Eugenius

ON ST. EUGENIUS, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE,

AT ALBI IN OCCITANIA.

Likewise concerning his companions, who suffered greatly in the Vandal persecution.

IN THE YEAR 505.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Eugenius, Bishop of Carthage, at Albi in Occitan Gaul (S.)

His Companions, who suffered at the hands of the Vandals.

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The cult and eulogies of St. Eugenius.

Albia or Albiga, commonly Alby, a cultivated city of Gaul, once in Aquitaine broadly so called, now in Occitania situated on the river Tarn, is the head of the whole Albigensian tract. This city, formerly episcopal under the archbishop of Bourges, St. Eugenius is venerated at Albi in Gaul. now raised by Innocent XI, on the 3rd of October, in the year 1678, to archiepiscopal dignity, glories that it possesses, besides other relics of Saints, the body of St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, which Louis d'Amboise, bishop of Albi, ordered to be transferred from the village of Viance, not far distant from the city, with other relics of the Saints, into the cathedral church dedicated to St. Cecilia. This translation, although made on the XXIX of September, is annually commemorated there on the II of October, as Ruinart testifies he learned from the Breviary of Albi, in the History of the Vandal Persecution, Part 2, chapter 8. But whether the men of Albi have solid grounds for asserting that this St. Eugenius, whom they venerate, was that very illustrious bishop of Carthage, will be discussed later. Meanwhile let us here establish the cult of him and his companions.

[2] The Martyrologists, both ancient and more recent, assign the XIII of July to his festivity, The Martyrologists commemorate him on the 13th of July. joining to him many confessors of the clergy of Carthage, who in the persecution of Huneric suffered very many things for the Catholic faith. The old or Little Roman Martyrology announces thus on this day: Of the holy Confessors Eugenius the bishop and the whole clergy of the church. But Florus, under the name of Bede, has thus: In Africa the birthday of the holy confessors Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, glorious in faith and virtues and miracles, and of the whole clergy of the same church. To these words of Florus, Ado adds the following: Who, worn down by slaughter and starvation, nearly five hundred or more (among whom were very many infant lectors), rejoicing in the Lord, were thrust far off into cruel exile. Among whom were the most noble, an archdeacon by name Salutaris, and Muritta, second in the office of the ministers, who, having endured very many punishments for the Catholic confession, were also, in the third rank, distinguished by the title of glorious perseverance in Christ, as confessors. Almost the same things, after his manner, Usuard copied word for word from Ado.

[3] The discrepancy of the Martyrologies is explained. The modern Roman Martyrology altogether agrees with Ado and Usuard, except that in it the lectors and infants are distinguished by the conjunction "and," omitted in Ado and Usuard. I confess that this distinction pleased Notker too, by whom the lectors and infants are said to have been driven into exile; but in the two cited Martyrologists and in Victor of Vita himself no mark of punctuation is discerned. But when you read "infants," understand boys wont to be employed for singing in the church, as is clear from Victor of Vita and Venantius Fortunatus, book 2, where among other things he has this verse: At the bishop's admonitions, the clergy, the people, and the infant sing psalms. Therefore the reading of Victor of Vita and of the others writing without punctuation

will receive a fitting enough explanation, if by "lectors" are understood cantors. Yet this is not to be taken so strictly, as if those little boys had been initiated into that ecclesiastical Order which among the minor Orders precedes the Acolythate: for the Lectorate in the African church was conferred only on men distinguished by learning and advanced in age, as Baronius learnedly proves in the notes on the Roman Martyrology from the epistles of Cyprian and the Fourth Council of Carthage. I omit the more recent Martyrologists, who on this day made mention of Eugenius and his companions. I cannot, however, forbear here to forearm the reader in a word against the error of Galesinius, who wrongly calls him Eusebius.

[4] The day of his cult is not the same among all. Although, as I said, in assigning the day of the festivity most agree, yet some dissent: for the men of Albi celebrate him on the sixth of September with a double Office; on which day they read thus in their Breviary: Eugenius … driven into Gaul, settled in the Albigensian district by the river Vère, beside the sepulchre of Amaranthus the martyr, where, having built a monastery, and having gone through so many labors and hardships, he died, and his sepulchre was glorious. To describe the rest here would be superfluous, since it is taken from Victor of Vita and Gregory of Tours, whose texts we shall give later. I do not doubt that they received this day of cult from the tradition of their elders, and by it think that their Saint died. And in that opinion they may be confirmed by an ancient manuscript codex of the Colbertine library, in which to the Passion of St. Eugenius described from Gregory of Tours is prefixed this title: Here begins the Life of St. Eugenius the bishop, who died in the village of Viance on the eighth day before the Ides of September. The African church keeps the feast of the same Saint on the V of January: for in the Carthaginian Calendar, which Mabillon, volume III of the Ancient Analecta, page 402, shows to have been composed not long after the death of St. Eugenius, are read the following: On the Nones of January, the deposition of the holy bishops Deogratias and Eugenius. Whatever be the case concerning this diverse day of cult, we, with most of the Martyrologists and with the Roman Martyrology, have undertaken to illustrate St. Eugenius on this XIII of July. Wherefore let it suffice to have already adduced the chief witnesses of his cult.

[5] But there will perhaps remain to someone a doubt, whether St. Eugenius is to be venerated as a confessor, In what sense he is called a martyr. or as a martyr; especially since in the Breviary of Albi and in a certain edition of Gregory of Tours he is adorned with the title of martyr. On this matter it is not worth the labor to dispute at length: for although by most only the title of confessor is granted him, yet anyone will confess that the desire and merit of martyrdom were not lacking to him; as one who, after various labors endured for the name of Christ, after enormous hardships, and after contempt of imminent death once and again, driven from his fatherland, at last ended his life in exile. Therefore when the men of Albi call him a martyr, they are to be understood in a somewhat broader signification; which they themselves also seem to insinuate, when they assign to him that Responsory which is wont to be recited for those who did not shed their blood. For the rest, I seem able, with the name changed, to say of him what Jerome has concerning St. John the Evangelist, book 3, Commentary on Matthew, chapter 20, and which we recite yearly on his feast before the Latin Gate. But if we read the ecclesiastical histories, in which it is related that he too, for the sake of martyrdom, was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, and thence, as Christ's athlete, went forth to receive the crown, and was straightway banished to the island of Patmos; we shall see that his soul did not lack martyrdom, and that John drank the cup of confession, which the three youths also drank in the furnace of fire, although the persecutor did not shed his blood.

[6] Besides the Martyrologists enumerated above, very many writers made mention of the illustrious deeds of St. Eugenius. Honorable testimonies concerning St. Eugenius. Victor of Tunnuna, or as others write, of Tunis, a bishop in Africa, who flourished in the middle of the sixth century, in his Chronicle thus speaks of him: Eugenius, bishop of the church of Carthage, after the dire exiles of the desert, is held illustrious by very many afflictions and punishments. Passing over other such writers, who treat of this Saint in passing, I bring forward only the honorable testimony by which Pope Gelasius I praises the constancy of St. Eugenius and his companions, in Epistle 13, to the bishops of Dardania: Behold, lately, Honoricus, king of the Vandal nation, a great man and an eminent priest, Eugenius bishop of Carthage, and many Catholic priests with him, constantly resisted the raging tyrant, and, enduring all extremities, even today do not fail to resist the persecutors. Now let us proceed to those authors who professedly, as they say, wrote the Acts of our Saint, whether briefer or more prolix.

§ II. The Acts, and their writers.

St. Gregory of Tours, in book 2 of the History of the Franks, testifies that he read the Passions of certain African martyrs and confessors, from which he excerpted some things to be inserted into his history. Who wrote his Acts. Would that he had left such precious monuments entire to posterity! Doubtless in them we should have found certain things setting forth more distinctly the birth, fatherland, age, and other deeds of St. Eugenius; of which fact this alone is even an indication, that by Gregory of Tours there was preserved for us the epistle of so great a prelate, which is wanting in the longer Acts of Victor of Vita. The compendium of those Passions handed down by Gregory in the History of the Franks I here insert; and I judge that it can be held as beyond doubt, both because he drew it from the Passions read by him, and because most of the same things were written by authors contemporary with St. Eugenius, as will appear from the Acts themselves, to be given after this Commentary.

[8] St. Gregory of Tours relates, Gregory therefore, in book 2 of the History of the Franks, having premised certain things concerning the incursion of the Vandals and their arrival in Africa, thus writes in chapter 3 and following: But since in their time persecution grew strong against the Christians, it seems fitting that I should record some of the things which they brought upon the churches of God, or how they were driven from the kingdom. Trasimund [*] therefore being dead, after the crimes which he practiced upon the Saints of God, Honoricus, crueler in mind, occupies the African kingdom, and by the election of the Vandals is set over them: under whose time how great multitudes of Christians were slain for the most sacred name of Christ himself, cannot be comprehended by men. Yet Africa is witness, which sent them forth, and the right hand of Christ, which crowned them with unfading gems. We have read, however, the Passions of certain of these martyrs, from which certain things must be repeated, that we may come to what we have promised.

[9] how St. Eugenius contended for the faith, Now Cirola, falsely called a bishop, was then held the greatest champion of the heretics. And when the king was sending through diverse places to persecute the Christians, the persecutor found the holy bishop Eugenius, a man of unspeakable sanctity, who was then reputed to be of great prudence, in the suburb of his city. Whom he so violently seized, that he did not permit him even to have opportunity to exhort the flock of Christ. But he, when he saw himself being led away, sent an epistle to his citizens in this manner, for keeping the Catholic faith. Here now follows the epistle of St. Eugenius to the people of Carthage, which in the following paragraph we shall exhibit entire. Then the same writer thus continues: The holy Eugenius therefore, being led to the king with that bishop of the Arians, contended for the Catholic faith. And when he had most powerfully vanquished him concerning the mystery of the holy Trinity, and moreover Christ showed many miracles through him, that same bishop is kindled into greater madness, envy inflaming him: for there were at that time with the holy Eugenius most prudent and most holy men, Vindemialis and Longinus, bishops equal in grade, and not unequal in virtue. For the holy Vindemialis was at that time reported to have raised a dead man; but Longinus gave health to many sick; Eugenius also drove away not only the blindness of visible eyes, but also of minds.

[10] and an Arian bishop Seeing which, that wicked bishop of the Arians, having summoned a certain man of his own, deceived by that error in which he himself lived, said: I cannot endure that these bishops perform many signs among the people, and that all, neglecting me, follow them. Consent now to what I command, and, having received fifty gold pieces, sit in the street through which is our passage, and, laying your hand upon your closed eyes, as I pass by with the rest, cry out with great force, saying: You, most blessed Cirola, prelate of our religion, I beseech, that, looking upon me, you may manifest your glory and virtue, that, opening my eyes, I may deserve to see the light which I have lost. Who, fulfilling the commands, and sitting in the street, as the heretic passed by with the Saints of God, this man, who thought to mock God, cries out with great force, saying: Hear me, most blessed Cirola, hear me, holy priest of God, look upon my blindness. Let me try the medicines which the other blind men have often deserved from you, which the lepers have experienced, which even the dead themselves have felt. I adjure you by that very power which you have, that you restore to me the longed-for light, for I am stricken with grievous blindness: for, not knowing the truth, he spoke the truth; because cupidity had blinded him, and he reckoned to mock the power of Almighty God through money.

[11] Then the bishop of the heretics turned aside a little, striving to establish his heresy by a feigned miracle, as if about to triumph in power, lifted up with vanity and pride, and placed his hand upon the man's eyes, saying: According to our faith, by which we rightly believe in God, let your eyes be opened. And soon this wickedness broke forth, laughter is turned into wailing, and the bishop's deceit is laid open in public: for so great a pain invaded the eyes of that wretch, that he could scarcely press them with his fingers, lest they should burst. At length the wretch began to cry out and say: Woe to me, wretched! for I have been seduced by the enemy of the divine law. Woe to me, because I wished to mock God through money, and received fifty gold pieces, to perpetrate this crime. And to the bishop he said: Behold your gold, restore my light, which by your deceit I have lost. And you I beg, most glorious Christians, do not despise the wretched, but swiftly succor the perishing: for truly I have learned that God is not mocked.

[12] Then the Saints of God, moved with mercy: If, they say, you believe, all things are possible to him that believes. confounded him by a true miracle. But he cried out with a loud voice: Whoever does not believe that Christ the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit, have equal substance and deity with God the Father, let him today suffer what I endure. And he added: I believe in God the Father almighty, I believe in the Son of God Christ Jesus equal to the Father, I believe in the Holy Spirit consubstantial and coeternal with the Father and the Son. Hearing these things, and each anticipating the other in mutual honor, there arises among them a holy contention, which of them should impose upon his eyes the sign of the blessed cross. But Vindemialis and Longinus urged Eugenius; while he, on the contrary, entreated them to lay hands on the blind man. And when they had done so, and held their hands over his head, the holy Eugenius, making the cross over the blind man's eyes, said: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the true

God, whom we confess to be threefold in one equality and omnipotence, let your eyes be opened: And immediately, the pain being removed, he returned to his former health. Now it was most manifestly made plain, through this man's blindness, how the bishop of the heretics veiled the eyes of hearts of the wretched with the cloak of his assertion, that it might not be lawful for them to contemplate the true light with the eyes of faith. O wretched man! who, not having entered by the door, that is, by Christ, who is the true door, became a wolf to the flock rather than its guardian, and strove by the depravity of his heart to extinguish the peace of faith, which he ought to have kindled in the hearts of believers. But the Saints of God did many other signs among the peoples, and there was one voice of the people saying: True God the Father, true God the Son, true God the Holy Spirit, to be worshipped with one faith, to be feared with one fear, and to be venerated with the same honor: for those things which Cirola asserts are manifest to all to be false.

[13] The exile of St. Eugenius, But when King Honoricus saw that his assertions were being wholly stripped bare by the glorious faith of the Saints, and that the sect of error was not being raised up, but rather destroyed, and that the fraud of his pontiff in this crime had been detected, he ordered the Saints of God to be slain after many torments, after the rack, after flames, after claws; but he ordered the blessed Eugenius to be beheaded, under this pretense, that if, at that hour when the sword hung over his neck, he did not return to the sect of the heretics, he should not be killed, lest the Christians should honor him as a martyr, but should be condemned to exile: which it is manifest was so done: for when, with death imminent, he had been asked whether he was resolved to die for the Catholic faith, he answered: For this is everlasting life, to die for justice. Then, the sword being suspended, he was assigned to exile at the Albigensian [*] city of the Gauls, where also he made the end of his present life. To whose sepulchre now many and most frequent miracles are shown. But he ordered the holy Vindemialis to be struck with the sword, which also was fulfilled in this contest. And Octavianus the archdeacon, and many thousands of men and women asserting this faith, were slain and maimed. But for the love of glory these punishments were nothing to the holy confessors, who, afflicted in few things, knew well that in many things they should be well disposed, according to that saying of the Apostle: For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us.

[14] and the death of King Huneric. Many then straying from the faith, and receiving also riches, entangled themselves in many sorrows. But a certain unhappy bishop, named Revocatus, at that time was recalled from the Catholic faith. Then also the sun appeared foul and darkened, so that scarcely a third part of it shone forth; for I believe it was on account of such great crimes and the shedding of innocent blood. But Honoricus, after so great a crime, seized by a demon, who had long been fed on the blood of the Saints, tore himself with his own bites, in which torment also he ended an unworthy life by a just death. To him succeeded Childeric [*], upon whose death Gelisimir took the kingdom. He too, overcome by the state, ended his life and principate, and thus the kingdom of the Vandals fell. Thus far Gregory of Tours; in whose narration certain errors occur: for he makes Trasamund the predecessor of Huneric; which manifestly conflicts with the whole Vandal history. But that by the name of Trasamund, Genseric was always designated by him, is easily gathered from the course of the narration. But when he calls the successor of Huneric Childeric or Hilderic; it cannot be understood of immediate succession, as is clear from contemporary writers.

[15] I have besides a certain manuscript from the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier, What sort of writer of the Acts. in which is found a Life of St. Eugenius written by an anonymous author. But since it seems to be of neither great antiquity nor authority, I hasten to a more certain writer of the Acts. This is Victor of Vita, a contemporary author and an eyewitness of many things, whom formerly some wrongly called Victor of Utica, as our Chifflet, Theodoric Ruinart, and other learned men demonstrate. There is a dispute among authors whether that Victor, who embraced the Vandal persecution in five books, is to be enrolled in the Catalogue of the Saints. In the present Roman Martyrology, on the XXIII of August, is read: At Utica in Africa, of the blessed Victor the bishop. Baronius indeed, in the Notes on this passage, warns that this is that very Victor who is famous for having written the history of the Vandal persecution. But Lucas Holstenius, in his Animadversions on the Roman Martyrology, complains that this was added by more recent men. Whatever it be, that sufficiently intricate dispute will be decided on the XXIII of August. From this Victor of Vita, Surius published the Acts of St. Eugenius and his companions, whose edition, collated with the source and emended, we shall follow, the books of Victor being noted in the margin, and certain things of greater moment being indicated, which we have found in the edition of Surius either omitted or divergent.

* Read "Genseric."

* Elsewhere "Albunensem."

* Elsewhere "Hilderic."

§ III. The episcopate and exile of St. Eugenius.

Of the birth of St. Eugenius, his profession of life, and the things done before his episcopate, I have found nothing: for the ancient writers first treat of this holy man A parachronism concerning the episcopate of St. Eugenius, when he was consecrated bishop. As Ruinart testifies, Victor of Tunnuna in his Chronicle speaks thus of that consecration: In the consulship of Vivianus, most distinguished man, and Basilius, Eugenius is ordained bishop of the church of Carthage after Quodvultdeus, who succeeded Capreolus. Another edition of the same Victor, prepared by Scaliger, has thus: In the consulship of Leo Augustus for the second time and Vivianus, most distinguished man, Eugenius is ordained bishop of the church of Carthage after Capreolus, Quodvultdeus. Then in the margin another reading is noted: namely, In the consulship of Leo Augustus for the second time and Severus Augustus. It is obscure which of these various readings is to be preferred. But surely, according to the consular Fasti, the consulship of the mentioned men falls in the year of Christ 462 or 463; which epoch cannot agree with the ordination of St. Eugenius, as Ruinart rightly proves in the History of the Vandal Persecution, part 2, chapter 8. His argument I here bring forward as my own.

[17] From the history, he says, of the other Victor, namely of Vita, it is certain that Eugenius was set over this church under King Huneric, it is demonstrated from Ruinart, when, namely, that barbarian, at the prayers of the Emperor Zeno and of Placidia, widow of Olybrius, had permitted the Catholics of Carthage the election of a bishop, as that author more fully relates at the beginning of the second book. But in the year 462 (I add, 463) Genseric, father and predecessor of Huneric, was still living, and Zeno at these times had not yet ascended the imperial throne, as is certain, and can be proved from the Chronicle of Victor of Tunnuna himself. Indeed, from several other passages of this Victorine Chronicle it is certain that this author, when he recounts bishops of diverse sees, heaped several together into one year, whom, however, no one will deny to have been ordained at various and for the most part widely separated times. Thus a little below he heaps together into one the Roman Pontiffs Hilarius, Simplicius, and Felix, just as also Gennadius, Anatolius, and Acacius, bishops of Constantinople, and, to be silent about the rest, Alexander, Martyrius, and Julianus of Antioch.

[18] and is corrected. Then he thus urges and confirms his argument. Add that Victor in that place made no mention of the bishop Deogratias; who, however, it is agreed presided over the church of Carthage between Quodvultdeus, who was driven into exile for the faith, and Eugenius. But the time of Eugenius's ordination may be gathered from far more certain arguments, namely from those which above, in chapter VI, number VI, we observed concerning the blessed Deogratias his predecessor: for since from these it is clear that Deogratias departed to the heavenly ones about the year 457, and it is certain from elsewhere, from Victor of Vita, book II, number I, that the church of Carthage remained deprived of a bishop for twenty-four years after his death; it is clear also that the ordination of Eugenius, who, as we learn from the same author, succeeded the blessed Deogratias, must be assigned to about the year 481. And indeed in this year that grievous persecution had not yet broken out, by which Huneric afterward so grievously troubled the African church, as we set forth above in the preceding chapter, number X and following. From these things it is manifest either that Victor of Tunnuna confused several matters into one, or, slipping in memory, recorded the consecration of Eugenius before its time. But let these things concerning the chronology of his episcopate suffice.

[19] The exile of St. Eugenius Another chronological controversy must be treated concerning his exile. But that confusion may be avoided, a twofold exile of St. Eugenius must be accurately distinguished. The first under Huneric, when he was banished into the African solitude; the other under another king of the Vandals, when he was cast out of Africa into Gaul. St. Gregory, besides inverting the series of the Vandal kings, confounded this last exile with the former, as Baronius and other modern writers observe. But Baronius himself, avoiding Charybdis, fell into Scylla: for in the Annals, at the year of Christ 495, he wrongly supposes that St. Eugenius passed immediately from one exile to the other; which assertion certainly conflicts with Victor of Tunnuna and other ancient chronologists, who expressly testify that this holy prelate was recalled from the first exile, as we shall see later. These things concerning the first exile are certain enough; but concerning the second there is greater controversy among authors; namely whether it happened under Gunthamund, or under Trasamund the successor of Gunthamund. This question, supported on both sides by testimonies and reasons, we shall here briefly discuss.

[20] Baronius holds it happened under King Gunthamund. The most eminent Cardinal Baronius, in volume 6 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 495, writes that St. Eugenius, exiled in Africa, was driven into Gaul by order of Gunthamund. His opinion rests on the authority of Procopius, who in book 1 of the Vandal War relates that the Christians were more atrociously tortured by Gunthamund; and that by Trasamund, the successor of Gunthamund, they were invited to desert the faith rather by blandishments and gifts than by threats and torments. Then he confirms his opinion from the words of St. Fulgentius, who calls Trasamund better than his parent. There could have been added to these the argument drawn from the epistle of Pope Gelasius cited in the preceding paragraph, and given at the beginning of the year 495, to the bishops of Dardania. For in it the Pontiff testifies that Eugenius, after the constancy shown under Huneric, still, at the time when he was writing, that is, when Gunthamund reigned, was bravely resisting the persecutors.

[21] Before I oppose to the arguments of the most eminent man the testimonies of the ancient writers, I shall try briefly to answer them. His arguments are answered, First of all, Procopius, in matters most certain from elsewhere, has sometimes been deceived, as Tillemont shows by an evident example, volume XVI, page 544. As for the phrase of St. Fulgentius, it could be used to appease a most hostile enemy of the Catholics. Thus our Eugenius, in his epistle related in Victor of Vita, book two, calls Huneric, most notorious for cruelty, lord and most clement King, and then concludes his letter thus: Which we ask, that in the kindness by which he is so great, and the justice of his wisdom, he may deign to grant. Certainly from very many

ancient writers it is agreed that many Catholics were cast into exile by Trasamund. Nay, Fulgentius himself, at the time when he adorned Trasamund with the said eulogy, was in exile with the other bishops of the province of Byzacena. Finally, the epistle of Pope Gelasius, written at the beginnings of King Gunthamund's reign, admits a sufficiently convenient explanation. For it is probable that Gunthamund, in the first years of his reign, permitted the persecution begun, or at least did not hinder it. Which was enough for the Arians, raging with hatred, to persecute the Catholics. This he will easily believe who afterward reads these things in the Acts, number 52: For at that time the Arian bishops, presbyters, and clerics raged more cruelly than the king (namely Huneric) and the Vandals. For to persecute, they themselves with their clerics ran everywhere girded with swords. Truly therefore Pope Gelasius could say that Eugenius, with others his colleagues in dignity, Gunthamund dissembling, was still resisting such persecutors. Now let us confirm our answer by the testimonies of ancient authors.

[22] St. Isidore of Seville, bishop, in his brief history of the Vandals, has these things: and it is proved from ancient writers, To Huneric succeeds Gunthamund, reigning twelve years; who, immediately restoring peace to the church, recalled the Catholics from exile. Then of Trasamund he testifies thus: Gunthamund being dead, Trasamund reigns twenty-seven years, four months. He, full of Arian madness, persecutes the Catholics, closes the churches, sends into exile to Sardinia one hundred and twenty bishops from the whole African church. In almost the same way Victor of Tunnuna, a bishop in Africa itself and older than Isidore, speaks of Gunthamund, who writes these things in his Chronicle: To Huneric succeeds Gunthamund, he reigns twelve years, who forthwith recalled our people from exile. More accurately does the Chronicle of Tiro Prosper distinguish all things, or rather, as Noris calls it, book 2 of the History of Pelagianism, chapter 21, the noble Fragment of the appendix to the Chronicle of Prosper, which Henricus Canisius published from an Augsburg manuscript codex, in volume 1 of the Ancient Lection. Moreover it has seemed good to transcribe the whole passage of this ancient author from the Canisian edition, since it is most apt for reconciling those things which concerning Gunthamund appear contrary among the ancient writers.

[23] Canisius therefore, in volume 1 of the Ancient Lection, page 161, and especially from the Chronicle of Tiro Prosper, has thus. After this one, namely Genseric, reigned Hunerix, his son, seven years, ten months, eighteen days; who at the end of the seventh year of his reign made a persecution of the Catholic church, closed all the churches, and banished into exile all the Lord's Catholic priests with Eugenius the bishop of Carthage. Who, by the judgment of God, teeming with worms, ended his life. After him reigned Gunthamund, son of Gento [], brother of the same King Huneric, eleven years, nine months, eleven days. Who in the third year of his reign ordered the cemetery of the holy martyr Agileus at Carthage to be given to the Catholics, Eugenius the bishop of Carthage being by him already recalled from exile; but in the tenth year of his reign he opened the churches of the Catholics, and, at the request of Eugenius the bishop of Carthage, recalled all the priests of God from exile. Which churches were closed eleven years, six months, five days, that is, from the eighth year of Huneric, that is, from the day the seventh before the Ides of February, until the tenth year of King Gunthamund, on the fourth day before the Ides of August; in which were completed the aforesaid ten [] years, six months, five days. Which aforementioned King Gunthamund afterward lived two years, one month. After whom reigned Trasamund, son of Gento, twenty-six years, eight months, four days. This chronicle differs somewhat from Isidore of Seville in the reckoning of the years; but in the matter of which the question is, they agree. As for chronology, I judge that this Chronicle, as older than Isidore, is to be preferred. But whether it has the title of Tiro Prosper, because it was written by some recruit or disciple of St. Prosper, cannot but rashly be divined. At least it seems to be ancient. Of it see more in Ruinart, in the History of the Vandal Persecution, part 2, chapter 10.

[24] that it happened under Trasamund. From what has been said thus far it can easily be gathered that we defer the second exile of St. Eugenius to the times of Trasamund. But someone will perhaps ask, why Trasamund banished Eugenius to a place by no means subject to his dominion: for at that time Albi was under the power of the Goths. I answer that no more probable cause of this occurs to us than the ancient kinship of the Vandals with the Goths, and the communion of the same sect. This reason could not improbably have induced the persecutors of Eugenius, that he, separated from his flock and the other bishops of Africa by a long interval of lands and sea, should cease to exhort the Catholics by word and example to defend the faith, and should lead a wretched life among the Goths, most fierce defenders of the Arian dogma, over whom Alaric then ruled. These and other things said and to be said in this paragraph we defend as more probable, being ready gladly to embrace another opinion, whenever anyone shall bring forward certain documents or more probable reasons.

* Elsewhere "Gento" or "Genzo."

* Read "eleven."

§ IV. The death and writings of St. Eugenius.

In what year St. Eugenius died. The third and briefer question is concerning the year in which our Saint closed his laborious life with a happy end. Baronius, in the place cited above, and others intimate that St. Eugenius died in the year 495. But this opinion altogether conflicts with Victor of Tunnuna, who expressly asserts that St. Eugenius died in the consulship of Theodorus, that is, in the year of the Christian Era 505. These are his words in the Chronicle published by Scaliger: In the consulship of Theodorus, most distinguished man, Eugenius bishop of Carthage, confessor, dies. Nor can it here be said that Victor of Tunnuna mixed several matters into one, as we showed above that he did in the ordination of Eugenius: for from the Chronicle of Tiro Prosper, cited before, it is certain that St. Eugenius obtained, in the eighth year of Gunthamund, that the churches should be opened, and the exiles recalled. The same author of the Chronicle says that Gunthamund lived two years after this recall of the exiles, in which he makes no mention of persecution, being one who would not have omitted it, if it had been stirred up. Besides, Gelasius in the year 495 writes that St. Eugenius at that time was still resisting the persecutors, which he would more probably not have said of Eugenius exiled in Gaul. From these and other things taken together I judge that the death of St. Eugenius cannot be assigned to the year 495, but that it must be deferred to the times of Trasamund. Now let us set forth what our Saint wrote.

[26] Gennadius, presbyter of Marseilles, in his Catalogue of the illustrious writers of the Church, chapter 97, has the following: What he wrote. Eugenius, bishop of the city of Carthage in Africa, and a public confessor, being admonished by Huneric, king of the Vandals, to set forth an exposition of the Catholic faith, and especially the propriety of the word homousios, composed, with the consent of all the bishops and confessors of Africa, Mauritania, Sardinia, and Corsica who remained in the Catholic faith, a book of faith, fortified not only with the sentences of the holy Scriptures, but also with the testimonies of the Fathers, and presented it through the colleagues of his confession. And now, being about to be carried into exile as a reward for his faithful tongue, he left to his sheep, like a solicitous pastor, epistles as it were admonitory of the faith and of the one sacred baptism to be preserved. He also wrote down the disputes which he had with the prelates of the Arians through go-betweens, and transmitted them to be reread by Huneric through the steward of the household; likewise he offered him also prayers for the quiet of the Christians, as it were apologies. He is said to be still living, to the confirmation of the Church. Honorius of Autun, presbyter, in the same book, On the Luminaries of the Church, number 97, more briefly contracted it thus: Eusebius (so also Galesinius has it for Eugenius), bishop of the city of Carthage in Africa and a public confessor, wrote an exposition of the faith and the disputes which he had with the prelates of the Arians.

[27] The Exposition of the faith, which in Victor of Vita constitutes the third book of the Vandal persecution, Whether he was the author of the exposition of the faith. is by some ascribed to Victor himself; and the very title seems to favor them. But I suspect that it was afterward added by some other: for Victor himself, at the end of the second book, attributes it to several, when he says: Which our people, providing beforehand, had composed a little book concerning the faith. But in the codex of the Charterhouse of the Holy Trinity near Dijon this book is thus inscribed: Here begins the book of the Catholic faith against the Vandals, published by Januarius of Zattara, Villaticus of Casae Medianae, bishops of Numidia; Bonifacius of Foratiana, and Bonifacius of Gazan, bishops of Byzacena. But in Victor of Vita, after that profession of faith, that book is said to have been not published or composed by the aforesaid bishops, but directed. In an old manuscript codex of the church of Laon it is found under this title: Here begins the little book of the Catholic bishops given to Uneric king of the Vandals. In so great an uncertainty of this matter I judge that we must acquiesce in the judgment of Gennadius, a contemporary writer, and that the book must be attributed to St. Eugenius as its chief author, although it was offered to Huneric in the name of all. This is also confirmed from the brief Chronicle of an ancient anonymous author, which is extant in Ruinart, page 112, and in which it is related that Eugenius composed a book of faith, and presented it through the colleagues of his confession. And Victor of Vita could insert this profession of faith into his work, just as he inserted into it the edict of Huneric and the epistle of Eugenius.

[28] St. Gregory of Tours preserved the epistle, The other works of St. Eugenius, of which the cited Gennadius makes mention, either have perished or lie hidden, except one admonitory epistle, which Gregory of Tours preserved for us. But since it was omitted by Victor of Vita, I shall here give it entire from St. Gregory of Tours, book 2, History of the Franks, chapter 3, who relates it thus: To my most beloved and, in the love of Christ, most sweet sons and daughters of the church committed to me by God, Eugenius the bishop. Royal authority has gone forth, and by an edict has commanded us to come to Carthage [*] for the exercising of the Catholic faith. And therefore, lest, going away from you, I should leave the Church of God in ambiguity, that is, in suspense, or, not being a true pastor, should leave the sheep of Christ in silence, I have judged it necessary to direct these letters as my vicars to your holiness, in which, not without tears, I ask, exhort, admonish, and abundantly enough beseech, by the majesty of God, and by the dreadful day of judgment, and by the terrible brightness of the coming of Christ, that you hold more firmly the Catholic faith, asserting that the Son is equal to the Father, and that the Holy Spirit has the same deity with the Father and the Son.

[29] by which St. Eugenius exhorts his flock, Preserve therefore the grace of the one baptism, keeping the anointing of the Chrism. Let no one, after the water, return to the water, being reborn of water. For by the will of God salt is made in water, but if it be brought back into water, all its form is at once emptied out. Whence not without reason the Lord in the Gospel says: If the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? And indeed this is to lose savor, to wish to be seasoned a second time, when it suffices to have been done once. Have you not heard Christ saying: He that is once washed, has no need to wash again? And therefore, brethren,

my sons and daughters in the Lord, let not my absence sadden you. For if you adhere to the Catholic discipline, I will neither forget you by any distance, nor be torn away from you by death. Know that whatever shall have caused me to be divided from you, the palm is with me. If I shall go into exile, I have the example of blessed John the Evangelist; if to the destruction of death, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I shall return, brethren, God will fulfill your desire.

[30] Nevertheless it suffices now that I have not kept silence to you; I have admonished and instructed, as I could, that he may persevere in the Catholic faith. and therefore I am free from the blood of all who perish; and I know that these letters shall be read against them before the tribunal of Christ, when he shall come to render to each according to his works. If I shall have returned, brethren, I shall see you in this life; if I shall not have returned, I shall see you in the life to come. Yet I say to you: Farewell, pray for us, and fast: for fasting and almsgiving have always bent the Lord to mercy. Remember that it is written in the Gospel: Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But fear him who, after he has killed the body, has power both to destroy the soul and to send it into hell. Tillemont, volume 16, page 570, judges that this epistle pertains rather to the second than to the first exile of St. Eugenius. But I do not see solid reasons for asserting this; at least they cannot be drawn from the epistle itself. Now let us proceed to a controversy of greater effort.

* Elsewhere "from Carthage."

§ V. The arrival in Gaul and the burial.

The arrival of St. Eugenius in Gaul, and the other things that followed it, Andreas Saussay magnificently (would that as solidly) celebrates on the 1st of January in the Corollary of the Gallican Martyrology, part 2, Saussay floridly adorns his arrival in Gaul. page 1207, writing thus: At Albi in Aquitaine, the arrival of St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage and martyr. Who, Primate of Africa, greatly ennobled by trophies carried back from the manifold contest against Arian impiety, condemned again to exile, after a noble and not bloodless struggle, by Gundabund the impious king of the Vandals, successor of Huneric in the same savagery, out of hatred of Catholic piety (which under so great a prelate marvelously triumphed over this raging and deadly heresy), and carried into Gaul in a fragile boat, settled at Albi, breathing a little under the auspices of Christ: where, after some months had passed, the course of his illustrious struggle being completed, he breathed out his spirit, crowned with so many laurels, in the peaceful expiring of a quiet death. He was buried behind the tomb of the blessed martyr Amarantus, to whose fellowship, among the blessed champions of Christ, he had been invited a little before by the sweet address of him appearing to him, and there he shone with many insignia of well-earned glorification. The things which he here so confidently asserts, namely that Eugenius was condemned to a second exile by Gundabund the impious king of the Vandals, and, placed in a fragile boat, came into Gaul, and certain other things, he either drew from more recent writers, or invented from his own brain, not unfruitful in eulogies. Wherefore let us hear an ancient writer more worthy of trust concerning this matter.

[32] Gregory of Tours, in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 4, relates these things of St. Eugenius: St. Gregory of Tours describes the sepulchre of St. Eugenius, He was assigned to exile at the Albigensian city of the Gauls, where also he made the end of his present life. To whose sepulchre now many and most frequent miracles are shown. Besides, in book 1, On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 58, after he had treated in the preceding chapter of the glorious tomb of St. Amarandus the martyr, he speaks thus of the sepulchre of St. Eugenius: To this crypt is associated also that martyr of the Honorician [*] persecution, Eugenius, the greatest ornament of the priestly fillet, whom his own Passion, or that of his companions, relates to have been thrust into exile in this city. He, since he flourished with great virtues in the world, and had already stood forth victor over the torments of martyrs, learned, the Lord revealing it, the time of his calling, when he should be summoned to glory, knowing especially that manifest which was hidden from the peoples, that he was to be the companion of the martyr Amarandus; he is directed to his sepulchre, and, prostrate on the ground, poured out prayer to the Lord for a very long time. Thereafter, his arms spread out along the pavement, he directed his spirit to heaven. Who, gathered by the Christians, was committed to burial in that very crypt of which we have spoken. Here in the Colbertine codex some things follow concerning the general miracles of St. Eugenius, which, since they are lacking in other codices, I also have omitted.

[33] Then he relates a particular miracle in this manner: To whose festivity when at one time innumerable peoples had gathered, and he describes a miracle worked before that one. they brought forth many wares in the court; but a certain girl, one of the inhabitants of the place, went to a stall, as if about to buy something, and, seeing a piece of goods suited to her, received it from the merchant, and immediately, quicker than said, having handed it to another, denies that she received it. But the merchant said earnestly: My piece I handed to you with my hand, and you carefully received it to examine it. And as she denied it, the merchant said: If you have such obstinacy, avarice goading you, of denying, let the holy martyr [*] Eugenius judge it, at whose sepulchre if you shall have said, with the interposition of an oath, that you did not receive it, I reckon nothing of the loss which I have suffered. But she, promising that she could be released from this oath, goes quickly to the sepulchre, and, her hands raised to swear, was straightway drenched with her limbs unstrung, and her soles were fixed to the pavement, her voice stuck in her throat, only her open mouth gaped, bare of speech. Which the merchant, seeing with the rest of the people, said: May this piece which you took from me profit you, virgin. The vengeance given through this pontiff Eugenius suffices you. And saying these things, he withdrew from the place. But she, held a very long time in this torment, at length, the martyr bidding, spoke, and openly confessed what she had wished to lie secretly hidden. From these things it is certain enough that the body of St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, was buried near Albi, namely in the village of Viance, not far distant from the city of Albi, which today is called by the name of St. Amarandus; and that it remained there for many centuries will appear from what follows.

[34] A twofold diploma William Catel, in the History of the Counts of Toulouse, book 1, chapter 16, brings forward an authentic instrument, given about the end of the tenth century, in which mention is made of St. Eugenius. The greatest part of the instrument I here submit to the reader's eyes. It has thus: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of St. Eugenius and of St. Amerandus, I, Pontius the count, asked by the Lord Pontiff of Albi Amelius, and the Canons of his see of Albi, and the Lord Abbot of Viance Adalard, and Aymeric the provost, and Amelius the Capiscol, Magefred, Benedict, Benjamin, Gaudentius, Canons, by the counsel of Isarn the Viscount and of other men of mine; that village of mine of Viance, which the Lord Amelius the bishop and the Canons of Albi hold from me to the honor of St. Eugenius and St. Amerandus the martyr and the other saints, I establish to be secure in future. Then, penalties being set against evildoers, he thus concludes: This edict I have appointed to be held stable and firm in future to the honor of the holy martyr Amerandus, and of the confessor of Christ Eugenius, and of the other Saints, who there rest in the Lord. Given in the month of September, on the fourteenth Moon, in the second year after King Lothair died, in which his son Louis began to reign; let it be firm and stable for all time.

[35] of the Counts of Toulouse, in which mention is made of St. Eugenius. Afterward I find this same edict confirmed by the successors of Pontius in Catel, in the cited place, with these words: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, Raymond count of Toulouse, son of Ildefonsus the count, that gift which Pontius the count, our grandfather, made to the bishop of Albi and the Canons of the see of blessed Cecilia concerning the village of Viance, and established that an immunity be made to the honor of blessed Eugenius and the other Saints who rest there: my father also in the same manner granted and confirmed the aforesaid place to the Canons with perpetual stability. I in like manner, to recall the memory of their devotion, to the honor of St. Cecilia and of the Holy Cross, and of the Saints who are venerated at Viance, confirm it to those Canons, both present and future, and establish that the aforesaid place shall be secure under a firm and stable immunity forever; so that it may be lawful for no man to inflict any violence or grievance upon that place or upon the canons living there. Given in the month of June, on the twelfth Moon, on the day of the Sabbath, Louis king of the Franks reigning.

[36] Then, after various disputes between the monks of Aurillac and the bishop and canons of Albi concerning the church of Viance, When his body was translated to Albi. in which the supreme Pontiffs involved themselves, as may be seen in Stephen Baluze, book 4, page 466, the abbey of Viance passed into a Priory of the church of Albi, as it is called in the Acts of the visitation made by Simon de Beaulieu, archbishop of Bourges, in the same Baluze, book 4, page 318. At length, says Ruinart in the history of the Vandal Persecution, part 2, chapter 8, Louis d'Amboise, bishop of Albi, took care to translate the bodies of the holy martyrs Eugenius, Vindemialis, Longinus, Amaranthus, and the virgin Charissima, which from their very death had been laid up in the church of Viance in the territory of Albi, into the cathedral church, sacred to St. Cecilia, in the year 1404, on the XXIX day of September, where even now they are most religiously kept. But surely there is an error here in the year of the translation, if it was made by Louis d'Amboise: since, according to Catel in the history of Occitania, book 5, page 1012, and the Sammarthani, volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, page 86, the first Louis d'Amboise ascended the see of Albi in the year 1473; but the second Louis d'Amboise, at the beginning of the 16th century, succeeded his uncle in the bishopric of Albi. This could be demonstrated at greater length, if there were need. But I suspect that in the number of years set down by Ruinart, some error crept in through the carelessness of the typesetter or copyist. However it be, it suffices us to have given some series of testimonies, by which St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, is proved to be venerated and to rest at Albi.

[37] Notwithstanding these arguments for the possession of the men of Albi, [The people of Treviso claim for themselves the body of St. Vindemialis and Eugenius,] Treviso, an ample city of Italy, which gave its name to the whole March of Treviso, contends that it has the bodies of the holy Florentius, Vindemialis, and Eugenius bishop of Carthage. The opinion of the Trevisans is supported by Peter de Natalibus, in the same March bishop of Equilino, who in the Catalogue of the Saints, book 4, chapter 116, relates that they died on the island of Corsica, and that their bodies, when that island was laid waste by the Saracens, were translated to Treviso by Titianus, bishop of that same city, which his successor Rotharius afterward more honorably entombed in the greater church of St. Peter. For before, they had been deposited in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist. Ughelli, volume 5 of Italia Sacra, column 468, mentions the same translation with these words: Titianus flourished about the year 400 of our

salvation. In whose times there came from Africa to Treviso the holy bishops and confessors Florentius and Vindemialis, who were present at the Council of Carthage against the Arians, and, having died most holily in the same place, bishop Titianus buried them at St. John the Baptist near the cathedral, a marble chest covering them, where is read written: Relics of the holy confessors and bishops Florentius and Vindemialis. I see here an enormous parachronism in Ughelli. For how could Titianus, about the year 400, as a bishop translate the bodies of those who only in the year 484 were present at the Council of Carthage against the Arians? But of these things more later. Meanwhile let us hear the narration of Titianus himself.

[38] and they contend for this relying on the authority of Peter of Equilino, Our Henschenius, volume 1 of May, page 271, from a manuscript codex of the Queen of Sweden, gave the entire history of these Saints, the author being Titianus bishop of Treviso. We, lest we do what has been done, will here briefly excerpt from it those things which more closely pertain to the present controversy. After he has treated of the assembly at Carthage under King Huneric, and of the exile of the Catholic bishops, he thus continues: Of whom the bishop of Carthage Eugenius and Vindemialis … driven from their own sees, for the sake of pilgrimage flew to lands beyond the sea. Then, after relating the miracles of both, and their apostolic works on the island of Corsica, he thus again proceeds: The holy Eugenius served Christ the Lord until the end of his life, and dwelt on an island near the fort of Vado, two miles distant thence … where also his venerable body rests; at whose tomb the almighty Lord has deigned to work many and innumerable miracles through him. But the holy Vindemialis, departing from the aforesaid fort, hastening to Corsica, warring for Christ the Lord, there in a holy purpose rendered up an unstained spirit.

[39] and of Titianus, bishop of Treviso. Finally he thus relates the translation of the holy bodies made by himself: But how the body of the most blessed confessor of Christ came to this city, we desire to relate to all the faithful in Christ. For after we had learned from the report of many that Corsica had been taken by the Saracens and many churches of God destroyed from their foundations; I, Titianus, bishop of the holy church of Treviso, by divine prompting came to the aforesaid island; where both from the sailors and from the inhabitants of that place we learned where the bodies of the most blessed confessors of Christ had been placed in sarcophagi, namely of the bishops Vindemialis and Florentius. And a three-day fast being performed, with great trembling and reverence we approached the tombs; and thence, lifting their bodies, we led them all the way to the ship, their merits interceding, and came to the soil of Treviso, God having mercy, and placed them in venerable places, where now they rest, God permitting, in the basilica of St. John the Baptist, where until today the almighty Lord has deigned to work many and innumerable miracles through them, to whom is honor and glory through the infinite ages of ages. This is the chief authority on which the Trevisans rely. What our Henschenius thinks of this whole matter may be seen in volume 1 of May, page 270, in the Commentary before this narration of Titianus.

[40] Now, both parts having been heard, a judgment on that cause can easily be borne. The dispute is settled with Ruinart, For whatever slight thanks and much ill-will generally awaits us in settling disputes of this kind, we do not think we must depart from the more probable side, which before us the praised Ruinart above seems clearly enough to have established, who, having first weighed the arguments of the Trevisans, thus answers in book 2 of the Vandal persecution, chapter 8. From this narration of Titianus several things may be gathered. First, that Titianus himself did not live at the beginning of the fifth century, as Ughelli thought; since he relates that Vindemialis and Eugenius were present at the assembly of Carthage, which was convened under King Huneric in the year 484. But he furnishes us another argument of the same matter, when he relates that he translated the bodies of the holy Florentius and Vindemialis into his city, at the time when, after Corsica had been taken by the Saracens, the churches had been destroyed; which surely seem to agree better with the seventh or eighth century, in which the Saracens were laying waste that island and other neighboring regions, than with the fourth or fifth. For at that time Corsica was under the dominion of the Romans, or certainly of the Vandals.

[41] Then from the narration of Titianus we deduce that Titianus himself wrote many things of Eugenius, who by various reasons diminishes the authority of Titianus, and shows Vindemialis, etc., which were not sufficiently ascertained by him, nay, even foreign to the truth: for, to say nothing of Vindemialis, he thinks that the Eugenius praised by him is that famous bishop of Carthage, who was present at the assembly of Carthage; which, however, conflicts with the certain and undoubted monuments of history. Let there be read what Victor of Vita, a witness of complete faith, wrote of the exile of Eugenius of Carthage and of the hardships which he suffered from Antonius at Tamalluma, in book V, number XI, and no one will fail to notice that these can in no way be composed with those things which Titianus relates of his Eugenius. Then Eugenius of Carthage, according to Gregory of Tours, an author nearly contemporary, and, on account of the nearness of the places, by no means suspect, died in the Albigensian city of Aquitaine, where his sepulchre was even then most celebrated on account of most frequent miracles, which can be confirmed both from the continuous tradition of the same church and from old instruments. But Titianus writes that his Eugenius departed this life on a certain island near Italy.

[42] Since therefore it is established for us that the Eugenius and Vindemialis mentioned by Titianus are other than those most holy prelates who are celebrated under the same names in Victor and Gregory of Tours, that St. Eugenius bishop of Carthage was confused with another, nothing occurs to us to be said of them, except that perhaps they were of the number of those confessors who, made exiles from Africa on account of the persecution of the Vandals, came to Corsica, where, having died in the confession of the divinity of Christ, they became famous. But Titianus, bishop of Treviso, having obtained their relics after some centuries, patched together their life, both from those things which had been spread abroad by the public fame of that region, and also from those which had been ascertained to him from elsewhere concerning the illustrious deeds of Eugenius of Carthage, mingling incautiously, as happens, the true with the false; and thence among the authors who afterward flourished in those parts the opinion prevailed that Eugenius and Vindemialis, whom they venerated, were the same as Eugenius of Carthage and Vindemialis, bishop of Capsa, whom the ancient historians had so greatly celebrated.

[43] Almost the same fortune Vindemialis experienced in the Roman Martyrology on the II day of May: as also happened in the case of St. Vindemialis. For since from the ancient Fasti Vindemialis of Corsica, without any addition, was recorded on the aforesaid day, those who afterward took care of the edition of the Roman Martyrology, thinking that this Vindemialis was the same as the other whom Gregory of Tours praises, added the eulogy of Gregory to the earlier commemoration; and thus, making one out of two, they proposed that neither be duly commemorated. For thus he is there praised: Of St. Vindemialis the bishop. These things had been said of the one of Corsica. There was added what Gregory wrote of the other Vindemialis: And the martyr, who, together with the holy Bishops Eugenius and Longinus, contending by doctrine and miracles against the Arians, is ordered by King Huneric to be beheaded. And indeed Ferrarius, as if here there were no mention of Vindemialis of Corsica, recorded the same, together with Eugenius, among the Saints who are not contained in the Roman Martyrology, in his Catalogue, likewise on the II day of May. Thus far Ruinart, from whose reasons the learned reader can determine what is to be judged concerning this litigious cause. I think that the name of Vindemialis and Eugenius was not so rare in those centuries that two or more synonymous persons should not be found, among whom confusion has been made. See, if it please, our Henschenius discoursing on this matter, volume 1 of May, at the 2nd day of that month, page 270. In this whole preliminary Commentary I have chiefly treated of St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, because of his companions I found nothing peculiar, except in the Acts of Victor of Vita, which we now here subjoin.

* Read "Hunerician."

* Colbertine codex, "confessor."

ACTS, BY THE AUTHOR VICTOR OF VITA.

From Surius, collated with the edition of Chifflet and Ruinart.

Eugenius, Bishop of Carthage, at Albi in Occitan Gaul (S.)

His Companions, who suffered at the hands of the Vandals. BHL Number: 2678

BY VICTOR OF VITA.

CHAPTER I.

The feigned connivance of Huneric, and his barbarous cruelty toward his own.

Victor of Vita, Book II.

Geiseric ^a therefore being dead, Huneric his elder son succeeds his father. Who in the beginning of his reign, as the subtlety of barbarians is wont, began to act more mildly and moderately, Huneric, feigning moderation, especially concerning our religion: so that even as before, under King Geiseric, it had been prejudged [], that no spiritual assemblies should be held, nor gatherings of peoples run together. And that he might show himself religious, he decreed that the heretic Manichees should be more diligently sought out: of whom he burned many, but sold very many to ships bound overseas: whom he found almost all Manichees of his own religion, and especially presbyters and deacons of the Arian heresy. Whence, blushing the more, he was the more inflamed against them. Of whom there was found one, by name Clementianus [], a monk of theirs, having written on his thigh: Manichee, disciple of Christ Jesus. On account of which the aforesaid tyrant seemed the more praiseworthy, displeasing in one thing, that he gaped more vehemently after insatiable cupidity, and burdened the provinces of his kingdom with various calumnies and impositions, so that of him especially it was said: A needy king is a great calumniator. But he gave license, at the request of the Emperor Zeno and Placidia ^b, widow of Olybrius, that the church of Carthage should ordain for itself whatever bishop it wished, which now for twenty-four years had been destitute of such an ornament.

[2] He sends therefore then to the church the illustrious Alexander, bearing a legation of this kind, that in his presence the Catholic people should ask for itself a worthy priest; he permits a Catholic bishop to be elected; destining also, through his notary, by name Witared, an edict, which should be publicly read, containing this manner: Our lord has ordered it to be said to you, that since the Emperor Zeno and the most noble Placidia, through Alexander the illustrious man, have written, asking that the church of Carthage may have a bishop proper to your religion, he has ordered this to be done and has written back to them, or has ordered it to be said to the legates directed by them, that, as they asked, you may ordain for yourselves whatever bishop you wish: on this condition, that the bishops of our religion who are at Constantinople, and through other provinces of the East, bishops by his command, may have free choice in their churches to treat with the people ^c in whatever languages they wish, and to worship the Christian law, just as you here, or in other churches which are established in the African provinces, have free choice in your churches to hold Masses or to preach, and to do what belongs to your law, as you wish. For if this be not observed concerning them, both the bishop who shall have been ordained, and the clerics, and also the other bishops with their clerics who are in the African provinces, shall be ordered to be sent among the Moors

to be sent. Which edict, while it was being read to the whole church in our presence, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of July [*], we began to groan, murmuring, because for those meditating deceits a persecution of evils was about to be prepared. And thus we are proved to have said to the legate: If it is so, with these dangerous conditions interposed, this church does not delight to have a bishop. Christ governs it, who always deigns to govern. Which suggestion the legate neglected to accept. At the same time also the people, that it might then come to pass, blazed up like fire; whose clamor was intolerable, which by no reason could be quieted.

[3] A bishop therefore being ordained, Eugenius, a holy man and acceptable to God, sublime joy was born, but the virtues of the elected bishop and the gladness of the Church of God was heaped up. The Catholic multitude exults under barbarous domination, at the ordination of a restored pontiff: for a very great number of youths and young maidens, rejoicing together in common, testified that they had never seen a bishop sitting on the throne. Moreover, that man of God, the priest Eugenius, began, through the conversation of good works, to be held venerable and reverend even by those who are without, and to be so pleasing to all, that, if it were lawful, it would delight all to lay down their souls for him. Such almsgiving too the Lord deigned to do through him, that it seems incredible that he should expend so much, where the church, the barbarians holding all, is known to have not the means of a single coin. If anyone should begin to praise the humility in him, the charity, the piety divinely bestowed, he will not be able to explain it. Money is not proved to have remained with him, unless perhaps it were offered at such an hour, when now the sun, completing the course of the day, was giving order and place to the darkness of night. He reserved only as much as should suffice for the day, not as much as cupidity would have sought, our God ever daily giving huge and greater things.

[4] the Arian bishops to envy, But when his fame was renowned and manifest, the Arian bishops began thereupon to be tormented with grievous envy, assailing him with daily calumnies, and especially Cyrila ^d. What first? They suggest to the king concerning him, that he should by no means sit on his throne, nor make the accustomed word to the people of God. Then, that whatever men or women he should behold in the church walking in the barbarian [*] dress, he should forbid: He answered, as was fitting: The house of God lies open to all, no one will be able to repel those entering: especially because there had been a huge multitude of our Catholics walking in their dress, on account of the fact that they served the royal house. But when he received such an answer from the man of God, he decreed to station torturers at the gates of the church. Who, seeing a woman or a man walking in the garb of their nation, immediately, small toothed stakes being cast upon their heads, and their hair being bound in the same, and drawing them more vehemently, together with the hair they tore off all the little skin of the head. Some, while this was being done, at once lost their eyes: others died of the very pain. But the women, after this punishment, their heads stripped bare of skin, a crier going before, were led through the streets, to the showing of the whole city. Which those who suffered reckoned to themselves rather the greatest gain. Of whom we have known very many, nor do we know that any of them then, even with the punishments pressing, departed from the right path.

[5] and they incite the king to cruelty. But when in this way he could not break the wall of faith, he devises that the men of our religion, established in his court, should possess neither their allowances nor their accustomed stipends: he added also to wear them down with rustic labors. He directs freeborn and very delicate men to the field of Utica ^e, that under the burning of the blazing sun they should cut the turf of the harvests: where all, going with joy, rejoiced in the Lord. In whose company was a certain man having a withered hand, which for very many years had rendered him no service. Who, when he truthfully excused himself that he could not work, was more violently ordered to go. But when they came to the place, and especially when all groaned, praying for him, by divine mercy that withered hand of the confessor was restored whole.

[6] The tyrant rages against his kinsmen, Hence now the persecution of Huneric took the beginning of our sorrow and travail. But he himself, who had long since shown himself gentle to all, desiring to establish the kingdom after his death for his sons, which did not happen ^f, began cruelly to pursue his brother Theodoric ^g and his sons, and the sons no less of his brother Gento ^h. Of whom he would let none go, unless death took from him the will of his desire. First, knowing the wife of his brother Theodoric to be cunning, I believe lest perhaps she should have armed with sharper counsels her husband or her elder son, who seemed prudent and wise, against the tyrant, a crime being laid upon her, he orders her to be killed with the sword. Afterward that son too is killed, more instructed in letters, to whom, according to the constitution of Geiseric, because he was greater than all, the kingdom among the grandsons was chiefly owed. He is kindled to perpetrate something yet more cruel. The common people standing by, in the middle of the city before the steps of the new square, he ordered a bishop of his own religion, by name Jucundus, whom they called Patriarch ⁱ, to be burned with fire, for this reason, that he was held most acceptable in the house of Theodoric the king's brother, by whose vote perhaps the said house could obtain the kingdom.

[7] In which crime of impiety we foresaw an evil to be at hand for us, his relations, each saying to the other: He who has become so cruel in the case of his own priest, when will he spare our religion or us? Then also he consigned Gento's elder son, by name Godagisus ^k, with his wife, without the solace of a manservant or maidservant, to cruel exile; but his brother Theodoric, after the killing of his wife and son, naked and destitute, he likewise exiled: after whose death he cast out further, to be afflicted, his surviving son, a little infant, and his two grown daughters, placed on asses. But also, pursuing very many counts and nobles of his nation with false accusations, because they favored his brother, he burned some, cut the throats of others, being an imitator of his father Geiseric, who plunged his brother's wife, a weight of stones tied to her, into the famous river Amsaga ^l of Cirta by casting her in, and, after the killing of the mother, killed also the sons.

[8] But also his father Geiseric, dying, had commended many to him, an oath being interposed; and his own courtiers. whom he, unmindful of faith and a violator of the oath, slew with diverse punishments and burnings: for Heldica, whom his father had made steward of the kingdom, now a veteran and aged, he beheaded with disgrace, and burned his wife with another, by name Theucaria, in the middle of the city: whose bodies he ordered to be dragged through the villages and streets, which, lying the whole day, being asked by his bishops, he scarcely permitted to be buried in the evening: for Gamuth, Heldica's brother, because he had fled to their church ^m, he could not kill; whom, however, he shut up in the foul place of the latrines, and decreed that he should dwell there a long time. Afterward he condemned him, with a certain goatherd and rustic, to make ditches useful for the vineyards: whom also twelve times a year, that is, each month, he scattered with cruel scourges, scarcely a little water and a bit of bread being granted. This they endured for five years or more, in which these punishments could avail to eternal reward, if they had been Catholics, and by the merit of their faith endured these things. But we could not keep silence of this, that we might not be at all silent about the king's impiety even against his own: who not only burned his own bishop Jucundus with flames, as we showed above, but also burned his presbyters and deacons, that is, very many Arians, and even delivered them to beasts.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere "aforesaid."

* Elsewhere "Dementianus."

* Elsewhere "of June."

* That is, Vandal.

CHAPTER II.

Various visions and the dire persecution against the Catholics.

The future persecution of the Catholics, All therefore whom he feared being in a short time cut off, and consolidating for himself, as he thought, a kingdom which was to be brief and perishable, on every side idle and secure, he turned all the weapons of his fury into the persecution of the Catholic Church, roaring like a lion. Yet before the tempest of the persecution, with many visions and signs going before, the imminent evil had been shown: for almost two years before it happened, a certain man saw the church of Faustus ^a shining in its wonted adornment, with tapers also shining, and gleaming with the veiling of palls and with lamps. And while he rejoiced in the whiteness of so great a splendor, suddenly, he says, the splendor of that desirable light was extinguished, and, darkness succeeding, an adverse stench was born to the nostrils, and all that throng of the white-robed, certain Ethiopians expelling them, was threatened forth; on account of which he continually laments, that he by no means saw it again restored to its former brightness: for he related this vision, in our presence, to the holy Eugenius.

[10] A certain presbyter also saw that same church of Faustus filled with crowds of innumerable peoples, by various visions, and after a little emptied, and filled with a multitude of pigs and goats. Likewise another saw a threshing-floor of wheat, prepared for winnowing, the grains not yet, by the judgment [*] of the winnowing, separated from the chaff; and while he marveled at the magnitude of the huge mass, though confused, suddenly, behold, a whirlwind of a tempest coming with sound-wandering blast began to show its approach

by the rising dust: by whose force all that chaff flew entirely away, the grains remaining. After this there came a certain tall man, gleaming with a splendid face and a shining garment, and began to cast away, purging, the empty grains, lean and rejected as fine flour. Which, examining them for a long time, he scarcely brought the magnitude of that mass, though approved, to a small heap. Likewise another said: A certain lofty man stood upon the mountain which is called Ziquensis, and cried out to right and left: Depart, depart. Another beholds, heaven roaring and troubled, sulphurous clouds hurling huge stones; which stones, when they had fallen upon the earth, were the more kindled, and burned with greater flames, and, entering into the inner chambers of houses, burned those whom they had found; but he who saw it says that, when he had hidden himself in a certain bedchamber, by divine mercy the flame could not reach him. I think it was that the prophetic word might be fulfilled: Shut your door, and hide yourself a little while, until the wrath of God pass over.

[11] The venerable bishop Paul also saw a tree, and it is foretold by signs. extended with flowering branches up to the heavens, which even by its spreading shaded almost all Africa. And when all rejoiced in its magnitude and beauty, behold, suddenly, he says, there came a violent ass, which, rubbing its neck upon the strength of its roots, by its thrust with a huge sound dashed that marvelous tree to the ground. But also Quintianus ^b, an honorable bishop, saw himself standing upon a certain mountain, from which he beheld a flock of innumerable sheep; and in the midst of the flock were two pots exceedingly boiling. And there were present slayers of the sheep, who plunged their flesh into the boiling pots. And when it was so done, all that great multitude of the flock was consumed. I think therefore that those two pots, Sicca Veneria and Laris ^c, are two cities, in which the first multitude had been gathered, from which the burning took its beginning; or King Huneric and Cirila his bishop. But of the many visions, since brevity had to be consulted, let it suffice to have said these things.

[12] What more? The tyrant first decrees, by a terrible command, that no one should serve in his palace, Barbarous cruelty against the faithful, nor perform public functions, unless he had made himself an Arian. Of whom a huge number, with unconquered vigor, lest they should lose the faith, cast away their temporal service. Whom afterward, cast out of their houses, and despoiled of all substance, he banished to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Nay, he hastened to decree through all Africa, that the treasury should claim for itself the substance of our deceased bishops; but he who could succeed the deceased should not be ordained before he had offered five hundred solidi to the royal treasury. But this edifice, where the devil seemed [*] to build it, Christ at once deigned to destroy. His own domestics suggest to him, saying: If your command shall confirm this, our bishops established in the parts of Thrace and other regions will begin to suffer worse things.

[13] especially the sacred virgins, He then ordered the sacred virgins to be gathered, directing the Vandals with the midwives of their nation to inspect and handle, against the laws of modesty, the modest parts of chastity, where neither mothers were present, nor any of the Catholic matrons. Whom, torturing them with grievous hanging, and binding huge weights to their feet, they applied plates of iron heated red-hot to the back, the belly, the breasts, and the sides; to whom among the torments it was said: Say that the bishops lie with you, and your clerics. Of the bitterness of whose punishments we know that very many then perished. Others, who remained, their skins drying up, were made bent. For he strove to find a path, through whose entrance he might make, as he did, a public persecution. And doing thus, he could in no way find out how he might stain the Church of Christ.

[14] and the bishops and clerics as exiles. But with what rivers of tears shall I proceed, when he destined to the exile of the desert bishops, presbyters, deacons, and other members of the Church, that is, four thousand nine hundred and sixty-six? Among whom were very many gouty, others deprived by the age of their years of the temporal light, in whose number was the blessed Felix ^d, bishop of Abdera, having already forty-four years in the episcopate; who, stricken by the disease of paralysis, neither felt anything, nor at all spoke. Concerning whom we, thinking especially that he could not be carried by a beast of burden, suggested that it be asked of the King by his own men, that at least him, about to die soon, he would order to be at Carthage, since he could by no means be led to exile. To whom the tyrant is reported to have said thus with fury: If he cannot sit on an animal, let untamed oxen be yoked, which, dragging him with bound ropes, may lead him where I have commanded. Whom, crosswise upon a mule ^e, bound like a certain trunk of wood, we carried the whole journey. All are gathered into the cities of Sicca and Laris, that the Moors, meeting them there, might lead those handed over to them to the desert.

[15] The constancy of the Catholics in the faith, Two Counts therefore coming up, with damnable subtlety, began to deal with the confessors of God in soft words: What, they say, seems to you, that you should be so obstinate, and by no means obey the commands of our lord, who could be honorable in the sight of the king, if you would hasten to do his will? Immediately, as they cried out and said with huge outcry, We are Christians, we are Catholics, we confess the Trinity, one inviolable God; they are shut up in a graver, yet still a wider custody, where opportunity was given us both to enter, and to make the word of admonition to the brethren, and to celebrate the divine mysteries. There were also very many infants, whom their mothers followed with maternal affection, some rejoicing, others drawing back: some rejoiced that they had borne martyrs, others strove to recall those about to die [*] by the deluge of rebaptism from the confession of faith. Yet none then did blandishments conquer, nor did carnal piety incline any to the ground. For it delights to relate briefly what a certain old woman then did.

[16] While we were making the journey, accompanying the army of God, and were perhaps advancing more by night on account of the heat of the sun, and a wonderful example of it in an old woman. we behold a poor little woman carrying a small bag and other garments, holding one little child by the hand, and consoling him in these words: Run, my lord: do you see how all the Saints proceed and hasten cheerful to their crowns? Whom, when we chided, because she seemed importunate either to join men against her sex, or to associate herself with the army of Christ, she answered: Bless me, bless me, and pray for me and for this little grandson of mine, for, though a sinner, I am the daughter of a former bishop of the city of Quirita [*]. To whom we: And why do you walk so abject, and for what reason do you show yourself proceeding hither from so long a journey? She answered: With this your little servant I go to exile, lest the enemy find him alone, and recall him from the way of truth to death. At these words, filled with tears, we could say nothing, except that the will of God be done.

[17] But when the adversary, who now perhaps was saying: I will divide the spoils, I will fill my soul, The exiles, by the stench of the prison, I will slay with my sword, my hand shall rule: could seize none, he seeks out narrow and most foul places, in whose chambers he might cramp the army of God. Then even the consolation of human visitation being denied them, the guards too are punished with clubs, and grievously afflicted, the confessors of Christ are thrown one upon another, the narrowness cramping them, one upon another like ranks of locusts, and, to speak properly, like the most precious grains of the wheat. In which crowding no arrangement of the place allowed withdrawing to the natural office, but they made their dung and urine, necessity urging, in that same place, so that then that stench and horror surpassed all kinds of punishments: to whom sometimes, giving huge gifts to the Moors, the Vandals sleeping, we were scarcely admitted secretly to enter. Who, entering, as in a whirlpool of mud, began to sink up to the knees, seeing then that word of Jeremiah to have been fulfilled: They that were nourished in saffron have embraced the dung. What more? they were ordered, the Moors making a din on every side, to be made ready [*] for the journey to which they were destined.

[18] Going out therefore on the Lord's day, having their garments smeared with dung, their faces and heads together, though the Moors cruelly threatened them, and tortured by the discomforts of the journey, chanting a hymn to the Lord with exultation: This is the glory to all his Saints. For there was present there then the blessed pontiff Cyprian ^f, bishop of Unizibir, an excellent consoler, who cherished each one with pious and paternal affection, not without rivers of running tears, ready to lay down his soul for the brethren, and to give himself of his own accord, if he were released, to such sufferings, who spent all that he had upon the needy brethren in that then necessity. For he sought occasion how he might be associated with the confessors, himself a confessor in soul and virtue: who afterward, through many struggles and the squalor of the prison, proceeded with exultation to the exile which he desired.

[19] they are honored by the Catholics; How great multitudes of peoples then ran together from diverse regions and cities to see the martyrs of God, the ways and paths bear witness, which, when they could by no means contain the throngs of those coming, an inestimable crowd of the faithful, running down over the tops of the mountains and the hollows of the valleys, carrying tapers in their hands, and casting their little infants at the feet of the martyrs, cried out with this voice: To whom do you leave us wretched ones, while you proceed to your crowns? Who will baptize these little ones at the fonts of perennial water? Who will confer upon us the gift of penance, and loose us, bound by the chains of sins, with the indulgence of reconciliation? For it was said to you, Whatever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. Who will bury us, dying, with solemn prayers? By whom is the accustomed rite of the divine sacrifice to be exhibited? Would that it were permitted us also to proceed with you, so that in such a manner no necessity might separate sons from their fathers.

[20] but by the Moors on the way, Amid these voices and tears no consoler was now permitted to proceed, but the multitude was pressed to run, so that, where a hut ^g [*] had been prepared, it might take a laborious lodging: who, when the old men failed, and others perhaps, though delicate youths, began to be struck with the points of spears and with stones to make them run: whence, failing the more, they were the more wearied. But afterward it was commanded to the Moors, that those who could not walk they should drag, their feet bound like the carcasses of a dead animal, through hard and rough places of stones, where first their garments, then their several limbs were torn away. To whom, by the sharp blades of the rocks, the head of this one was crushed, the sides of another split, and thus among the hands of those dragging them they breathed out their spirit: whose number we were by no means able to reckon, the multitude constraining us.

[21] and in the place of exile they are cruelly afflicted. Yet the lowly burial of the Saints is exalted through the whole public highway, the tombs speaking. The rest, more fit, come to the places of the solitude, in which, being placed, they receive barley to eat like beasts of burden. Where also of venomous animals and scorpions there is said to be so great a multitude, that to the ignorant it seems incredible, which by their mere breath pour the poison's venom even upon those placed far off: and from the scorpion's sting they say that none ever escaped. Whose virulent ferocity, Christ defending, is proved to have harmed none of his servants up to the present time. But since they are nourished there with grains of barley,

afterward this too was taken away, as if God, who had rained manna upon the fathers, could not now also feed those consigned to such an exile.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere "of the winnower."

* Elsewhere "unless."

* Elsewhere "grinding."

* Elsewhere "Zuritanae."

* Elsewhere "to hasten."

* Chifflet, "cannaba."

CHAPTER III.

Huneric summons the Catholic bishops by letter to dispute about the faith. St. Eugenius's reply and miracle. The disputation with the Arians.

He devises harsher things against the Church of God, that he who had cut off some members might destroy the whole body by mangling it. For on the day of the Lord's Ascension, Huneric, by a letter, the bishops of Africa, the legate of the Emperor Zeno, Reginus, being present ^a, he directs to bishop Eugenius, to be read in the middle of the church, a command written in this tenor; which also he sent throughout all Africa, the post-horses running: King Huneric of the Vandals and Alans ^b, to all the Homousian bishops ^c: It is agreed that it has been forbidden not once, but often, that in the allotments of the Vandals your priests should not celebrate assemblies, lest by their seduction they subvert Christian souls. Which thing very many despising, they have been found to have held Masses in the allotments of the Vandals against the interdict, asserting that they hold the whole rule of the Christian faith. And because in the provinces granted to us by God we do not wish there to be scandal, therefore, by the providence of God, with the consent of our holy bishops, know that we have decreed this, that on the day of the Kalends of February next to come, all excuse of fear laid aside, you all come to Carthage, that concerning the reckoning of the faith you may enter into conflict with our venerable bishops, and may properly approve from the divine Scriptures the faith of the Homousians which you defend, so that it may be recognized whether you hold the whole faith. And the tenor of this edict we have directed to all your bishops established throughout all Africa. Given on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of June, in the seventh year of Huneric.

[23] To us therefore who were present, and at the same time reading it, he terrifies, and summons to the contest of the faith. our hearts were immediately crushed, and our eyes darkened, and truly then our feast-days were turned into mourning, and our songs into lamentation, while the tenor of the edict indicated the fury of the coming persecution. And especially where he said: In our provinces granted to us by God we do not wish there to be scandal: as if he said: In our provinces we do not wish there to be Catholics. It was discussed what should be done. The imminent calamity found no remedy, except that a reasonable answer should be given by the holy Eugenius, if the barbarous heart could be softened, to be suggested ^d, written in this text.

[24] To him St. Eugenius replies by a letter. As often as the cause of the soul or of eternal life and of the Christian faith is treated intrepidly, as the royal providence has promised, it is necessary that what is fitting be suggested. Lately the royal power, through Witared the notary, deigned to admonish my littleness, who recited to us his command concerning the merit and religion of the faith, in the church, the clergy and people being present. From whose tenor we have learned that a royal command has likewise gone forth to all my fellow-bishops, that on the appointed day one should come for the disputation of the faith. Which we have suggested that we received with veneration, to which aforesaid notary my humility suggested that it behooves also all those of the parts beyond the sea, who are our associates in one religion and communion, to know, since everywhere all obey his kingdom, especially because it is a cause of the whole world, not specially of the African provinces only. And because in a second answer I promised to offer what should be suggested, I deservedly and humbly beg your magnificence, that you deign to carry my said suggestion to the ears of the Lord and most clement King, so that his clemency may graciously recognize that we by no means decline or flee the disputation of the law with the help of God, but that without the assent of the whole body we ought not to undertake the causes of asserting our faith. Which we ask, that in the kindness by which he is so great, and the justice of his wisdom, he may deign to grant. Given by Eugenius, bishop of the Catholic church of Carthage.

[25] The King, having held a colloquy with St. Eugenius through a minister, But when this suggestion was offered by the blessed Eugenius, he who had already conceived sorrow was urged to bring forth iniquity more grievously: and thus he seems to have commanded the holy man, bishop Eugenius, through Obadus [], the steward of his kingdom: Subject to me the whole world, that under my power the whole world may be reduced, and I do, O Eugenius, what you say. To which the blessed Eugenius answered, as he could []: What has no reason, he said, ought not to be said. This is as if it were said to a man that he should be borne through the air and fly, which is not the custom of human nature. For I said, if the power of the king desires to know our faith, which is one and true, let him send to his friends: and I too will write to my brethren, that my fellow-bishops may come, who may be able to demonstrate to you, with us, our common faith, and especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all churches. To this Obadus: Then are you and my Lord the King alike? Bishop Eugenius said: I am not like the king, but I said: If he desires to know the true faith, let him write to his friends, that they may direct our Catholic bishops: and I will write to my fellow-bishops, because there is one care of the whole Catholic faith.

[26] Eugenius did this, not because there were lacking in Africa he drives the most learned bishops into exile, those who might refute the objections of the adversaries: but that those might come who, being strangers to their domination, might have greater confidence of liberty, and likewise might announce to all lands and peoples the calumnies of our oppression. But he who wove deceits was unwilling to hear reason, acting by frequent argumentations, that he might harass with various persecutions whatever bishops he had heard to be learned. Already to the exile of Vibiana he had sent Donatianus, a second time, one hundred and fifty clubs being laid on him, a bishop, and also Praesidius of Sufetula, a man sharp enough. Then also he flogged the venerable Mansuetus, Germanus, Fusculus ^e, and many others.

[27] While these things are being done, he commands that no one of our religion should have a common table with them, and forbids his own to have dealings with the Catholics. nor should they at all associate [*] with the Catholics, which thing conferred no benefit upon them, but brought us the greatest gain. For if their speech, as the Apostle says, is wont to creep like a canker, how much more can a common table of foods defile? since the same Apostle says: With the wicked not even to have food in common. But when the fire of persecution was now kindled, and the flame of the everywhere-raging king was burning, our God showed a certain miracle through his faithful servant Eugenius, which I ought not to pass over.

[28] There was in the same city, that is, Carthage, a certain blind man, A blind man, warned thrice in sleep, most well-known to the citizens and to the city, by name Felix: He is visited by the Lord, and it is said to him at night through a vision: (for the day of the Epiphany was dawning) Arise, go to my servant Eugenius the bishop, and you shall say to him that I have directed you to him: And at that hour when he shall bless the font, that those coming to the faith may be baptized, he shall touch your eyes, and they shall be opened, and you shall see the light. Who, warned by such a vision, thinking himself, as is wont, to be deluded by a dream, the blind man was unwilling to rise. But when again he sank [] into sleep, he is likewise compelled to go to Eugenius. Again he neglects it, and a third time is hastily and grievously rebuked. He rouses the boy who was wont to lend him his hand. He goes with swift agility to the basilica of Faustus, prays, and, coming with huge tears, suggests to a certain deacon [], by name Peregrinus, that he announce him to the bishop, indicating that he had a certain kind of secret to be made known. The bishop, hearing this, ordered the man to enter. For now, on account of the solemnity of the festivity, the nocturnal hymns were resounding through the whole church, the people singing. The blind man declares to the prelate the order of his vision, and says to him: I will not let you go, unless you restore my eyes to me, as you were commanded by the Lord. To whom the holy Eugenius: Depart from me, brother; I am a sinner and unworthy, and offending above all men, as one who have been reserved even to these times. But he, holding his knees, said nothing else than that which he had already said: As it was commanded, restore my eyes to me.

[29] Eugenius, considering also the unabashed faith, is enlightened by St. Eugenius. and because the time now urged, proceeds with him, the Office of the clerics accompanying, to the font. Where, fixed on his knees with a huge groan, striking heaven with sobs, he blessed the rippling channel of the font, and when he had risen, his prayer completed, he thus answered the blind man: I have already told you, brother Felix, I am a sinful man: but may he who deigned to visit you grant to you according to your faith, and open your eyes, and at the same time he signs his eyes with the standard of the cross; immediately the blind man received his sight, the Lord restoring it. Whom he detained there with himself until all should be baptized, for this reason, lest the people, roused by so great a miracle, should crush the man who had received his sight. It is afterward made manifest to the whole Church. He who had been blind proceeds to the altar with Eugenius, as is the custom, about to render to the Lord the offering of his salvation. Which the bishop, receiving, placed upon the altar. There arises an irrevocable din of the peoples, joy provoking it: immediately a messenger proceeds to the tyrant. Felix is seized, it is inquired of him what was done, and how he received his sight. He tells him the whole in order, and the Arian bishops say: This Eugenius did by evil arts. And because, oppressed by confusion, they could not becloud the light, since Felix was manifest and known to the whole city, yet they wished, if it were lawful, to kill him, as the Jews desired to kill the raised Lazarus.

[30] The Catholic bishops summoned to the disputation, Now that calumnious day of the Kalends of February was approaching, appointed by

the same man appointed. There gather not only the bishops of all Africa, but also of many islands, worn out with affliction and grief. Silence is made for many days, until meanwhile he should separate the skilled and most learned men, calumnies being laid upon them, to be killed. For one of that very choir of the learned, by name Laetus ^f, a strenuous and most learned man, after long squalors of the prison he burned with fire, reckoning that by such an example, striking fear, he would crush the rest. At length it comes to the conflict of the disputation, namely to the place which the adversaries had chosen. Our men therefore, avoiding the tumults of shouting, lest perhaps afterward the Arians should say that the multitude of our people had overwhelmed them, choose from among themselves ten, who should answer for all. Cirila, with his satellites, sets up for himself a most proud throne in a lofty place, our men standing by, and our bishops said: That conference is always welcome where proud arrogance does not domineer: but let it be come to by common consent, that, judges deciding and the parties pleading, what is true may be recognized. Now who shall be judge, who examiner, that the balance of justice may either confirm what is rightly brought forward, or refute what is wrongly assumed?

[31] they render the reckoning of their faith. And when such and other things were being said, the King's notary answered: Patriarch Cirila has said that some of you have proudly and unlawfully usurped for yourselves the name of Catholics. Our men testified and said: It has been said: Let it be read to us, by whose grant Cirila assumed for himself this name. And thereupon, stirring up a din, the adversaries began to calumniate. And because our men had asked this, that at least, if it were not permitted to examine, it might be permitted the prudent multitude to wait, all the sons of the Catholic Church who were present are ordered to be beaten with a hundred clubs each. Then the blessed Eugenius began to cry out: Let God see the violence which we suffer: let him know the affliction of the persecutions which we endure from the persecutors: and our men, turning, said to Cirila: Propose what you dispose. Cirila said: I do not know Latin. Our bishops said: We know manifestly that you have always spoken Latin, now you ought not to be excused, especially because you have kindled the burning of this matter. And seeing that the Catholic bishops were rather prepared for the conflict, he altogether declined a hearing by various cavillings. Which our men, providing beforehand, had composed a little book concerning the faith, decently and sufficiently enough written, saying: If you desire to know our faith, this is the truth which we hold ^g.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere "Cubadus."

* Elsewhere "was fitting."

* Elsewhere "eat."

* Elsewhere "was urged."

* Elsewhere "subdeacon."

CHAPTER IV.

The calumnies and frauds of the Arians.

Victor of Vita, Book IV.

Which our little book being read when offered, they could by no means endure the light of truth with their blind eyes, raging, roaring with their voices, and taking it grievously, that we had called ourselves Catholics by our name. And immediately, lying, they suggest to the King concerning us, The Arians falsely accuse the Catholics, that we had made a din, fleeing the hearing. Who, at that same hour inflamed and believing the lie, hastened to do what he wished. And now having it written, and secretly, with that same decree, directing his men through the various provinces, the bishops being placed at Carthage, in one day he closed the churches of all Africa, and bestowed all the substance of the bishops and churches upon his own bishops as a gift. Not knowing also what he was saying, nor about what he was affirming, they did not blush to propose against us the law which our Christian Emperors had of old promulgated against them and against other heretics for the honor of the Catholic Church, adding many of their own, as it pleased the tyrannical power ^a.

[33] and they obtain an impious edict against them, After these deadly edicts, poisoned with venom, awry, he orders all the bishops who had been gathered at Carthage, whose churches, houses, and substance he had already seized, to be despoiled in the lodgings in which they were, and, despoiled, to be driven outside the walls: no animal, no servant, no change of the garments which they wore is at all left them: adding further, that no one should receive any of them into lodging, or furnish sustenance. But whoever should have attempted to do this for the sake of mercy, should be burned with his whole house by fire. Wisely then also the bishops, having set out [*], acted, so that, though beggars, they did not depart thence, because, if they withdrew, not only would they be altogether violently recalled, but they would also be lied about, as they were, that they had fled the conflict: especially because, wherever they returned, there was now no substance for the churches, the houses too being occupied.

[34] who in vain complain of the injury before the barbarian king. While therefore, groaning, they lay in the circuit of the walls under the bare air, it happened that the impious King went out to the fishponds. Whom all preferred to meet, saying: For what are we thus afflicted? For what evils perhaps committed do we suffer these things? If we are gathered for a disputation, why are we despoiled? Why are we disgraced? Why are we deferred, and, without our churches and houses, outside the city, laboring with hunger and nakedness, do we wallow in the midst of dung? Whom he, looking upon with grim eyes, before he had heard their suggestion, ordered horses with their riders to be let loose upon them, that by such violence they might be not only crushed, but even killed. Of whom then many were crushed, and especially the old and the infirm.

[35] The heretics try to induce the bishops to an oath, Then next those men of God are ordered to come to a certain place, which is called the House of Memory, not knowing the fraud fitted for them. Where, when they had come, a paper rolled up is shown to them, and it is said to them with this subtlety of the serpent: Our lord king Huneric, although he grieves that you have been despisers, and still delay to obey his will, so that you may be made of his religion, of which he himself is, yet now has thought good concerning you. If you shall swear so, that you do what this paper contains, he releases you to your churches and houses. To which all the bishops answered: We always say, and have said, and are about to say: We are Christians, we are bishops, we hold the one and true Apostolic faith. And a little silence being made after the confession of faith, those who had been destined by the king hastened to extort the oath from the bishops.

[36] which certain simpler ones take, Then the blessed men Hortulanus and Florentinianus, bishops ^b, for all and with all, said: Are we irrational animals, that, not knowing what the paper contains, we should easily or rashly swear? Those destined by the king also hastened to make plain to them the tenor of the writing, which had been colored with words of this kind. For thus the calumnious series contained: Swear, if after the death of our Lord the King you desire his son Hilderic to be king: or if none of you will direct letters to the regions beyond the sea: for if you shall give an oath of this matter, he will restore you to your churches. Then the pious simplicity of many thought, even against the divine prohibition, to give an oath, lest the people of God should afterward say that, by the fault of the priests who refused to swear, the churches were not restored.

[37] Other more astute bishops also, perceiving the deceit of the fraud, the more prudent being unwilling to swear. by no means wished to swear, saying that it had been forbidden by evangelical authority, the Lord himself saying: You shall not swear at all. To whom the king's ministers: Let those, they say, withdraw apart who dispose to swear. Who, when they withdrew, the notaries writing who said what, and from what city he had been, it was noted. Likewise it was done concerning those who did not swear. And immediately each party is committed to custody. But afterward the fraud which was concealed appeared. To those who swore it was said: Because against the precept of the Gospel you wished to swear, the king has commanded that you never return to your cities and churches, but, banished, receive by the right of tenancy fields to cultivate: yet so, that you neither sing psalms nor pray, nor carry a codex in your hands to read: you shall not baptize, nor ordain, nor presume to reconcile anyone. Likewise to those not swearing he says: Because you do not desire the kingdom of our lord's son, therefore you refused to swear. For which cause you are ordered to be banished to the island of Corsica, that you may cut wood useful for the lord's ships ^c.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere "cast out."

CHAPTER V.

The monstrous torments of the Tyrant and the constancy of the Catholics.

Victor of Vita, Book V.

That beast therefore, thirsting for the blood of the innocent, added, the bishops being not yet as yet directed into exile, that through all the provinces of the African land at one time most cruel torturers should be destined: In the general persecution a certain woman is tortured, so that no house and place remained where there was not wailing and mourning, so that no age, no sex was spared, except those who succumbed to their will. Some they beat with clubs, some with hanging, others they burned with fires. Women, and especially noble ones, against the laws of nature altogether naked, they tortured in the public face. Of whom I will name one, our Dionysia ^a, quickly and briefly. When they saw her not only bold, but also more beautiful than the other matrons, they first strove to attack her, despoiled, with clubs. Who, when she suffered it, and said, secure concerning her Lord: Torture me however you please, but do not strip my modest members: they, raging the more, set her, stripped of her garments, in a higher place, making her a spectacle to all. Who, amid the strokes of the rods, while now rivulets of blood flowed over her whole body, said with a free voice: Ministers of the devil, what you reckon to do to my reproach, that is my praise. And because she was full of the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, cramped by punishments, and herself now a martyr, she comforted others to martyrdom. Who by her holy example freed her whole fatherland.

[39] she exhorts her son and others to martyrdom. When she beheld her only son, still of very tender age and delicate, fearful through dread

of the punishments, striking him with the nods of her eyes, and rebuking him with maternal authority, she so comforted him that he was rendered much stronger than his mother. To him, set amid the cruel blows, she thus said: Remember, my son, that in the name of the Trinity we were baptized in mother the Catholic Church: let us not lose the garment of our salvation, lest the inviter, coming, find no wedding garment, and say to the ministers: Cast him into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping of eyes and gnashing of teeth. That punishment is to be feared which never ends. That life is to be desired which is always possessed. Strengthening her son therefore with such words, she swiftly made him a martyr. But the venerable youth, Majoricus by name, rendering up his spirit in the contest of confession, completed the palm-bearing course. And she, embracing her victim, giving thanks to the Lord with all the voices she could, chose to bury him in her own house, to the joy of future hope, so that as often as she pours out prayers to the Trinity over his sepulchre, she may trust that she is never a stranger to her son. How many therefore through her in that city, as we have said, were gained to God, it is long to relate. For also her sister, by name Dativa, and Leontia, daughter of the holy bishop Germanus, and the kinsman of Dativa, the venerable physician Aemilius, and the religious Tertius, illustrious in the confession of the Trinity, or Bonifacius of Sibida—how much they endured, and with what tortures the women were disemboweled, or the men, let him who is able tell in order.

[40] The punishment of a certain servant. A servant ^b also of the greater city of Thuburbo, a generous and noble man, what punishments he endured for Christ, who can explain? Who, after the beatings of innumerable clubs, raised by frequent pulleys, while he hung before the whole city, they lifting him on high with a swift stroke, the hempen ropes being let go again, coming down by the weight of his body upon the flint-stones of the streets, fell like a stone upon stones. But also, often dragged, and rubbed with most sharp stones, and the skins being separated, you might see the skin of the body hanging from the sides and back and belly. This man had already in the times of Geiseric endured things not very dissimilar, lest he should lay bare the secrets of a certain friend of his: how much more now, that he might guard the sacraments of his faith? And if he faithfully exhibited faith to a man for nothing, how much does he owe to him who is to render a reward for the faith.

[41] The constancy of a certain woman of Culusi, But in the city of Culusi ^c I am not able to announce what things were done, because even the very quantity of the martyrs, or also of the confessors, it is impossible for man to reckon. Where a certain matron, the increaser of her own name, Victoria, while in the sight of the crowd she was burned by continued hanging, was thus asked by her husband, now lost, her sons being present: What do you suffer, wife? If you despise me, at least have mercy, impious one, on these little ones whom you bore. Why do you forget your womb, and count as nothing those whom you bore with groaning? Where are the covenants of conjugal love? Where the bonds of society, which the tablets, written by the right of honor, made between us of old? Look, I beg, on your sons and husband, and hasten to fulfill the command of the royal order, that you may both escape the yet imminent torments, and at the same time be given to me and to our children. But she, hearing neither the weeping of her sons, nor the blandishments of the serpent, lifting her affection much higher above the earth, despised the world with its desires. Whom, when now, by the continuation of the hanging, her shoulders wrenched, even those who tortured her beheld dead, they took down altogether lifeless in every part. Who afterward related that a certain virgin had stood by her, and had touched her several members, and that she had immediately been healed.

[42] But how I should preach the citizen of the city of Adrumetum, Victorianus ^d, and the constancy in the faith of the proconsul of Carthage then Proconsul of Carthage, I know not, words failing: than whom no one in the parts of Africa was richer, who also with the impious King was always held most faithful for the things always committed to him. It is enjoined him by the King familiarly, and it is said that he would have him before all, if he lent an easy assent to his command. But that man of God gave, with great confidence, to those sent to him this answer: Secure concerning God and Christ my Lord, I say what you may say to the king. Let him subdue me with fires, drive me to the beasts, torture me with kinds of all torments, if I shall consent, I am baptized in vain in the Catholic Church. For if this present life alone had been, and we did not hope for another, which truly is, eternal, not even so would I act, that I should glory for a little and temporally, and be ungrateful to him who conferred his faith upon me, his creditor. At which the tyrant, roused, with how great punishments of how long a time he afflicted him, human speech cannot explain. Who, dancing in the Lord, and happily consummating, received the martyr's crown.

[43] At the city of Tabaia also, who could explain the contests of the martyrs that were done? Where two brothers of the city of Aquae Regiae, The contest of two brothers for the faith. secure concerning the Lord, swore to one another, and asked the torturers that they might be tortured with one punishment and an equal supplication. And while at first, by hanging, weights of stones bound to their feet, they hung the whole day, one of them asked to be taken down, and that a respite be given him. To whom the other brother, fearing lest he should deny the faith, cried from the hanging: Do not, do not, brother; we did not so swear to Christ. I will accuse you, when we shall come before his terrible throne: for we swore upon his body and blood, that we would suffer for him in turn. Saying these and many other things, he comforted his brother to the battle of the passion. Who, crying out, said with a huge voice: Drive us to the punishments with which you will, and cramp the Christians with cruel penalties. What my brother is about to do, this also will I. With how many heated plates they were now burned, with what claws torn, with what tortures racked, the matter itself teaches, and that the torturers themselves cast them from their face, saying: The whole people imitates these men, so that no one is at all converted to our religion, and especially because no bruises, no traces of the punishments at all appeared in them.

[44] But what was done in the Typasa of greater Mauritania, The martyrs speak with their tongues cut out. let us hasten to make known to the praise of God. When they had seen an Arian bishop, ordained from a notary of Cirila to destroy souls, for their city: the whole city together, by naval conveyance, fled from nearby to Spain, very few being left, who had found no means of sailing. Whom the bishop of the Arians began, first with blandishments, afterward with threats, to compel to make them Arians. But strong in the Lord, they not only mocked the madness of the persuader, but even publicly, gathered in one house, began to celebrate the divine mysteries. Which he, learning, secretly directed a report against them to Carthage. Which when it had become known to the king, directing a certain count with anger, he ordered that, the whole province being gathered there in the middle of the forum, he should cut off their tongues and right hands by the roots. Which when it was done, the Holy Spirit granting, they thus spoke and speak, as they spoke before ^e. But if anyone wishes to be incredulous, let him go now to Constantinople, and there he will find one of them, the subdeacon Reparatus, speaking polished discourses without any offense. For which cause he is held exceedingly venerable in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and especially the queen venerates him with wonderful reverence.

[45] The unspeakable torments of the martyrs, But who could pursue with fitting speech, or heap up, the diversities of the punishments which, by the command of their king, even the Vandals themselves practiced upon their own men? In what was done at Carthage itself, if a writer should strive to set it forth one by one, even without ornament of speech, he could not utter even the names of the torments. Which matter, today set in readiness, shows. Some without hands, some without eyes, others without feet, others maimed of nose and ears you might behold, and others you might see, by excessive hanging their shoulders wrenched, the head, which used to project, sunk in the middle of the shoulders, while continually torturing them by hanging in high buildings, by the thrust of hands, the ropes being shaken, they made them, hanging, wander through the empty air here and there. Who, sometimes, the ropes being broken, falling with a strong stroke from that height of the hanging, very many lost the citadel of the brain with the eyes: others, their bones broken, immediately rendered up their spirit, others after a little breathed it out.

[46] But he who thinks this fabulous, let him ask Uranius, the legate of Zeno, and the virtue of a most constant matron. in whose presence chiefly these things were done, for this reason, namely, that, coming to Carthage, he boasted that he had come for the defense of the Catholic Churches. And that the tyrant might show him that he feared no one, in those streets and villages he stationed more and crueler torturers, through which it is the custom for legates, in ascending to the palace and descending, to pass, namely to the reproach of the state itself, and into the dregs of our now failing time. Then therefore also a certain wife of a certain cellarer of the king, by name Dagila, who in the times of Geiseric had already many times stood forth a Confessor, a noble and delicate matron, altogether weakened by scourges and clubs, is banished to a dry and pathless exile, where no man perhaps might have access of coming for the sake of consolation, leaving with joy her home, her husband, and her sons. To whom afterward it is said to have been offered that, translated to a milder desert, she should enjoy, if she wished, the solace of companions. But she, believing that a huge joy was present to her where there was no human affection of one consoling, entreated that it should not be done. Then also, Eugenius the pastor being now established in exile, the whole clergy of the Church of Carthage is worn down by slaughter and starvation, nearly five hundred or more. Among whom were very many infant lectors ^f, who, rejoicing in the Lord, are thrust far off into cruel exile.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VI.

The freedom of the deacon Muritta; the exile of many; the constancy of the boys in the faith, and the impious savagery of the Arian bishop.

But I ought not to keep silent about the freedom then, when they were being beaten in the middle of the city, of Muritta ^a the Deacon, freer than the rest. The freedom of the deacon Muritta, There was a certain man, Elpidoforus [*] by name, exceedingly cruel and fierce, to whom it had been delegated to mangle the limbs of the confessors of Christ with raging tortures. For this man had of old been baptized among us in the church of Faustus, whom the venerable deacon Muritta had received, born, from the channel of the font. But afterward, while he apostatized, he stood forth of so great

ferocity against the Church of God, that he was found the executor of the persecution higher than all. What more? When first the presbyters were being cited in order to be worn down by tortures, after the archdeacon Salutaris the aforesaid Muritta is cramped with punishments. For he was second in the office of the ministers. Who, when, Elpidoforus sitting and raging, the honorable elder had begun to be stretched out, before he was stripped, secretly perhaps, all being unaware, he was carrying the sheet ^b with which, receiving him from the font, he had of old covered him; which, being shaken out, and at the same time stretched out in the sight of all, in these words he is said to have moved the whole city to weeping and tears.

[48] These are the linens, Elpidoforus, minister of error, which shall accuse you, with which he rebukes the apostate: when the majesty of the Judge shall come, my diligence keeping them to the testimony of your perdition, to plunge you into the abyss of the sulphurous pit. These girded you immaculate, rising from the font. These shall persecute you more sharply, when you shall begin to possess the flaming hell: because you have put on cursing like a garment, rending and losing the Sacrament of true baptism and faith. What will you do, wretch, when the servants of the father of the family shall begin to gather the invited to the royal supper? Then the king, at some time terribly indignant, beholding you called and stripped of the wedding robe, shall say to you: Friend, how did you come hither, not having a wedding garment? I do not see what I bestowed: I do not know what I gave. You have lost the cloak of the warfare, which I wove in the loom [*] of virgin limbs for ten months, and, stretching out the frame of the Cross, cleansed with water, and adorned with the purple of my blood; my eyes do not behold it: I do not see the character of the Trinity: such a one cannot be present at my feast: bind him hand and foot with his own cords, because he willingly wished to separate himself from the Catholics, of old his brethren. He himself stretched out the ropes continued into a noose, with which he both bound himself, and hindered others, that they should not come to this banquet. Beside the path he set a scandal for many, whom now, with perpetual blushing and everlasting disgrace, I have cast out of my banquet.

[49] Many are thrust into exile. While Muritta was saying these and other things, Elpidoforus, growing dumb by the fire of conscience before the eternal fire, was scorched. All therefore, preparing their backs for the scourges, proceed eager to exile. To whom, still set on the journey of a longer way, there are destined, the Arian bishops suggesting it, unmerciful and violent men, that whatever Christian mercy had perhaps conferred on them, to be useful for sustenance, should be cruelly taken away, when each one of them perhaps sang more gladly: Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked it behooves me to go to exile: for the Lord knows how to reach out food to the hungry, and to clothe in the desert. For two Vandals, often confessors under Geiseric, their mother accompanying, all their riches being despised, proceeded with those same clerics to exile.

[50] Twelve boys are separated from the rest of the exiles, But of the multitude of the proceeding confessors, that is, of the clerics of the Church of Carthage, a certain lost one from among the lectors ^c, Teucharius [*], suggesting—those whom he had known to be vocal, strenuous, and fit for the measures of song—says that by his own designation twelve infants ought to be separated, whom he himself, while he was a Catholic, then had as disciples. Immediately, at his suggestion, in haste they are dismissed to the man, and by the force of barbaric fury the twice-six number of boys is recalled from the journey. They are segregated in body, not in spirit, from the flock of the Saints. Who, fearing the precipice, with sighs of tears lest they should be torn away, bound the knees of their companions with their hands. Whom, however, heretical violence, separating them with threatening swords, recalled to Carthage.

[51] But while it was dealt with them, as if with such an age, now by blandishments [*], they were found superior to their years, and, lest they should sleep in death, they kindled for themselves the lamp of the evangelical light. and they are beaten with clubs. The Arians are grievously indignant at this, and blush to be overcome by boys. Whence, inflamed, they order them to be subjected to clubs, whom already a very few days before they had scattered with various scourges. Wounds are impressed upon wounds, and again the restored punishment grows cruel. It came to pass, the Lord strengthening, that neither did the lesser age fail in pain, and the more did the spirit, strengthened, grow in faith. Whom now Carthage venerates with wonderful affection, and beholds, as it were, a choir of twelve boys of the twelve Apostles. Together they dwell, together they eat, alike they sing psalms, together they glory in the Lord.

[52] In those days also two merchants, Frumentius and another Frumentius ^d of the same city, were crowned with an excellent martyrdom. The names of various martyrs. Then also brethren ^e, not by nature, but by grace, dwelling together in a monastery, the contest of confession being fulfilled, came to the unfading crown, that is, Liberatus the Abbot, Bonifacius the deacon, Servus the subdeacon, Rusticus the subdeacon, Rogatus the monk, Septimus the monk, Maximus the monk. For at that time the Arian bishops, presbyters, and clerics raged more cruelly than the king and the Vandals. For to persecute, they themselves with their clerics ran everywhere girded with swords: as a certain bishop among them, crueler than the rest, Antonius by name, who practiced such nefarious and incredible things upon our people, that they cannot be narrated.

[53] This man was in a certain city near the desert, St. Eugenius sent into exile, which is neighbor to the province of Tripolis. Who, like an insatiable beast, thirsting for the blood of the Catholics, ran hither and thither to seize those fleeing [*]. For the impious Huneric, knowing the ferocity of Antonius, wished to banish the holy Eugenius into those very parts of the desert. Whom, when Antonius had received to guard, he so girded him with a stricter custody, that he permitted no one to enter to him: moreover he thought to extinguish him with various punishments of snares and penalties. But the holy Eugenius, while he wept for the discomforts of our persecution, and wore down his aged body with the roughness of a hairshirt, and, lying naked upon the ground, drenched the bedding of his sack with showers of tears, at some time felt the hostile disease of paralysis.

[54] At which news the Arian, turned to joys, proceeds in haste to the couch of the excellent man of God. is direly afflicted by the Arian bishop; And when he saw the true pontiff, the affliction urging, uttering stammering words, he thought at the same time to extinguish him whom he wished not to survive. He ordered that sharp and exceedingly bitter vinegar be sought. To whom, when it had been brought, he forced it upon the refusing and unwilling throat of the venerable old man. For if the common Lord, who had come for this, that he might drink [*], when he had tasted, refused to drink: how much more would this servant and faithful confessor be altogether unwilling, unless heretical ferocity had forced it in? From which vinegar, especially noxious to that affliction, the disease takes an increase; to whom the piety of Christ, mercifully coming to his aid, afterward exhibited him sound.

[55] But how much he strove to harass another of our bishops, Habetdeum ^f, likewise banished, of the city of Tamalluma, in which Antonius was, the matter itself shows. The bishop Habetdeum is vexed in vain by the same, For when he afflicted him with various persecutions, and could not make him an Arian, and saw the soldier of Christ always constant in confession, he had promised to his men, saying: Unless I shall make him of our religion, let there be no Antonius. But when he was found lesser in his promise, the devil suggesting to him, he devises another thing. His feet and hands being bound, he cramps the bishop with huge chains, and his mouth being stopped, lest his tongue should cry out, he sprinkles water upon his body, as he thought, of rebaptism: as if he could bind the conscience with the body, or as if he were not present who hears the groans of the fettered, and searches the secrets of the heart: or as if the lying water could overcome the purpose of so great a will, which the man of God had already, with measuring [*] tears, sent bound into heaven.

[56] He at once strips the man of his chains, and, as it were rejoicing, pursues with this voice: and sharply reproves him. Behold now, our brother Habetdeum, you are made a Christian. What more can you do, except that you consent to the will of the king? To whom Habetdeum: That, impious Antonius, is the condemnation of death, where the assent of the will is held. I, tenacious of my faith, confessing with frequent voices what I believe and have believed, defended it by crying out. But even after you bound me with chains, and stopped the door of my mouth, in the praetorium of my heart, the angels writing, I completed the deeds of my violence, and transmitted them to be read by my Emperor.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Helpidiphorus.

* Elsewhere "protection."

* Elsewhere "Theutoricus."

* Elsewhere "not by blandishments."

* Elsewhere "roaring."

* Elsewhere "that he might suffer."

* Elsewhere "flowing."

CHAPTER VII.

The violence of the Arian bishops; the zeal of a Catholic woman, and the pathetic epilogue of the author.

The Arians, besides other vexations, This violence of the tyrants was indeed general. For the Vandals had been destined everywhere for this thing, that, passing along the roads, they might bring to their priests those to be slaughtered; and when they had slain them with the sword of the deceitful water, they handed them a token of their perdition, Scripture being witness, lest they should be dragged elsewhere by their violence: because it was not lawful for private persons or merchants to pass anywhere, unless the wretches showed, by the token of a written character, their death. Which Christ had of old shown by revelation to his servant John, where he says: It shall be lawful for none to buy or sell anything, save him who shall have the character of the beast on his forehead and on his hand.

[58] For their bishops also and presbyters, with a band of armed men, went about the villages and towns in the night-time, they rebaptize the Catholics by force, and thus, the door-posts being marked, carrying water and a sword, the plunderers of souls entered; and those whom they found at home, some perhaps sleeping in their little beds, sprinkling them with a fiery and thunderous shower, with demoniacal outcry called their own Christians alike, so as to show rather a game of their heresy than any religion. In which the less capable and the ignorant thought the sacrilege of pollution fulfilled in themselves: but the more prudent rejoiced that nothing which was forced upon them unwilling and asleep harmed them. For many also at the same hour cast ashes upon their heads: others covered themselves, or because it was done, with mournful haircloth: some smeared themselves with foul mire, and cut through, thread by thread, the linens violently imposed, and cast them with the hand of faith into latrines and foul places.

[59] By such violence, we seeing it, in Carthage the son of a certain noble, about seven years old, and they tear away boys to be rebaptized from their parents. was separated from his parents by the command of Cirila, his mother, without matronly shame, her hair loosed, running after the ravishers through the whole city,

the infant crying out as he could: I am a Christian, I am a Christian, I am a Christian. Whose mouth, declaring the Trinity by force in these threefold voices, they stopped, and plunged the innocent infancy into their whirlpool [*]. Thus it is proved to have been done concerning the sons of the venerable physician Liberatus ^a. For when he was ordered by the king's command to be sent to exile with his wife and children, Arian impiety thought to separate the little sons from their parents; that it might, through the affection of piety, overthrow even the virtue of the parents, the tender pledges of the sons are torn apart. Who, when he wished to send forth tears, is rebuked by his wife's authority, and in the very passage of their going forth the tears at once dried up. For his wife said to him: Behold, for your sons, Liberatus, are you about to lose your soul? Count them as not having been born. For Christ will altogether vindicate them too. Do you not see them crying out and saying, We are Christians?

[60] But what this woman did in the sight of the judges is not to be kept silent. The wonderful zeal of a certain woman, For when she and her husband, though separately, were nevertheless held in the custody of the prison, so that they did not at all see each other, it is commanded to the woman, and it is said to her: Loose now your hardness. Behold, your husband has obeyed the command of the king, and is made a Christian of ours. And she said: Let me see him, and I will do what God shall will. Being led forth therefore from the prison, she found her husband standing with a huge multitude, bound before the tribunals: and thinking true what the enemies had feigned, laying on her hand, seizing the edge of his garments nearest his throat, in the sight of all, she strangled him, saying: Lost and reprobate, unworthy of the grace of God and of his mercy, why did you wish to glory for a little, and to perish forever? What will gold profit you? What silver? Will they free you from the furnace of hell? She said also many other things. To whom the husband answered: What do you suffer, woman? What seems to you? Or what perhaps could you have heard concerning me? I in the name of Christ remain a Catholic ^b, nor shall I ever be able to lose what I hold.

[61] Various Catholics perish by hunger and cold, Then the heretics, conscious and detected of their lie, could by no means color their deceit. And because above we briefly spoke of the violence of their savagery, very many fearing this, some in caves, others in desert places, men or women, no one being privy to it, shut themselves up, and there, no sustenance of foods coming to aid, overcome by hunger or cold, breathed out a contrite and troubled spirit, amid these discomforts of affliction carrying with them the security of an inviolate faith. For thus Cresconius ^c, presbyter of the city of Mizent, was found in a cave of the mountain Ziquensis, released, his corpse now putrefying.

[62] The bishop Habetdeum in vain offers a petition to the king, And because we have already spoken of the holy Habetdeum, he then proceeds to Carthage, and judged that he should approach the nefarious King, that he might make manifest even to men his conscience, which he always held familiar and friendly to the Trinity: nor could Antonius retain him, on account of his own shame. He offers to the most impious king a petition in this likeness of words: What, I ask, have you now to do with the cast-out? Why do you daily contend with those whom you have banished to exile? You have taken away our substance; you have deprived us of churches, fatherland, and homes, the soul alone remains, which you strive to captivate. O the times, O the customs! the whole world understands these things, and he himself who persecutes sees them. If it is called faith which you hold, why do you harass the members of the true faith with such persecutions? What have you to do with our exile? What have you to do with the needy in the world, whose life is always in Christ? Let it be permitted at least to enjoy the company of beasts to those whom you have cast away from the face of all peoples. When the Pontiff had said these and things like these, the wicked tyrant is reported to have commanded him this: Go to our bishops, follow what they shall have told you, for they are known to have power in this matter in all things. But neither could this matter recall Antonius from his madness, knowing that he could greatly please the king's command by this; but the bishop Habetdeum, rejoicing in the good of his conscience, chose to return to the place of exile ^d.

[63] The author of the Acts complains of Arian cruelty, But what will they answer to so many and so great impieties? If barbarous ferocity and the Arian heresy strove to dispute with us about the faith, let it dispute reasonably. But when did it hold reason, which separates from God the Father the Son God the Savior? Why did they act by deceits and calumnies, and, like the spirit of a tempest, by the storm of their fury wish to overturn all? If an episcopal disputation had been necessary, why the hangings, why the fires, why the claws, and at the same time the crosses? Why did the serpentine offspring of the Arians invent against the innocent such kinds of torments as not even Mezentius ^e himself sought out? The cupidity of fury fought against innocence, and the avarice of cruelty, that it might both destroy souls and snatch away substance. If a conference was desired, why the plunderings of others' goods, not only of the priests, but even of all the laity? But they, despoiled, rejoiced, and received the plundering of their goods with joy.

[64] Let there now be present, I beg, every age, every sex, and he invites all Catholics to compassion; and every condition, let there be present, I beseech, every crowd of the Catholic name, which is carried in the maternal bosom throughout the whole world, which alone knows how to lend a brotherly affection, which learned from Paul its master both to rejoice with the rejoicing and to lament with the mourning. Let them come together to the house of our sorrow, and with equal eyes let us pour out rivers of tears, because there is one business of our cause and faith. I wish no heretic to come to condole with me, who perhaps desires to add to the sorrow of my wounds, and daily rejoices at my evils. I do not, I do not want a stranger, but I seek a brotherly affection: I do not want any of the alien sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity: because the alien sons have always lied to me, who have grown old and halted from their paths. These say to me daily: Where is your God, while the people, purchased by the precious blood of the Lamb, is afflicted? Amid whose reproaches I, ready for the scourges, do not cease to sing to the Lord who scourges: Remove from me your scourges, for I have failed, not from the strength of your hand, but from the persecution of the Arian heresy. Let all come who with me tread the way of the narrow road, and for the words of the lips of God keep the hard ways: and let them see if there is sorrow like my sorrow. Since I have been gathered as in a vintage in the day of the fury of the Lord: all my enemies have opened their mouth against me, they have hissed and gnashed with their teeth: they have said, We will devour her. Behold, this is the day which we have awaited: we have found it, we have seen it.

[65] Be present, Angels of my God, who never fail, established in your ministry, Then the angels, for the sake of those who are to obtain the inheritance of eternal salvation, and see all Africa, of old propped up by the wedges of so many churches, now desolated by all: adorned with so many orders of priests, now sitting a widow and cast down. Her priests and elders have failed in desert places and islands, seeking for themselves food to eat, and they find it not. Consider and see, that Sion the city of our God has become vile, made as if polluted with the menstruous among her enemies. The enemy has put his hand to all her desirable things, for she has seen the nations invade and enter her courts, concerning which you had commanded that they should not enter your church. Her ways mourn, because no one comes on the feast-day. All her beauty and delights have departed from her face, they have learned to walk the rough ways, her virgins and young men brought up in the halls of the monasteries have gone into the captivity of the Moors, while her holy stones [*] are scattered, not only at the heads of all the streets, but even in the squalid places of the mines. Say to our God our upholder, and having confidence to supplicate, since she is troubled, and her belly is disturbed by her weeping: because she has sat among the nations and found no rest, nor is there any to console her. She sought from the Fathers of the East one who might grieve with her, and there was none: one to console her, and she found none: while she ate gall in her food, and in her thirst was given vinegar to drink, imitating the sufferings of her Bridegroom and Lord, who therefore suffered for her, that she might follow his footsteps.

[66] and he invokes the Saints; Beseech, O patriarchs, from the stock of whose race she was born, who now labors on earth. Pray, O holy prophets, knowing her afflicted, whom before you sang with prophetic proclamation. Be, O Apostles, her supporters, whom, that you might gather her, you ran, the Lord ascending in you, like the swiftest horses, over the whole world. Especially you, blessed Peter, why are you silent for the sheep and lambs, committed to you by the common Lord with great caution and solicitude? You, holy Paul, master of the nations, who from Jerusalem even to Illyricum preached the Gospel of God, learn what the Arian Vandals do, and your sons groan, mourning, captive ^f: and all together, holy Apostles, groan for us.

[67] that they may succor the African church. But we know that it is unworthy for you to pray for us, because these things have befallen us, not for a proof, as to the saints, but by evil merits punishments were owed. But pray now even for the evil sons, because Christ also prayed even for the enemy Jews. Let those things which have justly been inflicted on us suffice for chastisement, and let pardon be sought for those now offending. Let it be said to the smiting angel: It is enough; now restrain your hand. Who is ignorant that the crimes of our disgraces procured these things for us, straying from the commandments of God, and unwilling to walk in his law? But prostrate we beg that you despise not your wretched sinners, through him who advanced you humble fishermen to the Apostolic summit. The most wicked Huneric held the domination of the kingdom seven years, ten months, consummating the death of his merits. For, putrefied and boiling with worms, not his body, but the parts of his body, seem to be buried. Just as that king of old, the transgressor of the given law, was buried like an ass, so this man in a short time perished by a similar death ^g.

ANNOTATIONS.

* That is, the laver.

* Elsewhere "of the sanctuary."