ON SS. LUPULUS AND MODESTUS, MARTYRS, AT CAPUA,
In an uncertain century.
From the Hieronymian and other sacred Fasti.
Lupulus, M., at Rome. (S.)
Modestus, M., at Rome. (S.)
BY J. B.
St. Lupulus, The Hieronymian Codices which we have just cited announce today St. Lupulus, whose name, as anyone will readily gather from the texts to be produced below, is written variously by various authors, but without a Companion: thus indeed the Codex edited by Fiorentini: At Capua, of Lupiblus; and thus the Corbie one: At Capua, of Luplilus. But to Lupulus the old Calendars of the church of Capua join Modestus, which Michael Monachus, a Canon of that same church, inserted in his Sanctuarium Capuanum; the third of these has today p. 420.: On the Ides, of SS. Lupulus and Modestus, except that it makes no mention of three Lessons. On the day before, however, they commemorate Fortunata, Virgin and Martyr, as the second also does p. 410.; and that she is no other than Fortunata, Virgin and Martyr, the Sister of SS. Carponius, Evaristus and Priscianus, of whom we treated yesterday, we are persuaded both by her fame throughout Italy and by the 14th day of October consecrated to her cult. Hence Ferrarius seems to need correction, who in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy (after having announced at the 14th of October at Naples St. Fortunata, Sister of SS. Carponius, Evaristus and Priscianus, and at this day also Fortunatus, a Roman Martyr, of whom just above) mentions Lupilus and Fortunatus as having suffered at Capua, from the old Capuan Breviary: for, besides yesterday's Fortunata, venerated at Naples, and the Roman Fortunatus, no other Fortunatus seems admissible. He calls Bede indeed to his support; but the list of the pure Bede is empty today. Rabanus joins St. Lupulus with St. Fortunata, writing thus at this day: And at Capua, of Libulus, and of St. Fortunata in Patriae; he records yesterday's Fortunata, indeed, not in her own place, but does not assign her to Capua: Notker may seem to do this, when he writes thus: At Capua, of Libulus and of St. Fortunata; and so he too seems to treat, not in her own place, of the same Fortunata as Rabanus, whom he used very much in composing his Martyrology. The same seems to be said of the Appendix of Ado, in which, after St. Fortunatus, Martyr, has been announced at Rome, is read: Likewise of Lubulus, Modestus and Fortunata, without the name of the arena being expressed.
[2] venerated of old among the Capuans, Michael Monachus furthermore adduces a twofold trace of sacred cult once paid to St. Lupulus by the Capuans: the first in Part I of his Sanctuarium p. 132., where he says that in the church of St. Priscus there survives part of an ancient basilica once founded in honour of St. Priscus, in whose apse are seen many images of various Saints, for example of SS. Peter, Felix, Lupulus, etc.; which is surely an indication of cult anciently shown to this Saint at Capua. The second in the same place p. 135 and following, namely an instrument found by him among the records of the nuns of St. John, which plainly indicates that a church sacred to St. Lupulus once existed among the Capuans. The words of the instrument run thus in Michael: In the name of Jesus Christ, in the ninth year of the principate of Paldolf, the glorious prince (that is, the count of Teano, who, as Monachus judges p. 620., held the principate of Capua from the year 1022 to 1030), and therefore I, a woman who am called Maria, daughter of the late Peter the master, and wife of … dwelling within this city of Capua in the place Grottula, at the very cemeteries near the church of St. Lupulus, which now seems to be destroyed … on the other head is the land of the said church of St. Lupulus. Michael Monachus judges that he was distinguished with the priesthood, partly from that very ancient painting of the church of St. Priscus, in which he is seen clad in the same habit as St. Marcellus: but the Acts of Marcellus (if indeed they are his, and not those of St. Marcellus of Tangier, Martyr, inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the 30th day of October), which Michael p. 137. exhibits, relate that he became a Martyr from a soldier: nor do I see, if you look at the habits in which both he and several other Saints are represented in that painting, how Michael can distinguish that these were bishops and those presbyters, between whose habits (e.g. of St. Priscus and St. Sinotus) no difference appears.
[3] why St. Modestus is joined. I have joined Modestus to Lupulus on the faith of the Capuan Calendars cited above, and of the Offices of which mention will now be made. Michael adds, namely, that they were brothers, from the Office of the church of Capua concerning these Saints, whose third Responsory is: This is true brotherhood; but what if they were brothers only in faith and spirit? Then Michael admits p. 41. that the same Responsory is read after the ninth Lesson in the Office of SS. Marcellus and Apuleius, although in the Acts of St. Marcellus, exhibited by Michael himself, Apuleius is said to have been the servant of Marcellus. Hence from that Responsory you could not safely enough infer that a fraternal kinship existed between Lupulus and Modestus.
[That the reasoning of our Bue set out in no. 2 may be more clearly understood, we set before the reader the Capuan painting, as it is exhibited by Michael Monachus in the Sanctuarium Capuanum, engraved in wood. In the Capuan exemplar names were attached to the individual Saints, which we subjoin according to the sequence of the numbers. 1. St. Peter. 2. St. Lawrence. 3. St. Paul. 4. St. Cyprian. 5. St. Susius. 6. St. Timothy. 7. St. Agnes. 8. St. Quartus. 9. St. Quintus. 10. St. Priscus. 11. St. Lupulus. 12. St. Sinotus. 13. St. Rufus. 14. St. Marcellus. 15. St. Augustine. 16. St. Felicitas. Michael Monachus says that each of the Saints carries a crown p. 36.: which, however, no one would easily suspect from the painting; I would rather call them mappae, like a somewhat elongated cushion, which signified the presidency of the games or contests, since it was by the throwing down of the mappa that the start was given Gori Thes. Vet. Diptych., vol. II, p. 132..]