ON ST. DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF AUGSBURG, MARTYR
Year of Christ 303.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Dionysius, Bishop and Martyr, at Augusta Vindelicorum (St.)
Author G. H.
[1] Augusta Vindelicorum is among the foremost cities of Germany, which more recent writers believe to be the city called by Tacitus, in his work On the Situation of Germany, chapter 41, "the most splendid colony of the province of Raetia." For Raetia and Vindelicia constituted a single province when the regions were being reduced to the form of provinces by the Emperor Augustus. The first Bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone, in his Topography of the Holy Martyrs of Christ, composed over two hundred years ago and later revised and published with Maurolycus's Martyrology, calls Augusta "the city of Raetia Vindelicorum" and places among the Saints of Augsburg Philip as a Bishop and Martyr under Antoninus Verus. The same is ascribed to the people of Augsburg by Franciscus Irenicus, book 11 of his Exegesis of Germany, folio 202. But the Augsburgians do not recognize him among their Saints, Apostles, or Bishops, since no testimony of any ancient writer is produced. And perhaps St. Philip is the Bishop who, at Gortyna in Crete in the times of Antoninus Verus and L. Aurelius Commodus, defended the Church against the fury of the Gentiles and the plots of heretics, and is venerated on the 11th of April. Thus RAETIA and CRETA, owing to some similarity of letters, were insufficiently distinguished, and certain things that had occurred in one were transferred to the other by the unskilled. Peter of Equilino in his Catalogue, book 7, chapter 28, sends St. Afra and her mother St. Hilaria, the sister of St. Dionysius, from Raetia to the island of Crete, in these words: Afra, Martyr, at Crete (read Raetia), in the city of Augsburg, suffered martyrdom. She, being a pagan and a prostitute, had her mother Hilaria living from the practice of prostitution. She herself, with her three handmaids, namely Digna, Eumenia, and Eutropia, prostituted herself to all who sought her. But through the preaching of Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, she was converted to Christ and, with her entire household and mother, was baptized and turned from sin.
[2] So far that passage, with another error, namely that St. Narcissus, the Apostle of the Augsburgians, is designated Bishop of Jerusalem, whereas he is commonly held to have been Bishop of Gerona in Spain. Concerning him and the baptism of this family, the following is read in the ancient Acts of the Conversion and Passion of Saints Afra, Hilaria, and their companion Martyrs, published from ancient manuscript codices by Marcus Welserus: For many days St. Narcissus the Bishop taught them the word of God, and Hilaria was baptized with her daughter Afra and with her maidens and with all their friends. And he made the house of Hilaria into a church, and ordained for them as Priest Dionysius, the uncle of Afra. And Bishop Narcissus himself, having arranged all things in order, after nine months set out for Spain to the city of Gerona, in which he won a great people for God over three years, and thus at last attained the palm of martyrdom with his Deacon Felix. So far that passage, which is read in the same manner in our manuscript, formerly received from the same Welserus and collated with the most ancient manuscript of Claude Dupuy. Concerning St. Narcissus, the ancient History of the Saints, printed in 1483 and 1485, agrees in substance though differing in words. Before those times, Boninus Mombritius in his work On the Saints published the Acts of the Passion of Saints Afra and Hilaria, and has this concerning the return of St. Narcissus: And Bishop Narcissus himself, having completed the ordinations, after nine months set out for Spain to HIS OWN CITY, which is called Gerona. St. Narcissus is venerated by the people of both Augsburg and Gerona on the 29th of October, and is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the 18th of March, on which day Juan Tamayo Salazar in his Hispanic Martyrology asserts that he was originally from Santarem and had been Bishop of Braga. This will be examined at the proper time; now let us return to St. Dionysius and his family.
[3] Sigismund, in his Augsburg Chronicle written in the year 1483 and published by Johann Pistorius among the old writers on German affairs, makes St. Hilaria a Queen of Cyprus and adds wars then waged, which Marcus Welserus, book 7 of the Affairs of Augusta Vindelicorum, corrects without naming names; yet not daring to abolish everything, he relates the following about the origin of this family: Narcissus, unaware of everything, was received in the house of a woman who was a prostitute. The woman's name was Afra, her mother Hilaria; Hilaria's ancestors were Cypriots. These, having been brought to Augsburg by whatever occasion (for the war which some have invented between the Kings of Cyprus and Attica neither existed nor could have existed in those times—a fact so obvious that no one, however remote from all knowledge of history, could fail to perceive it), brought with them at the same time the mysteries of Cyprian Venus. Initiated into these on her mother's advice, Afra followed her ancestral custom and worshipped the goddess by prostituting her body. This treatise of Welserus was published in 1594. Then in 1601 a book On the Saints of Augsburg was published, illustrated with distinguished images, in which the same women, Afra and Hilaria, are said to have been of Cypriot origin and to have worshipped Venus by prostituting their bodies. The same was afterwards reported by Carolus Stengelius, chapter 3 of his Augsburg History. But Bruschius, On the Bishops of Germany, chapter 8, draws more from Sigismund, namely that Lady Hilaria and her daughter Afra are affirmed to have been Queens of Cyprus. But in the great silence of the ancient sources, they should no more be said to have originated from Cyprus than from the island of Crete, which we rejected above; and perhaps this notion—that they were priestesses of the rites of Venus, who was hailed as "the goddess powerful over Cyprus"—itself gave rise to the claim that they too drew their origin from Cyprus, with wars added as embellishment which Welserus preferred to expunge.
[4] But let us consider the ancient Acts of St. Afra and excerpt what pertains to our purpose. Of these, the first are: Narcissus made the house of Hilaria into a church. And he ordained for them as Priest Dionysius, the uncle of Afra. In the manuscript codex of St. Maximinus, the last words read thus: And he ordained for them as Priest one Zosimus by name, the uncle of Afra. The same is read in Mombritius. In the ancient History of the Saints, it is expressed thus: He consecrated the house of Hilaria, the mother of Afra, into a church; and ordained Zosimus, the uncle of Afra, as their Priest, having taken other Clerics to assist him. Bruschius, following Sigismund, explains this as follows: Having earnestly exhorted Zosimus, Lady Hilaria's brother, a man of excellent talent, eloquence, and moderate learning, that he too should preach Christ the Son of God to the still uncultivated people of Alamannia, St. Narcissus easily persuaded him. This Zosimus, no longer calling him Zosimus but St. Dionysius, wanted him to imitate—or even surpass—the virtue and holiness of life of Dionysius the Areopagite, his fellow-countryman and near-compatriot. So far Bruschius, who perhaps supposed that, because of the fabricated wars between the Kings of Cyprus and Attica, Cyprus, near Syria, and Attica, a province of Greece in Europe, were also contiguous regions. Meanwhile, Bruschius is copied by Martin Crusius, part 1 of the Swabian Annals, book 5, chapter 9. He notes, however, that elsewhere it is found that Dionysius and Zosimus were different bishops: the former around the year 300 of Christ, the latter around 1010 for eighteen years, whom Berwelfus succeeded. Concerning the former, or St. Dionysius, we treat here. After recording the martyrdom of St. Afra, the following is added at the end of her Acts in Welserus: Concerning St. Dionysius himself, the uncle of Afra, whom Blessed Narcissus ordained as Priest of the new planting of the faith and more fully instructed—although this is not expressed in particular writings, yet there is no doubt that he was present at the funeral of his glorious Martyr of Christ, Afra, as a Priest and Bishop, and likewise received the palm of victory through the fire of suffering with his sister Hilaria and the other Martyrs. So far the Acts as given by Welserus, which are absent from the manuscripts of Dupuy and of the monastery of St. Maximinus, as well as from Mombritius and the ancient History of the Saints printed in 1483.
[5] For the rest, the remaining writers agree, and first Bruschius narrates the labors of St. Dionysius and his martyrdom thus: Thus Zosimus, or Dionysius, preached Christ to the people of Augsburg and Vindelicia with fearless voice for nearly two years. But when he sharply rebuked the idolatrous practices of the Gentiles and preached against the statues of the pagan gods, that the one and only God—who is indeed triune and one—should be worshipped, Gaius the tyrant, Prefect of the Emperor Diocletian and supreme persecutor of the Christian Church, fell upon him and his whole family, upon the pious maidens recently initiated into Christianity—Afra, Digna, Eunomia, and Eutropia—and upon the mistress and instructor of them all, Hilaria. Dragging this entire new school and Church of the holy man Zosimus to punishment, he first wretchedly tortured them with the most exquisite torments. Then, when the tyrant had no hope that these Confessors of Christ would return to the abominations of paganism, he at once ordered his officers to put them all to death. This is recorded as having taken place around the year of Christ 300; and this Zosimus, or Dionysius, holy Martyr of God, as their first Bishop, the whole Church of Augsburg boasts, proclaims, and with unanimous consent confesses... St. Zosimus and his sister Hilaria dwelt outside the city of Augsburg in the place where the church of St. Ulric now stands; in the same vicinity they also had fields and gardens. Whence to this day nearly all the houses in that neighborhood are subject to tribute and taxes to the monastery of St. Ulric. There is today, still in the house of a certain Canon of Augsburg, a stone with this inscription: ZOSIMUS THE FIRST. So far Bruschius. But Marcus Welserus asserts that the church made from the house of St. Hilaria was dedicated to the Apostles Philip and James, as tradition holds. After recording the martyrdom of St. Afra, which he considers occurred in the year 303, he adds the following: It is recorded that her mother and handmaidens, keeping vigil at her tomb, were shortly afterward also consumed by fire, and it is believed that Bishop Dionysius perished by the same manner of death. Demochares also in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Augsburg adorns him with this eulogy: The first, St. Zosimus, who was also called Dionysius, a disciple of St. Narcissus and by the same appointed Bishop, presided for two years. Because he preached that there was one true God whom he worshipped and to whom alone he sacrificed, and because he defended and affirmed with steadfast spirit the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass by word and example, he was honored with martyrdom by Gaius, the Prefect of the Emperor Diocletian, persecutor of the Church. So far that passage. That St. Narcissus the Bishop came to Augsburg during the raging persecution of Diocletian, and that St. Afra won the palm of martyrdom in the same persecution, the Acts of the latter clearly state; so that it is astonishing that Tamayo Salazar, relying on the authority, as he says, of Flavius Dexter and Marcus Maximus, on the 18th of March should opine that St. Narcissus suffered under the Emperor Aurelian in the year 277. But the ancient records of the Life of St. Afra prevail, as we shall show elsewhere.
[6] Carolus Stengelius, in the Life of St. Dionysius, published in chapter 5 of his Augsburg History, asserts that the most sacred body of this Martyr, together with the relics of St. Quiriacus, was formerly enclosed in one and the same altar, and preserved in the church of St. Afra, now dedicated to St. Ulric, up to the year 1118 and the times of Abbot Egino. St. Quiriacus the Martyr is venerated together with St. Hilaria on the 12th of August, and his martyrdom and that of the others is described at the end of the same Acts. Then in the times of Bishop Embrico, who governed the Church of Augsburg from the sixty-fourth to the seventy-seventh year above the thousandth, Digna the Martyr of Christ was discovered on the 5th before the Ides of July in a wooden chest, which still rests upon the tomb of St. Dionysius, as the ancient writer testifies in the history of the discovery of the body of St. Afra and her companions, among whom we said above that St. Digna was numbered. Afterwards, in the year of Christ 1258, as the same Stengelius reports, the altar of St. Dionysius was opened, and the aforementioned sacred bodies were found and placed again in the same altar, which Bishop Hartmann, who had formerly been Count of Dillingen, consecrated under the title of these Saints, Dionysius and Quiriacus, and also St. Hilaria. Hartmann died in the year 1286. The said elevation, or translation, took place on the fourth day before the Kalends of March, which day remained consecrated to the veneration of St. Dionysius in subsequent times, with indulgences also granted by Alexander IV, who was then Supreme Pontiff of the Church.
[7] Afterwards the Emperor Charles IV sent as a gift a gilded silver tablet, in which the head of St. Dionysius was to be enclosed, with this inscription, as full of piety as it is empty of elegance:
When M, C, thrice counted with L, in one year together, Charles the fourth is the name of the reigning king, Who gave this ornament, and asks that it be pleasing to the Saints. Herein is enclosed Dionysius of this land, A devout Bishop, known by his life rather than his name.
[8] So writes the author of the book On the Saints of Augsburg, printed in 1601, and from him Stengelius. Canisius begins the German Martyrology for this day with St. Dionysius in this manner: The 26th day of February. Today is the feast of St. Dionysius, Bishop and Martyr, brother of St. Hilaria, who in the time of the persecution of Diocletian was converted by St. Narcissus, a Spanish Bishop, and consecrated as the first Bishop of Augsburg, and at last was burned for the faith of Christ. The same Canisius commemorates him alone in the prefixed Calendar. Ferrarius also inscribed him in the New Catalogue. Among the Saints who have proper offices in the diocese of Augsburg, St. Dionysius, Bishop and Martyr, is venerated on this day under the double rite. The Lessons that are read about his Life in the second Nocturn we add here.
EPITOME OF THE LIFE,
from the Augsburg Breviary.
Dionysius, Bishop and Martyr, at Augusta Vindelicorum (St.)
[1] Dionysius, at first a pagan, then the first Bishop of the Church of Augsburg, together with Afra and his sister Hilaria and the rest of this family, was instructed in the doctrine of the Christian faith by St. Narcissus the Bishop, who had lodged at Afra's house in Augsburg, and was baptized; and afterward was ordained Priest by the same, and encouraged by his pious exhortation to build diligently upon the foundation already laid by him, and was left as pastor of the Lord's flock in the said Church.
[2] Imitating therefore the counsel of his holy teacher, as a disciple devoted to God, he did not cease to pursue and overthrow the worship of idols. And understanding this to be the duty of the faithful and prudent servant whom God had set over his household, he converted those blinded by the impious darkness of error to the faith of Christ. Fearing not death, nor deterred by the torment of fire (by which Afra and Hilaria with their companions had been put to death for their contempt of the gods and their constancy in the Christian faith), but inflamed with divine love, he always fearlessly preached the way of eternal life.
[3] Captured therefore, because he persisted in the same sincerity and constancy of faith with unconquered spirit, he was thrown into harsh prisons, and since he would not deny Christ and refused to worship idols, he happily obtained the reward of martyrdom that he had long desired. His most holy relics were afterward placed in the church of St. Ulric. The translation of these relics, made illustrious by indulgences granted by Pope Alexander IV, is celebrated on the fourth day before the Kalends of March.