ON STS. FIRMUS AND RUSTICUS, MARTYRS,
AT VERONA IN ITALY
About the year 304.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Firmus, Martyr, at Verona in Italy (S.)
Rusticus, Martyr, at Verona in Italy (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The immemorial cult of these Saints, their various Acts, and the time of the martyrdom.
The yearly memory of these Martyrs is celebrated in the ancient Calendars and ecclesiastical Registers; but I scarcely understand These Martyrs, known to the ancient Martyrologists, what certain transcripts of the Hieronymian Martyrology mean, in which the same Saints, if I am not mistaken, are on this day announced thus: The V of the Ides of August. In the East, the birthday of Sts. Firmus, Rusticus, Permus. But in the Hieronymian Martyrology which Edmund Martène inserted in volume 3 of the Thesaurus of Anecdota at column [ ], and which he judges to have been written about a thousand years ago, only the following are read: The V of the Ides of August. Of Firmus, Rusticus, Dionysius, Permo, Gagius, Syxtus. But the Rhinau and Reichenau ones, which we published with others in volume VII of June, have these words on the same day: The V of the Ides of August. At Sirmium, of Rusticus. And in the East, of Crescentianus and Tiburtius. See other announcements in the notes to the most ancient Martyrology of the Western Church in Francis Maria Florentinius, with whom I suspect that the lists have been dislocated or transposed, and that those words in the East pertain to other Saints: for in Rabanus, Notker, and other Martyrologists the same Martyrs are thus expressly ascribed to the city of Verona: In the city of Verona, of Firmus and Rusticus, who suffered in the time of the emperor Maximian and of Anullinus his counsellor. See similar announcements in the Supplements of our illustrated Usuard, and in other more recent collectors of Martyrologies, from which today's Roman Martyrology on this day thus announces the same Saints: At Verona, of the holy Martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, in the time of the emperor Maximian.
[2] The memory of these Martyrs from immemorial time to the present is famous among the men of Verona, chiefly at Bergamo as the most illustrious Augustine Valerius testifies in the ancient monuments of this church. But the men of Bergamo solemnly celebrate those same Saints as their own countrymen, as appears from the proper Offices of the church of Bergamo, which were reprinted in the year 1707, and in which at the IX day of August the Lessons of the second Nocturn are recited thus: Firmus, born at Bergamo of the noble family of the Croti, imbued by holy Alexander with the faith of Christ, so far advanced in it that, when the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian was raging, not only did he himself persist in it, but he also strengthened others: which, when it had been reported to Maximian, then residing at Milan, he was at once ordered by him to be seized and brought to him. On the journey Rusticus met him, who was joined to him by kinship and by the profession of the faith, and joined himself to him in the fellowship of martyrdom. Wherefore, being bound and led to Milan, they are cast into prison. As regards the fatherland which is here attributed to St. Firmus, the ancient Acts and certain Martyrologies commonly assign the same to those Saints. But what is to be thought concerning the determination of their nobility we have often indicated in the course of our Work, especially when in the case of certain Martyrs of Brescia we rejected such ancient titles or surnames of noble families. Nevertheless we readily admit that they were sprung of a noble stock, because the ancient Acts affirm it.
[3] they are venerated with an ecclesiastical Office, Further, the deeds of both Martyrs are thus briefly narrated in the praised Offices of the church of Bergamo: On the day after, being presented at the tribunal of the emperor, when they persevered in the confession of the faith, they are first most cruelly beaten with scourges; then, thrust into a foul prison, they are wasted with hunger. And when not even thus were they deterred from their purpose, the emperor attacks them by another way: having had them brought to him kindly, he addresses them blandly, and sets before them sweet pleasures, sumptuous banquets, costly garments, hopes of honors, riches: which they, making nothing of them, answered that the enticements of pleasures are the languors of souls, the hope of honors their ruin, riches and the remaining goods of the age thorns lacerating the conscience, and things which either draw a man back from true happiness or retard him. Kindled with anger by that answer, the emperor hands them over to the judge Anolinus to be punished, who took them with him to Verona, where holy Proculus, bishop of that city, visited them, and exhorted them to endure the torments. Therefore, when they refused to venerate the images in the temple of the idols, Anolinus ordered them to be rolled naked over iron caltrops and over fragments of pottery. But when by divine power they had remained unharmed by these torments, he orders a fire to be kindled around them. When nevertheless the flame did not touch them, fearing a tumult of the people, he commands them to be beheaded outside the city on the bank of the river Adige, on the fifth of the Ides of August. Finally, concerning their sacred relics and posthumous glory, the following are read in the same place: Their bodies, cast out that they might be left unburied, yet secretly taken up by Christians, are carried into Africa; and after a long time brought back into Italy, some parts of them being left at Verona, at length settled at Bergamo in their fatherland, where, long outside the city, at first deserted, then wonderfully found (a church of nuns being built in their honor), placed in a place made noble, at last by Charles Borromeo, Cardinal, archbishop of Milan, then as legate a latere going through the province, and afterwards enrolled among the Saints by the most holy Pope Paul V, translated with solemn pomp into the cathedral church, and there honorably entombed, they are venerated with the pious veneration of the faithful. From these things you see that the men of Bergamo claim for themselves the greater part of the relics, even though the men of Verona ascribe the sacred bodies of the same Martyrs to their city. But this dispute we shall try to compose in the following paragraph.
[4] Meanwhile let us look at the posthumous monuments of these Martyrs, and at Verona, where various posthumous monuments of them are extant. which the most illustrious Valerius in the Work cited above, folio 21 verso, thus recounts: From the Martyrology of the cathedral church at the IX day of August. On the same day, the feast of the holy Martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, whose bodies lie at Verona in the church of the Minors, dedicated under their name. The same asserts Francis Corna, adding that they suffered at Verona, and freed it from drought; and also the table of the Saints at the IX day of August. In the year of the Lord 236 lived holy Proculus, the fourth bishop of Verona, brother of holy Tusca the virgin, mistress of holy Teuteria the virgin: and at that time suffered the holy Firmus and Rusticus in the present city of Verona, from the Psalmist of the church of the holy Apostles. Francis Corna writes that that spine, that is, the bone of a sea-beast in the shape of a sickle, by which the heads of holy Firmus and Rusticus were cut off, is preserved in the church of St. Firmus the old, and that in his own times too it was wont to be carried about in supplications for obtaining rain in a time of drought, and that thereby a saving rain was obtained: but in our times it is preserved in the cathedral church. This church of St. Firmus the old is also called of St. Firmus de Curtalta, and was erected in honor of those same holy Martyrs, where they were detained in prison at Cancarium: in our times too a stone was found there with letters attesting this. Near the bank of the Adige, in honor of the holy Firmus and Rusticus, where they were beheaded, a chapel was erected, in which there stands a stone still marked, or drenched, with the blood of the holy Martyrs; upon which also Mass is celebrated: but in our times that stone is seen placed beneath the cloth of an altar at the side of the high altar; this chapel is now called the church of the Crucifix. There stands also another church erected in honor of those same holy Martyrs near the bridge of ships; at which place, as is said, landed the ship in which their holy bodies were being conveyed, when they were being brought back out of Istria from St. Mary Consolatrix into this city. Their life is described in the Lectionary of the cathedral church and of almost all the churches of this city, and in book 7, chapter 42, of Peter de Natalibus; and they have five churches at Verona, and several in the diocese.
[5] The same most illustrious writer, in the Work just praised, from folio 48 verso, has abridged the martyrdom and translation of these Saints from the fuller Acts, We have various copies of the Acts of which we keep various copies among our papers. The first was written out for us by the never sufficiently praised John Gamans, priest of our Society, from a notable Ms. parchment Passional which he found in the monastery of Böddeken of the Order of Regulars of St. Augustine in the diocese of Paderborn, in which from folio XLV of the month of August such is the beginning of the Acts: While the most impious emperor Maximian was reigning in the city of Milan, etc. Another transcript from a Ms. codex of St. Salvator at Utrecht we received long ago. A third was sent to us from Verona, and was extracted from a most ancient leathern codex which is extant among the Conventual Fathers Minor of St. Firmus the Greater of the city of Verona, as is noted in the title of the transcript. To these finally is added a fragment of the same Acts, which was excerpted from codex 583 of the Vatican library, and in which certain miracles and translations of these two Martyrs are contained. And these are the manuscript Acts which we have in hand. Now it remains to say something concerning those same Acts of the Martyrs which have been printed.
[6] and of the martyrdom, The first printed compendium of the Acts I find in Peter de Natalibus in the Catalogue of the Saints, book 7, chapter 42, which in the chief substance of the matter does not differ from the fuller Acts. Boninus Mombritius in volume 1 of his collection, folio 303 verso, two hundred years ago published the fuller Acts of those Martyrs; but he omitted those things which happened after the martyrdom. This defect our Ms. transcripts supply, and lately the most noble Scipio Maffei published, from a double Ms. codex, the martyrdom of these Saints together with certain miracles and various translations. All these we shall compare with one another, and shall print the Acts from the transcript of the Böddeken codex. We shall also make liberal use of the observations of the most learned Maffei, and shall intermingle them with our annotations after the several chapters. I do not know whether there have been printed, or whether there still are extant in Mss., the deeds and Lives of Sts. Alexander, Grata the widow, Firmus and Rusticus the martyrs, patrons of the men of Bergamo, which in the thirteenth century Pinamons Peregrinus Brembati, a Dominican, composed, as Échard
affirms in volume 1 of the Writers of the Order of Preachers, page 246. I do not here delay over certain more recent writers, both of Bergamo and of Verona, who adorn the Acts of these Martyrs with vernacular eloquence, and set forth their deeds oratorically rather than historically. It is not easy to say what is to be judged of the ancient Acts: for although they appear sincere enough, yet they are so similar to the Acts of the holy Victor and Nabor, which we illustrated in our Work at the VIII day of May and the XII of July, that either these seem drawn from those or those from these.
[7] which they seem to have undergone about the year 304, There was once a controversy among authors concerning the time at which these two Saints underwent martyrdom: for since in certain Verona codices was read that they suffered while the most impious emperor Maximinus was reigning, certain writers fixed their martyrdom in the year of Christ 236, as may be gathered from the words of the most illustrious Augustine Valerius brought forward above. But our Elders in the Acts of St. Proculus at the XXIII day of March, volume III of that month, page 451, and the Reverend Father Peter of Padua of the Order of Conventual Minors, in Ughelli in the Venetian edition of Italia sacra, volume 5, column 684 and following, have amply demonstrated that Maximian is to be read for Maximinus. Wherefore it is not needful here to do over what has been done, especially since now most writers, convinced by the reasons, admit this opinion. A doubt might nevertheless be raised concerning the certain year of the martyrdom, since our Ms. Florarium after the synopsis of the Acts expressly states the year in these words: They suffered in the year of salvation 294. We, with Tillemont and Maffei, on account of the arguments brought forward by them, judge it more probable that those Saints were crowned with the laurel of martyrdom about the year of Christ 304. But there still remains some difficulty concerning the age of St. Proculus, prelate of Verona, which must be reconciled with the time of this martyrdom.
[8] and whose time must be reconciled with the age of St. Proculus, Ferdinand Ughelli in the Roman edition of Italia sacra, volume 5, column 559, placed St. Proculus in the ninth place among the bishops of Verona. But the above-praised Scipio Maffei, in the learned letter which he addressed to Nicolas Coleti, and which is inserted in the newest edition of Italia sacra, volume 5, from column 672, contends against Ughelli's series of the bishops of Verona that St. Proculus must be placed in the fourth place; and this Maffei rightly proves from an anonymous writer of the eighth century, who was lately reprinted among the Writers of Italian affairs, volume 2, part 2, page 1095, and who in the Rhythmic description of Verona has the following to this purpose: First at Verona preached Euprepus the bishop, second Dimidrianus, third Simplicius, fourth Proculus, confessor and distinguished pastor. From this ancient testimony it appears that St. Proculus, who is reported to have been present at the martyrdom of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus, held the fourth place among the bishops of Verona. Hence further one might infer, against the common tradition of the men of Verona, that St. Euprepus or Euprepius was not sent to Verona by the holy Apostle Peter, or at least was not appointed prelate there, as the men of Verona contend.
[9] Maffei does not resist this consequence, when in the praised letter to Nicolas Coleti, volume 5 of the newest Venetian edition, column 676, he thus candidly writes: and with the series of the bishops of Verona I grieve indeed that I have not been able to speak things more acceptable to our clergy; since, namely, when before Proculus, and accordingly before the fourth century, we see only three bishops, all the report concerning the faith sown in this city in Apostolic times, and concerning Euprepius sent hither by the divine Apostle Peter, falls to the ground. But to truth, as I have hitherto rendered service, so also hereafter, while this breath shall rule these limbs, I am resolved to sacrifice alone. Popular little fables, and also little histories put together for the most part in the sixteenth century, fetch the first Pastor of almost any city of Italy from the age of the Apostles and from the very cradles of the Christian faith, and very prettily build up a marvelous and unbroken series of bishops. Yet that there have been very many of these cities in which before the third century the name of bishop was not so much as heard, will be plain to one who weighs the order and the times of events: for the Christian religion could not immediately be diffused in all the municipalities of the whole of Italy, and take root. In this one certainly, which surpassed all the other cities of this district in population, wealth, and splendor while the Roman state stood, as I have sufficiently shown in a recent little book, at the beginning of the fourth century holy Proculus, for fear of the pagans, was lying hid with a few Christians not far from the wall of the city, as the Acts of the holy Firmus and Rusticus teach. It will be worth while to remember this critical rule rather often, when the first prelates of certain Italian cities are to be examined chronologically.
[10] Since therefore from the ancient anonymous author the correct series of the first prelates of Verona is had, must be reconciled. and from the Acts of our Martyrs the age of St. Proculus is established, it is altogether improbable that those first four bishops presided over the church of Verona so long that they filled up almost three centuries. Wherefore Maffei clearly enough hints that the age of St. Euprepius must be drawn back to later times. For this hard knot a hard wedge must be sought, and I see that one escape only remains for the men of Verona: if they say that, according to their tradition, St. Euprepius was indeed designated by the Apostle Peter as the first bishop of Verona, but that after the death of St. Euprepius or of his successors the see of Verona was often or long vacant on account of persecutions or other causes. But on this occasion we would have them asked to confirm their tradition and that vacancy of the see with solid arguments in good time, before the Acts of St. Euprepius are illustrated at the XXI day of August with the Roman Martyrology.
§ II. The controversy between the men of Verona and of Bergamo concerning the sacred bodies of these Martyrs.
The bodies of these Saints in the eighth century Our ancient Acts, after various translations of those Saints, narrate at the end that the bodies of these Martyrs were at length translated to Verona and honorably buried by Hanno the bishop, who about the middle of the eighth century governed that church. With this narration of the Acts agrees the above-praised anonymous author of the same eighth century, who describes Verona in barbarous Latin, and extols that city with praises because, besides other relics of Saints, it possesses in its Southern parts Firmus and Rusticus, who once in you, he says, addressing Verona, received the crowns of martyrdom, whose bodies were carried away to the islands of the sea. When it pleased God the invisible king, in you they were made renewed by Hanno the prelate in the times of the princes and kings Desiderius and Adelchis. Who long delayed, the Saints, and were not * returned; whose bodies together the bishop laid up with spices and galbanum, stacte and argoid, myrrh, gum, and cassia, and most shining frankincense. A golden tomb, covered over, he surrounds with heralds; the streaked color soothes the senses of men, now white, now black, between two purple. These things, as he was able, did Hanno the renowned prelate prepare, by whose flame he is bright with good works from the southern bounds of the earth even to our border. This barbarous passage, however faulty and obscure, sufficiently indicates that the word above is not superfluous, and that in place of that negative the adverb now or then must be substituted, as was observed elsewhere in the Acts of St. Mary Consolatrix at the first day of August, volume 1 of that month, page 81.
[12] were translated to Verona; Ughelli in the newest edition of Italia sacra, volume 5, column 703, notes these things concerning the time of that translation: Further, the translation of the holy Firmus and Rusticus is kept on the II of the Kalends of December; on which day also is celebrated the translation of the holy Primus and Marcus, Lazarus and Apollinaris the subdeacon and martyr, whose bodies were translated from the city of Trieste to Verona from St. Mary Consolatrix, and laid up by holy Anno the bishop in the year 755 in the greater church of St. Firmus, in the crypt under the confession of the same church behind the high altar in a marble sepulchre, where behind that altar these letters are painted on two tablets: The translation of the holy Martyrs resting here was made on the XI of the Kalends of June, in the year of the Lord 755, by blessed Anno, then bishop of Verona, and was solemnized with the whole clergy and people. This inscription, whose antiquity I do not know, is also reported among the monuments of the church of Verona, folio 17 verso, by Augustine Valerius, who confirms that translation from the Martyrology of the nuns of St. Mary Magdalen in Campo Martio, which at the eleventh of the Kalends of June has it thus: Likewise at Verona, the translation of the holy martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, Primus, Marcus, Lazarus, and Apollinaris. Similar things are read in an old parchment Missal of the church of St. James on Mount Grigiano, as that most illustrious writer testifies in the same place.
[13] The men of Bergamo do not deny the ancient possession of the men of Verona, who at the beginning of the ninth century still preserved the bodies of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus; but the men of Bergamo assert but they assert that certain of their countrymen, in the course of the ninth century, procured for themselves at a vast price the sacred corpses of those Martyrs from the keepers of the hospice of Verona in which they then rested, and translated them to Bergamo without the knowledge of the men of Verona. This opinion, among other writers of Bergamo, Bartholomew de Peregrinis reports in the Vineyard of Bergamo, part 1, chapter 14, in these words: There succeeded Tachipaldus Gastalionus, a citizen of Milan, ruling the vineyard about forty-five years. He died in the year of the Lord 855; in whose times the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus the martyrs, citizens of Bergamo, and of Proculus the fourth bishop, were translated from the city of Verona to our city of Bergamo, and were hidden by the walls near the river Gardellus in the wood of Plozanum, and there remained without any veneration until the year 1156, in which they were found under the pastor Girardus; concerning which finding it will be told below in chapter 30, and in the second part, chapter 7. These things from the aforesaid Memorial of the bishops of Bergamo, and from the ancient history of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus the martyrs, citizens of Bergamo, written in the great Legendary of the cathedral church of St. Vincent.
[14] Then in chapter 30 of the same first part he thus records the finding of these relics, that they afterwards stole them from the men of Verona, which had long lain hid outside the walls of Bergamo: There was elected a certain man named Gerard, who justly governed this Bergamasque vineyard about twenty-eight years, dying in the year 1171. In his times were found the bodies of the holy Martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, citizens of Bergamo, and of Proculus the fourth bishop of Verona, outside the walls of Bergamo near the river Gardellus; which bodies were once translated from Verona to Bergamo by certain merchants of ours, as was said above in chapter 14. And when their tomb was hidden from men, a certain demoniac woman, Salvatica by name, found the place, when by chance, sitting upon the sepulchre, she was set free. Which bodies the bishop, receiving with the clergy and people of Bergamo, with the veneration that was fitting, deposited where they now are, and there caused a chapel to be built with a monastery of the sacred virgins of St. Benedict of the same. The good Pontiff obtained from the emperor Frederick a privilege of all
the most ample privileges, by which all the privileges of his predecessors are confirmed, namely from Charlemagne down to him. These things from the History of the translation of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus the martyrs and of Proculus the bishop, ascribed to book 6 on the Antiquities and deeds of the Saints of Bergamo, chapter 3, and from the often-mentioned Memorial of the bishops of Bergamo. I do not know what age they have, and accordingly how much account is to be made of those monuments which are here cited by Bartholomew de Peregrinis.
[15] By the witness of M. Antonius Benalius, or of John Antonius Guarnerius, and placed them in their suburb, who published the posthumous opuscules of Benalius, and adorned the Lives of the saints of Bergamo with Latin eloquence, Gerard himself, bishop of Bergamo, under whom the bodies of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus were uncovered, confirmed their presence by an inscribed epitaph, as the praised author sets forth in the Acts of these holy Martyrs, folio 77, in the following narration: Then, while Tachipaldus the bishop was administering the church of Bergamo, in the year from the Virgin's childbearing 855, those bodies (namely of the holy Firmus and Rusticus, of whom he had treated in the same place), together with the head and bones of Proculus, were stolen from Verona and translated to Bergamo; which, being at first placed in a wooded and deserted spot near the river Cardo, were unknown: then in the three hundred and second year after they came into the territory of Bergamo, a woman named Salvatica, possessed by a demon, by chance sat down upon their tomb; and when she had been wonderfully set free, the bodies were found, and by the effort of Gerard bishop of Bergamo a church being built and dedicated to them, they were there honorably laid up, and on the sepulchre these letters were carved: Here lie the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus, citizens of Bergamo, who were beheaded at Verona above the bank of the river Adige under the emperor Maximian, and his counsellor Anolinus. If this inscription was carved by the order of the prelate Gerard upon the tomb of the holy Martyrs, and this even now appears from the ancient characters, as the men of Bergamo assert, assuredly a great weight of probability accrues to the tradition of Bergamo.
[16] from which St. Charles Borromeo in the year 1575 Nevertheless the most noble Lord Scipio Maffei, in the History of Verona illustrated, which he published in Italian in the year 1732, book XI, or part 1, column 340 and the following, contends that the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus are still kept at Verona, and accordingly that all which the men of Bergamo report concerning the clandestine translation of the same Martyrs is fabulous and devised without any foundation. But the Reverend Lord Martin Antonius Guerrinus, Canon of Bergamo and doctor of sacred theology, refutes the opinion of this illustrious writer with arguments not to be despised in the Synopsis of the church of Bergamo, which he ordered to be reprinted in the year 1734, and into which he inserted a Diatribe against the same Maffei. In this Diatribe the praised Canon strives by various reasonings to prove that those two martyrs were translated to Bergamo in the ninth century, some parts of them being left at Verona, as the men of Bergamo read in their proper Office, which the most eminent Bellarmine diligently discussed, and the sacred Congregation of Rites approved in the year 1611. But among all the arguments of the most learned Guerrinus, which may be weighed in his praised Synopsis at page 30 and following, we are chiefly moved by the authority of St. Charles Borromeo, who in the year 1575 solemnly translated the relics of the same Martyrs from the suburb of Bergamo to the cathedral church of that city, as we shall now report from a contemporary witness.
[17] translated them to the cathedral church of Bergamo. The most reverend Charles a Basilica Petri, bishop of Novara, in the Life of St. Charles, book 3, chapter 4, narrates to our purpose the following: Charles experienced in the city (namely of Bergamo, of which the writer there sets his discourse), and all of us, as many as were his ministers, the good dispositions of the men, and their minds both zealous for salutary things and ready for carrying out commands … There, when he had translated the college of virgins from the suburb to a safer place, he also solemnly translated elsewhere the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus the martyrs, which they had in their church, although from that matter some difficulty and tumult arose. Then the most reverend author sets forth how those suburban men wished by armed force to retain those sacred relics, and at last came to their senses at the fatherly rebuke of St. Charles Borromeo, and then he goes on to report the translation as made thus: The matter being at last composed, those who had done violence to the sacred things, each of them, pardon being first sought from a priest, and marked with a certain sign, Charles, in pontifical vesture, by a solemn and prescribed rite, before the doors of the church freed from the penalty of anathema, and enjoined suitable works by way of penance. Then he carried the relics into the greater church with a great multitude of men and ample apparatus. Those suburban men accompanied them with lighted tapers. Similar things John Peter Giussano records in Italian in the Acts of St. Charles Borromeo, book 3, chapter 7.
[18] Certainly St. Charles Borromeo was not so credulous From the pastoral vigilance of St. Charles as to give credit to popular traditions without any foundation, as can be proved from a contrary event: for when that prudent prelate was visiting, in the village of Zibito, which is situated between Milan and Pavia, the body of a certain St. James, which the tradition of the inhabitants ascribed to St. James the Greater the apostle, after a night spent in prayer he would not declare of which holy James that body was, as Peter Paul Bosca testifies in the notes to his Milanese Martyrology at the XXV day of July, and as we reported from him in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. James the Greater, volume VI of July, pages 21 and 22. For the rest, no sensible man will believe that by this holy prelate were neglected the most prudent laws which he himself had prescribed in a matter of this kind, and among which, in the Acts of the church of Milan, volume 1, page 92, he decreed first, that writings, tablets, letters, sure codices of annals, or other monuments of any kind whatsoever which exist in those very churches or their forecourts and buildings, or in other places, and the little schedules affixed to or enclosed in the vessels or chests of the sacred relics, be examined accurately and diligently; whence either their translation, or their placing there, may be known, or other notice of the same may be had. Let witnesses moreover be sought out, if there are any, who may give testimony of an ancient and constant tradition, from which a sure knowledge of them may be established; or let other diligence of that kind, as need shall be, be applied to the discernment of the matter.
[19] Moreover, in the same place on the following page he decrees that first, some days before, if there shall be need, or at any rate certainly on the day before that day on which the sacred relics are to be translated, we conclude against certain persons, they be accurately and diligently examined by the bishop, or by another, where he can be employed, endowed with ecclesiastical dignity, to whom he shall have expressly given this charge, other graver priests being employed as witnesses; which examination is to be made, as above, with every kind of monument diligently sought out. Finally, the same holy prelate, at page 94 of the volume just cited, prescribes among other things that on the morning of the day on which they are translated, a solemn procession with psalms and hymns and canticles and every prayer be made to the church into which the translation is made; where, they being again examined, a discourse be suitably held by the bishop or by another at his bidding concerning their life, and concerning the history of the holy relics formerly laid up in that place, and likewise concerning the causes of the translation, unless the bishop shall judge it more convenient that it be held afterwards during the solemnities of the Mass. Who after these things would persuade himself that this sagacious prelate was deceived by a popular tradition? Who would readily believe that that most exact observer of ecclesiastical discipline did not commit his own laws to execution? That cautious man must therefore have seen solid testimonies before he translated these sacred bones under the name of the holy Firmus and Rusticus from the suburb of Bergamo to that same city.
[20] Hence we most probably gather that some relics of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus are kept by the men of Bergamo. that true relics of these Martyrs are extant at Bergamo, Indeed we suspect that a great part of the sacred bones was there, since the men of Bergamo so liberally shared them with other churches or illustrious persons: for I learn from the authentic instruments which Camillus del Bene of the Order of Conventual Minors subjoined to the Acts of these Martyrs, that the inhabitants of Albiate in the diocese of Milan received from the men of Bergamo the entire lower jaws of the said Saints about the year 1608. Moreover Brother Cælestinus of the Order of Capuchins, in the quadripartite History of Bergamo, book 10, page 291, reports that the men of Caravaggio in the year 1588 obtained from the same men of Bergamo certain relics of those same Martyrs on this condition, that they should expose them in their chief church to the veneration of the faithful, and should engrave on a marble tablet the following inscription: From the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus, preserved in the cathedral church of Bergamo, a rib and a shoulder-blade, granted as a gift of that church and community. In the year of the Lord 1588. Finally, the above-mentioned Martin Antonius Guerrinus in the reprinted Synopsis of the church of Bergamo, pages 40 and 46, accurately recounts these and other pious donations of the men of Bergamo.
[21] and those notable ones, Even though from what has been said hitherto it may be prudently concluded that notable relics of these Martyrs were once translated from Verona to the suburb of Bergamo, yet it does not yet manifestly follow from this that now only tiny particles of the sacred bones remain among the men of Verona, as certain writers of Bergamo contend. I know indeed that in the Lessons of Bergamo, approved by the most eminent Bellarmine and the sacred Congregation of Rites, the bodies of the holy Firmus and Rusticus are said at length to have settled in their fatherland of Bergamo, some parts of them being left at Verona. But it is not indicated whether these parts were great or small. Wherefore the conjecture of the aforesaid Brother Cælestinus does not please us, who at pages 382 and 383 of the Work cited above suspects that the men of Bergamo once stole the bodies of these Martyrs from Verona, and substituted other relics of Saints in their place, just as the Venetians are reported to have deceived the Alexandrians in the translation of St. Mark. Whence in the same place that Brother thinks that the men of Verona are deceived when they show the bodies or heads of those Martyrs in their city. But on the contrary the Lord Octavius Alecco has a whole book prepared, in which from the accurate custody of the relics of Verona and their placing he may demonstrate that the chief and true relics of the same Saints are honored at Verona, as I understand from the preliminary observations of the Marquess Maffei to the Acts of Sts. Firmus and Rusticus. We have not leisure here to bring forward all the arguments of both litigating parties, which may be seen in the most noble Maffei in the History of Verona illustrated, and in the most learned Guerrinus in the Diatribe, at the places assigned above. We rather desire to compose this intricate dispute; and before this be done, some things must be transcribed from Molanus, which it will often be useful to remember elsewhere.
[22] such as we also concede to the men of Verona, John Molanus, doctor of Louvain, in the Preface to the Martyrology of Usuard, chapter 23, thus rightly admonishes: Now therefore, being about to make an end of the preface, I beg you, candid reader, that in reading the histories of the Saints and otherwise you would always be slow and modest in reproving. Be far removed from the disposition of the heretics, who, by the witness of the apostle Peter, blaspheme whatever they do not know. Be far from the spirit of Antichrist, whose name it is to blaspheme the name of God, and those who dwell in heaven:
and what blessed Augustine once said of rebukes, that rarely and in great necessity are rebukes to be employed. Think the same said of reproofs. Of blessed Sebastian Wandelbert said: Whom, conveyed from Rome, joyful Soissons now frequents; not that the whole body of Sebastian was translated from Rome to Soissons, but that this must be understood of a part of the body is established from Ado of Vienne: for by a pious extension some say that they have the body of some Saint, because they have a good part of him. Not understanding this manner of speaking, he who is headlong to reprove, easily wishing to refute another, would present himself as one to be refuted. The most eminent Baronius in the prefatory notes to the Roman Martyrology, about the end of the fourth chapter, has similar things. For the rest, Molanus here deservedly carps at the Lutherans and Calvinists, who from this pious contention of Catholics sacrilegiously explode the cult of the Saints and the veneration of sacred relics. Further, the most learned Joseph Antonius Saxius, in the Possession of the holy Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs vindicated to Milan, and not long ago reprinted in the year 1719, chapter 8, number 124 and following, solidly shows against these babblers that several churches claim the same bodies of Saints for themselves, and that this harmless error of one or the other party does no injury to our religion, as has often also been demonstrated in our Work.
[23] Easily therefore can the men of Verona and of Bergamo be reconciled with one another, if they be willing to have the dispute amicably composed on both sides. if each city be content with a part of the aforesaid relics. From this composition of the dispute the above-praised Benalius or Guarnerius of Bergamo does not shrink, when in the Acts of the holy Firmus and Rusticus, about the end of folio 73, he writes thus: This too is doubted, whether the bodies are situated at Bergamo or at Verona. To pass over the other monuments by which we think we must stand, Aloysius Lipomanus, once bishop of Verona, a most diligent investigator of antiquity, in letters written to Bergamo, testified that the bodies are with us. Although it is clear enough what is approved by me, yet the opinion of Augustine Valerius, that most ample Cardinal, which ought to avail very much for removing scruples, is by no means to be passed over. So great is the gravity of that man, that his extraordinary force of intellect and singular learning are judged to surpass the highest degree of honor, and the most brilliant sanctity of his life and manners to surpass his intellect and learning. He, born by a certain divine counsel for explaining obscure and ambiguous matters, and for reconciling and joining the minds of those who dissent, in hesitations of this kind consults excellently for the diversity of opinions: for when some contend that they have the relics of a certain holy man, and others claim the same for themselves, he bore himself, as befitted a most wise man, as a middle party, and taught that although a good part of the relics of some holy man be placed with some, and the remaining part carried off to others, yet it could come about that both, led by a certain abundance of piety, professed that they had the entire relics; and that this rather vehement zeal of theirs is to be pardoned, especially since it is established that it proceeded from good causes and probable reasons. Wherefore, since it perhaps happened that some part of these relics, of which we now treat, was left at Verona, and the men of Verona interpret this in that sense, so that they think they have them entire; the judgment of so great a man had to be recorded, whose weight of speech is such that I count his single opinions as single testimonies. The most eminent Augustine Valerius therefore judges that notable relics of the holy Firmus and Rusticus must be conceded to the men of Verona and of Bergamo, and to his most prudent judgment we assent. But if the citizens of either city be unwilling to abide by this composition, let them themselves pursue the dispute between themselves. We meanwhile shall commit to the press the very Acts of the said Martyrs, and shall illustrate them with our customary annotations.
Annotata* perhaps "now" or "then" is to be read for "not."
ACTS
From a Ms. parchment Passional of the month of August, folio XLV page A, which is kept among the Canons Regular of the monastery of Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn.
Firmus, Martyr, at Verona in Italy (S.)
Rusticus, Martyr, at Verona in Italy (S.)
BHL Number: 3023
FROM THE MS.
CHAPTER I.
The fatherland, nobility, and martyrdom of the Saints.
When St. Firmus had been seized by the heathen, While the most impious emperor Maximian a was reigning, there arose in the city of Milan a vast persecution of the Christians, and many, crowned with glorious martyrdom for the name of the Lord, entered the heavenly kingdoms. There was in those days a certain man, by name Firmus, a citizen of Bergamo b, sprung of a noble race, and very well known to the emperor; his substance was very copious; giving himself to prayers and fastings, day and night he besought Christ, and daily distributed his substance to the poor, and received into his lodging those who were suffering persecution for Christ. And it was announced to the emperor by the pontiffs of the temples c that Firmus had been made a Christian, and blasphemed their gods, saying that they were demons. Which embassy being heard, the emperor sent his quæstor with soldiers to seize him; who, coming to the place where blessed Firmus was staying, found him sitting in his garden and reading that saying which the Lord enjoins in the Gospel, saying: If anyone shall leave house or fields or riches, or wives or sons, or parents, for my name's sake, he shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess eternal life.
[2] St. Rusticus meets him, Then the soldiers who had been sent, hearing him read these things, laid hold of him, and, treating him with insult, led him out of doors, and, surrounded with chains, were leading him to the city of the Milanese. And when they had gone not far from his little farm, there met them a certain man, by name Rusticus, who was of the kindred of the most blessed martyr Firmus, and himself most Christian. And so, seeing the chains on his hands and on his neck, he began to weep, saying: With a willing mind I die with you, dearest Firmus. And saying this he followed them. To whom the soldiers said: Do you too persist in this magic, that you cry out so after us? He answered: I am not, as you say, a magician, but a Christian, and I am ready to be bound in these chains for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered for the whole world. The quæstor said: And who suffered for you? Both answered and said: Our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, whom we serve. The quæstor said: Presently we shall see whether your Christ will free you from the hands of the emperor. And they bound them together, and laid a burden upon them. Then holy Firmus said: Confirm this, O God, which you have wrought in us. And both went along chanting and saying: Lead us, Lord, into your way, that we may walk in your truth. And again: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity.
[3] On the next day they entered the city of the Milanese, and at once the soldiers announced to the emperor who, taken with him, is led to Milan, that he was present for whom they had been sent, and along with him a certain Rusticus by name, who professed himself a Christian, saying that it was sweet to him to die for Christ. The emperor therefore ordered both together to be sent into custody with Anulinus d his counsellor. And on the following day he commanded a tribunal to be prepared for himself in the epitrimum e of the circus, and the saints of God Firmus and Rusticus to be presented in his sight. Who, when they had been brought, he asked them: How many gods have you? They answered: We have not many gods; but there is one and true God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them: him we Christians serve. The emperor said: Turn to me, and sacrifice to the god Saturn and to Apollo, that you may be noble and free from punishments, as your parents also were: for by the gods and by my safety and the state of the Roman commonwealth f, I will make you an example to all, if you shall refuse to sacrifice. The holy Martyrs answered with one voice: Do what you are about to do, knowing that we do not adore images made by hand, deaf and dumb, without sight, without sense and without walking. Your threats we do not dread, because they are earthly, just as your kingdom too is earthly, corruptible, and destined to perish. We have our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavens; him we fear, him we adore, to him we offer our very selves as a sacrifice of praise.
[4] Hearing these things, the emperor, gravely moved, ordered cudgels to be brought, and both, being vainly tried by the emperor Maximian and the blessed Men to be stretched out naked, and two sets of three g to pass over them, and to say to them: Sacrifice to the gods whom the emperor adores. And when the holy Martyrs were set in their pains, they said with one voice: Help us, God our savior, and for the honor of your name, Lord, deliver us; lest at any time the nations say: Where is their God? And when they had been beaten, he ordered them to be raised up, saying: Behold, I will give you whatsoever you shall ask of me, and you shall be first in my kingdom; only withdraw from this vain superstition, and sacrifice to the immortal gods, whom our fathers adored from the beginning. The most blessed Martyrs said: We do not accept the rewards which are promised by you, because we hope that an everlasting crown is laid up for us in the heavens: for the gods to whom you wretched men bend your necks are demons, and all who sacrifice to them shall go with them into everlasting fire. The emperor, indignant, ordered them to be shut up in custody, and their feet to be stretched in the stocks. And Anulinus, the counsellor of the emperor, being about to set out after some days into the parts of Venetia, sent into the prison to the holy Martyrs, saying: O most insane and most cruel men, since you are noble, have you devised anything concerning your life, that you may not perish? By the gods and by the safety of the emperor, many kinds of torments are being prepared for you, to which you shall be subjected if you shall refuse to sacrifice. The blessed Martyrs said to those who had been sent to them: Go and report to Anulinus: the torments which you prepare for us are earthly; greater ones are prepared for you by our Lord Jesus Christ in the day of the just judgment of God.
[5] Anulinus therefore, going to the emperor, said to him: to forsake the Christian faith, Command those sacrilegious men to be delivered into my power; I shall certainly make them sacrifice to the gods. Then the emperor ordered them to be led out of the prison, and said to them: What have you determined concerning your safety? The holy Martyrs answered: Our safety and our life is Christ, by whose spirit we are nourished. In the same hour the emperor delivered them to Anulinus his counsellor, saying: Unless they shall sacrifice to the gods, let them be put to death with various punishments. Being about to set out therefore, as we have said, into the parts of Venetia, Anulinus ordered the saints of God Firmus and Rusticus to be bound and led to the city of Verona, and neither bread nor water to be given them. And when on the third day they had been brought to Verona, and delivered to a certain soldier by name Cancharius h, vicar of that same city, to be guarded until Anulinus should arrive, Cancharius received them within his house, and put them in a secret i chamber, in which indeed they were shut up. About midnight an earthquake
occurred, and there were heard the voices of those chanting and saying: Work with us, Lord, a sign for good, that they who hate us may see and be confounded. And so Cancharius, running up, when he had seen a great light in the little cell, and a table full of all delights set before the holy Martyrs, became as one dead. To whom blessed Firmus, coming near, touched him, saying: Rise, do not fear. And he at once rose, and asked them what cause they had that they had been consigned to chains. And when both blessed Martyrs together had shown him that they were suffering these things for Christ, that from him they might obtain eternal rewards, Cancharius, falling at their knees, believed with all his house.
[6] being bound with chains they are sent to Verona After six days Anulinus, entering the city of Verona, ordered a herald to proclaim that all the people should assemble for the spectacle. But blessed Proculus k the bishop, who for fear of the pagans was lying hid with a few Christians not far from the walls of the city in his monastery l, hearing that Anulinus had come to examine the Soldiers of Christ there, all night watchful in prayer besought the Lord that he too might merit to be joined to the fellowship of those same Martyrs. And rising in the morning he indicates to the Christians that he wished to go to the city, and to visit the holy Martyrs of God. When therefore he had come to the house of Cancharius, where the holy Firmus and Rusticus were, he kissed them with joy, saying: You have come hither well, brethren. Be strengthened therefore in the Lord Jesus Christ, and take me with you into this contest: for I desire to become your partner, that there may be for us one will and one struggle for the Lord, so that we may merit to enter into his glory, and to praise his name with the angels forever. And they said together: Amen.
[7] where St. Proculus, bishop of Verona, comes to them, Meanwhile Anulinus commanded his ministers to present the holy Martyrs to him; who, coming with hurried course to the house, found Proculus the bishop sitting with the Saints of God, and mocking said: What does that old man mean with these men, who even now are to be condemned? Blessed Proculus the bishop answered: They are not to be condemned, but to be crowned by our Lord Jesus Christ; and would that I too might merit to be numbered with them, since I am a Christian, as they also are. And saying this he stretched out his hands to the ministers, asking that he be bound. And they bound him. When therefore Anulinus was sitting on the tribunal, and no small multitude of the people was standing before him, the holy martyrs Firmus and Rusticus were brought, whom Proculus the bishop preceded, with his hands bound behind his back. And when they had been presented to the sight of the judge, he asked who that old man was who went before the Saints. The ministers answered: Of his own free will he offered himself to us to be bound and led hither. Anulinus said: Do you not understand that he raves from old age? And so the ministers, loosing holy Proculus, treated him with insult, so that they struck him on the face with their palms, and thus cast him out of the city. But he went away sad, because he had been separated from the holy Martyrs; and coming to his own people, he told them what had befallen him. After his ejection, Anulinus, looking upon the saints of God Firmus and Rusticus, said: Do you wish still to sacrifice to the immortal gods Jupiter, Juno, Saturn, and Apollo, whom all adore, and to whom the emperor bends his neck; or to perish? The blessed Martyrs answered: We do not sacrifice to demons, because it is written: Let them become like unto them who make them, and all who trust in them.
[8] Then Anulinus ordered stony potsherds to be strewn, and the Saints to be rolled upon them: and there, after various torments, they are beheaded. who, when they were being rolled, at once a cloud came over them, so that the potsherds seemed to men like ashes from a furnace over them; and trembling seized the pagans. But the holy Martyrs stood unharmed, and in no part injured, giving thanks to God and saying: We glorify you, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who have sent your angel, and have snatched us from these punishments and stripes which the impious Maximian and Anulinus his minister have exercised upon us, and have anointed us with the ointment of your mercy. Seeing these things, the people who were present, turned to astonishment, said: Great is the God of the Christians. But others, blinded by the devil, who stood on the side of Anulinus, began to cry out, saying: Away with the magicians and sorcerers, lest our sons be seduced by them. Anulinus therefore, full of diabolical rage, ordered a copious fire to be kindled, and the Saints of God to be cast into the midst of the flame, saying: I shall see whether here too your magic arts shall prevail. The holy Martyrs, when they had been signed with the sign of the cross, being cast into the fire, sang a hymn to the Lord, who freed the three boys from the furnace of burning fire, that with like power he might succor them. At once the flame was divided into four parts, burning up those who had kindled the fire; but of the holy Martyrs of Christ neither a hair of the head nor the fringe of a garment was burnt. Then as with one mouth they praised God, saying: Blessed are you, Lord our God, because you have visited and redeemed us. But the people, when they had seen the wonders which were done, said to Anulinus: Why have you done this, to bring these magicians hither? The city of Verona is in ruin. Take them from us. Incited by voices of this kind, Anulinus commanded that they be led outside the city, and there, beaten with cudgels, be beheaded. The ministers therefore did as had been commanded, and the martyrs of God Firmus and Rusticus were beheaded outside the walls of the city of Verona above the bank of the river Adige on the fifth of the Ides of August.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The first burial of these Martyrs, certain miracles, and various translations.
The bodies of these Martyrs are buried in another province After these things Anulinus commanded that all the writings or acts of the Christians be brought before him and burnt with fire, saying: Whoever shall read them will fall into error, as they also were, and will venerate their tomb more than the temples of the gods who are from the beginning. He also ordered that no one bury their bodies, but that beasts or birds devour them. Then Cancharius went with two kinsmen of blessed Firmus, who had come from Bergamo to see the outcome of the matter, that they might watch that night and guard the bodies of the Saints. And while they were watching, there came seven men, who said that they were merchants, bringing a little bier and the whitest linens, and wrapping the bodies of the Saints, they placed them upon the bier, and weeping said: Woe to the people of this city because of their sins! And they went away chanting and saying: Blessed are they whom you have chosen and taken up; they shall dwell in your courts. Then Cancharius and the two kinsmen of blessed Firmus went after them, and found a ship: and those men whom we have mentioned put the bodies of the Saints upon the ship, and went away, and thereafter nowhere appeared there. Cancharius therefore and the kinsmen of the holy Martyrs returned into the city of Verona, and, pricked in heart, they recognized that truly there is one and great God of the Christians, and they believed in the Lord, and were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. After these things the blessed Martyrs were conveyed over into the province of Carthage to the city which is called Precones a, and there were laid up by angels, as had been prepared for them by God.
[10] But when no small time had passed, there was a certain heathen man b in the province of Istria c, and, on the occasion of a certain man possessed, being found by name Terentius, in the city of Capris d, sprung indeed of a noble race and very wealthy; who, while he was frequently engaged in earthly business, with various merchandise put on board ship, often flitted through the perils of the sea. And so, while he was accomplishing these things amid the strong surges of the storms, on a certain day his son, by name Gaudentius, staying with his father on the ship, was seized by a demon. And when he was long held vexed by the force of the demon that harried him, the demon began to cry out through the boy's mouth, saying: Unless the holy Firmus and Rusticus shall have snatched you away, by no means from me
shall you be left; but you shall be subject to my right and dominion. The father, hearing these things and not knowing that it was his own son who was crying out, began from excessive sorrow to pour forth tears abundantly over his son, and wailing to say: Alas, alas, my son! Would that you had died in your mother's lap, so that kinsfolk and household, mourning, might bury you with great glory. And so, when the boy had been vexed for not a few days, at length father and son came to the island of Carthage which is called Precones: in which place, when the boy, wandering here and there, had gone about very many tombs of Saints with his wailing father, and was not at all healed, he came at last to where the blessed martyrs Firmus and Rusticus lay entombed. As soon therefore as he touched their tomb, he was freed from the spectral seizure, and the devil had no further power to hold any dominion over him.
[11] Seeing this, Terentius his father, although a catechumen, glorified God, they are translated into Istria, giving him innumerable thanks for the recovered health of his son. Opening also the tomb of the holy Martyrs, he found two bodies, embalmed with spices, and a little book placed together at their heads, in which was a title set down in these words: Firmus and Rusticus were beheaded in the city of Verona above the bank of the river Adige, under the emperor Maximian and his counsellor Anulinus, when at that time Proculus was bishop. Without delay, Terentius with his son, giving a multitude of moneys which he had carried with him from his fatherland for the obtaining of worldly gains, bought the bodies of the holy martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, that they might lay up treasures for themselves unto eternity: which, being taken up from the sepulchre with vast joy, they wrapped in white linen and placed upon the ship, and so, with God's help, returned safe into their fatherland. And coming to their town of Capris, they laid up the bodies of the Saints in the church of the holy and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and there they rested a long time, until the heavenly Omnipotence decreed that they be again made manifest. Then Terentius together with his son Gaudentius and all his house believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[12] After the cycles of very many seasons had rolled by, while the most pious Christian kings Desiderius and Adelgis were ruling in Italy, and thence, because of hostile inroads, the nation of the Lombards laid waste Istria e, and occupied all its regions and towns. There was also stirred up at that time the nation of the Hungarians f against the men of Istria, the Lord permitting this, so that the glory of the holy martyrs Firmus and Rusticus might be uncovered. At length the Christians, hearing that the heathen wished to make an inroad into Istria, going with one accord to the place where the Martyrs of Christ were resting, and opening the sepulchre, found their bodies adorned and fragrant, as the most precious kinds of spices are wont to be fragrant, and lifting them up with great reverence, brought them to the town which is named Tregeste g. And in those days the distinguished prelate Anno h was governing the church of God in the city of Verona, who, learning that the bodies of the holy Martyrs had been so evidently found, having gathered into one the priests, clerics, and all the throngs of the peoples, came hastily to the place where they were now laid up, and, offering to the inhabitants an immense weight of gold and silver, bought their bodies, and together with them the bodies of the holy Primus, Marcus, Apollinaris, and Lazarus, and with inexplicable joy was returning to his own place.
[13] not without preceding miracles, While therefore both the bishop and all his company were going forward from the city of Tregeste, there was among them a certain one of the household who for a long time had been panting with great fevers, and could obtain no health from the physicians. And one of the crowd, raising his voice and crying out, said: If you are truly saints of God, Firmus and Rusticus, or if there is in you any power of God, free this servant of God, who is vexed with the greatest sickness of fevers, that we may believe that you are disciples of Christ. At length so great a grace of heavenly power attended the merits of the Saints, that, this voice being uttered, he who was troubled with great fevers was straightway seen whole by all who walked with him. Many other signs too, while they were returning, the Lord wrought through his Martyrs, so that those who were detained by any disease, approaching the bier of the Saints, were healed on the spot.
[14] they are brought back to Verona. And so they arrived at the city of Verona, and are received there with great dancing for joy: for all the people, men and women, and little children, with the whole assembly of clerics and monks, exulting with songs and praises, run to meet them, giving thanks to God, who after the courses of so many years deigned to call back his Saints to where they first received the crowns of martyrdom. Indeed the aforesaid pontiff laid up the bodies of the Saints with all diligence not far outside the walls of the city in the basilica which had been built by the men of old in their honor, drenching them with balsam and incense, and also with sweet-smelling galbanum and the most shining frankincense. The whole city is crowned; there is gladness for the peoples dwelling in it. And the precious pledges of the Saints were placed in a stone chest in an underground cave, whose covering the bishop adorned with silver and gold and precious gems: the report of which thing ran through all the borders of that province, and as many as, believing, come to the tomb of the Martyrs, are suddenly saved, by whatever discomfort of sickness they have been held, through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.