ON SS. BONIFACE AND THECLA, HUSBAND AND WIFE,
AT HADRUMETUM IN AFRICA.
Under Maximian.
CommentaryBoniface, at Hadrumetum in Africa (St.)
Thecla, his wife, at Hadrumetum in Africa (St.)
BY J. P.
We give that holy pair of Spouses from the Roman Martyrology, which announces them thus: From the Roman Martyrology: notice of the place: Likewise at Hadrumetum in Africa, of Saints Boniface and Thecla, who were the parents of the blessed twelve sons, martyrs. It says likewise because in the same place just before, the said Martyrology had recorded the sixty Martyrs of the Colony of Suffetula in Africa, of whom we shall treat on this same day, and shall say that they ought to have been announced at Sufes rather than at Suffetula. There too will occur mention of the situation of the city of Hadrumetum. Fr. Francesco Orlendi of the Order of Preachers, in his Sacred and Profane World Illustrated, which came to light at Florence in the year 1728 and following, part 1, book 4, chapter 8, writing of the provinces of Africa and other matters pertaining to it, number 7, page 345: Byzacena, he says, a region of exceptional fertility. On the East it has the river Triton; on the West Numidia; on the South inner Libya. Its chief city is Hadrumetum, which Pliny mentions in book 5, chapter 4.
[2] Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology observes this of these holy spouses: whether they were More about these same Martyrs is read in the Acts of the holy twelve Brothers, which are preserved among us in manuscript. Baronius here makes martyrs of those two Saints, whom in the very text of his Martyrology he announces without the title of martyrdom; but on what authority? We have two manuscript copies of the Passion of these twelve Brothers, one of them from the Passional etc. of the monastery of Böddeken of the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine, in the diocese of Paderborn, at the end of which I see some things are lacking in our transcript; the other is marked as transcribed from the manuscript of N. Belfort, and we keep both for the 1st day of September. The Böddeken copy begins thus: While the fury of the emperor Maximian was destroying Christians with divers punishments, the region of Africa was hiding a certain cohort of the soldiers of Christ: among whom a most Christian man, Boniface, with his wife named Thecla, settled in the city of Drumentum, daily instructed his twelve sons in the teachings of the holy faith; for whom both he and their mother did not hesitate faithfully to pour out prayers to the Lord Jesus, saying daily in their prayers: "Good Jesus, spotless Lamb, who hast restored the lost world by the new light of thy nativity, show mercy to my sons, that, all gods being set aside, they may know and adore thee alone as God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest for ever. Amen."
[3] martyrs: the time of their life. While Boniface with his wife strengthened his sons in the faith by these nourishments and by such assiduous prayers, those happy youths forgot nothing of what they heard from their parents, but like good ground received the seeds of the teaching, and rendered the fruit of a multiplied faith to their parents' character. For in order to prove the integrity and constancy of their faith, denying themselves … although their parents were Christians, they nevertheless leave them for the love of God, and running everywhere through the borders of their country, they strive most constantly to preach the word of truth and the baptism of Jesus Christ. But thereafter, in the narrative of their contest, I find nothing of the martyrdom of the Parents. And the other copy which I mentioned treats only of the contest of the holy twelve Brothers, no mention being made of SS. Boniface and Thecla. Moreover the Acts of those twelve Martyrs may be weighed on the 1st day of September; but whether on that same occasion anything may perhaps be hoped for from elsewhere concerning the martyrdom of the Parents, I do not know. I have marked them as under Maximian, with the Böddeken copy, and with the Belfort one, which begins thus: Maximian, that most cruel Caesar, hearing the fame of the holy twelve Brothers, etc.