ON SS. DONATUS AND RESTITUTUS AND VALERIANUS AND FRUCTUOSA AND TWELVE OTHER MARTYRS
AT ANTIOCH IN SYRIA.
Perhaps in the fourth century.
The arena of these Martyrs, their memory in the Martyrologies, and the doubtful time of the martyrdom.
Donatus, martyr at Antioch in Syria (St.)
Restitutus, martyr at Antioch in Syria (St.)
Valerianus, martyr at Antioch in Syria (St.)
Fructuosa, martyr at Antioch in Syria (St.)
The twelve other Companions, martyrs at Antioch in Syria (SS.)
BY G. C.
Among the geographers various cities of the East are assigned which were formerly called by the name of Antioch. The ambiguous arena of these Martyrs, Among these are chiefly celebrated Antioch of Syria and Antioch of Pisidia, each of which cities had unconquered athletes who underwent martyrdom for the Christian faith. I should easily have believed that for the most part Antioch of Syria, or the great Antioch, is designated when nothing is added. Since nevertheless this is uncertain, and in this announcement of the holy Martyrs it certainly cannot be drawn out from any adjuncts, at the beginning of this Sylloge I doubted whether I should expressly state in the title above the arena of that glorious combat. But afterwards I resolved this doubt from the authority of the most eminent Cardinal Baronius, who in the topographical index of the Roman Martyrology, distinguishing the martyrs of Antioch in Pisidia from those of Antioch in Syria, ascribes our Saints of today by name to this city. If perhaps some other person composed this topographical index, it is on his credit that I have placed the combat of those Champions in the city of Antioch in Syria.
[2] Further, the present Roman Martyrology nearly agrees with Ado and Usuard, who are announced in the Martyrologies who both announce those Martyrs on the XXIII day of August in these words: The birthday of the holy martyrs Donatus, Restitutus, Valerianus, Fructuosa, with twelve others, who were crowned with the most illustrious honor of confession at Antioch. Our Sollier, in his observations on the Martyrology of Usuard which he published at Antwerp in the year 1714, notes the following on this day concerning that announcement of Usuard: A memory of the Champions of Antioch more ancient than the Martyrology of Ado I do not find on this day; nor had Usuard another fountain, from which he so drew his own that he did not change even a syllable. We seek Ado's fountain; but nothing thus far has it been possible to find. Although I willingly grant that Usuard, after his manner, transcribed this announcement from Ado, yet he might have seen it in the Martyrology of St. Jerome or of the venerable Bede, since in his prologue he testifies that he sometimes trod in the footsteps of these Martyrologists.
[3] Indeed I seem to myself to have found on another day that very fountain of Ado which Sollier sought in vain on this day, on different days, in various copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology
transcripts, in which, in Florentinius, on the XV day of November I read thus: At Antioch, the birthday of Saints Donatus, Restitutus, Valerianus, and Fructuosa, with others to the number of XII. But Florentinius, after having reported the announcements of the other codices, which come very near to the foregoing, thus admonishes the reader in his notes in the same place: The codices unanimously present Donatus with three companions distinguished by name, from which our more ancient Martyrology is confirmed; but the anonymous XII reckoned in our books and in the Corbie one are thirteen in the Antwerp Martyrology, from which we are admonished that we must read Fructuosa, not Fructuosus, especially since the title MATRON is added, unless this were the name of the martyr and not of her condition. Then he briefly shows that certain women martyrs were called by the proper name of Matrona. It seems therefore that Ado had these or like registers before his eyes.
[4] and whom Ado probably from more ancient monuments But someone will ask how on the XXIII day of August Ado placed these Martyrs of Antioch, who on the XV day of November are announced in divers Hieronymian transcripts. To this question he himself answers in the prologue of his Martyrology, when he thus forewarns the reader: Lest thou shouldst think that in this work I have labored in vain and have carried out an unnecessary thing, I will briefly open to thee the cause of the deed. The first was the command and bidding of holy men, that those days should be supplied which had been noted only without the names of martyrs in the Martyrology (which had grown by the zeal of the venerable Florus upon the labor of the lord Bede)… To this Work, that the days of the Martyrs might be most truly noted, which are wont to be found confused enough in the Calendars, there gave help a venerable and very ancient Martyrology, sent from the city of Rome to Aquileia to a certain holy bishop by the Roman Pontiff, and afterwards lent to me for some days by a certain religious brother.
[5] recorded on the 23rd day of August. It might therefore easily have come to pass that Ado changed the yearly memory of these Martyrs of Antioch from the more ancient Martyrologies and transferred it to the XXIII day of August; because in the Martyrology of Bede, or rather of Florus, which with the supplements of others our Elders prefixed to the second volume of March, on this very XXIII day of August those Martyrs are commemorated from the Dijon transcript in these words: The birthday of the holy martyrs Donatus, Restitutus, Valerianus, Fructuosa, with twelve others, who were crowned with the most illustrious honor of confession at Antioch. In the supplements of Florus just cited the yearly commemoration of the same Martyrs is again celebrated on the XV day of November, as may be seen there. But whichever be the true day of the martyrdom or of the ancient veneration, with Ado, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology I have preferred the XXIII day of August, and have today inserted those Martyrs into our Work. Moreover I frankly confess that I have thus far not found in ancient monuments the time in which those Champions obtained the laurel of martyrdom at Antioch. Since nevertheless Castellanus and the latest Paris Martyrology have noted in the margin at the announcement of these Martyrs the fourth century, and since I judge that this was not done rashly, I have above expressed the same century under doubt, after the example of those authors who probably drew it out from some source, although I have not known the ancient asserters of that chronology.