ON THE HOLY MARTYRS OF BRESCIA
NICOLAUS AND HIERONYMUS
From the Brescian Tables.
CommentaryNicolaus, Martyr, at Brescia (S.)
Hieronymus, Martyr, at Brescia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
That these holy champions of Christ, brothers to some, cousins to others, were crowned in the year from the birth of Christ 133, on the Kalends of July, in the 2nd year of the pontificate of Telesphorus, and the 14th of the reign of Aelius Hadrian, assert Acts sufficiently marvelous, The legend rejected, which Papebroch shows to be apocryphal, which Fabius Delius the Roman, from the history of Fabius Brusatus, cleric of Brescia, first fabricated in the year 1416, published with a long elogium of the Pedrocca family in the year 1591; Bernardinus Faynus transmitted them hither transcribed; but Papebroch, in part 3 of his antiquarian Propylaeum before volume 2 of April, chapter 5, nn. 37 and 38, showed them fabulous and plainly to be rejected; and egregiously defended the reasons there adduced by him, against the insipid accusations of P. Sebastiani, in his Responses to the various articles, unskillfully and importunately registered, especially at article 11 from n. 59. Of how great moment Papebroch's arguments had been, the exhibitor of the pretended errors could have gathered from the silence of Abbot Onuphrius Stella, who in his declamations dared to bring forward nothing, by which he might undertake to vindicate the faith of the aforesaid Acts. Papebroch moreover subjoined at the cited n. 59: If, however, for this Life, fiction being set aside, any proof
of a more certain kind should sometime be found, it will be permitted to treat of them, as of holy Martyrs, but not as sprung from the Pedrocca family, on 1 July.
[2] And indeed we spoke of them among the passed-over and rejected to other days on the said 1 July, but no one has dared to defend it: transferring both hither, because they are venerated at Brescia not on that, but on this day, under the rite of a double Office, as the praised Bernardinus Faynus testifies in his Martyrology, as we shall presently say. Since, therefore, that Life or Legend, first fabricated in the fifteenth century, does not seem able in any way to be defended—certainly for all of forty and more years since April was published, no one has undertaken its patronage; in a word, no more certain proof at all has been found or adduced, nor do we reckon it can easily be hoped for—this one thing remains, that concerning the cult shown to them, all precision being made from the Pedrocca or any other present-day family, by no means to be found at Brescia in the second century; there remains, I say, that we here briefly treat of the cult alone, referring the reader for the rest to the aforesaid antiquarian Propylaeum and Responses, to be consulted also at article 3, §8, article 10, §6, and various other places. In the Martyrology of the holy church of Brescia, here preserved by the gift of Ughelli, it is thus read on the Kalends of July: At Brescia, the natal of the holy Martyrs Nicolaus and Hieronymus, whom St. Apollonius the Bishop converted to Christ and baptized, and ministered to them the bread of angels, while they were in prison for the name of Christ, through an iron window secretly by night with some Christians, and incited them to martyrdom. Their bodies lie in the church of St. Aphra.
[3] Ferrarius had written before in the General Catalogue, on the same Kalends of July: only the cult is treated, from the most recent fasti, At Brescia, of the holy Martyrs Hieronymus and Nicolaus. But he noted there that he had received his own from the monuments of the monastery of St. Faustinus. They suffered, he says, under the Emperor Hadrian, near the city, where now is the Borough of St. Faustinus, and there their bodies are said to rest. They were brothers of the Pedrocca family, which still flourishes, as is set forth in the Life or history of the said Martyrs, published in the year 1591. And that is the Brusatian legend, which we have said exists among us in manuscript and was long ago rightly rejected. Hear now Bernardinus Faynus in his Brescian Martyrology, published in print, also on the Kalends of July: At Brescia, of the holy brothers Nicolaus and Hieronymus, Martyrs, in the church of St. Aphra. These being cast into prison for the faith, blessed Apollonius the Bishop, admonished by angels, by night offered them the sacred Eucharist and foretold their martyrdom. Whence, under Hadrian, vexed with various torments, their bodies being beheaded on the Cremona road, their souls flew away to the heavens.
[4] the surname attributed to the Saints being excluded. Nor is Faynus's annotation to be passed over, which is of this kind: Of these, born of the ancient and noble Pedrocca family, Fabius the Cleric, of the distinguished stock of the Brusati, wrote a life in the Latin idiom, in the year 1416, which Achilles Pedrocca, most learned in both laws, inserted in that golden book, published by him (they call it Responsum) and printed at Brescia in the year 1619. This same Life Abbot Ascanius Martinengus also published in the mother tongue in his little book of the Saints. Their memory likewise is kept by the Martyrology of Ferrarius and the Brescian manuscript, as also by the tablet of the sacristy of St. Aphra, where their bodies rest, indicating there their feast, under a double rite, on the 6th of this month, perhaps from some translation, since they truly suffered on this day in the year of salvation 133. Whose blood flourished with such virtue, that a certain man, oppressed by a demon, when they were beheaded, beyond hope being sprinkled with it, was at once freed from the unclean spirits. And these are the things which are circulated concerning these Saints at Brescia, received chiefly from the so-often-cited Legend of Brusatus, which I would by no means have you understand to be adopted here by me: I admit the cult alone, until a more certain proof of the rest shall have come.
[5] A doubt, where the sacred bodies are placed. But that the people of Brescia may perceive that I neither follow nor stir up lawsuits, I would ask them to observe, that it is thus written by Ferrarius: They suffered under the Emperor Hadrian, near the city, where now is the Borough of St. Faustinus, and there their bodies are said to rest. So he, from whom not a little dissent the manuscript Martyrology of Ughelli and the other published by Faynus, in which it is expressly asserted that the bodies of the Saints rest in the church or Sacristy of St. Afra. Nor do the things which Fabius Delius wrote toward the end of his preface seem able to be sufficiently reconciled with either opinion, in these words: It remains, that together with all the other faithful of Christ, we give thanks to our most clement God, as great as our soul can conceive, that he did not permit a history of this kind to lie hidden longer. I spare those thanks; this pertains to the matter: But as the bodies of the holy Martyrs themselves are venerated in the basilica of the Savior at Brescia, and they stand as untiring patrons before God himself for those who invoke them, so he would that their life, miracles, and martyrdom become known to all. Farewell. At Rome, 23 January 1591. I here do not find the same place of burial or veneration, unless both the basilica of the Savior and the church of St. Afra be taken for one and the same temple, situated in the Borough of St. Faustinus, which I wish Faynus had explained in his Brescian Heaven Caelum Brixianum; who on page 171 assigns indeed a double name to the church of St. Afra; but that it is situated in the Borough of St. Faustinus, I have not yet learned.
[6] If the people of Brescia would attend a little more observantly to intricate matters of this kind, What it is fitting be done by the people of Brescia. they would cease to assail with vain satires and empty declamations or laments the dead or surviving historiographers of the Saints, conferring rather their labor and study on this, that, intestine controversies being first calmed, by some solid and learned work they should weigh the at least probable Acts of their Saints, the uncertain traditions, the doubtful depositions, the beginnings of the cult, and the chronological series, and recall them to the norm of just criticism; by the historical method wipe away the soot affected by present-day families; purge them of evident fables, not by mere patriotic prejudices or ingrained opinions of the common people, which are to be left to the unlearned crowd, but by the true and received principles and weights of human faith among the learned. This method once entered upon, I dare to promise, it will never be that they justly complain of the Hagiographers; to whom this is sacrosanct, to inquire with all effort into the sincere truth, not to admit doubtful things as certain, to exclude little fables from ecclesiastical history, gladly to be taught and to learn; but false things, so long as they appear false, not timidly to refute, attending nothing to the often-chanted dirges, which competitively urge the possibility of things rather than their existence. Let those who meditate histories learn to act historically.