medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. May) is the feast day of:
Conon (Conus) of Iconium and his son (early 270s, supposedly). A late
antique Greek Passio makes C. and his twelve-year-old son monks at
Iconium (today's Konya, in Anatolia) who were martyred under Aurelian.
After a brief prologue, this Passio (edited by Papebroch in the Acta
Sanctorum from Vat. Gr. 866) falls into two parts. In the first, C.
causes the waters of a flooding river to part, thus permitting people
who had been stranded by the flood to return to the other side; the
river then floods a large surrounding area and C. orders it to return to
its ordinary course. In the second, C. and his son refuse to sacrifice
to the Roman gods and are tortured on the order of an official named
Domitianus; after a torment of fire fails, D. orders that their hands be
smashed with a wooden mallet, whereupon C. and son receive the divine
grace of passing immediately into eternal life. A Latin translation of
this text survives in several witnesses and was edited by Papebroch
along with the Greek text. In it the older saint's name is rendered as
Conus.
A fuller version of the story (torments included racking) was known in
the ninth century to Ado, who summarized it when listing C. and son
under today's date. C. and son also found a place in Usuard and in
subsequent martyrologies and the like. They were in the RM until its
latest revision. In Orthodox churches they are now celebrated on 6.
March, one day after the feast of Conon the Gardner.
By 1079 there was a monastic church at Acerra (in the Terra di Lavoro,
ca. 14 km. east southeast of Naples) dedicated to a saint Conus. An
expanded version of C. and son's Latin Passio, thought by Papebroch to
be thirteenth-century or later, was in the early modern period used for
an Office of C. and son at Acerra (and perhaps it is still is so used).
In this version, C. is said to have destroyed pagan temples and to have
converted many pagans; the son, aged twelve when his widowed father
began to teach him letters, is at the time of his martyrdom seventeen
and a deacon. When an attempt to execute them by fire fails they are
sawn to pieces.
C. and son are the patron saints of Acerra (NA). Papebroch guessed that
their medieval cult here had been associated with the transfer of
relics. But in 1688 Acerra must not have had any, as in that year it
received an ulna of C. from Rome. Its church of C. and son, rebuilt
neoclassically in 1826 after a collapse, contains cult statues of the
martyrs that are said to be of the fifteenth century (though their
haloes and costumes are clearly more recent):
http://www.diocesidiacerra.it/eventi/scuono06/sancuono.jpg
http://www.diocesidiacerra.it/eventi/scuono06/scuono06.htm
Though probably blackened by age, etc., these are now said to be dark to
represent the martyrs' burning and blackening with smoke.
As protectors of their little city, Cuono and Conello (as they are
called) have various modern miracles to their credit. In 1872, when
during an eruption of nearby Vesuvius their statues were paraded a wind
quickly arose and blew away a threatening ash and ember cloud. And
during the Allied bombing of Acerra in World War II, some relate that C.
was seen on the roofs of the houses diverting the bombs from the
inhabited area (the parallel with the similarly named Conus of Diano is
rather striking).
For details (Italian-language) of this year's festivities, go here:
http://www.diocesidiacerra.it/
and click on "Clicca qui".
Best,
John Dillon
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