Cyriaca

ON ST. CYRIACA, WIDOW AND MARTYR,

AT ROME,

UNDER DECIUS OR VALERIAN.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Cyriaca, widow and martyr, at Rome (St.)

BHL Number: 2055

BY G. C.

§ I. The lawful cultus of this Saint, her Acts, and the time of her martyrdom.

The Roman Martyrology today announces the memory of this holy Matron thus: At Rome, in the Veranian field, St. Cyriaca, widow and martyr, This Saint is reported in the Roman Martyrology, who in the persecution of Valerian, when she had spent herself and all that was hers in the service of the Saints, at length undergoing martyrdom for Christ, freely spent her very life also. Bartolomeo Piazza, in the Roman Hemerology, part 2, page 186, asserts that on this day the festival of that holy Martyr is celebrated in various churches of Rome, and that notable relics of her are preserved there. These things, and others which will be said below, suffice to demonstrate the immemorial cultus of that Saint, although we have not found mention of her in the most ancient Martyrologies.

[2] Even though the Roman Martyrology hands down that St. Cyriaca suffered in the persecution of Valerian, and from a certain collection of Baronius nevertheless the Acts to be subjoined here immediately place her martyrdom under the reign of Decius and the prefecture of Valerian. A brief history of her Acts, which we received transcribed from the Baronian collection, volume 7, folio 87, runs thus: In the times of Decius Cæsar and of Valerian the prefect there was a certain Matron, most noble by birth, most Christian in her virtues, Cyriace by name, powerful in the dignity of her name: for Cyriace in Greek is rendered in Latin Dominica. She had lived with her husband eleven years, and had remained in the most sincere widowhood thirty-two years; and out of her means she daily furnished comfort to the poor of Christ. But when the fervor of the persecution pressed on, this Matron offered her house, which was on the Cælian Hill, to the soldiers of Christ, that is to say to the saints, for assembling and for the imparting of the Lord's Sacraments, terrified by no fear.

[3] But when a multitude of the soldiers of Christ had passed to the starry realms, and the most blessed bishop Xystus was glorying with Christ through the glorious crown of martyrdom, her Acts are given, the blessed Laurence the archdeacon, having received power over the treasures of the Church to be distributed to the poor, began to search through the regions wherever the holy poor were hidden. And coming to the Cælian Hill he found in the house of blessed Cyriaca many Christian priests and clerics, and there, having performed the Lord's commandment, he bestowed upon the poor of Christ, as each had need, from the resources of the Church; and he also freed Cyriaca the widow from an infirmity of the head. But after the glorious passion of St. Laurence, Decius and Valerian ordered the most holy Cyriaca to be brought forward, and Decius, having heard many affronts from her, caused the mouth of blessed Cyriaca to be battered a very long time, and then had her shut up in the closest confinement.

[4] But when morning had come, Decius ordered her to be led before his presence, in which she is said to have suffered under Decius, and said to her: "Hast thou with a sound mind considered with thyself this night to offer libations to our gods?" Holy Cyriace answered: "Not to the gods, but to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living and true God, do I offer myself in sacrifice." Then Valerian said to Decius: "Her impiety must be struck in manifold ways: for she reckons the worship of the gods as nothing." But Decius ordered her to be beaten very long with cudgels; and when she had given thanks to God, she was so healed that not even a mark of the beating could be found upon her limbs. Whereupon Decius and Valerian, enraged, withdrew into the palace in distress \, because they were being overcome by a woman. After this they caused her to be afflicted with leaded scourges and scorpions until she gave up her spirit to the Lord. But the Christians buried her body in the estate of that same most holy Martyr, in the Veranian field, not far from the body of blessed Laurence, on the western side (there in the cemetery, above, holy Cyriace the widow is the first), on the tenth of the Kalends of September.* Even though this holy Widow obtained the laurel of martyrdom on the XXI day of August, as authors commonly agree, she could nevertheless have been buried on the XXIII of the same month, that is, on the tenth of the Kalends of September, as is here read.

[5] For the rest, the learned reader sees that in these Acts the martyrdom of St. Cyriaca is placed under Decius. even though the Roman Martyrology places her under Valerian; But how, someone will say, do these things cohere with the Roman Martyrology, which affirms that she suffered in the persecution of Valerian? Certainly Decius and Valerian cannot be said to have reigned together, since upon the death of Decius Gallus succeeded, and after him Æmilianus reigned three months, before Valerian was raised to the summit of the Roman empire. If anyone, to reconcile these things with one another, should answer from the Acts that Valerian was prefect of the city under Decius, and that hence the persecution is imputed to both, Tillemont, volume 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 327, and other severe critics deny that a prefecture of Valerian at that time is found in ancient and trustworthy monuments.

[6] But at least Valerian was elected censor at Rome by a decree of the senate under the emperor Decius, which Baronius as the ancient historian Trebellius Pollio testifies, whose words the most eminent Baronius reports in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 253, number 140 and following, and to which he subjoins this bearing upon our matter: Thus far Pollio, weaving from a decree of the senate of that kind the praises of Valerian, who under compulsion received that magistracy and vigorously exercised it; would that he had done so piously and justly: since indeed, laboring by the duty of the censorship to restore the ancestral superstition of his country, which he had cultivated from his earliest years, he showed himself most unjust and most severe against the Christians, who were deserters from it. Wherefore it came to pass that laws were inscribed with his name also, and edicts were promulgated against the Christians, so that the same persecution was reckoned under the name of both, namely of Decius and of Valerian, and under that name persisted thereafter; because, once the persecution had been ennobled with the title of the names of those who were held to be most just and most holy, so that it might be accounted the more religious and the more just, it raged the more freely against the Church of Christ.

[7] strives to reconcile, From these things, therefore, very many entanglements and perplexities are resolved, since a great many martyrs are read to have suffered together in the persecution of Decius and Valerian, whom it is agreed did not reign together at the same time, but at different times; and because some, whom it is plain to have suffered under Decius, are handed down to have likewise endured martyrdom under Valerian; and those whom the persecution of Valerian carried off are read to have suffered under Decius and Valerian. He who does not consider these things must needs entangle himself in innumerable and plainly insoluble errors, and be carried through byways, and be detained by the manifold windings of the roads. Although this reconciliation of the Acts with the Roman Martyrology was subtly devised by the most eminent Baronius, nevertheless Antoine Pagi deserves to be read, who in his Critica on the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius, at the year of Christ 251, number 9, opposes a certain difficulty to this opinion.

[8] and which we think should be set down disjunctively. Nevertheless St. Jerome, in the Life of St. Paul the hermit, does not distinguish the persecution of Decius and of Valerian, when in volume 4, part 2, of the latest Parisian edition, column 69, he writes thus: Under the persecutors Decius and Valerian, at which time Cornelius at Rome and Cyprian at Carthage endured martyrdom by a happy shedding of blood, a savage storm laid waste many churches throughout Egypt and the Thebaid. Moreover that holy doctor, in the place just cited of the same Parisian edition, in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, column 122, again makes mention of this persecution thus: Methodius, bishop of Olympus in Lycia and afterwards of Tyre, composed books of polished and well-ordered discourse against Porphyry, … and at the last was crowned with martyrdom in the most recent persecution (by this manner of speaking the persecution of Diocletian is indicated, which was the last) or, as others affirm, under Decius and Valerian, at Chalcis in Greece. This last assertion of St. Jerome could be explained according to the mind of Cardinal Baronius. But we rather believe that the writers of the Acts, after one or another century had elapsed, did not know with sufficient distinctness under which emperor the martyrs had been crowned, and that they therefore assigned both persecutions, or confused the one with the other. Hence in St. Jerome's own time some affirmed that St. Methodius suffered in the most recent persecution of Diocletian, while others placed his martyrdom under Decius and Valerian, as is clear from this last testimony of the holy doctor. Since therefore the Acts set the martyrdom of St. Cyriaca under Decius, and the Roman Martyrology in the persecution of Valerian, we, for want of more certain notice, have judged that it should be placed disjunctively under Decius or Valerian.

\ perhaps angusti ambo* ("both in straits").

§ II. The Saint's first burial, the translation of her body, and a doubt concerning another translation of the same.

The body of this Saint, which had been buried in her own estate, In the Acts related above we read toward the end that this holy Matron, after her martyrdom was consummated, was buried by the Christians in her own estate, which afterwards was called the cemetery of St. Cyriaca, and concerning which Paolo Aringhi, in book 4 of Roma subterranea, chapter 16, has the following: The most celebrated cemetery of Cyriaca was once built on the Tiburtine Way, chiefly in that place where now stands the notable basilica of the blessed martyr Laurence, in the field of that same Cyriaca, a most noble woman among the Roman ladies, whom also under the emperor Valerian

we have learned from the Roman Martyrology to have been crowned with an illustrious martyrdom, namely on the XII of the Kalends of September. He then sets forth some fragments of the Acts of St. Cyriaca, and enumerates certain Saints buried in this cemetery, to which he adds these words: In the same place likewise, at the Veranian field, that Cyriaca herself, a matron of exceptional piety, who had laid the first foundations of this cemetery, was laid to rest not far from the very body of blessed Laurence, after she had consummated a noble martyrdom for the faith, as is set forth in these words in the manuscript Acts of the same in the Vallicellian Codex. To this he subjoins the last lines of the Acts, altogether like those we have reported above. Whence we conjecture that the Acts presented above proceeded from that same Vallicellian manuscript Codex.

[10] Finally Aringhi, toward the end of the cited chapter 16, records it was translated to the church of St. Martin at Rome, that various inscriptions were translated from the cemetery of St. Cyriaca to the church of St. Martin, and at the same time makes mention of the translation of the body of St. Cyriaca in these words: Further, that a great many of these inscriptions were carried off to the church of St. Martin, or to the titulus of Equitius, the same Bosio conjectures, moved even by this one argument, that there, upon certain halved stones which still survive in the pavement of that same church, the name of the divine Laurence is read inscribed: to which opinion that argument also seems conveniently to lend support, that, in duly reviewing the sacred antiquities, we have already learned that the body of blessed Cyriaca was carried to that same titulus of Equitius by Pope Sergius the Second and there laid up most honorably, as the inscription, which is read there to this very day, testifies plainly enough.

[11] Cardinal Baronius, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 847, number 4, sets forth this old inscription, as from an ancient marble tablet, which, carved upon a marble tablet, runs thus: In the times of the Lord Sergius the Younger, Pope, there were laid up in this sacred altar the bodies of the blessed prelate Silvester and of the blessed Martin. Likewise the bodies of the most blessed Fabian and Stephen with Soter, martyr and Pontiff; and together with them Asterius with his most holy daughter, and holy Cyriacus, Papias, Maurus, Largus and Smaragdus and their companions; Sisinnius and Anastasius and Innocent, Pontiffs, together with holy Quirinus and Leo; and likewise Artemius, Sisianus, Pollio, Theodore, Nicander, Crescentianus, martyrs; and with blessed Soteris and Paulina, and also Memmia, Juliana, and Quirilla, Theophista, Sophia, virgins and martyrs; and blessed Quiriaca the widow (our Saint also is called by this name instead of Cyriaca in ancient monuments) and blessed Justa with many others, whose names are known to God alone; and, dedicating them, he placed them all beneath the sacred altar. These bodies of the Saints were translated from the cemetery of Priscilla on the Salarian Way: appointing every year on their festivals an indulgence of three years and three quarantines to all who devoutly come to them.

[12] and we learn from Anastasius the Librarian. Anastasius the Librarian, in Fabrot's edition, page 173 and the following, has similar things; but he makes no mention of the cemetery of Priscilla on the Salarian Way, nor does he say a word of the indulgences which are recorded in this tablet, and he omits some of the Saints expressed there, among whom nevertheless he reckons St. Quiriaca or Cyriaca the widow. Baronius also, in the notes on the Roman Martyrology on this day, advises that the body of St. Cyriaca the widow was translated by the Pontiff Sergius II into the titulus of Equitius, that is, into the church of St. Martin; but that most eminent writer keeps deep silence concerning any later translation of this sacred body, so that St. Cyriaca would seem still to rest in the same church of St. Martin. Nevertheless Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza, who at Rome in the year 1675 published in Italian a Sanctuary or Roman Menology, at the XXI day of August, that is, at page 283 of the first part, affirms that the body of this St. Cyriaca is preserved in the church of St. Mary in Campitelli, and assigns to the church of St. Mary Major a part of an arm from the same sacred body. We do not know whether perhaps this translation of the body was made after the age of Cardinal Baronius, and therefore we shall await further notice of this matter from the learned men of Rome. But there remains another difficulty, and that no lesser one, which we shall now set forth.

[13] The Carmelites of Wesel in Germany are said to have it, Johannes Molanus, in his Additions to the Martyrology of Usuard, announces on this day the yearly festival of Quiriaca, a Roman matron and martyr, resting at Upper Wesel among the Carmelites, concerning whom see in the passion of blessed Laurence. Our venerable Peter Canisius, in his German Martyrology, assigns to this holy Martyr the same place of rest, which in the vernacular he calls obern-Wesel, that is, Upper Wesel. Now this German town, which is situated on the border of the Lower Palatinate on the Rhine, and now obeys the Elector of Trier, is called Wesalia or Vesalia Superior, that it may be distinguished from another town of the same name, which more exact geographers place in the Duchy of Cleves, and which for the sake of distinction they surname Lower Wesel. Since the Carmelite Fathers have long possessed the church of St. Martin at Rome, it could easily have come about that their brethren of Wesel received the body of St. Cyriaca, or at least notable relics of her, from that Roman church. Nevertheless we doubt concerning that translation of the sacred body, on account of some scruples not altogether to be despised, of which we desire to be relieved before we hold the opinion of Molanus and Canisius as certain.

[14] concerning which translation we doubt, The most eminent Baronius doubtless read the Martyrology of Usuard, which Molanus published with additions in the year 1568 or 1573, since in the Precapitulation on the Roman Martyrology, chapter 9, he praises that very editor in these words: He has, if anyone should seek more, a brilliant and exceedingly pious and learned lucubration on that subject by the Reverend Lord Johannes Molanus, theologian of Louvain, which he placed in the second edition of his Usuard, prefixed under the title of an Appendix on the Martyrologies; concerning which we think the reader should be reminded of that which seems worthy of astonishment: namely, why he, in setting up a learned treatment of all the Martyrologies, nevertheless omitted to treat of the Roman Martyrology. You may know that this indeed was done neither wrongfully nor (which is far from a most pious man) with evil intent; but because he thought that the Roman Church used no other Martyrology than that of Usuard: for this he himself testifies in the same little book, chapter 4; and thus, treating of the Martyrology of Usuard, he thought that on that reckoning satisfaction had been made for the Roman also. For he believed that no other Roman Martyrology was to be found than that which is had printed at Venice, written, corrected, and published, by Alessandro de' Peregrini, priest of Brescia. For there escaped Molanus a great many ancient manuscript copies of the Roman Martyrology, from which he might have understood more certainly what and of what sort the genuine Roman Martyrology itself was. A tolerable error indeed, and worthy of pardon, since he, placed so far off, was ignorant of those things which they who live at Rome have scarcely attained by great labor, watchful diligence, and the utmost industry. Why then was Baronius silent concerning this translation of St. Cyriaca to Wesel, since he was accustomed to commemorate various translations of other Saints in his Martyrology or in his notes?

[15] Perhaps Molanus would afterwards, having seen the new edition of the Roman Martyrology, and against it we set the silence of Baronius, have changed his opinion in this matter also, had not death forestalled him, as we gather in some measure from the same most eminent writer, who immediately subjoins the following to the words just reported: But I rejoiced not a little when lately, very opportunely, the printer being already girded for the second edition, I learned from a letter of the Reverend Lord Henricus Gravius, theologian of Louvain, that this conjecture and suspicion of mine had by no means been vain or empty. For he writes to me that the Reverend Lord Molanus, having received the newly published Roman Martyrology, presently, having thoroughly revised and enlarged his own notes which he had long since written upon Usuard, adjusted and accommodated them to that same Martyrology; but that, he being taken away by a premature death, less could be done. Which accordingly was the reason why I began to treat by letter with the aforesaid Lord Gravius, that he should not omit to publish the monument of a most learned man: for so it would come about that, by the concurring testimony of two or three, the truth might be more firmly provided for. For my part I do not with equanimity suffer even a short slip of paper of so great a man, who has deserved so exceedingly well of the Church of God and of Catholic truth, to perish; to whom (I shall say it frankly) I owe all these things on this side, because he, having first entered into a most dense forest, opened the approach to me and to others; on which account both I and all the learned gladly acknowledge and confess that we owe him very much. We candidly confess that by this argument of ours, which is conjectural, the matter is not yet proved. Wherefore we add to it another, which we desire to have resolved.

[16] Giovanni Battista de Lezana, in the Annals of the Carmelites, volume 3, page 402 and following, from Anastasius the Librarian and from the marble tablet enumerates the Saints the Annals of Giovanni Battista de Lezana, whose bodies the Pontiff Sergius II translated into the church of St. Martin, and among whom we found our St. Quiriaca or Cyriaca above. Then this Annalist, in the Appendix to the third volume of the same Work, narrates at length how the most reverend General of the Carmelites, Giovanni Antonio Filippini, in the year 1642 adorned that same church of St. Martin; and there at page 573, praising that diligent and industrious man, he says with the fullest right that this restoration or adornment of the church was indeed conformable to the author's piety and devotion toward so many and so notable Saints as those whose memorials are placed beneath that altar; namely Silvester, Martin, Fabian, Soter, Stephen, Anastasius, and Innocent, Roman Pontiffs; Asterius, Cyriacus, Maurus, Largus, and Smaragdus, and others of both sexes, whom we have reported in a long series in the preceding pages. But among these he had reported by name, from ancient monuments, St. Quiriaca or Cyriaca the widow, of whose translation we here treat.

[17] and the testimony of the Roman Carmelites, Further, the aforesaid Carmelite Annalist proceeds thus in the same place, to our purpose: But although there can be no doubt that these most precious treasures of relics and of the bodies of holy men and women are laid up in that place, and our Brethren had no desire to be made more certain of this; nevertheless, when for the construction of the vaults, steps, walls, and other ornaments of the said cemetery, altar, and chamber a great part of the earth had been dug out and excavated, it happened by chance that the marble chest, in which this heavenly treasure is believed to be laid up, enclosed by a certain brick wall, was dimly discerned; but when a candle had been lighted and brought as near as possible, it was more clearly ascertained that this was the place of the holy relics. The Brethren therefore, having piously venerated it, left it altogether UNTOUCHED; though for the perpetual memory of the matter they drew up this instrument or attestation, the original of which is kept in the archive of that same convent.

[18] who possess the church of St. Martin. Then finally he sets forth the authentic instrument of this matter, to which witnesses beyond all exception subscribe, and at the end of which the following is read: When the said General, with others

Fathers, had diligently observed and religiously venerated it, WITH NOTHING MOVED OR CHANGED, he ordered that the vault be built over it. But he wished this authentic testimony, subscribed also by those who were eyewitnesses of the aforesaid, to come down to posterity, that they might be the more certain that the bodies of very many Saints are laid up there, as ancient tradition bears, and as is evident from the old marble tablet which is preserved in the aforesaid church to this day. Now we desire to learn how the Carmelite Fathers of Wesel in the sixteenth century had the body of St. Cyriaca the widow, when the Roman Carmelite Fathers about the middle of the seventeenth century by chance discovered the sacred treasure of relics, among which the body of that holy widow once was, and left it, with nothing moved or changed, untouched, as is evident from the Annals and from the authentic testimony. If in this we stray from the truth, or our scruple is empty, let the German Carmelite Fathers deign to instruct us with solid arguments as to when and how they received from Rome the body of St. Cyriaca the widow, or notable relics of her. And these are the things which we have been able to find concerning that holy Widow and Martyr.