ON SS. THE SICILIAN MARTYRS AGATHO AND TRIPHINA OR TRIPHON
From the Hieronymian Martyrologies compared with the Roman.
CommentaryAgatho, Martyr in Sicily (S.)
Triphina or Triphon, Martyr in Sicily (S.)
J. B. S.
Of these two Martyrs you will find nothing among most of the classical Martyrologists, the genuine Bede, Florus, Wandelbert, the Little Roman, Ado, or Usuard (Notker here is wanting), so that we have rightly referred them, in the Usuardine Auctaria, to the Hieronymian alone, from some one of which Rabanus received them in the words: In Sicily, the birthday of Agatho and Triphena, for which the editor Canisius warns that Triphina should be read, no doubt from the Roman Martyrology, whose Revisers here had no other source than the Plantin Bede, whom in his notes Baronius everywhere alleges. But that that Bede is plainly spurious, we have long since placed beyond controversy. The present text of that Plantin Bede is for the most part stitched together from Ado and Rabanus, with this sole difference, that it substituted Triphina for the Triphena of Rabanus.
[2] Often elsewhere I have warned, and especially in the Usuardine preface, chapter 1, article 3, §2, received from the Plantin Bede, that Rabanus, in composing his Martyrology, put in almost his only labor to fill out through the whole circle of the year Bede augmented by the labor of Florus, having taken from some Hieronymian codex a number of names of Martyrs, and a few others acquired elsewhere; whence it is easily understood that one must have recourse to the first source, that is, to the Hieronymian exemplars, in order to establish something certain about these two Martyrs—not concerning their Acts, which nowhere exist, nor concerning the arena, which is too plainly noted, but concerning the mere formation of the second name: namely, whether Triphina or Triphon should be written, or, what comes to the same thing, whether the companion of St. Agatho was a man or a woman. Concerning Agatho himself it is certain enough that he was a man, whether he be called Agatho or Agathonus, according to the differing inflection of the Hieronymian codices. Whatever else is read in Greven, who confounds the names, or in other more recent writers, can contribute nothing at all to settling the controversy.
[3] it is restored from a Hieronymian Martyrology; It is asked, therefore, what was more probably written of old by the first collector of that Martyrology which comes to us under the name of St. Jerome. Among all the exemplars published by Florentini, one single Epternach is found, in which is read: In Sicily, of Agatho and Trifinia. And that codex indeed we acknowledge as most ancient, but as not lacking its several blemishes, so that, in the concurrence of all the others treating of the same Saints, we do not judge the palm should be given to it alone: but all the remaining codices, whether those we call the larger, or those we call the contracted, report no name of Trifinia, Triphena, or Triphina; we think, therefore, it rightly follows that not Trifinia but Triphon should truly be pronounced. Behold the texts themselves. The Lucca and the Blume plainly read: In Sicily, of Agatho, of Triphon. The Corbie: In Sicily, to Agatho, of Triphon, where also a certain Justus is added, the rest being passed over. Not to be troublesome or harsh in reviewing others already made public, I will say in a word: both the Gellone, which Achery long ago had printed, and all that have lately been published, both in the seventh volume of our June and in the new Benedictine collection of Anecdota, if they treat of these Saints, most constantly render Triphon, Trophon, Tryphon, or Trofon, none at all being found to have marked Trifinia, Triphina, Triphena, or anything akin to this name. In the manuscript Florarium of the Saints too it is distinctly read: of Agatho and of Triphon.
[4] These things I judge rightly deduced, nor do I doubt that the true reading is, In Sicily, of Agatho and of Triphon, so that Triphon should be read. which might even be put back into the Roman Martyrology itself, from which, unless I am much mistaken, some took occasion of assigning on this day Trophima by another name Triphomena, or by however many other ways you may wish to render it, whom the Sicilian writers call the woman of Patti, at Minori among the Picentini famous for a peculiar cult; of whom also we shall treat on this day; some took occasion, I say, of confounding that Trophima or Triphomena with the Triphina expressed in the Roman, as will be disputed more at length below. This alone was to the point, to draw out from the more ancient monuments the true names of those Sicilian Martyrs, whose most ancient memory in the Hieronymian Martyrologies has been sufficiently demonstrated.