ON S. GREGORIUS THE MARTYR,
BISHOP OF LILYBAEUM IN SICILY.
A HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On the account of him, taken from the Acts of S. Gregory of Lilybaeum.
Gregorius, Martyr, Bishop of Lilybaeum in Sicily (S.)
BY THE AUTHORS G. H. AND D. P.
Lilybaeum or Lilyboeum, a promontory and ancient city of Sicily, whence is the shorter crossing into Africa, of old famous for its harbor and for the wars of the Carthaginians and the Romans, afterwards made illustrious by the Christian name and an Episcopal See, numbers among its Bishops S. Gregorius: whom Octavius Cajetanus in the Sicilian Martyrology, Memory in the Calendars: and following him Philippus Ferrarius in the Catalogue, and Rochus Pirrhus in the Account of the Church of Lilybaeum, refer to the 5th day of June. Of him the aforesaid Cajetanus, among the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, writes these things:
[2] Gregorius, Bishop of Lilybaeum—at what time, under what Caesars persecuting the Sicilian church, it is unknown to me—opened for himself by the sword the way of eternal life. Not only did he make illustrious his see at Lilybaeum, but also the prison of Agrigentum; that thence the illustrious examples of his life, The encomium of Octavius Cajetanus, and hence those of his death, might be handed on to posterity, for, seized and bound, brought from Lilybaeum to Agrigentum to the Tyrant Tircanus, by his order he is thrust into chains. Indeed, when Justinian the Great was reigning, there was shown at Agrigentum a prison, which the most Blessed Bishop of Lilybaeum, Gregorius, had honored with his torments. We wonder that a prison consecrated by the blood of a Martyr was then in use; for under the same Prince, as Leontius records, S. Gregory, Bishop of the Agrigentines, by the impious faction of Sabinus and Crescentinus, was cast into that custody, in which Gregorius, Bishop of Lilybaeum, had been afflicted with punishment; the most happy fate of that prison, which two Bishops named Gregory should ennoble by examples of patience. Yet I would not believe that that prison was common to all malefactors; but that it was given to the reverence of Blessed Gregory of Agrigentum, that he should be shut up in the same prison as the Bishop of Lilybaeum. But why should I inquire into the old discipline of morals in that which was impiously done by Sabinus and Crescentinus? But it must be that Gregorius, Bishop of Lilybaeum, long shut up in the penal prison at Agrigentum, endured many hardships, by which at length he was held worthy of the heavenly palm. For at the bidding of the Tyrant Tircanus, in the same prison, pierced through with the sword, he fell, and consummated a glorious martyrdom.
[3] The same Cajetanus in his Animadversions thus disputes about the time of his See and martyrdom: This monument of the most holy Martyr Gregorius, Bishop of Lilybaeum, we took from the life of S. Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum, which Leontius, Abbot of the city of Rome, and Simeon Metaphrastes wrote. As regards the time of his martyrdom, I was long doubtful of mind, whether I should refer it to the persecutions of the Roman Emperors, together with his conjecture about the time: or of the Vandals. For I thought that the Vandals, by whom many in Sicily were crowned with martyrdom, as Victor of Utica is author, had carried off Gregorius, Bishop of Lilybaeum (who must be said to have succeeded Paschasinus), to Agrigentum, and, long detained in prison, at length, raging against his constancy, had destroyed him by the sword. The barbarous name of the Tyrant Tircanus moved me, and besides that the Vandals afflicted the coast of Sicily, especially to the west. But these conjectures are light: for under the Roman Emperors many magistrates were called by barbarous names; as Pentagorus, delegated by the Emperor Diocletian into Sicily to inquire after Christians; nor could I easily prove that the Vandals long held Agrigentum. Add that the name of Tircanus was not unusual at that time: for under the same Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, Gregorius, Presbyter of Spoleto, suffered under the Judge Tircanus, at Spoleto, a city of Italy. Was it the same Tircanus, sent into Sicily, who slew Gregorius of Lilybaeum for the faith of Christ?
[4] extracts from the Life of S. Gregory of Agrigentum, The Acts of S. Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum among the Sicilians, will have to be examined on the 23rd day of November, in which Leontius writes these things: The sacrilegious men and men truly of evil mind prevailed, and cast the Just one, Gregory of Agrigentum, into prison, and keep him bound with fetters: where S. Gregory, Bishop of the city of Lilybaeum, had once been shut up, and at length adorned with the palm of martyrdom, when, struck by the sword, he had died under the tyrant Tyrcanus.
[5] Thus far Henschenius, from the edition of Cajetanus, page 205: to which I would have added, that the Acts of that other S. Gregory are of so recent a fabrication, and so pieced together out of so many events bearing the appearance of fabulousness, of no great credit. that from them nothing can be solidly concluded; granted that those things which Metaphrastes published in a more compressed and more polished style bear the name of Leontius the Sabaite, as of one an eyewitness of many things; as we have already begun to say with reference to the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides, and will be said more fully in the month of November. Not for that reason, however, would I dare wholly to expunge as fictitious the Saint of Lilybaeum, everywhere received by the Sicilians: since it is likely that into that Life which we make suspect, the names of other true Saints are mingled; as I said with reference to the Acts of SS. Alphius and his brothers on the 10th of May, no. 13 and following. Meanwhile it is to be wished that more certain arguments of a true and ancient cult can be produced for Gregorius of Lilybaeum, than are had from the Life of the Agrigentine.