Chrysogonus, St.

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CHRYSOGONUS, ST.

Apparently suffered martyrdom c. 304 ad Aquas Gradatas, near Aquileia; venerated in northern Italy. His cult was brought to Rome, where his name was introduced into the Canon of the Mass. According to his legendary Passio, prefixed to that of St. anastasia, he was a Roman officer who became her spiritual father and continued to direct her by letter even after his imprisonment for the faith. He was beheaded under Diocletian in Aquileia. In Rome there is an early Christian church known as the titulus Chrysogoni, mentioned in an inscription of 521 and in the synods of Rome in 499 and 595. The legend of the saint apparently grew out of an attempt to identify the founder of the Roman church with the martyr of Aquileia.

Feast: Nov. 24.

Bibliography: v. l. kennedy, The Saints of the Canon of the Mass (Rome 1938). a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 4:418419.

[m. j. costelloe]