ON SAINTS SULPITIUS AND SERVILIANUS, ROMAN MARTYRS.
UNDER TRAJAN.
CommentarySulpitius, Martyr at Rome (St.)
Servilianus, Martyr at Rome (St.)
By G. H.
On the 15th day of April we gave the deeds of the holy Martyrs Maro, Eutyches and Victorinus, Priests, excerpted from the Acts of the martyrdom of Saints Nereus, Achilleus, and Domitilla, which we have in very many and most illustrious manuscript codices. In these are interposed various titles [The Acts of these Martyrs are given from the manuscript Acts of Saints Nereus and Achilleus], among which is one of this kind: "Here ends the account of the passions of Eutyches, Victorinus, and Maro; here begins that of Domitilla, and of the Virgins Euphrosyna and Theodora; and of Sulpitius and Servilianus." Of these the last two are venerated on this day, April 20, and what pertains to them, excerpted from the said Acts, is given here.
[2] It came to pass, then, that after Aurelian had taken away from Domitilla's consolation all the Saints of God, They were betrothed, and still pagans he said to Sulpitius and Servilianus, illustrious young men: "I know that you have as your betrothed the foster-sisters of Domitilla, that is, Euphrosyna and Theodora, most wise virgins. When therefore I shall have caused Domitilla to be brought down from the island to Campania, let these go to her for a visit, and let them by their persuasion recall her mind to my favor…" These things having been done, Aurelian came with the two bridegrooms himself the third, with three musicians, so that the weddings of the three virgins might take place as though on a single day. Now Sulpitius and Servilianus, seeing a mute woman speak and Herod, the brother of Theodora, enlightened by the sign of the Cross and the prayers of Domitilla, are converted because of the blind and mute healed by Saint Domitilla believed. When Aurelian urgently exhorted them to take their brides on one and the same day, Sulpitius and Servilianus, most prudent men, said to him: "Give honor to God, by whose power we behold the blind man enlightened and see the mute woman speaking." But Aurelian, caring nothing for what they said, by his power caused Domitilla to be shut up in a chamber, that he might more safely do violence to her; and the musical instruments having been set in place after supper, he began joyously to dance among them. As he danced in the customary manner of weddings, all the others dropping away, and Aurelian divinely punished with death he danced on ceaselessly for two days and two nights, until, falling down, he expired. And those who saw what had happened all believed.
[3] Now the brother of Aurelian, named Luxurius, petitioned the Emperor Trajan betrayed by Luxurius that he would compel all these to sacrifice, and that if they would not consent, he might put them to death by whatever punishments he wished. Hence it came about that he delivered Sulpitius and Servilianus to Anianus, Prefect of the City; whom the Prefect, on their confessing By order of the Prefect Anianus they are beheaded that they had recently been made Christians and utterly refused any longer to offer sacrifice to idols, ordered to be beheaded. Their bodies Christians laid in their estate, on the Via Latina at the second milestone, in which place their power overflows to this present day. Thus far the Acts from very many manuscript codices of the best note. In agreement with these are the ancient Martyrologies, and what Usuard wrote reads thus: "At Rome, the holy Martyrs Sulpitius and Servilianus, inscribed in the Martyrologies who, converted to the faith of Christ by the preaching and miracles of the Virgin Domitilla, when they refused to offer sacrifice to idols, were beheaded by Anianus, Prefect of the City." The same words are still read in today's Roman Martyrology. Ado and Notker have somewhat more from the Acts, and more recent writers in their manuscript and printed Martyrologies have followed them everywhere.
[4] Paolo Aringhi, in book 4 of his Roma subterranea, chapter 4, relates that in the aforesaid estate of these Martyrs a cemetery was made, the most ancient of all those on the Via Latina, adjoining the cemetery of Saints Gordianus and Epimachus, which Anastasius the Librarian mentions in the Life of Saint Hadrian I, Roman Pontiff, in these words: "In like manner also the basilica of Saints Gordianus and Epimachus, or the cemetery of the same Church of Simplicius and Servilianus, buried in the cemetery on the Via Latina and of Quartus and Quintus, Martyrs, and of Blessed Sophia, together with the cemetery of Saint Tertullus, outside the Porta Latina, he renewed from its foundations." And Aringhi adds a little later: "There exists in a certain garden, near the church of Blessed Michael the Archangel, which by the common voice of all is called 'in the Burgh', a very ancient inscription carved on stone, which we may well believe was brought thither from that same famous cemetery, and which, as conjecture to the one contemplating it suggests, was once affixed to the tomb of those same Martyrs with an inscription. The inscribed stone is of this tenor: 'Simplicius Martyr, Servilianus Martyr,' with a heart belching forth flame twice interposed." But this one whom he calls Simplicius is by others called Sulpitius, the companion of Servilianus; for whom elsewhere also 'Semilianus' is read, and he is said to be venerated together on the 12th day before the Kalends of May.
[5] Whether their bodies are at Rome in the church of Saint Praxedes Ottavio Panciroli, in his Treasury Hidden in the bountiful City of Rome, region 2, chapter 42, teaches that from the said cemetery the Bodies of Saints Sulpitius and Servilianus were translated to the Church of Saint Praxedes, and are even now preserved whole there. But Kaspar Brusch, in his Chronology of the Monasteries of Germany, fol. 48, writes that these bodies were carried into Germany under the said Pope Hadrian, in these words: "The monastery of Elephanciacum, otherwise Elefancense, or as they call it today Elwangen, magnificent, of the Order of Saint Benedict, on the Jagst or Jaxta, a river of Franconia, transferred into Germany to the monastery of Ellwangen situated in the Virguna, today called the Virngrund, and named from a stag captured there, was founded in the year of the Lord 764 by a certain Hariolfus, Bishop of Langres, whom Pippin and Charlemagne, Kings of the Gauls, held most dear and were accustomed to salute as Father. Hariolfus the founder obtained privileges and the bodies of Saints Sulpitius and Servilianus, Martyrs, from Pope Hadrian." We have likenesses, elegantly engraved, of Saints Benignus, Sulpitius, and Servilianus, Martyrs, Patrons of the Church of Ellwangen, and joined to them a compendium of their Lives, both printed in the year 1612 at Augsburg; where concerning the said Martyrs at the end it thus reads: "The bodies of Saints Sulpitius and Servilianus, first laid on the Via Latina, under Pope Hadrian where they shone with many miracles, were at length translated to Ellwangen, to the collegiate Church of Saint Vitus, by the Founders of the same Church, Blessed Hariolfus and Erlolfus, through the grace and help of Pope Hadrian; where they are devoutly honored with solemn veneration." So much there. The feast of the translation is celebrated on May 23. The church is called collegiate because afterwards, as is now seen, a noble college of secular Canons, of knightly birth, was formed there, as Gabriel Bucelin writes, tome 1 of Germania sacra, part 2; by Hariolfus and Edolfus, Bishops of Langres? where he says that the monastery was founded by Blessed Hariolfus and Edolfus his brother, Bishop of Langres, in the year of Christ 764, who also brought into it the bodies of Saints Sulpitius and Servilianus, Martyrs. That both were Bishops of Langres James Vignier writes in the Chronicle of Langres. Hadrian began to preside over the Church from the 10th day of February 772, until the year 795, when he died on December 16.
[6] At Bologna also the Franciscans celebrate on this April 20 the feast of Saint Servilianus Martyr with the ecclesiastical Office under a double rite, because they have the head of a certain Servilianus with a body, as appears from the Calendar of Saints of the said convent, At Bologna is the body of a certain Saint Servilianus which was handed to us in the year 1660 by Innocent the Guardian with his seal affixed. Masini in his Bologna perlustrata under this April 20 makes mention of the same Saint Servilianus, and asserts that it was brought from Rome to Bologna in the year 1622, under the Pontificate of Gregory XV, at the procurement of Marius Antonius Gozzadini, Cardinal of Bologna, received in the year 1622 at the petition of Michael Miserotti, Bishop of Bitetto, of the Order of Conventuals of Saint Francis, who was himself also a Bolognese. These seem, having received the body of Saint Servilianus, to have had recourse to the Roman Martyrology, in which this is the one and only Servilianus and he suffered at Rome, and then by the common and inveterate error to have concluded that they had his body. Masini adds that some relics of Saint Sulpitius are in the church of Blessed Mary of the Servites.
[7] Another in the town of Servilianum among the Piceni There is among the Piceni, in the diocese of Fermo, a town by the name of Servilianum, at the head of a torrent to which the chorographic tables assign the name Laeti-mortui, between the Tinga
and Aso rivers, about twenty miles from the Adriatic Sea. That it was named from some Servilius, or from Servilianus, once lord of the place itself (as also very many other towns of this kind of ending, almost without number, to which the title of "Saint" is not prefixed), I think ought to be beyond doubt. The citizens of this town, when in the Roman Martyrology they had found a Martyr bearing the same name as their homeland, and one indeed so illustrious, took pains that they might have some of his Relics from Rome, where it was known that he had suffered. They obtained, therefore, from the Roman crypts the body of a certain Saint Servilianus, Martyr (whether the name was truly found in the crypts, or assigned at the finder's discretion, it is not worth inquiring); and in accordance with that common and inveterate error which we noted above, thinking it to be the same man whom the records of the Martyrology indicated, in the year 1663 they brought it with great solemnity into the Parish church, received in the year 1663 and there placed it on a marble altar at the left side of the high altar. It would be worth the trouble to inspect the very testimonies of the Roman discovery; for we scarcely doubt that the name of some other cemetery must be found, from which that body was taken, than that in which the famous Martyr Servilianus is known to have been entombed. Granted that the same name of cemetery might be produced, yet certainly since the body of that famous man would not have lain hidden so long, and since very many of one and the same name could, indeed must, have been buried in one cemetery, in so great a multitude of Martyrs brought together from all quarters—we could not be persuaded that this is the very body which has now recently been unearthed. We should prefer, to avoid confusion, in establishing the feasts of such newly-found Martyrs, to abstain from those days on which the name occurs in the Roman Martyrology; we do not, however, therefore utterly disapprove the now-received usage, and so we here make mention of this Saint Servilianus also, on the information given to us by the Reverend Francis de la Grange, a French Priest who made a pilgrimage thither and is now Chaplain at the house of the Holy Virgin of Loreto.
[8] A particle at Antwerp The Church of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp has a certain middling bone of Saint Servilianus Martyr, and as though pertaining to this day, April 20 has been assigned. They were brought from Rome in the year 1623 by Father Marcus van den Tympel of our Society, who obtained them there through the kindness of the most excellent Don Juan Fernando Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, in the year 1606 Ambassador for His Catholic Majesty to Pope Paul V. This Father Marcus gave them, and other things likewise then received and brought, and approved by John Malder, Bishop of Antwerp, to the Lady Mary Hautappels, distinguished benefactress of our house along with her sisters; and she returned them to us for the adornment of the Marian chapel in the year 1626. Afterwards they were distributed into various reliquaries one by one, and thus the Middling bone of Saint Servilianus now rests in the one which is inscribed with the title of Holy Martyrs not Pontiffs.