ON SAINT HILARINUS
MARTYR OF OSTIA.
From the Martyrologies.
Under Julian.
CommentaryHilarinus, Martyr of Ostia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
All the ancient Martyrologies rendered St. Hilarinus celebrated among the few, marking him vying with one another on this day, as concerning the little Roman, Bede or Florus, Ado, Usuard and their whole progeny, was not obscurely indicated in our observation on the text of the last of them for today, Most celebrated in the Martyrologies, so that to collect here the innumerable more recent ones would be to lose oil and labor. Simpler is the announcement of the first: At Ostia, of Hilarinus the martyr. The words of our Bede, Rabanus, and Ado are the same: At Ostia, the birthday of St. Hilarinus, who under the persecution of Julian, when he would not sacrifice, being beaten with cudgels, took up martyrdom. Notker, as we have said also elsewhere, inserted of his own, "who most gladly a receiver and sustainer of the Saints," which whence he received it is not so easy to gather: the Acts of Saints John and Paul in Surius, which in this work, for that part, are more rightly ascribed to St. Gallicanus, perhaps furnished the handle, while they thus proclaim: "But Hilarius, who once had received Gallicanus in the city of Ostia, when he was compelled by the persecutors of the Christian faith to sacrifice, and would not; being beaten with cudgels, was made a martyr, and his body in the same city (namely Ostia) the Christians honorably entombed." I add the text of Usuard, with the title only of monk, taken from the Acts of St. Donatus VII August, fuller than the rest: At Ostia, the passion of St. Hilarinus the monk, who when he would not sacrifice under the persecution of Julian, being beaten with cudgels took up martyrdom. Hear also Wandelbert:
When the seventeenth day marks August the tenth month, By thy feast, O martyr Hilarinus, best of men, it shines.
[2] Thus far the unanimous consent of the classical, as we call them, Martyrologies in ascribing the martyrdom of St. Hilarinus to the city of Ostia. It is constantly asserted to have been at Ostia, The Hieronymian copies had preceded, of which the most ancient, the Epternach, for the rest here in some places mutilated, thus reads: At Ostia, the birthday of Hilarus, for Hilarinus, to whom in the Lucca codices Cyricus is joined, on this day, I think, as also in others on the preceding day, not aptly enough inserted into the little list, and whither he looks will perhaps be more conveniently discerned elsewhere. To these larger and fuller codices all the more contracted Hieronymian ones plainly subscribe, both those edited by us in tome VII of June, and those by Dom Martène in the Analecta tome three, with this difference, that the Rhinau, Reichenau, and Corbie ones express the same position, writing for Hilarinus "Helarinus": the name the codex of St. Maximin of Trier rightly brings out; the copies of the Queen of Sweden, of St. Cyriacus at Rome, and the Barberini one refer that very little list already cited under the name of Bede, Rabanus, and Ado: the rest, as they are very brief, content mostly with enumerating the bare names, and those confused throughout, mark Hilarinus or Ilarinus, without the position added: but they so expressly announce the rest, that a more certain demonstration in that kind cannot be had; that St. Hilarinus on this day XVI July suffered martyrdom in the city of Ostia, no ancient Martyrology having thus far been produced, nor probably producible, which assigned Arezzo of Tuscany as the arena of his martyrdom.
[3] not at Arezzo as a few have written: To so open an authority of all the ancient Martyrologies, if Baronius had seen it, he would not so easily, I think, have opposed himself, nor interpolated the text of Usuard in the present Roman in this manner: On the same day, of St. Hilarinus the monk, who together with St. Donatus, seized in the persecution of Julian, when he would not sacrifice, being beaten with cudgels, took up martyrdom at Arezzo in Tuscany, whose body was translated to Ostia on the Tiber. This opinion of Baronius, although we did not altogether reject it in our observation cited above, now that the matter has been more maturely examined, we do not judge to be admitted. For it he cites in the notes only the Acts of Saints John and Paul, and the Life of St. Donatus of Arezzo, which he confesses to be very much depraved. Of these it will have to be disputed professedly at VII August; let it suffice to have noted here that which was long ago observed on the Acts of St. Gallicanus XXV June,
that the homonymy of names probably deceived the most Eminent Annalist, in which Ado seems to have shone before him, those very Acts, which he freely acknowledged to be depraved, and ought to have judged more depraved, if he compared them with those which Peter de Natalibus, bishop of Equilino, hands down book 6, chapter 105, and book 7, chapter 33, daring to produce plainly ambiguous matters as certain. From the first place we shall take our beginning:
[4] among whom Equilino must be reconciled with himself. Hilarianus, monk and martyr under the Emperor Julian, suffered in the city of Ostia. He, sprung from the city of Arezzo, long conversed with blessed Donatus, bishop and martyr; and performed very many miracles together with him: as is said of him in the passion of Donatus VII Ides of August. After these things, dwelling in the city of Ostia, he received Gallicanus the martyr, coming thither, and confirmed him in the faith of Christ. Finally, seized by Quadratianus the president, in the aforesaid town, when he would not sacrifice, being beaten with cudgels, he took up martyrdom on the XVII Kalends of August, whose body rests entombed in the same place. These things fight with the Acts of St. Donatus related by Ado; nor except rather violently can the Bishop of Equilino be reconciled with himself, when he asserts that Quadratianus the Augustal president held the blessed Hilarianus and Donatus at Arezzo, and that first indeed Hilarianus, detained in the city of Ostia, beaten with cudgels, he made a martyr of Christ, whom from the whole narrative you could not understand ever to have seen Ostia with his own eyes, so that it is clear enough that these things were so disposed that he might not too openly contradict the things which he had written on XVI July. Quadratianus plays an itinerant president, now at Ostia, now at Arezzo persecuting the Saints; so that both undergo martyrdom in different places; who are crowned at Arezzo in Ado, whose history meanwhile is thus at last concluded: But the bones of the Martyr Hilarinus are kept entombed in the city of Ostia; although in the whole Acts there is not a word that smacks of Ostia.
[5] Whether St. Donatus, bishop of Arezzo, ought truly to be reckoned a martyr, Of St. Donatus it will be disputed elsewhere. or rather a confessor, or whether he is aptly connected with the times of Julian, we remit to the examination of his birthday. That his Acts are depraved is evidently perceived, not from the faith of Baronius alone, but from the reading of them: nor can there be doubt that the Hilarianus of Equilino is plainly the same who in the Acts of Ado is called Hilarinus: the Rhodes and the crux is, whether two Hilarini, the one of Ostia and the one of Arezzo, or only one is to be admitted, who, suffering at Arezzo, was translated to Ostia after his martyrdom? Ferrarius saw the knot, but leaped over it rather than untied it. To explain my mind in few words: that Hilarinus of Ostia, by the consent of the Martyrologies, obtained the crown of martyrdom, I hold undoubted; that he suffered under Julian the Acts of St. Gallicanus record and the Martyrologies cited above, which I do not undertake to vindicate in every, or at least in that part; nor would I dare thus far to pronounce as certain that that one of Ostia is plainly the same as any one of Arezzo; nay I would rather admit two different Hilarini or Hilariani, than that I should suffer the unshaken authority of the Martyrologies here to be compared with the depraved Acts of Ado and of Equilino: but that controversy, some light perhaps afterward shining forth, I trust will be more easily settled: when also it may be more accurately discussed what Baronius means in the Annals at the year 362, number 250, when, the martyrdom of St. Gallicanus being narrated, he thus subjoins: At which same time at Rome Hilarius, a very intimate friend of Gallicanus, and also Donatus bishop of Arezzo, a man of proved sanctity, consummated their martyrdom by the cutting off of the head. Let it suffice to have here asserted St. Hilarinus to the men of Ostia.