CONCERNING SAINT MARTIAN, BISHOP OF BENEVENTO IN ITALY.
From the Episcopal Catalogue of Marius de Vipera.
6TH CENT.
CommentaryMartian, Bishop of Benevento, in Italy (St.)
D. P.
The Acts of St. Placid the Benedictine Protomartyr, such as they are, drawn from a Manuscript by Surius, and to some extent illustrated by Mabillon, to be examined further by us on the 5th of October, first and alone supply notice of St. Martian, as though he was then Bishop of Benevento, After St. Maurus received in hospitality, when he was sent by St. Benedict into Sicily, to preserve the possessions, offered by his father Tertullus to Cassino, and in them to found a monastery. How long afterward he lived, is unknown: the Benedictine writers refer his martyrdom to the year 541: so that within the 11th and 30th year of the 6th century St. Martian seems to have flourished, about whom in the said Acts it is thus read:
[2] Thence, that is from the Caudine Forks, Placid the most blessed Father going out, came to Benevento; and by St. Martian the Bishop, for some days, out of love of the most blessed Father Benedict, with all reverence was received. There therefore the man of the Lord Placid, while he resided with the same holy Pontiff, … and by the holy Bishop and by all being asked, raised up a lame man; as is amply narrated in chapter 39 of the Acts: But saluting the holy Bishop Martian with a holy kiss, after some days, he came to Canusium a city of Apulia. More is not available from the ancient writers.
[3] Marius de Vipera, Archdeacon of Benevento, in the Catalogue of the Saints of that Church, makes him the 27th Bishop; the successor of Felix, even more unknown to us, piously dead; and, an old Manuscript Martyrology cited in the margin, existing in the public Library under the note of number 178, added to the aforesaid reception of St. Placid, that the same St. Martian, wearied by pious labors, reposed in his See by a holy end on the 18th of the Kalends of July. I fear lest this day was read arbitrarily, on the occasion of the then veneration of St. Martian Bishop of Syracuse: namely when the ancient veneration was established, but the day of death was unknown. But it was established, it is said that there was a cult in a church of his name. that he so excelled in sanctity of life, that he merited to have honors due to the Saints, and a temple at Benevento, raised to him outside the city (from which that whole region is named), today almost collapsed. The same things the same Vipera repeats in his Episcopal Chronology, published one year after, that is in 1636, where in the margin he cites the aforenoted Martyrology, as if in testimony of the temple erected under his name: but this too I fear lest it rather belonged to Martian of Syracuse, perhaps erected by Martian of Benevento himself, who wished also to be buried there, and afterward obtained ecclesiastical cult. Ferdinand Ughelli mentions the same in volume 8 of Sacred Italy, but only from Vipera: whom too alone we having, we have followed.