ON THE HOLY BISHOP MARTYRS OF NUMIDIA: NEMESIAN AND FELIX AND LUCIUS AND ANOTHER FELIX AND LITTEUS AND POLIANUS AND VICTOR AND JADER AND DATIVUS, BISHOPS, AND OTHERS OF THEIR FLOCK, MARTYRS,
IN AFRICA
In the persecution of Valerian.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Nemesian, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Felix, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Lucius, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Felix, another of the name, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Litteus, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Polianus, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Victor, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Jader, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Dativus, Martyr in Africa (St.)
Other Martyrs in Africa
BY C. S.
§ I. Their memory in the Martyrologies; the sees of these Bishops,
who took part in the Council of Carthage under St. Cyprian.
Among the sacred athletes of Africa who, in the persecution of the emperor Valerian, gave illustrious testimony to the Christian faith, several Bishops and others from the flock committed to them have been inscribed in the Martyrologies on this day. The memory of the Saints The author of the Little Roman Martyrology, published by Rosweyde, went before the rest of the martyrologists, yet recording only the bishops on this day, and that briefly: In Africa, of the bishops Nemesian, Felix and seven others. Following him, Ado also set out the names of those seven, and moreover added others unnamed, out of the letter which St. Cyprian wrote to console and strengthen them, as we shall show in its proper place. Take Ado's words: In Africa, the birthday of the holy bishops Nemesian, Felix, Lucius; likewise of Felix, Liteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader and Dativus, who under Decius and Valerian, when the fury of persecution broke out, at their first steadfastness in confessing Christ were grievously beaten with cudgels, then bound with fetters and assigned to dig in the mines, and so completed the contest of a glorious confession. And a manifold portion of the people, following their example, confessed together with them and was crowned together with them. There survives a letter of blessed Cyprian written to them and about them.
[2] Usuard copied Ado at the same day, in the ancient Martyrologies: omitting, however, what the latter had added concerning their Companions from the people. But Baronius, judging that some correction should be used, announces them likewise on this day in the Roman Martyrology thus: In Africa, the birthday of the holy bishops Nemesian, Felix, Lucius, likewise another Felix, Litteus, Polyanus, Victor, Jader, Dativus and others; who under Valerian and Gallienus, when the fury of persecution broke out, at their first steadfastness in confessing Christ were grievously beaten with cudgels, then bound with fetters and assigned to dig in the mines, and so completed the contest of a glorious confession. From the whole context it is clear that Ado or Usuard lighted the way for Baronius here, and he cites both of them in his Annotations; yet he did rightly in rejecting the name of Decius and joining Gallienus to Valerian: for it was under these, and not under Decius, that that blessed company confessed Christ and was condemned to the mines, as will be manifest from what is to be said.
[3] There occurs also some variation, though a very slight one, in the names of two of the Bishops: the various readings of the names: for one of them, who is called Liteus by Ado and Littæus by Notker, is written Litteus in the Roman Martyrology; while the other, whom the said Roman Martyrology together with Notker calls Polyanus, is named Polianus by Ado. The Venetian edition of the Works of St. Cyprian of the year 1728 reads Litteus with Baronius, and so does Sollier's Usuard — although the latter warns that the codices vary a great deal in this name, for in some it is written Liteus, Liceus, Licteus and Luteus. We retain Litteus with Baronius and Sollier. The Venetian edition just mentioned has Polianus, as does the Bremen edition of the year 1690, and Ado and Usuard, whom we likewise follow. The larger Antwerp codex of Usuard in Sollier reads, wrongly, Menesianus for Nemesian, Jaredes for Jader, Greven Vader, and another again Lacius for Lucius: but these are to be despised and imputed to the drowsiness or error of the transcribers. Moreover, that all these are celebrated by the Church as martyrs is attested by Baronius, tom. 2 of the Annals, at the year 262, num. 37.
[4] In the most ancient Calendar of the church of Carthage, in Mabillon, tom. 3 of the Analecta, another Nemesian in the Carthaginian Calendar. p. 400, there is read: X… Kal. Jan., of St. Nemessianus; and he himself, in the same place at p. 418, thinks him the same as St. Nemesian, bishop of Thubunæ, who stands first in today's crown. He adds that it seems to him that this man survived the persecution and died in peace, on the ground that he is here given no title of martyr. But it is far more likely that in the Calendar just praised it is not our holy Bishop who is celebrated, but Nemesian the boy martyr, of whom, as then most widely known to all, St. Augustine makes mention in sermon 286, chap. 2, of the edition prepared by the Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maur. Nor is it any obstacle that the title of martyr is absent: for besides the fact that the title of bishop is also absent, Mabillon himself admits that in certain places of the same Calendar others too are noted without the laurel of martyrdom who are known from elsewhere to have been martyrs.
[5] In this company there were persons of various condition, age, and of both sexes. Among the letters of St. Cyprian, in the Venetian edition, there stands the 87th, from which Ado and the others learned both the names of these Bishops and their contest. St. Cyprian, himself at that time an exile for the faith of Christ, began it with these words: Cyprian to Nemesian, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, Dativus, his fellow bishops; likewise to his fellow presbyters and to the deacons and to the rest of the brethren set in the mine, martyrs of God the Father almighty and of Jesus Christ our Lord and God our Preserver, eternal salvation. Besides the nine Bishops, then, whom Cyprian addresses by name, some Presbyters also and Deacons were numbered in that blessed throng. And that by the rest of the Brethren are to be understood the Faithful of every age and sex, the Saint himself explains, when in the same letter, among other things, he addresses the Bishops in these words: Finally, a manifold portion of the people, following your example, has confessed along with you and along with you has been crowned, bound to you by the bond of the strongest charity, and separated from its own Prelates neither by prison nor by the mines. In whose number Virgins too are not lacking, to whose sixtyfold fruit the hundredfold has been added, and whom a double glory has advanced to the heavenly crown. In Boys also a courage greater than their years has passed beyond their age by the praise of confession, so that both sex and every age adorned the blessed flock of your martyrdom.
[6] An inquiry is made into the sees Furthermore these holy Prelates, before they were driven from their sees, took part in the Council of Carthage convened by St. Cyprian in the year 256 concerning the baptizing of those whom heretics had initiated by baptism; and St. Augustine refutes their opinions and reasonings in books 6 and 7 On Baptism against the Donatists. From this council, unless I am mistaken, Castellanus noted in the margin of his Universal Martyrology the see of each of the Bishops; but that reckoning is in some points not free from the danger of error. For since among our holy Bishops only two Felixes occur, while in the acts of the said council six of the same name, bishops of just as many different sees, are read to have given their opinion — namely, Felix of Bagai, Felix of Uthina, Felix of Amacorra or Bamacurra, Felix of Mazarana, Felix of Buslaceni, Felix of Gurgites — whence did Castellanus learn that of the two the one was of Bagai and the other of Uthina? Four Lucii too were present at the same council: the first of Castra Galbæ, the second of Theveste, the third of Membresa, the fourth of Ausafa. Likewise three Victors are to be found in the same, namely of Gor, of Assuras, and of Octavum. Yet he assigns Membresa as the see of our Lucius and Assuras as that of Victor. This is not, however, wholly without probability: for he did it, I suppose, because in several copies of the said council the title of Confessor is read attached to Lucius of Membressa and to Victor of Assuras; on which matter see what is to be said at num. 21. About the rest there is less doubt, since no others of the same names are read to have attended the aforesaid synod twice over. Further, Nemesian is there written as of Thubunæ, Litteus of Gemellæ, Polianus of Mileum, Jader of Midila, Dativus of Badæ.
[7] of these Bishops, It is uncertain whether Thubuna — or, as it is read in others, Tubuna — was in the province of Numidia or in Mauretania Cæsariensis: for in the Notitia of the provinces and cities of Africa, published by Theodoric Ruinart in the History of the Vandal Persecution, Reparatus of Tubunæ is reckoned among the bishops of the province of Numidia, and then, among the sees of Mauretania Cæsariensis which at that time had no bishops, the see of Tubunæ is reckoned. Christopher Cellarius, in the Notitia of the ancient world, book 4, chap. 5, places Gemellæ in Numidia on the authority of the Itinerary of Antoninus, where it is set between Nova Petra and Sitifis; yet in the same place he mentions also another town of the same name. The same author shows that Mileum, where Polianus had his chair, is not to be distinguished from Milevum, a city of Numidia famous for the episcopate of St. Optatus. That Midila too, over which Jader presided, was in Numidia we learn from the Notitia of the African church just praised, in which Florentianus of Midila is named among the bishops of Numidia. In the same province likewise the see of Badæ seems to have been, and one of the two which
is called Vadensis in the aforesaid Notitia. For that there was a twofold episcopal city of that name in Numidia is plain from this, that in the same place Rufinianus Vadensis is read in the seventh place, and Proficius Vadensis in the hundred and seventeenth. The sees of the rest, as I have observed, cannot be determined, and therefore it is of no use to search out their situation either.
[8] Those matters which concern the said Council of Carthage who, the peace of the Church being unbroken, will have to be cleared up on the XIV of September, in St. Cyprian, to whom the case more nearly belongs. In the meantime the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Stephen I, Pope and martyr, elucidated on the 2nd day of August, may be consulted; out of which I observe here only this, that neither St. Cyprian nor our holy Bishops were ever cut off by St. Stephen, on account of that controversy, from his communion, that is, from the communion of the holy Roman Church. Wherefore I do not sufficiently grasp what Baillet means when he writes thus of St. Cyprian and his fellow Bishops at the present day: Although Pope Stephen had on that account broken the peace with them, they did not cease to keep it with all the churches, and remained inviolably in their communion.
[9] If by these words Baillet means that the said holy Prelates, although St. Stephen rebuked them vehemently and even restrained them with just threats, were nevertheless not separated from his communion and thereby from that of the universal Church of Christ, took part in the Council of Carthage. he is right. But if he supposes that these same Saints, excommunicated by St. Stephen, remained in the communion of all the churches, he is deceived: because they were neither cut off from his communion, nor, had they been cut off, would they have persevered in the communion of the Church of Christ. But these things, as I have said, will be able to be shown at greater length in the Acts of St. Cyprian, and have in part been shown already in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Stephen, in §4, num. 34 of which the Bishops who had held with Cyprian are said, on the authority of St. Jerome, to have retracted their opinion by a new decree. It is worth setting out here the very words of St. Jerome from his letter against the Luciferians. Those very bishops, he says, who together with him (St. Cyprian) had decreed that heretics must be rebaptized, returning to the ancient custom, issued a new decree.
§ II. The Acts of the Saints, from the letter of St. Cyprian to them, and from theirs to St. Cyprian.
[ ] They are condemned to the mines Of the deeds of these Prelates, and of the rest who confessed Christ along with them, we have nothing besides what St. Cyprian records in the letter addressed to them, which for that reason Surius published in place of the Acts at this day of September, and which is the 77th of the Venetian edition of the year 1728. From this letter we learn that this blessed company was condemned to the mines at the same time when St. Cyprian was in exile in the town of Curubis. For thus he himself began the letter in question: Your glory indeed demanded, most blessed and most beloved Brethren, that I myself should come to the sight and to the embrace of you, were it not that I too, banished for the confession of the Name, am confined by the bounds of an appointed place. Now it is established from the authentic proconsular Acts of St. Cyprian, produced by Baronius, tom. 2 of the Annals at the year 260, that he was banished and suffered under Valerian and Gallienus. Hence Ado and Usuard are to be corrected, who, as we saw above, referred the contest of our Saints to the reign of Decius and Valerian, although they say that St. Cyprian suffered under Valerian. Yet that manner of speaking which Ado and Usuard employed in the first place is not altogether unusual, as may be seen in the said Baronius at the year 253, num. 141 and 142, where he attempts to resolve this difficulty, which occurs in many Acts and Calendars.
[11] in the year 257 or 258. St. Cyprian was sent into exile by the proconsul Paternus, in the fourth consulship of the emperor Valerian and the third of Gallienus, on the third of the Calends of September, as his Acts have it. Baronius in the Annals attached these consulships to the year of Christ 260; but that they are to be bound to the year 257 may be seen in Pagi's Critica and in others. Further, we have it from the same Acts that the same Saint was crowned with martyrdom on the XIV day of September of the year next following: whence it is manifest that the said letter of Cyprian was written to the holy Bishops and the rest of the Confessors between the XXX day of August of the year 257 and the XIV of September of the year 258. Then, from the letters which the said Saints sent to Cyprian in reply, we learn that they confessed Christ before the tribunal after him, and thus after the XXX of August. For thus write SS. Nemesian, Dativus, Felix and Victor, in the seventy-eighth among the Cyprianic letters: Like a good shepherd and teacher, you first declared before the acts of the proconsul what we your disciples, following you, ought to say before the governor; and sounding the trumpet you roused the soldiers of God, furnished with heavenly arms, to the battle of the encounter, and fighting in the front line you slew the devil with the spiritual sword, etc. Similarly St. Lucius and the others with him say, in letter 79: Before our passion we were called forth by you to glory, you who first afforded us leadership to the confession of the name of Christ. And we, following the footsteps of your confession, hope for a grace equal with yours: for he who is first in the course is first also at the prize, etc. From these things, then, we have it that their confession and condemnation are to be fixed between the aforesaid limits.
[12] St. Cyprian, in the letter written to them, But what the Saints suffered let us hear from the said letter of St. Cyprian, which he sent to them for their consolation by the hand of Herennianus the subdeacon and of Lucian, Maximus and Amantius the acolytes. Can I possibly be silent, he says, and press down my voice in silence, when I learn things so many and so glorious of my dearest ones, with which the divine condescension has honoured you: so that part of you has already gone before by the consummation of its martyrdom, to receive from the Lord the crown of its merits; while part still tarries in the bars of the prisons, or in the mines and in chains, offering by these very delays of punishment greater lessons for the strengthening and arming of the Brethren, advancing by the slowness of the torments to fuller titles of merit, and destined to have as many rewards among the heavenly prizes as it now counts days among its pains. And so, when St. Cyprian wrote these things, some out of that blessed flock had already been crowned with martyrdom, put to death either by the torture of torments, or in the pits of the mine, or in prison. Then, running out into the praises of the Bishops, he ascribes to their merits the glory of confession and of a long martyrdom.
[13] And these things, he says, most valiant and most blessed Brethren, the virtues of the Bishops I do not wonder to have befallen you according to the merit of your religion and faith, that the Lord has thus advanced you to the lofty summit of glories by the honour of His own manifestation — you who have always flourished in His Church with the tenor of the faith kept, firmly preserving the Lord's commandments: innocence in simplicity, concord in charity, modesty in humility, diligence in administration, vigilance in aiding those who labour, mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, censure in the severity of discipline. And lest anything for the example of good deeds should be wanting in you, now also by the confession of your voice and the suffering of your body you call forth the minds of the brethren to divine martyrdoms, showing yourselves leaders of virtue; so that while the Flock follows its shepherds, and imitates what it sees done by its Prelates, it may be crowned by the Lord with equal merits of obedience.
[14] After these things he goes on thus concerning their torments: and their sufferings and those of the rest But that you were first grievously beaten with cudgels and afflicted, and by such punishments began the glorious first-fruits of your confession, this is no thing for us to abhor. For the Christian body did not shudder at cudgels, whose whole hope is in wood. The servant of Christ recognized the sacrament of his salvation: redeemed by wood unto eternal life, by wood he has been advanced to the crown. And what wonder if you, vessels of gold and silver, were given over to the mine, that is, to the dwelling place of gold and silver — save that now the nature of the mines has been reversed, and the places which before were wont to give gold and silver have begun to receive them? They have also laid fetters upon your feet, and bound your happy limbs and temples of God with infamous chains, as though the spirit were bound together with the body, or your gold could be stained by the touch of iron. To men dedicated to God and testifying to their faith with religious virtue, these are ornaments, not chains; nor do they couple the feet of Christians to infamy, but glorify them unto a crown. O feet happily bound, which are loosed not by a smith but by the Lord! O feet happily bound, which are directed on the way of salvation to paradise! O feet bound for the present in the world, that they may be free with the Lord for ever! O feet for the while lingering amid fetters and cross-bars, but soon to run swiftly to Christ by a glorious road! Let envious cruelty or malice here hold you as long as it will in its bonds and chains, quickly will you come from these lands and pains to the kingdoms of the heavens.
[15] In the mines the body is not cherished with bed and cushions; he sets out the hardships in the pits. but it is cherished with the refreshment and consolation of Christ. The frame, wearied with labours, lies upon the ground; but it is no punishment to lie down with Christ. The limbs, without baths, are squalid, deformed with grime and filth; but that which is outwardly soiled in the flesh is inwardly washed in the spirit. There the bread is scanty; but man does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Clothing is lacking to the shivering; but he who has put on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned. The hair of a half-shorn head bristles; but since the head of the man is Christ, whatever befits that head must needs be seemly, since it is distinguished on account of the Lord's name. All this deformity, detestable and foul to the heathen, with what splendour shall it be requited! With what reward of bright and eternal honour shall this worldly and brief punishment be exchanged, when, according to the word of the blessed Apostle, the Lord shall have transformed the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of His brightness! But neither in this, most beloved Brethren, can any loss of religion or of faith be felt, that there is now no opportunity given there to the priests of God of offering and celebrating the divine sacrifices. Nay rather, you celebrate and offer to God a sacrifice both precious and glorious, and one that will profit you greatly toward the recompense of heavenly rewards; since the divine Scripture speaks and says: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise. The rest, wherein he exhorts the Saints to constancy by the hope of eternal glory, I pass over.
[16] The Saints, to Cyprian There survive three letters written in reply to this letter of St. Cyprian. The first, which among the Cyprianic letters of the same Venetian edition is the 78th, was written by SS. Nemesian, Dativus and Victor; and from it we learn that not only letters, but also gifts, by which they might bear their want more easily, had been sent by Cyprian. But lest anyone should suppose that St. Cyprian described their punishments and hardships from conjecture alone, it will be useful to set out some things from the said
letter of the Saints. They give you, then, they say, together with us who are condemned, the greatest thanks before God, most beloved Cyprian, because by your letters you have refreshed our labouring breasts, healed our limbs wounded with cudgels, loosed our feet bound with fetters, evened out the hair of our half-shorn heads, lighted up the darkness of the prison, brought down the mountains of the mine to a plain, set fragrant flowers even to our nostrils, and shut out the foul smell of the smoke. And your ministry, and that of our most beloved Quirinus, which you sent to be distributed by Herennianus the subdeacon and by Lucian and Maximus and Amantius the acolytes, has also brought it about that whatever was lacking to the needs of our bodies has been supplied. Thus far there.
[17] answer with three letters: whence we learn The second letter, which in the same edition is the seventy-ninth in number, is inscribed in this manner: To Cyprian, brother and colleague, Lucius and all the Brethren who are with me, greeting in the Lord; and it embraces nearly the same matters as the first. The third, finally, which follows immediately upon the former, has this beginning: To Cyprian, most dear and most beloved, Felix, Jader, Polianus, together with the presbyters and all who dwell with us at the Siguan mine, eternal salvation in the Lord. From this last we learn the place of the exile and of the long martyrdom of the Saints — either of all of them or at least of some — although it is not sufficiently established where those Siguan pits were situated. The most eminent Baronius, tom. 2 of the Annals, at the year 260, num. 42, writes thus of these matters: The place into which they (the Confessors) were deported was called the Siguan mine, otherwise the Sigan, near Siga, a city of Mauretania Tingitana, situated over against Malaca in Spain. For it was from the Sigan mine that they wrote to Cyprian, as the inscription of the letters which they delivered to him indicates: for very near to Siga were the mountains called Chalcorichian, at which were the copper pits which Strabo mentions. So Baronius; but John of Chester, in the Cyprianic Annals, prefers the conjecture of Holstenius, who, by his own testimony, thinks those pits were Siguian or Siguitan and belonged to Siguita, which was an episcopal see in Numidia. The matter is uncertain: I observe only this, that the city of Siga, which, as Baronius has it, was of old in Mauretania Tingitana, was afterwards added to Mauretania Cæsariensis, where Cellarius places it, Ancient World tom. 2, book 4, chap. 6.
[18] From the same letters we learn, secondly, that these illustrious Confessors were more probably banished to various pits, or at least separated from one another's company: that they were separated from one another. for otherwise they would seem to have been about to answer Cyprian not with three distinct letters, but with one and the same. Nor does it matter that he addressed only one letter to them all; for he himself may have been ignorant of this, or, if he knew it, may have charged Herennianus, Lucian, Maximus and Amantius to see to it that his letter was carried to all of them, wherever they were. Thus, then, that blessed throng of the Faithful seems to have been divided, so that Nemesian, Dativus, Felix and Victor laboured with some part of the sacred flock in one pit, Lucius with another company in a second, and in a third, finally, the other Felix, Jader and Polianus with the rest. The name of Litteus alone is wanting in the letters of reply: whence there is a suspicion that he had either by then been already crowned with martyrdom, or was being kept in prison or in some other place further removed from the rest.
[19] These are the things which we know of these holy Martyrs; It is probable that at least some of them by what kind of death, or in what year, they consummated their martyrdom, I have found nowhere handed down to memory. It is altogether likely, however, that if not all, at least the chief of them were put to death. For that such was the savagery of the persecutors that those whom they had first punished with exile they afterwards summoned to execution, we have from the genuine Acts of SS. Agapius and Secundinus and their fellow Numidian martyrs in the same persecution, which, composed by an eyewitness, my predecessors set forth at the day XXX of April. Nor was the madness of cruelty exercised upon these alone, says the author, who in the earlier persecutions lived unshaken and freely for God; but the devil stretched out his insatiable hand also upon those whom, long since removed into exile, the fierce madness of the governor had crowned as martyrs, if not yet in blood, yet in mind. We have an exactly similar example in St. Cyprian, who, summoned from his exile at Curubis, was beheaded.
[20] Hence the most eminent Baronius, at the year 262, were put to the supreme punishment. num. 37, takes up the cited words thus: Since the author writes that confessors condemned to exile were recalled to martyrdoms, from this you may understand that those are rightly celebrated as Martyrs by the Church whom the ecclesiastical records hand down as sent away to the mines and also crowned with martyrdom; to whom are extant the letters of Cyprian recounted above. Not quite rightly, therefore, did Tillemont, tom. 4 of the Monuments, in St. Cyprian, art. 56, citing this passage of Baronius in the margin, grasp the mind of the Most Eminent, when he says of our Saints: The blows of cudgels and the labours of the pits suffice for them to earn the title of martyrs; for Baronius maintains that they are honoured by the Church with this title. Indeed it may also be the case, as he observes, that afterwards, as befell many others too, they were recalled to undergo the supreme punishment. Not rightly, I say, did he grasp the mind of Baronius: for the latter does not infer from the blows of cudgels or the labours of the pits alone that they are rightly honoured by the Church as martyrs, but from this, that the ecclesiastical records hand down that they were also crowned with martyrdom; and he confirms what those records say from the aforesaid Acts of SS. Agapius, Secundinus and their Companions. I confess, nevertheless, that such labours of the pits do suffice, if the confessors die of the hardships of them, as we have from our most holy Lord Benedict XIV, book 3, chap. 12, of the learned Work on the beatification of the Servants of God and the canonization of the Blessed, which he published of old as a Cardinal, and afterwards, being now Supreme Pontiff, revised and enlarged.
[21] The titles of Martyr and of confessors given to some: For the rest, in the Council of Carthage so often mentioned, in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Councils, some are read to have subscribed with the title of martyr or of confessor, and among these indeed: Confessor and martyr Jader of Midila; likewise another confessor, Lucius of Membressa; another Confessor, Victor of Assuras; the confessor Licteus of Gemellæ. The same things are had in the Bremen edition of the Works of St. Cyprian, and also in Hardouin's Collection of the councils; yet he notes that in his own Ms. the words Confessor and martyr are not appended to Jader. But in the Venetian edition of the same Works of Cyprian none of the said titles is to be read; and St. Augustine likewise did not employ them, in the Basel edition, books 6 and 7 On Baptism against the Donatists, where he confuted the opinions of each. However that may be, these titles seem to have been added afterwards, unless someone should hold that those Bishops confessed Christ in the preceding persecution of Decius and suffered certain things on that account: and on that supposition, by what reasoning St. Jader could be called a martyr may be consulted in the said Work of our Most Holy Lord Benedict XIV, book 1, chap. 2, num. 7, and book 3, chap. 12, num. 10.
[22] the year and day of their death unknown. Finally, from what has been said thus far it is clear, first, that in this blessed company of Confessors or Martyrs there were, besides the nine Bishops, others who were Presbyters, others Deacons, others again laymen, and of both sexes and of various ages, but whose number cannot be determined. It is clear, secondly, that it is wholly uncertain in what year all these, or some of them, consummated their martyrdom, whether in the pits of the mine or by the supreme punishment: wherefore they seem to be venerated on the same day for no other reason than that they are read to have been condemned to the mines together.