Secundianus

ON STS. SECUNDIANUS, MARCELLIANUS, AND VERIANUS, MARTYRS,

IN TUSCIA.

Under Decius.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Secundianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

Verianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

Marcellianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. Their cult, Acts, and the place of martyrdom.

How ancient is the cult of these Martyrs in the Church on the fifth of the Ides of August, the ancient Martyrologies everywhere testify, Their cult ancient and celebrated and above all the Hieronymian, published by Florentinius from various transcripts, among which the Epternach one surpasses the rest in age, which, written about the beginning of the eighth century, has it thus: In Tuscia, of Verianus, Marcellianus, Secundianus; of Romanus, Largus, Tiberianus, Theodorus, Nomedianus, Landicus, Julianus, Paulus, Carpus, Primus, Xystus, Agatopus, and of eleven others. Here the first three are ours; the rest, on the faith of other codices in the same place, pertain neither to the fellowship of ours, nor to Tuscia, but to the East. Concerning Xystus alone there can be doubt; because in the Lucca and Corbie codices two Xysti are brought forward on this day, one among the Eastern Martyrs, the other added to ours: but that this one was wrongly doubled there by the copyists appears both from the Epternach codex, which reports a single Xystus on this day, and also from Usuard and Notker, who, since they drew ours from the Hieronymian Martyrology, reckon no Xystus among them.

[2] among the Martyrologists. And Usuard indeed sets forth only three thus: At Colonia in Tuscia, the birthday of Saints Secundianus, Marcellianus, and Verianus; who in the time of Decius, under the consular Promotus, were first beaten; then hung upon the rack, and scraped with hooks, and roasted with fire applied to their sides, and, being beheaded, merited the triumphal palm of martyrdom. Notker, however, although he adds some fourth to our Martyrs, yet does not add Xystus; whom accordingly he must have found brought back solely to the Easterns, whom he sets first. Here is his text: In Colonia, of Faustinus, Marcellinus, Secundianus, Verianus, according to the Martyrology of blessed Jerome: whereas by our countrymen, who follow the ravings of the apocrypha, they are said to have been baptized by blessed Sixtus, on account of the continuation of the times, and to have been slain by Decius. And indeed the Martyrology of Jerome in the Lucca Codex does add Faustinus to ours; but the Corbie one nowhere has Faustinus on this day; the most ancient Epternach one, however, corruptly calls him Faustinianus, but says that he suffered at Rome, and joins him to Dionysius the bishop. Neither Faustinus therefore, nor Xystus, is it sufficiently established ought to be referred hither; nor indeed were they referred into the Roman Martyrology, which agrees with Usuard in all things, except that it expresses the place of martyrdom more simply, in Tuscia.

[3] More concerning the cult will recur below. Now I would wish it observed, The Acts proper to these Martyrs, wrongly fitted to the Perugian Martyrs, that the Acts of our Martyrs existed before the age of Notker and Usuard; since the latter manifestly used them in the eulogy already recited, while the former seems to have passed judgment upon them by adding: Whereas by our countrymen, following the ravings of the apocrypha, etc.: for if I sufficiently grasp the sense of those words, the Acts of those same Martyrs are here carped at as apocryphal, and at least so far raving from the truth as they continue the times of the emperor Decius down to the Pontificate of B. Sixtus; whereas in reality Decius perished about the end of the year of Christ 251, that is nearly six years before B. Sixtus ascended the chair of St. Peter. And indeed however many copies of those same Acts have hitherto come forth, in any degree ancient, they labor under this fault; whence also by Baronius, at the year of Christ 253, number 29, they are pronounced corrupted to that extent. But we are not now dealing with that. Meanwhile it is established from what has been said that these Acts, of whatever sort they be, were at least from the ninth century recognized and written down as proper to Sts. Secundianus, Marcellianus, and Verianus; and accordingly that they were afterwards snatched from them by a notable plagiarism, so that, with those things changed—but with too little caution—which could not square with the Perugians, they might be fitted to the Perugian Martyrs Florentius and his Companions, whose very names were not known to the ancient Martyrologists. Concerning which matter our Papebroch may be seen, June volume 1, from page 33; indeed even earlier in the same place, from page 23.

[4] But if anyone should demand the further age of those same Acts, they seem to have been first composed before the sixth century; he asks a thing not easy to define. This is certain, that those which now survive were not composed by a writer contemporary with the Martyrs, since he was utterly ignorant of the times of St. Sixtus the Pope and of the emperor Decius. Nor can it be doubted that their various copies, inasmuch as some are found fuller than others not only in words but also in matters, look also to a different age. Thus those which, on the occasion of Sts. Florentius and his Companions at the Kalends of June from page 25, Papebroch gave and illustrated from a Ms. Codex of the church of Orvieto, he himself judged on page 38 to have been written many centuries after the passion of these Martyrs; and not rashly, for they openly signify that the bodies of those same Martyrs had already then been translated from their former tomb to the church of Toscanella, which is believed to have happened only about the seventh century. Thus others which we have, copied by the hand of the same Papebroch From a Ms. Lectionary of Cardinal Mazarin, as they are far more verbose than the Orvieto ones, so, from a later censure of Papebroch himself appended to them, they are not a little more recent. We think that those preceded both which shone before Surius, because they end at the first burial of the Martyrs. But prior to all can seem those which in the thirteenth century Vincent of Beauvais inserted into his Speculum historiale, book 11, chapters 50 and 51, and which afterwards in the fifteenth century Mombritius, in plainly just as many words (as is in the Hierolexicon of the Macri, page 83), copied from an ancient Ms. Passionary preserved in the Lateran archive, and in the time of Sixtus IV committed to type. These are certainly much simpler and briefer than the rest; although a certain man most versed in this kind did not believe that they were written before the middle of the fifth century, as Tillemont reports in Note 7 on the Persecution of Decius. We, as we do not say that they are much more ancient, so we stumble at nothing in them on account of which they ought to be reckoned much more recent. They will accordingly be subjoined to this our Commentary.

[5] [But thereafter interpolated, both in other matters and in the place of martyrdom,] But they are contracted, you say, from others longer. I shall believe it when you shall have shown that the other longer ones were not drawn from these briefer ones and, after the manner of very many others, expanded by interpolators in the once customary fashion both with words and with faults, some of which you will find observed in the fuller Acts of our Martyrs, June volume 1, page 37, which do not occur here. That too, what likeness of truth has it, which is narrated in the greater Acts, that the same Martyrs were both beheaded, and buried, and thereafter illustrious by their patronage in a place which is called Colonia, at the sixty-second milestone from the city of Rome. Where, pray, is that place, or where was it? Surely it had not yet become known, I think, to any Martyrologists before the eighth century, about the beginning of which we said was written that Epternach codex of the Hieronymian Martyrology, by far the most ancient among all that have hitherto been found: for in it, as in others everywhere more recent, and copied after the Acts of the Martyrs had been interpolated, they are not noted as slain at Colonia, but in Tuscia. Nay rather, although that Colonia so far prevailed in the ninth century that Usuard thought it should be added to the old announcement and set down: At Colonia of Tuscia; yet this addition so offended the most erudite reformers of the Roman Martyrology in the Usuardine text, which they adopt in all else, that, rejecting it, they substituted, In Tuscia. Before these, Maurolycus, Galesinius, and Felicius on this day set Centumcellæ in place of Colonia. Concerning Colonia also, and the LXII miles from the City, Equilinus has nothing in his Catalogue, book 7, chapter 12. That Colonia therefore has long since displeased great men and men skilled in the places of Italy, from wherever at last it crept into the Acts and thence into the Martyrologies.

[6] which they call Colonia, and there they place it, And why should it not have rightly displeased? For since it is said to have existed in Tuscia, whose corners no one is ignorant were all of old described by the Romans and each measured by their own paces, how can it be believed to have come about, or even be feigned, that now even for the most sharp-eyed searchers of antiquities every memory of it has utterly vanished? Vanished, I say; although I am not ignorant that there are those who think they have lately found it; and above all that author of the Viterbo Censure on the chorographic Dissertation of Italy of the middle age, among the writers of Italian affairs at Milan

published in volume 10: for he contends that the Colonia mentioned in the Acts and Martyrologies is altogether the same place as the town of Tuscania, or Tuscanella, situated in the domain of the Patrimony of St. Peter on the river Marta and somewhat nearer to the Lake of Bolsena than to the Tuscan or Tyrrhenian sea. But besides those things by which the most illustrious Palatine Associates refute this censor in the apologetic opuscule, published separately at Milan in the year 1729, page 47 and following, there can also be objected against him the longer Acts of our Martyrs, whence without doubt that Colonia, of which we are treating, flowed down to Usuard and others; and then the tradition of the church of Tuscania itself, as also of Corneto, placed toward the mouths of the same river Marta: for those Acts place their Colonia at the sixty-second stone from the City, whereas Tuscania does not reach the fiftieth; then they signify that in the same place in which the Martyrs were slain they were soon buried and thereafter venerated for some time; but this cannot stand with the tradition of the churches and cities already named, as will be seen below, since according to this Tuscania first received the bodies of these Martyrs only when they were translated to it a very long time after the martyrdom.

[7] The Palatine Associates therefore in the same place assign and defend another Colonia in Tuscia, where it seems never to have existed: but with no better success. They say that a very ancient town of this name existed in the territory of Siena near the Lake Prile, or of Castiglione: for mention is made of this in Frontinus (who flourished when Vespasian was emperor). Be it so, indeed; although it is little clear. There therefore, they say, in the Colonia of Tuscia, suffered the holy Martyrs Secundianus etc., concerning whom Usuard on the IX of August: In Colonia of Tuscia etc., and indeed most rightly. But this in truth we wish to be solidly proved. By what argument then is it confirmed? Namely, here the most illustrious men allege for themselves Tillemont alone, a man foreign (since they themselves are Italians). But this man at last, at the place assigned and badly truncated (Note 7 on the Persecution of Decius), what does he assert? Namely, that by these words of Usuard and of others, In Colonia of Tuscia, is understood the Colonia already proposed in the territory of Siena. He says that this is understood: we grant it. Whether it be rightly understood, or whether Usuard really understood altogether the same, neither does Tillemont say, nor do we inquire. This alone at last is here in question, whether they who designate that Colonia as the true wrestling-ground of those Martyrs (whether Usuard do it, or any others whatsoever) designate it rightly and according to the truth. But this very thing Tillemont is so far from affirming anywhere, that in that very place he assails it with two arguments, which they do not even attempt to dissolve. The first he seeks from this, that Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy does not assert that St. Secundianus (much less his Companions) is venerated at that Colonia, whereas elsewhere he enumerates the cities of Tuscia where he is venerated; and it must needs be, according to the Acts, that he was buried and invoked there where he fell: the other from this, that his head (and his Companions') is narrated in Surius (and in all the longer Acts) to have been cut off at 62 miles from the city of Rome; but that distance is far too small to be able by any reasoning to fit the lake of Castiglione (or a Colonia placed beyond that lake). Is this to give assent to the affirming opinion? Why then do the men, whose learning I revere, cut this away from the rest of Tillemont's text?

[8] These objections of Tillemont certainly (even if there were nothing else) seem to us so solid, since these Martyrs more probably fell near Centumcellæ. that meanwhile, until we shall have seen them clearly refuted, we shall hold neither that Colonia, nor any other place whatsoever distant 62 miles from the City, for the wrestling-ground of these Martyrs; but shall rather retain that which the simpler Acts sufficiently hint was not far from Centumcellæ: for since they were by the order of Decius destined thither to Promotus, either to be recalled to the idols, or to be subjected to torments and the sword; since in the same place they endured the racks, the hooks, the fire, at the bidding and under the inspection of Promotus; since there too the sentence of death was passed upon them by the same man: what cause can be feigned why the execution should have been commanded farther off from the sight of the judge, and not rather in a place at least neighboring to the city, and there perhaps long since destined by public authority for the supreme punishments of any accused persons whatsoever condemned to death? This opinion is favored by the Acts, as I was just now insinuating the most ancient, which we shall give; it is favored by the church of Toscanella in the common letters given to us most courteously and unasked in the name of the Primicerius and Canons of the cathedral church of Toscanella in the year 1731; it is favored by the cult among the people of Centumcellæ, formerly, as they say, more solemn than now; it is favored by the tradition of the towns neighboring to Centumcellæ, twice examined at Rome, as we shall presently indicate, and twice confirmed; it is favored by Maurolycus, Galesinius, and the others mentioned above. But if you shall suspect that this place, of whatever kind (for now no certain one can be assigned), was formerly, from the interpolated Acts, called Colonia, Colononia, Coloniacum, or Colomatia, as the Mss. vary, you shall have my leave; provided that, from the same Acts, you remove it not far from Centumcellæ, and accordingly not 62 miles from the city of Rome, but 42.

§ II. The translations of the relics and their veneration.

[9] The knowledge of the translations, obscure in our Mss., That the bodies of our Martyrs, their heads having been cut off, were soon cast into the sea, and, driven by it to the shore toward the following night, were found, and buried near the place of martyrdom by Deodatus the servant of God, absolutely all the copies of the Acts report. That they remained buried in the same place for some time, and grew famous by miracles, Surius teaches from his Mss. codices, when concerning that first tomb he subjoins: Where their prayers flourish, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it. Of the translation of them from that place to another neither the simpler Acts nor the enlarged Acts of Surius make mention. It is first hinted at in the Orvieto ones, in our work at June volume 1, page 37, but not described, in these words: Whose prayers flourish in the church of B. Peter the Apostle in the city of Tuscania; then in this little verse in the same place, whence you may gather that the author was of Toscanella:

But here lies the venerable flesh of the holy men.

In the Mazarin copy, which among the ancient Mss. is the fullest and manifestly the most recent, this whole place is wrapped in darkness, while the interpolator narrates that that very Deodatus, who bestowed burial on the Martyrs, when he had been made bishop of Toscanella, began to build over the bodies of the Saints a basilica of wondrous beauty, which B. Felix, substituted in the same see when Deodatus was dead, completed. For what does that antiquity of the bishopric of Toscanella mean, at last first uncovered after so many centuries? From what records, pray, does that author produce the bishops Deodatus and Felix, known to no one before, nowhere afterwards acknowledged? Then how ineptly is a basilica of wondrous beauty feigned to have been founded in the third century? But indeed where was it then constructed? In the city, or in the territory of Toscanella? Or far thence at the 62nd stone from the city of Rome, where he says the Martyrs were first buried? The fabler does not remember; you would say he had forgotten, if you believed he had ever known. These are meanwhile the only monuments which formerly exhibited to us any sort of ancient knowledge concerning the Acts and relics of these Martyrs.

[10] But since these were by no means sufficient for illustrating their translation, noted indeed clearly enough by Ferrari at this day, the men of Toscanella, being asked, illustrated it in a commentary sent to us, but too briefly, recourse had to be had to the men of Toscanella themselves; from whom in the year 1686 we received a Commentary, written in Italian, fortified with public authentication, of which our Henschen makes mention, June volume 1, page 52. It contains, first, a complaint concerning the loss and scarcity of the ancient monuments of the place: namely, Tuscania, by the witness of Baudrand, a city otherwise ample and rich, was sixteen times stormed and laid waste. Secondly, it recalls some authors who have treated of these Martyrs, but ones commonly known. Thirdly, it exhibits three proper Lessons concerning our Martyrs, granted to the church of Corneto and approved at Rome, on the III day of March * in the year 1674, as is noted. Fourthly, their Acts, translated into Italian 150 years ago by Brother Pacificus Peregrini of Viterbo, of the Order of Preachers. Fifthly, the History of the translation of the bodies of Secundianus, Verianus, and Marcellianus from the city of Centumcellæ to that of Tuscania or Toscanella, written by the same author in the vernacular tongue. Sixthly, some notices, both ancient and recent, subjoined for illustrating the tomb, relics, and cult of the same Martyrs. Seventhly, notices of other Saints especially celebrated among the people of Toscanella. Of all these three seem necessary to us, as being unknown elsewhere; and the first indeed the History of the translation; the second the subjoined notices of the church of Toscanella; the third, the Lessons of Corneto; concerning these Lessons, however, I shall treat a little below.

[11] As regards the History of the translation, since it was put together by Pacificus Peregrini perhaps from the unwritten tradition alone of the people of Toscanella and their neighbors, by a history written in the sixteenth century and that scarcely a century and a half ago, we shall be content here to skim its substance and chief circumstances from the rather long Italian copy in a Latin compendium with the utmost fidelity. Here then it is: The bodies of our Martyrs, first buried secretly and in an obscure place by Adeodatus, because they had endured martyrdom near Centumcellæ, were, when the cult of the true God already flourished established there, received within the walls by the citizens of that same town, and honorably translated beneath the chief altar, and there afterwards rested for seventy years; until, namely, the city being afterwards overthrown by intestine wars, and the inhabitants having dispersed to the surrounding towns, the Martyrs themselves, indignant at the unseemly position and neglect of their bones amid the ruins, appeared once, a second time, and a third time in sleep to a certain pious archpriest of the castle of Orchia, six miles thence, threateningly commanding that he should without delay carry complaints so just to the bishop of Toscanella. He obeys at length; and so he persuades his prelate of the matter, so that, after a fast of three days being proclaimed for consecrating it, he should decree a solemn translation of the relics. The plan became known to the neighboring towns. While therefore on the appointed day people hasten in troops from every side to Centumcellæ, there arose a tumult of parties dissenting among themselves, not easy to be composed; since each contended that this deposit ought to be transferred to itself. At length by divine instinct the bishop of Toscanella said, What if, brethren, we commit this our dispute to be settled by God and by the Martyrs themselves? Let us then dig up their coffer, and, just as it shall be, of marble and closed, let us set it upon a wagon; let this be entrusted to two bullocks not yet accustomed to the yoke: but where they shall halt and further refuse the yoke, there let the sacrosanct pledges be kept. The condition pleased all wonderfully, and at once the matter is committed to execution.

[12] by Pacificus Peregrini, of the Order of Preachers, Scarcely were the beasts sufficiently yoked to the vehicle, when they directed their course straight toward Corneto; but already very near the town, they turn aside to a neighboring spring; where they rested a while, until, the citizens flying up, and demanding at least to behold and venerate, the sarcophagus being opened, the bodies of the Martyrs, which they now perceived to be destined elsewhere, there should be made

satisfaction. But here there stood out among them the bold deed of a certain venerable matron: for she dared to stretch out not only her eyes upon the chest, but her hand as well, and carried off one finger torn from the hands of St. Secundianus; which afterwards she set forth for public veneration, which persists even today, in the church raised at her own expense at Corneto and distinguished by the Martyr's name. But the oxen, after no long delay and the sepulchre being closed again, went forward of their own accord, and looked toward Tuscania with no doubtful course. And the nearer they approached to it, the heavier the cart grew; to such a degree that the hardest rocks, yielding to the weight, exhibit even now the impressed rims of the wheels not far from the walls of the town, where for the perpetual memory of this miracle the people of Toscanella erected a chapel, adorned with the images of their Martyrs. The bullocks nevertheless proceeded as far as the church then cathedral of St. Mary Major; at whose door, falling upon their knees, they are said in some fashion to have saluted the relics of two and twenty Saints preserved there. Then further, advancing the sacred burden to the Civitas (so is called the more noble quarter of the town), before the ancient and slender oratory of St. Peter there at last both together sank down, and together expired. There therefore the Martyrs were deposited beneath the altar with so unbounded a joy of the citizens, with a munificence so lavish, that they turned the lowly chapel in a short time into a magnificent basilica, and the narrow receptacle of the Martyrs into a most ample crypt; and to both at last they attached the see of their prelates. There still stand forth, raised into the window opposite the forecourt, the horns of both the oxen, an everlasting monument to posterity.

[13] in which a later miracle also is narrated; To this narration Peregrini subjoins another, concerning a miracle of the Martyrs at Toscanella, which, because he says he has selected it as a single one out of many, we shall here set forth summarily. Foreigners, I know not who (he himself calls them Britons), had once burst into Italy in a vast number, and had already brought a hostile army up to the walls of Toscanella, when in the dead of night the ramparts were seen to be lit up by sudden torches: and in the midst of the light these three Martyrs showed themselves conspicuous in bearing and array, Secundianus above all, who also bore before him a red standard, marked with a white cross. The enemy, thinking this man to be the chief of the townsmen, turn all their force and onset upon him; but in vain: for the rest being driven back by heavenly power, the leader of the barbarians alone, climbing onto the wall, is slain by the besieged; and, thrown back lifeless to his own men, brought them so great terror that, hurrying into flight, they were easily destroyed by the arms of the pursuing Tuscans. Thereafter the victors, laden with spoils, return in exulting procession to the shrine of the Martyrs, duly to pay the thanks owed to their Preservers. But lest ungrateful forgetfulness of posterity should ever be able to blot out the memory of the recent benefit, St. Secundianus from that time began thenceforth to be painted with a standard set in his right hand, such as he had then raised up for the protection of the city. These things, but more fully, Peregrini. Others add that from the same source flowed the arms of the city of Tuscania, representing a white cross on a red field. I know indeed that this little work of the man, however Religious he was, will not please the learned; because, though he narrates ancient things, being himself quite recent, he does not indicate the source whence he drew them; and then because he studiously avoids everywhere those things which chiefly pertain to the light and the credit of history, namely the proper names of persons and absolutely all the marks of times. But doubtless, as I was warning before, this author seems to have followed the report of the natives alone, which, careless of circumstances of that kind, for the most part sets forth and retains bare facts, or at any rate is wont to be consistent and harmonious in these alone; so that in them it produces some credit, in the rest absolutely none. Now to the other head, or the notices subjoined in the same commentary in the year 1686.

[14] We are taught in them: 1, that the basilica of St. Peter, the walls having been contracted on that side by the injury, as they say, of time and of wars, was at last made from cathedral and urban a collegiate and suburban church; which was the reason, many years ago, for transferring from it the sacred remains of the Martyrs within the walls to the parish church of St. Laurence; and by the cult, after the second translation, customarily observed there. where now in their proper chapel the skulls of each, with their several bones, are kept distributed into three vaulted little chests, and are yearly exposed publicly on the VIII day of August; which day is there sacred to their solemnity and wont to be celebrated by the clergy of the town with a double Office of the first class with an Octave, and with proper Antiphons besides and Hymns, which are still extant there in certain ancient and parchment books in the church of St. Mary Major. 2, that, so that the memory of the earlier shrine may be refreshed, there has been left at St. Peter's the marble coffer in which they were both laid at Centumcellæ and thence conveyed of old to that church; and that in the same place, before the magistrate of the town, the ministers, and the people, the unbloody Host is offered once in each month. 3, that some relics of those same Martyrs, enclosed in a silver arm, have been granted to the church of St. James the Greater, which is now the cathedral: and that these, on account of recent benefits, are twice in every fourth month, with the clergy both secular and regular concurring, and the magistrate also and the people, carried by a public supplication through the town to the church of St. Laurence; and thence further also (but only on their anniversary feast) to the church of St. Peter. 4, finally, that in the very palace of the magistrate there is a little shrine dedicated to their names, where Mass is daily celebrated, equally as in their chapel of St. Laurence. But I return to the first translation, concerning which we heard Peregrini a little before.

[15] For the men of Toscanella in the year 1722 received a letter given at Monte Hastato on the X day of December under the feigned name of Count Cyriacus and his associates; [The tradition and possession of the men of Toscanella impugned in favor of Jouarre in France;] in which, besides other things, the author contends that the bodies of our Martyrs were of old translated not from Centumcellæ to Tuscania, but from Rome into Gaul, and are there kept even today with great veneration in the ancient convent of Benedictine nuns of Jotrum, commonly Jouarre, of the diocese of Meaux; that so testify the Martyrologies of Saussay, the Franciscan, that of Salins, and that of Besançon (he could have added also the Martyrology of Castellanus, to which lately the Parisian has been added) at the IX day of this month: that shortly also a writing, or leaflet, treating of this matter, was to be published by the associates of Henschen. How much more confidently would he have acted, if he had known the Breviary of the church of Meaux published in the year 1640, in which the most illustrious and most reverend Dominic Seguier orders that by all churches, monasteries, colleges, and Orders, and likewise by all the clerics of his diocese, a semidouble Office of these Martyrs be celebrated with proper Lessons of the second Nocturn on the XII day of August, and that there among other things these words be recited: Their bodies, translated from Rome into Gaul, are preserved with great honor and cult in the monastery of Jouarre in the territory of Meaux? Concerning us, whom he calls the Associates of Henschen, what he means we do not sufficiently understand: for we neither remember to have anywhere promised any writing or leaflet upon this matter against the men of Toscanella, nor ever to have had one.

[16] but twice asserted at Rome in proper Lessons, Meanwhile that Count, whoever he was, rather kindled than terrified the spirits of the men of Toscanella toward confirming their tradition and their possession of the relics: for hence we judge it came about that they offered both to be discussed and approved at Rome; and at last, attaining their wish, they obtained in the year 1729, on the X day of August, from the sacred Congregation of Rites, proper Lessons for their whole clergy, which we subjoin from a copy of the Vatican press:

On the VIII day of August. On the feast of the holy Martyrs Secundianus, Verianus, and Marcellianus, principal patrons of the city of Tuscania. Double of the first Class with an Octave.

In the second Nocturn. Lesson IV. Secundianus, a noble Roman, endowed with the knowledge of all the disciplines, and on that account dear to princes, when, the persecution of Decius raging, he had rather often beheld the constancy of the Christians in torments, being forestalled by divine grace, resolved, the idols being left behind, to be converted to the faith of Christ. Communicating this deliberation to his friend Marcellianus, he drew him to the same opinion. When Verianus, their common friend, was trying to tear both away from this purpose, it came about, God breathing upon him, that he too, his counsel being changed, was kindled with the love of Christ. Wherefore, going to Timothy the priest, they were by him instructed and baptized: then, confirmed by Pope Cornelius, and openly professing themselves to be Christians, they began to dispense their goods to the poor.

Lesson V. When therefore the Prefect Valerian had learned of their conversion, having summoned them to his tribunal, he tried first with mild words to lead them away from the faith they had taken up; and when he made no progress, he ordered them first to be thrust into prison, afterwards to be deported into exile to Centumcellæ, the consular of Tuscia, Promotus, being forewarned to compel them to sacrifice to the gods, and, if they refused, to punish them with torments and death. Wherefore Promotus set forth an image of Saturn to be adored; but when they, execrating the idol, had spat in its face, it at once fell down, shattered into fragments. On which account the judge, vehemently angered, ordered the Soldiers of Christ to be beaten with cudgels, hung on the rack, tortured with hooks, and burned with torches applied to their sides. At last, struck with the axe, they consummated their Martyrdom. And while they were being tormented, one of the attendants fell in a sudden death, others were possessed by malignant spirits and atrociously vexed.

[17] Lesson VI. The bodies of the Martyrs, cast into the depth of the sea, but wonderfully carried to the shore, were buried by Adeodatus, a Christian, not far from the place of Martyrdom, and were translated by the men of Centumcellæ into a church. But the city being utterly overthrown, they lay hidden so long, until the bishop of a nearer church, desiring by divine admonition to translate them, that he might settle the contentions arisen among the neighboring cities over possessing the sacred pledges, ordered them to be set upon a wagon, with oxen not yet accustomed to the yoke tied to it; which without a driver took their way toward Corneto, and, going forward, halted at the walls of the city. And when there a woman of Corneto had reverently received the arm of Secundianus, the bullocks, resuming their course, dash away, and make for Tuscania, and there they stop. And the men of Toscanella placed the relics in the church of St. Peter *. Which afterwards, deposited in the parish church of St. Laurence on the third of the Ides of January, one thousand six hundred and eighteen, are venerated there with great devotion of that same people; and their feast, as of the principal Patrons of the city, is celebrated on the eighth day of August by ancient and immemorial custom.

These Lessons agree altogether with the Lessons of Corneto, granted at Rome in the year 1674 (as was said at number 10), as far as the interposed asterisk *; but from there to the end the Corneto ones have it thus: And the men of Corneto deposited the arm of Secundianus in the shrine of St. John Chrysostom, and there it remained long in a hidden place until the year one thousand six hundred and nine, in which it was found and translated with a great throng of the people into the cathedral church. Whose feast, as of a Patron and Protector, is celebrated by ancient and immemorial custom on the sixth of the Ides of August. In passing I should like it here to be observed, that not only a finger of St. Secundianus, as Peregrini above was narrating, but also his arm is said to have been deposited among the men of Corneto; then, that this deposit is here said to have been made in the shrine of St. John Chrysostom, whereas Peregrini would have it to have been deposited in the church

of St. Secundianus. Did this church then afterwards change its name? Or is mention here made not of that first, but of another later translation and deposition? Besides, that the feast is noted not on the IX day of August, but on the VIII; which the men of Toscanella judge to have been hitherto observed by their forefathers, lest on the IX day, which is properly the birthday of the Martyrs, the Vigil of St. Laurence should stand in the way of the festal solemnity.

[18] For the rest, the defense of the Tuscans did not stop here; but in the second year after these things they supplied us with several arguments in this matter on their own behalf against the men of Jouarre, against the men of Jouarre and of Sainte-Fare which it would be long to represent here; since these two suffice. First: the bodies of the Martyrs of Jouarre, by the witness of Saussay and of the Breviary of Meaux, came from Rome. They are not therefore those of our Martyrs: for that ours were slain and buried not at Rome, but in Tuscia, all their Acts testify, which the most ancient Martyrologies assigned above favor; and that they were ever afterwards translated thence to Rome neither has any of the ancients asserted, nor can the moderns now assert, after Rome herself has twice most openly cried out against it in the Lessons just now recited. This weapon is so strong that the men of Meaux and of Paris seem to have preferred to evade rather than to blunt it; and these indeed by thus passing over in silence, in the most recent Martyrology, the place whence the people of Jouarre received the bodies: In Tuscia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Secundianus, Marcellianus, and Verianus; whose relics, brought into the diocese of Meaux, are said to be preserved partly in the monastery of Jouarre, partly in that of Saint Fara: while the former, in the Breviary already named, so accommodate the Acts of our Martyrs to those of Jouarre, that what they had without doubt read in them concerning Tuscia, concerning Centumcellæ, concerning the burial of the Martyrs, as being by no means convenient for themselves, they expunged more cleverly than faithfully; as though those whom they could not prove Romans, they wished at least to seem Romans, that they might be believed to be their own.

[19] The second argument comes to this: all the Acts of our Martyrs place their contest and their tomb in Tuscia; further there all the ancient Martyrologies assign the seat of their veneration; nowhere else does any: they must therefore be reckoned to have remained in Tuscia. But in Tuscia there is absolutely no place, no city, which claims their possession for itself, except Tuscania alone (for the men of Corneto glory in the arm of St. Secundianus alone; the men of Chiusi refer what they have in their cathedral church of the relics of the same their Patron to the liberality of the men of Toscanella): there therefore they must be said to rest, on whatever occasion at last or at whatever time they were carried thither; which I add, because neither the tradition of the places nor the ancient monuments indicate a certain year of the translation: not the tradition, for this is clear enough from the history of Peregrini; nor the ancient monuments either, because they are deservedly suspect, and moreover not clear enough, inasmuch as they are explained by the men of Toscanella themselves in one way and another. For they bring forward two inscriptions, one from a marble and ancient stone which is now kept in the archive of the cathedral church, marked thus: ✠ Here rest the bodies of Sts. Secundianus, Virianus, and Marcellianus, martyrs. In the year of the Lord 322; the other from a surviving leaden plate, on which these words are read: ✠ In the year of the Lord 648, in the sixth Indiction, the bodies of the Saints Se., Vi., Mar., and Dod. were translated from the house of the Saints into the city of Tuscania. The former inscription the church of Toscanella expounded to us in the year 1686 as of the translation of the Martyrs from the church of Centumcellæ to their own; but lately, in the dissertation of the year 1731, they would have the same to indicate their translation from the first tomb, or place of martyrdom, to the second within the city and the church of Centumcellæ. But we wonder that it could seem worthy of interpretation to men who freely confess that before Dionysius Exiguus there was absolutely no use of the years of the Lord.

[20] is confirmed. The other inscription, although on that score it ought not to be called so openly interpolated, since it is a whole century later than the age of Dionysius, has nevertheless seemed obscure to the men of Toscanella themselves: for in the year 1686 they wrote that by it was designated the translation of the Martyrs from the suburban church of St. Peter into the church of St. Laurence; but lately they determined otherwise: namely, that there was once at Centumcellæ, long since overthrown, a church famous for the tomb and the name of these Martyrs; and that this is here signified by the House of the Saints; and accordingly that the sense of the epigraph is this: In the year of the Lord 648, in the sixth Indiction, the bodies of the saints Secundianus, Virianus, Marcellianus, and Deodatus (he, as they think, who first buried the Martyrs), were translated from the House, or their own shrine or church, of the Saints at Centumcellæ into the city of Tuscania. This interpretation indeed pleases far above the other, which we think altogether false; yet who will assert that this one is certain? Who will affirm that the house of the Saints was no other than the church of Centumcellæ? Who will demonstrate that in the year 648 Centumcellæ lay prostrate and deserted; or that it then lacked a bishop (who in the following year is read as subscribed to the Lateran council); or, if it did not lack one, that he did not interpose against a translation of that kind? However it be, the Possession of the men of Toscanella, whenever it was entered upon, must certainly be reckoned ancient; since it is established in express words in the Ms. Orvieto Acts of our Martyrs, of which we treated at number 9, and in the Roman ones of the library of the university of the Sapienza, from which we lately received these words: Whose prayers flourish in the church of B. Peter in the city of Toscanella, where their bodies also are. But that these Acts, though interpolated, are nevertheless ancient, we gather chiefly from this, that they shone before Usuard and the other Martyrologists from at least the ninth century: for thence they learned to call the place of martyrdom Colonia, whereas in the more ancient Acts no name at all is expressed. If indeed all these things are not abundantly sufficient for vindicating the possession of Tuscania to their adversaries, let them by all means bring forward better things for themselves than they have hitherto brought forward; otherwise we shall concede to them the names of our Martyrs, not their bodies; and bodies indeed of true Martyrs, but not of those whose Acts have long been extant, and whose memory is among the Martyrologists on this day.

* elsewhere, of May

ACTS

By an anonymous author, from the edition of Mombritius, volume 2, folio 263.

Secundianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

Verianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

Marcellianus, Martyr, in Tuscia (S.)

BHL Number: 0000

From Mombritius.

Secundianus, moved by the fortitude he beheld in the Martyrs, Under Decius, Secundianus, a man of the toga ^a, holding a prefecture together with Verianus, was raging against the Christians. Which Secundianus at length began to ponder silently with himself, why the Christians, burning with so great a love, should prefer to die harshly for the name of Christ rather than to live delicately and to assent to the coaxing persuasions of the princes. And since he was most eloquent, and most skilled in all the sciences of the age, he invited to his house Marcellianus, who himself also was most wise and a persecutor of the Christians, and disputed with him in various discourses of the arts. At length, turning the discourse back to the art of grammar, they come to a passage of Virgil; where, speaking of the interpretation of the new age, that just as the world was renewed when the Lord appeared in the flesh, so in the time of Octavian, to whose praise he writes his books, he says that the golden ages are born in this manner:

The great order of the ages is born anew. Now the virgin returns, the reigns of Saturn return: Now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven. Do thou only, at the birth of the boy, whereby the iron age Shall first cease, and a golden race shall rise in all the world.

[2] And when they were anxiously inquiring of whom Virgil had said this, is converted to Christ along with Marcellianus and Verianus. Secundianus began to speak of the Christians, who burned with so great a love that for the name of Christ they would rather die than adore the idols. For they say, he said, that there will be a resurrection and a judgment after death, and that that life which they await after this fleeting one will be perpetual and immortal; where there is no grief and groaning, but peace and everlasting joy. But the idols which we adore, their God, Christ, utterly abominates. At which Marcellianus, wondering, said: What is Christ? And he answered: Christ is called the anointed. Have you not read what his historians say; namely, that he raised the dead, cleansed lepers, gave light to a man born blind? Giving faith to these signs of his, the Christians desire to be crowned for his ardent love. Whence I too believe that he himself is God and the Son of God, who, crucified and dead and after three days raised again, ascended into heaven. For when, or from whom, has it been heard that our gods did such things, whom we know to have always lived most filthily and shamefully? To these and other words of his Marcellianus assented; and a third also, who was Verianus by name. These three, accordingly, a priest named Timothy, being sent for, baptized. And the holy Pope Xistus confirmed the same.

[3] For which cause, by the order of Decius After these things Secundianus, being sought by the Prefect Valerian, entered in to him; and suddenly his countenance was changed, as the countenance of an angel. Valerian, stupefied at the brightness of so great a light, ordered him, having been questioned and remaining in his Christian purpose, to be thrust into custody. And when, being seized, he was being led away by the soldiers, Marcellianus and Verianus cried out: Why do you thrust an innocent man into custody? If he suffers this from you for the confession of the name of Christ, we too are Christians, who follow him for the love of Christ to the palm of martyrdom. Then Valerian, angered, ordered them to be consigned to custody together with him; and announced to Cæsar that Secundianus had been made a Christian. Which he, scarcely believing, commanded him to be brought to himself, and said: O Secundianus, why is your countenance changed? He answered: My countenance is now brighter and more cheerful than is its wont, because I now stand in the sight of the eternal king by the contemplation of my mind, who has led me out of darkness to the light of his vision.

[4] they are led away to Centumcellæ, and crowned with martyrdom. At last, by the order of Decius, the holy Men were led to Centumcellæ, and delivered to Quartus Promotus, the consular of Tuscia. Who, when he ordered them to sacrifice, and they would not comply, they were commanded to be stripped and beaten with cudgels. Then, when they spat upon the image, it suddenly fell, and was broken to pieces. Then Promotus ordered them to be hung upon the rack, and their sides to be scraped with goats' hooks. But while amid these things they were giving thanks to God and praying, Promotus ordered flames to be applied to their sides. And when they had long been roasted, suddenly one of the ministers, who more sharply than the rest was pressing on to inflict the punishment, died. And the rest, seized by demons, began to cry out: O Saints of God, why do you torment us with your prayers! For these same torments which we unjustly inflict on you crucify us irremediably; but to you they do no harm at all. Seeing this, Promotus ordered the Saints of God to be beheaded, and their bodies to be cast headlong into the sea. Which nevertheless the providence of God brought from the deep to the shore, and the servant of God Deodatus, gathering them by night, buried them beside the place where they had been beheaded, on the fifth * of the Ides of August.

ANNOTATIONS.

fuller Acts at the first day of June, page 37, we refer the reader thither, lest we do over again what has been done.

* elsewhere, of the fifth