Martinian

ON SS. MARTINIAN, SATURIAN, AND THEIR TWO BROTHERS, MARTYRS, AND ON ST. MAXIMA, VIRGIN, IN AFRICA,

IN THE YEAR 458 OR 459.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Martinian, martyr, in Africa. (S.)

Saturian, martyr, in Africa. (S.)

Their two brothers, martyrs, in Africa. Maxima, virgin, in Africa. (S.)

BY J. V. H.

§ I. Of the various Martyrologies which treat of the holy Martyrs, and of the time of the passion.

Various Martyrologies announce the passion of these Martyrs The little Roman Martyrology prefixed to Ado so joins these champions with the two hundred and seventy Martyrs of whom we treated above that those who are said to have suffered in the Vandal persecution seem to coalesce into one band; no mention indeed being made of St. Maxima. For it has thus: Of the Saints Martian and Satyrian, with their two brothers, and of two hundred and seventy others crowned likewise in the Vandal persecution. This conjunction of Martyrs Ado and Usuard also seem to approve by their own reckoning when they write, the former indeed: In Africa, of the holy Martyrs, two hundred and seventy crowned likewise, and of the holy Martyrs Martian and Satyrian, with their two brothers, and of the excellent handmaid of Christ, Maxima, Virgin, etc. Usuard has the same, except that in place of Satyrian he has Satirian, and puts St. Maxima after the elogium of the Martyrs in these words: Maxima, Virgin, also suffered with them. Of St. Maxima we shall treat more fully below.

[2] confusedly; These things, I say, seem to show that Ado and Usuard both joined the two martyrdoms. Although perhaps they could also be said to have separated them, both because, against the commonly received custom, which the little Roman Martyrology had nevertheless kept, they placed the group of Martyrs, which usually follows the proper names, before Martinian and his Companions, and also because their words do not sound absolutely of conjunction; they write indeed that both bands suffered in Africa, but because of the conjunctive particle and it is not necessarily inferred that they were crowned at the same time. However that may be, the present Roman Martyrology has distinguished our Martyrs from the band of two hundred and seventy, when it writes: In Africa, of two hundred and seventy holy Martyrs crowned likewise. In the same place, of Saints Martinian and Saturian, with their two brothers, etc. By which words it expressly disjoins the two bands. Baronius indeed, in the Annotations to the Roman Martyrology, thinks that the two hundred and seventy were crowned in the Vandal persecution, but, as it seems, relying on no authority, as is evident from the reasons brought forward above where we treated of the two hundred and seventy Martyrs at number 4, which it is not helpful to repeat here.

[3] which must be corrected from Victor of Vita: The elogia of the holy Martyrs in the Martyrologies were so taken from the History of the Vandal persecution of St. Victor of Vita (concerning whom our predecessors at the 23rd day of August Volume IV of August, page 628.), book I, chapter X, that nothing occurs in them which has not been borrowed from it. With full right, therefore, what was described less correctly in the little Roman, in Ado, and in Usuard must be corrected according to his history. First of all, the two hundred and seventy Martyrs of whom we spoke before are altogether absent from Victor's History. Next, the very names of the holy Martyrs will have to be brought into line with his norm. These martyrologists all write Martian, while Victor constantly has Martinian. In truth, indeed, Lorichius, in his Victor printed at Cologne in the year 1537 and at Basel in the year 1541, at first writes Mauritanus, whom he afterwards always calls Marturianus; and the Orthodoxographia, or collection of sacred authors, among whom the three books of Victor on the Vandal Persecution were published at Basel in the year 1555, calls the first Martyr Marturianus. No less is the variety in the name of the other: for the martyrologies praised above and one manuscript codex write Satirianus, or also Satyrianus, and even Saturnianus, as Dom Ruinart has it in annotation XXXIII to the History of the Vandal Persecution. But these varieties of names must altogether be corrected from the edition of Dom Ruinart, who teaches that, according to manuscript codices of the best note, the holy Martyrs are to be called Martinian and Saturian, just as Cardinal Baronius, in the edition of the Roman Martyrology corrected by him, had already judged from Victor that they should be written.

[4] the time of the martyrdom is not to be referred to the year 450 We must now come to the question of the time at which our Martyrs suffered. For the opinion of the learned is various; although all agree that they suffered in the Vandal persecution: if you except Cardinal Baronius, in his Observations on the Roman Martyrology, saying: When they suffered we have not found: to say that they were slain in the Vandal persecution is to divine, since it is proved by no one's authority. Whence it is clear that the History of the Vandal Persecution of St. Victor of Vita was passed over by the most learned man; from which no doubt is left that the holy Martyrs suffered under the Vandals. Such diversity of opinions as there is among the learned, therefore, turns only on the year of the passion. The Martyrology in the German idiom published by Adam Walasser at Dillingen in the year 1599, which is circulated under the name of Canisius because it was augmented and corrected by our Venerable Peter Canisius, this Martyrology, I say, places the time of the passion of Saints Martinian and Companions about the year 430: which seems not to be admitted, because Victor, beginning the narration of the martyrdom, says: But also there are proved to have been then very many martyrs… of whom I shall try to narrate some: and that particle then refers to the deeds which he had narrated in the immediately preceding words: these are the help given to the Roman captives by Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, his death, and the prohibition by Geiseric that any bishop should be ordained in the Zeugitane and Proconsular province: Then very many martyrs are proved to have been.

All these things, however, happened after Rome was taken by Geiseric, and therefore after the year 455.

[5] or to the year 470 Wherefore the other learned men, who have tried to fix some time to the passion, set some year after the capture of the City. Cardinal Baronius assigns the year 456 to the martyrdom, the Martyrology of Paris published by order of Cardinal de Noailles the year 457, Stefano Antonio Morcelli in his Africa Christiana Volume III, page 172. the year 459. It would be difficult to trace what reasons each adopted in order to fix a certain year; since Tillemont in his ecclesiastical Memoirs Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, volume XVI, page 532. candidly confesses that the time at which our Martyrs suffered is unknown. If the conjecture of Cardinal Baronius At the year 456, § XIV. and of Arthur Du Monstier in his Gynæceum at this day, namely that these Martyrs were captives from the City, rested on a truly solid argument, there would seem to be no doubt that their passion came very close to the year 470.

[6] as our Daniel Papebroch also thinks; Our Daniel Papebroch thinks the same at the 16th of May Volume III of May, page 581, number 8., reckoning that Maxima and her companions came with the Roman booty into the hands of a certain Vandal. The holy Virgin, by the testimony of Victor, ruled over the whole house as stewardess. This, says Papebroch in the place cited, supposes faithful service of several years, within which she gained so much favour with her masters. To these years must be added also the remaining stay in the master's household and in the monastery of Tabraca, but especially the sojourn among the Moors, whose conversion to the Catholic faith, and what followed from the wonderful preaching, the mission to the Roman city and the building of a church, easily occupy a space of some years; whence it ought not to seem surprising that the time of the martyrdom must be prolonged as far as the year 470. These things would make a probable conjecture about the time of the passion, if it were certainly established that Maxima and her companions were carried off as captives from Rome: for then the whole chronology would take its beginning from the year 455, and would rightly be brought down to about the year 470.

[7] but it must be set at about the year 459 But there is nothing by which this conjecture can be solidly supported; for from the fact that the martyrdom of Martinian and his Companions happened after the devastation and captivity of Rome, it by no means seems to follow that they were then first reduced to slavery, which Victor does not insinuate by even the slightest indication; nay rather, since in book I of his History, chapter IV, he asserts that already from the year 439 that ancient freeborn and noble liberty (of Carthage) was reduced to slavery, nothing prevents us from saying that our Martyrs then underwent the yoke of slavery: in which hypothesis, since we have an interval of twenty years up to the year 459, there is certainly sufficient time for all the things which Papebroch enumerates above at number 6 to be easily accomplished. That the passion of the Martyrs, however, was as near as possible to the fifty-ninth year of the fifth century we conjecture from the fact that the martyrdom seems to have happened about the time when the king forbade bishops to be ordained for the Zeugitane and Proconsular province… For then very many martyrs are proved to have been, and immediately the passion of our Martyrs is joined on. The royal prohibition, moreover, was issued, as is clear from Victor in the place cited, immediately after the death of the bishop of Carthage, St. Deogratias, concerning whom our predecessors at the 22nd day of March Volume III of March, page 384.. There indeed Deogratias is said to have been ordained in the year 453, more probably because in this year the 8th day before the Kalends of November fell on a Sunday: but the Chronicle of Prosper Tiro in Canisius Antiquæ Lectiones, volume I, page 311, Basnage's edition. clearly asserts that Deogratias was ordained bishop on a Sunday in the consulship of Studius and Aetius, that is, in the year 454, and therefore on the 9th day before the Kalends of November. I prefer to acknowledge an error in the number of the Kalends rather than in the names of the Consuls Compare Baronius at the year 452, § LXVI, and Pagi's Critica, § VIII.: since the error could the more easily have slipped in because formerly, as the Benedictine authors of the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique demonstrate Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, volume III, page 519., the number nine was expressed by VIIII, whence one stroke could easily have escaped the hand of the writer. Victor then, in the same place, chapter VIII, attributes to the bishop Deogratias three years of episcopate, to which two months and thirteen days must be added, if we give credence to the Calendar of the sixth century published by Jean Mabillon Vetera Analecta, page 167., which binds the deposition of the bishop Deogratias to the Nones (5th) of January: hence his death must be bound to the year 458, and therefore the passion of our Martyrs seems to be placed in this year or the following.

§ II. Of the marriage of Saints Martinian and Maxima, and of the discipline of the Church concerning the impediment arising from the vow of chastity.

Maxima is given by her master The Vandal whom Martinian, an armourer, and Maxima, stewardess of the whole house, served, in order to make the said servants more faithful to himself, says Victor at number 1 according to the history of the passion to be published below, wished to join them in conjugal fellowship. Martinian, after the manner of worldly young men, desired marriage: and Maxima, already consecrated to God, refused human nuptials. Nevertheless St. Maxima, although firm in her purpose of keeping virginity, but trusting in God, seems not to have resisted her master's will: this is indicated by the words of Victor, in which he says that when it came to the point that the secret silences of the bedchamber were entered, Martinian with marital confidence wished to lie down as though with his wife; and that, Martinian having now been brought over to better things, the Vandal did not know of the commerce of the spiritual secret. Whence it is probable to us that St. Maxima confirmed by her consent the marriage which Maigret in the Martyrographia Augustiniana, Herrera in the Templum Eremitanum, and others hint was certainly entered upon.

[9] in marriage That among the Romans it lay with the master to assign spouses to slaves Columella states clearly enough, De re rustica, book I, chapter I. Such marital unions, however, the Romans did not even honour with the name of marriage, but called them contubernium [Adam, Roman Antiquities, volume I, page 75, and volume II, page 310. Cujas, volume IX of his works, column 1475.]. Slaves were otherwise situated among the Germans, from whom the Vandals came. They use slaves, says Tacitus On the Customs of the Germans, chapter XXV., not in our manner, with duties distributed through the household. Each governs his own dwelling, his own household gods. The master imposes on him, as on a tenant, a measure of grain, or of cattle, or of clothing, and the slave obeys so far. The other duties of the house the wife and children carry out. To beat a slave, and to restrain him with chains and labour, is rare: they are wont to kill him, not by discipline and severity, but by impulse and anger, as an enemy, except that it is with impunity. Such indeed was the condition of slavery in Germany, but the Vandals, otherwise sufficiently inclined to Roman customs, had already turned aside from this simplicity, inasmuch as we see that they employed Maxima and Martinian in domestic duties. That the power of the masters over the marriages of slaves was full is shown by Dr. Felix Papencordt in his work on the Vandals in Africa Geschichte der Vandalischen Herrschaft in Afrika, page 187..

[10] to Martinian: Nevertheless that some form was formerly employed for contubernium is conveniently argued from the Code of Justinian Law 24, Code, On incestuous marriages (IX. 9)., which speaks of a contubernium entered into against the form of law. What was contracted according to the norm of law, however, before the Church, for which there is neither slave nor free Galatians III. 28., had the force of a ratified marriage, unless some diriment impediment stood in the way. That such a marriage was contracted by St. Maxima appears probable to me: nor was this unwonted in the ancient Church: thus St. Cecilia, as the Roman Breviary has it at the 22nd day of November, although she had vowed her virginity to God, is given in marriage against her will to Valerian: thus St. Julian, after promising chastity, enlightened from above, takes Basilissa as wife Acta SS., volume I of January, 9th day, page 576, number 5.: they knew by heavenly light that their chastity would suffer no detriment from an act of this kind. Which reason may also hold for our holy Virgin, so that she thought it lawful for her to contract nuptials otherwise forbidden, since she had deliberately resolved never to depart from her vow of chastity, as her words to Martinian in Victor in the place cited show: "To Christ," she said, "O brother Martinian, I have dedicated the members of my body, nor can I obtain a human marriage, having already a heavenly and true spouse."

[11] [on which occasion it is shown that the diriment impediment from a solemn vow is older than the twelfth century] For the rest, it is well enough known to those who have tasted theological or canonical disciplines even with the tips of their lips that a simple vow of chastity makes nuptials illicit indeed, but not invalid. Nay, there are some who think that no vow of this kind formerly dissolved a marriage: the patron of this opinion among others is Zeger Bernard Van Espen, who in the Jus ecclesiasticum universum [Part II, section I, title XIII, volume I of his works, page 582, Louvain, otherwise Lyon, edition of the year 1778.] says that the solemnity of the vow, and therefore a diriment impediment of marriage on that head, was not introduced before the thirty-ninth year of the twelfth century, by Innocent II. For this pontiff in the second Lateran council, chapters VII and VIII Labbe, volume X of the Councils, column 1003., ordained: That the law of continence and the purity pleasing to God may be extended in ecclesiastical persons and sacred orders, he enacts that bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, regular canons and monks and professed lay brothers who, transgressing their holy purpose, shall have presumed to join wives to themselves, be separated: for such a union, which is established to have been contracted against the ecclesiastical rule, we judge not to be a marriage: and let them, separated from one another, do fitting penance for such great excesses. We decree that the same be observed also for nuns, if, which God forbid, they should attempt to marry.

[12] the origin of the diriment impediment from a solemn vow These things at first glance seem to bear the appearance of a new law; but if we turn over the ancient records, many things will be found which in my judgment show that this law is many centuries older than Innocent II. For there are very many canons which compare the nuptials of monks and nuns with a marriage that is attempted while the former husband survives; there are others which enjoin complete separation; there are finally some which place regular profession among the diriment impediments of marriage. All of which surely show that in ancient times also there existed a certain vow of chastity which had put on the force and nature of a solemn vow. And first, indeed, that a prevaricating nun is reckoned among adulteresses St. Innocent I clearly teaches in his decretal letter to all the bishops, given in the year of Christ 404, in which he says Ibid., volume II of the Councils, column 1252.: If any woman, while her husband is living, has married another, let her be held an adulteress, … how much more is that one also to be held so (veiled by a priest) who had first joined herself to an immortal spouse and afterwards passed over to human nuptials?

[13] 1st, by comparison with nuptials, This also in the praised letter, under silence

must not be passed over: that St. Innocent distinguishes a twofold order of virgins, the one of those who had indeed vowed perpetual virginity, yet in such a way that they were not veiled; the other of those who merited to be veiled by a priest: and this twofold order of virgins, in my judgment, excellently declares our present-day distinction between the simple and the solemn vow of chastity. Further, the Pontiff wishes the fallen who are not veiled to be dealt with more kindly: for he pronounces that this promise can be dissolved, though not without punishment: their marriage, namely, was illicit, but not invalid; for, having been expiated by penance performed for some time, they lawfully enjoyed their nuptials. But the holy Pontiff treats more severely the virgins already veiled, whom he wished to be subjected to perpetual and public penance. From the decretal itself Van Espen, in the place cited, tries to deduce that the nuptials of the veiled were valid, because a fallen nun was not admitted to penance before the man had departed from the world, and he comments that this was undoubtedly done lest the penance should turn to the injury of the marriage entered upon; for at that time it was not lawful for public penitents to exercise the conjugal act. But Van Espen seems not to have grasped the mind of the Pontiff. First of all, to say nothing of the inequality of the penalty, which is fixed as certain for the unveiled and uncertain for the veiled, namely if she survived the man, Innocent speaks of the fallen who had either married publicly or corrupted themselves secretly: must the woman secretly corrupted also cleave to her corrupter so long as he lived? Next, the Pontiff says that the promise of the unveiled can be dissolved; therefore, since he says nothing similar of the veiled, the bond of her who had first joined herself to an immortal spouse cannot be dissolved.

[14] contracted while the former husband is alive; St. Jerome hands down the same doctrine, saying in book I against Jovinian, chapter VII Volume IV of his Works, column 156, Paris edition of the year 1706., that virgins marrying after consecration (that is, the veiled) are not so much adulteresses as incestuous. St. John Chrysostom writes to the fallen Theodore, second exhortation Volume I of his Works, page 38.: Τὸν επουρανίω συναφθέντα νυμφίῳ, τοῦτον μεν ἀφείναι, γυναικὶ δὴ ἑάυτὸν συνάψαι, μοιχεία τὸ πρᾶγμα, κᾄν μυριάκις ἀυτὸ γάμον καλῆς. He who has once been joined to the heavenly spouse, if he is torn away from him and takes a wife, commits adultery, although you should call this very thing nuptials a thousand times. St. Ambrose uses almost the same words in the treatise to a fallen virgin Volume V of his Works, page 167, Venice edition of the year 1781., which Dom Ceillier ascribes to the holy Doctor Histoire des Auteurs ecclésiastiques, volume VII, page 476.: She who has pledged herself to Christ and has received the holy veil has already married, is already joined to an immortal husband. Even if she should wish to marry by the common law of wedlock, she commits adultery, she becomes the handmaid of death. St. Basil makes a similar reasoning about a fallen virgin in the second Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius Volume III of his Works, page 291, Paris edition of the year 1730., and St. Augustine, Enarrationes on Psalm LXXXIII, number 4 Volume IV of his Works, column 880, Paris edition of the year 1679.. St. Augustine, however, is cited by many as patron of the contrary opinion, namely because in the book on holy Virginity, chapter XXXIV Volume VI, column 286., he says that for some virgins bound by the vow of chastity it is better to marry than to burn; and in the book on the Good of Widowhood, chapter X Ibid., column 375., he reproves those who teach that the nuptials of the fallen are not marriages. But the holy Doctor is conveniently reconciled with himself and with the others if a twofold order of continent women is distinguished, namely of those who simply vowed, and of those who in addition received the sacred veil: and I judge that Augustine is speaking of the former order, because in the book on holy Virginity, in the place cited, he treats of more elegant dress, of a notable headband, of puffed-out bosses of hair, which certainly did not befit nuns or the veiled, since he takes care in Epistle CCXI, otherwise CIX Volume II, column 784., that they have their hair bare in no part: and in the book on the Good of Widowhood, chapter XXI, he warns continent women not to be taken by the desire of riches in place of the desire of nuptials, lest money succeed to the love of a husband in their hearts, which cannot stand with the vow of religious poverty.

[15] 2nd, from the separation enjoined, Our opinion is further confirmed from the separation enjoined on those who had attempted such nuptials. The Fathers of the Council of Tours of the year 567 write to St. Radegund Labbe, volume V of the Councils, column 874. that a nun cleaving to a man is subject to anathema until, separation having been made, through a fitting … penance … she merits to be received. The Council of Barcelona of the year 599, canon IV Ibid., column 1606, and Aguirre, volume III of the Councils of Spain, page 307., ordains that veiled women who refuse to sequester themselves from the violator of their chastity be so estranged from Catholic communion that no consolation even of conversation at all be left to them. With which law agrees canon XI of the Council of Friuli under Paulinus, bishop of Aquileia, in the year 791 Labbe, volume VII, column 1006., prescribing that those who, having made a vow of chastity, have been clothed as a sign of continence in a black garment, as it were religious, as was the ancient custom in these regions, although they have not been consecrated by a priest … if afterwards they have either corrupted themselves secretly or married publicly … be separated from one another. The Council of Meaux of the year 845, canon LXVII Ibid., column 1839., wills that those who marry in this way be compelled to the religious habit, and remain perpetually without any hope of conjugal union: which enactment is shown to have been in force in Germany also by canon XXIII of the Council of Tribur Volume IX, column 453., when it wills that such persons be altogether separated and bound by oath not to enjoy even familiar conversation; and in England by the law of Edgar Wilkins, volume I of the Councils of Britain, page 233., ordering that a fallen nun leave the partnership of sin. Finally the first Lateran Council, held under Calixtus II in the year 1123, canon XXI Labbe, volume X of the Councils, column 899., forbids marriages to monks in the same tenor as to priests, and orders that marriages contracted by such persons be disjoined; by which words it is clearly shown that the second Lateran Council enacted nothing new, as Van Espen will have it.

[16] 3rd, because such a vow is placed among the impediments To these arguments, sought from the comparison with adultery and from the separation of every kind prescribed, we join a third, which we judge has its force for showing the truth of our assertion. There are, namely, many ancient documents which condemn with the same tenor of speech and the same penalties both the incestuous nuptials of kinsfolk and the sacrilegious nuptials of nuns. Thus the fifth Council of Paris, of the year 615, canon XIV Labbe, volume V, column 1652., in order to cut off incestuous unions from the whole Christian people, says that he must abstain from illicit unions by most manifest sequestration who has thought that his brother's widow, his wife's sister … or a woman devoted in the habit of religion is to be violated by the fellowship of wedlock. The Synod of Metz of the year 753, canon I Ibid., volume VI of the Councils, column 1660., speaks in the same way, by which a man is punished with a fine if he has committed incest … with a woman consecrated to God or with his co-mother … or with a mother and daughter: and Egbert, archbishop of York in England, chapter CXXIX Ibid., column 1598., strikes with the same thunderbolt of anathema him who has married a nun, and him who has married a relative by marriage or a wife of his own kindred. And that nuptials of this kind are equated with one another not only in penalties but also in prohibition is shown by canon XV of the Council of Calchuth in England of the year 787 Ibid., column 1869., forbidding to all unjust and incestuous unions, both with handmaids of God or other illicit persons, and with kinsfolk and blood relations or foreign wives: and by the synodal letter of the Council of Douzy in the province of Reims of the year 874 Volume IX, column 261., which forbids all illicit couplings: much more, it adds, couplings with kinswomen and with women dedicated to God. The Council of Enham in England of the year 1009 follows the same footsteps, when in canon VIII Volume IX, column 799. it prescribes that no one defile himself with illicit unions, that is, with kinswomen, or with married women, or with women consecrated to God: which enactment Canute, king of England and Denmark, afterwards confirmed in the year 1032, law XIV Ibid., column 927., commanding in the name of God, after enumerating the diriment impediments of marriage, that no one take as wife his co-mother or his goddaughter, nor a nun nor a repudiated woman. In all the documents cited above, which for the sake of brevity I have not produced entire, the impediment of the vow would be the only one which was not diriment: which abnormality no one will easily ascribe to most holy and most grave men.

[17] is placed. And these are the chief considerations which persuade me that the impediment flowing from the vow and invalidating marriage has a far more ancient origin than that assigned above by Van Espen; nay, that it is almost coeval with the very beginnings of the monastic state. I confess indeed that there remain some testimonies from the holy Fathers which create some difficulty, but this is not so great as to lift away the most clear doctrine of the Councils. The case of the patrician Venantius is not rarely cited, who, having slipped out of a monastery and taken a wife, begot two daughters. St. Gregory the Pope treats the fallen man kindly, but so that he may come to his senses [Book I, epistle XXXIV, volume II of his Works, column 522, Paris edition of the year 1705.]: he wills by all means that he return to the monastery, and writes to John of Syracuse, epistle XXXVI, book XI Ibid., column 1119., that by exhorting, by entreating, by setting before him the terrible judgment of God, by promising His ineffable mercy, he should return to his habit even at the last, lest the guilt of so great a fault stand against him in the eternal judgment. We see therefore here too the necessity of separation imposed on persons so joined; which alone shows that the deed of Venantius was not a marriage to the holy Pontiff. Now, to return to St. Maxima, from whom we digressed, her words clearly indicate that she was bound by the vow of chastity; nothing, however, requires that she was veiled; rather her tender age when she was reduced to slavery stands in the way. Hence if she appeared to consent to the marriage (which indeed seems probable to me), it was valid in the external forum, which pronounces only the nuptials of the veiled void.

§ III. Of the monastic life of Saints Martinian, his Companions, and Maxima.

The holy Martyrs, Martinian, induced by the reasons and prayers of Maxima to keep chastity by mutual consent, also persuaded his brothers, continues Victor at number 2, to have the treasure which he had found in common, as being brothers. And, God disposing higher ascents in his heart, Martinian, converted, with his three brothers, the girl of God also accompanying them, going out secretly by night, joined themselves to the monastery of Tabraca, over which the noble shepherd Andrew then presided. That Andrew was perhaps the monk of whom St. Augustine writes in epistle XLVIII, otherwise LXXXI,

Volume II of his Works, column 114. given about the year 398. Victor approves this flight of the Martyrs, saying that the Vandal at length found slaves now not his own, but Christ's. Victor was not unaware, however, of canon IV of the Council of Chalcedon, by which it is provided that no slave be received in monasteries to become a monk against the will of his master Labbe, volume IV of the Councils, column 757.: Μηδένα δὲ προσδέχεσθαι ἐν τοῖς μοναστηρίοις δοῦλον ἐπὶ τῳ μονάσαι παρὰ γνώμην τοῦ ἰδίου δεσπότου. Compare in the Decretum distinction LIV.

[19] withdrawn from slavery by flight, This discipline was founded on the words of St. Paul, I Timothy VI, 1: Whosoever are servants under the yoke, let them count their masters worthy of all honour… If any man teach otherwise … he is proud, knowing nothing. The Emperor Justinian, Novel V, chapter II, §1, wills indeed that slaves proved for three years in monasteries and made monks become free: but this does not help our Martyrs, inasmuch as they were older than the law itself. Simple men and those of lower condition could indeed be excused by ignorance; but that remedy would scarcely profit the noble shepherd Andrew and his monks, since their ignorance would with difficulty be proved to us. They are therefore to be excused either because their slavery was not lawful, or rather because their faith was in danger, as the event afterwards taught. Guarding against which danger, the Emperor Constantine passed a law that no Christian should serve Jews… And if any slave of the Christian religion were detected in the possession of a Jew, he ordered that the slave be presented with liberty, and the Jew fined in money. These are the words of Eusebius in the Life of Constantine, book IV, chapter XXVII: Αλλὰ δὲ ἰουδαίοις μηδένα Χριστιανὸν ἐνομοθὲτει δουλεύειν … ἐι δὲ εὐρεθείη τις τοιούτος, τὸν μὲν ἀνεῖσθαι ἐλεύθερον· τὸν δὲ ζημίᾳ χρημάτων κολάζεσθαι. Custom extended this law to heretics, and it was finally sanctioned by Arcadius and Honorius, law 4, §8, Code, On Heretics (I. 5), and law 1, Code, That a Christian slave (I. 10).

[20] in the monastery of Tabraca they profess the religious life; That they not only put on the monastic habit but were also bound by monastic profession is insinuated by the words of Victor, saying that the Vandal found slaves now not his own, but Christ's, to whom they had dedicated themselves through the vows of religion. Hence in the Martyrology of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine and in the Directories arranged for the use of the same Fathers, our Martyrs are ascribed to the Augustinian Order. It is not ours to attempt the solution of the arduous question about monastic life debated between the Canons and the Hermits of St. Augustine, which our John Stilting declined to settle on account of the most grave reasons brought forward in the Life of St. Augustine at the 28th day of August Volume IV of August, page 254.. This, however, we do not hesitate to say: that Martinian and his companions belonged to that monastic institute which St. Augustine either founded in Africa, or so cultivated that it received from him a more stable form. Not a few things persuade that St. Augustine was the first to bring the monastic life, already widespread in the East and in Italy, into the shores of Africa. Petilian, the Donatist bishop, had namely reproached him as though the kind of life of the monks had been instituted by him: the holy Doctor does not deny it, but in book III against the letters of Petilian, chapter XI Volume IX of his Works, column 321., simply answers: What sort of kind of life it altogether is, he does not know, or rather he pretends not to know what is most well known to the whole world.

[21] which St. Augustine brought into Africa, To this purpose also is the testimony of St. Possidius, writer of his Life, who says in chapter XI Volume X of his Works, column 264. that monasteries were instituted through the disciples of Augustine: As the divine doctrine further advanced, those serving God in the monastery under holy Augustine and with holy Augustine began to be ordained clerics for the church of Hippo. And then, as the truth of the preaching of the Catholic Church, and the purpose, continence, and profound poverty of the holy servants of God, became known and grew clearer from day to day, the peace and unity of the Church first began and afterwards succeeded with great desire in asking for and receiving bishops and clerics from the monastery which through that memorable man had begun both to exist and to grow… Likewise they themselves, coming from the purpose of those Saints, the churches of the Lord having been propagated, also instituted monasteries; and, zeal for the edification of the word of God increasing, they furnished brethren promoted to the other churches for the receiving of the priesthood. Whence, the doctrine of the Church of the saving faith, hope, and charity becoming known through many and in many, not only through all parts of Africa, but also in lands beyond the sea, and through books published and translated into the Greek tongue, many things merited, by the favour of God, to become known from that one man and through him to many.

[22] as is shown from contemporary records: The holy Doctor insinuates the same in book II of the Retractations, chapter XXI Volume I of his Works, column 49., saying that in his time there began to be monasteries at Carthage, some of whose inhabitants were already not spreading the good odour of Christ. All, he says, On the Work of Monks, chapter XXVIII Volume VI of his Works, column 498., ask, all demand, either the expenses of a profitable poverty or the price of a feigned holiness, while meanwhile, wherever they are caught in their evil deeds, or become known in any way, under the general name of monks your purpose is blasphemed, so good, so holy, which in the name of Christ we desire to sprout through all Africa, as through other lands. From these testimonies it becomes clear that in the time of St. Augustine the monastic institute was new, having passed over from Italy into Africa; especially since at Rome too it had begun not so very long before: for St. Jerome, in the Epistle to the Virgin Principia, which is commonly entitled the Epitaph of Marcella Volume I of his Works, page 122., says: None of the noble women at Rome at that time knew the monks' purpose of life, nor dared, on account of the novelty of the thing, to take up a name that was then thought ignominious and vile among the people. She (Marcella) learned from the priests of Alexandria, first from Pope Athanasius and afterwards from Peter, who, avoiding the persecution of the Arian heresy, had fled to Rome as to the safest haven of their communion, the life of blessed Antony, still then living, and of the monasteries of Pachomius in the Thebaid, and the discipline of Virgins and Widows: nor did she blush to confess what she knew pleased Christ. St. Athanasius was at Rome about the end of the year 339, and stayed there eighteen months: Peter II, his successor, was at Rome until the year 378 L'art de vérifier les dates, Patriarchs of Alexandria.; in this interval, therefore, the monastic institute grew up among the Westerners; consequently it could scarcely have become known in Africa before the baptism of St. Augustine in the year 387.

[23] so that then the very novelty of the institute This very novelty of the monastic institute caused the monks, while persecution raged, both to live more quietly and to escape more easily the force of the edicts issued against the Catholics. Certainly Boniface, bishop of Carthage, in the Council celebrated there in the year 525 Labbe, volume IV of the Councils, column 1643., complained that Liberatus, primate of the Province of Byzacena, was creating many troubles for the abbot Peter and his monks, he who did not fear to kindle the flame of envy against the servants of God, who have nothing in common with the world, frequently bringing in, as we have likewise heard, assemblies of bishops, and disquieting the servants of Christ with daily threats; so that, the case being reversed, those whom the general oppression of the churches did not trouble, the peace of the Church seems to afflict. These words, however, are not to be understood as if the monks escaped every persecution unharmed: for, to pass over the martyrdoms of monks narrated by Victor of Vita, Victor, bishop of Tunnuna, relates others In Canisius, Antiquæ Lectiones, volume I, page 324, Basnage's edition. at the third consulship of the Emperor Zeno, the year 479: wrongly indeed, since the persecution of Huneric began only after the ordination of St. Eugenius of Carthage, in the year 481, as Dom Ruinart proves, On the Vandal Persecution, part II, chapter VII, number 10.

[24] delivered the monks from disaster. What he narrates as facts, however, are undoubted: Huneric, king of the Vandals, pressing the persecution excessively through all Africa, banishes to Tubunæ, Macri, Nippæ, and other parts of the desert, into harsher exiles, Catholics now not only priests and clerics of every order, but also monks and laymen, about four thousand, and makes Confessors and Martyrs, and cuts out the tongues of the Confessors. That these Confessors, their tongues cut out, spoke perfectly to the end, the royal City attests, where their bodies lie. No one will easily bring these texts into agreement, unless either the words of Boniface of Carthage are so understood that those whom the general oppression of the churches had less troubled the peace of the Church seemed to afflict more: or the same words allude to the last persecution, that of Thrasamund, which seems to have raged against the clergy alone. For the rest, Tabraca, whither the holy Martyrs had fled, had two monasteries, one of men, the other of women, as Victor relates: Tabraca, moreover, or according to Ptolemy with the aspirated letter Thabraca, is a town of Roman citizens of Numidia on the sea coast, between the rivers Armua and Tusca (Pliny, Natural History, book V, chapter III). Ptolemy calls it a colony; which things do not conflict with one another: for, says Stefano Morcelli Africa Christiana, volume I, page 293., many colonists were led into municipalities, especially soldiers who had completed their service, whom the Augusti had sent off with an honourable discharge.

[25] The holy Confessors, when found, are forced to rebaptism; As the Barbarian searched with inquiries and frequent bribes, what had been done (namely the flight of the slaves to the monastery) could not be concealed. Finding, therefore, slaves now not his own, but Christ's, he casts them into chains and persecutes the servants of God with various torments; dealing with them not only that they should be joined together, but, what is graver, that through the filth of rebaptism they should defile the ornaments of their faith. Victor of Vita, book I of the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter X. That the sacrilegious custom of rebaptizing flowed to the Arians from the Donatists is suspected by many learned men, whom Francesco Bianchini of Verona cites, On the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs Volume III, page 12.. For these, lest they should be said to be lurking for ever in a corner of Africa, tried to infect the Arians with their errors. Credence is lent to this opinion by what St. Augustine says in various places about the agreement of the Arians and the Donatists, Epistle XLIV, otherwise CLXIII Volume II of his Works, column 103.: Indeed, he says, since we had heard I know not when that the Arians, when they had dissented from Catholic communion, tried to ally the Donatists in Africa to themselves, brother Alypius suggested this very thing in my ear.

[26] which error from the Donatists He has similar things in book III against Cresconius the Donatist, chapter XXIV Volume IX of his Works, column 454., and in Epistle CLXXXV, otherwise L Volume II of his Works, column 643., the holy Doctor says that the Donatists were allied with the Goths or Vandals: That I may therefore briefly insinuate to your Love (to Count Boniface) *what difference there is between the error of the Arians and of the Donatists: the Arians say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

are diverse substances: but the Donatists do not say this, but confess one substance of the Trinity. If some of them have said that the Son is less than the Father is, yet they have not denied that He is of the same substance. Most of them, indeed, say that they believe altogether the same of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as the Catholic Church believes. Nor is the question itself at issue with them; but they unhappily litigate about communion alone, and by the perversity of their error exercise rebellious enmities against the unity of Christ. Sometimes, however, as we have heard, some of them, wishing to conciliate the Goths to themselves, when they see that these have some power, say that they believe what those believe. But they are convicted by the authority of their elders, since not even Donatus himself, of whose party they boast themselves to be, is asserted to have so believed.* The Donatists seem gradually to have turned aside from the doctrine of their elders and to have inclined to the Arian faithlessness, chiefly in order to conciliate to themselves the Goths, who, having occupied Spain, were already threatening Africa; it is easy therefore to conjecture that by a reciprocal effort they communicated their errors to each other, so that the Donatists confessed the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity with equivocations, and the Arians adopted rebaptism.

[27] seems to have been derived to the Arians. There are, however, those who think that the error of rebaptism was derived to the Arians from Eunomius; for the excerpts of Philostorgius that survive [Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius, volume III, page 523, edition of Henri de Valois, Amsterdam, year 1695.] attribute the beginning of the error to Eunomius: Ὅτι, φησιν, ὁι περὶ Ευνόμιον τοσοῦτον τὼν ἐιρημένων ἁιρέσεων ἀπεκρίθησαν, ὡς μήτε βάπτισμα ἀυτῶν, μήτε χειροτονίαν προσίεσθαι. The Eunomians, as Philostorgius writes, so greatly abhorred the heresies mentioned above (those of the Arians) that they admitted neither their baptism nor their ordination. From the words of Philostorgius Bencini, in the Notes to Anastasius' Lives of the Roman Pontiffs Bianchini, De Vitis Romanorum Pontificum, volume III, page 14., deduces that Eunomius promoted universally the rebaptism and reordination of all who came to him whether from the Catholic religion or from other sects. The text of Philostorgius treats only of the Arians, who were split into various opinions. Philostorgius therefore does not resolve the difficulty of rebaptism, especially since St. Augustine says in the book on Heresies Volume VIII of his Works, column 18.: We know that Catholics are rebaptized by these (the Arians); whether non-Catholics also, I do not know. The rebaptism of the Arians and of the Eunomians, therefore, seems not to have flowed from the same source; the latter excluded only the Arian baptism, the former excluded that of the Catholics in such a way that the holy Doctor doubted whether they excluded the sacrament of non-Catholics. What finally shows that Bencini's conjecture rests on a weak foundation are the deadly enmities which burned between the two sects, by the testimony of Philostorgius in the place cited, so that the one would not readily have wished to borrow anything from the other. More probable to me, therefore, is the opinion of those who refer the Arian opinion on rebaptism to communion with the Donatists: especially because that impious fury raged above all in Africa, occupied by the Vandals.

[28] The holy Confessors are subjected to various tortures, Among the Vandals, therefore, the chief mark of a deserted faith was to be rebaptized, as Victor shows here and there in his History. The Vandal therefore casts them into chains and persecutes the servants of God with various torments, dealing with them not only that they should be joined together, but, what is graver, that through the filth of rebaptism they should defile the ornaments of their faith. This very thing reached as far as the knowledge of King Geiseric, who ordered that the implacable master should afflict his slaves as long as they did not yield to his will. He orders stout cudgels to be made in the manner of saws, palmate as it were, with their stumps, which, as they struck the backs, should not only break the bones, but the boring prickles should also remain inside. And while the blood flowed out, and the flesh being torn apart, the entrails were laid bare, on the following day, Christ healing them, they were always restored unharmed. This was done very often and for a long time, and no traces of the blows were seen, the Holy Spirit repeatedly curing them. After this they are confined in a most harsh prison, and stretched in the cruel stocks. And since the frequent visiting of the servants of God was not lacking to them, in the sight of all, the strength of the huge timbers, rotting, was loosed. This miracle is both celebrated by the voice of all, and he to whom the custody belonged testified to us with an oath that it was so.

[29] but they are wonderfully healed. In the observations on the text of Victor below we explain what is to be understood by cudgels palmate as it were. Tillemont Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, volume XVI, page 529, note. says that two manuscripts refer these punishments to the four brothers, but not to Maxima, citing in the margin pages 156–157 of Dom Ruinart's edition of the History of the Vandal persecution. But the cited manuscripts, by the testimony of the praised Dom Ruinart, nowhere insinuate that Maxima did not undergo these punishments, but that she alone was cured by a miracle, then she alone confined in harsh custody and stretched on a cruel spike. This punishment is attributed to Maxima alone also by Lesson VI of the proper Office of the Saints of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, Antwerp, Plantin, year 1674. The variant reading arose from the corrupted adverb maxime, which the carelessness of a copyist had changed into Maxima. For After this they are confined in a most harsh prison, one or another substituted: After this Maxima is confined in a harsh prison. For the rest, the reading of Theodoric Ruinart is approved by Ado, who attributes the several punishments and the several healings both to the four brothers and to Maxima; and Usuard writes: Who, for the constancy of the Catholic faith, first beaten with knotted cudgels and torn to the bones, when they suffered such things for a long time, were restored unharmed on the following day… Maxima, Virgin, also suffered with them. Whence it sufficiently appears that both the sufferings and the prodigious healing are to be ascribed to all. Many miracles occur in Victor's History which are of such a kind that, having been done before a throng of people, they rest on such testimonies as exclude all prudent fear of the opposite error. Here the throng of Catholics is present, the confession of the guard himself is present, confirmed by the interposed sanctity of an oath: since all these things were written while the witnesses themselves were living, there is nothing that can be desired for their truth.

§ IV. The banishment of the holy Martyrs into the desert; their wonderful preaching, and death. Of St. Maxima.

The holy Confessors, deported into the desert of Capra Picta, The Saints, whom torments had not conquered, and whom God had vindicated from their enemies in the punishments inflicted, are banished into exile, Maxima excepted, who was restored to her liberty, into the desert of Mauretania which is called Capra Picta. No other notice of that desert occurs to me than what is found in Victor of Vita. That desert nevertheless seems to have been situated in inner Mauretania toward the south, since there, says Victor, the report of the Christian name had not before been spread by anyone. If the desert of Capra Picta had been in Mauretania, formerly subject to the Romans, it would be surprising that no neighbouring bishop had gone there or sent others to announce the gospel to these peoples. Some light might perhaps be shed on the topographical question by what Faustus of Buronia related to Victor of Vita about the miracles which God was working at the tomb of the holy Martyrs; if, namely, from the situation of the city of Buronia one could conjecture anything about the aforesaid desert: but there is in turn no notice of the city of Buronia except this place of Victor, which is quite uncertain: for Dom Ruinart, in the notes to Victor of Vita, number 39, suspects that Buconitanus or even Buritanus should be read for Buronitanus; from which it becomes manifest that this city, whatever it was, is altogether uncertain, so that from Buronia, Buconia, or Buria one may not divine the vicinity of the desert of Capra Picta; especially since Faustus himself could have been far away from his see, many bishops being then in exile, as Victor narrates, History of the Vandal Persecution, book I, chapter VII. From what has been said it follows that the conjecture of Theodoric Ruinart and Stefano Antonio Morcelli, who deduce from Victor's History that the city of Buronia was situated in Mauretania or on its borders, rests on a weak foundation. And this latter also, more probably by a slip of the pen, says that the memory of three Martyrs is venerated, although they were four, namely Martinian, Saturian, and their two brothers.

[31] they convert the inhabitants to the faith The Saints, as we have already said, had been led into a region where the report of the Christian name had not before been spread by anyone; they therefore announce Christ, and gain for Him a huge multitude of people. That they might be watered, however, with the shower of sacred baptism, a priest and ministers are asked for. I do not know what sort of observation Tillemont here inserts Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, volume XVI, page 531., as though the discipline of the Church had formerly been more severe in permitting the conferring of baptism by laymen than it is now; nor do I see what he is obliquely censuring. Meanwhile the doctrine of the Church concerning the validity of baptism duly conferred by anyone whatever has been constant, as Tertullian the African shows in the book on Baptism, chapter XVII Pamelius' Plantin edition, page 464., and the History of the boy St. Athanasius baptizing, which Rufinus, who died in the year 410, relates [Compare Acta SS. at the 2nd day of May, page 188, and Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire, volume VIII, pages 3 and 651.]. Constant too has been the discipline of the Church that, outside the case of necessity, it should be lawful for no layman to confer baptism. This only has been changed in the discipline of the Church, that bishops formerly baptized with solemn rite more frequently than priests or deacons. And if Tillemont wished to insinuate a variation of discipline of this kind, it is easily seen that the observation was inserted out of its place. The Martyrs, in order to procure for the Moors the grace of baptism, send envoys, says Victor of Vita, chapter XI, through the extended roads of the desert: at length a Roman city is reached: the bishop is asked to destine priests and ministers for the believing people.

[32] wherefore they ask for a priest from the city Cardinal Baronius, both in the Roman Martyrology and in the annotations subjoined to it at this day, and in the Annals at the year 456, § XIV, with whom Pagi agrees in the same place, § XI, in no way doubts that under the name of the Roman city comes Rome itself, and therefore concludes that the embassy was directed to the Pope. Cardinal Baronius deduces various consequences from this fact in the Annals in the place cited, first of all that our Martyrs were captives from the Roman City, and asked for ministers from whence they had come: or rather wished to seek the streams of Catholic doctrine from the most limpid source itself. It is established, moreover, that the bishops who were in Mauretania in these times were admonished by St. Leo, the Roman Pontiff, to keep the ecclesiastical observance. We have already seen in § I of this Commentary that the Martyrs were more probably not of the number of the Roman captives, which the most learned Annalist especially urges, who thinks they suffered in the year 456. Next, the letter of St. Leo, in which he rebukes not all but certain bishops of Mauretania Cæsariensis, precedes this year; for Rome having been taken in the preceding year 455 by Geiseric, he could, as Pagi says in the place cited, after that disaster establish and order nothing concerning the African Churches, because, as the cited Victor notes, after the death of Valentinian, who had possessed part of Africa, Geiseric

obtained the whole circuit of Africa. Wherefore no form of judgments, no order of priestly consecration, of which Leo speaks in that letter, could have been established there: and therefore it was written while Valentinian still possessed Mauretania. The deductions of Baronius, therefore, do not stand.

[33] living by Roman customs and faith. Whence others, among whom Stefano Antonio Morcelli in his Africa Christiana Volume III, page 173, at the year 439., interpret Roman city as one that is Catholic and living by Roman customs: the word Roman in Africa certainly admits both meanings. The former interpretation is proved by Victor of Vita, book I of the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter XIV: Theodoric, the king's son, wished to behead Armogastes; but Jocundus, an Arian priest, prevented it, saying: You will be able to kill him with various afflictions. For if you destroy him by the sword, the Romans will begin to proclaim him a Martyr. Where the Catholics are called Romans. St. Augustine affords us the other interpretation in Epistle XXXV, otherwise CLXIX, where he calls royal Hippo a Roman city; under which name it also comes in the same holy Doctor in book II against the letters of Petilian, chapter LXXXIII Volume IX of his Works, column 269.: So that the baker of a certain deacon of ours, a tenant of his landlord (domnædius, that is, the master of the dwelling, which word is opposed to the term tenant; compare Volume IV of his Works, column 323. the Enarratio on Psalm XXXVIII, number 21), threw away the unbaked bread, and denied him, though condemned by no law of exile, communion not only in the Roman city, but also in his own homeland; and not only in his homeland, but also in his own house. These forms of speech, taken from Africa itself, suffice that we are not compelled to interpret the Roman city as Rome itself, nor therefore that the embassy of which Victor treats in his History was directed to the Roman Pontiff. Next, since our Martyrs were more probably Africans, it is easy to conjecture that they sent envoys to African bishops; both because recourse was easier, and because seeking help from neighbours was more ready to hand. And if they had implored the aid of the Roman Pontiff, he would rather have sent a bishop than a priest Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, volume XVI, page 531.. The martyrdom that followed is sufficiently explained by Victor.

[34] St. Maxima, freed, seems to have lived St. Maxima, as is established from the same History, was not a sharer in the crown of the Martyrs. For after the punishments endured at the house of her former master, she was restored to liberty. She now, says Victor, book I of the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter II, writing in the year 487, survives a virgin, mother of many virgins of God, by no means unknown to us either. The year of her death, however, is hidden from us; since it is known only that in the year 487, in which St. Victor was writing, she was still alive. It is less doubtful that St. Maxima died in Africa, although some learned men in Gaul have tried to deny the matter and have devised that she ended her life in the diocese of Forum Julii (Fréjus), as we have from a manuscript letter of our Father Charles Fabre, directed from Avignon to Father Daniel Papebroch, and which is extant among the remains of the Bollandian manuscripts in the royal Burgundian library. Weak indeed are their opinions, which rest first on the silence of Victor about the place of St. Maxima's death; but by this very thing Victor sufficiently insinuates that she did not set foot out of Africa; for if she had sought a refuge in Gaul, Victor, who was best acquainted with African affairs, would neither have been ignorant of nor been silent about the holy Virgin's journey.

[35] in some monastery of Africa, The other thing that is objected is the testimony of Victor himself, who narrates in the Passion of the Seven holy Monks, § II (which is also joined by some to book V of the History of the Vandal Persecution), that in the seventh year of the reign of Huneric, the common year 484, the king ordered all the monasteries of men or of holy girls to be given to the gentiles, that is, to the Moors, with their inhabitants. Hence they deduce that St. Maxima, fearing for her chastity, sought a refuge: but at that time she was at least about fifty years old; Martinian had already undergone martyrdom twenty-four years before: nor do we ascribe to her too advanced an age if we assign her about twenty-five years when she was freed from slavery. Whether therefore the holy Virgin underwent a second, and that a Moorish, slavery, or even, if one pleases, hid herself, there is nothing that suggests a voyage to Gaul: but rather, Huneric having died in the year 484 and the persecution ceasing, St. Maxima may have gathered together the dispersion of the sacred virgins in some one of the desolated monasteries of Africa itself, where she made a holy end of living.

[36] and is wrongly held by some to be the sister of St. Augustine. There have also been some who suspected that our holy Virgin was the sister of St. Augustine, probably because according to the spirit she deserves to be called both daughter and sister of the holy Father. For as regards fleshly kinship, whoever devises for himself a bond of blood of this kind between St. Augustine and St. Maxima must necessarily overturn all chronological notions. For it is established from book III of the Confessions, chapter IV Volume I of his Works, column 90., that St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, bereaved of her husband Patricius about the year 370, remained in the purpose of widowhood: if therefore this sister had been born to her in that very year, Maxima would surely have been sixty years old when Africa was reduced to slavery: Victor could not then have said, book I of the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter X, that Maxima was then comely in body and in heart alike, and that Martinian desired marriage after the manner of worldly young men, and what follows. Moreover it would have to be added that St. Maxima reached at least 117 years of age, which, since it was to be held as a kind of miracle, Victor would by no means have passed over in silence. For the rest, I have found no trace of this most absurd opinion among the writers of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, who are nevertheless frequent in the praises of St. Maxima the Virgin, whom they deservedly count among the foremost women of the Order.

PASSION OF SAINTS MARTINIAN AND COMPANIONS.

From the History of the Vandal Persecution, book I, chapter X, of Victor of Vita, according to Ruinart's edition.

Martinian, martyr, in Africa. (S.)

Saturian, martyr, in Africa. (S.)

Their two brothers, martyrs, in Africa. Maxima, virgin, in Africa. (S.)

BHL Number: 5591

The Vandal joins his slaves Martinian and Maxima in marriage; But also there are proved to have been very many Martyrs ^a, and a huge and very numerous multitude of Confessors, of whom I shall try to narrate some. There were then slaves of a certain Vandal ^b. This Vandal was one of those whom they call Millenarii ^c. Martinian, Saturian, and their two brothers: there was also a certain fellow-slave of theirs, an excellent handmaid of Christ, named Maxima, comely in body and in heart alike. And because Martinian was an armourer, and seemed quite acceptable to his master, and Maxima ruled over the whole house, the Vandal thought, in order to make the said servants more faithful to himself, to join Martinian and Maxima in conjugal fellowship ^d. Martinian, after the manner of worldly young men, desired marriage: and Maxima, already consecrated to God, refused human nuptials.

[2] but she persuades her fellow-slave to chastity and flight: But when it came to the point that the secret silences of the bedchamber were entered, and Martinian, not knowing what God had decreed concerning him, wished with marital confidence to lie down as though with his wife, the said handmaid of Christ answered him with living voice: "To Christ, O brother Martinian, I have dedicated the members of my body, nor can I obtain a human marriage, having already a heavenly and true spouse. But I will give you counsel. If you will, you too can secure for yourself, while it is permitted, that you may delight to serve Him whom I have desired to marry." So it came to pass, the Lord providing, that the young man too, obeying the virgin, gained his soul. The Vandal, therefore, not knowing of the commerce of the spiritual secret, Martinian, pierced to the heart and changed, also persuaded his brothers to have in common, as being brothers, the treasure which he had found.

[3] discovered in the monastery of Tabraca, they are cruelly tortured, Converted therefore, with his three brothers, the girl of God also accompanying them, going out secretly by night ^e, they join themselves to the monastery of Tabraca, over which the noble shepherd Andrew ^f then presided. She, however, lived not far off in a monastery of girls ^g. As the barbarian searched with inquiries and frequent bribes, what had been done could not be concealed. Finding, therefore, slaves now not his own but Christ's, he casts them into chains and persecutes the servants of God with various torments; dealing with them not only that they should be joined together ^h, but, what is graver, that through the filth of rebaptism they should defile the ornaments of their faith ⁱ. This very thing reached as far as the knowledge of King Geiseric, who ordered that the implacable master should afflict his slaves so long as they did not yield to his will.

[4] and are wonderfully healed of the torture: He orders stout cudgels to be made in the manner of saws, palmate as it were, with their stumps ^k, which, as they struck the backs, should not only break the bones, but the boring prickles should also remain inside. And while the blood flowed out, and the flesh being torn apart, the entrails were laid bare, on the following day, Christ healing them, they were always restored unharmed. This was done very often and for a long time, and no traces of the blows were seen, the Holy Spirit repeatedly curing them. After this they are confined in a most harsh prison ^l, and stretched in the cruel stocks. And since the frequent visiting of the servants of God was not lacking to them, in the sight of all the strength of the huge timbers, rotting, was loosed. This miracle is both celebrated by the voice of all, and he to whom the custody belonged testified to us with an oath that it was so ^m.

[5] [the Vandal persecutor himself being punished with death, they are handed over to the Moors,] But when the Vandal neglected to recognize the divine power, an avenging wrath began to rage in his house. He himself dies, together with his sons; of his household and his animals, whatever were the best perish likewise. The mistress, therefore, remaining a widow, bereft of husband, sons, and substance, offers the servants of Christ as a gift to Sersao, a kinsman of the king. When he had received them with excessive gratitude, as having been offered to him, a demon began to agitate his sons and household with various disturbances, through the merit of the Saints. That kinsman suggests to the king in order how it had happened. The king at once decrees that they ought to be sent, to be bound, to a certain gentile king of the Moors, whose name was Capsur ⁿ. But Maxima, the handmaid of Christ, he, confounded and conquered, released to her own will ^o; who now survives a Virgin, mother of many virgins of God, by no means unknown to us either. Arriving, they are handed over to the said king of the Moors, who dwelt in a part of the desert which is called Capra Picta [p].

[6] whom they convert to the faith of Christ; The disciples of Christ, therefore, seeing many unlawful sacrileges of sacrifices among the gentiles, began by their preaching and conduct to invite the barbarians to the knowledge of the Lord our God; and in such a way they gained for Christ the Lord a huge multitude of gentile barbarians, where the report of the Christian name had not before been spread by anyone. Then thereupon they consider what should be done, that the field, already tilled and turned by the ploughshare of preaching, might receive the evangelical seed and be watered with the shower of sacred baptism. They send envoys through the extended roads of the desert: at length a Roman city is reached [q]: the bishop

is asked to destine a priest and ministers for the believing people. The pontiff fulfils with joy what was asked [r]: a church of God is built, a very great multitude of barbarians is baptized together, and from wolves a fruitful flock of lambs is multiplied.

[7] whence Genseric, angered, delivers them to death. This Capsur reports to Geiseric by his account. Envy rising on this account, he orders the servants of God, their feet bound behind the backs of running four-horse chariots, to perish together among thorny places of the woods; so that, dragged out and dragged back, the bodies of the innocent might be torn by the bushy prickles of the trees, being so bound that they might each see the end of the others. And when, bound, the untamed horses running, the Moors lamenting, they beheld one another [s], each in the narrow strait of the flight said farewell to the others thus: "Brother, pray for me; God has fulfilled our desire. In such a way the kingdom of heaven is reached." And so, praying and singing psalms, the Angels rejoicing, they sent forth their pious souls. Where even to this present day Jesus Christ our Lord does not cease to work great wonders. For the blessed Faustus, formerly bishop of Buronia [t], attested to us that a certain blind woman was given sight, where he himself was present.

ANNOTATA.

p. We have already said in the preliminary Commentary, number 30, that the situation of the desert of Capra Picta is unknown to us. Felix Papencordt Geschichte der Vandalen in Afrika, page 243., in his History of the Vandals in Africa, judges that Capra and Capra Picta are one and the same place; but he does not designate the situation more closely.

q. That by Roman city is here to be understood a Catholic city we said in the preliminary Commentary, number 32 and following; I shall add one thing, that in my opinion this becomes manifest from Victor's text itself; for he says: They send envoys through the extended roads of the desert: at length a Roman city is reached. Here, namely, there seems to be no other obstacle to reaching the Roman city than the stretches of the desert; without doubt, if Rome had had to be approached, the writer would not have omitted to narrate the perils of the sea.

r. That there is a variant reading here Theodoric Ruinart rightly observed. Rhenanus indeed agrees with our text, except that for construitur he has constituitur. First Colbert: What was asked was fulfilled with joy. A pontiff is ordained, etc. The other Colbert has almost the same; but Lorichius: He is filled with joy because of what was asked, the pontiff of God. A church is built, etc.

s. And when, bound, etc. Chifflet and three other printed editions: And when, the Moors running from nearby, they beheld one another: Farewell, etc. So also Ado seems to have read, who in the place already praised has thus: The untamed horses running nearby, farewell to one another, etc., saying nothing of the lamentation of the Moors. But also for the Moors lamenting, some codices have the Moors applauding. Either reading can be tolerated. For those barbarians, either because, as was said above, they had been converted to the faith, or from the natural compassion of all men, as has often happened elsewhere in the contests of the Martyrs, could hardly see men afflicted with so atrocious a punishment, especially since the Martyrs bore it so patiently. They could also applaud for the joy with which men most greedy of bloody spectacles and contests were wont to be affected. So Theodoric Ruinart.

t. From this place of Victor Stefano Morcelli Africa Christiana, volume I, page 110. thinks it is insinuated that there existed in Mauretania, not far from Tabraca, a city named Buronia, of which Faustus was bishop. But we said in the preliminary Commentary, number 30, that nothing can be drawn about the situation of this city from the presence of Faustus as eyewitness. Theodoric Ruinart notes that some write Faustinus for Faustus, and continues: Greater is the difficulty about the name of his see itself. Almost all have Buronitanus. Perhaps Buconitanus should be read. In the Conference of Carthage, chapter 198 Baluze, Supplement to Labbe's Councils, column 242., Donatus, bishop of Bucconia, was present on the side of the Donatists. Bucconia, moreover, was a city of Numidia: for among the bishops of this province Vitalianus Boccuniensis is listed in the African Notitia. The Anonymous of Ravenna, among the cities of Mauretania which he calls Gaditana, book III, number 2, mentions Turris Buconis. Was the bishop called Buconitanus from it? Further, the second Colbert, Lorichius, and others have Burtinitanus. There was present in the Conference of Carthage, chapter 133 Ibid., column 208., Donatus, bishop of the people of Burita; which city Noris, in his censure of Garnier, says was of uncertain province, although he suspects it belonged to the Proconsular, and was the very one whose bishop Cresciturus Busitanus subscribed the synodal letter in the Council of St. Martin, action II [Labbe, volume VI of the Councils, column 148. This letter, namely, written by Gulosus and the other bishops of the Proconsular Province to Paul, patriarch of Constantinople, was recited in the Lateran council in the year 649.]. But here Victor seems to have wished to indicate some bishop from Mauretania.