Aquilinus

ON S. AQUILINUS, PRIEST AND MARTYR, AT MILAN.

Aquilinus, Priest and Martyr at Milan (S.)

[1] Among other magnificent temples of the Saints that are to be seen at Milan, the church of S. Lawrence is celebrated: most ancient, and adorned with a college of Canons, formerly regular, and with the residence of S. Aquilinus, a Canon of Cologne and Martyr, S. Aquilinus the Martyr, and finally with his relics, as Gabriel Pennottus writes in his History of the Canons Regular, book 2, chapter 26; who also mentions him in chapter 39, number 3.

[2] S. Aquilinus is venerated on 29 January by the Church of Milan with an office of three Lessons, and by the Lateran Canons with a double rite. His feast. The Roman Martyrology says of him: "At Milan, of S. Aquilinus the Priest, who, pierced through the throat with a sword by the Arians, was crowned with martyrdom." Galesinius: "At Milan, of S. Aquilinus, Priest and Martyr. Inflamed with zeal for defending the Catholic faith, he traversed Germany, Gaul, and Italy, having undertaken a campaign against the perfidy of the Arians: finally, having gone to Milan, he was most cruelly killed by them for his defense of the Catholic faith, and migrated to his reward in heaven." The German Martyrology has the same, except that it writes that he returned to Milan, as if he had previously set out from there.

[3] Galesinius testifies that he copied his Life from the Breviary, Calendar, and other ancient records of the Ambrosian Church, Life, and adapted it to the use of the same Ambrosian Breviary. This we have not yet seen, unless it is the one contained in the third Lesson of the Breviary of Milan, with which the accounts of Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Constantine Ghini, agree. We shall give here the Lessons from the Office of the Canons Regular, printed at Venice in the year 1634, with the Notes of Gabriel Pennottus, who testifies that the Life of S. Aquilinus was written in Italian by Joseph Milano and published in the year 1606 at Milan, arranged in twenty chapters.

[4] Concerning the age of S. Aquilinus, Ferrarius writes in his Notes thus: "The conjecture is that he suffered under Theodoric, King and patron of the Arians." His date. Theodoric came to Italy in the year of Christ 489 and died in 526. But Joseph Milano, as Pennottus attests, says he was born in the year 584. Pennottus rightly rejects this, since the Franconians, whose capital is Wurzburg, had scarcely been imbued with the Christian faith a hundred years before. Perhaps some sparks of the Gospel had shone forth before, since the region is close to the Rhine, and the Romans held Noricum and the Raetias: but the immense barbarism of the surrounding peoples had extinguished all that heavenly splendor. Pennottus rather thinks 784 should be read.

[5] The same author adds the following about the effigy and relics of S. Aquilinus: "There exists to this day at Milan, in a most ancient church sacred to Lawrence the Martyr and Levite, a chapel of equal antiquity, dedicated to the same S. Aquilinus, relics elevated, in which his body was first placed and has been preserved down to our times: for a few years ago it was elevated and placed in a more honorable location, where it is now seen. In the vault of that same chapel there are about twenty-four images, or icons, painted, representing the entire life of the Blessed Aquilinus himself, his martyrdom, burial, and miracles performed at his tomb. Nor can it be doubted that the images themselves are most ancient, from about six hundred years ago or more, as the images of Christ and the Apostles in the upper apse, painted in mosaic image or tessellated work, show. These images represent both Aquilinus himself and the Canons of Cologne and the Canons of S. Lawrence, with whom he lived at Milan both while alive and after death, all in the same regular and customary habit which to this day the Lateran Canons Regular in Italy, the Victorines in Gaul, and the Canons of Neuss or Windesheim at Cologne and throughout Lower and Upper Germany wear; with precisely the same clerical tonsure and shaving on the upper and lower part of the head, in the manner of a crown, which the Regulars commonly wear; with this one exception, that in place of the white tunic which we Laterans and our Windesheimers wear, they wore a grey one; which was also the custom in Gaul and in other places in Italy, as in the monastery of S. Andrew at Vercelli, of S. Bernard on Mont Joux, of S. James of Cellevolan in the diocese of Comacchio."

LIFE, from the Offices of the Lateran Canons Regular.

Aquilinus, Priest and Martyr at Milan (S.)

From various sources.

[1] Aquilinus, born at Wurzburg in Franconia of distinguished parents, when as a boy he found that certain of his schoolfellows, sons of noblemen, S. Aquilinus as a boy rebukes heretics, were infected with heretical depravity, asserting that Christ was propagated from Mary by human seed, he took this so gravely that he did not fear to inveigh against that error. Whence it happened that, when the matter was afterward discovered by the Bishop, through his diligence nearly all who were infected with that error returned to the Catholic truth. He becomes a Canon at Cologne. When he had grown up, he resolved to serve his Creator with his whole heart. Therefore, sent by his parents to Cologne for the sake of his studies, he attached himself to the Bishop of Cologne and was deemed worthy to be admitted into the number of the Canons of that Church, who then lived according to a rule with the same Bishop.

[2] After some years, having returned to his homeland and finding that his parents had departed this life, he immediately sold his paternal inheritance and distributed the price to the poor, and returned to the Church of Cologne, where, then Provost, for the splendor of his blameless life, he was elected Provost. When the Bishop then died, he was unanimously chosen by all to succeed him; but lest he be compelled to assume the episcopal dignity, he flees the episcopate, he fled to Paris. Finding that city suffering from a grievous plague, by many labors, vigils, he frees Paris from the plague, and especially by constant prayers, he merited in a short time to free it from the disease. When the Bishop there also died and he was similarly chosen to fill his place, taking flight once again, he came to Pavia in Italy, where, devoting himself to the study of sacred letters, again he flees honors, he learned the common Italian tongue.

[3] Then, setting out for Milan in order to venerate the relics of the Blessed Ambrose, whom he honored with a special devotion, staying with the Canons of S. Lawrence, who were then likewise regular, he began so vehemently to rise up against the Arian heresy, which in that city was gradually regaining strength, with declamations and disputations, at Milan he rebukes the heretics, that through his efforts not a few were recalled from that error to the Catholic faith. The Arians, taking this grievously, attacked Aquilinus as he came to the Ambrosian church at the first light of day for prayer, as was his custom, and having beaten him severely, left him half dead. And when they could in no way divert him from assailing their errors, he is killed by them, on another occasion, driving a sword into his throat, they immolated a most pleasing victim to God. They then attempted to hide his holy body, lest so great a crime should become known, but were prevented by the intervention of a very dense fog. Wherefore the faithful, approaching and finding his body covered in its own blood, carried it with hymns and canticles to the church of S. Lawrence, he is honorably buried, and honorably buried it in a chapel afterward dedicated to his name, where he shines with miracles.