ON THE HOLY AFRICAN MARTYRS JANUARIUS, MARINUS, NABOR, AND FELIX. From the Martyrologies.
CommentaryJanuarius, Martyr in Africa (S.)
Marinus, Martyr in Africa (S.)
Nabor, Martyr in Africa (S.)
Felix, Martyr in Africa (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
There is a nearly unanimous consensus of almost all the Martyrologies in marking these four Martyrs on this day and placing them in Africa, so that it is a wonder that they were passed over by Bede, Florus, and consequently by Rabanus, just as also the two synonymous Milanese ones, In the most ancient Fasti concerning whom we must treat on the XII day of this month. Their most ancient announcement exists in the Hieronymian codices in Florentinius on this day, yet with this difference, that in our Antwerp or Epternach codex is read Januariae for Januarii, and in the Corbie and Blume codices, Marinae for Marini: of the addition of the XII soldiers we shall speak a little below. Behold, then, the constant commemoration: In Africa, of Januarius, Marinus, Nabor, and Felix, exactly as the Little Roman edited by Rosweyde also reports on this very day. I noted in my Observations on Usuard that in the series of the aforesaid Little Roman the companions were expunged, who in the Hieronymian codices seemed to be added; which we shall shortly show to have been rightly done. Nor indeed is there any grave difficulty in that matter; Ado raised a greater one, in that he seems to have confused today's African Martyrs with the Milanese, or those of Lodi.
[2] Thus he himself first, as far as I know, wrote on this day: On the same day in Africa, the birthday of the holy Januarius, these four Martyrs Marinus, Nabor, and Felix, beheaded; whose bodies were translated to Milan. That those last words, hinting at a translation, were suspect to Usuard, I have long ago noted; for his announcement stops at the word "beheaded," from which the commemoration of today's Roman Martyrology is taken word for word, where Baronius rightly, unless I am mistaken, observed that these African Martyrs are to be distinguished from the two synonymous Milanese ones, who, as we have already said, are venerated on the XII of July, which also seems to have been the opinion of Henschenius, indicated openly enough in the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of St. Victor the Moor, on the VIII of May, number 7, page 288, when from Tristano Calco he admits that SS. Nabor and Felix were slain at Laus Pompeia, and again in the Annotations, page 290, at letter P, he confirms the same in these words: SS. Nabor and Felix, under the same Emperor Maximian and the councillor Anolinus, suffered at Laus Pompeia: but their bodies were deposited at Milan. They are venerated on the XII of July.
[3] they are distinguished from the two synonymous ones. Nor was Henschenius ignorant of today's African Martyrs, for in the list of the Passed-Over of the same day he accurately noted that SS. Nabor and Felix, beheaded in Africa with SS. Januarius and Marinus, are wrongly marked on the VIII of May by the fuller Florentine Usuards, the Strozzi, the Medici, and that printed there in 1486, inasmuch as they are recorded in the Martyrologies of Usuard, Ado, Notker, and others on this X of July, to which day he refers them; so that it may manifestly appear that he judged the Africans plainly diverse from the Milanese, although he had read the contrary in Ado and Notker; whose opinion he thought must be postponed to the most open authority of the more ancient Martyrologies, which we shall narrate more fully on the XII of July. I confess indeed that it is hard to reject these two Martyrologists of the ninth century; but in the concurrence of others more ancient, the greater regard must be had for these. It may easily have happened that the synonymy of names led both into error, and that, lest they be compelled to multiply saints, they ascribed to this day the martyrdom of the Saints, and to the other (the XII) the translation: which Notker more openly did, writing thus on the X of July:
[4] In Africa, of the holy Januarius, Marinus, Nabor, and Felix, who, having suffered at Laus Pompeia, are venerated on the XII of July; beheaded for the constancy of the Christian faith; whose bodies were afterward translated to Milan. But then on the XII of July, or the IV day before the Ides, he thus continues: At Milan, the translation of the holy Martyrs Nabor and Felix, who, beheaded on the VI day before the Ides of July with Januarius and Marinus in Africa, were on this day carried to Milan. Concerning whom I believe blessed Victor supplicated in his passion: Do not separate me, O Lord, from my fellow-citizens, thy Martyrs Nabor and Felix. Thence Notker wished to gather, and others gathered, that those whom St. Victor, a Moor by birth, called fellow-citizens must be Africans, as if all Africans ought to be called Moors, and to be addressed as fellow-citizens from the same fatherland. But whence was it established for Notker, or whence can it be established for others, that St. Victor, although a Moor by birth (since in this part of the tradition sufficiently undoubted
(if indeed in this part his Acts are of sufficiently undoubted credit) was not born at Milan, and so calls SS. Nabor and Felix his fellow-citizens? Certainly no one will draw from the Acts, of whatever kind, that St. Victor was born in Africa, or set out from Africa into Insubria.
[5] against what Ado and Notker judge. This moreover displeases us in Ado and those who followed him, that our African Martyrs are said to have been beheaded, whereas nowhere does a trace of their passion or Acts exist, whence Ado could have taken this; who without doubt would not have passed over other deeds, being by no means sparing in describing longer eulogies: whence the opinion may easily arise that he had some knowledge that the holy Milanese Martyrs were beheaded, which kind of punishment he transferred to the others, whom he thought should be confounded with these. To us hitherto it is far more probable that the classes of those Martyrs are entirely to be distinguished, the one, of which we here treat, being assigned to some uncertain place in Africa; the other to the Milanese, concerning which more will be argued in its proper place. Concerning today's Martyrs, besides the laurel of martyrdom, from the authority of the Martyrologies, we have found nothing anywhere.
[6] Can Marinus be called a Spaniard? And these things thus far argued, there is no one who would not judge them tolerable and plainly probable; nor would it have come into my mind to doubt whether those four holy Martyrs were both Africans and suffered in the persecution, whether of Valerian or of Diocletian or of another before the times of Constantine the Great; had not Tamayo brought forth again new and before-unheard-of things in his Spanish Martyrology on this day, with a magnificent announcement of this kind: At Caesarea of Mauretania in Africa, of St. Marinus, a Spaniard by nation, who, seized with other companions, foreigners, for the name of Christ, and torn by various agonies of torments, at last, his head being cut off, hastened as a Martyr to the eternal reward. Nor does he stop here; but in his Notes he calls upon Julian the apostate, under whom he contends that these Martyrs suffered; he fabricates proper Acts, and twists hither various other things, from that oft-sung fabulist, which I have no mind to recount, much less to refute. Let those who desire to learn consult the source, of how great nobility St. Marinus was, a citizen of Lisbon, to whom Tamayo fitted ancient inscriptions, family arms, and I know not what else, to be admitted by no one who is not delighted by the fabrications of Dexter.