Fabian

ON ST. FABIAN, POPE AND MARTYR, AT ROME.

Year of Christ 250.

Section I. The election of St. Fabian; the duration of his pontificate.

[1] After Anterus was slain on the third day before the Nones of January, Fabian was then raised to the pontificate — a Roman by birth, son of Fabius, as the Book of the Roman Pontiffs has it; from the region of the Caelian Hill, St. Fabian was a Roman, as Peter of Natali states. He is called Flavianus by George Cedrenus, the Alexandrian Chronicle, and some of the Greeks; Fabius by Maximus of Cythera and the Menaea; Fabius Fabianus by Onuphrius Panvinius — not quite in accordance with Roman usage, by which they were accustomed to call one born of a Fabius father but adopted into another family no longer Fabius but Fabianus, just as they called others Aemilianus, Octavianus, and so forth.

[2] When Fabian was a priest, devoutly occupied in burying the bodies of the blessed martyrs, as Galesinius writes, He buries martyrs, he brought to Rome from exile the body of Pope Pontian, a Pontiff and Martyr who had been sent into exile for the cause of the faith and died there, and buried it in the cemetery of Callistus; and he also buried Pope Anterus, a Pontiff and Martyr, in whose place he next succeeded, on the Appian Way. Concerning Pontian, the Book of the Roman Pontiffs testifies: "He died on that island (Sardinia) on the third day before the Kalends of November" (Baronius says November 19; among them Pontian, the Catalogue of Pontiffs published by Bucherius from our manuscript says the fourth day before the Kalends of October) "... and the Blessed Fabian brought him with the clergy and buried him in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way." But we shall treat of Pontian on November 19. That ancient holy practice of the Roman priests to bury the bodies of saints decently was once flourishing, by holy custom: which has been said elsewhere of Saints John, Crispus, and Marcellus — who was afterward Pope — and others. Nor did the Popes themselves consider this beneath them. Certainly Eutychian, as the aforesaid Book of the Pontiffs states, in his time buried 342 martyrs with his own hand in various places.

[3] By these merits Fabian proved himself worthy of the supreme priesthood, with the saints supporting his cause. How he obtained it, Eusebius narrates in Book 6, chapter 22: After the death of Anterus, they say that Fabian came from the countryside to Rome together with others he is designated Pontiff by the miracle of a dove; and there established his dwelling, where he was allotted the supreme priesthood by a wondrous bestowal of divine and heavenly grace. For when all the brethren had assembled in the church for the purpose of choosing one who should administer the episcopate, and many were thinking of various illustrious and distinguished men suitable for that office, Fabian, who was present, had come to no one's mind; when suddenly they relate that a dove, flying down from on high, settled upon his head, presenting a likeness of the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove upon our Savior. Thereupon the whole people, moved equally by one impulse of the sacred Spirit, with great eagerness and one accord of minds, acclaimed him worthy of that rank and without delay seized him and placed him upon the pontifical throne.

[4] Nicephorus Callistus narrates the same in Book 5, chapter 26, saying that the bishops who were at Rome and all the brethren had been present at the assembly, and that votes had begun to be cast, but varying, before Fabian was divinely chosen by that portent of the dove. Rufinus, Book 6, chapter 21, says that Fabian himself was standing among the rest, eager to know the outcome of the matter; which was variously narrated by others. but he seems himself to have been one of those in whom the right of voting was vested. This miracle, as the same Rufinus reports, is attributed by some to Fabian and by others to Zephyrinus. We shall treat of St. Zephyrinus on August 26. Peter of Natali, Book 2, chapter 105, reported this prodigy thus: "And behold, a white dove descended from heaven upon his head, saying: 'You shall be crowned Bishop of Rome.'" Since Eusebius had said it was an imitation of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon our Savior, Natali did not wish the heavenly voice to be lacking here. But since it lacks an ancient authority, it is also absent from the ancient accounts.

[5] These events took place in the consulship of the Emperor Maximinus and Gaius Julius Africanus, in the year of Christ 236, with the first year of the reign of that same Maximinus not yet elapsed. So the Book of the Roman Pontiffs: "He lived in the times of Maximinus and Africanus up to Decius II and Quadratus, and suffered on the fourth day before the Kalends of February." Better is the other index of Pontiffs: "He lived in the times of Maximinus and Gordian and Philip, from the consulship of Maximinus and Africanus When he was elected. up to Decius II and Gratus. He suffered on the twelfth day before the Kalends of February." If, moreover, as the first book states, the episcopate was vacant for thirteen days after the death of St. Anterus, then Fabian was installed on January 16 or rather the 17th, which was a Sunday, and he sat for fourteen years, ten months, and eleven days; but these do not agree: for if he was created on that day and sat for that long, then he died on November 27 or 28 of the year 250, how long he sat, in the consulship of Decius and Gratus. The other index has that he sat for fourteen years, one month, and ten days; it does not express how long the See was vacant after the death of Anterus: if thirteen days, then he died on February 15 or 16. Baronius corrects it to fifteen years and four days, yet admits that he was created in the consulship of Maximinus and Africanus, which he makes the year of Christ 238, and was killed in the consulship of Decius and Gratus, in the year of Christ, according to his calculation, 252, on January 20; but from January 16 of the year 238 to January 20 of 252, he will not make more than fourteen years and four days. It is certain that the numbers have been confused, and indeed nothing is so liable to confusion as numerical notations. The published text of Bede and Ado assign him fourteen years, eleven months, and twelve days on the See. Galesinius: fourteen years, eleven months, fifteen days. Abbo of Fleury: fourteen years, eleven months, ten days. Platina adds one more day. Rabanus, Notker, and various manuscripts: twenty-five years. Eusebius in the Chronicle and Usuard in the Martyrology: thirteen years. The author on the Roman Pontiffs who is called Liutprand: thirteen years, one month, eleven days. Since it is not established on what day he was elected, we can only pronounce that from the death of St. Anterus to the death of St. Fabian himself, fourteen years and seventeen days elapsed.

Section II. Deeds during the pontificate; letters.

[6] The Book of the Roman Pontiffs briefly touches upon the deeds of Fabian: "He divided the regions among the deacons His statutes, and created seven subdeacons to oversee seven notaries, that they might collect in full the acts of the martyrs; buildings, and he ordered many constructions to be made in the cemeteries... He made five ordinations in the month of December: twenty-two priests, seven deacons, and eleven bishops in various places. He was also buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of February." consecrations.

[7] Now there were fourteen regions of the City, but only seven deacons; therefore each presided over two regions. The first was called the Archdeacon, Regional deacons, the rest were Cardinal Deacons of this or that region. Galesinius cites an ancient subscription of the letters of Pope Gelasius I, which reads thus: "Cyprianus, Archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, and Cardinal Deacon in the third and tenth region. Anastasius, Cardinal Deacon in the fourth and eleventh region," etc. Afterward individual deacons were assigned to each region; still others were added later, on which Galesinius learnedly discourses in his Notes to the Martyrology.

[8] The same Galesinius comments thus on the notaries: "Those who were first established by the most Blessed Pontiff and Martyr Clement for the purpose of recording the affairs of the martyrs Notaries; and were divided by regions, were anciently called regional notaries. Their function then, And so that they might rightly fulfill their office, St. Fabian added the same number of regional subdeacons, whose duty it was to seek out the acts of the martyrs, to assist them in that function. When the fires of persecution were extinguished, lest they should lack material for writing — since with peace given to the Church there was no further writing about martyrs — Pope Julius I wished it to be part of their function and afterward; that the records of all ecclesiastical documents that would serve as evidence should be collected through them, and that the drafting of contracts, donations, testaments, exchanges, and all proceedings in the Church should be produced by them; and that this should be the principal function of him who, as their chief, was called Primicerius of the Notaries. This regional division of theirs continued at Rome down to the times of Popes Paschal II and Urban III. For the last of these established a fixed stipend for them, distributed in their regions. There survive records of proceedings which, committed to writing by these notaries, are read in the ancient hand-written codices of the Holy Roman Church: such as the acts of the most blessed martyrs Fabian, Sebastian, Marcellus, and innumerable others, whose deeds Ado especially received from the diligence of these notaries. It was moreover their function to announce to the people when and where the Pontiff had determined to hold litanies, or to celebrate the solemnities of Masses, or to appoint stations. But when the number of notaries was subsequently multiplied, those who descended from those original seven their dignity, were called Protonotaries; whose rank became one not merely of office but of such dignity that the use of white linen tunics, which is proper to bishops, was also granted to them as a mark of distinction; and at length these men advanced to such a degree of dignity — I know not how — that they took precedence over bishops in almost every public function, which Pius II rightly forbade at the Council of Mantua."

[9] These things were decreed by Fabian at the beginning of his pontificate, and the situation demanded it. What follows concerning the constructions made in the cemeteries seems to have occurred later, in the times of Gordian or rather of the Philips, When the individual deeds were accomplished by Fabian, since under Christian Emperors no one would dare to cause any trouble for the Church. Galesinius discourses admirably on the cemeteries and their substructures and enumerates forty-three in Rome.

[10] The same Fabian, in an uncertain year, deprived the heretic Privatus, most severely censured, of ecclesiastical communion. He condemns the heretic Privatus. Concerning him, St. Cyprian writes in Epistle 55 to Cornelius, a little before the middle: "Through Felicianus I informed you, brother, that there had come to Carthage Privatus, the old heretic, condemned in the colony of Lambesis many years ago by the judgment of ninety bishops, and also most severely censured in the letters of our predecessors Fabian and Donatus, as your awareness is not unaware," etc.

[11] Concerning the three letters that survive under the name of Fabian, let the judgment of others stand. The first, certainly in the part that deals with Novatus, Are his letters authentic? does not at all pertain to the age of Fabian, much less to the beginning of his pontificate — namely the consulship of Maximinus and Africanus — but to Cornelius, Baronius contends; and we shall speak of it in the Life of Cornelius on September 14. The first? This is inferred from the Book of the Roman Pontiffs, where this is stated: "And after his Fabian's passion, Moses and Maximus, priests, and Nicostratus, a deacon, were arrested and thrown into prison. At the same time Novatus came from Africa and separated Novatian and certain confessors from the Church, after Moses the priest had died in prison, where he had been for eleven months, as had many others." We shall treat of St. Moses the Priest on November 25. It is clear that if Novatus first came to Rome after the death of Fabian, he could not have been condemned by Fabian in the first year of his pontificate. Some also judge the second letter of Fabian to be apocryphal, as Possevin testifies in his Apparatus The second? and Bellarmine in his work On Confirmation, Book 2, chapter 8. The third is said to have been issued on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of November, in the consulship of the Most Illustrious Africanus and Decius; but nowhere is Decius found to have held the consulship with Africanus, unless perhaps both were suffect consuls. The third? The year, certainly the second of Decius's reign, that is, the year of Christ 250, is noted in the fragment of consular tables published by Bucherius as "Decius II and Gratus," although Decius's first consulship is nowhere expressed.

Section III. Philip Augustus baptized with his son.

[12] An unhoped-for happiness was divinely granted to Pope Fabian: that he should himself baptize the first Christian Emperors and instruct them in the mysteries of our religion. These were the Philips, father and son. The father, born at Bostra in Arabia, after the younger Gordian had been killed through his treachery, as Eutropius writes, or — as Sextus Aurelius Victor says in his Epitome — after the soldiers had been incited to sedition by him, The Emperor Philip, having killed Gordian, seized the empire, taking his son, still quite young, as his colleague. Indeed all pagan writers impute that murder of Gordian to Philip — Iulius Capitolinus most expressly — perhaps to stir up enmity against the Christian name; although certain of our writers, such as Eusebius and others, by no means deny it: for he was not yet a Christian, and the ambition of the pagans was as great in many respects as to not restrain their hands even from kinsmen. Yet if he perpetrated that crime, Philip expiated it by many illustrious deeds. Orosius, Book 7, chapter 19 (perhaps for the sake of dissimulation?) left it ambiguous: "Therefore Gordian," he says, "after great battles waged prosperously against the Parthians, was killed by the treachery of his servants, not far from Circesium on the Euphrates."

[13] However the matter may have stood, Philip, as Zosimus narrates, having established a friendship with Sapor through the exchange of oaths and the war being put to rest, set out for Rome, He wins over the Romans, soothing the spirits of the soldiers with generous largesse; and sending messengers to Rome who would say that Gordian had died of illness. When he arrived at Rome, having won over the men of the senatorial order with a kindly speech, he took care to hand over the most distinguished offices to those most closely connected with him. He then formed a close bond with Pontius, a most noble man, from whom he learned the mysteries of the Christian religion, until he was initiated into them by Pope Fabian. This is to be briefly sampled here from the Acts of St. Pontius, which we shall give on May 14.

[14] Then Fabian, succeeding to the pontificate, loved the Blessed Pontius as a true father loves a true son. Now the holy Pontius, already perfected in the Lord, took all his possessions and handed them over to the Blessed Bishop Fabian, who distributed them to the poor, St. Pontius, having distributed his possessions to the poor, especially to the household of the faith. Now I shall not pass over in silence how he was the first of all to make the Emperors Christian, or how he contended with the devil and emerged victorious, or how he received the palm of martyrdom. friend of the Emperors. In the times of the Emperor Philip, who together with his son Philip governed the Roman Empire, the Blessed Pontius, a most fervent Christian and most learned in all the divine scriptures, was a friend to both Philips. When there was an inseparable bond of favor between them, in the third year of their reign (which is the thousandth year from the founding of Rome), when they wished to go to sacrifice to their gods, they said to the Blessed Pontius: "Let us go and propitiate again the great gods for us, who have brought us to the completion of this thousandth year since the birthday of Rome." invited by them to sacrifices. The Blessed Pontius strove to decline with various excuses.

[15] But the Emperors, as if pressing a friend, were compelling him to sacrifice. The Blessed Pontius, recognizing that the Lord had given him an opportunity, said: "O most pious Emperors, since you have been ordained by God as princes over men, he persuades them to the faith, why do you not bow your necks to him who has bestowed this honor upon you, and offer sacrifice of praise to him alone?" The Emperor Philip said: "For that very reason I desire to offer sacrifice to the great god Jupiter, who has granted me this power." The Blessed Pontius replied with a smile: "Do not err, Emperor; there is a God in heaven who established all things by his single word and animated them by the grace of the Holy Spirit." Philip the son, together with his father the Emperor Philip, said: "With what intention of mind you say these things, we do not know." The Blessed Pontius said: "Was Jupiter from the beginning?" when the vanity of the gods had been refuted; The Emperor said: "No, because his father Saturn is more ancient than he, who governed the peoples of Italy with peaceful moderation." The Blessed Pontius said: "And when Saturn was reigning in Crete, before he was driven from his kingdom by his son Jupiter, did not Italy have peoples? Was it not the case that as soon as he was expelled, as your own literature declares, he was received as a guest?"

[16] And he added again: "Most pious Emperors, do not be led astray by the vain fictions of the poets. There is one God in heaven, the Father of all, who with his Son and the Holy Spirit contains by his own power all things that he has made." The Emperor said: "If there is one God, whom you assert to be in heaven, why do you also mention that he has a son?" The most Blessed Pontius said: "There is one God, as I have often testified, who made heaven and earth, after declaring the fall of man; the sea and all things that are in them. Finally he made man immortal, in his own image and likeness, and subjected to the power of man all things that dwell on the earth, upon the earth, or below in the waters. But the devil, cast down from heaven and seeing man placed in such great honor, led by envy, persuaded man to be ungrateful and disobedient to the one who had subjected all things to him. By this deed, stripped of the immortality with which he had been clothed, he inflicted death upon himself through disobedience, together with all his offspring. For it seemed a small thing to the devil to have once overthrown man; rather, he invented the idols which you now call gods, in order to separate the human race entirely from its creator. But the merciful Lord, not wishing the work of his own image to perish, deigned to send from the heavenly thrones to earth his only Word, through whom all things in heaven and on earth were created; the incarnation of the Word, who, taking immaculate flesh from a virgin for our salvation, came as a man to restore fallen man and to consign the devil with his ministers to perpetual fire. For when he displayed many wonders on earth, such as had never been seen — namely, that he gave sight to those blind from birth; miracles; restored to their former health paralytics who through long periods of time had been deprived of bodily strength with their limbs withered; wondrously restored the freshness of skin to lepers with their flesh most putrid, consumed, and stinking; raised the dead, and Lazarus who had been four days in the tomb, in the sight of the people; and performed many other wonders without number — death. (for what could he not restore, who had formed all things?) the Jews, not believing but rather envying, handed him over to Pontius Pilate the Governor, and nailed to the cross the one who had come for their salvation. God raised him on the third day from the dead, and for many days after his resurrection he conversed with men. But the death which the devil had brought upon men, he slew by dying, and by his resurrection he bestowed life upon us; that just as he himself, rising after this death, dies no more, so we too, rising after this small and miserable life, may live with him forever. For ascending into heaven he showed the way to heavenly life. Wherefore if anyone neglects this salvation, he shall be damned with the devil forever; but if anyone believes, he shall remain with Christ in the heavenly kingdoms."

[17] When he had debated with these and many other words for their salvation, by the will of God the Emperors believed, and they entreated him to open more fully to them on the following day the mystery of this salvation — The believers abstain from sacrifices. how they might escape the eternal fire and enjoy immortality with the saints without end. And indeed from that day onward, declining the sacrifices of idols, they commanded only spectacles to be held for the conclusion of the thousandth year, in which they were celebrating the birthday of the City. St. Fabian baptizes them. Then the most blessed Pontius hastened to the Bishop of the city of Rome, named Fabian, who presided over the Church of God, and disclosed everything to him in order. Then the holy Pope Fabian, falling into prayer with him, said: "Lord Jesus Christ, I give thanks to your name, who through your servant Pontius have deigned to bring the Emperors of the Roman people to the knowledge of you." On the following day, when they had come together to the Princes and had shown them the divine sacraments, they received the grace of baptism.

[18] What joy there was then for that city, what sudden exultation arose, who could describe? At the beginning, indeed, seizing the temple that they called the Great, by the command of the Emperors, St. Fabian and the most Blessed Pontius broke all its carved images Many converted. and overturned it, together with the temple, from its foundations; so that the entire people rushed with eagerness and joy to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and, washed in the waters of baptism, blessed the Lord. For wherever the temples of demons were destroyed, there immediately churches arose. Behold how much the Lord conferred upon his servant Pontius, that before all men he should win for Christ the rulers of the whole world; and that he who, according to worldly rank, was expected as a Consul for the support of the people, by spiritually providing for men, should show them the light of truth. This was accomplished over the four years during which the Philips, as Christian Emperors, governed the Roman people.

[19] What is narrated about the temples torn down by the Emperor Philip and Pope Fabian, Baronius judges to have been added by another hand, at the year 246, section 9. But it seems to us by no means doubtful that, Idols and temples overturned, even if most of the temples of the pagans remained untouched, nevertheless those idols and their shrines that were in the power of the Emperors, and perhaps others as well, were overthrown. Moreover, that Philip was a Christian, Eusebius relates in his Chronicle: "Philip makes his son Philip a partner of the realm; and he was the first of all the Roman Emperors to be a Christian." Vincent of Lerins, Against Heresies, chapter 23: "The letters of the same Origen bear witness, which he wrote with the authority of a Christian teacher to the Emperor Philip, who was the first of the Romans to be a Christian."

Section IV. The thousandth year of the city of Rome.

[20] With a certain incredible malice the pagan historians suppressed most of the glories of Philip — they who would by no means have concealed any disgraces, since they everywhere insist that he gained the Empire by parricide. There is no doubt that this energetic and prudent man accomplished many illustrious deeds both at home and in war. Certainly even Zosimus, though unwillingly, admits that the nation of the Carpi was subdued by him. Baronius records two decrees made by him that greatly bespeak Christian piety. First: Philip prohibits catamites: that he drained and utterly eliminated that cesspool of detestable turpitudes that had become inveterate and immovably rooted at Rome — namely the classes of male prostitutes. Lampridius is the witness, in his Life of Alexander: "He had in mind to prohibit the male prostitutes; which Philip afterward did." Aurelius Victor seems to wish to obscure this with a twin but inept fabrication: the first drawn from the art of divination, which Philip is known to have detested; the second, that because he had perhaps in passing noticed a youth resembling his son in merit, he had therefore forbidden that disgrace. The second laudable decree of his was this: He removes the privileges of poets: by which he curbed the license of the poets, who indiscriminately attacked the morals of the most honorable men and steeped the minds of the young in turpitude, and he struck them from the register of professors of the liberal arts. This is found in the law Poeta, Code on Professors, Book 10. That Fabian was the author of these and other similar laws to be enacted cannot be doubted. We pass over his public buildings, the Transtiberine lake, and other works.

[21] This was at last glorious for both the Emperor and the Pontiff: that in their time the thousandth year of the City was celebrated with the greatest festivity. Aurelius Victor, On the Caesars: "They celebrate the thousandth year of the City with games of every kind." Eutropius, Book 9: "Under these Emperors the Philips the thousandth year of the city of Rome was celebrated with an enormous display of games and spectacles." More clearly to our point, Paul Orosius, Book 7, chapter 20: "He was the first Christian of all the Emperors, he celebrates the thousandth year of the City, and after the third year of his reign, the thousandth year from the founding of Rome was completed. And so this most august birthday year of all that had preceded was celebrated by a Christian Emperor with magnificent games." Nor is there any doubt that Philip directed the grace and honor of this great devotion to Christ and the Church, since no author shows that there was an ascent to the Capitol not with sacrifices, or that victims were immolated according to custom. The same was confirmed above from the Acts of St. Pontius.

[22] Nor did the people greatly miss the sacrifices, being captivated by the variety and magnificence of the games. Concerning which Eusebius writes in his Chronicle: "In the reign of the Philips, the thousandth year of the city of Rome was completed, on account of which solemnity innumerable beasts were killed in the Circus Maximus; and theatrical games were celebrated in the Campus Martius for three days and nights with the people keeping watch... but with games. The fortieth set of races was run on the birthday of the city of Rome, and the contest of the thousand years was performed." Julius Capitolinus, in his Life of the Third Gordian: "Under Gordian there were at Rome thirty-two elephants, of which Gordian himself had sent twelve and Alexander ten; ten elk, ten tigers, sixty tame lions; thirty tame leopards; ten belbi, that is, hyenas; a thousand pairs of gladiators at public expense; one hippopotamus and one rhinoceros; ten archoleontes; ten camelopards; twenty onagers; forty wild horses; and other animals of this kind, innumerable and diverse. All of which Philip either displayed or killed at the secular games. Now all these tame and also wild beasts he had prepared for a Persian triumph; but the public vow availed nothing. For Philip exhibited all these at the secular games and spectacles and in the Circus, with displays of beasts, when he celebrated the thousandth year from the founding of the City in his own and his son's consulship."

[23] That solemnity was begun in the year of Christ 247, on the very Parilia, the eleventh day before the Kalends of May, in the consulship of the Philips, the father for the second time and the son for the first; it was concluded under the same consuls, the father for the third time and the son for the second. This latter year was mostly stamped on the secular coins, with distributions of coins; perhaps because such commemorative coins were distributed either on the Kalends of January or on Philip's own birthday in the month of March. Baronius reproduces two such coins, of which the first displays the image of the father Philip with the inscription: "Imp. M. Iul. Philippus Aug."; the reverse shows a milestone column their symbols, inscribed upon it: "Cos. III," and around it: "Saeculares Ludi." The other displays the image of the son: "Imp. Caes. M. Iulius. Philippus. Aug."; on the other side a milestone column, with the inscription "Cos. II," and the younger Philip standing beside it, pointing with a rod to the entrance of a temple, as if proposing a new religion to be observed in a new age. Other coins engraved and published by Jacques de Bie display the image of the elder Philip; on the reverse, some show a lion, others an elk, others a she-wolf with Romulus and Remus, others a camelopard; on each is inscribed around the edge: "Saeculares Augg." Another shows an elephant with a Moorish rider brandishing javelins: "Aeternitas Augg." Another shows a temple, or six columns: "Saeculum Novum." There is also the image of Marcia Otacilla Severa Augusta, and on the reverse a hippopotamus, with the inscription: "Saeculares Aug." On another, a seated matron holding a spear in her left hand, with her right drawing a veil to her head: "Pudicitia Aug." Finally, a coin struck with the image of the younger Philip shows on the other side two young men in military garb, brandishing spears with their right hands, the first supporting a globe with his left; these are commonly interpreted as the two Philips. The inscription reads: "Principi Iuvent." Another shows a deer, or an elk: "Saeculares Augg." Another shows a garland of flowers and foliage with the inscription in the center: "Aeternitati Impp." We pass over many others of this kind; yet all of these scarcely display any image of pagan superstition. representing nothing of idolatrous superstition. Certain serious scholars marvel that on the coins of the great Constantine few traces of the Christian religion are found; but those who were in charge of such matters — A. A. A. F. F. F. — perhaps shrank from our sacred symbols; and the Emperor dissembled, since many of those coins were struck without his knowledge. Under Philip, however, this matter seems to have been managed by certain Christians, or at least Philip prohibited any images of the gods from appearing on the coins. We possess a silver coin, on one side of which is the image of Philip, crowned with a diadem distinguished by rays, with the inscription: "Imp. M. Iul. Philippus Aug."; on the other: "P. M. TR. P. III. Cos. P. P." and in the center Felicitas in female form, holding a spear in her right hand — the upper part of which is adorned with intertwined and inverted serpents, like a caduceus — and a cornucopia in her left.

Section V. The Christian virtues of both Philips.

[24] Those festivities were given for public joy and for securing the safety of the new rites. Among them were other displays of Christian virtues given by the Emperors. For the son indeed, The gravity of the younger Philip, though still a boy, marked with an averted countenance his father who was laughing too freely at the secular games, as Aurelius Victor writes — who, with his customary malice, transferred the most beautiful praise of modesty and moderation in a boy to severity of temper and natural melancholy: lest, that is, a Christian boy should seem to reproach the pagans with those monsters of turpitude — the Elagabaluses, the Commoduses, the Neros.

[25] But the father displayed an even more illustrious and more pleasing spectacle to heaven and to Christ the Savior: one of humility. Eusebius records it in Book 6, chapter 27: "It is reported that this man Philip, The elder is prohibited by Fabian from communicating without confession; being a Christian, on the day of the last vigil of Easter wished to participate in the prayers of the Church with the multitude, but was not permitted by the bishop who then presided over the Church to enter until he had confessed and joined himself to those who, bound by the chains of their sins, held the place of penitence; that he would on no account otherwise be received by him, on account of the many sins he was said to have committed. It is reported, moreover, that the Emperor complied with a ready and willing spirit, He humbly obeys, and by his actions demonstrated genuine modesty and a religious and pious disposition, prompted by the fear of God." So says Eusebius. And lest anyone take this to refer to the penance customarily administered before baptism — which, however, required no confession of sins — Rufinus, Book 6, chapter 25, more clearly explains it as the communion of the mysteries, that is, of the Eucharist: "It has been handed down to us," he says, "that he was a Christian, and that on the day of Easter — that is, on the very vigil — when he wished to be present and communicate in the mysteries, he was not permitted by the bishop of the place until he should confess his sins and stand among the penitents; and that in no way would the mysteries be available to him unless he first washed away through penance the faults, reported to be very many, that were charged against him. They say, therefore, that he willingly accepted what was commanded by the priest, demonstrating by his deeds and actions that the divine fear and the fullest faith of religion were within him."

[26] Baronius rightly conjectures that this bishop was Fabian, whose greatness of soul is thereby discerned — who dared so publicly at that time to admonish an Emperor, barbarian by birth, recently devoted to Christ, and of a military temperament and therefore less tractable. This is confused and entangled in the Alexandrian Chronicle: "This Decius killed St. Babylas not only on account of the Christian religion, but because he had dared to prohibit the wife of the Emperor Philip, and Philip himself, from the entrance to the church — since they were Christians and Philip had sinned." This is narrated erroneously elsewhere. But the cause of St. Babylas's execution was not that he had barred Philip, polluted by the murder of Gordian, but rather a pagan tyrant, breathing violence and crime and dripping with the blood of a royal youth who had been given as a hostage to the Romans, as we shall say on January 24.

Section VI. The slaughter of the Philips and of St. Fabian.

[27] Thus Philip was striving to secure the hopes not so much of his own family as of the Catholic Church, assisted by the most wise counsels of Pope Fabian. And perhaps for this reason he had summoned Origen from Egypt to Rome. Origen was certainly at Rome during the reign of Philip, having previously written to Pope Fabian concerning his right and sound teaching of the faith, Origen writes to Philip and to Fabian, as Eusebius narrates in Book 6, chapter 29, where he also states: "There also survives a letter of his written to the Emperor himself, and another to his wife Severa." Rufinus adds that these letters were written without any coloring of flattery. Whether he was summoned to the City by these letters, or came of his own accord — either to give an account of his faith to the Pontiff, or, if both he and the Emperors should agree, perhaps to expound the sacred scriptures at Rome, and comes to Rome, where he had already heard that the Platonist Plotinus had come — or whether he was cited by Fabian to plead his case, is uncertain. While he was there, and once came to the schools, Plotinus immediately flushed red in the cheeks, as Baronius writes from Porphyry, and wished to rise. But when asked to continue his lectures, he replied: "The desire to speak ceases when the speaker realizes that he will be addressing those who already know the same things." And so, after discoursing briefly on a few matters, he rose and left. But let others see to Origen.

[28] At last, in the year of Christ 249, Philip, having left his son at Rome, as Aurelius Victor says in his booklet On the Caesars, went himself — though weakened in body by age — against Decius and fell at Verona, his army having been routed and lost. When this was learned at Rome, Both Philips are killed by Decius, his son was slain at the Praetorian Camp. They held power for five years. The son was, as the same author narrates in his Epitome, in his twelfth year of life. Zosimus, hostile to the Christians as is his custom, while he extravagantly praises Decius, charges Philip with slothful apathy in all things — though he admits that Philip died fighting. Others judge that the cause of the war was not only ambition — a sufficiently powerful weapon in itself — but hatred of the Christian religion on the part of Decius. George Cedrenus: "Philip was killed, together with his son, fighting for the Christians against Decius." Paul Orosius, Book 7, chapter 21: "In the thousand and fourth year from the founding of the City (rather, the thousand and second), Decius, the inciter and suppressor of civil war, having killed the Philips, out of hatred of religion: seized the empire as the twenty-fifth from Augustus, and held it for three years. The same man immediately (in which he also demonstrated that he had killed the Philips for this reason) issued deadly edicts for the persecution and killing of Christians — the seventh after Nero — and sent very many of the saints from their crosses to the crowns of Christ."

[29] Were they martyrs? At least the younger? If this is so, it is indeed remarkable that at least Marcus Julius Philip the younger was not numbered among the holy martyrs — one who at Rome, endowed with the most holy morals, at an innocent age, was killed principally for the cause of religion. Unless perhaps he was listed, but his memory was obliterated, especially because, as Eutropius records, both were enrolled among the Deified by the pagans. Peter of Natali, Book 11, chapter 92, inscribes thus: "On the Holy Philip and Philip, Emperors and Martyrs"; but he says the elder was killed while resting on his couch at Verona by Decius, after the soldiers' loyalties had been alienated from him on the pretext of his Christianity.

[30] However that may be, Decius, as Eusebius writes in his Chronicle, having killed the Philips, father and son, St. Fabian is killed, stirs up a persecution against the Christians out of hatred for them. The Alexandrian Chronicle: "Decius, having begun his reign with the slaughter of Christians, killed the Roman Pontiff Flavianus on account of religion." That Fabian was beheaded is reported by Peter of Natali, Book 2, chapter 105, the German Martyrology, and Maximus of Cythera with the Menaea. This occurred at the beginning of the year 250, in the consulship of Decius and Gratus. Fabian was buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, buried, above which cemetery the church of St. Sebastian was built, of which we shall speak below in his Acts.

[31] The Roman clergy notified Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, of the most holy Pontiff's death; but that letter has been lost. Cyprian responds in the letter that is the fourth in Pamellius's edition, with these words: "When the report about the departure of my good colleague was uncertain among us, dearest brethren, and our wavering opinion was in doubt, I received the letter sent to me by you through the subdeacon Clementius, by which I was most fully informed of his glorious end, and I rejoiced greatly that a fitting consummation had also attended the integrity of his administration. St. Cyprian congratulates the Romans on his triumphal contest. In this I also congratulate you most warmly, that you honor his memory with so celebrated and illustrious a testimony, so that through you it has been made known to us — a thing that was both glorious for you regarding the memory of your bishop and also provides for us an example of faith and virtue. For as much as the fall of a bishop is a pernicious thing leading to the downfall of those who follow, just so much, on the contrary, is it useful and salutary when a bishop by the steadfastness of his faith offers himself to the brethren as a model for imitation."

[32] The same priests and deacons residing at Rome write to the same Cyprian in Epistle 31: "Although a greater necessity of deferring this matter presses upon us, for whom, after the departure of that man of most noble memory, Fabian, The See remains vacant for some time, a bishop has not yet been appointed — because of the difficulties of the times and circumstances — to moderate all these things and to deal with authority and counsel regarding those who have lapsed."

[33] St. Jerome mentions the death of St. Fabian in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 54, writing thus: "Concerning the cruelty of the persecution that arose against the Christians under Decius — because he raged against the religion of Philip, whom he also killed — it is superfluous to speak, Were the Apostles in Gaul sent by Fabian? since even Fabian, Bishop of the Roman Church, perished in it," etc. Eusebius also mentions it, Book 6, chapter 32, Rufinus Book 6, chapter 29, and others. Those apostolic men whom St. Gregory of Tours reports in Book 1 of his History of the Franks, chapter 28, as having been sent to Gaul in the consulship of Decius and Gratus, could scarcely have been sent by Fabian (although Andreas du Chesne wrote this in his Lives of the Pontiffs), since Fabian was killed at the beginning of the year. But perhaps their mission, originally planned by him, was carried out after his death by the authority of the Roman clergy. Gregory of Tours seems to attribute it to Sixtus (who was then one of the foremost of the clergy); some perhaps had been sent long before, which we shall investigate elsewhere for each case.

[34] The memory of St. Fabian was soon consecrated, as is evident from the most ancient martyrologies — St. Jerome's, the old Roman, Bede's, His feast, January 20, Usuard's, Rabanus's, Ado's, Wandelbert's, Notker's, and others — and is celebrated on January 20, together with St. Sebastian, as a double feast. The manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of St. Martin of Tournai places him on March 20: "At Rome on the Appian Way, the feast of Fabian, Bishop and Martyr." Commemoration on March 20 and August 5. The Greeks place him on August 5, but call him Fabius. The Menaea: "On the same day, St. Fabius, Archbishop of Rome, ended his life by the sword."

Here lies dead Fabius, priest of Christ, Immolated to Christ, a new offering, by the sword.

[35] Some relics of St. Fabian are preserved in the church of St. Martin in the Hills, as Panciroli writes in his description of the second region of the City, church 41; His relics. some in the church of St. Praxedes, in the same region, church 42. The head and one arm are in the basilica of St. Sebastian, at the Catacombs — that is, the cemetery of Callistus — where he was first buried. The former relics were translated to the church of St. Martin by Pope Sergius II, who held the see from February 10, 844 to April 12, 847. Anastasius testifies in his Life: Some translated to Rome. "And to the honor of almighty God, he placed the body of the same most Blessed Bishop Sylvester together with the most Blessed Fabian and Stephen and Soter, Martyrs...." Baronius narrates the same from Anastasius, volume 10, at the year 847, section 3, and in section 4 quotes the inscription placed at that very time on a marble tablet: "In the times of the lord Pope Sergius the Younger, there were placed in this holy altar the bodies of the Blessed Bishop Sylvester and the Blessed Martin. Likewise the bodies of the most Blessed Fabian and Stephen with Soter, Martyrs and Pontiffs," etc. But what is said at the end — "These bodies of the saints were translated from the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria" — should not be understood of all of them, since it is established that St. Fabian was buried on the Via Appia, which is opposite to the Via Salaria.