CONCERNING SAINT GALLICANUS, COMMANDER AND CONSUL OF ROME,
MARTYR IN EGYPT.
IN THE YEAR 362.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the Acts, prefixed to the Passion of SS. John and Paul; and the memory inscribed in the Martyrologies, and the reckoning of times.
Gallicanus, Commander and Ex-Consul of Rome, Martyr in Egypt (S.)
BY D. P.
Julian Caesar, while his cousin
Constantius was still living, was acclaimed
Emperor by the soldiers in Gaul,
in the year 360 in the month of August, Driven into exile by Julian, Gallicanus not before the year 361,
who, though he had long since in his mind abjured
the Christian religion,
still professed it outwardly at the Epiphany of the following year,
entering the church of the Christians: then he came to Rome,
and an army being collected against Constantius;
marching against him, he learned that he had died at the end of the year;
and openly began to profess the worship
of Idols and hatred of the Christians, beginning with
the more noble and wealthy, whose goods under various pretexts
he assigned to the treasury. That he began this, before,
being at Constantinople, he had celebrated in mourning the funeral
of Constantius, I do not think; but he is not
known to have been there before January, on whose 3rd day before the Ides
his first law in the Theodosian Code
is read to have been given there, and others thereafter until the 4th before the Ides of May.
Within this time it is altogether necessary that the letters were sent by him to Ostia,
to the Ex-consul Gallicanus dwelling there;
by which he commanded him, Either sacrifice to the gods, or
depart from the borders of Italy, as in the Acts
presently to be set forth it is said in the last number. For he, immediately leaving
all things, sought Alexandria, and there was joined
to the Confessors of Christ for a whole
year; afterward he also withdrew into the desert: and there
when he was compelled to sacrifice and despised it, he lived until 365, and soon had a church built over his body: struck
with the sword he passed … to the Lord …
certainly in the year 362, advanced beyond January,
and probably even beyond March or April,
certainly before the death of the tyrant, undergone on June 16,
was understood in Egypt: which being heard, and the elevation
of Jovian the most Christian Prince to the Empire, immediately
the Faithful built a Basilica in the name of Gallicanus,
in the very place where he died or to which his body was carried.
[2] That in that church the day either of his Passion or of his Deposition
was annually celebrated, I have no doubt;
although the religion was propagated neither to the Greeks nor to the Latins;
for in none of their more ancient
Calendars is S. Gallicanus inscribed.
But this is the less to be wondered at, if perhaps in
the interior Thebaid, far from the commerce of both,
that church stood, among the faithful, where, on what day the cult was, is unknown. using only the Egyptian,
that is the Coptic, tongue. The letters of that tongue
and certain monuments our Athanasius Kircher
first brought to light: but those that concern Christianity
either have not yet appeared at all, or
have appeared in the Arabic tongue and letters, and so are later
than the eighth century, in which the Saracens first,
having got possession of Egypt, introduced their letters there, the Coptic being abolished.
Such is the little book on the Feasts of the Copts,
produced by Selden in book 3 on the Synedria of the Hebrews,
chapter 15; it is only known that he died between February and July. where on the 16th of the month Tuba and of the month
Amschir (which days answer to our January 11 and February 10) is placed the feast of Kilani: which
whether it can be referred to Gallicanus, the name being corrupted (as
very many there), I leave to others to divine:
from the foregoing I deduce that one thing, that he, who after
his departure from Italy lived a whole year at Alexandria, could scarcely have been crowned with Martyrdom before
the month of February, but on the contrary could have lived
until June more than half over.
[3] Ado and Usuard chose June 15, Therefore, although the certain day of the Martyrdom is not expressed
in the Acts, yet not incongruously did Ado and
Usuard choose the day immediately preceding
the feast of SS. John and Paul; since the Acts of these,
in their former part, are nothing other than the Acts of S. Gallicanus.
There, after the death of this one is related, is related
the death of those, just as we shall give that part on the following day:
but this former part, from our double
parchment Ms., one most ancient and easily
six hundred years old, the other of a larger leaf but
of writing twice as recent; also from two Mss.
of Trier, of S. Maximinus and of S. Martin, because the Acts are premised to the Passion of SS. John and Paul. and a third
of Saint-Omer, collated among themselves by Rosweyde; and finally
collated with the copy of a certain Neapolitan
Codex, sent by Beatillus to Bolland. These
Acts, however ancient, are not however of so great authority
as they would have; if they were really
written by Terentian himself, who afflicted those holy
brothers with capital punishment, We give them from Mss. of no great faith, though ancient: as most Mss.
have, and from them the Roman Breviary too;
since in the better Mss. they are only said to be written on his
report: nay they are proved to have been scarcely collected before the 6th century.
For no more ancient writer would have erred so, as
to make the Emperor Constantius, brother of Constantine the younger
and of Constans, and together with these the son of Constantine
the Great, the nephew of this one and the successor of those,
with whom he equally took up the Empire,
though he held it a decade after them.
[4] The former part, which concerns this, sins in nothing more lightly;
for although it does not introduce Julian dealing at Ostia
with Gallicanus, also as regards S. Gallicanus. as the latter wrongly sets him
at Rome altercating with the holy Martyrs, where,
publicly known as an apostate, he was never present, except through
his ministers; yet it sins in many things concerning Constantine;
since the departure of Gallicanus to the Scythian war, after
victims offered in the Capitol to the gods, and his triumphal
return thence, more piously instituted with a votive
supplication at the Basilica of the Apostles, and many other things
it so describes, as if throughout the whole time of that war Constantine had been at Rome,
where from the year 315 until his death he was scarcely
once or twice, and this only for a short time,
but in the last years never,
can be quite evidently proved from his rescripts
inserted in the Theodosian Code, and most learnedly arranged
by Antoine Godefroy in the Chronology of the same Code.
The Author, caught by this and other indications, not
writing things done in his own lifetime, but long past
clothing with circumstances, added confidently as well as
unskillfully at his own discretion; finds the less faith with me,
the more familiar he makes himself with S. Constantia herself, daughter of Constantine,
in number 4 speaking thus: We have learned that this oration
was Constantia's by her own narration,
which also we read written by herself: but how
he converted Attica and Artemia (the daughters of Gallicanus,
I pass over, in my eagerness to narrate
quickly the martyrdom of Gallicanus.
[5] Ado nonetheless made so much of those Acts, that, moderately contracted,
he inserted them whole into his Martyrology. Usuard,
about others, thus wove together: At Alexandria of S.
Gallicanus the Martyr: who, when he had been raised
with triumphal insignia, and was received and dear
to the Augustus Constantine; through his daughter named
Constantia, and the Martyrs of Christ John
and Paul was converted to the faith. The report
of this sacred opinion afterward grew so much in the whole world,
that those coming from East and West
saw a man, from being a Patrician
and Consul, washing the feet of the poor, setting
the table, pouring water on their hands,
solicitously ministering to the sick, and exhibiting the other
offices of holy servitude. Is the Saint to be ascribed to Alexandria? But he himself
afterward, when he was compelled to sacrifice under Julian
and despised it, struck with the sword in his body,
made him a Martyr of Christ; or as other copies,
completed his Martyrdom. Notker followed Ado; the supposititious Bede,
Bellinus, Galesinius
and other more recent ones followed Usuard; and all alike
set Alexandria as the place of the contest. But
in the Desert, uncertain how far removed thence,
the Acts say he obtained the palm: whose body if
it had been carried to Alexandria, and there honored by a church being built:
it does not seem he would have remained unknown
to the Greeks, by whom almost alone the churches of the city of Alexandria
were held; nor to the Abyssinians
who for the most part express the Alexandrian Calendars.
[6] Furthermore the name of the Gallicani is famous in the Consular Calendars, already from the second century of Christ.
For the year 127 the Consuls Gallicanus and
Titianus marked; and 150, whether twice Consul at Rome? the son perhaps of the former
Gallicanus and Vetus. But in the fourth century the year
of Christ 317 was opened by Ovinius Gallicanus
and Septimius Bassus. That this was the first Consulship
of our Gallicanus, then still a Gentile, Henschenius judged,
on February 18, treating of his holy
daughters and Constantia. This I too would unhesitatingly
assert, if elsewhere also the praenomen Ovinius
were read, or the year 330 were marked Gallicanus
II and Symmachus; From the gifts offered to the church of Ostia by Gallicanus, now I am forced to fear
lest that Ovinius be different from our Gallicanus, and
perhaps his father. But the Consulship thus entered he seems not
to have held long, but to have withdrawn to Ostia: since Cassiodorus,
instead of Gallicanus, published Constantius, whom
Onuphrius judges to have been substituted for him. But after his withdrawal
the same Gallicanus offered to the Basilica of SS.
Peter and Paul and John the Baptist, which Constantine
at the suggestion of Sylvester had made in the city
of Ostia, near the Port of the city of Rome,
20 pounds; a silver chased chalice,
weighing 15 pounds; a silver ewer weighing
18 pounds; the Mallian estate, in the Sabine
territory, yielding 115 solidi
and a tremissis; the estate Picturae, in the territory of Velletri, the Acts are confirmed,
yielding 43 solidi; the estate
of the Suri on the Claudian way, in the Veientane territory, yielding
56 solidi; the Gargilian estate, in the territory
of Suessa, yielding 356 solidi.
So Anastasius the Librarian in the Life of S. Sylvester;
which not a little confirm the withdrawal of Gallicanus, related in these Acts.
[7] And indeed those Acts, of themselves of no great faith,
need to be confirmed from elsewhere; to be illustrated by conjectures as to the Persian and then by conjecture
the history can be so ordered and explained, that against Sapor
King of the Persians, who about the year 327
began to persecute the Christians, writes Theophanes. That fury
against them came, from grief of the disaster brought
upon the Persian forces ravaging Syria, and beyond
the Tigris driven out of all Mesopotamia too; of which otherwise
robbery, rather than war, there exists among
Historians no mention. Returning thence to Rome Gallicanus,
began to deal with Constantine by letters about the marriage
of his daughter, living at Rome by the tomb of S. Agnes
in the purpose of chastity. and the Scythian war, Which marriage while
thus, as the Acts say, it is treated; and Constantine through
the year 328 almost wholly tarries in Bithynia;
the Scythians, whom we now call Tartars,
having crossed the Borysthenes, through Sarmatia penetrated
into Dacia, that is into the regions adjacent to each bank of the Danube,
and thence into Thrace. Against these
Gallicanus, summoned from Rome, about to be the son-in-law of the Augustus,
both in that and in the following year 329 carried on the matter
under the auspices of Constantine, who for this cause had crossed into Europe,
and was for the most part at Sardica and Naissus and Sirmium
in Pannonia and Dacia, as appears
from the rescripts given thence; intent also on founding
at the Thracian Bosphorus Constantinople, whence
he might thereafter keep watch over all those movements of the barbarians,
the seat of the Empire being established there. the success being too much amplified, And then indeed by them
besieged at Philippopolis in Thrace, Gallicanus,
far inferior in number, having invoked, from the counsels of SS. John and
Paul, the God of the Christians, brought back a notable
victory over them; and was sent back to Rome,
with the title of Consul designated for the following year.
This is confirmed from the more correct Calendars in Bucherius
when in the year 330 are marked the Consuls Gallicanus
and Symmachus. and from the Consulship of the year 330. But Constantine, in some
of the later years, having himself attacked the very Scythians in their
seats, merited the praise of a subdued nation,
which Eusebius gives him in book 4 of the Life, chapter 5; which
praise in these Acts is no more rightly attributed wholly
to Gallicanus, than it is said that the Persians were subjugated: who were
their own masters both then, and afterward remained,
now having peace, now war, with the Romans.
[8] The figments of the Spaniards rejected. But if the Acts, though very ancient, are not received without
correction, what shall become of the Adversaria
of Julian Peter? In these, in number 8, is called Ovinus Gallicanus,
he who in the Bucherian Calendars with Septimius
Bassus held the Consulship in the year 317, though probably
different from ours; and both he and John and Paul
are said to be Spanish Saguntines, and in number 399 kinsmen
among themselves, and Bragantes, born not very far from Braga: wherefore also to the Lusitanian Hagiology
Cardoso ascribed all three. Tamayo adds an Epitaph,
as it were from Cyprian the Priest of Cordova;
where similarly it is asserted, that he was a Spaniard,
once of grand origin from Saguntum. But all these things
he will count as nothing, who with the more learned Spaniards
shall recognize, of what author and age are all these things,
which so confidently, as very ancient, are produced
by their followers and admirers.
THE ACTS
Prefixed to the Passion of SS. John and Paul.
From six Ms. Codices.
Gallicanus, Commander and Ex-Consul of Rome, Martyr in Egypt (S.)
BHL Number: 3236
BY A CONTEMPORARY, FROM THE MSS.
[1] Under Constantine the Augustus and Gallicanus
Commander of the Roman army, the nation of the Persians,
which had invaded Syria, was conquered, and
manfully subjugated: Gallicanus asks for the daughter of Constantine, who, when raised with triumphal
insignia, and received and dear
to the Augustus, demanded his most sacred virgin daughter Constantia
for himself as a wife; and this with no
moderate insistence he demanded, at the time when
the Scythian nation was threatening, which had occupied both Dacia and
Thrace: and since he was very
powerful, the Counts of all the powers and
the Prefects with all the Roman people demanded that this be done.
dead, against the Scythians: But Constantine the Augustus began to be grieved,
and to be most sorrowful; knowing that his daughter,
placed in a holy purpose, could more easily
be killed than conquered.
[2] And she, when she tried by zeal of holiness to put off
her father's solicitude, said to her father:
If I did not hold it most certain that God does not forsake me,
she, though certain to keep her virginity, rightly would some place be yielded to my fear
and thy solicitude. But since
I am certain of God, lay aside all thy solicitude,
and promise that thou wilt give me to him as a wife;
so that, if he overcome the nation
of the Scythians, victor and consul at once, he may receive me.
But for the sake of this pledge let him permit his two virgin
daughters, asks that his daughters be committed to her, whom he has born of his lost wife,
to be with me until the day of the marriage:
but with himself let him gladly admit the Provost and Primicerius
John and Paul to be: and joins to him SS. John and Paul.
that he may be able through my household to address
and to know me; and I, through
his daughters, may know his vow, and manners and purpose.
All these things were done as the virgin
of Christ disposed, and as it were in place of a betrothal
are given the two eunuch brothers, from the side of the Augusta;
and the two sisters, daughters of Gallicanus, are delivered to the Augustus himself,
so educated in the liberal studies,
that scarcely could anyone equal to them in knowledge be found in the number
of wise men, of whom
one was called Attica, the other Artemia.
[3] Thus SS. Attica and Artemia being delivered to her Whom when Constantia learned were coming to her,
spreading her hands to the Lord she thus
prayed: Lord God almighty, who by the prayers
of thy Martyr Agnes cleansed me from leprosy,
and propitiously showed me the path of thy fear;
and unsealed the bridal chamber of thy Virgin Mother;
where thou wast manifested as spouse, thou as son;
thou wast begotten of Mary, thou wast proved the begetter
of Mary; thou wast suckled by the breasts of Mary,
thou nourishing every age, at the same time even her
from whom thou wast suckled and nourished; thou the little Infant
growing in age; thou granting increase to the whole world;
thou advancing in wisdom, while thou art
thyself wholly wisdom; thou so great, that nothing is
more magnificent than thee, thou true man from a mother
brought forth in time, thou true God from a father
without a mother begotten; God from God, thou madest
the things that were not: brought forth from a mother without a carnal father,
those who had incurred the fall, thou repairedst: thou poured
into the light wast illumined, while thou art he who illuminest
every man coming into this world.
Thee I beseech believing, as thou thyself didst command; for their conversion thee I ask
in need, what thou thyself didst promise when thou saidst, Amen
I say to you that all things whatsoever you shall ask
from the Father in my name, he will give you. I ask therefore,
Lord, that these daughters of Gallicanus thou mayest gain,
and Gallicanus himself also, who has betrothed me to thee
tries to take away, apply to thy faith and chastity.
Open, Lord, my mouth, and open the ears
of their heart to my words, and to their consent
open to me the door; that thou mayest infuse so great
they may desire to be consecrated to thee;
and from that very desire so great a love may arise in their minds,
that fervently to that thy heavenly bridal chamber
they may desire to come; which with lamps full of oil,
and with the shining flames of thy charity they may attain, so that, a place being given them
among the wise virgins, glorying in thy mercy,
they may desire nothing earthly, and may desire
thee alone with the whole affection of their inmost being.
[4] That this oration was Constantia's
we have learned from her own narration: which also we read
written by her. nor in vain. But how she converted
Attica and Artemia to the Lord,
in my zeal to narrate quickly the Martyrdom of Gallicanus,
I pass over. Therefore Gallicanus coming
in triumph, is received by Constantine and Constantius and Constans
the Augusti, and by all the retinue
and the Senate: Gallicanus returning victorious, who did not first enter
Rome, except he had first gone to the sacred
threshold of Peter the Apostle. To whom Constantine
says, When thou wentest to war thou enteredst the Capitol and
the temples and didst offer to the demons; thence
returning victor, thou adorest Christ and his Apostles.
Whence to me desiring to know how the matter stands,
unfold in order.
[5] Whom Gallicanus, adoring, said: When
the Scythian nation had shut me up within Philippopolis a city of the Thracians,
and had made very many slaughters,
I, fearing to engage with them, because I had a scanty band of soldiers,
but of the enemies there was an innumerable multitude; he narrates to Constantine,
I insisted on sacrifices, and offered victims to Mars.
Why do I delay with many words? At
last the siege grew, and all my tribunes
and soldiers gave themselves up to the enemy. And when
I desired to find a way of fleeing, Paul
and John (of whom one is the Provost,
the other the Primicerius of my Lady, the daughter of your piety, Constantia the Augusta) said
to me, Make a vow to the God of heaven, that if he free thee,
thou wilt become a worshipper of Christ; and thou shalt be victor better
than thou wast. I confess, most sacred Emperor,
as soon as this vow was uttered by my mouth,
there appeared to me a Youth tall in stature;
bearing on his shoulder a Cross, saying: Take
thy sword and follow me. that, besieged by the Scythians, he invoked Christ Whom while I
followed there appeared to me here and there soldiers
armed, confirming me, and saying, We
afford thee service: do thou enter the camp of the enemies,
and right and left holding the sword
drawn, look not back, until thou come to
their King named Brada. To whom when
I had come with them, he, prostrate at my feet, asked
pardon for his blood; and absolutely none
of them did I either slay with the sword or order to be killed.
But this King of theirs Brada,
with his two sons, and their King being captured he subjugated them all to him: I received bound from those soldiers;
and so all the Thraces were freed
from the nation of the Scythians, and were made tributaries. The tribunes
all wished to return to me with their
soldiers: but unless they became Christians, by me
they could by no means be received: consenting indeed
I made them higher in rank; not consenting,
I deprived of military service; I so devoted myself, the future Christian,
to God, that I even bound myself to abstain
from marriage. Behold thou hast
nation subjugated and tributary,
all the Thraces freed: but to me
happily order a successor propitiously, that I may be able
to give myself to the religion which I have learned, and to stand in the truth
which I have perfectly known.
[6] Then the Emperor Constantine threw himself
into his embraces, he rejoices at the conversion of his daughters relating to him all that
was done concerning his daughters, and how they are
profitably consecrated as virgins to Christ; and how
two other virgins, by his grace,
God called; and how, seizing the height
of erudition, they began to strive toward perfection,
and how they received all the rudiments of the perfect life.
Then to Gallicanus entering the palace with the Augustus there ran
Helena with the daughter of her son, Constantia, and the daughters
of Gallicanus himself. Tears were poured forth
full of joys, nor is Gallicanus permitted to return
to his own house; but as the son-in-law
of the Augusti he succeeded in the palace. And considering
his daughters flourishing in the praises of God, when he wished
to depart as a private man, being asked by the Augusti
he went forth as Consul: placed in the fasces: five
thousand servants he made freemen and Roman citizens;
to whom he gave estates and houses, and having abdicated the Consulship he withdraws to Ostia: and all
his possessions, except the right of his daughters,
he ordered to be sold and given to the poor; and himself
remaining in the city of Ostia he joined to a certain holy
man named Hilarinus; whose dwelling
he caused to be enlarged for the reception of pilgrims,
which he himself bestowed on very many.
[7] To this man many of the servants whom
he had made freemen clave, and his fame was spread through
the whole world; so that those coming from East and West
saw a man, from a Patrician and
Consul, who was most friendly to the Augusti,
washing feet, setting the table, pouring water
on hands, and there he lives most holily, solicitously ministering to the sick,
exhibiting the offices of holy virtue.
He first in the city of Ostia built
To this man the holy Levite Lawrence revealed himself,
exhorting him, that in his name he should build a church
at the gate, which until now is called
the Laurentian. But being asked that he be raised there
as Bishop, he did not consent; but of his own
will he himself chose the one who should be ordained; and so great
grace did God confer on him, that those full of demons,
as soon as they had been seen by his eyes,
were straightway cleansed; and there were in him many
marks of healings.
[8] But when Julian was made Caesar by Constantius,
he gave a law that the Christians should possess nothing in
this world. Then Gallicanus, having
in the village of Ostia four houses, until being driven thence by Julian, whose
rents ministered to those works which we have mentioned,
so deserved to have God as defender, that
whoever entered into them maliciously to
set the titles of the treasury, or to exact the rents, straightway
was filled by the devil; and whoever was an exactor of his
agents, became a leper. Then
the demons being questioned gave answer, that if
Gallicanus had been compelled to sacrifice, the exactors
of his revenues would avoid those perils.
And since no one dared to confront Gallicanus about this
crime; Julian Caesar charged him; he went into exile to Alexandria,
Either sacrifice to the gods, or depart from the borders
of Italy. But immediately, all things being left, he sought
Alexandria: and there was joined to the Confessors
of Christ for a whole year; afterward also
he withdrew into the desert; and there by Rautian the Count
of the temples, when he was compelled to sacrifice and despised it,
struck with the sword in his body, was made a Martyr
of Christ; and so he passed to the Lord
rejoicing with triumph; and is beheaded, for whom immediately a basilica
of his name they built, in which the benefits
of the Martyr abound from that time and
now, unto the ages of ages. Amen. S. Hilarinus is slain with cudgels. But Hilarinus,
who once had received Gallicanus in the city of Ostia,
when he was compelled by the persecutors of the Christian faith to sacrifice,
and would not,
beaten with cudgels took up martyrdom, whose
body the Christians venerably buried at
Ostia.
ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.
p All these things seem exaggerated beyond the truth.
q Namely, in the leadership of the army.
r I would rather that Helena's being then still alive were proved from elsewhere.
t He ought to have said granddaughter: for the other Constantia, who was the sister of Constantine, wife of the Emperor Licinius, was not the daughter of Helena, but of Theodora.
v Otherwise, "through the whole City."
x Our Mss. read "he appointed one thing, another"; as also in the one of Saint-Omer. But in the Neapolitan Ms. all the rest of this article from the * asterisk is omitted.
y Namely after the death of Maximus, who in the year 313 under Pope Miltiades was present at the Roman Council according to Optatus of Milevis: but who was then ordained, is hidden from us.
z I do not find who reproached Julian with a law of this kind; but others tending to that end, by which especially the churches were despoiled, and those who would not sacrifice were compelled to contribute heavier tributes than the rest toward the Persian war, which and other things of this kind see in Baronius on the year 362, number 261 and following.
α Otherwise, "would not suffer."
β Abrantianus elsewhere and Brantionus; but the Count of the temples we read nowhere else; perhaps Julian first instituted it, being intent on restoring the temples of the idols, which the Christians had overthrown: which office ceased with him.
γ So the one of Saint-Omer alone, the rest "made a Martyr."
δ In these very words S. Hilarinus is related, with the title of Monk added (I know not whence) to
August 16 by Ado and Usuard, and others after them: who if he really
suffered on that day, which is nowhere read in the Acts; he suffered long before S. Gallicanus, namely when this one had departed from Ostia. The same in the present Roman one is confounded with S. Hilarian, whom S. Donatus of Arezzo long after these things is believed to have had as a companion of Martyrdom, on August 16: and therefore he is said also to have suffered at Arezzo, but to have been translated to Ostia: which I fear lest it be feigned on account of the similarity of the names, and it can in its place be more fully examined.
ε Those who continue the passion of SS. John and Paul with these Acts, thus proceed: Besides, Julian Caesar carried away by sacrilegious cupidity: which see on the following day.