ON SS. MARCELLUS AND APULEIUS, MARTYRS, AT ROME,
Perhaps toward the end of the first century.
SYLLOGE.
The announcement of the holy Martyrs among the Martyrologists is discussed, and some things bearing on their cult and relics are treated.
Marcellus, martyr, at Rome. (St.) Marcellinus, martyr, at Rome. (St.) BHL Number: 5251, 5252
BY J. B.
Mention of these Martyrs is very frequent among the ancient martyrologists as well as the more recent: these agree for the most part with the Roman Martyrology, The announcement of the Saints among the more recent which is still in use today; it has thus: "At Rome, of the holy martyrs Marcellus and Apuleius, who at first indeed adhered to Simon the magician; but, seeing the wonders which the Lord was working through Peter the Apostle, they left Simon and gave themselves to the Apostolic teaching, and after the passion of the Apostles, under Aurelian the consular, carried off the crown of martyrdom, and were buried not far from the City": so, I say, the Roman Martyrology, using scarcely a little word which is not expressly found in Ado or Usuard and in Notker, who almost copies Ado, whose words, therefore, I shall not repeat. Nor does the author of the Little Roman Martyrology speak very differently, which was drawn up about the middle of the eighth century in the judgment of Du Sollier in the preface prefixed to Usuard, chapter 2, article 4; whose words are these: "Of Marcellus and Apuleius, who first adhered to Simon the magician; then to Peter the Apostle; crowned with martyrdom under Aurelian, a consular man." Baronius moreover cites Bede in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology: but our Martyrs are not read in him except in some of his additions, and take the same as said of Wandalbert and Rabanus. Among the Martyrologies cited so far there is excellent agreement, nor did Usuard write Marcus for Marcellus, as Fiorentini says in the Annotations on the Lucca Martyrology of Jerome: the Barberini addition to Bede, however, commemorates our Saints on the day next following: but on account of the agreement of almost all the other Martyrologies, which announce them today, it does not deserve to be heard.
[2] and among the ancient, Nor do the Hieronymian codices pass over the holy Martyrs we have named, although their announcement of them is far from being as concordant, full, or clear: the Lucca codex in Fiorentini, omitting Apuleius, and determining somewhat more closely the place of burial, indicated only vaguely by Ado and Usuard, has thus: "At Rome, on the Appian way, the deposition of St. Marcellus and of Mark, bishop." Although, however, this codex does not call Marcellus a Martyr, nay uses the word deposition, which seems rather to be applied to a confessor than to a martyr, do not for that reason conclude that Marcellus was of the number of the confessors: for in the Corbie codex too, in the same Fiorentini, the same word indeed occurs, but Apuleius and Marcellus are expressly called martyrs: here are its words: "At Rome, on the Appian way, the deposition of the holy Martyrs Apuleius and Marcellus, bishop, and of Mark, bishop and confessor." I have consulted many other Hieronymian codices, to which Marcellus the Martyr is indeed not unknown, but his episcopal dignity is unknown: by these, therefore, and by the others cited above, it seems we must stand rather than by the Corbie codex, and the episcopate is not to be admitted in Marcellus. Nor further does Fiorentini's suspicion have much probability, that in the Lucca Codex, whose words we have just given, for Marcellus, buried on the Appian way, we should perhaps read Marcellian; namely, that Marcellian from whom, as also from St. Mark, a cemetery near Rome on the Appian way, according to Fiorentini, on the Ardeatine way according to others, or, if you prefer, situated between the two, found its name. For Mark and Marcellian, from whom that cemetery received its name, are mentioned by the Lucca and Corbie codices in Fiorentini himself on the 14th day before the Kalends of July, or the 18th day of June, and it appears less probable that the same codices should mention the same Marcellian again today under the name of Marcellus.
[3] But since the Hieronymian codices are silent from the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, as to SS. Marcellus and Apuleius having adhered first to Simon the magician and then to St. Peter, and having been slain by order of Aurelian, a consular man, while the author of the Little Roman, Ado, Usuard, the Roman Martyrology, and the other more recent martyrologists commonly affirm it, there will perhaps be someone who asks whether this is to be held as certain and undoubted. It will not be beside the point, before we answer the question proposed, to inquire for a little into the source from which were drawn the things which the Martyrologies just praised, but not likewise the Hieronymian codices, relate of our Saints. Baronius, in the Annotations on the Roman Martyrology on this day, thought that Ado and Usuard (he had not seen the Little Roman) drew their information from the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, long since inserted in our Work at the 12th day of May: nor, as appears, entirely without foundation. For into those Acts is inserted a certain Letter to SS. Nereus and Achilleus (See volume 3 of May, page 9) about the things done between St. Peter and Simon the magician, ascribed to Marcellus, son of Marcus, prefect of the City, in which he professes, in no ambiguous words, nay in almost the same words which the cited Martyrologies use, that he first indeed gave himself into the hands of Simon the magician, but then stood with St. Peter. "I," says Marcellus there, "when I was his (Simon the magician's) disciple, recognizing him as malignant and an infanticide and a sorcerer and a housebreaker, deserted him and adhered to my lord St. Peter the Apostle." This Marcellus, therefore, Ado and Usuard, who took no small care to consult the Acts of the Saints whom they entered in their Fasti, may not improbably have supposed to be the same whom they noticed inscribed on this day in the sacred Fasti older than themselves.
[4] And as for what is further added, that SS. Marcellus and Apuleius were slain by order of Aurelian, a consular man, as appears, drawn, this too could easily be drawn, or conjectured, from the same Acts. For Aurelian, son of a consul (namely of Aurelius Fulvus, as they maintain, who held the consulship under Domitian in the years of Christ 85 and 89), is spoken of right at the beginning of the Acts; who, since he was madly in love with St. Domitilla, and yet could not enjoy her as a wife, obtained from Domitian that she should be sent as an exile to the island of Pontia, led by the hope that he might draw the virgin, overcome by the hardships of exile, to his wishes: and since SS. Nereus and Achilleus, chamberlains of St. Domitilla, opposed these wishes, at the instigation beyond doubt of Aurelian, they were handed over to death by Memmius Rufus or Minucius Rufus, a consular; whose bodies Auspicius, Domitilla's foster-father, having translated them to Rome, committed to the ground not far from the City on the Ardeatine way. So, nearly, the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus. From which again it becomes not altogether improbable that the martyrologists praised above conjectured, or persuaded themselves, that the same Aurelian, as he was the author of the death inflicted on SS. Nereus and Achilleus, so was also of that inflicted on Marcellus, joined to them by close ties: and that the faithful of Christ likewise laid up the bodies of Marcellus and Apuleius perhaps not far from their burial-place. For the rest, that Ado and Usuard had knowledge of the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus will become manifest to anyone comparing with those Acts the words in which they announce those martyrs on the 12th day of May. Hence, then, probably the author of the Little Roman Martyrology, just as Ado and Usuard, drew what they say of Marcellus and Apuleius, as seemed so to Baronius: hence they said that the holy Martyrs, although the Hieronymian codices are silent, were first disciples of Simon the magician, afterwards of St. Peter, and suffered under Aurelian, a consular man. But is that source pure enough to merit certain and undoubted credence?
[5] certain credence for everything By no means: Henschen indeed once judged the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus to be of the best credit in his Commentary on them: but it was said in volume 5 of September, page 6, that they contain here and there things which are hardly credible: Baronius himself acknowledged, at the year 69, number 33, that they are held to be not of entire credit in some things, Du Sollier agreeing, at the 7th day of May in Usuard: finally Tillemont censured them most gravely in volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical Memoirs, page 127. I pass over other writers who have branded the same Acts with the mark of forgery or certainly of corruption. They seem to have been numbered among the apocryphal writings already from the age of St. Augustine; from whose authority Henschen tries to extricate himself. He, in the book against Adimantus (See the Benedictine edition of the Works of St. Augustine, volume 8, columns 137 and 140), accuses the Manichaeans of not admitting the divine books (as is customary with heretics) by which, namely, their errors are overthrown, while holding the apocryphal ones as certain and uncorrupted.
[6] which they contain; "But they themselves read apocryphal writings," he says in the former column, "which they say are most uncorrupted, where it is written that the Apostle Thomas cursed a man by whom, through imprudence,
he had been struck with the palm of the hand, not knowing who he was, and that the curse at once came to effect. For when that man, because he was the servant of the banquet, had gone out to the spring to fetch water, he was killed and torn to pieces by a lion. And that this might be made manifest to the terror of others, a dog carried his hand to the tables where the Apostle was feasting." And in the latter column he speaks thus: "In that book, then, in which it is most openly declared that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord had promised as Comforter, came" (in the Acts of the Apostles), "we read that men fell at the sentence of Peter, and that a husband and wife died who had dared to lie to the Holy Spirit. Which these men in great blindness find fault with, when in the apocrypha they read as a great thing both that which I have recalled of the Apostle Thomas, and that the paralytic daughter of Peter himself" (the Louvain edition adds: was made sound) "by the prayers of her father, and that the daughter of the gardener died at the prayers of Peter himself."
[7] does not seem to produce; The history of Peter's daughter, healed of paralysis, is narrated more at length in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus; whence some strive to make out that those Acts were held by St. Augustine among the apocryphal writings. But, says Henschen, volume VII of May, page 422, in the Commentary on St. Petronilla, the context of this history (apocryphal to Augustine) is plainly different, since in the aforesaid Acts (of SS. Nereus, Achilleus, and Domitilla) nothing is found of the gardener's daughter dying. So indeed it stands, as Henschen says: but neither did St. Augustine say that those three histories were comprised in one and the same writing; on the contrary, he seems to insinuate that he is dealing with different ones, pronouncing generally in the words reported above: "But they themselves read apocryphal writings." As also in these words: "When in the apocrypha they read as a great thing." Nor do I know whether St. Augustine would have objected to the same Manichaeans the admission of each of those three histories if they could have proved even one of them from non-apocryphal writings. And if one should please to feign that those Acts are of the best credit and sincere, not even so will the announcement of Ado, Usuard, and the Little Roman turn out certain: for since those Acts relate nothing of the martyrdom of Marcellus, nay not even a word of Apuleius, it can still deservedly be doubted whether that Marcellus was the same as Marcellus the martyr, inscribed today together with Apuleius in the Hieronymian codices. Since, however, even apocryphal writings not rarely have true things mixed with false, and the praised martyrologists perhaps had what they wrote of Marcellus and Apuleius ascertained from elsewhere also, I have been unwilling to depart wholly from their opinion or to accuse them of falsehood; and on their credit in this matter, such as it is, I have assigned at the beginning of this Commentary the death of the holy Martyrs to the first century inclining toward its end, adding the formula of doubt, Perhaps.
[8] But however these things may stand, much more certain is the ecclesiastical cult, but their sacred cult is very ancient. and that indeed paid to the holy Martyrs many centuries back. The most eminent Giuseppe Maria Tommasi published in print, from a codex more than nine hundred years old, three books of the Sacraments of the Roman Church (which he calls Gelasian; and Gelasius was Pope at the end of the fifth century), in the second of which, which is on the Birthdays of the Saints, page 174 and following, there occur three Prayers on SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, customarily recited on the Nones of October during the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which, as undoubted testimonies of their ancient cult, I transcribe here: the first runs thus: "May the blessed merits of Thy Saints Marcellus and Apuleius, O Lord, accompany us; and ever make us perfect, fervent in their love. Through, etc." The second, to which this title is here prefixed: Secret. "May this Host which is to be offered, we beseech Thee, O Lord, render Thy Majesty appeased toward us, at the worthy intercession of Thy Saints. Through, etc." The third, these words being placed before it, After Communion, is conceived in these words: "May we be fortified, O Lord, by the Sacraments received: and by the heavenly arms of Thy Saints Marcellus and Apuleius may we be protected against all wickednesses rushing upon us. Through our Lord." Marcellus the martyr, but without Apuleius, is marked today in the present-day Mozarabic Calendar, in Pinius, in the Chronological Treatise on the ancient Spanish Liturgy prefixed to volume 6 of July, page 87.
[9] The same Roman Martyrs seem formerly to have been venerated at Capua in Campania Felix, the Capuans have long venerated them; although at one time, as I shall say below, they were not sufficiently well known to the Capuans, as indeed it seems to me. For Michele Monaco presents, at page 391 and following, four ancient Capuan Calendars, of which three are written in Lombard character and the fourth in Roman, each of which mentions SS. Marcellus and Apuleius at the 6th or 7th day of October: the first indeed in these words: "II Nones (of October). The Passion will be of the holy Martyrs Marcellus and and Apuleius": the second: "Nones. Of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and Marcellus, and Apuleius": the third: "Nones. Of the holy Martyrs Marcellus and Apuleius, Sergius and Bacchus": the fourth: "Nones. Of the holy Martyrs Marcellus and Apuleius, 1. 3. Sergius and Bacchus, 1. 3." That in the first of these Marcellus and Apuleius are announced on the 6th day of October appears to have happened from this, that they confused today's Marcellus with yesterday's, venerated likewise at Capua together with Castus, Aemilius and Saturninus; which error the compilers of the other Calendars seem to have corrected. But granting that this may be so, what reason is there, you will say, why I should presently judge the Marcellus and Apuleius mentioned in these Calendars to have been Roman rather than Capuan, when Michele Monaco, in the Capuan Sanctuary, page 137 and following, presents the Passion of holy Martyrs of the same names slain for the faith at Capua under the emperor Julian, of whom, therefore, the praised Calendars should rather be thought to speak than of the Romans? I answer that those Acts seem to have been fastened upon Capuan martyrs by someone led by a perverse love of his fatherland, only out of ignorance of the Roman Martyrs of the same names, or, if you prefer, perhaps out of dissembling them. And lest I seem to have said this gratuitously, I transcribe here the Acts themselves, as they exist in Michele Monaco, especially since they are short.
[10] but true They run thus: "In the times of Julian Augustus there was in the City a certain ordinary centurion, Marcellus by name, a Roman, a rich and liberal man, endowed with uprightness of morals and kindliness, showing himself agreeable and amiable to all. And when, through the grace of the merciful God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, he had submitted his neck to the faith of the Christian religion, he began to be kind especially toward the poor and needy. This man, when, for certain existing reasons, making for Apulia, he had turned aside to Capua, is pressed by a certain governor Dragontius, by command of the Caesar, to offer sacrifice to the gods. And when, neither terrified by threats nor soothed by flatteries, he would give assent to offering the sacrifices, he is at last bound with chains and received into the custody of the prison. And it came to pass that, while he was lingering in prison, Dragontius having died, one Fortunatus by name succeeded to the governorship. He, therefore, having had Marcellus brought out of prison and set before his tribunal, began to deal with him that he should strive to appease the immortal gods with offered libations. And when he had scorned to obey the sacrilegious admonitions, the governor took care to send him to a certain Agricolanus, prefect of the soldiery, signifying to him likewise by letter that by command of the Caesar this Marcellus was to be lawfully punished, inasmuch as, being converted to the Christian superstition, he had renounced military service against the Caesar's will. Agricolanus, then, having received and read the letter, strives in every way to deal with Marcellus that, laying aside the worship of a most vain superstition, he should take up again the military belt.
[11] a knowledge of them "And when he saw that he could draw him to the assent of his will neither by terrors inflicted nor by soothing flatteries, he at last promulgated a capital sentence against him. And he, when he had come to the place where he knew he was to be beheaded, asked and received from the executioner some respite for praying. And when, prostrate on the ground, he had paid thanks and proclamations of praise to God for having merited to be brought to the palm of martyrdom, raising himself, he burst out into this word: Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And presently, struck on the head at the blow of the executioner, he departed to the Lord. Which Apuleius, his servant, seeing, began to cry with a clear voice that he was a Christian, and that for Christ he did not dread even the punishment of death. Which the executioner hearing, certain that by this he would please his Lord, cut off his head too with the sword. And the holy Martyrs suffered under Julian Caesar on the day of the Nones of October, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." No one at all will deny that these things differ by the whole heaven from those which have been related in the preceding concerning SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, martyrs, and indicate other martyrs than these: but anyone will easily smell out the fable who has even lightly looked into the Acts of St. Marcellus of Tangier, inserted in Ruinart's Genuine and Select Acts of the martyrs, from page 302. Marcellus, whose passion is there described, was likewise a centurion; the same charge was laid against him by the heathen, the casting away of the military belt; the same governor Fortunatus, who first brought the suit against Marcellus; the same praetorian prefect, or prefect of the soldiery, to whom he sent Marcellus with a letter added, namely Agricolanus; finally the same manner of death by which each Marcellus fell by Agricolanus's order, namely beheading: so that it is sufficiently apparent that all these things were transferred from Marcellus of Tangier to the Capuan at the pleasure of the fabricator.
[12] In vain does Michele Monaco say that it is nothing new they did not have, for the Acts of different martyrs at times to have very many things in common: for whenever this happens, they are wont to be suspect on this head alone. In vain likewise does the Monaco pursue some circumstances in which the two sets of Acts differ from each other: for whoever fabricated those Acts will easily have seen that it would be too ridiculous were he to apply the Acts of an African martyr to a Capuan with almost no difference of circumstances. In vain, finally, does he call to his aid these verses, written by Alferio, archdeacon of Capua, above the Eastern door of the church of St. Marcellus, now blocked up: for since they are Leonine, it is plain from that alone that they are unfit to persuade a prudent reader of anything concerning SS. Marcellus and Apuleius having suffered at Capua under Julian, as they would have it, until the Capuans produce more certain records on the matter: and they are these:
Saint Marcellus, scorning the Caesar's acts, Was brought to Capua, beheaded for Christ.
From which I think it sufficiently plain, as I was saying above, that SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, whom the Capuans venerate on this day, were not sufficiently ascertained by them: and that this may be more plain, let us consult the Capuan Breviary printed under Giordano Caetani, archbishop of Capua and patriarch of Antioch, in the year of the Lord 1489: it has on the 7th day of October three lessons on SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, but comprising things far different from those which are read in the Acts rejected a little before. Here they are.
[13] Lesson 1. There was a certain man named Marcellus,
who was held very distinguished in pursuits of life and in lineage, and confused into one Marcelluses much differing in prudence also and uprightness: copious too in means, and, what is greatest of all, fearing God most religiously, and always listening with fear to the things which were said of Christ. Nor was there any good thing at all which that man lacked: whence also he was honoured with very great esteem by the whole city. And he himself was the first frequently to reward his city with largesses, giving to the poor, relieving the afflicted, bringing help to the troubled. Lesson 2. At a certain time, when a multitude of captives had been brought to Archelaus the bishop by the soldiers who kept a camp there, seven hundred, no moderate anxiety had gripped him, because gold was demanded by the soldiers for their safety. And he, since he could not pass it over, burned the more vehemently for religion and the fear of God, and at length, hastening to Marcellus, sets out the whole business. And when the most pious man Marcellus heard these things, without delaying at all, he goes into his house, preparing the prices of the captives, however much those who had brought the prisoners had demanded. Lesson 3. And at once, opening the treasuries of his goods, he distinguished the rewards of piety from the soldiers by no number and no reckoning, so that they seemed gifts rather than prices. And they, wondering at and embracing as it were the immense (the text reads in mensam; read immensam) piety and munificence of the man, and moved by amazement at the deed, are stirred by the example of mercy, so that very many of them were added to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ: while others, having received scarcely a fourth part of the prices, departed: the rest went away receiving some little thing which would suffice only for a journey. At length blessed Marcellus, when, having cast off military service, he said with a clear voice that he was a Christian, was beheaded under Aurelian the consular with Apuleius his servant; buried not far from the city of Rome on the Nones of October."
[14] into one. We have already seen that the Acts of Marcellus, martyr of Tangier, were fastened upon the Capuan of the same name, a few things, namely, being changed as the argument of the matter seemed to the fabulist to require: in these Lessons, in which things belonging to three Marcelluses, differing very greatly among themselves in age, office, and quality, were heaped upon one and the same person, the errors occurring are neither smaller nor fewer. Known among the ancient writers are Archelaus and Marcellus, of whom the former was bishop of Cascar in Mesopotamia and a most vigorous defender of the faith against Mani, the impious and blasphemous heretic: the latter an inhabitant of the same city, a man, says Epiphanius against heresies, book 2, volume 2, on the heresy of the Manichaeans, number 7, in Petau, "excellent and most religious and above all illustrious": of whom, accordingly, are to be understood the things which are read in Lessons 1 and 2 and almost also 3. But Archelaus has indeed been inscribed in the Roman Martyrology by its recent correctors at the 26th day of December, but Chastelain says that he lacks all cult: while Marcellus, the friend of Archelaus, has a place in no sacred Fasti, so far as I know, so that it does not appear probable that he obtained a cult among the Capuans in the fifteenth century. The casting away of the military belt and the profession of the Christian faith, of which Lesson 3 speaks near its end, pertain to Marcellus of Tangier. Finally, the last period of Lesson 3, in which Marcellus and Apuleius are said to have been beheaded under Aurelian the consular and buried not far from the City, openly designates the Roman Martyrs. Whence it appears to me most probable that the martyrs entered in the Capuan Calendars which we praised above were plainly the same who are announced on this day as Martyrs at Rome by Ado, Usuard, and the rest; from the slender knowledge of whom among the Capuans it came about that now the deeds of this Marcellus, now of that, or their Acts, were applied to them.
[15] Nor must Piacenza be passed over in silence, another city of Italy, head of the duchy of the same name, which has long likewise shown itself zealous for the cult of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius; as is taught by the proper Offices of the Saints of the church of Piacenza, published in print by order of Claudio Rangoni, they enjoy a proper Office among the Piacentines, bishop of Piacenza, in the year 1635: the Calendar prefixed to these has at the 7th day of October thus: "Of Marcellus and Apuleius and companions, martyrs, semidouble, in the church of St. Sixtus." No mention is made of them in the Office of the 7th day of October except in Lesson VI at Matins, which, because it narrates some particular things about those holy Martyrs, it has seemed good to transcribe here: it is conceived in these words: "On the same day the anniversary memory is celebrated of Saints Marcellus and Apuleius: who, when they had previously been notably devoted to Simon the great (read magician), after they saw the wonderful and plainly divine works of blessed Peter at Rome, at once abandoned Simon and the worship of idols, and, imbued with the Apostolic teaching, embraced the Christian faith and religion, so that in that atrocious persecution of Nero, after the death of the Apostles, seized by order of Aurelian the consular, bravely offering their necks, they carried off the glorious palm of martyrdom." And these things indeed are said of the Saints of whom we treat consistently with what is recorded by others too, as is plain from what was said above.
[16] What follows, further, is almost peculiar: "Of whom this too has been handed down to memory, who seem to have kept their relics that they chose a place of burial in the Vatican for the body of the same blessed Peter taken down from the cross. They were buried not far from the City; but the Piacentines, having translated their bodies to themselves many years after, and laid them honourably in the temple of St. Sixtus, have never ceased to the present day to hold and venerate them piously and religiously." Thus far Lesson VI; on which I observe these few things. What credence the adherence of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius to Simon the magician deserves can be gathered from what I discoursed above on that matter. The Acts of St. Peter the Apostle foisted on Linus, his disciple and successor, Henschen published in volume 5 of June, where at page 428, number 12, at the end, these words are read: "Whose (St. Peter's) body Marcellus, one of his disciples …, placed in his own sarcophagus in the place which is called the Vatican, beside the triumphal way." But is the discourse here of our Marcellus (nothing is said here of Apuleius)? Certainly nothing is available from which I might affirm it with certainty. The Acts of St. Peter indeed speak more clearly, among us in volume 7 of June, page 16, where these words occur: "His body is buried by the brothers Marcellus and Apuleius … in the Vatican, not far from the triumphal way, near the gardens and circus of Nero": but since these have as their author Paolo Emilio Santori, promoted in the year 1617 to the archbishopric of Cosenza in Calabria and six years after translated to the church of Urbino, they have not such age and weight that it should be accepted as certain that St. Peter was buried by the Marcellus and Apuleius of whom we are speaking here.
[17] Further, that the cult of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius at Piacenza is not recent can be sufficiently gathered from those words of the sixth Lesson already given, in the temple of St. Sixtus in which their bodies are said not only to have been translated formerly to the Piacentines, but also to have been always piously and religiously kept in St. Sixtus up to the year 1635: at what time the holy Martyrs first began to be entered in the ecclesiastical Calendars and the Breviary of Piacenza is indeed hidden from me: but, speaking generally, I judge that they began to be venerated with sacred honours by the Piacentines at least from the time when the temple of St. Sixtus was founded among them. And Angilberga, wife of the emperor Louis, the II of this name, founded it for sacred virgins of the Benedictine Order (but it afterwards devolved to men), in the year, as Campi would have it in book 7 of the Ecclesiastical History of Piacenza, 852, from the diploma of Louis II which he recites in part 1, page 458. In it Angilberga is said to wish to build within the walls of the city of Piacenza, in the name and love of God, in honour of the holy Resurrection, one monastery of sacred maidens. It is read as dated on the 3rd day before the Ides of October, in the 15th Indiction, in the eighth year of the reign of the lord Louis, and of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 852. But these chronological notes suffer more than one difficulty: for on the 3rd day before the Ides of October of the said year not the 15th but rather the first Indiction was running: and the year 852 was the third or fourth of Louis's reign; since he was made his father's colleague only in the year 849 and was crowned at Rome by Leo IV in 850; as Pagi teaches at the year 844, number 4, in his Critica on Baronius's Annals.
[18] already from the year 874 But Campi reckons the beginning of Louis's reign from the year of Christ 844; in which indeed he was crowned king of the Lombards by Pope Sergius, not, however, emperor. Of sounder stamp appears that diploma of Louis as Muratori presents it in volume 2 of the Italian Antiquities of the middle age, column 453 and following, conceived in almost the same words but somewhat more briefly; and in it too it is read that Angilberta wishes to build within the walls of the city of Piacenza one monastery of sacred maidens. But it is written as dated on the 3rd day before the Ides of October, in the 8th Indiction, in the 25th year of the reign of the lord Louis, which chronological characters both agree better with themselves and indicate the year of Christ 874. Giovanni de' Mussi, in the Chronicle of Piacenza, writes that the temple of St. Sixtus at Piacenza was founded in the year 812 by the empress Angilberta, wife of Louis, son of Charlemagne: but it is manifest that Louis the Pious is confused by him with Louis II. Umberto Locati, in the book on the Origin of Piacenza (which see at the end of volume 3, part 2 of the Thesaurus of the Histories of Italy), stumbled into the same error. His words, from which it can be conjectured whence and when Angilberga received the relics of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, I transcribe here: "In the next year (815), his nephew Bernard having been beheaded, the emperor Louis obtained the kingdom of Italy, in which indeed he reigned six and twenty years. The wife of this emperor, Engilberga, raised within the walls of Piacenza a temple to the martyrs St. Sixtus and Agapitus" (rather Fabian), "with a monastery of nuns, in which Louis himself sent from Rome to Piacenza, to be placed by his wife, together with some relics of the Saints, the body of the same St. Sixtus, martyr and Pontiff, given to him by the supreme Pontiff Paschal, in the year 822 or thereabouts."
[19] they seem to have kept religiously. Locati had probably read in certain records that the emperor Louis sent to his wife at Piacenza relics of St. Sixtus and of other Saints, received at Rome from the Roman Pontiff: and since he had found them written only in general terms, he interpreted of Louis the Pious what was to be understood of Louis II: for Angelberga was the wife of the latter, not of the former; and the Annals of St. Bertin have it that Louis II came to Rome in the year 872 on the vigil of Pentecost, and on the morrow, the divine service having been performed with solemn rite, was conducted by Pope Adrian to the Lateran palace with notable pomp. And so Louis, the II of this name, in that year received the relics of St. Sixtus and of other Saints, which he then gave to his wife Angilberga to be placed in the monastery to be erected by her, either from Adrian, or from Nicholas, as in the Life of Sixtus
II, page 51, Libanori writes. But whether Adrian or his successor Nicholas did this, that the relics of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius were of the number of those relics is made probable by this, that in the year 879 they already existed in that monastery, as follows from the diploma of Carloman presently to be cited. Hence, further, the cult of the holy Martyrs among the Piacentines seems to have taken its beginning about the year 874: for from the diploma of Carloman, which is read as given "In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 879, on the 2nd day before the Nones of August, in the 3rd year of the reign of the lord king Carloman in Bavaria, and the 2nd in Italy, in the 12th Indiction," it is plain that already then, when it was given, the relics of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius were religiously kept in the said monastery. The words of the diploma bearing on this are these: "Wherefore let the diligence of all the faithful of the holy Church of God, and of ours present and future, know that, having learned of the zeal of our most loving sister Angilberga Augusta in the building of a monastery in the city of Piacenza with a view to eternal propitiation, for the honour of the same almighty God and in reverence of His Mother, and also of all the Apostles, and of the holy martyrs Sixtus, Fabian, Marcellus and Apuleius resting therein, we have granted and perpetually confirmed, etc." So Carloman in Campi, page 464.
[20] For the rest, it may easily be that elsewhere too, both in Italy Fabulous things about Marcellus, and in the other parts of the Catholic world, a special honour is shown to SS. Marcellus and Apuleius: but now Tamayo and Bivar above all call us into Spain. To these two writers the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dexter, already so often trodden down that it is superfluous today to say anything of it, has furnished ample material for fictions. It has thus in Bivar at the year of Christ 71: "Marcellus, kinsman of M. Marcellus, disciple of Peter, surnamed Eugenius, formerly with the same Marcellus a disciple of Simon the magician, suffers not far from Rome." Which passage of Dexter Bivar comments thus: "There are those who say that these are treated in the Acts of the holy martyrs Nereus and Achilleus; but they are mistaken, because the Marcellus who is treated there did not suffer near Rome; but was St. Eugenius, archbishop of Toledo, who was previously called M. Marcellus, and afterwards because of his nobility was called by the Christians Eugenius, which means NOBLE. He was indeed himself a disciple of Simon and of Peter, but different from the other, although his kinsman." The Acts of St. Eugenius in Tamayo at the 15th day of November speak in almost the same manner. But these things, as they are gratuitously devised and asserted without the legitimate authority of ancient writers and records, so are they rightly and deservedly exploded. Bivar, however, rightly denies that the Letter of Marcellus, inserted in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, ought to be ascribed to the Marcellus who suffered near the City together with Apuleius; but whence has he it that it ought to be ascribed to St. Eugenius, archbishop of Toledo? Both that and another writing of Marcellus about the things done between St. Peter and Simon the magician, which may be seen in Fiorentini from page 103, are today of almost no credit among the learned; Bivar, therefore, would have acted more advisedly had he attributed the Letter written to SS. Nereus and Achilleus to neither Marcellus: but, leaving trifles, let us hear Tamayo relating sounder things at the 7th day of October about SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, or about their relics and cult.
[21] "At Soria," he says, "a city of Spain" (in the diocese of Osma), "the Finding of the sacred pledges of SS. Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus and Apuleius, martyrs, but of the relics and cult of the Martyrs at Soria in Spain of whom the first at Augusta Euphratensis, the second at Rome, after accomplishing strenuous contests in defence of the faith, came as victorious athletes to the palm." The Acts of this finding, made about the year 1470, written in the Spanish tongue by lord Lope de Morales, knight of Santiago, in the year 1627, Tamayo made Latin: from whom receive them: "In the town which is called Cuevas, of the jurisdiction of the most noble and ancient city of Soria, three miles from it, at the Western corner, there rises an inaccessible site, so compacted on three sides by a continuous mass of rocks that to those who see it it shows almost nothing but a precipice. On the fourth side, then, where the East shines forth, a level way is seen, beside which antiquity has allowed to the eyes notable traces of walls, which entirely closed in the whole site, and girded the level ground in the form of an impregnable fortress. Here very often many ancient coins have been found, and ruins of buildings, and sometimes, through floods of waters, the bodies of armed soldiers, whose corpses either necessity or the danger of war buried there, no ampler monuments being sought.
[22] Tamayo relates sounder things. "Within the site of this place there is still preserved a hermitage dedicated to St. Christopher, which is declared among the townsfolk to be of such antiquity that its beginning and construction wholly exceed the memory of all men living. And so that place for some centuries received no other veneration than that which is wont to be given by the faithful to other hermitages consecrated to some Saint, although everywhere the gloom of the site, the traces of buildings, and the signs of ruins made that brow of the mountain wonderful to the neighbours and of great esteem. It came to pass, then, about the year 1470, God so permitting, for His own glory and honour and that of His Saints, that at the threshold of the aforesaid hermitage, within the church, with no one searching, but by chance, a stone casket began to be laid open in the ground, which was seen to be made and joined of four flat stones, in which were found the bones of four men, which, forthwith breathing forth a most fragrant odour, declared themselves to be relics of Saints, that the saying of Solomon might be fulfilled: 'A treasure to be desired, and oil in the dwelling of the just.' But because a finding of this kind should by no means pass without authority, nor the bodies rest on presumption alone, almighty God deigned to manifest within the hollow of the stone casket a parchment label, written in golden letters and blue characters, in these or similar Latin letters: 'Peoples oppressed by necessities, run to SS. Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus and Apuleius.'
[23] sounder things, "At once the fame of this wonderful finding, passing over the whole circuit of the surrounding towns, brought very many sick to the threshold of the hermitage, whom the divine goodness, through the merits of His Martyrs whose bones their devotion handled, sent home sound. And when the bishop of Osma, in whose diocese the hermitage is seen to be situated, had heard the report of this event too, a process of information having first been held, by which the matter done at the finding and the miracles afterwards occurring were established, the frequent concourse of the faithful and the other things authenticating the Act, he ordered the sacred relics of the holy Martyrs to be honourably placed. And as this was done, that hermitage being more frequently visited by the faithful, all labouring under any disease whatever daily receive entire health. And also at the time when rain fails for the sowing and the fruits of the earth, scarcely does the procession of the towns halt at their threshold, when the showers of the clouds, the cataracts of heaven being opened, fill the whole land of the region with saving rains." On the testimony, then, of lord Lope de Morales, SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, with SS. Sergius and Bacchus, chiefly from the fifteenth century up to his own age, not only obtained a special cult there, but increased it among the surrounding peoples both by many miracles and by benefits divinely shown at their invocation; which indeed I would not wish to call into doubt: since, however, Lope alone wrote of the matter, as Tamayo says, and it has not befallen me so far to see his Work, I do not know whether what Tamayo adds about Lope's Work or writing in these words is true in every respect: "Thus far lord Lope de Morales concerning the account of this finding; who with learned pen answers the contrary things that might be opposed, and sets out exactly the reasons for which these sacred pledges could be transferred to Spain": which, since, as I have said, it has not so far been granted us to examine, we are compelled to suspend judgment in this matter.
[24] Why the Acts of the Martyrs are not published. We have Acts of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius from the Utrecht manuscript of St. Saviour, whose beginning is: "Marcellus and Apuleius at first indeed adhered to Simon the magician, etc.": and whose end is: "But God made them (Eutyches, Victorinus and Maro) illustrious there in life with miracles, and when they had converted many, they were crowned with martyrdom, as is contained on the 12th of May in the feasts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus." Their beginning comprises the same things as the Martyrologies cited at the beginning of this Sylloge. Then they narrate that St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, was entombed by Marcellus, from the Acts of St. Peter foisted upon Pope Linus, as these words of the Utrecht Acts show: "These things Pope Linus." The rest is copied almost wholly from the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus (See volume 3 of May, page 9 and following, number 10 and the four following; likewise page XI, numbers 18, 19 and 20); for which reason I did not think they should be submitted to the press again, especially since the sources from which they are drawn are of slight credit.