ON SS. FELIX, ARONTIUS, SABINIANUS, AND HONORATUS, MARTYRS,
AT POTENZA IN LUCANIA IN ITALY.
From the Hieronymian transcripts.
CommentaryFelix, martyr, at Potenza in Lucania in Italy (St.)
Arontius, martyr, at Potenza in Lucania in Italy (St.)
Sabinianus, martyr, at Potenza in Lucania in Italy (St.)
Honoratus, martyr, at Potenza in Lucania in Italy (St.)
J. P.
These four Saints are produced in Florentinius in the text of the Hieronymian Martyrology We give these Martyrs separately, which he published; and in the notes they are named from the Corbie Martyrology and from the very ancient Antwerp one. Among the Passed Over of yesterday, from which they were deferred to this day, they are set down in this manner and order: Sabinianus, Honoratus, Arontius, and Fortunatianus. In the Martyrology of the Queen of Sweden, in Florentinius's notes, and in our edition among the abridged and published Hieronymian copies, Felix alone is named; but three others are added to him without name: In Lucania, the birthday of St. Felix with three others. Castellain transcribed all four in his Universal Martyrology; but he places Arontius in the first place, and indicates that they suffered under the judge Valerian. The arena of the martyrdom was noted above as Potentia, which was a city of Lucania in Italy in Ptolemy and Antoninus, now Potenza, a city of the kingdom of Naples in the province of Basilicata … at the foot of the Apennines … fifteen miles distant from Acerenza toward the winter sunset, and as many toward Marsico Nuovo, etc., from Baudrand.
[2] One may consult what Ughelli has concerning it in volume 7 of Italia Sacra, who elsewhere from column 132 of the latest edition; who on the same occasion writes this: At Potenza, Arontius, Honoratus, Fortunatus, and Sabinianus, on the VIII Kalends of September, under the judge Valerian, in the reign of the emperor Maximian, received the palm of martyrdom: eight other brothers german of theirs were adorned with a like crown in divers places of Apulia: the sacred remains of all of whom Prince Arichis gathered, and translated to the church of St. Sophia at Benevento in the year DCCLX. Their life and combat Alphanus, archbishop of Salerno, set down in heroic verse for Rofrid, which are extant in Surius, volume 7; whom the Roman Martyrology mentions on the Kalends of September. Here the difficulties are to be explained, so far as it may in any way be done, concerning the four holy Champions set down separately above and joined together in a single announcement, but named in Alphanus together with eight others, their brothers.
[3] are joined with eight others. The Acts written by that archbishop in metrical style are of slight authority, both because he flourished only in the eleventh century of Christ, and so was removed by an interval in a manner immense of very many centuries from the time of the things which he wrote, and because those Acts of the aforesaid twelve Champions waver, as Baronius himself confesses at the day 1 of September; where, at his announcement, At Benevento, of the holy Martyrs, twelve brothers, he warns that what is there narrated of St. Cyprian the martyr must be corrected: for, as he adds, the most holy Cyprian lived long before the times of Maximian, in which these are said to have suffered — unless perhaps in the same Acts an error crept into the emperor's name, and Maximian was put for Valerian. And this correction indeed Baronius in the same place extends to the metrical Acts of Alphanus, and to the prose Acts, which he affirms that he has written in Lombard character. But a fuller examination of the same may be undertaken at the day 1 of September, there arising then perhaps matter for another inquiry: whether the four Martyrs of today are not wrongly joined with the other eight and assigned to the city of Benevento; and whether they were brothers. We meanwhile have given them separately, as they stand in the said calendars, and in D'Achery in the Martyrology cited above, page 20.