ON SS. VICTOR, ALEXANDER, AND MARIANUS, MARTYRS, AS IT SEEMS, AT NICOMEDIA,
PERHAPS IN THE YEAR 303.
SYLLOGE.
The holy martyrs are said in the ancient calendars to have suffered at Nicomedia; the Spaniards wrongly claim them for themselves.
Victor, martyr, at Nicomedia. (S.)
Alexander, martyr, at Nicomedia. (S.)
Marianus, martyr, at Nicomedia. (S.)
J. V. H.
The holy martyrs, according to the calendars, seem to be of Nicomedia; These holy martyrs occur on this day in the common Roman Martyrology, with no arena indicated or kind of death recorded, in these words: "On the same day, the passion of SS. Victor, Alexander and Marianus." Some light, although uncertain, is shed by the Hieronymian copies in Fiorentini. For there is read: "At Nicomedia, of Alexander." With which reading Rabanus and Notker [In Heinrich Canisius, Lectiones Antiquae, volume II, part II, p. 344, and part III, p. 181.] plainly agree in their sacred diptychs. In our Sollerius, among the Usuardine Auctaria, for example the greatest of Antwerp, that of Utrecht, of Leiden, of Louvain, the Danish, that of Brussels, etc., they say: "At Nicomedia, the birthday of SS. Victor, Alexander and Marianus." From these words it is in some measure clear that the Nicomedian martyr Alexander had Victor and Marianus as companions of his passion; nay, Peter de Natalibus, book XI, chapter CXXX, no. 293, calls Victor a bishop, without, however, bringing any testimony for this title. And since these saints come in the Hieronymian Calendars before the martyrs of Mauretania, who suffered about the year 304 (as it seems), it appears that their martyrdom preceded; nor do I find anything more probable than that it should be referred to the year 303, in which Diocletian issued the celebrated decree of persecution at Nicomedia.
[2] the Spaniards, deceived by the fictitious Julian, And these things said of the holy martyrs would suffice, had not certain Spaniards claimed them for themselves, who assign them to Beatia (Baeza). Juan Tamayo says on this day: "At Beatia in Spanish Baetica, of SS. Victor, bishop of Baeza, Alexander and Mutianus, citizens of this city, who, seized for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and afflicted with various tortures, came to the crown of martyrdom." In the notes further subjoined, Tamayo discusses whether St. Victor the bishop should be adjudged to the people of Braga, inasmuch as in some codices of Julian he is written "of Braga," but, this reading being rejected, he pronounces altogether for the people of Baeza. But the whole controversy has no other foundation than the Chronicle of Pseudo-Julian, archpriest of Toledo, namely a fiction of the sixteenth century verging toward its end Nicolás Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, volume II, p. 36 and following.. For the rest, the father of our work, John Bolland, had already scented the Spanish fables when he gives the reason why he does not make use of chronicles of this kind, then most celebrated, in composing his commentaries Volume I of February, Preface, p. XVII..
[3] claim the same for their homeland, I do not think, however, that what the cited Nicolás Antonio narrates in sheets formerly sent to the Hagiographers and preserved today in the royal library of Brussels Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Bruxelles, no. 8912. about the pretended invention of the bodies of the saints should be passed over in silence. "There is added," he says, "to the persuasion of the people of Baeza a great weight of authority from elsewhere, as the common people believe, from that time when Francisco de Bilcher, a Jesuit of the same city, communicated to his bishop and fellow-citizens the notice of certain martyrs of Baeza existing in the Chronicle of Julian, a manuscript copy of which he had received from Jerónimo de la Higuera, among which martyrs St. Victor, bishop, with his companions Alexander and Marianus, were read; the matter having been brought to the examination of many learned men, it was duly resolved that the bodies of these and other saints, which both the old tradition of the townspeople and signs of lights of different kinds seen there frequently by day and by night for many years past seemed to show were preserved and hidden in a certain tract of ground about the wall of the city, should be sought, God's help having been invoked and the earth dug out. To which religion and piety of the faithful wonderful outcomes responded, as is established from public documents of skeletons and bones found in the traces of furnaces, among ashes and coals, sometimes with instruments of martyrdoms and other indications of Christians consumed by fire by the Gentiles. Of which invention of holy relics, duly sanctioned, as public religion requires, by the Most Eminent Lord Baltasar de Moscoso y Sandoval, then prelate of Jaén and afterwards of Toledo, the historians of this Church of Jaén treat at length.
[4] but wrongly, as is shown; "None of these things, however, to which the credit justly due is shown by us, will be able to persuade that this Victor of whom we treat was bishop of Baeza, nor will the invention of his and his companions' bodies, among others, be established, unless first his credit is established for Julian, the author of the matter and on whom alone it rests: for a manifestation of a true thing could arise from a false one, and from the lies of Julian there could arise a pious confirmation of the ancient persuasion of the citizens of Baeza concerning martyrs who suffered in that place. And what prevents the fabricator of Julian from having been led, by this same persuasion which he knew to be alive down to these times, to think that he could, by summoning martyrs of other nations from elsewhere, as it were let in light upon a religion still obscure and groping in the darkness, which at other times it always believed? Of this thing the same author gave a clearer-than-daylight example in fabricating Dexter, after the leaden plates and other treasures of the Ilipulitan mount of the city of Granada had been dug out of the earth, mention of the whole matter and the ancient fact having been expressed by the mouth of Dexter." Thus far Nicolás Antonio, learnedly and solidly after his custom.
[5] they nevertheless obtain a cult in the diocese of Jaén. Whoever wishes, however, to read the Acts of these martyrs as they exist in pseudo-Julian will find them in the cited Tamayo on this day: but we have no leisure to print fables of this kind: if credit is given to these, our martyrs would have suffered under the Mohammedans about the year of Christ 740, as Tamayo works out. Nevertheless the church of Jaén recites the office of these martyrs, with no other foundation, as Enrique Flórez says España Sagrada, volume XII, p. 423. in his España Sagrada, than the testimony of pseudo-Julian; concerning which whoever desires to know more may consult the work of the often-praised Nicolás Antonio entitled Censura de historias fabulosas, written in the Spanish language Censura de historias fabulosas, obra póstuma de D. Nicolás Antonio..