanent*
ACTS
From the proper Office, printed at Naples in the year 1525.
Candida, a married woman, at Naples. (S.)
BHL Number: 1538
The Saint's virtues and piety, although she was married: Lesson I. In the city of Naples, which of old was called by the ancients Parthenope, a certain venerable woman, sprung by God's providence from a noble stock, Candida by name, adorned her name with upright deeds. For this blessed woman, Candida — white by name and by body, and (by divine grace) whiter by faith and by holy works — rendered to almighty God a pleasing service. For the aforesaid Handmaid of God, although joined to a husband in wedlock, yet her works of piety were not for this reason darkened. She persisted therefore assiduously in divine prayers: frequenting the thresholds of the churches, she was not slack to visit them: hearing the divine words, and often ruminating on them, she strove, like good ground, to multiply the seed received. And because, according to the Apostle's saying, not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law shall be justified, she, not unmindful of God's precepts, turned what she had learned into works of mercy. Although she had a husband and an only son, who are in very truth the deserts a of covetousness and avarice, yet persisting in almsgiving and in other works of piety, she desired to please God alone. For she had heard the Lord saying in the Gospel: He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and the rest that follows. Full of these and the like precepts of sanctity, dead to the world, living to God, made his victim, she busied herself to offer him a sacrifice of contrition, of devotion, and of holiness. Whence David says in the Psalm: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
[2] the blessed death which she dies, as she had asked, before her husband and son. Lesson II. For in the sight of the God of heaven there is no difference of condition, of sex or of age, of servitude or of liberty, of male or female, of youth or of old age, in the exercise of his service: there will not therefore be a difference of condition in the reward. Whence the Lord in the Gospel: Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, sister, and mother. And the Prophet in the Psalm: Blessed, he says, are all they that fear the Lord, that walk in his ways. And in another place the same Prophet says: All flesh shall come to thee, O God. These things therefore being premised, let the discourse turn, with the Lord's cooperation, to the deeds of the aforesaid blessed Candida. This Matron then, adorned with the character of sanctity, as has been shown, having a husband and an only son, daily in her prayers, which she poured forth to God with tears, besought that he would deign of his unspeakable goodness to receive her soul, and would leave both, namely her husband and her son, surviving her. Whose vows almighty God, looking down from on high, did not fail: and that he might make manifest of how great and what manner of merit she was, he deigned to show it first in this: that what she asked, she obtained. For while her husband and son lived, as she had prayed, she rendered her soul to God, whom she had diligently served. And her body was honorably laid, with hymns and praises, in a marble monument in the basilica of St. Andrew the apostle, which is situated within the same city of Naples in the place which is called Ad Nidum, on the fourth of the Ides of September, in the fourth Indiction, in the reign of the lord Maurice, pope b and augustus, in the fourth year, in the second year of his church c, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning among us, etc.
[3] Lesson III. Therefore after many courses of time a certain liquid came forth from the same marble sepulchre Oil dripping from the sepulchre: a paralytic, in which the body of the same blessed Candida had been laid. Which religious Christians gathering, they anointed in the name of the Lord the aching or infirm parts of human bodies;
and they were made whole, by whatever infirmity they were held. Whence a certain noble man, a citizen of the same Naples, named Philip, whose surname was Brancaccio, suffered a very great infirmity which the physicians call paralysis: for the limbs of one half of his body were so numb or withered that he could do no work. The aforesaid man, wholly despising fleshly medicine because of the grievousness of his exceeding infirmity, sought rather devoutly to ask heavenly help. He went therefore in faith to the aforesaid sepulchre of the venerable Woman; and prostrate before it in prayer, as best he knew how, with lengthy prayers and mournful sighs and groans he suppliantly besought the same Lady that by her holy intercession he might be freed from the infirmity by which he was held. And he indeed by the divine mercy was made whole as though he had never been held by such a sickness.
[4] Lesson IV. Another man had so utterly lost the power of speech a mute man, that, being made wholly dumb and having entered upon no small space of silence, he spoke nothing, his mouth being bridled. But when he came to the tomb in which the body of blessed Candida had been laid, and there beside it lay prostrate in prayer, with silent mouth (since he could do no otherwise), by the sole effort of a pure and contrite heart he devoutly and suppliantly poured out to God long and tearful prayers, as best he could conceive them in his heart, that by his mercy and the merits of the same blessed Lady he might be restored to the former office of his tongue. And he indeed, having stayed there no long time, was heard by God through the intervention of blessed Candida, and, the bond of his tongue being loosed, was restored to the former office of his mouth.
[5] Lesson V. At another time a certain presbyter of the same city of Naples, and one suffering from a quartan fever, healed: named Eraclius, was most grievously held by the sickness of a quartan chill with an accompanying fever: who, when he could get from the physicians no measure of health nor any remedy, relying on divine as well as human aid, and because he had known that many had recovered health when prayers had been poured out to God and to blessed Candida, by their example commended himself to the same Lady, saying: "Venerable Candida, beloved of God, as I believe that thou by thy holy deeds hast pleased our Lord Jesus Christ, by his own mercy, and that many by thy help have been restored from infirmities to health, so I beseech thy accustomed goodness that by thy intercession thou wouldst mercifully deign to entreat our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ for me a sinner, that he may deign to free me from this infirmity which I grievously endure." From that very hour indeed, by the cooperation of divine grace, he never suffered that infirmity, and was restored to his former health.
[6] Lesson VI. And because, as the wise Solomon d says, it is good to hide the secret of a king, but it is honorable to reveal the works of God: and although all the things which God has deigned to work for the merits of his handmaid Candida cannot be put into writing, yet I will not cover with silence what I remember to have happened lately; when a certain noble and rich man from the parts of Italy sought the city of Parthenope itself for the sake of its baths, a lost horse is found when a vow is made to the Saint. and bringing with him armed men, by chance through the carelessness of the armed men he lost one horse, which, its tether being broken, fled secretly away. Therefore the armed men and the other servants, being not a little grieved at the loss of the horse, fearing their Lord's threats and blows and their own losses, came and sought all around far and wide, and though they sought long they could never find it. And as befell them, coming from distant parts and fearing loss from various misfortune, they were afraid that they might suffer harm, now from the assault of wicked robbers, now from the greedy jaws of lions and wolves, now on account of the strange region: one of whom had heard the report of the miracles which almighty God had wrought by the merits and intercessions of his handmaid Candida. He besought her and made a vow to her, saying: "Most blessed lady, Candida beloved of God, as I have heard and believe that thou hast conferred gifts of mercy on not a few, so I too, although unworthy, suppliantly entreat thy accustomed clemency that I, thy poor servant, may be able to obtain the benefit of thy grace, that before the coming night hides the lights we may find our Lord's horse unhurt." Whose vows God heard: for a companion of his cried out and made known with his voice that he had found the horse unhurt. Then he who had made the vow strove as quickly as he could to pay it to the same venerable Handmaid of God, remembering that word of the Psalmist: I will pay my vows in the courts of the house of the Lord.* These and many other things almighty God has deigned to work through the merits of his handmaid Candida: and to bestow them on those who worthily ask her with a pure affection of mind, even to the present day, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen e.
ANNOTATIONS.
extraneam*