Thyrsus and Boniface and Companions

ON SS. THYRSUS AND BONIFACE AND COMPANIONS: MARTYRS PERHAPS OF THE THEBAN LEGION, AT TRIER,

AMONG THE TREVERI.

Under Diocletian and Maximian.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Thyrsus, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.)

His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri.

Boniface, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.)

His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri.

BHL Number: 8283

BY J. B.

§ I. A brief history of the Martyrs of Trier, and the mention of them both among the martyrologists and among ancient writers.

I have thought that I should do something worth the labor if I were to weave at least a brief history of the Martyrs of Trier immediately at the beginning of the Commentary, before treating of the other matters that bear upon it, Of the Martyrs of Trier, whose brief history is woven, so that the reader might be steeped at least in a rough knowledge of it, and be the better equipped for perceiving and judging the matters that will be treated in the course of it. It runs, then, thus: If we are to stand by the opinion widely published in the writings of very many concerning the holy Martyrs of Trier, Maximian Herculius, the bitterest enemy of the Christians if ever there was one, after he had destroyed the greater part of the Theban Legion near Agaunum, pursued with no less savagery its remnants scattered elsewhere. SS. Victor and Ursus at Solothurn in Switzerland, SS. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius at Turin, and others in other places, especially of Cisalpine Gaul, are said to have fallen for the faith. But neither was Belgica 1 without the spectacle of so great a Christian fortitude: Cologne Agrippina saw St. Gereon, Bonn saw SS. Cassius and Florentius, and Xanten saw St. Victor crowned with martyrdom. At Trier too there was savagery for three days, not only against the soldiers of the Theban Legion who were lodged there, but also against the citizens of every condition and order, Rictius Varus carrying out the savage orders of Maximian. And on the first day indeed SS. Thyrsus and Secundus, Theban commanders, with their men laid down their lives in the Campus Martius, not far from the church of St. Paulinus in the suburb of Trier; as also did St. Boniface, the other commander of the Theban soldiers, with his men, not far from the monastery called St. Mary ad Martyres. On the next day, Palmatius the consul of the city, Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus, Leander, Alexander, Soter, men of senatorial rank, Hormisdas, Papirius, Constans, Jovianus; and on the third, a mixed multitude of every age and sex. They will have it that St. Felix, bishop of Trier, collected the remains of SS. Thyrsus, Palmatius, and their Companions, and toward the end of the fourth century brought them into the church now sacred to St. Paulinus; but that a deep forgetfulness of them gradually crept over the people of Trier, from the time when the Normans in the year 882 turned everything sacred and profane among them upside down, until at length about the year 1071 they were again brought to light. Such, more or less, is the tradition of the people of Trier.

[2] Calendars Further, the more recent calendars of the church of Trier distinguish these Martyrs — if you except St. Boniface and his Companions — into three classes and days, more or less in this manner: on the fourth of October, at Trier, SS. Thyrsus the commander and his Companions, Martyrs of Trier; on the fifth, at Trier, Palmatius the consul and his Companions, Martyrs of Trier; on the sixth, at Trier, the Commemoration of the innumerable Martyrs of Trier. I said, "the more recent": for the illustrious Hontheim, bishop of Myriophyta and suffragan of Trier, exhibits various and ancient Calendars of that church in part 1 of the Prodromus of the History of Trier, from p. 373; of which the first was in use in the tenth century, the second and third in the eleventh: but in these there is no mention of these Martyrs. The fourth, of the twelfth century, has this at the sixth of October: Of Thyrsus: of Palmatius, no mention being made of the rest. The fifth, finally, of the thirteenth century, omitting Thyrsus, announces Palmatius at the fifth of October in these words: Of Palmatius with his Companions; the rest at the sixth: Of the innumerable Martyrs. A certain manuscript Breviary of the Rhine is in our possession, which makes mention of Palmatius alone at the fifth of October; I assign it to the fourteenth century, because I read the following added in a more recent hand at the seventeenth of December: In the year of the Lord 1428 there were lightnings, flashes, and thunderings in great quantity on that day toward evening. Another manuscript Breviary reports the Martyrs of Trier more fully — of the village, as it appears, of Fusbach in the diocese of Trier and the duchy of Luxembourg — which has this at the fourth of October: Of Thyrsus the commander and his Companions, Martyrs of Trier; at the fifth: Of Palmatius and his Companions, MM.; at the sixth: Of the innumerable MM. Further, Baldwin, archbishop of Trier, was the first to arrange the Martyrs of Trier in this order, on the testimony of Hontheim in the History of the Cult of the Saints of Trier, p. 369 of the volume praised above, who writes in the Annals of Trier that he died in the year 54 of the fourteenth century. Thus far concerning the Calendars and Breviaries; let us hear the martyrologists.

[3] The older Martyrologies do not know the Martyrs of Trier — and Martyrologies not the Little Roman, not Bede's, not Ado's, not the pure Usuard, and the others which we call classical. But among those which were born in a more recent age, our manuscript Florarium, to which the last hand

was added in the year 1486, has this: Likewise of Thyrsus, commander and martyr, and of his Companions, of the number of the Theban Martyrs who suffered under the emperor Maximian in the year of salvation 291. The Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard of the year 1490 announces the innumerable Martyrs at Trier on the sixth day, in Sollier's Auctaria to Usuard, but expressly makes mention of Thyrsus and Boniface on the fourth day; and in the former place it recounts additions partly false, partly not pertaining to Thyrsus and his Companions. False are the things it relates concerning St. Athanasius lying hid for six years in a well: for Papebroch, in vol. 1 of May, in the Life of St. Athanasius, chapter 10, shows from Theodoret that St. Athanasius's exile at Trier was not so long, and from the letter of Constantine the Younger to the Alexandrians that it was not so uncomfortable. But what it relates about a well near the monastery of St. Maximinus filled with the bones of Martyrs seems to pertain rather to St. Boniface and his Companions than to St. Thyrsus, whose bones rested in the church of St. Paulinus. Grevenus, at the fourth of October: At Trier, of the holy Thyrsus, commander of the legion of the Thebans, of Boniface, and of many others slain by Rictiovarus, prefect of the city, for the faith of Christ. Then at the fifth day he makes mention of Palmatius and his Companions, and at the sixth of the mixed multitude slain at Trier for Christ. Molanus imitates Grevenus; but in Galesinius, at the fifth of October, only this is to be read out of the ancient records of the church of Trier: At Trier, the holy Martyrs Palmatius and his Companions; who, having overcome the monstrous cruelty of Rictiovarus the governor, are crowned as the bravest soldiers of God; by which words, however, I do not suppose that Galesinius meant to exclude Thyrsus from the number of the Martyrs of Trier.

[4] Similarly the common Roman Martyrology passes over Thyrsus; only the more recent ones have made mention of them, yet at the fifth of October it recounts Palmatius with his Companions thus: At Trier, the holy MM. Palmatius and his Companions, who in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Rictiovarus underwent martyrdom; and Baronius in the Notes cites Molanus and Sigebert, who made mention not only of Palmatius but also of Thyrsus and the others. What of the fact that the Martyrology in question does not pass over even the unnamed Martyrs of Trier who suffered on the third day, at the sixth of October? So that it may seem astonishing that nowhere in it is at least express mention made of Thyrsus and his Companions; especially since at the twelfth of December Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, and Justinus are read as marked by name — to whom Baronius in the Notes joins Leander, Alexander, and Sother out of Sigebert — of whom nevertheless the Roman Martyrology of Gregory XIII, published in the year 1586 from the Plantin press, makes mention nowhere save in general terms, when at the fifth of October it recounts Palmatius with his Companions in the words just cited. But what reason Baronius may seem to have had for dragging off the aforesaid Companions of St. Palmatius to the twelfth of December will be said below. Saussay here follows Baronius, although he had already expressed them individually by name at the fifth of October; but at the fourth day he wrote this elogium for St. Thyrsus and his Companions: On this same day, at Trier, the Passion of the holy MM. Thyrsus the commander and his fellow soldiers: who, imitating the illustrious examples of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, execrated the sacrifices of the idols with as great constancy as the faith and fortitude with which they professed the most sacred religion of Christ; and at the command of Rictius Varus, the foulest butcher of the pious in Gaul, they were assailed by the swords of the heathen soldiers, and butchered and destroyed to the last man. Their bodies were left to be devoured by beasts and birds. Moreover, of these innumerable heroes so great a multitude was slaughtered at the shore of the Moselle beside the Capitol, that the streams of blood flowing down turned the waters of the river into their own color, and, their natural brightness disregarded, they grew red with a foreign rather than with their own hue. Further, as God glorified His Athletes, this same Capitol was dedicated in honor of the most holy Virgin and of themselves; and the place in which they finished their contest received, in memory of them, the name of the Shore at the Martyrs. So he. But enough now of the martyrologists, so that it is not necessary to bring more forward.

[5] and certain ancient monuments, though confusedly, For the rest, from what has been said thus far it is easy to gather that the Martyrs of Trier, if they be considered as a whole, can be distributed into three classes: to the first of which may be referred the Theban Soldiers together with their commanders Thyrsus, Boniface, and Secundus — for the last is now and then read as added to the two former; to the second, the senators and native nobles together with Palmatius the consul; to the last, the remaining multitude of the people of Trier. Of the former only shall we treat in this place, Boniface and his Companions being put off to the Appendix; both because they alone are inserted on this day into the present-day calendars of the church of Trier, and because the cited calendars and the Roman Martyrology refer the two remaining classes to other days — although these too will be treated of from time to time, for the reason that the Histories and Acts of each are so connected and coupled with one another that it is difficult to dispatch the deeds of one without treating in the same labor of the things that pertain to the rest. For the rest, to the older Calendars, such at least as we have come to know, and to the martyrologists already reviewed, we subjoin monuments equally ancient, by which the History of the Martyrs of Trier, as it is commonly circulated, seems in some fashion to be confirmed; and when I say "more ancient monuments," I would have the reader understand those which are older than the finding of the holy Martyrs in the crypt of St. Paulinus, made about the year 1071. Let us see, then, what these are, and how highly they are to be valued.

[6] such as the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Gentian, The oldest mention of the Martyrs of Trier is perhaps that which occurs in the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus published by Bouquet, and which first furnished a spur to the canons of St. Paulinus at Trier for searching out the remains of the holy Martyrs, then buried in deep oblivion. Here it is: It came to pass, therefore, not long after, that Rictiovarus the butcher rushed into the prefecture which he had received from Maximian, a bloody tearer of flesh, rather for persecuting the Servants of God than for preserving the rights of piety. Having entered, then, the city built upon the Moselle which is called Trier, he ordered the Christians to be slain with such enormous cruelty that a stream of blood flowing down into the river Moselle reddened the waves of its water with a wave of blood, and the clear water of the flood furnished a tomb for the unburied bodies of the holy Martyrs, and preserved them, to be restored to the fabric of their bodies, for the judgment to come. These words do indeed convey some notice of the Martyrs of Trier, though not such as you may apply to individuals; yet since they contribute in some fashion to their History, it is pleasing to investigate the age of the Acts, and to say something of their weight in this matter.

[7] As regards their age, the contemporary writer who consigned to posterity the Finding of the holy Martyrs whose plainly relates that the canons of St. Paulinus had known those Acts and worn them with their hands before they uncovered the remains of the holy Martyrs; so that Tillemont's suspicion ought to move no one — namely, that this very Finding supplied both the occasion and the matter for the writing of those Acts. For there were, he says in chapter 2, in that congregation of the canons of St. Paulinus certain brethren venerably kindled with zeal for holy religion: these therefore, while among other works of piety they gave no small attention to the page of Sacred Scripture (so he calls the Lives of the Saints), were accustomed, etc. And a little after: Among the manifold titles to fame of this place, therefore, the Passion of the holy Martyrs Gentian and Victoricus occurred to them more frequently; and again, after some other things which it is not worth the labor to set down, he continues thus: Placed therefore in this anxiety of mind, having imposed upon themselves disciplines of fasting, sometimes of two days, sometimes of three, they besought the divine goodness that it would deign to show them some token of so holy a deposit. The canons of St. Paulinus therefore had the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus in their hands while they were still ignorant in what place the bones of the Martyrs of Trier lay hidden. For I do not think that the writer of the Finding would have dared to lie so impudently even in the presence of those men — and perhaps of others besides — namely certain of the canons of St. Paulinus themselves, who attributed little credit to these discovered relics, of whom he bitterly complains in chapter 3.

[8] More equitable and more probable is Tillemont's other conjecture about the age of the Acts. [age] There is also reason, he says, why the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus should be said to have been drawn up at least not later than the sixth century: namely, because St. Honoratus, bishop of Amiens, who flourished in the sixth century, translated their bones, and yet he who committed the Acts of those Saints to writing nowhere makes mention of this translation, a matter surely memorable enough. Certainly whoever he was, he betrays that he did not know the place in which those Martyrs were buried, since at the end of their Passion he writes that they were laid beneath the covering of a hidden tomb; and nothing further. You have the miraculous finding of the relics of the said Martyrs, made in the time of St. Honoratus, described in Henschen, vol. 3 of May, p. 613. I add a second indication of the antiquity of the Acts. Tillemont, after he had set forth his judgment concerning the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus in vol. 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 10 on St. Dionysius, discusses among other things this concerning the Acts of SS. Rufinus and Valerius in the following Note: they were nevertheless written before the times of Florus, who at the fourth of June set forth a sufficiently accurate summary of them; nay, he says that these Saints (Rufinus and Valerius) came from Rome; by which indeed he seems to have wished to bring their Acts into agreement with the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus. Florus must therefore have seen both. But if he set forth at the fourteenth of June a sufficiently accurate summary of the Acts of SS. Rufinus and Valerius, anyone who compares what he wrote concerning SS. Fuscian, Gentian, and Victoricus at the eleventh of December with the Acts of the same published by Bouquet will easily detect that Florus performed this no less accurately in their case; so that, if we ought here to imitate Tilletius, the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus can deservedly be held older than Florus, who wrote his Martyrology about the year 830. Ruinart too, in the Preface to the Acts of the Martyrs, p. 68, did not indeed reckon them among the primitive ones, but did reckon them among the ancient. So much concerning the age of the Acts.

[9] and in this their weight is inquired into: But as regards their merit and weight, I would not wish to hold everything they narrate as certain, however ancient they may be. In Tillemont's judgment, if you look to their style, they are written with little skill; if to the circumstances of the matters, some things they put forward are less credible, others not sufficiently consistent with one another. Let it be so: let them even, if you please, exceed the bounds of truth, when they say that, because of the multitude of the Martyrs slain at Trier, a stream of blood flowed with such force and abundance that the Moselle, receiving it, took on a bloody color; this at any rate seems probably to be made out from them, that already from the sixth century the memory of an enormous multitude of Christians slain for the faith at Trier in the time of Diocletian and Maximian flourished in Gaul — a memory which in the earlier centuries was indeed more distinct and more complete, but which, as happens, grew dimmer and thinner with the lapse of time. Ruinart, praised in the preceding number, deservedly indeed judged that these Acts are not to be numbered among the primitive ones

since he who wrote the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus indicates that he had certain other Acts in his hands, when he says: For, as the deeds of the History record, a certain old man named Gentian — but from this a new suspicion can in turn arise, that he found in those very older Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus which he had in hand, or in others, the things he has handed down concerning the Martyrs of Trier.

[10] then a certain Hymn concerning St. Paulinus, which No less a spur was added to the canons of St. Paulinus for searching out the relics of the Saints lying hidden among them by an ancient Hymn concerning St. Paulinus, found at Trier about the year 1071 in the monastery of noble virgins called St. Mary ad Horrea, written in Gothic letters, and held by the author of the Finding to be of the greatest antiquity. It has indeed perished, or at least lies hidden somewhere unknown; but the same author of the Finding touches in a few words upon the sum of what it contained; and these are more or less as follows: St. Paulinus's efforts against the Arians on behalf of the Catholic faith; the conversion of the Phrygians, among whom he passed his exile; and the translation and burial of his sacred body at Trier. Concerning the burial of St. Paulinus, says the anonymous author of the Finding, this was read there: They laid him beside the most illustrious and renowned offspring of Trier, where sleep the very many bodies of the Pilgrims, who, rising to their rewards on the last day, shall meet the Lord in the air with gladness. The "most illustrious offspring of Trier," as the canons of that time afterwards interpreted it, meant Palmatius and the other senators and native nobles; while the "Pilgrims" meant Thyrsus and his Theban fellow soldiers. That this Hymn was really found about the year 1071, and that it displayed even then at least some antiquity, I grant to the anonymous writer, an eyewitness or at any rate a contemporary, especially since it was presented and recited to the canons of St. Paulinus, and, moved by it, they broke open the crypt of St. Paulinus, leave having been sought and obtained, though with difficulty, from Archbishop Udo. Yet the manner in which it is said to have been found is not equally certain to me; it is not, I say, certain to me that a virgin consecrated to God, Frideburga by name, was thrice divinely admonished to inspect the ancient codices of her monastery, and so lit upon that Hymn; both because little credit is commonly given to visions of this sort, and because the whole affair is said to have been carried out only in private.

[11] For the rest, if the hymn be considered in itself, there is although certain things in it are favorable, something from which its antiquity may seem capable of being commended; there is also something from which its authority may seem to be weakened. Its antiquity indeed may seem capable of being commended from this, that it ascribes the translation of St. Paulinus from Phrygia to Trier to the divine will and to the help of miracles, and thus seems to have been composed before the opinion had grown strong among the people of Trier that the body of St. Paulinus had been brought back from Phrygia to his own people by the forces of the whole realm — which indeed smacks of fable, unless perhaps you so interpret those words that by them is meant only that the people of Trier obtained the remains of St. Paulinus not without the greatest difficulty and much effort. Now already from the ninth century that opinion had grown strong among them, since the leaden tablet, more probably made in that century, has this, as we shall say in the § next following. Similarly, so far as appears, the Hymn makes no mention of the prodigy by which the tomb of St. Paulinus is said to have remained for many years suspended in mid-air from the time of the Norman invasion of the year 882 — a thing which from the tenth century began to be celebrated on men's tongues and by writers' pens, as may be gathered from the Life of St. Paulinus written between the year 882 and 1071 and published in our Work at the twenty-first of August.

[12] And these things indeed seem to make for some commendation of the Hymn; certain things are against its antiquity, but what it narrates in the words recited at n. 10 will perhaps detract from its weight, in that they seem not sufficiently to agree with the tablets found in the crypt of St. Paulinus in the year 1071 together with the bodies of the Martyrs. For when the author of the Hymn commemorates "the most illustrious offspring of Trier," he understood either Palmatius alone, or, besides him, the rest of the natives of Trier as well. If the first, the tablet plainly contradicts him, on whose testimony the bodies found in the crypt already mentioned were, with the single exception of the body of St. Thyrsus, all of them bodies of men of Trier. But if he understood not Palmatius only, but also the rest, whether senators or native nobles, then in this fashion the Hymn will agree in part with the tablet; but presently another difficulty will arise from these words of the Hymn: Where sleep the very many bodies of the Pilgrims. For it will be asked: whose were those very many bodies of Pilgrims, this interpretation of the Hymn being granted? Of the Theban Soldiers, of course, you will say. But thus you will again run up against the tablet, which makes mention of one pilgrim only, namely Thyrsus; so that either the error of the hymn or that of the tablet must be acknowledged, or, if you prefer, the credit of both is thereby not slightly weakened.

[13] Yet not even in this way is either a contradiction between the two, or an error in one of them, proved: for suppose that by the adverb where the author of the hymn meant to designate not the crypt of St. Paulinus but the basilica or the monastery — yet it does not conflict with the leaden tablet, then the sense of the Hymn and of the tablet will assuredly be the same. Nor do I see what can greatly stand in the way of this interpretation. Not the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Gentian: those acknowledge a multitude of Martyrs slain at Trier under Maximian; but, you will say, whose bodies were carried off and buried by the waters. What then? Could they not afterwards be collected? Was that said of all and each? Grant even that the Acts in question understand St. Boniface and his Companions to have been slain at the bridge of the Moselle; shall we on that account judge that they excluded Thyrsus and his Companions, or the natives of Trier? Not the learning and accuracy of the Hymn's author, since he used a simple and rustic style. Then, if St. Felix collected the bodies of the chief Martyrs and laid them in a separate and more honorable place in the church of St. Paulinus, what is there to prevent our conjecturing also that he took at least some care of the remaining Martyrs likewise, and brought into the church of St. Paulinus as many remains as he could find?

[14] and it is taken by Frederick more widely than is right, Far be it from us, however, to agree with Frederick, provost of St. Paulinus, when he affirms that St. Felix placed so many bodies of Martyrs in the pavement of the aforesaid church that one could scarcely set foot in this church without walking over their most holy sarcophagi: for no prudent man will fail to suspect that Frederick here leapt over the bounds of truth, and indulged rather too much his zeal for adorning and extolling his own church; especially since neither in the year 1071 nor ever afterwards was any coffin found outside the crypt of St. Paulinus which is known to have belonged to any martyr, on the testimony of the illustrious Hontheim, §10 of the History of the Martyrs of Trier. Far be it from us likewise to say that whatever bones were there found by chance can either be held or honored as true relics of Martyrs. For we know that a cult of this kind can be paid only to certain and lawfully approved relics of Saints; and the same Hontheim rightly says that the bones scattered there throughout the church are by no means such, since even the tomb of Aelius Constantius proves that not all who obtained burial there were Saints; nor has anyone thought of paying cult to those ashes or bones which Hontheim writes were lately discovered in stone sarcophagi around the church of St. Paulinus.

[15] [To these may probably be added the author on the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges,] Among the older testimonies concerning the History of the Martyrs of Trier there may probably also be reckoned what the author of the Little Work On the Successors of St. Hildulsus in the Vosges wrote of it. The most reverend lord Humbert Belhomme, abbot of Moyenmoutier, made it public, and judged that it had been written between the year 1016 and 1019, at which time Enciboldus presided over Moyenmoutier, having been substituted in the place of Nardulsus or Hardulf, who was stripped of the abbatial dignity in the year 1016. And the abbot in question discusses it more or less thus: Nardulf, when Enciboldus had been snatched from among the living, was in the year 1019 restored to his former office and dignity; but the author of the little book neither goes beyond Nardulf, nor anywhere makes mention of Nardulf — to whom nevertheless he plainly enough shows himself favorable against Enciboldus — as restored to his office. It therefore becomes quite probable that the little book was written in the time that fell between Nardulf's being cast down from his rank in the year 1016 and his being restored to it in the year 1019. There is the further point that this very thing is intimated by the words of the author himself with which he begins chapter 13, which run thus: But his (Almannus's) successor had been Nardulf. For what does the τὸ extiterat mean, except that Nardulf had already at that time given up his office when the author of the little book was writing — especially since he presently girds himself to narrate the prodigies which had happened while Nardulf governed Moyenmoutier, and throughout the whole course of the remaining narrative he makes not so much as a word's mention of Nardulf as either deposed or restored to his dignity? Nor does it matter that in chapter 9 the following is read: But by the negligence of his successors, the aforesaid cell (called Bego's) was allowed to retain the holy limbs (of Boniface M.) until the lord abbot Lambert, who in the year one thousand and forty-three from the Incarnation of the Lord, on the sixth day of the week, which was reckoned the 2nd before the Nones of November, carried them back. For the cited editor of the little book holds this to be a more recent addition, and not, as I think, altogether without foundation. Yet grant that the words are the author's own; even so it will become most probable that the little book was written before the finding of the Martyrs of Trier in the year 1071 or the following. So much concerning the age of the writer; but what does he say of the Martyrs of Trier?

[16] Of those indeed who rest in the basilica of St. Paulinus he says nothing in particular; who, at least concerning St. Boniface and his Companions, but concerning St. Boniface, formerly laid away in the crypt of St. Maximinus, he writes this in chapter 1: Meanwhile, in the last year but one of the abbot Leutbald already mentioned, and in the seven hundred and third year from the Incarnation of the Lord, the venerable body of St. Boniface the martyr was taken away from the people of Trier and by the help of the Godhead brought into the monastery of Moyenmoutier. Further, that St. Boniface was held, at the time when he was writing, not only as a martyr of Trier but also as one of the Thebans, the following words show: For just as, says the author of the little book, Victor and Ursus with some others reached the fortress of Solothurn, and blessed Gereon with his own three hundred and eighteen, and the five hundred Moors, reached Cologne Agrippina, so also this precious Martyr of Christ with three hundred others of his own came to Trier, withdrawing himself for the time in body but not in heart from that same Theban legion from which the aforesaid Martyrs withdrew, when at Agaunum the victims were offered under Herculius Maximinianus Caesar. And so in the eleventh century, before the bodies of Thyrsus and his Companions were found in the crypt of St. Paulinus, the memory of the Theban Martyrs slain at Trier existed at Moyenmoutier. The same author narrates besides that St. Hildulph translated the bodies of these Martyrs, which had until then lain hidden in mean tombs, into the crypt of St. Maximinus; whence it follows that already from the seventh century their cult flourished among the people of Trier. Nor ought it to seem strange to anyone that he said nothing of those who in

rest in the crypt of St. Paulinus, seeing that St. Felix is said to have laid them away there before the times of St. Hildulsus, and that they accordingly did not pertain to the deeds of St. Hildulph or of his successors in the Vosges.

[17] Finally, the same anonymous writer of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges, makes mention of them as Theban Martyrs: in chapter 9, describing the finding of the body of St. Boniface, records those circumstances from which, if they be true, the History of the Martyrs of Trier can at least in some fashion be confirmed; and they are these. The finding of the body of St. Boniface came to pass after Adalbert, abbot of Moyenmoutier, had pulled down the church of the most blessed Virgin together with the chapel of the Blessed Martin adjoining it, meaning to raise a more august one than the former; and since John of Bayon reports that Adalbert did this in the year 964, on the testimony of Belhomme in the Annotations to chapter 8 of part 2 of the History of Moyenmoutier, it must be that the said finding did not happen before that year. At that time the memory of St. Boniface had perished utterly at Moyenmoutier; the remains of the holy Martyr lay buried under the ruins and rubble of the chapel of St. Martin; he appeared, clothed in military dress, to a younger monk named Tietfrid. He complains of the neglect of his relics, shows in what place they lie hidden, and affirms that they were brought to Moyenmoutier from Trier. And to the monk, who did not know who he was, he says that he is one of the companions of Maurice, and was slain with others for the faith at Trier. He rebukes a second and a third time the monk who distrusts the vision, and orders him to admonish the abbot about procuring a more honorable burial for him; and he foretells that the monk himself will pay the penalty for his unbelief — which the outcome also confirmed some years later, when that monk, struck by a sudden paralysis and with his neck broken, was destroyed. The Martyr added besides a prodigy open to all, in that the little cross and the cambuca, or pastoral staff, of St. Hildulph, carefully kept elsewhere, were prodigiously translated onto a certain altar, lest anyone be held by a sinister suspicion concerning the truth of the vision. There will perhaps be one who laughs at a private vision of this kind, of a younger monk; and I too would laugh, had it not been confirmed by a prodigy, and had this matter not been committed to writing by a writer who was, so far as appears, an inhabitant of the place, and not so very fabulous, and not far removed from the event — at a time when men could still be alive at Moyenmoutier for whom it would have been easy to accuse and convict him of falsehood, since the affair, as we have said, happened toward the end of the tenth century, while he himself more probably wrote at the beginning of the eleventh, as we said at n. 15.

[18] but not an ancient one, as it seemed to Calmet, Nothing has been brought forward so far which pertains particularly to St. Thyrsus and his Companions laid in the crypt of St. Paulinus; but to this purpose serves the History of the Martyrs of Trier inserted into the Deeds of the People of Trier, if at least we listen to Calmet. For thus he writes by way of preface at p. 1, where he proves by monuments brought forward that part of the History of Lorraine which his first volume embraces: The work which is entitled the Deeds or History of the Treveri, and which we here publish (I render his French words into Latin), was probably written by Theodoric, an alumnus of St. Matthias of Trier, who flourished about the year 1012; and it was continued by another alumnus of the same abbey, Golscherus, who flourished a little later and carried it (the Deeds of the Treveri) down to the year 1052. We have seen (he says a little further on) the autograph of this History at Trier in the abbey of St. Matthias, and we have collated it with another manuscript, older and shorter, which Theodoric used as the foundation and base of his history. The beginning indeed is the same in both, and the Lives of the first bishops of Trier, Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus, are read in the same words; but elsewhere there occur various additions and emendations, which are to be noted in the course of the work. So Calmet in the place praised; but in the course of the History of the Treveri published by him, at chapter 27, he added this in the margin: The ancient manuscript of Trier (that one, of course, of which he had made mention in the Preface) does not record that succession of bishops of Trier after St. Maternus, but, having narrated the burial of that Saint, proceeds at once to the martyrdom of the Theban Soldiers (Maurice, Secundus, Thyrsus, Boniface, and others).

[19] manuscript concerning the affairs of Trier. It was therefore necessary that some one of those who either composed or enlarged that ancient manuscript, and who carried the torch before Theodoric, should have made mention of these. Now his predecessors and masters of the school of St. Matthias were, on the testimony of Trithemius in the Hirsau Chronicle, Eberhard, who died in the year 909, Richard, Diethelm, and Adelbert; of whom the last three are not read to have illustrated the History of Trier by their writings. But of Eberhard, at the year 909, Trithemius writes thus: Among the other monuments of his talent he added a good deal to the History of the Treveri, and also wrote the Life of SS. Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus, both in verse and in prose, in a more elegant style. These things being laid down, that ancient manuscript of Trier seems to have been Eberhard's work, and to have been composed not very long after the disaster inflicted upon the people of Trier by the Normans in the year 882. But I fear that that manuscript is not so ancient as it seemed to Calmet, or at any rate is interpolated in this place. For how could it have come about that in the eleventh century the people of Trier labored under so great an ignorance of Thyrsus and his Companions as the author of their finding professes in more than one place, if their deeds were extant in writing among the ascetics of St. Matthias? Certainly this appears scarcely credible of the alumni of St. Matthias, who applied themselves again and again to preserving and completing the History of Trier. For the rest, they also allege certain very ancient Trier documents, of which, as the age is unknown, so, as our Pien warns in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Paulinus, the authority is not great. It remains that we treat of the leaden tablet found in the crypt of St. Paulinus about the year 1071 and containing the history of the Paulinian Martyrs; concerning which, since it will have to be discussed at greater length, we shall do so in separate paragraphs.

§ II. An inquiry into the age of the leaden tablet found in the crypt of St. Paulinus about the year 1071.

The leaden tablet, A deep forgetfulness of the Martyrs resting in the church of St. Paulinus had in the eleventh century taken hold not only of the people of Trier but even of the canons of St. Paulinus themselves, when at last, as that century was growing old, on the occasion of the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Gentian, and especially of the Hymn concerning St. Paulinus, the canons of St. Paulinus began to inquire after their relics. They had understood, namely, from the former that an innumerable crowd of the faithful had been put to death at Trier out of hatred of the faith by Rictius Varus; and from the latter, that not a few of them had been laid in the same place as St. Paulinus. And so, since they were not ignorant that the remains of St. Paulinus were laid away in a certain crypt beneath the high altar of their church, they resolved to break it open; which they also carried out with happy success, fortified by the authority of Archbishop Udo. For they found there various tombs, which contained the bodies of the individual Martyrs; nay, also a leaden tablet buried in the ground, which indicated both the names of the Martyrs and their position and order in the crypt. The tenor of the leaden tablet was that which will be exhibited at n. 80 and following; wherefore I have not thought it necessary to bring it forward entire in this place. I cite one or two contemporary or at least nearly contemporary authors whose testimonies support this finding. Lambert of Hersfeld, in On the Deeds of the Germans, writes thus at the year 1072: At Trier, at St. Paulinus's, XIII bodies of Saints of the Theban (as is thought) legion were found, whose names were found written there on leaden tablets: Palmatius, Thyrsus, Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus, Alexander, Soter, Hormisdas, Papyrius, Constans, Jovinus. And while earth was being carried out of the crypt where the Saints were resting, a certain bone, incautiously thrown down, poured out no little blood, and remains bloody to this day. Then he reports in summary the history or passion of these Martyrs, sent to him by the people of Trier. Lambert flourished in the same eleventh century, to whose year 76 he carried his labor.

[21] found in the year 1071, In the same century too lived Sigebert of Gembloux; he, in the Chronography to which he put an end in the year 1112, speaks thus at the year 1071: At Trier, in the church of St. Paulinus the Confessor, in the underground crypt, the body of St. Paulinus is found, which, having formerly been brought back from Frisia (or Phrygia) where he had been in exile, had there been suspended on iron chains by St. Felix the bishop; and beside him many bodies of Saints: namely, at his right hand Palmatius, consul and patrician of Trier; at his left, Thyrsus, one of the leaders of the Theban legion, martyred in this city by Rictiovarus with many of the Thebans; at his head seven senators of the city, Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus, and the three brothers Leander, Alexander, Soter; at his feet Hormisdas, Papyrius, Constans, Jovinianus. And although many others lay there, golden letters on the wall marked the names of these only, and the time and day of their passion, and taught that all of them suffered under Rictiovarus. I say nothing in this place about certain circumstances of the finding, which our anonymous writer describes at length in chapter 2, and about which the Annotations to be appended to the history of the finding will disclose what I think; but some discrepancy appears in the year in which the finding is handed down by the authors praised above to have taken place; whence it has come about, I suppose, that of the more recent writers some have referred the finding to the year 1072, others to the year 1071, the former following Lambert of Hersfeld, the latter Sigebert.

[22] or 1072, But I should rather adhere to Lambert of Hersfeld than to Sigebert, both because Lambert was informed of what he wrote by the people of Trier themselves, and because our anonymous writer seems to confirm his opinion in this matter. For when that bone, of which Sigebert spoke a little before, flowed with blood, the third day of the month of March was being counted, and the same was a Saturday, as our anonymous writer — perhaps an eyewitness of the event — writes toward the end of chapter 3. That miracle happened, he says, on the fifth before the Nones of March, and it was a Saturday; which agrees excellently with the year 1072: for in that year the solar cycle was 17, and the letter G indicated the Lord's day in the month of March; and thus the Kalends of March fell on a Thursday, and the third day of March on a Saturday. Besides, the crypt of St. Paulinus was at that time being reduced to a more spacious form, which again is clear from the same anonymous writer. Finally, the anonymous writer seems to intimate that this very thing happened a little after the bodies of the Saints were found, and in the same year, when he says in the chapter cited: For when, as we have said before, this revelation of the Saints having been made through the mercy of God, it had pleased our lord archbishop and his chief men that the crypt should be suitably enlarged for the placing of the bodies of the Saints, it was necessary that a great deal of earth be carried out. Nor indeed does it seem likely that the canons of St. Paulinus drew out any longer delay in satisfying the desire of their prelate. But, you will say, Archbishop Udo was away from the city, on the anonymous writer's testimony, when the bodies of the Saints were found; and thus he was probably at that time present at the council of Mainz, which was celebrated in the year 1071. But Udo was indeed away from the city when that bone was uncovered; whereas the anonymous writer does not say that he was away when the bodies were first found, nor, if he did say so, could the reason for his absence fittingly be traced to the time of the celebration of the council of Mainz, at which Udo was present: since at Trier

Udo was absent in the month of March according to the anonymous writer; whereas the council of Mainz began on the feast of the Dormition or Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that is, the fifteenth of August, and ended on the eighteenth of September, as is read in the Acts of the council in vol. 3 of the Councils of Germany lately published by Hartzheim.

[23] But it matters little for the authority of the tablet, if it has any, whether it was found in the year 1071 or the following; Brouwer supposes it was made in the year 882: more nearly to the point here is the age at which it was composed; in which matter the learned have gone off into various opinions. There is one who suspects that the tablet came into being at the same time as the bodies of the Saints were found in the crypt of St. Paulinus, or perhaps even later — as Tillemont, praised at n. 7, who is refuted from the anonymous writer himself. There are those who suppose that it was made in the interval of time that ran between the Norman invasion and the finding of the bodies — as the illustrious Hontheim in his Dissertation on the Martyrs of Trier. There are, finally, those who refer it to the ninth century and to the flood of the Normans — as Brouwer at the year 1071, n. 20, and others. There are two things, as Hontheim, just cited at §13, admits, by which Brouwer's opinion may seem to be confirmed. The first consists in these words of the tablet: But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus … IS suspended by iron chains. For by these words the author of the tablet seems to have wished it signified that he, when he wrote the tablet, had seen the body of St. Paulinus suspended by iron chains — that is, before the Normans had laid sacrilegious hands on the crypt of St. Paulinus and had broken those iron chains. The second is the tablet's silence concerning the violation of the church of St. Paulinus by the Normans, and the breaking of the iron chains, by which nevertheless the report is that the barbarians could not bring it about that the body of St. Paulinus should sink down, since the divine power, stronger than any chain, upheld it. But the illustrious author thinks both of little force. To the arguments opposed, he says, it might be said that the words SUNT COLLOCATA: EST SUSPENSUM can, with Latinity unharmed, be referred to past time; nay, that they do not necessarily import the PRESENT STATE of the suspended tomb on the day the tablet was made. But the silence concerning the miraculous balancing of St. Paulinus's tomb in the air without chains — like that Trier Mercury of whom Galba the traveler speaks in Brouwer — and concerning the subsequent lowering of it by unbelievers, proves nothing, unless that narrative of difficult credence be first verified from elsewhere, a narrative which is read only about the end of the eleventh century in the Passionals of Trier, concerning which the Antwerp Fathers judged in general, in the manuscript Life of St. Paulinus, that these Acts are of no great authority, which we limit, according to their mind, to MATTERS OF GREAT ANTIQUITY.

[24] That the balancing of St. Paulinus's body in mid-air is of very difficult credence I willingly grant to the illustrious author, two arguments both on account of the thing itself being asserted without suitable witnesses, and on account of the complete silence on the matter of Regino of Prüm, who flourished in that age and was not far distant from Trier, although he did not omit to consign to writing both the barbarity of the Normans toward the people of Trier and the exile and death of St. Paulinus and the bringing back of his remains to Trier. Nor should I deny that the authority of the Acts spoken of above is not great in those matters which must have happened in earlier centuries. But if, dismissing that prodigy, which is certainly not sufficiently established for its magnitude, we say this only — that the barbarians broke the chains of St. Paulinus's tomb, and that his body thereupon sank to the ground — we shall indeed have admitted nothing that ought greatly to be disapproved or that is little credible. For the suspension of St. Paulinus's body from iron chains has nothing foreign to the custom and usage of ancient times, as Calmet observes on chapter 35 of the History of Trier. Gregory of Tours, book 7, n. 31, makes mention of the relics of St. Syrus the martyr hanging from a wall at Bordeaux. That in the very church of St. Paulinus the relics of St. Modoald were placed aloft in the middle of the vault, and received the whole shock of the falling fabric, and that long after the Norman invasion, is attested by Abbot Stephen in the Life of St. Paulinus in our work, vol. 3 of May, p. 61. Then, what is there in the breaking by the Normans of the chains from which the body of St. Paulinus hung that lacks credibility? What was so holy to that savage nation that they shrank from profaning it with impious daring? Did not those same Normans twice set flames to the church of St. Paulinus? Did they not break open a sarcophagus they came upon there, and thrust a living man into it, as the Life of St. Paulinus testifies? To me indeed these things, even though not asserted by a contemporary author, seem both sufficiently credible in themselves and supported at least by such tradition that I can find no solid ground for denying them; especially since no one doubts that the Normans perpetrated many things both at Trier and elsewhere which contemporary authors recorded only in general terms. In the very disaster, then, inflicted on the people of Trier by the Normans it is likely that the body of St. Paulinus sank down; and that the canons of the place, having come through so great a danger and made more cautious, blocked up the entrance of the crypt, or did not long defer blocking it up. They may also have been urged to this by the second irruption of the Normans, of which Regino speaks at the year 892, which, although it did not penetrate as far as Trier, yet inflicted a second disaster anew on the neighboring places, and namely on the monastery of Prüm. Hence, further, it will probably also have come about that, the entrance of the crypt being closed, the cult of the Martyrs resting there began to diminish, their memory to be blotted out, and at last to vanish utterly.

[25] on which he relies, Let us grant, then, that the prodigious balancing of St. Paulinus's tomb in mid-air, and the subsequent lowering of it by unbelievers after the course of many years, has scarcely any probability and is to be numbered among the fictions of more recent writers; let us grant too, what follows from this, that the tablet's silence about these matters cannot support, or add any weight to, the opinion of Brouwer and of the others who hold the same as he about the tablet's antiquity. Shall nothing therefore be able to be elicited from the tablet's silence, considered also in general, which may help Brouwer's opinion? By no means. The words of the tablet are: But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus, the most illustrious bishop of the Treveri, is suspended by iron chains, which body St. Felix, bishop of this see, having translated it from Phrygia by the forces of the whole realm, honorably suspended there on the third before the Ides of May; who also built this monastery in honor of the holy Mother of God and likewise of these same Martyrs. The tablet is therefore silent not only about the aforesaid fables, if it please us to call them by that name, but is silent also about the breaking by the Normans of the chains from which St. Paulinus's tomb hung; it is silent about the profanation of St. Paulinus's church inflicted by the same men, which things are not with equal right to be held as fables. And had the author of the tablet had knowledge and a clear view of these when he composed it, he would have written not that the body of St. Paulinus is suspended from iron chains, but that it was suspended.

[26] But, you will say, it is permissible, with Latinity unharmed, so to interpret this text of the tablet that the words denote not the present but the past state of St. Paulinus's body — which is the illustrious Hontheim's second reply. against Hontheim I grant, certainly, that these words, Suspensum est, can be equivalent to these, Suspensum fuit. But anyone will also readily grant that, where an ambiguity of words of this sort occurs, recourse must be had to the circumstances of the matters and of the preceding and following sentences, that it may be understood in what sense a thing was said or written. Now at the beginning of the tablet these words presently occur: In this crypt LIE the bodies of Saints, most noble according to the dignity of the world, but according to the will of God precious Martyrs; by which words assuredly the then present state of the Martyrs enclosed in the crypt of St. Paulinus is in general designated. Therefore, when a little after it treats particularly of the bodies of the Nobles of Trier in these words, Whose bodies ARE PLACED here round about, their state also is most probably designated as present; especially since a little below this is read concerning the same Nobles: Whose sarcophagi CAN BE SEEN here. Again, what does the author of the tablet write concerning the unnamed Martyrs of Trier? What concerning Palmatius? Of the former, indeed, this: For besides (præter) the bodies of these Chief Men, innumerable bodies of the same multitude ARE CONTAINED in this monastery — certainly at the time when he was writing. And this of Palmatius: He, therefore, who IS LAID on the right side of St. Paulinus, was called Palmatius; and a little below is added: But he who LIES on his (Palmatius's) left side is called Thyrsus. The present state, therefore, both of St. Thyrsus's body and of St. Palmatius's is here indicated.

[27] But if these words — sunt collocata, sunt comprehensa, est repositus — which, separated from their circumstances and from the whole context, can signify past time just as well as present, nevertheless signify present time according to the author's mind, are defended; why not these also: But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus … is suspended by iron chains? There is the further point that the composer of the tablet, when he speaks of the names of the Martyrs formerly affixed in golden letters to the wall of the crypt, but, when he was writing, torn away from it, does not say, On the wall of this crypt they ARE WRITTEN, but they WERE written, so as to show plainly that he is treating not of the present state of the golden letters but of the past; whence it may deservedly be conjectured that on the same principle, if he had been treating only of the past state of St. Paulinus's body, he would have declared it by at least some indication. Finally, if in the text set down at n. 25 you substitute fuit for the verb est, you will have stripped the text of the native simplicity which it displays, you will have built in a certain superfluity of words (in one and the same text), and you will have brought in the composer of the tablet speaking in this fashion: In the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus … was suspended, which St. Felix … there suspended. And if we should imagine these words to be rightly set down according to the mind of the tablet's composer, I should believe that he would rather have spoken with a simpler and more usual turn of phrase: In the midst of them St. Felix … suspended the body of St. Paulinus, or it was suspended by St. Felix. On the contrary, if the cited words of the tablet be understood of the present state of the bodies, all superfluity of words will be absent, and its native simplicity will be left to the diction. All of which things, attentively weighed, so affect me that I think we must adhere to Brouwer's opinion, taken according to what has now been said, as more probable than the rest; although Hontheim assails it with many arguments, which it is not permissible to dissemble or to pass over untouched. It stands thus, then, at §13 of the History of the Martyrs of Trier.

[28] but the contrary arguments, But what moves us not to assent to the aforesaid opinion as though it were beyond doubt (nor do I call it beyond doubt, but more probable than the rest) is first, from within the tablet, this passage: THE NAMES, THEREFORE, OF HIM (St. Thyrsus) AND OF THOSE MARTYRS WHOSE SARCOPHAGI CAN BE SEEN HERE WERE WRITTEN IN GOLDEN LETTERS ON THE WALL OF THIS CRYPT, WHICH THE DEVOUT CHRISTIANS WHO (N.B.) WERE THEN ALIVE TRANSFERRED HITHER FROM THENCE, WHEN THEY FORESAW THAT THE NORTHMEN WOULD LAY WASTE THIS CITY, AS THEY DID THE OTHER CITIES ON EVERY SIDE. These words the illustrious author leaves to be weighed by the reader, as to whether they are those of a writer contemporary with the matter he writes of, or of a later age,

who noted on lead as a memorial, not what NOW, or while he himself was living, but what THEN, that is, in past time, was done, not BY HIMSELF, but BY DEVOUT CHRISTIANS. I have weighed the matter, and I set before the reader whatever has come into my mind, and willingly commit it, such as it is, to his judgment. Those who ordered the tablet to be made, or the craftsman who made it, since they did indeed forebode the disaster impending from the Normans, yet did not know whether they would survive it, or how long they were to be pressed under the yoke of the barbarians, having torn from the wall of St. Paulinus's crypt the names of the Saints laid away there, and having transferred them to a tablet, wished to meet the memory of the Saints that might perhaps perish on this occasion. And this they could accomplish in two ways. And first, indeed, thus: that through the tablet those very men who saw to its making, or its craftsman, should speak either in their own name or in theirs. I admit that, if the tablet was made in this fashion, it cannot be called the work of a contemporary author, unless the words of the tablet be twisted.

[29] from the text of the tablet, But there remains the other way in which the tablet could have been composed: namely, thus, that neither the engraver of the tablet, nor those who ordered it to be engraved, intended in their minds to speak in their own name, but wished only that some monument should survive, which, when the tranquility of the times was restored and it was at some point perhaps found, might of itself teach the names and deeds of the Saints to those later men to whose lot the finding of the tablet might one day fall. And in this way, if the tablet be supposed to have been made — as it could have been — those words, the Christians who were then alive, will contain nothing from which you may conclude that they came from an author writing not of what happened within his own memory but of what happened long before. The body of St. Paulinus was indeed not suspended about the year 1072, when the bodies of our Martyrs were found; but this was more probably set down on the tablet for these reasons: both because at the time the tablet was made the body of St. Paulinus was still suspended, and because it was not known that it was to be cast down from the position it then held. To the words adduced in the preceding number Hontheim subjoins this: Certainly, otherwise the manner of style would have required it to be inscribed thus: "In this year, in which we had foreseen that the Normans would lay waste this city, we transferred the names from the walls." As regards the year in which the names of the Martyrs were transferred, it is determined by the words of the tablet just as by Hontheim's words — in both cases, that is, by the year of the Norman irruption, which was 882. That it ought to have said we had foreseen, we transferred does not seem necessarily to have had to be so, whether the tablet was made in the former or in the latter fashion. Not, if in the latter, as is plain; but not even if in the former. For ancient monuments are frequent in which a not dissimilar manner of speaking appears, especially among those who have collected the inscriptions of ancient tombs. Here is one which stood in the peristyles of St. Paulinus, and is exhibited by Hontheim in part 1 of the Prodromus of the History of Trier, p. 196: To the sweetest infant deceased, who lived five months, twenty days: his most loving father and mother made this. Here the engraver says not what was done by himself, but what by the parents of the deceased infant; or more truly the parents themselves say, through the craftsman's chisel, what they did, even praising their own devotion toward their offspring, and so speaking of themselves as though they were speaking of some third person. Yet no one will deduce from this that the inscription was made by a craftsman of a later age.

[30] The second indication, says Hontheim, that the tablet was made after the Norman invasion, is from the craftsman's the ignorance of its fabricator, by which he seems not to have known who hid the names of the Martyrs in the earth; hence he expressed by name neither the canons of St. Paulinus — to whom nevertheless this chiefly pertained — nor any other person, but said only in general: Which the devout Christians who were then alive transferred hither from thence. The engraver of the inscription mentioned in the preceding number expressed the parents of the deceased infant only by the general name of father and mother; was he therefore ignorant who they were? But he ought at least to have named the canons of St. Paulinus. I answer: that the canons of St. Paulinus hid the names of the Martyrs in the ground, and concealed the more valuable ornaments both of their church and of their monastery, lest they should be exposed to the eyes and injuries of the barbarians, is scarcely doubtful to me. But I do not think it follows from this that the engraver of the tablet was ignorant of it, although he expressed only the devout Christians who were then alive, and not the canons by name; for it could have been done by the canons, even if not by them alone, with the addition, namely, both of the common order or counsel of the city and of the labor of the citizens. Certainly the Deeds of the Treveri, chapter 42, in Calmet, intimate something similar in these words: The people of Trier, therefore (foreknowing the near approach of the Normans), having taken counsel with the wiser men, hide in underground caverns whatever of ecclesiastical revenue or ornament there was in the city, and sink also the sarcophagi of the Saints deeper into the earth. And hence probably the author of the tablet expressed the Christians in general, so as not to exclude anyone who had contributed labor or counsel to that work. I add that it can scarcely be doubtful to anyone, however far removed from the Norman invasion, that the canons of the place had at least some part in that affair; so that the maker of the tablet does not seem to have been able to be ignorant of it.

[31] Finally, that those very men whom the engraver of the tablet calls devout Christians were not the canons of St. Paulinus I should not dare to guarantee as certain. ignorance, For I pass over the fact that by the name of Christians there were formerly sometimes meant those who had taken up the clerical state or ecclesiastical Orders, as Du Cange proves from the Theodosian code under the word Christianus; I pass over too that monks were called Christians by the Greek Fathers: for you will say that these are too ancient, or too little to the purpose, for it to be believed that those words were used in the same sense by the author of the tablet in the ninth century. Here, then, is an example of a more recent age from the same Du Cange. Martène exhibits in vol. 5 of the Collection of Ancient Writers the old Annals of the Franks, drawn up at the beginning of that same ninth century after the death of Charlemagne, whose author at col. 910 writes in this fashion concerning William, count of Aniane, who put on the monastic habit: In the year 806 … Nor did he suffer any delay in laying aside his hair; rather, on the day of the Nativity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, having laid aside his garments woven with gold, he took the habit of the Worshippers of Christ, and, rejoicing to be enrolled as quickly as possible in the number of the Worshippers of Christ, he was made one. It was therefore in use from time to time in the ninth century that monks should be called Worshippers of Christ; why then could not canons in the same century be called devout Christians by the author of the tablet? But if by that name he really understood canons, the whole context of the tablet shows that these were none other than the canons of St. Paulinus, just as it is manifest that the Worshippers of Christ mentioned in the text just recited were none other than the monks of Aniane.

[32] from the sudden irruption of the Normans and the length of the tablet, Thirdly, says Hontheim, the Norman irruption was A CERTAIN SUDDEN STORM, flooding after the manner of a torrent over Jülich, Aachen, Malmedy, Prüm, Nijmegen, Trier, and consuming everything. But we know that IN SUDDEN EMERGENCIES there is no leisure for so long a tablet to be engraved: and that indeed WITH PANEGYRICAL EMBELLISHMENTS carefully and deliberately elaborated … Likewise WITH A CERTAIN REPETITION OF THINGS ALREADY SUFFICIENTLY SAID. That the onset of the Normans could scarcely have left so much leisure that a tablet of this kind, so long, should be engraved, I shall willingly grant, if that onset was altogether unlooked for and unforeseen; but that it was not such, the very words of the tablet indicate: When they foreknew that the Normans would lay waste this city, as they did the other cities on every side. This is indicated by the things which had already been perpetrated by them in the year 882 before they threatened the people of Trier, and which could not be unknown to these; for in the year 882, on Regino's testimony, having entered Prüm on the very day of the Epiphany, they laid waste all the neighborhood with fire and sword. Meanwhile the emperor Louis died; hearing which, say the Annals of Fulda, written in the ninth century, the army which had been sent against the Normans, desisting from the assault upon the enemy, returned with its business unaccomplished. And the Normans, following the tracks of those passing thence, burned with fire the rest of what they had before left alone, as far as the fortress of Koblenz, where the Moselle enters the Rhine. What could come into the minds of the people of Trier at this juncture of time, in this slaughter of neighboring cities, but that in a short while the fury of the barbarians would be turned upon them too, and that they must already then take timely thought for their own affairs? Now the Normans entered Trier on the Nones of April, as Regino again says; and so that storm did not fall upon the people of Trier so suddenly but that a tablet of this kind could conveniently be engraved and hidden in the ground.

[33] and from the altar set up later in the crypt of St. Paulinus, The fourth argument, by which Hontheim strives to prove that the leaden tablet was made after the Norman invasion, proceeds more or less thus. The anonymous writer who described the finding of the Martyrs reports in chapter 2, n. 18, that when the crypt of St. Paulinus was broken open, an altar of small bulk was found, which had been built onto St. Paulinus's sarcophagus not while it hung suspended, but when it had already sunk to the ground; whence it appears to follow that it was built there after the Norman invasion. Nor indeed does this appear only from that, but also from the fact that the sudden consternation of the people of Trier did not permit the construction of an altar, by which the sanctity of the bodies lying hidden there would have been betrayed to the Normans rather than concealed. Since therefore the same anonymous writer says besides that beneath that altar the leaden tablet, formerly buried in the ground, was likewise found there in his own age, it seems that it too was both made after the Norman invasion and hidden in that place — although it cannot be said determinately how many years had elapsed at that time since the incursion of the Normans. Let the names of the Saints, then, have been buried in the ground in the year 882; but the leaden tablet later, that is, when greater leisure was available to the people of Trier for making a tablet of this kind and an altar. So, I say, runs more or less Hontheim's fourth argument against the age of the tablet asserted by Brouwer; by which I think it rightly proved that that altar was erected after the Norman invasion, provided it be not said that this was done long after, on account of what was said at n. 24. But what he contends besides — namely, that the names of the Saints were indeed transferred in the year 882, yet that the leaden tablet was made later and buried in the crypt of St. Paulinus — is not equally proved to me, and for these reasons: because these words of the tablet seem to intimate the contrary, But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus … IS SUSPENDED by iron chains, as I said at n. 26; because no mention is made in the tablet of the said altar; and finally because it would have been equally easy for the people of Trier to build an altar over a tablet not long since buried as over one just then laid down.

[34] The tablet was therefore more probably made in the ninth century; the objections are resolved. but since even so it is removed by a fairly long interval from the age of the Martyrs of Trier, it remains that we investigate what authority the composer of the tablet followed; which Hontheim does in the History of the Martyrs of Trier, §14. And this, moreover, is not laborious to find, since the composer of the tablet himself cites the golden letters inscribed — or rather perhaps hung — on the wall of the crypt before the Norman invasion. Who ordered those golden letters to be inscribed on, or hung upon, the wall of the crypt, neither

does he declare, nor is it ascertained from elsewhere; so that their age is unknown, although they may have existed there from time immemorial before the Norman invasion. Frederick, provost of St. Paulinus, ascribes their preservation to the diligence of St. Felix, who bore the mitre of Trier toward the end of the fourth century; namely, that he ordered the names of the holy Martyrs to be affixed to the wall of the crypt, which were afterwards transferred to a leaden tablet, and, being later found, were preserved for the knowledge of succeeding ages. Frederick had no ancient writer whom he might adduce as witness of his statement; and yet his conjecture is not destitute of all likelihood. For if it is true that the relics of the holy Martyrs, scattered here and there through the Campus Martius, were collected by St. Felix and brought into the church of St. Paulinus, it will not be foreign to all likelihood that he also took care that their memory should be preserved as long as possible, and therefore ordered their names either to be inscribed on the wall or to be written out on a tablet hung upon the wall. But more of these things in § VI.

§ III. The various assertions of the tablet, suspected of falsity, are examined.

The tablet is suspected of falsity on the ground Not only the age of the tablet asserted by Brouwer is suspected of falsity by Hontheim, but also various assertions of the tablet itself; of which sort in the first place is the one expressed in these words: Who (St. Felix) also built that monastery (by this name the church of St. Paulinus also passes) in honor of the holy Mother of God, and likewise of these same Martyrs. Hontheim makes mention of this church at length in the first four paragraphs of his History of the Martyrs of Trier. Now it raises a scruple in him that on the one side he reads that it was founded by St. Felix, bishop of Trier, while on the other Brouwer writes in book 4, n. 164, that St. Bonosius, bishop of the same see, was buried in that same church immediately after his death; which things cannot indeed cohere with one another. For St. Bonosius died about the year 373; Britto or Britonius succeeded Bonosius; after whom St. Felix was brought to the see of Trier. It runs thus: If the church which is now generally called St. Paulinus's was first founded by St. Felix, Bonosius could not have been laid in it immediately after his death. But I fear on another score that Brouwer may have seemed to Hontheim to say what he does not in fact say. I transcribe Brouwer's words here: But although the pontificate of Bonosius is recorded by no memorial of letters, yet the Martyrologies are not silent that he was enrolled among the confessors on the seventeenth of February; and in the church of blessed Paulinus, beneath the altar of St. Clement, where his ashes are laid away in the martyry or confession, such an inscription as this is read: HERE LIES BONOSIUS OF GOOD MEMORY, ARCHBISHOP OF THE TREVERI, WHOSE PASSING FROM THIS WORLD IS CELEBRATED ON THE THIRTEENTH BEFORE THE KALENDS OF MARCH.

[36] that the church of St. Paulinus was built by St. Felix, By these words Brouwer indeed says that the ashes of St. Bonosius are laid away in the church of St. Paulinus; but when they were brought there — whether immediately after his death or afterwards — he does not declare; nor does it matter that the aforesaid inscription is recited by Brouwer, since he is likewise silent about its age. Certainly even the single word archbishop inserted in it could have warned Brouwer that it was composed long after Bonosius's death, since that word came into use long after his times. From elsewhere, therefore, you will say, the relics of Bonosius were at some point translated into the church of St. Paulinus. So the matter probably stands, and perhaps at that time when that inscription was made: when the word archbishop had already been received into use; when the day of St. Bonosius's death was still ascertained, but not the year, which the inscription passes over in silence — that is, long after St. Bonosius was snatched from among the living. But, you will say again, no memory of any such translation survives. Be it so: yet nonetheless it could have happened; just as it is most probable that Bonosius did many things of which, however, in this our age, owing to the scarcity of ancient monuments, either no memory or a very slight one survives. In much the same fashion as Brouwer, Frederick the provost speaks of Constantius Chlorus as laid away in the church of St. Paulinus; and before him the Deeds of the Treveri, which write that he died at York and was translated to Trier, and was buried not in the church of St. Paulinus but in the Campus Martius. But this I reckon among fables, nor does it seem to have flowed from anywhere but from some epitaph or other at Trier, little suited to persuade us of that translation; it runs thus: Aelius Constantius, a man of consular rank, Count and Master of both branches of the service, and patrician, and for the second time ordinary consul. Constantius went forth as consul not a second but a sixth time; nor was he consul only, but also augustus; he departed this life at York; so that he whom the epitaph in question mentions was an altogether different man. On the burial of Constantius see Alford at the year 306. Thus far, then, the scruple concerning the building of the church of St. Paulinus by St. Felix may be disregarded. But Hontheim does not stop here.

[37] There is the further point, he says, that St. Felix, in those turbulent times of the tyrant Maximus as the tablet says, and of the Priscillianist heretics … had then scarcely so much leisure and means that he could have built an august basilica (for it was 410 feet long, 120 wide) together with a monastery of such capacity, in so short a time. But this monastery must already have been built when Felix, having abdicated the episcopate, withdrew thither as a solitary. It is scarcely possible that Felix built (the church of St. Paulinus) already under Maximus. Felix was ordained bishop of Trier in the synod of Trier, celebrated in the year 386, in which Priscillian and his followers were either condemned to death or driven into exile. In the year 387 Maximus set out with an army against Valentinian; and in the following year, not far from Aquileia, he was stripped by Theodosius of life and empire together. None of these things happened near Trier; he could therefore in the time of Maximus at least have begun his work, if not have finished it. But, you will say with Hontheim, at the same time that Maximus was engaged with Theodosius elsewhere, the Franks also attacked Theodosius's commanders near Trier, nay, inflicted a notable defeat upon them, on the authority of Sigebert at the year 388; and it is not likely that the church of St. Paulinus was founded while this Frankish war lasted. I grant that; but since it perhaps did not exceed a year (for in the following year peace was made with the Franks), St. Felix's work, perhaps already begun before, could have been suspended while the Frankish war raged, and then, peace being made, brought to completion.

[38] But that we may not linger on these trifles, let us grant even that it is not proved: the building of the church of St. Paulinus was not begun before peace was made with the Franks: that it could have been begun at least once peace was made, Hontheim does not deny. But who does not see, he says, the scantiness of the span of years for constructing a monastery together with a basilica, upon which laborious structure our manuscripts say that INFINITE and ALMOST IMMEASURABLE expenses were laid out? Few indeed are the years from the year 389 to the death of Valentinian, seeing that he was slain in the year 392; but from the year 389 to the year 397 they are numerous enough, if you look to their number, and peaceful enough for the people of Trier, so that in the meantime both the church and the monastery of St. Paulinus could be built. The peace of the year 389 between the Romans and the Franks remained inviolate until the year 392, in the winter season, when Arbogast carried arms into the territories of the Franks; but it was presently renewed, so much so that the Franks served under Eugenius, who, when Valentinian had been slain, had seized the tyranny, against Theodosius; and when Eugenius too had been taken from among the living, they followed the camp of Theodosius, until at last Marcomer and Sunno wished to break the treaties of peace about the year 397, but one of them was sent into Etruria as an exile, while the other, preparing vengeance against the Romans, perished by the hands of his own men. But before the year 397 the council of Turin was not celebrated, nor did St. Felix send word of resignation to his see; nothing therefore hinders his having withdrawn in the year 397, or even later, into the monastery of St. Paulinus which he had founded. That the building swallowed up infinite and immeasurable expenses, more recent writers say indeed — but they have not seen the reckoning of them.

[39] [nor on the ground that St. Eucherius says the Theban legion was slain at Agaunum:] There is therefore thus far no reason why the tablet should be condemned of falsity when it says that the church of St. Paulinus was built by St. Felix. Its other assertions Hontheim assails more fully in the History of the Martyrs of Trier, §15. Rictiovarus, the prefect of the emperor Maximian, having by his order persecuted the Theban legion on every side, entered this city also on their account; and when he had slain innumerable of them here, etc., says the tablet a little after the beginning. How so? Was not the whole Theban legion destroyed to the last man by Maximian at Agaunum? By no means, if you listen to the tablet. Were then all the Thebans who are held for such by the people of Piedmont, of Bonn, of Cologne, of Xanten? This the tablet neither denies nor affirms; yet it plainly says that not all the Thebans fell at Agaunum; in what place and in what number, it is silent. But this I should not dare to guarantee as false: for it could easily have come about that Maximian ordered the greatest part of the Theban legion to be with him, but dispersed the rest here and there — perhaps for the very reason that in this way the Thebans would be more easily and more safely destroyed, if he did not have them obedient to his commands. But, you will say, against this cry out the Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum, written by St. Eucherius in the fifth century, when oblivion had not yet cut off the memory of the event; and therefore they are to be preferred to any monuments that fight for the History of the Martyrs of Trier. For they run thus: When Maximian had heard such things as these, and saw the minds of the Men obstinate in the faith of Christ, despairing that their glorious constancy could be called back, he decreed by one sentence that ALL should be killed, and orders the business to be accomplished by columns of soldiers poured around them. Besides, according to the same Acts the Theban legion was in the army of Maximian, nor can it be said that any cohorts departed from it, whether before or after the martyrdom of St. Maurice, or when Maximian attacked the legion. Finally, the legion at that time, as the Acts in question have it, numbered six thousand six hundred men in arms. From this subtract the innumerable Thebans who suffered at Trier, those of Piedmont, of Cologne, and the others, and scarcely any — or not even scarcely any — will be left who may have adorned the field of Agaunum with their blood.

[40] But it can be answered not ineptly that Eucherius, when he writes that all the Theban Martyrs, or the Theban legion, were ordered to be killed by Maximian, was speaking only of the greatest part of that legion, which was then in Maximian's camp, not of those who were tarrying scattered in other places, and whom he afterwards ordered to be slain by the hand of his ministers, wherever in the world they might be. And indeed that Eucherius, although he says that all the Thebans were condemned to a capital sentence by Maximian, yet did not wish to deny that some of them suffered elsewhere than at Agaunum, is proved by the fact that he records that Victor and Ursus underwent a like lot of martyrdom at Solothurn. What things concerning Victor and Ursus

he writes, he had learned on the confirmation of report; but of those who fell at Agaunum he held only a few names out of many; the names of the rest, he said, were written in the book of Life. By which words indeed Eucherius betrays that whatever pertained to the History of the Theban legion was not known to him in every part. If Eucherius knew so few names of those who had fallen at Agaunum, and who easily surpassed the rest in the celebrity of their name, what hinders his having been ignorant of others who suffered in places far distant from Agaunum, or at least having had less knowledge of them, and therefore having omitted to record them? Finally, who can declare with certainty that St. Eucherius, after he had said of the men of Agaunum, These names only out of that number of Martyrs are ascertained by us, that is, of the most blessed Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor; but the rest are indeed unknown to us, yet are written in the book of Life, did not presently and studiously subjoin, From this same legion are also said to have been those martyrs Ursus and Victor, whom report confirms to have suffered at Solothurn — in order that by the example of SS. Ursus and Victor he might remind the reader that not all the Thebans fell at Agaunum?

[41] Nor indeed does what Hontheim further adds press the tablet any harder: for some of its cohorts could have been sent somewhere: namely, that it cannot be said that any cohorts departed from the Theban legion either before, or after, or in the very slaughter of Maurice and his companions. For it can be said, and not without likelihood, that before the slaughter of Maurice some cohorts were torn from the body of the Theban legion, even by Maximian's own order, on account of what was said at n. 39. Certainly, on Eucherius's testimony, at the same time that the Theban legion was in Maximian's army, the worshippers of the true Godhead were being dragged off, by troops of soldiers scattered everywhere, either to torments or to death. Why then should it not become likely that Maximian directed some squadrons from the Theban legion too toward the Moselle and the Rhine for persecuting the Christians? Thus Ado at the tenth of October says that St. Gereon and his Companions crossed into Gaul at Maximian's order, and settled about the shores of the Rhine, as the report of his own time had it. It can then also be said that the Martyrs of Trier withdrew themselves from Maximian's army before Maurice was slain, yet after they had heard that they must either die or obey the impious orders of Maximian. This indeed Ado did not fear to write of SS. Ursus and Victor at the thirtieth of September: In Gaul, at the fortress of Solothurn, he says, which is upon the river Aar, the passion of the holy martyrs Victor and Ursus, of the glorious legion of the Thebans, who, when they had withdrawn thither avoiding the fury of Maximian, etc. But, you will say, it was a sacrilege to leave the standards against the military oath, nor is it credible that St. Thyrsus and his Companions did this for fear of death. I answer: if you grant that St. Thyrsus and his Companions really fled from Maximian's army, they did this neither unlawfully nor for fear of death. Not unlawfully: for they were set in such a juncture of affairs that they could neither live nor remain in the camp save through the greatest of crimes. They had sworn the oath to Maximian; but by it Maximian had not acquired the right either of unjustly putting them out of the way or of imposing any crimes whatever upon them. Nor, if they fled, did they do it for fear of death, but for the sake of avoiding crime; which indeed they afterwards most brilliantly attested, when they were seized at Trier by Rictius Varus, where, had they been willing to obey the impious orders of Maximian, their life was safe in the shallows; but they preferred to die rather than to offend God either by the adoration of idols or by the wicked shedding of Christian blood.

[42] But if nonetheless it should appear to anyone foreign to the fortitude of St. Thyrsus and his Companions that before the slaughter of the men of Agaunum they were sent into Gaul, that they departed from their legion against the military oath and without Maximian's leave, lest they be compelled to sacrifice to idols, let him examine the Acts of the holy Martyrs, and I do not doubt that he will find examples of this kind in sufficient number to make him think that this too could have been done by St. Thyrsus. In the genuine Acts of the Martyrs published by Ruinart, p. 511, he will find St. Gordius the martyr, who, when he saw how great a slaughter of Christians was being made at Caesarea, on the testimony of Basil the Great cast away his military belt and hurried off to places untrodden by men. I admit indeed that he afterwards came down of his own accord into the arena; but so far was Basil from judging that former deed unworthy of the fortitude of a Martyr, that he even praised him for it. Hear Basil, n. 3: When therefore that noble centurion beheld these cruel spectacles, anticipating the necessity of the judgments, he cast away the belt of his service and of his own accord chose exile for himself. What of the fact that from the very Theban legion SS. Victor and Ursus, mentioned by Eucherius, fled secretly from Maximian's camp to Solothurn, as their Acts relate at the thirtieth of September? Which Acts, although they are not of very approved credit, are yet not, so far as I see, disapproved by the learned on this head. Thyrsus would indeed have abounded in greater praise had he undergone martyrdom without flight; yet that very flight (if he truly entered upon it) is not without its own praise. The first title of victory, says St. Cyprian in On the Lapsed, is to confess the Lord when seized by the hands of the heathen; the second step to glory is to be preserved for the Lord by a cautious withdrawal.

[43] St. Eucherius's words being saved: But as regards the number of the Theban Martyrs, we have already said that the tablet makes no mention of those of Cologne, of Xanten, and others; but when it says that innumerable Thebans suffered at Trier, no one fails to see that more is said there than the truth of the matter allows — unless they are called innumerable for this reason only, that their number is not held to be known determinately, which is most true; but if otherwise, I entirely agree with Hontheim. Brouwer, book 3, n. 74, judges that one cohort was slain at Trier. Wherefore, if 6600 soldiers made up the legion, as Eucherius hands down, and if we stand by Brouwer's statements, it must be that about 660 Thebans suffered at Trier; to whom if you add about 681 who suffered elsewhere also than at Agaunum, whom Joseph de Lisle collected from every quarter in the History of the Theban Legion, chapter 10 and the two following, the sum of the Theban martyrs who suffered elsewhere than at Agaunum will be 1341; and if this be subtracted from 6600, there will remain 5259 Martyrs who consummated their martyrdom at Agaunum; so that we ought by no means to fear that the number of the martyrs of Agaunum is exhausted by an excessive multitude of those who suffered elsewhere — provided that innumerable multitude which is said in the tablet to have suffered at Trier be taken in a sound sense. I do not indeed deny that more martyrs are here and there assigned to Agaunum in the Martyrologies; but these have determined rather the number of soldiers of which a legion by Roman institution was generally accustomed to consist, than the number of the martyrs of Agaunum, and have estimated the latter from the former; nor were the martyrs slain in various places perhaps so numerous as they are set down to have been in this calculation. We proceed elsewhere.

[44] nor from the consulship When the Theban soldiers had been slain on the fourth of October, on the following day Rictius Varus raged against the Nobles of Trier; among these there shone out, by the testimony of the tablet, Palmatius, consul and patrician of the city. The consular dignity ascribed to Palmatius raised a scruple in Tillemont. The marks of consul and patrician, he says in vol. 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, on St. Dionysius of Paris, art. 8, which are attributed to Palmatius, indicate only that he was the chief of the magistrates and born in an illustrious station among the people of Trier. This I leave to be examined by those who know whether the magistrates of colonies and free cities used titles of this kind. Yet Brouwer confidently affirms that Palmatius can be styled consul, relying on this verse of Ausonius:

I love Bordeaux, I honor Rome; a citizen in the one, / A consul in both.

Tillemont says nothing about Ausonius. Hontheim follows Brouwer, and adds: There is nothing against Roman history in there having been in colonies and free cities consuls and a senate, as at Rome. See Dempster, Roman Antiquities, book 10, p. m. 1605, letter c. On whose same testimony, chapter 24, there is said to have been both a dictator and a consul at Tusculum. Certainly Trier was not a simple municipality, but a notable colony, a federate and free city; nor is it to be doubted that there were then in it duumvirs with consular power; and these, it is agreed, used the praetexta, and the fasces, and the name of consuls, in imitation of the Romans.

[45] The tablet is therefore not convicted of falsity on the ground which the tablet ascribes to St. Palmatius, that it called Palmatius consul of Trier; but from this another difficulty arises, which Brouwer indeed touched upon, but, in Hontheim's judgment, did not resolve. Take him speaking in his own words: That St. Palmatius was slain on the very next day together with twelve men of consular rank is to be wondered at, and is rightly urged against the History by the jurists; whether a governor or prefect among the Romans is to be thought to have presumed this at once, when by the laws it was not permitted without consulting the prince. L. 9, §11; L. 15, ff. de Poenis; L. 4 and 33, cod. de Decurionibus. The mandate of Maximian to Rictiovarus seems to have comprehended the Thebans alone, since the tablet says: "On their account he entered the city." Other Christians came to light, and among these men privileged as regards a capital sentence: Maximian, not so far away, could have been consulted; nevertheless Rictiovarus ordered them to be slain forthwith. This difficulty Brouwer, book 3, n. 79, had met thus: But as for what the jurists put forward, that no one of the order of decurions, of the senate or curia of a colony, could be visited with a heavier penalty, much less punished capitally, many things teach that this availed nothing for men of the highest rank in a case of majesty and of religion. Nay, here the laws prevailed, not privileges, and notable penalties, which the atrocity of more recent edicts kindled.

[46] That it was unlawful, without consulting the emperors, to condemn men of senatorial rank to death, or from the privilege of senators, nay, even to subject them to examination under torture, is plain from various laws; yet that certain crimes were excepted, law 1 On Examinations teaches: Excepted, however (the words are the law's), is a case of majesty, in which alone the condition of all is equal. Ammianus too teaches this, book 19, chapter 12: Where majesty assailed is defended, the Cornelian laws exempted no rank from examinations, even bloody ones. Hence, further, it came about that senators whom prefects or governors had determined to destroy were not rarely arraigned as guilty of diminished majesty. Ammianus, book 28, chapter 1, censures a certain Maximinus, prefect of the grain supply under Valentinian, because he used a similar fraud in the courts: When he (Maximinus) learned these things, made savage, being as he was a bitter rather than a severe enemy of vices, by a single proposal he determined, in cases of this kind, which he arrogantly mixed with the charge of diminished majesty, that all those whom the justice of ancient law and the decisions of the deified emperors had exempted from bloody examinations should, if the business required it, be afflicted with torments. Were these laws more scrupulously observed in the time of Maximian than in that of Valentinian? In what regard Maximian held senators, hear from Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 8: And when there was need (to Maximian of wealth), there was no lack of the richest senators who, on suborned informations, were said to have aspired to the empire, so that the lights of the senate were continually being put out. But if examples of Christian Senators slain by the ministers of the Emperors

are what we seek — not to go too far from the time of Maximian — Asterius, a Roman senator and singularly dear to the emperors, as Eusebius says, was ordered to be slain about the year 270 at Caesarea in Palestine by the judge Acheus; see vol. I of March, p. 224. At Synnada in Phrygia the senator Dorymedon, because he would not sacrifice to the gods, lost his life about the year 277, concerning whom see our Acts at the nineteenth of September. It ought therefore not to seem strange if at Trier, Maximian being absent, Rictius Varus raged against Christian senators — a man to whom it was certainly no secret that Maximian had armed his impiety (to use St. Eucherius's words) for extinguishing the name of Christianity, and from whom he had this very thing in his mandates, although the tablet expresses the Thebans alone, as the blood of many martyrs which he shed throughout Gaul clearly shows.

[47] whom, without consulting the Emperor, it was unlawful to slay: Further, the senate was of a twofold kind. The greater at Rome, says Bulenger in On the Roman Empire, book 3, chapter 10, the lesser, of decurions, in other cities. Senators likewise were of two kinds: senators of the City, who are also called senators of the Roman people. Other senators (among whom accordingly those of Trier are to be numbered) in the municipalities, the curiales, whose assembly is called the lesser senate. Both had their own privileges, but neither had them always unimpaired. Gothofredus teaches this by various examples concerning the decurions in his Commentary on law 10 On Decurions, where among other things he has this: Meanwhile it appears from this law too that this immunity of the decurions (from examinations under torture) was often shaken by the ungoverned temper of judges; which l. 47, 80, 85 below and l. 2 above, On Examinations, also show, nay, that third passage of Libanius too, διὰ κακίαν, he says, αρχόντων: wherefore it was from time to time necessary that a limit be set to this matter, namely to the ungoverned temper of judges aiming at the order and the disgrace of the curiae; which can also be seen in Ammianus in more than one place. If the ungovernedness of judges often ran riot, the authority of the laws being trampled down, then certainly it did so most of all when it was safe for them, under emperors most hostile to the Christian name, to persecute the flock of Christ. Diocletian, and both Maximians — that is, both Herculius and Galerius — were men of much the same flour. When Diocletian turned his mind to persecuting the Christians, he decreed that the men of that religion (the Christian) should be stripped of all honor and dignity and subjected to torments, from whatever order or rank they came. There were tortured by Maximian Galerius not only decurions but also the chief men of cities, men of the rank of egregius and perfectissimus, and that in light and civil cases, on the testimony of Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapters 13 and 21. Shall we wonder that Herculius did like things, when the peoples of the martyrs were slain, when he had armed his impiety for extinguishing the name of Christianity, when, as though a furlough had been granted to the barbarian nations, he had utterly moved his arms against religion?

[48] Here is the illustrious Hontheim's second scruple: Maxentius, [and lastly from what Baronius has concerning Christians sent to Trier from elsewhere.] Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus, Leander, Alexander, and Soter, as the tablet says, underwent martyrdom on the same day as Palmatius, Hormisdas, Papirius, Constans, and Jovianus; yet Baronius assigned the latter to the fifth of October, the former to the twelfth of December. It is indeed strange that Baronius referred the former Martyrs to the twelfth of December: for the monuments or authors which he cites — namely, old manuscripts, the records of the church of Trier, Sigebert, Molanus — have nothing of this kind concerning them. Perhaps he dragged off Maxentius and the rest just mentioned with him to the twelfth of December, not because he had found that they suffered on that day, but at his own discretion, because he judged that the Martyrs of Trier were put out of the way at broken intervals of time: for in vol. 2 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 303, n. 124, treating of the Martyrs who suffered in Gaul under Diocletian and Maximian, he writes this: But at Trier especially was the field of this contest established: for since Rictiovarus, prefect of the Gauls, spent most of his time there in his prefecture, a huge number was sent to him from various parts by the Magistrates. Whence it is likely that Baronius, just as he thought that various martyrs were brought at various times to Trier before Rictius Varus, so also believed that they suffered at various times. Thus, then, we find some reason for the thing done; but what authority Baronius here followed we do not see, since the manuscripts and records of Trier cry out against it meanwhile, and neither Sigebert nor Molanus hands it down; and accordingly there is no reason why we should stand by Baronius's conjecture rather than by the authority of the tablet.

§ IV. Whether the tablet conflicts with the condition of the Christians at Trier toward the end of the third century, is examined.

That there was some multitude of Christians, What the leaden tablet contained concerning the Theban Martyrs, and what concerning the senators of Trier, we have now seen. To these it adds that Rictius Varus on the third day from his entry raged against the common people of both sexes; and since by these words it seems to signify that some multitude of Christians was slain at Trier on that day, hence in more recent centuries it began to be believed, and to be entered in the ecclesiastical records, that an innumerable company of the citizens of Trier consummated their martyrdom at Trier on the sixth of October — an opinion which Hontheim strives to overthrow at § XVII of the History of the Martyrs of Trier, already so often praised. For the rest, he says, against the innumerability of the Christians of Trier who suffered already in the year 286 there stand the gravest arguments, which we have set out at length in our Dissertation on the state of the Christian religion at Trier before Constantine the Great, chapter IV. In which place we said among other things that it is not a little to be wondered at that no bishop, no priest, no deacon — nay, nor any lector, nor the least of the clergy — is recorded to have suffered along with these innumerable ones, since nevertheless an innumerable church could never have existed without such men. That is to say, according to Hontheim, neither under Maximian nor under Constantius Chlorus, to whom from the year 292 fell the administration of Gaul, was the state of the Christian faith at Trier such that so great a multitude of the faithful should be found there.

[50] either under Maximian while he was in Gaul, Not under Maximian: for from the year 285 Maximian, a man of the fiercest temper and of a most hostile mind toward the Christians, dwelt much and long at Trier, and worshipped the idols extravagantly, which Mamertinus in the Panegyric delivered to that same Maximian at Trier hands down in these words: Again you returned from the battle line in triumph, and filled this whole city, anxious at your sudden irruption upon the enemy, with gladness and exultation, and with blazing altars and sacrifices and kindled perfumes to your name. Thus on both those occasions of yours the divine rite was twice celebrated with equal religion: to Jupiter, while vows are made for things to come; to you, while they are paid for victory. From which, says the illustrious Hontheim, the Antwerp hagiographers rightly conclude in vol. IV of September, p. 377, that this emperor would never have allowed the Christians at Trier to profess their faith openly and publicly. And since Maximian is said to have stayed in Gaul, and for the greater part at Trier, until about the year 292, it is easy to judge that the flock of the faithful at Trier had hitherto not been numerous. It may be added that not only Maximian but the city of Trier too is painted in Mamertinus's words as given over to idols; and thus it is not likely that, while Maximian dwelt there, there were innumerable people who followed the Christian rites, whether publicly or in secret.

[51] or under Constantius, the tablet intimates; Not under Constantius Chlorus: for although he was of a fair and kindly mind toward the Christians, and, on Eusebius's testimony, had several of them, and among them even priests performing divine offices in his palace, yet among the common people and before the populace it was not permitted even to utter the name of Christians. For after Eusebius had said, in book 1 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 17: In this manner, therefore, throughout the whole time of his rule, which was perpetually even and peaceful, he (Constantius) consecrated his entire household, namely his wife and children, with all his ministers, to the one God, the king of all; so that the multitude of those who dwelt together in his palace differed in no respect from the church of God — among whom were also ministers of God, who with continual prayers venerated God for the prince's welfare — he presently subjoined this: Ὅτε παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς οὐδὲ μέχρι ψιλοῦ ῥήματος τὸ τῶν θεοσεβῶν χρηματίζειν συνεχωρεῖτο γένος.

Which Hontheim supposes is to be rendered in this fashion: When nevertheless among the common people it was not lawful to utter even the very name of the worshippers of God. Hence he does not wholly agree with Pien, who asserts in vol. IV of September, p. 378, n. 122, that a very broad field for propagating the faith lay open under Constantius Chlorus.

[52] which the state of the people of Trier To what year the Passion of the Martyrs of Agaunum, and therefore of those of Trier too, is to be determinately bound, remains in doubt. It is the opinion of many that it happened in the year 286; and if it please us to assume this as true, we can distinguish a twofold class of the Christians of Trier: the one of those who were converted before the year 286, that is, before Maximian's persecution, and were slain in the year 286; the other of those who, converted either before or after the slaughter of the rest, survived until the year 292. That these latter were very few in number is made most probable by the atrocity toward the Christians of Maximian, who was constantly dwelling there; so that Pien rightly said, at n. 115 of the Commentary which is on St. Maternus, that there were very few Christians at Trier about the year 288. But if we are dealing with those who existed there before Maximian's reign, that these too were very few in number does not seem to me equally likely. That there was then at Trier so great a multitude of those professing Christian institutions that they made up an innumerable people, I for my part would not suppose; yet what stands in the way of our admitting at least some multitude of Christians, of whom some professed the name of Christ publicly, others secretly?

[53] St. Agritius, bishop of Trier, is read as a subscriber to the council of Arles in the year 314; under Maximian before him SS. Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus presided over the people of Trier; and if to each of these you grant 12 or 14 years of rule, the Catholic faith will have begun to be preached to the people of Trier at least some years before Maximian was raised to the empire, which perhaps happened about the middle of the third century. Why in that span of time should not some multitude or other of the heathen have given their hands to Catholic truth, even if not so great a one as common opinion maintains? The persecutions of the Christians not rarely increased the number of the faithful, far from diminishing it; nor were they so continuous but that intervals of more peaceful times shone out from time to time, in some fashion suited to the propagation of the faith. When Valerian had been taken by the Persians about the year 260, his son Gallienus, says Eusebius in book 7, chapter 13, holding the empire alone, conducted himself more moderately; and, having sent out edicts, he quieted the persecution stirred up against our people, and ordered by a rescript of this kind that the prelates of our religion should thenceforth discharge their office in safety. About 268 Claudius succeeded Gallienus, who indeed persecuted the Church, but, being soon stripped of life and empire, had as his successor Aurelian about the year 270; he, on the testimony of Eusebius in the chapter cited, 30, being at first well disposed toward the Christians, was nevertheless afterwards stirred up against them

but he was extinguished immediately at the very beginning of his fury, says Lactantius, chapter 6 — that is, about the year 275. Those who followed these, Tacitus, Florianus, Probus, Carus, Carinus, Numerianus, are reckoned among the persecutors of the Christians neither by Lactantius nor by Eusebius, even though there is no lack of some martyrs who are said to have suffered in the times of these princes. From Gallienus, therefore, to Claudius, for about 8 years; under Aurelian for about 4 years; and finally from the year 275, or if you prefer from the year 277, to the year 285, the first of Maximian, for about 8 years again — the persecutions at least were not so bloody and so widely spread but that the Christian religion could here and there in the intervals of time take some increase, and the number of the faithful be gradually enlarged, especially in those places which were watered with the sweat of apostolic men.

[54] Rightly, then, is that enormous multitude of Christians of Trier under Maximian rejected; does not seem to conflict; yet care must be taken that it not be contracted within too narrow limits, and so that we sin by the contrary error. Nor further ought it to seem strange that the number of the martyrs of Trier gradually advanced beyond what is right through popular opinion. For as report grows by going, so it almost always happens that popular tradition departs further and further from the truth by length of time. It appears to me most likely that Rictius Varus's fury left few Christians at Trier; but that the number of the slain was from the very beginning less accurately ascertained; and that therefore St. Felix about a century later was content to bring into the crypt of St. Paulinus the bodies and names of thirteen martyrs only, who easily surpassed the rest in dignity and fame; to whom afterwards, by the lapse of time, innumerable others were added by popular opinion, whether foreigners or natives. And in this opinion I am confirmed when I see that in the ancient Hymn concerning St. Paulinus, whose words we gave at n. 10, a multitude of pilgrims is indeed expressly affirmed, but not so a multitude of natives. The tablet likewise acknowledges that innumerable Thebans suffered at Trier; but of the natives it says only: And on the third day he carried out a slaughter upon the common people of both sexes. That this be true, it is by no means necessary that there were at that time innumerable Christians among the common people of Trier; some multitude or other suffices, which, from what has now been said, does not seem to conflict with the condition of the Christian faith in the city of Trier before Maximian's reign.

[55] as neither under Constantius Chlorus: But if it please us to follow the opinion of those to whom the Theban MM. seem to have suffered at Agaunum at the beginning of the fourth century — when from the year 292 Gaul had already been placed under Constantius Chlorus — the difficulty concerning the number of natives of Trier converted to the faith will be less. For those things seem to me true which P. M. Pien wrote concerning the state of our faith under Constantius Chlorus in Gaul, vol. IV of September, p. 377, in these words: But it may rightly be conjectured that a freer way for propagating the faith was thereafter opened to them (Eucharius, Valerius, Maternus); namely when Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, about the year just mentioned (292) was created caesar along with Galerius by the Augusti Diocletian and Maximian, and a little later, having obtained the government of all Gaul, fixed his seat at Trier. Which conjecture he then confirms by the words of Eusebius reported at n. 51; but the last clause of Eusebius, by which, in Hontheim's opinion, it is indicated that in Constantius's palace indeed the profession of the faith was free, but that among the common people and before the populace the name of Christians could not even be uttered, Pien so interpreted that by these words, παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς, not the common people of Trier but Maximian, Diocletian, and Galerius are to be understood. He expressed his mind plainly when he presently subjoined thus to the Eusebian text: The same Eusebius hands down similar things elsewhere concerning Constantius, but these abundantly suffice for our purpose; for from the antithesis alone in the last clause we learn that there was plainly one face of things in Gaul when Maximian dwelt there, since in his presence, as also in that of his other colleagues, it would not have been lawful to utter even the very name of the worshippers of God; and another while Constantius stayed there, whose united household is compared to the Church of God.

[56] nor does Eusebius assert So, then, Pien determined, and rightly, as I think. For he saw that Valesius himself, the translator of Eusebius, had rendered those words of Eusebius in this fashion: Commonly among others — which words, torn even from the rest, could be applied to Constantius's colleagues just as well as to the common people of Trier; and that they should be judged to be interpreted of the former, the whole sequence of Eusebius's narrative, such as it was, urged, as did the aim set before Eusebius. For this Eusebius is doing in chapter 15 and the two following, in Valesius's edition: to show that the emperors, by persecuting the Church of God, stirred up the vengeance of the divine Godhead against themselves; whereas Constantius, by protecting and cherishing the Church of Christ, won for himself the benevolence of God. By which chiefly (by persecuting the Christians), he says in chapter 15, it came about that the authors of this crime remained deprived of the presence and help of God. That Constantius's manner of acting was contrary, he says in chapter 16. To Constantius alone, he says, there came into mind a certain wise counsel — which he then pursues at greater length. No one, I think, will doubt that Eusebius here sets Constantius in opposition to the other emperors. Further, he presently resumes the same opposition in chapter 17, writing thus: Such was the father of Constantine, as has been briefly indicated by us. But what end of life befell him, when he had shown himself such toward God, and how great a difference between him and the rest of the partners of empire the God whom he had worshipped willed there to be, whoever weighs the matter itself more attentively will easily recognize. And at last, when he had said that he passed his time of life with the highest glory and tranquilly, he puts an end to chapter 17 with the words cited at n. 51.

[57] But who would believe that Eusebius, presently as if forgetful of his aim, and wandering elsewhere without cause, had in the last words of his clause in view the common people of Trier, of whom thus far he had not made mention by so much as a word? this to the contrary, I admit that by these words οἱ πολλοὶ the Greeks designate the multitude of the common crowd; yet I do not believe that it is done here, both on account of what has already been said, and because Eusebius's text is perhaps corrupt, and instead of παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς one ought to read παρὰ τοῖς λοιποῖς, that is, among the rest, namely the partners of empire, of whom he had treated at the beginning of the chapter. For thus Valesius writes on this matter: Ὅτε παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς. In the royal sheets the last word is marked underneath with dots, and λοιποῖς is written above it, which I approve the more. Since therefore Eusebius says only that among the other emperors the name of the Christians could not be uttered, he affords a basis not strong enough for extending this to the common people also, so that there should be an asylum for the sacred worship in Constantius's palace alone. On the contrary, when the people of Trier saw that Constantius's palace was filled with Christians, and that these were everywhere safe from injuries and punishments through that prince's favor and protection, it is most likely that not a few of them passed over to the Christian rites, especially since there was no lack of heralds of the true faith — nor was St. Maternus himself lacking — who should apply themselves with all their strength to disseminating the faith. Constantius did indeed allow the meeting-places of the Christians to be pulled down, lest he seem to dissent wholly from his colleagues; but if there was thereby any impediment to embracing the faith, more incitement to embracing it was brought from another quarter by the benevolence which he showed toward the Christians, plainly remarkable, not only toward those who dwelt in his palace, but toward all who lived under his rule, as Eusebius writes in book 8, chapter 13, of the Ecclesiastical History. Then the edict on the pulling down of the Christians' churches and the burning of the sacred books was published in the 19th year of Diocletian's reign, or about 302; and thus about a decade had already elapsed since the government of Gaul had been in Constantius's hands; so that, if Pien's words, when he said that throughout Constantius's whole government a very broad field lay open for propagating the faith, need some tempering, Hontheim's words too, by which he asserted that under Constantius there were so few Christians at Trier outside his palace that their name could not even be uttered before the populace, seem to me to need a not dissimilar tempering. For the rest, if even a moderate number of Christians existed among the common people of Trier under Constantius, Rictius Varus could rage against both sexes, and the authority of the tablet will stand on this head.

[58] Finally, if so great a slaughter of the Christian common people had really been made as is commonly thought, I too should greatly wonder what the reason is that no cleric, nor does it follow from the fact that no bishop suffered at that time. no bishop, is recorded to have been slain along with them; but if I keep to the road I have held thus far, I find no such great cause for wonder. For under Maximian indeed I said above, at n. 52 and the following, that the Christians at Trier were not very many; rarer certainly, and perhaps very rare, were the priests; and the rarer these were, the more easily, while Rictius Varus tarried there, they could either escape his very notice or withdraw themselves for the time from his fury. For Rictius Varus does not seem to have stayed long at Trier, as the number of martyrs whom he slew in various places throughout Gaul about this time seems sufficiently to show. And the first bishops of Trier did not so bestow their labor on the people of Trier but that, carried away by ardor for propagating the faith, they made excursions from time to time now into these, now into those districts neighboring on Trier, as Hontheim admits in vol. 1 of the History of Trier, p. 19; whence it could have come about that whoever was then bishop of Trier was absent from the city when Rictius Varus rushed upon his flock. Besides, it seemed likely to the same most learned man, in the Dissertation On the State of the Christian Religion at Trier before Constantine the Great, §3, that Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus did not succeed one another without interruption; what then if the slaughter of the people of Trier fell in that interval of time in which they had no bishop? But under Constantius there were beyond doubt several men of ecclesiastical order at Trier; yet whoever turns his attention to what Eusebius, praised above, has concerning the ministers of God dwelling in Constantius's very palace and devoting themselves to sacred things, will perhaps not much wonder that Rictius Varus raged through the city but spared the priests — either because Constantius forbade their slaughter, or because Rictius Varus feared to pollute Constantius's dwelling with the blood of those whom he well knew Constantius especially wished to be safe.

§ V. Hontheim's remaining arguments are weighed.

Although neither contemporary writers Besides the arguments already brought forward, Hontheim sets out several others in § IV of the Dissertation praised in the preceding number, of which mention must likewise be made. Hear the illustrious man speaking in his own words: But first of all, he says, the history of that great martyrdom of ours — or, as the Acts say, that innumerable one — is signally hindered by that depontanum silence of contemporary writers, and of those near to the time in which this monstrous butchery is said to have been carried out in the most celebrated city of Gaul. He does not know

of it Eusebius, who otherwise diligently celebrates the memory of the martyrs; the same is unknown to Sulpicius Severus, who wrote a Sacred History in Gaul in the fifth century; it is unknown to Lactantius, who in his book on the Deaths of the Persecutors records the cruelty and the death of Maximian, by whose mandate the chief men and citizens of the city of Trier are said to have been slain; it is unknown, finally, to all the writers who have come down to us up to the eleventh century, in which the tombs of the Martyrs were uncovered and a great heap of bones found, with the aforesaid tablet as interpreter — the authority of which, as regards the multitude of bones straying outside the tombs, rests chiefly upon the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus, as we shall see in its place; but among modern critics the credit of these is shaky. To the silence of the historians we add that of the martyrologies, domestic and foreign; we speak of those not under suspicion: by which we demonstrate that the tradition of the people of Trier on this head is by no means favored, in the Preliminary Commentary to the History of the Martyrs of Trier, which we append to the present Dissertation. That silence ought to seem the graver, the greater was the use of Martyrologies in ancient times among us — namely in the ninth century, and continued from preceding centuries — even in parish churches; so much so that, according to the inquiries of Regino (which we shall publish below), part 1, art. 93, every parish priest was asked at the visitation: Whether he has a Martyrology, from which on the appointed days he may announce to the people the birthdays of the Saints?

[60] In § XI of his Commentary on the Passion of the Martyrs of Trier the same illustrious writer objects by name the silence of Ado, nor have Ado and the older martyrologists made mention of them; who nevertheless searched out everything from every quarter, and dwelt for a time among the monks at Prüm, not far from Trier; who besides celebrated in his writings the patrons of Trier, Agritius, Valerius, Maximinus, Hildulph, Martin, Beatus, Paulinus, Meletius, Nicetius, Eucharius. To Ado he joins Wandelbert, who, although in his metrical Martyrology, written in the year 842, he records the Theban martyrs as having suffered at Agaunum, yet makes not a word's mention of those of Trier. For the same reason he adduces likewise the manuscript Martyrology of St. Maximinus, written at least in the tenth century. Before I reply to these, it is pleasing to observe here in passing that what Hontheim writes concerning the tablet's authority in the words reported in the preceding number is not sufficiently certain: namely, that it rests, as regards the multitude of bones straying outside the tombs, chiefly upon the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus, whose credit is shaky. For although the maker of the tablet could have seen the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus in the ninth century, in which we said at §2 it was more probably made, yet he could also have been ignorant of them, and have learned that multitude of bones scattered through the church of St. Paulinus from another source: namely, from the same fountain from which he learned that those bones had been laid in the church of St. Paulinus; which was not from the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus (for this is not read in them), but from a tradition propagated down to his own times, of which there will be a proper place for speaking elsewhere; or perhaps from other monuments of the church of Trier not yet lost before the Norman devastation. I return to my purpose.

[61] The silence of these same authors was objected by Dubordieu, the assailant of the martyrs of Agaunum, yet their silence as may be seen in our work, vol. VI of September, from p. 322, where the force of this argument, more amply set out, is refuted; it will suffice to sip a few things from there. As regards Eusebius, he wrote a book on the Martyrs of Palestine, among whom the Martyrs of Trier are not to be sought; he wrote also another, which was entitled Ἀρχαὶων Μαρτύρων συναγογὴ, but this has long been held as lost. Eusebius is silent about the Ignatiuses of Antioch, the Justins, the Symphorosas, the Laurences, the Sebastians, and not a few others; why then should he not have passed over the Martyrs of Trier also? Grant even that Eusebius wished to hand down to posterity as accurately as possible the deeds of the martyrs, as many as suffered under Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and the other persecutors of that age only: however much Eusebius may have wished to carry this out, such was their multitude and abundance everywhere in the world that it far exceeded the strength and effort of one man. That Lactantius sipped only the chief heads of things, and for the most part touched only in passing upon the innumerable evils inflicted on the Christians, and is occupied almost wholly with explaining the penalties divinely inflicted on the persecutors of the faith, becomes manifest to one who unrolls his short Little Work on the Deaths of the Persecutors. I add that Lactantius records chiefly those things which the tyrants wrongly did after the persecution decreed against the Christians at the beginning of the fourth century, but scarcely touched upon what they attempted against the Christians toward the close of the third.

[62] does not bring much damage to the text of the tablet But that it was not Sulpicius Severus's purpose either to set forth in detail the deeds of individual martyrs, but that he wished only to touch lightly upon the evils inflicted on the Church under Diocletian and Maximian, he himself betrays in book 2, chapter 32, of the Sacred History, writing thus of Diocletian's persecution: After him (Valerian), about 50 years having intervened, while Diocletian and Maximian ruled, a most bitter persecution arose, which for X continuous years laid waste the people of God; in which tempest almost the whole world was stained with the sacred blood of martyrs. For men rushed in rivalry into the glorious contests, and martyrdoms were then sought by glorious deaths far more eagerly than bishoprics are now sought after by depraved ambitions. Never was the world more exhausted by any wars, nor did we ever conquer with greater triumph than when we could not be conquered by the slaughters of X years. There are also extant, committed to writing, the illustrious Passions of the martyrs of that time, which I have not thought fit to link together, lest I exceed the measure of my work. Since therefore to these historians either not absolutely all the martyrs were known, or at any rate it was not their purpose to treat of absolutely all, the argument drawn from their mere silence is not effective. Let us see now whether the silence of the martyrologists mentioned above presses harder, to whom the martyrs of Trier ought to have been better known.

[63] is shown, Ado's deep silence everywhere concerning the Martyrs of Trier held Brouwer in doubt, and seemed to him like a riddle — Ado whom he supposed to have been a prelate of the see of Trier, and indeed that very one by whose leave the crypt of St. Paulinus was broken open. But that the Martyrology of which we speak is to be ascribed to Ado of Vienne is today beyond controversy; although not even so is every difficulty removed. For Ado of Vienne departed this life in the year 875, and lived accordingly at a time when the memory of the Martyrs of Trier ought still to have been in vigor — namely a few years before Trier was devastated by the Normans. There is the further point that Ado stayed for some time in the monastery of Prüm before he composed his Martyrology, where it is not likely that nothing became known to him concerning the Martyrs of Trier. But this difficulty is certainly much diminished by the fact that he likewise made no mention of very many other Saints of Trier, although they were celebrated in his own age and honored with ecclesiastical cult. Whoever consults Hontheim's History of the Cult of the Saints of Trier, inserted in vol. 1 of the Prodromus of the History of Trier, will find several of this kind: there at p. 360 he will find Marus; at p. 361 Bonosius and Leguntius; at p. 362 Basinus; at p. 363 Felix, known even to Sulpicius Severus; at p. 364 Modoald; nay, at p. 369 even Maternus, famous at Trier with a most ancient and perennial cult — men who, although they were prelates of the church of Trier, and are read as inscribed already from the seventh century in the diptychs of the altar of Willibrord, are nevertheless (Maternus perhaps excepted) wrapped by Ado in a silence no less deep. At p. 361 St. Castor is said to have been venerated in the ninth century and long before; and yet of all these no mention is made by Ado. Whatever, then, was Ado's reason for omitting these, the same or a like reason could have moved him not to insert the Martyrs of Trier in his Martyrology, however little he was ignorant of them — just as neither on that account ought he to be believed to have been ignorant of the other Saints of Trier whom he likewise omitted.

[64] But what has just been observed concerning Ado which holds good also has its place in Wandelbert too, and in the older Calendars of Trier published by Hontheim. In the Calendar of St. Maximinus, which he published in the first place after the History of the Cult of the Saints of Trier, you will find not even one of them, if you except Castor and Marus. But in the second and third not so much as one of them appears. In the fourth, of the twelfth century, besides Castor, none again occurs, although it makes mention of Thyrsus and Palmatius. Besides, if the said Calendars be compared with one another, it is easy to detect that no constant and stable order was formerly kept at Trier in celebrating the feasts of the Saints, so that now more, now fewer, now these, now those were celebrated. Let the January of the Calendar of St. Maximinus, of the tenth century, serve as a specimen, compared with the January of the Calendar of St. Simeon, of the eleventh. The former contains about 30 announcements of Saints (besides those which are common to both), of which in the latter no mention is made, neither in the month of January nor in any month of the whole year. In the former, at the eighth before the Kalends of February, St. Projectus martyr is noted; in the latter, the Conversion of St. Paul. More consonant with one another are the Calendars of St. Simeon, of the eleventh century, which Hontheim published in the second and third places; yet even between these there is discrepancy: in the former, E. C., at the seventeenth before the Kalends of February, this is read: The Passion of St. Marcellus, Bp. But in the latter: Of Remigius and Macarius. In the former, at the sixteenth before the Kalends of February: St. Sulpicius, Bp. In the latter: St. Marcellus, Pope; but of Sulpicius nowhere any mention. Then St. Prisca, and then SS. Mary and Martha, follow in the first at the fifteenth and fourteenth before the Kalends of February; both days are vacant in the second. To heap up more things of this kind would be superfluous. Since therefore the ancient Calendars of Trier which still exist today were little consistent with one another, who can declare that the Martyrs of Trier were not inserted in older ones already lost, or at least in ancient litanies? Finally, since the illustrious author himself admits in §12 of the History of the Cult of the Saints of Trier that his ancestors were sparing in decreeing by public authority proper Offices of their own Saints, or even commemorations in the common liturgies, I do not see that the silence of the ancient Calendars of Trier concerning their Martyrs brings much damage to their History.

[65] As the everywhere-sung multitude of the Martyrs of Trier displeased him, which holds good also so too the huge abundance of relics which the canons of St. Paulinus supposed were laid away in their keeping is little approved by Hontheim. We published, he says in On the Christian Religion at Trier before Constantine the Great, §4, in the Diplomatic History of Trier, vol. 1, in the Addenda, p. 43, a letter written by Abbot Einhard about the year 824 (consequently long before the incursions of the Normans) to Hetti, archbishop of Trier, with which he sends him relics of martyrs, which Hetti had sought for the dedication or consecration of a new basilica. It was not a question of the relics of some named martyr, but of any martyr whatever; for thus says Einhard: And indeed we did this willingly, who have such confidence in you that whatever particle of the ashes of the blessed martyrs shall come to you, such honor will be shown to it as we ought to have shown to their whole bodies,

unless sloth and negligence should hold us back from the honor due them. But what need would there have been for our archbishop to fetch relics of martyrs from distant parts for the consecration of churches and altars, if the territory of Trier had abounded in them — and in such relics indeed as were not shut up in sarcophagi? This Einhard is the same who wrote the Life of Charlemagne, and whose History, prefixed to his own Work, Du Chesne exhibits in vol. 2 of the Writers of the Franks, p. 91. But what new basilica Hetti founded, besides the one which he dedicated to St. Castor at Koblenz about the year 836, on Hontheim's testimony in the Annals, I have not found.

[66] in the deed of Hetti, bishop of Trier, in procuring relics of Saints This argument the illustrious man himself proposed in vol. 1 of the Diplomatic History of Trier, p. XLIII, and answered it in this fashion: Someone will wonder what reason there was for which Hetti should have sought sacred relics from elsewhere, when the metropolis itself was so rich in them, especially in the remains of so many of our holy prelates. Well: it had been provided by the emperor Theodosius: Let no man transfer a human body to another place; let no man dismember a martyr; let no man traffic in one. Leg. fin. cod. Theod. de Violat. sepulch. The force of that excellent law lasted, as is gathered from this, later among us, which Baillet, in the Discourse on the History of the Lives of the Saints, §101, proves was already earlier relaxed in other parts of Gaul, and under Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald wholly abolished. Whether Hetti was eager to procure the relics of Saints from elsewhere with an eye to the Theodosian law, I leave undecided. This is certain: the prelate of Trier did not lack the relics necessary for consecrating a church and altars.

[67] for himself from abroad. For the same reason, then, by which he abstained from transferring any relics of Trier whatever into the basilica he had founded, it is credible that he abstained also from transferring the treasures of our Martyrs, and preferred to enrich his diocese with relics procured from elsewhere than to strip the metropolis, or any other church of Trier, of the possession of its sacred ashes. For the rest, I have not said these things because I believe that there are in the basilica of St. Paulinus as many relics as are commonly supposed to be there, nor do I hold them all as legitimate; but to show that from Hetti's deed it does not follow that there were at that time no relics of Martyrs at all in the church of St. Paulinus, even relics distinct from those which the crypt of St. Paulinus concealed. For I strongly approve Hontheim's prudent warning concerning the relics scattered through the basilica of the church of St. Paulinus, that care must be taken lest perhaps along with the relics of some Martyrs the bones of pagans too, formerly buried in the same place, be honored with a cult equal to theirs.

[68] But if in the space of 189 years But let us hear the illustrious man pressing further upon the History of these relics: They are said, he says, in the tablet so often mentioned, to have been laid away for fear of the Normans, who were hostile to Trier in the year 882. From that time to the finding of the relics, made in the year 1071, 189 years intervene. What, I ask, was or could be the reason why so great a treasure, after the departure of the Normans, when peace and security had been entirely restored, should be left beneath the earth without cult, nay, in an unseemly state? And then, could its memory within the lapse of this time be so blotted out that neither to the canons daily chanting in the basilica of St. Paulinus, celebrating the offices of their own Saints, reading the Martyrologies, nor yet to the citizens of Trier, who from the time of their finding have paid the greatest veneration to these relics, should there have remained to posterity absolutely any knowledge of them from the continuation of cult, from the pious narration of forefathers, not to say from a written note? And yet from the History of this finding it is gathered that this sacred deposit appeared to the pious people of Trier as strange and scarcely credible as if it had been hidden a thousand years before.

[69] That the crypt of St. Paulinus was probably closed about the year of the Lord 882, or not long after, has been said at n. 24, the memory of the MM. of Trier vanished, where also a likely reason for the thing was given; nor indeed is it unlikely that from then on the cult of the holy Martyrs began gradually to diminish, until at last, about the year 1071, in the space of nearly two hundred years, the memory of them was utterly effaced. But why the cult of the holy Martyrs was not restored in full after the departure of the Normans, the cause probably was the extreme disturbance of the following years; and lest this seem to be invented gratuitously, it will help to hear what is read of the wretched face of those times in the council of Mainz, celebrated in the year 888. It runs thus: For who could with dry eyes recount the evils of our nation and of the Saints? See and consider how the illustrious and noble buildings of the Servants of God have been destroyed and burned, and utterly reduced to nothing; the altars dug up and wholly trampled down; the very precious and wonderful ornaments of the churches of God plundered and burned with fire. Bishops and priests and other men of the order of the Church cut down by the sword and doomed to death by various kinds of punishments; every age of both sexes consumed by sword and fire and by every different kind of death. The evils of ourselves, he says, and of the Saints — so that the former cult and honor had not yet been restored to the Saints in the year 888. The monastery of St. Paulinus, indeed, as the Deeds of the Treveri say, they wished in vain to consume with fire, yet they invaded it in hostile fashion; a man whom they happened to meet there in the church, as the Acts of St. Paulinus have it, they buried alive; and thus beyond doubt they did not spare the monastery either, and scattered the canons either by the sword or at least by fear of it. For the canons enjoyed no happier lot than the rest of the city of Trier, concerning which Hermann Contractus says at the year 882: And among many other evils they (the Normans) also burn the city of Trier on the Nones of April, its citizens having been put to flight and slain. But let us rather hear the Fathers of the council themselves. Fearing the danger of which overthrow, they say a little below, the inhabitants of monasteries of both sexes wander hither and thither in uncertainty, and, utterly destitute of all comfort, they know not, straying about at the peril of their profession, what is to be done or whither they are to turn.

[70] Another evil was added too. But embittered meanwhile by these evils, for which causes the same Fathers continue, and afflicted almost to death, another evil from close at hand straitens and oppresses us. Which, the nearer it is, the heavier it is, and the more perilous for us who are called pastors. For behold, at our very side rages a crowd of plunderers and schismatics, who oppress and destroy the poor and lowly of Christ, having no regard for God, nor fearing the person of any man. For by these, if the savagery of the pagans were lacking, the land would be reduced to a desert: because they know how to spare neither sex, nor age, nor poverty, but despoil all whom they can, without regard for God or mercy, and cruelly, forgetful of themselves, destroy them either by fire, or by the sword, or by whatever kind of death; and they think this nothing and make little of it. Nor indeed was an end then put to these evils: for in view of them the council of Tribur, celebrated in the year 895 near Mainz, permitted that the sacred rites be performed in chapels while the destroyed churches were being restored; and it teaches in these words that after the Normans there was no lack of Slavs, Hungarians, and bad Christians who raged there everywhere against the churches: We also concede that, since — our sins requiring it — it has very frequently happened that churches have been set on fire and burned by the Northmen, and by the Slavs, and by the Hungarians, and by bad Christians, or in any other way whatever, we permit Masses to be celebrated meanwhile in chapels with a consecrated tablet, until those churches can be restored.

[71] this could come about, About the year 898, that is, some 16 years from the Norman invasion, not even one of the monks of St. Maximinus survived to whom was known the place of the tomb in which the sacred relics (of St. Maximinus) were enclosed, on the testimony of Sigehard, a monk of St. Maximinus, who flourished in the tenth century. How grave the damages were which the German churches thereafter received, first from Zwentibold, then from the Hungarians, there is no need to say: for from what has just been said it can conveniently be understood that it was not easy for the people of Trier, having lost everything, to repair their losses and to restore to their Saints, in times so turbulent, their former cult; and once this was interrupted, it could even cease altogether, and the memory of certain Saints be buried in deep oblivion. But that the canons of St. Paulinus were no more fortunate than the rest — nay, that they were in the utmost want of resources for almost a whole century from the Norman disaster — is clear from the Charter of Egbert, archbishop of Trier, given in the year 981, in which first this is read concerning the churches of the diocese of Trier in general: I, Egbert, by the favor of the divine Clemency archbishop of the see of Trier, seeing the monasteries and churches of our diocese miserably desolate of all ecclesiastical furnishings from the days of our predecessors down to our own times, and reduced to such a state that there was scarcely hope of repairing them, have resolved, etc.; and then concerning St. Paulinus's by name: Lest on account of want of household means the monastic building should fall to ruin, by the common counsel of our faithful I have appointed for myself and my successors, and have confirmed by my ban that it be done, that with the same care and the same diligence and solicitude with which they build the house of the Blessed Peter, they should also set beams, panelled ceilings, and windows to this monastery (St. Paulinus's); that they should supply better chasubles, dalmatics, and copes in place of those consumed by age, the provost of that monastery seeing to the rest in the buildings, and the sacristan repairing the linen vestments to be used in the church.

[72] by the examples adduced, But how apt times of this kind are to bring on forgetfulness of the Saints — expulsions of monks, pillagings and oppressions of monasteries, irruptions of barbarians, and other evils of that sort — we are taught also by various examples. Here is an example not foreign to the matter we are treating. Meanwhile, in the last year but one of the aforesaid lord abbot Leutbald, says the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges, chapter 1, and in the year 703 from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the venerable body of St. Boniface the martyr, taken away from the people of Trier, was by the help of the Godhead brought into the monastery of Moyenmoutier. The relics of the Martyr, he says in the same place, a certain old little oratory of St. Martin, placed to the right of the church, preserved through many courses of time, until it was utterly withdrawn from the memory of mortals; whose finding, since it is by no means to be passed over in silence, will be set down more fully in its own place. And he fixes the finding, in chapter 9, under Adalbert, who presided over Moyenmoutier from about the year 954 to the year 985, as Belhomme, abbot of the place, has it in the series of abbots of the monastery of Moyenmoutier. And that finding came to pass when Adalbert, as the author cited above says, had pulled down the church of the blessed Virgin Mary, and at the same time the chapel of St. Martin adjoining it — which according to Belhomme's mind, p. 189, is to be referred to about the year 964. Now from the year 703 to the year 964 there are numbered 261 years; from which if you subtract the many courses of years in which the memory and cult of St. Boniface flourished at Moyenmoutier, you will have years not much more than two hundred in which the memory of St. Boniface perished, and that utterly, not only for the inhabitants of the monastery but for the whole neighboring district too.

[73] Here is a second example from the same author:

Lazarus and Aza had lived for a time at Moyenmoutier, is declared. and having died and been buried there were held in the number of the Saints; then, when the Hungarians were pressing into Gaul, the clerics who then inhabited Moyenmoutier and had succeeded the monks so skilfully fitted their bodies into the wall of the basilica of the holy Apostles that nothing was less suspected than that anyone's body lay hidden therein. This concealment of the bodies happened, according to the reckonings of the little book, about the year 919; but the finding in the year 1014, when monks had again succeeded the clerics. In the space, then, of about a hundred years the memory of those Saints was effaced, not only among the monks but also among the rest of the inhabitants of the place and the neighboring monasteries; and that so far that not only the place where their bodies lay hidden, but even their very names, were unknown — as the anonymous writer cited writes in chapter 17. For when through the succession of times (he has "of 95 years" a little below) both their names and their sepulchres had been utterly withdrawn from the memory of the survivors, they are divinely brought back to knowledge by most concordant visions of monks, clerics, and faithful of both sexes, not only of those near at hand but even of those very far off. Something similar, then, could have happened to the Martyrs of Trier from the time when access to the crypt of St. Paulinus, in which their relics lay, was shut off; especially if they had not been entered in the public ecclesiastical records in that age, a thing which the people of Trier formerly did sparingly and meagerly.

§ VI. Our opinion concerning the Martyrs of Trier is set forth.

Some multitude of the Martyrs of Trier If I have thus far brought forward the monuments upon which the History of the Martyrs of Trier rests, and the illustrious Hontheim's doubts or arguments against it, and my replies to them, I should not wish anyone to judge from this that I assent as true to everything which is everywhere asserted concerning those Martyrs, or that I have deliberately wished to go against the opinion of that most learned man. For I have performed both with this design: that, all things being weighed, the fair-minded reader might more easily determine for himself what in this History of the Martyrs of Trier is to be rejected as false or foreign to likelihood, and what on the contrary can be retained as true or at least as likely. I shall open in this § what I think, nor shall I much object if anyone from time to time thinks otherwise; I shall even rejoice if he shall have dug out from somewhere things more certain or more likely. And first indeed it seems to me that a multitude of Martyrs suffering together under Maximian, in some fashion notable, can be granted to the city of Trier; seeing that it neither conflicts with the state of the Christian religion among the people of Trier as the third century declined toward its close, as I said at n. 52 and following, nor is destitute of the support of ancient tradition. That tradition flourished already from the sixth century, later than which I said at n. 8 the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus were more probably not written. It probably flourished earlier too: for to what end would their author have been the first to invent that multitude, of which he makes only a passing mention, and which he could have passed over altogether in silence without loss to his argument? But, you will say, that tradition departs from the truth when it makes the multitude greater than it is right to believe. So it is; and those more recent writers stray further still who have written that the Moselle flowed bloodied with the slaughter of the Martyrs for as much as six miles. But from this very error some multitude or other of the Martyrs of Trier is confirmed; for it is easier that that multitude of Martyrs, modest or moderate, should gradually have grown enormously in popular opinion out of many rather than out of few once slain by Rictius Varus at Trier.

[75] may be admitted. Since therefore that ancient tradition, chastened and emended in the way we have said, neither conflicts with the state of Christian affairs among the people of Trier in those times, nor contains anything else that is foreign to likelihood, there is no reason why we should withdraw all credit from it. For just as traditions of this kind are not easily to be admitted in those matters in which they depart from likelihood, so in others they are not immediately to be repudiated for certain slight causes or conjectures. For the rest, that the tradition just brought forward from the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus looks to our Martyrs of Trier is clear even from this, that they are said to have been slain under Maximian, by Rictius Varus, and finally at Trier. We gave the words of the Acts at n. 6, by which it is indicated that the bodies of the Martyrs were thrown into a certain stream, and thence rolled down into the Moselle, and entombed by the waves. These indeed cannot perhaps be applied to SS. Boniface, Thyrsus, and the others whose bodies were committed to the earth either in the crypt of St. Paulinus or elsewhere; yet they can be applied to others. A certain stream, which I have found is called the Weverbach, runs through the city of Trier; issuing from which and passing by the monastery of St. Mary at the shore of the Moselle, it discharges itself into the Moselle. The wrestling-ground of St. Thyrsus and his Companions is said to have been the Campus Martius, situated in the eastern suburb of Trier; which, if it did not extend as far as the aforesaid stream, is at any rate not very far from it, so that the bodies of some could have been thrown into it and carried thence into the Moselle. At the same stream also various people could have been slain, or thrown into it, of those who on the third day underwent martyrdom from among the common people.

[76] but not whatever the tablet says of them. What I have just drawn from the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus concerning the holy Martyrs of Trier indicates indeed a slight knowledge of them, but one at which you would not much wonder in a foreign writer, perhaps less well informed about the affairs of Trier. Richer was the tradition of the people of Trier in the ninth century; and what it then was, we learn from the leaden tablet, more probably buried in the ground in that century, as we said at §2. It teaches not only the names of some of the Martyrs, but also that some were Thebans, others senators or Nobles of Trier, others finally natives of Trier; it teaches the day on which they suffered, and the place and position where the bodies of the chief ones were buried; it teaches finally that St. Felix founded a church in honor of the holy Mother of God and of the Theban Martyrs, which afterwards obtained the name of St. Paulinus. Such, I say, seems to have been in the ninth century the tradition of the people of Trier concerning their Martyrs. Here is my judgment upon it. First, I do not approve that innumerable Thebans were slain by Rictius Varus at Trier — unless they are called innumerable because their number is unknown; then, that the body of St. Paulinus is said to have been translated from Phrygia to Trier by St. Felix with the forces of the whole realm, unless these words be understood in a sound sense according to what we said at n. XI. But as for its saying that St. Thyrsus and his Companions were Thebans, I judge that this is neither certain nor destitute of all probability. Not certain, because besides the Thebans there could be others too who served Christ and the empire at once, whose service Maximian likewise wished to use for persecuting the Christians, and who in later centuries began to be held for Thebans because they were believed to have been crowned with martyrdom at about the same time and for a like cause. And yet also not destitute of all probability: for since, on St. Eucherius's testimony, he dragged off the Christians either to torments or to death by troops of soldiers scattered everywhere, he could also have detailed one or another squadron from the Theban legion to Trier for the same or for any other cause.

[77] However the matter may stand, that tradition seems to have flourished among the people of Trier not only from the ninth century, in which we think the tablet was made, the tradition of the people of Trier seems older than the 9th century, but even before; and the managers of the tablet seem to have set it down in writing, having been taught it by older monuments or by tradition. For who would think that men set in the utmost disturbance of affairs, with the swords of the barbarians already hanging over their necks, were eager to invent dreams and to peddle them to posterity? The origin of this tradition, therefore, seems to be sought elsewhere than from the leaden tablet, and further back than from the invasion of the Normans. The latter seems indeed to follow from the former; but the former, at least as regards some Thebans who suffered at Trier under Maximian, I confirm from elsewhere as well. The author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges, in Belhomme, p. 144, reports that St. Hildulph in the year 703 brought into the monastery of Moyenmoutier the body of St. Boniface, the Theban Martyr, taken away from the people of Trier; and at p. 95, in the Life of St. Hildulph, he makes mention of three hundred Martyrs of the Theban legion, whose bodies St. Hildulph, while he still occupied the see of Trier, translated into the monastery of St. Maximinus. And he wrote these things about the beginning of the eleventh century, at which time the people of Trier themselves had not so much as a suspicion of the tablet still lying hidden. The same author reports besides, in the same Belhomme, p. 190 and following, that St. Boniface appeared to Tietfrid, a monk of the monastery of Moyenmoutier, toward the end of the tenth century, and said that he was a martyr of the Theban legion. Now this revelation, as it is there described, must be either true or invented. If the first, Boniface was a Theban martyr; but if invented, it must be that either the tradition itself, by which Boniface was believed a Theban martyr, or older monuments — other, however, than the leaden tablet — furnished a foundation for the invention. For it does not appear credible that Tietfrid in the tenth century and the managers of the tablet in the ninth dreamed the same thing, the one of St. Boniface and the other of St. Thyrsus, entirely by chance. Nor does it matter that no mention is made of St. Thyrsus and his companions in the little book on the successors of St. Hildulph; for what is there narrated of St. Boniface's Passion is so like what is narrated in the tablet of the Passion of St. Thyrsus and his Companions, that it becomes most likely that it all sprang from the same fountain.

[78] as resting upon the golden letters, Since therefore from what has been said the composers or managers of the tablet do not seem to have been the first to affirm that Theban soldiers suffered at Trier, it must now be seen on what authority, or on what older testimony, they relied in asserting this very thing. The leaden tablet teaches that certain golden letters were inscribed on the wall of the crypt of St. Paulinus before the Normans arrived there, which reported the names of the chief Martyrs of Trier. But was there nothing besides? So indeed it seems to Hontheim; but to me the contrary is more pleasing, for these reasons. The tablet sets forth not only the names of the chief Martyrs of Trier, but also accurately describes the position of each. He, it says, who lies at the right of St. Paulinus was called Palmatius; he at the left, Thyrsus. At the head of St. Paulinus lie seven senators, of whom the middle one had the name Maxentius, and so of the rest. As therefore the composers of the tablet drew the names of the Martyrs from the golden letters, so they seem to have drawn from the same source the position of each, although they do not expressly assert it. For, as is very like the truth, whoever formed those golden letters on the wall of the crypt wished not only to provide for the memory of the martyrs, but also to prevent their being confused, which would otherwise easily follow with the lapse of time — especially since nothing appears on their tombs, two excepted, on Hontheim's testimony, by which one might be distinguished from another. But if the composers of the tablet seem to have drawn the names and position of the individual Martyrs from the golden letters,

why not their titles too, and the time and day of their passion? I go further, and confirm what has just been said.

[79] Of the golden letters the composers of the tablet write thus: The names, therefore, of him (Thyrsus) and of those Martyrs (Palmatius, etc.), probably not distinct from the marble tablet whose sarcophagi can be seen here, were written in golden letters on the wall of this crypt; which the devout Christians who were then alive transferred hither from thence. If you wish to follow the native and more obvious sense of these words, you will judge that the golden letters and the leaden tablet were buried in the ground in the same place, as the arrival of the Normans pressed. Now hear what was found in the crypt of St. Paulinus about the year 1071, when the ground was dug up; at n. 18 the describer of the Finding has this: There was indeed found there a marble tablet, and when this was lifted, a leaden tablet of the same breadth appeared; and nothing else occurs about the golden letters. Can you not further conjecture plausibly from this that the golden letters were inscribed on that marble tablet, and together with the tablet were unfastened, or torn from the wall, and hidden in the ground? Yet since he who described the Finding of the bodies seems to intimate at n. 18 that there were no letters at all on the marble tablet — inasmuch as he credits the names of the Martyrs, and the time and the passion, not to the marble tablet but to the leaden one — it seems that we must say either that the golden letters had disappeared from the marble tablet, or that they could not be read because of the strangeness of the characters. Certainly the author of the Finding seems to have judged that the marble tablet contained at least something before it was hidden in the ground, since at n. 2 he numbers it — perhaps on account of some remaining traces or other of the golden letters — among those documents on which the diligence of his ancestors had inscribed not only the names but also the merits of the holy Martyrs. Now I undertake to make good in this fashion what I promised in the preceding number, namely that I would confirm that the composers of the leaden tablet drew from the golden letters, or, as is likely from what has just been said, from the marble tablet, not only the names of the Martyrs but also their titles, and the time and day of their passion.

[80] I say, then, that the composers of the leaden tablet did not compose a new tablet out of their own resources, which seems to have shone before the managers of the leaden tablet, but more probably only transcribed the ancient marble one affixed to the wall of the crypt before the irruption of the Normans, employing nevertheless a certain interpolation, by which they wished to teach posterity at what time, by whom, and on what occasion the letters or the marble tablet were carried beneath the earth. And this I seem to myself to detect from the context of the tablet itself; which, although rather long, it has seemed good to set before the reader's eyes here, that he may the more easily understand what is to be said. It runs, then, thus: In this crypt lie the bodies of Saints, most noble according to the dignity of the world, but according to the will of God precious Martyrs. For Rictiovarus, the prefect of the emperor Maximian, having by his order persecuted the Theban legion on every side, entered this city also on their account; and when he had slain innumerable of them here, he slew along with them these chief men of this city also, confessors of the Christian faith, whose bodies are placed here round about. And this indeed is of the marble tablet; but what follows, almost all of it, I judge is to be ascribed to the interpolators of the ninth century. What further does the leaden tablet say?

[81] It continues thus: But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus, the most illustrious bishop of the Treveri, is suspended by iron chains, whose words are here given, which body St. Felix, bishop of this see, having translated it from Frisia (Phrygia) by the forces of the whole realm, honorably suspended there on the third before the Ides of May; who also built that monastery in honor of the holy Mother of God, and likewise of these same Martyrs. For besides (præter) the bodies of these Chief Men, innumerable ones are contained in this monastery; whose names, like those of the innumerable people and of the pilgrim, could not be found, with the exception of one name of a commander, who was called Thyrsus. The names, therefore, of him and of those Martyrs whose sarcophagi can be seen here were written in golden letters on the wall of this crypt; which the devout Christians who were then alive transferred hither from thence, when they foreknew that the Normans would lay waste this city, as they did the other cities on every side. These things, I say, I judge were inserted in the ninth century by the composers of the leaden tablet into the text of the marble tablet which they transcribed; but why I think so I shall explain a little later. Meanwhile let us hear the remaining text of the leaden tablet, which I suppose was faithfully transferred from the marble tablet to the leaden one.

[82] He, therefore, it says, who is laid on the right side of St. Paulinus was called Palmatius, are given, who as consul and patrician was chief over this whole city. But he who lies on his left side is called Thyrsus, whose name alone out of so great a multitude was noted, because he bore the command of that legion. And at the head of this St. Paulinus lie seven most noble senators of this city, crowned with martyrdom together with those Thebans; of whom the middle one is called Maxentius, next to whom on the right lies the nearest, who has the name Constantius, after whom is Crescentius, and then Justinus. But those who lie on the left side of Maxentius were three brothers of the same parents, of whom the eldest, nearest Maxentius, is Leander, next Alexander, then Sother. And at the feet of St. Paulinus, placed on either side, are four men most illustrious by birth and virtue, who, although in time of peace they worshipped Christ in secret, yet in time of persecution openly and steadfastly defended the faith of the Christians; so much so that they withstood Rictiovarus himself to his face, so that he, having afflicted them much with various kinds of torments as if for an example to others, at last caused them to be beheaded in his presence. Of the two, then, placed toward the South, the inner is called Hormista, and the outer Papirius; while of those whose sides look toward the North, the inner is likewise called Constans, and the outer Jovianus. And Rictiovarus entered Trier on the fourth before the Nones of October, and on that same day slew Thyrsus with his Companions; on the following day Palmatius with the other chief men of the city; and on the third day he carried out a slaughter upon the common people of both sexes.

[83] but the marble tablet But come, tell me, pray: after reading these words — when he had slain innumerable of them (of the Thebans) here, he slew along with them THESE chief men of this city also, confessors of the Christian faith, whose bodies are placed here round about — what, I say, did you expect to follow next? Surely, unless I am mistaken, the names of the Nobles of Trier, and their position, and the day and order of their Passion. But what in fact follows? Things utterly other than those you had believed were to be expected: that the monastery of St. Paulinus was founded by St. Felix; that his body was brought there, and that by the forces of the whole realm, which smacks of fable; that besides this, very many bodies of Theban martyrs are laid away there; that the names of the martyrs, formerly affixed to the wall of the crypt, were buried in the ground by the Christians as the arrival of the Normans drew near. But skip over for a moment all the things contained at n. 81, and passing straight to n. 82, read thus: He who is laid on the right side of St. Paulinus was called Palmatius, etc. — everything will flow in its native order of matter and words, and will answer your expectation at once briefly and neatly. The whole postponement, therefore, of all these things, expectation of which the last clause of n. 80 had aroused, seems to have arisen only from interpolation. Then at n. 81, why Thyrsus out of the Thebans is named, and not the rest, this reason is given: Whose names, like those of the innumerable people and of the pilgrim, could not be found, with the exception of one name of a commander, who was called Thyrsus; and nearly the same reason is repeated at n. 82, and indeed uselessly in that place, had the same authors written out the whole text of the tablet uninterpolated. This twofold indication of interpolation makes me judge that, if you except what is contained at n. 81, the rest was transcribed in the ninth century from the marble tablet to the leaden one; in which matter, if I am not mistaken, I rightly said above that the composers of the leaden tablet drew from the golden letters, or from the marble tablet, not only the names of the Martyrs, but also the determinate tomb in which the bodies of the chief ones lie laid away, and the time and day of the passion.

[84] was perhaps made already from the fourth century, It will therefore be worth the labor if we can detect, by at least a probable indication, the age of the marble tablet which was affixed to the wall of the crypt of St. Paulinus before the irruption of the Normans; and such an indication I have already touched upon in passing toward the end of n. 78. And it is situated in this: that the marble tablet had already been made when the bodies of the Martyrs of Trier were first translated into St. Paulinus's. For this was in a manner necessary; for since only two tombs of the Martyrs of Trier — namely those of Constans and Hormista — nay, perhaps none at the beginning (since, on Hontheim's testimony, only a character of the middle ages appears on their tombs), were marked with the name of a Martyr, it was certainly very much to be feared that with the lapse of time both the names of the Martyrs would perish and a confusion of the Martyrs among themselves would arise. And that he who translated the bodies of the Martyrs wished to meet these inconveniences — prudence and the diligence usual in these matters so requiring — is most likely; which certainly he could not do unless he left some monument which should set forth one by one the names and the tombs of the individual Martyrs. But come, let us imagine for a moment, if you please, that no monument of this kind was made at that time; let us imagine too that the marble tablet was first composed long after the translation of the Martyrs: do you think that at that time, when no mark of distinction existed on the tombs, the composers of the marble tablet could have said, this tomb is Palmatius's, that Thyrsus's, that other Maxentius's, etc.? This indeed appears to me less probable, unless they found other monuments elsewhere, concerning which it will again be permissible to argue in the same way.

[85] For the rest, St. Felix is said by the people of Trier in the following centuries to have translated the bodies of the Martyrs of Trier to the church of St. Paulinus; nor do I find anything solid by which this opinion may be overthrown. Whether St. Felix founded the church now called St. Paulinus's, Hontheim doubts; but St. Felix could lay away the bones of the Martyrs in it, even if its construction were owed to another. There is therefore nothing to compel us to depart from the ninth century's opinion concerning the remains of the Martyrs translated into the church of St. Paulinus, nor is it less safe to adhere to it than to the conjectures of more recent writers. St. Felix flourished toward the end of the fourth century; to the same age, then, the age of the marble tablet, or of those monuments out of which it was perhaps afterwards made, is probably to be referred. And thus, by at least a probable reasoning, I seem to myself to have dug out what the History of the Martyrs of Trier was at Trier in St. Felix's age, only a single century after they had made the soil of Trier illustrious with their blood. And taken thus, it embraces few of those things which Hontheim assails, nor are they everywhere destitute of their own defense, as appears from what has gone before. The suspension of St. Paulinus's body by iron chains, the church and monastery of St. Paulinus built by St. Felix, the innumerable multitude of Martyrs laid away there outside the crypt — whether these be true or false, they do not belong to it, but seem to be ascribed to the interpolators of the ninth century.

[86] Taken thus likewise, it contains nothing which

may seem foreign to probability. and things more probable than what the leaden tablet embraces: That some Theban Martyrs could suffer at Trier under Rictius Varus has been shown at n. 76. The number seven of the senators ought to frighten no one: for Tacitus, in book 5 of the Histories, chapter 19, has recorded that a hundred and thirteen senators of Trier crossed the Rhine together with Tutor and Classicus, to avoid the arms of the victorious Cerialis. Since there was at Trier so great an abundance of senators under the Romans, seven of them could easily have given their name to Christ before Maximian fixed his seat at Trier. That certain of the nobles or senators of Trier worshipped Christ in secret, the marble tablet records; whence someone might perhaps gather that the rest did so publicly, and were everywhere known as Christians; which, although it appears less to fit the time when Maximian dwelt at Trier, yet there is no reason why it could not have happened when Maximian had not yet appeared in Gaul. The marble tablet adds finally that on the third day there was savagery against the common people of both sexes, and at the same time it intimates that at least some multitude of Christians existed at Trier under Maximian; but I have shown in §4 that the condition of those times is not opposed even to that multitude, if a certain measure be applied to it, which the marble tablet does not exclude. That innumerable Thebans were slain at Trier the same tablet indeed reports; but that this is not to be taken strictly, the very circumstances of the matter cry out, since no part of the legion, however large, can embrace innumerable soldiers; and since this is clear and manifest of itself, the author of the tablet judged that he could use a freer expression without danger of deceiving.

[87] [whence it does not seem that the tradition of the people of Trier is to be dislodged from its possession] What opinion I hold concerning the Martyrs of Trier I have now disclosed. Far be it from me to contend that it is certain; nay, I should not dare to promise that in so great a darkness of affairs I have hit upon the truth in everything. Let it therefore be in the power of the learned, all things considered, to determine what they will; mindful nevertheless of what Benedict XIV warns in On Certain Saints of Bologna, chapter 26, on St. Florian, n. XI: that the particular traditions of churches are not to be despised but to be highly valued, and accordingly are not to be altogether rejected as soon as some doubt can be raised against them. And the tradition of the people of Trier, although it vanished for a time from the Norman invasion, yet from about the year 1071 not only has continued down to the present day, but also seems to have flourished in the ninth century from time immemorial, since the time at which it began cannot be assigned; and even from this it seems to me fair that it should not be cheated of its ancient possession, provided that, where reason requires it, it be emended — which I have already partly done above, and shall further do in what follows.

[88] the tradition of the people of Trier on account of conjectures Hontheim at the end of the History of the Martyrs of Trier draws his opinion together into a few words, which run thus: Meanwhile, all things considered, this opinion stands with us, saving better instruction, which in a matter difficult enough we shall docilely accept: 1.] That the Martyrs of St. Paulinus's from the crypt, confirmed by legitimate tradition and authentic miracles, are truly to be held for such, from wherever they may have come to Trier. 2.] That the innumerable ones, whether pilgrims or natives, are not sufficiently founded. 3.] That it can nonetheless be that even before the episcopal era certain Christians lived in this city and underwent martyrdom. 4.] That it is not unjustly doubted whether Palmatius be not the same who occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the tenth of May; and Maxentius, Constantius, (add Crescentius) Justinus, Leander, Alexander, and Soter the same as those of the twelfth of December; and accordingly that these eight are not natives, but were translated hither. On the contrary 5.] that Thyrsus, Hormisdas, Papirius, Constans, and Jovianus alone — the added qualities of commander, consul, etc., being rejected — were men of Trier, who, falling perhaps in one or in different persecutions, were first laid in separate tombs, and afterwards gathered into this place, fitted principally for receiving St. Paulinus. On which few points I observe the following.

[89] and certain arguments That the Martyrs of St. Paulinus's, whose remains are kept in the crypt, are truly to be held for such, I willingly grant to the illustrious man; but that they were brought to Trier from elsewhere is not equally pleasing, both because no testimony of antiquity teaches it, and because it is opposed to the tradition of the people of Trier — which, if it does not give credit to the view that those Martyrs suffered in the same place and time, will perhaps not give credit either to the view that each of them was a martyr. For if we imagine them to have been brought to Trier from elsewhere, whether at the same or at different times, it could easily have come about that one or more of them fell not as martyrs but died as confessors. The Martyrs of Trier, whether Thebans or natives, I too have circumscribed within narrower limits than has been done by some; yet since I have admitted at least some multitude of them, I cannot deny that I depart from Hontheim on this head, seeing that he writes thus in vol. 1 of the Prodromus of the History of Trier, p. 73: Further, if any of the Martyrs of the crypt of St. Paulinus are men of Trier, from the foundations already laid we are the more easily led to some notion or other of their number. Namely: whoever shall determine four or five of these Martyrs to be natives will not find us much opposed to him; whoever ten or twelve will impose on himself a difficult burden of proof; whoever (no consideration being had of the number of sarcophagi existing in the crypt of St. Paulinus) shall pretend that twenty or thirty of these champions stood at one and the same time in this Campus Martius without a leader, that is, without a BISHOP, will scarcely find credit among fair and skilled judges of these matters.

[90] The foundations which he alleges in that place are these: usually brought forward to the contrary. the silence of contemporary historians, the silence of the ancient Martyrologies and of those not under suspicion, the scarcely likely very great multitude of Martyrs slain without a bishop; but all these have already been met. Besides, Hontheim made little of the tradition of the people of Trier, as being born only after the ninth century and destitute of all the support of antiquity, and of the leaden tablet, as having been made after that same century by a rude and inept writer. But that the primitive tradition of the people of Trier is much older, and that an interpolator afterwards added many things, even certain inept ones, to it, is likely from what has been argued in this §; while the leaden tablet seems, from what was said in §2, to have been made in the ninth century. As for Hontheim's saying that it could have been that even before the episcopal era certain Christians lived and underwent martyrdom, I should not wish to deny it; but neither to assert, if there were any such, that they were of the number of those who obtained a tomb in the crypt of St. Paulinus. Nor is there reason why I should judge that Palmatius of Trier is to be confounded with the Roman one, although, if anyone thinks otherwise, I shall not arraign him for injustice. Nay, what has been recorded in writing concerning the relics of both urges the contrary: for the body of Palmatius the Roman (go to vol. 2 of May, p. 498, n. 3) is believed to have been buried in the cemetery of St. Calepodius near the City, and there, at least for the greater part, seems to have been kept, since Charles IV brought his arm from Rome to Prague in the year 1355, as is read in the Diary of the Relics of the Metropolitan Church of Prague in Pessina, p. 510, at the tenth of May. On the contrary, in the year 1356 Boemund, archbishop of Trier, granted to the same Charles IV the body of St. Palmatius of Trier, partly in bones, partly dissolved into ashes, only two bones and a few ashes being retained, as we have from authentic letters transcribed and given on that matter.

[91] Finally, that Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus, Leander, Alexander, and Soter, inscribed in the Martyrology at the twelfth of December, are the same as those who are laid away in the crypt of St. Paulinus, and who were designated by the same names in the leaden tablet, is scarcely doubtful to me; since besides these no others of the same name seem ever to have been known at Trier, and the monuments cited by Baronius in the Notes to the Roman Martyrology abundantly declare this. But from that a slight foundation is had for saying that they suffered at another time or place and were translated to Trier; for that they were torn away from the Companions recorded at the fifth of October in the Roman Martyrology and referred to the twelfth of December seems to have happened only by an error, or from the mere discretion of those who redacted the Roman Martyrology under Gregory XIII. So I judge, because the Martyrs in question are recorded at the twelfth of December neither in the Martyrologies or monuments of Trier, nor in the Martyrologies of Molanus and others out of which the Roman grew together. I think it therefore safer to follow the credit of the leaden tablet, and to hold those for natives of Trier, for Theban commanders, for consuls and senators, who in the tablet are marked with appellations of this kind. As for the rest, if you take away from them what is not expressed in the tablet, you will not have done it with my consent.

§ VII. It is inquired when the holy Martyrs suffered.

The MM. of Trier suffered not long after those of Agaunum, Again we wander in uncertainty. From what has thus far been argued it is more probable that some Theban Martyrs fell for the faith at Trier under Rictius Varus; but in what century, or in what year? That their slaughter came to pass after Maurice with his men had fallen at Agaunum by Maximian's order, the sequence of the event urges. Rictiovarus, says the tablet, the prefect of the emperor Maximian, having by his order persecuted the Theban legion on every side, entered this city also on their account. Maximian, then, detailed Rictius Varus to persecute the remnants of the Theban legion scattered here and there. Thus after the slaughter of the men of Agaunum, Victor and Ursus were put out of the way at Solothurn, another Victor at Marseilles, Octavius, Solutor, and Adventor at Turin. Now Maximian was too greedy of Christian blood, and the atrocity of his ministers against the Christian religion too great, for them to have allowed the Thebans whom either flight or absence had left over to survive for long, unless they were willing to obey Maximian's nefarious orders. It appears therefore most likely that not much time elapsed between the slaughter of the Soldiers of Agaunum and that of Trier; but since it is not sufficiently ascertained in what year the men of Agaunum underwent martyrdom, neither can it be declared with certainty to what year the slaughter of the Soldiers of Trier is to be ascribed.

[93] [but these are said to have suffered toward the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the next:] Ruinart says, in the genuine Acts of the Martyrs, p. 274, that the combat of the Martyrs of Agaunum is to be carried back to the beginnings of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, and can be assigned to the year 286, for the reason that at that time Maximian was in Gaul with an army; nor does he deny that it can be fixed later too. The time of the passion of the Saints of Agaunum is uncertain, says Pagi at the year 297, n. 4, some referring it to about these times, others to the following or the preceding years. Tillemont links it to the year 286, led by the opinion that the Theban legion was the companion of Maximian as he marched against Amandus and Aelianus, leaders of the Bagaudae; which the Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum in Surius record, not the Eucherian ones, which are older and more excellent than they. Others refer the slaying of the Thebans to that persecution of the Christians under Diocletian, Maximian, and the other Maximian likewise — that is, Galerius — which at the beginning of the fourth century

ranged over the whole Roman world, and for two years afflicted Gaul, on Eusebius's testimony. To the opinion of these, as the more probable, Fr. John Clé added his vote in his Commentary on the Theban Martyrs at the twenty-second of September; yet in such a way that he does not deny that their martyrdom can be bound to the third century as it was already declining, if one stands upon the Eucherian — that is, the genuine — Acts of those martyrs.

[94] To this opinion I too should willingly subscribe, did not Lactantius and Eusebius paint the state of Gaul under Constantius Chlorus in such colors but that the former opinion that under him not very many martyrdoms seem to have happened in Gaul — of which nevertheless a good long series must be admitted, if the slaughter of the soldiers of Agaunum be prolonged to the beginning of the fourth century. Of Constantius Lactantius speaks thus, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 8: I pass over Constantius, since he was unlike the rest, and worthy alone to hold the world. And again in chapter 15: Constantius, lest he should seem to dissent from the precepts of his elders, allowed the meeting-places — that is, the walls, which could be restored — to be pulled down. But the true temple of God, which is in men, he kept unharmed. And chapter 16 he begins with these words: The whole earth, then, was harassed; and except in Gaul, from the East to the West three most bitter beasts raged. What Eusebius writes of Constantius is recited above in §4. He says indeed at the end of the book On the Martyrs of Palestine that in the first two years of the persecution Gaul experienced the fury of this war; but you may easily reconcile this with Lactantius if you affirm that this war consisted in the ruin of the churches, Constantius permitting it, and not in Gallic blood, save perhaps rarely. To Lactantius and Eusebius are added the Donatists in Optatus of Milevis, book 1, where they address Constantine the Great, son of Constantius, thus in the little book of Petitions: We beg you, O Constantine, best of emperors, since you are of a just stock, whose father alone among the emperors did not carry out the persecution, and since Gaul is free from this crime, we ask that your piety command judges to be given us from Gaul. Eutropius too is added, book 10, on whose testimony Constantius was not only lovable but even venerable to the Gauls, chiefly because by his rule they had escaped the suspect prudence of Diocletian and the bloody rashness of Maximian.

[95] Some suspect that Lactantius and Eusebius did not record everything that Constantius permitted to be done against the Christians, is to be preferred to the second, and that they extenuated it in order to win Constantine's favor; but if they had wished to flatter Constantine, we may also suspect that neither would Lactantius have spoken of the ruin of the churches, nor Eusebius of Gaul being harassed for two years. They may perhaps have been silent about certain lesser inconveniences inflicted on the Christians of Gaul; yet that Constantius for the most part turned capital punishment away from them Lactantius plainly enough betrays when he says, But the true temple of God, which is in men, he kept unharmed — which I do not suppose Lactantius would have said if Constantius had allowed Christians to be slain as he allowed the churches to be pulled down. And Eutropius, who inscribed his lucubration on Roman affairs to the emperor Valens, is plainly free from suspicion of this kind. Others answer to these things that at the beginning of the persecution, while Constantius was fighting with the barbarians, not a few Christians were put out of the way by the peculiar fury of governors and of the crowd. This could perhaps have happened in Gaul before the Diocletianic persecution had begun, at which time Constantius had more than once to do with the barbarians; but I do not know what barbarians there were against whom Constantius had to fight during the first two years of that persecution.

[96] of the state of Gaul For by Tillemont's reckoning, in the year 292 he encircled Boulogne with a siege; in the following year he drove the Franks from Batavia; in 296 he subdued Britain; in 301, or rather about the year 297, he routed a great number of Alemanni near Langres; in 305 he was proclaimed Augustus on the Kalends of May — the first two years of the persecution, which began in the year 303 on the twenty-third day of February, having of course elapsed, and peace being already restored to Gaul. Having obtained the title of Augustus, he is shown to have undertaken no expedition except that in which toward the end of his life he attacked the Picts. Eumenius indeed, in the Panegyric which he delivered to Constantine, seems to add to the expeditions of Boulogne, Batavia, Britain, and Langres yet another, in these words: Why should I recall the victory of Langres, glorious even by the wound of the emperor himself? Why the fields of Vindonissa filled with the slaughter of the enemy, and still covered with bones? Why that monstrous multitude out of the various peoples of the Germans, whom the Rhine hardened with frost had enticed, so that, having dared to cross in a marching column to the island which the same river embraces with its parting, they were suddenly shut in when the river loosened, and, besieged at once by ships sent down, were compelled so to surrender that — what is more difficult — by common lot they chose from among themselves those whom they should give over to captivity, bearing back with their remnants the infamy of betraying their own? But all these things are everywhere referred to the time in which he obtained the victory of Langres.

[97] under Constantius Chlorus Sigonius, in book 1 On the Western Empire, writes thus on this matter at the year 296: Then, after some years of quiet in Gaul, a new war was stirred up by the Alemanni. These, in that winter in which Diocletian Augustus for the sixth time and Constantius Caesar for the second entered upon the consulship, and Cassius Dio upon the prefecture of the City, seeing that Maximian was far away in distant lands, finding the Rhine frozen hard, suddenly crossed it, and, having fallen upon the neighboring Lingones, set about doing all things hostile. Roused by this news, Constantius, without any delay interposed, flew thither with a most ready army, and took up position against the enemy in the fields of Vindonissa; and not very long after, when the Alemanni offered opportunity of battle, he went out into the line. Being driven back with his army in that battle, and wounded, he betook himself to the town of Vindonissa (or to the city of Langres, as others prefer), with the enemy clinging to his rear. He then narrates how Constantius, renewing the battle on the same day, cut down sixty thousand men. Then he continues in this fashion: Those who escaped from the battle, when they had withdrawn in flight over the ice to an island of the Rhine, were suddenly shut in as the river loosened when the weather grew mild, and presently, ships having been sent down, being besieged they came to surrender.

[98] the condition Nor does Guillimann differ much from Sigonius, Habsburg Affairs, book 2, chapter 2. Vindonissa, he says, having suffered many things under the Roman empire, and in the meantime from the Germans and especially from the Alemanni, these at last under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian overthrew utterly; and the garrison being cut off or routed, and everything laid waste, the Alemanni went out plundering as far as the Lingones and the Aedui. Meeting them at those places, Constantius Caesar, sent by the emperor Maximian, having fought at first unsuccessfully and presently successfully, drove them back again to Vindonissa, and, when they had gathered there in the field mentioned above, visited them with great slaughter, and routed them out of all Gaul beyond the Rhine. Brouwer likewise writes, at the year 296, that upon these Alemannic disturbances there followed the utmost tranquility in Gaul, nor does he record anything stirred up thereafter by the barbarians, until the Franks again burst into Gaul, when Constantius had already transported his forces to Britain.

[99] It seems therefore to follow from these things that the contest of the Martyrs of Agaunum, and consequently of those of Trier too, happened neither in the year 303, seems to urge, nor 304, nor at the beginning of the year next following; but neither can it be fixed later, lest it clash with Eusebius, who hands down that the Diocletianic persecution flourished in Gaul scarcely for the first two years. Add that Maximian, by whose order both are said to have been slain, resigned the purple and the empire in the year 305 on the Kalends of May; whereas their martyrdom is assigned to the months of September and October. Besides, if any credit is to be given to the Acts of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, at the same time as they, Rictius Varus likewise ceased to live — he who ordered our Martyrs also to be slain; and the death of Crispin and Crispinian is referred to about the year 287 by Castellanus at the twenty-fifth of October, by the Paris Martyrology of the year 1727, by Longueval in the Gallican History, book 1, by Tillemont in book 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, p. 461, and by others. The Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus place before their martyrdom the slaughter of St. Quintinus and of the Martyrs of Trier carried out by Rictius Varus; but again Tillemont binds the martyrdom of Fuscian and Victoricus to the third century. In the Acts of St. Piatus mention is made of Dionysius, Quintinus, Lucian, Crispin, and Crispinian; concerning whom Stilting speaks thus in the Annotations to the Acts of St. Piatus, at the first of October, p. 6: All the Martyrs here named probably suffered before St. Piatus, but not long before, since they preached at the same time in various cities of Gaul. And yet he judges it more probable that St. Piatus was crowned with martyrdom about the year 287. Just as, therefore, the slaying of these and of many other Martyrs who suffered in Gaul is everywhere bound to the third century, the same also seems to be determined concerning the slaying of the Martyrs of Agaunum and of Trier, at least according to the more common opinion of the learned. Nor are there lacking other things by which what has been said may be confirmed.

[100] And these are as follows: if St. Eucherius's words concerning the martyrs of Agaunum be regarded, as also St. Eucherius's it seems that Maximian turned an army, prepared either for keeping the barbarian nations in their duty or for subduing them to the Roman empire, to the destruction of the Christians and of the soldiers of Agaunum. If any then dared to profess the worship of the true God, they were dragged off, by troops of soldiers scattered everywhere, either to torments or to death; and as though a furlough had been granted to the barbarian nations, Maximian had utterly moved his arms against religion, says Eucherius; as if he should say that he was carried away by such fury against the Christians that he seemed almost to have forgotten the barbarians, for whose sake nevertheless he had moved his arms. He seems to intimate the same thing too when he continues thus: There was at that same time in the army a legion of soldiers who were called Thebans … These had come, summoned from the parts of the East, to Maximian's aid: men vigorous in warlike matters and noble in valor, etc. And so, summoned from the parts of the East on account of their bravery and the glory won in war, they had come to help Maximian; and he accordingly had either already undertaken some war against the barbarians, or was on the point of entering upon it, being already set upon the march, as the same Eucherius again says a little after: Maximian was not far off. For, weary with the journey, he kept himself near Octodurum. Nor indeed is it very likely that Maximian would have had need of the help of the Thebans, or of an army to wander hither and thither, if he had resolved to persecute the Christians only. Further, Tillemont laboriously collected from the ancient writers, in vol. 4 of the History of the Emperors, the wars waged by Maximian, and yet found that from the year 303 to the year 305 he waged no war with the barbarians. There is extant in John Livineius a panegyrical oration delivered to Maximian and Constantine together, by an uncertain author: he at p. 129 recounts Maximian's warlike deeds — Gaul reduced to order, the Roman standards carried among the barbarian nations across the Rhine, Germany more than once subdued, and finally the peoples of Mauretania brought under. But thence he slips away to Maximian's arrival at the City in the year 303; and presently he complains, in a flattering manner, of the Roman Commonwealth neglected by Maximian and of the helm of empire cast aside, and is thereafter silent about his warlike affairs, so that in this case

he seems, after the conquest of Mauretania, to have had nothing to say.

[101] certain words: Yet Eutropius, in book 9 of the Breviary, after he has narrated that the Alemanni were conquered by Constantius, the Africans by Maximian, Achilleus by Diocletian, the Persians by Galerius, presently subjoins: Thereafter they waged various wars both together and singly, the Carpi and Bastarnae being subdued, the Sarmatians conquered; of which nations they settled huge numbers of captives within the Roman borders. But these things seem to look to Galerius and Diocletian; for Eutropius had just before premised: Wherefore (Galerius, victor over Narses) returning in ovation to Diocletian, who was then tarrying in Mesopotamia with garrisons, was received with immense honor. But if Maximian Herculius too bestowed labor along with the rest upon the subduing of the Carpi, Bastarnae, and Sarmatians, Tillemont and Pagi say, from the Idatian Fasti and from Eutropius, that this happened in the year 299. Two things, then, seem to follow from what has now been said: first, that Herculius was surrounded by an army and engaged in some warlike expedition against the barbarians when he ordered the martyrs of Agaunum to be slain; second, that that expedition cannot be referred to the first two years of the general persecution. And if these things be so, another expedition will have to be investigated, one that preceded those first two years of the general persecution (for when these had elapsed, the persecution ceased in Gaul).

[102] nor is the contrary But, you will say, anyone who has studiously read through Eucherius's words, which plainly indicate a general persecution, will believe this with difficulty; for they run thus: Under Maximian, who held the rule of the Roman Commonwealth with Diocletian as his colleague, throughout nearly all the various provinces peoples of Martyrs were torn to pieces or slain. For that same Maximian, as he raged beset by avarice, lust, cruelty, and the other vices, so also, given over to the execrable rites of the heathen and profane toward the God of heaven, had armed his impiety for extinguishing the name of Christianity. If any then dared to profess the worship of the true God, they were dragged off, by troops of soldiers scattered everywhere, either to torments or to death; and as though a furlough had been granted to the barbarians, he had utterly moved his arms against religion. You will add too the Acts of St. Victor of Marseilles (you have them printed in vol. V of July, p. 144), worthy of Cassian or of any illustrious writer of the beginning of the fifth century, which no less plainly indicate a general persecution in these words: For when Maximian — made all too terrible to very many of our people on account of the blood of the Saints which he had shed throughout the whole world more cruelly than the rest, especially throughout all Gaul more recently, and above all on account of that most notorious slaughter of the blessed Thebans at Agaunum — had come to Marseilles, that, according to the Scripture, the impious man might still act impiously, meaning to fill up all his crimes there together with his life, lest anything of wickedness should be lacking to him, the tormentor forthwith insatiable against piety, as though he had done too little hitherto, declares war with all his rage, and orders the Worshippers of Christ, unless they sacrifice to the idols, to perish by choice deaths. Then indeed, when the minds of our people were oppressed and thrown into confusion by so great a cloud of evils, the unconquerable Victor set himself in their midst.

[103] I admit indeed that Eucherius's words are of such a kind from other words of St. Eucherius, as to depict quite aptly the general persecution of the fourth century, and to be capable of being applied to it not absurdly; but why this should be necessary I do not see. For since they say only that throughout nearly all the various provinces peoples of Martyrs were torn to pieces, and since they speak of Maximian's cruelty toward the Christians but not of Diocletian's or Galerius's, to me indeed everything said here seems capable of being understood, not absurdly, of those provinces only which obeyed Maximian, and of some persecution that took place toward the end of the third century. Then St. Eucherius, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, wrote the Acts of the martyrs of Agaunum from the report of others who had heard St. Isaac, bishop of Geneva. And Isaac had learned the deeds of those same martyrs from the narration of Theodore. Eucherius's aim in writing was that time should not, through neglect, abolish from men's memory the deeds of so glorious a martyrdom, which he feared; of all which Eucherius is himself witness in his letter to Salvius. He wrote therefore the Acts of the martyrs at a time when time had not yet cut off the memory of the event, but when nevertheless there was danger that it would be cut off, and had already, as it appears, brought it some damage. Certainly the names of many of the martyrs of Agaunum seem already to have fallen away when Eucherius wrote of them; for thus he says: These names only out of that number of martyrs are ascertained by us, that is, of the most blessed Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor; but the rest are indeed unknown to us, yet are written in the book of Life. Now on the same principle Eucherius could be ignorant in what determinate part of Maximian's reign the slaughter of the martyrs of Agaunum came to pass; and therefore he could be content if he had set before his reader some general notice of those times in which Maximian administered the Roman commonwealth, and had said in general that those martyrs suffered under Maximian, leaving meanwhile undecided the determinate year in which it happened, perhaps not sufficiently ascertained by him.

[104] The Acts of St. Victor of Marseilles more openly indicate the general persecution of the fourth century, or by the Acts of St. Victor of Marseilles when they say that Maximian shed the blood not only of the Thebans but of many others throughout the whole world, and more cruelly than the rest — namely than Diocletian and Galerius, whose chief persecution of the Christians was begun only in the fourth century. I should not wish the dignity of these Acts diminished: let them be worthy of Eucherius himself, let them be worthy of Cassian; yet there is in them something that will find credit among the learned with difficulty. For they say, as is clear from the words cited above, that Victor entered the contest for the faith at Marseilles in the utmost peril of his people, when Maximian came there to put an end at once to his life and to his crimes. Victor would therefore have to be said to have fallen in the year 310, certainly later than is right, since in that year Maximian, reduced to extremity, ended his life by the noose. But who would believe, says Cuper in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Victor, n. 24, that at that time it pleased Maximian, or was permitted him, to persecute the Christians, when toward the end of his life he was in the greatest straits? Who would believe that St. Victor, or other Christians, were slain by his order in the year of Christ 310, after he had been deprived by Constantine of the purple and of authority on account of his rebellion? etc. Certainly no one of the learned, so far as I know, defers St. Victor's martyrdom to the year 310; and if whoever described his death has moved it from its proper place, we may also deservedly fear that he has reported the death of the martyrs of Agaunum, which he writes was then newly done, at a time not its own. No more does the authority of Mamertinus and Eusebius move me, when they set forth the beginnings of Diocletian and Maximian as very prosperous for the Christians, seeing that a sufficient solution to their words has been supplied in our work at the twenty-second of September, p. 335, and in Joseph de L'Isle, chapter 15 of the Theban Martyrdom Defended.

[105] is proved: However much, therefore, both the words of St. Eucherius cited above and the Acts of St. Victor of Marseilles may seem to favor placing the slaughter of the martyrs of Agaunum at the beginning of the fourth century, they do not prove the thing itself, and the arguments which I have brought to the contrary stand unimpaired. But in what year of the declining third century it happened is another matter, not yet clearly decided. Whatever year finally be chosen for the accomplished event, it must be such, according to Eucherius, so far at least as appears to me, that while it ran its course Maximian was making a journey in Gaul together with his army, either to reduce rebels to order or to fight with the barbarians. And more than one such year presents itself. The first is the year 286, in which he took up arms to repress the disturbances of the Bagaudae, and restored Gaul to Roman laws. In the year 287 he had as enemies the Alemanni, Burgundians, Heruli, Franks, and Saxons; in the following year he carried arms against the barbarians beyond the Rhine. About two years later he went from Gaul to Milan, but in the winter season, and accompanied by few; he returned thence into Gaul, having perhaps gathered a greater number of soldiers in Italy. In the year 293 or 297 he led forces into Africa. Finally in the year 296, when Constantius was setting out for Britain, he moved forces to the Rhine, that he might deter the barbarians from invading Gaul in Constantius's absence; all of which the reader will find more fully explained both in Tillemont, vol. 4 of the History of the Emperors, and especially in vol. VI of September, p. 332 and following. From these it is doubtful which year is to be preferred to the rest; to most the year 286 is pleasing. I meanwhile think thus: that the slaughter of the martyrs of Agaunum, and therefore of those of Trier too, for whose sake these things have been said, happened within about that span of time which ran from the year 286 to the year 297, and more probably indeed in the year 286 — saving nevertheless the judgment of those who think otherwise.

§ VIII. The errors of various authors in the history of the Martyrs of Trier are corrected.

[The anonymous writer says, probably enough, that the Thebans were sent into Gaul by Diocletian:] What the History of the Martyrs of Trier has seemed to me more probably to be, anyone will easily be able to gather from what has been argued above. There remain the opinions of various writers, here either to be examined or to be refuted; and I begin with him who consigned to writing in the eleventh century the Finding of our Martyrs. He, in chapter 1, n. 1, writes that the Theban legion, of which our Martyrs were a part, was sent by the emperor Diocletian to crush the forces of the enemies of the Romans, namely to Maximian in Gaul — probably enough indeed, yet so that these things cannot be held for certain. For Eucherius does not mention Diocletian by name, and says only that the Thebans were summoned from the parts of the East; which can be true even if Maximian himself had summoned the Thebans to him from some region which was eastern in relation to Gaul, where Eucherius wrote. And that they were summoned against the enemies of the Roman empire seems able to be gathered from Eucherius, both from the fact that they came to Maximian's aid, and from the fact that Maximian was making a journey together with his army when he slew the Thebans, as Eucherius testifies. That writer was ignorant of Eucherius's genuine Work on the Martyrs of Agaunum; from elsewhere, therefore, he drew those things, namely from the interpolated Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum published by us in vol. VI of September, p. 345, where what the author of the Finding here writes is found.

[107] From the same fountain came what he then writes in the same chapter in these words: but he speaks inconsistently about the time of their martyrdom; Then not without reason can we conjecture this also from this matter, that blessed Marcellus, bishop of the Roman See at that same time, among the other arms of Christian warfare which he conferred upon them as they sought his counsel in the city of Rome and confessed that they had been initiated into the faith of Christ by baptism at the hands of the bishop of Jerusalem, provided these salutary defenses also for their need: that, since they were being compelled to undertake war against the Christians of Gaul, they should themselves for this reason venerate the name of Christianity, so that, joining themselves to the chief men of Gaul and taking up with them the cross of the Lord through endurance of death, they might, the number of their companions being thus increased, acquire for themselves heaped-up rewards of their sufferings. But our writer, while the interpolated Acts of the Martyrs

of Agaunum, he here fights with himself. For it does not seem doubtful that, when he writes that the Theban soldiers were compelled to undertake war in Gaul against the Christians, he understands the war against the Bagaudae expressly stated in the interpolated Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum; and since this was finished by Maximian about the year 286, it follows necessarily from his words that the slaughter of the Theban Martyrs happened about the same time — and again much later: for before the year 296 neither Marcellinus nor his successor Marcellus, whom he says was already Pontiff when consulted by the Thebans, occupied the chair of St. Peter.

[108] The Acts of the Treveri in Calmet, chapter 28, have struck upon the same rock. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 291, they say, the Roman emperor Maximian, surnamed Herculius, on account of the frequent tumults of the Gauls, summoned the Theban soldiers to his aid. which the Deeds of the Treveri and Enen also do: These Thebans had been baptized by the bishop of Jerusalem, and afterwards instructed by blessed Marcellinus, the Roman Pope, how under the arms of Roman liberty they ought to preserve Christian innocence. But in the year 291 not Marcellinus but Caius was acting as vicar of Christ. You will say perhaps that Marcellinus, not yet Pontiff, supplied salutary admonitions to the Thebans, and is called Pontiff only by anticipation; but see whether this is conformable enough to the mind of those who wrote the Deeds of the Treveri. However it be, these things are to be held as uncertain, as having flowed from a fountain not sufficiently pure, and as not having been ascertained by St. Eucherius. You will perhaps also ask here who was that bishop of Jerusalem who is reported to have washed the Theban Martyrs in the sacred font. If you listen to John Enen, put into Latin by Schekmann, it was Labdas, or rather Zabdas, inserted among the Praetermissi in our work at the fifth of May, and successor of Hymenaeus in the see of Jerusalem. And he sat from the year 298, on Jerome's testimony in the Chronicle: In the 14th year of Diocletian, the 298th of Christ, Zabdas was ordained the thirty-seventh bishop of the church of Jerusalem. Enen is therefore mistaken, writing both that the Theban Martyrs were baptized by Zabdas and that they were slain by Maximian in the year 291. I should therefore prefer, with Papebroch in the Preliminary Treatise prefixed to vol. III of May, to ascribe the praise of having baptized the Thebans to Hymenaeus, who according to the Jerome just praised sat from the year 268 to 298, rather than to Zabdas — if indeed it is really to be ascribed to either of them.

[109] [nor does what they write about the people of Trier suffering in the year 291 seem true.] Finally, as regards the year of the Thebans' martyrdom just mentioned from the Deeds of Trier and from Enen, it is not altogether unsuitable for the said martyrdom to be bound to it. For by Tillemont's reckoning Maximian in the year 290, in the winter season, went from Gaul to Italy, and had a conference with Diocletian at Milan. But how long Maximian stayed in Italy is not clear; thence perhaps in the month of September of the year next following, his forces having meanwhile been increased, he returned into Gaul; nor was it unusual for Romans going from Milan to Trier to lay out their journey through the Graian Alps and the Valais, in which Agaunum lay. Maximian indeed, on Mamertinus's testimony, was not accustomed to cling long to the same tracks; but occasion for a longer stay in Italy could be given by the utmost quiet and tranquility of the Roman empire at that time. Not even the least bit, says Mamertinus, do the barbarian nations dare to raise their spirits because you have withdrawn into the interior of your empire; nay, they rather dread the confidence within you, and because they feel themselves despised when they are left alone. But, you will say, so long a stay of Maximian in Italy is opposed by that same panegyric of Mamertinus, delivered on the twenty-first day of July of the year 291 to Maximian in Gaul, nay perhaps at Trier: for at Trier he had fixed his seat. But neither is it certain enough that Mamertinus delivered his second panegyric in the year 291: for there are some things on account of which it may seem to have been delivered later. Among the various matters, says Clé in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum, vol. VI of September, p. 333, n. 158, which Mamertinus enumerates, there comes the rebellion of the Persian Ormies against his brother Varanes, which, if it arose in the year 291, as Tillemont judges, Mamertinus could not have reported in the month of July, being separated from it by so great a space of lands. See more on this matter in the place cited. Perhaps Eucherius also indicated this quiet of the Roman empire from warlike tumults and incursions of barbarians, when he said that the Martyrs of Agaunum were slain at the time when Maximian was persecuting the Christians everywhere, adding these little words: As though a furlough had been granted to the barbarian nations. These things indeed may in some fashion favor the year 291; yet what was said at n. 52 stands more in the way.

[110] As the people of Trier increased the number of their Martyrs beyond measure, Pancirolus says these made up a whole legion, so too Pancirolus maintained a number of Theban soldiers slain at Trier greater than is fair. He at p. 34 verso of the Notitia of the Eastern Empire makes mention of two Theban legions, of which one had the name of the Second Flavia Constantia of the Thebans, the other of the Second Felix Valens of the Thebans; these Pancirolus judges to have succeeded two others, of which one was slain at Trier and the other at Agaunum, namely the First Maximiana of the Thebans and the Third Diocletiana of the Thebans, which, besides the aforesaid, he saw likewise inserted in the Notitia of the Eastern Empire. Whether the succession of Theban legions took place in that fashion I do not inquire. Certainly Pancirolus slips in this, that he holds that a twofold Theban legion was butchered, the one at Agaunum, the other at Trier. For all antiquity before us believed that Thyrsus with his men, and likewise Boniface with his, were of the same legion as Maurice and his fellow soldiers, and that one Theban legion only shed its blood for the faith. And that this was neither of the former two, seeing that they were enrolled by Constantius and Valens, emperors of later times, the very reckoning of the times abundantly shows. But nothing stands in the way of its being believed to have been the First Maximiana or the Third Diocletiana — unless perhaps someone contends that, when the Christian legion of the Thebans had been destroyed at Agaunum and elsewhere, both of the later ones, or at least one of them, were afterwards substituted, and marked with the name of Diocletian or of Maximian, which certainly also is not without its own probability. This slip is peculiar to Pancirolus.

[111] Further has flowed another error concerning the Thebans of Trier — perhaps an error, as it seems to me at least — others say they fled from Maximian's camp; by which they are reported to have withdrawn themselves by flight from Maximian's fury and from the supreme penalty out of the camp; an error which Enen, and Frederick, and others have made their own. And what chiefly makes me judge that this is perhaps an error is the fragment of a Homily on the Martyrs of Agaunum by St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne in the fifth century, published by our Sirmond, of which this is the beginning: The praise of a happy army, in whose most blessed gathering no one perished since none escaped, when the unjust death of the holy Martyrs was judged as if by the justice of the lot — by which, twice scattered over the line of battle, a hundredfold gentle fruit grew for the decimated, and, hatred working toward a prosperous end, individuals were chosen until the chosen were gathered together — the course of the Passion read out has, as custom required, unfolded. Do you see that none of those who were in the camp at Agaunum escaped the punishment of death, according to St. Avitus's judgment, or according to the Passion of the martyrs of Agaunum then customarily read? That others suffered elsewhere Eucherius affirms; and lest he be set at odds with St. Avitus, it must be said that St. Avitus is treating only of those who at that time were staying in Maximian's camp near Agaunum. If therefore we believe that the Soldiers of Trier were of the Theban legion, they perhaps cannot be said to have deserted the camp and fled, but rather to have been sent into Gaul before the rest of their fellow soldiers were cut down at Agaunum.

[112] others, that he found the whole city Christian; More shamefully does our anonymous writer slip, when he writes that both the Theban soldiers and the natives of Trier following the Christian rites were so numerous that they would have been a match not only for receiving but even for breaking the assaults of Rictiovarus, had they joined arms and forces. Thus he has it: Nevertheless it is not to be doubted that, if the Thebans joined to the people of Trier had wished to contend with material arms, they could well enough resist and even prevail against the power of that prefect of the Romans, Rictiovarus; especially since we read in the Roman and Gallic Histories that the very emperor Caesar of the Romans, with all the forces of soldiers he could have, was long and greatly wearied by the citizens of Trier alone. This could not have come into his mind unless he believed that almost the whole city of Trier was at that time steeped in the Christian rites; which, how greatly it is at variance with the state of Christian affairs among the people of Trier in the third century, has been said above; nor can it easily be reconciled with what the tablet asserts: for on its testimony there were among the nobles some who worshipped Christ in secret; but for what reason at last, if the whole city was openly given over to Christian rites? To this error, however, Enen subscribed, testifying at folio XII that the whole city hastened to martyrdom; and Brouwer subscribed too, at the year of Christ 286, n. 76, somewhat more generously, although, as it appears, not without a scruple. For thus he has it at n. 79: Further, those who think that so great a multitude offered itself to such monstrous punishments exceeds beyond the credit of truth, if they reflect with themselves upon ancient matters, will learn from the Colony of Lyon; and in Asia they will find examples where the Christians, having banded together from a whole city to meet death, surrounded the tribunals, so that the governors, terrified by the multitude, even desisted from the punishment. I do not contend that the Christians of Trier were inferior in fortitude to any martyrs whatever of those times; but that they were as numerous as he seems to indicate was to be proved not by the example of foreigners, but by domestic documents, which should give as demonstrated so flourishing a face of Christian affairs among the people of Trier in the third century.

[113] Brouwer says they were sent into Gaul in the year 286 against Carausius, I do not know whether the same Brouwer has not through carelessness added St. Secundus to the Martyrs of Trier, writing thus at n. 74: Maximian therefore, while he still holds out in the Alps with his army, sends forward a not inconsiderable band of soldiers, to hasten down the Rhine to put Carausius out of the way. Among these were cohorts from the Theban legion, of which the first were led by Thyrsus, Secundus, and Boniface, etc.; and a little below: And so Thyrsus and Boniface, and Secundus, having entered the Augusta of the Treveri, etc. In which words I seem to myself to detect a twofold error; of which the first is situated in this, that he writes that Maximian, still tarrying in the Alps in the year 286, sent a great band of soldiers into Gaul, by which the efforts of the rebelling Carausius might be beaten back. For Maximian had crushed the Bagaudae before Carausius was brought under suspicion of rebellion; for thus Eutropius writes in book XI: Having thus gained possession of Roman affairs, (Diocletian), when the country people had stirred up a tumult in Gaul, and imposed on their faction the name of Bagaudae, and had as leaders Amandus and Aelianus, sent Maximian Herculius as caesar to subdue them; who by light battles tamed the rustics and restored part of Gaul. Behold the Bagaudae crushed by Maximian. Eutropius continues thus: After these times Carausius also …

when suspicion had begun to arise that the barbarians were deliberately let in by him, so that he might intercept them as they passed with their booty and enrich himself by this opportunity, being ordered by Maximian to be slain, took the purple and seized Britain.

[114] But the second error is situated, as I have already noted, in this, that he assigns St. Secundus as a companion to SS. Thyrsus and Boniface. that St. Secundus was of their number, For not only does the leaden tablet make no mention of Secundus, but neither does the anonymous author of the Finding, as of one slain for the faith at Trier; nay rather, the Deeds of the Treveri expressly affirm that St. Secundus was slain at Ventimiglia. And there were set over this legion, they say in chapter 7, two commanders, of whom one was called Thyrsus, the other Secundus, and Maurice was the chief centurion of the same legion; of which rank and name Secundus ended his life by martyrdom at Albintimilium, a fortress of Italy — perhaps on the twenty-sixth of August, on which the Roman Martyrology, and likewise Ado and Usuard, announce him at Albintimilium in Liguria. Was Brouwer deceived because in the History of the Finding of the holy Martyrs he found the name of Secundus expressed as well as those of Thyrsus and Boniface, but not the wrestling-ground of Secundus, and therefore not prudently enough added him as their companion? But that he should not conclude this from that, the name of Maurice mentioned in the same place ought to have warned him. And so St. Secundus is to be struck from the number of the Martyrs of Trier, into which he seems to have been inserted by Brouwer only through an error. That there were two men named Secundus in the Theban legion, of whom one fell at Albintimilium, the other at Trier, just as there were two named Victor in the same, anyone may indeed easily make up; but neither ought it to be believed without a suitable reason.

[115] Further, in the words cited at n. 113 Brouwer defines the number of Theban Martyrs slain at Trier as one cohort; but he probably restricts them to one cohort, which, although by no means certain, yet appears in some fashion probable. For a whole legion, in St. Eucherius's opinion, numbered 6600 soldiers, distributed, on Gellius's testimony, into ten cohorts; whence it follows that one cohort consisted of about 660 soldiers. And that just so many were slain for the faith at Trier becomes probable from this, that Thyrsus and Boniface, when they arrived at Trier, having probably divided their forces equally, the latter pitched his tents near the bridge of the Moselle, the former in the Campus Martius. And that Boniface had three hundred companions was believed before the bodies of the Martyrs of St. Paulinus's were found, as is gathered from the author, cited more than once, of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges. If therefore to these there be added about as many who suffered with St. Thyrsus, they will make up in all about 600 soldiers, that is, about one cohort. He adds that another came into Gaul under the leadership of Cassius and Florentius, a third under Gereon, a fourth under Victor; and what degree of probability this enjoys may be examined elsewhere.

[116] The bodies of the Thebans and of the other Martyrs who suffered under Rictius Varus at Trier were partly carried off by the waves of the Moselle, Frederick says that all were translated into the church of St. Paulinus partly heaped into a certain old well, partly buried here and there through the Campus Martius by the Christians, as the Deeds of the Treveri narrate in chapters 28 and 35. That the bodies of the Thebans were afterwards translated into the church of St. Paulinus by St. Felix, Frederick says in general in chapter 3 in these words: Of which fathers indeed the chief men and the people of the Treveri so advanced by their happy teachings that they themselves afterwards, yet happier, with an innumerable company — namely under the leadership of St. Thyrsus of the Theban legion of blessed Maurice, who fled to the city from the face of Maximian — in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 291, through three continuous days, by a bloody slaughter at the hands of the most impious prefect Rictiovarus, attained the crowns of martyrdom for the faith of Christ by their most steadfast assertions. Whose most happy bodies were laid away on every side in the church of St. Paulinus and in its crypt by the most happy prelate Felix. On the contrary, concerning St. Boniface and his Companions the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges writes thus in chapter 1: They, committed to mean tombs by the Christian peoples who greatly feared the madness of the heathen, after the courses of very many years were honorably laid away, and lie in a certain little crypt of the basilica of St. Maximinus. And this was accomplished by the vigilance of our blessed patron Hildulph — to which author at least greater credit is to be given than to Frederick. The same too Brouwer reports, though later than is right, at the year 758, n. 160. Meanwhile, he says, behind the cell of the Lord Hilary, the bishop (St. Hildulph) raises up from the foundations at very great expense a new church sacred to the name of St. John the Evangelist; hither, as soon as it was ripe, with a crowded procession he brings in the venerable relics both of the Lord Maximinus and of the three hundred martyrs of the Theban legion, of whom Boniface had formerly been commander of the service, and gives them a common burial with Agritius and Nicetius. So that St. Felix did not bring into the church of St. Paulinus the bodies of all the Theban soldiers who suffered at Trier, but only those of Thyrsus and his Companions. I return to the Theban soldiers buried in the church of St. Paulinus, and inquire into the time of their translation by St. Felix.

[117] were translated by St. Felix From about the year 386 St. Felix ruled the church of Trier, and while he still presided over it the translation of the Theban Martyrs into the church of St. Paulinus came to pass. Thereafter the church of Trier was shaken, partly by Ithacian, partly by Frankish disturbances, to about the year 388. In the year next following Valentinian came into Gaul, Maximus being now dead, and made peace with Marcomer and Sunno, leaders of the Franks. After Maximus, Eugenius seized the empire of the West; he, attacking the Franks in war about 393, shortly made peace with them; finally about the year 399 the city of Trier was for the first time laid waste by the Franks, as some authors hand down. The condition of these times, therefore, being considered, I judge it quite probable that St. Felix founded the church into which he brought the relics of the aforesaid Martyrs within the span of time that fell between the year 389 and 399, and that in the same span the bones of the Martyrs were first translated. Nor indeed can that translation be fixed much later; for it is the concordant opinion of the learned that St. Felix, a little after the council of Turin — which was displeased by St. Felix's excessive ardor against the Ithacians, so much so that it determined that communion of the church should be imparted only to those bishops who separated themselves from St. Felix's communion — cast off the burden of the episcopal office, and withdrew into the college of St. Paulinus which he had founded, and there passed the remainder of his life, which they say was short, in penitence, removed from the company of men. And they will have it that the council of Turin was celebrated in the year 398, or when the fifth century had scarcely advanced by a year or two.

[118] about the year 410, which is wrongly written Frederick, provost of St. Paulinus, is mistaken meanwhile, both in chapter XI and in chapter 20; in the first of which he writes that the bones of the Theban Martyrs were translated by St. Felix into the church of St. Paulinus about the year 410, and in the second that the church itself was built about two years before: for by that time Felix had already resigned the episcopate at least some years before. This is gathered from the 4th Epistle of Pope Zosimus to the Africans, in Labbe, vol. 2 of the councils, col. 1561, where the Pontiff speaks thus: It is an old habit with Lazarus to accuse innocence: through many councils he has been found a diabolical accuser against the holy Brictius, our fellow bishop of the city of Tours. From Proculus of Marseilles, in the synod of the town of Turin, he received the sentence of a calumniator. By the same Proculus he is made, after many years, a priest, the defender of the tyrannical judgment of the city of Aix; when he opposed him, he burst into the piercing and priestly seat, all but sprinkled with the blood of the innocent; and the shadow of a priesthood stood in him so long as the image of empire stood for the tyrant; from which place, after the destruction of his patron, he stripped himself of his own accord, and condemned himself by his own resignation. Zosimus wrote this letter in the year 417; and the tyrant of whom he makes mention in the words just cited, and in whose time Lazarus presided over the people of Aix, was Constantine, who in the year 407 seized Gaul, and in the year 411, being captured at Arles and sent over to Honorius, was beheaded. And so, according to Zosimus's words, many years passed from the council of Turin down to Constantine's tyranny, that is, down to the year 407. But only a few years after the council of Turin — nay, perhaps not even one full year — Felix resigned the episcopate, according to the common opinion of the learned; and thus he placed the remains of the Martyrs of Trier in the church of St. Paulinus at least some years before the year 407.

§ IX. The cult of the holy Martyrs among the people of Trier.

Various monuments indicate the cult of the Saints at Trier, If on the one hand, says Hontheim in vol. I of the Prodromus of the History of Trier, p. 73, it is permissible to doubt concerning that huge and as it were infinite number of the Martyrs of Trier, on the other hand it in turn seems conformable to the rules of sound tradition that from the most remote times some cult has been shown to the bones of Martyrs (which are enclosed in stone tombs, visible even today in the crypt of St. Paulinus, and surrounding the greater tomb of St. Paulinus itself). In which matter I readily agree with the illustrious man; for that the cult of these Martyrs took its beginning at least from the fourth century as it drew to its close — in which I said in the preceding § that St. Felix more probably brought their bones into the church of St. Paulinus — becomes likely from the ancient tradition of the people of Trier, from the leaden tablet, and from the golden letters preserving the names of the Martyrs down to the ninth century. Besides these, I have found no indications of their cult older than the ninth century which a man might prudently embrace. Brouwer indeed suggests some here and there in the Annals of Trier which may seem to the incautious older than the ninth century, but they are of a very doubtful or disapproved stamp as regards antiquity. I shall therefore review them in such a way as at the same time to say why their age ought to seem doubtful, or even to be utterly rejected.

[120] The first indication of this kind occurs in Brouwer at the year 286, n. 77, such as the chapel of Nijmegen, and is conceived in these words: But after, being filled with heaps of bodies, the wave began to furnish a tomb for the Martyrs, the Moselle — moving as it were more sluggishly with a sickly effort amid the masses of the beheaded piled high, and gradually glistening with a crimson color on the surface of its waters — is recorded to have gone bloody for ten thousand paces, as far as the ancient and august chapel which, famous under the name of the Martyrs, presents itself to be seen, in memory of this disaster, on the right bank, before the Constantinian entrance of Nijmegen, by those sailing down. Here you have an ancient and august chapel either sacred to the Martyrs of Trier or at least named from them the Chapel of the Martyrs. From which Martyrs? From those of St. Paulinus's? From St. Boniface and his Companions? Or finally from the mixed multitude of natives of Trier slain on the third day? Someone will perhaps judge that that chapel got that name from the Martyrs of Trier in general. Let it be so; but when was it founded? When did it begin to be called the Chapel of the Martyrs? Certainly after it had begun to be falsely believed that almost the whole city of Trier was Christian in Maximian's time, and overflowed with so prodigious an amount of its own people's blood that the Moselle ran discolored for as much as three miles. That the Moselle carried the

blood of the people of Trier as far as Nijmegen, the Deeds of Trier — of no great credit in this matter — were the first to assert; and they increased the multitude of the Martyrs of Trier beyond measure.

[121] but later than the year 1074; Further, that the chapel of Nijmegen received its name from those Martyrs after the year 1071, before which the bones of the Martyrs of St. Paulinus's were not uncovered, is clear from this, that before that time they were almost wholly ignorant of their own Martyrs. The memory of them, blotted out, they in some fashion revived from the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus, from the Hymn of St. Paulinus, and from some sheets or other rescued from the Norman disaster. Moved by these documents, and by no others, they searched out the bodies of their Martyrs; certainly the author of the Finding enumerates no others. Nothing, therefore, seems to have become known to him — contemporary though he was with the event — concerning the Chapel of the Martyrs at Nijmegen; and thus at that time either it did not yet exist or it was not called the Chapel of the Martyrs. Nijmegen is only three German miles distant from Trier; if that chapel had existed here before the irruption of the Normans, then, since it is visible even today, it ought to have survived the Norman disaster, and would have preserved the memory of the Martyrs of Trier more brilliantly than the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus, foreign to the people of Trier and thumbed by few hands, or the Hymn of St. Paulinus lying hidden among the old books of the monastery of Horreum. Hence, then, a cult of the Martyrs can be proved, but a more recent one, that is, later than the year 1071.

[122] such as the epitaph of St. Paulinus, A second argument for the cult of the Martyrs of St. Paulinus's is contained in the epitaph of St. Paulinus mentioned by the same Brouwer at the year of Christ 358, n. 98. It runs thus: In the third year of the reign of Constantius, Blessed Paulinus, banished for the Catholic faith beyond the Christian name, and wearied down to death by changing exiles, preached to the Phrygians and the Micones (perhaps the Lycaonians), and, the gods of the Gentiles being broken, founded churches; at the last, in Phrygia, being tried with many kinds of torments, he was beheaded on the second before the Kalends of September, in the year 295 of the Incarnate Word, and, magnificently made illustrious by miracles, was translated from Phrygia to Trier by St. Felix; whose grace and intercession, and also the glory and crown of the Martyrs who suffered under Rictiovarus, the people of the faithful here adore, and, their vow fulfilled, implore pardon. Here you have Martyrs — certainly those whose bodies St. Felix had laid together with the body of St. Paulinus in the church of St. Paulinus — invoked by the faithful of Christ; but what is the credit and antiquity of the epitaph? Who is its author? They say, however, says Brouwer cited above, that, since it is by no means doubtful that the ashes of Blessed Paulinus are kept in the lower crypt beneath the choir, that marble stone which I have mentioned (on which the epitaph just brought forward was inscribed) began to be built up out of slabs arranged in the manner of a tomb, in the age of Charlemagne, by Amalarius Fortunatus, prelate of the Treveri, for the transfer of the sacred ashes thither; but that, the work being not yet finished, Fortunatus, already dead, himself obtained the tomb which he had prepared for Blessed Paulinus.

[123] But that epitaph, however elegant its characters may be, nor is it itself very ancient; and however they charm by their very antiquity, as Brouwer says, does not appear of so great an age; for it inserts St. Paulinus into the number of the martyrs, and that opinion of some concerning St. Paulinus arose not so very long ago, nor does it agree sufficiently with the testimonies of the ancients concerning the holy prelate; among whom St. Hilary, in the Fragments published at Paris in the year 1598, inveighs against the emperor Constantius in these words: Him (St. Paulinus) you wore out and wearied with exiles even to death; you banished him also beyond the Christian name. Hilary writes that he was wearied out by exiles even unto death, not that he was beheaded. Among the ancient Calendars of Trier published by Hontheim, only the last, which was of the end of the thirteenth century, names St. Paulinus a Martyr; the first, which was of the tenth century, expressly calls him Confessor, while the rest call him neither martyr nor confessor. And the author of the inscription in question goes far indeed from the truth when, following Regino, as Brouwer supposes, he binds St. Paulinus's death to the year 295; seeing that he departed from among the living about the year 360, according to Jerome's Chronicle. And Regino put an end to his work in the year 908, as he himself testifies in his Letter to Albero, bishop of Trier. Nor of greater antiquity are the verses which in Brouwer's age were read drawn along the hollow vaults of the crypt of St. Paulinus:

How well the Duke and the Patrician cleave to the bishop: Palmatius gives the Gallic columns, Thyrsus the Theban; Each leads his own, and the priest leads both.

[124] The same stamp of a later age has the epitaph inscribed to St. Felix, and that of St. Felix likewise of a later age; which Brouwer records at the year 396 and following, n. 211, in these words: Here rests St. Felix, archbishop of the Treveri, who built this church above the sepulchres of the Martyrs of the Theban legion, and who also placed Blessed Paulinus, translated from Phrygia, as a martyr in the midst of those same Martyrs. For here too martyrdom is expressly ascribed to St. Paulinus. Besides, the word archbishop inserted in it makes it suspect of a later age; for although that word was formerly used in the East, yet it began to be employed by Westerners later, and was in use with very few before the ninth century, as Mabillon writes in On Diplomatics, book 2, chapter 2, n. 13. Hence he suspects that Numerianus, archbishop of Trier, in the Privilege which he gave to the monastery of Saint-Dié about the year 664, was styled archbishop by a fault of the scribes; and Hontheim observes thus among other things on the diploma of King Pepin, by which in the year 761 he confirms to Weomad and to the church of Trier the churches of St. Maximinus, St. Paulinus, etc.: The name of archbishop, most rare in the West before the ninth century, is not without suspicion.

[125] [and for the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, their translations and the golden letters;] That the cult of the Theban Martyrs flourished at Trier in the seventh and eighth centuries is proved by their translation into the monastery of St. Maximinus, and that of St. Boniface to the monastery of Moyenmoutier, made at that time by St. Hildulph, and asserted by an author who probably wrote somewhat before the leaden tablet was found in the year 1072. For it does not appear likely that the part of them translated by St. Hildulph obtained a cult at that time, while the remaining part, long before translated by St. Felix into the crypt of St. Paulinus, was without cult. And that this cult persevered in the eighth and ninth centuries down to the irruption of the Normans, the golden letters written out on the wall of the crypt urge, and the solicitude of the people of Trier that they should be removed from men's sight when the incursion of the barbarians threatened, lest any injury be inflicted upon the sacred bodies. But whoever attentively weighs both the magnitude and monstrousness of the disaster inflicted on the people of Trier by the Norman nation, and the disturbance of the following years, of which I have made mention before, will assuredly not at all wonder that thereafter the memory and cult of the Saints fell to nothing, until, their bodies being uncovered in the eleventh century, they were set in their former — nay, in a greater — light.

[126] for the 20th century, the enlargement of the crypt of St. Paulinus. Scarcely had the canons about the year 1071 found the bodies of their Martyrs, the crypt of St. Paulinus having been broken open not without Archbishop Udo's leave, when they set their minds to recalling and promoting their cult. Wherefore it pleased both Udo and the other Nobles of Trier, and the canons of St. Paulinus themselves, first of all that the old crypt should be enlarged for placing the bodies of the Martyrs in a more convenient order, as the author of the Finding says in chapter 3, n. 27: For when, as we have said before, this revelation of the Saints having been made through the mercy of God, it had pleased our lord archbishop Udo and his chief men that the crypt should be suitably enlarged for the placing of the holy bodies, it was necessary that a great deal of earth be carried away from that same place in clearing it. The ancient position of the bodies the author of the Finding describes thus in chapter 2, n. 18: The crypt therefore being broken open, there were found around the sarcophagus of St. Paulinus six sarcophagi, of which two were set at his sides (namely those of Thyrsus and Palmatius), while four clung to his feet on either side in such a way that two of them stood on each side (here, that is, Constans and Jovianus; there Hormisdas and Papirius); likewise at the head of the same our holy Father seven sarcophagi of holy Martyrs (namely the seven Senators), fragrant with as many bodies, were placed. And all these the industry of those who placed them had so bound together, that, vaults having been made over each pair of sarcophagi, no room was given, as has been said, for moving them, unless the chief altar of the monastery were first moved. But the present position Hontheim sets forth expressed in a diagram at § IV of the History of the Martyrs of Trier, from which it appears that the bodies of the seven senators, formerly joined together, were, the crypt being now enlarged and the vaults removed, so divided that three of their tombs on one side and four on the other were moved away to the sides of the crypt; and that of the four tombs which formerly clung two on each side to the feet of St. Paulinus, one on each side was moved to the sides of the crypt, while the remaining two were placed together opposite the feet of St. Paulinus.

[127] Egelbert succeeded Udo in the see of Trier; he too contributed an excellent share to promoting the cult of the Martyrs of Trier. and the oratory built by Egelbert, bishop of Trier, I report the matter in Brouwer's words at the year 1088, n. 97: There was also at this time built up and consecrated by Egelbert a most august oratory of the Martyrs of Trier, which is seen in the cemetery of the Lord Paulinus, venerable both for the notable religion of the people who assiduously supplicate there, and for the heaped-up piles of sacred bones. And this is that most religious sanctuary of the Treveri, whence so many ashes of the holy Martyrs, so greatly desired by good men, have within this our memory been drawn forth, and have been carried not only to the remote and furthest shores of Europe, but also, carried round the immensity of Africa, vast as it is, and the furthest parts of Arabia and Persia, by a very long course of seas, not without the testimony of enormous miracles, have penetrated, by the labor and zeal of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, to the Japanese and the Chinese, and not only into the deserts of the Indies. Whence it has come about that the memory of the Saints of Trier, who lay hidden in a corner of Gaul, now lives even preeminently in another world.

[128] Further, as Hontheim notes, that oratory is held in great veneration, which is held in veneration even today, especially on the fourth, fifth, and sixth days of October, and is commonly called the Chapel of the Martyrs, probably on account of their abundant relics, of which Brouwer speaks in the words just adduced. But whence were these dug out, and when were they brought into the said chapel? The author of the Finding reports at n. 22 and following that, when the workmen were already at the point of carrying out into a certain marsh the earth dug out for the sake of enlarging the crypt, a certain bone was found which flowed with blood; by which prodigy those who were present thought themselves admonished, namely that on account of this sign greater reverence should be shown both to the bones of the Companions themselves and to their ashes. And so they committed to a worthier place the earth dug up near the tombs of the Martyrs and heaped into a mound. Which heap, says he, while it was not undeservedly called Galeed, that is, the Heap of Testimony, made the miracle wrought in the bone that had been placed beneath this earth speak to all posterity. But that this heap has vanished, Hontheim again notes. I am led therefore into this opinion, that not a few relics of the holy Martyrs in the year

1071 or 1072 were dug out of the very crypt of St. Paulinus (which does not a little for their credit), and that these were afterwards, in the year 1088, collected from that heap and brought into the newly founded chapel, which therefore came to be commonly called the Chapel of the Martyrs.

[129] For the rest, Brouwer also sets forth the inscription of the dedication of this chapel, surviving in his own age, and probably dedicated to the Saints. in which, when the companions of St. Maurice are named, the Theban Martyrs who suffered at Trier are probably also comprehended. A marble stone, says Brouwer, set in the front of the little church, displays to the present day the memory of this dedication cut in letters, and the name of Egelbert. There follows the inscription conceived in these words: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1088, in the 11th Indiction, on the tenth before the Kalends of October, this oratory was dedicated by Egelbert, archbishop of the Treveri, at the request of the provost Cuono, in honor of the Holy Cross, and of St. Mary the Mother of the Lord, and of St. Michael the Archangel, and of St. Maurice and his companions, and of all the Saints. In the altar of which he laid a portion of the Lord's sepulchre; relics of Lazarus, the friend of the Lord, and of the holy Martyrs Pancratius, Sebastian, Diogenes, and also of the holy Virgins Barbara and Cecilia; in the reign of the emperor Henry III, in the fifth year of his rule. Henry III — otherwise, if Henry the Fowler be reckoned among the emperors of this name, the fourth — was crowned at Rome in the year 1084 by the Antipope Guibert.

[130] Certain other documents of the cult of the Saints among the people of Trier Under the same Egelbert, bishop of Trier, the basilica of St. Paulinus was burned; but afterwards, by the industry of Adelbert and Rudolph, provosts of the same church, it was restored, though with less amplitude, and at length consecrated anew by Eugenius III, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1148. Nor indeed was any less account taken at that time too of the Martyrs who suffered at Trier: for the crypt of St. Paulinus was consecrated to their honor by Baldwin, archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and their relics were placed both in the altar of St. Matthias and in another dedicated to the holy Apostles and to John the Baptist, as Frederick teaches, writing thus of the church of St. Paulinus in chapter 23: And on that very day (the day before the Kalends of February) the crypt and the altar in it were consecrated by the above-mentioned Baldwin, archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine, in honor of St. Matthias the Apostle, of the most holy Paulinus, bishop and martyr, whose body, as we have said, rests in that same place, and in honor of the holy Martyrs of the Theban legion. And then, closing the list of relics placed in that altar, he says: And relics of the holy MM. of the Theban legion. And after a few words he continues thus: On that same day an altar was consecrated on the right side of the monastery toward the West, which is called the New, in honor of all the holy Apostles and of St. John the Baptist; and, having enumerated its relics, he finally subjoins again: And relics of the holy Martyrs of the Theban legion.

[131] from the 12th century Nor indeed did the cult of the Theban Martyrs who suffered at Trier flourish there only in the XI and XII centuries, but in the following ones too, some traces of which I shall gather here and there — to say nothing here of the widely propagated cult and veneration of them among foreigners, which, how far and wide it was diffused through the world, may easily be gathered from what will be said below concerning their relics scattered in every direction. Frederick, provost of St. Paulinus, in the year 1402, in order to meet the whispers of certain persons who kept saying that the head of St. Paulinus had remained in Phrygia, opened the tomb of St. Paulinus before private witnesses, and, taking out from it the head of St. Paulinus, not only offered it publicly for all the people to see, but also instituted an anniversary solemnity — spending his patrimony lavishly on the matter — by which, for the cult and veneration of the Saints resting in the church of St. Paulinus, three congregations should yearly on the vigil of the translation of St. Paulinus frequent the church of St. Paulinus — one of the canons of St. Simeon, two of the monks of St. Maximinus and of St. Mary ad Martyres — and should chant Vespers with solemn rite. On which occasion he wished provision made for the cult of the Theban Martyrs also; for thus Frederick himself writes in chapter 16 on the church of St. Paulinus: He instituted that always on the vigil of the aforesaid translation the solemn processions of the churches of St. Maximinus with an Antiphon of St. Paulinus, of St. Simeon with an Antiphon of several Confessors, and of the Blessed Mary ad Martyres with an Antiphon of several Martyrs, should come together to the church of the most holy Paulinus, for solemnly celebrating Vespers there; and that after the Antiphon upon the Magnificat there should be a commemoration of all the Pontiffs and Confessors. Lastly, at the crypt, of all the Martyrs resting in the aforesaid church.

[132] down to our own The Breviary according to the use of the monasteries of SS. Maximinus, Willibrord, and Nabor, published in the year 1600 by the monks of St. Maximinus, sets forth an Office of St. Thyrsus, Palmatius, and their Companions, which is everywhere taken from the common of several Martyrs. The principal Prayer runs thus: O God, who didst confer upon Thy Saints Thyrsus, Boniface, Palmatius, and their Companions the abundant gift of grace to come to this glory, grant to Thy servants pardon of their offenses, that, by the interceding merits of Thy Saints, we may deserve to be freed from all adversities. Through our Lord. The Prayer after the Gospel Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees: Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that as the Christian people rejoices together in the temporal solemnity of Thy blessed martyrs Thyrsus and Palmatius and their Companions, so it may enjoy the eternal one; and what it celebrates with vows, may it lay hold of with devout effect. Through our Lord. The Prayer at Sext: Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that we who have known the glorious martyrs Thyrsus, Boniface, and Palmatius and their Companions to be brave in their confession, may feel them devoted in their intercession for us with Thee. Through our Lord. The Prayer at None: O God, who grantest us, etc. And so our Martyrs had a cult both in the monastery of Echternach, sacred to St. Willibrord, and in that of Divodurum or Metz, sacred to St. Nabor.

[133] A Lectionary, entitled Of Certain Saints of the Office of Trier, and printed at Trier in the year 1645 from the press of Hubert Reulandt, [age] has at the fourth of October a proper Lesson of St. Thyrsus and his Companions, Martyrs of Trier, of this kind: Thyrsus with his Companions of the Theban legion is sought out for punishment. Whence Rictiovarus, having received a mandate from the emperor, pursued him as far as Trier; and presently, having occupied that place of the city which they call the Campus Martius, the seat of the idol-madness of the heathen, he orders him to be summoned thither, an assembly of the foreign soldiers having been called. Thyrsus, having obeyed without delay, came forth, and is urged to sacrifice to the gods and to persecute the Christian name. But when Thyrsus the commander, moved by so nefarious a sacrilege and by so great an insult to God, the best of parents, had answered that death would be more pleasant to himself and to his men, Rictiovarus, as one long since hostile to the Christian name, orders him to be laid low forthwith, and the fierce soldiery to rage with the sword against the bowels of the Thebans. And without delay men run to do the tyrant's command, and the henchman rejoices in the slaughters of the innocent, on the fourth before the Nones of October, on which the tyrant entered the city. And their right hands being now steeped in much blood, at the last the corpses of the slain were cast away. But Thyrsus closes the left side of St. Paulinus's body in the church built by St. Felix the archbishop.

[134] How famous the cult of the Martyrs of Trier was among foreigners and inhabitants in the century just elapsed of a propagated is also understood from what is read in the Deeds of the Treveri, chapter 200, in Hontheim, p. 896, written by John Kenn, cantor at St. Florin's and a contemporary writer. The author in question laments the ruins inflicted in the year 1673 by the French both on the monasteries of Trier and on the relics of the Saints themselves, but in such a way as plainly to betray the celebrity of our Martyrs at that time. His words which make for our purpose are these: There lies overthrown and destroyed also the most ancient college of the canons of the Lord Paulinus, embracing the sacred church and many houses round about. Both places (those of SS. Maximinus and Paulinus), most full of the monuments of holy men and here especially of the bones and relics of the holy Martyrs slain under Rictiovarus, to be venerated by foreigners and inhabitants, and accustomed to be visited with almost daily processions of men venerating God in His Saints. The rest can be seen in the author in question; and if he is to be believed, it did not go unpunished for some of the French that they had ill-treated the relics of the Saints and destroyed the monuments.

[135] documents. Again in the thirteenth year of this century a deadly calamity fell upon the people of Trier: for besides the evils of the war by which they were pressed, the plague had struck a huge fear into all. This, having arisen in the Northern regions, had seized the neighboring parts of Germany, and had already spread into Austria. The evil was met, and it was most diligently provided that no entrance be opened to the creeping evil; but the people of Trier judged that there would be more protection for them in the patronage of their Saints than in any human precaution employed. And so Charles, archbishop of Trier, issued most effectual letters to all the faithful of his diocese, by which he vehemently exhorted all and each to entreat the patronage of the Saints of Trier; and while he enumerates them and sets them before the people, he reckoned our Martyrs too among the tutelary Saints of Trier. Let us bend our knees, he says, and let us humbly meet with our hearts, in this acceptable time of the Lord's Advent, the King of peace, who announces peace to men of good will; and let us beseech the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, consoler of the afflicted, of our holy Tutelars, of St. Matthias the Apostle, of the holy Archbishops and Martyrs of Trier, of St. Charles Borromeo, of SS. Sebastian and Roch, special patrons against the plague, with a contrite and humbled heart, for the turning away of further scourges, etc. Nor is it in any way doubtful that the people of Trier most willingly obeyed the pious admonitions of their prelate. What, then, the cult of these Martyrs was at Trier, especially from the XI century, is clear from what has now been said; but how far and wide it was propagated also to foreign provinces will appear from what will be said below concerning their relics sent elsewhere.

§ X. The holy Martyrs are made illustrious by prodigies.

When the tombs of the MM. were uncovered, various prodigies followed: Toward promoting and increasing the cult of the Martyrs at home and abroad, the frequency of the prodigies which God deigned to work by their intercession did not a little. Our anonymous writer describes them in chapters 3 and 4, being contemporary with the things he narrates; not, however, so as to pursue them all, but so as to review a few out of many. Of these, therefore, we briefly note some …, he says at n. 22; and again at n. 27: Of which (miracles wrought at the tombs of the Martyrs resting in the crypt of St. Paulinus) those that now occur to our memory are briefly to be set down. And he deserves the greater credit in that he had to be the more cautious in writing, since there was no lack of those who would refute the writer's errors or fables — concerning whom indeed he says thus at the beginning of chapter 3: Nor yet was there lacking, even in that college of God's faithful (of St. Paulinus, perhaps?), the dissension of a malignant church, which did not receive these benefits of the divine compassion with the reverence it ought; but, instigated by a malignant spirit, presumed to tear them with envious teeth. But this must be understood not of the miracles, but of the leaden tablet, which labored under a suspicion of falsity with some who were little credulous.

But the first miracle which the anonymous writer narrates was of this kind.

[137] When the tombs of the Martyrs had been uncovered, as I said above, a certain bone the canons applied themselves to enlarging the crypt of St. Paulinus and recalling it to a more august form; but since there was a marsh near it, inconvenient to those approaching the monastery of St. Paulinus, it pleased the canons that it should be filled up with the earth dug out either from the crypt of St. Paulinus or from the neighboring and adjoining places, so that an easier way to the monastery might lie open. Now one of the canons had a house near the marsh, who, while he was leveling the earth heaped up before his house, by chance came upon some fragments of bones; and judging them to be of the holy Martyrs, he takes up one of them, and, having cleansed it of dirt, brings it into his house and commits it to the care of his maidservant until it should be laid away in a fitting place. She contemptuously asks why it is worthy of veneration; yet she shuts it up in a chest of women's furnishings. But for her levity she paid no light penalty as the day bent toward evening. For the time of supper was already at hand when she is suddenly seized with a violent pain of the heart, and, her voice being cut off, is brought to extremity. There is brought to the wretched woman the chest into which she had thrown that bone, that she might take out from it some medicinal liquid suited to soothing the trouble. Scarcely had she opened it when abundant blood burst forth from the bone, and the woman felt herself free of all pain.

[138] All who were present were astounded; the fame of the miracle was at once scattered through the city; poured out blood, abbots, provosts, chorepiscopi, deans ran together to St. Paulinus's. In their presence the gore flowing from the bone is poured more than once into the chest, but the other keeps overflowing continually. The people are called together into the church by the sound of the bell to the spectacle of so unusual a thing, which lasted from the ninth hour of Saturday to the third of the following second day of the week. And after that prodigy began to flow further on men's lips, it drew forth from various places a great multitude of men to visit the tombs of the Martyrs, among whom not a few sick persons, duly contrite and refreshed by a draught of water dipped in the sacred gore, returned whole and sound whence they had set out. Another writer contemporary with the event, Lambert of Hersfeld, also makes mention of this prodigy at the year 1072 in these words: And while earth was being carried out of the crypt where the Saints (the Martyrs of Trier) were resting, a certain bone, incautiously thrown down, poured out no little blood, and remains bloody to this day. And Lambert carried his lucubration down to the year 1077. For the rest, since that bone was found mixed with earth dug out of the very crypt of St. Paulinus or from neighboring places, it becomes likely, as Hontheim warns, that it lay either in the crypt itself or in the earth nearest to it, and that in the repeated restorations both of the basilica of St. Paulinus and of the crypt itself it could easily have slipped out of one of the sarcophagi; which he observes has happened on other occasions too.

[139] Presently the anonymous writer recounts a second prodigy, wrought at the tombs of the Martyrs not long after, a penitent's iron chain is loosed of its own accord; which he writes happened in the presence of Udo, archbishop of Trier — a thing he certainly would not have done, had not the truth of the matter been established. And it is situated in this: it was formerly the custom that those who had committed some notable outrage should, as a penalty for the offense, visit the monuments of the Saints bound with chains, until the chains were divinely loosed as a token of satisfaction. Some such man, having perhaps heard the fame of the miracle already recited, came to Trier; and, being led by Udo himself into the crypt of the Martyrs, when he had for some time devoted himself to prayer at their tombs and was already meditating departure from there, the iron chain which had so constricted his right arm that not only the flesh but also the sinews and bones lay bare, suddenly burst apart at the part where it was firmest, and fell upon one of the tombs of the Saints, though it was far enough away, so that there might be no doubt by whose merits this had happened. This miracle, moreover, occurred within the span of time which ran from the third day of March to the Kalends of April of the year 1072: for on that day occurred the first miracle which I reported a little before, and the third, presently to be narrated, on Palm Sunday, or the Kalends of April (since in that year Easter was celebrated on the eighth day of the same month) — if indeed the anonymous writer describes the miracles of the Martyrs keeping the order of time.

[140] [to a mute and deaf woman, speech and hearing; to a boy, the use of his arm and tongue,] And on Palm Sunday a certain woman, at once mute and deaf, received the use of her tongue and ears at the tombs of the holy Martyrs, with clergy and people looking on. The month of April had not yet passed when on its 25th or 27th day a fourth prodigy was added to the former ones, by which to a boy who had kissed the tombs of the Martyrs the use of his tongue and of his right arm was restored, the matter being examined and approved by Archbishop Udo, who at that time was devoting himself to prayer at them together with the canons of St. Paulinus. I said, "on the 25th or 27th of April": for the anonymous writer notes the latter; but it becomes likely that instead of the fifth before the Kalends of May, that is, the 27th day of April, one ought to read the seventh before the Kalends of May, which is the twenty-fifth day of the month of April, and falls on the feast of St. Mark, on which processions are wont to be arranged to the monasteries of the city from the surrounding villages, as Hontheim notes on this passage of the anonymous writer. Yet it is not certain enough that a corruption lurks in the anonymous writer's words: for Egbert, the author of that procession, fixed no certain day for holding them, but the third week from Easter, as indeed the Deeds of the Treveri, chapter 44, in Calmet, have it. And since in the year 1072 Easter fell on the 8th of April, the third week from Easter embraces the 27th of April as well as the 25th. Then in Brouwer's age the inhabitants of all the villages neighboring on Trier do not seem to have held the procession on one and the same day; for thus he writes at the year 983: Nay, I find that Egbert was the author of those processions which the assembly of country folk, flowing together from the surrounding districts on every side, each on his own day, as though gathered into a column, with the parish priest going before, religiously arranges into the city with singing and crosses, and duly performs, the chief churches of the Saints being visited. Whence it may also be conjectured that by Egbert's institution different days were appointed for different villages on which they should come to the city of Trier; and that boy may perhaps have been of the number of those for whom the 27th day of April was appointed for holding the procession.

[141] [to a paralytic woman, movement; to a blind man, sight; to a sick man, health, is restored.] There follows a fifth prodigy, which happened not long after the one just recited, and by which a certain paralytic girl, brought to the tombs of the holy Martyrs, obtained entire health of her whole body. And of this miracle the anonymous writer writes that he was an eyewitness: This woman, therefore, he says, we saw laid beside the sarcophagi of the Saints, quivering with a marvelous motion of her limbs. Finally he writes that two miracles besides succeeded these, in one of which a certain blind man, having bound himself to pay a denarius yearly, received the use of his eyes; and in the other, a certain countryman, swollen in his whole body from a long sickness and brought to Trier, having done penance for his sins and conceived a vow of living rightly, entirely recovered within the space of a few days. And these indeed are the miracles of our Martyrs which the anonymous writer in Hontheim describes somewhat more fully, enumerating however only a few out of many. There were also other prodigies wrought either at the very finding of the holy Martyrs or not long after, which another anonymous writer, a canon of St. Paulinus as it seems, left consigned to writing, being himself also contemporary with the things he narrates, as is manifestly gathered from his own words, to be recited below, where he treats of the miracles wrought both upon a matron of Worms and upon a woman of Burgundy. These our Papebroch copied out — I know not whether from an old manuscript on the Martyrs of Trier dug out by Fr. Alexander Wiltheim, whence certainly he drew the Prologue of their Passion, whose beginning is Although Sacred Scripture testifying, or from other manuscripts of Trier, with whose transcripts on a separate sheet he mingled the miracles that follow, no note being appended to show whence he copied them. But from wherever he did it, they run thus.

[142] The fame of these miracles, then, being spread abroad on every side, The injury of a countryman against the Saints when the crypt had been begun with very fair workmanship — brother Remigius directing the chief part of this work, and brother Cuono, the sacristan, that is, of the same monastery (of St. Paulinus), furnishing the expenses — it pleased some of the countrymen of the surrounding villages to make certain collections of alms in order to earn the patronage of the holy Martyrs. Having therefore taken counsel among themselves on this matter, and having appointed among themselves collectors of this alms, they also fixed a day on which that offering should be exacted from each house. It happened one day that one of those collectors was sitting drinking, as is the custom, in a wine-tavern in the village of the Brethren, called Mesenich, with other bands of countrymen. When the office of the collection committed to him suddenly came into his mind, he rose up in haste, and made known to the others why he was not permitted to tarry there longer, and asked those also who were present there, sharers of this fellowship, to rise up and pay the promised offering. And when he was proved by his words and deeds to be doing this gladly and cheerfully as he asked, there was among them a wretched man, sprung from the village which is commonly called Manbach, who, not being made cheerful by the draught of wine, as was fitting, to the praise of God, but poisoned with the gall of malice, asked for what work men were hastening so greatly those collections of flour and corn, by the judgment of fools, not of God, but by the fault of a depraved estimation. And when this had been carefully explained, he increased the heap of his wickedness by these words: If, he said, you were to give me all these things, you could hope for a greater benefit from me than from those Saints to whom you send them.

[143] Scarcely, then, had the wretch uttered the words of blasphemy is punished with paralysis; but vigor when behold, the vengeance of divine chastisement was not unfittingly inflicted upon him: for his blasphemous tongue, stricken in that same hour with the disease of paralysis, fell silent, and all his limbs too were suddenly loosened by the same disease. And so he remained for some days neither taking food nor able to speak any word. But at last, being at some time divinely granted some little gift of feeling something, he began by such a nod as he could to make confession of his guilt, entreating with tears more than with words that penance be imposed on him by a priest for the crime he had committed. Those therefore who perceived his nod of penitence made a vow for his deliverance to the holy Martyrs of God, whom that fool — or rather in whom Christ, the prince of martyrs — he had offended. At whose words that same man, having taken the pledge which in the customary usage of speech is called Repensum, signified by a nod of his head and by the throwing of a straw that he would offer it to those same Saints if he recovered, since he could not yet do so in words. And when this was done, after a very short space of time intervened, he so effectually recovered that he came himself to the aforesaid memorial of the holy Martyrs with confession of his sins and with his votive offering; and, satisfaction having been made before the holy Martyrs for his blasphemous speech, he returned home whole and sound, praising God who is venerable in His Saints.

[144] returns to him when he repents: That this miracle happened while the canons were still occupied in enlarging and adorning the crypt of St. Paulinus, the context itself teaches. Of Remigius, who presided over the work, I do not remember having read anything more. Perhaps he was one of those three canons who had the finding of the holy Martyrs most at heart, of whom the author of the Finding speaks in chapter 2, n. 13. But of Cuono, sacristan of the monastery of St. Paulinus, the same author makes mention by name in the same place. His memory is also marked in the Necrology of St. Maximinus at the sixteenth before the Kalends of June, that is, the seventeenth of May; and he is the same as the man at whose request Egelbert consecrated in the year 1088 the chapel of the holy Martyrs in the cemetery of St. Paulinus. Further, that the villages here mentioned, Mesenich and Manbach, were situated not far from Trier, is likewise clear from the context itself. Hontheim in the Chronography of Trier, prefixed to vol. 3 of the History of Trier, mentions two villages named Mesenich, of which one is situated in the deanery of Bitburg, the other in the district of Cochem. And the latter is placed in the Geographical Map of the archdiocese of Trier in Calmet, vol. 1 of the History of Lorraine, near the Moselle between Zurstuben and Beilstein; and not far from there occurs a certain village Manebach: but both are too remote from Trier for the discourse here to seem to be of them. Nearer to Trier is the other village Mesenich, situated in the deanery of Bitburg. Frederick de Wit in Geographical Map 78 of the archdiocese of Trier placed this one — nay, and another village called Monbach — the former on the left, the latter on the right of the river which he names the Sour, between Wasserbillig and Echternach; which, since they are distant from Trier by only two or three miles, the anonymous writer perhaps designated here, granted that Frederick wrote Monbach, not Manbach. Unless, however, someone prefers to understand the village Mannenbach, situated not far from the fortress of the Saar. I return to the miracles.

[145] the same lot Thus the second anonymous writer continues: Next to this miracle, as in order, so also in likeness of the matter, was that miracle which the divine power wrought in this manner upon a certain woman of the household of the Saint (Paulinus, as I suppose), called Benzela. When, the treasure of the blessed Martyrs having been found — a treasure fair above gold and silver and above every precious stone — a great rejoicing was being celebrated far and wide through the churches of God on this account, this woman was a fellow-dweller in our neighborhood. On a certain day she went out from the city to a certain village, called by an ancient and therefore pagan name, namely "At the Holy Trees," for the sake of shearing her sheep. Where, during the shearing, a question arose among the countrymen sitting by concerning the finding of the glorious Martyrs in the city of Trier; some, that is, praising the name of the Lord for it, while others desired to hear the outcome of this affair again, though often heard, from the woman, as being of the city of Trier. When therefore the simple desires of the countrymen humbly sought out the order of this matter, she — most wretched in truth — replied in this answer: "What else to tell you about this matter I know not; but I hear that sarcophagi were found there, of which not a few like them stand in my garden, covered over even with cabbages."

[146] Therefore the divine Wisdom, wishing to prove how the judgments of human depravity are sometimes to be condemned, for a like cause if they have been depraved by human judgments, did not delay to condemn the judgment of the rash woman. For scarcely had this word of blasphemy been completed when she was deprived both of the service of her tongue and also of the obedience of her whole body — the disease, namely, which is called paralysis, making a loosening of the sinews in each of her limbs. Yet she began to repent of and condemn the sin of blasphemy with deep groans and tears; she began humbly to ask, by such a nod of her head as she could, that her friends should quickly carry her to the memorial of the holy Martyrs. When therefore she had been presented at the place of the Saints with a votive offering, she was indeed granted some use of speech again, yet was divinely punished with no slight heaviness of infirmity down to the end of her life.

[147] The place to which that woman had betaken herself for the sake of shearing her sheep, a woman undergoes. and which was called by a pagan name "At the Holy Trees," I have nowhere found; yet I should suppose it was so called either because, heathen superstition not yet being wholly extinguished in those districts, sacrifices were customarily performed there, or because some divine worship was paid to the trees themselves. For that both were formerly very frequent, George von Eckhart teaches by many instances in Frankish Affairs, book 23, n. 29, where, besides other witnesses of his statement, he brings forward Baudemundus in the Life of St. Amandus, who (see vol. I of February, p. 850) records that trees and woods were worshipped by the people of Ghent; Regino, On Ecclesiastical Discipline, book 1, p. 143, where this is read: Have you consulted magicians or soothsayers, or enchanters, or diviners, or have you vowed vows which are made to trees or springs? You shall do penance for three years; Willibald in the Life of St. Boniface, chapter 8, speaking thus of the Hessians: Some sacrificed secretly to trees and springs, others openly. On whose same testimony, Boniface cut down the Oak of Jupiter at Geismar. And how great an honor was formerly paid to trees of this kind, the council of Nantes, celebrated in the year 659, explains: With the utmost zeal, it says in chapter 20, bishops and their ministers ought to contend that the trees consecrated to demons, which the common people worship and hold in such veneration that they do not dare to cut a branch from them, be cut out by the roots and burned. Nor indeed were vows and sacrifices only made there, but lights too were kindled and superstitious observances were practiced, as the Aachen Capitulary of Charlemagne of the year 789, chapter 63, teaches: Likewise concerning trees, or rocks, or springs, where certain foolish persons make lights or any observances, we altogether command that that most evil and God-detestable usage, wherever it is found, be removed and destroyed. That place, then, may formerly have been planted with trees of this kind, and therefore called "At the Holy Trees," and the name itself may have remained down to the XI century. Let us hear now what the anonymous writer narrates.

[148] Another woman likewise, punished with sickness, presently receives health. But this miracle, he says, which we have here inserted, we found to have happened at the very beginning of the miracles which we have noted, yet only after they had been written down. For when the wooden supports necessary for the work of the crypt had been bargained for by the builder of this work, namely brother Cuono, with a certain countryman named Adelhard, of the village called Elle, he wished, other business of his own need being for the time put aside, to labor at fulfilling the agreement about the timber at the appointed term; but his wife, seeing that other rustic works of necessity which she wanted hastened were being delayed for this cause, began frequently to make a case against him on that account. She began to reproach him with womanly taunts for the agreement he had made about the timber, as being insufficiently cautious, and with all the fury she could she persisted in dissuading him from attending to or fulfilling this agreement. Meanwhile she was so harshly chastised by a sudden heaviness of infirmity that in a very short space of time she was almost lifeless. Overcome by which anguish, she caused her husband to be summoned to her with all speed, and begged him for God's will that, all business of other matters being set aside, he should press on with the service of the Saints, namely by hastening the procuring of the timber and hurrying on its speedy delivery. And so, that it might be plainly clear to all whence this infirmity had arisen for her, scarcely had she finished these words of entreaty or confession when behold, the heaviness of all her infirmity being shaken off, and full health of body presently recovered, she left her bed, and, after the example of Peter's mother-in-law once cured by the Lord, prepared a meal for her husband as he was about to go into the wood to hasten the work of the Saints.

[149] A matron of Worms, with a broken leg, is healed, This also is not to be covered with silence, which the Divinity, present everywhere, wrought for the proclaiming of the merits of these Saints even to distant peoples. For a certain matron in the district of Worms, being set in the land of her birth, was on a certain day — which is not known — about to ride. When therefore she had been lifted onto the horse which we call an ambler, by which she had often been carried with all gentleness without any kicking, that same horse began contrary to custom suddenly to halt, and, at the urging of very many, to stand as though motionless for some time. But at length, roused as it were to anger by the excessive goading of the bystanders and by much whipping too, it was lifted from the ground in no small leap and went far astray. And the matron sitting on it, shaken off from it by so violent a movement of its own, it threw down so hard that the shin of her leg was broken in three places. When therefore the bystanders ran up to lift her, she earnestly begged them that, the fractures of the shin being bound together in that same place, they should not move her thence until they should make votive prayers at some memorials of the Saints. At last, her mind having run over everything, the recollection of the holy Martyrs newly found at Trier came to her. When therefore she promised that she would come to the memorial of these Saints with an offering, not sitting on any horse but moving on her own feet, if she recovered, she felt her health return to her so entire on the spot that she rose up at the hand of one man, who a little before had not dared, for the excess of pain, to entrust herself to be carried by the hands of many. And these things which we say we received from that same matron, a most truthful witness of this matter, when she was fulfilling her vow in the monastery of the Martyrs.

[150] When, by these and like darts of miracles, frequent acts of the divine power were flying about on every side, a countryman's ill-affected arms are cured, a certain countryman called Engelo, sprung from the village called Walpillig, who had lost the use of both his arms for many years, did not delay to come with an offering to the memorial of these Saints. And when he had come thither and had drawn his feeble arms over all their sarcophagi in the hope of obtaining God's mercy through the merits of these Saints, presently, the soundness of both arms being recovered, he returned thence rejoicing and blessing God in the blessedness of His Saints, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. The miracles reported in this and in the two immediately preceding numbers I have set forth in the anonymous writer's words in continuous discourse, because few things occurred in them to be observed, which I here briefly gather together. The village Elle mentioned at n. 148 is placed by Hontheim in the Chronography under the fourth archdeaconry of the archdiocese of Trier, that of Longuyon (Longuyon or Luguio being a little town of the Duchy of Bar on the confines of the territory of Luxembourg), and under the chapter of Mersch. And Mersch is a village about three hours' leagues distant from Luxembourg on the river Alzette; near to which also is the other village Walpillich, mention of which is made in this number. Worms is an episcopal city of the Vangiones under the metropolis of Mainz. Finally, from the words with which the anonymous writer closes at n. 149 it is understood that he was living when the miracles he describes happened, and that he either saw them or heard them from those who had seen them; but from those with which he begins at n. 148 it is clear that he did not report the individual miracles in the order in which they happened, but that he put some of them into writing only when he came to the knowledge of them.

[151] Hence, as I suppose, it came about that, although he had already put an end to his narrative, and the paralysis of a woman of Burgundy, by which prodigies he afterwards added in these words the following miracle, which was also perhaps the last of them all. This too we believe will be of profit to the edification of those set both near and far, if we note down for handing on to memory this miracle, which we have learned by the report of those very persons in whom it happened to have come to pass in the parts of Burgundy from this revelation of the Saints. For there was in the village of Polevin a certain woman paralytic for a very long time, who, when she had heard from travelers of the revelation of the Saints made in the city of Trier, asked her husband to vow that, if she should recover through the merits and intercession of the Saints revealed in the aforesaid city, he would bring her thither with him. And when he had done this without delay, she, without the suspension of any interval, rose up whole and sound and lifted herself from the pallet, weighed down through the courses of many years by the continual heaviness of her body, and with her husband arranged the promised journey to Trier, there to give thanks to the holy Martyrs for her recovery.

[152] Finally, at the year 1615 in the Annals of Trier published by Brouwer and Masen it is read that Fr. Nicolas Trigault, and others were afterwards added elsewhere too. Nicolas Trigault, a priest of our Society and an excellent herald of the Christian faith among the Chinese, when he was preparing his return thither, obtained from Lothair, elector of Trier, various relics of the Saints as supports for fostering and promoting religion. Further, that these were of the Martyrs of Trier is clear from the Historical index appended to vol. 2 of the History of Trier, where under the title Society of Jesus this is read: Fr. Trigault carries back to China the Relics of the MM. of Trier obtained from Archbishop Lothair. And that finally by the aid of these, and by the intercession of the Martyrs, various and enormous miracles also came to pass in the remotest regions of the world, Brouwer hands down at the year 1088, n. 97, in the words copied out by me here at n. 127; although neither here nor elsewhere, so far as I know, does he supply anything by which it can in any way be discerned whether those relics were of the Theban Martyrs or of the natives venerated at Trier on the fifth or sixth day. These miracles, therefore, like the rest brought forward thus far, are to be attributed either to those Saints who rest in the crypt of St. Paulinus, or to the Martyrs of Trier in general.

§ XI. The Relics of the holy Martyrs, dispersed especially through Germany.

The relics of the holy Martyrs So great a frequency of miracles could not remain hidden from foreign peoples, and brought it about that many, both natives of Trier and foreigners, sought relics of them for themselves. Indeed it is ascertained by the testimony of many that portions of them were transported from the monasteries of SS. Maximinus and Paulinus into Germany, Bohemia, Belgium, and Italy. On the borders of Hesse, within the limits of the diocese of Paderborn, as Schaten writes in book 4 of the Annals of Paderborn at the year 998, Count Ekkiard founded and endowed the monastery of Helmarshausen of the Benedictine family, whose sixth abbot Thietmar, when he had restored the half-ruined buildings of the monastery, with the consent of Bruno, archbishop of Trier, received as a gift on the fourth before the Ides of May in the year 1107 the body of St. Modoald and two pledges of the Theban Martyrs, and, having translated them with a seemly spectacle of procession, placed them honorably in the oratory of St. Peter, as Schaten again writes at this year. Consult also, if you will, the Acts of the Translation of St. Modoald published by us in vol. III of May, p. 63. Further, Thietmar wished Gumbert, abbot of the monastery of Abdinghof near Paderborn, founded by St. Meinwerk, to be a sharer in the Relics he had obtained, and bestowed on him, besides other remains of Saints, the arm, head, and rib of one of the Theban Saints.

[154] into the diocese of Paderborn, Schaten proves this from a writing of the Abdinghof archive of this kind: Thietmar, abbot of Helmarshausen, with the unanimous consent of his brethren, granted to abbot Gumbert and to his brethren and to the whole church of Paderborn, from the sanctuary of the Blessed Peter the Apostle, most precious relics of the Saints, which were conferred upon him by divine disposition and ordinance from the church of Trier, and by the leave of the archbishops and abbots and the other Priors of both metropolises, to the praise and glory of almighty God, and for increasing and extending the honor and veneration and service of those same Saints with every solemn observance. The entire body of one of the holy virgins. Of the body of St. Probus, bishop and martyr, who was their leader. Of the body of St. Modoald, archbishop of the Treveri, and of the archbishops Bonosius and Abrunculus. Of the stole and pallium of St. Maximinus the archbishop; the arm with the head and rib of one of the Theban Saints, etc. The same Schaten finally adds: At last all that treasure of holy things, after in the fatal age of Luther the last abbot of Helmarshausen with his monks, having taken a wife, went over to heresy, was withdrawn and preserved by the industry of Eric, bishop of Paderborn, and passed to the church of Paderborn, as will be recorded in its time. But that famous monastery now lies among ruins, scattered by the Hessians, from the time when first the Lutheran and afterwards the Calvinist heresy began to throw all things into confusion. Eric ruled the church of Paderborn from the year 1508 to 1532.

[155] Few years from this had elapsed when a second translation of Relics of the Theban Martyrs took place: to Brunswick, for in the year 1113 two bodies of Theban Martyrs were translated to Brunswick. You have the Acts of that translation in our work, vol. IV of August, p. 48 and following, where Gertrude, marchioness of Saxony, daughter of the margrave Erkenbert, is recorded to have taken away by stealth the body of St. Auctor and two bodies of Theban Martyrs, to have carried them to Brunswick, and to have laid them away honorably in the monastery of St. Giles. Arnold of Lübeck too, a writer of the same century, makes mention of this translation in book 6, chapter 4, in these words: The body of Auctor the archbishop rests there (at Brunswick), which Gertrude the marchioness, wife of the margrave Ecbert, when in the time of her widowhood she had founded that monastery of St. Giles, obtained from the people of Trier by many supplications, and placed honorably in a sarcophagus in that same monastery together with other bodies of Theban Martyrs, as is now seen — namely in the year 1115, on the Kalends of September, as the Acts cited a little before have it. Further, if we are to stand by this author rather than by the Acts of the translation, adorned with circumstances marvelous enough, Gertrude transported to Brunswick pledges of those Saints not carried off by stealth but obtained by many prayers — which to me at any rate appears more likely. Finally, both these translations of Martyrs took place from the monastery of St. Maximinus, as is manifest from the Acts of both.

[156] With what munificence the ascetics of St. Maximinus's acted toward Thietmar and Gertrude, to Prague, with the same too did those of St. Paulinus's afterwards act toward Charles IV. For this emperor, probably in the year 1356, in which it is established that he was presented by them with the body of St. Palmatius, also obtained from the same monks some Relics of the Martyrs of Trier, and added them to the treasures of Prague; among which that there were relics of St. Thyrsus himself, Pessina teaches, who in the Diary of the relics kept in the Metropolitan church of St. Vitus at Prague, at the fourth of October, wrote this: Of St. Thyrsus M., a part of the back of the head, brought by Charles from Lower Germany. And in the catalogue of the Relics of Karlstein: Of Thyrsus M., a notable part of the back of the head. Hither too perhaps belong the particles of the Theban MM. in one little bag, which he recounts in the same place in the fifth order.

[157] When in Volume VI of September we treated of St. Maurice and his Companions, and into Switzerland it was said at p. 361 that there had been sent to us, by the care of our Fr. Chardon, from the abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, an instrument concerning the relics of the Saints kept there, fortified with the seal and subscription of the most eminent lord Fr. Meinrad Brenzer, Apostolic protonotary. It is too long to be conveniently inserted here in full; I therefore draw from it only what pertains to our Martyrs. Of these it has as follows: Two authentic letters of the Most Reverend lord Peter Binsfeld, formerly suffragan of Trier, dispatched at the feast of SS. Simeon and James the Greater, 1597, show that two sacred heads from the number of the Theban Martyrs, obtained from the lord Dean and Chapter of St. Paulinus's near and outside the walls of the city of Trier, were given to the arch-monastery of Einsiedeln by the hands of lord Elias Heymann. See the Einsiedeln Archive, mark K. M. n. 71 and n. 71. Original pages too concerning things procured at Vienna in Austria, or rather at Wiener Neustadt, upon previous letters of recommendation given thither, nay indeed by order of the Most Clement and Most Serene formerly archduke of Austria Maximilian, under the 7th of June 1698, to the lieutenant of Further Austria and privy counselor of the imperial majesty, lord baron von Stozingen, among other sacred remains transmitted to the hermitage under the 9th of September (so it appears to me to be written in the instrument) 1698 by the lord Elias just mentioned, two notable shin-bones of the legs and a bone of the arm of the holy Martyrs of the Company of St. Maurice, who suffered at Trier under the tyrant Rictiovarus. Which sacred Relics the Most Eminent Cardinal Philip, bishop of Regensburg, canon of the cathedral of Trier, received as a gift while he was completing his residence there. See the Einsiedeln archive under the mark K. M. n. 4 (unless I am mistaken) and n. 99.*

[158] are transferred. In the following year of Christ 1600, original testimonial letters most worthy of all credit, issued under the seal and subscription of all the conventuals of the venerable Benedictine abbey called of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary ad Martyres near Trier, teach that from their spiritual Treasury there were given with pious affection to the renowned monastery of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Einsiedeln, by lord Elias Heymann, two bones of the Relics of the holy Martyrs who suffered at Trier with St. Thyrsus, commander of the Thebans. Subscribed are the then Most Reverend abbot lord Gulz with the remaining professed and priests there recounted by name, under date of the 25th of March 1600. See the Einsiedeln Archive, mark K. M. n. 22. In that same year original letters of lord Dominic of Vniensis, pastor of the church of St. Paul, together with those of the synodals of the parish John Bredunus, Mangricus Dorz, Adam Olms, etc., attest that, looking up to and taking up the excellent zeal of lord Elias Heymann, as of one appointed procurator by the principal immediate monastery of Einsiedeln for procuring the remains of the Saints, they handed over imanuarint (that is, delivered into his hands) to him one head from the holy Martyrs of Trier, to be carried into the holy and imperial church of Einsiedeln. Given on the 9th day of April 1600. See the Einsiedeln Archive under the mark K. M. n. 50. This same Reliquary, carried back with other remains of Saints by the often-mentioned lord Elias into the sacred hermitage, was received with solemn rite on the vigil of Pentecost in the year 1600, and together with the rest was most affectionately laid away in the sacred treasury of Einsiedeln, and down to the present (the instrument was drawn up in the year 1746) has been exposed to public veneration for the pious concourse of men. The authentic document stands in the Einsiedeln archive under the signature K. M. n. 10.

[159] Others Ferdinand, Some relics of these same Martyrs Ferdinand, coadjutor of the bishoprics of Cologne and Liège, count Palatine of the Rhine, and duke of both Bavarias, received as a gift in the year 1606 from the college of St. Paulinus, as the canons wished to be attested by an authentic instrument drawn up on the matter; a transcript of which the Reverend Fr. Francis le Jeune saw at Graz in Styria, and copied out for us in the year 1750:

and it runs thus: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We, William Bretz of Berncastel, dean of the collegiate church of St. Paulinus outside the walls near Trier, and Peter Vasatoris, cantor, and Salentinus (Valentinus is to be read, I think) Jesura (below is read Lesura), canons of the same church, to all who shall see these present letters or hear them read, greeting in the Lord. We make known that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand six hundred and six, in the fourth Indiction, on the twenty-first day of the month of June, in the Pontificate of our Father and Lord, the lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the fifth, we were requested at the instance of the most serene and most reverend prince Ferdinand, duke of both Bavarias, and coadjutor of the archbishopric of Cologne and of the church of Liège, etc., that we should be willing to give and grant from the treasury of our most holy church some sacred relics, to the greater glory of God and the veneration of the Saints and the spiritual consolation of the faithful.

[160] We therefore, favoring the reasonable and just petition of the aforesaid most serene and most reverend prince, duke of Bavaria having first obtained the special faculty of our Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Lord, the lord Lothair, archbishop of Trier, and the consent of our chapter, have reverently drawn from our sacred chapel of St. Michael, in which the relics of the holy MM. of Trier are kept, some heads and bones of the aforesaid Martyrs, and have handed them over and consigned them to the aforesaid most serene and most reverend prince at his instance, testifying that the aforesaid relics have from time immemorial been held and venerated by all the faithful of Christ as true and undoubted relics of Saints, and are now so held and venerated; even as we also judge them worthily and deservedly to be honored and venerated by all to whom they shall come. Praying God the Best and Greatest, that all the faithful of Christ who shall have venerated the aforesaid holy relics on earth may be joined to their fellowship for ever in heaven. In faith and testimony whereof we the above-named have fortified these presents with the subscription of our own hand and the impression of the accustomed decanal seal. In the year, Indiction, month, day, and Pontificate (read: in the Pontificate) as above. William of Berncastel, dean of St. Paulinus's. Peter Thon, canon of St. Paulinus's. Solentinus Lodovicius Lesura, canon of St. Paulinus's.

[161] And by Ferdinand's liberality those same relics — to the college of the Society of Jesus at Graz namely, besides one head and two long bones from the relics of the Martyrs of Trier resting in the church of St. Paulinus at Trier, likewise another great and long bone from the relics of the Holy Legion of Theban Martyrs, received from the abbot of St. Maximinus at Trier — were granted in the following year to our college at Graz in Styria; which indeed Ferdinand also wished attested by an authentic testimony. Here it is, as it was drawn by the same Reverend Fr. Francis le Jeune from the transcript of it kept at Graz in our college, and transmitted to us. We Ferdinand, by the grace of God coadjutor of Cologne, of Liège, etc., count Palatine of the Rhine, duke of both Bavarias, etc., testify that we have given as a gift to the college of the Society of Jesus at Graz these holy relics, namely, one head and two long bones from those holy relics of the Martyrs of Trier, which in our name the Reverend Fr. Peter Cremer, rector of the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Trier, received from the church of St. Parelinus (Paulinus) there and sent to us, as the dean and canons of that church more fully explain and attest in a special document (an authentic copy of which we have here appended). Likewise another great and long bone from the relics of the Holy Legion of Theban Martyrs, given to us among other things by the reverend lord abbot of St. Maximinus at Trier, according to his attestation also here appended: in faith whereof we have given these letters, subscribed by our hand and fortified with our seal, at Munich on the Kalends of December in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand six hundred and seven. Finally, the merit of a Saint unknown to us. Ferdinand. Daniel Schilling, by his own hand.

[162] in Styria he gives: So the Graz transcript, as I said, from which the aforesaid Reverend Father copied these things. He further came also upon the authentic instrument of Ferdinand itself, and collated it with the former, and noted some things in it to be corrected. 1. The transcript has Parelini, the authentic Paulini, and rightly. The transcript closes thus: Finally, the merit, etc., for which again in the authentic there is rightly read mentum; in both places, however, out of its proper place. But in the authentic a double asterisk is inserted: the one after the τὸ adjunctam, the other after the τὸ denique; whence it is clear where the last words of the instrument are to be replaced. Further, on the same Father's testimony, Ferdinand's ducal seal is affixed to the authentic, and is inscribed round about as follows: Ferdinand. Com. Pal. Rheni. utr. Bavariæ. dux. Jun. The first document, received from the canons of St. Paulinus's, which Ferdinand says he appended to this instrument, we have reported at n. 159 and following; but the other, also proceeding from the abbot of St. Maximinus, is likewise exhibited by the monuments of our church at Graz, sacred to St. Giles, among which the same Reverend Fr. le Jeune saw a copy, lawfully collated, of the following tenor: We Reiner, by the grace of God abbot of the imperial monastery, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, of St. Maximinus near Trier, of the Order of St. Benedict, etc.: We make known by these present letters that in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and six, on the thirteenth day of the month of March, at the petition of the most reverend and most serene prince and lord, the lord Ferdinand, elect and confirmed coadjutor and administrator of the churches of Cologne, Liège, Stavelot, and Berchtesgaden, count Palatine of the Rhine, duke of Upper and Lower Bavaria, etc., our most gracious lord, on account of the singular reverence and devotion of his most reverend and most serene highness toward the relics of the Saints, we have given as a gift and conferred from the notable treasury of holy relics of our monastery, or of that most ancient church founded by St. Helena the empress and her son Constantine the emperor more than a thousand three hundred years ago, by the special leave of our most holy Lord, etc.: two heads and five entire bones from the legion of the holy Theban Martyrs, whose commander was St. Boniface, who in the time of Rictiovarus were visited with martyrdom. We testify besides that those same relics have been reverently held and reputed in our aforesaid monastery as true and certain from of old and from the memory of men, and are at present so held and reputed, as is established to us with undoubted truth from the tradition of our Elders and from the archives and very ancient instruments of our monastery. In faith whereof we have caused these presents, subscribed with our own hand, to be fortified with our abbatial seal. Given in our aforesaid monastery in the year and on the day as above. Reiner, abbot of the monastery of St. Maximinus.

[163] That besides this the same Reiner, abbot of St. Maximinus, granted to Maria, Archduchess of Austria, besides which, some others also some relics of the Theban Martyrs slain at Trier with St. Boniface, is dug out from the same monuments of our college at Graz, in which Reiner's letters on that matter are written out; which, since they contain a monument of the ancestral Austrian house's piety toward God and the Saints, it will be no trouble to set down entire. And they run thus: We Reiner, by the grace of God abbot of the imperial monastery, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, of St. Maximinus near Trier, etc.: to all and each who shall see these present letters or hear them read we make known: that in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and three, on the twelfth day of the month of September, to the most serene lady, the lady Archduchess of Austria, of Graz, etc., our most gracious lady, on account of the singular reverence and devotion of her most serene highness toward the relics of the Saints, we have given as a gift and conferred from the notable treasury of holy relics of our monastery, or of that most ancient church founded by St. Helena the empress and her son Constantine the emperor more than a thousand three hundred years ago, three great entire bones from the legion of SS. Maurice and his Companions, whose commander was St. Boniface, who in the time of Rictiovarus were visited with martyrdom. We testify besides that those same relics have been reverently held and reputed in our aforesaid monastery as true and certain from of old and from the memory of men, and are at present so held and reputed, as is established to us with undoubted truth from the tradition of our Elders and from the archives and very ancient instruments of our monastery; in faith whereof (supply faith) we have caused the seal of our abbey to be appended; done in the year and on the day as above. There are extant besides in the same college authentic letters of the same abbot Reiner, given to the Reverend Fr. Gisbert Schevicavius, rector of our college at Graz, by which he testifies that he has given as a gift two parts of heads and four great bones from the legion of SS. Maurice and his Companions, etc.; which, since they are conceived in almost the same words as the preceding, so far as the matter allowed, I have not judged it necessary to set down entire. In the manuscript Catalogue of Relics of the college of our Society at Münster in Westphalia, at the sixth of October, I find noted the holy Martyrs of Trier, whose more notable relics, as is there read, are contained for the time in three oblong glass vessels, arranged partly in the cupboard on the left of the high altar, partly in that on the right of the altar of the Holy Cross.

[164] Gelenius, in On the Greatness of the Church of Cologne, recounts various relics of the Martyrs of Trier in various places of Germany kept at Cologne. In book 3, Syntagma 43, §5, on the church of the Carmelite Fathers of Cologne, he has this: Let the third class (of relics kept there) be the more recent relics of the holy Martyrs of Trier, that is, from the company of St. Palmatius and his Companions, whose memory is in the Roman Martyrology on the fifth and sixth days of October under the title of the almost innumerable Martyrs. And then, setting them out one by one, he continues thus: Of these holy Martyrs this same church holds from the year of Christ 1622 the relics written below: one jawbone with six teeth adhering to it. Two oblong bones of equal size. Two oblong bones of unequal size. One cranium. And three ribs. To these he subjoins the testimony of William Brexius of Berncastel, dean of St. Paulinus's, by which he professes that in the said year, on the 16th day of March, he gave the relics in question to the Reverend Fr. Henry Mulhem, formed Bachelor of Sacred Theology. Further, the tenor of the testimony is almost the same, with the necessary changes, as that read above at n. 159 in the letters concerning the relics granted to Ferdinand, count Palatine, coadjutor of the church of Cologne and Liège; wherefore I omit to set it down here.

[164] dispersed are recounted. Again, treating of the church of our Society at Cologne, Gelenius in book 3, Syntagma 46, §3, has this: Of the Martyrs of Trier there are extant in this church several and notable relics, whose feast is kept on the 5th of October, namely of the Companions of St. Palmachius, consul of the people of Trier, who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian, and whose bodies were found in the year 1071, as Sigebert in the Chronicle and Fr. Christopher Brouwer in the Annals of Trier teach. But, you will say, what has this to do with the Theban Martyrs who suffered at Trier on the fourth of October, of whom we treat here? I answer that these things are recounted here both because the Roman Martyrology, at the fifth and sixth of October, under the name of the innumerable

perhaps comprehends the Thebans also, on which days alone they were at one time all venerated together; and because Gelenius himself affords occasion for suspecting that the Martyrs of Trier — both the foreigners, that is the Thebans, and the natives — were confused by him, since in Syntagma 48, §3, treating of the relics of the church of the Capuchin Fathers of Cologne, he writes thus: The church of the Capuchin Fathers keeps many sacred bones, and certain sacred heads, both from the holy eleven thousand Virgin Martyrs, and from the legion of the Thebans or of the innumerable holy Martyrs of Trier. As therefore some relics of the Thebans are perhaps mixed with these, so perhaps also with those. Let what has been said about the relics of our Martyrs dispersed through Germany suffice; for I do not doubt that they are to be found in several other places of Germany besides; but since knowledge of them has not come to us, let us hasten on to Belgium.

* Read 1598.

§ XII. The Relics of the Saints, dispersed especially through Belgium.

The relics of the holy Martyrs at Luxembourg and Douai, Rays recounts in the Hierogazophylacium various relics of the Martyrs of Trier scattered through Belgium, but not always so distinctly that it may be plain whether under the name of the Martyrs of Trier there come only the foreign Thebans, or the natives, or both. It is likewise from time to time doubtful whether, when he names the Theban Martyrs, he understands those who suffered at Agaunum or at Trier. However the matter may stand, at p. 375 he ascribes to the Münster monastery of the Order of St. Benedict at Luxembourg two heads and very many bones of the Martyrs of Trier. To the Charterhouse of Rettel on the bank of the Moselle, at p. 452: one head and three great bones of the Martyrs of Trier. To the Fathers of our Society at Saint-Omer, p. 478: many and great bones of the Theban Martyrs and of those of Trier. To those of Douai, p. 479, many portions of bones of the Martyrs of Trier who suffered under Rictius Varus, and these conspicuous in our Greater church; besides, to the philosophers of the Parthenian sodality, p. 481, two entire shin-bones of the holy Theban Martyrs or of those of Trier; besides, one shin-bone and a vertebra of the same, received from the Reverend Fr. Peter Adenhoven, rector of the college of Trier. Finally another bone by the gift of the Reverend Fr. James le Roy; to which notable honor was paid in the year 1628 on the 20th day of May, when they were translated from the Greater church to the oratory of the sodality in question. He describes the matter thus.

[166] The relics of the following Saints, in two biers prepared for this purpose, of gilded wood and transparent in the clearest glass, shining with marvelous artifice, were translated in procession on the 20th day of May of this year 1628 from the very church in which they had been exposed on that day with solemn pomp, where, received with notable honor, with various lights and with the varied harmony of musical instruments and with applause of the students again and again, to a place where through the whole following Sunday they were exposed, in the middle of the hall, on an altar there most beautifully constructed for this purpose and clothed with all-silk cloths of red color, variegated with Phrygian needlework of gold and silver, as was the rest of the hall, until evening; and were honored by all with fitting veneration; to whose honor and to the greater glory of the Saints a high Mass was performed by our Reverend Father and master Philip du Trieu, a very great number of the members of that congregation meanwhile communicating and being refreshed by the sacred Sacrament of the Eucharist; and after the litanies they were placed in the places prepared for this. But lest anyone should perhaps think that so great an honor was paid to these relics on a slight ground, he appended the diploma by which the Reverend Lord Paul Boudot, bishop of Arras, approved them, which is of this kind.

[167] Paul Boudot, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See and with the approval bishop of Arras, to all who shall inspect these presents, greeting in the Lord. Whereas, according to the holy canons and the decrees of the council of Trent, the relics of the Saints, whose living bodies were the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and by whose intercession many good things are bestowed upon men, are to be venerated with due honor, and no new relics are to be received unless the bishop recognize and approve them: hence it is that, on approved testimonies worthy of credit, the relics exhibited to us by the Reverend Fr. James Lobbet, director of the Parthenian sodality of the philosophers of Douai, namely two entire shin-bones of the holy Theban Martyrs or of those of Trier, received from the very Reverend lord Anthony Wehr, canon and scholastic of the collegiate church of St. Paulinus at Trier; likewise one shin-bone and one vertebra of the holy Theban Martyrs or of those of Trier, received from the Reverend Fr. Adenhoven, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Trier. Likewise another shin-bone of the same Theban Martyrs, given by the Reverend Fr. James le Roy, rector of the college of the Society at Valenciennes. What follows in the diploma pertains to the relics of other Saints, and therefore I omit it here.

[168] And the prelate of Arras concludes the diploma in this manner: of the bishop of Arras We, at the humble supplication of the aforesaid Reverend Father, director of the sodality, having first seen the attestations of the aforesaid lords, and the oath taken by the same Reverend Fr. James Lobbet, by which he testified that these were the very relics whose testimonies he had received and exhibited to us: recognizing and approving these same relics as true relics of the aforesaid, have decreed and do decree that they may be publicly exposed to be venerated and honored by all and each of the faithful of Christ, by the testimony of these letters, fortified with the impression of our seal. And that cult and veneration toward these same relics may be stirred up, we impart to all who shall devoutly venerate them an indulgence of forty days. Given in our episcopal palace at Arras on the 4th day of May, in the year 1628.

By the Mandate of the Most Reverend Lord — the seal was appended in red wax.

John Monnier, secretary.

[169] were exposed to public veneration; Besides this, our Fathers had instituted in the same city another sodality, likewise sacred to the most blessed Virgin, which the citizens of Douai made up. These, emulating the piety of the Parthenian philosophers, wished to claim for themselves the protection of the same Saints by procuring relics of them; and having received from Trier two portions of crania, and being made masters of their wish, they likewise honored them with sacred honor. Rays is again the witness, writing thus at p. 484: In the year just past (his Work appeared in the year 1628) there were sent by the Parthenian sodalists of the blessed Virgin at Trier to the Parthenian sodality of the blessed Virgin of the citizens of Douai, instituted under the care of the same Fathers of the Society of Jesus, two very great parts of crania of the holy Martyrs of Trier, together with most ample and most beautiful attestations; which relics indeed, although they were believed to be destined for placing in the oratory of the aforesaid sodalists, are nevertheless enclosed in images of the aforesaid holy Martyrs, representing down to the breast the figure of a man of natural size, and are placed above the steps of the high altar on Sundays themselves and on other more solemn days.

[170] likewise at Lille, and in various places of Belgium. From Douai Rays proceeds to Lille: there too, in our church, he says at p. 492, relics of the Theban Martyrs and of those of Trier are found, and he cites Buzelin in the Gallo-Flemish Annals, book 2, chapter 8; but neither here does he explain more fully what these are. He adds, however, that many bones of the Theban Martyrs and of those of Trier fell also to the Franciscan Fathers of Lille. To our church at Mechelen, p. 493, Rays attributes one almost entire head, four parts of crania, one jawbone, one oblong bone, and two others of middling size. All of which our college credits to Fr. James Tirinus, and he to the munificence of the most illustrious lord archbishop of Trier; to which he then adds two bones of the same by the gift of Nicholas, abbot of St. Maximinus, and various bones received from our college at Luxembourg. Finally, he says at p. 492 and following that he himself saw in our church at Luxembourg two little caskets, set here and there at the high altar upon the curtains of the same altar beside the columns, filled with relics of the Martyrs of Trier. Willot in the Belgian Hagiology, written in the French tongue, writes thus in general at the sixth of October: In several cities, monasteries, and places of Belgium the bodies and notable parts of the Martyrs of Trier are kept and honored; particularly in the Münster monastery at Luxembourg, as also among the Jesuits of the same place, at Namur, Valenciennes, Lille, Douai, Saint-Omer, etc. To these may be added our churches of Lier and Ypres, which likewise rejoice in treasures of the same Martyrs. I pass over the virgins of St. Clare at Lille, the church of St. Peter and the college of the Scots at Douai, the abbey of Liessies in Hainaut, the monastery of St. Winnoc of the Benedictine Order at Bergues in Flanders, where also various relics of the Theban Martyrs, or at any rate of those of Trier, are found, on Rays's testimony.

[171] Several relics of the holy Martyrs of Trier are also kept by our Professed house at Antwerp, namely in the Professed house of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp. received by the liberality of the people of Trier. Of these, in the year 1594, on the 28th day of May, William Bretz, dean of St. Paulinus's, gave as a gift to Oliver Manare, Provincial of our Society through the Belgian province, two heads together with some shin-bones and other portions; and the authentic letters of the donation run thus: We William Bretz of Berncastel, dean of the collegiate church of Blessed Paulinus by the walls of the city of Trier, acknowledge by the tenor of these presents that at the instance of the reverend father Oliver Manare, Provincial prepositus of the Society of Jesus through Belgium, and of the reverend father John Melander, procurator of the college of the Society of Jesus, certain relics of the Martyrs of Trier have been sought and given hence by us, namely two heads together with some shin-bones and other portions. All of which we have drawn from the authentic and true reliquary of the holy Martyrs, both of the inhabitants of this city and of the cohort of the Theban legion. In testimony whereof it has pleased us to confirm these presents with our seal and with the subscription of our own hand. Given at Trier, 1594, the 28th of May.

William of Berncastel, dean of St. Paulinus's.

[172] In the same year too, on the day before the Kalends of June, John de Valle, with authentic letters, by which they are given, abbot of St. Martin's in the suburb of Trier, bestowed on the same fathers Manare and Melander some relics, drawn from the authentic and true reliquary of the holy Martyrs of Trier, both of the inhabitants and of the cohort of the Theban legion, as the authentic letters given on that matter by the same abbot teach, subscribed with his own hand and fortified with his seal, which our Professed house at Antwerp keeps to this day. They are conceived in almost the same words as the immediately preceding ones of William Bretz; it will therefore suffice to set down verbatim the relics of the Martyrs of Trier mentioned in them. And they are these: Seven entire shin-bones, two portions of a jawbone with some teeth, two broader bones, one entire posterior part of a cranium, again a small portion of another, likewise some smaller bones … of the clotted blood of the Martyrs of Trier. To these also (so the authentic letters continue) the Venerable lord pastor of St. Paul added two anterior portions of crania and two middle shin-bones.

[173] That Fr. Tirinus had an equal care for enriching the church of our Professed house with relics of the holy Martyrs of Trier fortified is clear from the authentic letters both of Lothair, archbishop of Trier, and of Nicholas, abbot of St. Maximinus, which I set down. Lothair's letters run thus: Lothair, by the grace of God archbishop of Trier, archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire through Gaul and the kingdom of Arles, and prince elector, perpetual administrator of Prüm, we make known by the tenor of these presents that, when by the honorable and religious man devoted sincerely to us

and beloved, James Tirinus, prepositus of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp, we were requested for certain sacred relics, we, wishing to gratify his pious desire and devotion, graciously gave him these following relics, taken from the treasury of our sacred relics, namely: two almost entire heads, four parts of crania, two jawbones, six oblong bones, from the Holy legion of the Theban Martyrs of Trier; and that those relics have hitherto been piously held and retained as such we attest by these our letters, fortified with the subscription of our hand and the impression of our seal. Given in our Augusta of the Treveri on the twenty-first day of the month of August, in the year from the Virgin's childbearing one thousand six hundred and seventeen.

Lothair, archbishop of Trier. S.

✠ place of the seal.

[174] with testimonies, But the authentic letters of Nicholas, abbot of St. Maximinus, sound thus: Nicholas, by the grace of God abbot of the imperial monastery of St. Maximinus, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, etc. We make known by these presents that in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and seventeen, to the greater glory of God and the honor of the holy Martyrs, at the solicitation of the reverend Father James Tirinus, Prepositus of the Professed house of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp, licentiate of most holy Theology, we have given as a gift and conferred from the notable treasury of holy relics of our monastery, or of that most ancient church, by St. Helena the empress and her son Constantine the emperor [], three great bones from the legion of the Thebans, whose commander was St. Boniface, who in the time of Rictiovarus were visited with martyrdom. We testify besides that the relics now named have been reverently held and reputed in our aforesaid monastery as true, certain, and sacred relics from of old and from the memory of men, and are at present so held and reputed; as is established to us with undoubted truth from the archives and very ancient instruments of our monastery. In testimony whereof we have ordered and caused these present letters, subscribed with our own hand, to be fortified with the impression of our seal. Given from our aforesaid monastery, the twenty-second of the month of August, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and seventeen.*

Nicholas, abbot of St. Maximinus.

By mandate: Daniel Mayer, notary by imperial authority, alderman and secretary of the well-remembered monastery.

[175] and approved by Malderus, bishop of Antwerp. Finally, in the year 1619 our Professed house at Antwerp received other relics of the Martyrs of Trier from the monastery of St. Paulinus, by the labor of Fr. Gisbert Curbeck, from the same William Bretz or Brexius, of whom above at n. 171 — namely three oblong bones and one portion of a cranium, as I learn again from the authentic letters kept in our aforesaid house and kindly shown me by the Reverend Fr. Prepositus Ignatius vanden Driesch; to which others too may be joined, which came into the hands of the Professed of Antwerp together with letters of donation; and all of which, as also those mentioned before, John Malderus, bishop of Antwerp, at the prayers of the Reverend Fr. John de Tollenaer, Prepositus of the professed house of Antwerp, having recognized them, permitted to be exposed to public veneration on the thirtieth day of the month of October in the year of the Lord 1625.

[176] they were sent besides into more remote parts of the world. But Baldesano, in book 2 On the Theban Martyrs, p. 233, is authority that Italy too was not destitute of our Martyrs' relics; for on his testimony, by the favor and gift of the chapter of St. Paulinus of Trier, some heads and bones of the Theban Martyrs of Trier were brought to Milan; of which one, with bones of a shin and an arm, was given to our college called St. Mary of Brera, and reverently laid there beneath the high altar in the year 1582. On the same testimony too, John Francis Bonhomi, Apostolic nuncio through Germany, carried to Vercelli some heads and notable bones of those Martyrs, received at Trier; which, upon his death, were placed partly in the cathedral church of St. Eusebius, partly in the church of our Society sacred to the Most Holy Trinity, with the consent of Sixtus V, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1588, where they are held in much honor. Baldesano adds that their relics passed also to Genoa into the college of our Society, as likewise into Spain; but what these are, or where they are kept, he does not declare. In our manuscript Codex marked S. 19 there is inserted a Calendar of the Saints whose Offices are celebrated on account of their notable relics kept in the church of St. Francis at Bologna, fortified with the subscription of Brother Innocent, Guardian; and this at the sixth of October has as follows: A head of the innumerable Martyrs of Trier.

Supply founded*.

THE ACTS.

By an anonymous author.

From Hontheim's edition in vol. 1 of the Prodromus of the History of Trier.

Thyrsus, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.) His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. Boniface, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.) His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. BHL Number: 8284

A. By an anonymous author.

PROLOGUE.

The author makes God the beginning of his writing.

Of the late Although, as Sacred Scripture testifies, in the beginning with God all things were created together as regards the substance of things, as it is written: He that liveth for ever created all things together ^a; yet they did not all come forth into appearance together as regards the diversity of their forms. For, as the most blessed bishop of the church of Riez, Prosper, testifies in the work of selections which he makes from the books of St. Augustine: That which is new in time is not new with Him who founded it, and who without time has all things which He distributes to each in their own times according to their variety ^b. We see, therefore, that it belongs to the innumerable reasoning of this divine dispensation that, just as on the sixth day, when living creatures of diverse kinds had been created, man too was created who should preside over them, so in the sixth age of the world ^c God, the Creator of all things, long foresignified in the patriarchs and prophets, was by spiritual conception incarnate in a virginal womb — whose is the dominion over all the adornment of heaven and earth; and the adornment of heaven is the angels, but the adornment of earth is men and beasts and the various offspring of the earth.

[2] He therefore, more than Abraham of many nations, the excuse for the finding more than Isaac obedient to his Father, more than Noah was made drunk with the cup of the Passion; and among the Jewish people, as Noah in his tent, was stripped bare by his own son Ham ^d; when by the very members of His own household — from whom He had taken the veil of flesh, as though some tent — He was contemptuously handled. For there the weakness of His mortality was laid bare and made manifest; there, as the Prophet had foretold of Him, His strength was hidden ^e; and, as Noah, roused from sleep and taught by a prophetic spirit, pursued the impiety of his son Ham with a curse, so the prophet David, who bore the type of the Lord, detested with a not dissimilar curse the impiety of the Jews despising the weakness of the Lord sleeping on the cross, saying of them: Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered ^f, etc.; just as also the other two sons of Noah, namely Shem and Japheth, unwilling either to see or to hear their father's nakedness, and covering it with a cloak, received their father's blessing; so all who humbly venerate the mystery of the Lord's Passion have nonetheless deserved to be blessed and multiplied by the blessing of the divine Fatherhood; whose state also of future naming and enlarging [*] by God was foresignified in the names of those same sons of Noah ^g.

[3] But we have briefly tasted these things beforehand for this reason, is offered. that we might make Him who is the fount and origin of all goods the beginning also of this — namely, of that brief discourse which we shall make concerning the holy Martyrs of the city of Trier; and that we might show, with His help, that the order of His unchangeable dispensation was fulfilled in them also — He who therefore, as we believe, called them forth from the uttermost ends of the earth, that He might at last receive in this place their marrowy holocausts, meaning to reward them with perpetual peace, and might make the inhabitants of that same place, who cherish such precious relics of His Saints, partakers through their patronage of the peace granted to His faithful.

ANNOTATIONS.

f. Psalm 67, ℣ 2.

dilatationis* (enlargement)

CHAPTER I.

The passion of the holy Martyrs and the place of their burial.

While Maximian raged against the Christians, Since, therefore, the inevitable order of the divine dispensation demanded both that the ardor of malice which was in the unbelievers, in Maximian and Diocletian, kindled by the devil, should boil over, and that the love of justice which was in the holy Secundus ^a, Thyrsus, Maurice, and their Companions [], blazing from the lamp of divine charity, should become known — according to that saying of the Psalmist: The wickedness of sinners shall be consumed, and thou shalt direct the just* ^b, that is, that the sinner should sin yet more and the just be justified yet more ^c — there is summoned by Maximian, surnamed Herculius, first caesar and afterwards Augustus, a legion of the Eastern region. Which, enrolled according to the law of the Roman service and equipped with military arms, was sent over by the Roman emperor Diocletian to crush the forces of the enemies of the Romans ^d. And there were set over this legion commanders, of whose names two have come to our knowledge: the one called Thyrsus, the other Secundus. But the name of the chief centurion of that same legion, as we have received from our predecessors, was Maurice ^e. There were indeed in that legion other commanders of the army and chief men too ^f, for the forgetfulness of whose names and merits we blame the negligence of our predecessors — whose diligence nevertheless we commend for those little documents of letters which we have found inscribed concerning the merits of those same Saints, whether on leaden or on marble tablets or on very ancient little sheets ^g.

[2] This, namely, we have found written on a leaden tablet, buried rather deep in the earth near the bodies of those same Martyrs in the crypt of our holy father Paulinus, SS. Thyrsus and his Companions, MM. that one of the commanders of the aforesaid legion, namely Thyrsus, came with very many of his Companions and soldiers into the city of Trier, when he heard that his fellow soldiers, who clung to Maurice the standard-bearer of the legion and refused to consent to the worship of idols, had been butchered by the emperor Maximian near the lower parts of the Alps ^h. But why that company of Companions chose this place above all for their passion, the first reason that occurs is indeed that of divine predestination

— the inevitable disposition which, as without time and place it contains all things, so distributes to each time and place its fitting businesses ⁱ.

[3] Thus, namely, among other inestimable things, God and Man foresaw Bethlehem for His Nativity, by the divine providence disposing it, Jerusalem for His Passion. Then not without reason can we conjecture this also from this matter, that blessed Marcellus, bishop of the Roman See at that same time, among the other arms of Christian warfare which he conferred upon them as they sought his counsel in the city of Rome ^k and confessed that they had been initiated ^l into the faith of Christ by baptism at the hands of the bishop of Jerusalem, provided these salutary defenses also for their need: that, since they were being compelled to undertake war against the Christians of Gaul, they should themselves for this reason venerate the name of Christianity, so that, joining themselves to the chief men of Gaul ^m and taking up with them the cross of the Lord through endurance of death, they might, the number of their Companions being thus increased, acquire for themselves heaped-up rewards of their sufferings.

[4] Other fitting and apt conjectures might be made from this matter; they come to Trier; but it is better meanwhile in this place to bless and praise the name of the Lord, whose inestimable counsel of wisdom is established to have been fulfilled in the blessed arrival of those Companions at this place and in their ever-to-be-blessed passion there. For they came into the city of Trier only by divine ordinance; whence they were received by the most Christian chief men of that same city — who recognized in them the signs of Christianity and of peace — in Christian and friendly fashion, hospitably and honorably, with the highest charity, which is in the Lord, ordaining this ⁿ.

[5] where, being kindly received. For when to these chief men they had tearfully reported the cause of their setting out from the East and of their arrival at this place, and had humbly asked at once their counsel and their aid, the hearts of all, both of the citizens and of the guests, were so kindled in the love of God with the blazing ardor of the Holy Spirit that they exhorted one another to offer themselves rather to the undertaking of death for the love of Christ than to the veneration of idols and the attacking of Christians. Nevertheless it is not to be doubted that, if the Thebans joined to the people of Trier had wished to contend with material arms, they could well enough resist and even prevail against the power of that prefect of the Romans, Rictiovarus ^o; especially since we read in the Roman and Gallic histories that the very emperor Caesar of the Romans, with all the forces of soldiers he could have, was long and greatly wearied by the citizens of Trier alone [p]. So much for this.

[6] on the 4th of October they are slain by Rictiovarus: Scarcely, then, had they fortified one another with the arms of holy exhortation, when behold, Rictiovarus, the prefect (so to speak) of Roman iniquity, sent over by the aforesaid Maximian, entered the city of the Treveri with his most iniquitous henchmen; who, having first summoned to himself the Christians of the Theban legion, for whose sake chiefly he had come, asked whether they too were willing to adore the gods of the Romans and to subdue their detractors by arms [q]. And when Thyrsus, commander of the aforesaid legion, answered him that he and all his Companions and Soldiers would rather die for the love of Christ and for the observance of Him and of His religion than be polluted with sacrilege of this kind — what he himself said, we do not know; but what he did, we know. For as men of most happy memory, whose souls are blessed for ever, noted down [r] — namely on the leaden tablet which we have said above [s] was found in the crypt of the most holy bishop of the Treveri — on the first day of his baleful entry into this city, which was the fourth before the Nones of October, he slew Thyrsus with his Companions.

[7] and on the following day St. Palmatius and his Companions, MM. And on the following day Rictiovarus slew Palmatius, consul and patrician, with the other chief men of that same city [t], whose names, in view of the multitude of the matters, were found there very few indeed. For very many titles of dignities existed in this city, as in the city of Rome; for it was not only for the equality of its buildings, but also for the rivalry of its dignities [u], that this city was called a second Rome. But out of all these names both of men and of dignities (which we do not say without grief) we have found only thirteen names on the lead [x]; of which one was the name of the commander of the Theban legion, who was called Thyrsus, and, placed at the left side of St. Paulinus toward the East, testified in a manner by his very position that he had come from the Eastern region. But at the right of this St. Paulinus's body lies the body of the holy martyr Palmatius, consul of the city of Trier and patrician; he, while with his right side he looks toward you, O city of Trier, seems even by this manner of his placing to hold out to you the help of his right hand [y].

[8] buried in the crypt of St. Paulinus, of whom he here records seven; And at the head of Paulinus — often mentioned, to be mentioned more often — the bodies of seven Senators are placed as so many candlesticks, shining in the house of the Lord more than the seven stars of heaven, the venerable ordering of whose position [z] is to be celebrated for no slight mystery. For that arrangement proves that they were heavenly living creatures, seeing that they were drawn up as though the battle-line of a camp; and, as the living creatures of heaven appeared to Ezekiel, they joined the wings of one to another. And then indeed they were so joined by Felix, archbishop of the Treveri of most happy memory, the grace of the Holy Spirit working with him; but now [aa], the most precious treasure of their bodies having been made manifest [*] through the mercy of God, when the crypt was being built in their honor, the adornment of that same crypt seemed to demand that, a space of fifteen feet being left between, they should be so separated from one another that the right part of that crypt should receive four of them, and the left three joined together again as before.

[9] But the parts of this number seven seem not to be devoid of a sacred mystery. and to this number the anonymous writer alludes ineptly: For that very mystery of eternal blessedness which the sum of this number promises us, on the testimony of authors of divine and human wisdom, its constitutive parts too — namely three and four — seem to contain, on the testimony of Virgil [bb], truly the most learned of the pagan poets; who, wishing to show that the perfect blessedness both of body and of soul is signified by this number, says in a certain place: O thrice and four times blessed. There are indeed other mysteries of this number, which it is a long business to unroll; and if the divine mercy shall have brought them to fulfillment in our misery through the merits of those Saints, this sevenfold number of Saints will alone suffice to purge us from all defilement of body and soul.

[10] Yet there are in the same crypt four other bodies of holy martyrs also, presently he adds four others for the showing of whose names and merits we shall set down no words better than those same which are on the lead; and these are the words of festive memory which are carved there: At the feet of St. Paulinus, placed on either side, are four Men most illustrious by birth and virtue, who, although in time of peace they worshipped Christ in secret, yet in time of persecution so openly defended the faith of the Christians, so withstood Rictiovarus himself to his face, that he, having afflicted them much as an example to others with various kinds of torments, at last caused them to be beheaded in his presence. Of the two, then, placed toward the South, the inner is called Hormista, and the outer Papirius; but of those whose sides look toward the North, the inner is likewise called Constans, the outer Jovianus.

[11] Few, then, as we have said, in view of the multitude of the matters, and, a few things being narrated, he passes to the finding of the MM. and small in view of the greatness of the matters, are these words which the divine mercy, looking down from on high, has preserved to our times, and has revealed to us sinners, hidden from our betters by some secret counsel of His goodness [cc]. For the rest, the significance of the mysteries sounding in these words, few though they be, is so strong and mighty that, if anyone in this age were endowed with a talent for writing equal to that of St. Gregory, he would scarcely be able worthily to describe the merits of their sufferings and the marks of their virtues — much less ought the slenderness of our talent to suffice for a fitting description of them and for a worthy giving of thanks to God for the revelation of them divinely celebrated among us. Wherefore we think it better to be silent about these things than, while we say too little of them in view of the greatness of the matters, to go on extenuating great matters by small ways of writing. But this we must of necessity transmit to posterity in whatever little manner of writing: by what ordinance of divine predestination we have been gladdened by this manifestation of the Saints.

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Psalm 7, ℣ 10.

k. The Martyrs

that the Thebans went to the Roman Pontiff is only the assertion of more recent writers, propped by no testimony of antiquity; nor does anything of this kind occur in Eucherius. It is therefore all one whether Caius, or Marcellus, or any other whatever occupied the Roman See. Elsewhere Marcellinus is read.

p. Indutiomarus, chief man of the Treveri, waged war with the Romans under Julius Caesar; and when he had been conquered and slain by Labienus, the Treveri renewed the war against the Romans, so that Caesar himself resolved to set out against them; but Labienus, his forces increased by Caesar, and the Treveri being again conquered by a stratagem, a few days afterwards recovered their city; which Caesar himself explains at greater length in books 5 and 6 of his Commentaries on the Gallic War.

q. They therefore had two things in their mandates: the one, that they should sacrifice to idols; the other, that they should persecute the Christians; but they refused to carry out either. Exactly the same St. Eucherius hands down concerning the Martyrs of Agaunum. That they were compelled to sacrifice to idols is gathered from these words of Eucherius: But when the repeated announcement reached the Thebans, and it was learned by them that profane executions were again being enjoined upon them, an outcry and tumult arose everywhere in the camp, of men affirming that they would never yield to anyone in such sacrilegious services; that they had always detested the profanities of idols; that they had been steeped in Christian rites and instructed in the worship of the divine religion; that they worshipped the one God of the holy Trinity; and that it was better to undergo the utmost than to come against the Christian faith. That they were compelled also to the destruction of the Christians, Eucherius affirms in more than one place. First he writes thus: And so, when these, like the rest of the soldiers, were detailed to drag off a multitude of Christians, they alone dared to refuse the service of cruelty, and deny that they will obey his commands. Then thus: And, his mandates being renewed, he (Maximian) decrees that the rest be compelled to the persecution of the Christians. Nothing therefore occurs in these words of the anonymous writer which you may deservedly reprehend.

r. More probably in the year 882. See §2.

s. In the year 1071, or rather in the following one.

t. Of them we shall treat at the fifth of October, on which they were slain and are noted in the Roman Martyrology.

Not only was there a senate at Trier in imitation of the Roman curia, but it was the seat of various emperors and of Maximian. Ausonius compares Trier to Rome in the Moselle, ℣ 381 and following:

Hail, great parent of crops and of men, Moselle; Thee illustrious nobles, thee a youth practiced in war, Thee an eloquence rivaling the Latin tongue adorns. Nay, nature has granted to thy nurslings both character And a glad wit with serene brow, Nor does Rome alone display her ancient Catos.

There are extant also in Brouwer the letters of the Roman senate itself to that of Trier, which may be seen in him at the year of Christ 276, n. 61.

x. The names of each are given below at the end of chapter 2.

y. What he here brings forward about the position of Thyrsus is mere play of wit: for in fact he looks with his side toward the North, as Palmatius toward the South — which the author also sets down below (n. 10) concerning the four Martyrs resting on either side at the feet of St. Paulinus. Hontheim in the Annotations here.

z. Concerning the position of the Martyrs in the crypt of St. Paulinus, see n. 117.

aa. The anonymous writer therefore wrote about the year 1072, in which the crypt was enlarged.

bb. Aeneid, book 1, ℣ 98.

cc. It is plain from this context, and from what is presently subjoined, that before the year 1071 and apart from a divine revelation nothing was known at Trier by human tradition about this treasure. So Hontheim in the passage cited: yet it was known before the irruption of the Normans of the year 882.

Sociisque* (and their Companions)

manifestato* (made manifest)

CHAPTER II.

The finding of the holy Martyrs.

The canons of St. Paulinus, by the Acts of SS. Gentian and Fuscian, There were, namely, in that congregation of the canons of St. Paulinus ^a certain brethren venerably kindled with zeal for holy religion ^b: these therefore, while among other works of piety they gave no small attention to the reading of the page of sacred scripture ^c, were accustomed rather frequently to set before the sight of body and mind those things which seemed to look to the honor of the church of Trier, namely their mother — not forgetful, perhaps, nay indeed in truth, of that precept which says, Honor thy father and thy mother ^d, and of the others which urge in this manner a just manner of life. Among the manifold titles to fame of this place, therefore, the Passion of the holy martyrs Gentian and Victoricus ^e occurred to them rather frequently; and as often as it sounded in their bodily ears the innumerable slaughter of Christians made in the city of Trier by Rictiovarus, so often did their heart tremble at once with grief and with joy: with grief indeed on account of so great and so precious a treasure of holy bodies unknown; but with joy on account of the truth of the matter, which they had learned through so great an authority of sacred writing. For the Passion of those Saints reported that, when Rictiovarus had entered Trier, so great an outpouring of the blood of Saints was made by him there that the streams of gore, mingled with the water beside which they were slain and carried down into the Moselle, turned it into their own color, so that, its natural brightness being removed, it grew red with a foreign rather than with its own hue. And there follows: The wave also then furnished a tomb for the unburied bodies of the Saints, that it might present them, the fabric of their limbs restored, at the judgment to come. Placed therefore in this anxiety of mind, having imposed upon themselves disciplines of fasting, sometimes of two days, sometimes of three, they besought the divine goodness that it would deign to show them some token of so holy a deposit, through which His blessed name might be blessed and praised from age to age.

[13] and of a certain Folbert Therefore, that God's promise might remain unmoved, which says, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them ^f (for there were three brethren of this intention), they soon felt God's help being afforded them for this intention. For before they had completed the three days' fast a third time, God sent them as a helper a certain layman of holy conversation, by name Folbert, the same deprived of the sight of his eyes; whom one of the three aforesaid brethren, namely Cuono, sacristan of the monastery of St. Paulinus, receiving into his house out of zeal for holy hospitality, sustained with sufficient and agreeable attentiveness. Now his evening food was a very small loaf, not exceeding half a palm in breadth, having two parts of flour and a third part of ashes, with some kind of herbs, either raw or not well cooked, and unsalted, together with a draught of water of the smallest measure, certainly not to exceed its own little scale.

[14] Gladdened not a little by such consolation of divine help, and greatly animated to hope for greater gifts of God, by a vision, they disclosed to this brother the plan which they had conceived about this matter, and asked that the more earnest zeal of his devotion be supplied them for this business. But he, as he was ready to afford to all the whole supplement of his strength — according, that is, to that example of the Doctor of the Gentiles, when he said that he had been made all things to all men ^g — so intensified for this cause his accustomed manner of fasting, that for three continuous days he took absolutely no nourishment of the body; but by day, going about all the monasteries of this city on bare feet, as he was accustomed to walk, he passed the nights of the same days in the monastery of the often-named father Paulinus, sleepless in prayer. Whence it came about that on the third night, after the first cock-crow, as he himself reported to us ^h, while with his face abundantly bathed in tears he was intently and (as he says) with a certain importunity of prayers calling upon the Lord, he was suddenly seized in an ecstasy of mind, and thought that he was standing in some as it were underground monastery, very spacious ⁱ and beautiful.

[15] Where, while with the eyes of the mind he saw a multitude which he could not number ^k of slain men walking about and showing various mutilations of their limbs, they are animated to the search for the Martyrs, having gathered after some time the powers of mind which he had lost, when some of them offered themselves to him as though only for this, that they might be questioned by him, he said: Who are you, sirs, and by whom were you butchered? To whom one, who appeared the elder among them, replied: We fled hither from the persecutions of the pagans, and, being sought out by them for punishment, we underwent these sufferings which you see ^l. Nor, having heard more words from him, did he return to his former state of sober mind. At last, girt with all the powers of his mind to render thanks to God, he asked Him the more attentively that, if this vision were from Him, He would deign to show it to him a third time; which also he obtained: for, falling asleep twice in prayer before daybreak, he was gladdened by the same vision ^m. And so when morning came, having called the three brethren to him, he narrated his vision to them in order, and labored with great exhortation to persuade them of this, that they should not desist from the zeal of prayer they had begun before they knew the comfort of the divine mercy to be at hand for them, promising them on the part of Him who loves the long-suffering in hope that within the space of one year the divine comfort would be present to them in this inquiry.

[16] This exhortation being made, and rendering thanks to God for the brotherly reception of hospitality which he had found among them, and by a certain old Hymn of St. Paulinus he humbly asked them not to weave for him then any occasions of remaining longer in this place, since he would gladly complete the journey to St. James long since determined upon. And so indeed he departed from them; but they burn daily with a greater desire for the zeal of the holy inquiry; wherefore, having sought help both from the monks and from the canons and from the holy nuns, religious women, they applied themselves to fastings and prayers and also to bestowals of alms more than at the beginning. Whence it happened that to a certain religious sister of this communion, by name Frideburga, resting at midday on her bench in the monastery of St. Mary the Mother of the Lord ⁿ, there came a clear voice which said: Go, search in the most ancient

sheets for golden letters as a testimony to them. Roused by the noise of this loud-sounding voice, when, having lifted her head from the bench, she looked about and saw no one, she had scarcely laid her head back in the same posture of rest when again the same voice sounded in her ears more plainly than before. Rising up again, therefore, and fortified with the sign of the holy Cross, when she had in view no author of this voice, she laid back her head again — not to sleep, but to await the third coming of this voice. And then indeed, as she herself reported to us ^o, the same voice came to her as it were with a certain austerity of command, and terrified her not a little, now not sleeping but waking; and so rising, filled rather with terror than with anguish, seeking with great haste the sister who was keeper of the library, and finding her, and having made to her a sign of her anxiety, she led her to the cupboard, meaning to shake out the heap of sheets. Nor had they turned over many volumes of books before one most ancient book of Hymns [p], written in the Scottish hand [], came into their hands; which at length being opened, there occurred to them rather frequently a certain Hymn about St. Paulinus, long enough, in which his illustrious deeds of holiness, although they had a certain rusticity of composition, yet flourished with no slight elegance of matter. For it reported what a war that Saint endured for the Catholic faith against the Arians; how he was sent into exile by those very enemies of the Catholic faith; and the same Hymn contained also how he converted to the faith of Christ the very Phrygians [] among whom he was in exile, signs and miracles having been wrought before the kings of that land; likewise, that after he had manfully run the course of this life, when he had received there from the Lord the prize of eternal recompense, the precious treasure of his body was recovered by the people of Trier, by the divine will and with the help of miracles — this too was woven in there.

[17] they learn the place of the buried Martyrs, Concerning the venerable position of his burial, which was celebrated in his glorious reception, these words are set down there: They laid him beside the most illustrious and renowned offspring of Trier, where sleep the very many bodies of the Pilgrims, who, rising to their rewards on the last day of the world, shall meet the Lord in the air with gladness [q]. These testimonies of sacred writing, then, unheard before, they read over with thanksgiving to God and with holy exultation of mind; but whether the admonitions of the vision were echoed in them, or whether these words signified that something was to be sought through them, they did not yet understand. Wherefore, having called to them one of the three brethren whom we have named, they both narrated to him the admonition of the voice — doubtless angelic — which the aforesaid sister had received, and showed him the book of Hymns which at the prompting of that same voice they had found among the most ancient, so to speak, of the volumes of the ancients. And he, as soon as he turned over in his mind their common intention of prayer and the consolation of the divine vision heard and seen, judged that the will of God's compassion was in this: that He should therefore fit to them this little book, making mention of the Pilgrims, whereby He might in this way inspire in us a fuller desire of seeking them. And so it came about: for as soon as that book of Hymns was brought into the assembly of the brethren and that Hymn was recited there, the hearts of all the brethren present were so kindled to inquire further that there was one opinion among all the more prudent of them concerning the breaking open of the crypt of St. Paulinus for the sake of this inquiry; concerning which matter, counsel having been taken with the chief men of the city, they asked leave for this from the lord archbishop Udo, and scarcely indeed obtained it.

[18] For that same crypt had been so fortified by design [r], and they find the bodies, that, unless the principal altar of that same monastery were moved, no room was given for breaking it open; whence, by a counsel not unbefitting his gravity, the lord archbishop was not easy [s], in deferring leave to break open so great a sanctuary. The crypt therefore being broken open, there were found around the sarcophagus of St. Paulinus six sarcophagi, of which two were set at his sides, while four clung to his feet on either side in such a way that two of them stood on each side; likewise at the head of the same our holy father seven sarcophagi of holy Martyrs, fragrant with as many bodies, were placed. And all these the industry of those who placed them had so bound together that, vaults having been made over each pair of sarcophagi, no room was given, as has been said, for moving them, unless the chief altar of the monastery were first moved. There had moreover been made — not by the laborious builder of this crypt, but by some man zealous for this place and for the holy bodies which are there — a certain small altar at the feet of our holy father, built onto his sarcophagus [t]; the removal of which, and a certain digging of the earth beneath it, was the full consolation of our expectation. For there was found there a marble tablet [u], and when this was lifted, a leaden tablet of the same breadth appeared [x]; and this too being lifted, and at length cleansed by much pouring of water and much rubbing with pig's bristle, it reported to us both the names of those Martyrs and the times of the Martyrs, the names too of the persecutors; and the engraving of this lead sang to us very many other titles of the highest festivity. The text, therefore, of this engraving we have wished to insert here in full.

[19] In this crypt lie the bodies of Saints, most noble according to the dignity of the world, together with the leaden tablet, but according to the will of God precious Martyrs. For Rictiovarus, the prefect of the emperor Maximian, having by his order persecuted the Theban legion on every side, entered this city also on their account; and when he had slain innumerable of them here, he slew along with them these chief men of this city also, Confessors of the Christian faith, whose bodies are placed here round about. But in the midst of them the body of St. Paulinus [y], most illustrious bishop of the Treveri, is suspended by iron chains [z], which St. Felix [aa], bishop of this see, having translated it from Phrygia by the forces of the whole realm, honorably suspended there on the third before the Ides of May; who also built that monastery in honor of the holy Mother of God and likewise of these same Martyrs [bb]. For besides the bodies of these Chief Men, innumerable bodies of the same multitude are contained in this monastery [cc]; whose names, like those of the innumerable people and of the pilgrim, could not be found, with the exception of one name of a Commander, who was called Thyrsus.

[20] embracing the History of the Martyrs. The names, therefore, of him and of those Martyrs whose sarcophagi can be seen here were written in golden letters on the wall of this crypt; which the devout Christians who were then alive [dd] transferred hither from thence, when they foreknew that the Northmen would lay waste this city, as they did the other cities on every side [ee]. He, then, who is laid on the right side of St. Paulinus was called Palmacius [ff], who as consul and patrician was chief over this whole city. But he who lies on his left side is called Thyrsus, whose name alone out of so great a multitude was noted, because he bore the command of that Legion [gg]. And at the head of this St. Paulinus lie seven most noble senators of this city, crowned with martyrdom together with those Thebans; of whom the middle one is called Maxentius, next to whom on the right lies the nearest, who has the name Constantius, after whom is Crescentius, and then Justinus. But those who lie on the left side of Maxentius were three brothers of the same parents, of whom the eldest, nearest Maxentius [hh], is Leander, next to whom Alexander, then Sother. And at the feet of St. Paulinus, placed on either side, are four men most illustrious by birth and virtue, who, although in time of peace they worshipped Christ in secret, yet in time of persecution openly and steadfastly defended the faith of the Christians; so much so that they withstood Rictiovarus himself to his face, so that he, having afflicted them much with various kinds of torments as if for an example to others, at last caused them to be beheaded in his presence. Of the two, then, placed toward the South, the inner is called Hormista, and the outer Papirius; but of those whose sides look toward the North, the inner is likewise called Constans, the outer Jovianus. And Rictiovarus entered Trier on the fourth before the Nones of October, and on that same day slew Thyrsus with his Companions; but on the following day Palmatius with the other chief men of the city; and on the third day he carried out a slaughter upon the common people of both sexes [ii].

ANNOTATIONS.

d. Exodus 20, ℣ 21.

whose bodies they had found in the crypt of St. Paulinus, were held for Saints by the people of Trier and by Archbishop Udo himself.

p. Of that Hymn I have treated at n. 10 and following.

q. How these words may be reconciled with the text of the tablet, see n. 13.

r. That the crypt was probably closed not long after the Norman invasion, I have said at n. 24.

s. Namely Udo, who, as Brouwer writes, was elected bishop of Trier in the year 1066 and ordained in the year 1068, and sat at Trier until the year 1077. To him some have wrongly ascribed the Martyrology composed by Ado of Vienne.

t. It is uncertain at what time: probably, however, a little after the disaster received from the Normans. See n. 33.

u. On this passage Hontheim notes thus: There seems to have been no lettering on this one. But why then are marble tablets praised above as documents? Foolishly indeed would the anonymous writer have praised the marble tablet as an ancient document, if no lettering had ever been engraved on it. And even from this it can probably be conjectured that the names of the Martyrs were inscribed on it in golden letters before the irruption of the Normans; especially since the leaden tablet affirms that the names of the Martyrs, expressed in golden letters, were transferred into the same place in which the tablet was laid away. For it is scarcely possible, says Hontheim himself in the History of the Martyrs of Trier, §14, that those memorial letters, being intended by those who set them up to endure as long as possible, were committed directly to an underground wall, since the very damp, the saltpetre, and the mould would have consumed them within a few years. But if you contend that the names of the Martyrs were inscribed on several other tablets besides the one mentioned, those certainly ought afterwards to have been found together with the tablet, and the anonymous writer ought to have made mention of them as of so many monuments — which he does not do. Further, if that marble tablet contained the names of the Martyrs expressed in golden letters, it could also have contained more than these, and have served as a foundation for the maker of the leaden tablet. See what was said at n. 78 and following.

x. This finding more probably happened in the year 1072, as was said at n. 22; especially since Sigebert begins the year from Easter, and thus does not seem to disagree with Lambert of Hersfeld.

y. His Acts illustrated you have in vol. VI of August, at the last day of that month.

z. That it was formerly not unusual for the bodies of Saints to be suspended has been shown at n. 24. For the rest, from these words of the tablet compared with what precedes and follows, it appears more likely that the tablet was made, as the Norman invasion pressed, while the body of St. Paulinus was still suspended. See n. 26 and following.

aa. That the body of St. Paulinus was brought back from Phrygia to Trier by the forces of the whole realm seems fabulous, but perhaps the anonymous writer only meant it to be signified that St. Felix accomplished this not without the greatest difficulty. The Acts of St. Felix you have in vol. III of March, at the 26th day of that month.

bb. So the tradition of the people of Trier had it in the ninth century; and the condition of the time in which Felix presided over the people of Trier does not overthrow it. See n. 37 and following.

cc. The Companions of St. Thyrsus were not innumerable in number; here, then, the anonymous writer exceeds the bounds of truth.

dd. From these words it does not follow that the tablet was composed after the Norman invasion. See n. 28 and following.

ee. Among the places laid waste by the Normans before they came to Trier, Regino recounts these: Liège, Maastricht, Tongres, Cologne Agrippina, Bonn, Zülpich, Vilpiacum, Neuss, Aachen, Malmedy, Stavelot.

ff. He will be treated of at the fifth of October, on which his name is inscribed in the Martyrology.

gg. Or, because he was one of the commanders of the legion.

hh. These words Brouwer omitted through the drowsiness of a copyist; but they are found in all the manuscript copies, of which we have seen several. Hontheim here.

ii. It appears probable that some of the things here narrated were drawn from the marble tablet affixed to the wall of the crypt of St. Paulinus before the Norman invasion, but that those who made the tablet, or saw to its making, added some things of their own. I have distinguished both at n. 80 and following.

* Or in the Gothic hand?

Phrygas* (the Phrygians)

CHAPTER III.

The miracle of a bone pouring forth blood.

To the confusion of unbelievers, This letter, then, was read, and presently transcribed onto very many sheets, to the great rejoicing of all the faithful of God who heard it ^a. Nor yet was there lacking, even in that college of God's faithful ^b, the dissension of a malignant church, which did not receive these benefits of the divine compassion with the reverence it ought; but, instigated by a malignant spirit, presumed to tear them with envious teeth ^c. For the rest, the Lord took care to break their teeth, as being those of sinners ^d, when He multiplied in their sight, through the merits of the precious Martyrs at whose finding they did not rejoice, those signs which, according to Paul's words, are given not to believers but to unbelievers ^e.

[22] Some of these, therefore, that we may agree in this with the Apostolic sayings (not so much for the instructing of Christ's faithful while the crypt of St. Paulinus is enlarged, as for the admonishing of those same ministers of unbelief toward the right faith and the reverence due to the Saints), we briefly note. The first of which was so notable, so memorable, and so wonderful too, that not only did the minds of the unbelievers, if any such there were, thereby waste away, but the very hearts of Christ's faithful trembled not a little thereat. For when, as we have said before, this revelation of the Saints having been made through the mercy of God, it had pleased our lord archbishop Udo and his chief men that the crypt should be suitably enlarged for the placing of the holy bodies, it was necessary that a great deal of earth be carried away from that same place in clearing it ^f. Now before that same monastery of the often-named father Paulinus, on the Western side, there was a certain marsh, so harmful to travelers that for those seeking that monastery, or wishing to return thence by this way, scarcely the narrowest path had been left through it. On which account it pleased most of the brethren of that place that the same earth which was carried from the monastery for the aforesaid necessity of preparing the crypt should be laid for the drying of that same marsh.

[23] And when this was being done, and the earth had now for six days been deposited there, a certain bone, found there, it happened that on the seventh day one of the canons of that place, before whose door that same marsh made a very great flooding, went out from his house with a view to leveling the earth laid there; and when, in shaking out the earth, he saw certain fragments of bones lying there, taking up one of them he carried it in his hand into his house. And having taken water, he carefully cleansed it, and, cleansed, commended it to a certain woman to keep until he should have opportunity of carrying it back into the monastery. And she, receiving it contemptuously, and asking why he judged it worthy of reverence, nevertheless placed it in her chest among rags and other various articles of a woman's furnishings; some kinds of spices also ^g had been laid away in that same chest.

[24] blood But when at the evening meal (as the reckoning of the Lenten season required) that brother wished to take refreshment with his people in the same house ^h, that girl to whom the bone had been committed began to be tormented with excessive pain of the heart; she began humbly and devoutly to beg the communion of the Lord's Body and Blood, or preparation for an approaching departure, by such signs of words as she could, since she could not with the words themselves. To whom that brother said: Have your chest brought to you, and look whether you have some kind of spice that may help the pain of your heart. This he said, and did not delay to bring her the chest for this cause to be opened. And this being scarcely opened, and the lid barely lifted — wonderful thing! — a whole overflowing of blood was poured out from that very small bone, so that the whole face of that woman, and her right sleeve of skin, was marvelously drenched with it. She too in that same hour was freed from her pain of heart. At which, struck with excessive terror, they at once besought the divine mercy with tearful prayers that by so immense a proclamation of His divinity He might condemn them by no judgment of body or soul. Which done, that same brother, running at speed to a certain brother whom he had proved more trustworthy to himself, brought him to the showing of this thing; and he, coming and lifting the lid of that same chest to look inside, (as he himself said) no one who did not see this could believe how the blood from that same bone still bubbled, bespattering the very lid of the chest and the whole apparatus of a woman's discipline which was [*] in that chest.

[25] it pours out abundantly, Whence he too, filled with no small amazement, carried it hastily into the monastery with all the things that were in it — now no longer women's ornaments, but rather things made as it were sacraments by the sprinkling of so precious a blood — and showed it there to all the Priors of that place, at once called together. And they, messengers of this matter being presently sent through all the monasteries of the whole city, cause all the abbots and provosts, chorepiscopi and deans, and not a few other brethren of good testimony ⁱ, to come to them in that same hour. But the lord archbishop was not then in that city; and all the other Priors of this place, quickly gathered into the cloister of St. Paulinus, were not a little gladdened by the magnificent portent of this miracle. For when the chest was brought into their presence, with the bone pouring forth blood without ceasing, one of those brethren took the bloody bone ^k into his hands, and when he had often emptied it, the blood being poured over into the chest, sooner than the word can be said it was filled with a greater flood of blood. A question having therefore been raised among the more prudent, on what occasion namely of so great a miracle those who had come together there had been struck by the dart of this miracle from a divine counsel, this one opinion arose for all from this matter: namely that on account of this sign greater reverence should be shown both to the bones of the Companions themselves and to their

ashes; to the increase of which reverence they said it pertained that the earth which, placed around their sarcophagi, had before been thrown out into the muddy place, as has been said, should thenceforth be venerably laid in some clean place; whose heap ^l, while it was not undeservedly called Galeed, that is, the Heap of testimony, might make the miracle wrought in the bone that had been placed beneath this earth speak to all posterity.

[26] This counsel, then, being given and commended, it pleased that same college of brethren also that, the chest being carried back into the monastery and placed upon the altar, the divine prudence should be praised by them with the common harmony of heart and mouth and of bells too — that prudence which does nothing save in great wisdom, as is fitting. To this praise of God, therefore, men and women of every order and age, young men and virgins, old men with the younger, coming together cheerfully from the whole city, when the praise was finished, returned to their homes, blessing the Lord for the astonishment of so unheard-of a miracle ^m. And that miracle happened on the fifth before the Nones of March, and it was a Saturday ⁿ. And at the ninth hour that gore began to flow from the bone, which was not seen to cease before the third hour of the second day of the week. The fame, therefore, of this miracle, flying far and wide, became the occasion of salvation for very many, while innumerable persons oppressed with various wearinesses of sickness, roused from every quarter at the fame of this miracle, came to this place humble and devout. And when, placed before this sacrament, they had lamented for the sins by which they had in some measure been punished, and had in some measure tasted the water given them, hallowed by the dipping of this bone, it is not credible save to Christ's faithful how very quickly they were freed from whatever plague weighed upon them. But if anyone shall curiously seek from us the number and order of these, let him believe himself satisfied by these words of Porphyry: They are in number, but not in an infinite one.

ANNOTATIONS.

l. See n. 128.

Supply in*.

CHAPTER IV.

Other miracles wrought at the tombs of the Martyrs.

At the tombs of the Martyrs a penitent's chain is loosed of its own accord, Not a few miracles were wrought besides, namely in that crypt where the bodies of the holy Martyrs were laid. Of these, some now occurring to our memory are briefly to be set down ^a. Of these the first was this, which, although it happens at very many memorials of the Saints, we nevertheless do not wish to deny it a place among these miracles too, which the ordinance of the divine goodness has deigned to grant it. For when the Lord archbishop, after hearing the fame of the miracle of the bone [], had come for the first time into that monastery of St. Paulinus for the sake of prayer, there came with him a certain penitent from the parts of Aquitaine [b], whose right arm was bound with iron ^c. He therefore entered with the lord prelate that pit — not to say crypt — which was not yet there [d], and, having made his prayer, rising there from the place where he had prayed lying on the ground, he went round the several sarcophagi in which the bodies of the Saints rested, saluting them one by one ^e. Which done, when, being about to depart from the monastery, he had gone out of the pit, and, as though about to ask leave of the Saints, had halted on the topmost edge of that same pit, turned toward the bodies of the Saints, that very iron band, which by its long position had already weakened his right arm and laid bare not only the flesh but also the sinews and bones of that arm, is cut apart in the place where it was firmest, and, making a marvelous leap on high, as if showing to all who were in the monastery the magnificence of the divine goodness and the power of the Saints by whose merits this happened before the divine might, fell with no slight clang upon one sarcophagus far enough removed. But that wretched man fell backward to the ground with no less force than the leaping iron sought the height of the air; where he lay lifeless so long until at last, restored by a draught of water poured into his mouth [] by the bishop's men who ran up, he rose, and, freed from this chain of sin, departed blessing God, magnificent in His Saints [f].

[28] After these things, on Palm Sunday ^g, which was then at hand, a deaf and mute woman, a certain woman who had been deprived both of the office of her tongue and of the hearing of her ears, her husband leading her and making a vow for her deliverance in the bodily presence of the holy Martyrs and in a not inconsiderable gathering of clergy and people, was restored to both offices ^h. Now it is the custom of the congregations of that place that on Palm Sunday they should all come together every year into that same monastery of St. Paulinus to the praise of God with a great multitude of people ⁱ. When therefore, according to this rite, a very great number both of clergy and of people had come together there on that day, and had said there the customary praises to the Lord, this woman was brought into the midst, a witness of the benefits divinely conferred on her there; for which benefits of God the great crowd, which had come together for the feast day, as has been said, rendered in common special praises and thanksgivings to God.

[29] Afterwards on the fifth before the Kalends of May [k], on which day, according to the appointment of Archbishop Egbert, very many crowds of the villages dwelling round about are wont to come to Trier with crosses likewise a mute boy with an ill-affected arm, and to go round all the monasteries of that city, a certain little boy was brought by his parents into the monastery of the often-mentioned father Paulinus — which henceforth can not undeservedly be called also that of the holy Martyrs. Now that boy had lost both the use of speaking and the use of moving his right arm to some extent. When therefore, having been led down into the crypt of the holy Martyrs, he had kissed their sarcophagi, he began to address his parents with words long unaccustomed on account of the chain of his tongue; and that he had received the use of moving his arm also, he did not delay to show by lifting a candle from one of the sarcophagi. And at that same hour the Lord Archbishop was in that same monastery, given over to the office of prayer with all the congregations of Canons of that place. Into whose presence that boy was brought, and upon the bishop's own questioning was proved to have recovered his health [l].

[30] a paralytic woman, Then, no long space of time having intervened, there is brought thither a certain girl who, while at one time she was occupied at weaving work, was so suddenly stricken with a paralytic disease that she could keep neither arms nor legs in their proper posture. This girl, therefore, quivering with a marvelous motion of her limbs, we saw laid beside the sarcophagus of the Saints ^m; where, while her mother held her head in her lap and her father with difficulty held down her arms and legs, she fell asleep a little while. And it came to pass, by God's compassion and the intercession of the Saints at whose memorial she lay, that after a short time, waking from sleep, she rose with her whole body sound, and, the soles of her feet and the sinews of her arms being restored to their native state, departed thence, praising God for the restoration of her health.

[31] a blind man, To this miracle there succeeded next in order this, that a certain countryman, sprung from the village which is called St. Aldegund's ⁿ, whose sight of the eyes had utterly failed, was led thither with his priest ^o and a not inconsiderable number of his fellow townsmen. And that priest, having taken with him two brethren in that place, led that blind man into the place consecrated by the bodies of the Saints, and there made him pledge [p] upon one sarcophagus one denarius, to be paid yearly as a tribute to those Saints; and having laid down

one denarius there for the present, while the others withdrew and he himself stayed there for some time in tears and prayers, and professed to one of the Priors of that place, who was conversing with him about the salvation of his soul, that he would henceforth lead a more amended life if he were given light — he began in the course of the conversation to say: I seem to see as though through a cloth; and then, gradually improved in sight, he departed thence on the following day fully enlightened.

[32] and a sick man are healed. Then a certain other countryman from the village which is commonly called Inda [q], since from a long infirmity he had his whole body so swollen that neither he himself nor anyone who saw him thus at the point of death thought he would survive any long while, having heard the fame of the miracles which had gone forth far and wide concerning the memorial of those Saints, longed to be brought thither. Coming thither, when, having there made repentance for his sins and a vow of rectitude of life, he had betaken himself home, it somehow came to pass that in the space of very few days, the swelling of his whole skin subsiding, he was freed also from every languor of body [r].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. To bind to a yearly tribute.

q. That village is no better known to me than St. Aldegund's, unless it be Inda, which the Annals of Fulda mention at the year 881 (read 882), and which they write was laid waste by the Normans together with the monasteries of Prüm, Stavelot, and Malmedy.

r. There follows in our manuscript this closing clause: Blessed therefore be God, who is always glorious and wonderful in His Saints, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

miraculo* (miracle)

insulæ*

Under Diocletian and Maximian.

APPENDIX ON ST. BONIFACE AND HIS COMPANIONS, MM., PERHAPS OF THE THEBAN LEGION, AMONG THE TREVERI.

Thyrsus, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.) His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. Boniface, M., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri. (S.) His companions, MM., perhaps of the Theban Legion, among the Treveri.

BY J. B.

SYLLOGE.

The sacred memory of the holy Martyrs, their cult, and the translations of their relics.

St. Boniface, perhaps the other commander of the Theban legion, with his Companions — although he underwent martyrdom at Trier on the same day as St. Thyrsus — I have put off hither for this reason, both because the Passion of the Martyrs of Trier does not treat of him, The memory of the holy Martyr in the sacred calendars and because what will further be said of him is almost peculiar to him. He would indeed scarcely have been known, had not his relics at Moyenmoutier, as will be said below, at some time been found, and had not the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph, who flourished at the beginning of the eleventh century, preserved his memory for posterity. That he was known to so few martyrologists ought to seem strange to no one; yet the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard makes mention of him at the fourth of October in these words: At Trier, the birthday of the holy martyrs Thyrsus, commander of the most sacred legion of three hundred Thebans, and of St. Boniface. The ancient Martyrology of Moyenmoutier too, seen by Ruyr, makes mention: The ninth before the Kalends of October; at Moyenmoutier, the Repositing of the body of blessed Boniface the martyr, martyred in the Theban legion at Trier with his Companions, under Maximian Caesar. And that of Luxeuil: At the monastery of Moyenmoutier: of St. Boniface the martyr. Hence you will deduce the Saint's cult at the monastery of Moyenmoutier, concerning which Belhomme, abbot of Moyenmoutier, writes in the Annotations to chapter 1 of the little book cited: And his memory has always been retained and preserved with great veneration in the monastery of Moyenmoutier, in which his feast is solemnly celebrated every year on the 22nd day of September. The same cult is argued by the translations of the sacred body performed there, of which below. Add Grevenus, adduced at n. 3 of the Commentary on the Acts of SS. Thyrsus and his Companions.

[2] and his Passion But as regards his Passion, it has almost everything in common with St. Thyrsus: the place, the year, and the day of the Passion, namely the 4th of October; and finally the same persecutor, Rictius Varus. In this, however, it differs from St. Thyrsus, that the latter is said to have been slain and buried near the place where the basilica of St. Paulinus is now seen, but Boniface near the bridge of the Moselle. Hear Brouwer at the year 286, n. 75: What need of many words? He (Rictius Varus, Maximian's prefect), as soon as he came to Trier, presently, having occupied that place of the city then most frequented, which today, thrust out into the suburbs, the old books celebrate as the Campus Martius, the seat of the idol-madness of the heathen, an assembly having been called thither, orders the foreign Soldier to be summoned. He, obeying without delay, when he had come forth: the solemn question — whether he has any mind to sacrifice to the Roman Gods, and whether they too are ready to persecute the Christian name? To whom, when Thyrsus the commander, moved by so nefarious a sacrilege and by so great an insult to God, the best of parents, had answered that death would be more pleasant to himself and to his men, Varus, as one long since hostile to the Christian name, orders them at once to be laid low as they offer no resistance, and the over-fierce henchman to rage with the sword against the bowels of the Thebans.

[3] drawn from the book On the Successors of St. Hildulph; And without delay: men run to do the tyrant's command, and the henchman rejoices in the slaughters of the innocent. And their right hands being now steeped in much blood, at the last the corpses of the slain were cast away. And Thyrsus's consecrated remains, long afterwards, were heaped up by Felix, bishop of the Treveri, into that place where today before the walls is seen the basilica of St. Paulinus, more to be revered for its religion than for its workmanship. But Boniface, with the three hundred Martyrs of his cohort, was placed, for fear, in an obscure resting-place near the bridge which formerly joined the colony together, the Moselle flowing between. And the torch was carried before Brouwer by the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges, chapter 1, where he narrates the same things concerning St. Boniface. Further, from what fountain this writer drew what Brouwer, just cited, took from him concerning St. Boniface, is hard to say. From the tradition of the monastery of Moyenmoutier? But the author of the little book himself seems to overthrow that; for he writes a little after that Boniface, when his body was found at Moyenmoutier in the advanced tenth century, had been utterly withdrawn from the memory of mortals — unless this is to be understood only of the place in which his body lay. From the most ancient and fuller Life of St. Hildulph, first lost, and then about the year 964 found and reduced to a summary, as Belhomme writes in the Commentary on the Acts of St. Hildulph, §1? He could indeed have seen it, considering his age; but whether he really saw it, a scruple is cast by what John of Bayon writes of it in Belhomme, History of the monastery of Moyenmoutier, part 3, p. 231: But after many courses of times had run their course, it (the lengthy codex of St. Hildulph's Life) is found again; but because by the greatness of its size it brought weariness to readers, scholars being employed, it is abridged. But through the negligence of the brethren it again slips away from the monastery of Moyenmoutier by the faction of certain persons. Or finally, did he consult the people of Trier? But they at the beginning of the eleventh century were perhaps altogether ignorant of their Theban Martyrs.

[4] Further, the author of the little book, after he has recounted the martyrdom of St. Boniface and his Companions, [who translated the holy Martyr's relics into the church of St. Maximinus at Trier] proceeds thus: They, committed to mean tombs by the Christian peoples (he would have said better, by the Christians) who greatly feared the madness of the heathen, after the courses of very many years were honorably laid away, and lie in a certain little crypt of the basilica of St. Maximinus. And this was accomplished by the vigilance of our blessed patron Hildulph. This probably happened at the same time at which St. Hildulph translated the relics of St. Maximinus; whence Brouwer joined the translation of both at the year 758, n. 160, writing thus: Bishops having therefore been called together from nearby, Clement and Cuthbert, the matter being maturely deliberated with them, he determined at length to translate the sacred bones of the Lord Maximinus, enclosed in marble and in a cypress tomb, from the old oratory to another place. Meanwhile behind the cell of the Lord Hilary the bishop raises up from the foundations at very great expense a new church, sacred to the name of St. John the Evangelist; hither, as soon as it was ripe, with a crowded procession he brings in the venerable relics both of the Lord Maximinus and of the three hundred Martyrs of the Theban legion, of whom Boniface had formerly been commander of the service; and gives them a common burial with Agritius and Nicetius.

[5] Brouwer therefore judged that these things happened about the year 758; in the advanced seventh century he translated them, but others deservedly contend that the translation of St. Maximinus — and therefore of Boniface also and his Companions — was undertaken by St. Hildulph when the seventh century was already advanced. This discrepancy of opinions has arisen from the fact that to some St. Hildulph seemed to have succeeded Milo, to others Numerianus, bishops of Trier. With the latter side stand both the author or interpolator of the Life of St. Hildulph published in vol. III of July, p. 228, and the author of the little book on the Saint's successors in the Vosges — whether one and the same or different. For the former affirms that St. Hildulph departed to the heavenly ones in the year 707; and the latter, having begun his narrative from the year 703, presently in chapter 2 affirms that Regimbert next succeeded St. Hildulph in the government of the monastery of Moyenmoutier; although the cited interpolator of the Life of St. Hildulph, being little versed in the Chronology of the prelates of Trier, also makes St. Hildulph the successor of Milo, bishop of Trier. But that Hildulph succeeded not Milo but Numerianus, Henschen long ago observed in book 4 On the Three Dagoberts, chapter 5, whom several more recent writers have since followed. For the rest, granted that St. Hildulph passed from this life in the year 707, it is easy according to that same interpolator's mind to determine the year of the translated

relics of St. Boniface and his Companions by St. Hildulph into the church of St. John the Evangelist: for since he affirms at the same time that St. Hildulph died in the fortieth year from the glorious translation of the lord bishop Maximinus, it becomes manifest that according to his mind this happened in the year 667. But Calmet, vol. 1 of the History of Lorraine, p. 443, says it is referred to the year 670. Finally, in the Life of St. Agritius this translation is said to have been made on the fourth before the Kalends of June, as is read in vol. 1 of January, p. 775; on which day it is also noted in the three last Calendars of Trier published by Hontheim.

[6] [perhaps from a certain chapel into which they had already before been translated:] Someone will perhaps ask here whether this was the first of all the translations of St. Boniface and his Companions. So indeed it seems to follow from the words of the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges, adduced at n. 4. For by these it seems intimated that St. Boniface and his Companions were dug out of the mean tombs to which they had been committed by the Christians immediately after their martyrdom, and were translated into St. Maximinus's by St. Hildulph. But since perhaps the same author, in the Life of St. Hildulph, chapter 5, describes the same translation in these words only: In which (the oratory built by Hildulph) there were likewise placed the bodies of the three hundred Martyrs of the Theban legion, and makes no mention of the place from which the bodies of the Saints had last been taken up, perhaps the words adduced at n. 4 are so to be understood that he wished to designate the place in which they were first laid away, but not that from which they had then lately been dug out. There is the further point that, on Hontheim's testimony, vol. 1 of the History of Trier, p. 222, a manuscript Life of St. Hildulph is kept in the monastery of St. Maximinus at Trier, in which St. Hildulph is reported to have translated the bodies of St. Boniface and his Companions from an ignoble chapel at the bridge of Trier to the monastery of St. Maximinus; which, if it is true, it must be that besides the translation mentioned another was at some time undertaken. Although it may deservedly be doubted whether this is a more recent addition which some alumnus of the said monastery appended to the Life of St. Hildulph; both because no mention of that chapel is made in the Moyenmoutier codex, collated with those of Echternach and Paderborn, and because at the end of chapter 5 in the Echternach and Paderborn codices themselves certain added passages are read which are wanting in the Moyenmoutier one, and which look chiefly to the monastery of St. Maximinus at Trier: so that it remains in doubt whether St. Hildulph was the first to translate the bodies of St. Boniface and his Companions or not.

[7] [but at the beginning of the eighth century he brought them into the monastery of Moyenmoutier,] However the matter stands, the sacred remains of St. Boniface did not long rest at Trier in the crypt of St. Maximinus; for in the year 703 they were translated from Trier to the monastery of Moyenmoutier (situated in the Vosges, having on the East the monastery of Senones, on the South Juncturae, on the West Étival, on the North the monastery of Bodo, and thence named Moyenmoutier — the Middle Monastery — by its founder St. Hildulph). In the last year but one, says the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph, of the lord abbot Leutbald, and in the seven hundred and third year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the venerable body of St. Boniface the martyr, taken away from the people of Trier, was by the help of the Godhead brought into the monastery of Moyenmoutier: namely on the 22nd day of September, as is had from what was said at n. 1. By whose agency that translation came to pass, the writer cited a little before does not declare in this place; but in chapter 9 he writes that it was done by certain men devoted to God. Brouwer says at the year 768, n. 192, that it is ascribed to St. Hildulph. In this same undertaking of works, he says, it is fitting to judge that Boniface, commander of the Theban cohort, was translated from Trier into the mountains of the Vosges, since the author of that translation is celebrated as Hildulph, who brought him into the seats of Moyenmoutier. Which indeed is most likely, since St. Hildulph, having left the see of Trier, founded Moyenmoutier, and while he was still alive the relics of St. Boniface were brought to the monastery of Moyenmoutier.

[8] But as likely as it is that this was done chiefly by St. Hildulph's agency, yet not carried off by theft: so little probable does it seem to me that the relics of St. Boniface were stolen from the people of Trier, as the author of the little book so often mentioned writes in chapters 1 and 9. There were indeed formerly men of simpler wit who believed thefts of sacred relics of this kind both pious and lawful; which indeed I should not dare to suspect of St. Hildulph. Did St. Hildulph, prelate of Trier, avail so little in authority and favor with the monks of St. Maximinus that he could not obtain from them even a part of St. Boniface's body (for his whole body was never at Moyenmoutier)? And yet the monks of St. Maximinus themselves admit, in Zylles in the Defense of that abbey, p. 75, that St. Hildulph adorned their monastery with new structures and was remarkably benevolent toward them. Why then should he not, either on departing from Trier or while already dwelling at Moyenmoutier, have obtained the relics of St. Boniface from the ascetics of St. Maximinus for the adorning of the holy places he had founded, so that they had to be carried off by theft? More rightly therefore — if you perhaps except the time of the event — is it read in the Chronicle of St. Maximinus in Hontheim, History of Trier, p. 1002: Under this abbot (St. Weomad, afterwards archbishop of Trier) it seems, or rather under his predecessor, that St. Hildulph translated the body of St. Maximinus into the newly repaired church together with the three hundred Martyrs of the Theban legion; but the body of St. Boniface he translated into the monastery of Moyenmoutier in the Vosges under the parish of Toul, the head and some relics being left here; where St. Hildulph himself also lived under regular discipline, having left his episcopate, as is plain in the Passion of the Theban and Trier Martyrs.

[9] Thereafter St. Boniface met at the monastery of Moyenmoutier the same lot but when they had there been given over to oblivion, which Thyrsus met at Trier. For when his relics had been brought into the chapel of St. Martin adjoining the church of the most blessed Virgin, by the disturbances of the times and by the various vicissitudes of that monastery he was so withdrawn from the memory of men that in the time of abbot Adelbert, after the middle of the tenth century, his relics were utterly unknown to the men of Moyenmoutier, as the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges writes; until at last, by the help of divine grace, they were uncovered under that same abbot. And how this came to pass the author himself explains thus in chapter 9: The order of the deeds here demands that, mindful of my promise, I unfold the finding of St. Boniface the martyr. When the church of the blessed Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary had been pulled down, and at the same time the chapel of blessed Martin adjoining it, in which it has already been said (chapter 1) that the Martyr was buried, of necessity ruined walls (the ruins of walls), open to men and beasts, had taken the places long given to prayer. Not bearing this neglect of his relics, the spirit of the Martyr, who was marvelously honored in heaven, on a certain night in a vision, in military dress, such as he is in the dignity of his countenance venerable, stood by a certain young monk named Tietfrid, sprung indeed of middling blood among the natives, but, as was thought, to be of good conduct, and deigned to address him thus.

[10] I bear it very ill that I am pressed by ruined walls, the holy Martyr appearing to a certain monk that I am worn down, trodden on, and defiled by the feet and filth of men and cattle; wherefore rise as quickly as you can and hasten to tell the abbot that, if he wishes to take thought for his own salvation, he should provide rest for my body. And that brother questioned him in this manner: My lord, who shall I say you are, and where do you wish to have burial? To this the Martyr answered thus: Know that I am named Boniface, and that I am associated in number and merit with the glorious legion of the Theban Martyrs; since indeed, by the grant of divine grace, not unequal to the glory of my colleague Maurice, glory is kept in heaven for me also — men whom labor and service made equal in all things, and the exhortation spent upon tottering Companions, and perseverance in the faith even unto death. But after some years, separated by stealth from the bodies of my fellow soldiers, I was brought by certain men devoted to God to this place, and committed to the earth in the oratory [] of blessed Martin; where until the present all my limbs have lain hidden, except the head, which the former place retained among the bodies of my Colleagues. Behold, I have set forth to you the case of all my relics. Do you now go without further delay and explain this very thing to the abbot.*

[11] by the holy Martyr, And without delay, with the words the Martyr's form is withdrawn from the monk; who, when he awoke, because he preferred to ascribe that revelation to a phantasm rather than in any degree to give it credit and to implore God's mercy upon it, put off doing what was commanded him — either fearing to be marked for hypocrisy and falsehood, or to draw envy upon his own littleness. Wherefore he is struck a second time by the most bitter rebuke of the Martyr coming to him. Why, he says, do you not at all shudder at the sharpness of my admonition? Why do you compel me to come to you again? Know then that you shall pay the penalties of contempt and disobedience before you lose this corruptible light. And after he had terrified that brother with threats of this kind, he unfolded the whole order of the earlier vision and bade him make it known to the abbot; but when he dissembled as at first, the glorious Martyr deigned to come to him a third time, and to rebuke his senselessness with excessive bitterness of words; and, having recapitulated the oracle of the first and second revelation, he presently added: I perceive that the hardness of your unbelief cannot be bent to obedience unless it be softened by the fomentations of some sign. Wherefore, when you are about to rise for the nocturnal hymns, go to that altar situated at the head of St. Hildulph, above which you will presently find the little cross with the cambuca of that blessed bishop, and remove from the hiding-places of your mind the callus of all ambiguity. Yet since it will be more tolerable for you to undergo a temporal punishment than to be irrevocably made over to perpetual hell, know that you will undergo the vengeance for this neglect in this light; for enough and more than enough of punishments remains for your too carnal life — how much more, if so great a crime of disobedience be added?

[12] found again, he narrates Terrified by this threat, the young man awakes, and, to test the trustworthiness of the command, when the signal for the nocturnal vigils had been given, enters the church; where, when he had drunk in the evidence of the aforesaid sign with his bodily eye, putting aside all doubt he called the abbot and the brethren thither while it was still morning twilight; to whom, after he had shown the present sign, he laid open also the text of the rest of the revelation. Thence together with them he hastened to the place of the Martyr's tomb, and pointed it out to them as he had received by the revelation. Where, digging, they found a seemly Mausoleum, which, when they had opened it, the nostrils of those present perceived a fragrance of the sweetest odor. In which at last, finding the Martyr's remains according to the trustworthiness of the vision, they wrapped them in clean linen, and so, laying them away in a shrine, they carried them in haste to the cell of Bego, because a suitable place for laying them away was not available to them in the ruined monastery. [But by the negligence of his successors, the aforesaid cell was allowed to retain the holy limbs until the lord abbot Lambert, who in the year one thousand and forty-three from the Incarnation of the Lord, on the sixth day of the week, which was reckoned the second before the Nones of November, carried them back.] But the brother who, so often admonished, put off giving assent to so clear a vision, after

some years, standing before the house of the infirm, so wasted away by a sudden attack of paralysis that, against his will, he walked backwards until he fell in through the door of that house and, his neck being broken, expired.

[13] Although this narrative of the apparition or vision made to Tietfrid comes from an author the author of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph, not much removed from the time of the event, as I said at n. 15 of the Preliminary Commentary to the Passion of St. Thyrsus and his Companions, and describing, so far as appears, domestic affairs; and although in itself, if you look to the substance, it may seem probable: yet there are certain circumstances of it which will not seem equally probable to everyone. And first indeed, the body of St. Boniface does not seem to have been secretly stolen from the people of Trier, on account of what was said at n. 8. Then, those words which Boniface is said to have spoken seem to savor too little of the modesty of the Blessed: Since indeed, by the grant of divine grace, not unequal to the glory of my colleague Maurice, glory is kept in heaven for me also — men whom labor and service made equal in all things, and the exhortation spent upon tottering Companions, and perseverance in the faith even unto death. To dispute in what degree of glory each is set would be rashness; but I should prefer to believe that something here is to be attributed rather to the writer's affection toward St. Boniface than that the Saint proclaimed such things of himself.

[14] That Adelbert presided over the monastery of Moyenmoutier when the relics of St. Boniface were found, namely under the abbot Adelbert, is plainly gathered from the same author; but in what year this happened is not so clear. Adelbert was made abbot of Moyenmoutier by Frederick, duke of Lorraine, as the same author writes in chapter 7. And Frederick obtained the duchy of Lorraine in the year 959, and before him Bruno, prelate of Cologne, in the year 953, on Flodoard's testimony in the Chronicle; and Frederick was his nephew. And so Frederick could neither be duke nor act in the duke's stead before the year 953 or the following, nor dispose of the monastery of Moyenmoutier, nor transfer its goods from the canons to the monks, as Belhomme says in the Notes to the cited chapter 7 of the little book On the Successors of St. Hildulph in the Vosges. Mabillon, however, in vol. 3 of the Benedictine Annals, book 44, n. 48, says that Adelbert was summoned to the monastery of Moyenmoutier by Frederick in the year 942, and that in the 14th year of his rule he translated the bodies of SS. Hildulph, John, and Benignus, which in the following book he binds to the year 954. From Richer it is gathered that it (the aforesaid translation of the Saints) was made in the year 956, but earlier, says Belhomme, than it is fitting to believe — namely on account of what has already been said about Frederick. John Herculanus, says the same author, in his book On the Antiquities of the Valley of Galilee, expressly asserts that the same translation was accomplished in the year of the Lord 973: but this author seems to draw it out too far and too late. Finally he says that from John of Bayon it follows that it happened in the year 964.

[15] Mabillon followed the credit of the ancient Lectionary of the church of Moyenmoutier, or in the already advanced tenth century: probably written in the fourteenth century. Richer seems to have counted the 14th year of Adelbert from the year 942; but John Herculanus from the year 959, in which Frederick received the duchy of Lorraine; and thus these seem to agree on the 14th year of Adelbert. But which of these opinions attains the truth I shall not easily say. This, however, I confess seems to me more probable: that Adelbert did not before the year 959, in which Frederick was first made duke of Lorraine, begin to restore and govern the monastery of Moyenmoutier, because the things which Frederick is then said to have performed seem to argue a duke of Lorraine rather than a private count. Thus about the year 896 Zwentibold, set over the province of Lorraine by the emperor Arnulf, had expelled the monks and substituted canons, and had handed over the monastery of Moyenmoutier to count Hillin, as is narrated in chapter 6. Not therefore before the said year did the translation of SS. Hildulph, John, and Benignus, made by Adelbert, more probably occur. For the rest, since the author of the little book so often cited subjoins the finding of St. Boniface's body immediately to the translation of SS. Hildulph, John, and Benignus — the order of events, as he says, so requiring — it follows that this too more probably did not occur before the said year 959.

[16] [and in the year 1043 they were carried back from the cell of Bego to the monastery of Moyenmoutier,] Adelbert was planning a more august church for the Virgin Mother when the body of St. Boniface was found in the manner we have narrated; and so he wished the remains of St. Boniface to be laid meanwhile in the cell of Bego until the church should be completed. And the cell of Bego here mentioned took its name from Bego, a nobleman, who gave it, situated in the Vosges, as also the Rock of Folchold, to St. Hildulph and to the brethren serving God under him; but now it is called St. Blaise's. And concerning the Rock of Folchold, Belhomme has noted this: But that part of the Vosges which is here called the Rock of Folchold, besides the mountain nearest to St. Blaise's and the mountain called Belrouart or Beauregard (on whose summit there was afterwards placed a castle, of which only ruins now remain), embraces also the space lying between these mountains, in which the places called Visivallum and Rua already then existed, and afterwards the town of Raon was founded, namely in the said place, Rua. But although Adelbert laid the remains of St. Boniface in the cell of Bego only that, when the more august church had been built, they might be carried back into the monastery of Moyenmoutier, yet this was carried out neither by Adelbert nor by several of his successors before the year 1043, as the words at n. 12 enclosed in brackets — probably interpolated — teach, and John of Bayon, chapter 50. The memory of this carrying back is thus noted in the ancient Martyrology of the monastery of Moyenmoutier: The second before the Nones of November. The carrying back of the body of the glorious martyr Boniface from the cell of Bego to the monastery of Moyenmoutier.

[17] The relics of St. Boniface's Companions were dispersed in various places. It remains that I add a few things concerning the relics of St. Boniface and his Companions. And to treat first of St. Boniface: from n. 10 we have it that his head remained at Trier in the monastery of St. Maximinus. Whether this head of St. Boniface still exists here is not ascertained by me; perhaps it was of the number of those treasures whose knowledge the irruptions of the barbarians and the disasters of the place removed from the memory of men, and which thereafter never appeared. But as regards his Companions, Scheckmann at fol. 54 verso, enumerating the Saints whose relics rest in the basilica of St. Maximinus, writes thus in general concerning St. Boniface and the other Theban Martyrs slain with him near the bridge of the Moselle: In the lower crypt rest three hundred Martyrs of the Theban legion, whose chief and commander is said to be Boniface, whom St. Hildulph, the aforesaid archbishop, translated hither and gave over to glorious Mausolea. That in the year 1107 relics of the Theban Martyrs resting there passed from the monastery of St. Maximinus to the monastery of Helmarshausen, thence to that of Abdinghof, and finally to Paderborn, we have said in the Preliminary Commentary to the Passion of St. Thyrsus, n. 153 and the two following. Likewise that others passed to Brunswick in the year 1113, at n. 155. Consult also nn. 162, 163, and 174 of the same Commentary.

oratorio* (oratory)