Bishops and Martyrs

ON THE HOLY BISHOPS AND MARTYRS, VICTOR AND AETIUS, AT BARCELONA IN SPAIN.

IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

Victor, Bishop and Martyr at Barcelona in Spain (St.)

Aetius, Bishop and Martyr at Barcelona in Spain (St.)

Barcelona, an ancient colony of the Phoenicians and later of the Romans in Hispania Tarraconensis, Theodosius the first Bishop of Barcelona yields to no Spanish city in the antiquity of the Christian faith preached there by the disciples of the Apostles, and, accepting the tradition from its ancestors, believes that a certain Theodosius was its first bishop, and that he passed to the heavenly realms in the eleventh year after the death of Christ, while the emperor Claudius, son of Drusus, held the scepters of Roman rule. So Diago in his History of the Counts of Barcelona, chapter 6, and other Catalan writers, cited by Tamayo under January 27, on which day he himself inscribed him in the catalogue of saints — relying to such an extent on the forgeries of Pseudo-Dexter alone that by his sole authority he not only assigned him to the said day, but even asserted that he was still alive in the year 100 of Christ. Once this ruinous foundation was laid, he consequently also refers Saints Victor and Aetius to the second century of Christ, (whatever others have invented about Saint Etherius) notwithstanding that the tradition of the people of Barcelona contradicts this, by which they are thought to have been crowned with martyrdom under this same emperor Claudius, and therefore before the year of Christ 56. Tamayo excuses them, saying that being overwhelmed by the mists of uncertain tradition, they had not yet reached harbor, because the ray of Dexter had not yet shone upon them; and that hence it came about that they were ignorant of the age of Theodosius, and did not know that Saint Etherius had been bishop before him. But the people of Barcelona are in no need of this foolish kind of light; they were right to be ignorant of Saint Etherius as one of theirs, since he was only recently transferred, by a fresh plagiarism, from the Tauric Chersonese, where he preached the faith of Christ and died, to I know not what newly invented Chersonesian peninsula in Spain. We refute that fable on March 7. Therefore concerning Saints Victor and Aetius we hold only this, which the people of Barcelona received as certain from their ancestors: that they were among the first preachers of the faith. Their native land, age, and deeds oblivion has blotted out, and only the title of Martyr and of Sanctity has flowed down to posterity, together with the day to which each of them was formerly inscribed, which gave occasion for believing that Victor was consummated on April 4 and Aetius on August 14. These two are believed to have sat as bishops and died as martyrs.

Furthermore, we wished to give them here jointly, lest the same (and those few) things would have to be repeated twice. Vincent Domenech in the second part of his history related their memory as that of men not yet canonized. Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology accepted only Victor, and passed over Aetius. But since tradition holds that they suffered under Claudius, when no persecution raged publicly against Christians, Domenech and others consider it more probable that they were slain by the private hatred of pagans or by the sudden fury of a rioting mob, rather than by the command of any lawful magistrate.