medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (5. August) is also the feast day of:
Paris of Teano (4th cent., supposedly). Today's less well known saint
from the Regno is the legendary first bishop of Teano (CE), the ancient
Teanum Sidicinum, an important crossroads town on the Via Latina. P.'s
early modern Vita (BHL 6466) is a classically informed melange of
familiar topoi featuring an evangelist of foreign origin (Athenian), a
giant serpent fed rich meals in a pagan sacred well, a bear and a lion
who become tame when each in turn is set upon our intrepid saint, and
pope Sylvester I hiding from Constantinian persecution on Mount Soracte.
P.'s cult, on the other hand, seems at least early medieval in origin.
His church, the recently restored San Paride ad Fontem, is an 11th- or
early- 12th century structure replacing (through how many avatars?) a
paleochristian church; located outside the medieval city and built over
what is said to be an early Christian cistern (the sacred well of the
legend, no doubt), this was Teano's first cathedral and retains an early
episcopal throne. Whereas P. is said to have been buried here, he
presently reposes in Teano's cathedral of St. Clement, a 17th-century
replacement for an earlier cathedral built about the same time as the
present San Paride in Fontem.
Always essentially a local saint, P. seems to have been venerated from
at least the early modern period onward in other locales in northern
Campania. At present he is co-patron of the diocese of Teano-Calvi,
sharing that distinction with the equally shadowy Castus of Calvi (one
of Campania's several episcopal saints of that name).
An exterior photograph of San Paride ad Fontem is here:
http://www.treccani.it/iteronline/rubriche/andate/teano/foto4.htm
That is from a Treccani site with photographs of the present cathedral
and of various other monuments in and around Teano:
http://www.treccani.it/iteronline/rubriche/andate/teano/rp5b2.htm#5
Best,
John Dillon
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