Aspren of Naples

Saint Aspren of Naples (Asprenas) is held, by tradition, to be the first bishop of Naples, baptized by the Apostle Peter. He lived at the end of the first century and the early second, as archaeological studies of the early Neapolitan Church confirm, and his name was common under the Republic and the early Empire. The Marble Calendar of Naples attests his existence and says that he lived during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian and that his episcopate lasted twenty-⁠three years.

Nothing certain is known of his life. An ancient legend holds that Saint Peter, on his way to Rome, stopped at Naples and healed an old woman, Candida the Elder, whom he converted; numerous others became Christians at that time, among them Aspren, converted either by Peter or by Candida. He was sick and was cured by Peter, baptized and consecrated bishop of Naples, and Peter asked him to build the oratory of Santa Maria del Principio, the basis of the basilica of Santa Restituta; San Pietro ad Aram is also said to have been built then.

After his repose numerous miracles were attributed to him, and his tomb lay in the oratory of Santa Maria del Principio, though some scholars place it in the Catacombs of San Gennaro, where images of the first fourteen Neapolitan bishops are found. John IV, bishop of Naples, moved his relics to the basilica of Santa Restituta, to the chapel dedicated to Aspren. In 1673 he was named the second, after Saint Januarius, of the large group of more than fifty patron saints of Naples. He is commemorated on 3 August as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.