ON THE HOLY MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA
SERAPION, TROPHIMUS, MELEUS, EUANGELUS, PROPOLUS, ATTALUS, ZENO, MENEUS THE PRESBYTER, TROPHIMA THE VIRGIN, AND PERHAPS MACROBIUS.
From the Hieronymian sources.
CommentarySerapion, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Trophimus, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Meleus, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Euangelus, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Propolus, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Attalus, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Zeno, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Mineus, Presbyter and Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Trophima, Virgin and Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
Macrobius, Martyr at Alexandria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
From various Greek tables, not everywhere exact, we have just now recorded, on this day, a certain Serapion, a martyr under the Emperor Severus and Aquila the governor, the wrestling-ground of his martyrdom being altogether unknown, whom Baronius, from the Menology of Sirletus, inserted with many others into the Roman Martyrology, The confusion or repetition of synonyms nowhere so expressed in the Latin Fasti. Whence also, from many texts of the Greeks of that kind compared with the Latins, so great a confusion of Serapions has arisen, that in the Observations on Usuard on the XXI of March, likewise on the IX of July, and on this very day in the Praetermissi, I have said that it is difficult to distinguish among synonymous Saints, especially since the accompanying details are so variously transposed or transferred that to which one you should fit his own, can by no means be discerned. Here I have left that Greek, a Martyr of uncertain place, to the Greeks, whose eulogy has just been given. What Grevenus means on this day by St. Serapion the confessor, is no more easy to divine. A little more easily I understand whence there crept into the Usuardine codex of Rosweyde "Attalus the martyr" and "In Egypt, Serapion the monk," namely from the metrical Wandelbert, whose little verses we recorded on Usuard:
The third day presents Egypt to Serapion,
And Attalus the martyr shines with a heavenly flower.
[2] it seems thus far inextricable, But hence too another new confusion of things, when those two alone were so plucked from the greater band of combatants, that you do not know the source whence they proceeded, which seems to have given occasion first to Notker, then to Maurolycus, Galesinius, and others,
for framing new classes and new Martyrs, or snatching them from the lesser Hieronymian sources, who could by no means be reduced to a fixed standard, unless the Hieronymian codices came to the rescue, from which so many almost bare names flowed into the additions of Bede, Florus, and Usuard. This, moreover, is greatly to be lamented, that through the drowsiness of the copyists, and at the discretion of various churches, some names in those codices have been both passed over and thus dislocated, that you can enter upon no fixed number and reckoning. Add that even there not one Serapion occurs, distinguished by no character at all; now as the leader of a class; now mingled with others, as you will recognize from the mere index in Florentinius. Notable is the entry of the XXI of March, where Serapion is marked at Alexandria, with nine other companions, almost as on this day, on which there is a somewhat greater diversity of names in the codices. Again another Serapion at Alexandria on the XXVIII of August, others in the same place on the VIII, XI, and XV of September. But let these things concerning the Serapions be enough here: now it must be asked, how many and what sort of companions are to be joined to our present one.
[3] Thus Florentinius gives his text: In Alexandria, of Serapion, Tropimeus, Meleus, Euangelus, Propolus, Actalus, Zeno, How many companions the present Serapion had. Propilus, Meneus the presbyter, Trofina the virgin. That especially in this entry displeases, that they suppose Propolus and Propilus to be two, who in the other codices are one and the same martyr Propolus, whether set before Attalus or placed after him. The second name we formed from Trophimus, who in the most ancient Epternach codex was changed into a woman; for so, I think, it is more fitly read than Tropimeus above, or Tropomeus, as in the Corbie codex, in which for Zeno is found Gelenis. In the Epternach, for Meleus, is Melleus; but in it the last name is better expressed as Trophina than in others as Trofina or Tropimia, which will have given some occasion to find here Trophimena of Minorca, or Triphina the Sicilian, of whom we treated on the V of this month. In the Corbie alone occurs Macrobius, whom on that account we add merely as doubtful. The names ill-formed by Maurolycus and Galesinius have been rejected in the Praetermissi. You see, as we said above, that it is not so easy a passage to discern the true names from the deformed, the true order from the disordered. We think that here all things have been very probably arranged, at least so far as was possible through codices often corrupted by the carelessness of the copyists.