ON ST. TIBURTIUS, MARTYR, AND ST. CHROMATIUS HIS FATHER, WITH THEIR COMPANIONS,
AT ROME AND IN CAMPANIA,
In the year CCLXXXVI or CCLXXXVII.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Tiburtius, Martyr, at Rome and in Campania (S.)
Chromatius, his father, Martyr, at Rome and in Campania (S.)
The Companions, likewise martyrs, at Rome and in Campania (SS.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
§ I. The cult of St. Tiburtius among the Latins and the Greeks; the Saint confused with one of the same name; his ashes, as is believed, translated elsewhere; but not his body to Soissons, which is preserved at Rome in the Vatican basilica.
Most well known is the memory of St. Tiburtius in the sacred Calendars, both ancient and more recent. The old or little Roman Martyrology marks him on this day thus: His memory in the Calendars, At Rome, between the two laurels, of Tiburtius the martyr. The Calendar published by Leo Allatius: III of the Ides of August. The birthday of St. Teburtius. Ado: At Rome, between the two laurels, the birthday of St. Tiburtius the martyr, son of Chromatius, prefect of the City, etc. Usuard: At Rome, between the two laurels, the birthday of St. Tiburtius, who, having walked with bare soles over burning coals under the judge Fabianus, when he confessed Christ with the greater constancy, was ordered to be led to the third milestone from the City, and there to be punished by the sword. Of our Martyr Wandelbert likewise sang thus:
On the third [day] you too, flower and pious ornament, seek the stars, Tiburtius.
Concerning him, moreover, there make mention the Roman Calendar published by Fronto, which most briefly announces on this day: The birthday of St. Tiburtius; as also the old Calendar in D'Achery: III of the Ides. The birthday of St. Tyburtius. The announcement of the modern Roman Martyrology agrees with that of Usuard, which we have given; except that it inserts "in the persecution of Diocletian," and adds "martyr" to the name of Tiburtius. It is of no consequence to enumerate the other more recent Martyrologists. Reckon here also Bede, as he was published by us, and Notker and Rabanus, as numbered with the above.
[2] The Sacramentaries published by Thomasius and Menard note not merely the sacred memory of the most holy Champion, and the divine liturgy but add to this other things by which his ancient and solemn cult in the Church is indicated and confirmed. For in Menard, page 121, these things are found: May the continued protections of blessed Tiburtius cherish us, O Lord: for you do not cease graciously to look upon those whom you have granted to be aided by such helps. Through. Over the offerings. Be present, O Lord, to the prayers of your people, be present to their gifts, that the things which have been offered in the sacred mysteries may please you by the intercession of your Saints. Through our Lord. Preface. It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation, that we should always and everywhere give thanks to you, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: who, while we venerate the glorious merits of blessed Tiburtius the martyr, beseech that the help of your protection may be at hand for us: since we believe that through the intercession of those who have pleased you we obtain pardon of our sins. Through Christ. For the completing. We have received, O Lord, the pledge of eternal redemption: may it be to us, we beseech, by the intervention of blessed Tiburtius your martyr, the help both of the present life and of the future. Through.
[3] among the Latins, But in Thomasius these are given: Almighty and everlasting God, who gladden us by the festival of your holy martyr Tiburtius: grant that we may be fortified by the protection of him in whose commemoration we rejoice. Through. Secret. Look, O Lord, upon the gifts which we bring in the commemoration of St. Tiburtius, that, as they are pleasing by his honor, so they may become perpetual for us by his intercession. Through. After communion. May the celebrated solemnity of St. Tiburtius profit us, O Lord: for by how much the more frail we are, by so much the more do we need the protections of those who please you. Through. From these it is clear that St. Tiburtius was of old held in so great veneration that, besides the place which he occupied in the classic Martyrologies, he obtained a singular veneration in the divine liturgy also. But now let us pass from the Latins to the Greeks.
[4] The Saint is venerated also among the Greeks. In the Sirletian Menology, at the day XVIII of December, the name of Tiburtius is inscribed together with the other companions of St. Sebastian the martyr; with whom on the same day also the great printed Menæa of the Greeks record him. Of the verses by which they are there honored, these pertain to our Saint:
They cut off the divine head of Tiburtius, As he cries: You are my God, O Word of God.
The Typicon which was published under the name of St. Sabas marks on the said day, folio 26 verso, St. Sebastian M. with his companions; but does not express their names, as also does the Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeld. So much thus far concerning the cult from the Martyrologies; to which I subjoin other things concerning our holy Martyr which have come to my notice.
[5] He seems to be confused with another In the Hieronymian copies published by Florentinius the present St. Tiburtius the martyr seems to be confused with another of the same name, because there at the day XI of August it is thus given: At Rome the birthday of Sts. Tyburtius, Valerian, Cecilia the virgin. Which the same editor also rightly observed, when at this announcement he noted the following: I fear lest some careless antiquary, recognizing no other Tiburtius than him who with Valerian and Cecilia is famous in the Church, added those also, being ill advised. For both the Sacramentary of Gregory and the rest of the Martyrologies of the Latins venerate only Tiburtius the son of Chromatius at Rome at the third milestone .. Notker increased the suspicion, who, relying for the most part on the anniversary Calendars of an older Martyrology, besides Tiburtius the son of Chromatius, and Susanna .. and besides the Nicopolitan Martyrs, adds nothing concerning Valerian and Cecilia.
[6] But the authority of the most ancient Martyrology of St. Willibrord held us back from deciding that our codices were altogether corrupted; in the Hieronymian copies. in which the same things are read as in our books thus: III of the Ides of August. At Rome the birthday of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Cecilia, etc. It has not been possible to find any celebration assigned to these three Martyrs together on this day; unless perhaps their church, restored under Gregory, as is read in Bosio in the account of the revelation in the time of Pope Paschal the First, was dedicated on this day, and it was rather the birthday of that church than of the Martyrs: whose memory also could have been recalled anew from some translation on this day. But let us cease to inquire what may perhaps have been done here, and what could have been done: what was done is established; namely, first, that these three Martyrs are joined together on this day against the torrent of the most ancient Martyrologists. Secondly, that they are here recorded on a day not their own; so that it seems to follow that the Tiburtius noted in the aforesaid copies is the present one and ours, who existed either in the original copies or at least in the better ones from which those copies were taken; but that Valerian and Cecilia were afterward wrongly added to them from a confusion (as I suspect with Florentinius) of the present Tiburtius with the other, who is named with Sts. Cecilia and Valerian in the Roman Martyrology at the XXII of November. But now let us proceed to other matters.
[7] The pious devotion of the Faithful toward St. Tiburtius received no small increase from his relics, which migrated elsewhere. His body at Rome: His body is preserved at Rome in the basilica of St. Peter, on the testimony of Charles Piazza in his Sacred Hemerology of Christian and pagan Rome, at this day, page 148; where he adds that his relics
are at St. Lawrence in Panisperna. In our Work at the day 2 of June, on which the Passion of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, MM., was given, page 173, these things are recorded: Now Lucilla and Firmina were most Christian women, kinswomen (that is, blood-relations) of St. Tiburtius the martyr, whose nobility was both great on earth among the senators, and is proved more magnificent in heaven among the Martyrs. These women, while for love of their martyred kinsman they would not withdraw from the tomb, and had built for themselves a chamber, and persevered there by day and by night, had St. Tiburtius appear to them in a vision with these two Martyrs, and he instructed them how they should go, and should carry off their bodies from the Black Wood, and should bury them there beside himself in the lower part in the crypt: to whom two acolytes of the Roman Church gave assistance.
[8] The History of the translation of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, MM., by Einhard, which is found among us at the said day 2 of June, page 181 and following, whose ashes teaches us many other things concerning the sacred remains of St. Tiburtius; whence we shall cull those which pertain to this matter. Therefore, having set out from the palace of Aachen (Deusdona, deacon of the Roman Church, and Ratleic, Einhard's notary), they came to Soissons: and there they spoke with abbot Hilduin in the monastery of St. Medard, because the aforesaid deacon promised him that he could bring it about that the body of blessed Tiburtius the martyr should come into his power. He, enticed by these promises, sent with them a certain priest, a shrewd man, named Hunus, ordering that, having received the body of the aforesaid Martyr from him, he should bring it to him. Then, having entered upon the journey, they proceeded to Rome with all the speed they could .. But the notary, being there deluded by the deacon Deusdona, recalling the dream which his servant boy had seen, began to exhort his companion that without their host they should go to the cemeteries, to see which he had promised he was willing to lead them. And so, a guide and shower of the places having been found and hired, they come first to the basilica of blessed Tiburtius the martyr, on the Lavican way, three thousand paces distant from the city, and contemplate the Martyr's tomb with all the diligence they can; and they consider with cautious circumspection whether it could be opened in such a way that others should not perceive it .. And afterward, having entered the basilica of St. Tiburtius, they first attempted to open that altar under which his sacred body was believed to be placed. But the endeavor of the work begun had little success according to their will: for the monument, built of the hardest marble, easily repelled the unarmed hands of those attempting to open it. Therefore, the sepulcher of that Martyr being given up, etc.
[9] were translated elsewhere; But when the body of St. Marcellinus had been taken away, while Ratleic desired to obtain the body of St. Peter also, Having called to himself his companion, Hilduin's priest, he began to discuss with him that they should again go secretly to the basilica of blessed Tiburtius, as they had done before; and should endeavor once more to open the tomb in which the Martyr's body was believed to be laid. The counsel was approved, and, having taken with them the servant boys whom they had brought along .. they set out secretly by night. And when they had come to the place, .. they enter: and, the companions dividing among themselves, the priest remained with some of them in the basilica itself to seek the body of blessed Tiburtius .. But when great labor had been spent in vain, after he saw that he could accomplish nothing, leaving the work he went down into the crypt to Ratleic, and began to ask of him what he ought to do. And when the other said that he judged that (the relics) of St. Tiburtius had been found .. (For a little before the same priest came to him in the crypt, he discovered in the same sepulcher in which the sacred bodies of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter had lain a certain opening of round shape, hollowed inward to the length of nearly three feet, gaping to the breadth of a foot, and in it no small portion of fine dust laid up) it seemed to both of them that this dust might have remained from the body of blessed Tiburtius, his bones having been taken thence: and for this reason, that it might more hardly be found, it had been laid up in the middle place between blessed Marcellinus and Peter in the same tomb: and it was agreed between them that the priest should take it and carry it away with him as the relics of blessed Tiburtius. This is the faithful narrative of Einhard; from which another, of feeble credit, differs very greatly.
[10] but not his body Mabillon, in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, part 1 of the IV century, page 411, brings forward a letter under the name of Odilo to Ingrannus, concerning the coming and the reception of the bodies of the holy martyrs Tiburtius, Marcellinus, and Peter, and of the others who are there named, in the monastery of St. Medard of the city of Soissons. What pertains to St. Tiburtius I excerpt from it. They are these: And the coming of blessed Tiburtius the martyr, and the reception of his body, is described by way of reasoning. Then, after the author of that letter or relation (with whom we shall deal a little later) had narrated concerning the deacon Deusdona honored at Aachen by Egino, concerning the promise of relics, and concerning the fruitless labor at Rome at the altar of the basilica of St. Tiburtius in which his body was believed to be placed, a certain monk by name Basil is said to have arrived, by whose salutary counsels, as one may read on page 413, those upon whom the care of accomplishing this matter lay were animated, and, aided by sacred prayers, at length, though at the peril of their heads, they find the most sacred body of the aforesaid Martyr. And so, the most sacred body being taken up with all veneration and arranged in richly wrought palls, it is honorably carried down into the crypt of the blessed martyrs Marcellinus and Peter with all exultation of jubilation … But on page 414 it is said thus: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCXXVIII, on the II of the Ides of July, the venerable abbot Hilduin received the bodies of the holy martyrs Tiburtius, Marcellinus, and Peter, etc. Do you see how greatly these things fight against the sincere and faithful narrative of Egino or Einhard, as regards the remains of our Martyr? For the other things which dissent from the same, and which are mixed into the spurious relation of Odilo (as it is reported), I do not touch.
[11] Indeed our Daniel Papebroch long since touched and chastised those things, on the occasion offered him of the translation of the relics of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, MM., into Germany, to the church of St. Medard concerning which, as I was saying, treatment was made among us on the day 2 of June: where on page 206, in the first Appendix, the highest authority and sincerity of Einhard's narrative is commended against the pretended existence of the same relics in the Soissons church of St. Medard, from the letter published under the name of Odilo to Ingrannus; whose author is convicted of having, out of indiscreet zeal, invented many incongruous things both concerning the body of St. Tiburtius and concerning others; likewise of having confused the times, and of having dissembled that he had used Einhard's history, which he vitiated by mutilating it; and that the false Odilo may have lived in the XII century, while the true one seems to have written to Ingrannus the dean before the year 932; as you will find on page 207. But to our purpose these things are there noted: Concerning Tiburtius, Einhard relates how his body was sought in vain; that nevertheless his ashes were obtained, found in a little bag joined to the bodies of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter: and because this was a presumption not very well founded, it pleased Hilduin's priest to withdraw some of the relics of St. Marcellinus; and of these perhaps that will be verified which is said at the end of the interpolated letter, that on the day before the Ides of July: The venerable Hilduin received the bodies of the holy martyrs Tiburtius and Marcellinus; but not likewise those who are named along with them, Peter, Marius, etc.
[12] Neither will this have been done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCXXVIII, as is there premised; for it has already been shown the church of Soissons; which is in the Vatican church. that it was done two years earlier; and that before the same man received the relics of St. Sebastian, toward the end of the year XXVI. Accordingly the author of the letter either is deceived or deceives, etc. Then Papebroch adds that it is in no way likely that, the relics of St. Marcellinus having been faithfully restored, anything remained with Hilduin from those brought at that time from Rome, except the ashes received under the name of St. Tiburtius. But if the same Hilduin afterward received anything from the other relics brought to Einhard, he received it after the history of the translation had been written by Einhard: and this was not written before the year XXX of that century. Thus the praised Papebroch, transcribed hither on his credit; for indeed, so far as they pertain to the relics of St. Tiburtius and thus to my design, they do not deserve second thoughts, since what has already been said abundantly suffices, and even the text of Einhard alone, which I brought forward above, is clear enough and conclusive of the matter. Since these things are so, it follows that they in no way incommode Piazza, from whom at number 6 I said that the body of St. Tiburtius is preserved at Rome in the basilica of St. Peter. Aringhi, in Subterranean Rome, volume 1, book 2, chapter 7, page 239, describing the matter at greater length, has it thus: Hither (namely into the Vatican basilica), as into a safe asylum of religion, .. the bones of the unconquered martyrs Tiburtius and Gorgonius, taken up from the cemeteries, deserved to be brought in by Pope Gregory IV (and therefore before the middle of the IX century), and by the same were placed separately under the altars of the oratory which he himself had built in honor of St. Gregory the Great, near the door called the Door of Judgment, on the left as one enters.
§ II. The sacred remains brought to Auxerre seem to be not those of the present St. Tiburtius the martyr, but of another drawn out of the Roman crypts; other relics elsewhere under the name of the present Saint; why St. Chromatius is here joined by us to Tiburtius as a saint; the arena of the latter's martyrdom.
Of the present St. Tiburtius M. St. Heiric, a monk of Auxerre, wrote two books on the miracles of St. Germanus, bishop of that same city, at the day XXXI of July, on which that prelate is venerated, reprinted among us from page 255. But in the second book, page 278, the same author says: In the year of God Incarnate DCCCLXII certain brethren .. make for the city of Rome .. Pope Nicholas, then presiding over the Roman chair, .. with great favor of himself and of his ministers, delivered to them, as they were departing after their business had been happily accomplished there, the relics of the holy martyrs Urban and Tiburtius, both precious in power and exceptional in quantity. Then follow the prodigies wrought in their translation, as also their solemn reception at Auxerre, whither at length they arrived on the day before the Calends of November. There is added besides an apparition of St. Tiburtius shown to a certain one of the brethren, which conduced to both present and future devotion. But these things, which I have contracted into a summary, are described there at greater length. The said translation the Chronicle of Robert of Auxerre relates most briefly thus: In the year of Louis VII, which was from the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXII, the bodies of the holy martyrs Urban the Pope and Tiburtius were brought to Auxerre, and becomingly laid up in the church of St. Germanus. Observe in passing that this author, who flourished at the end of the XII century, differs from Heiric in the word bodies, and in the addition Pope which he appends to Urban — Heiric, who was contemporary with that translation, and who dedicated the two books into which it is woven, about the year 876, to the emperor Charles the Bald
according to what is said in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Germanus at the said day, page 192; who nevertheless elsewhere, as we shall see presently, spoke otherwise.
[14] and the relics of St. Urban the Pope You will ask, 1st, of which Urban the relics — whether of the Pope and martyr — came to Auxerre. 2nd, whether the sacred remains were of the present St. Tiburtius, or of the other St. Tiburtius who is named as the brother of Valerian the spouse of St. Cecilia. 3rd, whether finally they were those of some third person drawn out of the Roman crypts, received at Rome from Pope Nicholas I, and then translated to the monks of Auxerre. I answer to the first. The Acts of St. Urban, Pope and martyr, we illustrated in volume VI of May, at the day XXV; where on page 8 treatment was made of his body placed beside the body of St. Cecilia by St. Paschal I, and of the new search for and finding of it in the year 1599. Not therefore was the body of that St. Urban brought to the monks of Auxerre; but whether some relics from it migrated thither, according to the words of Heiric given above, I have nothing whereby to confirm it from elsewhere. And indeed the same author, treating of the delivery made at Rome, said only: Pope Nicholas .. delivered the relics of the holy martyrs Urban and Tiburtius, not adding whose Urban or whose Tiburtius they were; but after he had set forth their prodigies as also their solemn reception at Auxerre, and likewise the apparition of St. Tiburtius made there, he thus subjoins: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXV, by the merit of his religion the venerable Herchenraeus, bishop of Châlons, coming to the monastery of St. Germanus, obtained by the bounty of the brethren the relics of the precious Pope and martyr Urban: and, having received them, he built a monastery in the district of Perthes in his honor.
[15] But that we may not do what has already been done, let the reader consult the Preliminary Commentary on St. Urban, Pope and martyr, at the said day VI of May, paragraph 4, page 10, were not translated to Soissons, where Henschen notes these things: Meanwhile that notable number of sacred bones from the body of St. Urban (to which perhaps that part which remained at Auxerre ought not to yield much as regards number, so that both sets of bones taken together could constitute almost an entire body) makes us certain that they are all of another Urban than he who ruled the Church as Pontiff; just as we believe that the body which was likewise brought from Rome is of another St. Tiburtius than he who is named in the Acts of St. Cecilia; although each was exhibited to the Pontiff as truly theirs, and delivered to the monks of Auxerre (if indeed it was so exhibited to him, and so delivered by him to them, from what we have insinuated above) in good faith indeed (as one must believe) but ill founded, as the later finding of those bodies which were then thought to be delivered has taught. These things, and what I subjoin, apply to the present St. Tiburtius, on account of the like reasons on both sides; for as the bodies of those Saints were laid up at Rome and afterward found, so the body of the present St. Tiburtius is extant at Rome, as has been said.
[16] To the second question asked above, namely of which St. Tiburtius the relics were brought to Auxerre, but of another an answer has already been given in part: namely that we are not persuaded that they are of the Saint of the same name, the martyr who is named in the Acts of St. Cecilia. And that opinion is confirmed elsewhere in our Work at the day XIV of April, on which we gave that Martyr with the Roman Martyrology; as one may see in the Analecta which are found on page 208 and following. In the same place also, at §3, the announcement of Saussay was given, by which he inscribes St. Tiburtius in his Gallican Martyrology, and which may be read in him at the day XIV of April. In the same place also there is brought forward among us the narrative of Heiric the monk of Auxerre, of which we spoke above: but rightly, in my judgment at least, and conformably to what I was just now premising, Henschen says: But as in the first donation of the Pontiff the martyrs Urban and Tiburtius are called so without any title of dignity, so there could have been certain Martyrs called by the same names as those more famous ones; such as even at this time are dug out of the Roman cemeteries and carried through all regions. And this seems to me to be said even now; and thus is to be answered the third question proposed above. Of a martyr Tiburtius of the same name mention is made in our manuscript from the collectanea (as it is entitled) of Father Chifflet, which is preserved among us in the wrapper marked S 19, and is a Calendar of the Saints of Auxerre written in French; where on the day XI of August St. Tiburtius the martyr is marked, on account of his relics sent by Pope Nicholas III. But whether those relics are of the present Tiburtius, whom that Calendar indicates, since I can neither deny nor affirm it from elsewhere, I leave them in their possession. In Gelenius, On the Greatness of Cologne Agrippina, book 3, syntagma 58, page 552, in the sacred treasury of the church of St. Agatha, which is of virgins of the Order of St. Benedict, there is noted the shoulder-bone of St. Tiburtius the martyr, and two little bones of the same (XI of August.) Besides, in our manuscript index of the sacred treasury of the royal monastery of the Escorial in Spain, Tiburtius the martyr is set down with the note of this day XI of August, and a bone burnt like a nut. And these things thus far concerning the relics of St. Tiburtius; now let us treat of St. Chromatius his father; and to join him to the son here we were moved chiefly by Peter de Natalibus, who praises him as a saint and martyr.
[17] Chromatius is inscribed as a saint in the Catalogue of Peter de Natalibus; For indeed in his Catalogue of the Saints, book 7, chapter 47, he says: Chromatius the martyr with his companions suffered martyrdom in Campania in the times of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian: which Chromatius was formerly prefect of the City, and father of the aforesaid St. Tyburtius: who, being long oppressed by a grievous infirmity, was healed by Sts. Sebastian the martyr and Polycarp the priest, and was converted to Christ and baptized, as was treated just above in the Passion of Tyburtius. But when the persecution of the Christians was boiling up under the aforesaid emperors, Chromatius, by the counsel of Pope Caius, with a multitude of Christians and with his whole household, MCD in number of both sexes, proceeded into Campania, that they might avoid the persecution: and dwelling there they were proscribed into exile by Diocletian, and, afflicted with much want in the confession of Christ, after a long time they rested in peace, crowned with martyrdom. Whose days of falling asleep are unknown: whence they are subjoined to the passion of St. Tyburtius: of whom the chief was Chromatius, the father of Tyburtius himself.
[18] and he is noted by other more recent hagiologists. To the praised bishop of Equilio add Greven at the day XI of August, where he announces him thus: Of Cromatius, prefect of the City, father of St. Tiburcius, with many others: who, as Ado says, by the counsel of Pope Gaius, avoiding the savagery of the persecution, set out into Campania, and through many tribulations entered the kingdom of God. Maurolycus on the said day joins him to St. Tiburtius thus: Likewise Chromatius, the father of Tyburtius, with many others, afflicted with exile and want, perished in Campania under the same persecution: who had been converted by St. Sebastian and baptized by Polycarp the priest. In the Martyrology customarily cited under the name of Canisius, he is given on the same day, and indeed in the first place, before St. Tiburtius, and it is said: At Rome today is the day of St. Cromatius, etc. To the hagiologists just cited add Felicius, and also Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy. We should indeed have wished for more testimonies from the more ancient Calendars for his cult; but nevertheless those which we have alleged above seemed to suffice for us to record him here together with his son, although he is passed over in the ancient Calendars and in the Roman Martyrology, mention being made also of his companions. In the Acts which we shall bring forward after this Commentary he is called Agrestius Chromatius, prefect of the city of Rome; which title is also found in the announcements which we have just given. Nor do I wonder that he is not found among the prefects of the City in Bucher, in his Commentary on the Paschal Canon of Victorius, page 237. But of this matter a little later at greater length. Now meanwhile let us return to St. Tiburtius.
[19] The place of the martyrdom of St. Tiburtius As regards the arena of his martyrdom: He was led, as the Acts say, along the Lavican way to the third milestone from the City, .. and, struck with one blow of the sword, he departed. Baronius, in his notes on the Roman Martyrology at this day, says: The milestone did not begin to be numbered from the very gates of the city of Rome, but from a column set up for this purpose in the Roman forum, as Pliny is authority, book 3, chapter 5. That column was called the Golden Milestone, because it was gilded: for on it all the noble roads of Italy were engraved, as Plutarch testifies in his Galba. That it was placed beneath the temple of Saturn, Tacitus relates, when he treats of the emperor Otho, book 17. The same Suetonius in his Otho. That the Golden Milestone was erected by Augustus, Dio is authority, History, book 54. But that the Golden Milestone was called the Milestone Column we read in no one except in Plutarch, although it was through carelessness passed over by Xylander. To the arena of the martyrdom we subjoin these things concerning its time.
§ III. The time of the martyrdom, the credit of the Acts, the difficulties concerning them weighed.
and its year The martyrdom happened under Pope Caius (who sat from the year of Christ 283 to 296), from the Acts of St. Sebastian the martyr, with which the Acts of St. Tiburtius are intermingled. But a closer notice of the time must here be given. St. Sebastian among us at the day XX of January is noted on page 257 as crowned with the laurel of martyrdom about the year 287; which Baronius weaves into his Annals at the year 286. Tillemont, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 3 on the Acts of the same Saint, page 743, judges it in some way credible from the same Acts that the beginning of the history of St. Sebastian is to be referred to the end of the year 284, when Diocletian and Carinus were reigning, the latter indeed at Rome before the Illyrian journey, but the former in Asia. For from the words of the Acts, which you have below among us at numbers 4 and 5, the emperor seems to have been at Rome at the time when St. Chromatius, the father of St. Tiburtius, asked that a successor be given him there. For St. Sebastian addresses him thus: Ask for a successor to yourself, that you may be able, free from the occupations of the world, to receive the rudiments of the life to come … And so on the same day he (Chromatius) sends to his friends placed in the palace, through whom, receiving written testimonials, he took up the first service of the divine warfare before he was baptized. Then the same collector of the Monuments, having proposed the difficulty about fixing the year of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, assigns it to the year 288. But now, since that holy Athlete fell last of all among the other Martyrs who in the history of his Acts are read to have shed their blood at Rome, as is narrated in that same history; and that on the day, as is supposed, XX of January, on which he is marked by the common consent of the hagiologists and is venerated among the Latins;
it follows that the martyrdom of St. Tiburtius cannot be deferred beyond that time; but, considering besides those things which will be said a little later concerning the prefecture of Fabianus, it seems that it must be attached to the year of Christ 286 or 287, and on the day XI of August, on which it is noted in the most ancient sacred Calendars and in the more recent ones, and is celebrated by the Latin Church. And indeed, since the year of the prefecture of Fabianus, under whom the Acts relate that St. Tiburtius obtained the palm of martyrdom, is not without difficulties, which are somehow explained by conjectures, we shall have to proceed according to them in fixing the year of the martyrdom, namely 286 of the vulgar era or the one next following. Now let us come to the Acts.
[21] We have a manuscript compendium of the martyrdom from the Utrecht copy of St. Saviour's, The Acts. and also a Passion from a sufficiently ancient manuscript Lectionary at Saint-Omer, as is added in our transcript of the same. A compendium of the Acts you will also find in Ado, Rabanus, Notker; to whom add our manuscript Florarium, which incorrectly says that our Saint departed from life in the year of salvation CCXCIV. The Acts, moreover, which we are about to give are woven into the Acts of St. Sebastian, and are extant in our Work at the day XX of January, volume II of that month, from page 265: whence also we shall cull the deeds of St. Chromatius and his companions, many things nevertheless being passed over which are there recorded at length concerning him, since they can be read there by those who wish, set forth in a longer discourse. But concerning the Acts of St. Sebastian, Ruinart pronounces thus in his Work which is entitled The Sincere and Select Acts of the First Martyrs, page 295 of the Paris edition: But his Acts are excellent indeed, though perhaps in some places interpolated.
[22] Their antiquity, Moreover that clause concerning St. Tiburtius, And in the same place .. he was buried: in which place Christ has always bestowed many benefits to the praise of his name even to the present day, sufficiently indicates that those Acts were neither original, at least not wholly, nor written by a contemporary author. They were indeed published among us at the place cited under the name of St. Ambrose the bishop, on which matter the Commentary preliminary to them, page 258, may be consulted; Tillemont, however, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 2 on St. Sebastian, page 740, denies them to St. Ambrose on account of certain terms, and other things which he there observes, as not befitting that holy Father; then on page 741 he judges that they do not seem much later than St. Ambrose; whence it would follow that they are of great credit and authority, by whatever author they were finally composed; which it may suffice to have noted here in passing for our purpose, to be discussed perhaps at greater length elsewhere, when the month of January shall be recast and enlarged with second thoughts by our successors.
[23] and difficulties In the aforesaid Acts, the father of St. Tiburtius is called Agrestius Chromatius, prefect of the city of Rome. But it will perhaps seem strange to someone that he is not found in Bucher's Catalogue. But he will cease to wonder if he considers that that Catalogue is imperfect. And that it is such is proved from this, that other prefects are wanting in it, namely Fabianus, who occurs in these same Acts, according to the author of the Ecclesiastical Monuments whom I just named, who besides adds to the same Junius Donatus in the year 259, and Aelius Cæsetianus in the year 275, as one may see in him at note 4, page 744. But Junius Donatus P. V. is noted in Bucher, page 236, with the year 257. Moreover, to the Roman consular Calendars which Johannes Janssonius ab Almeloveen published there is subjoined an Index of the prefects of the city of Rome, in which on page 298 Junius Donatus is found together with the same year 257; but the others of whom I was speaking do not afterward appear in their series of years; nevertheless Aelius Cesetianus is marked on page 321 among the prefects of the City under uncertain consuls, without note of time.
[24] which occur in the same In the Cyprianic Annals, at the year of the Lord 260, number 1, on the occasion of the consuls Secularis and Donatus, who are there noted as to be admitted, these things occur to our purpose: Nor is it strange that those men held the consulship together in this year who had alternately been prefects of the City. For in an excellent little book (the author had among other documents just cited the excerpts of the Gregorian Code): "In the fourth consulship of Valerian and the third of Gallienus, Junius Donatus P. V.; under Tuscus and Bassus, Cornelius Secularis P. V.; under Aemilianus and Bassus, Cornelius Secularis P. V." But either in his place, or rather after him, Junius Donatus should have been placed a second time. For under those consuls Donatus was P. V. at the beginning of the month of June, as is plain from a constitution made in that month, which is extant in the excerpts of the Gregorian Code: "And if he shall have attempted to do this, our friend Julius (or Junius) Donatus, V. C. P. F. V., will oppose his authority, that so shameless a petition may be repelled. Given on the day before the Ides of June, under the consuls Aemilianus and Bassus." So too a little later, in the year of the Lord CCLXXIII, the same little book has: "In the third consulship of Aurelian and that of Marcellinus, Postumius Syagrius P. V." — namely in the earlier part of the year; for in the later part, certainly on the seventh day before the Calends of October, not Postumius Syagrius but Aelius Cæstianus was prefect of the City, as is clear from the Tacitus of Vopiscus. Nay, at the very beginning of the year, Aurelian still reigning, Furius Orfitus was still prefect of the City. Inscription, page 276: "Furius Orfitus, V. C., prefect of the City, devoted to his divine power and majesty. Dedicated on the Calends of February, in the third consulship of Aurelian Augustus and that of Marcellinus." For thus, when the government was changed, the prefects of the City too were wont to be changed.
[25] From these things, therefore, it follows first, that those two prefects of the City, Junius Donatus and Aelius Cæsetianus, must either be admitted, occur, although unknown in Bucher's Catalogue, or the documents which we have brought forward concerning them must be expunged. It follows secondly, that from the fact that Agrestius Chromatius and Fabianus are not set down in the same catalogue it can by no means be concluded that they could not — nay rather, that they ought not to — be set down there, if they are made clear from elsewhere. But they are made most clearly manifest, with the title of prefects of the city of Rome, in the Acts of St. Sebastian; it remains, therefore, that you either reject those Acts on this point with solid foundation, or, if you cannot do this, approve those prefects. Concerning Chromatius, certainly, these things were long since said among us in the notes on chapter 2 of those Acts, page 266: The name of Chromatius seems to have been expunged from the records out of hatred of religion. Tillemont, at note 4, page 744, not daring to expunge him from the catalogue of the prefects of the City, though elsewhere so often accustomed to doubt, confesses that Chromatius is probably to be placed toward the end of the year 284 between Roburrus and Varus, who are extant in Bucher, page 237. As regards Fabianus, who according to the order of the Acts must have been prefect from the month of July of the year 286 to the month of August of 287, he confesses that his time is more difficult to find; since in Bucher's Catalogue Junius Maximus is marked as prefect in the years 286 and 287. To this he adds that he does not know whether it can be said that Junius Maximus was prefect in the year 286 before Fabianus, and in the year 287 after him; just as Ruffinus was prefect in the year 312 before and after Anulinus, from the same Catalogue. Perhaps too it may have happened that the writer of the Acts, finding in the monuments from which he elaborated his Acts that St. Tranquillinus and the other Martyrs of the year 286 had been judged by the prefect Fabianus, and also that those who belong to the year 287 had been judged by the prefect; perhaps, I say, it happened from this that the aforesaid writer believed that Fabianus was prefect at that time also, although it was Maximus. After these two conjectures, drawn from the collector cited, he indicates that the first pleases him more; since the Acts in other places speak of the prefect, but without his name being expressed; as one may see in the same among us on page 276, number 74, and page 278, number 85.
[26] And these conjectures and not improbable reasons, which we have thus far brought forward in matters so obscure and entangled, examined. please us far more than to wrest the word prefect, so often repeated in the Acts, from its proper signification to an improper one; as it pleased Baillet to do at the day XI of August, column 134, who, finding Chromatius prefect of the city of Rome in the Acts already so often alleged, but not likewise in Bucher's Catalogue, and pronouncing as from the tripod that the latter is beyond comparison more certain than the former, says: I should rather incline to believe that he was simply a vicar, or one substituted in the place of the prefect, and that the name of the latter could be given him because he discharged the power of a prefect, as holding his place. That same hypercritic, relying (as seems able to be gathered from what has been said) on the same false principle, against the expression of the Acts, which expressly call Fabianus prefect, styles him merely a judge. To us, certainly, who wish and ought to defend ancient Acts of approved character against the bites of such smatterers, it stands fixed in mind not to twist the significations of words, but to leave them in that same sense in which they stand in the Acts, so long as no urgent reason compels to the contrary, which in this case did not occur.
§ IV. A certain passage of the Acts weighed in favor of the Apostolic See.
The antiquity of the title That passage of the Acts is found below among us at chapter 1, number 7, and runs thus: Tiburtius, a most illustrious man, cried out, saying to St. Caius the Pope: I beseech you, father, and bishop of bishops, etc. Tillemont, at note 2, page 740, says: The title of bishop of bishops here given to the Pope is probably that of a certain Roman later than the fourth century. That assertion is quite savory to the palate of the heretical faction of the Jansenists. But in the same place, page 742, he seeks a knot in a bulrush, when he raises a question again very pleasing to the heterodox Jansenists, when he there says that it may be asked when that title, bishop of bishops, began to be given to the supreme Pontiffs, as it is reported to have been done by St. Tiburtius. And he answers: However much that manner of speaking may not have been introduced except a few centuries ago, could not some copyist have added it? But that critic would have consulted better for that diligence in scrutinizing the documents of the ancient Fathers and monuments which he everywhere professes, if, being wise unto sobriety, he had left this passage untouched. Therefore, that the handle may be taken away from the rebellious sons of the Church, and from those hostile to the authority of the Apostolic See with a hatred more than Vatinian (so to speak), of traducing this title as new and not due to the Presidents of the Roman Chair, we answer these things. That it is neither of a certain Roman, nor later than the IV century; but that it began to be given to the successors of Peter even from the first times of the Church, we deduce from this, that in the testimonies of the first centuries of the same which have come down to us in writing, that title, most deservedly due by right to the Apostolic See, not only shines forth most clearly,
but is also found expressly stated in altogether the same terms, that certain Roman later than the fourth century (as Tillemont would have it) having no part in the passages which we shall cite.
[28] of bishop of bishops; St. Cyprian — who, as Tillemont himself admits in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 45, was an African and perhaps a Carthaginian, and flourished in the middle of the third century, and who before St. Tiburtius, and indeed before any thought had been given to the writing of his Acts, was crowned with martyrdom — in the sentences of the bishops of the third Council of Carthage, page 399 of the Pamelian edition, says: For neither does any one of us set himself up to be a BISHOP OF BISHOPS, or by tyrannical terror force his colleagues to the necessity of obeying. That council, moreover, in our Harduin, volume 1 of the Councils, column 159, is attached to the year 255. That title, therefore, was then in use: and lest it be attacked by the bites of the sons of iniquity, it is well to recall what Pamelius observes concerning it in his Annotations, page 406, where, having cited passages of St. Augustine to show that the Donatists, after the example of Cyprian, even if they differ in opinions, ought nevertheless to remain in the peace of unity, he subjoins these things: But since, on the testimony both of Cyprian himself and of St. Jerome against the Luciferians, he is speaking of his colleagues, anyone would in vain wrest against the primacy of the Roman Pontiff that saying: For neither does any one of us set himself up to be a bishop of bishops. But of this more at large above, in the letter to Quintus (which is in him the 71st) in the annotations, page 177. To Pamelius add Schelstrate, who, after he had brought forward, in Antiquity of the Church Illustrated, volume 2, Dissertation 4, chapter 3, page 255, the words of St. Cyprian which we recited a little before, thus illustrates them: By which words he is treating of Pope Stephen, who as bishop of bishops recalled his colleagues existing in Africa to the practice of ancient tradition. Cyprian denies that this power belongs to the bishops of Africa, because each governed the congregations committed to him, and no one contended that another's church pertained to himself. Many things pertaining to this matter may be read there.
[29] Tertullian was an African of Carthage before St. Cyprian, which from the first centuries of the Church who, as he lived in the second century, also survived past the beginnings of the third. He gave to the Roman Pontiff the title of bishop of bishops in what he wrote On Modesty, page 715 of the second Rigaltian edition, printed at Paris in the year 1641. He says: I hear that an edict has been put forth, and indeed a peremptory one: the Pontifex Maximus, that is, the BISHOP OF BISHOPS, decrees, etc. St. Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, in his article on Tertullian, says: He wove volumes specially against the Church, On Modesty, etc. That work, therefore, is Tertullian's. Theophilus Raynaud, volume 10, in The Golden Crown of the Roman Pontiff, page 55, defends against cavillers this prerogative of his, of which our discourse treats, as perspicuously expressed by Tertullian, in these words, which we transcribe from him: That Tertullian so called the Pontiff by way of mockery, and thus that nothing solid is gathered thence, is affirmed by Cujas on the last chapter On the Competent Forum, and by Sadeel, refuted by Torres, book 1 On the Church and the Pastor, chapter 18, and also by Junius, chastised by Gretser in his notes against the animadversions of that same Junius on Tertullian. I confess that Tertullian bitingly wrested those words against the Pontiff, yet I say that he spoke according to the usage then received. Just as if someone, angry with a bishop, should say that it is shameful that he who is styled most reverend prelate should mark out this or that disgraceful thing; the sense would not be that the bishop is called most reverend prelate in mockery and jest; but the sense would be that it is abhorrent from the dignity of a man truly bearing such a title to have borne himself so.
[30] Peter Coustant, a Benedictine monk, published the letters of the Roman Pontiffs from the year of Christ 67 to the year 440, was given to the Roman Pontiff and relegated to the Appendix of that work the letter of Pope Clement to James, bishop of Jerusalem, as spurious and falsely attributed to him. The reasons of the praised author may be seen in his admonition before that same letter at the beginning of that Appendix. Yet commending this letter for its antiquity, he says: After this letter was given Latinity by Rufinus, it was also published in some ancient collections of canons, and by name in certain copies of the Codex published by Paschasius Quesnel. Whence it is by no means strange that in the year CDXLII it was praised under the name of Clement by the first Council of Vaison, canon 16, and afterward by Nicholas I, John VIII, and others. But how long before Rufinus it was drawn up, whether perhaps in the third century or the fourth, although it is not established, yet it is established from what has been said that it is ancient. Now since its inscription runs thus: Clement, to James the lord and bishop of bishops, ἐπισκόπων ἐπισκόπῳ, etc., from this the haters of Pontifical authority will infer that that title indeed savors of the first centuries of the Church, but does not belong to the one and only Vicar of Christ on earth as something proper and characteristic, since in that place it is attributed to St. James, who was indeed pontiff of Jerusalem, but never of Rome.
[31] it is shown It is true, says Raynaud praised above, page 56, that St. Clement, at the head of his first letter, bestows on St. James the title of bishop of bishops: whose emulator, St. Lupus, St. Sidonius Apollinaris, book 6, letter 1, thus addresses: "Blessed be the Holy Spirit, and the Father of God almighty, that you, father of fathers, and bishop of bishops, and another James of your age, from a certain watchtower of charity, and not from the lower Jerusalem, oversee all the members of the Church of our God, worthy to console all the infirm, and deservedly consular in the eyes of all." And soon he calls him "the first of all pontiffs in the whole world, so far as it extends, who has now run through nine lustra in the Apostolic See." And yet St. Lupus was bishop of Troyes, not Roman Pontiff. It is one thing, however, which is said of someone by propriety and by force of his office without any exaggeration (in which sense the Roman Pontiff alone is the bishop of all bishops); and another which is said of anyone to designate his authority over certain bishops subject to him. In which sense at the end of the Acts of St. Daniel the Stylite, Ephraem of Constantinople is called prelate or bishop of bishops. And so Torres, book 2 against the Magdeburgers, chapter 13, interprets Clement's attributing to St. James in the letter alleged the most ample title of which we treat. Or certainly it must be said that this denomination is sometimes conferred on some lower bishop to insinuate a distinguished excellence in discharging the episcopal office, so that he can be held as the most eminent of bishops and as it were the exemplar and idea of all prelates: which is the genuine sense in which St. James and St. Lupus were called bishops of bishops, the prerogative of that title being reserved to the Roman Pontiff alone by force of his office, and whatever life he live.
[32] against the cavils of Tillemont; Thus far Raynaud; who, after he had shown in the same place that St. Cyprian does not oppose this when at the beginning of the African council over which he presided he denies that anyone ought to call himself bishop of bishops (of which matter treatment was made above), rightly and orthodoxly subjoins: Let the Roman Pontiff therefore enjoy the title of bishop of bishops, which the Arians most profanely conferred on the emperor Constantius by acclamation, in Lucifer of Cagliari, in the book That One Must Die for the Son of God. Whence again it is understood that that title was known and in use in the fourth century of Christ, although impiously applied. Let us pass further on to the fifth century. There are extant in print Commentaries on the Psalms under the name of Arnobius the African, who lived in the IV century; the other Arnobius, who is called the Younger, lived in the V century: who was a Gaul, as Oudin judges by conjecture in his Commentary, volume 1, column [ ], On Ecclesiastical Writers. But that these Commentaries on the Psalms are the work of this Arnobius, not of that one, I read both in the bibliographer cited and in another modern. Let that lucubration therefore be, as they will have it, of Arnobius the Younger: for which of the two was its author matters little to us, since we have at least a testimony to our purpose from the V century. Arnobius, then, wove into his Commentary on Psalm 138 these things: What now do we do, Novatian? Have we lost the Apostle Peter, or do we receive him returning to Christ? Behold, Christ received him, you cast him out. Behold, help is given to the penitent Apostle, who is the BISHOP OF BISHOPS, etc.
[33] These are the things which we have judged should be answered to the frivolous and inept assertion and question of Tillemont: and a digression is made whence anyone ought most clearly to perceive that the title of bishop of bishops, due and given to the Vicars of Christ, is not the invention of some Roman flatterer later than the IV century; nor is it a surname of only a few centuries; nor was there need that it should be added by some copyist to the Acts of St. Tiburtius, since it was employed even from the first centuries of the Church, nay rather even in that very century in which he suffered; and thus it is not proved that this honorific appellation was absent from the original Acts and was intruded into them by some more recent copyist. We indicated above that Tillemont's assertion is quite savory to the palate of the heretical faction of the Jansenists, and that he raises a question very pleasing to the heterodox Jansenists. For although he does not even touch the thing itself contained in the oft-mentioned title, much less abrogate it from the supreme Pontiffs, but treats only of the time at which it began to be given them; nevertheless the ill-employed rabble of the followers of Jansen and Quesnel has whereby a question of this sort may please them, who strive with all their strength to attack that title as not due to the Apostolic See, to elude it by crafty and painted evasions, and to overturn it by fraudulent contortions. Which the author of the Constitution of Pope Clement XI Theologically Defended excellently shows in the Prolegomena before the first volume of that work, chapter 11, where the same author, weighing the second paragraph of Quesnel's letter to the praised Pontiff, page 71 and following, says: But do you wish, reader, to understand what Quesnel desires to be signified by those three honorific appellations, successor of the Prince of the Apostles, heir of the Apostolic Primacy, and supreme Vicar of Christ? Nothing else than THAT AMONG THE BISHOPS HE IS AS THE ELDEST BORN AMONG BROTHERS. This is his comparison in the Dialogues of the year MDCCIX, page 331. Apply here the title of which we have treated, bishop of bishops. Let us go on with the praised author.
[34] Giles de Witte, the ringleader of the candid Jansenists, on the same occasion a friend of Quesnel and joined to him by the close bond of Jansenism, in the year MDCLXXXV had with his usual rashness, yet candidly, thus expressed his own sense and that of his party in the 2nd of 4 propositions submitted to the examination of the theological Faculty of Louvain: "The Pope is nothing but the first bishop; nor does there belong to him among the bishops any greater power or prerogative than that which belongs to the parish priest or pastor of St. Rumold with respect to the other parochial pastors of the same city, and that which belongs to the first alderman of the city of Ghent, or of other cities, with respect to the other lower aldermen." On page 72 he goes on thus
the defender of the praised Constitution: In the Fair Judgment, of which the same Giles de Witte or Candidus is the author, page 4, it is said: "Neither is it scandalous nor pernicious to say that the Pontiff is in the Church represented through an ecumenical council that which a president is in a private council." Where the comparison of the Pontiff with the president of a private council seems a little more honorific than that with the first alderman of a magistracy, or with a parish priest or the pastor of a chief church; but in sense it agrees in a certain way: which Quesnel expresses more harshly in the Dialogues cited, page 68, saying that the Roman Pontiff and the other bishops in their dioceses have an EQUAL power of judging concerning dogmas. The third proposition of Giles Candidus is contained thus in the denunciation of four witnesses, with the sacrament of an oath interposed: "To this, that someone objected to him that archbishops and other bishops are wont in public letters to say that they are such by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, he answered that this was an abuse and an error introduced about five hundred years ago, and that in the first ten centuries the bishops had not spoken in such a manner; but that when they had any business with the Pope or Bishop of Rome, they simply called him their fellow-brother, and not Pope or Pontiff," etc. The fourth proposition of Giles is: "That the saying of Christ, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, was said to Peter personally alone, and not in him to his successors." The censures passed against these propositions may be seen at the place cited. See now by what arts that shifty sect uses to throw dust in men's eyes.
[35] against the Jansenists, who craftily mock titles of this kind, And yet, as the defender of the said Constitution observes, there is none of those Anti-pontificials, none of the Jansenists, who does not with Quesnel employ all the titles of honor attributed by Quesnel to Clement XI alike to flatter and to deceive. The Pontiff, they say, is the successor of the Prince of the Apostles; but that Prince, although first in dignity, as the eldest among brothers, as first in order among canons and among senators .., nevertheless had no right over the other Apostles as a Superior over subjects, since according to the new disciples of Augustine they were all equal in the government of the universal Church. Which heresy, delivered in many of their books, was transfixed with anathema by Innocent X in the year MDCXLVII, on the XIV of January (as may be seen at greater length in the same place, pages 72 and 73): for indeed that subordination and subjection is too contrary to the innovators, who wish to withdraw the bishops from the yoke of obedience due to the Roman Pontiff. And because we should be longer than is just if we transcribed what the praised defender of the Constitution deduces at length on page 73, thither we send the reader. Thus Quesnel, he says, with his party, while he seems to flatter the Pontiff with great names, does nothing but cast dust into the eyes of his readers, to blind them. And so from what has been said thus far it is established, first, that that honorific title of Bishop of bishops was given to the Roman Pontiff from the first centuries of the Church. Secondly, that it is due to him in the true, proper, and Catholic signification, but not in the bedizened, illusory, and fraudulent one of the Jansenian faction, as is abundantly made out from the foregoing.
[36] But plainly most worthy to be heard, and deserving to be opportunely woven onto what has already been said by way of a coping-stone, although they are most rightly due to the Apostolic See. are the things which the Most Eminent Baronius wrote at the year of Christ 216, number 8: The things which Tertullian relates concerning an edict publicly promulgated in the Church by the Roman Pontiff, and prescribed at the same time to the whole Church, plainly insinuate that ancient economy in the Church, and above all render attested therein the authority of the Roman Pontiff: namely, that it belongs to his part to restrain by published edicts the heresies emerging and corrupting right faith and ecclesiastical discipline, and likewise to prescribe laws for the whole Church, and to prefix to them that title which Tertullian himself, reciting it, gives: Pontifex Maximus, bishop of bishops. But if anyone should contend that these are the words of Tertullian rather than of the edict, he will never be able to demonstrate that they were certainly said ironically: since he declares below that he is speaking not only of the Roman Church but of the universal one, which we call Catholic; as may be seen at greater length in Baronius at that place; who adds: But it seems it can be more fairly and more truly said that those words are not Tertullian's, but recited by him from the inscription of that edict: for who doubts that those words of the title were of the same author whose words of the decree are recited by him, and who, being about to impugn it, begins to recite from the title? But whether they be the words of the decree alone, or of Tertullian, or of both, matters little here, since from what has been said their use and antiquity is established. The praised Baronius in the same place, from number 9, expounds both the titles named above; whence it will suffice to cull what he has at number 11. Therefore, he says, since in the Church of God, gathered for the greater part from the Gentiles, the royal priesthood of Christ is one and the same, and was declared chiefly in the Bishop of the primary See, who exists as the supreme priest not only of the City but of the world, and who besides, constituted by God the arbiter of things divine and human, shines forth with judiciary power over all — he was aptly called Pontifex Maximus, and Bishop of bishops. The former on account of the signal eminence of his priesthood; the latter added lest, because among the Gentiles the pontifex maximus was reckoned as placed in the fifth rank, but nevertheless in such a way that others too were called Maximi, this one should seem to have pontiffs above himself or equal to himself; to the amplitude of the name Pontifex Maximus there was rightly joined the title Bishop of bishops.
THE ACTS
From the Acts of St. Sebastian the martyr published among us in volume II of January, at the day XX of that same month, chapter XII, page 271 and following.
Tiburtius, Martyr, at Rome and in Campania (S.)
Chromatius, his father, Martyr, at Rome and in Campania (S.)
The Companions, likewise martyrs, at Rome and in Campania (SS.)
From what was published in volume II of January.
CHAPTER I.
St. Chromatius converted from idols to Christ; an apparition; the baptism of St. Tiburtius and a miracle.
[Tranquillinus, having given thanks to Chromatius, reveals that he has become a Christian,] The days therefore of the delay granted being fulfilled, Agrestius Chromatius a prefect of the city of Rome, orders Tranquillinus b, the father of Marcellianus and Marcus c, to come to him. And when he inquired of him concerning the resolve of his sons, Tranquillinus answered: For rendering thanks for your benefits no speech of my mouth suffices. For unless the reins of your moderation had held back the sentences as they were running, both I should have lost my sons, and my sons would not have had me their father. All congratulate me who are held by fatherly affection and pricked by the goad of charity; your Highness also, I believe, rejoices with me, since life has been conferred on those about to die, gladness restored to the anxious, security given back to the troubled. Then the prefect, judging that his sons wished to bow their necks to the idols, said: On the coming day, therefore, let the incense due to the deities be rendered by your sons, whereby both you may continue safe with your sons, and your sons may be pardoned for your sake. Hearing these things Tranquillinus said: Most illustrious of men, if you would weigh the balance of your examination toward me and my sons with an even scale, you would be able to recognize that this name of Christian is of great power. The prefect said: You are mad, Tranquillinus. Tranquillinus answered: I suffered madness both of soul and of body; but as soon as I believed in Christ, I received health both of my soul and of my body. Then he teaches the prefect that it is not the Christians who err, but the Gentiles; whose gods he shows are not gods, adding the crimes of Jupiter and Juno; and likewise that the Christians are not the cause of the disasters of the empire, nor is the sun God.
[2] He defends the divinity of Christ, and despises the threats of tyrants. The prefect said: If then it is one and invisible whom you worship, do you not worship Christ, whom the Jews crucified? Tranquillinus said: You would rightly inquire these things, if you were resolved to believe. For to the unbelieving everything that they do not wish seems empty .. The prefect said: I am asking you about your Christ. For if that is worshipped by you which is not seen with these eyes, do you not worship Christ, who was both seen and heard and questioned, and all things which belong to human frailty are read to have been fulfilled in his passion? Tranquillinus said: Hear a similitude, and understand the truth .. The prefect said: You do not know, Tranquillinus, how great a wrath of the unconquered princes rages against the Christians, and therefore, as though secure, you pursue what seems good to you without fear. Tranquillinus said: Foolish is the fear by which human indignation is feared more than divine .. Then the prefect ordered him to be received by the registrars, saying: I shall hear you at the next session. After these things he sends, and ordered him to be brought to him secretly by night, and, offering him an immense weight of gold, he said: Show me the medicine by which you recovered your health. To whom Tranquillinus said: Know that they shall suffer the great wrath and fury of God who think his grace is either to be sold or to be bought. Wherefore, if you wish to be freed from the gouty pain, believe Christ to be the Son of God, and you will be freed, and as you see me today, so shall you be whole. For indeed I was scarcely carried by hands, and for eleven years, bound with knots of pains through all the joints of the sinews in my body, bread was scarcely put to my mouth by the hands of others: the instant that I believed Christ to be the true God, I received the joys of my health, and I am sound, because I have acknowledged the true God as my Savior.
[3] He brings St. Polycarp to him; from whom he asks health; the idols are broken: Then the prefect dismissed him, saying: Bring to me him who made you a Christian, that if he shall promise me health, I too may be able to become a Christian. And so St. Polycarp d is brought to him; who, rejecting his gifts for the recovering of health, persuades him to believe, and instructs him, a three days' fast being enjoined. Therefore, when the third day, which had been appointed, had arrived, they come hastening together to the house of the waiting prefect. Who, having entered, said: The peace of your faith. But he greeted them back most courteously, and exhorts them to sit beside him, and said: The reasoning which came forth from the mouth of Tranquillinus is declared by the affirmation of my eyes. For I see him most sound whom I had seen drawn together with gouty pain of the feet and hands: from whom, inquiring what kind of medicine it was by which he had been saved, I received such an answer from him. These things I have heard with my ears, proved with my eyes, believed with my heart; it remains that what you did for Tranquillinus you do for me also, that I may be able to receive the health of my body. Then Chromatius, prefect of the city of Rome, with his only son Tiburtius, gave in his name, saying: In this it is fitting that you be certain of my faith, in which I also desire that my son become a Christian along with me. Then the Acts relate that the idols of Chromatius were broken by the persuasion and the work of St. Sebastian, as also the instruments of judiciary astrology.
[4] Then they approached all the crystal and solid-glass idols, an angel appearing, Chromatius is healed, and with Tiburtius confesses Christ. and all that mechanical work; and suddenly, while they were being broken by the hands of the Saints,
there appeared before the eyes of Chromatius a young man, whose face shone with a flaming aspect, and he said to him: My Lord Jesus Christ, in whom you have believed, has sent me, that you may receive the health of all your limbs. At this word, being made most sound, he began to run after the young man, that he might kiss his feet. But he said: See that you touch me not, because the sanctification of baptism has not yet washed you from the filth of idols. Seeing these things, Tiburtius his son casts himself at the feet of St. Polycarp. And Chromatius the prefect himself clasped the soles of blessed Sebastian, and both cried out with one voice: Christ is the true God, the true and almighty only-begotten Son of God, whom you, his good ministers, preach. Then blessed Sebastian said to Chromatius: As you yourself know, I hold the command of the first cohort; but whether it is the warfare of a man, I long ago resolved not to know, nor should I wish to. For this only did I wish to lie hidden beneath the military cloak, that I might instruct the minds of the wavering, and make the doubting constant, lest those whom faith had made warriors should yield to the pains of sufferings. But you, bearing the summit of a most ample power, cannot either withdraw yourself from the spectacles, or absent yourself from the business of judging. Feigning e therefore sickness, ask for a successor to yourself, that you may be able, free from the occupations of the world, to receive the rudiments of the life to come, so that, born again by a second nativity, you may be made offspring to eternal parents.
[5] And so on the same day he sends to his friends placed in the palace, [Before baptism he renounces his sins, restores what he had taken away, and settles his concubines with dowries.] through whom, receiving written testimonials, he took up the first service of the divine warfare before he was baptized. Why should I recount how full his faith was, and with what keen wit he stood against the assertions of the unbelievers? The following reading makes it manifest. For at the beginning, in the manner in which he was sprinkled with the wave of the sacrosanct font, the faith of his mind evidently shone forth. Being asked whether he believed, he said: I believe. Being asked again whether he renounced all idols, he answered: I renounce. The interrogation of the priest went on, whether he renounced all sins. But he said: These things you ought to have inquired before I entered these halls of the King of the heavens. But now let me put on my clothes again unbaptized, that I may first forgive all those with whom I am angry; that I may restore their bonds to all my debtors; if I have violently taken anything from anyone, I shall order it restored entire: I have two concubines since the death of my wife; to these also I shall give a dowry and husbands: I shall loose the knots of my transactions from every bond of servitude, free-born, private or public: and thus at last I shall promise that I will renounce all diabolical sins and the pleasures of the world. Polycarp the priest says to him: The heavenly wave will pour over you more blessed, when you shall have fulfilled with all haste those things which of your own judgment you say you will do.
[6] Then Tiburtius, a most wise youth, said: Father, He is baptized with his son and 1400 of his household: if you demand time for yourself for renouncing your affairs, I, as to the business of the forum which I was still to undertake, renounce the very will of undertaking it: and I, who was to be an advocate for pleading the causes of mortals, shall take up Christianity for performing angelic actions, when I shall have begun to be one of the number of those who receive eternal life and are made pleaders of holiness. Then blessed Sebastian embraced him; and when St. Polycarp had baptized him, he himself became the sponsor of his reception. Therefore, when a very few days had passed, all worldly business having been duly renounced by Chromatius, Chromatius received the newness of holy baptism, and with him from his household fourteen hundred souls f of both sexes, all of whom he first loosed from the knot of servitude by the grace of manumission, and furnished with the best gifts, saying this: They who begin to have God as their Father ought not to be the slaves of man.
[7] [He supports the Christians, and withdraws them from the persecution, St. Tiburtius remaining at Rome:] Now there was a Pope of the city of Rome by name Caius g, a man of great prudence and great virtue, in the reign of Carinus h, Diocletian i, and Maximian k. But Diocletian was in the City with Maximian .. Then, counsel being taken with St. Caius the bishop, Chromatius, an illustrious man, received all the Christians into his house; and he so cherished them all that no one at all succumbed to the necessity of sacrificing. But because so great a force of persecution had arisen that the very report of his Christianity could not be concealed, Chromatius obtained by a sacred rescript that for the sake of being healed he might stay on the Campanian shore, where he was lord of a broad estate, and he granted the opportunity to every Christian willing to go with him to avoid the rage of the persecutor l .. Tiburtius, a most illustrious man, cried out, saying: I beseech you, father, and bishop of bishops m, do not suffer me to turn my back upon my pursuers: for to me it is exceedingly pleasant and desirable, if I could be slain a thousand times for the true God, only that I may find that life of dignity which no successor may snatch from me, on which no times may impose an end. Then St. Caius, rejoicing at his faith, poured forth tears .. Now there remained with the venerable Pope Caius these: Marcellianus and Marcus n .. likewise blessed Sebastian, and a most beautiful youth, but more beautiful still in mind, St. Tiburtius. Then to their sojourn and their miracles these things are subjoined:
[8] who heals a certain man lifeless from a fall, and converts him and his parents. Meanwhile, while these things were being done, blessed Tiburtius, passing by, met a man who, having fallen from a height, had shattered both his head and all his limbs, so that those whose son he was known to be were treating only of his burial. Then he says to them as they wept: Permit me to pray over him; perhaps he will recover his health. And when all had given him room, he approached beside him, and, saying slowly over his wounds the Lord's Prayer and the creed, his bones and head and all his inward parts were so made whole that he became sound as though nothing had happened to him. And so when he had done these things, he began to go away. But his parents held him, saying: Come and have him as a slave, and we deliver to you all our goods along with him, because you have given back to us living the only son whom we had, now dead. He says to them: If you shall do what I shall tell you, I shall greatly esteem the reward of this healing. His parents say to him: If you deign to have us ourselves as slaves, we cannot go against it: nay rather we desire it, if you yourself shall judge it worthy. Then, taking their hands, he separated them from the crowds, and showed them the power of the name of Christ. And seeing their mind fixed strongly in the fear of the Lord, he brought them to Pope Caius and said: Venerable Pope and prelate of the divine law, behold those whom Christ has today gained through me, in whom my faith, like a young sapling, has first burst forth into fruit. Then St. Caius the bishop baptized them, that is, the young man with his parents, giving thanks to God.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The martyrdom of St. Tiburtius.
Tiburtius, betrayed by Torquatus, whose levity of manners Meanwhile a certain man had associated himself with St. Caius the bishop under a feigned faith, saying that he was a Christian; but this man had been an apostate, and was fraudulent in all his speech and crafty in every trust committed to him. Why say more? While he was frequently rebuked by blessed Tiburtius, a most learned and noble and holy man, because he arranged his hair above the top of his forehead by the barber's art, and because he fed continually, and dined while laughing, and because he gave himself too freely to the sight of women, and because he withdrew himself from fastings and prayers, and because, given over to sleep, he was not present as a watcher in the hymns of God that lead through the nights: while, as we have said, he was more sharply rebuked for these things by blessed Tiburtius, he feigns to receive with an even mind the one admonishing him, and contrived by art that the unbelievers should seize St. Tiburtius as he was praying. In the seizure he caused himself to be held also, and to be brought at the same time to the private chamber of the raging judge. But when they had been brought in, Fabianus a the prefect said to him who had by art betrayed himself: What are you called? But he answered: Torquatus. Fabianus said: What do you profess? Torquatus said: I am a Christian. Fabianus said: Do you not know that the most unconquered princes have commanded that those who shall have refused to sacrifice to the gods be worn down with divers torments? Torquatus said: This man is my master, and he has always taught it; whatever I shall see him do, it is necessary that I do.
[10] and feigned faith he had been rebuking; Fabianus, turning to St. Tiburtius, said: Have you heard what Torquatus asserts? What do you answer to these things? St. Tiburtius said: It is long since Torquatus began to lie that he is a Christian. For the power of that holy name bears it grievously and with annoyance that its
name should not be usurped by those who do not love it. For truly, most illustrious man, this word Christian belongs to divine power, namely to the followers of Christ, who have truly philosophized, who have truly been called Christians, who have fought bravely to trample down their lusts. Do you believe, most illustrious man, that this man is a Christian, who commits the fringes of his head to be dressed for his own allurement, who loves the barber, who carries his shoulders softly, who stretches out his flowing gait with shameless effort, who plays the man negligently and looks upon women more diligently? Never has Christ deigned to have such servants. But since he has asserted that he will imitate me here, here in your sight you shall prove that he has lied. For he will now evidently show what he has always been.
[11] he despises the prefect's blandishments Fabianus said: You will act more prudently if you consult for your safety and do not despise the decrees of the princes. St. Tiburtius said: I do not consult better for my safety than by despising the gods and goddesses and confessing that the one Lord Jesus Christ is my God. Torquatus said: Not only is this Christian himself cruel, but he also persuades and deceives many, and teaches that all the gods are demons: and he himself, with his companions with whom he practices magic arts, is occupied day and night with incantations. St. Tiburtius said: A false witness shall not be unpunished. And he said to the judge: This man whom you see, most illustrious man, boiling with the cares of his own malice, has joined himself to the Christians for no other reason than to devise how he might show himself to us as though a Christian, how he might lie to others that he was most faithful. Yet I used to rebuke in him a Cyclopean voracity, and a modesty drowned in wine, and the sanctity of the divine name buried. Drunken, he brought forth thirst, and vomiting, hunger: he ate, drank, and vomited, not as a Christian, but as that Antonian banqueter of old; and now he accuses Christians, brings charges against Christians, incites against us a mild judge, holds out the sword to an unwilling judge, and exhorts us to bow our necks to demons. We see your desire, we see your bloody counsels, and we behold the poisons of your breast in the wicked art of your words. Gird yourself now, most cruel one: use the office of the executioner: claim for yourself even the voice of the judge himself: apply the racks, hang up the Christians, condemn, strike, burn, employ all torments — you have received us well. If you threaten exile, to those who philosophize the whole world is home: if punishment, we escape the prison of the world: if fires, we overcome greater ones than these in our desires. Decree whatever you please; every penalty is cheap to us where a pure conscience is our companion.
[12] Fabianus the prefect said: Restore yourself to your family, he laughs at the gods: and be this which nature dictated to you. For, nobly born, you have sunk to such dregs that you are willing to undergo at once punishment and infamy and death. St. Tiburtius said: O most prudent of men, and appointed judge for the Romans! Because I am unwilling to worship the harlot Venus, and incestuous Jupiter, and deceitful Mercury, and Saturn the slayer of his sons, I incur infamy upon my noble birth: and because I adore and venerate the one and true God who reigns in the heavens, you threaten that I shall be worn down with torments. We do not assent to your persuasion: we do not deny that Christ the Son of God descended from the heavens to the earth for this, that from the earth man might be able to ascend to heaven: therefore, trampling under my feet all those vain images which you worship without cause, I have subjected myself to almighty God.
[13] Then Fabianus ordered burning coals to be poured out before his feet; he treads unharmed on burning coals, and said to him: Choose for yourself one of two things: either cast incense on those coals, or walk over them with bare feet. Then blessed Tiburtius, making the sign of the cross, steadfastly walked upon them with bare sole, and began to say to the prefect: Lay aside your unbelief, and learn that this is the only God whom we confess to have dominion over all creatures. Put your hands, if you can, into hot water in the name of Jupiter your god, and see whether your Jupiter b can make you not feel the heat of its burning. For to me, in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, it seems that I am walking over rosy flowers, because the creature serves the command of its Creator.
[14] and, the blasphemous judge being rebuked, he is beheaded. Fabianus said: Who does not know that your Christ taught you magic? St. Tiburtius said: Be silent, wretched man, and do not do this injury to my ears, that I should hear you barking with rabid mouth and naming his honey-flowing holy name. Then Fabianus, angered, dictated the sentence, saying: Let the blasphemer of the gods, and one guilty of atrocious injuries, be punished by the sword. And he was led along the Lavican way to the third milestone c from the City, and, pouring forth a prayer to the Lord, struck with one blow of the sword he departed: and in that same place, a certain Christian appearing, he was buried: in which place Christ has always bestowed many benefits to the praise of his name even to the present day d.