ON ST. AURELIANUS,
ROMAN MARTYR, TRANSLATED TO PAVIA.
UNDER THE EMPEROR DECIUS.
CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
In which is set forth and weighed a compendium of the Acts, imprudently woven concerning him.
Aurelianus, Roman Martyr, translated to Pavia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
[1] Ferrarius in the general Catalogue at the second day of February in the first place celebrates S. Aurelianus, Martyr at Rome under Decius. Sacred memory. Then in the Notes he cites Galesinius, who calls him Laurelianus. But in the Tables of the Church of Pavia, which has his body, and venerates him on May XXII, he is named Aurelianus. Concerning him James Gualla in the Sanctuary of the Church of Pavia, and Stephen Breventanus in the History of the same city book 3, nay 4, as will be cited below. These things there Ferrarius: who again at this XXII of May recalls S. Aurelianus the Martyr under Decius, and ascribes him to Pavia, and it is noted from the Tables of the Church of Pavia, that he suffered at Rome and his Body was translated to Pavia. Gualla writes of him. The same Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy published a certain elogium of his martyrdom, from James Gualla book 3 of the Sanctuary chapter 9. To which although we think no great faith is to be given, yet we here give it, that the reader may by himself be able to estimate the fairness of our judgment concerning it.
[2] Aurelianus the renowned Martyr, while Decius the Emperor was reigning (when at Rome so savage a persecution raged against the Christians, that, rebuking the idolaters, he was seized: that those confessing Christ either were beheaded with the sword, or were burned with fire, or were handed over to be torn by beasts, or were sent into the mine) with a little son, by name Maximus, religiously brought up, who afterward, crowned with martyrdom together with him, is received into heaven, finding a great multitude of men who worshiped foul idols, began to cry out: O foolish and blind men, why do ye sacrifice to stone gods, dumb and deaf, than whom ye yourselves are far better? Whereupon at once, by the command of the Prefect Hilas, he is seized, and is dragged to worship the images of the idols. But Aurelianus, most steadfast in the faith, cries out: Your idols I do not worship: I adore only Christ the immortal true God, whom I serve. Then the Prefect: Unless thou shalt worship our Gods with us, thou shalt be subjected to dire tortures. And while all were bending their knees to the idols, Aurelianus prayed thus to heaven with a loud voice, weeping: God almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and of all things, as Thou hast said: If ye shall have faith and shall say to the mountain, that it should transfer itself from one place to another, so shall it be done; over these and their gods show Thy power, that they may understand Thee alone the true God, immortal and to be feared. Matt. 17, 19. that by prayer he transferred the idols: But when his little son had answered, Amen; at once those images of the idols were miraculously carried to another place, with the head turned to the ground and the feet on high. But Hilas the Prefect, who by the manifest judgment of God grew wholly stiff, and could not move himself, cries out: Aurelianus, servant of God, if I shall be freed by thy prayer, I adore Christ. He being freed by the prayer of Aurelianus, more rabid he threatens Aurelianus, that, unless he restore his gods to their former place, he shall perish by dire torments. To whom the man of God: If thy gods have helped thee, let them go where they will on their own feet. Then the Prefect sent him bound to Decius: and on the way he freed a certain matron from an incurable disease: he healed a sick woman, who afterward with all her household was converted to the faith.
[3] But being led to Decius, while he despised the worship of the Gods, and called Decius foolish, because he worshiped stone and wooden gods; he is beaten with great torments: yet joyful, invoking the divine aid, he prayed thus: God, attend unto my help: O Lord, make haste to help me. the daughter of the Emperor Decius is freed from a demon, Meanwhile the daughter of Decius, gnashing her teeth, is vexed by a demon often crying out: Only by the command of Aurelianus the servant of God shall I be compelled to depart: another can in no wise drive me out. Which Decius seeing says to Aurelianus: If thou shalt free my daughter, I will exalt thee with great honors and riches. But he: Why do thy gods not free her? But if I shall free her, wilt thou believe in Christ the omnipotent God? I will believe, says Decius. To him Aurelianus: Great is the perfidy of thy hardened heart: nevertheless that I may make whole this people standing by, and that they may see the wonders of God, and believe; behold in the name of Christ I free her. She being freed, the people cry out: True and great is the God of Aurelianus. But the perfidious Decius himself asserted that these things were done by magic art: and orders Aurelianus to be beheaded with a bloody sword, unless he worship his gods. Aurelianus says, Lead me to them. and the idols being destroyed To whom when he had drawn near, they all fell down before his feet, and vanished into dust. Then Decius, kindled with fury, caused the tongue of the man of God to be cut off: who nevertheless spoke as before. To whom the daughter of Decius hastening, who had been possessed by a demon, was made a Christian.
[4] his tongue cut off, he spoke: At last when Aurelianus had declared that he could not die, unless he were beheaded, by command of Decius he is led to the Capitol, and with his little son Maximus is slaughtered by the bloody slaughter of the sword. Whose soul indeed seemed to go forth from the body in the likeness of a white dove. that he was beheaded with S. Maximus his son. For their bodies were devoutly buried by the faithful weeping together. At Rome, in the crypt of Callistus outside the city at the third milestone, while the above-mentioned impious Decius was reigning, with Hylla and Gelascus as Consuls, on the second day of February. the body translated to Pavia, Afterward the venerable body of the same Aurelianus was translated to Ticinum, and laid in the oratory of the sacred Virgins of the monastery of Senator, by the most illustrious Duke Senator: and there it is now venerated, to the praise of the eternal King Jesus Christ the blessed: to whom be praise, honor, and glory forever.
[5] Thus far James Gualla, a man esteemed in his time for singular learning and virtue, and who died in the year MDV, who declares that he wrote the Sanctuary of Pavia according to sacred histories, left in a very ancient writing, and thence took the clear truth. it is kept in the Benedictine monastery. The same things are extant in Italian in Stephen Breventanus book 4 of the History of Pavia printed in the year MDLXX chapter 3. He says the aforesaid oratory of the sacred Virgins is of the Benedictine Order, but that monastery is called of Senator from a certain Senator its founder, and that the Body of S. Aurelianus was translated from Rome to Pavia by a certain Roman Senator. Another sufficiently accurate compendium is read in the above-indicated Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, published about the year MDCXIII. And those indeed in good faith are to be believed to have transcribed the Passion, such as they had found among the Nuns. This however does not suffice for us, to believe where the Acts seem first to have been composed that its first Author, whom it is allowable to presume to have been one of the Confessors of that monastery, really had any more ancient Acts, brought together with the sacred body: but rather, by the excessive simplicity of the middle age, thinking such things not unlawfully feigned, for the incitement of public devotion, that he wrote at his own discretion what he believed could be read with some appearance of truth.
[6] He could not divine that the Fasti of the ancient Consuls would one day come forth, most certainly to teach who in what years held that Magistracy; otherwise he would have known to act more cautiously, and would rather have named no Consuls, than Hylla and Gelasius; who, since they never existed, much less under the Emperor Decius, make manifest the imposture of the author's invention. The same I believe the catalogue of the Prefects of the City would do, if that which alone we now have edited by Bucherius, Consuls being imprudently added, beginning from Lollianus (who under Valerian II and Gallienus as Consuls, that is in the year of the common era CCLIV, was Prefect of the City) were begun six years earlier, doubtless giving another Prefect of the City, than Hilas here named. But as out of his own brain he feigned those, so he could also at his pleasure have chosen Decius, under whom he might bid Aurelianus be believed to have suffered; and the very torments endured and miracles wrought, such as he had perhaps read in the Passions of other Martyrs, with the prodigy of the soul flying forth from the body under the appearance of a dove. And because he had read in the Martyrology of Ado or Notker, at October XVIII concerning S. Triphonia the wife of Decius Caesar, with Cyrilla the daughter of Decius, baptized by Justin the Presbyter; he could thence have taken occasion of introducing some daughter of Decius, who was freed by Aurelianus. More easily shall I believe, that this holy body was extracted from the cemetery of Callistus: for such, and almost no other notice, is wont to be transmitted with the sacred bodies from Rome. Thence however it does not follow that Aurelianus first suffered after the times of Decius: because Callistus the Pope was not the founder, but only the restorer of the said cemetery; if indeed there were anciently buried, and not afterward translated thither, SS. Anicetus and Soter the Roman Pontiffs, as is said at their Acts April XVIII and XXII.
[7] Cult January 31 and February 2. On the XXXI day of January is referred in Greven or the Carthusians of Cologne in the Auctarium of Usuard S. Aurelianus the Martyr: and we suspected him to be the same of whom we here treat: certainly it was not worth our while, from so slight and recent an indication, to make then a special memory of him as of a different one. Also on the second day of February, on which he is here said to have suffered, besides Ferrarius and Galesinius mentioned above, he is mentioned by Felicius, and by him who published Usuard more fully at Paris in the year MDXXXIII, as we then said at the Passed Over and deferred to other days. But on no day do we find any memory of S. Maximus the little boy, son of S. Aurelianus, of whom so celebrated a mention is made above in the Acts: yet we should have set him in the title, as to be commemorated this day with his father, if either at Pavia or elsewhere there were kept Relics, under that name translated from Rome. Now, because his whole history is to us suspect of gratuitous fiction, we dare not under that name, as of a true Martyr, increase the number of the Saints of this day.