ON SAINT QUIRINUS,
MARTYR AT TIBUR IN LATIUM.
A Compilation on his cult and condition.
Quirinus, Martyr at Tibur in Latium (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
Tibur, commonly Tivoli, an ancient city of Latium, now of Roman Campania, in the Pontifical territory, 16 thousand paces distant from Rome, among other Saints venerates S. Quirinus, different from another S. Quirinus Bishop and Martyr, of whom we treat below with the Roman Martyrology, Memorial in the calendars and in the same set forth with these words: "At Tibur, of S. Quirinus, Martyr." Where Baronius annotates: "His body (as we have received from the most ancient monuments of the Tiburtine Church) is held there reposed in the basilica of S. Laurence, under the altar of the most holy Saviour." Almost the same Ferrarius repeats in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, adding: where and by what kind of martyrdom he was crowned, no one teaches; and then annotating: "In the index or table of Saints who are venerated at Tibur, sent thence to us, Quirinus, not as Martyr, but as Confessor, is noted on the 5th day of June. Whose body, carried elsewhere (for he was not a Tiburtine), is buried in the Cathedral Church under the title of the Saviour." Previously the same Ferrarius, the body in the Cathedral Church, in the New Topography to the Roman Martyrology, had written with Baronius that the body is held in the church of S. Laurence under the Major altar of the most holy Saviour: which things do not seem to agree among themselves.
[2] But whether Ferrarius wished himself to be corrected with Baronius, in that Catalog edited four years after the Topography; or whether, through carelessness — to be forgiven him in such haste — he changed the names; we should not be able to guess, unless Ughellus, in Tome 1 of "Sacred Italy," in the Bishops of Tibur, asserted that the temple of Hercules, or the greatest part of it, was dedicated in the times of the Emperor Constantine in honor of D. Laurence by Christian rite as the Cathedral Church. And lest we doubt about the altar of S. Saviour, the same Ughellus adds, that in the Tiburtine Cathedral the bones of S. Quirinus
the Priest repose, and in it of old was deposited by Simplicius of Tibur, Supreme Pontiff, an image of our Saviour Jesus Christ, painted by the Divine Luke the Evangelist. And afterwards: "It is held in great religion among the Tiburtines: for the preserving of which, in the times of Gregory IX they erected a chapel, which was consecrated by the same Pontiff, within the chapel of S. Saviour. and in it the sacred remains of Quirinus the Priest were deposited, about which is this inscription there: 'To Christ the Saviour, and to perennial memory. In this chapel the effigy of our Saviour, painted by D. Luke, is guarded with veneration as due as devoted; in the same is preserved the body of Bl. Quirinus: of whom, besides other things, the memorial is seen in stone, on the right at the entrance. Yet for women to enter here is forbidden, except on the single day of dedication of the same; which was consecrated by Gregory IX, in the year of the Virgin Mother of God's birth-giving 1234, on the 17th Kalends of July.'" Thus there. Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, honored this Quirinus with this verse:
For the contempt of statues of slain venerable Quirinus Herculean Tibur venerates the Martyr's bones.
[3] Priest, Martyr, or Confessor, uncertain. Behold: he who in the inscription is called only Quirinus; is held a Priest by Ughellus, and by Ferrarius is a Confessor: who nevertheless is by himself with the Roman Martyrology entitled Martyr: which we also do with Baronius, leaving the doubt itself to be resolved by the learned of Tibur.
[4] If Ughellus would prove the title of the Priesthood by a more ancient argument, we might suspect that this is he, whom with the title of Bishop (for to the ancients Priest and Bishop are the same) and under the name of Cirinus, together with Ebustus and Rusticus, similarly Bishop, the Hieronymian Martyrology cites above after the Martyrs of Noviodunum; for easily there the name of the place, Tibur, could have fallen out: and all the Bishops of Tibur are hidden from us, until Paulus, opposed to S. Damasus in the schism of Ursicinus, in the year 366.