ON SS. QUIRILLA AND SOPHIA,
VIRGINS AND MARTYRS PRESERVED AT ROME.
CommentaryQuirilla, Virgin & Martyr preserved at Rome (S.)
Sophia, Virgin & Martyr preserved at Rome (S.)
G. H.
Philip Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints, who are not in the Roman Martyrology
Roman, Memory of S. Quirilla, thus begins this XV day of May: On the Ides of May, at Rome of S. Quirilla, Virgin and Martyr. And in the Notes he alleges that he has those things, From the tables of the Church of S. Martin in the Mountains, where her Relics are preserved. Following Ferrarius, Arturus du Monstier, in the Sacred Gynaeceum of the Virgins, has the same. Antonius Philippinus of the Carmelite Order, Prior of the Convent of SS. Sylvester and Martin in the Mountains at Rome, on the Antiquity of the said Church, chapter 16, published a certain Inscription engraved on marble, which the accurate observers of similar antiquities at Rome judge to have been made about two hundred years ago, in which on page 77 these things are read: In the times of the Lord Sergius the younger the Pope there were laid up in this sacred altar the Bodies of BB. Sylvester and Martin the Pontiffs … with whom also were reposited the bodies of BB. Sother, Paulina, Memia, Juliana, Quirilla, Theopistis and Sophia, Virgins and Martyrs. Mention also of all these is in Octavius Pancirolius, in the Hidden Treasure of the City of Rome, region 2, church 41, page 226; but in place of Sophia is written Sosia. Meanwhile in the Auctarium of Greven to Usuard and in the Calendar of a MS. Breviary which was in use in the parts of the Rhine, on this XV of May, and S. Sophia. is celebrated the memory of S. Sophia, and "the Virgin" is added in the Martyrology written in English by Richard Whitford and printed at London in the year 1526. In the MS. Calendar of the Carmelites of the Convent of Mechlin, and in the written additions of the Charterhouse of Brussels to Greven, to the title of Virgin is appended, "And Martyr." Wherefore that at once the memory of each may be preserved, we set them forth together here, for the further inquiry of the Romans, by which these things can be proved or disproved.
[2] The sacred memory of S. Quirillus the Martyr, but with two Companions and at Axiopolis in Bulgaria, is celebrated on May IX; as also of S. Sophia on September XXX, but the widow and mother of the holy Faith, Hope and Charity, Virgins: from whom we judge these Virgins and Martyrs diverse. Charles Bartholomew Piazza in the Roman Sanctuary relates that S. Quirilla the Virgin and Martyr is venerated in the church of S. Martin in the Mountains, where her body is kept. But the memory of S. Sophia the Virgin is inserted in the Calendar of the Breviary of Mainz printed in 1495 and 1507, and of Camin in Pomerania published in the year 1521, so that she seems to pertain to these Ides of May.