ON SAINT ROMANUS THE DEACON, MARTYR AT CAESAREA IN PALESTINE.
CommentaryRomanus Deacon, Martyr at Caesarea in Palestine (S.)
In the printed Menaea and the manuscripts of Cardinal Mazarin and others, and in Maximus Bishop of Cythera, the martyrdom of this Saint is briefly indicated in these words: On the same day, the sixteenth of March, the holy Martyr Romanus ended his life by the sword. In the attached couplet allusion is made to the force and efficacy of love shining forth in this contest, by which he approached the offered sword. In the manuscript Menaea of the Ambrosian library and the Parisian convent of the Annunciation of the Virgin he is joined with Saint Menignus the Fuller, whom we celebrated as having been crowned with martyrdom at Parium in the Hellespont on the preceding day, the fourteenth of March. In the very ancient manuscript Synaxarion of Paris, of the College of Clermont, and in the Menologion collected at the command of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, the contest of the holy Martyrs Menignus and Romanus is presented under the same title, and in the Synaxarion both are assigned to Parium. In the Menologion, however, after relating the encomium of Saint Menignus, the following is added: Romanus, a Deacon of the Church at Caesarea in Palestine, while he was teaching the people the true faith of Christ, was arrested, and after the various torments which he suffered, on the same day as the other, was struck with the sword and received the end of life. Concerning the same Galesinius says on this day: In Greece, of Saint Romanus the Martyr, who for the glory of Christ was crowned, having been struck with the sword. Where Galesinius proposes Greece in his usual manner, because he had found it inscribed in the Greek Menaea, with no other city or province indicated. Saint Menignus suffered under the Emperor Decius. But Saint Romanus, as he suffered in a different place, could have undergone martyrdom at a different time.