Julitta the Widow of Iconium

ON ST. JULITTA THE WIDOW OF ICONIUM, AND HER LITTLE SON ST. CERICUS OR QUIRICUS,

MARTYRS AT TARSUS IN CILICIA

UNDER DIOCLETIAN.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

Julitta the Widow, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

Quiricus her son, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

D. P.

§. I. On their varied cult among the Greeks and Latins,

the Acts censured by Pope Gelasius, the truer ones published by Theodore

Bishop of Iconium.

The venerable Bede, whose genuine

Martyrology we set forth before

the second Volume of March, since he had as his purpose

to arrange through the calendar only the names of those

Saints passed over by Bede on account of deficient Acts,

whose Acts he had found; but of the Saints

aforetitled either he had found none,

or had judged them to be despised as apocryphal;

silently passing over their names, he deemed it enough

to interweave the eulogy of Saints Ferreolus and Ferrutio into this day:

for it is not his, but rather Ado's,

the little book which is circulated under Bede's name with

their memory woven in with Ado's words. Treading in Bede's

footsteps, Florus of Lyon, intending to fill the gaps left

by Bede as he could, in the Arras

and Lætian Mss. indeed is found to have written nothing more

about them; Florus in his 2nd edition reported [it with a eulogy,] But happily in the Tournai copy,

where the reported words I believe were received from the same

Florus's second Booklet, in which, as Usuard testifies, he both

corrected and added many things which in the former he had omitted.

[2] But Florus received no other than apocryphal Acts;

which he collected into a compendium in this manner:

"At Antioch the passion of St. Cyricus and

of Julitta his mother: but taken from the apocrypha, of whom the former, after dire

scourgings, received also lime with vinegar and mustard

in his mouth: then both alike pierced with nails,

their eyes plucked out, were thrust into prison. After

these things, scalped and flayed, upon coals on

fulfilled the course of their martyrdom by the cutting off

of the head. There suffered however with them also

four hundred and forty-four others." Where

Florus, as he received from the Martyrology the 16th of June,

although in the Acts was noted the day of the Ides of June, that is,

the 13th; so he retained Antioch; although

he had nowhere read it in the Acts; perhaps through

error for the day of the Ides of July (which is the true

day of the Martyrdom) persuaded that the bodies had been translated

thither, before the Martyrology was written,

and therefore that it itself is named there. Tarsus however,

read in the Acts, he concealed; perhaps lest

he render the reader doubtful, and Usuard, Ado, etc., following Florus whether to those named in

June pertained those of whom he was treating. Thus the written

Eulogy was soon followed by Usuard and

Ado; the latter more fully, and in almost the same words as Florus;

except that, the forty being removed, he preferred

with the Martyrology to read only 404; but more briefly

Usuard, in this manner: "At Antioch

the Birthday of the holy Martyrs Cyricus and Julitta

his mother, who, after dire scourgings

and grave torments, fulfilled the course of their martyrdom by the cutting off

of the head." And this, together with Usuard's

martyrology, passed into the use of almost all the Churches of Europe, even the Roman;

as is clear from that which we have, according to the custom

of the Roman Curia, printed by Bellinus of Padua at Venice,

and reprinted in the year 1498 and 1548.

[3] After, however, there appeared the Catalogue of the Saints

of Peter de Natalibus, and in it some compendium

of the Martyrdom, but in the Roman Calendar formerly they were noted on 15 June presenting a greater appearance of truth,

although not utterly pure from the leaven of the old fabulosity;

and narrating it itself as accomplished

on the Ides of July; it pleased the curators of the Roman Calendar,

to be prefixed to the Missals and Breviaries, to

add to such a day the names of Cyricus and Julitta,

as those copies printed from the year 1479 teach us,

perhaps with a view to a simple Commemoration of them,

to be employed at the discretion of the users. Nothing

however was read about them in the text, up

to the year 1522, when there appeared at Venice a Breviary

of the Roman rite, augmented with whole offices and proper

histories, which were lacking to many feasts

of saints compendiously collected into Lessons. In it

are found for the feast of Cyricus and

Julitta the Martyrs three Lessons: not however

taken from Peter de Natalibus, but from the apocryphal Acts:

which it appears displeased Rome, since in

the subsequently following editions they were omitted; and at last

under Pius V even the names were expunged from the calendar,

as to this day they remain expunged, perhaps because of

another day, noted in all the Latin Martyrologies,

namely this 16th of June.

[4] But when Pius's successor Gregory XIII

had ordered also the Roman Martyrology to be revised, restored to the Roman Martyrology on 16 June

or rather a new one much more ample

and augmented to be composed; it was doubted by the learned

men set over that task, of whom the chief was Baronius,

what should be done with the memory of these Saints,

so utterly discrepant from the truer Acts.

But it seemed right, that they should not be expunged, whom

the calendars of almost all the transmontane Churches were everywhere naming

in June; but that a new Eulogy

should be composed from the said truer Acts,

which is now recited in these words: with a eulogy from the truer Acts "At Tarsus

in Cilicia, the feast of the holy Martyrs Quiricus

and Julitta his Mother, under Diocletian

the Emperor: of whom Quiricus, a three-year-old little boy,

when he was lamenting with implacable

grief his mother, who was being most cruelly beaten before Alexander

the Governor, dashed against the steps of the tribunal

perished; but Julitta, after dire scourgings

and grave torments, fulfilled the course of her Martyrdom

by the cutting off of the head." These things agree

as to substance with the words of Sirleto, on

the 15th of July in the Menology, composed by him for the use

of Baronius from the Synaxaria of the Greeks, where

now Κήρικος (Kerikos), now Κήρυκος (Kerykos) is written, and

indeed (as appears from the verse) with the penult long,

Cericus, although according to the accent the name is proparoxytone:

in which manner also would be written

Κύρικος (Kyrikos), with the penult short, derived from Κύρις (Kyris),

Lord, as if Dominicus, which corresponds

to the Latin Quiricus. The most ancient of those Synaxaria,

in a Ms. of Grottaferrata, published under the name

of Basil the Emperor, has thus:

[5] Ἰουλίττα ἡ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Μάρτυς, ὑπῆρχεν ἐπὶ Διοκλητιανοῦ τοῦ Βασιλέως ἐκ τῆς πόλεως Ἰκονίου· διὰ δὲ τὸν ἐπικρατοῦντα διωγμὸν ἐξ Ἰκονίῳ, ἀναλαβομένη Κύρικον υἱὸν αὐτῆς τριετῆ ὄντα, ἀπῆλθεν εἰς Σελευκίαν· καὶ εὑροῦσα καὶ ἐκεῖ τὸν αὐτὸν διωγμὸν, παρεγένετο εἰς Ταρσὸν, ἔνθα καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἡγεμὼν, ὠμὸς καὶ θηριώδης ἄνθρωπος ἐβασάνιζε τοὺς Ἁγίους. Καὶ κρατησθεῖσα, καὶ τοῦ παιδὸς ἀποχωρισθεῖσα, ἐτιμωρεῖτο. Τὸ δὲ παιδίον λαβὼν ἐπὶ τῶν γονάτων ὁ Ἡγεμὼν ἐκολάκευε· τὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐπεστρέφετο πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ὅλον ἔβλεπεν ἀτενῶς πρὸς τὴν μητέρα, καὶ ψελλιζούσῃ τῇ φωνῇ, τὸ μὲν τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀνεκαλεῖτο ὄνομα, πρὸς δὲ τὴν μητέρα ἔσπευδεν ἀπελθεῖν. Καὶ χολώσας ὁ ἀνελεὴς θὴρ, ἐλάκτισεν αὐτὸν, ῥίψας ἀπὸ τῶν βαθμίδων· καὶ συντριβείσης τῇ πέτρᾳ τῆς κεφαλῆς, ἀφῆκε τὴν ψυχήν. Καὶ δοξάζουσα τὸν Θεὸν ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ, μετὰ πολλὰς τὰς βασάνους, ἀπεκεφαλίσθη καὶ αὐτή. (English: see below) from the synaxary of Basil the Emperor.

[6] Julitta, Martyr of Christ, was in the time

of Diocletian the Emperor, in the city of Iconium:

but because of the persecution raging there,

she took her three-year-old little son Cyricus

and went away to Seleucia. But finding

here too the same persecution, she passed over to Tarsus,

where Alexander the Proconsul, a cruel

and ferocious man, was torturing the Saints. Being seized

therefore, and separated from her son, she was being tortured;

but the Proconsul, taking the boy on his knees,

flattered him. But he by no means

attended to him, but turned his eyes continually

to his mother, and with a stammering voice invoked

the name of Christ, and strove to go to

his mother. Then the wild beast, moved with savage wrath,

struck the boy [and] cast him from the steps;

who, his head dashed against the stone, gave up

his spirit: but the Mother, glorifying God,

after many tortures, That was drawn from the Epistle of Theodore Bishop of Iconium, was beheaded.

[7] There exists, edited by Francis Combefis, from the Greek

monuments of the Royal Library at Paris, among

the chosen triumphs of the illustrious Martyrs of Christ,

"Θεοδώρου Ἐπισκόπου Ἰκονίου ἐπιστολή, δηλοῦσα τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ ἁγίου Μάρτυρος Κηρύκου, καὶ τῆς τούτου μητρὸς Ἰουλίττης," —

The Epistle of Theodore Bishop of Iconium, by which

is declared the Martyrdom of the holy Martyr Cericus,

and of his Mother Julitta. The same Epistle,

but with a more contracted phrasing and at the beginning quite

different, is indicated by Allatius in his Diatribe on

the writings of the Simeons, page 91, with this beginning:

"Ἐπείπερ τῷ καλῷ σπέρματι εἴωθεν ἐπισπείρειν ὁ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως ἐχθρὸς τὰ ζιζάνια:" of which a double text is held.

"Since the enemy of human nature

is wont to over-sow Tares upon the good seed":

and it is said to be of Theodore the Bishop, and

is inscribed, "Μαρτύριον τῶν ἁγίων καὶ καλλινίκων Μαρτύρων Κηρίκου καὶ Ἰουλίττης," —

The Passion

of the Holy and gloriously-triumphant Martyrs

Cericus and Julitta; and its ancient version,

cited by Baronius in the Notes to the Roman

Martyrology, found by us in the Codices

of the Vatican and Vallicellan Libraries and transcribed,

was also found in a certain Belgian copy

by John Molanus, and is indicated in his Annotations

to Usuard of the year 1573, under this beginning, which

is the same as that of the Roman Mss.: "To my Lord

Brother and Co-bishop Zosimus, Theodore,"

where among other things the Author prefaces, that to him long laboring in vain

to write something worthy of the proposed subject, at last Martian, appointed Notary and Chancellor

by Justin our most pious

Emperor (the Combefisian Acts name Justinian,

successor of Justin) intimated by his own mouth these things which

are subjoined, narrated

by a certain old man of the province of the Isaurians,

(whose capital is Iconium) who boasted himself sprung

from the very stock of these Saints.

§. II. What Acts, and why to be given here. The writings of others concerning the same Saints, Latin and Greek.

[8] One or the other text of the Theodorian Epistle

was had by him who composed the Sermon, Nicetas in his more prolix Encomium followed the Epistle of Theodore:

to be read among the Lives of Lipomanus and Surius, which

it has not yet befallen me to see in Greek; but Allatius

saw it, and cites its beginning, consonant with this Latin version,

on page 115: "Ὥσπερ οὐκ ἔστι συνεχόμενον τῷ Κυρίῳ Ἰουδαίαν," and the title

"Εἰς τοὺς ἁγίους καὶ καλλινίκους Μεγαλομάρτυρας Κήρυκον καὶ Ἰουλίτταν." The Author they commonly

make to be Metaphrastes: Allatius makes him Nicetas the Rhetorician;

whose age, though it be uncertain, yet that he is much

more recent than Theodore the author of the Epistle

easily appears from the style, much approaching to

the style of the 9th century in which lived Nicetas David,

surnamed the Paphlagonian, one century older than Metaphrastes,

and the same perhaps called the Rhetorician,

whose several encomiastic sermons Combefis published

in the Library of the Greek Fathers. Nothing

can this sermon teach of any new matter; wherefore,

the Greek text being lacking, to recast the Latin version

would not be worth the trouble. Another reckoning

is made of the shorter Epistle, although it is held only in Latin;

for since, on account of the better-preserved form of the epistle in it,

this is given from the old version, then [the other in Greek-Latin from Combefis,] I judge the former to be the other

and perhaps, before that which Combefis gave in Greek-Latin, the genuine [one];

I reckon that this is to be set before that one. To both it pleases [me] to subjoin, from the

Bodeck Codex, the apocryphal Acts, that of themselves the Reader

may be able to know and estimate how far apart

bronze stands from lupines (worthless things); and that he marvel less,

that no great account is held by us of those things which Hucbald

Prior of Elnon, and Philip, Abbot of Bonne-Espérance from the abbey of Eleemosyna,

published, having nothing

but those before their eyes; and finally the apocryphal Acts and which

needing much correction, they could more easily note

than rightly correct, being destitute of the suitable

instrument.

[9] Philip's composition exists among his works,

with the Epistle to Lord John, [which, the greater absurdities having been cut away, are held as embellished by Philip the Abbot,] Abbot of the church

of St. Amand; by whose authority

compelled, and by the affection of charity excited, he confesses he was moved

to correcting the Acts of this Passion,

which both the mist of antiquity obscures, and the objection

of an ill-composed scheme overshadows: which,

although it is reckoned among the apocrypha, yet does not

bring upon the victory of the Martyrs a cloud of falsity.

The aforesaid John ruled the monastery of Elnon

from the year 1179 to '92, and

to Philip with the apocryphal Acts he seems to have sent Hucbald's

composition: for that he treads closely in his

footsteps, and only with a more florid style

adorns the same matter, by comparing both, can be detected

manifestly. But that Hucbald, from the Chronicle

of Elnon, we learn died in the year 930,

where this Epitaph of his is recited:

There sleeps in this tomb a simple dove without gall,

A doctor, flower, and honor, both of the Clergy and of the Monks, and before by Hucbald of Elnon,

Hucbald: whose fame, through the climes of the world,

the published melodies and deeds of the Saints proclaim.

He brought into our shores the precious limbs of Cyricus, found at Nevers,

and wrote the triumph.

[10] Hucbald wrote it with a Prologue,

whose beginning [is]: in several Mss. "Recalling with due veneration

the holy contests of the Martyrs of Christ,

let us praise together the wondrous Lord in his Saints."

But the Passion he thus began:

"The beginning of the sixth age which is now passing,

the Lord Jesus Christ deigned to consecrate by his own

advent." Thus we have it

in a certain distinguished parchment Legendary of ours,

which formerly belonged to the monastery of Vaucelles;

but we have also a transcript, from

of Queen Christina of Sweden, whose Codex [is] different from this,

which was noted to have belonged formerly to the church of Marseille,

which exhibited the same Passion, but much contracted;

which whole, and (as the metrical Prologue,

not found elsewhere, has it):

"With false-speaking writings driven far away from the page,"

is read in the Ms. of Cardinal Barberini; from which

also below something will be given concerning the translation of the bodies

into Gaul; and in which are pre-noted

the Ides of July, although in the text toward the end

it is read, as Hucbald wrote, that

these saints completed the happy martyrdom of their

contest on the 16th of the Kalends of July. Likewise more contracted

are those versions which we found at Rome, distributed through eight

Lessons in the Vallicellan Codex under

the letter X; and in the Legendary of St. Mary at

the Martyrs, but without any (which appears omitted)

Prologue, beginning thus: Others elsewhere more contracted. "Under Alexander

therefore, a most iniquitous Governor, who had in a manner

usurpingly snatched the Principate of the city of Antioch,

with Diocletian and Maximian Augusti reigning; a savage against the Christians

and bloodthirsty persecution arose everywhere."

These things I wished to recite, that it might appear

that the author, although in his progress he was wholly going to adhere

to the apocrypha, yet at the beginning wished to reconcile

in some manner the Martyrologies with the Acts,

by naming the city of Antioch, and to correct the Latin

Acts from the Greek, by substituting for Alexander

the Emperor, Diocletian and Maximian.

[11] The Canon of Joseph the Hymnographer. Besides the Epistle already indicated under the name of Theodore,

and the Panegyric of Nicetas, we have

on the 15th of July a full Office, with

whose Acrostic [is] this:

"Κήρικον ὑμνῷ σὺν τεκούσῃ προφρόνως Ἰωσήφ."

With his mother I, Joseph, readily sing Cericus.

But after the Canon four Stichera are added,

or Verses of four illustrious among the Hymnographer

writers. The first Sticheron of the first tone

is marked with the name of Germanus, a sticheron of St. Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople namely the holy

Patriarch of Constantinople, set forth in these words:

"Τὸν γενναῖον ἀθλητὴν καὶ κήρυκα τῆς πίστεως, σὺν μητρὶ θεόφρονι, ἐπαξίως μακαρίζωμεν. Οὗτοι γὰρ καρτερῶς εὐαθλήσαντες, τὸν ἀρχέκακον ἐχθρὸν τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ σταυροῦ ἀνδρείως κατέβαλον· διὸ στεφάνους ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ ἀθλοθέτου Θεοῦ, καὶ πρεσβεύουσιν αὐτῷ ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ ἀκαταπαύστως σωθῆναι τοὺς ἐν πίστει ἐκτελοῦντας τὴν ἱερὰν αὐτῶν ἄθλησιν." — The noble champion and

herald of the faith, with his mother divinely wise,

let us worthily call blessed. For fighting valiantly

to the end, the enemy evil from the beginning

by the power of the Cross bravely they laid low:

wherefore they received crowns from the President of their

contest, God; and before him with

confidence they supplicate unceasingly, that they may be saved,

as many as celebrate their holy contest in faith.

[12] The other [is] of Byzantius, to be sung to the modes

of the second tone: "Δεῦτε πιστοὶ ἐπαίνοις συνελθόντες στέψωμεν δυάδα παναγίαν, another of Byzantius, Τριάδος σέβας κατέχουσαν. Τῶν γὰρ εἰδώλων τὴν πλάνην καὶ τῶν τυράννων τὴν ἐπίνοιαν τοῖς ἑαυτῶν ποσὶ κατεπάτησαν. Τούτους ἀνευφημοῦντες ἀνακράζωμεν λέγοντες· Χαίροις Ἰουλίττα πανσεβάσμιε· ἡ τὴν γυναικείαν ἀσθένειαν ἀποῤῥιψαμένη καὶ ἀνδρικῶς ἀγωνισαμένη· Χαίροις Κήρυκε παμμακάριστε, ὁ τριετὴς τῇ ἡλικίᾳ, καὶ τὸν πολυμήχανον ἐχθρὸν καταβαλὼν· Χαίρετε τὸ ἡμέτερον κλέος καὶ καύχημα τῶν ἐν πίστει ἑορταζόντων τὴν ἱερὰν ὑμῶν ἄθλησιν, οὓς ἱκετεύομεν πρεσβεύειν ἀεὶ τὸν τῶν ὅλων Κύριον, κόσμῳ δωρηθῆναι εἰρήνην, καὶ ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἡμῶν τὸ μέγα ἔλεος." — Come, faithful,

gathered together to the praises of the Saints; let us crown

the most holy duality, which contains the worship

of the Trinity. For the error of the idols

and the devices of the tyrants with their

feet they trampled down. These with auspicious

acclamations let us follow, saying: Hail,

Julitta most worthy of veneration, who, having put off womanly

weakness, didst contend manfully: Hail,

Cericus most blessed, who, three years of age, didst subdue

the enemy furnished with many devices;

Hail, glory and boasting of us all,

who festively and confidently recall your holy contest;

asking, that

ye may ever entreat before the Lord of all,

that he grant peace indeed to the world,

but to our souls great

mercy.

[13] The third, to be uttered in the same second tone,

is of Mauroleon: of Mauroleon, "Ὁ ἐκ σπαργάνων πεπληρωμένος χάριτος, καὶ ἐσχηκὼς πεπολιωμένον φρόνημα, ἐν τῇ νίκῃ τῶν ἀγώνων σου Μάρτυς Κήρυκε, αἴτησαι σὺν τῇ Μητρί σου Χριστὸν τὸν Θεὸν, δωρηθῆναι εἰρήνην τῷ κόσμῳ, ὡς τῆς Τριάδος μέγας ὁμολογητής." —

From the swaddling-clothes filled with grace, and having obtained a hoary

understanding, in the victory of thy

contests, Martyr Cericus, as a great Confessor of the Trinity,

entreat with thy mother

Christ God, that he grant peace

to the world. In this manner in his Canon also

St. Joseph, several times so admires and

extols the contests of St. Cyricus that he seems to have believed

not a little the Apocryphal Acts, concerning the prudence

of the boy answering beyond his age and chattering many things,

when in Ode 4, he says, "Νηπιάζοντι σώματι καὶ τελειωτάτῳ φρονήματι τὸν ἀρχέκακον κατέβαλες." With an infant

body and a most consummate understanding thou didst lay low

the devil: of Joseph, and

again in the Tract following the Canon, "Τὴν ἡλικίαν ἀτελής, ἐν φρονήσει τελείᾳ ὑπῆρξας θαυμαστότατα, Κήρυκε ἀθλοφόρε." Immature

in age, with perfect understanding, thou didst endure most

worthily of admiration, victor Cericus. Before the Canon at the beginning of the

Office, after the three first Similar Versicles

(Στιχηρὰ προσόμοια, Stichera prosomoia) and the first Gloria,

the same Joseph, or whoever ordered the Office,

let himself be carried away either by poetic frenzy,

or by the marvelousness of the apocrypha, when thus he sang:

"Δεῦτε καὶ θεάσασθε ἅπαντες ξένον θέαμα καὶ παράδοξον. Τίς ἑώρακεν νήπιον, τριετῆ ὄντα τύραννον αἰσχύνοντα; Ὦ τοῦ θαύματος! Μητέρα ἐθήλασεν, καὶ τιθηνούμενον τῇ γαλούχῳ ἐβόα· Μὴ πτόου, μῆτέρ μου, τὰς βασάνους τοῦ δεινοῦ κοσμοκράτορος· Χριστὸς γὰρ ἐστιν ἡ ἰσχὺς τῶν πιστευόντων εἰς αὐτόν." — Come and behold,

all, a new and unwonted spectacle.

Who has seen a tyrant confounded by a three-year-old

infant? O the wonder! At his mother's

breasts he sucked, and being nursed, to her who suckled him he cried:

Be not terrified, my mother, at the torments

of the cruel ruler of this world: for Christ

is the strength of those who in him

believe. So he, as if he had not enough admiration

that the three-year-old with stammering voice amid

the maternal torments by imitating her had cried,

"I am a Christian?" which alone the truer

Acts say.

[14] and of St. Anatolius also Patriarch of Constantinople. The fourth, finally, the Sticheron ascribed to the fourth tone,

bears the name of Anatolius, and begins with a

congratulation, in this manner: "Ἀγάλλου, τέρπου, καὶ εὐφραίνου Ἰκονιαίων ἡ πόλις, ὅτι ἐκ σοῦ ἀνεβλάστησε καρπὸς εὐκλεής, Ἰουλίττα ἡ πανεύφημος καὶ καλλίνικος Μάρτυς, καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς ὁ φερώνυμος υἱὸς Κήρικος· πᾶσαν γὰρ μηχανὴν τοῦ τυράννου βελίαρ ἀνδρικῶς καταπατήσαντες, τοὺς στεφάνους τῆς νίκης ἀξίως ἐκομίσαντο, κηρύξαντες λαοῖς σέβεσθαι καὶ προσκυνεῖν τὴν ἁγίαν Τριάδα· ὅθεν καὶ ἡμεῖς παῤῥησίᾳ βοῶμεν τούτους δοξάζοντι Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν, εἰρηνῶσαι τὸν κόσμον καὶ σῶσαι τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν."

Exult, rejoice, and be glad, O city of the people of Iconium,

because from thee came forth a glorious fruit: Julitta,

the glorious and most-praised Martyr, and

answering to his name her venerable son

Cericus: for every device of the devil

manfully trampling down they attained the crowns of victory,

by preaching to the peoples the adoration

of the holy Trinity, whence also we trustingly

cry to Christ our God, who

glorified them, that he may deign to pacify the world and

save our souls. Where regard is had to the onomatopoeia,

taken ἀπὸ τοῦ κήρυκος (from the herald),

the preacher, as if this is rather the genuine

spelling than Κύρικος, corresponding to the Latin Quiricus:

wherefore I also placed it Cericus first in the title.

[15] what was their age? Anatolius Patriarch of Constantinople sat

from the year 449 to '58, distinguished by greater

praise of learning than firmness of orthodoxy;

as one who, by the machination of Dioscorus of Alexandria, substituted in the place

of St. Flavian, unjustly deposed by the conventicle of Ephesus,

and dead four days after;

although he tried in every way to prove to the Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo

his own right faith;

yet could not avoid being believed to favor

the heretics. But he washed away this stain too,

being himself taken from our midst, as on the 3rd

of July concerning him the Menaea report. More certain however, among

the Latins as well as the Greeks, was the fame of St. Germanus;

who in the year 715, translated from the Bishopric of Cyzicus to the Patriarchal

Chair, in the year 730,

against Leo the Isaurian, wickedly rising up against the sacred images,

generously opposed himself, and in exile

finished his Life as a Confessor, as appears from what was said

on the 12th of May. Byzantius in his Chain of the sacred Hymnographers

and Hagiopoetae, Volume 2 of June, page

20, on the left side where [are] the Monks, after Saints

John Damascene, Cosmas, Joseph,

Theophanes, is placed fifth before Stephen

the Hagiopolite, so that it can be believed he flourished in the 9th century,

in which flourished most of them. Mauroleon has not even

by his own name become known to us from elsewhere yet; but of Joseph,

who composed the Canon, distinguished in the year 883

by his excellent Confession, we illustrated the Acts

on the 3rd of April.

§ III. On the cult of the Saints and their Relics throughout Gaul.

[16] The aforepraised Canon of St. Joseph thus begins the ninth Ode:

The tomb is said to be illustrious for miracles, "Ἴαμα φέρει ἡ σορὸς τῶν ἐνδόξων ἀθλοφόρων, τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θείου Πνεύματος ἐπαρδομένη· δεῦτε ἀρύσασθε, καὶ ἁγιάσθητε ψυχὰς, καὶ νόσων καθάρθητε, οἱ φιλομάρτυρες."

The tomb of the glorious Champions,

watered by the grace of the divine Spirit, confers

healing. Come, applaud, ye lovers of the martyrs;

be sanctified in soul, and be cleansed of diseases.

But where the bodies then were, or were believed to be,

the Poet does not explain. Theodore says, that

the handmaids of Julitta, having gone out of the city by night after the passion,

hid the bodies of their Masters in a cave near Tarsus:

which under Constantine, under Constantine raised near Tarsus;

through one of them still surviving, being indicated;

the most devout people running to and fro, hastened

to snatch something for themselves for the Healing of the soul;

so that he seems to say, that the sacred Relics were dispersed into

various places, so that a good part of them could have been carried,

not only to Antioch on the Pyramus,

but also to Antioch of Syria, in the course of time,

on this 16th of June, and thence it came

to pass, that there were inscribed in the Hieronymian Martyrology

Saints Quiricus and Julitta, as if to be sought at Antioch,

and so it would not be necessary to distinguish two pairs of Synonymous Martyrs, unless to be distinguished

the fellowship of so many others should persuade, asserted by the same

Martyrologies this month, and neither to be deferred to

July, nor to be suspected of fiction, on account of

the authority of the more ancient Martyrology of all.

[17] However it may be, the sacred bodies did not remain in the East;

and long before St. Joseph the Hymnographer

was born, they were taken away thence; [whence

however the Relics of St. Cyricus were taken away long ago,] if we believe

the Ms. which, found at Rome, Henschen cites

on the 1st of May at the Life of St. Amator, number 8,

under this title: "Here begin the Miracles of Saints Quiricus

and Julitta, which Teterius the Sophist, their

servant, published, concerning their bodies, found

by St. Amator at Antioch." St. Amator was born before

the year 344, and consecrated Bishop

in the 88th year of the same century, [and] died

in the 18th year of the following century. But his Life

is held to have been first written about the year

580. Wherefore, although in it nothing is read of such

utterly incredible; since toward the end of the same

fifth century, at the beginning of which Amator died,

the apocryphal Passion of Saints Quiricus and Julitta was

so everywhere known (especially having been brought with the Relics from

the East, and at the same time rendered into Latin)

that Pope Gelasius found it necessary to pass judgment

upon it. After the premised Title, therefore, those things are read in the said

Ms., which in the Barberini Ms. are immediately

subjoined to the Legend composed by Hucbald.

[18] translated to Auxerre by St. Amator, Since therefore the venerable Passion of the holy little boy Quiricus,

and of Julitta his mother, by a diverse

relation indeed, but by a true and equal martyrdom,

is well known to be to the Christian people;

deducing as it were a certain rivulet of the insuperable

profundity of their miracles, by which in the world, with God disposing,

they shone, I took care to sip a few of them,

and studied to insert them into the pages to the honor

of the Church. When therefore the time of many

years had run out, after the crown of martyrdom

was received, the holy Amator,

Bishop of Auxerre, with the most illustrious Savinus

as count, traversing the borders of Antioch, the most sacred

bodies of them, with the Christ

grace cooperating, he found: which, returning with the cult

of great veneration, he brought into the regions of Gaul; thence to Nevers,

and conveyed to the city of Auxerre, only the boy's

arm being granted to the prayers of Savinus, in the house

in which the same Bishop, abounding with the glory of his merits,

is venerated by the faithful, he again entombed them. For

that city, adorned with the titles of many Saints, therefore

merited that this incomparable treasure be given to it by God,

so that both the health of bodies

and of souls might come thence to his people,

and the ordination of God, by which the same Martyr (Amator)

was to be the future Father of Nevers, might be fulfilled, with her (Julitta) meanwhile

as preserver, so much the more gladly it might become a constant help to his

faithful. Amen. The same things up to [*]

are read in Mombritius, volume 2, after the same

Life composed by Hucbald; and they are cited from

Mombritius, in the Notes of Baronius to the Martyrology

on this day.

[19] We know of no St. Savinus or Sabinus in all Gaul

who can be referred to these times;

this companion of St. Amator on the sacred

pilgrimage, therefore, was perhaps some Deacon of his or Priest,

where there is to him a sacred Cathedral church. called Saint by the right of his Order anciently in use.

This meanwhile we patiently are ignorant of:

more grievously we bear that there are not found written

the Miracles which in the Title were promised, and how

the Relics of the Saints were translated from Autun to Nevers,

where we suppose those Miracles too were wrought.

The Sammarthani, in the Gallia Christiana, volume 2 page 791, note that the Cathedral

church there has as Patron St. Cyricus,

ever since the time of Charles the Bald, that is from

the middle of the 9th century; so on page 794 is set forth the diploma of Louis

the Stammerer, given to Abbo the Bishop in the year

877, showing the precepts of his progenitor

Charles, marked from the 9th century; Augustus Emperor of pious memory;

in which was inserted, how the same

Lord progenitor had conferred certain things of his own property

and bondservants upon the Church of Nevers, which

is constructed in honor of St. Cyricus the Martyr.

At Nevers, moreover, Hucbald received

those relics which he would convey to his Elnon monastery of St. Amand.

Yet Hucbald himself did not, which you may wonder at,

describe the deed done by himself; and finally to Elnon, whence the Translation [was written] but some centuries

afterward Philip the Abbot, of whom above, as is held in

our Claromaresc and Vaucelles Ms.,

and is read printed among the works of Philip himself.

[20] Of the same, or certainly of the same name,

Relics, various other Churches throughout Gaul too

boast to have distinguished parts: on whose

account in the Gallican Martyrology Saussay thus

magnificently boasts of them, after praising Saints Ferreolus

and Ferrutio: "On the same day, Cult throughout various churches of Gaul the Birthday

of the holy Martyrs Cyricus the little boy and Julitta

his mother… whose most sacred pledges,

brought to Auxerre into Gaul by St. Amator

… and distributed by the ambitious zeal of the peoples,

enriched the sacristies of very many Churches;

and they aroused in the Christian people such devotion toward the Martyrs themselves,

that many Basilicas were soon founded in honor of these

Heaven-dwellers, sacred monasteries established,

and very many other trophies of their glorious

memory erected here and there in that most ample

region. But the Birthday of such great

Blessed ones is today most conspicuous and celebrated in those places,

where either their sacred relics, deposited,

rest, or the triumphal title of their venerable patronage

shines: namely at Nevers,

whose city's Cathedral church is

ennobled with the insignia of their sacred title, and also adorned with

some Relics: likewise at Toulouse, and at Arles, where their chief

pledges are laid up, and monasteries, at Chartres and in Auvergne. here in the church of the most holy

Trinity, there in the church of St.

Saturninus: likewise in the Elnon monastery in

Hainault; and also in a monastery sacred to the Martyrs themselves

in the diocese of Chartres; and at Clermont in Auvergne

in the most ancient church of their name,

in which today is sung the Office of those

Martyrs, formerly recited from memory

by Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of this municipality:

likewise in the Parisian territory in a village called

Villejuif, where there is an ancient parochial church,

endowed with their name and some relics."

[21] For Auvergne we have as witness St. Gregory

of Tours, in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 3, the body is said to be at Toulouse:

produced on the preceding day at the Life of St. Abraham,

Abbot there, who placed a monastery at the Basilica of St. Cyricus.

Nicolaus Bertrandi,

folio 5 verso, among the Relics of the church of Toulouse

reckons the Bodies of the holy Cyricus and Julitta

his mother, but whence or how they were brought he is ignorant,

writing at the beginning of the 16th century. Villejuif is distant from Paris

to the south a little more than two leagues.

Combefis calls it Ville-Julitta, and hopes that, as

was done at Nevers, the Acts proscribed by Gelasius

may also be proscribed thence, and near Paris, which up to our

times, he says, (that is the year 1660 in which

he was writing) preserved, and held more religiously by the pious

simplicity of the rustic populace, and publicly from

the pulpit by ancient custom, once and again and

accustomed to be read, were scarcely at last lately suppressed by the diligence of the Priests

of the place. From the things which

P. Porée of the Premonstratensian Order declaims, where the censured Passion is still read.

in a booklet on that subject published at Paris in the year 1644,

let this one advantage at least be understood, that those

husks of the old Acts of Quiricus and Julitta

widely pervaded Gaul; and were received almost in those places

in which Patrons are venerated throughout it,

and that the censure of Gelasius has not hitherto stood in their way.

This new declaimer, lest he seem to betray a crumb of judgment,

extols especially and holds as a miracle those things which

present greater trifles,

and shrink more from the ecclesiastical rule:

with Quiricus preaching, Julitta baptizing, &c.

§ IV. The ancient cult of St. Quiricus, and perhaps of another, in Spain, obscured by newfangled fictions. The Relics at Ravenna in Italy.

[22] The Body of someone so called is said to be at Burgos in Castile: There were not fictions enough, unless new ones from

Spain had been added, on this occasion. There is

in the city of Burgos, formerly the royal seat of old Castile,

on Dexter) adorned with the Abbatial mitre,

under the name of St. Quiricus; whose body there with

great honor rests; and in many cities

of Spain it has churches, called with the name a little altered

San-Quirce, and several churches in Spain. such as is the monastery

of the Cistercian Nuns of Valladolid.

That body, or some part of the body,

if it is still held, from the very measure of the bones

could well enough be known, whether it be of a three-year-old boy, or of one more

adult in age: but he who has cared to scrutinize this hitherto

there has been none; for it pleased them to believe it to be

of that boy, whose apocryphal Acts could easily have passed from

Gaul into Spain: But that they did indeed so

pass, is proven from the Spanish Breviaries, cited

by Tamayo Salazar, especially the Burgos one,

which we have printed at Burgos 1502, with nine

brief Lessons taken thence, of which

the First begins: there an Office taken from the Apocrypha. "When therefore a persecution of the Christians had been made

under Alexander the Emperor." And in

the Fourth, to the Judge asking of what province

or city she was, Julitta answered: "Of the Province of Isauria indeed,

and born of the first families of the city of the people of Iconium,

avoiding thy persecutions, I migrated to the places of Cilicia,

and stayed at Tarsus." Quite well indeed and conformably to truth,

except that the apocryphal source betrays itself by the name of Alexander

the Emperor, and the boy's wise disputation with the judge,

constituting the IX Lesson: to which

without doubt would have succeeded, deduced from the same source,

others, concerning the various torments endured, and the life

ended by the sword, if the plan of the Breviary had permitted it.

[23] Meanwhile, whether the holy Quiricus, commonly

called Quirce, Hence in the 16th century he began to be called Spanish, was really a Spanish Martyr,

perhaps having suffered in the Moorish persecution; or

someone brought from Rome (one or the other of which I would believe,

if the bones are somewhat large, or in such number

that they can be named a body) he began by some

to be believed a native; and so toward the middle of the 15th century,

in Damian a Goës in his Spain, among

the authors of the illustrated Spain page 1165, into the Index of the Spanish

Saints is inserted St. Cericus,

and among the women St. Julitta mother of St. Cericus.

With Damian, Tamayo cites authors of almost the same age,

John Vasaeus, and Francis

Tarrapha, to be sought there; but especially

Lucius Marinaeus the Sicilian, Spain substituted for Isauria, who under Charles V

wrote 22 books of Spanish affairs; of which

book 5, treating of the Saints, page 337 of the aforecited volume,

exhibits indeed the Lessons of the Burgos Breviary word for word;

but substitutes Spain for Isauria and Sicily

for Cilicia, yet retained Tarsus,

to which from Spain he says Julitta passed, and there

found the same tyrant Alexander whom she had fled there;

since this seems by itself by no means credible,

and Tartessus for Tarsus. especially, where it is said, that a tender woman

with a most tender little infant entered upon the journey;

for Tarsus he suggests that Tartessus should be read,

the gold-bearing Tarsus, sailed to by the fleets of Solomon.

[24] To those fictions, whether to be established, or rather

to be more entangled, a little after came an aid, The Topography of Primus Bishop of Chalon favors [it] from

the Topography of the Holy Martyrs of Christ,

as if by Primus, Bishop of Chalon

and Theologian, formerly composed in the year of salvation 1450,

and now at last revised, that is

about the year 1568, and published at Venice with

the Martyrology of Francis Maurolycus, Abbot of Messina.

This booklet, hitherto named by no one,

whence it came forth I know not; that the Author's name, and probably

also his age, could have been supplied by someone

who had even the slightest knowledge of the affairs of Chalon,

I do not believe; since not even in all Gaul

is any Bishop found to have existed whose name was

Primus, but at Chalon from the year 1436

to '60, of an utterly supposititious author: that John, the eleventh of this name, sat as Bishop,

is most certainly clear from public documents

cited by the Sammarthani. But that

this Primus has always been, to say the least,

suspect to the learned, even from this is clear; that

Gesner in his Bibliotheca, where he enumerates the lucubrations of Maurolycus,

reckons indeed the Martyrology,

in which are added the names of cities and places,

in which the holy Martyrs

suffered and their bodies rest;

but conceals, both here and elsewhere under the letter

P, and passes over in silence Primus the author of the Topography.

The same did Philip Labbe in his Chronological

Bibliotheca of ecclesiastical Writers.

[25] And let these things be said, to supplement the place

of the General Bollandian Preface, chapter 4

§9; where simply reckoning the Martyrologies of the more recent writers,

he in passing mentions Primus, published by Maurolycus;

and to retract, if anything elsewhere from him,

not yet examined, we have drawn. To the present matter

it bears, that this Primus, whatever sort he is, betrays a kind of supine

ignorance under the letter I, who badly distinguished a double Iconium.

by distinguishing a double Iconium, when he says thus: "Iconium

his boy son under Aurelian [was] a Martyr on the 29th of May:

here Amphilochius the Bishop, who wrote the Life of Basil

the Great, departs as a Confessor on the 23rd

of November: Here also St. Thecla the Virgin suffers

on the 23rd of September": and again below, "Iconium

into Cilicia in the year of the Lord 230,

on the 15th of July, under Alexander the Emperor, suffered

Martyrdom." The hyperbolical name of Hysauria

(for so the writings of the Middle Ages everywhere have it) may have deceived

Primus, whence either he himself or some other made the name

of Spain.

[26] But these things cohering thus so little among themselves and with

the truth, Pseudo-Dexter [makes the saints to have suffered at Hippo] he who afterward fabricated

the Dextrine Chronicle, believed it permitted to himself

to make light of whatever was read about Iconium, and Cilicia and Tarsus,

as if taken from the Apocrypha condemned by

Pope Gelasius; and retaining from

Primus and Lucius Marinaeus "Spain," under the note

of the year 222, he invented something new

by writing thus: "At Hippo in Carpetania, and feigned the bodies found at Istonium. the holy

Martyrs of Christ Cyricus and Julitta, under

the Emperor Alexander, attain the Laurel";

and under the note of the year 300: "At Istonium in Spain

were found the bodies of the most holy Cyricus

and Julitta Martyrs, brought thither once from elsewhere":

where Tamayo presents himself ridiculous

when, for the "from elsewhere," he orders to be read from more correct Mss.

"at Hippo"; since it is hidden from none even of their own

defenders, that only a single Ms. is alleged,

the Fulda one, which Higuera says was transcribed by him,

but the monks of Fulda swear was never seen among them.

What then are those "more correct Mss." except Higuera's,

not always mindful of himself, and successively licking

his bearish cub, and communicating various scraps as chance

bore them to his friends,

and commending his fabrications, with a word changed from time to time

or added, as it came to his pen.

Meanwhile he did not foresee that from scraps of this kind

compared with one another, he would one day be convicted

among posterity of the lie, by which he presumed to obtrude his own dreams

upon the world, under the name of the Dextrine

Chronicle, found at Fulda.

[27] To reconcile faith therefore to the aforesaid

it does not suffice, Pseudo-Julian feigned two pairs. that in Livy book 39 we find

it fought by the Roman foragers in

Carpetania, not far from the cities of Hippo and Toledo,

where, between Toledo and Talavera

is to be found Yepes, preserving the vestige of the old name Hippo;

and that near Saelices and Villaescusa,

towns of the territory of Cuenca, there is a certain place,

called Histo even today, which could be seen to be the Istonium

attributed by Ptolemy to the Celtiberians. But as

these profit them nothing, so neither do they greatly stand in the way.

The likewise spurious notebooks of Julian, which assert that Saints Cyricus

and Julitta, born of the noble

family of the Istonii of the Celtiberians, fled into Cilicia

in fear of the persecution, and suffered at Tarsus; and

distinguish them from others of the same name, who

on the 16th of July under Nero suffered also at Tarsus,

born of Amphilochius in Celtiberia of the Province of Gallaecia.

These all are of the same flour (kind), and

not even by Tamayo himself judged worthy that

he should take account of them in July: and it was enough for him,

as of a single Quiricus, to write in June

that his sacred Relics rest at Burgos, in a church dedicated to his

name.

[28] Much more reasonably proceeds the claim of the people of Ravenna

in Italy, At Ravenna in the church of St. John the Baptist. resting on an old tradition, concerning

the presence of Relics in the church of St. John the Baptist,

consecrated there in the year 438.

For when, ten years after, at Ravenna there died

the successor of St. Amator of Auxerre, St. Germanus,

as is to be told in the life to be illustrated on the 31st of July;

Queen Placidia, foundress of the aforesaid church, while others

divided among themselves the other spoils of the deceased, she herself, sole

heir of his blessing, received a casket with holy

things, undoubtedly Relics, and probably

from those which St. Amator had conveyed to Auxerre,

taken up as a protection for the journey. Since she was commonly believed

to have placed these under the chief altar; Peter

Aldobrandini, Archbishop of Ravenna

and Cardinal, in his first visitation of this church

about the year 1605, gave such a judgment:

"At the high altar, although the marble table

presents no sign of consecration;

yet it does not seem to need consecration, because

under it are believed to rest the bodies of the Saints

Quiricus and Julitta." some bones are thought to be from the year 438, So he, in Jerome

Fabri, in the Sacred Memoirs of ancient Ravenna,

page 201; where also is cited the Carmelite

Breviary of the year 1560 or '70, printed

by mandate of the General Rossi, where are noted,

in the Convent of Ravenna, the bodies of Saints Quiricus

and Julitta.

[29] Further, says Fabri, when the aforesaid

Fathers wished to seek for them as diligently as possible;

and knew that in the year 1608, on the occasion

of changing its situation, the altar opened, was found

to contain an ivory casket filled with sacred

Relics (as it was permitted to presume);

by the intervention of the Most Illustrious Lucas Torreggiani

Archbishop, ordained in the year 1645, and

when, as Fabri was publishing his work, completing his twentieth year in that

Chair, they opened the marble chest,

which is under the altar of St. Teresa, within which

they had then placed that casket; and the Relics themselves,

more curiously considered by skilled anatomists,

it was judged that certain bones were womanly,

certain childish. Since however no plate

or other writing of public form had been added,

they judged nothing further should be moved; but all

should be replaced within the chest itself as before, until

it should please God to honor his saints, by giving certain

testimony to the truth of the aforesaid Relics;

but meanwhile they restored the use of the annual festivity,

to be celebrated on the day of their Passion, the 16th of June. under the chief altar, whence salutary water was received. And because

the chest was found full of water, having entered there

in the memorable inundation of the year 1636,

and that most clear and most limpid; they collected it,

to be preserved, in a certain great vessel,

and preserve it to this day, and distribute it

to the sick, with very much fruit of the thanksgivings

of those who frequently draw from it.

THE EPISTLE OF THEODORE THE BISHOP

On the passion of Saints Quiricus and Julitta

Already long since rendered into Latin from the Roman Mss.

Julitta the Widow, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

Quiricus her son, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

BHL Number: 1801

THEODORE BISHOP, FROM THE MSS.

With D. P. as author.

[1] "To my dearest Brother and holy Co-bishop

seed the enemy of the human condition is wont

to over-sow Tares; it behooves the children of the Church

vigilantly to guard them, On account of the apocrypha accustomed to be read at Iconium, that they may by no means

be mingled, but by burning that

seed it may be heaped up with the Lord; and may

burst forth into such fruits, by which may be nourished

those who hasten to follow the footsteps of the Saints. But this,

dearest Brother, I have pursued for thy love,

who consulted my humility by directing

whence the Martyr Julitta and her glorious

son are believed to have sprung, thou hadst seen by some,

especially by rustic men, their

Martyrdom frequented (celebrated), which was set forth in so feeble

and not caring for the grammatical rule,

it more clearly showed its own lie.

[2] This therefore immediately, as having it at hand,

revolving more studiously, I found thee truthful, Theodore, being asked to seek the truth;

most honorable Brother: for it was digested with such writing,

that deservedly to it might be reckoned

that sentence, which a certain one of the Fathers uttered;

'Truly,' I say, 'frogs and gnats

itself sufficiently declares itself, it is given to be conjectured, thou amiable to God,

that this is a description of the Manichaeans,

or a labor of the Pagans; it [Theodore indeed condemns it;] who, mocking the truth of the preaching,

think the cross of Christ a scandal.

But we, despising verbosity of this kind,

obeying thy command, judged we must strive

most highly, that we might investigate something

worthy of memory concerning that most holy woman.

[3] but he promises to write what was received When for a long time I labored at this and in no way

attained to the effect, at last Martian,

and Chancellor, intimated by his own mouth these things which are subjoined.

For he asserted that he,

when he held the military command, with Zeno the most sagacious

procreated of the stock of those same Saints, from a certain old man of their family: near whom

and through this also always partaker of his vow,

at the annual festivity of those Saints.

[4] He therefore asserted that the aforetasted Martyr

was procreated from an imperial lineage, and

adorning an ancient genealogy, Julitta nobly born at Iconium, not only by the acts

of her morals, but also by faith.

For studying the purpose of continence, f she served

Christ with the assiduous obeisance of devotion.

But when the storm of persecution thundered against the Christians,

of Lycaonia. Avoiding therefore the savagery of this man,

Blessed Julitta, flees to Seleucia, with her son and 2 handmaids: all her substance,

although it was very much, being left behind; with

only two handmaids and her little son Quiricus,

of three years namely, fled to Seleucia,

which is the metropolis of the Isaurian g people, and found there

innumerable h disturbances.

For also a certain Alexander, newly there made Governor

by Diocletian, had been enjoined

to kill those unwilling to sacrifice.

[5] Holy Julitta straightway, lest she give herself of her own accord

to dangers, mindful of that sentence,

'Give place to wrath,' withdrew to Tarsus the metropolis of first Cilicia.

Rom. 12:19 But as she was entering (a wondrous

thing! thence to Tarsus:) as if by decree of Alexander and Domitian,

blessed Julitta is constrained with a more savage punishment,

bearing in her arms her son the holy Quiricus.

Soon the handmaids, snatched away by the aid of flight,

following their mistress at a distance, were panting; desiring

to learn from without, what might befall her.

The most constant Julitta therefore was there presented before

the tribunal of Alexander: there she is seized with the little one, and being asked her name, and

fortune, and country, she professed nothing except

the name of Christ, and that she was a most true

Christian.

[6] Then the insane Alexander, driven by furies,

commands the little one, who, drawn away from his mother, ignorant of all business,

to be torn from her, and brought to him, and the mother more sharply

to be scourged with raw sinews. Straightway the attendants

performing the commands beat Julitta, as she was

crying out that she was a worshipper of Christ, and would never sacrifice:

but the little infant, with much force torn from the maternal

embrace, weeping, they offered to the Governor.

Whom he, taking between his hands, is handed to the Governor

and placing on his knees, rejoicing, with kisses

and childish enticements strove to soothe.

[7] But the infant on the contrary, looking toward his mother,

not only detested the Governor, but also

tore his head and face with his nails, struggling;

and like the chick of a turtledove, crying out

from the nest, whom he, having turned away returned voices consonant with his mother;

'I too am a Christian': and long struggling with a wandering

effort, he bit the Governor i

in the side: O wickedness! At once the most bloody

beast (for it is unseemly to call him a man,

who had no compassion on the boy) filled with fury,

cast him down from the high seat. Who,

falling headlong from the head toward the part of the steps, his head is dashed at the tribunal.

defiled the whole tribunal with the blood of his shattered crown:

and so gradually breathing out, according

to what is written, 'The souls of the just are in the hand

of God,' he delivered up his spirit to Christ. Wisd. 3:1.

[8] Seeing therefore St. Julitta, that her offspring

had thus expired, filled with great exultation; 'thanks

I give thee, Lord Jesus Christ,' she said,

'who didst deign to call my son before me, The Mother drenched with burning pitch,

and to crown [him] with an unfading diadem.' Soon

the savage Governor, indignant, ordered her to be flayed,

stretched out from the crown, and a cauldron filled with boiling

pitch to be poured over her feet; with the herald's

voice thundering: 'Julitta, have pity on thyself,

and sacrifice, lest thou be compelled to incur a cruel

death like thy son.' But she, animated with manly

strength, cried out: 'I will never

sacrifice to demons, but I will serve Christ

the Son of God, through whom the Father created all things: she is condemned to [lose her head;] and

following my son, we shall together lay hold of the heavenly

kingdoms.' Seeing therefore the senseless Judge

so great an obstinacy of the woman, he dictated the capital

sentence; and ordered the corpse of the son to be cast among the slain

condemned criminals.

[9] Soon the most wicked apparitors, hastening to fulfill

the commands, a bridle k immediately put into her mouth,

hastened to the accustomed place. Then

Julitta requested, that they would allow her for a little while

to pour out prayers to her God. License therefore being received,

with knees thus bent she prayed: and prayer being made 'Thanks

to thee, Lord Jesus Christ, devout I render,

because thou didst order my son, before me, to migrate from this

senseless world, and to share in thy saints.

And now, Lord of all mercy, number and also associate

me, thy unworthy handmaid, with the wisest

Virgins, that I may merit to obtain the bridal chamber

of the eternal incarnation; she is beheaded and may my spirit bless

thy Father, the Lord almighty,

creator of all, and at the same time the Holy

Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.'

But the prayer completed, the executioner drawing

his sword, with one stroke cut off her head; but her little body

was joined with the body of her son.

[10] Blessed Julitta therefore, and her glorious

son, in the name of Christ, King of all

Kings, through martyrdom migrated from the world,

on the fifteenth day of the month of July. 15 July. For her two

handmaids, coming the next day in the silence of the night,

the little bodies of their masters taken up, hid

in a cave bordering on Tarsus: and

up to the times of Constantine Caesar, when

the light shone forth to the Christians, they remained concealed.

But when the Churches obtained their primacy, The Bodies hidden for some years, are revealed under Constantine the Great.

one of her handmaids who survived

disclosed the casket of most precious relics.

Then the most devout peoples, running to and fro, hastened

to snatch something for themselves for the healing of the soul.

All these things, inasmuch as I consider them to be truth,

I have committed to thy soul, amiable to God:

which do thou too commit to faithful men, that

they may learn, to consent not to fabulous writings, but to truth,

in Christ Jesus our lord,

to whom is, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glory,

honor, power, unto the ages of ages. Amen."

ANNOTATIONS D.P.

a The name of Zosimus

we owe to this old version: for Combefis's version has none, inasmuch as

lacking an inscription; but it befell Baronius in his Notes, that he once wrote

Zeno for Zosimus; which gave occasion to the same Combefis,

to disparage this very version, otherwise nowhere seen, as if it itself

contradicted itself.

long since scattered throughout all Gaul, being ignorant that they were ineptly translated from a feeble Greek (which is hence clear), more ineptly, wishes for himself the support of the merits of the Saints, "whose," he says,

"wondrous contests we have undertaken to narrate briefly; renouncing those things which by a certain

ignorant fellow, a mime-writer and false-speaker, were most ineptly published, and

therefore by faithful Christians, especially by Pope Gelasius, were rightly, among

the rest of the apocrypha, repudiated." Philip the Abbot, trying to soften the force of the censure: "The Apocryphal," he says,

"declares the closure of a secret, not the vice of falsity; when of a manifest matter

the writer is unknown, and of a clear action the treater hidden: just

as the book of Job, although on account of its uncertain Author it is said to be Apocryphal,

yet by the excellence of its merit is numbered among the Hagiographa." Yet that he had noted something more, and which really may be faulty, he indicates, speaking thus further: "Omitting therefore those things which in it (the history) loquacity exalted, ignorance depressed, age corrupted, carelessness ruined, the transfusion of copies

negligently carried out confused, the connected suspicion of falsity cast down; that which

was taken from more emended writings, I have expressed with the style of truth." With the best

effort each labored, for that penury of truer writers which then existed;

likely to escape easily the rod of Combefis, inflicted on the Premonstratensian declaimer. For indeed they omitted almost all those things which were most to be reproved,

and savored of a manifest fable; saying nothing except in general, about the torments

exaggerated beyond the appearance of truth, and about the shrewd and verbose discourses of Cyricus beyond

his age.

the twofold description of the Provinces in Charles of St. Paul in his

Sacred Geography, according to which in the Patriarchate of Antioch are ascribed to Isauria, under one Governor, 23 Cities, between the rivers Cydnus and Fragus: which by others is named Cilicia Aspera (Rough Cilicia). But besides this there is another, and by Ptolemy alone is called Isauria,

subject to the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate, and having a common metropolis,

Iconium; whence that city is ascribed indifferently to one or the other; but that Isauria has its name from the city of Isaura; which if it is called Isauriopolis in the Council of Chalcedon, and in Photius Isauropolis, that is the city of the Isaurians or Isauri; why not also their Bishop? It seems however, from the Greek text in Combefis, that Zeno here was not Ἐπίσκοπος (Bishop), but Ἐπίτροπος (Epitropos), Procurator; inasmuch as Σύνεδρος (Synedros), that is Colleague, of the aforenamed Martian, exercising military power; which is to be imputed to the translator, not to the author.

were prevented, through the crowds through which the passage was, from speaking salutary things.

So also concerning St. Heliodorus, on the 19th of November, the Menaea have, that, long tortured,

at last, a bridle put on, they dragged him out of the city, there to be beheaded.

THE SAME EPISTLE, GREEK-LATIN

From the edition and version of Francis Combefis of the Order of Preachers.

Julitta the Widow, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

Quiricus her son, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

BY THEODORE THE BISHOP.

[1] Thy Reverence having inquired, through thy revered

syllables (letters), of our mercifulness, wishing to learn about the martyr-record

talked of among many; I mean indeed that of Cericus, and of his

mother Julitta; namely whether also in the city of the people of Iconium,

whence the gloriously-triumphant Martyr Julitta is said to have sprung,

and her renowned son Cericus, the same

martyr-record has been received; as a record of those persons sprung

and descended from their own land; because there are carried in it

certain monstrous and unfitting words, and battological (vain-repetitious) chatterings

strange and containing things foreign to the hope held among Christians;

and whether it is possible to find the martyr-record of them according

to truth, that this be sent to thy Perfection.

Having received these thy divine writings, and having greatly

taken thought of thy injunction, and with intense

zeal having taken in hand the martyr-record of the holy

Cericus and Julitta his mother;

and having unfolded and read [it] with much

accuracy, I found thee speaking truly,

most holy of fathers, and most esteemed of priests;

for the echoes of frogs or jackdaws

one might justly call these things.

For of the Manichaeans, as I think, or also of certain other

heretics of heterodox views, they are the artifices,

of those who mock, and account

as scorn and punishment

the great mystery of piety.

[2] But since, making much search and investigation

beyond our power,

we accomplished nothing more,

we questioned the local men in office

and those who boast of the first rank

of the race of the Isaurians,

how we might be able

to take from some thread, even from

setting forth the contest of the holy martyrs.

Martian therefore, a man

and Chancellor

of Justinian the emperor,

when he held the office of military command;

and Zeno, the most wise,

having himself become at that time his

assessor (colleague), recounted these things concerning the holy ones,

as they had heard from certain of the

nobles, that there was a kinsman of theirs;

the ever-memorable martyr Julitta being

of the first blood, a flower of Lycaonia,

obtaining a blameless life,

so that they kept her memory

every year;

doing this especially

on account of the kinship.

[3] But she, being descended from royal blood,

under Domitian, who had been set up as Count

of Lycaonia,

a most beast-like man,

and exceedingly rejoicing in the shedding

of the blood of the martyrs,

she became a fugitive

with two handmaids

and a three-year-old child,

I mean indeed the gloriously-triumphant

martyr Cericus,

from the city of the people of Iconium,

from which also she sprang.

Having left behind her substance,

which was considerable,

she reaches Seleucia;

and finding even there

having been set up as governor

in the city of the people of Seleucia,

and having recently received an imperial

decree commanding

in every way to punish

those not sacrificing to the idols

which they inscribed as gods,

though not being gods;

she, reckoning that which is

contained in the divine scripture,

'Give place to wrath,'

so that they might not give themselves

to the dangers, having fled also from there,

departed toward Tarsus,

which is the metropolis

of the first province of the Cilicians.

[4] But as if by decree,

with the harsh

and most weighty Alexander

having removed into it,

far surpassing Domitian,

the gloriously-triumphant martyr Julitta is seized,

holding her son in her arms,

being quite an infant,

I mean the God-called martyr Cericus.

But as they constrained her,

her handmaids, leaving her,

departed, fleeing.

But from without they became spectators

of the things being done to her.

Then she, standing before

the judicial tribunals,

with Alexander inquiring [her] appellation,

and fortune and country,

speaking boldly to the judge,

inscribed upon herself the name of the Lord

Jesus Christ our God,

saying, 'I am a Christian.'

Alexander therefore, enraged,

commanded the boy to be taken

from her, and brought to him,

inasmuch indeed as he was comely

and knew nothing of things done by design;

but her, having been arrayed (stripped and bound),

and stretched out, with raw sinews

unsparingly to be beaten he enjoined.

But as the executioners by force tore him

from the arms of the noble martyr,

wailing, and wishing to return

to his own mother,

and gazing toward her,

they lead [him] to the Governor;

and upon her too the attendants did

what was commanded,

beating [her] pitilessly,

[she] answering nothing else,

but 'That I am a Christian,

and to demons I do not sacrifice.'

[5] Her, therefore, being vigorously

scraped (torn) with the blows like some lifeless

statue, and crying out

the same voice without ceasing,

the Governor, having taken

the little child in his hands,

with flatteries tried

to win [him] over not to weep aloud;

and set [him] upon his knees,

and undertook to kiss [him].

But the boy,

gazing intently toward his mother,

shook off the Governor,

and turned away his own head;

and resisting with his hands,

with his own nails tore the face

of the Governor he tore; and like the chick of some chaste turtledove

the holy Cericus uttered an imitating voice,

crying out the very proclamation spoken by his mother,

and saying, 'I am a Christian'; and with his heel he aimed

at the judge against his side; for the infant nature, for the most part,

loves to be moved disorderly in such gestures;

so that that wild beast, enraged

(for he is not to be called a man,

[he] who became unforgiving of [his] ignorant act),

taking him by the foot,

dashed the boy to the ground from

the high tribunal. But the skull of the gloriously-triumphant martyr,

upon such a confession, being dashed against the corner

of the steps, and ground down by the sharp edge of the hard surface,

the places before the tribunal were filled with blood,

but into the hands of God the God-born infant rendered up

his spirit; for the souls of the just

are in the hand of God.

[6] This therefore, holy Julitta having beheld,

and as it were filled with joy,

'I give thee thanks, O Lord,' she said,

'because thou didst count my son worthy, perfected before me,

to attain the unfading crown.'

But the judge, indignant also at this,

orders her hung up to the windlass

vigorously to be scraped;

and from the cauldron to be drawn

boiling pitch, and poured upon her feet.

And the judge through the herald commanding it to be said

to her, 'Julitta, have pity on thyself,

and sacrifice to the Gods and be freed of the torments,

lest thou bear the doom of thy son';

the prize-winner nobly endured the torments,

crying out and saying,

'I do not sacrifice to demons,

deaf and dumb carved images;

but I worship Christ the only-begotten

Son of God, through whom

the Father made all things;

and I hasten to attain my

son, that with him I may be counted worthy

of the kingdom of the heavens.'

But when the savage judge, exceeding all

madness, saw

the persistent steadfastness of the martyr,

he pronounces against her,

ordering her head to be cut off

with the sword;

but the relics (body) of her son

to be cast into the place of the condemned.

[7] And the executioners, binding the bridle upon

her mouth, led her away

to the customary place

to fulfill what was commanded.

But Julitta begged the executioners

to hold off a little,

until she might pray

to the only good God;

and the executioners being bent (moved),

and yielding for a little,

bending her knees she prayed,

saying: 'I give thee thanks, O Lord,

who didst call before me my son,

and didst count [him] worthy, for the sake of thy name

holy and fearful,

to leave this present and vain life,

and to be joined to eternal life with the saints;

and receive me thy unworthy handmaid,

and make [me] to obtain this great good,

that I may become numbered among

the prudent virgins who were counted worthy

to enter into thy eternal

and incorruptible bridal chamber;

and let my spirit bless

thy Father the almighty God

and creator of all things,

and the Holy Spirit unto the ages, Amen.'

And as she completed the 'Amen,'

the executioner whetting his sword,

cut off her noble neck,

outside the city;

casting her body where

also the relics (body) of the gloriously-triumphant martyr

was laid up. And thus they are perfected,

by the grace of Christ, both the prize-winning

martyr Julitta, and her renowned son Cericus,

on the fifteenth of the month of July.

[8] But on the following day, her two handmaids,

taking up the bodies by night,

placing them far off, hid them

in the earth in the territory of the people of Tarsus.

But up to the times of Constantine

the pious emperor, the one of the handmaids

who survived, when the truth was

brought to light, and the churches of God

received boldness through grace,

discloses the place; and everyone

of the faithful hastened, coming,

to take from the relics of the Saints

for the establishment of their own life,

and to the glory of our good God.

These things therefore were done in truth,

and I have signified them to your God-loving soul;

which do thou set before faithful men,

who will be capable also of giving full assurance;

that they be not carried about by manifestly fabulous writings,

but be persuaded by the truth itself;

in Christ Jesus our Lord,

with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit,

[be] glory, honor, might, unto the ages of the ages, Amen.

[1] When thy venerable Piety, through thy worthy

letters, The Author asked to write truer things, had inquired of my poor

slenderness, that thou mightest be taught the things which pertain to the martyrdom

commonly chanted, and most celebrated by fame;

of Cericus, I say, and of his

mother Julitta; whether also at Iconium,

whence the report is that the Martyr Julitta, illustrious for the praise of victory,

and her glorious son Cericus,

sprang, the tablets of that same martyrdom

are held; as if namely it were their homeland:

[and] that namely in the Acts of their martyrdom there exist certain

over-swollen and discordant words,

and trifles containing things foreign to the Christian hope;

[and] likewise whether the true Acts of their martyrdom

could be found, because the vulgar ones are very inept, I should write this to thy Perfection.

These sacred letters from thee being received,

very solicitous that I might fulfill that thy precept,

with intent zeal, and with quite diligent

labor, I took into my hands the Acts of the Martyrdom of the holy Cericus and his mother

Julitta, and unrolling them,

and reading them as carefully as I could, I found that thou

speakest truly, most holy Father, and most approved

Priest: for the garrulous sounds of frogs and jackdaws

one might justly call these things.

Plainly composed by the art of the Manichaeans (unless my opinion deceives me)

or of certain other heretics

holding alien views, that, rashly mocking,

they may bring into derision and reproach the great

mystery of piety.

[2] When however, much inquiry having been made,

and a diligent tracking of the matter, nothing more had been accomplished

by us; we questioned the natives, noble men, and shining

with the first distinction of lineage among the Isauri,

whether by the report at least of paternal tradition it might be permitted to obtain a thread,

from which the contest of the holy Martyrs might be disclosed by certain marks.

he writes what was narrated by them Martian therefore, a religious man, and

formerly Tribune of the Notaries and Chancellor of the Emperor Justinian,

while he was set with the magistracy over the forces;

and Zeno, a most wise man,

his assessor then, or counselor, [as] regards the Saints, narrated these things. who said they were akin to the saints, They had

heard from noble Patricians, that there had been a kinsman to them,

the flower of the first blood of Lycaonia,

the Martyr Julitta to be venerated with everlasting memory,

for this reason most of all,

that they acknowledge her joined to them by the right of their lineage

and kinship.

[3] This woman moreover, sprung of royal seed, when a more vehement

persecution raged against the Christians, (with Domitian

as Count of Lycaonia, a man namely

as fierce and savage as possible, as one who

especially rejoiced in the shed blood of the Martyrs)

snatched herself away by flight, with two handmaids and her three-year-old

son (the renowned victor Martyr Cericus, namely),

from Iconium, whence also she had sprung. nobly born at Iconium

Her substance therefore, in which she was very rich,

being left behind, she came to Seleucia: in which very place

finding the affairs of the Christians more disturbed, she fled to Seleucia

with a certain Alexander appointed Governor of Seleucia by Diocletian,

from whom he had recently received an edict,

by which were ordered to be tortured with every kind of torments those who

did not sacrifice to the idols

(to which they falsely ascribed the name of Gods);

she, considering that which is held in

Scripture, 'Give place to wrath'; lest she give

herself to dangers; hence too a fugitive, and thence to Tarsus:

she goes away to Tarsus, which is the chief

city of the first Cilician province. Rom. 12:19.

[4] But as if by agreement, with that monstrous

and most harsh Alexander migrating thither, who

namely surpassed the savagery of Domitian by many degrees,

the renowned victorious Martyr Julitta is seized,

embracing in her own arms [her] son The Martyr Cericus of a quite tender

age (called by God, namely the Martyr Cericus). where she was seized

After she was seized, the handmaids, leaving her,

took to flight; and from without were watching

the punishments of the tyrant upon her and his contest against her.

Then she, brought to the tribunal,

and being asked her name and fortune and country by Alexander,

answering with a confident mind to the Judge,

took to herself the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

saying, 'I am a Christian.' and having professed herself a Christian;

Alexander therefore, inflamed with wrath, ordered the boy

to be taken from her, and brought to him;

inasmuch as he was elegant, and not yet through his age

knowing anything which is of design and of a free mind:

but the mother, fitted to the punishments, whom her three-year-old son seeing tortured, and stretched out with raw

sinews, he commanded to be monstrously beaten. But the boy,

torn by force from the bosom of the brave Martyr,

and wholly yearning toward his mother,

nor turning his little eyes from her,

the executioners bring to the Praetor; but upon her,

what they were ordered, with dire scourges

tormenting, they fulfill; while she answered that one thing,

that she was a Christian, and that it would never be that she sacrifice to demons.

[5] While therefore she, lifeless after the manner of a statue,

is mightily torn with blows, she does not allow herself to be appeased by the coaxing Judge: and incessantly cries out the same

voice; the Praetor, the boy received in his hand,

coaxing [him] gently, strove to restrain [him] altogether

from weeping; and placed on his knees,

tried to receive [him] with a kiss. But the boy,

with eyes fixed on his mother, removed the Praetor

from himself, and turned away his head;

and striving with his hands, scratched the Praetor's

face with his little nails: like

finally the chick of a chaste turtledove, holy Cericus pronounced

uttering the same proclamation of his mother, and stammering 'Christ'

and crying, 'I am a Christian.' With his heels

too he aimed at the judge's side: for the infant age

is wont, for the most part, to be moved uncomposedly with gestures of this kind,

and to clamor with anger.

Wherefore that rustic beast, growing hot

(for he should not be called a man

who grows mild not even toward a rude and harmless

age, he is dashed against the tribunal. and indulges it), the boy

snatched by the foot, dashes to the ground from the lofty seat.

But the brain of the renowned Martyr,

dashed in that confession against the corners of the steps,

and crushed by the heavy blow,

the area of the tribunal round about was widely filled with blood;

and the infant, the divine offspring, rendered up

his spirit into the hands of God, for the souls of the Just

are in the hand of God. Wisd. 3. v. 1.

[6] Holy Julitta therefore, having beheld this, and as if

filled with surpassing joy, Julitta rejoices at his Martyrdom, 'Thanks

I give thee, O Lord,' she was saying, 'because thou didst deign

to will that my son, consummated before me, attain the unfading

crown.' Hence the Judge, himself deploring [her] lot

and wailing at the deed, orders her, hung from the wood

or rack, her sides to be mightily dug,

and pitch boiling drawn from the cauldron

to be poured on her feet. And then, with the herald's

voice commanding and saying, 'Julitta,

have pity on thyself, and after new tortures and sacrifice to the gods,

and be free from the torments, lest thou bear the same

evil death as thy son'; with a noble

purpose she endured the torments,

crying and saying, 'I do not sacrifice to demons

(deaf and dumb statues, namely), but I worship Christ the only-begotten

Son of God, through whom the Father founded

all things; and I hasten to attain my son,

that I may be made his companion in the kingdom of the heavens.' When,

surpassing all madness,

the savage judge, she is adjudged to death. perceived the constant mind

of the Martyr in the struggle, he pronounces against her

with the sword, [and] the son's corpse to be cast into the place of the condemned.

[7] The executioners therefore, her mouth obstructed and bound with a bridle,

Her mouth obstructed with a bridle led [her] to the customary place

of execution, to fulfill what they were ordered.

Julitta asks them to halt for a little while,

until as a suppliant she might pray to God, who alone

is good. The executioners being bent in mind,

and granting something small for the delays of praying, she, her knees

placed on the ground, prayed, saying, 'I give thee thanks,

O Lord, after a pious prayer, who didst call my son before me;

and didst deign to will that, this present and vain life

being left, he should be joined to eternal life with the Saints,

on account of thy holy and tremendous name; she is struck in the head.

receive me too, thy unworthy handmaid,

and grant that I may obtain that vast good

by which I may be enrolled among the prudent Virgins,

to whom it was granted to enter into the heavenly and incorruptible

bridal chamber;

and may my Spirit bless

thy Father, God the preserver of all

and maker of the universe, and the holy

Spirit, unto the ages, Amen.' When

she had completed the 'Amen,' the executioner brandishing

his sword cut off her most steadfast neck;

her body cast outside the city;

in which very place the corpse of the most renowned laureled

Martyr had been placed. And thus is consummated, by the grace

of Christ, both the triumphant Martyr Julitta, and her glorious

and renowned son Cericus,

on the 17th of the Kalends of August.

[8] Buried by night by the handmaids with her son But the next day both her handmaids, the corpses taken up

by night, buried them in the ground deposited far off,

in the territory of the city of Tarsus.

But up to the times of Constantine the most religious Emperor,

the surviving one of the handmaids,

when the truth was brought to light,

and by the gift of God's Church itself they had obtained

liberty, discloses the place. And then all the faithful,

intending to receive something of the sacred pledges

for the defense and protection of their life,

and to the glory of our most good God, hastened, and frequented the place.

These things therefore were really

done, which I have also noted to your most religious mind.

But do thou hand them in deposit to faithful men,

who namely may be sufficient to teach

others too, and to make for them sure

faith; lest they be carried about by those booklets which

are manifestly fabulous; but that they themselves believe the truth; in Christ

Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father,

and to the holy Spirit, [be] glory, honor,

power unto the ages of ages, Amen.

THE APOCRYPHAL ACTS

From a Ms. of the Monastery of Bodeck in Westphalia.

Julitta the Widow, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

Quiricus her son, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

BHL Number: 1802 a

FROM THE MSS.

CHAPTER ONE.

The seizing of the Saints and the incredible acts of the first day.

In the days of Alexander, b the great

Governor, a great commotion

was made in the Church of Christ,

so that many Christians were tortured

with punishments, but some,

terrified by the punishments, strove

to hide themselves in lurking-places; Julitta seized at Tarsus, whence it happened

that a certain woman Julitta, fearing the Lord

from her adolescence, hearing the tyranny

of the Governor, compelled by fear fled to Tarsus

of Cilicia, that she might there be hidden from the face

of the most iniquitous Governor Alexander. But he, hearing

that many Christians were hidden there,

entered that city, and began studiously

to seek the worshippers of Christ, and to torture those found with punishments.

But the ministers, seizing Julitta,

led [her] to the Governor, saying

of her: 'This is that sorceress, who fled from

thee, to circumvent men here, and deceive them,

that they sacrifice not to the gods, and brought to the Governor Alexander saying that they are nothing.'

When the Governor had seen her, he said to her, 'From

what province art thou, or what is thy name?'

Julitta answered: 'I am from the province

of Isauria, and of the first families of the city of Iconium,

this city: but now, because the Lord

awaits my crown, here I have run into thy

hands.' The most impious Governor says to her:

'If therefore thou knowest, that from my face

thou canst not be hidden; hear patiently, and

sacrifice to the gods, lest thou perish in the punishments.' Julitta

answered: 'I will never sacrifice to the unclean demons.' she asks a three-year-old boy to be brought, whom she may question:

[2] The Governor says to her, 'Believe me and sacrifice

to the gods, for otherwise thou wilt not escape the punishments of death.'

Julitta said, 'If thou wishest that I sacrifice, send

into the city, seeking a three-year-old boy: who,

when he has come, whomever he shall profess to be the true Lord, let us serve him: for in the present know

that I desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ alone.'

Then the Governor, sending into the city, began

to seek the boy: but the ministers did not find

him: for all who had infants there,

through fear of the most impious Governor,

were hiding d them. Yet going out

from the city they found a boy; and to the bystanders

they said, 'How many years old is this boy?' Who

said, 'Three years old he is not yet. This

is the son of the Christian woman who, fleeing from Iconium,

came into this place.' Seizing therefore the boy,

the ministers led [him] to the Governor, and the boy

said first to the Governor: 'I am of the root of the Christians.'

[3] Whence the Governor, marveling, greeted him,

and said, but Quiricus being brought, and having professed himself a Christian, 'Hail, dear little boy, do not, I beseech thee,

speak such things to me.' The boy said, 'Why dost thou

say to me, "Hail"? when thou neither hast salvation (health) thyself,

nor canst confer salvation on others.' The Governor said,

'I do not question thee about this matter, but for

certain other things I commanded thee to be brought.' The boy said,

'Whatever thou shalt ask me, I will answer

thee.' The Governor said, 'What is thy name?'

The boy answered, 'My mother and the Priest who

baptized me, named me Cyricus.' The Governor

said: 'Sacrifice to the gods, and thou shalt receive great honor

from the Princes, but also many

riches among the elect first of all.' The boy answered,

'Thy silver and thy gold be with thee unto

perdition.' The Governor said: 'From thy mother or from thy father,

or from some neighbor of thine, didst thou learn this?'

The boy says, by his wise answers he confounds the Governor: 'Foam and without reason, thou questionest a boy

of two years and nine months,

and sayest asking whether from a father or from a mother,

or from a neighbor, I learned this, which I have spoken

through the Holy Spirit? thou wast not worthy

to hear the words of God, which he speaks through my mouth:

but thou shalt hear on account of the bystanders.'

[4] Then the angry Governor ordered the boy to be afflicted,

and beaten with cudgels (over the shoulders). e But the boy,

directing his heart to God, beaten, he gives thanks to Christ: and lifting his eyes to

heaven, said: 'Lord Jesus Christ, to thee

I give thanks with my whole soul, and a prayer

to thee I pour forth: I will exalt thee in the joy

of thy glory, willing in this world for

thy love to endure the passion of the body, that

into thy kingdom thou mayest receive my soul: for therefore

I have fled to thee and thy power: I proclaim,

immortal king, that thou have mercy on me.'

As he prayed these things, those beating him grew faint;

and when they had taken him down, they saw him sound

without any injury, as if he had sustained no

blows.

[5] But the Governor, marveling, ordered his mother

to be brought, and he appears unharmed. and said to her, 'Julitta, behold the boy has confessed

the Gods, willing to sacrifice to them: but thou,

what sayest thou?' She said, 'I wish to hear the voice of my

son.' Whom when she had seen constant and praising

God, At the sight of him the joyful mother, extending her hand to heaven

she said: 'I give thanks to thee, Lord almighty,

because thou hast made me worthy to see my son

before the tribunal of the Judge, agonizing for thy name:

thee therefore I confess, Lord Jesus

Christ, immortal God, who didst measure heaven with a span,

didst mark the sea with a boundary, didst adorn the ether

with stars, and the earth with a multitude of flowers

didst adorn. Give, O Lord, to my son a crown

unfading, who has manfully confessed thy name. *' Then was heard a voice from f heaven

saying, 'Hear, daughter, this thy son shall be great

in eternal glory, but thy crown

is perpetual in the kingdom of God. then by a heavenly [voice,] Be strengthened therefore

in the Lord, that you may be able to bear the punishments,

which these men have to impose on you; and

to persevere in the work begun, for the glory of God,

that the impious Pagans, seeing in you the great works of Christ,

may be confounded, and through you, many peoples

may be converted.'

[6] But as she prayed, her son said to

her: 'Mother, then by his own voice she is more encouraged thy reproach has been taken from thee:

for I have seen the glory of God upon thee, and

I have heard the voice of thy consolation: fear not

for me, because the Lord Jesus Christ is with us,

who has clothed me with an unfading garment,

for the baptism which I received in his name.'

The Governor said: 'This woman, as I see, wherefore the boy is tortured with vinegar, Mustard, and fiery nails. has decided with herself

that she be taken from this Life.' The boy said:

'Thy Life is death: for thou art [he] of whom the prophet

says, "Woe to him who calls sweet bitter, and

bitter sweet."' The Governor said to the ministers, 'Bring

me vinegar and mustard, and put [it] into his nostrils':

which when it had been done, the boy says:

'How sweet to my jaws are thy words,

O Lord.' The Governor again says to his men, 'Bring

me fourteen iron nails, sharp,

burning hot: and drive seven into the mother and as many

into the son; two besides put into the boy's ears,

and pierce his hearing, that, his eyes being blinded,

the pain may reach even to his heel.' The ministers therefore

fulfilling the command of the Governor, g

by the command of God the nails were made cold

like the crystal of snow; and the holy boy praised

the Lord in his so great marvels.

Then the angry Governor said to the ministers: led to prison he sings psalms:

'Bind both together, and put them into prison,

until we consider how we may destroy

them.' And they, binding them, put them in

prison. But holy Cyricus h was singing

this psalm: 'O God, be not silent of my praise,

for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful is opened

over me: they have spoken against me

with a deceitful tongue, and with words of hatred have surrounded

me, and have fought against me without cause: but

thou, O Lord, deal with me for the sake of thy name,

that those who hate me may see, and be confounded,

since thou, O Lord, hast helped and

consoled me.' But in the evening he was singing, saying:

'Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed

as incense in thy sight: the lifting up

of my hands [as] an evening Sacrifice.'

[7] But as he prayed, the devil appeared in

the form of an Angel, and said to him in his sleep: he confounds the demon tempting him. 'Why

dost thou exalt, boy, thy voice in the sight

of the Lord? The Lord has turned away his face from thy prayer:

and therefore he commanded me to come to thee,

to tell thee; that if the soldiers lead thee out, and

the Governor say anything to thee, consent to him in

all things and thou shalt be a friend i of the Princes and

the things which are heavenly thou shalt gain.' Understanding therefore the boy

Cyricus the iniquitous art of the most iniquitous devil,

said, 'Go, accursed one, pirate devil, for

there is to thee no part or inheritance with the Saints

of God. May Christ submerge thee in the deep tartarus,

which thou hast opened.' At these words the Devil,

blushing, went out saying, 'If now thou hast harmed me, and having threatened many things in vain.

I will indeed enter into the heart of the Governor, and

stop his mouth that he speak not to thee: and so it will come to pass

that thou receive not the crown which thou hast desired.

I will enter also thy mother, and

turn her aside from the way of truth.' Holy Cyricus

said: 'Go from me, Satan, may the almighty

Lord conquer thee.' And immediately like smoke he went out

from the prison. The holy boy therefore said to his

mother: 'Let us always watch, O dearest

mother, lest the iniquitous deceiver come again,

and while we sleep take away our treasure.'

Hearing these things, those who were in the prison

with them were pricked in heart, and believed

in the Lord.

D.P. ANNOTATIONS AND CENSURES

Cyricus and Julitta his mother, whose feast is venerated on the Ides of June":

which since they do not fall on the 16th day of the month, but the 13th; but the Ides of July fall

on the 15th, on which both the Greeks say the saints suffered, and after them Peter

de Natalibus, and the names were once inscribed in the Calendars;

the suspicion of the ancient error in naming the month is increased.

Augustus, in whose 42nd year Christ was born, from whom the twentieth was

Aurelius Alexander, made Emperor more or less in the year

226; and how under him Pope Callixtus, martyred,

obtained Urban as his successor; which things it is of no concern to examine

one by one.

whether Hucbald too did not read the same. In Mombritius is named the city

of the Hybonii, whence someone could afterward have made "of the Spains" (Hispaniarum), but

in the Claromaresc Ms. is read "of the Ychonii."

d As if

there were not enough Gentiles there, whose children had nothing to fear from

the Governor: more cautiously therefore does Hucbald feign, that the sought Quiricus was named

at the suggestion of someone, and as it were betrayed as her son by the mother, anxious about him.

I explained on the preceding day, at the Acts of Saints Vitus

and Modestus, chapter 1 letter d.

in all Passions of the inferior sort, since in the genuine ones nothing

is found rarer.

incredible; and likewise the contest of the boy with the devil in prison.

although Alexander reigned alone and without a Colleague.

CHAPTER II.

Other miracles of St. Cyricus, utterly paradoxical and incredible.

[8] On the next day the Governor had them led before his tribunal,

On the next day the boy uses equal constancy, and said to St. Cyricus:

'I do not now ask of thee, that thou sacrifice:

but only say this Phrase, "I fumigate thee,

Serapis," and I dismiss thee, and thou shalt be freed from the torments.'

St. Cyricus said: 'Now truly I recognize

that Satan thy father has entered thy mouth,

as yesterday was shown to me.

I will never say this phrase which

thou persuadest, but rather I will say, "May the Lord Jesus Christ subvert thee

and thine."' Meanwhile came an Angel of God from heaven, and overturned the house

of the Governor, namely the beauties of the idols

and the images of the thirteen simulacra, the idols broken, he insults [him,]

crushing them into dust. Then Blessed Cyricus

said: 'Thou seest now, Governor, that thy Gods have become

like dung, for from the face of my God they have been crushed

and reduced to nothing. For the Lord

Jesus Christ ground them like sand,

because they are vain and lying: and the spirit

which dwells in them leads astray and deceives the hearts

of the simple, who adore and worship them. Yet,

O Governor, what I tell thee, do: and he confounds the Governor. Take

thy Gods, and wrap them in clean linen

and pour over them oil and salt, and let them

lie so long until they themselves rise and help

themselves: for others they cannot help.'

The Governor therefore did a according to the voice of the boy: and

there was in them no substance, by which they could lift themselves

from the earth.

[9] The confounded Governor therefore said, 'Call

me a bronze-smith, that I may find torments

against these, by which they may be overcome.' for the same [Governor, grown mute, he speaks,] And when

the bronze-smith had come, the devil entered the heart

of the Governor, according to what he had spoken; and did not

permit him to speak or to arrange anything of the smith's

work; hoping through this that the blessed boy could be deprived of the crown of martyrdom. Understanding which,

the holy boy said to the smith: 'Canst thou

make for me vessels of torments, in which

I may be tortured, and my mother? for the Governor

can show thee nothing of it.' The smith answered:

'Say, boy, how thou wishest, and

I, according to my power, will satisfy thee.' St. Cyricus said: and he commands the instruments of punishments to be made.

'Make two iron claws to the measure

of a palm, one for me and one for my mother: make a head-breaker

and hooks for plucking out the eyes,

and forceps for the teeth, and a knee-breaker and cutters of the sinews,

and a bronze bed in the likeness

of a cross, and there fix three iron

nails and three of lead according to

my age, and write upon their head: "Trinity

inseparable, be not separated from those who invoke thee."

Make also two locheas (basins) b and a bronze pot;

and put there two ladles. These will be

our vessels of torments, and whatever beyond

these thou knowest, do.'

[10] to the horror of the smith himself. But the smith, made to tremble, said to the Governor,

'Never have I heard such wisdom

from those who were before us; never

have I heard or learned to make such things.' Then, by command

of the Governor, other more skilled smiths were brought,

who could make the torments of punishments

that he wished: and they gave their hands pledged to the Governor

that within forty days they would fulfill his command. Meanwhile

the mother with her son were shut up in prison,

where also another four hundred and forty-four were kept shut up, who indeed,

all converted to the faith of Christ by the preaching

of the two, persevered with them in

fastings and prayers, giving thanks to God

for the benefits conferred through the merits of the saints,

and saying: 'Blessed art thou, O Lord, the Lord

who doest wonders alone: who hast given

power to thy boy Cyricus and to his mother.

Help now us too, because we believe in

thee; and give us from thy heavenly table the food

of perennial life.'

[11] But after forty days c were brought

before the sight of the Governor the kinds of torments, Afterward, the Saints being brought and tortured in vain

just as he himself had arranged about each one to be made.

Who at once ordered the Saints of God to be brought,

and said to the boy Cyricus, 'Do not think,

that these so many kinds of torments have been displayed for sport.'

The holy boy answered: 'Without

law and without sense, most evil warrior of Satan,

I do not greatly fear thy punishments: for I have

my Lord Jesus Christ as helper.'

The Governor said to the ministers: 'Take the skin

from their heads, and put under them

coals of fire'; which done, the coals were immediately

extinguished; and their heads shone,

as the ray of the sun shines upon the earth. At the same

hour the prisons were opened, they present themselves of their own accord and there went out all

the Christians who had been shut up inside; and coming

before the sight of the Governor they cried out

saying, 'We too are Christians,

O Governor, 444 converted by them in prison, just as these also.' The Governor said: 'What

happened that you should follow these things?' They answered,

'Dost thou not see, senseless one, the crowns prepared

for the saints of God, whom thou commandest to be tortured without cause.'

These and things like these they following, the Governor

ordered them to be led outside the city and beheaded. and they are beheaded.

Who, going out from the city, signed themselves

with the sign of the cross, and being beheaded obtained the crown of martyrdom. d

[12] After these things the Governor ordered the bronze bed

to be brought, and the holy boy to be put

upon it; and sharp nails to be driven into his head,

saying to him, 'If thou hast a sure God, St. Cyricus, freed from the gridiron, let him

free thee now from my hands': and immediately

an Angel of the Lord coming from heaven drew out

the nails which had been driven in, and even to the ground

casts down the Governor from the place in which he was sitting. But

he was crying with a great voice, saying: 'Holy boy,

help me: for I knew not that the Lord

whom thou worshippest was of such power.'

The holy boy answered: 'I know indeed that

thou hast not it in thee to believe: he heals the smitten Governor: but yet for the sake of those

who are to believe I will do mercy with thee,'

and soon he placed his hand over him.

Then the Governor cried with a great voice and said,

'I give thanks to my gods, through whom now

I am freed.' Cyricus says to him, 'Now dost thou reckon

thyself to have done rightly? Thou hast spoken ill, for

thy gods did not free thee; but God almighty

by my prayers saved thee. Because therefore

thou art ungrateful for the benefits of the Lord, by whose grace

thou livest, thou shalt again feel the blow of his scourge, and

again then thou shalt ask me that I pray for thee.'

[13] But the angry Governor, because the devil had blinded

his heart, ordered all the torments to be brought which

were prepared, that they might be put in

the sight of the Saints. who, again attempting something and being wounded, Which when it had been done

the Governor commanded the boy's throat to be strangled with the neck-breaker,

wishing in one moment to suffocate [him],

lest he suffer greater injuries from him.

But the Governor, taking the iron tool into his hand,

when he wished to strangle the boy with one stroke,

struck himself in the face, and broke

his nostrils and disfigured his face, so that

he seemed shapeless in appearance and aspect. But the boy

Cyricus, seeing the scourge of the Governor,

said to him: 'Accursed and ruined one, well

was it prophesied of thee, that those assailing

are themselves assailed, and their wrath shall fall

upon them.' The Governor said, 'I see that thou art a sorcerer,

but pray to [thy] God that my face be healed.'

he orders the saints to be sawn through the middle; St. Cyricus said, 'Impious one and enemy of God almighty,

thou shalt no longer tempt the Lord

by thy lie.' Then the indignant Governor

said to the ministers, 'Bring saws, and

saw them.' The ministers therefore did according

to the command of the Governor, bringing saws, to

saw the Martyrs of Christ through the middle. They beheld

the Lord, and St. Cyricus extending

his hands to heaven said: 'O Lord, Lord

almighty, willingly indeed would I appear in thy sight,

but my crown is not yet fully

completed: for I have already received fortitude,

to pass through all the punishments, enduring

the incomparable tyrant, on account of

the will, by which I desire to come to thee.' And

behold a voice from heaven saying: 'Come, and receive

the power of patience, that you may answer confidently.'

[14] which, when it had been attempted in vain with iron and wood Again before the tribunal of the Governor the saws

were now placed upon the bodies of the Saints:

but by the command of God they were turned crosswise, and

those holding them were sawing themselves. Holy

Cyricus therefore said to the Governor: 'If thou wishest that

we be sawn, command wooden saws to be made, and take

from us the iron ones, and thou shalt saw us.' The Governor said:

'Do according to what the boy has spoken.'

And they had wooden saws made, and sawed

them. But they, strengthened in the arm

of the Lord's power, although they lay subject to the most grievous punishments,

could by no means be overcome or extinguished.

Then the Governor said to the centurion Demetrius:

'Great and most powerful arts help

the boy and his mother.' and a thousand dead are raised; Meanwhile a certain

Eusebius by name, a most noble man, having

pleaded against them before the governor and obtained that

they be killed: but the blessed boy Cyricus

praying for them, the Savior descended with seven Archangels

to the place where they had been beheaded,

as the same blessed boy beheld with spiritual

eyes, and raised them from the dead:

and giving to all the Holy Spirit, said to

them: 'Go confidently before the tribunal of the Governor,

and say to him, "It behooves us to be killed again by thee."' the Governor still hesitating and asking another sign,

[15] These things being so done, all those, together with

the holy boy Cyricus and his mother Julitta,

came before the sight of the Governor, crying out

unanimously and saying, 'There is one true

Lord, and no other, who raises the dead.'

The Governor therefore, turned to stupor by excessive

admiration, said: 'All these are phantasms:

yet I ask some sign to be made by

thee: that I may believe that all these things are true.

For if I am to believe that all these

have risen from the dead, let the sandals

of my feet be taken off, and let them become alive, let them speak

and move, eat and drink: and

then I believe that all these have risen from the dead.'

Then Holy Cyricus prayed to

the Lord and said, 'O Lord, Lord of hosts,

who madest heaven and earth, who by wisdom

didst establish man, and gavest him a sign of life;

give now, O Lord, an incorruptible sign

to this Governor, though obstinate in hardness of mind;

that he may know that nothing is impossible to thee; that

those not yet understanding, may understand the great works

of thy power.' his shoes are changed into a bull and a kid. These and things like these the boy

praying, suddenly the sandals of the Governor

were opened, and became a bull of wondrous size:

there also went out from the neck of the bull a kid

of the goats, and leaping it stood before the Governor.

Which when the multitude of Pagans saw,

they cried out with one voice saying, 'Just is

the Lord and right [is] his judgment.' The Governor says to them,

'Be not seduced, dearest friends, because these

all are phantasms. Let them therefore eat and

drink, that we may believe that these things are true.' Holy

Cyricus said; 'Let hay and water be brought to them

to drink.' Which when they had been brought, the bull

and the kid were eating: and all marveled.

The Governor said; 'Kill the bull and the kid,

and let a meal be made from them for the people.' Which

when it was done, eleven thousand men

eating of them were satisfied, and there remained

five baskets full of flesh:

that the Governor with the people might marvel more, and

might know that to the Lord it is not impossible

to satisfy many from a little.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

a How

stupid, that the Governor be feigned to obey the Martyr, suggesting something for the contempt

of his own Gods, both here and below several times where the instruments

of torments the Martyr himself is feigned to commission and prescribe to be made.

(and deservedly) and only mentions the delay, while the torments are prepared,

the saints being led to prison.

[and] pursues more fully the instruction of the neophytes in prison.

seems to have dropped out of this Ms.: for on such a day, as we said among the omitted saints,

they are reported by Peter de Natalibus and others, but with the number much

diminished, and as having suffered at Iconium. But all the rest of this Chapter

is deservedly passed over.

CHAPTER III.

The mother, wavering at the torments, is feigned to be strengthened, and to be beheaded together with her son.

[16] [His tongue cut off,

the holy [boy] speaks.] But the most impious Governor was not pricked

by all these things, but filled

with the devil called a physician, saying, 'Cut

out the boy's tongue: for I cannot bear to overcome

his incantations and magic arts.'

And when this too had been done, by divine power

the holy boy began to speak, and said to the Governor:

'Thou hast reckoned that words could be taken from me with

my tongue; but I have received from God the Spirit of an instrument,

which neither thou nor thy father the devil can extinguish,

that I may insult thy malicious infidelity,

because thou exaltest thyself against God.' The Governor said

to the ministers: 'Beat the physician with clubs, because

he did not rightly cut off the boy's tongue, as I commanded

him.' The physician said, 'Behold, I still have it

in my hands: but if thou commandest, let a pig

be brought, and I will cut out its tongue. Which if it further

utters a voice, deliver me to death.' A pig

therefore being brought, when the physician had cut out its tongue,

unable to utter a voice further, suddenly it expired:

and so the physician escaped the danger of death.

Again the Governor, turned to the boy,

said: 'I do not ask of thee that thou sacrifice to the gods,

but only that thou taste of the flesh and of the wine which are

on the altar, and thou shalt be freed from the torments.'

Holy Cyricus said: 'I will not taste unclean flesh,

and let wine offered to the devil not enter

into my mouth.' To be cast into a cauldron of fiery pitch

[17] The Governor said to the ministers; 'Bring the flesh of the Sacrifices

and the wine of the libations, and opening

his mouth put it into him against his will.' Holy Cyricus

said: 'Never may it be well with thee, enemy of God

and of us, who are servants of Christ with all

our hearts': and the Governor said, 'Bring

tow, and apply fire.' The executioners therefore

kindling the cauldron, said to the Governor,

'Lord, command those whom thou desirest to torture to be brought,

for the cauldron now boils everywhere.' For

the voice of the cauldron was like the voice of thunder, and its boiling

ascended fourteen cubits. The Governor therefore sent,

and called those men whom Holy Cyricus

had raised from the dead, that they might see that

most monstrous torment, and being terrified might deny

Christ. Who, coming, awaited

with patience the torments of the holy Martyrs,

who were to be put into the most boiling cauldron. he strengthens his mother wavering at the sight,

[18] But Julitta, seeing the boiling cauldron,

was terrified, wishing to deny the treasure which

she had laid up. Lest she suffer so

great a torment. Understanding which, her son

Cyricus strengthened her in the faith, and said:

'Lady mother, be strengthened in the Lord, and

fear not the torment of this death, because

soon the crown which thou awaitest from God will be present to thee.

Be mindful how the creator of all and the liberator,

the Lord almighty, snatched the three children from

the furnace of fire: for so he will be able to free us from

this cauldron. If therefore thou wishest to flee the torments

which are on earth, beware lest thou fall perchance

into that torment which is eternal,

and which none can escape, except

he who here, tempted and proven for Christ, and he prays for her.

is found faithful in all things. Do not, mother, totter

in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ: for he

is at hand to all who are afflicted for his

name, and does not permit them to be tempted

and to suffer above what they can bear, because faithful

he is and true in all his promises.

He freed Susanna from the false accusation,

and Daniel from the den of lions. He now in the present

is at hand, to help and free our souls

from the monstrousness of this torment: but if

the Lord shall wish to receive our souls by that engine, b

we will endure patiently, secure

that to eternal life as soon as possible without distrust

we shall come.'

[19] who, her courage resumed, These and things like these the blessed boy saying,

raised his hands, and said; 'Lord Jesus

Christ, who hast mercy on all invoking thee

and confessing to thee; have mercy on my mother

and recall her mind to the solidity of faith

and of thy love. But if thou hast forgotten her, and

her labor and devotion, blot me too out of

the book which thou hast written. O Lord, Lord almighty,

look upon her, and suffer her not to perish;

lest those who hate thee say, "Where now is

their Lord, who did great wonders

through them: for if they had invoked our Gods,

surely they would have freed them. For their God deserted

them, and in their need fled from them, [he] who

could not help them." But thou, O Lord,

propitious, stretch out thy hands, that the devil may not

dominate in us, and say, "I have prevailed against

them." Give therefore, O Lord, the spirit of understanding

and of Wisdom to thy handmaid my mother.'

But the holy boy praying, there came upon her

the Holy Spirit, and the devil departed from her. she herself invites her son to the cauldron:

Blessed Julitta therefore, strengthened in the Lord, said

to her son Cyricus: 'I give thanks to thee, son, because

by thy prayers the Holy Spirit has strengthened me

in the faith of my Lord Jesus Christ. Come

now, son, let us go with confidence and security

to the contest laid up for us, and let us receive

the crown of justice, which God has promised

to those who love him: for I no longer

fear the torments which are inflicted on us; I do not

dread the boiling cauldron, since he who

was hidden in me has departed far from me. So,

with God favoring, I regard the cauldron as now affording us not boiling,

but refreshment; like

the dew which descends from heaven, and like the most sweet

odor which comes from paradise.'

[20] Saying these things, Blessed Julitta, having entered of her own accord

into the cauldron with her son, blessed God, and

was not afflicted by the fire, here he, having entered with her, nor harmed. But holy

Cyricus was praying with tears, saying:

'Lord Jesus Christ, who among the three

children in the furnace of burning fire didst appear;

be here with us, and defend us everywhere,

as thou didst defend them.' But the prayer completed,

taking water from the cauldron, he sprinkled [it] upon the aforesaid

men, whom he had raised from the dead, who

also stood by, and said: 'Let this water be to you

as a baptism of penitence unto eternal life.' he baptizes thence the thousand raised,

Seeing this, the Governor was indignant, and said:

'Even in the fire his sorceries prevail, so

that those sprinkled feel no pain.' St. Cyricus said: 'This

is not sorcery, but the power and omnipotence

of God.' But St. Cyricus, dipping his three fingers

into the cauldron, drenched the arm

of the Governor: and immediately it scorched the arm of the Governor,

and his whole body began to burn, and

nothing of him remained but the bones. but he scorches the Governor, Then the Governor,

compelled by this torment, cried out and said:

'Holy [one] of God, help me: for now truly

I have recognized that thou hast the true God as helper

and defender: this alone remains, that if

thou heal me, I will immediately believe in thee.' To whom St.

Cyricus said; 'I know that thou hast not it in thee to believe,

in whom there is no will of religion: but

for the sake of those who through the power of my Lord

Jesus Christ are to believe in him, and again he heals [him.] behold now

I heal thee.' And he prayed to the Lord, and said;

'Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, heal

the body of the Governor; not for his sake, but for the sake

of those who, admonished by thy power, are

to believe in thee.'

[21] And when the Governor had been healed, he began

to cry out saying, 'I give thanks to my gods, who

have healed my body.' But holy Cyricus

said: 'Accursed and senseless son of the Devil,

why didst thou not first invoke the demons when

thou wast burning? and now, after thou hast been healed by my God,

why dost thou honor the demons? for no one

can serve two Lords: either

he will hate one and love the other; or to one he will adhere

and the other despise: so thou too canst not

with one mouth invoke the Lord and the Devil. He, proceeding to new torments in vain,

Thou doest as the Jews who, forsaking

God, adored guile.' The most impious

Governor says to him: 'I praise the Gods, through whom I was freed

from thy magic arts.' But the Governor happened

then to be in a certain place, where he found

men could move: which immediately, seized by a diabolical

thought, he ordered to be carved out, and the holy

martyrs to be put in up to their heads:

so that when they were drenched with boiling lead and bronze,

the rock by reason of its great solidity might not break.

And when they were dragged through the midst of the boiling substance,

that they might be consumed limb by limb,

an Angel of the Lord coming from heaven freed

them, the rock being utterly burst apart, and the boiling of the fire consumed.

[22] Seeing c this, the Governor was indignant, and

said, 'Unless I kill these with the sword, at last he orders the saints to be beheaded: I cannot

destroy them with any torments.' Saying this

he gave sentence concerning them that they be beheaded.

But St. Cyricus, coming with his mother

to the place where they were to be beheaded, prayed with

tears, that God almighty would send his Angels

to receive their souls. The Savior therefore descended

with his Angels at the prayer of the infant, and

they were standing around them. who being led to the place of punishment:

So holy Cyricus, seeing the Savior

coming to him with a multitude of Angels,

prostrated himself in prayer, and prayed to

the Lord, and said: 'Lord my God

Jesus Christ, son of the living God, grant me what I ask thee;

or if thou wilt not hear me, blot

me out of the book which thou hast written.' The Savior answered

and said: 'Ask what thou wilt, and I will give

thee.' 'Lord,' he says, 'I pray, Cyricus prays for those who will worship or invoke [him:] that whoever in my

name shall ask anything, may obtain for

their needs the gifts of thy mercy, and the consolation

of life. Give them, O Lord, a reward

who in this life shall honor me from their

substance, or from the fruit of their land;

bless their wine, and oil, and multiply

their grain and enlarge all their substance:

whoever shall venerate or cause to be written

my passion, may he receive the reward of eternal

life. But into the place where there shall be a tabernacle

of [my] martyrdom, let there come neither hail nor

mortality of men, nor famine nor sterility,

and the incursion of demons: whoever shall venerate

or invoke the memory of my name, give

them a good reward, and if they have sins,

and from their whole heart shall have repented, let them be absolved.'

[23] But the prayer completed, the Savior said:

'Son, all that thou hast asked shall be given thee. Holy

art thou, who in the hour of thy passion didst suffer with the needs

of all men. Come, my beloved,

receive the crown which I have prepared

for thee in the kingdom of my Father.' But it was

about the Sixth hour of the night; and there was a very great light over them,

which no other saw except those who through them had believed, and he undergoes death on 13 June.

of whom a very great multitude was there present.

So holy Cyricus completed his martyrdom,

together with his mother Julitta, at midnight:

and being beheaded, was crowned by the hand

of the Savior on the day of the Ides of June; and by the Angels

was carried to the rest of eternal life. The next

day, the impious Governor gathered a multitude

of soldiers, and ordered the bodies to be scattered limb by limb,

lest they be carried off by the Christians. But an Angel

of the Lord guarded their bodies.

There suffered also with the blessed boy and his

mother men who, as we have aforesaid, with more than 1000 others. by his

prayer were raised from the dead, in number

more than a thousand, who from Christ received the palm of eternal

life, beheaded at the same time and by the same

impious judge.

[24] For us therefore, who venerate his memory,

may the blessed Cyricus pray, a pious boy and

glorious martyr; He is invoked by the Author and may he ever stand at the right hand

of the Lord, with continual supplication interceding for us

with the Lord almighty, that we too may merit to come

to the rest of eternal life;

with our Lord Jesus Christ granting [it], who with

the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, through all

the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

after they had frequently glorified God by their passions and tortures,

while from the chains they were brought to the tribunals, [and] from the tribunal

recalled to the chains; among the horrific and most exquisite kinds of torments,

succeeding one another in turn, when the precious limbs of the Martyrs of Christ

were stretched with various tortures, by heavenly consolation they were always

snatched from all tribulations.

I have here named the more willingly; since neither his name even, much less his day or

passion, have become known to us; nor can he, now dead, be questioned,

that most learned friend. He will confer a benefit on us, whoever shall indicate the hidden treasure.

as if transferring Hucbald's writing only into a more elegant style. But what

they omitted, there is no need to pursue with a more prolix censure one by one,

since to have reported them is to have censured them, as everywhere appears so manifest and so unbecoming

the wantonness of feigning.

THE TRANSLATION OF ST. CYRICUS

To the Elnon monastery of St. Amand. By Philip, Abbot of Bonne-Espérance, of the Premonstratensian Order in Hainault.

From the published Works and a double Ms.

Julitta the Widow, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

Quiricus her son, Martyr, at Tarsus in Cilicia (S.)

BHL Number: 1813

[1] Let us praise glorious men and our fathers

in their generation, to whom the Lord made much

glory by his magnificence. From the Abbey of Elnon, Formerly in the place of the Elnon monastery,

where St. Amand rests in body, the riches

of salvation, that is, wisdom and knowledge,

abundantly overflowed: and diffused their odor

every way: so that many drew thence, whence

they might offer drink to their own. But

because knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies;

through the inflation of knowledge, wise charity, and

dear wisdom, seemed in that place to grow scarce,

as in what follows will be seen.

Finally there flourished there in study a certain wise man,

by name b Milo; who under the wings of the schools

cherished his nephew Hucbald, Hucbald the nephew of Milo with the benefit of the liberal

arts. The follower namely,

that he might take a trial of his talent, composed

about St. Andrew a melody of Antiphons:

but also of certain Lauds, having

"What is truly pious praise" as their beginning. When

the teacher had at last scarcely recognized this, he took it gravely,

and denied him entrance to the schools;

complaining that he wished to usurp upon himself the name

of Philosopher. And because the place at that

time lacked an c Abbot: approaching the Prior, he defames the disciple of excessive arrogance,

and protested that he and that disciple could by no means

dwell in the same dwelling. He,

summoning Hucbald, asked [him] to yield to the elder,

until, his animosity mitigated, he departs to Nevers; which

then was newly fervent, he might return to his own place

in peace. Acquiescing in his counsel,

he sought the city of Nevers: which

[2] Where, when he stayed with the Bishop e,

so he clung to his company, that he became his companion

in every business. For the same Pontiff

so took him as an intimate, that he entrusted to him

his furnishings. And because the Bishop had received the increment

of youth to be educated at Reims;

he ordered him to be a composer of melody, upon the history f

of Blessed Cilinia the mother of St. Remigius. But the oft-mentioned

Pontiff had with him, among the sacred ministries,

the body of St. Cyricus, where, ordered to write about St. Cilinia, of the little infant and

the great Martyr. But it happened that the Bishop was

wearied by a sharp pain of the body, and felt the danger of death

to be at hand to him. Then calling

Hucbald, he addresses his friend with this speech:

'I am afflicted with the weariness of a most grievous illness so far,

that I understand I can be aided by the help of no healing,

nor relieved by remedy.

Wherefore, most loving Brother, because to my

uses hitherto I know thee to have devotedly served,

I do not wish now to dismiss thee ungratefully. Because therefore

all my things are in thy knowledge, disclose what

I have, whence a worthy recompense can be made

to thee.' Hearing which, Hucbald answered

the Bishop, now made more cheerful: 'One

thing there is, Lord Father, in thy possession, which

if it should befall me to have, I shall greatly esteem

the devotion of my service. The quantity of gold

or silver I do not seek at all, or of the other

things of this kind: but only the body of St. Cyricus. he asks of the Bishop the body of St. Cyricus:

This heard, the Bishop with a somewhat sad countenance answered

Hucbald: 'Thy petition indeed exceeds the measure;

yet lest I seem to wish to defraud thee

of the promise, depart as soon as possible, the holy Body taken.'

Then he, carrying off secretly the Martyr's

bones, laid them in his food-bags, and with him conniving, he takes [them away;] to the faithful theft

joining a sagacious industry; namely that

so clean a treasure might by no means be sought among unclean

vessels.

[3] Meanwhile the Clerics and servants,

occupied with various businesses, after they learned that Hucbald

had departed, began to speak to one another, lest

he had left some detriment behind him: inasmuch as

to him the care of the household property had been entrusted by the Pontiff.

At last, with him now progressing farther

from the city, conversing they came to the place

where they thought the Martyr's body was preserved.

Which not being found, they perceived that they had been craftily

forestalled with household loss. What need of many words

should I delay? With him hastening his flight, they hastened to pursue

the fleeing [man]. But Hucbald, looking back,

when he saw himself surrounded by enemies,

penetrating a wood placed opposite him,

descended from his horse; bent his knees, poured forth

should permit himself, with Christ aiding, to be carried

to the Elnon monastery; placed in the middle of the church's

court, he would be singularly venerated

by the people. And soon mounting his horse, according to

his wish, he quickly crossed that very thicket.

But they, since they could not find even his tracks,

wandering through the wood, returned,

conjecturing that he had taken another route.

[4] But he, rejoicing that he had escaped with that

heavenly treasure, The people of Elnon, admonished by a miracle, went on, hastening even to the Elnon

monastery. Now on the night which

preceded the day, when he was to enter

the oratory of St. Amand: St. Amand himself appeared

to a certain bedridden Monk in the house

of the infirm, whose paralysis had dissolved the joints

of his limbs: and touching with his finger his

vital breast, 'Rise,' he said, 'unharmed: and

by this sign admonish the Brethren, that they prepare

themselves to meet Hucbald with crosses and

wax candles, bringing the body of St. Cyricus the Martyr.'

Who, obeying the command of the one ordering, was present at the procession,

not without the greatest amazement of those beholding.

Then indeed Hucbald, mindful of his own

vow, hastening the woodworkers, had constructed in

the middle vault of the church a fitting dwelling, as far as he could,

in which the bones of the saint might be placed.

Which when it was made with all speed,

and there the holy Relics were placed. Wherefore

an altar was built there; before which lying prostrate

frequently, Hucbald interceded with devout

prayers to the Martyr: whence there befell him a certain

presage, they piously receive it: which we have by no means judged should be suppressed

in silence.

[5] Finally in the stillness of a certain night,

with him resting with the Brethren, St. Cyricus is present

to him in a vision, he himself understands that he will soon die; by whom, terrified by such an address:

'Know that the course of thy life is to be ended in a short time;

namely this year, on the fifth

day after the triumph of my passion.

Seek therefore some of the Chiefs of the heavenly court,

who may stand for thee as advocate before the strict

Judge.' Immediately Hucbald, roused

from sleep, by no means gave faith to the vision;

unless he should inquire the matter from God, prostrate

to the holy Martyr. For coming to the church,

before his altar prostrated on the ground as usual, with devout

affection he supplicated, and he is bidden to compose the Office of St. Peter, that whether the vision were true

or an illusion of a phantasm, he might be made certain,

by his intervention. And when he prayed more attentively,

sleep crept upon him: and behold he beholds the Saint

standing by him with his intellectual eyes,

and repeating what he had said with friendly words:

'Do not doubt,' he says, 'concerning the things

I have said: but because thou hast hitherto exercised thyself in the memory

of many Saints, now before thou departest

from this life, take care that in the church

by thee more than usual a commemoration be made of the heavenly

Key-bearer.' At these things, awakened,

he held off, until the assembly of the Brethren should take place:

and then with satisfaction, what he had seen, and what

he had heard, he made known to all.

[6] But although he was affected with a certain weariness

of mind, inasmuch as he believed that his last day was

imminent, and this done, he dies in the year 930, by the common condition; about

the history of St. Peter he began, as a sick man weak from infirmity,

to compose melody: 'In the streets,' saying, 'were placed

the sick.' To whom when the day was near,

on which he had learned he was to migrate hence: he began,

his limbs languishing, to fail in the strength of his body.

Coming also, so to speak, even

to the gates of death, he received the Viaticum

of the Lord's body and of the holy Unction: and

about ninety years [old], in the year of the Lord nine hundred

thirty, on the Lord's day, the twelfth

he had heard in his sleep. But the Brethren,

beholding the aforesaid vision in no way made void;

but, as they had drawn it in by the ears, consequently

made valid; whoever had wavered in mind

before this concerning the presence of the Saint, led

by penitence, they and all the others lifted themselves

up in the praises of God. But because there was lacking to them, whence

they might adorn the mausoleum of so great a Martyr,

they were indeed wasting away in their minds.

[7] But in the course of time, to their

successors the clemency of the Savior thus lent aid in this matter.

A noble and most powerful matron,

namely Susanna h the Queen, approaching the place

for the sake of praying: seeing that the bones of so great a Martyr had a less worthy

reliquary; The bier of St. Cyricus is fabricated.

began to fluctuate with thoughts within the secrets of her

inner self, by what means she might be able to correct

what concerning him had hitherto been neglected.

At last therefore, strengthened in mind, she did not

delay to set in motion the efforts of artificers, and also of masons:

she gave also to the Monks

much gold and silver, commissioning

to be made with embossed work a bier and a tablet

before the altar, and above [it] the deeds of his passion:

but also round about to be becomingly distinguished,

with Parian and black stone, the pleasant features of a beautiful

little shrine: which, applying skillful industry with sagacity,

they wondrously brought to effect. But this

work, worthy of all admiration, persevered

up to the burning of the church. Let it not therefore

be irksome, Brethren, to frequent the memory

of him i, to whom of its own accord so great a treasure was brought:

since, as it has been said before us,

the praise which is spoken of the members, is referred to the head,

without doubt. So at last by his present

suffrage his venerators will be freed

from all evil, the heavenly king granting [it]: who

had supplied to the tender child himself strength for enduring the bitter things

of the torments, and had suggested eloquence

to the little infant, by whose intercession may he free

us, we beseech, from every enemy, who with

the Holy Spirit reigns [as] God, in the majesty of the Father.

Amen.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

Hence that verse in the Ms. Monasteriology of the

Prior of Anchin, volume 8 part 1 folio 218: "Men flock to Elnon therefore for the sake of learning. From everywhere.

Thou too, O Bald King, sendest thither thy twins:

Whom true death lays low in their first flower; Pippin

one was called, but Drogo was the other."

In the same place this Epitaph of theirs exists:

"Whoever beholdest our figures with a discerning heart,

Behold how suddenly the honor of the world fails.

We are sprung of a King, who derived [his] name from a name,

Charles from Charles, the Great from the Great.

It was not permitted to complete the whole year of life,

But due death snatched away our souls.

If, father, thou deignest to visit our tomb;

O King, grieve not at our deaths, we beg.

Taken from the earth, received into a peaceful region,

With the Saints we enjoy rest perpetually.

Be you, mindful of us, happy parents:

This I, Pippin, ask, and likewise Drogo."

Where, if I rightly understand, that they died as infants, not yet a year old;

they were not sent thither for the sake of discipline, of which they were not yet capable, but

of education: and this the more probably, because their Brother Carloman bore the title of Abbot of Elnon, after Alfrid the 23rd Abbot, thence translated to a certain Bishopric. But of what See? This

the people of Elnon confess they are ignorant of. The reckoning of times persuades me, that he was made Archbishop of Utrecht, who

sat from the year 838 to 845: add that elsewhere the name of Alfrid nowhere occurs among the Bishops.

Concerning this Milo and his

writings, Henschen has treated at length, before the Acts of St. Amand on the 6th of February, number

125 and following. Here, from the Monasteriology already mentioned, receive his Epitaph:

"Milo, Poet, Sage, lies enclosed beneath this marble;

Who with sweet-sounding song the book of sobriety

Published, and beautifully depicted St. Amand,

Adorning with flowers, gracing with meter and prose

The palm, the head, and the crown of so great a Pontiff."

He is said to have died in the year 871.

The Prior who namely, being present, should rule: for Alfrid

indeed had been promoted to the Archbishopric: but Carloman, in whose

time the matter rather seems to have been done, lived

indeed up to the year 873 or as others [say] 886: but repeatedly rebelling against his father

and restless, he was nowhere less than in his own Abbey; where nevertheless

he obtained burial, translated to Echternach by the aforesaid Hucbald:

just as is understood from these verses which are read there about both:

"Carloman, under his father's auspices, augmented by

several monasteries, gave judgment also over the waters of the Scarpe;

Who many gifts to the cloisters, his father's favor indulging,

bestows, worthy of his Caesar father.

The father, exhausted by war, when he prepares to turn what [he] sought again

into the expenses of savage Mars:

The son resists: stirs fierce arms against his parent,

and to the enemies of his country he is added as a companion.

Conquered in war he is captured; and Caesar orders the conquered

to be held in the city of Senlis,

And punished, deprived with twin glowing iron

of thy rays, O bright Phoebus.

In the propitious time when Hucbald, Bald with Apollo (learning)

brought him to Elnon and laid him in the place.

He here, once seized by sleep at the sacred altar,

himself learned the time of his own funeral.

He holds a tomb, joined to the tomb of his uncle Milo,

where in a sacred shrine the key-bearer Peter is venerated."

Hence also this, common to both:

"Philosophers here together rest, and famous Masters,

The flowers of our Church, illustrious through the ages:

The one had been a disciple, the other a teacher."

Which things, not easily to be found elsewhere, it pleased to heap together here on the occasion of Hucbald.

e As it is

difficult, from the figures badly noted in our transcript, to know with certainty

the year of the translation, so also the name of the Bishop: for on folio 219

is read, "The Translation of St. Cyricus and Julitta into our church, made by the same Hucbald from the Church of Nevers in the year 800"; where a correction must necessarily be applied, but none pleases more than 860, so that, with his uncle still living, Hucbald returned to Elnon; and so the Bishopric of Hermann would be noted, known from public monuments from the year 849 up to 862. But on folio 220 our copyist wrote thus: "The body of St. Cyricus is translated from Nevers to Elnon [in] 830": but that this too is a manifest error is proven, by what is soon added, "Hucbald died in the year 930": and this Philip soon below confirms.

The Chronicle of [St.] Amand, where it treats of Wericus the 31st Abbot: "At that time Susanna the Queen, dwelling before our monastery, in the palace of the Kings of France, held Mauritania, the Castle of Bricillum, and Felinas with their appendages; and so from the right of St. Amand it passed into the hand of the Count of Flanders. But Susanna the Queen died in the year 1004, who in gold and silver wondrously adorned the bier of St. Cyricus." Which the Chronologer of [St.] Amand illustrated with these verses:

"His (Wericus's) age she illustrates with various virtues,

the illustrious royal consort Susanna.

Bereft of her husband, she placed for herself dwellings near

the seat of Amand, led by the religion of the sacred place:

Which she heaps with various gifts, and brings forth monuments

religious woman of her sincere mind.

A tablet carved for thee, O Cyricus, in Parian stone,

which relates the punishment and the series of [thy] martyrdom."

It is added in the Margin that she was the wife of Robert King of the Franks; but he, having dismissed Bertha whom he had married against divine law, in the year 999 took Constance, daughter of the Count of Arles, and lived with her until he died in the year 1031: she is therefore to be understood [as]

the wife of Arnulf the Younger, Count of Flanders, who bore him Baldwin the Bearded, and surviving her husband who died about the year 988; called Queen, because she was the daughter of Berengar King of Italy, according to Vredius, in the Genealogy of the Counts of Flanders.

Lambert,

who [is] also called Fulcard, is elected Abbot in the year 1065. In the second year

of his rule, our church with its buildings is laid waste by fire on the third of the Ides

of February, on a Saturday, and so in the year 1067, having the Dominical letter A: which

church, adorned with gold and silver and the varied beauty of tablets, becomingly ornamented within with Parian marble,

covered on the outside with leaden plates, while

it blazed everywhere with a most vast fire, the bells to the number of sixteen, with none

striking, sounded together: until, by melting, they were reduced to dust:

with which the whole cloister, and also the church of Saints Peter and Paul and St. Andrew,

constructed by St. Amand, were burned. See the Miracles of St.

Amand, carried about through France on this occasion, described by Gillebert the Monk,

chapter 1. That this disaster was described by him in a more prolix Poem,

the Poet of [St.] Amand testifies, explaining the matter itself thus:

"To the command succeeds Fulcard, a lover of the honest,

who bears a face moist with sad weepings;

On account of the sacred shrines violated by the rapid fires,

and the cloisters and house burned by a chance torch.

Here a certain thing happened worthy of memorable relation,

and not to be passed over in silence by the office of my song.

When the ravaging flame with a horrible whirlwind

seized the tower, having laid waste the glory of the temple;

The bronze bells, moved by no one's hand, nor stirred by savage winds,

sounded together at once in their place.

Nor did they make a limit to their crashing with mournful clang,

seeming to bewail the lot of their own destruction;

Until, melted, they departed into thin ash,

by no interrupted measures, with the fire raging.

The disaster received, Guilbert in a plaintive song

celebrates, and pursues with mournful measures."

Which work seems to have perished.