ON ST. SILVANUS
MARTYR AT ROME.
CommentarySilvanus, Martyr at Rome (S.)
G. H.
Following the Tables of the Roman Martyrology, after S. Crescentiana the Martyr at Rome being reported: presently we read these things, In the same place of S. Silvanus the Martyr. In the Notes is alleged a true manuscript: mention in the Roman Martyrology and Ferrarius, in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, on S. Silvanus on this day annotates these things. This holy Martyr is found noted on this day in an old MS. from which he was translated into the Roman Martyrology. We give from various MSS. very many Martyrs called by the name of Silvanus, but on this day V May we find none. Baronius further annotates, that it is read in the book of the Roman Pontiffs that Pope Boniface I adorned the sepulcher of S. Silvanus the Martyr: which Ferrarius also attributes to this S. Silvanus. S. Boniface I sat as Pope from the year CCCCXIX up to the year CCCCXXIII, inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the day XXV of October. Anastasius the Librarian and the MS. Gesta Pontificum, and the Acts of S. Boniface I Pope. in the Life of S. Boniface, have these things: He adorned the sepulcher of the holy Martyr Felicitas and S. Silvanus, where also he placed these: a silver paten weighing twenty pounds, a silver cup weighing ten pounds, a silver pitcher weighing thirteen pounds, two smaller silver chalices weighing four pounds.
[2] These things there: and since among the seven sons of S. Felicitas the Martyr on the day X of July the fourth is commonly numbered Silvanus, someone could suspect this to be the one whose sepulcher together with the sepulcher of the mother was adorned by S. Boniface. But for Silvanus is also read Livanius. Wherefore with Ferrarius we say, the homeland, time, Acts, and kind of martyrdom are unknown. Meanwhile in the time of Pope Gregory XIII, Emmanuel de Camara received the sacred Relics of S. Silvanus, Relics of S. Silvanus in Lusitania, Count of Villa-Franca: which carried into Lusitania, were deposited in his Oratory. These Georgius Cardosus mentions in the Lusitanian Hagiology on this V May, asserting, that he was Lusitanian by origin, sprung from the most ancient family of the Silvas, and that he suffered at Rome under Maximinus. Which until they are better proven, could be despised as gratuitously contrived, by the occasion of the name Silvanus derived from Silvas; by which reason this martyr could be drawn to any nation whatever.