medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Colleagues,
To to anyone interested I will be happy to send a
copy by regular mail of Richard McBrien's article
that contends "we must reject the simplistic,
mechanistic notion of apostolic succession -- the
passing the baton theory." He cites Fr Francis
Sullivan, former professor of ecclesiology at the
Pontifical Gregorian University and now professor
at Boston College.
George Brown
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>Tom,
>
>I'm well aware of the tradition that Peter was
>the first pope of Rome from the "early" sources
>cited; it's what we learned as seminarians. The
>point that Fr. McBrien and his contemporary
>authorities now make is that the tradition was
>established in the late antique period or early
>Middle Ages, so what we learned in History of
>the Church class needs to be revised a bit
>because the earliest records (e.g. Acts) have
>the apostles as missionaries and the churches
>local chosen leaders. The Apostolic Tradition
>therefore has to be understood somewhat
>differently from the belief that bishops are
>"directly" descended from the Apostles "as the
>fist bishops."
>As for the Irenaeus tradition dropping out of
>the Western tradition: No. In the Roman canon of
>every Mass the commemorations of the popes still
>begin with Linus: "Linus, Cletus, Clement,
>Xistus, Cornelius"; they follow upon the
>Apostles in the Canon.
>
>GHB
>
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>>m8NK4Pns002286
>>
>>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>
>>Peter is established as first bishop of Rome by
>>the time the Liber pontificalis was compiled in
>>the 9th century. See The Book of Pontiff,
>>trans. Raymond Davis (Liverpool UPrm=, 1989),
>>pp. 1-2.
>>Platina takes up that version in the 15th
>>century. Did the Irenaeus list drop out of the
>>Western tradition?
>>
>>Tom Izbicki
>>
>>John Wickstrom wrote:
>>>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>>
>>>John, your first sentence seems (perhaps
>>>intentionally) ambiguous. Traditional Catholic
>>>teaching makes Peter the first bishop of Rome
>>>(2nd and 3rd century sources according to,
>>>most recently, Mc Brian's new book on /The
>>>Church/); in that tradition your sentence
>>>should read "L. was Peter's successor and
>>>[therefore] the second bishop of Rome." My
>>>understanding is that Linus appears as the
>>>first name in the list by Irenaeus that you
>>>mention, making him, not Peter, the first
>>>bishop of Rome. Peter's "primacy" of the Roman
>>>church then would be, if anything, a more
>>>informal recognition, both during his time at
>>>Rome and elsewhere as the New Testament
>>>appointed (thou art Peter) leader of the
>>>church (?)
>>>
>>>jbw
>>>
>>>
>>>John B. Wickstrom
>>>
>>>Kalamazoo College
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>>> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly
>>>>discussions of medieval religious culture
>>>
>>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Dillon
>>>
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 12:43 AM
>>>
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>> Subject: [M-R] saints of the day 23. September
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> A reprise of that last post with the date
>>>>corrected for the Archives. Apologies for
>>>
>>>> the duplication.
>>>
>>>> --JD
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Today (23. September) is the feast day of:
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> 1) Linus, pope (d. 1st cent.). According
>>>>to most early sources for him L. was
>>>
>>>> Peter's successor and the first bishop of
>>>>Rome. Irenaeus (_Adv. haer._ 3. 3. 13)
>>>
>>>> identifies him with the L. of 2 Tim 4:21.
>>>>The Liberian Catalogue dates his
>>>
>>>> pontificate to the years 56-67; Jerome
>>>>places in the years 67-78. L. is named in
>>>
>>>> the Roman and the Ambrosian Canons of the
>>>>Mass. He was venerated medievally
>>>
>>>> as a martyr (traditional Catholics still think of him as one).
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Here's L. officiating at the sepultures of
>>>>Sts. Peter and Paul in panels of an early
>>>
>>>> fourteenth-century fresco in the basilica of
>>>>San Piero a Grado (San Petro ad
>>>
>>>> Gradus Arnenses) in the Pisan _frazione_ of that name:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3qmw4z
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/4emvhh
>>>
>>>> More views of this originally tenth- and
>>>>eleventh-century church and of its
>>>
>>>> important series of depictions of early popes:
>>>
>>>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cienne/sets/72157600114508041/
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> L.'s Vita in the Liber Pontificalis says
>>>>that he was Tuscan. The late fourteenth-
>>>
>>>> and early fifteenth-century papal official
>>>>and polymath Piero Maffei asserted in
>>>
>>>> his _Commentariorum rerum urbanarum_ (finished, 1506) that L. came from
>>>
>>>> Volterra. In 1519 (remember, folks, in this
>>>>list we go up to the year 1550) Leo X
>>>
>>>> granted Volterra an Office of L. accepting
>>>>as traditional L.'s Volterran origin.
>>>
>>>> Volterra's church of San Lino was built for
>>>>Maffei (d. 1522) on a site purported to
>>>
>>>> have been where L.'s family once dwelt.
>>>>Herewith two views of the terracotta
>>>
>>>> bust of L. attributed either to Giovanni
>>>>della Robbia (d. 1529) or to Benedetto di
>>>
>>>> Buglione (d. 1521), now in Volterra's diocesan museum:
>>>
>>>> http://www.tuttipapi.it/TombeMausoleiRitratti/78-Lino.jpg
>>>
>>>> http://www.toscanaoggi.it/musei/foto/grandi/11-2.gif
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> 2) Thecla of Iconium (d. late 1st cent.,
>>>>supposedly). We know about T. from the
>>>
>>>> romance-like, late second-century apocryphal
>>>>Acts of Paul and Thecla (BHG 1710-
>>>
>>>> 22; BHL 8020-25; BHO 1152-56). This makes T. a nobly born young woman of
>>>
>>>> Iconium (today's Konya in Turkey) whose
>>>>determination to remain virginal arouses
>>>
>>>> the hostility of parents and lovers, who is
>>>>converted to Christianity by St. Paul,
>>>
>>>> who is condemned to death by the Roman state, survives two attempted
>>>
>>>> executions, converts her mother, lives as a
>>>>recluse, miraculously avoids being
>>>
>>>> raped by brigands, and finally dies a
>>>>natural death. Her many sufferings make
>>>
>>>> her a martyr. Widely venerated in medieval
>>>>and modern Christianity, T. was
>>>
>>>> dropped from the RM in 2001. Her feast
>>>>today remains on local calendars (e.g.,
>>>
>>>> at Tarragona, which has her putative relics
>>>>said to have been translated from
>>>
>>>> Armenia and where she is the patron saint).
>>>>Orthodox churches celebrate T. on
>>>
>>>> 24. September.
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> T. on the remains of a pilgrim flask from
>>>>one of her Eastern cult sites, now in the
>>>
>>>> Yale Art Gallery, New Haven (CT):
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/46a939
>>>
>>>> Here's T., again between two beasts, on a
>>>>sixth-century flask depicting both her
>>>
>>>> and St. Men(n)as of Egypt. now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris:
>>>
>>>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/antiquite-tardive/128179152/
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Two views of the entrance to the cave at
>>>>Ma'aloula in Syria traditionally said to
>>>
>>>> have been T.'s resting place:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3fh6kc
>>>
>>>> http://cache.virtualtourist.com/2054404.jpg
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> In this view of the late twelfth-century
>>>>ciborium in the basilica di Sant'Ambrogio
>>>
>>>> in Milan T. is the center figure in the group at the left:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3hnbg3
>>>
>>>> A smaller but clearer view:
>>>
>>>> http://www.jemolo.com/alta/imgl0063.jpg
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Here's T. with St. Sebastian in the central
>>>>panel of the Retable of Sts. Thecla and
>>>
>>>> Sebastian (late fifteenth-century;
>>>>attributed to Jaume Huguet) in the cathedral
>>>>of
>>>
>>>> Barcelona:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/488zel
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> 3) Sossus (Sossius, Sosius; d. 305,
>>>>supposedly). Today's less well known saint of
>>>
>>>> the Regno is the early Christian martyr of
>>>>Misenum (now Miseno [NA]) in coastal
>>>
>>>> Campania. S. is mentioned by the
>>>>fifth-century exile in Campania Quodvultdeus
>>>
>>>> of Carthage, was depicted in the now lost
>>>>mosaics of the late fifth- or very early
>>>
>>>> sixth-century church of St. Priscus at old
>>>>Capua, is listed for today in the early
>>>
>>>> sixth-century calendar of Carthage, appears
>>>>in a non-Januarian sixth-century
>>>
>>>> fresco in the catacombs of St. Gaudiosus at
>>>>Naples, and is the subject of a verse
>>>
>>>> epigram placed by pope St. Symmachus
>>>>(498-514) over a relic niche in his chapel
>>>
>>>> of St. Andrew next to old St. Peter's on the
>>>>Vatican. The latter calls S. a
>>>
>>>> _minister_ (a term often designating a deacon) who attempted to save his
>>>
>>>> bishop's life and who suffered martyrdom along with him.
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> A text of that epigram (PONTIFICIS VENERANDA SEQUENS... ) together with an
>>>
>>>> Italian translation can be read about halfway down the page here:
>>>
>>>> http://www.tuttofrattamaggiore.it/chiese/chiesa_sansosio.htm
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> In the late sixth- or seventh-century _Acta
>>>>Bononiensia_ of the St. Januarius
>>>
>>>> venerated especially at Naples (BHL 4132)
>>>>and in subsequent versions of this
>>>
>>>> account, S. was a deacon of Misenum who was
>>>>already in prison when J., who was
>>>
>>>> _not_ his bishop, became involved the
>>>>tribunals that led to his own martyrdom,
>>>
>>>> along with that of S. and others, at the
>>>>Solfatara in the Phlegraean Fields outside
>>>
>>>> of Pozzuoli. S. was one of the saints of
>>>>coastal Campania whose cult came early
>>>
>>>> to England (probably with abbot St. Hadrian
>>>>of Nisida) and traveled thence to the
>>>
>>>> Low Countries, as evidenced by the Calendar
>>>>of St. Willibrord, written between
>>>
>>>> 702 and 706 and now Paris lat. 10837.
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> According to a translation account (BHL 4116) of Januarius and some of his
>>>
>>>> companions whose earliest witness is of the
>>>>ninth century as well as to the
>>>
>>>> historical martyrologies from Bede onward,
>>>>S.'s remains were soon removed from
>>>
>>>> their resting place at the Solfatara to a
>>>>church at Misenum where they were
>>>
>>>> venerated. In John the Deacon's account
>>>>(BHL 4135) of S.'s early tenth-century
>>>
>>>> translation to Naples S.'s tomb in this
>>>>church, which is said to have become
>>>
>>>> ruinous, was recognized only because it
>>>>still bore a few letters of his name. Be
>>>
>>>> that as it may, remains said to have been
>>>>those of S. from Misenum were then
>>>
>>>> deposited in a newly built Benedictine
>>>>monastery in Naples that had recently
>>>
>>>> acquired the relics of St. Severinus of
>>>>Noricum and that shortly became known as
>>>
>>>> the monastery of saints Severinus and
>>>>Sossius (in the earliest sources, S.'s name
>>>
>>>> appears as 'Sossus' but by this time the
>>>>form with palatalizing 'i' was already
>>>
>>>> standard).
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> From there S.'s cult spread medievally to
>>>>such other Benedictine monastery towns
>>>
>>>> as Falvaterra (FR) in southern Lazio and San
>>>>Sossio Baronia (AV) in Campania. In
>>>
>>>> 1806 the monastery was secularized and in
>>>>1807 the remains or putative remains
>>>
>>>> of Severinus and Sossius were formally
>>>>translated to Fratta (now Frattamaggiore
>>>
>>>> [NA]), just north of Naples, where they
>>>>remain today in the originally twelfth- or
>>>
>>>> thirteenth-century church of San Sossio,
>>>>shown here with its baroque facade and
>>>
>>>> sixteenth-century belltower:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/nsvcp
>>>
>>>> This building, an Italian national monument
>>>>sometimes said to go back in part to
>>>
>>>> the tenth century and since last year a
>>>>papal basilica, was gutted by fire in
>>>
>>>> November 1945:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3bovg9
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/2w6wly
>>>
>>>> and has been restored in the interior to a "romanesque" look:
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3bq33g
>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/3czkkl
>>>
>>>> Italian-language accounts of the church are here:
>>>
>>>> http://www.frattamaggiore.org/sansossio.htm
>>>
>>>> http://www.tuttofrattamaggiore.it/chiese/chiesa_sansosio.htm
>>>
>>>> http://www.trionfo.altervista.org/Monumenti/frattasossio.htm
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Also in Campania, S. is reported to be among
>>>>the saints depicted in a twelfth-
>>>
>>>> century Januarian portrait cycle at the
>>>>church of St. Agnellus (S. Aniello) at
>>>
>>>> Quindici (AV). See the Italian-language discussion here:
>>>
>>>> http://www.agendaonline.it/avellino/articoli/chiesaquindici.htm
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Here he is as depicted in the
>>>>fifteenth-century Polyptych of Saints
>>>>Severinus and
>>>
>>>> Sossius (whose central figure is Severinus)
>>>>now in Naples' Museo Nazionale di
>>>
>>>> Capodimonte:
>>>
>>>> http://www.prolocofratta.it/sansossio/images/sossio.jpg
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> 4) Constantius of Ancona (d. 6th cent.).
>>>>We know about C. (in Italian, Costanzo)
>>>
>>>> from pope St. Gregory the Great,
>>>>_Dialogues_, 1. 5, where we are told that he
>>>
>>>> lived for many years in monastic garb at
>>>>Ancona, that he was mansionary there of
>>>
>>>> the church of St. Stephen, that he was short
>>>>of stature and unprepossessing to
>>>
>>>> look at, and that he had a great reputation
>>>>as a holy person, and that his holiness
>>>
>>>> was attested by a miracle in which lamps
>>>>that he had filled with water blazed
>>>
>>>> just as though they contained oil. Gregory
>>>>then recounts an exemplary tale in
>>>
>>>> which the humble and charitable C. embraces
>>>>a rustic who had come to Ancona
>>>
>>>> to see the great man of whom he has heard
>>>>much but who on having C. pointed
>>>
>>>> out to him refuses, thanks to C.'s
>>>>appearance and the rustic's prejudices, to
>>>>credit
>>>
>>>> the identification.
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> The fourteenth-century hagiographers Pietro
>>>>Calò and Petrus de Natalibus report
>>>
>>>> that at some unspecified time C.'s relics
>>>>were translated from Ancona to Venice
>>>
>>>> and placed there on a 12. July in the church
>>>>of St. Basil. They also give today as
>>>
>>>> C.'s _dies natalis_. When Venice's parish
>>>>of San Basilio vescovo was merged in
>>>
>>>> 1808/09 into that of Santi Gervaio e
>>>>Protasio its putative relics of C. as they
>>>>were
>>>
>>>> then -- a fragment of bone had been given to
>>>>the diocese of Ancona in 1760 --
>>>
>>>> were transferred to the latter's church
>>>>(a.k.a. San Trovaso). They are said to
>>>
>>>> remain there today.
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>
>>>> John Dillon
>>>
>>>> (Soss[i]us lightly revised from last year's post)
>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>
>
>--
>George Hardin Brown, Professor of English Emeritus
>Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2087
>Home: 451 Adobe Place, Palo Alto, CA 94306-4501
>Phones: Mobile: 650-269-9898; Fax: 650-725-0755; Home: 650-852-1231
>
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--
George Hardin Brown, Professor of English Emeritus
Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2087
Home: 451 Adobe Place, Palo Alto, CA 94306-4501
Phones: Mobile: 650-269-9898; Fax: 650-725-0755; Home: 650-852-1231
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