ON ST. BRICTIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
OF MARTULA IN UMBRIA.
LITTLE COMMENTARY.
Brictius, Bishop and Confessor, of Martula in Umbria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
[1] I should be doing a thing already done, if in matters which pertain to St. Brictius I should spend much labor in illustrating them; it will suffice to send the reader to the preliminary Treatise to volume 1 of July on the Twelve holy Companions, of whom one is reckoned St. Brictius, Recapitulation from the preliminary treatise to volume 1 of July comers from Syria into Umbria, a province of Italy, in which treatise the things which here concerning that Saint would need to be treated are discussed. Yet it will not be out of place to weave a brief recapitulation of the chief points, by which the sum of the present argument may be represented to the eyes of the reader as it were under one aspect.
[2] From the announcement of the ancient Martyrologists (the more recent we do not delay upon), namely of the author of the Little Roman, concerning the cult of St. Brictius, of Ado, Usuard, Notker describing Ado more fully; to whom add today's Roman, it is sufficiently established concerning the cult of the Saint, as may be seen in the cited place, chapter 3, page 21. And indeed, besides the cult, scarcely anything else is at hand which thou mayest assert with certainty, the primitive Acts being lacking, which without doubt, whether genuine or interpolated, shone before Ado when composing his Martyrology, and afterward, by lapse of time, perished. Since therefore in those announcements no mention is made of his country, none of the age in which he lived, none of the place of his life or death, except Martula or Maralana the city, whence the Saint is called Bishop of Martula, although there not expressly designated as such, it is no wonder that nothing concerning these adjuncts can be defined which, resting on ancient documents, may deserve historical faith. See the things which are said in the same place, page 22, number 3.
[3] and concerning his Acts. How fictitious, ill-cohering, and monstrous are the Acts, whether those which treat together of the said 12 companions, which are there discussed from page 16; or the deeds of St. Brictius separately, which are examined from page 21, have been so great an apple of discord, that they have led the more recent Authors into various contradictions, in which it is manifest that they speak things at war with one another. Hence by some Umbrian Writers the 12 companions, and so our Brictius, are referred to the first century; by others to the third; by others to the sixth, as having come into Italy, as thou hast on page 22, number 4. Hence the duplication of two Brictii, without any appearance of truth or the faith of a fit author, employed by Jacobillus, and adapted to different centuries, to this end, that so many ill-connected combinations of times and persons might be understood to cohere; which see in the same place from number 5. Hence so many narrations stuffed in by the same Author, circumscribed with adjuncts too distinct and particular than that they can appear credible to a reader free from prejudices, as thou mayest see in numbers 8 and 9. I pass over other things; for what wouldst thou hope from apocryphal Acts but apocryphal things? There come upon the scene also, on page 24, number 18, the Spanish Authors, contending that St. Brictius pertains to their country, and there lived and died; but in chapter 6, §2, part 2, their dreams are refuted.
[4] It is well to add to these things which we have brought forward above concerning the cult of the Saint, by way of corollary, from Masinius in his Bologna surveyed, that his relics are preserved in the church of St. Lucy of the Society of Jesus in the Castiglione square, as he there reports on page 375. [His relics are said to be preserved at Bologna, and his body in a village of his name.] Nor do I think it should be passed over in silence, that which Ferrarius noted in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, page 418, where, the elogium of the Saint being recounted, he adds these things to our purpose, citing the monuments of the church of Spoleto; There exists a village with a church called by the name of St. Britius in the bounds of the Spoletines, which they suppose to have been the city of Martula; where they say his body is preserved.