ON ST. THEODORE OF VERONA, BISHOP,
IN ITALY.
HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.
Concerning his cult and the time of his see.
Theodore, bishop of Verona in Italy. (S.)
BY C. S.
This saint, almost unknown to the martyrologists, Of the thirty-six bishops whom the ancient and famous Italian city of Verona honors with an annual cult on various days as the holy prelates of its see, many have already been given in our work, and today one occurs anew, St. Theodore, whose sacred and ancient veneration is as certain and beyond doubt as the order and time of his see and his deeds are plainly unknown. Philip Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints announces him at this day thus: At Verona, of St. Theodore the bishop. But in his annotations he praises, among other things, the Martyrology of Maurolycus; but that Theodore who is read in it without the name of a see is doubtless not the bishop of Verona, but the archbishop of Canterbury, of whom on this same day frequent mention is made in the Roman Martyrology and others, and who is treated in our work. The same Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the aforesaid day wove an elogium of the same St. Theodore of Verona from the monuments, as he says, of the church of Verona and from the little book of Augustine Valerio, bishop of Verona, On the Saints of that Church, which I subjoin.
[2] has an ancient cult at Verona. Theodore, the tenth bishop of Verona, succeeded St. Maurus in the episcopate, a man of outstanding piety toward God and distinguished by all episcopal virtues. A man endowed with keen judgment in deciding matters, most kindly toward those who approached him, adorned with the best morals, and famous for ecclesiastical eloquence, above the other virtues he chiefly cultivated sobriety; and when he had presided over his church for some time with the highest praise, he departed from life on the thirteenth of the Kalends of October, and was buried in the church of St. Stephen, from which afterwards his body was translated, by the unanimous consent of the whole clergy and people, into the cathedral basilica dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mother of God and consecrated by Urban III, Supreme Pontiff, and was laid away in a marble sarcophagus. Thus he; and what of these things can be safely admitted will appear from what is to be said below. Among the other martyrologists I have found none who mentions him except Castellanus, and that only in the Table or Index of Saints, where he notes that Theodore of Verona, omitted in his Martyrology, is commemorated at the 19th day of September. Of the most ancient cult, however, of this same holy bishop among his own people of Verona, as I said above, there can be no doubt, and this I now set about to show.
[3] Onofrio Panvinio, book 4 of the Antiquities of Verona, chapter 4, treating of the basilica of St. Stephen, His body, long laid up in the most ancient church of St. Stephen, which he observes from tradition to have been one of the most ancient churches of Verona, built a little outside the gate on the Trent road, and to have once been the cathedral, praises a certain marble tablet of the same affixed to the wall, in which among the sacred relics of that church the body of our St. Theodore is reckoned. It will be worth while to have appended here this little tablet of venerable antiquity in the same words in which Panvinio exhibited it.
IN. THIS. CHURCH. THERE. REST. THE. BODIES
OF. THE. HOLY. CONFESSOR. BISHOPS. OF. THIS
CITY. NAMELY. SIMPLICIUS. PETRONIUS. INNO
CENT. FELIX. SALVINUS. THEODORE
SENATOR. PROBUS. ANDRONICUS
MAURUS. AND. ALSO. MAMMAS. THE. CON
FESSOR. AND. OF. THE. VENERABLE. VIRGIN
OF. CHRIST. PLACIDIA. And
RELICS. OF. THE. WOOD. OF. THE. CROSS
OF. THE. LORD. OF. THE. HAIR. OF. THE. VIRGIN
MARY. AND. OF. S. STEPHEN. THE. PRO
TOMARTYR. AND. OF. FORTY. OTHER
MARTYRS. AND. OF. COUNTLESS
OTHER. HOLY. WOMEN
[4] The most illustrious and most learned Scipione Maffei in his Verona Illustrated, part 1, was some centuries ago translated to the cathedral book 11, column 342, mentions the same tablet with praise, and, since it has no note of time inscribed on it, judges that from all the indications it can be believed to be of the eleventh or twelfth century, yet in such a way that he is unwilling to deny that it may be not a little older. Raffaele Bagatta and Giovanni Battista Peretti, in the Ancient Monuments of the Holy Bishops of Verona and their Lives compiled by Augustine Valerio, bishop of that see and afterwards Cardinal, write that that sacred body lay there in the crypt for many years with a notable monument and an altar erected in his honor in the same confession, and they praise the ancient Lectionary of the cathedral church in his Life. From these things therefore we have it that the body of St. Theodore, bishop of Verona, was held among the sacred relics of the church of St. Stephen. The same body was afterwards translated to the church which now for many centuries has been the cathedral, and is dedicated to the most holy Mother of God assumed into heaven, where to this day it is religiously honored. The aforesaid most illustrious Maffei, at column 343, says that among the ancient manuscripts of the same cathedral church, which he conjectures to have been written between the year 900 and 1200, one especially notable is the Ordo of Verona, called Carpsum, and compiled by Stephen, presbyter and cantor. In this, moreover, he observes that not only the deposition of St. Theodore but also his translation is noted; and he had asserted that the body of this saint certainly lay already from the beginning of the year 1100 in the aforesaid church of St. Mary, now the cathedral, and probably also not a little before.
[5] He does not allege the argument on which he rests; unless perhaps he wished to indicate that this is proved from the antiquity of the said codex, was translated, or Ordo of Verona. Moreover, since in the church of St. Stephen recounted above the same
body is said to rest, he consequently and rightly confirms from this the antiquity of the same tablet; which certainly can be referred, not to the twelfth century, but at most to the end of the eleventh, if that sacred pledge had already from the assigned time rested in the cathedral church. Augustine Valerio, however, or those whose collection he used, Raffaele Bagatta and Peretti in the Ancient Monuments of the Saints of Verona, and Ferrarius, reported above, who followed them, speak so doubtfully as though the same translation had been carried out only after the often-mentioned cathedral church had been dedicated by Pope Urban III, and consequently not before the twelfth century was already far gone. But whatever they may have thought on this point, I prefer to believe the most learned Maffei, a diligent investigator of antiquity, who asserts it so positively.
[6] and laid in a profane urn; whence a doubt arose, But this is worthy of note, that the venerable body of the holy bishop was laid in the marble sepulchral urn of a certain profane, and more probably gentile, man, Julius Apollonius, or of his wife Actia Valeria, and was kept for the space of many years without any exterior inscription which might indicate that holy treasure, as all who have treated of him testify. Ughelli, volume 5 of the Italia Sacra, reprinted, column 693, exhibits this profane inscription from Raffaele Bagatta in this manner:
P. Julius Apollonius, while living, prepared this for himself and for Actia Valeria, his most obedient wife, and laid her body in the coffer, and dedicated the place to Servius.
The aforesaid Augustine Valerio recites the same; but for Actiæ he has Attiæ, obsequentissimæ for obsequentissime, and for ejusque corpus he substitutes, faultily, as it appears: & ejusque dei corp. etc. But whatever be the case with this difference of writing, which makes nothing for our purpose, it is manifest that from an inscription of this kind a suspicion must have arisen about the body of a profane and gentile man being kept in the coffer, rather than about the venerable relics of a holy bishop.
[7] [and when it had been opened in the thirteenth century, the body was found with an inscription,] For although it was not unusual for the more ancient Christians to employ the urns of the gentiles for laying away the bodies even of the faithful and of the holy martyrs, yet since the inscription cut in the marble sounded nothing but heathen or profane, a religious scruple was rightly cast upon the more prudent, and a counsel of inspecting it. Onofrio, Bagatta, or Augustine Valerio, and others place this event in the episcopate of James, whom the aforesaid Ughelli, column 838, calls James of Bragantia. Panvinio referred it to the year 1226; but other writers of Verona placed it one year earlier, on the testimony of Maffei praised above. When the coffer was opened and inspected, every ground of just doubt ceased: for there was found in it, together with the sacred body, a leaden plate which taught that this was the body of St. Theodore, and, if we believe Bagatta or Valerio, manifest episcopal insignia also. The inscription cut on the leaden plate was this: This is the body of St. Theodore the bishop. The most learned Maffei, column 344, teaches besides that the memory of this deed was cut in stone, a fragment of which, corroded by the gnawing of long time, fell by some chance under his eyes on the wall of an obscure place. That fragment he recounts in the same work, column 368, document 68, thus:
DIE VINT. MADIO
APTA FUIT ARCA SC̄I
DEODORI EP̄I-----
-------------
(That is: On the [ ] day of May the coffer of S. Theodore the bishop was opened -----; the numeral abbreviated as VINT. and the remainder of the stone are lost.)
[8] [and in the fifteenth century verses were cut on the coffer: an altar erected to him:] After these things the body of St. Theodore remained thus in the same coffer until the year 1489, when, on the testimony of Bagatta, Peretti, or Valerio, lest a like doubt should afterwards arise, the same coffer was again inspected, and on its very lid the following verses were cut:
The body of Theodore, the gracious bishop of Verona,
lies in this tomb; his spirit has ascended to the stars.
So it is, as the clergy saw, and the faithful people,
in the year one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine.
Concerning the place which he obtained in the aforesaid cathedral church of St. Mary the Virgin, and the cult which he obtained there in antiquity, this may be read in the often-praised Augustine Valerio: The body of St. Theodore, translated from the church of St. Stephen, was placed in a marble monument in the southern part of that church (namely of St. Mary), and before the monument an altar was fittingly set up in his honor, as is had from the aforesaid Lectionary, namely the ancient one of the cathedral church, as he had premised. I do not know whether that is the altar of which Maffei, column 344, asserts that it is read in a certain liturgical book: The altar of blessed Theodore was consecrated; and he adds the year 1264.
[9] In the sixteenth century the same sacred body was again translated into the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, then it was translated to the chapel and altar of the Blessed Virgin. which is in the same church, concerning which the following is read in Valerio: But afterwards in our own times, under Giovanni Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona, it was translated thence, with the same marble monument, into the altar of the chapel of St. Mary the Virgin in the same cathedral church, an effigy of St. Theodore having been set up on the frontal of the same altar of St. Mary; and in the same church there is a title of St. Theodore. This Giovanni Matteo Giberti was raised to the bishopric of Verona in the year 1524, and entered upon possession of it in the year 1527, and finally left it, dying, in the year 1543, on the testimony of Ughelli in the Italia Sacra, volume 5, column 958 and following; within which years this last translation must consequently have happened. There he lies even today beneath the altar of the same most holy Virgin Mother of God, as the aforesaid marquis Maffei has it in the place cited above.
[10] Of his sacred relics preserved elsewhere the aforesaid Valerio, or Bagatta or Peretti, says again as follows: His relics elsewhere, other indications of his cult, In the consecration of the altar of St. James in the church of the Holy Apostles, the relics of St. Theodore, bishop of Verona, were also laid up. In the church, or monastery, of St. Sylvester, and in the church of St. Michael at the Gates, among the relics which are kept there, there are also relics of this holy bishop. From the same, finally, we learn that in the fifteenth century there was already at Verona a certain pious confraternity erected also under his invocation, and enriched with sacred indulgences by Pope Callistus III, and that his feast was accustomed to be celebrated there on this very 19th day of September. For he has it thus: Pope Callistus III granted an indulgence to the society of St. Mary Novella, St. Theodore, and St. Sebastian, situated in the cathedral church of Verona, as in the Bull kept in the monastery of St. Mary in Organis, on the 2nd day of January 1458, where it is said: On the 19th day of September, on the feast of St. Theodore, etc. More ancient than these is a certain Ordo Romanus, which Maffei in the same place says was written under the emperors Louis and Lothair, and is preserved in the chapter library of Verona, and in which, in certain invocations of the saints toward the end, St. Proculus, St. Zeno, and St. Theodore are also reckoned.
[11] I have at hand also a manuscript proper Office of St. Theodore, A proper Office without lessons. which the most learned and most kindly father Giuseppe Bianchini, priest of the Roman Oratory at the Vallicella, communicated to us among various manuscripts on the saints of Verona. This Office, copied by his own hand from a codex of the church of Verona, has its own Invitatory, all the antiphons, and responsories proper to it; Matins is divided into three Nocturns; but it has no proper lesson, either because there was likewise none in that codex, or because the learned man judged that they ought rather to be omitted. Moreover, since all those antiphons teach nothing particular about our saint, and contain only such things as can be adapted to any holy bishop and confessor, neither did I think it worth the trouble to print them here. For the rest, I judge that his annual memory is celebrated throughout the diocese of Verona, by all religious persons of both sexes also, with an Office of double rite; since he is among those whom the synodal congregation in the year 1503, and afterwards bishop Giovanni Matteo Giberti, commanded to be so honored, as may be seen in the aforesaid Bagatta and Peretti.
[12] We have no Life of the saint, As to the saint's deeds, they lie hidden entirely, wrapped in the darkness of antiquity. Panvinio, book 1 of the Antiquities of Verona, chapter 22, does indeed praise the Deeds of St. Theodore, and Bagatta and Peretti in Valerio cite his Life from the ancient Lectionary of the cathedral church; but I suspect that this is the same as that in which Ughelli, volume 5 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 838, says that mention is made of James of Bragantia, bishop of Verona; and which therefore cannot be older than the thirteenth century, nor can it be of great authority in narrating the saint's deeds. But that his deeds are not contained in it is proved by the deep silence about them of Augustine Valerio, who compiled the Lives of the holy bishops of Verona collected by Bagatta and Peretti, since he has nothing other than what Ferrarius recounted from him above in number 2. The most illustrious Maffei also, at column 342, did not hesitate to reject as unworthy of credit the Lives of those same bishops which are in circulation.
[13] and if any exists, Bianchini, praised above, must likewise be said to have found nothing worthy of the light on this head, who, though he diligently searched the monuments of Verona concerning its saints, nevertheless communicated to us nothing about St. Theodore beyond the Office mentioned in the preceding number. Wherefore, if any other Life of that saint exists, I should believe it to be one of those of which Luigi Lippomano, bishop of Verona, in volume 4 of the Lives of the Saints, in the Preface, says thus: Although therefore in this holy and distinguished church (of Verona), which seems almost incredible, the famous memory of thirty-three holy bishops is kept, and their anniversary feasts are observed with solemn Masses, yet the Life of none of them is described by any certain man, but all things are put forth as published by uncertain authors. Nay rather, the Histories which are had of them are so full of barbarism, of rusticity, and of unfitness, that to read them is not only a heavy penance, but the very greatest shame.
[14] it seems unworthy of the light. The saints of my church not only this city but almost the whole world venerates and looks up to; but if I should bring forward their Lives, such as they are, I should not only act contrary to my purpose, but should also expose myself to be laughed at by all. But by what reason it came about that the Lives of my saints were not written either in a brilliant or at least in an ecclesiastical style, or, if they were (which I do not at all hesitate to confess), why they are not in our hands — if anyone should ask me, I would ascribe it to antiquity, which corrodes and consumes all things, or also to the so many and so great disasters of that city, in which not only handwritten papers, but also lofty palaces, famous theatres, most beautiful churches, and buildings raised to the sky, from the very times of the Lombards, who for many years held power in it
have fallen and perished. Let us grieve, therefore, that the lives of our holy fathers, who illustrated this church by their outstanding teachings and wonderful examples, are by no means found to have been described. Thus Lippomano; from all which has been brought forward thus far it is abundantly clear that I need not labor to procure a Life of St. Theodore.
[15] Obscure, as much as his deeds, is the time and the order The century is unknown in which the saint held the see of Verona. Certainly Panvinio, book 4 of the Antiquities of Verona, chapter 7, names him among those whom, because he could not refer them to a certain time and to a series of succession, he recounts in alphabetical order. But Maffei, already often praised, at column 341, has the following about the bishops of Verona, in the Italian tongue: In the monuments of Verona neither a diptych nor a catalogue occurs: for which reason, various names (of the bishops of Verona) having been collected from the monuments of various churches, their time, succession, and deeds were arranged according to the judgment and ingenuity of those who in the fifteenth century and the following began to put together our ecclesiastical history. Then the whole series was reported in the Italia Sacra; how erroneously, may be gathered by comparing the bishops whom we have mentioned thus far. From this darkness of the monuments, moreover, arose the diversity of the order in which they sat, in the various tables which I have seen.
[16] For in the catalogue published after Alessandro Canobio by Giovanni Battista Peretti in the year 1588, and the order in which he held the bishopric of Verona, in which, besides some others, there are recounted in alphabetical order a hundred and seven bishops who are seen depicted with their names and number attached in the synodal hall at Verona — in this catalogue, I say, St. Theodore, as one of those hundred and seven, is commemorated in the tenth place, in which Ferrarius also, above in number 2, affirmed that he sat. But in another catalogue drawn up and enlarged by the same authors, and published in the year 1602, the same St. Theodore is reckoned twenty-sixth, and between the year 531 and 585. Ughelli, volume 5 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 693, sets him thirteenth in the order, but without a time. Nicolò Coleti, who enlarged Ughelli's work, noted in the margin of the same place that he was the fifteenth: but of all these none produces the reasons on which he relies. Nor indeed do I think they can be produced in such thick darkness of antiquity, and the learned Maffei rightly said above that those catalogues were put together at the discretion of the compilers, namely when the monuments were lacking. We confess therefore that we can assign neither the order nor the time in which St. Theodore discharged the bishopric of Verona, since the very century in which he flourished is unknown.
[18] That he is nevertheless later than the fourth century, and is not to be numbered among the first eight bishops of that see, but he seems to have sat after the fourth century, is made altogether likely by the anonymous author who in the time of Pippin, son of Charlemagne, king of Italy, composed a rhythmical description of Verona, which Ratherius, in the tenth century bishop of Verona from the monastery of Lobbes, returning to his own monastery, brought to Lobbes, and from whose codex Mabillon printed it in volume 1 of the Old Analecta. Maffei also exhibits it in the letter of his praised above to Nicolò Coleti, where he does not hesitate to affirm that no document on this subject older or more genuine has been found by him, and he adds that John, deacon of the church of Verona, plainly agrees with it, who, as he asserts, preceded the other writers on that subject by more than two hundred years. This anonymous author, distinctly recounting the first eight bishops of Verona and the order in which they immediately succeeded one another, numbers no Theodore among them, and sets as eighth Zeno, who seems to have been no other than he whom St. Ambrose mentions in his letter to Syagrius, his successor. Ambrose's words you have in our work, volume 2 of April, page 69, where he is treated.
[19] and is not to be numbered among the first eight bishops. In the fifth century and the following, up to the times of king Liutprand, or up to the eighth century, the series of those same bishops is so uncertain that you do not know into what place, in so great a number of times and prelates, Theodore may more rightly be inserted. To Maffei, in Verona Illustrated, column 342, it appears highly credible that the author of the tablet which we exhibited in number 3, in recounting the holy bishops who rested in the church of St. Sebastian, observed the order of time in which they obtained the bishopric, with others, however, intervening; so that St. Theodore is to be placed after SS. Simplicius, Petronius, Innocent, Felix, and Salvinus, and before Senator, Probus, Andronicus, and Maurus, although among these themselves others also came between. He judges that this is confirmed from the fact that the anonymous Pippinian author, whom we mentioned just now, placed Simplicianus, who occurs first in the same tablet, third among the first eight bishops. But I have nothing from which to confirm the learned man's opinion, and the age of those same bishops is uncertain. For the rest, the same anonymous author recounts among the holy bishops laid up in the said church also Probus, Andronicus, and Maurus, but in another order, yet is silent about Theodore and six others.