ON THE HOLY SARDINIAN MARTYRS,
ÆMILIUS, FELIX, PRIAMUS, LUCIANUS, LIKEWISE FORTUNATUS, JUCUNDIANUS, LUCIUS.
CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
How rashly there were confused with these the Sardinian Bishops of the same or similar names: and concerning the various churches of either in Sardinia, and the equally uncertain finding of the bodies.
St. Æmilius, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Felix, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Priamus, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Lucianus, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Fortunatus, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Jucundianus, Martyr in Sardinia.
St. Lucius, Martyr in Sardinia.
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The notice of these Martyrs is more certainly drawn from the ancient Martyrologies than from the more recent Writers of Sardinia: In the opinion of all the ancients Martyrs, and first Usuard, Ado, Notker, the author of the Martyrology published under the name of Bede, Bellinus, and others following them have these things: In Sardinia, of Saints Emilius, Felix, Priamus, Lucianus: whom that they were Martyrs the present Roman Martyrology indicates, adding that contending for Christ they were crowned. The name of Passion, that is, of Martyrdom, Notker prefixes; and they are reckoned among the Martyrs in the ancient copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology, and in the Blume one indeed in these words: In Sardinia, of Emilius, Felix, Prianus, Lucianus. Which are the same in the Lucca codex, but Pirianus is written, for which better in the Roman Manuscripts of Cardinal Barberini, and the Vallicellan one of the Congregation of the Oratory, and others above indicated, is put Priamus. This being omitted, in the Corbie Manuscript printed at Paris other companions are thus added: In Sardinia, of Emilius, Felix, Fortunatus, Lucianus, Jocundianus, Lucius. In the Echternach Manuscript a hiatus seems to have been introduced through the carelessness of the writer, and only the name of Felicianus is referred; perhaps contracted from the words Felix and Lucianus. There is read also Felicius in the primary Manuscript of Usuard, which is kept at Paris in the monastery of St. Germanus. These things thus agreeing, we wonder that in Maurolycus is read: In Sardinia, of Saints Æmilius, Priamus, Lucianus, and Felix a woman. Maurolycus is followed by Felicius, Arturus in the Sacred Gynaeceum, and Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, who adds that they were afflicted with martyrdom at Cagliari, as ancient tradition has, and that their sepulchre was famous for miracles. And these thus far treat of Martyrs, in which way also that SS. Æmilius, Priamus, Lucianus, and Felix were Martyrs assert Dimas Serpi book 1 of the Chronicle of the Saints of Sardinia chapter 16, Franciscus de Vico part 3 of the History of Sardinia chapter 2, Jacobus Pinto book 3 on Christ Crucified title 4 place 12 number 21, and others, and they will have them crowned under the Emperor Hadrian. Nevertheless Fara, book 1 on the Sardinian Affairs in the aforecited Maurolycus in the Annotation, makes these not Martyrs but Confessors: for he says they excelled in sanctity, and on the V Kalends of June famous for miracles passed into heaven; and that the first is called not Æmilius, but Æmilianus.
[2] Dionysius Bonfant, book 1 on the Triumphs of the Saints of the kingdom of Sardinia chapter 6 and following, makes the first four Protomartyrs, Did they suffer under Nero? suffering under Nero: and in proof he adduces Primus Bishop of Chalon, who in the Topography of the Saints under the word Caralis (rather Calaris) has these things: Here Primus, Felix, Æmilius, and Lucianus Martyrs. But because that Primus marked no Martyr under the name of Sardinia, he seems to have named for the island itself the chief city of the island. Hence however it does not follow that Æmilius or Æmilianus was Archbishop of Cagliari; nor are the things to be admitted which are there narrated of him and his Companions. Let the reader himself go to Bonfant, if anyone is delighted by narrations of this kind, novel and not founded on solid authority: to us it is enough to have indicated what the ancients, although foreign writers, noted: for as to the persecution of Nero, that this penetrated to the Sardinians, I shall with difficulty be able to be persuaded.
[3] Whether the various churches be of this St. Æmilianus, A little more worthy of consideration is that the aforesaid Bonfant finishes his discourse on St. Æmilianus in this manner: There was once among us a town, having the name Æmilianus or Æmilius, whose ruins are even today beheld in the territory of Sardiana, so called on account of the church which the natives there had built to him as their Patron, the rubble of which church, levelled to the ground, the curious investigator will still be able to discern. But in the town of Samassi is found another church of the same appellation, which some now call St. Augustine's, because near by was once founded a convent of Augustinians: and that church is most ancient. Again in the town of Narugus is another exceedingly ancient one; and in the town of Baulla a similar one once stood, but now is destroyed. At Ilbono also, in the Ogliastra territory, one would be known to exist, were it not by the error of the common people believed to be of St. Geminianus the Martyr, whose feast is there kept. All moreover the ancient tablets of the said churches represented, and today represent, a Holy Bishop. But lest anyone object that they are of St. Geminianus, not Æmilianus, let him go to the town of Somugheri, and he will find there one church of St. Æmilianus and another of St. Geminianus, as of different Saints; and one is held of St. Æmilianus the Bishop, the other of St. Geminianus the Martyr, and he will cease to doubt. Thus he.
[4] or rather of a Bishop Confessor! But I do not cease to doubt, and vehemently suspect that those painted tablets, both those which represent St. Æmilianus and those which represent St. Geminianus, are equally all of Bishops of that name in Sardinia, but Confessors, whose feast days, when they had been abolished from the memory of the Christians, dwelling without any cult of Christianity among the Saracens, those who preserved the memory of St. Geminianus had recourse to the Roman Martyrology, and there found
on the XVI of September one, suffering at Rome with St. Lucy, which sufficed for them, that they should assume his cult as of a Martyr. But no one will wonder that the feast days of these, known from the surviving names of churches alone, could pass out of memory; if he considers the same to have happened to St. Lucifer, the chief Saint of the whole island. Nor perhaps less than from St. Geminianus, such as he is, is St. Æmilianus to be distinguished, from this also is to be distinguished St. Æmilius, whose church, distant six miles from Cagliari, survives, says Bonfant, in the town called Sestu-campestre: there are also churches of SS. Æmilius, Priamus, Lucianus, where he testifies many miracles to be done by one of those stones, with which old tradition has that that Saint was stoned. Of Priamus also (whom Squirrus says is commonly called Santu Pilumu) I read in Bonfant that various churches stand through the island, and namely at Sarralus, which under the altar has three crypts: and one of them drips water, salutary for many cures. But also to St. Lucianus several churches are said to be consecrated, especially in the parts of Oristano. Of which universally I would say, it is more probable that the Saints whose they are, also rested in some one of them in body either whole or divided, as long as it was permitted under the tyranny of the Saracens.
[5] As to the Relics of the aforesaid Martyrs, which the Sardinians believe themselves to have found near Cagliari in the year MDCXX, The bodies found in the year 1620 do not seem to be of Martyrs, it is to be known from the Sanctuary of Seraphinus Squirrus book 2 chapter 41, that on the XVIII of January, in the year already said, on a Saturday, near the church of St. Saturninus a cart passing, the ground failing under one of the wheels, it stuck in the mud, and lifted up a piece of stone wrought with mosaic work, with some letters: of which matter the Archiepiscopal Vicar being warned ran up; and the earth being removed, there was found the tribune of the presbytery, and consequently an entire subterranean church, with many chapels, so composed that each comprised several little chapels. In this Presbytery there was found in the first place an epitaph, sculptured on black marble and surrounded with a border of mosaic work, of a certain boy Lellus, related by us in the Appendix to the Acts of St. Lucifer on May XX number 131, which even alone ought to have sufficed for judgments not preoccupied, that they should believe the bodies of those resting there were not of Martyrs, but most of them placed in the peace of the church and probably after the times of the Saracens.
[6] But because to those searching further through several following days, much less of the Priamus related on this day, and certainly persuaded that all the bodies were of Holy Martyrs, on the XIV of March there occurred a comely brick sepulchre, surrounded with a red border, within which was found enclosed a piece of marble one palm square, saying, B. M. PRIAMUS. WHO. LIVED. ABOUT. XXX. YEARS. RESTED. IN. PEACE. V. KAL. JUNE, this fortuitous concurrence of the same day and name seemed to suffice, for firmly establishing that there lay hidden the body of him whom the ancient Martyrologies, as we have seen, say bore martyrdom in Sardinia, although in the epitaph itself no indication of martyrdom, but altogether all other things appear. Hence moreover a beginning being made, it was believed that the sepulchre before found on the X of March, under which was placed a little brick mutilated on both sides, only presented characters, the rest from three more produced lines,
B. M. LUCI
IS. PL. M. L. A.
POS IT. of Lucianus,
[7] of Æmilianus and Felix. But it had been of little moment to have elicited from the remnants of the broken epitaph a name, perhaps very different from him for whom it had been set; had not also from mere vicinity Bonfant chapter 7 wish it to follow, that in the sepulchre next to the two former, from whose epitaph nothing more survived than these words, RESTS IN PEACE, was contained the body of St. Æmilianus, as having suffered with Lucianus and Priamus. In like manner the same Bonfant chapter 9 believed another body found there, with a title so corrupt that few letters and no sense of them appear, to be of Felix, and indeed (according to the mind of Galesinius) a woman. But far more advisedly the Archbishop of Cagliari D. Franciscus de Esquivel judged that both this which was pretended to be of Felix, and the other of Lucianus, should be retained without a name, and joined to other bodies, found without indication of name. But the same he would have done far most advisedly, if he had not permitted even those whose names were extant to be celebrated as Saints, and translated, to be placed under altars or in the sacrarium, as if certainly proved Martyrs, without the cause being more accurately weighed, and the response of the Roman Church, which had been consulted thereupon, being awaited. But with how great joy, by the intervention of the Archbishop himself and the Viceroy D. Alfonsus de Eril, the Translation of the pretended SS. Lucianus and Priamus was celebrated on the X and XIV of March, it is enough that it can be read in Bonfant.