ON SS. VITALIS, FELICULA, AND ZENO, MARTYRS AT ROME.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Vitalis, Martyr at Rome (St.) Felicula, Martyr at Rome (St.) Zeno, Martyr at Rome (St.)
By G. H.
Section I. The sacred veneration of these Martyrs; their relics.
[1] We hang in hesitation among the various Martyrologies, since what we may rightly affirm and what we ought to reject does not readily come to mind. We set forth each one. The Martyrology published under the name of the Venerable Bede, the Martyrs recorded without any place: the Trier manuscripts of St. Paulinus and St. Maximin, the Liege manuscript of St. Lambert, the Cologne manuscript of St. Mary ad Gradus, the Tournai manuscript of St. Martin, the Centula manuscript, and the Laetia manuscript, omitting the place of martyrdom, have only this: "On the same day, of the holy Martyrs Vitalis, Felicula, and Zeno." The same is read under the 13th of February in the Trier manuscript of St. Martin. These are ancient and highly reputed Martyrologies.
[2] Others write that these athletes suffered for the faith of Christ at Rome. Usuard, Ado, attributed by others to Rome, Galesini, Canisius, the manuscript Martyrologies of St. Mary of Utrecht and of St. Gudula of Brussels, and with them the Roman Martyrology, in these words: "Likewise at Rome, of the holy Martyrs Vitalis, Felicula, and Zeno." Bellini and Maurolycus omit the title of martyrdom. and the Via Ardeatina: Notker changes the order and adds the Via Ardeatina, in this manner: "Likewise at Rome, on the Via Ardeatina, of Felicula, Vitalis, and Zeno."
[3] Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy reports the same as Usuard and the Roman Martyrology; but at what time and by what kind of martyrdom they were afflicted, he says he has read nowhere. Peter of Equilio in the Appendix to Book 2, number 64, Ghinius in the Catalogue of Canonized Saints, and John de Nigravalle cited by him, Vitalis a Priest, write that Vitalis was a Priest. Wandelbert celebrates St. Felicula as a Virgin in this verse:
"Then on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of March, Vitalis shines, and Felicula the Virgin." and Felicula held to be a Virgin:
Lahier in his Menology of Virgins also calls her a Virgin; the same title is also given to her in the Breviary of Verdun, printed in the year 1625.
[4] Along with Wandelbert, the author of the very ancient Roman Martyrology, or Martyrology of St. Jerome, omits Zeno, other companions joined to them, but joins others in these words: "In the city of Spoleto, of Vitalian, Vitalis, Marcian, Felicula, and Julian." We suspect that here both places are omitted and names transposed, and that it should perhaps be read thus: "In the city of Spoleto, of Vitalian. At Rome, or, on the Via Ardeatina, of Vitalis and Felicula. In the city of Aegeae, of Julian and Marcian." The ancient manuscript Martyrology of Reichenau, or Augia Dives, near Constance, offers us this light in these words: "At Spoleto, of Vitalian. And on the Via Ardeatina, of Felicula. In the city of Aegeae, of Julian and Marcian."
Of these, as well as of Vitalian, we shall treat separately. The Aachen manuscript joins other companions: "The birthday of Zeno. On the Appian Way, in Tusculum, the birthday of SS. Vitalis, Cyrion, Felicula, and Faustinus." Cyrion is the Priest who was burned with fire along with Cassian, Agatho, and Moses, about whom more below. Faustinus is perhaps the companion of St. Jovita, and is venerated with him on the 15th of February.
[5] The Via Ardeatina went to Ardea, the city of the Rutulians, and proceeded directly from the city's Porta Capena out of the Appian Way. The Via Ardeatina and the Via Appia. Hence the most famous cemetery of Callistus, which Paul Aringhi says in Book 3 of Subterranean Rome, chapter 10, is universally known to be located on the Appian Way, is in various Acts of Saints placed on the Via Ardeatina; thus these Martyrs could have been attributed to either road by the authors. Moreover, as Strabo asserts in Book 5, the Via Latina begins from the Appian Way, branching off to the left near Rome; Tusculum, and crossing over the Tusculan hill, between the city of Tusculum and the Alban Mount, it heads toward the town of Algidus. The fork of the Ardeatina and Appia could have been understood as toward the Tusculan hills, or the Tusculan villa of Cicero, most celebrated in the writings of all, which is commonly called Cicero's Tusculanum; or perhaps the Martyrs were buried there or in the town of Tusculum. There was another Felicula, a Virgin and Martyr, foster-sister of St. Petronilla, who is venerated on the 13th of June. We read in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus on the 12th of May that she was buried on the Via Ardeatina. Was the laurel of virginity and the Via Ardeatina attributed to the present Felicula by some from that other one?
[6] The memory of these three Martyrs is celebrated in the Missals and Breviaries of various Churches, in several of which the Ecclesiastical Office is said for them together with St. Valentine the Priest, the Office for these Saints, with the names of all recited in the same Oration; as can be seen in the Breviaries of Verdun, Amiens, Antwerp, Bamberg, Ratzeburg, Cammin, and others. But a proper Oration is recited for them in the Churches of Bourges, Strasbourg, Cologne, Minden, Liege, and Brussels. However, in most Breviaries it is prescribed that this Oration is to be said under a single concluding clause "Through our Lord," etc., together with the Oration for St. Valentine. In the Breviary of Wurzburg, both manuscript and the printed edition of 1575, the Office used to be celebrated for these Saints alone on the day after Valentine's, that is, the 15th of February. The Oration. The following Oration is prescribed nearly everywhere: "Protect us, O Lord, by the prayers of Your Saints, so that as we unceasingly venerate the feasts of Your Martyrs Vitalis, Felicula, and Zeno, we may be both fortified by their faithful aid and advance by their glorious example. Through our Lord," etc. In the Breviary of Reims, Lesson 3 is recited about St. Valentine, at the end of which the following is added: "The combats of Vitalis, Felicula, and Zeno for the name of Christ are solemnly recalled, because on the same day they too were crowned with martyrdom at Rome."
[7] Ferrarius in the Alphabetical Index to his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, the body of Zeno at Rome in St. Praxedes, and Panciroli in his Sacred Treasury of the City, Region 2, chapter 42, assert that the body of St. Zeno the Martyr is preserved at Rome in the church of St. Praxedes, where Panciroli adds that in the chapel dedicated to St. Zeno, Pope St. Paschal placed the bodies of two holy Martyrs of the same name, both called Zeno, of whom one was a Priest and the other is the one venerated on the 14th of February. That a particle of the relics of one or the other was inserted by Cardinal Frederick Borromeo into the new altar of the monastery of Meda, relics at Meda, we stated on the 13th of February in the Life of SS. Haimo and Veremundus, chapter 3. A long bone of St. Zeno the Martyr is preserved at Antwerp in the church of the Society of Jesus, which Charles Scribani, then Provincial of the Flandro-Belgian Province, received at Rome in the year 1615, together with other Relics, by permission of the Supreme Pontiff and at Antwerp, and of Muzio Vitelleschi, General of the Society of Jesus, and delivered it to the Professed House at Antwerp in the year 1619, as is attested by his letters sealed with the Society's seal and approved in the year 1625 by Jean Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp. The day assigned to these relics is the 14th of February, on which this Roman Zeno is venerated.
Section II. Whether any of their Relics are preserved in Spain, and whether St. Vitalis is also called Victor.
[8] That the sacred bodies of Victor, Zeno, and Felicula are preserved with great veneration in the monastery of Blessed Mary of Serrateix, which stands in Catalonia in the diocese of Urgell, of the Order of St. Benedict, the commemoration of SS. Victor, Zeno, and Felicula on February 14th, and that their solemn memory is celebrated on the 14th of February and the seven following days, is reported by Antonio Vicente Domenec on the Saints of Catalonia, Antonio de Yepes in his Benedictine Chronicle, volume 5, at the year 977, and Tamayo de Salazar in his Spanish Martyrology at this 14th of February; the last of these translated from Spanish into Latin the history of the Translation, published by the other two from the ancient documents of that monastery, which we give largely in his own words.
[9] "In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 977, with the Most Serene Count D. Borell reigning in Barcelona, in the monastery of Serrateix, endowed by Count Oliba Cabrera, D. Oliba, surnamed Cabrera, Count of Besalu, wishing to imitate the works of his grandfather, Count D. Guifre, surnamed the Hairy, and of the Emperor Charlemagne, from whose female line he drew his origin, and knowing that Abbot Froilan had built a monastery at the town of Serrateix under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the approval of the Lords Miro, Bishop of Gerona, and Wisald, Bishop of Urgell, decreed to confer great gifts by way of endowment on the aforesaid monastery. Therefore, to God, to the Blessed Virgin, and to Abbot Froilan and the Brothers serving the Lord, he granted without any diminishment that entire parish of Serrateix with all tithes, houses, first-fruits, and revenues accruing therefrom, together with forests, meadows, waters, springs, and streams; likewise all the waters recognized as necessary for the use of mills, even in the river Cardener and in the County of Berga. But he made these gifts on this condition: that the election of the Abbot should never be made without the consent and counsel of the same Count or his successors and of the Bishop of Urgell, and that the one to be elected should be from that same monastery, a capable and well-deserving monk being available; otherwise he should be drawn from another house. To this monastery were translated the sacred remains of the Martyrs Victor, Zeno, and Felicula, to which the holy bodies of those Saints were translated, so that by their merits and intercession God might grant him victory against the wiles of the devil."
[10] So Tamayo de Salazar from Domenec. Now Guifre, or Wifrid, or Giffrid, surnamed the Hairy, the 2nd of that name, was the 4th Count of Barcelona, son of Guifre I, the lineage of the Counts of Barcelona from Charlemagne, son-in-law of Baldwin the Iron, 1st Count of Flanders, having married his daughter Guinihild, who through her mother Judith was the granddaughter of Charles the Bald, born to Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne -- as is indicated above. The same Guifre the Hairy was mentioned on the 12th of February in the first Translation of St. Eulalia, Virgin and Martyr of Barcelona, at which he is said to have been present, number 8. Guifre the Hairy had by Guinihild of Flanders four sons: Rudolf, Bishop of Urgell; Wifrid III, the 5th Count of Barcelona, who died leaving no heir; Miro, the 6th Count of Barcelona; and Sunner, Count of Urgell, whose son Borell was the 8th Count of Barcelona, as indicated in the testimony of Domenec cited above at the year 977. Before this man, the 7th Count of Barcelona was Seniofrid, son of Miro the 6th Count, whose brothers, born of this same Miro, were Miro, Bishop of Gerona, who together with Bishop Wisald of Urgell approved the said donation; and Oliba Cabrera, Count of Besalu, who conferred these gifts upon the monastery of Serrateix. Francisco Diago wrote most notably about this family in Book 2 of the Ancient Counts of Barcelona, from chapter 4 to chapter 25. to the Kings of Spain. Olivier Vredius in his Genealogy of the Counts of Flanders, Table 1, indicates that through this same family the origin of the Kings of Spain is traced from the Emperor Charlemagne; Jean-Jacques Chifflet shows the same in expanded tables in Light 8 of his Hispanic Vindications.
[11] Tamayo de Salazar writes that the bodies of these Martyrs Vitalis, were the holy bodies given by these Counts? Zeno, and Felicula were given, together with the other benefactions, by Count Oliba Cabrera of Besalu to the monastery of Serrateix, but he had not read this in Domenec, whom he cites. The latter only says that to that monastery, endowed by Count Oliba, those sacred remains of the Martyrs were translated. Moreover, in addition to the above-mentioned Bishops of Gerona and Urgell, he adds that they gave from the treasury of the Church indulgences to those who either chose burial there or conferred pious gifts for the repair of the church. But these things too do not pertain to this Translation; nevertheless they are reported by Tamayo de Salazar.
[12] The same Domenec suspects that these three holy Martyrs are the very same ones mentioned on this day in the Roman Martyrology, and, as we have shown, in most of the ancient Martyrologies. But everywhere in those Martyrologies it is Vitalis, are they the same as those reported above from the various Martyrologies? not Victor, as here; nor does any Martyrologist mention Victor on this day. Furthermore, we said above from Ferrarius and Panciroli that the body of St. Zeno is at Rome in the church of St. Praxedes; indeed, that the body of another Zeno, a Priest and Martyr, whose mention is not found in the other Martyrologies, is there as well. These could be considered different from those Roman ones, and perhaps they attained the crown of martyrdom in Spain itself. I confess, meanwhile, that we have hitherto found nothing concerning the relics of St. Felicula of Rome; but neither have we found evidence that they were translated to Catalonia, as is here asserted.
[13] Tamayo Salazar makes them Spaniards by birth, yet not different from those Roman Martyrs. "Concerning St. Victor," he says, "if the truth is to be professed, I am entirely ignorant of what Martyr he may have been. But if room were given for conjectures, I would believe either that he was St. Victor, Bishop of Barcelona, who suffered in the time of the Emperor Claudius, is St. Victor the same as St. Vitalis? whose sacred remains the passage of time has obliterated — of whom we shall treat on the 4th of April — or that this is not about some individual Martyr called Victor, but about Vitalis, Archpriest of Toledo, who, having been the companion of Saints Zeno and Felicula in life, likewise wished to hold a place with them in the tomb; and therefore, when Count Oliba arranged to have their relics extracted from the Cemetery of Callistus, it is to be believed that some fragment of the bones of St. Vitalis likewise came with their remains. But since the praenomen of Vitalis was Victorius, through the lapse of ages, with the name of the Martyr forgotten, the Martyr survives known only by the title of Victor instead of Victorius." On which good faith the monastery of Serrateix united them. So he writes. But Domenec reports not some fragment of the bones of St. Victor (whom this author identifies with Vitalis), but the sacred body of St. Victor, preserved with great veneration in that monastery. Furthermore, the body of St. Vitalis the Martyr, which Pope Clement VIII gave to Sancho Davila, Bishop of Cartagena, in the year 1595, and which the Church of Avila received from him in the year 1600, from whom another Vitalis is preserved at Avila, is described in the Papal bull as "one entire venerable body of St. Vitalis the Martyr, from the most religious Cemetery of St. Callistus at the Catacombs." We consider this St. Vitalis to be entirely different not only from the St. Victor of Serrateix but also from the St. Vitalis who is the companion of Saints Felicula and Zeno, and we would treat of him separately on this day had we not already done so on the 6th of February, when St. Vitalis the Martyr is venerated at Avila with a double rite, as is clear from the Order of reciting the Divine Office printed at Madrid in the year 1635. The Bull of Clement concerning the donation of the body of St. Vitalis was printed by Tamayo Salazar at this 14th of February, and a portion of it by Thomas Tamayo de Vargas in his Investigations on Dexter's Chronicle, novitas 4, folio 96. Finally, it is nowhere read that Count Oliba arranged for the bodies of these Martyrs to be extracted from the Cemetery of St. Callistus, or that he gave them to the monastery of Serrateix.
[14] It seemed we could here conclude with Ferrarius in the Index to the General Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, where under the letter V he has: "Victor, Zeno, and Felicula, Martyrs, in the territory or diocese of Urgell, the 14th of February." But another controversy arises after the Chronicles of Flavius Dexter and Julian of Toledo were brought to light. And indeed in the latter, at number 37, the following is read: "St. Vitalis, Archpriest of Toledo, sent by St. Eugenius to console the Christians detained on the island of Pontia, is he St. Vitalis, Archpriest of Toledo? on the way consults St. Dionysius, Bishop of Paris, and then Clement. After visiting and consoling the Martyrs, he accompanies those sent into exile. When the latter died, returning to Rome, he suffered an illustrious martyrdom together with Ceno and Felicula, companions of his journey." In the Chronicle of Flavius Dexter at the year 110, number 6, the following is reported: "The wonderful struggle of St. Vitalis, the first Archpriest of Toledo (of those whom we know to have come), who with Zeno and Felicula had come to Toledo, and was he killed with Saints Zeno and Felicula under Trajan? and, having returned from the Chersonese to Rome, is written about to the Churches of the whole West." Moved by these authorities, Tamayo Salazar inscribed these Martyrs in his Hispanic Martyrology in these words: "At Rome, Saints Vitalis, Archpriest of Toledo, and Zeno and Felicula, Martyrs, who, adhering to the Blessed Marcellus Eugenius, Bishop of Toledo, were sent by him to the island of Pontia, and after returning to Rome, were at last seized by decree of the Emperor Trajan and crowned with martyrdom. Their bodies, finally brought to Spain, are honorably venerated: that of St. Vitalis at Avila, and those of Saints Zeno and Felicula in the monastery of Serrateix. Likewise there, of St. Victor the Martyr, whom, as we related above, he divines to be the one formerly called St. Vitalis, whom he thinks was called Victorius Vitalis Marcellus, was that Vitalis called Victorius Marcellus? because in the Chronicle of Julian of Toledo, at number 55, these words are read: 'Victorius Marcellus flourished, to whom Statius wrote. He was the brother of St. Marcellus, called Vitalis.'" He adds that Flavius Dexter in his Chronicle at the year 110, suppressing the name, reports the rest at number 7, where he says: "Marcellus, son of the brother of St. Marcellus, a pious man, is dear, as was also his uncle, to the Emperor Hadrian; to whom Papinius Statius dedicated a certain Forest, as to a most learned man." But how could St. Vitalis, as we said from Dexter, have died as a Martyr under Trajan in the year of Christ 110, and then have lived as one dear to the Emperor Hadrian, since Hadrian succeeded Trajan, who died on the 4th day before the Ides of August of the year 117? Wherefore Rodrigo Caro, at this passage of Dexter, calls this the fifth Marcellus and wonders that Thomas Tamayo confuses him with Vitalis.
[15] For us, as we said in the Acts of St. Vitalis on the 6th of February, there is neither the inclination nor the leisure to confirm or refute all these things; therefore we leave them to the credit of the cited authors. We wish only to remind the reader of this: no mention of him among the ancients, that in the ancient Martyrologies or Breviaries we have so far found no trace of St. Vitalis, Archpriest of Toledo, not even in the proper offices of the Church of Toledo. As for Saints Vitalis, Felicula, and Zeno in the ancient Breviaries — even in that of the Church of Burgos in Spain, printed in the year 1502 — a proper Prayer or Collect is recited, which we have given above; but different from it is the following, read among the people of Serrateix concerning Saints Victor, Felicula, and Zeno, which Domenec reports in these words: the Prayer for Saints Victor and companions: "O God, who grantest us to celebrate the feasts of thy holy Martyrs Victor, Felicula, and Zeno, grant us to rejoice in their companionship in eternal blessedness. Through our Lord," etc. Whether, moreover, they are to be considered the same or different, let the final decision rest with others.