medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. October) is the feast day of:
Gaudiosus, bp. of Abitina, venerated at Naples (d. 5th century ?). The
sepulchral inscription (_CIL_ X. 1538) in the Neapolitan catacombs that
bear his name informs us that Septimus Caelius Gaudiosus was a bishop of
Abitina in Africa (A. Proconsularis, probably) who died in exile at the
age of seventy. Not securely dated, this less well known saint of the
Regno was laid to rest in an arcosolium close to the first resting place
of the Neapolitan bishop St. Nostrianus (d. 454). The usual conjecture
(at least as old as Peter the Subdeacon in the tenth century) is that
G., like the better attested St. Quodvultdeus of Carthage, was an exile
from Arian persecution in Vandal Africa.
G. has long been one of Naples' major saints. At some point between 767
and 780, bishop Stephen II of Naples erected on the site of the former
monastery of St. Agnellus (also held to have been an African exile) at
the city's acropolis (now Caponapoli) a men's monastery dedicated to G.;
this is the complex in which the same bishop erected the women's
monastery to which he translated the presumed remains of the recently
celebrated St. Fortunata venerated at Patria. G.'s monastery, which lay
just within the city walls, helped to preserve his cult during the years
that followed, when extremely unsettled conditions led to the cessation
of liturgies at the of course extramural catacombs. Possibly also under
Stephen II, and certainly by 1132, G.'s remains (along with those of
Agnellus) were translated there; in 1799 they were removed to the
cathedral, where they remain today. G. was included along with various
sainted bishops of Naples in the litany of the Neapolitan _Ordo ad
unguendum infirmum_ attested from the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples gives 27. October as the
date of G.'s laying to rest. In editing the early RM, Cardinal Baronio
used 27. October for the feast of St. Gaudiosus of Salerno (now usually
held to be a doublet of our G.) and set G.'s feast day as 28. October.
In the latest revision (2001) of the RM, G. of Salerno has disappeared
and G. of Abitina has been restored to today.
After centuries of neglect, Naples' Catacombe di San Gaudioso began to
be visited occasionally in the sixteenth century and in the seventeenth
were re-opened for cult purposes and in places remodeled. A few views:
http://tinyurl.com/ypv763
http://tinyurl.com/2hn6qv
http://tinyurl.com/y2m43x
G.'s arcosolium:
http://tinyurl.com/26sphr
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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