Lucifer Bishop

ON ST. LUCIFER BISHOP

OF CAGLIARI IN SARDINIA.

THE YEAR CCCLXX.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY:

Collected from old and more recent monuments.

Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

CHAPTER I.

More recent conjectures on the beginnings of Lucifer. The contest with the Arians at Milan: exiles changed four times.

After the tyrant Magnentius, conquered at the Alps, laid violent hands on himself, and freed the Empire of the West from fear, on the X or XI day of August; the rest of the year CCCLIII passing at Arles the victor Constantius, to Constantius, urging the condemnation of Athanasius, began more earnestly to press that for which the Kingdom had been divinely preserved to him, having been persuaded already from the prior victory at Mursa by the deceit of Valens the Arian. Understanding this, Pope Liberius, having sent to Constantius as legates Vincentius and Marcellus the Bishops, had hoped he would persuade that a Council should be gathered at Aquileia, and the cause of Athanasius and of the faith according to the Canons be discussed. But he had hoped in vain; those legates whom I mentioned being themselves involved in that ruin, which they ought to have sustained. When therefore Vincentius was led into that dissimulation, that he subscribed to the condemnation of Athanasius; and the rest of the Bishops through Italy, Pope Liberius sending as legate St. Lucifer, by a public convention compelled, had obeyed the sentence of the Easterns; God cooperating, says Liberius, writing to St. Eusebius of Vercelli, Our Brother and Fellow-Bishop Lucifer came from Sardinia. Who when he had learned the inner hiding-places of the cause, and had come to its consciousness, that under the occasion of the name of Athanasius the heretics wished to attempt these things; for the devotion of his faith he was willing to undergo a just labor, and to go to the Court of the religious Prince, that at last, to persuade the indiction of a Council, the order of the whole cause being set forth, he might obtain, that all things which come into the midst might be treated in the assembly of the Priests of God.

[2] This first argument of his more certain notice among posterity St. Lucifer has, all the earlier things are in obscurity; whence neither can we say, of what parents, of what country he was born, when or how he came to the Episcopate of the island of Sardinia. Some make him a disciple of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, An attempt at something in this kind has been made by the writer of the Tarentine History Fr. Ambrose Merbodius of Tarentum, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, who already long ago professing himself rescued from an evident peril of life by the aid of St. Lucifer, about presently to return thanks to his benefactor, took to himself to write in the Italian tongue a Commentary on his Life, which already almost consumed by neglect lest it perish utterly he transmitted to me, after I had already prepared these things for the press. A diligent writer, and besides the ancients, chiefly alleged by me, also having examined Baronius and the more recent Sardinian writers Arca, Serpi, Bonfant and others; but chiefly aided by the ancient Life of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, taken from the Archive of that Church, and published by Fr. Master Aurelius Corbellinus the Augustinian: which Life of St. Eusebius although we do not believe to be most ancient, yet because in it are said to be alleged certain things, as received from the mouth or writings of St. Honoratus his disciple, who born at Cagliari of the Luciferan family, we desire some time to obtain it in its original phrase, or at least from the edition of the aforesaid Corbellinus. Meanwhile what pertains to Lucifer, I indicate, that in it is expressly read, that Lucifer was learned in the Greek tongue, and skilled in Hebrew, and was a disciple of St. Eusebius at Rome, where this one namely baptized by Eusebius the Pope, ascribed by Silvester to the Order of Lectors, is supposed to have publicly expounded the sacred Scriptures. But our Writer, investigating further things by conjecture, from epitaphs found at Cagliari (in which T. Aelius Lucifer and L. Aelius Lucifer, and Ju. Aemilia Lucifera, and finally in Sicily L. Caesius Lucifer are read) thinks himself to have brought out, that there was at Cagliari a noble family of the Lucifers, already from the time of the old Romans under heathenism; and from it afterwards born the four holy Lucifera Martyrs, whose bodies with their Epitaphs have been found, as also that of St. Lucifer the Presbyter Martyr. And hence further he educes, that the parents of this Bishop Saint, of whom we treat, in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, were crowned with Martyrdom: and, because at Bologna in the church of St. Petronius is found a monument of a certain Cordus Caesius, with insignia of the same having roses, at Rome he was consecrated Bishop by Julius. and a certain epitaph of St. Lucifer himself to be adduced below also has a rose; he believes it consequent, that both can be brought to the same family of the Caesii: which indeed will be persuaded with difficulty, to those judging that all the surnames and insignia of families now noted are of much more recent origin. Thus Lucifer born and bereaved of his parents, says Fr. Ambrose, was received by St. Juvenal Bishop of Cagliari, of whom we shall treat among the Passed-over on May XXVIII, and the Bishop of the same city Protogenes being dead, he who about the year CCCXLVII subscribed to the Council of Sardica, was by Julius the Pope consecrated Bishop of Sardinia and sent back to his country.

[3] It is difficult to believe, that elsewhere than at Cagliari, and by others than the suffrages of the Cagliari Clergy, This is certain, that commended by Liberius to Eusebius. and the hands of others than the Fellow-Bishops of Sardinia, Lucifer was elected and consecrated. But neither from this, that God cooperating Liberius writes him to have come to Rome to his aid, do I think it can be efficaciously enough inferred, as Ambrose infers, that he went out of his Episcopate impelled by some divine revelation: since for that some private business of the Church of Cagliari, to be treated before the Pontiff or Caesar, could suffice, which divine providence turned into the public good of the universal Church. Nor was Liberius lacking to the occasion, but in so great a crisis of the orthodox faith, using the prompt service of Lucifer, gave him two companions with letters to Constantius; gave also commendatory ones to Eusebius. And to Constantius indeed, To entreat, he says, thy Mansuetude, that with benevolent mind thou mayest deign to hear our allegations, my Brother and Fellow-Bishop, the holy man Lucifer, with Pancratius my Fellow-Presbyter and Hilary the Deacon, it has pleased to set out: whom we trust of thy Clemency, for the peace of all the Churches, not with difficulty to be able to obtain a Council. But to Eusebius thus speaks the Pontiff: I commend to thee our Brother and Fellow-Bishop Lucifer, and my dearest sons Pancratius the Presbyter and Hilary the Deacon, who for the state of the Church, with a manly mind and deific virtue, in a timely time, have undertaken to fight against the enemies of the Church.

[4] Henceforth Lucifer esteemed the known virtue of St. Eusebius so highly, that, when he seemed to have obtained from Constantius what he desired; to this one he persuaded to come to the Synod of Milan. and now, as to an ecumenical Synod, at Milan the Bishops were being gathered; in his own and his companions' name he wrote to him in these words: The head of the devil being trodden down and his depraved suggestions, holy Lord, the grace to thee granted by our Lord do not neglect, but that as quickly as possible, thee invading, the dogma of the Arians may be put to flight, deign now to hasten. For the Lord knows and His Christ, that as in the coming of the most blessed Apostles the name of God is glorified, by the ruin of Simon; so, Valens being expelled at thy coming, Where then rebuking Constantius intrepidly, the engine of the blaspheming Arians being dissolved will be utterly destroyed. Thus Lucifer, the more prone to good hope, the fresher to the fight. Nor did he employ less ardor in the encounter: for, as he himself reproaching Constantius writes, As soon as thou didst begin to impose on the Bishops the necessity of condemning an absent man, straightway we said that thou wast a cultivator of injustice, but a persecutor of justice. Likewise when we urged thee, we the Legates of the blessed Church, that the sect of Arius was to be condemned, and thou hadst said that it rather was Catholic; we pronounced thee to have been the forerunner of Antichrist.

[5] The other things by the same Lucifer with equal confidence and constancy of mind to have been done, both in the Palace, where the nefarious and tyrannical assemblies were held; and in the church, where with the faithful people sat Dionysius Bishop of Milan and Eusebius, and shut up in the Palace, it is permitted to think, to explain more distinctly it is not permitted. Only in the Life of St. Dionysius, to be given on the XXV of this month, is read at number 14, that all the faithful sought Dionysius and Eusebius, that Lucifer also, Bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, within the church with them might be present: to whom the holy Dionysius; Lucifer, he says, as is plain to us, apprehended by the Arians is held in the closed Palace: for they think that, him being secluded from us, they can introduce something dangerous. But the next day, by a letter he confirmed the Catholics: as is had at number 16, A letter was sent by Lucifer, the Catholic Bishop, from the Palace where he was held by the King, and delivered to Dionysius and Eusebius; which the people began to demand to be read to them: but the Arians made a clamor, so much that not before night, they being driven from the church, could the letter be read.

[6] On the third day again came three Eunuchs, asking Dionysius and the other Bishops, what they wished to suggest to the Emperor. Who said they had nothing necessary, than that with the heretics about the faith it was to be disputed, to whom a little after restored and Lucifer to be joined to them. Restored therefore to the church was Lucifer, and dismissed from the Palace. Again moreover it was Sent by the Emperor, that Eusebius and Lucifer and Florentius were to be summoned. Whom led to the Palace, Dionysius after them being summoned would not go to the same place, because already present to the King's sight were the truest assertors of the Catholic faith, but he himself the people persevering within the church could in no way leave. And when those who were sent had reported this to the Emperor, by God's nod dismissed from the Palace Eusebius, Lucifer and Florentius, together with the people to the church returned. But being placed in the church, the counsel was learned, with SS. Dionysius and Eusebius he is sent into exile. that the following night they should be snatched from the church, and directed into exile. Then an attack being made by Eusebius the Eunuch, there were apprehended of the faithful men in number a hundred forty and seven: with whom certain of the Priests and Clergy bound were shut up within the Heraclian Baths; but Florentius and Lucifer the Bishops

were delivered to the custody of the Tribune Caius, Eusebius to the Tribune Galbio. Thus far the things said in the Life of St. Dionysius.

[7] St. Jerome in the book on Writers says, that Lucifer …, when he would not under the name of Athanasius condemn the Nicene faith, which for his constancy was changed four times for him was relegated into Palestine. Marcellinus and Faustinus, in their little book of prayers to the Emperor: on this account, they say, that he vindicated the venerable faith, that he detected and convicted the heretics, he was led into exile with all the atrocity of injuries. The same also number four exiles of his, and to them assign ten years. But here there is an error of number, since in the year CCCLV Lucifer carried off from Milan, returned into the West in the year CCCLXII. The same to his many praises, which they accumulate, he is illustrated by miracles, add, that he wrought divine miracles, not only in Sardinia, but also in those very four exiles; so much so that the adversaries called him great, since they could not deny that Apostolic miracles were done through him.

[8] The first place of exile perhaps was in Cappadocia, but by no means long, whence no notice of it is found: the second Germanicia, an Episcopal city in the Euphratensian Province or Coelesyria, as will appear below: the third therefore would be Palestine, and by his notable patience. indicated by Jerome; the First namely or Salutaris, to which pertains the city of Eleutheropolis, where Marcellinus and Faustinus indicate to us the Bishop Eutychius the heretic, under whom Bl. Lucifer was suffering exile: who afflicted him too, freely vindicating the faith, with many atrocities. There are still today, they say, those who at that time gave most grievous penalties, because they met with the Bishop of the Catholic faith Lucifer: when namely (as the same presently subjoin) the adversaries of the Nicene faith, among their other atrocious deeds, broke the closed door with axes; and rushing upon Lucifer the most faithful Priest, the divine Sacraments also they overthrew, mulcting each one there of those Brethren who had met with impious slaughter. Finally in the parts neighboring Egypt, as Rufinus writes; or in the Upper Thebes or the second Thebaid, as Socrates speaks, was the last exile of Lucifer: whither perhaps Athanasius also had betaken himself, not daring to remain longer in Egypt; so that even hence the communication between them was the easier, yet not without danger, on account of the intent custody of the Imperial ministers, as we saw in the Acts of St. Athanasius number 283.

CHAPTER II.

The books written by Lucifer, exhibited to Constantius, communicated with St. Athanasius.

[9] Relegated Lucifer, Jerome being witness where above, of wondrous constancy and a mind prepared for martyrdom, Asked whether he had written and sent these books, against Constantius the Emperor wrote a book, and sent it to him to read. Who when he could scarcely believe that anyone of so great confidence was found, Florentius the Master of offices, by his command wrote as follows, To the most benign Lord Lucifer Florentius. In thy name a certain one offered a codex to our Lord and Augustus. This he commanded to be carried to thy Sanctity, and desires to know, whether the same codex was sent by thee. That therefore which is in the faith of truth thou oughtest to write down, and to send back the codex, that it may be offered again to his Eternity. Thus the title of Eternity the impious one arrogated to himself, which he did not fear to diminish in the Son of God, defending Arius, of whose blasphemies among the rest one was, that there was a time when the Son was not. But Lucifer did not dread the madness of the most arrogant man; generously he acknowledges them written and sent by himself. and freely confessing himself the author of the codex, in these words he wrote back: That the bearer of the codex, whom thy Honorableness mentions to have approached the Emperor in my name, was sent by my mediocrity; that the codex itself, as thou hast deigned to admonish, carefully inspected, and delivered to Bonosus the Agent in Affairs to be carried, thy religious Prudence ought to have noted, dearest son. Now it will be of thy Generosity, to defend without any delay that acknowledged by me. For we indeed, God being propitious, against those things which are prepared for our slaying stand glad (since the causes why I wrote such things he has now begun to discuss) he will find.

[10] There came afterwards to St. Athanasius the fame of so heroic a generosity: moved by whose fame Athanasius wherefore writing to Lucifer salvation in the Lord, as to a Most Beloved Brother, Bishop and Confessor, thus he says: God favoring, being well in body, we have sent even now (whence thou mayest understand this was not the first exchange of letters among these Saints) our dearest Eutyches the Deacon, that thy religious Sanctity also, which is to be desired by us and desirable, may deign to make us more certain of thy safety and of all thine. he praises his liberty, For you Confessors and Servants of God living, we believe the state of the Catholic Church is renewed; and what the heretics attempted to rend asunder, this our Lord Jesus Christ through you to restore wholly. For although the forerunners of Antichrist, through the power of this world, have done all things, to extinguish the lamp of truth; yet the Divinity, through your confession, has shown its light clearer, that their fallacy can be hidden from no one. Before this they could even dissimulate: now they are named Antichrists. For who would not execrate them? who their communion, as a stain and the venom of a serpent, would not flee?

[11] Every Church everywhere mourns, every city groans; old Bishops labor in exile, in so savage a persecution, and the heretics dissimulate: who while they deny Christ, have made themselves publicans, sitting in the church and exacting tributes. O new kind of men and of persecution! which the devil devised, that those very ministers for doing evil, and these used so great cruelty. But although they do these so great things, and have extended blasphemies; yet your confession, and religion, and wisdom, is not a little, but the greatest solace and consolation to the Brotherhood. For it has come to us that thy Sanctity has written to Augustus Constantius; and asks a copy of them: and more and more we marvel, because dwelling in the midst as among scorpions, yet thou usest liberty of mind, so that whether by admonishing, or teaching, or amending, the erring to the light of truth thou mayest lead. I beg therefore, and all the Confessors beg with me, that thou wouldst deign to send us an example; that not only by hearing, but also from the letters all may be able to perceive the virtue of thy soul, and the confidence and liberty of thy faith. Those who are with me salute thy Sanctity: I salute all who are with thee. May the Divinity keep thee safe, vigorous, and ever mindful of us, Lord most beloved and truly a man of God.

[12] which received, These letters received Bl. Lucifer sent the books, which he had written to Constantius. And when Athanasius had read them, to the most glorious and deservedly most desired Fellow-Bishop writing back, after explaining the straits of the pressures which he sustained from the Arians; We have received, he says, the epistles and books of thy most religious and most wise soul; in which we have perceived an Apostolic image, of truth, the doctrine of the true faith, the heavenly way, the glory of martyrdom, triumphs against the Arian heresy, the whole tradition of our Fathers, the right rule of Ecclesiastical order. O truly Lucifer! who, according to thy name, bearing the light of truth, hast placed it upon the candlestick, that it may shine to all. For who, he wonderfully extols the zeal of the author, the Arians excepted, does not perceive, from thy doctrine the true faith indeed, but the stain of the Arians? Strongly and admirably, as is light from darkness, so hast thou separated truth from the craftiness and hypocrisy of the heretics; thou hast defended the Catholic Church; thou hast proved, the words of the Arians to be nothing, but only a phantasy; thou hast taught, that the diabolical gnashings are to be trodden down. How good and pleasant thy exhortations to martyrdom! how most desirable thou hast shown death to be for Christ the Son of God! how great a love of the future age and of the heavenly life thou hast manifested!

[13] full of the spirit of God, Thou seemest to be a true temple of the Savior, who dwelling in thee Himself through thee speaks these things: He, who afforded so great grace to thy discourses. Inasmuch as thou wast before amiable to all, yet now so great is the love of affection for thee placed in the minds of all, that they name thee an Elijah in our times. And no wonder: For if those who seem to please God are named sons of God; so much the more partakers of the Prophets the Confessors, and especially Thee, it is worthy to call. Believe me, Lucifer, not Thou alone hast spoken these things; but the Holy Spirit with Thee. Whence this so great memory of the Scriptures? whence the sense and intellect of the same entire? whence such an order of composed speech? whence so great exhortations to the heavenly way? whence confidence against the devil and proofs against the heretics, unless the Holy Spirit were placed in Thee? Rejoice therefore, perceiving thyself already to be in that in which also thy predecessors the Martyrs now are, in the choir of Angels. We also rejoice, having thee an example of virtue and patience and liberty… May the divine grace of God preserve Thee safe, mindful of us, and ever blessed, deservedly a man of God, servant of Christ, partaker of the Apostles, solace of the brotherhood, master of truth, and in all things most desired.

[14] These things Athanasius in the epistle, which whole it will be permitted to see after St. Lucifer's own books, and translates them into the Greek tongue. of which a specimen presently we shall give: now speaking of the same books and Athanasius's epistle it helps to hear Marcellinus and Faustinus; Books, they say, he wrote to Constantius; not, as most do, catching the glory of genius, but most aptly heaping divine testimonies, against the heretics and against the very patron of the heretics, to divine emulation for the love of the Son of God kindled. Which books indeed … as a true vindicator both Athanasius looked up to, and into the Greek style translated, lest of so great a good the Greek tongue should not have it. It is little; nay even with his own letters the same Athanasius proclaims the same books, as woven with the doctrines of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles and with pious confession. And although in many praises he be raised to him, yet he does not equal the proclamation of his merit … Thus by the supereminence of things any tongue is surpassed: but Lucifer, ignorant though of artful eloquence, yet, that in Prophetic and Evangelic and Apostolic manner he might write what is above all human eloquence had the grace of the Holy Spirit, from the merit of right faith and a most sincere conscience. Thus they, elsewhere indeed by no means to be approved, yet in that in which they praise Lucifer, by no means to be despised, while they have Athanasius supporting them, nay the whole Church of Christ.

CHAPTER III.

The sum of the two books for Athanasius to Constantius.

[15] He who took care that the aforesaid books of St. Lucifer should be printed in the year MDCVIII at Paris, and offered them to Pius V the Sovereign Pontiff, His style rude and sharp, John Tilius Bishop of Meaux, Common, he says, to me and to that age seems his very speech, so rude is it and uncombed, which he himself also calls rustic: but, whoever shall diligently weigh it, will find him grave and full of sentences, and of a man of strong genius… But the whole work would be very small, if from it the divine Scripture, which the author could not have more ready, were rent and taken away. And in citing indeed of the Scripture

passages, there appears a quite notable discrepancy of the old version, from that which corrected we today use, as the same Tilius observes: but for our purpose it makes more to observe, in what order and spirit the whole work is digested.

[16] First therefore the two books, written for St. Athanasius, he thus begins. Thou compellest us, Constantius, by which he shows that an absent man cannot be condemned, to condemn an absent man, our Fellow-Priest, the religious Athanasius: but by divine law we are forbidden to do that … For how dost thou think it divinely permitted that the unheard be punished, when thou seest Adam and Eve, the chiefs of our race heard, struck with the sentence of God? … Since therefore thou observest God to have given such a form of judging; since from the hiding-places called forth and confessing thou hast gathered God to have given sentence from the sacred fountains of the Scriptures; and that the Emperor while he exacts this acts the part of the Serpent, of what wast thou and art thou impudence, giving the servants of God to judge that form, which had not come from the law of the Lord? nor hast thou feared, lest it should have been said to God by us of thee, as it had been said of that fugitive Angel, The Serpent persuaded me, the Emperor Constantius seduced us? Couldst thou not see, that thou mayest be struck with such a sentence of God indignant, with which the serpent also seems struck … especially since thou shouldst recognize that thy work too was serpentine? … But I would thou shouldst say, what difference there is between thy deed and that fugitive apostate Angel's. If he by a lie seduced rude men, so didst thou; and indeed thou not the rude: if he for the sake of utility to eat the fruits of the tree allured their minds, so didst thou for the sake of peace assert it was to be done with them.

[17] Then proposing other and other examples of God judging and precepts, and to exclude these, he says, thou compellest his servants to subvert his judgment, attempting even by gifts to corrupt our conscience, by promising and threatening; dedicated to God… To the slaying of an innocent thou hast asked; and when thou hadst perceived thyself despised, thou hast stretched thyself to introducing all kinds of penalties… To the sword thou hast thought thy executioner right hand was to be stretched; as if thou couldst by the sword conquer those whom thou sawest for the Son of God neither, present, doubt to lose life nor shudder at death … We have not feared nor do we fear thy threats, who know that nothing can resist God… but in vain. We Christians fear not thy sword, who presume, you the enemies of God being prostrate, that we shall come to the banquets of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs: we fear not the power of thy fallen kingdom, the soldiers of God… we know God powerful to rescue us from thy hands. Tending to the heavenly kingdom we shall not be able to fear thy cruelty … Thou hast said, Condemn Athanasius. Whom were we, Constantius, to condemn? Him, whom we see to confess the Son of God, as the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs confessed? or thee, who deniest, as denied thy master Arius, as denied Judas Iscariot and all the Jews?…

[18] Afterwards when he had shown that he himself had no jurisdiction over the Bishops, by whom he himself is to be judged, [He reproaches him that he ordered George the Arian to be ordained Bishop of Alexandria.] and whom he is commanded to honor; he returns to exaggerating the iniquity of his precept; and Say, I pray, he says, what is it else to say, Condemn him, whom you know innocent, do against the commands of God; than, Pluck out your hearts, take away from yourselves your senses, cut the throats of your souls… be enemies of God, acquire for yourselves the devil as a friend? … These are the rewards, which thy excellent counsels seek out: these those best things, which beget everlasting death. Then reproaching, that he had sent his fellow-heretic George as successor to the living Athanasius, Such, he says, is George, as Arius had been, as those who with thee are Ursacius and Valens, or, to whom thou hast sent me, of the people of Germanicia Adoxius: for thorns could not but proceed from thorns. That these things are so, from the very acts of George, reading the attestations of the Alexandrians, thou canst gather: and although it please thee that he be wicked and blasphemous (for he would not otherwise be most dear to thee, unless because he is wicked) yet these things I have brought forth, that thou mayest discern thy excellent work … Thou hadst decreed by us to be deposed the Catholic, but the heretic to be confirmed: but when would men of sound mind have done that? For if Eli the Priest, because he had set his sons unworthy in the honor of the Priesthood, heard those things which he suffered from the Lord; what should we deserve to hear and suffer, if a Catholic Bishop condemning, and indeed unheard, we should suffer George the Arian to be made Bishop to the Alexandrians? … I believe it would have been said to us, You have honored Constantius more than me, as to him it was said, that he had honored his sons more than God…

[19] Then threatening him with being reduced to nothing, who dishonors and despises the Lord, as God Himself threatens Eli, Wilt thou deny, he says, that thou hast dishonored the Lord, by taking from the peoples the Priests whom He ordained? and that he has dishonored God, Wilt thou deny that thou hast dishonored God, when against His holy precepts thou hast compelled His Priests to condemn an absent man, unheard, and indeed sought by thee and thine with false crimes? Hast thou not therefore dishonored God, when thou hast taken away the Apostolic and Evangelic tradition; and the idolatry, which in the heart of Arius the devil had built, hast decreed to be held by men worshippers of God? These things said he proposes to him, whether here correcting his errors, he would rather obtain pardon of so great crimes; or reduced to nothing … in perpetuity to give penalties, such as Eli gave with his sons, such as also those of Azotus and the rest of the Philistines, to whose power God permitted the ark, as then to his power He permitted the Priests of God: from which let him not the better infer his faith to be Catholic, than those attributed it to their Dagon, than Maxentius and Nero and all those persecutors of the house of God said, by the power of their Gods it was done, that we Christians came under their power.

[20] Hence he runs out at large to the histories of Saul persecuting David; Ahab, Elijah; Jezebel, Naboth; likewise of Jeroboam, seducing the people, the example: showing Constantius in all things most like, on the contrary he declares, and comparing him to impious Kings, how unlike he is to the holy Kings David and Jehoshaphat. After which again turning himself to persuading more salutary things, We exhort, he says, thee, the enemy of our welfare, from impious to become pious, safe from sick, living from dead, religious from sacrilegious… Cease to persecute the house of God: cease to proscribe, deport, slay the servants of God; confess thyself a Christian, execrate with us the troop of the Arians, sought by the devil's invention: believe as we believe, who from the succession of the blessed Apostles are Bishops: nonetheless he invites to penitence. confess the only Son of God, as they confessed and we confess, and thou shalt obtain pardon of so great crimes. But profiting nothing by these things, again he threatens many things and reproaches, and compares Constantius to a dog returned to its vomit, who Athanasius restored by himself, and to whom he had sworn he would do nothing evil thereafter, again persecutes: who having confessed Adoxius of the people of Germanicia not to be Catholic, gave letters against the same to the people of Antioch; Rebuking also his levity and afterwards the same Adoxius began to defend as a teacher of truth, judging his heresy the Catholic faith.

[21] Finally, as if again some hope conceived, It is useful to thee, he says, Constantius, that through Athanasius the Priest of the Lord for thy crimes thou be a suppliant to God, through him direct thy vows, through him or through his Fellow-Bishops give effort, to obtain the saving baptism. He further exhorts him to good works and worthy fruits of penitence: and explaining the rewards laid up for them, he persuades him to seek baptism from Athanasius, These things thou canst obtain, he says, if thou betake thyself to the Church, if thou shun thy Fellow-Arians, if thou deign to hate that congregation of the malign, your own. Then will God ever be with thee, then in the darkness light will rise for thee, then darkness will be to thee as midday, then in good things thy way will be directed. But if in this obstinacy thou shalt remain, if in this cruelty, that thou torture His servants; God will not be with thee, but he, who even today in your assembly of the Arians is found to be, the devil … and to cease from persecuting the Catholics. That is not alms, which thou givest of others' tears, of the goods of those, who have preferred to be deported, slain, proscribed by thee, than either to condemn an innocent, or to deny the only Son of God, believing in whom they knew Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be glorified, and all the Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs: of whom that thou become a companion and partaker with all I desire, that these are my vows concerning thee, He is witness, who is able to grant us this.

[22] With altogether like liberty proceeds the second book; in which immediately from the beginning, From thy fruits, he says, Emperor Constantius, thou art known to be not a Christian, in book 2 he shows that he is a liar and a homicide, but plainly a confederate of robbers; dwelling namely, not in the Church of God, but in a den of robbers, thou dost not cease to slay those, whom thou seest prepared to be slain for the brightness of the only Son of God, for His eternal majesty … Thou art a liar and a homicide. A liar, who hast objected false crimes to God's servant Athanasius; a liar, because thou callest the heretical faith Catholic, and the Catholic callest heretical. A homicide, because thou persecutest the blood of Athanasius, and hast already slain a certain number of God's worshippers… What dost thou think will be to thee, who art not only a liar, but also a homicide? not only a homicide, but also a heretic? But he shows that, more detestably, for the things he did against Athanasius, than Ananias and Sapphira, Satan had filled the heart of the Emperor, that he should lie to the Holy Spirit, by accusing Athanasius, as those impure old men accused the innocent Susanna; wishing to slay him, as Herod wished to slay Peter, Cain Abel, the Jews Christ and Paul. And finally, when he had proved him to be of those, whom the Baptist names the broods of vipers; he exhorts him, that he himself, to bring forth fruits worthy of penitence, as at the preaching of Jonah the Ninevites did: and bringing the example of Paul, he promises that from a persecutor, from a doer of injury, from a blasphemer, and persuades penitence. blessed and truly most dear to God he could be made, if, like Paul, that Jesus Christ is the true Son of God he should believe … Believe me, he says, if thou do thus, that thou shalt be in the choir of Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs: otherwise it shall be imputed to thee, when thou shalt begin to see thyself tortured with the devil and all his attendants, why thou hast despised these so salutary admonitions of ours.

CHAPTER IV.

The other four books written successively to Constantius.

[23] John Tilius judges, in the address to Pius V, prefixed to the books of Lucifer, that the whole volume in one stretch was continued to the Emperor Constantius, The former books written at Germanicia, although the Author divided it into little books. But we have already

said, that the former two books were written, and probably offered, and through Florentius again returned, as it seems, when the Saint was still at Germanicia, under Eudoxius the Arian Bishop an exile, whom he preferred to call by antiphrasis Adoxius: but the last was written some years after, when the same Eudoxius had invaded the See of Constantinople. More truly therefore wouldst thou say, that Constantius, the former books together with the Author's confession received, ordered him to be transferred farther, Lucifer transferred elsewhere once and again: so that the other four books, neither all in one place, nor at one time, but successively were written; yet all with the same vigor of mind, the same liberty of style: which death long deferred Lucifer would at last have paid, had not the new commotions from Julian the Apostate turned away the thoughts of Constantius elsewhere, in the last year of his Empire.

[24] The first, On apostate Kings, thus begins: Because thou deignest to have a customary word, he writes On Apostate Kings, that unless thou both wholly didst believe, and these things which thou doest concerning us were pleasing to God, thou hadst already been extinguished; I have desired to unfold to thee the deeds of a few Kings thy equals in apostasy and cruelty, that that voice of thine may be buried which says, Unless the faith of Arius were Catholic, that is mine, unless it were pleasing to God that I persecute that faith, which against us they wrote at Nicaea, never indeed should I still flourish in the Empire. I make no mention of those Kings, who were alien from the knowledge of God: of these alone I treat, who in Judaea are known to have reigned. Beginning therefore from Gideon, who immediately after his victory made for himself from the spoils an Ephod, in which the sons of Israel fornicated, and yet ruled the people forty years; he proceeds to Saul, Solomon, Jeroboam, Ahaziah, Ahab, Uzziah, Manasseh: whose causes and sins one by one and at length comparing with the crimes of Constantius, repeatedly he concludes with these or like words: Do not therefore say: If I did not act well, never indeed would God have spared me; when thou seest to thy fellow-criminals long a place of penitence exhibited: and to this he laboriously invites him in the epilogue of the book.

[25] He then wrote a book On not associating with heretics, beginning with these words: When thou hadst perceived all thy pernicious attempts met, On not associating with heretics, and when thou hadst found all thy machinations against the Church of God revealed to all the people of God; thou hast said, that we were and are enemies of peace, foes of unity, adversaries even of fraternal charity. But while by examples and authorities of the Scriptures he shows, that it neither ought nor could be, that with the excommunicated and cut off from the Church Arians faithful Christians should communicate and associate; he seems to touch also his own afflictions, saying: Thou hatest us, because we execrate your counsel of the malignant: therefore we are in exile, therefore we are slain in prison, therefore to us alone is forbidden the sight, therefore shut up in darkness we are guarded with a huge guard, for this cause no man is admitted to visit us.

[26] Another book succeeds to this, On not sparing those who offend against God: whose occasion and argument more clearly appears in the exordium with these words: On not sparing those who offend against God, Overcome thou, Emperor, by the servants of God on every side when thou hadst beheld thyself; thou hast said, that thou hast suffered and dost suffer from us, against the admonitions of the sacred Scriptures, contumely: thou sayest, that we have been insolent against thee, whom it had been fitting to honor. If anyone of God's worshippers spared apostates, let the things be true which thou sayest of us. Whence shall we begin, that as thou now art rebuked by us, so all the erring have been rebuked by God's worshippers, that we may be able to prove it. The sum of the whole book tends to this, that the Emperor be convinced, that he and the other Bishops while they resist him, and what they are to the peoples committed to them they indicate, and to him the enormity and gravity of his sins they explain, are discharging their office, nor doing anything other than the Prophets and Apostles did in an occasion of this kind: finally that they are not contumelious, but truthful, and fearing none but God, and consulting for the salvation of his soul: but he ends with the example of the seven Maccabees, freely reproaching Antiochus, whom Constantius imitated. If those, he says, thou dost not think ought to have pleased Antiochus, nor we surely thee; because thou too, though in another way, yet art desiring to take us from God and join us to the devil … It remains therefore, as has often been said, that thou grieve thou hast erred, and acknowledging thyself a homicide and a blasphemer, a deserter present thyself to the house of God: otherwise thou wilt impute it to thyself, when thou shalt begin to see thyself to be there, where now are all those thy fellow-tyrants.

[27] The last book shows that one must die for the Son of God: which to have been written after the beginning of the year CCCLX, and that one must die for the Son of God, is shown by the mention of Eudoxius (Adoxius again the Saint names him) raised to the See of Constantinople, which on the day XXVII of January was done. But the following year in the month of November Constantius dying began to experience the truth of those things, which both in others, but especially in this book Lucifer threatens him, wholly glowing with the desire of Martyrdom. And so It had been fitting indeed, he says, Emperor Constantius, no longer with thee to treat of the divine Scriptures … since we remember it written, … Prov. 23, 9. In the ears of an imprudent man say nothing: but because still of the power of thy arms and the vain dominion of thy empire thou art puffed up; in all these things, the tyranny of Constantius being despised, in which thou thinkest thyself great, that thou art wretched, and that all the rage of thy butchery is despised by the servants of God, I have wished, in this especially book, to make known to thy mind made deadly by sacrilege. For that thou with thy temporal, fallen, frail, corruptible kingdom shalt pass away, and to eternal punishment (unless, while there is place, thou provide for thyself) shalt come; but the Christians shall come to eternal rest, shall obtain an incorruptible kingdom, fixed and manifest we wish thee to have…

[28] Thou hast slain very many at Alexandria, thou hast mangled certain throughout the whole world, by which he persecuted the Catholics: thou hast destroyed those resisting thee in various places: but all these, what thou by no means wilt hear, are Martyrs… Hence it is that the gnashings of the serpent, brought by thee, not fearing, we are prepared to undergo every destruction… Us, who wish thee well, and are desiring that it may befall thee, thou spoilest, proscribest, slayest with the sword, variously punishest, nor permittest the bodies which thou hast sanctioned to be mangled to be buried; thou forbiddest alms to be made; all mines, and all places, to be called exiles which were thought worthy, with our number of those resisting thy craft thou hast filled; relegating the innocent, with hunger, thirst, nakedness vexing thou dost not cease: and yet, most cruel Emperor, whatever thy savagery has inflicted on us and will inflict, observe that it is a lie: inasmuch as neither is death, by thee inflicted on the holy Martyrs who have preceded us, death, nor loss, nor damage, but of faith an interest…

[29] Remember, Constantius, of the recent memory of thy crimes, reproaching the cruelty exercised at Alexandria, which thou hast branded on thyself in the city of Alexandria, how many through precipices a single dye of thy writing cast down, how many it made to be cut down by the sword, how many to be consumed by hunger and thirst or killed in prisons, how many with breath intercepted it made to be strangled: and yet with all these cruelties when thou hast raged against the holy Martyrs, whom thy gladiatorial mind infected; against us thou ragest more cruelly, while thou retainest the sword, while thou givest effort that for a remedy the issue of death may not come more swiftly… We are waiting at every moment, that to those torments which thou hast already inflicted thou mayest still add, and glowing with the desire of martyrdom. appointing more savage executioners, more ferocious avengers, who the soldiers devoted to God … may either with the sword invade, or crucify, or roast with fire, or with whatever unheard kind of penalties mangle our bowels and members… It matters nothing by what kind of death thou deign to punish us, provided that through this to the life to be enjoyed we be admitted eternal; provided that through these thy rage be mortified, we on the contrary be vivified.

[30] If thou thinkest it wretched, that I would rather by any cruel torment for the Son of God be slain, I will give thee many who in their little beds more cruelly perish, whom some interior suppuration has swelled, or the pain of nerves struggling with themselves has contracted. It matters from what cause, not from what stake I hang. What sayest thou, most foolish King? Unjustly into these torments, into a penalty of this kind am I sent by thee, to whatever death he offers himself ready, or justly? If unjustly; the cross will be of thee fixing it, not of me whom thou hast fixed. If justly; my own fault of my crime, not thy penalty, will begin to torture me. But, as to the issue, it matters nothing whether by a nail through thee or by a lance I die; with hands restrained behind the back, or stretched and spread: it matters not whether prone, bent, or upright and erect, whether resting in a little bed thou slay me; or my neck to me standing thou cut with a sword, or with an axe take off my head; or to a stake me, or to a cross thou bind; with fire roast, or alive in the ground bury; from a rock cast down, or in the seas plunge; with a sliding device by great forces striving with one most vast blow far from me my head thou strike off, or with all subtler subtlety with an arrow longest fixing in my body thou play; a hundred thousand though of penalties thy cruelty should make, of all these, through that death inflicted by thee, alone to me shall come immortality.

[31] under the hope of future resurrection. I cannot but rejoice when thou hast inflicted such things, since I know, that these torments can end every torment. For those things which are extrinsic, and I judge can happen through thy savagery, I judge nothing pertain to me. Whether birds or dogs mangle my body; let beasts cling to my body, with these cruel eyes, thee looking on, let them leap upon me, lying on the ground let me by claws and teeth to the bones be reduced, provided that after all these to God I be safe. For when my body by such acts and the forces of thy beastly savagery thou hast consumed, the Founder of things will refashion and repair it; and indeed from the corrupt into eternal incorruptibility: but to thee, our most unjust persecutor, that punishment without end is to come thou oughtest to know; nor think thou wilt bear it unpunished, who hast judged the name of the only Son of God to be subjected to thy footsteps, impiously and nefariously to be trodden.

[32] These are the things by which Lucifer provoked the savagery of the tyrant, ceasing on himself alone, and the palm fleeing from the hands of the grasper he tried to attain; These books too Athanasius received, all which Athanasius to have received, when in his fourth exile, nearer the parts of Egypt, the Saint was dwelling, I am for this reason persuaded, because both the title of the last book, and the diabolical gnashings to be trodden, and other phrases occurring here I observe. But it pleases to ask with the Meaux Prelate the illustrator of these books, If anyone now of mortals of so holy a life and sacred Order existed, who with such words his Prince impious and lost should assail, as this worthy Confessor did, even into exile sent and relegated, what, I pray, would be said of him?

He calls him a serpent, a beast, a most monstrous wild animal, a robber, a sacrilegious man, a butcher, a homicide, and our age deservedly marvels. an idolater, a temple of demons, a subverter of religion, a heretic, an apostate, a forerunner of Antichrist, and even Antichrist himself: his edict of peace, which under the pretext of quieting tumults he had promulgated, he calls sacrilegious and pestiferous. The heretical whisperers, who flatter worldly Princes, striving to persuade them that they are Bishops of Bishops, as to this Emperor Constantius is had by these books to have happened, would clamor that such men today are at once to be afflicted with capital punishment; and would accuse of folly or simplicity the Princes who should suffer these things.

CHAPTER V.

On the Luciferian Schism, whether and how far the Saint was the cause of it?

[33] Constantius being dead, his successor Julian the Apostate, had indulged to the exiled Bishops a return; both because he desired all the acts of his predecessor overthrown, and especially because he hoped, by that means the dissensions among the Christians being increased, who on account of the heresy of Arius were miserably distracted, more easily ethnicism could be restored: the Church of Antioch divided which almost befell him according to his wish at Antioch. There, Constantius being yet alive, Meletius, Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, into the See, by the departure of Eudoxius the Arian and the death of St. Eustathius long ago relegated vacant, brought in by the Arians, not without the consent of the Catholics, of his orthodox faith sufficiently persuaded; soon as it openly appeared what he was, ejected by the same Arians he was, Euzoius the Arian being intruded in his place. That calamity, which especially ought to have united the Catholics among themselves, begot a schism among them: for some denied the ordination of Meletius to have been legitimate, through a schism of the Catholics among themselves, although Catholics, because it had been made by the Arians, and by their communion he himself seemed somewhat polluted; others more, partly by esteem of Meletius, partly by consciousness of past contamination, received no mention of abdicating Meletius: and both held their assemblies separately. In this state of things, returning from exile Lucifer came to Antioch, but sent his Deacon with St. Eusebius to Alexandria, to the Council of Confessors under Athanasius to be held, and its decrees in his name to be subscribed.

[34] What were the decrees of the Alexandrian Council concerning the reception of the lapsed, we have already seen in Athanasius: as for the people of Antioch, this especially was, while Lucifer tries to calm the disturbances, that Lucifer and his companions, intent on ordering that Church, should cultivate peace with those who held their assemblies in the Palaea, adhering to Meletius; and likewise with the others, who called themselves Eustathians, under Paulinus the Presbyter. Nor is there doubt that the Synod intended, that which was especially the counsel of Eusebius, that, if the Eustathians could not be induced to receive Meletius, another should be elected Bishop, in whom both parts should consent. But the over-hasty haste of Lucifer anticipated the good counsel, Paulinus being ordained Bishop; of which matter thus Jerome in the Chronicle, Eusebius and Lucifer return from exile: of whom Lucifer, Paulinus being ordained he increases them the more. two other Confessors being called (I believe Cymatius and Anatolius, named in the title of the Epistle to the people of Antioch in Athanasius) Paulinus, the Presbyter of Bishop Eustathius, who had never polluted himself with the communion of heretics, in the Catholic part of Antioch makes Bishop. That deed Eusebius coming from Alexandria could in no way approve: but meanwhile Meletius also returned from exile; and because the more numerous part of the people was with him, all the urban churches he obtained, except one little one, in which his assemblies Paulinus held.

[35] But this one because he had been ordained by Lucifer, his followers began to be called Luciferians by the followers of Meletius: which name a little after adhered to those alone, Hence it came, that the schismatics were called Luciferians, who more severe than the rest of the Paulinians, even after the concord between the parts entered on this condition, that each should retain its own Bishop, persisted in denying their communion to the Meletians, defending that they did this from the opinion and doctrine of St. Lucifer. But this procured for his name not a little envy, first indeed in the whole East, then also in the West, certain Bishops in Italy and Spain professing the same severity; certain even Roman Presbyters refusing Pope Damasus, and adhering to Ursicinus elected against him, as did those whom we have often cited Marcellinus and Faustinus. Therefore the little book of prayers, offered through them to the Emperors and namely to Theodosius, is to be read not without caution, on account of the grave calumnies against Damasus and certain other Catholic Bishops, whose deeds either are more invidiously traduced, or maliciously aggravated by adjoined deeds of the Arians, who feigned the Catholic faith only by external profession.

[36] As to the schism itself, all its foundations St. Jerome excellently subverts, whom St. Jerome confuted: proposing a Dialogue between Helladius the Luciferian and a certain Orthodox man: and he demonstrates, that by exactly the same right by which baptism conferred by the Arians was reckoned valid, valid also ought to be reckoned the Episcopal ordination made by the same: nor has one so ordained less right, that under profession of penitence and abjuration of heresy he retain his grade; than has a layman, so swearing and repenting, that he retain the name of Christian; unless the Church decree otherwise, as it decreed concerning the heads and masters of that heresy, whom from their place it was decreed at Alexandria to be moved. But when the same Jerome had narrated, how the matter was done at Ariminum; and how by the confession of Valens and Ursacius, in words catholic, in sense heretical, the Fathers were induced to subscribe, thus far most constant; how likewise the same, who without consciousness were carried as heretics, after the death of Constantius flocked to the Confessors returning from exile, asking peace and communion of them, and protesting by the body of the Lord and whatever is holy in the Church, that they had suspected nothing evil in their faith: these things, I say, when Jerome had set forth, he urges his cause thus.

[37] At this place I ask those over-religious men, what they think the Confessors should have done? They will say, The old Bishops being deposed, and that those professing the Catholic faith they should have ordained new ones. It was attempted. But how rarely does anyone well conscious to himself suffer himself to be deposed? especially when all the peoples, loving their Priests, almost to stones and to the slaying of those deposing them rushed. They should have remained, they say, within their own communion. This is to say, by irrational cruelty they should have given over the whole world to the devil. Why should they condemn those, who were not Arians? why should they rend the Church, remaining in concord of faith? why finally believing well, by their obstinacy make them Arians? For since in the Synod of Nicaea, ought not to have been deprived of their Bishoprics: which on account of the Arian perfidy was gathered, we know eight Arian Bishops were received … how could they act against that, for which they sustained exile? Therefore when at that time three hundred and more Bishops received a few men, whom without damage to the Church they could have cast off: I marvel that some, and certainly professors of the Nicene faith, exist of so great hardness, that three Confessors returning from exile they think did not for the salvation of the whole world necessarily have to do that, which so many and such men did willingly.

[38] But as we had begun to say, after the return of the Confessors, in the Alexandrian Synod afterwards it was established, and confesses that Lucifer was harsher in this part. that (the authors of heresy excepted, whom error could not excuse) the penitent should be associated to the Church. Not that they could be Bishops, who heretics had been: but that it should be established, that those who were received, were not heretics. To this opinion the West assented, and through so necessary a counsel from the jaws of Satan the world was rescued. What then Lucifer? We have come, says Jerome, to the most harsh place, in which, against my will and purpose, I am compelled concerning the blessed Lucifer, somewhat otherwise than both his merit and my humanity demands, to think. But what shall I do? Truth unbars the mouth, and the unwilling tongue the conscious breast impels to speak out. In such a crisis of the Church, in so great a rage of wolves, a few sheep being segregated, he deserted the rest of the flock: a good shepherd indeed himself, but leaving much prey to the beasts. I pass over those things, which certain of the slanderers as quite firm defend, that he did this from love of glory and of transmitting his name to posterity; and also from the rivalry, which against Eusebius on account of the Antiochene contention he had taken up. Nothing of these things of such a man do I believe: one thing there is, which in the present I will constantly speak; that in words he dissents from us, not in things; since he receives those, who from the Arians have obtained baptism.

[39] as indeed he was, yet without grave fault, Thus Jerome, doubtless acknowledging some fault, in that he, to whom by commission of the Alexandrian Synod, was enjoined the common with Eusebius burden of composing through the West the Churches; betook himself into his own Sardinia, caring thenceforth nothing about the rest, and within his own communion containing himself. But if after the Roman Church's definition he had done thus, as if he believed the communion of others so necessarily to be avoided, that alien from Christ would be whoever received it, or adhered to Bishops once with Arian communion in any way contaminated; assuredly he would not have been a good Pastor to his own people of Sardinia; but them by this means forbidding from holding the union of the whole remaining Church, a corruptor and seducer.

[40] Nor is there cause why to anyone the mind of Jerome more inclined toward Lucifer can be suspect, because his own Presbyteral ordination he received from Paulinus ordained through Lucifer: nay rather he deserves the greater faith, the more he could know the state of the whole controversy distinctly. or a formal schism: And so that he thinks, the Antiochene contention with Eusebius contributed nothing to that counsel of so withdrawing, is enough to reject the contrary opinion of Rufinus, Socrates and others. Yet from those very ones proposing it something is had, by which you may free Lucifer from the fault of a perfect schism: for thus has Rufinus, nor do the others disagree: Grieving the injury, that the Bishop ordained by him Eusebius had not received, neither does he himself think to receive the decrees of the Alexandrian Council: but he was bound by the bond of his own legate, who in the Council by his authority had subscribed: for he could not cast him off, because he held his authority (namely in writings of one having promised, as Socrates says book 3 chapter 7, for he had subscribed to the Alexandrian Synod through a legate, that he would be content with the decrees of the Council) but if he had received it, he saw all his undertaking to be frustrated, the people receiving Meletius. Long therefore and much deliberating, since by both parts he was concluded, he chose that, his legate being received, toward the rest a disparate sentence, but pleasing to himself, he should keep. Thus returned to the parts of Sardinia, as Rufinus speaks, nay even to subscribe to the Alexandrian decrees brought by Eusebius refusing; yet by neither deed did he merit to be accused of schism. For this indeed through a legate to have done was enough: but that if it made Lucifer guilty, as Rufinus, Socrates, and others seem to wish; nonetheless from Rufinus's relation guilty would be Eusebius: for he too, nor was he bound to relax his communion to whom he would not: finding at Antioch against the promise

and indignation departed, to neither part relaxing his communion. If that Eusebius then could do without grave fault, why not also Lucifer? yet less prudently toward all communicating with the once-lapsed Bishops, and by an example to some more rigid very noxious: since Hilary the Deacon of the Roman Church, who to Lucifer formerly had gone as Companion of the Legation to Constantius, would not even receive those baptized by the Arians, the same Jerome being witness, who therefore calls him the Deucalion of the world.

[41] But if those, who in the East were called Luciferians, could not defend their secession from the rest of the Church by the deed of Lucifer simply withdrawing himself, But his schismatics wrongly adduced his deed in their excuse: so much the less should they confess lawful, though not necessary, communion with the lapsed: much less right had others in the West, especially those who for Ursicinus against Damasus conflated a schism at Rome, of which then sharp defenders were Marcellinus and Faustinus the Presbyters. For if to the lapsed Bishops no regress to the former grade could be given, and Liberius lapsed could not be denied; how could that holy people, who kept the faith they had kept to Liberius in exile, also keep it to him returned? and by what right did they demand in place of Liberius dead to be ordained Ursicinus, polluted with the communion of the same Liberius? then how could they truly say, that Ephesius (whom in the year CCCLXXXVIII, when the little book was offered, they had as Bishop) was of an untainted people, the Roman one, ordained by Taorgius; if the same Liberius's communion had contaminated it?

[42] But the unhappy schism vanished gradually: for in the East indeed it was carried on only by a few, which though they vanished, when Rufinus wrote his history: but in the West the last memory of it is in the rescript of Theodosius, given under that year which we noted above in favor of the Luciferians, but by no means brought to effect; because the impostures of the lying little book, which I mentioned, had quickly become known to the Emperor. Not so vanished that mark, which fame sprinkled on Lucifer himself, founded in the name of Luciferians: which especially the credulous Theodoret book 3 chapter 5 dared to write, the infamy of the name adhered to St. Lucifer, that returned into Sardinia Lucifer, began a certain new doctrine to add to ecclesiastical doctrine: whence those who embraced it from his name drew their name, and were for a long space of time called Luciferians. Nor more mildly Sozomen, book 3 chapter 4 coming to the name of Lucifer, adds: who of a heresy of a certain kind, named from his name, the report is he was the author.

[43] even among some holy Fathers. I do not wish to refute these things more laboriously: it grieves me more that even among SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Severus Sulpitius that report so prevailed, that they believed Lucifer the author of a schism and almost of a heresy. And indeed Ambrose, in the oration on the death of his brother, speaking of that region to which the shipwrecked Satyrus had put in, says it was in schism, because Lucifer had divided himself from our communion at that time, although he had been exiled for the faith, and had left heirs of his faith. But Augustine, both in other places, and in the Epistle to Boniface the Count: This displeased Lucifer, because it was done in receiving and healing those who had perished by the Arian venom: and because it displeased, into darkness he fell, the light of truth being lost. Finally Severus Sulpitius book 2 Lucifer acting at Antioch, not only condemned those who at Ariminum had been, but also from their communion separated himself, who had received them under satisfaction and penitence. Nay even among the unskilled everywhere that the whole of Sardinia had envy conflated on it on Lucifer's account, Jerome indicates, when he brings in the Orthodox objecting to the Luciferian, that not for the Sardinians' sheepskin only the Son of God descended; and below, If the Church diffused through the whole world Christ has not, or if in Sardinia only He has, He is made too poor.

[44] But all these things seem founded in the name of Luciferians alone, nor is any writing or deed of Lucifer himself, after he returned into Sardinia, after he himself consenting to the Church returned into Sardinia, brought forward, by which it may be understood either that he favored those who were commonly called Luciferians, or that he admitted them before others to his communion, or that when he was at Rome he excluded Liberius, although miserably lapsed. Nay rather, since Socrates says he returned consenting to the Church, it must be held, that the Romans' sense and the whole West's consent being understood, not only his assent to their faith, but also to their communion he afforded: although I would not deny, that exasperated by his conceived against the lapsed bitterness, he afterwards acted and lived more abstractly, without the commerce of familiar letters with Athanasius and the other companions of the glorious confession, intent on caring for his one Church alone: by which his example it was prone that very many Sardinians, heirs left of his faith (as Ambrose speaks), after his death were dragged into the schism, which bore the name of an author so greatly to be venerated by them. Both certainly Ambrose seems to have understood; which first he being dead seems to have taken up the schism. for no one, unless dead, is said to have left heirs; and Satyrus not by report alone knew the schism, but called to him the Bishop of the place, to which he had been cast out, and inquired of him whether with the Bishops, that is with the Roman Church, he agreed: because in the schism of that region the Church was. But unless he had truly found that Bishop a schismatic, there would have been no occasion of deferring, which he so greatly desired, baptism; but Ambrose expressly affirms he deferred it when he says, that, although he feared not expiated to sail, debtor of his life saved in shipwreck; yet thither he preferred to pass, where he could safely only pay the vow. Fr. Ambrose of Tarentum thinks, not Lucifer of Cagliari, dead; but another of Smyrna to be understood by St. Ambrose, who when Satyrus made shipwreck (he made it moreover in the year CCCLXXIX according to the more certain Chronology of Hermant on the Life of Ambrose) was still living. But to one sailing from Liguria into Africa, how far out of the way is Smyrna, a city of Asia Minor on the Archipelago; so necessarily to be sailed past, met in the midst of the sea, was Sardinia, and so of it ought Ambrose to be understood.

[45] Many other things collected in St. Lucifer's excuse see in Ambrose Machin Archbishop of Cagliari, For the reconciliation of Lucifer in that work which he offered to Urban VIII in the year MDCXXXIX against the oppositions of the Archbishop of Turris, whose title is, A Defense of the Sanctity of Bl. Lucifer: who also from Baronius against Baronius himself assumes, that the same Lucifer together with Eusebius of Vercelli, in the 2nd year of Julian, and so after the Antiochene contention, labored in common to compose the disturbances of the Caesarean Church in Cappadocia, because Nazianzen in the Oration on the praises of Basil says, that there were present certain Bishops from the West, who drew all the orthodox to their parts. his legation into Cappadocia is supposed This argument is favored by this, that the Life of Eusebius taken from the Archive of Vercelli, is said to have the following words, and indeed as received from St. Honoratus his successor: St. Eusebius was present at and presided over the Council of Alexandria with Athanasius, and had four legations, one to Constantius with Lucifer the Sardinian, another with the same to the Synod of Alexandria, another after the Synod to the Eastern Churches, the fourth afterwards into the West. But those three he had with Lucifer, but that alone without any other companion. After the aforesaid Synod of Alexandria he traveled with Lucifer, and the Church of Caesarea they composed. Certainly after the account of the things done in the Synod was rendered at Rome: because, as Honoratus said in the aforecited life, both Legates bore with them the Acts of the Council, and into Latin translated them, and to Rome carried to Liberius, who confirmed and approved all things: but that whole was done, according to the same Acts, the visitation of the Eastern Churches being completed.

[46] These things if so certainly were Honoratus's own, as certainly under his authority they are brought forward; they would altogether evince, that not so abruptly, as Rufinus writes, with St. Eusebius, from Antioch into Sardinia withdrew Lucifer, the further care of procuring ecclesiastical quiet being dismissed; but the Roman Church's communion openly professed, to it still for some time he gave useful service; for how otherwise would he have been sent by it into Cappadocia? But that he was sent expressly says Nazianzen's Greek Commentator Nicetas in Billius on this place, from the city of Rome Lucifer and Eusebius to settle the matter were Sent to Caesarea; and the same manifestly holds Baronius at the year CCCLXII, in this alone differing from the aforecited Acts of St. Eusebius, that he would have the Saints make an excursion to Caesarea, before they returned to Rome. Still more to excuse Lucifer and the Cagliarians adhering to him it makes, if it is true what is related in the often-mentioned Acts of St. Eusebius, that when he visited the second time Jerusalem, and there found by revelation three images of the Blessed Virgin of wood … the third he carried into Sardinia his country Cagliari; where the house, in which he was born, he consecrated a church in honor of his mother and St. Restituta called it … and in the same church he placed the image, which today still remains in that city, God doing through it many miracles. For whether he did this accompanying Lucifer returning thither, him following not much after into Sardinia. as Ambrose of Tarentum strives to persuade, they must then have been in Communion concordant; or from another occasion somewhat after, yet he seems to have done it Lucifer living, inasmuch as him by not much more than one year he survived, with martyrdom crowned on the Kalends of August, in the year as Baronius judges CCCLXXI; and so persevering in the same communion Lucifer we must of necessity suppose. But who would believe, Eusebius returned that he began to act more harshly, and those whom hitherto he had borne as professors of Catholic union, from his own and his people's communion repelled?

CHAPTER VI.

The miracles of St. Lucifer: his death and ancient cult in the Diocese of Cagliari.

[47] By the same less favorable report, by which Sardinia on account of Lucifer labored, labored also Celtiberia on account of Gregory of Illiberis; If St. Gregory of Illiberis is believed to have laid aside his hardness, and that more true, if there is any truth underlying those things which of him write Marcellinus and Faustinus. For that there a certain schismatic pertinacity flourished, neither does Baronius deny, and that same in the same with Sardinia grade places the Orthodox in Jerome, thus insulting the Luciferian, Lo, if the Britains, the Gauls, the East, the people of the Indians, the barbarous nations, and the whole world at once Satan possesses, how to a corner of the whole earth are the trophies of the Cross brought? Forsooth the powerful adversary granted to Christ Iberia and the Celtiberians: he disdained to possess pale men and a poor province. And yet Baronius at the year 371 number 125 thus speaks: Further Gregory is believed afterwards restored to a saner mind, and that hard austerity to have bent into the rectitude of Catholic observance: for by the praises of certain orthodox he is held celebrated. why not also Lucifer? Nay even he did not doubt to insert the same into the Roman Martyrology on the XXIV

of April, by the old example of Usuard and the more recent one of some others. Why therefore did he not with the same indulgence presume of Lucifer, what to be presumed his constant cult among the Sardinians persuaded even to this present day, and before Gregory's cult among the Celtiberians far more celebrated?

[48] The right mind indeed of Lucifer, nor alien from the unity of the Catholic Church, even then when still recent was the sense of the injury, which he seemed to himself at Antioch to have suffered, God seems to have approved by a notable miracle, according to his prediction wrought, which thus narrate Marcellinus and Faustinus. who returning from exile to the invader of another's See The holy man Maximus the Bishop, vindicating the right faith, and reproving the consortium of heretics, was led into exile. In his place the prevaricators ordain one by name Zosimus, who himself too before indeed vindicated Catholic things. This matter in Naples a city of Campania was done. This learns St. Maximus, and from exile writing gives sentence against him, not only by Episcopal authority, but also by emulation and virtue of martyrdom enjoyed for the divine glory. But after some years Bl. Lucifer, from the fourth exile going to Rome, entered Naples of Campania, to whom Zosimus attempted to come: but him Lucifer the Confessor would not receive, not ignorant of what he had done; he predicts a divine vengeance, nay even with the fervor of the Holy Spirit, the sentence of the Bishop and Martyr most strongly he executes, saying, that the Episcopate itself, which he claims for himself as an adulterer, by a special judgment of God he shall not have, and thus too he shall feel the penalty of his impiety.

[49] But after not much time the same Zosimus, when in the assembly of the people he wishes to discharge the offices of a Priest, amid the very Priestly words his tongue is stretched out, nor can he recall it within the passage of the mouth, because against the manner of nature outside the mouth it hung as to a panting ox. which also miraculously followed. But when he saw he had lost the office of his tongue, he goes out of the basilica: and, marvelous thing! outside again into office the tongue was recalled. And at first indeed it is not understood that on him is fulfilled the sentence of the Martyr Maximus and the Confessor Lucifer: but when this very thing he suffers so often again, as often as into the basilica on diverse days he attempted to enter; he himself at last recognized, that for this to him the tongue amid the Pontifical solemn words was denied, that he might prove the sentence of the holy Bishops upon him pronounced. Finally he yielded the Episcopate, that the tongue which had yielded might be restored. We do not relate ancient things, which are wont in some way to come into doubt: for both Zosimus today is in the body, the use of his tongue no longer losing, after he preferred with the loss of his Episcopate to live, grieving for his impieties. Thus they, wrongly twisting the very miracle to the confirmation of their schism; whereas Lucifer predicted the penalty of Zosimus, not because after his lapse he persevered to hold the Episcopate under the title of penitence, but because an adulterer occupied it, he was, not called Maximus, but Zosimus. St. Maximus being yet alive ordained, as Auxentius of Milan St. Dionysius being alive; whence not even after the death of SS. Maximus and Dionysius were they ever for legitimate acknowledged. He is venerated St. Maximus, Bishop Martyr, at Naples on June XI, Chioccarello being witness; whose name for the name of Zosimus, by a certain slip of pen or memory, when it had crept upon Baronius at the year 362 number 219, so that with the alleged authority of Marcellinus he should write, that Lucifer abhorred the communion of Maximus, who had been substituted in the place of Zosimus; Chioccarello took occasion of feigning to himself two Maximuses, one a Saint relegated by the Arians, the other by the same intruded: which from the very words of Marcellinus and Faustinus are corrected. There remains meanwhile both by that miracle proved the sanctity of Lucifer, and by the divine miracles, which in Sardinia he is said to have wrought, certainly after the exiles, of which above.

[50] Under Julian the Prince returned to Cagliari Lucifer, Valentinian reigning died, St. Lucifer died in the year, not 390, says Jerome in the book on Writers: whose words slightly altering Platina in Liberius, He dies, he says, under Valentinian the Prince. Hence Fara book 1 on the affairs of the Sardinians, In the year, he says, CCCXC, Valentinian reigning, Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari died, Platina and Jerome being witnesses: as if for certain placing that Valentinian the Younger by those was noted, and from his own brain assuming his XVII year. After Fara, nothing further inquiring Dimas Serpi in the Chronicle of the Saints of Sardinia book 2 chapter 30, and Seraphinus Esquirrus in the Sanctuary of Cagliari book 2 chapter 1, note the same year. And Dimas indeed, when by mere license of conjecturing he had said, that St. Satyrus the brother of D. Ambrose, shipwreck being made at the island of Sardinia, for the extinction of the schism in vain with Lucifer labored; by the same license with which at chapter 25 he had invented, that by Julius the Pope was ordained Lucifer; here he notes him ordained in the year CCCXLIII; nor does he doubt, but that God revealed to him the hour of his death; and so it is permitted himself he thinks to narrate those deeds and sayings, which it was congruous that one should do and say, who of his dissolution was thus forewarned.

[51] But these things omitted, which after so many centuries first heard deservedly are despised, as dreams of a sick head, but 370, if we consult Jerome in the Chronicle (which we wonder by those authors was not even looked at) the death of Lucifer we shall find by him related to the year VII of Valentinian the Elder, of Christ CCCLXX, where he has this: Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari dies, who with Gregory of Spain, and Philo of Libya, never mixed himself with the Arian depravity. That for honor's sake the holy Doctor here inculcates this, I doubt not at all. Meanwhile he is convicted of erring Rufinus, while as if wishing to excuse Lucifer, in the 9th year after his exile. he supposes, that immediately from his return into Sardinia prevented by death, he had no time for changing his sentence, by whose space rashly begun things are wont to be corrected. For surviving entire nine years, he cannot be said prevented by death. But because, before and after it, with so great miracles among his own he shone, that constantly he was held for a Saint; it must altogether be presumed that he changed, if anything necessarily to be changed he had, that in perfect charity he might be found by the Lord, with whom not even faith transferring mountains could alone have justified. Yet Natalis Alexander, among the heads of ecclesiastical history discussed by him century 4 article 13, when he had asked, whether Lucifer outside the bosom and unity of the Church died, altogether answers affirmatively. But besides the things already said and abundantly confuted he urges nothing else, than Jerome's silence: who, he says, if he had thought Lucifer to have recovered from the schism, and into the Church's bosom returned, on account of the alienation kept to the last ought to have urged his penitence and retraction, by which nothing could he have brought forth more luminous to the condemnation of the Luciferians, against whom he was acting. But to the argument of the perpetual cult of Lucifer among the Cagliarians, he says; That individual Churches in these matters can err … especially since there exist Saints of the same name whom the Clergy and people, ignorant of ecclesiastical matters, incautiously confound: further from the notice of the African Church it is established that another Lucifer existed afterwards, likewise Bishop of Cagliari, celebrated among those holy Bishops, who to defend the Catholic faith, to Carthage in Hunneric's time came. But I have already freely confessed, perhaps liable to a venial fault as St. Paschasius. that Lucifer so went into Sardinia, that to the Romans and Italian Catholics it was not sufficiently established with what mind he was toward their union; nor afterwards was anything announced thence whereby they might be made secure concerning him. Nor would I deny, that on account of a certain alienation from those, from whom he had long dissented, perhaps kept to the last breath, such yet as did not exceed the measure of a venial fault, that he could suffer this after death, which St. Paschasius the Deacon suffered, commemorated by St. Gregory, and into the Martyrology Roman related on the XXXI of May: who Laurentius chosen by himself as Pontiff preferring to Symmachus, the true Pontiff by the Church declared, in his own opinion even to the day of his exit persisted; but he was seen by miracles divinely to be honored in his body, when his soul stuck in the purgatorial penalty, by the prayers of him to whom he appeared to be freed. For because not by malice but by error of ignorance he had sinned (which also of Lucifer one may say, in whom not malice, but a zeal of faith less discreet deserved punishment) he could be purged after death of his sins; and that notwithstanding he deserved to be venerated as a Saint; as also is honored St. Lucifer: in whose reverence very many Sardinians willingly imposed his name on their sons thereafter, as was done in the second Bishop of that appellation of Cagliari, of whom besides the name and a simple presence at Carthage nothing is known: so that gratuitously we are bidden to suppose this is he whose bones were found and with miracles honored anew.

[53] The day of his death no one of the ancients expressed: only one, The day of his death uncertain. and that of more recent fabric (as below we shall show) Epitaph, notes that he rested on the XX of May: on which day since his feast is now kept by the Sardinians, after the finding of the body and the uncovering of the Epitaphs is established from a miracle, which below we relate at number 83, the same day for us to be held we have thought, in relating here his Acts, although Fr. Ambrose of Tarentum in a letter notes the day 11 of May, as to the Sardinians a feast-day in memory of St. Lucifer: Ferrarius on the XVIII of January related, in the general Catalogue of Saints, the tablets of the church of Cagliari being alleged, by which, he says, on this day he is especially venerated, a temple to him long ago built. Who taught Ferrarius this I know not: below we shall see it objected to the Cagliarians, that before the finding of the sacred body they had no day of the year dedicated to the cult of St. Lucifer: and he himself published his Catalogue in the second year after the said finding. The ancient cult is proved by several churches in Sardinia under his name: of which the most ancient one is near Cagliari, Baronius understanding a church dedicated to him in Sardinia, between the city and the church of St. Saturninus. Of this when Cardinal Baronius had learned, who at the year 362 had reprehended John Arca, that he had placed Lucifer among the Saints; he promised that of his unhappy end he would change his opinion, as also in a similar case he revoked what of Faustus of Riez in Narbonese Gaul the Bishop he had said, after he learned that the Gallican Martyrology had always retained him among the Saints, he changed his opinion. and in his memory once a basilica erected signalized with the title of his name. Thus Baronius's abridger Spondanus, in the repeated edition of his Epitome at Paris, indicating the place of Baronius on Faustus in the Appendix to the earlier tomes published after tome 10 at the year 490, and adding that much more solicitously it would have done the most modest writer, if those documents afterwards brought to Rome of the old cult and of the finding of the body he could have seen.

[54] An ichnography of that temple, such as before the restoration

of the roof it was seen, There is a temple near Cagliari most ancient, expressed in bronze the Cagliarian Archbishop exhibits; and suggests from the old Acts of St. Luxorius the Martyr, to be read in Boninus Mombritius and in this work on August XXI to be illustrated, the place, where the Christians are said to have buried SS. Cisillus and Camerinus the boys Martyrs, where now is the See (perhaps to be read church) of St. Lucifer the Confessor. A second temple to this is found between the towns of Pirri and Selargius; likewise three others in the diocese, a third near the towns of S. Vito and Muravera; in the Sardinian tongue called Santu Luxudu, which is the same as in Latin Saint Lucifer: a fourth near the town of Sardili, of the Cagliarian diocese, as writes the aforesaid Archbishop, likewise representing the form of each on bronze tablets. Of these tablets one offers to be seen a most ancient image, depicted on the tablet of the high altar of the temple of St. Lucifer of the town of Selargus: in which variously subdivided, the middle and higher place thus occupies the image of the Mother of God, with an ancient image on the altar, contemplating her son standing on her maternal knee, so that toward the horn of the Gospel is seen depicted in Archiepiscopal habit sitting the Saint, with a luminous head, extending his left hand to the neck of a little girl, standing with joined hands and as it were demanding health.

[55] All these things to contain so much the more certain proof thinks Coriolanus in the Chronological Breviary, without any contradiction for so many centuries. at the year 362 refuting the first censure of Baronius, that the City of Cagliari from itself gave to the Roman Church two holy Pontiffs, namely Hilary in the year CCCCLXI, and Symmachus in the year CCCCXCVIII created (that these were at least Sardinians is established) and that St. Gregory in the year DXCIV sent Felix the Bishop and Cyriacus the Abbot as Legates into Sardinia, for the conversion of the Barbaricini, who finding the chief church of that island uncultivated by the negligence of the Pastor, for correcting abuses received a mandate: in which, says Machin, if any sin had been about the cult of Lucifer, both these and those would have taken care to reform it; nor would D. Fulgentius have tolerated it and several others more than two hundred Bishops, for the faith's sake relegated into Sardinia, and long dwelling at Cagliari.

[56] The same ancient writers call a Saint, Deservedly therefore we too of St. Lucifer to treat have proposed to ourselves, following the example of Hermann Contractus, who about the year MXL flourished, and in the same manner as of the death of other Saints, of his at the year CCCLXIX wrote, Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari, a man very Catholic, dies. The first Bishop also of Chalon, in the Topography of the Saints of Christ the Martyrs in the year MCCCC, at the word Cagliari, the name of Lucifer, on account of the Nicene faith an exile, added to the names of the holy Martyrs of Cagliari. Peter de Natalibus Bishop of Equilio, nearly three hundred years ago treating of St. Lucifer the Bishop book 11 chapter 88, somewhat more largely explained proposes the words of Jerome from the book on writers. I am silent about Bellarmine, Bosius, and the other writers of this century, not without an encomium of sanctity having spoken of Lucifer. What that the Church of Vercelli, at first Vespers for the feast of St. Ambrose, according to the Breviary printed at Venice in the year MDIV, him also as a Saint to be invoked instituted thus singing: Then the Counts of the Palace by force snatched away the Prelates, and the old Breviary of Vercelli, Eusebius, Dionysius, with them also Lucifer. These we earnestly entreat, taken for the name of Christ, By the sacred merits of hymns, may we enjoy the joys of Heaven. The authority of this hymn although at some time Baronius strove to elevate, and for his sake Ferrerius Bishop of Vercelli judged it apocryphal; yet rightly the Archbishop of Cagliari, part 3 chapter 31 defending the antiquity of the same, demonstrates, that by no means it was among the apocrypha, which Cardinal Guido willed to be expunged. More recent than what I related above, is Alexander Natalis's conjecture concerning St. Lucifer II: who in the Vandalic persecution a Confessor under Hunneric at Carthage, in the year CCCCLXXXIII or the following, was one of those whom Victor Vitensis numbers at four hundred sixty-six, of whom eighty-eight under the very tyrant's sight he says died. Concerning Lucifer the 2nd's sanctity an empty conjecture. More recent, I say, that conjecture, rests wholly on presumptions merely gratuitous; namely that that Lucifer II was not among the dead, that he returned to his Church, that in the same he was buried, that finally by the faithful he was honored as a Saint. But these things so without any proof assumed do not suffice, that anyone be asserted to have been a cult among the Saints; much less can they suffice to affirm, that into his place crept upon the faithful the cult of another, of an age indeed far prior, yet of such honor unworthy.

CHAPTER VII.

On the subterranean church of St. Lucifer, found in the year MDCXV.

[57] The author of the Sanctuary of Cagliari Seraphinus Esquirrus the Capuchin, after he treated in the whole first book of the suburban Basilica of St. Saturninus, under Constantine the Great according to the opinion received anciently built, and in the year MCCCCLXXXVII by Archbishop Peter Pilares restored; after he also set forth what there, the digging begun under Archbishop Francis Esquivel, Those repurging the basilica of St. Saturninus and the crypts, was found from October of the year MDCXIV, until September of the following year; in book 2 begins to treat of the church of St. Lucifer near it, whose very memory had almost worn away. It happened, he says, that while in scrutinizing the floor of the aforesaid Basilica attention is given, by those passing to and fro there were observed at a stone's throw some traces of an ancient building. This when it had been signified at once to the Archiepiscopal Vicar Francis Martis, and he had conferred the matter with Canon Melchior Fensa and Doctor Gaspar Soler; all alike went into the field near the said Basilica; there appears not far off part of a certain chapel, where under a certain branchy fig tree they saw the upper part of a certain chapel, which on one side uncovered still preserved indications of worn paintings. The owner of that field is therefore called: who being asked whether he knew what that was, answered that some years had elapsed, since there coming a certain man from overseas, said, that in that place a great treasure of the Church lay hidden: that therefore he began to dig under that fig tree: but when besides a sepulchre, containing human bones, he had found nothing, he desisted from the work: nor from that time either he or any other had dared there to move anything.

[58] This indication received, considering the Vicar and his companions, that it might be that in this place stood the church of St. Lucifer, in the life of St. Luxorius commemorated; he consulted the Archbishop, then dwelling at St. Pantaleon's: and by his mandate, the prayers of pious and religious persons being asked, on the day XIV of January MDCXV, which scrutinizing the aforesaid fig being rooted up, there was found a subterranean chapel, seventeen palms wide, twelve high, vaulted with a fornix, of large and old bricks compacted, whose walls had once been painted, but in the damp place was taken away the distinction of colors and figures. The pavement, made after the manner of a Reliquary, contained nine sepulchral monuments; but at the head of the chapel there was neither an altar, nor an indication of an altar; only was seen there a stone tomb, eleven palms long, four wide, having a stone lid with two steps: they find it to be a burial-place of Saints, and above those in the same wall a hollowed-out niche contained a statue of the Blessed Virgin of white marble, but on either side was seen another niche, smaller than the middle one: all the remaining burials were of brick, except one, which at the side of the epistle joined to the wall, also was of stone: above which two smaller little tombs. That these were of the holy boys Cesellius and Camerinus, after St. Luxorius slain, persuaded a fragment of marble, still containing the letters CESEL; and the very shrine of St. Luxorius found at the entrance of the chapel, namely of St. Luxorius and the 2 boys. which adorned with elegant mosaic contained no small part of an epitaph and of the holy name. The same persuasion confirmed two little statues boyish of marble, found in the chapel, which it was credible had once occupied the aforementioned smaller niches: as on August XXI more largely we shall explain. The whole pavement further, of mosaic work of tesserae and elegant it seemed to have been, but by the damp of the place and of the fig standing above, so corrupted were the titles which had been inscribed, that nothing could be read.

[58] Informed of the finding of this so handsome chapel the Duke of Gandia, on the next Sunday the XVII of January was present, with a notable retinue of Nobles and Canons: before whom was opened the tomb, the tomb found there without a title, the chief, was not St. Lucifer's. which was under the middle niche, and in it were found bones of a human body sweetly fragrant; which reverently drawn out, although no title appeared in the shrine, yet it seemed to most that it was the very body of St. Lucifer … But the Archbishop, in a matter of so great moment not wishing from conjecture to define anything; the very bones, which of some Saint he deservedly presumed to be, within a little chest to be collected, and together with other Saints' unnamed Relics to be kept, and into the Sanctuary to be carried mandated; he did not however suffer the finding to be published: but for greater certainty divinely to be obtained, he judged that prayers were to be urged more laboriously. Prudently indeed: for there was found after a few years what was sought. Meanwhile it helps to hear from Esquirrus, by what reason or with what success progress in the pious work was made: for that book 2 chapter 14 he thus continues to narrate.

[59] After the happy finding of the aforesaid chapel, it was begun to labor in clearing the whole rest of the crypt, the inhabitants of the suburb being ordered to spend effort on this matter, which is called Villa-nova: who in bands daily, as was prescribed for them, and each in his own order, gathering, all the earth was carried out; and there was found a place of moderate amplitude, The place is described thirty-eight long, thirty-four palms wide, without any windows, because made for the bodies of Saints alone to be laid up, not but with a kindled light could it be approached. But it was furnished with thirteen chapels: of which three at the head of the church, four on either side in the sides; then at the entrance or door on this and that side single ones. The greatest of all is that, and its thirteen chapels, which above we described, in the very head of the church the middle one; the rest only eight palms wide; but each is covered with its own arched fornix, but each fornix is sustained by four columns, on this and that side two each, of a decent altogether and congruous work. Further in each chapel, in place of an altar which there was none, were numbered five burials, placed one above another: but the pavement of the rest of the crypt was wholly distinguished with sepulchres, mostly three in one line, almost after the manner of a Reliquary, which of large and hard little bricks consisted, with mosaic work adorned, as also the whole pavement; both in the church and the chapels, five as said sepulchres numbering. The titles of the sepulchres all of mosaic likewise work and of the same form were composed, but scarcely any longer could be read, on account of those causes which I mentioned, and the sepulchres in them and under the pavement found. nor by probable conjecture even attained, except in the names of SS. Luxorius, Juvenal and Boniface. But the defect

of this they supplied the marble titles, in the very sepulchres afterwards found.

[60] These things thus set forth, Esquirrus undertakes to explain the destruction of the sacred places by the Saracens; and imputes to them, that into this subterranean little church or crypt having entered, From this place under the earth long hidden, for the cause of scrutinizing treasures, first indeed they demolished the sepulchres, which had been placed on either side of the chapel in the front of the crypt; where digging even to the solid ground when they had found nothing, also in the other chapels certain sepulchres they scattered, the bones strewn over the pavement: which, because they were not doubted to be of Saints, were joined to the Relics elsewhere before this without name found: but so much earth above the whole crypt they heaped up, that nothing of it any more appeared, than that scanty particle, of which above we made mention, and by whose indication the place began to be recognized: and now there appears a mere field, which is sown yearly, and now also (that is in the year MDCXXIII when Esquirrus wrote) is planted with oats.

[61] How not well this whole ruin is imputed to the Saracens, from the things to be said below will appear. Now let us proceed with Esquirrus: who when in book 2 chapter 15 he had treated of the sepulchre found before the chapel, a passage found into another crypt, on the side or part of the Epistle the third; and then in chapter 18 had said, that it was not wholly closed with a wall, but in part appeared passable, that it might afford a passage into another neighboring crypt; of this other crypt thus he has chapter 39. The second crypt, similarly as the first, full was of heaped earth, which when it had been carried out, it appeared itself a little smaller than the first: for equally as this it has one greater chapel in the middle of the front, on either side it numbers only five chapels, that is in all eleven, while the other has in all thirteen. But when around the greater chapel it was dug, in which eleven chapels on the day X of October there was found a certain marble title, broken on both sides, so that its lines were on both sides mutilated, and near it was found a notable shrine of most beautiful marble, six palms long, two and a half wide, and gracefully sculptured.

[62] The sculpture because it seemed to deserve it, Dionysius Bonfant in the Triumph of the Saints of Sardinia page 263 represents expressed in bronze, and a notable marble shrine, in that form, that in the middle appears as it were a round mirror standing on an elegantly turned base, embracing a half effigy down to the girdle of a venerable old man, with shaved beard, bare head, comely habit, on whom from the shoulders a double jeweled collar with a pectoral necklace flows down: on either side reclines a great and maned lion; and two winged and naked genii, as if flying up, with both hands the effigy itself hold: but on either side stand as many naked men, bald in front, with beard hanging on the breast, and on a trident which they hold in one hand leaning, plainly as Neptune is wont to be painted. Therefore since no indication of Christianity appears in the whole carving, transferred from profane to sacred uses: deservedly thou mayest suspect, this to be one of those shrines, which left from heathendom, to better uses the piety of later Christians transferred. Of which thing examples also at Rome it is permitted to see, and namely in the suburban basilica of St. Agnes, a porphyry shrine of stupendous mass, which the ignorant crowd, on account of the subject cut around its sides everywhere, calls the sepulchre of Bacchus; whereas it is likely it was conveyed thither by Constantia the daughter of Constantine, that either in so precious and almost inestimable a vessel and one doubtless of an older work, though sculptured with profane figures, her body might be laid; or from its notable magnificence some splendor might be procured for the sacred place; since in that age so great was the rarity of skilled sculptors, as the monuments of the Constantinian age prove. Which I have therefore said, lest the bones laid up within, which show a boy was buried together with a man of perfect age, I should seem by this my observation to have detracted anything, whereby the less they can be of Saints.

[83] Not far from that second crypt, there was uncovered another, there was found finally a third crypt, having a round Presbytery, or Tribune: whose fornix since it alone equaled the level of the superincumbent earth, gave the appearance of a furnace lying hidden beneath; which what it was when more certainly to explore the Lord Vicar wished, he ordered it to be dug within: and the earth being dug out, there appeared, as I said, a tribune, to which cohered the rest of the church. Thus Esquirrus chapter 40 in passing to mark its dimensions; but from the ichnography which exhibits Archbishop Machin, though most unskillfully engraved, it appears that the church, with walls running forth on either side, by a third part almost is wider than the tribune itself, but in length twice equals the width; and into it there was a twin entrance, which now with a roof imposed is the church of St. Lucifer, one from the side of the Gospel for those coming from the city, the other in front turned to the Tribune for those coming from the basilica of St. Saturninus. But to the Tribune alone had remained its fornix, the rest of the part the roof removed, and the fornix if any there was collapsed lying open, was so filled with earth, that of the walls no indications appeared: but now those same walls being raised into a greater perhaps height and the earth cleared away a roof imposed, renders the form of a not great church, such as today under the name of St. Lucifer perseveres, together with the two aforementioned crypts, which all together likely lay under one greater temple built above.

[64] What in the front part many under the pavement lay hidden sepulchres, and were believed to be of Saints, under whose tribune, three sepulchres, not yet were uncovered when Esquirrus wrote: and so he only narrates, how in the very Tribune three sepulchres were found; of which one quite large, of little bricks made, was covered with a black marble tablet: but because it was too delicate, without breaking it could not be taken off. But empty of bones the shrine, and filled only with heaped earth, adhered to the wall, separating the Tribune from the rest of the church. At the side of the Epistle stood another sepulchre, full of many bones brought from elsewhere, and in one of these of a certain Vincentius and covered with a lid of marble and solid, but without a title: but strewn through the Tribune lay many fragments of titles, of which no sense could be made whole. But in the middle there was found a stone shrine, very well wrought, and in it all the bones of a human body, and above two fragments of marble titles, whence these letters seemed to remain, which title that it could be read entire HERE LIES B. M. VINCENTIUS not unlike the truth a conjecture since it seemed, there was drawn forth thence that body, as of with the Archbishop assisting, the Duke of Gandia, the Bishop of Bosa, the aforementioned Vicar, many Canons, and the very author of the book the Capuchin.

[65] Here in the remaining work then up to book 5, he sets forth the findings of other crypts around and within the basilica of St. Saturninus, until October of the year MDCXXI: [which as of a Martyr in the year 1624 is translated with others into a new sacrarium.] but in book 5 and the same last, he describes the Sanctuary, under the Metropolitan church, adorned notably by Archbishop Esquivel, and the order and pomp of translating thither the relics on the day XXVII of November of the year MDCXVIII. And so is finished the first part of the work: the second, which of St. Saturninus's finding and the sepulchres found in the Luciferian church was to treat, never came to light. It is indeed that work of a judgment not so well filed, that for a fastidious Reader it fully satisfies; not only because all, whose bodies were found and translated, he makes Cagliarians; which is by no means likely but also, because from fragments of titles eliciting some sense or other, presently histories he forms for himself, of which he can bring forward no author than himself. Yet because he accurately explains the success of the inquiries, and the circumstances of places and times, it seems to be desired that also the second part had come forth in a like style. For he who after him wrote, Dionysius Bonfant, those things which in Esquirrus are more approved, almost omitted; and in inventing histories much more largely indulged his genius; daring even by the order of times and persecutions to digest the Martyrs, and under what tyrant each one suffered to define, which seems to have been of extreme temerity. But in what manner further the very body of St. Lucifer was found, the following public instrument will disclose.

CHAPTER VIII.

The finding of the body of St. Lucifer in the year MDCXXI.

[66] In the name of the most holy Trinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Persons and one only true God, who lives and reigns ever and without end, and to the honor and glory of the Virgin St. Mary our Lady, On the 19th of June the Vicar general of the Archbishop of Cagliari, and of the blessed and glorious St. Lucifer Archbishop of Cagliari, Primate of Sardinia and Corsica, the light and mirror and defender of the holy Roman Church, and of all the other Saints male and female of the holy Cagliarian Church. Be it known to all, who shall see, hear, and read this writing and public instrument, in judgment and out of it, how on this Monday, the XIX of the present month of June, of the year one thousand DCXXIII, in Indiction VI, of the Pontificate of our Holy Father Gregory Pope XV the III year, the most invincible King reigning our Lord Philip IV; when the most Reverend Don Sebastian Carta, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Madaura, of the Council of the King our Lord, Canon of the holy Metropolitan and Primatial church of Cagliari, and in spiritual matters Vicar general of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Don Francis Esquivel, by the grace of God and the holy Apostolic See Archbishop of Cagliari, Bishop of the Unions, Primate of Sardinia and Corsica, Gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church, Prior of St. Saturninus, Lord of the Baronies of Suelli and St. Pantaleon and the island of St. Antiochus, with one Consul Witnesses and a Notary, and Royal Counsellor, together with the Excellent and Magnificent Doctor John Carnicer, First Consul in order in the present year of the Magnificent city of Cagliari, and Assessor of the Royal patrimony for his Majesty; and in the presence of the Venerable John Barrai, Maurus Serra, and eleven others, and Gaspar Sirigu, Notary and Secretary of the Curia and table of Cagliari, and of many others, had betaken himself into the place and site, they come to the church of St. Lucifer: in which in past years was found the body of the glorious St. Vincent the Martyr: which indeed site, is in one of the chapels of the subterranean church of the glorious St. Lucifer Archbishop of Cagliari, situated in the appendage of Villa-nova, distant by a stone's throw about from the Basilica of St. Saturninus.

[67] And when it had been ordered to be dug in the said Chapel, in the presence of his most Reverend Lordship and of the other Witnesses and the Secretary; after two hours and a half, where the earth being dug there is found an epitaph, from which it had been begun to be dug, there was found what is commonly called un traspol of ancient lime, of a thickness of nearly three fingers, under which was uncovered a certain epitaph or inscription, sculptured in a certain white marble stone, of two palms

a little less, but of a width of one palm, and of a thickness of two fingers, broken into four parts or fragments of diverse magnitude, which was broken through the inconsideration of those digging; which indeed epitaph or inscription is of the following tenor.

HERE LIES B. M. LUCIFER

ARCHBISHOP OF CAGLIARI,

PRIMATE OF SARDINIA AND CORSICA,

LIGHT AND DEFENDER OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH,

WHO LIVED EIGHTY-ONE YEARS. K. ON THE DAY XX OF MAY.

[68] To this inscription was prefixed on the right side the following sign. with some signs, Below on the same side was sculptured a two-headed Eagle, crowned from head to head, with wings, feet, tail spread, as now the Imperial Eagles are expressed, and likewise toward the left the Monogram of Christ. Of this inscription treating the Archbishop of Cagliari Fr. Ambrose Machin, in the defense of his Primacy page 61, judges it was an Epitaph most ancient, made at the time of the burial or translation of the body of St. Lucifer; persuaded both by the antiquity of the marble and the inscription, of whose antiquity the contenders enormously disagree, and because there is not found in it the year, in which it was made or carved. On the contrary the Archbishop of Turris, in his opposition against the Sanctity and cult of St. Lucifer, which to the defense is prefixed, contends, that the aforesaid inscription is supposititious, to supplant the people, and them to allure to the adoration of Lucifer. This is indeed a temerarious presumption; especially if it be intended, that the supposition was made, at the time of this, of which we treat, finding; nor does it appear what moment it could have to persuade the cult. Wherefore if anything were to be presumed of a less right intention of anyone, among whom a middle way is more certain. rather it ought to be presumed it was intended, that the Primacy of Cagliari be affirmed, which the Archbishop of Turris and the Arborenses lately strove to weaken. But who would judge the intention of one whose sole arbiter is God? Of the thing itself I say, either all faith is to be denied to public and sworn acts or this instrument is to be believed, that all things were administered without fraud, and that long before the refoundation narrated in that place lay hidden such an inscription. But of this below more: now I proceed with the relation of the begun refoundation.

[69] And continuing in the digging the whole day, perpendicularly under the place in which had been the title or inscription, under it is found an older mosaic: nearly eight palms below, in the evening was uncovered what is commonly called un traspol, by way of a roof or covering of a sepulchre, wrought with mosaic work of diverse colors. And since it was very late, and no longer could be labored, it was ordered the said mosaic work to be covered with a certain mat, until the following day. On Tuesday, the twentieth of the aforesaid month and year, without anyone having approached the said mosaic work, it was cleaned, and all the earth drawn out, which existed in the said chapel: and in this the whole day was consumed.

[70] and on the 21st before the Vicar, the Viceroy, the Consuls, and 40 Witnesses, But on the following Wednesday, the twenty-first of the aforesaid month and year, on which day the most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Cagliari, since he was not fully well, ordered and mandated the said most Reverend Bishop of Madaura his Vicar general, that he should betake himself to the said church of St. Lucifer, that he might see what lay hidden or was under the said mosaic work, as above uncovered: and therefore in the evening with the assistance and presence of the most Illustrious and most Excellent D. John Vives, the Viceroy Lieutenant and Captain general for his Majesty in the present kingdom; the Noble Don Francis Pacheco, Regent of the royal Chancery in this kingdom for his Majesty; the Magnificent Consuls of the same city in order the first, fourth, and fifth, Doctor John Carnicer, Monserrat Vacca, and Martin Saba (I omit forty-two consequently named, whom as Canons, whom as Religious, whom as Seculars to recount) and very many others … In whose and the undersigned Notaries' presence, was removed the earth, which was above the said mosaic work, and with water cleaned, that the letters which in it had remained might be well read; and some were straightened.

[71] Which seen by his Excellency and by the other witnesses and Notaries, it was mandated that they should transcribe and extract faithfully the letters, the letters that remained in the Mosaic being described, which could be read and could from the said mosaic work: and that upon those and upon all others to be found they should make the necessary instruments. In execution of which, the said mosaic work seen and recognized, on account of its great antiquity, both because the work was in its corners broken, they could not extract, except the following letters.

LIVED YEARS S III D XVII CE F. MAIAS

[72] And the said characters being transcribed and extracted, as has been said, his Excellency by the wish of the said most Reverend these and the sepulchre being broken up, Lord Bishop, desiring exceedingly to come to the end and total conclusion of the said business, both mandated the said mosaic work to be annihilated and the characters. Which annihilated and broken, below, after the distance of one palm and a half, was uncovered a certain sepulchre, of bricks and lime made in the likeness of a shrine, covered with stones, composed with most ancient and most strong lime. And after the half of the said sepulchre was uncovered, there was found a certain fragment of ancient marble in a triangular form, almost in the breast of the holy body existing. there appears among the bones of the body a name sculptured on a tablet: In which marble was sculptured a cross, with some characters or letters, clear and distinct, and they are those which follow.

[73] And as soon as the said letters were read, the said most Excellent Viceroy, on bended knees, with his own hands took the aforesaid marble; and with great devotion and tenderness of heart kissed it, and to his own eyes applied it. And the same did the said most Reverend Bishop and all the other bystanders, which all kissed, through the hands of D. the Doctor and Canon, the said Doctor Perella. And afterwards these things were signified to the most Illustrious Lord Archbishop, to whom was transmitted the aforesaid Epitaph, through the means of the Canon Didacus Fadda. And as soon as his most Illustrious and most Reverend Lordship saw it, he ordered the bells to be rung in the manner of festivity and joy, both namely of the Cathedral church, and of the parish ones, monasteries and churches of the whole present city, in thanksgiving and singular gladness and jubilation, on account of the peculiar and singular favor with increase received from the hand of the Most High, they publish the finding. on account of His singular piety and clemency, and on account of the singular benefit conferred on this his city of Cagliari, decorating it with the holy body of that Prelate so notable, and most keen defender of the holy Catholic faith, the glorious and blessed St. Lucifer, Archbishop of Cagliari: whose holy body was straightway ordered to be drawn out of the sepulchre.

[74] And since for a thousand years and more had been buried his sacred bones, on account of the inclemency of the time to which they had been exposed, they could not be drawn out whole, but in fragments, both namely the head, and the ribs and the bones of the shoulder, and other bones of the said holy body: which were placed in a certain shrine, covered with silk gausape of crimson color, with gilded little nails: the Relics they translate into a new shrine, which shrine to this effect sent D. the Archbishop. And after the whole holy body was placed in the said shrine, it, with a key locked, was with guards deposited in the basilica of St. Saturninus, until there should be ordered and prepared a certain most solemn pomp and procession, to translate with it and bring up the glorious St. Lucifer, to his Cathedral church and spouse.

[75] but this they place in the church of St. Saturninus. And the deposit of the said shrine being made in the aforesaid basilica of St. Saturninus, the said most Reverend Bishop and the Magnificent Consuls of the aforesaid city, required us the undersigned Scribes and Notaries, that to them we should give faith and testimony of all things, which had been done and had preceded in the finding of the body of the glorious St. Lucifer, in the manner and form aforesaid. All which were done before us the undersigned Scribes, and the witnesses above named, on the said days, month and year. Sig † num of me Ferdinand Sabater, Notary and Secretary, Lieutenant general of this kingdom of Sardinia, who in the premises through a substitute was present, and being required closed it.

Sig † num of me Gaspar Sirigu, by Apostolic authority through the whole world Notary public, and the Act they sign through the Notaries. and of the Curia and the Archiepiscopal table of Cagliari Secretary, who together with my Connotaries was present, and by another pen caused it to be written, being asked, required, closed and signed it.

Sig † num of me Peter Piu by Royal authority …

Sig † num of John Antiochus Corona, by the Apostolic and Royal authorities …

Sig † num of Anthony Aleu of Cagliari, by the same authorities …

[76] Adds further the Archbishop Machin, that for the greater corroboration of so great a finding, The Archbishop being lawfully informed, the most Illustrious D. Don Francis de Esquivel, then Archbishop of Cagliari, ordered a juridical information to be received from all the Witnesses, who in it were present: as was received: in which both the most Illustrious Viceroy, and all the others related in the preceding instrument, by means of an oath testified, that in the aforesaid finding of the Relics of St. Lucifer they had personally been present, and all things which in the aforesaid instrument are narrated with their own eyes had seen. Several also of them testified to an immemorial tradition and veneration toward the sanctity of Bl. Lucifer, as also a most ancient temple dedicated to his name, as largely in the aforesaid information is contained: which, in perpetual memory of so great a thing, in the Curia of Cagliari is kept.

[77] Moreover, after the Relics were found of the glorious doctor and defender of the Catholic Church St. Lucifer, once Archbishop of Cagliari, after consultation of the Theologians, on the day XXI of the month of June of the year MDCXIII, the Archbishop of Cagliari D. Francis de Esquivel, that in a better manner he might observe the disposition of the sacred Council of Trent, Session 25 on the Relics of the Saints; gathered the Theologians on the day XXIII of the same in his Palace. In which congregation there intervened with his most Illustrious Lordship D. Vincent Bachallar Bishop of Bosa, and other qualified Theologians nineteen, again below severally subscribed. To whom set forth D. the Archbishop, how the relics had been found and the body of the glorious St. Lucifer, declaring the manner of the finding, and to all ocularly showed the epitaphs and the inscriptions found: the first namely into four divided fragments… and the second which is in a triangular form… And that he himself the most Illustrious D. Archbishop desired to know, whether without difficulty to the people could be exposed the Relics of the said Saint, that they might be adored. And he asked that all, as Theologians, should disclose to him their judgment and vote.

[78] And beginning with D. the Bishop of Bosa, all followed in the order, in which as above they are described: and they concluded, none dissenting, that his most Illustrious from their consent he decrees the Relics are to be exposed, Lordship, not only ought, but

also was bound to expose to the people the said Relics, as Relics of an ancient Saint, and very well deserving of the whole Catholic Church; since the Most High had granted to himself that he should find them, after a thousand and three hundred years, from which this Saint from this mortal life to the immortal and heavenly had flown, full of glorious victories and trophies, obtained from the heretical Arians and from the Emperor Constantius, the great favorer of them. I omit the subscriptions of each one, and the attestation of the Notary Gaspar Sirigu, confirmed by the subscription of four other Notaries, of his authority making faith. Before which I would prefer that I could here add something of the day and solemnity of the translation designated above. He mentions the Translation, but very lightly, Ambrose of Tarentum, after the sense of the aforesaid Epitaphs somehow explained, subjoining these things: Those marbles were laid up in the chapel of the Sanctuary, The Epitaphs he sets up in the sacrarium. where the holy body rests: and there are kept in testimony of most certain sanctity. But laid up there they are by the aforepraised Lord Esquivel under this title: These Epitaphs, carved with most ancient characters, of which the greater near the church and tomb of St. Lucifer Archbishop of Cagliari, the lesser above his breast found, drawn out of the bowels of the earth, in memory of so great a most firm testimony, are made public to the World, are set up to the Saint, are consecrated to God.

CHAPTER IX.

A list of the sworn Witnesses, and first concerning the revelation about the body to be found made to Fr. Francis Hortola S.J.

[79] Very Reverend Lord, the Vicar General (was this Doctor Dominic Marti, Canon of Cagliari) the Venerable Fiscal Promoter (called Rogier) of the Curia and Archiepiscopal Table of Cagliari, At the instance of the Fiscal Promoter 26 Witnesses are heard, to this end that more amply or more evidently it may be established of the sanctity of the glorious St. Lucifer Archbishop of Cagliari, beseeches your Paternity, that it would deign to mandate for future memory of the matter, an information to be received in and upon the following articles. Upon which the Witnesses being cited, on the day XX of the month of September, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord MDCXXXVII.

I. On the day XXIII, John Baptist Asquer, Merchant of Genoa, domiciled in the present city and castle of Cagliari, of an age, as he said, of LV years a little more or less, 1637, on the 23rd of September. a witness cited and by a previous oath of telling the truth, of what he shall know and be interrogated, in and upon the articles presented by the Venerable Promoter, they being read and published, upon the IV and last.

II. Fr. Alphonsus Melso, held a Knight of St. John, and Lieutenant of the Prefect of the militia, called Maestro de campo, in the present Kingdom, of an age, as he said, of XXXVIII years more or less, upon the IV and last.

III. Augustine Marti, Merchant of Genoa, inhabitant of the present city of Cagliari … of about XXXII years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

IV. On the day XXV, in the college of the Holy Cross of the Society of Jesus, Rev. Fr. Augustine Castagna, a Professed Religious of the same Society of Jesus of the present city, 25 September. of LXXII years, his breast touched in the Priestly manner, and by means of a license which he obtained from the very Rev. Fr. Provincial his Superior, upon the I, II, IV and last.

V. Rev. Fr. John Murtas, Professed Religious of the Society of Jesus, and Qualificator of the holy Office, of about LVII years, upon the I, II, IV and last.

VI. Rev. Fr. John Bapt. Crespo, Professed Priest S.J., of an age of XLV years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

VII. On the day XXVI, Rev. Fr. Saturninus Ursena, Professed S.J. Master in sacred Theology of the present city and of that Kingdom of studies, 26 September. and Qualificator of the holy Office, of LXVII years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

VIII. Rev. Fr. Julian Melis, Professed S.J. Master of sacred Theology in the same city, and also Qualificator of the holy Office, of L years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

IX. Rev. Fr. Salvator Mereu, Professed and Preacher S.J. of L years, upon the II, III, IV and last.

28 September. X. On the day XXVIII, Rev. Fr. John Cuy, Professed S.J., Master of sacred Theology, and Qualificator of the holy Office, of an age of XLVIII years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

XI. Rev. Fr. Andrew Sanna, Professed S.J. primary Professor of sacred Theology in the University of the present city of Cagliari, of XLIII years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

XII. Rev. Fr. Stephen Natter, Professed S.J. Professor of Mathematics of the University, of XLV years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

XIII. On the day I of October, in the Convent of St. Dominic of Villa-nova in the city of Cagliari, I of October. Rev. Fr. Thomas Pitzalis, Prior of the said Convent, Presentee in Theology and Preacher General, of LIV years, upon the I, II, III, IV and last.

XIV. Rev. Fr. Thomas Canavera, of the Order of St. Dominic, primary Lector of Theology in the said Convent, of XXXII years, by the faculty and license which he had from the very Rev. Fr. Vicar general of the said Convent, upon the IV and last.

2 of October. XV. On the day II of the aforesaid month, in the convent of St. Augustine of the said city of Cagliari, Rev. Fr. Michael de la Rosa, Presentee of sacred Theology in the convent of the glorious St. Augustine, of XXIV years, the faculty and license preceding which he had from the very Rev. Fr. Provincial of the said Convent, upon the IV and last.

XVI. Rev. Fr. Angelus Serra, absolved Provincial of the Convent and Brothers of the glorious St. Augustine, of XLVI years, upon the IV and last.

XVII. Rev. Fr. Peter Macarello, Presentee in sacred Theology of the Order of St. Augustine, of an age of XXVIII years, upon the IV and last.

XVIII. In the convent of St. Anthony of Padua, of the Order of the Capuchins of this city, on the same day, Rev. Fr. Jerome Boy, Preacher of the Order of Capuchins and today Administrator of the convent of the town of Sanluri, of LV years, the license and faculty preceding to him granted by the very Rev. Fr. Guardian his Superior, upon the V and last.

XIX. Rev. Fr. Peter of Cagliari, formerly Benedict, Preacher and Guardian of the Rev. Fr. Capuchins of the present city, of LXI years, upon the V and last.

XX. In the city of Cagliari, Doctor Anthony Galcerinus, Doctor of Medicine and Protomedicus, of XL years, upon the V and last.

XXI. Augustine Esgrechio, citizen and Secretary of the Royal Praetorium, of XL years, upon the V and last.

XXII. Doctor Bartholomew Segui, of XLV years, upon the V and last.

XXIII. Jerome Airaldo, of LXVII years, upon the V and last.

XXIV. Mary Airaldo, of XXXIV years, upon the V and last.

XXV. P. Fr. Andrew of Cagliari or Esgrechio, of the Order of Capuchins, and today Administrator of the Convent of Novi-oppidum de quarto, of LV years, upon the V and last.

XXVI. James Jancardo, Merchant of Genoa, inhabitant of the city of Cagliari, of XLV years, upon the I, II, IV and last.

[80] All these as has been said appearing, by Januarius Isquirru, Porter of the ecclesiastical Curia, were read out the articles upon which each was to be heard, and which the aforesaid Vicar General Doctor Dominic Marti had declared were to be received: [who affirm that Fr. Francis Hortola indicated the place where the body of St. Lucifer was to be found,] namely, First, that before the body and the sacred Relics of the glorious St. Lucifer Archbishop of Cagliari were found, the late Fr. Francis Hortola, sprung from the present city and by heavenly light and a prophetic spirit said, that if they should seek in the place to be indicated by himself, they would find the sacred Relics of the glorious St. Lucifer, as in effect they were found, in the same place or part by the same Fr. Hortola indicated. To this article said Witness III and XXVI, that this from many worthy of faith he understood. Witness VI, said that he knew, because with the same Fr. Hortola he conversed for many years, and dwelt in the same Society. Witness X, because he heard it said from the proper mouth of the said late Fr. Hortola. Witness XI, that he heard it said from Rev. Fr. Salvator Pala, to whom the said Fr. Hortola had indicated the said place, in which the said Relics were to be found. Witness XII, that he heard it said from the very Fr. Hortola. Witness XIII, that it was a public voice and report through the whole city. Witness IV, that very often from the common people and populace he understood, and from the very Religious of the said Society of Jesus.

[81] and also that that Brother is commonly held a Saint, Secondly the aforesaid Promoter puts, that the said Fr. Hortola during all the time of his life was a Religious, much observant and exemplary commonly, not only in this city of Cagliari, but also in the whole Kingdom; and both at the time when he lived among men, and after he migrated from this light, he was held and reputed for a holy Religious. Witness IV said he knew this, because he experienced or treated diverse times his conscience, and especially in the last general Confession, which was of his whole life; and also because he breathed out his soul in his hands, with many demonstrations of grace, confidence, and hope, which in God he had. Adds Witness V, that on the day on which he died, if there had not been guards, whom D. the Viceroy, who at that time was ruling, had deputed, who strongly resisted; his body would not have been buried, on account of the multitude of the people, who came thither, to the effect of taking the Relics of the garment with which he was clothed. Witness IX said he knew, because with the same one he practiced several years; and because he saw that from God our Lord he obtained very many graces.

[82] Thirdly he puts, that it is the common opinion and public report in the whole city and Kingdom, that the aforesaid Fr. Francis Hortola very often foresaw the findings of several bodies of Saints, and that he likewise indicated other hidden bodies of Saints, with heavenly revelations which he had, not only in churches and places seen by himself, but also in parts in which he himself had never been: and after he disclosed the place in which the said bodies were to be found, in effect they were found: as happened in the Relics of the aforesaid glorious St. Lucifer, of the glorious St. Saturninus, and of the glorious Martyr St. Antiochus of Sulci. To the article in general, and first of all of St. Lucifer's body, attest all those asked: of St. Saturninus by name made mention Witnesses III, IV, VII, VIII, XII: of St. Antiochus, Witnesses III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, XII. Witness V also mentioned St. Ephisius and St. Restituta.

[83] But Witness X said, that twelve or thirteen years ago, and namely the body of St. Sophia. when he himself the Witness was sick already confessed and communicated, there came to his cell

the said late Fr. Hortola: who when he had asked of the very Witness how he fared; the Witness himself answered that he was quite glad, because he was about to set out to enjoy God our Lord before him. Who by that very fact answered, that he was not to die of that infirmity, and that he himself was to die first. And while the premises were being said, the said Fr. Hortola, said, that in the church of the glorious St. Sophia there was a certain treasure hidden in the said church, which is situated in the town of Aritzo. And when the very Witness asked of him what it was; the said Fr. Hortola answered, that it was the glorious body of the said St. Sophia, which was laid up in the said church, indicating the part or place. Miraculous thing! Since it was a place, in which the said Fr. Hortola never had been; afterwards it happened that, some years having elapsed, when the very Witness had now recovered his former health, when he had set out to the said town of Aritzo, and on a certain day had gone for the sake of recreation together with many others, and was in the church of the said glorious St. Sophia; there came to his mind what had said to him the said Fr. Hortola. And when he had executed what to him he had said; in the very place by the said Brother indicated to him, without any difficulty, he found the body of the glorious St. Sophia. The same from this Witness's mouth he says he heard, Witness XI.

[84] Of St. Restituta, the mother of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, treated it ought to have been according to the custom of the Sardinians on the XVII of this Month; who indeed are these? which there omitted, in the Appendix we shall supply, of SS. Saturninus and Antiochus about to treat on October XXX and December XIII: but when of St. Sophia? It is indeed wonderful, that not even her name in John Arca or Dimas Serpi is found, when even a church under her name she is said to have had. Dionysius Bonfant I less wonder of her to have been silent: for although the general title of his book seems to regard all the Saints of Sardinia, yet he scarcely treats of others than Cagliarians. While therefore those are silent, let it be permitted me from neighboring Sicily some light to borrow. There is in the diocese of Syracuse the town of Sortino, about XVI thousand paces distant from the sea, or the Patroness of the people of Sortino in Sicily? whose inhabitants from old custom, about the year MDCXXXVIII by the privilege of Paul III confirmed, worship as Patroness St. Sophia Virgin and Martyr: but they have no Life, except what from popular tradition wrote a certain man not many centuries ago, and with a style changed published Octavius Cajetan; in which she is said to have been the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople, who taught the Christian faith secretly, in a cave near the town of Sortino for some time lay hidden, and at length to her heathen father drawn back, accomplished Martyrdom about the year of the Lord CCIII. In this narration that much of the fabulous underlies, who does not see? Cajetan twists himself every way, and confesses he explains nothing. What if the daughter of some Sardinian Petty-king, fled into neighboring Sicily, whence drawn back and made a Martyr when the people of Sortino had learned, they too began to hold in veneration the cave which by her presence she had decorated, consecrating to her the day December XXIII on which perhaps they had heard she was venerated; but by the celebrated report of the Constantinopolitan basilica under that name deceived, persuaded themselves, that she was their guest's church and country?

[85] Further Fr. Francis Hortola died on December XX of the year MDCXXIII: whose Life, illustrious with miracles before and after his death, at large describes Antiochus Carta; In the Life of Fr. Hortola but this into an epitome in Spanish reduced our John Eusebius Nieremberg tome 2 of the Illustrious Men of the Society; and as an example of our temporal Coadjutors, together with the lives and elogia of several others of the same Profession, into Flemish rendered Francis L'hermite, when of this house of Antwerp he acted as Provost, of this our work not commonly deserving. In §. 5 of that epitome are touched the favors, divinely offered to that holy Brother, concerning the revelation of the Holy Relics; and both of those, whom we mentioned, it is narrated, how he indicated their bodies; and also it is explained, how the aforenamed P. John Cuy, the same matter is narrated. in the year MDCXXIV during the Paschal feasts at Aritzo on a mission acting, according to the custom of our Society, and having entered a country church most ancient, and from habitations remote, recollected what was said to him by Fr. Francis, that under the fornix of the high altar were contained Relics of the Saints. And so he, with the good favor of the Bishop of Oristano, to whose jurisdiction the place pertains, with a large retinue returned thither; and the fornix being broken found a heap of sacred bones, which sent forth from themselves a most sweet odor, and were of the holy Virgins and Martyrs Sophia, Cecilia, and Anastasia, the added titles signified. Would that with the same diligence, but greater simplicity, than the Cagliarians, the rest of the Sardinians too would give in public, what in this kind among them was done: for both those things which among the Cagliarians are now obscure to us or doubtful, something of greater clarity and certainty perhaps could receive from them.

[86] Besides the revelation to Brother Hortola, as we saw, made, others too relates the Archbishop Machin, It is revealed to a pious matron at Valencia in Spain, of the Luciferian Defense chapter 38, which to this place to insert I thought opportune. At Valencia in the noble city there dwelt certain matrons, famous for sanctity, endowed with virtues, given to continual prayer. To these the omnipotent God, who to pure minds communicates secrets, St. Lucifer's exceptional sanctity and glory revealed. Of whom one, after long prayer and a divine (as we piously believe) revelation, to Rev. P. Antiochus Carta, a Religious professed of the Society of Jesus, of the Professed House of Valencia Vice-provost, and once of the College of Cagliari Rector, said (as he himself in his letters, with his own hand written and signed, attested) that St. Lucifer, Bishop of the city of Cagliari, among the Patriarchs an honorific place holds, with great glory and heavenly honor crowned. Which revelation to another not unlike but consonant, which of the same Bl. Lucifer's sanctity and glory had a certain Nun, and the Abbess of the Order of St. Clare in the Iglesias monastery of the Order of St. Clare a most worthy Abbess, by name Sister Angela Maria Serra, twenty years before the aforesaid finding; as by an oath confirmed Rev. P. Julian Melis of the Society of Jesus, of the holy Inquisition Qualificator, and once in this general University of Sardinia of sacred Theology primary Professor: to whom, among other secrets of her conscience, this she revealed. To this Nun (who as in life religiously lived, shone with virtues and example, so in death happily died, with the report of sanctimony, the name, and the omen of future glory) among other revelations, with which the divine Spirit refreshed her mind, illustrated her mind, endowed her soul, made partaker of divine things, consort of heavenly ones, He manifested, D. Lucifer numbered in the glorious choir of Patriarchs and Pontiffs: that St. Lucifer is in the glory of the Patriarchs. which revelation to the former faith adds. And these revelations together taken, although not yet by the authority of the Church confirmed, yet approved by the authority of persons worthy of faith, of St. Lucifer testify the glory, his sanctity confirm and proclaim…

CHAPTER X.

The miracles of St. Lucifer, proved by sworn testimonies.

[87] The cause begun in the preceding Chapter urging the Promoter Fiscal; and coming to the miracles, by which God the sanctity of Bl. Lucifer even in this century seems anew to have confirmed, When the island labored with a huge drought fourthly puts that in the present year MDCXXXVII, when the weather had been wonderfully dry, and when there was to be a huge sterility in the seeds of the city of Cagliari, and of the places of the head of the said city pertaining to its Archbishopric, and also in the city of Sassari and in the district of the same Archbishopric; and there had been lacking for the space of several months the necessary rains; many processions and prayers being made to placate the wrath of God, to this end that He might provide us with convenient rain; seeing that nonetheless the drought persevered in the said city of Cagliari, on the day XV of the month of May of the present year, was made a most general procession: in which was brought out the most devout and miraculous image of the most holy Crucifix, which is in the parish of St. James of the said city (which is not wont to be brought out except in urgent great necessity, and for many years before then had not been brought out) there intervening a great concourse of people of both sexes and condition, prayers being indicted at the Cathedral church, and also intervening the more illustrious and nobler of the city. And placing the most holy Crucifix upon the high altar of the Primatial church of Cagliari, was made a certain most devout Octave each day with preaching. And when it was the day, on which is wont to be celebrated the festivity of the glorious St. Lucifer, which is celebrated on the day XX of the month of May, it happened that from first Vespers of the said festivity the weather began to change; and on the day of the aforesaid Saint, on the very day of St. Lucifer during a sermon on his praises, at the time when the preacher ascended to the pulpit, when he wished to begin the sermon to publish the praises of the said Saint, was made so copious a rain, in such wise that there appeared a wonderful flood. Which rain by those present in the said church was held for miraculous; and that the most holy Crucifix with it succored the aforesaid urgent necessity, in the said places of the aforesaid Archbishopric of Cagliari, on account of the merits of the glorious St. Lucifer; signifying how greatly He esteemed that the festivity of the said Saint should be venerated and commemorated; because He succored, on the day on which was celebrated the festivity of the same Saint, the great necessity of the seeds: whose harvest was such, that it is held necessary, a copious rain is obtained. not only for the sustenance of the towns of the city of Cagliari, but also to succor the necessities of the city of Sassari and the places of its Archbishopric. Witness III, equally as the rest confirming all these things who was present, adds, that the preacher was compelled to desist from the sermon for a great space of time, on account of the noise caused by the people: the same assert Witnesses XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, and XXVI. Witness VI names the Preacher, Fr. Michael della Rosa of the Order of St. Augustine; and adds, that he understood from persons worthy of faith, that the said water was general and through the whole Kingdom, and was a universal remedy of the gathering of the crops; because if otherwise, all the seeds perished.

[88] Fifthly he puts, that in the year MDCXXV, when there was found P. Fr. Andrew Esgrechio the Capuchin in the convent of the present city, a Capuchin sick unto death laboring with fevers and by the physicians despaired of, and for two days tormented in mind or agonizing without speech, and receiving no nourishment, except a little which through the mouth was sent in; it happened that, when P. Fr. Jerome Boy the Capuchin had betaken himself to see him; hearing that the physicians said he was to die within two hours, by the greatest commiseration led, perceiving that no human remedy helped, he had recourse to the divine. Who drawing out a certain Relic of the glorious St. Lucifer, which he carried,

placed it upon the said agonizing man, and to him said: P. Fr. Esgrechio, this is the hour in which thou oughtest to have greater faith and hope in God, who will bestow on thee health of body, on account of the merits of the glorious St. Lucifer, at the touch of the Relic he convalesces, of whom this is a Relic. Then the said sick man, when speak he could not, made the action which the said P. Boy dictated to him; he turned or raised his eyes to heaven, and from that very moment recovered health, and the fever departed from that very moment. Which by the sick man himself and others who saw him, and knew the said event, was held for a miracle, wrought through the intercession of the aforesaid St. Lucifer.

[89] Witness XX, namely the physician himself, adds, that on a certain day, at the time of the prayer of the first night, with the admiration of the physicians, he said to the Fathers Capuchins there present, that they should have care of him, because between the ninth and tenth hour of the night he was to commute his life with death; and with that very deliberation the very Witness betook himself to the city of Cagliari, himself thinking with himself, that on the following day he was to find him already dead. And the premises being done, the next day in the morning, from the said Convent of Capuchins they called him, to this end that he should come to the said convent: and to him they said, that the said P. Fr. Andrew was better. And when the very Witness had betaken himself thither, they told him or set forth the event: and how as soon as to the said sick man they had carried the Relics of the glorious St. Lucifer, he had been better, in such wise that ever from day to day he persevered in the recovery of health, and afterwards altogether was freed from the said infirmity: and, as says Witness XXI, to this present day still he lives. But Witness XXII also himself a physician, in the disease and convalescence called in, adds, that for impossible he held it, and of the sick man himself. that he could live according to the rules of medicine. Finally P. Andrew himself Witness XXV said, that he very well remembers, that there came to him P. Jerome … and as soon as he heard the words which the said Father said to him, he felt in himself great gladness and joy, and immediately had strength to raise his head and to kiss the said holy Relic, and from that very moment began to recover health and was freed from the fever.

[90] Jerome Airaldo, Witness XXIII, said, that that which she knows upon the things contained in the V article is, likewise a dying girl that about three years ago when a certain daughter of the Witness herself, whose name was Mary Airaldo, had another of her daughters sick fourteen or fifteen days, who was called Catherine Gamboys, in such wise that she ate nor drank anything in the month of August, as she can remember, whom they held already for dead: and when to her had carried John Baptist Airaldo, the kinsman of the said her daughter, a certain relic of the glorious St. Lucifer: which when the sick girl had kissed; by that very fact, all delay and dilation being postponed, she recovered full health; and in that very instant asked for food (miraculous thing!) since for fourteen or fifteen days she had not eaten nor drunk (except pounded food, at the kissing of them: which was made by the order of the apothecaries) as adds Mary, the mother of the sick girl, Witness XXIV: who also subjoins, that in effect they had an egg prepared for the same, and she ate it: and after two or three hours rose from her bed, sound and safe, just as if she had never been sick.

[91] Sixthly he puts for the present, that all the premises are true, and of them there is a public voice and report (and in this all agreed) which articles he beseeches to be admitted (as we have said was done) by ordering the Notary that he deliver a copy to the appearing one, which also was delivered on the day XXIV of November by Gaspar Sirigu, subscribing himself and affixing his Notarial sign. After these things at length according as each one deposed, extended, is added this clause in the printed text: There are also several other signs and miracles, which the Lord did and daily does, to declare the sanctity and glory of His servant Bl. Lucifer of Cagliari, of which the informations juridically made are extant in the Cagliarian Archiepiscopal Curia, which, lest we be tedious to readers, of set purpose we omit. Such was what happened to Fr. John Baptist Silvanus, of the Order of the most holy Virgin of Mount Carmel, by country of Sassari. He dwelling at Cagliari had fallen into a grave disease, a Carmelite vowing a Mass in honor of the Saint, on the very day of the feast of St. Lucifer, perhaps on account of his incredulity of his sanctity. Admonished in such a crisis by the monks of his Convent, that with great faith and confidence he should implore the divine help, by the intercession and merits of St. Lucifer, to whom he should commend himself from heart and soul; wonderful thing! as soon as assenting to so salutary admonitions he did this, and commended himself to Bl. Lucifer; promising, if he should come forth obtaining his vow, he is freed from the fever; that he would visit his sepulchre, and in his chapel and altar a Mass perform; suddenly from the disease and fever miraculously freed, he fulfilled the vow; and at his sarcophagus, for so great a benefit received, to God and Bl. Lucifer, with exultation and tears, gave thanks; as the same testified and with his own hand subscribed, as in the Acts.

[92] Like is what happened to a certain honest woman of Lapola of Cagliari, by name Lucretia de Pietro and Serra, who with great pains of childbirth already for three days was tortured; she is helped dangerously giving birth, and when in no way she could bring forth the fetus, of her life was despaired. In such a crisis placed, Bl. Lucifer with her whole heart she invoked; promising if from the imminent peril of death he should free her, the name of St. Lucifer on the son to be born she would impose. Then upon her womb a Relic of Bl. Lucifer was for her imposed: at whose touch, in the same instant wonderfully delivered, and from all peril both her own and the fetus's freed. A certain noble matron also, and a little one placed in extremity. called Dona Magdalena Abrich, had a little son sucking: who oppressed with a grave disease for six days now scarcely the breasts of the nurse [not] sucked. It happened that on the day of the Vigil of St. Lucifer at Vespers she heard the sound of the bells of this Metropolitan Primatial church, which for so great a feast solemnly were rung. Having inquired the cause of the ringing, when it had been answered to her, that it was made on account of the solemnity of the feast of St. Lucifer, with great affection and devotion of mind, the boy and his health and life, to St. Lucifer's prayers she commended. Wonderful and stupendous thing! At once after the parent's prayer the boy, beyond all hope, applied his lips to the breasts, sucked, and suddenly was healed in that hour.

[93] These things added at the foot of the Process, and with the order only changed also in the Italian commentary of Ambrose of Tarentum explained, we have willingly related, with the same readiness about to relate the rest, Indulgences granted in honor of St. Lucifer. if anyone those things drawn from the Archives with us would deign to communicate, either in the following Tome at the end to be added, or in a Supplement some time to be exhibited. Meanwhile, from chapter 38 of the Luciferian Defense, have for the proof of the legitimate cult in the Cagliarian church also the following. There have not been lacking of the Apostolic See and the Sovereign Pontiff special graces and favors, to augment the faithful's devotion toward Bl. Lucifer, his sanctity at the same time attesting. Inasmuch as by blessed memory Paul V for seven years were decreed and granted Indulgences to all the faithful of Christ, visiting the temple of St. Lucifer, on the day and feast of the most holy Trinity, of which mystery against the Arians he was always a most keen vindicator. A Brief, on the day XIV of July MDCXIIII issued for the church of St. Lucifer of the place of Selargius, for the first and last year a plenary of all sins Indulgence grants; but for the other five intermediate ones seven years and as many quarantines, of the enjoined or otherwise in any way owed penances, in the form customary of the Church, relaxes. Several similar graces, for the churches and chapels or altars of St. Lucifer obtained, asserts in letters to our Bolland given in the year MDCXLIV, P. Didacus Carnicer, of our Society we understand: but he adds that the sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition in the year MDCXLI issued a decree for St. Lucifer, imposing on the slanderers silence under grave penalties, and decreeing his cult in the state in which it is to remain.

[94] a feast-day indicted to the whole kingdom: There are also extant printed images of Bl. Lucifer, says in the already cited chapter 38 the Archbishop Machin, at Rome with the license of superiors, both in the time of Paul V and of our Lord Urban VIII now happily reigning, with a diadem and the title of Saint … We add also the canonization and veneration of Bl. Lucifer, not only in the Cagliarian diocese to have flourished and to flourish, but also in the whole kingdom of Sardinia. For in that whole and in all its royal Courts the day of Bl. Lucifer is a feast, as is established from the catalogue of feast-days of the whole year, by order of the royal Audience printed. the church restored at public expense. It is established also from the general Councils of the whole kingdom, held by the Marquis de Bayona: in which, by the suffrages of the Treaters of the whole Parliament, were designated five hundred pounds of Sardinian money for the repair of the temple of Bl. Lucifer, in which his most holy Relics were found: as in the Acts of the said Parliament.

CHAPTER XI.

On the titles, found in the digging up of the bones of St. Lucifer.

[95] This last chapter I begin from that title, which among the very bones of the sacred body found, The first most simple could have been buried with the Saint himself, a most certain indication of the found treasure which was sought gave, ✠ St. Lucifer Bishop. In this it is easy to recognize, by the simplicity of that age, in which the Saint died, that even the grander appellation of Archbishop to the West was still unknown. And by several, but indeed in this whole work everywhere obvious examples we are persuaded, that it was most usual to the ancient Christians, to add to the bodies of men illustrious for exceptional sanctity to be buried within the sarcophagus names, on marble or leaden tablets sculptured, that to even a wild posterity they should make faith, if at some time it should happen by chance or by counsel that found or discovered sepulchres be unbarred. Therefore not unwillingly do I let myself be persuaded, that this tablet was buried with the Saint. But most aptly the triangular form the same authors chose for it, to designate the deceased's contests for the faith of the one undivided Trinity.

[96] But whether the first sepulchre of the Saint it was, within which were found the bones, I would not by divining discern: for as much could the estimation of the miracles wrought by him living move the Cagliarians, and on his sepulchre a church built above. that a special sepulchre for Lucifer with so great firmness they should build under earth: as the merit of the same after his death increasing could move their posterity, that into a temple erected under his special invocation (if before he had a common burial with the other Bishops) transferring him, they should construct for him a new monument.

But since the Church of St. Lucifer is so near the basilica of St. Saturninus, erected under Constantine the Great, that it can seem built in the very place of the common cemetery or polyandrium, adhering to that suburban basilica from old institution, there is nothing that compels to suspect a translation made from place to place: nay it does not appear what other cause could there have been of building in a place so conjoined, than that for a religious duty the Cagliarians held it to move the holy Bishop from that place, where so abounded his miracles.

[97] The tomb was then adorned with mosaic or tessellated work, in which only a few letters of the old inscription could be recognized, as said above. Would that with the same labor and diligence had been taken the whole mosaic's, just as it was broken up, magnitude and form, The second expressed in mosaic and almost destroyed and likewise the genuine position and appearance of the remaining letters in it to the truth expressed: for from all these we could have been brought to a knowledge of the age, and to a likely investigation of those letters which are lacking. There are however at hand in Esquirrus and Bonfant very many Epitaphs found in this century, which are believed to be almost all of holy Martyrs who suffered under the heathen Emperors. With what certainty I now do not dispute: for my purpose it is enough, to be supplied after the example of a similar epitaph, that they are so ancient, that their age in no memory of the inhabitants is now contained. Of these one in the church of St. Saturninus, on a marble shrine, but empty sculptured, is shown in these words.

✠ IN THIS TOMB RESTS

THE BLESSED M. BONIFACE THE BISHOP

WHO LIVED MORE OR LESS LX YEARS.

HE SAT IN THE CHAIR VIII YEARS IIII MONTHS.

HE RESTED IN PEACE ON THE DAY XVI

KAL. SEPTEMBER.

[98] We have not yet obtained any ancient Monuments of Sardinia, from which of the order and succession of the Bishops of that island we might establish anything, as we have done concerning the Roman Pontiffs, the Jerusalem Patriarchs, the Milanese and Utrecht Bishops in this May: we use meanwhile the most recent Catalogue, which to the defense of his Primacy the Archbishop Machin appended; where, which sculptured in marble for Boniface the Bishop, as from the Monuments of the Cagliarian church, are proposed first, Boniface a disciple of Christ, whose body in the first crypt found, under mosaic work had imposed on its breast a title, by which in the year of life XL, on the V kal. of January it was indicated to have rested. Then Avendrax, whose feast at Cagliari is kept writes Bonfant page 75, the day however he does not designate; we would wish to know it. Then another Boniface, who would be this second one, under the Emperor Domitian suffered, as the same writer maintains. Be it as it may, this Boniface's Epitaph, which Esquirrus page 56, with large and very clear letters on the outside of the shrine written he attests to be, if it is not older than the Luciferian mosaic is not more recent than it; and in solid marble better ought to have been preserved, than in the fragile joining of tesserae. And so from its more entire sense the Luciferian epitaph's fragments seem in this way to be able to be restored.

✠ IN THIS TOMB RESTS

THE BLESSED M. LUCIFER THE BISHOP

WHO LIVED MORE OR LESS LXXXI YEARS

HE SAT IN THE CHAIR YEARS… MONTHS III. DAYS XVII.

HE RESTED IN PEACE, ON THE DAY

… OF MAY.

[99] The Roman Church had, as we saw, its from of old Episcopal Catalogues; in which accurately enough is noted the time of the See, by numbering years, months, days. the years of life and of the See taken from the Episcopal Catalogue, This diligence imitated those, who in the time of the Lombardic incursion of the Milanese Bishops, residing at Genoa, wove the series from the year DLXXI; noting besides, how many years each was among the living. Why should we not believe also the Sardinians, at least under Theodosius, the affairs of the Church wholly pacified, a similar Catalogue having begun to weave; and then also for the more ancient ones, of whom alone perhaps the names were read in the Diptychs, to have determined the years of the See and of Life, as for them either older monuments or likely conjectures suggested? But such which why I should not esteem, just as now they were found, to have been placed before the tyranny of the Saracens in the VII or VIII century, but under the happy dominion of the Pisans in the XI or XII century, more conveniently below I shall explain. Here only I note, that the years in which sat St. Lucifer, not certainly definable on account of the beginning of the Episcopate taken up, could not by our conjecture be supplied: but well the years of life; because it is permitted to presume that the authors of the last epitaph, found them in this mosaic not yet worn away. with the ambiguous sense of the letters B. M. The same also both here and elsewhere seem, of set purpose to have used the letters B. M., because since they believed the bones to be of Saints, which mostly under a bare title perhaps of a name they found in the shrines, and of many they had no certainty whether they were of Martyrs or of Confessors, for both they believed the letters could serve, by which either BONÆ MEMORIÆ (of good memory) or BEATUS MARTYR (blessed Martyr) was designated. But BS. M. superlatively could be taken for BEATISSIMÆ MEMORIÆ (of most blessed memory) or BEATISSIMUS MARTYR (most blessed Martyr).

[100] Of the day of death there is a greater cause of controversy. For the word MAIAS, here found, bids one conceive a day before the Kalends, Nones, or Ides of May; and yet in the third and the day of death, different from the day 20 of March, Epitaph, which above at number 67 we exhibited, is read K. ON THE DAY XX OF MAY, where the letter K Machin interprets KIEVIT, for thus the "quievit" (rested) now the Sardinians pronounce, which itself is no slight indication of the novelty below to be proved; since in other older inscriptions in Bonfant, always is found QUIEVIT or QUIEBIT; But whatever of this may be, there remains the proposed controversy of the day of death, arising from the comparison of the second and third Epitaph; to which it seems to me it can or even ought to be said, that the notice of the truly mortal day being obliterated, for it (as it happened to the Roman Pontiffs often, and very many others) there succeeded, among the crowd, and then also in later writings, some day, either of the dedicated or restored church, or of the body or sepulchre elevated or revealed. Oblivion certainly even of the day XX among the Sardinians crept in: whence to those objecting to themselves from Baronius, that before the finding of the body of St. Lucifer, no day determined of any month, for his celebrity was in the diocese of Cagliari assigned; which also itself came into oblivion. and thence inferring, that in it there was not anciently any cult of Lucifer; only denies the Archbishop Machin page 183 that this is consequent. For the antiquity of the cult is sufficiently proved from the antiquity of the temples erected to the Saint, which without his cult would not have been; but the memory of the annual feast seems obliterated, he says, by reason of the wars and tumults, which were in the island, so often compelled to change masters: which same happened to other various Saints of Sardinia, having their own temples anciently in the island; of whom yet such gradually crept in oblivion, that either they were not venerated at all, or for them others of the same or a neighboring name, but more commonly known were thought to be venerated; and so somewhere St. Lucifer the Bishop with St. Luxorius the Martyr confounded, which also in St. George the Bishop of Suelli we noted on April XXIII.

[101] I pass to the third, which to those digging up first appeared, Epitaph; in which before all I note to be found of punctuation the commas, a thing wholly unusual to the ancients: wherefore deservedly suspect, that those points the Notaries and the very author of the Defense added at their discretion, to render the sense conformable to their own sense. In the third he seems to be called Gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church. But most of all displeases CA. FI. in the penultimate line, which Machin bids be read, Catholicus filius (Catholic son); thinking I believe, that the authors of the Epitaph thus diluted wished the suspicion of schism, imputed to Lucifer. To me far more pleasing are those, who without any punctuation, from the beginning of the finding made, read the title, by which even today glories the Cagliarian Archbishop, of Gonfalonier of the holy Roman Church, that is, of Standard-bearer. Gonfalonier I say, according to the property of the Sardinian vernacular, by which Canfalon is pronounced, which to other Italians generally is Confalon, the same Machin being witness, and because folio 183 he produces a public instrument by the Royal Lieutenant or Captain general of the Kingdom made, on the day VI of the month of May in the year MDLXII, whence take these words rendered into Latin, and indicating the beginning and right of the title.

[102] On account of the great and innumerable services and good works, to the holy Apostolic Church by the Kings of Aragon of indelible memory rendered, from a right received from the Kings of Aragon, among other things which the said Holy Apostolic See, to show itself in part grateful for so many services, to them rendered, this it did, that namely to the said Kings in perpetuity it gave, commended, and communicated the Standard or Gonfalon of the Roman Church; and that the Kings, who for the time should be created, should be of it perpetual Gonfaloniers. Thence afterwards it followed and happened, that one King of Aragon, desiring exceedingly to declare and denote the prerogatives, and to decorate the Church of Cagliari; willed, by means of the dignity of the Holy Apostolic See, that the Archbishop of Cagliari, who at that time was and for the time should be, in the present kingdom of Sardinia, in the name and on the part of the Royal Majesty, should be Gonfalonier, and should hold and have that Gonfalon &c. In a certain Pisan old Chronicle in Ughelli column 884 I read, who that dignity had obtained in the year 1297, that in the year MXVII the Roman See the whole of Sardinia, with the Privilege and standard of St. Peter, to the Pisan city confirmed. But the first origin of that right transferred to the Aragonese explains St. Antoninus title 20 chapter 8 §5, saying, that a treaty being entered between James II (whom he calls Don-jamus) and Boniface VIII, for the recovery of Sicily against Frederick, the brother of James himself, in the year MCCXCVII, the Lord Pope instituted the said Don-jamus Admiral and Standard-bearer of the Church on the sea, when there should be made a fleet and expedition against the Saracens for the conquest of the Holy-land: and also gave him the privilege of the Kingdom of the island of Sardinia, yet so that he should draw it out of the hands of the Pisans. Like things you have in Ptolemy of Lucca at the year MCCXCIX, when the confederates a naval victory over the Sicilians bore off.

[103] Villani and Zurita, with Sardinia Corsica also assert was given (for that part namely which the Genoese did not hold, with the dominion of Sardinia and Corsica, the other being left to the Genoese) and both by the force of this donation to have been subdued by Alfonso, of the Aragonese scepter the heir, in the year MCCCXXIV; excepting however Cagliari, which in the dominion of the Pisans remained; yet a little after of neither parties it wished to be, and almost spontaneously to the Aragonese delivered itself. Which obeisance, as that from which depended of the whole island the secure possession, Alfonso wishing to compensate, and to himself more closely to bind the Cagliarians; his father being dead in the year MCCCXXVIII, the services considered, by the inhabitants of the castle of Cagliari faithfully exhibited, both for the happy acquisition of the Kingdom and after, their privileges he confirmed; and the same likely to the Archbishop transferred the Gonfalonier title.

[104] He was of Cagliari, Metropolitan of Sardinia from of old, As to the title of Primate or chief Bishop, that indeed Lucifer never used, nor anyone, that we can know, before the XI century; yet the very dignity or power, congruous to a title of this kind, with the Cagliarian one to have been, I should scarcely doubt, reading St. Gregory's epistles; and adding to them of the Constantinopolitan Synod, held in the year DCLXXXI under Pope Agatho, the place, where among the subscriptions is read, Sitonatus, unworthy Bishop of the holy Church of Cagliari, of the island of Sardinia, for me and the Synod which is under me, likewise I subscribed. Under which Synod also there to have been the Bishops of Corsica we could believe, unless that island to have had its own Defender from the Roman Church, perhaps also of Corsica in the time of Lucifer. as immediately subject to the Roman See, from the said epistles of St. Gregory were understood. Yet just as under the Romans both islands, as one province, to have obeyed one Barbarian President is known from the Acts of St. Saturninus, so likely to the same Metropolitan it was subject at least until the Emperor Justinian, who after the five hundredth year attributing Sardinia to the Province of Africa, Corsica to Italy seems to have left. Meanwhile, as I said, the title of Primate was not yet in use: wherefore the Roman Rota, before which in the year MDCXL the Cagliarian about the right and title of it was contending with the Turritan Archbishop, no account being had concerning the Primacy properly so called (which consists in the ordination of all the Churches of that Kingdom, in the convocation of all the Bishops and Archbishops to Councils, in the granting of the faculty of giving to Bishops and Archbishops to go out of their dioceses, and other prerogatives) with respect to simple antiquity and Metropolitan right, prudently defined, that it is proved in favor of the Cagliarian, that his See is a Metropolis, and the older Metropolis.

[105] He began to be called Primate in the 11th century. The very name of Primate first I find to have begun to be usurped under the Pisans, under whom, the dominion of the whole island being obtained in the year MXVII, the island was divided in the year ML into four Judicatures, so that the head of all was Cagliari. And so Pope Victor III, to whom some coming from Sardinia had set forth the wretched state of the churches there collapsing, writing to James Archbishop of Cagliari, and the other Archbishops and Bishops of Sardinia, in the year MLXXXVII, signifies that he is chiefly angry with him, who is Primate of the said island, and to whom the greater affairs of the churches are to be referred. and in the 14th century also of Corsica. No mention here of Corsica is there, nor elsewhere in the old Pisan Chronicles in Ughelli, and perhaps, when to the Aragonese it was granted, the other part of it the Saracens still held. And so I judge that through the Aragonese first it came to the Cagliarian Archbishop, that also of Corsica he could write himself Primate: which however perhaps by no means was long lasting. For when in the year MCCCXLIII the whole island delivered itself to the Genoese, possessing part of it already long, I fear lest a bare title only among the Cagliarians remained: for which itself no documents are adduced before the year MCCCCIX, when Anthony by God's grace Archbishop of Cagliari, in Machin chapter 8, several instruments, in that and the following years made, thus to have begun is read; We Anthony… Primate of the Kingdom and of Corsica.

[106] From the things said it is gathered, that this last of St. Lucifer's Epitaph was made after the year MCCCXXX; when perhaps the old church of his being repurged, was found the aforesaid Mosaic; nor was it doubted that it was the monument of the holy Prelate. But this too with the ruins of the very church was covered after a century perhaps not entire; and so the cult for the XX of May worn away, not so long ago either instituted or restored. I say nothing of the title of Archbishop, before the VII or VIII century among the Westerns scarcely known: The name of Archbishop is not a sign of supreme antiquity, so that even for that reason the more suspect to me is the judgment of those; who by the sole argument, from the Epitaphs bearing B. M. and in Bonfant folio 158, 161, 238, 316 to be seen taken, to the Blessed Martyrs and the annual feast in the church to be commemorated have numbered Florius, Restitutus, Bonus, Vivianus, Felix, called there Archbishops, and indeed Bonus with the noted IND. THIRTEENTH; whereas Constantine first instituted Indictions to be numbered.

[107] I do not wish also to delay on that two-headed and from head to head crowned Eagle, of which crown so usurped the form hitherto in no older example I have found. Of the very two-headed Eagle's origin in his manner accurately scrutinizing all things Claude Francis Menestrier, and the two-headed Eagle, in the opuscule on the Origin of Armorial tesserae chapter 23, at length resolves it to be from the Greeks, who as Crosses by two crossed lines, so also Eagles began to twin with a divided head; and that perhaps as often as two together co-reigned. But this conjecture I would wish to see by examples of old coins confirmed: otherwise I fear, lest as merely arbitrary was the use of the twin or single Cross, so also was it of the Eagle: although I strongly incline to believe, that on occasion of some Imperial conjunction it was done. The most ancient example of the two-headed Eagle is found in a certain little shield of the Antonine column, by which of two Legions into one conjunction the learned believe is noted; nor any other thereafter anywhere occurs before the XIV century, in which I find in the Paris edition of George Codinus, some delineations of old paintings, of John Palaeologus's crossing into Italy and approach to Urban V in the year MCCCLXVIIII expressing: where page 15, is seen a trireme adorned with Venetian Papal and Imperial Tesserae: among which three two-headed Eagles, also by Rupert of Bavaria and Sigismund the German Emperors in the beginning of the XV century usurped.

[108] In our Melchior Inchofer found Machin an old coin of Cagliari of this kind, a single one Cagliari used, that its age is not very great makes credible the more perfect form of the Latin letters: it proves meanwhile, that the Cagliarians their chief Patron always held Bl. Lucifer, with whose name the coin is signalized; just as the Italian cities very many had it in custom to use their Patron's effigy or name for the stamping of money. But the Roses placed around persuade that their symbol to the same also was familiar: who perhaps as by the Eagle they wished signified, their city once to have enjoyed the right of a Roman city; so they used the Roses, to indicate it with copious blood of Martyrs purpled to have been. For as narrates Bonfant page 250, in the first of the crypts above described, in the greater chapel, below two leaden shrines, there were found four other stone ones, having a common title for the bodies of four laid up within, who had rested ON THE DAY VIII OF JULY IN THE YEAR CCX; and that title's front part, as by Bonfant it is expressed, occupies a Rose, four leaves spreading in the manner of a cross, fixed in a base at its foot sculptured, a little cross eminent above: and again page 360, in the title, which a certain Claudius set for St. Saturninus on the XXVIII OF NOVEMBER. A similar Rose is seen before the writing, and likewise with roses as their proper symbol. sculptured above a base of four steps, but with nine little roses around and two at the foot bursting forth crowded. But both titles, because they do not exhibit the day of the month noted in the Roman manner, but in the vulgar; deservedly are presumed, not to have been written in the beginning of the restoration, when were written the others, which proceed by Kalends; but in its progress, when the use of Kalends had more worn away, as also to this last title it happened, placed over St. Lucifer's sepulchre. The sepulchral Rose's form received from both see here, and compare with the Luciferian Epitaph, where besides two palms are seen, in sign of the victory, over the Arian heresy by the Saint borne off.

[109] What further to the Patriarchal Cross, which in the said Luciferian Epitaph seems to be expressed under the rose? The double Primatial cross, That since it is triple, I greatly doubt, whether it has any conjunction with the Primacy. One thing I know, that the Patriarchs were wont to use a double one, and on that argument, though fallacious, and uncertain; the at Caravaca in Spain most celebrated Cross, brought by Angels, is presumed to have been of some Jerusalem Patriarch. But for the Cagliarian Archbishop it can be proved, the use of a Cross of this kind, at least from the time of the Pisans dominating in Sardinia. For when a Hermit, dwelling on the mountain of St. Elias, one mile from the city toward the sea, in the year MDCXXI, under the Tribune of the oratory had begun to dig, also, in the Epitaph of St. Elias it was noted, and a human body had found; sent by the Archbishop Michael Fensa the Canon with the Notary Gaspar Sirigo, first indeed in the outermost wall of the little church itself observed two such tessellated shields; then on December XXVIII returning to the same place they found the same Bl. M. Elias's marble epitaph, by which was indicated that this Saint had rested ON THE DAY XXVIII OF JANUARY; and in the same they saw the same shield, which above thou seest with a double Cross and the letter R inscribed: under it a crown of foliage, and under the crown sculptured of a lean man, and well bearded and haired the head half, with a great nail transfixed from the back of the head across the forehead: by which indication it was believed, that the martyrdom of the Elias there venerated was such.

[110] under Ricus the Archbishop in the year 1207 Whether this Elias before or after the coming of the Saracens suffered, I do not divine; only I assert, that the Epitaph itself is not older than the very institution of family tesserae; and one indeed seems to have been of the Cagliarian Judge, then presiding, the other of the Archbishop Ricus the seal, who was over that Church in the year MCCVII. For no other occurs, whose name beginning from the letter R can here be designated to seem. But the other shield I therefore rather said to seem of the Judge, who furnished the expenses of building the little church, than of the Archbishop: because (as we said on the VIII of April in the Commentary on St. Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem) not yet had the simplicity of that age indulged to Bishops, to usurp family shields after the manner of seculars: and enough the Cagliarian Archbishops seem to have had, the Cross, the insignia of their Primacy, with the first letter of the name crosswise expressed to usurp for a tessera. The said Epitaph can be seen in Esquirrus page 416 and in Bonfant page 446.

[111] As therefore to the three lines, in the Luciferian Epitaph crosswise drawn; they, if they contain any mystery, pertaining to the prerogative of the Cagliarian Primacy, but a triple one in the Luciferian seem their beginning, not at Cagliari, but at Pisa to have received, from the Pontifical Constitutions, extensively related by Barbosa and Viviano, and in Machin in the defense of the Primacy page 141 and following distinctly to be read, by which the Archbishop of Pisa Balduinus, in the year MCXXXVIII, by Innocent II is decorated with the honor of the Primacy over the Province of Turris; and in the year MCXC Hubaldus, likewise Archbishop of Pisa and his successors, with an ampler office to be decorated, are confirmed in the Turritan Primacy, and are given the Primacy over the Cagliarian and Arborensian Provinces, so indeed that of calling the Bishops to Councils, [could have flowed from the triple Primacy in Sardinia, granted to the Pisan Archbishops,] of correcting their excesses, and all the rest which pertain to the right of the Primacy of exercising over them they have free faculty. Which right although Machin denies to effect ever

to have been brought, I indeed shall not easily believe, since I know the Pisans, the island being received from the Saracens, drew the whole political government of it to themselves; but the ecclesiastical government, if not at once, at least in process of time, is wont to be conformed to the political government; and to this end the aforesaid Privileges to have been obtained, ought conveniently to be believed. One thing however hence I deduce to the present argument: namely, that the Primacy of Sardinia, thus expressly named (whatever it be of any other older right, by whatever appellation once expressed) was translated under the Aragonese from the Pisan Archbishop to the Cagliarian: and by the Aragonese transferred to Cagliari. and because this Primacy then consisted in a certain union of the three aforesaid Primacies; therefore perhaps the Archiepiscopal ministers at Cagliari a triple in some manner Cross wished to express, in the seals of the charters subscribed by them: which imitated also the authors of the most recent Luciferian Epitaph, of which hitherto the question has been to us, judging it was made after the Kingdom was confirmed to the Aragonese, when the Turritan and Arborensian the title of Primacy had resumed, and to be held by an equal right with the Cagliarian Primates began to contend.

APPENDIX

On the other Epitaphs in this century dug up in the territory of Cagliari.

Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[112] Knowing that Cagliari alone had frequent Martyrs, It is not to be wondered at, says the Archbishop Machin, of the Luciferian Defense chapter 54, the huge multitude of sacred pledges, which have been found at Cagliari and in the aforesaid places: because since this city always, and especially in the time of the Romans, was royal, the head, and metropolis of the whole Kingdom, and in it dwelt the Roman Proconsuls and Presidents, the first Flamens, and the first Judiciary Power, with a great forum of causes; to it flowed together very many, not only from the whole Kingdom, but from Italy, Africa, Greece, and from other parts of the world, who together with the Cagliarians burning with the zeal of faith underwent martyrdom; nay even from other parts of the Kingdom (I say and of the Empire) bound Christians, as malefactors to it were brought, and there with the punishment of a dire death were afflicted, and by the Christians stealthily carried off the bodies of the Martyrs, from the gibbets and streets, in it were buried.

[113] The assertion of that Archbishop with no slight arguments confirmed our Bolland, in the preface to tome 1 of February chapter 5; nor yet did he believe this enough, to refer into his work those, yet from naming them we have abstained, whom in the Triumph of the Saints of Sardinia Dionysius Bonfant says are venerated at Cagliari; by no other argument for the most part, than because there was found with the bones a title bearing the letters B. M. which he always understands to mean Beatus Martyr, others are content to render it Bonæ memoriæ; I neither think it always a sign of Christianity, since even Gentiles, with Bonis Manibus and Diis Manibus by the letters B. M. and D. M. their Epitaphs to have prefaced not infrequently I know. There moved Bolland besides the most Eminent Card. Francis Barberini's admonition, that those, whose the Sardinians had lately found the remains and sold them as Saints, rashly into our work we should not bring, until it be established, what the Roman Church's opinion of these is, or unless their martyrdom and public from of old veneration be sufficiently from elsewhere explored.

[114] Thus Bolland in the year MDCLVIII bringing into light February, by him and by Henschen elaborated. Meanwhile twenty years have flowed, in which neither to us was diligence lacking of writing now and then into Sardinia, for defect of sufficient certitude: nor to the Sardinians could there be lacking a copy of the same February, but that at least by some it was read: nor yet anything brought hitherto, whereby we should be persuaded to change our counsel about the passing-over of those same, whose cult so recently both the Cagliarians, and the Turritan, and other peoples through Sardinia are said to have assumed. That nothing has been brought I do not wonder, in so great a diversity of human dispositions and geniuses, the immensity of the present work, the distance of the regions themselves, and a more difficult than anyone can believe commerce of letters: but I would wish the same moderation the Sardinians used. For in the description of Sardinia, by a certain man of Sassari composed and into the Blaeu Atlas inserted, most keenly is censured Miraeus, which without quarrels of the Sardinians themselves among themselves the notable light of our city of Antwerp, because in his ecclesiastical Geography he attributed something to a relation, to him from the city sent by John Cao Canon of Cagliari; as if he ought with greater skill to investigate the truth, lest he be compelled to retract those things which he had written; nor adverted his mind to the brighter-than-light malice and lie of the informant.

[115] we would wish to receive. These things I considering first to that Author and others (if in Sardinia are found others of so rough a genius as he is) protest, that I wish no prejudice created to the Turritan Church, through those things which from the Archbishop of Cagliari's relation into this treatise I have inserted; thinking faith to be given to those things, which an author of so great a dignity and of commonly praised sanctity, not only to the Roman Rota and to Pope Urban himself offered, but also affirmed by a public protestation under death, before is to be seen at the foot of the Luciferian Defense, not yet from the press finished when he was dying. Then I profess by no means to us shall it be grievous, either in some of the following months, or in making afterwards a Supplement to the work, to repair the defect, by error or too great caution committed; We admonish meanwhile, when of it we shall have been with due charity and clearness admonished. Finally certain observations, beyond what once said in February, to be set forth here I judge; into which it may be worth the labor to look for those, who will wish to persuade us, that those now passed over, or thereafter to be passed over until better instructed we shall be, into this our work we receive.

[116] From the Roman crypts or subterranean cemeteries many and already of old to have been dug out bodies of holy Martyrs, and even now yearly to be dug out singly to be distributed through the whole world, that as we venerate the bodies sent from the Roman cemeteries, is well known. It is established also that in those crypts, not Martyrs alone are buried, but any Christians promiscuously, especially in the time of persecutions, when it was not yet permitted to them their own churches, their own publicly to have cemeteries. By what reason further the sepulchres of Martyrs from the other not-Martyrs' sepulchres are separated, no one hitherto has put forth in writing, nor ever with those bodies which are brought to public veneration to be exposed, is brought at the same time the very history of their finding; which if it were brought, to the wise as well as to the unwise it could appear, with what and how great a foundation each one is judged worthy of that sacred honor. Meanwhile, with that which to all the Holy Roman Church owe reverence, we receive transmitted to us the pledges of Saints by it acknowledged, with the same prepared affection of mind about to receive also those, which Sardinia has sent and will send, if Rome shall have approved them.

[117] Says page 177 Machin and in several places confirm Esquirrus and Bonfant, so also let us be prepared to receive those, and altogether true we believe it that of many, to discern them there offered themselves several arguments of Martyrdom, e.g. of swords, nails, chains, and other Martyrial instruments, of earth sprinkled with blood, of glass ampullae with blood and relics filled. That further bodies of this kind were not buried there, but translated from elsewhere, from the very disposition of the bones, he says, becomes clear, and from the very precious construction of the sepulchres, with Epitaphs from various little stones in mosaic work composed. Likewise the perennial and most sweet odor from sepulchres of this kind and Relics breathed out; health by the sick beyond the order of nature suddenly recovered, Relics of this kind being applied; the title of innumerable Saints found in the more eminent part of the altar of the Basilica of St. Saturninus, which not only to those found within the basilica, but to those around in subterranean chapels and sarcophagi in a wonderful order disposed found pertained; moved Don Francis de Esquivel, Archbishop of Cagliari, which among the Sardinians it will be established are sufficiently proved. a most religious man, that the prescript of the Council of Trent being kept and applied a mature with the Theologians deliberation, those he should bring into the celebrated Sanctuary, which in the Cathedral church he had built, and to public veneration expose. These things Machin, Esquivel's successor: from which and from the things also said it is established, that for various bodies of this kind to be sought and found occasion was given through Fr. Francis Hortola, divinely of the same instructed. Of such things thus sought and severally found and proved in the manner, in which was proved the truth of the relics of St. Lucifer, the received faithful relations (especially when they have been of Saints from elsewhere than from Epitaphs known) we will willingly insert into this our work: of others I ask that we be held excused, until its meaning more clearly shall have expressed the Apostolic See.

[118] By this is brought forward and shown everywhere among the writers of Sardinia Paul V's Brief, under the year of the Pontificate XIII, which was of Christ MDCXVII, to the Archbishop of Cagliari in these words: but here makes not the Brief of Paul V, With the letters of thy Fraternity we have received also the relation of the finding of the holy Relics, which thou writest to have been found; which will be seen willingly, just as both the argument of the work and the merits of the author demand: meanwhile know that a grateful thing thou hast done to us, that it thou hast sent to us. The Relation to be read the Pontiff promises: that in fact it was read we can scarcely doubt: why therefore of it now read, if it was approved, at least by Dionysius Bonfant, after XVIII years publishing a book on this matter with the greatest zeal written, is brought an indication of a Roman response? Forsooth, to the learned men at Rome (among whom the most Eminent Francis Barberini, of sacred antiquity if any other zealous and skilled; Lucas Holstenius, Custodian of the Vatican Library; Ferdinand Ughelli, Author of the Sacred Italy in letters sent to us) men, I say, learned at Rome difficulties so great occurred, the same perhaps which also to us; that it did not seem safe enough, the weight of Apostolic approbation to add to the prejudices brought from Sardinia, although they were unwilling by their refragation to weaken or even to abolish them; especially since the matter was no longer entire, and all things for the translation as festive as possible prepared, and that matter a more careful examination required.

[119] Nor here let anyone think to be objected the practice of the very Romans in this business; for very much on both sides differs: for the Roman Martyrs' bodies are drawn out of their tombs, by that time at which they were first laid up nor ever unbarred, nor elsewhere translated; nor the comparison with the Romans, instituted by a right not equal. they are believed moreover to be of Martyrs, on account of certain and everywhere undoubted (as it is fair to think) signs of Martyrdom, to them being buried hastily adjoined, whether a name be present to the lime, brick, or stone inscribed once, or not. But those bones which lately to be uncovered began, once (as the very Sardinians confess, and the matter of itself speaks) from various places were collected, and conveyed into sanctuaries to that prepared in the peace of the Church. And so besides the faith, which to the modern finding is to be given; is required also faith, to be given to the authors of the old translation. But what to them and

how far it is owed comes to be examined: and for that cause so distinctly I wished in chapter 7 to explain the order and success of the labor, in uncovering and clearing the crypts of the Luciferian church placed, that from these a conjecture be made about the rest, below or around the church of St. Saturninus or elsewhere found. since the Sardinian relics are not now first found, For very many things in these offer themselves to me worthy of note, to which if mind those had adverted, by whose pious zeal lately was managed the digging-up and translation; more cautiously perhaps to be proceeded they would have judged for themselves, nor promiscuously all the bodies found in those old sanctuaries, for certain and indubitable Martyrs' bodies would they have held.

[120] First therefore let us ask, in what century it ought to be believed that construction or restoration of the Cagliarian Sanctuaries was made, but were once found brought to the Sanctuaries, by which under one and a similar context of mosaic work thus were ordered all things, as ordered to have been from the now found traces of ruins and the present disposition of sepulchres appears. The Sardinians seem to judge, the ruins were made by the Saracens, and to this very day untouched to have remained: which being posited it would have to be believed, at least before the eighth century and the Saracens' irruption these subterranean Sanctuaries to have been constructed and so adorned. But those who so think, greatly err: for we have already shown in the last chapter that the one which first appeared of the Luciferian burial title is of the XIV century, when to reign in Sardinia began the Aragonese. Therefore at that time not yet were those things wholly hidden; but still open, to a certain degree repurged and restored they were. But who knows not, some after the 13th century, that age of sacred and profane antiquity wholly ignorant to have been, and to making the discrimination of true and false very inept; therefore not great certitude to the learned now to make, what then was done, in good faith doubtless, but by too great often simplicity. But of this perhaps time are those, in which a greater barbarism occurs and of the Spanish dialect more notable indications. But these perhaps will not be many; unless thou wish to reckon with them all, in which QUIEBIT for QUIEVIT, or otherwise B for V is written, which now is a Spanish idiotism, but could also have been of the older Sardinians, perhaps from the Saracens received, or even older; wherefore I do not wish from this cause to move a scruple to anyone.

[121] The second of the Luciferian burial title, and under the first uncovered, in mosaic work was composed, as also the rest of the pavement's structure. all after the 11th, as the added years of the incarnation prove, But this work can it be reckoned older than the inscriptions of the titles and sepulchres, woven into the same work or under it laid up? No one would say so, I think. But in these one to be already we said at number 107 noted ANNO CCX, but that thou doubt not whether of the Christian Era, or of the Julian perhaps or the Spanish a year here be noted, see how in Bonfant, page 127 B. M. STEPHEN is read to have rested

ON D. V OF JULY IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD C

that is on the day fifth of July, in the year of our Lord Christ the hundredth. Page 228 B. M. JULIANUS… OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH … worn away were the rest: it is plain nonetheless that some year from the Virgin's birth is to be numbered: which itself is clearly expressed page 315 in this epitaph B. M. BENEDICTA D P. (that is, deposited not, as some ridiculously, to the Lord she suffered) IN THE YEAR FROM THE VIRGIN'S BIRTH CCLIII. Nor with Latin letters only, and barbaric figures but also with barbaric ciphers written page 128 HERE LIES THE BLESSED MARTYR

ARHELAUS THE PRESBYTER, HE DIED ON THE THIRD KALENDS

OF MARCH IN THE YEAR 100. And of the same kind could seem quite a number, having for the Latin number VI the letter G, on account of the agreement which that character has with the cipher usual 6. Bonfant thought it taken from the Greeks for 5, which to them equally is supposed for the senary number. But neither the Greeks nor the Arabs taught their 6 or 5 thus to be used, as is found page 124 a certain P … (Peter it pleased the Sardinians to interpret) who is said to have rested in peace D. G II KL. OF JUNE; where well indeed to be read on the day VIII kal. I think, not however do I think it is a Greek or Arabic mark, but V and I in one stroke conjoined, both here and elsewhere often, in the same Epitaphs.

[122] A clearer appearance of Arabic writing bear signs, some barbaric ones (to be silent of other marks) to be seen page 221 and page 224, where it is written that

OF GOOD MEMORY SISINI CICNEBIT IN PEACE

ON THE XG K. OF MAY IND. XIII.

and B. M. RESTITUTA …

What of more? Let him weary and torture himself in explaining these whoever will, and in the word CICNEBIT let him batter for himself his head with Bonfant, who imagines the word formed from Cicnus (a swan), as if it were signified that the pretended Martyr, like the poetic Swan, at his very death sweetly sang. We in the Propylaeum to tome 2 of April part 2 number 20 said from our Kircher and again before. Tome 3 of May in the Chronological History of the Jerusalem ones Parergon XII more fully, from the same Kircher and others, we demonstrated, that only in the year DCCCC the ciphers brought from India became known to the Arabs, so that these by the Saracens to be brought into Sardinia could not be but in the last century of their dominion, not but in the 10th century brought into Sardinia. after the year of the Arabic Hegira CCC. But the year of the Christian Era, neither in Italy nor elsewhere, began to be put on the tablets of public writings or on the stones of sepulchral monuments, before the VIII and IX century; when already under the yoke of the barbarians groaned Sardinia, by various before incursions of various nations laid waste and spoiled. In which calamity of the public state, and that by infidels brought on, it is not credible so great a quiet of sacred matters to have been, that there was leisure for adorning sanctuaries in that manner for the crowd of Christians to attend, without the care of Bishops, without the worship of sacred things almost living, the chief basilicas into the temples of the filthiest Mahomet converted. As to other more strange marks, in both Epitaphs expressed, consulted of them the aforesaid Kircher, in such unraveling a most happy interpreter, in the year MDCLXXVI on the day XX of April answered, that characters of this kind nothing else signify, than two names JESUS and MARY, in a manner to the Latins and Greeks contrary, to the Orientals, Hebrews, Syrians, Arabs proper: which the Saracens, since with Latin letters to form them they knew not, as best they could with those their characters described. Which whether he knew who carved the same on those stones, I know not; scarcely however do I doubt, but that the same somewhere thus found he used, to the appearance of greater antiquity to procure for those his figments. Where after the churches collapsed under the Saracens

[123] It remains therefore that that mosaic work, Christianity reflourishing under the Pisans in Sardinia, began to be constructed by men, pious more than learned: which indeed they showed, when for the Roman Consulates or the Emperors' years, which the age of the Martyrs would have signed, they noted the years of our Lord, or from the Virgin's birth: and which at the same time or even a little before some insipid potter of Chronicles, wishing to seem a sciolist, Pope Victor III admonishing, could have fitted to old Martyrs or Confessors, or at least to the faithful resting in Christ's peace. That of repairing the churches of Sardinia there was a care to Victor Pope III, shows the Brief to James of Cagliari and others, at number 104 above alleged; whose former part it will be not useless here to read whole. Victor, servant of the servants of God, to James Archbishop of Cagliari and the other Archbishops and Bishops of Sardinia, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Certain from your island coming to us, of your churches, almost collapsing, the state to us set forth: which deservedly so with an indignant mind we have borne, that as if to proceeding against their Bishops we have been compelled, especially against thy Fraternity, who Primate art of the said island, to whom the greater affairs of the Churches are to be referred. For therefore the Apostolic See, over which though unworthily we preside, through diverse Provinces of the world, Bishops, Archbishops and Primates instituted, that rightly of individual churches might be managed the administration. Wherefore we thy Fraternity and the other Archbishops and Bishops admonish, that thy Charity unanimously helping, their restoration as quickly as possible you procure. You therefore in this matter so inclined show yourselves, and so great in this employ diligence, that, your zeal and diligence being known, the Primate and Bishops having restored, if anything hitherto negligently or disobediently you have failed, deservedly on account of this to tolerate we ought.

[124] Thus he, writing from Benevento on the IV kal. of September MLXXXVII, and sufficiently insinuating the whole form of the Hierarchical Order, such as then it was in Sardinia, to be from a recent after the entrance of the Pisans institution of the Apostolic See; as from the magistracy of the Pisan city had been made the institution of four Judges, by whom oppression suffering the new Prelates, because to the Pontiff they had complained, Victor in the other part of his Brief desiring to secede, and to him to come preferring, with due charity promises to be received. From which again we understand, the restoration of the crypts being at length undertaken, that the magnificent and splendid that construction of the sanctuaries under earth, of which we treat, the very restoration of the churches (as it is fair to believe) being later, still later to have been made; when namely by the frequent largesses of the pious so enriched these were, and from the lands attributed to them so opulent made the Bishops, that not only to necessaries they sufficed for themselves, but also to splendor and magnificence they abounded. Let us say therefore in the XII century begun, in the following further increased and adorned to have been the Sanctuaries, under the Cagliarian Archbishops Peter, both Cagliarian and others through the island.

[125] First in this kind let there be named Peter, to whom in the year MCXXXII Honorius II the Pallium and the Spoils of decedent Clerics is found to have granted, by letters in the archive still to be read, of whom this found in the Sulci church of St. Antiochus monument I would believe, which with the order of words somewhat disturbed in Bonfant page 154 such is extant. Where the body of the blessed St. Antiochus rests in glory, The hall glitters, the work of virtue the minister repairing, Of the Pontiff of Christ thus it befits the house to be, Which Peter the Bishop with the splendor of cult shall renew, With marbles, titles, nobility, faith; Ricus, about to dedicate it on the XII K. of February. Gallus, Years after Peter LXX flourished Ricus, whose memory in the adorning of St. Elias M.'s tomb we touched above. After both and two intermediate ones, sat a certain one Gallus by name, omitted in the Catalogue in Machin, but to be known from the illustrious monument of his Prelacy, which in Bonfant folio 437 of this kind is read, in the hermitage of the Cagliarian mountain found:

TO THE HONOR OF GOD AND THE BLESSED BARBARA

THE MARTYR THIS PRESENT CHURCH IS CONSTRUCTED.

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD'S INCARNATION MCCLXXXI.

IN THE INDICTION VIII, THE LORD GALLUS OF CAGLIARI THE CHURCH'S

PRELATE RESIDING. FG. FREGUANTINO. HMIGA.

THE AFORESAID PLACE. HIS COHERMITS. AT THE SAME

TIME GOVERNOR.

But Bonfant and others opine, this Barbara to be that, on whose sepulchre inscribed

this title was afterwards found ✠ ST. BARBARA V. AND M. WHO LIVED XXX YEARS. James and others,

[126] There is found in the same Authors the description of a shrine, which about the year MCCC (perhaps under Archbishop James, who in the year MCCXCVI is found to have sat) to have been made, seems able by this reason to be persuaded. On one side of the said shrine, are seen three hearts, bearing a crown and a palm, of which two with swords, the third with an arrow is transfixed with subjoined severally the letters .D. .T. .V. nor do I doubt but these are indications of the faith applied then to the martyrdom, by which buried within the women were crowned. On the other part thus is read ✠ HERE LIE THE MOST HOLY (it is a barbarism, the feminine plural ending in as, as the Spaniards do

in place of æ) DOROTHEA, THEODOSIA, AND EUGENIA,

MARTYRS AND VIRGINS. WHO WERE DEPOSITED,

WHERE RESTED THE BODY OF ST. RESTITUTA M. BEFORE

D. CCCCX. Bonfant these last words thus explains in the age of the Lord 410. No one ever so spoke or wrote. What if I read thus? before DCCCCX, that is nine hundred ten understanding years. The sense as I think will be clear the whole, and will signify, that this carved stone and the aforesaid bodies were brought hither about the year of Christ MCCC, when namely DCCCCX years were believed to have flowed from that time, in which from that place had been carried off the bones of St. Restituta the Martyr, namely from the time of Constantine, who ordered the bodies of Martyrs to be more honorably placed.

[127] Hence indeed not undeservedly I seem to form a conjecture, that, as the bodies of these were translated in the century XIII or XIV; so also of most others, to whom a more express mark of Martyrdom or Sanctity is added, then also were translated and elevated, so that most of the Epitaphs were sculptured in the 13th or 14th century and for the same were sculptured Epitaphs, of which kind various are extant in Bonfant. A few for example's sake I shall produce. Page 392 thus thou shalt read: HERE LIES S. JUSTUS, HE LIVED XXX YEARS. AND B. NICHOLAS. below which words, filling the whole length of the stone in two lines, is noted a great cross between two notable palms, that as Martyrs designated thou mayest know. Similarly page 447 a greater Cross between two similar palms occurs, with

this title: HERE LIE. HERE B. M. BARTHOLOMEW

CITIZEN AND SS. M. VINCENT FABRICIUS BLASIUS

RUFUS AND OF THE COMPANIONS. And these indeed under the mark of Martyrdom. But under the sole commendation of sanctity, which alone also indicates the year of Christ, by the author's conjecture expressed, as above are expressed the years of age, thou hast page 444.

✠ HERE LIE THE GIRLS SS. THECLA. ERASMA.

ELIA. AQUILA. AND AGNES. WHO IN THE LORD

DIE IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD CCCXXXV. ON THE DAY

III OF JULY.

[128] the titles collected from everywhere with greater piety than certitude, But that those centuries, in which we affirm these things to have been done, greater, as I said, piety than erudition and discretion brought to the work, whatever titles, whatever shrines, whatever fragments of marbles by seeking and conveying, is manifest to me from their very inscriptions, in Esquirrus and Bonfant to be read. For first in them many are, to which is added expressly the year of the Constantinian Indiction. An example of the XIII Indiction we have already given: others at least twenty I could heap up here: which if they are not sculptured after the departure of the Saracens (when of extreme folly it would have been to designate the year of Indiction which by itself alone can aptly express no certain time) but in good faith then indeed brought to the Sanctuaries but once made, even those whom the mark of the Indiction proves are not Martyrs: when the common usage bore thus simply the years of the Indiction to be noted; they ought to be believed to have been made after the Indictions ordained by Constantine the Great. Hence indeed it would follow that those, whose bodies under such a mark were laid up, were not Martyrs, but in Christ's peace simply rested. But that we believe the same, at least by the title of exceptional virtue, for Saints to have been held anciently; by a better authority ought to be established, than of men so blindly credulous.

[129] But as I do not wonder, in the monuments and titles of the faithful, or new ones made with the expression of age, buried in the time of quiet in the IV century and thereafter even to the IX, so accurately expressed the years of age of each one, since I know that to the Gentiles themselves it was in use, and even to our times preserved to be continued with our very eyes we see daily: so with difficulty would I believe, that (since at Rome and elsewhere scarcely was it permitted bare names on the sepulchres of Martyrs to inscribe) there was leisure for the Sardinians so diligently to seek, and to the notice of posterity to deliver their ages, as is presumed to have been done, by those who to the Epitaphs of which we treat, and in which mostly is noted age by VIXIT or BIXIT ANNIS PLUS MINUS … the highest attribute authority, which makes the matter very suspect. as if at the very time of the martyrdoms or under Constantine the Great's or his sons' Empire sculptured, or taken from some Martyrography of equal antiquity. But to me, while I consider, what in the past century men some fantastical have invented at Brescia, a city of Cisalpine Italy, with so copious blood of Martyrs consecrated, but so little distinct of individuals notices retaining, as I demonstrated part 3 of the aforecited Propylaeum: while, I say, the Brescian figments I consider, sometimes it occurs to me to fear, lest some like dreamer, the ages of all the Martyrs in Sardinia, whose names or bodies he found, at his pleasure described in some little Commentary; and that being published held the torch for the authors of the Epitaphs.

[130] [nor are well believed those shrines to be of Martyrs, which without any mark of Martyrdom,] Besides, not prudently enough into the class of Martyrs were received several persons; whom either from the very Epitaphs the Sardinians could know, by another than the title of Martyrdom to have been in singular shrines laid up; which shrines also better had been never brought into the Sanctuaries. Such is that which in Bonfant page 419 is praised, as more elegant than the rest and gracefully carved, with this epigraph, The memory of Cassia made Tocchius, to his most worthy spouse and mother of his sons. Such is that which page 256 occurs, but with verses by an unskilled sculptor disturbed, which in this manner to be sculptured I think: Whatever honor of the tomb, whatever solace of burying is, spouses for spouses made before the irruptions of the Saracens, This place contains; whom the dear surviving spouse To Marcellus Rufina gave to Leontius, in peace. Such is that, in which his spouse Emerita, from his own as it seems bed separated and to the Holy Nuns joined, laid up LAURENTIUS AGAINST THE VOW, the very shrine with these verses inscribing, in the sculpturing of which something also was amiss, which thus thou mayest read and correct page 273. Here to me dear and a spouse is covered in a pious sepulchre, Emerita, with a sanctifying modesty ever associated, Twice twelve years faithful to God which she bore, And of sanctimony bears, the Lord granting, the crown. even if they indicate some excellence of virtue. There are also several other in Bonfant in verses conceived Epitaphs, which in the VII or VIII century composed thou mayest believe: not likewise from them to take an argument of Sanctity with the public cult of the church to be venerated, although to the dead they attribute some commendation of virtue, as when page 302 is read, Here lies Maximiana nob & Re. that is noble and religious or Reverend. Here is placed Maximiana ca. which to Bonfant is Casta (chaste) and page 303 Here lies B. M. Bonifacia R. F. which by the same is explained religiosa femina (a religious woman). Thus page 285 To the of good memory innocent and modest Faustina, who lived XVI years, the holy spouse to her resting in peace an Epitaph places, where Sanctus or Sancius think the name of the man, sufficiently usual to the Spaniards of the middle age; nor unlike page 283 To the of good memory innocent Amantius, who lived VIII years six days, resting in the bosom of SS. Abraham Isaac and Jacob, in the peace of Christ the Lord. PS̄ (placed) VIIII Kal. Jan.

[131] Add to the aforesaid from page 106, the more worthy of relating, the less conveniently it is explained by the Sardinians, such titles as for Maurusius dying abroad his wife placed, dragging all things to their prejudices about Martyrs; I seem to be able otherwise and ought to supply the lacunae.

THE BODY OF MAURUSIUS OF ALL GOODNESS AND INNOCENCE

IN THIS PLACE REMAINS QUIET WHO THE DEBT OF NATURE ABROAD

IN A PLACE WAS ORDERED TO PAY BY DIVINE [command], AT PETILIA

ON THE DAY VIII KAL. * OF NOV. WHOSE FUNERAL BY HIS BELOVED

HIS VENERIA HIS MODEST SPOUSE WAS CARED FOR

ON THE XI KAL. OF DEC. HE LIVED YEARS …,…

HERE RESTS also a twin offspring of the same … RIA OF MAURUSIUS and … of Maurusius deposited … OF JANUARY. For, as Bonfant attests, besides one greater coffin, two little ones this shrine contained; so that therefore A the rest of the Epitaph's part is to be understood to have treated of the twin offspring, which that with the father it might be buried from a former sepulchre, in which before his death it had lain, perhaps was translated. To their imagination indulging a little too much the Sardinians, him and the twin offspring, where I think it is to be read Peregre (abroad) in the 3rd line, they read per martyrium (through martyrdom); and where I think can be understood the name of the city, where Maurusius that one in a temple died, by expressing (for example's sake) at Petilia, which is a city of the Bruttii in Apulia; Bonfant, that a third he may join to Maurusius and Veneria (as if both here were buried) reads Petro, no care had of integrating the sense: nay even Maurusius himself he thinks was yearly venerated in Sardinia, but his cult through the ignorance of the crowd, into the cult of St. Maurus the Abbot to have been changed.

[132] He who was so easy to conjectures, could with a greater appearance of truth the preceding Epitaph, and perhaps for another son Lellus: which equally of a boy Martyr he believed to be, thus explain, as if he had been the son of the same Veneria from a second bed. Inasmuch as Maurusius's shrine was found below another, inscribed as follows: ✠ Here lies in peace Lellus Beneme. Why not indeed of Veneria correct, rather than supply benemerens or benemeritus? which elogium does not befit a boy, who, as follows, lived V years XI months DPS (that is deposited) XV Kal. of April Ind. VII. Let him have part with Gehazi, who this place shall wish to violate. There is no cause that I should admonish thee to understand by B the V: it is enough if I bid thee advert thy mind, whether in such an Epitaph any appearance or shadow of Martyrdom appear; which also none thou shalt find in that which page 368 has Bonfant, in a verse elegant enough conceived: of which, by the injury of the times mutilated, one or another defect easily in this manner thou shalt supply, The ages will retain the great name of Simplicia, Who with the hastened thread of the fates being cut Twice ten the sixth had begun to join her year, that She might render dying her soul on the October kalends.

[133] much less to be approved the more recent titles And let these things be said of the older sepulchres before the Saracens' invasion, of pious men indeed, but by no means to be ascribed to Saints; they ought to avail more in the monuments of nobles dead long after, if any perchance

occur. But such seems to be, that which in the Iglesias city in a certain sacred little shrine was found under the step of the altar, and once perhaps for the altar itself as a tablet served (for this to suspect makes both the magnitude, which is of palms in length five, three in width, and the sculptured crosses, a greater one in the middle, a smaller at each corner) where around the outermost edge through three sides (for the fourth in front is vacant) described are read these letters ✠ A. D. MCCCXXXVIII

HERE LIE. BA. CC. JAUMEUS SAT. JACORIUS.

The year of burial noted here another would believe: the Sardinians persuaded, by the letters BA. CC. that beata corpora (blessed bodies) are indicated, the year they understand of the translation and the letters SAT. they interpret Sanctus: they only doubt whether Confessors or Martyrs are to be reckoned, whose under that stone were found the bones: and Martyrs to be defines Esquirrus, because he says in the sepulchre lay some nails; explained by conjectures. and if they were Confessors, there would be extant of Canonization a memory. And so without hesitation the bones translated into a new shrine, were carried to the church of St. Clare, in that place cathedral, with splendid apparatus, where now they are venerated. How that prudently, let the Sardinians see. I considering the name Jaumeus which does not differ from the Aragonese Jaymes, that is James, if I use an equal liberty of conjecturing, I shall say the nails are those, with which were joined the wooden sarcophagi, together with the flesh consumed; in which sarcophagi lay either two Bachelors (for I fear lest the points added by Esquirrus be at his pleasure, against the custom of the XIV century, points often none noting) or most illustrious Barons, of whom one was Jaumeus by surname Satia; the other Corius a known at Milan in Italy name, whose surname the feet of those sacrificing wore away, before by the footstool tablet that stone was covered: but both died and buried were at the foot of that which they had erected and endowed altar, in the year of the Lord MCCCXXXVIII. These are conjectures, nor do I approve histories founded on conjectures; only I show, how much more justly I demand that on them be not founded the cult of Saints before unknown.

[134] But if in Epitaphs of this kind there are not fit arguments for proving sanctity, Some shrines are indeed old, but perhaps of heathens nor therefore ought the bodies found with them to have been brought into the Sanctuaries; much less ought it to have been done with some, of which thou mayest doubt, whether truly they are bodies of Christians. Thus within that shrine, in which (as from the title it appeared) was found the body of B. M. Lucian, who lived more or less LXX years, who was in peace placed V Kal. of June, as is had page 63; was found another body far smaller, which (as is said page 77) supposed to the head had a title, on which first was sculptured an anchor, then these words M. Antonius appelles (I read appellens) exitum, that is the disembarkation onto land, made for Venusta his fellow-freedwoman, who lived XI years. Bonfant altogether believes an eleven-year-old here is noted a Martyr, whose name Antonius Appelles was; but death in the sea for Christ befell, an anchor bound to the neck: the rest of the Epitaph's words he does not even examine. But I a bare casting of an anchor in the putting-in of the ship made understand, when disembarking some Marcus Antonius, the freedman of a certain powerful man, his fellow-freedwoman Venusta, in the very course of the navigation dead, buried with an Epitaph of this kind, in which not of Christianity appears a vestige. Nor if a hundred Epitaphs of this kind I should find, without ✠ an anchor in front having, should I believe anything else, than a sign in a like case usual to the heathens it to be. such as also at Ravenna we found,

[135] When in the year MDCLX we had come to Ravenna; and, on the XX day of November having entered the most adorned temple of the new Classensian within the city monastery, we had adored under the high altar a certain sacred body, there deposited and most decently laid up by a certain Cardinal Legate; being admonished, that it was of St. Argyris a Matron and Martyr Greek, whose there feast yearly was kept on the day XXIV of April, we were led behind the altar, that we might behold a marble, three or four feet long, but high one, which with that body equally had been brought, with these marks inscribed:

ΓΛΥΚΙΤΑΤΗ ℣ ΓΥΝΑΙΚΙ ΑΡΓΥΡΙΔΙ ℣ ΤΡΟΦΙΜΟΣ ΑΝΗΡ ℣ ΕΤ. ΕΣΗ ℣ Λς

The bystanders begged that we should render it to them in Latin; and that it ought to be removed from the church we persuaded, this therefore interpretation to them written we left. To the most sweet woman Argyris, Trophimus the husband. she lived XXXVI years, and we admonished that to be removed from the temple seemed at least the stone, which was born to beget scandal to the intelligent; and to a woman perhaps heathen placed, and then by Christians had been brought into a crypt, that for some Martyr's coffin to be closed it might serve as a side. For those Hearts (there namely where we put the letter ℣, a certain little mark there was, some appearance offering of a transfixed heart) if truly they are hearts, only are indications of grief, which the husband drew from the loss of so dear a spouse: which in several other heathen epitaphs it was to see, and now often we find in Bonfant, chiefly page 299, where after almost each word, as so many sighs, a heart is noted now simple, now with a little line traversed as by a dart: which they who would think to be a sign of Martyrdom, greatly would be deceived.

[136] There is extant with us by the gift of John James Chifflet a certain enchiridion, of small bulk, by the hand of the most studious youth Philip Wingh of Louvain written wholly, before the year MDXCII, where he almost infinite of the Roman antiquities monuments sacred and profane, Greek and Latin, collected: among which it is to see sepulchral titles not few, with marks of this kind signalized, without any of Christianity indication: and such indeed exhibited a tablet, at Rome among the Carpi by the same found, and in this manner sculptured. ℣ D ℣ M.

TO AUR. ZOTICUS WELL DESERVING SPOUSE,

MADE AELIA RESTUTA COM. WHOM SHE LIVED WITH.

YEARS X.

and which in stones of this kind frequent it is to see, these too palms are not of Martyrdom and in that Ravennate one perhaps we saw, to that let it suffice: inasmuch as these are not palms of triumph, but of the funeral cypress marks. Nay, although they were true Palms, martyrdom yet by no means would they note, as by a most luminous example it can be proved from Baronius, at the year CCCLXVII exhibiting the Epitaph of Flavia Jovina the daughter of Fl. Jovinus in that year consul, above which in a most ample form is described Christ's monogram, a crown as it were laurel elegantly around adorned, erect on either side, two great from palm or laurel branches: but it is said that she lived three years, XXXII days, deposited Neophyte in peace XI kal. of October. Which all things take away the suspicion of martyrdom, from those branches and crown perhaps to be apprehended which therefore neither otherwise (if nothing else be present) can found it. Wisely therefore the Congregation, upon Indulgences and sacred Relics at Rome constituted, its decree of the year MDCLXVIII on the day X of April thus conceived; that the Palms and to them joined a vessel with blood tinged, should be held together for signs most certain of true Relics; but of other signs the examination to another time it deferred: and in it the matter hitherto has stood, as I learn from the Epistle of Cardinal Riccius to the Bishop Cardinal of Lucca, who both together at the said consultation before their promotion had been present. Further when to the Ravennate Archbishop had become known our judgment of that stone, the aforesaid Congregation he consulted, and (as the same Cardinal Riccius writes in the aforecited epistle, given on the last of January MDCLXXXII) received the response, that not only the stone was to be removed, but that very body too, which to be of a Martyr by no now certain argument appeared, was to be restored to the Lord Cardinal who had given it. Which to have been mandated to execution since I doubt not; I would believe also the Classensian Monks took care, that a more certain other body they should receive, which with the necessary changes they might substitute in the place of the former body, lest so great apparatus and expense in the altar built made should be frustrated of its end.

[137] Let the Sardinians see, in this or another manner they wish provided for the purity of religious and ecclesiastical cult, Therefore one must abstain from conjectures, which not a little defiled their elders, by the aforesaid and other similar Epitaphs so easily honor giving, as if they were of holy Martyrs certain testimonies; but they themselves them now also have interpolated more indecently, so many new feasts of Saints by no means certain assuming. Let there be place among the antiquities of the Romans excavators a license of conjecturing, and the mutilated tips of mute stones interpreting let them boast themselves of our age Oedipuses, oracles from the tripod by themselves poured judging, as often as not ineptly they seem to have divined. In these if one errs, or into diverse opinions one goes, one errs without offense, one disputes without scandal of the simpler: in sacred matters both happen otherwise. Let them therefore abstain from conjectures in a sacred matter, who wish to remain far from superstition into religion to be carried. both in asserting the sanctity of names so found, For why should I to the titles, which bring forth the Cagliarian crypts, always believe concerning the mark of Martyrdom, but not to others, at the beginning of book 12 in Bonfant, received from the Commentaries of John Bapt. Fonteius On the Ancient race of the Caesii, which are seen inscribed on the bases of columns in the church of St. Nicholas at Vidriano, I know not whether in the same Sardinia or elsewhere in Italy? In one is read D. M. TO EGNATIA: in another

D. M. TO JULIA OF TICINUM MATIUS RESUS TO HIS SISTER

WELL DESERVING A TOMB MADE. SHE LIVED XXXXV YEARS.

A PIOUS BROTHER PLACED IT. These, before they were applied to sustaining columns, to have been not to God the Greatest, but to the Manes Gods placed altars, no one skilled in such things would doubt, dedicated to a holy Martyr nor does even Bonfant himself dare to think. But if reprehension would deserve he who thus interpreting, Egnatia and Julia aforesaid for holy Martyrs to be honored should contend; will those be able to escape reprehension, who in that, of which to February was made mention, fragment of a stone reading no more than these few letters, … ORIE CECILIA … NOS SVINVA GINIA (which by a modest correction applied, after the example of other similar Epitaphs, could have been read and supplied, BONE MEMORIE CECILIA VIXIT ANNOS QUINQUAGINTA — of good memory Cecilia lived fifty years) preferred to Cecilia, as to a Martyr already sufficiently demonstrated, to add as companions Suinua and Ginia, and their memory yearly to be kept festively by the Clergy decreed?

[138] What? that from indications even more imperfect, they have sometimes presumed to define names, and indeed by no means congruous to the pretended antiquity. There had been found in the first of the aforesaid crypts a deep coffin and full of bones, than in explaining their fragments: so that the heads alone (which partly entire, partly broken appeared) seemed to be thirty-five: nor ought there to have been doubt, but that here had been all placed, as certain Relics of holy Martyrs: for there was a marble title, half a palm in the square having, and on both sides thus noted as is expressed by Esquirrus page 273, The Sardinians read Of the Blessed Holy Martyrs in number thirty-five Frederick, Fabian Leonard,

and of other Saints. for which either the Teutonic names do not serve, If they believed them to be old Martyrs under the Roman Emperors, Flaccus or Flosculus, Africanus or Afranius, Lepidus or Lucidus they ought to have thought, or anything rather than Teutonic names, until the XI century to the Sardinians unknown: to which if place be given, very many would suggest the same Teutonic tongue, to those characters equally easily to be fitted.

[139] On account of the same form of Teutonic names, receive I cannot, as old Martyrs and Bishops of Sulci, those two, whose bodies in the village of Tartali buried, or they indicate a much later age: found asserts Bonfant page 410 under this Epitaph Here lie two Presidents of this hall of good Memory, namely Aymus and Albert, holy, most holy. Where I see no mark of Martyrdom, and the name of President I judge gratuitously for the title of Bishop is taken. The Tartali church certainly no one will say was Cathedral. Why therefore do we not in the native sense take all things, and believe of that very church, within which buried rested the Presidents, that is the Provosts or Curators they were? not of the old before the Saracens Christians, but of the later under the Pisan Dominion, who by the merits of a religious life notable or even by miracles, after death, deserved with such an elogium to be buried; and some cult there had, not indeed full as of canonized Saints, but minute and of a lower mark, which without the Apostolic See's decree then was obtained, as of the Blessed. But this even the more willingly we admonish, because perhaps still the matter is entire, no yet made of those bodies elevation or translation, nor a day or title defined under which they can be venerated thereafter: for I would judge, if they are to be venerated, that they are to be venerated only by the rite of Confessors, not yet fully canonized.

[140] as also indicates the title of Archbishop. Of the Cagliarian Archbishops, whose these found with the bodies titles in Bonfant page 1, 8, B. M. Florius Archbishop, who adorned with faith the house of God most high. page 161 B … Eslutus Arch … of the holy Cara … church, who lived more or less LX years … sat in the Chair years … rested in peace on the day … page 278 … B. M. Bonus Arc … al. who lived years … K. of March ind. thirteenth. page 245 Here lies B. M. Vivianus Archbishop. page 316 … M. Felux A … Karabit … more or less XC. Of these I say all similarly I would say, The Bishops were partly Sardinian partly African, Confessors are to be held, successors of St. Lucifer; and indeed of the last before the Saracens, when already more usual was the title of Archbishop; and to the same in time to be preferred, if any others in Epitaphs of a like mark are found, with an indication of the Cagliarian church, called simply Bishops. Where no argument of a certain church is found, but the bare name of Bishop; in the middle I shall leave it, whether such a Bishop is to be numbered among the Sardinians or the Africans, of whom the first Archbishop of Chalon, in his Topography of the Saints at the word Cagliari: Here 200 Bishops of Africa through Hunneric King of the Vandals are in exile.

[141] Of the older Cagliarians, perhaps before Lucifer, seem to have been Gregory and Paul, and in the Epitaphs they are sometimes distinguished. whose in the chapel of St. Stephen of the Basilica of St. Saturninus a found title prefaced with the Primatial cross; by which it is understood that it is not an old title, but one which can be presumed from old ones faithfully transcribed under the Pisans, when into one were placed three bodies, as follows: HERE LIE B. M. GREGORY EP. V.A.P.M. (that is, lived more or less years) LX, AND OF THE COMPANIONS (barbarously for & the Companion) PAUL

EP. V. A. LII AND B. M. CHRISTINA Q. V. A. LII

whose bodies Bonfant page 549 says were obtained and carried off by Julian Iancardo a Presbyter of Genoa from Alassio, a village of the western shore pleasant: who them thither translated, and within the church of St. Ambrose in the chapel of the Mother of God, of the Iancardo family proper, placed with the greatest celebrity on the day VII of February: on which day if they be yearly commemorated, it were better that the uncertain title of Martyrdom be omitted.

[142] Of the Africans some by name, and indeed with the title of Martyrdom, perhaps on account of death in exile undergone, are expressed page 520 in this manner: ✠ S. JANUARIUS BISHOP AND M. S. LUDOVICUS BISHOP AND M. AND S. EGIDIANUS BISHOP AND M. THEY ARE AFRICAN. to one of the Africans wrongly given the name of Ludovicus. Where the later collector of the Epitaphs under the Pisans (for not older can be believed titles of this kind common to several) seems to have erred less by putting Africanus in the singular, than by writing the name of Ludovicus; which, equally as above the name of Leonard, must be said to have crept in by an inept conjecture of a name, once perhaps not entirely sculptured, but by initial letters only, or other abbreviated marks. The finding and translation history thou shalt find in Esquirrus book 3 chapter 12 under the note of the year MDCXX, the day XVII of July, when at Cagliari their feast is kept writes Bonfant: which on account of the more express added title S. more can be approved, than of many others, for whom only B. M. nothing such infers.

[143] We however even from these, into our work to be brought, with the good leave of the Sardinians, will abstain; But as in this work we omit those newly received from the Roman crypts, since not but more rarely mention thereafter to be made we have judged, of those even Martyrs, whose bodies or notable parts of bodies to the temple of this our House of Antwerp, and to the churches of other everywhere orders and towns, conveyed we have, or we know from the Roman cemeteries to have been brought in this or the past century, and on their own days each with the cult of the ecclesiastical office and Mass to be exposed on the altar. Not because we doubt of the truth of the title (for not necessary here do we have to the Roman judgments, by which they were proved, to insert our own) but because to us, the ecclesiastical history and antiquity's illustration professing, it little befits to augment the mass of the work, already now too much growing, with the seeking of those, whose bare names now first from under the earth dug out, or even by the finders of the bodies recently imposed, [so the recently announced from Sardinia we pass over without prejudice to the same.] nothing at all do for our purpose. For the histories of donations and translations, in instruments of nearly the same form and style comprehended, repeatedly to iterate, would be plainly tedious and useless.

[144] Let it be permitted therefore concerning the Martyrs and Confessors of Sardinia so to be occupied, that then only of them to be treated by us we judge, when of revelation, of finding, of translation the history some singular circumstances shall contain, on account of which added, the notice from old writers had, deserves to be excepted from the crowd of unnamed Saints, or by name only known; by whose merits nevertheless to be helped, and to whose consortia we desire to be aggregated; their triumphs over the world and the demon there about to know, where without the dread of erring it will be permitted to read them, in the book of the living by the very hand of God described, together with the death of each, the age, the order, and the country. There are not lacking in Sardinia itself, and even at Cagliari, men learned and moderate, to whom Esquirrus and Bonfant's zeal, of contending nearly all of whom they treat to have been Cagliarians, by no means to be approved seems; not at all doubting, but that from other places too of Sardinia, nay even from other Provinces of the Empire, many for Christ Martyrdom sustained, not only under the heathen Emperors (to whose years by Bonfant all are referred) but also under the Saracens and other barbarians. The same, when they shall see these things, I hope it will be that to us easily they will assent, that to many is attributed the laurel of Martyrdom, to whom the title of Confession or Virginity alone would suffice. Nay even I trust they will judge, among those inscriptions which are now shown, to be not few of ambiguous understanding and uncertain faith, which on account of the memory of antiquity in the museums of learned men it were better, than in the sacraries of churches to be kept.

* that is of November.

ON SS. THALASSIUS AND MARK

HERMITS AMONG THE GREEKS.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Their notice from the MS. Synaxarion, whether and how it distinguishes them from others of the same name?

Thalassius, of the Hermits among the Greeks (St.)

Marcus, of the Hermits among the Greeks (St.)

G. H.

[1] Related by us on February XXII is St. Thalassius the Anchorite near Cyrus in Syria, whom there dwelling on a hill with St. Limnaeus his disciple, oftener visited Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus, from whose Philotheus chapter 22 a brief elogium of him we have given. Now we hang in doubt, whether from him is to be distinguished, he who today is celebrated Thalassius, in the MS. Menæa at Dijon among the Fathers of the Society of Jesus kept, and is said to have rested in peace. Yet because there is added a distich, by which he seems to be indicated, to have dwelt in a sepulchre, which of the other is not read; him, as different, under such caution here we place. The Distich itself is of this kind, alluding to the name of Thalassius, ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάσσης, that is from the Sea, taken.

Ὁ Θαλάσσιος καὶ κατοικήσας τάφον, Βλύζει θαλάσσας χαριτων ἐκ τοῦ τάφου

Even in a sepulchre dwelling Thalassius, A sea of graces pours forth from the very sepulchre.

Ambiguous, as thou seest, of the Aorist κατοικήσας the signification, doubtful leaves whether it be said of Thalassius, once to have dwelt living, or truly dead to dwell in the sepulchre, whence flows the grace of cures: therefore through me it is permitted, that the things here said posterity refer to February XXII. In the MS. Synaxarion of the Constantinopolitan Church, which at Paris from our Ludovician College to use we received, also on this day, and on May XXII in the MS. Milanese ones of the Ambrosian Library, is indicated the memory of our holy Father Thalassius, which of one and the same, of whom we have already made mention, we willingly take; more who shall find will do a favor to posterity, by supplying greater light.

[2] The same Dijon Menæa on this XX of May, but the Milanese on the XXII, relate St. Mark the Hermit, and assert that he rested in peace: but in the former are added these verses:

Δίδωσι Μάρκῳ τῆς Ἑδὲμ κῆπον μέγαν, Ὁ κῆπον εὑρὼν εἰς ταφὴν Χριστὸς πάλαι.

To Himself who a sepulchre found within a garden, God, The greatest gardens of Eden to Mark He gave.

[3] Thus far those MSS. Of another monk Mark, a holy and learned man, Another St. Mark related on March 5, who is handed down from Angelic hands the sacred Eucharist wont to receive, and many books wrote and to a blind hyena the eye restored, we treated on the V day of March, and we gave what is related of him in the printed Menæa and the MS. Synaxarion: in which although on this day of St. Mark it is not treated, yet this one related seems from that one to be distinguished. On occasion of the said St. Mark we treated also on March V of another Mark, Silvanus's disciple and an antiquarian Writer, who also a letter imperfect left. But he by others on October VII and XVIII is commemorated. another on October 7 and 18.

[4] In the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus book 10 On the Lives

of the Holy Fathers chapter 13 is brought forth the Life of Mark the Anchorite in these words: They said of Abbot Mark the Anchorite, who dwelt near the monastery of Penthucula for sixty-three years, that he had this virtue of fasting whole weeks, those are the Acts of another. so that some thought him to be without flesh. But he worked day and night, and distributed all things to the poor, nor from anyone received anything. Of this hearing faithful men, came that they might give him an agape, and he said to them: I do not receive, because my hands nourish me, and those who for God's sake come to me. Thus far that. Yet we do not at once affirm of him that it is treated on this day, but we show only that men of this name several illustrious have been. To suspect meanwhile someone could that he praised by John Moschus by the culture of his garden himself and others nourished, and looking to this the Author of that distich, him on this day wished to the sacred Calendars ascribed; although perhaps he was ignorant of the day, on which he died.