ON THE HOLY ROMAN MARTYRS,
ELEUTHERIUS THE BISHOP AND ANTHIA HIS MOTHER, PARTHENIUS, CALOCERUS, FEBUS,
PROCULUS, APOLLONIUS, FORTUNATUS, CRISPINUS, EXPEDITUS, MAPPALICUS, VICTORINUS,
AND GAGUS.
PrefaceEleutherius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Anthia the mother, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Parthenius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Calocerus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Febus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Proculus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Apollonius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Fortunatus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Crispinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Expeditus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Mappalicus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Gagus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
BY D. P.
[1] By the great consensus of all copies of the Hieronymian martyrologies,
Names inscribed in the Calendars: on the eighteenth day of April
these words are inscribed, transcribed thence by the other
martyrologists: At Rome, the natal day
of Saints Eleutherius the Bishop and Anthia his mother.
Only in the writing of the mother's name is there slight variation, so
that what in the Corbie copy, as well as in the Menaia and any Synaxaries
whatsoever, is written, as if a Greek name, Anthia,
in the Lucca copy is called Anchia, in the Epternach Antea,
in the Blumian, as also in the Sicilian and Rieti manuscripts, Antia,
in other Latin Acts Ancia. And because she is said to have been
of most illustrious stock, and the wife of a Consul, indeed of a three-time Roman Consul,
Octavius Cajetanus suspects she was born of the same family
which under Domitian gave C. Antius as extraordinary
Consul, colleague of Julius Quadratus.
Metaphrastes alone called her Euanthia.
[2] There follow in the aforesaid very ancient Martyrologies the names
of Saints Parthenius, are all of the same company? Calocerus, Febus, Proculus,
Apollonius, Fortunatus, Crispinus, Expeditus, Mappalicus,
Victorinus, and Gagus, and this again without any diversity
of copies, except that Victorinus or Victurinus
is absent in the Corbie Manuscript. These Saints follow
the first two, the son and mother, as though they had suffered martyrdom
together with them, or at least in the same place and on the same day;
whence we propose them joined with the aforesaid in today's Roman Martyrology,
although concerning several, and especially Apollonius,
and Calocerus, we rightly fear lest this be the Brescian
Martyr, that one indeed Roman but having suffered under Commodus;
concerning whom, as having their own proper veneration on this same day,
we treat separately. In Notker, to Eleutherius and Anthia martyred at Rome,
are joined Parthenius and Calocerus; in the Reichenau Manuscript
a third is added, Apollonius; in the Cassino manuscript
and two Roman ones of Cardinal Barberini and Duke Altemps,
only Proculus and Apollonius are named; and
with the city of Rome not expressed, in the Augsburg Manuscript of Saint Ulrich
and the Paris manuscript of Labbé, in place of them are named Crispinus,
Mappalicus, Victorinus; and in a very ancient Manuscript
of Trier, of Saint Maximin, Fortunatus and Crispinus. Finally the Roman
Martyrology, Leader of all these, prefers Coroebus;
but the reason he has been passed over by us has already been given.
[3] The cult of Saint Eleutherius at Constantinople celebrated on December 15. And let these things suffice concerning those who
are brought forward from the Martyrologies alone without more distinct notice. Eleutherius
and Antia or Anthia, moreover, celebrated cult in various
places illustrates, but far more celebrated at Constantinople
and in all the Greek churches, which now use only those books
which are in use at Constantinople; so that in the metrical
Ephemeris of the month of December (for on the 15th of that month
the feast of Saint Eleutherius is kept among the Greeks) he is set forth
as the chief Saint of that day in this manner:
Divine
Eleutherius
on the tenth
slew
swords
fifth.
The sword slaughters Eleutherius on the tenth-and-fifth.
The celebrity of this cult is magnified, not only by the
ecclesiastical Office for the whole of that day ordered in the Menaea, but
also by a double Canon; which is rare elsewhere, nor to be found except among the most
celebrated Saints. To this is added the antiquity of the cult:
for George Codinus asserts, because of a temple erected there for him by Arcadius, in his book on the origins
and antiquities of Constantinople, that a temple of Saint
Eleutherius was built in the time of Emperor Arcadius, and
thus not long after the year 400; which we believe to be
that Martyrium or Confessio of which the Menaea make mention,
and they teach that it stood near the Xerolophus,
that is, the Dry Hill; the anniversary of whose dedication
I should think to recur on December 15.
[4] Hence further it is understood that the temple
dedicated to Saint Eleutherius was by no means empty, but his very relics
were there honored; for this the name Martyrium indicates.
Much more clearly the same is confirmed by the words of the aforesaid Canons;
for Ode VIII of one glorifies the Martyr,
because, it says, Your shrine pours forth streams of healings and rivers of miracles
to those who use it; and relics brought there from Rome, But whence were the Relics
brought to Constantinople? From the city of Rome,
near which, at the common zeal of the Illyrians (to whom he had been
consecrated Bishop) who were present at the time of his passion there,
and of the Roman Christians, the sacred bodies were buried,
as Metaphrastes indicates, from other older Acts; in
this matter, concerning the place of first burial and the Bishopric of Illyricum,
more worthy of trust than any other account, since all the Latin
versions, of which more shortly, not obscurely show a Greek
origin.
[5] Wherefore we altogether suppose that, when the sacred bodies
were first disinterred (which we judge to have been done about
the times of the elder Theodosius, together with whatever account of the Life and Passion: or at least under the rule of his sons),
no written Acts of the passion yet existed; but once they had
been disinterred, when part of them was to be sent to Constantinople,
the authors or managers of the future translation anxiously
collected whatever the memory of the faithful retained concerning the torments
inflicted on the Saint, and concerning his age and birth,
and wrote it in Greek; but with Greek faith, that is, with
greater care for exciting admiration than for establishing
truth. But the people of Rieti, to whom another part of the sacred bodies
had come, afterwards obtaining the Greek Acts themselves, rendered them
into Latin. And would that, as it is easy to observe in them
the form of Greek derivation, from which they were first written in Greek, the manner and style of contemporary
authors in narrating things seen and heard were also expressed
near to verisimilitude; for such are introduced in the Rieti
Manuscripts, the Acts concluded by themselves thus.
which under the name of two contemporaries "We two brothers... Eulogius and
Theodulus wrote this, who were ordained by that Eleutherius;
but aided by his exhortations we always
persevered with him; and those things which our eyes have seen
and our ears have heard we have made known to all
Christians; believing that we, both from the edification
of you who read, and from the profit of those
who hear, shall find mercy with the Lord."
[6] We have Latin versions from Rieti Manuscripts, We have these Acts copied from a double ancient Manuscript of Rieti,
with some but slight variety of differing readings; and since we believe they were
translated almost word for word from Greek Acts, which we have not yet found,
it also follows that we believe they can better supply the lack
of the Greek originals than those which in Lipomano and Surius
exist in Latin, and to be read here in Greek at the end of the book,
Metaphrastes composed in his own style, as Allatius thinks.
Since however the same Rieti Manuscripts are in many ways faulty
and to a certain extent fabulous, we cannot hold them
in any other esteem than the Acts of Saints Theodore and George,
published under the names of Pasicrates and Augarus their servants,
as though as eyewitnesses. Moreover, from the Acts copied
at Rieti we think were constructed other Acts, which also exist elsewhere with altered phrasing, which make Saint
Eleutherius Bishop of the city of Aecana in Apulia,
in place of which Troia afterwards stood. For the phrasing is partly
different, partly the same in words, and indeed such
at times that both cannot be believed to be immediately translated from the Greek;
as when in both places it is said that Eleutherius's father "issued the Candida three times."
Further, the text of the Rieti Manuscripts easily appears older
than the other, though both are very ancient. where he is said to have been Bishop of Aecana. These later
Latin Acts we have published in Mombritius, and copied in an ancient
legendary of the monastery of Saint Maximin near Trier; and we judged them
to be the same as those found in the Manuscript of Saint
Hubert in the Ardennes, and another of our College of Douai
in Flanders; likewise with those seen at Naples among the Olivetans,
and at Florence with Carolus Strozzi; and also with a more contracted
epitome, received from the Utrecht Passional of Saint Salvator.
[7] which many followed quite erroneously: The same later Acts appear to have been used by those who wrote Martyrologies
in Gaul and Germany; and not knowing what
Aecana in Apulia was, they twisted the names of that city and region
variously, and gave many occasion to err,
namely Usuard, Ado, Notker, Rabanus, as will appear below.
More cautious and more ancient than all these, Florus of Lyons
composed only this eulogy from those Acts: At Rome
the passion of Saint Eleutherius and his mother Anthia, who
suffered under the Emperor Hadrian. Of whom Eleutherius
was placed on a gridiron, but Florus prudently. set upon coals;
afterwards cast into a burning oven; and not consumed,
he was bound to four untamed horses;
yet not even so torn in pieces, but loosed by an Angel,
finally by the command of the Emperor he was struck with the sword.
And Anthia his mother, having thrown herself upon the body
of her son, confessing herself a Christian, was soon
beheaded. In these words concerning the Passion of the Saints
is contained almost all that deserves to be received as true or likely,
if however you add the rank of Bishop; from which Florus
seems to have abstained because in the Acts it was said that Eleutherius
had not advanced his age beyond the twentieth year, so that he is even called
a boy and a little boy.
[8] Other Acts published from a Syracusan Manuscript Besides the Acts hitherto mentioned, Octavius Cajetanus had
certain others from a Manuscript of the Church of Syracuse,
perhaps transcribed from some Italian Manuscript, which
would be easy to recognize if he had published them word for word. But he
presumed they were received immediately from the Greek, and because the translator
seemed not to have rendered happily enough, he altered the wording,
though with no Greek text guiding him; a few
things also, and as he thinks light ones, he cut out, which anyone
would think should be castigated, and for which he refers
the reader to Metaphrastes. The same man had the Rieti Manuscript, less sincere. and from it
in his Annotations proposes certain things differing from the sense
of his Syracusan Codex, and so similar to the text received from Apulia,
that it becomes probable that the Syracusan copy was taken
from the same: whose sense Cajetanus not only truncated,
among other things omitting what was there read
concerning the Aecanan Bishopric and the relics brought from Rome,
but also altered at pleasure. Why are any published here? Yet it is not
something we should greatly lament, that the copy of that Syracusan Manuscript
has not been faithfully exhibited, since
neither in it nor in any Aecana codex, nor even
in the Rieti one, do we think a sincere history can be found.
But lest this should be said more severely than solidly,
let anyone judge; come, let us faithfully exhibit it such as it is
and weigh it maturely, and then at last let us pass
to those things which are more certain, concerning the Translations
of the Relics.
[9] Cult at Rieti. By what light indication Cajetanus persuaded himself that Saint
Eleutherius was Bishop of Messina will appear from what is to be said below;
certainly there was never any cult of him at Messina;
and if there is now some, it rests only on the authority
of Cajetanus. The people of Rieti, as they are in the most ancient
possession of the Relics, whose Translation is given below,
so also with most celebrated religion venerate those Saints their Patrons
on this day. and at Terracina, The Cathedral Church of Terracina
in Campania, among the suffrages of the Saints (as the Choir
speaks) recites a Collect common to all its holy
Patrons; where among others are named Saints
Eleutherius and Ansa, who seems to be Antia. That
Collect will be given in full on May 13, before the Acts
of Saints Domitilla, Euphrosyna, and Theodora. But
by what title that cult was received by the Terracinan Clergy,
I have not yet learned; it is permitted to suspect that some part of
the Relics also came to them of old, on account of which
this was established and practiced.
[10] Besides the Greek Acts, which Allatius judged to be attributed to Metaphrastes,
as we said above, we found in Paris
with Fr. Francis Combefis a certain Greek encomium
of Saint Eleutherius, beginning thus: a Greek encomium, "I praise
the martyr's stand."
We did not think then that it should be copied,
because the author was unknown, and such
encomia are mostly more recent than the Acts. But now, although
we would wish to have it, nevertheless on account of this difficult
war, by which our communications with the French are broken off,
it does not seem worthwhile to make many efforts for it,
since we have so slight hope of finding anything there from
which any light might come to this Saint shrouded in darkness.
Therefore we shall leave such judgment to Fr. Combefis himself, who,
having read these things, will be able to determine whether for the future
Supplement of our work it deserves to be copied for us.
APOCRYPHAL ACTS falsely attributed to Eulogius and Theodulus, as contemporaries.
From two old Rieti Manuscripts.
Eleutherius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Anthia the mother, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Parthenius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Calocerus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Febus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Proculus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Apollonius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Fortunatus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Crispinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Expeditus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Mappalicus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Gagus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
BHL Number: 2450, 2451
FROM APOCRYPHAL MANUSCRIPTS.
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
By D. P.
[1] [aa] Educated as a Christian by his widowed mother, In the twenty-fifth year of his reign, the Emperor Hadrian,
while coming from the East to Rome,
heard of a blessed boy whose name
was Eleutherius. For he was the only son of his widowed mother,
named Antia, who had seen in the body
the Blessed Apostle Paul; and she had a husband of illustrious rank
named Eugenius, who had three times given the Candida
at Rome. She, his widow, as we said named
Antia, mother of Eleutherius, first of all matrons,
nourished her son in holy religion, and
had him taught sacred letters by the Bishop of Christ
Dynamius. Seeing him make strong progress in sacred
learning, And ordained Bishop, in his 16th year he made him Deacon;
at 18 he promoted him to the Presbyterate.
Seeing him restore health to the sick and put demons
to flight, in the 20th year he made him Bishop. a
[2] Then the Emperor Hadrian, hearing these things, sent
to him Felix his Count with two hundred soldiers,
and commanded that he be brought to him. Felix, when he came
to him, Count Felix sent against him, found him teaching a great crowd of people.
Looking upon him, Blessed Eleutherius said to him:
What is this, that with such tyranny you have entered to
us, as though by our power we could restrain your power?
God, who gives all strength, is present
to me his servant; may he himself extinguish your wrath. At this
word Felix trembled, because he had entered with such tyranny;
and said that he had been sent by
the Emperor Hadrian, and that he had come to
bring him. To whom Saint Eleutherius, answering:
Could it be hidden from us, he converts him to the faith; that you have been sent to us?
There is nothing that can be unknown by those who have
received the Holy Spirit; for he makes known to those believing
in him not only what is and what has been, but
also what is to come. And when he had spoken many things with
holy speech, Felix the Count fell at his feet,
saying: Eleutherius, servant of God, give me such
understanding that I may believe in him in whom you believe.
So having made prayer he laid his hand on him, and going forth they went
to Rome with all the soldiers.
[3] Taking their journey, talk of the coming and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ accompanied them. and on the way to Rome,
And when they had come to a river they sat under a tree;
and Saint Eleutherius began to urge them to
take refreshment and so cross the river. Then Felix the Count
said to him: As the Lord lives, whose worshipers,
I shall take no food or drink unless you make me a Christian.
To whom Saint Eleutherius said: If you believe Jesus
Christ to be the Son of the living God, and believe that, in
his name washed in this river, you will obtain forgiveness
of all sins, these things can
be done. he baptizes him: Felix the Count answered:
I would not willingly ask you to make me a Christian,
unless I believed in Christ with my whole
heart. Then Bishop Eleutherius,
taking his hand, led
him aside, and, invoking the mystery of the Trinity,
baptized him. After this he blessed upon his head,
saying: Lord Jesus Christ, so illumine his heart
as you illumined the heart of the Eunuch through Philip
your Apostle, and show forth the ornament of faith
upon him. When he had said these and similar things, Felix left
Saint Eleutherius and went to his brethren, declaring
to them all that had been done for him; and they
themselves also with great joy believed in Christ b.
[4] When Saint Eleutherius had entered the palace,
it was announced to the Emperor Hadrian by the soldiers. Questioned by the Emperor Hadrian.
So he ordered a tribunal to be set up for him, and sitting ordered him
to be presented in his sight; and questioning him,
the Emperor Hadrian said: Tell me, Eleutherius, how,
being a man of most illustrious liberty, you have delivered
yourself over to the most insane superstition, and believe in this
God who was crucified by men. Blessed
Eleutherius, keeping silent, stood by. Again
the Emperor Hadrian questioned him, saying:
Eleutherius, answer to these things I ask you. He professes the faith: Then
Saint Eleutherius, looking up to heaven, having made the holy
sign which is in Christ, began to speak thus:
The most illustrious and true liberty is this, to know and
worship the Maker of heaven and earth and the Creator of all.
to my gods, and I will make you great in my palace.
To whom Saint Eleutherius said: Your words are full of deceit
and bitterness.
[5] He is stretched upon a brazen bed to be burned, So raging, the Emperor Hadrian ordered a brazen
bed to be brought, and Saint Eleutherius to be stripped, and
stretched naked in four parts, that the delicate joints of his
limbs might be disjointed. All the Roman
people ran to this spectacle of so great a contest,
in which all cried out: The Emperor wishes to kill a freeborn,
wise, and noble man. But
when an hour had passed, he ordered Saint Eleutherius to be loosed, from which he comes down unharmed, hoping
that he had been burned; for under that brazen bed
a most copious fire had been kindled. But as soon as they loosed his hands
and feet, rising he began to walk in the presence
of all the people, and with outstretched hand said: Men of Rome,
hear: There is a true, great, and one almighty God; and
there is no other but this one, whom the Apostles Peter
and Paul preached, through whom God himself did many
mighty works and healings among the people, and laid low
Simon glorying in his magic arts, and the mute and
deaf idols which the Emperor Hadrian worships, trampled underfoot.
[6] And likewise on a gridiron, Then the Emperor Hadrian ordered a gridiron to be brought,
and, anointed with oil, to be set upon burning coals;
and he said to Saint Eleutherius: By the invincible sun,
I will hold you as a son if you adore my gods;
but if you will not, I will roast you on this gridiron. Saint Eleutherius
said: Ravening wolf, both your gods and your words
be with you to perdition; but know that I will neither leave my
Lord, nor fear your fiery gridiron. And immediately
as he was placed on it, so the fire was
extinguished and the gridiron cooled, so that no warmth of the fire
which had been kindled remained in it. At this, raging
the Emperor Hadrian ordered a huge frying-pan
to be filled with oil, and while it boiled and overflowed, and on a frying-pan. he said to Eleutherius:
Have pity on your most noble youth, lest
you incur the wrath of the Gods and like a little fish d
be fried in that frying-pan. Laughing, Saint Eleutherius said,
Since you are curious about all things, I wonder how you
have not come to this, that three Hebrew boys
cast into a furnace of burning flame, whose height was
raised to forty-nine cubits, with hissing fuel
of pitch, resin, and faggots, cast into the midst
of this flame, singing rather than groaning,
continuing, walked about unharmed, because the Son
of God was walking in their midst, whom I worship,
whose humble servant and unworthy Priest I am,
who has never forsaken me from my youth e.
[7] When the tyrant solicited him to apostasy, Then the Emperor Hadrian... what would he do, O God,
concerning your servant Eleutherius? He was exulting, placed in the oil
of the frying-pan (for this power the Lord had given him in
the frying-pan, that the fire beneath should vomit flames,
and the oil remain most cold);
mocking therefore, the Emperor Hadrian said to Eleutherius,
Before you are cooked, promise to sacrifice
to the gods, and I will free you. Answering, Saint Eleutherius
said: This the gods bestow on you, which nature itself has
granted to those metals; for as they have eyes and see not,
so you also have remained blind and bereft; for the burning
brazen bed, and your gridiron, and your frying-pan, furnish me
only so much refreshment, that I could rather freeze
than burn. But your eyes, darkened by the gloom of unbelief,
he mocks: cannot see what is of God.
Open your eyes, Emperor, and consider
the true Emperor, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you not see how at his command the fire grows cold?
As in a cold fountain, so in the oil of your frying-pan
I do not grow warm. Therefore repent of
your cowardice, and weep now that you have not
worshiped the true God.
[8] At these things Hadrian was inflamed with such wrath
that it transferred him into distress and anxiety. Then
Corribon f the Prefect, seeing the Emperor distressed,
said to him; The Prefect of the city suggests that an oven be made Lord Emperor, from the East
to the West the whole world lies subject to your rule,
and all nations serve your command;
this one little boy in our sight despises
your kingdom. Let your majesty order him to be placed
in prison; I will order a brazen oven to be
made, with spikes and a cover; into which, when burning hot,
if he is thrust in and covered, he will not mock further.
But you, rise glad, and rest today;
on the morrow in the sight of all the Roman people,
in my amphitheater, you shall see a triumph over him.
Hearing this, Blessed Eleutherius said: Thus I believe, and
this is my faith, that he shall see a triumph over me, not
his own but my God Jesus Christ's.
[9] On the next day Corribon the Prefect, having invited
all the Roman people to the amphitheater, which Eleutherius contemns when set before him, g first
for the delight of the people had some beasts killed
by the hunters; about the third hour he had Eleutherius
brought in, and placed in his sight
was a great and glowing oven, and inside it was equipped
with iron spikes; and Corribon the Prefect
said to him: All nations venerate the majesty of our Lord
Hadrian Augustus; you alone, a youth,
are a proud despiser of his command; wherefore
either hear his command, and adore the gods and goddesses whom he worships,
or know that you are to be thrown into that oven. Saint
Eleutherius said: Hear, Prefect Corribon:
You have your King, who made you Prefect;
and I have my King, who made me a Bishop;
whichever of these two Kings shall have conquered, him
ought to be adored both by me and by you. For if
your oven conquers my faith, I shall rightly adore your
King; but if your oven is conquered by my King,
you shall adore my Lord Jesus Christ.
[10] Then the Emperor Hadrian ordered Saint Eleutherius
to be cast into the oven. and from it he comes out unharmed: Looking up
into heaven, Saint Eleutherius said: Our joy
and true light of all souls believing in you,
you know that all sufferings for your name
are sweet to me; but, so that you may show those contending
against you that all the elements are opposed to them, do not allow
me your servant to be consumed in this oven. When
he had said these things and had been cast into the oven, those iron
spikes, as though they had been wood, were so consumed, and
within all was made clear and most cold; and
round about the oven there flowed most cold water
for the refreshment of the Just man, and from the oven itself
he cried out saying: We have passed through fire and water,
and you have brought us into refreshment h.
[11] Which being seen, the Prefect is converted, Then Corribon the Prefect cried out with a loud
voice to the Emperor, saying: Most sacred Emperor,
let us believe this God, who so frees his worshipers.
For this man is a Priest of God; let us test the priest
of Jupiter or Juno or Hercules, and let us cast them
into such flames, and then let us see if the gods can free
them. Then the Emperor Hadrian said to Prefect
Corribon: he confesses Christ, Have you been bought for gold or silver by the mother
of this impious boy? I gave you the Prefecture
and power, that it might provide you wealth of gold and silver;
but greater if you wish, I will give you.
Then Corribon said: This honor given by you is temporal;
so long have I erred, as long as I could not
come to the truth. If you will persevere in contempt,
you shall see; but I from this hour believe Christ
to be God, and deny that any idols are gods; I assert
that he is the one God, whom Eleutherius
preaches, for he alone is the one who frees
his worshipers from many dangers.
[12] Then, Saint Eleutherius having been drawn away, he ordered Corribon
to be cast in, who said: Man of God, pray to your God, and coming out from the oven likewise unharmed, whom
today I have confessed to be the one true God; and give me
the sign, as you gave it to Count Felix, that I
may insult the Emperor Hadrian. While Saint Eleutherius prayed with
tears, Corribon was filled with the Holy Spirit;
and when he had been cast into the oven, so all
the fire vanished, that not even a sign of any
warmth remained there. But the Emperor seeing that
even Corribon conquered, he is beheaded, ordered him to be beheaded
in the sight of all; and Saint Eleutherius he ordered
to be cast again into the middle of the burning oven, and
covered above with a brazen covering. After about
two hours he ordered the oven to be opened. And Saint
Eleutherius was standing unconquered, in the bloom of first youth,
shining as an Angel, so that not even a hair of his head
had been burned by the fire. Then all the Roman
people gave glory to God, who had given such power
to those believing in him.
[13] The Emperor, saddened and most enraged,
that he had been conquered by a boy of God, Eleutherius, stronger from long fasting, laid aside his purple,
and, entering the palace raging, called together his
Counts to council, asking how
he might kill Eleutherius. And when Blessed
Eleutherius was in custody many days, taking no food,
a dove i brought him food to satiety.
Refreshed by these, he returned thanks to God, saying: I bless
you, Lord God, who have nourished me from my youth;
for you are he who fed Elias in the desert, and
sent a meal to Daniel placed among the lions;
and now, Lord, you have not deserted your servant, but
have satisfied me with heavenly food; I return praise to your name,
and bless your glory for ever and ever. He is bound to untamed horses to be dragged, Then
the Emperor Hadrian, seeing him made more beautiful,
when he had thought him to be failing k; ordered untamed
horses to be brought, and yoked to a chariot, in which
he had Blessed Eleutherius bound backwards, and ordered sharp
goads l to be made, by which the horses, struck from the chariot itself,
might more violently drag the chariot; and running through uncultivated
and rough places, might tear his delicate limbs apart.
[14] From which, loosed by an Angel, At that same hour the Angel of the Lord, taking up
Blessed Eleutherius, loosed him and made him sit
upon the chariot; the horses led him to a lofty mountain,
where there was a flowing spring and fruit-bearing trees.
And the grace of God accompanied him; for when he had ascended
the mountain, immediately the yokings of the horses were loosed,
and the horses themselves departed. Saint Eleutherius,
sitting on the mountain-top, was blessing
God. And there gathered to him all the beasts
of the woods, and with a certain affection stood around him;
lions lay like lambs, and bears lay like sheep, m
leopards joined themselves to him, and all kinds of beasts,
and with all gentleness touched his face;
there the lions thirsted for no prey, there no rage of bears
appeared, he has the beasts tame to him: where Christ had brought gentleness.
Therefore while these things were going on, n there came hunters
to capture beasts which were needed at that time for the games.
And seeing with their eyes Saint Eleutherius among
the beasts, they announced it to the Emperor; who immediately, sending
soldiers, ordered him to be brought to him. As they came,
the beasts made an attack upon them. The man of God, seeing
so great a battle being waged for his sake, said to all the beasts:
I adjure you by the name of the Lord Christ, that you
touch none of them, but each of you ascend
to its own place; at whose voice all the beasts went off
with all gentleness.
[15] He converts those sent to capture him: Opening his mouth, Saint Eleutherius began
to say to the soldiers: My little sons, behold the beasts recognize
God; how much more you, whom he made in his image
and likeness, ought to recognize your Creator,
and not believe sculpted stones and hewn wood to be gods,
and deny him who is in the heavens and has granted
life to you. You yourselves know that trusting in his name
I have escaped punishments. So also you, if you will believe
in him, not only will he himself love you, but also cherish
and direct and guide you to eternal glory.
Nevertheless, let us go our way to those from whom you have come.
Therefore as they descended, more than six hundred and
eight men were baptized, among whom were three Counts
of noble birth, who kissed his feet, saying
that he should withdraw wherever he wished. But he said: The Emperor
Hadrian will turn his wrath upon you, and upon your sons, and upon your
wives; but if I stand firm,
I shall both obtain my crown and not lose your
joy.
[16] The theatrical beasts let loose upon him, Then it was reported to the Emperor that Eleutherius
had been brought; and he ordered a game of beasts to be held,
and ordered him to be displayed in the middle. When first a lioness
was let loose, roaring fearfully, recognizing the man
of God, she ran to his feet and licked their soles.
And when all were stupefied seeing such wonders,
he ordered a huge lion to be sent upon him, at whose roaring
all the people were melting. The lion let loose
ran to Blessed Eleutherius, he has them obedient: and as a father seeing
his son after a long time, so in the presence of all wept
in his sight, and licked his hands
and feet. Then all the Roman people with various voices
cried out; some said he was guilty, others a worshiper
of God who had helped Peter and Paul against
Simon; and having contention among themselves
concerning unbelief they mangled one another [p].
[17] He insults the tyrant, Then the Emperor Hadrian, calling Saint Eleutherius
to him, said: How long do our gods act for you,
and you do not obey them? Then Saint Eleutherius, crying out
with a loud voice, said: Abomination of desolation,
murderous sword, and doom of eternal death, do you
dare to impute to demons what Christ has deigned
to bestow for the praise of his name, who has given me
the power for this, that he might lay low your opposing
power? For behold God will take from you
the kingdom which you have held unjustly, and will recall the punishments
which you have brought upon those trusting in Christ
to the torment of your soul. And the lead with which he was to be beaten being melted, Then you shall have fruitless
and vain repentance, because you did not believe
Christ, and did not place your power in his mercy.
Then the Emperor Hadrian ordered his mouth to be battered with
a mass of lead [q]. But when one of the ministers
took it up, the lead melted in his hand, and
his fingers burned. Then Hadrian was anxious, that he
could not attain the destruction of Blessed Eleutherius. Seeing
therefore Saint Eleutherius that no pain ruled in his body,
he feared, lest while he should feel no torment of martyrdom,
he might lose its fruit.
Then stretching out his hands, lifting his face to heaven,
he said: he prays God to crown his contest, Lord Jesus Christ, bestower of glory, governor
of the souls of those believing in you, Word begotten before
Lucifer from the Father, through whom all things were created;
I beseech, do not allow me today to go out from this stadium
without a crown; and saying these things, he made upon his whole body
the sign of the Cross [s].
[18] Then two executioners approached, and killed
him. Which being done, a loud voice was heard from heaven, and he himself is beheaded
louder than a trumpet, crying and saying, Come,
Eleutherius, servant of God; there is opened to you the gate of the city
which is in heaven, and the Angel of God stands awaiting you.
Trembling seized many hearing these things. and his mother. Then
Saint Antia his mother placed her face on the body of her son,
weeping and collecting his blood in linen cloths,
and for burial she made ready his body while it was unburied [t].
Then they were sent by the Emperor Hadrian,
who killed his mother also with the sword. The Emperor Hadrian,
seeing their bodies unburied, left them;
but holy men coming [u] by night carried off their bodies;
and together with a Bishop, named Primus,
they came from the city of Rome into the Rieti countryside, the bodies are buried near Rieti,
one mile from the city of Rieti itself, and
there they buried their bodies, in a little estate which belongs
to Bishop Primus [x], in the Rieti countryside, in a place called
Urbanianus, which is 41 miles from the city of Rome
near the city of Rieti, and which is on the Via Salaria.
In that very aforesaid place, where their bodies
were laid up, they built a church of Saints Eleutherius and his mother Antia,
in which the holy Martyrs work many
benefits. To this very day [y]
the sick come to their bodies and are healed,
the possessed come and are freed.
[19] The Acts are feigned as written by the saint's attendants. We two brothers... Eulogius and Theodulus
wrote this, who were ordained by him, and aided by his
exhortations always persevered with him;
and those things which our eyes have seen and our ears
have heard, we have made known; so that we who believe, and you who read, in your edification,
and those who hear, in their profit,
and in the merits of the Martyrs who are praised, may find mercy
with the Lord. Their natal day is to be celebrated on the 8th day
before the Kalends of December, [z]
our Lord Jesus Christ bestowing it, whose is
honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
NOTES.
[aa] Why these Apocryphal Acts are here Whoever
in our work has read more attentively the Lives published by contemporary writers
will not easily be deceived by this final clause, as to believing
the history of the passion, unfolded with poetic exposition and augmented by so many
theatrical circumstances, to have been written by eyewitness faith, or to have
altogether the appearance of history. It was nevertheless necessary to produce it here, lest
the more elegant and more modest account of the Passion described by Metaphrastes
should obtain firmer credit than this from which it was itself taken;
and that there too the Reader may know how to doubt discreetly. With the same design
we carefully transcribed the very prolix Greek lives of Saint Gregory the Armenian and Saint
Gregory of Agrigentum, this one for November 23, written under the name of Leontius Abbot
of Sabas; that one for the 30th day of September attributed to the contemporary Agathangelus,
both suspect of much fabulousness, so that when the source itself has been publicly exposed,
one may not drink too trustingly from the stream which Metaphrastes derived from it: and at other times to be given, a truly
great man, but whose only aim here was that those things which in certain Greek
churches, because of the rusticity or prolixity of the style, were not without disgust
to prudent men being read, should, condensed more briefly and neatly in his own style,
please less. Another aim in this work is proposed to us, namely, to penetrate
to the very foundations of any narration concerning the Saints, with as great
discrimination of true and false as can be obtained by study and meditation.
Which exercise, since it is perfected by use itself, it also happens that sometimes we judge
that in our preceding lucubrations some things were dissimulated
more indulgently than we would now do, if it were permitted to
call again to examination the Acts of Saint Martina (whom
the Greeks call Tatiana) of January 1, Saint Eudocia of March 1,
and a few others. That will be the care of our successors.
Now, before I proceed to render account of our censure
on the Acts of Saint Eleutherius premised, I would like, for a fuller
faith, to be established afterwards,
to compare these very ones, whatever they may be, with other
Acts indicated above, both in manuscripts in our possession and published
in Mombritius (they may be called Aecana, so far as they have been derived from
the Aecana church), and also with the Greek paraphrase of Metaphrastes.
Alexander Wilthem in the Diptych of Liège. But Silvius in the Laterculum attributes three mappas
to a single Consulship on the 7th day before the Ides of January, on the Ides themselves, and on the 13th day before the Kalends
of May. Therefore we abstain from further conjecture. Let it suffice to have said
that the images of the Consuls are found so made, that with the right hand raised they hold
Eleutherius was ordained Bishop, Metaphrastes names him Anicetus Archbishop of the
Roman Church. But he only entered the Pontificate in the 12th year after the death of
Hadrian; Octavius Cajetanus suspects Anacletus should be read; but we will show him to have
ceased to live more than 20 years before the beginnings of the same Hadrian.
CENSURE OF THE ACTS.
Eleutherius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Anthia the mother, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Parthenius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Calocerus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Febus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Proculus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Apollonius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Fortunatus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Crispinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Expeditus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Mappalicus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Gagus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
By D. P.
[20] In these Acts there displeases the Emperor Hadrian present at all things, Now turn your mind to me, Reader, and consider
how throughout all these Acts the Emperor Hadrian is introduced,
plainly in that manner in which some theatrical tyrant might act in a comedy;
as though he were present at all the tortures, not only for decreeing
but also for inflicting them, and played the role of the lowest judge
or prefect of the executioners; just as in certain other
histories of Martyrs, written after many centuries quite unskillfully,
the Emperors themselves are feigned both to say and to do everything,
which their own Governors and judges did far from their presence and knowledge,
torturing Christians according to the Imperial decrees.
Note then that in killing Eleutherius the element of fire is said to have been applied
four times, and that in not very different manner;
which is foreign to usage and reason. the fire-punishment resumed four times, For whereas the Gentiles ascribed
to magical arts the fact that the Martyrs remained unharmed by fire,
to whom will it seem likely that they were so mad as, in the element in which
they had once and a second time experienced the victors, to offer them
a third and fourth time to be defeated and ridiculed themselves; and not
rather think of another way of inflicting death, if perhaps by this method
those were unconquerable whom their magic armed against fire.
I think that what to some was a burning bed, by others is called a gridiron;
and that the punishment of the frying-pan with boiling oil is not to be distinguished
from the punishment of the glowing furnace, but because some named these
and others those from the tradition of their elders, so the mode of attempted
torture, which it sufficed to double, was quadrupled, as the more prudent Florus did.
[21] Unobserved horses That the Martyrs were often bound to horses or chariots to be torn apart
in four or dragged through rough paths, we often read; but never did we conceive this
to be done in such a way that no one watched the horses or chariots, as here is read
that unobserved Eleutherius went up with his chariot into the mountain, and there lay hidden
until he was found by hunters; and by hunters indeed
who had not come to catch animals customary to Italian forests, but lions and
leopards for theatrical spectacles. Those beasts were not so easily obtained,
as those skilled in Roman affairs know, being accustomed to be brought
at enormous expense from Asia and Africa for such uses. lions and leopards in Roman forests, What then? It was reported
that when the Martyr was exposed to wild beasts he had them obedient; that was enough
for the compiler, to bring them in in a double scene: once as divinely brought
to Eleutherius, then as sent upon him by the tyrant. Nevertheless
it is displeasing, that for bringing back to Rome one man sitting among wild beasts,
and presenting him to the Emperor, not only many apparitors but many
entire cohorts with their tribunes are said to be sent, when those many soldiers sent for the capture of the Saint,
who from the whole multitude believed in Christ, on seeing the power which Eleutherius exercised
over the wild beasts, are said to have been more than six hundred and eight men, among whom
were three Counts of noble birth. A similar stumbling-block
occurs in the first capture, when up to the city to which Eleutherius had been consecrated
Bishop (in Illyricum, that is, or in Apulia), Hadrian is said to have sent Count Felix
with two hundred soldiers, and it is added that he, entering the church
with all his men, found the Bishop preaching; for neither was so great an apparatus
necessary to bring in one accused man, nor elsewhere are Roman Emperors
read to have done such a thing. They ordered that letters be written to the Governors of Provinces or
cities, who added a few guards to those whom they had been ordered to send to Rome.
Thus one soldier is said to have attached himself to the Apostle Paul; thus Ignatius
Bishop of Antioch glories that he was going to Rome, bound to ten leopards,
that is, soldiers guarding him, as being beyond the usual custom many.
The same Ignatius and very many other holy Martyrs, The fiery furnace in the Amphitheater, in the amphitheater
are read to have been exposed to beasts; and this was among other spectacles
customarily shown to the people, frequent; the occasion being taken from
those whom it was custom to commit with beasts. But that Corribon
the Prefect of the City in like manner, after some beasts had been killed for pleasure,
is said to have brought forward Eleutherius to be consumed in a burning furnace,
I do not think can be proved from examples of other accused men or of Martyrs,
as though punishments or torments of this kind were part of public spectacles.
[22] The great youth of Eleutherius, I pass to the notes of time marked in the Acts. Here
first indeed Saint Eleutherius's mother Ancia is said in the Rieti Manuscripts
to have seen the Blessed Apostle Paul living in the body (which is absent from other Latin
Manuscripts); by Metaphrastes she is praised as being one who was instructed in
the faith by the apostolic exhortations of divine Paul: then Eleutherius, in the twentieth
year of his age already Bishop, is introduced as having suffered under Hadrian,
and that in the 25th year of the Emperor's reign. We have shown the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul
to pertain to the year 65 of the common era; and it is established that Hadrian
only began to reign in the year 117: let us grant therefore
not his 25th year (for he did not reign so many years), but at least his 15th year, when,
having traversed Arabia, with his mother's great old age; Egypt, and Asia, he set Antinous among the gods;
let us grant, I say, that the Emperor returning from the parts of the East
heard about Eleutherius, as is said in the Acts, and that it was the year
131. But if in that year Eleutherius was in his 20th year of age,
how old must we imagine the mother to have been, who had borne him
about the year 110, and before the year of Christ 65 had learned her faith
from Paul?
[23] And then to whom can those premature ordinations,
contrary to the usage of the Church, be sufficiently proved? Cajetanus tortures himself
in these matters, An Episcopate conferred in the 20th year of age and tries to find examples in Saint Timothy
the Bishop of the Ephesians, and in Saints Gregory and Athenodorus;
of whom the latter Eusebius asserts to have been made Bishops in Pontus while quite youths;
the former Cardinal Hugo thinks to have been not yet twenty-three
years old; but neither are these certain, nor do they sufficiently prove the point, that he should
be believed to have been consecrated Bishop at the age of twenty. It will be safer
to suppose Eleutherius a man of full age; and that this alone was the reason
why he is believed to have been ordained as so young and almost a boy, because he had
his mother as a companion of his martyrdom, whom they feared to ascribe
feminine weakness. by the Roman Pontiff. With this supposed, Eleutherius as a boy could have been
offered by his mother to the Roman Pontiff for the ministry of the church,
not indeed to Anicetus (which we believe to be a scribal error and we believe it never
would have come into Metaphrastes's mind even in a dream), but
to Anacletus the Archbishop of the city of Rome, who lived up to
the year 96 of our era. But if it were permitted to substitute Trajan, his predecessor,
for Hadrian, Eleutherius could also be considered to have been crowned with martyrdom
as a younger man, even before the thirtieth year of his age.
[24] These things being thus deduced, I do not fear being accused of rashness
for refusing to have the Acts of Saint Eleutherius in our work otherwise Since however among so many fictions some truth must be believed to lie hidden,
than as apocryphal; upon which no firm belief can be built
concerning either the times or the modes of the martyrdom he endured;
yet because concerning the very truth of the martyrdom it is clear,
and no less concerning the episcopal rank, neither ought all the rest in the Acts just
examined to be believed altogether freely invented; come let us grope
to find what true foundation these things, so confusedly heaped up
by posterity, may have had; leaving to each his liberty
to follow other conjectures which he may more approve.
I think that both things and times could have been so ordered,
that the mother Antia, perhaps a girl of twelve years when Saint Paul
died, and afterwards married to a Consular man (for whose
unknown name the author of the Acts substituted the name Eugenius,
signifying by its own interpretation great nobility),
bore him her son Eleutherius, not long after
the year of the common Era 70: [we suspect Eleutherius was born about the year 70, and enrolled in the Clergy at Rome in the year 80,] whom, having been educated as a Christian at home
up to the 12th year of his age or more, she handed over
to Pontiff Anacletus, and having been received by him and enrolled in the Clergy
she sent him to Apulia to the Bishop of the city of Aecana,
Dynamius (unless this name too, to signify the virtue and
probity of the man, was put in place of the proper name which was unknown),
to Dynamius, I say, the Bishop, she sent him to be imbued with sacred letters:
who at a suitable age consecrated him Deacon and Presbyter,
and finally sent him to Rome, that as his future successor he might be consecrated Bishop
by the Roman Pontiff, namely by Telesphorus, if Eleutherius endured
martyrdom under Hadrian, the same returned from Apulia under Trajan or Hadrian, already more than fifty years old,
his mother approaching her seventieth year; or
(if you allow Trajan to be substituted for Hadrian) by Pontiff Alexander,
only thirty years old, and thus between the borders of
adolescent age and full age, when his mother was fifty. The Pontiff,
to whom at that time perhaps Illyrians had come, seeking a teacher of the Christian
faith or even a Bishop for a widowed church,
handed Eleutherius over to them, until the church of Aecana
should demand back the Pastor dedicated to itself.
[25] All these things, on account of the remarkable nobility of his family,
and the fame of his mother most known among Roman matrons, and likewise the zeal
of defending and propagating the faith, fervent in Eleutherius,
and the consequent grace of miracles, could not everywhere
remain hidden from Gentile informers; it is probable
that Eleutherius was recalled from his journey and he going to Illyricum with Episcopal power
by which he was heading to Illyricum, and brought back to Rome; and after various
kinds of death had been vainly attempted, he was beheaded together with his mother, openly
professing herself a Christian: whose bodies then both those Illyrians who were accompanying
and the Romans buried and interred,
not far from the city of Rome; and piously venerated them there,
until either when the Church had obtained peace, it raised the sacred Martyrs from
the earth, in the presence of the Rieti Bishop, called there for that purpose or even
by divine summons; who perhaps for his newly
established diocese chose Eleutherius as patron, recalled to the city, slain, and buried near it. and
obtained a good portion of the bodies, while the other portion was sent to Constantinople.
But let this suffice, to have proposed these things not as history
but as conjecture: let us pass to things more certain, and
which can be proved by the very monuments of things and letters.
TRANSLATION OF THE RELICS to Rieti in the Sabine country.
From the Documents of the Church of Rieti.
Eleutherius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Anthia the mother, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Parthenius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Calocerus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Febus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Proculus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Apollonius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Fortunatus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Crispinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Expeditus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Mappalicus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Gagus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
BHL Number: 2453
By D. P.
[26] It is an ancient opinion of the inhabitants that the city of Rieti
was sacred to the mother goddess Rhea, and was named after her;
and that her statue there was held in most religious cult
and stood in a most celebrated place, until, when the Christian religion
had long since been established, a church was built near the place where the statue stood.
This offense is thought to have stirred the demon inhabiting the statue
to exact vengeance upon the citizens now Christian, God permitting it, To restrain the demon
so that the people of Rieti decided to bring back to themselves more closely the bodies of their Martyrs,
buried in Urbanianum at a distance of one mile,
and thus both be freed from the hostile demon, and add
to the newly built church the patronage of the Saints. It still has in its archive an old Codex,
written more than 400 years ago, in which after
the Acts described above, followed the history of the said Translation:
but the book, with one leaf torn out, being mutilated, indicates that the beginning
of the history and the end of the Acts are missing; with damage lighter indeed from one
side, because the Acts, transcribed into a more recent codex
together with the augmentation of the first Translation under Bishop Primus,
could be completed from it; but from the other side irreparable,
because no other copy survives from which the beginning of the said history
can be recovered. Accordingly, from the statue of Rhea, as is believed, what we have said concerning the occasion
and cause of the second translation rests on mere conjecture,
founded on that fragment which has survived the greed of time,
and which is as follows:
[27] "The demon, namely, used to attack the weak with horrible appearances,
from which pregnant women, from the distress of fear, often suffered
miscarriages; men also feared to pass by; and so the city itself, troubling the citizens
wearied by the dwelling-place of an abominable guest, as though besieged
with dangers, could not breathe from this guest's attacks.
Therefore the Bishop and citizens of Rieti, trusting
in the Lord, who does not at all forsake those hoping in him,
with reverence placed the bodies of the aforesaid Saints (Eleutherius
and Antia) in the Church of Blessed John the Evangelist which
had been built around the aforesaid statue, the Relics are translated to the church of Saint John the Evangelist in the underground crypt of that same holy church.
But God, willing by the merits of the same Saints
to follow up the city and people with a special prerogative,
and to amplify the cult of the Saints with worthy miracles, put the demon to flight:
who from the day of this placement with his wiles immediately vanished,
never to return at any time; and then
with the Prophet they said: We passed, and behold it was not:
we sought, and his place was not found. Ps 36:36 and the vexation ceases.
Therefore the people of Rieti, freed from so great a snare of servitude,
praised the Lord on well-sounding cymbals,
and to the same church of Saint John, where
the bodies of the aforesaid Saints rest, there was such
a multitude of men flowing together, the fame of the miracle being spread far and wide,
that the same church flourished with ample abundance of gifts."
[28] Thus far that fragment, in which if at least the name
of the Bishop were added, through whom the Translation was managed, we could
to some extent define its time: now again we must have recourse
to conjectures. The friend from Rieti who sent us all these things
indicated that it seemed to him that all these things
happened a few years after the first Translation under Bishop Primus,
before which the very Martyrdom of the Saints had preceded
with scarcely any intervening interval. The matter seems to have been done in the 6th century We are driven to a quite different
view by a stronger reason; for although the Saints'
bodies were first buried in the countryside, not Roman but Rieti
(which nevertheless we have said is not proved to us, indeed the contrary
is persuasively urged by Metaphrastes), yet that scrap, sewn
onto the Acts prenoted in favor of the people of Rieti, on whose sole testimony
rests the truth of the first Translation, requires that we likewise believe
that in the estate of Bishop Primus at Urbanianum a church was built:
but this cannot and ought not be believed gratuitously to have been done
before the reign of Constantine the Great and the peace given to the Christian cause.
The same scrap also requires that in the same church
the cult of the Saints' bodies should have persevered for some centuries,
before this was written; since the holy Martyrs are said
to work many benefits in that place "to this day,"
as we are not accustomed to speak except after a long lapse
of time. Therefore we shall not oppose anyone who might suspect that
Saint Probus, and perhaps under Saint Probus the Bishop. mentioned above in note X, was the author of the
transfer of the bodies within the city in the 6th century of Christ, when
there still remained in various places many statues, monuments
of ancestral superstition. Certainly it is necessary that this Probus
was most devoted to Saint Eleutherius, since as a boy sitting by his dying father,
and terrified at the entrance of certain candidate-clad and most splendid
men, he heard these words from him: "Do not
fear, for Saint Juvenal (namely the Bishop and Patron of nearby Narni)
and Saint Eleutherius the Martyrs have come to me."
Whatever may be about him, it will appear from what is to be said below
in number 31 that the holy bodies were afterwards found under
the altar of that church, with Saint Peter the Bishop of Compostela present,
who is venerated on September 10, and flourished after the year 950.
[29] There follows in the aforesaid fragment how the city of Rieti
was destroyed by Roger King of Sicily, and then restored by the citizens.
Both Ughelli in volume 1 of Italia Sacra writes to have happened
under Bishop Adenulphus, who, elected in 1188, left the Cathedra
in 1209, being made a Cistercian monk in the monastery
of Tre Fontane in Rome. But as to the first part he is greatly mistaken: for King Roger,
who began to reign in 1129, did not prolong his life beyond the year
1150; About the year 1143 by Roger King of Sicily when he had died, the seventh year of desolation not yet having elapsed,
the city began to be restored: neither, therefore, could have pertained
to the Episcopate of Adenulphus. The words of the fragment itself are as follows:
"But when there came the savage tyranny of Roger King of Sicily,
who, conceiving hatred against the people of Rieti with no preceding
cause, surrounded that city with a great
retinue of horsemen and footmen, with a marvelous siege;
although by the same siege of many years' course they were pressed,
the city of Rieti overthrown they resisted manfully the royal power. The same King,
vomiting his conceived hatred, and not seeking
a spirit of compassion toward the people of Rieti, destroyed houses and churches and ornaments;
and she was made a widow who before was a wife. So
the men of that city were exiled from their own hearths for almost
seven years; but returning they could say,
Now is corn where Rieti was."
[30] After his death it is restored. At length the Lord Jesus Christ, mindful of his faithful ones,
the said King having paid the debt of death,
prepared the way for the Rieti inhabitants, that they might re-enter the same city
without any obstacle, plague, famine,
and the anguish of other tribulations having consumed men for the
greater part. Entering and rebuilding
their houses and churches, of happy memory the Lord
Pope Innocent III (he presided over the Church from
the year 1198 to 1217), Innocent I say, in 1198 Innocent III
Pope III, they began with all affection to entreat that he should visit
the city of Rieti with his presence, that forgetful of such
dangers, the shadow of the Vicar of Christ might cherish them;
and the damage which their extermination had brought, his
presence might compensate. Consenting therefore
the supreme Pontiff to the petitions of the peoples, he came to that very city;
and there lingering for some time, by juridical report he perceived
that the often-named Martyrs had shone with countless miracles. He decrees that the translation be made from the old to the new crypt:
Wherefore when a certain citizen, for remission of his sins,
had caused to be built in the said church another crypt under the high altar,
he disposed that the aforesaid bodies be translated from the earlier crypt,
by the counsel of the Lords Cardinals: so that the devotion
of the same Saints might be renewed, which in the long interval of time
had been obliterated, mindful
of that prophetic word: "A thousand years before your eyes
are as yesterday that has passed." Ps 89:4
[31] And because there was no memory in what part
of the earlier crypt the said Bodies rested, the same supreme
Pontiff commanded that they be diligently sought again. When these bodies of the Saints
had been found again, by the sign of a certain image painted there
pointing with the finger to those bodies, which happens with great pomp
having been exhumed with the reverence which befitted, the Lord Pope himself,
the Lord Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops
dwelling in the Curia, translated them into the new crypt with
hymns and canticles: in which a noble structure
he ordered an altar to be built at his own expense; and
wishing that the devotion of the people of Rieti should grow, to all
truly penitent and confessed, and who in the said place
on the day of this translation stretched out their helping hands
(as we have heard from our elders), three years
and three forty-day periods of the penance enjoined upon them
he relaxed: and annually it is celebrated August 16. which Indulgence the aforesaid Lord
Pope and Lord Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops
placed in that very place to last in perpetuity.
The festival of the aforesaid Translation is to be celebrated on the day
after the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, in
honor of Blessed Eleutherius and Anthia his mother the Martyrs,
and Blessed John the Evangelist, to whom be honor and
glory forever and ever. In faith of which thing and for
the memory of posterity, a plate was placed on the sacred ark, made on the 13th of the same month.
whose inscription Ughelli records in volume 1 col. 113: "In
the name of the Lord. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation
1198, in the month of August, on the 13th day, in the time of Innocent
Pope III, he himself assisting in the city of Rieti, here
have been laid up the bones of the holy Martyrs Eleutherius
and Anthia his mother, in the presence of Lord Sofredus
Priest, Cardinal of the title of Saint Praxedes, and Master Peter Deacon
Cardinal of Saint Mary in Via Lata, and Adenulphus the Bishop of Rieti;
which were found under this altar (as an ancient title that was found,
history, and public fame indicated), with Peter
formerly Archbishop of Compostela present."
[32] As to Urbanianum, there are those who assert that there was once
a monastery, and that it was the one of which, as being "established next
to the walls of the city of Rieti," Saint Gregory the Great makes mention in Homily 35 on the Gospels,
with many praises extolling Saint Stephen, in his own days the Father of that monastery, from the suburban church of Saint Eleutherius
and in book 4 of the Dialogues chapter 19 describing his happy death;
on account of which he is inscribed in the ecclesiastical Fasts on February 13,
and also commemorated by us in its place. If this is true,
then either the translation of Relics to the church of Saint John the Evangelist was prior
to the foundation of that monastery, or followed later because of
its desolation through the incursions of barbarians; for it is not
probable that a place flourishing in religion and discipline,
under such a holy Abbot or his next successors,
by which it subsisted and was preserved. However this may be; that first church of Saint Eleutherius, Where in an Abbey founded about the year 1300
restored in Urbanianum, in the 13th or 14th century was increased by a notable
Abbey of the Benedictine Order, over which at the said century's end, in the 14th century,
John the Abbot was presiding, brother of Louis the Bishop of Rieti;
who, with him, on account of his zeal for exterminating vices and
restoring discipline, brought into hatred of the people, was killed by conspirators,
while they were both attending sacred offices, in the principal church
of the town called Civita Ducale, the relics of Saint Anthia were held: and about eight miles distant from Rieti.
This John I believe obtained from the Bishop his brother
part of the Relics of Saint Anthia, about whose discovery in the last century
and their return to the city I shall presently speak.
[33] The aforesaid killing of the Bishop and Abbot, which happened in the year
1399, moved the Roman Pontiff Boniface IX
with such indignation, that he deprived the people of the sacraments, and the church
of episcopal dignity. He also pressed the rebels, Rinaldo
Alphanus, who, as Ughelli relates from writings of the time,
girded with iron and flame, dreadfully despoiled the fortunes and resources
of the conspirators, so that he did not even spare the bodies
of those who by any affinity touched the rebels. The same after the desolation of the Abbey,
Who can doubt that this calamity afflicted also the monastery of Saint Eleutherius,
bereft of an Abbot, and likely not entirely empty
of factious men or their blood relations? Perhaps from then it fell into that
servitude of commendation, by which it was gradually worn down and exhausted
and finally came to nothing, with the church remaining; but so desolated,
that in the year 1562 idle men, no one forbidding them, did not fear to dig up
its pavement and the altars themselves, hoping to find something of gold
or silver furniture. But they found a better treasure than they had thought or hoped,
as the following instrument testifies. in 1562 they are translated to the Cathedral church, "On Sunday April 12,
1562, since it was known in the city of Rieti
that the Relics of the holy Martyrs Eleutherius the Bishop and Anthia his mother had most recently been
found, under the high altar of the church of Saint Eleutherius, situated
outside the city by one mile, yesterday for today,
by mandate of the Reverend Lord Vicar (for Bishop Giovanni Battista
Osius was absent, present at the Ecumenical Council of Trent), of the Canons
and Chapter of the church of Rieti, on the said
day, at about the 22nd hour, the Vicar and Canons and Confraters
of each Confraternity, with their gonfalons,
crosses and insignia, and with lights, the greater part
of the People of Rieti and of men and women of both sexes accompanying,
approached with great devotion, and with
prayers and litanies to the said church of Saint Eleutherius;
and there they found hidden the Relics, as above,
of Eleutherius and Anthia his mother, in a certain marble
casket, upon which was a square stone with a cover
and letters: 'The bones of Saint Anthia, mother of Saint Eleutherius.'
And the said Relics so found were brought
and translated processionally, with the people accompanying with
lights, from the said church of Saint Eleutherius to
the Cathedral church of Rieti." Concerning these Relics
this only I think is to be held, that the title inscribed in marble
indicated only that they were of Saint Anthia, not also of Saint Eleutherius,
and that according to popular custom the Notary before had
jointly named both, in recording these things.
[34] namely to the new church of the Blessed Virgin Assumed, But when the Cathedral church is named here,
there is not understood that which was restored by Adenulphus, under the title
of Saint John the Evangelist, which today converted into a Rectoral church
survives; but another more spacious and more august, under the title of the Virgin
Assumed, raised I know not when, certainly not before
in the indulgence of Martin V in the year 1419 to the supplicating people of Rieti the bond of
anathema was loosed, and the right of having a Bishop was restored.
But the bodies of their holy Patrons were not
translated with the Cathedra, [in the old church of Saint John the Evangelist the bodies themselves are found in 1597,]
but were left in their church of Saint John; for in the above instruments
it is read subsequently thus:
"On February 16, 1597, on Sunday
at dawn, in the crypt of Saint John the Evangelist, in the square
of Rieti, by the Archpriest Don Antonino de Fabris,
at that time Rector of the said church, were found
two lead caskets, one a palm wide and
a foot long, the other of the same length and
width; and on one of them was written 'Relics of Saint Eleutherius,'
on the other 'Relics of Saint Anthia': which were placed
in one stone box, under the high altar of the said
crypt, upon which stone box on its cover
was written in capital letters: 'Relics of Saints Eleutherius and Anthia his mother.'"
[35] whence was received the joint of Saint Eleutherius Nor should you doubt, because only Relics are named, that this
is understood of the principal part of the aforesaid bodies: for behold
the testimony of Augustine Vivaldi, Rector of the Jesuit College of Genoa,
written at Rome on January 23, 1612. "Whereas
to the very Reverend Father Charles Scribanius, Rector of the
College of Antwerp, I have given one of the joints of a finger of Saint
Eleutherius Bishop and Martyr, son of Saint Anthia the Martyr,
(which I myself drew from the church of Saint John at Rieti, where his
and his mother's sacred bodies are honorably preserved,
in the year 1600) with the faculty of the Reverend Horatius Gentilis,
then Apostolic Vicar in that city; and besides
part of the bone of one of the companions of Saint Placid
the Martyr, it is preserved at Antwerp with the Fathers of the Society of Jesus. whose bodies divinely found at Messina
our most holy Lord Paul V declared to be truly their bodies;
that such sacred Relics might not be
frustrated of due honor, concerning all these things, by these letters,
subscribed with my own hand and fortified with the seal of the Society, I
have wished to make faith." These Relics are now preserved at Antwerp, with
various remains of holy Pontiffs and Martyrs, and other
non-Pontiff Martyrs, in the sacristy of the Professed House,
in most elegant hierothecas made for that purpose. Whether
in the progress of the present century anything has been changed among
the people of Rieti, is not indicated by him who supplied the above documents;
only concerning the present Cathedral church he speaks thus,
as though there is a casket where the bodies of the said
Saints are hidden.
APPENDIX.
On Saint Eleutherius's Aecanan Pontificate, and the errors arisen from ignorance of it. Are his Relics there?
Eleutherius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Anthia the mother, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Parthenius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Calocerus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Febus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Proculus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Apollonius, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Fortunatus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Crispinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Expeditus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Mappalicus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
Gagus, Martyr at Rome (Saint)
By D. P.
[36] The solemnity of the principal cult, which Saint Eleutherius the Bishop
had most anciently at Constantinople, Saint Eleutherius Bishop
son of Antia the Consular matron, has made it that those by whom
we think the legend of the same Saints was first written,
from the information found about them among the Romans, we think should believe this among other things:
that he was immediately after his consecration given to
the Illyrians, for by no other title is he known to the Greeks than
Bishop of the Illyrians. Their right is favored in their Martyrologies
by Rabanus, Notker, and the author of the spurious Bede, when
they write that he was ordained Bishop at Aquileia: given as a herald of faith to the Illyrians because, as the Poet Ausonius sang,
"Aquileia thrown up against the Illyrian mountains,"
it could to some extent be counted as belonging to Illyricum. Since however
the Acts, which make him Bishop of Aecana, although, like the rest,
apocryphal, the antiquity is shown to be the greatest, from
the consensus of the very oldest martyrologies following those Acts;
we thought it could be granted to the people of Aecana, that among them
imbued with sacred letters and adorned with the Presbyterate, from their
own Bishop, who wished him as his successor, he was sent to Rome to be ordained
by him who then held the See of Peter; for from him almost
all Italy, even in the first centuries, received its Bishops. at the petition of the people of Aecana he could have been ordained
Certainly if the mother Antia sent her only and still young son,
who on account of the brightness of his lineage could not at Rome
have been so educated for the ministry of the church without incurring the eyes
of persecutors, for the cause of safer education she sent him to Apulia,
she can be believed to have followed an example customary in those times; since
we have from the Acts of Saint Sebastian that Pope Caius
was the author to those Christians who were less strong for Martyrdom,
that they should withdraw into Campania; where, as also in the neighboring
Apulia, Christians had quiet, if not perpetual,
at least interrupted by rarer and less vehement storms,
even when the persecution was at its height at Rome and in the Roman territory.
[37] Their city is now called Troia. With this supposed, or indulgently conceded beyond full proof,
it is to be explained what Aecana was. We gave
on February 11, from various Manuscripts, a double discovery of Saint Secundus the Bishop,
whom Troia, the Episcopal city of Apulia in the present
Capitanata, venerates as Patron, together with Saints Eleutherius and
Pontianus the Pontiffs and Martyrs, and Anastasius the Confessor:
and in that place we have treated at length of the aforesaid city of Troia,
explaining on what occasion it was founded by the Greeks, and intercepted by Saint
Henry the Emperor; teaching this especially
(as Guaiferius the Cassinese monk there relates in n. 4):
that it was first called Ecana, by others Aecana, Hecana, and Ecananum;
then, that those whom Pliny book 3 chapter 11 names Aecani, are
the townsmen of this place; and that concerning them in an ancient inscription
these words are read: Cur. Reip. Aecanorum: For Aecana indeed that Ferrarius teaches,
in the old Itinerary of Antoninus and the Peutinger Tables
they are called Aecas or Escas. These things need not now be repeated or
confirmed at more length; for they suffice thus briefly indicated
for understanding how Saint Eleutherius in the Acts cited at note a
is said to have been destined to the Apulian city of Hecana;
and again in the same Acts at note u they are said "from that city
of Hecana, in which (more truly 'for which') he had been ordained Bishop,
many followed him, and transmitted the relics of Saints
Eleutherius and Anthia to their own country."
In which place in Mombritius it is read: "from the city of Henechum
where he was Bishop." In the Manuscript Passional of Mount Oliveto among
the Neapolitans it is said he was Bishop in the city of Equa
in Apulia, or certainly Equum as it is handed down in the Syracusan Manuscript.
In the History of the Translation Saint Eleutherius is named
Bishop of the city of Aecana, which is now called Troia.
[38] Hence those who in Gaul and Germany wrote Martyrologies,
since the said city either no longer existed, with the name wrongly written. or
because what was called by the ancients Hecana, Aecana, or Equa,
was then called Troia, very easily erred, and
led others into greater darkness. It is found in some as Nesanum, In the Manuscript of Dijon,
which is some genuine supplement of Bede,
and in another Roman-Franco Manuscript obtained by us in Paris,
Nesanum of Apulia is ascribed in place of Hecana
of Apulia. Others more distortedly said Mesaenam, Misanam,
Mesenam, Messanam, the city of Apulia.
Thus Usuard, Ado, Notker, Bellinus,
Greven, Canisius, Molanus, and others. But omitting
mention of Apulia, Galesinius with the present Roman Martyrology
attributed it to Messana. Others on the contrary, omitting
the name of the Episcopal city, wrote that the Bishop was ordained
in Apulia, Messana of Apulia and that the citizens of Apulia transferred the bodies
to their city: so with several Manuscripts Peter de Natalibus book 4 chapter 61. But who
knows whether among those too, who wrote that Eleutherius was ordained
Bishop at Aquileia, the name of Aquileia has not crept in in place of what they had perhaps read "Apuliae,"
or corruptly "Apulejae"? So thought Cardinal Baronius
in his notes to the Roman Martyrology. Maurolycus
the Sicilian in his Martyrology, or Misenum of Campania. "at Misenum of Campania":
"but by conjecture," says Baronius, "because
Misenum is situated in Campania, and not in Apulia:
just as also those reading Messana thought it should be understood
of Messana the noble city in Sicily, whom
it is manifest to have been deluded; for neither at Miseni
in Campania, nor at Messana in Sicily is there any
mention of this Bishop Eleutherius. If therefore by the consent
of all the Latins the place should be placed in Apulia;
since neither Misenum nor Mesana can be found in that province,
we are led by conjecture that in place of
Messana should be read Messapia, which is a town
near Tarentum." Thus Baronius. But Messapia
is not so much a town as a region of the Salentinians
distinct from Apulia. But what need of conjecture,
when Aecana in the ancient Manuscripts is clearly indicated,
and what this is already appears from what has been said?
[39] Among some Canna Another error crept in among some, derived from
the etymology of the name Eleutherius; for what in Greek
is eleutheros, in Latin is called ingenuus, liber, liberalis;
whence they made a Saint Liberalis, and ascribed to him all the Acts
of Saint Eleutherius. So did Peter de Natalibus
book 2 chapter 20, who writes that he was Bishop of Canne
in Apulia, namely because Aecana and
Canna differ little. Following Peter, and on the day
December 30, on which he himself had referred Saint Liberalis of Canne,
they inscribed the same in their Martyrologies with the same
eulogy, Greven, Maurolycus, Galesinius,
Canisius, Ghinius. Ughelli in volume VII of Italia Sacra
published the Bishops of Canne, but found no one
named Liberalis, who is certainly none other than the
Eleutherius mentioned in this place, Bishop of Aecana, not Canne.
Ferrarius in his Catalog of Saints of Italy,
perhaps to escape the said objection, writes "Bishop of Canosa";
but in the Catalog of Saints
who are not in the Roman Martyrology afterwards written, or Canosa.
he again writes "Bishop of Canne," citing
also Paulus Regius and David Rhomaeus on the Saints
of the Kingdom of Naples. But these, without any examination,
followed Peter de Natalibus, and wished with one who was erring
to wander. Meanwhile Ferrarius leaves the matter to be discussed
by others, as the abundance of writers does not
supply; which will not be lacking to one reading this our account.
[40] Some take Messana of Sicily, The whole controversy could be ended, unless Bonfiglius
in the History of Sicily and Messina; Melchior
Inchofer, in *The Truth of the Letter of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the
People of Messina Vindicated*, chapter 36; Octavius Cajetanus,
in the Martyrology of Sicily and in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints;
and Philip Ferrarius, in the Catalog of Saints
of Italy, had assigned the same to Messana of Sicily; and that
with such confidence that it seems there could be no doubt about it.
But Roch Pirrus, in his Notice of the Messina Church
page 254 and following, broadly rejects these
authors' opinions; which, since this our elucidation has been seen,
another can present more briefly. Pirrus shows
that the first Bishop given to the Messinans was Eucarpus about
the year of Christ 500; and ridicules those who say Saint Eleutherius
is the same as him who is Bacchylus to others.
To us their opinion seems so much the more infirm and less
worthy of refutation, because Bacchylus himself,
as well as Eleutherius, was always unknown to the somewhat
older Messinans. Certainly if of either, as
Bishop of Messina, any notice had been in the old
records of the church or in any other monuments,
the Abbot of Messina and most diligent investigator of the affairs of his country,
Maurolycus, would not have failed to insert their names as Bishops of
Messina into his Martyrology; nor would he have transmitted
Eleutherius to Misenum of Campania, as we said above.
The rest may be read in Pirrus.
[41] The bodies of the Martyrs neither at Aecana, Let it remain therefore, if Eleutherius was ordained Bishop for any
other than the Illyrians, which the Greeks neither deny nor affirm,
that he was ordained for the people of Aecana: some of whom, having accompanied him to Rome,
could be believed to have carried the body back there, as is read
in the Acts described among them, unless those Acts in our judgment had been received from the people of Rieti
and through them from the Greeks, both of whom
claimed Eleutherius's body for themselves, and proving their claim by ancient possession
rather than by the faith of the Acts, which is slight. This
possession therefore the people of Aecana gratuitously arrogated to themselves,
by substituting the name of their city for the name of Illyricum, which alone
was read among the Greeks. nor at Rieti, but in the Roman territory first buried. Moreover since the same Greeks say nothing other
than that the bodies were secretly carried off from the place of martyrdom by the Illyrians,
and by them and by the Romans with common zeal were buried;
we cannot assent either to the people of Rieti that the first burial of the Martyrs was anywhere other
than in the Roman territory; from which afterwards, in
the full peace of the Church, being dug up, they were taken partly to Constantinople partly
to Rieti; of which also, either then or afterwards, afterwards they were shared with various places: other provinces
participated; in particular Campania, where among the people of Terracina
we have said the patronage of Saints Eleutherius and Anthia is vigorous;
where there is also Mons Virginis between Capua and Benevento,
as our Beatillus taught us (whom on geographical maps
we have not found, unless perhaps under the name of Saint Mary
della Grotta), and in it the body, that is the relics, of Saint Anthia. In like
manner I might easily believe that some portion of the said relics
also came to the people of Aecana, if they did not have
those Relics of Saint Eleutherius, which the Trojans now possess and think
to be those of the Aecana Bishop, not as ones deposited among them from antiquity,
but as brought from Tivoli in the year 1105.
[42] which however are now held at Troia as relics of Saint Eleutherius We have the history of the Translation, both of these and
of the Relics of Saint Pontianus the Pope and of Saint Anastasius the Confessor,
written by Roffredus, the Precentor of the Trojan church, an eyewitness,
who doubted nothing but that he, of whom the discussion is, was the Bishop of Aecana.
But since by no indication can I discover
that anything of his body was ever possessed by the people of Tivoli,
and a just cause occurs for suspecting that, no less
than Saint Pontianus, Saints Eleutherius and Anastasius were Roman
Pontiffs, whose remains
were brought to Tivoli from the city of Rome; I am forced to fear lest only the affection
toward him who was believed to have been educated and ordained at Aecana, now Troia,
brought from Tivoli in the year 1105 persuaded the Trojans that he whose bones
they had received from Tivoli was their Eleutherius, without
any other proof.
[43] A native of Tivoli was Saint Simplicius the Pope, elevated in the year 467
to the Apostolic See, of whom we treated on March 2, and whose
Relics are asserted by Baronius to have been buried at Tivoli, which I should easily understand of
the whole body, since no Roman church
claims him for itself. They believe and worship him as the one who consecrated
the image of the Savior in their Cathedral church.
Why should we not suspect the same man was solicitous
about his own country, to be enriched by sacred Relics, they seem to be of the Roman Pontiff,
especially if there he ordered himself to be buried?
and that he took them from the bodies of his Predecessor Pontiffs Eleutherius,
Pontianus, and Anastasius? The Relics certainly, afterwards brought to Troia, are scarcely
otherwise called in the course of the aforesaid history than "Saints
Eleutherius and Pontianus the Pontiffs and Martyrs, and
Anastasius the Confessor," as supposed a Pontiff, for "Brother
and Co-Bishop Eleutherius" is said to have accompanied Pontianus
in the Translation. Nor does it matter that Anastasius
the Pope is thought to have died on April 27, while the Trojans
celebrate the feast, as they received it to be celebrated from the people of Tivoli,
on September 12: for this could have been the day of the translation. Yet not
in this month of April shall we give the History of the said Translation,
nor even on March 26 at the memory of Saint Eleutherius the Pope;
but we shall reserve it for November 19, when Saint Pontianus
is venerated, concerning whom not even the Trojans themselves think otherwise
than we do; and they have the relics themselves in wooden gilded statues,
with silver heads and hands; whence the more easily
they will admit, what they call bodies are only parts of bodies,
and perhaps very small.