Nicomedes

ON ST. NICOMEDES, PRESBYTER AND MARTYR,

AT ROME,

Perhaps under Domitian.

COMMENTARY ON HIS CULT AND DEEDS.

Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr, at Rome. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. The Saint's memory celebrated in the Martyrologies:

twin Acts, of which the first are suspect and the second of no credit whatever: a church and

a cemetery once dedicated to him at Rome.

St. Nicomedes the martyr the ancient Martyrologies celebrate on this day with great unanimity, and some of them have added besides the title of his presbyterate, The Saint's ancient memory the arena of his martyrdom, and the emperor under whom he was crowned. The Hieronymian, as published by Florentinius, announces him briefly in the first place thus: The birthday of St. Nicomedes the martyr. Florentinius observes, however, in the same place, that it was also the custom elsewhere in that more ancient manuscript for martyrs who suffered at Rome, or who were there particularly honoured, to be commemorated at the head of the entry, the place of their contest being left unmentioned. Briefly too does the Martyrology of Bede make mention of him — the one printed in our Work before the second volume of March — where it reads thus: The birthday of St. Nicomedes the martyr. The title of bishop is there wrongly added in the Dijon manuscript; but neither is it altogether certain whether the former reading is really Bede's, since in his metrical Martyrology, which Achery presents in the tenth volume of the Spicilegium, it is not read, and, by the conjecture or suspicion of our Sollerius, perhaps to Florus should be ascribed those announcements and elogia of the Saints of which mention is made in the prose text alone. Rabanus likewise treats of him in few words, saying: The passion of Nicomedes the martyr.

[2] The Roman arena of the Saint was added by the author of the Old, in the Martyrologies on this day or Little, Roman Martyrology of Rosweyde, in which likewise on this day is read: At Rome, of Nicomedes the martyr. Wandelbert in his metrical Martyrology commemorates his presbyterate, and in passing hints at his deeds in these verses:

The seventeenth * Nicomedes the presbyter adorns, thy companion, O virgin Petronilla, and a blessed martyr.

Longer are the elogia which Notker and Ado, each in his own Martyrology, wove concerning him. The first of these reports the following: The birthday of St. Nicomedes the martyr, whom Flaccus the count, because he had buried the body of St. Felicula the martyr, and because he refused to sacrifice to the idols, ordered to be beaten with leaded scourges until he should end his life; and his body, having been cast headlong into the Tiber, was gathered up by his deacon and honourably buried. Ado, for his part, has this: The birthday of St. Nicomedes the martyr. When it had been reported to Flaccus the count that he had buried the body of the holy virgin Felicula, whom the count himself had put to death for Christ's sake, he had him seized and led away to sacrifice. And when he said: I do not sacrifice save to Almighty God, who reigns in the heavens, and not to these hewn stones, which are kept shut up in temples as though in prisons — being beaten a very long while with leaded scourges he passed to the Lord. His body was cast headlong into the Tiber, but it was gathered up by a cleric of his own, Justus by name and by deed, and carried to his own little garden, and there buried beside the walls on the Via Nomentana. Usuard somewhat abridged Ado's text, writing on the same day: At Rome on the Via Nomentana, the birthday of Blessed Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr, under the emperor Domitian. Who, when he said to those who were compelling him to sacrifice: I do not sacrifice save to Almighty God, who reigns in the heavens — being beaten a very long while with leaded scourges he passed to the Lord.

[3] and on other days. The Acts, drawn from the letter of Marcellus, The name of the same Saint occurs in several Martyrologies on the first day of June, on which is kept the dedication of the church which he once had at Rome; and on the fourth of June, on which he was formerly venerated at Milan. In our manuscript Florarium Sanctorum also, on the thirteenth of the same month — for what reason I do not know — and in the manuscript Additions of the Charterhouse of Brussels to Greven, on the fifth day of July, the elevation of St. Nicomedes, equally unknown to me, is announced, as may be seen on the said days in our Work among the Passed Over. Now the elogia recited above rest upon the Acts of SS. Nereus, Achilleus and their companions, that is, upon the letter of Marcellus written to those Saints and published, together with the same Acts in which it is inserted, by us in the third volume of May, on the twelfth day, where and elsewhere our Henschen judged them all to be of the best credit, though the rest of the learned generally dissent, and among these Baronius, who in the first volume of the Annals, both at the year of Christ 68, number 23, warned that those Acts are in some respects of no unimpaired credit, and at the year 96, number 33, where he acknowledged that very letter to be of suspect and slight credit. With the most eminent annalist our Sollerius agreed in his Usuard on the seventh day of May, in the Observation on St. Domitilla; nor is there any doubt that he agreed with reason, so little credible are the things here and there recounted in them. On this head those things which are reported of St. Nicomedes' deeds in that letter cannot but be suspect as well, and on its credit they passed into the Martyrologies cited.

[4] I do not wish to discuss here those Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, inserted in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, but shall only mention those things which properly concern our St. Nicomedes and are reported in the same place, in chapter 4, from the cited letter of Marcellus. That Marcellus, then, who professes himself a disciple of St. Peter the Apostle, in his letter of reply to the aforesaid Saints, writes among other things concerning Petronilla … the daughter of my lord Peter the Apostle, as he says, that she, being loved by Flaccus the count, in order for the time being to keep off the hateful suitor, who had come to her attended by soldiers, asked of him that, if he wished to have her as his bride, he should after three days send to her house honourable matrons and virgins, by whom she might be conducted to him; and that this condition was accepted by Flaccus. Then indeed he goes on thus: Now it came to pass that the space of three days which she had obtained was occupied by the virgin with holy fastings and prayers, having with her the holy virgin Felicula, her foster-sister, perfect in the fear of God. On the third day therefore St. Nicomedes the presbyter, coming to her, celebrated the mysteries of Christ. But the most holy virgin, as soon as she had received the Sacrament of Christ, reclining upon her bed, gave up her spirit… But Flaccus, turning his mind elsewhere, said to Felicula: Choose thou one of two things, either be my wife, or sacrifice to the gods. To whom St. Felicula answered: Neither shall I be thy wife, because I am consecrated to Christ, nor will I sacrifice, because I am a Christian.

[5] After this, having narrated the martyrdom of St. Felicula, whom he says to have been thrown into a sewer after enduring the rack, are recited, he returns to St. Nicomedes and adds: But the holy presbyter Nicomedes, being posted on the watch, secretly took up the body, and by night in a birotum (that is, a vehicle fitted with two wheels) carried it to his own casella (that is, a little cottage) at the seventh milestone from the city of Rome, on the Via Ardeatina, and there buried her; in which place his prayers bear fruit to this present day. But it came to Flaccus that Nicomedes the presbyter had done this; and he had him seized and led away to sacrifice. And when he said: I do not sacrifice save to Almighty God, who reigns in the heavens; not to these gods, who are kept shut up in temples as though in prisons — when he said these and many such things, being beaten a very long while with leaded scourges he passed to the Lord. But his body was cast headlong into the Tiber; and a cleric of that same Presbyter, Justus by name and by deed, gathered up his body and placed it in his own birotum, and led it to his own little garden (that is, a small garden) beside the walls on the Via Nomentana, and there buried it; in which place those who pray to the Lord obtain what they ask through the intercession of his Martyr, who suffered for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here end the writings of Marcellus, sent to Nereus and Achilleus.

[6] This account contains nothing that surpasses belief and are proved to be of quite doubtful credit or greatly shocks common sense, except that St. Petronilla is called the daughter of St. Peter the Apostle, as though she had been begotten of him, and is said to have been loved by Flaccus the count towards the end of the first century. For it cannot be said that she was begotten of St. Peter after he had received the Apostolate: and this being granted, Petronilla and Felicula must already have been decrepit old women at the time when these things are related to have happened, if the former was St. Peter's daughter and the latter his foster-sister, as is asserted — as Henschen observed on the thirty-first day of May, in the historical Commentary on the same St. Petronilla, number 5. And who then would believe that Flaccus burned so uncontrollably with desire first for Petronilla, because she was too beautiful, and afterwards for Felicula as well — women, moreover, of the Hebrew race — that he sought marriage with both? Hence the aforesaid Henschen sets against these difficulties the opinion of certain persons, according to which Petronilla was rather of a Roman family, and was called the daughter of St. Peter the Apostle because, having been instructed in the faith and baptized by him, or received by him from the baptismal font, she was made his daughter by a kind of spiritual adoption; or lastly because she had earned that name by some particular veneration towards the holy Apostle.

[7] are proved. Others besides attack the same letter of Marcellus from the book of St. Augustine Against Adimantus the disciple of Manichæus, chapter 17, where the holy doctor asserts that it is read in the apocrypha that Peter's own daughter was made a paralytic * by her father's prayers, and that the gardener's daughter died at the prayer of Peter himself.

For since that story of Petronilla's paralysis is reported in the same letter, they infer that this letter was reckoned among the apocrypha by St. Augustine. But Henschen in the Commentary cited denies that anything is established against it from the passage adduced from St. Augustine, since in this letter nothing is read about the gardener's daughter, and therefore it must have been another story that the holy doctor pronounced apocryphal. However these things may stand, that narrative of Marcellus concerning St. Petronilla was doubtless suspect also to the compilers of the present Roman Breviary, who on the thirty-first day of May, on which she is venerated, prescribed the lesson — the only one there is about her — from St. Cyprian's book On the Discipline and Dress of Virgins, that is, from the Common of Virgins in the second place, setting aside what is read about her in the aforesaid letter. Similarly on the fifteenth of September, where the ninth Lesson is assigned to St. Nicomedes, nothing is said about the Mysteries celebrated at Petronilla's house; those things, however, are reported which we recounted at number 5 from the same letter. But if a writer's credit wavers in one part of the same letter, it cannot but be doubtful in the other, since in both places he narrates matters as though done under his own eyes, and is besides suspect on other grounds.

[8] Other Acts published by Mombritius, Mombritius in the Lives of the Saints, volume 2, folio 160, exhibits besides another Passion of St. Nicomedes, in which there is no mention of St. Petronilla or Felicula, and therefore in the index of the volume he distinguishes two Nicomedes: one whose this Passion is, the other commemorated in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus; and he doubtless thought these all the more to be distinguished because the former is said in the Passion to have suffered under Maximian and to have been buried on the Kalends of June, whereas our Saint is in the most ancient Martyrologies, as we have seen, constantly announced on the fifteenth day of September. This Passion, or one like it, lay before the author of the Ambrosian Breviary of Milan printed at Venice in the year 1539, which I have at hand; for although in it St. Nicomedes is treated of twice — on the fourth day of June, indeed, on which he was venerated there together with St. Quirinus, the Lesson is taken from the letter of Marcellus; but on the fifteenth of September, on which the feast of him alone is celebrated, things similar to the Mombritian Acts are read. But I do not doubt that both these Acts and the letter of Marcellus treat of the same holy Martyr who is venerated today; and why I so believe, hear. In both he is called Nicomedes the presbyter, and in the former it is expressly related that he was a disciple of the Apostles; in the latter, at least tacitly, or at any rate it is indicated that he lived with the Apostles. In both Flaccus orders the holy Martyr, who refuses to sacrifice, to be put to death. In both the same things are reported about his final punishment and burial, and in the very same words, if you except one or two differently inflected.

[9] We gave Marcellus's words at number 5; the Acts in Mombritius have this concerning these matters: an abridgement of which When these and many such things were being said, being beaten a very long while with leaded scourges he passed to the Lord… But his body was cast headlong into the Tiber. Now a cleric of that same presbyter, Justus by name and by deed, gathered his body, and placed it in his birotum, and led it to his little garden beside the walls on the Via Nomentana, and there buried him in peace on the Kalends of June. In which place those who pray to the Lord obtain healing through the intercession of his Martyr, who suffered for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Compare these with what was recounted at number 5, and you will find no other difference than that of a few words, besides the added Kalends of June. Hence there is no doubt that the one narrative was taken from the other; and it is far more natural to judge this of the Mombritian Acts, since these are also far less probable than the letter of Marcellus, and seem to have been written by an idle man who, seeing St. Nicomedes' name inscribed on the first day of June — the day on which the dedication of his church at Rome was kept — believed that he was another than the Martyr who is venerated on the fifteenth of September; and so patched together certain other Acts, partly from the published letter of Marcellus, partly according to his own bent, yet less prudently than to find credence easily. For this reason it is not worth while to reprint these Acts; but I think it enough if I set out an abridgement of them for the reader.

[10] Their compiler writes that St. Nicomedes the presbyter, in the reign of the emperor Maximian, is here given, and when a persecution had arisen under him at Rome, lay hid there in caves, and none the less makes him a disciple of the holy Apostles, namely Peter and Paul. Hence he brings in Flaccus speaking to him thus: Tell me, man of advanced age, etc.; but for so decrepit an age to find credence, a surer authority is needed. For since SS. Peter and Paul were crowned with martyrdom in the year of Christ 65, while Maximian Herculius was proclaimed Augustus in the year 286, our Saint must have counted already many more than two hundred years when he suffered. Now the sum of his martyrdom according to that compiler is this: Since he brought many to the rites of Christ, cured diseases and drove out demons, he was on that account accused before Flaccus by one Hyrcanus, I know not who; and having confessed Christ, he is beaten in vain with knotted cudgels; and when nothing more was accomplished by blandishments either, he is set upon a gridiron to be roasted: but presently, amid lightnings and an earthquake, the fire is quenched, and out of a great number of unbelievers who in a certain quarter, which is called (nay, is invented as) sub Mente, were pouring libations to the idols, a hundred were killed and the rest fled. Flaccus himself too fled in terror, having ordered Hyrcanus, however, to lead the holy Athlete back to prison, where he is strengthened by an angel.

[11] On the next day Flaccus, having set up a throne in the forum, took his seat, and, things still less to be admitted. the Saint being steadfast in his purpose, commands his knees to be crushed with iron cardæ — perhaps thistles; then his sides to be scorched with burning stones, himself to be dragged over iron spikes and to be cast into a blazing furnace. But when, the fire being here likewise quenched, the holy Presbyter praised God in the furnace, by the order of the same Flaccus he was led to the temple of Mars, and again refusing to sacrifice, was beaten a very long while with leaded scourges and consummated his martyrdom, as we have related above. You have here, learned reader, an abridgement of the whole Passion, which to me at any rate appears nothing else than the fiction of some unskilled man who, provided he might narrate marvels, was little concerned for the truth. From what has been said, gather that nothing certain can be established about St. Nicomedes' deeds; since these Mombritian Acts cannot be admitted, and the letter of Marcellus is exceedingly suspect. That he nevertheless underwent an illustrious martyrdom, which I have doubtfully placed under Domitian, his notable cult both at Rome and elsewhere does not permit us to doubt — of which we shall treat presently. Of his presbyterate, too, the most ancient Martyrologies reported at number 1 make no mention, nor does the Little Roman of Rosweyde; and the other martyrologists perhaps learned it only from the same letter of Marcellus: yet I have by no means judged that it should be denied him, since nothing stands in the way of believing that he was initiated into that Order.

[12] A church with his title at Rome More certain things, as I said, we have about the ancient cult of Nicomedes, especially at Rome. That he had a church on the Via Nomentana, where the writer of the often-mentioned letter records that his body was buried, we learn from Anastasius the Librarian in his life of Hadrian I, where it is said of him: The church of blessed Nicomedes, situated outside the Nomentan gate, together with the cemetery of blessed Hippolytus the martyr, … which had decayed from ancient times, he renewed from the ground up. That this church was in antiquity distinguished by the title of the same Saint is clear from the first Roman council under St. Symmachus, to which Genesius, presbyter of the title of St. Nicomedes, and Sebastian, presbyter of the title of St. Nicomedes, are read to have subscribed in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, col. [ ]. Of the dedication of the same church there seems to be understood the announcement which occurs on the first day of June in the ancient Martyrologies. Of these the Old Roman, or Little Roman of Rosweyde, has thus: The dedication of St. Nicomedes the martyr. Bede, or Florus, before volume 2 of March: The birthday of Nicomedes the martyr. Wandelbert in Martène's Spicilegium, volume 2: And this festal day of the martyr Nicomedes adorns. Ado of Vienne in his Martyrology: The dedication of St. Nicomedes, martyr and presbyter, at the city of Rome, whose martyrdom is celebrated on the XVII Kalends of October.

[13] erected to him in antiquity; Rabanus agrees, saying on the same day: The dedication of the church of St. Nicomedes the martyr; likewise Notker: At Rome, the dedication of St. Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr, whose martyrdom is celebrated on the XVII Kalends of October. Usuard, in the text as given by our Sollerius, conformably to Ado: At Rome, the dedication of St. Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr; but the same Sollerius warns that in the Prato codex there is read, At Rome, the dedication of the birthday of St. Nicomedes, etc., and in others otherwise as well; whence he also observes that it is doubtful what Usuard wrote about our Saint on this day in his original phrase; but he judges that Ado's reading was retained by him. However he may have read, that the dedication of our Saint's church is here commemorated is beyond doubt, both from the other Martyrologies alleged and from the Sacramentary which Hugh Ménard published under the name of St. Gregory the Great, in which likewise on this day the Dedication of the basilica of St. Nicomedes is prescribed to be kept, with the customary three prayers about the Saint added, to be recited in the Mass.

[14] likewise a cemetery, not on the Via Ardeatina, That there was also formerly near the city of Rome a cemetery distinguished by the name of the same Saint, Anastasius the Librarian records, saying in his life of Boniface V: He completed the cemetery of St. Nicodemus, and dedicated it. That for Nicodemi is read elsewhere Nicomedis is noted in the margin of the first volume of the same Work in the edition prepared by Bianchini; in which way Maffei also reads in his Notes on volume 4, and Hannibal Fabrot in the variant Readings which he exhibits in his edition. Onuphrius Panvinius in his Catalogue of the Cemeteries of the City, and Baronius in the Annals at the year of Christ 226, number 9, placed the cemetery of St. Nicomedes on the Via Ardeatina. But Antonio Bosio, a skilful investigator of antiquities of this sort, in Roma Sotterranea, book 3, chapters 44 and 50, thinks that it appeared so to Panvinius because in the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, reported above at number 5, St. Nicomedes is said to have buried St. Felicula's body on the Via Ardeatina in his own estate, and thus that not so much St. Nicomedes' cemetery as the tomb of the aforesaid virgin, once situated on his estate, is thereby commemorated.

[15] Further, that the cemetery of our holy Martyr himself was situated on the Via Nomentana, but on the Nomentan, where at the beginning of the seventeenth century where according to the same Acts he was buried and where by what has been said he had a church, and that it was discovered by himself, together with traces of the same church, in the year 1601, is the opinion of the same Bosio. It will be worth while to have heard him in chapter 50. When in the year 1601, on the fourteenth day of December, he says — but in Italian words — I had gone out by the Porta Pia, and along the Via Nomentana some paces to the right toward

St. Agnes's, I found in a certain vineyard, above whose gate is inscribed the name of Pompilius Desiderius, a small subterranean cemetery, into which one descends by several brick steps; and I believed this to be the ancient entrance of that cemetery (St. Agnes's). It has its tombs cut in the tufa, but open, and without any inscription or title; nevertheless I noted these signs there. Then he exhibits the monogram of Christ and a palm, from which it is gathered that the place was destined for the burials of Christians. The aforesaid cemetery (Bosio continues) is very small, having four or five passages with only three or four chambers. In the descent a great Palm is seen carved on the wall.

[16] I believe indeed that this is the very cemetery of St. Nicomedes the presbyter, is believed to have been discovered: of which we treated in chapter 44, both because it is so near the walls of Rome, and all the more because in the same vineyard there are seen certain traces of walls, which are perhaps those of the church of the same Saint. Thus far Bosio, with whom Aringhi agrees in book 4 of Roma Sotterranea, chapters 21 and 27, and Maffei in his annotations on Anastasius the Librarian, volume 4, page 27 of the Bianchini edition. And indeed this is likely enough, since from what has been said above it is established that some church of St. Nicomedes once existed on the Via Nomentana, and the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus also record that he was buried there. To the same purpose serve the ancient Notices of the city of Rome, cited by Domenico Giorgi in his Annotations on the Martyrology of Ado on the fifteenth day of September, in which the church of St. Nicomedes, or the cemetery, or perhaps both, is reckoned on the Via Nomentana. The first Notice is from volume 4 of Mabillon's Analecta, where in an ancient Description of the regions of the City, page 507, is read: On the Via Nomentana outside the wall, on the left, St. Agnes; on the right, St. Nicomedes. The second, in Eckhart, on the testimony of the aforesaid Giorgi, has thus: Beside the Via Nomentana is St. Nicomedes; and beside the same way the basilica of St. Agnes. The third, lastly, is found in William of Malmesbury, book 4 *On the Deeds of the Kings of the English*, and is of this sort: The fifth gate, the Nomentan: there St. Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr; and the way is likewise called by the same name.

[17] that church was long since destroyed: the Saint's cult today. From what time the aforementioned church of the holy Martyr was destroyed or fell into ruin is unknown; but that this happened already some centuries ago is clear from the fact that, as we have seen, in the century lately past no memory at all survived of the place where it had stood, except in books. The aforesaid Bosio in chapter 44 writes that in a certain ancient manuscript codex of the Vallicellan library there are Acts of the Saint, excerpted from the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, in which, after the account of his burial on the Via Nomentana, it is added: In which place a church was dedicated on the Kalends of June, which now, however, is utterly destroyed. Therefore today's festival is that of the same Martyr's passion; another is that of the dedication of the same church, which — the common people being unaware of this — is kept on the said Kalends. For the rest, besides the festival of the said dedication, there is also another, namely the Birthday, on the fifteenth day of September in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory in Ménard, which latter is also noted in the Calendar published by Fronto. As to his present-day cult in the Roman Church, only a commemoration is made of it with the ninth lesson on the aforecited day of September.

* supply "Kalends"

* others add "sound"

§ II. The Saint's body translated by St. Paschal I into the church of St. Praxedes: does it rest at Milan in the church of St. Vincent?

[ ] The Saint's body by St. Paschal I, Pope, Bosio in the place cited above writes that the holy Martyr's body, together with many other relics of the Saints, was translated within the City by the Pontiff St. Paschal, the first of that name, to the church of St. Praxedes, As is attested, he says, by an ancient inscription on marble, which is preserved in the said church. This translation was made on the twentieth day of the month of July, in the tenth Indiction, as is read in the same place; which corresponds to the year of the Lord 817, and to the first year of the Pontificate of the said Pope Paschal. I do not know whether this is the same inscription which Ottavio Panciroli in the *Sacred treasures hidden at Rome*, treating of the church of St. Praxedes, cites; asserting that in the same church, in the chapel of St. Zeno, there are seen the names of the Saints carved in marble whose bodies or relics that same holy Pontiff translated thither, and that among them St. Nicomedes also is reckoned in the first place after the holy Roman Pontiffs and bishops. These things are favoured by what is read in Anastasius the Librarian in the Life of the same St. Paschal, which you also have in our Work on the fourteenth day of May, on which he is venerated.

[19] into the church of St. Praxedes For in the first place indeed, in the passage cited, in our Work, chapter 1, at the very beginning of his Pontificate, is read: This most blessed Prelate, seeking many bodies of the Saints, found them. And these he laid up honourably and more carefully within the City, to the honour and glory of God. And again after some other matters: The church also of the most blessed martyr of Christ, Praxedes, which, having been built long ago in ancient times, and being now worn out with excessive age, so that it threatened to fall in ruin from its foundations — that same venerable Pontiff (foreseeing its ruin beforehand, and applying care to the same church, being often there watchful) removed it not far to another place and raised it to a better condition than it had long been in… This most blessed and illustrious Pontiff, with pious solicitude seeking many bodies of the Saints which had long lain in the cemeteries, lest they should remain in neglect, and gathering those he had found, with great affection of veneration carried them into the aforesaid church of Praxedes the martyr of Christ, which he had built, renewing it wonderfully, with the summoning of all the Romans, the bishops, presbyters, deacons and clerics singing the praise of God, and there laid them up. There are extant also in Baronius, volume 9 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 818, verses inscribed on the apse of the church, which attest the same.

[20] These things, I say, favour the said translation, since among the sacred bodies deposited by St. Paschal in the aforementioned church the body of St. Nicomedes may easily have been. is said to have been translated. I doubt, however, whether the Indiction was either rightly reported by Bosio, or rightly noted in the inscription cited by him, of which he does not himself say how ancient it is. For since St. Paschal began his Pontificate towards the end of the month of January in the year 817, it is not likely that the church of St. Praxedes was restored by him from the foundations and brought to completion in so short a time that already on the twentieth day of July of the same year it was dedicated by him and adorned with the bodies of the Saints that had been brought in. Next, the most eminent Baronius just cited first mentions these things at the year of Christ 818, as I have hinted; and Francesco Orlendi too, in part 2 of the Orbis sacer et profanus, book 3, chapter 4, number 26, assigns them to the same year. Therefore for the tenth Indiction perhaps the eleventh should be read, which in the month of July was running with the year of Christ 818, and with the second year of Paschal's Pontificate, already some months begun.

[21] That the holy Martyr's body also rested in his own time in the aforementioned church of St. Praxedes, Castiglione strives to claim the body for the Milanese, the aforesaid Bosio seems to have supposed, and after him Aringhi, since they make not so much as a word's mention of another translation. This very thing Carlo Piazza expressly writes in the Hemerologium sacrum Romæ Christianæ, part 2, on this day, where nevertheless he also grants some of his relics to the church of St. John at the Font. But the Milanese suppose that they have possessed that sacred treasure in the basilica of the abbey of St. Vincent in Prato already for many centuries, enclosed in one shrine with the bodies of SS. Quirinus and Abundius. Of this subject Giovanni Antonio Castiglione has treated at length and professedly in the Antiquitates Mediolanenses, part 1, fascicles 3 and 4, gathering whatever the learned Milanese in the year 1609 were able to collect, after a diligent examination made by the mandate of the most eminent Cardinal Federico Borromeo, archbishop of that city, for claiming those three bodies for the Vincentian church in Prato. Now of the reasons which he there brings forward, ten in number, some concern St. Quirinus or Abundius, which I shall pass over, and I shall report only those which seem to make for the possession of St. Nicomedes' body or relics.

[22] First of all, concerning the ancient reliquary in which the body of our holy Martyr is believed to rest together with the two Saints named above, praising the ancient chest, he says this: That chest of stone (elsewhere he calls it marble), entire and large enough, runs between the altar praised above and the font of the confession, having a length of five feet, a breadth of two, a height of one — behind that altar, I say, after the custom by which a space is assigned to the tombs of the Saints behind the altars, as in very many other places both of our own city and of other cities. Within it is of polished work, according to the form of the sacred constitutions, but on the outside it is carved and cut with a workmanship at once religious and notable, of two angels holding in their hands on either side the laurel of martyrdom, set in the middle of the chest itself. He then subjoins a sufficiently elegant picture of the chest, which nevertheless I have not judged worth while to insert here also, because, although the reasons to be recounted make that possession of the sacred body or of its relics probable, they do not, it seems to me, prove it conclusively.

[23] ancient paintings, In fascicle 4 he recounts three ancient paintings, as he says, of the same Saints. One of these, placed on the front of the great door, he asserts to be marked with this inscription: In the subterranean part of the altar of this sacred building rest the bodies of the holy martyrs Quirinus the bishop, Nicomedes the presbyter, Abundius the deacon. The second painting, beside the tomb of those martyrs, on the same testimony, gives the following words: Here rest the bodies of the holy martyrs Quirinus the bishop, Nicomedes the presbyter, and Abundius the deacon. The third (Castiglione continues) is far more ancient than the rest, on the inner wall which stands between the two doors of the temple; inasmuch as it seems to have been drawn in colours at altogether the same time at which was traced with the pen that most ancient inscription which offers itself to be seen on the marble placed outside the doors of the temple, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1388. And although the inscription of this image has perished through age, yet that it is an image of our Martyrs is clearly confirmed by the three bodies there portrayed, one of a bishop, another of a Priest, the third of a deacon, which not only present themselves to be viewed in their own coffins, but are also pointed at with the finger by some monk, I know not whom, or by an aged anchorite, to three kings painted there. In the choir also of the metropolitan basilica he affirms that three carved images of the same Saints are to be seen, with an epigraph added attesting that their bodies rest in St. Vincent's at Prato, placed in a distinguished position by order of St. Charles Borromeo, when he took care that the effigies of all the Saints whose bodies were found at Milan should be set up there.

[24] a Calendar, Missals, Litanies, etc. Besides, he cites the Calendar of a Missal published at Milan in the year of Christ 1482, in which on the very feast-day of these Martyrs is read: The solemnity

at St. Vincent's in Prato. He adds another Missal of equal antiquity and note, kept in the chapel of the same church, in whose margin is written: The bodies of these are in the scurolo of St. Vincent in Prato. He had also premised in fascicle 3 that in a certain old Ambrosian Missal a particular and proper Mass is prescribed for the translation of SS. Quirinus and Nicomedes on one and the same day. To the same purpose he thinks it makes that on the Rogation days, when the procession of suppliants comes according to custom into the church of St. Vincent, SS. Quirinus, Nicomedes and Abundius are invoked in the Litanies. He adds also a certain book on the Indulgences and sacred bodies published at Milan in the year 1498, in which he asserts that the following is read: In the church of St. Vincent in Prato, of the Ticinese Gate, the bodies of the Saints Nicomedes the presbyter, Quirinus, and Abundius, deacon and martyr, … and of many others lie buried, and also many relics without a name are found. He cites also the public repute concerning those sacred bodies deposited there, and the frequent concourse of the faithful for the sake of obtaining health, especially at the well situated beside their chest, of which we shall treat below.

[25] Moreover he recites a Bull of Pope Innocent, Besides, he produces a Bull of Pope Innocent IV granting Indulgences, which I subjoin. Innocent, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, etc. To our beloved sons, the abbot and convent of the monastery of St. Vincent of Milan, of the Order of St. Benedict, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Although he, from whose unity it comes that he should be worthily and laudably served by his faithful, out of the abundance of his loving-kindness, which exceeds the merits and prayers of suppliants, repays those who serve him well far more than they can deserve; nevertheless, desiring to render to the Lord an acceptable people, we invite Christ's faithful to please him, and, as it were by certain alluring gifts — namely Indulgences and remissions — that thereby they may be rendered fitter for the divine grace. Since therefore, as you assert, in your monastery, which is built in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Blessed Vincent, the bodies of the holy martyrs Quirinus, Nicomedes and Abundius rest, we, desiring that it should be frequented with fitting honours, do mercifully relax forty years of the penance enjoined upon them, yearly, to all who are truly penitent and have confessed, who shall reverently visit that monastery on the festivals of those Saints and until their Octaves, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and in the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, whose * . Given at Rome, etc. By the authority of this Bull Castiglione supposed his assertion to be proved. Yet Innocent does not affirm that the bodies of the Saints in question rest in the church of St. Vincent, but only that it is so asserted by the abbot and monks of that place.

[26] He calls to his aid also Mombritius, volume 2, in the life of St. Quirinus, and cites Mombritius and several others: at the end of whose Acts these words are read: St. Quirinus, by the most pious lord Angilbert, venerable archbishop of Milan, was most honourably laid up at the monastery of the Blessed Levite Vincent, together with St. Nicomedes the presbyter, with the utmost reverence. He adds also a manuscript Martyrology, most ancient, as he says, of the monks of St. Jerome in the suburb of Milan, from which he recites the following: On the Ides of December, etc. Blessed Abundius was translated to Milan to St. Vincent's, and lies laid up with the holy Nicomedes and Quirinus at the altar. Besides, he cites here and there several Milanese writers also who have mentioned either all or some of the three so often praised, whom I have not been able to consult, nor did I think it necessary. He subjoins lastly the recognition of the same sacred bodies made by the most eminent Federico Borromeo, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Milan, on the twenty-fourth day of January in the year 1609; which I here report in the words of the same Castiglione.

[27] Let that now close the array of reasons which it would be plainly foolish, he reports the inspection of the chest and of the bodies or impious, to attack. For we ourselves saw what we shall subjoin, and our hands all but handled it. It pleased at one time the Cardinal archbishop of holy memory to consult the chest of those Martyrs, so that he might procure the amplest honours for the bodies found in it. This was done on the ninth of the Kalends of February in the year 1609, and when the marble was unsealed, three heads were found in it, one of which was large and entire; another somewhat more ancient, and on that account also a little diminished; the third at last in some part still bore the appearance of a human head. Besides these, very many bones also were examined, namely arms, hips, legs and others, widely scattered in the tomb and confused, so that it was easy for each of the beholders to suspect that they were of three bodies. Nor would it have been hard, in my judgment, to compare them diligently with the antiquity, colour and size of those three heads, and thus, being compared with one another, to recognize and separate them, if there had then been leisure to do so.

[28] in the year 1609 Two wooden vessels were found here at the same time, tinctured with blue pigments and picked out with gold, containing a certain material most like burnt paper, or at any rate paper consumed by damp or age, and the same appeared partly broken and partly a little burnt. We believe that in them were placed the writings of these Saints, or some of their relics, by our pious forefathers. Men most worthy of credit still enjoy the use of the light, who relate that sixty years ago it happened, by I know not what chance, that a small candle lit according to custom for honour's sake at the tomb of these Saints, and let down through an opening in the upper stone of it — an opening which even now is seen, but closed — fell into the sepulchre, and consumed the silken covering with which the wooden chest of the Saints was veiled, together with part of the chest itself; so that to extinguish the flame that had caught, it was necessary to move the Saints' bones from their place, and thus (as is wont to happen in matters of this kind) to disturb them. This the half-burnt boards of that chest, which even now lie in the very tomb of the Saints, plainly attest.

[29] made by the most eminent Federico Borromeo. The chief author of this visitation was Federico Borromeo, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Milan, equal to the great Charles not so much in the splendour of his birth and his ecclesiastical dignity as in the imitation of his morals and virtues. Wherefore it was done in his presence, and in that of other most distinguished and most religious men: Alessandro Mazenta, archdeacon of the metropolitan basilica, Alessandro Maggiolino and Ludovico Besuzzi, prefect of the Ticinese Gate, ordinary canons of the same metropolitan basilica; and also Orazio Casati, then master of ceremonies, now ordinary deacon-canon of the same basilica, and very many others, with the sanction of a decree for translating with pomp and solemn display the bodies of these Saints into a more honourable place of the same temple, and with a delegation to the prefect of the Gate, that he should procure that same translation and a fuller knowledge of the same Saints. It has pleased me to set these things forth as they were done, because no other argument can more firmly claim the bodies of these three holy Martyrs for our church. Thus far Castiglione.

[30] He acknowledges the time and author of the Translation But as regards the time and author of the translation, he can bring forward nothing certain; but from conjectures alone he supposes that the sacred body of the Martyr was taken up by the faithful from the Via Nomentana, where Justus, as the Acts have it, had buried it, and deposited at the Catacombs, and thence, together with the body of St. Quirinus, translated to Milan by Angilbert or Eribert — who is also written Heribert and Aribert — bishops of Milan, of whom the first flourished in the ninth century, the other in the eleventh. He adds another conjecture also, namely that it was indeed brought to Milan by Eribert, but deposited in his own church by Giselbert, abbot of St. Vincent in Prato, because, as he says, that Giselbert enriched the aforesaid monastery with many goods. He adds a third conjecture also, that of a certain friend of his, who suspects that the same sacred treasure was brought thither by Desiderius king of the Lombards or by his sons. He himself, however, prefers to believe Eribert the author of the translation, because in a certain manuscript codex of Giovanni de Monte, a Milanese priest, he had also read: Heribert the archbishop obtained from the Pope the subjection of the monastery of St. Vincent, which claimed to be exempt; in testimony of which thing the Pope gave to that archbishop the bodies of the holy martyrs Quirinus, Nicomedes and Abundius. This codex he calls most ancient; but since in volume 2 of the *Library of Milanese Writers* published by Filippo Argelati there occurs Giovanni Monzio, or de Monte, a presbyter, who either wrote a Chronicle of Milanese affairs or translated it into Italian, and who flourished after the middle of the fifteenth century, I much fear that the codex cited by Castiglione does not exceed that age, and is therefore of little weight. These same things, however, are read also in the *Manipulus florum* of Galvaneo della Fiamma, chapter 137, in Muratori, volume 11 of the Italian Writers, from which Manipulus Giovanni de Monte perhaps copied them word for word. Now Galvaneo flourished in the fourteenth century.

[31] As to the conjectures, they rest for the rest on no other foundation to be uncertain: what is to be thought of these reasons, than that Angilbert — but in Galesini, Eribert — is read to have brought the body of St. Quirinus from the Roman Catacombs to Milan. But this reasoning is weak: for even if we were gratuitously to admit that St. Quirinus's translation was certainly made by one or the other, yet nothing could hence be deduced for our St. Nicomedes' body having been translated at the same time; especially since it is sufficiently certain from what has been said above that this never lay in the Catacombs. But from the reasons brought forward by Castiglione it becomes indeed beyond doubt that some holy Nicomedes was for some centuries past venerated by the Milanese, and was by them formerly believed to have his sacred bones resting in the monastery of St. Vincent; nay, these same reasons make it probable that this very thing was truly believed. Nevertheless I fear the note neither of folly nor of impiety, although, even after the aforementioned inspection of the chest and of the sacred bodies, I still desire more certain monuments before I assent with certainty that the body of our St. Nicomedes, or a great part of it, is preserved in the chest in question — monuments which the most eminent Federico Borromeo himself desired, when, having inspected those bodies which bore no inscription, he gave to the learned men of Milan, on Castiglione's testimony, this charge: that they should search out as diligently as possible whatever they judged to make for claiming the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs. But whether the monuments then searched out, which we have reported, are ancient enough and certain enough to prove it, I willingly leave to the judgment of the prudent reader.

[32] I must, however, state what, besides the weakness of the monuments, further restrains my judgment from an undoubting assent. and of the possession of the Saint's body There are in our Museum an Ambrosian Milanese Missal published at Milan in the year 1522, and two Breviaries of the same church, of which one was printed at Venice in the year 1539, and the other, revised by order of the most eminent Federico Borromeo, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Milan, was published in the years 1625 and 1635 — our copy being of the latter edition — likewise printed at Milan. In the first two St. Nicomedes is celebrated with a twofold Mass and Office; first indeed on the fourth day

of June, on which he was venerated together with St. Quirinus, as Castiglione also asserted; then on the fifteenth of September, on which the festival of him alone is kept. But in neither place, whether in the prayers, or in the lessons, or even in the antiphons, is any mention made of their bodies having been translated to Milan or preserved there; nay, in the Breviary on the said day of June the second Prayer runs thus: Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that we who keep the BIRTHDAY of thy blessed martyrs Quirinus and Nicomedes etc.; and the first Lesson begins thus: The birth of St. Quirinus, bishop and martyr. For each of the two days also different Acts of St. Nicomedes are recited: for the first, from the letter of Marcellus; for the second, from those which Mombritius published — as though the author of the Breviary, equally with him, had distinguished two Nicomedes. In both, however, the holy Martyr's body is said to have been thrown into the Tiber, and thence taken up by Justus his cleric, and buried beside the walls on the Via Nomentana, and not a word is subjoined about another translation.

[33] seems to be determined by what is asserted through them. Hence I strongly suspect that the Mass which Castiglione at number 24 asserts to be extant in an old Ambrosian Missal for the translation of SS. Quirinus and Nicomedes makes no more mention of that translation than do the Missal and Breviary just cited by us. My doubt is increased also by the other Breviary printed at Milan, as we said, in the year 1635. For in this, on the fourth day of June, Nicomedes being passed over, St. Quirinus alone is celebrated, and of him it is said at the end of the lesson, which is the only one: His body was translated to Milan under Eribert the archbishop; but of our Saint's body or relics there is the deepest silence there. And on the fifteenth day of September St. Nicomedes likewise is venerated alone, the lesson being taken from the letter of Marcellus; but here too no mention at all is made of his translation or of relics preserved at Milan. These things, I say, strongly increase my doubt, since this Breviary was published by the order and authority of the same most eminent Federico Borromeo, by whom the chest and bones of the holy Martyrs were inspected in the year 1609, as Castiglione asserted above; and yet he not only did not insert into the Breviary the translation or possession of St. Nicomedes' body, but even removed from it what could in any way have raised some presumption in favour of asserting it. What, I ask, do these things indicate other than that to the most eminent Borromeo the weight of the reasons searched out by the Milanese seemed by no means so strong that he should affirm that one of the three sacred bodies which he had inspected in the chest was St. Nicomedes'? Therefore I here suspend my judgment, willingly ready to assent when anyone shall produce more certain evidence.

[34] What of the well at Milan in the church of St. Vincent? We promised above that we would treat of the well of which Castiglione had made mention. This, on his own testimony, situated beside the often-mentioned chest, is frequented in great numbers by the sick because of its healthful waters; yet he himself confesses it is unknown whether it drew that wonderful medicinal power from those sacred bodies deposited in the place, or whether the same was already in force before they were set there. That the latter can be believed he surmises from an ancient inscription then lately discovered not far from the same well, which he says was expressed in ancient characters and was of this sort: Agrytius D. set this gift to the perennial spring. He prefers, however, that the first be believed, as, he says, is indicated no less plainly than truly by the verses written in commendation, memory and honour of the well itself, which we therefore not unwillingly subjoin:…

What avails it to quench with waters the kindled flames, and at the same time to bring quenched torches to life? What avails it to change green rods into stones, and, at the hearing of a sound, to raise the waves to the stars? What avails it to restore lost reason to madmen, what avails it to be able to take it away from men who are sound? These gifts of nature were given as endowments to those functions; but to drive fever from sick bodies, and, the disease being expelled, to be able to give health to men — this the well accomplishes by a heavenly gift, which gushes forth beside the adorned altar of St. Nicomedes, which keeps his sacred relics in marble.

So he, without explaining of what date those verses, insipid enough, may be, or in what place they are extant; which, like the rest, I leave to the lovers of the saints at Milan for further examination.

* read "ejus"

§ III. Other places distinguished by the Saint's cult or relics.

[ ] Other relics at Parma Francesco Orlendi, in the Orbis sacer et profanus, part 2, book 2, chapter 5, number 6, likewise attributes the body of St. Nicomedes to the Vincentian church in Prato at Milan; and the same writer, in the same work, chapter 10, number 2, again reckons the body of St. Nicomedes among the sacred relics which, as he says, the devout tradition of the people of Parma holds to rest in the cathedral church sacred to the divine Virgin assumed into heaven. To the same church of Parma Filippo Ferrari ascribes it in the alphabetical Index of Saints which he prefixed to his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy. But that not the body, but only some part of the relics of that glorious body is preserved there, we learn from Ranuccio Pico's Theatre of the Saints of the city and territory of Parma, in the entry on St. Nicomedes; who nevertheless does not know at what time it was brought to Parma, though he surmises that it perhaps happened while the body of St. Felicula was being carried from Rome to Parma, which in the Life of that holy virgin and martyr he assigns to the year 1427 and to the third day of June. See, however, what is said in the historical Commentary on the same Saint in our Work on the thirteenth day of June. The same Ranuccio observes that St. Nicomedes' feast is celebrated at Parma not on the fifteenth of September but on the first of June; either because on that day the aforesaid relics of the Saint were brought thither, or because on that day the church at Rome was once dedicated to him, as we said above; and this last he himself prefers to hold.

[36] At Lucca too, which is the capital of the republic of the same name in Italy, and are said to be preserved at Lucca. A church at Mainz among the sacred relics of the church and monastery of St. Justina, Cesare Franciotti reckons one arm with the hand of St. Nicomedes the martyr, in his *History of images renowned for miracles, and of the sacred bodies resting in the same city*, page 551; and he asserts that in the said monastery a silver casket is preserved, on which the following is read engraved:

In the name of God, in the year of the Lord 1089. Many relics this coffer * shut up within, among which is one forearm of Nicomedes the martyr; and thy head too, O virgin Justina, is shut up there.

Nor in Italy only, but in Germany also, has our holy Martyr been celebrated with a particular cult. Certainly that a church with a monastery of virgins was dedicated to his name at Mainz, Nicolaus Serarius writes in book 1 of the Affairs of Mainz, chapter 31, where, recounting the monasteries of the female sex, he says this: A truly most ancient temple of St. Nicomedes, inasmuch as it was built by St. Gothard, the ninth bishop of Mainz; and up to twenty years ago virgins held it; but afterwards, being emptied by the common depravity of our times, it began to be possessed by the monastery of St. James, to which it had once been made subject by Luidbald the archbishop. And I rejoiced not long ago when I saw it being cleansed and whitened.

[37] That this church, built in antiquity near Mainz by the aforementioned Gothard to Christ the Lord, afterwards first began to be called St. Nicomedes', was once dedicated to him, and his head is said to be there. Latomus affirms in the aforesaid Serarius, book 2, chapter 8; perhaps on account of the holy Martyr's relics afterwards brought thither — as both the thing itself allows us to suspect and also Georg Christian Joannis persuades, when in book 1 of the Affairs of Mainz, chapter 31, in his Annotations on Serarius, he asserts that the head of St. Nicomedes was honoured there, as we shall presently see. For he writes that the three virgins who remained in the said convent were in the year 1598 assigned to other monasteries; and since, because of the poverty of the place, it did not seem expedient to admit others anew, it was debated that it should be handed over to the monastery of St. James, and that this was at last effected in the year 1604: this very monastery of St. Nicomedes, he says, being together with the head of St. Nicomedes, and the other relics, and likewise the goods and revenues, … transferred by public authority to the monastery of St. James which we have named… But the temple which the author, when he wrote these things, saw being cleansed and whitened, in the year 1622 following, when the hill of St. James was girded with fortifications, was razed to the ground.

[38] His cult and relics Another place distinguished by the cult and relics of St. Nicomedes, presbyter and martyr, was made known to me by Balthasar Mennen, presbyter of our Society and missionary, in two letters — the one given at Burgsteinfurt in the year 1685, the other at Hildesheim in the year 1693 — to our Papebroch, and laid aside for this day. That place is Burchorsta, commonly Borghorst, a village and chapter of noble canonesses in the Westphalian Circle, which the Blaeu Maps place in the county of Steinfurt, about four German miles from the city of Münster. Now the aforesaid Mennen had written in his earlier letter that St. Nicomedes the presbyter is venerated at Borghorst on the first day of June as the patron of that most illustrious chapter and of a populous parish, but that he is known only so far as the name goes; and therefore he had asked Papebroch that if anything about his deeds were known to him, he would write it out to him. Papebroch referred him to the Roman Martyrology on the fifteenth day of September, and to the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, and by the same service asked in return that whatever he had concerning his cult among the people of Borghorst he would likewise communicate to him. He indeed deferred his reply until the year 1693, in which he wrote back some things about his cult and relics and about the place itself, which I shall recite in his own words.

[39] at Borghorst in the Westphalian circle. I subjoin briefly, he says, that the arm of that holy Martyr was, with authentic attesting documents, translated from Rome to the church of Borghorst under Christoph Bernhard, prince-bishop of Münster, in which church the bishop's sister was a canoness, so that at fixed times it is exposed for the veneration of the people of Borghorst, as of the chief Patron of their place. Now Borghorst is a chapter which consists of several canonesses of the first nobility, and of three canons, not however of the first nobility; there being also four vicars who assemble for the choir, but not for the chapter. Thus he; but those authentic documents I have not been able to consult. For the rest, only one Christoph Bernhard occurs in the Catalogues of the bishops of Münster published by Bucelinus and Blaeu; namely that famous man of the barons van Galen, who from the year 1650 to 1678 held that bishopric, at which time therefore that arm of St. Nicomedes must, according to what has been said, have been translated from Rome to Borghorst.

* perhaps wanting: "holds"