the Roman Martyrs

ON STS. THE ROMAN MARTYRS

SIXTUS II POPE, QUARTUS, FELICISSIMUS AND AGAPITUS:

LIKEWISE JANUARIUS, VINCENT, MAGNUS AND STEPHEN.

In the year 258.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Sixtus II, Pope and Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Quartus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Felicissimus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Agapitus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Januarius, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Vincent, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Magnus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Stephen, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. The name of St. Sixtus; the memory of himself and of the others in the Martyrologies; the public veneration of St. Sixtus from the holy Fathers, from sacred buildings and Offices, and from relics.

To an illustrious splendor did this holy Pope and martyr Sixtus, or Xystus, raise his name: The etymology of the name; concerning the etymology of which I observe these things. As for "Sixtus," I have no root, either Latin or Greek, to which I might refer it. Judge otherwise of "Xystus." James of Genoa strays very far from the genuine etymology of the name, when in the Legends of the Saints he writes thus: Sixtus is said from "sios," which is God, and "status": as it were divine estate. Or Sixtus is said from "sisto, sistis": as it were fixed and firm in faith and in suffering, and in good working. Is this not much worse than to say nothing? He would have said something, who showed that under the name Xystus something polished or scraped is contained, as though it were ξυστὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύειν, that is, to polish, to scrape. For if, because in the xystus the athletes used to be scraped with strigils, as is found in Vossius in the Etymologicon of the Latin tongue, the common noun "xystus" can not incongruously be derived from that root: why not also "Xystus," the proper name? Although to others, as the same author notes, it seems that the name "xystus" comes from the lances which they call ξυστούς. But since the things which are disputed concerning etymological roots are often uncertain, we shall not linger longer on this subject. Let us therefore pass on to other matters.

[2] To so illustrious a splendor, I say, did our Saint raise his name, the memory of St. Sixtus and of the others that scarcely the memory of any other Roman Pontiff has been consecrated by more ancient monuments. For in the Deposition of the Martyrs in Bucherius it is thus marked in the month of August: On the eighth of the Ides, of Systus, in the cemetery of Callistus, and of Prætextatus, of Agapitus, and of Felicissimus. The Calendar of the church of Carthage, published by Mabillon in volume 3 of the Old Analects from page 398, reads thus: The eighth of the Ides of August, of St. Systus, bishop and martyr, at Rome. Likewise an ancient Calendar of the Roman Church, edited by Edmond Martène in the New Thesaurus of Anecdotes, volume 5, column 76, records thus: On the sixth day of the month of August, the birthday of St. Xystus, bishop. The metrical Martyrology of the Venerable Bede, inserted in volume 10 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery, page 128, sings these words:

And on the eighth of the Ides it holds holy and kindly Xystus.

In the same place, page 137, another old Calendar: The eighth of the Ides, the birthday of St. Xistus, and of St. Felicissimus and Agapitus. The Hieronymian Martyrology in Florentinius: At Rome, in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, the birthday of Xistus the bishop, of Felix, and of Agapitus, etc. In our codices, he says on page 736, it seems that for "Felix" "Felicissimus" is to be restored. The old or little Roman Martyrology, published by Rosweyde: At Rome on the Appian Way, of Xystus, Pope and martyr, of Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons, in the cemetery of Prætextatus. The Martyrology of Ado on this day: At Rome on the Appian Way in the cemetery of Callistus, the birthday of St. Sixtus, bishop and martyr. And in the cemetery of Prætextatus, of the holy Felicissimus and Agapitus, his deacons, under the emperor Decius, Valerian being prefect. There follows a long eulogy, or a compendium of the Acts, which Notker put together more concisely.

[3] Usuard is almost in agreement with his guide: At Rome on the Appian Way, in the sacred Latin calendars, the birthday of blessed Xystus, bishop and martyr. And in the cemetery of Prætextatus, of the holy Felicissimus and Agapitus, his deacons, who were beheaded together with him under Decius. To these add Wandelbert, not to commemorate others. The Frontonian Calendar had gone before, which nevertheless in its notation of the day is altogether singular, in these words: On the fifth day of the month of August, the birthday of St. Sixtus, of Felicissimus and Agapitus. Concerning the Sacramentaries edited by Ménard and Thomasius I shall speak below at number 21. The modern Roman Martyrology says thus: At Rome on the Appian Way in the cemetery of Callistus, the birthday of blessed Sixtus the second, Pope and martyr, who in the persecution of Valerian, punished by the sword, received the crown of martyrdom. Likewise of the holy Martyrs Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons of the same Sixtus; of Januarius, Magnus, Vincent, and Stephen, subdeacons; who all were beheaded together with him, and were buried in the cemetery of Prætextatus. There suffered also with them blessed Quartus, as St. Cyprian writes.

[4] The Greeks refer St. Xystus to the tenth day of this month, together with St. Lawrence. as also among the Greeks. For then in the great printed Menæa of the Greeks there is marked: The memory of the holy martyrs Lawrence the archdeacon, Xystus, and Hippolytus, and he is honored with verses and with a eulogy. The Arabic-Egyptian Menologium, which Grazia Simonio rendered into Latin from the Arabic, places on the same day The contest of St. Lawrence and of Sixtus, Roman Pope. The Sirletian Menologium marks both Saints, who, as it adds, suffered martyrdom under the emperor Decius. To these the printed Anthology of the Greeks, and the Sparwenfeldian Menologium, add Hippolytus; the latter adding that they suffered in the year 261 under Valerian and Gallienus. But the time of the martyrdom will be treated below. The memory of our Saint was therefore in public veneration among the Greeks; but in far greater among the Latins, to whom assuredly the most holy Pontiff more nearly pertained. Let us illustrate the matter from ancient documents.

[5] St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who lived with our Saint, The public veneration of the Saint in epistle 80 according to the Bremen edition of the year 1690, but according to the Pamelian edition 82, writing to Successus concerning his martyrdom, signified not obscurely how excellently he himself was affected toward him, and desired others in the provinces of Africa to be affected, when from his example he took occasion of strengthening them: Know, he says, that Xistus was punished in the cemetery... But upon this persecution also the prefects in the City press daily, so that those who have been presented to them may be punished, and their goods claimed for the treasury. These things I ask that through you they may be made known also to our colleagues, so that everywhere by their exhortation the brotherhood may be able to be strengthened, and prepared for the spiritual contest. Another indication of the solemn veneration toward our Martyr among the Africans I bring forward from St. Augustine, tract 27 on John; where, speaking of St. Lawrence on the day sacred to him, he has thus: But the holy martyr Xystus had said to him; whose day we celebrated five days back from now, etc. For Italy there speak St. Peter Chrysologus, and Ennodius of Pavia; of whom the former indeed, in sermon 135 on St. Lawrence, says: When he was then archdeacon, blessed Sixtus was bishop: whose triumph of martyrdom was three days before.

[6] from various documents, Ennodius, moreover, treats of the church built in his honor by St. Lawrence, archbishop of Milan, in his eighth epigram; which is inscribed thus: Verses made and written in the Basilica of St. Xystus the bishop, which bishop Lawrence built. And they run thus:

A prelate strong in genius, in probity, in modesty, Adorned the gift with merits, and joining the lights of life To the price of the work, established these temples. Fame, fallen through uncertain recesses, does not scatter; But the law of the old deed lives, increased through the age, Which favoring Xystus receives as the gifts of Lawrence. Thus remains the office which the Saint once attained. This man offered the temple, which that one, coming, consecrates.

The deeds of that St. Lawrence have been set forth by us in a historical Commentary in volume VI of July, at the day the XXVII; where in §5, page 441, are given the churches founded or restored by him at Milan; and the said epigram.

[7] likewise from the churches As Rome was the wrestling-ground of his martyrdom, so it also fell to it to be the theater of the public cult of St. Sixtus: and this is plain from the buildings consecrated to God under his name. St. Gregory, in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 26, introduces an advocate who said that he was about to go forward by the Appian Way to the church of blessed Sixtus. Fronto, in the notes inserted into his Calendar, at the fifth day of August, says: There was at Rome an oratory of Sts. Sixtus and Fabian: concerning which [see] in Paschal. Besides, there was the title of Sixtus, otherwise called the title of Tigris or Tigrida; concerning which [see] in the Roman synod under Symmachus, and in another under Gregory II, in the year 721. Paschal I sat from the year of Christ 817 until the year 824. In his Life, in Labbe, volume 7 of the Councils, column 1497, I read these things: But in the oratory of the most blessed martyrs Sixtus and Fabian the already named Pontiff made three bowls of silver, etc. But those things create a difficulty for me which were said by us in volume 1 of April, at the day VI, page 534, from Onuphrius; where there is placed an oratory and altar of St. Xystus, Pope and martyr, beneath which by Pope Paschal II were buried the bodies of the holy Pontiffs, of Xystus himself, of Fabian the martyrs, and of Sergius II. Paschal II sat from the year 1099 to the year 1118. These things, I say, create a difficulty for me, and stir the suspicion that perhaps some confusion underlies them; not to mention that it is not established whether they ought to be understood of Sixtus I, or of the second. For the rest, concerning the sacred building at Rome under the name of Sixtus II, Panciroli treats in the Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome, Region 9, church 23; where among other things he writes that a house was given by a certain noble woman, called Tigris, that it might be consecrated under his name. Of the notable temple of St. Sixtus II, built among the people of Piacenza by the wife of the emperor Louis II, Antonio Libanori makes mention in his Sixtus II, which was published at Ferrara in the year 1638, page 51.

[8] and from the divine Offices; But now, if we wish to go back over the ancient traces of the divine Offices, we shall find that a most honorable memory of our holy Pontiff was celebrated in them. Of which matter let the Sacramentaries published by Ménard and Thomasius be the proof.

Consult the latter on pages 162 and 367; the former indeed on page 118. For the rest, a veneration so singular and so universal suggests a ground for believing that the name of this our Saint, rather than that of St. Sixtus I, was inserted into the Canon of the Roman Missal. But if it were established that the order of time was observed in the Canon, the Xystus marked in it would be the Pontiff first of this name, since he precedes Cornelius, who lived before Sixtus II. But perhaps this is the reason why he is placed there before St. Cornelius, lest the latter should be separated from St. Cyprian, to whom God had joined him in so many ways; and lest St. Cyprian should be placed before St. Sixtus. And indeed St. Lawrence stands there after St. Cyprian, although he certainly suffered before him. So much concerning the cult; which his sacred relics moreover increased and fostered: concerning which I subjoin these things.

[9] St. Gregory, Pope I, in the Register, book 12, in his ninth response to Augustine, as also from the sacred relics, sent to various places of Italy makes mention of the relics sent by him into England. Receive the text itself, which is found in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, column 1571: I beseech, says Augustine, that the relics of the holy martyr Sixtus be transmitted to us. To whom Gregory: We have done what you asked, so that the people, who in a certain place said that they venerated the body of the holy martyr Sixtus, which seems to your fraternity to be neither true nor truly holy, receiving the sure benefits of a most holy and most approved martyr, ought not to venerate uncertain things. But Baronius in his Notations on this passage rightly observes that it is not clear whose martyr Sixtus it was, of this one, or of the earlier one, or of some martyr Sixtus who was not a Pontiff. Libanori, mentioned above, affirms that the body of our St. Sixtus was translated to Piacenza. I abridge the affair from the Italian thus: By the effort of the emperor Louis, her husband, his wife procured and obtained from the supreme Pontiff Nicholas I the body of the same St. Sixtus, which, having ordered it to be carried with great solemnity to Piacenza, she placed in the church dedicated under his name. Many monuments testify to the deed, which are preserved in that monastery, and many inscriptions, which are seen in the said deposit, which finally was translated beneath the high altar of that most noble church. The wife of the emperor Louis II was Engelberga or Angelberga; to whom, among the epistles of Pope John VIII, the forty-third is extant in Labbe, volume 9 of the Councils, printed at column 37; and it is a letter of consolation upon the death of her husband. Other epistles to the same woman follow in the same place. Aimoin also makes mention of her, On the Deeds of the Franks, book 5, chapter 28.

[10] Pietro Maria Campi, in his Ecclesiastical History, part 1, book 7, transmitted, writes at the year 852 concerning the monastery founded at Piacenza by the said empress, which today, as he adds, is called St. Sixtus's. Mention of it is made besides by Ughelli, volume 4 of Sacred Italy, column 950, and by Lubin in the Account of the Abbeys of Italy, page 300: but Sigonio, in his History of the kingdom of Italy, book 5, saying at the year 875 that Louis's wife Engelberga had for religion's sake built a noble monastery at the city of Piacenza, and had consecrated it to the holy Sixtus and Agapitus, signifies that it was consecrated under the name of Sixtus II, Pope, who together with St. Agapitus is announced on this day, the sixth of August, in the sacred Calendars, as we have seen. Libanori, cited above, is the authority, on page 52, that the head of this our holy Pontiff is honored in the church and monastery of St. Bartholomew at Ferrara, of the Cistercian Order; and that it could have been carried thither about the year 869, according to the conjectures which he forms. To these he subjoins various things to prove the antiquity and the genuineness of that sacred pledge. And indeed he testifies on page 55 that so great and so continual favors and graces are granted to the people of Ferrara, and to other faithful, by the patronage of St. Sixtus, that besides the concourse of the whole city and diocese of Ferrara on the sixth day of August, sacred to his annual veneration (on which day he says the Office of one Martyr Pontiff is wont to be performed by the Cistercian monks, and an abbatial Mass to be sung), also through the whole course of the year there are seen, in almost continuous succession, persons of every sex, age, and condition, who come to give thanks to the Saint for health recovered; as also innumerable silver votive offerings bear witness, and the ornaments of the sacristy, offered to the Saint in testimony of graces obtained; besides the great number of Masses which they take care to have celebrated at his altar.

[11] and exposed to public veneration. The praised Libanori mentions besides that at the entrance of the church, on the left hand, an excellent picture of the Saint is to be seen, with this inscription engraved in golden letters:

Here is venerated the worshipful power of holy Sixtus: Seek him, if you wish to have a sound head.

Whence it becomes clear that God is propitious, by the Saint's intercession, to those who suffer from headache, and who implore his patronage to this end, and take care to have his holy relics applied to themselves by the Cistercian monks, which for that reason are exposed separately to public veneration. And these are the things which, on the faith of Antonio Libanori, at the time when he published them Prior of the aforesaid monastery of St. Bartholomew near Ferrara (as is plain from the approbation of the book, page 56), I have gathered concerning the public and singular cult toward St. Sixtus among the praised monks: concerning whose monastery more will be given by Ughelli, volume 2 of Sacred Italy, columns 557 and following, and by Lubin, cited above, page 132; which I wonder is placed by Jongelinus, in the Accounts of the abbeys of the Cistercian Order, book 7, page 33, in the city of Ferrara itself; since the editor of the book just mentioned writes "near Ferrara," and the approver writes in the year 1638, Given in our monastery of St. Bartholomew outside Ferrara; which is situated at the first milestone from the city, or about a single mile. See Libanori, page 52.

[12] What relics there are in Gaul, Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology, after the announcement of our Martyr, subjoins these things: His glorious head, and his two arms, brought from Rome into Gaul, to the Carthusian monastery of Rutila (rather, of Putila) on the bank of the Meuse, of which he is venerated as patron, are there kept, laid up with worthy cult, and his memory to be venerated is today honored with great celebrity. From Aubert Le Mire, in the little work which he entitles The Origins of the Carthusian monasteries, etc., chapter 13, this monastery is the house of St. Sixtus, in the village of Putila, commonly Pettel, in the borders of Lorraine, on the river Moselle near the town of Sierck. A recent legend-writer, who published Lives of the Saints in French at Paris in the year 1704, observes on this day in the Life of our Saint that there is also to be seen in the Benedictine abbey of St. Michael on the Meuse in Lorraine, in the diocese of Verdun, some sacred relic which is believed to be of St. Sixtus, Pope and martyr, given by Pope Clement X to the Most Eminent Retz, who bestowed it on that abbey, together with another of St. Damasus, Pope. As for what pertains to the head, I leave it to be discerned by others, whether the men of Putila or the Cistercians outside Ferrara — to both of whom the head of the same Saint is ascribed — may prove by more solid arguments the genuineness of this their sacred deposit, as they will have it, and their possession of the same. Concerning the other relics just mentioned, there is need to bring forward good reasons that they be held for relics of this our St. Sixtus.

[13] in Germany, With us in volume 1 of January, page 1084, in the addenda to the second day of that month, among the Relics brought to Prague by Charles IV is placed "a part of the head of St. Sixtus, Pope and Martyr," and the sixth of August is appended. Gelenius in his Colonia Agrippina, book 3, syntagma 2, §2, page 263, makes mention of relics of Sixtus, likewise of Felicissimus and Agapitus; concerning which besides on page 264; but on page 265 he places three particles of St. Sixtus, Pope (of ours, or of another?). From a letter given at Louvain on the second day of May, 1674, to our Father Papebroch, I learn that there is there, since the year 1638, among other relics of the Saints brought from Rome and approved by the Most Illustrious Lord Jacob Boonen, archbishop of Mechlin, the almost entire body of St. Magnus the subdeacon, who is venerated with St. Sixtus on the sixth of August. Likewise in another letter, written in the same place on the seventh day of the aforesaid month and year to the same Papebroch, it is said: We have very notable relics of St. Agapitus, martyr and deacon, who also was beheaded with St. Xistus and St. Magnus. But who would believe that those relics are of these Martyrs? Before me I have a letter given from the monastery of Warneton of the Regular Canons in Flanders, on the twenty-seventh day of November, 1687, in which I read that the body of St. Agapitus is held there. But since in the instrument of donation, a copy of which I have at hand, and which is dated the fifteenth day of September in the year 1650, Alexander Victricius, bishop of Alatri, testifies that, while he was discharging the office of Vicegerent, he had given to the Most Reverend Father Balthasar d'Avila, of the Order of Minims of St. Francis of Paola, the bodies or bones of the bodies of the holy Martyrs... Amantius, Antoninus, Agapitus, Basil, Constantius, Damian, and Eusebius; and since the body or relics of St. Agapitus already mentioned were afterward given to the men of Warneton by another Religious of the said Paulan Order, as is clear from an instrument dated the twenty-eighth day of January, 1659; it follows that that body is from the number of those Saints whom they call "baptized" that is, newly named.

[14] Tamayo in his Spanish Martyrology, at this sixth day of August, page 391, records the translation of some sacred pledges of St. Sixtus and in Spain. from Rome into Spain, to the monastery of Huerta near the city of Lorca. In proof of which he says, I call an eyewitness, Father Vargas, History of Huerta, under the title of the relics, §1, folio 4; where he asserts that he himself (I would say, that he) brought them out from Rome by Apostolic authority, and placed them in that royal monastery on the high altar. On this let the credit stand with him. To these Tamayo adds in the same place that the relics of St. Innocent, one, as he will have it, of the four Subdeacons who suffered with our St. Sixtus, were translated to the same monastery, on the testimony of the same Vargas, whom he cites. But it is very well known that it not rarely happens to possessors of sacred pledges that they affect the names of Saints more celebrated than others, and wish more to be believed of them by others in this matter than they themselves could ever prove.

§ II. His fatherland, his profession of life before the Pontificate, his deeds in the Pontificate; the place, time, and occasion of his martyrdom.

The Saint a Greek by nation, an Athenian by fatherland, Our holy Athlete was a Greek by nation, according to the first Catalogue of ancient Pontiffs, which is found in our work before volume 1 of the month of April, page XXVII. Anastasius the Librarian agrees, in the Life of St. Sixtus II, and other documents, which also determine the fatherland from which he sprang. Ado says, This blessed Sixtus was born at Athens. The Acts of St. Stephen, Pope and martyr, published in Surius at the second day of August, also write that he was an Athenian by fatherland. With these our own agree

codices, P Ms. 155, folio 84, and Q Ms. 6, that is, the Fulda codex, folio 40; in which he is said to have been born at Athens. Add, among the variant readings to Anastasius the Librarian, most recently reprinted at the Roman press, volume 1, page 26, from the royal, Mazarin, and Thuanus codices, "a Greek by nation, of Athens." Of the moderns, since they can add nothing or little of weight to this matter, it will suffice to bring forward one alone, Francis Pagi in the Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, page 53, for whom our Pontiff is "a Greek by nation, an Athenian by fatherland." But of what institute of life did he make profession, before he was promoted to the chair of Peter?

[16] whether he was a philosopher. From the second Catalogue of Pontiffs, in the place cited by us a little before; from our two manuscript codices also, concerning which above; likewise from Ado; as also from various manuscript codices, namely the Royal, Mazarin, Thuanus, Florentine, Cassinese, Vatican, and Freher codices, cited in the said edition of Anastasius the Librarian, on the same page 26; from all these documents, I say, we have it that our Saint was a philosopher. But if he was truly a philosopher, he seems to have been a gentile philosopher, and afterwards to have professed the Christian religion, according to the words of Ado, which seem to hint at this, when they say thus: First indeed a philosopher; afterward a disciple of Christ. Yet it is not concluded with certainty from these words that he was such: for besides that in this matter one ought not to stand on the authority of Ado alone, who flourished in the ninth century, very far removed from the age of St. Sixtus, why can Ado's words not be so explained that first indeed our Saint professed philosophy — leaving aside whether he did this as a gentile or as a Christian; and, supposing that he was then a Christian, why can it not be said that by a new and singular title he was afterward a disciple of Christ, because he then exchanged profane philosophy for the sacred, because he devoted himself more intimately to the service of Christ, and clung more eagerly to propagating His worship also among others? I was saying a little before, "if he was ever truly a philosopher." For although so many copies agree in this, as we have already seen, since nevertheless it could easily have happened, and perhaps even did happen — as Rufinus, who is accused by St. Jerome of having translated into Latin a book of Sentences composed by a certain gentile, and of having attributed it to our St. Sixtus; since, I say, it could easily have happened, and perhaps did happen, that what Rufinus did, on Jerome's testimony, gave others occasion either of sewing the title of "philosopher" into the original Acts of St. Sixtus, Pope and martyr, then extant, or of attaching it to those written afterward; therefore I would not dare to affirm that his philosophical profession is altogether certain, much less to assert that he followed the institutes of the Pythagorean sect before his Pontificate: especially since his Acts are interpolated, from what is to be said below at number 69. But these our conjectures will receive greater light from the things which we shall relate in §6 concerning the said book, and its author and translator. Now let us proceed to those things which the Saint did in his Pontificate.

[17] His deeds in the pontificate The most holy Pontiff took pains to bring a remedy to the domestic and internal troubles of the Church. For the famous controversy concerning the baptism of heretics, begun under St. Stephen, his predecessor, still lasted under him, on the testimony of Eusebius, book 7 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 5, where he narrates these things concerning St. Dionysius of Alexandria, Valesius being the translator: For the rest, when Stephen had administered the Church for two years, Xystus succeeded in his place. To him Dionysius wrote a second epistle concerning baptism; in which he sets forth the opinion and judgment of Stephen and at the same time of the other bishops, writing thus of Stephen, etc. And in chapter 9, Eusebius says, There is extant also a fifth epistle of the same man, written to Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome: in which, after he had discoursed much against the heretics, he narrates that something of this kind had happened in his own age. For truly, he says, I have need, brother, of your counsel, and I seek your judgment, lest perhaps I myself go astray, such a matter having been brought before me. A certain one of the brethren, who assemble at the church, long since held for a believer, and who before my ordination, and, unless I am mistaken, before the episcopate of Heraclas himself, had been a partaker in the assemblies of the faithful, when he had been present at the baptism of those who were lately being baptized, and had heard their questions and answers, came to me weeping, and lamenting his own lot.

[18] And falling at my feet he began to confess and to swear regarding the baptism of heretics, that the baptism by which he had been initiated among the heretics was not of this kind, nor had anything in common with this our own. For that it was indeed full of blasphemy and impiety. And he said that his mind was pricked with a most bitter sense of grief, and that he did not dare even to lift his eyes to God: inasmuch as he had been initiated with those wicked words and ceremonies. Accordingly he begged that he might be endowed with this most pure laver, and with the truest adoption and grace. Which I indeed did not dare to do: but I told him that his long-continued communion sufficed for that. For one who has frequently heard the thanksgiving, and who has answered with the rest, Amen; who has stood at the sacred table, and stretched out his hands to receive the sacred food; who has received it, and has been for a very long time a partaker of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; him I would not dare to renew from the beginning. Furthermore I bade him be of good heart, and with firm faith, full of good hope, to approach to the participation of the Lord's Body. But he makes no end of mourning, and utterly shudders at approaching the table, and scarcely, when asked, endures to be present at the prayers. Besides the above-mentioned there is also a fifth (in the Greek it is ἄλλη, that is, another) epistle of the same man concerning baptism, directed in his own name and that of the church which he governed, to Xystus and to the church of the city of Rome; in which he sets up a very lengthy disputation on the question proposed. The famous controversy of which I spoke was therefore still lasting at that time; for which St. Sixtus, being consulted upon it, endeavored to provide according to his fatherly care; although his reply is hidden from us.

[19] That the excellent Shepherd of the Church bore himself admirably in the said cause which controversy he settled. shines forth from the cited Calendar of the church of Carthage, which not only this chief see of Africa, as is said to the reader before the volume cited by me in the same place, but the whole Africa church itself, as great as it was, used nearly twelve hundred years ago; from this precious monument of venerable antiquity, that I may say it again, the fatherly care of the Saint shines forth in healing thoroughly the very well known sore among the Africans; at the announcement of the praised Calendar which regards our Saint, the editor of that same monument, in the volume cited, page 410, noting these things concerning our Saint: His memory, in preference to the holy Stephen and Cornelius, may perhaps thence have been precious among the Africans, because he settled the controversy concerning the baptism of heretics. Whence Pontius in the Life of St. Cyprian calls him A GOOD AND PEACEABLE PRIEST. Nay rather, in the Life of the same holy Father, prefixed to his Works, the aforesaid St. Pontius, his deacon (concerning whom see in our work volume 1 of March, at the day VIII, page 750 and the following; where also that little work is defended against Rigault) so far extols in him the conditions of a good and peaceable priest that he says that through them he merited the crown of martyrdom; for having used the words just cited, he immediately afterward speaks of him as THEREFORE a most blessed martyr. But now, that an end was put to those sharp and over-fervid disputations concerning the baptism of heretics while St. Sixtus was governing the chair of Peter, may also be seen in our work at the second day of August in the Life of St. Stephen I, Pope and martyr, page 119 and the following.

[20] He is informed by St. Dionysius of Alexandria concerning the Sabellian heresy. Concerning the Sabellian heresy St. Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to St. Xystus, on the testimony of Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 6, in these words: In the same epistle (namely the first, concerning which I spoke above) he informs Xystus concerning the Sabellian heretics, inasmuch as they were at that time growing rife, in these words: For concerning that doctrine which lately was stirred up at Ptolemais, a city of the Pentapolis, full of impiety and blasphemy against the almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, full also of unbelief toward His only-begotten Son, the firstborn of every creature, the Word which dwelt among men; full finally of stupidity against the Holy Spirit: since from both parties letters had been brought to me, and brethren had come to discourse with me, I wrote certain epistles, as fully as I could with God's help, after the manner of a commentator: copies of which I have sent to you. But although we do not know what St. Sixtus did in this matter, yet who would deny that he did those things which befit a diligent and watchful shepherd of the Church?

[21] His prudence His ripe prudence in the doing of affairs is commended by that wise and altogether singular choice by which he set St. Lawrence over the Roman Church as archdeacon, the care of distributing its riches being annexed to that title, in which he excelled above others. But concerning this Saint more at the tenth day of this month. For indeed the Roman and the Gallican Church once praised God in their liturgy concerning St. Sixtus, because He had given that illustrious martyr to the Catholic Church, raised up by his own example to endure hard things. For the Book of Sacraments of St. Gregory, page 118, says thus in the Preface: It is truly meet and just... that we should always and everywhere give You thanks... And on the day of this day's festival, on which blessed Sixtus, at once priest and martyr, exultingly poured out his blood devoted to You. Who, to the deserving of the same glory, incited the sons of his teaching, and those whom he was instructing by exhortation, he went before by example. But in the Gothic or old Gallican Missal, in Thomasius, page 367, in the Immolation of the Mass, or the Preface, these things are read: Among whom is the holy and venerable martyr Sixtus; whose solemnity is celebrated today: who, when he had received the insignia of the Apostolic See, and beheld himself to be the first of priests... was an example to the rest. For soon his own excellent minister also, the venerable Lawrence, imitating the palm of his victory, received the adornment, the punishment of which he had to undergo, etc.

[22] and his apostolic spirit are commended. His apostolic spirit in fostering and promoting piety shines forth in this, that he sent into Gaul St. Peregrinus, a bishop consecrated by him, and afterward prelate of Auxerre and martyr, Gaul being on that account deservedly bound to him. His Life, which is found in our work, volume III of May, on the day XVI, page 563, writes these things: When this perilous madness of persecution had burst into Gaul, and it was straightway reported secretly by the most faithful Christians to the ears of Sixtus, Pope of the city of Rome, they asking that he would send such a man as should by his words illumine the now extinguished lamp of faith, and should, by the help of divine aid, restrain the unbelief of the barbarians;

then the aforesaid man Sixtus, Pope, conspicuous for the highest sanctity, ordained the great and illustrious servant of God Peregrinus... bishop; but Marsus he appointed presbyter, Corcodemus archdeacon, that he should be a levite, and Jovianus he consigned to the burden of the subdiaconate... For these the most blessed Sixtus, Pope of the city of Rome, worshipper of the most high God, leading forth with all confidence as far as the seaport, more particularly enjoined to preach the word of the Lord confidently even unto death, etc. That mission of St. Peregrinus is indeed ascribed by some to St. Sixtus I, as you will find in the place just cited, page 562; but that it pertains to St. Sixtus II is proved in the same place. Mention is also made of the mission of St. Peregrinus in volume VII of July, at the day XXXI, page 207; and in Surius at the same day, page 361, of the Cologne edition of the year 1618.

[23] The deeds of St. Sixtus II, Pope, escaped Pagi in his Historical-Chronological Critique; He seems to have translated the bodies of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. except for the translation of the bodies of the holy Apostles, which he illustrates with these observations: We find nothing, he says at the year 258, number 3, done by Sixtus in his Pontificate, except what is found in the Index of the deposition of the Martyrs: "On the third of the Kalends of July, of Peter in the Catacombs, and of Paul on the Ostian [Way], Tuscus and Bassus being Consuls." Bucherius, since he did not understand this secret, wrote in the margin: I do not know what these Consuls mean here, perhaps dislocated from elsewhere. But it is not the time of the passion of the holy Apostles, but of their translation, that is treated here. The author of the Pontifical Deeds has the same; but he changed the Pontiffs, as he often does, and for Sixtus put Cornelius: and thence Pseudo-Isidore inserted the same history into a fictitious epistle of Cornelius. Caius, who wrote about the year of Christ 200, hands down that the trophies of the Apostles were at that time preserved in the Vatican and on the Ostian [Way]. These trophies therefore Sixtus seems to have translated into the Catacombs, the ardor of persecution growing daily more savage, so that the stations might there be held more safely. Receive now these things concerning the place of martyrdom.

[24] St. Cyprian, in the epistle to Successus mentioned above, writes thus: The place, Know that Xistus was punished in the cemetery. But either he did not know what cemetery that was, or, if he knew, he did not wish to determine any one out of the many which then existed. The Martyrdom of St. Sixtus, which we shall subjoin to this Commentary, records that he was led to the Slope of Mars before the temple, and there beheaded, in a place, that is, distinct from the cemetery: for although the temple of Mars was situated on the Appian Way, as may be seen in Aringhi, Subterranean Rome, volume 1, book 3, chapter 10, number 9; and in the same place, chapter 11, number 1; and although the cemetery of Callistus, in which the Saint is announced, as was said by us above at numbers 2 and 3, is placed on the same way; yet the praised Aringhi, in the same chapter 11, number 9, after he had premised that St. Sixtus II was crowned with the laurel of martyrdom in the said cemetery, subjoins these things: Bede, Ado, the Roman Martyrology, Anastasius, and the manuscript Acts of Cyprian himself constantly declare that the same man was buried in the cemetery of Callistus; but that he consummated his martyrdom OUTSIDE THE CEMETERY before the temple of Mars. This distinction the Acts which we are about to give of St. Sixtus also indicate toward the end. Finally, since, on Aringhi's testimony, book 3, chapter 10, number 9, several temples to empty gods, and those furnished with most magnificent work, were once beheld erected on the Appian Way by the men of gentile superstition, among which that one was most celebrated which was dedicated to the god Mars, etc.; that place does not seem to have been suitable for establishing a cemetery of Christians. Pearson in the Cyprianic Annals, at the year 258, number 6, distinguishing both places, says, Not on the Slope of Mars, but in the cemetery, was Xystus punished; as Cyprian himself teaches. Let us therefore also say, rather with St. Cyprian, that the martyrdom happened in the cemetery, than with the Acts, at the slope of Mars; since the Acts are interpolated, according to what is to be said at the end of this Commentary.

[25] the day, the year That martyrdom happened on the eighth day of the Ides of August, from St. Cyprian in the same place, the Martyrologists concurring; so that it may be allowed to suspect that an error has crept into the Calendar of Fronto; because in noting the fifth day for the sixth day of August it is so singular, as I signified above at number 3. But what of the year of the martyrdom? Cardinal Baronius places it at the year 261, under the Consuls Aurelius Memmius Fuscus and Pomponius Bassus. But I read "Memmius Tuscus and Bassus" in the consular Fasti. And indeed so do all the ancient Fasti, in several of which also the former is called Tuscus, not Fuscus, as he is sometimes wrongly called: which corrupt reading Baronius followed, as Pagi notes at the year of Christ 258, number 1. For the rest, as he observes in the same place at number 2, Baronius errs only in this, that he wrongly couples the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus, which falls in the year of Christ 258, with the year 261 of the same era, and so sins by a prochronism of three years, namely on account of the third ordinary consulship of Decius Augustus, spuriously stuffed into the Fasti. Further, below at number 42 another occasion will present itself of treating of those and other consuls. Our own Louis du Menil therefore also goes astray, in Doctrine and Discipline of the Church, volume 1, book 7, number 58, in fastening the martyrdom to the year of Christ 259. The Slavo-Russian Sparwenfeldian Menologium also wrongly appends the said year 261 to St. Sixtus at the tenth day of August. The History of the bishops of Auxerre, published by Labbe in the New Library of manuscript books, volume 1, also wanders from the truth; when on page 412 it reports that he completed his martyrdom on the sixteenth day of the Kalends of June, under the emperors Gallienus and Valerian, Aemilianus and Bassus being consuls.

[26] and the occasion of the martyrdom, But by what occasion, and by whose effort chiefly, the persecution grew cruel again against Sixtus, Lawrence, and others devoted at that time to the tyrannical rage, you will understand from St. Cyprian's epistle 82, just cited: Know, he says, that those have come whom I had sent to the City for this purpose, that whatever should have been rescripted concerning us, they might bring back to us the truth explored. For many various and uncertain things are bandied about in opinions; but the things which are in truth are thus: That Valerian has rescripted to the senate, that bishops, and presbyters, and deacons should be punished forthwith; but that senators, and men of eminence, and Roman knights, having lost their dignity, should also be despoiled of their goods, and if, their means being taken away, they should persevere in being Christians, should also be punished with the loss of their head: that matrons, their goods being taken away, should be relegated into exile: that whatever members of Caesar's household had either previously confessed, or should now confess, should be confiscated, and be sent in chains, enrolled, into Caesar's possessions. The emperor Valerian also subjoined to his speech a copy of the letters which he made concerning us to the governors of the provinces: which letters we daily hope will come, standing according to the firmness of faith for the endurance of suffering, and expecting from the help and indulgence of the Lord the crown of eternal life. From this flame, therefore, of Valerian's rescript, both at Rome and elsewhere, and also in Africa, this great conflagration was kindled against the Champions of Christ.

§ III. St. Sixtus one of the first victims then; his aged years, the manner of his death, his prophecy; Quartus his companion in martyrdom; difficulties proposed concerning the six others.

St. Sixtus was in the order of time one of the first Martyrs then, As our holy Pontiff was first in dignity among all the victims then slaughtered for Christ, so also he seems to have been one of the first of them in the order of martyrdom. For, to say nothing of the Sacramentary of St. Gregory I, Pope, and of the other which Thomasius published; in one of which, namely the Gregorian, it is said of St. Sixtus in the Preface: Who to the deserving of the same glory incited the sons of his teaching, and those whom he was instructing by exhortation, HE WENT BEFORE BY EXAMPLE: but in the other these things are had concerning him in the Immolation of the Mass, or Preface: He not only put off the worldly filth of contagion; but was also an example to the rest: to say nothing, I say, of these; St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, famous in the fifth century for integrity of life and for his writings, and set forth in our work in volume V of June, at the day XXV, from page 48, in the second homily which he wrote among others concerning the Saints, on St. Lawrence, states my assertion in the most explicit words. Receive the text: As we have learned, most dear brethren, by no uncertain report of our fathers, when the venerable Xistus was discharging the priesthood of the Apostolic See... the envy of the devil burning against the name and faith of Christ, the flame of a most hard persecution glowed white-hot, and, that the unsated rage of the deadly beast might more perniciously mangle the Lord's flock, the ever-watchful enemy, artificer of harming, FIRST contrives to snatch away the guardianship of the shepherd. And therefore the gentile fury attacks Xistus BEFORE ALL, the highest priest of the Lord, so that the bloody persecutor might invade the members of the church, so mighty a head being cut off, as though the defense of heavenly protection were removed. But that great Xistus, who had been present to the sheep committed to him by God as a shepherd on earth, was present as a patron from heaven.

[28] Besides this, the palm of martyrdom was obtained by the Servant of God in advanced age, and he suffered in old age. and therefore singular honors breathed upon his venerable white hairs. St. Ambrose, in book 1 of the Offices, chapter 41, introduces our Saint speaking thus with his own St. Lawrence, among other things to our purpose: We as old men undertake the course of a lighter fight: for you as a young man there awaits a more glorious triumph over the tyrant. In Ado, in the Acts of St. Sixtus, and in those which we shall give below, at number 7, the tyrant says to him, We take counsel for your old age. By St. Maximus of Turin, in homily 1 on St. Lawrence, he is called venerable: but in the Sacramentary in Thomasius, holy and venerable. And why could he not be so called, and indeed by a singular title, on account of his venerable old age? But now it must be discussed by what manner of death he consummated the course of his contest.

[29] That St. Sixtus was beheaded is declared by the things By what manner of death he was taken off: which are given from the old Catalogues of the more ancient Pontiffs, before our volume 1 of April, page XXVII. From the announcement of Usuard, which I gave above at number 3, our Saint, as also the others who are reported with him in the same place, were beheaded. In this punishment of our Martyr there agree Ado in the Acts, and the Martyrdom which we commit to the press, at number 8; add the present Roman Martyrology, in which he is said to have been punished by the sword. St. Cyprian, in epistle 82 to Successus, affirms that Xystus was punished. By which word indeed the punishment by which the head is cut off can be signified; yet it need not be. It can, I say; for thus Pontius, Cyprian's deacon, using, as I judge, the phrase of that time, in the Life of the same Saint, says, With hand spread out and flattened after the manner of a broadsword, imitating the STROKE of the accustomed PUNISHMENT,

expressed what he wished to be understood, after the manner of clear speech. Yet it need not: for "to punish" properly and by its own nature here signifies any punishment whatever, any penalty and chastisement, as a genus; which Pontius above, in the Life of St. Cyprian, narrowed to a species by adding the word "stroke"; so that he indicated sufficiently that he was speaking of the cutting off of the head; which, although he there indicates that it was wont to be inflicted, yet he does not affirm that it was in fact inflicted on St. Sixtus. And indeed Prudentius assigns a far different kind of martyrdom, when in hymn 2 of the Περὶ στεφάνων he expressly records that the Saint died fixed to a cross, singing thus:

The priest had said that these things would be, Xistus now fixed to the cross, Seeing Lawrence weeping Beneath the very trunk of the cross.

If therefore anyone should determine the word "punished," which Cyprian used, indeterminate by its own nature, to the death of the cross, with Prudentius, an author so ancient, worthy of credit, and speaking so distinctly and clearly, do you think a mark of rashness is to be branded on him? I certainly would not dare this; much less to accuse Prudentius of falsehood; as does a certain Heterodox writer in his Sixtus II, which he published in the year 1725, page 117, writing these things: With his neck cut he rendered his soul to God; otherwise than Prudentius sang, who, constraining the word "cross" too narrowly, wrongly judged that he was fixed to a gibbet. St. Cyprian makes certain mention of the sword in epistle LXXXII; to whom, as an ancient and approved writer, we altogether assent. But that smatterer affirms that certain mention of the sword, he does not prove it: we deny it, because we do not at all see that certainty in Cyprian. But the most holy Martyr is also said to have been stretched on the rack: for which matter we have found cited sermon 60 among those which are said to be falsely attributed to St. Fulgentius, in his appendix of the Paris edition of the year 1684.

[30] the prophecy concerning St. Lawrence. But one of the chief ornaments which have ennobled the martyrdom of St. Sixtus is that illustrious prophecy which he foretold concerning his most dear Lawrence, who after three days would follow him to the palm of martyrdom. Prudentius indicates that this happened to Sixtus as he hung from the cross: for to the verses just brought forward he subjoins:

Cease at my departing To pour forth weeping in grief: I go before, brother; you too After this three days shall follow.

For the rest, the truth of this prediction is confirmed from Sts. Ambrose, book 1 of the Offices, chapter 41; Augustine, Tract 27 on John; Peter Chrysologus, sermon 135; Maximus of Turin, homilies 1 and 2 on St. Lawrence. See besides the Martyrdom of St. Sixtus, to be appended to this our Commentary, number 3.

[31] Blessed Quartus was the companion of St. Sixtus in martyrdom. It now remains to be examined whether, and whom, our Athlete had as companions of his sacred contest. St. Cyprian, in epistle 82 to Successus, joins Quartus to him. Know, he says, that Xystus was punished in the cemetery on the eighth day of the Ides of August, and with him Quartus; who by Ado, Usuard, and Notker, on the faith of the same St. Cyprian, whom they cite, is also joined to St. Sixtus. But who and what was that Quartus? Florentinius in his notes at this sixth day of August says, That he was some very well known man of the clergy, the holy Doctor seems altogether to teach from his manner of speaking; although from elsewhere it is unknown who he was, and when he suffered. And indeed that Blessed Quartus was a man of some name among the Catholics, and abundantly known commonly among the Africans, so that it sufficed as it were merely to have named him, his particulars being passed over, we seem able to suspect. And why should not the suspicion be increased by this, that just as he designates Sixtus by name alone, so also Quartus, both being assuredly very well known from elsewhere? But however that conjecture concerning Quartus may stand; since St. Cyprian at the beginning of the said epistle writes, Know that those have come whom I had sent to the City for this purpose, that whatever should have been rescripted concerning us, they might bring back to us the truth explored. For many various and uncertain things are bandied about in opinions: but the things which are in truth are thus, etc. — since, that I may repeat this, the holy Doctor writes thus; it follows that he was exceedingly well informed concerning Blessed Quartus, whom in the same epistle he so clearly associates with St. Sixtus, and instructed from the certain report of his own men whom he had sent to Rome: and therefore that Blessed Quartus is to be joined together with our holy Champion of Christ in the consummation of the course of martyrdom; just as the modern Roman Martyrology has rightly joined them. Concerning the others whom I read in the same place and elsewhere as companions of St. Sixtus in the sacred contest, a greater difficulty occurs.

[32] In our work, before volume 1 of April, in the place assigned above, these things are read: Concerning six other martyrs, There were beheaded with Blessed Xistus six Deacons, Felicissimus, Agapitus, Januarius, Magnus, Vincent, Stephen, on the eighth of the Ides of August. Whom also Anastasius the Librarian records in chapter 25. The first two of them are named in the old or little Roman Martyrology, and elsewhere, as we saw above at number 2. But Ado, besides these, marks four others already mentioned; but he calls them subdeacons. In the deeds of St. Lawrence in Surius at the tenth day of August, number 14, both the place and the day on which Sts. Sixtus, Felicissimus, and Agapitus suffered are connected. Florentinius may besides be consulted on the present subject, from page 734. The Roman Martyrology which we use today distinctly associates the six above-mentioned Martyrs with St. Sixtus in the contest: I recited the text at number 3.

[33] Since St. Cyprian in the place cited before expressly affirms with St. Sixtus that Sixtus, and with him Quartus, died; and since he does not make mention there even by a single word of Sts. Felicissimus and Agapitus, and the others who suffered together with him by the consent of the Martyrologists, as we just showed; it can be asked whether, as Quartus, the one and only man named by him, so also the others passed over by him were crowned with martyrdom in the same place and on the same day as St. Sixtus. To Baronius, endeavoring to solve this difficulty at the year 261, mention of them seems to have been omitted by Cyprian for this reason, that they do not seem to have suffered in the same place as Sixtus: for since Sixtus is said to have suffered and been buried in the cemetery of Callistus, while these were given burial in the cemetery of Prætextatus, they are known also to have suffered in different places. But those messengers who, hastily returning to Cyprian, reported concerning the martyrdom of Sixtus and of Quartus, who was with him, seem not easily to have ascertained that all the rest suffered on the same day in the City. So the Most Eminent founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals: whose reasons Pagi thus refutes in the Baronian Critique, at the year 258, number 6: In order to defend these things Baronius says, first, that mention of the Deacons and subdeacons was omitted by Cyprian, who records only Quartus as having suffered with Sixtus, for this reason, that Sixtus was buried in the cemetery of Callistus, the rest in the cemetery of Prætextatus. But that is altogether uncertain. The first who taught that these Deacons were buried in that cemetery is the author of the enlarged Chronicle of the Pontiffs; who seems to have derived that error from the words of the Deposition of the Martyrs (given by us above at number 2). Where we read, and of Prætextatus (which indicates that Prætextatus suffered on the same day), he seems to have read, and in the cemetery of Prætextatus: yet the distance or diversity of the place was not so great that one who certainly knew that Sixtus suffered in the cemetery of Callistus could be ignorant that his Deacons were beheaded in the cemetery of Prætextatus. For both cemeteries were on the Appian Way: nay, this of Prætextatus adjoined that of Callistus, and was as it were a part of it, as Aringhi testifies in Subterranean Rome (book 3, chapter 16, which is inscribed concerning the cemetery of Prætextatus.)

[34] as having suffered at the same time and place, as they will have it Baronius says, secondly, that Cyprian's messengers returned so hastily that they did not easily ascertain that all besides Sixtus and Quartus had suffered on the same day in the City. But how could Lawrence, the first of the seven Deacons, cling to the side of Sixtus when he was on the very point of dying, when all the rest were punished with the loss of their heads? How could two Deacons and four subdeacons, or, as others will have it, six Deacons, be beheaded on the same day, and escape the notice of those messengers, who had nothing else in their instructions than that they should diligently observe everything, as Pearson says in the Cyprianic Annals at the year 258, number 6? The martyrdom of these Saints therefore seems to have happened on another day. What of this, that (as the praised Pagi also aptly observes in the same place at number 5) from that very epistle of St. Cyprian which I assigned before it is proved that Sts. Felicissimus and Agapitus were neither deacons of St. Sixtus nor suffered on the same day as he, from these words of the same holy Doctor, which, where he had written that Quartus obtained the laurel of martyrdom together with Sixtus in the same place and on the same day, he immediately subjoins: But upon this persecution also the prefects in the City press daily, so that if any have been presented to them, they may be punished, and their goods claimed for the treasury.

[35] the difficulties are weighed. How therefore, while he teaches that the prefects press daily upon the persecution, does he not at the same time teach who besides Sixtus and Quartus fell under the persecution now begun? How does he not name Sts. Felicissimus and Agapitus, Deacons and public ministers of the Church, and therefore nobler and more notable victims of that same persecution, as having suffered together with them? How does he not touch even by the least word upon the four others, from what has been said before abundantly known also at Rome, and public dispensers of sacred things there? How does he say, at least in general terms, that no others were visited with the supreme penalty, if at the time when the letters were written from Rome others besides Sixtus and Quartus, and indeed slain with them, had suffered? That this error is to be imputed to the author of the enlarged Chronicle of the ancient Pontiffs, the same writer affirms is established from the author of Bede's Martyrology. But the error of the same Chronicle, so far as it regards Felicissimus and Agapitus, he ascribes to a bad interpretation of the most ancient Index of the Deposition of the Martyrs. Finally, we suggest this conjecture concerning those two; namely, that it appears credible that they consummated their martyrdom on the same day of the month indeed, but not in the same year, or at least not together with St. Sixtus. For in the Gregorian Sacramentary cited above there is celebrated on the eighth of the Ides of August the birthday of St. Sixtus the bishop, with certain parts of the Mass proper to him: to which afterward other singular ones also are subjoined, with a new title: On the same day, the birthday of Sts. Felicissimus and Agapitus. But nothing is said there concerning these in the Mass of St. Sixtus; as neither concerning him in theirs. But why are they separated in the Office, if they are joined together in martyrdom? These are the things which embarrass the opinion asserting that the six aforesaid Martyrs suffered together with St. Sixtus: it remains that we weigh some things which favor the same.

§ IV. Arguments for companions not to be separated from St. Sixtus in the passion; whether Prætextatus is to be added to them; four others noted somewhere; the beginning of St. Sixtus's Pontificate, the duration of his see; ordinations, decrees.

On account of ancient possession, the consent of the Martyrologists, The things which fight for the opinion denying that St. Sixtus completed his martyrdom together with Felicissimus and Agapitus, and those other six companions of whom I just spoke, rest chiefly upon a single negative argument, as they call it, which is sought from the silence of St. Cyprian. Let us therefore examine what reasons can be opposed to that argument on behalf of Sts. Felicissimus and Agapitus. Let the first be ancient possession; the second, the harmonious consent of the classic martyrologists; which, who would dare with sufficient safety to reject as false and spurious on account of Cyprian's silence alone? But whence is it established that this holy Father was silent because he knew nothing of those six Martyrs; nay, why was he not rather silent because they were unknown in Africa? For indeed Baronius, at the end of volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, wove on an appendix, where at the year 384 he advises that an inscription of St. Damasus be added, in which among other things the following are noted:

Here, if you ask, lies a throng of the pious gathered together, The venerable tombs hold the bodies of the Saints: Their sublime souls the palace of heaven has snatched to itself. Here are the companions of Xystus, who bear trophies from the enemy.

[37] From this inscription, therefore, St. Sixtus had companions of martyrdom: [and the inscription of St. Damasus, we do not divide the companion Martyrs from St. Sixtus.] whom will you erase from it for this reason, that St. Cyprian makes no mention of them? As therefore they could be companions of St. Sixtus and yet not be recorded by St. Cyprian even in general terms; so also Sts. Felicissimus, Agapitus, and the remaining four besides Quartus could be his partners in the same sacred contest, although he names this one alone, and none of the others. For these reasons we have not judged that this band of Martyrs is to be divided: but that it is to be left in possession. To those things which were brought forward at number 35 from the Gregorian Sacramentary, it is easily answered that St. Sixtus is there noted by a singular rite without Felicissimus and Agapitus, and these without him, and indeed with a new title of cult; but that it is not thence proved with certainty that they were separated in martyrdom; since they could be separated there in the sacred Office on account of the dignity of St. Sixtus, who, since he was Pontiff of the Roman Church — what wonder if with a peculiar solemnity he was noted alone and without companions in that Sacramentary, having assuredly by this title merited and obtained a singular veneration above the others? Thus from the fact that St. Sixtus is noted in the Roman Martyrology with a singular announcement, and then likewise his companions with a singular one, it does not nevertheless follow from the said Martyrology that they accomplished their martyrdom separately from him, since in the very text of the Martyrology all are said to have been beheaded equally with him. Let us add here in passing that an ancient proof, of the fifth century, of the public veneration of St. Agapitus among the Romans is extant in Anastasius the Librarian, chapter 49, where in the Life of St. Felix III, Pope, these things are said: He built the basilica of St. Agapitus next to the basilica of St. Lawrence the martyr.

[38] Whether Prætextatus ought to be added to them is uncertain. These things having been thus disputed concerning our Saint's Companions, the text of the Bucherian Calendar brought forward at number 2 supplies matter for another controversy: Of Systus, in the cemetery of Callistus, and of Prætextatus, of Agapitus and of Felicissimus; for it is asked whether by the word "Prætextati" a Saint called by this name is indicated, and distinguished from the foregoing; or whether rather by that name, the preposition "in" being prefixed or understood, the place of the martyrdom is signified; so that the sense is that it happened in the cemetery of Prætextatus, as Baronius and others read, from what was said above at numbers 2 and 3. And indeed the announcement in Bucherius, in which there is no preposition "in," does not seem by the word "Prætextati" to indicate a place, but a person called by that name. Which is confirmed from the Hieronymian transcripts published by Florentinius, which record this day thus: At Rome in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, the birthday of Xistus the bishop, of Felix, and of Agapitus, of Donatianus, Faustinus, Pretestatus. And although in the most ancient manuscript of St. Willibrord, or the Echternach manuscript, whose text the said author reports in his notes, Prætextatus is not marked; nevertheless the Corbie manuscript copy in the same place reports it thus: The eighth of the Ides of August, at Rome in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, the birthday of Sixtus the bishop, and of Felicissimus, Agapitus, Donatianus, Faustus, Prætestatus, etc. Add the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, which also has this name, as may be seen in the same place. But since it is not certainly established for us whether the word "in," which is not explicitly present in the Bucherian, ought not to be understood there; since besides the Martyrology published by Florentinius is faulty in many places, and it is not sufficiently established whether those two copies just designated, which also read "Prætestatus," ought truly to read the same: since finally it is not ready to our hand to define anything explored concerning the present controversy, we leave it undecided, to be decided by another, upon whom either more light may have shone, or to whom something better may have occurred. In Maurolico, on the sixth day of this month, after St. Sixtus and the other Martyrs who are there said to have suffered with him, there are recorded, Likewise Severus the presbyter, Claudius the subdeacon, Crescentius the lector, and Romanus the doorkeeper. Ghini at the said day says, There are reported as having suffered then with him (namely with Sixtus) Quartus, and after him Severus the presbyter with the three others, whom I have recited from Maurolico; who perhaps received them from the Catalogue of Saints of Peter de Natalibus, who in book 7, chapter 30, joins those four Martyrs to the others who suffered with St. Sixtus.

[39] The beginning of the Pontificate, It is useful in this place to treat of the beginning of the Pontificate of St. Sixtus. St. Stephen I, Pope, whose Acts have been set forth in volume 1 of August, at the second day of the same month, from page 112, having been translated to a better life in the year 257, as may be seen in the same place, our Saint was substituted, as Pagi affirms at the said year, number 2, on the twenty-fourth day of August or thereabouts. Schelstrate, in volume 1 of the Antiquity of the Church, Dissertation 2, chapter 7, numbers 2 and 3, praising the Acts of St. Stephen, Pope; at number 4 brings forward a testimony suited to our purpose, which he affirms is annexed at the end of these Acts in codex 1190. And it stands thus: And the church of the Christians being assembled, they ordained in the place of blessed Stephen, bishop and martyr of Christ, Sixtus as bishop on the ninth of the Kalends of September. But the most blessed Stephen, bishop of the city of Rome, was martyred on the fourth day of the Nones of August, under Valerian and Gallienus, Consuls. And that ordination is confirmed from Baronius at the year 260, number 5, from the Acts of the passion of St. Stephen, which are there said to have been restored from manuscript copies, reporting these things: They ordained in the place of blessed Stephen Sixtus... as bishop, on the ninth of the Kalends of September, Valerian for the fourth time and Gallienus for the second (rather the third, according to what is to be said at number 42) being Consuls. Of the succession of St. Sixtus after St. Stephen there make mention St. Optatus of Milevis in book 2 against Parmenian, volume 4 of the Library of the Fathers, page 274 of the Cologne edition of the year 1618, and St. Augustine in epistle 165; to whom add Eusebius of Cæsarea, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 5, and Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 34.

[40] It remains that the time be discussed during which our Saint presided over the chair of Peter. and its duration, In defining it authors disagree. In the Chronicle of Eusebius of Cæsarea, as it is now published, I read: Xystus, the twenty-third, holds the episcopate of the Roman Church for eight years. But in the Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 27, he says, When Xystus had presided over the Roman Church eleven years, etc. Which years Nicephorus Callistus also gives him, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 34. The Catalogue of Roman Pontiffs published by Bucherius stands thus: Sixtus, two years, eleven months, six days. He began from the consulship of Maximus and Glabrio, until Tuscus and Bassus, etc. The first Catalogue prefixed in our work to volume 1 of April, page XXVII, agrees; but the second in the same place disagrees, when it records thus: Xistus... sat one year, ten months, twenty-four days. The Acts of St. Sixtus in Ado on this day say, He sat in the episcopate one year, ten months, twenty-three days. Syncellus in the Chronography, page 381 of the royal Paris edition of the year 1652, attributes nine years to St. Xystus. But that none of the reckonings of others proposed expresses the genuine time of St. Sixtus's session becomes clear from what has been premised. For, from number 39, St. Stephen, his predecessor, died in the year of Christ 257, on the second day of August, according to what is presently to be said: to whom, since St. Sixtus was substituted on the twenty-fourth day of the same month or thereabouts, as I shall report a little after, and was crowned with martyrdom on the sixth day of August in the year 258; it follows that he sat eleven completed months, and about eighteen days. Let us therefore say roundly that the Saint, whatever be the case concerning the days of his session, certainly did not sit for twelve full months; and therefore did not die, as Menil, cited above at number 25, will have it, in the first year of his Pontificate already completed by a month.

[41] Pagi agrees with us in those eleven months, but disagrees in the days, which was of eleven months with some days. not, as it at least seems to me, consistently. For at the year of Christ 257, number 2, treating of St. Stephen, he says, Rightly is he said in the Pontifical book to have sat until Valerian for the fourth time and Gallienus for the third. He died on the second day of the month of August. For in the Index of the Deposition of the bishops in Bucherius it is read, "On the fourth of the Nones of August, Stephen in the cemetery of Callistus." In the enlarged Chronicle of the ancient Pontiffs indeed it is said, "Buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, on the third of the Nones of August. The episcopate was vacant twenty-two days" — because, namely, the author of that Chronicle notes the day on which Stephen was consigned to burial, not that on which he departed to God. Sixtus was substituted in his place on the twenty-fourth day of August or thereabouts. So he in the same place. But at the year 258, number 2, after he had said that he read these things from the Chronicle which he cites under the name of Damasus: Sixtus, two years, eleven months, six days. He began from the consulship of Maximus and Glabrio, until Tuscus and Bassus, and suffered on the eighth of the Ides of August from the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus, until the twelfth day of the Kalends of August, Aemilianus and Bassus being Consuls; he rightly indeed subjoins, But those two years were added by an error, on account of the previously corrupted consulship of Valerian for the third and Gallienus for the second, in place of Valerian for the fourth and Gallienus for the third: but when he concludes, He therefore sat only ELEVEN MONTHS, six DAYS, he neither agrees with us concerning the days, nor is consistent with himself, according to those things which I premised a little before.

[42] Why the Greeks and Latins erred in this matter. As to what pertains to the mistakes of the Greeks in fixing the time; Pearson in the Cyprianic Annals at the year 258, number 10, after he had advised that eleven years are attributed by Eusebius to the Sixtine pontificate, when as many months rather ought

to have been attributed to it, observing the cause of the slip, says, For indeed it is nothing new for the Greeks, strangers in Roman affairs, to put years for months; as George Syncellus assigns a "three-year period" to the reign of Aemilianus, whom the Latins have handed down as having reigned only three or four months. But what was a stumbling-block to the Latins, so that they did not rightly order their chronological reckonings in this matter, you will understand from the praised Schelstrate, number 7. That year (of the martyrdom of St. Sixtus), he says, was that in which Tuscus and Bassus held the consulship; and this is clear from testimonies of the ancients so certain, that chronologers, when they come to that consulship, apply all their industry to compose their reckonings rightly with these Consuls. But if, held back by certain errors, they cannot do so, they move the Consuls themselves from their place, and change the Fasti according to their own judgment, so that each may draw those Consuls to his own opinion. Meanwhile it is established that the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus is to be placed immediately after that of Valerian IV and Gallienus III, and before that of Aemilianus and Bassus, in this order: In the year 257, Valerian IV and Gallienus III. In the year 258, Tuscus and Bassus. In the year 259, Aemilianus and Bassus II. For in that order they are placed in the most ancient Fasti in Cuspinian, in the little book on the Prefects of the City published by Bucherius, in the Greek Fasti of Theon of Alexandria, in the Idatian Fasti, first published by Sirmond and afterward by Labbe, in the complete Chronicle of St. Prosper, and, to finish, in the Chronicle of Cassiodorus.

[43] The ordinations held by the Saint, Concerning the ordinations held by our Saint some things occur to be observed: He made two ordinations, four presbyters, six deacons, two bishops for various places; as is reported in our work in the second Catalogue of Roman Pontiffs, which is had before volume 1 of April, page XXII. The Life of the Saint in Labbe, volume 1 of the Councils, column 817, reads thus: He made two ordinations in the month of December, etc. But that he made only one, not two, ordinations in the month of December, is observed in the notes in the same place, column 820, from the time of his see: which, since it was from one August of the year 257 until another August of the year 258, it follows that one single month of December alone stood between the two, and therefore only a single ordination during the said month. Rightly therefore does Baronius at the year 261, number 9, pronounce these things: Respect being had to the time in which Stephen sat and Sixtus entered, those are convicted of error who attribute a longer time to the see of Sixtus, and ascribe to him more ordinations than one. And soon after, when he had affirmed that Sixtus had completed the eleventh month and begun the twelfth in the see, he thus concludes: He therefore made only one ordination, not two, as is wrongly placed in the book on the Roman Pontiffs, in which he created four presbyters, seven deacons, and two bishops for various places. It follows from what has been said that Giovanni Vignoli, a most distinguished man, who published and illustrated a new edition of the Pontifical Book, when in the notes to St. Xystus II, page 59, he writes, That Xystus could not make these two ordinations during Decembers, Baronius would have rightly observed at the year of Christ 241 (rather 261), number IX, if only the chronology of this Pontifical Book did not persuade that the one year which he takes away from his Pontificate should be restored to him; it follows, I say, that the praised corrector of Baronius, from those things which have been established above concerning the chronological arrangement in this matter, is himself here to be corrected.

[44] By way of a finishing touch, let us attach to these two decrees, which from Gratian are brought forward in the praised Labbe, column 824, as also the decrees. under the name of Sixtus II. The first consists of these words: If anyone shall think himself burdened by his own metropolitan, let him be judged before the Primate of the diocese, or before the Pope of the universal Apostolic Church. The other runs thus: If any Clerk shall be accused upon any crimes whatsoever, let him exercise his actions in the province in which he who is impeached resides: nor let his accuser think that he is to be dragged elsewhere, or farther, to judgment. Pierre Coustant, a monk of the Order of St. Benedict, in the Epistles of the Roman Pontiffs from the year 67 to 440, published at Paris in the year 1721, page 269, holding both decrees for spurious, writes thus: The editions of the Councils ascribe two decrees, following Gratian, to our Xystus. The first indeed, If anyone shall think, etc., cited by Gratian at 2, question 6, chapter, is found in the very epistle 1 which Mercator foisted on Sixtus; as also in the epistle of Pope Victor I to Theophilus, which has the same parent. But it is excerpted from canon 17 of the synod of Chalcedon, as it is read in the common interpretation of Isidore; except that in place of the words "or at the see of the city of Constantinople" there has been substituted "or before the Pope of the universal Apostolic Church." But the other decree, If any clerk upon any crimes whatsoever, although it is cited by Gratian at 3, question 6, chapter 17, under the name of Xystus, is nevertheless ascribed by Ivo, part 6, chapter 318, to Eleutherius, and at chapter 329 to Felix. But it is chapter 7 of those which Mercator put together under the name of Hadrian, forged from the words of Anianus the translator of the Novella of Marcian, title 2.

§ V. The writings which are circulated under the name of St. Sixtus.

The Anaphora or Liturgy The Most Eminent Cardinal Bona, in book 1 of Liturgical Matters, chapter 9, number 9, makes mention of a manuscript codex embracing sixteen Anaphoras or Liturgies, of which the first, as he adds, is ascribed to Xystus, Roman Pontiff. In Renaudot, in the collection of oriental Liturgies, volume 2, from page 134, there is placed the Liturgy of St. Xystus, Pope of Rome: concerning which he noted various things on page 142. But it is the offspring neither of our St. Sixtus, nor of another Roman Pontiff of the same name; but of some Syrian, probably a bishop. Which I prove thus. Joseph Simon Assemani, a Syrian Maronite, in volume 1 of the Clementino-Vatican Oriental Library, which is on the orthodox Syrian writers, chapter 31, page 429, treating of Xystus, bishop of a certain church, supplies various things to our purpose, of which I transcribe these here: Xystus, bishop of a certain church (for the name of the city has not yet been possible to dig out), seems to have flourished in the fifth century, according to the indications which the praised writer soon subjoins, and then he proceeds thus: The Syrians, who, whether in good or bad faith, began in the sixth century to peddle many works of Catholic and heretical authors under the specious names of Greek and Latin Fathers, on the testimony of Evagrius, book 3, chapter 21, made also our Xystus, he says, who seems to have been a Syrian, as his style declares, from a bishop of an uncertain see into a Roman Pontiff, for no other reason, as I think, than on account of the similarity of the name. Hence in John of Apamea, and in our Syriac codex VI, he is called bishop of Rome; which title also the remaining copyists of the Anaphoras are wont to prefix to the Liturgy published under his name.

[46] not of this our Sixtus: And indeed that Xystus was distinguished with episcopal dignity is gathered both from the title of bishop with which he is everywhere adorned, and from this, that he composed an Anaphora, which among the Syrians is attributed to bishops alone, as Renaudot rightly observes in volume 2 of the Oriental Liturgies, page 398. But that he was by no means a Roman Pontiff is persuaded by the deep silence of Greeks and Latins concerning the writings which are circulated under his name. The same Renaudot, in the volume cited, page 142, speaking of the Liturgy of Xystus, judges that the Jacobites "transferred certain sentences from pseudepigrapha into their collections, from which they seemed to themselves to notice some suited to their errors." I think it more likely that there is in the works which bear the name of Xystus no fault of substitution: especially since nothing occurs in them which smacks of the heresy of the Monophysites; but that the Syrians, as not yet skilled in criticism, carelessly adjudged the works which they saw under the name of Xystus to that Roman Pontiff.

[47] but was another's. Next in the same place there is treatment of his ascetic writings; and on page 430 these things follow: Besides the ascetic tracts, the Anaphora also, or Liturgy, under the name of Xystus is most celebrated, whose beginning is: Tranquillity and peace. It appeared in Syriac in the Missal of the Maronites in the year 1594, and in Latin through Renaudot, volume 1, page 134. But it exists in manuscript in almost all liturgical codices. The renowned Stephen of Eden makes mention of it in chapter 2, on the Catholic writers of the Anaphoras, number 10, where from the common opinion of the Syrians he adjudges it to Pope Xystus. John Maro, or whoever is the author of the Exposition of the Mass of the Syrians, written out by the hand of Ecchellensis himself, confirms the opinion of Renaudot, indicated by us above, concerning the Liturgies of Xystus and Julius, in chapter 3, in these words: "The Liturgies of Xystus and Julius, Patriarchs of Rome, some say were first composed by them in Latin, and afterward translated into Syriac. Others more rightly affirm that those Fathers indeed handed down only rules and some precepts concerning the order of the oblation of the Sacrifice: but that certain of the Fathers, adhering to the doctrine handed down by them, arranged those Liturgies, and published them under their glorious names." But I think it more probable that it is the offspring of Xystus the Syrian bishop; especially if you inspect its style, which certainly smacks of a Syrian author. So he: but Pierre Le Brun, in the Liturgical Work which is entitled Explication of the mass, etc., published some years ago, volume 2, dissertation 9, article 1, judges it more credible that this Liturgy was truly written under the name of Sixtus, Pope, a little time after the council of Chalcedon; but since the Sixtus indicated here is the third of this name, who departed life in the year of Christ 440, and therefore that matter does not pertain here, I do not recount the reasons of the same author.

[48] But concerning the two epistles which are circulated inscribed with the name of Sixtus II, Pope, Two epistles are held for spurious: one of which what shall I say? They are had in Labbe, volume 1 of the Councils, column 820 and following, with the mark of a spurious offspring branded on both. Pierre Coustant, cited above at number 44, says, Under the name of Xystus two epistles have come forth from the workshop of Isidore Mercator, not to be sold apart from the rest of his wares. The learned man had taught more concerning the collection of Isidore Mercator in the Preface, §10, page CXXV; and then on page CXXIX he proves that he is an impostor. That one which is there placed in the second position, and is inscribed, To the most beloved brethren established throughout the provinces of the Spains, Sixtus the bishop, greeting in the Lord, is found also in volume 1 of the Greatest Collection of the councils of Spain, published by the Most Eminent Aguirre, dissertation 14, from page 213. The accusations which the critics form against it, and which the learned man recounts at greater length in the same place, page 217, consist in this: 1. That it is interpolated with the words of writers later than the time of St. Sixtus; namely of St. Leo, Pope, and of St. Gregory; and also of Sts. Prosper and Augustine. 2.

That the dating of the epistle is false, since it is said to have been given on the seventeenth of the Kalends of August, Valerian and Decius, most illustrious men, being consuls. These things I state summarily; which are found at greater length in him, as also in Labbe. The matter will be elucidated from the reply of Aguirre.

[49] But these things, he says, as also others like them which are wont to be objected to the epistles of the ancient Pontiffs, Cardinal so that they may be held suspect or even spurious, have already been anticipated... in various places, especially in dissertation 4; and as I advised in the same place at number 28 and following, it is easier to believe that the successor Pontiffs, or those who were in charge of their letters, appropriated something from the more ancient, than the reverse: as has always been done in the Roman curia, and as we see done daily in Pontifical Rescripts. And the same is the case, as often as in these old monuments there are read certain passages, or testimonies, even lengthy ones, which stand in the very same words, or nearly so, in the books of later writers, or in the Theodosian Code, etc. For as the most learned archbishop Antonio Agustín, weighed by us elsewhere, advises, it is exceedingly credible that the Christian emperors, as also the later Fathers, wished to adorn their edicts and writings with the words of earlier Pontiffs, whom they venerated most intensely, even with their name unmentioned. Otherwise it would be permissible to call into doubt the authority of innumerable Decretal Epistles, in which whole periods occur everywhere, and lengthy passages altogether the same. But no one on that account has dared to say that additions from the later crept into the epistles of the more ancient; but rather all are persuaded that the more recent borrowed them from the earlier.

[50] Aguirre But let us grant further that into that and other similar epistles, ascribed to the ancient Pontiffs, there crept some passages borrowed from later ones, by the imprudence of some copyist, who put within the body of the epistles later passages placed in the margin of some copy by some learned man. Let us also grant that some smatterer heaped in those additions, and interpolated those venerable instruments with monstrous daring: not on that account is it to be denied that those epistles, as to their chief part, and as it were their substance or marrow, so to speak, were written by those Pontiffs in whose name they are brought forward, and were preserved in the archives of the Apostolic See, and in other places; although in the very long course of the centuries the matter at length came to this, that those pure and unmixed copies are not found which existed in the first centuries of the Christian era, but only others overlaid with those additions. But it is the part of learned and erudite men to discern between the genuine and the adventitious; and not to cast away everything indiscriminately, or even to hold it cheap; as David Blondel dared to do in his Pseudo-Isidore, and was on that account rightly reprehended by the archbishop de Marca, although he too holds the aforesaid epistles suspect. For granted, and by no means conceded, that they are interpolated with passages of later writers, whether of councils, or of Pontiffs, or of Fathers: they ought not on that account to be despised; but rather to be held in esteem, both on account of the salutary doctrine and piety of those most holy Prelates of the Roman Church, by which they were from the beginning dictated: and also on account of the weight and quality of the testimonies of the following age, with which they were once adorned in the margin, and at length placed within the body itself by some imprudent man or smatterer. For the sentences of the holy Pontiffs, and of the most learned Fathers of the Church, wherever they exist, ought to be held in the highest esteem. Hence Aguirre concludes that there is no need to answer one by one to the things which are objected from the passages of Sts. Leo, Gregory, Prosper, and Augustine. For in all, he says, the reason is the same, etc.

[51] attempts to defend it; Finally, what is objected concerning the consulship of Valerian and Decius is slight, and is wont to be scorned by all the most fastidious critics, when they understand it to be to their own advantage; since it is exceedingly easy, in so long a course of centuries and variety of copies, for the name of one consul to have been substituted for another. We confess, therefore, that the epistle of Xystus was given when Valerian and Gallienus were Consuls; but not Valerian and Decius. For the latter had been killed about the end of his third consulship, six years before Xystus was elected Pontiff. But it is not so monstrous a blunder or error that to Valerian Augustus, Decius rather than Gallienus should have been given as a colleague in some copies of the aforesaid epistle. Nor certainly, in the very long space of the middle age, was there that exact care and observation of the consular fasti which once was, and now is amid so great a light of erudition, so that one name should not sometimes be thrust in for another by copyists or scribes. You have, reader, the vindications of the most wise Cardinal Aguirre for the epistle which is circulated under the name of St. Sixtus II, Pope, especially fitted to this end, that those smatterers and critics who irreverently gnaw at any ancient sacred monuments whatever, and so easily reject and despise them, may learn to be a little wiser unto sobriety. But the hinge of this our controversy does not turn on that; but on whether the epistle of which we here treat was written by Sixtus II, Pope, or not.

[52] whether he does it with the wished-for success But now let it be permitted me, saving the peace of the praised Most Eminent one, to set forth my opinion concerning the present subject; for it is not the place here to unweave the intricate web concerning the decretal epistles, as they call them, of the ancient Pontiffs. Since therefore it is the part of learned and erudite men to discern between the genuine and the adventitious, as Aguirre rightly says; it is necessary that there be some rules, by the direction of which a prudent criterion may be formed, by force of which that discernment can be made. But now, if the difficulties by which that epistle labors, and which the same author objected above, are of no strength at all, or at least of very little, against it; let him concede, I pray, a standard which has the force of forming a judgment by which spurious writings can be discerned from genuine ones. For it seems either altogether, or at least in great part, to disarm criticism, if those arguments which he brought forward for that epistle carry conviction. For what writing will there be, provided it be tolerable, and not stuffed with open falsehoods, and too absurd, against whose censure these or similar things could not be answered? Nor should you say that the epistle of which we here treat is in possession, so to speak, of being his, at least so far as pertains to its substance and marrow, in whose name it is inscribed: for if from elsewhere there appear in it indications on account of which it is rendered suspect of substitution or interpolation, is it not obvious to suspect that the title, destitute of the agreeing memory and authority of the most ancient writers, is adventitious, and therefore does not belong to that Pontiff and that time whose name it bears? These things move me not to dare hitherto to stand surety for that epistle as truly Sixtine. And the same arguments fight against the other; because both labor under similar difficulties.

[53] To the argument of Aguirre, by which he was endeavoring to extenuate the interpolation of the epistles, he does this. I reply with Coustant in the Preface, page CXXIX, number 160; where he cites his words in dissertation 4, number 28, indicated above, and argues thus: But, you will say, it could have happened, as commonly happens, that succeeding writers often thumbed these letters of the ancients, and copied out many testimonies from them word for word. And this seems to the erudite man Cardinal Aguirre to be EASIER and MORE PROBABLE THAN THAT THEIR COLLECTOR SEWED ONTO THEM THE TESTIMONIES OF LATER WRITERS. Prettily indeed. They were, forsooth, in common use. From these fountains, not one writer, but nearly every great man, Pontiffs, Fathers, councils, drew what suited them: as is shown there at length from an enumeration of them. But indeed if that is so, to what end therefore (for it is useful to inquire about this again), to what end, among so great a number of Fathers, Pontiffs, synods, and other authors of that kind, is not even one found before the age of Isidore who made mention either of the epistle whence he took the things he was quoting, or of the Pontiff who had written the epistle? For what? That they were plagiarists, who clothed themselves in others' rags! This is too injurious, and does not apply to men most of whom were most excellent in the praise of doctrine and of sanctity alike. Did they so little esteem the authority of the supreme Pontiffs that they did not deign even to quote their name? But if they were copying out the opinions, the very words of the Pontiffs, why should they not quote their very names too? And they did indeed quote them, where the genuine ones which we bring to light were concerned. Which is there deduced by the adducing of examples.

[54] That the book On Riches was composed neither by our Sixtus, nor by another Roman Pontiff of the same name, The book on Riches was composed by another. is persuaded by those things which Baronius noted at the year 440, page 695; where, treating of the Pelagian writings foisted under the name of Sixtus III, Pope, of whom the discourse there is, and depicting with genuine marks the most wicked parent of this pestiferous offspring, whoever at last he was, from the poison of it, he has among other things thus: For what did the author attempt in that whole book On riches, but to show that a rich man is not from God? plainly against the testimonies of divine Scripture, in which it is said: God made the rich and the poor. And in the Canticle of Anna: The Lord makes poor and enriches. For from many things you will find that the same author wishes to prove that it is impossible for a rich man to keep the precepts of God: nay, he teaches at length that all, even those having sons and daughters, are bound to pour out their riches and be made poor, if they wish to be saved. In these things, I say, since the author is occupied throughout that whole book, who does not understand that Pelagius breathes there: among whose chapters of heresies (as has been said) this was one, that a rich man cannot be saved unless he pay out all his goods to the poor? But even if all these things could somehow be drawn to some Catholic sense; would it have been fitting, at the time of this emerging heresy, for a Roman Pontiff, if not to treat those very things expressly, yet to treat things akin and bordering on them, without suspicion of the Pelagian heresy, no repudiation of it being made? Hence indeed it is clear that that book is wrongly attributed to Sixtus III, Pope; that there were nevertheless those who ascribed it to our Martyr, the heterodox writer mentioned above at number 29 observes, page 112. The book On riches is extant in the Library of the Fathers of the Paris edition of the year 1589, volume 5, column 781 and following.

§ VI. Whether our St. Sixtus composed the Enchiridion or little book of Sentences.

St. Jerome denies this little book to St. Sixtus, St. Jerome denies it, asserting that Sixtus the Pythagorean was the author of that little work, and censuring him as also its translator Rufinus with this stricture, in book 6 of the Commentaries on chapter 18 of the prophet Ezekiel: Beautifully is it said in the little sentences of Xystus the Pythagorean: He is an adulterer with his own wife, who is a too ardent lover. Which book a certain man, translating it into the Latin tongue, wished to make illustrious by the name of the martyr Xystus, not considering that in the whole volume, which he divided in vain into two parts, the name of Christ and of the Apostles is altogether passed over in silence. Nor is it a wonder, if in

[56] and censures him with the gravest strictures And in book 4 of the Commentaries on chapter 22 of the prophet Ezekiel he writes these things: The wretched Grunnius, who opened his mouth to calumniate holy men, and taught his tongue lying, translated into Latin one book of Sextus the Pythagorean, a man of the most gentile sort, and divided it into two volumes, and dared to publish it under the name of the holy martyr Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome: in which no mention is made of Christ, none of the Holy Spirit, none of God the Father, none of the patriarchs, prophets, and Apostles: and this book, by mere rashness and madness, he named the Ring; which is read through many provinces, and especially by those who preach ἀπάθεια and sinlessness. As therefore the Lord threatens that He will cast Jechonias like a ring from His hand and finger, so I beseech the reader to cast away the nefarious book, and to read it, if he will, like the other books of the philosophers, not as an ecclesiastical volume.

[57] he chastises; But in the epistle to Ctesiphon against the Pelagians, he records thus: But that rashness of his, nay madness (the discourse is of Rufinus), who could explain in worthy speech, that he inscribed the book of Xystus the Pythagorean, a man without Christ and a heathen, with the name changed, as of Sixtus the martyr and bishop of the Roman Church: in which, according to the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, who equate man with God, and say that he is of His substance, many things are said concerning perfection: so that those who do not know the volume of the philosopher may, under the name of a Martyr, drink from the golden cup of Babylon. Finally, in that very volume no mention is made of the Prophets, none of the Patriarchs, none of the Apostles, none of Christ: so that he contends that a Bishop and martyr was without the faith of Christ. These are the censures with which the most wise Doctor of the Church marked the aforesaid little book.

[58] To St. Jerome I join another light of the Church, whom neither does St. Augustine acknowledge as the offspring of St. Sixtus. St. Augustine, who in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 42, speaks thus: There came then into my hands a certain book of Pelagius, where with all the argumentation he could he defended the nature of man against the grace of God, by which the ungodly is justified, and by which we are Christians. In which book of mine I so defended certain words which Pelagius set down as though of Xystus, Roman bishop and martyr, as if they were really of Xystus himself: for so I had thought. But afterward I read that they are of Sextus the philosopher, not of Xystus the Christian. You have what these two excellent leaders of the Catholic Church thought concerning the aforesaid little work and its author. To heap up here the judgments of other writers upon the present subject, and laboriously to weave a new dissertation, is not our intention. Moreover the Sentences of which we here treat have been published in the Cologne Library of the Holy Fathers, of the year 1618, volume 3 from page 64; in the Paris one, of the year 1589, volume 5, column 769 and following. Which not long since a certain recent heterodox writer also published, from what was said above: whose edition I shall use when I bring forward certain sentences.

[59] That smatterer, a heterodox writer, wished to reform what he calls the unfair judgment of St. Jerome concerning the Sentences of Sixtus II, It is inquired by what reasons philosopher, Pontiff, and martyr. But although to return book for book, by answering to each of the heads of this controversy which he very prolixly and laboriously scrapes together, would neither be within our leisure nor worth the labor; yet I exhibit a few specimens out of many, so that the reader may discern whether he has attained his aim. For the following things embarrass that cause. 1. The impotence of mind with which he shamelessly rails against St. Jerome: which is wont to be the mother not of solid judgment, but of prejudice, as they call it, or of preconceived opinion. Behold for yourself some few of the flowers with which he besprinkles the venerable white hairs of the great Doctor: He used his accustomed craftiness, I add also violence and a dictatorial spirit, he says on page 48. Immoderate in praising his flatterers; but in wounding and torturing his detractors he showed himself most savage and most cruel; page 50. So that anyone else must yield in shame to Jerome for having in so palpable a manner counted all good faith and conscience as worthless, in the same place. Headlong and boiling over in doctrines and opinions, page 62. Whereas Jerome's fraud was much more execrable, etc., page 96. Not to heap up more; assailing the most holy Doctor of the Church with the words of the famous heresiarch John Calvin, at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 1, he introduces him speaking thus of him; namely, that he was endowed with notable virtues; but that he also labored under notable vices: whence it came about that, carried away in disputing by great intemperance, he did not always regard what was true. But of ineptitudes and filth more than enough; with which that smatterer of whom I spoke above, in a style forsooth plainly composed to modesty, accuses the censor of the little book here in controversy of intemperance; not obscurely betraying of what temper he was, and about to learn perhaps, before fair arbiters of matters, how little such gibes, taunts, and bitternesses profit — nay rather how greatly they hinder — toward carrying his own cause.

[60] a certain recent heterodox writer ascribes it to St. Sixtus II, Pope, It embarrasses him, 2. That the quibblings of that Aristarchus by no means overturn the censure of St. Jerome. I propose the matter to be weighed by a reader free from party zeal. The holy Doctor affirms that the little book of which we here treat is the offspring of Sextus the Pythagorean, a man of the most gentile sort, etc. The aforesaid heterodox writer denies on page 30 that there existed among the Pythagoreans anyone to whom that little work under the name of Sixtus could be attributed. And why did he not exist? Is it not for this reason, that he does not know such a one among the Pythagoreans? A frivolous consequence indeed! Does he then know absolutely all and each of the Pythagorean writers? I think not. If he does not know them; why does he shut this one out from their sect? But these things which he reports from page 33 — that Thomas Gale the Englishman... when he published at Oxford in the year 1683 mythological, physical, and ethical little works, and among them the writings and fragments of the Pythagoreans, and inserted into these very ones the sentences of our Sixtus, as he will have it, on page 845 and following, plainly thought that this our man was the one who was cited either by Cicero or Seneca, Pliny, and all the rest — these things, I say, he there indeed reports; but by no means solidly refutes. I would ask, he says on page 34, by what reason that Sixtus, whom Gale determines to have lived in the age of Cicero and Cæsar, could have spoken of our ὑιοθεσία, that is, adoption, of Christ, the wisdom of God, of the renunciation in baptism, of martyrdom, of innumerable other merely Christian doctrines and of rites used only in the holy assembly; unless he at the same time determines that all these were both known and practiced before the coming of the Savior? But do you suppose that all those things are to be found there in the clear light which our smatterer so confidently displays? For indeed he saw not what is there, but what he wished to be there. For what? Sentence 242, which stands thus, Having professed yourself faithful, you have equally promised God not to sin, he twists to the sacred baptism of Christians, no shadow of a word indicating it, saying on page 245: That indeed is a manifest indication of the Christian fellowship: for a gentile could not speak of the renunciation made in holy baptism. But from Sentence 56, Be worthy of Him who has deigned to call you son, and do all things as a son of God, with great but altogether empty emphasis he says, In all the wisdom of Pythagoras no such treasure is discovered as would make us more certain of the ὑιοθεσία. This pertains to mysteries, but revealed ones. See how great a force in this smatterer has what they call an adventitious idea, framing for itself shadows and dreams, namely the renunciation which is made by Christians before baptism, concerning which that sentence of the philosopher is deeply silent. For it is not here asked whether by an adventitious interpretation sought from outside they can be twisted to a Christian sense; but whether they indicate and manifest that sense of themselves, from the force of the terms and from the obvious idea of their signification. But now, grant that there are certain sentences in the said book which savor of sacred Scripture; does it nevertheless follow from that, that the author of that book was a Christian? Let Baronius be heard on this matter in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 410: Rufinus in translating, adding very many things after his manner from the divine Scriptures, made the book appear rather that of a Christian man than of a heathen.

[61] and defends it against the censure of St. Jerome, But let us return to the Hieronymian censure, and briefly examine its other members. He says that pseudo-Sixtus wrote things in which no mention is made of Christ, none of the Holy Spirit, none of God the Father, none of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles. The heterodox writer confesses on page 40 that in him the sacrosanct names of Jesus and of Christ are not found. Which, who would not wonder at; since they are so suited and familiar, not to say daily, to Christian writers, such as he wishes his Sixtus to be, for the forming of the morals of Christians? But there is extant, he says, a description of the Savior in Sixtus, when he adorned Him with the proclamation of the Word, and Wisdom, and truth. And presently he brings forward the holy Fathers, who used these words to signify the Son of God. But St. Jerome did not deny that those words materially are found among the sentences of pseudo-Sixtus. The question is whether by those words, as they stand there, in the literal and obvious sense, the whole context of the writer being attended to, the Son of God is signified; or whether rather that meaning has been fastened on by the will of the man who defends the said author and his sentences. Behold some specimens, whence you may judge. Sentence 23 stands thus: The soul is purified in the word of God through wisdom. The 24th: Never think that the wisdom of God is insensible. The 29th: Divine wisdom is light, and incapable of its contrary. Does the Savior, the Son of God, and the Word and Wisdom of the Father, shine forth sufficiently in these? Or again, from sentence 275, Forsaking what you possess, follow the word of God, is it rightly inferred by Jerome's Aristarchus, Under the title of the Word he has again described the Savior? Or is that concluded from sentence 290, All indeed choose to have the good, but they obtain it who have wholly made themselves over to the word of God? Or finally from sentence 370, Honor the true word as God? Trifles. But I should be led further than is right, if I should add to these my observations concerning God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

[62] But as to that of Jerome against pseudo-Sixtus, no mention is made of the Patriarchs, he defends Prophets, and Apostles, so far as that pertains; the defender of a bad cause here again after his manner hammers out from his own brain a memory of them, when on page 39 he says, Sixtus, when he describes the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, calls them wise men and friends of God, after the manner of Christ, who promised that He would send σοφούς, without designating the name of Peter or Paul, Matthew chapter 23. As though indeed elsewhere, and in various

places indeed, the Lord had not designated them often enough, clearly enough, and distinctly enough: so that even from this it may be allowed to notice what strawy props the patron of pseudo-Sixtus snatches at, in order to defend his desperate cause, and how little credit he deserves, when, citing texts of sacred Letters and of the Fathers, unseasonably to the purpose — not to say hunted up from every quarter as it were pompously for display — and applying them to the equivocal words of his Sixtus, he both confirms his sentences from them and peddles them for divine oracles.

[63] Finally the Doctor of Stridon accuses this book, because in it, according to the doctrine of the Pythagoreans as orthodox; who equate man with God, and say that he is of His substance, many things are said concerning perfection. The defender of pseudo-Sixtus denies this on page 48; affirming that only that perfection was required by him which Christ the Lord, and also Sts. Irenæus and Jerome, willed. Nay indeed on page 95 he says that Clement of Alexandria is wholly expressed in this Enchiridion. But I answer that it is nothing new for writers estranged from the Roman Catholic Church, in their desperate affairs, to cry out upon the divine eloquences and the holy Fathers. To this custom heretics both ancient and new have long since accustomed themselves. Behold a few specimens. The author of Clement XI's Constitution Unigenitus theologically defended, volume 1, in the Prolegomena, chapter 6, on occasion of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, everywhere called into patronage by Quesnel and the other Jansenists, suggests various things; of which I excerpt these few. Hear Wyclif: So has Augustine, as I teach: so the Papal law and the Councils. Luther: Augustine, whom you pass over, is wholly mine. Calvin: St. Augustine is so wholly ours, etc. And Calvin again: Even though Pighius rattle on, he cannot wrest this from us, that Augustine is wholly ours. Calvin finally a third time: There is no head of our doctrine which does not very often recur almost word for word in Augustine. More, as also the citations of the passages which I have brought forward, the aforesaid defender of the Constitution will give. The Doctor of the Church, most consummate in every kind of learning, therefore accuses the pseudo-Sixtine book; a heterodox scribbler excuses it. Which of the two is to be believed? Further, that the accusations which are moved against that little work are most just, there confirms, 1. the censure of Giovanni Maria Brasichellensis, master of the sacred Palace, prefixed to the Lyons Library of the Fathers, as it is in the said heterodox writer, page 93. There confirms it, 2. Cesare Baronius, writing at the year 410 against the execrable imposture of Rufinus. There confirms it, 3. a host of other authors: for the whole army of those who acknowledge the Roman Church follows this their Cæsar; as the adversary confesses on page 97. All those, forsooth, were blind like moles; but this man, seeing something more than all of them, uncovered the truth with lynx-eyed gaze. Believe it, posterity. There confirms it, 4. our very heterodox writer himself, in whom on page 95 a certain man of the same flock, master Thomas Ittig, prelate, as he is called, of the church of Leipzig, and professor of Sacred Theology, in his Tract on the Libraries and Chains of the Fathers — to whose judgment, he says, I judge that much is otherwise to be attributed — is asserted to speak thus in the said work, page 86: The Sentences which Bigne had published under the name of Sixtus, Roman Pontiff and martyr, Brasichellensis more rightly claims for Sixtus the Pythagorean; since it is established from Jerome, Augustine, and other authors that Rufinus by evil fraud foisted that book of a gentile philosopher upon Sixtus, Roman Pontiff and martyr. There confirm it, 5. these absurdities, which I sample from the same book:

[64] but with vain For sentence 162 runs thus: Use a lie as you would poison. Fine ethics indeed, which prescribes the use of a lie. What our heterodox smatterer, clinging to the footsteps of his fellows, on pages 206 and 207 impudently belches out on this subject against our Nicolas Abram, and against our whole Society, citing the authors of the Hexapla crushed by the Roman thunderbolt, is not the place here to refute. Sentence 271 stands thus: Let it be execrable to you even to punish anything justly. Where then is vindictive justice? Sentence 130 consists of these terms: Do not ask from God that which, when you have had it, you will not possess perpetually. He therefore does not teach that temporal supports necessary for the sustaining of mortal life, nor peace, nor tranquillity of mind, nor the quiet of the Church, nor health of body, are to be asked from God. Sentence 135 states these things: Whatever does not befit the blessedness of God does not befit the man of God. Samuel Basnage of Flottemanville, who ought by no means to be suspect to our adversary, since he is estranged from Roman rites, in the Politico-ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of the Lord 258, number 8, not content with having censured the preceding sentence, brands this present one also with this stigma: It shrinks... from the faith... The resurrection of the body therefore will not be a part of the felicity of the Saints, inasmuch as it fights against the glory of the immortal God. But this one, 198, Reckon it an equal sin to disparage a wise man and God, how is it sufficiently reverent toward God, and consonant with the inequality of sins? What more? Does not sentence 285, Men are wont to cut off some of their members for the health of the rest: how much more excellently will this be done for chastity, give patronage to the erroneous mutilation of Origen?

[65] Finally, what more inept could be said than this sentence 236, Know that both to marry and to beget children are utterly evil? effort altogether. For even our smatterer himself says on page 442, I confess that this sentence, as Rufinus translated it, can be excused only with the greatest difficulty. Whence it came about that in the Paris and Lyons editions they are not found at all. Perhaps they were inserted by Jerome and his followers, so that at last they might fasten on Sixtus the odium which they had brought on themselves by their hatred of matrimony. Observe and marvel at the bold and impudent conjecture of this our scribbler; not clinging to which, however, he presently catches at another escape, when he lays the fault on Rufinus the translator. Since these things are so, I require the prudent judgment of a fair reader, whether this little book of Sentences here in controversy is to be ascribed to St. Sixtus II, Pope and martyr, or rather is not plainly unworthy of him; which has been so wrongly held in honor by our Heterodox writer, that on page 108 he judges — let us say more openly, dreams — that Sixtus built for himself by this book a step to the presbyterate.

§ VII. Whether the Saint set out to the Spaniards; his Acts.

Various authors Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology on this sixth day of August records that our holy Martyr undertook a journey into Spain, in these words: At Rome, the birthday of St. Sixtus, supreme Pontiff, who, when as legate of the Holy Roman Church he had come to the Spains in order to be present at the council of Toledo, his office being discharged, went to Saragossa, kindled with the ardor of devotion to the Virgin of the Pillar: where, recognizing Lawrence, archdeacon of St. Valerius, he brought him to Rome. Further, the said Martyrologist endeavors to prove the Saint's coming into Spain, 1. from the Chronicle of Dexter; which, since it has long since lost all credit among the learned, nothing can be concluded from it. 2. From St. Vincent Ferrer, who in his Sermon on St. Lawrence, folio XCII verso of the edition presently to be indicated, writes thus: St. Sixtus the Pope, going to celebrate the council of Toledo, made a passage through Saragossa, and having heard the fame of blessed Lawrence, called him, and, his sanctity being known, led him with himself, etc. These things I transcribe from the Lyons edition of the Sermons of St. Vincent Ferrer which are on the Saints, printed in the year 1416.* Tamayo advises that in others the word Pope is deservedly struck out; lest St. Sixtus be said to have left Rome after his Pontificate. We indeed venerate the sacred erudition of St. Vincent Ferrer joined with an apostolic spirit; yet in such a way that for the confirmation of the present cause we desire testimonies more ancient than those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which that Saint flourished. Concerning the other authors whom Tamayo cites, let the judgment be the same.

[67] For the rest, it is useful to hear the most diligent collector of the councils of Spain, affirm that the Saint set out into Spain; the most eminent Aguirre, in volume 1 of the Greatest Collection of the said councils, from page 161, writing these things concerning the council of Toledo which was mentioned above, and the coming of our Saint into Spain: The seventh is said to have been celebrated at Toledo in the year 260, in the time of St. Xystus II, Pope, according to the celebrated testimony of St. Vincent Ferrer (Aguirre subjoins the same words which we just gave). Further, that St. Xystus went to Spain, many are reported to have said before and after the time of St. Vincent Ferrer. Then the authors who are cited by him, all of these, as he adds, wrote before those new Chronicles of Dexter and his companions indicated above appeared. For after they came to light, all their defenders defend the same narration as though for altars and hearths, led chiefly by these words attributed to Dexter at the year 260, number 5: At Toledo a council was gathered under a legate of Pope Xystus. But indeed first of all there occurs an opposition between the words of St. Vincent and of Dexter: for the former seems to attribute that council to Xystus II, now Pontiff, going to Spain to celebrate it: but Dexter ascribes it only to some other legate of Pope Xystus (at least according to the emendation of his text, concerning which Tamayo in the place cited, page 390).

[68] Cardinal Aguirre denies it for various reasons. But whichever of the two be said, it is difficult to believe: since there exists no indication at all of Christian antiquity, nor any tradition, of Xystus's coming into Spain; nor were the Pontiffs, in that state of so great poverty and persecution, wont to send legates, especially to kingdoms far distant: nor does the brief time in which Xystus ruled the Apostolic See seem to have given room for him, leaving Rome, to seek Spain in order to celebrate a council there. For he lived in the Pontificate only one year, ten months, twenty-three days; as we saw above, page 18, in that most ancient Catalogue of Pontiffs of the whole Vatican library. (Nay indeed he did not sit so long, according to what was said above at number 40.) Besides, Xystus in that brief time of his Pontificate was already an old man; as his words to St. Lawrence indicate: We as old men undertake the course of a lighter fight. Whence it is less credible that an aged Pontiff, within a brief time of governing, traversed such long journeys. Further, St. Vincent Ferrer seems to have taken that narration from Martin Polonus of the Order of Preachers (concerning whom he had treated above), whose authority in history is slight, as is known, and as Bellarmine especially advises, when he speaks of him in the book on Ecclesiastical Writers about the middle of the thirteenth century. Finally, neither pseudo-Dexter nor any of the ancient Writers indicates for what cause, or with what bishops of Spain taking part, Xystus celebrated that council at Toledo, whether by himself or through some legate. Let the aforesaid council therefore remain, like the others preceding it, within the limits of mere possibility: from which alone one proceeds only rashly to asserting a fact; and consequently the coming of St. Xystus into Spain built upon it; which Ambrosio de Morales in book 9 of the General Chronicle of Spain, chapter 46, also disapproves; but Mariana, On the Affairs of Spain, book 4, chapter 10, admits, before

Sixtus was Pontiff; but by what ancient author worthy of credit will he, and the others who will have it so, prove this? For indeed we wish the learned Spaniards to be asked to expound this to us by some suitable ancient document.

[69] The Acts of St. Sixtus Concerning the copies of the Acts the following occur. Emmanuel Schelstrate, in volume 1 of the Antiquities of the Church, dissertation 2, chapter 7, number 6, proving that the Acts of St. Sixtus were interpolated, says, The Acts of Xystus the second are found in the manuscript codex 1190 of the Vatican; but interpolated, I know not by what author, many centuries after the death of the same Pontiff. This is plain from their first words: In the times of Decius Cæsar, and of Valerian the Prefect, they ordered that Sixtus the bishop with his Clergy be presented to them by night within the city at Tellus. By which it is hinted that Xystus suffered in the times of the emperor Decius; whereas it is established that Decius perished six years before Xystus obtained the Apostolic See. Nor does it matter that these earlier words are lacking in many other manuscript codices; since everywhere in the Acts there are exhibited Decius and Valerian, who interrogate Xystus, which was added by the interpolator out of ignorance of ecclesiastical history. For eight years after the death of Decius, Xystus obtained the palm of martyrdom under Valerian, not as prefect but as emperor, as we shall presently prove. The interpolator had perhaps read the name of Valerian in the true Acts of Xystus, and because the persecution of Decius was most grievous, he believed that Valerian had been the judge under Decius, and therefore affirmed that Xystus suffered under Decius the emperor and Valerian the Prefect.

[70] St. Ambrose had the genuine Acts of Xystus, who often makes mention of them; they are interpolated. yet nowhere did he assert that Lawrence suffered under Decius. Notable is the fragment which St. Ambrose reports in book 1 On the Offices, chapter 41, where he writes thus: Let us not pass over St. Lawrence also, who, when he saw Sixtus, his bishop, being led to martyrdom, began to weep, not for his passion, but for his own remaining behind. And so he began to address him in these words: Whither do you go forward without your son, father? etc. So St. Ambrose; which things indeed are found in the Acts of Xystus, Pope, as they are had in the Vatican manuscript codices, and in the published Passions of the Saints in Mombritius and Laurentius Surius. (See also the Martyrdom to be printed by us below, number 3.) But it is to be noted that St. Ambrose testifies that these things happened when Blessed Lawrence saw Xystus being led to martyrdom. Whereas the Acts now extant have: But when Blessed Lawrence the archdeacon had heard that blessed Xystus the bishop was being led back again into custody, he began to address him in these words: Whither do you go forward without your son, father? etc. From which it clearly appears that the Acts of Blessed Xystus were interpolated by someone after the times of St. Ambrose. The same Acts add that the treasures of the Church were thereupon distributed to the poor for several days by Blessed Lawrence, and that Xystus after all these things was first led out of prison to martyrdom: whereas St. Ambrose in the fragment reported above testifies that Xystus addressed Lawrence on the road by which he was hastening to the place of martyrdom, and foretold to him that after three days he would follow and undergo martyrdom. From these words of Schelstrate, therefore, it is concluded that the Acts of St. Sixtus were interpolated.

[71] It is pleasing to attach to these some other observations concerning the aforesaid Acts. Copies of them. Those which are extant in Surius, at the tenth day of August, are woven into the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. But in Mombritius, volume 2, there is given the Passion of the holy Xistus the bishop, and of Felicissimus and Agapitus the martyrs. We have a transcript from a manuscript of St. Omer, which contains the passion of St. Sixtus and of the two others whom I just mentioned, contracted into three lessons. There is besides another transcript ready to my hand with this title, The Martyrdom of St. Syxtus the Pontiff, and of Felicissimus and Agapitus the deacons, taken from a Fulda manuscript, collated with a manuscript of St. Martin's at Trier, and divided into nine chapters. The aforesaid lessons are more restricted than the other documents of the deeds which I have mentioned, briefly touching upon the part which St. Lawrence has at greater length elsewhere. For the rest, the Acts of which I have spoken stand in such a way that whoever knows one copy of them knows the rest: for they so agree among themselves that they clearly savor of the same fountain. Behold for you now

* read 1516

THE MARTYRDOM

from a Fulda manuscript collated with other copies.

Sixtus II, Pope and Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Quartus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Felicissimus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Agapitus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Januarius, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Vincent, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Magnus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

Stephen, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

BHL Number: 7805

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

The Saint with Felicissimus and Agapitus When the storm of persecution had arisen under Decius, many of the Christians were slain, and, the Persian war being finished, ^a Decius Cæsar and Valerian the prefect ^b, coming to Rome, ordered that Syxtus the bishop with his clergy be presented to them by night within the city at Tellude ^c. Syxtus therefore, born and taught at Athens ^d, first indeed a philosopher, afterward a disciple of Christ, said to his Clergy: Brethren and fellow-soldiers, do not be afraid; how great torments have all the Saints suffered, that they might securely obtain the perpetual palm of eternal life. For our Lord Jesus Christ also suffered for our salvation, that He might leave us an example: and with a clear voice he said: Come, let no one fear terrors. Felicissimus and Agapitus the deacons answered and said: And we, without our father, whither shall we go?

[2] is set before Decius and Valerian; and is vainly compelled to sacrifice to Mars. And he was presented by night to Decius and Valerian with two deacons. Decius Cæsar says to Syxtus the bishop: Do you know why you have been seized, and have been presented to us by public arrangement? Syxtus the bishop answered: I know, and I know well. Decius said: Therefore if you know, bring it about that all may know, and that you may live, and that your Clergy may be increased. Syxtus the bishop answered: Truly I have brought it about and do bring it about that my Clergy may be increased. Decius said: Therefore sacrifice to the immortal gods, and be chief of the priests. Blessed Syxtus the bishop answered: I have always sacrificed and do sacrifice to God the Father almighty, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, and to the Holy Spirit, a pure and unspotted victim. Decius said: Take counsel for your old age, as we too take counsel. And so take counsel, you also, for yourself and for your Clergy. Blessed Syxtus the bishop said: So far have I taken counsel ^e for myself and for my Clergy, that I strive to snatch or free all with me from the depth of eternal death. Decius said: Sacrifice: for if you do not, you will be an example to all. Syxtus the bishop answered: I have already told you once, I always offer sacrifice to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ His Son. Decius said to the soldiers: Lead him to the temple of Mars ^f, and let him sacrifice to the god Mars. But if he refuses, shut him up in the private prison of Mamertinus ^g. And they led him to the temple of Mars, and pressed him to be defiled with sacrifices. Then blessed Syxtus the bishop said: O unhappy men, who do not weep but adore idols vain and made by hand, dumb and deaf: which profit neither themselves nor others. But hear me, sons, and free your souls from eternal punishment: and do not fear these torments; but fear those, and do penance, because in ignorance you have sacrificed to vain idols. And, the order of Decius being disregarded, they led him into private custody with the two deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus.

[3] The colloquy of Sts. Lawrence and Sixtus. And when Blessed Lawrence the archdeacon had heard that blessed Sixtus the bishop was being led back again into custody ^h, he began to address him in these words: Whither do you go forward without your son, father; whither, holy Priest, do you hasten without your deacon? You never sacrificed without a minister, nor had you been accustomed to offer. What therefore in me has displeased you, father ⁱ? Have you found me degenerate? Test rightly whether you have chosen a fit minister, to whom you committed the consecration of the Lord's Body and Blood ^k. To whom you entrusted the fellowship of the Sacraments to be consummated ^l, to him do you deny the fellowship of your blood? Let not the judgment be endangered, while the fortitude is praised. The rejection of the disciple is the loss of the master. What of this, that outstanding men conquer more illustriously by the contests of their disciples than by their own? Finally Abraham offered his son; Peter sent Stephen before him; and you, Father, show your virtue in your son, and offer him whom you have instructed; that, secure of your judgment, you may come with noble company to the crown. Then Syxtus the bishop said: I do not desert you, son, nor forsake you, but greater contests are owed ^m to you. We as old men undertake the course of a lighter fight; for you as a great young man ⁿ a more glorious triumph over the tyrant awaits. Afterward ^o you shall come; cease to weep: after three days you, a levite, shall follow the priest. This middle number is fitting. It shall not be * yours to conquer under a Master, as though seeking a helper in the fellowship of the passion [p]. I leave you the whole inheritance. Why do you seek my presence [q]? Elijah left Elisha, and did not take away his virtue. And holy Syxtus said to St. Lawrence: Take the goods or the treasures of the Church, and divide them to whom it seems good to you. Then Blessed Syxtus the bishop handed over to Blessed Lawrence the archdeacon all the goods of the Church.

[4] At that time, the power being received, Blessed Lawrence began to seek carefully through the districts The virtues wherever the holy Clerics or the poor might be hidden: and carrying the treasures, he ministered to each as he had need [r]. But coming to the Cælian hill, where there was a certain widow, who had been with her husband eleven years, and remained in widowhood thirty-two years, who had in her house many Christians, and presbyters, and Clerics hidden. When Blessed Lawrence had heard of these, he took garments and treasures, and came to her by night. Then, coming, he found a multitude of Christians in the house of Cyriaca the widow, and began to wash the feet of all the Christians. And on that same night Cyriaca, coming to Blessed Lawrence, cast herself at his feet, saying to him: By Christ I adjure you to place your hands upon my head, because I suffer many infirmities of my head. Then Blessed Lawrence said: In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the almighty God, I shall place my hand upon your head. And, the sign of Christ being made, he placed his hands upon the head of Cyriaca the widow: and he placed also upon her hands the linen cloth with which * he was wiping the feet of the Saints.

[5] On that same night he walked from there, and began to seek wherever the Christians were gathered, and miracles whether in houses or in crypts. And he came into the district which is called Canarius, and found many Christians gathered in the house of a certain Narcissus, a Christian. Where he entered with tears, and washed the feet of all, and gave them from the treasure which Blessed Syxtus, giving order, had handed over. And he found in the same house a man named Crescentio,* blind.

Then he with tears began to beg, saying: Place your hand upon my eyes, that I may see your face. Then Blessed Lawrence, dropping tears from his eyes, said: May our Lord Jesus Christ, who opened the eyes of the man born blind, Himself enlighten you. And, the sign of Christ being made upon his eyes, at that very hour they were opened, and he saw the light and Blessed Lawrence, as he had asked.

[6] Then, going out from there, he heard that in the district of Patricius many Christians were gathered in the Nepotian crypt, wrought by St. Lawrence. and coming thither Blessed Lawrence brought with him those things which were necessary for the Saints. And he found there sixty-three [s] souls of both sexes, and entered in to them with tears, giving peace to all. And he found there a presbyter named Justin, who had been ordained by Blessed Syxtus, and he cast himself at his feet, and both began to roll themselves on the pavement, that they might kiss each other's feet in turn. But Blessed Lawrence said to Blessed Justin: Fulfil my wish, that the feet of the Saints and yours be washed by my hands. Justin the presbyter said: This is the Lord's precept: let the will of our Lord Jesus Christ be done. And, a basin being placed, he poured water, and washed the feet of all the men. But coming to Blessed Justin, he began first to kiss his feet and to wash them: and when he had washed the feet of all, he commended himself to Blessed Justin.

[7] St. Sixtus, spurning the idols, And at that same hour, going out from there; and behold, Blessed Syxtus was being led to Tellus, that he might be heard, and with him the two deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus. And Decius and Valerian sat. But Decius said to Blessed Syxtus the bishop, full of wrath: We indeed take counsel for your old age. Hear our commands, and sacrifice. Blessed Syxtus answered: Wretch, take counsel for yourself; and do not blaspheme; but do penance for the blood of the Saints which you have shed. Decius, full of fury, said to Valerian: If this man be not extinguished, our terror will not be renowned. Valerian answered: Let him be punished with the loss of his head. Felicissimus and Agapitus answered and said: O wretched men, if you would hear the admonitions of our father, you would escape the eternal torments which are to torture you. Valerian the prefect said: Why shall these men live long, who promise us torments? But let them be led to the temple of Mars again and sacrifice. But if they refuse to sacrifice, in the same place let them be beheaded. And, being led outside the wall of the Appian gate, Blessed Syxtus began to say: Behold idols vain, dumb and deaf, and of stone, to which wretched men bow down, so that they lose eternal life. And he said to the temple of Mars: May Christ, the Son of the living God, destroy you. And when Blessed Syxtus had said this, all the Christians answered: Amen. And suddenly some part of the temple fell, and was broken to pieces [t].

[8] undergoes martyrdom together with Felicissimus and Agapitus. Then Blessed Lawrence began to cry out: Do not forsake me, holy father, for I have already spent the treasures which you handed over to me. Then the soldiers seized Blessed Lawrence the archdeacon, hearing about the treasure.* But holy Syxtus the bishop, and Felicissimus, and Agapitus the deacons, they led to the slope of Mars before the temple: and there [u] he was beheaded [x] with the two deacons [y], and they left their bodies in the open square on the eighth of the Ides of August. By night also there came clerics and presbyters, and Deacons, and a very great part of the Christians, and they gathered the bodies of the Saints, and buried Blessed Syxtus, bishop and martyr, in a crypt in the cemetery of Callistus [z] on the same way; but the holy Felicissimus and Agapitus, martyrs and deacons, they buried in the cemetery of Prætextatus on the eighth day of the Ides of August.

ANNOTATIONS.

The rights of ministry, fitted to the sacred altars, They divided among seven men, whom, chosen from every quarter, It pleases to call Levites; how splendidly began The hand of the Church to shine, which mixes the cups Of life, and offers the liquid with the blood of the Lamb.

To these let us add Cyprian, speaking thus in the sermon on the Lapsed: But when, the solemnities being fulfilled, the deacon began to offer the chalice to those present, etc.

p. "The fellowship of the passion" seems here to have been faultily confused; for besides that I do not read it here in Ambrose, Ado, manuscript codex P 155, Mombritius, and Surius; there nevertheless follows immediately: Why do you seek the fellowship of my passion? Surius, "do you ask"; "my" is not in the codex just cited, nor in Surius.

q. St. Ambrose adds here: Let weak disciples go before their master; let the strong follow, that they may conquer without the master, who now do not need his mastership.

r. The following things concerning St. Lawrence are not in Ado; but after "he ministered" these follow: Therefore after this Blessed Sixtus is led back to Tellus. See above at number 7.

s. Mombritius, forty-three: Surius, nearly seventy-three.

t. The things which are recorded concerning the fall of the greatest part of this temple by the words of St. Stephen I, Pope and martyr, and indeed as having collapsed in the immediately preceding year 257, in his Acts, volume 1 of August, day 2, page 143, raise a difficulty.

u. We have weighed the difficulties concerning the place of the passion in the Commentary, number 24.

x. By what manner of death the Saint was slain, consult the Commentary, number 29.

y. What regards the Saint's companions in martyrdom you have in the same place, number 32.

z. Concerning the celebrated cemetery of Callistus, Aringhi, Subterranean Rome, book 3, chapter 11.

* otherwise "was"

* Mombritius and Surius, "with which"

* Mombritius, "Crescentius"

* otherwise "treasures"