Bartholomew the Apostle

ON ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE, AT ALBANOPOLIS IN ARMENIA OR ALBANIA,

In the First Century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The controversy is set forth, whether St. Bartholomew is the same as Nathanael; it is proved by reasons drawn from the Sacred Letters that Nathanael was an apostle. Being about to illustrate the Acts of St. Bartholomew, obscure indeed and doubtful, Since it is disputed whether St. Bartholomew is Nathanael, we have judged that we must altogether discuss the controversy, long since begun to be agitated among the learned, whether St. Bartholomew is the same as Nathanael, who in John 1 was led to Christ by Philip.

Various on this matter, and plainly opposed to one another, are the opinions of the learned. The most eminent Baronius, at the year of Christ 31, num. 28, writes thus: Some have thought that Nathanael is the same as Bartholomew, moved by certain slight conjectures: with whom we by no means agree; but we more safely adhere to Augustine, when he says that Nathanael was for this reason not chosen by the Lord among the Apostles, because he was a doctor of the law. I do not wonder that Baronius, the matter not yet thoroughly discussed, judged that Augustine was to be adhered to. Nevertheless the contrary opinion at nearly the same time pleased Cornelius Jansenius, bishop of Ghent, in his Concord. evang. chapter 7, and Cornelius a Lapide on John chapter 1, and others most distinguished in the praise of erudition.

[2] Bartholomew Gavantus, in the Dissertation published after the sacred rites, endeavored to illustrate the matter further, and while some deny, others affirm, in published dissertations, as did John Roberti in a Dissertation printed at Douai in the year of Christ 1610; in which by many reasons they contend that Nathanael is no other than St. Bartholomew the apostle. The most learned Calmet, on Matthew chapter 10, having recalled the chief of these reasons, pronounces thus: All these reasons, which taken separately would not have great force, being united among themselves form an argument which it would be difficult to resist. But Baillet, at the XXIV day of August, in Bartholomew, affirms that this opinion of theirs rests upon nothing but a slender conjecture, following in this Tillemont, Monum. eccles. tom. 1, p. 642, who in note 1 on Bartholomew says that this opinion has no foundation. Nay, Ambrose Gardebosc, in his Ecclesiastical History tom. 1, p. 120, calls it an error of Rupert — a censure perhaps rather rash than solid. I marvel that men so learned have not tried even with a word to prove the alleged slightness of these conjectures, since they were not ignorant that others had other indications concerning these things. They rely indeed upon the authority of St. Augustine, and, following him, of St. Gregory, who deny that Nathanael was an apostle; but others contend that those reasons by which they demonstrate that the same man was an apostle are such that they are to be preferred to the authority of these fathers in a historical matter.

This therefore is the knot, this is what must be examined.

[3] St. Augustine, such was the modesty of his mind, will grant us, the matter is set forth for examination, as I hope, that indulgence which he himself professes always to have used. Hear him in his epistle to St. Jerome, tom. 4 of the Works of St. Jerome, of the last Paris edition, part 2, col. 630: Others (authors besides the canonical, of whom he had been speaking) I so read, that however much they excel in sanctity and doctrine, I do not on that account think a thing true because they themselves have so thought; but because they have been able to persuade me, either through those canonical authors, or by probable reason, of what is not abhorrent from the truth: nor do I think, my brother, that you feel otherwise; indeed, I say, I do not judge that you wish your books to be read as those of the Prophets or of the Apostles, concerning whose writings it is impious to doubt that they are free from all error. These words, though uttered by Augustine for every matter also, have place especially in a historical controversy, in which it is easier and more frequent to fall into error. Therefore, not against St. Augustine's will, we shall first try to prove that Nathanael was one of the twelve Apostles; and if we shall have established this, we shall not with difficulty prove that he was no other than St. Bartholomew. We shall bring forward the chief arguments from the authors praised above, neglected indeed by some, but by no means refuted, and we shall add not a few for further proof.

[4] It is proved from his calling, In John chapter 1 it is described how Nathanael was called to Christ: hence there is suggested to us a first argument, and that a manifold one, which the aforesaid John Roberti thus draws out: Of the twelve Apostles, if you consult the four Evangelists, you will not find the calling of all described, but only of the more eminent. First deservedly are reckoned that noble pair of brothers, Peter and Andrew; and the other, James and John. There remain Philip and Matthew, concerning whom it is agreed among all that they were Apostles. Now see, if we set aside the calling of Peter and Andrew, whether the calling of any other is described with greater care and accuracy than that of Nathanael by the beloved Disciple; read, I say, the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, beginning from verse 45, and, excepting those whom I have named, consider whether you find anything in the calling of the others to be compared with it. Thus he. Let it be permitted me here to use a form more dialectical. Of no one except the Apostles is the calling read as described among the Evangelists, with the name of him who was called added: but there is read the calling of Nathanael described in that same place with his name, and with many circumstances added; therefore we must needs confess, either that Nathanael was an Apostle, or that an altogether singular honor was paid by the Evangelists to Nathanael, which last, from what is to be said hereafter, is by no means likely.

[5] Note besides, if you please, the order kept by the Evangelists in enumerating the Apostles; from the order of the Apostles, you will find everywhere Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who are read as called together by Christ in Matthew 4, commemorated first: there follow everywhere Philip and Bartholomew. What reason, I beseech you, can be given, save that the narrative should not disjoin those whom the calling had joined? As therefore Peter and Andrew were called together, and James and John — yet so that Peter was led in by Andrew — so also Philip and Bartholomew seem to have been called together, yet so that Bartholomew (in John, Nathanael) was led in by Philip. Matthew next, whose calling is read as described after six already numbered, in Mark chapter 2 and Luke chapter 5, is everywhere commemorated after Bartholomew, except that he himself, for modesty's sake as it seems, has set himself after Thomas also. Tell me, pray, why is Bartholomew set before Matthew, unless because he was called by Christ before Matthew, after Philip? For in commemorating the apostles the Evangelists seem to have kept nearly this order, that those who had first followed Christ they should number first, where no reason persuaded them to invert this order. These two reasons seem to prove not only that he was an apostle, but also that he was Bartholomew, concerning which more fully hereafter.

[6] Now let us proceed to another argument, which Roberti forms thus from the likeness from the likeness with Peter, which is found in the calling of Peter and of Nathanael: Another reason is suggested to me by the Parallel which the describer John made studiously and as it were of set purpose, and set before the diligent reader in those two pairs: on the one side Andrew and Peter; on the other Philip and Nathanael. Look, pray, with me, and see whether egg is liker to egg, or milk to milk, than these — John chapter 1. ℣. 41. Andrew found his own brother Simon. ℣. 45. Philip found Nathanael. ℣. 41. Andrew says to Simon: we have found the Messiah. ℣. 45. Philip says to Nathanael: We have found Jesus. ℣. 42. Andrew led Simon to Jesus. ℣. 46. Philip to Nathanael: Come, and see. ℣. 42. Jesus, looking upon Peter. ℣. 47. Jesus saw Nathanael. ℣. 42. Thou art Simon the son of Jona, thou shalt be called Cephas. ℣. 47. Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile. Then, a few things being interposed, he exhibits the confession of Peter and of Nathanael as thus alike. Matthew 16, ℣. 16, Peter to Christ: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. John 1, ℣. 49, Nathanael to Christ: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. St. Augustine acknowledged the likeness of the confession of both in his tractate 7 on the Gospel of John: He (Nathanael) uttered such a voice — Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel — as Peter so long afterwards, when the Lord says to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, etc. But let us pursue the parallel. Thus Roberti continues: You have the confession and profession of both, conceived in almost the same words. Hear now in turn Christ's answer and promise, not indeed the same, but yet on both sides great. Matthew 16, ℣. 17: Christ to Peter: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. John 1, ℣. 50, 51: Greater things than these shalt thou see: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man — the same says he to Nathanael.

[7] from the promise made to him, You have a most perfect likeness in the calling of Peter and of Nathanael, in their confession, in the promises made by the Lord to each, in the praise of each uttered by the truthful mouth of Christ. That Nathanael also constantly adhered to Christ will be plain, when we shall see him with Peter and the other Apostles admitted to the last table of the Lord after Christ's Resurrection. From these things you will easily gather that Nathanael was admitted to the familiar living-together of the Lord, and therefore to the apostolate. But if you do not yet acquiesce in these things, I will reason with you thus more closely. Greater things did Christ promise to Nathanael than to any of the disciples who was not an Apostle; therefore we must needs believe that he too was an Apostle: especially since many other things concur which persuade this. Next, Christ promised to Nathanael together with Philip the apostle: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. Or, as Origen against Celsus book 1, and others will have it, while he speaks to Nathanael and to Philip, he promised these things to all the apostles. Why therefore should we exclude from the number of the apostles him to whom we read that the same things were promised as to the apostles? Finally, this promise is held by many to have been fulfilled in the garden of Gethsemane: Where, says Gavantus, certainly none assembled but the apostles — eight farther off, three nearer to Christ the Lord.

[8] from the apparition in John 21, Another argument no less fruitful the same John supplies in chapter 21, where he describes how Christ appeared to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias. Receive the words of the Evangelist: Afterward

Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias. And he manifested himself thus: There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas, who is called Didymus, and Nathanael, who was of Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter says to them: I go a fishing. They say to him: We also come with thee. Then he describes the fishing, and the dinner prepared for the disciples by the Lord on the seashore: at last the Evangelist subjoins, ℣. 14: This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead. These seven, among whom Nathanael is named third, all seem to have been apostles. For first, John subjoins this apparition after two preceding ones, made to the Apostles alone; and he uses in this apparition the same name of disciples which he had used in the preceding ones. Next, by the name of disciples John designates none but Apostles, as the often-praised Roberti observes, or, where he designates others, he immediately adds something from which it is plain that those whom he so names were not apostles. Thus when in chapter 6, ℣. 61, 62, 67, he had said that certain disciples murmured and went back, presently at ℣. 68 he shows them to be other than the TWELVE. Likewise in chapter 19, ℣. 38, he calls Joseph of Arimathea a disciple, but adds secretly, for fear of the Jews. Since therefore in this notable fishing John names the disciples simply, we ought assuredly to understand the Apostles: by this argument also, that those who are recounted by name, besides Nathanael, are most well known, and even Apostles of great name. Gavantus takes an argument from this, that this apparition is called the third made to the disciples: for if any disciples whatever be here understood, it would have to be called the fifth or at least the fourth, since the Lord appeared also to those going to Emmaus; but it is the third, if the apostles alone are understood.

[9] It is pleasing here also to ask our adversaries a few questions, before we set forth the chief argument from this passage. from reasons drawn thence, Why, I beseech you, is Nathanael here set before James and John, if he was not an apostle? Next, whence such familiarity of Nathanael with Peter and the other apostles as is here insinuated: I go a fishing. We also come with thee?

For if he was hindered from the apostolate on account of skill in the law, neither will he be numbered among the 72 disciples, as will be proved hereafter at greater length. Chrysostom writes on this passage: Since therefore they had nothing which they might do, they betook themselves to fishing, and they did this by night because they were afraid. Tell me, pray, why has Nathanael nothing to do, why is he afraid, if he was excluded from the number of Christ's disciples because he was skilled in the law? These things briefly: to which perhaps some answer can be made, yet not such that it does not remain far more likely that Nathanael was rather a fisherman, or a practitioner of a like craft, than a doctor of the law. Of which more, when we must reply to the authority of St. Augustine. Now we hasten to another argument.

[10] Never did Christ the Lord deal familiarly after his Resurrection from Christ's familiar banquet, save with the Apostles alone; but either under another appearance, or, when he had become known, most briefly. Let us examine the apparitions one by one. He appears to Magdalen, John 20. For some while he plays with the woman who loved him, but unrecognized. At last he manifests himself; but behold, having forbidden her his touch, he sends her at once to the disciples. This with Magdalen, with whom before his death he had dealt so familiarly, who had sought him dead with such zeal, and had found him alive again with such joy. Matthew 28. 9: Jesus met the pious women. Nor was there delay: Go, he says, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee; there they shall see me. Luke 24: the Lord joins himself to the disciples going to Emmaus, but Their eyes were held, that they should not know him: he questions them, argues with them, rebukes them, instructs them, even reclines at table, still unknown. At last Their eyes were opened, and they knew him. What then? And he vanished out of their sight. Do you see how sparingly, how severely the Lord, now glorious, dealt with all these? But not so with the Apostles alone, whom he appointed Princes over all the earth, and whom therefore it behooved both to console with kindly words and to instruct in many things pertaining to the Church. Luke 24: Jesus stood in the midst of them, and says to them: It is I, fear not… See my hands and feet, that it is I myself: handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Nay, he even took food with them, as may there be read. Behold how kindly, how friendly, how familiarly he deals; but when the Apostles alone were present. John 20: again with the Apostles alone present, most amicably he invites Thomas to faith. Put in, he says to Thomas, thy finger hither, and see my hands, and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. What can be said more friendly and familiar than these words? Blind therefore let him be who does not see the immense difference between the manner of acting which the Lord, now glorious, held with the apostles, and that which he used with the lesser disciples. But to what end, you will say, are these things drawn out so at large? That it may be plainer than light that this apparition of which we treat was made to none other than the apostles. Let us now look more closely at the apparition itself. John 21. 4: Jesus stood on the shore. ℣. 5: Jesus said to them: Children, have you any meat? ℣. 6: Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and you shall find. Presently ℣. 7, from the immense catch of fishes, John to Peter: It is the Lord. ℣. 9: they saw

coals laid by the Lord, and a fish laid thereon, and bread. ℣. 12: Jesus says to them: Come, dine. ℣. 13: And Jesus comes, and takes bread, and gives them, and fish in like manner. When indeed, even before his death, did the Lord deal more familiarly with his own than he here deals? He shows himself to them, questions them about the catch of fishes, teaches them where they shall catch, prepares dinner for them, ministers to them as they recline. Who would believe that these things were done with others than with the apostles, if he has rightly weighed how sparing toward others, and how severe, the glorious Lord showed himself? Show even one besides the apostles with whom the Lord dealt familiarly after the resurrection; and I will confess the argument feeble. But if you cannot produce one, confess with me that it is by no means to be believed that this was granted to Nathanael and the two others, that they should recline at table with Christ so familiarly, unless they had been apostles; when you remember that to Magdalen, so great a lover of Christ, and before joined to him by so great a bond, it was severely said: Touch me not. Nor can it here be said that this honor was paid to them on account of Peter and the three other apostles: for this is in no way likely from the fact that in the other two apparitions there were none other than apostles. Besides: either the Apostles after Christ's resurrection were often with other disciples, or they were for the most part alone: if the first, then Christ studiously sought the occasion when they were alone, to deal familiarly

with them. If the latter, neither is it to be believed that here they were with others; nor does it seem that the Lord would have come precisely at that time when others were present. To the Apostles alone, namely, the Lord had said, John 6, ℣. 71: Have not I chosen you twelve? These alone were to say, Acts 10: Who did eat and drink with him, after he rose from the dead. These alone had heard: To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. This passage suggests to me another argument, no less effective than the preceding.

[11] from the fact that Peter was here constituted head of the Church, In this apparition, the dinner being finished, Christ conferred upon Peter the primacy of the Church, promised in Matthew 16, as the doctors and interpreters everywhere teach. Hear Chrysostom, Homily 88, on that word, Feed my sheep. If thou lovest me, he says, undertake the presidency of the brethren. Toletus, in his Commentary on this passage, has it thus: The dinner being ended, the Lord commits to Peter the government of all his faithful, and the care and rule of the whole Church: and fulfills what he had promised before the passion, Matthew 16: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; behold, now he delivers them, and chooses him among all the apostles to be head of the whole Church. Now, whoever you are who contend that others were here present than apostles, show where Christ has treated of matters pertaining to the government of the Church, save with the apostles alone. Matthew 16: he promises the presidency to Peter. Where were others than apostles? In the last supper before his death, besides many other things, he instituted priests: Do this in commemoration of me. None was present save the Apostles. In the apparition, John 20: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose you shall retain, they are retained. Here again the Apostles alone were present. Here he creates Peter supreme Pontiff. Why should I think others were present than the Apostles?

[12] Gavantus has here another argument, and one truly not inept. [because with Matthias and Barsabas he was not proposed to fill the place of Judas.] If Nathanael was not of the twelve apostles, why is he not even named for the place of Judas along with Matthias and Barsabas? Assuredly he would seem to be named in the first place, who had constantly adhered to Christ and the Apostles, and was in every respect a man most praiseworthy. This one reason therefore seems to have been the cause: because, he says, he was already of the twelve. § II. Answer is made to the reasons of SS. Augustine and Gregory, to whose authority the authority of other Fathers is opposed. The reason of St. Augustine Now we must reply to the authority of St. Augustine: for this alone has drawn various men to the contrary opinion; this one thing they oppose to all our darts as an impregnable wall. Tractate 7 on the Gospel of John, after the passage praised in which he wonderfully praises Nathanael, he writes thus: What then do we, brethren? Ought this man to have been first among the apostles? Not only is Nathanael not found first among the apostles, but he is neither in the middle nor last among the twelve — he to whom the Son of God bore so great a testimony, saying: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile. Is the cause sought? So far as the Lord intimates, we find it PROBABLY. For we ought to understand that Nathanael himself was learned, and skilled in the law: and therefore the Lord would not place him among the disciples; because he chose the unlearned, that thereby he might confound the world. This he then proves from the Apostle, 1 Cor. 1. Let us hear also how the great Father proves that Nathanael was learned and skilled in the law. He does this on Psalm 65 in these words: Whence do we understand that he (Nathanael) was skilled in the law? When he heard from one of those who had spoken with the Lord, saying: We have found the Messiah, which is interpreted Christ: he asked whence, and it was said, From Nazareth: and he said: From Nazareth can anything good be. Without doubt he who understood that from Nazareth something good could be, was skilled in the law, and had well examined the Prophets. I know that there is in those words another pronunciation, but it is not approved by the more prudent, as though he seemed to have despaired, when, hearing, he had said, From Nazareth can anything good be? that is, Can there be? Pronouncing thus, as though he despaired. But there follows there: Come and see. These words, that is, Come and see, can follow either pronunciation. If you say, as though not believing, From Nazareth can anything good be? the answer is: Come and see what thou dost not believe. Again if you say affirming, From Nazareth can anything good be; the answer is: Come and see how true is the good which I announce from

Nazareth; and how rightly thou believest — come and make trial. Hence, however, he is thought to have been learned in the law, because he was not chosen among the disciples by him who first chose the foolish things of the world, since the Lord bore so great a testimony to him, saying: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile. You have the sense of the holy Father, faithfully reported. Yet certain things are to be noted. For I do not think that even those adversaries who glory in St. Augustine follow him here in all things.

[14] it is examined, First, it is manifest that a mere conjecture is here given by St. Augustine, when he asserts that Nathanael was skilled in the law, and therefore not chosen. He himself signifies this when he says: Probably we find it. Again he hints the same when in the cited Psalm he says: Hence, however, he is thought to have been learned in the law, because he was not chosen, etc. As if he said: whether it must be read: From Nazareth can anything good be? interrogatively; or, From Nazareth can anything good be, affirmatively: yet from this, that he was not chosen an apostle, I conjecture that he was learned in the law. In this manner therefore St. Augustine seems to have been drawn into that opinion which he asserted in passing in a sermon to the people. He found no one in the catalogue of the twelve apostles by the name of Nathanael; hence he thought he was not of their number; he sought a reason; and found none more fitting than that he had been skilled in the law, and therefore not chosen.

[15] and it is shown that St. Augustine Now let us hear the oft-praised John Roberti: First, he says, the whole matter, and the manner of writing shows that Augustine (which we would have said of others also, for instance Gregory, if any of the ancients agree with him) did not treat this matter of set purpose, so as to examine whether Nathanael was an apostle; that he did not doubt, did not suppose that there were those who held that he was an apostle: but, supposing, as we say in the schools, that he was not an apostle, he brings the reason which thou hast heard. It is not therefore fair to press his authority so much in that matter, which he asserted only in passing. Next, that not every opinion of Augustine's is of such a kind that we ought to hold it for an oracle, he himself is the best witness, and his books of retractations. Nor would you rightly say that that must necessarily be held by all (especially in a historical matter) which Augustine asserted and did not retract. For, not to depart from the argument in hand, writing on that Psalm which I mentioned before, he will have the words of Nathanael (thou hast the whole context in Psalm 65 above), From Nazareth can anything good be, set down assertively, not with an interrogation: whereas commonly all will have it that Nathanael asked a question in those words, and all the more corrected codices add the mark of interrogation to them. Nor yet does anyone fear the censure added there by Augustine: I know that there is in his words, he says, another pronunciation (namely with an interrogation) but it is not approved by the more prudent.*

[16] is here deserted in many things even by our adversaries themselves. It is helpful here to hear Toletus, who on account of St. Augustine's authority is against us. He notes thus, annotation 78 on John chapter 1, about this same passage: Augustine, tract. 17, affirms that the preceding sentence can be uttered in two ways. One is by way of question. The other is by way of affirmation. Augustine himself rather approves that it was spoken affirmatively, as though Nathanael, agreeing with Philip, asserts that from Nazareth Christ can come forth. But Cyril, book 2, chapter 15, and Chrysostom, Homily 19, read the sentence in the manner of doubt and interrogation, and that seems the legitimate exposition. Why therefore does Toletus press Augustine's opinion so against us, which he himself deserts in the same place? Nay, he even destroys and refutes the foundation upon which Augustine rests against Nathanael's apostolate, in these words: If Augustine's reason proved universally, neither would Paul seem to have been fit to be chosen; who was far more learned than Nathanael.

[17] But let Roberti continue: What of this, that the reason which Augustine brings can be weakened from divine Scripture itself? The reason of St. Augustine is refuted from Scripture, "No learned man," he says, "was chosen first." And yet, O holy, O admirable man, Saul assuredly was chosen. But what manner of man? Brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the truth of the law of the fathers (Acts 22, ℣. 3). What manner of man? Who had advanced in Judaism above many of his equals (Gal. 1, ℣. 14) … And yet, says the holy Doctor: "God hath chosen the weak things of the world." So it is, we confess. But he did not cast away the powerful. Rightly and providently the Apostle: Not many wise (1 Cor. 1, ℣. 26). He did not say, No wise men, since he himself was wise. Nor would you say that the example of Saul is less rightly adduced because he was not of the number of the twelve Apostles: for the reason which the Apostle brings, why the powerful and the learned were not chosen, is this, 1 Cor. 1, ℣. 29: That no flesh should glory in his sight. But this reason has no less place in Paul than in the other apostles. Nay, perhaps more: for Paul, the vessel of election, says of himself: For I suppose that I have done nothing less than the great Apostles, 2 Cor. 11, ℣. 5. Paul was rude in speech, but not in knowledge, ibid. ℣. 6; he labored more abundantly than they all, 1 Cor. 15, ℣. 10. So that from Jerusalem round about even to Illyricum he filled up the Gospel of Christ, Rom. 15, ℣. 19. The Lord therefore does not seem to have abstained universally from choosing those in any way skilled in the Jewish law, or students of sacred Scripture, but from choosing philosophers or orators of great name, who might have seemed to have drawn the world to the faith rather by their own doctrine or eloquence than by the power of the cross of Christ. This, so far as it seems to me, is the Apostle's mind: which will appear more clearly from what is to be said.

[18] Roberti goes on further: Let us also, if it be permitted, inquire from the example of Philip, whence at length Augustine and certain others will gather that Nathanael was so learned and skilled? Is it from this, that he asks whether from Nazareth anything good can be? Or does he affirm it, according to Augustine's mind? But I would have it told me, why this is a greater sign of skill in Nathanael than that in Philip which he says: "Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the Prophets, we have found, Jesus, the son of Joseph, of Nazareth"? But if you say that from these words it is rightly argued that Philip too was skilled in the Scriptures; then it will be nothing wonderful that the learned Nathanael was called to the apostolate, since Philip, no whit less learned, was called. St. Chrysostom supports what has been said, Homily 20 on John, of the new Paris edition, which we shall always cite, on the words of Philip: Him of whom Moses wrote in the law and the Prophets we have found, writing thus: Do you see how watchful he was, and how frequently he meditated on the writings of Moses? If Philip frequently meditated on the writings of Moses, he was not unskilled in the law and the Scripture. The close friendship also, which seems to have been between Philip and Nathanael, hints that both were addicted to nearly the same studies. We think these things suffice to make it plain that we must not here adhere to the authority of St. Augustine; nor do we think that Augustine himself would have dissented from us in this part, if it had been permitted him both to examine the matter at leisure and to see the arguments afterwards discovered.

[19] But St. Gregory also dissents from us, in Job book 33, Reply is made to St. Gregory. chapter 16, where he writes thus: Whence in the Gospel the Lord praises Nathanael, and yet does not number him in the lot of the preachers: because for preaching such men ought to have come as had nothing of their own praise. I venerate the authority of a Father most holy and likewise most learned; but I cannot approve the reason here brought, especially since the most weighty authority of other Fathers, presently to be produced, stands against it. What? Shall I deny that all who were called to the apostolate were of praised life? But Andrew certainly was a disciple of John the Baptist; various writers think the same of Peter, Philip, James, and John. There is therefore no reason why I should think these men wicked. Nor is it lawful for me to suspect this of the others, if you except one, Matthew the publican; for everyone is to be presumed honest until he be proved dishonest.

[20] From Chrysostom, But now, lest we should seem to depart from the opinion of most learned Fathers without the authority of the ancients, we shall produce Fathers greater in number, and in the literal understanding of holy Scripture inferior neither to Augustine nor to Gregory. St. Chrysostom in various places insinuates that Nathanael is to be numbered among the apostles. Receive a few. Homily 20 on John he has thus: Having therefore taken his disciples, those namely first called, he sets out to the hunting of the rest, and draws in Philip and Nathanael. He is treating of the calling of the Apostles, as most clearly appears from what goes before and follows. For he subjoins: But concerning this man (Nathanael) it was not so wonderful … but it was wonderful that Peter and James and Philip followed. Besides, in this whole Homily and the preceding, he speaks of the calling and instruction of Nathanael no otherwise than of the calling of Peter, and of the other apostles. In Homily 87 he insinuates that those seven to whom Christ appeared at the sea of Tiberias were apostles, when upon that passage of John 21, Afterward he manifested himself to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias, he comments thus: Do you see how he does not frequently converse with them, nor as before? For he appeared in the evening (to the Apostles, Thomas being absent) and flew away. Then after eight days once (to the same, Thomas being present) and again he flew away. Afterward at the sea, and again with much fear. Does he not most clearly signify that these seven are those to whom the Lord had already twice appeared? And yet none were those two but the Apostles: the mind of Chrysostom therefore is that these seven, among whom was Nathanael, were apostles. Again he insinuates it in Homily 88, where, investigating the reason why Christ questioned Peter alone about love, he writes these things: And why, passing over the others, does he address him (Peter) concerning these things? He was eminent among the Apostles, the mouth of the disciples, and the head of that company. If he had not thought all of them apostles, he would surely have said, Why, passing over James, John, and Thomas. But the holy doctor thought them all apostles, nor can anyone doubt of this who has diligently gone through the Homilies cited by us. Chrysostom therefore, easily the chief among the Greek Fathers in the literal interpretation of Scripture, thinks with us that Nathanael was an apostle.

[21] from Cyril of Alexandria, Nor does Cyril of Alexandria think otherwise, likewise a most celebrated interpreter of sacred Scripture. For first, upon the aforesaid apparition at the sea of Tiberias, book 12 on John, he speaks thus: Our Lord Jesus Christ again bountifully grants his disciples to enjoy the most longed-for sight of him, and now a third time comes upon them, that he might implant a firm and constant sense of faith toward himself. For they who had beheld him not once, but now a third time, how should they not, with all incredulity shaken off from their mind, stand forth to others as preachers of the truth of pious doctrines? You must charge Cyril, as also Chrysostom above, with careless negligence, if they did not think all to be apostles who say that the Lord appeared to them a third time, since he had already appeared a third time to no more than three of the seven. Cyril continues: Peter therefore goes out to fish together with the others: for they join themselves to him as companions: by these things also our Savior Christ disposing and ordaining something useful. For he said to them somewhere, when he called them to the dignity of the apostolate: (Matt. 4, ℣. 19) Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. To whom, I beseech you, was this said, if not to the apostles? Nor indeed should you here object that it is read as said only to Peter and Andrew. For while Christ speaks to Peter and Andrew, he says it of all the Apostles: just as in John 1, ℣. 5, while he says to Nathanael and Philip: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man, he promises that to all the Apostles, according to the mind of the same Cyril, and of others. At greater length Cyril opens his mind in the same place, but, these being passed over, I will add something else from book 9, where he writes upon that passage of John 14, ℣. 7, From henceforth you shall know him and you have seen him, which alone can suffice to establish most certainly that Nathanael was numbered by Cyril among the twelve Apostles. He there proves, from Nathanael's confession in John 1, from the adoration of the disciples in Matthew 14, and from Peter's testimony in Matthew 16, that Christ's divinity was not unknown to the apostles; and thus he discourses: That they (the apostles) also believed the Lord truly to be the Son of God is in no way doubtful to those who think rightly. Otherwise how did that Israelite Nathanael, as soon as he had heard, "Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee," at once bring in the confession of faith, saying: "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel"? Cyril assuredly beats the air, unless he thought Nathanael an apostle, one of the twelve; for he proves of Nathanael what was to be proved only of the Apostles. For he is explaining a discourse of Christ held at the last supper to the apostles alone, from which a doubt arose whether they had known Christ to be the Son of God. It must therefore be certain and beyond doubt that to Cyril Nathanael is an apostle.

[22] To these is added Origen, book 1 against Celsus, num. 48 of the Paris edition, from Origen, where he writes thus: The Savior, foretelling to his apostles that they too should behold the heavens opened, says: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. This promise was made to Nathanael, John 1, ℣. 51, and to Philip: but Origen says that this was foretold to the apostles; because, namely, he holds it to have been promised to all, although he was not ignorant that it was said to these two: but he would not rightly think this promise common to the Apostles, unless he judged that Nathanael, to whom the Lord chiefly directed his discourse, had been an apostle.

[23] St. Epiphanius, already cited by Roberti, in Heresy 51, from Epiphanius, Juvencus, which is that of the Alogi, in Petavius' edition tom. 1, p. 439 and following, in the same manner narrates the calling of Peter, Andrew, John, James, Philip, and Nathanael. At num. 17: At which time Peter was called by the work of Andrew: then Philip, and through Philip Nathanael. And yet those were called to the apostolic office. To the same therefore, in Epiphanius' opinion, Nathanael seems to have been called. Nay, at num. 15, treating of those invited with Christ to the wedding, he so far from making him inferior to the apostles that he names him before Philip. Roberti adds a most ancient witness, and that a Latin one, whereas the rest are nearly all Greek: Juvencus, he says, a Presbyter, a Spaniard OF MOST NOBLE STOCK, as St. Jerome says, makes Christ speak thus with Nathanael (book 2 of the History of the Gospel): Before even the words of Philip called thee, the author of the spirit saw thee and chose thee for a COMPANION. What did he understand by COMPANION, if not an apostle? for that the apostles, and they alone, were Christ's companions and of his household, the whole Gospels cry out. Juvencus seems to have wished to express that word of Mark chapter 3, ℣. 14: He appointed that there should be twelve with him. He therefore makes Nathanael one of the twelve companions of Christ.

[24] from Rupert Let it be unlawful to pass over Rupert, abbot of Deutz, who of all seems to have examined this question most, and thought Nathanael not only an apostle, but Bartholomew the apostle, answering also to Augustine with his name unspoken: And who, he says, would not wish that a lamp of such brightness should by no means lie hidden under a bushel, but be set upon a candlestick, and give light to all who are in the house of the Church? Who, I ask, would not desire that so great a confessor of the Son of God should be reckoned among the great apostles of Christ? For what more did Peter confess, who deserved not only the apostolate, but before the rest the keys of the kingdom of heaven? To one asking this someone might perhaps say: Peter was a fisherman; Nathanael was skilled in the law. But it had been God's purpose that through the weak and contemptible things of the world he should break the strong, and through those things which were foolish should confound the wise. Therefore, persisting in his purpose, he rewarded the faith and confession of Peter the fisherman not only with the apostolate, but also with the keys of the heavens. But Nathanael's confession he did not reward with the apostolic order; because he was skilled in the law, he left him lower.

[25] Nathanael's apostolate is proved. When someone has said this, he will not thus altogether satisfy the diligent reader, because, namely, the spirit of knowledge, which is one of the seven spirits of God, since it is an honorable gift of God, in no way diminishes the truth or merit of faith. Nay, learned sanctity excels holy rusticity (the angel bearing witness) who says to Daniel: For the learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that instruct many unto justice, as stars for perpetual eternities. Then, bringing forward the example of Paul, he confirms that the learned were not rejected by Christ; and at length he thinks that he was Bartholomew the Apostle. Now, passing over the more recent writers — Cornelius a Lapide, Jansenius bishop of Ghent, Benedict Arias Montanus, and very many other doctors, who are partly cited by Roberti, partly wrote afterwards, in favor of Nathanael's apostolate — we shall bring forward the consent as it were of the universal world. § III. The same apostolate is proved by the consent of almost the whole Christian world. The Armenians, Chaldeans, and Syrians call him an Apostle The Armenians and Chaldeans, among whom we shall afterwards prove that St. Bartholomew preached the Gospel and underwent a glorious death, think Nathanael none other than Bartholomew the Apostle: as may be seen in many places in Joseph Simon Assemani, a Syrian Maronite, tom. 3, part 1, art. 2, of the Oriental Library printed at Rome not long ago. In tom. 3, part 2, p. 4, there is cited Marsus the son of Solomon (whom in tom. 3, part 1, p. 554 he says flourished in the year of Christ 1135), writing thus: Nathanael Bartholomew, and Lebbaeus, etc. … imbued the East with the faith. In the same place Ebedjesu, metropolitan of Soba in Armenia (whom he much praises for erudition, and says died in the year 1318, tom. 3, part 1, p. 325), has this: Bartholomew who is also Nathanael. On p. 5, Elias bishop of Damascus (or made Metropolitan in the year 893, in the same author, tom. 3, part 1, p. 513) writes thus: Whom of the twelve apostles there followed Nathanael, who is also Ebn-Tholmai; that is, the son of Tholmai, or Bartholomew. In the same place Amrus (he flourished in the year 1340, by the same witness, tom. 3, part. 1, p. 380): Nathanael who is also Bartholomew. On the same page Assemani himself writes: The Chaldeans confound Nathanael with Bartholomew.

[27] The same Assemani, tom. 3, part 1, p. 321, not to be despised in this question: notes these things concerning Solomon of Bassora, who as metropolitan governed the church of Bassora in the year of Christ MCCXXII, as he says on p. 309: He makes Nathanael the same as Bartholomew the Apostle: which many other Syrians also affirm. But Solomon contradicts himself, who two chapters before had reckoned Nathanael among the 70 disciples. But it can be answered that Solomon thought there were two Nathanaels, one an Apostle, and he Bartholomew, the other one of the seventy disciples: which pleased Gavantus also in the dissertation often praised. This opinion indeed seems to have slight foundation, but it is not likely that Solomon would have wished to contradict himself in nearly the same place. These things say the Chaldean, Armenian, and many Syrian authors — Nestorians indeed, and therefore, where faith is concerned, unworthy of our belief; but in this controversy not destitute of all authority, since they are both ancient and learned, and were inhabitants of those provinces which St. Bartholomew watered with his sweat and blood: for from the tradition of their forefathers they could have had these things. And now that this is the common opinion of the whole nation is proved from this, that in the two Synaxaria added by Assemani at the end of part 1 of tom. 3, from p. 645 of his Library, no mention is made of Nathanael, though you will find the saints commemorated in Scripture diligently expressed there.

[28] The Ethiopians, on the witness of Roberti often cited, in their Mass, as also the Abyssinians and Egyptians, or universal canon, when according to the ancient rite of the Catholic Church they make mention of the Saints, and ask their intercession, they place St. Nathanael among the Apostles, name him an Apostle, and set him before three others of the twelve. Wicelius has this Mass. But the Ethiopians seem to confound Nathanael with Simon the Canaanite, as is gathered from this, that both in this liturgy and in the sacred calendars of the Alexandrian Church — namely of the Copts of Egypt, and of the Ethiopians of the kingdom of the Abyssinians, which Job Ludolf diligently excerpted from their Menologies and Calendars, and published in print at Frankfurt in the year of Christ 1691 — no mention is made of Simon the Canaanite the Apostle; but in the calendars, on the X of July, there is placed Nathanael the Canaanite.

[29] With the Ethiopians and Egyptians the Greeks agree, who in their Menology at the day XXII of April have thus: the Greeks, the Muscovites, On the same day, of St. Nathanael the Apostle, who was Simon Zelotes; he was of Cana of Galilee. And on the X day of May: Of St. Simon Zelotes the Apostle. This Simon is called Nathanael. The Muscovites, accustomed everywhere to follow the Greeks, by whom they were imbued with the faith of Christ, place Simon the Apostle in their Calendar on the same X day of May, in Possevinus' Apparatus tom. 2, p. 367, as also in the figured Ephemerides printed by Papebroch before tom. 1 of May; but they add nothing about Nathanael, for brevity's sake, as it appears, content with one name. We have therefore, thinking with us in favor of Nathanael's Apostolate, the Chaldeans, Armenians, Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Muscovites, that is, almost the whole Christian world, although many of them are deceived in designating the person, as we shall prove in the following §. It remains that we should show that the Latin Church does not dissent from these; which I now undertake.

[30] and the tacit sense of the Latin Church, That Nathanael is holy, and most worthy to have a place in the Calendars of the Saints, and that this is sufficiently established from the Gospel, our adversaries too, I think, will confess. For Christ's testimony does not deceive: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile, John 1, ℣. 47. On which passage St. Augustine writes these things, tract. 7: A great testimony: this was said neither to Andrew, nor to Peter, nor to Philip, which was said of Nathanael: "Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile." And a little before: Hear what manner of man he was; the Lord himself bears testimony. Great is the Lord, known by the testimony of John: blessed is Nathanael, known by the testimony of truth. Chrysostom likewise praises Nathanael in many words, and Cyril, and other fathers, whose words it would be long to set down here. It can also be weighed of what sort and how great are the things promised to him by Christ the Lord, John 1, ℣. 51: Greater things than these shalt thou see … You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Add, that he constantly followed the Lord, and was admitted with the chief of the Apostles to the last dinner of Christ now glorious. Tillemont himself confesses that he constantly followed Christ: Because, he says, his virtue was truly sincere and humble. Whence therefore shall I say it comes that the name of Nathanael is unknown to all the calendars of the Latins? Search through the chief martyrologies: for instance the Hieronymian, Bede's enlarged by Florus, the old Roman published by Rosweyde, that of Ado, of Usuard, of Rabanus, of Notker, the modern Roman, and others compiled from these; everywhere there is deep silence about Nathanael. What shall I say is the cause of this silence?

For neither the Church nor the martyrologists could be ignorant of the man's virtue or merits; and besides, as many as are somewhat more celebrated in Scripture are found diligently inserted in the martyrologies. Assuredly I find no other cause than that the Martyrologists thought, and the governors of the Church thought, that Nathanael was inserted in the sacred calendars under another name.

[31] which is expounded in favor of Nathanael's apostolate. If you deny this, you will accuse the whole Church of the greatest folly and negligence, in that it has knowingly and deliberately allowed a most holy man to be exiled from all the sacred calendars. Nor would you say that he is indeed inserted in the martyrologies, but under a name unknown to us: and that therefore it does not follow that he was an Apostle. For this is not likely. Which I thus show. The martyrologists are wont to enroll the Saints in the sacred calendars by the more celebrated and known name. But now you will be able to show no name which is more celebrated and known in the Scriptures and the Fathers than is the name Nathanael, if you except only the names of the Apostles. There is therefore no reason why we should suspect that Nathanael was inserted in the sacred calendars under any other name than that of some Apostle. It remains therefore that we should judge that he has a place in the sacred calendars under the name of a certain Apostle, namely Bartholomew (as will be proved in the following §), because under this name he is most known to the whole world, and is celebrated in the four catalogues of the Apostles, Matt. 10, Mark 3, Luke 6, Acts 1. Receive that reasoning in a form nearly dialectical. The Church could not fail to insert in the calendars of the saints Nathanael, a man most praiseworthy. But it did not inscribe the name: therefore it judges that he is already inscribed under another name. And yet it cannot judge that he is inscribed under a less known and celebrated name; therefore it judges that he is inscribed under the name of some Apostle, and so that he is an Apostle, one of the twelve. This is my conjecture concerning the Church's silence. If anyone can teach things more certain, or more likely, I shall gladly embrace them.

[32] You have the consent of almost the whole world for the Apostolate of Nathanael, [Either Nathanael is an apostle, or he must be separated even from the number of the 72.] partly declared in express words, partly tacitly insinuated. But if you do not acquiesce in these things, explain, I beseech you, whether you judge that he is to be held in the number of the 72 disciples, or rather to be wholly separated from the disciples of Christ. If you separate him altogether, as St. Augustine's reason demands — for you will hardly find why the Lord should have wished to choose the learned for preaching among the seventy-two disciples, but not among the apostles. If, I say, Nathanael is to you not even among the seventy-two, you will be opposed to the whole Church and to all the learned, who, with sacred Scripture shining before them, have always numbered Nathanael among the disciples of Christ. But if you think he is to be held among the lesser disciples, you destroy the reason why you judge him excluded from the number of the apostles. It is plain therefore that the chief foundation of our adversaries is destroyed by itself, and utterly falls.

[33] I do not choose to dissemble what may seem to stand against the opinion just established. Peter de Natalibus is refuted, For Peter de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in his Catalogue of the Saints book 1, chapter 9, treating of Nathanael, affirms that his body is preserved at the city of Treugren. But he does not explain in what province that city, unknown to all, is. An anonymous monk of Saint-Sulpice, in the Patriarchium Bituricense, in Labbe's Library of Mss. tom. 2, p. 5, reads the city of Tongres, which is sufficiently ancient and known in our Belgium. But the body of Nathanael is unknown to the people of Tongres, nor is there any memory of Nathanael in their ancient Calendar. And indeed I am altogether persuaded that it was no better established to the bishop of Equilio where the body of Nathanael rested than the people of Tongres know it. For if it had been known in the bishop of Equilio's time where the body of a man most holy was preserved, who would believe that the possessors of so great a treasure would have been so negligent that they neither took care to celebrate his feast, nor made known to the world that the body of a most holy man was laid up with them? But, you will say, by what reasoning then could the bishop of Equilio have been led to write this? That I profess I no more understand than why he inserted many other things plainly fabulous into his Work, except that he subjoins: These things brother Vincent — of Beauvais, I suppose: in whom, however, I have long sought these things in vain. Yet one might suspect that Nathanael was confounded by the bishop of Equilio with some other saint; as we shall see was done in those things which I subjoin, and which the bishop of Equilio himself rejects.

[34] In the VI century the body of St. Ursinus, or Ursicinus, Charles Saussay, first bishop of Bourges, was found by a revelation of the saint himself, as St. Gregory of Tours writes in his book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 80. Certain writers feigned that this man was the same as Nathanael, from whom it flowed into certain martyrologies of Usuard enlarged by later hands, as you will find in the auctaria of our Usuard at the day IX of November, in which that opinion is twice repeated. The same pleased Charles Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, p. 846. The anonymous monk mentioned above refuted this opinion long ago in the place cited. Tillemont, who in tom. 4 of the Monuments, p. 477, and again p. 726, treats of St. Ursinus, would not even report it, much less refute it. Likewise the latest editors of Gallia Christiana, tom. 2, col. 4, where they discuss St. Ursinus, preferred to despise this fiction rather than confute it. For indeed even by the silence of St. Gregory of Tours alone the little fable is sufficiently refuted: for whence did those later writers learn that Ursinus is the Nathanael praised by Christ, who would not have known even Ursinus himself, had he not here revealed his body? For the praised bishop of Tours asserts that all memory of him had been taken away up to the time when the body was found by revelation. Since therefore he did not reveal himself to have been Nathanael, but Ursinus, first bishop of Bourges, the aforesaid opinion must be numbered among invented fables.

[35] and certain Spanish fable-mongers. Certain fable-mongers also wished to drag Nathanael into Spain, when into the supposititious Chronicle of Flavius Lucius Dexter, at the year 105, they inserted these things: Nathanael, one of the 70 disciples of the Lord, rests in the city of Treuga,

near the Seventh-Twin Legion. By others he is said to lie at the town of Trigundum near Brigantium in Galicia, but now an ignoble place of towers. Bivarius adds in his Commentary: There is hardly a doubt that in the provinces of the Spains he applied himself instantly to preaching. And no less confidently John Tamayo Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology, at the day XXX of November, announces him at Treuga in Spain: but when he adds in the Acts, which he recites compiled from Dexter and the bishop of Equilio, that his memory was utterly obliterated either by the irruption of the Suevi or of the Alons,* or by the destruction wrought by the Saracens, he takes from himself all credit, if he otherwise deserved any. For indeed, if his body, as he premises, once rested honorably buried in Spain and venerated through many centuries, how did the memory of so great a man so fail that the Spaniards never afterwards celebrated the feast day of their Apostle? I add no more: for I should be injurious to the piety of the Spaniards toward the Saints if I should think that they themselves had given credit to Tamayo and others, seeing that they never took care to restore the cultus of their Apostle, forsooth.

* Alans § IV. It is proved that St. Nathanael is no other than St. Bartholomew the Apostle. It is shown that Nathanael was no other, Since it has been sufficiently proved by us, as we trust, that St. Nathanael was an apostle, one of the twelve, it will be of less labor to demonstrate which of the twelve he chiefly was. And first indeed concerning Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Thomas, whom John commemorates in the same place with Nathanael, no doubt can arise in anyone. His calling shows Matthew sufficiently to be different from Nathanael. But concerning Jude the son of James, or Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite or Zelotes, and James the son of Alpheus, some doubt indeed might arise, but it is easily removed. For first, their forenames are common among the Jews: James, Jude, Simon. Nathanael would therefore have had a double forename, which certainly is less usual. Next, those three are everywhere placed among the last in all the catalogues of the apostles, whereas Nathanael with Philip was called by the Lord among the first to the apostolic dignity. Jude besides is named by John the Evangelist, chapter 14, ℣. 22; nor is there reason why we should suspect that the Evangelist wished to name the same man now Nathanael, now Jude. That James the son of Alpheus was a publican, and the brother

of Matthew the Apostle, Henschen proved at length in tom. 1 of May, p. 19, which by no means suits our Nathanael. Nor would I think that anyone has suspected of James the son of Alpheus, or of Jude, that he was Nathanael.

[37] But of Simon the Greeks thought this, and inserted it in their Menology, from the number of the apostles, with the others whom in the preceding § we have given: moved, as we think, by this conjecture, that he seems to have been of the same Cana of Galilee as Nathanael. But in truth this conjecture is most slight, nor is their authority — since they are not very ancient — so great in designating Simon as it is when they say that Nathanael was an Apostle; for in this they have their Fathers Chrysostom, Cyril, Epiphanius, and the others cited by us in §2, as leaders; in the former they seem merely to divine. Yet I confess that the arguments which establish that Simon is distinct from Nathanael are not so convincing as those which demonstrate this of the other apostles. But those already given ought to suffice; namely the forename of Simon, which without probable reason ought not to be said to have belonged to Nathanael; and the order kept by the Evangelists in recounting the apostles; since it is in no way likely that Nathanael, a man most praised by the testimony of Christ the Lord, and called among the first to follow Christ, should always have been recounted by them among the last. These things will receive greater light from what follows.

[38] One therefore remains, Bartholomew, whom both Scripture, [than St. Bartholomew, by the authority of the Syrians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Latins,] and reason, and the greater authority, cry out to have been Nathanael. I shall take my beginning from authority. The Chaldeans, Armenians, and many Syrians from the ninth century of Christ have written that Nathanael is the same as Bartholomew. And indeed who does not see that they could know many things about Bartholomew their apostle which were hidden from the Latins and the Greeks? Their authority therefore in this controversy far outweighs the authority of the Greeks. Rupert, and the Latins who followed him, who called Nathanael an Apostle, all agree upon Bartholomew. But I do not here choose to weave a long catalogue of doctors. If anyone desires to know whom this opinion has pleased, let him consult the dissertations of John Roberti and Bartholomew Gavantus praised before; and besides these our John Stephen Menochio, in his History written in Italian, part 3, chapter 55, p. 91 and 92.

[39] I add one of the Greeks, Nicetas the Paphlagonian, who in his Oration on St. Bartholomew, to be given below in Latin, not obscurely insinuates his mind. and by the authority of the Greek Nicetas the Paphlagonian. For at num. 3 he mentions of the youth, virtues, and learning of Bartholomew those things which sacred Scripture insinuates of Nathanael in John 1, and which the holy fathers, Augustine especially and Chrysostom, hand down of Nathanael: then, as with pointing finger toward the calling of Nathanael in John 1, where Christ says of him, Behold a true Israelite, he describes Bartholomew's calling in these words: Then also, then, I say, he called this true Israelite, Bartholomew. Next at num. 9, relating Bartholomew's death, he most clearly alludes to the promise made by Christ to Nathanael in John 1: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending. For he uses these words: Hence indeed angels descending upon him from heaven and ascending prepared for him a most august ascent; and from above heaven was opened to him. By which he seems sufficiently to declare his opinion concerning Bartholomew, especially since in narrating the calling and death of Simon and of the other apostles Nicetas has not these allusions to the deeds of Nathanael, so that we can scarcely doubt that he did it studiously, to signify that Bartholomew and Nathanael were to him the same. Thus far authority: now the same opinion must be confirmed by reasons sought from Scripture.

[40] The same is shown by reasons, The first reason, which Rupert drew from Scripture, is thus handed down by the oft-cited Roberti at num. 26: Matthew chapter 10, Mark chapter 3, Luke chapter 6, while they diligently weave the catalogue of the twelve Apostles, and studiously join together, as it were, those who were called together, as Peter with Andrew, James with John: always in the same place they join Bartholomew with Philip. Why this, unless because this pair also were called together?

And yet not together, unless Bartholomew is Nathanael. The most eminent Toletus meets this reason, in annotation LXXXI on John: What they say, he says, that after Philip Bartholomew is described in the number of the Apostles, from which they gather that he is Nathanael, proves nothing; for in Acts 1 they are dissociated. But it is plain to one who looks, and Tostatus noted on Matthew chapter 10, ℣. 3, that the order of calling was neglected by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles: for he both disjoins Peter from Andrew, and John from James, and joins Thomas with Philip; so that Luke seems here to have wished to recount first those who had been joined to the Lord in greater familiarity. For first even in this order and chief is Peter. Second John, the Disciple whom Jesus loved. Third James, on Mount Tabor, in the garden of Gethsemane, and on other occasions familiarly admitted with Peter and John to the secrets of the Lord. From these a not inept conjecture can be made concerning the rest. For those who follow — Andrew, Philip, Thomas — are commemorated by John with Jesus before the others. But in the Gospels the order of calling seems everywhere to be kept, as Tostatus observes in the place cited, at least in this, that they are commemorated together who had been called together by the Lord. By this objection therefore the force of the argument is not broken.

[41] from sacred Scripture The second reason, likewise Rupert's, is commemorated by Roberti in the same place in these words: Unless these two names are of the same man, nowhere would you find the calling of Bartholomew. He confesses that this argument is not altogether conclusive. It receives greater force from this, that of all who precede Bartholomew in the catalogues of the Apostles given by the Evangelists, as also of Matthew, who follows, the calling is read as described, although the calling of the five last, with the name at least added, is not found written, as we have said. Another reason is brought, that John never names Bartholomew; while the other Evangelists are silent about Nathanael. This, I confess, does not prove the matter; but, with other arguments concurring, it makes it more likely, and destroys the reason which might be objected for the contrary opinion from the difference of name.

[42] Besides, a most effective argument, if you suppose that Nathanael was an Apostle, which we have already proved, is drawn from the names Nathanael and Bartholomew. drawn thence. For Nathanael is a proper name, or forename; Bartholomew a surname. The first is proved by Gavantus from Numbers chapters 1, 2, 7, 10; and 1 Paralip. 2, 15, 24, 26; 2 Paralip. 17, 35; 1 Esdras chapter 10, in which places the name Nathanael is found as a proper name. Which interpreted, he says, signifies the gift of God. The second is proved by the same: For Bartholomew is the same as son of Tholmai, or Tholomai. But it is certain that Tholmai is a man's name, Numbers 13, Joshua 15, Judges 1, 1 Paralip. 3; likewise Tholomai, 2 Kings 13; and perhaps, he says, Nathanael's father was called Tholmai, or Tholomai. Show, whoever you are who oppose us, even one in the sacred letters whose forename is Bartholomew. But the praised Toletus answers this argument in the place cited: They say, he says, again that Bartholomew is a common name; which

if it proved anything, neither Barnabas nor Barsabas would be proper names. By a common name Toletus seems to understand a surname; for otherwise he would not be answering the argument. I agree therefore with the most learned man, who so far from destroying our argument here rather confirms it the more. For he seems to admit that the argument is conclusive, if Barnabas, Barsabas, and the like are common names, or surnames. And yet that this is so is manifest from the Scriptures. Hear the cited Gavantus: The like surnames, he says, thou hast among the Apostolic men. Bariona or Barionna, son of John. Simon son of John, lovest thou me? John 21. Barnabas, who was called Joseph, Acts 4, was surnamed Barnabas, says Luke. Barsabas, who is also Joseph, Acts 1. Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, Mark 10. What is plainer? Elymas the magician also was surnamed Bariesu, Acts 13. Therefore in like manner Bartholomew was a surname. Hear the whole text concerning Barnabas, Acts 4, ℣. 36: And Joseph, who was surnamed Barnabas by the Apostles, which is interpreted The son of consolation. Of Barsabas, Acts 1: Joseph, who was called Barsabas. It is plain therefore most clearly that the name of each was Joseph, but that the names Barnabas and Barsabas were added to the first name, which is manifest also of the rest cited by Gavantus. There can therefore be no doubt that the name Bartholomew too was adjoined to a first name. And yet

those added names Barnabas and Barsabas had so prevailed that the first was almost obliterated: there is therefore no reason why we should wonder that this apostle was named Bartholomew by three Evangelists. Nor likewise ought it to seem wonderful that he is called Nathanael by John, who called none of the apostles by the surname alone.

[43] Lest I seem to have neglected anything at all which our adversaries bring forward for themselves, Objections are solved I shall set down the rest which the praised Toletus has: for he alone has gathered nearly all the arguments that make war against our opinion, and has endeavored to dissolve ours. We proved in §1 that Nathanael was an Apostle from Christ's apparition at the sea of Tiberias, John 21. As though, says Toletus, he did not appear also to other disciples, who were not Apostles. So it is; he appeared to other disciples also. But to other disciples he did not appear so familiarly, for other disciples he did not prepare a dinner, before other disciples he did not ordain matters pertaining to the government of the Church; as we have proved, and have shown to have been done in this apparition. Toletus continues: These reasons have not strength to confirm a matter so weighty, and against the common opinion. But that our opinion is far the more common among the learned is abundantly plain from all that has been said; and Florentinius confirms it, in the Little Index of the Apostles before his Martyrology, exercitation 4, on Simon the Canaanite, p. 166, where, having recounted various opinions about Nathanael, he subjoins these things: Very many however agree upon Bartholomew: namely that he

was Nathanael.

[44] The Cardinal's Let us now hear the most eminent man's arguments against us. More strength against their opinion, he says, has this, that in the new Testament the catalogue of the apostles is set down four times, Matthew 10, Mark 3, Luke 6, Acts 1, and nowhere is mention of Nathanael made; and if he had been of two names, the Evangelists would have explained it, as they did also in the case of Thomas, and of Matthew: most of all John, who was last, and narrated his history. Are they not arrows of little children with which this most learned man here fights against us? In no catalogues of the apostles is Nathanael placed: therefore he is not an apostle. What then? To pass over Barjona, Didymus, Lebbaeus, names unknown in the catalogues of the apostles, I thus turn the weapon back. In no catalogues of the apostles is Levi commemorated: therefore Levi is not an apostle, as a few have thought, refuted by all others. You will answer that it is proved from elsewhere that Levi is the same as Matthew. The same we too answer, who have sufficiently proved that Nathanael is the same as Bartholomew. But if, he says, he had been of two names, the Evangelists would have explained it, as they did also in the case of Thomas and Matthew: most of all John, etc. Of Matthew I find this nowhere explained: for in the catalogues of the apostles, and in the calling in Matthew 9, he is constantly called Matthew: but in the calling and the banquet in Luke 5, Levi; in the calling in Mark 2 he is named Levi son of Alpheus: nowhere is he commemorated with the name of Matthew and Levi together, nor is he said to have been of two names. What is said of Thomas is true; but it is by no means observed by John in all cases. For in the case of Jude, who in Matthew 10 and Mark 3 is called Thaddeus, and in Luke 6 Jude the son of James, John passes this over in chapter 14, ℣. 20, where he thus mentions him: Judas says to him, he says, not the Iscariot. Why therefore was it lawful for John to pass this over in the case of Jude, and not lawful in the case of Nathanael? It was surely lawful in both. For not all things are to be said everywhere, or explained. It can be added, that it is nowhere explained by John that upon himself and his brother James the name Boanerges was imposed by Christ.

[45] Toletus'. Let us return to Toletus, who thus concludes his disputation: But that he was not called to the Apostolate, let us leave to the judgment of God.

Rightly, unless it were proved that he was called. For no full reason of this matter can be given. Do you see how he does not rest on St. Augustine's reason, drawn from Nathanael's learning? We have already shown above that it was refuted by him. Then he thus proceeds: He received a benefit great enough, that he was of the number of those who confessed Christ, and deserved to receive the eternal reward of his confession, and his name has been made glorious and illustrious in the Church. Whence is his name glorious in the Church, and illustrious, if he was not an Apostle: since he is exiled from all the sacred calendars, and destitute of all cultus? You have the arguments of the most learned Toletus, and how weak they are everyone may see. From which our opinion is not a little strengthened, seeing that even by a most learned man it could not be assailed with other reasons.

[46] I cannot but marvel at Baillet's critical judgment in this controversy. Baillet is refuted. For at the day XXIV of August, in St. Bartholomew, num. 1, he writes thus: That opinion which holds Nathanael to be the same as Bartholomew has no other foundation than a certain weak conjecture. Before, at the day XXII of April, in St. Nathanael, he had thus determined: Their reasons (of those who say Nathanael is Bartholomew) are specious without doubt: but we should wish them convincing against the authority of St. Augustine and St. Gregory the great; or rather against the silence of Scripture. I do not ask how aptly these cohere with one another: Quelque foible conjecture, as he says, Raisons spécieuses. This I ask, why he objects to us the silence of Scripture, who is not ignorant that the reasons brought for this opinion, which without doubt he confesses to be specious, are drawn from sacred Scripture; although certain arguments from the authority of the Fathers and of the Martyrologists have been added. Of Nathanael, on the XXII of April, he thus concludes: His name is not found in the martyrologies of the Latins. Might not one here not ineptly ask of Baillet, why he calls him a saint, and commemorates him among the saints? For the reasons by which his sanctity is proved are indeed specious; but we want them convincing against the silence of all the Martyrologists and of the whole Church. For the Greeks cannot avail Baillet, who, against his own opinion, make Nathanael the same as Simon the Canaanite. Nor are the reasons by which Baillet would prove Nathanael's sanctity so convincing that, if anyone chose to be malicious, he could not easily destroy them. For it could be said that his beginnings indeed are commemorated in Scripture as praiseworthy, but his end is passed over in silence. And yet, as St. Jerome rightly says in the Epistle to Furia, which is found in tom. 4 of the last Paris edition, col. 556: In Christians it is not the beginnings that are sought, but the end. Paul began ill: but ended well. Judas' beginnings are praised, but his end is condemned by betrayal. Behold, if we follow Baillet's critical judgment, not only the apostolate but even the sanctity of Nathanael is called into doubt. By what authority therefore does Baillet call Nathanael a saint, against the silence, as he thinks, of the Church? Let him see to it. We, with sacred Scripture for our guide, with the Fathers showing the way, with a very long train of doctors accompanying, not only call him a saint; but hold him to be both an apostle and Bartholomew. § V. The Saint's country and condition of life before his calling. The Apostle's country, Cana of Galilee, The things which we shall discuss in the two following paragraphs are for the most part read as related of our holy Apostle under the name of Nathanael; if anyone therefore does not assent to the opinion proved by us in what precedes, let him take these things as said of Nathanael. John manifestly declares to us the Apostle's country in chapter 21, ℣. 2, in these words: Nathanael, who was of Cana of Galilee. Adrichomius, in his Theater of the Holy Land, in the tribe of Zabulon, p. 138, thus describes it: Cana, otherwise Chana, is a city of Galilee, which on that account in the Gospel history is called Cana of Galilee, and, on the witness of Jerome, Cana the less, to distinguish it from Cana the greater, which is in the tribe of Aser. It is situated four miles from Ptolemais toward the southeast, three from the city of Sephoris toward the northwest, and two from the village of Rama toward the North. On the north it has a high and round mountain, on whose slope it is built on one side. Further, toward the South, it has a broad, fertile, and pleasant plain, which is called the valley of Carmelon. From this city were the Lord Simon the Apostle, and Nathanael, a true Israelite approved by the testimony of the Savior. Here our Lord at the wedding … made the beginning of his miracles, turning water into wine. Even in Jerome's time this Cana was a town. Thus far Adrichomius.

[48] which is twofold, and which of these it is is not established; Quaresmius, in his Elucidation of the Holy Land tom. 2, book 7, chapter 6, does not agree with Adrichomius in all things: for Among the people of Nazareth, he says, and other neighboring inhabitants, mention is made of a twofold Cana of Galilee (excepting that greater one): of one which is called simply Cana of Galilee, of another which is called Sepher Cana. Cana of Galilee is described as in the western region of Nazareth, inclining a little to the north, on a hill above the fair and spacious plain of Zabulon; distant from Sephoris about six, from Nazareth about ten miles: it is a tiny hamlet containing a very few houses, no church, nor signs of a church, as I observed with others: there are there no vineyards, nor

many trees, but a few olives. Sepher Cana

is four miles distant from Nazareth: in its northern region, inclining to the East, it is situated on a mountain; round about it has a spacious plain, where are many trees: it contains many houses; and there I have heard that there are churches … Perhaps in Christ's time it was a small city, afterwards reduced to a village. Then he inquires which is the Cana of Galilee in which the Lord was present at the wedding, and made wine from water. Nor does he determine the matter; although he is more inclined toward Sepher Cana, because this is less remote from Nazareth. Yet this seems to favor the Cana which is called simply "of Galilee," that it is mentioned in the Gospel under plainly the same name. Whatever it be, this seems certain, that the Cana which was Nathanael's country is that in which the Lord changed water into wine. Let these things said about the Apostle's country suffice.

[49] his parents unknown: some relate that he was born of royal stock, St. Bartholomew's parents are unknown in the sacred Letters, nor are they commemorated by authors worthy of credit. There are, however, some who write that Bartholomew sprang from noble, or even royal, stock. In Cotelier's Works of the Holy Fathers tom. 1, p. 272 of the edition of the year 1698, in the notes on book 2, chapter 63 of the Apostolic Constitutions, these words are brought forward from a supposititious epistle on the death of St. Jerome: We confess that Christ chose twelve Apostles: of all of whom Bartholomew alone was noble by fleshly origin. Peter de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in his Catalogue

of the saints book 7, chapter 103, has these things: Bartholomew the Apostle was by nation a Syrian, and was the grandson of the king of the Syrians on his father's side, and alone of all the apostles was adorned with nobility according to the flesh; whence also on his account alone there arose at the Lord's supper a contention among the disciples, which of them should seem to be the greater. For when Christ had said to the apostles that one of them was to betray him, the apostles suspected that that betrayer wished to do this in order that he might desire to usurp for himself the kingdom of Israel, which (read that) they hoped Christ would obtain carnally. And since there was none among them who might be thought to aspire to such a dignity, except Bartholomew, on account of his royal nobility; therefore they held him suspect of such a betrayal, and made a question about preeminence. These things Damascene says, he tells us; but he does not indicate the place; nor did I think it worth the labor to read through all the works of Damascene, in order to know whether he really wrote these things. Yet I have sought in St. Damascene's writings, and have found nothing of the sort. I suspect therefore that they are drawn from works falsely ascribed to Damascene. The bishop of Equilio subjoins: Whence in certain churches the Gospel concerning the said contention made among the disciples is read on this feast. How inept these things are, and how alien from every appearance of truth, everyone may perceive. Still more inept are the things which follow there: But it is read in a certain history, though apocryphal, that when there had come to Bartholomew, the grandson of the king of Syria who lacked a son, while he was still a young man, word of the doctrine and miracles of Christ preaching in Judea, he sent a messenger to him, saying that he would gladly make himself his disciple, if Jesus would grant him one favor. For he had heard that his disciples went about poor in abject garb. If therefore for the honor of his royal dignity he would grant him to go clad in purple, he would follow him perpetually. To whom Christ freely granted what he wished: yet he told the messenger to say on his behalf to Bartholomew, that he who refused to lay aside a material cloak would yet for love of him lay aside his natural garment; that is, the skin of his body. And thus Christ received Bartholomew as his Apostle: and he always retained the use of purple. I have wished to write out these follies at length, that hence it might be made manifest to the reader how ill-cohering with itself is that whole little fable about Bartholomew's royal stock. I should be inept if I wished laboriously to refute these things. Yet I choose to touch upon a few.

[50] In the first place it is ineptly feigned that in Christ's time a King of the Syrians was Bartholomew's grandfather, which, with other fables, since Syria had long since been reduced into a province of the Romans. Next, how could the Apostles suspect that Bartholomew wished to betray the Lord in order to seize for himself the kingdom of Israel against the power of the Romans, when he was destitute of all forces for that end? Either you must feign the apostles mad for suspecting it, or that they themselves thought Bartholomew out of his mind for attempting it. Add that there were altogether other reasons for this contention, which arose more than once among the Apostles, assigned by the Fathers, which, because they do not belong here, see in the commentators. The third thing which I observe he confesses to be drawn from an apocryphal history, and yet does not mark it with the necessary censure: namely that Bartholomew, I say, was admitted to the apostolate on this condition, that he should always go about clad in purple; and that the use of purple was perpetually retained by the Apostle. Who reads the Gospels who does not easily perceive how contrary these things are to the poverty and humility of Christ and the apostles, how discordant from their manners; not to say injurious to St. Bartholomew? The inventors of this little fable therefore so far from honoring St. Bartholomew by that feigned nobility that they rather disgrace him, while they depict him to us as proud and ambitious. But let us see what was the occasion of this little fable.

[51] The learned are wont to assign no other cause than a false interpretation of the name Bartholomew, arising from a false interpretation of the name, is refuted: and rightly. Let us hear the most eminent Baronius in his notes on the Roman Martyrology, where at the day XXV of August he learnedly sets forth this fable and refutes it. Concerning Bartholomew, he says, among some this opinion has prevailed, that he was a Syrian by race, and drew his origin from king Ptolemy, and was called Bartholomew, as it were son of Ptolemy. But wrongly indeed: for the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt, not in Syria: besides, that all the apostles were Galileans, divine Scripture teaches, which says in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1: Men of Galilee, etc.; and chapter 2: Behold, are not all these that speak Galileans? etc. Moreover if we should call Bartholomew here a Syrian by race, because

Galilee is in Palestine, and Palestine in Syria; by the same reasoning we should have to say that the other apostles too are Syrians… To these we add also, that Bartholomew was not so called from Ptolemy; but, as he was a Jew by race, he was so named from Hebrew words, Bar Tholmai, Son of Tholmai. Tholmai is a proper Hebrew name, and is repeated in the divine Scriptures (See the passages assigned in §4; for in Baronius the numbers are disordered.) But that for Bartholmai we should say Bartholomew ought not to seem wonderful, since in the other Hebrew words this same thing happens, that the same, rendered in Latin or Greek, are not pronounced in the same way.

[52] the name of Bartholomew Syriac, I gladly agree with the most learned man. One thing however I observe from St. Jerome, because it makes for expounding the name of the Saint of whom we treat. In the book On Hebrew Names, on Matthew, under the letter B, the praised Father writes thus: Bartholomew, Son of him that suspends the waters, or son of him that suspends me. It is a Syrian name, not Hebrew. And a little below, in Bariona: For Bar in the Syrian tongue is son. And if it please you to attend to the places cited, you will find Tholmai to be a name of the earlier inhabitants of the land, not of the Hebrews. But from this observation the force of the argument is not lessened; for at that time the Syriac tongue was in use among the Jews, and many had Syriac names, as may be seen in St. Jerome in the book cited. Sufficiently therefore is the fictitious nobility of the holy Apostle refuted, which, being unknown to the Fathers Augustine, Chrysostom, and the other ancients, and adorned with so many fables, is utterly to be eliminated.

[53] That Bartholomew was a fisherman One argument of Baronius, because it leads to another disputation, was passed over above; I here append it. Theodoret, he says, in the preface on the Truth of the Gospel, when he treats of the book on laws, affirms that Bartholomew, like the rest, excepting none, was a fisherman, and Metaphrastes also attests this:

(in the oration of a certain Joseph to be given below) which is approved to me as truer: for according to Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, God hath chosen the ignoble things of the world, and the contemptible. This sentence of the Apostle proves that Bartholomew was not noble; it does not prove that he was a fisherman. There favors this opinion indeed the fact that Nathanael — to us Bartholomew — in John 21 fished with Peter and the others; but it can easily be answered that this was done out of friendship and mutual familiarity, with St. Chrysostom agreeing, Homily 87 on John: The other disciples, he says, followed, because they were joined together for the rest, and wished to see them fishing together, and to enjoy this leisure peacefully. These arguments therefore are too weak to establish that Bartholomew was a fisherman.

[54] is not sufficiently proved by those who assert it. But that he was not a fisherman seems to be gathered from his country, Cana of Galilee, which was rather remote from the sea, and from rivers at least of any note; so that either there seem to have been no fishermen there, or certainly very few, who perhaps fished in certain lakes. Yet, lest Theodoret's authority move anyone, let us adduce Theodoret's own words. In the place cited by Baronius he has thus:

I thought I should be doing a work of great worth, if I should compare with the most celebrated lawgivers among the Greeks the leaders of the Christian religion, our fishermen, I mean, our cobbler, our publican. By the cobbler he doubtless understands Paul; by the publican, Matthew. Does he, because he calls the other leaders of the Christians fishermen, contend that absolutely all the apostles, except those already named, were fishermen? I should not easily believe it. For in the very disputation of which this is the preface, or book 9, which is on laws, tom. 2, p. 623 of the Cologne edition, he makes several publicans. But of the laws, he says, which our fishermen, our publicans, and which the sewer of tents brought. And after a few words: Yet the laws of the fishermen and of our cobbler he could not abolish. Nay, on Psalm 67, ℣. 7, he has thus: Such was Matthew, such James the son of Alpheus, such Zacchaeus, who were freed from the bonds of sin. Why, I beseech you, does he say that James the son of Alpheus was freed from the bonds of sin along with those publicans, unless because he thought him too a publican, following St. Chrysostom on Matthew chapter 10, ℣. 5? Hence I think it is clear that Theodoret did not wish here to teach that all the apostles were fishermen; for now he makes several publicans, now he omits the publicans. But because it was known that various of the apostles were fishermen, therefore he used chiefly that name; and had to keep silence about the crafts of the rest, as being unknown. So much concerning Theodoret. What is found in Metaphrastes from the panegyric of Joseph is also of small moment. Receive the words, reader: Let us see … how from a fisher of fishes he became a fisher of men.

The author alludes to the words of Christ spoken to the Apostles, Matthew 4, ℣. 19: Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. Hence perhaps, because Bartholomew had been appointed by Christ a fisher of men, that Joseph thought it likely that he had before been a fisher of fishes, and set that forth as probable; nor do I think that it was known to that Joseph which was unknown to the more ancient fathers, as we shall prove hereafter. I do not therefore judge that St. Bartholomew was a fisherman.

[55] Cotelier, praised at num. 49, p. 272, produces a Little Index of the Apostles, Was he a tiller of the soil? taken, as he attests, from ancient Mss. of the Most Christian King, nos. 1789, 1026; in which concerning St. Bartholomew these things are found, translated from the Greek: Bartholomew, whose father was Sosthenes, and mother Urinia, a cultivator of pasture, or a sower of vegetables. In the Apostolic Constitutions also, in the same author in the same place, it is said of the apostles: Others were husbandmen. There can be added, for whatever confirmation of these things, the Epistle written by Damian, bishop of Pavia, as Labbe proves, tom. 6 of the Councils, col. 577, under the name of Mansuetus archbishop of Milan, or of the Milanese synod of the year 679, to the emperor Constantine Pogonatus, which, on the witness in the same place of Paul the deacon, carried no slight weight in the VI ecumenical synod, in which these things are read in the cited Labbe, col. 603: For if you read again (the rules of faith) most illustrious emperor, not with dialecticians, not with rhetoricians, not with grammarians, but with countrymen and fishermen did the Lord

take counsel, and to these he delivered the secrets of his counsel, whom also he ordained princes, to whom he granted the power of binding and loosing. Here it is sufficiently openly insinuated that some of the apostles were husbandmen, nor do I see to which of the apostles this would better suit than to Bartholomew; for the little town of Cana, which, as we have seen above from its description, has a broad, fertile, and pleasant plain, doubtless had many husbandmen among its inhabitants; many who either tended gardens or fed flocks.

[56] this uncertain. Bartholomew therefore could, as cultivator either of a garden or of his father's field, lead a quiet life for himself and for God. These things, I confess, would not displease, if they rested on better testimonies. But that Little Index seems to be the work of some petty Greek, and has certain things openly false. What credit the Apostolic Constitutions deserve, the learned know. But what is said in that synodal epistle seems drawn from these Constitutions, nor is the author of that epistle so ancient that he ought to extort our assent in this matter. Since indeed there stands against it the silence of the ancient Fathers, and the authority of Origen, who in book 1 against Celsus, num. 62 of the Paris edition, after commemorating the condition of Peter, Andrew, John, James, and Matthew, subjoins these things: But by what craft the rest, before they became disciples of Jesus, procured themselves a living, is not ascertained by us. I should therefore prefer to confess with Origen that it is unknown to me what was his condition of life before the Apostolate, or what craft he exercised to procure himself a living, than to give assent to these uncertain traditions. Thus far of his condition of life; now it must be investigated of what learning Nathanael Bartholomew was. § VI. His learning, calling, virtues, and certain other things. [St. Augustine calls him not a doctor of the law, but skilled in the law, or learned] Some seem to have so understood St. Augustine in the places cited in §2 as though he had asserted that Nathanael was a Doctor of the law. For Baronius, at the year of Christ 31, num. 28, says that this reason was brought by Augustine, why Nathanael was not chosen among the apostles: Because he was a DOCTOR of the law. Cornelius a Lapide, on John chapter 1, assigns the same reason of Augustine's: Because Nathanael seems to have been a DOCTOR of the law. But I do not find this at all in St. Augustine. His words, because they conduce at the same time to the present purpose, I shall report faithfully. In Tractate 7 on John, col. 254, he calls Nathanael learned, and skilled in the law. A little below: He is called most learned in the law. On Psalm 65, col. 480: Learned … in the law: after a few words: He was skilled in the law. Again below: That man learned in the law. Nowhere, in the places cited, does he affirm that he was a Doctor of the law, or insinuate that he judged him to have been a doctor. Chrysostom, Homily 20 on John, likewise calls Nathanael learned, and of sacred Scripture a diligent student. Col. 116: Because, he says, Nathanael was skilled, and a zealous follower

of truth. In the same column below: Because he was more versed in the prophetic writings than Philip. Cyril agrees, on John chapter 1, ℣. 45,

in these words: For Philip knew that he (Nathanael) was most studious, and greatly learned. And likewise St. Gregory of Nyssa on the Canticles, homily 15, saying: That he had been most accurately taught from the books of the prophecies concerning the mystery of the Lord.

[58] he said, with other Fathers: who gathered this from Scripture in different ways. They gather this learning of the Apostle from this, that Philip said to Nathanael, John 1: Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the Prophets, we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth. And Nathanael answered: From Nazareth can anything good be? But they gather it in different ways. Augustine indeed thinks that Nathanael assented to Philip, and from that judges that his learning and skill in the law follow. More rightly, in my judgment, Chrysostom deduces the same from his doubt. Hear him in the place cited: For he had heard from the Scriptures that Christ was to arise from Bethlehem, and from the village in which David had been. That report therefore prevailed among the Jews, and the Prophet had of old foretold in these words: "And thou Bethlehem art by no means least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come forth a leader who shall rule my people Israel." When therefore he had heard that he was from Nazareth, he was troubled and doubted, because he saw that Philip's words did not accord with the prophetic prediction. There are those who gather St. Bartholomew's learning from the Mystical Theology usually cited under the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, where in chapter 1 these things are found: Thus the divine Bartholomew says: "Both that theology is much and least, and that the Gospel is broad and great, and again concise." But since from this the learning which he had before his calling is not sufficiently proved, it suffices me to have brought forward the testimonies of so many Fathers, and Scripture itself, which insinuates that Nathanael was a diligent searcher of the law and of the prophets.

[59] Someone will perhaps wonder at this learning in a man of slender means Was he a disciple of John the Baptist? and simple, such as Nathanael Bartholomew was. But he ought to consider that the reading of sacred Scripture was frequent among the Jews. Acts 15, ℣. 21: For Moses of ancient times hath in every city them that preach him in the synagogues, where he is read every Sabbath. And John 5, ℣. 39, Christ said to the Jews: Search the Scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting. And Nathanael did this the more diligently as he was the more zealous for his own salvation and the more loving of God. Cornelius a Lapide, on John chapter 1, thinks that he also profited under the discipline of St. John the Baptist, and was either his disciple, or at least his hearer.

It can be answered, he says, that Nathanael was a student of the law, not a doctor; just as was Philip, discoursing with him about the coming of the Messiah from the law, and Peter, and Andrew. For all these seem to have been disciples or hearers of John the Baptist, and to have been sent by him to Christ.

[60] St. Epiphanius favors this conjecture, in the Heresy 51 cited, num. 14, this is not improbable. where he thinks that the companion of Andrew, who with him first came to Christ, and was a disciple of John the Baptist, John 1, ℣. 37, was Philip, or John, or James. Epiphanius judges therefore that several disciples of John the Baptist adhered to Christ. And it seems certain that John the Baptist wished to send to Christ whomever of his disciples he knew more fit for that. This conjecture of Cornelius therefore does not seem to me to be disapproved, but it is a conjecture, and so does not make the matter altogether certain. For the rest, whether he was a disciple of John, or only a hearer, or not even a hearer, I judge that the study of the sacred Scriptures, and at least a moderate skill in them, is altogether to be adjudged to Nathanael; but that the study of profane sciences, philosophy for instance, and eloquence, and even a moderate skill in them, is utterly to be denied him; for the Lord did not choose orators or Philosophers; he did not cast away readers and hearers of sacred Scripture. Now it must be set forth how he gave himself over to the discipline of Christ.

[61] John clearly describes the calling of Nathanael, chapter 1, from ℣. 45: Philip found Nathanael, The Apostle's calling and virtues and says to him: Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the prophets, we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth. And Nathanael said to him: From Nazareth can anything good be? Philip says to him: Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and says of him: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile. Nathanael says to him: Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said to him: Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered him and said: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him: Because I said to thee: I saw thee under the fig tree, thou believest: greater things than these shalt thou see. And he says to him: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Of these things we have discoursed at length in what precedes, which will here be omitted; yet certain things we shall subjoin from Chrysostom for declaring the virtues of Nathanael. Homily 20, on that word: From Nazareth can anything good be? the holy Father thus proclaims his modesty and prudence: But observe his prudence and modesty in the very doubt. For he did not at once say, Thou deceivest me, O Philip, and liest. I do not believe, I will not go: from the Prophets I have learned that Christ is to come from Bethlehem; and thou sayest, from Nazareth. Therefore it is not he. But he said nothing of the sort. But what? He himself goes to him, and while he does not admit that he is from Nazareth, he shows an accurate study of the Scriptures, and manners

not liable to deceit; but that he does not reject him who announces these things exhibits a great longing for Christ's coming. For he thought that Philip might have erred about the place. Observe likewise how moderately he denies him credit and questions him. For he did not say: Galilee brings forth nothing good. But how? "From Nazareth can anything good be?" Hear also his other virtues. His candor he thus subjoins: And therefore Christ says: "Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile." So then an Israelite can be a liar: but not this man, for his judgment has no acceptance of persons, he speaks nothing for favor, nothing for hatred. His constancy, after a few words: See for me, he says, a man constant and firm. For when Christ had said, "Behold a true Israelite," he was not softened by praises, not carried away by encomiums, but persists in inquiring and exploring more accurately, and wishes to learn something clear. The fervor of his confession the same Father below delineates as with a pencil, writing these words: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Do you see, he says, a soul exulting with joy, and embracing Jesus with words? Thou art, he says, he who was awaited and desired. Do you see him amazed, marveling, exulting, leaping for delight? Thus far Chrysostom concerning the excellent virtues of Nathanael. But whether he here confessed the true God by these words, Thou art the Son of God, which Chrysostom denies in homily 21, while Cyril and certain others affirm it, I leave to the interpreters of holy Scripture to examine. Toletus

may be seen on John chapter 1, ℣. 49, annotation 79.

[62] In what order among the Apostles was he called? It is here ambiguous in what order among the apostles Nathanael was called by the Lord. If we consult John's Gospel alone, he seems to have been called in the fourth place; namely after Andrew, Peter, and Philip. But the order kept by the Evangelists in recounting the apostles insinuates that before Philip and Nathanael, James and John were called; and this St. Epiphanius holds in Heresy 51, num. 14. For after he had suspected that that companion of Andrew whose name is passed over in silence in John 1, ℣. 37, was Philip, he thus corrects himself: Unless perhaps you prefer John, or James the son of Zebedee. For those had to be called first: then next Philip, in which order they are numbered in the Gospels. And thus Nathanael would have been called in the sixth place, in which place Bartholomew is set in the catalogues of the apostles by the Evangelists. I shall state a conjecture suggested to me by St. Epiphanius' words, which let each take as he pleases, since it will make little for the praise of St. Bartholomew. I suspect that that anonymous companion of Andrew is John the Apostle himself, and that through him Christ became known to his brother James, as he became known to Peter through Andrew, and to Nathanael through Philip: but that the Evangelist wrapped all these things in silence for modesty's sake, as he passed over in silence the name Boanerges imposed upon himself and his brother, and many other things pertaining to his own praise. However it be, the calling of Nathanael Bartholomew must be numbered either in the fourth or in the sixth place.

[63] After the calling of Nathanael there are subjoined by John in chapter 2 the wedding Was the name of Bartholomew given him at the wedding of Cana of Galilee? made in Cana of Galilee. And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee: and the Mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was called, and his disciples, to the wedding. St. Epiphanius, in the Heresy cited, num. 15, subjoins these things in these words: Where, from the minute words and sentences carefully sifted on both sides, it is gathered that Christ brought with him other disciples, who had remained with him. Of which sort perhaps Nathanael was, and Philip, and certain others. Rightly, in my opinion at least: for that Nathanael was present at this wedding with Jesus both his recent calling and his native place Cana, in which the wedding was celebrated, scarcely permit us to doubt. Rupert suspects that Christ was invited to this wedding on Nathanael's occasion, and that thence the name of Bartholomew was given him. For thus he has it, on John chapter 1, p. 36 of the Cologne edition: It is established that Bartholomew is not a Hebrew but a Syrian name, which in Latin is Son of him that suspends the waters. But Nathanael is Hebrew, and is interpreted Gift of God. Perhaps therefore this same Nathanael, who was of Cana of Galilee, is Bartholomew, which is interpreted Son of him that suspends the waters: because on the third day, when the wedding was held in that village of his, Cana of Galilee, the Lord, perhaps invited to the wedding on his occasion, turning the waters into wine, had suspended them to the admiration of all. Gavantus illustrates Rupert's conjecture by an example in the dissertation often cited: Just as, he says, James and John were called Boanerges, sons of thunder: although these were surnamed by Christ, he by his fellow-citizens; because he was devoted to Christ out of many inhabitants of that same place. This conjecture of the holy man I do not disapprove as subtle and ingenious, but I judge it uncertain, since Nathanael could easily have had the name of Bartholomew from his father. But that Nathanael was present at the wedding I altogether think, and that on his occasion Jesus was invited appears likely enough.

[64] After these things nothing about St. Bartholomew occurs in the Gospels up to the death of Christ, Was he one of the two going to Emmaus? except that with the other eleven apostles he is numbered in their catalogues everywhere in the sixth place after Philip. St. Epiphanius, Heresy 23, num. 6, p. 67, writes that the Savior, raised from the dead, appeared to Nathanael and Cleophas on the way; namely to those going to Emmaus, Luke 24. But other Fathers do not agree with Epiphanius. Nor is there any foundation in the Scriptures from which we may gather that it was Nathanael. You may see Calmet on chapter 24 of Luke, ℣. 13. In the remaining apparitions, where either the greatest part or all of the apostles were present, Bartholomew too was present, nor does he ever seem to have separated himself from the others. But these things have been sufficiently discussed, nor need they here be explained at greater length. § VII. The Apostle's preaching in India. Various provinces assigned to Bartholomew's preaching, So various are the provinces assigned to St. Bartholomew's preaching, so obscurely are they indicated, distinguished by no mark of order or of time, that it is difficult to find whence I should take my beginning, where I should end. For some write that India; others that Armenia,

Chaldea, Persia; others that various provinces of Asia Minor were enlightened by his teaching. And truly these things, as I judge; nor indeed can it be doubted that he traversed various provinces of the world preaching, and illuminated them with the light of faith, as it is agreed that the other apostles did also; but very obscurely, as I have said. Wherefore, that at least by probable disputation some light may shine forth, and some order appear: first I shall bring forward the testimonies of authors, that it may be established in what provinces he preached. Then I shall examine where he probably sowed the seeds of faith earlier, and where later.

[66] among which India, India, of which we must first treat, Christopher Cellarius describes to us in tom. 2 of the Ancient Geography, book 3, chapter 23, p. 523, in these words: India, ἡ Ἰνδικὴ, a most ample region of the East, is divided, according to its rivers, of which two are the greatest, the Indus and the Ganges, into two great parts, of which one is called India within the Ganges … The other, India beyond the Ganges … He (Ptolemy) sets as the boundaries of India

within the Ganges, on the West, the region of the Paropanisadae, Arachosia, and Gedrosia: on the North, mount Imaus: on the East, the river Ganges: on the South, the Ocean. That which is beyond the river Ganges is bounded on the West by that river: on the North by Scythia and Serica: on the East by the region of the Sinae: on the South by the Ocean. Whether in India, as just described, the Apostle preached, is debated among the learned. For many martyrologists, and likewise many historians, designate India. There are, however, those who will have India taken most broadly and improperly. The Greek Menaea, on the XI of June, assert that he preached to the Indians who are called Happy, the Gospel according to Matthew having been delivered there. Freculph, book 2, chapter 4, in the Library of the Fathers, cent. 9, part 1, p. 505 of the Cologne edition, writes these things: Bartholomew the apostle … received Lycaonia as his lot of preaching, and translated the Gospel according to Matthew among the Indians into their tongue. Likewise various Martyrologies establish the Indian preaching. Fortunatus agrees, book 8, chapter 4: Thence India bears Bartholomew triumphing. And St. Anselm, homily 1, p. 158 of the edition of the year 1721, writes that Bartholomew was destined to India by Christ. And, to pass over others, Eusebius, book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 10, and St. Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, in Pantaenus, write that the Gospel of St. Matthew was left among the Indians by St. Bartholomew, and there found by Pantaenus. Wherefore I judge it sufficiently certain that St. Bartholomew preached in India, and there left St. Matthew's Gospel. Nor do the learned today deny this; but various men will have Arabia Felix understood by India, which by the ancients also was named India. This above the rest is contended, and by many arguments learnedly attempted to be proved, by Assemani, often praised by us.

[67] In tom. 3, part 2, p. 568 and following, he shows that the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, which some improperly understand, who afterwards became known by the single word Homerites, were called both Ethiopians and even Indians by the more ancient writers; and that Arabia Felix itself was surnamed both India and Ethiopia by some. As also Pagi proves concerning African Ethiopia, that it was called India by some, at the year of Christ 327, from num. 9: nor on this matter will there be any controversy between us. The praised Assemani, p. 592, deduces from this further the following: From

the same Menology, and from those things which we have said above about the Ethiopians and Indians, it becomes plain that the Homerites, the peoples of Arabia Felix, were those Ethiopians and Indians to whom Bartholomew, Matthew, and Matthias announced the faith of Christ. That Bartholomew announced the faith of Christ there (for concerning Matthew and Matthias I do not here dispute) is made likely enough to me from this, that he is said to have preached to the Indians who are named Happy, which will be confirmed below also from Nicetas the Paphlagonian. Not equally approved to me is what after a few words he subjoins in these words: Of the Ethiopians and Indians of Arabia Felix is to be understood what Jerome … writes, that Pantaenus the philosopher, having traveled to the Indians, found the memory of Bartholomew's preaching still green. For I shall show that these things must be understood of the Indians inhabiting India properly and commonly so called. Assemani confirms his opinion from Philostorgius, book 2, chapter 6. Whom, as an Arian and an impostor, I gladly concede to him. But hear what his own editor James Gothofredus notes on this passage. In the Dissertation on chapter 6, book 2, p. 59, after he has proved that Philostorgius' narration differs much from the narrations of other historians, he concludes: Therefore this too is a structure of Philostorgian κρὺψις and ψευδολογία; for which cause Photius at the entrance of this narration calls him δυσσεβῆ. He also brings forward for his own opinion Rufinus and Socrates, in which he has Pagi at least in part agreeing, concerning whom hereafter. For I shall first show that St. Bartholomew preached in India, even properly so called, and that the Gospel of Matthew left there was found by Pantaenus; as Baronius writes at the year

of Christ 185.

[68] Eusebius, book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 10, writes thus: but it is proved that it was properly so called, by various Pantaenus … trained in the discipline of the philosophers who were called Stoics, is handed down to have excelled among the first at that same point of time. Him, burning with the most ardent love toward sacred Scripture, they report to have put so much zeal into propagating it, that, ordained a herald of the Gospel to the nations which inhabited the East, he betook himself even to the regions of the Indians. Now there were, I say, at that time very many preachers of the word, and faithful messengers, who, inflamed with a divine zeal for imitating the Apostles, brought great helps both for building up the word of God in the souls of men and for increasing the same. Of whose number was that Pantaenus, whom we have said to have gone on to the Jews (read Indians, as it is in the Greek): where (as is reported) he found the Gospel of Matthew (which before his coming had been received there) in the hands of certain men who in those places professed Christ: to whom it is established that Bartholomew, one of the apostles, preached, and left them the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew letters, and that this same was preserved to the time indicated. These words assuredly designate to us not Arabia Felix, as Assemani will have it; not Nubia, a part of Ethiopia, where Pagi will have Pantaenus to have preached, at the year 327, num. 22; but eastern India; as Baronius rightly says in the place cited above. For I do not see how the inhabitants of Arabia or of Nubia can rightly be called the nations which inhabited the East, since Nubia is to the south of Alexandria and Egypt; Arabia indeed to the East, but bordering: and we do not fittingly say that nations neighboring upon us inhabit the East, when there remain others far more remote from us toward the East. And yet Pantaenus is said to have been ordained a herald of the Gospel to the nations which inhabited the East: therefore to the Indians most remote toward the East, not to the Arabs, not to the Nubians. Next, why is his divine zeal for imitating the Apostles so greatly commended, that he betook himself even to the region of the Indians, unless some far-distant region is designated, such as eastern India; not Arabia, not Nubia, both near to Egypt, nay bordering upon it, as our adversaries confess?

[69] arguments from Eusebius, Although these things seem abundantly to declare Eusebius' mind, yet, because I have adversaries most learned, I choose to demonstrate it further from his other writings. Book 4 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 50, he writes these things to our purpose: At nearly the same time there were present legates from the eastern Indians, who brought gifts to the emperor: among which were nearly all kinds of the most brilliant and most precious gems, living creatures also wholly differing in nature from ours: all which they brought to the emperor, to signify that his empire extended even to the farthest shore of the Ocean, and that the princes of the Indians, by gifts of pictures and statues, declared that they acknowledged and professed him emperor and king of all with supreme power. So it happened

that when he first came to the empire, in the beginning

the Britons, at almost the farthest shores of the setting sun, girt by the Ocean, obeyed him, but now at last the Indians, situated in the farthest parts of the East. That here Indians properly so called are signified, our adversaries will confess, I think; and it is most clearly plain from the gifts brought, and from the added word eastern. Which is also declared above in this manner: To the nations which inhabited the East, to which is at once added: That he should betake himself even to the region of the Indians. For without doubt the eastern Indians and the Indians who inhabit the East are the same. But let this suffice concerning Eusebius, whose mind seems to me by no means doubtful.

[70] from Jerome, No less clearly does St. Jerome designate India properly so called, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 36, writing thus in Pantaenus: Pantaenus, a philosopher of the Stoic sect, according to a certain

old custom in Alexandria, where from Mark the evangelist there have always been ecclesiastical doctors, was of such prudence and erudition, both in the divine Scriptures and in secular literature, that, being asked also by the legates of that nation, he was sent into India by Demetrius bishop of Alexandria; where he found that Bartholomew, of the twelve apostles, had preached the coming of the Lord Jesus, according

to the Gospel of Matthew, which, written in Hebrew letters, he brought back with him on returning to Alexandria. Now I ask of my learned adversaries, who laboriously sweat to show that by some men, either ignorant or negligent of geography, Arabia was confounded with India in name, and Ethiopia confounded too; I ask, I say, whether they think that Jerome, most skilled in all literature, made no distinction between those regions, or whether they think that Eusebius made no distinction? For so long as they do not show that in Eusebius and Jerome by the name of India is understood Arabia Felix or Ethiopia, they accomplish nothing at all. For since the common name of these provinces among geographers is not India, they must show that by Eusebius and Jerome they were called India, in order to establish that by the Indian journey of Pantaenus described by Eusebius and Jerome, an Arabian or Ethiopian journey is to be understood. But I shall show clearly that by Jerome the said regions were distinguished from India. For in Epistle 50 to Paulinus 2, which is found in tom. 4, part 2, from col. 568 of the Paris edition, he thus describes the journey of Apollonius the magician: Apollonius … entered Persia, passed through the Caucasus, the Albanians, Scythians, Massagetae, penetrated the most opulent kingdoms of India: and at last, having crossed the very broad river Physon, he came to the Brahmans … thence through the Elamites, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Assyrians, Parthians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Palestinian Arabs, returning to Alexandria, he went on to Ethiopia, that he might see the Gymnosophists and the most famous table of the sun in the sand. Does not Jerome most expressly separate the Arabs and Ethiopia from the most opulent

kingdoms of India — Jerome, about whose mind this controversy is instituted? These things assuredly seem to me sufficient, that St. Jerome's mind may be established for us. Which nevertheless I make manifest also by another argument.

[71] Jerome acknowledges the Brahmans in India properly so called, who writes that Pantaenus was sent into India to the Brahmans, when he says: Having crossed the very broad river Physon, he came to the Brahmans. And in book 4 on Ezekiel, chapter 13, likewise, as above, he assigns the Brahmans to India, the Gymnosophists to Ethiopia:

The Brahmans of the Indians, and the Gymnosophists of the Ethiopians. Nor indeed will our adversaries seek the Brahmans elsewhere, as I suppose. But Pantaenus, according to Jerome's mind, taught the Brahmans. Hear him in the Epistle to Magnus, which in the said edition is the 83rd, col. 656 of the tome cited. Pantaenus,

he says, a philosopher of the Stoic sect, for the glory of his outstanding erudition, was sent into India by Demetrius bishop of Alexandria; that he might preach Christ among the Brahmans and the philosophers of that nation. Does he not here signify that Pantaenus was sent thither whither he had above said Apollonius had journeyed? Namely to the Brahmans, philosophers of eastern India. No doubt therefore seems to remain but that

St. Jerome meant that Pantaenus taught in eastern India, and there found the Gospel of Matthew left by St. Bartholomew. Even if I should concede to my adversaries Rufinus and Socrates, whom they object, they would assuredly have nothing which could be compared with the authority of Jerome and Eusebius. But that not even these favor my adversaries, I now undertake to show.

[72] Rufinus, book 10, chapter 9, writes these things: In that division of the globe of lands, with whom Rufinus and Socrates which was made by lot among the apostles for preaching the word of God: when different provinces had fallen to different men, Parthia is said to have been decreed by lot to Thomas, and Ethiopia to Matthew, and the hither India adjoining it to Bartholomew. Between which and Parthia, in the middle, but far more inland by a long tract, lies farther India, inhabited by many and various

tongues and nations. Which, as being far remote, no ploughshare of apostolic preaching had cut. Which nevertheless in the time of Constantine received the first seeds of faith from some such cause as this. A certain philosopher Metrodorus, for the sake of inspecting places and of exploring the world, is said to have penetrated farther India. Invited by whose example, a certain Meropius also, a Tyrian philosopher, wished from a like cause to go to India. Socrates, book 1, chapter 15, has nearly the same: When the apostles had undertaken their journey to the nations by lot, Thomas obtained Parthia …: Matthew Ethiopia: Bartholomew received by lot India, which borders upon this. But interior India, which very many barbarous nations inhabit, with tongues differing among themselves, was not before the times of Constantine illuminated by the word of Christ and his religion. But what cause impelled them to embrace the faith of Christ, I now come to tell. A certain philosopher Meropius, by race a Tyrian, was inflamed with the desire of surveying the region of the Indians: provoked to that matter, I believe, by the example of Metrodorus the philosopher, who had before traversed the same region. Assemani, in the place cited, will have Arabia Felix and Ethiopia understood by hither India and farther or interior India. Pagi, num. 8, an Ethiopia nearer to Egypt and a more remote one. But I contend that Gangetic India, or India properly so called, distinguished into hither and farther, is here too to be understood; which I now show.

[73] agree. In the first place the name of India seems to designate no other than that most celebrated one, divided into many provinces and kingdoms on this side and beyond the Ganges. For this alone is known by the proper name of India among the geographers. Nor is the sense of these authors other, who accurately distinguish India from Ethiopia, when they write that this fell by lot to Matthew, that to Bartholomew. But in that they call it neighboring and adjacent to Ethiopia, they show themselves less skilled in geography, yet they designate no other than that part of India which, situated on this side of the Ganges, first presents itself to those sailing from Ethiopia into India. Secondly, Rufinus and Socrates acknowledge that farther India to be the one which Metrodorus visited, and by his example Meropius. But that Metrodorus visited no other India than the one properly so called is established, and Pagi confesses it, adding these things from Cedrenus at num. 16: A certain Metrodorus, a Persian, under pretext of philosophizing, betook himself into India to the Brahmans. Do you see that he betook himself to the Brahmans? And yet the Brahmans were found beyond the Ganges by Apollonius, as is plain from Jerome cited above: Having crossed the very broad

river Physon (the Ganges) Apollonius came to the Brahmans. Therefore by farther, or even by interior India, they describe to us no other than India beyond the Ganges, extended over a vast space of lands. Nor did Charles of St. Paul think otherwise, in his Sacred Geography, p. 260, where he asserts that the mere reading of Socrates is needed, that this truth may be understood.

[74] Answer is made to Pagi's argument drawn from geography, Nevertheless Holstenius sets himself against it in his notes on this passage of Charles, whom Pagi followed: these men preferred to feign for themselves various errors in Socrates rather than to retain the simple sense of his words by a convenient interpretation, such as we have already given. Receive Holstenius' words, reasoning thus: Socrates received this whole narration from Rufinus, but neither names the Ganges, so that this passage could be taken of Indians situated within or beyond the Ganges. This assuredly is frivolous, nor worthy of longer refutation. For neither does Rufinus name the Nile, nor Socrates; why therefore does Holstenius wish Ethiopia, which is intersected by the Nile, to be designated rather? He subjoins another argument from geography in this manner: For since they call it interior India by reason of the hither one, interior here would necessarily have to be taken for exterior, or for India beyond the Ganges: because India beyond (read within the Ganges, so that the sense may be intelligible and true) the Ganges is hither to us: and this is absurd, and against every reckoning of true geography. And so, since they here call hither India that which adjoins Ethiopia, in which Bartholomew preached the Gospel — which Ethiopia no one has doubted to be beneath Egypt (because it touches the red sea at Adulis, and the mouth of the Arabian gulf) — by interior India no other can be understood except interior Ethiopia, whose metropolis was Auxumis, whither before no herald of Christ had penetrated. These things Holstenius says very obscurely, but the truth explained will easily dissipate the darkness spread abroad.

[75] I say therefore: hither India, to Rufinus and Socrates, is India on this side of the Ganges, from which many inconveniences follow, that is, those Indian provinces nearer to Egypt and Ethiopia, which the geographers call India within the Ganges. Farther, or interior, India is India situated beyond the Ganges: which we commonly call India outside the Ganges. The whole scruple of Holstenius therefore consists in this, that the word interior India does not seem rightly to be understood of India outside the Ganges. But, since those authors sufficiently indicate that by Interior India they understand the same as by farther, I do not see how they sin against right geography. For just as Holstenius himself calls interior Ethiopia that part of Ethiopia which within Ethiopia is more remote from us, so Rufinus calls the part of India more remote from us now interior India, now farther India. But Pagi with Holstenius is deceived, in that he will have Bartholomew to have preached not in true India, but in Ethiopia, and that against the proper sense of Rufinus' words, against the most open opinion of Jerome and Eusebius. But attend how many things plainly discordant follow from this. First, the authors cry out that Ethiopia fell to Matthew, to Bartholomew India. They place Matthew in Ethiopia more remote from Egypt, Bartholomew in the part of Ethiopia more neighboring to Egypt. Secondly, they are compelled to do violence to words, when they will have Ethiopia bordering upon Egypt to be called India also, whereas all Pagi's proofs establish only that the most remote part of Ethiopia, or rather the regions situated above the Cataracts, are called India by certain writers. Hear his own words at num. 11: Wherefore it is manifest that Lucian calls that region which is above the Cataracts Ἴνδια. You see here that not the nearer Ethiopia, but the region above the Cataracts, that is, the Ethiopia more remote from Egypt, is called India. The same only follows from Virgil's verse, which he alleges, writing thus of the Nile: Even the river flowing down from the colored Indians. Where you see, he says, the peoples which the Nile washes called Indians. Nay rather I see those peoples called Indians among whom the Nile rises; I do not see all whom the Nile washes called Indians, lest Pagi should at last wish the Egyptians themselves too to be called Indians, for the Nile washes these also.

[76] Thirdly Pagi errs, when he will have

Rufinus to have erred in writing of Metrodorus' journey, at num. 16. who wrongly reprehends Rufinus, Besides, he says, he (Rufinus) is deceived in this, that he writes that Metrodorus penetrated the India which he calls farther, or modern Ethiopia. For Metrodorus traversed not Ethiopia, or the India hither in respect of us, but true India, or farther India (as it had to be called by a man who wrote in the Roman empire). Receive the sense of the words: Rufinus, he says, is deceived, in that he writes that Metrodorus penetrated the India which he calls farther … For Metrodorus … traversed true India, or farther India … Rufinus writes that farther India was traversed: Pagi says that farther India was traversed: how then is Rufinus deceived? A man writing in the Roman empire had to call it India: he called it India. But Pagi too ought to have understood India, not Ethiopia; especially since both Socrates cited above, and Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History book 1, chapter 23, and Sozomen, book 2, chapter 23, write the same history, and everywhere name India, not Ethiopia. Does he think all these Historians, writing in the Roman empire, were so drowsy that, when they wished to designate Ethiopia to us, they should name India? I could add more things from this whole disputation of Pagi's, from which it would be plain how many errors he preferred to acknowledge in Rufinus rather than to follow the proper sense of his words. Let him read it who will, from num. 7: and he will understand that Pagi fights in this place no less with Rufinus, from whom he assails Baronius, than with Baronius himself. But let us hear nevertheless the prudent admonition of the learned man, which if he had himself followed, he would not dissent from Baronius in this matter.

[77] and at last he himself deserted his own argument. I will not depart hence, he says, without having admonished that Rufinus, little skilled in it, is to be understood not by the aid of true geography, but by his own words, compared with the ancients. The manner of understanding Rufinus pleases me, but I had not thought it would be proposed by one who had drawn his arguments from Rufinus' geography: for whatever he laboriously built up from Holstenius against our opinion, he here destroys with one stroke of the pen. For, this rule being laid down, I thus convict Pagi. Rufinus assigns India to Bartholomew's preaching: but India, if taken properly, according to the ancient historians and geographers alike, signifies the provinces situated on this side and beyond the Ganges: nay, even according to Pagi himself at num. 16, where he calls these provinces true India. Therefore Rufinus must be understood of true or Gangetic India. What led Pagi into these precipices, that, abandoning the proper signification of the words, he should feign for himself the India illuminated by St. Bartholomew's preaching in a tiny part of Ethiopia, I do not perceive: for neither is he sufficiently consistent with himself here, since at the year of Christ 42, num. 2, he so extends the preaching of the Apostles through the whole globe of lands that he does not except even America: but here he will not have even the Auxumite Ethiopians, not so remote from Egypt, to have heard the word of God from the apostles. These things have been discussed a little more fully, lest the authority of such great men should stand in the way of truth. For the rest, concerning Frumentius, on whose occasion they slipped into this, I do not here dispute: there will be given a place for disputing about him when his Acts come to be examined. Now a few things must be answered to Assemani, who encloses Bartholomew's Indian preaching within Homeritis, or Arabia Felix. I confess that his opinion seems to me less improbable than Pagi's just refuted; yet not a few inconveniences follow from it also.

[78] Assemani is refuted. For first, since Ethiopia was decreed to Matthew, India to Bartholomew, he encloses both in one Arabia. Hear his words: But Ethiopia, whose Apostolate Matthew obtained by lot, and the India of Bartholomew bordering upon it, that is, Sabaea, as it is called, is not Abyssinia, as some suppose: … but Arabia Petraea itself, on that side where it rather adjoins the Happy or Sabaean Arabia. These things, I confess, I cannot digest. What? Had the Apostles, to whom it had been said by the Lord: Going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature, Mark 16, marked out for themselves provinces so narrow for preaching that to two men one Arabia was assigned? By no means does that seem to me likely. Next, violence is here too done to Rufinus' words, who names India and Ethiopia; not Arabia Felix and Petraea; which under these names are read as designated by very few, and those not geographers; whereas on the contrary eastern India and African Ethiopia are among historians and geographers of every kind most known and most celebrated under their own names. Therefore I do not deny that St. Bartholomew preached in Arabia, but I think it sufficiently demonstrated above from Eusebius and Jerome that he announced the word of God also in eastern India, and so far from being weakened by Rufinus and Socrates, that it has rather in many ways been confirmed and established. I follow therefore the opinion of Nicetas the Paphlagonian in the encomiastic Oration to be given here hereafter, where he writes these things of our holy Apostle: The most blessed Man went forth to the Arabs, whom they call Happy; and not to them only, but he was sent after this also to the Indians and the eastern Ethiopians, as the word of God, as the light of knowledge, as the doctrine and instruction of eternal life. First therefore he taught the Arabs, and from Arabia either by a land journey through Persia, or, which I rather believe, by a short crossing of the Arabian Ocean, he set out into India. § VIII. The Apostle's preaching in other provinces. Bartholomew is said to have preached at Hierapolis with Philip From India I return to Asia Minor: for that St. Bartholomew the apostle preached there also is established from various authors. Henschen, tom. 1 of May from p. 7, gave the Acts of St. Philip the apostle, from which we have many things pertaining to St. Bartholomew's Asiatic preaching. These therefore I shall transfer hither, and, as I shall be able, confirm from elsewhere. At num. 7, from the Menology written in the X century by the authority of the emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, he produces a eulogy of Philip, which you will also find in the Ughellian Anecdota after tom.

10 of Italia sacra, col. 293, from which I take these things: Philip … under the emperor Trajan set out for Hierapolis, with his seven daughters and Mariamne his sister, and Bartholomew the apostle; where, disseminating the word of Jesus Christ everywhere, he drew away from the vanity of idols a multitude of gentiles, who in that same place, together with Nicanora the wife of the proconsul, a man foremost among his own, were honoring a serpent with divine worship and honor. Wherefore, when by the proconsul's order Bartholomew and Philip were hanging from the wall with their feet aloft, at Philip's prayer all the gentiles, with the proconsul, with the viper, with its priests, were swallowed up by a sudden gaping of the earth. But all by a singular benefit of God, except the proconsul, the author of the slaying of the Saints, and the viper, emerged into the open air: and Bartholomew being loosed, Philip was consumed by that torment.

[80] In the same place, num. 8, from a very ancient Greek Synaxarium of the church of Constantinople, at the XIV of November, there is given an epitome of the Life of St. Philip, and to have been fastened to a cross with him, from which I cull the following for our purpose: Philip came to Hierapolis (which then was called Ophioryme, as it were the serpent's onset) with Mariamne his sister, and Bartholomew the apostle. And he taught the gospel of Christ, persuading the unbelievers to depart from the error of idols: for they held a viper in the place of God. But many

received the faith of Christ, among whom was Nicanora the wife of the proconsul, who pursued them with great ignominy, wishing greatly to avenge himself. Wherefore, having taken him and pierced the heels of his feet, he ordered him to be hung head downward from a beam, together with the apostle Bartholomew, on whom the same punishment was inflicted. When Philip, thus hung, poured forth prayers, suddenly the earth opened and swallowed up all the unbelievers who were in Hierapolis, together with the proconsul and the viper and its priests. But by Christ's mercy all, except the proconsul and the viper, were set free, and presently they loosed Bartholomew. But Philip restrained their effort, and thus ended his life on the beam. When Bartholomew and Mariamne had given his body to burial, they departed into Lycaonia. In the Greek Menaea, at the same day XIV of November, some things are related in a different manner, which I shall here add faithfully translated. It is there said that with Philip and his sister Mariamne he went through the cities of Mysia and Lydia preaching the gospel, and endured many afflictions from the unbelievers, being beaten with scourges and rods, shut up in prisons, assailed with stones, with the same companions. There is then added a third, John the apostle, preaching in Asia. Nothing of the cultus of the serpent, nothing of the death of the proconsul is there related. But the death of Philip and Bartholomew's deliverance is commemorated in this manner: But Philip, dragged through the street, then with his ankles pierced, was raised upon a beam: and thus praying he gave up his spirit to God. Straightway the earth, shaken with a movement and giving forth a sound, was cleft: and swallowed up many of the unbelievers. But the rest, seized with terror, become suppliants to Bartholomew and Mariamne, still hanging: and when these were loosed they embrace the true faith. There follows the burial of St. Philip: Stachys, whose house is mentioned as burnt by the proconsul and the people, is said to have been made bishop of Byzantium; whether this be true will be discussed on the XXXI of October, on which day he is venerated. Lastly Bartholomew is said to have set out with Mariamne into Lycaonia. The same things, as to substance, are narrated in the Acts of Philip which Henschen gave from Metaphrastes, from p. 12, where at the end these things are added: But Bartholomew and Mariamne, having stayed there (at Hierapolis) a modest time, when they had again more splendidly paid to that venerable body (of Philip) the due rites of hymns and obsequies,

and had further confirmed those present in the faith, returned to their own, preaching everywhere the gospel of Christ.

[81] and, an earthquake having occurred, Nicetas the Paphlagonian, in the encomiastic Oration on Philip, in Combefis' latest Auctarium of the Fathers, from p. 383, narrates nearly the same things about the cultus of the viper among the Laodiceans, about Philip's death, about Bartholomew's hanging and taking down, to whom he likewise joins Philip's sister, but names her Mary; in certain things however he differs from the narration of the preceding writers: for he relates that the viper was slain by Philip's prayers before the punishment, and narrates that the apostles were condemned to hanging not by the proconsul, but by the chief men of the city, and mentions the earthquake in this more likely manner: By an earthquake the place is suddenly shaken, and that whole company, being shaken, was sinking in a deep chasm — that company to which almost the whole city, about to drag the men of Jesus through the theater, had gathered: and one gaping of the earth was swallowing the whole people together with the ground (that is, seemed about to swallow it.) Now therefore, with a grave peril of their safety and life beating upon them, they cried out upon Philip with his companions: and again and again they promised that by that means they would depart from error, and would believe in the true God. But Philip and his companions appeased God with fervent supplications; to them praying the Lord straightway appeared, and presently propped up the earth, that it might not sink and settle into the chasm; and finally by divine power, let down like a ladder to the perishing, paved a way to safety. This was the occasion of faith to the unbelievers. Nicetas then subjoins the death of Philip, and Bartholomew's deliverance, and the rest, as they were narrated above. We have nearly the same things related in the Oration on Bartholomew of Joseph, to be published below, and in Nicephorus Callistus, book 2, chapter 39, which here for brevity's sake I pass over.

[82] You expect, I suppose, reader, that I should declare what in these narrations seems true, Philip being dead, he is said to have been set free. what fictitious. I shall candidly speak what I think: he who shall not wish to follow my judgment, for all I care, let him follow his own. All these narrations (I except Nicetas) seem to have much of Greek amplification and fictitious ornament mixed in. For when they bring the proconsul on the scene, and his wife converted to the faith, when they write that the proconsul alone with the viper was consumed by the gaping of the earth, the Greeks seem to me to keep to their ancient way, that is, to adorn true history with fictitious fables. The reason is, both because these things were prudently passed over by Nicetas, and because the proconsuls of Asia did not reside at Hierapolis, nor were they for the most part present at the punishments of the accused. But Nicetas' narration does not depart from likelihood. If that cultus of the viper displeases anyone, let him read in the Epitome of Livy, decade 2, book 1, what Florus writes about the snake in which they thought the divinity of Aesculapius resided, brought over from Epidaurus to Rome, and a temple erected to it there: nor did the Epidaurians and Romans alone venerate serpents, but many other nations also. And concerning the people of Hierapolis this can probably be gathered from what Christopher Cellarius writes in his Notices of the Ancient World, tom. 2, p. 93, of Hierapolis in Phrygia: But to what God this city was chiefly devoted is uncertain: the coins present various figures, of Apollo, of Ephesian Diana, of Aesculapius, etc. They seem therefore to have wished to venerate Aesculapius in the serpent, as the Romans and Epidaurians did. That St. Bartholomew was therefore freed from the hanging, as Nicetas writes, I think likely, though I do not dare to assert it as absolutely true. But that he preached in Asia Minor with Philip as his companion, so many witnesses asserting it, although they are not of the same credit, I think altogether to be believed; and I do not doubt that he suffered many and grievous things from the unbelievers.

[83] After Philip's death Bartholomew, matters at Hierapolis being settled, He preaches in Lycaonia, is recorded to have set out into Lycaonia. This is confirmed from the Oration on the 12 Apostles, published among the spurious Works of Chrysostom, tom. 8, p. 11, where these things are found: Bartholomew instructed the Lycaonians in temperance. This preaching of Bartholomew in Lycaonia is acknowledged by Baronius at the year of Christ 44, num. 34, and Natalis Alexander at the first century of Christ, chapter 8, num. 7; but each adds a geographical error, when he calls the Lycaonians peoples of greater Armenia: for Lycaonia is a province of Asia Minor, contained between Pamphylia, (says the oft-praised Cellarius, tom. 2, book 3, chapter 4, p. 120) Cappadocia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, into which we have seen him set out from Phrygia, in which Hierapolis is situated. For the rest, that he did not pass through Lycaonia hastily, but for a long enough time delivered to the Lycaonians the lessons of faith and morals, that author himself signifies by his very manner of speaking, who says they were instructed in temperance. But, leaving Asia Minor, let us now accompany the Apostle into Armenia.

[84] Armenia Clement Galanus of Sorrento, missionary of the Holy Apostolic See to the Armenians, wrote in the last century a Reconciliation of the Armenian Church with the Roman, in which, tom. 1, p. 4, he speaks thus: Among the illustrious regions of all Asia, Armenia has rightly been esteemed the most renowned on many accounts. Which he also proves at length there. The above-praised Cellarius describes its boundaries to us, tom. 2, book 3, chapter 11, p. 228, in this manner: We set these as the boundaries of greater Armenia, according to Strabo book XI, p. 363: on the South is Taurus, by which it is divided from Mesopotamia: on the East, Media both the great and Atropatia: on the North that severed part of Caucasus which encompasses Albania and southern Iberia both; or Iberia itself, and Albania: on the West, lesser Armenia, or the Paryadres mountains, and certain Pontic peoples, and the Euphrates. So also Ptolemy, book V, chapter XIII, except that on the West he also names the Moschic mountains: on the East, the part of the Caspian sea from the mouths of the Cyrus, especially that which is about the mouths of the Araxes. For that part which Ptolemy set as intercepted between the beds of both rivers, before they discharge into the sea,

and thence runs out somewhat southward along the coast, it is doubted to which it should be referred, since Strabo, as we have seen, seems to have joined it to Albania under the name of Caspiana, and Ptolemy to Armenia; which also the Atropateni, whom it borders, might claim for themselves.

[85] greater, Such a region therefore (says Galanus, p. 5), namely greater Armenia, after the glorious Ascension of Christ the Lord into heaven, fell to Bartholomew for the preaching of the gospel of Christ, as Baronius also affirms, at the year of Christ 44, num. 34. St. Theodore the Studite, whose sermon on Bartholomew we give below, also attributes Armenia to the Apostle: But to him he says, who is now praised with celebrated fame, the lot and portion was the place of Armenia, which is from Evilath as far as Gabaoth, and is distributed among many nations and cities. What lands the holy Father meant to be designated by this phrase, From Evilath as far as Gabaoth, is most obscure. He seems to extend Armenia and St. Bartholomew's preaching as far as India, as the Eastern limit. For by the land of Evilath, or Hevilath, which in Genesis 2, ℣. 11, Phison, one of the rivers of paradise, is said to encircle, almost all the ancients understand India situated within the Ganges, just as by Phison they understood the Ganges: whether rightly, I do not here dispute. You may see either Calmet or a Lapide on chapter 2 of Genesis. By Gabaoth he doubtless signifies the Western limit. But which? This I neither find anywhere explained, nor do I wish to divine without foundation. Further, that Armenia was illuminated by the light of the gospel by Bartholomew is confirmed by the Roman Martyrology and Breviary, and very many other authors.

[86] and other provinces of greater Asia. The Armenian writers cited in Assemani, tom. 3, part 2, not only hold St. Bartholomew's Armenian preaching for ascertained, but add also many provinces of Asia. I shall report one out of many. On p. 5, Amrus praised before speaks thus: Nathanael, who is also Bartholomew, together with Thomas and Lebbaeus of the XII, and with Addaeus, Maris, and Aghaeus of the seventy, taught Nisibis (a city of Mesopotamia), Mesopotamia, Mosul (Assyria, on Assemani's witness above), Babylonia, Chaldea, Arabia, the East, Nabathaea, Huzitis (these two are provinces of Arabia) and Persia: then, having set out into greater Armenia, he imbued its inhabitants with the Christian religion, and there built a church; finally he migrated to the Indians and the farther Chinese, and his skin was flayed from him. Assemani himself subjoins: What is said of the Indians and Chinese, I suspect

must be referred to Thomas, and attributed to Bartholomew

the apostle through the carelessness of a copyist, or Amrus' drowsiness. I agree with the learned man in this, that I do not think that after long labors in Armenia he came farther into India, and was there crowned with martyrdom. Yet he could, with the intention of seeking India again, have gone to the more Eastern parts of Asia, and, detained on the way by the fruit of his preaching — for instance in Albania, where we shall say it is more probable that he was taken away by a glorious death — have halted. For the rest, that the Apostle in all these provinces as it were in passing sowed for a while the seeds of faith is not disapproved by me; that he stayed long in them I do not judge: for the chief provinces illuminated by St. Bartholomew with the light of faith seem to be India, Asia Minor, and greater Armenia; and perhaps there can be added Albania bordering upon Armenia, as will be plain when we must treat of the Apostle's death. Nicetas in the Oration often cited writes that the eastern Ethiopians also were imbued with the faith by Bartholomew, although this is passed over in Combefis' Latin version.

But I should think that not African Ethiopians are to be understood, but the eastern Indians themselves. For the author of the sermon on the twelve Apostles cited above affirms the same of Thomas: Thomas whitens the Ethiopians with baptism. Those peoples of India could be called Ethiopians, either from the black color common with the Ethiopians, or because, having set out from Ethiopia, they placed their seats there. Hear the most learned Petavius in his notes on St. Epiphanius, tom. 2, p. 371: Manifold, he says, among the ancients was Ethiopia. One in Asia at the Indus, or, as others will have it, the river Ganges. Another in Africa, etc. Of this Ethiopia therefore, of these Ethiopians, Nicetas is to be understood, who perhaps by Ethiopians wished to signify nothing but men of black color. But it is time that we inquire where, and by what kind of death, the glorious Apostle attained the reward of his labors. § IX. Where, on what occasion, and how St. Bartholomew obtained the palm of martyrdom. The order of his preaching up to his death probably assigned. The Apostle died at Albanopolis, perhaps in Albania. Whence and by what kind of death Bartholomew the apostle passed over to the heavens can be said only by probable conjecture. As to the place, many martyrologists assign India, as Usuard, Ado, Florus enlarging Bede, interior India; Florentinius at the XXIV of August also has India, although at the XIII of June he assigns Persia. Yet very many authors write that Greater Armenia was ennobled by the Apostle's death, to whom the Roman Martyrology and Breviary are added: their words we shall give below on another occasion. Not to be too long in recounting authors one by one, I shall set down Tillemont's words, whose conjecture pleases me: All the more recent Greeks and Latins say with unanimous voice that he underwent martyrdom in the city called Albana, or Albanopolis, sometimes by corruption Urbanopolis, which they place in great Armenia or Indian Armenia, as they call it. I should think it is perhaps the city Albana in Albania on the shore of the Caspian sea, which is neighboring to Armenia. This conjecture, I say, pleases me: both because I find no city in Armenia of such a name, and because the authors so disagree in assigning the province in which this city was situated. For thus some reason for this disagreement can be given: for they could say Armenia, because it is neighboring to it; Persia, because the very broad empire of the Persians, embracing nearly all Asia, was most known and not far distant from this city; India, because they generally called by this name the more remote provinces unknown to them, and it was established that the Apostle had preached in India. Finally the Armenian doctors themselves seem to favor this opinion. Amrus certainly, cited above, writes that, a Church having been built in Armenia, he set out into India; nor do others, cited in the same place in Assemani, place his death in Armenia itself. But the diligent investigator of Armenian history, Galanus praised above, says: Besides, it is clearly established that both apostles (Bartholomew and Thaddeus) underwent martyrdom about those regions (of Armenia), which agrees excellently with this opinion, as is plain of itself. These are the reasons why with Tillemont I suspect that St. Bartholomew was crowned with martyrdom at Albanopolis in Albania. If anyone however should assign better things, I had rather here learn than teach. But that Nicephorus Callistus, book 2, chapter 10, writes that he suffered at Urbanopolis in Cilicia, is singular; nor is his authority so great that it ought to detain us.

[88] The occasion of the martyrdom is said to be The occasion of the death inflicted on the Apostle, and its author, the Roman Breviary records in this manner in the lessons of the XXIV of August: He (the Apostle) came into greater Armenia: there he brought to the Christian faith king Polymius and his wife, and besides twelve cities. Which thing stirred up against him a great envy of the priests of that nation. For they so inflamed against the Apostle Astyages, the brother of king Polymius, that he cruelly ordered the skin to be flayed from Bartholomew alive, and his head to be cut off, in which martyrdom he rendered his soul to God. The martyrology of Galesinius nearly agrees, at the ninth Kalends of September: Then, having set out into lesser Armenia, he joined to the Christian religion king Polemo, and his wife, and besides twelve cities. Moved by envy of this thing, the priests of the idols

so incited the brother of king Polemo against the Apostle, that he ordered the skin to be cruelly flayed from Bartholomew alive, then his head to be cut off. Here lesser Armenia seems by an error to have crept in for greater, and the name of the converted petty king is somewhat changed, as is plain: the rest plainly agrees. The Roman Martyrology, which is in use today, only says: When he had converted very many there to the faith: it is silent about Polymius, his wife, and the twelve cities converted to the faith. And indeed, wherewith to confirm these things I have nothing, save the fabulous Acts of Pseudo-Abdias, and others of the same bran drawn from them; where these things are related more fully, and many fictitious things are added, of which in their place.

[89] Galanus cited above, p. 6, inquires under what king of Armenia these things happened. the conversion of king Polymius, For when he had said that Bartholomew underwent martyrdom, after … he converted to the faith a certain Polymius, a petty king of Armenia; as commonly all more recent writers, that is, who followed Abdias; so after a few words he subjoins: But how, under Sanatrugh,

who is named king of the Armenians (at the time Bartholomew was slain), these things could have happened, seems able to be called into doubt; since we read that Bartholomew was rather punished with death by the order of Astyages, brother of king Polymius. Let us hear whether Galanus sufficiently removes this doubt. Having enumerated two kings of Armenia from Christ's time, he thus continues, p. 9: The third was Sanatrugh, son of the sister of Abgar (whom he had said reigned in Christ's time), by whose rule the holy apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus were slain in those regions, the Armenians relate: from whom however our historians by no means differ, although they assert that Bartholomew, at the order of Astyages, brother of king Polymius, was delivered to death by the idolatrous priests: for Polymius and Astyages could have been petty kings of certain Armenian provinces under the rule of Sanatrugh, king of all Armenia. And indeed, that Astyages, brother of king Polymius, was also a king, the Roman Martyrology affirms: and further, that they were petty kings of single provinces only, we gather from Abdias the Babylonian, and other weighty authors. Thus Galanus.

[90] But this answer so far from removing the doubt objected — and its author Astyages the king, Polymius' brother, although apt enough, if it were established that Bartholomew was put to death by Astyages — that the name of the tyrant by whose rule the Apostle was slain is more uncertain than before: for Galanus thrusts upon us as a weighty author Abdias, who is a most inept fable-monger, and others who perhaps imprudently drew this from Abdias' impure fountain: for I should think that no others are to be assigned than Abdias, or the author who wrote the Passions of the Apostles, and his followers, who have handed down to memory the name of Astyages. But those who have nothing in common with Abdias, and are authors certainly of better note than Abdias, do not express that tyrant's name. St. Theodore the Studite is silent about Astyages;

Nicetas the Paphlagonian is silent; silent is the Joseph published by Metaphrastes; silent is Freculph, published in the Library of the Fathers, cent. 9, part. 1, p. 505: finally very many others are silent, whom, as also the Menologies and Menaea of the Greeks, I pass over. The Armenians too know nothing of Astyages, and assert that Sanatrugh was then king of Armenia. Besides, I observe that nearly all these authors agree as to the place, excepting those who do not name the place. Why therefore do they express the place with wonderful consent, but are silent about the author of the slaying? Doubtless because the place had become known, the author lay hidden. What of this, that some of them name others altogether than a king? Nicetas writes that he was accused before the chief men of the city, and slain by their order. Joseph names the governor of the place as author of the slaying. Others by a general name call them barbarians, or impious men.

[91] In so great a silence of the ancients about Astyages, of the more ancient martyrologists I find only Florus and Rabanus who name Astyages, so that they seem to have transcribed these things either from Abdias himself, or from Abdias' followers. which seems taken from Pseudo-Abdias, and is therefore uncertain. Abdias certainly was liberally copied by Vincent of Beauvais in the Speculum, book 9, chapter 83 and following, so that we cannot wonder that the author of the slaying, even were he fictitious, was derived thence to other authors. But from these, or from others who followed Abdias, this seems to have crept into the Roman Martyrology and Breviary, since the more ancient authors of better note, as shown above, do not have it. Hence to this whole occasion of the slaying just narrated — to the whole history, I say, about Polymius and his wife and the twelve cities, and about the death inflicted by Astyages — each will attribute as much credit as he shall have thought must be attributed to the Roman Breviary and the said martyrologies; whose authority though it is not to be despised, I judge nevertheless that it is not so great in these circumstances that we are bound to give firm assent to the said history. But it is time that we inquire by what death at last the glorious Champion confirmed the confession and preaching of his faith, for which it is certain enough that he fell.

[92] Some write that he was crucified, His death likewise, like the rest of the Apostle's affairs, is variously related by various authors. Most of the Greeks write that he was fastened to a cross; the Latins for the most part have it that he was flayed; some add that he was also beheaded. Nicetas the Paphlagonian: These things, I say, when the impious had heard, astounded by the novelty of the speech, and indignant against the crucified one, they straightway beat his herald with rods and fasten him to a cross. As to the cross Joseph agrees, in these words: He too was condemned to the punishment of the cross. Nevertheless he adds below a different manner, passed over by Nicetas: He asked those executioners that he might be fixed upon the cross with his head turned to the earth: and not be fastened to the cross upright, as his master was: thus even in his torments he preserved his reverence toward his master. Nay, even fixed upon the cross, he did not cease to speak with the brethren, until he delivered that most holy soul to God. In appearance at least (for there are those who wish to reconcile all things) St. Theodore the Studite dissents from these, himself also a Greek, writing these things at num. 4: After he was flayed alive, he is struck with the axe. Freculph, in the place cited above: At the last, at Albanum, a city of greater Armenia, he is flayed alive by the barbarians, and thus is laid in the earth. Most of the Latins, as also Amrus the Armenian cited above, agree with these; but the Greeks generally, with Nicetas and Joseph, write that he was fastened to a cross. Which are the more right? It is truly difficult and ambiguous to determine that.

[93] but others that he was flayed, Of these opinions, however, that of the Latins and of the Studite, who say that he was flayed, appears to me more likely than that of the Greeks, who say crucified, both because it rests on greater authority, and because reason seems rather to persuade it. For Theodore the Studite, with the Latins and Armenians, who could be better instructed about these things than the Greeks, outweigh the Greeks in authority: add that there is a common tradition in the Latin Church about the skin flayed from Bartholomew, which certainly it did not have from Abdias, since he keeps deep silence about this. I said that reason also favors the Latins; for the punishment of the cross could more easily be feigned by those ignorant of the manner of his death, as being common enough in that time, or confounded with the first raising upon a cross, which the same men write happened at Hierapolis. Not so easily could the flaying be feigned, a less common punishment, though not unusual among the Eastern peoples.

[94] But that both punishments were applied in St. Bartholomew's case, certain moderns have endeavored to show, others feign that both were done: in order to reconcile the authors just mentioned with one another. Nor do I deny that a way of reconciling them would not be altogether lacking, if those writers who disagree among themselves were of such authority that it were unlawful to depart from their words: for either the skin could be flayed off upon the cross, or, the skin being flayed off, the corpse could be raised upon a cross for ignominy, which Lipsius, book 3 On the Cross, chapter 12, writes was customary among the Orientals. But since none of the disagreeing authors hints that both punishments were applied, I cannot suspect that this was really done, much less affirm it. For the authority of the said writers is not so great that, to reconcile them, it is necessary to invent things so unusual, especially as they themselves suggest no foundation for that opinion. Therefore I judge it more probable that the Saint was stripped of his skin: that he was raised upon a cross I do not reject as certainly false, but hold it as less likely; that both should be joined together I do not suppose.

[97] But what some authors add, that after the skin was flayed off, what of these is more likely, is explained. the Saint's head was cut off, in no way conflicts with the flaying, and therefore can more easily be admitted, since it has as its author St. Theodore the Studite. But deservedly is despised what the bishop of Equilio adds to embellish this, book 7, chapter 103: And when, stripped of his skin, he had remained still alive: and, flayed, preached the Lord:

and had converted many who merely beheld the miracle:

by the king's order he was beheaded on the following day, namely the VIII Kalends of the aforesaid month (September). On account of this some celebrate his feast on the preceding day, keeping the memory of the martyrdom

of the flaying; some on the following day, keeping the memory of the beheading. A subtle reason forsooth he renders for this diversity, but one unknown, I suppose, to those very men who wished these different days to be sacred to St. Bartholomew. Now I shall describe by probable conjecture the whole course of his preaching up to his death, lest to anyone so many regions traversed by the Apostle, as we have said above, should seem incredible.

[96] First in Judea with the other Apostles holy Bartholomew preached; The order of the preaching: in Judea, in various provinces of Arabia, until the Apostles, divided from one another, set out each into his own provinces. Which division being made in the year, as we think, the twelfth from Christ's Ascension, I judge that St. Bartholomew set out into India, yet so that in passing he imbued various regions with the faith of Christ; for the Apostles did not so depart into far-distant regions as altogether to neglect those through which they made their way. Therefore on the journey undertaken to the Indies

I should think that those provinces of Arabia named above were illuminated with the faith — Huzitis, Nabathaea,

Arabia Felix or Homeritis. For Huzitis, or the land of Hus, though its situation be uncertain, seems to present itself first to those going from Judea toward the East, according to Calmet in his Biblical Dictionary, where he sets forth his opinion thus, at the word Hus: We judge that the certain situation of that region must be placed in Idumaea, to the East of the Jordan and of Galaaditis, not far from Bozra, and from the region called by the old name Ausitis. Hence he would have gone on into Nabathaea, concerning whose inhabitants Cellarius, Fuller Geography, tom. 2, book 3, chapter 14, says: A noble name in Arabia also is that of the Nabataeans: which Jerome, Quaest. on Genesis XXV, derives from Nabajoth, the firstborn

of Ishmael. "From Nabajoth," he says, "the whole region, from the Euphrates as far as the red sea, is called Nabatene to this day." Thus he comprehends Desert Arabia with a great part of Petraea. From this one comes to Homeritis, or Arabia Felix, also called Sabaea; in which it has been said the Apostle preached. I know that the journey described by me is not the shortest into India, nor does it lead straight from the West into the East, but bends a little to the South. But since these provinces are written to have been illuminated by the Apostle's preaching, I do not see where I may more conveniently place this than in the journey undertaken to the Indians; for from Arabia Felix he could penetrate by an easy crossing by sea into hither India. Through these provinces of Arabia therefore, illuminated at least in passing, perhaps also with a longer stay, he could come into India within the Ganges, where now is the vast empire of the great Mogul, where Bisnagar and other kingdoms are.

[97] India, But for how long the holy Apostle cultivated that most ample field of India is uncertain. But that several years must be attributed to his Indian labors, and that a Church was rightly constituted there, seems to be gathered from this, that so long afterwards Pantaenus found the memory of the Apostolic preaching flourishing, and the Gospel of Matthew, left there among the faithful, not translated into the language of the Indians, as Freculph wrongly writes above, but written out in Hebrew letters, as Eusebius attests, and Jerome. For not on departing does he seem to have been about to leave the Gospel there, unless the Church had been rightly constituted, and hope had shone forth of a further conversion of the Indians. But that the seed of faith cast into the field of the Indians did not grow up into a richer harvest after the Apostle's departure, besides the judgments of God, which it is not fitting to scrutinize, could have happened from the obstinacy of the nation, or from the tyranny of its princes. Now we shall lead the Apostle into Asia Minor, where some place his first preaching. But Rufinus stands against them, and others who write that India was decreed to Bartholomew: and the time itself is repugnant to their opinion, for Bartholomew is said to have preached in Asia Minor with Philip, returned from Scythia, up to his death; and after Philip's death to have set out from Phrygia into Lycaonia: more conveniently therefore does the Indian preaching seem to be placed first, lest we be compelled to say that Bartholomew from the division of the Apostles up to Philip's death always remained in Asia Minor, which is less likely.

[98] Asia Minor, India therefore being left, through some more obscure intermediate provinces Bartholomew seems to have returned into Persia; thence he may have traversed Babylonia and Assyria, neighboring provinces; and to have advanced into Mesopotamia, which regions the Armenians likewise attribute to Bartholomew: whence he could come into the Holy Land, or into Asia Minor, today Natolia. This journey is described by conjecture: for he could afterwards have traversed these provinces also. That in Asia Minor he was joined to Philip, and with him ran through Mysia and Lydia, and suffered many things in Phrygia; and that, Philip having died on the cross at Hierapolis, he set out into Lycaonia, has been narrated from Greek authors. He seems then to have taught the Lycaonians a long time, and to have gathered an excellent fruit of his labors in that province. These things in Asia Minor, a province mentioned by several authors. Now we shall visit Bartholomew's last wrestling-ground, greater Armenia, I say. This is therefore set by me as the last, because in it, taken at least a little more broadly, not only, to speak with the Apostle, did he fight the good fight, but he also finished his course, having obtained the crown of justice laid up for him by the just Judge.

[99] Having set out from Asia Minor into greater Armenia, the Apostle greater Armenia. again found a most ample field for his labors. It is likely that he preached there many years; for, as Amrus the Armenian doctor writes, cited at num. 86, he imbued its inhabitants with the Christian religion, and there built a Church, which does not seem to have been accomplished in a short time. From the parts situated toward the West I should think he advanced little by little toward the East, until he came to Albania bordering upon Armenia, where we have said above that he probably died a glorious death. In what year this happened is uncertain. Labbe however, in the Chronological Compendium, at the year of Christ 71, writes thus: Some

place in this year the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew the Apostle. If the Apostle reached that year, nay, even if he died ten years earlier, he assuredly had time enough to traverse the provinces described by us, and to illuminate each with the Christian faith. Now I would have you admonished, reader, that this order of preaching has not been assigned by me that you should believe it necessarily so done, but that you may perceive that it is not incredible that all these provinces were visited by the Apostle and imbued with the faith. For if those three provinces — India, I mean, Asia Minor, and greater Armenia, which by several witnesses are said to have been cultivated by Bartholomew, too many for us prudently to be able to deny it — we confess must be attributed to him: the very reckoning of the journey demands that we should not deny him those also which the Armenian

authors add. As to the order of the journey, I have wished to show rather what could conveniently have been done than what was done; except that I judge India was imbued with the faith by the Apostle before Asia Minor, and Armenia after the rest. § X. Whether the Apostle wrote anything?

A Pseudo-gospel according to Bartholomew: some think he wrote certain things, The more ancient heretics feigned some Gospel according to Bartholomew, of which St. Jerome makes mention in the prologue of the Commentaries upon Matthew, and which he there also refutes from the four living creatures of Ezekiel 1, signifying the four Evangelists. Pope Gelasius long ago rejected it among the apocrypha, in Labbe, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. [ ]. There have also been Catholics who thought that certain things were written by St. Bartholomew, because in the Mystical Theology commonly ascribed to St. Dionysius, a certain sentence of that same Apostle is cited in this manner: Ὅυτω γοῦν ὁ θεῖος Βαρθολομαῖός φησι, καὶ πολλὴν τὴν θεολογίαν εἶναι καὶ ἐλαχίστην· καὶ τὸ Ἐυαγγέλιον πλατὺ καὶ μέγα, καὶ ἆυθις συντετμημένον. Which our Corderius renders into Latin thus, Works of St. Dionysius tom. 2, p. 3: In this way at all events the divine Bartholomew says that theology is both copious and least, and that the Gospel is ample and great, and again concise. From which the praised Corderius thus gathers, §3, p. 10: Whence it is gathered that St. Bartholomew wrote also some Theological things, as it is likely also that the other Apostles, being questioned by letter as occasion arose about divine matters and questions, answered concerning the same by at least a short writing, and handed down the most sublime oracles which they had drawn from God himself, which for some time, as letters are wont, were preserved; and were communicated to Catholics, but afterwards perished by the injuries of the times. The same St. Maximus had gathered before in his scholia on St. Dionysius, in the cited Corderius, p. 15, writing thus on the said passage: Σημείωσαι καὶ ἐντεῦθεν τὸ ἄπλαστον τοῦ εἶναι ταῦτα τὰ θεῖα συντάγματα τοῦ μεγάλου Διονυσίου. Πρὸς οἷς γὰρ ἐν τοῖς προτέροις λόγοις τινῶν τῶν συνόντων τοῖς Ἀποστόλοις μνήμην χρήσεων ἐποιήσατο, νῦν παραπλησίως τοῦ θείου Βαρτολομαίου χρῆσιν ἄγει, ὡς δηλοῖ τὸ φησίν. Εἰ γὰρ ἀγράφως ἦν διδάξας, εἰρήκει ἄν Ἔφη. These words of St. Maximus Corderius genuinely interprets in this manner: Hence also note that these divine Works are without fiction those of the great Dionysius.

For besides that in the earlier books he has cited the sayings of certain men who had lived with the Apostles, now similarly he adduces the sentence of the divine Bartholomew;

as the word HE SAYS declares. For if he had handed it down without writing, he would surely have said HE WAS SAYING.

[101] among whom is St. Maximus, whose passage Combefis holds to be corrupt, Combefis, in the latest Auctarium part 1, p. 496, thinks an error has crept into this passage of Maximus; to be emended, as he says, from the very sequence, and from Pachymeres. I shall not grudge to weigh the learned man's reasons. Thus he undertakes to prove his opinion: Maximus proves that it is a genuine work of the Areopagite, from the simplicity with which in the preceding he cited authorities, χρήσεις, of certain men who lived with the Apostles; and νῦν παραπλησίως etc., as above. Here assuredly Combefis strays very far from Maximus' mind, not having grasped the force of the Greek words. For τὸ ἄπλαστον, which he interprets simplicity, is not referred to the manner of citing authorities, as Combefis refers it, but to these being the Works of St. Dionysius. Hear the words: Σημείωσαι, he says, καὶ ἐντεῦθεν τὸ ἄπλαστον τοῦ εἶναι ταῦτα τὰ θεῖα συντάγματα, etc. Which you may thus barbarously render: Note from this too the unfeigned (or the non-fiction) of these divine Works being, etc. And which Corderius elegantly expressed: Hence also note that these divine Works are without fiction those of the great Dionysius. Let us hear whether Combefis' other points are better. Having produced the Greek words, he subjoins these things: Where Corderius: "Now similarly he adduces the sentence of the divine Bartholomew, as the word He says declares. For if he had handed it down without writing, he would surely have said, He said" (Corderius has He was saying). As though forsooth Maximus means that Bartholomew wrote something, and that he seems to gather this from Dionysius himself.

Nor otherwise Lancelot; and that Maximus, a most wise man, so thought, or wished thence to gather it, is most ridiculous. But it assuredly does not seem ridiculous to me to understand even a most wise man

as his words sound. Combefis however thinks another reading must be substituted, because Pachymeres, whom he adduces, understands these things of a certain unwritten tradition of Bartholomew, and whom he calls the most faithful paraphrast not more of Dionysius than of Maximus himself. I do not see why he would have Pachymeres the interpreter of Maximus, for to Maximus, whom he does not even name in this place, Pachymeres is wholly contrary: whence he is of no profit here for understanding Maximus' mind. Receive now what reading he substitutes. Thus therefore, he says, also Maximus:

"Χρῆσιν ἄγραφον ἄγει, ὡς δηλοῖ τὸ, φησίν· εἰ γὰρ ἐγγράφως ἦν διδάξας, εἰρήκει ἄν Ἔφη. He adduces an unwritten sentence, as the word, He says, declares: for if he had handed it down in writing, he would surely have said, He said." That is indeed more subtle, he says, than true. But it is not even subtly substituted. The reason for his substitution he pursues yet more ridiculously thus: Yet it has something of moment for conjecture; as that what is by living voice is signified as of the present, and a flying rumor; but what is written, of the past, as though ratified, because it is inserted in books and paper, or tablets. I am deceived if these things will please the learned; but they did not please even Combefis himself. Therefore after a few words: Lest we should thus lightly judge that Maximus was trifling (who brings in Maximus as lightly trifling except Combefis?) for ἔφη … let him have written γράφει, in which he subtly hunts Dionysius' mind. Namely, if he had cited a written sentence of Bartholomew, he would have been about to say γράφει, HE WRITES, as he is wont in such cases. Behold, reader, how many corruptions are necessary in order that at last he may bring in Maximus disputing ridiculously. For that neither Dionysius nor Maximus himself kept this in their citations, that when they cited a written sentence they should always say γράφει, he writes, is manifest to those who read their writings. For everywhere they say φησίν, he says, even of a written sentence, and more rarely γράφει, he writes. Would not therefore Maximus ridiculously gather, from the word φησίν, he says, which is even more frequently used when a written sentence is adduced, that Bartholomew's sentence is adduced as uttered by mouth, not written?

[102] Now, lest anyone think Maximus' inference equally ridiculous but he is proved sound: if his words are kept entire, and if, as the words sound, he wished to gather that Bartholomew's written sentence was cited by Dionysius, because it was cited by

τὸ he says, not he was saying or he said, I shall expound that inference a little more at length, which certainly has nothing incongruous, nothing ridiculous, as Combefis thought. Hear Maximus' words: Now, he says, similarly he adduces the sentence of the divine Bartholomew: as the word, He says, declares. For if without writing he had handed it down, he would surely have said, He was saying. Which I thus expound. He who cites someone's written sentence, although he might use also the past tense, rightly uses the present he says, since the written letter remains; and the author in the present time still speaks in his writings. But he who brings forward a sentence uttered by mouth ought commonly to use the past perfect or imperfect; for the author in the present time does not say that sentence; but was saying it, or said it, while he lived. This indeed is not observed when we bring in a person as it were present by prosopopoeia, nor when we describe the sayings or deeds of that same person. It is observed however for the most part, when for confirming our own statements we adduce someone's celebrated sentence uttered by mouth. Hear how in Acts 20, ℣. 35, a saying of Christ, not previously written, is cited: Because he himself SAID, "It is a more blessed thing to give rather than to receive." Hear Jerome too on chapter 6 to the Galatians, where he adduces a celebrated saying of John, not written: The blessed John the Evangelist … was wont to utter nothing else at each assembly but this: "Little children, love one another." Less rightly and less properly in the former sentence would He says have been said; in the second,

He utters or he is wont to utter, as is plain from the sense. He who desires more examples, let him read the apophthegms of the ancient philosophers or of the Fathers, collected by various men. Thus therefore Maximus too contends that Dionysius would not have said He says, if he had cited a sentence uttered by word of mouth, because at that

time when Dionysius was writing Bartholomew was not saying it: but that he would have said He was saying, which would have been more proper and genuine. You have, reader, Maximus' inference, which certainly ought not to seem ridiculous, since it argues from the custom of citing commonly received: but whether it plainly settles the matter must now be examined.

[103] whether St. Bartholomew wrote is uncertain. If it were altogether established that that Work on Mystical Theology is by the great Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus'

argument would probably enough establish that the words of Bartholomew adduced were drawn from some writing of his own: but since concerning the author of that Work there is the greatest controversy among the learned, and many contend that the Work is by an author far later, and endeavor to prove this from this very authority of St. Bartholomew adduced, this whole reasoning of Maximus rests on an uncertain foundation: so that we cannot even certainly infer that this sentence is to be attributed to St. Bartholomew as some apophthegm, not written down by him, but often wont to be repeated. I shall therefore say briefly what I think of the whole matter. Those who make St. Dionysius the Areopagite the author of the Mystical Theology must necessarily admit that this is Bartholomew's sentence, either drawn from his writings, or as an apophthegm familiar to the Saint. Of which sort of apophthegms many are found, both of the ancient philosophers and of the ancient Fathers, commended to the memory of posterity by the writings of various men. But on the said supposition it seems to me more probable that that sentence was produced from some writing of the Apostle than handed down by him by word of mouth. For Dionysius' manner of citing indicates this rather, as Maximus rightly gathers; nor does it seem incredible that Bartholomew, like the other Apostles, was consulted about divine matters, and opened his mind either by a short writing or by a letter; which writings could have perished by the injuries of time and the persecutions of tyrants: as a certain epistle of Paul to the Corinthians seems to have perished, of which he himself makes mention in the first to the Corinthians, chapter 5, ℣. 9. Although I think it not altogether improbable that Dionysius should be understood of a sentence of Bartholomew handed down by word of mouth, as Pachymeres understands it in his paraphrase of Dionysius, in the cited edition of Corderius, tom. 2, p. 22, since that manner of citing celebrated sayings is not so universal that it could not be neglected by Dionysius. These things on the supposition that the Mystical Theology is St. Dionysius'; but since I do not wish here to mix myself in the celebrated question about the Writings of St. Dionysius, I judge that nothing certain must be determined about the whole matter. There are those who think that the sentence about which the dispute is was taken from the Pseudo-gospel according to Bartholomew, which is likely, if some other than the great Areopagite is the author of the Mystical Theology. For the rest, in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Councils, col. 489, from book 8 of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapters 19 and 20, there is a certain Constitution about a deaconess under the name of Bartholomew. But since these Constitutions were forged under Clement's name, I forbear to treat of them at greater length. Now what and of what sort are the Acts which are circulated about St. Bartholomew must necessarily be discussed. § XI. The various writers of the Acts. The Acts Baronius in the Roman Martyrology at the day XXV of August records these things about St. Bartholomew's Acts: But certain of his deeds are reported under the name of Abdias; certain are found under an uncertain author in

the book which is entitled Passions of the apostles: others like these are extant in ancient manuscript codices: others, which Metaphrastes recites as written by Joseph: Perionius too published others; in all of which (according to the apostle's sentence) let the reader so prove all things, that he may hold that which is good. Baronius rightly admonishes that not all things which are read written about St. Bartholomew are to be held for true, but that each must be examined: but it will not be equally easy for all who read those writings to separate the true from the false: therefore according to our purpose we shall examine a little more at length how much credit each of the authors who wrote St. Bartholomew's deeds deserves, so that the fables, which here occur many, may be eliminated. Abdias, commonly called the Babylonian, is earlier in time than the rest, as it seems, although his age cannot be determined. But that he was earlier than the rest I gather from this, that otherwise he would not have passed over the Liparitan translation, most known in the age of the others. Whence Oudin wrongly will have it that he lived in the X century, tom. 2 On Eccl. Writers, col. 420, by whose argument nothing is proved that Abdias took anything from Usuard. Of him Sixtus of Siena, book 2 of the Holy Library, p. 43, writes thus: The Lives of the twelve Apostles: these, as James archbishop of Genoa in his book of Yearly Solemnities, and Peter bishop of Equilio in book 9 of the Catalogue of Saints report, Abdias, first bishop of Babylon,

ordained by the Apostles themselves, wrote in Hebrew; which Eutropius, Abdias' disciple, translated from Hebrew into Greek, and Julius Africanus into Latin: but as I suppose, Julius wrote not in Latin, but in Greek. Lately there came forth from Germany, under the title of this Abdias, ten books on the History of the apostolic contest, printed by Oporinus, which Pope Paul the fourth, as unworthy of credit, rejected among the writings condemned by him. Thus Sixtus, when the impostures of Pseudo-Abdias were not yet wholly detected.

[105] Bellarmine, On Ecclesiastical Writers, in Abdias, p. 69 of the edition of the year 1613, says of the Lives of the apostles of that same Pseudo-Abdias: Abdias' fabulous ones The Lives of the apostles which are circulated under his name are more like fables than a true narration. Nor do modern critics pronounce better of Pseudo-Abdias. Hear one out of all, Remi Ceillier, tom. 1 of the General History of Sacred Authors, book 3, chapter 2, art. 3, p. 489: The Acts of the Apostles attributed to Abdias have been rejected by common consent, as supposititious and full of fables. The impostor who composed these Acts puts himself forward as a bishop consecrated by the Apostles themselves, when they were going into Persia. He says his Work was translated into the Latin tongue by Julius Africanus, and cites Hegesippus, a writer of the second century, whom, if he had been of the first century, or of the time of the Apostles, he could not have seen. Those Acts are distributed into two books. Many manners of speaking are found there which manifestly prove that the Work was written from the beginning in Latin, not in Hebrew, as the author desires to persuade us. Rightly therefore did Tillemont say, tom. 1 of the Monuments, p. 596, note 3 on James the Greater, that what is found only in this author is of no greater weight than if it were found nowhere.

I add, that by this very fact, that certain things are found in Pseudo-Abdias, the same become suspect to me if I find them in more recent authors, since they seem to have flowed from this impure fountain.

[106] For this cause I had determined to abstain wholly from Abdias' fictions; many more recent writers having followed them, they must therefore be published: but the matter being more maturely weighed I changed my counsel. For I saw that of the more recent biographers there is hardly one who has not mixed many things from Abdias' fables into his own writings, and that therefore these fables have now prevailed too much to be able to be buried by silence alone: wherefore I thought that all these fabulous Acts must be set before the eyes of readers, that each may see that nothing of the sort is found in the more or less sincere Acts of Bartholomew, to be subjoined after them. Hence by the same labor it will be made manifest what credit Peter bishop of Equilio deserves, and James of Genoa, Perionius, and other authors, in those things which they liberally copied from Abdias. Thus far it has been said of all Pseudo-Abdias' writings. Let us now hear also what especially certain learned men have noted about St. Bartholomew's Acts. Molanus, in the Martyrology of Usuard, at the ninth Kalends of September, among other things notes these: But concerning his passion, which begins, Three Indias: (this is the beginning of Bartholomew's Acts by Abdias) Radulphus de Rivo wrote excellently nearly two hundred years ago: The Passions of the saints Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, and Jude are read perilously in the divine office; On the observance of the Canons, proposition 11.

[107] Hesselius' censure of these. After Molanus' Martyrology cited, there is read printed the Censure of Histories of John Hesselius, where in chapter 8 these things about Bartholomew's Acts are found. The Passion of saint Bartholomew, which begins: Three Indias there are said to be among the historiographers, I do not receive, although I know it is greatly esteemed (at that time, namely). Not only because the demon says of him that the Angels do not permit him to be wearied or to hunger: and because it says that he is clothed in purple and gems; which things are incredible, because Christ converted the world not through one who bore himself as a noble in his garments, but through those who despised outward adornment. Nor is the disciple greater than the Lord, who was wearied and hungered. Nor do I reject the history only on account of the words of the devil, which might be called lies; but because the Apostle himself says in his own person that

from the beginning of the world none offered a vow of virginity before Mary. (Whether this reason be solid enough I do not here dispute: Hesselius endeavors to prove it by many arguments, but no fewer could be replied. He who desires this may see it in Papebroch's Responses, part 2, article 15.) Likewise St. Bartholomew says that as a hawk takes a bird, so the devil snatched Christ, and set him among the wild beasts in the desert, whereas Luke, Matthew, and Mark expressly say that Christ was led by his own spirit into the desert. And this History says that the Lord said to the devil in the first temptation: I will cast thee out of the dominion which by the casting down of the first man thou hast usurped. Certainly if he had said this, the devil would have known him to be the Son of God: nor would he have tempted a second time, saying: If thou art the Son of God. Then it says that the devil associated with himself another apostate angel, who is called Mammoma: as though forsooth the devil were not himself Mammon, or as though he alone could not tempt enough. Then it sets down a single temptation of the devil, in which it says that he bore Christ to a high mountain and upon the pinnacle of the temple, whereas Matthew and Luke expressly distinguish the temptation made on the pinnacle of the temple from that which was made on the high mountain. Thus Hesselius. More I shall observe in the notes, where I shall also assign whence Abdias seems to have borrowed many things.

[108] Encomiastic Orations on St. Bartholomew Besides the fables of Abdias we have concerning St. Bartholomew three encomiastic Orations of Greek authors; namely of St. Theodore the Studite, of a certain unknown Joseph, and of Nicetas the Paphlagonian, of which Tillemont treats, tom. 1 of the Monuments, p. 643, in the third note on Bartholomew. On p. 644 he thus lowers their credit: Besides that the time in which Joseph, St. Theodore, and Nicetas lived does not attribute great authority to them, we see that they destroy one another in the principal fact, that is, in the Saint's death. Thus Tillemont, too unfair toward the said authors, whom he seems to hold in nearly the same place as Abdias. But indeed, even if what they wrote about St. Bartholomew's death can scarcely be reconciled, it does not follow that all erred, but one of them. What he objects besides pertains to the translation of the body, to be examined in the Saint's posthumous glory. The same author, p. 643, thinks that Joseph is more ancient than St. Theodore; but I shall presently show that the contrary is more probable. More ancient therefore among them, as greater in authority, seems to be St. Theodore the Studite, of whom Bellarmine speaks thus, On Ecclesiastical Writers, at the year 820.

[109] Saint Theodore the Studite, a man to be admired, and mighty in work and word … St. Theodore the Studite's, Renowned for miracles, he passed to heaven in the year of the Lord DCCCXXVI. Further, that Theodore was most holy and most learned is confessed among all; so that there can be no suspicion that he wished to write fables: and that he proceeded prudently is proved from this, that he preferred to narrate few things, and those approved to himself, rather than to write many and uncertain things. To me therefore, whatever some critics may have thought, it is a scruple not to give credit to such a man in those things which he handed down to memory about the deeds of St. Bartholomew; as I shall show also afterwards about the translations of the body.

[110] St. Theodore's Sermon was published long ago by d'Achery, tom. 2 of the reprinted Spicilegium, p. 124 translated by St. Bertharius, and following, as Anastasius the Librarian translated it. We have the same from various manuscript codices: first from codex 696 of the queen of Sweden, then from an ancient manuscript Passionary of the Neapolitan monastery of St. Mary of Monte Oliveto; a third manuscript copy was sent from Capua to Bolland by Fr. Silvester Acosta of Capua, rector of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian de Quadropanis. Further, the latter two of these agree together most aptly even as to their words; but from the Anastasian translation they often dissent as to phrasing, so that it cannot be doubted that they are of another translator. And that translator in the third is said to have been St. Bertharius, abbot of Cassino, concerning whom Leo of Ostia in the Cassinese Chronicle, book 1, chapter 33: This man, exceedingly lettered, composed several tracts and sermons, and also verses in praise of the Saints. Whose Anticimenon on very many questions both of the old and of the new Testament is here kept: also some books on the art of grammar, etc. He was made abbot, as is said in the notes there, in the year 856 or 857, at which time also Anastasius the Librarian flourished.

[111] From this translation therefore of Bertharius I shall publish the Studite's Oration, the manuscripts being collated among themselves. who added a second Translation of the body; There is prefixed to the Oration a preface, which is also found in d'Achery, but mutilated, which seems to be of the same author. There is also subjoined to the Studite's Oration the narration of the translation to Benevento, which is read subjoined in d'Achery, whence I think it doubtful whether the narration of that translation is to be attributed to Anastasius or to Bertharius; nay rather I judge it must be adjudged to Bertharius rather than to Anastasius, both because Anastasius in his epistle to Aio, bishop of Benevento, makes no mention of a narration added by himself, and because it seems to have been delivered on the feast of the translation itself, from these words, partly omitted in d'Achery: By what occasion thereafter, and in what order it was translated from that same island to Benevento, WHENCE TODAY'S

*FESTIVITY IS CELEBRATED, MUST BE SET FORTH*

FORTHWITH. But Anastasius translated the Studite's Oration that he might send it to the bishop of Benevento, not that he might recite it before an assembly. But Bertharius could declaim it to his own,

or at least deliver it to be read out at the feast of the translation. Then finally because this narration in two manuscripts is read joined to the Oration translated by Bertharius: but whether d'Achery found it joined with Anastasius' translation is uncertain to me. These things, if the said History of the translation is to be ascribed to one only: but since the d'Achery edition and our Mss. disagree in various places, especially in assigning the days on which the Saint is venerated, it can be that each author subjoined this History to his own translation.

[112] Joseph's, perhaps the Hymnographer's, There follows the sermon of the anonymous Joseph, which Surius published in Latin from Metaphrastes, tom. 3, at the day XXIV of August; and which I find noted by Allatius, On the writings of the Simeons, p. 103, under this title: Joseph's εγκώμιον εἰς τὸν ἅγιον Βαρθολομαῖον τὸν Ἀπόστολον. Who that Joseph is is not established; yet by probable conjecture I should think he was

St. Joseph the Hymnographer, who flourished not in the same century as St. Theodore, but later than he; and likewise, as he did, fought excellently against the Iconoclast heretics. His Acts Papebroch published, tom. 1 of April from p. 265, from which, with the aforesaid Papebroch, I take this conjecture. It is narrated there in the Life written by John the deacon that Joseph was presented by someone with relics of St. Bartholomew, built him a chapel, was taught many things by him, and among the rest received the faculty of composing sacred hymns. All which prove that Bartholomew was a singular patron to Joseph. Whence not ineptly the praised Papebroch in the notes there, letter B, writes thus: Concerning saint Bartholomew there is extant … an Oration of Joseph τοῦ ταπεινοῦ καὶ ἐλαχίστου, the humble and least: whom you may deservedly judge to be the Hymnographer. And on the XXV of August, at the day of the translation, there is found a canon composed to this acrostic: Ὕμνοις γεραίρω τὸν καλόν μου προστάτην. Where, because the poet calls Bartholomew Προστάτην, his president, patron, protector, and that in an acrostic, you may recognize Joseph as the author, although the name is nowhere expressed. Since therefore that Oration seems to have been written about the same time, and the author everywhere shows a singular love toward St. Bartholomew, I think it probable that it must be attributed to this Joseph, who from composing hymns was called the Hymnographer; although another Joseph also flourished in the same century, the brother of St. Theodore the Studite, and archbishop of Thessalonica, whose Acts Pinius gave, tom. III of July from p. 710, of whom also a certain epistle is extant in Baronius at the year 808, num. 18, and an Oration on the cross in Gretser, tom. 2, p. 1200. For the rest, whoever was the author of this Oration, he seems to have known few things about St. Bartholomew, and therefore to have written few: and what he hands down about the Saint's death seems less probable. What Baronius reprehends in him at the year 54, num. 3, about the cultus of the serpent among the people of Hierapolis, has been examined in §8, and will be further discussed in the notes.

[113] and Nicetas the Paphlagonian's. I shall subjoin finally in the fourth place the encomiastic Oration of Nicetas the Paphlagonian, which

Combefis published in Greek and Latin in the latest Auctarium of the Fathers, part 1 from p. 392, and illustrated with notes. This agrees well enough with the preceding, except that it narrates more and more distinctly the Saint's deeds. If anything less probable appear, I shall observe it in the notes. But I would have the reader admonished that hardly anything occurs in these three Orations which we have not treated in our commentary; yet I have wished to exhibit them here, that all things pertaining to saint Bartholomew, in any way worthy of credit, which I could find, might be had joined together. I had further determined to exhibit the Oration as the aforesaid Combefis rendered it into Latin, but while I compare the Greek more accurately with the Latin, I sometimes find the translator straying, and everywhere so obscure that I judged the Oration would by no means please Latin ears unless a new translation were prepared. I therefore set my hand to the work, and made the whole Latin from the Greek, as the curious reader will find it below.

FABULOUS ACTS

By Pseudo-Abdias the Babylonian.

From a Ms. of St. Martin at Trier, collated with other Mss., and with printed exemplars.

Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.)

BHL Number: 1002

A. Pseudo-Abdias.

CHAPTER I.

At Bartholomew's coming into India Astaroth is made mute, Berith is consulted, demons are cast out, the mysteries of the faith are expounded to king Polymius. Bartholomew's presence in India There are asserted by the historiographers to be three ^a Indias. The first is India, which reaches to Ethiopia: the second, which reaches to the Medes: the third, which makes the end: for on one side it has the region of darkness, [b] on the other side the ocean sea. Into this [c] India therefore, coming, Bartholomew the apostle entered a temple in which there was an idol by name Astaroth, [d] and as a stranger began to remain there. In this idol was such a demon as would say that he cured the sick and the blind, but without doubt that he gave light to those whom he himself injured. For they were without the true God, whence it was necessary that they should be mocked by a false god: for a false god mocks by this art those who have not the true God: he makes for them pains, infirmities, losses, dangers, and gives responses, that they may sacrifice to him; and when they are not injured by him, this seems to fools as though they were healed by him: but he succors not by healing, as they believe, but by ceasing to injure; and when he ceases to injure, he is believed to have cured.

[2] Whence it came to pass that, while Saint Bartholomew the apostle remained there, Astaroth gave no responses, the idol Astaroth is struck dumb, and could succor none of those whom he had injured.

And when the temple was now full of the sick, and to those daily sacrificing he gave no response according to custom; the sick, brought from far regions, lay there, and the priests who were there sacrificed to that same idol. But when in that temple, as has been said, the demon could give no response, and they profited neither by sacrificing nor by mangling themselves after their manner, they went on to another city, where another demon was venerated, whose name was Berith; [e] and sacrificing there they began to inquire why their god Astaroth gave them no responses.

[3] [and the demon in another idol, Berith, being asked the cause, says it is Bartholomew's coming,] But Berith answering says: Your god is held so captive and bound, tightly fettered with fiery chains, that he dares neither to sigh nor to speak, from that hour in which the apostle Bartholomew entered there. They say: And who is

this Bartholomew? The demon answered: He is the friend

of God almighty; therefore he came hither into this province, that he may make void all the deities which the Indians venerate.

[4] whom he makes known to them by signs, But the worshipers said to the idol Berith:

Tell us the signs of Bartholomew, that we may be able to find him him, for among many thousands of men we cannot recognize him. The demon answered: He has black hair of the head, and curly: white flesh; large eyes; even and straight nostrils; ears covered by the hair of his head; a long beard, having a few grey hairs; a moderate stature, which can be judged neither tall nor short. He is clothed in a white colobium [f] striped [g] with purple; he is clad in a white cloak, having at each corner purple gems. [h] It is twenty-six years since he put on those very garments which he now wears: they are never soiled, they never grow old; likewise his sandals for XXVI years never grow old.

[5] and he relates his privileges. Angels of God walk with him, who do not permit him to be wearied, nor to hunger, nor to thirst, but he ever perseveres with the same countenance and mind. At every hour he remains cheerful and glad, he provides for all things, he knows all things, he speaks and understands every tongue of all nations. And behold, this that you have asked, and the response which I give, he already knows. For the angels of God serve him and announce it to him; and when you shall have begun to seek him, if he wills, he will show himself to you; if he does not will, you will not be able to find him.

[6] Bartholomew being sought, and a demon cast out, he is found, But I beg you that, when you shall have found him, you ask him on my behalf that he come not hither, and that those angels who are with him do not do to me what they did to my colleague Astaroth: and saying these things the demon fell silent. But returning they began to go about and to inquire into the faces and habit of all strangers, and for two days they did not find him. But it happened that a certain man full of a demon cried out and said: Apostle of God Bartholomew, thy prayers burn me. Then the Apostle said to him: [m] Be dumb and go out of him; and straightway the man was freed, who for many years had been harassed by him.

[7] he is summoned by King Polymius, whose daughter also he frees from a demon: But Polymius, ⁿ king of that same city (al. province), having a lunatic daughter, it was announced to him about this demoniac: and he sent and begged him, saying: My daughter is grievously vexed; I ask that, as thou hast freed Speustius, who for many years suffered, so thou wouldst free my daughter also. And rising he went on to him: but when the Apostle saw her bound with chains, because she attacked all with her bite, and those whom she could hold she tore and struck, so that none dared to approach her; then the Apostle bade her be loosed. The attendants say to him: And who dares to lay a hand on her? The Apostle says to him: I already hold bound the enemy who was in her: and do you still fear her? Go and loose her, and lift her up, and refresh her: and tomorrow bring her to me. And going out they did as the Apostle bade, and the demon could vex her no more.

[8] Then the king loaded [o] camels with gold, silver, gems, to Polymius, his gifts being refused, he preaches Christ born and garments, and began to seek the Apostle, and utterly did not find him: and all things were carried back to his palace. But it happened, when the night had passed and the dawn of the coming day began, that the Apostle appeared alone with the king alone, the door being shut, [p] in his chamber: and said to him: Why

hast thou sought me all day with gold and silver, gems and garments? Those gifts are necessary to those

who seek earthly things: but I desire nothing earthly,

nothing carnal. Whence I would have thee know that the Son of God deigned to be born through the womb of a Virgin together with man, so that the man conceived in the Virgin's womb had with him in those very secret places of the Virgin God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things which are in them. He, born together with man from the womb of the Virgin, began to have a beginning that he might be man, who never had a beginning; but he himself was always the beginning, and gave a beginning to all things, whether visible or invisible creatures.

[9] But this Virgin, since she abhorred every

man, of a Virgin, was herself the first to vow to almighty God the vow

of keeping her virginity: and I said the first for this reason, because from the time man was made at the beginning of the world, none before her offered this vow to God. She therefore first among women established this in her heart, that she should say to God: Lord, I offer thee my virginity: whereas she had learned this from no man by word, nor, invited by example to imitation, did she resolve to remain a virgin especially for the love of God. To her suddenly, shut in her chamber, Gabriel the angel of God appeared, shining like the sun: and when she, struck with terror, was afraid, the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary; thou hast found grace before God: behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a Son, and shalt call his name Jesus. But she, laying aside fear, constantly said: How shall this be? For I know not man: that is, I have resolved this, that I shall not know him. To whom the angel answered: For this the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, and therefore that which shall be born of thee shall be called the holy Son of God.

[10] He therefore, when he had been born, allowed himself to be tempted by that devil tempted by the devil, who had conquered the first man, by persuading him to eat of the tree forbidden by the Lord. He therefore permitted him to come to him, and, as he had said to Adam, that is, to the first man, through the woman: Eat, and he ate; and therefore the first man, cast out of paradise and exiled in this world, begot the whole race of men; so also he would say to him: Tell these stones that they be made loaves, and eat, that thou hunger not. To whom he answered: Not in bread alone doth man live; but in every word of God. This devil therefore, who by the man eating had conquered, lost his victory by the one fasting and despising him. For it was fitting that he

who had conquered the son of a virgin should be conquered by the Son of a Virgin.

[11] The king says to him: And how didst thou say that this was the first Virgin the conqueror, of whom was born man with God? The Apostle answered: I give God thanks that thou hearest attentively. The first man therefore was called Adam; he was made of earth: but the earth, his mother, of which he was made, was a virgin; because it was neither polluted with human blood, nor had it been opened for the burial of any dead man. It was fitting therefore, as I said, that he who had conquered the son of a virgin should be conquered by the Son of a Virgin: and as he therefore conquered, because he acted with crafty art that he should eat against the prohibition, and be driven from paradise, and, being driven out, man should have paradise closed: so this Son of the Virgin acted, that he might permit the devil's art to come to him. But his art was such, that as a hawk snatches what bird it can, so he should snatch the Son of man of the Virgin, and set him among the wild beasts in the desert; and for forty days he did not say to him: Eat: because he did not see him hungering: for the devil himself had determined this in his heart, that if after forty days had passed he had not hungered, he would know for certain that he was true God. But he was true God, nay and is; but he is so believed true God that, remaining also true man,

he permitted himself to be understood only by those who persevere with a pure heart and pious works. [q] But this Satan, when he saw him hunger after forty days, being made as it were secure that he was not God, said to him: Why dost thou hunger? Say that these stones be made loaves, and eat. And the Lord to him: Hear, devil: if thou therefore hast dominion over men because the father of all men, Adam, obeying thy persuasion, despised the law of God laid upon him: behold I, keeping God's law, will not eat, that I may overcome thee. I, a man, have come for this, that I may cast thee out of the dominion which by the casting down of the first man thou hast usurped for thyself. Then the devil saw himself shut out, and associated with himself another apostate angel, who is called Mammon: and produced immense weights of gold and silver and gems, and all the glory which is in this world: and said to him: All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt adore me. He says to him: Go back, Satan; for it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve. There was also another temptation of pride, which he practiced on high upon the pinnacle of the temple, that he who once had conquered man, the son of a virgin earth, might be thrice conquered by the man, the Son of the holy Virgin.

[12] the mission of the Apostles, And as he who has come off victor over a tyrant sends his companions, that in all places where the tyrant held possession they may set up the titles of their king, victor and triumpher: so this man Christ Jesus, who conquered, sent us into all provinces, that we may drive out the ministers of the devil who dwell in the statues throughout the temples, and take away the men who venerate them from the power of him who has been conquered. Therefore

we do not receive gold and silver, but despise them, as he himself despised them: because we desire to be rich there where his rule alone reigns; where neither languor nor sickness nor sadness nor death are known to have any place; where there is perpetual felicity and unending beatitude; and joy without end, and everlasting delights: and therefore, having entered your temple, I hold the demon who in the idol gave responses, bound by the angels of him who sent me. And if thou shalt be baptized and permit thyself to be enlightened, I will make thee see and know from how great an evil thou hast escaped.

[13] and he preaches the frauds of the demon. For as to all those who lie sick in the temple, hear by what art the devil seemed to cure them — he who conquered the first man, and, as I have often already said, through that very victory seems to have most wicked power, in some indeed greater, in others less; in those who sin less, greater in those who sin more. The devil therefore himself makes men sick by his art, and persuades them to believe in idols, that he may hold their souls in his power. He ceases now to injure them, when they have said to a stone or to any metal whatever: Thou art my God. But because that same demon who was in that statue is held conquered by me, he can give no response to those sacrificing and adoring him. But if thou wilt prove that it is so, I will bid him enter his statue, and will make him confess this very thing, that he is bound

and cannot give responses. The king says to him: Tomorrow at the first hour of the day the pontiffs will be ready to sacrifice to him, and I will come thither, that I may see this wonderful deed.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The idols broken, the temple consecrated, Polymius converted with his people, the death of the Apostle, etc. The demon confesses himself bound, But it happened on the next day, at the first hour of the day, while they were sacrificing, that the demon began to cry out: Cease, wretches, to sacrifice to me, lest you suffer worse things than I, who am bound with fiery chains by the angels of Jesus Christ, whom the Jews crucified, thinking that he could be held by death: but he took captive death itself, which is our queen; and bound our very prince, the husband of death, with fiery bonds: and on the third day he rose again, victor over death and the devil: and gave the sign of his cross to his Apostles, and sent them through all the parts of the world, of whom one is this man who holds me bound. I beg you to ask him

on my behalf, that he let me go to another province.

[15] Then holy Bartholomew said: Confess, most unclean demon, and opens his frauds, concerning all these who here suffer sicknesses, who it is that injured them. The demon answered: Our prince the devil, even as he is bound, himself sends us to men, that we may injure them. First indeed their flesh, since over the souls of men we cannot have power unless they shall have sacrificed: but when they have sacrificed to us for the health of their body, we cease to harm them, because we now begin to have power over their souls. Now therefore by this, that we cease from injuring them, we seem to cure them, and are venerated as gods, whereas assuredly we are demons, ministers of him whom Jesus the Son of the Virgin, set upon the cross, bound. From the day therefore on which his disciple the apostle Bartholomew came hither, I am consumed, tightly bound with burning chains; and therefore I speak, because he has commanded me: for I should not have dared to speak in his presence, nor our prince himself. The Apostle says to him: Why dost thou not save all these who have come together to thee? The demon says to him: When we injure bodies, unless we have injured souls, ^a the bodies continue in their injury. The Apostle says to him: And how do you injure souls? The demon answered: When they have believed us to be gods, and have sacrificed to us, God withdraws himself from those who sacrifice, and we do not take away the wounds of the bodies, but pass over to the soul.

[16] Then the Apostle says to the people: Behold whom you thought a god to cure you. The Apostle preaches God to the people: Hear now the true God our creator, who dwells in the heavens, not in vain stones: and, if you wish that I should pray for you, and that all these should receive health, take down this idol and break it, and when you have done this, I will consecrate this temple to the name of Christ; then I will consecrate you all in this temple with the baptism of Christ.

[17] Then at the king's order all the peoples put ropes the idols are overthrown; and pulleys, and could not overthrow the image. Then the Apostle said to them: Loose its bonds; and when they had loosed them all, he says to the demon who was in it: If thou wilt that I should not cause thee to be sent into the abyss, go out of this image, and break it, and go into a desert land where no bird flies, nor plowman plows, nor the voice of man resounds. And he, going out at once, shattered all kinds of idols, and not only the great idol itself, but also the lesser ones, wherever they had been set one by one for the ornament of the temple, he crumbled, so that he destroyed all the painting. Then all with one voice began to cry out: One God almighty, whom Bartholomew preaches.

[18] and, the Apostle praying, an Angel appears cleansing the temple, Then Bartholomew, spreading his hands to heaven, said: God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, who for our redemption didst send thy only-begotten Son, our Lord, that he might redeem with his blood all of us who were servants of sin, and make us sons to thee. Who art known to be the true God from this, that thou art always the same, and remainest unchangeable, one God the Father with the Son, one also with the Holy Spirit, truly threefold and truly one, one Father unbegotten, one Son only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, one Holy Spirit, the enlightener and leader of our souls, who proceeds from the Father and is in the Father and in thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his name gave us this power, that we should heal the sick, give light to the blind, cleanse the lepers, loose the paralytics, put demons to flight, and raise the dead: and he said to us: Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall ask my Father in my name, he will give you. I ask therefore in his name, that all this multitude may be saved, that all may know that thou art the one God in heaven and on earth and in the sea, who restorest salvation through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. And when all had answered, Amen: [b] an angel of the Lord appeared, shining like the sun, having wings, and flying around the four corners of the temple, carved with his finger on the squared stones the sign of the cross, and said: Thus says the Lord who sent me: As all of you are cleansed from your infirmity, so have I cleansed this temple from all filth and from its inhabitant, whom the Apostle of God bade go into a place deserted by men: and he bade me first show him to you, and, seeing him, do not be afraid; but such a sign as I have carved on these stones, such do you make with your finger upon your foreheads, and all evils will flee from you.

[19] who also dismisses the demon after showing him to the people: Then he showed them a huge Egyptian, blacker than soot, with a sharp face and a long beard; hair down to his feet, eyes fiery like heated iron, sending out sparks; from his mouth and nostrils issued a sulfurous flame: having thorny wings like a [c] screech-owl; he was bound with his hands behind his back, tightly held with fiery chains. And the angel of the Lord said to him: Since thou hast heard the voice of the Apostle, and hast cleansed all kinds of pollutions from this temple, according to the Apostle's promise I will loose thee, that thou mayest go where there is no converse of men, nor can be, and there be until the day

of judgment. And when he had loosed him, he, sending forth a most foul howling of dreadful voice, flew away, and nowhere appeared. But the angel of the Lord, all

beholding, flew up to heaven.

[20] King Polymius is converted with his people; Then the king together with his wife and two sons and with all his army, and with all the people that was saved, of his city and of the neighboring cities which belonged to his kingdom, believing was baptized, and, laying aside the diadem of his head and the purple, began not [d] to leave the Apostle.

[21] these things being heard, king Astyages Meanwhile the pontiffs of all the temples, gathering themselves, went off to king Astyages, [e] his elder brother, and said: Thy brother has been made a disciple of a magician, who claims our temples for himself, and breaks our gods. While they reported this weeping, behold, the pontiffs of other cities also began weeping to report the same.

[22] Then king Astyages, indignant, sent a thousand armed men with the pontiffs, orders Bartholomew to be seized: that wherever they found the Apostle they should bring him bound to him: and when they had done this, king Astyages said to him: Art thou he who overturned my brother? To whom the Apostle said: I did not overturn him, but converted him. The king says to him: Art thou he who made our Gods to be crumbled? The Apostle says to him: I gave power to the demons who were in them, that they themselves might shatter the vain idols in which they dwelt, so that all men, leaving error, might believe in the almighty God who dwells in the heavens. The king says to him: As thou hast made my brother leave

his God, and believe in thy God; so I too will make thee leave thy God, and believe in my god, and sacrifice to him. The Apostle says to him: I showed the God whom thy brother venerated bound and fettered; and I made him break his own image: if thou canst do this to my God, thou wilt be able to provoke me to sacrifice: but if thou canst do nothing to my God, I will crumble all thy gods, and do thou believe in my God. While he was saying this, it was announced to the king that his god Baldat [f] had fallen and had gone to pieces.

[23] Then the king rent [g] the purple garment with which he was clad: and to be slain. and caused holy Bartholomew the apostle to be beaten with cudgels, and when he had been beaten ordered him to be beheaded.

[24] But [h] the innumerable peoples of twelve cities coming, Polymius, having buried Bartholomew, is made bishop. who through him had believed together with the king, took away his body with hymns and with all glory, and built for him a basilica of wonderful size, and in it placed his body. But it happened on the thirtieth day of his burial that king Astyages was seized by a demon; he came to his tomb, and all the pontiffs, full of demons, confessing his apostolate, thus died. And there arose fear and trembling upon all the unbelievers, and all believed and were baptized by the presbyters whom the apostle Bartholomew had ordained. And it happened by revelation, with all the people and all the clergy acclaiming, that king Polymius is ordained bishop, and began to work signs in the name of the Apostle: and he was in the episcopate XX years; and all things being completed and well ordered and well established, he passed to the Lord; to whom is honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

ENCOMIASTIC ORATION,

By St. Theodore the Studite, From three very ancient Mss., collated with d'Achery's edition. Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.) BHL Number: 1005 By Theodore the Studite.

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR, AS IT SEEMS.

Preface concerning St. Theodore the Studite. How the venerable body of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, to be exalted with the solemn proclamation of all praises, was, from Armenia, a province of the Indians, ^a after the death of king and pontiff Polimius, some years having slipped by, through the perfidy of the wicked and unbelieving, nay rather by the nod of divine disposition, wonderfully carried over to the island of Lipari, has been disclosed by the truthful relation of a certain Theodore, a most reverend priest. Which Theodore, namely, at the city of Constantinople, was in the times of [b] Hadrian and Leo, [c] Roman Pontiffs — a man exceedingly wonderful, who, since he was strong not only in knowledge but also in the powers of signs, was made abbot of the imperial and distinguished monasteries, namely of Studium [d] and of the Saccudians; [e] who, ever persisting in communion with the apostolic See, repressed by the strength of his mind the threats of heretics and the madness of emperors, even when afflicted with torments, and moreover, full of the grace of the holy Spirit, composed several small works, among which he also published in the Greek tongue a sermon on blessed Bartholomew, sufficiently useful, which by the Greek word is called Encomion, which in Latin is expressed Proclamation or praise, which, faithfully translated for the knowledge of Latin-speakers, that it may take away every scruple from the breasts of the wavering, and repress the wicked tongues of the envious and detracting, and instruct ignorance of the unknowing, is consequently to be read: for his narration has itself in this manner.

ANNOTATIONS.

St. Bartholomew is to be praised: Greatest indeed is the contest, so to speak, of the glory by which the praise of merits is woven, but with greater devotion ought every martyr to be exalted, in whose beatification all speech is not sufficient. But indeed also to praise an Apostle irreproachably — of how great industry, think you, will this be able to be even for distinguished masters, seeing that the Holy Spirit has exalted him to the contemplation of all with plaudits and modulated voices? For of him

the sound went out into all the earth, that by the power of his words he might set in order the ends of the world; it will surely be fitting that his praise too be equally heard and perceived by the understanding. And for these things who is fit? who sufficient? who strong? Is it perhaps that because he is not the prince of the Apostles ^a as Peter is, nor, as John, beloved of Christ — Bartholomew, is he therefore to be proclaimed with fewer discourses, and, as though he were not of much proclaiming, to be extolled somewhat less? Dost thou hear that he is wholly a Disciple of Christ, and dost thou not greatly fear him who sent him? Dost thou grasp with thy sense a witness of the truth, and dost thou not marvel at him who is worthily to be sung? Nay, even if he was one of many, yet by no less praise than that of the servants of God is he to be set forth.

[3] in what place he stands in the number of the Apostles: Is it that because he is the middle of the number twelve, he shall obtain nothing further in praises? For the number twelve is in itself like the harmony of a cithara, giving from either side an equal sound like unto the divine discourse. But indeed if you will consider, as in the yearly circle, that the number of each month is equally useful in all ways, and that one has its difference from another by its own quantity and quality; not at all will he who is praised appear to us slight, but exceedingly sublime in the power of the spirit, having something mystical of God's words in the very reckoning, according to the art of arithmetic: for the number six alone after the monad is perfect in its parts, completing from these very parts its half, which is three, and its third part it makes up from two, while the sixth completes the monad. Further, if we shall number also according to the Acts of the Apostles, we shall set Bartholomew seventh; and he himself will again be the beginning and summit of the second group of six, so that hence we can argue that he has a relation to Peter, since from the first six he is reckoned the beginning at the end, but from the second he is the summit of those who are numbered after him.

[4] he is compared with Peter, where also the manner of his death. Note most diligently: Peter teaches the nations, but Bartholomew consequently searches out like things. Beautiful are the feet of Peter evangelizing good things, but Bartholomew's likewise pleasant, speaking sublime things of God. Peter works great prodigies, but Bartholomew too works mighty miracles. Peter is crucified head downward, but Bartholomew on the other hand, sustaining punishments, after he was flayed alive, is struck with the axe. As many things as Peter does, so many does Bartholomew work; for as many mysteries as Peter is strong to lay hold of, for so many is Bartholomew sufficient to penetrate. Equally does he carry out the reckoning of the divine word, equally does he found the Church, with equal scale he had the other divine charisms also. Come therefore appeased, be fruitful of the word, O Blessed one, unloose my mute tongue, give me matter for setting forth the proclamation of thy greatness, not that thou thyself shouldst profit anything, having within the fullness of beatitude, but that in some way there may be declared the love toward thee divinely predestined, and that I, thy most poor child, may enjoy thy fatherly prayers in the praise of thy celebration. For he cannot remain without a share of illumination who has lifted up his eye's pupil to the splendor of the sun's ray. [b]

[5] Whither he was sent to preach: One therefore of the Apostles received here, another elsewhere, a part of the world, for the preaching of the knowledge of God; and all, dividing the whole among themselves, were appointed preachers of Christ the king of kings. For Thou shalt appoint them princes over all the earth, the letter declared. But to him who is now praised with celebrated fame, the lot and portion was the place of Armenia, which is from Evilath [c] as far as Gabaon, [d] distributed among many nations and cities. He therefore, when he was sent, heard from the Lord this pronounced mystically, as I suppose: Go, disciple, to the preaching; go out to the battle, be capable of dangers, take counsel for my creature, for pity of whom I was made Man, and for whom I chose the dishonor of death. I have consummated my Father's work, made the first witness of the truth: do you fulfill what is necessary, and what is lacking to my words supply after my likeness. Imitate thy Master, emulate thy Lord; match sufferings with sufferings; for blood set down blood, for flesh deliver flesh; suffer what I endured, having suffered for thee; show in thyself the manifest knowledge of my character; let thy arms be kindness amid sweats, meekness among revilers, patience among those who press thee, that thou be made as a sheep in the midst of wolves, that as a lion [e] thou be armed with fortitude. The Apostle did not refuse, he did not say: How shall a lamb be able to put wolves [f] to flight, one man ten thousand, a stranger the first citizens, an exile the leaders, he who possesses one tunic the manifold purple of kings? But as a faithful servant, acquiescing in the Lord's precept, he goes on rejoicing, bringing nothing with him but only Christ's precious name for all his armor.

[6] And so, laying hold only of the precept by lot, how great things he there wrought, what he accomplished in preaching: how great things he underwent and endured, our discourse portrays: of which some things are established as done according to the tradition of ancient relation, but some as wrought according to the reckoning of the evangelical doctrines. For if he is the light of the world, assuredly the things which are of light he wrought in those who were not enlightened: and if he stands as the salt of the earth, it is manifest that, salting the irrational nations, he cleansed them: and if he is named a worker, consequently he perfected also a spiritual husbandry. But what is said in common is also to be taken rationally of individual persons. Therefore see him, according to allegory, sometimes indeed plowing the earth, not with oxen drawing the iron, but furrowing rational fields with the plow of the tongue, with the yoke, namely, of contemplation and of action, and sowing nothing of flowing and corruptible things, but laying up the word of faith in the depth of the heart; sometimes planting paradises and vineyards of the Lord; those, namely, who by the reception of the word have already made increase toward better things, and from their entering age have given manifold fruits through each season; and sometimes conferring medicinally the remedies of the passions applied to each. And, to speak more universally, giving light to the blind in their eyes, cleansing lepers, driving out fevers, granting to the lame their step, and to the deaf hearing, and by the incorruptible healings of nature's own restraining the manifold kinds of the other sicknesses; and certainly taking up the pastoral manner, and perfecting the paths of God, leading down, calling back, fighting, driving off the beasts of heresy and the phalanxes of demons; continually watering the imperfect with the hand of doctrine, nourishing those growing in the age of Christ with the milk of the word, plucking out the bloodying thorns, cutting down the woods of impiety, setting about hedges of doctrine, and easily providing whatever should be found lacking of those things which are opportune for following. But he himself is the builder and architect of a building and fabric not made with hands, namely of the temples of the Lord, which are constructed by spirit and truth, and are perfected into a people acceptable, a follower of good works.

[7] the fruit of his preaching, his labors, his death: Behold with me, O man, the cities and dwellings which of old a people seduced by unbelief possessed, setting a tower of wickedness in the knowledge of God, and the ambushes of adversaries easily dismissed, the fields flourishing, the vineyards sprouting in thickness, the gardens giving forth odor, the sick, every languor and every infirmity being driven off, restored to their pristine health. Such are, so to speak, the first spoils, and these the trophies of so great a contest: and these the labors in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in contumelies and reproaches, in prisons and bonds, in persecutions and being carried off from place to place, from city to city, and from theater to theater, in torments and stripes, at the last in slaying and the sword. For which [g] they ought to have repaid the Master, the savior and physician; for these things they work atrocities, they revile, they detract, they strike down, they torture, they scrape; what do they not say, what do they not do, what do they not devise, what do they not invent of those things which they believed would avail for a sharper affliction and for the increase of his tribulation? O depraved cruelty! O savage madness of persecutors! What wages did they offer to their healer — they who received sight, who received hearing, who had been built up by him, who had been instructed: for honor dishonor, for blessing cursing, for gifts punishments, for a restful life they rendered a most bitter death. For they report [h] of him that after he underwent many and intolerable torments, he was flayed by the impious in the manner of a bellows, ⁱ and afterwards beheaded: and so at length his dead body was laid within a chest by the faithful; to whom both in life he was a patron, and after his death the great preacher of God appeared.

[8] miracles after his death; his Body cast into the sea: For not even after he departed from this world did he neglect his slayers, but as a good shepherd, for as long a time as there was, in this life he was changing the lost by miracles and his adversaries by prodigies. But their bestial mind and inhuman heart — there was nothing which could restrain it, nothing which could draw it back, until it should fall into the depths of evils. What then thereafter do they do? They rage against that sacred body, they are frenzied against the chest that continually bestows various healings: they spurn the remedy of the sick, the hand that leads the bereaved, the giver of light to the blind, the pilot of the shipwrecked, the life-giver of him stricken with death, and the giver of eternal life through his preaching: and this how? They cast this very chest into the sea, as though so great an Apostle had bestowed on them no benefits. For the vice of the envious is of this kind, that by their own voluntary perdition they do not suffer the salvation of others to come about either.

[9] But he who through David long before cried out: "In the sea are thy ways, and it was miraculously borne to Lipari: and thy paths in many waters, and thy footsteps shall not be known" — he here too made the swelling sea passable to the chest; and Peter the great is known to have walked on the sea when Christ called to him, and the divine Bartholomew likewise granted to the chest carrying his body the power of walking against the waves. O notable miracle; O magnificent work! For the chest was moved with an impulse from the regions of Armenia, with four chests of other martyrs, which likewise, while they were working signs, had been cast with it into the sea.

And over so great a space of sea, with these four walking and going before, and in a manner rendering obedience to the Apostle, they came into the farther parts of Sicily, to the island which is called Lipari, being shown by revelation to the most holy

Agatho, who was bishop there. [k] Who has heard such prodigies? Who has learned so magnificent a work, a miracle within a miracle?

For Lipari, that is, growing fat, an island in a manner bearing for itself the name of fatness, and this perhaps crying out with ineffable voices: Come to [l] me, poor little one, O most rich Treasure of the most holy

Spirit: come to me who am without honor,

O most precious pearl: come to me, a suppliant,

thou who art most iniquitously cast out by others: inhabit me,

and I shall be manifoldly inhabited; save me, and I shall be

populous; I shall have the use of thy name, [m] and shall resound everywhere.

of thy relics.

[10] Besides this, the Apostle, leaving one of the martyrs here, another there behind, the bodies of four Saints accompanying it: as it were certain ministers; Papinus indeed he destined to the Sicilian city of [o] Mylae, and to Messina [p] one Lucianus by name: but the remaining two he directed to the land of Calabria, Gregory indeed to the city [q] of Columna, and Acatius to the city which is called Squillace, [r] so that each should be a protector of the inhabitants in each city, who even to this day shine by their suffrages.

He besides, as a King and

Lord, having obtained his own rest, went on to the city to which he was invited, and was received splendidly with many candles, perfumes, and hymns, all who were there running to meet him in exultation.

[11] But for the rest, the chest did not advance. For some drew, [at first immovable, then moving, borne into the city: mount Vulcan prodigiously withdrawing.] some lamented, some prayed, but it was immovable. Yet joy took up sorrow again, and when the people were in much bewilderment, it at last obtained what it had found: for the Lord is near to all who call upon him. With due honor therefore that chest, taken up thence with the treasure which it bore, was laid where his sacred temple was straightway placed: that chief miracle also being wrought at the consummation. Finally, when the mountain which is called Vulcan [s] was almost contiguous to the island, it was harmful to those who dwelt round about: then it was moved by an invisible withdrawal, as it were suspended seven stadia around the sea, so that even to this day there appears to beholders as it were a figure of the tract of fleeing fire.

[12] The Apostle's miracles and praise, Further, how many and how great things he thereafter wrought, or works, doing wonders, toward those who, bound by various languors and infirmities, flee to him in faith, is neither ours to tell, on account of the length of the treatise, nor ought it to seem incredible to the hearer, since from one they have a pledge of belief — the wondrous displays of the other deeds. But hail, O Blessed of the blessed, thrice blessed Bartholomew; hail, thou who art an imitator of God, namely of the good master: hail, thou who art the splendor of divine light to holy Church: hail, thou who art the well-sounding organ of the spirit's melody: hail, thou who art the branch of Christ, of much savor and sweet fruit, of the living and Fatherly vine of cultivation: hail, servant worthy in merits of the Lord of all things: hail, deservedly desirable friend of the supercelestial Bridegroom: hail, thou who art the wisdom of an overflowing and manifold draught, the light of the spiritual paradise: hail, thou who art the fisherman of skillful catch of rational fishes: hail, thou who art by divine power the wounder of the devil, who wounds the world with his brigandage: hail, artful orator of true wisdom: hail, morning star of the knowledge of God appearing manifoldly to the world. Rejoice, thou divinely illuminated and fiery column of orthodoxy; rejoice, thou who from the East to the West gloriously walkedst through the sea: rejoice, sun of the globe of the earth, who hast illuminated all things; rejoice, mouth of God's wisdom, having a fiery tongue; rejoice, ever-flowing fountain of healings; rejoice, terrible pursuer of demons; rejoice, thou who art the manifoldly desirable comeliness of Armenia: rejoice, thou who art the salutary and manifoldly adorable boast of Lipari; rejoice, thou who hast sanctified the sea with passable steps; rejoice, thou who hast made the earth purple with the redness of thy most chaste blood; rejoice, thou who hast filled the air with the odors of sweetness, with the sacred breathings of thy divine words; rejoice, thou who hast passed to the heavens, and in the midst in the choir of thy divine array shinest in the splendor of inaccessible glory, in the insatiable delight of exultation.

[13] to whom the author commends himself and others. Thence mayest thou most kindly look upon us, thence bless those who beatify thee, thence glorify those who sing thee, thence make concordant the globe of the earth appeased; let priests be clothed with justice in holiness, let kings be armed with good works in orthodoxy against the barbarians; let those holding the monastic life keep a manner of living equal to that of angels, and without grief; let husbands toward wives, and again wives toward husbands, preserve the fitting law; protect fathers with sons, masters with servants, prelates with subjects, lenders with debtors, sellers with buyers, with all the affection of thy benevolence for the good of the commonwealth; and defend with thy patronage all things which ought to be directed according to God's good pleasure; and especially the nurslings of adorned Lipari, its pastor too and flock, which built thy sacred temple, and him who, though briefly, behold, presumes to praise thee.

ANNOTATIONS.

It is read also in his more ancient and more correct acts, that he preached the word of life to Lycaonia. Thence, evangelizing India, at the last in greater Armenia, which is of the same province, in Albanum, a city of that same Armenia, as far as that place: After many. Whence there arises for me a doubt, whether these things are to be attributed to Theodore, or to the translator Anastasius, or rather to some interpolator. For these things could have been noted in the margin by someone; and thence afterwards have crept into the text, which seems to me more likely; since without them the sense is more perfect: for after he has related the ungrateful cruelty of the persecutors, he proves it by these words: For they report of him (al. For it is reported) that after he underwent many and intolerable torments, he was flayed by the impious in the manner of a bellows, and afterwards beheaded. But for proving this cruelty the preaching in Lycaonia and India makes nothing. Hence let the reader note that Armenia is not called a province of India by Theodore, as certain learned men, following this interpolation, believed. i In the manner of a bellows. The phrase is most obscure. Combefis in the latest Auctarium, p. 496, says: I could wish that this phrase had been imitated by those who said that he was flayed alive by barbarians and beheaded at the order of Astyages; insinuating that something less than the flaying of a living man is here to be understood, which he thinks less probable. But that Bartholomew was flayed alive Theodore had already said above, so that the flaying of a living man must necessarily be understood in this place too. But what manner of flaying is signified by this phrase is plainly uncertain and obscure. Receive the conjectures. Follis signifies various things: an instrument for stirring up wind, a ball fit for play, a purse made of hide; sometimes it is taken for a sack, whence also follitus is said of one wrapped in hide. Did he then mean that the skin was flayed from Bartholomew as a sack is drawn off from him who is wrapped in it? Or that, as the hide is drawn off a ball, so the skin was drawn away? Or perhaps in Greek it was φολὶς, which signifies a scale; and he meant to say that the Saint was so stripped of his skin as serpents are stripped of their scale? Or rather that the Apostle's body was inflated like a bellows between flesh and skin, as slaughtered sheep are wont to be inflated, that the skin may be more easily drawn off? k Shown. D'Achery has bishop of Ostia, which is a manifest error, nor do I find it in any Ms. Further, who this Agatho was will be said in the Posthumous Glory, where Lipari also is treated. l Note both here and throughout the whole sermon that certain things are described oratorically, which are less to be taken to the letter. m Fungar, that is, I shall use for my good. n Other Mss., personabor. o Mylae. Ottavio Gaetani, tom. 1 of the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, p. 135, treating of these companions of Bartholomew, says that Mylae, a town of Sicily, and the island of Lipari are situated opposite one another. And after a few words: On the shore, on the side where the peninsula bends to the West (for Mylae is set upon a peninsula) there stands an old chapel sacred to St. Pappianus (so he is called by others, who here is Papinus): thither, report has it, his coffer was cast out and laid. He relates also miracles, and at length concludes: Further, St. Pappianus is held the patron of the city of Mylae. Papebroch treats of him, tom. V of June, at the 28th day of that same month, p. 360, in which however he is perhaps not to be followed, in that he thinks the body of St. Pappianus swam to Mylae from elsewhere, by a slip of memory thinking that his name was not expressed by St. Theodore. p To Messina, Lucianus; concerning whom the praised Gaetani: The memory of St. Lucianus among the people of Messina, extinguished chiefly by the disasters of the Saracens, has lately been restored. Our Francesco Carrera commemorates him together with St. Pappianus at the 28th of June, in the Sicilian Pantheon, p. 166. q Columna. Columna Rhegia, or Rhegina, was a maritime city, as is had from Cellarius, tom. 1 of the Ancient Geography, p. 585, in the farthest part of the Bruttii, at the Mamertine strait, says Gaetani, over against the city of Messina, raised up like a little tower, between Scyllaeum and Rhegium Julium; and that this is here designated does not seem to be doubted. But the memory and cultus of St. Gregory, as also of Acacius, I suppose to have been abolished along with the city itself by the dominion of the Saracens in those parts. r Squillace, so the Ms., which I have chiefly followed: two other Mss. have Chale, another with d'Achery Cale: the Greek Menaea with the Paphlagonian Ἀσκάλους. Which among so many readings is to be preferred is not altogether established: yet I think none of them genuine, unless perhaps this one which I have followed. For in Cluverius, tom. 2 of Ancient Italy, p. 1305, and Cellarius, tom. 1, p. 588, there is a maritime town in the Bruttii which of old was called Scylacium or Scylaceum, and before that Scylletium, and now is commonly called Squillaci, and is situated in the gulf of the same name. This town therefore I judge to be here designated, for Asculum, whether in Picenum or in Apulia, since both are inland, could not be designated. s Concerning this mountain and the prodigy, consult the Posthumous Glory, chapter 1, §2.

TRANSLATION OF THE BODY TO BENEVENTO,

By, as it seems, St. Bertharius abbot of Cassino. From two Mss. Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.) BHL Number: 1007 By Bertharius the abbot. The bones of St. Bartholomew scattered at Lipari, These things concerning the praises of blessed Bartholomew, and the wonderful coming of his body to Lipari, Theodore, conspicuous for the fame of his sanctity and the dignity of his priesthood, set forth in a trustworthy account. By what occasion thereafter, and in what order, it was translated from that same island to Benevento, whence today's festivity is celebrated, must be set forth forthwith. Since therefore in that same island of Lipari, up to the year ^a eight hundred and thirty-eight from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the body of that same blessed Bartholomew the apostle rested; the Saracens coming upon it plundered and depopulated the aforesaid island, and breaking the sepulcher of blessed Bartholomew, scattered his bones through various places.

[15] Presently, when they withdrew, the Apostle of God, appearing in a vision to a certain Greek monk at whose command they were gathered, who had been guardian of that church, said to him: Rise and gather my bones which are scattered. To whom he answered: Why ought we to gather thy bones, [b] or to do thee any honor, since thou hast let us and this people be destroyed by the pagans, and hast not helped us? But he said: Through long courses of years I have besought God for this people, and God granted it to my prayers, whence until now they have stood secure. But because their evils have been multiplied, and their iniquity has grown exceedingly, I could no longer obtain from the Lord what I asked for it, and therefore it has perished. Do thou only rise and gather my bones, and lay them up, as I command thee. To whom that monk said: And how shall I be able to find them, who know not where they are scattered? The Apostle says to him: Go by night to gather them, and where thou shalt see anything shining like fire, take these up, for these are my bones. And he, rising straightway, went on to the place, and found them, as the Apostle had told him, and gathered them without doubt, and hid them laid up in a vessel; and departed, leaving his companion there.

[16] And when the ships of the Lombards went thither in search of the Saracens, and translated to Benevento. having found there the aforesaid monk and the body of the holy Apostle, they took them and departed. But the Saracens, coming upon them, surrounded that ship in which the holy body of the Apostle was being carried, so that there was for it no hope of escaping. Then suddenly there arose most dense darkness around the ship of the Saracens, so that they knew not whither they were going, and that ship was set free. While they were still on the sea, one of the sailors of that same ship, oppressed by a grave infirmity, the Lord saved through the Apostle's prayer. And going out upon land, they brought the holy body of the Apostle of God with all honor to Benevento, and laid it up in the altar, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord eight hundred and thirty-nine, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of October. Of whom the earlier conveyance from the parts of the Indians to the island of Lipari is celebrated [c] on the ninth Kalends of September, but the festal celebration of his falling asleep is kept on the fifteenth Kalends of July. And so thrice in the year his most sacred festivity is celebrated. Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, whom all honor and glory and all adoration befits, with the omnipotent Father and the most holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

A SECOND ORATION

By Joseph, perhaps the Hymnographer. From the edition of Surius. Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.) By Joseph. St. Bartholomew is to be praised. The author of this discourse, and the cheerfulness of the feast day bringing us spiritual delight, is the blessed apostle Bartholomew: who, since he is a divine Apostle, and is illuminated with the splendor of light and the pure brightnesses of the holy Spirit as much as cannot be explained in words, supplies light to us also who celebrate his sacred and glorious memory. Come therefore, praising him with divine voices as much as we can, let us delight in the divine narration of him, and honor with praises a Man higher than any honor. Let us praise an Apostle praised by God himself. Let us proclaim him blessed who is always blessed. Let us celebrate the glory of him whom divine glory has exalted. Let us see what he was before, and what he afterwards became: how he who before was unlearned ^a and led a poor life, was made wise in every respect, and adorned with the riches of all good things: how from earthly he became heavenly, from least greatest, and from a fisher of fishes [b] was made a fisher of men.

[2] His election to the Apostolate; And so, when God himself, made man, on account of the bowels of his mercy bore our body, and made a choice of disciples, he, I say, who foreknew all things before they are begotten, chose the most celebrated apostle Bartholomew, and took him to himself as a true and faithful friend. O the excellence of the divine calling! O the great and singular felicity! O what a Master this man found, who initiated him into the greatest mysteries and made him wise! O that blessed soul, held worthy to converse with God, to take food with God and the omnipotent Lord, and to be instructed by sacred doctrine surpassing all speech and faculty!

[3] the excellent deeds done by him; But afterwards, when he had seen his Master fixed upon the cross, and the same buried, and after his resurrection ascending to the heavens, and was endowed with the gift of the most holy Spirit equally with the other Apostles, like some noble soldier fortified on all sides with the strongest arms, he leapt forth against the hostile war: and the enemies indeed he struck most mightily, but to those who strove to come to life itself he procured salvation. He spread the nets of his discourse, and the nations themselves, snatched from the deep, though captive, yet led to life, he preserved: he overthrew the temples of the idols and raised up churches of God; human hearts turned to barrenness he renewed with the plow of heavenly doctrine: and so cultivated them that, like fertile fields, they could bear fruit: he kindled the torch of miracles, and put to flight the mist of human affections: into whatever parts he passed, like some star proclaiming the sun of justice, and sending forth an illustrious brightness, he destroyed the darkness of deceit: and by his discourse indeed he put demons to flight, and by his prayers cured incurable diseases, making lepers clean, restoring sight to the blind, making the lame ready to run, and lastly strengthening the weaker hearts and minds.

[4] There was together with Bartholomew that blessed apostle Philip also, preaching at Hierapolis and elsewhere: with whom for a long time he preached the divine Gospel. When these had come into the city of Hierapolis, whose name before was Ophioryme, [c] they endured many hardships and no slight torments, since the men of that city were violent and exceedingly inhuman: inasmuch as they had been accustomed to venerate a viper, [d]

receiving a pestiferous and deadly venom as though it were some fruit. They, when they had seen the divine apostles, said that some new God was being announced by them, and that they themselves were being turned away from the old cultus and estranged from their fathers' traditions. Wherefore, when they had laid hands on them, they condemned to the cross the apostle Philip, a man of admirable sanctity. But the divine Bartholomew, like some plow-ox separated from his yoke-fellow, groaned and lamented indeed, but did not cease nevertheless to draw that sweet furrow which was to bring rich fruits to God, the husbandman of souls: nay rather, as he had been accustomed, he went about hither and thither, disseminating the word of faith, plucking out the depraved cockle, and diligently declaring whatever was salutary to those who received him. O those blessed feet, made beautiful by evangelical steps, and advancing by a straight way to the winning of infinite souls! O that divine tongue, from which flowed the salutary drink which freed many from the heat of impiety! O the hands which stormed violent enemies and snatched souls from the devil's hands! O the divine and illustrious eyes, through which the eyes of many were opened who had been darkened by the shadows of perfidy!

[5] When therefore he was thus traversing those regions, he came to a certain city, death on a cross. whose citizens, when he had freed them from the superstition of idols, he too was condemned by the governor of that place to the punishment of the cross. [e] To which, while that Blessed one drew near, wholly suffused with joy, he said: Hail, cross, through which the human race has been affected with joy: hail, imitation of that cross through which death dissolved death, and endowed mortals themselves with immortality: hail, cross, upon which, when Christ ascended, he made earthly men heavenly: hail, cross, which hast been made a vehicle for me departing hence, by which I may be led to the heavens; which finally hast made me an imitator of my Teacher. To thee I ascend, nor do I delay: for now my time is fulfilled. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: the work which Christ my master delivered to me, I have completed. When he had said this, and had prayed to God, he asked those executioners that, with his head turned to the earth, he might be fixed upon the cross: and not be fastened upright to the cross, as his Master was: thus even in his torments he preserved his reverence toward his Master. Nay, even fixed upon the cross, he did not cease to speak with the brethren, until he delivered that most holy soul to God. Whose ascent the angels received with applause, the air was purged, and the choir of the divine Apostles exulted.

[6] His Body cast into the sea, But when much time had passed, the tyrants [f] of that region, practicing the depravity of life and raving in the drunkenness of many gods, when they saw that those coffers in which the relics of the blessed apostle Bartholomew were laid up put forth certain splendid and illustrious miracles, and freed from diseases those who came thither, took a depraved counsel worthy of their purpose. Come, they say, let us sink this body into the deep sea. But, O wretches, will you sink into the sea the body of him who sank into the deep that deep dragon, who opened the fountain of salutary water, and abundantly imparted heavenly doctrines to men? Come, they say, let us overwhelm him with the sea. Will you overwhelm him who uncovered the truth before overwhelmed, and exterminated the saltness of unbelief? Come, they say, and pouring out our rash fury, let us cast this body into the waves of the sea, lest from it, as from some rational river, salvation should flow down to those who are pressed by the straits of diseases.

[7] borne by a miracle to Lipari, When they had said this, they set about what they had thought, and together with the coffers of four other martyrs cast the relics of blessed Bartholomew into the sea. But those glorious martyrs, having the greatly renowned apostle Bartholomew in the midst, two on the right and two on the left, conveyed him across the Pontus [g] without any tossing: and when they had come to the Thracian Bosphorus into the Propontis, they passed the straits of the Hellespont: then, the Aegean and Ionian sea being crossed, they landed at Sicily: and leaving Syracuse on the left, and tending toward the West, they came to the island of Lipari. And so that most celebrated Apostle was brought to that island. But those divine martyrs, when they had completed what God had willed, returned most swiftly to that way to which divine providence had directed each one. And straightway he who governed the church of the island of Lipari learned by divine revelation that Christ's Apostle had put in at the seashore.

[8] and there recognized by revelation and reverently received. The governor of that church was that Agatho whose glory was far and wide celebrated among all. When he therefore had hastened, and had seen the coffers driven to the mainland, filled with amazement and joy, with a loud voice he said: Well is it that thou hast come hither, as a haven of salvation, to us who are tossed by the perilous waves of the deep. Well is it that thou hast come, divine river of the Paraclete Spirit, from which the waters of truth gush forth, and much piety overflows. In the sea are thy ways, and thy paths in many waters, and thy footsteps shall not be known. Come, and water our souls, restrain the seething of our affections, and fill the opened doors of our hearts with the gifts of thy graces. This the island of Lipari asks of thee as a suppliant, which thou hast willed happily to inhabit. This island, I say, addresses thee in these words: Thou, who art illustrious with much light, and truly a friend of that divine East, how has it come about that one such and so great has sojourned in the West of my poverty, moved from the parts of the East, and shown to us through the gulfs of the sea? I have been made rich, who before labored under poverty; today I have obtained a great treasure: nor in any respect am I inferior to that famed city of Rome itself, which holds the blessed apostles Peter and Paul as inhabitants: for I possess Bartholomew as inhabitant. All islands, congratulate me; all cities, wherever you are, exult together with me. In you the bodies of many saints have been laid: for me one is enough for all.

[9] But, O most blessed Apostle, made equal to the divine angels, The praises of the Apostle, who could praise thy illustrious deeds according to their worth? Who could enumerate the perils undertaken by thee for Christ? Which, when thou didst daily undergo them, thou didst free mortals from sad perils. Thou art truly that salt which seasoned those hearts which had grown insipid and become tasteless: and, purged with the saltness of understanding, thou didst purge away the rottenness contracted from the superstition of many gods. Thou art that rational river, gone forth from the divine seat, washing away the torrent full of reeds, but filling the furrows of the Church, drying up the streams of depravity, and finally watering the face of the earth itself. Thou art that most solid net which caught the rational fishes swimming in the deep of error, and offered them as a dish for that heavenly table. Thou art that golden candlestick in which the fire of the Paraclete Spirit, coming as some torch, burned up the cockle of manifold vice, and sent forth the splendor of divine knowledge. Thou art the shining ray of the divine Sun, which, running from the height of heaven to the utmost, and lessening the darkness of error, and shining upon those who sat in the shadow of death, that is, in deadly evils, didst through the laver of regeneration make mortal men sons of God. Thou art that precious stone sent from that corner-stone, upon which Christ himself built the Church, which at no time whatever can be shaken or shattered. Thou art that purest gold, and the most precious gift of the heavenly God, the column of light, the foundation of the Church, the lodging of the Holy Spirit, the herald of great utterance, the eagle flying on high, the sweetly singing nightingale, the heavenly cicada, [h] the angel finally sojourning in a human body, the golden column, the most shining star, the flowering paradise, the ointment-box of the Holy Spirit, the physician of the sick, the trumpet of divine grace, the most fruitful vine, the fruit-bearing olive, the haven of the tossed, the patron of sinners, the recreation of the weary, the refuge of the oppressed, the fountain of miracles, the putting to flight of demons, the glory of the Apostles, the citizen of the angels, who wast loftier than the prophets, and partner of the martyrs, and finally partaker of that glory which is to be revealed, heir of everlasting goods, light of the world, and (to say all in sum) treasure of all goods.

[10] And so hail, Bartholomew, lightning of that great thunder, whom at the end the author invokes. who didst appear in the wheel of this world, and didst extinguish the madness and night of idols. Hail, Bartholomew, that pen of the Holy Spirit swiftly writing, who most beautifully didst write the law upon the tablets of the heart: the law, I say, not old, but exceedingly new. Hail, Bartholomew, most sharp arrow of the mighty word, who didst wound the hearts of enemies, didst strike the troops of demons wandering through the air, and didst make whole the souls of mortals wounded by vice. Hail, Bartholomew, who didst level the temples of the idols to the ground, and didst render men themselves temples of the living God. Hail, sword of the Holy Spirit, who by the edge of the word didst lead captive the troops of aliens, and all minds to the obedience of Christ. Hail, well-tuned cithara of the holy Paraclete Spirit, rational pipe, instrument of Christ, who didst sing to us heavenly doctrines, and didst confound the modulations of depraved impiety. Hail, most beautiful heaven, illustrious with divine splendors, in which that Sun of justice rests, and leader of prayer, leaning upon whom thou didst overthrow every deceit. I would indeed wish to extol thee with praises, but I am confounded by the multitude of things, and oppressed by the weakness of my speech: for even those who most excel in the oratorical faculty are too inferior to be able to praise thee: nor is there anyone who could relate thy praises according to their worth. By thy prayers therefore mayest thou make God himself propitious to us, and be willing to calm the disturbance of sins by which we are vexed; and mayest thou by thy prayers obtain for us all who keep thy feast day pardon of our offenses and participation in heavenly joy, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

I should believe that the name was not the common one, but was imposed in mockery by

Christians on account of the mad cultus of the viper. Its etymology is rightly expounded in the said Synaxarium as the Serpent's onset: for it is derived from ὄφις, serpent, and ὄρνυκαι, I am borne with an onset. d This cultus of the viper displeased Baronius, tom. 1 of the Annals, at the year 54, num. 3, because forsooth Eusebius, On the Preparation of the Gospel, book 2, chapter 4, writes of other gods of the Phrygians. But that argument, drawn from Eusebius' silence, does not seem sufficient for us to deny credit to all the authors who assert this: especially since Eusebius in that place does not enumerate all the gods of the Phrygians of set purpose, but mentions some only for refuting their ravings. See therefore this cultus of the viper asserted by various writers in §8 of the preliminary Commentary, and in some measure proved also by reasons. e Of the Saint's martyrdom it is treated in §9 in the preliminary Commentary, from which you will learn that the things here written, as they are oratorical, are so much the less probable. f Note, reader, that neither by this author nor by the Studite is it asserted that the body remained always in the place in which it was first buried, up to the Liparitan translation: for they only mean that the body was cast into the sea, and by that means borne to Lipari, and that after much time, and by the tyrants of that region: concerning which consult what we shall probably discuss in the Posthumous Glory, chapter 1, §§1 and 2. g The journey of the sacred body is here written as it could most conveniently have been made: whether it was so done in fact, the author, I suppose, neither knew nor could deliver with certainty. h The cicada is a tuneful kind of insect. Hence Virgil, book 3 of the Georgics: And the querulous cicadas will burst the copses with their song. He uses this metaphor to express the Apostle's eloquence and his perpetual zeal for preaching divine doctrines. The remaining doubts which can here occur have been noted on the preceding Oration.

A THIRD ORATION

By Nicetas the Paphlagonian, Rendered into Latin from Combefis' Greek edition, J. S. translator. Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.) By Nicetas the Paphlagonian.

Kindled is my longing, but my talent is weak: fervent my love, It is arduous to praise St. Bartholomew, but slender my speech: for the spirit indeed is prompt, and hastens, and burns to attend upon any of the Apostles with the due proclamation of praise; but the mind grows weary, having no source whence it may find thoughts worthy of the proposed subject; nay, and speech totters, uncertain whether by speaking it can attain the excellence of the things to be praised. And indeed, when the mind beholds the excellence of the things to be said, it lays a finger on its lips, and, as something most eloquent, enjoins silence upon itself: but when it is kindled by the fervor of the spirit, as by an inward fire, as if forgetful of its own weakness, it can by no means contain itself from being roused to the praise imposed upon it. In what manner therefore is this perplexing difficulty to be removed, if not by begging help for our discourse from those very men who are to be praised? For in other subjects indeed no aid comes from them, unless the orator has come abundantly instructed of himself; but in the sacred and holy sons of God it appears otherwise. For the wisest mind must needs be made destitute of counsel, and the most eloquent discourse stick fast in perplexity, unless grace be bountifully supplied by him who is praised.

[2] Since therefore the great Bartholomew has today, on his yearly memorial, whose help the author implores. called us together to celebrate with praises the brightness of his grace, and, setting before us both the excellence of his sanctity and his various prodigies, and also his sufferings and the cross borne for love of the Crucified, has kindled our love toward him; nay, and inflames us also to proclaim his wonders; let us beg of him the illumination of grace, and by sincere faith and fervent prayer draw strength from his spirit: and in this way, duly crowning that sacred head, reverend with the graces of Christ, with praises as with flowers, we shall in some measure, I suppose, be able to console our longing; for by nothing does the divine love of divine things obtain soothing and solace so much as by the praises of those who are loved. Be present therefore, O most Venerable and most Illustrious; be present to me, assist me with thy spirit, as thou art a spirit most pure and most holy, and the offspring and likeness of the holy and divine Spirit: inspire my understanding, inspire my speech; the understanding, that it may perceive the magnificence of thy divine sanctity; the speech, that it may avail to set forth thy wondrous excellence; so that both, understanding, that is, and speech, may become for us, who think upon and narrate thy wonders, more holy and more illustrious: since even the mere memory of thee bestows sanctity and illumination no less upon us, who behold thy form shining, as in a mirror, in spirit only, than upon those who of old saw thee sojourning on earth in thy sacred body.

[3] For indeed from infancy wholly consecrated to God, and by the form of piety, by religious observance, by meditation on the law, by the keeping of the commandments, he was prepared for a more perfect knowledge of God. (For the Lord knows how to sanctify his own from the womb, The Saint's boyhood, and his calling to the apostolate, to enter into them at once from their first formation, to offer himself as their companion in an invisible manner, and to direct and lead them to himself.) But when Christ, the prince and consummator of faith, appeared, and was traversing all Judea and all Galilee, announcing the kingdom of heaven; and, winning faith for the Gospel by wonderful words and more wonderful works, was gathering to himself the sheep of Israel which had perished; then also, then, I say, he called this true Israelite ^a Bartholomew. What then did he do? Did he reject him who called? Or does he believe indeed, but not follow? Or does he follow indeed, but for a time? Or does he follow to the end, but as one of the common crowd of the faithful? Was he perhaps entered on the roll of the disciples, but of those who were of the second order with the Master? By no means. Nay rather, as soon as he saw the good Shepherd, and knew him even to the innermost parts of his mind, [b] he was likewise known by him, so that he was both held worthy of the highest and first election, and was added to the chief of the Apostles, and with the others filled up the sacred and venerable choir of twelve. Thereafter, the possession of all earthly things being renounced — country, namely, parents, kinsfolk, friends, and all things which seem good to men and to be pursued with the greatest zeal — and besides this, his own soul also being denied, the admirable Man cast away every desire of the body, every will of his own heart, that he might become a partaker of Jesus' friendship and of a more perfect knowledge. Thence, pursuing the appointed goal and attaining it, as one who sincerely lived by the spirit, walked and went about by the spirit, he was made God's friend indeed and son by adoption, and by the gift of grace brother of the Only-begotten. And indeed how should he not be Christ's associate and tent-fellow, and partaker with him of the same roof, table, converse, way, and manner of life; with whom all mysteries speakable and unspeakable, with whom the works and words of God which the Father of lights manifested to mortals, were shared?

[4] and his familiar living-together with Christ: Blessed therefore do I proclaim thine eyes, O Beholder of the Word and sharer in the mysteries, and Theologian Disciple, [c] that thou hast fully enjoyed the most delightful sight of the form of Him who is Beautiful above the sons of men, of inaccessible comeliness, of more than heavenly beauty. Blessed do I proclaim thine ears, that with words uttered by the mouth of God, by sacred hearing, by Christ's converse, thou wast in no ordinary measure filled. I embrace in spirit thy most blessed lips and mouth: I kiss both thy cheeks and thy tongue, as those which often kissed the supreme Deity, being filled with his delights and imbued with his sanctity. Blessed do I call thy taste, thy smell, and thy touch: thy taste indeed, because thou wast partaker of the same table with the Word, of the same salt; and wast satisfied with the same feasts of sense and of mind together with the Savior, more often than can be told: thy smell, because with the purest ointments and with the spiritual fragrance of the knowledge of the highest King of all thou wast anointed: and thy touch, because thou didst often chastely handle the body most pure from every stain, and, ministering, as was fitting, with thine own hands to Him who is dread to the Cherubim and most reverend to the Seraphim, drawing near didst touch him, and so with absolutely all thy senses didst contract sanctity, while thou drewest near to him who surpasses every sense, and enjoyedst his familiar converse in the body. Yet more do I praise thee and proclaim thee blessed, because thou didst not fail in mind, didst not waver in soul in temptations, didst not totter in thought: but didst remain unmoved with the Master, didst sustain various reproaches, didst show thyself partaker and consort of the condemned in condemnation, of the sufferer in suffering, of the grieving in grief. For in mind thou wast in a manner crucified with the Crucified, dead with the dying, buried in purpose of soul with the buried: whence with him rising thou didst rise again and live again; and by the covenant of the same Lord it was confirmed to thee that in the kingdom of heaven thou shouldst be raised, in the regeneration, to the same living-together with the princes, nay and to the same throne with them.

[5] Assuredly, just as thou wast with the first Apostles a beholder and partaker of Jesus suffering, rising again, and ascending into heaven, how great he became on receiving the Holy Spirit; and how much he suffered: so with the same thou wast likewise filled with the life-giving gift of the Holy Spirit. For, being first confirmed by the Lord's words as a certain heaven endowed with mind and higher than the world; cleansed in body by a manner of living befitting the saints, signally illuminated in soul by holy representations, by divine illustrations raised in mind above nature to a kind of quasi-divinity, and as some throne of surpassing glory and a resting-place of sanctity prepared in the inner man, thou didst receive the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in the form of fiery tongues. And he indeed, filling thee wholly through and through, imparting to thee his divine charisms beyond measure, resting in thee, established in thee, formed for himself both a well-tuned instrument of his power, and a mouth speaking God, and a tongue sounding divine things: and moreover, leading and transferring thee from nation to nation like a certain sacred and precious vessel, he most eloquently uttered through thee to all mortals the doctrine of the dispensation, the saving incarnation of Jesus, I mean, his resurrection and kingdom. Who therefore could praise according to its merits the power of the Holy Spirit flowing in thee like a fountain? Who could attain by speech thy overflowing knowledge of theology? Who the virtue and honor that followed from these? Who could pursue with worthy eulogy the perfection hidden in the secret bosom of thy mind? Who the sublimity of thy discourses? Who the excellence of thy works? Who the gentleness of thy manners, their sweetness, their likeness to Christ? Who at last the inaccessible, reverend excellence of spirit, shining with the likeness of God? And now, in what way could anyone know how, having gone out from Jerusalem and Judea to the nations, thou wast an Evangelist of divine peace? What seditions and tossings thou didst suffer for the Gospel's sake in all places and cities? Who could enumerate the circuits, journeys, perils, labors, flights, blows, prisons, scourgings, stonings, reproaches? Who could recount the leadings-away before governors, the accusations before magistrates, the calumnies against the faithful's institution, [d] the revilings, vexations, burnings, blows, scourges, tearings, and manglings?

[6] Who could report how great and of what sort things he endured as Philip's companion at Hierapolis — raised on a cross at Hierapolis; heavenly gifts; to wit, the first raising upon a cross, [e] and every insult and onset of the unbelievers there, all the torments, labors, and hardships? But what mind could understand, what speech unfold, the abundance of Christ's helps, the abyss of heavenly illustrations, illuminations, and supports? Further, the eminence of his contemplation, the sublimity of his theology, the immense breadth of Bartholomew's divine wisdom, who is fit to investigate? For he who firmly has seated in his heart the substantial wisdom of God itself, that infinite, perfect, most divine wisdom, searches indeed all things by the Spirit, even the deep things of God; but he himself is comprehended by none of those who dwell on earth: and he himself indeed judges all things, for he is spiritual; but he is judged by no one, for he is moved by the spirit of Christ: and who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? [f]

[7] the provinces traversed, the churches instituted; But now who could set down in writing the magnificent portents wrought by him, which, being performed by the finger of God, drew those alien from the faith to conversion and to the knowledge of God? For the most blessed Man went forth to the Arabs, whom they call Happy; and not to them only, but he was sent after this also to the Indians and to the eastern Ethiopians, [g] as the word of God, as the light of knowledge, as the doctrine and instruction of eternal life, and eloquently announced Christ in their very tongues. Besides this, putting to flight every onset of demons against men; healing every disease, every languor in the name of Jesus; nay, and restoring life to not a few dead by the power of the same name, he daily joined to Christ innumerable believers, taught the rudiments of the faith; cleansing these with the laver of regeneration, and inflaming their hearts with the Holy Spirit, [h] he consecrated the worthier among them, endowed with greater grace, as bishops and presbyters — a most admirable Prelate of sacred things: and adorning them with all sacred rites, and instructing them, according to their capacity, in the doctrine of the sacred Letters and in the tradition of the mysteries, he raised up churches unspotted for Christ in the provinces and cities which he traversed. Of this kind were Bartholomew's illustrious deeds; of this kind the exploits of the great Herald of the Church; in this manner, having lived a long time among the most savage nations, not only did he borrow nothing of their savagery, but he even sprinkled his own humanity upon them: not only did he contract not the least stain at all of their error or malice by his converse with them; but rather by his surpassing kindness and imitation of God he corrected the greatest part of their impiety and savagery, not unlike the sun, which sends down its rays into mire, and yet is not defiled, but rather wastes away, exterminates, and lessens the stench.

[8] his last preaching in Armenia, After, his course being illustriously consummated and his faith kept, he had converted innumerable men to the Lord and had been to many a cause of salvation, he desired at last to obtain an end worthy of his labors, his body now failing with heavy old age, and desiring with insatiable longing to depart to Christ and to enjoy the rest of God. Nor indeed did the Lord neglect the Just man's desire, nor, hearing it, did he grant less than he asked. But as in all things the most blessed Man was like to Christ, as in all things he had ordered his life so worthily of Christ that to those who rightly beheld him he both was another Christ and offered himself as a rule of living, so it behooved an end congruous to his whole life to follow. What then was the occasion of his consummation? Let us see how that too was worthy of Christ. The sacred Theologian was staying in a certain city of greater Armenia (they call it Urbanopolis), [i] magnificently there after his manner and divinely preaching God, and setting forth that all gods and all demons were to be reckoned as nothing, but that Jesus alone was to be worshiped; and he besought them to know him alone as the true God, the perfect God, alone holy, without beginning of time, eternal, incomprehensible, eternal light born of eternal light, or a splendor flowing forth from God the Father, a light lacking beginning, and equally with him lacking beginning, who by an ineffable manner, which can neither be expressed in words nor perceived by the mind, is the principle of this very light. He, taking upon him whatever is of our nature, and likewise with us made Man of the holy and venerable Virgin, as the truth of our faith teaches, and having conversed with us for the space of three years both with discourses most worthy of God and with works most surpassing, was then, by the dispensing of divine providence, delivered to the cross and to death, but on the third day raised from death, and, while we looked upon him, carried up to heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. He will also come to judge the world justly, and to give to each his wage according to his works. By him we too, he said, have been sent, and we exhort and beseech you, brethren: believe, and receive the saving baptism in his name: nay, and, the gift of the Holy Spirit being received, you will become heirs of eternal life and of the immortal kingdom in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[9] While the most sacred Bartholomew was declaiming such things, and far more than these, and more divine, with calm and gentle address to the bystanders in their own idiom, his martyrdom consummated on a cross. and while some believed and gave assent to the word of truth, but others were exasperated and stirred up with demoniac jealousy against him, certain most wicked men suddenly seize the most divine Old man, and, raising a clamor against him, bring him before the chief men of the city. But they, rashly examining this Leader and hearing the doctrine asserted, namely that God, being before the ages, was made man in time, was crucified, on the third day raised from death, taken up into heaven, and would come to judge the living and the dead: these things, I say, when the impious had heard, astounded by the novelty of the speech, and indignant against the Crucified, straightway beat his Herald with rods and fasten him to a cross, crying out that it was just that the Priest of the Crucified should undergo the punishment of the cross. But he with eager mind approached the wood, and was fastened to it with the greatest gladness he could. Hence indeed angels descending upon him from heaven and ascending [k] prepared for him a most august ascent; and from above heaven was opened to him, and all the hierarchies of the heavenly powers were preparing themselves to receive and salute the most beloved Disciple of the Lord. But he, when he had sent up beforehand thanksgiving joined with supplication, like a most fragrant incense, with confession to God the Father, then, calmly and gladly loosed from the bonds of the flesh, and joined and knit to the Spirit of God bearing him up from earth to heaven, wholly flies away from the body, and with glory passes to the Lord: and, as a true Son, led with ineffable exultation to the Father higher than the heavens, he obtains an unspotted and long-lasting inheritance, divine delights, and the highest and first honor with Peter and Paul before the supreme King of all.

[10] To thee therefore I turn myself, most precious head before God and most holy. The praises of the Apostle, Hail, precious stone, who, one of the twelve, art worthy of the corner Stone, worthy of that most precious Pearl, and most closely connected, knit, woven, and built together with him into a dwelling-place of God in the spirit. Hail, most shining and notable star, most beautiful and widely conspicuous, who, aptly fitted with those eleven, art with them ordered and inserted in the crown of glory plaited of stars, which the heavenly Bridegroom, as the sacred Utterance has it, set fitted upon the bride's head. Hail, delight of the angels, soothing of the archangels, fragrance of odor of the principalities, splendor of the powers, glory of the dominations, equal in throne with the thrones, comrade of the cherubim, tent-fellow of the seraphim. Hail, ornament of the Apostles, light of the martyrs, holiness and splendor of all the Saints, a thing worthy of God, a desirable name: thou who art worthily and divinely called Bartholomew; who art truly Son suspending the waters, [l] for that is what the name signifies. Hail, because, imitating God also — as the Son of God by his word suspends the airy waters and lifts them from the earth, with which also, according to sacred Scripture, he covers his upper chambers — so thou too didst by the Gospel lift on high many waters, namely the souls of those creeping on the ground who through thee believed in Christ; of whom, suspending the more spiritual, torn away from every earthly sense, and lifting them more perfectly to God, with these same thou coverest the souls of those faithful who, set in the second order, are as it were upper chambers.

[11] to whom the author commends himself and his own. Hail, blessed Man, magnificent, admirable: who didst teach that the saving Gospel is great and small, ample and narrow: [m] great indeed, because it surpasses the understanding of any mind and of any nature endowed with reason; but small, because, remitting much of his dignity, he who is loftier than the heavens accommodated himself to the lowliness and likeness of the earth-born. Or, great for the majesty of the divinity, small for the utmost slenderness of human nature; the new mixture [n] and tempering of which constitutes the sum of the Gospel. And now it is ample, because it contains in itself an ample and immense height of understanding and wisdom in hidden mysteries: narrow again, because it delivers in compendium a brief and concise discourse about God. Rejoice and be glad, most illustrious Son of God, most adorned with royal dignity; because a throne has been prepared for thee in heaven with Christ the King of glory, on which thou shalt also sit with the elders of the Word, with the foremost followers of Christ, to judge Israel, as the divine promise of eternal Truth has it. Hail, finally; but do thou also, visiting us with more divine approaches, snatch us from all misery, storm, grief of heart, and temptations: be to us a tower of strength from the face of the enemy: be to us a mediator, be before Christ a good reconciler, who mayest lead us to him, our hope in no wise frustrated with shame, and reconcile us to the supreme King of all: to the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

THE SAINT'S POSTHUMOUS GLORY

From his cultus, the various translations of the sacred body, miracles, relics, etc. Bartholomew the Apostle, at Albanopolis in Armenia or Albania (St.) BHL Number: 1009, 1010

BY J. S. CHAPTER I.

Of the cultus, and of the twofold translation of the body. § I. The cultus: the sacred body borne to Anastasiopolis; then to the island of Lipari: the two translations reconciled. The cultus of St. Bartholomew, most celebrated throughout the whole world, is known in the sacred calendars of all nations, yet on days and months most diverse. The Armenians celebrate their Apostle on the XXV of February and the VIII of December; as may be seen in two of their Calendars, which Assemani published, tom. 3, part 2, of the Oriental Library, from p. 645. The feast of St. Bartholomew among various nations on various days The Copts of Egypt and of Ethiopia, or of the kingdom of the Abyssinians, in the Calendar which Job Ludolf published, announce his memory at the XVIII of June and the XX of November. In the Greek Typicon of Sabas Bartholomew is joined with Barnabas on the XI of June, and on the XXV of August the bringing of the relics is set, to the island of Lipari, I suppose. This the Greeks plainly follow in their metrical Ephemerides, and the Muscovites in the figured ones, which Papebroch set before the eyes of readers before tom. 1 of May; yet they add that the XI day of June is that of his death, which the Typicon seems tacitly to insinuate: but I could wish that more certainly proved. Further, the Muscovites, contrary to the usage for the other apostles, paint Bartholomew clad in an episcopal pallium; but why they do this, Papebroch says in the same place he cannot divine. The other Menologies and Menaea of the Greeks nearly agree with these, except that they weave longer eulogies, which will more aptly be discussed elsewhere. Nor do the sacred calendars of the Latins commemorate St. Bartholomew on the same day. For the Hieronymian martyrologies, in Florentinius, at the XIII of June announce him in these words:

In Persia, the birthday of St. Bartholomew the apostle. But on the day XXIV of August, the place of his death being changed, they thus celebrate his memory: In India, of saint Bartholomew the apostle. And this XXIV day of August most of the rest assign to his memory, as Florus enlarging Bede, with a brief eulogy added, which, whether you consider the place of death, or the manner, or the author, wholly smacks of pseudo-Abdias. Receive the words: In India, the birthday of Bartholomew the apostle, who was beheaded in interior India for Christ by order of king Astyages. More briefly Ado: In India, of blessed Bartholomew the apostle.

[2] [and in various months it is celebrated, but the day of the martyrdom is uncertain.] Usuard on the same day praises the Apostle in these words: The birthday of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, who, preaching the Gospel of Christ in India, completed his martyrdom by beheading. This Apostle's most sacred body, translated first to the island of Lipari, then to Benevento, is honored with the pious veneration of the faithful. With these nearly agree Rabanus, Wandelbert, and the other Latin martyrologists, if you except the manner of death, and other things which have been already discussed or will be disputed in their place. Further, although in most Latin churches the XXIV day of August is sacred to the memory of St. Bartholomew, the Roman church nevertheless celebrates his festivity on the following day, on which also his memory is read as assigned in the Roman Martyrology in these words: Of saint Bartholomew the apostle, who in India preached the Gospel of Christ: thence, having set out into greater Armenia, when he had there converted very many

to the faith, he was flayed alive by barbarians, and by order of king Astyages completed his martyrdom by the beheading of his head. His sacred body, translated first to the island of Lipari, then to Benevento, and lastly to Rome to the Tiberine island, is there honored with the pious veneration of the faithful. Certain less certain things in this eulogy have partly already been examined, and will partly be examined below. The reader sees, I suppose, on how various days the memory of this Saint is celebrated: but which of all those is the day of his death cannot be determined. That the Apostle's feast is kept three times with the greatest solemnity at Benevento, and in other places of Italy, we have already noted at the Beneventan Translation, letter c, and it will be said at num. 61: but hence at least it is plain that with the day of martyrdom the twofold translation is venerated; it is likewise established that the translation to Benevento is celebrated on the XXV of October; but that the translation to Lipari is kept in one place on the XXIV, in another on the XXV of August, appears more probable, because on that day the bringing of the relics is set; although Vipera, in the place cited, dissents, along with the author of the Beneventan translation adduced there. But not even so can we assign a certain day of the martyrdom, since on various days of the month of June his death is celebrated among various peoples, nor is their authority so great that we can

safely acquiesce. For the rest, from what is to be said it will be manifest that the Apostle is venerated with the greatest solemnity at Rome, at Benevento, and at Lipari. These things about the cultus having been briefly discussed, I pass to the very intricate questions about the various translations of the sacred body.

[3] Tillemont, tom. 1 of the Monuments, p. 387, in Bartholomew, writes these things about the translations of the sacred body: The translation of the body to Lipari called into doubt by some, Theodore the Reader, who was writing in the VI century, asserts that the emperor Anastasius, having built about the year DVIII the town of Dara in Mesopotamia, ordered the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle to be translated thither. Procopius speaks of a church of St. Bartholomew at Dara under Justinian. To others we leave the reconciling of these things with what we see written by Gregory of Tours, that in the same century they assert that they have in the island of Lipari near Sicily the body of the same Apostle, which had been translated thither, they said, from the place where he had suffered: and there had been built a magnificent temple dedicated to his name, where various miracles were said to be done. If there was no fraud on either side, an error must have intervened, and the relics of some other St. Bartholomew must have been taken for those which are the Apostle's. The tradition of the church of Lipari seems

to have been received by common consent from the IX century both by the Greeks and by the Latins. But this troublesome thing happens, that the manner in which they assert they received the body of St. Bartholomew is such that I should not dare to report it, lest I offend all who hate fables, and pursue them with greater hatred in matters of religion than in others. Thus Tillemont, timidly indeed, and, as it may seem, modestly; yet in such a way that he both holds for fable-mongers men beyond all exception, whether you consider their sanctity or their erudition, and not only calls into doubt but also openly enough impugns the common tradition of the Latin and Greek Church about the body of St. Bartholomew, so long venerated at Benevento; so that, in Tillemont's judgment, the Romans and the Beneventans have so long disputed about a body plainly uncertain and perhaps supposititious. Baillet, tom. 2 of the Lives of the Saints, adheres to his Tillemont, a faithful Achates. But indeed, there was no reason why these learned men should be so greatly moved, even if the things which Theodore the Reader wrote, book 2 of the Collectanea, could not be reconciled with the body of St. Bartholomew asserted at Lipari by St. Gregory of Tours, even if they had assigned the same time to them: for Theodore could be understood of certain relics, or of some part of the body, since he calls it τὸ λείψανον, which can no less rightly be expounded of certain relics than of the whole body. But it is not necessary to have recourse to this distinction: for I judge it true that the body was laid up at Dara by Anastasius, and then I shall show that it was translated also to Lipari, and how these two are reconciled with one another in friendly connection

will be plain from what is to be said.

[4] Evagrius, book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 37, wrote these things about Dara, or Anastasiopolis, when it was founded: This war being finished, Anastasius changed a certain place of Mesopotamia, which is called Daras, situated on the farthest bounds of the Roman empire, because it was under the emperor Anastasius and as it were a boundary by which one commonwealth is distinguished from the other, from a field into a city: and first surrounded it with a most strong wall, then built in it various buildings, and those excellent, such as churches and other sacred edifices: royal porticoes, public baths, and other things of the kind with which illustrious cities are wont to be magnificently and excellently adorned. And some report that that place was called Daras for this reason, that Darius was there utterly conquered by Alexander king of the Macedonians, son of Philip.

The same Procopius narrates, book 1 On the Persian War, chapter 10, where he adds: It is distant from Nisibis a hundred stadia less two, and from the boundary of either empire about XXVIII; and others cited in Baronius and Pagi at the year of Christ 507, at the end, who also add that it was called Anastasiopolis from its founder Anastasius. To these Nicephorus, book 16, chapter 37, adds the following: That city being founded, after he had departed thence, Bartholomew the apostle standing by him in sleep signified by an oracle that the protection of those walls had been committed to him by God. And Anastasius applied that vision to the purpose: for he laid there the relics of him that had been found. The most eminent Baronius, in the place just cited, wished to refute this from Theodore the Reader, book 2, whom he cites in these words: Anastasius founded Dara; and when he had founded it, he saw in sleep Bartholomew the apostle saying that he had overthrown the guardianship of the city, because he had rejected his relics sent thither. And so has the version of Theodore made by Wolfgang Musculus; but Musculus, of heretical faith, thus expressed Theodore's passage, endeavoring to suppress the translation of St. Bartholomew's relics. Hear Theodore's Greek words: Ἀναστάσιος ὁ βασιλεὺς ἔκ͂τισε τὸ Δάρας, καὶ κτίσας, ὄναρ τεθέαται Βαρθολομαῖον λέγοντα τὸν ἀπόστολον, ὡς αὐτὸς τὴν φυλακὴν ἐπετράπη τῆς πόλεως· διὸ τὸ λείψανον αὐτοῦ ἐκεῖ πέμψας ἀπέθετο. Which Henri de Valois faithfully interprets in this manner: Anastasius the emperor built the city of Daras. And when it was now built, he saw Bartholomew the apostle in sleep, saying that he had undertaken the guardianship of the city. Wherefore Anastasius sent Bartholomew's relics thither, and ordered them to be laid up in that city. The most learned Baronius therefore, deceived by Musculus' unfaithful version, wrongly reprehends Nicephorus, who here plainly agrees with Theodore the Reader. Upon the same rock Florentinius struck, the matter being even a little amplified, when in the Little Index of the Apostles before his Martyrology, p. 158, he reports these things: Theodore the Reader … is the author that the fortifications of Dara restored by Anastasius fell down, because he had rejected the relics of St. Bartholomew sent thither. For not even in Musculus' version is this read.

[5] laid up at Anastasiopolis. That translation is narrated from Gregory of Tours In this manner the sacred body of Bartholomew was laid up at Anastasiopolis, received either from the place where it had first been buried, or whither it had afterwards been translated; which is not established. This was likely done in the year of Christ 507, the 17th of the emperor Anastasius, in which Dara is recorded to have been founded by Baronius and Pagi, or at least not long after. Justinian the emperor afterwards built there a temple to the Apostle, as Procopius relates, book 2 On the Buildings of Justinian, chapter 2, who also there narrates that the city was twice besieged in vain by the Persians, the Apostle, as it seems, protecting his own. But neither was that protection perpetual, nor did that sacred treasure remain there until the end of that same century. For St. Gregory, bishop of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 33, writing before the end of this century, attests that it was translated to Lipari, whose narration, which Tillemont wished to set in collision with the things just narrated, I shall now show is rather made more likely by them. But let us hear Gregory himself first, in the place cited of the Ruinart edition, col. 757: That Bartholomew the apostle, he says, suffered in India (others read Asia), the History of his contest narrates. But after spaces of many years from his passion, when persecution had again come upon the Christians, and the gentiles saw all the people running together to his sepulcher, and continually offering him prayers and incense, drawn by envy, they took away his body, and, placing it in a leaden sarcophagus, cast it into the sea, saying: Thou shalt no longer seduce our people. But the providence of God cooperating by the secret of its working, the leaden sarcophagus, lifted up from that place by the waters bearing it, was carried to an island by name Lipari; and it was revealed to the Christians that they should gather it up: and, being gathered up and buried, they built over it a great temple. In which, now invoked, he shows himself to profit the peoples by many powers and benefits. Thus far Gregory, narrating things done in his own time, as is gathered first from this, that he says, in which now invoked; for he insinuates that that temple had recently been built, and that the temple was built at once, when the body had been borne to Lipari, the Studite narrates. Secondly, because in the proem of the books on miracles, of which this is one, he premises that he desires to disclose some things about miracles which have hitherto lain hidden; if that miracle had hitherto lain hidden, that is, if it had been written by no one, whence did Gregory learn it, unless it was done in his own time? For he cites no one, and without any doubt, as a manifest matter, he reports it. Thirdly, through the whole time of the emperor Justinian the sacred body seems to have remained at Anastasiopolis, nor can any reason be given why we should say it was carried off thence.

Fourthly, the translation is narrated to have been made when Agatho governed the church of Lipari, who was contemporary with St. Gregory, and bishop at the same time as he. A fifth reason will be supplied by the occasion on which that sacred pledge was likely removed from Anastasiopolis and conveyed to Lipari, which falls in the very age in which Gregory of Tours flourished and wrote: but this must be investigated at greater length.

[6] Baronius and Pagi, at the year of Christ

574, by an author more likely contemporary, the 10th of Justin the younger, narrate from various authors how Anastasiopolis, or Daras, was taken by the Persians, a war having arisen between the Romans and the Persians, because these were persecuting the Christians, and thence the Armenians had gone over to the Romans. The matter, so far as it pertains to our purpose, I shall subjoin from Evagrius, with Henri de Valois as translator and editor. He, in book 5, chapter 7, writes thus: The inhabitants of greater Armenia, which now is called Persarmenia, … having professed the Christian faith, when they were grievously vexed by the Persians, especially in those matters which pertained to their religion (you have here that saying of Gregory above: When persecution had again come upon the Christians) secretly sent legates to Justin, asking that they might be subjected to the dominion of the Romans, that they might freely, without any hindrance, perform the ceremonies of divine worship. Which legation, when Justin had admitted it … the Armenians slew their own prefects, and all joined themselves to the Roman empire. Hence war between the Romans and the Persians. The Romans being sluggish, the Persians run through the East as far as Antioch, which things you will find described at greater length in Evagrius. In chapter 9 Chosroes, king of the Persians, shuts up the Roman soldiers within the town of Daras. In chapter 10, increased by the forces of his general, he storms the city by force, which is there thus narrated: These things being done, Adaarmanes came to Chosroes, who had not yet stormed the city of Daras. Being therefore joined with his forces, he brought the greatest weight to the affair … In this way Chosroes in winter time took that city by force. Now Chosroes had besieged that city five months and more, no one defending it. When therefore he had led all out of the city, an immense multitude of men, and had cruelly slaughtered some of them there, but kept the rest alive, the city indeed, as being conveniently situated, he fortified with a garrison placed in it; but he himself returned into his own region. Here it cannot be doubted that against the sacred body of St. Bartholomew, which he could easily hear had been placed there for the fortification of the city, and piously venerated by the Christians, that fierce man raged, a most bitter enemy of Christ's sacred things: since it is also sufficiently known from elsewhere that the Persians were wont to plunder the sacred pledges of the Christians and carry them off with them.

[7] and it is proved to involve no repugnance, But one scruple here occurs, namely by what means the Persians could have cast the Saint's body into the sea: but this too I shall try to remove from Evagrius, that Gregory's narration may not seem to depart from likelihood even in its circumstances; for I do not here yet weigh the narrations of others on this matter. We saw above from Evagrius that the Persians roamed most freely as far as Antioch, which they also attacked; from which we understand that Syria lay open to their incursions as far as the Mediterranean sea, no one resisting: and this liberty, Anastasiopolis being taken, was assuredly so far from being diminished that with greater forces they could now range abroad through all that winter time. Why therefore in some like excursion could they not have carried off with them the body of Bartholomew, hateful to them, and sunk it in the Mediterranean sea, that it might never thereafter lie open to the eyes of Christians? What was done I do not say: what could have been done I inquire. Next, the praised Evagrius, chapter 14, of Chosroes: Who after the capture, he says, of the city of Daras, straightway in summer time had burst into Armenia, and thence was meditating to invade Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia and of the other cities there: and he so greatly despised the empire of the Romans that when the caesar had sent legates to him, he by no means admitted them to his sight, but bade them follow him as far as the city of Caesarea. For there, he said, he would hear their legation.

[8] the chief objection being solved, How great a terror on every side through lesser Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia his coming brought, we learn from the Life of St. Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, written by Eustathius a presbyter of his household, and illustrated by Henschen, tom. 1 of April from p. 548, in which, chapter 7, these things are read: The incursion of the impious Persians into our commonwealth, in which the new Nabuchodonosor Chosroes came to Sebaste and Melitene, all know. When therefore affairs had been brought into great straits and peril, nearly all the neighbors from Nicopolis, Neocaesarea, Comana, Zela, and other bordering cities betook themselves to Amasea (where Eutychius was living in exile), as to a most fortified place, trusting not so much in the garrison of the city as in the prayers of the holy man: for all, both natives and newcomers and settlers, who were for the greater part Iberians, and the rest of the guests, had placed their hopes, under God, in him. From these we gather that that whole tract of lesser Armenia and of Pontus, as far as the Euxine Sea, was then open to the hostile arms of the Persians.

Why in this expedition could not the sacred body, carried away from Anastasiopolis, have been sunk in the Euxine Sea? For that it was cast into the Euxine most authors relate, although Gregory's narration does not require it. The tyrant could be incited to this both because the Armenians had revolted for religion's sake, and the war had been begun, and because he was busy to despoil the Armenians in every way of their patron, and the other Easterners, in whom he had doubtless understood that they greatly trusted. But, you will say, they were already despoiled of that treasure: what need then was there to cast it into the sea? That, forsooth, they might lack it forever, the power being cut off from himself and his posterity of restoring the sacred body when at last peace was made. Add that he feared nothing from the Romans, occupied in levying soldiers in Europe, and therefore could both roam freely and indulge his hatred against the sacred things of the Christians. Nor may our adversaries here rightly say that nothing of these things has been handed down to memory by the historians: for at this we can by no means wonder, that these deeds done by unbelievers lay hidden from the Christians. It ought to be enough for us that it was written by illustrious authors that the sacred body was cast into the waters, and that indeed at that time when persecution had again arisen against the Christians, which rightly agrees with this time. But if you think it less likely that this venerable treasure was cast into the Euxine Sea, there are not wanting rivers in Cappadocia which discharge themselves into the same sea: if you think the sacred body was cast into one of these, and so carried into the Euxine, the authors spoke less properly, or, if you will absolutely have it so, erred in a slight circumstance. Certainly that the venerable body was treated with injury by the impious, and withdrawn from the eyes of Christians, we cannot doubt: why then should we not believe, on so many witnesses, that it was sunk in the water?

[9] It is now useful to call to our aid Tillemont himself, who called into doubt a tradition received by common consent, as he confesses, by the Latins alike and the Greeks. and from Tillemont's own principles, For if he had not departed from principles laid down elsewhere, he does not seem likely to have doubted of this tradition. For in his preface, tom. 1 of the Monuments, p. 15, he speaks thus: We confess that in this whole work authority has been consulted rather than reasoning. We have been convinced by many examples that things which appear most improbable are yet sometimes found true. Which he confirms by the example of holy Scripture, from which very many examples of this kind could be given. We see likewise, he says, that things which at first seem most contrary are yet most easily reconciled, when their several circumstances are known… Led by this principle, when we have seen things asserted by ancient and excellent authors, whose testimony the sons of the Catholic Church ought to revere, we have not thought that they could be deserted, at least unless we should see for this most weighty reasons. And in the same tome, p. 631, note 13 on James the Less: It is not infrequent in the truest histories to find improbabilities of that kind. The reason why this is wont to happen he assigns on p. 632. The manner in which some narrate things often makes even the truest things suspect and incredible, because they report only certain facts separated from one another, omitting those things which connect them and would show their possibility or probability. These things Tillemont says excellently, which he could himself have observed have place above all in the translation of St. Bartholomew's body; for the circumstances of the matter which would render it altogether probable have been omitted, not by the fault of the authors who reported it, but because they could be less known.

[10] it is determined that it must be admitted as true. Why therefore did Tillemont call into doubt the Liparitan tradition, received, as he confesses, by the Latins alike and the Greeks, and resting on the testimony of the weightiest men? Why did he wish to set it in collision with the translation made to Anastasiopolis? Why did he contend that there was fraud or error on one side or the other? Is that reason which he brings so weighty? Namely that the body is said to have been translated in the same century to Anastasiopolis, and to have been in the same century in the island of Lipari; that here fraud or error must be suspected? As if it could not have been translated at the beginning of the century to Anastasiopolis, and carried to Lipari when the century was nearly grown? Not for one translation only, but for several, Tillemont could here have found sufficient time. But, he says, it is said to have been translated from the place where the Apostle had suffered. This is not said by St. Theodore the Studite, nor by Joseph, although they speak more obscurely: certainly not by Gregory of Tours, whose narration Tillemont insinuates to be contrary to the Anastasiopolitan translation. But, you will say, it is asserted by others who narrate the same. These therefore he ought to have attacked, these to have convicted of error, not to have set the matter itself and its first Writers in collision with the first translation made to Anastasiopolis. For certain later writers imprudently added it, on whose authority the Liparitan translation does not rest. The translation of the body to Lipari therefore, although, on account of omitted circumstances, it was narrated in a less probable manner, must remain certain and undoubted, since there stands for it the consent of the Greeks and Latins, and among them Gregory of Tours, a man holy and learned, and, what is chief, a contemporary writer; St. Theodore the Studite, a man of most known sanctity and of such erudition that the heterodox William Cave, most hostile to him for his defense of the sacred images, was compelled to confess, in his History of Ecclesiastical Writers, p. 359: He was a man learned

above the common lot of the lettered, and not moderately versed in almost every kind of the sciences; Anastasius the Librarian, a man learned and erudite in Greek and Latin; Joseph, as it seems, the Hymnographer, and others, of whom it would be long to weave a catalogue. These things about the translation as to substance. Now it must be examined whether its manner is as fabulous as it seemed to Tillemont. § II. In what manner the body was transported to Lipari? The manner of the translation by sea Seven islands lie between Italy and Sicily, called Aeolian, because Aeolus is said to have reigned in them, and Vulcanian from the fires which they belch forth. Nearly the middle of these, and the chief, is Lipari, which held a city of the same name, says Cellarius, Ancient Geography tom. 1, book 2, chapter 12, p. 652, and was of such power that it had a fleet, and ruled over the other Aeolian islands. That this was enriched with the body of St. Bartholomew we have already seen. But whether it was done in this manner, as is commonly handed down, miraculously, we here inquire. This manner we have already given from Gregory of Tours in the preceding §; from Joseph and Theodore the Studite in their own Orations. Briefly it is contracted to these things, in which the authors already given, and to be given below, agree. The body, enclosed in a sarcophagus and cast into the sea by the unbelievers, by the ruling of divine providence was borne to Lipari, and there known by revelation, and honorably laid up in a temple that was built, and became renowned by many miracles. This substance of the whole matter must first be examined, then also the circumstances which are added by some must be discussed. This history is wonderful, a great miracle, I do not deny. But, if anyone, by the very fact that he reads wonderful things, judges them false, he must often strike upon a rock, nor does he seem sufficiently to acknowledge that God is wonderful in his Saints. Yet we do not deny that the firmer testimonies must be brought forward the more wonderful and abhorrent from the appearance of truth are the things narrated. Here therefore it must be weighed whether the testimonies that are brought are such that by them we can and ought to believe so great a matter.

[12] Honoré de Sainte-Marie, in his Animadversions on the rules and use of criticism, tom. 1, asserted by witnesses beyond all exception, part 2, diss. 6, art. 6, p. 230, lays down a most equitable rule by which we may both know the truth of some history related, and know that he who related it was not its inventor; the part of which containing the acknowledging of the truth of a history I shall set as the foundation of this examination. Scarcely, he says, is there a rule of criticism less capable of deceiving, to make us certain of the truth of some history related by a certain writer …, than if other authors, with whom the first had no connection, confirm what he asserts. Still less will this rule deceive, if those authors either lived at the time at which the thing must have been done, or were of sharp wit and great erudition, whereby they could more easily separate the true from the false. But this translation of which we treat had such assertors. For St. Gregory of Tours wrote in Latin in Gaul that this was done in his own time, as we have proved; St. Theodore the Studite, and others, who had never, as I suppose, seen Gregory's history, described it in the ninth century in Greek in Greece; others at Lipari, to be reported below; St. Bertharius abbot of Cassino and Anastasius the Librarian thought it worthy that they should render it from the Greek speech into Latin; to pass over very many more recent writers who judged the same worthy that they should insert it in their own writings; not to speak of the consent of the Latin and Greek Church in the ninth century in admitting the Liparitan tradition. Add that none of the more ancient writers is found who denied that the translation was accomplished in the manner explained above. We have therefore witnesses beyond all exception: Gregory of Tours, contemporary, learned, sincere; Theodore the Studite, excellently erudite and holy, who was never heard to be a lover of fables, nor was suspected of too great credulity, of whom one did not copy the other: we have many learned men of nearly the same time, and the consent of the Church adhering to them, and no one who lived about those times dissenting. Credit therefore we cannot deny to so many and so great witnesses, unless they were writing things which we could convict of being openly false.

[13] But such is not this translation, as I here briefly show. nor such that it cannot be believed, For at the beginning of the VI century, under the rule of Anastasius, the sacred body was laid up in the city of Dara; and, that city being taken under Justin the younger, more than sixty years having elapsed, it could in many ways be cast into the sea, as we taught in the preceding §. Why therefore could not divine providence bear it to Lipari and there reveal it to the faithful? What here, I beseech you, is absurd, what discordant? One miracle is asserted, by which a chest of stone or lead floated upon the waters; one revelation, by which it was manifested to the people of Lipari. So many like things are read in the Acts of the Saints, even the most authentic, that I think examples must be forborne, lest this disputation grow too much.

Yet satisfaction must be given to Tillemont, lest his authority stand in the way of the truth.

[14] it must be admitted as true, Tillemont in no wise standing in the way, Tillemont did not dare to report this manner of the translation, lest he should offend the haters of fables. But St. Theodore the Studite, a man learned above the common lot of the lettered, and not moderately versed in almost every kind of the sciences, thought it worthy that he should celebrate it with encomia and compare it with Peter's walking upon the waters. Could Tillemont see what in that manner of translation can seem fabulous, and Theodore not see it? That assuredly does not seem to me likely. For granted that Tillemont's erudition were equal, age at least favors Theodore, who at the beginning of the ninth century could better know what was done toward the end of the sixth century in the island of Lipari, since the body had not yet been removed thence, than Tillemont could know it in the past century. Compared therefore with the authority of St. Theodore alone, Tillemont will be far inferior. What if I now add Gregory of Tours, whom Tillemont himself, tom. 4 of the Monuments, note 2 on Dionysius, p. 708, follows for the time of the mission of St. Dionysius and others, as an author better than the rest, although he there writes of a matter three centuries at least past: what, I say, if I add him, as an author writing of matters of his own time? What if the other authors reported, and the consent of all the Greeks and Latins; for no one ever handed down to memory that the Saint's body came to Lipari in another way; yet by common consent from the ninth century the Greeks and Latins admit the Liparitan tradition, as Tillemont confesses.

[15] who is here not sufficiently like himself. If I add, I say, the authority of all these, not only will Tillemont be far inferior, but he will not even appear sufficiently like himself, because elsewhere with great reverence toward the holy Fathers and ancient authors he receives their testimonies, even if various things be adduced which might stand in the way; but here he so greatly spurns their authority that he not only departs from them, but even asserts them to be writers of such great fables that he himself does not dare to report them, lest he should offend all who hate fables. Here certainly the learned man feared where there was no fear; where he ought to have feared, he did not fear. For the rest, what I more wonder at, after the words cited, tom. 1, p. 388, straightway less timid, he narrates the gathering-up of the Apostle's relics made at Lipari by a Greek monk, relying on the single testimony of Anastasius the Librarian; and yet in that gathering-up both a divine revelation and a heavenly light by which the bones were shown, and miracles, are narrated to have been done, so that it can appear no less wonderful than this translation of which we dispute: if therefore here Anastasius' single testimony suffices, why should not the testimony of the same Anastasius in the Liparitan translation, joined with so many others, suffice for us? It ought assuredly to have sufficed for Tillemont too, unless he had held suspect even the presence itself of the body at Lipari, relying on his own paralogism, that a body translated in the same century to Anastasiopolis could not in the same century be at Lipari, carried thither, as was said, from Albanopolis, to which we gave satisfaction in the preceding §. Now let us report the same translation from others, that we may examine certain circumstances added by them.

[16] Rocco Pirro, in Sicilia sacra tom. 2, p. 660, In another narration of this translation, and Ferdinando Ughelli, Italia sacra tom. 1, col. 773 of the edition of the year 1717, both in Agatho, according to them the first bishop of the people of Lipari under the emperors Decius and Valerian, produce an ancient manuscript, in which they attest that they read the following, which I shall copy from Pirro, nothing of any moment being changed in Ughelli: That the citizens and inhabitants of Albanopolis, ungrateful for so many and so great benefits daily received from Bartholomew, cast his body, enclosed in a stone chest, into the deep of the sea; presently divine vengeance raged against them, and the city

is laid waste by enemies: and the dwellers are subjected to servitude; yet divine piety carried those same relics of Bartholomew to the island of Lipari, to that very place not far from that city; where even now under the waters the stone chest is seen, as the people of Lipari, when I was there, told me that they had received from a tradition led down to these our times. Of the putting-in of the sacred body our Agatho, warned by an angel, came to the place and found the heavenly treasure; he falls upon his knees, venerates the sacred relics, and handled them with what honor he could: he understood, namely, that this bulwark of his island was given him by God, and bade it be carried in from the sea into the cathedral temple on the shoulders of presbyters; but these things were done with so great applause of the citizens and signs of the joy of those carrying it, that Agatho, ascending the pulpit, delivered a discourse to the people on the very day of the translation: nearly in these words. Then an oration is subjoined in Pirro, not such as Agatho delivered to the people, but such as on a like occasion he could fittingly have delivered, as the author himself hints, when he says: nearly in these words; which therefore I have not thought must here

be copied.

[17] Each author holds that the translation was made in the time of this Agatho, which is not rightly placed under Decius, and that under the rule of Decius or Valerian, that is, in the third century; but presently a most open anachronism is added. Hear Pirro again, with whom as to the matter Ughelli agrees: Then, he says, happened the translation of the sacred body of St. Bartholomew the apostle; with which the city of Daras on the borders of Persia had first been made illustrious, as Theodore the Reader writes. In what way had Daras been made illustrious by the sacred body first — Daras, which not until the sixth century, under the emperor Anastasius, was enriched with this sacred treasure, on the witness of the cited Theodore — if it had already in the third century been translated to Lipari?

This error is too open to need a longer refutation. Nicolò Coleti, on the passage of Ughelli which he published, notes thus: I doubt whether in truth in that age the island of Lipari had Agatho as bishop. A certain Agatho, bishop of Lipari, is named in the Oration on the body of St. Bartholomew brought to that island, and Rocco Pirro will have him to be the one whose Life is had in the Acts of SS. Alphius, etc. (and of whom Ughelli here speaks:) but I should more willingly believe that translation to have been in the age of St. Gregory, in which the bishop of Lipari was Agatho, than that it was made in that of Decius: and therefore I still

require a more certain testimony of the existence of another Agatho. For such a one the people of Lipari would likely venerate among their patrons, if they had had him. Then he cites tom. 11 of May of our Work, p. 548; where Papebroch notes those things, who before had shown that those Acts of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus the martyrs, in which frequent mention is made of that Agatho, are fabulous, and therefore in tom. V of June, p. 248, placed that Agatho among the passed-over. But it matters little for our purpose whether there was then some Agatho bishop of Lipari or not: it suffices that there was someone toward the end of the sixth century, to whose times the translation is to be referred, which Gregory of Tours sufficiently indicates was made in his own time, and which

the capture of Daras by the Persians at that time persuades to have been accomplished.

[18] or that some said it was made under Constantine, Further, in what year the translation was made is not clear. For neither is it established in what year Agatho was made bishop of Lipari, but we have only that he was removed from the episcopate by St. Gregory about the year 592, as Ughelli, cited, col. 774, proves from Gregory's epistles; nor can it be said whether the Persians cast away the sacred body at once after the capture of Dara, or somewhat later; nor likewise how long it was in the sea. Yet the translation must be set between the year 574, in which Daras was taken according to Baronius and Pagi, and the year 592, in which Agatho was deposed from the episcopate. The manuscript Florarium of the Saints ought not here to detain us, in which the translation is said to have been made in the year of Christ 331. For that author, who wrote only in the 15th century, is too recent to be able to make us certain about the time of that translation: especially since no Agatho then seems to have been bishop of Lipari, nor can this epoch be reconciled with the laying-up of the body at Dara made by Anastasius. These hallucinations of more recent writers in assigning the time of the translation seem to have furnished Tillemont a cause for impugning it; but he ought to have observed that these things were not written by the ancients, and therefore that the more recent are rather to be corrected than the translation itself denied.

[19] certain things must be corrected. But now what is narrated about the body cast into the sea by the people of Albanopolis is taken from popular tradition, as also about their city destroyed by enemies, and therefore is not to be admitted. For these things were written neither by Gregory, nor by the Studite, nor by Joseph, although these last two so speak that, if the matter were altogether doubtful, they might seem to insinuate this. But this error seems to have flowed thence, that this alone was known by divine revelation, that the body was immersed in the sea by unbelievers; and, since they were ignorant of the first translation, they thought it was cast away by those among whom it had at first been buried: they could err less about the body brought thither, which they themselves could behold present, and therefore that error, even if it had existed from the beginning, which does not appear, ought not to lessen the credit to be given them as to the translation itself. Receive now also the Menaea of the Greeks, as they were rendered into Latin by our Rader, in which other circumstances of this translation are added.

[20] A fuller account from the Greek Menaea. At the day XXV of August they have thus: Opportunely now it is permitted me also to exclaim, How admirable is God in his Saints! since I have resolved to unfold a rare and plainly formidable prodigy. Saint Bartholomew the apostle in divers places opened and preached the name of the Lord to mortals. He was fastened to a cross in great Armenia, a region of the East. Him the faithful, found at the end of his life, laid in a stone chest. But since that urn poured forth perennial fountains of healings, the peoples ran together, and were freed by all from the troubles of their diseases. When the satellites of the devil saw this, they began to rage and to be mad against that tomb. And so, the matter and the time being explored, they cast this sarcophagus, which contained the body of the holy Apostle, together with the chests of four other martyrs, into the sea. But this was all done that that whole tract of sea through which the bodies passed, and all the places through which divine grace had distributed the Saints, might be consecrated and blessed. For when the holy Apostle had crossed the great gulfs of Pontus, and the straits of the Hellespont, and the channel, he came into the Aegean and Adriatic sea, leaving the noble and renowned great island of Sicily on the left. And he had as companions the urns of the said martyrs, which followed St. Bartholomew — Pappianus, I mean, Lucianus, Gregory, and Acacius — and they put in at the island of Lipari. How wonderful are thy works, O Lord, and what speech would suffice to unfold the praises of thy wonders? And the renowned martyrs indeed left the great Apostle to rest as an emperor in the place that pleased him, and straightway sailed thither where the divine lot willed each to pitch his tent. Pappianus therefore was borne to the Sicilian city of Ancilla, Lucianus to Messina, Gregory to Colimna, a town of Calabria, Acacius to the city so called Ascalis.

[21] But the holy Apostle revealed himself to Agatho, bishop of Lipari, the narration of the same translation, who at once ran to the place where the chest had rested, and, having beheld the vast and dread prodigy, astounded with amazement, said: And whence, O Lipari, so great and so vast a treasure? Truly thou hast been exceedingly magnified and illustrated with singular glory; leap, exult, receive with thy hands this sacred pledge and cry out: Well and happily art thou here, O Apostle of the Lord. The bishop, having spoken these and other things, when he had proclaimed both the Apostle and the island blessed, fell silent. But when the holy chest was to be carried to the illustrious place in which also a divine temple to the glory of the most praised Apostle was to be raised, many indeed set their hands

to draw the sacred coffer; but it did not obey, nor could it be moved from the place, until Agatho, divinely taught, brought up two young cows under a yoke, which, without any trouble, drew the vast chest, bound with slender ropes, whither the Apostle who was preserved in it willed.

[22] Here things more wonderful than wonders followed, which to many perhaps unaccustomed to heavenly prodigies will seem incredible. which seems taken from Nicetas the Paphlagonian. There is a small island whose name is Vurcanos; it has a fountain which day and night perennially gushes. This island as it were alone felt the coming of the Apostle: for when by its nearness it was harmful to Lipari, straightway by a certain heavenly power it withdrew seven

stadia from Lipari, that tract being marked off as by some river, showing and proclaiming the miracle even today. O miracle of miracles!

O most prodigious prodigy! Where has anything like it ever been known under the sun? But after

the bishop had raised an elegant and illustrious temple to the Apostle, and in it laid the most precious treasure, the sacred body, I mean, with the chest itself: who could attain in speech how many miracles have there daily been wrought? This whole narration inserted in the Menaea seems to have as its author Nicetas

the Paphlagonian, for it is cited under his name by various writers, and with his encomiastic Oration, whether you consider the style or the Saint's death related in it, it rightly agrees. Now certain things which are most prodigious, or contrary in appearance, must be weighed.

[23] In nearly all the relations the chest in which the sacred body was enclosed is said to have been of stone. Gregory of Tours however calls the sarcophagus leaden, which Combefis also attests is found in his codex of the Menaea, Whether the body was placed in a stone chest or a leaden one? in the Auctarium, note 2 on this translation, p. 496, which he himself there tries to reconcile in this manner: Was it not, as usage almost has it, that in the stone chest there was a leaden urn, and that the undutiful men cast both into the sea,

lest any memory of the Apostle, even by an empty tomb, should remain among them, whereby the people's devotion toward him might be cherished? This conjecture

I do not disapprove. The stone chest could also have been fortified with lead, or covered, as someone thought. Yet I do not deny that as to this circumstance an error could easily have crept in upon Gregory of Tours; but this makes nothing for the substance of the matter.

[24] Whether the island, Greater difficulty has that plainly stupendous prodigy which is here narrated, and in the Studite, about the island which here in Greek is called Βουρκάνος, and by Anastasius is called Vulcanus in the Latin version of the Studite; and it is commonly thought that the island is designated which, situated between Sicily and Lipari, is named by another name Hiera, because it is sacred to Vulcan, concerning which Virgil, book 8 of the Aeneid:

An island by the Sicanian side and Aeolian

Lipare rises up, steep with smoking rocks: the house of Vulcan, and the land Vulcanian by name. The same is also called Thermissa by Strabo, and the temple of Vulcan, as may be seen in Cellarius, Notice of the Ancient World, tom. 1, p. 653. The island

further is said to have withdrawn seven stadia from Lipari, to which its nearness was harmful on account of the continual eructations of fires. This prodigy our Ottavio Gaetani tries to render likely in his Animadversions on the Lives of the Saints, tom. 1, p. 136: But that the island of Vulcanus, almost contiguous to Lipari, at the putting-in of St. Bartholomew's body withdrew seven stadia away, understand to have been done by the benevolence of the most holy Apostle toward the people of Lipari: namely that the island, driven farther off, might free them from the perils of the fires which burst out from the nearby crater of Vulcanus to the harm of the dwellers. Nor is it wonderful that that island was divinely removed,

which by a miracle of nature was not born together with the world, but had suddenly emerged from the sea, in the consulship of Posthumius

Albinus and Fabius Labeo, as Pliny (book 2, chapter 87), Eutropius, Paulus Orosius, and Isidore record. Ado also has this, in the Chronicle

at the fifth age, after the year of the world 4588, in these words: The island of Vulcanus, which before had not been, suddenly arose in the sea. But these things certainly cannot be admitted as true, since authors far more ancient make mention of this island; but perhaps these things must be understood of another island, as also the very miracle of which we dispute, if it truly happened.

[25] and which one Philip Cluverius, Ancient Sicily, book 2, chapter 14, p. 409, thus refutes Fazello, who had adduced the same authors for Hiera, or the island of Vulcanus, as having been born from the sea: A vast error, or slip of memory. For nearly CC years before the year 10L of the city of Rome (in which year, in the consulship of Sp. Posthumius Albinus and Q. Fabius Labeo, Fazello writes that the island was born) Thucydides makes mention of it; as was seen above: and about c years after him Aristotle. Then he cites among other things these words from Orosius, book 4, chapter 20: In Sicily then the island of Vulcanus, which before had not been, suddenly brought forth in the sea to the wonder of all,

remains even until now. And those from Isidore, book 14, chapter 6: The Aeolian islands of Sicily: … Of these certain ones were not from the beginning: certain, afterwards brought forth by the sea, remain until now. Pliny's words also being adduced, he thus gathers: From those words of Orosius, just written out, I gather that this island emerged near Hiera or Vulcania: and there is even today in this position a certain tiny island, by the common term Volcanello, and, as the dialect of the inhabitants varies, Bolcanello and Borcanello. Rightly does Cluverius so judge, for neither do the authors cited indicate more, nor can they be understood of Hiera itself, which was memorable long before. But concerning this island

Fazello himself, cited by Cluverius in the same place, thus speaks, Decade 1, book 1, chapter 1, page 3: The third

island, Vulcanellus, is parted from Vulcania by a very slender strait: which itself also once belched forth fire. The strait was passable down to my own age, and a trusty anchorage for ships. Now it has been blocked by an intervening mass of ashes and stones from the furnaces of Vulcania. That this one therefore emerged from the deep is credible, as many others emerged; which of Hiera is openly false, at least for the time assigned by the authors.

[26] Now in like manner I show that this island is the one designated by St. Theodore the Studite, moved from its place? and by the Menaea, when they say that at the coming of the body of St. Bartholomew it withdrew, and that Hiera cannot be understood. For by the Menaea it is called νησίδιον, as if in Latin one should say Insulula, a little island. But Hiera, if it be compared with Lipari, will be so called quite unfitly, since it is among the chief of the Aeolian islands. By the Studite, however, it is called a Mount, which name can in no way fit Hiera. Add that it is manifestly false that Hiera was ever almost contiguous to Lipari, as they say that mountain was which they assert withdrew. So that of Hiera that miracle can in no way be understood, which always seems to have been situated between Sicily and Lipari, in the place where it now is. But concerning Vulcanello that is uncertain; it could have been nearer to Lipari, it could also have withdrawn, since the ancients made no mention of it. Nor is this so great a prodigy in a mountain, or tiny island, risen out of the deep, that it cannot be believed, when men worthy of credit assert it without any doubt, and as a thing fully ascertained: nor yet by their testimony is it rendered so certain that it cannot seem doubtful, since in such matters even the learned can easily be deceived, especially when they write those things which they could not themselves set before their own eyes. This therefore, since it has not been written by all, I judge is to be reckoned among the less certain miracles of the Saint, not to be cast away among the fables. For the authority upon which this miracle rests is certain, and by no means to be despised; but the difficulties which are moved against it do not prove either that it could not have happened, or that it did not happen.

[27] Of the remaining circumstances of this translation, of the companions joined to the Saint, Was the chest made immovable? of the temple built at Lipari, of the journey, and of certain modes of speaking, oratorical, to be understood less strictly, we have treated in the notes to the Orations of Theodore and Joseph. One thing only I observe in this place in the narration given above out of Pirro, where the body is said to have been ordered by Bishop Agatho to be carried from the sea to the cathedral church upon the shoulders of the presbyters; whereas the Studite, as he is edited in tom. 2 of the Spicilegium, page 125, writes thus: For the rest, when

they had come to the city, the chest did not go forward; for certain men were dragging with all their might; but it was immovable. And when the people were in much bewilderment, joy at length took up sadness again, because it obtained what it had asked of the Lord: for the Lord is near to them that call upon him. Being taken up therefore upon two chaste heifers, it was laid down where his sacred temple was straightway placed. It is added in the Menaea that the chest was unmoved, until Agatho, divinely taught, brought up two young cows under a yoke, which, without any trouble, drew the vast chest, bound with slender ropes, whither the Apostle who was preserved in it willed. These things can less well be reconciled with one another, and Gregory of Tours says nothing of this miracle, nothing Joseph; so that this prodigy may seem doubtful, especially since, the manuscripts of the Studite here disagreeing, in the one which we have followed in the edition, nothing is read of the cows being brought up.

[28] What is to be thought of the whole matter? There will perhaps be those who think that, on account of these diversities, whatever they be, in certain circumstances, the whole history of the translation is less certain; with whom I by no means agree. For since all agree exceedingly well about the body conveyed to Lipari across the sea, they ought to have the greater authority in this conveyance, the less they agree about circumstances of lesser moment. For from this we learn that the one did not copy his own account from the other, as often is wont to happen in like cases. I confess that great difficulties are opposed to this translation, yet not such as can be compared with the authority upon which the translation rests, as I trust I have shown throughout this whole disputation. Here therefore is to be followed the rule most apt for judging rightly, which Honoratus a S. Maria brings forward in the Work already praised, part 2, page 298, in these words: When it happens that a fact is sufficiently attested by the testimony of some author endowed with authority, who explains himself clearly and not ambiguously; who is not contradicted by other writers, and who cannot be convicted of error: authority ought to prevail over conjectures. I am deceived, unless all who will follow this rule of criticism will admit as true the translation of which we have treated. § III. The remaining matters pertaining to Lipari.

A temple built at Lipari, It will be useful here to describe from the authors the remaining things which were done at Lipari in honor of the Apostle, before we relate how the sacred body was translated to Benevento. We saw above from Theodore the Studite that a temple in honor of the Apostle was straightway built, as soon as the sacred relics were brought to Lipari. Now that temple had already been built before the end of the sixth century, when St. Gregory of Tours was writing, from whom, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 34, we have these words: They built over him a great temple; in which, being now invoked, he shows himself of profit to the peoples by many powers and benefits. As to the miracles, the Studite does not depart from Gregory of Tours in the place cited: Moreover, he says, how many and how great things he thereafter wondrously wrought; or what marvels he works even to this day about those who, bound by divers languors and infirmities, flee to him in faith, it is neither necessary to say because of the length of the treatise, nor incredible to the hearer. You see that that perennial fountain of prodigies and benefits, after two hundred years and more, when the Studite wrote these things, had not yet dried up. The Greek Menaea agree with both authors; and various manuscripts.

[30] where very many miracles were wrought: But whether a relation of the miracles wrought at Lipari was ever written, or whether it perished in the Saracen incursion, or by the injury of time, or whether it lies hid somewhere, is uncertain to me: to our hands certainly it has not yet come. For the rest, that they were very many and remarkable is manifest on every side. For in the Antiphon also, which Marius de Vipera drew from the Office of the old Breviary of the church of Benevento, in the Catalogue of the Saints of that same church, page 33, it is thus read: Armenia proclaims

thy glory, Lipari thy miracles, Benevento thy praises, O most blessed Bartholomew, and the whole creation thy grace. Since the Beneventans themselves attribute the Apostle's miracles to Lipari rather than to Benevento, although among them also very many were wrought at the very coming of the body, we must needs say that they were wrought at Lipari in a plainly enormous number. Receive therefore what a certain manuscript of Lyons has to this effect, which is said to have been written from the account of a certain bishop who had been present at the Beneventan translation, of whom more hereafter: In this island, he says, which lies between Sicily and Benevento with a narrow strait between, when in a basilica of wondrous workmanship, which was resplendent, founded in his honor by the faithful, the aforesaid Apostle of God was worshipped with due veneration, and was declared by many works of powers and benefits unto the glory of God and the salvation of the Christian people through very many courses of years. Let these things said about the remarkable miracles of the Apostle wrought at Lipari suffice, since we cannot give a narration of them one by one.

[31] As holy Bartholomew was bountiful and beneficent toward the people of Lipari, A new temple so they too doubtless strove by pious worship to render the Apostle well-disposed to them. But when afterwards the Saracens had got possession of affairs in Lipari, and the relics of the Apostle had been translated to Benevento, as we shall relate, the worship of the Saint was indeed interrupted there, yet in such wise that, when the Saracens were afterwards driven out by the Normans, it forthwith revived. In what year this was done, I do not think it worth the labor to investigate more painstakingly; the matter as done is narrated by Rocco Pirro, tom. 2 of Sicilia sacra, from page 664, and Ferdinando Ughelli, tom. 1 of the edition cited, among the bishops of Lipari, from col. 775, who write that not only was a temple built in honor of St. Bartholomew, but a monastery also was erected, and dedicated to the same Apostle.

[32] Hear Ughelli, col. 775: But although from the year MLXXX, the Saracens being overcome, built for the Apostle by the Normans, Robert and Roger the Normans had restored that island to the Christians, where straightway a temple was raised by Roger to St. Bartholomew, as Fazello witnesses (decad. 1, book 1, page 3) and by certain men professing the monastic life a monastery was built, over which Ambrose was set. The same monastery was sacred to St. Bartholomew, as will appear below, and was excellently endowed by the liberality of the same princes, as follows in Ughelli: At that time the count, by a charter which was confirmed by Roger II, his son, in the year MCXXXIV, granted Lipari, Vulcanus, Salina, Panaria, Strangulon, Arcuri, and the islands of Feliculi. That these are all Aeolian I do not doubt, although the names of some are not a little corrupted. That they were so called at that time in the tongue then vulgar among the Sicilians is likely. But to what end these islands were granted to the monastery we gather from Ughelli, who says of them, col. 771: Among all the Aeolian islands this one alone (Lipari) is inhabited today, fruitful by the nature of its soil, renowned for a great yield of alum and for abundance of domestic fruits. For the tilling of the fields, therefore, and the gathering of the fruits, they seem to have been assigned to the monastery of St. Bartholomew. Nor yet did the liberality of the counts stop here. For thus Ughelli goes on: Then by the same count Roger many estates in Calabria were given to the same abbot Ambrose, and to the monastery of Lipari, by a charter of this year MLXXXVIII. Receive the charter itself, as the praised Ughelli recites it.

[33] and the monastery dedicated to him, to which the Aeolian islands, Roger, count of Calabria and Sicily, the help of the Christians, the XXVI of the month of July, in the XI Indiction, in the year from the beginning of the world 6596 (that is, by their own reckoning.) After I came with my sons out of France into Militum. (There seems to be designated Miletus, the η being turned into a Latin i, which city is indeed small even today in Further Calabria, yet episcopal; commonly it is now called Melito; there also we shall see below the bull of Urban II confirming these things, given) I gave to abbot Ambrose, for the monastery of St. Bartholomew of Lipari, the terragia written below, for the health of my soul and the remission of all my sins, which terragia are near the front of the castle of Militum, bounded with the limits written below, which terragia I give to thee, Lord Ambrose the abbot, that thou mayest have them, and possess them in thy lordship, and that none may in any way gainsay it. But if any one should wish to gainsay our aforesaid privilege, and*

our said benevolent donation in any way, let him have the curse of the three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers (of the council of Nicaea) anathema … from them, and the curse of Judas Iscariot unto eternity, and world without end. Thus far Roger. The same largesses, says Ughelli in the same place, and the island of Lipari itself, to the monastery of Lipari, and all the goods given to it, Pope Urban II confirmed by his own privilege. The bull of Urban, because it not only confirms these donations, but also teaches the Lipari translation, and establishes the monastery under the special protection of the Apostolic See, I have thought should be transcribed here in part from Pirro, conceived in these words:

[34] the Pontiff confirming, were granted, Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved brother Ambrose, abbot of Lipari, and to his successors regularly to be substituted, in perpetuity. Whereas all islands, according to the royal institutions, are of public right; it is certainly established that by the privilege of the religious emperor Constantine all the Western islands were granted into the proper right of B. Peter

and his successors, especially those which are had about the shore of Italy, of which many, the sins of their inhabitants requiring it, being taken by the Saracens, lost the glory of the Christian name: among which Lipari, once distinguished by the body of B. Bartholomew the apostle, is known to have been reduced to the likeness of a desert: which, when many courses of years had rolled by, after the power of the divine mercy had repressed the forces of the Saracens, religious brethren, out of zeal for the divine service, entering that same island, took care to build monastic dwellings there; and by their industry settled very many colonists upon that same island. We therefore, upon whom, by the judgment of the divine will, through the eminence of the apostolic See, there presses the solicitude of all the churches, although we acknowledge, in the registers of the holy Gregorian page, that there was once a bishopric in that same island; yet because the smallness of the place itself and the fewness of its inhabitants do not now deserve the dignity of a bishop; we nevertheless sanction, by the authority of the present page, that a monastery be had there, and that it possess the whole compass of the island. That monastery also, over which thy fraternity, by the Lord's authorship, presides, consecrated in the honor and name of B. Bartholomew, we take up under special protection, to be cherished in the bosom of the holy Roman and apostolic See.

The remaining parts of the bull, added in the customary way for confirming these things, may be seen in Pirro, page 665, or Ughelli, col. 776, which is at last thus concluded: Given at Militum by the hands of John, cardinal deacon of the H. R. Ch., the III Nones of June, Ind. XIV, of the Lord's Incarnation MXCI, but of the pontificate of the lord Pope Urban II the year IV.

[35] Many other things given to the same monastery of St. Bartholomew thou wilt find, and other things. reader, in the authors cited, as also the monastery of Patti joined to it, and at length the episcopal dignity granted to it: which things, as pertaining less to our purpose, I pass over. But these things I wished to bring forward, that it might be established that the worship of the apostle Bartholomew in that island was resumed straightway after the Saracens were overcome, which afterwards, I doubt not, always flourished there, as even today it flourishes excellently.

* i. e. lands

CHAPTER II.

On the translation of the sacred body to Benevento, and the other things done on that occasion.

§ I. The occasion, time, and author of the translation. The occasion of the translation was the devastation of Lipari, That the sacred body of St. Bartholomew was in the ninth century carried over from Lipari to Benevento is acknowledged: but concerning the circumstances of this translation not a few difficulties occur, to be diligently examined according to our purpose. Therefore, that the whole matter may be more clearly known, we shall inquire first on what occasion, secondly in what year, thirdly with whose cooperation, the translation was made: fourthly and lastly we shall subjoin the translation itself, with the miracles wrought in it and thereafter following. The occasion of this translation is recorded, by the highest consent of all, to have been the irruption of the Saracens, by whom the sacred bones of the Apostle were scattered. Abbot Bertharius, in the Relation of that translation added to the Sermon of the Studite, writes these things: The Saracens therefore coming upon them plundered and laid waste the aforesaid island, and breaking open the sepulchre of the Apostle scattered his bones in divers directions. The Lyons manuscript cited at num. 30 has thus: Very lately, Sicily having been laid waste and overthrown by the Saracens, that same island (Lipari) also was oppressed by the enemy's slaughter, and utterly depopulated. And when they consigned both the bishop of the place, and the clergy with the people and the monks, by a wretched lot either to captivity or to the sword, rushing also upon the monastery where the venerable body of the Apostle was resting, they fall upon the monks, plunder everything, and even the venerable bones of the Apostle themselves, mingled with other bones, at the instigation of the devil's zeal they scatter into the sea, namely lest anywhere his relics might be found or recognized. I know not whether this anonymous writer deserves credit in what he adds, that the sacred bones were mingled with others and scattered into the sea: for he adds also afterwards other circumstances to the translation, which I find added in no others.

[37] Another manuscript from the parchment Legendary of the Vallicelliana, num. 1, and the scattering of the sacred bones: fol. 247, rightly agrees with Bertharius, setting forth the occasion of the translation in these words: While in the island of Lipari … the body of B. Bartholomew the apostle was resting, the Saracens coming upon them, they plundered and depopulated the aforesaid island, and bursting open the sepulchre of B. Bartholomew, they scattered his bones in divers directions. I have besides a certain manuscript from the manuscript Lectionary of the Medicean library of St. Laurence, shelf 20, in which these things are narrated in exactly the same way: receive the words: The Saracens invading Sicily laid waste the island of Lipari, where the body of St. Bartholomew was resting, and breaking his sepulchre, scattered his bones. Sigebert agrees, in the Chronicle at the year of Christ 831, in these words: The Saracens, overrunning Sicily, lay waste also the island of Lipari, where the body of Bartholomew the apostle was resting … Whose bones, but now scattered hither and thither by the Saracens, and gathered by a certain monk, he himself revealing it, are translated to Benevento. Tillemont also assents, tom. 1 of the Monuments, page 388, in Bartholomew, and other more recent writers, so that that matter, resting on so many witnesses, ought by no means to seem doubtful. Wherefore certain more recent writers must be corrected, who have written that the body was translated lest it should come into the hands of the Saracens, whereas the more ancient by common consent have handed down to memory that it not only came into the hands of the Saracens, but was also outraged by them. This then was the occasion of the translation. It could here be added how the sacred bones were gathered by a certain monk; but that we shall relate below along with the translation itself.

[38] the year was not 809, But in what year the sacred bones were translated to Benevento is not so agreed among the authors. Tillemont, in the place cited above, from Anastasius the Librarian, as he is edited by d'Achery, tom. 2 of the Spicilegium, of the edition of the year 1723, page 126; and Baillet, tom. 2, col. 369, in Bartholomew, assign to the devastation of Lipari and to the scattering of the sacred bones the year 808; to the translation 809: on the XXV of October of which year, they say, the sacred bones were placed at Benevento under a certain altar. The same year 808 is assigned in the brief Chronicle of Rheims, which is extant in tom. 1 of the Labbean Library, as Pagi, to be cited, also notes. But these stray far from the truth, nor have they any other foundation than the error of some copyist, as will appear below.

[39] nor 831, nor 840; Sigebert in the Chronicle places that translation in the year 831; in which year likewise it is set in the manuscript of the Medicean library of St. Laurence praised above; yet Pirro, often mentioned, page 664, and Ughelli, likewise several times adduced, col. 772, cite Sigebert for the year 832. This chronology can seem not altogether improbable: for the Saracens had already for some years been overrunning Sicily, and the emperor Theophilus was ruling the Greeks, under whose reign the translation is handed down as having been made by the Menaea, or by Nicetas the Paphlagonian, as Pagi and others cite this relation of the Menaea: that it is not, however, to be followed will appear below. Baronius, at the year 840, at the end, from Leo of Ostia sets the same year 840, straying indeed less from the truth, yet straying. With Baronius in all things Ughelli agrees, tom. 8 of Italia sacra, in Urso archbishop of Benevento, col. 40, although elsewhere, as was just said, he does not disapprove Sigebert's opinion. Pagi at length, at the year of Christ 840, num. 12, shows the true year of this translation to be 839, which Bolland, tom. 2 of February, page 820, and Labbe in the Chronological Epitome had already assigned, and which we too shall confirm.

[40] but 839; That thou mayest understand the matter more clearly, reader, observe that by Leo of Ostia the year of Christ 840 was not expressed, but the third year of the ordination of Bassacius, abbot of Cassino, from which others have thought this year of Christ should be deduced. Now let us hear Pagi in the place cited: In the Chronicle, he says, of Cassino Leo of Ostia, book 1, chapter 25 and following, asserts that Bassacius, abbot of Cassino, was ordained in the year of Christ DCCCXXXVII, after Authpert, who died on the X Kal. of March. Wherefore the third year of the prefecture of Bassacius, in which the same Leo asserts that the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle was translated from the island of Lipari to Benevento, under Sicard duke of Benevento, falls in the earlier year of Christ (839),

in which therefore that translation was accomplished according to that chronographer. This argument is inescapable for vindicating for our opinion the authority of Leo of Ostia, especially since Bassacius was ordained abbot in the month of March, but the translation was made in the month of October. He then strives to confirm this from Nicetas the Paphlagonian, whose narration is inserted in the Menaea, from whom he brings forward these words: A long series of years therefore having run out, in the last times, in the days of the emperor Theophilus, the stronghold in which the holy Apostle lay having been taken by the Agarenes on account of our many crimes, and the whole island of Lipari remaining desolate, the prince of the city of Benevento, having learned of the Apostle's miracles, roused by a fervent faith toward the Saint, having called together some sailors of the city of Amalfi, and having promised to give as much money as was fitting, bade them go and bear that precious treasure to him, which also came to pass. From these things we have that the translation was made while Theophilus reigned, which agrees with the year 839; yet it does not conflict with the year 840, nor with 831, against which it would be adduced in vain, since in all these years Theophilus reigned. Yet it conflicts most powerfully with the year 809, since in that year Theophilus was very far from the empire.

[41] Pagi then objects to himself the authority of Anastasius the Librarian as edited by d'Achery, as is proved in whom, as we said above, there is expressed for the irruption of the Saracens the year 808, for the translation 809: and thus he concludes: From these things it is plain that Nicetas the Paphlagonian, Leo of Ostia, and Anastasius, as to the time in which this translation was made, agree among themselves; but that the copyist, in each cited place of Anastasius, omitted the number XXX, which the numbers VIII and IX manifestly suggest. Yet he confesses that in the Chronicle of Rheims cited above that translation is set at the year DCCCVIII: Wherefore, he says, that error of the copyists is ancient; for I can scarcely persuade myself that Anastasius slipped in this matter. Thus far Pagi, bringing forward a true conjecture indeed about the omitted number XXX, yet assigning no sufficient reason either for this conjecture, or why those three authors, Leo of Ostia, Nicetas the Paphlagonian, and Anastasius, should agree upon the year 839, so that his reasoning may seem neither clear nor solid. The whole matter therefore I dispatch in few words.

[42] I have this narration of Anastasius the Librarian, or rather of St. Bertharius, from manuscripts, as we proved in the preliminary Commentary § XI, in two manuscripts. The first we received at Naples, sent by Fr. Antonio Beatillo of our Society, the XVIII of September of the year 1638, taken from an ancient manuscript Passionary of the Neapolitan monastery of St. Mary of Monte Oliveto, as is noted in the margin. The other, almost consumed by age, was sent to Bolland in the year 1660 by Silvestro Acosta of Capua, rector of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian of Quadropani. In these manuscripts the year in which the sacred bones were scattered is said to have been that of Christ 838, that in which they were translated 839, and there is added: On the twenty- fifth day of the month of October, on which they relate that the sacred body was laid up in the altar: our manuscripts therefore are corrupt, or else those are corrupt which d'Achery followed. But that ours are corrupt, which agree rightly with Leo of Ostia and Nicetas the Paphlagonian, is by no means to be believed: therefore we must needs say that the number XXX fell out of d'Achery's manuscript. Hence therefore the opinion which sets the year 809 has been sufficiently refuted.

[43] and from other authors: Nor need much labor be spent in refuting the opinion of Sigebert, who sets the year of Christ 831. For the authority of Leo of Ostia is repugnant to it, and of St. Bertharius, contemporary with the deed, or, if thou wilt, of Anastasius. Besides, we shall see that the translation was made under Sicard, prince of Benevento: but he obtained the principate only in the year 833, as Pagi and others write: therefore not in the 31st year of that century, much less the 9th, but, as the above-said authors assert, in the 39th, was the body of St. Bartholomew translated to Benevento. Lastly, this opinion is confirmed by Hugh, abbot of Flavigny, in the Chronicle of Verdun, tom. 1 of the Labbean Library, page 120, where he has these words: In the year of the Lord DCCCXXXIX the body of holy Bartholomew was borne to Benevento. So much about the time.

[44] the author of the translation Now it must be seen by whose piety chiefly Benevento received this sacred treasure. Marius de Vipera, in the Chronology of the bishops of Benevento, page 52, in Urso the bishop, thus writes to our purpose: Urso, elected the XL bishop, under the same Pontiff Gregory IV. Under which prelate, by the piety and diligence of prince Sicard, the body of the most glorious apostle Bartholomew

was translated from the island of Lipari to Benevento, and received by the Beneventans with a great array of glory, and he was enrolled among their protectors in the year of the L. MXXXIX, on the XXV day of October, and in the church of the most blessed Virgin, which today is the metropolitan, was honorably placed. Which day of the translation is yearly kept with an octave, and a synod of litanies. And after a little he subjoins these things: The church in honor of the apostle Bartholomew, begun by prince Sicard, our bishop Urso completed and dedicated. So the archdeacon of Benevento, attributing the praise of the translated body to prince Sicard, although in honoring the Saint the bishop was not wanting in his own part. Ughelli, tom. 8 of the edition cited, col. 42, preferred to ascribe the chief praise of this translation to the bishop, saying, By the piety and diligence of Urso also the body of the most glorious apostle Bartholomew was translated from the island of Lipari to Benevento. It is credible that Sicard did it at the bishop's urging. As regards the body's reception and the temple's dedication, Ughelli agrees with Vipera. Leo of Ostia, cited above, only says that it was done while prince Sicard was still surviving.

[45] Sicard, prince of Benevento, But Erchempert attributes it to prince Sicard, tom. 5 of the Writers on Italian Affairs, page 32, narrating these things: Meanwhile it came to pass that Sicard the prince went about the islands of the Tyrrhenian sea and all the places of Ausonia, and however many bodies of Saints he could find, he bore them to Benevento with due honor. And about the same time he bade the body of B. Bartholomew the apostle be borne from the island of Lipari to Benevento with great exultation. Nor does Nicetas the Paphlagonian designate another, in the newest Auctarium of the Greek Fathers of Combefis, page 400, where he narrates the matter in this manner: A long series of years therefore having run out, in the last times, in the days of the emperor Theophilus, the stronghold in which the holy Apostle lay having been taken by the Agarenes on account of our many crimes, and the whole island of Lipari remaining desolate, the prince of the city of Benevento, having learned of the Apostle's miracles, roused by a fervent faith toward the Saint, having called together some sailors of the city of Amalfi, and having promised to give as much money as was fitting, bade them go, and bear that precious treasure to him; which also came to pass. The prince of whom I was speaking therefore, at a long

distance away from the sea, having summoned the bishop of the place and many others, both from the clergy and from the very numerous people, (in Greek καὶ τοῦ πλείστου λαοῦ, which has been wrongly rendered, out of the common folk) went out to meet the Apostle; and the sacred pledge, brought to Benevento, he laid up in a venerable house (in Greek τόπῳ): where also the great Apostle grew renowned, bestowing healings upon all the townsfolk, unto the glory of our God, who exceeds every reckoning of good. Thus Nicetas, a writer of the same century.

[46] From what has been said therefore I gather, first, that the glory of the sacred body translated to Benevento is to be attributed to prince Sicard, the bishop in all likelihood urging it. nor yet altogether to be adjudged away from Urso, or Urso as others call him, the bishop, who seems to have concurred toward it by counsel and admonitions. Secondly, that it was not by chance that the ships of the Lombards, borne to Lipari, carried off the sacred pledge; but that they had been sent by Sicard to do it. Thirdly, that it was done after the Saracens had deserted Lipari, laid waste and pillaged on every side. Fourthly, hence it can be gathered — what by the authority of contemporary writers is already sufficiently established — that the sacred body was not carried away for fear of the Saracens approaching, for neither would the people of Lipari have permitted it, who were not subject to Sicard. Now at last how the translation was made, and what miracles followed it, must be subjoined. § II. The translation: the miracles that followed it. St. Bartholomew appearing The whole history of this translation we have already given after the Oration of St. Theodore the Studite: yet lest to certain persons, who are wont to give credit to miracles and visions with difficulty, it seem not sufficiently established by the testimony of one, I shall add the testimonies of certain others concerning it from various manuscripts. In the manuscript Lectionary of the Medicean library, cited before, I find the following: When therefore the Saracens had scattered his bones, upon their withdrawing the Apostle appeared to a certain monk, (this monk is commonly called Theodore by more recent writers) saying: Arise, gather my bones, which have been scattered. To whom he said: On what ground ought we to gather thy bones, or to show thee any honor, since thou hast suffered us to be destroyed, nor hast bestowed help upon us? These words I would have the reader take less harshly: for they can seem, and really are, little reverent toward the holy Apostle: but the latter can be taken as a pious complaint, proceeding however from excessive grief and simplicity; much as those of Psalm 43 from ℣. 10: But now thou hast cast us off, and put us to confusion: and thou wilt not go forth, O God, in our hosts, and what follows as far as ℣. 18. But the former by way of one marvelling, not indeed of one unwilling to gather the sacred bones: as in John 4, ℣. 9, the words of the Samaritan woman to Christ: How is it that thou, being a Jew,

askest of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? As if he said: How, O Apostle, dost thou ask that honor be shown thee by us, whom thou seemest to turn away from, having furnished us no help against the infidels? So much about the complaint of that simple monk, which has perhaps been written down by the authors more harshly than it was spoken, although in almost the same way it is had in the manuscripts of five different authors.

[48] to a monk, bids him, Now let us hear what the Apostle answered: To whom he, the author goes on: For a long time the Lord spared this people for my merits, but since their sins grew exceedingly strong and cried even unto heaven, I could not now obtain pardon for them. And when the monk said, How could he find his bones among so many others, he said: By night thou shalt go to gather them, and those which thou seest shining like fire thou shalt straightway lift up. And he, finding all as he had said, lifted up the Apostle's bones, and going aboard a certain ship, translated them to Benevento, which is the metropolis of Apulia. By more recent writers they are said to have been translated first to Salerno, thence soon to Benevento; whence they took this is hidden from me. All the aforesaid things are had confirmed in four manuscripts, drawn up partly by contemporaries, partly from the testimony of contemporaries, yet with other circumstances added in certain of them, here passed over.

[49] to gather his scattered bones, But it is not pleasing to heap up, with the reader's weariness, relations of the same matter plainly alike. Wherefore, others being omitted, I shall subjoin the testimonies of only two contemporary authors. The manuscript of the Lyons authors, who testify that they learned all things from the bishop of Narbonne, who was then staying at Benevento, after relating the scattering of the sacred bones, thus goes on: But by the most clement providence of Almighty God, there were left there three, or four, old monks, whom the barbarians had judged worthy, on account of their age, either of pity or of contempt, to whom, desolate and mourning, the blessed Apostle deigned to show himself in a vision, and cherishing them with kindly consolation, admonished them that they should study carefully to seek out and to gather his bones cast back upon the shore (for he had related that they were thrown into the sea, concerning which in the preceding §). That the revelation was made to one monk others write: yet that several monks survived on the island is also had by a certain Utrecht manuscript of St. Saviour.

[50] which, gathered by the sign of their brightness, the Beneventans And when they asked of him, by what means they could distinguish those from the other bones? Go, he said, in the secret silence of night along the edges of the shore, and wheresoever ye shall see a ray of light flashing like a star, gather them confidently, and diligently lay them up to be of profit to the faithful. They went therefore, and,

the bones being gathered by the token of the promised brightness, they again placed them in the secret place beneath the altar with all joy and diligence. Meanwhile, while they enjoy this consolation alone, and were determining that nothing else was to be done by them, save to die in the bosom of so great a Patron, there was present, by the divine nod, a ship of the Beneventans, which had been appointed for spying out the enemy's designs: who, having landed, when they had found the whole island far and wide depopulated and empty, a pious care goading them, they hasten and go to the place of the Apostle's body, which both frequent votive visitation and the Apostle's widely published power had made most well known to them, desiring, namely, if they should find it there, as they had long since wished, and had sought after with many prayers and even with gifts, to translate the patronage of so glorious a pledge to their own

city.

[51] carry across the sea to Benevento, And having found those old men mourning, and having consoled them with Christian piety, they earnestly demand that they should show them the desired gift. And when they excused themselves,

and would not suffer that place to be deprived of so great a patronage, those Beneventans, pressing them more severely, with drawn swords threatened them with present destruction, unless with the utmost speed they showed what they were asking. Overcome by the crisis of extreme necessity, they lay open the divine treasure, praying this above all, that whithersoever it should be translated, it might be lawful for them likewise to journey and to dwell there: to which they, assenting most swiftly and most willingly, and confirming it by oath, having seized the coffer of the revered pledge, fearing the ambushes of the enemy, most speedily depart. Of the violence offered to the monks other authors have made no mention.

[52] But when, having gone aboard the ship, with a favoring breath of wind they began to plow the deep, a miracle helping, straightway there followed a ship of the enemy, and began most perilously to draw near; but as they implored the Apostle's protection, by the wondrous power of Almighty God, presently that one state of the wind, which seemed to favor indifferently both the faithful for fleeing and the faithless for pursuing,

divided against itself, and began to drive the former with desirable speed toward the shore, but to drive the latter backward with violent force, and, as they stood astounded, to thrust them farther off. Others relate that darkness arose, by which the sight of the enemy was hindered.

[53] And when now, the blessed Apostle serving them, they had been borne to a certain place of safe shore, and by a repeated apparition of the Apostle: and, resting there a little for the repair of their strength, were taking sleep; behold again the most clement Patron deigned to stand by the shipmaster; Depart quickly, he said, for the ship of the enemies draws near. (This apparition others omit.) Being awakened, he hastens his departure, and happily enters his native harbor with his companions. And so the whole city of Benevento, rejoicing at so pious and joyful a message, together with the pontiff and the peoples eagerly received the heavenly Patron, and with most ready and most devout faith, a temple of remarkable work being built, they placed the sacred pledges there for their perpetual safeguard.

[54] There was in those same days in those parts, an exile through the unjust persecution of certain men, as the bishop related, then staying in those parts: a man exceedingly

faithful, and of venerable life, the bishop of Narbonne, who, at the request of the prelate of the aforesaid city, dedicated the new basilica of the Apostle to the Lord, laid up the blessed relics, and after the custom celebrated the solemnities of Masses; and moreover imparted portions of the pious pledges to many places throughout the Gauls, out of the blessing of Christ, especially to the city of the Lyonnese, where already the memory of the venerable Apostle is reverently honored in the venerable crypt of the martyrs; from whom we, the least of all the faithful, have learned all these things by sure report, which, for the edification of readers, with the Lord's help, we have taken care to commit to memory. This relation of the Lyonnese indeed does not agree in all things with the other relations of other authors: for it adds certain things omitted by others, and narrates certain things in a somewhat different manner: nor yet on that account does it seem absolutely to be charged with falsity: since that bishop could have learned these things either from the monks themselves, or from others who had been at Lipari and had carried the sacred body to Benevento. For the rest, since those variations which I have noted in their places do not change the substance of the matter, I leave the judgment about them to the reader's discretion.

[55] But the bishop of Narbonne, from whose report these things were written, who he was is set forth. and who is here said to have dedicated the church of St. Bartholomew, seems to have been Bartholomew, first archbishop of Narbonne of this name, who adhered to the party of Lothair against Louis the Pious the emperor, his own father, as the Sainte-Marthes, tom. 1 of Gallia Christiana, page 369, and other French historians relate, and for that cause fled into Italy; and because he was an enemy also of Charles the Bald, son of Louis, under his reign he was not restored to his bishopric, as Le Cointe narrates in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, at the year of Christ 844, num. 36. At Rome about the year 844 he sought to be restored by the Pontiff, but in vain. He could therefore have been staying at Benevento at that time, and have dedicated the temple at the command of the bishop of Benevento, and at length have carried some relics of the Saint, as is narrated, into Gaul. Thou hast, reader, on whose credit those things rest which in the relation of the Lyonnese are added to the others, which therefore seems to differ from the others, because it was written as that bishop had retained the whole matter in memory.

[56] Another likewise narrates the sacred bones scattered, Lastly I subjoin the whole history with the miracles that followed, most faithfully, as it seems, written by a witness in many things an eyewitness, but less learned in Latin, since he mingles in not a few solecisms. We have it from the manuscript Legendary of the Vallicelliana, num. 1, fol. 247; the same Lyonnese also had it, received from Benevento, as they testify, and subjoined it to their relation, the solecisms and barbarisms only being somehow corrected, from which correction I subjoin it here: Sicily being taken and laid waste, the Saracens coming upon them plundered and depopulated Lipari, the neighboring island; and breaking open the sepulchre of St. Bartholomew, they scattered his bones in divers directions. Then the same Apostle of God, appearing in a vision to a certain Greek monk, who had been the keeper of that church, said to him: Arise, gather my bones, which have been scattered. To whom he answered: Why ought we to gather thy bones, or to do thee any honor; since thou hast let us go, and this people, to be destroyed by the pagans, and hast not helped us? But he

said: Through long courses of years I have prayed to God for this people, and God granted to my prayers; whence until now they have stood secure; but because their evils have been multiplied, and their iniquity has grown exceedingly, I could no longer obtain from God what I asked for them, and therefore it has perished. Do thou only arise, and gather my bones and lay them up, as I bid thee. To whom that monk said: And how shall I be able to find them, who know not where they have been scattered? The Apostle says to him: Go by night to gather them, and where thou seest any shining like fire, lift these up, because these are my bones.

[57] and gathered at the Apostle's bidding, and carried to Benevento, And he, rising at once, went on to the place, and found it as the Apostle had told him, and gathered them without hesitation, and, laying them up in a vessel, hid them, and went away, leaving his companion there. And when ships of the Lombards were going thither to search out the Saracens, they found the aforesaid monk there, and took the body of the holy Apostle, and departed. But the Saracens coming upon them surrounded that ship, wherein the holy body of the Apostle was being conveyed; so that there was no hope of escaping. Then suddenly there arose a most dense darkness before

the ships of the Saracens, so that they knew not whither they were going, and that ship was delivered. While they were still sailing on the sea, God saved one of the sailors of that same ship from a grievous infirmity. But going out upon land, with great honor they led the holy body of the Apostle of God to Benevento, and laid it up in the altar in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord eight hundred and thirty-ninth, on the twenty- fifth day of the month of October.

[58] where a sweet odor, and many healed, But before it was laid up in the altar, that God might take away the scruple of doubt from the heart of all, very many miracles of healings were wrought by the same Apostle; of which we relate a certain number for the strengthening of the hearts of the hearers. For when the body of the blessed apostle Bartholomew was still kept unburied in the church of St. Laurence outside Benevento, on the second day after it was brought, suddenly there was made there an odor of exceeding sweetness, and while that odor remained, there was healed there a woman who was more sharply vexed by a demon. And after the interval of one day, again a boy, who for a long time had been grievously torn by spasm, was healed there. Then a certain clerk, who long had suffered a grievous pain of the head, was there made

whole. Thence also another clerk, one of whose eyes infirmity had for a long time made wholly white, through the prayer of the blessed apostle Bartholomew, at once there received health, so that no spot remained to him in that same eye: but he carried it away thence made like to the other sound eye, giving thanks to God.

[59] After these things again a great odor was made, and while that same odor remained, the odor repeated, and healings; a certain youth, who lay there because of his infirmity, since he had long been lame, nor could go otherwise

than by being carried by other men's hands; was suddenly made so whole that he rose and walked, and had no token of his former infirmity. Again a certain man, whose one hip for a long time had exceedingly pained him, coming before his body, lay asking health of him, who at midnight, being made whole by divine grace, departed. Then a little boy sprung of noble stock, who was mightily vexed by an unclean spirit, coming in the evening lay there, and in the morning departed whole. Moreover a certain woman also, coming thither with a great fever, casting herself before the Apostle's body, was asking the mercy of God, who by the intercession of holy Bartholomew departed whole, giving thanks to God. Again a certain clerk, who was sharply wearied

by a pain of the hip, was there saved. Another lame man also was brought to the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, who devoutly clericated himself before his body, and at once, being made whole, departed. A certain presbyter for a whole year suffered a grievous pain of the kidneys, who, coming devoutly, cast himself down there in prayer, and rose up thence whole. In like manner it also befell another presbyter, of a long-standing pain of the head. There came also a certain youth with a great fever, and a flux, and vomiting, now nigh to death, and he clericated himself there, asking health of the Apostle of God, who at once was made whole, and departed strong. A certain consecrated woman coming thither, having bleared eyes, lay there some days, and was saved. Another consecrated woman, who was afflicted with a great fever, and suffered a grievous ringing of the head for a long time, and had one arm injured, so that she could not bring that hand to her mouth; lay before the Apostle's body,*

and departed from all of these most sound, giving thanks to God. After these things a certain Greek, and a boy, coming with fevers, lay there, and being made whole departed. Again a certain woman, long unseeing through pain of the eyes, was brought thither, who, lying there some while, departed enlightened and without pain. A certain girl also, who for a long time had been paralytic, and loosed in all her members, was cast down before the body of the holy Apostle, to whom divine grace, through the merit of the blessed apostle Bartholomew, granted health so entire that not even a sign of her former infirmity could be found in her: but strong and glad she departed, leaping and praising God.

[60] oil miraculously refused; On a certain day there came a certain woman bearing an earthen vessel full of oil, and there was heat, and the oil in it was melted. She asked that some of it might be poured into the lamp which burned beside the Apostle's body.

The ministers, taking the vessel, tilted it, that they might pour from it into the lamp, and utterly nothing came out of the vessel. They put their fingers into the vessel, and felt that it was full of melted oil, and likewise looking, they saw it full of melted oil, and, tilting it over the lamp, nothing ran down out of it. But a certain one of the ministers said: I think it is not acceptable to the blessed Bartholomew that some of this oil be poured into his lamp; let it be emptied into another vessel. And being tilted into another vessel, with all speed (as is the manner of melted oil) the vessel was emptied, out of which before nothing could come upon the lamp.

[61] the healed known to the author. For we could more truly tell the names also of those in whom the aforesaid powers were divinely wrought; and make known where they dwell; so that, since all are alive, those who shall read this, inquiring, may recognize that these things are true, and not only these; but also many others which are not written here. But because they who are at hand well know that they are true, and know also those in whom they were accomplished, let us not thrust weariness upon those to come by reckoning up the names of men and places, but let them believe the writings, and, believing, render praise and thanks to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who deigns to work great things through his Saints unto our salvation, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit through all ages of ages. Amen.

The Beneventan author. He devoted himself to the clerical estate § III. Things done at Benevento in the Saint's honor: or pertaining to him. The worship of the Saint at Benevento: Marius de Vipera, in the Catalogue of the Saints of the church of Benevento, relates that three times in the year the festival of St. Bartholomew is celebrated there; namely, on the XVII of June the translation from India, as they call it, to the island of Lipari; on the XXV of October the translation to Benevento; and on the XXV of August, on which day the Roman Church also celebrates him. But at the day XXV of August he wrote these things about his solemnity: The birthday of which holy Apostle the church of Benevento keeps with solemn pomp with an octave, and a diocesan synod, and by the archbishop with his chapter a chapel-service is held in the worthy temple raised to that same Apostle, where he celebrates not without a great concourse of people, and for fifteen days solemn fairs are held at Benevento. And on the octave day a chapel-service is held in the same place by the canons and the clergy of the cathedral. Which temple was magnificently begun by Sicard, the fifth prince of Benevento, in the year of the Lord DCCCXXXIX, and, he being taken out of the midst, it was most august­ly completed by Urso, bishop-elect of Benevento. And on this same day it was consecrated with solemn rite by Arnald, archbishop of Benevento, and into it the body of the glorious Apostle (which in the famous basilica of Mary the Mother of God, which today is the cathedral, was kept) was translated in the year of salvation MCCCXXXVIII by the leave of Pope Benedict XII, as by his bull under the date at Avignon the fourth Ides of May of the same aforesaid year, of his Pontificate the fourth year. Whose sacred body also shines with many miracles, and especially in delivering the possessed, and is venerated with the greatest frequenting of the people.* Thus far Marius, relating nearly the same things as to the worship of the Saint on the feast of the translation at the XXV of October. But what he narrates about the temple of the Saint is neither clearly set forth, nor does it seem true.

[63] For the temple dedicated by archbishop Arnald

which was the first church of St. Bartholomew? is not that which Sicard began to build and bishop Urso completed, since Marius himself writes that that one was dedicated by the same Urso and enriched with the body of holy Bartholomew, at num. 4 cited, not being here sufficiently consistent with himself. But the temple begun by Sicard and completed by Urso was not a separate building, but a magnificent chapel raised to the holy Apostle in the cathedral church itself, as the most eminent Cardinal Orsini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIII, rightly says in the bull on the relics of St. Bartholomew to be published below, in these words: He began to set up a chapel in the cathedral church (Sicard,) which, being forestalled by death, he left unfinished, and Urso, then Pontiff of Benevento, completed, and into it he translated the body on the day XXV of October in the year DCCCXXXIX. That certain things were given to this chapel by the empress Flora, wife of Lothair, Francesco Capece Latro writes in the Italian history of the Neapolitan kingdom, and at the same time confirms what we have said, whose words, book 1, page 33, I thus render into Latin: After these things Flora the empress, wife of Lothair, entered Benevento with great magnificence, and gave precious gifts to the chapel of St. Bartholomew, magnificently built by Sicard, the fifth prince of that city …, in which chapel nothing else is beheld worthy of sight, and worthy for the adornment and reverence of the Apostle's body resting there, except the magnificence of the ancient building. Falco in the Chronicle of Benevento, at the year 1137, relates this history, and calls the empress Florida, who, he says, hearing the solemnities of Masses there,

offered a certain pall upon the altar of B. Bartholomew,

and one pound of silver. In this

chapel therefore, in the cathedral church itself, the sacred pledge was kept for nearly five hundred years, namely down to the year 1338. Hence it ought not to seem wonderful that that chapel, though magnificent at the beginning, in the lapse of time became less worthy a place where the sacred body of the Apostle should be kept.

[64] In the year of Christ 969 John XIII, a council being held at Rome, The Archbishop of Benevento established in honor of the Apostle. promoted the bishop of Benevento, at that time Landulf, to the dignity of archbishop, Since, he says in his bull, it is a holy see, where the body of the blessed apostle Bartholomew rests. Thou hast the bull in Ughelli, tom. 8, from col. 61, and in Hardouin, in the Acts of the councils, tom. 6, part 1, col. 679, with all the subscriptions of the Cardinals and bishops. Thus far we have related those things which were done while the Saint's body was certainly at Benevento. Now we shall relate certain things which happened after the Romans contend that it was carried away thence, concerning which controversy we shall treat below. It is not pleasing, however, to pursue at greater length all the pilgrimages of princely men or women to that place, nor the indulgences granted to the chapel, lest this commentary grow too much; yet certain of these things will have to be related when we recount the controversy about the body just mentioned. But, as what pertains more properly to the Saint, a certain miracle, or apparition, which is narrated by certain writers, is here to be inserted.

[65] The apparition of St. Bartholomew with others: Vipera, just mentioned, in the Chronology of the bishops of Benevento, page 121, having related the disaster with which the emperor Frederick II afflicted Benevento about the year 1240, subjoins these things: And not for this did the most wicked emperor quench his fury from the aforesaid, nay he was made worse, so that some years later he came to such madness against the city of Benevento, that by his irrevocable decree

he ordered all the churches which were at Benevento to be pulled down, and moreover the remnants of the citizens who had escaped from the aforesaid destruction to be transferred to other places. But by the succour of divine mercy, while he was girding himself to consign the aforesaid to execution, a miracle worthy of memory came to pass at Benevento. A certain man of the Beneventans found in the square certain men, abbots and shining, who seemed to speak to one another and to treat of certain matters among themselves. And when he, marvelling greatly, had asked who they might be? One of them answered: This is Bartholomew the apostle with the other Saints, whose churches were had in this city, that they might inquire among themselves and treat with what penalty he was to be smitten who cast them out of their dwellings. And among them it was confirmed by inviolable sentence, that he should without delay go to the judgment of God, there to answer at his judgment for all these things. But after a little time the emperor was miserably slain by Manfred his bastard son in the year of the Lord MCCL. Thus Vipera, citing in the margin Claudio de Rota and Jacobus de Voragine, who narrate the same in the Acts of St. Bartholomew. But Ughelli, col. 138: Concerning the miracle, he says, which Vipera relates from Voragine in the Acts of St. Bartholomew the apostle, I think there is no room for doubting.

[66] a new basilica of St. Bartholomew built, into which the body was brought, In the year of Christ 1338, a new church, and that proper to St. Bartholomew, being built by the liberality of the Beneventans, adjoining the cathedral temple, the sacred body was translated into it, and honorably laid up, by Arnald de Brusacco, of the order of Minors, archbishop of Benevento, Benedict XII, Roman Pontiff, consenting to it. Their bulls Ughelli recites, col. 145, and they will be given in the Bull of Cardinal Orsini to be subjoined below. But about this temple, which was sufficiently ample and magnificent, it is thus written in a certain letter of the most eminent Cardinal Orsini, sent hither from Benevento the XIX of June of the year 1699: By the city, and also by the collected offerings of the clergy and the faithful, an ample basilica, with three domes, or hemispheres, and of these one turned in the likeness of the Roman Pantheon, was constructed; at the head of the same a most seemly chapel was adorned by archbishop Arnald, not only adjoining, but so joined to the cathedral church that there lay an approach into it through a door; and from the cathedral to St. Bartholomew's basilica, and from the basilica into the cathedral, the priests about to offer the heavenly victim, clothed in sacred vestments, might daily come, although three other doors were had in the front of the temple, where also a lofty portico rose. Further, that there was a huge concourse of people to this temple, venerating St. Bartholomew, will appear from various bulls of the Pontiffs to be cited in the course of this. Further, before the translation was made, the sacred bones were recognized in the presence of the bishops of the province, and the marble chest in which the sacred body had thus far been enclosed was set within another chest cast of bronze, as will be more fully related below.

[67] In the year 1350 Stephen, archbishop of Benevento, with the consent of the chapter, says Ughelli, col. 148, is erected into a collegiate church: the body more seemly placed, erected that church of St. Bartholomew into a collegiate church, and its chaplains into canons and a chapter; where he perpetually established twelve clerks serving the divine praises. The bull in which this deed is read Ughelli gives in the same place. In the year 1672 the sacred bones were again more seemly placed, as was added to the same Ughelli by the editor Nicolò Coleti, in this manner: John Baptist Foppa (archbishop,) in the famous temple of St. Bartholomew the apostle and chief patron, with his own money and that of others contributed, took care that a noble confessio, after the likeness of that of the Vatican basilica, enriched with precious marble, be built, and in

the elegant altar of that same confessio he laid up the sacred remains of the aforesaid Apostle in the year MDCLXXII, being translated namely out of the chapel in which they had been laid up by Arnald. In this place the sacred remains stayed down to the year 1688, in which, the city of Benevento being shaken by an earthquake, it fell almost wholly in ruin together with the temple of St. Bartholomew, whose chest nevertheless was preserved whole among the ruins, and after seven months was dug out of the rubble. This ruin, from which not without a miracle it came out unharmed, Cardinal Orsini himself relates, then prelate of the church of Benevento, in the dedicatory letter before the dissertation published for vindicating the body of St. Bartholomew to Benevento, in this manner:

[68] Certainly it has been made known to all how great an earthquake, within the memory of mortals, befell the basilica fallen by earthquake, the chest containing the body on the V day of the month of June of the year MDCLXXXVIII, in which not only some houses, or families, perished; but this whole city, 1367 of its own being slain, was overthrown in a moment. Nothing was exempt or unharmed. The metropolitan church was in part shattered, in part overturned, the archbishop's palace was utterly cast down. But the basilica of the holy apostle Bartholomew, unharmed in other shakings of this kind, and so often quit of fear, burst asunder in a vast and violent ruin. In

so great a disaster of things, it was done by the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes, that the chest in which the most precious body of the most glorious apostle Bartholomew is laid up — although the walls of the basilica, torn from their seats, fell down upon it, broke the surrounding marble columns, and left so great a heap of stones thrown over it that before the seventh day of February of the following year MDCLXXXIX it could not be drawn out — yet on that day it was found utterly entire. As many as were left ran together, that after the deluge of ruins they might behold the chest, not set upon mountain ridges, but dug out of the rubble, bedewed with tears springing forth from gladness. Of what sort the chest is the praised Cardinal describes, as follows:

[69] It is of Cyprian bronze, containing another little marble chest, found entire: of what sort was this? somewhat pointed, and carved with lily-flowers on its four sides, of the height of one palm and three inches and a half, but of the breadth of ten inches, bound with hempen cords, in some part exceedingly worn with age, each gathered up above after its fashion, and above the knots there stand at the head five seals impressed in Spanish wax, namely three great and two small: and moreover two others likewise small above the same, forming as it were a certain cross, and round about three other great seals with the effigy of the B. Virgin, and of him who had sealed the little chest, the archbishop, on one of which there appears as it were the effigy of an eagle, on the rest no traces of the impression remain because of age. Which things being seen, and entered in the public records, the outer chest of Cyprian bronze, as we said before, was again

closed and sealed with our seal, and laid up beneath the marble altar at the head of the fifth nave of our metropolitan church, where it now stands.

[70] The basilica rebuilt, But when the chest of the sacred relics of the Apostle had been dug from the rubble and laid down in the metropolitan church, the most praised Cardinal bestowed most diligent pains that the basilica of St. Bartholomew might be restored as soon as possible. This he himself narrates in the aforesaid letter, in these words: Yet we gave no sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids, nor rest to our temples, until we should find a place for our Patron, a tabernacle for the Apostle of the Lord. And so, the foundation stone being laid by us with the appointed rite on the day XIII of March MDCXCII, God helping, and his most blessed Apostle affording solace, that basilica, at our own expense and that of the clergy and people, not only begun, but also receiving increase in height, you saw when you came together to this metropolitan church for the aforesaid provincial council (celebrated in the year 1693 in the month of April), and with that kindliness in which you excel, wherewith you commended it, wherewith you urged us to its speedy consummation, desiring as soon as possible to be present at the translation of the sacred relics. These things Orsini wrote in the year 1694, on the XIX day of the month of March, when, as he says, the Choir had been brought nearly to its summit, the sacristies were finished, and the work rose day by day.

[71] and the body laid in it. Yet this building of the temple, magnificent as it was, held the most eminent man occupied down to the year 1698; when, the basilica being finished, and all things prepared for the solemn translation, he held a second provincial council, in which the sacred bones, diligently recognized by sworn anatomists and numbered, and then set in an urn of porphyry, were with great veneration translated into the new temple, and there placed in the chamber of the high altar by the Cardinal archbishop. Which things, and others accomplished in this council, as also most of the matters disputed in this §, the Bull of the same most eminent Cardinal abundantly teaches, sent into the light on the XV of May of the year 1698, which it has seemed good to subjoin here entire. Now the title of the bull is here prefixed: Bull of the elevation, recognition, showing, replacing, translation, and consignment of the sacred body of the most glorious apostle St. Bartholomew in the new church erected to him at Benevento, by decree of the sacred second provincial council, in the year of the Lord MDCXCVIII, in the month of May, the most eminent Cardinal Orsini, archbishop metropolitan, presiding, with fourteen other bishops of the province, and other lesser ordinaries, and moreover the proctors of four absent suffragan bishops, and nine bishops from outside, honoring the aforesaid sacred functions. But because the bull is somewhat long, I have divided it into four parts, and have indicated what is treated in each part by a brief title set at the head, and by additions added in the margin: behold therefore the bull itself.

PART I

Containing those things which were done down to the year MDCLXXXVIII. He confesses the divine mercies; Brother Vincent Mary, of the order of Preachers, by the mercy of God cardinal presbyter of the H. R. Ch. of the title of St. Sixtus, Orsini, archbishop metropolitan of the holy church of Benevento, with the assent and consent of the most reverend Lords our fellow bishops, who have come together into our holy provincial synod. For a perpetual memorial of the matter. Blessed be the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, who has so consoled us in all our tribulation, that we too might be able to console

those who have been in every distress, on account of this our city, ten years since, not only shaken and tossed by the storms of the moving earth, but also reduced to ruin and dust; for the same merciful and compassionate Lord, according to the riches of his goodness, has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, nay rather, raising us up who were dashed down, has lifted all things that had fallen, and has consoled us, afflicted with many hardships and calamities, with manifold joy also, from the glory of his apostle Bartholomew.

[73] For there is no one who does not know that by the earthquake of the fifth day of the month of June of the year MDCLXXXVIII, that by the earthquake so great a disaster befell this our city as neither our elders remember, since nothing remained entire, except the bell-tower of the metropolitan church, on which, according to the proverb then arisen, could be inscribed: Here was

Benevento. What a face of the city, what a sight of things then, mournful and pitiable on every side; what a slaying of MCCCLXVII citizens; what a destruction of nearly all the buildings! The metropolitan church shaken in its five naves, but its transverse nave with the choir, the record-rooms, and the library, cast down and laid low, the archbishop's palace utterly overthrown, the basilica of St. Bartholomew the apostle, unshaken by other earthquakes, overturned from its foundations, can neither be recalled without a most bitter sense of grief, nor certainly is it needful to recall it, since there are not lacking those who beheld it with their own eyes and suffered it, and we too, dug out of the rubble, though our eyes were hurt by the lime-dust, both saw it, and with fatherly compassion embraced the miseries of all.

[74] But in so great a calamity God, rich in his mercy, granted a great matter of spiritual gladness, the sacred body of the Apostle unharmed: to be proclaimed to all generations to come. For he himself, who keeps the bones of his Saints, so guarded the most sacred body of the most glorious apostle Bartholomew, buried deep for about nine months beneath the ruined walls of his basilica, that in the very manner in which Arnald de Brusacco of the order of Minors, our predecessor, had placed it, we found it exactly so fitted and preserved.

[75] That this may be more clearly known, we judge that the matter must be traced from farther back. that it was translated from Lipari to Benevento, Since indeed in the year after Christ's birth DCCCXXXVIII, the island of Lipari being occupied by the Saracens, among the other disasters, that above all surpassed every cruelty, whereby wicked men, drawing out from the urn in which they were laid up, scattered the bones of St. Bartholomew's body: but Theodore the monk, who had been the keeper of the sacred deposit, admonished in sleep by the Apostle himself, gathered the scattered bones, and by the fleet of the Samnites, which had come to bring help too late, made for Salerno, and gave the heavenly treasure to Sicard V, prince of the Samnites, which he bore to Benevento, and for the seemly keeping of it

began to set up a chapel in the cathedral church, which, being forestalled by death, he left unfinished, and Urso, then pontiff of Benevento, completed, and into it translated the body on the day XXV of October in the year DCCCXXXIX, which day is yearly celebrated with the public prayer of the diocesan clergy (which they call the synod of litanies).

[76] Otto III, asking, receives the body of St. Paulinus. But when fame everywhere on earth reported that the most precious body of the Apostle shone with many miracles at Benevento, Otto III the emperor "in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousandth, came to Benevento" (we use the words of Leo of Ostia, according to the more accurate reading of Angelo de Nuce, archbishop of Rossano) "and for the sake of the penance which blessed Romuald had enjoined on him, he went off to Mount Gargano. And returning thereafter to Benevento, he asked of the citizens the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, who, daring to deny him nothing then, having taken counsel with the archbishop who then presided over that city, craftily showed him, in place of the Apostle's body, the body of B. Paulinus bishop of Nola, which was laid up seemly enough at the bishop's house of that same city; and having taken it away,

he withdrew, deceived by such a fraud. Which after he learned, being exceedingly indignant, he laid up indeed the body of the confessor which he had carried away, honorably enough, at the island of Rome; but in the following time he marched again against Benevento, and besieged it on every side for many days: but prevailing nothing against it, he returned to Rome. Whence, scarcely beginning to return to his own, he died at the town which is called Paternum."

[77] A basilica proper to St. Bartholomew is raised, Since therefore the holy pontiff Paulinus, who gave himself alive to the Vandals for a widow's son, had also given himself, when he had paid the debt of mortality, for the most blessed apostle Bartholomew to Otto III, lest Benevento be widowed of so great a treasure, our city, being quit of all fear, took care that a proper church

be raised for the laying up of the heavenly treasure; into which Arnald de Brusacco of the order of Minors, of blessed memory, our predecessor as archbishop, being about to translate the sacred body of the Apostle, sought and obtained this faculty from Benedict PP. XII of happy memory, having received Apostolic letters of the tenor which follows:

[78] the Pontiff granting it by a bull "Benedict, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brother Arnald, archbishop of Benevento, greeting and Apostolic benediction. They who, having received from the Lord's hand the palm of supernal benediction, stand fast in the perpetuity of praise and glory, are to be feared with a devout mind, and to be honored with all veneration, that they may the more readily intercede for sinners with the divine clemency, whose vision they enjoy, the more devout they shall perceive men's minds to praise the Lord in his Saints, and the more apt for the exercise of good works. Now the petition of thy fraternity lately laid before us contained that thou, attentively considering that the body of B. Bartholomew the apostle, which of old is said to have been miraculously translated to thy church of Benevento, is kept in an unseemly and less fit place adjoining that church, and therefore desiring that it be placed in a seemly and honorable place, kindled with zeal of devotion, in a certain fair chapel likewise adjoining the aforesaid church, which the citizens of Benevento, marked with the venerable name of that Apostle, long since from ancient times built in honor of the same Apostle, hast caused at thine own charges a fit, devout, and suitable place to be built, and also prepared, where thou desirest to translate, and also to place, with due reverence and fitting solemnity, the body of that

Apostle and the venerable relics of certain other Saints, which likewise are kept in despised and less seemly places, unto the praise of the divine name, and the honor of that same Apostle and of the whole heavenly Court, and the devotion of the faithful, and the increase of the salvation of their souls. Wherefore thou hast humbly besought us that we would deign to grant leave for translating to the said chapel the body of that same Apostle, and the aforementioned relics, with due reverence and honor, and for placing them in the said place prepared by thee in the aforesaid chapel, as is aforesaid".

[79] "We therefore, commending thy devotion and purpose in this behalf manifoldly in the Lord, that the body be translated into it, and bearing that confidence in thy sincerity, that unto God's praise, and the glory of the said Apostle and the reverence and honor of the Saints, and the increase of devotion and consolation of the catholic people, thou wilt take pains to carry out the above-said, grant thee the leave requested. And that Christ's faithful, whom, as by the debt of the pastoral office it lies upon us, we desire to render acceptable to the Most High, may the more willingly be invited to the reverence of the same Apostle and Saints, and the more frequently and devoutly flow together to the said chapel to implore there the divine mercy for their sins, as unto a saving haven, whereby they may feel themselves made fruitful with the abundance of a more excellent grace, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and in the authority of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul, to all truly penitent and confessed who shall visit that chapel on the feast of the aforesaid Apostle, we mercifully relax yearly one year and forty days of the penances enjoined upon them. Given at Avignon the IV of May in the third year" (namely of his pontificate).

[80] This faculty being received, Arnald, in a chest of Cyprian bronze skillfully wrought, a bronze chest is prepared, in which the marble one may be enclosed, concerning which he says: For the placing and laying up of that same precious body in a certain casket procured and long devised for a perpetual memorial cause: enclosed the ancient marble chest, and before the enclosing recognized the sacred body lying in it in the presence of the bishops of the province of Benevento, or as he himself says: The body etc., which on this present day, under the testimony of the lord bishops of the province of Benevento, and of public and other innumerable persons, was found and shown, we have translated with due reverence, and laid up: as more fully from his bull written below, of the tenor which follows:

[81] "Arnald, by divine mercy archbishop of Benevento. The bull of archbishop Arnald To all Christ's faithful who shall look upon the present letters, greeting in him who is the true Salvation of all. The lofty King, and wonderful in majesty, whose ineffable height of prudence, by the censure of upright judgment, disposes both heavenly things and earthly, although he magnifies all his ministers and makes them possessors of heavenly beatitude; yet those, that he may repay worthy things to the worthy, he raises with more excellent marks of dignities, and follows with a further recompense of rewards, whom he acknowledges as worthier,

and whom a greater excellence of merits commends; so also holy mother Church and her

faithful, following his holy footsteps, and led by his praiseworthy example, although they cease not to honor with anxious zeal all who are established in the heavenly kingdoms, and to extol them with sounding proclamations, yet the most glorious princes of the Christian faith, the chosen athletes of God, the just judges of the world, the true lights of the world — namely, the Apostles of Christ the Redeemer, contained in the number of twelve, who, living in the flesh, planted the aforesaid Church with their own precious blood, raising it up on high and directing it by most holy disciplines — they have appointed to celebrate with special praises and special honors, and have been accustomed, as they are bound, to venerate more specially. In whose fellowship and number the glorious Bartholomew the apostle, whose most holy body rests in this city of Benevento, by his own requiring merits, by divine disposition was gathered; and at length, after his most holy and angelic life, and his passion to be recalled, after the courses of a long time, in the miraculous translation of his precious body from Lipari

to Benevento. Then at his joyful entrance into that same city, the princes, prelates, clergy, and people permitted also a fitting tabernacle to be built for him, in which his body might be laid up, and other spiritual and temporal devout subjections and honors".

[82] he relates the basilica built, "And although, for receiving and worthily placing so most precious a body, neither we, nor the clergy, nor the people of that city are, or have been, sufficient or worthy; yet that same city took pains, with all its endeavors, the divine clemency always helping, to raise under the name of that same Apostle a basilica, or tabernacle, in some sort, as appears, spacious and beautiful. And because it set his glorious body outside that tabernacle, after his aforesaid miraculous translation, in a less seemly place; yet now, as best it could, it has been placed. We, carefully and worthily considering, and surveying with due meditation, unto the glory and honor of the divine name and of that same Apostle, and as far as was possible to us, in a more fitting and chosen place of that same tabernacle a chapel, as far as we knew how, for the placing and laying up of that same precious body

in a certain casket procured and long devised for a perpetual memorial cause, having first sought and obtained leave for making a translation or removal of this kind from the most holy Father in Christ and Lord, the Lord Benedict by divine providence PP. XII, who to those devoutly coming to that church on such a translation, or on the feast of the above-said Apostle, graciously granted one year and forty days of indulgence in each several year by his special letters".

[83] the body recognized, and translated, "But because it is fitting and just that the body of so most holy an Apostle be laid up and remain in a consecrated place, both that basilica or tabernacle, and that same chapel or place where the body of the same Apostle ought to be laid up and to remain — which on this present day, under the testimony of the lord bishops of the province of Benevento, and of public and other innumerable persons, was found and shown, and which we have translated with due reverence and laid up by the leave of the lord supreme Pontiff above-said — we first, for the reverence and honor of the said Apostle, commanded and caused to be consecrated with due solemnity. And that of so great a solemnity, namely of the translation of the body of the same Apostle, and of the consecration of that basilica, and besides the daily memory of his feast, which the churches generally and the faithful make of him, a memory be celebrated solemnly and specially each year, and that devout throngs of the faithful, both on the present day and on the other days written below, may affectionately run together to that same church and to the visiting of the body of the same Apostle, and be inflamed unto Christ's service;

[84] "We, willing that Christ's faithful should enjoy special gifts for visiting so precious a body, the indulgences granted. and his chapel and church, and be encouraged also in time to come: trusting in the mercy of Almighty God, and in the merits of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of Bartholomew, by that authority, to all Christ's faithful truly penitent and confessed, who at this consecration of the church and chapel made by our mandate, and with us present, and so many venerable fathers the lord bishops of the province of Benevento, and giving thereto their consent and authority, and the indulgence which they could grant, and who on that same day shall have taken care devoutly to visit that same church and chapel: one year and forty days for the consecration of that same church; and as much,

as best we can, for the consecration of that same chapel, the said indulgence of one year and forty days granted, as is said above, by the apostolic See, out of reverence for that same translation and feast, beyond the other indulgences formerly granted by the apostolic See, or its legates, or the prelates or pontiffs of Benevento, we mercifully relax in the Lord from the penances enjoined upon them; and to all Christ's faithful truly penitent and confessed, who in any year on that same day and feast of B. Bartholomew the apostle, and who on all the solemn festivities of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the B. Virgin Mary his mother, of all the blessed Apostles, and especially of the said Apostle our patron, and on each Sunday, Monday, and Friday of any

year in time to come, shall take care devoutly to visit the said church of B. Bartholomew the apostle, or the chapel in which the venerable body was this day translated, beyond the other above-said indulgences, both by the aforesaid lord supreme Pontiff, by reason of the said translation and of the feast of the same Apostle, and by us and the other lord bishops of the province of Benevento, as granted by law by reason of the said consecration or consecrations, on any feast day of the aforesaid we mercifully relax in the Lord forty days of the penances enjoined upon them. In testimony whereof, and for the certainty of each particular, we have commanded our present letters patent to be made thereupon, and to be fortified by the appending of our seal. Given at Benevento the XXV day of the month of August, VI Indiction, in the year of the L. MCCCXXXVIII, of the pontificate of the aforesaid supreme Pontiff the lord Benedict by divine providence PP. XII the fourth year".

[85] Another translation in the year 1672. The sacred body therefore, in the little marble chest which Arnald set within the greater bronze chest, was laid up in a special chapel which was at the head of the choir of the aforesaid basilica, and kept guarded by an iron grating secured with three keys, down to the year MDCLXXII: in which year, on the XI day of June, archbishop Foppa of recent memory, our predecessor, translated the aforesaid chest with the sacred body, just as it stood, and laid it beneath the stem of the altar of the martyrium, or confessio, which was beneath the high altar, most elegantly built by that same archbishop, as appears from the public Instrument by the acts of the notary Giuseppe de Pompeio, on the day, month, and year as above; and it remained there down to the seventh day of February MDCLXXXIX.

PART II.

The temple of St. Bartholomew fallen by earthquake; the body translated to the metropolitan church; a new basilica built; the restitution of the body decreed in council. The chest dug from the rubble of the fallen temple, Since indeed in the year MDCLXXXVIII, on the V day of June, the ancient basilica being cast down by earthquake, as we said before, the whole ruin lay upon the aforesaid confessio, and grew into so great a heap of rubble that until the seventh day of February it could not be wholly cleared away; on which day, beyond the hope of all, the chest appeared entire, and was drawn out, all weeping together for gladness, and hoping that, so great a sign of the covenant between God and us remaining, the city would rise up anew, and that a succour not unequal to its immense hardships would come. On the VII day of February therefore MDCLXXXIX the sacred deposit was lifted from the ruins, and translated into the metropolitan church, by our special mandate, in the presence of our vicar general, our metropolitan chapter, the dignitaries and canons of our collegiate church of St. Bartholomew, and moreover the magistracy of the city, and very many others of the order of nobles, and a people almost innumerable.

[87] and here described, In whose presence there was recognized entire the chest of the sacred deposit, of Cyprian bronze, of the length of three palms and a half and one finger, of the breadth of two palms less a quarter: of the height of two palms and a half; and in form oblong like a chest, pointed at the top, and on the front part adorned with figures of the same metal, namely the figure of the Saviour between two angels bearing candlesticks in their hands, and below the figure of St. Bartholomew between two kneeling angels, having censers in their hands; and

on this part it was fortified with two iron locks, nor could it be opened, because the keys were not to be found. But on the back part it was adorned with three figures of bishops mitred and clothed in pontifical vestments, whose names could not then be read: in like manner also two figures of bishops, one on each of the sides: and above the chest there were found two little statues, namely of the B. Virgin Mary and of St. John, of the same Cyprian metal; and moreover two flowers with apples, and little statues of the same material.

[88] Which chest indeed, all the aforementioned being present, is borne to the metropolitan church, by processional rite with the attendance of the confraternities, of the city clergy, and of the collegiate bodies of the Holy Spirit and of St. Bartholomew, and our metropolitan chapter with lighted torches, and a people almost innumerable, was led down into the metropolitan church, and within a marble altar appointed for this at the head of the fifth nave, on the right of that church, but set on the left of one entering, and properly that which looks toward the bell- tower, it was enclosed by way of provision, and not otherwise etc.; which altar was on every side fortified with masonry, so that the aforesaid chest could by no means be removed unless the altar were removed, as is more clearly read in the public instrument drawn by the notary canon Marzio Lizza on the said VII day of February MDCLXXXIX. But since this lodging, so to speak, given to the sacred body, had to be protracted longer than we wished, we commanded that same marble altar

to be built in a nobler form; for the sake of which it was necessary that the chest itself be removed, and kept for some days in a seemly place; wherefore on the first day of the month of August MDCXCI, at the instance of the dignitaries and canons of the sacred basilica of St. Bartholomew, in the presence of our vicar general, of certain capitulars of the metropolitan church, and of those same dignitaries and canons of the aforesaid basilica, of the magistracy of the city, and of other nobles, the stone table was removed which closed the stem of the aforenamed altar, and four canons of the sacred basilica of St. Bartholomew, clothed in canonical insignia, drew out the chest, and at once set it upon a table of walnut adorned with silk, the above-said being present; and that casket being immediately examined, it was found that the two iron locks which fortified the chest, and could not be opened without the keys, which were wanting, had been parted from their place in which they stood fixed: and the counsel of experts being at once employed, the judgment was that the little nails fastening those locks, corroded by the antiquity of time and by rust, had given way because of the various movements of earth and ruin, and moreover of the opening of the altar of the martyrium and of this second altar, where the chest was kept in the place of a deposit.

[89] But since from such an event that chest of Cyprian bronze remained no longer fortified, which being opened there is found in it a lesser marble one, it was commanded by our vicar general that it be examined within; which being opened, it was seen and found that there stood in it another most ancient little casket, or little marble chest, slightly pointed, and round about, on all four marble sides, carved with lilies. But the aforesaid little chest was of the height of one palm and one inch: of the length likewise of one palm and three inches and a half: but of the breadth of ten inches, bound with cords of small hempen thread twisted together, in several parts consumed by the course of time, and upon those same cords, namely at the head, five seals in Spanish wax, namely three great and two small, and moreover two other small seals above the same in the fashion of a cross, and round about three other great seals with the effigy of the B. Virgin Mary, and of the archbishop for the time with a small mitre, on one of which it was observed that there was a certain eagle impressed, but the rest could not be discerned because of the antiquity of time.

[90] These things being done, the chest of Cyprian bronze was again closed, closed again, and bound in three places, namely in the middle and at the two ends, with three silken ribbons of white, red, and black color, and

sealed over the knots with three small seals in Spanish wax, namely in the middle with the seal of our vicar, on the right side with the seal of our chapter, on the left with that of the community; which chest, thus sealed, was at once laid up in a certain walnut casket fortified with three keys, namely one wherewith our vicar closed it, and deposited it with our beloved son the prior of the collegiate church of St. Bartholomew: a second, wherewith the librarian of our metropolitan church closed it: a third, wherewith the first of the city's consuls likewise closed it. This casket therefore, thus fortified, was fitted after the manner of an altar with candlesticks and lamps, and set forth for public veneration in the first chapel of the said fifth nave, guarded day and night by the dignitaries and canons of the said sacred basilica of St. Bartholomew, as more fully from the public instrument drawn by the same notary canon Lizza, the first day of August MDCXCI.

[91] it is replaced in the altar, fortified But on the ninth day of the same month of August, when the aforesaid altar had been more elegantly built at our charges, that same our vicar general, in the presence of several of our metropolitan chapter, and of the canons of St. Bartholomew, having gone to the cathedral, commanded the said walnut casket to be diligently examined, and it was found well closed; then, being opened by the above- mentioned who kept the keys, the chest of Cyprian bronze was seen and found, as we said before, sealed and fortified with its seals: which again, for greater safekeeping, was fortified with iron wires, and those doubled, in the middle and at the two ends, upon which three knots were made of that same iron, and upon each knot there was set a leaden seal, videlicet in the middle our own seal,*

on the right side that of our chapter, and on the left that of the community, and those three seals were fastened together with tin, lest the chest should hereafter be any more opened; and so it was again laid up in the altar newly built at the head of the fifth nave, where it was before; and the table so fixed that it could in no way be drawn off, as more fully from the public Instrument drawn by the aforesaid notary canon Lizza, on the said ninth day of the month of August MDCXCI.*

[92] with the archbishop's seal. But while these things were being done, we were staying at Rome, where, being made more certain of the aforesaid, we commanded that what had been attempted concerning the seals, other than ours, be removed; wherefore the most reverend F. lord Pompeo Sarnelli, bishop of Bisceglie, then our auditor general, having called and having present the capitulars and the consuls of the city, the table being removed, caused the other seals to be removed and effaced, and in their place impressed ours likewise, and the altar was again closed and well made fast, as more fully from the instrument of the aforesaid notary Lizza under the day IV of the month of September MDCXCI.

[93] A new basilica built, But when our city began to lift its head from the ruins, among the other things desirable to our heart,

this we sought of God with intense affections, that the church of the aforesaid Apostle might again be raised, and, God granting, we laid the foundation stone with the appointed rite on the day XIII of March MDCXCII. Meanwhile we dedicated with solemn rite the metropolitan church restored and adorned, in the same year on the day XXVI of May, the birthday of St. Philip Neri, to whose prayers we ascribe as a gift the very life we live; the archbishop's palace also being raised from its foundations, we conveniently celebrated a provincial council in the month of April of the year MDCXCIII. And when the work of the new basilica was carried on with all zeal and effort, it was at length brought to that state — not indeed such as the majesty of so great an Apostle, but such as our slenderness availed — that the divine offices might be diligently attended to therein; and therefore the restitution of the most sacred body of the Apostle, deposited and kept in a place in the metropolitan church, seemed no longer to be deferred.

[94] A second provincial council therefore being assembled, our collegiate body of St. Bartholomew suppliantly urged for the restitution, the canons of St. Bartholomew ask and to its petition our metropolitan chapter and the magistracy of the city adhered, a supplicatory petition being presented in the first synodal congregation, held on the II day of May of the current year. And it pleased the fathers

that, the cause being examined, it should be proceeded with; wherefore there were chosen as ponent the most reverend father lord Domenico Morelli, bishop of Lucera, and as fiscal promotor the most reverend father lord Michele Pitirro, bishop of Termoli, as notary of the cause our beloved son the rev. lord canon Paduano Sanctorio, who, observing what was to be observed, should proceed and report. By these therefore the ancient writings were called in, and copies of the bulls of the supreme Pontiffs, and of other notaries, extracted; a report of all things being at last made in the public synodal congregation before all the fathers written below, of whom only the most reverend father lord Emilio de Cavaleriis, bishop-elect of Troia, was absent for reason of ill health; the party being cited, on the X day of May a decree was passed of the tenor which follows:

[95] "In the cause pending in the second sacred provincial council between the much rev. lords the dignitaries the restitution of the body: and canons of the collegiate church of St. Bartholomew the apostle of this city, and the most reverend metropolitan chapter, and the most illustrious magistracy and community of the same city adhering to them, plaintiffs on the one part; and the most illustrious

and most reverend lord bishop of Termoli, fiscal promotor, deputed in the present cause, on the other, concerning and upon the restitution sought of the sacred body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, carried away, by reason of deposit, from the aforementioned sacred basilica of that same Saint, utterly fallen by the earthquake of the year MDCLXXXVIII, to the metropolitan church of the same city, and laid up beneath the altar of St. Mary Major within that same metropolitan church, and other matters, "as appears from the acts, &c.

[96] "On the X day of the month of May MDCXCVIII in the public synodal congregation, gathered in council held in the great hall of the archbishop's palace, there being present in it the most holy fathers, namely the most eminent and most reverend father and lord in Christ, the lord brother Vincent Mary, of the order of Preachers, by divine mercy cardinal presbyter of the H. R. Ch. of the Title of St. Sixtus, Orsini, archbishop metropolitan of the holy church of Benevento, presiding, and the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishops of the province, that is: F. Celestino de Labonia, bishop of Montemarano: F. Giuseppe de Lazara, bishop of Alife: F. Francesco Scanegata, bishop of Avellino, Frigento, Acquaputrida or Mirabella, and Quintodecimo: F. Angelo Ceraso, bishop of Bovino: F. Francesco Antonio Punzi, bishop of Ascoli and Ordona: F. Francesco Antonio Jannone, bishop of Bojano and Sepino: F. Giuseppe Catalano, bishop of Larino: F. Domenico Morelli, bishop of Lucera, Fiorentino, and Tortiboli: F. Michele Pitirro, bishop of Termoli: F. Pompeo Sarnelli, bishop of Bisceglie, admitted to a decisive vote, and in place of the metropolitan chapter abbot of the town of San Lupo of no diocese: F. Francesco Protonobilissimo, bishop of Trevico: F. Biagio Gammaro, bishop of Telese: F. Giacinto de Calce, bishop of Ariano: F. D. Vito Antonio Pastorale, abbot general of Montevergine: the much rev. lord Agostino Fantetta, vicar general of the town of Alberona of no diocese, these having a decisive vote; and the proctors of the absent bishops, that is, the much rev. lord primicerius Giacomo Antonio de Antonellis, proctor

of F. Giacomo Circi, bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti and Sessola: the much rev. lord Antonio America, archpriest of the town of Motta, proctor of F. Domenico Surrentino, bishop of Volturara and Montecorvino: the venerable presbyter Nicola Scorza, proctor of F. Carlo Felice Matta, bishop of San Severo, Civitate, and Dragonara: the rev. lord Giacomo Antonio, canon of Fiorentino, proctor of F. Filippo de Cordova, bishop of Guardialfiera: and moreover the much reverend synodal theologians, that is, the lord Giovanni Giordano, apostolic protonotary, canon of Avellino: the lord Michele Ramomondi, apostolic protonotary, theologian of F. the bishop of Troia: father Nicola Squillante of the congregation of the Oratory: father Giovanni Battista Mongio, of the order of St. Benedict, of the congregation of the Celestines, prior: father master Fr. Giovanni Battista Spada Orsino, ex-provincial of the order of Preachers: F. master Fr. Giovanni Michele de Cavaleriis, of the order of Preachers: father master Fr. Pietro Antonio Caballo, of the order of Preachers: father Fr. Sebastiano Jascone, of the order of Minors of St. Francis of the Observance, ex-provincial and jubilated lector: father master Fr. Anselmo Sabbatino, ex-provincial of the order of Minor Conventuals: father master Fr. Alberto

Annubba, ex-provincial of the order of Carmelites: father Fr. Girolamo of St. Nicholas, ex-definitor of the order of Discalced Carmelites: father" Domenico Viva of the Society of Jesus.

[97] they decree that the body be recognized and restored. "The petition presented by the petitioners being seen, all the writings called in and extracted according to the form of law being seen, the admonition made upon the dispatch of the cause being seen, F. Domenico Morelli, bishop of Lucera, ponent of the cause, reporting: F. Michele Pitirro, bishop of Termoli, fiscal promotor, being heard, all things to be considered in law and in fact being considered and searched out, and the consultative and concordant votes of the above-said rev. theologians being heard, the holy synod, with full votes and with none at all dissenting, decreed that the sacred body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, carried away into the metropolitan church by reason of deposit in the year of the Lord MDCLXXXIX on the VII day of February, as appears from the public instruments in the acts &c., be elevated from the altar of St. Mary Major, beneath which it is laid up, be canonically recognized, then be replaced in a safer urn, and at length by appointed rite be restored to the sacred basilica erected in honor of the same saint, and that for the aforesaid effect all other things be done according to the sacred canons, and the sacred rites and ecclesiastical ceremonies prescribed in these matters, and so &c., all &c. Thus I, Fr. Vincent Mary, Cardinal archbishop metropolitan, with the consent and assent of the most reverend lords my fellow bishops, have pronounced and definitively given sentence. P. Can. Sanctorio, chancellor of the archiepiscopal curia, and deputed notary of the cause."

* i. e. videlicet

perhaps stanno* (tin)

PART III.

The opening of the chests: what was found with the bones: the bones recognized and numbered by sworn anatomists, and set in glass phials. The archbishop with the others For the execution of which decree, on the XI of May, a Sunday, together with the lord bishops named, to whom was joined the most reverend lord Carlo Cutillo, bishop of Minori, who had come to honor the functions of the council, and moreover the proctors of the four absent lord bishops, the chapter of our metropolitan church, the collegiate body of St. Bartholomew, and the theologians enumerated, and likewise the lord governor and the magistracy, together with the notaries of the council, of whom below, and witnesses specially called, we went to the metropolitan church, and properly to the altar under the title of St. Mary Major, in which the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle stood laid up as a deposit, as appears from the public instruments already related, drawn by the notary canon Lizza under the days VII of February MDCLXXXIX, the first and the ninth of August MDCXCI, and the IV of September of the same year; and before that altar, together with the same lord bishops, the dignitaries and canons, the lord Giovanni de Effectibus, referendary of both signatures, the governor and the magistracy, standing by in their places, we recited the seven penitential psalms; which being finished, with all the above-said we went in procession to the sacristy, where we, and the lord bishops of Bovino, of Termoli, and of Bisceglie, being vested pontifically, returned by the same processional rite to the aforementioned altar of St. Mary Major, and the due prayers being paid, the lord bishops of Lucera the ponent and of Termoli the fiscal promotor assisting us, the altar was examined by skilled workmen, and found altogether entire.

[99] Which examination being finished, we, taking up a chisel, opens the bronze chest, began the opening, and then by our mandate the workmen continued it. The altar being opened, and all things being found as they had been described in the related Instruments, there appeared the bronze casket containing the sacred deposit, which four of our mansionarii drew out, from whose hands we, and the lord bishops of Bovino, of Termoli, and of Bisceglie, received it, and set it upon a table prepared and adorned outside the rails. Meanwhile the lord ponent and the fiscal promotor examined that same casket, and found all things exactly as in the instruments down to the day IV of September MDCXCI. All and each therefore being recognized,

the bronze chest was opened, and in it was found a veil blackened by the antiquity of time, which was of cotton, and woven at the edges with golden thread, and which perhaps covered the little marble chest.

There was moreover in the same place a silver coin of round form, in size equalling a Roman giulio, with the image on one side of a king with a lily-headed sceptre in his right hand, and an orb in his left, seated upon two lions, and with the inscription Karolus Dei gratia Hierusalem et Siciliæ rex, and on the other side with the image of the holy cross adorned round about with lilies, and the inscription: Honor Regis judicium diligit.

[100] and the marble one; in which the sacred bones, Thence they came to the examination of the little marble chest, and, finding it closed with its cords and seals according to the description made in the related instruments, closed just as it was, we lifted it with our own hands, and set it upon a bier adorned with silk, binding it with ribbons set on that same bier for this purpose, the clergy meanwhile singing psalms, and advancing in processional rite with the lord bishops and the rest aforesaid; we and the lord bishops of Bovino, of Termoli, and of Bisceglie bore the bier upon our shoulders to the sacristy, and here upon a table adorned with cloths and silks we laid down that same little casket,

and unbound it: then, as we went to our seat, the three lord bishops put off their pontifical vestments. Then we, descending from our seat and going to the aforesaid table, the mitre being laid aside, began the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus; which being finished, with all the fathers looking on, and the others enumerated, we lifted the lid of the little casket, and at once there were seen the sacred bones of the body of St. Bartholomew, above which lay a leaden plate, presently to be described.

[101] and the leaden plates inscribed with the Apostle's name: Then, as if in an ecstasy of mind for the gladness of the treasure found, lifting up our voice, we exclaimed rather than sang the hymn Te Deum: and while the hymn was being sung, incense being put on and blessed, we censed the sacred remains, whiter than snow and brighter than milk itself, as successively did all the bishops, the canons, and the rest of the presbyters who were present. The hymn, versicle, and prayer for thanksgiving being finished,

the mitre being taken up again, and sitting on a faldstool over against those standing by, in the sight of all

we drew out the leaden plate, on which in Lombard letters was carved: SCS BARTHOLOMEUS

APLS. Which being removed, we began to lift the sacred bones one by one, and at once there appeared another most ancient leaden plate, which we drew out, and found corroded with age, and covered with its own scum or rust; so that then it could by no means be read; which, being afterwards polished, showed on it the same letters as on the more recent plate, but in a most ancient Latin character, in these words: SCS BARTHOLoMEUS A: for at the extreme part it seemed broken off, as indeed it was: for lifting other bones, we found the broken particle, containing the other letters: PST.

[102] the number of the bones, and the antiquity of the plates: Continuing therefore the lifting of the sacred bones, reckoning great and small, we found them up to the number DLXXXV, besides innumerable fragments of bones, which because of their smallness could not be numbered, and others reduced to dust: all which, for the decreed recognition to be made, we laid out upon papers fitted for it. Meanwhile we commanded the plates that had been found to be examined by skilled metalworkers, who said that the former and greater was made four hundred years ago, but the lesser far more ancient than seven hundred years, from the wasting away of the lead itself. Observing moreover the bronze casket, they reported that it too was wrought four hundred years ago. Then the marble-workers, skilled in the sculpture of marbles, inspecting the stone chest, said that it exceeded seven hundred years, as its sculpture showed, and a certain crack opened in the bottom by age, which does not go through. Then we bound by oath the skilled anatomists, of whose skill we had been made certain, and who were present at the numbering of the bones, for the exact making of the recognition, and earnestly admonished them.

[103] But since night was drawing on, and the time was judged by no means fit for discerning the sacred relics in detail; the bones shut up until the following day. meanwhile we blessed with the appointed rite the glass vessels prepared for this effect, and caused all the bones to be laid up in them, wherewith nine vessels were filled. Which vessels, closed with their lids, we ordered to be laid up in a little chest wrought with silk, with its lock and key: which being fortified by the key, this remained with the lord fiscal promotor,

and for greater safekeeping we sealed that same little casket, bound with silken ribbons, with our own seal and that of the same promotor, in the sight of all: and that same casket, thus sealed, we placed in a safe cupboard which is behind the altar of the said sacristy, where the other relics are kept in their cases: the key of this cupboard also being left with the lord promotor, with the mind to continue the recognition and to do the other things which concern the execution

of the decree passed on the X day of May. Which things being done, we laid aside our pontifical vestments, and then upon the faldstool prayed a little while with the fathers; which prayer being ended, we courteously dismissed those same fathers,

and remained ourselves in the sacristy, giving diligent attention to the sacred vigils with the brethren of our order, which the other regulars also, as we prescribed to them, discharged in succession: as more fully from the public instrument, drawn by the three apostolic notaries of the council, Paduano canon Sanctorio, canon Lizza, and the clerk Domenico Fontanella, on the XI day of the same month of May.

[104] On the following day, which was the XII, being about to continue the recognition begun, On the morrow the bones shown to the people, after vespers, together with the aforesaid lord fathers of the province, whose number those following, who came for honor's sake, increased, namely Timoteo Agnellini, archbishop of Mardin in Mesopotamia, Nicola Antonio Tura, bishop of Sarno, Alfonso Pacelli, bishop of Murano, and the aforenamed Carlo Cutillo, bishop of Minori, and together with the two lesser ordinaries named, the four proctors of the absent bishops, the synodal theologians, the governor, and the magistracy, and moreover the notaries and witnesses, we went to the sacristy, and when each had betaken himself to his own place, it was suppliantly urged upon us, in the name of the magistracy, that the roused piety of the people being yielded to, the sacred remains, though not yet closed and sealed in their vessels, might be shown to that same people. This instance we laid before the fathers, who, moved by the fervor of the devout people, answered that it should be yielded to, and it pleased them that for this day the requested showing be made, but that the decreed continuation of the recognition, since time did not suffice, be deferred to the morrow. It was moreover ordained that

the aforesaid recognition, for providing for the identity of the relics in future, should be made exactly, and that, according to the judgment of the skilled anatomists, all the names of the bones which could be discerned should be written down: the execution of which decree the holy synod committed to us and to the lord bishops the ponent and the promotor, with the faculty of substituting other bishops in case of lawful impediment or of occupation in some synodal action; and moreover, these things being consigned to execution, of closing and sealing the vessels in which the bones of the sacred body, thus discerned and described, and the ashes to be set apart, were to be laid up. Wherefore, coming to the making of the requested showing with due rite, we and three other most reverend lord bishops, namely of Murano, of Bovino, and of Bisceglie, took up our pontifical vestments, and the little casket containing the nine phials of the relics of the sacred body, bound and sealed, being drawn out of the assigned cupboard which is behind the altar of the sacristy, and recognized, and by the lord promotor again opened after the censing and the canticles, and after the showing of the aforesaid vessels to the fathers, and their replacing in it, we set it upon the accustomed bier with its adornment, and we together with the three aforesaid bishops put our shoulders beneath it, and with processional rite and with singing bore it to the high altar, and there, being opened again, we censed it; and we ascended the pontifical pulpit with the two bishops of Murano and of Bovino, leaving at the altar those of Bisceglie and of Termoli; and, a homily being made to the people, we showed to them the several phials

brought to us, the bishop of Bovino reading the labels by which the phials were distinguished from one another: the two leaden plates also, found with the sacred body, we read and showed.

[105] and a new urn blessed: Which things being paid, and the phials being replaced in their casket with the appointed rite, the hymn Te Deum being sung: the casket, closed and set upon that same bier, in the order and manner in which we had come, we carried back into the sacristy. Where, the casket being placed upon the accustomed table, we at the altar consecrated the new urn of porphyry, for the laying up of the most sacred body of Bartholomew, with the prayers prescribed in the Pontifical; then the casket, replaced on the table, bound, and fortified with seals in the presence of all, we replaced in the often-mentioned cupboard, the key of this being consigned to the lord promotor. At length, the sacred vestments being laid aside, and the fathers courteously dismissed, we applied ourselves to the discharging of the nightly watches over the Apostolic body, together with the religious men appointed; as more fully in the Instrument drawn up on the same XII day of May, by the same notaries.

[106] the sworn anatomists But on the XIII day of the same month of May, about the tenth hour, we, together with the most rev. lords Domenico Morelli, bishop of Lucera, ponent, Michele Pitirro, bishop of Termoli, promotor, Alfonso Pacelli, bishop of Murano, and

Fr. Vincenzo de Magistris of our order of Preachers, bishop of Cassano, having also employed and called father Nicola Squillante of the congregation of the Oratory, and father Domenico Viva of the Society of Jesus, synodal theologians, and moreover the accustomed notaries and witnesses, we went to the sacristy of our metropolitan church, where there were present, being called, our beloved sons Antonio Volpe and Angelo de Auria, doctors of arts and of medicine, and witnesses skilled in anatomy, approved and sworn; and, continuing the execution of the decrees of our sacred provincial council, they came to the act of the canonical recognition, numbering, and anatomical specification of the bones of the body of St. Bartholomew. Wherefore, the often-mentioned cupboard behind the altar of the sacristy being opened by the lord promotor, the little casket being drawn out and its closure recognized, the accustomed prayers being also recited, the men skilled in anatomy again made oath in our hands to bear themselves faithfully and to speak the truth: upon the accustomed table therefore, out of the casket, the seals being broken and it opened, there were drawn out the phials in which the sacred pledges were laid up, and set out upon that same table, and in the presence of us, the lord bishops, and the theologians, notaries, and witnesses, the aforesaid men skilled in anatomy laid out all the bones, drawn from the phials, upon certain broad papers folded at the edges, and, for due precaution lest anything should slip away, raised.

[107] And then, with hand covered with veils, they separated the bones, recognize the sacred bones: and specified them and their parts, when separated, exactly by the proper names of each bone and of each part of them, and, thus

separated and specified, replaced them in separate phials; and many other fragments of bones, which because of their smallness could neither be numbered nor specified, were put in the chief phial, even as the dusts of those same bones filled their own phial. There were also found among the sacred remains of the body some fish-bones, small stones, and fragments of boards of fir, whereby it was shown that the bones still remained as they had been gathered in the island of Lipari: one phial therefore received the fish-bones, another the small stones and the fragments of boards. While these things were being done, we and the lord bishops of Lucera and of Termoli were called to the secret synodal congregation, and, according to the faculty given of substituting, we gave our place to the lord bishop of Murano, but he of Lucera subrogated to himself the lord bishop of Cassano; while he of Termoli, the promotor, postponed the aforesaid congregation to this his ministry.

[108] The synodal congregation being finished, we and the lord bishop of Lucera, [find all the parts of the body, except the arms, the collarbones, and the breastbone:] with the lord bishop of Troia, returned to the sacristy, and, standing by them as they still made the recognition, we diligently observed the specification and naming;

which being finished in our presence and that of the other aforenamed bishops, the anatomists distinctly deposed upon the aforesaid specification of the bones by their proper names, and their separation into nine phials, asserting moreover that, according to their judgment and skill, they had recognized that in those same bones there were present the several parts of the whole body, except the upper arms, or arms, the collarbones, and the breastbone. The aforesaid specification of the sacred bones by their proper names, and the separation made into nine phials, is of this sort:

[109] In the first vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of four inches and a half inch, are set in nine phials: what is in the first three: of the diameter of two inches and a half: A good part of the cranium. Ten larger particles of that same cranium. Seventeen lesser particles of that same cranium. Seven other tiny particles of that same cranium. Three larger parts of the bones of the organ of hearing, called the incus, the orbicular, and the stapes. Two lesser parts of the malleus. Seven teeth and a half, that is, two molars, one canine, four incisors entire, and one half. In the second

vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of five

inches, of the diameter of three inches. Two larger parts of the vertebrae of the loins. Nine other lesser particles of those same vertebrae. A part of a vertebra of the neck. Nine particles of the shoulder-blade. In the third vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of eight inches, of diameter four. Seven parts of the heads of the joints. Ten other particles of the same. Twenty-seven particles of the innominate bone. A great bone of the femur, more than half a palm. Three other bones of the femur a little smaller. Nine parts of the femur likewise great. Twenty lesser parts of the femur. One hundred and sixty particles of the bones of the femur and of the tibia. A great bone, the front of the tibia. Six other parts of that same tibia likewise great. A particle of the calf, and properly the head, which makes the outer malleolus entire. A part of the elbow. Two good parts of the radius. Another lesser part of the same radius. A particle of the joint of the elbow. Ten heads of divers great joints. Fifteen particles of joints. Fourteen particles of the calf. Fifty- five particles of the tibia. Eight particles of the bone of the ulna. Four lesser particles of the same bone. Three particles of the kneecap.

[110] what is in the six remaining: In the fourth vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of five inches and a half, of the diameter of three inches: Nine parts of the metacarpus, two

greater, the rest lesser. Eight entire bones of the carpus. Twenty-three bones of the fingers of the hands, some entire, some broken. Six entire bones of the tarsus, or foot. Ten small bones of the metatarsus, partly entire, partly broken. Seven entire joints of the great bones of the toes. Eight lesser joints of the toes entire, and four others smaller. Twelve unnamed particles of the bones of the tarsus. A bone of the scapula. Seven parts of divers ribs, two greater, the rest lesser. Five parts of ribs with portions of vertebrae. Twelve other lesser particles of ribs. Twenty other tiny particles of ribs. Twenty- four other particles of indiscernible bone. In the fifth vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of eight inches and a half, of diameter four. Innumerable and divers particles of bones, which because of their smallness could not be specified. In the sixth vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of five inches, and of three of diameter: Ashes, or dusts of bones. In the seventh vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of four inches, but of diameter three: A greater bone of the metacarpus, entire. In the eighth vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of three inches, of diameter two: Ten particles of fish-bones, which were found mingled among those same sacred bones.

In the ninth vessel, of spherical figure, of the height of five inches, and of three of diameter: Divers fragments of stones and of wood, which likewise were found mingled among the sacred bones.

[111] the phials sealed are laid up. The aforesaid specification, naming, and replacing in the several vessels being finished, continuing the execution of the decree as to the sealing of the aforesaid vessels, in this manner, in the sight of all, we sealed them. Each glass vessel containing its own relics, as we said before, was closed with its own lid, likewise of glass, cotton being interposed, that the lid itself might cling the more firmly: then there were passed several silken ribbons of red color from the several lids to the several mouths of the phials, through two glass rings firmly adhering here and there both to the lids and to the phials; which ribbons, thus passed, were turned over the lids of each phial, and firmly bound in two knots, upon which, smeared by us with Spanish wax, our small seal was impressed; and to each phial likewise there was added a paper label containing the specification of the bones, until like ones of parchment should be supplied. Which sealing being finished, the phials thus sealed were replaced in that same often-mentioned casket, and closed by the lord fiscal promotor: but that casket, bound and fortified with two seals, ours and the aforesaid promotor's, was kept in the accustomed cupboard by the key which the promotor himself kept. As more fully in the instrument, drawn by the aforesaid notaries of the council on the same XIII day of the current May.

PART IV.

Things done in the second session of the synod: the body carried back and replaced in the new temple. The second synodal session, But on the XIV day of the same month of May there was held in our metropolitan church the second synodal session, there being present with us the most reverend lord bishops of the province already enumerated, except F. Francesco Scanegata, who for reason of ill health kept himself in the archbishop's palace, and moreover nine other most reverend lord bishops, who for honor's sake had come to the session, namely Timoteo Agnellini, archbishop of Mardin in Mesopotamia, Francesco Vignola, bishop of Minervino, Nicola Antonio Thura, bishop of Sarno, Alfonso Pacelli, bishop of Murano, Giovanni Francesco de Laurentiis, bishop of Venosa, Fr. Marcello de Cavaleriis of the order of Preachers, bishop of Gravina, Fr. Vincenzo de Magistris of the order of Preachers, bishop of Cassano, Carlo Cutillo, monk of St. Benedict of the congregation of Montevergine, bishop of Minori, Giuseppe Schinosi, bishop of Caserta, and moreover the two lesser ordinaries, the proctors of the four absent bishops, the theologians, and the others gathered in the council.

[113] And when in that session the secretary of the synod had read from the pulpit the synodal decrees down to title VI inclusive, in which the decrees of the translation were read, by our mandate he added the reading and more solemn publication of the decree upon the translation of the sacred body of St. Bartholomew, passed in the public synodal congregation held on the X day of the current month: which when the fathers and the others described above heard, again with a loud voice they said: Thanks be to God, who has deigned to grant us that we should see and handle with our hands the body of St. Bartholomew, in that manner in which it had been announced to us by the sacred constitutions and the public documents. He read moreover the instrument of the elevation of the said sacred body, drawn up on the XI day of the current month, and moreover another of the showing of the sacred body when elevated, made to the fathers and the people, together with the decree passed by that same synod: namely that the bones be numbered, recognized, specified, and described by the anatomists, and sealed, under the drawing of the XII day of the same month. He read at last, and published, the instrument of the numbering, recognition, and specification of the bones by their proper names, made by the anatomists, and of the enclosing of that same sacred body in glass vessels, and of the sealing of the same, under the drawing of the XIII day of the same month.

[114] Which reading and publication being finished, the lord ponent reported to the holy synod the synod commanding, that it was just and fitting that the aforesaid sacred relics, thus selected, and replaced in their vessels, and sealed, should be shown both to the lord bishops who had lately come to grace our sacred assembly out of their remarkable piety, and to almost innumerable of Christ's faithful, who from divers regions had flowed together to venerate the sacred body of the Apostle, that the religion of all might be satisfied; and when all answered, It pleases: we commanded the sacred body to be carried away out of the sacristy, which the lord bishops the ponent and the promotor, accompanied by many dignitaries and canons of our metropolitan church, executed, the cupboard being recognized in their presence, bearing in their arms the casket containing the sacred Remains to the high altar in processional rite and with canticles.

[115] the sacred bones again shown to the people, The doors of the church being meanwhile opened by our mandate, the church was filled with an almost innumerable people. Then we commanded the sealed casket to be unsealed in the presence of the fathers and the rest;

and when we had ascended our pulpit,

those same lord bishops the ponent and the promotor brought the casket, thus opened, to us into the pulpit; and that this showing might be the better known, we commanded that the secretary of the synod, from the other pulpit which stands over against it, should read with a loud voice the catalogue of the relics recognized and specified with their proper names, made by the skilled anatomists: and as he read it, we, drawing out of the casket the several phials designated in the catalogue and named by him, showed them to the people, sealed as they were; who, bursting into tears for the gladness of their heart, stretched out their faces and hands to heaven, giving thanks to God for so great a gift, and commending themselves to the patronage of the most blessed Apostle.

[116] and it was decreed that a bone of the metacarpus be kept outside the urn. Moved by which religion, we proposed to the fathers whether it might please them that the entire bone of the metacarpus, enclosed in the seventh vessel, be kept outside the urn in which the rest were to be laid up, so that it might thereafter be shown

to the devout who flow together: and the fathers with united minds said that it should be so done. Which things being finished, we came down from the pulpit, carrying back the casket with the little vessels of the relics to the high altar, upon which, with all looking on, being closed after the custom and sealed, it was borne by those same lord bishops with the same rite in which they had come, with canticles, to the sacristy, and replaced in the often-mentioned cupboard under

the promotor's key, with the mind to continue the action, and to affix the parchment labels to the vessels, and to replace the same in the urn of porphyry, as we said before, already blessed. All then returning from the sacristy to the sacred assembly, the session was ended with the appointed rite, as

more fully in the instrument; drawn by the same notaries of the council on the XIV day of May.

[117] The archbishop with his own On the same XIV day of the same month of May, before vespers, we, together with the aforenamed twenty-three most reverend lord bishops, with whom we filled up the number of twenty-four, and moreover with the two lesser ordinaries, the proctors of the four absent bishops, the theologians, the lord governor, and the magistracy, the anatomists, the notaries of the council, and the witnesses, we went to the sacristy of our metropolitan church for the finishing of the canonical recognition of the sacred relics of the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, with the affixing of the parchment labels to the glass vessels; and there, the prayer being finished, each one betook himself to his own place, and we in our seat received our pontifical vestments, and the capitulars put on their sacred vestments.

[118] shows the sacred relics enclosed in phials, We therefore, being vested pontifically, together with the lord bishops the ponent and the promotor, went to the often-mentioned cupboard of the sacristy; which, being opened by the lord promotor, who in the morning had closed it, we drew out the casket, closed and fortified with two seals, and, having shown it to the fathers thus closed and fortified, we placed it upon the altar of the sacristy; and, the seals being broken, with all looking on, we opened it, and drew out the glass vessels in which the body of St. Bartholomew was laid up, canticles and censing being employed after the custom; then

we commanded that on parchment labels the names of the relics be summarily noted according to the judgment and skill of the anatomists, and be firmly annexed to those same vessels for a perpetual memorial. For the executing of this the fathers deputed the lord bishops the ponent and the promotor. Accordingly we with the fathers and the canons went in processional rite to the choir for the solemn vespers of the translation to be sung. Meanwhile the aforesaid bishops the ponent and the promotor deputed remained together with the notaries of the council and the witnesses and the anatomists, in whose presence our beloved son the R. lord canon Marzio Lizza,

one of the notaries, according to the tenor of the catalogue made by the anatomists and already related, drew up the parchment labels, and wrote on them the names of the relics, summarily however, as we commanded,

and tenaciously glued each one to each glass vessel with gum which they call Arabic.

[119] But the tenor of the labels is that which follows, according to the order of the glass vessels, an inscription is set on each phial; which we so exhibit that, the seventh being removed — as not to be replaced in the urn according to the synodal decree — the rest following are subrogated to this transferred number, so that thereafter eight are numbered in the urn presently to be set out. In the first vessel therefore the parchment label annexed has this: Number 1. Bones of the cranium, and of the organ of hearing, two molar teeth, five incisors and a half, of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the II vessel the label is thus inscribed: Number II. Vertebrae and shoulder-blades of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the III vessel there stands this label thus inscribed: Number III. Bones of the joints, of the femur, of the tibia, of the calf, of the ulna, of the radius, of the kneecap, and the innominate bone, of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the IV vessel this label is read: Number IV. Bones of the carpus, of the metacarpus, and of the fingers of the hands, of the tarsus, of the metatarsus, of the toes, of the ribs, and other indistinguishable ones, of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the V the label contains this: Number V. Fragments of the bones of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the VI vessel the label thus inscribed: Number VI. The sacred dusts of the bones of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the VII vessel the label set on has thus: Number VII. Fish-bones found mingled with the sacred remains of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. On the VIII vessel the label is thus read: Number VIII. Particles of stones and of wood found mingled with the sacred remains of St. Bartholomew the apostle, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII. But that which in

the catalogue was the seventh vessel, now the ninth, and to be kept outside the urn according to the aforesaid decree of the fathers, has also its own label annexed of the tenor which follows: A great entire bone of the metacarpus of St. Bartholomew, here replaced, on the XIII day of the month of May MDCXCVIII.

[120] Vespers being finished, we, returning with the fathers to

the sacristy, the phials are enclosed in the urn of porphyry: replaced the eight vessels, sealed and specified with their parchment labels, as we said before, in the urn of porphyry already blessed, fitting cotton among them, lest, one pressing the other, they should be broken. But the seventh vessel, now the ninth, in which is replaced

the great bone of the metacarpus, left outside the urn, sealed and inscribed as it was, we ordered to be replaced in the often-mentioned cupboard of the sacred relics of the sacristy, the form of the often-repeated synodal decree being observed, as the lord bishop promotor replaced it and closed the cupboard, who handed over the key to the treasurer Mariella, keeper of the sacred relics existing in this our metropolitan

church. But the urn of porphyry, containing the eight aforesaid vessels, we censed, and then closed it with its own lid, likewise of porphyry, which is so joined to the vessel: an iron circle surrounds the lip of the vessel, and from it to the lid three rays likewise of iron are stretched, and are made fast to the top of that same lid by winding iron nails, which they call screws. Yet in this manner the urn was not now closed, since the craftsman had not yet finished the three leaden plates, now likewise to be replaced in it for a perpetual

memorial of this present sacred action; yet he promised to exhibit them altogether finished on the morrow before vespers. But the tenor of the inscription to be carved on the three plates, dictated on this day, is that which follows.

[121] the inscription to be carved on three bronze plates: "In the year of the Lord MDCXCVIII, the XI of May, a Sunday,

I, Fr. Vincent Mary of the order of Preachers, by divine mercy of the title of St. Sixtus of the H. R. Ch. Cardinal Presbyter Orsini, archbishop of this holy metropolitan church, in my second provincial synod, by the mandate of that same synod, in the presence of the Fathers elevated and recognized this body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, which was in a stone urn, in which I found two leaden plates, one most ancient and broken at its extreme part, with these words: ✠ SCS. BARTHOLoMEUS APST., the other likewise ancient, expressing the former thus: ✠ SCS. BARTHOLOMEUS APLS.: and that same body I replaced in VIII glass vessels; and those same vessels on the XIV day of May I placed in this urn of porphyry, in the presence of the most holy and most reverend bishops of the province, namely Fr. Celestino Labonia of the order of Hermits of St. Augustine, bishop of Montemarano; Giuseppe Lazara of the Clerks Minor, bishop of Alife; Francesco Scanegata, bishop of Avellino and Frigento; Angelo Ceraso, bishop of Bovino; Francesco Antonio Punii, bishop of Ascoli and Ordona; Francesco Antonio Giannone, bishop of Bojano; Giuseppe Catalano, bishop of Larino; Domenico Morelli, bishop of Lucera; Michele Pitirro, bishop of Termoli; Pompeo Sarnelli, bishop of Bisceglie, admitted to a decisive vote, and in place of the metropolitan chapter abbot of the town of San Lupo of no diocese; Francesco Protonobilissimo, bishop of Trevico; Biagio Gambaro, bishop of Telese; Emilio Giacomo de Cavaleriis, bishop-elect of Troia; Giacinto de Calce, clerk regular, bishop of Ariano, ordinaries: F. Vito Antonio Pastorale of the order of St. Benedict of the congregation of Montevergine, abbot general of no diocese; Agostino Fantetta,

vicar of Alberona of no diocese. The aforesaid sacred functions being honored by Timoteo Agnellini, archbishop of Mardin in Mesopotamia; Francesco Vignola, bishop of Minervino; Nicola Antonio Thura, bishop of Sarno; Alfonso Pacelli, bishop of Murano; Giovanni Francesco de Laurentiis, bishop of Venosa; Fr. Marcello de Cavaleriis of the order of Preachers, bishop of Gravina; Fr. Vincenzo de Magistris of the order of Preachers, bishop of Cassano; D. Carlo Cutillo, monk of St. Benedict of the congregation of Montevergine, bishop of Minori; Giuseppe Schinosi, bishop of Caserta".

[122] Since therefore, as we said before, the craftsman had not yet finished the carving of the aforesaid inscription, the urn of porphyry was meanwhile bound with a silken ribbon of red color, both about the lip the urn, sealed, is borne to the high altar: and above the lid, and sealed with three of our seals impressed in Spanish wax melted upon that same ribbon: then, with psalms and canticles, the urn thus sealed was set upon a bier excellently wrought for this, with silken flowerets, distributed as it were in little beds, wondrously adorned on every side; which, in processional rite, the chapter vested going before, and the fathers, we and the lord bishops of Montemarano, of Murano, and of Bovino, likewise vested pontifically, bore to the high altar of our metropolitan church, the lord governor

and the magistracy following with lighted torches. There we showed the urn to the people, and set it forth for public adoration with censing and prayers. At length, in the order in which we had come, returning to the sacristy, there we laid aside the sacred vestments, and, a brief prayer being paid before the altar of the sacristy, we courteously dismissed the fathers,

and we ourselves returned to the choir, about to make a beginning of the sacred watches over the sacred body of the Apostle; and we found the people, from the aforesaid our withdrawal, chanting the Psalter of the B. Virgin Mary, or rosary. Meanwhile they turned the night into day, the whole city being lit up with innumerable lights, the bell-towers giving forth frequent festive peals, and the people flowing together in troops to the sacred vigils. But the aforesaid action is had more fully in the instrument, drawn by the three notaries of the council related above, on the XIV day of the current May, after vespers.

[123] At length on the XV day of the same month, we, together with the most reverend lord bishops of the province, vespers being sung, and the nine others who had come to honor the sacred functions, whose names we have related, and who with us filled up the number of twenty-four pontiffs, and moreover with the two lesser ordinaries, the proctors of the four absent suffragan bishops, the theologians and synodal decretalists, the lord governor and the magistracy, and the three notaries of the council, and the witnesses drawn in and specially called, we went to our metropolitan church, and there sang solemn vespers with solemn rite: and, the first psalm being begun, a beginning was given to the solemn procession, because of the great number of the forty-four confraternities, and of the clergy, from almost the whole archdiocese. Vespers being finished, all the fathers put on their pontifical vestments, the rest such vestments as befitted them, the canons being already vested for the assistance rendered at the vespers sung by us. All being thus vested, we intoned beforehand the antiphon: With joy shall ye go forth; and incense being put into the thuribles, we censed the urn at the altar.

[124] Meanwhile the urn containing the body of the holy Apostle being recognized, with the fathers looking on, three plates are set in the opened urn, and being found made fast with the same seals with which on the day before it had been fortified, by our mandate, with all looking on, the seals being broken, it was again opened, and in it, for a perpetual monument of this new translation, we first replaced the three new leaden plates,

now finished, with the inscription which we have related above. Now these three plates are joined at the extreme part with silken ribbons of red color, passed through holes, which ribbons hang from the two sides, and upon them there are impressed in Spanish wax nineteen seals out of the twenty- three bishops present, namely those of Montemarano, Alife, Avellino, Bovino, Ascoli, Bojano, Larino, Lucera, Termoli, Bisceglie, Telese, Troia, Ariano, Minervino, Sarno, Murano, Venosa, Gravina, and Minori; but those of the remaining four bishops and of the two lesser ordinaries were not impressed, because they had not brought their seals with them from their residences.

[125] the archbishop's bull, and other things, But in the middle of the aforesaid lower part of the plates, thus joined, there is passed a silken cord of red and white color, from which hangs our accustomed archiepiscopal leaden bull, having on one side impressed the images of the heads of the B. Virgin Mary on the right, and of St. Bartholomew the apostle on the left, with a cross between, and above the head of St. Mary there are the letters: S. M., that is: S. Maria: and above the head of St. Bartholomew there stand the letters: S. B.: that is: S. Bartholomæus: below the images there is read, carved, the year MDCXCVIII. On the other side of that same leaden bull there is the inscription: Fr. Vinc. Maria, of the Order of Preachers, Card. Orsini, Archbishop of Benevento. Moreover in the same urn we replaced a silver medal, having on one side the images of the heads of B. Mary and of St. Bartholomew, as we related of the leaden one; the other has our image adorned with mitre and pallium, with the same inscription around the rim: Fr. Vinc. Maria, of the Order of Preachers, Card. Orsini, Archbishop of Benevento.

[126] as also two ancient plates: Thereupon in the same urn we enclosed the two leaden plates found with that same sacred body in the marble casket, and described and copied in the first instrument of the elevation of the said sacred body, drawn up under the day XI of the current month: of which plates the lesser, broken at the extremity, with the separated particle, we wrapped in a parchment label subscribed by our hand of the following tenor: "A most ancient leaden plate was recognized by experts juridically examined to exceed seven hundred years, the XIV of May A. D. MDCXCVIII. Fr. Vinc. Maria, Card. archbishop."

Which things being thus replaced, new cotton being fitted in, lest the things which were within the urn should press one another, in the presence of all the fathers, and with them looking on, the lid was set upon the urn, and about the lip of that same urn an iron circle was set, from which circle three iron rays are stretched to the top of the lid, that, clinging about it by a shorter iron circle, they may be made fast, although now they were not wholly made fast; for an act of this kind was to be performed after the procession of this translation in the basilica of St. Bartholomew, at the actual consignment of the aforesaid sacred urn, and its placing in the chamber beneath the high altar of that same basilica.

[127] a supplication being appointed, the urn Meanwhile the often-mentioned urn was firmly bound with a silken ribbon, and afterwards set upon the noble bier already described; which bier indeed, with the sacred urn, until the solemn procession came to the sacred basilica, ever lay upon our shoulders a sweet burden; which also the three other pontiffs, who carried the bier with us, would have done, had they not yielded their turns to others also, both for honor's and for piety's sake. But as regards the procession, the method printed for its ordering, lest we be here longer than is just, is exhibited in the acts

of this sacred council. But when the procession came to the sacred basilica, the term appointed for it, at its entrance, the hymn Te Deum being sung, the sacred roofs resounded: the urn therefore being laid down with the appointed rites, it was set forth upon the high altar, of divers and precious marble, also in the chamber for the urn to be laid up there, namely within and without most elegantly wrought at our charges — if not according to the dignity of so great an Apostle, yet according to our slenderness.

[128] After therefore we had rendered both the censing and the due prayers, borne to the temple of St. Bartholomew; we solemnly blessed the people, the plenary indulgence granted by the most holy lord Pope Innocent XII being published by our archdeacon to those visiting today this new basilica of the holy Apostle. Thereupon we, sitting on a faldstool upon the altar, received the offering of torches from the magistracy, other nobles,

and some of the country clergy for the service of this sacred altar, in reverence of the most holy Apostle. Which being done, the sacred urn, by our mandate, was firmly locked, the shorter iron circle being set to the top of the lid, which was closed with a winding iron nail, which the common folk call a screw, the head of which nail was cut off: and to that shorter circle were brought back the three iron rays stretched from the greater circle of the urn, wherewith the lip is surrounded, and were fixed to that same shorter circle with three like nails, the heads of which nails were likewise cut off: and upon the aforesaid four traces of the cuttings, Spanish wax being poured in, we impressed our four small seals. The said urn therefore being thus locked, fortified, and sealed in the presence of the fathers, we courteously dismissed those same fathers because of the lateness of the hour, who withdrew in processional rite with the rest of the clergy to the sacristy of our metropolitan church for the laying aside of the sacred vestments.

[129] But we, with the lord bishops the ponent and the promotor, and there sealed, and laid down in the chamber of the high altar. the canons of this sacred basilica, the ministers and chaplains, and moreover the magistracy, remained for the consigning of that same urn, thus sealed, to the dignitaries and canons of our collegiate church of St. Bartholomew;

as we did, placing with our own hands, the said lord bishops assisting, the sacred urn in the chamber of the high altar. Now this urn is, as we have often said, of porphyry marble, most studiously wrought, of the height of two palms, of the breadth, taken about its circuit, of four palms and a half, of the value of more than a thousand ducats, equalling by its most elegant work the preciousness of the marble. The urn therefore being placed in the chamber of the said altar, that same chamber was fortified with an iron grating drawn in a circle, and skillfully composed on the outside of brass, the choir meanwhile resounding with the singing of psalms. And when we had sat in our pontifical seat in the midst of the choir, the lord bishops and the canons of the sacred basilica sitting together in that same choir, we spoke words of exhortation to those same canons, that they should answer to so great gifts with worthy service; commanding them that, in memory of this sacred translation, within two months they should take care to set up an inscription carved in marble, containing the words written on the three plates enclosed in the urn of porphyry; and that meanwhile, for the thanksgiving due to God, for eight continuous days they should daily discharge the whole Davidic Psalter, divided into three different hours. The sermon at length being finished, we prayed before the altar, and in procession, with the lord bishops of Lucera and of Termoli, and the canons of the said sacred basilica, we went to the sacristy of the same, where, the sacred vestments being laid aside, we set an end to this action.

[130] Which things being thus finished, for a perpetual memorial of the matter, we have decreed that this our page — of the petition, the decree, the elevation, the recognition, the showing, the replacing, the translation, the restitution, the consignment — is to be dispatched under lead with our seal we have commanded. The conclusion exhorts to the praise of God. It remains that, for so signal a benefit, we all with all humility bless and glorify him to whom belongs all blessing and glory for ages of ages. Let us confess to the Lord in all his wonders, and let all flesh acknowledge that his mercies have not failed in our days; who, though, our sins requiring it, he visited us with the rod of his indignation, yet did not shut up his mercies in anger: for we have been gladdened for the days wherein he humbled us, for the years wherein we saw evils, while in our afflictions he fortifies us with the protection of his most glorious apostle Bartholomew, most worthy of all praise, and protects and defends us by the suffrages of his merits and intercessions. Let us at length ask of him with assiduous prayers that, so great an Apostle interceding, turning his face away from our sins, he may have mercy upon us, and look upon us, and send his fear upon the nations which have not known him, that they may acknowledge that there is no other God but our God. Given at Benevento in our second provincial synod in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and ninety-eight, on the XV day of the month of May, Indiction VI, of our Beneventan Pontificate the XIII year, but of our ordination the XXIV.

[131] A light seen from the sacred bones: Thus far the Bull of the Most Eminent. He who desires more of these things may consult the Ephemerides of Fr. Domenico Viva of our Society, who was present at the affair, and narrated each particular exactly in the Italian tongue. He will learn from them especially with how great piety of all, and above the rest of the most holy prelate Orsini, with how great a concourse of people of every condition, the whole matter was accomplished, which for brevity's sake I pass over. Two things, however, chiefly conducing to the Saint's glory, it is not lawful to pass over. On page 33 he narrates that a certain most illustrious bishop of singular esteem and virtue testified to him that he saw, when the little marble chest was first opened … a huge splendor issuing from the shining bones. And so certainly, he says, did he assert that it was not a hallucination of the eyes,

that he would have declared it juridically with an oath to the Saint's glory, had not modesty held him back, forbidding me even to make his name known. In memory of this prodigy Viva added these little verses: What new torch shines to the eyes, the sacred remains display. Dost thou then think heaven can deceive with phantoms? If any doubts remain: the kindly light drives out the shadows, let the mind hereafter lay down doubt, and let love burn.

[132] the wheel of a carriage passes three times Another miracle he narrates on page 41, to which he prefixes a little about the weather changed from rainy to fair while the supplication was proceeding, in this manner: Hell had no means whereby to disturb so well ordered a supplication: nay rather, whereas the weather both before and after was continually rainy, on that day the sun, now an exile, came, that it might be a dutiful spectator of so great a triumph. The demon strove in another way to make the day mournful; for indeed, in a great press of people about the temple of the Dominican fathers, where there was a great stage with a hanging altar, the son of Antonio Todisco, John by name, a little child scarcely of one lustrum, slips down upon the ground, and across one of his legs there is driven the lesser wheel of a carriage laden with many persons. Shouts are raised to heaven against the driver; he, to set the matter right, more vehemently restrains the horses with the reins, so that, drawing back swiftly, they drove the wheel again over that tender leg: and when, being roused again, they went forward, a third time also it passes over it. There grew the shouts and lamentations of the parents, who thought that they should find the little child already crushed.

[133] But the Saint, willing to show his powerful patronage and his dominion even over hell, the boy's leg unhurt. was a defence to him: for the child, being lifted up, was found altogether unharmed, only a slight bruise appearing in the place which the wheel had touched, for a testimony of heavenly grace, all then crying out: A miracle! a miracle of the holy Apostle! who had then been invoked by many. Concerning which a juridical inquiry has already been set on foot: and all testified, both seculars and the much reverend Dominican fathers, made eyewitnesses, and the physicians and surgeons who observed the bruised leg, that this could not naturally have come to pass, nor without an evident miracle: which heaven willed, that it might authentically show by this prodigy, as by a characteristic sign, that these are truly the bones of that Saint who, for the love of his Lord, suffered himself to be stripped of his skin. Thus Viva, who in memory of the miracle added this distich: Thrice the driven wheel presses the boy's foot; nor does it wear the bones, but the skin, that it may prove the bones of the flayed Saint.

CHAPTER III.

Was the body of St. Bartholomew translated to Rome? § I. The worship at Rome: the controversy between the Romans and the Beneventans about the sacred body.

The worship at Rome: a long-lasting controversy about the body, That St. Bartholomew is honored at Rome with great veneration Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza testifies in the Sacred Hemerology of Christian Rome at the day XXV of August, where he writes that his feast is celebrated with great solemnity, and a concourse of people, for eight days, in the church dedicated to the Saint on the Insula Lycaonia, or St. Bartholomew's. Of this church Fioravante Martinelli, in Roma sacra, page 77 and following, after mentioning two other churches of St. Bartholomew, writes these things: The high altar is upheld by four columns of serpentine. In the same place a basin of porphyry, upon which is set a most beautiful white marble slab. Within, the notable body of St. Bartholomew the apostle. Paul IV, when the said body of the holy Apostle had been found among the ruins of his temple, fallen because of a flood in the year MDLVII, took care that it should be carried with great and solemn pomp and supplications into the temple of St. Peter: which afterwards Pius IV commanded to be restored, as I saw in the instrument of consignment of the day XXVII of July MDLX in the archive of the Vatican basilica. It enjoys also (that same church) the sacred body of St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola … Formerly it was collegiate, as appears from a sepulchral stone in the church of St. James in Settimiano. It is a Cardinal's title under the care of the friars Minor of the Observance. These authors assert the sacred body of St. Bartholomew for Rome no less indubitably than the Beneventans attribute it to Benevento. Hence there has flourished a long-lasting controversy, perhaps never to be ended, between the Romans and the Beneventans, as to which of them possesses the sacred body of St. Bartholomew. Very many things have been written on both sides, very many arguments produced. An excellent dissertation on this matter for the Beneventans was published in the year 1636 by Annibale Mascambruno, bishop of Castellammare: another, more prolix than the preceding, was brought to light in the year 1694 by the most eminent Cardinal Orsini, which Basilio Janelli rendered into Italian somewhat enlarged in the year 1695. Nor in the Ephemerides which Domenico Viva of our Society wrote on the translation of the body already related did he neglect the Beneventans' cause.

[135] and not yet decided for the Beneventans, By these learned dissertations, and above all by the recognition itself of the relics, which is the greatest of all arguments for the Beneventans, the possession of the sacred body might to some seem abundantly vindicated to Benevento; nor did Pompeo Sarnelli, bishop of Bisceglie, undeservedly sing the victory in this epigram prefixed to Janelli's dissertation: A struggle keeps the Romans and Benevento apart for a hundred years: but at last the zealous side yields. Bartholomew goes to Benevento: the struggle has revived through so many ages; let Rome now yield her hands. But this ought not to seem so to us, the other party being unheard, nor did it so seem to Emmanuel Caetano Sousa, who, tom. 2 On the Spanish Expedition of St. James the Greater, page 1229, says that Sarnelli undeservedly sang the victory. Because, he says, for Rome and the Insula Lycaonia there came forth Francesco

Dini's Historico-critical Dissertation on the translation and placing of the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle at Rome in the Insula Lycaonia, or a vindication of the Roman Breviary against the dissertations of bishop Mascambruno, of Marius Vipera, capitular vicar of Benevento, and of others most recent, and against the decrees passed in the council of Benevento in the presence of the most eminent and most reverend Vincent Mary Cardinal Orsini, archbishop, which was printed at Venice from the press of Domenico Lovisa in the year MDCCI (nay, 1700) in quarto. And so far is it from being the case that Rome yielded her hands, as Sarnelli hoped, that rather Clement XI, Supreme Pontiff, imposed silence upon that same Cardinal Orsini, and upon others denying that the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle exists at Rome. Whence there remained safe and sound the authority of the Roman Breviary asserting it; and, what is more and most worthy of observation, that same Cardinal Orsini, being raised to the supreme Pontificate and taking the name of Benedict XIII, ordered no change to be made in the Roman Breviary — he who, though he held the Pontificate down to the sixth year, and was a Pontiff exceedingly solicitous for ecclesiastical affairs, and sparing no labor in those things which pertain to sacred rites and ecclesiastical

discipline. Thus far the praised Sousa.

[136] upon whom, however, Clement XI does not seem to have imposed silence, But what he writes, that silence was imposed by Clement XI upon Cardinal Orsini, can scarcely, or not even scarcely, obtain credit with me. For first, he mentions neither the words of the Pontiff nor the time at which the silence was said to have been imposed. Secondly, Cardinal Orsini from the year 1698, in which all the things we have related were finished, seems already to have kept silence and to have stirred nothing further; why then should Pope Clement, created toward the end of the year 1700 on the XXIII day of the month of November, impose silence upon one who was silent? Thirdly, our elders, wont to note such matters most diligently, have left me nothing about that silence, although I have found other matters even of less moment diligently noted, especially concerning this controversy, about which Papebroch had determined to say something in the Life of St. Paulinus; as he said in tom. IV of June, printed in the year 1707, page 233, but nothing about this silence. Fourthly, the most illustrious Francesco Maria de Aste, archbishop of Otranto, in the Disquisitions on the Roman Martyrology dedicated to Clement XI, and printed at Benevento in the year 1716, page 389, relates this controversy, bringing forward the arguments of both parties; who, if silence had been imposed, ought to have known it and to have mentioned it; but not even a word about the silence is read there; nay rather he inclines to the side of the Beneventans, and says that the Roman Martyrology could be so corrected, if it were written: The bringing back of the holy relics of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, with these added: Which at Benevento and at Rome in the Tiber island are honored by the pious devotion of the faithful.

[137] There is added that the aforesaid Sousa has inserted certain other things into his Work, as Sousa asserts, being less accurate in writing. which are manifestly false.

I bring forward one example, that both the reader may understand that what I say is true, and that I may wipe away, as far as I can, the stain cast upon a most upright man. Tom. 1 of the Spanish Expedition cited, page 878, he thus writes about our Papebroch: But Papebroch ought not to move us, who in Spain is of no authority, since by the supreme tribunals of the holy Inquisition there have been prohibited those things which he wrote in the Acts of the Saints, not only in our Lusitania, but in all Spain. Thus Sousa in the year 1727: the rest which he adds I pass over, as not necessary for our purpose. But the Works of Papebroch were never condemned in Lusitania: next, he could not be ignorant that the censure against Papebroch's Works passed in Spain in the year 1695 had, by a most equitable judgment been relaxed in the year 1715 by the same general Inquisition, by a decree published on this matter, which may be seen in tom. VII of June, page 34. With what equity then, or with what truth, does he write in the year 1727 that the Works of Papebroch on the Acts of the Saints are prohibited in Spain and Lusitania? Hence therefore, the reasons alleged above concurring, I do not judge that credit is to be given to the silence asserted by Sousa.

[138] Following therefore the example of the most illustrious de Aste, The state of the controversy I shall weigh the arguments alleged on this side by the Beneventans and on that by the Romans, and if I find anything favoring the one or the other party, I shall faithfully add it without any partisan zeal. But, that the force of the arguments may be the better known, it must be clearly explained wherein the controversy lies. It is acknowledged on both sides that the body of St. Bartholomew was at Benevento down to nearly the end of the tenth century. That it remained there the Beneventans contend, resting on arguments neither few nor light: that it was carried off and translated to Rome to the Insula Lycaonia or Tiberina, the Romans affirm, and commonly the German writers, resting likewise on many reasons and authorities. Yet about the author and time of this translation there is no agreement among these: for some attribute it to the emperor Otto II, which also pleased Baronius in the Roman Martyrology at the XXV of August, and so it was formerly read in the Breviary: others make Otto III the author of this translation, as the Roman Breviary has it even today, which the most eminent Baronius also asserted at the year of Christ 1000, num. 8, charging the authors of the former opinion with error. Francesco Dini, the keenest champion of the Romans, at first attributed the matter to Otto II; but lest he should be compelled to subtract a great number from the three hundred authors which he boasts, in the course of his work he draws over to his own side all who stood for Otto III, and even some who favor the Beneventans no less than the Romans. Now it must be seen how each party sets forth its own opinion.

[139] set forth: The Beneventans say that Otto III sought the body of St. Bartholomew; and since they dared deny him nothing, their forefathers used a stratagem, lest they lose the sacred treasure, and substituted for the body of St. Bartholomew the body of St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola: which being afterwards discovered, Otto returned to Benevento with an army and besieged the city; but was compelled to withdraw with the matter unaccomplished. This foundation of the Beneventans is from Leo of Ostia, to be cited below. But certain Romans, who attribute the translation to Otto III, do not deny the substitution of the body of St. Paulinus; but they add that Otto, having returned, got possession of Benevento, and translated the body of St. Bartholomew also. Some of them altogether deny the alleged fraud. But those who will have Otto II to be the author of the translation narrate the matter thus: Otto, they say, having suffered a defeat, because he was deserted in the battle by the Romans and the Beneventans, since he dared not take vengeance upon the Romans, exercised his anger upon the Beneventans; for, attacking them unprepared and fearing nothing of the sort, he took the city, despoiled it, burned it, and translated to Rome the relics of St. Bartholomew carried off from Benevento, where also a little afterwards he died of disease.

[140] how the truth is here to be searched out. Now, that the weight of the parties may be the better assessed, it must be noted that the truth of this history is not to be investigated by the number of historians either affirming or denying the translation, but that it must first be considered how great credit he possesses who first either asserted or denied the translation: and not this only, but chiefly whence he drew what he committed to writing, whether he could not even in good faith have written things that were false, being deceived by popular report. For since neither party brings forward writers contemporary with the deed, the assertions of both parties took their origin from the report and tradition of the people: it must therefore be weighed which tradition appears the more likely, and which is propped by the better reasons. Therefore for examining the weight of this controversy I shall not adduce all the authors who have written about it; but I shall weigh how much the chief foundations of each party are worth, and what difficulties they suffer, with the single zeal, so far as I can, of illustrating the truth. § II. The chief foundation of the Beneventans; or the relation of Leo of Ostia examined, assailed, and defended. The relation of Leo of Ostia: The Beneventans place in the front of the line, as their Achilles, the authority of Leo Marsicanus, Cardinal and bishop of Ostia, who in the Chronicle of Cassino, book 2, chapter 24, as most lately edited among the Writers on Italian Affairs, tom. 4, page 354, thus writes: In the third year of this abbot (namely John), which is the

thousandth from the Incarnation of the Lord, the above-said emperor came to Benevento, and for the sake of the penance which blessed Romuald had enjoined upon him, went off to Mount Gargano. And returning thereafter to Benevento, he asked of them the body of holy Bartholomew the apostle. Who, daring to deny him nothing then, craftily showed him, in place of the Apostle's body, the body of blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola, which was laid up seemly enough at the bishop's house of that same city; and having taken it away he withdrew, deceived by such a fraud. Which after he learned, being exceedingly indignant, he laid up indeed the body of the confessor, which he had carried away, honorably enough at the island of Rome: but in the following time, he marched again against Benevento, and besieged it on every side for many days: but prevailing nothing against it, he returned to Rome. Whence, scarcely beginning to return to his own, he died at the town which is called Paternum. Thus far he of Ostia.

[142] That Leo's authority in this history is to be greatly esteemed the Beneventans contend for these reasons: and his authority established: because he is the first and the most ancient of all who committed this history to writing: because he is a writer of sincere faith, and the most upright of his time, as Baronius calls him: because it is likely that more secret documents of this deed existed in the Cassinese archives while he of Ostia was writing: because Matteo Laureto judged that nothing in this relation should be changed. After which the Dissertation of Orsini thus goes on: The narration of Leo of Ostia is confirmed by the immemorial institution of the feast of St. Bartholomew at Cava, wont to be celebrated yearly at Benevento on the IV day of September, which flowed from nowhere else than from the Cava in which the body of the B. Apostle lay hid, lest the pious fraud of the citizens, whereby Otto III had been deceived, should be uncovered. Which place, down to the year MDCLXXXVIII, in which by the force of the earthquake it was overthrown together with the whole basilica, was held in the highest veneration by all. This first argument of the Beneventans is to be weighed more diligently than the rest, that it may appear upon what foundation they defend their opinion. I shall therefore first bring forward what Francesco Dini has answered to this, although he seems to handle the matter, both here and throughout his whole Dissertation, with a greater apparatus of words than weight of reasons.

[143] Dini therefore, in the Historico-critical Dissertation on the translation of the body of St. Bartholomew, page 31, thus answers the argument: The inept response of Francesco Dini, Leo departed this life about the year MCXVI: therefore he brought forth his history CXXX years after the aforesaid translation, if this be attributed to Otto II according to the truer and most approved opinion, so that he can be reckoned neither contemporary nor certainly the first, since at that age Otto was among the living, declared bishop in the year MCXXXVIII, as Vossius witnesses, who heaps up many things about the credit and authority of Otto of Freising. But indeed at the very threshold of his answer Dini offends most grievously, and perhaps the learned will not ineptly gather hence that he will concede nothing to his adversaries, whether it be true or false. For what is this reasoning: Leo died in the year 1116, that is, 22 years before Otto was created bishop; therefore Leo did not write before Otto? Yet this is Dini's very reasoning; even if we should grant it to be true that Leo did not die before the year 1116, about which, although it is uncertain, it is not pleasing to wrangle. For it is more manifest than that it either ought or can be prudently denied that Leo of Ostia is an older writer than Otto of Freising, who died in the year 1159 by Bellarmine's judgment, De Script., page 342, or in 1158, according to Labbe's Chron. at that year. The first writer of this history therefore is Leo of Ostia, but not a contemporary; who yet did not write 130 years after the deed, as Dini wrongly asserts, since he drew up his Chronicle before his death.

[144] Next Dini heaps up many things against Leo of Ostia that are little equitable, and his unfair answer against him of Ostia: many by which he strives to show that these things were foisted upon Leo of Ostia, nor does he fear to lay the charge — of adulation, shall I say, or of imposture — upon a prelate of most upright fame; on page 33 thus writing: Therefore Leo, offered from boyhood at Cassino, deceived by the common talk of the inhabitants, in order to flatter the chief people, lest he should confess the province bereft of so great a gift, set about denying the translation. I could wish Dini had written more modestly about Leo of Ostia, of whom the bibliographers commonly think not ill. But that it may not be needful to heap up the testimonies of many, hear one for all, Muratori, who most lately reprinted his Works among the Writers of Italy, tom. 4, in the Preface to the Chronicle of Cassino, page 153, speaking of him: As for the Chronicle of the monastery of Cassino, of which we now give a new edition, by the reckoning of all the learned the Work must be greatly esteemed, both because it embraces the affairs of that most renowned monastery from the Life of holy Benedict its founder, … and also because Leo, a man of great gravity and authority, in composing it used at once the archive of Cassino and other monuments of venerable antiquity. By these things I think Leo's authority sufficiently vindicated against the gibes of Francesco Dini, which otherwise are little probable. For why should Leo have wished to flatter the Beneventans rather than the Romans, who before he drew up his Chronicle was engaged in the service of the Roman Pontiff, as he himself testifies in the Prologue, page 244, and could hope for more from the Romans than from the Beneventans? Nothing stronger are the things which Dini subjoined about the interpolation and mutilation of the Cassinese Chronicle, to prove that these things were afterwards added to him of Ostia. For, although the Chronicle has been so often reprinted, and adjusted to the fidelity of manuscript codices, never has this history been passed over, never, I think, has it been doubted by any editor that these things were truly Leo's. As for what at last Dini says, that he of Ostia is deserted in these matters by all, it will appear false from what is to be said, since many indeed oppose him, but not a few agree. The rest of Dini's sayings against him of Ostia I pass over, because he brings forward nothing further whereby to extricate himself; and I pass on to certain other arguments against Leo's authority, which were proposed with the single zeal of investigating the truth.

[145] other arguments against this narration. The Most Eminent Cardinal Orsini had sent his Dissertation to our elders, exhorting them also that, if they had any doubt about that controversy, they should freely bring it out. Janning did so, first about certain things which pertained to the temple of St. Bartholomew; to which the most eminent one so answered that Janning confessed every doubt about that point removed from him. But, another letter being sent, he proposed difficulties more pressing, concerning the authority, or rather the relation, of Leo of Ostia, about which we are treating. But all his reasons tend nearly to this, that he may show it more likely that the Beneventans were deceived by their own men, who, lest they should incur the indignation and hatred of the Beneventan citizens, could spread abroad among the common folk the report of this fraud, than that the emperor was deceived, whom they could not have deceived without grave peril. These arguments therefore, proposed by way of doubts to the most eminent Orsini, and preserved in our archives, I shall here exhibit to the learned reader in Janning's own words. And I shall faithfully subjoin the answer sent from Benevento, so that how much is to be attributed to the relation of him of Ostia may be left to the reader's judgment. The letter of Janning, sent from Rome, where he was then himself staying, the VII of November 1699, runs thus:

MOST EMINENT PRINCE, MOST REVEREND LORD.

from Janning's letter to Orsini; Since not long ago, rather at the command of your Lordship than of my own accord, I ventured to set forth somewhat of a doubt about the translation of the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle; which was presently satisfied abundantly by your Lordship: there recurs again and again to my mind something else, which then also I touched in passing; and which hitherto keeps me anxious; what I might or ought to answer, if some Roman citizen, tenacious of the opinion and tradition of his city, as happens, should go on to deny that the body of St. Bartholomew now survives, or was at Benevento after the thousandth year of Christ; maintaining, out of his love for his fatherland, that that body was truly translated in the year one thousand by the emperor Otto III to Rome, and is there even today in veneration. To prove it he will allege the very tradition of the city of Rome, which he thinks convincing.

[147] I can indeed here set against it the contrary tradition of the Beneventans; the Beneventan tradition, and also add, from Leo of Ostia, that the tradition of the Romans rests on a false principle. Namely, that the citizens of Benevento craftily deceived the aforesaid emperor when he asked for the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle; and that in place of the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle they handed over to him the body of St. Paulinus the bishop.

[148] But what I should set against it I hardly know, if that same Roman should contend from which he of Ostia wrote, that the tradition of the Beneventans rests upon a false principle rather than the tradition of the Romans: and that Leo of Ostia, writing from such a tradition of the Beneventans, adds nothing of authority or of greater credit to the tradition.

[149] For the principle, that Roman will say, on which the Beneventan tradition rests, resting on a fraud: namely that the body of holy Bartholomew remained at Benevento, is only the report and the alleged unfaithfulness of those who, handing over the relics to the emperor, are said to have deceived him. For it could not be known from any other source that the emperor was deceived than from those very men who deceived him: since no one else could have known it. But the principle on which the Roman tradition rests is the authority of the emperor, who is certainly known, while at Benevento, to have asked for the body of St. Bartholomew; and the fidelity of upright men (for such they must be believed, unless they be proved to have been bad) who, consenting, or at least seeming to consent, to the emperor's petition, handed over to him the relics — namely those which they had been asked for by him, and which no good man can suspect to have been others.

[150] Likewise what should I set against the Roman, if he go on further to ask of me: the deceiving of the emperor perilous, in what way the citizens of Benevento, who then dared deny nothing to the emperor, as he of Ostia says, would have dared to deceive him? Was not that deception a work full of perilous hazard? Was it not injurious to the imperial majesty? Could it not easily have burst out? What if it did burst out? Would it not have drawn with it the public ruin of the citizens and of the city, to be inflicted by an emperor young, warlike, armed, and provoked?

[151] What should I set against it, if he then ask: how the emperor could have been deceived, difficult, to whom present and looking on the relics were handed over in the bishop's house itself, as he of Ostia himself testifies? Did the citizens of Benevento keep the venerable body of the holy Apostle, and a pledge dear to them, in so obscure a place and so negligently that it could not be recognized; or that it was not commonly known, even by the emperor who was asking for it, and by his courtiers, a shrewd kind of men, where it was kept laid up, and honored by a faithful people?

[152] by whom was it accomplished? If he should ask, thirdly, which citizens of Benevento, of what Order or rank, how many or how few, deceived the emperor, or were privy to the deception to be done?

[153] can they be excused of many sins? If he should ask, fourthly, in what way those deceivers can be excused of rashness, unfaithfulness, impiety, and sacrilege? Of rashness indeed, whereby, deceiving the emperor, they exposed themselves and their city to the peril of ruin? Of unfaithfulness, whereby they did not give what by signs they promised and showed themselves about to give to the emperor? And of impiety and sacrilege, in that, alienating the body of St. Paulinus under the name of St. Bartholomew, they deprive him of all that worship and veneration wherewith he would thereafter have been honored by the faithful in his own body: and they do just as much as if they were to remove the body of that same St. Paulinus from the world, his memory being blotted out among men?

[154] is the archbishop to be excused? If he should ask, fifthly, by what reason the archbishop of Benevento can be freed from blame, by whose knowledge and counsel, if we believe him of Ostia, the emperor was deceived?

[155] Are the deceivers to be believed? If he should ask, sixthly, how prudently the citizens could believe the deceivers of the emperor; who, saying that they had deceived the emperor, themselves confessed and announced to the citizens that they were deceivers? But how prudently are known deceivers believed?

[156] Was it not rather If he should ask, seventhly, whether those who deceived — as is alleged — the Roman emperor, and that in sacred matters, and with the present peril of the vengeance about to come from him upon their own head and upon the whole city: whether they would have made it a scruple to deceive their own citizens, from whom on that account they had nothing to fear; nay, could even hope for reward, praise, and applause, if they deceived them, persuading them that the body of St. Bartholomew had not been given to the emperor, which had been given: but if they did not deceive them, they had to fear for themselves, on account of the body of St. Bartholomew carried off, at least the indignation of the citizens, if not something graver from an inconsiderate and headlong crowd?

[157] the people deceived, If he should ask, eighthly, whether it was not far easier to persuade the people — absent at the time when the relics were handed over, and ignorant of what sort those handed over were — that the body of holy Bartholomew had not been given to the emperor, than not to hand over to the emperor, present with his own men and inspecting everything, that body which he had asked for and alone desired?

[158] than the emperor, If he should ask, ninthly, how the Beneventans can persuade themselves that the emperor was deceived, and not themselves, since the alleged deceivers, at least then, when they handed over the relics to the emperor, were still reckoned true and faithful: but when they told their fellow citizens that they had deceived the emperor, it was then plain that they were dishonest and unfaithful?

[159] which is the lesser crime? If he should ask, tenthly: whether the citizens of Benevento ought not rather to think and believe that they were deceived by those deceivers, than they desire to believe, and to have it believed, that the emperor was deceived by them: especially since the deceiving of citizens in the present case is a lesser crime on various heads than is the deceiving of an emperor?

[160] If he should ask, eleventhly, whether it was worth the labor for the Beneventans, What would have been more useful and more glorious for Benevento. through so many hazards and evil arts, to lose, with the conscience of upright men, the body of a most holy and most renowned bishop, that another, of a holy Apostle, might be retained? If he should ask, at last, twelfthly, what is more glorious for the city of Benevento: that it, as beneficent and well deserving of the emperor Otto III and of the city of Rome, should lack the body of St. Bartholomew; or that it should contend that it retained it by fraud?

[161] The answer sent from Benevento on the XI day of June 1700, The answer sent from Benevento: entitled thus: An answer to the solid and learned objections of the much Rev. Father Conrad Janning of the Soc. of Jesus against the Beneventans' tradition upon the existence of the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle at Benevento, runs thus.

[162] Before an answer be given to the doubts, so ingeniously proposed, the tradition of the Beneventans proved two points must be established, upon which their fitting solution depends. The first is this, that the tradition of the Beneventans stands far apart from the tradition of the Romans. For to the first there concur many consequences and almost

inextricable arguments, which render it credible: but otherwise for the second. It suffices to run through the Dissertation published in print, that this may be held for certain. First, for the Beneventan tradition there is brought forward the bull of Leo IX of the year MLIII, and another of Stephen likewise IX of the year MLVII, asserting that in the holy church of Benevento the most precious body of the most blessed Bartholomew rests. This likewise is had in the bulls of Clement VI of the year MCCCXLVII, of Boniface IX of MCD, and of other Roman Pontiffs. And these compelled abbot Ughelli, tom. VIII, col. cx of Italia sacra, then printing at Rome, and formerly following the opposite opinion, to declare himself fully vanquished. Secondly, there is had the authority of Leo, Card. of Ostia, who wrote in the same century in which Otto III the emperor translated the sacred body held by the Beneventans. And Cardinal Baronius, although he opposes these things, yet proclaims him of Ostia a writer of sincere faith, the most upright of his time. Laureto, who exactly sifted several deeds of that century, related also by the aforesaid author, although he had sought a knot in a bulrush, nevertheless noted absolutely nothing in this matter. Nay, archbishop de Nuce, who with his whole heart assailed Laureto's work, dared not oppose him in this. Thirdly, there is had the History of Eadmer, to be read in that Dissertation. Fourthly, the attestation of king Ladislaus of the year MCDXIV. Fifthly, the Martyrologies of Usuard, of Wandelbert, the Florentine, and the Beneventan are brought into the midst.

[163] But indeed above the rest its own provincial council obtains weight, by various arguments and recognitions, celebrated in the year MCCCXXXVIII, in which Fr. Arnald de Brusacco the archbishop, by the faculty of Benedict XII, Supreme Pontiff, translated to the ancient and truly august basilica — overthrown in the year MDCLXXXVIII by reason of the earthquake — the body of the most glorious Apostle, first recognized and laid up in a bronze urn, and lately, in the year MDCXCVIII, opened. And if light be added by the two leaden plates found in the urn, and by the little stalks of fish-bones and the pebbles found with the sacred bones; and then also if

it be weighed that among these remains there were not found the arms of that same Saint, since it is ascertained that one is honored at Carpineto, given as a gift by Bernard, son of Leodunus count of Penne, in the year CMLXII; but the other at Canterbury, given as a gift to Emma, queen of the English, by Alphanus III our archbishop about the year MXVII. And then also, if account be taken of the variety of the letters or characters in which the Apostle's name was written, namely in Latin letters on the ancient plate set there when the urn came hither from the island of Lipari, and in Lombard letters on the other, when the said archbishop de Brusacco, in the cited council of the year MCCCXXXVIII, recognized the sacred body — no greater proof seems to be desired for having, in the end, a moral evidence of the matter so far diligently searched out.

[164] rather than that of the Romans, But on the other side, for the Roman tradition there is brought forward only the authority of Otto of Freising, who departed this life in the year MCLVIII, and who wrote: "The Romans hand down that they have the body of St. Bartholomew": nor did he assert that it was had at Rome.

[165] whose chief foundations are refuted. From which it is clearly discerned what difference lies between the authority of him of Ostia,

who in the same century consigned the tradition of the Beneventans to writing, and that of him of Freising, who in the following century wrote down the sayings of the Romans in those words: "The Romans hand down," with an evident error in the thing, in the person, and in the time. But what is to be said about Robert de Monte? He displayed the office and form of a poet rather than of a historian. For he relates a certain flood of the Tiber in the year MCLVII, the memory of which no single man has commended to posterity. He writes moreover that the body of the holy Apostle was found entire, except the skin, which remained at Benevento. And how could the body be found entire, if so many relics of the body were held distributed in various parts of the world? Who ever asserted that the Apostle's skin existed at Benevento? Hither only the bones were translated, which the monk Theodore had gathered, not without a miracle, in the island of Lipari, where they had been scattered by the Saracens in the psamathon, or sand. Besides, the authority of the emperor Frederick I is had. But how utterly this is of no worth or moment, it clearly appears from the cited Dissertation

that it contains more faults than words. But what carries greater weight is brought forward from the Roman Breviary and Martyrology. Yet in both this was added at the close of the past century, according to the Roman belief, taken from the above-said conjectures. Let what is said upon this in that same Dissertation be read, and the weakness of the foundation will plainly appear; and the first point will remain established, namely, that far more solid and valid are the arguments of credibility which fight in favor of the Beneventan tradition.

[166] The fraud was lawful for the Beneventans; The second point to be determined is this, namely that the Beneventans could lawfully, their archbishop's counsel being added, draw over that fraud in exactly the same way in which most lawfully, in the case where under force a ring set with a huge carbuncle must be produced, the carbuncle is turned into an amethyst, and the diamond into glass, so that he who longs to snatch the ring may be deceived. And certainly the fraud could happen without lying, unfaithfulness, sacrilege, rashness, or injustice, and without any virtue at all being wounded; nay, with praiseworthy shrewdness and skill, so that likewise

the deceived man would grieve that he alone deserved the fraud, not indeed the deceiver, who skilfully discharged his part.

[167] and without lying and sacrilege; Indeed, first, lying was banished from the fraud, since equivocal and ambiguous words could lawfully be employed. No unfaithfulness was shown to the emperor, but rather the magistracy and the archbishop showed fidelity to the citizens, since they were by no means bound to the emperor, nor had any promise gone before. To the citizens they were bound to show themselves faithful with all their strength, by guarding so great a treasure: and by this wholly lawful fraud they guarded it excellently. There was no sacrilege, because they set forth the true body for worship; nor did they take away the due worship owed to the body of St. Paulinus the pontiff, in handing it over for the body of the holy Apostle; because they purposed to uncover the fraud after the emperor's departure, as they did, first fortifying the city, that they might escape the wrath and the forces of the deceived emperor. And that the matter so stood, is excellently drawn from him of Ostia cited, book 2, chapter 24, writing immediately after the deed, in these words: "Which after (the emperor) learned, being exceedingly indignant, he laid up indeed the body of the confessor, which he had carried away, honorably enough at the island of Rome". Therefore the Beneventans did not retain the Apostle's body that they might keep it always hidden, but that they might set it forth for public veneration after the emperor's departure, and the peril of losing it being removed; and so, at the time when it was lawful to disclose that they had retained the Apostle's body, then also they might disclose that they had exhibited the body of St. Paulinus; and accordingly might make the whole world more certain of that place where the body of that same holy confessor ought to be honored.

[168] Far off was rashness, since they handed it over in such a way of rashness and injustice. that the uncovering of the fraud should be difficult: and when at length at some time it was uncovered, being fortified they might elude Caesar's wrath, as really happened immediately, when, the fraud being uncovered, the emperor, indignant, and about to avenge the injury done him: "In the following time (these are the words of the aforepraised him of Ostia, in the place above) he marched again against Benevento, and besieged it on every side for many days: but prevailing nothing against it, he returned to Rome". At length they escaped the mark of injustice, and any other stain wherewith the citizens might be spotted, or the fraud rendered unworthy of praise. And if we all with one mouth extol and clothe Judith with exquisite praises, because by her fraud, though perilous, she brought so great a benefit to her people;

why shall we strip the Beneventan magistracy of its due praises, when by so keen-sighted a fraud it preserved for Benevento no fabulous palladium? The two foregoing points therefore being established, the solution of the twelve doubts proposed seems easy.

[169] And so as to the first, where it is said: "The principle on which the Beneventan tradition rests, Answer namely that the body of St. Bartholomew remained at Benevento, is only the report and the alleged unfaithfulness of those who, handing over the relics to the emperor, are said to have deceived him. For it could not be known from any other source that the emperor was deceived than from those very men who deceived him: since no one else could have known it. But the principle on which the Roman tradition rests is the authority of the emperor, who is certainly known, while at Benevento, to have asked for the body of St. Bartholomew; and the fidelity of upright men (for such they must be believed, unless they be proved to have been bad) who, consenting, or at least seeming to consent, to the emperor's petition, handed over to him the relics — namely those which they had been asked for by him, and which no good man can suspect to have been others".

[170] It is answered that it is true that both the Beneventan and the Roman defend themselves by their own traditions, to the first but that they do not contend with an even scale; since the motives of credibility which fight in favor of the Beneventan tradition surpass those which war for the Roman tradition. In exactly the same way in which the Catholic, the schismatic, the Turk, and the Hebrew build up their faith upon the Word of God written and handed down. Yet other are the motives of credibility which fortify the Catholic, and other those which fortify the rest; and therefore the Catholic alone is not deceived. It is true that he of Ostia, writing the tradition of the Beneventans, adds directly no weight to that which is to be believed; since we ought only to believe the magistracy asserting that it committed a pious fraud. But just as the motives of credibility of our faith add directly no weight to that which is to be believed — since only God speaking is to be believed — yet they render it credible to evidence that God has spoken: so the relation of him of Ostia renders credible that fraud which the magistracy willed to be attested as committed by itself.

[171] doubt: The Beneventan tradition is strengthened by the bulls of so many Pontiffs near to those times, and perhaps living at that very time: it is attended by him of Ostia, an author not only most approved, but Italian and contemporary: through the whole Catholic world it has been sung in so many Martyrologies: likewise it has been recognized by men of the highest esteem, whether for sanctity or for dignity, who either at Benevento religiously visited the sacred body of Bartholomew, or took care to have relics; and, what is the chief point, by the eyewitness testimony of two provincial councils its truth has been seen and approved, so much so that it cannot prudently be doubted. On the contrary, the Roman tradition rests upon the assertion of a writer not contemporary, but foreign, and therefore ignorant of Italian affairs: upon the sole edict of an excommunicated emperor, and of an incompetent judge: upon the apocryphal Acts of the Lateran council, and upon what was scarcely and with difficulty inserted into the Roman Breviary after six centuries, and with so many changes employed. The Beneventan tradition has hitherto gone forward always one and the same by the king's highway, and at present goes forward. But the Roman has wrapped itself in an inexplicable labyrinth of contradictions, since the Romans, asserting that the body of St. Paulinus rests at Rome, tacitly confess the substitution of one body for another, since there is had no memory of a translation of the body of St. Paulinus to Rome — which without doubt was resting at Benevento, translated by Sicard V the Prince. Nor can this be affirmed except by means of the substitution related by the Beneventans. Let it not therefore be said: The principle on which the Beneventan tradition rests is only the report and the unfaithfulness of the deceivers: for it is answered that it rests upon this report, hedged about with so many signs of credibility, which render it undeniable, while the Roman rests only upon the report of the emperor, and is destitute of solid motives of credibility. We add that credit is given to the Beneventan tradition

not only on this head, that the authors of the innocent fraud deposed it; but also because, when the emperor had scarcely departed, opening the web of the fraud, they showed by clear signs that there had remained at Benevento the Apostle's body, exactly the same which was worshipped before; otherwise the emperor would not have conceived wrath, nor in the following year would he have returned to Benevento to avenge the injury. On the contrary, the Roman tradition deserves no credit, because, although from the beginning the emperor deposed that he had received the body of the holy Apostle: he afterwards declaring himself mocked by the Beneventans, in that they had handed over to him the body of St. Paulinus for the body of the Apostle, and the Romans believing that in Otto's person they had the body of St. Paulinus, it is clearly inferred (a few words, and those not necessary, I have here omitted) that their tradition must be held adulterate and depraved. Let it at length be observed that the author of the Roman tradition is the deceived emperor, and a witness of a deed done by another: while the authors of the Beneventan tradition are the very principals themselves, who deposed the deed done by them; and the archbishop, to whom canon law affords the faculty of attesting and of rendering sacred relics authentic, and prudent Beneventan men, who in this deed showed themselves most pious and most prudent: most pious, in that by an innocent craft they preserved the body of their holy Patron: most prudent, because, in appearance humoring Caesar's will and coaxing him with words, they by no means gave themselves up to his wrath; they steeped Caesar in poison by their deeds, and preserved the citizens — then powerless, being unarmed for the defence of their own protection — unharmed: and since they stood in peril either of falling into Caesar's wrath, if they denied the body; or of losing a great treasure, if they truly handed it over, Scylla and Charybdis being overcome, by a middle way they held the wished-for harbor.*

[172] To the Second question: "In what way could the citizens of Benevento, to the second, who then dared deny nothing to the emperor, as he of Ostia says, have dared to deceive him? Was not that deception a work full of perilous hazard? Was it not

injurious to the imperial majesty? Could it not easily burst out? What if it did burst out? Would it not have drawn with it the public ruin of the citizens and of the city, to be inflicted by an emperor young, warlike, armed, and provoked?" We answer that they therefore deceived him because they were not able then to oppose him, as is the accustomed way with one who brings force to bear. It is true that the fraud lay under the peril that it might be uncovered: but the peril was very remote, since every prudent and skilful precaution had been employed for keeping the secret. And when the fraud was to be uncovered, the city would first have been excellently walled, so that it might mock the angry emperor, as it did mock him. And so it was an effect of prudence to elude an unjust force by a lawful fraud, since then there was no more present remedy. Nay, it was a trophy of great fortitude and magnanimity not to shrink back for fear of some very remote peril. Let it be added that the Beneventans as a whole dared deny nothing to the emperor openly and with unveiled face; yet from perpetrating the fraud no consideration removed either the archbishop or a few prudent men; for from all peril they were made safe by the integrity of the few who were privy to the matter, and by the inviolable secrecy which the accomplices in the affair promised. And so the Beneventans taken collectively dared not deny: taken distributively they dissented and did deny. Hence it is drawn out that it was possible to accomplish the substitution of one sacred body in place of another without any failure of faith pledged; nor materially, even if the Beneventans had promised the body of the holy Apostle; since it was by no means necessary that

the very same men who had promised should be those who employed the fraud; since these two acts could be performed by different persons. But even if materially a failure of faith had intervened, formally it did not intervene, as has been said, since the promise, as extorted by fear, was liable to no obligation. Nor do the Histories relate that the emperor asked an oath of the Beneventans that he should not be deceived by them; and so that, for reverence of the invoked Godhead, they had contracted an obligation of keeping faith. Nay, the very greatness of him who asked, who, relying on his own power and majesty, thought that nothing could or ought to be denied him, renders it likely that he employed no extraordinary precautions, nor took care for any oath.

[173] how could the emperor have been deceived? It is added: "How could the emperor have been deceived, to whom present and looking on the relics were handed over in the bishop's house itself, as he of Ostia testifies? Did the citizens of Benevento keep the venerable body of the holy Apostle, and a pledge dear to them, in so obscure a place and so negligently, that it could not be recognized, or that it was not commonly known even by the emperor who was asking for it, and by his courtiers, a shrewd kind of men, where it was kept laid up, and honored by a faithful people?" First it is answered that he of Ostia by no means says

that the relics were given to the emperor in the bishop's house, but only: "Craftily, in place of the Apostle's body, they showed him the body of B. Paulinus, which was laid up seemly enough at the bishop's house of that same city," and that, having taken it away, he withdrew, deceived by such a fraud. Besides, what so easy as to hand over in a closed urn the body of one Saint for another? For the end of mocking Caesar and his courtiers, the agreement of the magistracy was enough and more than enough, which in a matter of so great moment bound itself most faithfully to secrecy. The manner employed in this deed is inferred from this, that in the aforesaid Dissertation it is said that there flourishes at Benevento a most ancient tradition of celebrating on the day before the Nones of September the feast of St. Bartholomew in the cave where the Apostle's body was shut up, lest the pious fraud should be uncovered by the emperor. And this sacred place was honored by the Beneventan people within the basilica of the holy Apostle, overthrown in the year MDCLXXXVIII. It is held for easy that the magistracy laid up the sacred body in this cave, and in the place where it was worshipped before, by the counsel and consent of the archbishop, by night in that same place and vessel or reliquary replaced the body of St. Paulinus, employing such a manner that no one caught scent of the fraud: and that after the emperor's

departure not only the archbishop and the magistracy showed the Beneventans what they had wisely accomplished, but by due and indubitable signs showed the emperor deceived. Nor is it credible that the archbishop and the magistracy could have deceived the citizens by saying that they had deceived the emperor, without having deceived the emperor. They could indeed without stain of blame mock the emperor, who wanted by force to make a treasure not his own his own; but they could not without blame deceive the citizens by denying to them the handing over of the sacred body made to the emperor. Therefore only that is credible which tradition brings, namely that the emperor was deceived, not the citizens; and this chiefly because the emperor could not know the fraud; whereas the citizens could with no trouble know whether they had been deceived, weighing the circumstances and all those things which could have made them safe as to the truth.

[174] to the third, To the third question: "Which citizens of Benevento, of what order or rank, how many or how few, deceived the emperor, or were privy to the deception to be done?" It is answered that it must first be supposed, as is wont to happen in matters of this kind, namely that a few of the magistracy, the archbishop only being consulted, were privy to the deception. Nor is it likely that all the citizens were versed in the fraud, because the fraud could very hardly have been hidden and covered. It must therefore be said that those only were privy who governed the city, and to whom the emperor's petition was directed. For these, who were of approved faith, of great probity and prudence, would certainly have covered the secret so far as it was lawful

to cover it; and thence there could be had suitable witnesses, and in a fitting number, before the archbishop, when after Caesar's departure the substitution of the body of St. Paulinus for the body of St. Bartholomew was to be divulged. Nor could the other Beneventans envy those few of the magistracy, as men who had given consent (as was then believed) to the emperor's petition; since it was ascertained that they could not then by force withstand the emperor present.

[175] To the fourth question: "In what way can those deceivers be excused of rashness, to the fourth unfaithfulness, impiety, and sacrilege? Of rashness indeed, whereby, deceiving the emperor, they exposed themselves and their city to the peril of ruin? Of unfaithfulness, whereby they did not give what by signs they promised and showed themselves about to give to the emperor? And of impiety and sacrilege; in that, alienating the body of St. Paulinus under the name of St. Bartholomew, they deprive him of all that worship and veneration wherewith he would thereafter have been honored by the faithful in his own body: and they do just as much as if they were to remove the body of that same St. Paulinus from the world, his memory being blotted out among men." A sufficient answer was given in the 2nd point premised, when we said before that this could be accomplished, not only without blame, but even with great praise. To show by signs and to exhibit the body of St. Bartholomew, and not to hand it over, in no way withstands fidelity; since no promise is presupposed; and where there is no promise, there is no unfaithfulness. And although there had been one, yet, because it was not fully free,

but extorted through grave fear, it was not binding. But if by unfaithfulness there be meant a certain insincerity, neither does this hold good in this case; since dissimulations are not enemies to sincerity, when they are ordered to a good end. We know that the Redeemer himself, speaking with the disciples going to Emmaus, feigned that he would go further; not because he wished to go (as a certain learned interpreter adds) but because he wished to hear: "Stay with us, Lord."

[176] But that they escaped the mark of rashness is clear from what was premised above, doubt since they prudently judged that the matter would be hidden until the emperor had returned to his own. For afterwards, the city being fortified, they held Caesar's power as nothing. Nor does this need great proof. For from the ancient histories it is had that the citizens of Benevento made little of the Caesars, when it so pleased them. In the year MXLVI, when the emperor Henry II had come to Benevento, the Beneventans (these are the words of Lupus Protospatharius) to his injury cut off the nostrils of his horse. In the year MXLVII, the same Henry, coming to Benevento (relates Leo of Ostia in his Chronography), when the citizens would not receive him, both for his own and for his father's injury, caused the whole city to be excommunicated by Pope Clement II, who was then with him. Otto III caused Alix, or Ajax, deacon of that same church, to be created archbishop of Benevento by Silvester II, Supreme Pontiff, and the Beneventans would not receive him. The same Otto created Ademerius prince of Benevento, Laidolf being cast down, and the citizens refused, and in his place Landulf II was subrogated.

[177] Besides, it is to be considered that the city of Benevento in the year one thousand did not number eight thousand souls, answer: as at present it numbers, or eighteen thousand, as in the year MDCLVI, in which the plague befell; but it was filled with a very great population, and although it did not display that greatness and power which it carried at the time when it was either the famous metropolis of the Samnites, as some report, or at least among the first cities of Samnium, a city second to none, and which in the space of one century declared war on the Romans and forced them, being conquered, to pass beneath the Caudine Forks; or when with the royal court of the most serene Lombard princes it presided over a most ample principate; nevertheless it was a city great in situation, powerful in strength, illustrious in deeds, walled about, laden with people, so rich in nobility that in the year MCII it sent a hundred noble envoys to Urban II, Supreme Pontiff, on public affairs; from which the greatness of that city may easily be conjectured (these are the words of the archdeacon of our church, Marius de Vipera, in the Chronology of the prelates of Benevento, who took them likewise from our chronicler Falco.) And so that fraud prepared for Caesar by the Beneventans ought not to be reckoned either rashness or presumption. Besides which, since Benevento boasts a mingling of blood from four renowned nations, namely the Greek, the Samnite, the Roman, and the Lombard, it boasted craft as a noble right of patronage from the Greeks. The famous boar given as a gift to Diomedes king of Aetolia and our first founder, or restorer (as Procopius witnesses, On the Gothic War, book 1, page 38), by Meleager, son of Oeneus king of Calydon, and which Benevento displays as its ensign or device, had poured into the Beneventans a concord of mind and a joined union, fortitude and constancy, rightly and deservedly to be set against the majesty of Caesar. As for what is added, namely that, the body of St. Paulinus being alienated under the name of St. Bartholomew, St. Paulinus would have been deprived of all that worship and veneration wherewith he would thereafter have been honored by the faithful in his own body, it has already been answered that, since after the emperor's departure the fraud was to be uncovered, it was then, as it was

from the aforecited narration of him of Ostia, sufficiently published to the whole world that at Rome incense was to be offered to St. Paulinus, at Benevento to St. Bartholomew: therefore the body of St. Paulinus was not by the Beneventans removed out of the world, nor was the venerable memory of St. Bartholomew blotted out among men.

[178] to the fifth, To the fifth question: "By what reason can the archbishop of Benevento be freed from blame, by whose knowledge and counsel the emperor was deceived?" Satisfaction has already been made, when we said that so great, and never sufficiently praised, a prelate bore himself in a praiseworthy manner.

[179] to the sixth, To the sixth question: "How prudently could the citizens believe the deceivers of the emperor, who, saying that they had deceived the emperor, themselves confessed and announced to the citizens that they were deceivers? But how prudently are known deceivers believed?" In the answer to the 2nd question it was clearly said: Most prudently; both because, in declaring that they had mocked the emperor, they did not thereby render themselves unworthy of credit, since they could deceive the emperor without the defect of an evil fraud; but they could not deceive the citizens without that defect. And also because from the circumstances and from the signs they were able to search out, perceive, and learn, whether they themselves were being deceived by the magistracy, which asserted that it had deceived the emperor. We add that the argument would then have force, if the archbishop and a few citizens, the rest of the citizens resisting, had complied with the emperor. But if the petition was presented to the citizens, and these, not daring openly to deny Caesar, unwillingly granted the sacred body, for what cause could the archbishop tell a tale, lest he provoke the citizens? And let it be observed of what sort and of how great merit this archbishop was. Let it suffice to say that he was Alphanus II, a man of such merit that from Gregory V in the year CMXCVIII, besides the confirmation of the privileges of his church, he deserved to obtain this privilege for his nephew, then a clerk: "We grant moreover

to Alphanus, your nephew, a clerk, that whole archbishopric, to be had after thy decease."

[180] To the seventh question: "Whether those who deceived, as is alleged, to the seventh, the Roman emperor, and that in sacred matters, and with the present peril of the vengeance about to come from him upon their own head and upon the whole city: whether they would have made it a scruple to deceive their own citizens, from whom they had nothing on that account to fear; nay, could even hope for reward, praise, and applause, if they deceived them, persuading

them that the body of St. Bartholomew had not been given to the emperor, which had been given: but if they did not deceive them, they had to fear for themselves, on account of the body of St. Bartholomew carried off, at least the indignation of the citizens, if not something graver from an inconsiderate and headlong crowd?" It is answered that the magistracy indeed, and much more the archbishop, would have reckoned it a very great scruple to deceive the citizens, and to assert that they had by fraud retained

the Apostle's body, if they had already granted it. This certainly would have been an impious and sacrilegious lie, as is plain to one considering it. Nor could so great an impiety be presumed of so great a magistracy, and much less of so great a prelate. Besides which, they could defend themselves from the citizens' indignation by bringing forward their inability to resist the emperor's forces; and if they had had cause, it was not so easy a business to deceive them, because of the many signs which they could investigate.

[181] To the eighth question: "Whether it was not far easier to persuade the people — absent at the time when the relics were handed over, to the eighth, and ignorant of what sort those handed over were — that the body of St. Bartholomew had not been handed over to the emperor: than not to hand over to the emperor, present with his own men and inspecting everything, that body which he had asked for and alone desired?" It is answered negatively, as we have shown. For the emperor could easily be deceived, who, being a foreigner, could not discern whether the body given was of one Saint or of another, since besides he dreamed of no fraud: but the citizens, who, hearing of the fraud offered to the emperor, could themselves also suspect that they had been deceived, were able duly and diligently to know and weigh all the signs, that the truth might appear; and it was easy for the whole people to perceive the fitting signs, since their own affair was in question, and they were most knowing in their own affairs.

[182] To the ninth question: "How can the Beneventans persuade themselves that the emperor was deceived, to the ninth, and not themselves, since the alleged deceivers, at least then, when they handed over the relics to the emperor, were still reckoned true and faithful: but when they told their fellow citizens that they had deceived the emperor, it was then plain that they were dishonest and unfaithful?" It is answered by what was established in the first point, that the shrewdness used in deceiving the emperor was employed with exquisite praise, and without unfaithfulness and blame; for which cause the Beneventans could not thereupon be in suspense of mind and hesitate as to whether they had been deceived by such men. And if they had suspected it, they could have sought out signs, that they might have been able to put off and lay aside all hesitation.

[183] To the tenth question: "Whether the citizens of Benevento ought not rather to think to the tenth, and believe that they were deceived by those deceivers, than they desire to believe, and to have it believed, that the emperor was deceived by them, especially since the deceiving

of the citizens in the present case is a lesser crime on various heads than is the deceiving of the emperor?" It is answered that it has been proved abundantly that the emperor could more easily and without any blame be deceived, whose unjust force could not then be resisted. But that the citizens were deceived they cannot think; besides that they generally greatly desired that the body of the holy Apostle should be honored at Benevento, they will have credit given to the archbishop and to the magistracy publishing the pious fraud, and confirming it by so many evident signs of probability. While on the contrary it was in no way necessary that these be stained with such a lie together with sacrilege, since they knew that they could not then withstand the emperor's power: nor on any cause is a sacrilege of this kind to be presumed of that archbishop and of that magistracy. On the contrary, it was needful to follow every course not unlawful, lest so great a Guardian be lost. We have it ascertained from Camillo Tutini, in the Life of St. Januarius, our fellow citizen and bishop, and the most present patron of the whole kingdom, that when Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, commendatary of the famous monastery of Montevergine, at the earnest prayers of Ferdinand I of Aragon, king of Naples, long since presented to him, had obtained from Alexander VI, Supreme Pontiff, a certain brief directed to Alessandro Carafa, archbishop of Naples, and brother of the aforesaid Cardinal Oliviero, with the faculty of translating the body of that same St. Januarius from the aforesaid monastery to Naples; and when the said Alessandro, prelate of Naples, had betaken himself to the aforesaid monastery in the year MCDXCVII, and, the brief being exhibited, had asked for the body, the monks refused to hand it over; and so it was needful, with five hundred soldiers had from Frederick then reigning, to besiege the Mountain, and not only the monastery. Hence by force and fear, the Apostolic brief being obeyed,\ the sacred body was handed over by the monks. But the shrewd*

and prudent archbishop, fearing lest there should befall him what had befallen Otto with the Beneventans, employed the following diligences. First, an oath being taken upon the sacred synaxis, he bound the several monks to affirm that this was truly and really the body of St. Januarius our prelate. Then, that all hesitation might be driven away, he took care that the several bones be measured, namely the right arm with the left, the right hand with the left, and so successively the remaining members, since all in the body are of the same proportion and measure. Which seems the more difficult and incredible: the deed of the Beneventans, or to hear that among monks there are found men who refuse to exhibit a body to a Cardinal Commendatary supported by an Apostolic brief, and who oppose the will of a king in whose kingdom they lived? This the eyes of a mole, not to say of an eagle, discern. Matteo Villani writes, chapter 16, book 3, cited by Ferdinando de Marra, duke of Guardia, discoursing of the noble family of Baucio, that count Francesco de Baucio, lord of Teano, for the memory of the alliance which had passed between the Florentines and the new count his kinsman, took care that there be granted to the envoy of the Florentines

in the year MCCCXII the arm of St. Reparata, which was kept in the convent of nuns at Teano; and that, being borne with solemn pomp to Florence and laid up in the chief temple on the XXII day of June of the same year, and held in special worship, four years afterwards, when the Florentines wished to adorn it with gold and silver, it was detected by them that, by the craft of the abbess of Teano, in place of the true arm, an arm made of plaster had been handed over. And the Histories abound plentifully with frauds of this kind.

[184] To the eleventh question: "Whether it was worth the labor for the Beneventans, to the eleventh, through so many hazards and evil arts, to lose, with the conscience of upright men, the body of a most holy and most renowned bishop, that another, of a holy Apostle, might be retained?" It is answered that, although it would have been more praiseworthy (which however we grant, and do not concede) to retain the body of St. Paulinus, it cannot on that account be said that they afterwards perpetrated a grave sacrilege, when they told the people that they had retained the body of the holy Apostle. But it is openly denied that the body of St. Paulinus would have been better than that of so great an Apostle and most excellent Patron, even in view of those hazards, and to retain it by that fraud and craft — not indeed by evil

arts, since these were altogether far from the deed. For the rest, we could excuse our Beneventans on this head, that, being enriched with innumerable bodies of Saints in the churches of the city, and especially in the metropolitan church itself, yet, when they could have substituted other Saints, they put St. Paulinus in the place, trusting that he who alive in Africa gave himself as a captive in the place of a widow's son, would not, being dead, disdain that his own body should be exhibited to Otto at Benevento in place of the body of St. Bartholomew. But that it is better and more delightful for Benevento to possess the body of the holy Apostle than that of St. Paulinus, since it could not retain both, there is none to gainsay. That, further, the perils and hesitations add no weight, is ascertained by a wise consideration, that the peril of the fraud's being uncovered was most remote, since they could fear no betrayal or treachery from the archbishop and from those of the magistracy who alone were privy to the matter, and whose common advantage was in question. The peril of provoking Caesar's wrath, when he should be made more certain of the pious fraud, is held of no worth: for indeed the city, afterwards diligently fortified, undoubtedly eluded Caesar's forces, as is had from the aforepraised him of Ostia there: "But in the following time &c." The subsequent hesitations — whether the magistracy asserting the fraud was to be believed, and whether the Apostle's body had truly remained at Benevento — the magistracy did not at that time foresee, since it prudently believed that they would depart from men's eyes and sight, the due signs and tokens being exhibited. And even if they had been foreknown, it was better to retain for themselves the body of the holy Apostle, trusting in his patronage, namely that he would make the truth shine forth, lest his relics be defrauded of due honor and worship. Unless we would rather say that God

long permitted these hesitations, that more and more the love and piety of the Beneventans and of the Romans toward the Apostle might be kindled. Yet after so many and so great hesitations it pleased that all things should turn to a good light, when in the last provincial council, held in the year MDCXCVIII, the sacred remains so shone forth that it can no longer be doubted whether they are the true and proper ones of St. Bartholomew. And it is undoubtedly established from the circumstances related in the Acts of the council, and in the Ephemerides of father Viva of the Soc. of Jesus, and from the miracles by which God willed the faith of the Beneventans to be made firm; since that light cannot be called natural which was seen to flash from the sacred relics while the urn was being opened; and beyond nature's powers happened the preservation of the boy over whose leg thrice the wheel of a four-horse carriage passed harmlessly at the time of the translation of the sacred relics to the new basilica. And here again it must be weighed that the tradition of the Romans, that with the body of St. Paulinus they had also that of St. Bartholomew, perhaps could arise from the emperor's silence, who was unwilling openly

to declare himself deceived. The tradition of the Beneventans was to be founded upon the positive assertion of the archbishop and of the magistracy, who had deceived the emperor, which they were bound to prove by clear signs; wherefore this our tradition, not that of our adversaries, obtains the greatest weight. Nay, even if the emperor had deposed that he had not been deceived, he would not on that account be more worthy of credit than the Beneventans, who asserted the fraud. For the emperor could not be privy to the deed done by the Beneventans while they exhibited the sacred body, and these knew their own deed exceedingly well.

[185] to the twelfth: To the twelfth and last question: "What is more glorious for the city of Benevento: that it, as beneficent and well deserving of the emperor Otto III and of the city of Rome, should lack the body of St. Bartholomew; or that it should contend that it retained it by fraud?" It is answered, first, that this is a merely speculative doubt, and does absolutely nothing to hinder or to help our case. Secondly, what light of glory would accrue to Benevento if it were said that under force it gave up the body of its great Guardian, which the citizens could have retained, though exposed to the greatest and nearest perils? Thirdly, if they had given it with a willing mind, for prodigality

and small esteem of the Saint the Beneventans would have been and would be held worthy of every ignominy. What glory therefore would they have gained, if they had given it under force? To assert that they retained it by fraud is nothing else than to confess that at that time, being unfortified, they could not resist. But to desert the worship of so glorious a Patron at Benevento, and to be willing to yield and assent to the Roman tradition, so weakly founded, would be an unspeakable irreverence, and would smack of an enormous disgrace; since one would yield to what is false, and known to be false. These things we have given, that we might answer the doubts according to our small measure. For the rest, he who subtly and ingeniously bound them as with a double knot will be able to loose and unfold them.

[186] the same fraud used elsewhere. Thus far the Beneventans' answer to Janning's doubts, which is certainly learned and ingenious: but whether it altogether exhausts every difficulty, I do not interpose my judgment. I think, however, that those difficulties would be more easily solved if the Beneventans should admit that some relics of St. Bartholomew were handed over together with the body of St. Paulinus, as the learned reader will easily observe. Further, what is narrated by him of Ostia to have been done at Benevento about the body of St. Bartholomew, is read as done at Cambrai about the sacred bodies of SS. Gaugericus and Autbert, sought by the emperor Otto I, for which others were substituted by Fulbert, bishop of Cambrai. See these things narrated at greater length in tom. II of August, in the Acts of St. Gaugericus, page 667: yet he who illustrated those Acts, my predecessor Bosch, adds that in all likelihood certain relics of the bodies sought were joined to them, namely that the inconveniences mentioned above might be avoided. For the rest, the reader will find the authority of him of Ostia more fully defended against Dini's objections in the recent History of the Abbey of Cassino of Erasmo Gattola, tom. 1, page 906 and following. Now what further the Beneventans allege for themselves is to be examined, although some of these things have already been touched in the aforesaid answer.

i. e. fefellerunt* (they deceived)

i. e. cum parerent* (when they obeyed)

§ III. The remaining arguments of the Beneventans, and Dini's answers to them, are set forth.

The testimony of Eadmer the Englishman; The second argument, by which the Beneventans prove their tradition, is taken from Eadmer, an English writer; who in his History, as also in the Life of St. Anselm, in our tom. III of April, page 917, narrates that by the archbishop of Benevento an arm of St. Bartholomew was carried into England and given to queen Emma in the year 1017; which history we shall vindicate against Dini's objections, and relate more fully, when we shall have to treat of the relics dispersed through various provinces. Now it is said that that Arm was kept in that same church apart from the rest of the body. Hence they infer that the rest of the body also was then kept in the same church. Dini denies this consequence, page 46, and contends that these things were said because the body was kept elsewhere, namely in the City … but some venerable bone was in that church. It could perhaps be more conveniently answered that Eadmer, when he wrote these things about the body, followed the tradition of the Beneventans, and therefore adds no weight to this tradition, although he thought that the body also had been kept at Benevento; which may also be replied to all the remaining arguments of the Beneventans; but whether solidly enough, I do not dispute.

[188] They draw a third argument from this, that Suger, abbot of the monastery of St. Denis, in the year 1122, the body visited by abbot Suger and the empress Florida; among other places of religious veneration of the Saints, went to Benevento, that he might venerate St. Bartholomew, as he himself testifies in the Life of Louis the Fat, says Orsini. A like argument is subjoined about the empress Florida, wife of Lothair, who likewise visited the temple of St. Bartholomew at Benevento, and honored it with gifts in the year 1137, as the Chronicle of Benevento of Falco relates at that year, tom. 5 of the Writers on Italian

Affairs, page 123. Of Suger, Dini answers, page 47 and following: Yet neither Suger nor any other professed that he adored the body, but that he visited the churches and places of St. Bartholomew. Then, We too can moreover adduce innumerable great men, who, going to Rome and flowing together to the basilica of this Apostle, venerate both the church and at the same time the sacred body. But the Beneventans will not believe that these can be produced by Dini for the XI or XII century, unless he adduce them by name, since it sufficiently appears from his whole Dissertation that his vague expressions are not to be greatly esteemed. His first answer the Beneventans had already forestalled in the Supplicatory petition for the restitution of the body offered to the provincial synod, §3, in these words: It must needs be said that that abbot held for true that this sacred body was not at Rome, because he would have visited it there, but was here at Benevento, whither he came to visit it. For he who could venerate that body at Rome, why should he go to Benevento to visit the church only? Of the empress Florida Dini answers almost the same, and adds that nowhere is it expressed that Suger and Florida visited the body itself. But although this is not said in express words, it seems sufficiently to follow from what has been said. And these therefore, we must needs say, assented to the tradition of the Beneventans.

[189] the testimony of St. Antoninus; A fourth argument they seek from the authority of Jacobus de Voragine, bishop of Genoa, and of St. Antoninus, who, in part 1 of his History, tit. 6, chapter 12, has only this to the purpose: It is commonly

held that his body is had at Benevento; although the Romans too assert that they have it. Whence only is proved which opinion was then the more common, which at all events the archbishop of Florence could easily know and sincerely write. In vain therefore does Dini here try to depress the authority of St. Antoninus. As regards him of Genoa, he favors the Beneventans, chiefly on account of the apparition of St. Bartholomew at Benevento related by him, and mentioned by us above at number 65.

[190] St. Bridget's pilgrimage to Benevento; The Beneventans also bring forward St. Bridget, who, as is narrated in book 2 of the Italian Life, chapter 21, visited the relics of St. Bartholomew at Benevento. Dini indeed answers that nowhere is it said that she venerated the Saint's body, but this seems sufficiently to be drawn from what has been said, especially since she is written to have visited many churches at Rome in chapter 2 of that same book, and no mention is made of St. Bartholomew.

[191] Ughelli's opinion; The testimonies of more recent authors I pass over, except one opinion of Ughelli, which ought to have the greater weight, the more mature the examination which the author premised before bringing it forth, tom. 8 of Italia sacra, col. 73 of the new edition, thus writing: But what my opinion is about this, I long hesitated to disclose; but when I lighted upon a certain original diploma of Leo IX, to be transcribed in its place, I could not contain myself from publishing it — that the body of this most glorious Apostle is still kept at Benevento; since indeed that translation, whether it was made from Benevento to Rome in the year CMLXXXIII, as Baronius asserts (in the notes to the Martyrology) or in the year M, as others will have it (and Baronius himself in the Annals at that year), yet those words of Leo IX move me more, in which he asserts that the aforesaid body was kept, while he himself was living, in the greater church of Benevento, than any testimony of Sigebert or of Otto of Freising, especially since from the asserted translation to the pontificate of the aforesaid Leo IX scarcely fifty years ran between. Of the bull of Leo we shall treat below. What Dini here answers is chiefly aimed against the bull, and is to be discussed in its own place.

[192] Martyrologies proving almost nothing; The Beneventans then fight with arguments adduced from various Martyrologies, which seem to me to make little to the point. For Usuard and Wandelbert, whom they adduce, they confess to have lived before the alleged translation; these therefore are to be dismissed from the battle as useless soldiers. But what they say, that Molanus noted nothing at their place, proves nothing, save that Molanus was unwilling to mix himself in this controversy. Ado, whom they put in the third place, they will have to be archbishop of Trier, and to have lived after the time of the disputed translation: but, since very many think otherwise, this ought to have been proved by them. The manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of Pulsano (if it was drawn up after this doubtful translation — though this is not established from the fact that it mentions the death of B. John, abbot of Pulsano, who died in the year 1139, since such things are wont to be added to manuscript Martyrologies) proves only that this tradition existed at Benevento, which is sufficiently confirmed from elsewhere. Nothing further do the Beneventan and Florentine Martyrologies prove, which they subjoin. These things therefore I let pass for brevity's sake.

[193] Various bulls of the Pontiffs also the most eminent Orsini produces in §3 of his Dissertation, the bull of Leo IX; by which he strives to assert the possession of the sacred body for Benevento. In the first place is adduced the Bull of Leo IX, which Ughelli cited recites, col. 78, in which, after many privileges granted to the church of Benevento, it is subjoined: Where the most precious body

of the most blessed Bartholomew the apostle rests. And lower down: Enriched with the most precious bodies of Saints, namely of Bartholomew the apostle, and of Januarius the martyr &c. The bull is read as given in the year of the L. of Leo the ninth Pope V, Indict. VI, that is, in the year of Christ 1053. With many things Dini tries to render this bull suspect of forgery. First, because it is said to be given at Benevento: but that is no reason, since the Pontiff in that year had set out for Benevento after the unhappy battle of his soldiers with the Normans; why then could he not grant that bull at Benevento? But he says: Leo of Ostia makes no mention of the bulls of Leo or of Stephen: nor Desiderius, abbot of Cassino, in the Dialogues: And Falco, who often treats of St. Bartholomew, would by no means have omitted all these things, if they had been true. He adds the silence of Arnald, of Donatus in the Hymns, and of the following Pontiffs who spoke of St. Bartholomew. To these he adds certain words of Papebroch about the negative argument, but adulterated and mutilated. I shall therefore give Papebroch's own words from the Responses, art. 3, §15, from num. 154, where he has thus: Thou hast here all the Carmelite writers of his age, who were silent

about that bull: who would not have omitted it, if they had known it: and who would have known it, if it had existed. Then he subjoins: The force of a negative argument is indeed not everywhere the same; but according to different circumstances, in some cases pregnant and valid, in others of straw and null. But then the force of that argument is the greater, when the authors could and ought to have mentioned the matter which they passed over in silence; which I do not see to have place here. For why ought Leo of Ostia, why ought abbot Desiderius, to have mentioned a bull given to the Beneventans? Why could the rest cited in Dini, who lived long afterwards, not have been ignorant of that bull? And if they knew it, why could they not pass it over in silence? Since, besides the cited words about the body of St. Bartholomew, in the said bull nothing is contained but privileges granted to the church of Benevento, which, so long as they were not called into doubt, made it unnecessary to mention that bull.

[194] But that bull is mentioned also by Stephen IX, and that of Stephen IX confirming it, in the year 1058, confirming it entire, and recalling the same things about the body of St. Bartholomew kept at Benevento, as the Beneventans will have it, and Ughelli, often praised, col. 80, who discourses in this way for the Beneventans: This same Pontiff (Stephen) asserts that at Benevento there rest the bodies of blessed Bartholomew, of Januarius, and of Barbatus, which I say for corroboration; for since this Pontiff was abbot of Cassino, and very near at hand, nay, lived in the time of the emperor Otto, the translation of the body of holy Bartholomew from Benevento to Rome could well have been known to him, if it had truly been made by that same Otto. This argument is surely so strong that Dini needed both to render this Bull suspect and to contend that it was forged; but the negative arguments which he has thus far adduced are not solid enough for this. Let us hear what he brings forward further: Nay, he says, the falsity of this bull is argued from this, that it is said to have been passed at Rome on the Ides of July, as Mascambruno says: Vipera asserts that it was given in the City on the XII day of July in the year MLIV, Indict. V. But these things do not fight against the bull, since nowhere in it is it read that it was given at Rome, or at Benevento; but it only shows that the opinion of those is false who thought the bull given at Rome in the year 1054. Which error Ughelli corrected, who thinks it more probably given at Benevento. But this diversity of opinions arose from this, that in the bull the place where it was given is not expressed, as happens also in others of the same Leo. Nor ought it to stand in the way of the bull's being held legitimate, that certain things are had at the beginning which by Dini's opinion could have been more rightly said: for since the beginning, as Ughelli testifies, was plainly corroded, what is less rightly set there must be imputed to the first editors of the bull, not to the bull's author. Nor again does it make to the point that in the bull there are certain barbarous words; for this rather argues that the bull was given at that time when the barbarism of the Latin tongue widely prevailed, than that it was afterwards feigned. Nor thirdly, that certain things have been read in different ways by different editors, which happens very often in the sacred Letters themselves.

[195] which Dini strives to show to be forged, Lastly, to show the bull forged, Dini adduces certain things from Mabillon On Diplomatics, but cited no more faithfully than what he often produces from Papebroch; for when with the utmost labor I had turned over the places cited by him, and many other things in Mabillon, I found only certain traces of the words cited by him, as had happened to me before in seeking out the places cited from Papebroch. Book 2, chapter 14, On Diplomatics, he brings Mabillon in speaking thus: "Not only are bulls, because they are corroded, or marked by some erasure, ineffectual to deserve credit, but also if the leaden signets be lacking, which Stephen III and Hadrian I began to use". Dini subjoins: Relating how, when in certain bulls the leaden signets were wanting, they turned out suspect. Of these, I say, I find only certain traces in Mabillon: for in the cited chapter, num. 7, he has this: But when the use of leaden (bulls) began is controverted among the learned. Polydore Vergil refers it to the times of Stephen III and Hadrian I.

Then he relates the opinions of others, and leaves the matter uncertain. Mabillon therefore does not say that Stephen III and Hadrian I began to use leaden bulls. Then at num. 14 he relates from Innocent III nine ways in which bulls can be falsified. Where this species of falsifying is recounted: The fifth, when in bullated letters, once returned, something is changed by a thin erasure. Thirdly, at num. 7, he relates certain privileges of the church of Canterbury called into doubt, because in them the leaden bulls were wanting. These traces of the things which Dini cites I have found in Mabillon, which differ not a little from the words cited by Dini, nor do they make anything to the point.

[196] but this he does not prove, But that I should think they are had elsewhere in Mabillon, is made unlikely both because he is wont to cite Papebroch with the same fidelity, and because Mabillon's phrasing is much more elegant than are the words cited, and lastly because these traces are found in the place cited. Let us see whether what he next cites is more faithful. He thus goes on: And I mark the words, Bene valete, transcribed in the bull of the forged Leo, whereas Leo IX, as that same most versed Fr. Mabillon says, "always has in his bulls" Perpetuam in Domino salutem. And there is cited in the margin book 6, the first corollary. I have diligently sifted this corollary. On page 622, under the letter e, he brings forward various clauses of various Pontiffs, and among other things says this: In that Bullary (of Cluny) therefore many pontifical diplomas are found before Leo IX with the title IN PERPETUUM. Then, various clauses being related, he goes on: Silvester II, SALUTEM ET APOSTOLICAM BENEDICTIONEM, which formula Leo IX and others thereafter display, or another, IN PERPETUUM; except that Leo once has, PERPETUAM IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Note, reader: Once said Mabillon; Always Dini cites from Mabillon. Mabillon goes on in this manner: The salutation

expressed at the end in these words, BENE VALETE, entire (as we said in its place, namely book 2, chapter 14, num. 10) is read in bulls before Leo IX, who reduced these words into a monogram. Leo IX therefore did not omit that Bene valete, but expressed it in another way than the preceding Pontiffs, who wrote it in entire words, while Leo indeed contracted it into a monogram, as Mabillon exhibits on page 445. Add that the same Mabillon on the cited page 622 under the letter c has: Then it is difficult to determine which formulas the more ancient Pontiffs preferred, since in their published letters the inscriptions are commonly either wholly cut away or diminished. Besides, in those which have been left us entire, not constant formulas are employed, but they are various for different Pontiffs, nay, for the most part for different rescripts, (it is helpful to note, as the sense has it at the beginning.)

[197] I do not see therefore what stands against this Leonine bull — but this does not prove it; which I would have said likewise of Stephen's bull — that it may not be held legitimate, except only the silence of the more ancient, which is a weak argument, since so many bulls have been produced by the learned out of registries and archives about which the ancients were silent, and which for that cause are held no less legitimate. Labbe, tom. 9 of the Councils, col. [ ], brings forward a bull of that same Pontiff Leo IX to Sicenolphus, abbot of St. Sophia of Benevento, given in the year 1052. Let the curious reader compare the two, and he will find them sufficiently conformable to one another, as I think, especially in the subscription, which in Labbe is plainly the same as that which Ughelli published, only the year being changed. Let whoever pleases sift Mabillon's rules, and he will find nothing, I think, which manifests forgery. These things had to be treated more at length than I had determined, lest anyone should think the chief foundation of the Beneventan tradition overthrown by Dini, whose blunders, which are indeed frequent, where the sum of the matter is not concerned I willingly pass over for brevity's sake, but in the chief arguments I did not think they should be passed over. He then objects that the praised bulls were passed for another end, and therefore in this controversy of light authority. Perhaps he would here say something if the aforesaid Pontiffs had lived many centuries afterwards; but since they obtained the pontificate only about half a century, or a little more, after the disputed translation, they do not seem likely to have been ignorant of it, if it had been made, nor likely to have asserted the sacred body for Benevento.

[198] The Beneventans allege moreover the bull of Benedict XII, the bull of Benedict XII, by which in the year 1337 he grants the faculty of translating the sacred body into the new basilica in these words: Wherefore thou hast humbly besought us that we would deign to grant leave for translating to the said chapel the body of that same Apostle; we therefore, commending thy devotion and purpose in this behalf manifoldly in the Lord, and bearing that confidence in thy sincerity, that unto God's praise and the glory of the said Apostle and the reverence and honor of the Saints, and the increase of devotion and consolation of the catholic people, thou wilt take pains to carry out the above-said, we grant thee the leave requested. The Pontiff adds also indulgences to those visiting the aforesaid church, as may be seen in Ughelli, col. 145, where he recites the Pontiff's whole bull. Hence, say the Beneventans in the Dissertation often cited, Arnald (archbishop of Benevento at that time), the consecration of that basilica being accomplished, gave a most brilliant testimony of the existence of the sacred relics; for, the bishops of Samnium being summoned, he says that he drew them out and showed them before the translation, in a most ample diploma. The diploma itself, in which these things are related at length, thou mayest see in Ughelli from col. 145.

[199] which in vain he drags into another sense, The often-mentioned Francesco Dini dared not deny this bull. Yet he seeks a knot in a bulrush on account of certain things asserted in the Pontiff's bull, which he strives to drag into another sense than that in which they were said. For after he had cited these words of the Pontiff: We therefore, commending thy devotion and purpose manifoldly in the Lord

(others have considering) and bearing that confidence in thy sincerity; he stops, thinking it less safe for himself to add what follows; and he subjoins: These last words of the diploma clearly

prove that nothing is certainly asserted by the supreme Pontiff, but that he rather assents to the supplicatory petition, and acquiesces in the prelate's sincerity: as if the Pontiff had believed on account of Arnald's sincerity that the Apostle's body rested at Benevento. But that this is not the Pontiff's mind is plain from the text cited above, from which take this true sense: And bearing that confidence in thy sincerity, that unto God's praise &c. … thou wilt take pains to carry out the above-said. And so the Pontiff trusts, from Arnald's sincerity,

that all things will be performed unto the glory of God and of the Saints; but concerning the body kept at Benevento he does not say that he acquiesces in the prelate's sincerity.

[200] and which Dini would have favor himself; Dini then answers to the argument that Benedict, a French Pontiff, was less informed about the permanence of the body at Rome. Thirdly, from Benedict's bull he draws an argument for himself against the Beneventans, because the body is said to have been then kept in an unseemly place, and thus he reasons, page 76: That same bull is to me an argument for proving the translation of the sacred body a fiction, since from it is drawn out that the body remained in despised and unseemly places, so that thou mayest gather thence that no report propped by the truth and integrity of the matter was handed down by dignitaries and grave men, nor any tradition consigned to posterity … about the actual permanence of the sacred body, since the urn of it was held slighted in a despised place by the Beneventans, although to these the relics of the Apostle their patron would have been most precious, if they had existed, and always to be placed in a more seemly place. I know not whether the imprudent Dini does not here aim at the throat of the Roman tradition, of which afterwards: the Beneventans certainly he does not strike. For because the place, or chapel, of St. Bartholomew had grown mean by the injury of time, by which all most precious things are little by little consumed, diligent care was employed that a new basilica, and that a magnificent one, should be built for that same Apostle, in which that sacred treasure might be more seemly placed: whence it can by no means be inferred that the sacred body was in oblivion among the Beneventans. Nor from those things which the said author subjoins, namely that many Pontiffs were at Benevento, and made no mention of this sacred body. For neither can the silence of some do any harm, where so many speak. What further he adds, as making less to the point, I pass over.

[201] The Beneventans add the bull of Clement VI of the year 1347, various bulls of the Pontiffs, which Janelli recites, page 102; and of Boniface IX of the year 1400, which the same gives on page 104: in which it is asserted that the body of St. Bartholomew rests in his basilica at Benevento, and indulgences are granted to those visiting the said basilica in the manner prescribed in the bulls. I find no answer given to these, save that the body is said to rest there where there is but a tiny particle of the body. There follows in the praised Janelli, page 106, a bull of Urban V of the year 1363; and on page 108 another of the same Pontiff given in the same year; on page 110 a bull of Pius II of the year 1459, in which it is asserted that the body of B. Bartholomew rests at Benevento, says the praised Dissertation of Orsini. It is added, however, in these bulls, as is asserted, is said. Wherefore the most eminent Orsini confesses that the Beneventan tradition is not proved by these bulls as by the immediate authority of the Roman Pontiff, as he asserts it is proved by the foregoing bulls. But he shrewdly observes that, if these Pontiffs had judged the tradition of the church of Benevento false, they would not have lent ears to it. Which he confirms by the example of Clement IV, Who, he says, in a like matter wrote thus in the year 1268 to the most serene Isabella, sister of St. Louis the ninth, king of the Gauls: If perchance thou thinkest the head of B. Paul the apostle is with thee, lay aside that conviction lest thou be deceived, lest thou lay a scandal upon thy mother the Roman Church, which would not with an even mind tolerate a deception of this kind.

[202] Lastly they add the bulls of the Roman Pontiffs bulls by which the use of the pallium is granted, by which there is granted to the archbishops of Benevento the use of the pallium on the day of the translation of St. Bartholomew. For instance that of Sergius IV of the year 1011, published in Janelli, page 112; that of Anastasius IV of the year

1153, in the same, page 116; and that of Hadrian IV in the same place, page 120: from which they draw this argument. The pallium is not wont to be granted except on the more solemn feasts; but the feast of the translation of St. Bartholomew would not be solemn, if the body had been carried off from there; therefore it must altogether be said that the Apostle's body at that time still rested in the church of Benevento. To the granting of the pallium Dini answers that the use of the pallium was granted according to ancient custom, because the feast of the translation … was celebrated with a solemn supplication. Which answer seems to me sufficiently probable, if the other arguments of the Beneventans could be equally answered; especially if it be said that certain relics remained at Benevento after the carrying off of the body.

[203] He then adds, to all the Pontifical bulls together: For fostering the devotion of a suppliant people, what Dini answers to all the bulls. among whom some particle of the body remained, they did not disdain to call it the body (as it was proposed in the petitions). Which answer perhaps can be more probably thrown back by the Beneventans against nearly all the arguments of the Roman tradition, to be set forth in the following §. He then says that the Pope is not a contemporary witness, nor firmly asserts a matter after discussion. To which he adds certain shreds of Papebroch, as he says, in the Responses cited above, art. 3, num. 109. But in Papebroch, at that place at least, I find only the first part, num. 108, where he says, That prudent men also sometimes err in matters of fact is notorious. But since the praised author willingly cites Papebroch, though generally in an alien sense, how great credit, in Papebroch's judgment, is to be attributed to Pontifical bulls, I here subjoin from the same art. 3 of the Responses, §2, num. 16, where he has this: To the bulls, briefs, constitutions, and decrees of the supreme Pontiffs &c., even issued outside the case and matter of faith or of saving morals, all Catholics owe the greatest deference, credit, and observance, at least within the line of human authority. He therefore does not satisfy the authority of a bull who says that the Pontiff is not a contemporary witness, especially if for the contrary opinion he adduce no contemporary witnesses, as Francesco Dini did not adduce them. Yet Papebroch does not hold that any diplomas whatever of the Roman Pontiff are to be reckoned wholly immune even from every error of fact: but, as he has at num.

110, They are always presumed to contain nothing but the truth, unless the opposite be proved, or a prudent suspicion be brought forward on no light foundation. Thus far about the Pontifical bulls, which add no light weight to the Beneventan tradition.

[204] The bulls of the archbishops of Benevento, and the letter of king Ladislaus, The Beneventans then adduce certain bulls of their own prelates, by which they confirm the presence of the body of St. Bartholomew to their city. Namely that of Romano Capoferro, archbishop of Benevento, given in the year 1273, and published in Ughelli cited, col. 136, in which these things about St. Bartholomew are read: Who willed that his most sacred body be preserved in the aforesaid city (of Benevento). Then a certain authentic instrument of the year 1346, in which these things are said of William, then archbishop: Desiring … that in the chapel in which that most sacred body rests, divine worship be continually observed. This instrument they say is kept in the library of Benevento, num. 500. Thirdly, a letter of Ladislaus, king of Naples, written in the year 1414 on the VI day of February to the archbishop of Benevento and the chapter of that same church, by which he asks relics of St. Bartholomew for Carlo Malatesta, from which I take these words: Since the magnificent Carlo Malatesta, our chief and dearest friend, bearing toward St. Bartholomew the apostle a great affection of singular devotion, desires to have something of his relics: and since that holy body itself of that glorious Apostle is kept in that same church of Benevento &c. The whole letter Janelli gives, page 124.

[205] the letter of archbishop Donatus, To these they add the letter of archbishop Donatus, written in the same year on the XVI day of February to the canons of the church of Benevento upon this matter, in which he narrates how he excused himself to the king. But from this letter certain things, because they pertain more nearly to St. Bartholomew, I have judged should be here written out somewhat more fully: We, he says, reverently, as was fitting, gave a reasonable answer, alleging the due excuses, how it was not possible for us to fulfil the wishes of his majesty without grave scandal; and relating how the body of B. Bartholomew had been laid up and translated, where today it lies, with the greatest solemnity and by Apostolic authority, without whose leave we could not touch either the whole or a part of that most glorious body; nor would the citizens permit or consent; since they reckon that they have no treasure nor protector, save the succour of that most glorious Apostle; and because it is shut up with three indissoluble bonds, keys, and iron bars, from the time

of the laying up, or translation, of the aforesaid glorious body; and how at another time, before the laying up of that body, it was attempted secretly to snatch a certain particle of the relics of the above-said body, and, by the judgment of God and of the body of the aforetasted Apostle, so great a tempest of the air came on that in no way was he able, who had snatched that part of the relics, to cross a certain bridge of the river running near the walls of the city of Benevento; who, recognizing that by a miracle of that Apostle the whole storm of the air had come on, being led by conscience, publicly disclosed his guilt, and that particle which he had taken away, as quickly as he could, most devoutly restored.* The whole letter Janelli exhibits, page 126. To the two first testimonies Dini answers that the saying of these archbishops is easily exploded, since they are not contemporaries. Which method is surely an easy one for solving any arguments whatever. He adds also certain other things no firmer, which for brevity's sake I pass over.

[206] But against the letters especially of archbishop Donatus he objects difficulties not altogether to be despised. against which certain difficulties are objected, For first he contends, from Vipera, that Donatus the archbishop died in the year 1412: which Vipera asserts in the Chronology of the archbishops of Benevento, page 141, and proves as follows: In the year MCDXII, on the VIII day of April, Indict. V, archbishop Donatus fell asleep in the Lord, … as from the library of Benevento in the obituary codex, marked num. CXLVIII, and from the following inscription of his tomb (it is understood:) Here lie buried the bones of the excellent prelate Donatus, mine. Alas, I shall mourn thee, Samnium, for an age! A lofty house among the houses of the kingdom, the Aquinas house, bore him, but better did the marks of his character beget him. Why do I mourn, O mortal race? Why this frail creature of clay? Since the eternal mind, the better part, rejoices in the air; And if the course of the years please thee, tell it in verses: A thousand and four hundred, and ten to be joined with two;*

Among which years the Fifth Indiction is marked.

[207] The verses I have given from Ughelli, col. 161, who in the same place tries to refute Vipera, to which answer is made from Ughelli; but not without some error: But, he says, an error is detected in these verses, to which XIV years must be added, which will make the year MCDXXVI, on which falls the fifth Indiction. But Ughelli is deceived, for the fifth Indiction falls on the year 1412 and 1427: but the fourth on 1426, as whoever knows how to number the Indictions will find, or whoever will consult the chronographers. Yet Ughelli's arguments seem to prove that Donatus survived longer than to the year 1412, as Vipera sets it. Perhaps down to 1427, in which was the fifth Indiction, and in which also his successor, as Ughelli will have it, was elected on the XVI Kalends of July. But Ughelli's arguments are these: that from the diploma of Martin V in the election of Paul it clearly appears that Donatus of Aquino had as his immediate successor Paul Capranica, elected, as he will have it, in the year 1427. I could wish Ughelli had given the bull, that the reader might be better able to judge of the matter. Besides, he had earlier brought forward, col. 160, a certain bull of Donatus given in the year 1418, after which he asserts that other monuments of him are found; then from the obituary book of the registry of Benevento, marked num. 148, page 6, he recites this: In the year of the Lord MCDXXVI of the fifth Indiction, on this XII day of April, was buried in the greater church the lord Donatus of Aquino, archbishop of Benevento, and he died at Gripta Mainarda (a town of the diocese of Benevento, as he says, col. 160) on the VIII day of the said month, and he sat in his see for years XLI. From all these things I conclude that concerning the death of Donatus Ughelli is rather to be adhered to than Vipera, although the year 1427, which concurs with the fifth Indiction, seems to be preferred to the year 1426. Nor can I assent to Dini, page 85, insulting Ughelli in these words on account of the epitaph cited above: I defer more to an ancient marble monument of the place and to the authority of the library, than to ten Ughellian writings. I cannot, I say, assent to these; for what he boasts about the library is common to both, since each cited the obituary codex marked num. 148. But that single epitaph is not of so great weight as are all the other arguments of Ughelli together, to which must be added this very letter of Donatus which is in question: especially since it is not established at what time the epitaph was carved on the marble, although I would not deny it to be ancient.

[208] objections against the letter of Ladislaus resolved. But whatever be the truer of these things, it makes nothing against the truth of the letter of king Ladislaus, asking for the relics of St. Bartholomew; since the letter was merely inscribed to the archbishop of Benevento, whether that were Donatus or any other whatsoever, as may be seen in Vipera, page 142, and Ughelli, col. 159. But Dini objects against Ladislaus's letter that the Beneventans would not have denied the sacred relics to a king asking courteously; Among whom, he says, there flourished a mindful fear that, when Ladislaus was interdicted with a detestable anathema, the city had suffered the greatest inconveniences, as Vipera relates (page 141, saying that this happened in the year 1409.) Since the members, he says a little before, of this Apostle are found spread about everywhere, and even sent to private men. But I find relics of St. Bartholomew indeed sent to various persons before the translation made in the year 1337; not so after that time. Lastly, the letter is rendered suspect to Dini because a great friendship is insinuated in it between Ladislaus and Carlo Malatesta, which seems to him the less likely, because Ladislaus a little before had chosen the marquis of Este, as he says, to assail the Romagna, … in which province Carlo and Andrea Malatesta, lords of Rimini,

held sway. But he does not prove that there was war between Malatesta and Ladislaus; and perhaps by this favor the latter wished to draw the former over to his own side. I do not see therefore why the letter cannot be admitted as true, although this monument of the 15th century is more effectual for showing how greatly princely men held St. Bartholomew in honor, than for proving the Beneventan tradition: yet this too, resting upon more ancient monuments, is hence also in some measure confirmed.

[209] Arguments drawn from the recent visitation of the body, Lastly the Beneventans prove that the sacred body of Bartholomew rests in their city from those things which we have narrated as done there in the past century. First, from this, that when the temple fell the bronze chest containing the sacred body was found entire. From the plates found in the chest, indicating that it is the body of St. Bartholomew; from the light seen to flash from the sacred bones, and from the miracle wrought at the translation, as we have related; from the fish-bones and pebbles found with the sacred bones; whence they gather that these are the same bones which were scattered at Lipari and afterwards gathered. Lastly, from the judgment of the whole provincial synod, which judged that the body kept at Benevento is the body of St. Bartholomew, the proofs and signs which we have related being seen, and honored it as such. What the defender of the Roman tradition answers to these is of no great moment. First: These, he says, great men do not afford credit to ancient facts. Yet the most weighty judgment of these men is greatly to be esteemed. Then he brings in the suspicion that the plates were feigned by someone of old, after the body had been translated to Rome, the hide perhaps being left at Benevento. But the antiquaries judged one of them to be far more ancient than seven hundred years.

[210] Thirdly he contends that that huge number of bones cannot fit the one body of the Apostle: from which Dini in vain strives to detract credit. And it has bred wonder, he says, that thou hast offered to us far off almost huge heaps of bones, contained in a little chest of one palm, as is said, and described in such magnificent words. What is objected about the little chest of one palm must be explained from the bull of the most eminent Orsini, in which the size of that little chest is thus described: But the aforesaid little chest was of the height of one palm and one inch: of the length likewise of one palm and three inches and a half: but of the breadth of ten inches. That all the bones which are described in the bull were in it, Dini ought rather to have believed men most worthy of credit, than, by exaggerating the smallness of the little chest and the size of the bones, to call a matter into suspicion as if incredible. I know not whether the aforementioned dissertator sufficiently weighed how little credit he deserves among prudent men who carps at everything and detracts credit from all. What therefore he further brings forward, to bring in doubt about the relics found in the chest, I do not mention: for the things which were done by the most holy prelate Orsini and the bishops gathered in a provincial synod will be made doubtful by no cavils among prudent appraisers of matters.

[211] Thus far I have striven faithfully to set forth the arguments on which the tradition of the Beneventans about the body of St. Bartholomew chiefly rests, To the arguments related above we subjoin a testimony and to remove what seemed not rightly objected to them: but I would have the reader understand that not all the answers of Francesco Dini have been produced by me, but only those which either had some difficulty, or at least could seem to contain a difficulty; whoever desires the rest may consult him. Now a few things, offered to me unsought while I was engaged in searching out the Saint's Acts, I have thought should be added to these. In the Manuscript Library of Labbe, tom. 1, certain fragments of Bernard Gui are recounted, among which on page 638 I find this to our purpose: Lord Aubert rests in the church or monastery of Benevento, where there are canons regular, at whose tomb many suffering from fever are often cured. He, when he was a master at Paris and a canon of Limoges, at length desiring to be free for God alone, with the leave and assent of the chapter of Limoges, in a certain farm of the parish of Salagnac, by name Segundelas, built a church in honor of St. Mary Magdalene: but afterwards he was translated by Jordan, bishop of Limoges, to a farm which was called Segundeletas: to which place, the relics of B. Bartholomew being translated from Benevento, a city of Italy, whither at that time the body of the blessed Apostle had been brought from the island of Lipari, the lord Apostolus (this seems a fault, and should be read bishop, or Aubert) founded a church in his honor, and ordered the place thenceforth to be called Benevento … Now certain great men of the land brought those relics,

who had visited the thresholds of the holy Apostle, and by a divine course on the same day, and at the very hour at which the bishop was preaching, offered them to the bishop. Therefore he said, Let this place … be called Benevento.

[212] Tom. 2 of Gallia Christiana, col. 619, it is thus written about the abbey of Benevento: from the History of the monastery built in the year 1028, Benevento, sacred to holy Bartholomew, of the order of St. Augustine, is begun in the year MXXVIII in the place of Secondelas, two leagues from the city of Limoges, at the charges of Robert, canon of Limoges. At that time Jordan presided over the church of Limoges, as may be seen in the author cited, col. 515, by whom Aubert is said above to have been translated to the second place; so that all things sufficiently agree, except that the ancient name of the place is called by Bernard Gui Segundeletas, but by the author of Gallia Christiana Secondelas, which difference cannot stand against the truth of the matter itself. From these things therefore we have that these relics were sent from Benevento about the year 1028, and that at that time the body of St. Bartholomew was there. Some scruple indeed there can be here, because it is said: Whither at that time the body of the blessed Apostle had been brought from Lipari; but both the age of bishop Jordan and the building of the church sufficiently show that this was said improperly, for Where the body then was, brought before from Lipari. For the rest, whether this History can help the cause of the Beneventans little or much for asserting to them the body of Bartholomew after the year one thousand, I leave to the readers' judgment, content to have related the matter itself.

[213] and an argument from the letter of Clement IV, Edmond Martène, tom. 2 of the Thesaurus anecdotorum, col. 306, recites a letter of Clement IV, written, as he notes, in the year 1266 to Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, by which he rebukes him for the excesses committed by his army in the city of Benevento, and among other things writes this: For since, without doubt by the aid of blessed Bartholomew, who is the patron of that same city (of Benevento), thou hadst incredibly triumphed over his and thy enemies (Manfred, whom near Benevento in the same year he had conquered): his church surely ought to have been adorned with royal gifts. First, Bartholomew alone is called the patron of Benevento; to his favor alone is ascribed the victory; his church the Pontiff says should have been adorned; which why the Pontiff should have said can scarcely be understood, unless he judged that the body of St. Bartholomew rested there.

[214] likewise a testimony from the testament of Louis of Anjou; The same author, tom. 1 of the cited Work, from col. 1594, published the testament of Louis of Anjou, likewise king of Sicily, made, as he notes, in the year 1383: in which, in the French tongue, these things are read, Col. [ ]: In like manner we will that an anniversary be founded and Masses for the dead, as above, at Benevento in the church where rests the blessed body … of holy Bartholomew. To these I add no more. Yet for the reader's convenience, that he may the better understand on what testimonies the Beneventan tradition rests, I here briefly exhibit them all in order of time.

[215] all the arguments exhibited summarily. In the year 1028 the monastery of Benevento was founded and dedicated to St. Bartholomew, his relics being received from Benevento. In the year 1053 the bull of Leo IX, asserting the body to Benevento. In the year 1057 the bull of Stephen IX confirming it. About the end of the same century the testimony of Leo of Ostia. At almost the same time wrote Eadmer the Englishman, adduced above also. Five monuments therefore in the eleventh century confirm the Beneventan tradition. In the twelfth century I find two monuments, namely the pilgrimage of abbot Suger to Benevento to St. Bartholomew in the year 1122, as the Dissertation of Orsini has it; and the gifts offered by the empress Florida to that same Saint at Benevento in the year 1137. In the thirteenth century Clement IV probably favors it in the year 1266: Romano Capoferro, archbishop of Benevento, altogether supports it in the year 1273; likewise Jacobus, bishop of Genoa, favors it in 1298, especially since he relates the apparition narrated by us in chapter 2, §3, num. 64. In the XIV century Benedict XII in the year 1337; in the same year Arnald the archbishop with the bishops of Samnium; in the year 1346 William the archbishop; in the year 1348 Clement VI confirm the same tradition: which Urban V likewise favors in the year 1362; and St. Bridget in the year 1372: the same affirms Louis, king of Sicily, in the year 1383. In the XV century, in the year 1400 Boniface IX; in the year 1414 king Ladislaus and archbishop Donatus support the tradition. St. Antoninus brings forward the more common opinion, having died in the year 1459: Pius II favors the tradition in the year 1459: to which they add — whom I, with many more recent, have passed over — in the year 1474 Angelo

Cato; Roberto Caracciolo of Lecce, bishop of Aquino, who died in the year 1495; Zanobi Acciaioli, librarian of the Vatican, in the year 1515; Mascambruno and Ughelli. Thou hast, reader, a continuous chain of witnesses fighting for the Beneventan tradition, drawn down in an unbroken series from the first century after the disputed translation to our own times. Now it must also be faithfully related on what foundations the tradition of the Romans rests.

it seems that non should be added i. e. stemmata § IV. Arguments for the Roman tradition, chiefly those which attribute the translation to Otto II. The arguments of the Romans: Francesco Dini, about to vindicate the body of St. Bartholomew to the Romans, thus on page 6 sets about proposing his arguments: That Otto II translated the sacred body of the Apostle from Benevento, besides the most ancient monuments, I have three hundred authors, read indeed with curiosity and faithfully marked; yet lest this work, to be published by the command of certain purpled princes, should grow too large, I have here adduced the more probable ones, some of their words being wholly omitted, or indicated by a brief epilogue, lest I should breed nausea in my readers; yet the names of all of whom I have judged should not be passed over in another (if the matter so require) more vehement rejoinder, that I may bring forth more brilliantly into the midst this truth, most plain to the writers of the whole world, vindicated from the abusive evasions of my adversaries. Magnificent words indeed, if deeds correspond to sayings. But lest the less learned reader, and one wont to attend more to words than to solid reasons, be led into deception by this author's perpetual boasting, I have judged it necessary now and then modestly

to blunt that Thrasonic vanity. Which yet ought not to hinder the Romans' cause: for that can stand propped upon solid foundations, even if its defender has striven to exaggerate it too much.

[217] The first, he says in the same place, foundation of this matter is the unshaken tradition of the Romans, a tradition common to both parties, approved by the Church in the Martyrologies and Breviaries, confirmed by the authors of all centuries, most amply to be cited, and verified to the eye by the signs of the matter. This foundation is common to both parties; let us hear by what reasons and authorities it is confirmed.

[218] And I., he says, there is adduced the testimony of Otto, bishop of Freising, and, writing from among the Germans, one who was among the living before the XI century was ended. Otto did not write in the eleventh century, the testimony of Otto of Freising, as the words may be understood, yet he could have been among the living toward the end of that century. But Otto's words, book 6 of the Chronicle, chapter 25, are these: The Romans hand down of him (Otto II) that, Benevento being taken, he carried off thence the bones of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, and placed them at Rome in the Lycaonian island, in a tomb of porphyry, and thought to carry them away into his own land through the Tiber and the sea in the aforesaid sarcophagus: but, he being in a short time taken from life, the precious treasure remained there. Otto's credit he commends on page 7 in these words: Otto, most praised for integrity, as Trithemius witnesses, related the tradition of the Romans from those who were able to receive it from contemporaries. The Beneventans answer this authority with many things, of which I shall relate those which seem more solid. Orsini in his Dissertation, art. 2, thus speaks: I answer, first, that Otto of Freising does not assert the translation of St. Bartholomew as certain; but as obscure, and vaunted by a doubtful tradition of the Romans. This is plain from this, that he says, The Romans hand down; and that he did not write of that expedition of Otto against the Beneventans, but only lightly touched it on this occasion. To which, however, it may be replied that many other deeds of Otto II were passed over by this author, of whom he related only very few.

[219] which the Beneventans charge with error, Besides, they charge this relation of Otto with error (if however it is to be called Otto's, since he only relates what the Romans then said, in which I do not think he was himself deceived), and they thus reason: There is an error in the event, since he says that Otto

II, Benevento being taken, carried off thence the bones of B. Bartholomew, which is most false; for Otto II never brought arms against Benevento. They prove this first by an argument indeed negative, but in this place sufficiently effectual: namely from the silence of Hermann Contractus, who wrote in the year MLIV; … of Lambert of Hersfeld, who carried down the History of German affairs to the year MLXXVII, in which he was living; of Marianus Scotus, who published his Chronicle down to the year MLXXXIII, three years before his own death: all of whom, most accurately describing the affairs of Otto II from the beginning of his reign down to his last day, left no memory of a Beneventan war or of an Apostolic translation. Nay … Lupus Protospatharius, who published a most accurate Chronicle of the deeds done in the kingdom of Naples from the year DCCCLX to the year MCXI, in which he himself flourished, where most diligently and of set purpose he narrates the irruptions of foreign nations into the kingdom of Naples, the battles, the disasters inflicted and received: yet has absolutely nothing about that expedition of Otto II against the Beneventans, or the city overthrown and burned. What is here said about the city overthrown and burned him of Freising does not have, but Blondus, relating the same history, to be cited afterwards; as also what about the flight of the Beneventans the author will presently refute, thus going on: Nor Sigebert, who at the year CMLXXX relates that Otto II was routed in a naval battle, and delivered partly by swimming, partly by a boat coming to his aid: he hints indeed that the Romans on this occasion turned their backs: but that the Beneventans either came in for a share of the cowardice, or were on that account taken and destroyed by the emperor, he does not signify even by a word. Nay, even Baronius himself records nothing of this kind about Otto II in the Annals.

[220] Nor does Pagi, wont to supply what Baronius omits, nor the authors cited by him at the year 983, although they relate Otto's unhappy battle in Calabria, and they weaken it by various reasons; have anything about all these matters. But authors so near in time to the deed, if it was done, do not seem likely to have been ignorant of that Beneventan expedition, nor, if they had known it, likely to have omitted it. And so it seems we must judge that him of Freising knew absolutely nothing about this expedition against the Beneventans and the translation of the relics, except what certain Romans vaunted about these things from uncertain report; and that for that cause he wrote, The Romans hand down; and not, He translated the bones, he took Benevento; which not even he himself seems to have believed, although he wrote that it was believed at Rome by some. But this inference I have preferred to draw from the argument proposed, rather than to believe of Otto of Freising what the Beneventans say, That he peddled that expedition against the Beneventans, that he might overlay with some show of truth his fable about the translated relics of Bartholomew. We shall bring forward more difficulties against Otto's relation when we have set forth the mind of those whom the Romans bring forward as reserves to him of Freising.

[221] Thus therefore Francesco Dini goes on, page 7: the testimony of Godfrey of Viterbo, Of which (tradition of the Romans) then Godfrey of Viterbo is a witness; whose words he cites from book 5 of the Chronicle, chapter 25: The Romans hand down that this Otto II, Benevento being taken, carried off the bones of St. Bartholomew: and he commends his authority in these words: He was of the sacred registries to Conrad III and Frederick the first, and in a peregrination of L years sifted all the libraries. For which he cites Vossius, book 2, chapter 54, who attributes 40 years to his peregrination, not 50. I shall add what him of Viterbo further has to our purpose. In part 17 of the Chronicle, in Otto II, where also the preceding matter must be sought; thus after the cited words he goes on: And that he placed them at Rome in the island of the Tiber, which is called Lycaonia, in the church which is now called St. Bartholomew's, in a basin of porphyry, and afterwards had thought to lead those same

relics with that same sarcophagus, through the Tiber into the sea, and through the sea into his own Francia: but, he being forestalled by death, the relics so remained at Rome.

[222] There is added, says Dini, Martin the Pole, archbishop, of Martin the Pole, and of others, whose words are these at the year 979, in Otto II: At length, gathering an army, he besieged Benevento: which being taken, he brought thence the bones of blessed Bartholomew (as is said). The rest which follows agrees with the relation of the preceding. Nor does the dissertator pass over even this man unpraised, for he cites Oudin in the Supplement on ecclesiastical writers, and brings him in speaking in these words: That the codex of Martin, which is worn by the hands of the lettered, deserves undoubted credit &c. I am deceived, if the reader will find even a shadow of these words in the aforementioned Work of Oudin: nay, he acknowledges on page 550 that Martin's Chronicle swarms with fables, but such as, it is now established, were foisted in by heretics, says he, then Catholic, but afterwards turned apostate. And so hear Bellarmine also, On Writers, at the year 1250: Martin was, he says, a simple man, and obtrudes little tales for histories. So much about Martin the Pole, who yet does not follow from what has been said to have erred in this history. For many more recent writers also assent to this relation, as the Beneventans confess in these words: From these drew, in the XIV and XV century, Flavio Biondo, Pietro de' Natali, Giacomo Filippo of Bergamo, Giovanni Battista Egnazio, Carlo Sigonio, Johann Nauclerus, and a good many other more recent writers. Hear Blondus, cited by them: When the Romans and Beneventans, fleeing from the line of battle, had not only declined the fight but had deserted their standards, and because, being destitute of the safeguard of his troops, he dared not take vengeance upon the Romans as deserters of the standards, he exercised his anger upon the Beneventans, and, attacking the Beneventans unprepared and fearing nothing of the sort, he took the city, despoiled it, burned it, and on that occasion they report that the relics of B. Bartholomew the apostle, carried off, were placed at Rome in the island first called Jove's, and afterwards Lycaonia: that Otto, Benevento being destroyed, returned to the city of Rome,

and there died, and was buried in the basilica of Peter the apostle, Ptolemy and William are the authorities. The words of the rest, who relate the matter as done in the manner just said, I do not recount; for the Beneventans confess that their number is huge.

[223] the Beneventans answer as to the number of authors, These therefore answer from Baronius at the year 1125, num. 12: We are not wont to estimate the truth of a history by the number of historians: but by how great credit the first teller of any assertion possesses: for that the rest follow the first author, and cling to his footsteps, we find set in custom by very frequent usage. Then they contend that more credit is to be given to him of Ostia than to him of Freising; because the former is more ancient and nearer to the deed: but that they call the credit of him of Freising slight, I think will not be approved by all.

[224] and they set against it Leo of Ostia, more ancient than the rest, Then they strive to overturn the narration of him of Freising by the contrary relation of Leo of Ostia, book 2, chapter 9, who writes this: In the year of the Lord nine hundred and eighty-three (Otto II), again gathering a great army, went down into Calabria to fight with the Saracens: but, by divine permission being overcome by them, he himself with not many could scarcely escape. In which battle also prince Landulf (of Benevento and Capua, as Vipera has it, page 74), son of prince Pandulf, with his brother Atenulf, and many others, died. But the emperor, returning to Capua, confirmed the principate to Aloara, widow of prince Pandulf, and to her son Landenulf. But he himself, for the regathering of his soldiery and the restoring of the contest, returning to Rome, at that same time died . From these things they thus reason in the Dissertation often praised, art. 2, page 13: He of Ostia, the most ancient among the writers who are adduced, must be reckoned the more truthful and the more excellent; but he pronounces not even a word (as neither do many others cited above) about Benevento taken, despoiled, burned. And so it must be reckoned in the place of a fable, what Otto of Freising and his fellows said only out of their own brain. I would rather say, What they drew from the uncertain report of the Romans.

[225] from whom they take certain arguments; Then he thus goes on: Nay, from those words of Cardinal Leo of Ostia three arguments are sought against fabulists of that kind. First, because, Otto's army being so routed that he himself with some few could scarcely

escape, fleeing by swimming … he could not thereafter have those forces wherewith to storm Benevento,

then a most fortified city. To this it can somehow be answered

that he attacked them unprepared, after he had repaired his army. Secondly, they say, because it is incredible that Otto repaid the Beneventans with sword and flames for the slaying of Landulf their prince. Thirdly, because, confirming the Beneventan principate to the widow Aloara and to her son Landenulf, Otto showed a mind grateful rather than hostile toward the Beneventans. Lastly, that the Beneventans did not withdraw themselves from the line of battle, as others write, they thus try to prove from the slaying of Landulf their prince and of his brother: For that the Beneventans followed the standards of their own princes is beyond doubt: whence it comes that without them they could not desert the battle; but the princes fell fighting strenuously: therefore it is not true that the Beneventans failed. Thus they conclude probably enough; yet if anyone should think the relation which they assail sufficiently established from elsewhere, these things will be overturned with easy work, if he should say that not rarely princes, deserted by their own soldiers, have fallen in the line of battle, and that this seems to have happened here; whence also Otto showed himself most equitable toward the prince's wife and son, but offended with the Beneventans. These things, I say, could be said, if the narration of him of Freising and of his followers stood upon sure credit: but not a few difficulties in their relation, besides what has already been said, occur to me, which I have judged should be candidly proposed to the reader who is a lover of truth.

[226] For first, this siege of Benevento is written to have been made after the disaster received in Calabria at once from the Greeks and the Saracens. other difficulties against the narration of him of Freising But at that time the emperor ought rather to have fortified himself against the enemy than to avenge himself on friends who had done their duty ill, which, the enemy being repressed, could more conveniently have been done afterwards; those therefore seem to us to describe an imprudent emperor who write that at that time he attacked Benevento. Next, the city of Benevento being laid waste, he is said to have carried the body of St. Bartholomew to Rome: but they will have it that the Romans were in the same fault with the Beneventans: the Romans therefore do not seem likely to have admitted into the city an emperor whom they had heard raging against the Beneventans, nor could they expect better things from him, being partakers of the same fault. Thirdly, they narrate that the sacred body was translated to Rome with this intention, that it might be borne through the Tiber and the sea into Germany; nor do they consider how inconvenient a journey they describe to us, and to how many perils exposed. Must not Gaul and Spain have been sailed round? Must not the Strait of Hercules have been passed? Must not the mouths of the Rhine then have been entered, and the sacred burden carried upstream from Holland into Germany? But how many perils in that journey, the Saracens holding sway in Spain and Africa? How immense the labor in going up against the stream? Lastly, how many things in this whole journey not to be believed? But if the emperor altogether desired to carry this sacred treasure into Germany, he could have done it far more safely and conveniently by a land journey. But I should think that, after so great an ignominy and disaster received from the enemy, the emperor at that time was intent rather upon counsels of war than thinking by what means he might carry the sacred pledges of the Saints into Germany. These things therefore seem to me neither likely nor sufficiently fittingly devised.

[227] There remains also another difficulty, which appears to me of such a kind difficulties proposed. that we cannot prudently adjudge the translation of the sacred body to Rome to Otto II. The body, as they assert, was laid up in the church of St. Adalbert, which afterwards in the course of time began to be called St. Bartholomew's. But St. Adalbert, surviving long after this year, could not have a temple at Rome in which the body of St. Bartholomew might be laid up. It does not therefore seem to have been translated by Otto II, nor placed at Rome in the Lycaonian island in a tomb of porphyry, as him of Freising narrates, and the authors who followed him. I think Baronius saw this difficulty, and chiefly for that cause changed his former opinion, tom. 10 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 1000, num. 8, where he says that those are refuted of manifest error who attribute the translation to Otto II, and contends by various arguments that it must be attributed to Otto III, which we shall relate in their place. Francesco Dini indeed brings forward something on another occasion which could also be taken for solving this difficulty: namely that the translation was made by Otto II, but the laying up in the said church by Otto III: but he will not be able to bring forward one out of the three hundred authors whom he boasts who asserted this, unless perhaps more recent writers who have tried to remove this difficulty. Nay, on the contrary, the authors cited — him of Freising, him of Viterbo, the Pole, and others — affirm in express words that the body remained in that place where it had been placed by Otto II. From what has been said I gather that the translation, if it was made, is to be adjudged rather to Otto III with Baronius than to Otto II. For which opinion what arguments, and of what sort, fight, must now be related.

§ V. Arguments of the same tradition, which for the most part attribute the translation to Otto III; with certain added which attribute it to Otto II. The inscription of the Tiber church For the translation made by Otto III there is brought forward, first, the inscription of the Tiber church, where the sacred body is said to rest, set up in the time of Pope Paschal II, in the year of the Lord's incarnation MCXIII, in the seventh Indiction, in the month of April, on the fourth day. But that the inscription was made by the Pontiff himself, Baronius says at the year 1000, num. 8, in these words: He who restored that same church, Paschal II, after a hundred and thirteen years, took care that these verses should be inscribed on the lintel of the greater gate of that same church, which today also are thus read: Otto the third of those pious kings translated the bodies, wherewith this house, thus enwreathed, flourishes. If thou seekest to know what pledges this house bears: believe them to be the bodies of Paulinus and of Bartholomew. To these Francesco Dini, not sufficiently mindful that he had before, propped by three hundred authors, attributed the translation to Otto II, page 9: There is laid open, he says, antiquity and the truth of the matter, both by the setting down of a fixed day and month, and by the style of the verses, utterly barbarous; and credit is increased, because the two last verses were set down on marble sufficiently ancient in Lombard letters on the lintel of that same church, and still remain, the more ancient inscription, the porch being renewed, and that same church often, having been carelessly lost.

[229] assailed by Orsini with many reasons, Many things against the antiquity of this inscription the Beneventans object, which I shall here relate in their own words. The most eminent Orsini says, art. 3: I answer that the aforementioned restoration is fictitious, as is also the inscription which is read … This is proved by the silence of all, as many as have written, both of the more ancient and of the more recent historians: for if the matter had so stood,

neither would the emperor Frederick have been silent about it in his letters (if however, as Baronius supposes, they are true) in the year MCLXVII. Nor would Godfrey of Viterbo, nor Martin the Pole, later than the alleged restoration, nor Egnazio, nor Platina, nor Sigonio, nor Nauclerus, nor other more recent writers, have asserted the translation made by Otto II, nor would Baronius himself, in the notes to the Martyrology on the day XXV of August (if he had then judged these things true) have fallen into so splendid a contradiction, (that is, he would not have attributed the translation to Otto II, which afterwards he tacitly retracts.) Besides, if by the judgment of Paschal II in the year MCXIII a decree had been made about the body of St. Bartholomew: why did abbot Suger of St. Denis in the year MCXXII, that is, nine years afterwards, leaving Rome, hasten to Benevento to honor the Apostle's relics? Why did the diplomas of so many following Pontiffs … confirm that the Apostle's body rests at Benevento? For shall we blurt out rather that they were ignorant of the decree of Paschal II, and of that public inscription? God forbid. Nevertheless, it is established that those who have pursued the affairs of Paschal II employed every diligence as regards the consecrations of churches, restorations, and the findings and translations of relics; as may be seen in Platina and Ciacconio; but neither did they write anything about this restoration. Oldoino lately related it in his Additions to Ciacconio: but whence or from what monument he dug it out, he did not inform us. He then argues that the Indiction in that year was the sixth, whereas the seventh is written.

[230] No one, as I think, will deny that the things proposed against that inscription, and liable to other difficulties; insofar as the body of St. Bartholomew is said to be kept there, are arguments not to be despised; although they are only negative, so far as they assail the restoration of the church made by Paschal, and to that extent less strong. But what, besides what has already been said, makes the credit of that inscription less certain, I shall disclose to the learned reader. These verses seem to me not to have been set there at one and the same time: for I do not perceive why to the first hexameter they should have subjoined a pentameter; but to the second hexameter should have added another hexameter, if these had been alike carved upon the lintel. Add that the first two little verses make a complete sense, as also the two last. Which seems to be confirmed by this, that Francesco Dini relates that the last two little verses remained, the rest being removed. If therefore there is room for conjecture, the first verses, which have nothing contrary to the Beneventan tradition, could have been set up in the time of Paschal II, but the later ones added afterwards. However that be, this seems to me manifest enough, that the inscription was not set up by the Pontiff himself, since this would not have been passed over in the inscription itself, and the year of his Pontificate would have been added. I shall subjoin below another argument also, which seems to me to contain against all the foundations of the Romans no light difficulty. But other arguments of the Roman tradition must first be related.

[231] Francesco Dini subjoins to this inscription certain very ancient verses, certain ancient verses, Which, he says on page 9, before the restoration of the church and of the chapel of that same Apostle, were read in the chapel of St. Bartholomew, and which I found copied out in a certain writing of a character of nearly two centuries, in which these things about St. Bartholomew: India flays Bartholomew, the island holds him. That these verses were written in the year 1180 seems to be sufficiently proved from the first, if all things have been faithfully cited by Dini; but the verses themselves hang together among themselves almost like a sick man's dreams, so that they seem to have been composed by a man utterly unlearned and no less inept: wherefore these verses make nothing greatly to the point. I pass on therefore to the authority of the emperor Frederick the first.

[232] the constitution of the emperor Frederick I, In the year 1167 Frederick I is said to have published a constitution for settling the doubt of which we are treating. The whole of this Cardinal Orsini relates in his Dissertation, but so many things in it he shows so many errors and historical slips that Francesco Dini preferred merely to name it rather than to exhibit it to the readers' eyes; answering, page 114: That Frederick was not a historian nor an annalist, and asserted nothing of these things except upon the credit of the great man of Freising. From which answer, and from the very words of the constitution, the reader easily gathers that, whether the constitution is to be attributed to Frederick or to be adjudged away from him, by it nothing is added to the authority of Otto of Freising, whom it follows: We, he says, for searching out the truth of this matter, and removing from the hearts of men all doubtfulness, have turned over the annals of our predecessors, the catholic emperors, and in the sixth book of those Annals (namely of Otto of Freising, whom in book 6, chapter 25, we cited above) we have found how the emperor Otto II carried the venerable body of the most holy apostle Bartholomew from Benevento to Rome, and most gloriously placed it in the Lycaonian island, and in a tomb of porphyry. And after a little he narrates the matter as him of Freising narrated it; whose relation the emperor seems to have wished to follow, that he might sear the Beneventans with grief; which the praised Orsini observes in these words: But if thou seek the cause in Frederick for writing letters of this kind, a recent hatred against the Beneventans will occur; for in that same year MCLXVII they had honorably received Alexander III, Supreme Pontiff, after the wicked emperor, zealous for the pseudo-pope, began to contrive every kind of crime against the apostolic See and its Pontiff, as the anonymous of Cassino, and Romuald of Florence in Baronius, num. V at the year MCLXVII, report.

[233] The synodal Acts of Alexander III hinted at by Baronius, but never produced, Baronius at the year 1000, num. 6, hints that this controversy was treated of by Alexander III in a certain council: for after mentioning the letters of the emperor Frederick, There are added, he says, to these the synodal Acts under Alexander III, of which we must speak in their place below. But the most learned man did not perform what he promised; so that he seems to have found nothing in these Acts which pertained to this controversy, or, if he found anything, not to have approved it. The most eminent Orsini, art. 6, after he has shown that nothing was produced from these Acts which belongs here, and that Baronius, who accurately described the Acts of both councils celebrated by Alexander III, did not even mention Bartholomew, thus concludes: Since therefore he (Baronius) did not bring forward (the synodal Acts) that plainly demonstrates that they are certainly still wanting; nor were such things ever devised in those councils.

[234] a certain paper relating the consecration of the church Yet Francesco Dini brings forward, pages 12 and 13, not indeed synodal Acts, but a certain ancient tablet of the church of St. Bartholomew, from which, because it was blotted out by age, he says a new tablet was made, of which he recites certain records: but, as they appear to me, so ruinous that I would not write them out here, unless I conjectured that from them perhaps Baronius thought that this matter was treated of in the Lateran council under Alexander III. Thus, further, the first record of that tablet has it in Dini cited: In the name of God, Amen. In the year of the Lord MCLXXIX, in the XII Indiction, in the month of March, Pope Alexander III celebrated a synod at Rome in the basilica of the greater church, the Lateran. All the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and an infinite multitude of clerks, who from divers parts of the world were gathered in this famous city in the aforesaid synod, came to the church of St. Bartholomew, and there, reverently celebrating the office of Mass over the Apostle's body, solemnly offered sacrifice to God, and consecrated the said church of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, and set there a very great indulgence. But after the preaching publicly made by him to the people from the pulpit, he ordered that in the confessio the name of the apostle Bartholomew should be earnestly named by the great celebrating deacon,

the Cardinal of St. Mary in Portico; and the supreme Pontiff himself in the absolution honorably named the name of the aforementioned Apostle, and after the celebration of the Mass granted a station in each several year on the feast of St. Paulinus.

[235] Against this record thus Orsini: How much it (the paper) is to be esteemed, of St. Bartholomew, and containing other less likely matters, let it stand by the judgment of those who have saluted the sacred rites only from the vestibule; since it invents that Mass was first celebrated by the Pontiff, and afterwards the church dedicated. Let the studious reader observe how many things are here feigned to have been done at one time: the Pontiff solemnly celebrates, dedicates the church, grants an indulgence, preaches a sermon, then, the Mass being celebrated, appoints a station in each several year on the feast of St. Paulinus; let these things be likely to those who think they could be done as quickly as they are feigned; to me they are not likely.

[236] There follows on page 13 this shred, in no way better than the preceding: certain like shreds unworthy of credit. Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, confirmed all the indulgences granted by his predecessors, and also the supreme Pontiff himself granted a great indulgence to those coming to the church of St. Bartholomew the apostle, truly penitent and confessed, because he saw and kissed the body of SS. Bartholomew the apostle and Paulinus the confessor. After which another is added in the name of Celestine III, and yet another of Anacletus II the antipope, not unlike this; which if anyone rightly weighs, he will find that they were written by an unskilled man. These, or like records, I suspect Baronius saw, but thought them unworthy of credit; although hence he might have hoped that he would find the synodal Acts themselves and the diplomas of the Pontiffs. But if they took such negligent care to preserve the bulls of their privileges, they do not deserve that the reader should give credit to such shreds. The aforesaid Dissertator then subjoins on page 14, from the same bundle, as he says, these words: From a manuscript codex of the Lives of the Saints, which is had in the library of the congregation of the Oratory, the body of St. Paulinus seems to be joined to St. Bartholomew in the island, in the church of St. Adalbert, which now is called St. Bartholomew's, by the merits of which three Saints very many benefits are there bestowed. How faithfully these things are cited is not clear to me, but that they make not much to the point the reader will easily understand.

[237] It is not lawful in this place to dissemble a difficulty which the Beneventans can set against all the arguments. Other difficulties against the Roman tradition: Baronius at the year 1000, num. 5, thus writes: In this same year the emperor Otto, returning to Rome from Poland, whither for piety's sake … he had journeyed to visit the sacred pledges of St. Adalbert the martyr (crowned with martyrdom in the year 997, as the same at that year, and Pagi, have it), brought with him the sacred relics of that same martyr, for which, that they might be placed there, he took care that a church should be raised in the Tiber island. That these sacred pledges were the Hand of the martyr, he relates in the same place from an appendix to his Life. At num. 6 he says: But Otto, that he might adorn the church he had begun at Rome with as many sacred relics of the Saints as he could, took counsel that he would lead the body of St. Bartholomew the apostle, resting at Benevento, thence to Rome. And at num. 8: But it came to pass

that, upon the bringing in of the body of St. Bartholomew into the church begun under the title of St. Adalbert the martyr, it passed over into the name and worship of that same Apostle, and the memory of Adalbert in this way was little by little blotted out in oblivion. This relation of the most eminent man, if the thing was done at all, seems to me the best of all. But it is not without difficulties; one of which the praised author touches and tries to solve, num. 9, in this manner:

[238] that the church of St. Bartholomew was built in a lesser form, But if thou ask, he says, why the body of so great an Apostle was not laid up in some one of the most ample basilicas, but in a church in no way to be compared with the patriarchal basilicas: several causes can be brought forward, either because, as most say,

Otto, being about to carry it into Germany, willed to place it there only for a time: or because the church which

he began to build, seeking, as thou hast heard, to ennoble it with as many relics as possible, and to render it most renowned by the Apostolic pledge, he would, if he had lived, have built in a far more august form. By the first of these answers Baronius does not solve the difficulty for himself, for he himself neither believed nor wrote that Otto III carried off the sacred bones from Benevento with the intention of translating them into Germany, but that he might enrich with them the church of St. Adalbert. Others indeed wrote this of Otto II, but none of the ancients, whom I have seen, of Otto III. The second answer of Baronius seems to me less

probable: for since Otto brought many bodies of Saints, as Baronius himself narrates, into that church, the church seems to have been brought to its summit while he was still alive; nor do I see why he should first have wished to build it in a lesser form, but afterwards to build it more august; unless perhaps Baronius meant certain ornaments to be added to the church, which it is likely he wished to do, but this does not dissolve the difficulty about the lesser form of the church.

[239] and that it was at first dedicated to St. Adalbert, not to Bartholomew. But another difficulty remains here. For in the year one thousand the church of St. Adalbert is said to have been begun, in the same year the venerable body of St. Bartholomew to have been translated and placed in the said church. Now I do not understand why Otto should have willed the body of St. Bartholomew to be brought there, and meanwhile should have willed the church to be built for one, and dedicated to another, whose body he had not brought there, but some part of the body, namely a hand, or, as others call it, an arm. Did the emperor then so honor the Apostle as to carry off his body from the Beneventans even against their utmost will? And did he again so despise him as to will that he should lie hid under the shadow of a martyr for whom he was building a church? If he made so much of Bartholomew, why did he not order the church to be dedicated in his name? If so little, why did he not leave their Patron to the Beneventans? This difficulty occurs to me in this deed, which I myself cannot remove from myself, unless I would suspect that not the body itself, but some relics of St. Bartholomew, were brought into the church of St. Adalbert, which afterwards, as fame grew, as happens, began to be called the body. I know indeed that subtleties of this kind are not to be greatly esteemed where the historical truth is sufficiently proved from elsewhere; but the Beneventans contend that this translation is not sufficiently proved. Now we must pass to another argument, which Baronius seems to have greatly esteemed.

[240] This most eminent author at the year cited, num. 7, wrote the following: The testimony of Robert of Mont, Further, necessity compelled that after much time those same sacred relics of the Apostle should be uncovered, which Robert, who added an Appendix to Sigebert, … thus relates. Receive the words of Robert of Mont from the Appendix at the year 1157: About this time, he says, a not small flood of the Tiber having taken place, at Rome, in a certain island of that same river, in an ancient little church, there was found in a certain sarcophagus the body of blessed Bartholomew the apostle, wholly entire, except the hide, which remained at Benevento, when the emperor Otto, that same city being taken, translated the body of the aforesaid Apostle to Rome, as the bronze tablets show, written in Greek and Latin letters, which were found in the Apostle's body. There was found also in that same church the body of Paulinus, bishop of Nola. Thus Robert, not expressing whether to Otto II or to the third the translation is to be ascribed. Strongly, as is their wont, and sharply, the Beneventans assail this relation of Robert, art. 4, whose reasons I shall reduce to a compendium.