ON SS. THE ROMAN MARTYRS
CLAUDIUS THE RECORDER, NICOSTRATUS THE CHIEF REGISTRAR, CASTORIUS, VICTORINUS, AND SYMPHORIANUS.
From the Acts of St. Sebastian.
In the year 286.
CommentaryClaudius the recorder, Martyr at Rome (S.)
Nicostratus the chief registrar, Martyr at Rome (S.)
Castorius, Martyr at Rome (S.)
Victorinus, Martyr at Rome (S.)
Symphorianus, Martyr at Rome (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
That an ample harvest of Saints is offered us in the Acts of St. Sebastian, has already had to be said more than once in this work, and most lately on the preceding days of this month; as on the 1st, in that greater Campanian class, on the 5th in St. Zoë, Received from the Acts of St. Sebastian, wife of that St. Nicostratus who is venerated on this day, and on the 6th in St. Tranquillinus, parent of SS. Marcellianus and Marcus. Of the conversion of St. Nicostratus it is treated in chapter 7, of his baptism and that of St. Claudius in chapter 11, number 35, where also is mentioned Castorius, brother of Nicostratus, and Felicissimus, son of Claudius, whom that he is himself St. Symphorianus, is clear from chapter 19, number 68, although under the name of Felicissimus he was reported on the said second day of July among others. The name of St. Victorinus is not expressed among the baptized in the cited chapter 11, number 35: but in that chapter 19, number 68, where the noble deeds of the Saints in the City are described, I read thus: Likewise Claudius with Victorinus his brother, and with his son Symphorianus, who had been freed from the disease of dropsy. This is the first mention of St. Victorinus in those Acts; but Symphorianus, as I was already saying, is Felicissimus himself, laboring with dropsy at number 36; but that confusion once observed, we shall go on to call that saint Symphorianus.
[2] Of these five Martyrs I treated not cursorily in the Observation on Usuard, where I noted this among other things: That the author of the Little Roman was the first who marked them with these words: At Rome, of the martyr Nicostratus the chief registrar, Claudius, Castorius, Victorinus, Symphronianus; they without doubt constitute another class which names were received from the praised Acts of St. Sebastian chapter 20, number 76, some of whose exemplars, Bolland noted at number 68 letter A, thus formed the last name. From these afterward Ado composed his longer elogium, which was contracted by Usuard, in the modern Roman, somewhat restored from Molanus's edition. To augment the matter with more texts of the Martyrologies is by no means necessary; but I cannot leave untouched the confusion of Maurolyco, and the afterward superfluous distinction: to have recited his words will be to have refuted them. Thus he has: At Rome under Diocletian, the holy martyrs Claudius, Nicostratus, Castor, Victorinus, Sempronianus, Severus, Severianus, Simplicius and Carpophorus, Primus and Septimius, whom the Judge Fabianus, etc. But below: Likewise St. Nicostratus, husband of Zoë, of whom the day before yesterday, a martyr under the same Fabianus, whom, converted by St. Sebastian, Polycarp the presbyter had baptized.
[3] from those who are venerated on the 8th of November. It is manifest enough that three different classes of Martyrs are here mixed together; the present-day one of the Little Roman, with two others of the same reported on the sixth of the Ides of November, namely of the most distinguished craftsmen, and of the other four brothers, who are called the Crowned Ones, whom nevertheless on the aforesaid day the eighth of November the same Maurolyco repeats with different elogia. That synonymy of names and the concurrence of the plainly same number exercises the learned, the balance of which controversy, begun in the cited observation on Usuard, we have referred hither. But since after the edition of that Martyrology no light has yet accrued whence these difficulties may be more accurately dissolved, but such can afterward accrue from other Acts and monuments, we leave the present-day five, so clearly expressed in the deeds of St. Sebastian, in their just possession, and we think thus far with Baronius in his notes: That these are altogether different from those Martyrs who are called by the same names, and their birthday is treated below on the sixth of the Ides of November, as their different Acts declare: whatever the augmentation, published under the name of Florus, may fit the plainly same elogium to the latter, which from the Acts of St. Sebastian alone we judge proper to our own, contrary to what the note of Tillemont volume 4, page 745, seems to indicate. Whether perhaps the repetition of nearly the same names can be brought to some translation, will also be examined afterward, together with the things which pertain to the more ancient Calendars and Sacramentaries.
[4] The announcement of the present-day Roman is not to be omitted, in which the text of Usuard is rendered a little fuller: Not amiss were they consigned on this day by the Little Roman. At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius the Recorder, Nicostratus the chief registrar, Castorius, Victorinus, and Symphorianus, whom St. Sebastian led to the faith of Christ, and the blessed Polycarp the presbyter baptized. These same, occupied in searching out the bodies of the holy Martyrs, the judge Fabianus ordered to be seized, and, harassing them for ten days with threats and blandishments, when he could in no way move them, ordered them to be tortured a third time, and afterward to be cast headlong into the sea. The place from which these things were received I have already abundantly indicated. If you ask by whom they were first consigned to this day rather than another; I shall answer, that this
seems to have been selected by the Little Roman, no doubt because he thought that, just as those martyrdoms are connected under one and the same chapter in the cited Acts, so they could not be distant by a great interval of time. Concerning St. Zoë and St. Tranquillinus the notes of the days are distinct enough; of the former, namely, when six days had passed from the birthday of the Apostles; of the latter, on the eighth day of the birthday of the Apostles. But concerning the present-day ones the praised Martyrologist did not observe well enough that for ten days they were harassed with threats and blandishments to sacrifice, and so celebrated the crown of martyrdom not on this seventh, but not before the seventeenth day. For the rest, that this is elsewhere in the same Martyrology neither rare nor unusual, has already been observed more than once. Now those things are to be collected which in various chapters of the Acts of St. Sebastian are referred to these Martyrs, their order rather than that of the events being kept.
[5] The offices of Recorder and of chief registrar have been sufficiently explained elsewhere: Nicostratus converted through St. Sebastian, let the notes of Baronius on the twenty-seventh of March and on this day be seen. The name of St. Nicostratus first occurs in chapter 7, of which this is the title: Zoë and Nicostratus converted by the oration and miracles of Sebastian. At number 24 it is thus had: But these things were done within the house of the chief registrar, by name Nicostratus, with whom Marcellianus and Marcus were kept, which Nicostratus has a wife, by name Zoë. She for six years; and the rest on the 5th of July. Then number 25: But Nicostratus her husband, seeing that so great a power of Christ was celebrated in his wife, began to cast himself at the feet of him (St. Sebastian), and to ask pardon, for this that by imperial and prefectorial order he had held the Saints of God in chains: and taking away from their hands the iron fetters, embracing their knees, he began to entreat that they would deign to depart, saying: O! how blessed should I be, if for your safety I could deserve to be bound! Perhaps by the shedding of my blood I should be washed, that I might escape that death of eternal punishments, and attain to that life which God, through the mouth of my lord Sebastian, has deigned to manifest to us. And when he asked Marcellianus and Marcus to depart, these exhorted the neophytes with a notable oration, as you have in the whole of chapter 8.
[6] and well instructed in the faith, There follows chapter 9: Therefore when Marcus had followed out these and like things, all who were present began to give thanks to God … And when all who had come to deceive the Saints unanimously believed in Christ, Nicostratus with his wife pressed himself, saying: I will take neither food nor drink, unless the mystery of the Christian religion be given to me. To whom St. Sebastian said: Change thy dignity, and begin to be rather the chief registrar of Christ than of the prefect. Hear therefore my counsel, and gather into one all whom the prison has shut up, whom chains hold, whom the workhouses consume. When thou hast done this, I will bring a bishop of the most holy law, that with all who shall have wished to believe, thou mayest receive the sacrament of the mystery … And Nicostratus answered to this, saying: How can holy things be committed to the wicked and criminal? St. Sebastian said: Our Savior deigned to exhibit to us his presence for sinners, and showed the mystery, by which all sins and crimes are taken away from man, and all the powers of the Lord conferred. In the beginnings therefore of thy conversion, if thou confer this gift first on Christ, at hand will be the reward of his recompense upon thee, the crown of martyrdom, having with it the unfading flowers of all virtues, to profit for the joys of eternal life. Hearing these things, Nicostratus the chief registrar went to Claudius the recorder, and ordered all the persons to be brought to his house, saying: Since at the next session all are to be examined, I wish that they be at hand with those Christians who are with me, lest any person be lacking to the prefectorial examination. Therefore when all, brought to the house of the chief registrar, stood bound with the bonds of chains, in this manner the man of God Sebastian addresses them, etc.
[7] he is baptized with others by St. Polycarp; Thence in chapter 10 all are prepared for baptism by Polycarp, and soon in the following chapter 11 are washed by the laver of regeneration. And while these things were being done, Claudius the recorder came to the house of the chief registrar Nicostratus, where these things were being done; and says to Nicostratus: The prefecture is vehemently moved, because thou hast ordered the persons of the accused to be delivered to the custody of thy house. For this cause the prefect has ordered thee to be presented to his sight. See what answer thou shouldst give when questioned. Therefore Nicostratus, having entered to the prefect, when he had been asked why he had wished those persons, whom the bars of the prison held, to be committed to the custody of his house, answered: By the command of your Highness I received Christian persons to be guarded within my house, to whom, that I might strike into them the terror of suffering, I caused those to be associated with the persons of the accused, that they might consent to your command and our persuasion, if not by their own consent, at least by the experience of another, and might fear, lest a like punishment shut them in. It does not seem that St. Nicostratus can here be excused from a lie, at least an officious one, which I would by no means believe he would have used, if he had been more fully instructed in the holier teachings of the Gospel. The prefect, deceived by the pious fraud, hearing these things most gladly, dismissed him saying: I will cause thee to be rewarded with great sum by their parents, when through thee their sons shall have been restored to them safe. That SS. Marcellianus and Marcus are here especially denoted is manifest from the context of the history.
[8] Thus it goes on: Therefore Nicostratus the chief registrar, returning to his house with Claudius the Recorder, and afterward Claudius and his sons began to relate everything, and how St. Sebastian … had recalled the souls of the Christians by his exhortation, etc. When Nicostratus had narrated these things to Claudius, Claudius fell down at the feet of Nicostratus, saying: From my lost wife I have two sons, of whom one is wearied by the disease of dropsy, the other is oppressed with various wounds: I ask that thou command them to be visited. For I do not doubt that he who could make thy wife speak after six years, will make, if he will, health return to my sons. And saying these things, he hastened to his house, and caused his two sons to be brought in the hands of men, and, bringing them into the house where the Saints of God were, cast them before their feet, saying: No signs of doubt at all have remained in my heart; but believing with my whole heart that Christ, whom you worship, is himself the true God, I have brought here to you my two increases, believing that they can be freed by you from the peril of death. All the Saints of God say to him together: All whom here today any infirmity holds, as soon as they shall have been made Christians, shall be healed. And when Claudius cried out that he believed and desired to be made a Christian, St. Polycarp ordered that each give their names. First therefore of all Tranquillinus gave his name … After him six friends … After these Nicostratus the chief registrar and Castorius his brother, and Claudius the recorder … After these all the household which was in the house of Nicostratus.
[9] Further he follows out the number and order of the baptized: he leads to the same grace. Therefore all these sixty-eight were baptized by St. Polycarp the presbyter, and received by St. Sebastian … First therefore the sons of Claudius, the one a dropsical man (who a little before was called Felicissimus, afterward Symphorianus) and the other full of wounds, as soon as he dipped them in the name of the holy Trinity, were so raised from the font whole, that not even a sign of any past disease remained in them. But after these Tranquillinus … And so, this order of his being baptized, all, as was fitting, were baptized, and through the ten days which remained of the delay which they had deserved, persevering in the praises of God, they led days and nights in hymns and canticles, and like faithful soldiers prepared their souls for the struggle, about to war for the name of Christ in martyrdom; so that both in women and little children the love of martyrdom fervently burned, and they mutually prepared themselves for the confession of the holy name, against the diabolical battle-lines. In the following chapters is fully described the conversion of Chromatius, his baptism, and abdication of the urban prefecture, until in chapter 19 the discourse returns again to our Saints, where Nicostratus, from chief registrar, with his brother Castorius … likewise Claudius with Victorinus his brother, and with his son Symphorianus, who had been freed from the disease of dropsy, are said to have been made subdeacons through Pope Caius.
[10] All are crowned with martyrdom. You have at number 69 the zeal of Castulus, the chamberlain of the palace, to foster a hiding-place, in which all those excellent champions might dwell, where they do many miracles, St. Tiburtius eminent among the rest. To the martyrdom it proceeds in chapter 20, of which this is the beginning: But because it is much, if we should wish to follow out what and how great things Christ did through them; let us only set forth how each came to the palm of martyrdom. There are premised the combats of SS. Zoë and Tranquillinus, of which we have said it has already been treated in their places; at last the chapter is finished thus at number 76: Likewise Nicostratus and Claudius together with Castorius and Victorinus and Symphorianus, while they sought the bodies of the Saints along the Tiber shore, were seized by the persecutors, and brought to the prefect of the City. The judge was Fabianus, who exhorted them to sacrifice, and for ten days plying them with threats and blandishments, could in no way move them. Then he made suggestion of them to the Emperors, who ordered them to be tortured up to a third time. And when by no reason compelled by torments they yielded, he ordered them to be cast headlong into the midst of the sea. Bound therefore with immense weights, they were given to the waves of the deep, and in a clean place among the waters celebrated the crown of martyrdom. Thus far the Acts of St. Sebastian, now often praised, from which far more certain things are had than from the Utrecht manuscript, which exists among us, or from the Bishop of Equilino, or others, who, equally with Maurolyco, both confound the events and the names, or do not distinguish them opportunely enough.
[11] Concerning their relics, Of the sacred bodies of these Saints there makes mention on this day in his Hemerology the abbot Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza, and says that they are deposited in the temple of the holy Four Crowned Ones at Mount Caelius, and that there their combat is elegantly depicted: but I confess I fear lest he there confound them with those synonymous ones whom he places in the same basilica on the eighth of November; for Pancirolo, surveying the sacred treasures of that sanctuary, does not there mention our present-day holy Martyrs. That some of their sacred relics passed also into other parts of the world, I would not indeed dare to doubt. Masini found in three churches of Bologna relics of St. Victorinus. Whether the present-day ones? Who could distinguish sufficiently? I read in Carlo Stengel in the Monasteriologia concerning the monastery of Tegernsee; that in the year 1053, Sefridus the abbot presiding, the bodies of the holy Martyrs Chrysogonus and Castorius were translated by a certain brother, from Verona, from the monastery of St. Mary at the Organs, to this monastery. Stengel thinks that to one or the other
class, whether the present-day one, or that which is venerated on the eighth of November, that holy Castorius belongs: but on what foundation he asserts this, I do not sufficiently see. In our Acts you will not find a single synonymous one. Nor is it more certain that the sacred body of St. Chrysogonus the martyr, who is venerated on the twenty-fourth of November, was carried thither, whose head at least and hand the church of that Saint in the City across the Tiber claims for itself. Of which more will be said in its place and time.