ON ST. DONATUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, AND ST. HILARIAN, ALSO A MARTYR.
At Arezzo in Tuscany.
About the year 362.
CommentaryDonatus, Bishop and Martyr, at Arezzo in Tuscany (S.)
Hilarian, Martyr, at Arezzo in Tuscany (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Scarcely are more things found in the manuscript collection of our Museum concerning any other Saint than concerning today's St. Donatus, Very many things concerning this Saint scarcely concerning any are more things confused and set down with too free a pen; as will soon be plain, when I have first set out the distinguished testimonies of his ancient cult. By no Martyrologist is he marked more distinctly and better than by the author of the Little Roman, who most clearly announces him on this day: At Arezzo, of Donatus, bishop and martyr — in which manner plainly also speak our Bede or Florus, Ado, Usuard, Rabanus, and Notker; so that the opinion of all those ancients is most constant, that it is not a confessor who is treated here, but a most true martyr, who as such was venerated from every age at Arezzo and in the rest of Tuscany, where his name is most celebrated, indeed in the whole Church — the Hieronymian Martyrologies on this day in vain contradicting, both the larger and the abridged, in most of which he is wrongly pronounced a bishop confessor, unless they have transferred hither that Donatus, unknown to them on the thirtieth of April, whom we have given as bishop of Euroea in Epirus from the Greek registers at the said thirtieth of April, and who in many Acts, both manuscript and printed, is confounded with today's Donatus out of the mere ignorance, I suppose, of copyists.
[2] are confused in the Lives, Our Elders saw these things when St. Donatus, bishop of Euroea and confessor, had to be treated at that thirtieth of April, where the Commentary begins thus: This is a different Donatus from him whom the people of Arezzo venerate at the seventh of August as at once bishop and martyr. The fourth century bore both, illustrious for the sanctity of their life: this one, while Julian was master of affairs, meeting death for the orthodox faith; the other, some years after, renowned with the miter of Euroea under the great Theodosius. Whence the same name of both, and the slight interval of time by which they were separated, easily introduced confusion into the Acts of both: so much so that we find not a few things which are proper to the bishop of Euroea attributed to him of Arezzo, and those very things in need of another correction. And indeed of no slight correction, as Baronius long ago observed in his notes to the Roman Martyrology, where he corrects not a few things in the very Acts of Arezzo, which are very far removed from the Greek Acts of Donatus of Euroea, as will readily strike the eye of one consulting them. Here now is the annotation of that most Eminent Cardinal itself:
[3] "Of Donatus the bishop"] Concerning whom Bede, Usuard, Ado, and the rest on this day. as Baronius long ago It appears that the Acts of his martyrdom were once written most sincerely, from which Pope Gregory in book 1, Dialogue 7, borrows the example concerning the broken chalice. They are said to have been written by Severinus the bishop, who was the fourth after Donatus to preside over the church of Arezzo. Would that they had remained entire as he published them, and that some one, seeming to himself too wise, had not added certain things by which the rest are called into doubt. We have read them in many manuscript codices, and Mombritius published the same in volume 1 of the Lives of the Saints, and Petrus in the Catalogue, in a brief compendium, book 7, chapter 33. Those things displease which are related concerning the education of Julian at Rome under Pigmenius, together with Donatus. For where Julian lived as a boy, together with his brother Gallus in Cappadocia, where too as a youth he was educated at Athens, where at last he commanded armies in the Gauls, is sufficiently established from the ancient historians of the Greeks and Latins, and above all from Julian's own letters. This too is alien from reason, that in the time of Julian's persecution, who did not rule even a full two years, the same St. Donatus should be said to have been a lector, and thence consecrated deacon, and after many years ordained priest, and at last, while he was still ruling, upon the death of bishop Saturus, substituted in his place, and moreover, while the same Julian was still living, to have been crowned with martyrdom.
[4] How also is he reported to have been still a lector in the times of Julian, and others have observed, who is in the same place said to have been ordained bishop by Julius, the Roman Pontiff? But what I think about that matter, without any prejudice to the truth, I will gladly and freely say. I think that Donatus's boyhood and education took place at Rome, and that the slaying of his parents happened not under the rule of Julian, but under Diocletian, about the last times of that persecution: for from those times up to Julian there intervenes a space of fifty-two years, in which Donatus, slipping away in flight, betook himself to Arezzo, and there was initiated into the sacred orders by bishop Saturus, and then, upon his death, was substituted in his place by Pope Julius, and at last under the emperor Julian was crowned with martyrdom. If we say these things, all the rest which are read in his Acts remain unshaken: but if it be otherwise, all things are involved in the fog of the aforesaid errors. Thus far Baronius, with whom I would not dare to agree that all the rest are unshaken, which perhaps were augmented and embellished with the same liberty by men too wise.
[5] And these things indeed regard only that Life published by Mombritius, that Donatus is not one which begins: There was a certain boy in the Roman city; besides which there can also be seen another much longer, which Pietro Buonamici published from the Florentine press in the year 1607, under this beginning: About to relate the triumphs of the most blessed martyrs Donatus and Hilarian; and which is more than once among us in manuscript, diligently collated with four others. Then there are the compendia in the writer of Beauvais and in the one of Equilio. Likewise also another shorter one by Pietro Boncompagni. Finally, various copies of a Life translated from the Greek, pertaining not at all to that St. Donatus of Arezzo of whom we treat, to which nevertheless this title is prefixed: Narrations concerning the virtues of St. Donatus, bishop and martyr — that you may here once for all rightly perceive how rashly the title of martyr has been transferred to St. Donatus of Euroea, and conversely our Donatus of Arezzo adorned with the insignia of the other, so that even in the copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology the said Donatus is called bishop and confessor, and so too addressed in the Gelasian Sacramentary; since indeed there it is the one of Arezzo and not that other, most celebrated among writers, that is treated, as is probable enough, the birthday having been transferred from the one to the other by the Latins, ignorant of the Greek registers.
[6] distinguishing more accurately. Florentinius saw the enormous confusion, twisting himself in various ways to bring it at last to a sound sense, and to attribute to each the things which are proper to each, distinguishing today's Saint from the one of Euroea in such a way that the latter seems by no means to be deprived of his palm of martyrdom, being wrapped up in a good many other things, which to distinguish and to reduce to a right standard I confess is no more open to me than it was to our Elders to separate out the fables inserted with the same liberty into the Life of St. Donatus, bishop of Euroea; so that accordingly it is better to abstain even from reprinting them here
I would judge; just as also from the donations rightly overthrown by Ughelli, likewise from the most convoluted hymns, from the Buralian lessons, and from the controverted translations, in the composing of which Buonamici exercised himself to a wonderful degree. It will be enough here to adduce, from Ughelli already praised, a compendium of the Acts somewhat more purged, in which I judge Hilarian or Hilarinus to be rightly joined to Donatus, and him indeed to be different from Hilarinus the martyr of Ostia, just as I said he was most probably to be distinguished at the sixteenth of July. Here is the synopsis itself, sufficiently clear, which you will confess is to be preferred to the eulogy of Ado, published also by Surius, unless perhaps the intruded Nicomedian fatherland displease you.
[7] The eulogy of him and his companion. Thus Ughelli substitutes our Saint for St. Saturus, in volume 1 of Italia Sacra, page 450: To this bishop, deceased, St. Donatus, a Nicomedian by nation, and educated at Rome under the discipline of Pigmenius the priest, was substituted: since indeed, when he was at Rome, and the most foul persecution of Diocletian was raging, in which Pigmenius, cruelly tortured with Donatus's parents, perished, Donatus, intending thenceforth to live for the public advantages of the Church, fled to Arezzo, where he found Hilarinus, a holy monk, and the bishop of the place, kindly receivers, by whom, already instructed and ordained a lector, he spread abroad the Gospel at Arezzo with so great an ardor of faith that, distinguished miracles also being wrought, he entirely eliminated the most empty worship of idols, and bore away the praise of impiety extinguished. And so, when it happened that Saturus departed from life, Pope Julius raised Donatus to that throne about the year of the Lord 346. Which church he thereafter ruled up to the times of Julian the Apostate. When therefore Quadratianus the Augustalis had ordered Donatus, who was contriving distinguished things for the greater glory of God, to be seized, together with the monk Hilarinus, having been tried with exquisite torments, he perished, punished by a capital sentence, in the year 362, and was buried not far from the city, since Hilarinus had preceded Donatus to the crown by some days; for the former flew to the heavens on the sixteenth day of the month of July, the latter on the seventh of the month of August. For the rest, the people of Arezzo deservedly venerate and honor Donatus as protector and president of the city, because he wholly cut the throat of impiety.
[8] These things too Ferrarius has briefly comprised in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, which there is no need to transcribe, Is the body at Benevento? since he almost repeats the lesson of the Roman Breviary, which on this day is in everyone's hands. By what has been said thus far the people of Arezzo would be left in peaceful possession of their St. Donatus, if some disturbance did not arise from the Samnites, when I read in Mario de Vipera, where he related the Saint's eulogy at this seventh of August, these words: Then the body was translated to Benevento, but at what time is read expressed by no one, and placed in the church of St. Mary of the Samnites; from the bringing in of which body that church passed over into the cult and name of that same holy Martyr, our bishop, where he is venerated with a great throng of people, whose feast day is kept as by precept of the Church; and among the patrons of the city of Benevento the citizens have enrolled him for themselves. There exists an office of the translation of our holy Bishop in an ancient manuscript codex, which the church of Benevento used before the correction of the Breviary. I do not suppose that the people of Arezzo will take it ill that their patron is celebrated also at Benevento and elsewhere; but they will by no means acknowledge that they have been deprived of the sacred body. The great number of Saints of the same name may easily have introduced this confusion also; but let there here be an end of these things.