ON THE VERY MANY MARTYRS WHO SUFFERED AT ROME UNDER DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN.
A.D. 302 and 303.
CommentaryVery many saints, Martyrs under Diocletian and Maximian at Rome
From various authors.
[1] "In the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian" (says Eusebius, book 8, chapter 3), "in the month of Dystros, which the Romans call March, when the feast of our Savior's salvific Passion was already at the door, it was publicly proclaimed everywhere by the Emperor's letters Diocletian's edict against the Christians. that the churches should be demolished and leveled to the ground, that the scriptures of the Christians should be consumed by fire, that those who had attained honor should be ignominiously removed from their rank, and that private persons, if they persisted in their profession, should be utterly deprived of their liberty. Such was the first Edict against them. Not long afterward, when further letters went out, it was commanded that all the leaders of the churches everywhere should be thrown into chains, and then by every device employed be compelled to offer sacrifices to the idols." Sacred codices sought out for burning. So writes Eusebius.
[2] "Therefore" (says Baronius at the year 302, no. 22) "when such an Edict of the Emperor concerning the burning of books was promulgated, in every province the governors, and in individual cities, towns, and villages the officials watched carefully that the codices should be surrendered by the Christians; and to this end they were pressed and cruelly compelled with added torments. Those who, terrified by the severity of the punishments, Who the Traditores were. would hand over whatever codices they had were called Traditores. Their number was great; but almost infinite was the number of those whose constancy was shaken by no fear, Many put to martyrdom because they refused to hand over the sacred books. who most willingly met death rather than hand over the sacred codices. The crowns of all of these, since it seemed impossible to pursue the memory of each individual, the Roman Church celebrates together on one day, namely January 2, with this proclamation: 'At Rome, the commemoration of very many holy Martyrs They are venerated on January 2. who, spurning the edict of Emperor Diocletian by which the sacred codices were ordered to be surrendered, preferred to give their bodies to the executioners rather than to give what is holy to dogs.'"
[3] Baronius restored these from ancient records to the tables of the Martyrology. He mentions them frequently in his Annals, especially at the years 302 and 303, Diocletian's 19th and 20th years. There, as well as in his Notes on the Martyrology, drawing on Augustine, he reports the Council of Cirta in Numidia held at that time regarding those who had surrendered the sacred codices. The Council of Cirta.
[4] In the same place, from various laws, Baronius shows that long before, Ulpian and Paullus had given the legal opinion that books of magical art — that is, Books of the Christians ordered burned. of the Christians — should be burned. Nor is it surprising, since, as Arnobius attests, certain persons had judged that even Cicero's own books On the Nature of the Gods and On Divination, by which pagan superstition seemed capable of being overthrown, should be destroyed.