ON SS. VERISSIMUS AND MAXIMA AND JULIA, MARTYRS AT LISBON IN PORTUGAL,
AT LISBON IN PORTUGAL.
More probably in the year CCCIII or CCCIV.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Of the cult, martyrdom and age of these Saints.
Verissimus, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
Maxima, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
Julia, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
BY J. S.
Baronius announces three Portuguese martyrs at Lisbon today in the Roman Martyrology in these words: At Lisbon in Portugal, of the holy martyrs Verissimus, Maxima, The Saints in the Roman Martyrology, in Usuard and Julia his sisters, who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian. In the Annotations he adduces Usuard, who did in fact announce these Martyrs, but was silent about the time of the martyrdom, writing thus: In the province of Portugal, in the city of Olisepona, of the holy martyrs Verissimus, Maxima and Julia, sisters. But in the Augmented copies of Bede, that is, in three codices given by our Papebroch before volume 2 of April as the augmentation of Florus, they are mentioned under the governor Dacianus, that is, in the time of the reign of Diocletian, and with some difference of sex. The words are these: In the city of Elissipona, the passion of the saints Verissimus, Maximus and Julia [], who suffered under the governor Datianus. Datianus, having learned of their confession, orders the audience-chamber to be prepared and the lictors to be brought in, and commanded the Martyrs to be stretched out, scourges to be applied, hooks to be bound on, goads and snares to be set out. And, since nothing of these either terrified the Servants of God when promised or overcame them when applied, they are at length consummated by the sword.* It is not likely that these things were seen by Usuard; for otherwise he would not have omitted the time of the martyrdom. Wherefore with Sollerius, in the Preface to Usuard, article 2, I judge that those augmentations are not Florus's, but much more recent.
[2] and mentioned by other more recent writers: Peter de Natalibus briefly mentions the same Martyrs in book XI, chapter 130, number 268, but with the name of the city of Lisbon corrupted. Verissimus, he says, Maxima and Julia, sisters, in the province of Portugal in the city of Helisapomia, triumphed by martyrdom on the same day (1 October). The author of the manuscript Florarium of the Saints substitutes for Verissimus a woman Verissima, and has dislocated the name of the city. I transfer the words here: In the province of Portugal, in the city of Elisaponia, of the holy martyrs Verissima, Julia and Maxima, sisters. Which holy Sisters, strong in spirit, showed the invincible power of God. For the more they were punished, the more they glorified God, saying: Blessed be God, who works wonders in his Saints. Of these also treat Canisius in the German Martyrology, who agrees with Usuard; Maurolycus and Galesinius, who dissent somewhat. For the former has it thus: In the Portuguese province, in the city of Odyssioppo, of the holy martyrs Maximus, Verissimus and Julia their sister. In place of the woman Maxima a man Maximus is clearly put here; and another name again is attributed to the city. Galesinius departs from Usuard in the name of the first Martyr, and in place of Verissimus, as he confesses in the Annotations is read in others, put Verivimus, and also dislocated the name of the city, and fixed the time of the martyrdom under Antoninus, writing thus: At Usyspona in Portugal, of the holy martyrs Verivimus, Maxima and Julia, sisters. These, joined by blood, so united by the love of divine piety, aspiring with one ardour and eagerness of mind to eternal glory, gloriously underwent martyrdom under the emperor Antoninus. Concerning the city in which they suffered, even if it is expressed in so many different ways, it is not to be doubted that the metropolis of the kingdom of Portugal is designated, which in Latin was called sometimes Ulyssipo, sometimes Olisippo, sometimes Olyssipo, and is very well known to all, but has been shaken in our time by the greatest calamities.
[3] I shall add also the words of the Spanish Martyrology of Juan Tamayo Salazar, in the Spanish Martyrology the finding of the bodies is added, although he is otherwise of slight credit, because the author frequently followed the assertions of the supposititious Chronicles. At Lisbon in Portugal, the birthday of SS. Verissimus, Maxima and Julia, siblings, who, seized in the persecution of Diocletian, and ferociously dragged through the public streets of the city, at length, their heads cut off, came as martyrs to the eternal rewards. Their bodies were exposed to be torn apart by dogs; but were preserved by the providence of God: they were thrown into the sea, but by God's will were cast out by the deep, until they were buried by the faithful. The inhabitants of the city have experienced their patronage. The same martyrologist at XXIX September announces the finding of the bodies in these words: At Lisbon in Portugal, the finding of the sacred pledges of SS. Verissimus, Maxima and Julia, sibling martyrs, by the lady Sancha, commendatary 1 of the monastery of St. James, who, when by divine revelation she learned in ecstasy the place of their tomb, at once, the sweetness of a most fragrant odour going before, found the bodies and raised them to the high altar. At whose touch those labouring with sicknesses effectively received from God, by the intervention of the Saints, the benefits of health. There the sacred remains lay for some centuries, until, King John II of Portugal so disposing, they were translated to the church of the New Saints, where, laid up in silver sarcophagi, they rest honourably. For this finding Tamayo praises a manuscript Legendary of the church of Segovia, in which he says these things are read, as he recites everything a little more fully in the Annotations. The Acts are to be given below, where the reader will find those things related a little more briefly, excepting however the translation made later by John II to the new church.
[4] Concerning the translation by John II it is abundantly established from the historians, [concerning which most historians are silent. But these relate the martyrdom and translation of the Saints.] as we shall see below; but not equally concerning that finding honoured by so many prodigies. That the martyrologists are silent about it Tamayo confesses. Likewise silent about it are Tomás de Trujillo, presently to be praised more fully, and Ambrosio de Morales, book 10, chapter 14, although in the same place he briefly relates most of the things pertaining to those Saints, as does Tomás de Trujillo also in the Thesaurus concionatorius at 1 October. His words I transfer here, to be considered by the studious reader and compared with the Acts which Tamayo, everywhere suspect to us, has given. The title is: Of saint Verissimus, Maxima and Julia, martyrs. I observe briefly that concerning the names of the Saints, as they are written here, the Spanish and Portuguese writers agree, so that no doubt remains to a prudent man about the names or sex of the Saints, although we have seen before some errors of others about them. Concerning the Martyrologies in which the Saints are mentioned the writer speaks thus: The Martyrologies themselves, namely the Roman, those of Usuard and Ado, and other authors, write about these three Martyrs of Lisbon: whose feast is celebrated on the 1st day of October. Ado should have been omitted, who has nothing about these Martyrs in the genuine Martyrology: and in his place can be substituted the Martyrology written in the Portuguese language about the Portuguese Saints and published by the Coimbra press in the year 1591, in which there is also nothing about the prodigious finding of the bodies asserted above, although everything up to the translation is touched upon. Concerning the cult, Morales adds that those Saints are venerated at Lisbon with great solemnity as patrons.
[5] they narrate the martyrdom and translation. I return to Trujillo. These glorious Martyrs, then, he says, *were siblings, and from the aforesaid city of Portugal. And a public edict having been made by the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, in whose time they are thought to have suffered, that all Christians should either sacrifice to the gods or be killed, [and] most cruel torments were exercised upon them. When Verissimus had heard this edict, not waiting to be seized by the tyrants themselves, he came of himself with his two sisters before the tyrant, and said that he and his sisters were Christians. The tyrant judge therefore commanded that they should be thrown into prison, and that the thinnest and most sparing food should be ministered to them. When the tyrant saw that they had endured this kind of torment with a joyful countenance, he commanded that their bodies should be torn and lacerated with various torments. He ordered moreover that they should be beaten most cruelly with scorpions. At last the glorious ones were wretchedly tortured
Martyrs, so that they were almost disembowelled; and moreover burning flames were applied to their sides. Besides this they were dragged with the greatest savagery and cruelty through the whole city, and various stones were thrown at them, and at length they were slain by the sword. Their bodies were first exposed to be devoured by birds and wild beasts: but when the tyrant saw that they had not been harmed at all, he ordered them to be sunk in the sea. By the divine will, however, it came about that they returned to the very shore: and the Christians, seeing this, not without the greatest confusion of the unbelievers, buried them most honourably. And in the place where they were buried a church was built. At length, in the time of John II, king of Portugal, they were translated into the city itself, whereas before they had been outside it, namely into a certain monastery of nuns of St. James. Morales, praised above, writes things consonant with these in Spanish. Juan Marieta also, book 2, chapter 20, narrates similar things about these Saints, as does Alonso de Villegas in the Flos Sanctorum, folios 398 and 399. But none of them declares whence all those things were received.
[6] [Whence the Acts were received: they are not sufficiently ancient, yet to be published:] The Acts which Tamayo gives at 1 October add other things about the finding of the bodies. Of those Acts Tamayo says at 1 October: We give his Acts from the manuscript Legendaries of Monte-Sion and of the churches of Segovia, Évora, Seville and others. And after the Acts have been given he explains the name of Monte-Sion, saying that he gave the Acts from the Legendaries of the Cistercian monastery of Monte-Sion of Toledo, etc. Bivar, in the Commentaries on the Chronicle supposed under the name of Flavius Lucius Dexter, page 366, testifies that those Acts were seen by him, writing thus: I have read their Acts in a very old parchment and manuscript codex of the library of St. Bernard of Toledo under number 64, with the beginning: "In those times, when through all the provinces", etc. So indeed begin the Acts published by Tamayo and to be reprinted by us. At what time they were written we cannot say. But certainly they are not sufficiently ancient to claim much authority for themselves. For if they were written as they are published, they were composed a long time after the city of Lisbon was freed from the yoke of the Moors in the XII century. Wherefore, whether older Acts existed, or these were written from some older notices or from tradition, they cannot merit undoubted credit for the individual circumstances of the facts. It could happen, however, that the earlier part of the Acts was written many centuries before the later, which treats of the finding of the bodies: but we cannot prove this by conjectures alone. However that may be, we shall reprint those Acts, because we have nothing more certain.
[7] First, however, a few things remain to be said about the time at which the Saints suffered. the martyrdom to be fixed in the year 303 or 304: The Acts designate the time of the gentile emperors, but express none by name. So Usuard is altogether silent about the time at which the Saints suffered. But the words with which the Martyrology of Bede was augmented, given at number 1, fix the martyrdom of our Saints under the governor Dacianus, that is, under the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. With this assertion those words of the Acts sufficiently agree: When through all the provinces pertaining to the Roman empire, at the command of the pagan princes, the persecution of Christianity was raging. Baronius, in the Annals at the year 303, number 138, rightly judged that the martyrdom of SS. Verissimus, Maxima and Julia is to be fixed in that general persecution which raged most in the years 303 and 304. Tamayo designated the year 308 from pseudo-Dexter, but there is no credit in him. Vasaeus, in the Chronicle of Spain, fixed the year in which he believed the general persecution began, so that he must be judged to agree with Baronius. This opinion is certainly more probable than the rest: for I would not dare to call it certain. Galesinius, who fixed the martyrdom under Antoninus, may perhaps have had regard to the inscription which Tamayo recites at XXIX September and holds to have been set up in the year 1475; but Rodrigo da Cunha, in the Portuguese Work on the History of the church of Lisbon, chapter 18, treats at length of our Saints, and says that the same inscription, which he proves altogether faulty, was set up in the year 1529. The inscription, moreover, has of the Saints: They suffered MCCCL years ago; which, if they are subtracted from 1529, they are said to have suffered in the year 179. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was reigning at that time. But that inscription can have no authority, and for that reason I did not even think it should be recited.
[8] For the rest, the praised da Cunha agrees with the others about the translation of the bodies made from the old church to the new, the bodies translated in the year 1475 to a new church. founded by John II, king of Portugal, for the nuns of St. James, and fixes that translation in the year 1475. Tamayo agrees, and at XXIX September, having first related the finding of the bodies, writes the following about the construction of the church and the translation: And therefore in the year MCCCLXXV (read MCCCCLXXV, as he has afterwards) John II, king of Portugal, completed it (the new church), and, the nuns having been transferred, at length carried the sacred remains with magnificent and royal pomp, where, laid up in little caskets skilfully made of pure silver, they rest in the high altar. Ambrosio de Morales, who touches these things more briefly, observes with Trujillo, praised at number 5, that this new church of the nuns is within the city, whereas the old one was outside. António de Vasconcelos, in the Description of the kingdom of Portugal, page 448, treats briefly of today's Martyrs, and mentions both churches in these words: There a church was afterwards dedicated to the name of the Saints, which still keeps its name from its Tutelaries, and is called today the Old Saints (Santos o velho), so that there may be a distinction from the royal church (today we call it the New Saints), into which John II, king of Portugal, munificently and at the same time religiously conveyed the bones of the Saints, it having been founded by himself.
Annotata[] in one, Julius*
ACTS
By an anonymous author
From the edition of Juan Tamayo.
Verissimus, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
Maxima, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
Julia, M., at Lisbon in Portugal. (S.)
BHL Number: 8544
By an Anonymous
[Persecution being stirred up, the Saints are seized: and having professed the faith,] In those times, when through all the provinces pertaining to the Roman empire, at the command of the pagan princes, the persecution of Christianity was raging, and there was no corner at all in the world in which the worship of idols did not strive to extinguish the ardour of the true religion: in the city of Lisbon, which antiquity records and recounts on the shore of the Ocean, the persecution of the then pagan governor a consecrated three Martyrs to Christ the Lord. He, when he had been admonished by the imperial precepts that those who had delayed to sacrifice to the idols should be killed with various torments, the nefarious executor of the impious command compelled the natives of the aforesaid city to be led to sacrifice by his ministers: who, according to the rite of the pagans, promised punishment to those who refused and rewards to those who obeyed. And when, among others whom the allurements of worldly things had deceived, Verissimus, Maxima and Julia, his sisters, inhabitants of that city, were seized and compelled b to burn incense at the profane altars, differing indeed in sex, but alike in virtue of spirit, they professed that they were Christians, that they believed Christ, and that they could not be torn away from his service.
[2] and first tortured in various ways, they are killed by the sword. The judge, having learned of their confession, commanded the audience-chamber c to be prepared, the lictors to be brought in, the Martyrs to be stretched out, scourges to be applied, hooks to be bound on, and the snares of the rack to be set out. But nothing of these either terrified the servants of God when promised, or overcame them when applied d. For the virtue of their souls advanced through the damages of their bodies; and through the manifold and successive grades of punishments their faith, established in God, tended towards the promised beatitude. The anger of the persecutor, indeed, blazed up when he beheld the confidence of the Martyrs amid the tortures of his inventions, and his mind, dedicated to the devil, ran through all the wiles of cunning. But the cunning of the unclean enemy could not conquer those whom divine patience was admonishing towards the prepared crown of the heavenly reward. At length the torments of martyrdom are consummated by the sword, so that the spirit sent forth of those confessing [*] Christ with their voice, whom punishment could not change, should enter heaven.
[3] The bodies buried by the Christians, Nor even so was the cruelty of the raging judge at last satisfied; for he left the bodies unburied, and, weighed down with masses of stone, subjected them to be devoured by birds and torn by wild beasts. But when they remained altogether unharmed, he ordered them to be taken away and thrown into the sea e, lest by the testimony of a burial bestowed the example of their confession and faith should come to the knowledge of posterity. But the venerable bodies reach the shore before the messengers returned. The devout populace runs to meet them with joy, astonished at the novelty of so great a thing, roused by faith, and fortified by the unanimity of martyrdom, and at once took care to gather the venerable bodies and to transfer them to the place of burial with the greatest veneration of reverence. Nor did the occupation of household affairs hold back any of the Christians, or sex draw them back, or infancy hinder them, so as to be distracted and absent from the duty. Following the example of this people, we pay these yearly feasts to the Martyrs on the Kalends of October, on which they were crowned, that we may be helped by their intercessions. Nor ought we to believe those dead whom we know to have been set beside the heavenly throne.
[4] The bodies of the holy Martyrs, moreover, lay at Lisbon in a church f consecrated to the holy Martyrs themselves, where a church was afterwards built, in which they were found. until, as the irruption of the Agarenes advanced through the Spains g, they were wrapped under the earth by the Christians of that age, lest they should come into the hands of the Saracens; there they remained forgotten, since there was no one who could show the place of the hidden treasure. But as the years ran on, when in that same ancient church (Lisbon h being now freed from the captivity of the Arabs) a magnificent monastery of the Order of St. James was being erected, which having afterwards been transferred to Mértola i, in place of the knights their wives and daughters were gathered in the same monastery until the men returned from the wars, there began to be united there, from widows and other most illustrious women, an Order of women, Nuns of St. James. Among these a certain Commendatary k, learning by divine means the place of burial of the Saints, the place having been dug up on the XXIX day of September, at length through the sweetness of the odour which the pit breathed, they were found, and placed in the high altar, they illustrated the city and the world with miracles l, which God wrought by the intercession of the Saints. Our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
at number 1 from the additions to Bede. Wherefore I believe these to be older than the whole Acts, since they were doubtless added to Bede from an older document. The studious reader will easily see that more torments were accumulated by Trujillo, whose words I gave in the Commentary at number 5, namely starvation in prison, flames applied to the sides, a cruel leading about through the city. I do not know whence all those things were taken by the more recent writers.
I have already observed before that this finding of the bodies is omitted by most; but that the bodies were carried in the year 1475 into the city to the new church.
[] confessing*