medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 05:38 PM 6/1/2004 -0700, Phyllis wrote:
>Today (2. June) is the feast day of:
>
>Erasmus (Elmo) of Formia (d. c. 303) Erasmus was a bishop of Formia
>(Italy), martyred in the reign of Diocletian. His relics were taken
>to Gaeta when Formia was destroyed in a ninth-century Muslim raid.
>He had some very inventive devotees, who made his cult very popular
>in the Middle Ages---not only did he become the patron saint of
>sailors, but who could resist a saint whose guts were wound out of
>him with a windlass (?)
E. appears in the (pseudo- )Hieronymian Martyrology (HM) as follows: _In
Formiis in Campania Herasmi_ ("Erasmus, at Formiae in Campania") and in a
letter of October 590 Gregory the Great notes that E.'s body reposes at
Formiae. So far there's no indication that E. was bishop of Formia (as
Formiae's successor, formerly in Campania but now in Lazio's Latina
province, is now called). His Latin _Passio_ (there's also a Greek version
that has been thought the original but has recently been pretty
convincingly shown to be a translation from the Latin) exists in three late
antique and early medieval recensions whose texts make him a bishop of
Antioch in Syria (well, it's now in Turkey, but that's another story... )
tortured almost to death under Diocletian, guided by an angel to Formiae,
and received thence into heaven very shortly thereafter. So he has a form
of the standard Campanian legend of a bishop (variant: holy virgin) coming
from abroad, usually with angelic assistance, and often dying soon
afterwards (variant: already dead en route). Recension B includes a
sparkling prosimetric version now attributed to the 10th-century Neapolitan
hagiographer Peter the Subdeacon; recension C is distinguished by the later
eleventh-century work of the Cassinese prose stylist John of Gaeta, later
papal chancellor and ultimately pope (as Gelasius II). Texts that make E.
bishop _of_ Formiae and combine this with the testimony of HM to make him
actually martyred there are later and alien to this tradition; later too,
after E. had become identified with seamen, is the business of winding out
his innards with a windlass. (Phyllis, if you're comparing sources, your
note on Erasmus/Elmo last year was far more accurate).
E. is the patron saint of Gaeta as well as of Formia. His cathedral at
Gaeta has been much rebuilt, but it has a recently restored
12th-/13th-century belltower worthy of note:
http://www.santuariodellacivita.it/s_erasmo_gaeta.htm
http://www.lazionweb.it/TESTI/Campanile1FOTO.htm
details here (in Italian):
http://www.spolia.it/archeologia/reimpiego/1996/campanile.htm
E. also appeared Gaetan coinage (pieces now dated to the late eleventh
century):
http://www.gaetavola.org/SINISTRO/TavolaeStoria/S.Erasmo/approfondimentoSEra
smo.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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