Marcellinus

ON SAINT MARCELLINUS, TRIBUNE AND NOTARY

MARTYR AT CARTHAGE IN AFRICA.

In the year 413.

Marcellinus, Tribune and Notary, Martyr at Carthage (Saint)

BY G. H.

CHAPTER I.

The dignity of Tribune and Notary. The presidency of Saint Marcellinus at the Collation of Carthage with the Donatists.

[1] With the tables of the Roman Martyrology we set forth Marcellinus, a wise and religious man, Tribune and Notary in the court of the Emperor Honorius, Tribune and Notary of the Emperor Honorius, or, as Baronius prefers in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology, Tribune of the Notaries, a man most widely known by reputation; that is, from among those who were secretaries to the Princes, and who were customarily chosen for this from men of the most upright life. Dulcitius was also Tribune and Notary, to whom after the martyrdom of Saint Marcellinus the care of the laws and imperial orders in Africa was entrusted, as Saint Augustine writes in book 2 Retractations, chapter 59. Certainly in Cassiodorus Variae, book 1, letter 4, King Theodoric writes to the Senate of the city of Rome that the father of Cassiodorus, under the Prince Valentinian, son of the said Honorius, held laudably the dignity of Tribune and Notary: and that it was an honor which was then given to the distinguished, since for the Imperial secretariat such men were known to be chosen in whom no fault of reproach could be found.

[2] Since Saint Marcellinus was employed in that dignity about the year of Christ 405, the fury of the Donatists, as Saint Augustine witnesses in book 3 Against Julian the Pelagian, chapter 1, in the year 410, the Donatists raging in Africa, had seized all Africa, and did not allow the truth to be preached by Catholics against their error; devastating many things with violent assaults, robberies, blockading of roads, rapines, fires, slaughters, terrifying everything. This necessity, therefore, as is afterwards declared, compelled the Catholics, by sending four Bishops to the Emperor Honorius, to request that a Collation be held with the Donatists: so that, with the Acts of that Collation drawn up, the Catholics might batter their shamelessness and repress their audacity; in no way doubting that in that Collation the Donatists would lose the case. Then, and a Collation being requested by the Catholics, as Possidius writes in the Life of Saint Augustine, chapter 13, "by order of the most glorious and invincible Emperor Honorius, a Collation was held at Carthage by all the Catholic Bishops with the Donatist Bishops: for the accomplishing of which, he sent from his own side the Tribune Marcellinus to Africa as Judge," to whom there exists this rescript in book 16 of the Theodosian Code, title 2, law 3: "Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to their Marcellinus, greeting. Those things which concerning the Catholic faith either antiquity formerly ordained, or the religious authority of our parents established, or our Serenity has strengthened, with certain superstitions removed, we command to be guarded whole and inviolate. Given on the 4th day before the Ides of October at Ravenna, in the consulship of Varranes, a clarissimus." This is the year 410 previously indicated. This is part of a larger letter, from which the law seems to have been excerpted, or at least to have been inserted into it. In the Acts of the Collation of Carthage, printed among the general Councils, it is called an Imperial precept, which Saint Marcellinus as Cognitor ordered to be read, and in part 1, chapter 4, it is set forth thus.

[3] and the Collation, by Imperial precept "The Emperors, Caesars, Flavius Honorius and Theodosius, Pious, Fortunate, Victors, and Triumphators, Augusti, to their Flavius Marcellinus. Among the greatest cares of our Empire, reverence for the Catholic law is always either the first or the sole one: for we have done nothing either by the labors of war, nor do we order anything by the counsels of peace, except that the devoted people of our world should guard the true worship of God: which even the Donatists, whether by terror or by admonition, had formerly agreed to fulfill — they who stain Africa, that is, the greatest part of our kingdom, also faithfully serving in secular offices, with a vain error and superfluous dissension. We, however, are not ashamed frequently to repeat the same things which the devoted authority of all former Princes sanctioned in favor of God, lest in our times, if anything be done in injury to the Catholic law, posterity should by just judgment be able to impute this to us. Nor indeed is the word of the heavenly oracle hidden from our conscience, which the cruel interpretation of the Donatists professes to be able to advance their own error; which, although it gently invited depraved minds to correction, yet we ordered it to be abolished even before, lest any occasion be given to superstitions. Now also we decree that subreption be excluded by a similar authority, and deservedly we profess that we willingly remove those things which had been established, lest in divine worship anyone should judge that he can sin with us as authors. And although there is one and manifest opinion of all — that the full truth of the Catholic law has been confirmed by the right worship of men and the heavenly verdict — yet by zeal for peace and grace we have willingly admitted the embassy of the venerable men the Bishops, which desires that the Donatist Bishops be assembled at a council in the most renowned city: so that with chosen Priests, whom each side shall choose, disputations being held, manifest reason may refute superstition. We order this business to be unfolded within four months, so that our clemency, as it desires, may more quickly come to know the converted minds of the peoples. But if within the time set the Donatist Bishops shall studiously decline to come together, let the times of the contumacious be concluded by the summons of a triple edict, which being ended and passed, if when called they scorn to appear, let the people with their churches fall away, who shall have seen their doctors overcome in silence, and let them at some time rejoice that they are conquered: and let him know that if not to our commands, at least to the true commands of the Catholic law, they are to submit. Over this disputation we will that you preside as Judge in the chief place. he is ordered to preside. Whatever also you have received before in your commands, you most fully remember; and we will that you undertake all care either in gathering the Bishops or in summoning them, if they shall scorn to appear: so that, both those things which were commanded before, and those which now you know have been established, you may fulfill with proven skill: before all preserving this, that the things which concerning the Catholic law either antiquity formerly ordained, or the religious authority of our parents established, or our Serenity has strengthened, being freed from any recent subreption, you may guard whole and inviolate. That there may be no lack of suitable supports for your acts, our Serenity has admonished the spectabiles the Proconsul and Vicar, so that if they wish to retain the status of their own dignities, if they wish their staff to avoid the extreme punishments, they shall furnish in abundance the necessary men, both from their own offices and from the staff of all the Judges. It will be your duty, if you know that anything is deferred by any art, to indicate it by reports sent, so that deserved correction may punish the negligent. And indeed all things that either the disputation, completed by the Bishops gathered in one place, shall have confirmed, or that the sentence pronounced concerning the contumacious, when they desist, shall have established, it will be fitting for you to report: so that we may more quickly come to know what our command has effected for confirming the Catholic faith. Farewell, Marcellinus, most dear to us. Given on the day before the Ides of October, at Ravenna."

[4] Thus far the Imperial precept: to which Saint Marcellinus, striving to comply as soon as possible, he summons the Bishops for the Kalends of June 411, ordered by his edict the Bishops to be gathered, in which he has these words, reported in chapter 5: "Since the Principal Clemency willingly gave assent, and decreed a universal Council to be held within Africa, both parties duly asking for it; he willed me to preside over this disputation as Judge in the chief place. Wherefore I admonish all the Bishops throughout Africa, both of the Catholic and of the Donatian party, by the tenor of this edict, that within the time prescribed by the law, that is, within four months, which day shall without doubt be concluded within the day of the Kalends of June, let them not delay to come together at the splendid city of Carthage for the sake of holding the Council." And with many things interposed, he sets forth these words: "And since the most August Prince has willed to commit to me the full responsibility of so great a business, I also confess that I willingly accept this: prepared to admit a colleague, that if concerning my person any delay is brought forward,

I shall not refuse another Judge to sit with me, whom the Donatian party and faith themselves shall have chosen, of higher or similar dignity. But whether I shall be present to judge in this business with another or alone, I promise by the admirable mystery of the Trinity, by the Sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation, he pledges complete sincerity, and by the health of the above-mentioned Princes, that I shall judge nothing other than what the examined allegations of the parties shall have been able to demonstrate, and what fidelity shall have found to be true. Nor indeed can I keep silent that part, so that they may know, whether the sentence shall be given for the Donatists or for the Catholics, that the Donatist Bishops shall suffer no molestation in anything; but free, and remote from every kind of injury, they shall return to their own: and free return for the Donatists: which I promise by the dreadful day of judgment and by the Sacraments mentioned above that I will so do." Thus far extracts from the edict of Saint Marcellinus, the "Cognitor" as Saint Augustine calls him, in the Breviculum of the Collations written by himself, in which he well notes and he restores to them the basilicas in the meantime: that the basilicas without the order of the Emperor were restored to the Donatists who promised that they would come, so that in this way he might even by benefits invite them to confer.

[5] Saint Marcellinus the Cognitor sent another edict to the Bishops of both parties present at Carthage, and proposed to them the place and manner of the future Collation, and desired that both parties reply to him: which things are contained in chapter 10. The Collation was held in the secretarium of the Gargilian Baths, in the midst of the city of Carthage, a spacious place, light-filled and refreshing the summer heat, which they entered according to the prescription on the Kalends of June, he prescribes the place of the Gargilian Baths at Carthage. after the consulate of Varanes, in the year of Christ 411. All these things are explained and noted accurately in the Acts of the Collation themselves, with the whole apparatus of followers. Those Acts were written down by Marcellus the Memorialis, who confesses in the Preface that he had been taken by the spectabilis vir, in whom there is the highest mark of probity, the Tribune and Notary Marcellinus, as a sharer of his cares, not so much by his own merit, he takes as colleague Marcellus, who wrote the Acts. as by the consideration of the one esteeming him, and had shared with the judge the labor of weighing the disputation. These Acts are distinguished into three Cognitions, and are subdivided into 580 chapters: over all of which Marcellinus, a most illustrious man, Tribune and Notary, presided, being compelled to interpose nearly six hundred interlocutions, as Franciscus Balduinus numbers them in his History of the Carthaginian Collation: and he notes that Marcellinus acted not at all as an arbiter of new or doubtful law, but rather as an investigator of fact rather than of law; and indeed cognition rather than jurisdiction was committed to him; investigator and cognizer of fact, finally, a judge was given with a formula, as formerly private judges of private matters were given by the Praetor... How humbly, temperately, and modestly Marcellinus conducted himself here, the Acts themselves show.

[6] Saint Augustine in his Breviculum of the Collations concludes them thus, with the definitive sentence of Saint Marcellinus: "In the end the Cognitor said: If you have nothing further to read, deign to go out, so that the full sentence may be written about all things. And when both parties had gone out, he wrote the sentence, he gives the sentence in writing which, with the parties brought back in, he again recited, in which he embraced all that he could remember from the prolix action of the three days. In which he commemorated some things not in the order in which they had been done; yet he set down all truthfully; pronouncing the Donatists refuted by the Catholics by the manifestation of all the documents." that the Donatists were manifestly refuted, Most cruel enemies had at this time invaded the Roman Empire: Alaric, Constantine, Constans, Maximus, Jovinus, Sebastianus, Sarus, whom among others Baronius mentions in this year 411. That at the same time the Emperor Honorius obtained wondrous benefits because he benefited the Catholic Church by a remarkable example of religion, Orosius, a contemporary writer, testifies in book 7, chapter 24: "Deservedly, indeed, God granted such great things, because in those days, by the order of Honorius and with the help of Constantius, peace and unity were restored to the Catholic Church throughout all Africa; and the body of Christ, which is us, was healed by the mending of the schism; which is followed by the peace of the Churches. the execution of the holy precept being laid upon Marcellinus the Tribune, a man above all prudent and industrious and most eager for all good pursuits." Thus Orosius.

[7] That what was then done by Saint Marcellinus was confirmed by the Emperor Honorius, is clear from book 16 of the Theodosian Code, title 5, On Heretics, law 55, where these words are read: "The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to Julian, Proconsul of Africa. By the cognition and solicitude of Marcellinus, Honorius the Emperor confirms his Acts: a man of spectabilis memory, those things were done against the Donatists, which, transferred to the public monuments, we will to have perpetual stability: for public faith ought not to perish by the death of the Cognitor. Given on the 3rd day before the Kalends of September, at Rome, in the consulate of Constantius and Constans." This is the year of Christ 414, when Saint Marcellinus had already been crowned with martyrdom the preceding year. Many thousands of Donatists on this occasion passed into the bosom of the Catholic Church, as Saint Augustine attests, writing afterwards Against Gaudentius, book 1, chapter 29. many thousands of Donatists are converted, Possidius also in the Life of Saint Augustine, chapter 13, says that for this reason, more than usual, Donatist Bishops with their Clergy and peoples communicated; and many of those who before spurned the Catholic faith, while holding Catholic peace, bore persecutions even to the amputation of limbs and to slaughter.

CHAPTER II.

The familiar acquaintance of Saint Marcellinus with Saints Augustine and Jerome. His martyrdom and cultus. Whether his fatherland was Toledo.

[8] That Saint Marcellinus was most eager for all good pursuits, as we said above from Orosius, can best be confirmed from Saint Augustine, who dedicated various treatises to him (among which are the three books On the Merits and Remission of Sins and on the Baptism of Infants), and inserts these among other words in the Preface of the first book: [Saint Augustine dedicates to him the books on the Merits and Remission of Sins and the Baptism of Infants,] "Your zeal, dearest Marcellinus, by which you are more pleasing and delightful to us, I have not willed to be any longer a debtor to; and, to speak the truth, I have not been able. For thus charity itself compelled me, by which in one unchangeable we are one to be changed for the better; or fear, lest in you I should offend God, who gave you such a desire, by serving which I may serve him who gave it. Thus, I say, it compelled me, thus it led and drew me, to dissolve as far as my small strength allowed the questions which you imposed upon me in writing; so that that cause in my mind should for a little while conquer others, until I might do something by which it might be clear that I had obediently, if not sufficiently, served your good will and that of those to whom these matters are a care." Thus far Saint Augustine, who in the second and third books addresses the same Saint Marcellinus: Now he, after reading these little works, wrote back that he was disturbed, because Augustine had said it could happen that a man should be without sin, and having received a response if the will were not lacking to him, with divine help assisting: but yet, besides the one in whom all shall be made alive, none had been or would be in whom while living here there would be such perfection. For it seemed absurd to him to say that anything could happen of which no example existed. He sends the book on the Spirit and the Letter. These words are read at the beginning of the book On the Spirit and the Letter, which, on the occasion of the said response, Saint Augustine wrote to the same Marcellinus: who also dictated to the same the most learned 22 books On the City of God against the Pagans, with this exordium: Likewise the 22 books On the City of God. "The most glorious city of God... in this work, undertaken for you and owed by my promise, I have undertaken to defend, dearest son Marcellinus, against those who prefer their own gods to its Founder." And soon the work is begun about the capture of the City of Rome, so that it seems to have been begun about the time of the Collation of Carthage. And although, long before it was completed, Saint Marcellinus, crowned with martyrdom, had passed to a happier life; yet because Saint Augustine had written the earlier books to him, he willed the whole work to be dedicated and consecrated to the memory of so great a man, as Leonardus Coquaeus attests in almost these very words in the Preface to his Commentaries on the said books On the City of God.

[9] He sends him various letters and responds to questions proposed: There was also great communication of letters between the two, from which it appears that, in the midst of governing the Republic, Saint Marcellinus was chiefly solicitous concerning religion, and very studious of the sacred Scriptures; that he also understood the most subtle questions, and stirred up Saint Augustine for their resolution. Among the Letters of this Augustine, the first to Marcellinus is placed to Volusianus, by which he exhorts him to write, indicating what in the sacred letters he especially should read. Marcellinus had asked in the second letter, how the immeasurable God could be enclosed in the womb of a Virgin, and whether he had deserted the care of the world in the meantime, and whether his divinity was sufficiently declared by miracles. Saint Augustine responded to each in the third letter: which, when Volusianus had read to Saint Marcellinus, he wrote to Saint Augustine a fourth letter, narrating that some were cavilling that God had abrogated the Old Law; and that the Evangelical doctrine is useless to the Republic; and finally that Christian Princes had brought many evils upon the Republic. To all these Saint Augustine responded in the fifth letter. Again in the seventh letter he mentions the said letters, which Bishop Boniface and the Priest Urbanus had brought him written by Saint Marcellinus, and he first responds to the question about the water in the time of Pharaoh turned into blood by the magi; then he explains to him a marked place from the book On Free Will; afterwards he treats of the origin of souls, and the virginity of Mary the God-bearer. But in the 158th and following letter he asks Saint Marcellinus that what was decreed against the Donatists be published; and that those who are unwilling to return to their senses should be chastised, but short of the death penalty.

[10] There is also the 82nd letter of Saint Jerome, sent to the same Marcellinus in Africa, which witnesses that this man had propounded the most subtle questions of the Church, Saint Jerome writes to the same: such as concerning the origin of the soul; and that he was always ready to learn, and did not even slacken this zeal in the greatest disturbance of the Roman Empire: since Saint Jerome, writing back to him, confesses that he, cast down by the devastation of the city of Rome, had not been able to give attention to his studies. The same Saint Jerome, in book 3 Against the Pelagians toward the end, has these words concerning Marcellinus and the books dedicated to him by Saint Augustine: and commemorates the books written to him by Saint Augustine. "The holy and eloquent man, Bishop Augustine, wrote some time ago to Marcellinus, who afterwards, under the hatred of the tyranny of Heraclian, was innocently slain by heretics, two books on the baptism of infants against your heresy, by which you wish to assert that infants are baptized not for the remission of sins, but for the kingdom of heaven, according to what is written in the Gospel: 'Unless

anyone be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. John 3:5 He also addressed a third letter to the same Marcellinus against those who say the same thing as you, that a man can be without sin, if he wishes, without the grace of God.

[11] Thus far Saint Jerome. But the matters concerning the tyranny of Heraclianus will require some elucidation. Heraclianus, therefore, Count of Africa, having stoutly defended Africa against Attalus the tyrant, On the occasion of the Heraclian tyranny, had attained the consulship in the year 413 along with Lucius. But puffed up in spirit, he rose up to revolution and, having withheld the grain supply, seized the tyranny of Africa. Then, moving an army of seven hundred ships from Africa against Honorius toward Rome, terrified by the approach of Count Marinus, first beaten at Otriculum in an engagement, then turned to flight, having seized a ship, he returned alone to Carthage: and there, after he had been judged a public enemy, assassins sent by Honorius killed him in the shrine of Memoria: as these events are laid out in Orosius, book 7, chapter 42, Idatius, Marcellinus, and Ado, in their Chronicles. Presently proceedings were taken against his property and his followers, and the acts done under him were annulled, and indeed even his consulship was erased from the laws of Honorius, and it was almost written: After the Consulship of Honorius VIII and Theodosius V. See law 13 of the Theodosian Code, Saint Marcellinus is killed by the Donatists on the annulment of things done under tyrants or barbarians, book 15, title 14; and law 21 on Penalties, book 9, title 40. On this occasion the heretical Donatists, as though Saint Marcellinus had favored Heraclianus, moved by envy, falsely accused the innocent man before Count Marinus, who killed Marcellinus—as Orosius doubts, and Ado with him, uncertain whether spurred by zeal or corrupted by gold; or, as Saint Jerome relates, the innocent man was slain by the treacherous means seized upon by the heretics. Marinus seemed about to attain a noble triumph for Africa being liberated from the most savage tyranny and restored to the Roman Empire; but (as Orosius and Ado subjoin after noting the death of Marcellinus) at once recalled from Africa, and Marinus, accomplice in the killing, is punished and reduced to a private station, he was given over to his own conscience for punishment or repentance. Indeed, by the law of the Emperor Honorius cited by us above, all things which had been done under Saint Marcellinus in the Conference of Carthage were, that they might have permanent force, confirmed in the year following his death.

[12] The illustrious memory of Saint Marcellinus persists even until now, who, placed in the ecclesiastical records with the title of Martyr by their reviser Baronius, has deserved to be honored with due veneration: hence in the Roman Martyrology the following is read on this sixth day of March: He is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. At Carthage, Saint Marcellinus, Martyr, who was killed by the heretics for his defense of the Catholic faith. A fuller elogium was composed for him by Tamayo Salazar in his Spanish Martyrology: and in the Spanish Martyrology of Tamayo Salazar, "At Carthage in Africa," he says, "the birthday of Saint Marcellinus, Tribune of the Notaries, born in the city of Toledo in Spain, is renewed: who was joined in friendship with Saints Jerome and Augustine, and afterwards slain by the frauds of the Donatist heretics. An intrepid Martyr, he enters heaven." But concerning Saint Marcellinus's birth among the people of Toledo in Spain nothing is read in the said Saints Jerome and Augustine, nothing even in Orosius, Idatius, or other authors of approved reliability. One is called as witness by Tamayo—Marcus Maximus—who in distinct and pure clauses in his Chronicle bursts forth in these words for the year of Christ 432, no. 4: "Saint Marcellinus, domiciled in Toledo whether he is rightly called domiciled in Toledo and Tribune, suffers for the Catholic faith at Carthage on the 6th of April." But the truth is that Saint Marcellinus was slain not in the year 432, when Saint Jerome had long since departed life, but in the year 413. Bivarius in his Commentary on Maximus excuses this, saying it was done that the memory of so great a man should not perish from the Chronicles of the Spaniards, whom he had seen the diligence of Dexter had passed over: rather he should have said, because the forgers of the Chronicle under the name of Dexter had not noticed that he had suffered in the time of Dexter, they inserted him into the Chronicle of Maximus, later forged.

[13] Nor do these things placed in the same Chronicle of Maximus for the year 562, no. 1, help much: "Marcellinus flourishes in Spain, grandson of Saint Marcellinus the Martyr." and his grandson Marcellinus, For the explanation of this passage, Rodericus Carus writes that this Marcellinus was Archpriest of Toledo, and subscribed to the Third Council of Toledo under Recesuinthus; and that Sidonius Apollinaris mentions him in book 2, Epistle to Serranus. Rodericus is cited by Antonius de Quintanadueñas in his book on the Saints of the city of Toledo, to whom he adds Saint Marcellinus on the authority of Maximus alone. But here also other errors occur, and those enormous. For Marcellinus the Archpriest of Toledo, on whose occasion Toledo in Spain seems to have been affixed as a homeland to Saint Marcellinus the Martyr, did not subscribe to the Third Council of Toledo, which was held under King Reccared; but to the Fourth, which was held under Recesuinthus in the era 693, in the year of Christ 655, when forty years flowed from the death of Maximus the writer; hence by transposition of the greater numeric letters these things were placed for the year 562. But Sidonius Apollinaris could not have treated of that Marcellinus, Archpriest of Toledo, having died around the year 482, that is 182 years before that Council was celebrated at Toledo. These things, therefore, being rejected, Bivarius thinks Marcellinus the Count is indicated, who carried his Chronicle down to the year 535, afterwards augmented by another and edited under his name. But suppose he lived to the year 562—how "did he flourish in Spain," whom Cassiodorus, in the Institutions of Divine Scripture chapter 17, asserts to have been an Illyrian and to have administered the chancellery of the Patrician Justinian (as is still said)? Rather one might say: if the Marcellinus whom you cite, and whom Cassiodorus says was an Illyrian, was the grandson or great-grandson of Saint Marcellinus the Martyr, of whom we treat, the consequence will be that he too was an Illyrian. We do not wish, however, to establish this, but we say that, in the silence of the ancient writers, it is not clear what the Martyr's homeland was.