ON ST. CÆCILIUS, PRESBYTER, AT CARTHAGE IN AFRICA.
III CENTURY.
Sylloge, from various Writers, and from the present-day Roman Martyrology.
Cæcilius, Presbyter at Carthage, in Africa (S.)
G. H. & D. P.
[1] The sacred Tables of the Roman Martyrology, reviewed and augmented under Gregory XIII, on this third of June have these words: At Carthage, of St. Cæcilius the Presbyter, who led St. Cyprian to the faith of Christ. St. Jerome in his On Ecclesiastical Writers chapter 67, Memory in the Roman Martyrology and in St. Jerome; mentions both thus: Cyprian the African first gloriously taught Rhetoric: thereafter, at the persuasion of the Presbyter Cæcilius, from whom he also took his cognomen, having become a Christian, he disbursed all his substance to the poor; and after no long time, having been elected to the Presbyterate, he was also made Bishop of Carthage, etc.
[2] All these things redound to St. Cæcilius the Master. About whom St. Pontius the Deacon, disciple of St. Cyprian the Bishop, mentioned by us on March VIII, in the Life of the same St. Cyprian, to be illustrated on September XIV, says thus: likewise in the Life of St. Cyprian by St. Pontius, He had indeed living among us also a fellowship with a just man and of memorable memory, Cæcilius, then a Presbyter both in age and in honor, who had corrected him from secular error unto the knowledge of true Divinity. Him he loved with every honor and all observance, taking up his counsels with obedient veneration, not so much as a friend equal of soul, but as a parent of his new life. At length that one, soothed by his obediences, was provoked by the merit of so immense a love to such a degree that, departing from the world, his summons being now nigh, he commended to him his wife and children; that whom he had made a partaker of the communion of the sect, he might afterwards make an heir of his piety. Later writers have generally followed St. Pontius in praising Cæcilius, in Paul the Deacon, among whom Paul the Deacon began the Passion of St. Cyprian thus: In the times of Valentinus the most iniquitous Emperor, there was at Carthage, which is in Africa, a most glorious man, by name Cyprian: who first taught Rhetoric, then was converted to the faith of Christ by a certain Presbyter, by name Cæcilius, and likewise took the name of Cæcilius.
[3] Among other Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Cyprian we found some Mss. at Rome in the Vallicellan Library of the Fathers of the Oratory with this beginning of the Prologue: Cyprian the African, and in the Acts both Mss. outstanding Rhetorician, Bishop of the Carthaginian See, allured by a certain Cæcilius the Presbyter, took his cognomen also from the same venerable Priest: by whose skill and sanctity not only does Carthage shine, but almost the whole Church gleams with his eloquence. And these I think to be the Mss. cited in Baronius's Notes on the Roman Martyrology: for no ancient Mss. Martyrologies (and we have seen all those which are at Rome) have the name of Cæcilius anywhere. than from those edited by Pamelius. Finally James Pamelius in the Life of St. Cyprian, collected by himself from his writings, has these words: He had as Catechist, who also brought him over to the knowledge of the true faith, Cæcilius the Presbyter; from whom he took also the forename Cæcilius: of whom Cyprian himself also makes mention, in his epistle to Florentinus. This is epistle LXIX, in which he calls himself Cæcilius Cyprianus Bishop of the Christians.
[4] Thus far our Henschenius, most diligently investigating, not only those Mss. which the Curators of the Gregorian Martyrology could have seen, but also the centennial: How the title of Saint was attributed to him from 100 years ago, so that it seems altogether certain that they here too used that liberty which we have seen them assume elsewhere too, and especially in the Acts of St. Gregory Nazianzen on May IX, whose many kinsmen and friends, with the title of Sanctity, they first inserted into the Roman Martyrology; for which the day was chosen which seemed more convenient, with no example or author. There is indeed in the most ancient Calendar of the Carthaginian Church, as also this day? which Mabillon inserted and published in the third Tome of the Old Analects in the year 1682, somewhat after Henschenius's death, on II Ides of May the memory inscribed of Saint Felix, Cæcilius, and Companions; and it is probable that these are those Forty who in the Hieronymian Martyrology are by name recorded as having suffered on the Nones of May in Africa, among whom are two Felixes, one Felicia, also one Cecilius or Cecilus; but who would rashly divine that this is Cæcilius the Presbyter, instructor of Cyprian? But on this III Nones of June there is deep silence concerning him; nor anywhere else there is his name found.
[5] How he is left thus far. We can however presume that he died holily, who lived holily and nurtured so distinguished a Bishop and Martyr. But those to whom the faculty was given by the Pontiff of correcting the Martyrology not only according to ancient Mss., but also augmenting it with Saints added from elsewhere, may have thought it permitted to themselves also to attribute, both the title of Saint, and a definite day in the work entrusted to them, to those praised among the Ancients and seeming to be well deserving. Both certainly the Latins seem to have done in former times, who inserted into Martyrologies many, still customarily read in the Roman; whose either miracles or virtues St. Gregory so narrates in the books of the Dialogues, that of the manner or day of their death he has nothing, nor are their bodies known from elsewhere, in the places where they lived or died, to have any veneration. The Greeks have been even more liberal in this kind, when they inserted into their Synaxaria as many names of those as possible, who either in the Sacred Scriptures, or in the Acts of the Saints, or finally in the Lives of the Fathers as we call them, were found praised, without further notice. But these examples insofar as they avail in excusing, before the decrees of Urban VIII, Baronius and his associates, employed for the edition of the Roman Martyrology; whose judgment, so long as the Church does not disapprove, neither do we presume to disapprove:
we shall not therefore be bound also to approve or follow the founders of monastic or national Fasti, who after those Decrees wished it to be lawful for themselves, to add to illustrious men of their Order or Nation the title of Sanctity or Beatitude, and to choose for them at their own judgment a Natal day, as it were, which they had nowhere found. But this judgment too we leave to the Sacred Congregation of Rites; by whose decision if now a reformation of the Roman Martyrology were to be made, perhaps some would be omitted, of whose ancient cult and day of cult it is not sufficiently established. It is not for us to change anything in that Martyrology. And therefore we leave St. Cæcilius, as we found him.
ANNOTATIONS
* of equal sect
* by summons