ON SS. GAIANUS, JOVIANUS, PHILIPPUS,
MARTYRS IN THE CITY OF BARBARIA.
From ancient Martyrologies.
CommentaryGajanus, Martyr in the city of Barbaria (S.)
Jovianus, Martyr in the city of Barbaria (S.)
Philippus, Martyr in the city of Barbaria (S.)
G. H.
This Triad of Martyrs is offered to us in the fourth place in the aforesaid four ancient copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology in this manner: In the city of Barbaria, of Gajanus, Jovianus, Philippus. Which in the Mss. of Florence of the Medicean library, In the most ancient ones uniformly indicated, & of the Museum of Senator Strozzi are thus read: In the city of Barbaria of the holy Martyrs Gajanus, Jovianus, & Philippus. Mention is also made of Jovianus in the Ms. Kalendar, before certain works of S. Isidore, kept at Rome in the Vallicellian library of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory. In another Ms. sent to us from Paris by Philip Labbe, are held the names of Gajanus, Jovianus, Philippus, as also in the Augsburg Ms. of S. Uldalric, but in place of Jovianus is read Julineani: in the Ms. Gellonense Joviniani. And these are sufficient about the names of these Saints.
[2] What was their arena, & the city of Barbaria, where situated, wholly escapes us. it is asked whether they suffered in Mauretania Perhaps in Mauretania: & there it gave occasion to posterity of calling that region Barbaria. Abraham Ortelius, in the Geographical Thesaurus, judges that Lampridius in the life of Severus mentions this region of Barbaria. But in Ptolemy, lib. 4 of Geography ch. 7, in Ethiopia, which is under Egypt, is read the Barbaric Gulf, & Rapta Metropolis of Barbaria, or Ethiopia. not far distant from the sea. In Gellius lib. 19 ch. 19 a Thracian man, from the farthest Barbaria, is called. But here Barbaria seems to be taken for Thrace in the sense, in which the Thracians were everywhere called by the Greeks Barbarians. Meanwhile it is understood that this reading of the Martyrologies should not be changed, although what this city of Barbaria was, we cannot accurately designate. If sometime Acts are found, greater light will accede to such great darkness.