ON THE HOLY MARTYRS OF LENTINI IN SICILY,
CLEONICUS AND STRATONICUS.
From the Acts of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus, May 10.
Perhaps under Valerian.
CommentaryCleonicus, Martyr at Lentini in Sicily (St.)
Stratonicus, Martyr at Lentini in Sicily (St.)
J. B. S. & from Ferrarius
While I cite those Acts, you will remember that I at the same time say whatever pertains to the age, deeds, and martyrdom of these Saints, since there have long ago been examined and illustrated in that place all the things that could here be reported concerning SS. Cleonicus and Stratonicus. They are taken from the aforesaid Acts, Nor indeed does our Octavius Caietanus, volume 1, page 75, produce anything other than what has been taken from the aforesaid Acts, so that I judge it plainly superfluous to repeat the same things twice in the same Work. Let it therefore be enough merely to indicate the chapters from which they are to be drawn, namely, of the first part chapter 9, numbers 59 and 60, page 526, then of the third part chapter 2, number 78, page 532: concerning all which, what is to be thought and determined you have set forth more fully in the same place in the preliminary Commentary. Of their cult I see no room to doubt, since Caietanus records them so confidently as holy Martyrs, both in the greater work and in the Sicilian Martyrology, where he writes thus: At Lentini, the birthday of the holy martyrs Cleonicus and Stratonicus, in the persecution of Decius and Valerian. And indeed Ferrarius also announces the same, adding a eulogy of his own, in which the same history is contained: to have transcribed it will be to have abundantly set forth the whole marrow of the Acts. Behold his very words:
[2] whence Ferrarius's eulogy. Cleonicus and Stratonicus, citizens of Lentini, shunning the cruelty of the governor Tertullus, dwelt in hiding on the estate of St. Thecla together with blessed Thallelaeus — who, forestalled by death, fell asleep — and with others. Who, divinely aroused, and laying aside all fear, when, returning into the city, they publicly rebuked the worshippers of idols before the praetorium, were set before the governor by the soldiers of Tertullus: to whom he said: Who impelled you to enter so impudently, and to provoke us, despising our gods? Nay rather they: Who taught you to despise the God who created you, and to persecute His servants? At whom the governor, stirred to wrath, orders first their teeth to be beaten in with stones, then them to be most cruelly beaten by four torturers with ox-sinews. But the holy Martyrs
thus prayed: Forgive, O Lord, our sins, and number us among the holy Martyrs who have endured dreadful torments. At length, while the executioners, at Tertullus's command, most cruelly tore out the tongues of the Martyrs with iron hooks, they, with blood flowing most copiously, in that torment rendered up their souls to God on the 9th day before the Kalends of August. Whose bodies, cast into a well, St. Neophytus the bishop, when he had returned from the city of Rome, by God's revelation found, and honorably buried in the temple of the three holy brothers.