ON ST. SATYRUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, WITH HIS COMPANIONS,
AT AREZZO IN TUSCANY IN ITALY.
ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.
CommentarySatyrus, bishop and martyr, at Arezzo in Tuscany in Italy (St.)
His companions at Arezzo in Tuscany in Italy
J. B. S.
In the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy Ferrarius marked neither our present St. Satyrus nor his fellow martyrs; but in his other, namely the general, Catalogue he announces him on this day in the first place thus: At Arezzo in Tuscany, of St. Satyrus, first bishop and martyr, with very many others. I do not think that those very many others were companions of his martyrdom; but rather that they are honored there along with St. Satyrus, and are thus reported in those monuments of the church of Arezzo which alone he cites: where he adds that the relics of this St. Satyrus and of others were found and are kept in the Cathedral church, doubtless along with others of the holy martyrs who suffered at different times. Nor does it seem sufficiently established that this our St. Satyrus was endowed with the true laurel of martyrdom.
[2] Certainly Ughelli, himself no careless searcher of the monuments of Arezzo, in the Catalogue of the Bishops of that city, concerning Satyrus, whom he there calls Saturus, pronounces thus simply: St. Saturus is the first of the Prelates of Arezzo who occurs to the writer. He it is who received St. Donatus, fleeing the persecution of the tyrants, and consecrated him priest, as is related in the Life of that Saint: and Saturus flourished in the times of Constantine the Great — so that he brings his death down to about the middle of the fourth century, so that certainly he did not live to the times of Julian, and so that nothing sufficiently certain about his martyrdom can be handed down by the men of Arezzo. Of his successor St. Donatus we have already given other matter on the VII day of August.