ON SS. FELIX AND REGULA AND EXUPERANTIUS, MARTYRS AT ZURICH IN SWITZERLAND,
FELIX, AND REGULA THE VIRGIN, AND PERHAPS EXUPERANTIUS.
At the end of the III century or the beginning of the IV.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Felix, M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
Regula, V. M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
Exsuperantius, M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
BY C. S.
§ I. The memory of the Saints Felix and Regula in the Martyrologies: whether Exuperantius is to be joined to them: they suffered in present-day Switzerland, not in Spain.
[ ] These two Martyrs of Christ, first of all the classical martyrologists, Wandelbert about the middle of the IX century inscribed in the sacred Fasti, when in his metrical Martyrology he sang thus at this day: The memory of SS. Felix and Regula
Hence Protus and his brother Hyacinth honor the third day, Who taught Eugenia likewise the consecrated law. These same days Felix too consecrated by a happy death, Together with the holy and blessed martyrdom of Regula.
More at large B. Notker, a martyrologist of the same century, treats of them, and at the same time at this same day instructs us of the condition, race, time and place of the Martyrs' contest. Receive his words: The birthday of the holy martyrs Felix and Regula his sister; whose festival, because it is solemnly venerated among us, and the record of whose passion is known to many, it does not seem to me needful to add writings to writings.
[2] Let it suffice to say this only, that the aforesaid Martyrs, out of the fellowship of Maurice and his companions, making their way through the wastes of the desert their memory which is called Darona, came into the parts of Germany, and, halting at a certain place beside the river Limmat, gave themselves to vigils and prayers with all zeal of piety. While these things were being done by the most holy German men, there arrive messengers sent by the most impious Maximian, either to compel the Saints of God to sacrifice to idols, or not to delay to punish them with various torments. The blessed Martyrs therefore, confidently resisting the sacrilegious demands, and confessing themselves companions of SS. Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus and Victor, are bound upon iron wheels white-hot with fire, and are moreover tortured with unspeakable torments. And the most blessed Regula was set upon boiling pitch; to whom also boiling lead was by the executioner ordered to be given to drink. And when by no bitterness of punishments they could be torn away from Christ, their heads were ordered to be cut off. Which being done, the beheaded Martyrs, carrying their severed heads in their own hands, bore them fifty cubits from the place where they were beheaded. Thus Notker; where he seems to have learned these things we shall examine below.
[3] The same are mentioned also by the Gellone Martyrology, in the sacred which d'Achery published in vol. 2 of the Most Ample Collection of Ancient Writers, and thought to have been written about the year 804. This at the present day has, among other things, thus: At Lyons, of Patiens , of Felix Mart., of Regula. But the first of these belongs to Lyons alone; and d'Achery himself notes there that in a certain codex of S. Gall in Switzerland, from which he had received variant readings excerpted, the last words are read thus: And in the castle of Thurigum, the birthday of holy Felix with his sister holy Regula. In the Murbach Martyrology, published in vol. 3 of the Thesaurus Anecdotorum by Martène, and which he judged to be nine hundred years old, Regula alone, with the laurel of virginity, and as to the arena of her contest no less obscurely, is announced in these words: At Rome, of Porthus , Jacinthus, Candidus, Regula the virgin. Nevertheless that our holy Martyr and her companion Felix suffered in Switzerland, if anything in their whole Acts is true, we cannot doubt.
[4] Fasti; They are read as inserted also in various Auctaria of Usuard in our Sollerius, in all of which Switzerland or Alemannia is designated as the arena, or it is wholly omitted. It will suffice to have produced one or two. The Rosweyde codex has briefly thus: Of Felix the martyr, and of his sister Regula, virgin and martyr. More at length the codices — one of Utrecht, that of Leyden, that of Aalburg, and the Danish: At Turegum, the birthday of the holy martyrs Felix and Regula his sister, of the company of the Thebans. Whom Decius the governor, by order of the emperor Maximian, first afflicted with divers torments, and at last commanded to be executed with the sword. Like things our manuscript Florarium has, which binds their martyrdom to the year 290. I pass over the Martyrology ascribed to Canisius, and Ferrari's General Catalogue, in which nearly the same may be read.
[5] To these two S. Exuperantius But the Hagenau codex among the Usuardine auctaria adds a third to the two Martyrs, Exsuperancius, announcing them in these words: At Turegum, the passion of the holy martyrs Felix and Regula his sister, and of Exsuperancius. Who after the wheels (read: wheels) of white-hot iron and long imprisonments and other afflictions, after the trial of pitch and boiling lead, heard the Lord calling them in this voice: Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom, etc.; and not long after, at the command of Decius the governor, they were beheaded; and then, after an hour, the bodies of the Saints raised themselves up, and took up their own heads, and carried them forty cubits, and there rested. In which place Charlemagne the faithful established a college of canons, and afterward Louis his son built a monastery of nuns. The same companion in martyrdom and burial Matthäus Merian joins to them in the Topography of Switzerland, p. 15, where he writes this of Zurich: Among the churches there is seen there the Great Minster, or the church of the provostship of the holy Felix and Regula, which was the first and most ancient parish church, held such from the very beginning and down to the times of the first Frankish kings, and before the reign of Charlemagne (who in the year DCCCX endowed it more richly) was called the Burial-place of the holy Felix, Regula and Exuperantius, who there, perhaps about the year CCCVI, were crowned with martyrdom by Decius. There comes in besides Franz Guillimann, On the Affairs of the Swiss, bk. 3, chap. 6, writing thus: Of one who afterward made mention of Glarus, I should believe that the first was Florenicus in the Life of Felix and Regula. For when the emperor Maximian had ordered the destruction of the Theban legion at Agaunum, not a few of that legion were scattered here and there.
[6] Felix with his sister Regula and Exsuperantius, crossing the Valais, is by many added by the mountain named Furka, and by the wilderness of Ursern, came down into Uri; where, when they had called not a few to better sacred things, having surmounted those mountains which are called Marck, or the Boundary mountains, and which divide the two territories, they went down (he reports) into the region of the Glarners, which even at that time was exceedingly waste and untilled. That they took possession of a hill near the village of Glarus, and of a cave in it, and held it, where even now their handwriting is shown in letters drawn upon the rock. That on the same hill they set a chapel sacred to the divine Michael the archangel. Thence, when nearly all the inhabitants had been converted to Christ, that they set out for Zurich, and underwent martyrdom. Thus indeed Florenicus, of whom we shall speak below.
[7] Likewise Heinrich Murer, a Carthusian of Ittingen, in the Helvetia sacra, p. 55 and following, affirms without hesitation that S. Exuperantius was the servant of SS. Felix and Regula, companion of their martyrdom and the companion of their life led among the Swiss and of their martyrdom and burial. As to the fellowship of burial, the Brussels manuscript Additions to the Usuard of Greven also agree, in which, after these words of Greven: At Turegum in Alemannia, of the holy martyrs Felix and Regula his sister, of the sacred legion of the Thebans, whom Decius the prefect, by order of the emperor Maximian, having afflicted them with divers punishments, commanded to be executed with the sword, there is read in the margin: They rest at Surih with holy Exuperantius. Of the same likewise Christoph Hartmann makes mention in the Annals of the Hermitage of the Mother of God in Switzerland, p. XI, writing thus: About the same time Louis king of Germany, son of the Pious emperor, built at Zurich — a noble town at that time by the memory and veneration of the glorious martyrs DD. Felix and Regula and Exsuperantius — a monastery of nuns.
[8] To these is added Stumpf, bk. 6, chap. 3 of the Chronicle of Switzerland, a companion; but on account of the silence of Notker, where, treating of the church erected at Zurich over the tomb of the Martyrs, and enlarged and endowed by Charlemagne, he observes the following: This church, even before Charles's times, was called the Burial-place of the holy Martyrs; for Felix, Regula and Exuperantius were there crowned with martyrdom by Decius under the empire of Diocletian, perhaps about the year of Christ CCCVI. These things certainly persuade that S. Exuperantius is to be joined to the other two. But there stands not a little in the way of our holding this for certain, namely the silence of B. Notker, who, announcing SS. Felix and Regula, does not mention Exuperantius even by a word. Whence it is permitted to gather, first, that his name was by no means inserted in the Acts which Notker praises, and which appear to have been the same as those to be published here. Secondly, that the memory and cult of the same Exuperantius in the IX century, in which Notker wrote his Martyrology, had already been abolished at Zurich, if ever it flourished; for otherwise these things could not have lain hidden from Notker, who dwelt not far from the city of Zurich, namely in the monastery of S. Gall. Nor further is it likely enough that the memory of this Saint had at that time already fallen away, if at the beginning of the same century Charlemagne had enlarged his church.
[9] and of others Of him likewise various German Breviaries are silent, as also the Proper of Tarazona in Spain, which mention Felix and Regula, as we shall see below. In the manuscript Acts also, of which we have three copies, no one of that name is mentioned; two of these, however, favor it in some measure, in that they join companions to S. Felix. For they thus begin: At that time the most blessed Felix and his sister S. Regula and their Companions, serving the Lord by the counsel of the most blessed Maurice their leader, having set out on pilgrimage … came to the head of the lake and of the river Limmat. And again: S. Felix with his companions answered, etc. These things, I say, favor in some measure the admitting of S. Exuperantius, since he could have been one of the said companions. But I do not know whether credit is to be given to the Acts in this part, since our holy Martyrs must be said to have come into Switzerland not to go on pilgrimage but to escape the cruelty of the tyrant; and the other Acts mention only SS. Felix and Regula.
[10] the silence Further, to the silence of Wandelbert, Notker and the rest it might be replied that Exuperantius was either unknown to them or passed over, because his body did not rest at Zurich in their time: inasmuch as Heinrich Murer, praised above, writes thus of him: After the said bodies (of SS. Felix, Regula and Exuperantius) had already rested there five hundred and two years (for they had undergone martyrdom in the year CCCXII (perhaps CCCII) or CCCIII), Charlemagne afterward translated the whole body of Exuperantius to Trier, and gave it to that city. But if that translation, of which I have found nothing elsewhere, be true, the said silence of Notker persuades us rather to believe that that Exuperantius was not of the fellowship of SS. Felix and Regula. For it, on Murer's testimony, took place in the year 804 or 805, that is, in the same century in whose old age Notker
wrote his Martyrology, it must have happened; and Notker was not so far removed from that time but that the memory of it could easily reach him, and he for that reason could have mentioned S. Exuperantius — whom certainly he had not found in the Acts which he was using — when he composed the eulogy of SS. Felix and Regula.
[11] this is very uncertain. From what has hitherto been said I gather that it is more probable that S. Exuperantius is not to be joined as a companion to our Martyrs, and that the opposite opinion could have arisen from this, that his sacred remains were once kept and honored in the same place at Zurich together with their bodies: for hence it could have come about that, while the cult of that Saint was indeed established, but nothing at all was known of his deeds, it was supposed that he had come thither together with SS. Felix and Regula and had been crowned with martyrdom. I confess, however, that the arguments which I have produced for my opinion are only negative, and therefore do not altogether enervate the opinion of the rest who affirm it; and therefore I have preferred to join S. Exuperantius to the other two with hesitation.
[12] That the arena of our holy Martyrs was in present-day Switzerland, Certain Spaniards contend in vain that our Martyrs in the place where Zurich now is, is clear from what has been said, and will be more evident from what is to be said: but Juan Tamayo Salazar in his Spanish Martyrology contends nonetheless that they suffered in Spain. I subjoin his words at this day: At Turigium in Celtiberia of Spain, of SS. Felix and Regula, brother and sister, who, when they were unwilling to render worship to idols, and constantly protested that they would lose their life for the keeping of the faith, after a draught of molten lead offered their necks to the sword as renowned Martyrs. So he, praising in his Annotations the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dexter and the Adversaria of Julianus, of the same bran, both of whom make them to have suffered in Spain, and the latter also to have been born of Christian parents in the territory of Caravaca, and of noble stock. Whence Tamayo warns that Filippo Ferrari also must be corrected, in that he announced these holy Martyrs at Zurich in Switzerland.
[13] Finally after his manner he subjoins their Acts, and those, suffered in Spain if we believe him, genuine, excerpted from Breviaries, writers and Martyrologies. These, although in various points they differ from ours, yet plainly show that those Martyrs are the same as those of today, as will become manifest at num. 53, where we shall recite the lesson from the Munébrega Breviary. Nor yet does Tamayo alone maintain this opinion, nor does he rest on the supposititious Opuscules of Dexter and Julianus alone, but Lanuza and other Spanish writers also uphold the same, alleging besides Breviaries, traditions, and an ancient cult of the Martyrs among the Spaniards. It does not please me to refute these inventions laboriously, although I could do it with the least labor of my own from the posthumous manuscripts of the most illustrious Nicolás Antonio, which the most ample and very reverend lord Adrian Coninck, his kinsman, communicated to my elders at Madrid in the year 1721. Yet it will be of use to have noted a few things.
[14] The Chronicle of Dexter and the Adversaria of Julianus no learned man fails to reckon among the fictions. Of the Breviaries Antonio, just praised, rightly observes: Are not the brother and sister Felix and Regula, in the Breviaries themselves of the churches of Aragon, adjudged to Suevia? For lo, that of the place Munébrega, in the Gothic, has thus: On the same day, at the city of Turigum, of the Suevi, the birthday of two, brother and sister, Felix and Regula. In like manner is the other of the monastery of Montearagón conceived; and also the third, of Salamanca. Nevertheless they rest upon these three Breviaries, they praise these, these the writers of Aragonese affairs — and, agreeing with them, the author of the Spanish Martyrology — most confidently produce as the tradition of their own nation.
[15] That it is in fact so read in the said Breviaries Lanuza testifies in vol. 2 of the History of Aragon, bk. 5, they strive in vain. chap. 18, where he recites the words, and Tamayo, praising him in the Martyrology. Hear now again the most illustrious Antonio proceeding: In what way, thou sayest, do they nevertheless agree with the name of Suevia? They have an interpretation of this ready to hand, borrowed from the Suevi, once a ruling nation of the Spains; and so much did this please a certain man beyond others (Blasco de Lanuza, cited above) that he charged those who resisted with ignorance of our histories. After these things he explodes that invention and overthrows it with solid reasons: but I have thought it by no means necessary to transcribe them here, and to linger longer over refuting trifles of this kind. Yet the cult which the Spaniards render to our Saints, and the other matters bearing on it, we shall set forth below.
Annotata* read: of Patiens
* Protus
§ II. Acts of uncertain author and time are examined: the coming of the Saints from the Theban legion to the castle of Zurich in Switzerland: certain other assertions of more recent writers: the time of the martyrdom uncertain.
[ ] The Acts, of uncertain author, I have to hand a threefold manuscript copy of the Acts: one of these is noted as transcribed from a notable parchment codex of the Charterhouse of Cologne, which contained Lives of Saints of the months of July, August and September. The second is a transcript of a certain manuscript of Utrecht, of S. Salvator, in Belgium, and it is altogether conformable to the first. The third copy is taken from the library of S. Maximin at Trier, and has the following opening: Of many innumerable, etc. This differs from the rest not only in its opening, but often much in style; as to the deeds, however, it agrees well enough; nor can I doubt that its writer had before his eyes another like the Cologne one, and changed its style and prefixed a small prologue. In this, however, no mention is made of Florentius, to whom in the twin copy mentioned above that Passion is said to have been revealed. Neither is anything found about the companions of SS. Felix and Regula, but she alone is mentioned with him. The arena of the Martyrs, which in the same transcripts is faultily called the castle of Turonicum, he calls Zuricum, by a truer indeed but more recent word, as will be evident from what is to be said. Nevertheless at the foot of our Cologne manuscript it is noted that there exist, in another codex of the same library, drawn up in the XVI century, other Acts conformable to the Trier ones, in which for Zuricum is more correctly written Turegum.
[17] who by some is called Florentius or Florenicus, Further, none of the said copies bears an author's name: but the first two say toward the end: This Passion, finally, was revealed to S. Florentius the monk by the Holy Spirit; but of what monastery, of what Rule, or of what age he was, is not declared, nor is it known to me. Heinrich Murer, praised on other occasions, and Guillimann, reported at num. 5 and 6, simply cite Florenicus, who is equally unknown to me. But whoever was the writer of the Acts, it is certain that he was far later than the martyrdom of the Saints. For this is hinted at, first, by the words just reported from the two manuscripts, in which that Passion is said to have been revealed to S. Florentius the monk by the Holy Spirit; but how truly, who shall say? Secondly, in the same copies it is read of the place of the Saints' burial: Where from ancient times many blind and lame are healed, to the glory of God and the reverence of the holy Martyrs, etc. Likewise the manuscript of S. Maximin of Trier: Where until now they rest with great glory: in which place and in those times they flourished with great and many miracles, and still, if the faith of those who ask does not falter, they do not cease to flourish. And these things sufficiently show that the writer was remote from the times of the Martyrs.
[18] I know indeed that these things and the like could have been added by later hands; they are not very ancient, yet are to be published. but in the Acts nothing occurs which persuades us to suspect it. That they are not later than the IX century, however, becomes manifest from Notker, who in the words reviewed at num. 1 expressly asserts that some Acts of them existed in his time and were known to many: and that these are the same in substance as those to be published, no one will doubt who compares these with Notker's statements. Now receive in a few words what I judge of these Acts. The author so recounts the kinds of punishments, and reports the fairly frequent speeches of the Saints to Decius, and of him in turn to the Martyrs, as though either he himself had been present at the event, or had learned these things from some older document: but the first we by no means think true; the second is uncertain; and that the speeches were composed according to the writer's own wit we scarcely doubt. He delights also in relating marvels, which I could wish rested on a more certain author: for that all these things were revealed to a S. Florentius unknown to us we shall not easily believe without another witness. Yet we shall give the Acts from the Cologne manuscript, collated with the Utrecht and Trier manuscripts.
[19] As regards the Martyrs themselves, all the Acts which I have seen, The Saints are said to have been of the Theban legion: as also the Breviary of Constance and the Spanish ones, make them companions of S. Maurice, or of the renowned Theban legion. But Tamayo, who contends that they were born and suffered in Spain, thinks this absurd — namely because the champions of the Theban legion were first decimated once and again, and then all butchered. In what way, he says, did our Martyrs, separated from that legion of Thebans without danger, come to Celtiberia, if all were slain? Moreover, from the supposititious offspring of Dexter and Julianus he asserts that they were crowned not under Diocletian and Maximian, but under the emperor Decius, and accordingly do not belong to the Theban martyrs. But these trifles ought not to detain us. These Martyrs could, piously refusing with their fellow soldiers the impious commands of Maximian, and therefore fearing the impending storm, have withdrawn from the camp at Agaunum among the Alpine crags, and come into present-day Switzerland; just as SS. Ursus and Victor are said to have come to Solothurn. Of the same legion, says S. Eucherius, are said to have been also those martyrs Ursus and Victor, whom report confirms to have suffered at Solothurn. For the rest, it is less wonderful that Regula the virgin joined herself as companion to her brother Felix on his service, than that S. Verena joined Victor, perhaps her kinsman and a champion of the same Theban legion, as is reported in the Acts of S. Verena at the 1st day of September, §2 of the Preliminary Commentary.
[20] The journey of the Saints into Switzerland, and the place of their dwelling in it, and their offices of piety, the manuscript to be published sets forth in these words: their journey into Switzerland Through the waste places of the desert which is called Clarona, they came to the head of the lake and of the river Limmat, which is beside the castle of Turonicum (read: Turegum), where, pitching their tents, and giving themselves day and night to fastings, vigils, and prayers and the word of God, they clung faithfully and devoutly to the Lord. But the Trier transcript has thus: Out of whose fellowship (of S. Maurice and his companions) B. Felix with his most happy sister Regula came down into the parts of Germany through the waste places of the desert which is called Clarona. There is a notable place at the end of a certain lake, where there stood a most ancient castle which is called Zuricum, from which also the same lake draws its name, out of which a certain river, Lindemaga by name, running down in a most delightful course, makes the place most pleasant; where, when the aforesaid Felix, his Sister accompanying him, had arrived, Christ leading, they pitched their camp after the manner of pilgrims, and steadfastly began to give themselves to sacred vigils and pious prayers, and to sow the word of God among those who came.
[21] and their stay near Zurich. The same journey Guillimann describes more at large, whose words we gave at num. 6. Namely, the Theban
legion had halted in the narrows of Agaunum, on the testimony of S. Eucherius, and thence Felix and Regula could set out for Zurich by the said route. Clarona, or Glarona, for which in Notker is read Darona, indicates the district of Glarus, which was once reckoned under the men of Zurich, but is now one of the thirteen confederate cantons of Switzerland, whose chief town is the city of Glarona, commonly called Glarus. The river Lindimacus or Lindemaga, at this day the Limagus, called by the natives Limmat, rising among the Glarners, is at first called the Linth, but after receiving from the lake of Rivarium the Magus, likewise a river, it takes the name of Limagus, and, after watering Glarus and the adjacent little regions, falls into the lake of Zurich, commonly Zurichsee, and, issuing thence, flows through the city of Zurich, and above it mingles first with the Aar, then with the Rhine. Zurich, in the documents of the middle age, was called Turegum or Thuregum, or the castle of Turegum, whence among the natives, the letter T being changed into Z, it came out as Zurich. Guillimann also thinks it was formerly called Tauricum or Turicum from the Taurisci.
[22] They are said also to have preached to the men of Uri and of Glarus. The same author in the words given at num. 6 lays it down that our holy Martyrs first delivered the sacred things of Christ to the men of Uri, peoples of the same Switzerland; then that, having stayed near the village — now a city — of Glarus, in a certain cave on which their handwriting was shown inscribed in his own day, they preached happily to the Glarners, and, having built on the same hill a chapel in honor of S. Michael the archangel, betook themselves at last to the men of Zurich, among whom they were crowned with martyrdom. Concerning the things done among the Glarners Murer has the same; but on whose testimony, I do not know. In the Acts of the foundation of the monastery of Muri in Aargau, published by Johann Ludewig in vol. 2 of the Writers of German Affairs, col. 420, among the relics is reckoned of the rock of the holy Felix and Regula: but of what rock this treats, who shall divine? Perhaps all these things rest on nothing but a certain popular tradition, which frequently mingles fables with matters of this kind. Equally uncertain I judge to be the things which the praised Murer pronounces as from a tripod concerning the quarter of the city of Zurich, and the place which the Saints inhabited, where they were seized, where they were afflicted with punishments and at last crowned; as also certain other things which we shall review here and there among the Annotata.
[23] The blasphemous invention of a Zwinglian. Before I proceed, however, laugh, reader, at the madness — or shall I say the impudence — of a certain petty minister of the Zwinglian heresy, who dared to persuade the men of Zurich that nothing but the Zwinglian perfidy had been preached there by SS. Felix and Regula. But by what argument, thou wilt ask? By this alone, that they were Egyptians, and that the Egyptians, if we believe him, had always professed it. This impudent lie and blasphemy of the Zwinglian you will find most solidly refuted and crushed in our Jakob Gretser, in the Defense of the Admonition concerning the Zurich Bibles, chap. 6.
[24] The year of the martyrdom cannot be determined, because the Acts do not mention The year of the martyrdom unknown. how long after the slaughter of their fellow soldiers at Agaunum our Martyrs stayed in Switzerland, nor is it possible to learn it from elsewhere. If those things be true which we have reported from Guillimann and Murer about their apostolic labors, they must have survived the Theban legion by not a few years; but whether it was crowned as the third century was verging to its end, or at the beginning of the fourth, will have to be settled at the XXII day of this month of September, on which S. Maurice with his Companions is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology. Meanwhile we cannot stray from the truth if we refer the martyrdom of SS. Felix and Regula, with some latitude of time, to the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth.
§ III. A church erected over the tomb of the Saints at Zurich, and enlarged by Charlemagne: another church, with a noble convent of nuns, founded there, to which the sacred bodies were translated: the cult in the diocese of Constance.
[ ] The Saints are said to have carried their severed heads to the place of burial: Of the place in which the bodies of the Martyrs were buried, the Acts to be published say this: In the same hour of their beheading, while the impious were struck with exceeding terror, they themselves, taking their own heads in their hands, carried them from the bank of the river Limmat, where they received martyrdom, and bore them sixty paces toward the mountain. And that place, where the Saints rest with great honor, is distant from the castle of Turonicum (read: Turegum) two hundred paces. In the Trier manuscript it is read a little differently, in this manner: Their own corpses, their heads being now cut off, they carried them with their own hands from the bank of the river where they were found worthy to be beheaded, forty cubits to the fold of that mountain, where until now they rest with great glory. Notker at num. 1 likewise asserts that the Saints carried their severed heads fifty cubits in their own hands from the place where they had been executed.
[26] Carryings of heads of this kind occur also fairly frequently in the Acts of other martyrs, and are said to have brought them thither: on which we have more than once observed that that opinion could have arisen from the over-credulous disposition of the common people; who, namely, when they look upon statues of Saints carrying their heads in their hands, not observing that by that posture of the bodies the kind of martyrdom may be designated, presently judge that the severed heads were in very fact carried by the martyrs. Nevertheless let the reader not so take these words of mine as though I denied that this was ever done by any martyr, or even by these Champions; for I mean here this one thing, that a carrying of heads of this kind, unless it rest on a firmer witness, cannot but be suspect to me. Murer, who always joins a third, Exuperantius, to the two, adds that the Saints, when they had come to the chosen place of burial, laid themselves side by side on the ground, and, being buried secretly by night by their disciples, whom they had imbued with the sacred things of the Christians, rested there down to the times of Charlemagne, who, when he had learned of their bodies by a revelation, enlarged the church built over their tomb. What that revelation was Murer does not declare; but if it be no other than that which is reported by Kaspar Bruschius, it is to be banished to the fables. For he in the Monasteries of Germany, p. 40, writes that Charles, while about the year 760 he was giving himself to hunting, was led by a certain notable stag of admirable beauty from Cologne to that very place, and founded that church.
[27] a church erected over the tomb Whatever be the case with that revelation, Stumpf in the Chronicle of Switzerland, bk. 6, chap. 13, writes this of the said church: The first and most ancient parish church of Zurich, now the chief church, was founded under the Clovises, perhaps by the mayors of the palace of the Franks. Some ascribe it to Clovis the Great, some to Dagobert; but long afterward Charlemagne built and enlarged the new church and monastery, which exist to this day …; and he himself confesses in the document that that church, with certain Brethren or ministers of the church, already existed in his time. This church, even before Charles's times, was called the Burial-place of the holy Martyrs; for Felix, Regula and Exuperantius were there crowned with martyrdom by Decius under the empire of Diocletian, perhaps about the year of Christ CCCVI.
[28] and enlarged by Charlemagne. The same he repeats in chap. 14, where, referring the enlargement and endowment of the said church to the tenth year of Charlemagne's empire and the 810th of Christ, he says that the same emperor confirmed certain donations made to it, and calls it in his document the burial-place of the holy Martyrs, and testifies that it was founded of old and endowed by his ancestors. The document praised by Stumpf has not come to my hands; but he himself from the same reviews the names of the Brethren or clerics who in Charles's time performed the divine offices there, seventeen in number. As to the year in which the church was enlarged by Charles, Murer agrees, but affirms that it had been built about two hundred years before by a certain Rupert, duke, as he says, of Suevia and Alemannia: but he produces no witness of this assertion. Further, this church — whoever first founded it in veneration of these Martyrs — situated on the right bank of the Limmat, was called the Provostship of SS. Felix and Regula, and long flourished, until in the XVI century it was seized and profaned by the followers of the Zwinglian impiety.
[29] Another church In the same century the sacred bones of the Martyrs were translated to the other bank of the river and deposited in a church with a convent of nuns founded there. That convent, called the Monastery of the Ladies, commonly Frauenmünster, has for its founder Louis the German, son of the emperor Louis the Pious, from whom also it received Hildegard, and afterward Bertha, his daughters, as its first abbesses in succession. Of this foundation or endowment there is extant a twofold copy. The first, which is noted as of the 20th or 21st year of Louis, we transfer hither from Marquard Herrgott in the Diplomatic Genealogy of the August House of Habsburg, vol. 2, document 54. In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity. Louis, by the favor of divine Clemency, king. If out of the earthly goods which we have obtained by the divine bounty we confer anything on the places of the Saints for the love of God, fittingly fulfilling the royal custom, we clearly believe that this will profit us for the obtaining of the rewards of eternal recompense.
[30] Wherefore let the industry of all the faithful of the holy Church of God, and of our own, present namely and future, learn with a convent of nuns founded at Zurich, how we, for the everlasting recompense of the most serene emperor Charles our grandfather, and of the most excellent Louis Augustus our lord and father, and also our own, and for the perpetual reward of our dearest consort and offspring, hand over our manor of Turegum in the duchy of Alemannia, in the district of Thurgau, with all its adjacencies or appurtenances, or in its divers functions — that is, the little district of Uri, with churches, houses and other buildings set thereon, bondservants of either sex and age, lands tilled and untilled, woods, meadows, pastures, waters and watercourses, passable adjacencies, exits and returns, things sought and to be sought, with all rents and divers renderings; and moreover also our forest by name Albis, and whatever in the same places is of our right and possession by right of ownership, and seems at the present time to belong to our use — the whole and entire, to our monastery which is situated in the same town of Turegum, where S. Felix and S. Regula, martyrs of Christ, rest in body.
[31] Which indeed it has pleased us to do on this ground of reason, and Hildegard set over it, that thereafter and henceforth the life of holy women living there at all times under the rule of a Rule, and their monastic conversation ordered with monastic observance, may be kept up, and that the more freely, for the supplying of this place — dedicated by us to the aforesaid Martyrs — the service of God may there be shown, and for the increase of our reward and of that of all our debtors the mercy of the Lord may be more diligently and more richly implored. We wish also that the goodwill of our faithful should know that, admonished by fatherly piety, we have granted the aforesaid monastery in all its entirety, together with our own gift, in the places aforesaid, to our most beloved daughter Hildegard in ownership, that, so far as by God's permission she may avail in the same monastery serving the Lord, she may correct and nourish it, subject to her own rule, by regular disciplines and by the institution of monastic observance, and the places themselves granted to her, so far as*
her strength may supply, she may advance and amend by increasing them with improvements and betterments.
[32] Finally, commanding, we enjoin that no public judge, by Louis nor count, nor anyone of the judiciary power, presume in the aforesaid places, or in all the goods belonging to those places, or upon the men, both free and servile, who are seen to dwell there, to distrain or molest, nor to take sureties, nor by exacting any renderings, or fines or bans, nor at any time ever to bring the force of any injury; but that under our defense and the guardianship of immunity those goods, with the advocates there appointed, may remain secure through long times. And that this authority of our donation and confirmation may be held the firmer, and through future times may be more truly believed and more diligently preserved by all the faithful of the holy Church of God, and by ours present and to come, we have confirmed it below with our own hand, and have ordered it to be marked with the impression of our ring. The sign of the lord Louis, most glorious king. I, Comeatus, notary, in place of Radbanus, have recognized it. Given on the XII of the Kalends of August, in the year, Christ being favorable, XX of the reign of the lord Louis, most serene king, in Eastern Francia, in the first Indiction. Done in the city of Regensburg. In the name of God, happily. Amen.
[33] of Germany Here Herrgott notes in the margin that in Tschudi the XXI year of Louis is marked, and he refers it to the year of Christ 851, in which Indiction I was running. To the same year likewise Eckhart in vol. 2 of Eastern Francia mentions this charter; others, however, will have the same to have been given some years earlier, according to the varying way of reckoning the beginning of Louis's reign. For the same cause Le Cointe, in vol. 8 of the Annals of the Franks, thinks that another diploma of the same Louis, given in the XXVI year of his reign at the royal palace in the villa of Frankfurt, must be bound to the year of Christ 843, the beginning of the reckoning being taken, namely, from the year 817, in which he was taken by his father into partnership of the royal dignity. By this diploma, which for the rest is written throughout in the same words as the one reviewed above, king Louis gave to the same monastery a certain manor Chama, in these words: Let the industry of all the faithful of the holy Church of God, and of our own, present namely and future, learn how we, at the request of our most beloved daughter Hildegard … hand over our manor which is called Chama, lying in the duchy of Alemannia, in the district of Thurgau, with all its adjacencies …, or whatever in the same places is of our right and possession by right of ownership, … the whole and entire, to the monastery which is situated in our town of Turegum, where holy Felix and holy Regula, martyrs of Christ, rest in body.
[34] the king: Which indeed it has pleased us to do on this ground of reason, that from this day and thereafter henceforth the life of holy women there living at all times under the Regular form, and their monastic conversation, may take delight in being ordered with monastic observance, and that the more freely, for the supplying of this place, dedicated by us to the aforesaid Martyrs, the service of God may there be shown … The sign of Louis, most serene king. I, Hadedeus, subdeacon, in place of Wiegarius the chancellor, have recognized it. Given on the XVI of the Kalends of May, in the XXVI year of the reign of Louis, most serene king, reigning in Eastern Francia, Ind. VI. Done in the villa of Frankfurt, at the royal palace. In the name of God, happily. Amen. This document, as I have warned, Le Cointe refers to the year of Christ 843, although it is five or six years later than the former; and that for the reason alleged at num. 33.
[35] The bodies of the Saints brought to this church From what has been adduced it is not clear enough whether, when those donations were made, the bodies of the holy Martyrs already rested in Hildegard's monastery, or in the older church which we said was founded on the right bank of the Limmat at Zurich. For these words can be taken either way, and Stumpf, mentioned already on other occasions, expressly writes that the said monastery was first completed in all its parts under Bertha, who succeeded Hildegard, and that then the bodies of the Saints were brought thither. I subjoin Stumpf's words, turned from German into Latin. In his time (Charles the Bald's) Bertha the abbess completed the monastery, or the women's convent, which had been begun; she ordered the tomb or burial-place of the martyrs Felix and Regula, who rested on the other bank of the river at the parish church or great minster, to be removed, and deposited their bones partly in her own monastery, but the remainder she sent hither and thither as a singular gift. At that time it was decreed by the bishop of Constance that throughout the whole district round about Zurich the annual festival of the aforesaid Martyrs should be kept. All these things Ratpert writes, a monk of S. Gall, who was a native of Zurich, and flourished at the same time. Thus he: but I do not find these things in Ratpert's History, which is extant in Goldast among the Writers of Alemannic Affairs, on the Origin and Fortunes of S. Gall: wherefore it must be that Stumpf, if he reports truly, had some other lucubration of the said monk, unknown to me.
[36] Heinrich in the Helvetia sancta fixes this translation to the year 877, carried thither in the IX century; and says it was made by Pantecho bishop of Constance, at the request of Bertha the abbess. There too he had promised to treat more fully of the same translation in the book which he was meditating to publish on the monasteries of Switzerland; but that work he did not complete, as is observed in the Preface to the said Helvetia sancta. Since therefore the cited writers agree in this part, I should believe that some document lighted their way, from which they learned this; and accordingly that the sacred remains of the Martyrs rested until Bertha's prefecture in the older church which we said was founded on the other bank of the river. About the year assigned by Murer, however, there is some difficulty on the side of Pantecho: for in vol. 5 of the Gallia Christiana reprinted, col. 899, where he is called Bathego and Patecho, his successor S. Gebhard I is said to have sat already at Constance in the year 876. And if this be true, and if Pantecho really carried out that translation, it must be said that it happened a year or two earlier. Concerning Bertha nothing of the sort occurs: for she, in the Catalogue of the abbesses of the monastery of Zurich in Crusius, part 2 of the Suevian Annals, book 2, p. 45, is noted as having been substituted for her sister Hildegard, who died in the year 860, and to have presided over it until the year 881: but in the Chronicle of Weingarten in Mabillon, vol. 4 of the Analecta, Hildegard's death is fixed to the year 867; which does not bear on the present matter. For the rest, this monastery was most flourishing, says Eckhart in vol. 2 of Eastern Francia at the year 853; but in the year MDXXIV it was seized by the followers of Zwingli and turned into a public school.
[37] As regards the festival of the Martyrs, that it was wont to be solemnly kept in the IX century in the diocese of Constance and the festival instituted: is altogether likely from Notker, a martyrologist of the same century and a monk of the monastery of S. Gall, which flourished in the same diocese, when he says: The birthday of the holy Felix and Regula his sister; whose festival, because it is solemnly venerated among us, and the record of whose passion is known to many, it does not seem to me needful to add writings to writings. These words among us might indeed be restricted to the men of S. Gall alone: but that seems less probable, both because no reason appears why the Saints should have been venerated rather there, and because the words alleged bespeak a public festival known to all.
[38] That festival persevered, I suppose, among later generations in the diocese of Constance: the office and cult in the diocese of Constance. for I have to hand a Breviary of that diocese, printed at Dillingen in the year 1575, in which at the XI day of September an Office of nine Lessons is prescribed for SS. Felix and Regula, of which six are proper, composed from the Acts of which we have the Trier transcript, with all the responsories and antiphons likewise proper, and a Homily on the Gospel from the 10th chapter of Luke: When they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. In the Calendar which is prefixed to the Breviary, their feast is announced in red characters, in the manner in which the greater festivals are wont to be noted; so that they seem to have been wont to be venerated there also with cessation from servile work, or, as they say, as a holy day among the people. This very thing perhaps Notker meant to indicate, reported at num. 1, when he says: Whose festival … is solemnly venerated among us. In the Litanies also, which in Canisius among the Ancient Lessons are ascribed to Hartmann, a monk of S. Gall, and were to be recited before the procession on Sundays, I find mention made of S. Regula in these words:
Agnes and Agatha, Christina, Euprepia, Thecla, Euphemia, Regula, Eugenia and Bona: A choir resplendent in the virginity of white-robed Maidens, a throng shining with integrity; Thou who, adorned with twin crowns, rejoicest beautiful, With the praise of chastity and of martyrdom together.
Annotata* perhaps: dedicated
§ IV. Some relics translated to Trier, those of Zurich scattered by the heretics: the cult of S. Felix on the Holy Mount: a Regula honored at Kerlingen, other than ours: the cult of both Saints in Aragon.
[ ] Some relics of the Martyrs Christoph Brower in vol. 1 of the Annals of Trier at the year of Christ 984, num. 51, writes that the bodies of our holy Martyrs were translated from Zurich to Trier by Egbert, archbishop of Trier; he confesses, however, that he cannot determine the year. Receive his words: And since mention of relics has once been brought in, we here insert what the Deeds of the Treveri record of archbishop Egbert, since no certain year is set forth … They relate that by the authority of the emperor Otto he obtained Severus the presbyter, whom B. Gregory praises in his Dialogues, from the valley Terrorina of the province of Valeria, and the bodies of the Martyrs Felix and Regula, which were resting in the illustrious monastery of nuns founded by Louis king of Germany, grandson of Charles the Great, in the town of Turegum or Zurich.
[40] carried to Trier by Egbert, archbishop of Trier Of this translation the Deeds of the Treveri make mention, published by Calmet in vol. 1 of the Ecclesiastical and Civil History of Lorraine, in which at col. 20 I read this: Ekebert obtained, with the help of the aforesaid king (Otto), S. Severus the presbyter, buried in the Terentine valley (the valley of Terentia), of whom S. Gregory writes in the book of Dialogues, … and in the castle of Turegum (of Turregium) the relics of Felix and Regula (of Ursula). But that what is added here between two brackets (of Ursula) was so done, I think came about either because Calmet found it added to the rest in another manuscript, or because for of Regula was read of Ursula: he himself, however, in the History, col. 969, mentions SS. Felix and Regula, not Ursula. From these things we see that not the whole bodies of SS. Felix and Regula — as Brower, speaking in a somewhat freer, yet not unusual, manner, seems to indicate — but only relics of them, that is, some bones or particles, were translated by Egbert to Trier.
[41] Nor is it credible that the virgins of that most celebrated convent suffered themselves to be wholly deprived of the sacred remains of their Patrons, carried to Trier: or that the cult of the same failed there so quickly that they did not care to retain them for themselves. Indeed that it flourished in the said monastery even in the XIII century,
is proved by a charter which Herrgott reviews in vol. 2, part 1 of the Diplomatic Genealogy of the August House of Habsburg, p. 278, and binds to the year 1244; for in it Rudolf the elder, count of Habsburg, Landgrave of Hesse, binds himself and his posterity to pay yearly three pounds of wax of the weight of Zurich, on the vigil of the holy Felix and Regula, to that monastery … by way of rent. The author of the fourth Appendix to the Chronicle of Constance in Pistorius, vol. 3 of German Affairs, however, strayed from the truth when in the Catalogue of native and foreign Saints of the diocese of Windonissa and Constance he wrote thus in the XVI century: SS. Felix and Regula, martyrs, whose whole bodies are had at Thunegum (read: Thuregum, that is, Zurich).
[42] We do not doubt therefore that some relics of our holy Martyrs were once carried elsewhere, others cast into the river by the Zwinglians: and others remained in the monastery of the Virgins at Zurich. And that these indeed were cast into the river by the Zwinglians, our Gretser, reported at num. 23, refuting — as I there noted — the impudence of the same, whereby they had dared to blurt out that their sect was preached by our Saints at Zurich, thus reproaches those impious men: If S. Felix and Regula were heralds of the Zwinglian faith, why were the relics of those Martyrs, by Zwingli's work and impulse, cast into the river flowing by, though Hospinian dares to deny this in the Preface to the Sacramentarian History? Why were they dragged out of the tomb in which for so many years they had peacefully rested, and scattered to the winds? Thus he.
[43] Kaspar Bruschius, On the Monasteries of Germany, in his account of Salem or Salomon's Villa, The Mount of S. Felix in Suevia. founded one mile from the town of Überlingen in Suevia, mentions a mount of SS. Felix and Regula. In the neighborhood of this convent, he says, is the castle of the Holy Mount, of the counts of the same name, whom by another name they call Fürstenberg. It is called the Holy Mount from S. Felix and S. Regula, buried there: which words Merian in the Appendix to the description of Suevia so interpreted, as though our holy Martyrs together with Exuperantius had first been buried there; which by no means coheres with what has been said hitherto. Of the same mount Fr. Johann Gamans, a presbyter of our Society, makes mention in a letter given on the XXIV day of July, in an uncertain year, to our Bolland, and laid aside for this XI day of September. In this he writes that that Fürstenberg fortress, commonly called Heiligenberg, is situated opposite the monastery of Salem, on the broad level of a high mountain, and that in its chapel the body of S. Felix, who is also patron of the place and gave the Holy Mount its name, is honored with a very great concourse of people. If these things are to be taken of our S. Felix, from what has been said before it must be settled that not the whole body of the holy Martyr, but only some particles of the same, are kept in the said chapel.
[44] That the body of holy Regula was formerly, and in his own time, kept in the church of Kerlingen — which, once distinguished with the title of a provostship, now belongs to the convent of the Carthusians of S. Sixtus of Rettel, situated in the borders of Lorraine, by the river Moselle near the town of Sierck — The body of S. Regula, Brother Bartholomäus Geubel, at that time Prior of the same Charterhouse, wrote to my elders in repeated letters, of which the second are noted as given at Rettel in the year 1652. This Saint, patroness of the church of Kerlingen, as virgin and martyr, who is honored in the Breviary of Trier together with SS. Protus, Hyacinth and Felix at the XI of September, he affirms to have been wont to be venerated with an ecclesiastical Office for two hundred years now, as he wrote, both at Kerlingen and at Rettel, every year on the Nones of July; and to prove this: In our most ancient Missal, he says, and likewise in the manuscript book of collects, on the Nones of June she is thus announced: Of Regula, virgin and martyr.
[45] which is said to be venerated at Kerlingen But of the sacred body itself he writes this in the second letter, from which the year in which it was given has been cut off: We have sworn testimonies that two hundred years ago S. Regula was buried in the church of S. Regula at Kerlingen; whose sepulchre was placed beneath the altar itself, yet so that the half of it projected behind the altar, raised somewhat from the pavement; and when, on account of the ruin of the church and of the altar and of the sepulchre, the sacred relics of S. Regula were thence translated to the neighboring parish church of Kerlingen. We have public Acts about S. Regula, about the provostship of S. Regula. Afterward the head of S. Regula was kept among us at Rettel; the remaining bones, I suppose, when the church of S. Regula was rebuilt and fitted for the divine office, were laid up again in the same church of S. Regula. We have at Kerlingen a fountain of S. Regula, where the sick, especially children with the scab, are healed by being washed there.
[46] is not our Virgin martyr's, He adds also a certain miracle, then lately obtained. In the month of November last past, he says, a certain woman from the village of Klangen, not unknown to us, having for about twenty years been grievously tormented by pain and a wound of the shin, seemed to herself in sleep to be entering, in hope of recovering health, the chapel of S. Cyriacus, situated near the village of Montenach, about an hour from Sierck (whither frequent pilgrimages are made, and from far-off places); but she was in no way helped thereby. Again she dreamed that she was entering the church of S. Regula to recover her health; and at that time the woman was suffering so intensely from her wound that she thought her shin was being burned; and behold, at her entrance she seemed to herself to see upon the altar of S. Regula three lamps burning, and, some woman following her, to be warned that her veil was burning at the back of her head; which she, pressing with her hand, seemed to herself to extinguish. At that same moment the pain of the shin ceased, and she was healed, and afterward came to the church of S. Regula, offering her vows, two or three little wax tapers.
[47] That this Regula is the same as our Virgin Martyr certain men of Rettel thought, on the testimony of the praised Prior, who there adds this: For our S. Regula I add yet one thing, that I have heard from our elders that our S. Regula was thought to have been the sister of a certain S. Felix, martyr, about which, however, I find no letter at all. And certainly she would be the same, if the Rettel Saint were mentioned in the Missal of Trier; but since the praised Prior confesses that he found nothing on this matter, and accordingly neither the Rettel nor the Kerlingen Office made mention of our S. Regula the sister of S. Felix, I do not doubt that the relics kept at Rettel and Kerlingen are of some other Saint. But of whom? That indeed I should not dare to divine.
[48] From the said letters, however, I see that my elders doubted but of another unknown to me. whether that sacred body were not of Regina, who in the Acts of S. Cunibert, bishop of Cologne (these, however, need correction, as Bolland and Sollerius have already noted), in Surius at the XII day of November, is said to have been the mother of this Saint, and to be venerated by the Moselle. For what she (Regina) did, says the author, or with what zeal she toiled for the worship of God, the people of the citizens of the Moselle bear witness, who both keep her body reverently laid up in a church, and frequent it by ever seeking and often obtaining her patronage. It was doubted, I say, whether the body of this Regina, her name being changed into Regula, were not venerated at Rettel and Kerlingen; which the praised Geubel denies can be equably admitted by the men of Rettel, since their S. Regula has always been venerated with the Office of a virgin martyr. However these things may stand, I shall judge the Saint of Kerlingen to be distinct from our Virgin Martyr, until they produce certain documents for the translation of her body to that church.
[49] There remains for us a question with certain Spaniards, The cult of SS. Felix and Regula is set forth who, as we said and refuted at num. 12 and the three following, will have it that SS. Felix and Regula suffered in Spain, and contend that their bodies are kept at Torrijo, or Torryo, which is a town of Aragon three miles distant from the city of Calatayud, and honor them with ecclesiastical cult and Office. Vicente Blasco de Lanuza, in vol. 2 of the Ecclesiastical and Civil History of Aragon, published in the Spanish tongue, bk. 5, chap. 18, describes the cult at length; and first indeed he asserts that the bodies of SS. Felix and Regula (whom he makes men, and soldiers of the Theban legion) are enclosed in the town of Torryo, of the diocese of Tarazona and the archdeaconry of Calatayud. Then, after some things, he proceeds thus concerning their cult: Munébrega (a village of Andalusia) celebrates their feast on the XI day of September, and the Office is recited by the clergy: the church keeps their relics. The same is done in Cetina (likewise a village). At Torryo the feast is kept with an Octave, and in the second Nocturn the Lesson of the Munébrega Breviary (about which consult num. 53) is put in.
[50] In the churches of these two places, on their feast day, Indulgences are had, in the diocese of Tarazona granted by his Holiness Clement VIII. Great is the devotion throughout that district, and frequent processions are made to the churches of those Saints. Don Diego de Yepes, bishop of Tarazona (which chair he lays down that he held from the year 1600 to 1613) wished that their feast day should be received throughout his whole bishopric and diocese; but before he had commanded it, he died, nor was it afterward carried into execution … In the place where they were beheaded, which is on the bank of the river Manubles, or not far thence, a certain fountain is seen, which flows everywhere, and out of faith and devotion works certain miracles: to this the inhabitants of (the town of) Torryo come in suppliant procession on the day of the Lord's Ascension.
[51] On the mountain of their burial there has been built a church of these Saints, elegant and spacious enough, in Aragon; in which in our age a chapel has been most fittingly erected. Their relics the chief chapel keeps, enclosed in a certain chest or shrine with three keys of different workmanship, which the Vicar and the Jurats keep with great veneration; and the case is in the church of S. Mary of the Hortal, the parish of Torryo, whither their bodies were translated. In that chapel lamps burn perpetually, and some miracles are done. He had said before that the head of holy Regula (for he makes her a man, as we have said, and here again uses the masculine adjective san, sancti) is set in a silver case, and in the time of the aforesaid bishop Diego de Yepes gave forth a prodigious fragrance. With Lanuza agrees Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology, save that he will have S. Regula to have been a woman and the sister of holy Felix. Let us now examine these things in a few words.
[52] which doubtless We cannot deny that in the town of Torryo among the Aragonese the cult of SS. Regula and Felix long flourished, as those ancient
Breviaries prove, of which we made mention at num. 14 and 15. That the same persevered there before the middle of the XVII century, in which Lanuza wrote, we readily believe; nay, that it was even increased after the middle of the century we gather from the edict which the most illustrious Diego Escolano, bishop of Tarazona, promulgated in the year 1664, and by which he ordered that throughout the whole bishopric certain Saints, natives, as he calls them, of his diocese, should be annually honored with an ecclesiastical Office, indulgences of forty days being offered both to ecclesiastical persons who should read the said Offices, and to seculars who on the feast days of these Saints should pour forth the accustomed prayers for the Catholic faith and Church. For in this decree at the XI day of September I read this: SS. Felix and Regula, brother and sister, who suffered in the place Torryo, where their bodies are honored to this day: semi-double in our holy church and bishopric: double in the place Torryo.
[53] are the same Secondly, it is certain to me that the men of Tarazona, at least formerly, meant to pursue with that cult our Martyrs, whom we have shown to have suffered in present-day Switzerland. For this is clear from the often-praised Breviaries of Aragon, from one of which, the Gothic namely, which is said to be kept at Munébrega, I set before the candid reader the third Lesson, as Lanuza exhibits it. It runs thus: On the same day, at the city of Turigum, of the Suevi, the birthday of two, brother and sister, Felix and Regula, who are said to have been of the Theban legion; who, when they had come to the aforesaid city, giving themselves to fastings and prayers, sowing among the peoples the word of salvation, there arrive persecutors sent by the emperor Maximian; before whose sight the Saints, offering themselves, being questioned, answered: We confess ourselves Christians, and of the company of SS. Maurice and Exuperius and his companions.
[54] as our Martyrs: But the persecutor, Dacianus by name, ordered them to be set upon white-hot iron gridirons. And when they were being monstrously tortured, they said to Dacianus the tyrant: Who are thy gods? Dacianus said: Jove and Mercury. And blessed Regula answering: Beelzebub therefore is thy god. Then, Dacianus being angered, sentence being given, they were beheaded; and so, their heads being cut off and taken in their own hands, from the bank of the river as far as the very summit of the mountain (which place they had chosen for their burial) they wonderfully came: and a voice of angels singing psalms was heard there: Into paradise may the angels lead you, with glory may they receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem. In which place the benefits of God are bestowed unto this present day. Thus the Munébrega Breviary in Lanuza, with which the Salamancan, on the same testimony, is altogether conformable, except that it has besides the following: And while, rejoicing, they were being tortured with various kinds of torments, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice of this kind followed: Be confident, fear not; I am with you; after these things they were beheaded, etc. Finally from the Montearagón Breviary the same writer recites this: On the same day, at the city of Turigium, of the Suevi, the birthday of two, brother and sister, Felix and Regula, who are said to have been of the Theban legion.*
[55] Now whoever shall compare all these things with what has been said above, and with the Acts to be published below, and therefore they neither suffered nor were buried there; will not be able to doubt that the men of Tarazona honored with the cult set forth above those SS. Felix and Regula whom Notker announces today: nay, this very thing Bivar and Tamayo sufficiently hint, when they praise Notker's Martyrology. Further, that these holy Martyrs suffered not in Spain but in Suevia, or present-day Switzerland, and that their sacred bodies were religiously kept there, we judge to be established well enough from what has been said, and accordingly what we have reported from Lanuza about the place of the martyrdom and burial we cannot admit. But what then, thou wilt say, is to be said of the said bodies of Tarazona? I answer that a twofold explanation occurs to me. The first is, if we say that not bodies, but only some relics of SS. Felix and Regula, are kept there, which frequently pass under the name of bodies, as with the Most Eminent Baronius we have more than once noted in our Acts. But at what time, or on what occasion, those relics were translated into the Spains, I nowhere find. Nevertheless, if the head enclosed in the silver case (about which consult num. 51) is a man's, as Lanuza must consequently say, it is clear that it is not that of holy Regula, virgin and martyr.
[56] Another explanation pleases me no less; namely, that those sacred bodies are of other Saints yet perhaps some relics of them are kept there. who were in fact crowned in the Spains, and whom the men of Torrijo have judged the same as those of today. Into this error they could have been led either because they were perhaps of the same name, or because they found some relics of the Martyrs of Zurich in the same case, or finally for various other causes, from which elsewhere too an error of this kind in relics has more than once crept in. For hence it could have come about that they ascribed to them the Acts of the Martyrs of Zurich, and put these into their own Breviaries. To the opinion once conceived there could then have been added the credulity of the common people, and in the lapse of time it could pass under the name of tradition, which finally the supposititious Opuscules of Dexter and Julianus confirmed more and more, until at last the emptiness of these was exposed to the clear light by the learned.
Annotata* Beelzebub
THE PASSION
by an anonymous author
From a manuscript codex of the Charterhouse of Cologne, collated with the manuscript of S. Maximin of Trier and that of S. Salvator of Utrecht.
Felix, M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
Regula, V. M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
Exsuperantius, M., at Zurich in Switzerland (S.)
BHL Number: 2888
A. By an Anonymous Writer.
The Saints come into present-day Switzerland, At that a time the most blessed Felix and his sister S. Regula and their Companions, serving the Lord by the counsel of the most blessed Maurice b their leader, having set out on pilgrimage c, came through the waste places of the desert which is called Clarona d to the head of the lake and of the river Limmat e, which is beside the castle of Turonicum f; where, pitching their tents, and giving themselves day and night to fastings, vigils, and prayers and the word of God g, they clung faithfully and devoutly to the Lord. Therefore the most impious Maximian sent cruel officers to persecute them, who, coming to the place already named at midday, and while, after prayer, they were now taking food, the officers came upon them; but, the grace of God surrounding the Saints, the most impious officers were blinded and did not see them at all.
[2] seized by the persecutors, not unwillingly, And as they were passing by, S. Felix said to his Sister: Most beloved sister of mine, behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation: come, let us show ourselves to them, and let us receive martyrdom, and we shall be sharers with the Elect h in heaven. And with hands stretched out to heaven he prayed the Lord that he would deliver their souls from the hands of their enemies, and that they might be able to pass over to eternal blessedness. Then Decius i, seeing them and filled with an unclean spirit, said: Are ye Christians? Companions of Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, or not? S. Felix with his Companions k answered: We are Christians, and we adore Christ the Lord, who made us, and we beseech him that with those of whom thou hast asked we may deserve, through the mercy of God, to share in the heavenly kingdom.
[3] professing Christ, they refuse to adore idols: Decius said: Sacrifice to the gods. The Saints answered: We do not sacrifice, nor do we adore thy gods, with whom thou art to be plunged into hell. Decius said: By the great gods I swear, if ye will not sacrifice to the gods, I have great and various torments to lay upon you. The Saints answered: Our body thou hast in thy power; but our souls thou hast not, but God alone, who fashioned us. Decius the tyrant said: I am still patient with you: for I was not commanded by the most sacred Maximian to deal thus with you, when ye departed from the fellowship of your fellow soldiers. Now therefore by the great gods, and by the clemency of the emperor Maximian, I swear that, if ye will not adore our gods, Mercury and Jove, I will have you cast into white-hot pans. The Saints answered: The Lord is our helper: we do not fear what man may do unto us.
[4] hence variously tortured, The most impious judge said: Why do ye not sacrifice to the gods? The Saints answered: Be it known to thee that we do not adore thy gods, and we do not worship thy images; because they are phantasms of the devil. Then the tyrant ordered them to be seized and set upon hot iron wheels; and he said: Sacrifice and adore my gods. The Saints answered: Most wicked enemy, what sort are thy gods? Decius answered: Mercury and Jupiter. S. Regula answered: Beelzebub is thy god: for those whom thou worshippest are indeed of bronze without and of clay within, who neither hear, nor feel, nor smell; to whom thou art made like l. But Decius, filled with anger, ordered pitch to be brought, and to be melted, and S. Regula to be cast into it m. And he ordered also most scalding lead to be poured into her mouth, that it might reach her inward parts; and the tyrant said to her: These and worse torments I have to bring upon thee, if thou wilt not adore my gods. S. Regula answered: Thy torments are sweeter to me than honey and the honeycomb.
[5] Decius said to her: By the clemency of the emperor I will have you put in prison, and being urged in vain to sacrifice where there shall be for you the outer darkness. The Saints answered: Into the outer darkness thou shalt go, where is the house of thy lord and thy dwelling for ever. But the most impious Decius, goaded by anger, ordered divers punishments n to be inflicted on them; but the Saints, with cheerful mind mocking the torments, with one voice and one mind glorified and blessed God, saying: We give thanks to thee, Jesus Christ, because for thy name's sake we have suffered such torments. Decius said to S. Felix: Thy God, whom thou adorest, to whom thou criest, where is he? S. Felix answered: In heaven is my God, whom I adore and whom I worship; but thy god, whom thou adorest and whom thou worshippest, is in hell. The devil, therefore, wishes to drag thee to hell, and dost thou show thyself his imitator?
[6] Decius said: Thou doest better if thou adorest my gods; to the idols, because I speak with them, and what they command, that I do. The Saints answered: Enemy, why dost thou not consider that thou standest upon the earth? Look up to heaven, and see the sun and the moon, which God made, who has power to save our souls: for thy gods are demons, with whom, as also thy emperors, ye are to be burned in everlasting fire. Decius said: I am still patient with you. The Saints answered: Our God, whom we serve, he himself is patient and greatly merciful, and of his mercy there is no end. But Decius, being angry, ordered heavier torments to be inflicted on them again. But the servants of Christ, made stronger against all his torments, glorified and blessed God, who made heaven and earth, by whose Word all things were created; and steadfastly they sought for themselves help from the heavens, and the grace of the Spirit
the Holy Spirit, that they might see the salvation of God, and that the name of the Holy Trinity might be magnified among the nations.
[7] And straightway there was a bright cloud over them, and a voice from the cloud saying: but divinely refreshed, Fear not; for I am with you: act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened; for your calling is come, and an everlasting crown is prepared for you, and ye shall receive great glory among my Saints. And when the Saints, having heard this voice, had lifted their eyes to the heavens, they heard again a voice from heaven saying to them: Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world. But the Saints, hearing these things, crying out the more, blessed God, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will: we praise thee, we bless thee, world without end.
[8] Then the most cruel Decius, filled with exceeding fury, ordered them to bend their necks, and their heads to be cut off. they are beheaded: And when the holy Martyrs had heard this, they sang psalms, saying to the Lord: Show us thy ways, O Lord, and teach us thy paths; direct us in thy truth, and teach us; for thou art God our savior. And when with one mind and one voice they had prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ, with palms spread out to heaven, bending their necks, the executioners cutting off their heads, they ended a glorious death for the Lord. And behold, a voice of angels and of Saints singing psalms was heard: Into paradise may the angels lead you, and with glory may the martyrs receive you.
[9] [which they carry with their own hands to the mountain, where they shine with miracles.] To prove therefore the merit of the holy Martyrs, a great miracle was shown by the Lord: for in that same hour of their beheading, while the impious were struck with exceeding terror, they themselves, taking their own heads in their hands, carried them from the bank of the river Limmat, where they received martyrdom, and bore them sixty dextri o toward the mountain. And that place, where the Saints rest with great honor, is distant from the castle of Turonicum [p] two hundred dextri [q]; where from ancient times many blind and lame are healed, to the glory of God and the reverence of the holy Martyrs; and now, if the faith of those who ask humbly begs anything of the Saints of God, they straightway obtain by the grace of God a medicine of mind and body. This Passion, finally, was revealed to S. Florentius [r] the monk by the Holy Spirit; and their festival is celebrated on the third of the Ides of September, to the praise and glory of the name of Christ, who liveth and reigneth world without end. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Read: Turegum.
q. Of this distance the Trier manuscript has nothing: Du Cange, praised above, reads thus: From that place to the castle of Thoringum there are two hundred dextri. Further, of the church built over the tomb of the Martyrs see the Preliminary Commentary, num. 27 and following.
r. These things are not read in the Trier manuscript. Who this Florentius was, or, as he is called by others, Florenicus, or in what age he lived, I have not been able to discover.