Domenico Gaeta

Domenico Gaeta was born in Ogliara di Salerno (SA) on 10 October 1868. He was converted in the 1890s, at which time he was a Sotto Brigadiere. His conversion sparked conflict ("guerricciuole") with his superiors in the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), and fellow officers for his lack of faithfulness "to the beliefs and customs of Holy Mother Church" (L'Evangelista, 8.18 (1 May 1896), p. 8) Though their superiors claimed to be 'Liberals' and not on the side of the priests, Gaeta and numbers of his fellow converts were moved to remote posts as punishment, and 'tenuto da tutti come una bestia nera e pericolosa' ('held by all as a black and terrible beast'). When he and another GdF officer commenced 'an evangelical work' around their post in Foggia, they were considered insane. Despite opposition from the local priests, they commenced house meetings with people keen to hear more about the gospel. Eventually, success in this work and opposition in the GdF caused Gaeta to resign from his post. Maselli notes that he was a 'seminarista' (presumably in the Brethren program in Firenze), and then took up work as a colporteur for the Bible Society, spreading the Scriptures from Piedmont to Sicily.

In 1902, Gaeta was circulating in 'the wild and difficult province of Chieti' (BFBS Report 1902, p. 74),and his 'sales were good, surpassing those of 1900'. In 1903, the Bible Society reported that his work in Chieti was 'greatly blessed', with numbers of small evangelical Churches being founded in the many small villages of the area. "Signor Meille was recently asked that Gaeta might be stationed in Caruchio, a small mountain village in the very heart of the Apennines, from which he could work the outlying districts. Although the place is too small and too remote for a colportage centre, Gaeta will often visit it, and it is hoped that much good may result from his labours." (BFBS Report 1903) In 1913, he was in Genoa: offering in the bible "Nothing less than life eternal" to a cynical carpenter, "the unexpected answer made no apparent impression ... but a woman standing near had heard all that was said, and she came forward and bought the Testament." At Cascinelli, north of La Spezia, a locksmith wondered that the small book he was offered could be 'the whole bible' when the Latin tomes in Churches were so huge. "The colporteur assured him that the book now before him was the whole Bible, the Bibbia vera, and that it expressed God's love towards us in language and in accents we could all understand -whereupon the locksmith purchased it." (BFBS Report 1913, p. 96)

In 1920 he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and, with a new sense of mission, he joined his sister's family in Ogliara di Salerno. In 1923, Camillo Russo (1901–1984) and his family, and Aurelio Pagano (1900-1969) and his family, accepted Gaeta's teaching of the gospel. With the visit of Alessio Festa from Matera, some of these members were baptised in the Spirit. Soon, in addition to his family, some members of the Pagano family were converted and thus a small group of believers was formed. He died in Ogliara di Salerno in 1942. [99th Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, London: BFBS, 1903, p. 71]

Sources:

British and Foreign Bible Society, Annual Reports, for 1902, 1903.

Gaeta, Domenico, 'Il Colportaggio in Italia,' L'Evangelista, Anno VIII. No. 1 (3 January 1896), pp. 8-9.

Maselli, Domenico, Libertà della parola - Storia delle Chiese Cristiane dei Fratelli 1886-1946, Torino: Claudiana, 1978.