Felix

ON ST. FELIX, BISHOP AND, AS IS REPORTED, MARTYR, AT PISA IN TUSCANY,

AFTER THE YEAR DXLII.

HISTORICAL COLLECTION.

The Saint's announcement under a corrupted name; a few of his deeds from the Acts of SS. Regulus and Cerbonius; his cult; his martyrdom uncertain; the translation of his body to Pisa.

Felix, bishop and, as is reported, M., at Pisa in Tuscany. (S.)

Written by J. L.

In Sollier's Auctaria to Usuard on this day, from the Strozzian codex, immediately before St. Regulus, a certain Fidelis is thus commemorated: [Who in the Strozzian codex is reported under the name of Fidelis or Fidulis, and does not seem to be distinguished from him whom] Likewise of St. Fidelis the confessor, who was the companion of St. Cerbonius, bishop of Populonia, and rests near the same city, a man of great sanctity. On suspicion of a fault I inspected the transcript of the Strozzian codex which Sollier used, and in it I found "of St. Fidulis." Without doubt this writing is faulty; but how is it to be corrected? I believe that the name of St. Felix must be substituted, both because Fidelis or Fidulis is commemorated on this day by no other writer of the sacred Fasti, and most of all because no companion of St. Cerbonius, of whom we shall treat on the tenth of October, of this or that name is anywhere found among the biographers. All these constantly name Felix him who clung to SS. Regulus and Cerbonius when they fled into voluntary exile from Africa and lived in solitude near Populonia in Tuscany. Let the reader go to the Commentary on St. Regulus which I have just given. In paragraph 2, number 20, two sets of Acts of St. Cerbonius are praised, from the second of which, taken from Vatican codex 6453, I transcribed in §3, number 30 and following, among other things, that St. Regulus, taking to himself Cerbonius and Felix, two bishops whom he himself had consecrated, migrated into exile, and, having landed in Tuscany, began to lead an eremitical life and to have the service of Felix. St. Cerbonius lived with both; for in the other Life of him, which is extant in tome 3 of Ughelli's Italia sacra, enlarged by Niccolò Coleti, column 703, these things are reported of the three holy Men: And coming into the Roman borders, they claimed for themselves a fitting place, so that, all things being set aside, they might lead * an eremitical life for the best almighty God. Then, the martyrdom of St. Regulus being narrated in a few words, it is subjoined: But Cerbonius and Felix, most holy bishops, wondrously buried the corpse of their master and archbishop.

[2] In the Acts of St. Regulus, which have been published in §3 with the longer interpolations and digressions cut away, and the Acts of St. Regulus these things are set before the holy martyr's burial: And an angel of the Lord appeared to two of his fellow-bishops, Felix and Cerbonius, and announced to them the slaying of the blessed prelate, saying: Your Pontiff has been slain. And when he had said this, he vanished from their eyes. But they, with the Holy Spirit as their guide, went forth and found him sitting with his head cut off, raised within his hands before his breast, where, before he was beheaded, he was known to have sat. And they, saddened at his death but rejoicing at the perpetuity of his life, said: Why hast thou separated us from thy fellowship, most holy father? With thee we crossed the deep gulfs, with thee we endured the trials of the sea, hoping that wherever thou shouldst be, thou wouldst gather thy companions to thee. Thou in our absence hast been crowned with martyrdom: we, our father being taken away, are wearied in the straits of this world. Who will refresh us with spiritual food? Who will minister to us the admonitions of salvation? We pray thee to beseech our King, the Son of God, for us with thy accustomed voice, that he keep us not long after thee in this pilgrimage of exile. Rise, rise, most holy father, that in the place of thy will we may be able to bury thy body. Presently, raised up and bearing his head in his hands, he went as far as a stone's throw and rested, being delivered to burial.

[3] they call Felix: What is to be determined concerning the address of SS. Cerbonius and Felix to the headless body of St. Regulus, and concerning the miracle of the head carried by him, I have indicated in §2, numbers 19 and 21. At the beginning of §4 I endeavored to show that their exile is more probably to be referred to the later years in which the persecution of Trasamund, or of the Arians under him, raged against the Catholic Africans and especially the prelates. This had no end save with the death of the said king of the Vandals, which happened in the year 523. That the martyrdom of St. Regulus is more probably to be bound to the year 542 was shown in §5. Whence it is consequent that SS. Cerbonius and Felix lived at the least about nineteen years together with St. Regulus in the solitude near Populonia, of which city, long since destroyed, I gave notice in §1, number 3. After the holy martyr's burial Cerbonius left the desert, betook himself to Populonia, and stayed for some time with St. Florentius, at that time bishop of the city, of whom there was treatment on the fifteenth of May. Then, after his death, he was taken up by clergy and people to the chair of Populonia, as both his Acts testify. And although in these, after the burial of St. Regulus has been narrated, no further mention is made of our Saint, yet it is most verisimilar that he was not torn away from St. Cerbonius, whose companion in flight and fellow-dweller in solitude he had been for so many years; but that he came with him to Populonia, and there died and was buried. See how beautifully those things fit St. Felix which are reported in the transcript of the Strozzian codex concerning some Fidulis, I know not who, and in Sollier concerning Fidelis. Whence I strongly suspect that our Saint is announced in the said codex under a corrupted name on the first of September. The suspicion is increased by the fact that on this very day St. Felix also is venerated, as the testimonies just now to be produced make credible.

[4] That Pisa, a most celebrated city of Tuscany and formerly the head of a powerful republic of its own name, he is venerated at Pisa, where his body rests: we believe that he was a bishop; preserves and venerates the body of a certain St. Felix, Orlendi in the Sacred and Profane World, part 2, book 3, chapter 26, number 10, Giuseppe Martini in the Theater of the Pisan basilica, chapter 7, and others assert. But that the sacred body is that of none other than our St. Felix, and that the first of September

was destined for his veneration, I understand from the Notes of Florentinius on the announcement of St. Regulus: That on this day also St. Regulus with Felix the bishop, his companion, is venerated at Pisa in the cathedral, where their bodies rest, the same Ughelli affirms. Him indeed Florentinius presently corrects, but only in this, that he says the body of St. Regulus, in the possession of which the people of Lucca glory, rests in the Pisan basilica, which must be said to preserve only some relics of him. Philippo Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy subjoins this Annotation to the elogium of St. Regulus: On this day at Pisa, together with St. Regulus, Felix also, bishop and martyr, his companion, is celebrated, as appears from the Records of the church of Pisa; although where he suffered martyrdom is unknown: yet it is probable that Felix too was put to martyrdom under the same king Totila, and near Populonia, as was also Cerbonius his companion. On the credit of Ferrari, who praises the Records of the Pisan basilica, and of Florentinius, who praises Ughelli, I have granted a place to Felix in our Work: whom also almost all who have celebrated SS. Regulus and Cerbonius in their writings call holy. By the same he is also honored with the title of bishop: which, for the reasons alleged in the often-mentioned Commentary, §4, number 40, I judge should be left to him; although it is unknown over what church in Africa he presided. In the same place, at number 44, by the same effort by which I freed St. Regulus, I freed also the absence of SS. Cerbonius and Felix from their sees from every suspicion of fault which can arise from the difficulty objected by Tillemont.

[5] But what of the title of martyr, which is attributed to the Saint by Ferrari? [we assert nothing concerning his martyrdom; Ferrari's conjecture about it is weakened:] He is named confessor in the Strozzian codex, whose announcement, unless my opinion deceive me, treats of St. Felix. Those who believe him crowned with martyrdom can produce no other document than the Records of the church of Pisa, whose antiquity is unknown to me. Yet I judge that I have granted enough to their authority, in having called the Saint a martyr under a doubt; concerning whose passion both the Acts of St. Regulus and both sets of Acts of St. Cerbonius keep deep silence. Ferrari, following the tradition of the Pisans, says it is probable that he was put to martyrdom under Totila near Populonia, as was also Cerbonius his companion. He errs, if he means that the latter consummated it: Totila indeed, having ordered him to be brought to him, threw him to a monstrous bear to be devoured, but the beast, laying aside its ferocity, licked the holy man's feet; on seeing which, the king dismissed him free. Nor did this happen near Populonia, but in the place which, as St. Gregory the Great testifies in book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter XI, was called Merulae at the eighth milestone from this city, where Totila was then sitting with his army: and that the word "this" points to the city of Rome, where the holy Pontiff worked out his Dialogues, is the judgment of the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St. Maur, who published his Works and Life at Paris in the year 1705, tome 4, pages 116 and 201. With these I agree, because in Procopius's books on the Gothic war nothing occurs which makes it credible that Totila, after the year 542 in which St. Regulus suffered, came within eight miles of the city of Populonia; in whose territory I nowhere find among the geographers a place called Merulae. Moreover, even if it were beyond doubt that St. Felix died a martyr, I should more easily believe that he was slain by Gothic soldiers in the city of Populonia or its neighborhood, than that he was led by them together with St. Cerbonius to Totila, sitting with his army at Merulae: for since the praised St. Gregory describes, from the report of those who had been present, how there, in the sight of a great throng of people, St. Cerbonius was thrown to a bear by Totila and wonderfully preserved by God, he does not seem likely to have passed over in silence the martyrdom of his Companion, if he had consummated it at Merulae. Without doubt fame would have carried his contest to neighboring Rome.

[6] [the year of his death uncertain: it can be understood that Pisa has possessed his body for many centuries.] Further, if St. Felix was crowned under Totila, he did not prolong his life beyond the year 552, in which that king was cut down in battle against Narses. If he rested in peace with a holy end, he could have lived longer. Yet because he perhaps did not even attain the middle of the sixth century, I have noted his death above as after the year 542, in which it is certainly established that he was still living. When the Saint's body was translated to Pisa, I do not know. He is said in the Strozzian codex to rest near the city of Populonia: for he who is reported in it as the companion of St. Cerbonius does not seem to me to be distinguished from our Felix. Yet from this it does not follow that I must admit what is perhaps false, namely that the Pisans did not receive the sacred deposit before the fifteenth century: for although he who enlarged the Martyrology of Usuard in the said codex with the additions of Felix and of other Saints perhaps does not surpass the fifteenth century in antiquity; yet that document could have been most ancient in which he read that the Saint rests near Populonia. Since the author of the additions could easily have been ignorant that the sacred body was afterwards carried to Pisa, it ought not to seem wonderful that he transcribed unchanged what he found in the more ancient document.

* perhaps ducerent