ON SS. VALENTINIANUS AND LEONTIUS, PERHAPS MARTYRS,
IN LUCANIA IN ITALY.
Their cultus from the Martyrologies; notice of the place.
Valentinianus, perhaps M., in Lucania in Italy (St.)
Leontius, perhaps M., in Lucania in Italy (St.)
J. P.
Of the ancient cultus of these Saints it is established from various sacred Calendars. [They are marked by Rabanus, in the Usuardine supplements, and in the Rheinau Martyrology, etc.] Rabanus thus announces them: In Lucania, SS. Valentinianus, Leontius. Among the Usuardine supplements published by us they are also reported most briefly from Greven, with the name of one somewhat changed, however: In Lucania, of the holy Valentianus and Leontius. (In the same place, from the Vatican exemplar: In Lucania, S. Leoncius.) Add the abridged Hieronymian Martyrology of Rheinau, published among us in volume VII of the month of June, where these things are: And in Lucania, of Valentia Valentinianus and Leontius. And then, on the XXI day of this month: And in Lucania, of Valentinus and Leontius. But between these and those there seems to me too great a likeness for me to divide them into two different classes, although they be announced on different days; whether they have been intruded here twice by confusion, or are venerated on those two days. The shorter Corbie Martyrology does not indeed place them twice; but only on the XX day it has thus: In Lucania, the birthday of the holy Valentianus, Leontius. Castellan in his Universal Martyrology marks only St. Valentinianus the martyr in Lucania on this day.
[2] But of that region of Italy Leandro Alberti has collected very many things in his Description of All Italy, The situation of the province of Lucania. which it would be too long to transcribe hither. Yet I take briefly these things from Baudrand: Its boundaries were, on the north, the river Silarus, by which it was separated from the Picentini, and the river Bradanus, by which it was divided from the Apulian Peucetii; on the south, the river Laus, by which it was distinguished from the Bruttii; and on the east it was bounded by the Tarentine gulf, and on the west by the Tyrrhene sea; and it was in that part where now is the province of Basilicata of the kingdom of Naples, with the greatest part of the province of the Hither Principate toward the south, and a small part of Hither Calabria, according to Cluverius. Ferrari also may be consulted concerning Lucania in his Topography to the Roman Martyrology.
[3] Whether the Saints pertain to this region or to the city of Lucca. Moreover that announcement in Florentini, In Lucana, the birthday of holy Valentinianus, Leontius, furnished the man a handle for disputing whether these Saints pertain to the city of Lucca or to the region of Lucania. But after the various readings of the exemplars which he produces on either side, he candidly confesses that he is reduced to this, that he cannot favor one more than the other, thus concluding the present disputation: It is therefore not lawful for me to decide anything certain. And indeed who could decide anything here — I do not say certainly, but at least probably — from the faulty, dislocated, and corrupted readings which have crept both into the Martyrology published by Florentini and into other exemplars? What of this, that in Florentini's Martyrology itself, on the day next following, there is had: In the province of Lucania, the birthday of the holy Valentinus, Leontius. But that these, who stand there on the XXI of August, recorded In the province of Lucania, are different from those who on the day before were marked in Florentini's text In Lucana, seems difficult to believe. Consult Florentini in the notes on the XX day of this month. And so neither of those readings appears sufficiently consistent, so that I do not at all perceive that it is necessary, either on account of this or of others, to depart from the province of Lucania to the city of Lucca in announcing our aforesaid Saints: who seem to me to have been martyrs, if the reading be genuine in which the word natalis is applied to them; but because that does not exist in the other Martyrologies which we have cited, therefore we said that they are perhaps to be reckoned among the martyrs.