Bishop of Brescia from about 387 until about 410; he was the
successor of the writer on heresies, St. Philastrius. At the time of
that saint's death Gaudentius was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The
people of Brescia bound themselves by an oath that they would accept no
other bishop than Gaudentius; and St. Ambrose and other neighbouring
prelates, in consequence, obliged him to return, though against his
will. The Eastern bishops also threatened to refuse him Communion if he
did not obey. We possess the discourse which he made before St. Ambrose
and other bishops on the occasion of his consecration, in which he
excuses, on the plea of obedience, his youth and his presumption in
speaking. He had brought back with him from the East many precious
relics of St. John Baptist and of the Apostles, and especially of the
Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, relics of whom he had received at Caesarea in
Cappadocia from nieces of St. Basil. These and other relics from Milan
and elsewhere he deposited in a basilica which he named Concilium Sanctorum.
His sermon on its dedication is extant. From a letter of St. Chrysostom
(Ep. clxxxiv) to Gaudentius it may be gathered that the two saints had
met at Antioch. When St. Chrysostom had been condemned to exile and had
appealed to Pope Innocent and the West in 405, Gaudentius warmly took
his part. An embassy to the Eastern Emperor Arcadius from his brother
Honorius and from the pope, bearing letters frorn both and from Italian
bishops, consisted of Gaudentius and two other bishops. The envoys were
seized at Athens and sent to Constantinople, being three days on a ship
without food. They were not admitted into the city, but were shut up in a
fortress called Athyra, on the coast of Thrace. Their credentials were
seized by force, so that the thumb of one of the bishops was broken, and
they were offered a large sum of money if they would communicate with
Atticus, who had supplanted St. Chrysostom. They were consoled by God,
and St. Paul appeared to a deacon amongst them. They were eventually put
on board an unseaworthy vessel, and it was said that the captain had
orders to wreck them. However, they arrived safe at Lampsacus, where
they took ship for Italy, and arrived in twenty days at Otranto. Their
own account of their four months' adventures has been preserved to us by
Palladius (Dialogus, 4). St. Chrysostom wrote them several grateful
letters.
We possess twenty-one genuine tractates by Gaudentius. The first
ten are a series of Easter sermons, written down after delivery at the
request of Benivolus, the chief of the Brescian nobility, who had been
prevented by ill health from hearing them delivered. In the preface
Gaudentius takes occasion to disown all unauthorized copies of his
sermons published by shorthand writers. These pirated editions seem to
have been known to Rufinus, who, in the dedication to St. Gaudentius of
his translation of the pseudo-Clementine "Recognitions", praises the
intellectual gifts of thne Bishop of Brescia, saying that even his
extempore speaking is worthy of publication and of preservation by
posterity. The style of Gaudentius is simple, and his matter is good.
His body lies at Brescia in the Church of St. John Baptist, on the site
of the Concilium Sanctorum. His figure is frequently seen in the
altar-pieces of the great Brescian painters, Moretto Savoldo, and
Romanino. The best edition of his works is by Galeardi (Padua, 1720, and
in P.L., XX).
John Chapman (Catholic Encyclopedia)
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