CONCERNING SS. PELAGIA, AQUILA, EPARCHIUS, AND THEODOSIA, MARTYRS AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryPelagia, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)
Aquila, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)
Eparchius, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)
Theodosia, Martyr among the Greeks (S.)
[1] The printed Menologion, and from it the Roman Martyrology, report these Martyrs jointly with Dometius: Some join them to S. Dometius, as also does a manuscript codex of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, marked with the letter O, number 148. Similarly the Clermont manuscript Synaxarion, and two Mazarine manuscripts, but under the twenty-fifth day, with this formula introducing some division: "The contest of the holy Martyrs Dometius and Pelagia, Aquila, Eparchius, and Theodosia." Also to March 25. All of these could therefore have been believed to be companions joined to Dometius, were it not established from the eulogy that he was a Phrygian by race and suffered under Julian, neither of which we dare assert about the others.
[2] They are wrongly assigned to Spain. The more audacious, who under the venerable names of antiquity -- Lucius Dexter and Julian of Toledo -- insipidly thrust forth their own fantasies, seeing this noble crown of Martyrs inscribed in the Roman Martyrology under the leadership of Dometius, wandering about without any designation of place or time, claimed them for Spain; because they had set this rule for themselves, that they would refrain from carrying off to themselves no Saint whom they hoped could be claimed with impunity. Following them in his Spanish Martyrology, Tamayo invented for them both a prolixe eulogy and still more prolixe Acts from his own brain, in the pseudo-Julian chronicle, although in both he had found nothing but bare names, assigned to the year of Christ 300 and the persecution of Diocletian, to which Pseudo-Julian, number 140, prefixed these words: "In Lusitania, near Braccara of Brigantia, which was formerly called Juliobriga."
[3] And the similar fraud of L. Dexter. These are rightly criticized by Tamayo, because they place Juliobriga in Lusitania, when no one doubts it was in Cantabria: but he wrongly wished us, having rejected these, to yield without question to the no more trustworthy Pseudo-Dexter, who assigns Tarragona in Spain to their names, as though to an older and better-informed source. For Matthaeus Raderus also most truly pronounced concerning this in his Analecta appended to his most learned commentaries on the Epigrams of Martial: "This Chronicle is nothing other than a hodgepodge of fables, partly recently invented, partly confirmed by the falsehood of fame continued for several centuries. The Spaniards indeed have their Annius of Viterbo, and already long ago had Julius Mercator, the most insipid fabricator of the Decretal Epistles of the Roman Pontiffs, which Baronius shows were first brought from Spain in the year of Christ 865, and frequently exposes their impostures; as the aforesaid Raderus is also more than once compelled to refute in the same place what Dexter and his champion Bivar have written."
[4] This we too are compelled to do on almost every day, The most unworthy imposture of fabricated works, not without nausea and indignation, that such license in lying has been exercised in the most sacred matters by men who profess a special devotion to sacred things; and that they have offered the otherwise most worthy name of their nation to the tongues and pens of rival foreign peoples for ridicule. Arthur du Monastier, although by no means a severe critic of authors that serve his purpose, when he enrolled Pelagia and Theodosia in the sacred Gynaeceion and added Aquila to them (as though this too were a woman's name), dared to cite no other source than Pseudo-Dexter: nor do sensible and learned men in Spain judge otherwise, whose opinions on the matter we have heard, and we rightly prefer them to vain ambition, especially when compelled by the very evidence of manifest falsehood.
[5] At Bologna, relics of a certain S. Aquila, Certain relics of a holy Martyr named Aquila are preserved at Bologna in the church of S. Stephen, brought, as far as one may conjecture, from Rome: but these we can safely believe belong to another person. Because, however, this name was found nowhere else in the church's calendar except with the added designation of the Thebaid, Asia, or Mauritania, the custodians of that church thought that this day, on which Aquila occurs without a specified location, was the only one left to them that they might assign for the veneration of their relics: by no means to be confused with the one here reported, following the common error of those who, having consulted the Roman Martyrology, if they happen to find the name of some Saint, and the circumstances expressed with the name do not entirely prove it belongs to someone other than the one whose relics they received, think it pious to believe and say that these relics are his: although nothing is more dangerous for introducing intolerable confusion and ruinous to the veneration of the Saints. This statement ought to hold good elsewhere as well, and it suffices for it to be known on what basis Antonio Paulo Masini inscribed this name in the calendar of his survey of Bologna for the present day.