ON THE HOLY MONK-MARTYRS LIBERATUS THE ABBOT, BONIFACE THE DEACON, SERVUS AND RUSTICUS SUBDEACONS, ROGATUS AND SEPTIMUS MONKS, AND MAXIMUS A BOY,
AT CARTHAGE IN AFRICA,
In the year 483.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The writer of the Passion, its time and place, and the celebrated cultus of the Saints in the Church.
Liberatus, abbot and martyr, at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Boniface, deacon and martyr, at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Servus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Rusticus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Rogatus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Septimus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Maximus, a boy, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
BY J. B. S.
As certain and everywhere admitted as is the thoroughly approved Passion of these illustrious martyrs, Victor of Vita wrote it. so much has there been dispute among the learned in the century just past concerning its true writer, some with Surius ascribing it to Victor bishop of Utica, others everywhere and rightly to Victor of Vita; yet in such wise that not long ago a dissertation appeared in which two Victors of Vita are asserted, to the later of whom the history is said to be attributable, as you may see in the Trévoux Journal for the month of April 1709. For us it is enough that the true historian of the Passion be called simply Victor of Vita; concerning whom see the admonition of the illustrious Theodoric Ruinart in his History of the Vandal Persecution, from page 94, where the same Passion is so vindicated from various manuscript codices that no doubt now seems to remain of its genuineness which could here deservedly be raised.
[2] Of the time in which these most valiant champions were crowned, They suffered in the year 483; the praised Ruinart speaks in the same place, and judges that it is sufficiently indicated by the writer of the Passion himself, when he reports that they obtained the palm of martyrdom in the seventh year of king Huneric. For since, he says, Huneric departed this life in the year 484, the eighth year of his reign being nearly completed, their death must be assigned to the preceding year, namely the year 483. Victor's words are weighed not idly by Chifflet also, and by others. Anyone will be able to gather the same thing from the beginning of the Passion, so that I do not at all see what after all Tillemont means, in volume 16, page 798, when he contends that the martyrdom of which we treat must be referred to the year 488, as though it befell in nearly the same year in which Victor testifies that he wrote his history, namely the sixtieth after the irruption of the Vandals into Africa, in which he wrongly maintains that Huneric's persecution of the Catholics began.
[3] not 488, as Tillemont will have it. For indeed that man, elsewhere not careless, might have observed that Huneric's most savage butchery was direfully carried on while he himself was living and urging it, as is most clearly plain from the history here praised, and that our holy monks therefore suffered while he survived and looked on; who nevertheless by God's judgment, being overtaken not many days after by a most shameful death, expired swarming with worms, while the seventh year of his reign was running, begun in the year 476 or 477. In vain, therefore, did Tillemont labor and torment himself to overthrow an epoch everywhere admitted by the learned, and indeed most certain, confirmed also by our predecessors when they treated of the St. Liberatus the physician of the same name and of other martyrs in the same persecution, on the XXIII day of March; in which therefore we too have judged that we should here acquiesce.
[4] Ruinart goes on: In what place at last they were either apprehended or underwent death, there is no need for us here to inquire more fully, since from their very Passion it is established The place in which they were taken and in which they suffered. that they were brought from a monastery of the territory of Capsa in Byzacena, where they were leading the monastic life, to Carthage, and there were crowned with martyrdom. As clear and certain as these things are, so doubtful is what follows there, taken from the occasion of the city of Capsa here named, in whose neighborhood the holy martyrs are said to have dwelt — namely, whether they are not to be confounded with the Capitanian martyrs who are celebrated in the Carthaginian Kalendar on the Ides of November. I should not indeed dare to assert this, although it seems strange that so renowned athletes should have been altogether passed over in the said Kalendar. But it will easily be answered that countless others who suffered in that very persecution are also there passed over, so that from thence no argument seems able to be drawn for the confusion of the Capsenses and the Capitani.
[5] It remains that we show that so illustrious a Passion was not unknown to our classical martyrologists, Celebrated in the classical Martyrologies, nor were they ignorant that Victor of Vita had celebrated it according to its merit. Doubtless the one who went before the rest was he whom Ado had as his guide, the author of the Little Roman, now more than once published after Rosweyde, who, led by I know not what error, marked them on this day, though even from the very title of the Passion it is established that they underwent martyrdom on the VI of the Nones, that is, the II of July. And this indeed seems pardonable in the author of that brief Martyrology, who perhaps had not seen the Passion; I wonder the more that Ado, who had the Acts themselves before his eyes, did not correct the error; unless perhaps both he and others had in mind some celebrated translation of relics, now unknown to us, on occasion of which they reported them on this day. For the rest, the others followed Ado — Usuard with all his progeny, Notker, the Plantinian Bede, Maurolycus, and the more recent everywhere, along with the Roman Martyrology.
[6] Not to delay here in transcribing many texts, it will suffice to exhibit Ado's eulogy, or summary of the Acts, as follows: whose eulogies In Africa, the birthday of the holy martyrs Liberatus the abbot, Boniface the deacon, Servus and Rusticus subdeacons, Rogatus and Septimius monks, and Maximus a boy: who in the Vandal persecution, by order of the most cruel and most impious king Huneric, were dragged from the territory of the city of Capsa, out of the dwelling of their monastery, and brought to the city of Carthage; where, for the confession of the Catholic faith and the defense of the one baptism, they were first consigned to the custody of prison and confined with cruel weights of iron, and were assigned to dark places; where, when day and night they had strengthened the Christian people in the constancy of the faith, the tyrant, kindled with fury, ordered a ship to be filled with bundles of wood, and all of them together, being bound, to be burned upon the sea, fire being set beneath.
[7] But when, according to the will of the unspeakable king or of his cruel ministers, their hands being stretched out and their feet lifted up, fire had been thrown into the wood, straightway by divine command, all beholding, it was extinguished; may be admitted; and when it was again and again renewed, again and again the balls of flame were quenched. Whence the tyrant, filled the more with fury and with shame together, ordered them to be slain with the shafts of oars, and thus each one to be destroyed like dogs, their brains being dashed out: and thus, the Lord crowning them, they finished the fair course of their contest. Their bodies, cast into the sea, being at the same hour restored unharmed to the shores, were reverently taken up by the Christian people, and, the clergy going before, with solemn hymns were laid away in the monastery adjoining the basilica which is called Celerina's. Blessed Victor, an African bishop, writes of this in the history of the same Vandal persecution, which he himself endured with the rest and set forth in a faithful and illustrious style.
[8] not the things related by Herrera. Nearly thus Notker also spoke, from the same source, while others embraced the whole matter much more briefly; but Herrera far surpassed all those old writers in his Alphabetum Augustinianum, wishing forsooth to increase it by those monk-martyrs of Africa, and therefore dividing them unseasonably into various articles — with what profit of labor I truly do not know, since I have thus far found no one who has thought, even most remotely, of these men as followers of St. Augustine, much less as to be added to the Order of Hermits. Which it is enough to have indicated here with a word. This remains to be observed in passing, that Victor enumerated the names of the Saints in the Passion in an order different from ours here, following namely the order of ecclesiastical rank, of which St. Liberatus, though an abbot, was destitute, as the praised Ruinart rightly judges, if I mistake not, at page 209 — to whom we send the reader, being about now to give the Passion itself from his edition, carefully collated with manuscript codices and old editions.
THE PASSION
By Victor, bishop of Vita.
Liberatus, abbot and martyr, at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Boniface, deacon and martyr, at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Servus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Rusticus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Rogatus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Septimus, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
Maximus, a boy, M., at Carthage in Africa (St.)
BHL Number: 4906
By Victor of Vita.
A pious opening. About to proclaim the triumphs of the blessed martyrs, I ask divine help for the narrating of what was done, that He who granted them the victory of overcoming may hold out to me, unworthy and undeserving, whatever slight adornments of words. For then shall I be able to set forth what has been desired, if they themselves deign to make supplication to the Lord for me, wretched as I am.
[2] A grievous persecution in Africa For the seventh year was running of the most cruel and most impious king Huneric, and, behold, the ancient enemy, that sluggish serpent of the three-forked
tongue, brandishing his venom, made use of one Cyrila, a bishop of the Ariomanites, as his minister; overturning and gaining the mind of the bloody king, so as to persuade him that he could not hold his kingdom peaceful and long-lasting unless he destroyed the name of the innocent. Who nevertheless by God's judgment, being overtaken after not many days by a most shameful death, expired swarming with worms.
[3] A persecution of the Catholics, He began with bloody mouth to assail the whole multitude of Catholics, which throughout the entire African province had been multiplied after the manner (as was foretold to the patriarch Abraham) of the sand of the sea, that he might wound it with the sword of rebaptism, and that the robe of that single and pure baptism — which Christ, purifying it with the wine of His flesh and pressing it in the winepress of the cross, had made white — he might befoul with the squalid filth of a hideous blackness. The tyrant too, receiving the serpentine suggestion, being pliant a and fierce, began by deadly edicts at one time b to convulse all Africa.
[4] not only of priests, First he thrust into cruel exile, into far and remote regions, a very numerous and very great throng of priests and ministers. To whom, by way of mercy, he ordered to be given that twice-sharp c kind of grain which is granted for beasts alone to eat, by no means ground fine by the labor of the mill, but mailed with the husk of the bran remaining. But afterwards, as the madness of his impiety grew, the most cruel man commanded that even this be taken away. After a little time too he ordered all the churches together to be closed with huge masonry, their venerable doors being first condemned. For he ordered all the monasteries of men or of holy maidens, together with their inhabitants, to be given to the heathen, that is, to the Moors.
[5] There was one wailing for all, one whole and full desire of dying for Christ. but of every sex and order. Equal rivers of tears ran; because the Lord had permitted them to be fed with the bread of tears, and to be given tears to drink in measure, or perhaps without measure. And if there was found, going forth from the ark, some part of the perishing ravens gaping after dead carcasses, yet greater in honor of the Trinity is the number of the happy doves. How many noble and excellent men, lords of broad and wide acres d, exchanged earth for heaven, and gave up their bodies together with their substance; and delicate and most noble women, against the modesty of their nature, beaten with rods before the gaze of the crowd and tormented with various torments, bore off the trophies of victory! How many little children, laughing at the deadly edicts, despised the world before they entered upon its enticing path!
[6] Then also seven brethren were seized — brethren, that is, so far as pertains to the concord of the Lord's service — dwelling together in a monastery: Among them seven monks for it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together; that is, Boniface the deacon, Servus e the subdeacon, Rusticus the subdeacon, Liberatus the abbot, Rogatus the monk, Septimus the monk, and Maximus the monk — in the number, namely, of the Maccabean brothers, whom one mother, the Catholic Church, had begotten, and through the bowels of the eternal font had healthfully brought forth — from the territory of the city of Capsa f, over which presided St. Vindemialis, an excellent priest and faithful bishop of Christ.
[7] When these had been dragged to the city of Carthage, first the serpent wished to hiss at them with enticing blandishments, dragged to Carthage promising fleeting honors and riches of vast pleasures, and also the friendship of the king, or many other things which are wont, the devil fowling, to catch the souls of the foolish with the birdlime of the world. But the soldiers of Christ rejected all these things as contagions, crying with one mouth: One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Nor shall that be able, with the Lord's help, to be repeated in us which in the holy Gospel was commanded to be given once: for he that is once washed has no need to be washed again, for he is wholly clean. Do what ye will; inflict punishments upon our bodies. It is better to suffer temporal torments for a little while than to pay and undergo eternal ones. Keep what ye promise, being about to perish after a little while together with those very riches. But from us no one shall be able to tear from the doorposts of our foreheads that which in one baptism the Trinity, the artificer, has deigned to inscribe.
[8] Why say more? While they were being fortified from on high with such constancy, they are not moved by blandishments. they were ordered to be consigned to the custody of prison, and, being thus the more cruelly loaded with weights of iron, they were assigned to dark places, where no pity of leniency might smile upon them. But the people of the said city, ever faithful in the Lord, giving a bribe to the jailers, thronged day and night to the martyrs of Christ, and were so strengthened by them in doctrine and in the virtue of faith that they too desired with full delight to bear such things for the name of Christ, and readily laid their necks beneath the hilt of the persecutor.
[9] But this came to the tyrant's ears; and he, kindled with the drunkenness of fury, Whence, thrust into prison orders them to be driven to punishments yet unheard of, and loaded with greater chains, and commands a ship to be filled with bundles of dry wood, and all of them being bound in it, that they be burned in the midst of the sea, fire being set beneath. And when they had been led out of custody, the multitude of the people of God led the warriors of the Trinity like innocent lambs to the victim, and looked upon the weights of the stiff chains as though they were certain necklaces; for those were not bonds but ornaments.
[10] they were afflicted with various punishments. And so they went forward with confidence to punishment, as though hastening to a banquet, with one voice singing to the Lord through the circuits of the streets: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. This day is our votive day, and more festal than every solemnity. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation, when for the faith of the Lord our God we endure the punishment prepared, lest we lose the garment of the faith we have gained. And they cried aloud to the people also with public voice: Fear not, O people of God! neither dread the threats and terrors of present tribulations; but rather let us die for Christ, even as He also died for us, redeeming us with the price of His saving blood.
[11] In vain is the boy enticed Yet with vehement effort the authors of these evils desired to separate from the fellowship of the Saints one who seemed among them a little child, named Maximus, saying: Little child, why dost thou hasten to death? Leave them; they are mad; and hearken to our counsel, that thou mayest be able to find the remedy of life and to enter the palace of so great a king. Then he, of boyish age indeed but of aged maturity, cried out: No one shall separate me from my holy father Liberatus the abbot and from my brethren, who nourished me in the monastery. With them I have lived in the fear of God; with them I desire to undergo the passion, with whom I believe that I shall also find the glory to come.
[12] as he hastens bravely to martyrdom, Do not think that ye can seduce my boyhood: the Lord willed to gather us seven together; He will deign to crown us all together with one martyrdom. As no one could perish out of that sevenfold number of the happy Maccabees, so also the sevenfold number of our congregation shall suffer no loss. For if I shall deny Him, He also will deny me; since it was said by Him: He that shall deny Me before men, I also will deny him before My Father who is in heaven; and: He that shall confess Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
[13] which they all suffer at sea, Being brought therefore in haste to the naval punishment, according to the will of the unspeakable king or of his cruel ministers, with hands stretched out and feet lifted, they are borne up rather g than bound. And when fire had been thrown into the wood, straightway by divine command, all beholding, it was extinguished; and when it was again and again renewed with nourishing fuel, again and again the pyre was quenched h in its ball of flame. And when at this the tyrant was filled the more with fury and with shame together, he ordered them to be slain with the shafts of oars, and thus each one to be destroyed like dogs, their brains being dashed out. Who by such a kind of death happily rendered their due spirit to the Lord; nor did they dread to be put to death by beating wood, whose whole hope had always been in the Wood.
[14] whence their bodies, wondrously cast up, are buried. But when their venerable bodies were being cast into the sea, straightway — a thing contrary to the nature of the deep — at that same hour the sea made haste to give back the bodies unharmed to the shore; nor did it dare, as is the custom, to keep them in the deep for the delay of three days, lest it should have failed to obey the Lord's command. At which kind of miracle the tyrant himself, though impenitent, was, as is reported, afraid. But the multitude which was present, rejoicing, gave the bodies of the holy martyrs to careful burial, the venerable clergy of the church of Carthage going before. Where also the deacons worthy of proclamation, now for the third time made confessors, Salutaris and Muritta, bearers of the relics, were present. The blessed remains of the Saints, therefore, were buried with solemn hymns in the monastery of Bigua i, adjoining the basilica which is called Celerina's. And thus in the confession of the Trinity the most blessed martyrs suffered, and, the Lord crowning them, finished the fair course of their contest: to whom be honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
elsewhere pati.*
elsewhere quo.*
elsewhere separet.*