ON SS. SENATOR AND VIATOR AND CASSIODORUS AND DOMINATA, MARTYRS IN THE CITY OF SAN MARCO IN HITHER CALABRIA,
A HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.
The cult and martyrdom of the Saints: fabulous Acts.
Senator, Martyr in the city of San Marco in Hither Calabria. (S.)
Viator, Martyr in the city of San Marco in Hither Calabria. (S.)
Cassiodorus, Martyr in the city of San Marco in Hither Calabria. (S.)
Dominata, Martyr in the city of San Marco in Hither Calabria. (S.)
BY J. S.
These Martyrs, recorded in some Martyrologies, are venerated The Brussels Usuardine codex, cited by our Sollier in the Auctaria of Usuard, has it thus on this day: And the birthday of the holy martyrs Senator, Viator, Cassiodorus, brothers, and of Dominata their mother. The Florentine codex in the same place adds the province in which they suffered, in this way: In Calabria, of the holy martyrs Senator, Victor [*], Cassiodorus, and of their mother Dominatia. Ferrari in his general Catalogue adds also the city in which they are now venerated, writing thus of them: In the City of San Marco in Calabria, of the holy martyrs Dominata and of her sons Senator, Viator, and Cassiodorus. In his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy the aforesaid writer wove for these Martyrs such a eulogy as this: Dominata, a noble matron, with three sons, Senator, Viator, and Cassiodorus, was crowned with an illustrious martyrdom at Argentanum in the land of the Bruttii (which city is now called Marcus in Hither Calabria). For, being accused before the governor with her sons of the Christian religion, and seized, she was variously tortured: but when all persisted brave in the confession of the faith, they at length obtained the noble palm of martyrdom. Whose bodies, buried by Christians, were afterwards translated to the cathedral church, and there honorably laid. The people of Argentanum pursue them with the greatest honor, and venerate them on this day with the utmost solemnity. He adds that he has these things from the records of that church and from the Chronicle of Calabria: and he observes that these Martyrs were announced by Usuard; but that this must be understood of those who enlarged Usuard.
[2] Girolamo Marafioti in the Chronicle of Calabria, book 4, chap. 22, affirms in the city of San Marco, where their bodies are preserved, that the bodies of the holy martyrs Dominata, Senator, Viator, and Cassiodorus are now preserved in the cathedral church of the city of San Marco: and about this matter there agree David Romaeus in the Catalogue of the Saints of the kingdom of Naples, which he subjoined to his Opusculum on the Five guardians of Sorrento; Paolo Regio in the Lives of the Saints of the same kingdom, part 1, p. 465, in Irenaeus the bishop and martyr; and finally Paolo Gualtieri in the Saints of Calabria, book 1, chap. 10, where he gives a lengthier eulogy of these Saints. About the possession of the bodies therefore there appears no reason for doubting. About the city of San Marco the most recent topographer Francesco Orlendi, part 2 of the Sacred and Profane World, book 4, chap. 35, num. 13, writes this: The city of San Marco of Hither Calabria, situated between Cosenza and Temesa or Tempsa, was formerly, on Barrio's testimony, Argentanum, a most ancient town of the Bruttii. It was made the seat of a bishopric after the middle of the twelfth century, or rather succeeded in the place of Temesa, or Tempsa… The cathedral basilica is a work of the Normans, dedicated to St. Nicholas the bishop, toward whom that nation was carried with a readier devotion. There are laid up the bodies of the holy martyrs Senator, Viator, Cassiodorus, and Donunata (rather Dominata). These things are mostly taken from Ughelli, who recounts the bishops of San Marco in tom. 1 of Sacred Italy, col. 876, and notes that the city of San Marco is small. Whether it is the ancient Argentanum, as some already cited affirm, which others however deny, I do not here inquire. For the rest, Ughelli wrongly asserts that the names of these Martyrs are read in the Roman Martyrology.
[3] on the 14th of September: a translation is recorded on the 15th of July. From what has been said it is gathered that the chief festivity of these Saints is celebrated on this XIV day of September, on which they are said in the Acts presently to be mentioned to have been crowned. It seems however that a translation too was formerly celebrated at the XV of July. Certainly their translation is inscribed in the Calendars at that day, as our Sollier set forth in the Praetermissi in these words: The translation of SS. Senator, Viator, and Cassiodorus, martyrs, and of Dominata their mother, is reported in the Florentine codices as on this day, but I do not know in what year it was made. Their memory I read in the Greek Horologion published at Rome in the year MDCLXXVII for the use of the Basilian monks, p. 464. In the said Horologion only Viator and Senator are expressed by name, and there is added with their Companions. But two other Saints are premised, and one is subjoined: and no mention is made of a translation, so that it cannot be ascertained that a translation is there recorded; but it is clearly expressed in the Florentine codices. Whatever be the case about the festivity, it is certain that the bodies were formerly translated to the cathedral church, but nothing is established about the year or the century.
[4] [Acts are extant in Greek manuscripts, and these were rendered into Latin in the eleventh century;] There are extant Greek Acts of these Martyrs, and these have also been rendered into Latin. Of the Greek I have a twofold transcript, one from a manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Salvator, of the Order of St. Basil at Messina, the other from the Pontifical codex of Alexander VII. The Latin copy was taken from an ancient manuscript Passionary of the Saints of the Neapolitan monastery of St. Mary of Monte Oliveto, and was sent hither in the year 1638 by Fr. Antonio Beatillo. The Greek copies do not altogether agree in their words; but in the facts they nearly consent, with the exception, however, of the day of the martyrdom. For the Messinese manuscript, from the monastery of the Basilian Order, assigns to the martyrdom the XV day of July, on which we have already seen the festivity noted in the Horologium of the Basilian Order. But the other Greek manuscript, with which the Latin also agrees, expresses the day of the martyrdom in words which I here transfer from the Latin: Now the holy Senator, Viator, Cassiodorus and Dominata were martyred on the fourteenth day of September. This difference of the Acts arises, so far as I suspect, from no other cause than that individuals inserted into Acts by no means authentic that day of martyrdom on which they venerated the Saint. Further, I have not found those Acts mentioned among writers, nor have I lighted upon any author who had used them for narrating the deeds of the Saints. At this indeed I have wondered, since in the eleventh century they were rendered into Latin by Jerold a monk, otherwise unknown to me, as is clear from the preface of the translator directed to Victor the supreme Pontiff. I have said that this was done in the eleventh century, because both Victor II and Victor III presided over the Roman Church in that century: for Victor I cannot be designated, nor do we have thereafter any other Victor among the Pontiffs. For a long time therefore they lay hidden in darkness, but without loss, because they are plainly fabulous and unworthy of the light. I shall show this in few words, at the same time touching briefly upon the chief heads of the matter.
[5] The three Brothers are said to have flourished in the time of the emperor Antoninus, but these things are utterly falsehoods and unworthy of all credit: and to have had as father Cassianus, born in Sardinia, and chief commander of the king of Sardinia (this name is written in the Latin Dictelmus, in the Greek Delchemus and Delmutus, so far as appears from the transcripts); and as mother Dominata, the Christian wife of the aforesaid pagan Cassianus, sprung both of noble stock and of Roman origin. But when Cassianus had been slain by the Gauls in war, as the Acts fable, Dominata exhorted her Sons to go with her to Rome and there to receive baptism, discoursing after the manner of a bishop out of the sacred Scriptures concerning the faith, and so converting her Sons. All therefore entered a ship, but being tossed by a storm, and a calm thereafter following, they came to Cæsarea and to St. Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea, and by him they were baptized. Then, a discord having arisen between the people of Cæsarea and those of Carthage, Senator is set over the army of the Cæsareans, and storms Carthage. Who would not see that all these things are the lies and figments of a foolish man? For that king of Sardinia is fictitious, fictitious the war in which Cassianus was said to have been slain, fictitious beyond doubt Cassianus himself. Equally fictitious is the war with the Carthaginians, even if one should believe that the Cæsarea of Mauritania is designated, and Eusebius too is attributed to it as bishop by a mere figment. I forbear to recount the remaining figments down to the place of martyrdom assigned in Calabria, which are no less inept. For what has been said suffices for anyone skilled in history to understand that fables of this sort were not born of the error of an unskilled writer, but of the inventions of a diseased impostor. He, that the imposture may be the clearer, names himself at the end Florentius, and does not blush to affirm that he had been the servant of the Saints.
[6] [and the other things also which are asserted about the Saints are not altogether certain.] Therefore from those Acts we have nothing certain about the holy Brothers and their Mother, and from elsewhere we can scarcely have anything. Probable are the things which I gave at num. 1 out of Ferrarius. Gualterius, praised above, wished indeed to honor the Saints with a more prolix elogium, but he added few facts to those given by Ferrarius, and none of these do we believe sufficiently certain. He says that there is a tradition that St. Peter the Apostle came together with St. Mark the Evangelist into Calabria: that by these Apostles St. Dominata was converted and baptized with her three Sons: that the Saint was thereupon accused by the priests of the idols, seized with her Sons at the order of the governor, and that the constancy of the Saints was tried by him with promises and threats, but in vain. Hence in the sight of their holy Mother the three Sons ended their life by the cutting off of the head, and the Mother followed her Sons. He adds that the bodies were buried by night by the Christians in the place of the martyrdom, and that there afterwards a church was founded dedicated to St. Senator: but that, when the cathedral church of St. Mark had been constructed, the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs were translated to it from the church of St. Senator. Finally he affirms that the most eminent Sirleto, who presided as bishop over the church of St. Mark, was of this opinion, that he judged St. Dominata to have been among the first who shed their blood for Christ. In the title prefixed it is said that the festivity of SS. Dominata, Senator, Cassiodorus and Viator, martyrs, is celebrated on the XIV of September, and this is beyond doubt. But I do not believe it equally certain that they were citizens of the town of St. Mark, although I should prefer to judge that they were born in Calabria rather than in some other province. The lack of monuments worthy of credit does not allow more to be added about these Saints.
Annotations* elsewhere everywhere of Viator