ON ST. CRESCENTIUS, MARTYR, AT ROME,
Toward the beginning of the fourth century
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the Saint's Acts, cult, and relics.
Crescentius, mart. at Rome. (S.)
J. T.
Among the very many glorious champions who, while the Diocletianic persecution lasted, sealed the faith of Christ with their own blood, The Saint's Acts, and the Roman Martyrology, there is found also St. Crescentius, a boy, the son of St. Euthymius. His manuscript Acts Baronius praises in his notations to the XIV of September, which he received from the Church of Perugia and read. The same have been communicated to us from tom. N. of P. Gallonius among the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome, which our Pinius, on the XXIX day of August, where he treats of SS. Euthymius, his wife and Crescentius his son the martyr, referred to this day to be illustrated, on which the Roman Martyrology announces him in this manner: At Rome, St. Crescentius, a boy, son of St. Euthymius, who in the persecution of Diocletian, under the judge Turpilius, died smitten by the sword on the Salarian Way. With these the Acts praised agree, from which there can be no doubt about the martyrdom of St. Crescentius: if however you take what the same Martyrology has at the XXIX of August just as it stands, you will say that he died not at Rome but at Perugia, and not a martyr but by a natural death. At Perugia, it says, St. Euthymius, a Roman, who fleeing the persecution of Diocletian, there, with his wife and Crescentius his son, rested in the Lord. This contradiction is noted by the most illustrious lord Pedro González de Mendoza, formerly archbishop of Granada, in the History of Salices, which he wrote in Spanish, book 4 chapter 10 folio 829; which contradiction, however, will be none, if you so understand the words of the Martyrology that by them it is signified that St. Euthymius, having set out from Rome to Perugia in order to avoid the persecution of Diocletian, dwelt there with his wife and his son Crescentius, and that he alone rested in the Lord — which is plainly conformable to the Acts of the church of Perugia, and is not at all against the natural sense of the words.
[2] Of the end of St. Crescentius's mother nothing is read in the Acts, [from which it is uncertain what is to be judged about the end of St. Crescentius's mother.] whence it is uncertain where and by what kind of death she ended her life. She survived when at the order of Turpius or Turpilius Crescentius was led captive to Rome: for she also is read to have been handed over at Perugia to the proconsul Turpius, and it is related that she frankly confessed that she with her husband and Son had been baptized by the priest Epigmenius and had given her name to Christ. Hence Ferrarius, in his annotation to the deeds of St. Crescentius, which he sets forth contracted into a compendium, says: It is a wonder that of the end of St. Crescentius's mother no mention is made in his Acts, since nevertheless from the same Acts it is established that she was denounced together with her son for the Christian faith. He subjoins: Perhaps she escaped the hands of the persecutors by flight; which appears to me less probable. For how should she have escaped the hands of the persecutors by flight, who had already been seized, and by the proconsul's order, no otherwise than her Son, had been beaten with rods and shut up in prison, separated from him? I do not at all deny that it is uncertain what was done about her when St. Crescentius was carried off to Rome; but, if there is room for conjecture, I prefer to believe that she ended her life at Perugia, worn out either by martyrdom or by the miseries and the blows inflicted, than that she consulted her own safety by flight after a contest so gloriously begun; especially since the example of her most tender Son, then scarcely twelve years old, would not allow it. But let us return to St. Crescentius.
[3] [The time of the martyrdom and the place of burial. A part of the body at Tortosa;] I have fixed above the Saint's martyrdom toward the beginning of the fourth century. The Acts of the church of Perugia, to be published, do not designate the year; but Tillemont judges that it happened in the year 303. He brings forward as the reason of his opinion that about this year Diocletian and Maximian, under whom the Acts relate that St. Crescentius suffered at Rome, were in the city of Rome. However that may be, I have thought that I should not stray far from the truth,
if, leaving the year uncertain, I should determine the beginning of the fourth century, since we find it everywhere handed down that at that time not a few soldiers of Christ poured out their blood under these emperors in defense of the true faith. The day of the martyrdom the Perugian Acts express as the XIV of September, on which we have seen the Saint announced in the Roman Martyrology and in Ferrarius. It is added that the sacred body was buried by a certain woman, on whom the Saint, as he entered Rome a captive, had bestowed sight, in that crypt in which the bodies of many Saints were laid up. Perhaps the cemetery of Priscilla is designated: for it is clear from an authentic instrument, which I have concerning its translation to Tortosa, a city of Tarraconensian Spain, that the body was in the year 1606 extracted from this cemetery, with the consent of Urban VIII, Pope of Rome, through the very reverend father Mutius Vitelleschi, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus. This favor was obtained from the aforesaid Pontiff by the most eminent and most reverend lord Espinosa, Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church of the title of SS. Cosmas and Damian, at that time bishop of Tortosa, but named to the archbishopric of Granada.
[4] The people of Tortosa, however, do not have the whole body; for in the ninth lesson (the Acts are nothing but the lessons proper to the Saint) it is said that the body of the same St. Crescentius was translated to Siena, an archiepiscopal city of Etruria, also at Siena in Etruria. so celebrated for the cult of the Holy Virgin and Mother that it has deserved to be called the city of the Mother of God, by Antifredus bishop of Siena, who had received it as a gift from Stephen IX [*]; which Ughelli in his Italia sacra, tom. III page 626, writes to have been done in the year 1058 on the fourth of the Ides of October, and he adds that the said translation is exhibited in the metropolitan Church in an ancient painting, beneath which some verses were subscribed, which devouring antiquity has so corrupted that they cannot be read. Antonio Macedo, S.J., in the singular Work which he published concerning the tutelary Saints of the Christian world, page 122, records that St. Crescentius was chosen by the citizens as patron of the city of Siena together with SS. Ansanus, Savinus and Victor, and that he is venerated as such by the Sienese every year on the XII of October, on which we have said that the body was translated to Siena. From which it manifestly follows that the people of Tortosa do not have the whole body of St. Crescentius, but that long before at least so notable a part of it, that it might not ineptly be called the body, had rested among the Sienese.
[5] Nor even, if we believe Tamayo, do the Sienese and the people of Tortosa keep the whole body of the Saint; Nay, also in the monastery of Monte Celio. for in his Martyrology at the XIV of August he has these words: In the monastery of the Minors of Monte Celio in Carpetania there rest honorably the sacred remains, brought from Rome, of St. Crescentius, a little boy, son of St. Euthymius, who in the persecution of Diocletian under the judge Turpilius, his head being cut off on the Salarian Way, entered heaven a famous martyr crowned with the palm. That monastery of Monte Celio or of Celius mount is situated, on the testimony of Wadding in the Annals of the Minors, tom. 1, pages 208 and 209, in the diocese of Cantia or Coria, in a deep valley girt about with very lofty mountains. Now Coria is an episcopal city of Spain, of the kingdom of León, now under the archbishop of Compostela, distant 14 miles to the north from Ciudad Rodrigo, or the city of Roderick. He says that his feast is celebrated in that same place on the XIV of August, although in the Roman Martyrology he is announced at the XIV of September, because of the occurrence of the Exaltation of the holy Cross. He grounds his credit on the most illustrious lord Pedro González de Mendoza, formerly archbishop of Granada, who in the place praised above testifies that the relics of St. Crescentius are kept and venerated in that place. Now I set forth the Acts to the reader, just as we have received them.
Annotations* elsewhere X
ACTS
From tom. N. of P. Gallonius among the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome.
Crescentius, mart. at Rome. (S.)
BHL Number: 1986
By N. P. Gallonius.
[St. Euthymius with his wife and his son St. Crescentius avoids the persecution of Diocletian.] Lesson I. In the times of Diocletian and Maximian, princes of the Romans, there arose no small persecution of the Christians, because, in whatever way the worshippers of Christ were found, they were subjected to the sharper punishments, and many lay hidden who were secretly Christians, for fear of the above-named princes, and desisted from the contest; among whom was a man by name Euthymius, a Roman a, who with his wife b and his son Crescentius was secretly baptized by Epigmenius c the priest; who, when he had heard and seen that many Christians were being butchered, took to flight, and leaving all things that he had, with his wife alone and his only son by name Crescentius, entered secretly the city of Perugia d.
[2] St. Crescentius buries his dead father, and proclaims that he was a Christian, Lesson II. But when he had tarried there for some time, he did not openly call himself a Christian, but daily worshipped Christ in truth. Admonishing his Son assiduously and without ceasing to keep the most Christian rule, and to despise all images hostile to God, and to confess the true Lord Jesus Christ. How he had been born of a Virgin, and suffered and been crucified, and on the third day rose again, as is the custom for Christians to believe e, in the eleventh year of his Son's age. Euthymius, the father of blessed Crescentius, passed to Christ with a most blessed confession, whose most holy body his Son, receiving it, laid up among the sacred relics of the martyrs, announcing openly to all that his father was a most true Christian. On the fourth of the Kalends of September, as the sacred page announces his confession, he passed from the world in the Lord.
[3] wherefore he is seized with his mother by the proconsul and beaten with rods, Lesson III. Turpius, proconsul of the city of Perugia, hearing of the most Christian man who had lain hid at Rome and had worshipped Christ in his own city, was greatly angered and said: If our sacred princes shall hear of a man of our city worshipping Christ, and that he has not been brought to great straits, they will judge by judicial sentence that we are to be condemned against the power of their fidelity f. And he commanded the mother with her Son to be led before him. But when they had been led in, Turpius says to them: In truth, both you and your Son and your husband who has died, were you Christians, and have you condemned our city? To whom the widow said: In truth my husband and I with my Son received baptism under Epigmenius the priest. To her Turpius: Do you not call Apollo a glorious God? To whom blessed Crescentius said: No, but I say that he himself is a demon. Hereupon the angered proconsul ordered both to be beaten with rods; and he said to him, Do not blaspheme God; and he ordered them to be shut up separately in prison until morning.
[4] He is sent to Rome. Lesson IV. But when morning had come, Turpius said to his senators: It is better indeed that we send that mad Boy to Rome, that he may be butchered there, than that we exercise our own will upon him, since he has remained among us a stranger. He was at Rome, let him return to Rome, and be punished according to the prince's order. To whom they said: You have spoken well; see that the princes be not angry with you. At the twilight therefore of the rising day, he ordered the innocent Crescentius to be bound by the neck and dispatched to the city, and also to be guarded with the utmost diligence, saying: Weigh it carefully, lest by magic arts he take to flight.
[5] The proconsul's letter to Diocletian and Maximian. Lesson V. And so he wrote an embassy on papyrus, directing it to Rome, of which the tenor is such: To the most sacred and most invincible princes of the ages, Diocletian and Maximian, Turpius in all things, if your fidelity's proconsul dares to say anything to your clemency, may you deign to search me out as a purchased slave. O the impiety! The Boy, whom I bring to you by our men, has been defiled against the sacred rites of the gods, teaching Christ, whom your sacred see condemns; and therefore I send him over to you, that, either as it pleases the will of your majesty, your princedom may prevail upon him. When blessed Crescentius went along the road to the city of Rome, he preached and announced to the soldiers and to his own executioners how Jesus Christ was born and suffered and was crucified, and how he rose again and ascended, and how he will come on the last day to judge and to render good things to the good and punishment to the wicked.
[6] Lesson VI. But when he came to the Milvian bridge g and Rome was seen, At his entrance into the city of Rome he gives light to a blind woman. he said: O Rome, what city is like to you, if you confess Jesus and cast out the two dragons that are above you, who suck you and by their own evils make you to be in peril, so that you are plunged into the deep! You, who are fairer than all. To whom the soldiers said: Who are those dragons that overthrow Rome? Crescentius answered: Diocletian and Maximian, who are the sons of hell. A woman heard him who was sitting near the road, who had blind eyes, and said to him: Boy, is he a true God, whom you call Christ? To whom blessed Crescentius said: He himself is. To whom the woman: Will he be able to grant me the light which I do not have? To this the blessed Boy: If it pleases him, he can. To whom the woman: I beseech you by him; and she adored upon the ground; and rising from prayer the blessed Boy said: What is it with you, woman? She said: By the grace of Christ I am healed, and I see the light; and the holy Boy, prostrate upon the ground, said: I give thanks to you, Savior of the world.
[7] Lesson VII. The soldiers therefore, terrified, led him more speedily outside the gate which is called the Salarian, He is set before Diocletian, and is condemned. and bring him to the tribunal of Sallust before Diocletian, and they brought the embassy of Turpius. And when he had read it: Behold, the Boy of whom it is read in the papyrus, the soldiers answered. Diocletian himself says: Are you willing to adore our gods, and to cast down your Christ? Then blessed Crescentius with great constancy said: I neither believe in nor adore any other but Christ, whom my father taught me. Diocletian, angered, said: Cast him out beyond the Salarian gate, and let him receive capital sentence, that all the children of Rome may make sport of him.
[8] Lesson VIII. And it came to pass, when the Athlete of God had come to the place of the contest, He is beheaded and buried. he seized upon the little verse of the psalm where it says: In the head of the book it is written of me; and when he had said this, the soldiers cut off his neck on the road outside the Salarian gate. But when night had come, that woman came secretly to whom God had restored the light through him, and took from the road the holy corpses h, and buried them in that crypt in which many Saints were laid up. Where for many days his benefits shine forth to the praise of Jesus Christ.
[9] Lesson IX. Now the blessed boy Crescentius was martyred on the eighteenth of the Kalends of October, The body is translated to Siena, where it is renowned for miracles. our Lord Jesus Christ reigning. But afterwards, many times having passed, there came Charles the First i in the time of Stephen the Pontiff, to whom they reported these things and many others. The bishop of Siena also, Antifredus by name, heard of them. He therefore asked for the body of the most holy Crescentius the martyr through the charity of Pope Stephen. He brought it to the city of Siena k, on the fourth of the Ides of October, and laid it up with great honor, where his wonders shine forth even to the present day, Jesus Christ our Lord reigning,
whose is honor and glory through the infinite ages of ages.