medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. April) is the feast day of:
1) Apphianus (d. 306). W. know about A. (also Aphianus and Amphianus) from Eusebius' _On the Martyrs of Palestine_ (4. 8, 4. 15). A Lycian from a wealthy family, he had converted to Christianity and studied at the then famous university of Berytus (today's Beirut). His family having rejected him on religious grounds, he moved on to Caesarea. He was living with Eusebius when, one day, he grabbed the local governor, Urbanus, by the hand as he was about to conduct an official sacrifice and attempted to prevent the performance of this act. This caused him to be beaten by an irate crowd, thrown in jail, and brought to trial on the following day after having been further thoroughly beaten. Convicted, he was executed by being thrown into the sea. A seismic disturbance witnessed by Eusebius later caused A.'s body to be washed up before the city gates. Today is his probable _dies natalis_.
2) Theodosia (d. 308). Eusebius' _On the Martyrs of Palestine_ (7. 1-2) is our source for T. (also Theodora). She was a Christian virgin of Tyre, still in her eighteenth year and staying in Caesarea, who consoled Christian prisoners who were about to be martyred. For this she was brought before governor Urbanus. When T. refused to sacrifice to the idols, he -- according to Eusebius -- became outraged and ordered her to be violently tortured. T. survived these assaults and even managed at the end to stand up with a smile on her luminous visage. When she again refused to sacrifice she was thrown into the sea.
By the beginning of the ninth century T. had a Latin Passio (BHL 8090-91) derived from Eusebius but expanding on her torments. This furnished the data for her entries in the martyrologies of Florus, Ado, and Usuard, in which she was listed for today (one of the dates given in texts of Eusebius) following the earlier Bede. The Passio itself and the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology give 3. April as her _dies natalis_. In the Marble Calendar of Naples T. is entered for 29. May, also her feast in some Eastern calendars.
3) Abundius of Como (d. perh. 468 or 469). A. was a bishop of Como who in 450/51 led a mission to the emperor in Constantinople on behalf of pope St. Leo I that was part of the run-up to the council of Chalcedon. His cult in Como, where he is the principal patron saint, is attested from the ninth century onward. In his diocese A. is celebrated liturgically on 31. August. Today is his _dies natalis_ and, unless there's been a recent change, his day of commemoration in the RM. Herewith two pages with expandable view of A.'s eleventh-century church in Como, the chiesa di Sant'Abbondio, consecrated by Urban II in 1095:
http://www.romanicomo.it/comoabbondio.htm
http://tinyurl.com/29wonq
4) Victor of Capua (d. 554). Today's less well known saint of the Regno succeeded St. Germanus of Capua as bishop of that city in 541. A Bible scholar of mathematical bent, he wrote on the paschal cycle, on the dimensions of Noah's ark, and on the hour of the Crucifixion, as well as commentaries in catena form on the Old Testament and on the New. He commissioned one of the principal early manuscripts of the Vulgate, the _codex Fuldensis_ (Fulda, Landesbibliothek, Cod. Bonifatianus 1). This contains the Gospels in an originally Old Latin version of Tatian's _Diatessaron_ altered, on V.'s instructions, to show the Vulgate text. V.'s death on 2. April 554 is recorded in his epitaph (_CIL_ 10. 4503).
5) Francis of Paola (d. 1507). Today's fairly well known saint of the Regno was born at Paola in Calabria's Cosenza province. When he was twelve he spent a year at the Franciscan friary at San Marco (Sammarco), today's San Marco Argentano (CS), after which he joined his parents on a pilgrimage to Rome and to Assisi. With their permission he then became a hermit at Paola. In time he attracted followers and founded a community of back-to-basics Franciscans. These became the Order of Minims, whose first rule was approved in 1493 and whose second was approved in 1501. Well before then F. had attracted the attention of his king, Ferrando (Ferrante) I of mostly mainland Sicily, as well as that of the king of France, Louis XI, who called for him in 1483 when near death. F. spent the remainder of his life in France, dying at his hermitage on the royal estate at Plessis-les-Tours. He was canonized in 1519.
The friary at San Marco Argentano still exists and is still Franciscan: it and its church are known as the Convento e la Chiesa della Riforma because it was once a Reformed Franciscan house. It has been much reworked over the centuries but its church of St. Anthony of Padua, whose present austere exterior
http://tinyurl.com/g276l
conceals a more elaborate baroque interior, still retains elements of its original "gothic" form. Two of these (the windows in the apse) are visible in this view:
http://www.comune.sanmarcoargentano.cs.it/santantonio.jpg
The church's thirteenth-century fresco of St. Anthony is shown on this Italian-language page on the complex:
http://web.tiscali.it/argentanum/riforma.htm
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|