ON THE THREE HOLY MARTYRS
EUTROPIUS, ZOSIMA, AND BONOSA
IN THE ROMAN PORT.
From the Martyrologies.
CommentaryEutropius, Martyr in the Roman Port (S.)
Zosima, Martyr in the Roman Port (S.)
Bonosa, Martyr in the Roman Port (S.)
J. B. S.
The consensus of the Hieronymian codices and of the Little Roman, and of its whole progeny through Ado, Usuard, and Notker, is unanimous in marking on this day the three proposed Martyrs, though with some difference in the expression of the two virgins, In marking these, the Martyrologies agree, for the first of whom, Zosima, by some is substituted Zosoma, and also Zosimus; for Bonosa, in the most ancient Epternach codex, is read Honerora; the relation of the texts themselves will make the matter plain. Thus the Lucca-Florentinius codices read: In the Roman Port, that is, at Hisclea, the birthday of the holy sisters Etropius, Zosoma, and Bonosa. That the names Etropius and Zosoma are somewhat corrupted is clear enough: in the Corbie codex it is Zosimus. Greater trouble is caused by the most ancient Epternach, when it first mixes those three Martyrs with the Alexandrians, of whom it is treated on this day, and then forms our text thus: At Rome, in the Port, the sisters Eutropius, Zosima, and Honorara, no mention being made of Hisclea, which Florentinius labors to find. Who this Honerora may be, I for my part do not grasp; without doubt it will have been an error of the scribe, to be corrected from other codices and other Martyrologies. Florentinius would wish to number her among the Alexandrian martyrs, that he might the better transcribe Bonosa hither.
[2] From the Hieronymian short or contracted ones no great help is had, though here and there discrepancy. for in the Augsburg codex there are mixed with other Martyrs, without any indication of place, Bonosus and Zosimus; in the Labbean, Bonosa and Zosimus; in the sole codex of the Queen of Sweden, or the Senones codex of St. Columba, the entire text is set down in this manner: At Rome, the birthday of the holy sisters Eutropius, Zosima, and Bonosa; in the others, both those edited by us and those edited by Martène and Durand, they are almost passed over, so that in vain we should hope for any light from them. This pleases, that in the codex of the Queen of Sweden our three Martyrs are so expressed as we have shown them to be set down in the series of the Little Roman in our observations on Usuard; except that they are announced not in the Roman Port, but perhaps better at Rome. Rabanus indeed marks the same names from some Hieronymian, but confused with others, without distinction of position or place. He who is cited by some as Bede is merely the Plantinian, or rather Ado corrupted in many things, as we have often warned elsewhere. To recur to other Martyrologies, of whatever class they be, I do not think worth the while; their abundance is the greater, the more unknown are the Acts, at least those which pertain to these three Martyrs. Notable are the things which Chalemot wrote on this day in his Saints of the Cistercians: At Clairvaux, the solemnity of the holy martyrs Eutropius, Zosima, and Bonosa, whose sacred bones, brought from Rome into Gaul, are there in this monastery, behind the greater altar, laid up under a tomb, from a gift once made to the basilica of Clairvaux by the Lord Conrad, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. Let us return to our Martyrologies.
[3] The place of martyrdom is explained. Meanwhile Florentinius seeks Hisclea. Since, he says, I have hitherto not found a name of this kind in the Geographers, it occurred to me to doubt whether for Hisclea should be restored In the Island. That between the Roman Port and Ostia there lay an Island, which, from the sacrifices customarily performed there, was called sacred, Cluverius teaches in his Ancient Italy, and drew it from Æthicus and other writers. But for our purpose we prefer to deduce this from the Acts of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus and martyr. In these it is narrated that the sacred body was buried by the faithful not far from the well into which he had been cast, some sixty feet more or less, in the Island, which on one side is girded by the shore of the sea, and on two by the division of the channel of the Tiber. That there was afterward erected a church, adorned by Leo III, which was reckoned in the very city of Portus, is had from the Librarian in the Life of that same Pontiff. I for my part easily assent to Florentinius in that inquiry, nor can there be any doubt that the said Martyrs on this day obtained the palm of martyrdom in the Roman Port or at Rome, this being asserted with eager rivalry by almost all the Martyrologies, which also the Bishop of Equilio followed, book II, number 194: Eutropius, Zosima, and Bonosa, sisters, martyrs, suffered at Rome in the Port on the Ides of July.
[4] The Acts suit Bonosa alone. And these things indeed I consider certain, taken not from the Hieronymian, which Equilinus never saw, but from Usuard; I do not so easily follow what Florentinius means afterward, when he thus proceeds: In the Roman Port, St. Bonosa, and fifty soldiers consecrated to the faith and to martyrdom, the Roman Martyrology has on the VIII of the Ides of July from the Acts of St. Bonosa, where Baronius notes it, and repeats it in the Annals; and from the Vatican codex Aringhi brings it forward, book 2 of Rome Subterranean, chapter 25. * That these Acts are preserved at Rome together with the body of St. Bonosa in a church dedicated in her name, Ferrarius adds in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy. The fifty soldiers went before to the crown, and there followed Bonosa her brother Eutropius and her sister Zosima. Here Florentinius divines or gropes, for in the alleged Acts of St. Bonosa there is the deepest silence concerning Eutropius and Zosima, so that neither Baronius nor Florentinius could gather by any indication whether the soldiers followed after in martyrdom, or went before. And concerning the three Martyrs the things said hitherto are sufficiently indubitable; it remains that in a peculiar Commentary or little dissertation we inquire what is to be thought of St. Bonosa with the fifty soldiers, here remitted from the VIII of July, and of their Acts.
Annotation* read 21.