January of Bénévent

Holy January ( San Gennaro in Italian or Januarus in Latin), bishop of Bénévent, is a Saint Martyr recognized by the traditions catholic and orthodoxe. He died as a martyr in 305 close to Pouzzoles during the great persecution of Dioclétien.

Saint January is celebrated the September 19th and is one of the patron saint of the town of Naples. He is also patron saint of Rio de Janeiro from which the name comes from this city.

Life of saint January

Sources

Saint January is evoked by several old sources:

the episcopal list of Bénévent,
a letter of the Uranius priest who reports the death of Saint Paulin into 431,
a painting of the 5th century which decorates its Catacombe in Capodimonte (Naples) and represents the saint nimbus between two candles,
its passion is described in the Acta Bononiensia (6th century?) like in the Acta Vaticana (9th century?).

In addition, Alexandre Dumas devoted three chapters to saint January in his work Corricolo which reports the voyage of the writer from Rome to Naples in 1835.

The legend

Saint January would have been born towards 270 with Naples and would be the downward one of a former Roman family patrician, the Gens Januari. It would have been ordered priest then elected bishop of Bénévent in 302.

Towards 303-304, at the beginning of the great persecution of Dioclétien, two of its Deacon S, Sosius deacon of Misène and Proculus, deacon of Pouzzoles, were stopped with two gentilhommes, Eutyche and Acuce and were thrown in the prisons of Cumes by Dragonce ( Dragontius ), proconsul of Campanie.

In 305, when Constancy and Galère succeeded Dioclétien and Maximilien, Dragonce was recalled to Rome and replaced by Timothée and the imprisoned Christians with Cumes were slackened.

Learning this release, holy January, which had shared the pain of the prisoners, its Diocèse left accompanied by the Festus deacon and the Desiderius reader to come to share their joy. They met in a church around Pouzzoles and the bishop, assisted Sosius and Proculus celebrated the Messe there when it was made with the outside a great noise, follow-up of a long silence: a voice read the decree of persecution of Dioclétien that Timothée had given into force.

At the exit of the church, January cures one of its relationships paralytic and entrusted the two oil-cans to him which were used to him to celebrate the mass; then, with his companions and crowd, it went to Nola at the time of a walk which appeared a Triomphe. But Timothée awaited it on the place of Nola and questioned it. Condemned to died at the conclusion of this interrogation, holy January left unscathed roughing-hew where it had been precipitated; he was then whipped with blood and jeté in prison with Sosius, Proculus, Eutyche, Acuce, Festus and Desiderius. Then the seven condemned were led to the amphitheater of Pouzzoles (see seen air Maps.Google: Amphitheater of Pouzzoles) to be given in grazing ground to the deer but the lions, the tigers and the hyenas, although famished, lay down with their feet… Timothée, taken of a stroke, lost the sight of it but January returned it to him… In front of this miracle, five thousand of the thirty thousand spectators present required to be baptized by the saint; Somewhat aggravated Timothée (it is included/understood!) ordered whereas the head of January is cut, Proculus and Sosius and returned in its palate in Nola.

The two deacons were thus decapitated the September 19th 305 in the forum close to the volcano Vulcano de Pouzzoles (see seen air Maps.Google: Forum of Solfatara), then it was the same for January after the saint asked for, ordered and requested the torturer of thus make some, because this last did not find any more forces to do it; thus reinvigorated, the torturer cut not only the head of the saint but also one of his fingers. The torturer and the troops, parties to submit their report/ratio with Timothée, would have found it in his plundered and deserted palate: the proconsul was not any more that one formless and rotted corpse… and the torturer and his comparses would have perished asphyxiated by the pestilential emanations which the body of Timothée exhaled.

The night following martyrdom, the paralytic relationship that January had looked after collected blood of the bishop martyr with a sponge, as it was of use at the time, and fills of them the two flasks which had been used at January to celebrate its last mass then it took along the bulbs at it, with Antignano in Naples. A blind man of Pouzzoles to which holy January had returned the sight at the conclusion of its martyrdom recovered the head, the body and the finger of the martyr and placed them in a trunk which it took along to Agro Marciano (Fuorigrotta) to Naples; then, the body was transferred later on in the Catacombe known as of saint January, always in Naples.

For some, that would have occurred saturdays preceding a first day of May at the beginning of the 4th century. This day, on the way of Capodimonte, when the relic passed to Antignano, the woman placed the bulbs close to the body and the desiccated blood of the saint was liquefied. For others, it is the pope Jean I {{er}} which made place the remainders of the saint in this catacomb at the beginning of the 5th century.

Alexandre Dumas told this history, with many other details, in Chapter XIX of sound ouvage " Corricolo ".

The worship of saint January

In his account of the life of Holy Paulin bishop of Nola (353 - 431), the priest Uranius indicates that Paulin accepted, his death the day before, the vision of saint January and saint Martin, bishop of Turns, come to seek it to lead it to the sky.

At the beginning of the Ve century, the Neapolitan ones venerated the relics of saint January as the painting of time attests some representing the saint nimbus between two candles, in its catacomb in Naples.

Saint January comes at the head from the small hundred patron saint that the inhabitants of Naples were given. Those consider that the saint their granted his protection in 1497 against the Peste just as into 1631,1698,1767,1779… against the destruction as could have caused the eruptions of the Vesuvius.

Peregrinations of the body of the saint

As one saw higher, the skin of Saint January was placed into 306 in a catacomb of Capodimonte dedicated to the saint bishop martyr, in Naples.

In 831, Sicon, prince de Bénévent, besieged Naples and, victorious, left the safe life to the inhabitants because those agreed to give him the body of saint January.

In Bénévent, the body of saint January changed church into 1129 then secretly was hidden and walled in 1156 under the Master furnace bridge of the abbey of Montevergine to Avellino where one it redécouvrit in 1480 by restoring the furnace bridge.

In 1492, the king Ferdinand Ier of Naples obtained from the pope Alexandre VI the permission to bring back holy January in the Duomo San Gennaro to Naples; the relics entered there solemnly the January 13rd 1497; nowadays, they are always in this place, the vault San Gennaro whose construction was decided on January 13rd 1527 by the notable Neapolitan ones with an aim of saving their city of the Peste.

The vault San Gennaro

Frescos

The finished vault, the notable ones of the city decided to decorate it the Fresques representing the principal actions of the life of the saint by calling upon great painters of the time. But according to the account of Alexandre Dumas (chapter XX of the Carrocolo ), the Neapolitan painters decided that the vault would be decorated only by indigenous artists and swore that any rival who would answer the call would repent it cruelly:

Dominiquin, the Guide and the knight of Arpino ran; but the knight of Arpino was obliged to flee before to have even put the hand at the brush; the Guide, after two attempted murders left Naples in its turn: Dominiquin alone… listened to neither insults nor threats and continued to paint… when one day it was badly on its scaffold: one brought it back at his place, it was poisoned.

Then, the Neapolitan painters believed themselves delivered of any competition; but it was not as follows: one morning, they transfer to arrive Gessi, which came with two from its pupils to replace the Guide his Master; eight days after, the two pupils, attracted on a galère, had disappeared, without never more since one not intending to speak again of them; then abandoned Gessi lost courage and was withdrawn in its turn; and the Espagnolet, Corenzio, Lanfranco and Stanzione were main alone this treasure of glory and a future, with the possession of which they had arrived by crimes.

One thus finds the frescos following in the vault:

Woman curing a crowd of patients with the oil of the lamp which burns in front of saint January of Dominiquin,
Résurrection of an young man of Dominiquin,
Saint outgoing January of the furnace of Espagnolet,
Possédée delivered by saint January of Stauzione,
and the decoration of the cupola by Lanfranco (to which he refused to work as long as the frescos started with Dominiquin with the angles of the vaults would not be entirely unobtrusive).

The reliquary

The relics of saint January are preserved in a niche which is behind the high altar of the vault separated into two by a marble partition: a half-niche contains the bones of the saint, the other the two bulbs. This niche is closed by two doors of solid silver carved with the weapons of the king Charles II of Spain and closed by two keys of which one is kept by the cardinal Archevêque of Naples and the other by a drawn company with the fate that one calls the deputies of the Treasury.

“Court” of saint January

Saint January, of origin patrician, was to have his court as a patron saint of Naples: he thus has a procession of lower saints who recognize his supremacy and accompanies it when he leaves in procession; they are the secondary owners of the town of Naples.

Here how this army of saints is recruited “courtiers”: any brotherhood, any religious order, any parish or any private individual which make a point of making declare a saint that it affectionate owner of Naples (with in the chair saint January obviously!) has to only dissolve a statue of this solid silver saint and a necessary weight and to make of it gift with the vault of the Treasury of the cathedral!

The miracle of saint January

The legend of the saint (see higher) tells than in Antignano, previous saturdays the 1st day of May of the beginning of the 4th century, during the transfer of its body towards its catacomb, blood was liquefied when the two bulbs containing desiccated blood were approximate of its skin by its relationship.

This phenomenon was then attested for the first time at Naples on August 17th, 1389. To note that liquefaction did not require this day there that the flasks are approximate skin since, of 1156 until 1480, this one was secretly dissimulated under the Master furnace bridge of the abbey of Montevergine with Avellino! Since, the phenomenon occurs regularly at the time of ceremonies organized specifically in Naples.

Nevertheless, to date, in 2006, the Église did not come to a conclusion officially about the miraculous character of the phenomenon.

The “Miracle” of the Liquéfaction of the blood of saint January is usually celebrated three times per annum:

saturdays preceding first Sunday by May, dates birthday from the transfer of the skin of the saint of Fuorigrotta in his catacomb to Capodimonte, at the beginning of IVe century, where the phenomenon occurred for the first time;
on September 19th, goes back birthday to its martyr into 305;
on December 16th, dates birthday from the eruption of the Vesuvius of 1631 which made 4000 dead but by saving the town of Naples.

The ceremonial

The liquefaction of the blood of saint January is the object Cérémonie in Duomo San Gennaro: the blood, contained in the two hermetic bulbs laid out in a mounting is the subject of ostensions, vis-a-vis crowd. The ceremony proceeds in the presence of the archbishop of Naples, personalities of the area and thousands of faithful massed in the cathedral and on its square.

Generally during the ostensions, blood is liquefied - or even sometimes enters in boiling - by changing color and of volume (the simple one with the double), then the relics are preciously given under keys. In September and in May, the ceremony is repeated eight days during.

If blood is liquefied quickly, it is the sign which Naples will profit from all kinds of blessings and it is the general jubilation in the city. On the other hand, if blood is long in being liquefied or does not liquefy itself, it is sign of misfortunes to come for the city and the Neapolitan ones have less the moral one… They are included/understood.

That does not go to all the blows…

May 6th, 2000, whereas the cardinal opened the niche to take the mounting containing the bulbs for the ceremony, it noted that blood was already partially liquefied…

And there exist also cases where liquefaction did not occur.

Thus, recently in 1976, 8 days spite of invocations and ostensions, the contents of the invaluable bulbs refused to liquefy… it was the case also in 1849 whereas the pope Pie IX had come to attend the event…

For spring 1799, it was necessary some of a hair: Naples had fallen to the hands from the French and the new Neapolitan government, installed by them, wanted to sit its capacity while relying on the judgment of saint January; an not-achievement of the miracle of liquefaction could mean only the divine rejection of the new republican order founded by the French…

The French general Macdonald and his staff had come to attend the ceremony.

At six o'clock in the evening, no trace of beginning of liquefaction had appeared and the Neapolitan ones started to vociferate against the French. At eight hours always nothing and the climate turned to the riot. According to the account that in fact Alexandre Dumas in chapter XXII of the " Corricolo" ¹, Macdonald seeing environment warming up considered an aide-de-camp and tells him some words with the ear. The aide-de-camp… mixed with crowd with the faithful ones which was pressed to go to kiss the flask, arrived to the balustrade, was put at knees and awaited its turn.

At the end of five minutes, the canon took on the furnace bridge the flask containing blood perfectly coagulated; what was, considering the advanced hour, a great proof of the anger of saint January against the French, raised it in the air, so that nobody doubted the state in which it was; then it started to make it kiss with the round.

When it arrived in front of the aide-de-camp, this one, while kissing the flask, took the hand to him. The canon made a movement… I want to say to you, on behalf of the general-in-chief, took again the aide-de-camp, that so in ten minutes the miracle is not made, in fifteen minutes you will be shot… then it rose, and returned to take his place close to the general. Eh well? known as Macdonald . Eh well! known as the aide-de-camp, be quiet, general, in ten minutes the miracle will be made.

the aide-de-camp had said the truth: only it had been mistaken five minutes. At the end of five minutes, the canon raised the flask while shouting: It miracolo E fatto! blood was in full liquefaction!

But, finally, the French troops evacuated Naples a few days after - the May 7th - following the order of the Directoire given the May 4th: hadn't saint January been right, in the final analysis? One can wonder moreover so holy January would not be finally anti-republican - what would be explained by its origins! - because, in 1849, in front of Pie IX, when blood did not want to be liquefied, it was also a period when the republican unification of Italy was played!

--------- ¹ Contrairement to the original account of Alexandre Dumas, it is Macdonald and not Championnet which was in place in Naples at this time there: Championnet, dislocated of its station, was indeed replaced by Macdonald the February 13rd 1799.

The procession

The ritual of the procession of saint January started as of the end of the 15th century. It is held in Naples, according to a well established order. The Cortège goes vault of the Treasury of Duomo San Gennaro (usual residence of saint January) to the cathedral Santa Chiara - Holy-Claire - (place of worship of kings de Naples). To some extent, January, holy martyr of noble stock, regularly returns a visit of courtesy to its temporal successors…

The procession is currently as follows made up:

of the doors standards representing the vaults and churches of the districts of Naples open walk;
various religious brotherhoods follow, carrying the statues of the saints and holy out of money and gold which constitute " the cour" of saint January;
follows then the cardinal archbishop with the silver bust of Saint-January and the reliquary sheltering the bulbs;
the notable follow-ups of crowd close the procession…

Description that makes of it Balzac in chapter XXI of the " Corricolo" however leave think that this beautiful order is not always really respected… In the course of road, the various saints of the court of January disperse to go to make a turn in their districts or their parishes then join Santa Chiara where they are inclined while returning in front of saint January to pay homage to him.

These processions proceed first Sunday of May as well as on September 19th if it is one Sunday or Sunday following on September 19th when it is not the case.

In September, the festival of San Gennaro is celebrated by all Neapolitan world, in particular with New York where large a parade takes place.

Blood which makes run much ink…

One in vain makes and says in vain: a miracle, it is a miracle! There are those which believe in it (and they believe in it) and those which do not believe in it (and they do not believe in it)… and as the article Miracle indicates it the proven existence of the miracles is thus naturally a subject of stormy debates between believers (religious or esoterists) and skeptics (generally qualifying rationalists).

Among the miracles, that of the liquefaction of the blood of saint January constitutes a subject of controversy of first choice: it one of these old miracles is conveyed by a simple oral tradition and to which neither the ones, neither the others can bring neither proof, nor contradicted but on the contrary a " miracle" quite material which occurs several times per annum, since centuries and on request! It is thus favourable so that each and everyone, of the largest thinkers to the local gazettes, while passing from now on by the blogs, is interested in it passionately!

Thus, and inter alia, evoked the miracle of saint January:

Voltaire (Thought, Remarks and Observations; posthumous work, 1802):

" It is equal for the people not thinking that him truths or errors to be believed are given, wisdom or madness; it will also follow one or the other: it is only blind machine. It is not thus of the thinking people; he examines sometimes, he starts by doubting a legend absurdity, and unfortunately this legend is taken by him for the religion; then he says: There is religion, and it is given up with the crime. That which doubts in Naples of the reality of the miracle of saint January is close being atheistic; that which makes fun about it in other countries can be a very religious man. "

Alexandre Dumas (the corricolo, conclusion of the chapter XXI, 1843):

" " Maintenant, that the doubt draws up its head to deny, that science raises its voice to contradict; here what is, here what is done, which is done without mystery, trickery, without substitution, which is done with the sight of all. The philosophy of the ten eighth century and modern chemistry lost their Latin there: Voltaire and Lavoisier wanted to bite with this flask, and, like the snake of the fable, they used their teeth there. Now, is this a secrecy kept by the canons of the Treasury and preserved from generation to generation since the fourth century to us? That is possible; but then this fidelity, one will be appropriate, is more miraculous still than the miracle. I thus like to better accept the miracle simply; and, for my part, I declare that I believe in it. " "

Alain (Matter of economic, 1934):

" Yes, took again Castor,… the money is not better known than the miracle of saint January. One is raised to see, one tells what one did not see, and the million goes per hundreds. Each one can fish in this river. One is not wearied, say I, to wash sand, as soon as one intended to say that one can there find gold. "

and also Sigmund Freud which uses an allusion to the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of saint January to conclude one of its analyzes (Of the psychic mechanism of the tendency to lapse of memory, 1898).

… and to work science!

The fact that a solid substance can become Liquide and conversely is not a supernatural thing in oneself: does each one know that while placing water in small suitable containers in the upper part of a refrigerator, it obtains ice floes and that these ice floes placed in aperitif glass disappear (as by miracle?) by cooling the soft beverage (those which want explanations of this surprising phenomenon can refer usefully to the articles fusion and Solidification … For as much, one seldom organizes a procession at home with each time this phenomenon occurs! - Though, if it is right to have fun the festival, that can be still included/understood… -

It is thus! any energy modification made to a substance can cause of such Phase shift: it is the case of modification of Température or of Pression but also more generally of any modification made to the energy substance interns whatever is the origin…

In the case of organic substances, that becomes complicated a little. Thus, it is not by heating desiccated Sang that one will succeed in liquefying it; one will at most succeed in (if one baits oneself) calcining it: blood was desiccated because water which it contained is evaporated and it is not by heating it that it will find it!

Nevertheless, it is possible to liquefy blood coagulated by breaking the Fibrine which imprisons the globules: the dissolution of blood by alcohol or other substances is a consequence of this mechanism; but " the ex sang" thus dissolved does not become again solid in the same range of temperature and, moreover, that goes only once! Moreover, nobody noted, that the cardinal of Naples injected alcohol or another substance in the bulbs during the ostensions!

But, first of all, do the capsules contain really the blood of saint January? Separately the believers who believe in it (obviously hard as iron - because there is iron in the Hémoglobine! -), there is of course no proof of it. An analysis DNA could possibly indicate if the bones and the contents of the flasks come or not from the same person; but even if it were interesting information, that would prove neither that the relics come from famous going down from Roman a patrician family (of which more is bishop and died as a martyr), neither that the flasks contain well hemoglobin of saint January in person, nor that the bones stray inadvertently and were discreetly replaced by those of any “Peking” or even of another famous lord, having nothing to do with that of the blood of the bulbs!

In 1989, to show that there was no trickery of its share, the cardinal of Naples made proceed by professor Pier Luigi Baima Bollone, director of the Institute of legal medicine of the university of Turin, with spectographic analyzes which showed that the flasks contained hemoglobin well (this eminent professor also carried out investigations on the Holy Shroud); well, but a question remains: do the flasks contain only hemoglobin? Certain sources indicate that, since 1902, of the analyzes by Spectrographie had already shown that… Ingenuous question: did spectrography make it possible as of 1902 to carry out such investigations?

Last great event of scientific investigation on the subject, the publication in Nature (October 10th, 1991, vol. 353 p.507) of an article entitled " Working bloody miracles" written by three Italian researchers of the organic chemistry laboratory of the university of Pavia (L. Garlaschelli, F. Ramaccini and S. Beyond Salted). In order to try to explain the miracle of saint January, without running the risk to be excommunicated (but while probably being likely to be trucidés if they go to Naples…), these three researchers carried out the following experiment: preparation of a solution containing 25g ferric Chloride hexahydrate in 100 ml of Water and slow addition of 10g of Carbonate of calcium; after Dialysis 4 days, the solution is evaporated until obtaining a volume of 100 ml. The addition of 1,7 G Sodium chloride gives a dark brown ground which undergoes a transition ground-freezing at the end of one hour. By simple mechanical agitation, this freezing is liquefied and liquefaction-solidification cycles it is highly reproducible. For that, they reproduced the experiment with iron chloride, wood ash, cooking salt, water and parchment as a membrane of dialysis, ingredients all known and available to the Middle Ages… The believers say that nothing proves that the flasks contain such a mixture and the skeptics answer them obviously that there is only to open them to check… In short, one did not leave there! ²

How for all good receipt, one finds alternatives… some would have thus arrived at the same result with a concoction containing and Spermaceti Paraffine! One cannot exclude besides that soon a work entitled appears: My hundred better receipts to make a success of the liquefaction of the blood of saint January. Poor martyr! won't it be turned over in its trunk? Notice, that would make a miracle moreover put on its account!

But finally, the important one, isn't this like says it blood will out popular wisdom only ?

------------------------------ ² progress of the physical methods of investigation should today make it possible to specify the contents of the bulbs without having to be likely to destroy their invaluable contents. Well… but, into final, that would be used for what: to destroy the illusions of those which believe in it to plunge them in an eternal disillusion, with the greatest satisfaction of the skeptics? or to destroy the assumptions of the skeptics who don't believe in it for the replonger in body lost in new searchs for natural explanations, with the greatest joy of happy credulous?

Denomination of saint January in various languages

German: Januarius
: Brazilian Januarius
: Spanish Janeiro
: Jenaro
: Italian January
: Latin Gennaro
: Januarus
: January
: Januário
: Januarius

See too

external Bonds

Sanctoral, elements collected by the abbot Christian-Philippe Chanut.
Alexandre Dumas (father), Corricolo, Chapter XIX: Saint January, martyr of the church
Alexandre Dumas (father), Corricolo, Chapter XX: Saint January and his court
Alexandre Dumas (father), Corricolo, Chapter XXI: The miracle
Alexandre Dumas (father), Corricolo, Chapter XXII: Saint usurping Antoine
Maps.Google: Places of the legend, Benevento with Pozzuoli via Nola
Maps.Google: Places of the legend, Pozzuoli with Capodimonte via Solferrata, Fuorigrotta and Antignano

Other sources

-----

Random links: