CONCERNING ST. BALBINA, VIRGIN, AT ROME,
IN THE YEAR 130.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Balbina, Virgin, at Rome (Saint)
BHL Number: 3855
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
Section I. Sacred cult. Deeds, extracted from the Acts of St. Alexander the Pope.
[1] We gave on the day just past the Acts of the conversion and martyrdom of St. Quirinus, the Roman Tribune, and we excerpted them from the ancient Life of St. Alexander, the Roman Pontiff, and we appended various matters concerning the translation of the body of St. Quirinus to Neuss and his veneration there and in other places. The daughter of this Quirinus is St. Balbina, The sacred cult of St. Balbina, daughter of St. Quirinus, converted with her parent to the faith of Christ and dipped in the waters of baptism, and at last buried on the Appian Way in the cemetery of Praetextatus: which is also called the cemetery of St. Balbina, on account of the church built there in her honor by St. Mark the Pope. Consult the Roma Subterranea of Aringhi, book 3, chapter 27. St. Balbina has her veneration on this day, and first Florus, or whoever formerly supplemented the genuine Martyrology of Bede (which was lacking), has the following: "At Rome, St. Balbina the Virgin." The same is read in the Vallicellian manuscript of the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome, in the manuscript of St. Lambert at Liege, and in the Carmelite manuscript of Cologne. That she was the daughter of Quirinus the Martyr is added by the Vatican manuscript of St. Peter's, the Barberini manuscript, the manuscript of St. Mary ad Gradus at Cologne, and a certain manuscript of the Queen of Sweden formerly written at Fulda. In Usuard the following is read: "At Rome, St. Balbina the Virgin, daughter of Quirinus the Martyr, who after overcoming the course of this world was buried on the Appian Way near her father." In the present Roman Martyrology it is added that she was baptized by St. Alexander the Pope. Further details are added in Ado, Notker, and the author of the martyrology published under the name of Bede, and widely among more recent authors, Acts from the Life of St. Alexander the Pope. Maurolycus, Galesinius, Felicius, and others, but these are taken from the Acts of St. Alexander: from which we give these few excerpts.
[2] "Hearing these things approved by Alexander, Quirinus said: 'May Christ gain your soul through you in this manner: Disfigured by a goiter, I have a grown daughter, and I wish to give her to a husband: whose appearance indeed beauty adorns, but a goiter encircles. Make her well and I will entrust all things to him, and I will confess Christ together with you.' Alexander said to him: 'Go, go, and bring her to me in the prison quickly: and take the iron collar from my neck, and place it upon her: and make her stay together with the collar, and in the morning you will find her healed' ... After one hour Quirinus came ... then prostrating himself he said: 'As you commanded, behold my daughter.' St. Alexander said to him: 'Take the collar from my neck, Girded with the chains of St. Alexander, and put it upon your daughter.' Immediately Quirinus, removing all the chains, began to kiss the feet of St. Alexander, saying: 'Place it upon her with your own hands.' But when he had placed it, Alexander began to urge Quirinus to depart. And as he was going, behold suddenly a boy appeared with a torch and came to the maiden, saying to her: 'Be well, and invited by an angel to virginity, she is healed: and remain in your virginity, and I will make you see your Bridegroom, who for love of you shed his blood.' When he had said these things, he departed. But Quirinus, the father of the maiden, coming, found his daughter healed ... Afterward Quirinus together with his daughter Balbina and his whole household were likewise baptized. But when Quirinus, the Martyr of Christ, was slain, his daughter Balbina remained in holy virginity. When she frequently kissed the collar through which she had been healed, St. Alexander said to her: 'Cease kissing this collar: but rather seek out the chains of my Lord Peter and kiss those.' Then, with effort given to this task with zeal and great desire, St. Balbina reached those chains and gave them to Theodora, a devout woman, the sister of St. Hermes, Prefect of the city."
[3] Thus far the Acts of St. Alexander the Pope in several manuscripts; but what we have from the very ancient codex of St. Omer expounds these last matters more broadly in these words: "When Balbina frequently kissed the collar through which she had been healed, she finds the chains of St. Peter, St. Alexander said: 'Cease kissing this collar: but if you wish to kiss chains and a collar, seek the chains of St. Peter the Apostle.' Then Balbina applied herself to searching: and she reached them, and when she had found them, she began to give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ that she had discovered the chains of the Blessed Apostle Peter: and prostrating herself in prayer, she said: 'Blessed be your name, Almighty God, because through your servant Alexander you have revealed to me, your handmaid, a spiritual treasure.' And she began to kiss those chains with exceeding trembling and to give thanks to the King of heaven. She gives them to St. Theodora, sister of St. Hermes, Hearing this, Theodora, a most illustrious woman, began to ask her to leave them with her. Then Blessed Balbina consented and handed over the chains to the aforesaid Theodora, the most illustrious woman, sister of St. Hermes the Prefect."
These chains are said to be preserved in the church of St. Peter in Chains by Pompey Ugoni in his Life of St. Balbina, she seeks the prayers of St. Alexander, and by Octavius Pancirolius writing about the said church, who believed they were deposited there by St. Sylvester; but the said manuscript adds: "Then the most blessed Balbina, returning with confidence to the prison to Blessed Alexander the Pope and his companions, began to cling to their footsteps and to pray that they would beseech the Lord on her behalf, and confirm her with their words. At the same time Aurelian, filled with wrath, that most impious man, having sent soldiers, ordered all the Christians who had been baptized in the prison she accompanies the Martyrs as they are drowned to be led to the sea, and placed in an old boat, and taken out to the deep; and there, with all their hands bound to each other's hands and stones hung from their necks, that old, battered, and perforated boat was sunk into the depths: with whom the Virgin of Christ also went, glorifying God." These things are found in the said manuscript, which are also read in the codex of the Lives of the Saints, printed at Cologne in 1483, and two years later at Louvain. The last part is also found in Surius, but with the style altered by him.
Section II. Churches and Relics of St. Balbina.
[4] That there was at Rome near the Aventine Hill an ancient church of St. Balbina, The church of St. Balbina at Rome, in addition to the one indicated above situated outside the city walls, is established from the Roman Council of the year 595, Indiction XIII, under St. Gregory the Great, to which three subscribed
the priests of St. Balbina -- Peter, Placitus, and Antonius -- as St. Gregory relates in book 4 of the Register, epistle 45. In this church of St. Balbina, a station is noted in the Roman Missal on the Tuesday after the second Sunday of Lent.
Finally, among the Titles of the Priests, which are now assigned to Cardinals and are believed to have been established of old by Sylvester, is the church of St. Balbina, annexed to the basilica of St. Paul, as after others Jacobus Cochellius teaches in his Notitia Cardinalatus, chapter 6. Pope Pius IV gave this church to the Chapter of the Vatican Church of St. Peter, so that pastoral care might be entrusted to someone at the chapter's pleasure, and at last it was granted to the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine, as Pompey Ugoni teaches in his History of the Stations, page 130, and Octavius Pancirolius in his Thesaurus Absconditus of the City, region 9, church 25.
[5] The above-mentioned Ugoni asserts that there is an ancient tradition whether the body is there? that in the church of St. Balbina the body of the same St. Balbina the Virgin is preserved, likewise the body of St. Quirinus and five bodies of unknown Saints: and that under the altar there is a confessio with a small window through which a light is kindled in honor of the holy bodies which rest there. Concerning the body of St. Quirinus transported to Germany, we treated this in his Life. That certain relics of St. Balbina the Virgin are preserved at Bologna in the great sanctuary of the church of St. Dominic is written on this day by Masini in his Bologna Perlustrata. But Raissius reports that the head of St. Balbina, Virgin and Martyr, is at Lille among the Discalced Carmelites, and a skull at Mons in the monastery of St. Adrian. But on the occasion of this St. Balbina, the name appears to have been imposed on various Virgins and Martyrs, Various St. Balbinas among the Ursulines, especially Ursulines. Hence from the Revelation of St. Elizabeth and Blessed Hermann, Hermann Crombach enumerates in his Ursuline History, page 648, four Balbina Virgins, and from sepulchral inscriptions and church registers seven Balbinas; of these, a queen at St. Maximin, a queen and matron at Sint-Truiden, a companion of St. Ursula among the White Ladies, others at St. Ursula, at St. Pantaleon, at St. Gertrude, where there is a head of St. Balbina the Virgin, and finally one who was venerated at Magdeburg. Meanwhile Gelenius in his Fasti of Cologne has the following for the thirty-first of March: "St. Balbina the Virgin, of whom a great part of the head is at Cologne among the Conventual Fathers of the Order of St. Francis, and the more notable relics in the basilica of St. Pantaleon." Some relics of this Balbina are believed to be at Cologne. The same author, in book 3, syntagma 42, section 3, in the Sacred Treasury of the said Conventual Fathers, asserts at number 8 that there is a great part of the head of St. Balbina, daughter of St. Quirinus, enclosed in a silver statue: and in syntagma 12, number 3, he says that at St. Pantaleon, reliquary case IX is considered to contain a chest enclosing the bones of St. Balbina: but this is perhaps the one Crombach believed to be Ursuline. In the Metropolitan church, the sixth reliquary case contains certain relics of St. Cecilia and of St. Balbina the Virgin, and of various Roman Martyrs.
[6] We treated in the Life of St. Quirinus, section 4, of the Siburg monastery not far from Cologne, and the Provostry of Millen near the town of Sittard in the territory of Juelich, her cult at Siburg and in Millen: in which places, just as of St. Quirinus the father, so also of St. Balbina the daughter there is a cult and veneration, and in the ancient Missal cited there the following prayer is read: "Grant us, O Lord God, to celebrate worthily the glorious feast of Blessed Balbina, so that through it we may deserve to exult happily in eternal joy." The people of Millen believe that they possess the head of the said Balbina: concerning which, from the mouth of the most noble man and lord, Provost Jacobus Meinard von Horrich, the following was written to us in the year 1665 from Cologne by Jacobus Kritzradt, a priest of the Society of Jesus: where the head of St. Balbina is, namely, that when the Provost from the Scheiffart family, around the year 1620 or the preceding year, was about to depart from Millen, he took with him in good faith and innocently the head of St. Balbina to the family castle at Niederpleis near Siburg, and to the domestic chapel consecrated to the same Saint or to St. Quirinus, because his sister had adorned that head with pearls and gems: when it was taken away, candles for Mass at her altar are extinguished, but from that time, at the altar of St. Balbina at Millen, Mass could never be celebrated with burning candles, and it was long observed that they could scarcely be lit without being immediately extinguished, the flame vanishing into air and wind: finally the inhabitants pressed with the greatest entreaties upon the Abbot of Siburg, then from the Kolff family, that they might recover the head of their holy Patroness: which he did by sending a captain named de Beer from the Spanish garrison that was there, with two hundred men, partly soldiers, partly inhabitants of Millen: at last, when the sacred head was returned to its place, the sacrifices of the Mass were soon celebrated with burning candles as before, and still are. When it was restored, they burn. These things the said Jacobus Kritzradt related from Cologne, having also offered the testimony with the seal and signature of the said Provost von Horrich, who chose the Siburg residence at Cologne as his place of rest and death: where, nearly eighty years old, he died of apoplexy on the feast of St. Bartholomew in the year 1666.
Section III. St. Balbina regarded by some as a Martyr.
[7] In Germany, St. Balbina, daughter of St. Quirinus, is believed by various authorities to have died a Martyr, In Germany she is also regarded as a Martyr, and is thus venerated at Siburg and in other places. This was also inserted in the second edition of the German Martyrology by Canisius. In the manuscript Acts of St. Hermes, it is said that Blessed Balbina, when she was to be led to martyrdom, entrusted the chains of St. Peter to Blessed Theodora, a most devout woman, the sister of St. Hermes. Certain Acts of the martyrdom of St. Balbina the Virgin also exist in the manuscript Passionale of the monastery of Boeddeken of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, in the diocese of Paderborn, which were copied from there and sent to us by our fellow Joannes Gamansius, which we here present to the benevolent Reader, so that he may judge the truth of the matter for himself: omitting however the first part, which pertains to St. Hermes.
[8] "When St. Hermes had been secretly beheaded in prison by the order of Count Aurelian, as if seized by Aurelian, Blessed Theodora together with St. Balbina the Virgin seized his body and buried it in the estate of St. Hermes the Martyr himself. When Aurelian the tyrant heard this, he ordered both Virgins to be seized and put in chains. On the following day he sent for and summoned Blessed Balbina, the glorious Virgin of Christ, and said to her: 'What is your name?' She answered: 'I am called Balbina.' Aurelian said: 'What God do you worship?' St. Balbina answered: 'Christ, the Son of the living God, who created heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.' Aurelian said: 'Whose daughter are you?' Blessed Balbina answered: and when questioned, she explained the occasion of her conversion, 'I am the daughter of the Tribune Quirinus, whom you recently ordered to be martyred for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.' Aurelian said: 'Do you know why your father Quirinus was martyred? Explain to me now the cause of his suffering.' Then Blessed Balbina explained to Aurelian the whole cause of her father's suffering and said: 'Do you think, Aurelian, that I, frightened by terror, would not dare out of fear and shame to reveal the struggle of my father? For I have no shame, but rather joy at the suffering and triumph of my father. When I was beset with excessive pain, so that a most foul goiter encircled my neck and my whole head, when she was freed from the goiter: my father Quirinus went to Blessed Alexander and asked him, saying: "Lord Father, behold my daughter suffers from a great infirmity; if you heal her, she shall be under your guardianship all the days of her life: and I too will be baptized with my whole household, and we will believe in the Lord your God." Then Blessed Alexander, taking the chain with which he had been bound in prison, placed it around my neck and head and said: "Lord Jesus Christ, for love of whom I endure these chains in this prison, do not despise my prayers, but free your handmaid Balbina from the pain and affliction of the goiter, so that she may be baptized, together with the whole household of her father." When prayer had been made to the Lord by the blessed Pope Alexander, by the grace of Christ generously bestowed, I was immediately made so well as if I had never felt pain of neck or head. What more? I was soon baptized, and my father Quirinus and my mother Exuperia, she reproached him for the martyrdom inflicted on her father Quirinus, and the whole household of our family: all of whom, you wretched and most cruel executioner, having sought them out, you ordered to be killed for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ. They gave their names to heaven, but I, wretched and orphaned, am still preserved upon the earth, mourning and weeping daily because I do not deserve to follow them through the palm of martyrdom. But afterward I remained well consoled with the most blessed Virgin Theodora, whose brother Hermes also, the most noble Prefect of the city of Rome, you cast into chains, and St. Hermes: and secretly in prison you ordered to be beheaded. After the most blessed struggle of all these, I present myself not unwillingly but freely to punishments and torments, knowing that I will very soon be freed by my Lord Jesus Christ from all punishments, sufferings, and pains of the flesh, whatsoever you may inflict upon me in his name.'"
[9] "To whom Aurelian said: 'Cease now from your madness, lest you suffer worse things than they: whose punishments, torments, and indeed unworthy death you have counted as glory for yourself. For I ordered you to recall their martyrdom she despised the worship of the gods, so that, as if terrified by punishments, you might shrink from following in their footsteps. But you, as if rebellious and mad, hasten willingly to perish; but I too will repay you with a fitting punishment according to your deserts: for they suffered suddenly and without delay, but you, because you were the cause of their perdition and the occasion of all evil, will die an evil death, unless you quickly return to the worship of our gods.' Then St. Balbina, devout virgin of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: 'Why, most wretched of all men, do you compel faithful Christians to withdraw from the worship of the true God and to worship things that are nothing?' Aurelian said: 'Those things which our fathers worshipped, we too ought to worship -- not those things that have been newly invented by you.' St. Balbina answered: 'Your fathers erred and worshipped the idols and images of the nations, and therefore they perished wretchedly. But you also, wretched and impious tyrant, will quickly perish from the face of the earth, you who compel men to forsake their Creator and to worship mute and deaf idols.' and of Jupiter: Aurelian said: 'Who is the Creator other than the god Jupiter, whom we Romans worship and adore?' Blessed Balbina answered and said: 'Your god Jupiter was a fornicator and the worst adulterer. By what reason you call him God, I do not know.'"
"For God, by just reason, is holy and true, and must be called and believed to be innocent and pure from all pollution: whoever shall have worthily worshipped him will be saved, but whoever unworthily and negligently, will have no part with him. But you who utterly oppose him, and kill and punish those who worship him, how will you stand before his face? For Christ himself, the King and God of all, when he shall come to judge the living and the dead and the whole world by fire, then assuredly he will shake not only the earth but also the heaven, she impressed upon him the Last Judgment: to destroy the impious and wicked from the land of the living: whose coming will be terrible as lightning, and his chariot as a tempest, as the Prophet says in the Psalm: 'A fire shall burn in his sight, and around him a mighty tempest': and in another place concerning the same judicial fire the same Prophet testifies, saying: 'A fire shall go before him and shall burn his enemies round about.' And if you wish to hear about yourself and those like you, the same Prophet openly declares, saying: 'Let sinners perish from the face of the God of heaven, and as wax melts before the fire, so shall sinners perish from the face of the God of heaven.' Likewise, if you wish to hear about the just and holy men and blessed Martyrs, whom you unjustly and without cause punish and plan to punish, the Prophet says in the same psalm concerning them: 'Let the just feast and exult in the sight of God and delight in gladness; the unjust and the wicked shall be punished forever, and the seed of the impious shall perish.' And deservedly: for the devil has so blinded their hearts and yours, that you do not recognize your Creator and Savior: whom if you knew and believed, you would worship and adore him with willing spirit and most devout zeal: but the gods who dwell in handmade idols and images you would utterly despise, reject, and destroy."
[10] "The most impious Aurelian said to her: 'Whence comes to you such eloquence of words, or who taught you all these things?' Taught by Christ and the Holy Spirit, St. Balbina answered: 'Christ the Son of God and the Spirit of his mouth: for so it is written about him in his Gospel, that he taught his disciples, saying: "When you stand before kings and governors, do not premeditate how you shall answer or what you shall say: she answered for it will be given to you in that hour what you shall speak. It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."' The most impious tyrant Aurelian said to her: 'If then it is the Holy Spirit who speaks from you, I will make you fornicate, so that the Holy Spirit may flee from you.' St. Balbina answered: 'I believe and hope -- nay, I know for certain -- that the Holy Spirit will not be separated from me on account of any suffering of the flesh: for my heart is so fixed to his fear and love that it cannot be stained by any pollution. She does not fear the brothel, Indeed, the Holy Spirit will rather flee from you and those like you -- nay, will have no communion with them, according to what is written in the book of Wisdom: "The Holy Spirit will flee from the deceitful, and will not dwell in a body subject to sins." But why do I any longer set forth to you the mysteries of words, which when heard will not profit you, unless perhaps that you may be the more tormented, the more you see, feel, and hear the kingdom of Christ, which you persecute, growing?' Aurelian said to her: 'Cease now from the superfluity of your words, and worship the goddess Diana, who will season your eloquence with her wisdom, so that you may arrive at soundness of mind; otherwise I will have you killed, because it is beneath me to bandy words any longer with a tender girl.' Blessed Balbina answered him: 'Aurelian, you tyrant, cease your foolish railing against your Creator: stop even now at last, after the slaughter of so many Christians, from your error, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and confess your crimes, if perhaps you may be saved. But if you will not do so, nor any torments: know for certain that your destruction is near, that you may perish forever on account of the blood of the many Martyrs which you have innocently shed: but know for certain concerning me that on account of the multitude of your torments, I will in no way recede from the faith of Christ.'"
[11] "Then Aurelian, enraged, after many kinds of torments and punishments, pronounced the sentence of death against her, saying: she was crowned with martyrdom 'Let the eloquent Balbina be killed, lest she seduce the Roman people after her error, and let the noble Theodora be brought forth, if perhaps she may consent to us and live.' And so when Blessed Balbina had been killed, Theodora was brought forth from custody and presented before the sight of the tyrant Aurelian. To whom the impious tyrant said: 'Where are the treasures of your brother Hermes the Prefect? Show them and sacrifice, then St. Theodora, lest perhaps after various torments you be killed like Balbina.' St. Theodora answered and said: 'The treasures which my brother and I had, we distributed to the poor and to strangers for the love of Christ; and I, having nothing remaining except the body which you see, most willingly spend even that for his name: nevertheless I say to you, Aurelian, you tyrant, and both were buried separately. that even if you order my body to be torn apart limb by limb, I will never sacrifice to your idols.' Therefore Aurelian, enraged, ordered her also to be beaten with scourges and killed by the sword on the day of the Kalends of April. Her body was buried by Christians near her brother Hermes, the Prefect of the city of Rome, glorious Martyr and nobleman, on the Via Salaria not far from the city of Rome, on his own estate. But the body of Blessed Balbina, Virgin and Martyr, was buried by the faithful and devout men near her father and mother on the Via Appia in the cemetery of Praetextatus, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen."
[12] St. Theodora the Martyr is celebrated on the first of April, and St. Hermes on the twenty-eighth of August: the burial of the former is described in the same words by which it is indicated here. We have some manuscript Acts of St. Hermes from the Passionale of Boeddeken, in which his wife is called Exuperia, Exuperia, mother of St. Balbina. just as here the wife of St. Quirinus is so named. There is another St. Exuperia, wife of St. Olympius, in the deeds of St. Stephen the Pope on the second of August: this married couple, having suffered martyrdom, is celebrated on the twenty-sixth of July: apart from whom we have not found an Exuperia enrolled in any calendar of the Greek or Latin Church.