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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 9.173) of 599, to Fantinus, defensor of the papal patrimony in Sicily, seeks the recovery of property of the abbot of two monasteries, one dedicated to the Archangel (presumably *Michael, S00181), the other to *Erasmus (bishop of Antioch and martyr of Formia, S00867), *Maximus (probably the bishop of Naples, ob. c. 361, S02171) and *Juliana (martyr of Nicomedia, buried at Pozzuoli/Cumae, S01162); both monasteries presumably in Naples (southern Italy). Written in Latin in Rome.

Evidence ID

E06402

Type of Evidence

Literary - Letters

Major author/Major anonymous work

Gregory the Great (pope)

Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.173


From the opening of a letter that seeks to recover this lost property:

Fuscus abbas monasteriorum sancti Archangeli, quod Macharis dicitur, atque sanctorum Maximi, Erasmi et Iulianae asseruit constantium cellae suae presbyterum ob temporis qualitatem se in Sicilia transmigrasse et codices monasterii sui atque uela se cum pariter deportasse.

‘Fuscus, abbot of the monastery of the holy Archangel, which is called Macharis, and of Saints Maximus, Erasmus and Juliana, has asserted that Constantius, a priest of his monastery, due to the nature of the times, had removed himself to Sicily and had taken away with him some manuscripts from his monastery and clothing likewise.’


Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 730-1.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 651, modified.

Cult Places

Cult building - monastic

Source

Gregory's Register is a collection of some 854 of his letters as pope, collected into 14 books (each book representing an indictional year of his pontificate, from 1 September to 31 August) of varied length and deriving from the file-copies that were made in Rome and kept in the papal archive. The original copies survived into the ninth century, but were subsequently lost; from the late eighth century onwards, however, because of the exceptional stature that Gregory had by then attained, various collections of his letters were assembled from the original copies (the largest under Pope Hadrian I at the end of the eighth century), and these constitute the Register as we have it today.

The
Register does not contain all the letters that Gregory despatched as pope, since in some of those whose text survives there are references to other letters, wholly lost; but the collection we have is unique from the late antique period, and only matched in quantity and range of subjects by the registers of high-medieval popes. Recipients range from papal administrators, through prominent churchmen and aristocrats, to kings and the imperial family, and treat a wide variety of topics, from mundane administrative affairs of the papal patrimony to deep theological and moral considerations.

For the cult of saints, there is much that is of interest in the letters, but two particular concentrations of evidence stand out. The first is a clutch of around a dozen letters that mention requests for relics from Rome, or that accompanied small personal relics as gifts to influential correspondents. The second concentration of evidence relates to the dedications of churches and other ecclesiastical institutions in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. Because the papacy owned extensive estates in these regions, and exercised particular authority there, many of Gregory's letters mention churches and other ecclesiastical institutions, by the name of the saint to whom they were dedicated, thereby providing us with a rich panorama of the spread of both local and imported saintly cults.

Gregory's
Register has been the subject of two substantial critical editions: the first by Ewald and Hartmann for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica; the second by Dag Norberg for Corpus Christianorum. The numbering of the letters is often the same in both editions, but it can differ, because Norberg removed letters (and other passages) that appear to have been added at a later date to the original Register, assigning them instead to Appendices. We have used Norberg's numbering, which is that now generally used.


Discussion

Fuscus and the monastery dedicated to Maximus, Erasmus and Juliana are also mentioned in another of Gregory’s letters (E06401), in which it is stated that the monastery was in Naples. It is not entirely clear who the Saint Maximus of the dedication was; but the most likely candidate is Maximus, bishop of Naples in the 4th century, who died in c. 361 (S02171). Erasmus and Juliana both had established cult in Campania.

The monastery of the Archangel, which Fuscus also ruled, was presumably also within the territory of Naples.


Bibliography

Edition:
Ewald, P. and L.M. Hartmann (eds), Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum, 2 vols. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae I and II, Berlin 1891 and 1899).

Norberg, D.,
S. Gregorii Magni, Registrum epistularum. 2 vols. (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 140-140A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1982).

English translation:
Martyn, J.R.C., The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004).

Further Reading:

Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.),
A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).


Record Created By

AFrances Trzeciak

Date of Entry

12/12/2020

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00181Michael, the ArchangelMichaelCertain
S00867Erasmus, bishop of Antioch and martyr of FormiaErasmusCertain
S01162Iuliana/Juliana, martyr of Nicomedia, buried at Pozzuoli/CumaeIulianaCertain
S02171Maximus, bishop of Naples, ob. c. 361MaximusCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
AFrances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06402 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06402