JANUARIUS, Bishop of Benevento, Saint, Martyr, and Companions. — These are: the deacon Sossius of Misenum, deacon of G., Festus and the reader Desiderius, all condemned “to the bear” in the amphitheater of Puteoli; however, due to the delay of the judge Draconzio, they were beheaded together with Proculus, deacon of Puteoli, and the two laymen Eutyches (Eutices) and Acutius. So states the Passio.
Uranius relates that Paulinus of Nola, in the last days of his illness, believed he had spoken with his two fellow bishops Martin of Tours and G., who “episcopus simul et martyr neapolitanae urbis inlustrat Ecclesiam” (PL 53, 861). Gregory of Tours in 587 calls him “Genuarium Italicum” (In gloria confessorum, II, 107). But the details of the life and martyrdom of St. G. and his companions are known only from his Passio, of which there are two recensions: the first from a single Latin codex preserved in Bologna and thus designated by Mazzocchi, its first editor, as the Acta Bononiensia (BHL 4132); Bede made use of this in his Martyrology (II. Quentin, Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen âge, Paris 1908, p. 75). They were written around the 6th century; a second recension is that known as the Acta Vaticana (BHL 4115-17). These were translated into Greek around the 10th or 11th century in one of the Greek monasteries of Italy, as shown by the two codices, Vat. 1608 from Grottaferrata and Vat. 2072 “alim monasterii Carbonensis.” This translation was known in the East because the Synaxaria provided a summary of it (Synax. Constantinop., col. 59).
A Greek life of St. G., attributed to a monk named Emmanuel who is said to have written it at the command of Bishop Stephen, is the work of a forger of the 17th–18th centuries.
According to P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, the Acta Bononiensia fused the first part of the Passio of Sossius with the second part of that of St. G. from around the 6th century. The date of the martyrdom is given as September 19, which is also found in the calendar of the Church of Carthage from the 6th century, in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum of the same century, and in the stone calendar of the Church of Naples from the 9th century.
It must however be borne in mind that the multiplicity of dates found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum does not help to clarify the uncertainties of the Passio. Indeed, besides September 19, St. G. is recorded in the same Martyrology on September 7 at Benevento, on the 29th of the same month without topographical indication, on October 18 and 20 at Puteoli, and on October 19 at Naples.
The deacon Sossius is noted in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on September 23 at Misenum, on the 29th of the same month without topographical indication, on October 16 at Baiae, on the 19th at Naples, and on the 20th at Puteoli, while in the Calendar of Carthage he is given on September 23.
While the Acts attribute the martyrdom of St. G., Bishop of Benevento, to the year 305, Achelis proposed instead to identify him with the homonymous bishop of Benevento who in 342 took part in the Council of Serdica, was exiled, and put to death. This thesis was justly opposed by D. Mallardo (La Via Antiniana e le memorie di s. G., Naples 1939).
The relics of the martyr were translated to Naples in 432, during the episcopate of Bishop John I; shortly thereafter dates the oldest image of St. G. preserved in the catacombs named after him at Capodimonte in Naples, in the lunette of the arch of Cominia and Nictiola. The martyr is depicted as an intercessor in prayer between the two deceased:
For the catacombs of St. Januarius, V. NAPLES.