Martyrs Nabor and Felix

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS

NABOR AND FELIX

AT MILAN AND COLOGNE.

In the year 303 or 304.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Nabor, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

Felix, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

§ I. The diversity of these Martyrs from other synonymous ones, and their most ancient memory in the Martyrologies.

It was said above on the X day of July, that various more recent writers after Ado and Notker everywhere deflect to this, that they think these two Martyrs of Milan were Moors by race, and suffered in Africa, and were thence translated to Milan; The confusion of these Saints with African ones which although Tillemont seems somewhat obscurely to insinuate, volume 5, from page 267, yet in the notes, page 692, he rather admits that they suffered at Milan or Lodi, and were therefore different from the Africans, since St. Ambrose calls them our Martyrs. To the opposite part inclines Castellanus in his universal Martyrology, in a note appended to this announcement of the Roman: At Milan, of the holy Martyrs Nabor and Felix, who suffered in the persecution of Maximian; and this others seem tacitly to intimate, when they refer to these two alone all the things which we apply to different classes. Let the words of Castellanus be heard, rendered from the French into Latin: Are they the same who are honored on the 10th? There is here only their translation according to Ado and Notker; who in two places asserts that their bodies were brought from Africa, and believes them to be the very same, of whom treatment was made on the 10th: and this seems to be confirmed from the Acts of St. Victor of Milan, a Moor by race, who calls them fellow-citizens. Meanwhile their Acts in Mombritius, which consequently ought to have been composed after the times of Notker, place their martyrdom at Lodi, which must have preceded the passion of St. Victor, from those things which we are here bidden to say, who died in the year 304, on the 8th of May. And indeed their names are found mingled with others in the Hieronymian Mss. on the 12th and 24th of April.

[2] it seems to have arisen from Ado, The scruple is, as I say again, from the homonymy of the names, which if it ought to be taken more rigidly, a hundred times in our Acts the Martyrs endowed with the same appellation will have to be confounded. For not one is the Nabor recorded in the Hieronymian codices, to say nothing of the more celebrated one with Cyrinus and Basilides, of whom on the 12th of June; but the Felixes are almost innumerable. The present ones Henschenius did not recognize on the 14th of May, volume 3, page 284: for there in the Hieronymian codices nowhere is Nabor but Namor or Nemor, joined with other companions, namely Victor, Felix, Rusticus, and perhaps others, as you will find explained there, Notker again and the addition of Ado being rejected. Nor does it help to recur to the days cited by Castellanus, or to enumerate several others; where synonymous Martyrs, whether joined together, or mingled with larger classes, are commemorated, since it is sufficiently plain that they are as remote as possible from the present ones of Milan or Lodi, as here also Florentinius shows, treating more fully of these Martyrs, and refuting those things which Ado and Notker had woven on about the pretended translation: and then also correcting certain inverted texts of the Hieronymian copies, according to the right norm of the most ancient Epternach codex, as we shall presently say. Thus therefore the praised Florentinius has it:

[3] well refuted by Florentinius But Nabor and Felix crowned in Africa cannot be the same as the Martyrs of that name, who in their Acts in Mombritius and Peter de Natalibus, outside the city of Lodi, near the river Celera, or rather the Silarus, after many torments beheaded, were there buried on the IV Ides of July; for the ruins of the bridge and of the old gate of Laus Pompeia, sprinkled, as is believed, with the little drops of the blood of those Martyrs, still testify, and ancient tradition, renewed with a new epigraph, teaches in the seventh Italian dissertation on the city of Lodi by Defendente Lodi, page 351, that Nabor and Felix the soldiers, who are venerated at Milan, are not those who accomplished their combat in Africa. That the bodies of the same Saints lay at Milan from ancient time, Paulinus teaches in the life of St. Ambrose, and testifies that before the finding of Gervasius and Protasius they were especially known and venerated. I pass over the rest, with which Florentinius weighs the rather tangled words of Maurolycus, doubting whether the present Martyrs are to be assigned to Milan or to Africa. Certainly that Martyrologist excludes them from Sicily, with St. Agatha of Catania, who, for I know not what reason, is found placed on this day in some of the Hieronymian codices.

[4] That in Bede, Florus, and Rabanus no memory of SS. Nabor and Felix of Milan, from the most ancient Hieronymian codex, nor of the African ones, is found, we have already said enough; the whole progeny of the Little Roman stops at the African ones on the X day of this month, no mention being made in the genuine copies of Usuard of the present ones: the supplements in great number are abundantly described in our edition, with an elogium drawn from the Acts, whence flowed the briefer expression of Baronius in the modern Roman. The supplements of Bede, edited by our Elders, were received from the Hieronymian codices, which we now undertake to weigh. In the most ancient Epternach or Antwerp codex it is distinctly read: On the IV Ides of July, at Milan, of Nabor and Felix. At Rome, of Primitivus. And this I think is the true announcement, which in the other codices is altogether disturbed. The Corbie codex reads: In Sicily, the birthday of Nabor, Felix, Primitivus, Julius. Almost worse the Lucca one: In Sicily, the birthday of Agatha the virgin, of Nabor and Felix. At Milan, of Namor and Primitivus; nor is the reading of the Blume codex better, so that plainly that must be admitted which we gave from the most ancient codex, and which is excellently confirmed from the more contracted copies.

[5] Rare in those minor codices is so unanimous a consensus: to which the minor codices are conformable, for in the same terms is the announcement expressed in the Rheinau and Reichenau codices: At Milan, of Nabor, Felix. In the Augsburg one they are placed in the third place, At Milan, of Nabor, Felix, these words preceding: In Sicily, of Agatha the virgin, concerning whom enough has already been said. The Labbe one likewise in the third place: At Milan, of Nabor, Felix. The codex of the Queen of Sweden badly placed it on the III Ides, which pertains to this day: At Milan, the birthday of the holy Namor, Felix. There is an addition in the Barberini one: At Milan, of Nabor, Felix, and Primitivus. Thus far our manuscripts edited in volume VI of June, to which are added others in the newest Benedictine collection, or Thesaurus of anecdota, volume 3, where the Auxerre and Murbach ones are plainly conformable to the Labbe one: At Milan, of Nabor, Felix. In another, of the church of Tours, Fortunatus is set before our Martyrs, without a location or place of martyrdom: Of Fortunatus, Nabor, Felix.

[6] And let these things suffice to prove, both the most ancient cult of the present Saints from the adduced Martyrologies, that it is sufficiently established that they suffered at Milan. and their most manifest diversity from all other synonymous ones. Concerning their translation, made, as is reported, in the year 310, and accustomed to be honored with a double Office on the XVIII of May, our Elders treated in the life of St. Savina on the XXX of January, page 1030, and again in the list of the Passed-Over in volume IV of May, page 136; but what this Office is, I confess I do not know. In the Proper of Milan I find no memory of the holy ones Nabor and Felix except on this XII of July, under a double rite, with a double proper lesson; to be related presently, of which this is the beginning, "Nabor and Felix, Moors," which must have been devised in later centuries, since concerning the race or fatherland of the holy Martyrs there is not a word in their Acts, but on the contrary St. Ambrose, praised above, sufficiently insinuates that they were natives and probably of Milanese origin, among whom, as inquilines, they were always in the highest esteem and veneration, as we must now demonstrate a little more fully.

§ II. The ancient cult of SS. Nabor and Felix at Milan.

Praised by St. Ambrose as natives, That the great Father St. Ambrose was a singular worshiper of the holy Martyrs, all antiquity of old proclaims; and that these our Saints are praised by him, has already been shown from Florentinius. His letter to his sister Marcellina is related by various writers, and among them Surius and Puricelli on the Ambrosian basilica, page 2. The words which pertain to the Saints are these: The clergy also being afraid, I ordered the earth to be cleared away in that place which is before the rails of the holy ones Felix and Nabor. Paulinus in the life of St. Ambrose himself, in Surius on the IV of April, number 6, commemorates the matter a little more copiously: At the same time the holy Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius revealed themselves to the priest: for they were placed in the basilica in which today are the bodies of Nabor and Felix the martyrs: but the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix were most celebratedly frequented; but of Protasius and Gervasius the martyrs, as the names, so also the sepulchers were unknown; to such a degree that over their sepulchers walked all who wished to come to the rails, by which the sepulchers of the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix were defended from injury. What more manifestly can be said, that we may understand that even in the age of St. Ambrose the precious remains of the holy ones Nabor and Felix were in the highest veneration among the faithful. Hear again Ambrose himself on Luke chapter 13, where treating of the grain of Mustard; The grain of Mustard, he says, is our Martyrs; Felix, Nabor, and Victor; they had the odor of faith but it lay hidden, the persecution came, they laid down their arms, bent their necks, beaten with the sword, scattered the grace of their mystery through all the bounds of the world.

[8] gradually they were taken for Moors, then for the Morigii: Similar things the Milanese writers everywhere commemorate, among whom it may be observed, that there gradually grew that itch inborn in the nation, of dragging back or reducing any Saints whatever to the present families, which more than once elsewhere we have been forced to impugn. In a word I noted above, the mention inserted into the Proper of Milan, as if the holy Nabor and Felix had been Moors by race, which certainly could not be drawn from the Acts; nor from the Ambrosian Missal, where in the preface of their Mass it is only insinuated (with what faith I know not), that they were exiles at Milan from other bounds of the earth. Ripamonti, Ecclesiastical History of Milan, book 2, page 103, wrote somewhat obscurely: Nabor and Felix, of Moorish race, indicating, I suppose, that they were joined by race or nation to St. Victor the Moor, which by what reasoning it can be explained, we have said above, where treatment was made of the synonymous African Martyrs. For the rest, whether the present Saints too were Moors or not, is a matter of indifference to me; but indeed, be it said with good leave, this seems most ridiculous, that Paul Morigia dared to write in his Sanctuary of Milan, that our Saints were of the house of Morigi, or of his own Morigian family; and this I find speciously appended in the sacred Diary of the same city in the year 1668 on this day XII of July: SS. Nabor and Felix of the Morigi.

[9] Away with trifles. Ripamonti proceeds to weave a brief elogium of the holy Martyrs from the Acts; Ripamonti calls them Moors; for where he has premised several others, crowned for Christ; there follow, he says, after these (Carpophorus and Felix) Nabor and Felix, of Moorish race, soldiers by profession of life, nor of unlike end. For being held at Milan in the same camps, they are accused of the same crime, and after they had been gravely tortured on the rack and with the other torments, they persevered with unconquered faith, and are thence carried off to Laus Pompeia. There the axe having been struck to the neck, the martyrdom was completed. The sacred bodies Savina, a noble matron, no less in piety toward God than in the brightness of her race, carried back to Milan. They are placed in the old cemetery of the Martyrs, where afterward the name and honor of St. Francis occupied the church dedicated to them. In the same church are kept buried the bones of Savina herself, which woman died about that time with a distinguished end. For, wholly turned toward the divine Martyrs, whether by visiting and helping those in peril, or by burying those already dead, when she had performed that office for Nabor and Felix, lying by chance one day at their sepulcher, with hands raised to heaven she expired.

[10] It is not necessary to collect more elogia of that kind, or more prolix ones, But Ferrarius confounds them more shamefully. since from the same source, not sufficiently limpid, all have flowed. Most recent is that which Ferrarius inserted among his Italian Saints, citing the Acts in Mombritius, concerning which below. His annotation deserves to be observed in passing, conceived in these words: That their bodies were translated to Cologne Agrippina, together with the bodies of the three Magi, about the year of salvation 764, Sigebert in the Chronicle at that year is the author, and Surius in the mentioned place. Ferrarius did not consult Sigebert when he wrote these things, and for that reason is deservedly beaten by the Milanese, the words of Sigebert the chronographer at that year being: Bishop Chrodegang translated the bodies of the martyrs Gorgonius, Nabor, and Nazarius from Rome into Gaul, and Gorgonius indeed at Gorze, but Nabor in the monastery of Hilariacum, but Nazarius he placed in the monastery of Lorsch: all which are distant by whole centuries and in names from the translation of the three Kings and SS. Nabor and Felix from Milan to Cologne; concerning which below. Whence also you may restore those things in which on this day Saussay erred in his famous Gallican Martyrology. But I forbear to speak of those things here, lest I do what has been done; let the history of the Sigebertine translation be seen, explained by Henschenius on the XII of June, page 514. Concerning the controversy over the possession of the present sacred bodies it will be disputed below. Behold now the things which pertain more closely to the Milanese cult.

[11] The Ambrosian Missal, of which a very rare copy exists among us, What things are proper to them according to its own rite on this day thus honors the festivity of the Saints: On the feast of the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix, the Ingressa. But the salvation of the just is from the Lord. Over the people. Bless, we beseech thee, Lord, thy people, and trusting in the prayers of thy most blessed martyrs Nabor and Felix, (or is it not "trusting"?) may it obtain the grace of thy protection. Through. There follows the epistle to the Ephesians chapter 2; Brethren, you who were once far off etc. Verse. You who were once far off, are made near in the blood of the lamb. The Gospel according to Luke chapter 9. At that time the Lord Jesus took Peter and James and John etc. After the Gospel: The savagery of the perfidious could not overcome their inestimable faith, because Christ was joyful in them, who fought and conquered with such servants: the protector of the faith gives palms to the victors. Over the shroud. May the venerable prayer of thy most blessed martyrs Nabor and Felix protect thy Church, O God: and of whom their frequenting spends devotion, may it demand the effect of perpetual redemption. Offertory: I questioned the angel, saying; who is this who gave a crown to his holy ones! and he said to me: It is the Son of God, whom they have confessed for ages. Verse. In the sight of the lamb they stood before the throne, and palms in their hands; they cried with a great voice, saying: It is the Son of God. Over the offerings. Be present, Lord, to our supplications, and grant us confidently to obtain, by the intercessions of thy most blessed martyrs Nabor and Felix, what thou hast given us to hope for. Through.

[12] in the Ambrosian Office, Preface. Through Christ our Lord: who so kindles the hearts of his faithful with fire-bearing love, that both they despise the fleeting glory of the world, and through torments approach the fellowship of the citizens above. For this reason also the most learned soldiers of Christ Nabor and Felix, having departed from the utmost bounds of the earth, gave themselves as exiles to this land; not that they might be subject to the bloody rule of Cæsar, but that they might proceed more easily unhindered to the court of the ethereal King. They preferred to lie hidden longer under the cloak of earthly warfare, awaiting from above the call of the heavenly empire. Who also, the shield of hope having been constantly received; the breastplate and helmet of faith having been taken up, march secure into the battle-line of the enemy. They conquer the most savage torments of punishments, the prison and blows, the rack, fire, and claws: they subject their necks to the gratings of chains; they are dragged bound by noxious hands. At last, the sword having shed their blood, adorned with triumphal glory, they came to the citizens above with the palm of victory. Postcommunion. Receiving the pledge of eternal life, we suppliants beseech thy majesty, almighty God, that, supported by the patronages of the holy ones Nabor and Felix, what we have touched in image, we may take by manifest perception. Through.

[13] and afterward in the Roman. To the Roman rite are accommodated two lessons, of which we have already mentioned in passing, which in the present Proper of Milan thus have it: Lesson IV: Nabor and Felix, Moors, at the time when Maximian the Emperor stayed at Milan, accused before him of the Christian religion, for some days are shut up in prison: where, when they could by no persuasions be driven to the worship of idols, first both are beaten together with clubs: then Nabor alone, Felix looking on, tortured on the rack, afterward half-burnt with glowing plates, then torn with iron claws. Which torture having been bravely overcome, he and Felix likewise placed in the fire, thence divinely snatched, escaped unharmed. Lesson V. Again thrust into prison, thence bound with chains they are led to Laus Pompeia, where their constancy being again tried, when they most constantly persevered in the confession of the faith, struck with the axe, they gave a distinguished testimony to Christ the Lord. Their bodies were translated to Milan by Savina, a matron of Lodi. The little book was printed at Milan in the year 1642, under the title; Proper and Common Lessons, approved by the Holy Apostolic See, for the second and third Nocturn of the Saints of the church of Milan, for the use of those who in it use the Roman rite. Thus far concerning the cult among the Milanese, with which the Cologne one must be compared.

§ III. On the cult of the same Saints at Cologne Agrippina.

That the sacred pledges of their Saints were always in the highest veneration among the people of Cologne, after they are judged to have been brought there in the 12th century, At Cologne also with a proper Office can be no more certainly proved from any other source than from the Breviaries of the most celebrated church, of which ancient copies exist among us, and one especially printed at Venice, by the art of John Herszog the German, monarch of printers, in the year of the nativity of Christ after the thousandth and four times hundredth ninety-eighth, on the day before the Kalends of October. There the holy Nabor and Felix are adorned with a proper and singular ecclesiastical Office, which exists also in other editions; but here let it suffice us to draw from the older one those things which may abundantly testify to the exceptional veneration of the people of Cologne toward the Saints. Thus the beginnings of the same Office have it: Of Felix and Nabor, at the first Vespers, above the ferial psalms. Antiphon 1. The Saints through faith… Antiphon 2. The scourges of the executioners… as in the present Common. The third differs: The Saints of God had a great combat; they passed through fire and water, and were made safe, and received crowns from the Lord God. Antiphon 4. Round about thee, Lord, is a light which will never fail, where thou hast set the most luminous mansions, there rest the souls of the Saints. Antiphon 5. They rejoice in the heavens etc.

[15] There follows the hymn at Vespers in this manner: O Christ, glory of the ethereal citadel, they have rejoiced for many centuries; distinguishing to each his measure of labor, propitiously assent to our vows. Behold the throng, purpled with blood, now sure of its reward, free from grief, flourishes joyful with a clear triumph. From this college they blaze in heaven, truly citizens of happy men, Nabor and Felix, pledges of light. These, driven through horrific pressures, exchange the present things by the sword, the scaffold: at last the parched ground receives their limbs. By their merits, King Jesus, grant to thy servants, that, the stain of thy suppliants being driven away, thou mayest grant them to be blessed in a happy seat. To the Trinity be glory, honor and virtue, praise to the inseparable Unity, a harmonious dominion through all ages. Amen. At the Magnificat, Antiphon. For theirs is etc. Collect. We beseech, almighty God, that a twin joy of the present festivity may receive us, which proceeds from the glorification of thy blessed martyrs Felix and Nabor, whom the same faith and passion truly made to be brothers. At Compline, over the Nunc dimittis, is placed this Antiphon. Almighty God, who hast conferred on the Martyrs the glorious wars of the combat unto the triumph of immortality; give to our hearts a joy worthy of their commemoration, that we, whose bodies here we embrace with pious love, may be helped by their prayers.

[16] from which some proper things, At Matins, the Invitatory; Let us adore Christ the King, with the saints who under the throne of God cry out in white robes. Lesson I. The impious Maximian reigning as Emperor, when by his edict a grievous persecution had raged against the Christian people, there were in the city of Milan two certain men, illustrious in military matters, most well known to the Emperor himself, of whom one was called Nabor, the other Felix. Responsory. These are two men of mercy; as of SS. John and Paul. Lesson II. When these were secretly devoted to the Christian religion, it was suggested to the Emperor Maximian by his executors staying in the aforesaid city. Lord, they say, most clement Emperor, Nabor and Felix have been made Christians, and blaspheme our Gods, and say that they are demons. Responsory. The Saints shall exult in glory etc. as in the Common of holy Martyrs. Lesson III. Then the Emperor commanded them to be seized and led to him; to whom he said one by one: Nabor, our soldier, what did you judge to be lacking to you, that you should make yourself a Christian? Nabor answered: I was not lately made a Christian, but from the beginning of my age. Responsory. This is true brotherhood, as of the holy ones aforesaid John and Paul. Thus far the lessons of the first Nocturn.

[17] and the lessons are described. At the second Nocturn, Lesson IV. Maximian answered: Therefore, as you assert, you are manifestly a Christian? Nabor answered: I am manifestly a Christian, and Christ Jesus, the Son of the living God, born of the Virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit, I adore and believe in my heart, and cease not with my mouth to praise. Responsory. The just shall shine like the lily, and shall flourish like the roses in Jericho before the Lord. The rest from the Common. Lesson V. Then Maximian the Emperor, filled with wrath, commanded him to be sent to prison, and Felix having been summoned, said to him: What seems to you, Felix; do you not wish foolishly to perish with Nabor your companion? Sacrifice to the gods, and be our friend: for if you do not sacrifice, various torments await you. Responsory. These are the Saints who follow the lamb, who conquered the devil by his blood, and the word of his testimony, and loved not their souls unto death. These are they who came etc. Lesson VI. Felix answered: For your torments are nothing; know that I in no way deny the true Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ, but rather offer myself to him in sacrifice. Maximian the Emperor, angered, commanded him to be sent into the same prison, where he had shut up blessed Nabor, saying to them; Certainly I will make you breathe out your spirit with various torments. The lessons of the III Nocturn, and the rest which are added, deviate not much from the Common.

[18] An elogium by Erhard Winheim, Other most manifest indications of religious cult and most constant veneration are, that these holy martyrs Nabor and Felix were joined with the three most celebrated Magi, as Fr. Erhard Winheim the Carthusian testifies in his Sanctuary of Agrippina, edited at Cologne in the year 1607, where on page 28, describing the most august sepulcher of the holy Magi; But if you desire it to be sketched to the life for you together with the relics contained, he says, know that the three holy Magi are contained in the lower tomb, of copper indeed, but wrought with mosaic work so artfully and sumptuously, that so shining and so unusual an industry not only carries into astonishment whatever goldsmiths there are, but rather compels them to declare that something divine rather than human is beheld there. But this sarcophagus is closed by another tomb, in which, in between, the holy Felix and Nabor, citizens of Milan, who suffered martyrdom under Maximian on the XII of July, rest. Again on page 38, after he has commemorated that the bodies of the holy Magi were translated to Cologne by Rainald the Archbishop together with the bodies of the holy Felix and Nabor, he thus subjoins: And that the Martyrs also might be associated with the three Magi in equal number, and the triple cord of Saints be doubled, by the work of Bruno, the first of that name, but the 25th bishop of Cologne, it divinely came about that to those two a third was added, Gregory of Spoleto.

[19] Ægidius Gelenius in Cologne the Suppliant, edited in the year 1639, likewise by Ægidius Gelenius, confirms the aforesaid: But there are enclosed, he says, in a plainly sumptuous twin shrine, of which the upper gable contains the bodies of the holy martyrs Felix, Nabor, and Gregory of Spoleto, brought at the same time with the three Magi: but the lower sarcophagus encloses those holy three Kings, of whom I was speaking, visible through the texture of most minute lattices, by the aid of a perpetual light. Furthermore the same distinguished man in his greater work On the greatness of Cologne Agrippina, book 3, Syntagma I, on the metropolitan church, page 233, adds, that not only the bodies of the holy Magi are enclosed in a most precious tomb, but also that the tomb itself is enclosed in a magnificent little shrine, with this inscription:

This coffer holds the bodies of the holy Magi, And nothing from thence has been taken away or placed elsewhere, Joined to these are Felix, Nabor, Gregory.

That which is asserted in the second verse, that nothing has been taken away from thence, nothing placed elsewhere, that this is to be understood of the bodies of the holy Magi alone, is manifestly plain from Gelenius himself.

[20] For he, after he has briefly described the martyrdom of the holy Nabor and Felix, which is explained. their translation with the holy Magi made by Reynold being also commemorated, says that two arms of Felix and Nabor were given to Bl. Hildegund countess of Meer, and foundress of the same monastery. Then, the history having been narrated by which St. Gregory of Spoleto was added to those two, he notes that the several sacred heads of these three martyrs, Felix and Nabor and Gregory of Spoleto, separated from the bodies, are enclosed in several silver busts, that they may be exposed apart for the cult. Finally in the pious Fasti of this month the praised Gelenius thus announces on the IV Ides: In the metropolitan basilica of Cologne, of the holy martyrs Felix and Nabor. There is besides noted on the XXIII of July the Translation of the holy Kings, of SS. the Maccabees, Felix, Nabor, Apollinaris etc. from Italy. But whether it is honored with any celebration, I do not find expressed: nor is it sufficiently established for me, whether the relics of our Saints are exposed elsewhere except in Masini's Bologna, whither how they came, I do not care to divine; let it suffice to have here related in what veneration they are held at Cologne, to whose more recent Offices we proceed.

[21] In the newest edition of the Proper of Cologne of the year 1718, at Henry Rommerskirchen, I observe that those things which we have already given from the older ones are still in use today, A more recent Breviary of Cologne except that in the first nocturn they are taken from the occurring Scripture, the ancient responsories being nonetheless kept. The chief change occurs in the second Nocturn, in which the Lessons are described in this order and manner. Lesson IV. Nabor and Felix, celebrated at Milan for skill in military matters, were accused before Maximian, of worshiping Christ and detesting the gods. Whom, when the Emperor, having had them brought to him and questioned about the faith, had certainly learned to be Christians, he commands to venerate the gods; and if they should refuse this, threatens tortures and dire punishments. But when these had in no way terrified them, he sent them into prison, and wearied them for twelve days with a lack of food and drink: on the thirteenth he orders them to be set before him, and asks what they have determined, an option being given, whether they prefer to sacrifice to the gods and live, or, remaining in their opinion, to die.

[22] it exhibits other lessons. Lesson V. But they with equal constancy affirm that they are prepared to die for the faith of Christ. Nay even Nabor: That death, which you threaten us with, is our life. Wherefore, the various kinds of torments, of clubs, the rack, lamps, claws, fire, having been overcome by the virtue of Christ, the Emperor leads them, bound with chains, to the city of Lodi, for the terror of the Christians. There again beaten with clubs, outside the gate at the river Schelere, on the fourth Ides of July, they subjected their necks to the sword. Lesson VI. Whose bodies, taken up by night, and sprinkled with spices, a Christian matron, Sabina by name, first buried on her own estate, then took care to have them carried to Milan: where great honor was for some time paid to them, even in the time of St. Ambrose, as Paulinus testifies in his life. At length, Milan having been stormed by the arms of the Emperor Frederick, Reinold Archbishop of Cologne obtained them from the Emperor in place of a gift, and translated them at the same time with the bodies of the holy three Kings from Milan to Cologne, where even now a magnificent chapel of the metropolitan basilica religiously keeps them, with the highest veneration of the people.

[23] A sharp controversy concerning the possession of the sacred pledges. And here opens the arena of a thorny controversy between two illustrious cities, namely this of Cologne and that of Milan, most difficult to compose, as long as each party more zealously claims for itself the entire bodies of both Saints; where it is plain that an unheard-of prodigy cannot be feigned, that for their sake doubled bodies of SS. Nabor and Felix should be admitted. The learned know the manifold contentions, which have also been discussed in our Acts, concerning the presence of sacred bodies of this kind, which I do not judge it worth the trouble to commemorate here more fully. More recent is the memory of a lawsuit, plainly akin to this, concerning the bodies of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, concerning whom Papebroch had set forth his mind on the XIX of June, volume 3, §9, from page 837; but afterward, the apologetic dissertation of Joseph Anthony Saxi having been seen and weighed, before his death he wished, through us, to retract in volume 6 of June, from page 209, the things which he had asserted for the people of Breisach. I here will candidly confess, that I do not wish to be an arbiter, nor a settler of this new controversy. I shall have satisfied both parties, if I collect all the arguments on both sides, from which the readers may be able to pass judgment. I begin from the possession of the people of Cologne, so constant through four centuries, that even the Milanese writers held it for undoubted. I shall then subjoin the things which more recently, or after the finding, as they report, made by St. Charles Borromeo, I have found opposed by the same Milanese not so long ago, and as it were by right of postliminium.

§ IV. The testimonies of the Milanese writers are related in favor of the Cologne possession.

Concerning the ancient presence of the sacred bodies among the Milanese, of which enough has been said above, The possession of the people of Cologne we do not here inquire; the hinge of the whole controversy turns on this, whether Reynold, or Reynald, Archbishop of Cologne, just as the bodies of the holy three Kings, (which is today admitted by all) so also translated from Milan to Cologne the bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix in the year 1162, in which happened the destruction of Milan by Frederick Barbarossa, or as others note 1164, or some year nearby, concerning which difference we do not wish to dispute; the head of the contention is, whether in that century the Milanese were deprived of this sacred treasure, which from that time the people of Cologne have constantly possessed to this very day and continue to possess, as our Hermann Crombach endeavored to demonstrate at length in the history of the three Magi Kings of the Gospel, volume 3, book 2, in various chapters to be cited below: our chief care will be to embrace the whole matter briefly, succinctly, and with what clarity we can, using rather arguments ad hominem, as they say, than heaping up many authorities of foreigners.

[25] I will confess indeed, that the Milanese writers, who candidly admit the loss of their Saints Nabor and Felix, the Milanese writers acknowledged, and who among them are strong with deserved authority, are not older than the 15th century, for of Galvano Fiamma, who lived in the 14th century, I have judged no account here should be taken. That they were so few, he will marvel the less who understands from the preface of Tristano Calco, that the things which pertained to Milanese affairs were commemorated most sparingly and most ignorantly, and that George Merula, Calco's master, for want of monuments, for twelve whole years elaborated commentaries of no great moment, which his disciple was forced to recall to the anvil. The first to have edited a history of his fatherland before Tristano seems to be Bernardino Corio, whose contemporary was Donato Bossi, author of a Chronicle from the beginning of the world and of some treatise on the Bishops of Milan, as Vossius testifies On the Latin Historians, book 3, page 620, whose writings are not at hand, and so must be cited on the faith of others. These are followed by the just-praised Tristano Calco, who must have written either toward the end of the 15th century, or toward the beginning of the sixteenth, although the edition which exists among us was made only in the year 1628. Behold now the words of the writers:

[26] Bernardino Corio, in the history of Milan, edited in the vulgar tongue, part 1, page especially 52, thus narrates: Bernardino Corio At last the most hostile Emperor, on the very solemn day of the Olive (I suppose Palm Sunday), not imitating our Savior (who at Jerusalem, while "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" was being sung, was gloriously received), deserted the city overthrown by him, amid infinite execrations, and returned to Pavia, transferring with him the glorious bodies of the three Magi, which St. Eustorgius, soldier and vicar of the Emperor Constantius, near the end of his episcopate took care to have brought to Milan; but the aforesaid Cæsar had given them to him as a gift in the year of Christ 311. The Milanese, for fear of the most savage Emperor, had hidden those sacred bodies in the tower of the temple dedicated to St. George, called "in the palace." Besides, he also commanded to be brought to him the bodies of the holy Gervasius and Protasius, Nabor and Felix, and thence transported them into Germany. Thus far the own words of Corio, who, a knight of Milan, writing at Milan, a most excellent orator, must altogether have known what was the opinion in his fatherland in his time concerning those sacred bodies.

[27] alleging a writing which he calls authentic: He proceeds furthermore; and adds: In faith of which matter, we shall here place the text of an authentic writing, transmitted to me from Germany, which thus has it: Frederick the first, Emperor of the Romans, son of Herman, the noble Duke of Swabia, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and fifty (elsewhere he added "second") reigned thirty-six years. In the tenth year of his reign he destroyed Milan, in which destruction the sister of a certain viscount, who was in the power of Frederick, for the liberation of her brother, went to the Reverend Father, by name Rudolph, and Lord Archbishop of Cologne, and showed the bodies of the three Magi, namely Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, the bodies of the holy Gervasius and Protasius, and the bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix, whence the aforesaid Rudolph placed the bodies of the holy Gervasius and Protasius in the town of Breisach beside the Rhine… etc. which do not pertain here, since for the intent of the people of Cologne it is enough that the holy Nabor and Felix were brought to them with the holy three Magi, and from that time honored in their Metropolitan church, as the letter of Reynold himself (in Corio, of Rudolph), to be recited below, so expressly testifies; here we adduce only the native Milanese historians.

[28] then Donato Bossi, What are the own and genuine words of Donato Bossi, I have already confessed I do not know, but since he is adduced and impugned by Puricelli and Saxi, it is sufficiently plain that he favored the possession of the people of Cologne. Nor did Crombach himself see him, for he cites, in chapter 43, Melchior Inchofer relying on the authority of Bossi: In the same year the bodies of the holy Martyrs Nabor and Felix were also translated into Germany, as the same Bossi observes. Nor indeed is it necessary to seek more from him, since Puricelli on the Ambrosian basilica, page 812, clearly confesses that the holy Nabor and Felix, as well as the three Kings, are ascribed to the people of Cologne, not only by foreign writers; but he commemorates also his own natives: of our own countrymen, he says, we number before all others (whom indeed we have hitherto read) Donato Bossi, in the year one thousand one hundred and sixty-five, and Tristano Calco, whose words we have already recited above, and here exhibit from the source itself.

[29] Tristano Calco, The praised author, toward the end of book 1 of the history of his fatherland, page 24, enumerating various holy Martyrs; Likewise, he says, Nabor and Felix, soldiers most well known to the Emperor, suffered at Laus Pompeia, and Firmus at Verona, [and] Bergamo the wealthiest, being brought from Milan, are beheaded. Then in his book XI, page 227, he thus speaks: The loss of a sacred thing, by far the most eminent of all, increased the calamity of the times. There were the bodies of the three Magi, who adored Christ God newly born, enclosed in the suburban church of St. Eustorgius, in a very great sepulcher, which still exists. Rainald the Bishop, admonished of their excellence, took them up on the fourth Ides of June, together with the bones of Nabor and Felix, and translated them to the metropolis of his diocese, where still they are venerated with the highest veneration of the peoples. Tristano could not set forth his mind more distinctly, whence when he lastly names these Saints, book 13, page 282, he indeed refers to the church still distinguished by their names, but concerning the presence of the sacred bodies he in no way makes mention. At this time also, he says, there were received into the city the followers of St. Francis, whom we call the Minorite Friars, and to them, not far from the Ambrosian, was granted the church of Nabor and Felix.

[30] The Milanese, I suppose, will not refuse another witness sufficiently close, and Jacobus Philippus of Bergamo: and a native by nation, Jacobus Philippus of Bergamo, cited among others by Crombach, chapter 25, from the Supplement of the Chronicles, book 12, at the year 1162. But it must not be dissembled, that from the Brescia edition of the year 1485 those things are absent which were afterward inserted, and are had in other editions, at least in the Parisian one of the year 1535. And indeed the testimony for the translation of the Kings is everywhere most plain: But Milan, the metropolis and royal city of all Cisalpine Gaul, this year, after a siege of seven years, stormed and captured by the Emperor Frederick… now for the eighth time is leveled utterly to the ground… Rudolph Archbishop of Cologne, present and assisting at this overthrow, snatched away, himself too, on the eleventh of July, the bodies of the three Magi, which St. Eustorgius Bishop of Milan had long ago translated from Constantinople to Milan, which had long lain hidden in the bell-tower of St. George, and translated them with joy with himself into Germany into his own city. But in the third year after, the Germans also took away the bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix from Milan, and translated them into Germany.

[31] These last words, which we said are lacking in the older edition, by which also, against the Bishop of Novara, can be called into doubt, as not altogether conformable to the opinion of other writers: for most, who write that Nabor and Felix were taken away, insinuate that this was done not in the third year after the Kings, but at the same time; although there are not lacking those who connect the whole matter, at least the translation, not with the year 1162, but with 1164; which can be so understood, that in the destruction of Milan all were snatched away, but were only after two years brought to Cologne, concerning which matter see Crombach disputing, chapter 41. But whatever of this be the case, the opinion of all the older Milanese writers appears sufficiently constant, concerning the certain loss of the sacred bodies, before Charles (formerly John Francis) of St. Peter's basilica, Bishop of Novara, in his brief history of the church of Milan, where he treats of St. Maternus the Bishop, page 48, began to bring forward the finding and translation of the holy Nabor and Felix made at Milan in the year 1571 by St. Charles Borromeo, on which relation Puricelli and Saxi chiefly rely. But these things must be reserved for §6, where with the same candor with which here the arguments of the Milanese for their possession will be proposed.

[32] For the rest, that finding or translation of the aforesaid Saints at Milan, of whatever kind, Ripamonti was added. did not deter Ripamonti, a most praised writer of the 17th century, from treading in the footsteps of the older historiographers of his fatherland, as his words show from the second decade of the histories of the church of Milan, which it is wonderful is not found in our Museum. But even him Puricelli and Saxi sufficiently confess adverse to themselves. His words Crombach relates in the already-mentioned chapter 25. The bodies, he says, of the three Magi, and likewise the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius, Nabor and Felix, were beyond the common injury; but that he might take away for himself, not that he might leave to us those supports, the barbarian, namely Frederick the Emperor, the overthrower of Milan. Ripamonti therefore did not recognize a sufficient identity between the bodies found by St. Charles Borromeo and those of the holy Nabor and Felix, so as to recede from the opinions of his elders. Nor does Besuzzi seem to dissent, when in the Pontifical history of Milan, page 164, he confesses that not only the three Magi were taken away by Reynold, but also other holy relics, those namely of which we shall presently hear the aforesaid Bishop speaking in his letter. And thus far the Milanese writers for the most part, bearing testimony against their fatherland for the people of Cologne. So many are the foreign witnesses, that if all were conformable, it would seem that the truth of the matter could hardly be doubted. Here now at least the chief ones are to be heard.

* years

§ V. Other arguments for the same possession.

For the people of Cologne there makes especially The people of Cologne judge that first and almost decisive argument, which is from the very letters of Reynold their Bishop, and procurator of the most precious treasure, written when the matter was most present and most recent, which Puricelli did not dare to call into doubt; but Saxi seemed so to approve them, that from those very ones, related at number 61, he argues against the people of Breisach, that the bodies of the holy Gervasius and Protasius were not deposited with them, since in that whole epistle Reynold does not mention them even by a word. But by what reasoning the praised Saxi tries to elude the force of the argument from the most express expression of the holy Nabor and Felix, will presently be plain. From this letter of Reynold, furthermore, it is necessary that great weight be added to the opinion of the people of Cologne, established for so many centuries, unless, using the common evasion, the Milanese confess that that Bishop was perspicacious in unearthing the bodies of the holy Magi, but in the others, of which we here treat, contend that he was altogether deluded, which is nearly the solution of Saxi. But wholly abstaining from the zeal of parties, we do not settle the suit, but proceed to bring into the midst the monuments produced on both sides. The already-mentioned letters of Reynold Crombach published, volume 3, book 2, chapter 28, and after him, from a most ancient Ms. codex of the monastery of Siegburg, among the epistles of Pope Alexander III, our Philip Labbe related in volume 10 of the Councils. Have here the text from Crombach:

[34] The letter of Reynold Bishop of Cologne Reynold, by the grace of God Bishop-elect of the holy church of Cologne, and Archchancellor of Italy, to the most beloved sons and friends in Christ, Herman Provost of the church of Cologne, Philip the Dean, and all the Priors and the whole clergy, and all the beneficed and ministerial men of St. Peter, and of the holy church of Cologne; and to all the burghers also of the kindly city of Cologne, greeting and affectionate service, with the fullness of intimate love. We intimate to your most beloved company, that from the wish of our most ardent desire we have now, by the grace of God, attained a happy beginning. For the leave of our most serene Lord the Emperor (Frederick) having been kindly received, with the fullness of his grace and love, dismissed by him joyfully, we have been honored with distinguished and so great gifts, of which there can be no more excellent estimation on earth: for among the other benefits of his liberality, which he most abundantly conferred on us, he gave us three most precious gifts; namely the distinguished bodies of the most blessed three Magi and Kings, who, the first-fruits of the Gentiles, in a type and presage of the future Church of the Gentiles, offered precious gifts to Christ still lying in the manger; whose most noble bodies namely, and most worthy of all veneration, at Milan in the church of Bl. Eustorgius confessor and pontiff, were solemnly and gloriously laid up.

[35] Moreover also, God going before, we bring to you the bodies of the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix, testifying that he sends those sacred bodies. that with this inestimable and incomparable treasure, to be loved above gold and every precious stone, the most sacred church and city of Cologne may be most happily enriched and perpetually adorned. We indeed, because the way through your enemies and ours is suspect to us, have disposed our journey through Burgundy and Gaul even to you, and have sent the present messenger before us from the city of Vercelli on the second Ides of June, on that day proceeding most swiftly toward Turin and toward the Alps of Mount Cenis, with the aforesaid and venerable relics: and therefore we intimately ask your most sincere love, and admonish in the Lord, that for the worthy reception of such gifts you prepare yourselves with that devotion and solemnity which you know, and which we trust of you. And beseech the Lord God also as affectionately as possible for us without ceasing, that together with them, to the glory and honor of his name, and to the perpetual salvation of all of you and of the whole fatherland, he may deign to send us back to you safe, unharmed, and unhurt. Thus far the epistle of Reynold.

[36] The writer next in age to Reynold, who mentioned in express terms not only the three Magi, There are added Ægidius of Orval, but also the sacred bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix translated to Cologne, is Ægidius, monk of Orval, who flourished in the year of the Lord 1230, in the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Liège, of the Chapeauville edition, chapter 45, page 116, where among other things pertaining to the present matter he thus has it: Afterward in the year of the Lord 1164, when Frederick the Emperor of the Romans had subjugated the Milanese, rebellious to him, and the city was in his power, Henry Bishop of Liège having died in those parts, as we said above, to whom the Emperor had conferred the bodies of the three Magi, Raynald Archbishop of Cologne asked and obtained that the often-mentioned blessed Kings be given to him. He took away thence also two most precious Martyrs, Felix and Naborius, who had suffered for Christ in the same city of Milan. He proceeds to describe the triumph of the people of Cologne in the reception of so great a treasure; then the feast of the translation instituted by the same Reynold in the diocese of Cologne; likewise a chest of wonderful beauty fashioned from gold and precious gems, in which their bodies were placed, the Kings indeed below, the aforesaid Martyrs above. Finally he testifies that these sacred bodies, when raised, gave forth a wonderful fragrance, so that they could deservedly say that Apostolic saying, We are the good odor of Christ in every place.

[37] Contemporary with Ægidius was another monk at St. Pantaleon's in the city of Cologne itself, by name Godfrey, called in his monastery the Pantaleonite, who wove most diligent annals from the year of the Lord 1162 up to the year 1237, The Pantaleonite Monk, which in the collection of Freher thus have it, page 242, at the year 1164: Meanwhile the Lord Reinold Bishop-elect of Cologne, staying with the Emperor in Italy, faithful and devoted above all the Princes who were present served him,… leave having been obtained from the Emperor, he returned with the entireness of his grace, having received from him most precious gifts, namely the bodies of the three Magi, who venerated the infancy of the Lord with mystic gifts, and the two martyrs Felix and Nabor, who with the aforesaid Magi had been venerably laid up at Milan. And so with the aforesaid and most illustrious gifts, having entered Cologne on the vigil of Bl. James, he is received gloriously and magnificently, especially for the relics, which to the perpetual glory of Germany he brought into Cologne. These things, with the letter of Reynold himself just related, wonderfully agree: for if on the second Ides, or the XII of June, he set out from Vercelli toward Mount Cenis, by a direct route through Burgundy, he could easily have arrived at his see of Cologne on the XXIV of July, on the vigil of St. James; which not in vain did Godfrey so expressly note, so much the more worthy of faith, because he wrote at Cologne, the memory of the deeds being still recent.

[38] and very many others. I forbear to relate the texts of several other writers, since six hundred other authors, following these former ones, can add nothing much of authority: nor indeed are the Milanese moved by so numerous witnesses, judging themselves sufficiently safe almost by the single finding of St. Charles Borromeo. Saxi willingly admits and cites Gothard Hagen in the German Rhythm on the wars of Cologne for the year 1260. It would be easy to collect a cloud of other more recent witnesses after the Chronicle of Cologne, the Deeds of the abbots of St. Lawrence, the great Belgian Chronicle, and the manuscript books on the Bishops of Liège in Crombach, in the volume and book cited above, chapter 46; but neither would these confer anything of moment, as about to prove no more than the sources whence they drew their own. Concerning the lessons of the Breviary of Cologne, enough has already been abundantly said above. To contract the whole matter into few words; from those things which have been deduced in these two paragraphs, the people of Cologne judge that they most rightly conclude, that the sacred remains of the holy Nabor and Felix, received from Milan with the bodies of the holy Magi through their Archbishop Reynold, have been deposited with them since the 12th century, always held in the highest honor, most religiously venerated with the singular veneration of all, and surviving there to this very day, as being those which it is established have not been removed from their place.

§ VI. Authorities for the possession of the Milanese.

The arguments of the Milanese Joseph Anthony Saxi, praised more than once, where in his Apologetic Dissertation, number 38, he has related some authors cited above: who not only made sad mention of the remains of the holy Kings carried away from the city of Milan, but added a new loss, affirming that together with those there were also translated from Milan to Cologne the bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix: that this was falsely asserted, he says, is strongly proved by Puricelli from the translation of the same, solemnly performed at Milan by Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of most holy memory: and he cites this writer's Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica, number 461, whence we shall presently give the things which are adduced for the constant and uninterrupted possession of the Milanese, of whose validity the judgment shall be the readers'. On this the whole matter is chiefly founded, as we lately said, which was first handed down by Charles of St. Peter's basilica, Bishop of Novara, also cited above, in the brief history of the church of Milan, edited at Novara in 1615, treating cursorily of the same matter in the life of St. Charles Borromeo himself, book 3, chapter 6, page 182. That we may come to the source, an epitome of the martyrdom of the holy Nabor and Felix having been premised in the said history, at the title of St. Maternus, the seventh Bishop of Milan, that writer thus proceeds, page 48:

[40] Then their holy bodies are reported to have been carried a little after to Milan by the pious and holy matron Savina: they rely chiefly on the authority that certainly in the time of St. Ambrose they were venerated within certain rails with the highest celebration, Ambrose himself in his epistles, and Paulinus in his life, commemorate; in the basilica which is now Franciscan, but formerly was called by the name of these Martyrs, in which even today they are kept. But it must not be passed over in silence, that they were taken away from us, as was said of Gervasius and Protasius, as our Corio testifies: in which matter, as in some others, it is necessary to confess that he wrote not considerately enough. In the additions also to the Martyrology of Usuard there is mention of their translation, made together with the Magi: but in him they are said to be placed at Breisach, but in these at Cologne: so that even from this variety it may appear what faith is to be had in them, besides that concerning these too I have inquired, since I commemorated above that I inquired concerning St. Gervasius and Protasius at Breisach. But neither does Crantz, when he speaks of the Magi taken away, name these, nor does anyone say that their feast is celebrated in Germany.

[41] Some things here displease, and especially this, that he accuses Corio of inconsiderateness, of the Bishop of Novara, asserting, as though he alone of the natives wrote what for so many centuries was admitted even at Milan, as we said §4. But this displeases especially, that he falsely charges the same Corio, as if he had said that the bodies of SS. Nabor and Felix were deposited at Breisach; which I did not find in him, as is made manifest in the cited place. The silence of Crantz proves nothing at all; he could have added that Dodechinus, Neubrigensis, Siffridus, and others made mention of the bodies of the holy Kings translated, the other relics being omitted, which nevertheless that they were taken away at the same time, is sufficiently proved by the opinion expressed in the plain words of the writers cited by us. The learned know when, in what place, and how far the force of a negative argument extends. But what he lastly says, that no one says that the feast of these (SS. Nabor and Felix) is celebrated in Germany; it is certainly a wonder that this could be asserted by such a man, since the solemn cult accustomed to be paid to these Saints, as well as to the three Magi, at least at Cologne, was for many centuries before most widely known, most clearly related in the very ancient Breviaries themselves. The whole authority of this man would certainly have to fall, if the things which follow in him did not subsist on firmer grounds, in these words:

[42] But, which is the chief thing, when Charles the Archbishop, in the year 1571, on the XIV of September, was re-enclosing the relics of that basilica (namely the Franciscan, the bodies found by St. Charles in 1571; formerly of SS. Nabor and Felix), he recognized also the bodies of these Martyrs, and translated them from the place where the greater altar was before, before those friars drew the choir back from the bosom of the basilica into the hinder part to the new greater altar which was then constituted. But he found them in a chest of flint dug down into the earth, the covering being bound to the chest with iron plates, and in it, besides the bodies, he found certain glass vessels, which seemed to have contained a certain liquor, then dried up. There were found also staves and fragments of green paper exhibiting the appearance of palm leaves. That by certain staves and paper they wished to represent those ancient palms of the Martyrs, there is no doubt. Thus far the praised Bishop of Novara, adding other things which do not pertain here, yet rightly observing above, that that finding and translation, made by St. Charles Borromeo, is the Chief thing, on which almost alone can at last rely the possession, of which we here speak, of the bodies of SS. Nabor and Felix among the Milanese, which he would have established a little more firmly, if he had commemorated the names of the Saints inscribed somewhere, and those found by St. Charles; for the rest, the whole relation of the deeds was long ago published by us on the XI of June, concerning the relics of St. Barnabas, pages 454 and 455. Whether anything is wanting for evidence, let others observe.

[43] to which Puricelli added other things, But indeed, we have wished it to be only ours, faithfully to relate the arguments of both parties. Those things therefore being cited, which here we have related from the source itself, Puricelli thus subjoins in the already-mentioned number 461, page 817: And these things indeed, he says, Charles of St. Peter's basilica relates as done in his time, and consonant to the public documents, which the most prudent Archbishop then commanded to be made: of which mention is made also by Gaspar Trissino, chapter eleven. Which Trissino indeed most truly in the same place to such words of Charles, recited by himself likewise from the life of St. Maternus, subjoins these: But the heads of the Martyrs, placed apart, the holy bishop Charles was unwilling to have brought into the new tomb which he had prepared under the greatest altar, but enclosed in silver shrines (that is, two silver heads, breathing indeed much of antiquity) to be kept in the reliquary; and these we see publicly exposed in the temple only on fixed days. Furthermore Puricelli refutes Trissino, because he badly cited Genebrard for Sigebert, who did not say that SS. Nabor and Felix were translated into Gaul, but another St. Nabor, as we also noted above in its place. Then Ferrarius is beaten, having fallen into nearly the same error, concerning which more is not here to be said.

[44] impugning the translation itself And thus far concerning the finding and translation of the year 1571. Puricelli brings forward another argument, here to be subjoined by us. But indeed, he says, that those (the bodies of the holy Nabor and Felix) were not translated to Cologne even in the year 1164 of the twelfth century; let us prove this again by certain verses, which in the same Franciscan basilica a marble tablet offers us, set in the wall under the organ: on which indeed they were engraved by the command of friar Gabriel de Barlessina, from another far older one, which had once been placed on the cloister doors of the same basilica; and not much after the Franciscan friars had begun to dwell here. For with bare feet even then, according to the rigor of the primitive discipline, they walked, and were therefore then called BAREFOOT, who are now called conventuals. But here they began to dwell in the year of the Lord 1233, as also Tristano Calco affirms at that year. But by verses of this kind we shall also at the same time show, how on each Monday the frequent people would come here to the sermon, after they had poured out pious prayers in the Ambrosian church, as we mentioned at number 450. That tablet, furthermore, has it altogether in this manner, except that we have kept the rules of orthography a little more accurately.

Verses, written in most ancient characters, before the cloister doors of the church of the Minorite Friars of Milan.

[45] The kindly hall shines, renewed by pious worshipers: from verses not so ancient Which in a short time the Minorite Friars established. This place was once a garden and the house of Philip, laying up the bodies of the martyrs who suffered for Christ: A garden fruitful, whence by the said house the whole world generally is filled with immense fruits. Ancient writings report Barnabas translated hither, fame relates, his burnt ashes and leaden tomb. Here Nabor, here Felix, here Fortunatus is held, and with Maternus Caius, and the said Philip, and also the venerable body of holy Savina. To Paul, seeking heaven hence with his mind for Ambrose, he reveals Protasius with Gervasius by disclosing them. This whole place, consecrated with the blood of the Saints, is made most powerful to blot out the sins of the people: And the sacristy of this church holds one of the holy boys, whom the dire ambition of Herod slew for Christ, wherein this whole fatherland rejoices. How well the barefoot ones keep these most holy places, worthy to behold hierarchical things with Moses and Joshua. By a perpetual rite, on the returning Monday, the people, first seeking the merit and temple of Ambrose, come hither: and, filled with the words of the Lord, departing, joyful praise God, endowed with such patrons. Friar Gabriel de Barlassina, Provincial Minister of the Holy Land, caused it to be made. In the year one thousand four hundred and sixty-four.

[46] In these consists the whole second argument of Puricelli for the possession of the Milanese, and by a certain Ambrosian Calendar. namely, that at the time when those verses were composed, that is in the year 1464, there persevered there among the Minorites a tradition of the existence of the bodies of SS. Nabor and Felix, in that place where they had first been laid. He adds lastly, that there exists with him an Ambrosian Calendar on parchment, Ms., of the year of the Lord 1381; in which everywhere are named the churches in which the feasts of the Saints were celebrated, or even their bodies buried rested. But in it, under the XII of July, thus is read: Of SS. the martyrs Nabor and Felix. They lie at St. Francis. And with these things we have discharged the faith given, of proposing faithfully on both sides the authorities by which both the people of Cologne and the Milanese contend for the sacred bodies deposited with them; by which the better right, we do not decide: let them possess as they possess; let them continue to venerate the Saints, as they have venerated; which, of the holy Gervasius and Protasius, in a like controversy, we said in volume VI of June, page 215, numbers 136 and 137, here may plainly have its place; that neither is the presence of the Saints proved by miracles, nor are the pious contentions among Catholics about these matters useless, as there you will find more fully demonstrated, and here to what has been disputed will easily apply.

* Or "of the said"?

§ VII. The Acts of the passion in Mombritius and in our Mss. not altogether conformable, nor sufficiently sincere.

The Acts of the martyrdom in Mombritius The Acts of the present holy Martyrs Mombritius first published, which same Baronius testifies he had in Mss., and which are a little longer, and here and there more verbose, than I have found them in our Ms. sheets, procured formerly by our Fr. John Gamans, so often praised in this work for his excellently rendered service; copied from a very ancient Passional of the monastery of Böddeken of the Order of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Paderborn, elsewhere also often cited. Two apographs of them exist here in Ms., differing in so few things, that I do not at all doubt they were received from the same codex. Whether furthermore these are truly more ancient, which were afterward embellished by some interpolator, as Mombritius has them, or whether rather someone contracted the Mombritian ones, is not so easy to define: although for the shorter ones stands a presumption, the more founded, because those things which in that longer passion deserve to be carped at, concerning the word "Jovis" used for "Jupiter," this has no place in the Böddeken Ms.; since he is expressly called Jupiter by Anulinus the governor, who contemptuously by the smiling St. Felix the martyr is called "Jove," so that, if the rest were absent, these shorter Acts would not so far deviate from genuine sincerity.

[48] they are sprinkled with several blemishes: There is besides objected the word "pagans," where the holy Martyrs in the Mombritian Acts, number 4, expressly say, We do not sacrifice to the gods of the pagans; as is also read in the Acts of St. Victor on the 8th of May, page 289, number 3. To which words Henschenius rightly observed, in the preliminary Commentary, number 10, page 288, that a similar manner of speaking was not usual in the time of Maximian; inasmuch as Jacob Gothofredus, on book 16 of the Theodosian codex, title 10 On the pagans etc., refers the most ancient mention of such a name, which he could hitherto find, to the beginnings of Valentinian and Valens, or the year of Christ 365: not doubting at all that that phrase had its origin from the Christians, who began so contemptuously to call the Idolaters, after their superstition, proscribed by the Christian Emperors, went out from the cities to the villages (pagi): which the reader will be able to see erudite discussed by him. To me many words do not seem necessary to prove that which the very name as it were speaks of itself; and by other examples in the same place, against the Acts of St. Victor, Henschenius shows it. But this difficulty too vanishes in the Böddeken Acts, since the gods of the pagans are there nowhere named; so that consequently a somewhat greater sincerity of these can be affirmed, if indeed they were so first written.

[49] But Tillemont brands other blemishes, in the volume 5 cited above, page 681. nor are the Böddeken ones void of like things: And first indeed, he judges it not probable enough, what is had also in the Böddeken ones, number 7, where after St. Felix had reproached Anulinus with the crimes of Jove, his minister is said to have torn his tunic. Another thing pleases neither him nor me; namely that long oration by which the same Saint narrates the whole life of Christ, not accurately enough according to the sense of the Gospel, before the judge, which that Anulinus bore patiently, is rendered not probable enough, although the discourse of the holy Martyr is much shorter in the Böddeken codex than in the edition of Mombritius. Nor does the praised writer easily allow this; that the other things which pertain to the passion are described fully enough, but the greatest prodigy which ought to have happened in it is so cursorily touched, as if it were a daily matter and by no means unusual. And immediately the holy Martyrs cast into the fire remained unharmed, and having no sign of burning, were again sent into prison. Tillemont namely would wish these things, for the sake of producing faith, expressed a little more distinctly and vigorously, according to the norm of the older Acts, in which wonders of that kind are not so drily and perfunctorily commemorated.

[50] He judges therefore, nor do I much dissent from him, that that whole history of the martyrdom, so that these too were written later, sprinkled with the barbarism of later times, was composed not a few centuries after the passion of the Saints, that it might be read beforehand at their festivity, or recited for the sermon, when it was solemnly frequented with a more celebrated veneration by the faithful people: which not of this Legend alone, but of almost innumerable passions of the holy Martyrs must be admitted, no one is ignorant who is not a stranger in dealing with these, so that I judge it altogether superfluous to demonstrate this in this place by more arguments: from the last number it is not obscurely understood, that there was some herald, who somewhere discoursed on the praises of our holy Martyrs. For the rest, one ought to recognize in them some gravity and a simplicity void of paint, which nevertheless do not approach the elegance, candor, and energy of the consular Acts. But that history of the passion, which we shall give in the first place from the praised Böddeken codex, seems to surpass the other longer one, as already said, on this title, that it is obnoxious to fewer blemishes.

[51] There remains a question not easily soluble, whether from the Acts of St. Victor related on the VIII of May the passion of these SS. Nabor and Felix was received, received perhaps from the Legend of St. Victor; or on the contrary; or rather on the contrary, from this Legend the Victorian one was composed. That one or the other happened is sufficiently plain; for if they be accurately collated, it will manifestly appear that not only the exordium was mutually borrowed, but that in many other things so great a conformity occurs, that there is no doubt but that the one in great part shone before the other. From a few specimens gather the rest. Thus begin the Acts of St. Victor: The impious Maximian reigning as Emperor, in the city of Milan there was a great persecution of the Christians. But there was there a certain soldier, a Moor by race, by name Victor, most well known to the Emperor. Then the ministers announced to the Emperor, saying: Most clement Lord. And so on through the whole number 1. But in the following: Then Maximian the Emperor, filled with wrath, ordered clubs to be brought, and him to be stretched out and beaten in his sight, and three sets of three to pass by and to cry to him: Sacrifice to the gods etc. Number 3; Then Maximian the Emperor, angered, ordered him to be sent again into prison at the gate which is called Roman; and there to be guarded by soldiers. And when he had been there three days, he ordered him to be led out of prison, and the Emperor said to him: Victor, sacrifice to those gods, whom the true divinity has proved to be gods. St. Victor answered: I do not sacrifice to the gods of the pagans. Lest I stick here longer, both these and the rest can be collated by the curious.

[52] the antiquity of this one was long ago overthrown. The antiquity of the aforesaid Legend of St. Victor, falsely believed on the authority of a writer lying that he was an eyewitness, Henschenius long ago overthrew, in the place cited above, so that from such a mark of antiquity nothing of moment accrues to them. Furthermore, that the holy Nabor and Felix were crowned with martyrdom before Victor, the Acts of the latter prove, if they contain anything of truth. What wonder therefore if their deeds were first consigned to writing in an epitome, from which some Legendist composed the history of St. Victor, referring to one alone the things which there are disputed by two against the same Emperor and the same judge, other things being added, which from the long tradition of the Milanese he had received as proper to St. Victor, or feigned that he had received. Which you prefer, matters not much: that Notker saw some Legend of St. Victor, he himself sufficiently indicates, but that he was ignorant of the deeds of the holy Nabor and Felix, we judge manifest from the confusion discussed above. The Acts of St. Victor Henschenius judged neither ancient nor sincere, nor would I dare to assert that others are endowed with those marks, especially as they are edited by Mombritius: the things which we shall give in the first place from the praised Böddeken codex will seem more tolerable, when we shall have said a few things concerning the time of the martyrdom.

[53] At what time the holy Martyrs suffered, The Acts of the passion of St. Victor suffer a difficulty from the clause or prophecy inserted by the author, concerning the death of Maximian to follow in the same year. The words are at number 5 toward the end: And when St. Victor was being led, he said to the soldiers who were leading him: Tell the Emperor Maximian, that this year he shall die, and when he is dead, no burial shall receive him, unless his shins be broken: which Henschenius shows to be false, and from other circumstances argues the writer, because in that very year 310, in which the tyrant perished ill, he was by no means in that place, so as to have much desire to think of persecuting the Christians; so that consequently he judges the martyrdom of St. Victor is to be connected not with the year 310, but rather 303. Which if it were true, to the preceding year would have to be referred the things which are commemorated of our Martyrs. But for that Henschenius does not so greatly contend; ready to concede that they be removed to the other year, and that it can even be said, that SS. Nabor and Felix, if they truly suffered on the XII of July, and St. Victor on the VIII of May; in the year 303 having obtained the crown, this one in the following 304 consummated his passion. If perhaps you should contend that the martyrdoms of laymen were rarer in that year 303; I shall answer, that our Saints could have suffered toward the beginning of the year 304, or at least a little before St. Victor, but that on this day some translation is honored, which I shall easily admit, provided they be not said to have been carried from Africa. Behold now the Acts themselves, such as we have already sufficiently described, from the Böddeken Codex and Mombritius: for the other more contracted ones, which exist in our Ms. codex marked with the letter P 19, and in which is commemorated the translation of the sacred bodies made to Cologne, are not of such moment as to deserve to occupy a place here.

[54] and what we would wish to be absent from the Böddeken passion. I would have the readers forewarned of this, that to me more the aforesaid Böddeken Acts would have pleased, if at number 8 they ended at these words: "and there with worthy veneration buried them"; the whole clause being omitted; "These are the soldiers of Christ etc.," by which it seems to be indicated that that whole passion was compiled to celebrate the solemnity of the Saints, as was insinuated above in a word: unless perhaps that epilogue alone should be judged more recent, sewn on by some preacher, who otherwise recited the Acts as he had found them in more ancient monuments. Nor indeed would anyone sufficiently understand what the last words nearly mean; But the holy Martyrs of Christ suffered on the IV Ides of July under Maximian the Emperor; but the commemoration of their celebration is held on the second Ides of June in the city of Milan. I am greatly deceived, if these were written by a Milanese, since there they are not known to be venerated on any day other than the 12th of this month. Perhaps he found some confused Martyrology, such as were related on the XII of June, on the occasion of another St. Nabor, whence he took occasion for erring. In the Mombritian Acts there is also its own conclusion, not a little different from this, but there concerning the cult for the XII of June is deep silence. But now receive the Acts themselves.

PASSION

From the Ms. codex of the monastery of Böddeken, Collated with another apograph, in a few things mutilated.

Nabor, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

Felix, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

BHL Number: 6028

FROM THE MSS.

The impious Maximian reigning as Emperor, when in the city of Milan there was a great persecution of the Christians, Accused before Maximian, there were there certain soldiers Nabor and Felix, most well known to the Emperor. Then the ministers announced to the Emperor, saying: Most clement Lord Emperor, behold Nabor and Felix have been made Christians, they blaspheme our Gods, saying that they are demons. Which having been heard, the Emperor commanded them to be presented to him, and addressing them one by one, said to Nabor: Nabor, our soldier, what was lacking to you, that you should make yourself a Christian? Nabor answered: I was not lately made a Christian, but almost from the beginning of my age. The Emperor said: Therefore you are manifestly a Christian? Nabor answered: I manifestly adore Christ the Son of God, and believe that he was born of the Virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit. The Emperor therefore, filled with wrath, commanded him to be sent to prison, and Felix having been summoned, said to him: What seems to you: Do you too desire to perish with Nabor your companion? Sacrifice to the gods and be our friend. But if you do not sacrifice, I will slay you with various punishments. Felix answered: I fear not your torments, but believing the Lord Jesus Christ to be the true Son of God, I offer myself a sacrifice to him.

[2] Then the Emperor commanded him to be sent to his companion Nabor in prison, they spurn threats and blandishments; saying: Go, deliberate among yourselves, how you may escape the torments which strongly are ready to tear you apart. When therefore they had remained twelve days in prison, so that neither bread was given to them nor water, on the thirteenth day the Emperor commanded a tribunal to be prepared for him in the Hippodrome of the circus, and the holy ones of God Nabor and Felix having been brought, said to them: What have you deliberated concerning your salvation, my friends? Nabor answered: He who does not fear to have his God an enemy, that man will be able to have you, Emperor, a friend; whose friendships, by how much they are more bitter to me, by so much the enmities are sweeter. The Emperor said: You Felix ^b, what do you say? Felix answered: What Nabor said I too say, for one life and faith are ours. The Emperor said: Therefore this pleases you, that despising my commands, you die? Nabor answered: The death which you threaten to bring upon us is our life, and therefore we do not fear your wrath, through which an everlasting crown is prepared for us.

[3] as also the torments Hearing these things, the Emperor commanded Anulinus his consular ^c, that on the following day he should vex them with various punishments in his secretary's chamber, if they refused to sacrifice; but if they consented, that he should exalt them with great gifts and honors. Obeying whose commands, Anulinus, when he had shown both blandishments and various torments to the soldiers of Christ many times, and could not recall them from their intention, reported this to the Emperor; who commanded them to be sent again to prison, beside the gate which is called Roman, and more closely guarded by soldiers. But after five days, having again led them out of the custody of the prison, the Emperor addresses them in these words: Sacrifice to our Gods, whom the true divinity has shown manifest. To these things the holy Martyrs with one voice said: We will never sacrifice to demons, nor before a corruptible man will we begin to lose that which in the sanctification of baptism we received; Whence what you are about to do, do quickly, for he who fights for us will repay a worthy reward for our labors.

[4] by which they are tortured by Anulinus. The Emperor therefore and Anulinus his consular commanded them to be stretched out, and five sets of three ^d with clubs to pass over them and to say: sacrifice to the gods whom the Emperor adores: but when not even in this way could the minds of the soldiers of Christ be bent, Anulinus commanded Nabor to be suspended on the rack and scraped with claws ^e. But Nabor said to the Emperor: Did I not tell you, that your enmities exalt me, and make me acquire ampler grace in the sight of my King? Only devise you the torments; you can tear the flesh, but the soul struggling for the truth you avail not to conquer. To these things Anulinus: Since, he says, I see this one rather to choose the torments than to fear them, remove him, and bring in his colleague.

[5] The oration of St. Felix To whom, immediately brought in, Anulinus said: Tell me, Felix, what is the cause of the hardness of your brother, that, handled with such scourges ^f, he in no way wishes to consent to the commands of our Emperor? Felix answered: Because these torments have an end, but those which are prepared for those who sacrifice to idols have no end at all. Anulinus said: whence know you this? Felix answered: The true Master taught me. And he, In what order, he says, did he teach you? Felix said: Christ the Son of God, that he might help men, took on a man, whom the Blessed Virgin conceiving, remained a virgin in the birth, and after the birth. Him placed in the cradle, the angels descending from heaven showed to the shepherds of sheep, who immediately adoring him, indicated simply to their acquaintances what they had seen and heard done about them. Then the Magi, summoned by the sign of a brighter star, came from the east, and offering him in their vessels gold, frankincense, and myrrh, suppliantly adored him: which when King Herod heard, he commanded all the two-year-old ^g infants who were in Bethlehem and in all its borders to be slain; because he feared him as the successor of his kingdom, whose kingdom and power has no end.

[6] After these things, when through the increases of times our Lord and Master had grown, concerning the life and miracles of Christ. he began to preach to the people of the Jews that the souls going out of bodies, if they had been Idolaters [h], or polluted with human blood, are given over to eternal fires, but if they had been clean, enjoy eternal delights. To him preaching such things the Jews said: Whence can you prove these things? And he: Bring, he says, to me your blind ones; Who as soon as they were brought, he enlightened them; likewise to the deaf he restored hearing, to the lame gait, to paralytics health; he commanded the winds, walked upon the sea with dry feet, and, which is greater than all these, raised the dead. But although by these and other unheard-of wonders he showed the power of his divinity, yet impious Judea not only was unwilling to believe in him, but also, crucifying him, condemned him to death. But he on the third day rose again, and preaching for forty days to his Disciples the same things as before his passion, while they beheld, ascended into heaven, whence he will come at the end of the world, to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. This is our faith, which is neither conquered by torments, nor burnt by flames, nor overcome by the sword of the raging enemy.

[7] Anulinus therefore, patiently hearing all these things, Unharmed amid the flames, said: As I see, my God Jupiter is the true God: for your God, by your own testimony, was crucified; but Jupiter never laid down his omnipotence, but rather amplified it in his dominions. To these things Felix, smiling, said: Your God Jove ⁱ lived after a barbaric manner, was an adulterer and parricide, and moreover violated his own sister: if you shall believe this one to be God, you shall be burnt with perpetual fires. Then the minister of Anulinus, tearing his tunic, cried out and said: Deservedly will our gods be angry with us, if these are not burnt up with fires; and immediately the holy Martyrs cast into the fire remained unharmed, and having no sign of burning, were again sent into prison.

[8] But after some little ^k time, proceeding into the city of Lodi, at last they are beheaded. he commanded the soldiers of Christ, bound with chains as an example to the Christians, to be led with him, where when they had remained three days, on the third day he commanded a seat to be prepared for him outside the city, and the Martyrs of Christ having been brought, said to them: At least now leave your magic art, and lest you be an example to all, bring libations to our gods. The holy Martyrs answered: We know not the magic art, but Jesus Christ the Son of the living God we adore and venerate, and your threats we fear not at all. Then the Emperor, vehemently angered, commanded them to be beaten with clubs, and thus finally in the same place to be beheaded. And when they had been beheaded, beside the gate of the city, and lay near the river which is called Exelera ^l, a certain religious woman, a matron of the same city, having secretly taken them up and placed them on a vehicle, led them to Milan, and there with worthy veneration buried them.

[9] Epilogue. These are ^m the soldiers of Christ who, fortified with invincible arms, clothed with the breastplate of faith and the helmet of salvation, were surrounded with heavenly protection, nor could be stormed by any threats of persecutors. Let us therefore celebrate their day, whose merit shone through the world like the splendor of the firmament; and the odor of sweetness emanated into the whole world through the tokens of miracles. But the holy Martyrs of Christ suffered on the IV Ides of July under Maximian the Emperor, but the commemoration of their celebration is held on the second Ides of June in the city of Milan, to the glory and praise of our Lord Jesus Christ, reigning world without end. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

h. He means idolaters.

ACTS

A little fuller.

From the edition of Mombritius.

Nabor, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

Felix, Martyr, at Milan and Cologne (S.)

BHL Number: 6029

FROM THE MSS.

The Saints brought to him The impious Maximian reigning as Emperor in the city of Milan, there was a persecution of the Christians. But there were there certain soldiers Nabor and Felix, most well known to the Emperor. Then the ministers announced to the Emperor, saying: Most clement Lord Emperor, Nabor and Felix have been made Christians, and blaspheme our Gods: and say that they are demons. Then the Emperor, indignant, commanded them to be seized, and led to him. To whom he said one by one: Nabor, our soldier, what did you judge to be lacking to you, that you should make yourself a Christian? Nabor answered: I was not lately made a Christian: but almost from the beginning of my age. Maximian the Emperor said: Therefore, as you assert, you have been made a Christian? Nabor answered: I am manifestly a Christian, and Christ the Son of the living God, born of the Virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit, I adore and believe, and with my mouth cease not to praise. Then Maximian the Emperor, filled with wrath, commanded him to be sent to prison, and Felix having been summoned, said to him: What seems to you? Do you too, foolish one, desire to perish with Nabor your companion? Sacrifice to the gods, and be our friend. For if you too do not sacrifice, various torments await you.

[2] Felix answered: Your torments in no way terrify me, with threats and promises for know that I in no way deny the Son of the true God the Lord Jesus Christ; but especially offer him a sacrifice to the true God. Maximian the Emperor, angered, commanded him to be sent into the same prison where he had sent blessed Nabor, saying: Certainly I will make you breathe out your spirit with various torments. He was led into the same prison beside the circus, for those going to the Ticinese gate: and he commanded them to be diligently guarded, saying: Go and deliberate among yourselves, how you may escape the horrid torments, which will strongly tear you, if you refuse to sacrifice. Sent therefore into prison, they spent twelve days; and he commanded that neither bread nor water be given to them. But on the thirteenth day Maximian the Emperor commanded a tribunal to be prepared for him on high in the hippodrome of the circus, and commanded the holy Nabor and Felix to be brought, and said to them: What have you deliberated, my friends, concerning your salvation? St. Nabor said: He ought to become your friend who does not fear to have his Lord an enemy; for by how much your friendships are bitter to me, by so much your enmities are sweeter to me.

[3] Maximian said: You Felix, what do you say? Felix said: Maximian tries in vain: what Nabor said, I too say, for one life and faith is ours. Maximian said: Therefore this pleases you, that despising my commands you die by death? To whom Nabor: The death which you threaten to bring upon us is our life; and therefore we fear not your wrath, because from it is our perpetual life and crown and eternal palm. Then Maximian, angered, said to Anolinus his counselor: Tomorrow morning in your secretary's chamber; let them be vexed with various punishments, if they scorn to sacrifice; but if they consent, both join them to your love, and present them to my friendships. Anolinus therefore the counselor said: Why do you not sacrifice to the gods whom the Emperor adores, and to whom he bends his neck? But the holy Martyrs answered: We do not receive the rewards promised by you, nor fear your punishments, but from our Lord daily we receive fortitude.

[4] Then Anolinus announced to Maximian the Emperor; and the Emperor commanded them to be sent to prison at the gate which is called Roman, nor do the torments avail more, and there to be guarded by soldiers. And when they had been there shut up for five days, he commanded them on the fifth day to be led out of prison, and the Emperor said to them: Sacrifice to those gods, whom the true divinity has shown. The holy Martyrs said: We do not sacrifice to the gods of the Pagans ^a, and it is base for us, that what in the sanctification of baptism we received, we should humble to a corruptible man placed in every necessity: we do not do it; do what you are about to do, for stronger than you is he who fights for us. Then Maximian the Emperor and Anolinus his counselor commanded clubs to be brought, and them to be stretched out, and five sets of three to pass by, and to cry to them; Sacrifice to the gods whom the Emperor and all adore. Nabor said: Our Lord the eternal and true King said: Everyone who sacrifices to idols shall be rooted out.

[5] inflicted by Anulinus on each separately. Anolinus said: Let him be hung on the rack. And when blessed Nabor had been hung, and was being burnt with lamps, and scraped with claws, he said: Did I not tell you, that your enmities exalt me, and make me acquire ampler glory in the sight of my King? Meanwhile devise you harsher torments; for you can tear the flesh, but the soul you cannot conquer, striving in faith and truth. Anolinus the counselor said: Since I see him with a rebellious mind rather mock the blows and torments than fear them, remove him, and bring in his colleague. Felix therefore was brought in, and Anolinus said: Tell me, Felix, what is the cause of the hardness of your brother, that, dried out with such blows and the rack, and burnt with flames, and dug out with claws, he in no way wished to consent, to fulfill the commands of the most sacred Emperor? Felix said: Because these torments have an end, but those torments which are prepared for those who sacrifice to idols have no end at all.

[6] Anolinus said: Whence know you these things? Felix said: By St. Felix, the life of Christ, Christ the Son of God, that he might help men, took on a man, whom the Virgin conceived, a virgin brought forth, and remained a virgin after the birth. Him, first of all born and placed in the cradle, the angels descending from heaven, praising and adoring, showed to the shepherds of sheep. Likewise the shepherds of sheep, adoring him, indicated simply to their acquaintances what they had seen and heard done about them. Likewise the Magi, summoned by the sign of a great star, coming from the East, offering gold, frankincense, and myrrh in their vessels, adored him. These things ^c when King Herod sought among the infants and did not find, he caused all the two-year-old infants who were in the city of Bethlehem to be slain. Him his Father, who reigns in the heavens, opening the heavens, manifested, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He, overcoming all the temptations of the devil, ascended a mountain, and calling to him his disciples, began to show them the eternal beatitudes, and by what works they can be acquired.

[7] the miracles, the passion, But after these things he began to say to the people of the Jews, that the souls going out of bodies, if they were idolaters, or polluted with human blood, are given over to eternal fires: but those which had been clean of these crimes or of other iniquitous works, free from punishments, shall enjoy eternal delights. Then the Jews said: Whence can you prove these things? The Lord says to them: Bring to me the blind; who when they had been brought to him, he enlightened them. Likewise also to the deaf he restored hearing, to the lame gait, to paralytics he restored health, healed all infirmities; cast out demons from men, restrained tempests by his command, commanded the winds, walked upon the waves of the sea with dry feet. He so raised the dead, that he recalled even a four-days-dead stinking man in the sepulcher to life.

[8] the resurrection and ascension into heaven are explained. When he did these things, and delivered this power also to his disciples, he said to the Jews; If you believe not the words, at least believe the works. But they not only did not believe, but even crucified him, and for forty days meeting with his disciples, he took food before them: he commanded also that he be handled; and repeated all the things which he had spoken to them before the passion. But after forty days, while his eleven disciples beheld, he ascended the heavens. To whom, looking at the heaven, angels appeared, saying: Why do you stand gazing into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you, as you see him going to the heavens, so shall he come. This is our faith, which is in Christ, is not conquered by torments, is not burnt by flames, is not overcome by the sword.

[9] Then Anolinus the counselor said, As I see, my God Jove ^d, Unhurt amid the flames, is the true God. For your God, whom you yourself have named, was crucified; but Jove never laid down his omnipotence, but rather amplified it in his dominions. Then Felix, smiling, said: Your Jove lived after a barbaric manner: an adulterer of wives: a defiler of boys, and a parricide: moreover he also usurped his own sister as wife. If you shall believe this one to be God, with him you shall be burnt with perpetual fires. Then the minister of the counselor, tearing his tunic, cried out: The gods will be angry with us, if these are not burnt up with fires. Then Anolinus the counselor commanded them to be consumed with fires. Who when they had been cast into the fire, remained unharmed. Then again he commanded them to be sent to prison.

[10] Who when after some days he had proceeded into the city of Lodi, by beheading they complete their martyrdom. the Emperor commanded the Saints, bound with chains as an example to the Christians, to be led with him, and after the third day commanded a seat to be prepared for him outside the city. When they had been led to the middle, Maximian the Emperor said: Now lay aside your pride, and leave the magic art; for you shall be an example to all. The most blessed martyrs Nabor and Felix answered: We know not the magic art, but we have the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, in whom we believe, for your threats we fear not. Then Maximian, angered, commanded them to be beaten with clubs, and to undergo capital sentence; who were beheaded beside the gate of the city of Lodi, near the river by name Scilera. And they, although they gave themselves to the earth ^e, yet our earth merited to receive and lay up their relics in its bosom: and as of old the maternal womb brought them forth into this light, so also the belly of our earth will lead them, about to rise again, to the perpetual palm ^f. These a pious and religious woman, a certain one by name Savina, a matron of Lodi, having by theft taken up from the city, and placed on her own vehicle, led to Milan with full affection of religion, and gave to our city. She was worthy of the fellowship of that holy widow Anna, to whom she is compared in religion and equal likeness.

[11] The writer's epilogue. And ^g as the stars placed in heaven cannot lie hidden from human sight, so the merit of the Saints shone out through the world, and the odor of the Lord's sweetness through the passion of Christ was diffused into the whole world. These are the good soldiers of Christ, who are fortified with their proper arms, who are protected by the breastplate of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the heavenly and spiritual shield. Let us therefore celebrate their day, that we may follow the examples or imitation of them, as undefiled and immaculate lambs of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Martyrs Nabor and Felix suffered on the fourth of the Ides of July under Maximian the Emperor, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honor and glory world without end. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

The things which were observed on the former Acts ought to be referred here also.