GAUDENZIO, saint, bishop of BRESCIA. – Successor of Filastro, born probably in Brescia, died after 406 (perhaps around 410–11). As a pilgrim in the East (Jerusalem), he became acquainted with St. John Chrysostom and brought back with him precious relics (e.g., those of the Forty Martyrs; cf. tract. 17). Elected bishop of Brescia while still young, he accepted the position only under pressure from St. Ambrose and other bishops (tract. 16). The election took place before 397, the year of St. Ambrose’s death.
His sermons, which became famous, were taken down in shorthand. Among his admirers was Benivolus, magister memoriam under Valentinian II (383–92), who deserves credit for preserving a large part of G.’s sermons. When, in 403, St. John Chrysostom was exiled, G. was among the Italian bishops sent by Honorius I to his brother Arcadius to intervene on behalf of Chrysostom. The mission failed (406). In the collection of the Epistles of St. John Chrysostom, Epistle 184 (PG 52, 715 ff.) is addressed to G. His friend was Rufinus of Aquileia, who dedicated to him his translation of the Recognitiones Clementinae and also mentioned him in the preface to his translation of Gregory’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. G. was therefore a Western bishop who had contacts with the Eastern Church and with Greek theology. Feast day: 25 October. His relics are found in the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Brescia.
G. sent Benivolus 10 Easter sermons (Tractatus I–X), together with 3 other treatises (4 on Gospel texts and one on the Maccabees). These texts, supplemented by Benivolus with the Tractatus XVI–XIX, were probably gathered and published by him in a book with G.’s preface ad Benivolum. Two other sermons have been preserved outside Benivolus’s corpus (tractatus XX–XXI). The first, on Peter and Paul, is a sermon delivered in Milan in the presence of St. Ambrose. The authenticity of treatise XXI on Filastro is debated; Glück (v. BIBLICA), in the preface to his edition (p. xv ff.), considers it the work of G. F. Nautin discusses G.’s influence on later authors (Hippolyte contre les hérésies, Paris 1949, pp. 208–12); Leo the Great’s dependence on G. in the Tomas is noteworthy (Nautin, op. cit., p. 213).