Saints Nazarius and Celsus

About Nazarius and Celsus only one thing is known for certain, and it’s this: in 395 Ambrose, bishop of Milan, found two bodies buried in a field just outside the city, and said they were theirs. The discovery is recorded in his biography, and it is a historical fact. Everything else comes from the tradition of the saints’ lives, which sets their story in the first century and makes them the evangelizers of half of northern Italy. Nazarius is said to have been a Roman citizen from a Jewish family, a legionary, a disciple of Peter, baptized by the future pope Linus. To escape the persecutions he left Rome and went to Lombardy; he passed through Piacenza and Milan, where, according to the story, he met Gervasius and Protasius in prison. Then he went on into Gaul, and there a noblewoman entrusted her son Celsus, who was nine years old, to him, so that he would take the boy along. From then on they travel together, a man and a child, and together, it is said, they were killed in Milan. The detail of the boy is what made the cult last: the two figures side by side, in all the Lombard churches dedicated to them, can be recognized at a glance. The basilica of San Nazaro in Brolo, in Milan, was built by Ambrose precisely to house those relics. It is still there. If your name is Nazario, today is your name day.