BLESSED, saint.—Apostle of Switzerland; nothing is known about him. A 16th-century legend made him a disciple of the Apostles. Some hold him to be a saint who never existed, while others, considering the traces of a cult visible since the 12th century, regard him as an Anglo-Saxon monk who went to Switzerland around the 6th century. There are those who identify him with the same figure as St B. of Vendôme of the 9th century. On the state of the question cf. H. Moretus, La légende de s. Béat, apôtre de Suisse (in Analecta Bollandiana, 26 [1907], pp. 423-53).
BEATO, SANTO
