ON ST. PROCULUS, SOLDIER, MARTYR AT BOLOGNA IN ITALY.
ABOUT THE YEAR 303.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY. His distinction from St. Proculus of Interamna, the time of the martyrdom, the apocryphal Acts.
Proculus, Soldier, Martyr at Bologna in Italy (St.)
G. H.
Philippo Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on these Kalends of June, sets forth two Proculi who suffered as Martyrs at Bologna, one a Soldier, of whom we treat here; The cult of St. Proculus Bishop of Interamna on December 1. the other a Bishop of Interamna, whom we leave to posterity, that on the Kalends of December they may deign to honor him, because the old Martyrologies refer him to those. So the Manuscripts of Monte Cassino in Lombard character, and another which we found at Rome in the Library of the Duke of Altemps; At Interamna, the birthday of St. Proculus, Bishop and Martyr. The Manuscripts also, the Vatican one of the Church of St. Peter, and another of the monastery of St. Cyriacus, in the Supplement of the genuine Martyrology of Bede, published by us before the second volume of March, set forth these things: At Interamna or Narni, of St. Proculus, Bishop and Martyr. But Maurolyco writes these things: At Narni or Bologna, of St. Proculus, Bishop and Martyr, under Totila King of the Goths. But to Narni alone ascribe him Galesini and Baronius in the Roman Martyrology, who besides the more recent ones cites Usuard. But he only calls him a Presbyter: but Baronius adds in the Notes that in the most ancient codex of all of St. Cyriacus (as we said above) St. Proculus is attributed to Interamna or Narni. But let these things suffice concerning the Bishop, in whom how great a confusion has been made, two Bishop Martyrs of most diverse age and city being conflated into one person, will appear below, where we shall treat of the Bologna one who suffered under Totila; the older Narni one being remitted to the Kalends of December: but what we have concerning Proculus the Soldier, we give here.
[2] But the cult of St. Proculus the soldier on June 1, Gabriele Paleotti, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Archbishop of Bologna, in his Archiepiscopal Bologna, printed at Rome in the year 1594, at the end, adds a Catalogue of the Saints and Blessed of Bologna: where among the Martyrs he indicates these things; St. Proculus, Martyr under Maximian, not (as is commonly reported) under the Emperor Justin or King Theoderic. For St. Paulinus of Nola, who lived before the four-hundredth year of Christ, mentions him. Concerning him we shall treat on June 22: but his verses these cite, Baronius, on these Kalends of June, and Sigonius to be cited below. To these as Companion, in piety, faith, virtue, crown, reckoned among the Patrons of Bologna by St. Paulinus. the Martyrs Agricola, and Proculus, Vitalis clinging,
And elsewhere: Vitalis, Agricola, and Proculus Bologna lays up, whom the sworn fidelity of piety called to arms; And for the salutary palms victory covered their illustrious bodies, pierced through with beam-like nails.
[3] who is also indicated by St. Gregory In the aforecited Notes to the already-mentioned Martyrology, the Most Illustrious Author of these thus proceeds: Concerning the birthday of St. Proculus the Martyr, accustomed to be solemnly celebrated, St. Gregory writes in book 1 of the Dialogues chapter 9, on Bonifacius, about the middle. For we are persuaded that he and no other, as a most famous Martyr, most well-known to all, is there treated. The words of St. Gregory are these: For at another time the birthday of Blessed Proculus the Martyr was approaching, in which place a noble man, Fortunatus by name, was staying: who with great prayers asked from the same venerable man, that when he should perform the solemn rites of Masses at the blessed Martyr's, he would turn aside to his house to give a blessing. The rest can be read published by us, and as far as was permitted illustrated, at the Acts of St. Bonifacius Bishop of Ferentino, and on May 14 number 2. Moreover the same Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 303 number 122 thus collects the Patrons of Bologna: related in the Roman Martyrology. The noble city of Bologna has illustrious Martyrs, Vitalis and Agricola, to be referred to on November 4; Hermes, Aggaeus, and Caius, related on January 4. But Proculus too was then there distinguished with the crown of martyrdom, a Martyr most renowned in fame. But because the Acts of his martyrdom are lost, another occasion of comment is given: but consult what is noted by us in the Roman Martyrology: into which by error crept the name of Bishop. That error removed, these things are now read in the said Martyrology: At Bologna, of St. Proculus, Martyr, who under the Emperor Maximian suffered. Ferrari in the general Catalogue adds that he was a Soldier: he could also have added that one of the Gates of Bologna, from this so ancient and once chief Patron of the city, is called Procula. The Martyrology of the Duke of Altemps, which we saw at Rome in Manuscript, on June 5 mentions Proculus the Martyr of Bologna.
[4] The Body in a church dedicated to him: Masini in his Bologna Surveyed, on these Kalends of June asserts that St. Proculus the Martyr is held among the Patrons of the city of Bologna, and was a Soldier of it, and is believed to be of the Tencararina family, and that a Parochial Church of the black monks of the Cassinese Congregation of the Benedictines is dedicated to him, situated in the square of St. Mamolus; and that in it his sacred body rests, together with the body of the other Proculus, Bishop of Interamna; and that their heads are exposed on this day, and that formerly plenary Indulgences were granted by Gregory XIII in the year 1584. But he adds that of St. Proculus Bishop of Interamna this day is the feast of the Translation, but that his birthday is held the first day of December, as we noted above. But concerning the Martyrdom of St. Proculus the Soldier the same Masini writes thus: He was crowned with martyrdom in the year 303, outside the gate of St. Mamolus, near the church of St. Mary of the Green Valley; where, in the place in which he had been beheaded, a stone Cross of an ash color was erected: and the church, now called St. Proculus's, was formerly dedicated to St. Sixtus, and subterranean in the manner of a Confessio.
[5] enclosed in a chest in the year 1390, Afterward, says the above-praised Masini, in the year 1390 the Abbot John took care to have a marble chest constructed, in which the bodies of these two Saints were enclosed. Afterward in the year 1536, on February 17, as is established by the authentic instrument of Giovanni Evangelista Muttugliani, the said bodies were visited and recognized before the Suffragan and Vicar general, Agostino Zanetto, and the Counts Alessandro Pepoli and Vincenzo Orso, and recognized in the year 1536. taken on for this matter by the Government of Bologna, and others. When the said Chest was sealed with the Seal of the City, and transported to the Chapel of the Counts Isolani, now called St. Jerome's, in which it is still found: and the feast of the aforesaid Translation is held every year, with a plenary Indulgence, obtained from Gregory XIII. The monument of this Translation and the figure of the chest common to both Proculi will be represented below, where we treat of Proculus the Bishop.
[6] Baronius above, asserting that the Acts are lost, and that occasion for comment is given, seems to insinuate those things which St. Antoninus wrote in part 3 of the Chronicle, title 24 chapter 13 §. 4; asserting that Proculus suffered under the Emperor Justin; the apocryphal Acts, in which which we said was also rejected by Paleotti. Meanwhile Sigonio in book 1 on the Bishops of Bologna near the beginning, treating of the persecution of Diocletian, writes these things from St. Antoninus: When Marinus, sent by the Emperor to Bologna to carry on the persecution against the Christians, was conducting the matter most cruelly according to his power; Proculus, a Christian soldier, moved by the indignity of the matter, with an axe hidden under his garment, goes by night to his house; and secretly admitted, the conversation which he had demanded omitted, drives the axe into his head, and, he being laid low, departs silently. The death then discovered, Proculus, betrayed and seized by the information of a certain Hebrew, when he gloried that he had been the author of that killing, is said to have killed Marinus the Prefect, was himself too beheaded with the sword. So much there; which, Sigonio cited, Ferrari also related on these Kalends of June: at which the matter Galesini explains otherwise and more in a Christian way, with these words: At Bologna, of St. Proculus the Martyr, who by the order of Marinus the Praetorian Prefect, for the Catholic faith variously tortured, at last struck with the axe is crowned.
[7] These things related, Galesini cites St. Antoninus; but Sigonio read him more accurately or at least expressed him more faithfully, and the matter thus written by the holy Historiographer, but often too credulous, and to have himself taken up his cut-off head. the curator of the Lyons edition of the year 1586 doubted; and therefore noted in the margin: An unheard-of deed, scarcely, as I think, credible. The same I think can be said of the following act, by no means to be received on the sole faith of so apocryphal a Legend, which the same Sigonio took also from St. Antoninus with these words: But what was wonderful, beheaded, rising, he is said to have gathered his head with his hands, and to have carried it even to that place, where afterward a building was constituted for him with a monastery. The illustrator of the Felsinian, that is Bolognese, Marbles, Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Doctor of both Laws and of the sacred Page in the College, in his native University in the evening hours Primary and Emeritus Interpreter of the Laws, and also Canon of the Cathedral Church, in the year in which we write this, 1693, piously deceased; in Section 5 chapter 3 produces a marble stone, on whose tablet he says is read a most ancient Epigraph renewed, consumed by the long lapse of time, in this tenor: Here St. Proculus, Soldier of Bologna, was crowned with sacred martyrdom, his head cut off, which he carried with his own hands to that place where now his temple is seen, in the year of the Lord 303. The same things Ferrari and Masini set forth to their Readers assertively, thinking the matter not to lack a certain example in Dionysius of Paris, and several other Gallican Martyrs. But (as we have already often noted elsewhere) it is credible that such carryings of cut-off heads were taken from statues or pictures representing the Martyrs themselves with the head before the breast in their hands: by which alone it was indicated that they had deserved the palm of martyrdom in this member, cut off for the faith; just as when Sts. Agatha and Apollonia are painted with teeth or a breast in their hands. These things therefore dismissed, I add only one thing about the name of Proculus, that it was most usual among the people of Bologna, even under the Gentile Emperors. This is proved by the inscription of one of two very similar marble sarcophagi, such as you see here. One of these this Proculus, the father, to his son, "F. C." that is "had it made," the same Statia "C. F." that is daughter of Gaius, and so it is inscribed: To Titus Veneius, son of Quintus, Paullus, and in the Roman Epitaphs Statia Marcella daughter of Gaius, the Mother: both, after about one thousand four hundred years, dug up from his own fields adjoining the castle of St. George, Philip the Senator Cospi, providing for the ornament of his country and house, took care to be transferred in the year 1681, as the marble title set on them has it. We owe them to the above-praised Illustrator of the Felsinian marbles, among which in section 7 chapter 1 they are represented, with a learned Observation added on their form, material, and titles, to which I refer the reader curious of such things: I only note, both there and in several other inscriptions, which it will be permitted to weigh, collected in the aforecited section 5 chapter 3, that the name of Proculus is written either in the third place (which among the Romans was of the highest nobility) or at least in the second place, the surname of a family. which also befitted the freedmen of both sexes; and that everywhere it is held not a name but a surname. Whence one might rightly suspect that the same is to be thought of this Martyr, whose last name alone is inscribed in the calendars, as more usual: just as we say Cicero more often than Tullius; but Marcus, by the first and proper name, scarcely ever.