Castus and Cassius
Acta Sanctorum, May 22
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-22/castus-and-cassius.html
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ON STS. CASTUS AND CASSIUS,

BISHOPS, MARTYRS IN CAMPANIA.

HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.

On the legitimate cult, the supposititious Acts, the uncertain Relics.

Castus, Bishop, Martyr in Campania (S.)

Cassius, Bishop, Martyr in Campania (S.)

G. H.

Michael Monachus, Canon of Capua, in the Sanctuary
of Capua, diligently collected the things which became
known concerning the veneration and Acts
of these Martyrs, and among the four Calendars of Capua
drawn from very ancient parchments, the third and fourth at
this XXII of May, bring forth the Holy Martyrs Castus
and Cassius, [Sacred cult at Capua:] and in the third it is added that three lessons are recited.
Likewise in the second they are mentioned, the title of Martyrs being omitted.
We have an ancient Breviary of Capua printed in the year
MCCCCLXXXIX, in which the veneration of these Martyrs is prescribed,
and concerning them are had three Lessons to be recited at Matins:
but these, even in the judgment of Michael Monachus, rather
contain an encomium or prologue of the Acts, than the Acts,
to which the same Michael adds other lessons, which explain the Acts
of martyrdom more, from elsewhere. In them they are said
to be raised to the honor of the Episcopate, which Monachus thus confirms:
SS. Castus and Casius are believed Bishops
and are venerated by the people of Sora: for at Sora in an arch above
the altar, [and at Sora.] are their images with the miter and Pastoral staff:
Thither on May XXII proceeds the Clergy, who
being received by the Prefect of the citadel with signs of joy, there celebrates
a solemn Mass. When once Sora was besieged
by enemies, in the night the Saints were seen above the mount,
having in their hand a torch, and on the four sides of the
mount a vast number of soldiers distributed in the form
of a Cross. By which vision the enemies terrified withdrew,
and invading Cales the city in their way they laid it
waste.

[2] Thus far Monachus, in the Notations to the Lessons
from the ancient Breviaries of Capua: [the Acts borrowed from the Acts of SS. Castus and Secundinus July 1.] which Lessons we would subjoin,
were it not manifest to us, that they are word-for-word contracted
from the more prolix Acts, transmitted to us from Gaeta, of SS.
Castus and Secundinus, who suffered at Sinuessa, to be brought forth at
the first of July on which they are venerated, laid at Gaeta under the altar near the sacristy,
and brought into that city long before the year DCCCCLXVI,
as we shall then say. These therefore leaving
to the people of Gaeta, we give to the people of Sora those who are now venerated, as distinct:
although not without scruple; not indeed as to SS.
Secundinus and Cassius, whom their names sufficiently distinguish,
but as to Castus; fearing lest he be one and the same,
and, the Relics being divided into several cities, in one place joined to S.
Cassius, in the other added to S. Secundinus, with a common feast in both places
with this one and with that be venerated. Peter the Deacon book
2 on the Illustrious Men of Monte Cassino chapter 32 says: Gregory,
Bishop of Terracina, offered as a little boy at Monte Cassino,
of tenacious memory, lively in talent, was of so great
gravity, sweetness, and eloquence, that by some
he was called a column of the Church. He wrote the Passion of SS.
Castus and Cassius … the Chant of SS. Castus and Cassius: their Hymns…
But he was in the times of Alexius, Henry
and John the Emperors, at the beginning of the XII century. Would that these
his writings were extant unaltered.

[3] Concerning the time all things are equally uncertain to us, but we wished
to subjoin their memory immediately to the memory
of SS. Castus and Aemilius the Africans, [The Relics whether at Prague,] that the difference might more easily appear.

He who in the Ms. Martyrology of Monte Cassino at June XXI
is referred to as S. Cassius the Martyr, perhaps belongs here. By a similar
conjecture John Pezzina de Czechorod, Dean
of Prague and Bishop of Samadria, in the Diary of his
Metropolitan Church of S. Vitus at May XXII, indicated,
that in it is had a notable part of the Relics of Castus the Martyr,
brought from Lower Germany to Prague in the year
MCCCLXXII. But perhaps these are of S. Cassius: [at Cambrai,]
for Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium of Belgium, of his bones
says there are some at Cambrai in the church of S. Autbert of the Canons
Regular of S. Augustine; and a great bone in the Floreffe Abbey of the Premonstratensians at the Sambre near Namur.
Aegidius also Gelenius, enumerating the Relics
which are at Cologne in the Dutch chapel of SS. Willibrord and
Boniface, makes mention of one orb, in which from the bodies, [and at Cologne?] both
of eight other Saints, and of S. Cassius something was placed.
But who shall make it probable that all are of one? Finally
from letters given at Sora we understand, that there in the citadel a chapel
is consecrated under the name of S. Castus, but nothing
besides the bare name to this day with the title of Bishop
and Confessor is found in the books of the Cathedral church.
