CONCERNING THE HOLY ROMAN VIRGINS CONSTANTIA AUGUSTA, ATTICA AND ARTEMIA
Fourth Century A.D.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great, Virgin at Rome (St.) Attica, her sister, daughter of St. Gallicanus, Virgin at Rome (St.) Artemia, her sister, daughter of St. Gallicanus, Virgin at Rome (St.)
BHL Number: 1928
By G. H.
Section I. The conversion of these Virgins and of St. Gallicanus to the faith and to continence.
[1] The deeds of these most noble Virgins are contained chiefly in the Life of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, and in the Acts of the holy brothers John and Paul. We gave the Life of St. Agnes on January 21, which St. Ambrose at number 17 concludes with these words: "I, Ambrose, servant of Christ, having found these things written in hidden volumes, did not allow them to be concealed in barren silence. In honor of so great a Martyr, as I came to know her deeds, I wrote them down; and for your edification, O Virgins of Christ, I believed the text of her passion should be sent to you." From this Life, Lesson III has been inserted into the Roman Breviary, to be recited on January 28, when St. Agnes is venerated for the second time, and it is as follows: "Blessed Agnes, By an apparition of St. Agnes, known to her, St. Constantia comes to her tomb, while her parents kept vigil continually at her sepulcher, on a certain night appeared accompanied by a choir of Virgins, and is reported to have spoken to them thus: 'Do not mourn me, parents, as though I were dead; for I live with these Virgins in heaven with him whom on earth I loved with my whole mind.' When some years later Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, seeking a cure for an incurable ulcer, not yet a Christian, had come to the same sepulcher, she fell asleep and seemed to hear this voice of Agnes: 'Act with constancy, Constantia; believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, who will make you well.' She, having been healed, shortly afterwards, together with many from the household of the Emperor, received baptism and built a church there in the name of Blessed Agnes."
[2] So much for that passage; these things are reported more fully in the Life of St. Agnes. After relating at number 14 the apparition of St. Agnes made to her parents, at numbers 15 and 16 the following is added: "This vision was daily reported publicly by all who had seen it. Whence it came about that after some years this event was narrated by those who had seen it to Constantia, daughter of Constantine Augustus. For she herself, Constantia the Queen, was a most prudent Virgin, but so beset with sores that from head to foot no part of her limbs had remained free. she asks that health be obtained for her: Having received counsel, in the hope of recovering her health, she came to the tomb of the Martyr by night; and although a pagan, yet with a believing intentness of mind she faithfully poured forth prayers. While doing this, she was seized by a sudden sweetness of sleep, and saw in a vision the most blessed Agnes, offering her these counsels: 'Act with constancy, Constantia, and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, your Savior, through whom you will now obtain she is suddenly healed, healing of all the wounds which you suffer in your body.' At this voice Constantia awoke, healed, so that not even a trace of any wound remained on her limbs."
[3] "Returning therefore to the palace in perfect health, she brings joy both to her father Augustus and to her brothers the Emperors. The whole city is crowned; there is rejoicing among soldiers and civilians and all who hear these things. and is converted to the faith: The unbelief of the Gentiles was confounded, and the faith of the Lord rejoiced." So St. Ambrose from an ancient and hidden volume. The same things were expressed by St. Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne in England, in his poem On the Praise of Virgins, Chapter 33, where, after singing of the victory obtained by St. Agnes over a wanton youth, he adds:
"So that thence there might be praises proclaimed to Christ, Whence before there had been mockeries with foul words. For the tomb of the sepulcher healed Constantina, And the sarcophagus where the maiden's limbs repose, So that rightly the daughter of the reigning King Might render magnificent thanks to the eternal King of Kings, who reigns in heaven, For the life restored to health."
So below we shall say that she is also called Constantina, who in others is Constantia, and was healed at the tomb of St. Agnes. What St. Ambrose in the said Acts calls wounds scattered over the whole body of St. Constantia is called an incurable ulcer above in the Roman Breviary, and a most grave leprosy in the Acts about to be cited and in the Catalogue of Peter Equilinus, Book 3, Chapter 34.
[4] He who from among the soldiers was especially affected with joy at the restoration of the health of St. Constantia was St. Gallicanus, by St. Gallicanus, a man of consular rank, father of Sts. Attica and Artemia, who in the twelfth year of the reign of Constantine, A.D. 317, was made Consul together with Bassus. After the death of his wife, he asked that St. Constantia be given to him as bride by her Imperial father. The matter is narrated in the Acts of Sts. John and Paul, June 26, of whom the first, as is stated also in the Roman Martyrology, was the Steward of the household, and the second was the Chief Secretary of Constantia the Virgin, daughter of the Emperor Constantine. The Acts of these Martyrs exist in very many codices, manuscripts, and specifically in three belonging to Her Most Serene Majesty Christina, Queen of Sweden. We give the first part here from our codex of the highest reliability:
[5] "Under Constantine Augustus and Gallicanus, Commander of the Roman Army, the Persian nation which had invaded Syria was conquered and vigorously subjugated. When he, raised up with triumphal honors, she is sought in marriage: was accepted and dear to Augustus, he demanded his daughter, the most sacred Virgin Constantia, as his wife. And this he demanded with no small insistence, at the time when the Scythian nation, which had occupied Dacia and Thrace, was threatening. And since he was very powerful, the Counts and Prefects of all the authorities, together with the entire Roman people, demanded that this be done. But Constantine Augustus began to be sorrowful and most distressed, knowing that his daughter, established in a holy purpose, could more easily be killed than overcome. She, striving to banish her father's worry by her zeal for holiness, said to her father: 'If I were not perfectly certain that God will not abandon me, rightly some place might be conceded to my fear and your worry. But since I am certain of God, lay aside all your worry, she takes his daughters Sts. Attica and Artemia to herself, and promise that you will give me to him as wife, on this condition: that if he overcomes the Scythian nation, he shall receive me as both victor and Consul. But as a token of this pledge, let him permit his two maiden daughters, whom he has from his deceased wife, to be with me until the day of the wedding; she delivers Sts. John and Paul to him: and let him graciously admit my Steward and Chief Secretary, John and Paul, to be with him; so that he through my servants may be able to address and know me, and I through his daughters may know his wishes and character and way of life.' All these things were done as the Virgin had arranged, and as though in place of a betrothal pledge, the two brothers, eunuchs from the side of the Empress, were given, and the two sisters, daughters of Gallicanus, were entrusted to the Empress herself, so educated in the liberal arts that scarcely their equal in knowledge could be found among the number of wise men; of whom one was called Attica and the other Artemia."
[6] "When Constantia knew that they were coming to her, stretching out her hands to the Lord, she prayed thus: 'Lord God Almighty, she pours forth prayers who cleansed me from leprosy through the prayers of your Martyr Agnes, and showed me the path of your fear, and opened to me the bridal chamber of your Virgin Mother, where you the bridegroom, you the son, were made manifest, you, begotten of Mary, you were proved the begetter of Mary; you, nourishing every age, and at the same time also her from whom you were suckled and nourished; you, a little child growing in age, you, granting increase to the whole world; you, advancing in wisdom, though you are yourself wholly wisdom; you, so great that nothing is more magnificent than you; you, true man, born of a mother in time; you, true God, begotten of the Father without a mother; God from God, you made things that were not; born of a mother without a carnal father, you repaired those who had fallen; you, brought forth into light, were illuminated, though you yourself are the one who enlightens every man coming into this world; I beseech you, believing, as you yourself commanded; I entreat you, needy one, for what you yourself promised, when you said: Amen, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give you.' John 14:13 'I ask therefore, Lord, that you win these daughters of Gallicanus, for the conversion of St. Gallicanus and his daughters to the faith and also apply Gallicanus himself, who tries to take me from you, to the chastity of your faith. Open, Lord, my mouth to their ears, and open the ears of their hearts to my words, and throw open to me the doors of their consent, so that you may pour such virtue into my words that, abhorring the commerce of the flesh, they may desire to be consecrated to you, and from that very desire such love may arise in their minds and to continence: that, burning, they may desire to attain that heavenly bridal chamber of yours, which they may reach with lamps full of oil and with the gleaming flames of your love, so that, given a place among the wise virgins, and glorying in your mercy, they may desire nothing earthly, but may long for you alone with the complete affection of their hearts.'"
[7] "That this was indeed the prayer of Constantia we have learned from her own narration, and we have also read it as written by her. But how she converted Attica and Artemia to the Lord, she converts Sts. Attica and Artemia. I pass over for the sake of hastening to narrate the martyrdom of Gallicanus." This the contemporary author and eyewitness judged sufficient for his own purpose; from his formula of passing over we gather that singular care was employed by St. Constantia in the conversion of the holy sisters Attica and Artemia, and that perhaps by some visible sign their minds were divinely changed to embrace the truth; and certainly things occurred which the writer judged worthy of his pen, but which he passed over for the sake of hastening to narrate the martyrdom of Gallicanus and then of Sts. John and Paul. The other part of St. Constantia's wish was that Gallicanus, their father, should also embrace the chastity of the Christian faith. To accomplish this, Sts. John and Paul had been attached by her as companions to his side, whose divine counsel, given to him in the extreme danger of losing Philippopolis, Gallicanus himself narrates to Constantine Augustus in the said Acts of Sts. John and Paul:
[8] "At last the siege grew, and all my Tribunes and soldiers surrendered to the enemy. When I sought to find an avenue of escape, Paul and John, of whom one is the Steward, St. Gallicanus, having made a vow to embrace the faith, the other the Chief Secretary of my Lady, the daughter of Your Piety, Constantia Augusta, said to me: 'Make a vow to the God of heaven that if he delivers you, you will become a follower of Christ; and you will be more victorious than you have been.' I confess, most sacred Emperor, that as soon as this vow was uttered by my lips, there appeared to me a certain young man of lofty stature, bearing a Cross on his shoulder, saying: 'Take the sword and follow me.' With the Cross borne before him from heaven, As I followed him, there appeared to me on either side armed soldiers, encouraging me and saying: 'We render you our service. Enter the camp of the enemy, and holding your drawn sword in right and left hand, look to see how far you advance until you reach their King, named Brada.' he obtains the victory: When I had reached him with those soldiers, he prostrated himself at my feet and begged for the sparing of his blood. I did not kill a single one of them by the sword, neither did I do it nor command it; but their King Brada, with his two sons, I received in chains from those soldiers. Thus all of Thrace was freed from the Scythian nation, and they were made tributaries. All the Tribunes wished to return to me with their soldiers, but unless they became Christians, they could by no means be received by me. he becomes a Christian: Those who consented I made higher in rank; those who did not consent I stripped of military service. Having myself become a Christian, I so devoted myself to God that I also promised to abstain from marriage." As indeed St. Constantia had prayed with the highest confidence in God. he vows chastity: But Gallicanus continues in his address, and asks for permission to abdicate from all public office, "so that I may," he says, "devote myself to the religion which I have learned, and stand firm in the truth which I have perfectly come to know."
[9] So Gallicanus. Then the Emperor Augustus, as follows in the same Acts, threw himself into his embrace, relating all the things that had happened concerning his daughters, and how they had been profitably consecrated as Virgins of Christ, [he is received by Sts. Attica and Artemia, coming to meet him with Sts. Helena and Constantia] and how God through them and through his own grace had called forth two other Virgins; and how they, seizing upon the summit of learning, had begun from perfection, and how they had received all things perfect even among the first rudiments. Then, as Gallicanus entered the palace with Augustus, Helena ran out with her daughter Constantia and with the daughters of Gallicanus himself. Tears full of joy were shed, and Gallicanus was not permitted to return to his own house; but like a son-in-law of the Emperors he withdrew into the palace, observing his daughters weeping amid the praises of God. When he wished to depart as a private citizen, he was asked by the Emperors and proceeded as Consul, and once established in the fasces, he made five thousand slaves free Roman citizens, generous to the poor, to whom he gave estates and houses; and he ordered all his possessions, excepting the rights of his daughters, to be sold and given to the poor, and he joined himself at the city of Ostia to a certain holy man named Hilarinus, and to pilgrims: who was residing there; whose dwelling he caused to be enlarged for the reception of pilgrims, which he himself provided for very many. So reads that passage; and the martyrdom of both St. Gallicanus and St. Hilarinus is added, he becomes a Martyr under Julian: which both underwent in the persecution of Julian, the former on June 25, the latter on July 16, when their memory is recorded by Bede, Usuard, Ado, and the rest of the ancient martyrologists, and together they confirm what has been said thus far; among which, after relating the death of Sts. John and Paul, the conversion of Terentianus, who had ordered them beheaded, is narrated, and finally it is said that this passion of the Saints was written down as Terentianus himself related it.
[10] To which years of the reign of Constantine the individual events thus far related should be assigned, although not equally certain, can nevertheless be gathered from the Consulship of Gallicanus. He had been, while still a Gentile, Consul with Bassus, as we said above, in the twelfth year of the reign of Constantine, A.D. 317; but now, having embraced the Christian faith, when he wished to depart as a private citizen, he was asked by Augustus and proceeded as Consul, having received Symmachus as colleague, which occurred in the twenty-fifth year of the reign, A.D. 330. He held the Consulship in the year 330, The same Gallicanus offered very many gifts to the church of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of St. John the Baptist in the city of Ostia, built by Constantine at the suggestion of Pope St. Sylvester, as Anastasius the Librarian reports in the Book of the Lives of the Pontiffs. But how long Gallicanus, as though a son-in-law of the Emperors, lived in the palace after the Scythian victory and before the said Consulship, cannot easily be determined. St. Helena Augusta, the mother of Constantine, received him upon his arrival, together with St. Constantia, his daughter, and Sts. Attica and Artemia, his own daughters. St. Helena, as Eusebius relates in Book 3 of the Life of Constantine, Chapter 45, around that time St. Helena lived. "having completed roughly about eighty years of age, made an end of living"; and therefore, although she was said to have been born around A.D. 250, she could have lived until the last Consulship of St. Gallicanus, or the year 330. Baronius, having related under the year 326 the history of the Cross of Christ discovered by her at Jerusalem, treats of her death at number 59, "although," he says, "we do not hesitate to affirm that she lived some further years"; which will be more exactly investigated in her Life on August 18.
[12] The victories over the Persians which are reported as won by Gallicanus Were the Persians driven from Syria before the year 327? seem to have occurred earlier, perhaps before the year 327, when Theophanes and Anastasius write that a great persecution arose against the Christians under Shapur, King of the Persians. That Persian incursion into Syria could also have occurred not so much by the command of King Shapur as under the auspices of some Satrap or Commander ruling on the borders. Eusebius relates in Book 4 of the Life of Constantine, Chapter 5, that the nations of the Scythians and Sarmatians, The Scythians subdued. who had never learned to obey the Roman people, were first subdued under Constantine, and he also confirms that Constantine himself went forth to war and, with the sign of the holy Cross borne before him, fought against them and successfully overcame the enemies. Which events either occurred at another time, or are attributed to the Emperor, as commonly happens, although they were brilliantly accomplished by his Commanders.
Section II. The sanctity of life of these three Virgins. The church of St. Agnes erected. The mausoleum and Church of St. Constantia.
[12] Aldhelm in the aforesaid poem On the Praise of Virgins, Chapter 40, reports the following concerning St. Constantia, or Constantina, as he calls her:
"A noble and most beautiful Virgin lived in Rome, Constantina, offering the spectacles of a new life To all St. Constantia the Virgin spurns the world, who desire to live with integrity, Leaving behind the filthy contagions of the old life. This Virgin, I say, trusting in a heavenly Patron, Happily scorned the world flourishing with its bloom, Just as the discarded refuse of dry chaff lies squalid. And that you may wonder all the more, attend to the report of her parents. For her father, governing the scepters of kingdoms with authority, Ruled the empire of the world, with Christ reigning, He who bears the name Constantine for ever. loved by her father Constantine, He loved his holy offspring with wondrous love, While the praises of her life's merit spread far and wide. Her father above betrothed her untouched, with a dowry, Happy, when she had already reached the years of a maiden's bloom. For to a suitor (than whom no other was more distinguished Save the kings who govern the world by right) She had been betrothed, a worthy man, with the pledges of a betrothal agreed. But God, zealous to preserve the maiden intact, preserved by God Pricked the Satrap's mind with sharp goads, So that he would utterly spurn the rich pomps of the world, And would prefer, free, to serve the high King Than to live rich amid the opulent delights of the world. To her thus came the wondrous origin of salvation."
[13] Then, having celebrated in verse St. Gallicanus's victory over the Scythians and his conversion to the faith and to continence, the same Aldhelm adds:
"Thus God almighty protected his loving handmaid, Who with constant prayers assailed the kingdom of the Thunderer, So that the Creator, lover of integrity, would preserve her, As she left behind the filthy sport of savage luxury. For she converted many troops by the teaching of Christ, Shining both by example and by celebrated report. she leads Sts. Attica and Artemia to preserve their virginity, What perhaps twin sisters more abundantly reveal, Attica and Artemia, born of the blood of a Praetor, Whom former ages called Gallicanus. His aforesaid offspring the Queen counseled To preserve their virginal life with chaste steps, Who likewise earned the blooming trophies of modesty, As they leave the world when the time of life has passed, And happily hasten upward to the stars of heaven."
[14] The same St. Aldhelm, in his book On the Praises of Virginity written in prose, Chapter 25, celebrates these holy Virgins with this encomium: "Constantia, a heroine of the most perfect virtue, daughter of Constantine (who at the same time is known to have governed the monarchy of the threefold world with prosperous success), did she not incite to the worship of the Christian religion and the crown of chastity nearly all the daughters of the Roman Praetors, and other Roman Virgins: and nearly every noble feminine offspring and the most beautiful flower of youth, by the famous report of her virginity, persuade them by her speech, and spur them by her example? To such an extent that each one, having scorned the nuptial chamber and the commerce of married luxury, confessed with frequently drawn sighs that she was eagerly striving for the embrace of the heavenly Bridegroom and hastening among the wise Virgins with their lamps; which the written treatises about her life more fully reveal, a fact which Attica and Artemia, virgins flourishing in undefiled virginity and purity, sufficiently declare."
[15] So St. Aldhelm. But the holy Virgins did not remain in the palace of Constantine the Great amid courtly tumults; rather, leaving the City, they withdrew to the Via Nomentana, which led from the Viminal Gate to Nomentum, she fixes her dwelling at the tomb of St. Agnes: an ancient town of the Sabines, and established their dwelling at the tomb of St. Agnes, where St. Constantia had obtained the health of her body; this was afterwards commonly called the Monastery of St. Agnes, where, together with other Virgins, serving God and the blessed Martyr Agnes with the whole ardor of their souls, they led a most holy life. Concerning their pious manner of living, the following is read in St. Ambrose in the said Acts of St. Agnes: "The daughter of Augustus, Constantia, persevered in virginity, through whom many Virgins, noble and illustrious and of middling rank, received the sacred veil. And because faith does not suffer the losses of death, to this day many Roman Virgins attend upon the most blessed Agnes as though she remained in the body, and, provoked by her example, manfully persevere in integrity, believing without doubt that by persevering they will acquire the palm of perpetual victory."
[16] Meanwhile St. Constantia procured from her Imperial father the erection of a most magnificent church in that place in honor of St. Agnes, and the establishment of a noble mausoleum of conspicuous workmanship for her own burial, she obtains that a church be built for St. Agnes by her father Constantine, which is indicated in the same Acts of St. Agnes in these words: "In the meantime she asked her father and brothers the Emperors that a basilica of Blessed Agnes be built, and she ordered a mausoleum to be placed there for herself." These brothers were created Caesars while their father Constantine was still alive: Constantine in 317, Constantius in 324, Constans in 333. But when their father Constantine died in 337, on the very day of Pentecost, May 22, they divided the Roman world among themselves and were named Augusti. In a very ancient manuscript codex of the Most Serene Christina, Queen of Sweden, containing the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, brought down to Pope St. Felix IV, that is the year of Christ 530 (to which, however, the bare names of nine Pontiffs up to Pelagius II, the predecessor of St. Gregory the Great, are appended), the following is read about the basilicas built by Constantine the Great, in the Acts of St. Sylvester: "At the same time Constantine Augustus built a basilica in the Sessorian Palace, where he also enclosed in gold and gems a piece of the wood of the holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time he built a basilica of St. Agnes the Martyr at the request of his daughter Constantia. At the same time he built a basilica of the holy Martyr Marcellinus the Priest and Peter the Exorcist." So reads that passage. Bede in his work On the Six Ages of the World, under Constantine, also reports this somewhat more fully, and concerning the basilica of St. Agnes he has: "Likewise he built a basilica of the holy Martyr Agnes at the request of his daughter, and a baptistery in the same place, where his sister Constantia was also baptized together with the daughter Augusta." But the name of St. Constantia, his daughter, is also expressed in the Lives of the Pontiffs by Anastasius the Librarian, and indeed twice in the Royal, Mazarin, and Thuanus manuscripts, and endowed: in this manner: "At the same time Constantine Augustus built a basilica of St. Agnes the Martyr at the request of his daughter Constantia, and Constantia his sister was baptized there, along with Augusta the daughter, and he established a baptistery there. Moreover, he offered these gifts there: a golden paten weighing twenty pounds, a golden chalice weighing ten pounds," etc., where various possessions are also enumerated, which perhaps pertained to the attached monastery. She who is called Constantia, sister of Constantine, was married to Licinius, and afterwards became a principal patron of the Arians.
[17] After the death of Pope St. Sylvester, the Pontiffs who presided over the Church were Marcus, Julius, and Liberius, created in the year 352, but deported into exile by the Emperor Constantius because he refused to consent to the Arian heresy. Upon returning from exile, Liberius dwelt in the cemetery of St. Agnes near the sister of Constantius, so that through her intervention or entreaty he might return more freely to the city. she receives Pope St. Liberius in exile: "Then Constantia Augusta, who was faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, refused to petition her brother Constantius Augustus, because she had perceived the counsel of deceit." So far the same Anastasius, who records that Liberius, not unmindful of the hospitality, adorned the tomb of Blessed Agnes: "This Liberius," he says, "adorned the tomb of the holy Martyr Agnes with slabs of marble stones." Finally, from the manuscript Acts of the schism that arose between Liberius and Felix (who had been created during the exile of the former), Paul Aringo in Book 4 of Subterranean Rome, Chapter 25, and Antonio Bosio in Book 3, Chapter 48, produce the following under the title of Pope Boniface: "This Constantia, a maiden of august memory, lived near the oratory which the good father Constantine had built for her, she is regarded as a servant of St. Agnes: where she was a Virgin handmaid of her Lady, the most holy Martyr Agnes."
[18] Concerning her death and burial, the same Bosio and Aringo transcribe the following from the manuscript Acts: "Moreover Blessed Constantia, persevering in holy virginity, when the time of winter had passed and the time of spring had begun, that is on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March, she entered prepared into the wedding feast." she died on February 18. "Her body was buried in a precious porphyry sarcophagus, and there a church was built in her honor by her father and brothers, buried in a porphyry chest, adorned with columns and mosaic of stone." These are the words of the manuscript Acts, to which, after Bosio, Aringo adds: "The same writers of ancient affairs, moreover, assert that this porphyry chest was carried to the Lateran by order of Pope Paul II, removed by Paul II, to serve for the burial of that same Pontiff. In the meantime, however, while it was being extracted from there, in the very course of the journey, before it reached its destined place, the Pontiff closed his last day, and Pope Sixtus IV, intent upon preserving the antiquities of urban affairs, restored by Sixtus IV: caused it to be returned to its former place, the matter being left undone. Where today it is seen not without the great admiration of all, both for the merit of its antiquity and for the elegance of the workmanship." So reads that passage, together with the appended form of the sarcophagus or chest of St. Constantia, artistically sculpted.
[19] The church mentioned above, erected in honor of St. Constantia by her father and brothers, her mausoleum was afterwards called the Church of St. Constantia. is called a mausoleum in the Life of St. Agnes; the same Bosio and Aringo report that it still stands not far from the basilica of St. Agnes itself, and is called by no other title than the Church of St. Constantia; and they add that from the various images seen therein, depicting the festive days of the vintage, it appears that among the Gentiles it had been a temple of Bacchus, which, restored by Constantine Augustus and adorned with sacred images that were once seen woven in mosaic and elegant work in the vault, was duly dedicated to the immortal God and given to his daughter St. Constantia; and finally that the temple is of a spherical form, whose vault or dome is supported by twenty-four columns, each pair joined together, and corresponding to one another in order.
[20] There were two sisters of St. Constantia, daughters of Constantine the Great; of these, one, called Constantina, or Flavia Julia Constantina, her sisters, Constantina was given by her father as wife first to Flavius Claudius Hannibalianus, the nephew of Constantine through his brother Delmatius, and constituted by him King of the Pontic nations. When he died, she was given by her brother Constantius as wife to Gallus Caesar, who likewise, being the son of Constantius, had had Constantine the Great as his paternal uncle; but she was carried off in Bithynia by a sudden attack of fever, in the consulship of Constantius Augustus VII and Gallus III, as Ammianus Marcellinus says in Book 14. This is the year of Christ 354. In the year following her death, the other sister, named Helena, married Julian Caesar, the brother of Gallus, and Helena, at Vienne in Gaul; and when Julian was celebrating his quinquennalia in the year 360, she died. The bodies of both sisters were brought from such distant regions to the City and deposited in the mausoleum of their sister St. Constantia. This buried in the mausoleum of St. Constantia: is indicated by the same Ammianus in Book 21 in these words: "Among these things, Julian had sent the remains of his deceased wife Helena to Rome, to be buried in the suburban area on the Via Nomentana, where Constantina, the wife of Gallus and formerly his sister, was also buried." Various marble sarcophagi have been found there near the mausoleum, or church, of St. Constantia, sculpted by the studious hand of artists and reproduced in print by Bosio and Aringo; which they judge were used for the burial of the said sisters of St. Constantia and other illustrious men.
[21] These things had to be said about the sisters of St. Constantia, because St. Constantia the Virgin is from time to time, as we showed above from St. Aldhelm, called Constantina, and Constantina herself, who was twice married, is also found called Constantia in various authors. Of these, Constantina is also written as Constantia. Thus on October 20, in the Life of St. Artemius, a Commander under Constantine and Constantius who obtained martyrdom under Julian, it is said that Constantius gave Gallus his own sister Constantia as wife, "so that the matter might be more firm and secure." In the Greek manuscript: "appointing for him as wife his own sister Constantia, for the sake of trust and security." The death of this same woman is thus related in the same Life: "And Constantia indeed set out at once, to meet her brother first, and having in mind to plead for her husband, that he should decree nothing harsh against him. But when she had begun the journey with ready and eager spirit, she fell ill on the way. And when she had ascended into Bithynia, at a certain station called Gallicana, she died." In which place in the Greek manuscript Constantina is read. "Constantina therefore set out sooner to meet her brother first and to plead with him on behalf of her husband, being eager," etc. She died, as we said, in the year 354, when Pope Liberius was still governing the Church in supreme peace; she died in the year 354. who in the following year 355 was summoned by Constantius to the Council of Milan, and thence cast into exile with other orthodox Bishops, lived at Beroea for two years, and after being compelled by the terror and fraud of the Arians to subscribe to the condemnation of St. Athanasius, was sent back to his See and, as St. Jerome says in his Chronicle, "entered Rome as though a victor." At St. Constantia's, Pope Liberius takes refuge in the year 359. But after the Council of Rimini held in 359, being again driven from the City, he took refuge with St. Constantia and lay hidden with her, as Baronius learnedly observes; consult him at the year 357, number 57, and 359, numbers 46 and 47. Finally, the Emperor Constantius, the last of the brothers and sisters of St. Constantia, died on the third day before the Nones of November, A.D. 361, and was buried at Constantinople; and then Julian, their cousin, who had been acclaimed Augustus by the soldiers in the preceding year, ruled alone. He, having abjured all the sacraments of the Christian faith, reopened the shrines of idols; under him various saints merited the palm of martyrdom, among them Sts. John and Paul, formerly domestic servants of St. Constantia, and St. Gallicanus, father of Sts. Attica and Artemia. We judge that these three Virgins, either all of them or one or another, lived until that time, and saw the Christian faith restored under Jovian and Valentinian with the closing of the shrines of idols.
Section III. The relics of Sts. Constantia, Attica, and Artemia; their commemoration in the Martyrologies.
[22] Among the ancient monuments attesting the piety of St. Constantia was a certain inscription placed in the apse of the church of St. Agnes, expressing in an acrostic poem these words: "Constantina to God," that is, she built this temple of St. Agnes. But those poems, transcribed at the Vatican Library, are prefaced with this title: "Verses of Constantia, daughter of Constantine, An inscription in the church of St. Agnes concerning St. Constantia. written in the apse of the basilica which she founded in honor of St. Agnes." These verses are found in print in Janus Gruter among the Ancient Inscriptions of the Roman Empire, in the Appendix, page 1161, number 9; in Baronius at the year 360, but in the Appendix at the beginning of Volume 3; in Bosio and Aringo; and in Tristan, Volume 3, Commentary 102, who distinguished the acrostic letters by this method:
"Constantina, venerating God and dedicated to Christ, With all expenses prepared by a devoted mind, With much help from the divine power and Christ, Consecrated the temple of the victorious Virgin Agnes: A temple that surpassed the work of all temples and all earthly things, Golden, it gleams at the pinnacle of the lofty roof. For the name of Christ is celebrated in this abode,
He who alone could conquer the death of hell, Brought into heaven, and alone could win the triumph. Still bearing the name and the body and all limbs, Raised from the darkness of death and the blind night. A worthy gift, therefore, O Martyr devoted to Christ, You will hold from our wealth through long ages. O happy Virgin of memorable name, Agnes."
These same verses are attributed by some to St. Damasus, and have often been reprinted among his poems; but they seem rather to have been composed some centuries later, when the names Constantia and Constantina were not precisely distinguished.
[23] Bosio and Aringo report that another inscription was read above the door of the church of St. Constantia, by which they say it is indicated that the bodies of the same Blessed Constantia and of Sts. Attica, The bodies of Sts. Constantia, Attica, and Artemia deposited under the altar: Artemia, and Emerentiana were once extracted from there and most honorably placed under the altar by Pope Alexander IV, who consecrated the same Church with solemn rite. Concerning St. Emerentiana, the foster-sister of St. Agnes, who was stoned to death at her tomb, we treated on January 23. Pope Alexander IV held the See from 1254 to 1261, and Ciaconius asserts that he consecrated the altar of Blessed Constantia. The same authors add that these precious pledges came to light again when Cardinal Sfondrato, namely Paul Aemilius, the nephew of Gregory XIV, undertook to repair and adorn the same altar; he repaired the high altar and adorned the church with a distinguished ceiling.
[24] Antonio Gallonio, in his History of the Holy Roman Virgins, Observation 2 on the Life of St. Constantia, says that the relics of the same holy Virgin are preserved in various churches: Relics of St. Constantia in various churches. a large part of the body is held in great veneration, deposited in the church dedicated to St. Constantia on the Via Nomentana; the head and one arm are in the church of St. Peter in Chains; a tooth in St. Clement's; and finally a veil with part of the skin in St. Peter's, and some other small portions in other churches. Furthermore, the body of the venerable Artemia is still held in the church of St. Constantia; about the body of her sister Attica he is silent. Tristan judges that the body of St. Constantia was transferred from Rome to Constantinople under Theodosius the Great, on account of these words of Idatius in the Consular Fasti: "Under the Consuls Merobaudus and Saturninus" (this is the year 383), "In that same year the body of Constantia, daughter of Augustus, entered Constantinople on the second day before the Ides of September." But we judge that the twice-married Constantina is here meant, the former Queen of the Pontic provinces, whom, besides the Acts of St. Artemius already indicated, Zosimus, Zonaras, and Cedrenus also call Constantia.
[25] The name of St. Constantia has been inscribed in the sacred Calendar and Catalogues of Saints for various days. St. Constantia is venerated on January 28. Peter Equilinus, having treated in Book 3, Chapter 33, of St. Agnes the second, as she is called, for January 28, in Chapter 34, under the title "Concerning St. Constantia the Virgin," treats of her with a eulogy drawn chiefly from the Life of St. Agnes, with no mention made of Sts. Attica and Artemia. The same St. Constantia the Virgin was assigned to February 17 by Constantius Felicius and Francesco Lahierius in the Menologion of Virgins, citing German Calendars, and February 17. and Lahierius adds that she died around the year 336, which we have rejected above. The same Lahierius for February 18, on which day he asserts that St. Constantia is venerated by others, records Sts. Attica and Artemia, virgin sisters, and with Sts. Attica and Artemia on February 18. whom he judges to have departed this life around the year 350. The aforementioned Gallonio in his History of the Holy Roman Virgins reports that these, together with St. Constantia, are honored with a festive celebration on the same February 18. On that day we said above from the manuscript Acts that St. Constantia died, on which day she is also inscribed in the Calendar prefixed to the catechism and prayers of Peter Canisius, and in the General Catalogue of Ferrarius in these words: "At Rome, of St. Constantia the Virgin, daughter of Constantine the Great." and February 25. But on February 25, Octavius Pancirolus testifies in his Hidden Treasures of the City of Rome, Region 2, Church 62, which is the Church of St. Constantia on the Via Nomentana, that the Ecclesiastical Office for these three holy Virgins is recited at Rome in the Church of St. Peter; and there he treats more fully of Attica and Artemia, whom he also calls Saints, and of St. Gallicanus their father. On the same day likewise the name of St. Constantia is inscribed in the Historical Calendar of Felicius and the Calendar of the Golden Prayer Book published at Ingolstadt.
[26] But on June 25, on which St. Gallicanus was crowned with martyrdom, Greven the Carthusian inscribed the memory of these three Virgins in his supplement to Usuard published in 1515 and 1521, where he has: and June 25. "Of Constantia the Virgin, daughter of Constantine the Great the Emperor; of Attica and Artemia, daughters of St. Gallicanus the Martyr." On the same day Canisius celebrates them with a longer encomium in the German Martyrology published in 1573 and 1599: "Likewise, of the holy Virgin Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine the Great, who, being infected with leprosy, obtained health at the tomb of St. Agnes, and thereafter with Attica, Artemia, and many other Virgins served God in a monastery built above the cemetery of St. Agnes. Through her intercession Gallicanus was converted to the faith, and he vowed to embrace continence if he returned victorious from war. Having obtained the victory, he professed not only the faith of Christ but also chastity. Constantia, after a life spent in holiness, fell asleep in peace and was buried at St. Agnes's. Likewise, of the holy Virgins Attica and Artemia, daughters of St. Gallicanus, who were converted by St. Constantia." So reads that passage. But the said monastery, through a long course of time after the death of St. Constantia, stood as the most noble and celebrated dwelling of Roman Virgins, of which Anastasius the Librarian makes mention in the Life of Pope St. Leo III in these words: Mention of the monastery of St. Agnes. "Moreover Leo also made for the monastery of St. Agnes, which is situated outside the Nomentane Gate, baskets of silver weighing five pounds." Bosio and after him Aringo testify that traces of the same monastery still survive, and moreover the very entrance itself which from it opened onto the cemetery.