Sts. Gervase and Protase

St. Gervase and St. Protase, along with St. Paul, explaining to St. Ambrose where their bodies may be found     In Milan, Saints Gervasius and Protasius. The Judge Astasius ordered that Gervase beaten to death with leaded scourges and Protase beated with sticks and beheaded. By divine revelation blessed Ambrose discovered their bodies, flecked with blood and incorrupt as if they had just died that day. During the translation The movement of a saint's body to a place of reverence such as a special chapel of their bodies a blind man gained his sight by touching the bier and many were set free who had been possessed by demons.

Gervasius and Protasius were among the earliest martyrs in Milan. Not much more than that is known of them (Butler, II, 583f). Sons of St. Vitalis and St. Valeria, who also were martyred for the Lord's sake (the father at Ravenna, and the mother at Milan), these two saints were martyred under Nero at Milan. Gervase was beaten to death, and Protase, after having been scourged, was beheaded. St. Ambrose discovered their bodies in 386. Their names are included in the litanies of the saints. Loquetur Dominus pacem in plebem suam: et super sanctos suos, et in eos, qui convertuntur ad ipsum. * Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam, avertisti captivitatem Jacob. The Lord will speak peace unto His people: and unto His saints: and unto them that are converted to Him. * O Lord, Thou hast blessed Thy land: Thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. (Introit: Psalm 84:9,2 from the Introit of Mass) Deus, qui nos annua sanctorum Martyrum tuorum Gervasii et Protasii solemnitate laetificas: concede propitius; ut, quorum gaudemus mentis, accendamur exemplis.O God, who year by year dost gladden us by the solemnity of Thy holy martyrs Gervase and Protase, mercifully grant that we, who rejoice in their merits, may be inspired by their examples. (Collect) These twin brothers died as martyrs at Milan about the year 170. They belong to the illustrious saints of the ancient Church. Little is known about their lives. The finding of their remains by St. Ambrose is well attested (386). St. Augustine, himself a witness, describes the event very dramatically in his Confessions (9, 7). St. Ambrose requested to be buried alongside the bodies of Sts. Gervase and Protase. In the year 1864 their relics were found under the high altar of the old Milan basilica in a sarcophagus of porphyry, and together with the remains of St. Ambrose were honorably re-entombed. THE STORY According to the Golden Legend, a Roman general named Astacius was told the gods would not answer his prayers unless the twin brothers Gervasius and Protasius would sacrifice to them. The twins were sons of St. Vitalis, and being Christian they refused to sacrifice. Consequently Astacius had Gervasius beaten to death with a leaden scourge and then ordered Protasius beheaded. The Golden Legend adds that two centuries later St. Ambrose was praying when in a vision he saw each saint in a white tunic and mantle (colobio et pallio induti) and wearing short boots (caliculi). They were accompanied by St. Paul, who directed Ambrose to where he could find the bodies of these martyrs (Graesse 355, Ryan 327). This vision is the source of the painting shown at the top of this page, with Ambrose on his knees, Paul with long beard and balding from the front, and the two youths in white. Their colobia are sleeved, as they would probably not be in Ambrose's time, and the artist has suppressed the boots, but otherwise the image is very faithful to what the Legend reports. One source of the account of Ambrose's vision is a letter thought to have been written by him to the bishops of Italy. One comment in the letter is of some importance to students of the interactions between hagiography and iconography. The saint says that he recognized St. Paul from having seen his picture (cujus vultum me pictura docuerat, Acta Sanctorum, June vol. 3, 821). PORTRAITS The iconography of these saints is very unsettled, but a few features are relatively constant. Usually the twins are portrayed as handsome young men. In the letter attributed to Ambrose he calls them iuvenes ephebos – that is, youths of about 18-20 years old (ibid.). The Golden Legend (ibid.) calls them pulcherrimi iuvenes – "most beautiful" youths. In another instance of the art influencing the hagiography, the adjective may have been influenced by the way the two had already been pictured. In the 6th-century mosaics at right, for example, they are shown as handsome and beardless young men. They are also beardless, if perhaps less handsome, in the 11th-century book cover shown below and in most later portraits. A few images from later times do give them beards, as in the 15th-century illumination below. That illumination also gives the saints swords and military garb, as does a painting of Protasius from the 16th century. Neither the Legend nor the Ambrosian letter says that they were soldiers, but their father Vitalis was an officer and a nobleman, so the assumption may have been that they had once followed in his footsteps, or simply that the profession of arms was appropriate for men of their age and status. The short boots, characteristic of soldiers, may also have supported such an assumption. In portraits without the military garb, the saints' attributes are a scourge for Gervasius and a sword for Protasius (example). In one curious case Gervasius holds both a whip and a sword, as if he had been beheaded after the whipping. A statuary group in Milan also seems to assume that both were beheaded, as they have identical swords as their attributes. Another attribute used occasionally is the hand cross, as in the book cover at right and in this mosaic in Sant'Ambrogio in Milan. The white tunic and mantle specified in the Legend are perhaps the most common attributes both in portraits and in narrative images, as in the painting at the top of this page and this painting of their arrest. In the Middle Ages the words colobium and pallium referred to liturgical vestments, which seems to be the reason that Gervasius and Protasius are sometimes dressed as deacons (example). From our beloved Abbot Gueranger: 'Up then, glorious brethren; teach us the royal road of devotedness and suffering!  Surely not in vain have our feeble eyes been granted to contemplate you, in these our days, even as did Ambrose; if God, after the lapse of so many ages. has once more revealed the sight of you, He must have intentions not unlike those He had in bygone times!  Therefore, dear saints, may He vouchsafe to raise up, through your intercession, mankind and our present society from the degradation of a fatal servility; to banish error, to save the Church, who cannot indeed perish, but whom He loves to deliver by means of her saints.  Doth it not behoove you, generous martyrs, to recognize by signal favours the prote3ction lavished by the successor of Peter on your relics, despite his own captivity?  May Milan be worthy of you and of her Ambrose!  Deign lovingly to visit the various lands both near your tomb.  France was specially devout to you, placing no fewer than five of her cathedrals under your glorious invocation; may she not look for particular help at your hands?  Oh! rouse once more her piety of bygone days; free her from false sects, from traitors!  Let the day soon come when she may step forth once again the soldier of God!'  (This seems like could have been written today, considering the state of the Church)