Blessed Jacobus de Voragine

Jacques de Voragine Jacques de Voragine Archbishop of Genoa, Dominican friar, and author of the Golden Legend. , or de Varagine, was born around 1230 in Varaggio, a town located on the Gulf of Genoa, not far from Savona. The names and social standing of his parents remain unknown. He had not yet passed his adolescence when he took the Domini can habit dominicain Religious order to which Magdeleine belonged. in 1244, and he soon distinguished himself by his zeal for study, no less than by his edifying conduct; he taught theology with distinction in various houses of his Order, and his talent for preaching drew general attention to him. In 1267, he was elected provincial of Lombar dy, a pos Lombardie Dominican province of which James was the provincial. ition he held for eighteen years; he was subsequently raised to the dignity of definitor.

In 1288, Pope Honorius IV, having heard of his prudence and holiness, entrusted him with the honorable mission of absolving the Genoese from the censures they had incurred through their disobedience to the Holy See by taking the side of the Sicilians who had revolted against the King of Naples. James discharged this delicate commission with the prudence that distinguished him; he so won the esteem of the clergy and the inhabitant s of Gênes Place of the saint's death and burial. Genoa through his virtues, his charity, and his mercy that when Charles Bernard of Parma, Archbishop of Genoa, died in the meantime, the metropolitan chapter designated him as his replacement. Upon his refusal, the Pope charged Obozzon of Fieschi, Patriarch of Antioch, who m the Saracens had Obozzon de Fiesque Patriarch of Antioch and administrator of Genoa. expelled from his see, with the administration of this important diocese. When the latter died in 1292, the chapter elected James by a unanimous vote: the Pope and the senate applauded this choice, the people manifested extreme joy, and the Dominican was obliged to yield.

Accepting with reluctance duties for which merely aspiring to them would be enough to make one almost unworthy, Jacques de Voragine understood the full extent of the obligations and responsibility that would weigh upon him. Devoted entirely to pious duties, he made it a rule never to leave his diocese. His ministry was crowned with brilliant successes in several important circumstances, and his persuasive eloquence achieved great triumphs. Through sheer zeal, he put an end to the divisions by which Genoa, like all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, was then torn; he reconciled the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. This peace, which had cost him three years of effort, was concluded in 1295; unfortunately, it lasted but a short time; the dissensions soon began again with renewed intensity; for two whole months, the streets of the capital of Liguria were true battlefields, and to appease such seeds of discord, it required all the devotion of the prelate, who threw himself, at the risk of his life, between the combatants.

The Archbishop of Genoa led a mortified and penitent life amidst grandeur; his charity was inexhaustible, the luxury of almsgiving being the only one he had not forbidden himself. A remarkable example of sincere detachment and religion practiced at a time when certain princes of the Church, forgetful of their character, often preferred political intrigues to the cares of the episcopate, and sometimes even found themselves involved in strange scandals. The Blessed James was regarded and venerated as a father, and he showed that he was indeed one during a famine that devastated the country; he stripped himself of everything he possessed to feed the poor who were in extreme need and to provide for the needs of the hospital; through his speeches he encouraged the rich to follow his example, and their eagerness to respond to his pressing invitations was for him a source of consolation in this public calamity. He loved the poor as if they had been his children and, when they were sick, he cared for them with his own hands.

The activity of this holy archbishop was such that, although he devoted all his care to his flock, he still found time to compose books that he believed were suitable for maintaining the piety of the faithful or for preserving the memory of events that concerned his church. He is credited with an Italian version of the Holy Scripture; the Legend of the Saints, know n as the Gold Légende dorée Work by Jacobus de Voragine containing the legendary life of the saint. en Legend, which we will discuss in our History of Hagiography, in volume seventeen; Sermons for Lent, Sundays, and the principal feasts of the year; a Table of stories contained in the Bible; a book On the works of Saint Augustine; an abridgment of The Sum of Virtues and Vices, by William Perault, a Dominican; a Treatise on the praises of the Blessed Virgin; a treatise on morality, or The Decision of cases of conscience; a Chronicle of the city of Genoa, which extends to the year 1277; the History of the archbishops of Genoa, his predecessors; and the Acts of the synod that he held in 1293, for the reformation of the clergy.

The pious archbishop enriched the churches of Genoa with numerous relics brought from Constantinople, during the capture of that city by the crusaders in 1203.

After having occupied the archiepiscopal throne for seven years, the holy Pontiff died on July 18, 1298, at the age of sixty-eight or sixty-nine; he was buried, as he had requested, in the church of Saint Dominic in Genoa, on the left side of the high altar, where he remained until 1798, at which time he was transferred to the church of the Friars Preachers, where he is the object of the veneration of the faithful. In 1816, Pope Pi us VII Pie VII Pope who authorized the cult of Blessed Rainier. approved his cult and permitted the Order of Saint Dominic, as well as the clergy of the dioceses of Genoa and Savona, to celebrate his feast.

Taken from his life by M. G. B. — Cf. Godescard.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. — VOLUME VIII. 19