ON SS. VALERINUS AND COMPANIONS: VALERINUS, SABINUS, VALERIUS, AND CHRYSAPHUS, MARTYRS,
COMMEMORATION.
Valerinus, martyr. (S.)
Sabinus, martyr. (S.)
Valerius, martyr. (S.)
Chrysaphus, martyr. (S.)
V. D. B.
Single §. Notice of these martyrs from Greek sources.
SS. Valerinus, Sabinus, Valerius and Chrysaphus, known only That we join these martyrs together is not because (as generally in the Hieronymian Martyrologies) they belong to one company or have anything else in common with one another than that they come on the same day in the sacred calendars; but because for us who are writing the condition of all of them is the same. For as to those holy martyrs who are honored in the Menaea by a bare distich only, but one by which their kind of death is designated, it has generally seemed to our predecessors that their Acts were once written and afterwards lost; and rightly; and thus we do not doubt that there once existed a Passion of St. Valerinus, likewise a Passion of St. Sabinus, and thirdly a Passion of SS. Valerius and Chrysaphus: for these last come conjointly. But those monuments have long since been lost; nor does anything appear anywhere by which either the places where they suffered are indicated, or the times when they flew away from these lands into heaven: so that it was somewhat doubtful whether we should banish these four names among the Passed Over. It pleased us better, however, to give them a better place; yet in such a way that one title be set before them.
[2] from the Greek calendars. Further, the memory of St. Valerinus or Valerinus is celebrated on this day only in the printed Menaea, with a little verse added, from which it is established that he, his head cut off, merited the crown of glory:
Οὐαλλερῖνος τὴν κάραν τμηθεὶς ξίφει Τομῆς βραχείας ὢ πόσα στέφη λάβοι!
that is, as Siber translated:
By iron the head of Valerinus now is struck: O what great rewards a brief cut brings!
Likewise the memory of St. Sabinus the martyr, who perished consumed by fire, as is plain from these little verses:
Εἰσδὺς τὸ πῦρ χόρευε, μάρτυς Σαβῖνε, Θείαν χορείαν, πρόξενον θείου στέφους!
You are cast, Sabinus, martyr, on the pyre: Dance for joy, girded with a heavenly crown!
And likewise the memory of SS. Valerius and Chrysaphus, martyrs, whom the following distich indicates to have consummated their confession by the sword:
Λίττοις ἀθληταῖς ἡ τιμωρία ξίφος Ἡγουμένοις τρύφημα τὴν τιμωρίαν.
Two martyrs are slain with the sword, for whom It was the highest pleasure so to die.
These last in the manuscript Greek Menology, which in our Acts is sometimes called that of Clermont, sometimes that of Sirmond, are called Valerian and Chrysaphius. More we do not know.