Octavius

ON ST. OCTAVIUS, MARTYR, AT THESSALONICA IN MACEDONIA.

From the Hieronymian Martyrology

Octavius, Martyr, at Thessalonica in Macedonia (St.)

G. H.

[1] Among the more illustrious instruments, concerning the cult and veneration of the Saints, is the most ancient Martyrology, called that of St. Jerome. Of this we have hitherto obtained four copies, of which the most ancient, of the monastery of Epternach in the territory of Luxembourg, we had from the beginning of the printing of the Acts of January, Knowledge from the Calendars of St. Jerome, and we published its beginning in copper plates before the second volume of the Acts of the month of April, that even from the form and antiquity of the character its dignity might be recognized. There was added then a second copy, found in the monastery of Corbie in Gaul, and inserted by Luc d'Achery in volume 4 of the Spicilegium, and printed at Paris in the year 1661. Afterward Francesco Maria Florentini found another copy among his people of Lucca, to which we granted the Epternach one written out, and he himself published those three copies at Lucca in the year 1668, and at the end added observations from a fourth copy of the Lord Henry Julius Baron de Blum, now Imperial Counselor at Prague, which was submitted to him at our instigation. From this so ancient Martyrology, and made whole from so many copies, we shall proceed this month to set forth the Saints, and to illustrate them as far as we can. But this is everywhere the beginning:

[2] On the Kalends of June. At Thessalonica, of Octavius. The Martyrology of Rabanus, At Thessalonica the birthday of Octavius. Notker, At Thessalonica the nativity of St. Octavius. Similar things are had, in the very old Manuscripts of Reichenau in Swabia, of Rheinau in Helvetia, of Augsburg of St. Udalric, of Trier of St. Maximinus, of Paris of Labbe, of Corbie, of Aachen, and others, as also in the Martyrology published under the name of Bede, the name in the Latin Calendars: and in Greven in the Supplement of Usuard. That they are Martyrs, both this one and almost all the others related in those Martyrologies, we have ascertained with sufficient certainty, from the constant usage of the same, although that is not added. The city of Macedonia, Thessalonica, is also most well-known, concerning which we shall also treat more fully below.

D. P.

[3] Meanwhile the Calendars of the Greeks know no Octavius: at which indeed we do not greatly wonder: why not also in the Greek ones? for it is established to us from the epistle of Pope Nicholas I, that the Archbishop of Thessalonica held the office of Vicar of the Roman Pontiff throughout both Epirus, Illyricum, Macedonia, Thessaly, Achaia, both Dacias, Mysia, Dardania, and Praevalis; whence also the Emperor Justinian in Novella 13 indicates that he obtained from Pope Vigilius that the Bishop of his Justiniana Prima for the time should become Archbishop, and in the Provinces subject to him hold the place of the Roman Apostolic See. But if that whole Vicariate was afterward withdrawn from the Roman Patriarchate to the Constantinopolitan (for thus speaks the old Diatyposis of this Patriarchate in Leunclavius) yet this was first done under the iconoclast Emperors in the 8th century; but from that time the Greeks had greater care to preserve those same provinces for themselves, than to inscribe their Saints in their calendars, of whom you will find there only very few.