Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.
Saints John and Paul.
Martyrs.
Feast Day 26 June.
Double.
Red Vestments.
English: Basilica of The Holy Martyrs, John and Paul, on Mount Coelius, Rome.
The Lenten Station, for Friday after Ash Wednesday, is held at this Basilica.
Français: Vue d'ensemble de la Basilique
Santi Giovanni e Paolo de Rome sur le Celio.
Photo: May 2009.
Source: Own work.
Author: LPLT
(Wikimedia Commons)
Ten days were allowed for them to deliberate, and they used them in distributing all they possessed to the Poor. They were then arrested and "without fearing those who can only kill the body, and beyond that can do nothing more" (Gospel), they became, in 362 A.D., brothers more than ever, by the same Faith and the same Martyrdom (Collect, Gradual, Alleluia).
The Church compares them "to the two olive-trees and to the two candle-sticks, mentioned in The Apocalypse, which shine before The Lord." [Response at Matins.]
Basilica of Saint John and Saint Paul
(Santi Giovanni e Paolo), Martyrs. Rome.
Available on YouTube at
"These Just Men," she [Editor: The Church] adds, "have stood before The Lord and have not been separated from one another." [Antiphon at The Magnificat.] Wherefore, both their names, mentioned in The Canon of The Mass (First List), pass on from generation to generation, while their bodies rest in peace (Epistle) in the ancient Church erected in their honour on Mount Coelius at Rome. It is there that The Station is held on The Friday after Ash Wednesday.
Let us enjoy today, with The Church, the double triumph of Saints John and Paul (Collect) and let us, like them, courageously confess Jesus before Men, so that He may recognise us for His own before His Angels (Gospel).
Mass: Multæ tribulatiónes.
Commemoration: The Octave of Saint John the Baptist.
English: Basilica of The Holy Martyrs John and Paul, Rome.
Italiano: SS. Giovanni e Paolo - Roma, Italia.
Photo: July 2006.
Source: Flickr
Author: Patrick Denker
Reviewer: Mac9
(Wikimedia Commons)
The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.
John and Paul were Saints in The Roman Empire. They were Martyred at Rome on 26 June. They should not be confused with the famous Apostles of the same names (see Saint Paul; Saint John the Apostle). The year of their Martyrdom is uncertain according to their Acts; it occurred under Julian the Apostate (361 A.D. – 363 A.D.).
In the second half of the 4th-Century A.D., Byzantius, the Roman Senator, and Saint Pammachius, his son, fashioned their house on The Cælian Hill into a Christian Basilica. In the 5th-Century A.D., the Presbyteri Tituli Byzantii (Priests of The Church of Byzantius) are mentioned in an Inscription and among the signatures of The Roman Council of 499 A.D. The Church was also called the Titulus Pammachii, after Byzantius's son, the pious friend of Saint Jerome.
In the ancient apartments on the ground-floor of the house of Byzantius, which were still retained under the Basilica, the tomb of two Roman Martyrs, John and Paul, was the object of Veneration as early as the 5th-Century A.D.
The Sacramentarium Leonianum already indicates, in the Preface to The Feast of the Saints, that they rested within the City walls ("Sacr. Leon.", ed. Feltoe, Cambridge, 1896, 34), while, in one of the early itineraries to the tombs of The Roman Martyrs, their grave is assigned to the Church on The Cælian (De rossi, "Roma sotterrania", I, 138, 175).
Basilica di San Zanipolo, Venice, Italy
(Basilica of Saints John and Paul).
Photo taken by Necrothesp, 14 May 2004.
Date: 1 July 2004 (original upload date).
Source: Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons
by Padawane using CommonsHelper
Author: Original uploader was Necrothesp at English Wikipedia
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Titulus Byzantii, or Pammachii, was consequently known at a very early date by the names of the two Martyrs (Titulus SS. Joannis et Pauli). That the two Saints are Martyrs of The Roman Church is historically certain; as to how and when their bodies found a resting-place in the house of Pammachius, under the Basilica, we only know that it certainly occurred in the 4th-Century A.D. The year and circumstances of their Martyrdom are likewise unknown.
According to their Acts, the Martyrs were eunuchs of Constantina, daughter of Constantine the Great, and became acquainted with a certain Gallicanus, who built a Church in Ostia. At the command of Julian the Apostate, they were beheaded secretly by Terentianus in their house on The Cælian Hill, where their Church was subsequently erected, and where they were buried.
The rooms on the ground-floor, of the above-mentioned house of Pammachius, were rediscovered under the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome. They are decorated with important and interesting frescoes, while the original tomb (“Confessio”) of Saints John and Paul is covered with paintings, of which the Martyrs are the subject. The rooms and the tomb form one of the most important Early-Christian Memorials in Rome.
English: Frescoes in the original Roman house
below the present-day Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Rome.
Italiano: Roma , casa romana sotto la basilica
dei santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio - affreschi.
Photo: 3 October 2004.
Source: Own work.
Author: user:Lalupa
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, in Rome, is Dedicated to them, as well as the Basilica di San Zanipolo in Venice ("Zanipolo" being Venetian for "John and Paul").
The Lüeneberg Manuscript (circa 1440–1450) mentions "The Day of John and Paul" in an early German account of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
A small village next to Caiazzo, in the Campania Region of Italy, is named Santi Giovanni e Paolo, in honour of these Martyrs. Many residents of this village bear the family name "San Giovanni," as do the descendants of immigrants to The United States from this village (in particular, in Michigan, New York, and Florida).
As Zephyrinus notes, “the two olive trees”, “the two candlesticks” of witness, Ss. John & Paul, almost forgotten in today’s “modern” Church, were and are highly important testamentaries to ancient Catholic tradition. Mentioned in the “first list” among the martyrs in the Roman Canon, their house---where the Basilica of Ss. John & Paul today stands---was very near the Palatine Hill, a few hundred meters from the Colisseum, today near the Via Aventino, rather tucked away on the Coelian Hill.
ReplyDeleteWe know the two brothers were high-ranking Roman authorities, just by virtue of the "high-rent" address where their house was located, and by their service to Constantia. Unfortunately for them, Flavius Claudius Julianus, known to history as “Julian the Apostate,” marked his brief rule by unexceeded ambition, authoritarianism, and narcissism. Julian, having discovered the occult in a likely faked experience in a Roman temple according to Eusebius, became a believer in a weird mix of the Roman gods and Platonic philosophy: so he could not brook the thought of the two brothers in his close service and not worshiping his odd beliefs.
The brothers were martyred according to tradition on June 26, 362, probably at the praetorium of the Palatine Hill, or an unnamed Roman circus (perhaps even the Colisseum). Interestingly, for those who find symbolism in dates, exactly one year to the day later, June 26th, 363, Julian died in agony as the result of an infected lance wound to his liver after the Battle of Samarra in a God-forsaken area of present-day Iraq. His successor, Jovian, re-established Christianity by the following September. Sic transit gloria Caesar.
The house of the two saints was already a site of pilgrimage as soon as Julian departed the scene. As Zephyrinus notes, very early on, by about 400 AD, already an influential Christian senator, Pammachius, had built an oratory which was later expanded to a basilica over the site of the two saints’ house, and their bodies were interred under the high altar.
But this basilica is like a cat with 9 lives: It has experienced so much destruction and resurrection, over nearly two millenia: It was sacked by Alaric in 410 AD; devastated by an earthquake in 442; and sacked again by the Normans in 1084. About this time its luck changed: Cistercian monks came to care for the basilica, at which time the tower stands to the right and a monastery was built.
But by the end of the 15th century, the basilica was in ruins and declining again, a general condition of Rome in the late 1400’s. A series of religious orders occupied the site with varying success at maintaining the property, until finally the Passionists in December, 1773, led by S. Paul of the Cross himself, took over the basilica and began restoring it to its present quasi high baroque/neo-classical style. It is they who out of great devotion to Ss John and Paul rebuilt the basilica and grounds into a wonderful hidden Roman retreat: see the following:
http://www.passiochristi.org/the-convent-of-the-ss-john-and-paul/
Part II:
ReplyDeleteThe present-day Basilica, as Zephyrinus notes, has to the left of its entrance, “Scavi” or the “Case Romane” excavations, that were conducted in the 1890’s under the church by the Passionist father, P. Germano di S. Stanislao, who was verifying the site of the two saints’ burial under the high altar.
As Zephyrinus notes, a whole Roman street was brought to light, which the tourist can walk down and see literally where Ss. John & Paul walked and lived, including likely their houseL
https://www.frommers.com/destinations/rome/attractions/case-romane-del-celio
This basilica retains so much Roman history: As if the preceding was not enough, it was the cardinal-church of P. Adrian VI (d. 1523), and also of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli. It is also the tomb of S Paul of the Cross. It’s present condition is stunningly well-maintained according to visitors, and is off the beaten track from the sometimes noisy and irreverent tourists who habitually flood Rome during the summer: A good place to “duck into” to make a visit to the Sacred Sacrament.
So, the Basilica in their name still maintains the cult of two almost-forgotten but important Catholic Roman martyrs (In fact, their feast day was a holy day of obligation in Great Britain as Zephyrinus no doubt knows, dating from the Council of Oxford in 1222). Some contemporary “scholars” have questioned the existence of the two saints: Yet not one of them appears to have visited the Case Romane site, examined the Passionist archives, nor examined the unbroken line of witness from 362 AD to the present day.
As we would have expected: at least we know better.
A wonderful contribution, Dante Peregrinus. Mille Grazie.
ReplyDelete