Gabinius

CONCERNING ST. GABINIUS, PRIEST AND MARTYR, AT ROME.

A.D. 296.

Gabinius, Priest, Martyr, at Rome (St.)

By I. B.

[1] Gabinius was the father of the illustrious Virgin and Martyr Susanna, the brother of St. Caius the Pope, a kinsman of the Emperor Diocletian, and under him he attained the laurel of martyrdom. He was, moreover, excellently cultivated in human and divine letters, which he also taught thoroughly to his daughter; but above all he formed her in piety, in the love of virginity, and in zeal for the other virtues. He himself is also said to have composed books of Treatises against the Pagans; but if he completed them, they have since been lost. After the death of his wife, he was ordained a Priest. Claudius, Maximus, Praepedigna, Alexander, and Cutia were instructed in the mysteries of the Christian religion by him and by his daughter Susanna and his brother Caius, as has been related under February 18 from the Acts of St. Susanna; and I believe scarcely anything else concerning St. Gabinius survives beyond what is found there, nor is it necessary to repeat it here. In the manuscripts, the matters pertaining to him are briefly narrated. John Tamayo de Salazar numbers Gabinius among the Spanish saints, born of a certain Serena, a daughter of the Emperor Philip, of Spanish origin (as he asserts). He attempts to prove that he was born of her because St. Susanna the Virgin is somewhere called a granddaughter of St. Serena Augusta. This does not follow from that.

[2] His anniversary commemoration is recorded in the Martyrologies under the 19th of February. And by Usuard indeed in these words: "At Rome, the birthday of St. Gabinius, Priest and Martyr, who, long afflicted in prison and chains by Diocletian, purchased the joys of heaven by a precious death." After the word "Martyr," the Roman Martyrology inserts: "brother of Blessed Caius the Pope." Bede, Notker, and others add: "father of the most blessed Susanna." Some Martyrologies call him Gabinus with the Roman, many call him Gauinius, and certain manuscripts and printed works call him Sauinus — which is an error of the copyists. The manuscripts of the monasteries of Marchiennes, Anchin, and St. Martin's at Trier place his feast on February 18. A certain ancient Martyrology makes him a Bishop instead of a Priest.

[3] The manuscript Florarium says his martyrdom occurred in the year of salvation 287. We showed on February 18 that, since St. Caius was accustomed to celebrate the sacred rites in the house of St. Susanna for a considerable time after her death, and then was forced to hide in the crypts, and finally suffered martyrdom on April 22 of the year 296, it would appear that St. Susanna was killed on August 11 of the year 295, when on February 18 of the same year the other Martyrs, her kinsmen — Claudius, Maximus, and their companions — had perished. St. Gabinius may be considered to have died in the same year, on February 19, either worn out by the afflictions of prison or slain by the sword. I would prefer, however, to suspect that as long as the tyrant entertained hope of being able to break the constancy of Susanna, he did not order death to be inflicted upon the father, but only that he be held in custody, lest he confirm his daughter in her resolution — and that the father might rather be moved from his own resolve, if possible, by the foulness and discomfort of prison. And so he may finally have passed to heaven on February 19 of the year 296, two months and four days before his brother Caius.

[4] Octavius Pancirolus, in his work on the Hidden Treasures of the Venerable City, writes that in the church of St. Susanna at Rome the body of St. Gabinius, her father, is also preserved, and that a portion of the shinbone is kept in the church called St. Mary of the People. And Saussay, in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology, writes thus of St. Gabinius: "His most sacred body was at length given by Pope Paul V to the internuncio of the Most Christian King as a pledge; by whom it was translated to Lyons, the metropolis of Celtic Gaul, and placed in the church of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus on this very day with the greatest solemnity."