ON SS. HERACLIUS, JUSTUS AND MAURUS
MARTYRS, AT FOLIGNO IN UMBRIA.
UNDER DECIUS
CommentaryHeraclius, Martyr, at Foligno in Umbria (S.)
Justus, Martyr, at Foligno in Umbria (S.)
Maurus, Martyr, at Foligno in Umbria (S.)
G. H.
The Prelate of the people of Foligno and now Patron, also of the neighboring peoples and of all Umbria, flourished in the third century of Christ S. Felician, whose various Acts we gave on the day XXIV of January. Ludovico Jacobilli, and himself of Foligno, Converted by S. Felician, volume one on the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of Umbria, among other infidels, by the work and aid of the said S. Felician to the faith of Christ in the said province of Umbria converted, judges to have been three soldiers of Foligno and then Martyrs, namely Heraclius, Justus and Maurus, who afterward by zeal of divine honor and the salvation of souls kindled, by their exhortations and the good example of virtues, dared the holy faith to propagate. The times of the Emperor Philip favored; in the persecution of Decius, captured, but he and his son in the year CCXLIX being slain, succeeded Decius, by whom a truculent persecution against the Christians, and that the eighth, was excited, nor with his death, which under the end of the year CCLI happened, taken away. In this persecution shut in prisons these three athletes, some months after the martyrdom of S. Felician brought out, and before Aurelius the Governor examined, but intrepid in professing the faith of Christ, are adjudged to death, that one mile outside the gate of the city, which toward Rome inclines, brought out, they should be beheaded: and thus on the IV day of May the palm of martyrdom obtained. they are beheaded, Their bodies were by the faithful preserved, and afterward near the body of their most holy Pastor Felician in the Cathedral church placed.
[2] Ferdinand Ughelli volume I of Italia Sacra in the Bishops of Foligno number 5 these things writes: Felician, while the flock of Foligno he moderates and rules, Heraclius, Justus, A church erected to them, and Maurus, eminent Confessors of Christ, the track of their contest near Foligno most gloriously ran on the fourth day of May. But where for Christ they met death, there in their honor
a temple was erected, soon also a castle, which from the name of S. Heraclius, the ancients called Heraclium, and a castle named, but distant from Foligno by only one mile, Heraclum, by the ignorance afterward of the common people, it was easy to deviate into Rachium.
[3] These things Ughelli, to which Jacobilli adds the said castle to be very well inhabited, sacred cult May 4, and in it to be numbered beyond a thousand souls, and there these holy Martyrs as chief Protectors to be venerated, and their feast to be kept, as in the city and diocese of Foligno, under a double rite on this IV day of May; and besides through the year in the Ecclesiastical Office their Commemoration, because their sacred bodies are reckoned to be preserved there. But there is through the glorious merits of Thy holy Martyrs Heraclius, Justus and Maurus, and of Florentius and Peter the Confessors, whose bodies in our church rest &c. The same Martyrs celebrates Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints, and another of the Saints of Italy: but he had not so exact a notice, as we here from Jacobilli and Ughelli have given.
[4] and April 27. In the MS. Martyrologies, the Medicean and of the Senator Strozzi at Florence, and another there printed under the date of the year 1486 on the XXVII of April the same with one companion augmented thus are reported, At the city of Foligno of the holy martyrs Heraclius, Justus, Maurus and Vitalis, who under Dacian the Governor Martyrdom suffered. Which perhaps are more ancient and more sincere. But it most easily could happen, that for Dacian the Governor, someone substituted the Decian persecution; and S. Vitalis therefore only was passed over, in that his body either was not found or was translated elsewhere, before the three others into the Cathedral church were brought in. Because nevertheless the same Vitalis in the MS. of Monte Cassino and in our Florarium separately is named, I have not presumed to add him in this place to those Martyrs of Foligno: of whom now the feast of Translation is kept, the memory of the birthday itself obliterated, I am persuaded.