Callistus

ON ST. CALLISTUS, OR CALLIXTUS, POPE AND MARTYR, AT ROME,

Callistus or Callixtus, Pope and Martyr, at Rome. (S.)

BY J. B.

§ I. The Acts of the martyrdom praised too much by some, depreciated too much by others: the common difficulty which occurs in these, and in the Acts of other Martyrs of the same time, weighed.

The Acts of the martyrdom of Callistus, collated with various ancient manuscripts, The Acts of St. Callistus, although not written by the Roman notaries, were long ago published in great part, and illustrated with a Commentary, by Henschenius, in Tome 2 of May, at the tenth day of that month, page 498 and the four following; not indeed entire, but only so far as they contained the deeds of SS. Calepodius, Palmatius, Simplicius, Felix, Blanda and other Martyrs, of whom he was there treating; the remaining part being omitted, in which the remaining deeds of St. Callistus, and the martyrdom of St. Asterius, who buried St. Callistus, and of the soldier Privatus are set forth. We shall give these entire from the same Manuscript which Henschenius used. Henschenius believed that these Acts had been written down by the Roman notaries, following, as I think, the words which are read at the head of the manuscript, which are as follows: The illustrious deeds of St. Calixtus, Pope, and of other Martyrs, written down by the Roman notaries; but too readily: for they are neither endowed with that simplicity which is proper to the original and genuine Acts of the Martyrs, nor are they free of blemishes, of which we shall speak below, which cannot be imputed to the Roman notaries: whence Sollerius, in his Observation on the entry of Usuard for the tenth day of the month of May, says that he does not know what could have moved Henschenius to come round to that opinion.

[2] But although those Acts were not written down by the Roman notaries, they are nevertheless they are nevertheless of great antiquity, as having lit the way for Bede, Ado and Rabanus, who not seldom use their very words, as anyone will readily admit who has consulted their texts in which they treat of the holy Martyrs mentioned in the Acts of St. Callistus, and has compared them with the Acts: for it cannot be said that the Annunciations of the Martyrologists were not drawn from the Acts, but the Acts rather put together from these; which is refuted even by the words of Bede, who cites the Acts of Callistus. For after he had written this, at the 10th day of May, of SS. Calepodius, Palmatius and Simplicius: At Rome, the birthday of Calepodius, an aged priest, under the emperor Alexander, who had him slain by Laodicius, and his body dragged through the city and thrown into the Tiber on the day of the Kalends of May. Which, when found, fishermen raised up, and reported to Calixtus the Bishop. And he, receiving it, embalmed it with spices and linen cloths, and buried him in the cemetery of the same, on the Aurelian Way, at the third milestone from the City, on the 6th of the Ides of May. Then Palmatius the consul was beheaded by Alexander, with his wife and children and forty-two others (with whom also Simplicius the senator), who through the teaching of Calixtus the Pope and Calepodius the priest had lately been baptized: he presently adds: it is written in the Passion of St. Calixtus the Pope. And indeed, see how conformable these words of Bede are with the Acts: of Calepodius, indeed, you will read at num. 8: Whom he (Alexander) had slain with the sword, and his body dragged through the city on the day of the Kalends of May: whose body he had thrown into the Tiber… Which, when found, raising it (the fishermen) from the river, they reported to Blessed Calixtus the Bishop … which holy body, being received, he embalmed with spices and linen cloths and with hymns, and buried him in the cemetery of the same, on the sixth of the Ides of May. And of Palmatius, at num. 3: And (Callistus) baptized all the household of Palmatius, and his wife and children of both sexes, forty-two. Again, at the 14th day of October, Bede of the holy Pontiff: The birthday of St. Calixtus the Pope: who in the persecution of the emperor Alexander, having been long tormented with hunger and daily beaten with cudgels, was strengthened and consoled through a vision by his priest Calepodius, who had earlier consummated his Martyrdom: who, being placed in the same prison, cured a certain soldier, named Privatus, of the pain and foulness of ulcers and at the same time of unbelief. Hearing which, Alexander had the soldier himself made to die under the leaded scourges; but blessed Calistus to be thrown headlong through the window of the house, and, a stone being tied to his neck, to be sunk in a well, and rubble to be heaped upon him. But after seventeen days his priest Asterius, coming by night with clerics, raised the body and buried it in the cemetery of Calepodius on the day before the Ides of October. Read nums. 8 and 9 of the Acts, and you will find almost the same words: you will experience the same if you wish to compare the words of Ado with the words of the Acts. From which it follows that the Acts of St. Callistus existed in the eighth century, in which Bede flourished, and are perhaps indeed much more ancient.

[3] of antiquity: but by many For since Bede did not find these Acts recent, nor is it likely that they had been composed just then, when Bede put together his Martyrology, there is certainly reason why we should not deny that they were already old in Bede's age; although it is very obscure and uncertain in what century they first came into being. Pietro Moretti, canon of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber, in Tome 1 On St. Callistus, Pope and Martyr, and his Basilica, printed at Rome in the year 1752, Disquisition 1, chapter 9, has learnedly gathered many things by which he strives to prove that they were written (see the cited chapter, num. 67, page 212) When the memory of the deeds had not yet fallen away, inasmuch as it (the Passion of St. Callistus, and indeed such as it is read today) was for the use of the Roman church in the first centuries after peace was granted to the Christian religion. And accordingly, Hence, he says, the very great antiquity of the writing, And no less, on that account, its authority. But the question is not so much of their antiquity as of their authority. Their antiquity neither Baronius, nor Tillemont, nor other learned men have denied: yet the judgments on the value of these Acts are various. Baronius, in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology at the 14th day of October, judged that there are some things in the Acts of St. Callistus which should be corrected; although he does not on that account entirely reject their credibility, mindful, namely, of what he had noted at the 9th day of October concerning St. Dionysius the Areopagite: But if, on account of one or another error found in the Lives of the Saints, we should say that the rest which remains lacks credibility, we would surely bring almost all the Lives of the Saints into jeopardy; since in almost all something can be noted which seems to need correcting, and it is the singular prerogative of the canonical scriptures alone that in them all things are narrated true, unshaken, and certain. But truly, what he writes of them in Tome 2 of the Annals at the year 226, num. 2, does somewhat more harm to the authority of the Acts of St. Callistus: There are extant Acts of his Passion, yet not genuine in all respects: for the edicts said in them to have been promulgated by Alexander against the Christians, and the persecution proclaimed by him against them, are not approved. For these are contradicted not only by what we have recited above from Lampridius, but also by what was written by the ancient writers of Christian history: who all equally affirm that no persecution was stirred up in the church under Alexander.

[4] This, therefore, is what chiefly displeased Baronius in the Acts of St. Callistus, they seem contrary to what is related of the reign of Alexander that in them the emperor Alexander is said to have himself, of his own accord, stirred up a persecution against the Christians, and is depicted as other than he really was; the ancient writers, not only pagan but also Christian, protesting against it: and indeed Lampridius wrote that Alexander, on taking up the empire, deferred so much to his mother Mammaea, a woman either Christian or much attached to them, that he did all things with her, and she seemed to rule: it therefore appears as foreign to the truth that a persecution against the Christians was set in motion by Alexander as that it was by Mammaea, which no one will say. And Alexander, by the testimony of the same Lampridius, was wont in the morning hours to offer worship in his lararium not only to the gods of the gentiles, but also to Christ: indeed, he also wished to build a temple to Christ, and to receive him among the Gods. Behold another example of the same mind well-disposed toward the Christians, and of the honour paid by him to their religion: When the Christians, says the same writer, had occupied a certain place which had been public, and the tavern-keepers on the other side said it was owed to them, he wrote in reply that it was better that God should be worshipped there in whatever manner, than that it should be given over to the tavern-keepers. He adds elsewhere: And he cried out very often what he had heard from certain persons, whether Christians, and held fast: and he ordered it to be said by a herald whenever he was correcting anyone: "What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another." Finally, the same writer says of Alexander in express words: He suffered the Christians to exist. And Herodian, in book 6 of his Histories, in the translation of Angelo Poliziano, having said that the administration of affairs and the helm of the principate under the emperor Alexander had fallen upon the women Maesa and Mammaea, says of Mammaea: But Mammaea, seeing herself now alone left to her son, strove to preside and govern in the same manner. And of Alexander: For the rest, there was in Alexander by his own nature a mild and gentle disposition, inclined to humanity: which the following age also declared. For for fourteen years he conducted the empire anaimaktōs, that is, without blood: not even one being slain. For although very many fell into the greatest crimes, yet he always abstained from putting them to death… No one can recall anyone, during his reign, upon whom death was inflicted uncondemned. Herodian again writes similar things of Alexander toward the end of the cited book:

This end of life had Alexander together with his mother, when he had ruled for fourteen years without any complaint of his subjects, and indeed without blood: since, shrinking from slaughter and cruelty, he suffered no one to perish unless condemned by trial: being inclined, namely, to humanity and benevolence. Lampridius, tacitly carping at Herodian, denies that the reign of Alexander was bloodless: but if you consider the words of Herodian, Herodian did not say that it was altogether bloodless, but that no one, by his will or order, was given over to death unless lawfully convicted and condemned; although matters sometimes stood otherwise, but against his will, as Herodian himself relates to have happened in the slaying of his father-in-law. But now let some Christian writers be heard.

[5] Eusebius, in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 21, writers both pagan in the translation of Henri de Valois, writes of Mammaea, the mother of Alexander: Moreover the mother of the emperor Alexander, Mamaea by name, a woman pious and religious above others (these words seem to indicate a follower of the Christian faith), since the name of Origen was everywhere now held most celebrated, so that it had been carried even to her ears, desired to enjoy the sight of him, and to know by most certain trial the knowledge of divine things which all greatly admired in that man. Therefore, staying at Antioch, she sent a military escort and summoned the man. He, having stayed with her for some time, after he had shown her innumerable proofs for the glory of the Lord and for declaring the power of that divine preaching, returned in good time to his accustomed abode. From which words this at the least follows, that Mammaea was well acquainted with the Christian teachings, and her son Alexander not altogether ignorant of them — why this is observed here will become clear in the course of this Commentary. The same Eusebius, in the cited book, chapter 28, writes that the household or family of Alexander consisted of many Christians, and that out of hatred of it Maximinus, Alexander's immediate successor, began to persecute the church of Christ; whence one may gather that Alexander favoured the Christians even to the point of arousing the ill-will of the pagans. He (Maximinus), inflamed with grievous hatred, says Eusebius, against the family of Alexander, in which very many were Christians, stirring up a persecution, ordered only the prelates of the churches, as being the authors of the Gospel preaching, to be put to death.

[6] The same Eusebius relates, in book 5, chapter 16, that against Montanus as the Christians have handed down: and his false prophets God raised up many who defended the truth against the errors of the Cataphrygians by word and writing, and convicted those false prophets of falsehood. The falsehood of whose prophecies indeed, says Eusebius, citing one of those defenders of the truth, he convicts in these words: Has not this lie also, he says, appeared manifest to all? For from the death of Maximilla to this day more than thirteen years have passed: and yet there has been neither any particular war nor a universal one on earth: nay rather, for the Christians, by a certain special mercy of God, a stable and firm peace has remained. Now that space of peace, both civil and ecclesiastical, of more than thirteen years, Tillemont, in Tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, Note VIII on Alexander, page 478, reckons can hardly be found elsewhere than from the death of Macrinus, which occurred in the year 218, to the Persian war of Alexander. Paulus Orosius the priest, in book 7, chapter 18, who lived in the fourth century, has this of Alexander and his mother: In the nine hundred and seventy-fourth year from the founding of the City, Aurelius Alexander, the twenty-first from Augustus, created emperor by the will of the senate and the soldiers, was for thirteen years worthy of the praise of equity. Whose mother Mamaea, a Christian, took care to hear Origen the priest. Sulpicius Severus also, in book 2 of the Sacred History, chapter 32, says that from the death of the emperor Severus up to Maximinus, Alexander's successor, there was peace for the church, writing in these words: Then the sixth harassment was under the reign of Severus… Then, thirty-eight years intervening, there was peace for the Christians, except that in the middle time Maximinus harassed the clerics of some churches. Soon, under the reign of Decius, there was already raging against the Christians the seventh persecution. Since, therefore, the reign of Alexander fell between the reigns of Severus and Maximinus, under his reign, on the testimony of Sulpicius Severus, no persecution afflicted the church. From the testimonies of these writers, as well pagan as Christian, it is clear that Baronius, cited at num. 3, judged not without reason that no persecution against the church was stirred up by Alexander himself — which, however, the Acts of St. Callistus seemed to him to assert — and that those Acts therefore are not in every part genuine.

[7] But however great the tranquillity of the church was under the reign of Alexander, yet since it was not so peaceful, it was not so great, as Baronius says at the year of Christ 225, num. 6, but that trouble was made for the Christians at Rome: which he not ineptly conjectures from the very words of Lampridius, in which he writes that Alexander suffered the Christians to exist. For since before, he says, under Antoninus Caracalla, under Macrinus, and also under Elagabalus, the Christians had been allowed to live in quiet; in that Alexander is said to have again suffered the Christians to exist, the author seems to signify that some harassment had intervened. Nor perhaps were there lacking those who urged Alexander to persecute and extinguish the Christian name, to whom he was unwilling to assent; and on that account Lampridius said that Alexander suffered the Christians to exist: there certainly seems to be some particular reason why Lampridius said this of Alexander rather than of Caracalla, Macrinus, or Elagabalus, who also suffered the Christians to exist. Certainly we may not rashly suspect this of Alexander's assessors and counsellors, among whom the chief was Domitius Ulpianus, who, as is clear from Lactantius, was an enemy of the Christian name: for thus he writes, Divine Institutes, book 5, chapter XI: Nay, even most wicked murderers have framed impious laws against the pious. For both sacrilegious constitutions and unjust disputations of jurists are read. Domitius, in the seventh book On the Office of Proconsul, collected the nefarious rescripts of the princes, in order to teach with what penalties those ought to be visited who confessed themselves worshippers of God. He is indeed praised exceedingly by Herodian and Lampridius for his equity: but it is no wonder that this was done by those for whom it was a matter of praise to persecute the Christians, whom they held to be sacrilegious and enemies of their Gods. Nor was Domitius Ulpianus so much a lover of equity as Lampridius proclaims, if what Dio Cassius writes is true — who held the consulship together with Alexander in the year 229 — in book 80 of the Roman History, where he has this of Ulpian, in the version of Xiphilinus: Ulpian therefore corrected many things which had not been rightly done by Sardanapalus (that is, Elagabalus). But when he had slain Flavianus and Chrestus (the praetorian prefects) in order to succeed into their place, he himself also not long after was slain by the praetorians, who attacked him by night, although he had run back with hurried course into the palace and had fled for refuge to the emperor himself and his mother.

[8] [nor was he himself so disposed toward the Christians but that there was some persecution under him;] But if one looks into the very character of Alexander, from that too it will become probable that the Christians under his reign were not altogether immune from all harassment, whether from his ministers or from the raging pagan populace. For although he was of a humane disposition, well-affected toward the Christians, but severe toward the soldiers (whence also he received the name of Severus), yet on the other side not only was he still very young (about sixteen years old) when he took up the empire, but he also seems to have been rather timid by nature, as one who, by the testimony of Lampridius, dreaded even literary men, lest they should write something harsh about him. The same is reproved by Herodian because, with excessive gentleness and greater reverence than was fitting, he complied with his mother even against his own judgment, and that even in the gravest matters. At his mother's command he suffered his wife, dear to him and especially pleasing, to be driven from the court; likewise his father-in-law, although of great authority with his son-in-law, to be slain, albeit unwillingly, as Herodian testifies: Now all these things, he says, were done against the will of Alexander and under constraint. For his mother ruled over him beyond measure. And how highly Alexander esteemed the jurists, whose counsels he was wont to use, and especially Ulpian, we learn from Lampridius, who writes thus of him: He held Paulus and Ulpian in great honour … for Ulpian is said to have been both counsellor of Alexander and master of the bureau of records… He had Ulpian as a guardian, at first against his mother's opposition, afterwards with her thanks, and often defended him from the anger of the soldiers by interposing the purple: and he was therefore a very great emperor, because he ruled the commonwealth chiefly by his counsels… After the Letters he admitted all his friends together, and spoke with all alike: nor did he see any one alone, except his prefect, and indeed Ulpian, always from being his assessor, on account of his singular justice. And when he called in another, he also ordered Ulpian to be asked… When he dined among his own, he would call in either Ulpian or learned men. Since Alexander was such, it becomes not incredible that he deferred more than was right, as to his mother, so also to Ulpian and to similar men hostile to the Christian name, and so permitted the Christians to exist that he nevertheless at the same time sometimes suffered them, even against his own judgment, to be harassed. These things have been said so that no one should wonder too much that not a few Martyrs are recorded in the sacred Calendars as having suffered under the reign of Alexander; and also so that a fair judgment can be passed on the Acts of St. Callistus, which seem to us to be praised more than is just by some, and on the contrary to be depreciated by others.

[9] What displeased Tillemont above all was the multitude although not so great, of the Martyrs who are said to have suffered under Alexander; of whom Baronius enumerates a good many in the Annals, where he treats of Alexander; but Baronius numbers among these several whose time of martyrdom is uncertain: of this kind are St. Hippolytus, bishop and Martyr, at the Roman Port; St. Quiriacus, Martyr, with companions, at Ostia on the Tiber; St. Aurea with many companions, concerning whom one may consult what has already been said in our Work, at the 12th, 3rd and 4th days of August, on the epoch of their Martyrdom. To these may be added SS. Julius and Hesychius, martyrs at Durostorum in Moesia, entered in our Work at the 27th day of May and the 15th of June. SS. Martina and Tatiana are also said to have suffered under Alexander; but the Acts from which this was drawn are of no value or weight. Under the reign of Alexander, also, St. Urban the Pope, the successor of Calistus, is said to have fallen as a martyr for the faith, in the Acts printed in our Work at the 25th day of May, in which Almachius, prefect of the City, reproaches Urban that through his deceits five thousand men had already perished: Withdraw, he says, from the madness with which you are infected. For already through your deceit almost five thousand men, deceived, have perished, of whose miserable destruction you are guilty — which enormous number of martyrs can with difficulty be reconciled with the peace which the church enjoyed at that time. The Acts indeed are written in a fairly simple style by the notaries, as Henschenius at least judged, of the Roman church:

but since Pope Urban is called a confessor in certain ancient monuments, and since there was likewise another at Rome named Urban, who was crowned with martyrdom and translated from Rome to Châlons (see Tome VI of May, page 16 and following), it is certainly to be feared that the one was confused with the other, although both departed this life at different times, and that so it came about that the companions of the latter were wrongly ascribed to Pope Urban. Likewise very many Martyrs venerated on the [ ] day of March, of whom we treated at that day in our Work, are said to have suffered under Alexander in the Roman Martyrology of Rosweyde, in these words: And of very many martyrs condemned under Alexander by capital sentence. Finally, SS. Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus, of whom our predecessors treated at the 14th day of April, were converted by St. Cecilia, of whom we shall have to treat on the 22nd day of November.

[10] As regards the Acts of St. Cecilia, Sollerius observes the following in his Usuard at the day of November just mentioned: how great it is read to have been in various Acts of the Martyrs, The chief difficulty which is objected by more recent writers, and that a capital one, consists chiefly in this, that, as I have hinted elsewhere, so bitter and savage a persecution as is described in those Acts, such atrocious torments everywhere inflicted on the Christians, seem altogether not to square with the times of Alexander. The same difficulty presses upon the Acts of St. Callistus: if credence is to be given to certain Martyrologies and Acts of martyrs, says Tillemont in French, Tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, in the Notes on Callistus, page 679, there is scarcely a prince under whom the church suffered a crueller persecution: there you may see exiles, slaughters, most inhuman harassments of Pontiffs, of the greatest bishops, of illustrious virgins, and even of senators, consuls, and whole families most honoured at Rome; and that not by a popular tumult, as can sometimes happen, not by the private cruelty of some magistrate, but by the explicit and repeated mandates of Alexander, ordering, the Acts of St. Callistus say, that wherever Christians were found, they should be compelled to sacrifice, or be punished with any kind of punishment. The words of the Acts of St. Callistus which he takes here stand thus below at num. 1: Alexander said: I have commanded once and again that wherever they are found they should be punished, or should offer libations to the immortal Gods. Crueller than these are the following words of the Acts of St. Martina, Tome 1 of January, page XI: Alexander, setting forth a new and most evil precept in the whole world, that they should either sacrifice, or, if they did not sacrifice, should be delivered to death. Which words of both sets of Acts accord, from what has been said above, neither with the humanity of Alexander and his inclination toward the Christians, nor with the tranquillity of the church at that season asserted by the ancient writers. But before I undertake to discuss the Acts of St. Callistus individually, I shall lay open by what way this very intricate difficulty, common to many martyrs who are said to have suffered under the emperor Alexander, can in some fashion be resolved.

[11] I judge, therefore, first of all, that the original Acts of those martyrs, they can be reconciled with the reign of Alexander if any ever existed, perished in the time of the persecutions which were stirred up against the Christians by the hatred of subsequent emperors; but that they were restored in some fashion afterwards, when happier times shone upon the Christians and the memory of the martyrs had not yet entirely fallen away; but that through the unskilfulness of later men it came about that, when they had learned, whether from certain remaining monuments or from the tradition of their elders, that those martyrs had suffered in the time of Alexander, they believed this to have been done on the authority and order of Alexander, and ascribed to him what was to be attributed to Alexander's assessors or other ministers of his: which ought not to seem absurd, since it is established that among them was Ulpian, an enemy of the Christian name, and most probably there were also several others who both hated the Christians and wielded the greatest authority with Alexander; and whom accordingly, as men necessary for the administration of the commonwealth, he allowed to rage against the Christians, although unwillingly and against his judgment; which is suggested not only by his rather youthful age, but also by the things which he suffered to be done by his mother — her separating his wife from his bed and court, and ordering his father-in-law to be slain, so that she alone might reign — though they were most dear to him, yet unwillingly. Thus the humanity of Alexander and his inclination toward the Christians are in some fashion safeguarded.

[12] and with the peace of the church under him, in great part, be reconciled It is credible, moreover, that Alexander's intimates, hostile to the Christians, seeing him so disposed, abused the authority by which they prevailed with him and, having become bolder, imposed on the Christians grave and manifold offences, whether against the commonwealth or against the superstition of the pagans, and in their name and under that pretext removed from the midst a not small number of the faithful, although not so great as the Acts of those martyrs claim. And in this way, indeed, the difficulty is met which is drawn from the excessive multitude of martyrs who suffered under Alexander, which the tranquillity of the church in these times, asserted by the ancients, makes scarcely credible and not probable. But, you will say, in what way will that not small number of martyrs under Alexander be reconciled with the authority of Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, and other ancient writers, who said that the church was at that time in peace? Because (which seems to me a not absurd answer) no persecution against the Christians was then promulgated by the emperors throughout the Roman world: because the persecution stirred up under Alexander did not touch most of the provinces of the Christian world; nay, did not spread itself beyond Rome and the places neighbouring on Rome, if you except SS. Julius and Hesychius who suffered at Durostorum: for as many Martyrs as are said to have suffered under Alexander are recorded to have fallen either at Rome, or at the Roman Port, or at Ostia on the Tiber. Thus, finally, the chief difficulties which are customarily objected by more recent writers to the history of the martyrs who suffered in the time of Alexander have been met in some fashion. Let us approach the Acts of St. Callistus separately.

§ II. The objections specially raised against the Acts of St. Callistus are refuted: their blemish, and their credibility.

Even the very opening of the Acts of St. Callistus is not approved by Tillemont, praised above; [Not prejudicial to the truth of the Acts are the storms of the air mentioned in them,] which runs thus: In the times of Macrinus and Alexander, part of the capitol on the south side was burned by divine fire, and within the temple of Jupiter the golden left hand fell and was melted. The soothsayers and priests came to Alexander, saying that their Gods should be appeased with sacrifices. Why could the capitol not have been struck by lightning in the time of Macrinus, and part of the statue of Jupiter melted, and the pagan priests have asked that their Gods be appeased with sacrifices by Alexander, Heliogabalus being passed over — who, even by Tillemont's own calculation, first came to Rome in the year 219 and was slaughtered in the year 222, sunk in filthiness and follies? But, it is said, the reign of Macrinus had nothing in common with that of Alexander: as if indeed the author of the Acts of St. Callistus had said that they reigned together. Henschenius said that his meaning was that the things he was about to narrate thereafter were done in the times of Macrinus and Alexander. Why does Tillemont not refute this explanation of Henschenius? Why does he not accuse the author of the Acts of obscurity, which he could rightly have done? Because such an accusation would have been, I think, of rather slight moment. What if the writer of the Acts, by these words In the times of Macrinus and Alexander, wished only to indicate the time in which St. Callistus held the pontificate, which in almost the same manner was indicated by the author of the catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs written before the death of the Pontiff Liberius, at whom it ends, writing thus: He was in the times of Macrinus and Heliogabalus, from the consulship of Antoninus and Adventus up to Antoninus for the third time and Alexander? The burning of the left hand of Jupiter smacks of fable to Tillemont: and yet that under the reign of Macrinus there were frequent storms of the air, thunders and lightnings, is clear from Dio Cassius, book 78, nums. 25 and 30: in the former indeed he relates that the amphitheatre, struck by lightning, burned; likewise that the imperial estates perished in frequent fires: and at num. 30, that the thunders were so frequent that we always had, he says, that line of Homer on our lips: "Jupiter thundered, a mighty clangour fills the heaven." These storms, moreover, seemed to the pagans to portend huge evils which hung over the empire, namely, as happened, the overthrow and death of Macrinus, and the transfer of the empire to Heliogabalus, under whom, Dio writes at num. 29, nothing was done except wickedly and shamefully. You see, therefore, how closely akin to these are the things the author of the Acts of St. Callistus writes; and how probable it becomes both that the statue of Jupiter in the Capitol was at some time struck by lightning, and that the soothsayers and pagan priests asked of Alexander, a prince religious in their own rite, that their Gods be appeased with sacrifices.

[14] the singing Likewise these words of the Acts smack of fable to Tillemont: They heard in a certain upper room a multitude of Christians singing psalms: of the Christians, which could be heard from the street, among whom was Calixtus with his clergy. Tillemont did not think, I suppose, that the Christians were so incautious as to conduct the divine psalmody in that upper room in such a way that they could be heard by pagans passing in the street: but why should they not have done this in the time of Alexander, in which, as Tillemont himself affirms where he treats of Callistus, they had already obtained not only greater liberty but also the faculty of exercising their religion by force of the rescript of which Lampridius, cited at num. 4, speaks; nay, when Tillemont himself, in Tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 274, judged that public churches, known to the pagans, had even begun to be built by the Christians? And to those words of the Acts: They came across the Tiber into the city to the temple of the Ravennates, and likewise to these at num. 3: In the region across the Tiber, in the city of the Ravennates, he says that nothing occurs in Roman history by which they may be illustrated, and that those who wish to explain them are reduced to conjectures destitute of all authority. It cannot be called into doubt that Augustus established a double fleet, one at Ravenna, the other at Misenum, which Tacitus mentions thus in book 4, chapter 5: Two fleets guarded Italy on either sea, at Misenum and at Ravenna, and the nearest shore of Gaul was guarded by beaked ships (in the reign of Tiberius) which, captured in the victory of Actium, Augustus had sent to the town of Forum Julii. Likewise it cannot be called into doubt that marines of Misenum were summoned to Rome from Ravenna and dwelt there in a certain particular quarter of the City, which, namely, from their dwelling there found a special name, and was named by P. Victor, in his little book on the Regions of the City, the camp of the Misenates.

[15] The same seems to be said of the marines of Ravenna: the city of the Ravennates, for although Victor nowhere mentions, at least by name and clearly, a camp of the Ravennates, yet it is elicited from elsewhere that they too dwelt at Rome. For this is shown by a marble base dug up in the Transtiberine quarter, as Moretti observes, Disquisition 1, chapter 1, num. 34, which is read in Gruter, page CCXVII, on which this is inscribed: Imp. caes. Divi fil. augusto terra marique victori sacerdot. bonae deae & colleg. VII vir epulon commun. pop. voto Ravenat DD. But who were these, if not the marines of Ravenna, who, equally with the men of Misenum, inhabited a quarter of their own at Rome across the Tiber, and by their dwelling there gave occasion for it to be called the city of the Ravennates? So indeed Marliani judged

in book 5, chapter 19 of the Topography of the city of Rome, when he wrote thus: The Transtiberine region in ancient times also received the name of the Janiculum, from the hill of the same name rising above it. I find it also named the city of the Ravennates. For Augustus, having gained the victory against Antony and Cleopatra, established a double fleet: one at the port of Misenum, the other at Ravenna. And since the senate took care that no multitude should frequent Rome which did not have a place of dwelling publicly assigned to it, this region was assigned to the soldiers of the Ravenna fleet, which thenceforth began to be called the city of the Ravennates. By which name the temple and the taberna meritoria were called: which we read was where the church of St. Mary now is. Several writers have believed that the Porta Ravennas found its name from the marines of Ravenna who formerly dwelt at Rome in the Transtiberine region; concerning whom, and others affirming that there was at Rome either a camp or a city of the Ravennates, Moretti may be consulted in the place just cited. But if the name of city attributed to this Transtiberine quarter should perhaps be suspect to anyone, in another copy of the Acts of St. Calistus, on the testimony of Bianchini in his Notes on Anastasius the Librarian, is read: The camp of the Ravennates. Although, therefore, the old Roman History does not explicitly mention a city or camp of the Ravennates, it nevertheless supplies arguments for judging prudently that it really existed: nor did Tillemont have anything from which to convict the Acts of St. Callistus of falsehood on this head.

[16] the virgin of the temple The Acts say, at num. 2, that the Roman people were summoned by Alexander's order to the Capitol, so that all should be present at the sacrifice to be offered there to Mercury; and at num. 5 that, while this was being done, a virgin of the temple, named Juliana, cried out: The God of Callixtus, he is the living and true God: which passage of the Acts Tillemont takes up thus: Nor do I believe it can be found what a virgin of the capitol is. The only virgins of the pagans were in the temple of Vesta — which Moretti, chapter 10, num. 23, wonders should have fallen from Tillemont's pen, and not without reason: What? Were there no virgins at Rome except the Vestals? None except in the temple of Vesta? Did he not remember that Lampridius wrote of Alexander: He instituted girls and boys, Mammaeans of both sexes, as Antoninus had instituted the Faustinians? But these perhaps were not devoted to sacred rites: there were certainly the Salian virgins, of whom Festus, On the Signification of Words, under the word Regifugium, has this, citing Cincius and Tullius On Holidays: who say that the Salian virgins and the Salii attend the king of sacrifices when he makes sacrifice in the Comitium. Equally devoted to sacred rites were those virgins of whom Cicero wrote in book 1 of the Letters to Atticus, VIII, otherwise XI: I believe you have heard that, when sacrifice was being made for the people at Caeso's house, a man (Clodius) came there dressed in women's clothing, and that the virgins had repeated that sacrifice… But if these were Vestals, it would indeed follow from the words of Cicero that they were not so bound to the temple of Vesta but that they also performed superstitious rites elsewhere and attended the solemnities of the Roman people. Devoted to sacred rites were the Flaminiae, of whom Festus says thus: Flaminia was the name of the little priestess who ministered to the Flaminica Dialis, and she was patrimes and matrimes, that is, she had her father and mother still living. That both these and the Vestal virgins were present at the restoration of the Capitol under Vespasian, Tacitus is the authority, in these words, Histories book 4, chapter 53: Then the Vestal virgins, with boys and girls having both parents living, washed (the Capitoline temple) with water drawn from springs and rivers. But the Vestal virgins were also admitted to public spectacles, and Augustus wished a special place to be assigned to them in the theatre, as Suetonius testifies, chapter 44: To the Vestal virgins alone he gave a separate place in the theatre, and opposite the praetor's tribunal. Hence, therefore, it is easily understood what the virgin of the temple mentioned in the Acts of St. Callistus signifies: namely a virgin appointed for performing the sacred rites in the temple of the Capitol, whether that virgin was a Vestal, or a Flaminia, or of whatever other kind at all.

[17] Tillemont goes on: You may see there (in the Acts of St. Callistus), he says, and other things which Alexander condemning to death SS. Simplicius the senator and Palmatius the consul, and many others, without any form of trial, and without even their being brought before the senate: whereas Herodian testifies that he observed this, that he never condemned anyone except according to the precept of the laws and of the ordinary magistrates. So it is: Herodian said that Alexander reigned without blood, without reproach, and was a stranger to slaughters, cruelty, and the passing of sentences without a hearing of the cause: Tillemont could have joined Lampridius to Herodian, whose words are these: His reign was called Αναίματον, though he was harsh and stern, because he slew none of the senators, as Herodian, a Greek writer, relates in the books of his times. But Lampridius refutes this very thing when he writes that Ovinius Camillus, a senator who had plotted rebellion, was slain by Alexander's order. Likewise Lampridius shows that the reign of Alexander was not altogether bloodless when he writes that Vetronius Turinus, an intimate of Alexander, was slain by his order. Herodian, moreover, can be understood of pagan senators: for the slaughter of Christians, even senators, the gentiles held of no account. Finally, Herodian acts as his own interpreter: for when he said that Alexander reigned without anyone's complaint, he adds: ὅσον᾽ επ᾽ αὐτῷ, so far as concerned himself. But from this it by no means follows that nothing was committed by his ministers, under his reign, which was against right and law; which things I have thought should chiefly be observed here, lest anyone, on account of the words of the authors just cited, should think the very martyrdom of SS. Simplicius and Palmatius is to be denied; not that I wish to defend the authority of the Acts so far as they relate that death was inflicted on these Saints, as also on Callistus, by the order of Alexander himself; on which matter more will be said below.

[18] But if, says Tillemont finally, the Martyrologists, and even Bede himself, followed these Acts, against those we have often seen Bede following monuments which cannot be defended. It is known that in the age of Pope Gelasius there were very many supposititious Acts. St. Palmatius is not found at all in the Hieronymian Martyrologies, although a consul would well have deserved not to be given over to oblivion. The authority of Bede and the other ancient Martyrologists is not indeed sufficient for it to be said that such dire and manifold punishments were inflicted, by order of Alexander himself, on St. Callistus and on so many other martyrs mentioned in his Acts; nor is the truth of the Acts proved thereby, but their antiquity, which adds at least some weight to their authority, and makes it lawful to follow them in those things in which they are not shown to depart from the truth, and as regards the chief heads of the matter. Otherwise credence would have to be given to few ancient Acts, since scarcely any are found which are entirely free of every blemish. Tillemont seems, moreover, to think that SS. Simplicius, Palmatius and Callistus were inserted into the calendars of the ancient martyrologists on the sole credit of the Acts; as if they did not have their cult in the church ascertained from elsewhere, which I think will hardly be proved by anyone. But if they inscribed them in the sacred calendars on that account too, their authority in this matter is surely to be held in the highest esteem; granted that they composed their eulogy from the Acts of Callistus.

[19] Tillemont objects: The remaining arguments which Tillemont uses to weaken the authority of the Acts of St. Callistus are of such a kind that I would not think he would have used them by themselves, had he not held the peaceful reign of Alexander, and his inclination toward the Christians, as the palmary foundation of his opinion. For granted there were supposititious Acts in the age of Pope Gelasius, nay even unworthy of the least credence: were the Acts of St. Callistus placed, or to be placed, among their number? Granted the Martyrologies called after St. Jerome do not mention SS. Simplicius and Palmatius and others mentioned in those Acts: have they come down to us entire, such as they were at first? Did Tillemont know any Martyrology, or has one ever existed, which made mention of absolutely all the martyrs? Where in the Hieronymian Martyrologies extant today is mention made of St. Symphorosa and her seven sons who suffered under Hadrian, although their Acts are extant among the genuine ones published by Ruinart and praised by Tillemont himself, Tome 2 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 241? Where of the holy Martyrs Ptolemaeus, Lucius, and another anonymous one, who suffered at Rome, of whom St. Justin Martyr speaks in his Apology? Where of St. Maximilian, slain at Theveste in Numidia in the year 295? Whose Acts Ruinart, in the Genuine and Select Acts of the Martyrs, page 308, counts among the more genuine monuments of antiquity. Eusebius, writing of the Persecution of Diocletian, mentions the holy Martyrs Phileas and Philoromus who suffered at Alexandria, Tyrannio, bishop of the Tyrians, and Zenobius the priest, of whom no mention is made in the Hieronymian codices. From the silence of the Hieronymian codices, therefore, it cannot be concluded that there was no martyrdom of SS. Simplicius and Palmatius: but indeed, just as we have already seen some martyrs mentioned by Eusebius but omitted in the Hieronymian codices, so also in turn in these several martyrs are listed, among whom St. Callistus, whom Eusebius does not mention; and accordingly feeble is the argument of Basnage — whom we shall also have to meet elsewhere in this Commentary — who attempts, from the silence of Eusebius, to call the martyrdom of St. Callistus into suspicion of falsehood, Tome 2 of the Politico-Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 219, num. 6.

[20] there is indeed a blemish in them, These are about the things which are objected to the Acts of Callistus by those who, as far at least as it appears to us, depreciate them more than is fair. Yet these Acts are not so approved by us that there is nothing in them which is deservedly rejected. Of this kind is the answer of Alexander to Palmatius, still a pagan and denouncing the Christians, conceived in these words at num. 1: I have commanded once and again that wherever they are found they should be punished, or should offer libations to the immortal gods. For anyone will with difficulty believe that this answer proceeded from the mouth of Alexander who has attended to Alexander's humane character, his inclination of mind toward the Christians, and the tranquillity of the church under his reign asserted by the ancient writers. These words too are to be observed: Wherever they are found. Which indicate a persecution of the Christians to be carried out not only at Rome but everywhere, such as nevertheless neither took place nor was ever proclaimed by Alexander. Nor is it probable that a public edict was promulgated by Alexander's order that all who were at Rome, unless they wished to be slain, should sacrifice to the gods, which is related at num. 2 in these words: And Alexander commanded that sacrifice should be made, that the whole populace, all, should run together to the Capitol from the city of Rome, so that those who were found in their dwellings should all be slain. Who would believe this of Alexander, whose house, on the testimony of Eusebius cited at num. 5, was full of Christians?

[21] They say at num. 2 that Alexander, on seeing the soldiers whom divine vengeance had blinded, by which certain sayings and deeds immediately cried out: O best of citizens! see the magic art. Both Mammaea and Alexander were better instructed about the institutions and morals of the Christians than that he should immediately believe this, with no previous inquiry into how it had happened, and ascribe it to the magic arts of the Christians, whose institutions, precepts and morals he was not ignorant shrank as far as possible from crimes of this kind. What do the Acts relate at num. 4?

There Alexander, in order to recall Palmatius, already converted to the Christian faith, to the former worship of the Gods, addresses him thus: Have you become so mad, O Palmatius, as to desert the Gods, and to seek and worship a dead man? Are these the words of Alexander, who had an image of Christ in his lararium, who had wished to build a temple to Christ and to number him among the gods, had he not been deterred from the purpose? Would he not in this way have convicted himself of madness? Baronius saw that these things and others akin to them do not square with Alexander; wherefore at the year 226, num. 4, he says: As for those who are said to have been ordered to be slain at Alexander's command, it is to be taken thus, that whatever these (Alexander's assessors) did, they boasted that they had acted in the name and by the authority of the emperor. Baronius speaks the truth indeed: but not even so can the writer of the Acts be said to be free of all error and to have said nothing inept: if he had invented nothing false, nothing altogether repugnant to the character and morals of Alexander, to his knowledge of Christian matters, to his inclination toward the Christians, it could have been tolerated and kindly explained in some fashion: but since he paints Alexander in colours and burdens him with deeds altogether foreign to his character, I plainly do not see how he can be vindicated from error or ineptitude.

[22] To vindicate him from error and ineptitude, Moretti says, Disquisition 1, chapter 10, num. XI, to Alexander wrongly that the same thing was often done by other writers: that thus Eusebius, book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13, asserted that the blessed Martyr Lucian delivered his apologetic oration at Nicomedia in the presence of the emperor himself (Maximinus), which in book 9, chapter 6, he testifies that he delivered before the governor, and so said that what had been done before the governor was done before the supreme prince. That likewise in the Acts of St. Sadoth and his Companions, martyrs among the Persians, it is read: Again, as if from the mouth of the king, it was said (to the Saints): unless you do my will, and lend your ears to my commands, behold the most deadly hour of your destruction is at hand. That thus the author of the Acts of St. Eusebius the priest introduced the emperor Constantius as if exchanging words with the holy Martyr at Rome, although Constantius was far away from there: that thus Theodoret, book 4, chapter 6, which is entitled Of the Ordination of St. Ambrose the bishop, presented Valentinian the elder as if present at it at Milan and conversing with the bishops and with Ambrose, though he was absent from there. But by these Moretti does not attain the end he set himself: for Eusebius, book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13, did not assert that the emperor himself was present at the apologetic oration of Lucian, but that it was delivered by Lucian at Nicomedia at the very time at which Maximinus was staying in the same city: for so Eusebius explains himself, in Valesius's translation: But also Lucian, priest of the church of Antioch … having been brought to Nicomedia, in which city Maximinus was then staying, when he had delivered before the governor a defence of the faith which he professed, was cast into prison and slain; so that in the earlier place Eusebius wished to indicate not before whom, but at what time that oration was delivered by Lucian, namely when the emperor Maximinus himself had arrived at Nicomedia.

[23] Not only does ἐπιπαρόντος, the word Eusebius uses, and are ineptly attributed: signify present, but also arriving or coming upon the scene. Next, Lucian could have defended the faith in a twofold oration, one delivered to the judge (see the eulogy of Lucian from Rufinus, Tome 1 of January, page 362), the other to the emperor, when he ordered him to be brought to him (see there the Acts of the holy Martyr, page 361, num. XI): and to this perhaps these words of St. Chrysostom (see page 364, num. 7) about St. Lucian refer: He spoke boldly before princes and kings. The judge of the holy Martyr Sadoth did indeed assume the person of Sapor, king of the Persians, in the words cited above, but they are such as to contain nothing foreign to Sapor, and Sapor himself could have used them not ineptly. Similarly, the discourses which the Writer of the Acts of St. Eusebius, the Roman priest, invented for Constantius are such that they could have been fittingly used by Constantius himself, had he in fact been at Rome together with Pope Liberius and Eusebius. But as concerns Theodoret, he wrote that Valentinian was present at the ordination of St. Ambrose, made at Milan, not by letters or legates but in his own person; for he says in explicit words, in Valesius, that Valentinian not only said and did this and that at Milan, but was also present at all the proceedings: but if at that time Valentinian was staying in the neighbourhood of the Rhine, I plainly do not see how this can be excused from error in Theodoret, acting as a historiographer. The writer of the Acts of St. Callistus therefore seems to us to be blamed not so much because he ascribed to Alexander what had been said and done by his ministers, but because he did so ineptly, and described him in words and deeds such that he might seem altogether other than he really was, so much so that that writer betrays that Alexander was little known to him.

[24] yet can prudently be believed For the rest, his authority does not on that account wholly totter or fall: he deserves credence in what he writes of the number of the Martyrs who suffered at about the same time at which Callistus underwent martyrdom, as is to be proved more fully below; credence when he describes their punishments; credence when he narrates the miracles worked by Callistus. And why not? Do the miracles which are narrated in the Passion of Callistus exceed belief, whether in number or in kind? Are not similar things read to have been worked by other Martyrs, in a similar condition of affairs and times, in their genuine and approved Acts? Then, if the Martyrs mentioned in the Passion of Callistus are read to have been afflicted with blows, exhausted with hunger, slain with the sword, cast headlong into a well, what is unusual in that? What is there that is repugnant — I do not say to the humanity of Alexander — but to the hatred and cruelty of his ministers toward the Christians? What occurs in the Acts that is prejudicial to the tranquillity of the church, viewed as a whole?

[25] Some persecution, perhaps, but circumscribed almost within the limits of the Roman city? the rest can. What occurs there which is adverse either to the innate humanity of Alexander or to his inclination of mind toward the Christians? But we have already seen that he suffered even his dearest wife to be torn from him, and his father-in-law to be slain, though unwilling and under constraint. We know also that he deferred to Ulpian his guardian, an enemy of the Christians, very much not only in familiarity but also in authority, even over the soldiers, so that Alexander often found it necessary to protect his life from their anger by interposing the supreme purple: and that Ulpian was at length slain by them. Why should he not also have been more indulgent than was fair toward others, whether assessors or prefects, whose labour and counsels he thought necessary to him for ruling the commonwealth, whether circumvented and deceived by their false accusations against the Christians, or by the pretext of preserving the laws of the commonwealth that were adverse to the Christian religion, or finally by any other means and arts whatever? Something too must be granted to the antiquity of the writer, who wrote at a time when he could learn both the names of the Martyrs and the kinds of punishments and most of the attendant circumstances from report and the account of the elders.

§ III. At what time St. Callistus held the See, and when he died.

How great is the difficulty of presenting an accurate Chronotaxis of the ancient Roman Pontiffs, Of the various opinions on the time at which Callistus held the See is declared more than enough both by the unremitting labours of the learned on the matter and by the manifold disagreement and variety of opinions; which, as often in other Pontiffs, so also has place in Callistus, whether you look to the years and days in which he began to preside over the Christian world, or those in which he ceased to rule the Church and to live. Receive a specimen of this variety. Baronius judged that Callistus sat from the year 221 to 226; Labbe, Chronologia technica part 1, from the year 219, at the beginning of September, to the 14th day of the month of October of the year 224, which years Petavius also assigns to him, tome 2 On the Doctrine of Times, book 13, page 697. Coustant, tome 1 of the Letters of the Ancient Roman Pontiffs, page 114, from the year 219 to the 14th of October of the year 223. Tillemont, tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, partly where he treats of Callistus, page 250, partly in the Notes, page 682, from the year 219 to the year 223; Henschenius, before tome 1 of April, page XXV, from the year 218 to 222, but in tome VI of May, page 5 and following, from the year 217 to 222: Papebroch, tome 5 of June, page 436, num. 32, from the year 218 to the year 223; but in the Conatus Chronico-Historicus on the Catalogue of the Pontiffs, page 27, from the year 217 to the year 222. Pagi, in the Critica on the Annals of Baronius at the year 224, from the year 217, on the 18th day of the month of July, to the 28th of September of the year 222. Bianchini, in tome 2 of the Anastasian work, first at page CCII, and then at page 175 in the Notes on Callistus, writes that he was elected on the 2nd day of August and ordained on the following day, a Sunday, likewise in the year 217, died on the 13th of October and was buried on the following day. Moretti differs little from Bianchini, who writes, Disquisition 1, chapter 2, pages 46 and following, that Callistus was elected in the year 217 on the 2nd day of August and ordained on the same day, that is, on a Saturday, but was crowned with martyrdom on the 12th day of October and buried on the 14th.

[27] But if you should ask how many years, months and days he held the Pontificate, [the more probable seems to be that by which he is said to have sat 5 years, 2 months, 10 days,] here too you will meet a huge discrepancy both of the writers and of the old Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs: Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 21, relates that Callistus sat five years: Eutychius in the Alexandrian Annals six years, Nicephorus the patriarch of Constantinople and George Syncellus 8 years: and of the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs, in Francesco Bianchini in the Prolegomena to the Lives of the Pontiffs, page XCV, some assign to him 5, 6, 7 and 10 years, most 2 months, one 6, likewise most 10 days, one XI, another 2; so that of the 22 codices there listed, XI give Callistus 5 years, sixteen 2 months, fifteen 10 days, with which the old paintings of the Basilica of St. Paul agree: whence it comes about that we embrace this duration of the Pontificate of Callistus as the more probable, and most of all because it is assigned by the author of the Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs edited by Boucher in his Commentary on the Paschal canon of Victorius, who lived in the middle of the fourth century, and there at page 270 has thus: Callistus five years, two months, ten days. But from what year of the common era are these years, months and days to be counted?

[28] Eusebius of Caesarea, cited a little before, writes that St. Zephyrinus, from the year 217 Callistus's immediate predecessor, departed this life in the first year of the reign of Antoninus, namely Heliogabalus, who succeeded Macrinus. Heliogabalus was saluted emperor by the soldiers in the year 218 in the month of May; Macrinus was defeated in the same year in the month of June,

and a little later slain together with his son Diadumenus. Therefore, if we are to stand by Eusebius, Callistus did not occupy the Roman Chair before the year 218, as some judge, from what has been said above. Those who contend that Callistus began to sit in the year 219 can cite the same Eusebius for their opinion, inasmuch as in the Chronicle he writes that Callistus took up the episcopate of the Roman Church in the second year of Heliogabalus. Others reckon it permissible for them, and not without reason, to depart from Eusebius, and rather to adhere to the Latin Calendars where matters done in the West are treated: since he was wont to deal with these rather carelessly, and sometimes contradicts himself. Eusebius, says Valesius in his Notes on chapter 27 of book 7 of the Ecclesiastical History, says nothing of the martyrdom of Xystus either in the Chronicle or in the Ecclesiastical History; which I greatly wonder at: and I would wonder much more did I not know that Eusebius was rather careless in matters done throughout the West. Moreover, in the Chronicle indeed he writes that Xystus sat VIII years, whereas here he assigns him eleven years. Pagi notes similar things of Eusebius in the Critica at the year 67, num. XI, which he concludes thus: Since therefore Eusebius was purblind regarding the following Roman Pontiffs, and especially those who lived in his own age, he will not show the way to another who does not know the path for himself. Of the Latin Calendars, moreover, the better guide in this matter is the same Catalogue edited by [ ], in which, after the words cited above, this immediately follows: He was in the times of Macrinus and Heliogabalus, from the consulship of Antoninus and Adventus, up to Antoninus for the third time and Alexander. Alexander first entered upon the consulship in the year 222, who in the same year was made emperor from Caesar. Antoninus Heliogabalus held the consulship with him, not indeed for the third time, as is read in the Catalogue, but for the fourth, as Dio Cassius has in book 79, and was slain in the same year in the month of March. Macrinus was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers in the year 217, in the month of April, Praesens and Extricatus being consuls: the last year, therefore, in which Callistus sat was the year 222 of the common era; whence, if you count five years in retrograde order, the beginning of his Pontificate will fall back to the year 217.

[29] But, you will say, the Catalogue does not say that Callistus sat from the consulship of Praesens and Extricatus, up to the year 222, but of Antoninus and Adventus: and Adventus did not enter upon the consulship until the year 218: so it is; but this does not come about because Callistus did not sit under these consuls; but because these consuls had already been assigned to the last year of his predecessor, lest the same consuls should be named twice, which is nowhere customarily done in that Catalogue up to Fabian. Who the other of the twin consuls of the year 218 was, here called Antoninus, is not the opinion of all alike: from Dio Cassius indeed it is established that Macrinus was consul in that year; but it is not established that he was called Antoninus by the author of the Catalogue: some think that here Diadumenus, the son of Macrinus, whom his father ordered to be called Antoninus, is meant; but Diadumenus was not an ordinary consul; and it seems that Heliogabalus is to be understood here, who not only wished to be called Antoninus, but is also charged by Dio Cassius, in the translation of Nicola Carminio Falcone, that in place of the consulship of Macrinus, which he had neither received from us nor perhaps would ever have attained (for it had already been held), he substituted his own name … that he took up for himself a second consulship (in the year 219), when he had not previously received any magistracy, nor the insignia of a magistracy. Whence it ought not to seem strange that the author of the Catalogue mentioned the consulship of Antoninus, but not of Macrinus. Let it stand, therefore, that St. Callistus entered upon the Pontificate more probably in the year 217, and laid it down in 222, the same year in which Alexander, the immediate successor of Heliogabalus, was first made consul and emperor, and in which likewise the paschal term fell on the Ides of April, that is, on the thirteenth day of that month, which was also a Saturday, as is read in the Canon of Hippolytus, composed at that time, in Boucher, cited, page 295, and in others: from which it follows that in the first year of Alexander the day of Easter (the 14th of April according to the Dionysian canon, but the 21st according to the canon of Hippolytus) is to be marked with the Dominical letter F, which indeed agrees with the year 222; but by no means with the year 224, to which Baronius not rightly tied the fourth year of Callistus and the first of Alexander. Dodwell, in his Singular Dissertation on the Primitive Succession of the Roman Pontiffs, writes that Callistus ceased to be among the living in the year 222; but that he began his pontificate in the year 214, following George Syncellus, who assigns an eight-year span to his pontificate; but the Catalogue cited above, as it has the greater antiquity, so also has the greater authority.

[30] Since, therefore, the year in which he both began and ceased to sit has now been determined, as far as was possible, [from the 2nd day of August of the former year to the 12th of October of the latter:] it remains to inquire in what month and day of the year 217 he likewise began to sit, and what month and day of the year 222 fell to his lot as his day of death. Bianchini proceeds in this way: he determines that St. Zephyrinus, the immediate predecessor of Callistus in the Roman see, died in the year 217, from which Pierre Perier is not far removed, who in tome 5 of August of our work, page 788, assigns his death to about the year 218. For the rest, although the Roman Martyrology and Usuard announce St. Zephyrinus at the 26th day of August, and the Hieronymian ones at the 20th day of December, Bianchini nevertheless determines that he died on the 26th day of July, and that not without a witness: for he brings forward a stone of the ninth century, placed in the pronaos or vestibule of the monastery of SS. Stephen and Silvester, founded by Paul I and enriched with various relics of Saints, to which this title is prefixed: In the name of the Lord. This is the notice of the Birthdays of the Saints resting here: and in the series of Saints underneath, these words about St. Zephyrinus are read in Giovanni Giachetti, in the history of the same monastery written in the Italian idiom, page 66: In the month of July on the 26th day, the Birthday of SS. Zephyrinus, Pope, and Tarsus (for Bianchini, Tarsicius), Martyr; and since it could easily have happened that the 26th day of August and the 20th of December became celebrated either through a translation, or an elevation of the body, or some other not dissimilar title, Bianchini's opinion on this point appears not to be despised. Then, counting six days from the 26th day of July — as many as Anastasius is the authority that the Roman See was vacant after the death of Zephyrinus — he fixes the beginning of the Pontificate of Callistus to the second day of the month of August, which in that year fell on a Saturday and was, as Bianchini thinks, the day of the election; and the following day, a Sunday, that of the ordination. And from here, computing 5 years, 2 months, 10 days, he judges that the day of St. Callistus's death was the 13th day of October; and the day immediately following, on which he is venerated, that of the burial, as is also read in Anastasius, in the Acts of St. Callistus, and in the Depositions of the Martyrs in Boucher, page 269. Counting five years, 2 months, 10 days, and ending the calculation at the 13th day of October, he excludes from those ten days the very day of the ordination, or the third of August: but I would rather, with Moretti, include it in those ten days, by which reckoning the day of death of the holy Pontiff will be the 12th of October, and there will agree exactly with each other both the ancient stone cited by Bianchini and the various Hieronymian Martyrologies, which mark St. Callistus not only at the 14th day of October but also at the 12th; the former indeed on account of the burial or deposition of the body; the latter probably on account of the death.

[31] But, you will say, this opinion is repugnant to the Acts, that opinion does indeed seem repugnant to the Acts, in which Callistus is said to have been buried by St. Asterius on the 14th day of October, the 17th from his slaying. Now if you count back seventeen days from the 14th of October (making the 14th the start of the count), the Saint's day of death will fall on the 28th of September: from here again, if you go back 10 days, you will retreat to the 19th day of September; and taking away two months from here, to the 18th or 19th day of July of the year 222: finally, by subtracting five years from the 19th day of July of the year 222, you will fall upon the 18th or 19th day of July of the year 217, the latter of which days was a Saturday and the day of the ordination of St. Callistus according to Pagi, cited above at num. 26. The words of the Acts on which they rely stand thus below at num. 9: But after ten and seven days (from St. Callistus having been thrown into the well, as had just been said in them) his priest, named Asterius, came with clerics by night, and raised the body of Blessed Calixtus the bishop and buried it honourably in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way on the day before the Ides of October. Bianchini ascribes those ten and seven days to an error of amanuenses and copyists, and thinks it should be read On the following day; but I would not dare to use that alteration of the words, because Bianchini neither brings forward any copy of the Acts in which On the following day is read, nor is any to be found, so far as I know, out of so many codices, both printed and manuscript, in which Callistus is read to have been laid in the tomb on the day after his slaying. It seems to me better, therefore, following Moretti's lead, to enter upon another way of reconciling with the Acts the opinion by which Callistus is determined to have held the Roman See from the 2nd or 3rd day of August of the year 217 to the 12th day of October of the year 222.

[32] I distinguish, namely, a twofold order in these Acts, yet with them in this way, one of the words, the other of the events, which the author of the Acts chiefly had before his eyes. If you attend to the former, it must be confessed that between the opinion just related and the Acts there is no agreement at all as to the months and days of the Pontificate's being entered upon and laid down by Callistus: but if you look to the order of events, and refer those words After ten and seven days not to the slaying of Callistus but to the time at which Callistus was first taken, cast into prison, and began to be tortured, nothing at all will stand in the way of his ceasing to live on the 12th day of August, and, the Acts being unharmed, of the opinion related a little before standing safe. And that the author of the Acts intended this seems able to be elicited from other passages of them. For from num. 5, Alexander, when he had heard that Simplicius and his household had been baptized through the work of Callistus, sent soldiers to arrest Simplicius and all the Christians who were living in his house, which was actually done. And he also seized Blessed Calepodius, whom he had slain with the sword, and his body dragged through the city on the day of the Kalends of May, from num. 6. What, moreover, would you think Alexander did, if you look at the words of the Acts, when he heard that Calepodius the priest had indeed been taken, but not Callistus, the chief author of the conversion of the pagans to the Christian faith? Would he not have ordered at once that Callistus too should be sought out? And what of Callistus? When he heard that his priest had been taken and slain, would he not, well aware that he too was sought for death, presently have looked to his safety by flight? Nay,

indeed; for, as the Acts go on: In those very days Blessed Calixtus fled with ten of his clerics and hid himself by night in the house of a certain Pontianus. And why? Unless, most probably, to escape the hands of the soldiers searching for him? After this, as the Acts have at the end of the same number, Callistus buried the body of St. Calepodius … in the cemetery of the same on the sixth of the Ides of May. There immediately follow at num. 7 these words: From that same day Alexander began carefully to seek Blessed Calixtus the bishop. What day do these words from that same day indicate? If you look to the order of the words, certainly the sixth of the Ides of May: but if to the order of things and events, more probably the Kalends of May, on which day Alexander seized Calepodius and ordered him to be slain, not that on which he buried him, although the latter is mentioned immediately before in the Acts: for otherwise — which is less credible — Alexander would seem to have granted Callistus a space of eight days, long enough indeed for Callistus, if he wished, to provide for himself by flight.

[33] this being explained Further, just as the Acts just cited expressly mention the captivity of St. Calepodius, so also that of St. Callistus, at num. 7: And it was made known to him (to Alexander, after Callistus had been sought in vain for some time) that he was in the house of Pontianus near the city of the Ravennates: and he sent secretly "and seized him." Then the Acts relate that he was tormented with hunger, beaten with blows daily, wasted in prison for many days (from the 27th or 28th day of September up to the 12th of October, in this opinion at least), thrown headlong from a window, and at length buried by St. Asterius on the fourteenth day of October, the seventeenth day, not from when he was cast headlong into the well and overwhelmed with stones, but from when Alexander seized him; for it becomes very probable indeed that the compiler of the Acts spoke in the same manner of Callistus as of Calepodius. But he also kept almost the same manner of speaking at the end of the Acts, where he has this about St. Asterius: And after six days Alexander seized Asterius the priest: whom he commanded to be thrown headlong from the bridge: whose holy body was found at Ostia, and buried by certain Christians in the same city on the 14th of the Kalends of November. Where those words after six days do not indicate that those six days are to be counted from the 14th of October, which had just been mentioned, but from some earlier day, and probably from the day of St. Callistus's death: for if you count six days from the 14th day of October (including it in the count), not only will the day of the martyrdom of St. Asterius fall on the 14th of the Kalends of November, or the 19th of October, but also the day of burial; whereas it is scarcely probable that St. Asterius was on the same day both taken at Rome, thrown into the Tiber, and found and entombed at Ostia on the Tiber, a place 12 Italian miles distant from the City.

[34] But if you follow the order of the words, the first year of the pontificate of Callistus will indeed fall in the year 217 of the common era, it seems to be rightly reconciled. and the last in 222; but going back 17 days from the 14th day of October, the day of Callistus's death will become the 27th or 28th day of September of the year 222: counting thence five years, 2 months, 10 days, the end of the count will fall on the 17th or 18th of July, when Zephyrinus had not yet departed from among the living; and accordingly Callistus would have had to act as his vicar for some days, whether Zephyrinus is determined to have died on the 26th day of July, or the 26th of August, or the 20th of December. I know indeed that this very thing is read in the Papebrochian Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs in the Propylaeum of May, page 27, where Callistus too is said to have been instituted successor of Zephyrinus on the 16th day of December, a Friday, the sixth day from Zephyrinus's death. But there is no mention in Anastasius of a vicariate held by Callistus while Zephyrinus survived, and I would prefer, since it can be done conveniently, to assign the time of the Pontificate of Callistus without that vicariate, unless perhaps a greater authority should persuade otherwise. The opinion therefore pleases me best of those who think that Callistus sat from the second day of August of the year 217 to the 12th of October of the year 222; both because it agrees exceedingly well with the Bucherian Catalogue, whose authority in this matter ought to be the greatest, and with the ancient stone and the Hieronymian Martyrologies to be cited in their place, and can be reconciled with the very Acts of the Saint. Yet we do not embrace it as certain, since it is not certain that the birthday of St. Zephyrinus is rightly assigned to the 26th day of July on the stone mentioned by Bianchini, and it is by no means established whether Callistus is entered in the Hieronymian Martyrologies at the 12th day of October because he was born into heaven on that day, or for another cause which may have underlain it.

§ IV. The native country of St. Callistus; his uncertain lineage; his deeds before the Pontificate unknown; the fasts of the Four Times observed at Rome from the beginning of the Church by custom, then confirmed by law.

St. Callistus at Rome The anonymous writer of the Passion of St. Callistus thought it enough to hand down to posterity the things which bore most closely upon it; and he disclosed nothing of his native country, lineage, and deeds before the Passion. That he was an outstanding man may be gauged both from his holiness and from the supreme dignity of the universal church, which it is fitting to believe he attained not without great merits: but this he had in common with several, whether predecessors or successors; let us come to what was proper to himself. As concerns first of all his native country and lineage, Anastasius the Librarian, in Bianchini, dispatches it in these few words: Callistus, a Roman by nation, of a father Domitius, of the region of the city of the Ravennates: by which words is indicated not only his native soil, but also the quarter of the City in which he was brought into the light, here called the City of the Ravennates. Augustus, as Suetonius testifies in his Life, chapter 49, stationed a fleet at Misenum and another at Ravenna for the protection of the upper sea. These marines, says Alessandro Donati, On the City of Rome, book 3, chapter 21, coming to the City, had quarters there, the men of Misenum namely in the place called the Camp of the Misenates, which P. Victor placed in the third Region of the City: and the men of Ravenna in the Camp of the Ravennates. And since, Donati continues, under the principate of the Caesars maritime expeditions were very rare, the Ravenna marines were frequently in the City, and at the games drew the awnings in the theatre. Lampridius in Commodus: "Believing this (Commodus), he says, to be mocked by the Roman People, he had ordered them to be slain in the amphitheatre by the marine soldiers who drew the awnings." And indeed, that a place of their own was assigned to the marines of Ravenna just as to those of Misenum is a matter both very probable in itself and not only asserted by several writers, but also skilfully confirmed by Moretti, chapter 1, num. 34, from a marble base dug up near the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter across the Tiber, whose inscription may be seen above, page 406, column 1, where we both alleged the authority of Tacitus and showed that there is little strength in the argument of Tillemont, impugning the credibility of the Acts of St. Callistus, drawn from these words, the city of the Ravennates.

[36] It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that Rome fell to St. Callistus as his native soil: perhaps born of the Domitian gens, but not so certain is what some think of his descent: for they judge that he was of the Domitian gens, of which Suetonius in the Nero, who was sprung from it, first indeed because his father is said to have been called Domitius; then because the Domitii arose in the Transtiberine region, as Victor writes; and they seem to have possessed certain estates in the same region; to which point Moretti brings forward certain ancient monuments dug up in the Transtiberine region in the year 1744, namely bricks, on one of which these characters were inscribed: Of Primitivus of Domitia Lucilla. On the second: Of Earinus of Domitia Lucilla. On the third: CN Dom. M … valeat qui … I would not deny that at least the last of these inscriptions pertains to the Domitian gens, since I read that it was divided into two families, the Calvini and the Ahenobarbi, of whom these (the Ahenobarbi) used no forenames at all except Gnaeus and Lucius; yet since the appellation of Domitius or Domitia was not so proper to the Domitian gens but that it could also be used by other Roman families, I fear that St. Callistus was not sprung from the Domitian gens, although his father was called Domitius or Dometius, and Callistus himself was brought into the world in the Transtiberine region of the City: the inscriptions of Gruter display a not small number of Domitii, Domitiae and Domitillae, as may be seen in the Index of proper names and cognomens, all of whom no one, I think, would ascribe to the Domitian gens, since there appear there Domitia Cassia and Domitilla Postumia, who are most probably to be referred to the Cassian and Postumian gentes, different from the Domitian.

[37] We have nothing to say of the year in which Callistus was brought into the world, the year of his birth and his deeds before the pontificate lie hidden: since the ancient writers or the monuments nearer to his age have handed down nothing to us on that matter: this one thing we say, from Moretti, chapter 1, num. 69 and following, that he was already an old man when he was made Pontiff, and was shown as such in the ancient images of him which were formerly seen in the Lateran and Vatican basilicas, as also in those which are extant in St. Paul's and in St. Mary's across the Tiber, which you have in tome 2 of May, page 499: to which, at num. 74, Moretti adds another more ancient one, found at the beginning of this century in a cemetery of the Appian Way and drawn on a fragment of a glass cup, which the early faithful used when holding banquets after the more solemn sacred assemblies. Nothing more has antiquity left us, as I have already hinted above, of his deeds before the Pontificate.

[38] Made Pontiff, he established the three-day fasts of the Four Times, As concerns the things done by him when raised to the Pontificate, Anastasius, in Bianchini, immediately subjoins after the words cited above the following: He established that a fast should be held on the Saturday three times in the year, of corn, wine and oil, according to the Prophecy (of the fourth, seventh and tenth). The Henschenian Catalogue of the Pontiffs, written in the sixth century in the time of the emperor Justinian, in the Propylaeum of May, page 48, has the same words, but there is read: according to the Prophet. The Order of the Roman Pontiffs, from the Vatican codex 6381, six hundred years old, edited by Bianchini in the Prolegomena to the Lives of the Pontiffs, page XIX: He established that a fast should be held three times in the year on the Saturday. Baronius, in the Annals at the year 226, thought that not three times but four times should be read: for, he says, the Prophecy (indicated in the Pontifical book) is that of Zechariah, admonishing that a fast is to be celebrated four times in the year. Benedict XIV, Institution 4, num. 3, also brings forward these words from the Pontifical book: he established that a fast should be held four times in the year, for the sake of corn, wine, and oil, according to the prophecy: but at the same time he warns

that in the most ancient Colbertine copy of the same book, as also in the one which belonged to the queen of the Swedes, it is read in this manner: He established that a fast should be held on the Saturday three times in the year, for the sake of corn and oil, according to the prophet, of the fourth month, the seventh, and the tenth. So that the reading seems preferable according to which Callistus established that the fast was to be celebrated three times in the year. The Prophecy cited here is conceived in these words in Zechariah, chapter 8, verse 19: Thus says the Lord of hosts: the fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah for joy and for illustrious solemnities. Four fasts too were formerly observed by the Jews, as Du Hamel notes: the first indeed on account of the walls of Jerusalem thrown down, the second on account of the city burned, the third on account of the Jews [ ] utterly from their own land, the fourth on account of the city besieged by Nebuchadnezzar: whose custom Callistus is said to have established as to be imitated by the Christians, or at least by the Romans, prescribing a threefold or fourfold fast each year, but to be observed for another end, namely for the sake of corn, wine and oil, or so that due thanks might be rendered to God for the fruits of the earth, especially at those times in which they are committed to the earth, ripen, and are gathered.

[39] customarily kept at Rome, indeed, from the beginning of the church, Fasting, indeed, taken generally, was always under precept in the New law (if you look to the sacred writings); but particular fasting was not likewise. Turning it over in my mind, says Augustine, Letter 36 to Casulanus, Benedictine edition, otherwise 86, in the Gospel and Apostolic writings, and in the whole instrument which is called the New Testament, I see that fasting is commanded. But on what days one ought not to fast, and on which one ought, I do not find defined by precept of the Lord or of the Apostles. From that general obligation of fasting the custom of the faithful of fasting at certain times and days of the year took its origin from the very beginning of the nascent church; if not at the command, certainly at the urging, approval, or praise of the Apostles. Thence that custom, spread through most churches of the world, of which Augustine speaks in the cited Letter, of fasting on the fourth and sixth weekday, not only in certain months but through the whole course of the year. Thence also the custom of the Roman church, by which it was formerly wont to observe a fast not only on the fourth and sixth weekday but also on Saturday through the course of the whole year, as is gathered from these words of the same Letter, chapter IV: The Christian who has been accustomed to fast on the fourth and sixth day and on Saturday itself, as the Roman people frequently does, will be outdone in the labour of fasting. And then also from the words of that Urbicus, or Roman, against whom Augustine defended the custom of the African church of fasting on the fourth and sixth weekday but not on Saturday, in which he said that a fast of two days in the week was not sufficient, namely these: How shall we not be condemned with the Pharisee, fasting twice (that is, only) in the week? No other was the origin of the three-day fasts which are observed in the fourth, seventh and tenth month, that is, June, September and December, and constitute three of those which are named the Four Times: of which origin we have as witness St. Leo the Great, who lived in the fifth century. In Sermon 1 on the fast of the 10th month he writes thus: But there are three things which pertain most to religious actions, namely prayer, and fasting, and almsgiving, for the exercise of which every time is indeed acceptable, but that is to be observed more zealously which we have received as consecrated by the Apostolic traditions. So Sermon 9 on the fast of the 7th Month: For what tradition long ago decreed and custom has confirmed, neither learning is ignorant of nor piety passes over. Nor did these fasts emanate only from the teaching of the Apostles; but the very time at which they should be observed by the faithful was also assigned by them: for so Leo, on the fast of the seventh month, Sermon 8: For which medicine, most beloved, although every time is suitable, yet we hold this most fitting, which we see chosen by both the Apostolic and the legal institutions, that, as on other days of the year, so in the seventh month we may amend ourselves with spiritual purifications.

[40] but then confirmed by law, From which passage of Leo this too is elicited, that the primitive custom of the Roman church of observing those three-day fasts of the IV, VII and X month either was commanded by the Apostles, or, having been commanded by milder Apostolic institutions, had legal institutions added to it when it began to grow up: which seems able to be elicited from other passages of his: for thus he speaks of the fast of the tenth month, Sermon 9: Whence rightly the Apostolic sanctions disposed that the benefit of the ancient fasts should remain, and, although the custom of the Church had learned to exercise itself in more prolonged chastisements, yet it should embrace the sanctification of continence coming from the law. Sermon 1 on the fast of the seventh month: We know your observance, most beloved, to be so devout that you cultivate your souls not only with lawful fasts but also with voluntary ones; where he openly distinguishes optional fasts from lawful ones, that is, those prescribed by law, such as was the fast of the seventh month of which he was speaking. And again in Sermon 3 he says that what is celebrated by public law is more sacred than what is paid by private institution: whence he concludes a little later in this manner: To the power of this invincible unity, therefore, most beloved, this solemn fast of the seventh month also invites us. And I conclude that already before the age of Leo the Great, that is, in the middle of the fifth century, at least three three-day fasts of those which we call the four times were observed by the Romans by force of a law enacted, whether that law was introduced by the Apostles or by some one of their successors and Leo's predecessors.

[41] the spring fast is not to be excluded from the four in number, Further, I think that the three-day fast called the spring fast, which is celebrated at the beginning of Lent, was also comprehended in the same law: for again in Sermon 9 on the fast of the seventh month the same says: For on this account the very observance of continence has been assigned to four times, that, as the course of the whole year returns upon itself, we might know that we stand unceasingly in need of purifications: but what are those four times? The spring fast in Lent, the summer one at Pentecost, the autumn one in the seventh month, and the winter one in this, which is the tenth, we celebrate, as St. Leo again teaches, Sermon 8 on the fast of the tenth month. Muratori, tome 2 of the Anecdota, page 255, thinks that by the name of the spring fast the pre-paschal Lent is signified, not a three-day fast such as is now observed in the first week of Lent: but since the three remaining fasts which Leo mentions are three-day fasts, why should not the spring fast mentioned there in the same way also have been a three-day one? Especially since the holy Doctor does not say the spring fast, or the fast of Lent, but the fast in Lent: which two formulas of speaking differ greatly: just as, therefore, when Leo mentions the autumn fast celebrated in the seventh month, there is not signified a fast celebrated through the whole of this month, but restricted to three days; so also the spring fast here mentioned is shorter than the Lenten fast; for otherwise the sense of Leo would be equivalent to this: The fast of Lent in Lent, which manner of speaking is altogether foreign to that accurate and most elegant orator.

[42] And indeed, why should Leo not have mentioned that three-day fast, which at the beginning of Lent seeing that it was in use among the Romans under that Pontiff, nay even before? See the Roman Calendar edited by Martène in tome 5 of the Anecdota, composed in the fourth century or at the beginning of it; where among all the weekdays of the year on which it was then the custom to fast at Rome, you will find only four to which XII lessons are attached, namely the Saturday of the first week of Lent, column 7, the Saturday of the IV month, column 79, the Saturday of the VII month, column 81, and the Saturday of the X month, column 82. Before these three latter fasts are set the Lessons only of the IV and VI weekdays and of Saturday, because only on these weekdays of the week was there fasting; but before each day of the first week of Lent, because a fast was to be kept on each of them. The same may be observed in that Lectionary which is called the Liber Comitis, in Pamelius, pages 13, 36, 49, 58, of whose age Mabillon writes thus in the Preface to the Gallican Lectionary, num. 7: I do not know whether any Lectionary is more ancient than this Gallican one: unless perhaps you except the book of the Comes, indicating the Lessons for the use of the Roman church: of which book mention is made in the Cornutian Charter, which was given when Leo Augustus for the IV time and Probianus were consuls, or in the year of Christ CCCCLXXI. Those four Saturdays, therefore, have the same character in the books just cited, by which each is distinguished from the rest; and just as the Saturday of XII Lessons denotes the chief day of the three-day fasts of the IV, VII and X month, so also the Saturday of the first week of Lent, equally of XII Lessons, indicates the chief day of the three-day fast which was kept at Rome at the beginning of Lent: for a like character argues also a like condition.

[43] it was kept until the times of Gregory I: And that custom of observing the spring three-day fast at the beginning of Lent held at Rome until the times of St. Gregory the Great. Hear Egbert, archbishop of York from the year 732, openly distinguishing the three three-day fasts through the course of the year from the spring one, citing also the authority of St. Gregory on the matter, in these words: Of the first month (see tome 6 of the Councils, column 1609 of Labbe's edition) the Lord says to Moses: "This month shall be to you the beginning, it shall be the first among the months of the year." And again the Lord to Moses: "Observe the month of new fruits, when you went forth from the land of Egypt, lawful in your generations." Which fast (the spring one, namely) the holy fathers established in the first week of the first month (that is, of March) on the fourth and sixth weekday and on Saturday, the Lenten days (on which there was fasting through the whole week) excepted. But we in the church of the English keep the same fast of the first month (as our teacher blessed Gregory, in his Antiphonary and Missal book, transmitted it ordained and written through our pedagogue Augustine) without distinction in the first week of Lent. What others, therefore, when Egbert wrote this, a whole century and more after the death of Gregory, observed as a three-day fast in the first week of March, on the IV and VI weekday and Saturday, the same the English observed in the first week of Lent, whether this coincided with the first week of March or not, and indeed according to the Gregorian codices transmitted to them by the holy Pontiff himself through St. Augustine, bishop of Canterbury, namely in the ancient manner. But if in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, in Tommasi, page 23 and following, as also in the Gregorian in Ménard, pages 39, 41 and 106, mention is made of the first month, that is an indication that those codices were interpolated.

[44] But it was the purpose, says Muratori, *of the holy Pontiff to distribute the fasts through the circle of the year from the Apostolic

institution to be observed: In vain later it was fitting, therefore, that he should begin the enumeration from the Lenten one, which he calls the greatest and most sacred of all. The purpose of Leo was to show that the law of abstinence was assigned to spring, summer, autumn, winter, and so to all the seasons of the year; which he achieved by enumerating the four three-day fasts fixed to those hinges of the year: nor was it necessary, in order to achieve this, that he should in this place reckon the Lenten fast, although the greatest and most sacred, of which he had often treated elsewhere separately, with the three others. Muratori then says that Leo mentions the fasts of the seventh and the tenth months, and also the fast of Pentecost, and affirms that the fourth and sixth weekday and Saturday were then to be celebrated with fasting, but when he gives Sermons on Lent, he altogether passes over that singular triduum which we now call the fast of the four times at the beginning of Lent. Rightly: for he was doing what he was doing: when he was treating of the Lenten fast, was it necessary that he should treat of that three-day one? He asks what cause could have intervened for the fast to have been formerly distinguished from the Lenten fast, when it was included in Lent itself? The very same for which, the most learned man says at page 257 and following, the three-day fast was instituted later: But when a triduum to be spent in fasting had been assigned to summer, autumn and winter, another three-day fast was instituted in spring time so that a tribute might be rendered to God for spring also, since Lent itself seemed to pay to the supreme Deity through fasting the tithes not of spring, but of the whole year.*

[45] Not only in the age of St. Leo, therefore, but also in that of St. Gregory (why not also of St. Gelasius?) that three-day spring fast was in use, that it was instituted, which Egbert says was the same as the three-day fast customarily observed by other nations, and, just as this, distinct from the Lenten one. For the rest, as regards the manner in which it was observed, this seems to have been no other than the manner in which the Lenten IV and VI weekdays and Saturday were customarily observed: and since these were neither separately proclaimed to the people nor announced at Mass after the Salutation The peace of the Lord be always with you, it ought by no means to seem strange if this was not observed with regard to the spring fast, otherwise than was customarily done in the fourth, seventh and tenth month. Yet this singularity, for whatever cause at all it was done, belongs to the fast of the Saturday of the first week of Lent, that already from the fifth century it had XII Lessons annexed to it in the Roman Calendar of the IV or V century in Martène, tome 5 of the Anecdota, column 70, which befell none other of all the weekdays of Lent there.

[46] Muratori contends. In vain, therefore, does Muratori argue that the three-day fast of spring seems not yet to have been in use then; and that Leo spoke of the Lenten fast, but by no means of the spring three-day fast. In vain likewise does he bring forward in support of his opinion this testimony of the council of Clovesho, celebrated in the year 747: In the eighteenth place it was established by mandate that no one should presume to neglect the times of the fasts, that is, of the fourth, seventh and tenth month, but that before their beginnings the people should be admonished each year, so that they may know and observe the lawful fasts of the universal Church, and all may do it harmoniously, and in no way differ in an observance of this kind, but according to the exemplar (sent to the English by St. Gregory I) which is written according to the rite of the Roman Church, they should be zealous to celebrate it. For the fathers of that council wished indeed that the spring three-day fast should be passed over in silence, because they considered it as part of the Lenten fast; but not excluded from the number of the four three-day fasts customarily celebrated through the year: for the same three-day fast which others observed in the first month, this the English, according to the Gregorian exemplar transmitted to them, observed in the first week of Lent without distinction, that is, with no account taken of the first month, by the testimony of Egbert cited above, who at the very time at which the council of Clovesho was held was governing the church of York in England.

§ V. The law of the Four Times either first instituted or confirmed by Callistus, observed and received later in the West.

That law originally But for whom was that law of the four fasts enacted? For the whole Catholic Western world (for among the Eastern peoples it was not in use)? Or only for the Roman church, as this is a particular church? Noël Alexandre, in the Ecclesiastical History of the 2nd century, dissertation 4, article 4, affirms that the fasts of the four times were religiously observed by the universal Church in the fifth century; to which point he gathers various texts of St. Leo, among which these are the chief: in Sermon 7 on the fast of the tenth month he says: Now to these turnings of the seasons, most beloved, there have been added by the providence of the grace of God holy fasts, which on certain days should demand from the universal Church the devotion of a general observance. Sermon 4 on the fast of the seventh month, chapter 2: Although it is free to each of us to afflict his own body with voluntary chastisements… yet on certain days a general fast ought to be celebrated by all alike, and then devotion is more efficacious and more sacred, when in the works of piety there is one mind and one sense of the whole church. Which he also does in Sermon 3 on the fast of the seventh month in these words: For reverence for the divine Sanctions, among any pursuits of spontaneous observance, always has its privilege: so that what is celebrated by public law is more sacred than what is paid by private institution. For the exercise of continence which each imposes on himself by his own choice pertains to the benefit of a certain portion: but the fast which the universal church undertakes separates no one from the general purification.

[48] for the universal church But Muratori more rightly contends that there by the name of the universal and whole church is to be understood not the Church diffused through the whole world, but the Roman, as it is one of the particular churches: and that Leo there set fasts voluntarily undertaken privately by the Roman people over against these, and said that those were more beneficial which were publicly and in common observed by the Roman people: for there follows: For public things are to be preferred to private: and there the chief reason of benefit is to be understood, where common care keeps watch; And indeed Leo, when he speaks of the universal Church diffused through the world and of the Lenten fast observed everywhere on earth, uses clearer and by no means ambiguous words. Most salutarily, he says, Sermon 5 on Lent, chapter 3, let us prepare ourselves with a fast of forty days. For not only those who are to be regenerated by baptism into a new life through the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, but also all the peoples of the reborn take up for themselves usefully and necessarily the protection of this sanctification. Sermon 10, chapter 1: And considering whatever the totality of the world has obtained through the cross of the Lord, we recognize that for celebrating the day of Easter we are rightly prepared by a fast of forty days. For not only the chief prelates, or the priests of the second order, nor the ministers of the sacraments alone, but the whole body of the Church and the universal number of the faithful ought to be purged from all contaminations; so that the temple of God, whose foundation is the founder himself, may be beautiful in all its stones and shining in every part of itself. Sermon XI, chapter 1: And as the Paschal festivity draws near there is at hand the greatest and most sacred fast, which proclaims its observance to all the faithful without exception.

[49] Muratori argues in about this manner, and not, it seems not to have been enacted as it appears to me at least, ineptly: yet let me be permitted to add an observation likewise drawn from Leo himself. In Sermon 3 on the fast of the seventh month, besides the words cited above, he has this further, chapter 3: But the fullest abolition of sins is obtained when there is one prayer and one confession of the whole church: would you not judge that here too Leo's discourse is of the whole Church diffused through the world? Yet Leo narrows it to the church alone which was at Rome and was wont to attend his preaching, continuing thus: For if the Lord promises that all things they ask shall be granted to the pious agreement of two or three saints, what will be denied to a people of many thousands, performing one observance alike, and supplicating harmoniously through one spirit? The whole church, I say, of which he had made mention a little before, he narrows to the church of the City, unless someone should say that Leo called the Church diffused through the whole world (feebly indeed and remissly) a people of many thousands, which is very far, in my opinion at least, from Leo's vigorous and most apt manner of speaking.

[50] But what if the words of Leo are compared with other monuments of antiquity? from Augustine, If this is done, either he is to be interpreted in the manner I have said, or he must be set in conflict with St. Augustine and the calendars of various nations. In the age of Augustine, which did not much precede the times of Leo, so far was the observance of the four times from having spread itself through the Christian world that, on the contrary, by far the greater part of the Christian world was without this Roman custom. Hear Augustine, Letter 82, num. 14, according to the Benedictine edition, written to St. Jerome: I would that your kindly sincerity would teach me whether any Eastern Saint, when he comes to Rome, fasts with pretence on Saturday, except that day of the Paschal vigil: for if we should say that this is evil, we shall condemn not only the Roman church, but also many (yet few in comparison with the other churches of the Christian world) neighbouring on it, and somewhat more remote, where the same custom is held and remains. But if we should think it evil not to fast on Saturday, with what rashness shall we accuse so many churches of the East and the much greater part of the Christian world? I admit indeed that Augustine's discourse there is not of the fast of the four times, but of the Saturday fast customarily kept at Rome in every week of the year: yet the holy Doctor relates that the Easterners and the greatest part of the Christians did not fast on Saturday in the whole course of the year, except on the Vigil of Easter, or holy Saturday: but if in Augustine's age the greater part of the Church fasted on this one Saturday through the year, it did not fast on the Saturdays of the four times; otherwise St. Augustine would have excepted these too. Augustine wrote likewise in the same manner in Letter 37, otherwise 36, num. 31: Hence arose that variety in the garment of that queen (the church), that some, as especially the peoples of the East, preferred to relax the fast for the sake of signifying the rest, others to fast for the sake of the humility of the Lord's death, as the Roman and some churches of the West. Which indeed on the one day on which Easter is celebrated, for the sake of renewing the memory of the deed whereby the disciples humanly grieved the death of the Lord, is so fasted by all that even those most devoutly celebrate the Saturday fast who on the other Saturdays through the whole year take their midday meal. Did those who at that time took their midday meal on the other Saturdays through the whole year observe the three-day fast celebrated by the Roman church on the IV and VI weekday and Saturday?

[51] If we turn from the East to the West, there meets us first in Italy the church of Milan, from the usage of the church of Milan, etc. whose prelate St. Ambrose, chapter

10 of Elijah and Fasting, num. 34, says: Lent is fasted on all days except Saturday and Sunday. Not, therefore, on the Saturday of the first week of Lent, or of the first month, although the first week of the latter fell within Lent; and accordingly the spring fast was not in use there; of whose observance, as of that of the other three times, Muratori denies that he has found any trace in the Missal books of the Church of Milan, or in the ecclesiastical Offices, or in the sacred rites of the Ambrosian Mass. There meets us St. Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, contemporary of St. Ambrose, who indeed in chapter 97, which is entitled Of the heresy concerning Zechariah the prophet on fasting, says that four fasts are celebrated in the church through the year; but among these he numbers the third at Epiphany and the fourth at Pentecost, namely, as he adds a little later, for ten days, which differ in time and number from the three-day fasts of the four times. There flourished in Spain at the beginning of the seventh century St. Isidore, in whose age the three-day fasts of the four times had not yet been brought in there: Since, says Muratori at page 254, the same Isidore, in book 1, chapters 36, 37 and following, reviewing the Ecclesiastical fasts, mentions four. The first, of Lent; the second, "which according to the canons is begun on another day after Pentecost"; the third, "which the church celebrates on the tenth day of the seventh month"; and the fourth "is the fast of the Kalends of November." And he adds other fasts, namely of the Kalends of January, the fast in the three-day Litanies (or Rogations) and the fast of the sixth weekday, among which everyone sees that the abstinence of the four times enjoined by the Roman church does not appear. Nor likewise does it appear in the Office of the Mozarabs, concerning which these things are read in Cardinal de Aguirre, Tome 3 of the Councils of Spain, page 264: There is also celebrated a solemn fast for three days before the feast of Epiphany according to this Office… There is likewise celebrated a solemn fast with a particular divine Office in the month of September for three days before the feast of St. Cyprian, and equally in the month of November for three days before the solemnities of St. Martin, as may be seen in the Breviary after the Sundays of Pentecost. The Gallican Liturgy, akin to the Mozarabic, which was in use among the Gauls before the times of Charlemagne, offers no trace from which it may be deduced that the four times were observed by them: but when the Roman succeeded the old Gallican Liturgy, Charlemagne established the spring fast, received in the Gauls not long before: That the priests themselves observe the fast of the Four times and announce it to the people to be observed, says the first Capitulary, chapter XI, in Baluze, Tome 1, column 192. And since spaces of so many years, nay of centuries, elapsed before the law of the fasts of the Four times began to be observed by most of the other peoples of the West, that is indeed an indication that Leo, in the places cited, spoke not of the church diffused through the Christian world, but of the Roman.

[52] [but received in the West later, and long before enacted or confirmed by Callistus;] It is gathered, therefore, from what has been said thus far, that the fasts of the Four times were observed from the first centuries of the Church at Rome indeed, but not everywhere on earth, at least from the pious custom of the Romans; which some one of the predecessors of St. Leo confirmed by enacting a law, and, having long been observed in the Roman church, the other churches throughout the West at length undertook it to be observed by themselves equally. Since these things are more probably so, what reason is there why credence should be denied to Anastasius, who affirms that this law was enacted by Callistus (so far, at least, as concerns the Romans)? And perhaps Callistus was the first of the Roman Pontiffs to do it, if Tertullian, having already become a follower of the Montanists, under the Pontificate of St. Zephyrinus, truly wrote of the Catholics in the book On Fasting, chapter 2 and following: Certainly in the Gospel they think those days appointed for fasts in which the bridegroom was taken away (understand the sixth weekday and Saturday of Holy week), and that these are now the only lawful ones of Christian fasts, the legal and Prophetic antiquities having been abolished. Therefore for the rest one is to fast indifferently at choice, not by command of the new discipline, according to the times and causes of each one. That thus the Apostles observed, imposing no other yoke of fixed fasts, to be undergone in common. He perhaps wished by his decree on the fasts of the Four times to meet this reproach of the Montanists, in the hope that the other churches would imitate the example of the Roman Church.

[53] But if it is asked whence Anastasius, a writer of the ninth century, which known from elsewhere learned this institution of Callistus, I cannot assent to those who have thought that he drew it from Callistus's Letter to Benedict the bishop, and indeed, as Muratori says in the Disquisition on the fasts of the IV Times, chapter 5, understood it badly; which, in Labbe, Tome 1 of the Councils, column 609, begins thus: The fast which you have learned to celebrate three times a year with us, we decree shall now more fittingly be held through the four times, so that, just as the year revolves through four times, so we too may perform a fourfold fast through the four times of the year: by which words it is so clearly handed down that already long before the age of Callistus three fasts through the year were observed, and that Callistus added a fourth (say the spring one) to the three more ancient fasts, that it becomes by no means probable that Anastasius interpreted these so ineptly and perversely as to elicit from them that Callistus was the author of those three more ancient fasts; how that could happen I do not see: nay rather, so far was he from following that Letter, if it was known to Anastasius, that he seems rather to have made nothing of it. Anastasius, therefore, had other sources from which he learned that Callistus instituted at least three fasts through the year, for example the Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs written in the sixth century, which, in the Propylaeum of the month of May, page 48, speaks of this constitution of Callistus in this manner: He established that a fast should be held on the Saturday three times in the year, of corn, wine and oil, according to the prophet, of the fourth month, the seventh and the tenth; with the same words, namely, which Anastasius uses in Bianchini, except that here is read: according to the prophecy.

[54] which Anastasius could from the pseudo-Letter of Callistus, For the rest, although the Letter just mentioned says that a fourth, or the spring one, was added by Callistus to the three times observed through the year before the age of Callistus, yet we are by no means moved from our opinion: for that Letter, forged for Callistus about the 8th century by Isidore Mercator, and stitched together from patchworks of other writers more recent than Callistus (as also the other written to the bishops of Gaul), is now despised by the learned as spurious: Isidore had probably read that those three fasts had long since been observed by the Roman church before Callistus: and when he saw that a fourth, or spring one, was also observed, and yet had nowhere found distinct mention of it, he thought he should choose Callistus to whom to ascribe the institution of the spring fast; which is an indication that Isidore at least thought that it had not been recently instituted, but had been observed at Rome for many centuries before his age; in which matter indeed his opinion did not deceive him: but it did deceive him when he believed that the Letter of Callistus was written to Benedict the bishop on the XI of the Kalends of December, Antoninus and Alexander, most illustrious men, being consuls, that is, in the year 222, on the 21st day of November, which day of that year St. Callistus did not see, having been buried on the 14th day of October of the same year, from what has been said above.

[55] some obscure words of his on this matter are explained. But if Callistus confirmed the fast of the four times by enacting a law, not even the spring one excepted, why did Anastasius say: He established that a fast should be held three times in the year? This custom long held at Rome, that, although these fasts were in fact four, yet since the spring one was fixed to the beginning of Lent, or mostly fell within it, only three were counted, because the spring one was confused with the Lenten one. Hence, says Muratori, Tome 1, part 2, on the Four Times of Advent, title 2, page 832 and following: In the Gelasian Sacramentary, or book 1 of the Sacraments of the Roman church edited by Cardinal Tommasi, num. 82, page 113, there is the announcement of the fasts of the fourth, seventh and tenth month, and in the same Sacramentary no mention is made of the fast of the first month, for no other reason surely than because this was confused with the Lenten fast. Again the second council of Clovesho likewise, celebrated in the year 747, lists only the fast of three times, saying: "In the eighteenth place it was established by mandate that no one should presume to neglect the times of the fasts, that is, of the fourth, seventh and tenth month," at which very time, however, Egbert, archbishop of York, praised above at num. 43, enumerated four. Anastasius likewise says that Callistus established the fast on the Saturday, because the day of Saturday was the chief of the three, and had this proper to it beyond the others, that twelve Lessons were assigned to it.

[56] The fast of month IV also called the fast of the month of July. The fast of the fourth month, or June, was also called the fast of July: for thus it is read in Baluze, book of the capitularies, chapter 186: Let the priests teach the people to observe the four lawful fasts of the times, that is, in the month of March, July, September and December, when sacred orders are distributed according to the Statutes of the canons: which manner of speaking our predecessors followed when, before Tome 1 of April, page XXV, they wrote thus in passing of Callistus's decree: We think his decree can be understood for the months of July, September and December, in which the gathering of corn and oil is successively completed; for rendering thanks to God, through whom, as is said in Psalm 4, verse 8, the faithful, "multiplied by the fruit of corn, wine and oil," or manifoldly enriched, should acknowledge the benefit received. But whether that decree also involved the spring fast or not, they left untouched; nor in those brief Observations inserted in the old Catalogues for each Pontiff was there place for examining this matter more at length and of set purpose.

§ V. Certain uncertain deeds of St. Callistus; his diligence in discharging the office of Pontiff; the cemetery founded by him.

Whether there survive, Although the holy Pontiff, as was said in the preceding §, confirmed by enacting a law the fasts of the Four times, long since customarily observed by the Romans, yet the Liturgical books supply no prayers accommodated and proper to those fasts which can certainly be ascribed to this Pontiff. But Moretti, Disquisition 1, chapter 4, mentions prayers which he does not doubt emanated from the mouth of Callistus: the first of these, customarily recited in the Basilica of St. Mary across the Tiber and elsewhere on his Feast, in these words: Blessed Calyxtus gave a prayer, saying: O God, who gatherest what is scattered, and preservest what is gathered, increase faith and give confidence to thy servants. Through Christ our Lord: the other is conceived in these words: May the Lord gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with fire. Through Christ, etc. This likewise on the Feast of SS. Marius, Martha, etc., as an Antiphon at

Lauds he presents to be recited as having proceeded from the mouth of St. Callistus: Be strengthened, fear not; for Christ is knocking at our door. Moretti also points out the sources from which these flowed: the words in which the second prayer is partly conceived, drawn from the Acts of the Passion, run thus at num. 5: In the same hour Blessed Palmatius sent to Calixtus the bishop: and he came and baptized Felix with his wife Blanda. Seeing this, Simplicius fell at the feet of Calixtus, asking that he might be baptized with all his house: Then Blessed Calixtus the bishop said confidently: may the Lord gather the wheat into his barn. And the Prayer mentioned in the first place and the Antiphon in the third are found in the Acts of SS. Marius, Martha, etc., in Baronius, tome 2 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 270, nums. 4 and 5, expressed thus: After this Marius and Martha with their sons go to the place in which, across the Tiber, in an upper room, a multitude of Christians were singing psalms and rejoicing. In the same place was a bishop, named Callistus: who, when he heard them knocking, said to the Saints: be strengthened and fear not: Christ is knocking at our door; let us therefore open our mouth, and, strengthened, let us praise the Lord who calls us. And at once he himself went and opened the door. Seeing him, they threw themselves at his feet, and when they had recognized one another, they rejoiced, kissing one another. Then blessed Callistus gave this prayer: Lord God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gatherest what is scattered, and preservest what is gathered, increase faith and confidence for thy servants, through Christ the Lord, who liveth with thee, God the Father almighty, and the Holy Spirit, for ages of ages. And all answered: Amen.

[58] These things are indeed read in the cited Acts: but neither set is endowed with such antiquity which emanated from the mouth of Callistus, or authority as to make it certain that they ever proceeded from the mouth of St. Callistus: for both, however ancient, are too far removed from the events they narrate for their authors to have had the very words ascertained which the emperors, prefects and holy Martyrs used; and it very often happened that writers of this kind introduce the persons of whom they treat speaking not as they actually spoke, but as they themselves had persuaded themselves that they spoke. Nor will anyone, I think, deny that the author of the Passion of St. Callistus was not immune from this blemish, who has duly weighed what words and deeds he ascribed to Alexander, namely ones altogether foreign to his character and person, as we said above in § II: whence we may not rashly suspect that he did with regard to Callistus, though not so ineptly, what he did with regard to Alexander. And as regards the Acts of SS. Marius, Martha, etc., the conjecture of Baronius is not improbable, that the prayer O God, who gatherest what is scattered was customarily said at the arrival of brethren or Christians: whence it may seem to have been used by Callistus the bishop according to custom rather than first devised by him. And then it is very difficult to believe that the Callistus mentioned there is not different from our Callistus; since the latter ceased to be among the living, from what has been said above — as Moretti himself also relates — in the year 222 under the emperor Alexander; whereas the former, according to the Acts of SS. Marius and Martha, etc., must have lived under Claudius II, who took up the reins of the empire in the year 268 and held them about two years. By no means, says Moretti, is that necessary: for the things said to have been done in those Acts are to be referred to a twofold epoch: to the epoch of the reign of Alexander, the arrival of SS. Marius and his companions at Rome, and the things said to have been done by Callistus; to that of Claudius, the slaying of the same martyrs: but if that were so, these Martyrs would not have obtained the crown of martyrdom at Rome except after spending about forty-six years there: and so long a stay in the city seems scarcely probable, nor do Audifax and Abbacuc, the sons of SS. Marius and Martha, slain together with their parents, seem to have been of such an age as to have been almost sixty when they underwent martyrdom, which yet would be necessary; since in the Acts they are said, from their very arrival in the City, to have been the companions and helpers of their parents in visiting the Christians detained in prisons and burying the bodies of the martyrs.

[59] But neither does the Martyr Asterius, mentioned in the same Acts, seem, the prayers, contrary to what Moretti thinks, to have been the same as St. Asterius who committed St. Callistus to burial, especially if, as Moretti suspects, he who wrote the Passion of SS. Marius and his companions had the Acts of our Callistus in hand: for in these he comes under no other name than that of priest, and he alone is said to have been thrown into the Tiber at Rome on account of having buried Callistus, and finally to have been buried at Ostia. But Asterius, mentioned in the Acts of St. Marius, lately converted to the faith, is taken together with his wife and numerous household, and after various torments at length, together with his own, forty-six in number, because he would not return to the ancestral superstition, undergoes the sentence of death, not at Rome, but at the Nymphs between the Cornelian and the Portuensian Way at the thirteenth milestone; which things, if considered collectively, seem to indicate one person and another: but if another Asterius is mentioned here, why not also another Callistus (if you think these Acts true) who uttered the prayer of which num. 57 speaks? It remains doubtful, therefore, whether the said prayer was truly that of our St. Callistus, although it has been inserted in his Office. I go on with Moretti to other matters.

[60] Oldoino, in his Notes on Chacón, in the Life of St. Callistus, says: and that he received Evodius, bishop of Le Puy, at Rome, is uncertain: He (Callistus) received at Rome Evodius, bishop of Anicium, a city of Aquitaine, and on his return to the Gauls gave him Scrutarius as companion, and appointed him vicar of the Apostolic See for those regions. He would more rightly have named Evodius bishop of the Vellavi, since in the age of Callistus Anicium was not yet an episcopal city; nay, not even in the time of St. Aurelius, bishop of the Vellavi toward the end of the sixth century, of whose time Gregory of Tours, treating at the sixteenth year of King Childebert, speaks of Anicium in this manner: And having entered (a certain seducer) the territory of the city of the Vellavi, he approaches the place which they call Anicium: and halted at the neighbouring basilicas with his whole army, drawing up his battle-line so as to make war on Aurelius, the bishop then staying there. Does it seem that Gregory would have called Anicium the place which they call Anicium if it had already been erected into an episcopal see? Is it not rather to be called a fortress to which St. Aurelius withdrew in order to sustain more safely the onset of the attacking multitude? Catel partly agrees with Oldoino, writing in the Monuments of the History of Aquitaine, book 2, chapter 12, that St. Paulianus and the early bishops of the Vellavi dwelt generally at Ruessium, until his successor St. Evodius built the temple of the Blessed Mary on Mount Anicium, in the time of St. Callistus. But all these things are scarcely certain: What Catel writes, says Bolland, Tome 2 of February, page 749, that his (St. Paulianus's) successor Evodius, about the times of St. Callistus the Pope, in the third century of Christ, migrated to the new town of Mount Anicium, we fear cannot be established by any certain mark. Le Cointe, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 508, num. 6, says: While the city of the Vellavi still stood, the episcopal see was transferred to Anicium by St. Evodius, who succeeded St. Paulianus in the episcopate. We believe that those err who think that a translation of this kind was made before the age of Honorius Augustus, who began to reign toward the end of the fourth century. Chastelain, in the Universal Martyrology at the 12th day of November, ties the age of Evodius to about the middle of the fourth century. Denis de Sainte-Marthe, Tome 2 of Gallia Christiana, published at Paris in the year 1720, column 689, in the Notes on St. Evodius, confesses that nothing is established about the prelates of the church of Le Puy up to St. Aurelius, who lived toward the end of the sixth century; and he doubts whether St. Evodius is not to be placed after St. Aurelius. Whence it is easy to understand how uncertain are the things handed down by Oldoino of St. Callistus receiving Evodius at Rome and joining Scrutarius to him as companion.

[61] Anastasius, in Bianchini, goes on to write thus of Callistus: more certain, that he applied himself diligently to the stated ordinations, He held five ordinations in the month of December, priests XVI, Deacons IV, bishops for various places VIII, namely in the year 217 and the four following: as to the number of those ordained by Callistus, the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs differ somewhat among themselves: the one edited by Henschenius numbers fifteen priests, seven bishops. The names of most of those ordained by the holy Pontiff, moreover, lie hidden. Moretti thought that Asterius, of whom the Acts of SS. Marius and his companions speak, was ordained priest by Callistus not long after he gave his name to the true faith: but this one seems, from what has been said above, to have been other than the Asterius of whom the Acts of St. Callistus speak: and that the latter was raised to the dignity of priest by Callistus is not improbable; but there is no reason why this could not have been done by some predecessor of Callistus. Perhaps what is read in the Chronicle of Atina, tome 7 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, columns 904 and 5, is true: Calistus sat 5 years, II months, 10 days. And in the first year of his Pontificate he ordained Dimitrius bishop in the city of Atina. I would rather, however, read this in a more ancient writer (for that Chronicle extends to the year 1356), more accurate and less fabulous. Ughelli, who followed this Chronicle, says in tome 6 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 423, that it can scarcely be corrected. Nor is it more certain what Chacón and Ughelli, tome 1 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 110, hand down about St. Hippolytus (see tome 4 of August of our Work, page 504 and following; Tillemont, tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 672), namely that he was given by St. Callistus to the people of Portus as bishop. He did indeed write, under the reign of Alexander, on the Paschal Cycle, and is frequently read to be called bishop of Portus: but his see was unknown to St. Jerome, who writes thus in the Catalogue of illustrious men, chapter 61: Hippolytus, bishop of a certain church (for I have not been able to learn the name of the city), wrote a reckoning of Easter and canons of times up to the first year of the emperor Alexander, etc.

[62] It is certain, however, that St. Callistus discharged the Pontifical duties accurately and diligently: to sacred assemblies, to instructing, to baptizing, that he frequently held sacred assemblies, in which the most sacred body of Christ was customarily distributed, prayers and divine praises offered, and the faithful instructed, we understand from the Passion, num. 1: They came across the Tiber into the City to the temple of the Ravennates, and heard in a certain upper room a multitude of Christians singing psalms: among whom was Calixtus the bishop. Num. 2: He (Palmatius) came across the Tiber, where a multitude of Christians was gathered with Blessed Calixtus. Num. 3: He (Palmatius) ran to Blessed Calixtus in the region across the Tiber …

into the house where a multitude of Christians was gathered, and fell before the feet of Calixtus. You will learn likewise from the same number that Callistus instructed with his own voice those who came to the faith of Christ, and washed them with his own hands in the sacred font of Baptism: for again it is read there: And he catechized him… And he baptized all the household of Palmatius, and his wife and children, and of both sexes forty-two in number. Num. 5: And coming (Callistus) he baptized Felix with his wife Blanda … he catechized all the household of Simplicius, and his wife and children and his family; souls of both sexes, about sixty-eight… Hearing this, Alexander, because a multitude of men had received baptism through Blessed Calixtus the bishop, sent an army of soldiers, etc. Likewise, while placed even in prison, he cleansed the ulcers of body and soul of Privatus. Then Blessed Calixtus (num. 8) baptized him.

[63] to confirming those converted to the faith, The Acts indeed mention nothing of the Sacrament of confirmation conferred by St. Callistus, but that the holy Pontiff conferred this too on those converted to the faith can be gathered from the old usage by which both Sacraments were customarily conferred at the same time, as Martène shows from Tertullian and other fathers, On the Ancient Rites of the Church, book 1, chapter 2, num. 2: but from that number Privatus perhaps is to be excepted, on account of the lack in prison of Chrism with which he might be anointed. Ussher relates, On the Origins of the British Churches, chapter 16, page 760, that he saw a Life of St. Florentinus, in which the latter is said to have sent Asterius, converted and baptized by him together with his household, to be confirmed by St. Calixtus, at that time (of Claudius II) the supreme and most holy priest of the Apostolic See. But that this happened in the time of Callistus Ussher himself rightly does not dare to affirm: But these reckonings, he says, are disturbed by what had preceded in the Life of Florentinus about the reign of Claudius Caesar, and much more by what follows: that Theodebert and Clothar reigned in the Gauls at that time, that St. Germanus was pontiff of the Parisians and St. Gildasius of the Ruteni, that the perfidy of the Arians and heretics had polluted almost all Aquitaine, and other things of that kind. So that in so great a confusion of things and persons, in what age St. Florentinus lived is not easy to say.

[64] And now how great care he took that the bodies of the dead, to burying the bodies of the dead, having also founded and especially of those who had shed their blood for the faith, should be buried with due honour, is taught first of all by his notable solicitude for finding the body of St. Calepodius thrown into the Tiber, and the honourable burial of it when found, not without his great joy, even when he was in the greatest danger of his life. In those very days, says the author of the Passion, Calixtus fled with ten of his clerics and hid himself by night in the house of a certain Pontianus, asking fishermen to search for the body of Blessed Calepodius the priest. Which, when found, raising it from the river, they reported to Blessed Calixtus the bishop. Then he was filled with joy. Which holy body, being received, he embalmed with spices and linen cloths, and with hymns, and buried him in the cemetery of the same, on the sixth of the Ides of May; concerning which cemetery consult Henschenius, Tome 2 of May, page 498. Anastasius likewise teaches that a cemetery was built by Callistus himself for burying the bodies of Christians; of which he has this, after he has said that he was buried in the cemetery of St. Calepodius: And he made another cemetery (different from the Calepodian, the place of his own burial) on the Appian Way, where many priests and martyrs rest, which is called to the present day the cemetery of Calixtus.

[65] Some have believed that this most celebrated cemetery, situated at the second milestone from the City on the Appian Way, enlarged for this end by which one goes from Rome to Capua, was first founded by Callistus: but the more common opinion today is that Callistus only restored or enlarged it; as Aringhi judged, Roma Subterranea, book 3, chapter XI, num. 1: Callistus the Pontiff, therefore, he says, did not indeed, as some wrongly think, build this cemetery, but rather restored it; which afterwards by Anastasius himself and the other writers, on account, namely, of the restoration which he, the latest of all, had undertaken, was commonly called the cemetery of Callistus; and Papebroch, Tome 5 of June, page 437, num. 37: The cemetery of Callixtus seems to be a continuation of that which had long before been dug outside the Appian gate on the same way: this latter opinion is favoured chiefly by the fact that Anastasius himself writes that some predecessors of St. Callistus were buried in the cemetery which he says Callistus made. Of St. Anicetus he says: Who also died a martyr and was buried in the cemetery of Callistus: of Soter: Who also was buried in the cemetery of St. Callistus on the Appian Way: of St. Zephyrinus: Who also was buried in his own cemetery next to the cemetery of St. Calixtus on the Appian Way. It was formerly called, as Papebroch writes, Tome 5 of June, page 437, num. 37, that of Praetextatus, and, in the opinion of very many learned men, on the testimony of Moretti, Disquisition 1, chapter 4, page 98, in the Notes at letter c, it was part of the Callistian, and in it, according to the Acts of St. Alexander the Pontiff, St. Quirinus the martyr had his burial, whose martyrdom is tied to the year 117 in Tome 1 of May at the third day of that month, that is, a whole century before the pontificate of St. Callistus.

[66] Among the martyrs buried in the cemetery of Callistus Aringhi numbers SS. Sebastian, the most celebrated Eutychius, Maximus, Tarsicius; among the pontiffs SS. Anicetus, Soter, Anterus, Pontian, Fabian, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephen, Sixtus II, Dionysius, Eutychian, Melchiades, Zephyrinus, Urban, Mark and Damasus. He likewise records an inscription at the threshold of the cemetery, by which one goes to the right-hand part of the church, cut in marble, which runs thus: This is the cemetery of Callistus, the renowned Pope and Martyr; whoever enters it contrite and confessed will obtain full remission of his sins, through the glorious merits of one hundred and seventy thousand holy martyrs together with forty-six supreme Pontiffs, whose bodies are buried there in peace, who all came out of great tribulation, and, that they might become heirs in the house of the Lord, endured the punishment of death for the name of Christ. Whatever may be said of the number of Martyrs too confidently expressed there, it was most truly said by Anastasius that many priests and martyrs rest in that cemetery. Florentini likewise rightly observes, at the 20th day of January, that the cemetery of Callistus was called by St. Cyprian, Letter 80 to Successus, the cemetery by antonomasia, without any addition: and the words of Cyprian are of this kind: But know that Xystus (II) was put to death in the cemetery on the eighth day of the Ides of August, and with him Quartus: whence you may learn not only its celebrity, but also that it was built by Callistus not only for receiving the bodies of the dead, but that the faithful fled there in time of persecution, so that they might hold the sacred assemblies more safely; and that it is accordingly most probable that it was furnished by St. Callistus with an altar and the other things necessary to that end.

[67] Francesco Albertini, book 2, under the title Of the sacred cemeteries, mentions another built by St. Callistus within the City: the cemetery outside the City: The cemetery of Calixtus in the City by the church of St. Sixtus: there was also another cemetery of Calixtus at the catacombs outside the City, where now is the church of SS. Fabian and Sebastian, martyrs. Florentini likewise attributes another cemetery to St. Callistus, in the Notes at the 12th day of April, on the Aurelian Way, different, he says, from that which on the Appian Way retained the name of Callistus. Panvinio says the cemetery of St. Calepodius was dedicated by St. Callistus, in Moretti, chapter 4, num. 86: but Moretti rightly bids all these begone: for what Panvinio says is destitute of all testimony of antiquity. Florentini wrongly took these words of the Bucherian Catalogue concerning St. Julius the Pontiff: He made a basilica on the Aurelian Way, at the III milestone, at Callistus, as if said of a cemetery founded there by St. Callistus; whereas a little before he had more rightly interpreted them thus: not that he was buried in the cemetery of Callistus, which was on the Appian Way, not the Aurelian, but in the basilica which Julius himself had built. And what Francesco Albertini says is contrary both to the custom of those times and to the Roman laws.

[68] Anastasius the librarian writes of St. Cornelius: [as much concerning the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul translated by him we do not dare to say,] He in his times, at the request of a certain matron Lucina, raised the bodies of the Apostles Peter and Paul from the catacombs by night. First indeed blessed Lucina placed the body of Blessed Paul on her estate on the Ostian Way, beside the spot where he was beheaded. And blessed Cornelius the bishop placed the body of blessed Peter the Apostle next to the place where he was crucified, among the bodies of the Saints, in the temple of Apollo, on the golden mount, in the Vatican of the Neronian Palace. But if St. Cornelius translated the bodies of the holy Apostles from the catacombs, who brought them there, and on what occasion? For St. Gregory the Great, in the Letter to Constantina Augusta, writes that, not long at least after the death of the Apostles, their bodies were stealthily carried off by Eastern faithful and brought to the catacombs, and that the Romans brought them back and placed them in the places where they are now laid. The champions of the translation by St. Cornelius contend that this was done by Callistus, when Heliogabalus, having entered Rome, was striving, on the testimony of Lampridius, that no God should be worshipped at Rome except Heliogabalus, was driving four-horse teams of elephants in the Vatican (in which the body of St. Peter rested), the tombs which stood in the way being destroyed, and that emperor of unsound mind was undertaking other things of the kind. Papebroch went over to this opinion in tome 5 of June, in the Analecta on SS. Peter and Paul at the 29th day of that month; but departing from it, at the day immediately following, page 535 of the same tome, he writes that the bodies of the holy Apostles still lay in the catacombs in the time of Diocletian, many years after the martyrdom of St. Cornelius. Moretti too laboriously defends the former opinion in a singular Disputation; but not so that that translation, which Baronius at the year 221 and other learned men deny, does not still remain doubtful; and this dispute not yet being decided, it likewise cannot be decided whether the bodies of the holy Apostles were translated from the Vatican and Ostian resting-places to the catacombs through the work of St. Callistus or not; but if in fact Cornelius, or another Pontiff about these times, brought the bodies of the Holy Apostles back from the catacombs to their former seats, we judge it not improbable that they were translated there by Callistus, so that they might be withdrawn from the outrages of Heliogabalus, which he could prudently fear.

§ VI. The church of St. Mary across the Tiber founded by St. Callistus: miracles worked while he was among the living, and his martyrdom.

We have followed thus far the deeds of St. Callistus as they are described in the Bianchinian Anastasius, The church of St. Mary across the Tiber, in which (as also not in the Henschenian and Papebrochian catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs) no mention is made of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber built by the same Pontiff,

which nevertheless those who write about the Roman churches commonly say was founded by him; but although the codices just praised make no mention of the matter, the Vignolian codex of the Pontifical book, page 39, mentions it in these words: He made a Basilica across the Tiber, which is called St. Mary's: as also the Veronese one in Bianchini, tome 4, in the Prolegomena, page III: He made a basilica across the Tiber: other codices too mention it, which Moretti praises in chapter 5, num. 2. The author of the catalogue written in the time of Pope Liberius also mentions it, under Julius, who held the pontificate under the emperor Constantine immediately before Liberius, listing among the buildings of Julius the church founded by St. Callistus thus: A Basilica across the Tiber, in region XIV, next to Callistus; or in that place where was the church founded by Callistus: for churches were named either from the Saints to whom they were dedicated, or from their founders: All which, says Panvinio, On the VII churches of the City, chapter 2, since they were churches or sacred buildings dedicated to God and the Saints, got their denomination either from the Saints in whose memory or honour they were dedicated, as St. Mary's across the Tiber, St. Chrysogonus's, St. Cecilia's, St. Anastasia's and the like: or from those men who founded the titles themselves, as of Callistus, Julius, Damasus, etc. From which it follows that the opinion that the church of St. Mary in the Transtiberine region was founded by Callistus does not rest on mere conjectures or on the sole authority of the Pontifical book, contrary to what it pleased Tillemont to affirm, tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 679, Note 1 on Callistus. To these is added the perpetual tradition of the Romans about the church of St. Mary across the Tiber built by St. Callistus, which Moretti confirms from monuments of antiquity, as from the very old Calendar of Fronto written about the borders of the seventh and eighth centuries; in which is read at page 43: Thursday (after the VI Sunday of Lent) at St. Mary's across the Tiber, title of Callistus, etc.; from the old charters and Offices of the same church, the subscriptions of cardinals, the bulls of Pontiffs, and various writers, whose words he presents in chapter 5 of his Disquisition.

[70] The author of the Passion seems to make mention of the church founded by St. Callistus of which perhaps there is mention in the Acts, when he says at num. 1: They came into the city to the temple of the Ravennates, and heard in a certain upper room a multitude of Christians singing psalms: among whom was Calixtus the bishop with his clergy: which words I think are to be understood thus, as if he were saying: They came into the city of the Ravennates to the temple, and heard in a certain upper room, etc., so that by the name of temple the church founded by Callistus is meant, and in it a certain part, called an upper room by the author of the Passion, was designated and adapted for holding the synaxes or assemblies of the Christians. But what, you will say, has a church or temple to do with an upper room? You will cease to wonder if you observe that that church was an eating-house before it was converted into a temple: for that very church, or temple, seems to have been no other than that place which the innkeepers contended was owed to them against the Christians, but Alexander adjudged to the Christians, writing in reply, on the testimony of Lampridius in his Life, that it was better that God should be worshipped there in whatever manner, than that it should be given over to the tavern-keepers. By the name of eating-house I understand here a public hostelry, or taberna meritoria, that is, a place in which guests are publicly received and food and drink are sold for a price for the sake of making gain, in the upper part of which there seems to have been the upper room which Callistus adapted to the sacred uses of the Christian religion. Callistus is believed to have chosen this place because he knew it had formerly been ennobled by a notable prodigy and, as they would have it, a forerunner of the virgin birth, or of the Nativity of Christ: for so Orosius writes, book 6, chapter 18: In these days (when Octavius Augustus was ruling after the slaying of Julius Caesar) across the Tiber, from a taberna meritoria, a fountain of oil welled up out of the earth, and flowed through the whole day in a most abundant stream. There is extant today in St. Mary's across the Tiber, near the high altar on the right of those entering, an opening, through which tradition says the oil flowed, protected by an iron grating, on the testimony of Moretti, chapter 6, num. 32. Besides Orosius, Dio Cassius, Eusebius Pamphili and other writers more recent than these have mentioned this prodigy: Dio Cassius indeed, printed by Henri Estienne in the year 1691, book 48, page 437, in these words: Many prodigies had occurred before that time, and this among others, that oil had gushed forth by the river Tiber: and Eusebius in these words in the Chronicle, olympiad 184: From a taberna meritoria across the Tiber oil burst from the earth, and flowed the whole day without intermission, signifying the grace of Christ from the gentiles.

[71] he founded it between the year 217 and 222 under Macrinus or Heliogabalus The year in which the church of St. Mary was founded by St. Callistus, or converted from a public eating-house into a Christian temple, cannot be accurately determined: it would have had to be done in the year 222 if, as Baronius says at the year 224, num. 5 — placing the beginning of the reign of Alexander two years later than is right — it was raised by force of the rescript just mentioned: but that rescript seems not to deal with a public place in which a Christian church was to be raised, but in which one had already been raised; so that Alexander did not first grant that place to the Christians, but by his rescript confirmed it, already occupied by them, to its latest possessors, being perhaps still Caesar. Indeed, the words of Lampridius seem rather to indicate the latter; receive them entire: When the Christians had occupied a certain place which had been public (namely a public eating-house), and the tavern-keepers on the other side said it was owed to them, he (Alexander) wrote in reply that it was better that God should be worshipped there in whatever manner, than that it should be given over to the tavern-keepers; in which words there seems to be question of a place already occupied and possessed by the Christians, of a place which had been public, or a public eating-house, but was no longer held as such by the pagans; in which, finally, God was already being worshipped. Add that Callistus lived with Alexander, raised to the empire in the month of March of the year 222, only some months before he was taken, and those not so peaceful that he should then for the first time have been solicitous about building a church; since, scarcely had the helm of empire been taken up by Alexander, SS. Palmatius and Simplicius were taken, and St. Calepodius is read in the Acts, num. 6, to have been slain with the sword on the Kalends of May of the same year. It is more probable, therefore, that the church of St. Mary across the Tiber was founded by Callistus in that space of time which ran from the year 217 to the reign of Alexander, under the reign of Macrinus or Heliogabalus.

[72] For the rest, the public rescript of Alexander, adjudging the suit to the Christians, publicly known indeed, but modest; brought it about both that the church of St. Mary became public, and that the Christians worshipped God in it securely, so that even from the street, as the Acts hint at num. 1, their sacred singing could be heard. For that which Alexander had assigned, or rather confirmed, to the Christians, with the pagans knowing and resisting it, could not but be known to the pagans, nor could the pagans be ignorant that by the same rescript Alexander had granted to the Christians that they might worship God in it with Christian rite: and who would doubt that the Christians, having obtained this faculty from Alexander, used it moderately and without ostentation, so that it was with the doors closed and in the upper part of the church, as was customarily done in hidden churches? And since the jurists and other more hostile enemies of the Christian name did not see these things done with favourable eyes, it is very credible that they began to accuse and persecute the Christians. As concerns the structure of the church of St. Mary in the time of Callistus, I would believe it was neither altogether lowly nor very magnificent, and about such as Moretti describes, chapter 5, num. 60: Callistus, he says, composed the Basilica after the form of the others more commonly erected even under the persecutors: namely of houses, which Lucian, or the author of the Philopatris, described in these words, to be read in Tome II of the Works of Lucian, page 1007 of the Saumur edition, etc.: "We passed through iron gates and brazen thresholds, and, having surmounted many stairs, we ascended into a house distinguished by a gilded roof (εἰς χρυσόφορον οἷκον ἀνήλθομεν), such as Homer feigns that of Menelaus to be. And I myself contemplated all those things which that island youth (Telemachus) did. But I see, by Hercules, not Helen, but men bent forward on their faces and growing pale, etc.", that is, Christians praying in a most modest posture and silently. But let these things suffice about the church which, among those publicly raised to God and his Mother, Rome saw; and apart from which he founded no other out of his father's house, as Oldoino wrote, supported by no authority. Whoever wishes more may consult Moretti. The same writer, chapter 7, num. 96, mentions two images (of which one, of Blessed Mary of Clemency, is religiously venerated in the church of the same Blessed Virgin across the Tiber, the other among the nuns of SS. Dominic and Sixtus) which some have thought to be Callistian; but he judges it more credible that none was exposed to the eyes of the faithful by Callistus, in view of the circumspection of the pontiffs of the first centuries of the church in similar matters.

[73] he seems not to have ordained Urban in prison; St. Urban, the immediate successor of Callistus, is read in the Papebrochian Pontifical Catalogue, page * 27 of the Propylaeum of May, to have been ordained vicar by Callistus in prison; but the years of the Pontificate of each can be so disposed and ordered that there is no need to have recourse to the functions of a vicariate held by these Pontiffs: vicariates indeed occur rather frequently elsewhere too in that Catalogue, which, however, is not commonly done in the others, which, whatever may in fact be the case about those vicariates, I more willingly follow, because no necessity of acting otherwise presses me. And then, if we consult the Passion of St. Callistus, num. 7, it seems scarcely possible that Urban was ordained in prison by Callistus, to whom, except perhaps for the first four days of his captivity, access was not open even by night: for it had been ordered that if anyone came to him by night he should be slain. Moreover, the ordination of St. Urban in prison, according to the Papebrochian Catalogue, would have been made on the 13th day of June; but it was said above at num. 29 that more probably only ten and seven days elapsed from the capture of Callistus, slain on the 12th day of October, to his burial: from which it follows that hands had not yet been laid on St. Callistus in the course of the month of June. I confess that St. Callistus, according to the Acts, was wasted for many days after the first four days of his captivity, if you will: I confess likewise that by our calculation he was cast into prison about the 28th day of September: but I think at the same time that the ten days which elapsed from the first four days of captivity until the slaying of St. Callistus were numerous enough for Callistus to be truly said by the author of the Passion to have been wasted in prison for many days, at least in comparison with SS. Simplicius, Calepodius, Asterius, who, scarcely taken, and

Privatus, who, scarcely washed by St. Callistus in the sacred waters, underwent martyrdom.

[74] renowned for miracles It is more certain that St. Callistus, while he still dwelt on earth, was divinely adorned with more than one prodigy: and it is no wonder that we have knowledge of none which perhaps happened before the time of his Passion; since the catalogues of the Pontiffs touch only very briefly on his chief deeds, and those very few; and the author of the Passion does not touch at all on what the Pontiff did before it began. Among those prodigies, however, by which the writer of his Passion says Callistus was made illustrious by God, are: the ten soldiers sent to seize the Christians who, together with Callistus, were occupied with the divine praises in a certain upper room, and struck with blindness, num. 2; the testimony of Juliana, seized by a demon: The God of Calixtus, he is the living and true God, num. 3; the apparition of St. Calepodius, encouraging the holy Pontiff in his tribulations to constancy and announcing to him the crown of eternal beatitude prepared for him, num. 7; finally St. Privatus, a soldier, full of ulcers, and prodigiously cleansed by St. Callistus when sacred baptism was conferred on him. The holy Pontiff did indeed become illustrious after his life by many more miracles, but there will be a proper place elsewhere for speaking of these. I say nothing here of the virtues in which he chiefly shone, which can be gathered without difficulty both from his Deeds and from his Acts. Now we must speak of his martyrdom, by which he set upon them a crown that will never perish.

[75] The martyrdom of St. Callistus is admitted not only by the more recent critics generally, he underwent martyrdom, but even among these by those more rigid than the rest, to whose number Tillemont is certainly to be ascribed, who, in tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 681, Note 3, establishes it of set purpose, although he contends that not so many Martyrs suffered under the emperor Alexander as are commonly put about in the opinion of other writers. The same Martyrdom is attested by the perpetual tradition of the Romans, the Liturgical books, Calendars, Martyrologies both ancient and more recent in huge number, and monuments of most remote antiquity. Of these let it suffice in this place to have brought forward one or two. The Catalogue of the Pontiffs, tome 1 of April, page 24, written toward the end of the V century, inserts these express words in the eulogy of St. Callistus: He is crowned with martyrdom; which the author of the cited Catalogue is altogether to be judged to have learned not from his own invention or opinion, but from more ancient Calendars. Let the same judgment be made of the author of the Indiculus or Calendar edited by Boucher and composed about the middle of the IV century, who, having prefixed this title to the beginning of the very brief Calendar, likewise the deposition of the Martyrs, added these things toward the end of the same Calendar: In the month of October. On the day before the Ides, of Callistus, on the Aurelian Way, at the III milestone. What martyr Callistus was venerated at Rome on the 14th day of October and buried on the Aurelian Way at the III milestone, unless that holy Pontiff of whom we are treating? You see, therefore, that already in the IV century he was held as a martyr; why not also in the III century itself, in which he was made a martyr?

[76] which undeservedly Basnage Basnage, however, could not refrain, in the Politico-Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 219, num. 6, from holding the martyrdom of Callistus suspect of falsehood; although he was not ignorant that Callistus is held as a martyr by most of the learned with Baronius; although he was not ignorant that he is mentioned as such in the Calendar of Boucher, and that in the Martyrology of Rosweyde is read: At Rome, of Callistus, Pope and Martyr. Why then did he judge so? Because Eusebius records nothing of the martyrdom of Callistus, either in the Chronicle or in the History: because Alexander was not the man to destroy so many martyrs by the punishment of death; because between the reigns of Maximinus and Severus there was peace for the Christians, on the testimony of Sulpicius: because he revoked the laws of persecution enacted by Severus. Eusebius nowhere called Callistus a saint, nor did he mention all the martyrs, as many as there had been either in the East or the West when he wrote; let him therefore bring into suspicion of falsehood — I do not say the martyrdom of Callistus — but even his sanctity, which no one has doubted. Let him bring into suspicion all the martyrs older than Eusebius of whom he made no mention. Was Alexander more inclined against the Christians than against his own wife? Let him then bring Herodian into suspicion of falsehood when he narrates that she was driven into exile, albeit against the will of Alexander himself. There was peace for the Christians under the reign of Alexander: therefore nowhere on earth, in this or that particular place, was any disturbance stirred up against them. It came about through the unskilfulness of the writer that, while describing his martyrdom, he ascribed to Alexander certain less credible deeds and sayings: therefore the very martyrdom of Callistus is deservedly suspect. Alexander suffered the Christians to exist, fostered them, nay, if you will, forbade them to be persecuted: therefore this mandate of his was everywhere kept by all holily and inviolably. To this the reasoning of Basnage comes down, which I do not think will be admitted by a prudent man and a lover of truth. What, meanwhile, does Basnage say to the Calendars which he objects to himself? Nothing at all; except perhaps that he calls the Bucherian monument of venerable antiquity a very little Calendar, as if monuments of this kind had their value from their bulk.

[77] holds it suspect of falsehood. I do not ask that Basnage or his followers listen to me: but let them go to the Genuine and Select Acts of the Martyrs of Ruinart; there at page 18 they will find St. Symphorosa with seven sons; then St. Felicity likewise with as many sons, crowned beyond doubt with martyrdom, although Eusebius nowhere mentions them: they will find at page 59 St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons and martyr, of whom Eusebius wrote much more than of St. Callistus, book 5, chapters 4, 20 and 26, no mention of his martyrdom being made. I know that Basnage likewise calls the martyrdom of St. Irenaeus into doubt; but it is far better to believe Gregory of Tours, who affirms it both elsewhere and in the book On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 50, in these words: To whom (Photinus the martyr) succeeded as bishop Irenaeus, worthy both in merit and in Sanctity, who himself also was ended by martyrdom, than the conjectures of Basnage. What? Does he not admit, as he ought, the martyrdom of Sixtus II? Does not Eusebius, book 7, chapter 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, say that he succeeded St. Stephen, and yet nowhere calls him a martyr? Just as, therefore, anyone would argue badly from the silence of Eusebius that Xystus II was not a martyr, so neither is he to be heard who from the same denies that St. Callistus was a martyr, if only because both are read inscribed in the Bucherian Opuscule entitled Deposition of the martyrs, Callistus at the 14th day of October, Sixtus at the 6th of August, on which days they were already before customarily honoured and venerated at Rome as martyrs.

[78] [Tillemont, although he does not approve the Acts, nevertheless admits the martyrdom of Callistus,] Let them consult Tillemont, Tome 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 251, where he says: But that (peace of the church, of which Sulpicius and Tertullian speak) does not prevent there having been some martyrs under Alexander, as there were under Philip, who was held to be a Christian, and even under emperors who protected the Church more vigorously, whether by a tumult of the people or by certain other events; among which it is right to count it, if ever it happened (as it happened to Alexander) that those whose services the pagan princes believed either altogether necessary or supremely useful to them were of a mind more hostile to the Christian religion. Let them read Ruinart's Admonition on the martyrdom of St. Marinus the soldier, which at page 294 runs thus: From the martyrdom of this blessed man it is clear how little safe the life of the Christians was, as long as pagan princes held the Roman empire. For this glorious soldier, the peace of the Church having been confirmed by edicts of the emperor, in the chief city of the province, without any tumult of the pagan priests or peoples, was beheaded by the ordinary judge for the sole confession of the Christian name: nor let them neglect, to mention it in passing, this Note of the same Ruinart on Asturius, or Asterius, senator of the city of Rome: Eusebius has nothing of his martyrdom, but relates a notable miracle worked by him in the following chapter, namely 17, book 7, page 264 of the Valesian edition. Let them read again Tillemont, who certainly did not treat the Acts of St. Callistus too kindly, discoursing thus, tome 3, page 681: Although these (the various circumstances of the Callistian Passion which he had enumerated a little before) seem false, yet you will rarely see Acts composed about any saint as a martyr unless he was such in fact, or at least suffered something for J. C. Let them finally imitate here Basnage himself, who, when he seemed to himself to have found certain things less genuine in the Acts of St. Cyprian the Martyr, at the year 258, num. 12, separated the matter from the form, embracing the martyrdom, but rejecting the ornament rashly added from elsewhere: let them acknowledge the martyrdom of St. Callistus: let them criticize the false or less probable circumstances as they deserve.

[79] Further, on the same day as St. Callistus, but by another kind of death, whose St. Privatus the soldier Privatus likewise obtained the laurel of martyrdom, as far as it is permitted to gather from the Acts of St. Callistus, num. 8. He is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology from these Acts at the 28th day of September, at which he was also treated in our Work, Tome 6 of that month, page 59 and the two following. The reason why he was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at that day was no other than that Baronius judged that Callistus, and accordingly also Privatus, departed this life on that day, counting back seventeen days from the 14th day of October, on which Callistus was buried, to his day of death; which method of counting Constantine Suyskens embraced as the more probable in the cited tome of September, but rather presupposing than proving the truth of Baronius's opinion on the day of Callistus's death: but since, from what I said above in § II, the day of Callistus's death seems rather to be judged the 12th day of October, it appears to me at least more probable that the soldier Privatus also passed to the heavenly ones on that day. And that Privatus in the Rosweydian Martyrology at the 14th day of October, in these words: On the II of the Ides, at Rome, of Callistus, Pope (N. B.) and martyr, and of Privatus, soldier, is joined to Callistus as his companion, does not come about because both underwent martyrdom on that day, but because the memory of the holy Pontiff was chiefly celebrated on the day of his burial, from whom the author of that Martyrology did not wish the companion of his martyrdom to be separated, because the memory of both was celebrated on the same day: nor have I found anywhere in other ancient Calendars another day specially sacred to his cult. The Hieronymian Martyrology of Florentini announces a Privatus at the 10th day of May, but at Axiopolis; another at the 5th of June, but in Africa; a third at the 21st of August, but among the Gabali; a fourth at the 19th and 20th of September, but without place; a fifth at the 8th of October, but at Antioch or elsewhere; a sixth at the 5th of December, but, as it appears, in Africa; a seventh at the 10th of the same month, without place; an Eighth

finally at the 18th of December, but at Laodicea; so that there none is to be found who suffered at Rome.

[80] (but not, as seems more probable, On the other hand, at the 12th day of October Saturus is joined to Callistus: At Rome on the Aurelian Way, of Calestus, of Saturus, has the codex of Florentini; nor do the Echternach and Corbie ones differ much. And again at the 14th day of October the codex of Florentini, or the Lucca one, has thus: The birthday of St. Calixtus. At Rome on the Aurelian Way in the cemetery of Calepodius. Of Caelestus the bishop, of Saturus. The Echternach one, for Florentini the Antwerp one, most ancient: On the II of the Ides of October. At Rome, of Calistus the bishop, and the deposition of Paulinus the bishop. The Corbie one: On the II of the Ides of Oct. At Rome on the Aurelian Way in the cemetery of Calepodius, of Calestus the bishop, of Saturus. From these or similar sources I think it arose that in the Auctaria of Bede too (see them before tome 2 of March, page XXXIV) at the 12th day of October St. Saturus is read to have suffered at Rome. As regards the Hieronymian Martyrologies, the discourse seems to be held, both at the 12th and at the 14th, of no other than our Callistus: for he seems to be designated both by the name of Calixtus, Calestus or Calistus, and by the episcopal or Pontifical dignity, and by the cemetery of St. Calepodius on the Aurelian Way. But what of Saturus, of whom no mention is made in the Acts? Florentini doubts whether Privatus had two names, being also called Saturus; which seems to be mere conjecture, supported by I know not what probable reason from elsewhere: but to me, considering and comparing the entries of the said martyrologies for the 12th and 14th days of October, St. Saturus seems to belong to the other class of martyrs mentioned at the 14th day of October: and not to be joined to Callistus except through the unskilfulness or carelessness of copyists wrongly doubling the same Saints, or sometimes transferring them from their proper seat to a place not their own.

[81] St. Saturus) And so indeed the matter seems to me to stand, first, because he who wrote the Martyrology of Florentini mentions St. Callistus twice at the same day, or the 14th of October (you have the words above at num. 80), for I know not what cause, so that you would judge two Callistuses to be mentioned here, did not the circumstances — the name, the dignity, the arena and the place of burial — indicate that one and the same Martyr is treated there: and just as Callistus is doubled here, so also Saturus seems not only doubled but transferred from Cappadocia to Rome: for these things immediately follow: In Cappadocia. Of Lupus. Of Ampodus. Of Modestus. Of Lucian. Of Saturninus. Of Simplicius. Of Saturus. Of Placidis, or Placidus. The Corbie one indeed mentions Callistus only once; but places one Saturus at Rome and another likewise in Cappadocia, not, however, without confusion: for to the words cited above these are immediately subjoined: In Cappadocia, of Lupanpodus (here Lupus and Ampodus are contracted into one), of Modestus, of Lucian, of Saturninus, of Simplicius, of Saturus, of Placidus. It becomes probable, therefore, that in this copy too Saturus, a Cappadocian martyr, was wrongly doubled and transferred to Rome; which becomes still more probable from the fact that in the most ancient Antwerp copy a single Callistus is marked today at Rome, and no Saturus; but a double one (again perhaps wrongly) in Cappadocia. But, you will say, although at the 14th day of October in the Echternach copy Saturus is not joined to Callistus, yet he is joined at the 12th day of the same month: So indeed the matter stands: but neither does that reading appear genuine, and Saturus seems not rightly to have been intruded there; for otherwise, what shall we say was the cause why Saturus was not repeated in the Echternach copy just as in the others cited above? It seems that at the 12th day of October there was done in the Echternach and the other copies what was done in the little Lucca one, where in Florentini, page 1052, at the same day is read thus: On the IV of the Ides, of Calixtus and of Ager, whom he says is not known to him from elsewhere: but I scarcely doubt that by the name of Ager there comes here Evagrius, announced thus at the 12th day of October in Florentini's copy: In the province of Syria, of the Saints Evacrius and Prosinus. Whence, just as here Evagrius is joined to Callistus by the copyist's error, so probably also St. Saturus in the copies mentioned above. But suppose, finally, that the readings in which Saturus is mentioned immediately after St. Callistus are genuine: it could have happened that Saturus underwent martyrdom at Rome on the 12th or 14th day of October, but at another time than that at which Callistus did. What has been said thus far brings it about that we are reluctant to affirm that St. Saturus either had two names and was called by another name Privatus, or was a companion to Callistus as he underwent martyrdom.

[82] More confidently do we number as companions of St. Callistus in his Passion, besides Privatus, and he had other companions, mentioned here, although they suffered on different days, the martyrs mentioned in his Acts, namely Palmatius, Simplicius, Calepodius, Felix, Blanda and Asterius: of Privatus it has already been treated in our Work at the 27th day of September: of the remaining five at the 10th day of May; of the last, who by entombing St. Callistus also obtained the laurel of martyrdom, the Hieronymian Martyrologies treat at the 19th day of October, in Florentini, in these words: At Ostia, of Austerus. At Ostia the birthday of Asterus. At Ostia, of Austerus the priest. Whence I gather that St. Asterius was formerly venerated on the 19th day of October, although today he is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the 21st day of the same month, because the correctors of the Roman martyrology interpreted the Acts of St. Callistus, where they speak of St. Asterius, less rightly, as at least appears to me more probable. The words of the Acts bearing on this are of this kind, num. 9: And after six days Alexander seized Asterius the priest, whom he commanded to be thrown headlong from the bridge: whose Holy body was found at Ostia, and buried by certain Christians (on the day after his slaying, as it appears) in the same city on the 14th of the Kalends of November. The six days mentioned here, as I said, the correctors counted from the 14th day of October, on which, as the Acts had just said, Asterius had buried Callistus; in which way they thought that Asterius, buried at Ostia, as they supposed, on the 21st day of October, should be inserted in the Roman martyrology at this day. But, as it seems, less probably; for since, as I observed a little before from the Hieronymian Martyrologies, St. Asterius was anciently venerated on the 19th of October, those six or seven days are more probably to be counted not from the 14th day of October but from the 12th, to which we have ascribed above the slaying of St. Callistus. His place, moreover, can be given to St. Asterius in our Work, according to custom, at the 21st day of October, on which he is inscribed in the Roman martyrology.

[83] We add to the companions of Callistus's martyrdom two monuments of his passion still extant in this our time, from Moretti in the Supplement to chapter XI, and certain monuments of which one is the stone with which (as tradition holds) he was thrown into the Tiber; There stands, says Moretti, consecrated by the touch of the sacred neck of the most holy Prelate, the stone fixed in an opening of the wall of the basilica of St. Mary across the Tiber, set upon a small marble base, and protected and made fast with an iron grating and a chain, on the right-hand side as one enters, on the pilaster supporting the arch of the larger nave, and it is made known to those who hasten to it by this inscription carved on the marble placed above: "With this stone tied to his neck St. Callistus, PP., is sunk in a well and crowned with martyrdom." Moretti likewise cites on this matter these words of Jerónimo de Ávila in the Summary of the state of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber: Opposite the fountain of oil, in the middle nave of the church, upon a marble base, is placed a marble stone, of spherical form, bound with a chain. Tradition holds that this was tied to the neck of St. Callixtus I, Pontiff and M., when, under the emperor Alexander, he was cast headlong into a well. If this tradition is true (let these things be said without contempt), it is credible that St. Asterius carried that stone into the cemetery of St. Calepodius on the Aurelian Way together with the remains of St. Callistus, according to the custom of the early Christians, who were wont to entomb the instruments of the punishments together with the bodies of the martyrs, and that it was then translated together with the body of St. Callistus into St. Mary's across the Tiber — of which translation we shall speak below — and exposed to the veneration of the faithful.

[84] The other is the well into which St. Callistus was thrown, and are extant today. still surviving; Bernard de Montfaucon writes of it in chapter XIX, page 270 of the Diarium Italicum: Adjoining the church of St. Mary across the Tiber is the monastery of St. Callixtus, of our Cassinese… In a certain chapel there is a well, into which they relate that St. Callistus the Pope was thrown: in a chapel, since that place passed to the Cassinese monks: but formerly, when the place belonged to the canons of St. Mary across the Tiber, in the garden of the palace of St. Mary across the Tiber; and so situated next to the church of St. Mary across the Tiber. And at the time when it was still under the jurisdiction of the canons of St. Mary across the Tiber, the waters of that well served especially a twofold use; and the first indeed receive from Moretti: When the well had not yet been torn from the power of the basilica, part of its veneration was that from it waters were drawn, according to the catholic custom, to be blessed for the use of baptisms on the Saturdays of Easter and Pentecost in the font of the said basilica. I believe, both on account of the recollection of the … sacrament once conferred through the ministry of these waters, and on account of their sanctification obtained through their receiving the body of our holy Prelate. The other from Martinelli, whose words Moretti cites: The well, by whose water Palmatius (rather Privatus, by Callistus, according to the Acts) was baptized, was in the house of Pontianus, and is extant today within the monastery of the monks of St. Justina in the region across the Tiber, restored to sacred worship and dedicated to St. Callistus. Into the same well the same Callistus was thrown, and the faithful drink its water for the sake of devotion, and those held by fever are often restored to health. So Fioravante Martinelli, Roma ex ethnica sacra, chapter 6, page 26.

§ VII. The celebrated memory of St. Callistus among the Martyrologists.

We subjoin to the martyrdom of St. Callistus some martyrologies and Calendars, the holy Pontiff the old Calendars, both old and more recent, from which it can be abundantly gathered how celebrated his memory everywhere was: for all can scarcely be recorded, nor further is there need. Let there come forward first the Bucherian Calendar, which at page 269 has thus: On the day before the Ides, of Callistus, on the Aurelian Way at the III milestone. The Calendar of Fronto, page 141: On the XIV day of the month of Oct., the birthday of St. Callixtus, Pontiff. The ancient Calendar edited by Leone Allacci from a most ancient codex of the Vatican library, On the agreement of the Western and Eastern church, column 1492: On the day before the Ides of Oct., the Birthday of St. Calixtus, Pontiff. The Corbie one of the IX century, tome 10 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 139: On the II of the Ides, the Birthday of saint Calestus the bishop. Another Corbie one in Martène, tome 3 of the Anecdota, column 1602: On the II of the Ides, the Birthday of St. Calistus, Pope and Martyr. That of the monastery of Lyre, there, column 1625: On the II of the Ides, of Saint Kalistus the Pope. The English one in the same, Of the old writers, tome 6, column 657: On the II

of the Ides, of St. Calestus the Pope. The Stavelot one, there, column 676: On the II of the Ides, at Rome, of St. Calixtus, Pope XVI. He instituted that there should be a fast of the four times. The Verdun one, there, column 683: On the II of the Ides, of St. Calestus, Pope and martyr.

[86] To the Hieronymian Martyrologies, whose words you have above at num. 80, The Hieronymian Martyrologies, add another, put together a thousand years ago and inserted by Martène in tome 3 of the Anecdota, which has thus at column 1561: On the II of the Ides of October, at Rome, of Callixtus the bishop, of Ampodus, of Modestus, of Saturus, of Lupus. Where I would wish it observed in passing that Saturus is not mentioned as a companion of the Callistian Passion, but is joined to Ampodus, Modestus and Lupus, who in the Hieronymian codices at the 12th day of October are ascribed to Cappadocia; which is an indication that Saturus suffered among the Cappadocians and was not rightly ascribed to Rome by the copyists, as I said above seemed to me the case. Of the contracted Hieronymian codices, the Reichenau one mentions Callistus both at the 12th and at the 14th day of October, and rightly indeed at the 14th, in this way: On the day before the Ides of Oct., at Rome, of Calistus, Pope and Martyr. Elsewhere, of Saturus. So that here again you see the arena of Saturus plainly separated from the Roman one. At both days Callistus is marked in the Augsburg one of St. Ulrich; at the 14th in Labbe's. The words of the Gellone one, in d'Achery, tome 13 of the Spicilegium, page 414, are these: On the day before the Ides of Oct., at Rome, of Calistus the Bishop, of Ampotus, of Modestus, of Saturus.

[87] Bede supplies more, who, after he had said at the 10th day of May that St. Calepodius was buried by Callistus, Bede, Wandelbert and Palmatius and Simplicius instructed and baptized, adds this at the 14th day of October on the credit of the Acts of St. Callistus: On the II of the Ides, the Birthday of St. Calixtus the Pope, who in the persecution of the emperor Alexander (or rather of those who, while Alexander held the empire, exercised their hatred against the Christians) having been long tormented with hunger and daily beaten with cudgels, was consoled through a vision by his priest (St. Calepodius), who had earlier consummated his martyrdom: who, placed in the same prison, cured a certain soldier named Privatus of ulcer, pain and foulness and at the same time of unbelief. Hearing which, Alexander ordered the soldier himself to die under the leaded scourges: but Blessed Calixtus to be thrown headlong through the window of the house, and, a stone being tied to his neck, to be sunk in a well and rubble to be heaped through (read: from above) upon him. But after seventeen days his priest Asterius, coming by night with clerics, raised in the cemetery of Calepodius on the day before the Ides of October. And at the 21st day of October, writing that Asterius was thrown headlong from the bridge by Alexander's order and buried at Ostia, he finally adds: it is written in the Passion of Calixtus the Pope. And the Little Book of Bede in Martène, tome 6 of the old writers, column 647, has: On the II of the Ides (of October) the Birthday of St. Calixtus the Pope and of St. Lupus. Hrabanus, not only at the 14th day of October under Callistus but also at the 21st under Asterius, uses almost the same words as Bede: but where he treats of Callistus he reads, not, as is commonly read elsewhere, after seventeen days, but after fourteen days. And where he mentions the captivity and slaying of Asterius, he has After three days, whereas elsewhere is commonly read After six days. Wandelbert sings thus:

On the day before, Callistus, prelate and martyr, excelling in many a trophy, and accompanied by a Martyr, shines.

Which verses I think are to be understood thus, that by these words, martyr excelling in many a trophy, the holy Martyrs Palmatius, Felix, Blanda and Simplicius, whom he washed in the sacred waters, are indicated: and by these, accompanied by a Martyr, St. Privatus is designated, not only baptized by Callistus and restored to health, but also slain on the same day.

[88] Usuard and Ado celebrate him in rivalry; The Annunciation of Callistus in Usuard, in Sollerius, runs thus: On the II of the Ides (of October), at Rome on the Aurelian Way, the birthday of blessed Calistus, pope and Martyr. Him the emperor Alexander ordered, under prolonged custody, to be tormented with hunger and daily beaten with cudgels; but at length, thrown headlong through the window of the house in which he was kept, he merited the triumph of victory. Sollerius observes in this place that St. Callistus is celebrated today not only in the most ancient Calendars, but also in the Sacramentary of Gregory, where at page 156 in Ménard, but without the title of martyr, his Feast is noted thus: On the day before the Ides of October, the Birthday of St. Calistus the Pope. There follow there three prayers to be recited at Mass, but embracing nothing particular about St. Callistus: but what is particular is what is read of him in the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard, that he instituted that the promotions to the orders of the Church should be made by degrees, and introduced that the ministers of the Church should keep perpetual chastity; but this is a mere interpolation of Usuard. Ado, more prolix than Usuard, speaks thus: On the day before the Ides of October. The Birthday of St. Callistus the Pope, who sat in the episcopate seven years (rather five), two months, ten days, and under the persecution of the emperor Alexander obtained the glory of martyrdom. For after he had baptized Palmachius the proconsul with all his house, and the senator Simplicius and his house, and Felix with his wife Blanda, whom he cured of paralysis (the Acts attribute this to the prayers of Palmatius), and these same all, slain by Alexander, had obtained the glory of martyrdom: and also after Calepodius his priest had received martyrdom by the sword, he was held by Alexander, very long tormented with hunger, and daily beaten with cudgels, and it was forbidden that anyone should come to him. But if anyone dared to come by night, he was to be seized and slain. And when he had been many days in custody, blessed Calepodius came to him in a vision, and consoled him, saying: Be firm, Father, for your crown is now perfected. There was there a certain soldier named Privatus, full of ulcers, who was tormented with continual pains. He threw himself at the feet of Callistus, asking that he would heal him of his ulcers and pains: whom the holy Pontiff presently cured of the pain and foulness of the ulcers, and at the same time of unbelief, baptizing him in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Hearing which, Alexander had the soldier himself made to die under the leaded scourges: but blessed Callistus thrown headlong through the window of the house, and, a stone being tied to his neck, sunk in a well, and rubble heaped upon him. But after ten and seven days his priest Asterius, coming by night with clerics, raised his body, and buried it in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way on the day before the Ides of October; all of which is clear enough to have been drawn from the Acts of St. Callistus. I do not transfer the words of Notker here, because they embrace nothing which has not already been said by the Martyrologists praised. Of the Little Roman, which at the 14th day of October announces our Pontiff and Martyr together with Privatus as well, you have the words at num. 71.

[89] Receive now also some more recent Martyrologies, in which the name of St. Callistus is inscribed at this day. as also of the more recent The Martyrology of Bellinus: At Rome on the Aurelian Way, the Birthday of Saint Calixtus, Pope and Martyr: him the emperor Alexander ordered under prolonged custody to be tormented with hunger and daily beaten with cudgels: but at length, thrown headlong through the window of the house in which he was kept, he merited the triumph of victory. He established that a fast should be held three times in the year, of corn, wine and oil, according to the prophecy. The Martyrology or Viola Sanctorum: At Rome on the Aurelian Way, of blessed Calixtus, Pope and Martyr. He: that the fast, which was formerly customarily held three times in the year, ought to be held four times, so that just as the year revolves through four times, so we too may perform a fourfold fast for the purgation of our crimes; in which four times also the aforesaid established that the promotions to the grades of the churches should be made. Likewise he forbade priests to have wives any longer, and introduced the keeping of perpetual chastity. At length saint Calixtus is held for the faith by the emperor Alexander about the year of the Lord CCXXII, and under prolonged custody is first tormented with hunger in prison. Secondly he is beaten and slaughtered with cudgels. Thirdly he is thrown headlong through the window of his house. Fourthly, a stone being tied to his neck, he is ordered to be sunk in a well. Whom Austerius the priest raised from there, and buried honourably with Calepodius the bishop.

[90] The manuscript Florarium of the XV century: At Rome on the Aurelian Way, the Birthday of blessed Calixtus, Pope and martyr. of the martyrologies Who sat in the episcopate eight years, two months, ten days. He established the fasts of the four times, and enjoined continence on clerics constituted in sacred Orders. Who in the persecution of the emperor Alexander, having been long tormented with hunger and daily beaten with cudgels, was strengthened and consoled through a vision by his priest Calipodius, who had earlier consummated his martyrdom. Who, while still shut up in that very prison, cured a certain soldier named Privatus of the pains and foulness of ulcers and at the same time of unbelief. Hearing which, Alexander had the soldier himself made to die under the leaded scourges: but blessed Calixtus thrown headlong through the window of the house, and, a stone being tied to his neck, sunk in a well, and rubble heaped over him. But after XVII days his priest Asterius, coming by night with clerics, raised his body and buried it in the cemetery of Calepodius in the year CCXXVI. The Martyrology of Galesini: At Rome, on the Aurelian Way, of Saint Calixtus, Pope and Martyr: who governed the Church under the emperors Macrinus and Heliogabalus. And in so great a disturbance of affairs he could never be moved from the duty of a most holy Pontiff by any force of assault. He instituted four times of the year in which fasting should be practised; he decreed many things wisely and usefully. He built the basilica of Holy Mary across the Tiber: he constructed a cemetery on the Appian Way. When he had baptized many, and among them Palmachius, a man of consular rank, Simplicius a senator, and Felicius, a man born of noble station: violently harassed by the impious, then seized, he is shut up in custody: where he was fasting five days. Led out thence and beaten with cudgels, he is cast into the top of the prison: thence, headlong from a window, thrown down into a well, he is crowned with martyrdom.

[91] The Roman Martyrology, from Usuard: At Rome on the Aurelian Way, the birthday of blessed Callistus, Pope and Martyr, authors, who, by order of the emperor Alexander, having been long tormented with hunger in prison, and daily beaten with cudgels, at length thrown headlong from the window of the house in which he was kept, and sunk in a well, merited the triumph of victory. The Gallican Martyrology of du Saussay: The Birthday of saint Calixtus, Pope and Martyr, who, at Rome on the Aurelian Way, tormented with prolonged hunger in custody, beaten with cudgels, finally thrown headlong from a window into a well, magnificently consummated an outstanding and celebrated pontificate with the trophy of a renowned contest. His body, afterwards brought out from there by Christians and religiously laid away, Notingus, bishop of Brescia, received as a gift from Pope Sergius, and placed it in his church with much honour. But, compelled by the prayers of the marquis Everard, he granted it as an exceptional gift to him, who had deserved well of Italy on account of the war bravely waged against the Saracens. By whom, translated into Gaul, it was laid with fitting cult at Cysoing, of which town he was lord, in the monastery which he had founded in veneration of so great a Martyr, in the year of Christ triumphant eight hundred and fifty-five.

But a little later, namely in eight hundred and ninety-eight, when the Normans were laying waste the Gauls with pitiable slaughter, it was carried hence to Reims, lest it be plundered by the faithless people, and was reverently received by blessed Fulk the archbishop, afterwards a Martyr, together with the sacred bones of saint Gibrian and his companions, and laid away in the metropolitan church of holy Mary, next to the body of Saint Nicasius and blessed Eutropia. Where it rests up to these times: with much celebrity of his name, which is venerated there on the present Birthday. There is preserved, however, among the people of Beauvais, in the suburban monastery of saint Quentin, the right arm of this most holy Pontiff, which Ivo, the first abbot of that place, afterwards the famous Prelate of Chartres, received from the sacristy of Reims and deposited there with due honour.

[92] Of the relics translated elsewhere from Rome it will be spoken in its place below: yet not without errors, here indicated in passing. but now it will help to observe briefly a few things concerning the various assertions which occur in the cited Martyrologies; and first indeed, that St. Callistus is commonly said in them to have been put to death by Alexander's order appears to have arisen from no other source than from the words of the Acts, which, where they speak of the deeds and sayings of Alexander, seem to us less genuine on account of what was said in § I, not discussed with sufficient care: I would rather read in them that Callistus suffered under Alexander; so that Callistus is said to have been removed from life in the time of Alexander indeed, but not at his instigation. Next, Callistus, according to the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard, num. 88, instituted that the orders of the church should be conferred by degrees, and led the clerics to perpetual continence, which are read also in the Viola Sanctorum above at num. 89 and partly in the manuscript Florarium. It is credible indeed that Callistus instituted many things usefully and wisely; but it is not found among the ancients that he issued a particular decree either on conferring orders or on the perpetual continence to be kept by the major clerics, which law was born with the church itself — not even in the Letters falsely ascribed to him. Wrongly likewise is it read in the cited Viola that Callistus was thrown headlong from the window of his own house; for he was taken, afflicted and thrown headlong from a window into a well when he was in the house of Pontianus, as the Acts narrate at nums. 7 and 8: wrongly is St. Calepodius called a bishop, and said to have been buried by Asterius, unless by those words St. Callistus is said only to have been buried with Calepodius in the same cemetery which had its name from St. Calepodius. The Florarium, moreover, wrongly assigns 8 years to the Pontificate of Callistus, and writes that he was crowned with martyrdom in the year CCXXVI, four years later than it took place. Nor do I know what assaults Galesini, praised at num. 90, may narrate that St. Callistus manfully resisted under the reign of Macrinus and Heliogabalus, under whom the Acts do not relate that Callistus suffered anything: finally Galesini says that Callistus was first afflicted with hunger for 5 days; elsewhere I commonly find four. Observe finally that the 14th day of October, although in various of the cited Calendars or Martyrologies it is called the Birthday of Callistus, was not the day of his martyrdom but of his burial, as the Acts testify not obscurely.

§ VIII. The relics of St. Callistus at Rome: some of them translated into Germany, Belgium and elsewhere.

In what place St. Asterius buried St. Callistus, who had accomplished his Martyrdom in the year, as we said, 222, the body of the Saint to the church of St. Mary across the Tiber more probably on the 12th day of October, on the 14th day of the same month, the Acts explain in these words, num. 9: He buried (the body of St. Callistus) honourably in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way: the Pontifical book, or Anastasius, adds at the III milestone. The remains of the holy Pontiff stayed laid away there at least until the Pontificate of St. Julius, who died about the middle of the IV century, who over them either founded a sacred building, or restored or enlarged one founded before, which the Bucherian Catalogue of the Pontiffs, written under Liberius the successor of Julius, abundantly testifies in these words: He (Julius) made many buildings… A Basilica on the Aurelian Way, at the III milestone, next to Callistus: for it is not probable that Julius did this when the body of the holy Pontiff had already been translated elsewhere: but that it was afterwards translated to the church of St. Mary across the Tiber is not doubtful; since Gregory IV, who presided over the Church from about the year 827 to 843, found it there and endowed it with a nobler place under the high altar. Of the body of St. Callistus found there by Gregory IV and endowed with a nobler place, Anastasius is a rich witness, writing under Gregory IV, besides very many other things, this, in Moretti, Disquisition 1, chapter XI, num. 21: But also the Holy bodies of the Blessed Calixtus and Cornelius and Calepodius, entombed in the middle part of the church (of St. Mary across the Tiber), behind the back of the people, were not honoured worthily, through licence. Which the same most religious Pope bore not lightly, but applying himself with skilful and accustomed zeal and with inmost industry, he began and completed a wonderful work. For, a secret cave having been dug, raising with reverence the aforesaid Holy bodies, he hid them, placing them honourably in the Western part of the same church, that is, in the circuit of the apse, etc.

[94] That St. Callistus, pope and martyr, is treated in these words is indicated by St. Cornelius, fifth of his successors, was translated, perhaps by Gregory III; and St. Calepodius, buried in the same cemetery as Callistus, and indeed by the very hands of St. Callistus: but by what Pontiff, between Julius and Gregory IV, the body of St. Callistus was translated from the cemetery of Callistus to St. Mary's across the Tiber I am not in a position to determine. Perhaps it was done by Gregory III between the years 731 and 742, of whom Anastasius says: He also built with new structures, with a roof, the basilica of saint Calixtus, Pontiff and martyr, almost destroyed from its foundations, and painted the whole, and perhaps enriched it with the relics of St. Callistus, thinking it fair that it should possess the remains of its founder. However that may be, in the year 23 of the twelfth century the church of St. Mary across the Tiber still possessed the body of St. Callistus, as is testified, in Moretti, cited num. 26, by the letters given in that year by Callistus II, confirming the goods and privileges of the same church, in which these things are read: For the greater dignity of your church and the reverence of the most blessed Calixtus, Pope and martyr, by whose sacred body the same place is held distinguished, and whose name we, although unworthy successors, bear, besides those two stations … we grant a third to be celebrated, etc. In the place where we have said the remains of St. Callistus were laid away by Gregory IV, Innocent II, Pontiff from the year 1130 to 1143, found them, as the author of the History of the consecration of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber writes in the following words, in Moretti, just cited, nums. 27 and 28: The same most holy Prelate (Innocent II, the latest restorer of the church of St. Mary) was zealous to search out with the greatest diligence the bodies of the Saints which rest in this very church, and these were found: namely of the holy Martyrs and Pontiffs Callistus, Cornelius, Julius, of Calepodius the priest; to which was added the body of Blessed Quirinus, bishop and Martyr, brought about the same time from the catacombs; and Innocent III (Pontiff from the year 1208 to 1216) laid them back when he consecrated the same church; as these words of the same author again declare: He also consecrated the high Altar, under which rest the bodies of SS. Callixtus, Cornelius, Julius, Calepodius and Quirinus, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moretti accumulates more to these, to show that the body of St. Callistus exists in St. Mary's across the Tiber. What has thus far been brought forward by us from him is plain enough, and suffices for it to be believed that, as the XII century was drawing to its end, the body of St. Callistus was still there: but it is with difficulty reconciled with what is said of the body of St. Callistus translated from Italy to other regions; of which matter we must now treat.

[95] Henschenius published in tome 1 of February the Life of Blessed Rabanus of Mainz, archbishop from abbot of Fulda, some of whose bones to Fulda about the year 836, written by Rudolf the priest, his disciple, in which, at page 516, a certain Sabatinus, a Roman, is narrated to have brought some relics of St. Callistus from Rome to Rabanus, at that time abbot of Fulda, in the following words: After this, in the following year (836), there came a certain layman from the city of Rome, Sabattinus by name, with his companions, into Francia (the Eastern, namely, in Alemannia), bringing relics with him: and having heard the name of the abbot mentioned above, whose devotion in the divine service and veneration of the Saints fame was spreading far and wide, he came to him on the VIII of the Kalends of May, and gave him bones of St. Quirinus the Martyr … of the body of St. Cornelius the Pope XIII bones, of the body of St. Calixtus the Pope ten … and he, having received all venerably, placed them with suppliant devotion in the chest which we said above was placed under the two Cherubim. Perhaps, when Gregory IV translated the body of St. Callistus to a more seemly place, or to the high altar, some part of his relics was separated from the rest of the body, and the said Sabatinus obtained something of it for himself, by I know not what art or industry. Other relics of St. Callistus, moreover, were brought to Rabanus somewhat later: for thus Rudolf goes on to write, chapter 6, page 518: After this there were brought relics of the Holy bishops Cornelius and Calixtus… A certain Italian cleric, named Felix, brought them, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord DCCCXXXVII, on the fifth day of the month of April. For the rest, Rabanus held the relics of St. Callistus honourably and religiously, which he caused to be laid away partly in the church of St. Boniface, as Rudolf writes in the cited tome, page 521, chapter 7, num. 47, on the IV of the Kalends of October, through Regingald, chorepiscopus of Mainz; partly in the monastery of Klingenmünster in the diocese of Speyer, of the Benedictine Order in that age, as Rabanus himself testifies, singing thus in Poem 112 of the Miscellany, under the title At the fourth altar, namely of the church of the monastery of Klingen:

The Forerunner of the Lord, the holy Baptist John, Saint Callistus, and Fabian rejoice. Whom do thou, O Christ God, make duly to help us, With sacred prayers and with good merits.

What Rudolf wrote of these relics, since they were probably only some smaller bones, is not liable to so great a difficulty as what not a few writers have committed to writing about the relics of St. Callistus translated into Belgium and now preserved at Reims.

[96] As the monastery of Fulda, so also the monastery of Cysoing, now of Canons regular, situated in the territory formerly of Tournai, likewise the monastery of Cysoing in Belgium obtained some now of Lille, between Lille and Tournai, most noted cities of Belgium, was enriched with sacred remains of St. Callistus not long after they were brought to Fulda: of which matter, although there is deep silence in the Roman Monuments, yet

there survive among the Belgians and Gauls testimonies of venerable antiquity; so that the fact itself cannot be denied. They vary indeed in the circumstances of this Translation; but not in the fact itself: the first who wrote about it was perhaps the anonymous writer of Cysoing, whose manuscript work we have, entitled Translation of St. Calixtus, copied from the Cysoing manuscript; I have in hand likewise another copy of the same, sent, as it appears, to our predecessors by Jean Buzelin, as being inserted in the same writer's manuscript work extant with us On St. Calixtus, Pope and Martyr and Patron of the monastery of Cysoing. That anonymous writer professes that he describes those miracles which happened in the time in which the Translation itself was made: and the last which he narrates he says was done on a certain servant of the monastery of Cysoing, still surviving among the living when he was writing, and he makes no word of the relics of St. Callistus translated to Reims, although this followed the former by not a full 50 years: whence he seems to have been at least nearly contemporary with the things he writes.

[97] And he relates, as may be seen below after the Acts of the Passion, about the year 854, as is proved from the anonymous writer of Cysoing, that the body of St. Callixtus was first given by the Pontiff Sergius II to Notingus, bishop of Brescia; who, when he had decided to bring it into a monastery which he was indeed constructing but had not yet completed, placed it meanwhile in a certain monastery called the Golden Cell: and when he wished to translate it thence, since it could be moved by no force, Notingus was compelled to leave it in the Golden Cell, until some years later he granted it to count Everard, who carried it to Cysoing, his estate, on which he had built a monastery. Sergius II presided over the church from the year 844, in which he succeeded Gregory IV, to the year 847, obtaining as successor Leo IV, who lived to the year 855: under this Pontiff Notingus presided over the church of Brescia, and subscribed the Judgment of Leo IV and the emperor Louis II in the Roman council for the bishop of Siena against the bishop of Arezzo in the year 853, as may be read in tome 6 of the Antiquities of the middle age, Dissertation 74, column 395. These things were done (both the translation of St. Callistus to Cysoing and the miracles done on that occasion which he describes) in the eight hundred and fifty-fourth year of the Lord's Incarnation, says the anonymous writer of Cysoing below at num. 8. Hence Colvener, in his scholia on book 4 of Flodoard, chapter 6, rightly warns that Sigebert, or the author of the addition, who assigns it to the year 884, is to be corrected: but in the Epitaph of the shrine, as the same Colvener also warns there, the year LV of the ninth century is noted. However that may be, the anonymous writer of Cysoing certainly erred when he wrote at num. 1: Then Pope Sergius, having opened the cemetery of Calepodius, where he knew Saint Calixtus had been buried, raised him, etc. For Sergius II knew that St. Callistus had once been buried in the cemetery of St. Calepodius: but at the same time he knew that the same had been endowed by his immediate predecessor with a more honourable place in St. Mary's across the Tiber: he consulted, as Buzelin rightly judges in his manuscript Notes on the anonymous writer of Cysoing, only the Acts of the Passion of St. Calepodius, in which it is read that he was buried in his cemetery indeed, but nothing of his translation into St. Mary's across the Tiber, and he did not know that such a translation had been made before the sacred pledge was handed to Notingus: but from this it does not follow that it was not in fact given by Sergius II to Notingus.

[98] The Translation of St. Callistus to Cysoing is confirmed (whatever you may judge of the donation made to Notingus) by the charter of Gisla, wife of Everard, and by Fulk, archbishop of Reims drawn up in the XXX year of Charles the Bald (he died in the year 877, the 38th of his reign in Francia), in which, in Floris van der Haer, canon of St. Peter's at Lille, book 1 On the castellans of Lille, page 41, she speaks thus: At the monastery of the fisc of Cysoing, situated by me in honour of our Lord and saviour and of Holy Mary his Mother, where Calixtus, venerable and Martyr of Christ, is said to rest. The same Translation is confirmed by Fulk, archbishop of Reims from the year 882 to 900, in Flodoard, who in the X century inserted into the History of Reims written by him fragments or summaries of various Letters of Fulk to various persons, and of theirs in turn to Fulk. His words, in which he depicts the translation of the relics of St. Callistus from Cysoing to Reims, and accordingly by the same labour confirms the former, it has seemed good to set here, if only so that the reader may better notice in what Fulk or Flodoard differs from the anonymous writer of Cysoing. Thus, therefore, he speaks in book 4 toward the end of chapter 1, which is partly about the Letters of Fulk directed to the Pontiffs: He notes also (Fulk, in the Letter to Pope Formosus) how the marquis Everard obtained from the Roman see the venerable body of Saint Calixtus, Pope and Martyr, and established a monastery in his honour on his estate. Which estate after his death came by hereditary right to his son Rodulf the abbot: who held these properties together with the clod of the said Martyr for the days of his life without any contradiction, and, when about to depart from the world, delegated the same properties with the monastery and the sacred body to the church of Reims of the Holy Mother of God, and instituted the same heir of his properties. But then a certain Hucbold, the husband of this Rodulf's sister, was making false claim to the office of the same abbot, and was trying to take it away from the right of the church of the Mother of God: He accordingly prays that he would instruct him by his sacred letters what he ought to do in such matters, and would strengthen the conferring of these properties with eternal stability, and strike the gainsayers with the due vengeance of excommunication.

[99] Pope Formosus wrote back according to Fulk's wish, and sent him a Privilege, in Flodoard, as Flodoard relates, book 4, chapter 2, for the monastery of Avenay, and for that monastery which Rodulf the abbot (son of Everard) had built, in honour of St. Calixtus, Martyr and Pope, by the hereditary right of his property, and had granted to this church of Reims. Fulk therefore wrote to Heidilo, bishop of Noyon or Tournai, in whose diocese the body of St. Callistus rested at Cysoing, that he should bring it thence to Arras, to be translated thereafter with solemn pomp to Reims: he had asked the same of Dodilo, bishop of Cambrai; But Dodilo (so Flodoard, book 4, chapter 6), when he ought to have done what was asked, on the contrary, setting aside the reverence of sonship and brotherhood, meeting them in the middle of the road and snatching the sacred pledge from the hands of the bearers, laid it away with himself, saying that he would not return it to anyone except to the same Heidilo, in whose parish it was known to have been placed: and that he had done this very thing as a contrivance of a new fraud, by which he might be able to hand the aforesaid sacred body over to a certain count Hucbold (he had married, as Marlot writes, book 4, chapter 3, Engeltrude, Rodulf's sister). But that Fulk was at length made master of his wish Flodoard testifies, book 4, chapter 8, writing thus: the abbey of the same Saint having been granted to himself, or to the church of Reims, he also caused the body of blessed Calixtus to be brought to Reims, and placed it venerably behind the altar of Holy Mary.

[100] There is agreement, therefore, between the anonymous writer of Cysoing and Flodoard about the body of St. Callistus actually translated into Belgium, although they vary in the circumstances of the translation: although each must partly be corrected or kindly interpreted, and partly the one differs from the other in the circumstances of the Translation: both at least need a kindly interpretation when they say that the body of St. Callistus was translated into Belgium: for what was said above of the relics of the same Pontiff preserved at Rome and Fulda sufficiently proves that Cysoing possessed not the body of St. Callistus but only some parts of it: nor further is there reason why in this matter either pardon or credence should be denied them: not pardon, since it happens very often that this or that church was said to possess the body of this or that Saint, of whom it possessed only a part: let us therefore suffer it to be said by these and other writers that the body of St. Callistus was carried to Cysoing and Reims, but let us understand the part by the name of the whole. The one differs from the other when the anonymous writer of Cysoing writes that the body of St. Callistus, or rather his relics, were given as a gift by the Roman Pontiff first to Notingus, bishop of Brescia, and by him to count Everard: whereas on the contrary Flodoard writes that Everard obtained them from the Roman see: but, just as the anonymous writer falsely believed that the relics of St. Callistus were extracted from the cemetery of St. Calepodius a little before they were sent into Belgium — because he probably consulted only the Acts of the Passion of St. Callistus, in which he is read to have been buried there — so also Flodoard, or, if you prefer, Fulk the archbishop of Reims, learning from the same that St. Callistus suffered and was buried at Rome, nay, perhaps having ascertained also from elsewhere that his relics had been moved from their place in St. Mary's by Gregory IV not so long before, assumed that they had been translated thence directly into Belgium: whether these writers opined truly or falsely, the credibility of the fact does not on that account waver. Further, the anonymous writer of Cysoing wrote that Everard brought the relics of St. Callistus to Cysoing: Flodoard, Rodulf: let it be doubtful whether Everard accomplished this himself or through his son Rodulf; the translation was certainly made: otherwise Pope Formosus, in the letters by which he confirmed the donation of the monastery of Cysoing made by Rodulf to the church of Reims, would not have neglected to warn Fulk that the entire body of St. Callistus was still preserved at Rome. Marlot ascribed the letters of Fulk to Dodilo to the year 897: du Saussay, cited at num. 91, the translation of the relics of St. Callistus to Reims to the year immediately following. Much later, moreover, the arm of St. Callistus was carried from the sacristy of Reims to the abbey of St. Quentin in the suburb of Beauvais by St. Ivo, the first abbot of that place and afterwards bishop of Chartres; since that abbey was founded only in the XI century by Guy, bishop of Beauvais, as is clear from the Charter of Philip, king of France, of the year 1079, in Loisel, On the affairs of Beauvais, chapter 8, page 261.

[101] some also to the monastery of St. Michael on the Meuse, Behold another Translation of the body of St. Callistus from Rome, made about the year 1026, if what is recorded is true by an anonymous writer, a monk in the time of abbot Nanterus, in the History of the monastery of St. Michael on the Meuse in the district of Verdun, partly edited by Mabillon in tome 2 of the Analecta, page 374 and following. Nanterus, abbot of this monastery, as this anonymous writer narrates, having set out to Rome first for the sake of devotion, thence to Mount Gargano, and thence finally returning to Rome, when he was now in readiness to return to his own, but not without relics of the Saints, of which there was a great abundance there, earnestly begged a certain abbot, his host, not to let him (they are the anonymous writer's words) return empty, but to make him master of his wish, if he could. And he offered him certain bones, saying they were of the body of Stephen the Pope and of Nemesius his deacon: these, if he wished, (behold the condition

unworthy of him) he should buy for a price. To whom he (Nanterus) said: I have heard that many of our people were deceived by a similar error; nor are you to think that I can be so easily deceived. For unless I see a tomb hitherto untouched, and writing teaches me whose limbs lie within, know that no price whatever will be extorted from me by anyone. With me, said the host, there is no other hope of recovering it: but since I see you inflexible from this intention, I sympathize with you in brotherly love, and I urge you to put off your departure today, until I speak with a certain keeper of the cemeteries (an excellent one plainly), if in any way I can be of use to your wishes.

[102] Saying this, he hastens to a certain man dwelling at Saint Valentine's, as is said, and informs him in order of all that he had learned. He, having heard causes of this kind, rejoiced abundantly, but, enticed more by the promised moneys (behold another man of the same, nay of worse, stuff, as will appear a little later), gave his assent, promising that he would give the body of Saint Callistus the Pope, and promised that he would show everything as the abbot (Nanterus) required, both the tomb untouched up to now, and, as is read in the acts of the Passions (which?), the epitaph engraved on the surface of a marble tablet, provided only that good faith were kept in giving what was promised. An agreement therefore being made, they came to the cemetery, in which lamps always burn. In which place an oath is taken on both sides, the abbot-keeper of the cemetery swearing with his own hand that in that same place, as the books of the Passions and the present epitaph taught, was the body of Callistus the Pope; and on the other side, at the order of abbot Nanterus (who was convalescing from illness and absent), his monk pledging upon the holy things that what had been promised of the moneys would be sent on the day named.

[103] The pledges having been settled on both sides, the monk, seizing an axe, tried to tear away the marble slab by which the tomb was closed. For on every side, by the art of the mason, it had been fenced and made harder than stone, nor could the joined cement in any way be divided. Nay even the axes were blunted and the double axes broken, a watchman looking out from a high place, lest by someone coming upon them the theft should be detected — which was being done with great fear, and which, in whatever way it might be detected, would be to those a cause of guilt, to these a remedy. But when the monk could by no means break the marble tablet, as was said before, with the indissoluble glue of the cement, raising the axe he more boldly aims a blow at the middle of the tablet which closed the monument: and he found the buried treasure, more precious than any gem, laid away inside. Which, taking it up, he carried to the abbot at his lodging, who had not yet entirely recovered: but lying at home, placed between hope and fear, was awaiting the monk his fellow-worker and faithful servant. Whom, coming and bearing what he desired, he received with unspeakable joy. He devoutly embraces the limbs of the Martyr, wraps them in new and white linen cloths, and with all haste hastens his return to his homeland, etc.…

[104] The journey of the long-desired pilgrimage being completed, were translated; at length with the treasure which he carried with him he came to the place which is called the old monastery, and, as a careful keeper, diligently deposited the limbs of the blessed Martyr, in a chest secured with seal and wax, next to the altar in the church of holy Mary adjoining the wall of the monastery. So the praised anonymous writer, those things being cut out, however, which I judged less necessary for grasping the substance of the matter. The anonymous writer then adds that the faithful came there from all sides in order to be delivered from evils of soul and body through the patronage of St. Callistus, and that this was granted to their pious prayers by the Divine goodness. Whether truly or not Nanterus brought the body of St. Callistus from Rome to his monastery, Mabillon, Tome 4 of the Benedictine Annals, book 54, at the year 1026, num. 88, neither clearly affirms nor denies; but, having related the story, says: How these things can be reconciled with the translation of the body of saint Calistus made into the monastery of Cysoing by count Everard, and thence to the church of Reims, I leave to others to explain. But I think that Nanterus, however cautiously he seemed to himself to proceed, was deceived by the faithless keeper of the cemetery — most probably that of St. Calepodius — gaping after money, because in the XI century the body of St. Callistus had long since been laid away no longer in that cemetery but in St. Mary's across the Tiber, as what we said above at the beginning of this § sufficiently proves. The coffin in which it had once lain may have been left empty when it was translated thence elsewhere; and in place of the body of St. Callistus taken away, the body of some other holy Martyr — perhaps a Callistus (for there were several Martyrs of this name at Rome) — may have been substituted, and secured with a marble tablet, whether old or new, which should present the name of the holy Pope martyr to the eyes of the beholders, perhaps to deceive the piety of foreigners; which it was not difficult for the keepers of the cemetery who had such a mind to carry out secretly. The cemetery keeper who imposed on Nanterus may have done this, or known it to have been done by another, and, thinking the fraud would not easily be detected, carried away by greed for money, he did not fear to affirm on oath that he was handing over to Nanterus the remains of St. Callistus, pope and martyr, as the inscription bore. But let it suffice to have said this about the places which are read to have had the body of St. Callistus.

[105] Moretti mentions other bones of his through Italy But if it is asked about those places which boast that they have obtained parts or some fragments of the relics of St. Callistus, I would think it scarcely possible for each to be mentioned: we set here some of these found here and there, but we by no means doubt that there are more of them in the Christian world. Moretti, often praised, chapter XI, num. 70 and following, citing monuments and the testimonies of writers, teaches that of the relics of St. Callistus there are preserved: in the church of St. Sebastian near the City, the head; in the oratory of St. Chrysogonus, some of the arm; in the altar of St. Agnes in Agone, part of the arm; in the altar of St. Mary in Cosmedin, an arm or part of an arm; likewise under the altar of the church of St. Thomas in Parione, laid away there by Innocent II; in the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus near the arch of Septimius, part of the arm; fragments of bones, or less notable relics, in the church of St. Paul; in the Transtiberine Title of St. Cecilia and her companions; in the church of St. Mary in Ara Coeli; in the church of St. Anastasia; in the church of St. Simeon at the Bridge; in the church of St. Trypho; in the church of St. Mary de Cappella; under the altar of St. Matthew in Merulana, placed by Paschal II; in the church of St. Nicholas de Funariis; in the churches of St. Saviour de Coppelle, St. Mary of the People, St. Paul at the Antonine Column, St. Eustace, and perhaps in the church of St. Blaise de Planetta.

[106] and mentions others scattered into other regions; He teaches likewise that in the rest of Italy they are preserved: at Naples in St. Mary Major; at Florence in the churches of All Saints, the Metropolitan, St. Michael Visdomini, and St. Giovannino, formerly of the Society of Jesus; at Bologna in the churches of St. Benedict in Strada Galleria, St. Benedict, St. John in Monte, and St. Stephen; at Lucca in St. Mary di Cortelandini; at Cremona in the cathedral at the chapel of St. John the Baptist; at Amalfi in the cathedral, and in the convent of nuns of the Holy Trinity; at Todi in the cathedral; in the Umbrian town of Spello in the collegiate church of St. Lawrence; at Palestrina in St. Agapitus; in the old mother church of the town of Lauretillo; near Orvieto in the church of the Holy Trinity; at Amiternum in St. Victorinus; at Butera in Sicily an arm, or part of an arm. Hence Moretti proceeds into Gaul, Britain, Spain and Germany, citing, as before, monuments and the testimonies of writers. He teaches that relics of St. Callistus are preserved in Gaul, besides those of Reims and Beauvais, of which it has already been spoken, at Rouen and in the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles: and that in England there were formerly some at Glastonbury, from the Monasticon Anglicanum, tome 1, page 6. In Spain, at Valencia in the cathedral church, the head, or rather some of the head, on the credit of Tamayo. In Germany, besides those of Fulda and Klingen (of which above), at Cologne among the Dominican Fathers, the jaw; in the church of SS. Simon and Jude, as also in the collegiate church of Goslar; finally in the altar called of St. Vitus and all the Martyrs in the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria.

[107] As concerns the relics of St. Callistus preserved in Germany, there can be added to these others brought from Krumau, a town of Bohemia, into Austria, and honourably laid away at Linz in the imperial chapel; to which here also certain others concerning which Fr. Gamans sent to our predecessors the following, copied from the annual letters of the Vienna college of the Society of Jesus for the year 1614: About the same time the body of blessed Callistus, Martyr and Pontiff (understand again some parts of it), was in great part rescued from the outrages of the heretics, and most honourably placed at Linz in the sacred imperial chapel. When the empress (Anna, wife of the emperor Matthias), a most religious heroine, had observed these relics of the Blessed one, laid in a marble tomb in the chapel of the castle of Krumau, she feared lest the heretical Rosenberg princes, lords of that castle, might have violated them, as they had desecrated the chapel: for which reason she pressed upon the emperor Matthias, her husband, that he should order them to be transported from Krumau to Linz. The emperor therefore appoints our priest, his preacher (Fr. Georg Amende), to go there, who, having first skilfully examined everything, should bring the sacred bones to Linz. If indeed it should be established, from the intactness of the marble, the coffins and the bones, that the heretics had kept their impious hands off them — which was established, the marble being found plainly inviolate, and much more those things which were laid away in it.

[108] especially by the Germans Moreover, when our priest was now about to bring these sacred pledges of the blessed Martyr into the imperial court, the empress goes to meet them with much faith and religion, and, holily venerating them, prays that the soldier of Christ may come propitious to the emperor her husband, suffering from gout: thence she hastens to the same emperor, to announce the happy arrival of so desired a Guest: from whom she bids the sick emperor both to ask and to hope for all prosperous things, and not in vain: for when he had piously pronounced a vow to St. Calistus, presently all pain of the limbs was dispelled, so that on the following day, when the remains were being put into a more ornate casket, he himself was present, venerating and well. Moreover, much authority and veneration for the Martyr himself, and confidence in asking for the emperor, had been won by the sudden healing of our priest from a rather severe fever, by the pressure of which he would have excused himself on grounds of health to the emperor when he sent him to bring the relics, had not the imminent carrying of that sacred burden given him a more certain hope of health: which health the Martyr liberally rendered to him as he brought his bones out of the tomb, even before the service of the carrying. Which things indeed I have wished to bring in here, lest the benefit divinely conferred on so illustrious a head through the invoked help of St. Callistus, wrapped perhaps in the darkness of perpetual oblivion, should vanish from the memory of men. The same empress sent relics of St. Callistus from Prague into the Tyrol, where, however, some are still preserved, as Pessina writes in the Phosphorus of the Metropolitan church of St. Vitus, page 520:

XIV of October, of St. Calixtus, Pope and M., a notable part of the head brought by Charles (emperor, IV of this name) in 1355. There was formerly also the greater part of the same body, which the empress Anna, wife of Matthias, sent into the Tyrol; that is, as I think, she sent more holy Relics into the Tyrol than she left at Prague.

[109] To the Belgian relics mentioned above I add those and obtained by the Belgians which the monastery of Canons Regular of Arrouaise, two miles from the town of Bapaume in Artois, acquired, in whose Index of relics, in tome 1 of January, in the Life of Blessed Heldemar, founder of Arrouaise, who died in the year 1097, page 834, is read: Of St. Calixtus, namely relics, brought there most probably from Reims. As regards the same, moreover, these things likewise are further to be noted from Raisse in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, page 153, who writes thus: Lately, that is, in the year from the incarnate Word MDCXVI, Lord Jean de Rumaux, abbot of this place (of Cysoing), obtained from the people of Reims the solid and entire thigh-bone of the sacred body of the most excellent Martyr Callistus the Pope, which he caused to be carried honourably and with solemn pomp on the fifteenth of May to his monastery. We shall give below from Buzelin's manuscript a copy of the procession then held. To that copy he subjoins the following: For the rest, the regular canons of the monastery of Cysoing still show two others of our Pontiff. One of these had doubtless been taken from the sacred body already from the times of Blessed Everard, so that it might be inserted in the altar of the church when it was dedicated at his procurement: which was very lately discovered, when the most illustrious archbishop of Cambrai extracted relics from the old altar, to place them in a new one to be consecrated by him.

[110] The other has always hitherto, from all memory, been publicly exposed, are added so as to excite greater cult and veneration of the praying people toward the Martyr. Buzelin finally adds that relics of St. Callistus were sent from Reims a few years ago to the notable church of the canons of St. Peter at Lille, as also to the parish church of the village of Lambersart near Lille. Perhaps also in the village of Jambes near Namur, where St. Callistus has a chapel dedicated to him, something of his relics is venerated, especially by those who suffer in the throat, as I learn from a little French book published at Namur toward the end of the century just elapsed by Fr. Philippe of the Visitation, Carmelite, vicar of the place. Finally, as regards the relics of the holy Pontiff preserved in Spain, there may perhaps be added to those of Valencia mentioned above those of Seville; which Fr. Alexander of the Mother of God, in the Spanish Chronicle of the Order, part 3, book 8, chapter 21, page 112, relates were brought from Rome into Spain in the year 1641 and given to the monastery at Seville of the Discalced Fathers of the most holy Trinity for the Redemption of captives: To our convent of Seville (he says, among many others there enumerated, there were distributed) the sacred bodies of St. Callistus Martyr and St. Narcissus Martyr: but if that body was entire, and extracted from the cemetery of Callistus, as that Chronicler seems to hint, it could not have been that of our Callistus, on account of what has been said in this §.

§ VIII. The sacred cult shown to St. Callistus in various places.

Sacred cult of the Saint at Rome, The cult of St. Callistus, shown both elsewhere and above all at Rome, Moretti pursues at length in the whole of chapter 12 of the frequently cited Work and its Supplement, whence what follows on this matter has been for the greatest part culled, a few things being added which concern his cult in Belgium. Although it is not ascertained whether, and by what miracles, he became illustrious, yet, as long as his remains lay in the cemetery, it is by no means to be doubted that his patronage began to be invoked and his memory honoured there, even from his very Martyrdom and burial in the cemetery of St. Calepodius: this is suggested by the plainly singular care of St. Asterius for recovering his sacred body from the well into which it had been thrown and overwhelmed with stones, and for burying it with the honour due to so great a Martyr, which not even evident danger of life could take from him. It is suggested by the sacred assemblies once held in his honour, one on the 12th day of August, the other on the 14th, as can be believed not without probability from the Hieronymian Martyrologies. Whether a small sacred building was erected at the relics of the saint in the cemetery of St. Calepodius by his more ancient successors in the Pontificate, the testimonies of the ancients do not teach.

[112] But that St. Julius, Roman Pontiff from the year 337, raised or renewed a basilica at the tomb of St. Callistus, in temples dedicated to his name, in which he himself was also buried, was long ago said in our Work, from the Bucherian Catalogue of the Pontiffs, tome 2 of April, page 83, num. 2, at the 12th day of April, sacred to St. Julius. Moretti says, page 274, num. 15 of the cited chapter 12, that no trace indeed of this extramural Callistian church is extant, nor is it ascertained at what time, or for what cause, it was destroyed or collapsed: but that it lasted up to the XVI century, both from various authors and from Albertini's Little Book on the cemeteries, published in the year 1523, in the words: The cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way by the church of St. Calixtus. A similar fate was experienced by another church of St. Callistus at Rome, which had been built in the City on the Caelian hill, of which Fioravante Martinelli, chapter 12, On the obsolete temples of the Saints in the City, page 251: St. Callistus on the Caelian was lowly and small in the year MDLXXXVII. There still exists another church dedicated to St. Callistus, neighbouring St. Mary's across the Tiber, and ennobled by the Martyrdom of St. Callistus, formerly converted from the house of Pontianus into a church; but by what founder, and whether it was dedicated to St. Callistus immediately from its beginning, is not clear enough: it seemed to Moretti most probable that this was done while Julius held the Roman see: this church, when formerly it was under the jurisdiction of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber, Paul V granted in the year 1608 to the Cassinese monks, within the circuit of whose monastery is contained the well into which St. Callistus was thrown, whence the piety of the faithful draws salutary waters. The same church has a chapel sacred to him, as also has St. Mary's across the Tiber.

[113] by painted images, To excite, moreover, the veneration of the faithful toward St. Callistus, images of St. Callistus were placed not only in the two churches just mentioned but also in other churches of the City, as in the Lateran, Vatican and patriarchal St. Paul's basilicas. Hadrian wrote to Charlemagne, in the Apologetic Letter on the VII ecumenical synod (see tome 7 of the Councils, Labbe's edition, column 955), that from the times of the emperor Constantine up to his own age, that is, to about the end of the VIII century, icons of the Holy Pontiffs Silvester, Mark and Julius were painted both in mosaic and in the other histories adorned with sacred images: mention is made in these words of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber, which is called St. Mary's because it was first dedicated to her; Callistus's, because he founded it; Julius's, because he restored it. But if, under Pope Hadrian, it was then adorned with sacred histories expressed by means of images, it is very probable that the martyrdom of St. Callistus, the founder of that church, and then, as will be seen a little below, resting in it, was not omitted; and that the more because Gregory III, not long before Hadrian, as Anastasius testifies under that Gregory, built with new structures, with a roof, the basilica of St. Calixtus, Pontiff and Martyr, almost destroyed from its foundations, and painted the whole. As is also read in the sixth lesson, on the day sacred to St. Gregory III, to be recited by the canons and clergy of St. Mary across the Tiber. The martyrdom of St. Callistus was likewise painted, through the piety of Cardinal Morone, in the other church of St. Callistus, of which num. 112 speaks, before it passed to the Cassinese monks, as Moretti, cited num. 26, proves from the Acts of the visitation of St. Mary across the Tiber published in the year 1582, where under the title Of the subject churches, folio 19 verso, these things are read: There exists another bare church (that is, without side altars) under the invocation of St. Calixtus, of the title of this church of St. Mary, which church was formerly adorned by card. Morone of good memory with various and most beautiful pictures representing his (St. Calixtus's) History. To these churches Moretti adds at num. 28 the very ancient one of St. Stephen on the Caelian hill (formerly under the jurisdiction of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus of the German College), on whose walls the history of the Callistian Martyrdom was seen painted; through the care, namely, of Gregory XIII, of whom Moretti, from Boldetti, num. 31, reports these words: On the Caelian hill, in the august and round church of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, as in a theatre, he caused the trophies of the more noble Martyrs, arranged according to the series of time and history, to be most orderly painted, so that they might be a monument with posterity of his veneration toward those holy Martyrs.

[114] A not dissimilar testimony of a mind venerating St. Callistus and other martyrs was given by Clement XI, shown by an erected statue, a struck coin: when he wished a marble statue of SS. Cornelius, Julius, Calepodius and Callistus to be placed on the summits of the four columns supporting the portico of St. Mary across the Tiber; when he had this inscribed on the larger bell of the same basilica: In honour of Blessed Mary of clemency and of St. Callistus, which Jerome Cardinal Rusticucci, titular of this basilica, had caused to be made, Clement XI, P. M., ordered to be recast at his own expense in the year MDCCXIII; when, the portico of St. Mary across the Tiber being completed, he wished a coin (called a Piastra) to be struck, which should show St. Callistus prostrate and praying at the feet of the Most Holy Mother of God. No slight evidence likewise of the sacred cult once shown to St. Callistus is the very ancient fragment of a glass cup found at the beginning of this century in a cemetery of the Appian Way by Boldetti and placed in the Carpegna Museum: it shows St. Callistus as a venerable old man in the manner in which, in Moretti, the first of 5 effigies of St. Callistus is shown, page 25. No slight indication, I say, is this of the sacred cult shown to St. Callistus: For it is to be judged, says Moretti, chapter 12, num. 38, that such a Callistian cup was used by the faithful celebrating agapes, or banquets, after the sacred liturgy and the divine psalmody performed in the assemblies held chiefly at the tomb of the holy Pontiff on the Aurelian Way and at the resting-place of the Appian Way (either enlarged or restored by Callistus), where in honour of Callistus there was drinking soberly and cheerfully.

[115] the celebration with which there That a twin Feast was once instituted at Rome in his honour, one on the 12th, the other on the 14th of October, becomes probable from the Hieronymian Martyrologies praised above at num. 80: the latter flourishes today not only at Rome but widely through the Christian world; the former seems to have ceased long since, probably from the time at which the sacred relics of St. Callistus were translated into St. Mary's across the Tiber, concerning which see what was said at num. 93. On the same occasion, likewise, the holding of assemblies at the saint's tomb on the Aurelian Way may equally have ceased

customarily held. The prayers with which the holy Pontiff was then invoked in the divine Offices are nowhere extant: but in the Gregorian Sacramentary, in Pamelius, tome 2 of the Liturgies, page 347, the following prayers are prescribed to be said in the Mass of St. Callistus on the 14th day of October: O God, who seest us failing through our own weakness, restore us to the love of thy name through the examples of thy Saints. Through. Secret. May the mystic offering profit us, O Lord, which may both free us from our guilt and confirm us in perpetual salvation. Through. Postcommunion. We beseech thee, almighty God, that the sacred gifts may both purify our guilt and work in us the effect of living rightly. Through. Although no mention of the Callistian Martyrdom is made in these, yet it is sufficiently vindicated for him from elsewhere, as was shown above in § VI. The station which, from the Calendar of Fronto, we know was formerly customarily held on the Aurelian Way had already ceased after the translation of the relics into St. Mary's across the Tiber and before the times of Gregory IV; although there are not lacking martyrologies more recent than Gregory IV in which the station of the 14th day of October continues to be ascribed to the Aurelian Way; which arose from the fact that their authors made it a matter of conscience to change the words of the more ancient ones; for which evil, if it is one, a remedy can easily be found, as Moretti warns at num. 73, if for on the Aurelian Way we understand written in them formerly on the Aurelian Way.

[116] And lest the cult of St. Callistus should suffer any detriment from the abolition of the station, or assembly, on the Aurelian Way, in St. Mary's it was instituted that an assembly should be celebrated at St. Mary's across the Tiber on the Sunday immediately following the 14th of October: Besides those two stations, of which one is held within Lent, and the other on the next Sunday after the festivity of Blessed Callistus, we grant a third station, solemnly instituted by us in the octave of the Lord's Nativity, to be celebrated thereafter by our presence and that of our successors, says Callistus II — who perhaps also instituted the second of these stations — in his diploma, from which Moretti transcribed what has just been adduced, num. 75. Whence it also appears that the supreme Pontiffs were wont to come to that festivity: Callistus II held the Pontificate from the year 1119 to 1124. The celebrity of the station was afterwards diminished, the Roman Pontiffs no longer coming to it with clergy and people on the Sunday next after the feast of Callistus: but it did not vanish altogether; the name remained, the indulgences remained, and some sort of concourse of the people to St. Mary's across the Tiber on the same day to gain them. For thus the little book of the proper Offices of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber has it on the matter, enumerating the days on which stations are celebrated in it: The Sunday after the feast of St. Callistus. Most ancient: and mentioned in the letters of Callistus II. That station is celebrated with modest pomp indeed, as Moretti confesses at num. 83; yet the relics of St. Callistus are exposed upon the altar to the veneration of the faithful, and notice of the indulgences to be gained on that day is given to the people by means of placards.

[117] across the Tiber, As the pomp of that Sunday diminished, the celebrity of the feast of St. Callistus on the 14th day of October grew; which indeed formerly, both while the Callistian remains were still preserved in the cemetery of St. Calepodius, and when they had been brought within the City, was celebrated with an Octave, but with far more spectacular pomp from the time the honour of the station just mentioned declined: Those August assemblies having become obsolete, says Moretti, num. 85, the praised clergy (of St. Mary across the Tiber), made freer, not only did not cease most religiously to recall the memory of Callistus with ecclesiastical prayers through eight days, but undertook to keep the feast with the greatest pomp. Then, namely, there began to be performed in the highest rite the solemnities of Masses, very often adorned by the ministry and presence of the titular Cardinal, which a longer and more celebrated chant of the divine course should precede and follow: the basilica to be most magnificently adorned: the concourse of patricians and people to be summoned and excited above all by the holy allurements of ecclesiastical indulgence; which indulgence indeed Moretti teaches from Francesco del Sodo was plenary, but, from being temporary, was endowed with perpetuity by the liberality of Paul V. He further subjoins the letters of the Pontiff on this matter from their autograph, of this tenor: Paul V. For the perpetual memory of the matter. The Splendour of the Father's glory, who illuminates the world with his ineffable brightness, pursues with kindly favour the pious wishes of the faithful hoping in his most clement majesty, especially then when their devout humility is aided by the merits and prayers of the Saints. Wishing, therefore, to make illustrious with some special gift the church of St. Mary Across the Tiber in the City, trusting in the mercy of almighty God and the authority of the Blessed Peter and Paul his Apostles, to all the faithful of Christ of either sex, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed with holy Communion, who shall devoutly visit the said church each year on the feast day of St. Callistus, P.P., from the first Vespers until the setting of the sun of such feast, and there pour forth pious prayers to God for the concord of Christian princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of Holy universal Church, we mercifully grant in the Lord plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins. The Present to be valid for perpetual future times. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major on the V day of October MDCXV, in the XI year of our Pontificate. S. Cobellutius.

[118] These things in the church of St. Mary across the Tiber: but neither did the canons of St. Mary at about the same time lack care and in other churches of the City that due honour should be rendered to him also in the neighbouring church of St. Callistus; since on the 14th day of October they were for some time accustomed to celebrate a solemn mass there themselves: for thus has the Avila summary of the state of the church of St. Mary across the Tiber, composed in the year 1600, in Moretti, num. 89, under the title Of the subject churches, page 64: To it (the neighbouring church of St. Callistus) the chapter betakes itself on the Festivity of the same St. Callixtus, which is on the XIV day of October, where a solemn Mass is celebrated by a canon, a deacon and subdeacon, canons, ministering to him. This custom was afterwards changed for just causes, the solemn mass was discontinued, but in its place low Masses were substituted, to be celebrated not by canons but by beneficiaries; concerning which the constitutions of Cardinal Sauli of the year 1607, chapter 45, On the lesser sacristan, speak thus: On the day of the festivity of St. Calixtus at least five or six low Masses (private, in his church) are to be celebrated, because the conventual one will be celebrated in the church of St. Mary, in which rests the body of the Saint himself: but a more solemn cult of St. Callistus was again restored in that church after, having been torn by Paul V, supreme Pontiff, from the jurisdiction of the clergy of St. Mary across the Tiber, it passed in the year 1608 to the Cassinese monks, who, having more splendidly restored that church, began to celebrate the feast of St. Callistus with a more solemn Mass and with the divine office prolonged through eight days, having also obtained Indulgences for exciting more and more the veneration of the faithful toward St. Callistus.

[119] For the same cause, plenary indulgences to be gained on the 14th day of October were granted to the church of St. Sebastian, on account of the cemetery of St. Callistus, he is venerated in churches; over which it is set: for so Pietro Fulvio writes, in Moretti, num. 95, but in Italian words, in the Treasury of Indulgences, chapter 25: On the day of St. Callistus the Pope, the XIV (of October), in the church of St. Sebastian there are plenary indulgences on account of the cemetery of the said Saint. These Indulgences, therefore, were proper to the church of St. Sebastian — handed over from the year 1167 to the Cistercian Congregation, as Panvinio writes, On the seven churches of the City, chapter 3, page 100 — and fixed to a determined day of the month of October; and accordingly they are to be distinguished from those which the inscription at the entrance of the Callistian cemetery on the Appian Way, related above at num. 66, mentions. Moretti finally adds to the churches of the City already mentioned the patriarchal basilicas of the Lateran, the Vatican and the Liberian, in which, after the faculty was granted them of reciting the Offices of all the holy Pontiffs in the double rite, the feast of St. Callistus is celebrated in the same rite; and that through the other churches of the City it is celebrated by the Roman clergy with a semidouble Office of nine Lessons. The Office in St. Mary's across the Tiber, where also a daily commemoration of St. Callistus is made, he presents entire in the supplement to chapter 12, where he also explains at length various things which pertain to it.

[120] as also in the rest of Italy, And this indeed is the cult that was shown to St. Callistus by the Romans and is shown to this day: but what elsewhere among the nations? That he formerly had a church dedicated to his name and relics near Chiusi in Etruria and in the territory of Siena, but now destroyed, is related by Giovanni Battista Lauro in the Wedding Ring of the Virgin Mother of God, page 23: Not far (from the church of St. Mustiola on the river Clanis) was seen the church of St. Callistus (most probably the Pontiff and Martyr), in which her (St. Mustiola's) relics, put into an urn, were most religiously venerated, which (the Callistian church being destroyed) were presently translated to the church of St. Mustiola and laid away beside the most blessed body. His Feast is noted in the Calendar of the Milanese Missal according to the Ambrosian custom of the year 1522. Moretti likewise brings forward, at num. 51, a monument of the sacred cult long since paid to St. Callistus in Insubria, where he mentions Litanies of a certain monastery among the Insubrians, smacking of the usage of the XII century, from a manuscript parchment codex containing a monastic Psalter, where, before St. Urban and St. Fabian, after the supreme Pontiffs Linus, Cletus, Clement, Alexander, Sixtus and Cornelius, St. Callistus is invoked thus: St. Callistus, pray: and that a not uncelebrated cult was formerly shown to St. Callistus in England Moretti rightly elicits, num. 101, both from Letter 53, part 2, book 5, which his messengers write to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and from the synodal statutes of Gilbert, bishop of Chichester. In the Letter just praised a certain royal mandate is treated, and the matter is concluded in this way: As the day for executing more fully the present mandate the Lord king sets and assigns to you the Thursday, the morrow of Blessed Calixtus the Pope. And to the Statutes of the synod of Chichester this title is prefixed, tome 2 of the Councils of Britain, page 183: Statutes and additions of Lord Gilbert, by the grace of God bishop of Chichester, published in the Greater church of Chichester in the synod celebrated there on the day of St. Callistus the Pope in the year of the Lord MCCXCII. St. Callistus is also found inscribed in the Calendar of the Sarum Breviary printed at Paris in the year 1557, which also contains Litanies divided among the Lenten weekdays, in which, at folio 72, among the Martyrs St. Callistus is invoked in the first place, whom St. Urban immediately follows.

[121] in Gaul, That the cult of St. Callistus was no less celebrated in Gaul can be gathered from what was said above about his relics honoured at Reims and Beauvais: he is inscribed in the Calendar of the Breviary of Reims of the year 1559 at the 14th day of October in this manner: Calixtus, Pope and Martyr, lesser double: and in another of the year 1630 thus: Of Calixtus, Pope and Mart. Small

double: in the Calendar of St. Quentin printed by Hemond le Fèvre without note of the year: Of Calixtus, Pope and Mart., III Lessons. In the Calendar of the Breviary of Beauvais of the year 1554: Of Callistus, S. L.; but at the 15th day of October; I do not know whether because on that day the relics of St. Callistus were received at Beauvais, or (which, however, I rather think) because on the day before, St. Angadrisma, virgin, is venerated there with a more celebrated cult and an Office of IX Lessons, to whom St. Callistus gave place. In the Calendar of Meaux of the year 1640: comm. of St. Callistus, Pope and M. In that of Paris of the year 1584: Of Calixtus, Pope and Mart., mem., or commemoration: More Breviaries of the Gallican church in which St. Callistus is inscribed could be heaped together here, but I think these suffice for the reader to understand how widely his veneration was spread through Gaul. But singular is what the old Calendar has, edited from a Corbie codex by Luc d'Achery in tome 10 of the Spicilegium and written in the ninth century, or the same in which the relics of St. Callistus arrived in Belgium and at Reims, namely that the arrival of his relics also was celebrated: for thus it is to be read there at page 133: On the V of the Kalends (of May), the Arrival of Callistus the Pope, and of St. Valerian. Martène, On the ancient rites of the church, tome 2, book 1, chapter VII, page 133, presents old Litanies customarily sung when the sick were anointed, from a codex of the church of Tours written 800 years ago, in which St. Calixtus Martyr is invoked, and immediately after him SS. Tiburtius and Valerian, likewise Roman Martyrs; and for that reason I think him the same as ours, although he would more aptly have been placed among the other Roman Pontiffs ennobled by martyrdom, Stephen, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Xistus and Cornelius: there is found also another St. Callistus in the same Litanies; but among the holy Confessors, not known to me from elsewhere; but this one most probably has nothing to do with ours. The same as ours seems to be the St. Callistus invoked, in the same Martène, tome IV of the cited Work, chapter 27, page 524, in the Litanies customarily celebrated at Lyons on the second day of the Rogations, after whom St. Urban is immediately invoked, perhaps the successor of Callistus, and himself a Roman martyr. Plainly doubtful to me is the St. Calistus who is invoked in other Litanies excerpted from a Fleury book of prayers of about the year 900, in the cited tome, page 631. But it appears scarcely to be doubted that he is invoked in the Litanies customarily said at the consecration and coronation of the kings of France, which the same Martène presents in tome 3 of the cited Work, page 212, where the holy Roman Pontiffs are invoked following in uninterrupted series, immediately after the holy Apostles, in this order: St. Stephen. St. Clement. St. Calixtus. St. Marcellus. pray.

[122] in Spain, Portugal, Germany, If we pass from Gaul into Spain, we learn that his feast is venerated there in the semidouble rite on the 14th of October from the Directory of Orihuela of the year 1638, of Urgell of the year 1719, of Vic of the year 1720, of Valencia of the same year, of Tarragona of the year 1718, of the Royal monastery of Poblet of the year 1721 with a commemoration, of Cádiz of the year 1689, of Granada of the year 1678, of Saragossa of the year 1720, of Barcelona of the year 1719, of Seville of the year 1656, from the General Directory of Spain and Aragon by Fr. Pedro Tomás of Huesca of the year 1721, of Tortosa of the same year, of Lérida of the year 1719, the Calendar of the Missal of Toledo of the year 1551; of the Breviary of Burgos of the year 1502: He is noted likewise in the Portuguese Directory of the year 1717, by Tomás Álvarez, royal chaplain, and in the Calendar of the Breviary of Évora of the year 1548. How zealous Germany also is of the Callistian cult the reader will abundantly gather from the Calendars of the Breviaries of various churches of Germany, of which it will suffice to have named some in which the name of the holy Pontiff is inscribed at the 14th of October: among these are the Calendar prefixed to the Missale Speciale printed at Strasbourg in the year 1512, that of Cologne of the year 1577, of Constance of the year 1561, of Erfurt, of Fulda of the year 1670, of Würzburg printed at Venice in the year 1507, of Hildesheim of the year 1657, prefixed to the Proper Offices of that church; the Directory of Ljubljana of the year 1712; of Lübeck of the year 1513; of Minden of the year 1515; of Mainz of the year 1495; of Osnabrück of the year 1516, of Passau of the year 1505, the Diurnal of Regensburg of the year 1507; the Salzburg Calendar prefixed to the Proper Offices of that place of the year 1689; of Speyer of the year 1591; of Worms of the year 1576. St. Callistus is noted at the same day also in the Calendar of the Breviary of the church of Esztergom in Hungary, of the year 1814; of the church of Warmia in royal Prussia of the year 1516; of Cammin in Pomerania of the year 1521, of the church of Schleswig in Denmark, of the year 1512.

[123] in Hainaut, To return finally to our Belgium, he is honoured there by a frequent concourse of the faithful not only at Cysoing, at Lambersart near Lille, and at Jambes near Namur, but also in the Hainaut village of Hornaing, distant by an almost equal interval of space from Valenciennes and Douai; as also in the Oratory of a certain nobleman situated near Condé, likewise in Hainaut, where he has found the name of Helper. And about Lambersart indeed Buzelin, in the manuscript on St. Callistus extant with us, writes this: For here, in the place which from of old has the name Lambersart, there is seen a parish church consecrated to his name, which is neither small nor little adorned, whether you consider the mass and ornament of the building, or the multitude of the people flowing together for many years from many parts of Belgium for the sake of the venerable Martyr. Few days in the year pass without some coming for the sake of paying honour and cult, and of offering a gift and obtaining health. But the chief throng of men running together from all sides is seen when the blessed Pontiff is celebrated there with a novena. Nor formerly were there lacking many who felt the help of the Martyr there most present for wiping away their ills; nor is that Holy Man now more sparing in helping with a remedy those who beg it for their diseases. That I cannot mention some cures obtained by his suffrages, whether the injury of the times or the negligence of men has brought it about, I do not know; at least, apart from some narratives little consistent with themselves and which are only bandied about, I find nothing either handed down in writing or depicted in colours on panels, except what not so long ago happened to a citizen of Lille, Jacques Bruneau, when he was suddenly relieved of an inexplicable disease of his whole body, most difficult to cure (it seemed a species of paralysis), after pouring forth prayers and making vows to the Saint. I know the man very well, and not seldom have I seen him, on account of the integrity of his life and morals, adorned with the magistracies of the city of Lille. And of Hornaing he writes this: For after either St. Everard or his wife founded a church there in honour of St. Callistus, because his sacred body had rested there for some time on the journey while it was being carried from Italy to Cysoing, that place called forth no slight devotion of pilgrims toward the most holy Pontiff, which has been propagated up to now, so much so that on that account too the village has put on the name of St. Callistus, as the Regular Canons of the abbey of Cysoing hold by certain tradition of their elders.

[124] That in most of the other churches of Belgium also he both now enjoys, and throughout and formerly enjoyed, the honour due to the Saints, is taught by their Breviaries and Missals, both old and more recent, in which his name is read inscribed at the 14th day of October: I mention some here, namely the Breviary of Antwerp printed at Venice in the year 1496, in whose Calendar, prefixed to the summer part, there is this: On the day before the Ides (of October), of Calixtus, Pope, Martyr, III proper lessons; that of Arras, a manuscript on parchment; that of Saint-Omer, printed at Paris in the year 1518, in which at the said day commemoration of St. Callistus is made; that of St. Bavo's at Ghent of the year 1641, in the semidouble rite; that of St. Donatian's at Bruges, printed at Paris in the year 1520, in which the feast of St. Callistus is noted at the 13th day of October, on account of the following day being sacred to St. Donatian, patron of that church; the Missal of Cambrai printed at Paris in the year 1520; the Breviary of St. Gudula's at Brussels, at Paris in the year 1516, whose Calendar has thus: Of Calixtus and other Martyrs, that is, as I think, of those of whom mention is made in his Acts. That of Haarlem, manuscript on parchment; of St. Peter's at Lille of the year 1523; of St. Waltrude's at Mons, manuscript on parchment; the Missal of Tournai of the year 1498 at Paris, in which the Introit of the Mass is: Let his priests put on salvation, etc. Collect: O God, who seest us failing through our own weakness, mercifully restore us to thy love through the examples of thy Saints. Through. From the Sacramentary of St. Gregory. The Breviary of Utrecht of the year 1518, which has thus: Of Calixtus, Pope and mart. The Mass of him is sung every weekday. The same is read in the Ordinary of the same diocese of the year 1503; the Directory for the same archdiocese and the suffragans of Haarlem, Deventer, Leeuwarden, Groningen and Middelburg, of the year 1709.

[125] Another Missal of Cambrai, printed at Paris in the year 1527, presents the Mass customarily celebrated in honour of St. Callixtus as follows: everywhere in Belgium. Introit: In thy strength, O Lord, etc. Collect: O God, who us, etc., as a little above in the Missal of Tournai. Epistle, To the Hebrews: Every High Priest taken from among men, etc., as far as: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. Gradual: Thou hast set, O Lord, etc. Verse: Thou hast given him his soul's desire, etc. Gospel: Watch. Offertory: With glory and honour thou hast crowned him, etc. Secret: May the blessed martyr and Pontiff Calixtus, interceding, make acceptable to thee, O Lord, the sacrifice which we longingly offer. Through our Lord. Communion: Great is his glory, etc. Postcommunion: May we be helped, we beseech thee, O Lord, by the prayers of thy blessed Martyr and Pontiff Calixtus, and make us, celebrating his worthy solemnities, ever devoted to thy name. Through the Lord.

ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM

Callistus or Callixtus, Pope and Mart., at Rome. (S.)

BHL Number: 1523

BY AN ANCIENT ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

In the times of Macrinus and Alexander, part of the Capitol on the south side was burned by divine fire, and within the temple of Jupiter the golden left hand fell and was melted. A public fire, and some struck by lightning, And the soothsayers and priests came to Alexander, saying that their Gods should be appeased with sacrifices. On hearing this Alexander ordered their petition to be carried out. And while they were sacrificing, suddenly, the sky being clear, in the morning, on the day of Jupiter, ^b by divine lightning four priests of the idols died, and the altar of Jupiter was burned by fire. ^c: and the day became dark, so that all the Roman people fled outside beyond the walls. And while the people was being dispersed by flight, they came across the Tiber into the City to the temple of the Ravennates, ^d and heard in a certain upper room a multitude of Christians singing psalms: St. Palmatius, still a pagan, imputes it to the Christians, among whom was Calixtus the bishop with his clergy. And one of the consuls, ^e Palmatius by name, hearing this, that a multitude of Christians was gathered in a certain place, reported it to Alexander, saying: Great Prince, this sign has been made for this reason, that the city is defiled. If therefore it is purified, we shall rejoice together in the glory of your eminence, and the Commonwealth will shine. Alexander said: Let it be purified.

At last declare to us, what is this purification? Palmatius answered: That there should be no profane persons. Alexander said: Who are the profane? Palmatius answered: The Christians. Alexander said: I have commanded once and again that wherever they are found they should be punished, or should offer libations to the immortal gods. ^f Palmatius answered, saying: By your excellency, I heard, when I was sad on account of the sign which was made, how with chants and incantations a multitude of Christians was crying out in a certain place in the region across the Tiber: whence it is no wonder if this cause brought about this sign.

[2] he sends soldiers to seize St. Calepodius, Alexander said to him: Receive authority, that wherever you find them you may drag them to sacrifice, to appease the Gods: or else afflict them with exquisite torments. ^g Then Palmatius, having received the authority, gathered a multitude of soldiers and came across the Tiber, where a multitude of Christians was gathered with Blessed Calixtus: and these being blinded, among whom was Calepodius, ^h an aged priest: and coming to a certain upper room, ⁱ ten soldiers entered: and when all had entered, these ten soldiers were suddenly made blind. Calepodius, the aged priest, answered and said: My sons, whom do you seek? But they cried out, saying: Light lamps for us, because this place has been darkened before us. And Calepodius the priest said: God, who sees all things, has himself blinded your eyes. Then, groping, they went down blinded. And when Palmatius had seen these things, terrified with fear, fleeing, he reported all to Alexander. On the same day therefore Alexander ordered the soldiers who had been made blind to be led into his presence. And when he had recognized the soldiers, he began to cry out: O best of citizens! See the magic art. ^k Palmatius answered and said: If this was done by magic art, where are the powers of our gods? Let your piety therefore command offerings to be brought and sacrificed to the gods, lest the commonwealth perish on account of their incantations. And Alexander commanded that sacrifice should be made to Mercury, and that he might learn the responses. And the precept went forth ^l to the whole populace, that all should run together to the capitol from the City of Rome; he has sacrifices offered to Mercury: so that those who were found in their dwellings on the day of Mercury, ^m all should be slain; and a herald being sent, it was so declared that the whole populace should assemble without delay on the day of Mercury at the capitol with the prince: and whoever did not run there should know that he was to be punished with death. When the aforesaid day came, all the Roman people ran to the capitol. Palmatius also with all his household came to the capitol with pigs and calves. ⁿ

[3] And it came to pass, while the blood was being shed in the slaughter of the beasts, terrified by the voice of a virgin, and the priests were chanting their spells, that a virgin of the temple, ^o Juliana by name, seized by a demon, cried out, saying: The God of Callixtus, he is the living and true God: he is indignant at the pollutions of your Commonwealth, and will crush your mortal kingdom, because you do not adore the truth. Hearing this, Palmatius ran alone to Blessed Calixtus in the region across the Tiber in the City of the Ravennates; he runs to St. Callistus to be baptized and threw himself headlong and entered into the house where the multitude of Christians was gathered, and fell before the feet of Blessed Calixtus, saying: I have known that Jesus Christ is the true God, whom the demons confessed today: by him I adjure you to free me from the worship of demons and stones: baptize me as you preach. Calixtus the bishop said to him: Do not, by erring, mock the truth. Palmatius answered with tears, saying: Lord, I do not mock: because I have known, in the blindness of the soldiers and in the answer of the virgin, that your Christ is my Lord. Calepodius the aged answered and said to the blessed Bishop: Most blessed Father, do not refuse baptism to one who asks for it. At the same time he enjoined on him a Fast [p] of one day, and catechized him: and he blessed water brought from the spring of the well which was in the same house: and Palmatius having been set down in a basin, [q] St. Calixtus the Bishop said to him: Do you believe with your whole heart in God the Father almighty, maker of things visible and invisible? Palmatius answered: I believe. And he said to him: And in Jesus Christ his son? [r] And again he answered: I believe. And he said to him: And in the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh? And Palmatius cried out with a loud voice with tears: I believe, Lord. In the same hour he began to cry out and to say: Truly I have seen the Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, who has enlightened me. [s] And he baptized all the household of Palmatius, with others, 42 of his household: and his wife and children, and of both sexes forty-two in number. From that same day Palmatius began to pay out all his means to poor Christians, searching the districts and crypts, so that wherever he might find Christians either in custody or hidden, he might minister to them food or clothing from his means.

[4] bound before Alexander, But after thirty-two days [t] Palmatius is sought by Alexander, to whom it was reported that he was a Christian and persuaded others. Then Alexander ordered him to be presented. And when he had been held by a certain Torquatus, a tribune, and sent into the custody of the Mamertine, [u] after three days [x] Torquatus informed Alexander that Palmatius had been consigned to custody. Then Alexander, rejoicing, ordered him to be presented to him. And Palmatius, bound with chains, comes in before Alexander. When he had seen him, he ordered him to be loosed, and said to him: Have you become so mad, O Palmatius, as to desert the Gods, and to seek and worship a dead man? [y] Palmatius was silent. Alexander said to him: Speak confidently: do not fear. Palmatius answered, saying: If you give leave, we speak the truth. Alexander said to him: Excepting injury to the gods, speak. Palmatius said to him: Best prince, he professes the faith: if you take heed, they are not gods, but are the making of mortal men. Now indeed let your gentleness know who ought to be worshipped: of those which are made or fashioned by mortals, judge yourselves what they are. But I, unhappy man, beg your excellency: tell your god to speak, and, when I shall have questioned him, to answer: and when this has been done, shall I not desert your gods, those you call gods? Alexander said to him: And how have you adored them from your cradle, and now you abandon them? Palmatius answered: I did it as an unhappy man: but now I have known what is true, concerning which matter I pray the Lord Jesus Christ to pardon me, because I sinned in ignorance. At the same hour Alexander, smiling, handed him over to a certain Simplicius, a senator, saying: Keep him with you without any fear: and with soft words recall him to the worship of the gods; for the Commonwealth holds such a man necessary. Having received Palmatius, Simplicius the senator clothed him with noble garments brought for him, he is handed over to St. Simplicius the senator, and led him into his house. Which Simplicius commanded his wife and the elders of his house that he should have all the household of Simplicius in his power. Then Palmatius, giving himself to fasts and prayers of vigils, did not cease with tears to pray to God the Father almighty and to Jesus Christ his son, that he might do penance for his error.

[5] And a certain man named Felix coming to him, whose wife had lain bedridden for four years in bed, threw himself at the feet of Palmatius, saying: Confessor of our Lord Jesus Christ, pray for your handmaid, my wife Blanda, that she may be freed from the bed of pain: and I will receive baptism with her; because it is long that she has been held by the paralytic disease, and now our means have failed. he heals the paralytic woman; Then Palmatius, in the presence of the wife of Simplicius, fell to the ground, and with tears began to pray with Felix, saying: Lord God, who hast enlightened thy servant, give me the eternal light, Jesus Christ: save thy handmaid Blanda, and raise her up from the bed of pain: that all may know that thou art the creator of all things. At the same hour Blanda came running on her own feet to the house of Simplicius the senator, and saying: Baptize me in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who held my hand and healed me. Then Felix began to urge Blessed Palmatius that he might be baptized. At the same hour Blessed Palmatius sent to St. Calixtus the bishop: and he came and baptized Felix with his wife Blanda. SS. Felix and Blanda baptized, and St. Simplicius with his household, Seeing this, Simplicius fell at the feet of Calixtus, asking that he might be baptized with all his house. Then Blessed Calixtus the bishop said confidently: May the Lord gather the wheat into his barn, [z] and he catechized all the household of Simplicius, and his wife and children and his family; souls of both sexes, about sixty-eight. Blessed Calepodius the priest, filled with joy, began to cry out in the house of Simplicius, saying: Glory to thee, Lord Jesus Christ, who deignest to lead thy creation from darkness to light, and to free it from error. Hearing this, that a multitude of men had received baptism through Blessed Calixtus the bishop, Alexander they are beheaded: sent an army of soldiers, and seized all who had received baptism, whom he commanded to undergo the sentence of death, and their heads to be hung up at the various gates of the city of Rome, as an example for the Christians.

[6] the body of Blessed Calepodius is buried in his cemetery. And he seized also Blessed Calepodius, whom he had [aa] slain with the sword, and his body dragged through the city on the day of the Kalends of May: [bb] whose body he had thrown into the Tiber before the Lycaonian island. [cc] In those very days Blessed Calixtus fled with ten of his clerics, and hid himself by night in the house [dd] of a certain Pontianus, asking fishermen to search for the body of Blessed Calepodius the priest. Which, when found, raising it from the river, they reported to Blessed Calixtus the Bishop. Then he was filled with joy. Which Holy body, being received, he embalmed with spices and linen cloths, and with hymns, and buried him in the cemetery of the same, [ee] on the sixth of the Ides of May.

[7] From that same day [ff] Alexander began carefully to seek Blessed Calixtus the Bishop. St. Callistus is taken, And it was made known to him that he was in the house of Pontianus near the city of the Ravennates: and he sent secretly across the Tiber and seized him: commanding that in the same place he should be tormented with hunger. Who nevertheless, when on the fourth day he had received no food, was strengthened the more by fasts and prayers. Hearing this, Alexander ordered him to be beaten with cudgels every day, and to be consigned to custody in the same place, so that if anyone came to him by night he should be slain. And when he had been wasted in custody for many days, [gg] Blessed Calepodius came to him by night in a vision, and consoled him, saying: Be firm, Father: for your crown is now perfected: that you may receive from God the worthy reward of your labour. And Blessed Calixtus, persisting in prayer, did not cease to entreat the Lord.

[8] He baptizes Privatus, and, sunk in a well, And there was in the same place a certain soldier, Privatus [hh] by name, who was full of ulcers, and was tormented day and night with pains. He threw himself at the feet of Blessed Calixtus the Bishop, saying: Save me from my ulcers: because I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the living and true God, who, as he freed Blanda, is able to save me also; because it is long that I am being consumed in the affliction of my pain. Blessed Calixtus the bishop answered, saying: If you believe with your whole heart, son, and are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, you will be cleansed. Privatus the soldier answered: I believe that the Lord frees and saves me in baptism, through your hand. Then Blessed Calixtus baptized him, and so he was cleansed from the wounds and the disease by which he was held. And he began to cry out, saying: True and Holy God is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Blessed Calixtus the Bishop preaches: for the vain and dumb idols will be consumed: for Christ is the eternal God. Hearing this in turn, Alexander, full of wrath because he had baptized the soldier Privatus, sending, had Privatus beaten with the leaded scourges until he died: but Calixtus the Bishop thrown headlong through the window of the house, and, a stone being tied to his neck, sunk in a well and rubble heaped upon him in it. [ii]

[9] But after ten and seven days [kk] his priest, he is honourably entombed named Asterius, came with clerics by night, and raised the body of Blessed Calixtus the bishop and buried it honourably in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way on the day before the Ides of October. And after six days [ll] Alexander seized Asterius the priest: whom he commanded to be thrown headlong from the bridge. Whose Holy body was found at Ostia, and buried by certain Christians in the same city on the day of the XII of the Kalends of November, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, who lives and reigns God through all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Let the reader turn his mind to the ancient rites kept in baptism. Henschenius, cited. Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, verse 38, Peter says: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.

q. Thus Constantine the Great, in Anastasius the Librarian in the Life of St. Silvester, gave "a basin of silver for baptism, weighing twenty pounds." So the same. If you desire more, see Moretti, cited.

r. In Moretti these are added: And he said to him: who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary? Palmatius answered: I believe.

s. This light seems to have been heavenly and unusual.

t. The MS. of Vlimmerius "twenty-two": Ado "thirty". Hensch., cited.

u. At the foot of the Capitol is a place ennobled by the chains of SS. Peter and Paul and of other Martyrs, as we have often said. Hensch., cited.

x. See below at letter bb.

y. And yet Alexander himself worshipped Christ among the Gods: he would not therefore have reproached Palmatius with madness, nor have spoken so contemptuously of Christ.

z. These words, although formerly recited in the Office of St. Callistus, could have been taken from his Acts; nor perhaps did they proceed from his mouth any more than those from the mouth of Alexander of which a little before.

aa. The Martyrology of Bede: "He had him slain by Laodicius." Henschenius.

bb. The first day of May, here assigned to the slaying of St. Calepodius, is apt to raise a scruple, namely whether, this epoch of the slaying of St. Calepodius being posited, the things said in the Acts to have been done thus far could actually have taken place from the beginning of Alexander's reign up to the Kalends of May of the year 222. Moretti arranges them thus, approximately, Disquisition 1, in the Supplement to chapters 9 and 10, page 248. Alexander began to reign in the year 222 on the VI day of March: from this day up to the XIII of the same month Alexander could have assigned the taberna meritoria, already before converted into a Christian church, to the Christians by his rescript, and the Capitol could have been struck by lightning, if these things did not happen before the year 222. The first sacrifice to Jupiter (see num. 1, letter b) may have been made on the XIV day of March, which in that year, with the Dominical letter F, was Jupiter's day. The Christians may then have begun to be accused as the authors of the evils that had befallen. Thereafter, on the XX day of March, which was Mercury's day, the second sacrifice may have been made to Mercury, of which at num. 2, letter m. Terrified by the new prodigy, Palmatius asks for baptism: he spends the following day (see num. 3, letter p) in fasting: on the XXII day of March he receives baptism. After XXXII days (see num. 4, letter t) Alexander seeks Palmatius on the XXIV day of April; and he is presented to him (see num. 4, letter X) three days later, or on the XXVII day of April. During the following three days Palmatius is kept in the house of Simplicius; Blanda and Simplicius are baptized: and on the fourth day after, or on the Kalends of May, St. Calepodius and his Companions undergo martyrdom.

cc. Or the Tiber island, now called St. Bartholomew's, on account of the church sacred to him. From Henschenius.

dd. Afterwards converted into a church, sacred to St. Callistus.

ee. Which, namely, Henschenius judges could have been built by St. Calepodius when he was younger, page 498.

ff. On which, having heard of the conversion of St. Simplicius and his household to the faith, he had ordered St. Calepodius and his Companions to be taken. See the Preliminary Commentary, num. 32.

gg. But not very many: namely 17.

hh. Other than St. Saturus, announced in the Hieronymian Col. 443D Martyrologies at the XII and XIV day of October. See the Preliminary Commentary, nums. 80 and 81.

ii. More probably in the year 222, on the XII day of October. See the Preliminary Commentary, § III.

kk. More probably to be counted from St. Callistus's [ ], from the Preliminary Commentary, § III, that is, from about the XXVII day of September.

ll. More probably, from what was said in the Preliminary Commentary, num. 33, from the slaying of St. Callistus, or the XVIII day of October.

ACTS OF THE TRANSLATION FROM ITALY TO CYSOING, FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF JEAN BUZELIN.

Callistus or Callixtus, Pope and Mart., at Rome. (S.)

BHL Number: 1525

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF BUZELIN

[Notingus, bishop of Brescia, having obtained from Pope Sergius at Rome the body of St. Callistus,] It came to pass, therefore, many courses of years having rolled by after the glorious Passion of the blessed Martyr Calixtus and his companions had been consummated under Macrinus and Alexander by the princes of the Romans, that Notingus, ^b bishop of the city of Brescia, ^c led by divine love, resolved to go to Rome; so that, by the ordaining clemency of God, borrowing one of the holy Martyrs from the Prelate of the Roman see, he might be able to place him in the monastery which he was preparing for the Lord on his estate. And when the same man of God had come to Rome, and had poured out the whole will of his desire into the ears of Pope Sergius, ^d who at that time presided over the Roman church, he merited to obtain by not fruitless prayers what he asked. After these holy men had cultivated themselves with sacred discourses for some days, and the time of returning was now at hand, the man of God Notingus began to insist more vehemently with prayers that the entry of his desire might be accomplished. Then Pope Sergius, having opened the cemetery of Calepodius, where he knew Saint Calixtus had been buried, ^e raised

him with hymns, and with the honour due to so great a Father. For he handed him over to Notingus the pontiff, to be carried wherever the divine goodness should grant. He, filled with no small joy and supported by the help of God, set out to return on his way. And because the place in which he wished to plant the Most Holy body had been as yet only half completed, reckoning with himself that it would be unworthy if he laid away so great a treasure in his unfinished shrine, he judged it fitting that he should rest a little while in the monastery which was called the Golden Cell, ^f over which he himself presided with spiritual rule, and where a sacred choir of monks kept watch day and night with vigils and prayers; and so finally he should come to the aforementioned place which he had determined to prepare on his estate.

[2] And so it came about that he lay for some time in the aforesaid monastery, which is called the Golden Cell; and meanwhile deposited in the Golden Cell, where he both shone with most illustrious miracles and pledged to the hearts of the faithful the cups of his gifts. O inestimable counsel of the divine dispensation, how worthy a place it showed for its Servant where he might rest for a little! For if before it was called the Golden Cell only on this account, that the house itself had had a gilded vault, now most fittingly not only that cell itself but even the whole country will be called golden, in which lay the treasure long hidden in the field of the Apostolic church, which a man finding hid, and for joy thereof went and sold all that he had and bought it. The aforesaid pontiff Notingus, therefore, the monastery having been completed with all reverence and the highest beauty, was seeking a fitting time at which he might conduct the Most Holy body to his see with all praise. There came also many priests and deacons of other cities of Italy, and all the people rejoicing, to meet and at the same time to do service to so great a Patron. And when the appointed day was at hand, and all were girding themselves for this endeavour, raising him from the place in which he lay on high, they were carrying him out as far as the atrium of that church; and while they were setting down from their shoulders to the ground the bier on which lay the Most Holy limbs of the Martyr of Christ, so that the multitude of clergy and people, the prayer being completed and the blessing received, part might remain there, and the rest hasten on with the Servant of God, in wonderful and ineffable manner the priests, taking him up, were in no way able to raise him from the ground.

[3] having tried in vain to translate it to the destined place, And when other and yet other priests had applied themselves to bring him forth with due reverence — to use words already spoken before ^g — the holy spirit fixed him with such weight that the body of the Servant of God remained immovable. And while the holy man was leaving his bearers thus weighed down, and all the multitude of the people stood by astonished and wondering, doubting what to do, not knowing where to turn: the priest who was the keeper of the church in which the holy Martyr had lain came, touched by divine power, and, lifting the little chest from the bier, bore it off as if he had found no weight at all. And all the peoples, seeing the miracle done, feared and glorified God, who is wonderful in his Saints and has mercy on his servants. And having taken counsel, they determined that it should be done according to what the Lord had shown concerning his Servant, and that he should be kept in the same church until, by his own disposition, he should find a see pleasing to him. And so it came about that for some years the aforementioned church possessed the Holy body, and grew exalted by his presence.

[4] At that time, therefore, there was a most noble man, sprung from Frankish birth, named Everard, he gives it to count Everard, ^h who by divine ordinance nobly administered the duchy of Friuli under the glorious prince Lothair, son of the most pious emperor Louis and his successor in the government… ⁱ He therefore heard very often from religious men telling of it all the things which had been done concerning Blessed Calixtus: and he silently thought within himself how, through the will and mercy of God, he might be able to obtain the Saint of God Calistus from Blessed Notingus, and, with the Lord's help, might merit to place him in the monastery which he himself had nobly built in the western parts of the Gauls on his estate which is called Cysoing, in the district of Tournai. And when he had been held for a very long time by this thought and desire, and was assiduously gnawed by most holy care: at length divine grace opened to him the door of its mercy, and most indulgently granted all that he had desired. For as soon as the time agreed between them for speaking came, and he poured out the words of his petition into the ears of Notingus ^k the bishop: at once the venerable man did not refuse to give assent: but with all alacrity of mind and veneration he permitted, under a written deed, that the most holy body should be conducted for him wherever the divine goodness should grant, reckoning with himself that if heavenly grace had not wished to grant to himself that he should carry him to his monastery, and the most precious limbs of the holy Martyr himself had not chosen to be carried thither, the Holy Man would by no means, the Holy Spirit working, have fixed himself when he had long ago decided to transport him to the aforementioned place.

[5] Then the memorable man of the Lord, Everard, [l] filled with all joy, who on the shoulders of priests and giving thanks to God, who never ceases always to hear his faithful if only what they wish is just and useful for them, having prepared all things which seemed fit for so great services, and having summoned priests and deacons and all the rest of the throng of clergy and faithful people, was busy to complete the work begun. When, therefore, the appointed day was at hand on which they were to raise the holy Martyr of God from the aforesaid place which is called the Golden Cell, there came no smaller number than before, and from almost distant parts of the earth, from the places and countries of all Italy, people and clergy came together, so that, refreshed as it were with the last benefit and prayer of their most Holy father Calixtus, conducting him with joy into the path of peace and justice and to the mansion which the will of the Lord had prepared for him, each might so return home to his own. And when, the prayer having been said, they had answered with one voice: Amen, raising him from the place in which he lay, weighed down by no weight, they carried him out with hymns and praises as far as the atrium of the church, where before he had fixed his step. Then, a blessing being given to those who were to set out with the true Israel, they placed him on the shoulders of priests to be carried reverently and honourably, and so, bidding farewell to one another and kissing one another, they parted from each other. O road thrice and four times blessed, and most illustrious places of the Holy Martyr, visited, trodden and lodged in by his bearers! Which, although it bristled with roughness and difficulty, yet through the merits and suffrage of the Saint himself prevailed in nothing to harm his servants and ministers. And the mountain of the Lord was borne along, higher above the highest, and while still placed far off showed beforehand the power of its loftiness.

[6] After, therefore, they had travelled about through various places and realms of the earth, into Belgium they came to a certain town which, besides its common and ancient name, is more often called by the name of St. Quentin the Martyr on account of his merits, he resting there; ^m where what miracle the Lord worked through his servant Calixtus we do not think should be passed over in silence. For there was there a certain woman who, although she had been born of Christian parents, yet, punished from her earliest age with blindness of the eyes, was numbed in the perpetual horror of night. When she heard from those telling of it that the Saint of God Calixtus would pass near that place, taking a certain little servant of her patrimony, ⁿ she followed the journey of the Saint. And when they had carried the Holy body to the place which is called the Eagle's wood, and had found the place itself fit for passing the night, they set it down with fear and reverence. The divine Offices also having been duly performed, they were arranging to go to the refreshment of their bodies. When meanwhile it was announced by some telling of it that there were there brothers german who, at variance with one another on account of patrimonies left them, were seeking to inflict death on each other. They were at once brought into the presence of the church. And while, still full of wicked thought and inflamed with the torches of envy and wrath like Cain the fratricide, they had taken their stand in the middle before the presence of the Martyr, in wonderful manner divine fear so suddenly struck them that they fell on their faces and alike begged pardon for their errors. Then, all giving thanks to God, who saves all and wills none to perish, they were raised from the ground, and, chastised with fatherly admonitions and having entered upon the way of peace, from that day forward they began to dwell in one mind. In testimony of which miracle the inhabitants of that land fixed the sign of the cross in that very place where the Saint had rested, which is known to remain there to this day.

[7] The aforementioned blind woman, therefore, following the footsteps of the Saint, came to that place on the following day: carried not without prodigies and hearing that the Saint had rested there and, a miracle having been done, had already left the place, she sat down, somewhat weighed down, and, feeling for the sign of the Lord's cross, began to kiss it, and, so doing, fell asleep. And when she had awakened from sleep, with opened eyes she saw everything clearly, as if she had never suffered any blindness in them at all. O blessed place and precious field, in which the ark of the Lord rested (in the likeness of the field of Araunah *), which the father peaceably acquired for himself and exalted by the sacred miracles done. Which deservedly is no longer to be exalted by senseless beasts, but rather is to be consecrated and built up by sacred worshippers: where the rock of hatreds may be broken in pieces for ever, and the garment of brotherly love, twice dyed, be woven: where the mists of demonic error vanish, and the light of truth becomes known to all the faithful. Presently, therefore, the woman, strengthened by the help of the heavenly gift, rejoicing and giving thanks, with eager mind and swift feet came to the place where the Saint of the Lord was to receive the mansion prepared for him, and gave her little servant, whom she had had as guide and companion in her blindness, to Blessed Calixtus, ^o and consecrated herself in his church, the sacred veil being placed upon her. [p]

[8] Accompanied, therefore, by these and such miracles, the bearers of the Holy limbs, he places it in the church of Cysoing; rejoicing, came to the place mentioned above, Cysoing: and all the multitude of clergy and people of the neighbouring places, rising up, hastened to meet the Saint, and, kneeling down on the ground, blessed the Lord, who in his mercy deigned to send them so great a prince from his seats. Then all, gathered with one mind and one will, with voices of melody and hymns, brought the Most Holy Martyr of Christ into his house with due praises, and placed him most fittingly in the Mausoleum prepared for him: where, the Lord granting it, what miracles were shown at that same time we shall note below in a few words, with the Lord's help; and we humbly beseech all readers not to attend to the quality or merit of the person speaking, but to accord the faith of belief to the truth of the miracles of so great a Martyr. For often, while the person of the speaker is attended to, one limps, being blind, in the word of truth. The light, therefore, does not beget a stumbling-block to those who are to be enlightened, but by its presence imparts to the bleary-eyed the gain of a greater pain. For the Lord would not show these miracles if they were not to be believed. But if they are to be believed, then equally they are also to be written; and if they are to be written, consequently

also to be read. But now let us come to narrating the miracles themselves, as the Lord shall grant. And these things were done in the eight hundred and fifty-fourth year of the Lord's Incarnation. [q]

[9] After, therefore, all the neighbouring peoples and the crowds of diverse sick persons learned that the holy martyr of God Calixtus had come into these parts, where the Saint and heard of the signs which the Lord had worked through him while he was on the way, they began to visit more zealously the sacred place where he had rested, and to heap it with their gifts with willing mind, as each could, so that the divine goodness, which shone in its Servant by miracles, might through his merits and prayers snatch them from all harmful things, and, health of body being restored, might strengthen them, and they might prevail to serve the Lord more joyfully and more securely. When, therefore, on a certain night, the morning Offices being finished, all had gone out of the church and had given themselves to sleep after the vigils, one of the wretched, deprived of the light of his eyes, remained before the doors of the church. He too had been frequently seen there for some days before, and was held by all as if known from infancy. He, then, while he was lamenting in his mind the misery of his blindness and asking a remedy from the Lord through the merits of St. Calixtus his Martyr, as the moment of dawn drew near, was overcome by a sudden heaviness of body and dissolved into sleep. And there appeared to him in sleep an old man, suffused with snowy whiteness, and adorned beyond what can be said with all comeliness and beauty. Who, addressing him with a gentle voice, said: Malaldus (for so the man was called), why, he said, do you lie so long? But now rise: do not delay, and enter the church, and give thanks to God. Awakened from sleep, he saw everything clearly, and, running to the door of the church, began to knock with repeated blows, that an entrance might be granted him. And when the keepers of the church, roused by his cries, had come and opened the doors to him, they found him whom a little before they had left blind flourishing, without any impediment, in the clear mobility of the sight of his eyes. Then, therefore, filled with gladness and joy, they together praised the Lord in the highest: certain that the Lord, through the presence of his Servant, deigned to visit and inhabit the place in which he lay.

[10] he works various At the same time also another miracle was done, which we ordain should by no means lie hidden. For the church [r] which had been built there before the Saint of God Calixtus the Martyr was brought was built small indeed and of disorderly design, nor could, by its disorder and smallness, the relics of the other Saints, of which there were very many there, [ ] standing and immune from fall be preserved: but the rest of the whole body of the church was to be thoroughly pulled down. And so he wished it to be done, that after the part which had fallen had been [ ] orderly and firmly for the greater part, the relics of the Saints should be laid away, and that then finally the remaining part, which had been left over, being likewise pulled down from the foundations, should rise erected to the line of the former part: until the whole work of the building should come uniformly to completion. And when the craftsmen and workmen were pressing on to carry out this order, and all were labouring with all their strength about the walls of that church, that they might fall: suddenly a certain part of the wall, on which one of those workmen was sitting, fell with a vast sound, and covered him with an infinite mass of great stones and mortar. Then all, filled alike with grief and bitterness (for it was wretched for all to see what had happened), began with the bars and poles which they held hastily to thrust aside this way and that the rubble that had slipped down over him, until they should reach the little body of the wretched man, by now, as they thought, dead. When suddenly he who was thought dead, rising with slow effort, stood still for a little, grieving with his head as if bruised: and immediately, after a little, his strength being recovered, he returned to doing that work as if he had never felt any injury in his own body. And this cause of miracle profited many unto salvation, as they saw the power of God, through his holy Martyr Calixtus, preserving health to his servants placed in so great a danger.

[11] A certain noble boy also, Engelburg by name, miracles, of parents most high according to the dignity of the world. Who, recovering a little after an illness, being granted a half-complete recovery, remained contracted in body. Which indeed his parents, seeing, filled with excessive grief, lamented that their son had been restored to them alive from the illness, whom they suffered to live uselessly, contracted, without the functions of his limbs. And when they had been affected with this weariness for some years, and all hope of recovering healing for their son was now despaired of, it came into their mind to bring him with gifts and offerings to the house of the Saint. When they had done this, and had paid the gifts of their vows, they returned home. And it came to pass that on the day after they had returned, their son came, joyful and sweet, into their sight, and, all bodily trouble being withdrawn, walked exultantly with firm and sound steps. And his parents, seeing what had been done, filled with unspeakable joy, preparing many more gifts and offerings than before, brought their son back to the Lord and to his healer St. Calixtus, and determined that every year, while he still lived, he should willingly offer gifts to the Lord and to his holy Martyr Calixtus with reverent and devout mind in that holy place. At the same time also he restored a certain other little boy, deaf and dumb from his very first age, in hearing and speech alike. On the day also of the Lord's Ascension, while all were celebrating the solemnities of the Masses, he raised a certain woman from paralysis, all seeing it.

[12] At another time he raised up a certain paralytic and brought back to him the light of his eyes. of which To a certain young girl also, who had been blind a full year and a half, he restored the light. There was also in the same monastery a certain little servant named Emmo, to whom his natural birth had indeed given open windows of the eyes; but had denied the light which through them should be poured in upon its own and the other senses of the body. What else can be said, except what was also said of Saul while still placed in unbelief: With opened eyes he saw nothing [s]: although the light was taken away from each of them in far dissimilar fashion. For from the former the light was suddenly taken away for a time for this reason, that, falling into the humility of penance, he might understand how badly and how unhappily he had hitherto seen, and afterwards, purged in the font of baptism, might receive the sight of faith which unbelief had closed to him. But from this one, although believing in Christ and initiated into his Sacraments, it had stripped the light of the eyes for this reason, that the Lord might have in him something through which he might magnificently make wonderful his Saint Calixtus. For it is the work of God to cure not only the wicked and sinners through the good and just: but also the good and just through the good and just, so that it may appear to men how great a difference of merits there is before God between the just and the unjust, and between the good and the good.

[13] This little servant, therefore, of the monastery in which the miracle was done, the anonymous author recounts only a few. assiduously entreated the Lord that, just as he deigned continually to cure through his Saint innumerable other sick persons who came from elsewhere, so also he would mercifully grant to him, serving in the same place, what had been imperfect in him. And when he was begging this with frequent, nay assiduous, prayers, silently and without hesitation, suddenly and unexpectedly the divine goodness so shed light upon him as if he had never before had the darkness of shadows in his eyes: who to this day, [t] placed in the same monastery and serving faithfully, does not cease to proclaim to all the faithful the benefits of the Lord and his holy Martyr Calixtus, his enlightener. And in telling here a few miracles, we do not therefore write no more as though we were ignorant of many others concerning him worthy of record, but so that, collecting some things in a brief discourse, we may faithfully cut off weariness for the readers.

ANNOTATIONS

That not Everard, but Rodolf, Everard's son, brought the relics of the holy Pontiff into Belgium, Flodoard, cited at num. 100 of the Preliminary Commentary, writes from Fulk, archbishop of Reims: again, therefore, Fulk and the Anonymous here disagree: unless it be said that both father and son accompanied the relics of St. Calistus into Belgium in person, or the father be judged to have done what he did through his son. On the casket of the relics of count Everard these verses are inscribed:

In his time indeed, touched by divine love, In the eight hundred and fiftieth and also the fourth, Hither, with fitting honour, he brought Calixtus, The supreme Pontiff, martyred for Christ.

p. She consecrated herself also to the service of the same church, to lead a life of vigils and pious exercises, separated from the company of seculars, although she was not on that account a monk or Nun in the strict sense of the name.

q. With the verses cited above agree Meyer, Gazet, and Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium at this day: but at the XVI day of December he notes the year 855, and says that it is so read in the epitaph of the shrine of St. Everard. Colvener says the same in the Notes on chapter V of book 4 of the History of the church of Reims written by Flodoard, citing Molanus: I would rather adhere to the Anonymous and to the verses inscribed on the casket of the relics of count Everard; less to be listened to is Sigebert, who ties the translation of the relics of Callistus to Cysoing to the year 884; if indeed Sigebert wrote that.

r. These words have very much obscurity, unless a healing hand comes to them: if I conjecture rightly, the corrupted passage can in some fashion be restored in this manner: For the church which had been built there before the Saint of God Calixtus the martyr was brought was built small indeed and of disorderly design, nor could it, by its disorder and smallness, the relics of the other Saints, of which there were very many there, [conveniently contain: wherefore he wished (Everard, as I think) that one part of the church] should be kept standing and immune from fall: but the rest of the whole body of the church should be thoroughly pulled down: and so he wished it to be done, that after the part which had fallen had been orderly and firmly for the greater part built, in it the relics of the Saints should be laid away, and [so] finally the remaining part, which had been left over, likewise thoroughly pulled down, should rise from the foundations to the line of the former part: until the whole work of the building should come uniformly to completion.

s. Acts 9, verse 8.

t. The Anonymous had said at num. 8 that he would describe the miracles of St. Callistus which were done at the same time at which his relics were brought to Cysoing: about the same time, therefore, that is, about the year 854, Emmo, the little servant of the monastery of Cysoing, recovered his sight; and since the Anonymous says here moreover that he was still living in his own age, and makes no word of the relics of St. Callistus translated from Cysoing to Reims, which happened toward the end of the ninth century, he seems to have written in the same century.

* 2 Kings, chapter 24.

PROCESS OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE RELICS OF ST. CALIXTUS, PONTIFF AND MARTYR, FROM REIMS TO CYSOING IN THE YEAR MDCXVI.

Callistus or Callixtus, Pope and Mart., at Rome. (S.)

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF BUZELIN

On the day before the Lord's Ascension, in the year MDCXVI, Jean Rachin, The relics of St. Callistus from Reims to Leuze, scribe of the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Louis of Lorraine, archbishop of Reims, ^a sent, in the company of two noblemen, by the reverend lord Claude Dorignie, doctor of both laws, treasurer of the metropolitan church of Reims, coming to Leuze, ^b brought, with letters of the said treasurer, a reliquary in which was enclosed one bone of the shin from the body of Blessed Calixtus, Pope and Martyr; which relics the very reverend lord Baptiste Gramnoy, dean of Leuze, enclosing them in a chest secured with his seal, placed upon the altar of his chapel in the collegiate church of Blessed Peter; which remained there until the following Saturday, when the reverend Father Érasme d'Autel, Prior of Cysoing, sent to Leuze by the very reverend lord Jean Desrumaux his abbot, with lord Godefroid Saillart, steward of the abbey of St. Nicholas of Tournai, and the reverend lord master Jean de la Motte, lector of sacred Theology among the Cysoing community, and many other honourable laymen, after mass had been celebrated by the said reverend lord dean, the said treasure was placed in a carriage, there sitting around it on either side the dean, the Prior, the lector, and lord Jean Biseaux, canon of the church of Leuze, priests:

[2] and brought to Tournai; Toward evening, before the gate of the said abbey of St. Nicholas, ^c the aforesaid four priests in albs and stole carried the bier, covered with a red silk cloth, as far as the entrance of the said abbey: where, before an altar prepared, the very reverend lord Dom Nicolas de Godebrye, abbot of the said abbey, ^d waiting in pontificals with his community, it was carried processionally by the same with singing to the domestic chapel. Where, the Responsory being finished, the Canticle "Te Deum" with the collect and the Antiphon "Daughter of Jerusalem" being sung in music, the Office was concluded, the religious of the said monastery performing the night watches by turns with light. On the following day, mass of St. Calixtus being celebrated by the reverend lord Prior of Cysoing, with the same pomp as the day before, with singing, torches and the sound of bells, the sacred pledge was borne out to the Greater church, not yet consecrated, by the venerable abbot and the aforesaid priests, and placed upon the High altar: and after canticles and incensing through the cloisters, it was placed in the carriage, covered with a fine linen cover variegated with gold and silver, the four aforesaid priests sitting beside it on either side, clad with stole and amice and dalmatics of red colour, boys crowned, clothed in fine linen of the same colour, crowding the sides: and torch-bearers in white garments occupying the front of the carriage.

[3] So it proceeded with musical singing of psalms and sacred measures through the middle of the city of Tournai, thence to Cysoing thence as far as Cysoing, the said lord prelate accompanying, and the reverend lords B. Pierre d'Anbermont, licentiate of sacred theology and canon and official of Tournai, Lord Master Marc Norman, chaplain of the altars * of the seats and temporal lord of Brense, and many noble horsemen and retainers, besides a copious crowd flowing together from all sides to the spectacle. A thousand paces from the city there came to meet them in copes the reverend pastors Fr. Antoine de St. Aubin, religious pastor of Camphin, master Jean Roserius, pastor of Esplechin, with his clergy and all the people, with crosses and banners, singing after the incensing and going before the car, the people following. To whom there joined themselves, with the same array, five hundred paces from Cysoing, the reverend pastors Fr. Antoine de Buissnes, subprior and pastor of Cysoing, Fr. Clément le Comte, pastor of Louvil, religious of the monastery of Cysoing, with an infinite multitude of the common people.

[4] they are carried with festive array. When they came in sight of Cysoing, the religious came to meet them processionally in copes, holding lighted candles, with the whole clergy and people, and the venerable prelates of Cysoing and St. Nicholas in pontificals: and a musical motet being sung at the carriage, the sacred pledge was handed by two priests returning * in the carriage into the hands of the two who went before, who on bended knee gave it to the aforesaid venerable prelates; by whom it was placed on an altar appointed for this, and after incensing and manifold singing it was again placed by the four aforenamed priests upon the shoulders of the aforesaid prelates, the same priests crowding the sides and holding the fringes of the bier, two torch-bearers going before, and the whole clergy going before with varied singing with great solemnity, the bells pealing, the church was entered: and the bier of the sacred pledge being set down in the middle of the choir, the canticle "Te Deum" was sung in music with organs; which being finished, a sermon was delivered by the Rev. Fr. J. Jordan of Lille, Dominican, and finally the high mass was sung in pontificals by the venerable prelate of Cysoing with solemn music, and the whole Office of the day was performed with the same solemnity, and on the third weekday following it was honourably laid back in the sacristy. In testimony of which matter we the undersigned witnesses respectively ^e have fortified the said charter with the subscription of our names and the appending of our seals. Done in the aforesaid monastery of Cysoing in the year as above, on the seventeenth day of May.

ANNOTATIONS.

Perhaps altarum*?

remanentibus* (remaining)