ON ST. ANTONINUS, MARTYR AT PIACENZA IN ITALY.
In the third or fourth century.
A PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY FOR THE II, III, AND XXX OF SEPTEMBER.
Antoninus, Martyr at Piacenza in Italy (S.)
BHL Number: 0576
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. The reason for this preliminary dissertation; the various Saints named Antoninus, not sufficiently distinguished in the ancient Martyrologies.
By a manner almost unusual for us I call this commentary a preliminary one,
for the three different marked days of the month of September, whereas in the meantime we have arrived only at the IV of July. I shall first tell the reason for this, then declare Difficulties are anticipated here, that they may afterward be resolved, what I am about to do here. On this day there is venerated among the people of Piacenza in Italy St. Antoninus, as the protector and tutelary patron of that noble city: not rightly, as I at least judge, since in the ancient Martyrologies and in the very Roman Martyrology of today he is most expressly recorded on the XXX of September, so that consequently I anticipate the day to which, according to our practice, St. Antoninus ought to be deferred, and thus take up here beforehand things which only after many years ought to be discussed. This much for the reason of the title, explained for its part. Nor indeed will this treatment of ours be preliminary only to that day, but also to the two others prefixed, the II and III of September; and since with these other men named Antoninus or Antonius are marked—perhaps the same as the man of Piacenza, perhaps different—it seemed good in one operation to dissolve, or at least to give a foretaste of, several intricate questions which must be resumed on those days; and this chiefly with this intent, that the various cities and churches, to which, from the knowledge hitherto acquired, I do not see that those things can be attributed which they at length claim for themselves, may meanwhile, in the time until our work has been carried down to September, be able to collect more certain monuments, furnished with which we may more opportunely and more securely satisfy their desires. Let them meanwhile suffer me to examine their Legends and histories, and let them so take it, that in this whole dissertation I intend nothing else than to publish the more authentic monuments concerning each of these SS. Antonini, upon which we may afterward more safely lean.
[2] I do not think that there are unknown to learned lovers of hagiography the various and most weighty difficulties, insinuated indeed cursorily, but not carelessly, in my observations on Usuard for the II, and that the things recently invented may be excluded. III, and XXX of September, their solution being deferred to those days, concerning the holy men named Antoninus, one or several, of Apamea in Syria, of Capua and Piacenza in Italy, of Apamea (Pamiers) in Gaul, of Palencia in Spain. There was indeed formerly no controversy concerning this last, since from the more ancient Breviaries of various churches of Spain it was once beyond doubt that no other St. Antoninus, or as they call him, Antolinus, was accustomed to be venerated there before the seventeenth century, than the very same one whom they confessed to have received from Gallia Narbonensis, so much so that in the present-day Roman Martyrology Baronius intrepidly asserted that the relics of that holy Antoninus are preserved with great veneration in the church of Palencia. So indeed had that opinion grown strong among the Spaniards, that it seemed a paradox to them to call it into doubt. That peaceable and quite probable opinion Franciscus de Sandoval, a canon of the church of Palencia, began to disturb in the year 1633, and to wrap up in a long and wordy apologetic discourse; whom Tamayus de Salazar closely following "spread darkness," says Lubinus in his geographical notes to the Roman Martyrology, "who, relying on the forged Chronicle of Dexter, inverted both the place and the time of the contest of this saint (Antoninus of Apamea); nay, he substituted another Spanish Martyr, forged out only in the pseudo-chronicles of Dexter and Julianus, coined at last after sixteen centuries of the Church"—as below, in § IV of this commentary, we shall show at greater length.
[3] Concerning which men named Antoninus there is here controversy, Here now, for the sake of order and clarity, those things will be premised which, received from the more ancient and classical Martyrologies, will open a sure way to the distinction of the holy men named Antoninus, and will at once show the infected sources, whence in later ages a handle was perhaps taken for feigning, amplifying, and embellishing many things piously, so much so that today it is well-nigh impossible to discern the true from the false, the probable from the doubtful. I shall not imitate Tamayus, the compiler of the Spanish Martyrology, who brings hither other Saints named Antoninus, with whom this question is not concerned, such as the many homonymous Martyrs, mostly mingled with other companions and copied by him from the Roman Martyrology, as Antoninus with Viator, XI April; Antoninus with Marcellinus, XXVI April; Antoninus with Julia, VI July; Antoninus with Lucilla, XXIX July; another Antoninus, XXII August; Antoninus with many other companions, XIII November; besides not a few others, who have already been recorded in our Acts, as you will gather from the index alone of Volume 7 of June, and yet others in greater number, who from the Hieronymian codices would here be reckoned up in vain. The whole controversy, to say it once for all, turns about the above-named SS. Antonini: of Apamea in Syria, of Capua and Piacenza in Italy, of Apamea (Pamiers) in Gaul, of Palencia in Spain—the last of whom, since Florentinius did not acknowledge him, let it seem strange to no one if what he learnedly discussed concerning those Saints be reduced to the first four only. His words shall be reported elsewhere from his notes; here I shall first faithfully describe the text of each of the Hieronymian codices, taking my beginning from the second of September.
[4] and who is marked in the greater Hieronymian [codices,] The most ancient Epternach codex there reads rather corruptly: "At Paris (read, in the region) of Apamea, the feast of Antonius and Antoninus." The Corbie codex does not set the matter forth, since it mixes together two announcements, attributing the Carthaginian Martyrs to Apamea, the name of Antoninus being omitted, which perhaps it supposed to belong to the following day: "In the region of Apamea, the birthday of the holy Dubitatus, Tuscia, Valentinus": so that at length something clearer must be drawn out from the Lucca codex: "In the region of Apamea, the birthday of the holy Antonius and Antoninus." But those must here be warned who are strangers in handling the Hieronymian codices, that in these there is often repeated, even on the following days, "the Saints" or "the Saint," in such a way that it cannot straightway be argued from a doubled announcement that they are different Saints, or that their festivity is to be recalled on different days; as has been shown by many examples in our Acts, and in the observations on Usuard. Let us therefore consult the III of September, on which the Epternach codex expresses itself more clearly, in this manner: "And in Syria, the feast of Antoninus the boy, and of Aristo the Bishop." The Corbie codex scarcely differs: "And in the region of Apamea, of the province of Syria, the birthday of St. Antonius the boy, of Arestus the Bishop." The Lucca and Blume codices agree, with a longer announcement which smacks of interpolation, when they thus speak: "And in the region of Apamea, in the village of Aprocavitum, under the Emperor Constantius, the province of Syria, the feast of the holy Antoninus the boy, twenty years old, and of Arestus the Bishop, whose deeds are extant." I am much mistaken, unless all these texts of the II and III of September indicate one single and the same youth, Antoninus or Antonius, Martyr, having suffered at Apamea, or in the region of Apamea in Syria, whether under the Emperor Constantius, or in some one of the best-known persecutions.
[5] This opinion of mine Tillemont long since insinuated, and all those codices confirm it not obscurely, which in the abbreviated [codices are marked on the 2nd or 3rd of September,] which I have called the abbreviated Hieronymian codices and reviewed in Volume 7 of June, in none of which does the memory of St. Antoninus stand on the II of September, but truly on the III among most of them. Thus the Rheinau codex, on the III Nones of September: "In Syria, the feast of Antoninus and of Aristenes the Bishop." The Reichenau codex, in nearly the same terms, and on the same day: "In Syria, the feast of Antoninus, and of Aristo the Bishop." The Augsburg and Labbe codices do not so distinctly express the place, but the name of Antoninus or Antonius is found in them mingled with other names of Martyrs. The codex of the Queen of Sweden, or of St. Columba, is quite conformable to the Hieronymian Lucca codex, when it thus announces: "In the province of Syria, under the Emperor Constantius, the passion of St. Antonius, a youth of twenty years, and of Arestus the Bishop, whose deeds are extant." Add to these Wandelbert, singing on the same III of September: "On the third, Antoninus, boy and Martyr, thou dost triumph, then also Aristaeus the bishop, blessed in death." I do not ask what Aristo or Arestus or Aristaeus does here; this one thing I gather from what has been said, that St. Antoninus of Apamea in Syria, Martyr, is constantly recorded on the III of September in those most ancient Fasti, nor can he be different from him who in some of the greater codices is marked on the preceding day, nay, wrongly doubled under the names of Antonius and Antoninus, by the usual drowsiness of the scribes, who confound many things in these codices; so that I at least utterly do not doubt that in those most ancient Martyrologies, often and laboriously discussed by me, nothing was dreamed, for either day, of Antoninus of Capua, nor of the Gaul of Apamea.
[6] The difference of the other classical Martyrologies of the second order from the more ancient Hieronymian ones is not to be dissembled, A greater confusion in other Martyrologies, consisting in this, that their standard-bearer, the Little Roman edited by Rosweyde with all its offspring—Ado, Usuard, Notker—preferred the II of September, on which it wrote: "At Apamea, the feast of Antoninus the Martyr," which all those cited followed. Of Bede or Florus there is no need to dispute, for the Plantin edition does not differ from Ado; for the rest, in the supplements St. Antoninus is mentioned on both days, neither rightly enough nor plainly enough. Tolerable indeed is the opinion of the Little Roman and its offspring, since it deviates from the more ancient Martyrologies only in the difference of day; but who, I beseech, was the authority to the more recent compilers of Martyrologies, Maurolyco, Felicius, and Galesinius, that they should designate—if not expressly, at least by their manner of composing the elogium—not the man of Apamea in Syria, but the Aquitanian? Whence without doubt Baronius was led to mark on the II of September "At Pamiers in Gaul, the feast of St. Antoninus the Martyr," the other Syrian of Apamea being wholly neglected and passed over. This certainly he could not have drawn from the ancient—nay, from any classical—Martyrology, so that consequently I do not see who could have gone before him, unless those aforecited, who so explain the matter that they seem to have copied their material either from the Beauvais codex, or from St. Antoninus of Florence, or from Mombritius, or perhaps from Equilinus ill understood. My witnesses in these matters shall be all who are skilled in them, that in no ancient ecclesiastical Fasti does even a trace occur which could deservedly, even by a shadow, be applied to the Aquitanian Martyr.
[7] especially in the Adonian [Martyrology,] And thus far in the Little Roman or its whole progeny nothing is greatly to be blamed, since perhaps in the eighth century, in which the author of the Little Roman composed his Martyrology, the II of September had already then prevailed, chiefly dedicated to the cult of St. Antoninus the Martyr; in this, I say, there is nothing so greatly to be blamed; but this is grievous and heavy to me, that I am compelled to charge Ado, or his copyist, with a manifest error, which crept into Usuard and from him into the Roman Martyrology also, when he thus left it written for the III of September: "At Capua, the birthday of the holy Martyrs Antoninus the boy, twenty years old, and Aristaeus the Bishop, whose deeds are extant." I appeal to the eyes of the learned alone as witnesses, whether in this kind anything can be seen more certain, than that this whole announcement was taken from some Hieronymian codex, as you have it above from the very clearest and genuine texts of those codices, where Ado did this one thing, that he transposed the position or place of the martyrdom, writing "at Capua" for "at Apamea," and moreover, for "whose deeds are extant" in the singular, put it forth in the plural, "whose deeds are extant"—deeds such as he himself never saw, as can be sufficiently established from this,
that he who neglects no elogia of the Saints, here reported not a word from them.
[8] where Capua is substituted for Apamea. How familiar this is to Ado, he alone can be ignorant who has not even greeted his Martyrology from the threshold. Not to linger any longer in the noonday light, let it be permitted safely to assert that a manifest error is detected in the Martyrology of Ado, whether by the fault of Ado himself, or, as I should rather think, of the copyists, who turned "Apamea," not rightly formed, into "Capua." It ought not to be reckoned a fraud in Usuard that he followed his usual and perpetual guide; but from him evidently flowed whatever is today, and for so many centuries has been, read concerning the Capuans, and is read in the modern Roman Martyrology: "At Capua, the feast of the holy Martyrs Aristaeus the Bishop and Antoninus the boy." To which Castellanus long ago shrewdly adverted: "This Antoninus is taken from the preceding day (II September), with whom there is no affinity with Aristaeus." Understand that there is no connection between the two, at least at Capua: at Apamea there could be some, which is derived from the Hieronymian codices; although some deny even this, which pertains nothing to the present controversy. Moreover, among the Capuans themselves there is no other knowledge of these Saints, besides that one alone which, from Ado, the now so-often-praised Usuard suggested; to which the little narrative of Equilinus profits nothing, book 8, chapter 33, concerning a boy not of twenty, but of only ten years, who converted Aristeus the Bishop to the faith—an order not easily to be admitted. Nothing, I say, does such a narration profit, resting on no certain foundations, nor fit for anything else than to entangle doubtful matters yet more with other conjectures.
[9] This we set down as the first basis of our preliminary commentary, To which propositions this whole treatment is reduced. contracted into these propositions. Let the 1st be: The St. Antoninus who is known in the ancient Martyrologies, especially the Hieronymian, was of Apamea, a Syrian, a youth of twenty years. 2. No St. Antoninus the Gaul is anywhere found marked in the same. 3. No Antoninus, Martyr of Capua, is known ever to have existed, nor was he invented from anywhere else than from the ill-twisted announcement of Ado. 4. If the aforesaid announcement of Ado contains anything true, the whole is to be referred to St. Antoninus the Martyr of Apamea, concerning whose most ancient cult it is impious to doubt, since not only the Martyrologies expressly testify to him, but also the church built in his honor, which it is established existed about the beginning of the sixth century, as is plainly gathered from Volume 5 of the collection of Councils of Labbe, column 246; not to speak of the Menaea, cited by Tillemont, Volume 4, page 720, to be more accurately examined in their own time. Moreover the truth of each of the propositions now adduced is abundantly evident from the premises; if anyone should think anything erroneous, I would most earnestly beg him to bring forward into the midst more ancient and more approved monuments; which shall be more diligently discussed on the II and III of September, and thence may be corrected and restored whatever in this dissertation shall have been detected as deviating from the truth. This basis meanwhile being laid, we must proceed to another, which regards more nearly this day of the IV of July, namely from what Fasti and Martyrologies proceeded St. Antoninus—no longer of Apamea, whether Syrian or Gaul, nor of Capua, but truly of Piacenza, by no means to be confounded with those others. Let it be, then:
§ II. On St. Antoninus, Martyr of Piacenza; who, of what sort, and of what country, when and where he suffered.
I here set forth many circumstances in one series, that the people of Piacenza may inquire whether even one single circumstance, Very few things survive that are certain concerning this Saint, out of their so long and so often amplified history concerning their St. Antoninus, can in any way be saved by the faith of any certain ancient author or writer, besides this one alone: that the holy Antoninus, or Antonius, was venerated at Piacenza and celebrated in the most ancient Martyrologies, and that he was without doubt crowned with martyrdom either at Piacenza or near Piacenza. This article we undertake to demonstrate; and if the people of Piacenza had clung to it, following the ancient monuments rather than yesterday's histories, they would have nothing in common with the Theban legion, thrust into the more recent Martyrologies, as Castellanus, with many others, saw; nothing with the Occitanian St. Antoninus, from whose legend, entangled with many windings, they can not difficultly be convinced that they took the chief chapters of their history. But in that way there would remain no legend of their holy patron and protector, to whom, from Theban service and the office of standard-bearer, from a pilgrimage vaunted under his name, from I know not what other embellishments, so many ornaments and adornments have accrued, that whether as horseman or footman he shines full of trophies—things which Petrus Maria Campius, a canon of Piacenza, seems to have augmented almost immensely, yet compelled, on page 7 of his Italian preface, ingenuously to profess that, all the ancient monuments being obliterated, nothing was left to him besides manuscript legends, the Breviary of Piacenza printed at Venice in the year 1530, pictures, and other things of this kind, redolent of quite the same source.
[11] not from the history of Campius, embellished with many things, That most widely circulated history of Campius I shall a little further below expound more clearly to the eyes of the learned; here I set forth only preliminary doubts, or, if you will, the opinion I have conceived from much and grim reading, which I shall easily suffer to be reformed by our successors, if in the meantime the people of Piacenza should bring forward any more certain and more solid arguments for the Acts of their Saint, than those which Campius, more in a panegyrical, polished, elegant, and oratorical than in a historical manner, has hitherto sent forth into the light in various little works and in his great work on the ecclesiastical history of Piacenza, nowhere alleging even a leaf more ancient than the fourteenth century, from which he received things so wonderful and stupendous. Among the learned Catholics and true venerators of the Saints, that too-bold style has long been abolished, propped up only by popular little traditions, most freely feigning whatever they please, by which all wonders are most speciously vaunted. Such now are the times, that nothing is received without a witness and a surety, especially in histories, which follow by a whole and more than a whole millennium of years the Martyrs of whom we treat. I, to expedite in few words all that has been proposed in the title, sincerely confess that after a most diligent search I have found neither the country, nor the parents, nor the birthplace, nor the charge, nor the office, nor the dignity, nor the kind or time of martyrdom, nor the things that followed upon the martyrdom, nor finally any deeds of any moment or credit, which can safely be ascribed to St. Antoninus of Piacenza; this I deliver securely, which I admit as beyond doubt, that some St. Antoninus or Antonius is to be attributed to the people of Piacenza, and he most probably a Martyr.
[12] which cannot be admitted by us, By what reasoning I shall accomplish this, you will now understand, thinking that I have deserved no small favor among the people of Piacenza, in that I shall have vindicated to them their holy Antoninus by arguments not easily to be overthrown, who by not a few most learned critics of today is held to be confounded with the man of Apamea, whether Syrian or Gaul, likewise with the man of Capua, as will presently appear from Florentinius himself. I shall indeed confess ingenuously: had not such approved Martyrologies compelled me, I should easily have consented to those who, from the consonance of the Acts, are wont to argue the very identity of the Saints. For the cause of confusion of the Saints is generally taken from the commingling of the Acts; by which argument the people of Piacenza, being pressed, would certainly labor much and long to extract their St. Antoninus from the borders of Occitania, however much by innumerable episodes and embellishments they may have striven to render that history of theirs different from the other. But if they themselves, seriously and wholly free from patriotic prejudices, should wish to weigh the whole matter, in their entire Legend they will find scarcely anything of heart or liver i.e. of substance, which did not draw its origin from the Apamean Acts, whatever they be—with this one exception only, that without any testimony of antiquity they have referred their Martyr to the Theban legion, and, by feigned itineraries both before and after his military service, have rendered the story more dramatic, and therefore also more improbable. That they complied with the genius of the age, I shall plainly grant, lest the people should lack a good long Legend, by which perhaps they might be stirred to a more fervent cult of the Saint. Let them venerate the Saint, as they have hitherto venerated him; let them believe, for all I care, whatever Campius and others have handed down concerning him; but let them at the same time suffer that nothing but what is true be received into these our Acts, or at least what is nearest to the truth—by which one thing alone the true venerators of the Saints are far more powerfully kindled to a solid veneration, as is necessary. Behold now the most certain arguments, demonstrating to the people of Piacenza their St. Antoninus, different from all others.
[13] The most ancient Hieronymian Epternach codex, no longer on the second or third, but from the most ancient Martyrologies, on the XXX of September, but on the XXX of September, thus clearly and distinctly announces: "At Piacenza, the birthday of Antonius." The title of Martyr is not indeed added, but it is sufficiently understood, since in this Martyrology scarcely any but Martyrs are recorded, and certainly the appellation of Martyr is generally omitted. The Lucca codex likewise does not express the laurel: "In the city of Piacenza, the feast of St. Antonius." The Corbie codex more distinctly: "In the city of Piacenza, the birthday of St. Antoninus the Martyr." I judge the Blume codex to agree with the Lucca one, since Florentinius noted no variants. The consensus of these four venerable Martyrologies could alone suffice, that the people of Piacenza might most securely rejoice in their Saint. Yet let weight be added from the more abbreviated Hieronymian codices, the Augsburg and Labbe ones, expressly marking on the aforesaid XXX of September: "At Piacenza, the feast of Antoninus." The briefer Corbie codex speaks more clearly, on the same day: "In the city of Piacenza, the birthday of St. Antoninus the Martyr." Add the Reichenau codex, although it associates other Martyrs with St. Antoninus, in these words: "At Piacenza, the feast of Antoninus, Castus, Desiderius"; which two last belong elsewhere, wrongly connected with Antoninus by the compiler of this Martyrology for the sake of abridgment. Here the people of Piacenza have whatever is required to vindicate their St. Antoninus to their own city alone, and to place him beyond all controversy, against the Gauls, who boldly confound him with Antoninus of Aquitaine, by reason of the similar Acts: they have, they have, I say, their Saint established by those arguments which they themselves have hitherto not used, or perhaps have not known how to use. The Gaul of Apamea is known in the Hieronymian codices, nay, in no ancient Martyrologies, unless he himself is to be confounded with the Syrian, concerning whom it shall be seen in the following paragraph.
[14] Let us now run through what Florentinius noted on the XXX of September concerning this our holy Antoninus of Piacenza: to which the more recent [writers have wrongly added some things;] "St. Antonius, Martyr at Piacenza," he says, "of the Theban legion, the Roman Martyrology acknowledges, together with Usuard and Ado, as Baronius adds." Baronius indeed first inserted into the modern Roman Martyrology the mention of the Theban legion, but seduced by Maurolyco or Petrus Equilinus, since that notion about the Theban service is more recent: whence Ado is most wrongly cited, who nowhere speaks of this St. Antoninus, and Usuard, who makes not a word about the Theban legion, nay, most expressly names him a confessor, as we long ago observed on him. But Florentinius himself also errs, when he suggests "Antonius," who in Usuard and in the Roman Martyrology is more rightly named "Antoninus," by the appellation received today among the people of Piacenza. Moreover, on the XXX of September Castellanus aptly noted that the addition concerning the Theban legion is new and without
foundation, made namely with Equilinus and Maurolyco going before—guides not sufficiently trustworthy, as Florentinius himself is even forced to confess—as often as, the footprints of the ancients being deserted, they indulge too much in their own invention, or in newly devised novelties, generally for the gratification of the common folk. Let us follow Florentinius.
[15] "Maurolyco," he says, "professes on this day (XXX September) Antoninus a Martyr of the Theban legion. especially Equilinus the Bishop; Peter de Natalibus, book 8, chapter 133, teaches that he was a companion of St. Mauritius the Martyr in the sacred legion, who, having gone forth from the borders of Piacenza, traversed the East, and returning to his homeland, there triumphed with his head cut off." Concerning the Theban legion we shall meet Peter below. Here I would have it noted in passing that there was long ago published by Papebroch, in the preliminaries before Volume 2 of May, a memorable itinerary, so chastised by many observations that you would scarcely find what of truth remains. But if you read that patiently, you will plainly perceive that it is no more to be connected with St. Antoninus the Martyr of Piacenza than with St. Mauritius himself—unless it be some fable, which was at least four centuries younger than either Saint. But Equilinus errs not in this alone, and leads Baronius into error. Hear what follows. "But this day," adds (Equilinus Peter), "is dedicated to the finding and burial of that same sacred body (namely the XXX of September), since to St. Savinus the Bishop the sacred pledge was revealed, and it was laid at the tomb of St. Victor the Bishop."
[16] whom Florentinius deservedly refutes. But against this, and deservedly, Florentinius rises up. "Concerning St. Antoninus," he says, "Ferrarius treats on the fourth day of July, from the offices of the church of Piacenza, lately approved at Rome; and he affirms that, against Baronius, the day of the translation is celebrated in the church of Piacenza on the XIII of November." This Ferrarius could certainly have known, although I altogether do not see whence it may be sufficiently established that the translation was made on the XIII of November rather than on the IV of July. Surely that on the XXX of September, not some translation, but the true birthday is to be celebrated, is as certain as what is most certain; so that I altogether do not understand why the people of Piacenza, deviating from that day, so expressly and for so many centuries marked in the Martyrologies, should have chosen for themselves this IV of July for celebrating the annual solemnity—in no known ecclesiastical Fasti before the seventeenth century, so far as I know, assigned to that festivity. Florentinius continues: "But that there is another translation, which is more recently celebrated in the month of November, nothing hinders: certainly a more ancient one was accustomed to be celebrated on the XXX of September, as Peter de Natalibus taught before Baronius." This Peter taught wrongly, who could at least have known from the most widely circulated Usuard that not any translation, but the birthday of St. Antoninus is celebrated on the eve of the Kalends of October. Among men of sense the authority of the ancient Martyrologies ought far to be preferred to the pious credulity of Bishop Equilinus, who scrapes together everything without discernment. Let us weigh the rest of Florentinius' notes.
[17] He is not rightly venerated at Piacenza on this 4th of July, In the ancient Kalendar of the church of Piacenza, and in the kidskin lectionary or manuscript Breviary of that church, prefixed to it, in our little museum, the memory of the holy Martyr is noted in these words: "IV Nones of July, of St. Antoninus the Martyr," and again "IV Nones of September, of St. Antonius M." (If both announcements are referred to the man of Piacenza, it is mere confusion, proceeding only from ignorance.) And "the Ides of November, the Finding of the body of St. Antonius," in red characters. And, as other feast days, so also is marked the "IV Ides of July," when his life, divided into lessons, was read in the church. This day I have certainly been ignorant of hitherto; but from these things the people of Piacenza sufficiently show that they have turned everything upside down at their own mere discretion, unless perhaps the festivity is there celebrated for nine days, and the XII of July, or IV Ides, be the last day of the whole solemnity. Which I am indeed not induced to believe, and I should rather suspect that for "IV Nones of July," "IV Ides" wrongly crept into Florentinius. But however we try to patch up all these dislocated and torn things, the inconstancy of the people of Piacenza in the change of festivities can never be praised, when they could most safely have trusted in the Martyrologies as safer guides. Again Florentinius: "Not there," he says, "a citizen of Piacenza, but from a town of Pannonia is Antonius or Antoninus said to have given his name in the Mauritian legion under Maximian, and thus to have been made a Martyr, by that prodigy, the body being found, which we have indicated elsewhere." We agree indeed with Ferrarius, that the Acts of this holy Martyr of Piacenza are in some way confounded with those of the man of Apamea, of whom we treated on the II and III of September, and we advise that what we said on that III of September be seen. Concerning these we shall treat in the following paragraph.
[18] For the rest, St. Antoninus, first a Pannonian, then, according to Campius, born at Apamea, but a sure and constant veneration of the Saint there. and finally, according to the same, begotten in the territory of Piacenza, waver equally, as does the variety of feasts. Let the remainder of Florentinius' note follow. "In what manner the bones of St. Antoninus the Martyr were translated to Piacenza is not expressed in those lessons, and in our mutilated codex, the things which could be recited on the solemn day of translation on the Ides of November are wanting." An easy loss. That manner of translation is sought in vain; let the pious tradition of the people of Piacenza suffice, that the sacred body of the holy Martyr Antoninus was revealed to St. Savinus the Bishop, who translated it from the well, in which Festus is said to have hidden it, into the church of St. Victor, where this Saint yielded not only place to the Martyr, but also the title of church and of protector of the city. In matters so abstruse and remote from our times, I advise that individual things be not so scrupulously examined, provided that the cult of the Saint concerned remain established by sufficient authority, as it is most abundantly clear that St. Antoninus has been honored for so many centuries. Florentinius' last clause is: "Petrus Maria Campius treats at greater length of St. Antoninus the Martyr, in a thick work, lately published in Italian, of the history of the church of Piacenza." Campius does indeed treat, as I said above and as will again recur below, of so many things, that the mere reading of a most prolix history, woven of pure conjectures and convenient suppositions, has bred nausea in me, since the whole legend is everywhere destitute even of light proofs. Let the learned people of Piacenza accustom themselves, I beseech, to give faith not to such elegant and poetic orations, but to true and solid historical arguments. We shall resume a little more, when we have set forth our difficulties concerning St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea.
§ III. On St. Antoninus of Apamea in Occitania: his cult, age, and various Acts.
From the things which have hitherto been inquired into and disputed in this dissertation of ours, it is easily gathered that no text is found in the ancient or classical Martyrologies This holy Antoninus of Occitania which could be attributed separately to St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea, so that Florentinius seems to have labored in vain, when on the II of September he tried, as it were by a wrenched neck, to deflect the words of the Hieronymian codices into Occitania. "At Pamiers in Gaul," he says, "the Roman Martyrology likewise recounts Antoninus, where Cardinal Baronius observes that he suffered not at Apamea in Syria, as many have supposed, but at Pamiers near Toulouse, from the Tables of the church of Palencia, where his relics rest." So indeed, but that Baronius thinks wrongly, I have already indicated above, who in his note recounts the Acts in Mombritius and in Peter in the Catalogue, as proper to that Antoninus who is marked by Ado and Usuard. But be it said with the peace of the most eminent man, neither the Tables of the church of Palencia, nor the Mombritian or Equilinian Acts, in any way show, or can show, that Ado or Usuard treat of that Antoninus who is described in those Acts and is solemnly honored at Palencia—which from the two preceding paragraphs I judge most manifest. Nay rather, Florentinius continues, "that he suffered martyrdom at Apamea in Syria, his Acts have in Peter de Natalibus, who narrates that, being now a priest, while he was visiting the holy places with certain of the faithful, he received the crown at the foot of the mountain of Apamea, his head being cut off." Mere confusion: of Syria Peter there makes not a word of mention, and whatever he hands down in that place is rightly ascribed by Baronius to the Gaul of Apamea, but not likewise the texts of Ado, Usuard, or the other martyrologists.
[20] He is not known among the classical martyrologists, In the rest Florentinius is not more fortunate. "Apamea," he says, "on the river Ariège, on this side of the Pyrenees mountains, under the diocese of Toulouse, Ortelius describes, in which the Hagiology of Franco-Gaul in Labbe venerates St. Antoninus the Martyr, in whose possession also, in Volume 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 685, there is extant the passion of the blessed Antoninus the Martyr, who suffered under the city of Apamea on the IV Nones of September. From the manuscript codex of St. Albinus of Angers this was written at greater length." I admit that that legend is to be attributed to St. Antoninus of Occitania; but by what appearance of truth St. Antoninus the Gaul may be dug out from the Hagiology of Franco-Gaul, which is almost an abridgment of Usuard, I do not indeed clearly perceive, since they are the pure and very words of Usuard: "At Apamea, of St. Antoninus the Martyr," which are to be referred to the Syrian, as I judge manifest from §1. Thus violence must be done to the clearest words, when they are twisted to a preconceived opinion. Just as much to the point is the Martyrology of St. Savinus of Levitania adduced by Florentinius, in Saussay, from page 1249. Eyes alone are needed for one to be convinced. Thus writes the aforesaid Martyrology on the II day of September: "On the same day at the city of Apamea, the passion of St. Antoninus the Martyr, and the passion of the holy Anicetus and Formus his brother, in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, who after many torments were given to the fire." Whether the cited Martyrology here brings forth things true or false, I do not examine; this I hold most certain, that these words can no more be referred to St. Antoninus of Occitania than to any other, nay, are diametrically opposed to his Acts, however many and various they be. If anything from the more recent Martyrologies can be recalled to St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea, it must be sought from the Usuardine supplements, among which, on the II day of September, there are some things which seem to be understood altogether of that St. Antoninus; we here recount only the ancient ones.
[21] whatever Florentinius may twist much to that matter, The other things which Florentinius heaps up in vain to the same opinion, I do not pursue: his whole note tends to this, that in whatever way at last he may hammer out St. Antoninus of Occitania from the Hieronymian codices. Hear his last words: "SS. Antonius and Antoninus are different in our books and in the Martyrology of Corbie, but here they are venerated jointly (II September), because both suffered at Apamea, but one of them, who is called Antonius, at Apamea of Syria, the other at Apamea of Gaul. Concerning Antoninus of Apamea the Syrian our books treat openly on the next day, where some things seem to be added." What things have been added, we shall presently see: meanwhile that whole composition is merely gratuitously excogitated, for if two be admitted, which I do not think, or if you believe you see three men named Antonius or Antoninus in the Hieronymian codices, they are all by no means to be recalled to Apamea of Gaul, but most certainly to Apamea of Syria; so that to reconcile the incorrect Hieronymian codices, it is plainly necessary
to have recourse to that, to which so often, and even here at last, Florentinius is forced to flee, namely, that in these codices the same Saints are often repeated, even on the following days, and consequently that in those two entries, of the II and III of September, the same St. Antoninus or Antonius of Apamea in Syria is indicated, as I have said, and as I have sufficiently clearly proved above from other Martyrologies, in §1 of this commentary. Add that Apamea of Syria, which alone is known among the ancient geographers, would be most badly confounded with Pamiers or Apamea of Occitania, which, according to Catel, page 317, did not of old come simply by the name of Apamea, but with the addition, "the castle, which is called of Apamea." Let it therefore remain beyond controversy, that no ancient Martyrology whatever ever made mention of Apamea of Gaul, nor of St. Antoninus, a Martyr there.
[22] Let us now see what Florentinius judged should be added on the III day of September. confounding several men named Antoninus into one at last. These things, among others which are not to the point, he deduces in his own way: "But that we may not be silent about anything which occurs concerning Antoninus the Martyr of Apamea; from Ferrarius we add, in the notes of the general Catalogue on the II day of September, that Antoninus the Martyr in Syria is not different from the man of Pamiers in Aquitaine, nor from him who suffered at Piacenza, and that one Martyr divided is confounded among most writers. And that this is really so I have found from the lessons which I have in the codex of the ancient lectionary of the church of Piacenza, in manuscript with me. For although in the Kalendar prefixed to the same the celebrity of St. Antoninus is indicated on the IV Nones of July, and in the lessons he is narrated to have received the crown not from the city of Apamea, but from a town of Pannonia, born of noble parents, under Maximian, yet in the same manner as the Aquitanian of Apamea he is narrated to have been cast into a river, and by the same prodigies his blood and relics are affirmed to have been collected." How well these things cohere with those which Florentinius had so laboriously disputed the day before, everyone can see. From this addition of his he could and ought to have gathered that the Acts of the martyrdom of the holy men named Antoninus, of Piacenza and the Gaul of Apamea, were confounded, and that the life of the former was excerpted from the legend of the latter, afterward augmented immensely: but it does not thence yet follow that the Saints themselves are to be identified. The Syrian of Apamea is no more expressly marked in our Martyrologies on the III of September, than the man of Piacenza is marked on the XXX of the same month; therefore at least these two are most different; nor do I think the Gaul of Apamea differs less from the man of Piacenza; it is not equally certain whether the Gaul of Apamea is to be distinguished from the Syrian.
[23] Indeed the man of Piacenza, St. Antoninus, from all others, Wondrous are the legends of this holy Antoninus, unless I am vehemently mistaken, I have sufficiently distinguished in the preceding paragraph; now concerning the Gaul of Apamea we must inquire expressly. We enter a great sea of doubts, uncertainties, and discrepancies among those who long ago contended for that most celebrated Saint. Catel confesses that there are great discords of the writers, not about the cult, which is most received, but about the age of the Saint, which it is most difficult to fix to certain times. The whole matter has been thrown into confusion by the Saint's Acts, according to the piety, or the unskillfulness, of various legend-writers, augmented and deformed in a wonderful manner, which, if they had been left in their primitive simplicity, one could perhaps with easier effort agree about the epoch. Very brief and very simple are the things which are read in Peter's Catalogue and in Mombritius, though not in every way conformable: but in neither does even a whit appear whence anything may be determined about the Saint's age. Much longer things were published by the above-praised Labbe, Volume 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, from page 865, to which twin things were brought forth by Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius in his dissertation on the one Dionysius, published in the year 1676, from page 122, from the codex of St. Benignus of Dijon, and from another of Paris belonging to D. de Herouval, which he had earlier sent to our Elders, described by his own hand. The same things still exist four times in manuscript with us: 1, as they were transmitted by P. Beatillus from Naples in the year 1640; 2, from the ancient Legendary of Cardinal Barberini, folio 253; 3, from the Rebdorf manuscript; 4, from the manuscript of St. Maximinus of Trier, collated with another of the church of Saint-Omer; not to mention that I now examine our various ancient manuscript codices, differing in nothing from the other manuscripts. Moreover all those Acts are so arranged that they leave not even a chink through which one may arrive at the Saint's times.
[24] from which certainly no one will dig out the times. All those former legends is surpassed by another manuscript of Rouge-Cloître, in which King Theodoric appears, Pepin, St. Ouen, etc., in a style plainly different from the others; to which if you join the history of Bertrand, largely deduced from folio 20, then that which Catel cites, page 319, and which perhaps does not greatly differ from Bertrand's; [it] begins "the passion of the kindly and glorious Martyr Antoninus, who suffered at Apamea under King Methopius on the IV Kalends of September, given by Lord Pope Paschal, in the Lateran church, to Blessed Raymund, Bishop of Barbastro"; you will have whatever can breed confusion and involve and entangle the Acts of St. Antoninus in inextricable knots. There exists besides in our museum another brief life of the same Saint, from the manuscript codex 33 of the Queen of Sweden, in style and series of events different from that of Equilinus and Mombritius, and which at the end expressly notes that the most blessed Martyr Antoninus suffered in the time of the Emperor Antoninus surnamed Pius, which I remember also to have read elsewhere. Most different from all these Benedict Gonon offers us, page 256, from the Breviary of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, by whose reckoning St. Antoninus lived under that King Theodoric the Goth who, fighting against Attila in the Catalaunian fields, was slain, and therefore underwent martyrdom about the year 449. The chronology of this system the recent author of the Augustinian Pantheon, Augustinus Maria Arpe, arranges from memory, from Herrera, Elssius, and Torellus, who all seem to plow the same shore. Chiffletius, joining St. Antoninus as a companion to Dionysius the Areopagite, and, in his opinion, the same Bishop of Paris and Martyr, interweaves his contest with the second century. Others more probably look to the persecution of Diocletian. Others most badly connect him with St. Ouen and Pepin, son of Charles Martel. As many heads, so many opinions; none exacted according to right reason, much less to truth.
[25] Chiffletius not badly refutes the opinion of Spondanus, Chiffletius' notes, from page 143, insist on his system, concerning St. Antoninus the companion of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, whence new darkness rather is born than that light should shine. The legend published by himself after Labbe, he says, was sublated and contracted into a few words, by Vincent of Beauvais, book 13, chapter 35, by Peter de Natalibus, book 8, chapter 24, and by St. Antoninus, title 8, §42. From his discourse it will more appear with how great a fog the things which pertain to this St. Antoninus are enveloped. "But Henry Spondanus," he says, "created Bishop of Pamiers, writes these things concerning this St. Antoninus the Martyr, the Patron of his Church, in the continuation of the Annals of Baronius, in the year 1295, number XI. There was once, as it is reported, its (namely Apamea's) Prince Antoninus, of the race of the Goths reigning at Toulouse: whose father they will have obtained that region with the title of King Fredelacus, from the place so then called: whence also afterward the Abbot of the monastery there constructed is found called of Fredelac, and the Canons regular of Fredelac in its ancient monuments." That the canons were once so called we do not deny, but whence they obtained that name Catel explains a little more probably, page 120. Spondanus continues in Chiffletius: "But Antoninus himself, forsaking his homeland for the love of Christ, after having traversed for a long time, and illustrated with miracles, the city of Rome, and the rest of Italy, and even Gaul, and having received the sacred orders, returned to his own people at Toulouse and Pamiers to instruct them in faith and piety, and at last most gloriously underwent, at the same Pamiers, together with his companions in preaching John and Almachius, martyrdom for the faith of Christ." Thus far the account of Spondanus, founded on tradition, "as it is reported."
[26] He adds that he is venerated (again the words are Chiffletius') by the Augustinians, but the things which he himself substitutes are no more to be admitted. because in subsequent times the Counts of Carcassonne founded at Pamiers, in his honor, a monastery of the rule of St. Augustine, which in the year 1295 was endowed by Pope Boniface VIII with the title of a bishopric, under the Archbishop of Toulouse. He adds, moreover, that the martyrdom of St. Antoninus is referred by Vincent and St. Antoninus to the persecution of Galerius and Maximinus, which I do not find in them. Chiffletius must not have consulted the source. "But whatever they thought about this matter," he says, "in this they merit no more faith than those who in Spondanus supposed that St. Antoninus sprang from the Goths reigning at Toulouse, or even that he was either equal or nearly equal in age to St. Augustine; because his relics are possessed by the Augustinians. Since all these epochs rest on no foundation, nor are even lightly touched by any ancient writer of his life, it is easy, the others being rejected, to think Antoninus the Martyr a disciple of St. Dionysius, whom the latter destined from the port of Arles into Aquitaine, as the anonymous Greek praised by Methodius testifies, Methodius himself, Anastasius the interpreter of Methodius, and Hincmar of Reims, openly distinguishing two men named Antoninus, the elder and the younger, disciples of Dionysius of Paris and of the Areopagite." I pass over the rest, equally proving anything, by which certainly Chiffletius has hitherto persuaded no one, so far as I know, of his opinion.
[27] What I think in these matters, it will profit nothing here to bring forth prematurely, What it is fitting for the people of Occitania to do for their Saint. since the whole matter is to be examined afresh on the 11 day of September, on which that St. Antoninus is venerated among the people of Apamea in Occitania, as from the aforesaid is beyond doubt: nothing else was set before me in this preliminary dissertation than to distinguish the holy men named Antoninus among themselves, and to attribute to each city, region, or church its own, especially to the people of Piacenza, who venerate their native and popular Saint with solemn celebrity on this IV day of July. For the rest, since I see enveloped in thick fog, as if of set purpose, the things which pertain not only to the man of Piacenza but also to the man of Apamea, I am the authority to the people of Apamea, whether Canons regular or Augustinian Hermits, that they meanwhile furnish us more certain, at least more probable, monuments concerning their holy Antoninus, and that they themselves first agree among themselves about making a choice of the Acts, lest they afterward accuse us of carelessness, because we should have followed one legend rather than another, nay, should be forced to reject all, however many there are; and this one thing I would conjecture as probable: that the body, or the chief part of the relics, was brought from Syria into the Gauls, perhaps in the fifth or sixth century, with the other saints Caius and Alexander, as also St. Natalia, Virgin and Martyr of Apamea, whom the Sammarthani testify to have been honored at Apamea in Gaul before the iconoclasm of the Huguenots, in their work "On the Bishops of Apamea," page 161, column 2. And those relics of St. Antoninus perhaps gave occasion for excogitating such wondrous Legends; whence it will follow that St. Antoninus of Apamea of Gaul is not different from the man of Apamea of Syria,
and that the second of September was assumed for that reason, because on such a day they found St. Antoninus of Apamea the Syrian in the Martyrologies; although in the Legend cited by Catel, St. Antoninus is said to have suffered on the IV Kalends of September.
[28] The translation of the year 887 is sufficiently proved. All things are obscure, as I have said, entangled and disturbed, so that after an accurate discussion of the matters I have found nothing sound or entire, besides the fragment of a diploma, reported by Catel, pages 621 and 622, where in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 887, on the XIII Kalends of June, the translation of the body of the blessed Martyr Antoninus is said to have been made, while Charles the Younger reigned as King of the Franks. Although here too perhaps its own blemishes may not be lacking. The end of the diploma is: "At the translation of the relics of the most glorious Martyr Antoninus there were present fit witnesses, namely the most holy Prelates and most illustrious men of various holiness, whose names are these: Theodard Archbishop of Narbonne, and with him Arnulph Bishop of Carcassonne, and the venerable Raymund Bishop of Toulouse, Roger Bishop of Couserans, with Fulcran of Rodez (Catel warns that it is better read Ruthena or Ruthenica), and the Bishop of Albi named Flotard, and the Bishop of Cahors named Gerald; by whose command, and the prayers of other noble men, and by the precept of the most noble Count of Carcassonne, named Roger, all these things which we saw, we heard, we wrote and testified." Thus far the instrument, established by its circumstances—unless in it too some things be detected which cannot escape a severer criticism, concerning which it shall be disputed in its own time.
[29] When the relics were brought to Palencia is uncertain. Again I repeat, that all the lives cited above, and those legends of whatever sort, do not seem sufficiently apt for anything to be dug out of any one of them—much less out of the collection of all—which may deserve to come under the eyes of the learned; so that unless other weights be added, we must subscribe to the prevailing opinion of combining into one the two Antoninuses, the Syrian of Apamea and the Gaul of Apamea, whose same relics passed into Spain at the very same time at which they were brought into Gaul, whence also there a new origin of confusion. I should indeed prefer to incline to this part, that St. Antoninus of Occitania is most different from the Syrian, having suffered martyrdom at Apamea of Gaul, while the persecution of Diocletian still lasted, as before me thought Vincent of Beauvais, St. Antoninus of Florence, Galesinius, Saussay, and several others to be adduced in their time. Of this Saint, as I was just saying, a part of the relics being translated into Spain, in the city of Palencia and its other royal cities made most celebrated the name and cult of St. Antoninus, the little fables of Dexter and Julianus being rejected, born yesterday in Spain, which I now undertake to examine.
§ IV. On St. Antoninus, Martyr of Palencia in Spain, first excogitated in the seventeenth century.
We weighed above the announcement of the Roman Martyrology, conceived on the 11 day of September in these words: St. Antoninus of Aquitaine formerly venerated at Palencia, "At Pamiers in Gaul, of St. Antoninus the Martyr, whose relics are preserved with great veneration in the church of Palencia." To which matter we gave the sense of Baronius' note; namely that it is established from the Tables of the church of Palencia, in which his birthday (that second of September) is solemnly kept, where the sacred relics of his body rest. This was, even according to Tamayus himself, the author of the Spanish Martyrology, as witness, the long-undoubted opinion of the Spaniards; for "the holy church of Palencia," says he himself, in the notes on the 11 of September, "which acknowledges St. Antoninus the Martyr as patron, contends that he was a Gaul." And a little below: "With the opinion of the holy church of Palencia agree all the Gallican writers, and Baronius the most eminent Cardinal, who recounts only that the relics are preserved at Palencia." Tamayus could have added, that no Spanish church, of which nevertheless he mentions several, venerated another St. Antoninus, none, I say, doubted that among them the ecclesiastical office was celebrated concerning St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea, until Father Francis Bivar, and D. Francis Sandoval, canon of Palencia, on the notable authority of Dexter and Julianus, undertook to fable that he was a Spaniard, the Spanish martyrologist himself supporting them, and setting forth the disputation held on that matter with the people of Palencia, and judging that he had resolved everything easily and happily through questions—in which how far he wandered astray, the easier and happier solution of his questions and arguments will show.
[31] The first question in Tamayus, but a useless one, turns about nine different saints named Antoninus, driven from his place by the Spaniards whom, with no profit of labor, he copied from the index of the Roman Martyrology. In the second question he attacks Baronius not undeservedly, because he first placed St. Antoninus in Gallic Pamiers on the faith of the Tables of the church of Palencia. The same is urged against him in the third question, from the consensus of several martyrologists, among whom St. Antoninus the Gaul was truly not known, which we above more fully and more evidently demonstrated. Coming nearer to his matter, he asks in the fourth: "What historical reasons could have moved the church of Palencia, so that, the hoariness and authority of the ancient Breviaries being despised, it should wander off to embrace other assertions." In this consists a great fault, namely that that church, the history being left aside, concerning the martyrdom of St. Antoninus under Martel or Pepin, had embraced another in its lessons, most probably from Benedict Gonon, in which the Martyr is written to have died in the year 449, to which the people of Palencia had believed themselves compelled, so that another narration about King Sancho the Great might be saved, who had found the ancient church of St. Antoninus while hunting; but this Sancho, since he ought to have lived long before Pepin, for that reason the epoch of the martyrdom of St. Antoninus in the reformation of the Breviaries had altogether to be changed, which with all effort the Spanish martyrologist disapproves and impugns. Then indeed in the whole fifth question he explains the aforesaid history about Sancho, not ineptly gathering ad hominem, that St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea cannot be the patron of the church of Palencia, if he was not older than Pepin: which again he inculcates in the sixth question, namely that the altar, effigy, crypts, relics, found by the King, cannot at all be referred to such a St. Antoninus.
[32] on account of the erroneous epoch; From all those questions of Tamayus, this proposition at last is drawn out: if St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea did not undergo martyrdom before the year 771, he was wrongly assumed by the people of Palencia as patron, since their true patron, at the earliest, was acknowledged as such in the sixth century. And he argues rightly indeed, on the supposed truth of the history of King Sancho the Great, which to weigh or discuss is not of this place. Tamayus insists further, and pursuing his aim, that other history substituted by the reformers of the Breviary from Gonon concerning the passion of St. Antoninus, drawn back to the year 449, he repudiates as also imaginary and fictitious, quite rightly again inferring and retorting ad hominem, that some older St. Antoninus must be investigated, who could be honored as patron by the church of Palencia. If Tamayus had stopped here, I should indeed not unwillingly subscribe to his opinion, since to me too it is plainly probable that St. Antoninus the Gaul, Martyr, if any ever existed, looks to the persecution of Diocletian or some more ancient one, as was disputed at greater length in the preceding paragraph; or, which was the other way of saving the substance of the matter, that it must plainly be admitted that the relics of the holy Martyr of Apamea the Syrian were carried into Gaul, some part of which was at some time translated into the Spains. But let us proceed to tread in Tamayus' footprints.
[33] but a popular one most badly substituted for him, The foundations being laid through the said questions, or the major proposition of his syllogism, and always supposing that St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea can be none, if he did not attain the crown of martyrdom in the years 449 or 771—which ought to be called the second or assumed proposition of the syllogism—he thence draws the conclusion, that without doubt for some Spanish Martyr the banner, the errors being conquered, must be exalted. This is the sincere and entire argumentation of Tamayus, whose minor proposition, against certain Gauls, especially Bertrand and Catel, however not badly he may prove it, will be altogether denied by others agreeing with me, as it has already been sufficiently denied and overthrown; so that consequently ridiculous is the novel sequel of Sandoval and Tamayus, that some martyr under the name of St. Antoninus must be sought in Spain itself, and his banner, the errors being conquered, exalted. So, before Sandoval and Tamayus, argued, I suppose, whoever, the importer of depraved wares into Spain, thrust the fabrications of the Dexterine chronicle upon the world, long since so harassed, shaken out, and blown away by the more prudent Spaniards, that no one today, even a little learned, dares to recite them, much less to adduce them in proof of any argument whatever. And yet in this chronicle alone and in fabulists of this kind was St. Antoninus, a Spanish Martyr, found: let Sandoval and Tamayus therefore see what sort of banner can be exalted for a Saint merely fabricated.
[34] plainly fabricated from the pseudo-chronicles of Dexter, etc. It is pleasing to hear Tamayus triumphing, in these words: "For the firmness of this victory," he says, "the following things must be supposed, that we may approach the summit of truth, and enervate the futile foundation of the error committed by the Palentine reformers. First, that this holy Antoninus, whose church Palencia venerated in the time of the Goths, and whose effigy and relics Sancho the Great found in the altar within the crypt, was by origin a Spaniard, and at the city of Apamea of the Vaccaei, situated near Palencia, was crowned with martyrdom in the time of Diocletian. The identity of this assertion we prove, first from Flavius Dexter, in the chronicle at the year 308, where Bivar in Notes, Commentary 2, number 11, folio 366, with the following clause: 'At Apamea of Tarraco, a town of the Vaccaei, on the river Arlanzón, the passion of St. Antoninus the Martyr.' Behold, from Dexter, St. Antoninus a Spanish Martyr, and he crowned with martyrdom in the year 308, in the persecution of Diocletian, which was continued even into that year, as D. Francis Sandoval proves at greater length, in the Apology for St. Antoninus the Spaniard, §2, folio 12." This one, forsooth, first raised the banner, that from Dexter and Bivar he might reveal to the Spaniards a truth hitherto hidden. Those who are afterward adduced by Tamayus, Galesinius and Maurolyco, have not spoken of St. Antoninus the Spaniard even in a dream; nor do the Gallican writers, nor the other things which he scrapes together besides, confer anything in favor of St. Antoninus the Spaniard; Dexter alone with his commentator Bivar exalted the banner of victory for the Spanish Martyr, the errors being conquered. And this is the chief, nay the only, argument of Tamayus for his Spanish Martyr Antoninus.
[35] Nevertheless he heaps up other things, and indeed by a second argument intends to prove to the point of nausea on which alone the specious arguments of Tamayus rest, that St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea suffered martyrdom under Martel or Pepin, namely from the Legends of Bertrand and others, which we demonstrated above cannot be admitted. The argument third in order fights for this, that we should believe the relics of St. Antoninus the Gaul were never carried into the Spains. I should indeed sympathize with the Spaniards, if Tamayus had evinced this from anywhere, for if from Syria or from Aquitanian Gaul the aforesaid relics were never brought to Palencia, I for one am most persuaded that no relics of St. Antoninus the Martyr ever existed there, nor now exist. But indeed by Tamayus' argument
we are not greatly troubled. We freely grant him and admit that the relics of St. Antoninus were translated to Apamea in Aquitaine in the year 887, as is sufficiently established from the instrument adduced above; but who there asserts that absolutely all the members or bones of the Saint were found? Who would judge these things must be taken so rigidly, that no part of the sacred body could have been carried off from there many centuries before? The legendary texts which are perpetually cited are of that kind which we have said must be rejected beforehand, and whose falsity is thence evident, that they report the body torn asunder in one place, but the head far distant from Apamea. Other proofs are needed, that it may ever be rendered even probable, that no relics of St. Antoninus were carried off from Apamea to Palencia in the Spains.
[36] No less unwarlike are the weapons which he hurls in the fourth and fifth arguments, overturned with no effort, immersed in his Gallic Legends, Tamayus. "St. Antoninus the Gaul," he says, "as is gathered from the Gallican histories and the Breviaries of Pamiers, Carcassonne, and the rest of Aquitaine, was a priest and a monk, either a Benedictine or an Augustinian Hermit, etc." Concerning these, mere circumstances namely, and making nothing to the substance of a true martyrdom, let him himself dispute with those who swear by the words of those legends; with me Antoninus was a Martyr, whether he was a Gaul or a Syrian; about his priesthood and his monastic state, whether Benedictine or Augustinian, I neither ask nor care. Again he argues from the companions, whom the Gallic legends attribute to their St. Antoninus, since he who suffered under Diocletian, in Dexter, Julianus, and Bivar, is read to have had no such companions. Away with the companions, of whom here we are by no means treating; it is enough for me, provided some Martyr of Apamea truly existed, of whom some relics could be carried to Palencia in the Spains. I therefore deny and plainly spit out the consequence drawn by Tamayus from all these of this kind: "Hence, propped up by the authority of Dexter and Julianus, archpriest of Toledo, we believe that Antoninus was ours, not a Gaul; and that he was slain in the persecution of Diocletian, at the city of Apamea among the Vaccaei of Spain, from the things related above and the passage of Dexter, who designates the city of Apamea of Spain among the Vaccaei as the arena for the Martyr."
[37] by which the people of Palencia would be badly seduced. I deny, I say, that whole consequence of Tamayus, and if it were twice as long; I deny the consequent itself, founded on the sole authority of two pseudo-chronicles, namely of Dexter and Julianus. I deny consequently the very Acts, for the greater part fabricated by Tamayus; I deny the new reasonings adjoined, propped on the same strawy supports. I deny that Apamea, or the city of Pamiers, ever existed in Tarraconian Spain, which, unknown to all geographers, as Tamayus confesses, was fabricated in the one chronicle of the fictitious Dexter; "who," says Tamayus, "describes the topography of this city in the aforesaid year 308, number 11; where Bivar and Carus agree, cited by Sandoval above." But even if six hundred topographers and commentators of the Dexterine chronicle should agree, it will happen no more that any man of sense and heart should suffer himself to be led away by such insipid fables, so often overturned. But as to what Tamayus adds, addressing the Canons of Palencia: "Let the holy church of Palencia and its Chapter examine all these things, that, God granting, it may arrive at the summit of truth, the error being laid aside": this we with better right advise, that at least she should not undertake to reform the lessons of her Breviary from the old-wives' dreams of Dexter and Julianus, but should leave them intact, or assume the common ones, until on the II of September it be more laboriously considered whether, and what, Legend concerning St. Antoninus of Apamea can be tolerated. But if meanwhile the learned people of Palencia should have found anything ancient and solid, by which either the Saint himself—whom I hitherto do not think different from the man of Apamea—or his cult and miracles may be adorned, let them not be reluctant to destine it hither, nay let them also express their views clearly and boldly concerning this our Preliminary dissertation on the SS. Antonini, to be expressly illustrated in the month of September. Now must be resumed the things which pertain separately to that holy Antoninus whom the people of Piacenza venerate on this IV day of July.
§ V. On the Acts of St. Antoninus of Piacenza, especially those of Equilinus.
How certain a Patron of Piacenza is St. Antoninus, Already above, in §2, from the most certain ecclesiastical monuments, I abundantly evinced that St. Antoninus the Martyr of Piacenza is so different from any synonymous saints, that he can and ought deservedly to be called proper to the city of Piacenza alone, and its protector and singular patron—which no one had hitherto shown proved and demonstrated with such evidence and certitude. It would now remain for me to undertake to illustrate and adorn with like arguments the Acts, deeds, miracles of the most glorious Saint, or some ancient series of his life, if indeed any had come down to us. This is the unhappiness not of one church in the Catholic world, that they have Saints, and those most singular patrons, not rarely, of whose deeds nothing has been handed down to memory; or if there ever was, it has by various calamities of the times perished and been lost. This is the first taint of the evil, whence we recognize, not without sorrow, several others, too fruitfully begotten. For since among the common people scarcely those Saints are received, at least do not attain that popular esteem, of whom Legends do not exist; and the crowd makes the more of Saints the more wondrous and stupendous things, adorned with long embellishments and commonplaces, are narrated of them; hence, even to rivalry and contention, innumerable histories have been thrust into the light in emulation, collected and woven together—shall I say, or fabricated?—from every quarter, which today bring us more trouble and difficulty than of old they bore of fame or esteem to their fabricators, at least somewhat too piously credulous.
[39] I address the learned and the skilled in these matters, to whom it is not unknown, so uncertain are his deeds, most recently compiled, that a deluge of that kind of wares, if it is permitted so to speak, in which the Catholic world saw itself immersed and marveled, before anyone had thought of recalling such pious and devout fictions, and popular suppositions, to right criticism, or of removing them from our midst. It would be in vain here to run through the most common commonplaces in our Acts; scarcely a day occurs on which our Elders have not deservedly deplored it: nor are there wanting most recent examples in the first four days of this month of July, which continually strike the eyes of the readers. Among these, commentaries adorned more piously than malignly claim a place for themselves, which a man, learned in other respects, Petrus Maria Campius, canon of the church of Piacenza, in the century just past, first sent forth into the public light concerning his St. Antoninus, Martyr of Piacenza, in three different works, more and more augmented and wonderfully amplified, according to that faculty in which he excelled, of speaking and of collecting the conceits of other orators and poets; in which that is plainly wanting which in these matters ought to be first, namely a life, or at least some narration, which, not distant by eight or ten whole centuries from the Saint's martyrdom, should be clothed with those weights of probability by which it should not shrink from coming under the eyes of the learned. And this is most to be grieved, that there was at Piacenza a vast dearth of such monuments, so that they had to fetch foreign histories, and those not sufficiently genuine, from Gaul, to be applied to their Saint.
[40] I did not dissemble above the true judgments of those who thought thus, by Campius, who cites nothing ancient or solid, and, not to fetch them from elsewhere than from Italy itself, Ferrarius and Florentinius, whose words have been related in the preceding paragraphs, expressed their mind long ago plainly enough: namely, that the Acts of St. Antoninus of Piacenza, of whatever kind, are taken or borrowed from the Gallic Acts of St. Antoninus of Apamea. This indeed I hold certain, that no ordered series of the life of St. Antoninus, at least one that is known, has hitherto appeared at Piacenza, before the beginning of the seventeenth century, in which the praised Campius, to be commended for oratorical art more than for historical truth, undertook to write very many things about St. Antoninus. The historiographer of Piacenza, Campius, does indeed cite "very ancient codices of his church written by hand, and an old Breviary of Piacenza … very many painted tablets and older pictures. Likewise the deeds of the saint not inelegantly celebrated in heroic verse by Franciscus Bernardinus Cypellarius in his panegyric of St. Antoninus the Martyr; and in Sapphic and Adonic verse by Count Fridericus Scotus, a patrician of Piacenza …" Finally he refers us to the Theban history of Guilielmus Baldesanus of Turin. "Many things besides," he says, "pertaining hereto, let those who desire seek at leisure, from the commentaries, which Guilielmus Baldesanus of Carmagnola, a theologian, published elegantly written in the Italian tongue, on the sacred history of the Thebans."
[41] or which is not almost 10 centuries later than the Saint. These, forsooth, are the sources from which Campius drew, and which alone he could assign: panegyric orations, turgid with mere tropes, inventions of wit, and inflated speech; poetic fictions, and the Theban history, in style, order, and narration of events not much unlike these; in the first edition of which, of the year 1589, forty heroes are expressed by name, of whom scarcely three could Eucherius of Lyons name, who described the contest of that most glorious legion. Nor content with these, Baldesanus, in another printing in the year 1604, brought forth into the light nearly sixty others, in so small an interval of years, ready soon to make it so that scarcely any Agaunensian or Theban champion should lack his proper name, if he had adorned new editions of his work in course of time. He who adduces writings of this kind and authors of that sort in proof of the Acts of St. Antoninus, shows manifestly enough that fine cogitations, oratorical conceits, and the allurements of poets are being thrust upon us in place of ancient and sincere monuments. But, you will say, Campius consulted very ancient codices written by hand, an old Breviary of Piacenza, very many painted tablets, and older pictures; I hear it: but I should much wish it proved to me that of all these there is even a single instrument which exceeds in age the fourteenth century. And what if you should contend to ascend to the thirteenth century—can thence, I beseech, anything be deduced which may bear testimony for a matter transacted ten whole centuries before? Again I speak to the learned, whom not the ornament of words, or the elegance of style and pencil, but the weights of historical reasons and arguments alone feed. All these things I leave to the people of Piacenza to consider, with the sole regard of digging out the truth.
[42] Nor is the narration of Equilinus to be admitted, however brief, Campius says that Peter de Natalibus described the Acts of St. Antoninus very narrowly in his Catalogue of Saints, book 8, chapter 133. Very narrowly indeed Bishop Equilinus first wrote, toward the end of the fourteenth century; yet in his narrow writing I find nothing which stands under the ancient monuments, or can be composed with those things which are certain by the authority of the Martyrologies, except only the first narrow clause. Behold again the words of Equilinus: "Antoninus the Martyr suffered at the city of Piacenza." These are the things which I admit as beyond doubt. "Who was one of the sacred legion of the Thebans and a companion of Blessed Mauritius the Martyr." If St. Antoninus served in that legion, he was certainly a companion of Blessed Mauritius; but by what witness, by what ancient author supporting him, does Equilinus assert this? From the mere tradition of the people of Piacenza, I suppose, then chiefly born, when several cities of Italy, especially in Insubria, claimed for themselves either one or several companions from the aforesaid legion; whom, clad in arms, shields, and helmets, they promoted to various offices, so that our St. Antoninus is reckoned to have been a standard-bearer. But, pray, what has the Italian of Piacenza to do with the Thebans? Who could sufficiently persuade [us] that St. Antoninus was enrolled in an Egyptian legion, and in Egypt? One may marvel that things so little congruous could be so easily adopted. Let it be said in few words: the ancient martyrologists would not have omitted the appellation of Theban soldier, if in the seventh or eighth century that matter had even been thought of. I will call St. Antoninus a Theban, and, if you will, next in military rank to St. Mauritius, provided it be demonstrated from Tables more ancient than those of Equilinus, Baldesanus, or Campius. Let us weigh the remaining narrownesses of Equilinus.
Equilinus continues: "Who, having gone forth from the borders of Piacenza, passed through the eastern provinces, when he ascribes the Saint to the Thebans: and did many miracles. At length, returning to his own city, being seized by the infidels and beheaded, he was crowned with glorious martyrdom." Behold the whole series of the Acts, such as was received among the people of Piacenza in the fourteenth century. But either I am mistaken, or they themselves do not sufficiently consult the glory of their holy Martyr, when they will have it believed that he escaped unharmed from the butchery of the whole Theban legion; alone, I suppose, and the only one, of whom this is found handed down; if indeed it could be handed down safely enough, since it is established from elsewhere that that army was so happy that in its most blessed assembly none perished, since none escaped; as see in Ruinart, in the preliminary admonition to the passion of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum. I have already said, too, that beyond all probability he is feigned a Theban who was an Italian. Observing this, Campius thought that the eastern journey should be placed before the military service, so that St. Antoninus, sojourning in Egypt and admiring the piety of those soldiers, requested to be enrolled in so holy a legion. But that whole pilgrimage of St. Antoninus into the East, whether it be preferred to or placed after the military service, is a pure and unmixed episode, eagerly snatched by Campius, that he might spread the sails of his eloquence most widely, doubtless alluding to that itinerary which we said above, in §2, cannot in any way be ascribed to St. Antoninus the Martyr of Piacenza, except by an enormous anachronism connecting the seventh or eighth century with the third or fourth.
[44] From the small specimen of Equilinus it abundantly appears how much in two centuries the tradition of the people of Piacenza about their St. Antoninus grew, nor do the rest sufficiently stand, so that from those few little lines of Peter de Natalibus the Canon Campius contrived a work of seventy and more pages in quarto form, afterward spreading himself out immensely in his ecclesiastical history, so that you may note, not without great astonishment, that an Ocean has overflowed from a drop. The remaining words of Equilinus, which pertain to the finding and translation of the body, I shall subjoin: "Whose unknown body the Lord revealed to blessed Savinus, Bishop of that city. For there appeared to him a splendid man, who showed him where the body of the holy Martyr lay; who also marked the form of the body, and the members, and the years of military service, and the name, and the head cut off, and made known that a pitcher full of his blood was also preserved for a testimony. And he admonished him to raise that body from the same place, and to lay it in a worthy tomb: who, awaking, disclosed the vision to the clergy and people, and commanded all to dig in the place shown; where the holy body, as it had been shown to the Bishop, was in all things found. Which while they were raising, some drops flowed from it. At whose translation, since Savinus the Bishop alone was there, six other bishops appeared, who they were, or whence they had come, unknown to all. Raising therefore the Martyr's body, they placed it in the tomb of St. Victor the Bishop, who otherwise in his life had, by a prophetic spirit, foretold that after his death a greater than he ought to rest in that same tomb. The body being also buried, those Bishops who had appeared, suddenly departing, were nowhere seen, and thus they laid the holy body with fitting reverence on the eve of the Kalends of October."
[45] However Bishop Peter of Equilinus has comprised all these things in few words, it is sufficiently gathered that only from mere traditions of the people also could so many and wondrous visions proceed, on the not great authority of Equilinus. so many stupendous miracles and prophecies, which I indeed suffer to be believed by the people of Piacenza, religious venerators of their Saint; but that they may be admitted by learned and sensible men, I should exceedingly wish them confirmed by some ancient monument: so many prodigies, heaped up in so few lines, demand a testimony to be esteemed with at least some faith, which is far more ancient than the age of Equilinus. The labor of that Bishop is indeed to be praised, his diligence to be praised; but how much his collection is valued today, especially when he treats of the deeds of Saints which precede his own age by so many centuries, has been explained more than once in these our Acts. That you may find in a brief compendium what opinion our Elders long ago conceived of that work, consult the Responses of Papebroch to article XI, number 128. But now, if of so slight faith are those few things which Peter de Natalibus described very narrowly in his Catalogue, what must be judged of those most ample commentations of Campius, in which all things are immensely dilated? From a just estimation of his first Latin little work, published in print at Piacenza by Johannes Bazochius in 1603, the learned reader will judge of the rest.
§ VI. On the Acts of St. Antoninus, published in Latin and Italian by the Canon Campius.
How much the [narrations of Equilinus grew at Piacenza,] On how weak and fragile a foundation popular traditions subsist, whether concerning Saints or other matters, which have not been left to posterity by certain monuments, or if others are wanting, the present-day history of St. Antoninus manifestly shows, in which the people of Piacenza do not even have this one thing sufficiently explored, whether the Saint was by nation and race a Syrian, or a Pannonian, or truly of Piacenza. That Piacenza was his homeland Equilinus expressly notes, likewise Baldesanus notes it: in his ancient Breviaries and Kalendars of Piacenza Florentinius above found St. Antoninus born in Pannonia: Campius in his earlier little works did not hesitate to write, "Antoninus born at Apamea of noble parents about the two hundred and seventieth year of human salvation." But in his ecclesiastical history, consisting of three large volumes in folio, Volume 1, pages 27 and 28, following the panegyric of Cypellarius, he most clearly asserts that the Saint beheld the light at Piacenza or at least in the territory of Piacenza, not without a miraculous vision preceding, exhibited to his pregnant mother, as though she were about to bring forth an eagle, etc. What does human wit not forge, when, loosening the reins to a fruitful imagination, it is allowed to wander freely to adorn whatever it will. This is the first inconstancy of Campius, whose other lapses it does not please me to pursue, lest this single paragraph should equal the mass of his work; for I undertake here to weigh only the Latin little work.
[47] After the words already recited follows: "The youth, enrolled in the illustrious legion of the Thebans, Campius' Latin elogium shows, under the glorious leader Mauritius, gave his service to the military." Then a little more fully he narrates the things which pertain to the slaughter of the Thebans, "from which, God preserving and calling to greater things, the renowned soldier, and with him a very few others, escaped unhurt and safe." Here Campius divines: for, as I said above, from that most glorious legion none perished, because none escaped. For the rest, what I judge concerning the Theban military service—whether St. Antoninus was of Apamea, or a Pannonian, or of Piacenza—I have already abundantly declared. And thus far nothing is narrated which has anything in common with St. Antoninus the Gaul of Apamea; for in this little work which we have in hand, Campius sufficiently plainly insinuates Apamea of Syria. The things which follow seem certainly received from the Gallic Legend: "But Antoninus himself, having traversed many regions, arrived at Piacenza, where he led very many, and especially Festus, a prince and most wealthy man, from the cult of idols to the religion of the Christian faith, by his assiduous enunciation of the divine law." The regions traversed and Festus the prince agree so clearly with the Acts of St. Antoninus of Apamea in Occitania, that an egg could not be more like an egg. Nor here retort to me that the Gauls of Apamea could equally plunder the Acts of St. Antoninus of Piacenza, as the people of Piacenza the Gallic Acts. Choose whichever you please, for all I care; from that head those Acts will acquire not a whit more authority, whether they were of Gallic or of Italian origin; they so reek of a vitiated age, that, of whatever nation you call them, they cannot at all be freed from the rust of supposition and fiction. We proceed to examine Campius' elogium.
[48] "And not very long after, having taken to himself as a companion John, a priest of Piacenza, ill digested from other Acts and the famous itinerary. he piously and religiously undertook a pilgrimage even into other parts of the earth, and especially into the most holy places of Jerusalem. But John himself being now dead and buried at Capernaum, a city celebrated by the monuments of sacred letters, he returned to Piacenza." It is the same song which we showed above must be spat out, resting on no authority, no reasons, save those which evidently convince the whole history of St. Antoninus of mere fiction and fabulousness, as the curious reader will be able to perceive from the very itinerary of St. Antoninus and his companion John, published by Papebroch before Volume 2 of May. Those pilgrimages and itineraries conduce wonderfully to adorning fables. I do not so shrink from what Campius adds, namely that our Saint returned to Piacenza (if indeed he ever went forth thence for the sake of pilgrimage) "while the same nefarious Emperor Maximian still raged" (but this is most alien to the published itinerary). "But when he did not cease to preach Christ more ardently, and his faith, variously tried by the hostile and insidious satellites of the tyrant, remained more constant, the holy man, met of his own accord in the field of Trabana and seized by them, is most savagely tortured; at length on the bank of the Trebia flowing beneath, his head being cut from his neck, he is happily crowned with martyrdom on the IV Nones of July." Either these, or similar accessory circumstances, may be true; the day I altogether do not accept, since from the Martyrologies it is established that his birthday must be referred to the XXX of September: that fourth of July prevailed with the other traditions; whence received, I do not know. Take clearer things.
[49] But now, his body having been cast by the nefarious men into the river Trebia itself, The Apamean Acts are compared, the blood, when, gathered into one, it was floating, being collected into a pitcher by divine providence through angels, together with the head is wondrously placed in a little boat: which likewise, led by two angels in the form of eagles through the same river, put in at the house of Festus the Prince, nearest to the city of Piacenza; which is now called the temple of St. Mary de Curtina. But Festus, the Lord indicating, recognizing the venerable head of Antoninus destined for him, and knowing that it sought again that same lodging, whence
formerly, for fear of the dread Emperor, the Christian soldier, while still dwelling among mortals, had been excluded; forthwith he adorns his house as decently as could be done, receives and stores the sacred relics, kissing them and weeping for joy. These things indeed are not altogether taken word for word from the Apamean acts, but so akin to them that the one history must have been composed from the other. Nor do these things differ much: "But the holy body of the divine Martyr, found the next day by divine admonition, and thence, where he had suffered (which place indeed is distant almost fifteen miles from our city), the waves of their own accord yielding, taken up, he took care to have carried into the same house, with the greatest joy of all the faithful, God meanwhile doing many wonders at the illustrious and notable spoils of the Martyr himself."
[50] with the present-day people of Piacenza. The Apamean Acts speak only of the head of St. Antoninus, carried in a little boat by the guidance of eagles into the house of Festus; here the body besides is treated of, I suppose, that the whole history may be brought in order to the catastrophe proposed above from Equilinus. Thus Campius connects his narrative: "But as time went on, Festus himself, fearing for these pledges so dear, so precious, from the enemies of our religion, who raged more and more from day to day even against the bodies of Saints committed to tombs, hid them, gratefully and religiously arranged, in a well, which even today may be beheld in the same church of St. Mary, whither, especially in times of drought, the clergy and people, proceeding as suppliants, are accustomed by a most ancient custom to open the well itself, and by the entreaty of the renowned Martyr, they very often observe the dry face of the earth to be drenched with a timely shower." I willingly acknowledge and praise divine benefits accustomed to be granted to devout clients through the merits and intercession of the Saint, from which at least this most probably follows, which we above not obscurely vindicated to the people of Piacenza, namely that the surviving relics of St. Antoninus rest there, and that he is deservedly called the patron, tutelary, and protector of the whole city, nay of the whole territory of Piacenza; although concerning his deeds and passion scarcely anything survives which we should judge could be admitted safely enough. Behold now the remaining part of the Equilinian life, rendered a little more ornately by Campius.
[51] Campius augmented Equilinus; "But several years after, when now the very name of the patron and Martyr Antoninus, famous for miracles, was most celebrated among the people of Piacenza, but his tomb still lay hidden and unknown; this too, by Blessed Savinus, second Bishop of this city (of whom St. Gregory the Pope gloriously makes mention in the book of Dialogues, as see in our Acts on the XVII of January, Volume 2, page 163), being instructed by divine admonition, with all the clergy and great veneration of the people, the earth being dug up, was found; and thence the Martyr's glorious body and head, cut off from the body, together with the little vessel, filled even then with fresh blood, just as if it had been poured in a little before, that holy Prelate strove to translate into this basilica, then consecrated to St. Victor the Martyr, when not without a miracle a drop of fresher blood, flowing from the body, offered a most certain testimony of martyrdom: nay even, since he alone, the Bishop, was present, six other unknown Prelates unexpectedly appeared, who, venerable themselves also in pontifical adornment, laid the relics honored by themselves, on the Ides of November, with the utmost religion, in the tomb of St. Victor, first Bishop of Piacenza and Confessor, the founder of that same basilica, who before, while living, among the other marks of his virtues, had also, inspired by a divine spirit, foretold that after his death it would come to pass that a greater than he should be placed in that same tomb." These things are sufficiently consonant with the narration of Peter de Natalibus, which we related in the preceding paragraph, under this caution, however, that so many collected miracles require the faith of some ancient writer.
[52] Campius superadded a new prodigy to Equilinus, the writings of both to be confirmed by other monuments, doubtless from another received tradition of the people of Piacenza, which Peter was ignorant of. "Wherefore," he says, "his bones, a worthier place having suddenly been granted to the Martyr Antoninus, all who were then present looking on and being amazed, withdrew into their part of the urn; from which time also this very edifice began to be called of St. Antoninus the Martyr." That the temple was so named Campius knew, but that the appellation was given on the occasion of such a miracle, this is what we desire to be propped by greater authority. Campius wished in some way to anticipate this objection, when he thus continues: "But if anyone should wish to know the life, martyrdom, and miracles of this Saint, let him go to Peter de Natalibus, who describes them in the Catalogue of Saints, though very narrowly, book 8, chapter 133." And indeed I do not see why, in chapter 24 of the same book, he should attribute those very things which are recorded of the wondrous service of the angels and the arrival of the little boat, to another holy Martyr of the same name, "especially with the very ancient codices of this church written by hand crying out against it, and the old Breviary of Piacenza, in which these same things, and very many other illustrious deeds of the divine Martyr, are more fully explained, and are more and more confirmed by very many painted tablets and older pictures, which exist both here and elsewhere." Lest I repeat in vain what has been more than sufficiently inculcated; we have already said why Equilinus attributed the wondrous service of the angels, the arrival of the little boat, and so many other things, to another Martyr; the faith and age of the other documents we have above weighed even to satiety. Let someone show that we have not judged rightly of them, and bring forth more ancient and more sincere instruments—and, if it is permitted to speak the trite proverb, let him seek things more Veronese than of Piacenza; whatever they all be, we shall gratefully accept them, ready to treat the matter afresh on the XXX of September, on which day the authentic Martyrologies demonstrate to the eye that St. Antoninus of Piacenza is truly to be venerated.
[53] Here at last we stop and impose an end to the whole preliminary dissertation, which on the 30th of September may be illustrated afresh. the longer Italian life being set aside, published in print by the same Campius and in the same year 1603, concerning which what is to be determined or decided is easily understood. For if things so slightly subsist which Campius brought forth into the light in those very brief Latin acts, and which I call the substructure of the whole work, what, I beseech, will at last be able to be judged of that very long panegyric oration, to the amplifying of which he omitted nothing of art and eloquence, an orator far better than a historian? What further of sincerer truth shall we think is to be drawn from the great volumes of the ecclesiastical history of Piacenza, which even at the very beginning utterly overturns the chief basis of that life, on no greater foundation than that on which it had before been established? Let us say openly and candidly: in all these things there is nothing entire, nothing sincere, nothing worthy of historical faith to be found. More pleasing are the things which Campius could at all events have perceived a little more certainly concerning the construction and consecration of the most ancient basilica. Likewise concerning the donations of the faithful, and the privileges and estates assigned to this place by Emperors or Kings. Finally concerning the various donations of the Bishops of Piacenza. But both these and all the rest pertaining to the present-day cult of St. Antoninus and his various celebrations, we refer to the aforesaid XXX day of September, together with the Roman Martyrology, to whose Kalendar, as far as can be done, we must adhere; there to be more accurately examined and discussed, if it shall seem worth the trouble, with the other things which we trust will meanwhile be transmitted thence.