ON THE HOLY THREE HUNDRED MARTYRS COMMONLY CALLED THE WHITE MASS
AT CARTHAGE OR UTICA IN AFRICA,
In the year 258.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
The Three Hundred Martyrs, or the White Mass, at Carthage or at Utica in Africa (SS.)
BY G. C.
§ I. The ancient cult of these Martyrs, their number, and their Acts.
In certain copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology this cohort of Martyrs is announced under the dislocated name of the massa candida, These Martyrs from time immemorial as may be seen in Florentinius's Martyrology and in his notes at the XVIII day of August. The most ancient Calendar of the church of Carthage, which the most learned Mabillon published in volume 3 of his Vetera Analecta, from page 398, and illustrated with notes, the certain day of the festival having been erased, makes mention of those Martyrs thus: … Kal. Sept. Of the Saints of the White Mass. The old Roman Martyrology, which our Rosweyde published, thus briefly adds to this announcement the day and the arena of the martyrdom: IX Kal. (of September, as is plain from what precedes) of the White Mass, at Carthage. Of that arena of the martyrdom we shall treat hereafter.
[2] Meanwhile St. Ado, at the same IX Kalends of September, or the XXIV of August, sets forth these brief and obscure announcements more clearly in his Martyrology, thus: are celebrated in the ancient Martyrologies, On the same day, at Carthage, the holy martyrs of the White Mass, who suffered in the time of Valerian and Gallienus; for they relate that among other punishments the governor then had a furnace of lime kindled, and coals with incense set at the mouth of it, and that the governor said to the Christians: Choose one of two things, either to offer incense upon these coals to Jupiter, or to be plunged into the lime. Then three hundred men, armed with faith, with a most rapid rush cast themselves into the fire, confessing Christ the Son of God to be God, and were plunged amid the vapors of the powdered lime. Whence also that white-robed army of the blessed deserved to be called the White Mass. Usuard and the compilers of the present Roman Martyrology, with a few changes, have imitated Ado, who probably took his own account from Prudentius, as we shall see below. Let this suffice concerning the immemorial cult of these Martyrs, and let us proceed to establish their number.
[3] and were probably three hundred Prudentius, Ado, and others everywhere assert that they were three hundred in number. Baronius and others, following that most eminent man too easily, think that St. Augustine contradicts so great a number, since in his Treatise on Psalm 49 he affirms that this White Mass had more than one hundred and fifty-three martyrs. Whence that most eminent author writes as follows today in his notes on the Roman Martyrology: But as to the number: since Pontius says they were three hundred, and all the Martyrologies profess the same, it is thought that there is a corruption in St. Augustine, when in the said treatise so much smaller a number is set down. Florentinius, on the XVIII day of August in the notes on his Hieronymian Martyrology, repeats almost the same in this manner: Almost all teach that that sacred Mass consisted of three hundred martyrs. Yet the divine Augustine, on Psalm XLIX, affirms that it had one hundred and fifty-three martyrs; where the most learned Baronius thinks that the numeral sign has contracted a corruption, since Pontius and others teach that they were three hundred. So also Prudentius testifies concerning the ancient tradition, in the Peristephanon and the hymn of St. Cyprian, where, from the meter of the verses, no corruption could exist. Then he cites the following verse of Prudentius:
Forth leapt, eager, in swift course, three hundred at once.
But I do not see why one should have recourse to a corruption, if all the words of the holy Doctor be maturely weighed.
[4] to which number, as some wrongly suppose, Wherefore let us patiently hear the whole metaphor or allegory which St. Augustine sets forth in his Enarration on the said Psalm 49, or in the Plantin edition of his Works, volume 8, page 190 and the following, in these words: After the resurrection the Lord bids the nets be cast on the right side; a hundred and fifty-three fishes are drawn up. And although they were so many and so great, says the Evangelist, the nets were not broken. For before the Passion he bade the nets be cast, without saying on the right side or on the left; because if he had said on the right, he would have signified the good alone; if on the left, the wicked alone. But where right and left are unmentioned, good and bad are taken together. And there were taken then, as the truth of the Gospel attests, so many that the nets were broken: for that catch signified this present time. The broken nets signify the cuttings and rendings of heretics and schismatics. But what the Lord did after his resurrection, he signified would be ours after our resurrection, in that number of the kingdom of heaven, where none shall be wicked.
[5] Therefore the nets which were cast on the right side expressed those on the right hand, the left being removed. St. Augustine is not opposed, Yet shall there be among those on the right only a hundred and fifty-three just? The Scripture signifies thousands of thousands. Read the Apocalypse: twelve times twelve thousand perhaps, as is there understood, are to be from the Jewish people alone. Consider the multitude of the martyrs. That one company nearby, which is called THE WHITE MASS, has more than a hundred and fifty-three martyrs. Lastly, those seven thousand of whom it is answered to Elias — I have left me seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee before Baal — far exceed that number of fishes. The hundred and fifty-three fishes, therefore, do not signify only that number of the Saints, but the Scripture signifies by so great a number, for a certain cause, the whole number of the Saints and the just, so that all who belong to the resurrection of eternal life may be understood in those hundred and fifty-three. From these things attentively considered it is plain that the number of those African Martyrs is not determined by Augustine, and that his whole exposition stands, even though three thousand instead of three hundred had then undergone martyrdom. Hence, with Prudentius and the ancient Martyrologists, we have expressed three hundred in the title, and we do not think that St. Augustine is opposed to us. Now we must set forth what we find written of old concerning those Martyrs.
[6] St. Augustine delivered a discourse on the annual festival of our Martyrs; who also delivered a discourse concerning them. but he taught us nothing particular about their deeds, since in sermon 112, or in the aforesaid Plantin edition, volume 10 of his Works, page 590, he sets forth in an oratorical and general way the cause alone of their martyrdom, thus: This is the first cause of Martyrs; this is the white mass of the Martyrs. If the cause is white, the mass also is white: for it was called a mass from the multitude of the number, and white from the brightness of the cause. Then on the following page, after many other things which apply to all Martyrs, he exhorts his hearers to imitate them in these words: Let us therefore celebrate the solemnity of the White Mass with a white conscience, and, following the footsteps of the Martyrs, and looking upon the head of the martyrs and our own head, if we desire to come to so great a good, let us not fear the hard road. He who promised is truthful, he who promised is faithful, he who promised cannot deceive. Let us therefore say to him with a white conscience: For the words of thy lips I have kept hard ways. Why dost thou fear the hard ways of sufferings and tribulations? He himself passed through them. Thou answerest, perhaps: but he was he. The Apostles passed through. Still thou answerest: but they were Apostles. I grant it. Answer this. Afterward many men also passed through. Blush for shame. Women too passed through. Thou hast come to the passion an old man. Fear not death, for the very reason that thou art near to death. Thou art young. Young men too passed through, who still hoped for life. Boys too passed through, and girls too passed through. How is the way still rough, which so many have smoothed by walking it? This, then, is our solemn and constant admonition to you, brethren, that we celebrate the solemnities of the martyrs not with an empty solemnity, but that what we love in their solemnities we may not shrink from imitating also with a like faith. Here we learn nothing about the Acts of the White Mass, as the reader sees.
[7] Aurelius Prudentius in the Acts of St. Cyprian A more distinct knowledge of the Acts is supplied us by Aurelius Prudentius, when in the book Peristephanon, hymn 13, he sings that these Martyrs were
roused to constancy in the faith by St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and brings in that prelate praying thus for his flock:
Grant also that none be slothful of the flock which, being thine, I ruled; Nor let any of thine fall, impatient of punishment, nor stagger; That I may render the number to thee unharmed, and pay what is owed. With these words he had moved the Lord: thence flowed The Spirit into the people of Carthage, the author of a keener Temper, so that their breasts grew warm under the goads applied, To seek the excellent glory through the peril of blood; Teaching them not to tremble, nor to yield, nor to be overcome by pain; To be carried away by love of praise, to savor Christ, and to guard the faith.
Since this noble cohort of three hundred Champions was animated to the Christian contest by the prelate Cyprian, we may at least gather approximately the time of their martyrdom, as we shall show hereafter.
[8] relates the history of this martyrdom, Then Prudentius, in the same place, relates from common tradition the history of their martyrdom in these verses:
Report relates that a pit was ordered to lie open in the midst of the field, Filled with steaming lime nearly to its topmost brim. The twice-baked stones belch fire, and the snowy powder burns, Able to scorch whatever it touches; and deadly is the breath of its smell. They record that an altar was set and stood at the pit's edge, Under this law: that the worshippers of Christ should offer either a grain of salt Or a swine's liver, or of their own will rush into the depths of the pit's midst. Forth leapt, eager, in swift course, three hundred at once: The dry liquid devoured them, sunk in the dusty gulf, And wrapped the headlong mass down to the lowest bottom. Whiteness holds their bodies, whiteness bears their souls on high; Thenceforth it deserved to be called the White Mass for all time.
[9] which Baronius follows, This narration of Prudentius the most eminent Baronius followed, who in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 261, number 48, writes thus of the glorious contest of these Martyrs: There suffered at Carthage, under the pressure of the same persecution, three hundred martyrs on the ninth Kalends of September; in what year, however, is unknown. But since the history of that deed is joined, both by Prudentius and by others, to the martyrdom of Cyprian, it has seemed more advisable, after the manner of our predecessors, to treat of them here. Those same Martyrs then shone forth most illustriously, who, among other punishments, when the governor had ordered a lime-kiln to be kindled, and had commanded that beside it a tripod and incense together with live coals should be set forth, and when the proconsul had given them the choice, either to burn incense to Jupiter or to be themselves cast into the fire — they, rejecting the offered condition as unworthy, and giving their answer by deed rather than by word, and all conspiring together in the same resolve, cast themselves with a most rapid rush into the kindled furnace, at the impulse of the divine Spirit; and being burned by the fire and mingled with the lime, they were called THE WHITE MASS.
[10] But we do not see how the most eminent Baronius can reconcile his own narration, or that of Prudentius, with an ancient discourse who nevertheless can scarcely be reconciled with himself. which he himself, in his notes on the Roman Martyrology for this day, places among the Augustinian ones with this manner of speaking: We have read yet another sermon of St. Augustine concerning the White Mass, in a manuscript codex of St. Mary ad Martyres at Rome, placed among the lessons which used to be read on the solemnity of All Saints. It begins: Dearly beloved brethren, we celebrate the birthday of the Martyrs, etc. On account of this very sermon and other reasons to be cited below, Tillemont, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 176, doubts whether common report, whose testimony is often suspect, may not have deceived Prudentius. Certainly this sermon, which we shall afterward set forth entire for the curious reader, differs much from the history of Prudentius, and plainly indicates a different manner of their precious death. Wherefore in the following paragraph we shall now endeavor to investigate the arena, the time, and the other circumstances of this martyrdom.
§ II. A discussion concerning the arena, the time, the manner, and the kind of this martyrdom.
These Martyrs suffered at Carthage, Ado, Usuard, and other Martyrologists, whom Prudentius favors, place the contest of these Martyrs at Carthage. Nevertheless this same cohort of glorious Champions is called by Augustine the White Mass of Utica, as may be read in sermon 115 On Divers Matters, in the Plantin edition, volume 10 of his Works, page 594. The most eminent Baronius today, in his notes on the Roman Martyrology, endeavors to assign some cause for this appellation, and there affirms that this band of Martyrs is surnamed "of Utica" by the bishop of Hippo because their festival was celebrated more solemnly at Utica. But that reason does not satisfy the most learned Ruinart, who among the Sincere and Select Acts of the Martyrs, in the Paris edition, page 199, discusses this controversy thus: These Martyrs the same Augustine calls the White Mass of Utica, in sermon 311 (namely in the new edition of his Works which the French Benedictines published), which is the third on the birthday of St. Cyprian.
[12] Whence some gather that these Martyrs suffered at Utica, or more probably at Utica, although the Martyrologies, whom Prudentius seems to favor, report that they accomplished their martyrdom at Carthage. Yet the opinion of the former appears the more certain, which the same Augustine seems to favor in his enarration on Psalm 144, which, namely, he delivered at Utica in the basilica of the White Mass to the people of that city. And indeed it is certain that in that city the proconsul took cognizance of the causes of the martyrs: since blessed Cyprian, a little before his passion, being sought that he might be brought thither to the proconsul, hid himself, lest he should accomplish his martyrdom outside his own city, far from the people committed to him, as he himself testifies in epistle 81, elsewhere 83, in which he renders to the clergy and people of Carthage an account of his last withdrawal. Tillemont, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 640, embraces this opinion of Ruinart, and endeavors to establish it by several arguments. Although that opinion seems to us also the more probable, nevertheless, on account of the authority of Prudentius and of the ancient Martyrologies, we have with a distinction placed those Martyrs in the title at Carthage or at Utica.
[13] in the year of Christ 258; Most Martyrologies fix the contest of the White Mass under the reign of Valerian and Gallienus, who began to reign in the year of Christ 254. But Prudentius, so often already praised, seems to us to assign a more determinate time for that martyrdom, when in hymn 13 he thus places it between the imprisonment of St. Cyprian and his noble death:
Shut in these caverns, holy Cyprian, and bound with a chain On either hand, calls upon the name of the supreme Father.
Then, after reciting the prayers of the holy bishop of Carthage, and narrating the martyrdom of the White Mass, as we reported in the preceding paragraph, he thus continues his poem:
Meanwhile Thascius \, now more joyful for the day of his own,* Is set at a distance before the fury of the untamed proconsul.
By this manner of speaking, therefore, Prudentius hints that those three hundred Defenders of the Christian faith were crowned with the same laurel not long before the martyrdom of St. Cyprian. And since St. Cyprian was beheaded in the year of Christ 258, as the more exact chronologers agree, we have above in the margin bound the contest of the White Mass to the same year.
[14] though it is not likely that of their own accord That manner of death does not please Tillemont, by which those three hundred Athletes are said to have hurled themselves of their own accord into the quicklime: for although martyrdoms of this kind have sometimes occurred at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, yet that critic fears that common report may in this respect have deceived Prudentius and others who followed him. To this suspicion he is chiefly moved by the silence of St. Augustine, who nowhere mentions that example of voluntary death — although the Donatist Circumcellions, who inflicted violent death upon themselves, alleged against him various examples for the defense of their frenzy, which the holy Doctor explains or refutes. "Without doubt," says Tillemont, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 176, "the Donatists would have alleged that domestic example in excuse of their fury, and doubtless St. Augustine would have refuted or explained it, if the Donatists had objected it." Hence it would follow that this history of a voluntary martyrdom was unknown in Africa itself in the time of St. Augustine and of his adversaries. Since this argument of Tillemont's is a negative one, which sometimes proves much and sometimes little or nothing, let fair and skilled judges of such matters decide what force it has in this place.
[15] they hurled themselves into the quicklime. Neither does the etymology of the White Mass please Tillemont, whose origin Prudentius and others derive from their bodies being reduced with the lime into a white powder. His chief reason for rejecting this etymology is that Augustine, in sermon 112, which he delivered concerning these Martyrs, and a fragment of which we gave above at number 6, said only this concerning the appellation of the White Mass: For it was called a mass from the multitude of the number, and white from the brightness of the cause. Whatever be the case with this reason of Tillemont's, we should readily admit that appellation of the White Mass as derived from the lime, if Prudentius and his followers would concede that those three hundred Martyrs did not of their own accord leap into the quicklime, but were cast into it by order of the proconsul — as in Eusebius, book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 41, we read of certain Alexandrian martyrs under the emperor Decius in this manner: After these, Epimachus and Alexander, when after the long horror of the prison in which they had remained bound they had endured the iron hooks, the scourges, and a thousand kinds of pain, perished, themselves also dissolved in the burning of quicklime. Four women obtained the same end with them. It can therefore be believed without difficulty that our Martyrs of today were forced to end their lives by a like punishment. But even this kind of martyrdom may be doubted, if the discourse be to be attributed to St. Augustine which we shall now set before the eyes of the curious reader.
[16] Jérôme Vignier in the year 1654 published at Paris a Supplement to the Works of St. Augustine, An ancient discourse, which is attributed to St. Augustine, where in volume 1, page 394 and the following, he was the first to publish from a manuscript codex of the Vatican library, under the name of St. Augustine, a sermon which our predecessors also received in manuscript from the most learned Lucas Holstenius out of a more correct copy, by whose help we shall from time to time correct the faulty edition of Vignier. Now that sermon, which in Vignier is the seventeenth On Divers Matters, runs thus: Dearly beloved brethren, we celebrate the birthday of the Martyrs, whose multitude made a mass, and whose splendor made it white: for it was called a mass on account of the number, and white on account of the merit. For what else is the White Mass to be understood to be, but a multitude made white by martyrdom? As just now, when the Apocalypse was read, we heard that the blessed disciple and Apostle, who used to recline upon the breast of Christ, saw the throngs of Martyrs shining in white raiment, triumphing with green palms; and what he happily saw, he faithfully declared to us. For he says, as we have just heard: I saw, and behold, a multitude which no man could number, of every people and tribe and tongue, all clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands. The white garment signifies innocence, the palm victory.
[17] And one of the elders said to John: Who are these, and whence came they? and was delivered on the feast of these Martyrs, But John answered: Lord, thou knowest. And he, who had therefore asked in order to teach, said: These are they who came out of great tribulation, and
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. What blood is this, brethren! This blood washes, it does not stain. It has indeed a redness, and yet it cannot stain whiteness. This is a marvel, dearly beloved: for it is the blood of him of whom his bride says in the Song of Songs: My brother is white and ruddy. If white, why ruddy? If white, I say, why ruddy? For if no blemish of sin overspread the whiteness of Christ's innocence, why did he shed blood? If white, why ruddy? If he, being white, darkened himself with no night of iniquity, why did he, undefiled, ascend the cross? Dost thou ask why? Hear the Gospel: Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Behold the mass, and understand the reason of the seed.
[18] assigns to them another kind of death; This mass, brethren, as you have heard, was gathered out of every people and tribe and tongue, out of both sexes, and out of every age. No old man, broken with his declining years, withdrew his trembling neck with its withering throat. No aged woman, worn out by sex and age, escaped the right hand of the bloody executioner. No young men were called back from the crown by the sweetness of this life. The bloody executioner did not shudder at the limbs of expiring, quivering little ones. But if any of the infants, gaping at their mothers' breasts, were perhaps able to escape the sword of the persecutor, they were crushed by the fall of the corpses and died amid the sweet embraces of their mothers. He crowned all in that contest who redeemed every age. What a sight of things was then, dearly beloved! How bloody an age, through which it seemed to the beholders pitiable and dreadful; but precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Would you know how precious it is? Recall how the Apostolic epistle was read to us: Therefore, he says, God is not confounded to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. Oh, if we could see how great was the gladness in that heavenly city while there was so great sorrow on earth over their slaughter, when, as these Martyrs pressed toward heaven in one column, the citizens of that blessed city — that is, thousands of angels — ran to meet them! Oh, if we could see those Martyrs leaving their bodies, as men treading upon the roofs of houses of clay! Let us therefore also, dearly beloved, make joy for the holy angels in heaven. The holy Martyrs too ought to rejoice over us, since they cease not to pray for us. But when do they rejoice over us? When we imitate those whom we venerate: for so do they wish their solemnities to be celebrated in our assemblies, that we may gladden their piety by our manner of life. Those Martyrs, then, of whom this discourse treats, seem to have consisted of both sexes, and to have been slain by the sword — whereas Prudentius asserts that they accomplished their martyrdom in a pit of quicklime.
[19] which, while the Benedictines take it away from the holy Doctor, But the French Benedictines, in the new edition of the Works of St. Augustine, have denied this sermon to the holy Doctor, and have prefixed to it, in the Appendix of the fifth volume, column 377, the following notice: Sermon CCCXVII, on the Birthday of the Martyrs of the White Mass, is now for the first time placed in the Appendix. That affected elegance of style, such as it is, does not savor of Augustine, and the sermon seems woven with over-elaborate words, especially from that passage, No old man, broken with his declining years, with his withering throat, etc. Moreover, the Martyrologies and Prudentius in Peristephanon XIII, after Pontius in the Acts of St. Cyprian, declare that the White Mass celebrated by Augustine and the Africans accomplished its martyrdom not by the sword, as is here said, but by fire in a lime-kiln, and that it was made up of a certain number of men, and not gathered out of every age and sex. Nevertheless two Roman manuscript codices attribute this sermon to Augustine, and it is cited under his name by Baronius in his notes on the Martyrology at the XXIV of August and the 1st of November. Let learned investigators of ancient monuments judge whether the reasons brought forward suffice to deny to St. Augustine this sermon, which in two manuscript codices bears the name of that holy Doctor.
[20] and cite St. Pontius on their side, Meanwhile I should like to know from those editors where Pontius, in the genuine Acts of St. Cyprian, has made mention of the White Mass. I am not indeed unaware that, before the Works of St. Cyprian which Pamelius and Rigault published, there is read in a certain Passion of this holy prelate and martyr the following: In the time of Valerian and Gallienus, when the glorious name of Christ, hated by the heathen, was being attacked with the utmost effort that it might be taken away, and there was persecution in the city of Rome, the most blessed Cornelius, endowed with the highest virtues, was then ruling the Pontificate of the aforesaid city; and being seized by the governor and afflicted with long torments, he ended his temporal life by the sword, being to receive from God the eternal life without end. But when this hatred had been directed also within the bounds of Libya, many peoples of the Christians, choosing rather to lose their transitory life and to obtain the things which are promised by God, were consummated after being afflicted with divers torments. They relate also that then a furnace of lime was kindled by the governor, and that coals with incense were set at its mouth, and that the governor said to the Christians: Choose one of two things; either offer incense upon these coals to Jupiter, or be plunged into the lime. Then three hundred men, armed with faith, with a most rapid rush cast themselves into the fire, confessing Christ the Son of God to be God, and were plunged amid the vapors of the powdered lime — whom Christ consecrated to himself. But these Acts of St. Cyprian are interpolated, as is plain from their beginning, since St. Cornelius, the Roman Pope, ended his life before the reign of Valerian and Gallienus, as Pagi and other Chronologers demonstrate. Who then would believe that Pontius, the deacon of St. Cyprian, wrote anything of the sort, however confidently the aforesaid editors affirm it?
[21] It lies upon those Benedictines, therefore, to point out in some genuine work of Pontius the history of our three hundred Martyrs related above, we demand sure proof of this allegation, which Tillemont and I have not yet been able to find in the sincere Acts of St. Cyprian. If they do this, all controversy is at an end, and we shall gladly acquiesce in the testimony of that contemporary and holy man. But if they cannot show that kind of martyrdom in the true writings of St. Pontius — which we think they will seek in vain — meanwhile it will be lawful for us to oppose to Prudentius the author of the above-mentioned Sermon; who, although Tillemont does not think him to be Augustine, is nevertheless suspected by him, in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 175, to have been an African bishop contemporary with that holy Doctor. On this hypothesis, more credit should be given to an ancient inhabitant of Africa, where the thing happened, than to Prudentius the Spaniard, who described that martyrdom of the White Mass from common report. But let us at last try whether we cannot in some fashion reconcile the author of the aforesaid sermon — whether he was St. Augustine or another bishop of Africa — with Prudentius.
[22] and we set forth a conjecture of our own, It may not improbably have come to pass that these three hundred martyrs, after enduring death for Christ, were cast or plunged by the heathen into quicklime, lest the Christians should venerate their sacred relics. Perhaps on account of this report, which passed from Africa into Spain and grew as it went, Aurelius Prudentius the Spaniard supposed that those African Martyrs were cast alive into the lime, or hurled themselves into it of their own accord. Those Martyrs, then, could have been slain by the sword or by other punishments, as the author of the aforesaid sermon asserts, and afterward have been plunged into the quicklime — which last Prudentius narrated somewhat otherwise from report. In this system of ours we do not deny the etymology of the White Mass which Prudentius and the ancient Martyrologists who followed him assigned. Nay rather we gladly admit the whole announcement of Usuard, which on this day runs thus: At Carthage, three hundred Martyrs, who suffered in the time of Valerian and Gallienus: at last, AFTER THE PUNISHMENTS INFLICTED UPON THEM, confessing Christ the Son of God to be God, they were plunged into a kindled furnace of lime; whence also that white-robed army of the Blessed deserved to be called the White Mass.
[23] whom Usuard seems to favor. Usuard in this place does not say that those Martyrs leapt into the quicklime, but that they were plunged or cast into a kindled furnace of lime. Moreover, when that Martyrologist affirms that those Martyrs were plunged into the lime after the punishments inflicted upon them, he seems to favor our system; which nevertheless we shall gladly abandon if anyone discovers another way of reconciling the two authors, or suggests a more probable opinion and confirms it with solid arguments. Certainly the most eminent Baronius is forced to reconcile Prudentius in this or a like manner with the same Sermon so often already mentioned, which he affirmatively ascribes to St. Augustine. I know indeed that an escape may here be sought, and that some may perhaps answer that that preacher spoke of martyrs in general. But it does not seem likely to me that the author of that Sermon on the Birthday of the Martyrs of the White Mass, as the title has it in the Benedictine edition, should have left the present matter of the festival and preached these things of other martyrs. Whatever at last be the case concerning the manner of their death, we venerate these noble Athletes of Africa, together with the ancient Martyrologies, among the true martyrs of Christ, and we here put an end to this historical Commentary.
ANNOTATIONS\* that is, Cyprian.