CONCERNING SS. VINCENT THE BISHOP, BENIGNUS THE DEACON, AND COMPANIONS.
MARTYRS AT MEVANIA IN UMBRIA.
IN THE YEAR 303.
A previous Commentary concerning their Acts, Relics, age, fatherland and church.
Vincent, Bishop, Martyr at Mevania in Umbria (S.)
Benignus, Deacon, Martyr at Mevania in Umbria (S.)
Several Companion Martyrs at Mevania in Umbria
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
Mevania — in the Acts of S. Chryspolitus, Bibania, commonly called Bevania — is an ancient city of Umbria, at the confluence of the rivers Tinia and Clitumnus; it is distant six miles from Foligno, twelve from Perugia, seventeen from Spoleto. Its antiquity is evident from book 9 of Livy, where Legates are said to have been sent to the Consul Fabius, that if there were any relaxation from the Samnite war, he should speedily lead the army into Umbria. Mevania an ancient city The Consul obeyed the word, and proceeded by great marches to Mevania; where then the forces of the Umbrians were. That was done in the consulship of Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus for the third time and P. Decius Mus for the second, in the year of the City of Rome 445, before the era of Christ 308. Mevania is afterward mentioned by Propertius, Strabo, Columella, Pliny, Tacitus, and other Writers; and it still shows a sign of its former greatness, the traces and remains of a certain Amphitheatre near the church of S. Francis; and of a larger Circus near the Dominicans, as Piergilius, soon to be praised, writes. And when the Christian faith was being propagated through Italy, it was honored also with an Episcopal See, but the names of the Bishops so fell out of memory, that one only, Innocentius of Mevania, and down to the 6th century Episcopal. subscribed to the Roman Councils held in the year 499 and the following, makes us certain that an Episcopal See was at one time placed among the people of Mevania. This once admitted, and the change of the name Mevania into Bevania being considered, I shall not unwillingly admit as probable that opinion by which two Epistles of S. Gregory are claimed to pertain hither; of which one, in book 1, number 78, written to the Clergy and Order and People of the Church of Vivanum, commits the care of it to the Presbyter Honoratus, and exhorts all to a speedy consensus in choosing a Priest; the second, in book 7, number 75, to Chrysanthus Bishop of Spoleto, to whom two years before he had deputed the office of visiting the Church of Vivanum, commands that, if indeed he can find such a person as may worthily be promoted to the summit of the Episcopal Office, he direct him to Rome; but if he cannot find this, let him seek out those who there may be consecrated in the order of the Presbyterate; … so that by this provision, the people dwelling there may rejoice that they have received back the Communion, of which they tearfully complain that they are deprived on account of the lack of Priests, and that in those churches the sacred solemnities of Masses may not be lacking.
[2] All these things express the wretched state at that time, through which the Episcopate ceased to be held. Meanwhile it believes that its first Bishop was S. Vincent the Martyr, SS. Vincent the Bishop, and Benignus the Deacon whom it still even now venerates as its chief Patron: and to him is joined the Deacon S. Benignus, who together with him and several others obtained the crown. We give the Acts of the martyrdom from four illustrious manuscript monuments, of which two we received at Rome, one from the manuscript Legendary of the Lateran Church, the other Ferdinand Ughelli gave to us, excerpted from a certain manuscript and trustworthy copy (as was prefixed) perhaps of the very Church of Mevania itself, the Acts of the martyrdom from 4 manuscripts. of whose copy Philip Ferrarius made use in his general Catalogue and in another of the Saints of Italy, where he published an illustrious compendium from them. There assuredly Baptista Pergilius found them among the Friars Preachers, from whose pen we have them rendered into Italian, illustrated with Annotations, and in the year 1646 dedicated to Giovanni Battista Alterio, Bishop of Todi and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church: which Author also adduces the Nucerine, Lucan, Capuan, and several other manuscripts. The third we copied from the distinguished Codex of Trier of the Monastery of S. Maximin; and the fourth we have from the manuscript of Metz, the same translated into Italian from several: formerly sent to us by our Jacques Sirmond: which, together with the Relics of S. Vincent, seem to have been received at Mevania in the year 970.
[3] An excellent compendium of the same Peter de Natalibus has, in which however, but by a typographical fault, In the Compendium of Peter de Natalibus. in place of Mevania, two letters being omitted, is read Mevia: which error Galesinius, Maurolycus, and Felicius transcribed in their Martyrologies; and these two add another, when they place the city of Mevia next to Levania. Thus also Peter de Natalibus says he was buried between Portulium and Levania, for which others have Mevania. Michael the Monk in the Sanctuary of Capua asserts that S. Vincent is commemorated on this 6th of June in the principal Calendar of his Church, which with him is also the first one: but he notes that in the third and fourth, manuscripts sent from Capua: on account of the Dedication of the Church, that Saint is transferred to the following day. In the same place in the Office three Lessons used to be recited, which Silvester Ajossa, the nephew through his sister of Michael, sent to us in duplicate, and they are excerpted from the very Acts of the martyrdom indicated above and soon to be related. In the Church of Benevento under a double rite are venerated SS. Vincent Bishop of Mevania and his companion Martyrs, and at Benevento where the Relics are. and in the Compendium of the Acts toward the end in Marius de Vipera, these things are read: But today their Relics are kept at Benevento in the Cathedral under the high altar, as an inscription there teaches: but at what time, or on what occasion, they were translated to Benevento, is not held for certain. Thus there.
[4] The body of S. Vincent is said to have been translated to Metz, Sigebert the monk of Gembloux, placed at Metz in the church of S. Vincent, instructed boys. He in his Chronicle inserts these things at the year 970: Theodoric, Bishop of Metz, more bound than the rest to the Emperor Otto II by blood, affection, and familiarity, while he served under him for three years in the Italian expedition, collected many bodies and pledges of Saints from various places of Italy, in whatever way he could. First from Marsia, S. Elpidius the Confessor … from Cordano, the pledges of Vincent the Martyr and Levite; from Spain, formerly carried by two monks to Capua, and from Capua thither; from Mevania, another Vincent, Bishop and Martyr … Bishop Theodoric translated to Gaul in this year, and placed in the church of S. Vincent the Martyr, built by him on the island of the city. Thus Sigebert. But Jacobilli in Volume 1, On the Saints of Umbria, brings down to this day the Acts of the martyrdom of SS. Vincent Bishop of Mevania, commonly Bevagna, of Benignus the Deacon his brother, and of about thirty other Martyrs: and he holds nay rather that SS. Benignus belongs to Lucca that a part of the body of S. Vincent the Bishop was translated to Metz, and is kept there even at this time, and the feast celebrated: but the other part of the body of S. Vincent the Bishop, and the whole body of S. Benignus the Deacon, were afterward translated to Lucca, which he supposes to have been their fatherland. Of the time at which such a translation occurred, it is not clear. The conjecture of the said Jacobilli is that they were placed by Alexander II in the year 1070, at the solemn consecration of the Cathedral Church of Lucca, made by him in honor of S. Martin, in the high altar of the said Cathedral: where hitherto they rest, in the high altar. and that parts of their heads are preserved in two silver heads, among the Relics of the said Church; and that there the feast of S. Vincent is celebrated on the 6th day of June, as also at Mevania; and that he is held the Protector of the people of Lucca and of Mevania. Thus Jacobilli. Alexander II had been before Bishop of Lucca, and was called Anselm de Pedagio: and as Pontiff he gave to the city the Relics of S. Alexander I the Pontiff, with the chain by which he had been bound, as we said at his Life on the 3rd of May, numbers 15 and 16; and likewise the bodies of the holy Martyrs Jason and Maurus, brothers, and of Hilaria their mother, whose feast Caesar Franciotti, in the Sacred History of Lucca, page 372, testifies is celebrated there on the 3rd day of December; so that thence Jacobilli confirmed his conjecture. But the said Franciotti, after relating the Acts of these Saints of whom we treat, ascribes their translation to Lucius III the Pontiff, born at Lucca; whom he asserts to have been at Lucca in the year 1182, and to have translated the bodies of SS. Fridianus, Cassius, Fausta, and Richardus; and the religion of the people of Lucca having been seen, to have been incited to augment it, and therefore to have procured that the bodies also of SS. Vincent and Benignus be translated to Lucca. Thus Franciotti, who afterward at length asks how the body of S. Vincent can be said to be both at Metz and at Lucca; as may there be seen: and he adds that, since very many others were crowned with martyrdom together with SS. Vincent and Benignus, whose names are unknown, their bodies or Relics could have been translated under the names of these, both to Lucca, and to Metz and Benevento.
D. P.
[5] At what time these flourished, and in what persecution
they suffered, The time of the martyrdom is the year 303, not 298 is disputed. The Acts have it that by the order of most impious Princes the persecution raged, and that S. Vincent gave up his spirit in the consulship of Rufus and Gallus. To the copy given by Ughelli someone had written, that S. Vincent suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Maximian. Ferrarius too and Franciotti refer it to the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, who, it is manifest, were and are rightly named most impious Princes or Emperors. Under them also in the year 298 Faustus and Gallus held the Consulship: of whom the former perhaps having died, Rufus could have been substituted, and, contrary to the custom of the Fasti, which entitle the years from those first designated by the sun, inscribed in the Acts: for otherwise throughout the whole time of the persecutions Rufus and Gallus are never found to have been Consuls together. but 303. But this whole conjecture for the year 298 wavers for me, when I turn my mind to the beginning of the Acts, where Mavortius is said to have been directed to Perugia, to gather the Bishops from the neighboring cities; and that, when the Bishops had been assembled from all the cities or the town, they were led off chained and bound with iron, and among them was S. Vincent. For these things (as also the persecution throughout the whole world, indicated in the first words of the Acts) not only indicate the year 303; but they regard the second edict of Diocletian and Maximian, by which, not long after the first one, promulgated about Easter, that is about the 18th of April, by other letters going forth it was commanded that all the Presidents of the Churches everywhere among the nations should first be cast into chains; then, all engines being applied, be compelled to immolate victims to the idols. And since the Fasti marked that year as Diocletian for the 8th time and Maximian for the 7th; it follows that Rufus and Gallus were only of the class of Suffects; in the third (as they called it) Nundine, so that from the Kalends of May to the Julian ones they held the Magistracy.
[6] Jacobilli asserts that these Saints were born at Jerusalem, and were disciples of S. Peter; and that by him S. Vincent, in the year 58, was created Bishop of Mevania, An invention concerning the year 66 or 70 and that with his Deacon he suffered under Nero in the year 66. Piergilius holds the year 70, which from the opinion of Baronius he thinks was Nero's last; in which, the Ordinary Consuls being removed, Silius Italicus and Galerius Trahalus Turpilianus, Nero substituted himself alone as Consul in the month of January, and in the month of June brought death upon himself. Then indeed he supposes that the administration of the Republic devolved upon Rufus, whom the Soldiery in Germany had designated Emperor; and upon Rubrius Gallus, who, sent against him, had defected. But all these things were done in the year 68: and that there might be no error in the year, the men are gratuitously feigned by the Christian authors of the Acts to be called Consuls, who never were so under any title; and that only for this reason, lest the most shameful Nero should have to be named by them. For an immoderate love of antiquity makes it so that, lest this be omitted, the intellect, thus preoccupied, embraces however incongruous and disparate things: none of which I believe either Piergilius or Jacobilli would have accepted, if they had been willing to consider the most diverse character of the Neronian and the Diocletianic persecution, and to compare it with the Acts, and to attend to the titles of Emperors and Princes frequented in them; which before Vespasian and Titus had not begun to be heard at Rome, since up to then the Republic had been under one Emperor. The same reasoning militates against the age contemporary with the Apostles, attributed to S. Chryspolitus, Bishop and Martyr, and colleague of S. Vincent (as is said in the Acts of the 12th of May): but those Acts explain themselves, when at last at the end they say that his martyrdom took place under the reign of the most impious Maximian. Since therefore SS. Chryspolitus, Brictius, Vincent, and others are said to have been Sent or Ordained by S. Peter the Apostle; some successor of Peter in the Roman Pontificate is to be understood, who governed the Church in the third century of Christ, namely S. Caius or S. Marcellinus, or any of the predecessors, according as you may be willing to believe that the aforenamed Saints labored longer in cultivating the Lord's vineyard.
[7] Furthermore Tamayo Salazar raises a new and wonderful difficulty: a Spanish fabrication. who, relying on the authority of Dexter and Julian Peter, and their followers, ascribes S. Vincent to Spain, and thus begins his Notes on this 6th of June: A great dispute presents itself concerning the true wrestling-ground of the contest of our most holy Bishop. Up to now some Italians have dreamed that the Martyr suffered at Mevania, a city in Umbria near Perugia; allured solely by the ringing of the city's name, by which, believing that no city in the world was distinguished by this name, in their ignorance they contracted so great an error. These things can, with the name changed, be said of Tamayo himself, who perhaps not in ignorance, but willingly and knowingly, contracted so great an error. We have no wish to dwell on these things, since it is now sufficiently agreed, even among the more learned men of Spain, that the said Chronicles were first fabricated in this 17th century under the name of Dexter and Julian Peter. The rest will fall of itself from the Acts themselves. The same Tamayo-Salazar on the 9th of June, on which is venerated S. Vincent, Martyr of Agen in Aquitaine, by the authority of the same Dexter and Julian Peter, assumed another Vincent, who, having left the Bishopric of Toledo, designated Bishop of the Church of Mevania, there as a Confessor rested in the Lord. And these things he says amid the silence of Spanish and Italian writers: which boldness of inventing anything for the honor of one's fatherland, and of affirming inventions as most certain, deservedly displeases men of sense.
[8] But, the fables being omitted, let us return to the true cult of S. Vincent in his Church of Mevania, concerning which it is pleasing to hear the aforepraised Piergilius, translated into Latin from the Italian. "In sum," he says, "S. Vincent was always held in the highest veneration by the people of Mevania, who, in the very first times of Christian peace, erected a church to him, near the old Capitol, The church of S. Vincent at Mevania, collapsed in the year 1360, outside their city, at the gate thence even now called of S. Vincent. And this was their Cathedral until the times of the Lombards: by whom, when Mevania had been overthrown in a wretched manner, that church too was overthrown; and the citizens, returning from their dispersion, built another smaller one, of which even now traces remain, beside the one which is now seen; and thither the Clergy of the Cathedral church withdrew, with the baptismal font. But this too in the year 1248, in the time of Frederick II, suffered grievous damage; and at last, wholly collapsing, it made its restoration hopeless, about the year 1360. Then indeed (as a petition, offered to Pope Urban V, on the part of the lay men of the brotherhood of the House or Hospital of S. Mary of Mercy of Mevania, has it) the Prior and Chapter of the church of S. Vincent, and several men of the said place of Mevania, alleging that their church was demolished, and that there a baptismal font could not be had and offices celebrated; concerning this, before the Most Reverend Father in Christ, the Lord Bishop of Albano, Vicar constituted by Apostolic authority in those parts, at some time litigated with the said petitioners, in vain another is sought and attempted to convert the said House or Hospital into a baptismal church. But at last the Lord Vicar himself commanded and declared that the said men ought to hold that House and Hospital, and enjoy its peaceful possession; as they had enjoyed it for sixty years and more: inasmuch as in that very Hospital the poor, the sick, the exposed, are daily received, cherished, nourished, and other pious works are continually done."
[9] The Clergy, cast down by such an allegation, about the year 1370 began to persuade everyone that the church of S. Vincent should be restored at public expense: but since Trincio and Gerardo de Trinciis, Lords of Foligno, and the parochial right is transferred to the church of S. Angelo. were building a fortress on the place where it had stood, and were pressing the people of Mevania with a heavy yoke, it had to be built elsewhere, and in a much smaller form than before. But neither could this fabric stand long. For the city, having dared to rebel against the Trincii, was wholly laid waste by fire and sword in the year 1377, with difficulty to rise again within many years. The Bishop of Spoleto, considering this, whom I think to have been Lorenzo Corvino, transferred the right and title of the parish elsewhere; as is gathered from the book of the Chancery of Spoleto, which is called the Pilosus; where the churches of the whole diocese are described, which in the year 1393 still remained, and these words are marked: "The church of S. Vincent of Mevania is a Priory, in which formerly there was a Parish, and the stone of the baptismal font was translated into the church of S. Angelo." To this the church of S. Vincent came down, yet the devotion of the people of Mevania toward their Patron Saint was not extinguished among them. For soon, when the tyranny of the Trincii had been abolished, under Eugenius IV, through the mediation of his Legate John Cardinal Vitelleschi, in the year 1439 the city recovered its liberty, In the year 1439 a new but smaller one is built: and began under Martin V to be governed by new statutes and laws; it decreed that the church of the Saint should be restored at public expense, and fitted for divine Offices within five years; with a penalty added for the Consuls who, during their two-month term, should not complete the part falling to them: it also decreed in honor of S. Vincent, that on his feast day their stipends should be paid yearly to certain public ministers.
[10] But today, after so many ruins, its strength and spirit being somewhat resumed, it even grows; the feast is celebrated with an Octave, and his feast is kept of precept, a holiday free from all servile work: the Clergy celebrate a solemn Office, and the whole people come together to lead the procession to the Saint, with his statue, which is kept in the Collegiate church of S. Angelo, and is held exposed throughout the whole Octave within the same church, beside the chapel erected to S. Vincent himself by the Lord Vincenzo Michillio, where the devout people offer vows and prayers. And for a more evident declaration of the confidence placed in such patronage, the seal of the Community has been ordered to be so formed, that the upper part of the shield holds the Bishop, depicted to the waist, in the act of blessing, with these letters written around, S. V. M. E. M., and the lower part a white Cross with the Keys of the Church crossed. Thus far Piergilius, from whom we have the Acts rendered into Italian; here in the original Latin receive them.
THE ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM
From four manuscripts and various printed editions.
Vincent, Bishop, Martyr at Mevania in Umbria (S.)
Benignus, Deacon, Martyr at Mevania in Umbria (S.)
Several Companion Martyrs at Mevania in Umbria. BHL Number: 8676
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
[1] The persecution being stirred up, When, by the order of most impious Princes, the persecution of the Christians raged throughout the whole world, and the Proconsuls or Consulars, as if obedient, and the Praetors of Tuscia, Valeria, Picenum, diligently sought out, that those who were worshippers of Christ might be punished; it happened that a certain Capitolinus, by the order of Capitolinus, Praetor of Tuscia, Praetor of Tuscia, with a dark mind and the rabid counsel of Satan, when he had come into the city of Perugia, directed a certain most cruel Count Mavortius, to gather the Bishops from the neighboring cities. And when the Bishops had been assembled from all the cities or towns, they were led off chained and bound with iron: led from Mevania to Perugia: among whom was S. Vincent, Bishop of the city of Mevania, with his brother Benignus the Deacon. And they were led and proceeded with various torments along the way: and a sound was heard at length,
because both on their hands and on their necks they bore weights of iron, and through all their limbs they were already suffering the torments of death.
[2] And according to the command of the Judge they are shut up in prison: and after long intervals of days, held as defendants as despisers of the gods, Capitolinus ordered the Saints to be brought forth from prison. And when the Pontiffs of the temples, that is, of the Pagans, had seen them brought forth in chains, they cried out, saying: Away with the Magicians, slay the sacrilegious, who overturn the majesties of the gods, and despise the commands of the Princes, saying that Jupiter, Hercules, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Cyron, Minerva, Venus, Juno, Apollo, Asclepius, Mars, Berecynthia and Diana are not God; who rule the world, and govern the laws of the Emperors, and give the fruits of the earth; but they preach that one Christ alone is to be worshipped as God, who is read to have been crucified in Judaea. To this voice S. Vincent responded: The Lord, in whatever city he is read to have been crucified, they defend Christ, in the same is read also to have been buried, and on the third day to have risen from the dead, and on the fortieth day, while the Apostles looked on, to have ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives: he himself shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the whole world by fire. For all those gods and goddesses, whom you name, are nothing and shall be reduced to nothing; the works of the hands of dead men. But if you say that they have any power, let your images be set before us: and first indeed we shall speak to them; if they hear us so as to answer, we adore them; but if they are silent, we shall break them and cast them into the fire.
[3] Then therefore the crowd, puffed up with a frenzied spirit against the Saints, hissing with a serpentine voice, says: What are you doing, Judges? The commonwealth has already been overturned by them, and they dare to break forth into inflicting injuries even now upon the Gods. Then a certain Valerius, a Consular, a religious Secretary, responded: Tell me, Pontiffs, the Bishops have asked for what seems a reasonable thing; let them be presented to the sight of them, by counsel they are brought into the temple, and if they speak against them to their injury, let the gods themselves vent their wrath upon them, and we shall be free of blame. Then it pleased the Judges and Pontiffs. And as they entered the temple (where there were several little shrines with images, and especially of Mars, who was called a God by them) they went on chanting and saying these words: The gods who have not made heaven and earth shall perish: for all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them. Psalm 123, 8; Psalm 96, 7 And entering the temple the Martyrs said: Let all be confounded who adore idols, the unbelievers, 600, being slain by the devil. and who glory in their images. And immediately the place was shaken, and all the idols fell, and were broken. Then all the terrified crowd of the Pagans fled. And the devil, going out from the statue of Mars, scourged the unbelieving men, and said with a clear voice: Through you we are cast down: for Christ prevails. And there died in that scourging nearly six hundred men: and the chains of the Christian Bishop-men were loosed; and the Christians and the Pagans together cried out: One God, Christ the Son of the living God. Then Mavortius believed, because he was preserved both whole in body and in strength.
[4] And when the Saints had withdrawn into one place to chant, S. Benignus slain with the others and were celebrating the sacred mysteries; Capitolinus sent and seized S. Vincent from there; but ordered the rest to be slain: whom the Christians buried. Then by divine admonition a certain religious man Eustasius, taking up the body of S. Benignus the Deacon, embalmed him with spices, and hid him, until it might be allowed him to bring him back to his own church at Mevania. But after some days, men, Christians from the aforesaid city, accompanying him on a nocturnal journey, returned with his holy body to Mevania, he is buried at Mevania. and buried him not far from Portulus, on the day of the Kalends of May, where his benefits are bestowed even unto the present day.
[5] And when a few days had passed, Capitolinus ordered S. Vincent to be brought forth, who had been committed to custody in dark places: and he said to him: What are you doing, Vincent? Where are your colleagues, who broke our gods? S. Vincent shows that the sun and moon are not gods: S. Vincent responded: They are now in paradise, where you are not worthy to enter. But even if your gods could not free themselves from the punishment of death, how will you be free from the penalty of hell? Then Capitolinus, filled with fury, said to the attendants: Either let him sacrifice to the god the sun and moon, or apply torments to him. To whom S. Vincent responded: If you were willing to listen patiently, and to receive the divine Scriptures, I would show you who the sun and moon are: whether they can truly be called gods or creatures. Capitolinus said: Show me, Vincent. Then S. Vincent said: In the book of Psalms the Prophet speaks thus of these, to the Creator of all things visible and invisible, of things heavenly and earthly, our Lord; For I will behold, he says, the heavens, the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast founded. Psalm 8, 4; 157, 7 Likewise in another Psalm he says: Give praise to the God of heaven, who alone made the great lights; the sun for the power of the day, the moon and the stars for the power of the night. 148, 3 Likewise elsewhere: Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the high places; praise him all his Angels, praise him all his hosts; praise him sun and moon, praise him all stars and light: for he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created: he established them forever, and for ages of ages; he placed a precept, and it shall not pass away. Behold where it is evidently shown by whom the lights were made. And further, if you seek and willingly wish to hear, in the Heptateuch, in the first chapter of Genesis, you will find more clearly how they were established for the service of the human race. And how do you make them gods, and command them to be adored? But rather let Christ be adored, who established all these things.
[6] Then the confounded Capitolinus said to his men: Let us force these to silence, and after our confusion let us be silent. And he said to S. Vincent: I had indeed wished to release you, but we incur the wrath of the most powerful Princes. And S. Vincent said: You too ought to have obeyed our God, rather than mortal men and vain images: for you are among those of whom it is written in Isaiah the Prophet: Seeing they shall not see, and hearing they shall not hear; their heart is blinded. Isaiah 6, 10 And the Judge said: O venomous voice of the devil, and deceitful tongue! Let Vincent be carried over to the lawful interrogation: for this man will not be able to conquer me while he lives. Then S. Vincent said: Happy am I, for whom your threats are turned into praises. Then savage wraths are set forth, S. Vincent is tortured, beaten, scourged, burned, he is tortured with various punishments: and with his limbs stretched out he grows toward the penalty. Then the Judge asked what he was doing, anxious about his death. It is reported to him that with a cheerful countenance and a strong spirit he endured all the torments, and confessed that the Lord Christ is the Son of the living God.
[7] Then again the devil entered into Capitolinus, and bursting into voice he said: cast into a dark prison, he is illumined with heavenly light: Seek a dark and narrow place, set apart from all public light: let Vincent be condemned to perpetual night, and let no one be left there, with whom he can gain any word of consolation. But when S. Vincent had been sent there, God shone a light into the prison, in which there had been darkness, and the door of the prison was opened. Then S. Vincent recalled the testimony of Isaiah the Prophet, saying: Who has walked in darkness, and there is no light in him? Isaiah 50, 10; Luke 1, 79 Likewise that in the holy Gospel: To enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. At length S. Vincent rejoices with the modulated sweetness of his voice, so that all the neighbors, who had come to his torments, were appeased by the hearing of its sweetness. But the guards, terrified, were aghast; they grew pale, thinking the fugitive Vincent had escaped. Then S. Vincent said: Do not, he said, fear, for I do not flee from my praises. Break into the chamber secure, draw in with your eyes the Angelic ministrations that are performed; rejoice that I am surrounded with light; and report to your Judge by what power I subsist. Then the ministers snatched the word from his mouth, and reported it to the unbelieving Judge.
[8] Then Capitolinus, panting with a deadly spirit, said: What more shall we do to him? Let him be plunged into the midst of the sea, let him become food for the fishes, and be overwhelmed by the waves, lest he seem to himself a victor. At this sentence of the most cruel Judge they took S. Vincent in the silence of the night, immersed in the waters, he is carried away by an Angel: and in the dead of night he is handed over to sailors, and is plunged while chanting: Save me, he says, O God, for the waters have come in even unto my soul: I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing: I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest has overwhelmed me. Psalm 68 Deliver me, O Lord Jesus Christ, from the depth of the waters: let not the sea of water drown me, nor let the deep swallow me. Then the high-throned Father, who stretched out the heavens, founded the earth, poured out the sea, hid the abysses, troubled the bottom of the sea, and the wave of the deep is closed up, and through a tranquil sea he caused B. Vincent to be carried to the shore by a holy Angel. And when the Pagans, who had immersed him, were returning, they found him already praying at the shore. And prostrate at his feet, marveling, they adored him, and on their own shoulders carried him back to his city of Mevania, and he is led to Mevania: which is a journey of one day, despising the threats of the Judges: for many powers and many signs were done through him among the people, for the remedies of their salvation.
[9] Meanwhile Capitolinus was turned to sadness, and touched with grief of heart within, Capitolinus being dead, he expired, saying: Vincent, you have conquered, because the name of victory has been given to you: the gods are nothing, since they can profit neither themselves nor us anything; but they are conquered by men, confessing Christ to be the Son of the living God. Then a certain most illustrious Porphyrius succeeded in the fasces, who also himself sent the company to the town and municipality of Mevania, by order of Porphyrius exposed to the beasts, by them and seized from there S. Vincent the Bishop, and without a hearing ordered him to be bound in the midst of a field, and given to the beasts, and left for three days, and guarded from afar. Seeing which, beasts of various kinds came to his feet, and with bowed necks licked his feet. But we have taken care to recount another miracle, brought forth from his mouth; that during the nocturnal guard birds were sent to him for solace, and he is honored by the birds: and a sweet and most pleasant harmony in the praises of the Lord was raised up,
and Vincent at that hour was chanting, saying: Bless the Lord, O birds of heaven.
[10] Porphyrius ordered him to be drowned in the water: and he was led to the Portulus of Mevania to be plunged. Daniel 3, 80 And S. Vincent said: The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee and were afraid, and the rivers were troubled. he cannot be drowned, the earth absorbing the water, Thou madest the waters stand in the Red Sea, and didst dry up the rivers of Ethan: thou madest the Jordan return backward. When thou, O Christ, didst enter, the streams of the Jordan, the sea fled, the river stood still: thou who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen. At this voice immediately the earth opened, and swallowed up the water, and the abysses were terrified. 18 men being drowned. And his apparitors, seeing this deed, were aghast; and fleeing, wrapped in the waves, were drowned, men eighteen in number: but neither was Porphyrius seen any more.
[11] Then S. Vincent returned to his little cell with a wearied body: and saying Mass, in the Lord's prayer he received the body of the Lord with the faithful; and failing, he gave up his holy Spirit to the Lord on the 8th day before the Ides of June, in the consulship of Rufus and Gallus. Then through the envy of the devil the Pagans strove to seize the venerable body of S. Vincent, he dies at Mevania on the 6th of June. that they might plunge it, now lifeless, into the depth of the deep. A certain matron, by name Liceria, of a noble family, foresaw this; and she bought his body for the weight of a pound of gold; and embalming it with aromatics, she buried it on her estate, which is called the Field of Salvation, at the new August fairs, between Portilio and Mevania, at about the ninety-fourth milestone, more or less, from the city of Rome, where many benefits of God are bestowed, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, in the compass of heaven, in the foundations of the earth, in the bounds of the sea, in the depth of the abyss; who shall come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.