ON ST. TRANQUILLINUS, MARTYR,
AT ROME.
IN THE YEAR 286.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The cult from the Martyrologies, the relics, the Acts.
Tranquillinus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
What was said of St. Zoe on the preceding day is to be repeated both on this day and on the following; namely, that the various Martyrs commemorated in the Acts of St. Sebastian, and passed over in the more ancient fasti, were most probably distributed by the author of the Little Roman among various days, Received from the Acts of St. Sebastian, as it seemed to him most fitting. And concerning others indeed there might be greater doubt, whether he attained their true natal days; but the day of the passion of St. Tranquillinus is so clearly circumscribed, by the octave of the Apostles, that on this part at least no controversy can be moved at all. In the Hieronymian Martyrologies, whether the greater or the lesser, whether the pure or the interpolated, or in Rabanus, there is no memory of him. He who was edited under the name of Florus by our Elders composed an elogium for the Saint, in such a phrase and style, that you may sufficiently conjecture that he did not shine before either Ado or Usuard, as I warned in the Usuardine edition, and as you will manifestly perceive from what is to be said below. Thus he writes: At Rome, the passion of St. Tranquillinus, father of Marcus and Marcellianus, who, made most Christian by the teachings of blessed Sebastian, while he had gone to the Confession of St. Paul, having endured snares, was seized and stoned by the people, and died, and his body was consigned to the Tiber's flood. Written in the deeds of blessed Sebastian. Wandelbert sings of him thus:
Tranquillinus, thou at once dost gleam with a twofold splendor, Father of Saints, accompanying the Saints who were slain.
[2] The announcement of the Little Roman is: And of Tranquillinus the Martyr: he is celebrated by the Little Roman and its progeny. to which Ado added these things: At Rome, the natal of St. Tranquillinus, father of the Martyrs Marcus and Marcellianus, who, at the preaching of blessed Sebastian, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, on the day of the Octave of the Apostles, while he prayed at the Confession of blessed Paul, was seized by the pagans and stoned, and consummated his martyrdom: which Usuard contracted in this manner: At Rome, the natal of St. Tranquillinus the Martyr, who, while he prayed at the Confession of blessed Paul, was seized by the pagans and stoned, and consummated his martyrdom. Notker is wanting hitherto. The supplements of Usuard I do not enumerate. In the Roman it is added, that he was baptized by blessed Polycarp the presbyter, which Galesinius too had noted from the Acts of St. Sebastian, and moreover that he was ordained presbyter by St. Caius the pope, and this the praised Acts hand down in n. 68. See the annotations of Baronius, in which he learnedly explains the notion of the Confession. I pass over all the more recent Martyrologists, among whom you will find nothing more numerous or more select than what is here excerpted from the Acts of St. Sebastian, and will be more fully deduced below. The epoch of Ghini, added in the margin, does not please, as though St. Tranquillinus was crowned with martyrdom in the year 295, to which is certainly to be preferred the year defined above in the treatise on St. Zoe, namely 286.
[3] It would not have occurred to me to inquire more scrupulously into the place where the sacred body of the holy Martyr was deposited and is more celebratedly venerated on this day, The sacred body was deposited at Rome, any more than concerning the praised St. Zoe, since I reckoned that the sacred remains of both were certainly deposited at Rome, as the Abbot Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza expressly testifies, in his sacred Hemerologium of Christian Rome, on 5 and 6 July. Concerning the former, certainly, nothing has occurred hitherto by which I might doubt. But concerning St. Tranquillinus a certain manuscript sheet, once sent from Viterbo, brought in a scruple; containing a series of the Saints resting there, among which I find the Body of St. Tranquillinus the Martyr: and a little after, under this title: Particular Feasts of the Saints, of whom an office is made at Viterbo, on account of the sacred relics preserved there: and in its own order, in the month of July on the 6th day, of Tranquillinus the Martyr, a double feast; whether truly of St. Tranquillinus the Roman Martyr and father of the holy Marcellianus and Marcus, or of another of the same name, dug out of the crypts or catacombs, afterward endowed with such a name, I indeed have not whence I might sufficiently judge.
[4] not translated to Viterbo, Surely the condition of Rome, possessing [it], seems the stronger, especially since the praised Piazza most expressly asserts that the feast of St. Tranquillinus is celebrated on this day at the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian in the Roman Forum (today the Campo Vaccino), where the sacred body of the Saint rests. Pancirolus urges it still more, when on page 96, he no less expressly hands down that the body of St. Tranquillinus and of his sons Marcus and Marcellianus in the aforesaid temple of SS. Cosmas and Damian not only rests and is honored, but was found in the year 1582: it lies upon the people of Viterbo to teach authentically by whom, on what occasion, and at what time the precious deposit was translated to them, if indeed they hold it persuaded that it is the true and proper body of that St. Tranquillinus of whom we here speak. That some parts or relics of the same Saint are, in other temples—Roman ones, I suppose—exposed to veneration, the aforesaid Pancirolus testifies: for more remote places I find one, Masinius, that collector of many relics, in his Bologna Surveyed, writing on this day, volume 1, page 373, that some of our Saint are preserved in the temple of St. Mary of the Servites, in the greater square. Whether [any] are venerated in other places also, I have not ascertained.
[5] There is moreover here a quarto-printed duernio double-leaf, bearing this title: The Honor of the Saints, nor to Vilnius in Lithuania. with the relics of the Saints publicly conducted and received; held at Vilnius in the year 1631, on the day before the Nones of July; in which is described the sumptuous and almost incredible pomp, in the translation, or leading into Vilnius, the metropolis of Lithuania, of forty-one sacred bodies and very many other notable relics, of which the writer of the little work speaks thus toward the end: Furthermore, the bodies of the holy Martyrs, twenty years ago privately brought into this city, first from the liberality of Clement VIII and Paul V, the Supreme Pontiffs, then of the most Serene Margaret of Austria, Queen of the Spains, and by a peculiar prompting of God—the Fathers of the Society of Jesus thinking nothing less than that—preserved within private walls, this year first brought forth into the light and sight of men … when Father Nicholas Lancicius, Provost of this province, arrived, by whose effort those relics, given through the legate of the most Serene Queen, were assigned for the provinces of the kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not received with public honors before, by a most weighty decree of the most illustrious Bishop of Vilnius, after the public diplomas and testimonies, greater than any exception, had been duly considered, they had been declared to be the relics of true Martyrs and Saints, worthy of public cult, and confirmed not only by the sworn testimonies of most weighty men, but also by divine miracles, entered in the public Acts.
[6] It follows: But of these holy bodies and sacred remains, brought into the city of Vilnius with this solemn pomp, although in both places [Saints of the same name are venerated,] and deposited in the designated churches, these are the names … Among them, in the parish church of St. John and its chapels near the academy of the Society of Jesus, for the sacred Confraternity of the Most Holy Body of Christ, is noted the Body of St. Tranquillinus the Martyr. But I would not indeed dare to suppose that our Fathers of Vilnius ever took it into their mind that the sacred body of that St. Tranquillinus of whom we treat on this day was placed among them; for the whole account sufficiently indicates, and especially its last part recited by us, that most of those bodies are of those which, received from the Roman cemeteries, were dispersed through the Christian world called by various names, which we know were fitted to their virtues, an index printed for this end; such certainly is that of Tranquillinus, most fitting for all holy Martyrs. Many sacred bodies of this kind are honored in our temple of the Professed House at Antwerp, of which one, under the name of St. Victor, it is to be lamented, perished in the most mournful and forever-to-be-deplored fire of the marble church, as elegant as it was precious, on 18 July in the year 1718.
[7] As for what pertains to the deeds of our Saint, they cannot be more securely gathered from any other source than from the more than once
praised Acts of St. Sebastian, from the same Acts of St. Sebastian whence on the preceding day we drew those things which were related in few words concerning St. Zoe. There, in chapter 2, is graphically described the perilous contest, by which the constancy of the holy Marcellianus and Marcus was most fiercely assailed. You have in n. 6 the caresses of the mother; in the next following, the most tender complaints of St. Tranquillinus the father, then still a pagan, infirm and heavy with age, which would break even a heroic fortitude. The long oration of St. Sebastian and his signal miracles confirmed the wavering, and all those who had come to shake the holy Martyrs he himself converted to the faith of Christ, as you may see in chapter 9; then in the following, the preparation of all for baptism, which they receive in chapter 11, n. 35: And when Claudius cried out that he believed and desired to become a Christian, St. Polycarp bade that each should give his name: First, therefore, gave his name Tranquillinus, father of Marcellianus and Marcus. After him six friends of theirs, etc. Then in n. 36: So all these 68, baptized by St. Polycarp the presbyter, and received by St. Sebastian. First there were raised sound from the font the sons of Claudius, the one dropsical, the other full of wounds, so that not even a sign of any past disease remained in them.
[8] The baptism of the Saint is set forth But after these little children, Tranquillinus, father of the holy Marcellianus and Marcus, who had been so constricted by the pain of gout in feet and hands, that, as was said above, he could scarcely be carried in men's hands. While they were stripping him of his garments, and he said that he was tormented with intolerable pain, Polycarp the presbyter asks him, saying: Tranquillinus, if thou believest with thy whole heart that the only-begotten Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, can confer salvation upon thee, and grant pardon of all thy sins, declare it with thine own mouth. Tranquillinus answered: I both desire and believe that pardon alone be given to my sins. But even if after the sanctification of baptism I shall be in pains, I shall not be able to doubt further of the faith of Christ. For I have proved, and, believing with my whole heart, I have consented in my mind, that the Son of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, who can bestow salvation both on souls and on bodies, and recall from eternal death to perpetual life. When he had said these things with a loud voice, all the Saints for joy poured out tears and asked the Lord that the fruit of his faith might be shown. St. Polycarp therefore, confessor and presbyter, as soon as he anointed him with the ointment of chrism, questioned him again, whether he believed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and as soon as he answered, I believe; his hands, which were knotted, were loosed, and his knees together with the soles of his feet were so restored sound, that, as if a little boy with his feet renewed, he went down into the font, crying out and saying: Thou art the one and true God, whom this wretched world knows not.
[9] For understanding the order of the matter, one ought to remember that in chapter 2, n. 4, it was set forth and the rest are connected with one another. that the holy Marcellianus and Marcus were men not only most illustrious in birth, but also enlarged in means, whose father was Tranquillinus by name, and their mother was called Marcia; who followed them with their wives and children; for they were led by an excessive affection toward their grandchildren. Whence it came about that from Agrestius Chromatius, prefect of the city of Rome, they obtained a truce of thirty days, in the space of which it should be dealt with them, insofar as they should consent to burn incense to the idols. In the time of this truce were done those things which are narrated in all the eleven chapters, concerning the preaching of St. Sebastian, the confirmation of SS. Marcellianus and Marcus, and the conversion and baptism of others, and which pertain no more to our present-day Saint than to the rest. At last in chapter 12, there is a descent to those things which are proper to St. Tranquillinus, whose Acts are contained in nearly three chapters, presently to be transcribed; to which must be subjoined his martyrdom from chapter 20, n. 75. The explanations and annotations of all, as also the particular circumstances concerning Castulus, chamberlain of the imperial palace, supplying the Confessors with lodging and necessaries, and other things, must be sought from the praised Acts of St. Sebastian.
From the Acts of St. Sebastian,
Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV.
Tranquillinus, Martyr, at Rome (S.)
BHL Number: 7543
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.
The days of the accepted delay being therefore fulfilled, Agrestius Chromatius, Prefect of the city of Rome, bids Tranquillinus, father of Marcellianus and Marcus, to come to him. And when he inquired concerning the resolve of his sons; Tranquillinus answered: For rendering thanks for your benefits no speech suffices me for these hours. For unless the reins of your governance had held back the running sentences, both I should have lost my sons, and my sons would not have me their father. All rejoice with me whom paternal affection holds, and the goad of charity pricks; even your Highness, I believe, rejoices with me, when life has been conferred on those about to die, and gladness restored to the anxious, security given back to the troubled.
[2] Then the Prefect, thinking that his sons wished to bend their necks to the idols, he reveals that he has become a Christian; said: On the coming day, therefore, let the due incense be rendered to the deities by thy sons: through which both thou mayest continue unharmed in thy sons, and thy sons be granted to thee. Hearing these things, Tranquillinus said: Most illustrious of men, if you would weigh the balance of your examination toward me and my sons with an even scale, you will be able to recognize that this name of Christian is of great virtue. The Prefect said: Thou art mad, Tranquillinus. Tranquillinus answered: I did suffer madness, both of soul and of body, but as soon as I believed in Christ, I received back the health both of my soul and of my body.
[3] The Prefect said: As I see, I am recognized to have given a truce to thy wicked sons for this, nor that the Christians err but the pagans, that thou shouldst not only not take them from their error, but that they should ensnare thee in their errors. Tranquillinus said: By your glory, shake out the very name of error, and see what works are called by the name of error. The Prefect said: Thou say, what works receive the name of error. Tranquillinus said: The first error is to leave the way of life, and gladly to walk by the way of death. The Prefect said: And what is the way of death? Tranquillinus said: Does it not seem to thee the way of death, to impose the name of deity upon dead men, and to adore their figures through wood and stones?
[4] The Prefect said: Then are they not gods whom we worship? Tranquillinus said: So far are they not gods, and he shows that their gods are not gods. that it is read in the public codices, both how ill they were born, and what wicked and cruel and criminal parents they had; and how wickedly and craftily and fraudulently they lived; and how miserably they died. Was there not, before Saturn ruled the Cretans and ate the flesh of his own sons, a God in the heavens, or did the island of Crete have a King, and did the heavens not have a God? He greatly errs, who thinks that Jupiter, his son, commands the thunderbolts—a manikin in whom malice and lust reigned. Whom did he not persecute, who spared not his father? Or what filth did he not practice, who took his own sister as wife? In the forum, in the streets, in the houses, and in every place daily we read, that most filthy Juno glories that she was both sister and spouse: and the most base and most incestuous honor of the ravished Ganymede is not denied by those very ones by whom Jupiter is worshipped. Dost thou not then err, most sublime man, who worshippest such gods as the Roman laws bid to be condemned for the quality of their deed, and, having left the omnipotent God, who reigns in the heavens, sayest to a stone, Thou art my God, and to wood, Help me?
[5] The Prefect said: From the time that you began to blaspheme the gods, and to withdraw from their worship, from that time the Roman world is oppressed with divers calamities. Tranquillinus answered: It is not true. that the Christians are not the cause of the calamities of the empire. For if thou review the decades composed by the pen of Livy, thou wilt find there that, while [men] were placing incense to Jupiter, in one day twenty-three thousand young men of the Roman army fell. But neither art thou unmindful of that, that the Senonian Gauls even occupied the Capitol, and subjugated to their mockeries all the Roman force. Divers famines, and unspeakable pestilences, divers captivities, divers effusions of blood the Roman world suffered, before men worshipped one God. But now, from the time that the invisible and true God began to be worshipped by believers, the Roman empire exults in increased peace. But what is worse, God, who bestows this, is not acknowledged; but whatever is bestowed by the Creator is ascribed to his creature.
[6] That the sun is not God. The Prefect said: If he is to be worshipped who bestows anything upon human comforts, none but the sun shall be held a god, who by his aspect quickens the bowels of the earth: that it may bring forth the received seeds, and restore in the stalk the grains of its natural offspring, and to all the uses of our welfare give both light and restoration alike, and vigor. Tranquillinus answered: In this too the error is infinite. For if today, through his servant, someone should bestow upon his clients what is asked, it is infinite folly, if he who bestowed be neglected, and the servant, through whom he bestowed, be honored. And that I may exhibit some comparison of this saying; when ships bring provisions to the Romans, are thanks rendered rather to the ships than to the Kings? If therefore men ascribe their being provisioned not to the sailors, but to those who command, how much more are thanks to be rendered to God alone, by whose nod both these elements serve all our uses, and the sun itself daily on land and sea alike is both shut up at the end of the day, and again opened at the day's renewal?
[7] The Prefect said: If therefore he whom you worship is one and invisible, you do not worship Christ, he defends the divinity of Christ, whom the Jews crucified. Tranquillinus said: Rightly wouldst thou inquire these things, if thou wert resolved to believe. For to the unbelieving everything which they do not wish seems vain. For once the will of mortals declining headlong, desires that everything which it censures be censured; and wills that everything which it praises be praised by all. But the wise man strives to bestow, according to its merit, either his censure or his praise upon any thing whatsoever. The Prefect said: I question thee concerning your Christ. For if that is worshipped by you which is not seen by these eyes, you do not worship Christ, who was both seen, and heard, and questioned, and all things which befit human frailty are read to have been completed in his passion.
[8] Tranquillinus said: Hear a similitude and understand the truth: for example's sake, which, joined to human nature, if today thou shouldst see thy ring, having a precious gem, in a sewer, or rolling in a dunghill, and shouldst send thy servants to draw it out; but they could neither free it, but should also defile themselves in something, while they try to snatch it out; but afterward thou
thyself, laying aside these silken garments which thou art clothed with, shouldst put on a servile tunic and, going down into the sewer, shouldst put thy hands in the filth, and shouldst present to thy hands the golden ring together with the gem, for joy invite all thy friends to a banquet and rejoice over the ring and the gem, that they are freed from excessive squalor. The Prefect said: To the likeness of what didst thou bring this proposition? Tranquillinus answered: That I might show thee that we worship one invisible God.
[9] The Prefect said: And what is the gold? Or what is the gem, that our body [is as a golden ring,] which was rolling in the dunghill? Tranquillinus answered: The gold is the human body, but the gem is the soul, which is enclosed in the body itself. And the body and the soul make one man, just as the gold and the gem are proved to make one ring. But however precious the ring may be to thee, far more precious is man, a hundredfold, and dear to Christ. Thou sentest thy servants to snatch the ring from the filth, and by no means could they draw it out. God too sent his Prophets from heaven, speaking to them, that he might snatch the human race from the filth of this world: and by no means at all could they do this even by insistence. Thou didst lay aside thy golden garments, and, clothed with a servile garment, didst go down into the sewer, and didst put thy hands in the filth, that thou mightest free the ring from the filth.
[10] The Majesty too put off the splendor of its divinity, and might seek the soul as a lost gem. not however leaving the things above; and put on the servile garment of our body, and here into the sewer of this world, descending from heaven, put his hands in the filth of our passions; and, taking upon himself the passion which was owed to our merits, restored us to the glory of his fingers. For we who through unbelief were rolling in the squalor of the world, through faith washed from the filth, have been restored by divine hands, like that ring of thine. Could not thy servants, who denied thee their Lord, while they beheld thee in servile garb, be slain as rebels? So too they who deny Christ their Lord, for this that he emptied himself of his majesty and took the form of a servant, shall by no means be able to escape the pains of eternal fire. Therefore, at last, to us who believe in him, the wave of the eternal fountain comes to aid, that the eternal fire may be conquered by the eternal fountain, and unbelief overcome by faith.
[11] The Prefect said: As I see, thou art proved to have demanded a truce, not that thou mightest take thy sons from this intention, He professes his faith and the health he received; but that thou mightest, having meditated them, bring these old wives' fables to our tribunals. Tranquillinus said: The disciples of Christ do not meditate what they shall utter in the sight of Judges. For thus he forewarned, saying: When the powers of this world shall deliver you up for the cause of my name, take no thought how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given you divinely in that hour what you shall speak: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of God, who speaks in you. Not therefore by meditating, but by believing did I find my creator; and I who was contracted and shattered by the pain of gout in feet and hands, at once, as I believed in Christ, as if a little child received the health of all my limbs. It is therefore established in my mind, that he himself created me, who deigned to renew me, and, as he gave restoration to the body, so also he has promised to give it to the soul after this life, if only, not doubtful nor timid, I be not broken by the terrors of men; but, enduring in the confession of his name, may preserve the entire faith which God has made me find.
[12] He despises the threats of tyrants. The Prefect said: Thou knowest not, Tranquillinus, how great a wrath of the most unconquered Princes rages against the Christians, and therefore, as if secure of what seems good to thee, thou pursuest thy course without fear. Tranquillinus said: It is a foolish fear, by which human indignation is feared more than the Divine. If we should come into the midst of barking dogs, and with vain fury they should begin to worry us with their bites, can they take from us this concerning our soul, that we are rational men, whereas they are dogs, both irrational and mad? So they who are angered at us who believe rightly, can indeed rage, and inflict unjust punishments; yet never will they be able to take from our heart this, that we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be also our creator, and rejoice that he is our redeemer and restorer. Then the Prefect ordered him to be received by the registrars, saying: I will hear thee at the next session.
[13] After these things he sends and ordered him to be brought to him secretly by night, Called again to Chromatius, he brings St. Polycarp. and, offering him an infinite weight of gold, said: Show me the medicine by which thou recoveredst thy health. To whom Tranquillinus says: Know that they shall suffer great wrath and fury of God, who reckon that his grace is either to be sold or to be bought. Whence, if thou wilt be freed from the pain of gout, believe Christ the Son of God, and thou shalt be freed, and as thou seest me today, so shalt thou be sound. Indeed, I was scarcely carried in men's hands, and for eleven years, through all the joints of the sinews in my body, bound with the knots of pains, scarcely was bread delivered to my mouth by others' hands. Straightway, as I believed Christ to be the true God, I received the joys of my health, and am unharmed, because I acknowledged the true God my Savior. Then the Prefect dismissed him, saying: Bring to me him who made thee a Christian, that, if he promise me health, I too may become a Christian. And at once Tranquillinus, coming to St. Polycarp the presbyter, narrated to him all things which had been done or said, and, leading him secretly into the house, presented him to the sight of the Prefect.
[14] He is put to death by martyrdom. Thus far the beginnings of the conversion of Chromatius set forth by St. Tranquillinus, which anyone can read as perfected by St. Polycarp in the so-often-mentioned Acts of St. Sebastian, chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17. Then indeed the things which were done for the benefit of the Christians by the same St. Chromatius in chapter 18, the things by SS. Sebastian and Tiburtius in chapter 19. Finally in chapter 20 begin the slayings of the Saints, from St. Zoe, as was abundantly shown on the preceding day. So, her martyrdom being celebrated, she came in sleep to blessed Sebastian, and narrated to him how she had received the martyrdom of the Lord. When St. Sebastian had narrated this, St. Tranquillinus rushed forth, saying: The women precede us to the crown; why do we live? He too, going down on the eighth day of the natal of the Apostles, went to the Confession of blessed Paul: nonetheless he too, having endured snares, was seized; and, stoned by the people, died, and his body was consigned to the Tiber's flood.